CHAPTER VII. THE ALLY
Tremayne elbowed his way through the gorgeous crowd, exchanginggreetings here and there as he went, and so reached the ballroom duringa pause in the dancing. He looked round for Lady O'Moy, but he could seeher nowhere, and would never have found her had not Carruthers pointedout a knot of officers and assured him that the lady was in the heart ofit and in imminent peril of being suffocated.
Thither the captain bent his steps, looking neither to right nor left inhis singleness of purpose. Thus it happened that he saw neither O'Moy,who had just arrived, nor the massive, decorated bulk of MarshalBeresford, with whom the adjutant stood in conversation on the skirts ofthe throng that so assiduously worshipped at her ladyship's shrine.
Captain Tremayne went through the group with all a sapper's skill atpiercing obstacles, and so came face to face with the lady of his quest.Seeing her so radiant now, with sparkling eyes and ready laugh, it wasdifficult to conceive her haunted by any such anxieties as Miss Armytagehad mentioned. Yet the moment she perceived him, as if his presenceacted as a reminder to lift her out of the delicious present, somethingof her gaiety underwent eclipse.
Child of impulse that she was, she gave no thought to her action and theconstruction it might possibly bear in the minds of men chagrined andslighted.
"Why, Ned," she cried, "you have kept me waiting." And with a completeand charming ignoring of the claims of all who had been before him, andwho were warring there for precedence of one another, she took his armin token that she yielded herself to him before even the honour was somuch as solicited.
With nods and smiles to right and left--a queen dismissing hercourt--she passed on the captain's arm through the little crowd thatgave way before her dismayed and intrigued, and so away.
O'Moy, who had been awaiting a favourable moment to present the marshalby the marshal's own request, attempted to thrust forward now withBeresford at his side. But the bowing line of officers whose backs weretowards him effectively barred his progress, and before they had brokenup that formation her ladyship and her cavalier were out of sight, lostin the moving crowd.
The marshal laughed good-humouredly. "The infallible reward ofpatience," said he. And O'Moy laughed with him. But the next moment hewas scowling at what he overheard.
"On my soul, that was impudence!" an Irish infantryman had protested.
"Have you ever heard," quoth a heavy dragoon, who was also a heavyjester, "that in heaven the last shall be first? If you pay court to anangel you must submit to celestial customs."
"And bedad," rejoined the infantryman, "as there's no marryin' in heavenye've got to make the best of it with other men's wives. Sure it's agreat success that fellow should be in paradise. Did ye remark the wayshe melted to him beauty swooning at the sight of temptation! Bad luckto him! Who is he at all?"
They dispersed laughing and followed by O'Moy's scowling eyes. Itannoyed him that his wife's thoughtless conduct should render her thebutt of such jests as these, and perhaps a subject for lewd gossip. Hewould speak to her about it later. Meanwhile the marshal had linked armswith him.
"Since the privilege must be postponed," said he, "suppose that we seeksupper. I have always found that a man can best heal in his stomachthe wounds taken by his heart." His fleshy bulk afforded a certainprima-facie confirmation of the dictum.
With a roll more suggestive of the quarter-deck than the saddle, thegreat man bore off O'Moy in quest of material consolation. Yet as theywent the adjutant's eyes raked the ballroom in quest of his wife.That quest, however, was unsuccessful, for his wife was already in thegarden.
"I want to talk to you most urgently, Ned. Take me somewhere where wecan be quite private," she had begged the captain. "Somewhere wherethere is no danger of being overheard."
Her agitation, now uncontrolled, suggested to Tremayne that the mattermight be far more serious and urgent than Miss Armytage had representedit. He thought first of the balcony where he had lately been. But thenthe balcony opened immediately from the ante-room and was likely atany moment to be invaded. So, since the night was soft and warm, hepreferred the garden. Her ladyship went to find a wrap, then arm inarm they passed out, and were lost in the shadows of an avenue ofpalm-trees.
"It is about Dick," she said breathlessly.
"I know--Miss Armytage told me."
"What did she tell you?"
"That you had a premonition that he might come to you for assistance."
"A premonition!" Her ladyship laughed nervously. "It is more than apremonition, Ned. He has come."
The captain stopped in his stride, and stood quite still.
"Come?" he echoed. "Dick?"
"Sh!" she warned him, and sank her voice from very instinct. "He came tome this evening, half an hour before we left home. I have put him in analcove adjacent to my dressing-room for the present."
"You have left him there?" He was alarmed.
"Oh, there's no fear. No one ever goes there except Bridget. And I havelocked the alcove. He's fast asleep. He was asleep before I left. Thepoor fellow was so worn and weary." Followed details of his appearanceand a recital of his wanderings so far as he had made them known to her."And he was so insistent that no one should know, not even Terence."
"Terence must not know," he said gravely.
"You think that too!"
"If Terence knows--well, you will regret it all the days of your life,Una."
He was so stern, so impressive, that she begged for explanation. Heafforded it. "You would be doing Terence the utmost cruelty if you toldhim. You would be compelling him to choose between his honour andhis concern for you. And since he is the very soul of honour, he mustsacrifice you and himself, your happiness and his own, everything thatmakes life good for you both, to his duty."
She was aghast, for all that she was far from understanding. But he wenton relentlessly to make his meaning clear, for the sake of O'Moy as muchas for her own--for the sake of the future of these two people who wereperhaps his dearest friends. He saw in what danger of shipwreck theirhappiness now stood, and he took the determination of clearly pointingout to her every shoal in the water through which she must steer hercourse.
"Since this has happened, Una, you must be told the whole truth; youmust listen, and, above all, be reasonable. I am Dick's friend, as I amyour own and Terence's. Your father was my best friend, perhaps, andmy gratitude to him is unbounded, as I hope you know. You and Dick arealmost as brother and sister to me. In spite of this--indeed, because ofthis, I have prayed for news that Dick was dead."
Her grasp interrupted him, and he felt the tightening clutch of herhands upon his arm in the gloom.
"I have prayed this for Dick's sake, and more than all for the sake ofyour happiness and Terence's. If Dick is taken the choice before Terenceis a tragic one. You will realise it when I tell you that duty forcedhim to pledge his word to the Portuguese Government that Dick should beshot when found."
"Oh!" It was a gasp of horror, of incredulity. She loosed his arm anddrew away from him. "It is infamous! I can't believe it. I can't."
"It is true. I swear it to you. I was present, and I heard."
"And you allowed it?"
"What could I do? How could I interfere? Besides, the minister whodemanded that undertaking knew nothing of the relationship between O'Moyand this missing officer."
"But--but he could have been told."
"That would have made no difference--unless it were to create freshdifficulties."
She stood there ghostly white against the gloom. A dry sob broke fromher. "Terence did that! Terence did that!" she moaned. And then in asurge of anger: "I shall never speak to Terence again. I shall not livewith him another day. It was infamous! Infamous!"
"It was not infamous. It was almost noble, almost heroic," he amazedher. "Listen, Una, and try to understand." He took her arm again anddrew her gently on down that avenue of moonlight-fretted darkness.
"Oh, I understand," she cried bitterly. "I understand perfectly. He hasa
lways been hard on Dick! He has always made mountains out of molehillswhere Dick was concerned. He forgets that Dick is young a mere boy. Hejudges Dick from the standpoint of his own sober middle age. Why, he'san old man--a wicked old man!"
Thus her rage, hurling at O'Moy what in the insolence of her youthseemed the last insult.
"You are very unjust, Una. You are even a little stupid," he said,deeming the punishment necessary and salutary.
"Stupid! I stupid! I have never been called stupid before."
"But you have undoubtedly deserved to be," he assured her with perfectcalm.
It took her aback by its directness, and for a moment left her withoutan answer. Then: "I think you had better leave me," she told himfrostily. "You forget yourself."
"Perhaps I do," he admitted. "That is because I am more concerned tothink of Dick and Terence and yourself. Sit down, Una."
They had reached a little circle by a piece of ornamental water, facingwhich a granite-hewn seat had been placed. She sank to it obediently, ifsulkily.
"It may perhaps help you to understand what Terence has done when I tellyou that in his place, loving Dick as I do, I must have pledged myselfprecisely as he did or else despised myself for ever. And being pledged,I must keep my word or go in the same self-contempt." He elaborated hisargument by explaining the full circumstances under which the pledge hadbeen exacted. "But be in no doubt about it," he concluded. "If Terenceknows of Dick's presence at Monsanto he has no choice. He must deliverhim up to a firing party--or to a court-martial which will inevitablysentence him to death, no matter what the defence that Dick may urge.He is a man prejudged, foredoomed by the necessities of war. And Terencewill do this although it will break his heart and ruin all his life.Understand me, then, that in enjoining you never to allow Terence tosuspect that Dick is present, I am pleading not so much for you or forDick, but for Terence himself--for it is upon Terence that the hardestand most tragic suffering must fall. Now do you understand?"
"I understand that men are very stupid," was her way of admitting it.
"And you see that you were wrong in judging Terence as you did?"
"I--I suppose so."
She didn't understand it all. But since Tremayne was so insistent shesupposed there must be something in his point of view. She had beenbrought up in the belief that Ned Tremayne was common sense incarnate;and although she often doubted it--as you may doubt the dogmas of areligion in which you have been bred--yet she never openly rebelledagainst that inculcated faith. Above all she wanted to cry. She knewthat it would be very good for her. She had often found a singularrelief in tears when vexed by things beyond her understanding. But shehad to think of that flock of gallants in the ballroom waiting to paycourt to her and of her duty towards them of preserving her beautyunimpaired by the ravages of a vented sorrow.
Tremayne sat down beside her. "So now that we understand each other onthat score, let us consider ways and means to dispose of Dick."
At once she was uplifted and became all eagerness.
"Yes, Yes. You will help me, Ned?"
"You can depend upon me to do all in human power."
He thought rapidly, and gave voice to some of his thoughts. "If I couldI would take him to my lodgings at Alcantara. But Carruthers knows himand would see him there. So that is out of the question. Then againit is dangerous to move him about. At any moment he might be seen andrecognised."
"Hardly recognised," she said. "His beard disguises him, and hisdress--" She shuddered at the very thought of the figure he had cut, he,the jaunty, dandy Richard Butler.
"That is something, of course," he agreed. And then asked: "How long doyou think that you could keep him hidden?"
"I don't know. You see, there's Bridget. She is the only danger, as shehas charge of my dressing-room."
"It may be desperate, but--Can you trust her?"
"Oh, I am sure I can. She is devoted to me; she would do anything--"
"She must be bought as well. Devotion and gain when linked together willform an unbreakable bond. Don't let us be stingy, Una. Take her intoyour confidence boldly, and promise her a hundred guineas for hersilence--payable on the day that Dick leaves the country."
"But how are we to get him out of the country?"
"I think I know a way. I can depend on Marcus Glennie. I may tell himthe whole truth and the identity of our man, or I may not. I must thinkabout that. But, whatever I decide, I am sure I can induce Glennie totake our fugitive home in the Telemachus and land him safely somewherein Ireland, where he will have to lose himself for awhile. Perhaps forGlennie's sake it will be safer not to disclose Dick's identity. Then ifthere should be trouble later, Glennie, having known nothing of the realfacts, will not be held responsible. I will talk to him to-night."
"Do you think he will consent?" she asked in strained anxiety--anxietyto have her anxieties dispelled.
"I am sure he will. I can almost pledge my word on it. Marcus woulddo anything to serve me. Oh, set your mind at rest. Consider the thingdone. Keep Dick safely hidden for a week or so until the Telemachus isready to sail--he mustn't go on board until the last moment, for severalreasons--and I will see to the rest."
Under that confident promise her troubles fell from her, as lightly asthey ever did.
"You are very good to me, Ned. Forgive me what I said just now. And Ithink I understand about Terence--poor dear old Terence."
"Of course you do." Moved to comfort her as he might have been moved tocomfort a child, he flung his arm along the seat behind her, and pattedher shoulder soothingly. "I knew you would understand. And not a wordto Terence, not a word that could so much as awaken his suspicions.Remember that."
"Oh, I shall."
Fell a step upon the patch behind them crunching the gravel. CaptainTremayne, his arm still along the back of the seat, and seeming toenvelop her ladyship, looked over her shoulder. A tall figure wasadvancing briskly. He recognised it even in the gloom by its height andgait and swing for O'Moy's.
"Why, here is Terence," he said easily--so easily, with such frank andobvious honesty of welcome, that the anger in which O'Moy came wrappedfell from him on the instant, to be replaced by shame.
"I have been looking for you everywhere, my dear," he said to Una."Marshal Beresford is anxious to pay you his respects before he leaves,and you have been so hedged about by gallants all the evening thatit's devil a chance he's had of approaching you." There was a certainconstraint in his voice, for a man may not recover instantly from suchfeelings as those which had fetched him hot-foot down that path at sightof those two figures sitting so close and intimate, the young man's armso proprietorialy about the lady's shoulders--as it seemed.
Lady O'Moy sprang up at once, with a little silvery laugh that wassingularly care-free; for had not Tremayne lifted the burden entirelyfrom her shoulders?
"You should have married a dowd," she mocked him. "Then you'd have foundher more easily accessible."
"Instead of finding her dallying in the moonlight with my secretary,"he rallied back between good and ill humour. And he turned to Tremayne:"Damned indiscreet of you, Ned," he added more severely. "Suppose youhad been seen by any of the scandalmongering old wives of the garrison?A nice thing for Una and a nice thing for me, begad, to be made thesubject of fly-blown talk over the tea-cups."
Tremayne accepted the rebuke in the friendly spirit in which it appearedto be conveyed. "Sorry, O'Moy," he said. "You're quite right. We shouldhave thought of it. Everybody isn't to know what our relations are." Andagain he was so manifestly honest and so completely at his ease that itwas impossible to harbour any thought of evil, and O'Moy felt again theglow of shame of suspicions so utterly unworthy and dishonouring.