The King's General Part 29

"I want you to ride to Trelawne," he said, "and tell Trelawney and his son that the rendezvous for the thirteenth is changed. They and Sir Arthur Ba.s.sett must join Sir Charles Trevannion at Carhayes. Tell them to go tonight, skirting the highroads, and accompany them there."

"Sir," said Robin slowly, rising to his feet, and I think I was the only one who saw the flicker of his glance at Ambrose Manaton. As for myself, a weight was lifted from me. With Robin gone from the house I, his sister, might safely breathe again. Let Gartred and her lover make what they could of the few hours remaining; I did not care a jot, so long as Robin was not there to listen to them.

"Bunny," said his uncle, "you have the boat at Pridmouth standing by in readiness?"

"Sir," said Bunny, his grey eyes dancing. He was, I think, the only one who still believed he played at soldiers.

"Then we shall rendezvous also at Carhayes," said Richard, "at daybreak on the thirteenth. You can sail to Gorran tomorrow and give my last directions about the; beacon on the Dodman. A few hours on salt water in this weather will be good practice for your stomach."

He smiled at the lad, who answered it with boyish adoration, and I saw d.i.c.k lower his head and trace imaginary lines upon the table with a slow, hesitating hand.

"Peter?" said Richard.

Alice's husband leapt to his feet, drawn from some pleasant reverie of French wine and women to the harsh reality of the world about him.

"My orders, sir?"

"Go to Carhayes and warn Trevannion that the plans are changed. Tell him the Trelawneys and Ba.s.sett will be joining him. Then return here to Menabilly in the morning. And a word of warning, Peter."

"What is that, sir?"

"Don't go a-Courtneying on the way there. There is not a woman worth it from Tywardrath to Dodman."

Peter turned pink, for all his bravado, but nerved himself to answer, "Sir," with great punctilio.

He and Robin left the room together, followed by Bunny and by Ambrose!

IVlanaton. Richard yawned and stretched his arms above his head, and then, wandering to the hearth, stirred the black embers of his papers in the ashes.

"Have you no commands for me?" said d.i.c.k slowly.

"Why, yes," said Richard without turning his head. "Alice Courtney's daughters must have left some dolls behind them. Go search in the attics and fashion them new dresses."

d.i.c.k did not answer, but he went, I think, a little whiter than before and, turning on his heel, left the room.

"One day," I said, "you will provoke him once too often."

"That is my intention," answered Richard.

"Does it please you, then, to see him writhe in torment?"

"I hope to see him stand up to me at last, not take it lying down, like a coward."

"Sometimes," I said, "I think that after twenty years I know even less about you than I did when I was eighteen."

"Very probably."

"No other father in the world would act as harshly to his son as you do to your d.i.c.k."

"I only act harshly because I wish to purge his mother's wh.o.r.e blood from his veins."

"You will more likely kindle it."

He shrugged his shoulders, and we fell silent a moment, listening to the sound of the horses' hoofs echoing across the park as Robin and Peter rode to their separate destinations.

"I saw my daughter up in London, when I lay concealed there for a while," said Richard suddenly.

Foolishly a pang of jealousy shot through my heart, and I answered like a wasp.

"Freckled, I suppose? A prancing miss?"

"Nay. Rather studious and quiet. Dependable. She put me in mind of my mother.

'Bess,' I said to her, 'will you look after me in my declining years?'

'Why, yes,' she answered, 'if you send for me.' I think she cares as little for that b.i.t.c.h as I do."

"Daughters, " I said, "are never favourites with their mothers. Especially when they come to be of age. How old is she?"

"Near seventeen," he said, "with all that natural bloom upon her that young people have...." He stared absently before him, and this moment, I thought with great lucidity and calm above the anguish, is in a sense our moment of farewell, our parting of the ways, but he does not know it. Now his daughter is of age he will not need me.

"Heigh-ho," he said, "I think I start to feel my eight and forty years. My leg hurts d.a.m.nably today, and no excuse for it, with the sun blazing in the sky."

"Suspense," I said, "and all that goes along with it."

"When this campaign is over," he said, "and we hold all Cornwall for the Prince of Wales, I'll say good-bye to soldiering. I'll build a palace on the north coast, near to Stowe, and live in quiet retirement, like a gentleman."

"Not you," I said. "You'd quarrel with all your neighbours."

Td have no neighbours," he answered, "save my own Grenvile clan. My G.o.d, w C'd make a clean sweep of the duchy. Jack, and Bunny, and I. D'you think the prince would make me Earl of Launceston?"

He lay his hand upon my head an instant and then was gone, whistling for Bunny, and I sat there alone in the empty dining room, despondent, oddly sad....

That evening we all went early to our beds, with the thunder that would not come SWI heavy in the air. Richard had taken Jonathan Rashleigh's chamber for his own, Wl*h d.i.c.k and Bunny in the dressing rooms between.

Now Peter and Robin had gone, the one to Carhayes, the other to Trelawne, I thought, with cynicism, that Ambrose Manaton and Gartred could indulge their Se Parate talents for invention until the morning, should the spirit move them.

A single door between their chambers, and I the only neighbour, at the head of the stairs. I heard Gartred come first, and Ambrose follow her--then all was silent on the landing.

Ah, well, I thought, wrapping my shawl about me, thank G.o.d I can grow old with some complacency. White hairs could come, and lines and crow's-feet, and they would not worry me. I did not have to struggle for a third husband, not having had a first. But it was hard to sleep, with the blackbird singing on the tree beside the causeway and the full moon creeping to my window.

I could not hear the clock in the belfry from my present chamber, as I used to in the gatehouse, but it must have been near midnight, or just after, when I woke suddenly from the light sleep into which I had fallen, it seemed, but a few moments earlier, with a fancy that I had heard someone moving in the dining room below. Yes, there it was distinctly. The furtive sound of one who blundered his way in darkness and b.u.mped into a table or a chair .I raised myself in my bed and listened. All was silent once again. But I was not easy .I put my hand out to my chair and dragged it to me, then listened once again. Then suddenly, unmistakably, came the stealthy tread of a footstep on the creaking telltale stair. Some intuition, subconscious, perhaps, from early in the day, warned me of disaster. I lowered myself into my chair, and without waiting to light a candle--nor was there need with the moon casting a white beam on the carpet--I propelled myself across the room and turned the handle of my door. ( "Who is there?" I whispered.

There was no answer, and, coming to the landing, I looked down upon the stair and ' saw a dark figure crouching there, his back against the wall, the moonlight gleaming on the naked sword in his hand. He stood in stockinged feet, his shirt sleeves rolled above his elbows, my brother Robin, with murder in his eyes.

He said nothing to me, only waited what I should do.

"Two years ago," I said softly, "you disobeyed an order given you by yourj commander because of a private quarrel. That was in January '46. Do you seek to do the same in May of '48?

He crept close and stood on the top stair beside me, breathing strangely. I could j smell the brandy on his breath.

"I have disobeyed no one," he said. "I gave my message .I parted with the Trelawneys at the top of Polmear Hill."

"Richard bade you accompany them to Carhayes," I said.

"No need to do so, Trelawney told me; two hors.e.m.e.n pa.s.s more easily than three.

Let me pa.s.s, Honor."

"No, Robin. Not yet. Give me first your sword." :, He did not answer. He stood staring at me, looking, with his tumbled hair and troubled eyes, so like a ghost of our dead brother Kit that I trembled, even as his hands did on his sword.

"You cannot fool me," he said, "you nor Richard Grenvile. This business was butaj pretext to send me from the house so that they could be together."

He looked upward to the landing and the closed door of the room beyond the stairs.

"Go to bed, Robin," I said, "or come and sit with me in my chamber. Let me talki with you awhile." I "No," he said, "this is my moment. They will be together now. If you try to prevent me I shall hurt you also."

He brushed past my chair and made across the landing, tip-toeing, furtive, in I stockinged feet, and whether he was drunk or mad I do not know, only that I guess his purpose in his eyes.

"For G.o.d's sake, Robin," I said, "do not go into that room. Reason with them in I morning, if you must, but not now, not at this hour."

For answer he turned the handle, a smile upon his lips both horrible and strng and I wheeled then, sobbing, and went back into my room and hammered loudly < the="" dressing="" rooms="" where="" d.i.c.k="" and="" bunny="">

"Call Richard," I said, "bid him come quickly, now, this instant. And you, k The King's General I67 both of you. There is no time to lose."

A startled voice--Bunny's, I believe--made answer, and I heard him clamber from his bed. But I had turned again and crossed my room towards the landing, where all was silent still and undisturbed. Nothing but the moonlight shining strong into the eastern windows.

And then there came that sound for which I waited, piercing the silence with its shrill intensity. Not an oath, not a man's voice raised in anger. But the shocking horror of a woman's scream.

33.

Across the landing, through Ambrose Manaton's empty room, to Gartred's chamber that lay beyond. The wheels of my chair turning slow, for all my labour, and all the while calling, "Richard... Richard..." with a note in my voice I did not recognise.

Oh G.o.d, that fight there in the moonlight, the cold white light pouring into the unshuttered windows, and Gartred with a crimson gash upon her face clinging to the hangings of the bed. Ambrose Manaton, his silk nightshirt stained with blood, warding off with his bare hands the desperate blows that Robin aimed at him, until, with a despairing cry, he reached the sword that lay amongst his heap of clothes upon a chair. Their bare feet padded on the boards, their breath came quick and short, and they seemed, the two of them, like phantom figures, lunging, thrusting, now in moonlight, now in shadow, with no word uttered. And "Richard..." I called again, for this was murder, here before my eyes, with the two men between me and the bed where Gartred crouched, her hands to her face, the blood running down between her fingers.

He came at last, half clad, carrying his sword, with d.i.c.k and Bunny at his heels bearing candles, and "An end to this, you d.a.m.ned idiots I" he shouted, forcing himself between them, his own sword shivering their blades, and there was Robin, his right wrist hanging limp, with Richard holding him, and Ambrose Manaton back against the farther wall, with Bunny by his side.

They stared at each other, Robin and Ambrose Manaton, like animals in battle.

Robin, seeing Gartred's face, opened his mouth to speak, but no words came; he trembled, powerless to move or utter, and Richard pushed him to a chair and held him there.

"Call Matty," said Richard to me swiftly. "Get water, bandages..." And I was once more turning to the landing, but already the household were astir, the frightened servants gathering in the hall below, the candles lit. "Go back to bed," said Richard harshly. "No one of you is needed save Mistress Honor's woman. There has been a trifling accident but no harm done."

I heard them shuffle, whisper, retire to their own quarters, and here was Matty, staunch, dependable, seizing the situation in a glance and fetching bowls of water, strips of clean linen. The room was lit now by some half dozen candles. The phantom scene was done; the grim reality was with us still.

Those tumbled clothes upon the floor, Gartred's and his. Manaton leaning upon unny's arm, staunching the cuts he had received, his fair curls lank and damp with Weat. Robin upon a chair, his head buried in his hands, all pa.s.sion spent. Richard tending by his side, grim and purposeful. And one and all we looked at Gartred on ne bed with that great gash upon her face from her right eyebrow to her chin.

It was then, for the first time, I noticed d.i.c.k. His face was ashen white, his eyes ransfixed in horror, and suddenly he reeled and fell as the blood that stained the clean "ite linen spread and trickled onto Matty's hands.

Richard made no move. He said to Bunny, between clenched teeth, his eyes averted from his son's limp body, "Carry the sp.a.w.n to his bed and leave him."

Bunny obeyed, and as I watched him stagger from the room, his cousin in his arms, I thought with cold and deadly weariness, this is the end. This is finality.

Someone brought brandy. Bunny, I suppose, on his return. We had our measure, all of us. Robin drinking slow and deep, his hands shaking as he held his gla.s.s.

Ambrose Manaton, quick and nervous, the colour that had gone soon coming to his face again. Then Gartred, moaning faintly with her head on Matty's shoulder, her silver hair still horribly bespattered with her blood.

"I do not propose," said Richard slowly, "to hold an inquest. What has been, has been. We are on the eve of deadly matters, with the whole future of a kingdom now at stake. This is no time for any man to seek private vengeance in a quarrel. When men have sworn an oath to my command I demand obedience."

Not one of them made answer. Robin gazed, limp and shattered, at the floor.

"We will s.n.a.t.c.h," said Richard, "what hours of sleep we can until the morning. I will remain with Ambrose in his room and, Bunny, you shall stay with Robin. In the morning you will go together to Carhayes where I shall join you. Can I ask you, Matty, to remain here with Mrs. Denys?"

"Yes, Sir Richard," said Matty steadily.

"How is her pulse? Has she lost much blood?"

"She is well enough now, Sir Richard. The bandages are firm. Sleep and rest will work wonders by the morning."

"No danger to her life?"

"No, Sir Richard. The cut was jagged, but not deep. The only damage done is to her beauty." Matty's lips twitched in the way I knew, and I wondered how much she guessed of what had happened.

Ambrose Manaton did not look towards the bed. The woman who lay upon it might have been a stranger. This is their finish too, I thought. Gartred will never become Mrs. Manaton and own Trecarrel.

I turned my eyes from Gartred, white and still, and felt Richard's hands upon my chair. "You," he said quietly, "have had enough for one night to contend with." He >, took me to my room and, lifting me from my chair, laid me down upon my bed.

"Will you sleep?" he said.

"I think not," I answered.

"Rest easy. We shall be gone so soon. A few hours more, it will be over. War makes a good subst.i.tute for private quarrels."

"I wonder..."

He left me and went back to Ambrose Manaton, not, I reflected, for love to share! his slumbers, but to make sure his treasurer did not slip from him in the few remaining hours left to us till daylight. Bunny had gone with Robin to his room, and this also, I. surmised, was a precaution. Remorse and brandy have driven stronger men thafl Robin to their suicide. j What hope of sleep had any of us? There was the full moon, high now in th C; heavens, and you, I thought, shining there in the hushed gardens with your pale col**! face above the shadows, have witnessed strange things this night at Menabilly- "^ Harrises and Grenviles had paid ill return for Rashleigh hospitality....

The hours slipped by, and I remembered d.i.c.k of a sudden, who slept in dressing room next door to me, alone. Poor lad, faint at the sight of blood as he I been in the past, was he now lying wakeful like me, with shame upon his conscience^ I thought I heard him stir and I wondered if dreams haunted him as they did me, ano^l he wished for company. "d.i.c.k," I called softly, and "d.i.c.k," I called again, but the" was no answer. Later a little breeze rising from the sea made a draught come to r room from the open window, and playing with the latch upon the door, shook it fr so it swung to and fro, banging every instant like a loosened shutter. He must she deep, then, if it did not waken him.

The moon went, and the morning light stole in and cleared the shadows, and still the door between our two rooms creaked and closed and creaked again, making a nagging accompaniment to my uneasy slumbers.

Maddened at last, I climbed to my chair to shut it, and as my hand fastened on the latch I saw through the crack of the door that d.i.c.k's bed was empty. He was not in the room... Numb and exhausted, I stumbled to my bed. He has gone to find Bunny I thought. He has gone to Bunny and to Robin. But before my eyes swung the memory of his white anguished face, which sleep, when it did come, could not banish from me.