The Knave of Diamonds Part 10

He shrugged his shoulders. "It is not really surprising, is it? Lucas has been on the shelf for the past ten years and I"--he glanced at her shrewdly--"have not!"

"Oh!" said Anne, and asked no more.

For the first time the definite question arose in her mind as to whether in admitting this man to her friendship she had made a mistake. He had a disquieting effect upon her, she was forced to acknowledge.

Yet as they drifted apart in the throng she knew with unalterable conviction that the matter did not rest with her. From the outset the choice had not been hers.

He had entered the gates of her lonely citadel on the night of the Hunt Ball, and though she was by no means sure that she liked him there, she fully realised that it was too late now to try to bar him out.

CHAPTER VII

THE FALL

They found a fox after some delay in a copse on the side of a hill, and the run that followed scattered even Anne's sedateness to the winds.

Something of youth, something of girlishness, yet dwelt within her and bounded to the surface in response to the wild excitement of the chase.

The grey went like the wind. He and the black mare that Nap Errol rode led the field, a distinction that Anne had never sought before, and which she did not greatly appreciate on this occasion. For when they killed in a chalky hollow, after half-an-hour's furious galloping across country with scarcely a check, she dragged her animal round with a white, set face and forced him from the scene.

Nap followed her after a little and found her fumbling at a gate into a wood.

"I've secured the brush for you," he began. Then, seeing her face, "What is it? You look sick."

"I feel sick," Anne said shakily.

He opened the gate for her, and followed her through. They found themselves alone, separated from the rest of the hunt by a thick belt of trees.

"Do you mean to say you have never seen a kill before?" he said.

"Never at close quarters," murmured Anne, with a shudder.

He rode for a little in silence. At length, "I'm sorry you didn't like being in at the death," he said. "I thought you would be pleased."

"Pleased!" she said, and shuddered again.

"Personally," said Nap, "I enjoy a kill."

Anne's face expressed horror.

"Yes," he said recklessly, "I am like that. I hunt to kill. It is my nature." A red gleam shone suddenly in his fiery eyes. He looked at her aggressively. "What do you hunt for anyway?" he demanded.

"I don't think I shall hunt any more," she said.

"Oh, nonsense, Lady Carfax! That's being ultrasqueamish," he protested.

"You mustn't, you know. It's bad for you."

"I can't help it," she said. "I never realised before how cruel it is."

"Of course it's cruel," said Nap. "But then so is everything, so is life.

Yet you've got to live. We were created to prey on each other."

"No, no!" she said quickly, for his words hurt her inexplicably. "I take the higher view."

"I beg your pardon," said Nap, in the tone of one refusing a discussion.

She turned to him impulsively. "Surely you do too!" she said, and there was even a note of pleading in her voice.

Nap's brows met suddenly. He turned his eyes away. "I am nothing but an animal," he told her rather brutally. "There is nothing spiritual about me. I live for what I can get. When I get the chance I gorge. If I have a soul at all, it is so rudimentary as to be unworthy of mention."

In the silence that followed he looked at her again with grim comprehension. "P'r'aps you don't care for animals," he suggested cynically. "To change the subject, do you know we are leaving the hunt behind?"

She reined in somewhat reluctantly. "I suppose we had better go back."

"If your majesty decrees," said Nap.

He pulled the mare round and stood motionless, waiting for her to pa.s.s.

He sat arrogantly at his ease. She could not fail to note that his horsemanship was magnificent. The mare stood royally as though she bore a king. The man's very insignificance of bulk seemed to make him the more superb.

"Will you deign to lead the way?" he said.

And Anne pa.s.sed him with a vague sense of uneasiness that almost amounted to foreboding. For it seemed to her as if for those few moments he had imposed his will upon hers, had without effort overthrown all barriers of conventional reserve, and had made her acknowledge in him the mastery of man.

Rejoining the hunt, she made her first deliberate attempt to avoid him, an attempt that was so far successful that for the next hour she saw nothing of him beyond casual glimpses. She did not join her husband, for he resented her proximity in the hunting-field.

They drew blank in a wood above the first kill, but finally found after considerable delay along a stubbly stretch of ground bordering Baronmead, a large estate that the eldest Errol had just bought. The fox headed straight for the Baronmead woods and after him streamed the hunt pell-mell along a stony valley.

It was not Anne's intention to be in at a second death that day, and she deliberately checked the grey's enthusiasm when he would have borne her headlong through the scampering crowd. To his indignation, instead of pursuing the chase in the valley, she headed him up the hill. He protested with vehemence, threatening to rebel outright, but Anne was determined, and eventually she had her way. Up the hill they went.

It was a scramble to reach the top, for the ground was steep and sloppy, but on the summit of the ridge progress was easier. She gave the grey the rein and he carried her forward at a canter. From here she saw the last of the hors.e.m.e.n below her sweep round the curve towards Baronmead, and the hubbub growing fainter in the distance told her that the hounds were already plunging through the woods. Ahead of her the ridge culminated in a bare knoll whence it was evident that she could overlook a considerable stretch of country. She urged her animal towards it.

The mist was thickening in the valley, and it had begun to drizzle. The watch on her wrist said two o'clock, and she determined to turn her face homewards as soon as she had taken this final glimpse.

The grey, snorting and sweating, stumbled up the slippery ascent. He was plainly disgusted with his rider's tactics. They arrived upon the summit, and Anne brought him to a standstill. But though she still heard vague shoutings below her the mist had increased so much in the few minutes they had taken over the ascent that she could discern nothing. Her horse was winded after the climb, however, and she remained motionless to give him time to recover. The hubbub was dying away, and she surmised that the fox had led his pursuers out on the farther side of the woods. She shivered as the chill damp crept about her. A feeling of loneliness that was almost physical possessed her. She half wished that she had not forsaken the hunt after all.

Stay! Was she quite alone? Out of the clinging, ever-thickening curtain there came sounds--the sounds of hoofs that struggled upwards, of an animal's laboured breathing, of a man's voice that encouraged and swore alternately.

Her heart gave a sudden sharp throb. She knew that voice. Though she had only met the owner thereof three times she had come to know it rather well. Why had he elected to come that way, she asked herself? He almost seemed to be d.o.g.g.i.ng her steps that day.

Impulse urged her to strike in another direction before he reached her. She did not feel inclined for another _tete-a-tete_ with Nap Errol just then.

She tapped the grey smartly with her switch, more smartly than she intended, for he started and plunged. At the same instant there broke out immediately below them a hubbub of yelling and baying that was like the shrieking of a hundred demons. It rose up through the fog as from the mouth of an invisible pit, and drove the grey horse clean out of his senses. He reared bolt upright in furious resistance to his rider's will, pawed the air wildly, and being brought down again by a sharp cut over the ears, flung out his heels in sheer malice and bolted down the hill, straight for that pandemonium of men and hounds. If the pleasures of the hunt failed to attract his mistress, it was otherwise with him, and he meant to have his fling in spite of her.

For the first few seconds of that mad flight Anne scarcely attempted to check his progress. She was taken by surprise and was forced to give all her attention to keeping in the saddle.

The pace was terrific. The scampering hoofs scarcely seemed to touch the ground at all. Like shadows they fled through the rising mist. It struck chill upon her face as they swooped downwards. She seemed to be plunging into an icy, bottomless abyss.