The Courtship of Morrice Buckler Part 31

"Perhaps Mr. Buckler," she remarked, "is an old friend of Lady Tracy's."

I raised my eyes from the Countess, fixing them upon Marston to note how he took the thrust, and with a quick sweep of her stick she smoothed the gravel, obliterating the lines. That I expected to see Marston disconcerted and in a pother to evade the question, I need not say, and 'twas with an amazement which fell little short of stupefaction that I heard him answer forthwith in a brusque, curt tone.

"That can hardly be. For my sister has been abroad all this year, and Mr. Buckler in the same case until this year."

I turned to Ilga. But she seemed more interested in Lady Tracy than in the fact of the admission.

"Ah! Lady Tracy was abroad," she said. "When did she leave England?"

"In September."

"The very month that I returned," I exclaimed triumphantly.

The Countess turned quickly towards me. "I fancied you only returned this spring."

"I was in England for a short while in September," said I, regretting the haste with which I had spoken.

"September of last year?"

"Of last year."

"Anno Domini 1685," laughed Culverton. "There seems to be some doubt about the date."

"September, 1685," repeated the Countess with a curious insistency.

"There is no doubt," returned Marston hotly. "I could wish for Betty's sake we had not such cause to remember it. She was betrothed to one of Monmouth's rebels, curse him! and Betty was so distressed by his capture that her health gave way."

I was upon tenterhooks lest Ilga should inquire the name of the rebel.

But she merely remarked in an absent way, as though she attached no significance to his words:

"'Tis a sad story."

"In truth it is, and the only consolation we got from it was that the rebel swung for his treachery. Betty was ordered forthwith abroad, and she left England on the fourteenth of September. I remember the day particularly since it was her birthday."

"September the fourteenth!" said the Countess; and I, thinking to make out my case beyond dispute, cried triumphantly:

"The very day whereon I bade good-bye to Leyden."

The words were barely off my lips when Ilga rose to her feet. She stood for a moment with her eyes very wide and her bosom heaving.

"I am convinced," she whispered to me with an odd smile. "I ought not to have needed the proof. I am convinced."

With that she turned a little on one side, and Marston resumed:

"That proves how little Mr. Buckler is acquainted with Lady Tracy."

He spoke as though I had been endeavouring to persuade the company that I was intimate with his sister; he almost challenged me to contradict him. I could not but admire the effrontery of the man in carrying off the exposure of his falsity with so high a head, and I surmised that he had some new contrivance in his mind whereby he might subsequently set himself right with Ilga. One thing, however, was apparent to me: that he had no suspicion of his sister's acquaintance with Count Lukstein.

"It was on the fourteenth that Betty set out for France," he once more declared, and so walked away.

"Where she married most happily three months later," sn.i.g.g.e.red Culverton. "As you say, madame, it is a very sad story."

The Countess laughed.

"She was not over-constant to her rebel."

"In the matter of the affections," replied Culverton, "Lady Tracy was ever my Lady Bountiful."

It seemed to me that the Countess turned a shade paler, but any inference which I might have drawn adverse to myself from that was prevented by a proposal which she presently mooted. For some other of our friends joining us about this time, she proposed for a frolic that the party should take chairs and immediately invade my lodgings.

Needless to say, I most heartily seconded the proposition, apologising at the same time for the poor hospitality which the suddenness of the invitation compelled me to offer.

Since by chance I had the key in my pocket, we entered from the Park by the little door in the wall of the garden. I mention this because I was waked up about the middle of the night by the sound of this door banging to and fro against the jambs, and I believed that I must have failed to lock it after I had let my friends into the garden, the door having neither latch nor bolt, but was secured only by the lock. For awhile I lay in bed striving to shut my ears to the sound. But the wind was high, and, moreover, blew straight into the room through the open window, so that I could not but listen, and in the end grew very wakeful. The sounds were irregularly s.p.a.ced according to the lulls of the wind. Now the door would flap to three or four times in quick succession, short and sharp as the crack of a pistol; now it would stand noiseless for a time while I waited and waited for it to slam.

At last I could endure the worry of it no longer, and hastily donning some clothes, I clattered downstairs.

The moon was s.h.i.+ning fitfully through a scurrying rack of clouds, but as I always placed the key of the door upon the mantel-shelf of the larger parlour, and thus knew exactly where to lay my hand on it, I did not trouble to strike a light, to which omission I owed my life, and, indeed, more than my life. I stumbled past the furniture, crossed the garden, locked the door, and got me back to bed.

In a few moments I fell asleep, but by a chance a.s.sociation of ideas--for I think that the banging of the postern must have set my thoughts that way--I began, for the first time since I came to London, to dream once more of the door in Lukstein Castle, and to see it open, and open noiselessly across the world. For the first time in the history of my nightmare fancies, that door swung back against the wall. It swung heavily, and the sound of the collision shook me to the centre. I woke trembling in every limb. It was early morning, the sun being risen, and, to my amazement, through the open window I heard the postern bang against the jamb.

CHAPTER XIV.

A GAME OF HIDE-AND-SEEK.

Outside the boughs tossed blithely in the golden air; the wind piped among the leaves, and the birds called cheerily. But for me the morning was empty of comfort. For the recurrence of this dream filled me with an uncontrollable terror; I felt like one who gets him to bed of a night in the pride of strength, and wakes in the morning to see the stains of an old disease upon his skin. I looked back upon those first months of agony in Italy; I remembered how I had dreaded the coming of night and the quiet shadows of evening; how each day, from the moment I rose from bed, appeared to me as no more than night's forerunner. Into such desperate straits did I fall that I was seized with a wild foreboding that this period of torture was destined to return upon me again and again in some inevitable cycle of fate.

There seemed indeed but one chance for me: to secure the pardon of Ilga! It was only on her account that I felt remorse. I had realised that from the beginning. And I determined to seek her out that very day, unbosom myself of my pa.s.sion, and confess the injury which I had done her.

It may be remembered that I was on the brink of the confession when Marston ascended the stairs at the apartment of the Countess, and interrupted me. Since then, though I had enjoyed opportunities enough, I had kept silence; for it was always my habit, due, I fancy, to a certain retiring timidity which I had not as yet thoroughly mastered, to wait somewhat slavishly upon circ.u.mstances, rather than to direct my wits to disposing the circ.u.mstances in the conjunction best suited to my end. Before I spoke or acted, I needed ever "the confederate season," as Shakespeare has it. Now, however, I determined to take the matter into my own hands, and tarry no longer for the opportune accident. So, leaving orders with my servants that they should procure a locksmith and have the lock of the garden door repaired, I set out and walked to Pall Mall.

To my grief, I discovered that I had tarried too long. Countess Lukstein, the servant told me--he was not Otto--had left London early that morning on a visit into the country. A letter, however, had been written to me. It was handed to me at the door, since the messenger had not yet started to deliver it. With the handwriting I was unfamiliar, and I turned at once to the signature. It was only natural, I a.s.sured myself, that Mademoiselle Durette should write; Ilga would no doubt be busy over the arrangements for her departure.

But none the less I experienced a lively disappointment that she had not spared a moment to pen the missive herself. Mademoiselle Durette informed me that news had arrived from Lukstein which compelled them to return shortly to the Tyrol, and that consequently they had journeyed that morning into the country, in order to pay a visit which they had already put off too long. The Countess would be absent for the s.p.a.ce of a fortnight, but would return to London without fail to take fitting leave of her friends.

The first three days of her absence lagged by with a most tedious monotony. It seems to me now that I spent them entirely in marching backwards and forwards on the pavement of Pall Mall. Only one thing, indeed, afforded me any interest--the door in my garden wall. For there was nothing whatever amiss with the lock, and on no subsequent night did it fly open. I closely examined my servants to ascertain whether any one of them had made use of it for egress, but they all strenuously denied that they had left the house that night, and I was driven to the conclusion that I had turned the key before closing the door, so that the lock had missed its socket in the post.

On the fourth day, however, an incident occurred which made the next week fly like a single hour, and brought me to long most ardently, not merely that the Countess might lengthen her visit, but that she would depart from England without so much as pa.s.sing through London on her way. For as I waked that morning at a somewhat late hour, I perceived Marston sitting patiently on the edge of my bed. He was in riding-dress, with his boots and breeches much stained with mud, and he carried a switch in his hand. For a while I lay staring at him in silent surprise. He did not notice that I was awake, and sat absorbed in a moody reverie. At last I stirred, and he turned towards me. I noticed that his face was dirty and leaden, his eyes heavy and tired.

"You sleep very well," said he.

"Have you waited long?"

"An hour. I was anxious to speak to you, so I came up to your room."

"We can talk the matter over at breakfast," said I cheerfully, though, to tell the truth, I felt exceedingly uneasy at the strangeness of his manner. And I made a movement as though I would rise; but he budged not so much as an inch.

"I don't fancy we shall breakfast together," said he, with a slow smile, and after a pause: "you sleep very well," he repeated, "considering that you have a crime upon your conscience."