CHAPTER XXV. CYNTHIA'S FLIGHT
Throughout the night they went rumbling on their way at a pace whosesluggishness elicited many an oath from Crispin as he rode a few yardsin the rear, ever watchful of the possibility of pursuit. But there wasnone, nor none need he have feared, since whilst he rode through thecold night, Gregory Ashburn slept as peacefully as a man may with thefever and an evil conscience, and imagined his dutiful daughter safelyabed.
With the first streaks of steely light came a thin rain to heightenCrispin's discomfort, for of late he had been overmuch in the saddle,and strong though he was, he was yet flesh and blood, and subject toits ills. Towards ten o'clock they passed through Denham. When they wereclear of it Cynthia put her head from the window. She had slept well,and her mood was lighter and happier. As Crispin rode a yard or sobehind, he caught sight of her fresh, smiling face, and it affected himcuriously. The tenderness that two days ago had been his as he talkedto her upon the cliffs was again upon him, and the thought that anon shewould be linked to him by the ties of relationship, was pleasurable.She gave him good morrow prettily, and he, spurring his horse to thecarriage door, was solicitous to know of her comfort. Nor did he againfall behind until Stafford was reached at noon. Here, at the sign of theSuffolk Arms, he called a halt, and they broke their fast on the bestthe house could give them.
Cynthia was gay, and so indeed was Crispin, yet she noted in him thatcoolness which she accounted restraint, and gradually her spirits sankagain before it.
To Crispin's chagrin there were no horses to be had. Someone in greathaste had ridden through before them, and taken what relays the hostelrycould give, leaving four jaded beasts in the stable. It seemed, indeed,that they must remain there until the morrow, and in coming to thatconclusion, Sir Crispin's temper suffered sorely.
"Why need it put you so about," cried Cynthia, in arch reproach, "sinceI am with you?"
"Blood and fire, madam," roared Galliard, "it is precisely for thatreason that I am exercised. What if your father came upon us here?"
"My father, sir, is abed with a sword-wound and a fever," she replied,and he remembered then how Kenneth had spitted Gregory through theshoulder.
"Still," he returned, "he will have discovered your flight, and I dareswear we shall have his myrmidons upon our heels. Should they come upwith us we shall hardly find them more gentle than he would be."
She paled at that, and for a second there was silence. Then her handstole forth upon his arm, and she looked at him with tightened lips anda defiant air.
"What, indeed, if they do? Are you not with me?" A king had praisedhis daring, and for his valour had dubbed him knight upon a field ofstricken battle; yet the honour of it had not brought him the elationthose words--expressive of her utter faith in him and his prowess--begatin his heart. Upon the instant the delay ceased to fret him.
"Madam," he laughed, "since you put it so, I care not who comes. TheLord Protector himself shall not drag you from me."
It was the nearest he had gone to a passionate speech since they hadleft Sheringham, and it pleased her; yet in uttering it he had stood afull two yards away, and in that she had taken no pleasure.
Bidding her remain and get what rest she might, he left her, and she,following his straight, lank figure--so eloquent of strength--and thefamiliar poise of his left hand upon the pummel of his sword, felt proudindeed that he belonged to her, and secure in his protection. She satherself at the window when he was gone, and whilst she awaited hisreturn, she hummed a gay measure softly to herself. Her eyes werebright, and there was a flush upon her cheeks. Not even in the wet,greasy street could she find any unsightliness that afternoon. But asshe waited, and the minutes grew to hours, that flush faded, and thesparkle died gradually from her eyes. The measure that she had hummedwas silenced, and her shapely mouth took on a pout of impatience, whichanon grew into a tighter mould, as he continued absent.
A frown drew her brows together, and Mistress Cynthia's thoughts weremuch as they had been the night before she left Castle Marleigh. Wherewas he? Why came he not? She took up a book of plays that lay upon thetable, and sought to while away the time by reading. The afternoon fadedinto dusk, and still he did not come. Her woman appeared, to ask whethershe should call for lights and at that Cynthia became almost violent.
"Where is Sir Crispin?" she demanded. And to the dame's quavering answerthat she knew not, she angrily bade her go ascertain.
In a pet, Cynthia paced the chamber whilst Catherine was gone upon thaterrand. Did this man account her a toy to while away the hours for whichhe could find no more profitable diversion, and to leave her to die ofennui when aught else offered? Was it a small thing that he had asked ofher, to go with him into a strange land, that he should show himself solittle sensible of the honour done him?
With such questions did she plague herself, and finding them eitherunanswerable, or answerable only by affirmatives, she had well-nighresolved upon leaving the inn, and making her way back to London to seekout her aunt, when the door opened and her woman reappeared.
"Well?" cried Cynthia, seeing her alone. "Where is Sir Crispin?"
"Below, madam."
"Below?" echoed she. "And what, pray, doth he below?"
"He is at dice with a gentleman from London."
In the dim light of the October twilight the woman saw not the suddenpallor of her mistress's cheeks, but she heard the gasp of pain thatwas almost a cry. In her mortification, Cynthia could have wept had shegiven way to her feelings. The man who had induced her to elope with himsat at dice with a gentleman from London! Oh, it was monstrous! At thethought of it she broke into a laugh that appalled her tiring-woman;then mastering her hysteria, she took a sudden determination.
"Call me the host," she cried, and the frightened Catherine obeyed herat a run.
When the landlord came, bearing lights, and bending his aged backobsequiously:
"Have you a pillion?" she asked abruptly. "Well, fool, why do you stare?Have you a pillion?"
"I have, madam."
"And a knave to ride with me, and a couple more as escort?"
"I might procure them, but--"
"How soon?"
"Within half an hour, but--"
"Then go see to it," she broke in, her foot beating the groundimpatiently.
"But, madam--"
"Go, go, go!" she cried, her voice rising at each utterance of thatimperative.
"But, madam," the host persisted despairingly, and speaking quickly sothat he might get the words out, "I have no horses fit to travel tenmiles."
"I need to go but five," she retorted quickly, her only thought being toget the beasts, no matter what their condition. "Now, go, and come notback until all is ready. Use dispatch and I will pay you well, and aboveall, not a word to the gentleman who came hither with me."
The sorely-puzzled host withdrew to do her bidding, won to it by herpromise of good payment.
Alone she sat for half an hour, vainly fostering the hope that erethe landlord returned to announce the conclusion of his preparations,Crispin might have remembered her and come. But he did not appear, andin her solitude this poor little maid was very miserable, and shedsome tears that had still more of anger than sorrow in their source. Atlength the landlord came. She summoned her woman, and bade her follow bypost on the morrow. The landlord she rewarded with a ring worth twentytimes the value of the service, and was led by him through a side doorinto the innyard.
Here she found three horses, one equipped with the pillion on which shewas to ride behind a burly stableboy. The other two were mounted bya couple of stalwart and well-armed men, one of whom carried afunnel-mouthed musketoon with a swagger that promised prodigies ofvalour.
Wrapped in her cloak, she mounted behind the stable-boy, and bade himset out and take the road to Denham. Her dream was at an end.
Master Quinn, the landlord, watched her departure with eyes thatwere charged with doubt and concern. As he made fast the door of thestableyard after she had passed
out, he ominously shook his hoary headand muttered to himself humble, hostelry-flavoured philosophies touchingthe strange ways of men with women, and the stranger ways of women withmen. Then, taking up his lanthorn, he slowly retraced his steps to thebuttery where his wife was awaiting him.
With sleeves rolled high above her pink and deeply-dimpled elbows stoodMistress Quinn at work upon the fashioning of a pastry, when her husbandentered and set down his lanthorn with a sigh.
"To be so plagued," he growled. "To be browbeaten by a slip of awench--a fine gentleman's baggage with the airs and vapours of a lady ofquality. Am I not a fool to have endured it?"
"Certainly you are a fool," his wife agreed, kneading diligently,"whatever you may have endured. What now?"
His fat face was puckered into a thousand wrinkles. His little eyesgazed at her with long-suffering malice.
"You are my wife," he answered pregnantly, as who would say: Thus ismy folly clearly proven! and seeing that the assertion was not one thatadmitted of dispute, Mistress Quinn was silent.
"Oh, 'tis ill done!" he broke out a moment later. "Shame on me for it;it is ill done!"
"If you have done it 'tis sure to be ill done, and shame on you in goodsooth--but for what?" put in his wife.
"For sending those poor jaded beasts upon the road."
"What beasts?"
"What beasts? Do I keep turtles? My horses, woman."
"And whither have you sent them?"
"To Denham with the baggage that came hither this morning in the companyof that very fierce gentleman who was in such a pet because we had nohorses."
"Where is he?" inquired the hostess.
"At dice with those other gallants from town."
"At dice quotha? And she's gone, you say?" asked Mrs. Quinn, pausing inher labours squarely to face her husband.
"Aye," said he.
"Stupid!" rejoined his docile spouse, vexed by his laconic assent. "Doyou mean she has run away?"
"Tis what anyone might take from what I have told you," he answeredsweetly.
"And you have lent her horses and helped her to get away, and you leaveher husband at play in there?"
"You have seen her marriage lines, I make no doubt," he sneeredirrelevantly.
"You dolt! If the gentleman horsewhips you, you will have richly earnedit."
"Eh? What?" gasped he, and his rubicund cheeks lost something of theirhigh colour, for here was a possibility that had not entered into hiscalculations. But Mistress Quinn stayed not to answer him. Already shewas making for the door, wiping the dough from her hands on to her apronas she went. A suspicion of her purpose flashed through her husband'smind.
"What would you do?" he inquired nervously.
"Tell the gentleman what has taken place."
"Nay," he cried, resolutely barring her way. "Nay. That you shall not.Would you--would you ruin me?"
She gave him a look of contempt, and dodging his grasp she gained thedoor and was half-way down the passage towards the common room before hehad overtaken her and caught her round the middle.
"Are you mad, woman?" he shouted. "Will you undo me?"
"Do you undo me," she bade him, snatching at his hands. But he clutchedwith the tightness of despair.
"You shall not go," he swore. "Come back and leave the gentleman tomake the discovery for himself. I dare swear it will not afflict himovermuch. He has abandoned her sorely since they came; not a doubt ofit but that he is weary of her. At least he need not know I lent herhorses. Let him think she fled a-foot, when he discovers her departure."
"I will go," she answered stubbornly, dragging him with her a yard ortwo nearer the door. "The gentleman shall be warned. Is a woman to runaway from her husband in my house, and the husband never be warned ofit?"
"I promised her," he began.
"What care I for your promises?" she asked. "I will tell him, so that hemay yet go after her and bring her back."
"You shall not," he insisted, gripping her more closely. But at thatmoment a delicately mocking voice greeted their ears.
"Marry, 'tis vastly diverting to hear you," it said. They looked round,to find one of the party of town sparks that had halted at the innstanding arms akimbo in the narrow passage, clearly waiting for themto make room. "A touching sight, sir," said he sardonically to thelandlord. "A wondrous touching sight to behold a man of your yearsplaying the turtle-dove to his good wife like the merest fledgeling.It grieves me to intrude myself so harshly upon your cooing, thoughif you'll but let me pass you may resume your chaste embrace withoutuneasiness, for I give you my word I'll never look behind me."
Abashed, the landlord and his dame fell apart. Then, ere the gentlemancould pass her, Mistress Quinn, like a true opportunist, sped swiftlydown the passage and into the common room before her husband could againdetain her.
Now, within the common room of the Suffolk Arms Sir Crispin sat face toface with a very pretty fellow, all musk and ribbons, and surrounded bysome half-dozen gentlemen on their way to London who had halted to restat Stafford.
The pretty gentleman swore lustily, affected a monstrous wicked look,assured that he was impressing all who stood about with some conceit ofthe rakehelly ways he pursued in town.
A game started with crowns to while away the tedium of the enforcedsojourn at the inn had grown to monstrous proportions. Fortune hadfavoured the youth at first, but as the stakes grew her favours to himdiminished, and at the moment that Cynthia rode out of the inn-yard, Mr.Harry Foster flung his last gold piece with an oath upon the table.
"Rat me," he groaned, "there's the end of a hundred."
He toyed sorrowfully with the red ribbon in his black hair, and Crispin,seeing that no fresh stake was forthcoming, made shift to rise. But thecoxcomb detained him.
"Tarry, sir," he cried, "I've not yet done. 'Slife, we'll make a nightof it."
He drew a ring from his finger, and with a superb gesture of disdainpushed it across the board.
"What'll ye stake?" And, in the same breath, "Boy, another stoup," hecried.
Crispin eyed the gem carelessly.
"Twenty Caroluses," he muttered.
"Rat me, sir, that nose of yours proclaims you a jew, without more. Saytwenty-five, and I'll cast."
With a tolerant smile, and the shrug of a man to whom twenty-five ora hundred are of like account, Crispin consented. They threw; Crispinpassed and won.
"What'll ye stake?" cried Mr. Foster, and a second ring followed thefirst.
Before Crispin could reply, the door leading to the interior of the innwas flung open, and Mrs. Quinn, breathless with exertion and excitement,came scurrying across the room. In the doorway stood the host inhesitancy and fear. Bending to Crispin's ear, Mrs. Quinn delivered hermessage in a whisper that was heard by most of those who were about.
"Gone!" cried Crispin in consternation.
The woman pointed to her husband, and Crispin, understanding from thisthat she referred him to the host, called to him.
"What know you, landlord?" he shouted. "Come hither, and tell me whitheris she gone!"
"I know not," replied the quaking host, adding the particulars ofCynthia's departure, and the information that the lady seemed in greatanger.
"Saddle me a horse," cried Crispin, leaping to his feet, and pitchingMr. Foster's trinket upon the table as though it were a thing of novalue. "Towards Denham you say they rode? Quick, man!" And as the hostdeparted he swept the gold and the ring he had won into his pocketspreparing to depart.
"Hoity toity!" cried Mr. Foster. "What sudden haste is this?"
"I am sorry, sir, that Fortune has been unkind to you, but I must go.Circumstances have arisen which--"
"D--n your circumstances!" roared Foster, get ting on his feet. "You'llnot leave me thus!"
"With your permission, sir, I will."
"But you shall not have my permission!"
"Then I shall be so unfortunate as to go without it. But I shallreturn."
"Sir, 'tis an old legend, that!"
Crispin turned about in despair. To be embroiled now might ruineverything, and by a miracle he kept his temper. He had a moment tospare while his horse was being saddled.
"Sir," he said, "if you have upon your pretty person trinkets to halfthe value of what I have won from you, I'll stake the whole againstthem on one throw, after which, no matter what the result, I take mydeparture. Are you agreed?"
There was a murmur of admiration from those present at the recklessnessand the generosity of the proposal, and Foster was forced to accept it.Two more rings he drew forth, a diamond from the ruffles at his throat,and a pearl that he wore in his ear. The lot he set upon the board, andCrispin threw the winning cast as the host entered to say that his horsewas ready.
He gathered the trinkets up, and with a polite word of regret he wasgone, leaving Mr. Harry Foster to meditate upon the pledging of one ofhis horses to the landlord in discharge of his lodging.
And so it fell out that before Cynthia had gone six miles along the roadto Denham, one of her attendants caught a rapid beat of hoofs behindthem, and drew her attention to it, suggesting that they were beingfollowed. Faster Cynthia bade them travel, but the pursuer gainedupon them at every stride. Again the man drew her attention to it, andproposed that they should halt and face him who followed. The possessionof the musketoon gave him confidence touching the issue. But Cynthiashuddered at the thought, and again, with promises of rich reward, urgedthem to go faster. Another mile they went, but every moment brought thepursuing hoof-beats nearer and nearer, until at last a hoarse challengerang out behind them, and they knew that to go farther would be vain;within the next half-mile, ride as they might, their pursuer would beupon them.
The night was moonless, yet sufficiently clear for objects to beperceived against the sky, and presently the black shadow of him whorode behind loomed up upon the road, not a hundred paces off.
Despite Cynthia's orders not to fire, he of the musketoon raised hisweapon under cover of the darkness and blazed at the approaching shadow.
Cynthia cried out--a shriek of dismay it was; the horses plunged, andSir Crispin laughed aloud as he bore down upon them. He of the musketoonheard the swish of a sword being drawn, and saw the glitter of the bladein the dark. A second later there was a shock as Crispin's horse dashedinto his, and a crushing blow across the forehead, which Galliarddelivered with the hilt of his rapier, sent him hurtling from thesaddle. His comrade clapped spurs to his horse at that and was running arace with the night wind in the direction of Denham.
Before Cynthia quite knew what had happened the seat on the pillion infront of her was empty, and she was riding back to Stafford with Crispinbeside her, his hand upon the bridle of her horse.
"You little fool!" he said half-angrily, half-gibingly; and thereafterthey rode in silence--she too mortified with shame and anger to ventureupon words.
That journey back to Stafford was a speedy one, and soon they stoodagain in the inn-yard out of which she had ridden but an hour ago.Avoiding the common room, Crispin ushered her through the side door bywhich she had quitted the house. The landlord met them in the passage,and looking at Crispin's face the pallor and fierceness of it drove himback without a word.
Together they ascended to the chamber where in solitude she hadspent the day. Her feelings were those of a child caught in an act ofdisobedience, and she was angry with herself and her weakness thatit should be so. Yet within the room she stood with bent head, neverglancing at her companion, in whose eyes there was a look of blendedanger and amazement as he observed her. At length in calm, level tones:
"Why did you run away?" he asked.
The question was to her anger as a gust of wind to a smouldering fire.She threw back her head defiantly, and fixed him with a glance as fierceas his own.
"I will tell you," she cried, and suddenly stopped short. The fire diedfrom her eyes, and they grew wide in wonder--in fascinated wonder--tosee a deep stain overspreading one side of his grey doublet, from theleft shoulder downwards. Her wonder turned to horror as she realized thenature of that stain and remembered that one of her men had fired uponhim.
"You are wounded?" she faltered.
A sickly smile came into his face, and seemed to accentuate its pallor.He made a deprecatory gesture. Then, as if in that gesture he hadexpended his last grain of strength, he swayed suddenly as he stood.He made as if to reach a chair, but at the second step he stumbled, andwithout further warning he fell prone at her feet, his left hand uponhis heart, his right outstretched straight from the shoulder. The lossof blood he had sustained, following upon the fatigue and sleeplessnessthat had been his of late, had demanded its due from him, man of ironthough he was.
Upon the instant her anger vanished. A great fear that he was deaddescended upon her, and to heighten the horror of it came the thoughtthat he had received his death-wound through her agency. With a moan ofanguish she went down upon her knees beside him. She raised his headand pillowed it in her lap, calling to him by name, as though hervoice alone must suffice to bring him back to life and consciousness.Instinctively she unfastened his doublet at the neck, and sought to drawit away that she might see the nature of his hurt and staunch the woundif possible, but her strength ebbed away from her, and she abandoned hertask, unable to do more than murmur his name.
"Crispin, Crispin, Crispin!"
She stooped and kissed the white, clammy forehead, then his lips, andas she did so a tremor ran through her, and he opened his eyes. A momentthey looked dull and lifeless, then they waxed questioning.
A second ago these two had stood in anger with the width of the roombetwixt them; now, in a flash, he found his head on her lap, her lips onhis. How came he there? What meant it?
"Crispin, Crispin," she cried, "thank God you did but swoon!"
Then the awakening of his soul came swift upon the awakening of hisbody. He lay there, oblivious of his wound, oblivious of his mission,oblivious of his son. He lay with senses still half dormant andcomprehension dulled, but with a soul alert he lay, and was supremelyhappy with a happiness such as he had never known in all his ill-starredlife.
In a feeble voice he asked:
"Why did you run away?"
"Let us forget it," she answered softly.
"Nay--tell me first."
"I thought--I thought--" she stammered; then, gathering courage, "Ithought you did not really care, that you made a toy of me," said she."When they told me that you sat at dice with a gentleman from London Iwas angry at your neglect. If you loved me, I told myself, you would nothave used me so, and left me to mope alone."
For a moment Crispin let his grey eyes devour her blushing face. Thenhe closed them and pondered what she had said, realization breaking uponhim now like a great flood. The light came to him in one blinding yetall-illuming flash. A hundred things that had puzzled him in the lasttwo days grew of a sudden clear, and filled him with a joy unspeakable.He dared scarce believe that he was awake, and Cynthia by him--that hehad indeed heard aright what she had said. How blind he had been, hownescient of himself!
Then, as his thoughts travelled on to the source of the misapprehensionhe remembered his son, and the memory was like an icy hand upon histemples that chilled him through and through. Lying there with eyesstill closed he groaned. Happiness was within his grasp at last. Lovemight be his again did he but ask it, and the love of as pure and sweeta creature as ever God sent to chasten a man's life. A great tendernesspossessed him. A burning temptation to cast to the winds his plightedword, to make a mock of faith, to deride honour, and to seize this womanfor his own. She loved him he knew it now; he loved her--the knowledgehad come as suddenly upon him. Compared with this what could his faith,his word, his honour give him? What to him, in the face of this, wasthat paltry fellow, his son, who had spurned him!
The hardest fight he ever fought, he fought it there, lying supine uponthe ground, his head in her lap.
Had he fought it out with closed eyes, perchance honour and his plightedword had won the day; but he op
ened them, and they met Cynthia's.
A while they stayed thus; the hungry glance of his grey eyes peeringinto the clear blue depths of hers; and in those depths his soul wasdrowned, his honour stifled.
"Cynthia," he cried, "God pity me, I love you!" And he swooned again.