Читать книгу My Lord of Wrybourne - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Sir Robert Chalmers, who had always hated solitude, sat alone as had now become his wont; this once formidable man who had lived for and borne himself so arrogantly amid the glitter and homage of great Vanity Fair, now merely existed—a sullen recluse shut away in a rustical isolation he scorned and detested.

Almost two years had dragged their weary length since the hour that had transformed him from a man feared, honoured or dreadfully respected, to the maimed, helpless creature he now was and for which he so bitterly despised himself.

Thus today, with the glad noon sun bright about him, he sat crouched in elbow chair brooding darkly on that merciless, oft-dreamed vengeance which had become his one object in life and only consolation. Very still he sat, gazing haggardly before him, powerful left fist tight-clenched upon his knee, right arm half-hidden in the breast of his coat—this mutilated right arm that shamed him and of which he was always so painfully conscious that it had become his torment.

Beyond the open lattice before him lay a wide and lovely prospect, for his house stood high,—a green down-land country rolling southward to the sea; but Sir Robert's burning gaze was fixed with a dreadful intensity in that one and only direction where, towards the west, some fifteen miles or so, rose the aged walls and towers of that house called "Wrybourne Feveril" where my lord the Earl was even now in residence.

And thinking of the Earl, this enemy whose blade in smiting off his terrible right hand had bereft him of so very much beside, Sir Robert plucked from breast his mutilated arm, this ghastly memento whose merest sight could always goad him to such wild furies of despair,—even as now; for, leaping afoot, he shook this hideous, silk-bound stump against that unseen, far-distant House of Wrybourne Feveril, while from back-drawn lips and gnashing teeth issued such breathless tirade of threats and curses that the tallish pallid gentleman on the terrace without paused in his leisured approach to listen, his thin lips curling in cynical amusement until Sir Robert's furious outburst ended, then advancing silently, he leaned in at the open window to smile and say with airy flourish:

"Well, well, dear fellow,—what a particularly lovely day; I wish you all joy of it."

Sir Robert merely scowled, then as if reading some subtle meaning in the speaker's look and tone, he clenched his remaining hand, saying:

"Ha, Twily! Curse you, Viscount; d'ye dare—can it be possible that you attempt to jeer and mock me—is it possible?"

"Eh, jeer you?" repeated Viscount Twily, mouthing the words. "Mock you? I? No, no, Robert, perish the thought—never think it. If I smile, which I do, it is for you, my dear Robert, with you, not—at you. Never that, no, no! And I am a trifle gay because I have succeeded—"

"Ah, fool Ralph sold them? You have secured the property?"

"Well, not exactly, but good as—"

"Did Scrope accept my money? Have you the title-deeds?"

"Well, n-n-no," drawled the Viscount, "not precisely. But all in good time, my dear fellow, for it seems his lovely wife—ah, that lusciously bewitching creature holds the deeds and refuses to part with 'em, but—"

"Then damn you, Twily, you have not succeeded!"

"Patience, dearest fellow, I cry you patience! For Lord Scrope needs the money so damnably that needs must. The deeds will be in my hands this time tomorrow despite all his so charming better half may do! And Oh! Gad how very much his better half she is—aha, Robert, what a golden beauty and how devilish alluring—"

"Scrope agreed to sell then,—at what figure?"

"Three hundred guineas. He took my first offer, jumped at it, in fact."

"Was he quite fuddled, very drunk?"

"Not more than usual. But, my dear Robert, though the property is a bargain at such price, what you can want with Wrexford Mill, that dreary ruin and devilish ugly pool, passes my understanding."

"Naturally!" retorted Sir Robert and with zest. "However, I want it for a purpose known only to myself.... That ruin, that accursed pool ... these are the beginning!"

"You're devilish mysterious, dear fellow,—not thinking of—murder, I suppose?"

"Twily, what precisely do you mean?"

"Merely that it is a very murderous sort of place. The late Lord Julian Scrope was done to death there as you may remember. There have been others; and I should not be so vastly surprised if there should be others yet. For e'Gad, it strikes me as a strangely fatal or, shall I say, fateful place—ah yes, a place of doom, old fellow, and—destiny!"

"Hold your—infernal tongue!" gasped Sir Robert, making to leap from his chair, whereat the Viscount, always smiling, recoiled.

"Dear fellow," he murmured, "we are all of us creatures doomed, more or less, for this or that,—as saith the Swan of Avon: 'All unavoided is the doom of destiny', and, may I add, there is a Fate hangs above each of us ready to drop and extinguish us, dear boy, whenso it will, nor can it be eluded. Your fate dooms you for the present to a fury of solitude and mine to share it—compelling me to soothe you, cheer you, comfort and console you, my very dear fellow."

In each softly uttered word, in every look and tone and gesture, Sir Robert seemed to find something so altogether odious and unbearable that, with the inarticulate cry of a goaded animal, he sprang afoot brandishing his stump while the Viscount from safe distance surveyed him with expression of mild wonderment and enquiry.

"Dear boy," he murmured, "why—oh, pray why this perturbation?"

"Twily," said Sir Robert in voice strangely hushed, "I use you because nature meant you for a lackey, and you obey me because you must. Ah, but, Viscount, should you ever be so unwise as to rebel, defy me or cross my purposes—then, by God, you shall find I'm still to be reckoned with—though I am a maimed cripple.... Oh damn and curse him!"

"Certainly, Robert! Oh, by all means if you are alluding to Wrybourne's noble earl, as of course you are and very naturally—considering!" Here he motioned gently towards Sir Robert's stump. "So permit me to curse him with you and damn him as heartily. Ah yes, and the more especially as his so beautiful countess, as you may have heard, has lately blessed him with a son and heir. Indeed, Iaphet Scrope, Earl of Wrybourne, should and would have been dead a year ago but for your—unfortunate lapse, dear boy. As it is, the cursed fellow enjoys life, begets children, has hosts of friends, while we, my poor, dear Robert, merely exist——"

"Damnation!" panted Sir Robert.

"Yes indeed—for him, Bob, for him! I was forgetting,—our Wrybourne has lately committed himself quite damnably in a speech to The Lords, defending this rebellious scoundrel Cobbett and thus has got himself into such disrepute, such an infernal mess he shall never get out of—if the matter is handled judiciously ... a word here and there, letters to the papers, notes to proper authorities and so on,—these should prove his absolute social ruin and final damnation. Did you happen to see a report of this speech of his in the Gazette?"

"Not I."

"Ah well, I have a copy here. Take it, dear fellow; read, mark and inwardly digest; it should so inspire you that with my humble though zealous assistance you may at last pay your Wrybourne for"—here a graceful gesture towards that maimed arm—"past favours and bring him to—the so desired end. Meantime, dearest of all Bobs, I'll to my chamber, to snooze, perchance to dream how you, or we together, are his now approaching doom—and destiny, of course." And, with nod and smile, Viscount Twily ambled away.

Now scarcely had this too-too smiling gentleman taken himself out of sight than the door opened to admit a tall, grey-haired woman, somewhat run to bone and tooth, whose face would have been harsh but for wide, humorous mouth and eyes that could beam so gently whenever they lighted upon this grievous, sore-stricken man; she closed the door, crossed the room with the stride of a grenadier, shut the lattice with a slam and, folding long arms, met Sir Robert's scowl with one just as dark, shook her grey head at him and spoke in a Scots idiom, difficult to describe, thus:

"Oomph—hoomph! Syne yon black-hairted Viscount is awa'—de'il tak' him—'tis mysel' ye'll be needing the noo tae sweeten the air and yesel' forbye! Ay, 'tis Elspeth ye need, Rabbie."

"But I don't!" he answered, sullenly, opening the newspaper. "No, I desire to be alone."

"Havers, man, and are ye no' the vera loneliest body in a' this worrald, are ye no'?"

"Yes," he muttered, "yes I am, but only because I desire loneliness. So, Elspeth, pray go."

"No' me!" she snapped and, thrusting a chair close beside him, she seated herself with the utmost determination. "Ay," quoth she, meeting his scowl with fierce nod, "here's hersel' and here she'll bide to watch o'er ye, knit o'er ye and mebbe pray o'er ye as she did when ye were sic a wee helpless mitherless bairn." Here, taking the wherewithal from capacious reticule, she began to knit with furious speed, watching him the while beneath fierce-knit brows with those strangely gentle eyes.

"Rabbie man," said she at last, "thretty-six years twa months and five days syne I took ye tae this bosom—a wee thing at point o' death,—and kept the life in ye. Ye'll be aye minding this!"

"Yes, Elspeth," he replied, and less sullenly, "and in all this damned creation you are the one and only creature I care for,—the only one I have ever trusted—or ever shall!"

"Ay, I ken that fine, Rab, for ye're ever suspicious o' nature——"

"And with reason, Elspeth——"

"Awell, when ye were tender babe I was your life; when motherless boy afeard o' your father—and sma' wonder—ye clung tae me, and well I protected ye, ay I did that! When ye were a youth ye confided in me and tookit my advice—eh but—when Sir Jamie our Laird died, God be thankit—and left ye sae unco' wealthy and sae young ah then ye gangit your ain gait regardless—and now see whaur it has brought ye——"

"To failure!" said he bitterly. "To defeat, mutilation—ay—and damnation!"

"Tae failure, ay!" she nodded. "Tae mutilation, vera true, wae's me for your bonny right hand! But to damnation,—na, na, Robbie man, ye're no' precisely damned—yet! Ye're on the road but 'tis a lang road and I'm praying God forbid. But 'tis yoursel' maun decide, whateffer. Ay, your final damnation, Rabbie, is juist atwixt yoursel' and our Good Lord, and because He is God the Father He shall be mair mercifu' than your ain or any airthly father. Ah yes," she sighed, speaking now in a cultured English, "and as for the loss of your hand, that cruel wicked man-killing right hand, Robert, its loss brought you something infinitely better."

"Ha, and pray what was that, for God's sake?"

"Your old Elspeth, and for your own sake. And a poor, wild, grievous wretch she found you! Eh, my certie, without Elspeth to mother ye 'tis in your grave you'd be at this moment, Rob."

"Yes, that's the truth of it!" he muttered, glancing down at his stump with shrinking aversion. "And better so, perhaps.... And yet, since you have again saved my life, Elspeth, then by God I'll use it to good purpose."

"Robert, is your good purpose God's purpose or that suggested by yon loathsome Viscount?"

"Just what do you mean, Elspeth?"

"Eh, what should I mean but murder? Did I no' hear him suggest it and mysel' wi' my lug tae the keyhole? Is it the murder o' your enemy, Rab?"

"Not so, Elspeth. Oh dear, no."

"His death, then?"

"No, again,—death would be too swift, too merciful. My method shall be more lingering, Elspeth, a—death in life!"

"Ha!" she nodded. "'Tis vengeance might shame Auld Hornie hissel'—and why for, Rob? Was it no' a fair fight ye had wi' yon Earl o' Wrybourne, man to man, face to face as is our auld Hielan' custom, was it no'?"

"Yes, Elspeth, but vengeance eye for eye and tooth for tooth is also a Highland custom."

"Mebbe so, but ye're no' a Hielander, Rab,—'tis myself, Elspeth McGregor, is so—one o' the lost 'children o' the mist' that maun see this waefu' worrald through mist o' their tears,—whiles yesel'—you, Robert, are just a mere Lowland body, and so vengeance is no' exactly natural to you by reason of your ancestry."

Now at this, Sir Robert scowled blackly,—then his lips were curved by such smile as none but this devoted nurse of his babyhood had ever seen as he answered and in the vernacular:

"Haud y' clack, ye besom, and this i' the lugs o' ye—a Lowland laird can avenge as cannily—ay and wi' mair grace than ony wild Hielan' cateran, y' ken! Ha, yes, woman, vengeance can be as dearly sweet to me as to any of your fierce ancestors."

"Then, Robert," she retorted, "if this be so, which I do not admit, you are the most perfect fool to confide the least hint of your bloody-minded intent to that mean-faced, shifty-eyed Viscount Twily,—a treacherous, ever-smiling, villainous rogue, if ever I saw one!"

"He is all you say, Elspeth, and of which I am sufficiently aware. But the sordid rascal is completely in my power and must obey me,—he is a tool very proper to my purpose."

"Then, Robert, take care this tool doesn't turn in your grasp and lop off your remaining hand; be heedful, that is all——"

"And enough, quite enough," fumed Sir Robert; "indeed it is quite too much! You become too officious, Elspeth, and so devilishly possessive that I—yes, damme,—I've been greatly minded of late to be rid of you——"

"Oh, my poor, fool man!" she sighed. "Such utter nonsense! You can never again be rid of me——"

"Ha!" he exclaimed, frowning up into this face of such serene assurance and ineffable calm. "Why the devil not, woman?"

"Woman, yes!" she nodded. "The woman that twice brought you back to life for good or ill, the woman who may have to save you yet again."

"From what?" he demanded.

"Yourself, to be sure!" she nodded. "Robert Chalmers is the worst enemy you ever had,—he was in the past, is now, and ever will be—unless——"

"Unless what, Elspeth,—damme—what?"

"Unless you have Elspeth to watch over you once more and are occasionally wise enough to follow her advice as you did in your past youth and late sickness. Why, y' gomeril, y' silly gowk, without me now you'd be utterly lost, you'd languish and die." Before her wide, steadfast gaze his fierce eyes gentled, wavered and fell, and in voice changed, as his look, he replied:

"Yes ... come to think of it ... I believe I should."

"Ye wad that," she nodded, rolling up her knitting, "forbye I am the only mither ye ever kenned, puir laddie."

"Exactly true, Elspeth,—and father, sisters and brothers also; I was a lonesome little wretch."

"Awell, I'll awa' tae the kitchen; yon cook, Lisbeth, has no' a just regaird for that noble vegetable the onion. I'll awa', Rabbie, and leave ye tae your dreams o' bluidy vengeance."