The Courtship of Morrice Buckler Part 36

When Elmscott and the surgeon arrived some half an hour later, they found me eating my breakfast in the kitchen.

"Where is he?" they asked.

"Who?" said I.

I remember vaguely that the surgeon looked at me with a certain anxiety, and made a remark to Elmscott. Then they went out of the room again. How long it was before they returned I have no notion. Elmscott brought in my coat, hat, and sword, and I got up to put them on; but the doctor checked him, and setting me again in my chair, bound up my arm, not without some resistance from me, for I saw that his hands were dabbled with Marston's blood.

"Now," said he to Elmscott, "if you will help, we will get him upstairs to bed."

"No!" said I, suddenly recollecting all that had occurred. "I made Marston a promise. I must keep it! I must ride to town and keep it!"

"It will be the best way, if he can," said Elmscott. "He will be taken here for a surety. I have sent a messenger to Bristol with the news."

The surgeon eased my arm into the sleeve of my coat, and made a sling about my shoulders with my cravat. Elmscott buckled on my sword and led me to the stables, leaving me outside while he went in and saddled a horse.

"This is Cliffe's horse," said he; "yours is too tired. I will explain to him."

He held the horse while I climbed into the saddle.

"Now, Morrice," he said, "you have no time to lose. You have got the start of the law; keep it. Marston's family is of some power and weight. As soon as his death is known, there will be a hue and cry after you; so fly the country. I would say leave the promise unfulfilled, but that it were waste of breath. Fly the country as soon as you may, unless you have a mind for twelve months in Newgate gaol.

I will follow you to town with all speed, but for your own sake 'twere best I find you gone."

He moved aside, and I galloped off towards Newberry. The misery of that ride I could not, if I would, describe. The pain of my wound, the utter weariness and dejection which came upon me as a reaction from the excitement of the last days, and the knowledge that I could no longer s.h.i.+rk my confession, so combined to weaken and distress me, that I had much ado to keep my seat in the saddle. 'Twas late in the evening when I rode up to Ilga's lodging. The door, by some chance, stood open, and without bethinking me to summon the servants, I walked straight up the staircase to the parlour, dragging myself from one step to the other by the help of the bal.u.s.trade. The parlour door was shut, and I could not lay my fingers on the handle, but scratched blindly up and down the panels in an effort to find it. At last some one opened the door from within, and I staggered into the room. Mdlle.

Durette--for it was she--set up a little scream, and then in the embrasure of the window I saw the Countess rise slowly to her feet.

The last light of the day fell grey and wan across her face and hair.

I saw her as through a mist, and she seemed to me more than ordinarily tall. I stumbled across the room, my limbs growing heavier every moment.

"Countess," I began, "I have a promise to fulfil. Lady Tracy----"

There I stopped. The room commenced to swim round me. "Lady Tracy----"

I repeated.

The Countess stood motionless as a statue, dumb as a statue. Yet in a strange way she appeared suddenly to come near and increase in stature--suddenly to dwindle and diminish.

"Ilga," I cried, stretching out my hands to her. She made no movement.

I felt my legs bend beneath me, as if the bones of them were dissolved to water, and I sank heavily upon my knees. "Ilga," I cried again, but very faintly. She stirred not so much as a muscle to help me, and I fell forward swooning, with my head upon her feet.

CHAPTER XVI.

CONCERNING AN INVITATION AND A LOCKED DOOR.

When consciousness returned to me, and I became sensible of where I lay, I perceived that Elmscott was in the room. He stood in the centre, slapping his boot continually with his riding-crop, and betraying every expression of impatience upon his face. But I gave little heed to him, for beside me knelt Ilga, a bottle of hartshorn salts in her hand. I was resting upon a couch, which stood before the spinet; the lamps were lighted, and the curtains drawn across the window, so that my swoon must have lasted some while.

As I let my eyes rest upon the Countess, she slipped an arm under my head and raised it, taking at the same time a cup of cordial, which Clemence Durette held ready. 'Twas of a very potent description, and filled me with a great sense of comfort. Ilga moved her arm as though to withdraw it. "No," I murmured to her, and she smiled and let it remain.

"Come, Morrice," said Elmscott. "You have but to walk downstairs. A carriage is waiting."

He moved towards the couch. I tried to raise my arm to warn him off, but found that it had been bandaged afresh, and was fastened in a sling. For a moment I could not remember how I had come by the hurt; then the history of it came back to me, and with that the promise I had made to my dying antagonist. For while I believed that Lady Tracy could have no grounds for her apprehensions, seeing that the Countess must needs be ignorant of her relations with the Count, whatever they might have been, I felt that the circ.u.mstances under which the request was uttered gave to it a special authority, and laid upon me a strict compulsion to obey it to the letter. The request, moreover, fitted exactly with my own intention. Ilga believed now that I had never seen Lady Tracy until that morning when she fainted, and so by merely confessing that the death of Count Lukstein lay at my door, and at my door alone, I should divert all possibilities of suspicion from approaching Lady Tracy; so I whispered to Ilga:

"Send every one away!"

"Nay," she replied; "your cousin has told me."

"It is not that," said I. "There is something else--something my cousin could not know."

"Does it follow," she answered, lowering her eyes, "that I could not know it? Or do you think me blind?"

The gentle, hesitating words nearly drove my purpose from my mind. It would have been so easy to say just, "I love you, and you know it." It became so difficult to say, "I killed your husband, and have deceived you." However, the confession pressed urgently for utterance, and I said again: "Send them away!"

"No," she replied, "you have no time for that now. You must leave London to-night. Everything is ready; your cousin's carriage waits to take you to the coast. To-morrow you must cross to France. But if you still--still wish to unburden your mind----"

"Heart," I could not refrain from whispering; and, indeed, my heart leaped as she faltered and blushed crimson.

"Then," she continued, "come to Lukstein! You will be welcome," and with a quiet gravity she repeated the phrase: "You will be very welcome!"

Every word she spoke made my task the harder. I trust that the weakness of my body, the pain of the wound, and my great fatigue, had something to do with the sapping of my resolution. But whatever the cause, an overwhelming desire to cease from effort, to let the whole world go, rushed in upon me. The one real thing for me was this woman who knelt beside the couch; the one real need was to tell her of my love. I felt as though, that once told, I could rest without compunction, without a scruple of regret, just rest like a tired child.

"Come to Lukstein!" she repeated.

"Hear me now!" I replied with a last struggle, and got to my feet. I was still so weak, however, that the violence of the movement made me sick and dizzy, and I tottered into Elmscott's arms.

"Come, Morrice!" he urged. "A little courage; 'tis only a few steps to descend."

I steadied myself against his shoulder. In a corner of the room, rigid and impa.s.sive, was the tall figure of Otto Krax. How could I speak before him?

"I shall expect you, then," said the Countess, "and soon. I leave England to-morrow myself, and return straight home."

"You leave England to-morrow?" I asked eagerly.

"To-morrow!" she replied.

I drew a deep breath of relief. All danger to Lady Tracy, all her fears of danger, would vanish with the departure of the Countess; and as for my confession--it could wait.

"At Castle Lukstein, then," said I, and it seemed to me that she also drew a breath of relief.

From Pall Mall we drove to my lodging, where I found my trunks packed, and Udal fully dressed to accompany me in my flight; for Elmscott, who had started from the "Half-way House" some two hours later than myself, had ridden straight thither. On learning that my people had no news of me, he had immediately guessed where I should be discovered, and, instructing them to prepare instantly for a journey, had himself hastened to the apartment of the Countess.

My baggage was speedily placed in the boot, Udal mounted on the box, I directed my other servants to pay the bill and return to c.u.mberland, and we drove off quickly to the coast, just twenty-four hours after we had set out upon the great West Road on our desperate adventure.

As we rolled peacefully through the moonlit gardens of Kent, I had time to think over and apportion the hurried events of the day, and I recalled the half-spoken sentence which was on Marston's lips at the moment of his death. I conjectured that he intended some expression of remorse for the use to which he had put the likeness of his sister, and I began again to wonder at the strange inconsistency of the man. I had been bewildered by it before in respect of this very miniature, when I first observed his genuine devotion to his sister. To-day he had afforded me a second and corroborating instance, for no sooner had he knowledge of his sister's fears, than he had used the knowledge straightway as a weapon against me, leaving it to his antagonist to secure her the safeguarding which she implored. And yet that his anxiety on her account was very real it was impossible for me to doubt, for I had looked upon his face when he bound me by a promise to protect her.

At Dover we found a packet on the point of sailing for Calais.

Elmscott bade me good-bye upon the quay, and declared that if I would keep him informed of my movements, he would send me word when the affair had blown over and I might safely return. Then he asked: