Chapter 17 The Gates of Doom by Rafael Sabatini
PAUNCEFORT THE SOWER
On the Monday of the following week—four days after the execution of Captain Gaynor—came my Lord Pauncefort to Priory Close for the first time since that encounter in the garden in which his lordship had all but lost his life.
Of that encounter, too, Sir John was informed by now, and of the intervention of the gardeners, which had saved Lord Pauncefort—an intervention which Sir John deplored as profoundly as any of the events of the past week. Indeed, but for that intervention Harry Gaynor might still have been among the living, and the world would have been the sweeter for being purged of a villain.
It was again in the library that the interview took place between Sir John and his unwelcome visitor. The baronet's first impulse had been to deny himself to his lordship. But he had thought better of it, and had repaired to that lofty, book-lined chamber where his visitor awaited him. Yet his greeting had been sufficiently uncompromising.
"Do you not think, sir," he said, "that you have wrought evil enough here already and that so you might have spared us this intrusion upon the grief you have occasioned?"
His lordship, hat under arm, and leaning lightly upon his amethyst-headed cane, had looked the very picture of injured innocence.
"Sir John," he protested quietly, "assuredly you speak under a grievous misapprehension."
"Is it a misapprehension that you delivered Captain Gaynor to his death?"
"A gross one," cried his lordship instantly "Though I can see upon what grounds you base it. I am the more glad I came since I may now dispel your error. You have supposed, I see, that Harry Gaynor's arrest was the result of his unfortunate quarrel with me here. That is not so, sir. The warrant had been out some days already, and he must have been taken when he was. And the real fact is I came to warn him."
"To warn him that you had betrayed him?" Sir John's blue eyes were hard and cold as they played over his lordship's handsome, swarthy face, which flushed now under that regard.
"You use harsh words, sir, and untrue."
"In that you lie, my lord," answered the baronet. "Do you hear me—you lie!"
His lordship stiffened. He drew himself up very rigid, and Sir John watched him with eyes that gleamed almost wickedly:
"Were you twenty years younger, Sir John, I should ask you to prove your words upon my body. But you are an old man," he added, in tones that became a very insult of tolerance, his tall figure relaxing its menacing rigidity, "and so I must even bear with you and attempt to prove to you in more peaceful ways the ineffable injustice of your words."
"Spare me more of this," flashed Sir John impatiently. "You may disregard my insult on the score of my years, and I may lack the means to force you to regard it—for you would swallow a blow even as you swallow all else—
"Sir John!" the other cried, suddenly roused. "Do not urge me too far or I may forget the years that lie between us."
"There is not the need. There are younger swords in plenty to call a reckoning with you. What of O'Neill and Leigh, your sometime friend, Harewood, Clinton, Brownrigg, and Mr Dyke, who is said to play the deadliest sword in England? Have you bethought you what will happen when presently these and the others you have betrayed into gaol are restored to liberty?—as restored they must be for lack of satisfactory grounds upon which to impeach them. Do you think they will be slow to avenge upon you the base treachery you performed in selling them? Or do you perhaps consider them in ignorance or doubt of their betrayer?"
Ever since his encounter with Gaynor, Pauncefort had been plagued by the thought of this; for Gaynor had made it more than plain that his lordship's treachery was revealed, and it was odds that what Gaynor knew was known to all the plotters. And yet it was possible that it might not be; and, Gaynor being dead, his lordship had clung to that possibility. As for Sir John, he was aware of the source of the baronet's suspicions; he knew that they sprang from the veiled threat he had uttered at their last meeting.
Slowly now he shook his head under its heavy black periwig. His large eyes looked almost sorrowful.
"How sadly are you mistaken," said he. "As for those you name, I cannot think they would so misjudge me. But if any should, he will find me ready for him—ready to satisfy him in any manner he desires. Meanwhile, however, Sir John, there is the business upon which I am come."
"Ah, true!" snapped the baronet. "I detain you, no doubt. Pray state this business. Thus shall I be the sooner rid of you."
"I bring you a warning," said his lordship.
"Such a warning, I make no doubt, as that which you bore Harry Gaynor," was the stinging answer.
Lord Pauncefort considered him with those sorrowful eyes of his. "Even so," he said quite simply. Then he sighed. "Indeed, I think that I had better go my ways, leaving you to the fate that hangs over you, since you have naught but insults for me. And yet, sir, I will beg you to consider—since there is no other way of convincing you of my good faith—that I can stand to gain little or nothing by my warning to you, and," he added with slow emphasis, "that I might gain a deal by your impeachment."
"You mistake," said Sir John, "I am in no danger of being impeached."
"It is you who mistake, Sir John; for you are in danger, in grave danger, not only of impeachment but of conviction. Against those others whom you have named I gladly admit that the Government can take no proceedings and will be forced to let them go for lack of evidence, and also because such is the Government's policy. But you, sir, are in far different case."
"I am," Sir John agreed, "because against me there is not even the shadow of an accusation to be produced."
"Ah! You build on that" said his lordship sadly, and again he shook his handsome head and sighed. "There is something you've forgot. You have forgot that you harboured here one Harry Gaynor, the notorious Jacobite agent and spy—I use the Government's terms—who has been convicted and hanged."
It was quite true. If Sir John had not overlooked the fact itself, at least he had overlooked the consequences it must have for himself did the Government elect to move against him. It was a matter to which he had never given thought, and finding it thrust upon his notice thus abruptly by Lord Pauncefort, he perceived his danger as clearly as one may perceive a chasm that has opened in one's path.
He stood with hands clasped behind him, his tall, portly figure somewhat bowed and his face suddenly troubled, all the fine arrogance gone out of him. For there were not only the consequences to himself to consider, there were the consequences to his wife and child—the consideration of which had made him cautious to the point of lukewarmness in his support of that Cause in which at heart he believed. Were he convicted of treason—as it was very clear now he might be—part of his punishment would be a fine that must leave Lady Kynaston and Evelyn all but destitute.
A deep silence ensued. Sir John stood pondering with bowed head. When at last he raised it, and his troubled glance once more rested upon his visitor, Lord Pauncefort observed that his countenance was ashen. But if there was no longer any arrogance in his bearing, it was still in his tone and his uncompromising words.
"And it is of this that you are come to warn me?" he asked.
"Indeed, I would that were all," replied his lordship. "I am come to tell you that my Lord Carteret has at present under consideration the issuing of a warrant for your arrest upon that charge."
Sir John smiled bitterly "Your information would serve, at least, to resolve any doubt that might linger in my mind concerning your own connection with the Government."
A shadow crossed his lordship's face, but he remained quite unmoved.
"You persist in your opinion of me. It is so deepseated that all things must serve to confirm it. But you are mistook, Sir John. My information springs from my personal relations with the Secretary of State, relations which have permitted me aforetime to serve my friends, and which have permitted those—such as you, sir—who are not my friends, to misconstrue my aims. I will add, sir, that in your own case this warrant would already have been issued but for the exertions which I have used with his lordship. I have played upon his friendship for me by drawing his notice to the fact that I must, myself, suffer by your arrest since I am hoping for the honour of becoming related to you by marriage before long."
"Ah!" said Sir John dryly. "I thought we should come to that in the end!"
Pauncefort frowned. "The disinterestedness of my motives must be so apparent, even to a mind prejudiced against me, that I marvel you still remain in doubt, sir. You conceive, I fear, that I am come to bargain with you. You expect me to say: 'Sanction my wedding with your ward and niece, and my influence with my Lord Carteret shall be employed, to obtain the suppression of this warrant.' That is what you expect of me, is it not?"
"Some such proposal, I admit," answered the baronet, "though I am sure you will cloak it in more specious terms."
His lordship stroked his cleft chin thoughtfully, and his eyes narrowed as they surveyed Sir John.
"Let me," he said very gently, "let me beg you to observe, Sir John, that to serve such aims as you impute to me, I need in this matter but to stand aside and suffer the warrant to be executed. Nay, more: Were I first and last the self-seeker you account me and do not scruple to pronounce me, I should be employing such influence as I have with the Secretary of State to urge the warrant's instant execution. For reflect, I beg, that upon your inevitable conviction of treason must follow your outlawry. The powers conferred upon you by the will of the late Mr Hollinstone will be determined; you will no longer have any voice at law in any matter whatsoever, and for sanction to my union with your ward may be dispensed with, for it is a thing you will have power neither to confer nor to withhold. That, Sir John, is a reflection which may lead you to judge me in a spirit of some justice."
But Sir John did not seem at all disposed to do so, notwithstanding that he perceived the irrefragable fact to which his lordship drew his attention.
"I see," he said slowly. "I see! What you have to propose then is that subject to my giving my sanction you will so exercise your influence with my Lord Carteret as to achieve the suppression of the warrant, eh? And thus—"
"Not so," Pauncefort interrupted, loud and imperiously. "I make no bargain. I have nothing to propose. I merely desire to indicate that by serving me you will best serve yourself. In any event my efforts can never be addressed to any end but that of saving you from your impending fate—and this, notwithstanding the insults you have heaped upon me now. But those efforts, which would be almost certain of success if exerted by one who is become your relative, are almost equally certain of failure coming from one who is no more than your friend."
The impudence of it struck Sir John speechless for a moment. He found in it matter for laughter almost, despite the overwhelming peril at which his heart was sickening.
"My friend?" he said, and his lip curled ominously. "Too great an honour." And he bowed ironically. "And there is one trifle that has escaped your attention, too, in this. You have forgot to consider Miss Hollinstone herself and her inclinations."
His lordship was on the point of answering that those inclinations might easily be swayed when she knew of Sir John's peril. But from that false step he saved himself betimes. He was none of your clumsy, superficial intriguers, but one who went to work skilfully in the depths. He contained himself and bowed, his face wearing an expression of concern and sorrow.
"It is true," he said. "I have not sufficiently considered how those inclinations will have been swayed against me in a household so permeated by a spirit hostile to myself—in a household where, despite all that I can protest and all that I can do, I am looked upon as a man who has not kept faith. It is monstrously unjust; but it seems there is naught I can do to combat it."
Suspicious of this half-resignation, Sir John eyed his visitor shrewdly.
"You betrayed yourself to her, my lord, in this very room," he answered slowly. "You betrayed the true fortune-hunting motives by which you were animated. Can you wonder that she looks upon you now with—with the contempt you merit?"
His lordship sighed. He dabbed his red lips with a flimsy kerchief ere he answered. Then he shrugged despondently.
"I was mad that day," he said. "That infamous money-lender, Israel Suarez, had been almost violent, and I was driven to the verge of despair. But, Sir John, if I showed myself eager for control of your ward's fortune, it was not thence to be construed that I was not eager for herself, that I did not love her for herself." He turned his large, handsome eyes upon the baronet. They were heavy with sorrow. "I would give my life to efface that hour," he said.
"Do so, then," said Sir John, "and perhaps you will efface it. If not, being dead, it will signify less to you. You will cease to suffer."
"You rally me, sir!" was the indignant cry.
"Neither yourself nor the Government," said Sir John, "can deprive me of the right to laugh. Soon it may be the only right remaining me."
His lordship took up his hat from the table, tucked it under his arm, and drew on his heavy riding-gloves. His face was set, his lips tight-pressed. But all this was purest comedy. He realised that he had said all that need be said. He had sowed his seeds, and it were well now to depart without further disturbing the soil, leaving those same seeds to sink in. He was fairly sanguine that they would put forth roots ere long. And, meanwhile, as some recompense for his services and some compensation for the injustice done him in the case of Harry Gaynor, Lord Carteret was willing to delay Sir John's arrest until Pauncefort should give the word. So that there was no desperate haste.
"In spite of all, Sir John," he said, "I cannot forget that for a season we were good friends."
"My memory is not so good as yours," quoth the downright, uncompromising baronet.
"So I perceive," said the viscount, smiling bitterly. "Mine is not only long, but grateful. And so, despite the unworthy manner in which you have used me today, I shall continue to strain every effort with my Lord Carteret to procure your immunity from the consequences of your meddling with treason."
Sir John strode to the bell-rope, and tugged it with a violent hand.
"I should loathe to be beholden to you," he said. "Pray leave my affairs to care for themselves."
"I understand, Sir John," replied the other, with a resumption of his air of resignation. "Oh, I understand." Then he bowed stiffly. "I have the honour to give you good day."
Sir John waved a hand in almost contemptuous dismissal. A footman, summoned by the bell, stood in the doorway. "Reconduct his lordship," said the baronet shortly.
But once alone, his manner changed as abruptly as if he had thrown off a cloak in which he had been wrapped. He walked heavily to the writing-table, sank into the chair, leaned his head upon his hand and stared dully into vacancy Then something that was almost a sob shook his massive, vigorous frame.
"My poor Maria!" he groaned aloud. "My poor Evelyn! God help you both!"
But he had been wiser if, instead of groaning impotently there, he had retained awhile his cloak of defiant self-possession, and himself escorted my Lord Pauncefort to the chaise which awaited him in the avenue. Thus might he have averted the ill-chance which came to serve his lordship. For as Pauncefort was descending the steps, he encountered Miss Kynaston herself.
He paused a moment to give her greeting. His air was gloomy and preoccupied. But what engaged him now was a new thought that had flashed into his opportunist mind. True, he had accounted ample the seed he had sown; and yet he knew that Sir John could be very obstinate, that he might immolate himself out of that obstinacy upon the altar of what he accounted a sacred trust from the dead. There could be no harm his lordship opined, in sowing a little more seed in this very pretty and fertile soil so opportunely thrust before him.
"Alas, Miss Kynaston, I fear that I have been the bearer of but indifferent tidings to your father," he said, and the gloom of his face was most tragically deepened.
It alarmed her, as that subtle gentleman intended that it should. He noted the flutter of colour in her cheeks, the startled look in her eyes.
"What is it?" she asked him a little breathlessly
He glanced aside at the footman who stood by the door. She read the look, and understood his meaning when he invited her to walk the length of the avenue with him.
"Drive on," he bade his coachman. "Stay for me at the gates."
Down the avenue of elms, in the dappled shade, stepped dainty Evelyn beside his handsome lordship.
"It is well, perhaps, that I should tell you," he was saying musingly, "most opportune, indeed, that I should have met you. You may be able to accomplish something in which I greatly fear me that I have failed, and in which my failure involved your father in grave peril."
Piqued, alarmed, flattered by the suggestion that she might achieve something in which he had failed, Evelyn's sweetly timid eyes fluttered him an upward glance of inquiry.
"Your father, madam, has involved himself very seriously by having harboured here one who has been convicted and hanged as a traitor and spy: Such an action subjects a man to penalties scarcely less grave than those imposed upon the actual traitor, because in itself such an action implies an almost equal degree of guilt."
"What do you tell me?" she cried, now all alarm.
"The brutal truth, ma'am. But there is not yet the need for alarm. What friend can do I am doing to obtain the suppression of the warrant which the Secretary of State has already signed for your father's arrest."
"For his arrest!" She stood still, one hand clutching his lordship's sleeve, and her lovely empty face was blenched.
"Nay, now, nay!" he soothed her. "I entreat ye, ma'am, do not give way: I am hopeful that I may prevail. I have much influence with my Lord Carteret; he listens to me, and you may be sure that all such influence shall be employed to serve you."
"What—what could they do to him if he were arrested?" she asked.
"Ah!" he said, and rubbed his chin. "They would hardly hang him, I think. No, no, there is no danger of that. But they will mulct him very heavily—so heavily that it may almost amount to a complete confiscation of his estates and possessions."
A vista of poverty, of destitution, was instantly opened out before the eyes of her imagination. It terrified her, for all that the picture was far from lifelike. She had looked upon so few of the realities of life that she was incapable of adequately conceiving this one. But she conceived enough of it to undergo almost an increase of terror.
"Oh!" she moaned, and again: "Oh!"
"But you are not to be alarmed," he repeated. "Oddslife, now, did I not say that I would exert my influence, and that my influence is great? Bear that in mind to set against your fears." He spoke cheerfully and confidently, and, reflective as she always was, she felt herself cheered and her confidence returning. Then his face clouded. "If," he ran on, "your father had but chosen the way I showed him, I could make his immunity a certainty. Unfortunately—"
"What way was that?" she questioned eagerly.
He looked down at this frail slip of womanhood, observed the elegantly coiffed golden head that scarce reached the level of his shoulder, and he sighed.
"As you know," he said, "I am betrothed to Damaris."
"Yes, yes," said she, for even now she had not learnt of the grounds upon which that betrothal had been dissolved. The readiness of the "yes, yes" informed him of this fact, and made things easier for him. His eyes glowed a moment with satisfaction.
"You may not know that your father is opposed to the marriage; that he will not allow it to take place until Damaris is of full age."
"But why?" she cried.
"Some trifling scruple of adherence to her father's wishes," he answered lightly. "This scruple I have begged him to put aside. I have assured him that were I his relative, instead of his friend, it would strengthen my hands to serve him, it would render Lord Carteret's suppression of the warrant certain. For, you see, madam, he loves me too well to wish to hurt any who might stand in a degree of relationship, however slender, towards myself."
"Then—then it is easy. He is safe, and there is not any cause for fear," she exclaimed, and her face was upturned to his.
He gloomed down at her sorrowfully, and shook his head.
"Unfortunately, your father will not waive his idle scruples," he said. Then he brightened again. "But do not let it concern you. After all, I do not doubt but that I shall be able to prevail even as it is. Still, the other way would be safer. But I dare not press your father on the point; nor yet dare I press Damaris, because—This is a confidence that you'll respect, Miss Kynaston?"
"Yes, yes," she assured him eagerly.
"Because," he resumed, "Damaris once did me the injustice to think that I wooed her out of mercenary motives, and I could not for all the world give her cause to think so again."
"How could she in this?" cried simple Evelyn.
He smiled the bitter, knowing smile of the man of the world, of the man who has looked into the human heart and studied its proneness to unworthy suspicions.
"It might be construed that I sought to make a bargain, and I could not suffer that. Therefore, I may not insist. Perhaps, indeed, I have failed to represent to your father the full extent of your peril. If I tell it you, it is because, thinking highly as I do of—of your wit, you may perhaps consider well to give a hint in the proper quarter. But do not on any account say that I urged it, and—and perhaps you had best say naught to your father."
It was as plain an invitation to tell Damaris as he could well have uttered; yet she did not perceive his subtleties.
"I understand," she cried. "Oh yes, I will do what I can."
"I am sure of it, and thus you will bring me the happiness of having served not only your father, but yourself—for it involves your own future as well!" Doffing his three-cornered hat, he bowed low over her hand. He kissed it in farewell, and also, as it were, to seal a bond between them.
They had reached the chaise by now. He entered it, whilst she stood by the gate-post watching him, somewhat bemused by all that he had said. The coachman gathered up his reins, when suddenly his lordship checked him. He thrust his head from the carriage window.
"Upon second thoughts, Miss Kynaston, perhaps it were best if you said naught to anyone. Leave the matter in my hands to deal with as best I can. I—" he faltered, and shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I so dread the danger of unworthy motives being imputed to me. So best forget what I have said."
Again he gravely saluted her, and without waiting for an answer he sank back into his chaise. But as the carriage rolled away he smiled, well satisfied to reflect that his meeting her had been a most fortunate chance, and that he had sowed more than he had looked to do when he came, and some of it on very fertile soil.