Part 19

He jammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a sudden halt. To go and tell her must be the first step in his redemption. Till that was done the curse of the dead man would follow him. It seemed to him now, as he looked back, that through all the spring and summer the shadow of Lord Dawn had crept behind him. He would go at once. He would go that night. He knew where he could find her. He would set out like a pilgrim of long ago through the moon-drenched, hay-scented sweetness of the country.

His vision turned outwards. He realized for the first time where he had halted. He was within sight of Richmond Park, outside _The Star and Garter Hotel_, the old haunt of merry-makers, which had now become a permanent hospital for the mutilated. There were lights to mark the windows of men who suffered. As he watched, some leaped up; others were snapped out. He could hear in memory the starchy rustling of nurses and the creaking of springs as the patients turned. There were men in there without arms and legs and faces; he had shared their danger and he had been spared. Surely the God who had covered him with His mantle, had had some plan--some design of goodness for him!

Far below in a curving streak of blessedness the Thames ran silvered by the moonlight. He could see the clumped shadows of woods and the flicker of ripples striking fire against the banks. More distantly London glowed--a golden flower cupped in the hollowed hand of night. Holding his breath he listened to the loudness of the quiet. Subtle ecstasies drifted to him, fluttering like moths against the windows of his mind--"lilies like thoughts, roses like words, in the sweet brain of June." _There was a design._ Maisie had found her kingdom. Was it too much to expect that round some future turning God had another kingdom waiting?

III

He drove back to London by the directest route. He would have to get supper before he made a start. By the time he had done that, packed his bag, and refilled his tank it would be close on midnight. Dawn Castle lay somewhere down in Gloucestershire. He knew the road as far as Oxford; after that his ideas were vague.

He was a little daunted by the thought of Lady Dawn. Everything that he had heard about her, including his first meeting with her, had served to daunt him. He pictured her as a woman with a conscience clear-cut as a cameo--a woman, infallible and unsubdued, impatient of foolishness and gentle in her spirit with the cold tranquillity of a landscape under ice. How would she receive him, coming out of nowhere, unheralded and unexplained? And how could he explain the urgency that had compelled him to come to her? It was a delicate task that he had set himself, this seeking out a woman with whom he was unacquainted, that he might tell her that her husband had not hated her when he died. What concern was it of his, she might well ask. If she chose to be hostile, there were no arguments by which he could defend his interference. His sole justification was his deep-rooted conviction that he was doing right.

She never cried. How often Maisie had insisted on her sister's abstinence from tears, as though it was something monstrous that summed up all her character! He would have felt far more comfortable in visiting her if he had been assured that she sometimes cried.

As he turned into Brompton Square, he thought he caught the door of his house in the act of closing. He might have been mistaken. It was dark under the shadow of the trees. Quite possibly it had been the door of a neighbor's house. Nevertheless, he hugged the curb as he drove so that he might scan the face of any one on the pavement. Forty yards from his doorstep, at a point where things were darkest, a man passed him. He was a tall man and walked with the erectness of one who had been a soldier. The way in which he carried himself and strode was extraordinarily reminiscent. Tabs slowed down and looked back; the man moved straight ahead, without hesitancy or sign of recognition. It couldn't be Braithwaite; Ann's vicinity was the least likely place in which to find him.

As Tabs let himself into his house, he found Ann in the hall. "Was there some one here to see me?" he asked.

"There's been no one to see your Lordship," Ann replied respectfully.

He scarcely knew what prompted him to say it. Perhaps it was the healthy neatness of her appearance--the extreme orderliness of her quiet. "Ann, you're the sanest creature I meet anywhere. You've the pluck of one in a million."

She turned to him a face that was flushing and eyes that were unusually bright. "It's good of your Lordship. Your Lordship is always kind."

"No, Ann, only human. I know what you've been through and I'm glad you're getting over it---- I have to be away to-night. I shall need some supper. While you're preparing it, I'll pack."

On the way upstairs he telephoned the garage to send for his car and to return it within the hour. Then he climbed the last flight to his bedroom.

While he packed, he kept pausing and knitting his brows. A ridiculous conviction was forming in his mind. "It couldn't have been," he assured himself. Yet the more he recalled the man on the pavement the more certain he was that he had been Steely Jack. But what motive could Braithwaite have had for calling and why should Ann try to hide the fact that he had called? He had lost trace of him utterly since that day when he had handed him Terry's ultimatum at the Savoy. Since then Terry and he had had many meetings, he did not doubt. Braithwaite's influence clung to her like her shadow. But if he was so in love with Terry, the more reason why he should steer clear of Ann. To have called at Brompton Square would have been asking for a cloudburst. It couldn't have been Braithwaite. And yet----

And then there was Ann. Since that day when the General's portrait had appeared in the papers, she had given up watching for letters marked, "On His Majesty's Service." She had made no further enquiries as to how his Lordship's friend at the War Office was progressing. Her silence told its story; she had learned the truth. In what spirit she had accepted the truth Tabs had no means of guessing. Lady Hamilton, the little maid-of-all-work, had been the beloved of Nelson. Ann was not without her precedent. But the maid-of-all-work had become Lady Hamilton before the Admiral had set eyes on her. Steely Jack was a General, while Ann was still a servant. Her claims would not meet with much applause if they were brought before a jury.

To all appearance she had resigned herself to the inevitable. Tabs was frankly surprised at her magnanimity and fortitude. About her fortitude there could be no question, but concerning her magnanimity he was not a little skeptical. More than once he had caught her singing as she went about her work. She didn't get all the words correctly; she sang them with improvisions, filling in the gaps where her memory failed. Throughout the war the song had been sung to men on leave at the Alhambra by the heroine who acted the revengeful part of _Tootsie_:

"Some day I'll make you love me. Some day you'll call me 'Dear'. You'll feel so lonely And want me only; I'm sure you'll want me near. I know you can't forget me, Though, dear, for years you'll try. I'll make you miss me And want to kiss me, Bye and bye."

She was a mystery. If she were playing a game, it was a game the intentions of which he could not fathom. The man whom he had passed on the pavement could not have been Braithwaite. Common-sense insisted on that.

IV

While he was at supper she gave him no chance to question her. "I'm motoring down to Dawn Castle," he told her. "I've left the address on my desk. Don't forward any letters till you hear from me. I don't suppose that I shall be there for more than a day. To tell the truth," he glanced up smiling at her seriousness, "I haven't been invited."

Ann refused to be lured off her perch of reticence. She set before him the dish she was carrying. "I'm sure wherever your Lordship goes there's a welcome."

He felt that he was being reproved. He had been conscious of her silent criticism from the moment he had announced that he would be away for the night. He respected Ann and was anxious for her good opinion. She was by long odds the most honorable woman of his acquaintance and the best, because she was the kindest. He had had the feeling throughout the past two months that there was very little that had happened inside his brain that had escaped her. She had disapproved of Maisie. She had shown no enthusiasm for Terry. She had been aware of his dangers when he himself was disguising them with excuses. All this he knew though no word had been exchanged. She had observed in all her dealings with him the decorum to be expected from a high-class servant. And yet she was his trusted friend, whose virtues compelled his admiration and whose loyalty commanded his affection. She thought ahead for him and smoothed his path. Her sense of responsibility was as tender as a sister's. Her humility lent it a touch of pathos. He looked up to her as men instinctively look up to good women in whatever grade of society they find them. The silent knowledge which each had of the other formed a bond of sympathy, the more delicate because it was unuttered.

He said, "Long ago--it must have been before the war--I gave you tickets to see Peter Pan."

"It wasn't to me your Lordship gave them. It was to Braithwaite."

"Was it?" He held her eyes, striving to peer behind their curtained windows. It was the first time that that name had been mentioned between them in casual conversation. "You're right. It comes back to me now. It was the Christmas of 1913 that he took you. Do you remember the fairy who was dying? There was only one way of keeping her alive. Peter Pan had to make the children in the audience promise that they believed in fairies. When they did that, she got well. That's why I'm going to Dawn Castle to-night."

Ann ceased abruptly from what she was doing and stared at her master in concern. He laughed mischievously. "Wrong again, Ann; I've not taken leave of my senses. Two hours ago I made the same mistake. There was a man who asked me whether I believed that Mrs. Lockwood's first husband, who was killed at the Front, would return. While I was wondering how long it would be before he'd grow violent, he proved to me that he was her first husband. So I'm believing in fairies."

A secret happiness lit up her face. "Deep down beneath our doubts, most of us believe in fairies, I think, your Lordship." With a shy smile she left him.

The purring of an engine warned him that the car had returned and was waiting. He could hear Ann in the hall, handing out his bags. He had finished his supper; he might as well be off. As he drove out of the Square, he looked back; she was standing on the steps, gazing after him. He had the restless certainty, now that it was too late, that she had had a secret which, at the last moment, she would have given the world to have shared with him.

V

Of that night journey in after years he remembered only the deep peace and the ecstasy. He was doing something at last that was right; though why it was right, he would have found it hard to explain. He encountered none of the difficulties he had anticipated in picking up his direction. He flew unswervingly to the mark like a bullet traveling a predestined path. The first sixty miles were familiar; Maisie had covered them with him on many occasions. By every law of emotion each landmark should have stirred some poignant memory, some fresh wistfulness of regret. The fact was that he hardly gave her a thought. When he did, it was only to wish her luck and to congratulate himself on his escape.

Having passed through Oxford lying blanched in moonlight, he climbed out of the Thames valley, striking through uplands across the wold to Burford. From then on all memories were left behind; he had become an explorer in an unknown country.

Everything was sleeping. How trustfully it slept! Trees were hooded like extinguished candles. Flowers throughout the fields clasped their faces in their hands. Birds, like fluffy balls, drowsed on branches. Stars alone were wakeful. They stooped to watch him with intent, companionable glances. Now and then he had to halt to flash his torch on a sign-post or to consult his map. For the most part he took chances and guessed.

Night engulfed him, rushed past him, broke over him. He was like a ship thrusting forward into a trackless ocean.

The paleness of dawn was in the sky as he neared Gloucester. When he entered, its roofs and towers were precipices of gold and fire, straining up to the New Jerusalem which floated in the clouds. The streets of the ancient city had a mystic look, white and hushed and tenantless. But already the cheeky sparrows were about, scandal-mongering beneath the eaves with an unholy disregard for the awe by which they were surrounded.

He left Gloucester in a southwesterly direction. In fields the hay was lying cut. A largesse of dew had been scattered through the hedgerows like loot from the treasure-chests of emperors. Larks were battling up, striving to sing against the very bars of heaven. Every fragrance and sound was a messenger, guaranteeing happiness.

Round a bend in the road he came across a cluster of thatched cottages, their white walls gleaming incandescent in the morning sunshine. Beyond them lay a parkland, from the edge of which rose a wooded knoll, crowned by a moated castle. The next mile-stone warned him that it was the village of Dawn he was approaching.

VI

All day he had waited--a lazy summer day, drowsy with the hum of bees and heavy with the perfume of cottage flowers. On entering the village he had put up at _The Dawn Arms_, an old-fashioned hunting hostel which owed its prosperity to the fame of the Dawn foxhounds. Having bathed and breakfasted, he had started off to leave his card on Lady Dawn. Arriving at the Castle, he had been informed that her Ladyship had left early that morning and was not expected back till early evening. He had filled in the morning by sleeping and the afternoon by joining a band of sight-seeing trippers who had driven over from Gloucester in gayly-painted chars-a-bancs.

With a spice of amusement, he had paid his shilling for admission at the wooden booth outside the Castle gate and had found himself herded with a crowd of affectionately inclined young women and young men who perspired freely--the latter for the sake of greater comfort had removed their coats and knotted handkerchiefs about their throats. In good time a decrepit ex-butler had appeared to act as guide and had led the excursionists over the Norman part of the ruins. He had shown them the dungeons, the room in which a prince had been murdered and the havoc wrought upon the walls by Cromwellian cannon. The ever recurring theme of his trembling narrative was the prowess and the splendor of the Dawns. He was like a weak-voiced cricket chirping in the sunshine. His stories of bygone lords, who had died in rebellions and crusades, were too ancient to grip the imagination. At first his veneration for the race which he served inspired an outward show of respect on the part of his hearers. But soon, in straggling twos and threes, they lagged behind to explore and pluck wall-flowers from the crannies. Girls, feeling the pressure of lovers' arms about their waists, giggled shrilly. They wandered off to shady nooks in the grass-grown ramparts where woolly sheep looked up somnolently to watch them.

To the few who remained the old man mumbled on. It was the nobility of the late Lord Dawn that he was now recounting--the daring horseman he had been, the deviltry of him, the lust of life he had had, the greatness of his possessions and how he had foregone all this beauty to be hammered into the defilement of the trenches like a rat, cornered in a sewer.

"Visitors are not allowed in the part of the Castle that is inhabited. But, since her Ladyship's away----"

Unlocking a door, he led them through a tunnel to a grilled gate, through the bars of which they saw the Castle's terraced rose-gardens, falling away steeply in a cascade of petals to a water-lilied, green-scummed moat which encircled the stronghold like a necklace of jade. Beside the water's edge a fair-haired boy in a white sailor suit was deeply absorbed in sailing a boat.

"His little Lordship," the old man whispered.

"But I didn't know---- How old?" Tabs questioned.

"Eight years, sir, come December."

Long after he had returned to the inn, the picture of the little boy remained with him. This discovery that Lord Dawn had left a son made him the more certain of the justice of his errand.

The azure and emerald of late afternoon drifted into the ensanguined gold of sunset. The long-tarrying twilight had already settled when a messenger arrived, bearing a note. It was from her Ladyship, regretting her absence and saying that she would be happy to receive a visit from Lord Taborley that evening or at any time that was convenient.

VII

He set out at once. Heretofore, with the exception of Terry, women had meant little to him. But he was curious to meet this woman--curious and eager in a strangely boyish fashion. Every one who had mentioned her had spoken of her with a certain hint of fear, not untinged with adoration. He hadn't been aware how anxious he had been to meet her until her note had summoned him. He wondered whether she had any of the endearing humanity of her sister. He wondered whether what Pollock had said was true, that she looked much older than her portrait. He didn't want her to look older----

He came to the bridge across the moat and the gateway which bore the grooves in which the old portcullis used to slide. He passed through the gateway, under the tower, into the graveled courtyard of the Castle. On three sides the courtyard was loop-holed and sullen, but on the fourth modern windows and a brass-knobbed door had been let into the solid masonry. Above the door, shining down on the whitened steps, a lamp burnt in a wrought-iron socket. Several of the windows were also lighted.

His knock was answered by a gray-haired man, with the gravity of deportment which is peculiar to lawyers, undertakers and footmen. While the man went to inform his mistress, Tabs was left to note how the hall was hung with hunting trophies. Then he heard himself being requested to follow.

Having climbed a winding stair, he was shown into a room in the turret, one side of which was filled by a tall leaded window gazing westward. The landscape which it framed, hung against the darkness like a painted canvas--a far-reaching expanse of tree-dotted pasture, vague with islands of mist and rimmed by the last faint sparks of the sunset. The ceiling was heavily beamed, the furniture Jacobean, the walls paneled and hung with many generations of family portraits. In a wide hearth a fire of coals and logs was burning. In the room's center stood a carved table on which was set a massive silver lamp, casting a solitary illumination.

"Lord Taborley, my Lady."

As his name was announced, he heard the rustle of her dress, and discovered that she had been seated in a low chair by the window. She rose with a slow grace. There was something indefinably tragic and foreordained about her every movement. Maisie's name for her flashed into his mind, "The Princess Czarina Bolsheviki." It suited her exactly. In those surroundings she might have posed as Mary Queen of Scots in prison--a queen without a kingdom whose pride was unbroken. In the dimness his first impression was of her queenly gentleness.

"I can guess why you've come."

The same deep voice that had taunted him at Maisie's, only now it was no longer taunting! He noticed the way she offered him her hand, with the arm fully extended as if to hold him away from her. She was a smaller woman than he had remembered; it was the courage of her bearing that had made her seem taller. He could not see her face distinctly; it was in shadow. But, when she turned, he caught the whiteness of her profile on the dusk, clear-cut and tranquil as a cameo. After having gazed so long at Sargent's painting, he would have recognized anywhere the rounded shapeliness of her head, the hair swept smoothly back from the calm forehead, the splendid strength of her throat and the delicate, wholly feminine half-moon of her shoulders.

"Won't you sit over here? If you would prefer it, we can have more lamps. But they would spoil----" She indicated the vague stretch of country, across which mists were drifting like gray ghosts.

He drew up a chair at an angle to her own, so that he could study her. "You say you think you know why I've come?"

"I was expecting you," she said quietly. He could feel rather than see the steady kindness that was in her stone-gray eyes.

"If you were expecting me, then your sister must have----"

"My sister had nothing to do with my expecting. Can't you think of any one closer?"

He shook his head. At first he had hoped that Maisie had told her and done his work for him. Evidently it wasn't that. She was attributing some other motive to his visit. It was a motive the disclosure of which called for delicacy. She had prearranged his reception. It was no accident that had caused him to find her alone in the dimness of the gathering evening. The scanty lighting of the shadowy room had been stage-set to spare them both embarrassment. "If it wasn't your sister----" He paused at a loss to know how to proceed further.