The Snare
by Rafael Sabatini
(first published in 1917)
Chapter VI
Miss Armytage's Pearls
Lady O'Moy and Miss Armytage drove alone together into Lisbon. The adjutant, still occupied, would follow as soon as he possibly
could, whilst Captain Tremayne would go on directly from the
lodgings which he shared in Alcantara with Major Carruthers—also
of the adjutant's staff—whither he had ridden to dress some twenty
minutes earlier.
"Are you ill, Una?" had been Sylvia's concerned greeting of her
cousin when she came within the range of the carriage lamps. "You
are pale as a ghost." To this her ladyship had replied mechanically
that a slight headache troubled her.
But now that they sat side by side in the well upholstered carriage
Miss Armytage became aware that her companion was trembling.
"Una, dear, whatever is the matter?"
Had it not been for the dominant fear that the shedding of tears
would render her countenance unsightly, Lady O'Moy would have
yielded to her feelings and wept. Heroically in the cause of her
own flawless beauty she conquered the almost overmastering
inclination.
"I—I have been so troubled about Richard," she faltered. "It is
preying upon my mind."
"Poor dear!" In sheer motherliness Miss Armytage put an arm about
her cousin and drew her close. "We must hope for the best."
Now if you have understood anything of the character of Lady O'Moy
you will have understood that the burden of a secret was the last
burden that such a nature was capable of carrying. It was because
Dick was fully aware of this that he had so emphatically and
repeatedly impressed upon her the necessity for saying not a word
to any one of his presence. She realised in her vague way—or
rather she believed it since he had assured her—that there would
be grave danger to him if he were discovered. But discovery was
one thing, and the sharing of a confidence as to his presence
another. That confidence must certainly be shared.
Lady O'Moy was in an emotional maelstrom that swept her towards a
cataract. The cataract might inspire her with dread, standing as
it did for death and disaster, but the maelstrom was not to be
resisted. She was helpless in it, unequal to breasting such strong
waters, she who in all her futile, charming life had been borne
snugly in safe crafts that were steered by others.
Remained but to choose her confidant. Nature suggested Terence.
But it was against Terence in particular that she had been warned.
Circumstance now offered Sylvia Armytage. But pride, or vanity if
you prefer it, denied her here. Sylvia was an inexperienced young
girl, as she herself had so often found occasion to remind her cousin.
Moreover, she fostered the fond illusion that Sylvia looked to her
for precept, that upon Sylvia's life she exercised a precious guiding
influence. How, then, should the supporting lean upon the supported?
Yet since she must, there and then, lean upon something or succumb
instantly and completely, she chose a middle course, a sort of
temporary assistance.
"I have been imagining things," she said. "It may be a premonition,
I don't know. Do you believe in premonitions, Sylvia?"
"Sometimes," Sylvia humoured her.
"I have been imagining that if Dick is hiding, a fugitive, he might
naturally come to me for help. I am fanciful, perhaps," she added
hastily, lest she should have said too much. "But there it is.
All day the notion has clung to me, and I have been asking myself
desperately what I should do in such a case."
"Time enough to consider it when it happens, Una. After all—"
"I know," her ladyship interrupted on that ever-ready note of
petulance of hers. "I know, of course. But I think I should be
easier in my mind if I could find an answer to my doubt. If I knew
what to do, to whom to appeal for assistance, for I am afraid that
I should be very helpless myself. There is Terence, of course. But
I am a little afraid of Terence. He has got Dick out of so many
scrapes, and he is so impatient of poor Dick. I am afraid he doesn't
understand him, and so I should be a little frightened of appealing
to Terence again."
"No," said Sylvia gravely, "I shouldn't go to Terence. Indeed he
is the last man to whom I should go."
"You say that too!" exclaimed her ladyship.
"Why?" quoth Sylvia sharply. "Who else has said it?"
There was a brief pause in which Lady O'Moy shuddered. She had
been so near to betraying herself. How very quick and shrewd
Sylvia was! She made, however, a good recovery.
"Myself, of course. It is what I have thought myself. There is
Count Samoval. He promised that if ever any such thing happened he
would help me. And he assured me I could count upon him. I think
it may have been his offer that made me fanciful."
"I should go to Sir Terence before I went to Count Samoval. By
which I mean that I should not go to Count Samoval at all under any
circumstances. I do not trust him."
"You said so once before, dear," said Lady O'Moy.
"And you assured me that I spoke out of the fullness of my ignorance
and inexperience."
"Ah, forgive me."
"There is nothing to forgive. No doubt you were right. But remember
that instinct is most alive in the ignorant and inexperienced, and
that instinct is often a surer guide than reason. Yet if you want
reason, I can supply that too. Count Samoval is the intimate friend
of the Marquis of Minas, who remains a member of the Government, and
who next to the Principal Souza was, and no doubt is, the most bitter
opponent of the British policy in Portugal. Yet Count Samoval, one
of the largest landowners in the north, and the nobleman who has
perhaps suffered most severely from that policy, represents himself
as its most vigorous supporter."
Lady O'Moy listened in growing amazement. Also she was a little
shocked. It seemed to her almost indecent that a young girl should
know so much about politics—so much of which she herself, a married
woman, and the wife of the adjutant-general, was completely in
ignorance.
"Save us, child!" she ejaculated. "You are so extraordinarily
informed."
"I have talked to Captain Tremayne," said Sylvia. "He has explained
all this."
"Extraordinary conversation for a young man to hold with a young
girl," pronounced her ladyship. "Terence never talked of such
things to me."
"Terence was too busy making love to you," said Sylvia, and there
was the least suspicion of regret in her almost boyish voice.
"That may account for it," her ladyship confessed, and fell for a
moment into consideration of that delicious and rather amusing past,
when O'Moy's ferocious hesitancy and flaming jealousy had delighted
her with the full perception of her beauty's power. With a rush,
however, the present forced itself back upon her notice. "But I
still don't see why Count Samoval should have offered me assistance
if he did not intend to grant it when the time came."
Sylvia explained that it was from the Portuguese Government that
the demand for justice upon the violator of the nunnery at Tavora
emanated, and that Samoval's offer might be calculated to obtain him
information of Butler's whereabouts when they became known, so that
he might surrender him to the Government.
"My dear!" Lady O'Moy was shocked almost beyond expression. "How
you must dislike the man to suggest that he could be such a—such
a Judas."
"I do not suggest that he could be. I warn you never to run the
risk of testing him. He maybe as honest in this matter as he
pretends. But if ever Dick were to come to you for help, you must
take no risk."
The phrase was a happier one than Sylvia could suppose. It was
almost the very phrase that Dick himself had used; and its
reiteration by another bore conviction to her ladyship.
"To whom then should I go?" she demanded plaintively. And Sylvia,
speaking with knowledge, remembering the promise that Tremayne
had given her, answered readily: "There is but one man whose
assistance you could safely seek. Indeed I wonder you should not
have thought of him in the first instance, since he is your own, as
well as Dick's lifelong friend."
"Ned Tremayne?" Her ladyship fell into thought. "Do you know, I
am a little afraid of Ned. He is so very sober and cold. You do
mean Ned—don't you?"
"Whom else should I mean?"
"But what could he do?"
"My dear, how should I know? But at least I know—for I think I
can be sure of this—that he will not lack the will to help you;
and to have the will, in a man like Captain Tremayne, is to find
a way."
The confident, almost respectful, tone in which she spoke arrested
her ladyship's attention. It promptly sent her off at a tangent:
"You like Ned, don't you, dear?"
"I think everybody likes him." Sylvia's voice was now studiously
cold.
"Yes; but I don't mean quite in that way." And then before the
subject could be further pursued the carriage rolled to a standstill
in a flood of light from gaping portals, scattering a mob of curious
sight-seers intersprinkled with chairmen, footmen, linkmen and all
the valetaille that hovers about the functions of the great world.
The carriage door was flung open and the steps let down. A brace
of footmen, plump as capons, in gorgeous liveries, bowed powdered
heads and proffered scarlet arms to assist the ladies to alight.
Above in the crowded, spacious, colonnaded vestibule at the foot of
the great staircase they were met by Captain Tremayne, who had just
arrived with Major Carruthers, both resplendent in full dress, and
Captain Marcus Glennie of the Telemachus in blue and gold. Together
they ascended the great staircase, lined with chatting groups, and
ablaze with uniforms, military, naval and diplomatic, British and
Portuguese, to be welcomed above by the Count and Countess of
Redondo.
Lady O'Moy's entrance of the ballroom produced the effect to which
custom had by now inured her. Soon she found herself the centre of
assiduous attentions. Cavalrymen in blue, riflemen in green,
scarlet officers of the line regiments, winged light-infantrymen,
rakishly pelissed, gold-braided hussars and all the smaller fry of
court and camp fluttered insistently about her. It was no novelty
to her who had been the recipient of such homage since her first
ball five years ago at Dublin Castle, and yet the wine of it had
gone ever to her head a little. But to-night she was rather pale
and listless, her rose-petal loveliness emphasised thereby perhaps.
An unusual air of indifference hung about her as she stood there
amid this throng of martial jostlers who craved the honour of a
dance and at whom she smiled a thought mechanically over the top
of her slowly moving fan.
The first quadrille impended, and the senior service had carried off
the prize from under the noses of the landsmen. As she was swept
away by Captain Glennie, she came face to face with Tremayne, who
was passing with Sylvia on his arm. She stopped and tapped his arm
with her fan.
"You haven't asked to dance, Ned," she reproached him.
"With reluctance I abstained."
"But I don't intend that you shall. I have something to say to you."
He met her glance, and found it oddly serious—most oddly serious
for her. Responding to its entreaty, he murmured a promise in
courteous terms of delight at so much honour.
But either he forgot the promise or did not conceive its redemption
to be an urgent matter, for the quadrille being done he sauntered
through one of the crowded ante-rooms with Miss Armytage and brought
her to the cool of a deserted balcony above the garden. Beyond this
was the river, agleam with the lights of the British fleet that rode
at anchor on its placid bosom.
"Una will be waiting for you," Miss Armytage reminded him. She was
leaning on the sill of the balcony. Standing erect beside her, he
considered the graceful profile sharply outlined against a background
of gloom by the light from the windows behind them. A heavy curl of
her dark hair lay upon a neck as flawlessly white as the rope of
pearls that swung from it, with which her fingers were now idly
toying. It were difficult to say which most engaged his thoughts:
the profile; the lovely line of neck; or the rope of pearls. These
latter were of price, such things as it might seldom—and then only
by sacrifice—lie within the means of Captain Tremayne to offer to
the woman whom he took to wife.
He so lost himself upon that train of thought that she was forced to
repeat her reminder.
"Una will be waiting for you, Captain Tremayne."
"Scarcely as eagerly," he answered, "as others will be waiting for
you."
She laughed amusedly, a frank, boyish laugh. "I thank you for not
saying as eagerly as I am waiting for others."
"Miss Armytage, I have ever cultivated truth."
"But we are dealing with surmise."
"Oh, no surmise at all. I speak of what I know."
"And so do I" And yet again she repeated: "Una will be waiting for
you."
He sighed, and stiffened slightly. "Of course if you insist," said
he, and made ready to reconduct her.
She swung round as if to go, but checked, and looked him frankly in
the eyes.
"Why will you for ever be misunderstanding me?" she challenged him.
"Perhaps it is the inevitable result of my over-anxiety to understand."
"Then begin by taking me more literally, and do not read into my
words more meaning than I intend to give them. When I say Una is
waiting for you, I state a simple fact, not a command that you shall
go to her. Indeed I want first to talk to you."
"If I might take you literally now—"
"Should I have suffered you to bring me here if I did not?"
"I beg your pardon," he said, contrite, and something shaken out of
his imperturbability. "Sylvia," he ventured very boldly, and there
checked, so terrified as to be a shame to his brave scarlet,
gold-laced uniform.
"Yes?" she said. She was leaning upon the balcony again, and in
such a way now that he could no longer see her profile. But her
fingers were busy at the pearls once more, and this he saw, and
seeing, recovered himself.
"You have something to say to me?" he questioned in his smooth,
level voice.
Had he not looked away as he spoke he might have observed that her
fingers tightened their grip of the pearls almost convulsively, as
if to break the rope. It was a gesture slight and trivial, yet
arguing perhaps vexation. But Tremayne did not see it, and had he
seen it, it is odds it would have conveyed no message to him.
There fell a long pause, which he did not venture to break. At
last she spoke, her voice quiet and level as his own had been.
"It is about Una."
"I had hoped," he spoke very softly, "that it was about yourself."
She flashed round upon him almost angrily. "Why do you utter these
set speeches to me?" she demanded. And then before he could
recover from his astonishment to make any answer she had resumed a
normal manner, and was talking quickly.
She told him of Una's premonitions about Dick. Told him, in short,
what it was that Una desired to talk to him about.
"You bade her come to me?" he said.
"Of course. After your promise to me."
He was silent and very thoughtful for a moment. "I wonder that
Una needed to be told that she had in me a friend," he said slowly.
"I wonder to whom she would have gone on her own impulse?"
"To Count Samoval," Miss Armytage informed him.
"Samoval!" he rapped the name out sharply. He was clearly angry.
"That man! I can't understand why O'Moy should suffer him about the
house so much."
"Terence, like everybody else, will suffer anything that Una wishes."
"Then Terence is more of a fool than I ever suspected."
There was a brief pause. "If you were to fail Una in this," said
Miss Armytage presently, "I mean that unless you yourself give her
the assurance that you are ready to do what you can for Dick, should
the occasion arise, I am afraid that in her present foolish mood she
may still avail herself of Count Samoval. That would be to give
Samoval a hold upon her; and I tremble to think what the consequences
might be. That man is a snake—a horror."
The frankness with which she spoke was to Tremayne full evidence of
her anxiety. He was prompt to allay it.
"She shall have that assurance this very evening," he promised.
"I at least have not pledged my word to anything or to any one.
Even so," he added slowly, "the chances of my services being ever
required grow more slender every day. Una may be full of
premonitions about Dick. But between premonition and event there
is something of a gap."
Again a pause, and then: "I am glad," said Miss Armytage, "to think
that Una has a friend, a trustworthy friend, upon whom she can
depend. She is so incapable of depending upon herself. All her
life there has been some one at hand to guide her and screen her
from unpleasantness until she has remained just a sweet, dear child
to be taken by the hand in every dark lane of life."
"But she has you, Miss Armytage."
"Me?" Miss Armytage spoke deprecatingly. "I don't think I am a
very able or experienced guide. Besides, even such as I am, she may
not have me very long now. I had letters from home this morning.
Father is not very well, and mother writes that he misses me. I am
thinking of returning soon."
"But—but you have only just come!"
She brightened and laughed at the dismay in his voice. "Indeed, I
have been here six weeks." She looked out over the shimmering
moonlit waters of the Tagus and the shadowy, ghostly ships of the
British fleet that rode at anchor there, and her eyes were wistful.
Her fingers, with that little gesture peculiar to her in moments
of constraint, were again entwining themselves in her rope of pearls.
"Yes," she said almost musingly, "I think I must be going soon."
He was dismayed. He realised that the moment for action had come.
His heart was sounding the charge within him. And then that cursed
rope of pearls, emblem of the wealth and luxury in which she had
been nurtured, stood like an impassable abattis across his path.
"You—you will be glad to go, of course?" he suggested.
"Hardly that. It has been very pleasant here." She sighed.
"We shall miss you very much," he said gloomily. "The house at
Monsanto will not be the same when you are gone. Una will be lost
and desolate without you."
"It occurs to me sometimes," she said slowly, "that the people
about Una think too much of Una and too little of themselves."
It was a cryptic speech. In another it might have signified a
spitefulness unthinkable in Sylvia Armytage; therefore it puzzled
him very deeply. He stood silent, wondering what precisely she
might mean, and thus in silence they continued for a spell. Then
slowly she turned and the blaze of light from the windows fell about
her irradiantly. She was rather pale, and her eyes were of a
suspiciously excessive brightness. And again she made use of the
phrase:
"Una will be waiting for you."
Yet, as before, he stood silent and immovable, considering her,
questioning himself, searching her face and his own soul. All he
saw was that rope of shimmering pearls.
"And after all, as yourself suggested, it is possible that others
may be waiting for me," she added presently.
Instantly he was crestfallen and contrite. "I sincerely beg your
pardon, Miss Armytage," and with a pang of which his imperturbable
exterior gave no hint he proffered her his arm.
She took it, barely touching it with her finger-tips, and they
re-entered the ante-room.
"When do you think that you will be leaving?" he asked her gently.
There was a note of harshness in the voice that answered him.
"I don't know yet. But very soon. The sooner the better, I think."
And then the sleek and courtly Samoval, detaching from, seeming to
materialise out of, the glittering throng they had entered, was
bowing low before her, claiming her attention. Knowing her feelings,
Tremayne would not have relinquished her, but to his infinite
amazement she herself slipped her fingers from his scarlet sleeve,
to place them upon the black one that Samoval was gracefully
proffering, and greeted Samoval with a gay raillery as oddly in
contrast with her grave demeanour towards the captain as with her
recent avowal of detestation for the Count.
Stricken and half angry, Tremayne stood looking after them as they
receded towards the ballroom. To increase his chagrin came a laugh
from Miss Armytage, sharp and rather strident, floating towards
him, and Miss Armytage's laugh was wont to be low and restrained.
Samoval, no doubt, had resources to amuse a woman—even a woman
who instinctively, disliked him—resources of which Captain Tremayne
himself knew nothing.
And then some one tapped him on the shoulder. A very tall,
hawk-faced man in a scarlet coat and tightly strapped blue trousers
stood beside him. It was Colquhoun Grant, the ablest intelligence
officer in Wellington's service.
"Why, Colonel!" cried Tremayne, holding out his hand. "I didn't
know you were in Lisbon."
"I arrived only this afternoon." The keen eyes flashed after the
disappearing figures of Sylvia and her cavalier. "Tell me, what is
the name of the irresistible gallant who has so lightly ravished
you of your quite delicious companion?"
"Count Samoval," said Tremayne shortly.
Grant's face remained inscrutable. "Really!" he said softly. "So
that is Jeronymo de Samoval, eh? How very interesting. A great
supporter of the British policy; therefore an altruist, since
himself he is a sufferer by it; and I hear that he has become a
great friend of O'Moy's."
"He is at Monsanto a good deal certainly," Tremayne admitted.
"Most interesting." Grant was slowly nodding, and a faint smile
curled his thin, sensitive lips. "But I'm keeping you, Tremayne,
and no doubt you would be dancing. I shall perhaps see you
to-morrow. I shall be coming up to Monsanto."
And with a wave of the hand he passed on and was gone.
To the Next Chapter of
The Snare
Return to The Snare Menu
|
