Peregrine's Progress Part 82

"Is it worth the years of waiting?" she whispered beneath my kisses.

"G.o.d knows it!" I answered and lifted her hand to my lips and then stood utterly still, cold with a sudden, horrible sickness--staring at this white hand, where, amid sparkling gems, I saw the dull oval of a scarabaeus ring.

"What is it, Peregrine?" she questioned, a little breathlessly. "This scarab? It is one my dear pal bought me in Egypt. Come away, dear, let us run from the crowd--let us steal away together, somewhere--anywhere--you and I." And speaking, she drew about her shoulders a scarf, a filmy thing of gossamer, spangled with gold stars.

"Quick, Peregrine!" she breathed. "There is the duke--coming this way, quick--before he spies us!"

"Impossible!" I answered, wondering to hear myself speaking so lightly. "His Grace has seen us already--besides, your duty lies here to-night."

"Very well, dear Peregrine," she sighed, "but I had hoped you--you would have bade me forget duty--a little while."

So she turned away and indistinctly I heard the duke begging her to sing again; then I watched her go, smiling and bowing to her, but with a buzzing in my brain and all h.e.l.l raging in my breast.

A black-bodied chaise--picked out in yellow--red wheels--Captain Danby!

For a long time I stood in the shadow of the window curtains staring out upon a moon hidden ever and anon in flying cloud-wrack; but at last I turned and wandered away with some vague idea of finding Anthony, and as I went, the lights and glitter, the sounds of voices and laughter grew ever more distasteful, and turning my back on it all, I found my way into a wide corridor. And here, in a shady alcove screened by curtains, I espied Anthony kissing his wife; her round, white arms were about his neck, crus.h.i.+ng his cravat woefully, but seeing the rapture in their faces I stole away and left them.

Reaching the hall I bade a footman summon my carriage, but on second thoughts countermanded the order and, donning hat and cloak, set out to walk home to my chambers. A wind was abroad and I walked bareheaded to cool the fevered throbbing of my temples, but this wind found voices to mock me and at my heels ran demons, gibbering obscenities.

Reaching my door at last, I thundered on the knocker until it opened, and brus.h.i.+ng past the pallid Clegg, bade him order my horse.

"Horse, sir?" he repeated, a note of interest in his usually toneless voice. "Do you propose to go riding, sir?"

"I do!"

"Yes, sir--which horse do you--?"

"Wildfire. Have him brought round at once!"

"Very good, sir!"

Not waiting for Clegg's a.s.sistance, I slipped off my evening garments and was pulling on my riding boots when I heard the tattoo of Wildfire's impatient hoofs upon the roadway.

"What time may I expect you back, sir?" enquired Clegg, as I jingled downstairs.

"I cannot say. I may be late or very early so--get to bed."

"If you are travelling far, sir, might I suggest that your pistols are ready in their holsters upstairs--"

"I shall not need them!" said I, and stepped out into the street where Wildfire danced and capered in the grasp of Tom, my groom.

"He do be werry fresh, sir," warned Tom.

"So much the better!" said I. "Hold him until I give the word."

So saying, I swung to saddle, settled feet in stirrups and gripped the reins short in gloved hand.

"An evil night, sir!" said Clegg. "And you won't take your pistols?"

"No! Let go, Tom!"

Back sprang the groom and, snorting joyfully, Wildfire sprang away.

CHAPTER V

STORM AND TEMPEST

A bl.u.s.terous wind that fluttered the skirts of my long, caped coat, that filled the night with stir and tumult and flaws of sudden rain; a wind that whirled black ma.s.ses of ragged cloud across a lowering heaven lit by a pallid moon that peeped stealthily and vanished, to peep again.

And glancing from desolate, wind-swept streets to flying cloud-wrack, I judged there was worse to come and knew a strange, unnatural joy therefore, as I bent my head to buffeting wind and reined the fiery animal I bestrode to less furious pace.

We crossed the river at London Bridge, a dark horror of moving waters swirling here and there in the ineffectual beam of lamp or lanthorn; on past gloomy streets and narrow courts where dim forms jostled, and ever and always the bl.u.s.terous wind rioting 'twixt heaven and earth, booming in chimneys, moaning in dark corners, rattling windows, clapping-to crazy shutters and setting signboards a-swing on scolding hinges.

On and on through this ever-growing turbulence, while Wildfire tossed proud head, snorted defiance upon the elements, and bored eagerly upon the bit. But once the great city was behind us, I gave him his will and away we went headlong into the wind, the clatter of his galloping hoofs drowned in the universal uproar. But fast as he sped, the demon of doubt and suspicion and growing dread kept pace, and for once, riding Wildfire, I forgot Wildfire and all else save the h.e.l.l within me.

A black-bodied chaise picked out in yellow!

And now came the rain to lash me and I bared my head the better to feel it. Before me in the swirling dark were twinkling lights lurching rapidly nearer, and down upon me loomed a stagecoach, a mountainous shape that flitted by me like a phantom. A phantom? The very night seemed peopled by phantoms; I sped past phantom wains and waggons, piled high with phantom loads, that moved with no sound of hoofs or wheels; spectral hors.e.m.e.n flitted by, soundless; in the shadow of hissing hedgerow and raving, wind-tossed trees crawled miserable, nebulous shapes, seen but to be lost again, swallowed in the howling murk.

Rus.h.i.+ng wind and las.h.i.+ng rain; pale gleams of a fitful moon to show swaying trees that tossed wild arms to heaven, and a splas.h.i.+ng quag below, mud and wind-swept pools, all lost again in the swirling dark.

And buffeted thus, beaten by rain, smitten by unseen things, gasping in the wind's fierce gusts, my one thought was:

A black-bodied chaise with red wheels--Captain Danby!

How long I galloped at this wild and reckless pace I do not know, but little by little I became aware that the rain had ceased, the clouds were rent asunder and the moon looked down, pale and remote, upon a desolate countryside very ghostly and unreal and wholly unfamiliar.

Before me was a winding road fringed with dripping, sombre trees and reining Wildfire to a standstill, I found that the wind had greatly abated its fury. But though the storm was over, the storm within me raged fierce as ever; therefore, heedless of where the morning found me, I spurred Wildfire forward and rode with slackened rein, leaving him to take me where he would.

A black-bodied chaise--What should bring Diana in company with such brutal satyr as Captain Danby?

Lost thus in agonising thought, I was riding with loosened rein and lax grip when Wildfire s.h.i.+ed, swerved violently, throwing me from the saddle, and lying half-stunned, I heard him gallop away down the road.

For a while I lay there with no desire to move, but at last, summoning all my resolution, I scrambled weakly to my feet and endeavoured to follow, but after some while, wondered to see it so dark and found I was among trees that closed about me ever denser. Yet I struggled on, pus.h.i.+ng my way haphazard through the undergrowth, being yet much shaken by my fall, until I came out into a narrow way lit by the moon; but scarcely was I here than I paused to lean against a tree, overcome by a sick faintness. And thus leaned I some while to recover my strength, and in my ears the dismal drip, drip of sodden trees and the mournful sighing of the wind in their branches, a sigh that rose every now and then to a low wailing, very dreadful to hear.

Now, all at once, I lifted my aching head, for, as my brain cleared, I knew that this wailing was not of the wind; thus I stood with breath in check waiting for it to come again. And suddenly I heard it, a low, murmurous cry, unutterably doleful.

"O G.o.d--O G.o.d--I want to be dead--I want to be dead!"

So I turned aside and, following the path, saw it ended at a frowning doorway set within a high and sinister wall; and recognising this door, this high wall and gloomy wood, I felt myself cold with that indefinable sense of impending evil which this desolate place had awoke in me before--

"O kind G.o.d--if I could only die!"

Going in among the trees I saw a shape of misery outstretched face-down upon the sodden earth, a shape that wrung pale hands and writhed in awful manner. Trembling, I sank on one knee beside her.

"Woman!" said I, laying hand lightly on her shoulder.