Читать книгу The Jade of Destiny - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 6

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‘Twelve o’clock! A fine night! And all’s well!’

The luxurious, panelled chamber was so still they could hear the solitary watchman go tramping down the deserted street with clatter of lanthorn and partisan, his heavy feet making strange echoes near and far, feet that paused again, remote, to another wailing cry of:

‘Past twelve o’clock! A fine night! And all’s well!’

My lord the Earl of Aldrington uttered a pettish exclamation as he glanced from the money and scattered cards before him to the open lattice; his boyish face was darkly flushed, his eyes too bright and his air a little wild as, flinging back in his chair, he spoke:

“Twelve o’clock and a cursed bad night—for me! Eh, Riderwood? And it ... it groweth late!”

“Not for us, Rick, ’sbud—not for us! Your true gentleman o’ blood but begins to live when your dull country clod, and heavy cit lie snoring a-bed. So fill your glass, man, nay I will—so, a bumper. Now shuffle and to’t again, Dick.”

The Earl glanced at my lord Riderwood with a certain apprehension,—a tall gentleman of a magnificence and entirely languid, yet a masterful, smiling personage whose oval face, small of eye and mouth but large of nose and chin, held that which awed the petulant boy to half sullen acquiescence. Slowly and unwillingly he gathered the cards then paused and, very conscious of lord Riderwood’s keen eyes and smiling mouth, enquired with a meekness:

“Pray, Riderwood, how much am I owing you and Malone to-night, so far?”

“Tush, my dear Richard! Fie what matter betwixt friends? Some few hundred or so.”

“Nay, but how much—you, Colonel?”

“Eighteen hundred and seventy-three angels, to be precise,” laughed Colonel Malone, consulting his tablets. The earl dropped his cards.

“So much?” he gasped.

“Fie, Richard man!” murmured lord Riderwood, gently reproachful. “Here’s nought to such wealth incalculable as thine.”

“Ay, true Charles, true!” nodded the boy, taking up the cards. “But,” and here he let them fall again, “I lost nigh three thousand last week.”

“Be easy for that, Dick,” answered lord Riderwood smiling tenderly into the boy’s eager face. “Come, the cards—Nay now, dear my Richard wherefore that frown? ’Slight, ’twould almost seem thou dost not trust thy Charles! Yet e’en were it so I’d forgive thee, sweet lad, for thine own and so bewitching sister’s sake. Come now, a health, I pledge ye the peerless Ione! And now to our game!”

“No, faith Charles. I weary o’ Primero, the cards are no friends o’ mine, especially to-night.”

“Nay but, Dicky-man, ye would so plunge!” wheezed the Colonel, glancing up from his tablets, “so very desperate bold, Dicky, and myself warned thee Riderwood was ever most hellish lucky Tuesdays and Fridays, be the powers! Thou’lt mind how I warned thee? But an the cards fail thee, what o’ the bones? ’Tis like the dice shall prosper thee and luck turn. How sayst thou, Dicky-man? The young Earl glanced about him almost desperately,—at the red-faced Colonel Malone cyphering in his tablets, at Sir Walter Fearn scowling fiercely over his game with the meek-smiling Mr. Ferndale in opposite corner, at lord Riderwood’s gentle complacency and at Mr. Dinwiddie drowsing over his wine in great elbow-chair hard by.

“Oh,—have with ye!” he cried, setting his youthful chin.

So dice were produced; Colonel Malone laid by his tablets and took up the box.

“What shall we set?” he enquired, glancing towards lord Riderwood. “A rial a main.”

“Five!” cried the earl, refilling his glass, “and let it be—angles.”

“And—ten!” murmured lord Riderwood, smoothing his perfumed hair.

So the game began, Colonel Malone boisterous and jovial, lord Riderwood serenely languid, the Earl flushed and passionately intent—and—Mr. Dinwiddie outstretched slumberous in the great elbow-chair.

Main succeeded main with varying fortune and then, once more, ill-luck swooped upon the young Earl.... From red he grew deathly white, his eyes glared feverishly beneath slim, twitching brows, he dashed creeping moisture from his beardless cheek, he muttered passionate exclamations of dismay....

It was as lord Riderwood made to throw that his hand was gripped by sudden, pouncing fingers,—long powerful fingers that wrenched and twisted; Colonel Malone gaped dumb-smit as did the Earl, lord Riderwood whispered vicious oath as from his tortured hand dropped the hidden, loaded dice; then he was whirled about to front a grim visage, eyes that glared, lips that curled from white teeth, and, smiling thus bitterly contemptuous, Captain Dinwiddie spoke but—not in the awed, deferential murmur of “the gentleman new from the country.”

“So-ho, base lord and sorry foist, I’ve seen it better done in camp a score o’ times——” Lord Riderwood was up and away, but as he leapt in again, dagger a-gleam to smite, Florian’s out-thrust leg tripped him in full career and he crashed heavily face-down, his left arm doubled under him and so lay motionless and utterly silent; yet, when his two friends hasted to lift him, his pallid, writhen lips voiced the agony of his broken arm. But he choked back the moan and looking on Jocelyn twixt narrowed lids, spoke murmuring:

“Liar! Rogue! One day I’ll ... watch you die ... slowly ... stab by stab.... And now ... Malone get me ... out o’ this a Gad’s name ... ere I ... swoon.”

Now when they were gone, Jocelyn turned to the Earl who sat crouched miserably at the table, staring wide-eyed on vacancy.

“So, my lord,” he said, gently, “having discovered these fine gentlemen for merest rogues, I would have you——”

“Nay, sir,” cried the boy haughtily, “these gentlemen be still my friends——”

“Saints and martyrs!” murmured Jocelyn.

“Mr. Dinwiddie, these be men of condition, persons of quality, gentlemen highly esteemed to ... to doubt their honour at word of a stranger were to dishonour myself.”

“Mighty fine!” nodded the Captain. “Howbeit these same estimable persons robbed ye with pricked cards, palmed false dice—there lie they yet, witnesses mute, yet sufficiently eloquent. So now, my lord, open those so youthful eyes and I shall explain forthwith the how and the wherefore. Here then are my noble lord’s false dice, a pair of barred catertreys, barred—that is, shaped longer on the three-four axis,—so that howso’er and how often you throw them they shall never show other than combinations of one, two, five and six. Essay my lord, and let your faith in yon foisting gentry be shocked rudely hence. Throw, sir, first with my lord’s barred catertreys and then with these true dice. Then feel me these cards, here—and here again.”

Unwillingly the young Earl made the tests and, finding proof beyond all doubt of his late friends’ roguery and his own folly, stared sullenly where Florian was collecting certain monies, who, meeting his frown, laughed gaily:

“ ’Sheart my lord!” he tittered. “Yon gentle scourers, having small respect for our yokelly intelligence, played their cheats so openly that I am richer by fifty odd broad pieces.”

“Ha,” cried the Earl, pettishly imperious, “and who ... what the fiend are ye that in the guise of simple country-gentlemen may out-cheat these ... these ...” the youth faltered and ere he might find the just and proper word, Jocelyn drew forth her ladyship’s first-written letter and unfolding it, set it before him.

“This should explain—somewhat, my lord,” said he. The Earl read it through and instantly scowled blacker than ever.

“So!” he exclaimed with long-drawn, passionate hiss. “They fooled me!”

“Repeatedly, sir!” nodded the Captain. “And she entreats your return for the harvest, my lord.”

“Ha!” exclaimed the Earl, smiting the table before him in fury of mounting indignation, “these ... these that I ha’ cherished and called friends ... dared so deceive me!”

“And,” murmured the Captain, “she yearneth for you home again, sir!”

“Damme!” cried the Earl, shrill with raging impotence. “They’ve cheated me of thousands ... money and ... ah, God——”

“Tush, child, and hush!” said the Captain, taking up the letter with care.

“Child?” raved the Earl, “ha, will ye dare——”

“Peace, boy!” said the Captain refolding the letter and setting it back in his bosom. “Bleat not, thou poor shorn lamb, nor let tender gull, his pinions plucked so futile flap and flutter! In a word, lad, repine not thy squandered gold, count it but payment for experience shall make haply o’ thee wiser youth, nobler gentleman and kinder brother. Your sister begs you return home for the harvest, but yearns for your presence sooner. Well, how say you?”

“That I go in my own time and pleasure, Master Dinwiddie and——”

“Spoke like a graceless, peevish boy, my lord.” The Earl arose, very youthful-seeming but supremely arrogant, and pointed imperiously to the door.

“Master Dinwiddie,” quoth he with an icy haughtiness, “you have my permission to go! You may remove.”

“Sweet lord,” answered the Captain, with Italianate bow of bewildering complexities, “ ’Tis so mine intent. Pray ring for your nobility’s boots and horse.”

“Sir, begone! I’m in no mood for your pleasantries.”

“My lord, I was seldom more serious. Florian, pray ring the bell.”

“Why ... what black villainy is this?” cried the young Earl with sudden tremour, as Florian tugged gaily at bell-rope.

“My lord, merely I propose to carry foolish boy to doating sister and so be done——”

“Ha, by heavens, will ye affront me in mine own house?”

“Cheerily, sir, or any other where in such sweet and proper cause.” And now was tramp of heavy feet, the door opened and tall Will stood pulling his forelock at them, and ... beneath one great arm his young master’s riding-boots.

“What ... Will?” cried the Earl in angry surprise, “how come you here? Where is Mervyn?”

“Drunk and asleep, m’lord,” answered Will, holding forth the boots invitingly.

“Then summon my grooms, and do you and they rid me o’ these ... these persons ... forthright.”

“Which, my lord,” answered Will, pulling forelock again, “Which can’t nowise be done, nohow, sir.”

“Ha ... what d’ye mean, fool?”

“Which, m’lord, I mean as here stands Cap’n Dinwiddie, m’lord, the Cap’n Dinwiddie as saved brother Tom’s life from them blood-bent Spanishers over in they Low Countries and ... well, there y’are!”

“Well? Damme, and what now?” demanded the Earl.

“Which now, m’lord, the ’osses be a-waitin’ so I’ll go and wait along wi’ ’em, by your leave, m’lord!” So saying Will set down the boots and departed suddenly; but scarcely had the door closed upon him than the Earl leapt thither only to be caught and swung about in Captain Jocelyn’s powerful grasp.

“Gentle sir,” quoth he, “beseech you remark, fond youth perpend! Your lady sister, distressed by your follies notorious and of your regeneration despairful, hath honoured me with commission to pluck you from roguery and ruin, and plucked, forsooth, you shall be. Thus, sir, and with all the humility in nature, I supplicate your lordship to be incontinent booted, for we ride instantly to Aldrington.”

The young Earl looked from the Captain, grim and stern, to Florian, grim and smiling, glanced despairing at the bell-rope, murmured peevish oath and reached for his boots. Thereafter, obedient to the masterful hand on his shoulder, my lord descended the wide stair, glancing furtively this way and that for the many servile lacqueys that should be and were not, and so, silent and submissive ever, like one who dreamed, reached the courtyard where stood Will with the horses.

And thus, still like one a-dream, my lord Richard, Earl of Aldrington, in the County of Sussex, mounted and riding between the Captain and Florian, with stolid Will behind, was borne rapidly away.