The Snare Part 27

In the garden his lordship came upon Miss Armytage alone, still seated by the table under the trellis, from which the cloth had by now been removed. She rose at his approach and in spite of gesture to her to remain seated.

"I was seeking Lady O'Moy," said he, "to take my leave of her. I may not have the pleasure of coming to Monsanto again."

"She is on the terrace, I think," said Miss Armytage. "I will find her for your lordship."

"Let us find her together," he said amiably, and so turned and went with her towards the archway. "You said your name is Armytage, I think?" he commented.

"Sir Terence said so."

His eyes twinkled. "You possess an exceptional virtue," said he. "To be truthful is common; to be accurate rare. Well, then, Sir Terence said so. Once I had a great friend of the name of Armytage. I have lost sight of him these many years. We were at school together in Brussels."

"At Monsieur Goubert's," she surprised him by saying. "That would be John Armytage, my uncle."

"G.o.d bless my soul, ma'am!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "But I gathered you were Irish, and Jack Armytage came from Yorkshire."

"My mother is Irish, and we live in Ireland now. I was born there. But father, none the less, was John Armytage's brother."

He looked at her with increased interest, marking the straight, supple lines of her, and the handsome, high-bred face. His lordship, remember, never lacked an appreciative eye for a fine woman. "So you're Jack Armytage's niece. Give me news of him, my dear."

She did so. Jack Armytage was well and prospering, had made a rich marriage and retired from the Blues many years ago to live at Northampton. He listened with interest, and thus out of his boyhood friendship for her uncle, which of late years he had had no opportunity to express, sprang there and then a kindness for the niece. Her own personal charms may have contributed to it, for the great soldier was intensely responsive to the appeal of beauty.

They reached the terrace. Lady O'Moy was nowhere in sight. But Lord Wellington was too much engrossed in his discovery to be troubled.

"My dear," he said, "if I can serve you at any time, both for Jack's sake and your own, I hope that you will let me know of it."

She looked at him a moment, and he saw her colour come and go, arguing a sudden agitation.

"You tempt me, sir," she said, with a wistful smile.

"Then yield to the temptation, child," he urged her kindly, those keen, penetrating eyes of his perceiving trouble here.

"It isn't for myself," she responded. "Yet there is something I would ask you if I dare--something I had intended to ask you in any case if I could find the opportunity. To be frank, that is why I was waiting there in the garden just now. It was to waylay you. I hoped for a word with you."

"Well, well," he encouraged her. "It should be the easier now, since in a sense we find that we are old friends."

He was so kind, so gentle, despite that stern, strong face of his, that she melted at once to his persuasion.

"It is about Lieutenant Richard Butler," she began.

"Ah," said he lightly, "I feared as much when you said it was not for yourself you had a favour to ask."

But, looking at him, she instantly perceived how he had misunderstood her.

"Mr. Butler," she said, "is the officer who was guilty of the affair at Tavora."

He knit his brow in thought. "Butler-Tavora?" he muttered questioningly.

Suddenly his memory found what it was seeking. "Oh yes, the violated nunnery." His thin lips tightened; the sternness of his ace increased.

"Yes?" he inquired, but the tone was now forbidding.

Nevertheless she was not deterred. "Mr. Butler is Lady O'Moy's brother,"

she said.

He stared a moment, taken aback. "Good G.o.d! Ye don't say so, child! Her brother! O'Moy's brother-in-law! And O'Moy never said a word to me about it.

"What should he say? Sir Terence himself pledged his word to the Council of Regency that Mr. Butler would be shot when taken."

"Did he, egad!" He was still further surprised out of his sternness.

"Something of a Roman this O'Moy in his conception of duty! Hum! The Council no doubt demanded this?"

"So I understand, my lord. Lady O'Moy, realising her brother's grave danger, is very deeply troubled."

"Naturally," he agreed. "But what can I do, Miss Armytage? What were the actual facts, do you happen to know?"

She recited them, putting the case bravely for the scapegrace Mr.

Butler, dwelling particularly upon the error under which he was labouring, that he had imagined himself to be knocking at the gates of a monastery of Dominican friars, that he had broken into the convent because denied admittance, and because he suspected some treacherous reason for that denial.

He heard her out, watching her with those keen eyes of his the while.

"Hum! You make out so good a case for him that one might almost believe you instructed by the gentleman himself. Yet I gather that nothing has since been heard of him?"

"Nothing, sir, since he vanished from Tavora, nearly, two months ago.

And I have only repeated to your lordship the tale that was told by the sergeant and the troopers who reported the matter to Sir Robert Craufurd on their return."

He was very thoughtful. Leaning on the bal.u.s.trade, he looked out across the sunlit valley, turning his boldly chiselled profile to his companion. At last he spoke slowly, reflectively: "But if this were really so--a mere blunder--I see no sufficient grounds to threaten him with capital punishment. His subsequent desertion, if he has deserted--I mean if nothing has happened to him--is really the graver matter of the two."

"I gathered, sir, that he was to be sacrificed to the Council of Regency--a sort of scapegoat."

He swung round sharply, and the sudden blaze of his eyes almost terrified her. Instantly he was cold again and inscrutable. "Ah! You are oddly well informed throughout. But of course you would be," he added, with an appraising look into that intelligent face in which he now caught a faint likeness of Jack Armytage. "Well, well, my dear, I am very glad you have told me of this. If Mr. Butler is ever taken and in danger--there will be a court-martial, of course--send me word of it, and I will see what I can do, both for your sake and for the sake of strict justice."

"Oh, not for my sake," she protested, reddening slightly at the gentle imputation. "Mr. Butler is nothing to me--that is to say, he is just my cousin. It is for Una's sake that I am asking this."

"Why, then, for Lady O'Moy's sake, since you ask it," he replied readily. "But," he warned her, "say nothing of it until Mr. Butler is found." It is possible he believed that Butler never would be found.

"And remember, I promise only to give the matter my attention. If it is as you represent it, I think you may be sure that the worst that will befall Mr. Butler will be dismissal from the service. He deserves that.

But I hope I should be the last man to permit a British officer to be used as a scapegoat or a burnt-offering to the mob or to any Council of Regency. By the way, who told you this about a scapegoat?"

"Captain Tremayne."

"Captain Tremayne? Oh, the man who killed Samoval?"

"He didn't," she cried.

On that almost fierce denial his lordship looked at her, raising his eyebrows in astonishment.

"But I am told that he did, and he is under arrest for it this moment--for that, and for breaking my order against duelling."

"You were not told the truth, my lord. Captain Tremayne says that he didn't, and if he says so it is so."