Читать книгу The Red Mass - Valentine Williams - Страница 8
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In the ominous pause which followed that exclamation, Fotheringay came to his senses and realised that his career was irretrievably ruined. They were almost all men of his world in the room, and their deadly silence was the silence of those assembled round a scaffold to see a fellow mortal die. If sympathy or pity there was in that awed and speechless throng, it was suppressed out of respect for the social code that had been outraged.
In that age their world looked with amazing indulgence upon the weaknesses and follies of men and women; but it guarded with scrupulous jealousy its prerogatives and the principles from which those prerogatives derived. Ruthless hands had rudely shaken one of the pillars of their order and instinctively the entire company gathered about it to defend it against the aggressor. In that instant Fotheringay perceived that a pit had opened between himself and his comrades.
Unsteadily the Prince had risen to his feet. A tall man, with a great hawklike nose and elegant-waisted figure, was at his side. It was Colonel Douglass who commanded one of the battalions of Foot Guards.
'Sir,' he was saying, 'I entreat Your Royal Highness to withdraw and leave me to deal with this affair!'
The Prince who, in all circumstances, comported himself with dignity, did not even glance at his assailant.
'I know my honour is in safe hands, Douglass,' he said with composure. 'Doyle, will you see to my barouche?'
The crowd fell back precipitately as, accompanied by his gentlemen, the Prince left the room. Then, with a black, icy look, Colonel Douglass turned to Fotheringay and beckoned him aside.
'Your name, sir?' he rapped out.
'Lieutenant Fotheringay, Third Guards!'
'You will return to your quarters and consider yourself under close arrest. Are any other officers of your regiment present?'
Fotheringay turned and mustered the awed group surveying them from a respectful distance.
'Captain Montgomerie, sir, and Ensign Carfax!' he replied.
The Colonel looked round and named the senior of the two officers, who at once stepped forward.
'You will take this officer's sword,' the Colonel said, addressing Montgomerie, 'and conduct him back to his lodging. I make you personally responsible for Mr. Fotheringay. You will wait upon your Commanding Officer in the morning and ascertain his wishes regarding your charge. Is that clear?'
'Sir!' said Montgomerie, stiff as if on parade.
Fotheringay detached his sword from his side and handed it silently to his friend, who received it with cold, impassive face. Already the crowd had begun to drift back to the gaming-table and the rattle of the dice came to the ears of the two officers as they filed out into the moonlit night. At the door a man stood back to let them pass. It was Mr. Gray searching Fotheringay's face with his enigmatical regard.
The next evening Hector Fotheringay sat at the window of his rooms and looked out upon a world whose whole aspect had changed. The scene which he contemplated was familiar enough, the chairmen gossiping at their stand at the top of the street, the lamplighter with his ladder and his oilcan and his tinder-box swiftly going his rounds, the great gilt coaches lumbering down the cobbled slope bound for the Court or the play. From time to time the evening breeze brought to his ears from Piccadilly the flourish of a horn from the White Horse Cellar or the Gloucester Coffee-House as the coaches came spanking in from the West, and once the brazen roll of drums from the Palace hammered at his lonely heart. But these were the sights and sounds of a world which was no longer his.
He was ostracised, an outcast. He had insulted one who stood too high for the code of honour to touch. That the provocation was great had not been, would not be, taken into account. He had brought the good name of his regiment into disrepute, and for that he was to suffer.
His career in the Army was at an end; his Colonel, before whom he had passed a terrible quarter of an hour that morning, had said as much and a great deal more besides. It was a question whether Mr. Fotheringay should be tried by court-martial for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman or be permitted to send in his papers. A humble apology to the Prince, he was advised, might secure clemency. His Royal Highness had been gracious enough to say, in mitigation of the offence, that the officer was undoubtedly drunk.
Bitterly he felt the humiliation of his position. The studied aloofness of Montgomerie, who had been his friend, and the veiled insolence of O'Dare, his servant, told him all too clearly that his fall was complete.
The final blow had been struck an hour before in the shape of a perfumed note delivered by a little black page.
It has come to me, it ran, that you have made a scandal with the P. about me at a gaming-house. If you have a shred of honour left, you will let this matter rest where it is and leave London without more ado. I never wish to see you again.
B. M.
Some garbled version of the scene had, of course, reached Betty. Would she judge him thus harshly if she knew the truth? In vain he tried to compose a letter that, while defending himself, should mollify her. In the end he abandoned the attempt. Betty despised him so heartily already, he told himself, that it can have wanted but little to make her join in the hue-and-cry against him.
Ten o'clock was striking from Saint James's Church when Montgomerie put his head in at the door.
'A Mr. Gray is below and asks if you will receive him,' he said frigidly.
'That surely rests with you,' Fotheringay rejoined.
'He has permission!'
'I want no visits of sympathy! Tell him I am engaged!'
Tragic is the loneliness of the proud heart. At that instant what Hector Fotheringay desired above all things else was an understanding word or even a comprehending handclasp. But his world had outlawed him and he would have none of his world.
Montgomerie was back with a note.
If I venture to crave five minutes of your time, the crabbed handwriting read, it is because I think I have a way out of your present difficulty.
Hector shrugged his shoulders.
'I will see Mr. Gray,' he said.
Mr. Gray was as composed, as enigmatical as ever, very soberly dressed in black with a cloak across his arm.
'Mr. Fotheringay,' he said, taking the chair to which the Guardsman pointed, 'if I venture to intrude at a moment that doubtless appears to you ill-chosen, it is because I come on a matter of business, of pressing business!'
His keen eyes ferreted in the young man's face.
'Last night I was witness of a scene that did your heart more credit than your head. The consequences of that unpremeditated act are likely to be grave. For that reason I offer you my services in averting them.'
Hector shrugged his shoulders.
'There's no use in crying over spilt milk,' he said. 'The damage is done now. My career in the Army is at an end and I can no longer show my face in London.'
'Your logic is inexorable, Mr. Fotheringay, and I bow to it. But you are young, you have a long future before you. What if I proposed to you the means of rehabilitating yourself?'
Hector laughed bitterly.
'By apology? By boot-licking? My Commanding Officer spoke of this. Let's hear no more of it, Mr. Gray. For defending the honour of a lady I will not apologise. If you proffer me your influence at Carlton House to this end'—he stood up stiffly—'I must reject your assistance ...'
With firm hand his visitor thrust him back in his seat. 'Tock, tock, tock! How quick you take me up!' he said. 'What is past is past! But I can put you in the way of rendering your country a signal service which, successfully accomplished, will go far to efface the memory of last night.'
Hector stared at him, the blood draining from his face.
'What do you want with me?' he said slowly.
'If I may count upon your acceptance,' said Mr. Gray, 'I will take you to a friend of mine who shall acquaint you more nearly with the details of your mission. But, I warn you, Mr. Fotheringay, it is not without danger. Nay, I will go farther and say that possibly your rehabilitation may be achieved only at the price of your life ...'
The young man started, his eyes bright with excitement. The other's words were like a rope flung to a drowning man. Here was the issue he sought out of the black slough of despond in which he floundered. Here was the chance to prove himself a man in Betty's disdainful eyes.
Long afterwards he was wont to think of that scene, the prelude to his great adventure, the little sitting-room dimly lit by the heavy candlestick that stood on the table between them, the flickering light of the tapers falling upon the shrewd and eager face of his visitor, and through the open casement, where the moonbeams fell into the room, the distant voice of the watchman calling the hour.
'Think well on it,' Mr. Gray was saying, 'for once this matter is engaged upon, there can be no drawing back.'
Hector stood up abruptly. From the armchair in the corner he gathered up his hat and cloak.
'Will you take me to your friend, sir?'
For the first time the features of Mr. Gray relaxed. A gentle smile lit his face with warmth. He sighed with the air of a man who has successfully come through an ordeal.
'Mr. Fotheringay,' he remarked, 'I had little doubt, when I met you yesterday at the coffee-house, but that you were my man. I have a coach below!'
But with a dismayed expression Hector smote his brow.
'I protest I had clean forgot it!' he cried. 'Mr. Gray, I am under arrest and may not leave my quarters!'
Another of Mr. Gray's quizzing looks.
'I have that which forces all doors, breaks all consigns,' he declared. 'You shall see! You permit me? Captain Montgomerie,' he called.
Hector's brother officer appeared.
'I desire that Mr. Fotheringay should accompany me. Is that in order?'
The Guardsman bowed.
'The papers you have shown me, sir, entitle you to dispose of my prisoner as you deem fit.'
Profoundly puzzled, Hector Fotheringay followed his companion downstairs and out into Saint James's Street where a hackney coach was waiting. What manner of man was this who had power to override the awe-inspiring authority of the Brigade of Guards? He was obviously not a military man; by his dress he seemed to be rather a lawyer or a doctor. Fotheringay turned the problem over in his mind as, his companion at his side, they bumped and rattled through the dark and narrow back streets of Saint James's. He scarcely noted whither they were proceeding, and it was only when the coach halted and Mr. Gray bade him descend that he found they had stopped on the far side of Saint James's parade ground outside a wooden door in a high brick wall.
Mr. Gray paid off the coach and, producing from his pocket a key, unlocked the door. They traversed a small garden by a path at the end of which a light burned in a fanlight above another door on which Mr. Gray knocked. It was instantly opened by an elderly footman in livery. He seemed to know Hector's companion, for, without a word, he led the way up a few shallow stairs and along a broad passage wainscoted in dark oak. He opened a door and, holding up his hand to enjoin silence, tapped at another door that stood beyond the threshold.
There was a pause. Then a resonant voice said clearly:
'Come in!'
