CHAPTER XVIII FOOL'S MATE
Writing years afterwards of this event--in the rather tedious volumeof reminiscences which he has left us--Major Carruthers ventures theopinion that the court should never have been deceived; that it shouldhave perceived at once that Miss Armytage was lying. He arguesthis opinion upon psychological grounds, contending that the lady'sdeportment in that moment of self-accusation was the very last thatin the circumstances she alleged would have been natural to such acharacter as her own.
"Had she indeed," he writes, "been Tremayne's mistress, as sherepresented herself, it was not in her nature to have announced it afterthe manner in which she did so. She bore herself before us with all theeffrontery of a harlot; and it was well known to most of us that amore pure, chaste, and modest lady did not live. There was here acontradiction so flagrant that it should have rendered her falsehoodimmediately apparent."
Major Carruthers, of course, is writing in the light of later knowledge,and even, setting that aside, I am very far from agreeing with hispsychological deduction. Just as a shy man will so overreach himselfin his efforts to dissemble his shyness as to assume an air of positivearrogance, so might a pure lady who had succumbed as Miss Armytagepretended, upon finding herself forced to such self-accusation, bearherself with a boldness which was no more than a mask upon the shame andanguish of her mind.
And this, I think, was the view that was taken by those present. Thecourt it was--being composed of honest gentlemen--that felt the shamewhich she dissembled. There were the eyes that fell away before thespurious effrontery of her own glance. They were disconcerted one andall by this turn of events, without precedent in the experience ofany, and none more disconcerted--though not in the same sense--than SirTerence. To him this was checkmate--fool's mate indeed. An unexpectedyet ridiculously simple move had utterly routed him at the very outsetof the deadly game that he was playing. He had sat there determined tohave either Tremayne's life or the truth, publicly avowed, of Tremayne'sdastardly betrayal. He could not have told you which he preferred. Butone or the other he was fiercely determined to have, and now the springsof the snare in which he had so cunningly taken Tremayne had been forcedapart by utterly unexpected hands.
"It's a lie!" he bellowed angrily. But he bellowed, it seemed, upon deafears. The court just sat and stared, utterly and hopelessly at a losshow to proceed. And then the dry voice of Wellington followed SirTerence, cutting sharply upon the dismayed silence.
"How can you know that?" he asked the adjutant. "The matter is oneupon which few would be qualified to contradict Miss Armytage. You willobserve, Sir Harry, that even Captain Tremayne has not thought it worthhis while to do so."
Those words pulled the captain from the spell of sheer horrifiedamazement in which he had stood, stricken dumb, ever since Miss Armytagehad spoken.
"I--I--am so overwhelmed by the amazing falsehood with which MissArmytage has attempted to save me from the predicament in which I stand.For it is that, gentlemen. On my oath as a soldier and a gentleman,there is not a word of truth in what Miss Armytage has said."
"But if there were," said Lord Wellington, who seemed the only personpresent to retain a cool command of his wits, "your honour as a soldierand a gentleman--and this lady's honour--must still demand of you theperjury."
"But, my lord, I protest--"
"You are interrupting me, I think," Lord Wellington rebuked him coldly,and under the habit of obedience and the magnetic eye of his lordshipthe captain lapsed into anguished silence.
"I am of opinion, gentlemen," his lordship addressed the court, "thatthis affair has gone quite far enough. Miss Armytage's testimony hassaved a deal of trouble. It has shed light upon much that was obscure,and it has provided Captain Tremayne with an unanswerable alibi. Inmy view--and without wishing unduly to influence the court in itsdecision--it but remains to pronounce Captain Tremayne's acquittal,thereby enabling him to fulfil towards this lady a duty which thecircumstances would seem to have rendered somewhat urgent."
They were words that lifted an intolerable burden from Sir Harry'sshoulders.
In immense relief, eager now to make an end, he looked to right andleft. Everywhere he met nodding heads and murmurs of "Yes, Yes."Everywhere with one exception. Sir Terence, white to the lips, gaveno sign of assent, and yet dared give none of dissent. The eye of LordWellington was upon him, compelling him by its eagle glance.
"We are clearly agreed," the president began, but Captain Tremayneinterrupted him.
"But you are wrongly agreed."
"Sir, sir!"
"You shall listen. It is infamous that I should owe my acquittal to thesacrifice of this lady's good name."
"Damme! That is a matter that any parson can put right," said hislordship.
"Your lordship is mistaken," Captain Tremayne insisted, greatly daring."The honour of this lady is more dear to me than my life."
"So we perceive," was the dry rejoinder. "These outbursts do you acertain credit, Captain Tremayne. But they waste the time of the court."
And then the president made his announcement
"Captain Tremayne, you are acquitted of the charge of killing CountSamoval, and you are at liberty to depart and to resume your usualduties. The court congratulates you and congratulates itself uponhaving reached this conclusion in the case of an officer so estimable asyourself."
"Ah, but, gentlemen, hear me yet a moment. You, my lord--"
"The court has pronounced. The matter is at an end," said Wellington,with a shrug, and immediately upon the words he rose, and the courtrose with him. Immediately, with rattle of sabres and sabretaches, theofficers who had composed the board fell into groups and broke intoconversation out of a spirit of consideration for Tremayne, anddefinitely to mark the conclusion of the proceedings.
Tremayne, white and trembling, turned in time to see Miss Armytageleaving the hall and assisting Colonel Grant to support Lady O'Moy, whowas in a half-swooning condition.
He stood irresolute, prey to a torturing agony of mind, cursing himselfnow for his silence, for not having spoken the truth and taken theconsequences together with Dick Butler. What was Dick Butler to him,what was his own life to him--if they should demand it forthe grave breach of duty he had committed by his readiness to assista proscribed offender to escape--compared with the honour of SylviaArmytage? And she, why had she done this for him? Could it be possiblethat she cared, that she was concerned so much for his life as toimmolate her honour to deliver him from peril? The event would seem toprove it. Yet the overmastering joy that at any other time, and inany other circumstances, such a revelation must have procured him, wasstifled now by his agonised concern for the injustice to which she hadsubmitted herself.
And then, as he stood there, a suffering, bewildered man, cameCarruthers to grasp his hand and in terms of warm friendship to expresssatisfaction at his acquittal.
"Sooner than have such a price as that paid--" he said bitterly, andwith a shrug left his sentence unfinished.
O'Moy came stalking past him, pale-faced, with eyes that looked neitherto right nor left.
"O'Moy!" he cried.
Sir Terence checked, and stood stiffly as if to attention, his handsomeblue eyes blazing into the captain's own. Thus a moment. Then:
"We will talk of this again, you and I," he said grimly, and passedon and out with clanking step, leaving Tremayne to reflect that theappearances certainly justified Sir Terence's resentment.
"My God, Carruthers! What must he think of me?" he ejaculated.
"If you ask me, I think that he has suspected this from the verybeginning. Only that could account for the hostility of his attitudetowards you, for the persistence with which he has sought either toconvict or wring the truth from you."
Tremayne looked askance at the major. In such a tangle as this it wasimpossible to keep the attention fixed upon any single thread.
"His mind must be disabused at once," he answered. "I must go to him."
O'Moy had already vanished.
There were one or two others would have checked the adjutant'sdeparture, but he had heeded none. In the quadrangle he nodded curtly toColonel Grant, who would have detained him. But he passed on and went toshut himself up in his study with his mental anguish that was compoundedof so many and so diverse emotions. He needed above all things to bealone and to think, if thought were possible to a mind so distraughtas his own. There were now so many things to be faced, considered, anddealt with. First and foremost--and this was perhaps the product ofinevitable reaction--was the consideration of his own duplicity, hisvillainous betrayal of trust undertaken deliberately, but with an aimvery different from that which would appear. He perceived how men mustassume now, when the truth of Samoval's death became known as becomeknown it must--that he had deliberately fastened upon another his owncrime. The fine edifice of vengeance he had been so skilfully erectinghad toppled about his ears in obscene ruin, and he was a man not onlybroken, but dishonoured. Let him proclaim the truth now and none wouldbelieve it. Sylvia Armytage's mad and inexplicable self-accusation was afinal bar to that. Men of honour would scorn him, his friends wouldturn from him in disgust, and Wellington, that great soldier whom heworshipped, and whose esteem he valued above all possessions, would bethe first to cast him out. He would appear as a vulgar murderer who,having failed by falsehood to fasten the guilt upon an innocent man,sought now by falsehood still more damnable, at the cost of his wife'shonour, to offer some mitigation of his unspeakable offence.
Conceive this terrible position in which his justifiable jealousy--hisnaturally vindictive rage--had so irretrievably ensnared him. He hadbeen so intent upon the administration of poetic justice, so intentupon condignly punishing the false friend who had dishonoured him, uponfinding a balm for his lacerated soul in the spectacle of Tremayne's ownignominy, that he had never paused to see whither all this might leadhim.
He had been a fool to have adopted these subtle, tortuous ways; a foolnot to have obeyed the earlier and honest impulse which had led him totake that case of pistols from the drawer. And he was served as a fooldeserves to be served. His folly had recoiled upon him to destroy him.Fool's mate had checked his perfidious vengeance at a blow.
Why had Sylvia Armytage discarded her honour to make of it a cloakfor the protection of Tremayne? Did she love Tremayne and take thatdesperate way to save a life she accounted lost, or was it that she knewthe truth, and out of affection for Una had chosen to immolate herself?
Sir Terence was no psychologist. But he found it difficult to believe inso much of self-sacrifice from a woman for a woman's sake, howeverdear. Therefore he held to the first alternative. To confirm it came thememory of Sylvia's words to him on the night of Tremayne's arrest. Andit was to such a man that she gave the priceless treasure of her love;for such a man, and in such a sordid cause, that she sacrificed theinestimable jewel of her honour? He laughed through clenched teeth ata situation so bitterly ironical. Presently he would talk to her. Sheshould realise what she had done, and he would wish her joy of it.First, however, there was something else to do. He flung himself wearilyinto the chair at his writing-table, took up a pen and began to write.