Authors: Rafael Sabatini
The matter absorbed and vexed him. I fear he was inquisitive by nature. There came a moment when he went so far as to consider making his way below to pursue his investigations
in situ.
It would have been at great cost to his dignity, and this he was destined to be spared.
A knock fell upon his door, and the landlady came in. She was genial, buxom and apple-faced, as becomes a landlady.
"There is a gentleman below——" she was beginning, when Mr. Caryll interrupted her.
"I would rather that you told me of the lady," said
"La, sir!" she cried, displaying ivory teeth, her eyes cast upwards, hands upraised in gentle, mirthful protest. "La, sir! But I come from the lady, too."
He looked at her. "A good ambassador," said he, "should begin with the best news; not add it as an afterthought. But proceed, I beg. You give me hope, mistress."
"They send their compliments, and would be prodigiously obliged if you was to give yourself the trouble of stepping below."
"Of stepping below?" he inquired, head on one side, solemn eyes upon the hostess. "Would it be impertinent to inquire what they may want with me?"
"I think they want you for a witness, sir."
"For a witness? Am I to testify to the lady's perfection of face and shape, to the heaven that sits in her eyes, to the miracle she calls her ankle? Are these and other things besides of the
same kind what I am required to witness? If so, they could not have sent for one more qualified. I am an expert, ma'am."
"Oh, sir, nay!" she laughed. " 'Tis a marriage they need you for."
Mr. Caryll opened his queer eyes a little wider. "Soho!" said he. "The parson is explained." Then he fell thoughtful, his tone lost its note of flippancy. "This gentleman who sends his
compliments, does he send his name?"
"He does not, sir; but I overheard it."
"Confide in me," Mr. Caryll invited her.
"He is a great gentleman," she prepared him.
"No matter. I love great gentlemen."
"They call him Lord Rotherby."
At that sudden and utterly unexpected mention of his half-brother's name—his unknown half-brother—Mr. Caryll came to his feet with an alacrity which a more shrewd observer would have
set down to some cause other than mere respect for a viscount. The hostess was shrewd, but not shrewd enough, and if Mr. Caryll's expression changed for an instant, it resumed its habitual
half-scornful calm so swiftly that it would have needed eyes of an exceptional quickness to have read it.
"Enough!" he said. "Who could deny his lordship?"
"Shall I tell them you are coming?" she inquired, her hand already upon the door.
"A moment," he begged, detaining her. " 'Tis a runaway marriage this, eh?"
Her full-hearted smile beamed on him again; she was a very woman, with a taste for the romantic, loving love. "What else, sir?" she laughed.
"And why, mistress," he inquired, eying her, his fingers plucking at his nether lip, "do they desire my testimony?"
"His lordship's own man will stand witness, for one; but they'll need another," she explained, her voice reflecting astonishment at his question.
"True. But why do they need me?" he pressed her. "Heard you no reason given why they should prefer me to your chamberlain, your ostler or your drawer?"
She knit her brows and shrugged impatient shoulders. Here was a deal of pother about a trifling affair. "His lordship saw you as he entered, sir, and inquired of me who you might be."
"His lordship flatters me by this interest. My looks pleased him, let us hope. And you answered him—what?"
"That your honor is a gentleman newly crossed from France."
"You are well-informed, mistress," said Mr. Caryll, a thought tartly, for if his speech was tainted with a French accent it was in so slight a degree as surely to be imperceptible to the
vulgar.
"Your clothes, sir," the landlady explained, and he bethought him, then, that the greater elegance and refinement of his French apparel must indeed proclaim his origin to one who had so many
occasions of seeing travelers from Gaul. That might even account for Mr. Green's attempts to talk to him of France. His mind returned to the matter of the bridal pair below.
"You told him that, eh?" said he. "And what said his lordship then?"
"He turned to the parson. 'The very man for us, Jenkins,' says he."
"And the parson—this Jenkins—what answer did he make?"
" 'Excellently thought,' he says, grinning."
"Hum! And you yourself, mistress, what inference did you draw?"
"Inference, sir?"
"Aye, inference, ma'am. Did you not gather that this was not only a runaway match, but a clandestine one? My lord can depend upon the discretion of his servant, no doubt; for other witness he
would prefer some passer-by, some stranger who will go his ways tomorrow, and not be like to be heard of again."
"Lard, sir!" cried the landlady, her eyes wide with astonishment.
Mr. Caryll smiled enigmatically. " 'Tis so, I assure ye, ma'am. My Lord Rotherby is of a family singularly cautious in the unions it contracts. In entering matrimony he prefers, no doubt, to
leave a back door open for quiet retreat should he repent him later."
"Your honor has his lordship's acquaintance, then?" quoth the landlady.
"It is a misfortune from which Heaven has hitherto preserved me, but which the devil, it seems, now thrusts upon me. It will, nevertheless, interest me to see him at close quarters. Come,
ma'am."
As they were going out, Mr. Caryll checked suddenly. "Why, what's o'clock?" said he.
She stared, so abruptly came the question. "Past four, sir," she answered.
He uttered a short laugh. "Decidedly," said he, "his lordship must be viewed at closer quarters." And he led the way downstairs.
In the passage he waited for her to come up with him. "You had best announce me by name," he suggested. "It is Caryll."
She nodded, and, going forward, threw open a door, inviting him to enter.
"Mr. Caryll," she announced, obedient to his injunction, and as he went in she closed the door behind him.
From the group of three that had been sitting about the polished walnut table, the tall gentleman in buff and silver rose swiftly, and advanced to the newcomer, what time Mr. Caryll made a rapid
observation of this brother whom he was meeting under circumstances so odd and by a chance so peculiar.
He beheld a man of twenty-five, or perhaps a little more, tall and well made, if already inclining to heaviness, with a swarthy face, full-lipped, big-nosed, black-eyed, an obstinate chin, and a
deplorable brow. At sight, by instinct, he disliked his brother. He wondered vaguely was Lord Rotherby in appearance at all like their common father; but beyond that he gave little thought to the
tie that bound them. Indeed, he has placed it upon record that, saving in such moments of high stress as followed in their later connection, he never could remember that they were the sons of the
same parent.
"I thought," was Rotherby's greeting, a note almost of irritation in his voice, "that the woman said you were from France."
It was an odd welcome, but its oddness at the moment went unheeded. His swift scrutiny of his brother over, Mr. Caryll's glance passed on to become riveted upon the face of the lady at the
table's head. In addition to the beauties which from above he had descried, he now perceived that her mouth was sensitive and kindly, her whole expression one of gentle wistfulness, exceeding sweet
to contemplate. What did she in this galley, he wondered; and he has confessed that just as at sight he had disliked his brother, so from that hour—from the very instant of his eyes'
alighting on her there—he loved the lady whom his brother was to wed, felt a surpassing need of her, conceived that in the meeting of their eyes their very souls had met, so that it was to
him as if he had known her since he had known anything. Meanwhile there was his lordship's question to be answered. He answered it mechanically, his eyes upon the lady, and she returning the gaze
of those queer, greenish eyes with a sweetness that gave place to no confusion.
"I am from France, sir."
"But not French?" his lordship continued.
Mr. Caryll fetched his eyes from the lady's to meet Lord Rotherby's. "More than half French," he replied, the French taint in his accent growing slightly more pronounced. "It was but an accident
that my father was an Englishman."
Rotherby laughed softly, a thought contemptuously. Foreigners were things which in his untraveled, unlettered ignorance he despised. The difference between a Frenchman and a South Sea Islander
was a thing never quite appreciated by his lordship. Some subtle difference he had no doubt existed; but for him it was enough to know that both were foreigners; therefore, it logically followed,
both were kin.
"Your words, sir, might be oddly interpreted. 'Pon honor, they might!" said he, and laughed softly again with singular insolence.
"If they have amused your lordship I am happy," said Mr. Caryll in such a tone that Rotherby looked to see whether he was being roasted. "You wanted me, I think. I beg that you'll not thank me
for having descended. It was an honor."
It occurred to Rotherby that this was a veiled reproof for the ill manners of the omission. Again he looked sharply at this man who was scanning him with such interest, but he detected in the
calm, high-bred face nothing to suggest that any mockery was intended. Belatedly he fell to doing the very thing that Mr. Caryll had begged him to leave undone: he fell to thanking him. As for Mr.
Caryll himself, not even the queer position into which he had been thrust could repress his characteristics. What time his lordship thanked him, he looked about him at the other occupants of the
room, and found that, besides the parson, sitting pale and wide-eyed at the table, there was present in the background his lordship's man—a quiet fellow, quietly garbed in gray, with a shrewd
face and shrewd, shifty eyes. Mr. Caryll saw, and registered, for future use, the reflection that eyes that are overshrewd are seldom wont to look out of honest heads.
"You are desired," his lordship informed him, "to be witness to a marriage."
"So much the landlady had made known to me."
"It is not, I trust, a task that will occasion you any scruples."
"None. On the contrary, it is the absence of the marriage might do that." The smooth, easy tone so masked the inner meaning of the answer that his lordship scarce attended to the words.
"Then we had best get on. We are in haste."
"'Tis the characteristic rashness of folk about to enter wedlock," said Mr. Caryll, as he approached the table with his lordship, his eyes as he spoke turning full upon the bride.
My lord laughed, musically enough, but overloud for a man of brains or breeding. "Marry in haste, eh?" quoth he.
"You are penetration itself," Mr. Caryll praised him.
"'Twill take a shrewd rogue to better me," his lordship agreed.
"Yet an honest man might worst you. One never knows. But the lady's patience is being taxed."
It was as well he added that, for his lordship had turned with intent to ask him what he meant.
"Aye! Come, Jenkins. Get on with your patter. Gaskell," he called to his man, "stand forward here." Then he took his place beside the lady, who had risen, and stood pale, with eyes cast down
and—as Mr. Caryll alone saw—the faintest quiver at the corners of her lips. This served to increase Mr. Caryll's already considerable cogitations.
The parson faced them, fumbling at his book, Mr. Caryll's eyes watching him with that cold, level glance of theirs. The parson looked up, met that uncanny gaze, displayed his teeth in a grin of
terror, fell to trembling, and dropped the book in his confusion. Mr. Caryll, smiling sardonically, stooped to restore it him.
There followed a fresh pause. Mr. Jenkins, having lost his place, seemed at some pains to find it again—amazing, indeed, in one whose profession should have rendered him so familiar with
its pages.
Mr. Caryll continued to watch him, in silence, and—as an observer might have thought, as, indeed, Gaskell did think, though he said nothing at the time—with wicked relish.
CHAPTER III
THE WITNESS
AT last the page was found again by Mr. Jenkins. Having found it, he hesitated still a moment, then cleared his throat, and in the manner of one hurling himself forward upon a
desperate venture, he began to read.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God,"
he read, and on in a nasal, whining voice, which not only was the very voice you would have expected from such a man, but in
accordance, too, with sound clerical convention. The bridal pair stood before him, the groom with a slight flush on his cheeks and a bright glitter in his black eyes, which were not nice to see;
the bride with bowed head and bosom heaving as in response to inward tumult.
The cleric came to the end of his exordium, paused a moment, and whether because he gathered confidence, whether because he realized the impressive character of the fresh matter upon which he
entered, he proceeded now in a firmer, more sonorous voice:
"I require and charge you both as ye will answer on the dreadful day of judgment—
—"
"Ye've forgot something," Mr. Caryll interrupted blandly.
His lordship swung round with an impatient gesture and an impatient snort; the lady, too, looked up suddenly, whilst Mr. Jenkins seemed to fall into an utter panic.
"Wha—what?" he stammered. "What have I forgot?"
"To read the directions, I think."
His lordship scowled darkly upon Mr. Caryll, who heeded him not at all, but watched the lady sideways.
Mr. Jenkins turned first scarlet, then paler than he had been before, and bent his eyes to the book to read in a slightly puzzled voice the italicized words above the period he had embarked
upon.
"And also speaking unto the persons that shall be married, he shall say:"
he read, and looked up inquiry, his faintly colored, prominent eyes endeavoring to sustain Mr. Caryll's steady
glance, but failing miserably.