Chapter XXV: Misadventure

Lord Saltash had the satisfaction of seeing one of his own animals a winner at the Graydown meeting on the following day, a circumstance which plainly gave him the keenest pleasure. He joined his trainer at the conclusion of the event and warmly congratulated him.

Jake was himself well-pleased. He had worked hard for the victory, and the horse was a particular favourite with him. But he did not betray any especial gratification at his patron's openly expressed approval, receiving it with the reticence that Maud had remarked in him the day before.

Lord Saltash, however, seemed bent upon breaking down all reserve. He treated him with easy familiarity, chatted upon a thousand subjects, received suggestions with cordiality, and finally, when the races were over, insisted upon motoring him home in the open car which he invariably drove himself when at Burchester, and which was the terror of the countryside.

The evening was chill and mist-laden. "With your permission we'll go steady," Jake said, as they left the teeming race-course behind.

"What! Nervous?" laughed Saltash.

"I have a wife to think of," was Jake's unmoved reply.

"Oh, to be sure!" A hint of mockery ran through the words. "What an artful fox you were to go and get married on the sly like that! If I'd known, I'd have come to the wedding."

"It wasn't much of an affair," said Jake. "And it had to take place at short notice, or I should have told you about it."

"Perhaps it wouldn't have taken place at all if you had," laughed Lord Saltash. "You know the legend of Young Lochinvar. And--" his dark face screwed up into a comic grimace--"I presume you know my reputation."

"Almost as well as I know you, my lord," said Jake drily.

Saltash sent him a sharp glance through the gathering twilight. He was driving swiftly but well. "Nobody ever really knows anybody in this world of noughts and crosses," he observed lightly after a moment. "It's a queer place, Bolton. And it isn't always the fellows that gather the fruit that enjoy the eating thereof. Ever reflected on that truism?"

"I reckon it couldn't apply to me in any case," drawled Jake, turning up his collar and settling into it with square deliberation.

"Because you're one of the favoured few?" questioned Saltash.

There was an unmistakably jeering note in his voice this time. A faint smile came into Jake's face. His eyes stared straight before him.

"Maybe so," he said. "But my opinion is, if a man can't hold his own,--well, he deserves to lose it."

Saltash laughed aloud. "It isn't always brute force that counts, most worthy cow-puncher. There is such a thing as brains."

"You don't say!" said Jake in a tone of gentle incredulity and, in a moment: "Do you mind reining in a bit? We're coming to a cross-roads."

"You're mighty nervous!" gibed Saltash.

"It's safer," said Jake imperturbably.

They dropped into silence with one consent.

Saltash was obviously inclined to recklessness though he seemed for awhile to be trying to restrain the impulse. They shot through the gathering darkness with ever-increasing speed.

Jake made no further protest. He sat sphinx-like, gazing straight ahead through the misty wind-screen. The distance from Graydown to Fairharbour was scarcely ten miles. Lord Saltash chose the shortest route, bumping through bye lanes, whizzing round unexpected corners, shooting uphill like a rocket, dropping down again like a thunderbolt.

He drove with a skill that was in its way magnificent, but the entire run was a series of risks such as only the driver could enjoy.

It was evident that he speedily forgot the presence of his companion, and Jake did not remind him of it. Perhaps he deemed it inadvisable to divert his attention in any way from the task in hand.

For nearly a quarter of an hour of rapid travelling he spoke no word. Saltash was humming to himself an old tune with a waltz refrain which seemed to give him considerable pleasure.

They were drawing near the outskirts of Burchester Park when abruptly he broke off, and spoke. "I want you to come up to lunch on Sunday, you and Maud and the boy."

He spoke jerkily, almost curtly. Jake turned his head.

"Have you put the proposition before--my wife?" he asked.

"Oh, I asked her to come of course," said Saltash carelessly. "I didn't mention any particular day. Why? Have you any reason to suppose she would refuse?"

He laughed as he said it, but there was a challenging note in his laugh.

Jake passed the question by. "It is real kind of your lordship to think of it," he said. "I can't--of course--answer for my wife or the lad; but I shall be very pleased to come."

Saltash made a curious sound half of ridicule, half of exasperation. "If she doesn't come, I shall know whose doing it is," he said, with a touch of malice.

Jake was silent.

Impatiently Saltash turned towards him. "Look here, Bolton," he said aggressively; "it's no manner of use your raising any objection to the intimacy between us. It began long before you came on the scene, and it's going to continue. Understand?"

"Look where you're going!" said Jake. "Or else jam on the brake!"

He uttered the words with a sharpness so unexpected that Saltash started. As a consequence, the car swerved and instantly skidded in the mud, jerking the wheel from his hold. In a moment they were half-way up a steep bank at the side of the road, and a moment after with a crash of splintering glass they were over, flung headlong into the roadway.

"Damn!" said Jake.

"Damnation!" cried Lord Saltash with violence. "It was your fault! What the devil did you startle me like that for?";

He sprang up with the agility of a monkey, unscathed and furious.

Jake remained seated in the mud. He was panting a little but his speech when it came was unhurried.

"What the blazes did you want to drive at that preposterous speed for, you all-fired fool?" he said.

"Eh? What?" Saltash stamped in the mud to relieve his feelings. "Do you dare to say it was my fault?"

"I say you're an all-fired fool," said Jake, with the deliberation of one who has come to an unalterable decision. "You can draw your own conclusions from that."

He proceeded to get up with an effort so obvious that Saltash's attention was caught. "Hullo! You're hurt, are you? Where?"

"I reckon that's what I've got to find out," said Jake. "Maybe it's no worse than a broken head. What about you?"

"Oh, I'm all right," Saltash declared impatiently. "I say, are you really hurt, man? Curse this dark! Wait while I strike a match!"

"Curse everything!" said Jake whole-heartedly. "I wonder if there's a lamp not smashed."

Saltash struck a match and regarded him by its flare. "Great Scott!" he ejaculated in dismay.

For the illumination had revealed to him that which he had certainly not expected to see; one side of Jake's face streaming with blood.

Jake strove ineffectually to staunch the flow with a handkerchief. "I don't know where the mischief is exactly," he said. "Somewhere above the temple, I fancy. Don't alarm yourself, my lord. I always bleed like a pig. It's my nature to."

A faint grim smile drew his mouth with the words. He looked at Saltash with eyes of steady mastery. "Let me hold that match!" he said. "P'raps you wouldn't mind locating the mischief."

Saltash, genuinely disturbed, complied with this suggestion, and discovered a deep, jagged cut on Jake's forehead.

"I say, this is a bad business!" he said, as the match went out. "Are you feeling bad?"

"Oh, not in the least," said Jake drily. "Sorry to give you so much trouble."

"My dear fellow, I'm sorrier than you are," declared Saltash impulsively. "I've driven for ten years and never had a smash before. Here, strike another match and let me see what I can do!"

It was no easy matter to bandage adequately under sock conditions, but Saltash was not without a certain rudimentary skill. He went to work with business-like promptitude, and had succeeded in securing a handkerchief round Jake's head with a firmness calculated at least to check the flow of blood when the sound of wheels warned them of the approach of some vehicle.

It proved to be the dog-cart of a farmer known to them both who was himself returning from the races; and Saltash was relieved beyond measure to bundle Jake into the cart and see him depart for home. He remained with the overturned car till help should arrive from the Stables.

Jake also was not sorry to find himself jogging homeward, unpleasant though he found the jogging to be. He was nearer to collapse than he would have allowed.

He sat with his head in his hands, struggling desperately against a deadly sense of weakness that threatened every instant to overcome him.

His companion was full of solicitude. "Whatever will your missus say?" he said, as they drew near the Stables.

Jake roused himself. "Don't drive in!" he said. "Put me down at the gates! I must make myself respectable before I go in."

"Lor' bless you man, if she's a woman of sense she'd sooner know the worst at once," declared the old farmer. "Don't ever try to hide anything from your wife! It don't pay. I've been married three times, so I ought to know."

But Jake adhered firmly to his intention of descending at the gates, resolutely declining all further help; and there his friend left him, driving away with the reflection that there was sure to be someone about to give him a hand.

As it chanced, there was no one in the stable-yard when Jake entered it. He staggered forward over the stones like a drunken man, his cap pulled forward over his face, feeling vaguely out before him with his hands. His brain was reeling, and he did not know how he covered the ground or maintained his balance. So dazed was he that he did not even realize that he reached the white railings before his home, and only awoke to the fact when he had been leaning upon them for some time.

With an immense effort he pulled himself together and made his way to the door. Here the thought of Maud made him pause. She must not see him like this. Then, reflecting that she would almost certainly be safe upstairs with Bunny who had not left his room that day, he fumbled with the door, opened it, and entered.

All was quiet within with the quiet of a well-ordered household. The passage was dimly lit. Slowly he made his halting way along it, reached the stairs and stopped at the foot, leaning on the banisters while he summoned his strength. At last, heavily, like a man in a trance, he began to mount.

The stairs seemed endless. Once or twice he stumbled. At the top he slipped and came down upon his knees.

"Oh damn!" he ejaculated, with weary vehemence.

At the same moment Bunny's door opened, and he heard the light tread of a woman's feet close to him.

She was coming towards him, moving swiftly, when suddenly something seemed to strike her. She stopped dead, recoiling as from a thing unclean.

"Jake!" she said.

He heard the frozen horror in her voice and thrust out a groping hand. "It's all right, my girl. Don't be scared! I didn't mean you to see me--like this."

She drew back from him sharply, speaking no word, gazing at him in the dim light with eyes of wide abhorrence.

"It's--all right," he said again, and with a labouring effort managed to blunder to his feet.

She drew back still further. He saw her slim white figure standing before him erect and rigid against the wall. He caught the blazing scorn of her blue eyes.

"Say, Maud," he said in confused apology, "you're looking kind of vexed. It wasn't--any fault of mine. It was--it was--that fool--Saltash." He spoke the name with difficulty. His tongue felt dry and powerless. "Guess I want a drink," he said.

She spoke then, briefly and witheringly. "You had better go to bed and stay there till you feel better. There is plenty of water in your room if you want it."

Her words were icy. He felt as if she had flung the water of which she spoke full in his face. And then suddenly the truth flashed upon him, and he uttered a laugh.

"Columbus!" he said. "I believe you think I'm tipsy!"

She did not attempt to contradict him. "You had better go to bed," she reiterated.

He put up a trembling hand, but it was only to draw the cap down further still over his face. "I reckon I'd better," he said, and staggered past her to his room.

The door closed behind him, and Maud turned, white and quivering, from the scene.

"O God!" she whispered passionately. "What have I done? What have I done?"