Chapter I: Bide Tryst

The grey light of the brief December afternoon had deepened into darkness.

The Woodland Pytchley had enjoyed a splendid day across South Rutland. Meeting at Stockerston Hall, they had found in Great Easton Park, and after a sharp run across Holyoaks Lodge, the fox had crossed the Eye brook to the Uppingham road, where the kill had taken place.

Another brush had been secured in that long little spinney behind Seaton Grange after a hard chase, and a third, an old dog-fox, had been given to the hounds in Laxton Park.

The smart crowd of men and women who had followed—people who hunted with the Quorn, with Lord Exeter’s, or with the Fitzwilliam three or four days a week—had agreed that it had been the best run of the season. Then, after mutual adieux, they had, in the falling light, all separated to ride home, each his own way, some for many a weary mile.

Dick Jervoise’s road back to Ingarsby Hall, his aunt’s splendid old place, lay by bridle-paths which he knew well, paths which he had ridden ever since a boy. That morning he had gone to the meet with his cousin Harry, a young Yorkshire landowner, but the latter had been thrown out at a spot north of Uppingham, where he had had a spill in a brook, and Dick had not seen him since. Therefore he rode on alone, his tired bay mare stumbling ever and anon, and causing him to utter language scarcely suited to a drawing-room.

His way lay across bare ploughed lands, and through Harrington Wood, leafless and dismal in the fading light, until close to the old mansion of Kirby, gaunt and grim in its loveliness and decay, he was compelled to dismount and lead the mare.

Thus he trudged onward for nearly five miles, sometimes across ploughed land, or over broad pastures and along muddy lanes, every inch being known to him. The shortest cut is not always the easiest, for on his way he found a brook so swollen that he had to remount in order to cross it.

Fox-hunting ran in Dick Jervoise’s blood. His father had been one of the most noted followers to hounds in the grass country, and one of the fastest cross-country riders of his day. Before his death he had been M. F. H., and more than once had received tempting offers to write his reminiscences of the Belvoir and the Grafton. In the hunting season Dick frequently stayed with the Dowager Countess of Corby at Ingarsby, and rode with both the Woodland Pytchley and Mr. Fernie’s.

In his well-worn hunting pink he looked a fine athletic fellow, an ideal English sportsman, as indeed he was. Though a student who loved to pore over his dry-as-dust books in his little flat overlooking the river at Hammersmith Bridge, yet no sooner had cub-hunting commenced than he was down at Ingarsby and up and out at four o’clock in the morning, riding with the huntsman and his pack through the mists before daybreak.

“A chip of the old block,” old hunting-men had dubbed him long ago. In his teens he had earned his laurels by breaking his collar-bone in a bad fall over at Cold Overton, and even other accidents of minor count had never deterred him from enjoying hot runs over that ideal country north of his late uncle’s fine ancestral domain.

As he entered the great old-world stableyard, Chapman, the groom, touched his cap, and, glancing at the mare, exclaimed:

“Gone lame, sir—eh?”

“Yes,” Dick replied, handing over his mount. “We’ve had a pretty hard day, but we killed three times, so we mustn’t grumble.” And he entered a door, traversing many stone corridors of the magnificent old Tudor mansion, worn hollow by the feet of many generations, until he passed into the great hall, with its high windows of stained glass, its oaken roof, its rich carpets, stands of armour of bygone Corbys, and the splendid old Gibbons carvings.

Before the wide, open hearth, where blazed huge logs, the tea-table had been set, and around it, with the well-preserved, white-haired Countess presiding, were several gay, gossiping young men and women of the house-party.

Dick’s entry was hailed with delight, and news of the run eagerly demanded.

“And where’s Harry?” inquired her ladyship, pouring out Dick’s tea from the silver pot.

“Don’t know, aunt,” replied her nephew airily. “Last I saw of him was in a ditch, looking a bit muddy and rather the worse for his fall. I saw he wasn’t hurt, and rode on.”

“You hunting men are really extremely selfish,” declared the old lady, when at the same moment Burton, the elderly butler, handed Dick a telegram on a salver, saying:

“It came for you, sir, about twelve o’clock.”

Jervoise tore it open, read its contents, and thrust it carelessly into the pocket of his scarlet coat. Then, turning to a pretty girl in blue, the daughter of a Yorkshire banker, he began to chaff her regarding something he had heard in the hunting-field that day anent her latest swain. The girl blushed, declaring that what he said was both cruel and untrue.

“Well, that’s what Teddie Mills told me to-day as we rode together. And he’s your cousin, isn’t he?” asked Dick, good-humouredly.

Ingarsby was a splendid old Tudor place, with battlemented towers, turrets, buttressed walls, and noble oriel windows originally glazed with beryl, and imposing structures with numerous shields of arms and heraldic devices upon the masonry. On the painted glass of the high mullioned windows of the hall beneath where Dick stood were emblazoned the shields of the various families with whom the Earls of Corby had intermarried; and straight before him, at the rear of that great, open fireplace with its shining dogs, was a secret chamber, in which twenty persons could comfortably dine, as well as the entrance to a subterranean passage to a house three miles distant.

The white-haired Countess had led a lonely widowhood in that beautiful old place for twenty odd years, dividing her life between there and her snug, little house in Curzon Street. She was a very charming, well-preserved woman, essentially aristocratic in bearing, whose “turn out” was always one of the smartest in the park, whose hospitality was unbounded, and who at Ingarsby delighted in surrounding herself with young people, for there was plenty of hunting and some of the finest shooting in the Midlands.

Sir James Kingwell, first Earl of Corby, who died three years after the Restoration, was a typical old cavalier, who spent twenty years of his life as a prisoner in the Tower. Many of the portraits in the hall, in the dining-room, and in the splendid ball-room were historical, among them being the picture of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who was slain in the notorious duel by the second Duke of Buckingham. Indeed, the old place was full of interesting relics, but practically unknown because her ladyship, preferring privacy, had closed her doors rigorously to all sightseers, prying archæologists, or photographers of the illustrated papers.

There was much merry chatter over the tea cups around the huge, blazing logs. About a dozen young men and women had assembled, and were discussing in anticipation the ball which Lady Exeter was giving at Burghley on the following night, and to which the house-party had been invited.

Dick, however, managed to slip away up to his room, the great, old-fashioned apartment which he always occupied, and was known as Henry VII’s room, as that monarch, when Earl of Richmond, was said to have ridden from Bosworth Field to seek refuge at Ingarsby, then a monastery. It was a quaint, old-world room, the mullioned windows of which looked out across the terrace, the monks’ fish ponds, and the great park beyond. In the centre was an old, carved, four-poster bed, the counterpane of which was of silk embroidered by hands dead three centuries ago.

So frequent a visitor was he at his aunt’s that he kept some books there, and the big writing-table in the corner Burton had provided for him specially.

Entering his room, he threw off his hunting coat, drew off his riding boots, and then re-read the telegram which had been handed to him in the hall.

“I wonder!” he exclaimed to himself aloud, as he crushed the message in his hand, standing staring at the fire, the light of which illuminated the room. “I wonder if I dare?”

He drew a long breath, standing in indecision.

“By Jove!” he went on. “If it’s not dangerous—then I may, after all, see her again. I may——”

But he did not finish his sentence, for a second later, with sudden impetuosity, he tossed the telegram into the flames, and with a changed expression on his face lit a cigarette, and flung himself into the big, cretonne-covered armchair to think.

“No!” he cried aloud at last. “She was a fool—an absolute fool. Her words aroused suspicion. Owen suspects—everybody suspects!” And he gave vent to a harsh, bitter laugh as he leaned back in his shirt sleeves and blew a cloud of smoke from his lips.

Presently, after half an hour, his man Carter, a smart, clean-shaven man, entered to arrange his master’s evening clothes. Without a word the servant crossed to the wardrobe, and busied himself in getting out the suit and spreading it, with the dress-shirt, collar and tie, upon the bed.

“Shall you dress now, sir?” he inquired at last.

“No, Carter,” was his master’s reply. “Perhaps I shan’t dress at all this evening. At eight I want you to send word to her ladyship that I’m not very well—caught a chill out hunting to-day—and ask her to excuse me from coming down to dinner. Pretend I’m in bed, and have some food brought up here. I’m going out this evening, and I don’t want anyone to know I’ve been absent. You understand?”

“Exactly, sir,” answered the well-trained man.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back—before the house is closed, I hope. If I’m not, watch Burton to bed, and then go down to the ball-room, and leave one of those two end windows unfastened for me. I shall go out that way—as I went once before.”

“Very well, sir.”

“And if my cousin Harry or anyone wants to see the invalid, say I’m asleep, and have told you I didn’t wish to be disturbed. You’ll stay on duty up here all the evening, and eat my dinner for me.”

“Yes, sir.” And the man stood awaiting further commands, without moving a muscle of his aquiline face.

“Remember, not a soul must know of my absence. A lady’s good name may perhaps be at stake. If I’m back early I may dress and join the men in the billiard-room. I don’t know yet. Be discreet, that’s all.”

“I shall be, sir. No one shall know you are absent.”

Then Dick Jervoise exchanged his hunting breeches for a rough suit of country tweeds, and, putting on a golf cap and taking a stick, he glanced at the little silver travelling clock upon the dressing-table. It was, he saw, nearly seven.

He felt in his hip pocket, as though to reassure himself that he had something there. Then, with parting instructions to his man, he left the room, descending by the stairs at the end of the corridor, and by an intricate route threaded those endless stone passages and reached the great ball-room.

It was in darkness, but in order to make sure he was alone he touched the electric switch, and next second the magnificent room with its polished floor and splendid portraits, the scene of so many brilliant gatherings, was flooded with a bright light from a dozen crystal electroliers. After a hasty glance around, he extinguished the hundreds of lamps, and then, walking to the further end of the huge apartment, opened one of the long, lead-paned windows, and, climbing through it, dropped softly upon the grass outside.

Then, keeping in the shadow as much as possible, he slipped across the stone bridge that spanned the lake in front of the house—the ancient fish pond of the Carthusian brothers—and struck out straight across the park to the dark woods beyond.

The night was moonless, with heavy clouds precursory of rain; but the way being known to him, he walked on without hesitation, and was soon within the wood, taking a narrow footpath, which, in twenty minutes or so, brought him out into a ploughed field, which he skirted, passing in turn across a wide pasture, and at length gaining a narrow lane full of deep cart ruts, where walking in the darkness was somewhat difficult.

Presently, however, he came out upon a broad highway, the many telegraph lines beside which denoted that it was a main road, and, turning to the left, walked along for a full half-hour, passing on his way a small hamlet consisting of half a dozen or so tiny cottages with dormer windows peeping forth from their thatch.

By the light from one of the windows he glanced at his watch, and seeing that he was late, quickened his pace up a long hill. A big motor car with a long bonnet and a single searchlight glaring in front, came swiftly down, and, passing him, bespattered him with mud from head to foot. He recognised that it was the Ingarsby car—the six cylinder—which was conveying an arrival guest, the Honourable Walter Bryant, a friend of his, from Ashley station, on the Market Harborough line, to the Hall.

Rockingham Hill, one of the steepest in the Midlands, he climbed, and presently turned into a road by the left, which at length brought him in sight of the lighted windows of a village. He avoided the village street, for, passing the inn on the outskirts, he turned again into a dark, muddy lane on the left.

Walking still farther for about a quarter of a mile, he halted against a gate standing white in the darkness, and next moment a figure loomed up out of the night.

It was a woman—a woman who uttered his name in greeting.