House of Torment Part 26

At the word "paramour," hardly knowing what he did, he lifted his hand and struck the bound and helpless King upon the face.

A timepiece from the next room beat. It was one o'clock in the morning.

Johnnie turned to Elizabeth. "Come, sweetheart," he said, in a hurried, agitated voice, "come away from this place."

He took her by the arm, half leading, half supporting her, and together they pa.s.sed out of the room, without so much as a backward glance at the bound figure upon the floor. As they went through the broken doorway in the ante-room, John Hull pressed after them, and walked on the other side of Elizabeth, talking to her quickly in a cheery voice.

As he looked over the girl's head at his servant, Johnnie knew what Hull was doing. He was hiding the corpse of Sir John Shelton from the girl's view.

They came into the corridor, and descended the stairs. Just as they were about to open the door in the arras, Hull stopped them upon the lowest step.

"I will go first, master," he said, and again Johnnie realised what was meant.

When a few seconds afterwards, he and Elizabeth entered the tapestry-hung room; the great pile of cus.h.i.+ons upon the left-hand side was a little higher, but that was all.

The girl raised her hands to her throat. "Oh," she said, "Johnnie, thank G.o.d you came! I cannot bear it. Take me home, take me home now, to Mr.

Cressemer and Aunt Catherine."

Johnnie took her hands in his own, holding her very firmly by the wrists, and looked full into her face.

"Dear," he said, "you cannot go to Mr. Cressemer's. You know nothing of what has happened this night. You do not realise anything at all. Will you trust in me?"

"Yes," she faltered, though her eyes were firm.

"Then, if you do that, and if G.o.d helps us," he said, with a gasp in his throat, "we may yet win to safety and life, though I doubt it.

Sweetheart, it is right that I should tell you that man upstairs in the room is the King Consort, husband of Her Grace the Queen."

The girl gave a loud, startled cry, and instantly Commendone saw comprehension flash into her face.

"Sit here," he said to her, putting a chair for her.

Then he turned. Behind the ebony table, motionless, vast, and purple in the face, was the great mummy of the procuress.

"What shall we do?" he said to Hull.

"The first thing, master, is to send the Spanish valet away; that you must do, and therein lies our chance."

Johnnie nodded. He pa.s.sed out into the pa.s.sage, went to the front door, pulled aside three huge bolts which worked with a lever very silently, for they were all oiled, and let in a puff of fresh wind from the street.

For a moment he could see nothing in the dark. He called in Spanish: "Torrome, Torrome, where are you? Come here at once." He had hardly done so when the cloaked figure of the valet came out from behind a b.u.t.tress.

"Ah, Senor," he said, "I am perished with this cold wind. His Highness is ready, then?"

Johnnie shook his head. "No," he answered, "His Highness and Sir John are still engaged, but I am sent to tell you that you may go home. I and my man will attend His Highness to the Tower, but we shall not come until dawn. Go you back to the King's lodging, and if His Highness doth not come in due time, keep all inquiries at bay. He will be sick--you understand?"

Torrome nodded.

"Then get you to horse, leave His Highness's horse with ours, and speed back to the Tower as soon as may be."

Commendone waited until the man had mounted, very glad to be relieved of his long waiting, and was trotting towards London Bridge. Then he closed the door, pulled the lever, and went back into the red, scented room.

He saw that Hull had cut the strips of red velvet that bound Madame La Motte, the gag was taken from her mouth, and he was holding a goblet of wine to the thick, swollen, and bleeding lips.

There was a long deep sigh and gurgle. The woman shuddered, gasped again, and then some light and understanding came into her eyes, and she stared out in front of her.

"What are we to do?" Johnnie asked his servant once more.

"What have ye done, masters?" came in a dry whisper from the old woman--it was like the noise a man makes walking through parched gra.s.s in summer. "What have ye done, masters?"

Hull answered: "We have killed your servitor, as ye saw," he said, with a half glance towards the piled cus.h.i.+ons against the wall. "Sir John Shelton is dead also; Mr. Commendone killed him in fair fight."

"And the King, the King?"--the whisper was dreadful in its anxiety and fear.

"He lieth bound in that room of shame where you took my lady."

There was silence for a moment, and the old woman glanced backwards and forwards at Hull and Commendone. What she read in their faces terrified her, and again she shook horribly.

"Sir," she said to Commendone, "if this be my last hour, then so mote it be, but I swear that I knew nothing. I was told at high noon yesterday that a girl was to be sent here, that Sir John and the valet of His Highness would bring her. I knew, and know nothing of who she is. I did but do as I have always done in my trade. And, messieurs, it was the King's command. Now ye have come, and there is the lady unharmed, please G.o.d."

"Please G.o.d!" Johnnie said brutally. "You hag of h.e.l.l, who are you to use that name?"

The fat, artificially whitened hands, with their glittering rings fell upon the table with a dull thud.

"Who am I, indeed?" she said. "You may well ask that, but I tell you others of my women received this lady. I have not seen her until now."

"Indeed she hath not," came in a low, startled voice from Elizabeth.

"Sir," La Motte went on, "I see now that this is the end of my sinful life. Kill me an ye wish, I care not, for I am dead already, and so also are you, and the young mistress there, and your man too."

"What mean you?" Johnnie said.

"What mean I? Why, upstairs lieth the King, bound. We all have two or three miserable hours, and then we shall be found, and what we shall endure will pa.s.s the bitterness of death before death comes. That, messieurs, you know very well.

"So what matters it," she continued, her extraordinary vitality overcoming everything, her voice growing stronger each moment, "what matters it! Let us drink wine one to the other, to death! in this house of death, in this house to which worse than death cometh apace."

She reached out for the flagon of wine before her with a cackle of laughter.

It was too true. Commendone knew it well. He looked at Hull, and together they both looked at Elizabeth Taylor.

The girl, in the long white robe which they had put on her, rose from her seat and came between them, tall, slim, and now composed. She put one hand upon Johnnie's shoulder and laid the other with an affectionate gesture upon Hull's arm.

"Look you," she said, "Mr. Commendone, and you, John Hull, my father's friend, what matters it at all? I see now all that hath pa.s.sed. There is no hope for us, none at all. Therefore let us praise G.o.d, pray to Him, and die. We shall soon be with my father in heaven; and, sure, he seeth all this, and is waiting for us."

John Hull's face was knitted into thought. He hardly seemed to hear the girl's voice at all.

"Mistress Lizzie," he said, almost peevishly, "pr'ythee be silent a moment. Master, look you. 'Tis this way. They will come again and find His Highness when he returneth not to the Tower, but he will dare do nothing against us openly for fear of the Queen's Grace. Were it known that he had come to such a stew as this, the Queen would ne'er give him her confidence again. She would ne'er forgive him. Doubtless the vengeance will pursue us, but it cannot be put in motion for some hours until the King is rescued, and has had time to confer with his familiars and think out a plan. After that, when they catch us, nothing will avail us, because nothing we can say will be believed. But we are not caught yet."

Johnnie, who for the last few moments had been quite without hope, looked up quickly at his servant's words.