Fire Below (14 page)

It is hard to say, looking back, that we made a mistake. Subsequent events proved nothing. And I often think that whichever way I had chosen would have brought us to the same conjuncture, for that, had we but known it, the matter was now out of our hands and we were but playing out the parts which Destiny itself had approved.

We had gone perhaps half a mile when I thought that I saw some movement a little way off. At once we crouched in the bracken, to which we had kept; but the movement was not repeated, and I was beginning to think that my eyes were too ready to see, when the Prince’s dog came gambolling out of a dip in the ground and an instant later the scarlet coat of his mistress rose into view.

I bade Rowley rise and we went to meet her at once, for I had no doubt she was bearing a telegram and I meant, if I could, to contrive to see what it said.

As we came near—

‘I was hoping to see you,’ she said, ‘because I have found your friends. If you please, I will lead you to them, when I have taken this telegram up to the house.’

She plucked a folded paper out of her fair, white shirt.

‘May I see it?’ said I.

She gave it into my hand.

It was addressed to ‘Baron Sabre’, and when I turned it about, I found it was carefully sealed.

‘Are they all so addressed?’ said I.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They are opened by Major Grieg.’

‘My servant will take it,’ said I. ‘And you shall turn back and take me to find my friends.’ I turned to Rowley and gave him the telegram. ‘That wire is for Major Grieg. I have told her that you will take it up to the house. Make as if you were going to, and as soon as you’re out of our sight, turn round and follow us. Whatever you do, don’t lose us. She’s going to take me to where Mr Hanbury is.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said Rowley; and, with that, he touched his hat and turned back the way we had come.

‘Good,’ said the girl softly.

She whistled the dog and set her face to the south.

I was not proud of my deceit, but, if I was to see the message, unless I had involved its bearer, I do not know what I could have done. There and then I determined that my pretty friend must not suffer for her credulity. To that end I asked her name.

‘I am Lelia,’ she said. ‘I live with my uncle at Merring. Now that he has married again, I have little to do. Why do you keep a servant, yet go unshaved?’

‘Because I am in hiding,’ I said. ‘I am a stranger here and I have broken some law. I hope to get out of the country before very long.’

Lelia regarded me straitly with fearless eyes.

‘You do not look a malefactor,’ she said.

‘They would make me out one,’ said I.

Lelia lifted her head.

‘Perhaps they are envious,’ she said. ‘You are very tall and strong. And your friends are in hiding, too?’

I nodded.

‘That is why this morning I asked you to hold your tongue.’

‘I have done so,’ she said. ‘But not because of your money.’ She stopped there and flushed. Then a hand went into her bosom and pulled out my fifty-crown note. ‘I would like you to take this again. I do not want money from you for what I have done.’

‘I want to make you a present, Lelia; and I have nothing else.’

‘I do not care,’ she said. ‘Take it back – for your pretty face.’ I had to laugh, but though she was smiling, she set her chin in the air.

As I put out a hand for the money, the cuff of my coat slipped back and showed the steel on my wrist.

In a flash she had hold of my arm.

‘Who has done this?’ she breathed. ‘Who has dared to put handcuffs upon you?’

All her kindness of heart looked out of her fine, brown eyes.

‘I told you I had enemies,’ I said. ‘But see. I have been set free. The link has been cut.’

‘It is shameful,’ she said hotly. ‘I will beg a file from the blacksmith and cut them through. See where this one has chafed you.’

The rub was nothing, but she would not leave the matter until I had let her pull down the sleeves of my shirt and slip the steel rings within the silk double-cuffs. This, much against my will, for though Bell had washed my shirt in a canvas bucket at Vigil, beside her spotless linen it seemed very foul.

‘I am very dirty,’ I said. ‘I have not changed for a week, and I have slept in my clothes.’

Lelia drew in her breath.

‘When I come with a file, I will bring a sweet shirt,’ she said. ‘And a pair of my stockings if you will put them on. I do not always go barefoot.’

I shook my head.

‘No,’ said I. ‘You must keep your small hand out of this. You are very sweet and kind, but if they found out that you had helped me, they would come down upon you.’

‘I am not afraid,’ said Lelia. ‘But why does not this Major Grieg help you? I thought he was head of the police.’

‘Between you and me, I don’t trust him. That’s why I am leaving this house.’

Lelia nodded.

‘I think you do well,’ she said. ‘He is a brute of a man. How is it that my dog knows you? Your friends were sure that he would, but they would not say why.’

‘He did me a service,’ said I, ‘a few days ago. He was set on to me, but, instead, he licked my hand. And so, to save him a beating, I took him away – and lost him here in this park.’

‘And here I found him,’ said Lelia. She turned a radiant face. ‘There is your present, you see – the present you wanted to give me. And I never knew.’

‘I could not wish him a better mistress,’ said I.

‘I think he is happy,’ she said. ‘And I have never had such a present: all his ways are so handsome, and he will not eat except at my hand.’ She whistled again, and the dog was by her side in a flash. As she caressed him – ‘He is very obedient, you see,’ she added artlessly.

‘There is more than obedience,’ I said, and so there was.

All this time we were making our way through the park, sometimes passing through bracken and sometimes beneath the trees, but I saw no sign of buildings, and if we were treading some path, it was such that I could not see.

‘I do not understand,’ said the girl, ‘your having to do with Grieg. You are not of his kidney. How could you think that he would give you shelter and play the friend?’

‘It’s a long, dull story,’ said I. ‘Don’t trouble your pretty head.’

Lelia stooped to gather a flower.

‘I do not think it is long, or dull either. And – and I should like to know.’ She rose, set the flower in her shirt and looked into my face. ‘Of course, if you do not trust me…’

I would like to be shown the man that could have faced those eyes.

‘Lelia,’ said I, ‘I have played you a rotten trick. Grieg is my enemy. That telegram you were taking – I did not send it to him. I told my servant to keep it, and when you were gone to give it to me to read.’

For a moment she regarded me steadily. Then, to my infinite distress, I saw her eyes fill with tears.

‘I would have given it you,’ she said shakily.

Then she put up her bare, brown arm, hid her face in its crook and began to weep.

I have never felt such a brute: and when I remembered that, thanks to my positive orders, Rowley’s eyes were upon us, I have never felt such a fool. Indeed, to this day he must think me utterly shameless and bold as brass, for I set my arm about her and put her hand to my lips.

‘You did not trust me,’ she sobbed. ‘You speak to me fair, but you think–’

‘I deceived you,’ said I, ‘for your sake – not for my own. I knew that if I asked you, you would give me the telegram. But I did not want to involve you. If there was trouble to come, I wanted you to be able to say you had been deceived.’

‘No, no. You did not trust me.’

‘I did, indeed,’ I protested. ‘This morning I felt the better for having seen your face. I have told you the truth, Lelia – by no means to your advantage, still less to mine; but I am a poor liar, and your pretty eyes are to blame. And if you care to hear it, I will tell you my tale.’

She lifted her tear-stained face and looked into my eyes.

‘I will believe you,’ she said, ‘but please do not do it again.’

With my mind very much upon Rowley, I let her go; but I think she would have liked me to kiss her, and since God knows I had hurt her enough for one day, I sought to explain my indifference as best I could.

‘I have a wife, Lelia, with whom I am deeply in love.’

‘Where is she, then?’ said the girl.

‘She is in my heart, Lelia.’

‘Hers should be leaping,’ said she. With a little sigh, she set her head in the air. ‘Will you tell her I’m hard to please, but I liked her man?’

‘I shall tell her you were very good to him,’ said I.

Then she called to the dog, and we went on our way.

As we went, I told her our story, but mentioned no names. I had no desire to dishonour the Prince in her eyes. And of course I said nothing of the Countess’ marriage to Grieg.

She listened greedily.

When I had done—

‘You must wait awhile,’ she said. ‘You cannot escape just now. This Grieg is full of some dirty work for the Prince. They are looking for someone, you know. They had the troops out for three days. And until they are caught, I think you had better lie close, or the net they have spread for another will fall upon you. They say that the Grand Duchess’ husband is here in Riechtenburg – the Grand Duchess Leonie. She is a darling. She was to have married the Prince, but when he came to the throne, she said she could bear him no more. And if the Prince could take him…’ She broke off and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I think it is true,’ she added, ‘for Leonie lives at Littai, and that is where the telegrams come from twice in the day. Why did you want to see the last one I brought?’

‘Oh, Lelia,’ said I, laughing, ‘must I tell you the truth?’

‘Why not?’ says she, with her big eyes full of surprise.

‘Well, then, I have a message for Leonie – a message from you.’

‘From me?’ cried the girl, staring.

I nodded.

‘You gave it to me just now. I was to tell her that though you were hard to please, you liked her man.’

She started violently. Then–

‘For heaven’s sake!’ she breathed. ‘And I never guessed. Oh, my lord–’

‘I am no lord. I am plain Richard Chandos.’

Lelia lowered her eyes, and the blood came into her face. ‘I am very sorry,’ she said humbly, ‘and very much ashamed. I – I have made very bold.’

‘You have been very sweet and natural.’ I took her hand and kissed it. ‘If I did not respect you, I should not do that.’

‘You must not tell her Highness,’ said Lelia. ‘She would be very scornful.’

‘Not she,’ said I. ‘She will write you a letter of thanks for being so good to “her man”.’

Lelia stared at the sky.

‘She is very lovely,’ she said irrelevantly. ‘I do not wonder that you have eyes for nobody else. She never goes barefoot, I suppose.’

‘No,’ said I, smiling.

Lelia sighed.

‘I do not always,’ she said. ‘I told you. I look much better in stockings and bright leather shoes.’

‘Never wear them for me,’ said I. ‘If Leonie lived as you do, she would never put on a stocking from one year’s end to the next. Besides, I – I like your bare legs.’

Lelia smiled.

‘I am glad if they please you,’ she said.

Since now she knew who I was, I told her the rest of our tale, only suppressing Marya’s marriage to Grieg. At once she declared, as had Ramon, that the Prince was afraid for his throne, for that all the country loved Leonie and would be only too glad to have her to reign in his stead.

‘Be that as it may,’ said I, ‘I’m afraid she’s leaving Littai. I cannot believe she will come by the smugglers’ way, but Grieg may have information which I have not. But he cannot have known that we were to take that path and take it tonight. That was pure–’

Lelia let out a cry and clapped her hands to her face. In her eyes there was plain horror.

‘Oh, my lord,
I told him
. I never gave it a thought. When I took the first telegram. I could not find old Andrew and so I went into the hall. Grieg was there – on the stairs, in his shirt-sleeves, with a towel in his hands. He asked me if I had seen anyone by the way. And I said I had met your friends and was looking for you. And he said he would give you the message, if I would give it to him. And so I did –
I betrayed you
. Mother of God, forgive me! I meant no ill.’

As well as I could, I brushed her reproaches aside.

‘How could you know, Lelia? Besides, if you did any ill, you have made it good. I feared that my friends would walk clean into a trap, but now it is you that have saved them by showing me where they are.’

For all my logic, she would not be comforted, till I said she should help to hide us until we could make our escape some other way.

‘Will I not?’ she cried. ‘You shall lie in the Great Bear barn. I will watch the livelong night, and you shall sleep like a child.’

‘Not tonight, Lelia. Tonight I must take the path in case Leonie comes.’

‘But they will take you,’ she cried and caught at my arm.

‘Not they,’ said I. ‘Forewarned is forearmed. I shall be there before them, and the odds are on him who comes first to a place like that.’

‘I cannot recall it,’ said Lelia, knitting her brows. ‘I know the path, but I cannot remember the fall.’

I told her again of the bypass and how easy it was to find it for such as had ears to hear the water come down.

‘But you will return?’ says she. ‘Even if her Highness is there, you will come back?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said I. ‘I must return for the Countess. If Leonie comes, I shall send her back to Bariche. But I do not think that she will.’

‘And then you will let me help you and watch while you sleep?’

‘Indeed, I will, Lelia. I shall be very tired.’

She sighed contentedly.

‘Then that is settled,’ she said. ‘I am very glad. And please tell me more of her Highness. Does she have a great many dresses? And is there always a servant behind her chair?’

If her talk was downright, she was as naive and eager as the first breath of spring upon the year; Eve herself cannot have been more natural, and I have seen many women that bore big names, yet had not a ghost of her charm nor a tenth of her dignity. About her fancy for me she said no more, but was so frank and friendly that all my embarrassment fled and I felt an ease and comfort that I had not known since I left Littai six days before. Why she liked me so well I shall never know, for she was as fresh and charming as I was haggard and foul; indeed, I have seen many tramps by the side of the road that cut a nobler figure than I did that day. But I think the truth is that I had the look of a hunted man and that, as Desdemona the Moor, she pitied me.