Chapter XIX

So they stood face to face, the Occident and the Orient, until the tact of the woman, the subtlety of the man--suggested the compromise of an exchanged smile.

"After all it is very Ancient History.... I think," said Katharine with a gleam of mirth in her eyes of gold and bramble-dew, "that your ancestor was discourteous, and mine--"

"A little bit premature. Or tardy from another point of view,--in asking for what he'd got already. For Sir Hew and my ancestress had been married a week or so back--by a Catholic friar who had baptised Judith--after having received her abjuration of her Jewish faith. Between them they broke the news to Issachar Hazaël, 'who at first made naught of the Lady Judith's entreaties, but after many tears, embraces and cajoleries, suffered himself to be persuaded to sit with them at meat.'"

"Did he? ... I should have suspected--"

"Rats--if I'd been in the sandals of the Lady Judith--and I'd have made an inner bull if I had! '_He would taste of no dish_'--according to my Twelfth Century scribe--but he '_filled an ancient silver cup with the best wine of Kir Saba, and touched it with his lips once: seeming to drink while dropping into the goblet under cover of his beard, which was white as the snow of Herman, and fully an ell long--a ring of black onyx incarven very curiously, having a head of the Greek Hercules-with his club and lion-mask._'"

"The ring you wear. The fellow to my ring! And it was poisoned?"

"This ring I wear--the signet from his hand. There's a little compartment with a spring-lid, back of the setting, so I suppose it held poison--as you say, when he '_did hand the goblet to the Lady Judith, bidding her pledge him. But Sir Hew, stretching forth his hand in sport, laid hold of the goblet, whereupon said Hazaël: "Drink first, my Lady Forbis!" and she answered: "That will I right gladly, O my father! but thou and mine husband must kiss me first!" So she took the kisses and gave them back, and quaffed off the cup right merrily--and died as though she had been struck by lightning, not falling down, but sitting stiff and smiling in her chair...._'"

There was a silence in the room. Then Katharine murmured, still vibrating:

"Women knew how to love in those days!" ...

"And men knew how to hate!" ...

"And is that all?"

"All, except that Sir Hew leaped up, and cried, when the corpse fell down out of the chair upon the daïs strewn with lion-skins: '_We were wed by a priest! I dealt honourably by her!_' And Issachar said,--and I think he comes out of it pretty well on the whole: '_What is honour in thine esteem is dishonour in mine! For the girl, she was begotten of these my loins.... Take what is thine, Sir Knight, and depart an' thou will to thine own adopted country. I deal as I choose with that which is mine own!_' Straight off the ice, I call that. Fine old fellow!"

Katharine said, a little breathlessly, for the thrill of a great tragic happening seemed to be in the air:

"Yes, it was great, and terrible and merciless...."

"Hardly to Judith. When he'd once got her over in Britain, Hew would have gone back to the Beauty Chorus. For I'm not over struck on Hew," said John Hazel with a queer quirk of his fleshy underlip. "He appears to have anticipated the Profiteer's motto of the present date. Perhaps you've heard it? '_Self first, me next, and I'll take whatever's left over!_' Now I've gone and made you wild with me all over again!"

His huge size, and his genuine ruefulness, contrasted so queerly that Katharine, still tingling to the finger-tips at the insult to Sir Hew, was forced to smile.

"It is a mercy we are not likely to meet often, Mr. Hazel. We should quarrel inevitably. And yet--" There was sweetness in the smile of her eyes of cairngorm brown as she stretched out her long arm and offered her hand to him, saying: "And yet, in a tight place, I would trust you before most men!"

"Give me the chance, Miss Forbis!" His black eyes flashed in their deep caves as her white hand was engulfed in his huge brown one.

"If there is need," she said, "I will not fail to!"

"It's a bargain then!" said John Hazel, and released the hand. "Now I must be going. I have trespassed on your time most frightfully." He turned and reached down to the floor and picked up the cowskin bag....

"One moment, Mr. Hazel!" For he was striding towards the door, and urgently as she desired to be quit of her strange untimely visitor, the sacred bond of old fidelity, exerted its strong invisible influence between these two, so utterly dissimilar--making her add, even as she laid her hand on Whishaw's summoning bell: "You would--would you not wish to attend my father's funeral?"

"I meant to, whether you were willing or not! ..."

The tone robbed the assertive words of all offence. She answered:

"Thank you. He will be laid to rest in the vault in our little private burying-ground the day after to-morrow. Monday morning, immediately after the Requiem Mass at ten. If it will be difficult or bad for you,"--her glance was kind for the hollow cheeks and the bagginess of the khaki on the great wasted body--"to drive over from Cauldstanes in this sharp weather at so early an hour--I know my father would have been glad to--to have you stay...." She added as Whishaw opened the door: "Perhaps you would dine with us to-morrow and sleep the night here?"

"It would put you out." His vast shoulders filled the open doorway, the lintel of which just cleared his towering head. He added as Whishaw faintly clacked behind him: "It's awfully good of you to suggest finding me a bivvy, but the motor-bike that brought me over here to-day--it belongs to the son of the landlady at the _Cross Keys_--will hold together long enough--at least I hope so!--to carry me over the distance again. But there's one thing I'll ask you. Not, as a favour, mind you!--but as a right, to let me--_see him_!"

Whishaw again forgot himself so far as to clack, this time distinctly. Miss Forbis' momentary hesitation was dissipated by the sound. She bent her head in grave assent, took her black lace veil and blue-check apron from the writing-table, saying to John Hazel:

"Wait here one instant!" and quitted the room, closely followed by her ancient serving-man.

As the door shut behind them John Hazel's expression altered. His beetling eyebrows drew into a savage line over his great hooked nose, and his swarthy colour faded to ashen brown. His coarse mouth hardened grimly as he crossed with long, noiseless strides to the open terrace-window, and stood there for a moment, quietly looking out. At the first glimpse the sunshiny terrace showed deserted of the pacing khaki figure.... Then the crack of a kindled match broke the silence. Yaill stepped from behind the buttress that had sheltered him as he had paused to light another pipe. The fragrance of the good weed came to Hazel's nostrils, as their eyes met for the second time that day....

"Did you wish to speak to me, by any chance?"

The great menacing figure blocking the window-frame slewed its head in the customary quarter-turn, and raised ar hand in the usual salute.

"As man to man--not as private to field-officer--I have something urgent to say to you, Colonel Yaill."

A pale light flickered in the sorrowful grey eyes he looked at. Was it irresolution, anger, apprehension? The actual truth he utterly failed to guess. Relief.... The die cast, the doubt resolved, the tangle straightened.... The path clear for the lonely feet till death....

"Have you? Well, carry on! We have no hearers. Will you come outside, or shall I come in? ..."

John stepped back. Yaill entered. The men confronted each other. There was one instant's pause before Hazel said:

"This is Saturday forenoon--"

"Twelve pip emma precisely." Yaill glanced at the cheap new watch upon his wrist. A flush burned his thin brown cheeks as he remembered that the bauble had been Lucy's wedding-gift.

"Twelve Saturday.... The Funeral is to be on Monday at ten o'clock...."

"You are incorrect. Monday at ten-thirty...."

"I aim at being plain and short with you, sir. If by three o'clock on Monday afternoon you have not told Miss Forbis of your marriage, I am going to save you the trouble, Colonel Yaill."

"Indeed?" ... Yaill's face was deathly under its sun-tan. "Perhaps you'll tell me who the Hell you are?" ...

John answered with a grim inexpressive visage:

"You can see for yourself. A London Territorial.... Ranker as long as this blasted old War goes on.... And a kind of--family friend of this house of Forbis.... If you're taking any further explanation--I'm bound to tell you you won't get it here...."

"Very well. Your name? ..." It was the crisp, curt tone that marks the caste of the officer, making the other stiffen against his will:

"Private John Benn Hazel, No. 000. X Platoon--Company F. 4th Battalion, 448th City of London Fusiliers, sir."

"I shall remember. Good-day to you, Private Hazel. And carry on!"

"You may be sure I will!"

The door-handle turned as the short, stern colloquy ended. Both men looked round and saw Katharine standing near the door. Her black lace veil draped her head with mystery. In her hand was a little bunch of purple violets, whose perfume made rich sweetness in the air.... She made a sign to Hazel that he should follow her, gave one swift glance of tenderness to Edward, and left the room, followed by his enemy....

"I was going to give him these. Perhaps you would like to?" she said, putting the flowers in John's great hand. He mumbled something she did not catch, but she understood that he would like to, as she led the way down the vaulted corridor--pausing before opening the chapel door to stroke the decrepit pointer-bitch Dawtie, who lay with her muzzle between her forepaws, keeping guard over the sleeper who would wake in Time no more....

Then she passed into the sacred place; bent in reverence before the Presence in the Tabernacle, and led the way up the little aisle closely followed by John. He heard her say in a low, clear voice, as he stood near the feet of the old man who lay in the long oak coffin:

"Father dear, here is a friend of ours whom you have wished to see! ..."

Just as though the old man lying there had not been dead at all.... He--Sir Philip--must have been a tall man, rather narrow than broad-chested; and in youth his fine aquiline-featured face, now set in the sternness of death, might have belonged to his ancestor Marcus Fabius--that Tribune of Constantine,--who superintended the building of fortified camps on the Scottish Border--and planted millions of barbed iron prongs on the brae-sides and in the moss-hags for the bedevilment of naked Celtic feet.

So John laid the bunch of violets below the stiff grey hands that were clasped over a Crucifix and had a Rosary threaded between their rigid fingers,--and rode back on his borrowed motor-bike to the _Cross Keys_ at Cauldstanes--an ancient stone box full of prehistoric smells (stale beer and boiled cabbage predominating)--and slept in a bedroom with an uphill floor, crowded with glass-fronted cases of stuffed salmon and trout, owls, heron, and moth-eaten brocks and foxes.