Читать книгу Mr. Rowl (Historical Novel) - D. K. Broster - Страница 9

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“The suddenness of the event struck me with surprise, and I was at first rather stupefied than agitated.”—Rasselas, chap. xxxviii.

“Shall you be going out this morning, Mr. Rowl?” enquired Miss Hitchings of her lodger not long after breakfast next morning.

“Yes, I expect so,” responded Raoul rather vaguely, not raising his head from Rasselas.

“At what time, then, Sir, if I may make so bold?”

“What time?” repeated the young man. “Oh, about—no, truly, I cannot tell you just when. Does that inconvenience you, Miss Hitchings?”

“Not in the least, Sir,” responded Miss Hitchings, in a tone signifying exactly the opposite. “I suppose that one more day for the carpet to lie there, so full of dust as it is, don’t signify.”

“Mon Dieu, were you going to take the carpet up?” cried Raoul, with every symptom of alarm. “Is it one of those days when everything is dessus dessous—one of the days of tornado? I am desolated, chère Miss Hitchings, for truly I cannot tell you when I shall be able to——I mean,” he pulled himself up firmly, “when it will suit me to go out.”

For he was not going to confess to her that he was a prisoner in the house, though he had mentioned the fact to Lamotte over the hare the night before, adding that his confinement need not be taken very seriously.

Indeed, he hoped that it would not be long now before Mr. Bannister sent word that he was at liberty. Time to read some more Rasselas—though, as the book was now his own, he had plenty of leisure for that pursuit. And to think that Miss Forrest had not shown him her favourite passages yesterday, after all! They had been too much immersed in conversation, he and she. As he returned to his reading he recalled the look in her beautiful eyes up in the copse—that thrilling look of deep, deep gratitude and admiration. . . .

Ciel! it was already half-past eleven, and still no word from Mr. Bannister! Perhaps he had not been able to get hold of Sir Francis. Raoul rose, and sat himself down at the table with pen and paper and began a letter home—one of those letters whose composition never failed to irritate him a little, for one reason because it was so difficult to find anything new to say, for another, because no letter was private. To-day he was writing to his sister.

“Ma chère Adrienne: As-tu pensé à moi hier, car j’ai un peu parlé de toi? Ah, si tu étais ici, je m’ennuierais moins; nous attrapperions des truites ensemble, comme autrefois. Nous lirions aussi le chef-d’œuvre du célèbre docteur Johnson, l’Histoire de Rasselas, que je suis en train d’étudier pour perfectionner mon anglais. . . . Mais un jour, sans doute, nous le lirons ensemble, car on m’a fait cadeau du volume.”

He broke off to mend his pen, beginning softly to whistle, “Since First I Saw Your Face,” while he did so. And before he had finished he was singing the second verse under his breath:

“ ‘The sun, whose beams most glorious are,

Rejecteth no beholder;

And your sweet beauty, past compare,

Made my poor eyes the bolder.

When beauty moves, and wit delights,

And signs of kindness bind me,

There, oh, there, where’er I go,

I’ll leave my heart behind me.’

“Ah non! je suis trop prudent pour celà!” he observed aloud, shaking his head. . . . Yet if he were not poor, and an enemy, and a foreigner, and a prisoner . . . and Miss Forrest were not rich, and English, and affianced to “le Roi Soleil” . . . but in the existing circumstances (though he admired her and was grateful to her for her friendly kindness) there was no use in contemplating impossibilities. He returned to his letter.

“Pour le reste, rien de neuf. Je suis, comme toujours, en bonne santé, mais aussi, comme toujours, fixé ici, aussi immuable qu’une épée rouillée dans son fourreau, ou une statue dans sa niche, figé comme du lait caillé——”

“Mr. Bannister has sent word to say would you kindly go round to his office at once, Mr. Rowl,” came the voice of Miss Hitchings.

“With all my heart,” exclaimed Raoul, springing up. “In fact, I fly.” He hastily put aside his unfinished letter, snatched up his hat, cried, at sight of the bandanna tied round his landlady’s head and the broom in her hand: “Now you can do your worst in here, Britannia!” and went down the stairs two at a time.

Mr. Bannister’s office was full in the High Street, and a very short distance away. Yet by the time that Raoul reached its respectable columned entrance he had already wondered why the Agent had required him to come there instead of merely sending him a line of release. Perhaps he had been too busy to put pen to paper.

Raoul knew the office well, since he had to go there to report himself twice a week, and to draw his allowance on Saturdays. He came briskly round the bookcase which stood at right angles to the door, making a kind of screen, and said, “Here I am, Sir.” Then he perceived that the Agent was not alone, and that the tall man in riding costume, standing with his back to the room, looking out of the window, was Sir Francis Mulholland. He stopped, displeased.

Mr. Bannister himself was standing by his writing table, not far from the same window, turning over some papers in a perfunctory fashion. He was looking so grave that Raoul felt suddenly apprehensive. Had anything gone wrong!—but nothing could!

“I have sent for you, Monsieur des Sablières,” said the Agent, and his voice was not the voice of yesterday, “so that you can in person repeat your explanation of your action in going out of bounds yesterday afternoon.”

Raoul stared at him. “Why should I repeat it, Sir? I have nothing to add or to take away from what I have already told you.”

“Because I should like Sir Francis Mulholland,” said Mr. Bannister, glancing for a second at the back of that gentleman, who had not turned round, “to have an opportunity of hearing it from your own lips. It is only fair.”

“Fair!” repeated Raoul rather stormily. “Fair to whom? And what has Sir Francis to do with the matter—beyond having denounced me to you? I should have thought that even a magistrate might have been satisfied with that!”

“Monsieur des Sablières, I beg of you——”

“Oh, I am not saying that he exceeded his duty. But he certainly exceeds his rights in being here in the capacity of a judge—and I refuse to recognize him as one.”

At that Sir Francis turned round and faced the young Frenchman.

“I am not here, Sir, as it happens, in the capacity of a judge,” he remarked coolly. “I have not the slightest desire to encroach on Mr. Bannister’s province. I am here, as any man might be, in the rôle of a witness.”

“Unnecessary, Sir,” said Raoul sharply. “Mr. Bannister knows that I instantly acknowledged having been for a short space out of bounds yesterday.”

“I did not mean as a witness to that physical fact,” replied Sir Francis imperturbably. “It would certainly be of small use your denying that!”

“Sir Francis means, I am sorry to say,” interposed Bannister, looking more and more distressed, “as a witness to the truth of your explanation of the fact.”

“No, no, Bannister!” Sir Francis gave a short laugh. “As a witness to its falsehood, if you please!” And as Raoul stared at him, momentarily bereft of speech, he addressed him directly. “Now listen, des Sablières, and correct me if I misrepresent what you told Mr. Bannister yesterday. You asserted that at half-past four Miss Forrest passed you at Fawley Bridge, where you were fishing, that immediately afterwards you heard a scream, rushed up the field to the copse, found that a vagabond was attacking her, and beat him off. Is not that what you asserted to Mr. Bannister?”

“It is.”

“Then let me tell you, as I have already told your Agent, that your ‘explanation’ is a tissue of lies. No vagabond or any one else could have attacked Miss Forrest in Fawley Copse at half-past four o’clock, just before I met you, because Miss Forrest was not there to be attacked.”

“Not there—Miss Forrest not there!” stammered Raoul, thinking he had not heard aright.

“Miss Forrest returned from Northover yesterday afternoon by the turnpike road, reaching Mulholland Park at four o’clock. She did not go out again. It is therefore impossible that she should have passed you at the bridge or been in Fawley Copse, and the using of her name in this unwarrantable fashion to cloak whatever you were doing there is very far, let me assure you, from being of assistance to you!”

For the first moment or two Raoul was so staggered that he merely said slowly:

“Who told you that lie—that Miss Forrest returned by the highroad?”

“I had the information from Miss Forrest herself.”

Raoul’s head whirled. “And she . . . when you mentioned the tramp she——”

“Why should I mention the tramp to her? You forget, you told me nothing about one, when I met you coming out of the copse—had not yet invented the story, perhaps.”

“Invented!” cried Raoul hotly. “It is as true as that I am standing here! Mr. Bannister can witness——”

“Mr. Bannister can witness that that was the story you told him yesterday, certainly. But what does that prove?” enquired Sir Francis evenly, and sat down in a chair by the window.

“You see, des Sablières,” said the Agent, with a wrinkled brow, “there is only one person who can prove that you are speaking the truth—though I freely admit that yesterday I thought you were. I mean, of course, Miss Forrest herself. And you hear what she says?”

“I do not for one moment believe that Miss Forrest—” began Raoul, and then stopped. For in a flash he saw that it was perfectly possible she had told that taradiddle about her return by the highroad in order to shield herself from Sir Francis’s jealous expostulations . . . only, surely, she had told it without dreaming of the position she had got him into! And by this time she was gone from Wanfield and would never know it!

“Come,” went on Bannister persuasively, “you cannot stick to that story against the lady’s own testimony, can you? I am not at all anxious to go to extremities with you, des Sablières—won’t you tell me what you were really doing up in the copse?”

“You had better ask the tramp—if he can be found,” answered Raoul defiantly.

“Exactly—if he can be found,” observed Sir Francis, crossing his legs. “I have my own ideas about that tramp. We will come to that presently. For the moment, as Miss Forrest’s future husband, I ask you to withdraw your use of her name.”

“I will do that only at Miss Forrest’s own request,” said Raoul, looking him in the face.

“A safe offer,” commented Sir Francis. “Miss Forrest, as I expect you are well aware, left Wanfield this morning, and does not even know that you have taken the unwarrantable liberty of using it. And could you not,” he continued with the most galling air of distaste, “have cloaked your proceedings by somebody else’s—some village wench’s, if you must be a squire of dames?”

Raoul’s eyes flashed. Mr. Bannister interposed, clutching at this suggestion. “Is it not possible that Monsieur des Sablières was genuinely mistaken in the lady’s identity?” He turned to Raoul. “Might it not have been some other lady, resembling Miss Forrest, whom you defended in the copse?”

“No,” said Raoul stubbornly, “it was Miss Forrest herself and nobody else.” But he could have met these attacks so much better if he had not had to think hard all the time, to try to puzzle out while he spoke what Miss Forrest really had said—what she would wish him to say. Had she really kept silence about the tramp?

“Do not press Monsieur des Sablières unduly, Mr. Bannister,” said Sir Francis with suavity. “Where there was no lady, and no tramp—at least in the form of a tramp—it is putting too great a strain on his powers of invention to call on him to provide another female in distress!”

The taunt went unheeded. Raoul, his eyes following the pattern of Mr. Bannister’s worn carpet, was thinking furiously, while up from the street below floated scraps of an animated conversation between two of his compatriots. The subject seemed to be the price of meat. . . . Was Sir Francis speaking in good faith, or was it conceivable that he was deliberately lying? In either case, if he, Raoul, chose to reveal the fact that Miss Forrest, shortly before the episode, had been neither walking along the turnpike, nor safely ensconced at Mulholland Park, but in his company by the stream, Sir Francis would not have a leg to stand on. And though, in Miss Forrest’s absence, that fact would no doubt be disputed, he had it in his power to prove it beyond question. It was lucky, after all, that Sainte-Suzanne had seen them.

He lifted his head. “What would you say, Mr. Bannister,” he asked crisply, “if I told you that I had a witness, an unimpeachable witness, to the identity of the lady, and to her whereabouts just before the occurrence?”

“I should rather want to see the witness before I expressed an opinion,” replied Mr. Bannister with some acerbity. He at least was plainly not enjoying himself. And Sir Francis Mulholland had suddenly turned in his chair and was gazing out of the window as at something of great interest in the street. The movement attracted Raoul’s notice, and he kept his eyes fixed on him, for he felt that if he could only have seen his face at that moment he might have got some light on the game he was playing. Was he, or was he not, alarmed at the prospect of adverse testimony? When, after a minute or so, the Englishman turned round again, his face, unfortunately, betrayed nothing. But his tongue was biting.

“You really propose, Monsieur des Sablières, to call a witness to prove that the lady to whom I have the honour to be engaged is telling a lie? I thought you claimed to be a gentleman!”

“If I call him,” retorted Raoul, throwing back his head, “it will certainly not be against Miss Forrest.”

“You mean, I presume, that it will be against me, then. It is the same thing. I speak for Miss Forrest, and Mr. Bannister is satisfied that I do. Produce your witness!”

“The whole question is,” said Raoul in a low voice, eyeing him, “whether you do speak for Miss Forrest.”

Sir Francis surveyed him for a moment, and then shrugged his shoulders. “Then we will leave Miss Forrest out of the matter into which she has so improperly been dragged. Who is this witness whose word Mr. Bannister will take before mine?”

Raoul studied the sunlit carpet once more. If he called the Comte de Sainte-Suzanne the whole affair would come into the light of day, would have to be elucidated somehow. It would clear him, certainly. But what would be the result? Perhaps merely to show that though Miss Forrest had seen fit to hide her meeting with him by means of a fib—and even, just possibly, had done so to shield him from the effects of her betrothed’s jealousy—he, of all men, had been unchivalrous enough to drag the cloak off her shoulders. And even if the testimony proved it was Sir Francis who was doing the lying, yet, in the esclandre that must ensue, all Wanfield would know that he and Miss Forrest had been seen, not just conversing openly on the bridge, but some way down the stream, conveniently remote from the public gaze and by no means on the route to Mulholland Park. For though Raoul felt, as he had felt at the time, that the Comte was too well-bred and too discreet to blazon abroad his knowledge of that fact, once his testimony to it was demanded, it would not be much of a step to the discovery of an arranged meeting, of manœuvres on Miss Forrest’s part. . . . He could not bring that upon her. No, his feet were entangled every way.

“Well, who is it?” demanded Mr. Bannister with some impatience.

“On reflection, I shall not call him,” said Raoul slowly.

“You are well advised,” observed Sir Francis. “English law—you may not know it—does not smile on perjury. And now, having disposed of your fictitious companion in Fawley Copse; let us—let Mr. Bannister, that is—hear what you were doing there with your real one.”

Raoul gave an impatient movement and turned his back on him. “I have nothing more to say. Mr. Bannister, cannot this farce come to an end? Even though I am not believed when I tell the truth, I am not going to invent falsehoods to stand a better chance of pleasing Sir Francis Mulholland.”

“But, des Sablières,” said his shepherd very gravely, “on Sir Francis’s showing, you have already invented them! This is not a farce; I have every right to ask you for the real explanation of your presence in the copse, out of bounds.”

“I have already given it to you!” said Raoul with suppressed passion.

“As Monsieur des Sablières suggests, this farce had better end,” put in Sir Francis. “I will give you the real explanation, Mr. Bannister. He was there to meet an escape agent, and I can tell you who the agent was—Zachary Miller, the pedlar.”

Raoul laughed. There seemed nothing else to do. “Why not suggest that I went to meet the Emperor himself in Fawley Copse?”

“That is only a suspicion of yours, Sir Francis,” said the Agent, shaking his head. “You cannot prove it, I think.”

“Not yet perhaps. But I may be able to. Zachary Miller was seen near Four Oaks Farm at three o’clock yesterday afternoon, talking to two Frenchmen, and he can give no satisfactory account of his movements between that time and half-past four. And, as you know, he rests under very strong suspicion of being concerned in the escape traffic in these parts, though nothing can be proved against him.”

“Two points that cannot be proved,” observed Raoul mockingly. “You are not altogether lucky, Sir Francis, in your efforts to get rid of me!” He was becoming reckless.

“What do you mean, Sir?” demanded his enemy, turning on him angrily. “Do you suggest that I am allowing personal motives to weigh with me in this matter?”

“I don’t suggest, I know!” retorted Raoul. “The only question in my mind is to what lengths you have gone in that direction. Of that your own conscience is the best judge.”

“Will you allow me to speak to Monsieur des Sablières alone?” asked Mr. Bannister, intervening rather hastily at this point. “I think it would be better.”

Sir Francis immediately took up his hat and riding whip. “I will withdraw altogether, my dear Bannister. My unpleasant task is done. I have shown you that Monsieur des Sablières’ alleged reason for going out of bounds is a pure invention, and a clumsy one at that, besides not reflecting much credit upon him, and in my capacity as a justice of the peace I warn you of what I am convinced was his real reason. However, as I understand it, the mere fact of broken parole is in itself sufficient. . . . I have every confidence that you will do your duty. Good morning.” And the door shut behind him.

“Well, are you going to do your duty, as Sir Francis orders you?” enquired Raoul after a moment. But Mr. Bannister was walking up and down with bent head and did not answer. “Why did you say you wanted to see me alone?” went on the young man. “I have nothing different to tell you, nor, since Sir Francis has poisoned your mind against me, would you believe it if I had.”

Mr. Bannister stopped his pacing. “My mind is not poisoned against you, des Sablières. I am more grieved and disappointed over this affair than I can say. But how can I take your word against Sir Francis Mulholland’s? If you had only been frank with me——”

“I have been—to very little purpose!”

“How can you call that being frank,” asked the Agent reproachfully, “to tell me an impossible and yet specious story about a lady and a tramp which the very next day is unmasked as a falsehood? If you had said straightforwardly that you had yielded to a not unnatural temptation to go out of bounds for a few moments I might have stretched a point and let you off with a fine, but the motive which requires so preposterous a tale to cover it. . . . He paused.

“Yes, I see,” said Raoul bitterly. “Next time that I am in a difficulty I must remember that the one thing not to do is to tell the truth. But I suppose your kind intention is to deliver me now from the possibility of getting into any more such difficulties?”

And, though he threw out this feeler with a certain airy defiance, his heart was beating pretty rapidly.

“I cannot help myself,” returned the Agent shortly. “You have broken your parole and will not tell me why. The interpretation which Sir Francis puts upon your action cannot be proved, but, since you will give me no other that satisfies me, it always remains a possibility. I should not, therefore, be worthy of the trust which I hold if I let you continue at large. In accordance with the standing orders which I have received from the Transport Office I must send you to Norman Cross depot, if they have room to receive you, which I shall ascertain without delay—if not, to Stapleton Prison or elsewhere. Meanwhile,” he approached the bellrope on the wall, “I am afraid that I must send you to the lock-up here.”

Raoul had turned a little pale, but at that the colour swept over his face again. “Could I not go back to my lodgings till you—till you hear from Norman Cross?” he asked. “I would give you my word, as yesterday, not to leave them.”

“I cannot take your word now, I am sorry to say,” replied Mr. Bannister sadly; “and as you are no longer a prisoner on parole I am unable to grant you that indulgence. I have a militia guard here; the best advice I can give you is not to cause a disturbance. You shall not stay in gaol an hour longer than is necessary; that I can promise you.” But still he did not ring the bell to summon the guard.

He was giving Raoul a last chance before the net closed about him; the young man was conscious of that. He had only to mention Sainte-Suzanne’s name. For a moment he hesitated, struck by the idea that he might make some kind of compromise—tell Bannister of the interview by the stream but say that he did not wish the information to go further. For it was a real grief to him to lose his shepherd’s regard—and needlessly. But Bannister was too honest a man to send him to prison if he believed him innocent, yet, if he did not, the Agent would be forced to justify his action to Sir Francis at least, and the whole meeting by the stream would become public after all. If he could only be sure that Miss Forrest had not fibbed, that it was Sir Francis, incredible as it seemed, who was lying? Yet, because there was the chance that she had done so, there was nothing for it but to uphold her and take his punishment in silence. For, though Sir Francis Mulholland affected to doubt it, he did claim to be a gentleman.

“Thank you for that promise, Sir,” he said, and shut his mouth rather tightly.

“And is that all you have to say?” asked Bannister, his hand on the bellrope.

“That is all,” said Raoul; and the Agent rang the bell.

So, a minute and a half later, Mr. Rowl went through the door of that well-known office for the last time, and presently afforded all Wanfield the spectacle of yet another French officer being marched off under arrest. The thronged High Street stared and sniggered, while from all quarters came joyfully clattering small boys crying out that epithet which he had vowed should never be applied to him—“Broke-parole! Broke-parole!” . . . And outside the post-office, for the last drop in the cup, was standing the Comte de Sainte-Suzanne, leaning on his cane. Their looks met, for Raoul flung up his head defiantly. A fleeting expression, which began as sorrow and ended as scorn, went over the old man’s face. Then he turned his back on him.