The Disentanglers Part 22

'Those were cruel times,' said Father Riccoboni, who presently, at luncheon, showed that he could thoroughly appreciate the tender mercies of the present or Christian era. Logan watched him, and once when, something that interested him being said, the Father swept the table with his glance without raising his head, a memory for a fraction of a moment seemed to float towards the surface of Logan's consciousness. Even as when an angler, having hooked a salmon, a monster of the stream, long the fish bores down impetuous, seeking the sunken rocks, disdainful of the steel, and the dark wave conceals him; then anon is beheld a gleam of silver, and again is lost to view, and the heart of the man rejoices--even so fugitive a glimpse had Logan of what he sought in the depths of memory. But it fled, and still he was puzzled.

Logan loafed out after luncheon to a seat on the lawn in the shade of a tree. They were all to be driven over to an Abbey not very far away, for, indeed, in July, there is little for a man to do in the country.

Logan sat and mused. Looking up he saw Miss Willoughby approaching, twirling an open parasol on her shoulder. Her face was radiant; of old it had often looked as if it might be stormy, as if there were thunder behind those dark eyebrows. Logan rose, but the lady sat down on the garden seat, and he followed her example.

'This is better than Bloomsbury, Mr. Logan, and cocoa _pour tout potage_: singed cocoa usually.'

'The _potage_ here is certainly all that heart can wish,' said Logan.

'The chrysalis,' said Miss Willoughby, 'in its wildest moments never dreamed of being a b.u.t.terfly, as the man said in the sermon; and I feel like a b.u.t.terfly that remembers being a chrysalis. Look at me now!'

'I could look for ever,' said Logan, 'like the sportsman in Keats's _Grecian Urn_: "For ever let me look, and thou be fair!"'

'I am so sorry for people in town,' said Miss Willoughby. 'Don't you wish dear old Milo was here?'

Milo was the affectionate nickname--a tribute to her charms--borne by Miss Markham at St. Ursula's.

'How can I wish that anyone was here but you?' asked Logan. 'But, indeed, as to her being here, I should like to know in what capacity she was a guest.'

The Clytemnestra glance came into Miss Willoughby's grey eyes for a moment, but she was not to be put out of humour.

'To be here as a kinswoman, and an historian, with a maid--fancy me with a maid!--and everything handsome about me, is sufficiently excellent for me, Mr. Logan; and if it were otherwise, do you disapprove of the proceedings of your own Society? But there is Lord Scremerston calling to us, and a four-in-hand waiting at the door. And I am to sit on the box-seat. Oh, this is better than the dingy old Record Office all day.'

With these words Miss Willoughby tripped over the sod as lightly as the Fairy Queen, and Logan slowly followed. No; he did _not_ approve of the proceedings of his Society as exemplified by Miss Willoughby, and he was nearly guilty of falling asleep during the drive to Winderby Abbey.

Scremerston was not much more genial, for his father was driving and conversing very gaily with his fair kinswoman.

'Talk about a distant cousin!' thought Logan, who in fact felt ill-treated. However deep in love a man may be, he does not like to see a fair lady conspicuously much more interested in other members of his s.e.x than in himself.

The Abbey was a beautiful ruin, and Father Riccoboni did not conceal from Lady Mary the melancholy emotions with which it inspired him.

'When shall our prayers be heard?' he murmured. 'When shall England return to her Mother's bosom?'

Lady Mary said nothing, but privately trusted that the winds would disperse the orisons of which the Father spoke. Perhaps nuns had been bricked up in these innocent-looking mossy walls, thought Lady Mary, whose ideas on this matter were derived from a scene in the poem of _Marmion_. And deep in Lady Mary's heart was a half-formed wish that, if there was to be any bricking up, Miss Willoughby might be the interesting victim. Unlike her brother the Earl, she was all for the Bangs alliance.

Scremerston took the reins on the homeward way, the Earl being rather fatigued; and, after dinner, _two_ white robes flitted ghost-like on the lawn, and the light which burned red beside one of them was the cigar-tip of Scremerston. The Earl had fallen asleep in the drawing-room, and Logan took a lonely stroll, much regretting that he had come to a house where he felt decidedly 'out of it.' He wandered down to the river, and stood watching. He was beside the dark-brown water in the latest twilight, beside a long pool with a boat moored on the near bank. He sat down in the boat pensively, and then--what was that? It was the sound of a heavy trout rising. '_Plop_, _plop_!' They were feeding all round him.

'By Jove! I'll try the bustard to-morrow night, and then I'll go back to town next day,' thought Logan. 'I am doing no good here, and I don't like it. I shall tell Merton that I have moral objections to the whole affair. Miserable, mercenary fraud!' Thus, feeling very moral and discontented, Logan walked back to the house, carefully avoiding the ghostly robes that still glimmered on the lawn, and did not re-enter the house till bedtime.

The following day began as the last had done; Lord Embleton and Miss Willoughby retiring to the muniment-room, the lovers vanishing among the walks. Scremerston later took Logan to consult Fenwick, who visibly brightened at the idea of night-fishing.

'You must take one of those long landing-nets, Logan,' said Scremerston.

'They are about as tall as yourself, and as stout as lance-shafts. They are for steadying you when you wade, and feeling the depth of the water in front of you.'

Scremerston seemed very pensive. The day was hot; they wandered to the smoking-room. Scremerston took up a novel, which he did not read; Logan began a letter to Merton--a gloomy epistle.

'I say, Logan,' suddenly said Scremerston, 'if your letter is not very important, I wish you would listen to me for a moment.'

Logan turned round. 'Fire away,' he said; 'my letter can wait.'

Scremerston was in an att.i.tude of deep dejection. Logan lit a cigarette and waited.

'Logan, I am the most miserable beggar alive.'

'What is the matter? You seem rather in-and-out in your moods,' said Logan.

'Why, you know, I am in a regular tight place. I don't know how to put it. You see, I can't help thinking that--that--I have rather committed myself--it seems a beastly conceited thing to say--that there's a girl who likes me, I'm afraid.'

'I don't want to be inquisitive, but is she in this country?' asked Logan.

'No; she's at Homburg.'

'Has it gone very far? Have you _said_ anything?' asked Logan.

'No; my father did not like it. I hoped to bring him round.'

'Have you _written_ anything? Do you correspond?'

'No, but I'm afraid I have _looked_ a lot.'

As the Viscount Scremerston's eyes were by no means fitted to express with magnetic force the language of the affections, Logan had to command his smile.

'But why have you changed your mind, if you liked her?' he asked.

'Oh, _you_ know very well! Can anybody see her and not love her?' said Scremerston, with a vagueness in his p.r.o.nouns, but referring to Miss Willoughby.

Logan was inclined to reply that he could furnish, at first hand, an exception to the rule, but this appeared tactless.

'No one, I daresay, whose affections were not already engaged, could see her without loving her; but I thought yours had been engaged to a lady now at Homburg?'

'So did I,' said the wretched Scremerston, 'but I was mistaken. Oh, Logan, you don't know the difference! _This_ is genuine biz,' remarked the afflicted n.o.bleman with much simplicity. He went on: 'Then there's my father--you know him. He was against the other affair, but, if he thinks I have committed myself and then want to back out, why, with his ideas, he'd rather see me dead. But I can't go on with the other thing now: I simply can _not_. I've a good mind to go out after rabbits, and pot myself crawling through a hedge.'

'Oh, nonsense!' said Logan; 'that is stale and superfluous. For all that I can see, there is no harm done. The young lady, depend upon it, won't break her heart. As a matter of fact, they don't--_we_ do. You have only to sit tight. You are no more committed than I am. You would only make both of you wretched if you went and committed yourself now, when you don't want to do it. In your position I would certainly sit tight: don't commit yourself--either here or there, so to speak; or, if you can't sit tight, make a bolt for it. Go to Norway. I am very strongly of opinion that the second plan is the best. But, anyhow, keep up your p.e.c.k.e.r. You are all right--I give you my word that I think you are all right.'

'Thanks, old c.o.c.k,' said Scremerston. 'Sorry to have bored you, but I _had_ to speak to somebody.'

'Best thing you could do,' said Logan. 'You'll feel ever so much better.

That kind of worry comes of keeping things to oneself, till molehills look mountains. If you like I'll go with you to Norway myself.'

'Thanks, awfully,' said Scremerston, but he did not seem very keen. Poor little Scremerston!

Logan 'breasted the brae' from the riverside to the house. His wading- boots were heavy, for he had twice got in over the tops thereof; heavy was his basket that Fenwick carried behind him, but light was Logan's heart, for the bustard had slain its dozens of good trout. He and the keeper emerged from the wood on the level of the lawn. All the great ma.s.s of the house lay dark before them. Logan was to let himself in by the locked French window; for it was very late--about two in the morning.

He had the key of the window-door in his pocket. A light moved through the long gallery: he saw it pa.s.s each window and vanish. There was dead silence: not a leaf stirred. Then there rang out a pistol-shot, or was it two pistol-shots? Logan ran for the window, his rod, which he had taken down after fishing, in his hand.

'Hurry to the back door, Fenwick!' he said; and Fenwick, throwing down the creel, but grasping the long landing-net, flew to the back way. Logan opened the drawing-room window, took out his matchbox, with trembling ringers lit a candle, and, with the candle in one hand, the rod in the other, sped through the hall, and along a back pa.s.sage leading to the gunroom. He had caught a glimpse of the Earl running down the main staircase, and had guessed that the trouble was on the ground floor. As he reached the end of the long dark pa.s.sage, Fenwick leaped in by the back entrance, of which the door was open. What Logan saw was a writhing group--the Prince of Scalastro struggling in the arms of three men: a long white heap lay crumpled in a corner. Fenwick, at this moment, threw the landing-net over the head of one of the Prince's a.s.sailants, and with a twist, held the man half choked and powerless. Fenwick went on twisting, and, with the leverage of the long shaft of the net, dragged the wretch off the Prince, and threw him down. Another of the men turned on Logan with a loud guttural oath, and was raising a pistol. Logan knew the voice at last--knew the Jesuit now. '_Rien ne va plus_!' he cried, and lunged, with all the force and speed of an expert fencer, at the fellow's face with the point of the rod. The metal joints clicked and crashed through the man's mouth, his pistol dropped, and he staggered, cursing through his blood, against the wall. Logan picked up the revolver as the Prince, whose hands were now free, floored the third of his a.s.sailants with an upper cut. Logan thrust the revolver into the Prince's hand. 'Keep them quiet with that,' he said, and ran to where the Earl, who had entered unseen in the struggle, was kneeling above the long, white, crumpled heap.

It was Scremerston, dead, in his night dress: poor plucky little Scremerston.