Chapter 18 The Gates of Doom by Rafael Sabatini
IN CHECK
As my Lord Pauncefort calculated so did things fall out. No sooner had she seen his carriage roll away in a cloud of dust towards London than Evelyn went in quest of Damaris.
She found her seated by the window of her room—she would sit there by the hour now in apparent idleness—and in her hand Damaris held Captain Gaynor's letter, which already she had read so often that its every character was seared indelibly upon her memory. She thrust the epistle into the bosom of her corsage when Evelyn entered, still pale and breathless now from the haste she had made, and she listened quite calmly to the tale that Evelyn brought.
At the mention of Sir John's danger her gentle face had hardened and she had frowned. Her quick mind perceived it instantly. Whatever else might be false in the message of which her cousin was the bearer, there could be no question as to the truth of that part of it. Yet she remained singularly quiet.
"I see," she said, when Evelyn had done. "And of course Lord Pauncefort bade you tell me this." The faint sneer gave the words their intended meaning, and Evelyn grasped it instantly.
"Not so," she cried, her cheeks flushing with indignation for one whom she felt it her duty—since he had so openly and honestly confided in her—to champion. "Not so—though he feared that you would think so."
"Then, of course, he did intend that you should tell me."
"He did not!" Evelyn stamped her foot. She was angry now.
"Why all this heat, my dear?"
"Because you are so unjust, so meanly suspicious. And you go too fast in your suspicions. It was just because he feared that you might impute unworthy motives to him that he begged me as he was setting out to forget all that he had said and to mention it to no one."
"Being quite confident, of course, that you could not keep it to yourself," said Damaris. "Nay, Evelyn, be not angry with me. My scorn is not for you, child."
"I am as old as you are," flashed Evelyn back, with something of her mothers irrelevance.
"But you have been saved some of the bitter experience which has been mine," added Damaris, with a pale smile, "else my Lord Pauncefort would not so easily have made a tool of you."
"A tool of me? Lord Pauncefort?" Her indignation was out of all proportion to the charge. For she magnified it into an insult—a slight upon her shrewdness.
"Do you not see, Evelyn dear, that if he had no ends to serve by telling you this, he would not needlessly have harassed you by showing you your father's peril? It is precisely because he sought to strike a bargain with Sir John, and because Sir John failed him entirely, that he sent me this message by you."
"He sent no message," Evelyn insisted. "'Tis hateful to be so suspicious. He told me not to mention what he had said, just because he feared you would so construe his ends."
"That fear, at least, was shrewd in him."
"I see that it is idle to make you understand." And on that, with flaming cheeks, Eveyln swung on her heel and left her cousin.
To have been told that Lord Pauncefort had made a tool of her, as though she had no wit of her own! It was monstrous, and it sent her very angry to her chamber. Had she known in what frame of mind she left poor Damaris, perhaps her own had been less bitter.
To the burden, already almost overwhelming, of her grief was added this fresh horror—the knowledge that over her only remaining friend hung this terrible peril in which his very life might be involved, and the further torturing, agonising knowledge that it lay within her power, by self-immolation, to rescue him.
She rose, and remained standing for some time by the window, her hands pressed against her brow, as if seeking to stimulate the numbed brain within. Did it greatly matter what befell her now? Did it greatly matter that she should deliver herself to Pauncefort as a ransom for Sir John? Was it not, perhaps, the best use to which she could now devote her otherwise wasted and useless life?
Heavy-footed she went below in quest of her guardian. She found him still seated at the table in the library, bowed down in expectation of the descent of that impending sword. He looked up as she entered, and the sight of that grey face, and the dumb pain investing those eyes that were wont to gleam so clear and jovially, strengthened her in her purpose by showing her the great good to be achieved.
She came to him, and set an arm about his shoulder, her smooth warm cheek against his own.
"Father dear," she murmured—and since it was not her custom to address him by that name, her present use of it lent her a greater tenderness. "Father dear, you are troubled, and I have come to help you if you will let me."
"Trou—troubled!" he faltered, with a poor attempt to bluster. "Nay, now, what should be troubling me?"
"This thing that my Lord Pauncefort came to tell you. You see that I know all."
He attempted to swing round in her embrace that he might face her.
"Who told you?" he growled. "Did you see Pauncefort? Did he make you this infamous proposal?"
"No," she answered. "He saw Evelyn."
"And he told her to the end that she might tell you!" His voice was shaking now with indignation.
"Be not angry with her, father dear." Her cheek pressed his own yet more closely. "Evelyn is but a child. She never realised that my Lord Pauncefort used her to this end. I do not think that she fully realises your danger even now."
"Indeed," he answered bitterly, "it is well written that the father of a fool hath no joy." For in his mind at that moment was the fact that his child, informed of this horror that menaced him, had never given a thought to the condition in which it must have left him, had never attempted to seek him out, to bring him at least the comfort of her affection and sympathy. It had been left for Damaris to discharge a consoler's duty, and more, to seek him with the offer to immolate herself that she might rescue him—for already he guessed, with heavy foreboding, the nature of the help which she announced.
It must be as Damaris said. It must be that this frivolous, irresponsible child he had brought into the world had not the wit to understand his position. He sighed heavily as he reflected that she was, after all, his offspring—his and his foolish wife's—and that he had not the right to complain.
"Do not grieve, my sweet Damaris," he said presently. "Your sympathy has consoled and cheered me. It makes me realise that perhaps all may not yet be lost."
"Nothing is lost," she answered him, "since we have it in our power to—to ransom you."
"Not that!" he cried, in a voice of thunder. "I forbid it. Do you hear me, child?" He disengaged himself from her arms, and threw back his great head that he might regard her fully. Then in a milder, tender voice, he pursued: "Ah, it is sweet in you to offer it; it is noble in you, and I am proud and happy in this earnest of your love, my dear. But it may not—it shall not be."
"I am but a husk," she said slowly, her voice a little wistful, her eyes resolute. "All that was Damaris Hollinstone perished at Tyburn a week ago—all save this little of me that I have kept for you. What, then, can it signify? Let my lord have this husk. It is all that he seeks of me—more than he seeks, since my fortune is his real desire. And how better could that fortune be applied than to ransoming the man whom today I honour most in all the world. Ah, father dear, you'll not deny me. Did you know how gladly I will—"
"No!" he roared again, and his great hand crashed heavily upon the table. "It shall not be. I would not permit it were it to save me from being quartered alive. What manner of knave should I be, Damaris? What respect for me could linger with you or with any honest soul did I become a party to so infamous a bargain?" He waved a hand of peremptory dismissal. "Let come what will. I am am old man, and in any event I should not have many more years of life before me. The Government will get but little, when all is said, and for such a little the ransom you propose were altogether absurd and disproportionate."
"Can it be that you think only of yourself?" she asked him.
He stared. "My dear, I hope I think of you as well."
"There are those who have a prior claim to mine upon your thoughts."
She saw the sudden spasm of pain that crossed his face; noted the little pause before he spoke again. But when he did speak his tone and manner were unshaken.
"And am I so base that I will purchase their welfare at the price of your prostitution?" he asked her.
But she did not flinch. "I have told you that I am but a husk," she said. "Do you not believe me?"
"O my God!" he groaned, and for a moment he was limp and helpless. But in the next he had mastered himself. "Not another word of this, my child," he said, and his voice was now one of utter finality. "As you love me do not attempt to pursue this subject further. I will not listen. Ah, don't think me harsh, don't think me slow to perceive your nobility, your greatness, my sweet Damaris." He rose, took her in his arms, and kissed her very tenderly. "For that I thank you from my soul. You have brought such comfort and gladness to my grey hairs this day as I have never known. To the end I shall thank God for the treasure of your affection."
"Ah, but, father dear!" Her face was upturned to his, and he saw the tears brimming her eyes.
"No more," he said gently. "No more of this. You cannot constrain me, for even if you consented of your own accord to the sacrifice, even did you in your foolish nobility seek that hound Pauncefort and announce your readiness to pay the price, yet should I withhold my consent to the union, and exercise my rights under your father's will. I must, as I believe in God and in honour."
She perceived then how irrefragable was his resolve, perceived with her true-sightedness that did she urge him further he might perhaps make an end by impaling himself upon the sword that threatened him. So she went her way, praying heaven to afford her the means of saving him yet, despite himself. Indeed, so engrossed was she in the thought that she realised but indifferently its meaning to herself, had little leisure in which to dwell upon the horror of the price that she must pay.
One day, a week later, she thought that her chance had come, when Evelyn brought her word that my Lord Pauncefort was again closeted with Sir John in the library.
Again as on the occasion of my lord's previous visit, Sir John's first impulse had been to deny himself. But he reflected that it were best to receive his lordship and learn—as he supposed he would—the precise present degree of the danger threatened. Yet his reception of Pauncefort was again as uncompromising as before.
"You are not welcome, my lord," he said, rising to receive his visitor, and keeping him standing throughout the interview, "and if your visit has the same object as your last you had been better advised to have spared yourself the trouble."
"I deplore, Sir John," returned the viscount, with his almost miraculous equanimity, "to find you still in the same obdurate humour. But I think I shall have the felicity of mending it." He advanced slowly, gracefully into the room, whilst Sir John took his habitual stand with his shoulders to the carved overmantel. "Had I not conceived," he continued, "means of removing your unworthy suspicions, of proving to you how disinterested is my action, how dictated purely by my profound affection for your ward I should not again have intruded where—as you do not omit to tell me—I am unwelcome."
He had waited from hour to hour in London, confident that there would come to him a letter from Damaris. Unable, however, longer to endure the suspense; knowing, too, that he could not much longer delay action in the matter of advising Sir John's arrest, lest it should occur independently to Lord Carteret to order it (from which will be gathered the falsehood in which his lordship had been dealing), he had returned to the attack, armed now with a fresh weapon.
"I am listening, my lord," was the baronet's cold answer. "But I warn you that the matter will need a deal of proof, and I conceive that your invention is more like to be strained than my credulity. But proceed, my lord."
"You have said, sir, that to the end you would withhold your sanction to my marriage with your niece?" His lordship's statement was interrogative rather than affirmative.
"I have said so," answered Sir John.
"And I hope," said his lordship, "that you adhere to that resolve."
"You are justified of that hope, at least," was the dry answer.
The door opened gently and, unobserved by either of the men, Damaris appeared under the lintel.
"I rejoice in that," answered his lordship, his face lightening suddenly, "since thus I can prove to yourself and to Damaris my penitence of my past attitude and the sincerity of my feelings. I am willing, Sir John, willing and eager to marry your niece, as you once invited me, without your sanction. And so, the devil take her fortune!"
"And the devil take your offer!" was the imperturbable reply.
"No, no, Sir John!" It was Damaris who spoke. She advanced quietly into the room.
"Damaris!" cried Sir John, and his brows grew dark. His lordship, a fine figure in bronze-green satin, bowed until the curls of his periwig almost met across his face.
"Since his lordship offers this proof of his sincerity—" she began, and Lord Pauncefort's eyes were aglow with triumph. But this triumph was not yet complete.
"His sincerity!" the baronet interrupted. "Are you deceived by these smooth words?"
"Sir John, you go too far," my lord reproved him, very haughty now. "Consider, pray, that I do no more than take you at your word, as I should have taken you when it was uttered but that I was a fool. Thus, at least, I had saved Damaris and myself much fruitless pain. I am here, sir, to repair a fault for which I have never ceased to feel the most profound contrition, and if there is deception in my words I challenge you, sir, to unmask it."
He flicked a handkerchief as he finished, applied it to his lips, and with head thrown back, gallant defiance in every line of him, he waited for Sir John's answer. It came hard and swift.
"Why, what a foolish rogue is this! It passes belief! That he should think, Damaris, to cozen us with transparent falsehoods that would not deceive a child! And you would listen to him. Be it so; but at least let me help you to understand him. He will take you without my sanction, he says; by which he means that he will take you without your fortune, and that in withholding my sanction I am to dispose of your inheritance as your father's will directs. But am I? Shall I be allowed to do so? If they arrest me and make an outlaw of me, what power have I to execute any such deed? And that, Damaris, is what my lord is counting on. Oh, he is subtle but not subtle enough to match his villainy."
Lord Pauncefort's face was black with anger. "Your injustice, sir, is the only thing that passes belief." He swung to Damaris. "I am employing every effort of which I am capable to restrain the Secretary of State from issuing a warrant against your uncle as I have told him; and all that he can find for me on his side is insult. I think I had much better wash my hands of the affair, and leave him to his fate."
"No, no!" she cried. "Wait, my lord. Do you undertake that Sir John shall have complete immunity from any proceedings?"
"From any proceedings resulting from his having harboured Captain Gaynor," said his lordship. "That is what I have promised. I do not wish this to be a bargain between us, Damaris. In no sense do I make it a bargain. But loving you as I do," he continued, affecting not to observe how she winced under those words, "loving you as I do, how can I refrain from pointing out that, were I Sir John's relative by marriage, my Lord Carteret, out of his affection for me, would be more easily induced to refrain from proceedings against him? This I can promise."
"Ay, and prove as false to your promise as you have proven false to all else," stormed Sir John. "Oh, do not heed him, Damaris."
"Nay, you must heed me, mistress," said his lordship. "You were right to—to have despised me once for an altogether unworthy hesitation. That hesitation I am now amending, and I implore you not to make me suffer more for it than I have done. I am ready and eager, as I have said, to waive Sir John's sanction, and thus consent that your fortune be bestowed elsewhere. What greater proof can I afford of the sincerity of my intentions?"
"He waives my sanction," said Sir John, "knowing full well that once I am laid by the heels he can dispense with it at law to appropriate your inheritance. Do you not see, Damaris, that, far from helping me, as you suppose, by such a sacrifice, you will but imperil me, you will make my doom doubly assured?"
This was checkmate indeed; and his lordship saw it—saw it reflected on her face. Her shrewd wit had straightly followed Sir John's shrewd indication.
"Then you must give your sanction, Sir John," she cried. "You must!"
"Never!" he answered, and his lips closed firmly, his face became a stone.
Lord Pauncefort perceived the doom of his hope as far as the present line of attack was concerned. But from her attitude he perceived where and how a flanking movement might be made that should carry him to easy victory. At once he flung off his hypocritical mask of resignation, and showed now a countenance that was evil and menacing.
He bowed. "There is no more to be said at present," he murmured. "You are too old a man to call to account for your words. It but remains for me to withdraw from further insult."
As on the former occasion Sir John pulled the bell-rope. "I am glad, sir, that you perceive it," was his scornful answer.
Deliberately his lordship turned his shoulders upon him, and with bowed head he stood respectfully before Damaris.
"I will beg you to judge more mercifully than does your uncle. Believe me," and his voice vibrated with an apparent sincerity that almost deceived her, "I have not deserved so much opprobrium, and I am honest in my love of you."
He swept her a profound bow, and was gone.
She ran to Sir John, and put her arms about his neck. "Why did you refuse?" she wailed. "You have doomed yourself."
"Not more than I was doomed before," he answered gloomily. He stroked the dark head, and looked wistfully into her brown eyes, that were now so troubled for his sake. "Indeed, my only chance is to stand firm," he said, to comfort her. "If I give way I am destroyed. But as long as I refuse him, I may hold him off; he may hope and, hoping, may not denounce me—for it is upon his denunciation that my arrest depends. The rest is all a fable of his own. He has convinced me of that today."
"Oh no, no; never that!" she cried.
"I know my Lord Carteret. We have been almost friends. And I know that he is not the man to stand like a lackey at that fellow's beck. Pish! It is as I say. He pretends to stand between me and arrest. He does—by not denouncing me. He denounced all the others. He denounced Harry Gaynor."
She cried out at that. It was a shrewd thrust, well calculated to pierce her armour of self-sacrifice, as Sir John intended.
"Ay, it is true enough, as God hears me," he insisted. "And that is the man you would have married! You see how impossible 'twould be? You had not quite understood this until now, eh? But do not fret, dear child. By opposing him we may still weather this." She was deceived. "You believe that?"
"I do," he answered, lying bravely And so, somewhat comforted by his assurance, she departed.
But when alone he went again to sit at that table, as he had sat before after the last interview with Lord Pauncefort. And if on that occasion he had accounted himself in grave danger, today he accounted himself irrevocably doomed. The end would not be long in coming, and he wondered again what would betide his helpless child, and still more helpless wife, when the blow fell. From his heart he sent up a silent prayer to God to guard them.
Still sitting there, quite idly, a lackey found him half an hour later when he entered with a letter for Sir John, which a messenger had just brought from London.