CHAPTER LII

THE BOWL ON THE BIAS

It was Sir Marmaduke’s maxim, as he boasted it had been his father’s and grandfather’s, to sleep on a resolution before putting it in practice. He secured, therefore, a good night’s rest and a substantial breakfast ere he mounted his best horse to wait upon his neighbour at Hamilton Hill, ordering the grey to be saddled, because Sir George had sometimes expressed his approval of that animal. The lord of Brentwood was sufficiently a Yorkshireman to seize the opportunity of “a deal,” even while more important matters were under consideration.

“He was getting on,” he meant to tell Sir George. “His nerve was beginning to fail. The grey was as good as gold, but _a little too much of a horse_ for him now. He was scarce able to do the animal justice like a younger man.”

And as this suggestion could not but be flattering to the _younger man_, he thought it not improbable his friend might be tempted to purchase on the spot.

So he rode the horse quietly and carefully, avoiding the high road, which would have taken him past the “Hamilton Arms,” and, threading a labyrinth of bridleways through the moor, very easy to find for those who were familiar with them, but exceedingly puzzling to those who were not.

The grey looked fresh and sleek, as if just out of the stable, when Sir Marmaduke rode into the courtyard at Hamilton Hill, whence he was ushered by Slap-Jack, who had a great respect for him as a “True Blue, without any gammon,” to the terrace where Sir George, her ladyship, and Monsieur de St. Croix were engaged in a game of bowls.

Sir Marmaduke followed boldly, although, finding he had to confront Lady Hamilton, he was at some pains to adjust his neckcloth and tie-wig, wishing, at the same time, he had got on his flowing “Steinkirk” cravat and a certain scarlet waistcoat with gold-lace, now under repair.

The game was proceeding with much noise and hilarity, especially from Sir George. Florian, an adept at every pastime demanding bodily skill, had already acquired a proficiency not inferior to his host’s, who was no mean performer. They were a capital match, particularly without lookers-on; but the baronet remarked, with prim inward sarcasm, that he could generally beat his adversary in the presence of Cerise. The very sound of Lady Hamilton’s voice seemed to take Florian’s attention off the game.

She was watching the players now with affected interest—smiling encouragement to her husband with every successful rub—bringing all her artless charms to bear on the man whom she had resolved to win back if she could. She was very humble to-day, but no less determined to make a desperate struggle for her lost dominion, feeling how precious it was now, and that her heart would break if it was really gone for ever.

And Sir George saw everything through the distorted glass of his own misgivings.

“All these caressing ways—all these smiles and glances,” thought he, bitterly, “only prove her the most fickle of women, or the most hypocritical of wives!”

He could not but acknowledge their power, and hated himself for the weakness. He could not prevent their thrilling to his heart, but he steeled it against her all the more. The better he loved her, the deeper was her treachery, the blacker was her crime. There should be no haste, no prejudice, no violence, and—no forgiveness!

All the while he poised his bowl with a frank brow and a loud laugh. He sipped from a tankard on the rustic table with a good-humoured jest. With a success which surprised him, and for which he hated himself while he admired, he acted the part of a confiding, indulgent husband towards Cerise—of a hearty, unsuspicious friend towards St. Croix.

And the latter was miserable, utterly and confessedly miserable! Every caress lavished on her husband by the wife, was a shaft that pierced him to the marrow. Every kind word addressed by the latter to himself, steeped that shaft in venom, and sent the evil curdling through his blood.

“Penance,” he murmured inwardly. “They talk of penance—of punishment for sin—of purgatory—of hell! Why, _this_ is hell! I am in hell already!”

The arrival of Sir Marmaduke, therefore, with his broad brown face, his old-fashioned dress, and his ungainly manners, was felt as a relief to the whole party; and, probably, not one of them separately would have given him half so gratifying a reception as was now accorded him by all three.

Nevertheless, his greeting to Lady Hamilton was so ludicrous in its ceremonious awkwardness, that she could scarcely repress a laugh. Catching Florian’s eye, she did, indeed, indulge in a smile, which she hoped might be unobserved. So it was by Sir Marmaduke, whose faculties were completely absorbed in his bow; but her husband noted the glance of intelligence exchanged, and scored it up as an additional proof against the pair.

“Good-morrow, Sir George,” continued the new arrival, completing his salutations, as he flattered himself, in the newest mode; “and to you sir,” he added, turning rather sternly upon Florian, whom he was even then mentally committing, under a magistrate’s warrant, to take his trial for high treason. “I made shift to ride over thus early in order to be sure of finding my host before he went abroad. Harbouring our stag, as we say, my lady, before he rouses; for if I had come across his blemish in the rack as I rode up the park, it would have been a disappointment to myself, and a disgrace to my reputation as a woodsman.”

Cerise did not in the least understand, but she bowed her pretty head and answered—

“Yes, of course—clearly—so it would.”

“Therefore,” continued Sir Marmaduke, somewhat inconsequently, for the sweet foreign accent rang in his ears and heated his brain, as if he had been a younger man. “Therefore St. George, I thought you might like to have another look at Grey Plover before I send him to Catterick fair. He stands ready saddled at this present speaking in your own stable, and if you would condescend to mount and try his paces in the park, I think you must allow that you have seldom ridden a more gallant goer.”

Sir Marmaduke was pleased with his own diplomacy. Casting his eyes on her ladyship’s pretty feet, he had quite satisfied himself she was too lightly shod to accompany her husband through the most luxuriant herbage of the park. The priest, too, being a Frenchman, would be safe to know little, and care less, about a horse. He could thus secure an uninterrupted interview with his friend, and might, possibly, make an advantageous sale into the bargain.

“Oh, go with him, George!” exclaimed Cerise, thinking to please her husband, who was, as she knew, still boy enough dearly to love a gallop. “Go with him, and ride round by the end of the garden into the park. We can watch you from here. I do so like to see you on horseback!”

He laughed and assented, leaving her again alone with Florian. Always alone with Florian! He ground a curse between his teeth, as he strode off to the stable, and, trying Grey Plover’s speed over the undulating surface of the home-park, took that animal in a grasp of iron that made it exert its utmost powers, in sheer astonishment.

Sir Marmaduke scanning from underneath a clump of trees, thought he had never seen his horse go so fast.

Once round the home-park—once across the lower end at speed—a leap over a ditch and bank—a breather up the hill—and Sir George trotted Grey Plover back to his owner, in an easy, self-satisfied manner that denoted the horse was sold. Never once had he turned his head towards the terrace where Cerise stood watching. She knew it as well as he did, but made excuses for him to herself. He was so fond of horses—he rode so beautifully—nobody could ride so well unless his whole attention was fixed on his employment. But she sighed nevertheless, and Florian, at her side, heard the sigh, and echoed it in his heart.

“Fifty broad pieces,” said Sir George, drawing up to the owner’s side, and sliding lightly to the ground.

“He’s worth more than that,” answered the other, loosening the horse’s girths and turning his distended nostrils to the wind. “But we’ll talk about the price afterwards. We are not likely to differ on that point. You never rode behind such shoulders, Sir George; and did you remark how he breasted the hill? Like a lion, Ah! If I was twenty years younger, or even ten! But it’s no matter for that. I want your advice, Sir George. You carry a grey lining, as we say, to a green doublet. Give me the benefit. There’s something brewing here between your house and mine that will come to hell-broth anon, if we take not some order with it in the meantime!”

The other turned his back resolutely on the terrace where his wife was standing, and shot a penetrating glance at the speaker.

“Let it brew!” said he. “If it’s hot from the devil’s caldron, I think you and I can make shift to drink it out between us.”

Sir Marmaduke laughed.

“I don’t like the smell of it,” he answered, “not to speak of the taste. Seriously, my friend, I’ve lit on a nest of Jacobites, here, on your own property, at the ‘Hamilton Arms’! They’ve got another of their cursed plots hatching in the chimney-corner, about fit to chip the shell by now. There’s a couple of priests in it, of course; a lad, I know well enough, with a good bay mare, that has saved his neck in more ways than one, for a twelvemonth past. He’s only put to the dirty work, you may be sure, and I can guess, though on this point I have no certain information, there are two or three more honest gentlemen, friends of yours and mine, whom I had rather meet at Otterdale Head with the hounds than see badgered by an attorney-general at the Exchequer Bar or the Old Bailey, with as many witnesses arrayed against them, at half a guinea an oath, as would swear away the nine lives of a cat! A murrain of their plots! say I; there’s neither pleasure nor profit in ’em, try ’em which side you will, and I’ve had _my_ experience o’ both!”

Sir George’s brow went down, and his lips closed. In his frank, manly face came the pitiless expression of a duellist who spies the weakness of his adversary’s sword, and braces his muscles to dash in. He had got the Jesuit, he told himself, “on the hip”!

It was all over with the scheme, he felt. Ere such intelligence could have reached his thick-witted neighbour, he argued, it must be known in other, and more dangerous quarters. If he had ever suffered the promised earldom to dazzle him for an instant, his eyes were opened now; that bit of parchment was but a patent for the gallows. He could hang the tempter who had offered it him, within a week! At this reflection the whole current of his passions turned—the man’s nature was of the true conquering type—stern, fierce, almost savage, while confronted with his adversary; generous, forbearing, even tender, when the foe was at his feet.

The noblest instincts of chivalry were at work within his bosom; they found expression in the simple energy with which he inwardly ejaculated, “No! D―n it! I’ll fight fair!”

“My advice,” said he, quietly, “is easily followed. Do nothing in a hurry—this country is not like France; these cancers often die out of themselves, because the whole body is healthy and full of life, but, for that very reason, if you eradicate them with the knife, your loss of blood, is more injurious than the sore itself. Get all the information you can, Sir Marmaduke, and when the time arrives, act with your usual vigour and good sense. Come! Fifty pieces for the grey horse? my man shall fetch him from Brentwood to-morrow.”

Sir Marmaduke was well pleased. He flattered himself that he had fulfilled his delicate mission with extraordinary dexterity, and sold Grey Plover very fairly, besides. His friends were warned now, and if they chose to persist in thrusting their heads through a halter, why he could do no more. He was satisfied Sir George had taken the hint he meant to offer. Very likely the conspiracy would come to nothing after all, but, at any rate, it was time to hang Captain Bold. He must see about it that afternoon, so he would take his leave at once, and return to Brentwood by the way he came.

Conscious of the disadvantage under which he laboured for want of the red waistcoat, Sir Marmaduke sturdily refused his host’s hospitable offer of refreshment, and was steering Grey Plover through the oaks at the end of the avenue by the time George had rejoined his wife and Florian on the terrace. Walking back, the latter smiled and shook his head. He was thinking, perhaps, how his neighbour’s loyalty was leavened with a strong disinclination to exertion, and no little indulgence for those whose political opinions differed from his own.

But the smile clouded over as he approached the terrace. Together again—always together! and in such earnest conversation. He could see his wife’s white hands waving with the pretty trick of gesticulation he loved so dearly. What could they have to say? what could _she_ have to say that demanded so much energy? If he might only have heard. She was talking about himself; praising his horsemanship, his strength, his courage, his manly character, in the fond, deprecatory way that a woman affects when speaking of the man she loves. Every word the sweet lips uttered made Florian wince and quiver, yet her husband, striding heavily up the terrace-steps, almost wished that he could change places with the Jesuit priest.

The latter left her side when Sir George approached; and Cerise, who was conscious of something in her husband’s manner that wounded her feelings and jarred upon her pride, assumed a colder air and a reserved bearing, not the least natural to her character, but of late becoming habitual. Everything conspired to increase the distance between two hearts that ought to have been knit together by bonds no misunderstanding nor want of confidence should ever have been able to divide.

Sir George, watching his wife closely, addressed himself to Florian—

“Bad news!” said he, whereat she started and changed colour. “But not so bad as it might have been. The hounds are on the scent, my friend. I told you I expected it long ago, and if the fox breaks cover now, as Sir Marmaduke would say, they will run into him as sure as fate. Halloa, man! what ails you? You never used to hoist the white ensign thus, when we cleared for action!”

The Jesuit’s discomposure was so obvious as to justify his host’s astonishment. Florian felt, indeed, like a man who, having known an earthquake was coming, and wilfully kept it out of his mind, sees the earth at last sliding from beneath his feet. His face grew livid, and the drops stood on his brow. In proportion to his paleness, Lady Hamilton’s colour rose. Sir George looked from one to the other with a curling lip.

“There is no occasion for all this alarm,” he observed, rather contemptuously. “The fox can lie at earth till the worst danger of the chase is over. Perhaps his safest refuge is the very hen-roost he has skulked in to rob! Cheer up, Florian,” he added, in a kinder tone. “You don’t suppose I would give up a comrade so long as the old house can cover him! I must only make you a prisoner, that is all, with my lady, here, for your gaoler. Keep close for a week or two, and the fiercest of the storm will have blown over. It will be time enough then to smuggle you back to St. Omer, or wherever you have to furnish your report. Don’t be afraid, man. Why, you used to be made of sterner stuff than this!”

Florian could not answer. A host of conflicting feelings filled his breast to suffocation, but at that moment how cheerfully, how gladly, would he have laid down his life for the husband of the woman he so madly loved! Covering his face in his hands he sobbed aloud.

Cerise raised her eyes with a look of enthusiastic approval; but they sank terrified and disheartened by the hard, inscrutable expression of Sir George’s countenance. Her gratitude, he thought, was only for the preservation of Florian. They might congratulate each other, when his back was turned, on the strange infatuation that befriended them, and perhaps laugh at his blind stupidity; but he would fight fair. Yes, however hard it seemed, he was a gentleman, and he would fight fair!