Court of Foxes (31 page)

Still he was not there; and a sick hope rose in her heart that fought, however, with a hideous longing that she should see him, that it should all be over, that the unendurable tension should come to an end. ‘He’s famous,’ she said to Jake, huddled beside her, his arm around her waist to support himself, his head poked out of the window, craning to see. ‘Of course he’ll come last — we should have thought of that and spared ourselves this much wretchedness of expectation at least.’

And the outcry came again, rolling down the cobbled highway towards them like a tidal wave, louder this time, on a strange note that rose to exultation and fell away into a sort of groan… Because he fails them, she thought. Because he doesn’t bow to right and left and bandy jokes with them as befits a famous highwayman. She had sent him the drug herself, but, torn between love and un-love as she had ever been, it was horrible to find him at the last unworthy of such admiration as at least had never failed her. For a moment she wondered whether somewhere, hidden away beneath all this, there could not be still some plot for a last-minute escape; but she knew the gang too well, she knew that they could not have concealed it from her if there had been any hope; she knew that they too were heart-broken at the discovery of those feet of clay.

And the cart rumbled into sight and was passing them; and she saw…

She saw not the green coat nor the russet: but a blur, a blaze of red, a blaze of red roses that he carried crushed close against his body as though his heart had broken and its red blood stained all his breast. ‘Dear God!’ she said to the little boy. ‘Yes — he’s there!’

He wore the green coat — the green coat that he had worn that night when first he came to the playhouse and had sent her red roses with that message so oft repeated: Till I die…! And now he was to die — with her red roses clasped to his heart. ‘We must be there! Drive on, drive closer!’ she cried to the coachman, reaching out of the window to call above the uproar, up to the box. ‘I must be near.’ And she pulled Jake in with her, falling back with a jerk as the vehicle jolted into action, the man cursing as he fought his way round the edge of the crowd, fanned out now about the execution place. ‘Jake, don’t look, don’t witness it, you mustn’t have this to remember all your life. But I must be near him, I must be there!’

He was wretched, bewildered, huddled in the seat beside her. ‘Why wasn’t he bowing, Gilda, and looking about him and making jokes? He — he stood there as though he were — as though he were already half dead. He never lifted his head…’

‘He isn’t a fool, dearest, who would spend his last moments in silly bravado — whatever he might say to cheer you when your heart broke for him. He — he is at his prayers.’ She improvised: ‘He told me in the prison that when the time came to stand before his Maker, he would repent of his sins and pray. He said he had much to answer for; and that was true, Jake.’ And she leaned out to call to the man, for the coach had stopped: ‘Can you get no closer?’

‘No closer, she says! Have I not mown down half the populace already and the horses frightened out of their wits? Besides,’ said the driver, ‘while we’ve fought our way here, the cart has gone unimpeded. They are already beneath the Tree.’

‘Oh, God!’ she prayed, ‘Oh, God! Let me have courage — give me this last moment of courage and I’ll ask no more of you! Give me courage — to see: and to be seen!’ And she forced the child back, blocking the window with her body, standing up, lifting her white face, throwing back her veil to let him know her by that flame which in the dark playhouse of those other days, had caught his eye and all eyes by its ambience. The coach had drawn up behind a group of spectators standing in an entrance to the galleries; over their heads he could see her if he would but look up: would see at least the brightness of her hair and know that she was there. ‘Gareth! Gareth y Cadno! I’m here, I’m with you! Raise your head, look at me!’ Across the space where the three posts stood, she could see Catti and the other women, huddled, piteously weeping; posted somewhere near the Chit, she knew, would be the men, ready to run forward and swing upon the dancing legs, as he slowly strangled in the jerking noose. A plot, she prayed, a rescue! — even at this last hour. But as she had known that the lolling figure in the dock was truly less than half-conscious from the effects of the laudanum, so she knew it also now. Well, then — even half-conscious: might there not be a sudden assault, a scattering of the few attendants at this grisly scene, might they not bear him away and out of the crowd to safety? But she saw how densely the people were packed about the small ring kept free for the carts to come and go, and knew also that there could be no escape through that roaring, screaming, gin-soaked mob, howling only for blood. He must die. Would he but die like a man she knew!

The horse had been pulled up beneath the three posts, set in a triangle, joined by stout bars a foot or two above the heads of those standing in the cart. For a moment the green coat was lost to her sight as men leapt up beside the three condemned and roughly gathered up the ropes already about their necks. She caught a glimpse of a green sleeve, of a lolling body supported while they flung up the ends of the nooses, one to each cross-bar; crumpling against the side of the cart as they jumped down and stood away. ‘Oh, Gareth!’ she prayed, ‘look up, stand straight, for this last moment be the man that you are: leave us not with this — degradation — to remember you by…!’ She herself had sent him the laudanum, knowing that if he used it, she and all those who cared for him must pay with unworthy memories for his painless passing. Only… It was horrible to see it: to see him the object of the scorn and derision of the mob, pelted with filth scraped up from the ground round their feet, the ordure of rotted fruit and vegetables, of trodden straw, left over from other hangings there. Disappointed of a display of bravado from so renowned a malefactor, they spat and screamed, shaking angry fists, hurling abuse. His companions fended off the flying missiles, one laughing flung back as good as he got, one trembled and vomited and even at this last hour prayed mercy and begged not to die; but he — he stood as though deaf and blind to it all, sunk already into the oblivion of death.

A signal no doubt was given; for the crowd, knowledgeable, roared a last burst of mingled horror and joy. She saw the whip of the driver descend upon the startled horse which leapt forward in fear; saw the surge forward of the people, had a glimpse of faces she knew, of Dio’s face and Huw’s and little Willie-bach’s, as they pushed forward in readiness to the front rank of the crowd; and screamed out above the tumult for the last time: ‘Gareth! It is I, it’s your Vixen! Gareth I’m here with you: look up at me!’

Did he lift his head for a moment? — did he in that last instant, turn his face to hers? She saw in a blur the red roses crushed like heart’s blood against the green brocade of his coat, saw the lurch and sway as the horse plunged forward and the cart leapt away; saw the sickening sideways jerk of the dark head as the neck took the body’s weight, saw the three dummies dangle now, six foot above the ground: saw Dio and Huw and Willie-bach fling themselves forward, launching their weight upon the dreadfully dancing legs as the body jerked at the rope’s end slowly strangling to death; and screamed to the coachman, ‘Drive on, for God’s sake drive on! Take me away from this place!’

And she looked back for the last time, the little boy beside her clinging, bitterly weeping, to her skirts; and saw that it was over, that he hung limp and only now at last bowed this way and that as he had promised he would: gently turning to left and to right with the slow twisting of the rope. The hands that had clutched her red roses had dropped to his sides, letting the flowers fall into the filth beneath his lifeless feet.

I will love you till I die.

I
F THE GANG CAME T
o give her thanks and farewell, she knew nothing of it: lying between life and death in the frilly white bed, with grave old men shaking their heads over her and saying that the child must come too soon, far too soon. She was aware hazily that David sat hour after hour at her bedside; one day awoke to find herself in heaven with a vision standing there, all white and blue and crowned with gold, and cried out for Gareth who also was dead and must come to her now, must help her now… But the vision withdrew and somewhere out of sight spoke in low murmurs but in the language of the living. ‘You’re besotted, David; she was in love with that villain highwayman, even in her dreams she calls to him.’

‘Very well but he’s dead; she has nobody now but me.’

‘And are you to be sacrificed, your whole life, your whole family — am I to be sacrificed? for this — this adventuress, who gives you not even her whole heart in return. No! — I will
not
release you: not for this.’

‘Blanche, for God’s sake, in your mercy… Now that you’ve seen for yourself…’

And a sad voice saying in tones very different from those that Gilda had heard in other days: ‘You loved me once, David.’

‘And would love you still, Blanche, in — in another way: if you would show me this goodness, if you’d be merciful to her. And to my child.’

‘Your children would have been mine.’

‘If she dies, Blanche — if she dies and my child with her — do you think I could ever love again or love another woman’s children? And if I leave her now, if I may not take her in my arms and promise her through her sick dreams that she shall be safe with me for ever — she will die.’

‘You can never bring back to her the man she really loves.’

‘You may be right in this; you may see more clearly than I do or even than she does herself. But at least let me offer her this final proof of my love. They say the will to live isn’t there: what has she to live for? — her true love gone, if you’re right in what you believe; living on, a kept woman with a bastard child. And Blanche — if she dies, do you think I could ever forgive you for having robbed me of this last comfort…? If she dies…’

Only half heard, half understood, the voices faded; but through her dreams came at last a promise, oft reiterated, gently forced through to the inner depths of her consciousness — come back, my love, from this long, deep sleep, come back to life and health and be my wife…

He brought ministers to her bed and prayers were read and a thin hand wearing a golden ring, signed with feeble fluttering a new name: and a few days later to Marigelda, Countess of Tregaron, a son was born.

Now the Bijou was abandoned altogether, Mrs Brown moved its furniture into comfortable lodgings and embarked upon a life of her own, not untinged with romance. Little Jake was sent off to an educational establishment which might fit him for another than his chosen vocation as highwayman, Bess was married, and the brothers established in their own flourishing careers; and for the second time as Countess of Tregaron, Miss Marigold Brown entered the portals of the great, dull house in Hanover Square. Upstairs in nurseries of almost regal splendour, nurses watched over the life of the new little Viscount Llandovery; frail as a bird with wings ever fluttering, it seemed, to fly away into the cerulean blue for ever. In the great four-poster bed on the floor below, his mother lay and also fought her way back to life. And the fluttering wings at last grew still and the fluttering heart grew strong, and his tiny lordship raised hazy blue eyes and lifted a rose petal hand to the bright flame of his mother’s hair; and that same candle flame was seen again at the playhouse and nowadays crowned with the glittering tiaras of the family store-house of jewels. If among the rest, she wore always a ring set with a great ruby, her new wealth of treasures was so vast that none questioned but that it was from among them. None but her husband.

The old Dowager mother-in-law came: stiff, resentful, inimical, belligerent. ‘You may tell your mother from me, David, that I shall not tolerate it. I’m mistress here now — let her like me or go away.’

‘My dearest, be reasonable,’ he said, laughing. ‘How could she ever like you? It’s too much to ask.’

In other days, she also would have laughed. Now she only said irritably: ‘Then let her at least be civil. Or let me leave here, let me go back to South Audley Street, I was happier there than ever I can be in this great tomb, as long ago I told you I should be. I’ll take my child with me, you may live with us there if you will or only visit us as in other days you did; which days, I confess, slut and strumpet and the rest of it, were far better days for me.’

And better days also, perhaps, for David, Earl of Tregaron — with the ghost of another man always between them, the ghost of another life, wild and free. But the brown eyes were steady and kind, patient and firm. He spoke to his family, presumably — made such arrangements as would satisfy all without too much wounding any; would it not be best if his mother and sister took up residence in the Dower House in Wales, with a house for the London season. ‘But before they leave London, we must arrange the christening.’

‘I’ll have no christening with that old besom present. She’d spoil it all for me.’

‘That’s nonsense,’ he said, sharply now. ‘Of course the child’s grandmother must attend. And my sister shall stand god-mother.’

‘Very well. And Dio y Diawl shall stand god-father. I’ve long been resolved upon that.’

‘Dio y Diawl — that monster from a robber’s den?’

‘He’s my friend. He shall be god-father to my son.’

They faced each other across the huge, marble mantel-shelf in the huge, high drawing-room with its stiff furniture, exquisitely elegant, its portraits of past countesses wearing the jewels that nowadays adorned her own pale, haggard beauty. ‘You’re trying me, Gilda, to see how far I will be patient. I’ll be very patient, have been very patient; you’ve undergone great stress, you’ve been very ill, I know that you’ve been in deep grief — I think you owe me something, if only your respect, in that I don’t begrudge you your grief, don’t begrudge it to
him.
But though you were a leader once, my love, and absolute in command — you’re not so now. That was when the true leader, a man and therefore master, was absent. I am not absent and I am master here.’