CHAPTER XIV
THE LAST CARD
Saltash dined alone that night. He was in a restless mood andpreoccupied, scarcely noticing what was put before him, pushing away thewine untasted. In the end he rose from the table almost with a gesture ofdisgust.
"I'm going to smoke on the ramparts," he said to the decorous butler whowaited upon him. "If anyone should call to see me, let them wait in themusic-room!"
"Very good, my lord! And where would you like to take coffee?" enquiredthe man sedately.
Saltash laughed. "Not on the ramparts--emphatically. I'll have mercy onyou to that extent. Put it on the spirit-lamp in the music-room, andleave it! You needn't sit up, any of you. I'll put out the lights."
"Very good, my lord."
The man withdrew, and Saltash chose a cigar. An odd grimace drew hisfeatures as he lighted it. He had the look of a man who surveys his lastcard and knows himself a loser. Though he went out of the room and upthe great staircase to the music-room with his head up and completeindifference in his carriage, his eyelids were slightly drawn. He did notlook as if he had enjoyed the game.
A single red lamp lighted the music-room, and the long apartment lookeddim and ghostly. He stood for a moment as he entered it and looked round,then with a scarcely perceptible lift of the shoulders he passed straightthrough to the curtain that hung before the door leading to the turret.The darkness of the place gaped before him, and he turned back with amuttered word and recrossed the room. There were Persian rugs upon thefloor, and his feet made no sound. He went to the mantel-piece and,feeling along it, found a small electric torch. The light of it flaredbefore him as he returned. The door yielded to his touch and swung shutbehind him. He passed into vault-like silence.
The stone steps gave back the sound of his tread as he mounted, witheerie, wandering echoes. The grey walls glimmered with a ghostlydesolation around him. Halfway up, he stopped to flick the ash from hiscigar, and laughed aloud. But the echoes of his laughter sounded likevoices crying in the darkness. He went on more swiftly, like a phantomimprisoned and seeking escape. The echoes met him and fell away behindhim. The loneliness was like a curse. The very air felt dead.
He reached the top of the turret at last, and the heavy door that gaveupon the ramparts. With a sound that was almost a gasp, he pushed itopen, and passed out into the open air.
A full moon was shining, and his acres lay below him--a wonderful picturein black and silver. He came to the first gap in the battlements, mountedthe parapet, and stood there with a hand resting on each side.
The wash of the sea came murmurously through the September silence.His restless eyes flashed hither and thither over the quiet scene, takingin every detail, lingering nowhere. The pine trees stirred in thedistance below him, seeming to whisper together, and an owl hooted with aweird persistence down by the lake. It was like the calling of a humanvoice--almost like a cry of distress. Then it ceased, and the trees werestill again.
The spell of the silence fell like the falling of a curtain. Theloneliness crept about his heart.
He took the cigar from his mouth and spoke, ironically, grimly.
"There is your kingdom, Charles Rex!" he said.
He turned with the words and leaped down upon the narrow walk between thebattlements. The owl began to call again, but the desolation remained. Hepaced forward with his hands behind him, his head bent. No one could seehim here. The garment of mockery could be flung aside. He was like aprisoner tramping the stone walls from which he could never escape.
He paused once to toss away his cigar, but he did not look out again overthe fair prospect of his lands. He was looking at other things, seeingthe vast emptiness of a life that had never been worth while stretchingbehind and before him. Like a solitary traveller pausing in the heart ofthe desert, he stood to view the barrenness around him.
He had travelled far, had pursued many a quest with ardour; but theardour had all gone out of him now. Only the empty solitude remained. Hehad lived a life of fevered variety, he had drunk deep of many waters;but he had never been satisfied. And now it seemed to him that all he hadever looked upon, all he had ever achieved, was mirage. Nothing of allthat he had ever striven for was left. The fruit had turned to ashes inhis mouth, and no spring remained whereat to quench his thirst.
Perhaps few men have ever realized the utter waste of wickedness asCharles Rex realized it that night. He met it whichever way he turned. Togratify the moment's whim had ever been his easy habit. If a generousimpulse had moved him, he had gratified that also. But it had never beenhis way to sacrifice himself--until a certain night when a child had cometo him, wide-eyed and palpitating like a driven bird, and had soughtshelter and protection at his hands.
That, very curiously, had been the beginning of a new era in his life. Ithad appealed to him as nothing had ever appealed before. He had nevertasted--or even desired--the Dead Sea fruit again. Something had enteredhis being on that night which he had never been able to cast out, and allother things had been dwarfed to insignificance.
He faced the fact as he paced his castle walls. The relish had gone outof his life. He was gathering what he had sown, and the harvest wasbarren indeed.
Time passed; he walked unheeding. If he spent the whole night on theramparts, there was no one to know or care. It was better than tossingsleepless under a roof. He felt as if a roof would suffocate him. Butsheer physical weariness began to oppress even his elastic frame at last.He awoke to the fact that he was dead tired.
He sat down in an embrasure between the battlements, and drifted into thenumb state between waking and sleeping in which visions are born. For aspace nothing happened, then quite suddenly, rising as it were out ofa void, a presence entered his consciousness, reached and touched hisspirit. Intangibly, but quite unmistakably, he was aware of the summons,of a voice that spoke within his soul.
He lifted his head and looked about him. Emptiness, stark emptiness, wasall he saw. Yet, in a moment, as though a hand had beckoned, he arose.Without a backward glance he traversed the distance that lay betweenhim and the turret-door. He went through it into utter darkness, and inutter darkness began the descent.
A shaft of moonlight smote through a slit in the stone wall as he roundedthe corner of the stair. It lay like a shining sword across his path, andfor a second he paused. Then he passed over it, sure-footed andconfident, and plunged again into darkness. When he reached the end ofthe descent, he was breathing heavily, and his eyes were alight with astrange fire. He pulled upon the door and put aside the thick curtainwith the swift movements of a man who can brook no delay. He passed intothe long, dim room beyond with its single red lamp burning at the farend. He prepared to pass on to the door that led out upon the gallery andso to the grand staircase. But before he had gone half-a-dozen paces hestopped. It was no sound that arrested, no visible circumstance of anysort. Yet, as if at a word of command, he halted. His quick look sweptaround the room like the gleam of a rapier, and suddenly he swung uponhis heel, facing that still, red light.
Seconds passed before he moved again. Then swiftly and silently he walkedup the room. Close to the lamp was a deep settee on which the spots of aleopard skin showed in weird relief. At one end of the settee, againstthe leopard skin, something gold was shining. Saltash's look was fixedupon it as he drew near.
He reached the settee treading noiselessly. He stood beside it, lookingdown. And over his dark face with its weary lines and cynical mouth, itsmelancholy and its bitterness, there came a light such as neither man norwoman had ever seen upon it before. For there before him, curled up likea tired puppy, her tumbled, golden hair lying in ringlets over theleopard skin, was Toby, asleep in the dim, red lamplight.
For minutes he stood and gazed upon her before she awoke. For minutesthat strange glory came and went over his watching face. He did not stir,did not seem even to breathe. But the fact of his presence must havepierced her consciousness at last, for in the end quite quietly,supremely naturally, the blue eyes opened and fixe
d upon him.
"Hullo!" said Toby sleepily. "Time to get up?"
And then, in a moment, she had sprung upright on the couch, swift dismayon her face.
"I--I thought we were on the yacht! I--I--I never meant to go to sleephere! I came to speak to you, sir. I wanted to see you."
He put a restraining hand upon her thin young shoulder, and his touchvibrated as with some unknown force controlled.
"All right, Nonette!" he said, and his voice had the same quality; it wasreassuring but oddly unsteady. "Sorry I kept you waiting."
She looked at him. Her face was quivering. "I've had--a hell of a time,"she said pathetically. "Been here hours--thought you'd never come. Yourman--your man said I wasn't to disturb you."
"Damn the fool!" said Saltash.
She broke into a breathless laugh. "That's--that's just what I said. ButI thought--I thought perhaps--you'd rather--rather I waited." Sheshivered suddenly. "I don't like this place. Can you take me somewhereelse?"
He bent lower, put his hand under her elbow and helped her to herfeet. She came up from the couch with a spring, and stood before him,half-daring and half-shy.
Saltash kept his hold upon her arm, and turned her towards the wallbeside the tall mantel-piece. She went with him readily enough, watching,eager-eyed, as he stretched his free hand up to the oak panelling.
"Now I'm going to find out all your secrets!" she said boyishly.
"Not quite all," said Saltash.
There came the click of a spring and the panel slid to one side, leavinga long, narrow opening before them. Toby glanced up at him and, with asmall, nestling movement, slipped within the circle of his arm. Ittightened upon her in an instant, and she laughed again, a quivering,exultant laugh.
"I'm glad you've come," she said.
They paused on the edge of darkness, but there was no hesitation aboutToby. She was all athrill with expectancy. Then in a flash the roombefore them was illuminated, and they entered.
It was a strange chamber, panelled, built in the shape of a cone. A glassdome formed its roof, and there was no window besides. The lights werecunningly concealed behind a weirdly coloured fresco of Oriental figures.But one lamp alone on a small table burned with a still red glow. Thislamp was supported on the stuffed skin of a hooded cobra.
Toby's eyes were instantly drawn towards it. They shone with excitement.Again she glanced up at the man beside her.
"What a wonderful place!"
"Better than the music-room?" suggested Saltash.
"Oh, yes, far better." Her shining eyes sought his. "It might be yourcabin on the yacht."
He stretched a hand behind him and again the spring clicked. Then he drewher forward. They trod on tiger skins. Everywhere were tiger skins, onthe floor and on a deep low settee by the table which was the only otherfurniture the room possessed. Toby was clinging to the arm that held her,clinging very closely. There was unspoken entreaty in her hold. For therewas something about Saltash at the moment, something unfamiliar andunfathomable that frightened her. His careless drollery, his two-edgedironies, were nought to her; but his silence was a barrier unknown thatshe could not pass. She could only cling voicelessly to the support hehad not denied her.
He brought her to the settee and stood still. His face was strangelygrim.
"Well--Toby?" he said.
She twisted in his hold and faced him, but she kept his arm wound closeabout her, her hand tight gripped on his. "Are you--angry with me forcoming?" she asked him quiveringly. "I--had to come."
He looked down into her eyes. "_Bien, petite!_ Then you need--a friend,"he said.
Her answering look was piteous. "I need--you," she said.
One of the old gay smiles flashed across his face. He seemed to challengeher to lightness. The grimness went out of his eyes like a shadow.
"And so you have come, _ma mignonette_, at the dead of night--at the riskof your reputation--and mine--"
Toby made an excruciating grimace, and broke impulsively in upon him. "Itwasn't the dead of night when I started. I've been waiting hours--hours.But it doesn't matter. I've found you--at last. And you can't send meaway now--like you did before--because--because--well, I've no one to goto. You might have done it if you'd come down earlier. But you can't doit--now." Her voice thrilled on a high note of triumph. "You've got tokeep me--now. I've come--to stay."
"What?" said Saltash. He bent towards her, looking closely into her face."Got to keep you, have I? What's that mean? Has Bunny been a brute toyou? I could have sworn I'd made him understand."
She laughed in answer. "Bunny! I didn't wait to see him!"
"What?" Saltash said again.
She reached up a quick, nervous hand and laid it against his breast. Hereyes, wide and steadfast, never flinched from his. "I've come--to stay,"she repeated. And then, after a moment, "It's all right. I left a notebehind for Bunny. I told him I wasn't going back."
He caught her hand tightly into his. His hold was drawing her, and sheyielded herself to it still with that quivering laughter that was somehowmore eloquent than words, more piteous than tears.
Saltash spoke, below his breath. "What am I going to do with you?" hesaid.
Her arms reached up to him suddenly. Perhaps it was that for which shehad waited. "You're going--to keep me--this time," she told himtremulously. "Oh, why did you ever send me away--when I belonged toyou--and to no one else? You meant to give me my chance? What chance haveI of anything but hell and damnation away from you? No, listen! Let mespeak! Hear me first!" She uttered the words with passionate insistence."I'm not asking anything of you--only to be with you. I'll be to youwhatever you choose me to be--always--always. I will be your valet, yourslave, your--plaything. I will be--the dust under your feet. But I mustbe with you. You understand me. No one else does. No one else ever can."
"Are you sure you understand yourself?" Saltash said.
His arms had closed about her. He was holding her in a vital clasp. Buthis restless look did not dwell upon her. It seemed rather to be seekingsomething beyond.
Toby's hands met and gripped each other behind his neck. She clung to himwith an almost frenzied closeness.
"You can't send me away!" she told him brokenly. "If you do, I shall die.And I'm asking such a little--such a very little."
"You don't know what you're asking, child," he said, and though he heldher fast pressed to him his voice had the sombre ring of a man whobattles with misgiving. "You have never known. That's the hell of it."
"I do know!" she flung back almost fiercely. "I know--all I need toknow--of most things. I know--very well--" her breath came quickly, butstill her eyes remained upraised--"what would have happened--what wasbound to happen--if the yacht had never gone down. I wasn't afraid then.I'm not now. You're the only man on this earth that I'd say it to. I hatemen--most men! But to you--to you--" a sudden sob caught her voice, shepaused to steady it--"to you I just want to be whatever you're needingmost in life. And when I can't be that to you any longer--I'll just dropout--as I promised--and you--you shall never know a thing about it.That I swear."
His look came swiftly to her. The blue eyes were swimming in tears. Hemade a sudden gesture as of capitulation, and the strain went out of hislook. His arms tightened like springs about her. He spoke lightly,jestingly.
"_Bien!_ Shall I tell what you shall be to me, _mignonne_?" he said, andsmiled down at her with his royal air of confidence.
She trembled a little and was silent, realizing that he had suddenlyleapt to a decision, fearing desperately what that decision might be. Hisold baffling mask of banter had wholly replaced the sombreness, but shewas aware of a force behind it that gripped her irresistibly. She couldnot speak in answer.
"I will tell you," he said, and his dark, face laughed into hers with amerriment half-mischievous, half-kindly. "I am treading the path ofvirtue, _mignonne_, and uncommon lonely I'm finding it. You shall relievethe monotony. We will be virtuous together--for a while. You shall be--mywife!"
He stoop
ed with the words and ere she knew it his lips were on her own.But his kiss, though tender, was as baffling as his smile. It was not thekiss of a lover.
She gasped and shrank away. "Your--wife! You--you--you're joking! Howcould I--I--be your wife?"
"You and none other!" he declared gaily. "Egad, it's the very thing forus! Why did I never think of it before? I will order the state-coach atonce. We will go to town--elope and be married before the world beginsto buzz. What are you frightened at, sweetheart? Why this alarm? Wouldn'tyou rather be my wife than--the dust beneath my feet?"
"I--I don't know," faltered Toby, and hid her face from the dancingraillery in his eyes.
His hold was close and sheltering, but he laughed at her without mercy."Does the prospect make you giddy? You will soon get over that. You willtake the world by storm, _mignonne_. You will be the talk of the town."
"Oh, no!" breathed Toby. "No, I couldn't!"
"What?" he jested. "You are going to refuse my suit?"
She turned and clung to him with a passionate, even fierce intensity, butshe did not lift her face again to his. Her voice came muffled againsthis breast. "I could never refuse you--anything."
"_Eh, bien!_ Then all is well!" he declared. "My bride will hold her ownwherever she goes, save with her husband. And to him she will yield herwifely submission at all times. Do you know what they will say--all ofthem--when they hear that Charles Rex is married at last?"
"What?" whispered Toby apprehensively.
He bent his head, still laughing. "Shall I tell you? Can't you guess?"
"No. Tell me!" she said.
He touched the soft ringlets of her hair with his lips. "They will say,'God help his wife!' _mignonne_. And I--I shall answer 'Amen'."
She lifted her face suddenly and defiantly, her eyes afire. "Do you knowwhat I shall say if they do?" she said.
"What?" said Saltash, his own eyes gleaming oddly.
"I shall tell them," said Toby tensely, "to--to--to go to blazes!"
He grimaced his appreciation. "Then they will begin to pity the husband,_cherie_."
She held up her lips to his, childishly, lovingly. "I will be good," shesaid. "I will be good. I will never say such things again."
He kissed the trembling lips again, lightly, caressingly. "Oh, don't betoo good!" he said. "I couldn't live up to it. You shall say what youlike--do what you like. And--you shall be my queen!"
She caught back another sob. Her clinging arms tightened. "And you willbe--what you have always been," she said--"my king--my king--my king!"
In the silence that followed the passionate words, Charles Rex verygently loosened the clinging arms, and set her free.
PART IV