Chapter 23 The Gates of Doom by Rafael Sabatini
THE LAST THROW
My Lord Pauncefort, alone in the dining-room, with pulses throbbing, partly from anticipation and partly from the stress of the recent interview, awaited the coming of Damaris.
Mr Suarez had left him shaken and rather dazed. He realised the imminence of his danger, the possibility that after all he might be unable to constrain Damaris into the wedding, seeing that he could not produce the pardon, which was the price agreed upon.
He beat down his fears almost angrily. He crossed to the massive sideboard and poured himself a glass of brandy to quiet his tremors. Scarce had he drained it when the door opened and, in wimple and hood, Damaris stood before him.
He sprang to meet her, at once the eager lover with no thought in the world that was not of herself.
"My dearest Damaris!" was his greeting, and he would have caught her to him but that something in her face and bearing held him off as if a barrier stood between them.
She was very pale, and under her eyes there were dark lines that told of the anguish in her soul. She stood erect and with a calm that was something like the calm of the martyr in the hour of doom. Her long, black cloak had fallen open, disclosing a deep purple gown below. He observed it, and almost shuddered at the omen of such colours on a bride.
"You have obtained Sir John's pardon, my lord?" she asked him.
"I have," he answered promptly.
She drew a deep breath, and for a moment closed her eyes. It was almost as if his answer occasioned her a shock—as if she had hoped that he would fail. Though, had he answered her in the negative, it is possible that she would have experienced a stab no less acute. Before her had lain a choice of evils so terrible that the abiding one must ever seem the worse because the more imminent. In either case must she have steeled herself to resignation.
She held out a hand. "Let me see it," she begged, her voice expressionless.
He showed no slightest hesitation, such as might convey to her that all was not as he would have her believe.
"It is not here," he replied, quite at his ease—as if what he had to say was what under the circumstances should be expected. "It has gone to his Majesty for signature, and will be delivered to me tomorrow."
She looked at him stonily a moment. Then she gathered her cloak about her again.
"You are sure?" she asked. "There is no doubt of this?"
"No shadow of doubt," he answered firmly. "My Lord Carteret has pledged me his word that I shall have it tomorrow." And so, indeed, Lord Carteret had all but done—subject to the marriage taking place tonight in proof that the pardon was no part of any bargain between Pauncefort and the lady.
"In that case, my lord, I will come again tomorrow."
"You will come again tomorrow?" he cried, the blank look in his face advertising the sudden dashing of his rising hopes. "But, Damaris—consider! You are here now—in the house of which you are to be the mistress. Need a few hours matter, then?"
"No," she answered, "they will not matter. Will you ring for someone to reconduct me to my chaise?"
He held himself very hard, to play the considerate, to show naught but solicitude for her. He smiled ingratiatingly, and heaven alone knew what that smile cost him in such an hour.
"In a moment, if you will," said he. "Though I still hope that you will not."
"'Tis a very unreasonable hope, my lord," said she.
"Will you not sit?" He advanced a chair. "A glass of wine?"
She declined one and the other by a gesture. "There is no reason why I should linger. I should not have come at all but for your positive assurance that the pardon would be in your hands tonight. I—I would I had not trusted to your word," she ended, displaying the first sign of weakness.
"You have no cause to say that," he reproached her very gently. "I have fulfilled my part. I have done all that I promised, and tomorrow when his Majesty's signature shall have been appended to the document, Sir John will be released. You cannot, surely, doubt me?"
"If I doubted I should not have said that I shall return tomorrow. You understand, my lord—I have sought to make it plain to you—that this is a bargain between us; and when you perform your share, I—I shall be ready to perform mine."
He turned from her a moment, biting his lip in his vexation. He was nonplussed, hard-driven. A postponement was impossible. Outside, Mr Suarez and his bailiffs watched and waited. Unless this marriage took place tonight he was wrecked and ruined for all time, beyond all hope.
What, he wondered in a frenzy of stifled rage, could have induced Lord Carteret to play this scurvy trick upon him—to withdraw that shielding warranty thus, in the eleventh hour?
He whipped a handkerchief from the silver-laced pocket of his coat, and mopped his clammy brow. The heat seemed to increase; the air of that summer night had grown more stifling. Suddenly, outside, there was an ominous rustle of wind among the laurels and a moment later the candle-flames in the room were beaten over by the draught.
"Damaris," he said presently, "you use me very cruelly. Can nothing that I do win me back the place I held in your regard? the place from which a moments folly made me outcast? I love you, Damaris!" His voice shook with emotion; he was very humble, entirely the suppliant lover; and he was a very handsome and gallant figure of a man. "There is naught in all this world I would not do to pleasure you, no sacrifice I would not make to win your regard—no sacrifice, I swear, whatever it may be."
But he failed to move her. Not by his humility, nor his protestations, nor yet his personal beauty could he achieve it. She was but the husk she had proclaimed herself. She stood silent for a little moment, so that her words might not seem a direct and offensive reply to his appeal. Then: "I will go now," she said, and again she begged him to ring for a servant to escort her to her waiting carriage.
His manner changed on that. He had tried humility, and since that had failed with her, she should see him in his real mood. He had been a suppliant; but since she had no ear for his entreaties, she should listen now to the proclamation of his will.
"Nay," he said quietly, coldly almost, and he smiled, but no longer ingratiatingly. "Nay, Damaris, you are here, and here you stay. Take off your cloak, child."
Alarm gleamed in her eyes. Faintly her bosom began to stir. It seemed, then, that she was not quite the insensible thing she accounted herself.
"What do you mean?" she asked him, her voice straining a little.
"You promised to come hither and wed me tonight if I obtained you Sir John's pardon. I have obtained it. Tomorrow it shall be in your hands, if you require it. For that, however, you must take my word."
"Your word?" she cried, a world of scorn in her tone.
"My word," he answered firmly. "You came hither to become Viscountess Pauncefort, and Viscountess Pauncefort shall you be within the hour. All is ready and the parson is waiting. So take off your cloak."
She felt herself turn a little dizzy. The room seemed to sway about her, and one word boomed and reverberated through her mind. "Fool! Fool! Fool!" was that word. "Fool"—to have trusted herself alone into the house and power of such a man.
He strode over to the bell-rope and pulled it sharply. In the distance a tinkling note was heard. "I will not!" she cried. "Let me depart!" And she turned to the door.
He sprang after her, and seized her wrist. Through the open windows came a sound of heavy raindrops pattering on the leaves.
"Listen, Damaris," he implored her, his face now within a foot of hers, awakening horror and sickly dread in her. "There!" he cried suddenly. "You hear the rain. There is a storm coming. You cannot go on such a night as this is like to be." Even as he spoke a vivid flash of lightning illumined the terrace and the gardens beyond it. "The very elements conspire to make you mine at once."
"I will not marry you until the pardon is in my hand," she answered, with a brave attempt to steady her voice. "Not even then, if you attempt further to detain me now."
"You will not?" he said, and gently seemed to mock her. "Very well! But depart you cannot. You see, there is a storm." And his mockery increased. "Be it as you will. Do not marry me until you have the pardon. But for your own sake I suggest—no more—that it were better you married me tonight than in the morning."
"Do you threaten me?" she cried, and wrenched herself free of his clutch.
"Threaten you? Nay, sweeting, I do not threaten. I warn. I admonish. Assume that by morning, wearied by your cruelty, I change my mind. Assume that I then no longer desire to marry you. What then, eh?"
She looked at him, and there was utter loathing now in her glance. He saw it; perceived that in his desperate haste he was playing his game clumsily; wherefore, being rendered still more desperate, he plunged recklessly on to issue his ultimatum.
"Nay, now," said he, "I swear to heaven that unless you marry me this night, Sir John's pardon shall be cancelled. I'll not be toyed with in this fashion. You shall not blow hot and cold upon me at your pleasure, mistress."
She put her hands to her face an instant; then looked at him again.
"You are a dastard, my Lord Pauncefort," she told him.
"I am a lover, madam," was his answer. "Choose now, and advise me of your choice. Shall Sir John go the way of Captain Gaynor?"
Overhead at that moment came a terrific crash of thunder, and instantly the pattering rain was changed to a torrential downpour.
"Here is the storm," said he. "Perhaps it will help you to a wise decision."
The door opened and the servant summoned by the bell stood to receive his lordship's orders.
"Bid them," he ordered, "put up Miss Hollinstone's chaise." There was terror now in her face, the terror of the trapped creature.
"Very good, my lord."
"And—wait." He turned to her again. "Shall we have the parson in or not?" he asked her. "'Tis as you please."
But she swung round to the servant. "No, no!" she panted. "I am departing now. Take me to my chaise."
Bewildered, the lackey looked at his master. Behind Damaris, Pauncefort was signalling the fellow to depart. He did so instantly, closing the door after him.
At bay now, she turned once more upon her captor. "My lord," she said, "you dare not do this thing. I will not marry you now or ever. You do well to show me from what I have escaped. Let me depart! Let me depart at once, or you shall suffer for it as there is a law in England."
"You'll be none so eager to depart in the morning," said he. "As for the marriage, I use no coercion. If you will not, you will not. Yet tomorrow you may sing in a different key, my sweeting." The mask was off him now. He was frankly brutal and menacing.
She fronted him intrepidly. "You shall rue it, my lord," she promised him with conviction. "Terribly shall you rue it."
"Rue what?" he mocked her, with false pleasantness. "Rue it that I could not commit the inhospitality of suffering a lady to ride forth in so wild a night? Come now," he added, with an attempt at rough good-humour, "think better of it, Damaris. See, here comes the parson. Do not send him empty-handed away."
She heard the door open behind her, supposing, as did his lordship, that it was the parson who now entered. She did not turn, but using his lordship's countenance as a mirror, she realised that in the doorway at her back stood not the parson but some unexpected and terrific apparition.
She saw Pauncefort's whole body twitch convulsively, his flushed face turn livid, his mouth fall loosely open, whilst his eyes bulged and bulged as he stared past her at that something in the doorway. Some of his unutterable horror communicated itself to her, so that she dared not turn to look behind her, but stood there with aching head and throbbing pulses, waiting for this thing to reveal itself to her senses.
And then, after a long pause, that revelation came. It was borne to her by a voice—a pleasant voice that rang now with sinister crispness, a voice at whose sound her heart leapt wildly and seemed to stand still, whilst a great fear took possession of her; for surely it was the voice of one who was dead.
"For a man engaged in villainy, Pauncefort," said that voice, "you are singularly careless of your doors. I had not hoped to find so easy an admittance."
Pauncefort answered nothing. He continued to stare, wide-eyed, at the ghost of the man who, by his agency, had been hanged at Tyburn a fortnight since. But Damaris staggered as the voice ceased; she uttered a little moaning sob, and swayed there until a strong arm came suddenly about her waist to steady her. The voice spoke again, in her very ear now and scarce louder than a whisper.
"Be not afraid, Damaris. 'Tis I."
She looked up at last, fearfully, to meet the gleaming eyes of Captain Gaynor. Although she had known what vision to expect, yet the sight of it almost drew a scream from her. But she controlled herself. All this was a dream, she knew now, the bitterly ironical conclusion of a nightmare.
Then Pauncefort found his tongue at last. "In God's name, who are you?" he cried, in a quavering voice.
"Captain Henry Gaynor—at your service," said the apparition. "I think I am as opportune as unwelcome," he added, smiling.
At last my Lord Pauncefort awoke to the realisation that here was no apparition from beyond the tomb, but a living man; formidable, perhaps, and damnably inopportune, yet to be dealt with in human fashion and at once.
By what miracle the Captain had been preserved to present himself at such a season was a matter whose explanation could wait. Meanwhile, for the second time that night his lordship's hand stole to his side, where his sword should have hung, and for the second time he cursed its absence.
Captain Gaynor observed the gesture, and smiled his understanding.
"That shall be amended presently," he said, with meaning. "There was a foul game we played one night a month ago at your house in town, my lord. We played it with cards, and fortune favoured you—a cheat. We will resume that game in a moment, my lord, and it shall not be played out with cards this time."
He felt Damaris tremble as she lay against him, supported by his arm. She, too, was beginning to realise that this was not the dream she had supposed it, but an amazing reality; that the heart that beat just where her shoulder rested was the heart—the living, throbbing heart—of one who was believed to be dead.
"Besides," Captain Gaynor was continuing, "I have another score to settle with you. It seems that you have been giving my honourable name to a Jacobite rascal known as Captain Jenkyn, who was hanged at Tyburn, and on the strength of that spurious identity you foisted upon me, you procured the arrest of Sir John Kynaston for having harboured me."
Pauncefort leaned heavily against the table. He understood nothing. His amazement effaced for the moment every other consideration.
"But that," Gaynor resumed, "is a matter upon which Sir John himself is here to question you."
"Sir John?" Pauncefort muttered, despite himself.
"Sir John is here?" exclaimed Damaris, too.
"Why, yes. When I presented myself to Lord Carteret today, my presence was in itself sufficient to reveal the absurdity of the charge against your uncle. He was instantly released, and since I was informed by my Lord Carteret that you were to be coerced into a marriage here tonight, upon certain false pretences of this trickster, we came straight hither from town, bringing with us an old friend of mine, in case we should require support. I left them in talk with a parson. But I think they are here now."
And as he spoke they entered, Sir John first and Sir Richard Templeton close upon his heels.
And now Pauncefort understood at last the thing that ever since the admission of Mr Suarez had been plaguing him: the reasons that had led my Lord Carteret to withdraw his warranty. Plainly, seeing Captain Gaynor alive and hearing him disclaim all connection with that Captain Jenkyn who had been hanged, the Secretary of State had concluded that he, himself, was being imposed upon. Whatever else remained impenetrable to Pauncefort, at least he realised to his dismay that not all the protesting in the world could now induce Lord Carteret to think otherwise; that not all the proof that he, himself, might produce, could stand against the overwhelming, self-evident fact that whoever Captain Jenkyn might have been, he was not Harry Gaynor.
Sir John took in the situation at a glance. "Ha!" said he. "I gather from the parson that we arrive in good time. Damaris, my dear child, this was—a little wild in you—I mean, to trust this villain." Then he turned to the viscount. "Pauncefort—" he began, and there he ended. Abruptly he turned his shoulder upon the fellow. "Pshaw!" said he. "To what end recriminations? Let us begone, Harry."
"If you will take Damaris," said the Captain, "and Dick will remain, I have yet something to say to his lordship, a—a little game to conclude."
But Damaris suddenly swung round and clutched his arm, looking up fearfully into his face.
"No, no, Harry!" she pleaded. "Leave him! Let us go! Come with us."
Upon that my Lord Pauncefort spoke at last. "If he is the coward I deem him," he said, in a voice that choked with rage, "he will give heed to you."
"You hear him, sweet," said Captain Gaynor, with his wry smile.
"And is your courage a thing that can be blown upon by the breath of such a man as that?" she asked him. "Oh, Harry, I have suffered for you—you can never know what I have suffered. You are restored to me, I know not how. I understand nothing. My senses are all confused. But I understand that you are here and alive. Presently I shall thank God for it, and seek to understand the nature of this miracle. Meanwhile, my dear, I ask this of you. 'Tis the first thing I have ever asked of you. If you love me, Harry, you will come with us now."
"Not a doubt," sneered Pauncefort, "but he'll shield himself behind a woman's plea."
"It seems to me," said a fresh voice, a rich, oily voice, "t'at my Lord Pauncefort is so ill-advised as to seek to pick a quarrel."
They swung round, startled. In the doorway now stood Mr Israel Suarez. Behind him loomed the shadows of his three bailiffs. He bowed to the company.
"Forgive my intrusion, madam and gentlemen. But it is timely. My lord's life is vort' fifteen t'ousand pounds to me—to be obtained t'rough veary years of vaitin'. I cannot permit 'im to jeopardise it."
"And who the devil may you be?" quoth Sir John.
"My name, sir, is Israel Suarez. Ye may 'ave 'eard of me. I 'old a varrant for t'is 'andsome young nobleman, who is my debtor and cannot meet 'is debt. I am sorry, gentlemen, to interfere, sorry to baulk you of a very vorthy object, sir" (this to Captain Gaynor), "but my lord belongs to me; 'e belongs to t'e law; 'is life is sacred; and if knowing t'at, 'e persists in insulting you, vhy—codso!—'tis to 'is greater shame. In fifteen years or so, it is possible t'at I may 'ave done vit' 'im. Your little affair must vait until t'en. T'e first satisfaction must alvays belong to t'e law."
"Ha!" said Sir John. His blue eyes twinkled. He turned to Captain Gaynor. "I think his lordship will be quite safe with Mr Suarez."
"Quite," said the Captain, who understood now to the full what Lord Carteret had said. "Though I think he would have found me more merciful. Shall we be going, Damaris?"
"In God's name, yes!" she sobbed.
With a dull roar of anger Pauncefort sprang after them. The towering bulk of Mr Suarez rose suddenly before him, an insuperable barrier.
"Be calm, my lord; be calm," said the moneylender affably "'Tis but a lost trick in t'e game of life. Patience, t'en! T'e gods love a good loser."
Pauncefort fronted him a moment, cursing foully; then, exhausted and sobbing, he collapsed into a chair.
Over him stood the benign Suarez, like a protecting but very proprietary deity.
It was Sir John who proposed that as the night was wild and the roads becoming difficult the party had best divide itself, since they had two carriages—the one which had brought Damaris and the other in which Captain Gaynor and his friends had come to town. That proposal was well enough, but when in his further proposal for the division of the party he sent Damaris and the Captain ahead in one carriage and himself followed with Sir Richard in another, he showed a very culpable and reckless disregard of the proprieties.
Said Damaris to her Captain: "You are regretting the intervention of that man," by which she meant the intervention of Mr Suarez to avert the meeting between the Captain and his lordship.
"Nay, sweet," he answered her, "I am glad on't. It made it easier for me to follow my heart, and do your bidding."
"You confess, then, that you hesitated?"
"If I did 'twas because his life was a menace to me and to others. But gaoled and discredited as he is, his fangs are drawn and we may now be easy on that score. I think we are the more sweetly avenged, and—and my hands are not soiled."
"There is much I don't understand! so much!" she said.
Thereafter he explained.
THE END