Weyman Stanley John
The Story of Francis Cludde

CHAPTER XI
A FOUL BLOW

They none of them believed me, it seemed; and smarting under Mistress Anne's ridicule, hurt by even the Duchess's kindly incredulity, what could I do? Only assert what I had asserted already, that it was undoubtedly Clarence, and that before twenty-four hours elapsed they would have proof of my words.

At mention of this possibility Master Bertie looked up. He had left the main part in the discussion to others, but now he intervened. "One moment!" he said. "Take it that the lad is right, Master Lindstrom. Is there any precaution we can adopt, any back door, so to speak, we can keep open, in case of an attempt to arrest us being made? What would be the line of our retreat to Wesel?"

"The river," replied the Dutchman promptly.

"And the boats are all at the landing-stage?"

"They are, and for that reason they are useless in an emergency," our host answered thoughtfully. "Knowing the place, any one sent to surprise and arrest us would secure them first, and the bridge. Then they would have us in a trap. It might be well to take a boat round, and moor it in the little creek in the farther orchard," he added, rising. "It is a good idea, at any rate. I will go and do it."

He went out, leaving us four-the Duchess, her husband, Anne, and myself-sitting round the lamp.

"If Master Carey is so certain that it was Clarence," my lady began, "I think he ought to-"

"Yes, Kate?" her husband said. She had paused and seemed to be listening.

"Ought to open that letter he has!" she continued impetuously. "I have no doubt it is a letter to Clarence. Now the rogue has come on the scene again, the lad's scruples ought not to stand in the way. They are all nonsense. The letter may throw some light on the Bishop's schemes and Clarence's presence here; and it should be read. That is what I think."

"What do you say, Carey?" her husband asked, as I kept silence. "Is not that reasonable?"

Sitting with my elbows on the table, I twisted and untwisted the fingers of my clasped hands, gazing at them the while as though inspiration might come of them. What was I to do? I knew that the three pairs of eyes were upon me, and the knowledge distracted me, and prevented me really thinking, though I seemed to be thinking so hard. "Well," I burst out at last, "the circumstances are certainly altered. I see no reason why I should not-"

Crash!

I stopped, uttering an exclamation, and we all sprang to our feet. "Oh, what a pity!" the Duchess cried, clasping her hands. "You clumsy, clumsy girl! What have you done?"

Mistress Anne's sleeve as she turned had swept from the table a Florentine jug, one of Master Lindstrom's greatest treasures, and it lay in a dozen fragments on the floor. We stood and looked at it, the Duchess in anger, Master Bertie and I in comic dismay. The girl's lip trembled, and she turned quite white as she contemplated the ruin she had caused.

"Well, you have done it now!" the Duchess said pitilessly. What woman could ever overlook clumsiness in another woman! "It only remains to pick up the pieces, miss. If a man had done it-but there, pick up the pieces. You will have to make your tale good to Master Lindstrom afterward."

I went down on my knees and helped Anne, the annoyance her incredulity had caused me forgotten. She was so shaken that I heard the bits of ware in her hand clatter together. When we had picked up all, even to the smallest piece, I rose, and the Duchess returned to the former subject. "You will open this letter, then?" she said; "I see you will. Then the sooner the better. Have you got it about you?"

"No, it is in my bedroom," I answered. "I hid it away there, and I must fetch it. But do you think," I continued, pausing as I opened the door for Mistress Anne to go out with her double handful of fragments, "it is absolutely necessary to read it, my lady?"

"Most certainly," she answered, gravely nodding with each syllable, "I think so. I will be responsible." And Master Bertie nodded also.

"So be it," I said reluctantly. And I was about to leave the room to fetch the letter-my bedroom being in a different part of the house, only connected with the main building by a covered passage-when our host returned. He told us that he had removed a boat, and I stayed a while to hear if he had anything more to report, and then, finding he had not, went out to go to my room, shutting the door behind me.

The passage I have mentioned, which was merely formed of rough planks, was very dark. At the nearer end was the foot of the staircase leading to the upper rooms. Farther along was a door in the side opening into the garden. Going straight out of the lighted room, I had almost to grope my way, feeling the walls with my hands. When I had about reached the middle I paused. It struck me that the door into the garden must be open, for I felt a cold draught of air strike my brow, and saw, or fancied I saw, a slice of night sky and the branch of a tree waving against it. I took a step forward, slightly shivering in the night air as I did so, and had stretched out my hand with the intention of closing the door, when a dark form rose suddenly close to me, I saw a knife gleam in the starlight, and the next moment I reeled back into the darknesss of the passage, a sharp pain in my breast.

I knew at once what had happened to me, and leaned a moment against the planking with a sick, faint feeling, saying to myself, "I have it this time!" The attack had been so sudden and unexpected, I had been taken so completely off my guard, that I had made no attempt either to strike or to clutch my assailant, and I suppose only the darkness of the passage saved me from another blow. But was one needed? The hand which I had raised instinctively to shield my throat was wet with the warm blood trickling fast down my breast. I staggered back to the door of the parlor, groped blindly for the latch, seemed to be an age finding it, found it at last, and walked in.

The Duchess sprang up at sight of me. "What," she cried, backing from me, "what has happened?"

"I have been stabbed," I said, and I sat down.

It amused me afterward to recall what they all did. The Dutchman stared, my lady screamed loudly, Master Bertie whipped out his sword; he could make up his mind quickly enough at times.

"I think he has gone," I said faintly.

The words brought the Duchess to her knees by my chair. She tore open my doublet, through which the blood was oozing fast. I made no doubt that I was a dead man, for I had never been wounded in this way before, and the blood scared me. I remember my prevailing idea was a kind of stunned pity for myself. Perhaps later-I hope so-I should have come to think of Petronilla and my uncle and other people. But before this stage was readied, the Duchess reassured me. "Courage, lad!" she cried heartily. "It is all right, Dick. The villain struck him on the breastbone an inch too low, and has just ripped up a scrap of skin. It has blooded him for the spring, that is all. A bit of plaster-"

"And a drink of strong waters," suggested the Dutchman soberly-his thoughts were always to the point when they came.

"Yes, that too," quoth my lady, "and he will be all right."

I thought so myself when I had emptied the cup they offered me. I had been a good deal shaken by the events of the day. The sight of blood had further upset me. I really think it possible I might have died of this slight hurt and my imagination, if I had been left to myself. But the Duchess's assurance and the draught of schnapps, which seemed to send new blood through my veins, made me feel ashamed of myself. If the Duchess would have let me, I would at once have gone to search the premises; as it was, she made me sit still while she ran to and fro for hot water and plaster, and the men searched the lower rooms and secured the door afresh.

"And so you could see nothing of him?" our host asked, when he and Master Bertie returned, weapons in hand. "Nothing of his figure or face?"

"Nothing, save that he was short," I answered; "shorter than I am, at any rate, and I fancy a good deal."

"A good deal shorter than you are?" my lady said uneasily; "that is no clew. In this country nine people out of ten are that. Clarence, now, is not."

"No," I said; "he is about the same height. It was not Clarence."

"Then who could it be?" she muttered, rising, and then with a quick shudder sitting down again. "Heaven help us, we seem to be in the midst of foes! What could be the motive? And why should the villain have selected you? Why pick you out?"

Thereupon a strange thing happened. Three pairs of English eyes met, and signaled a common message eye to eye. No word passed, but the message was "Van Tree!" When we had glanced at one another we looked all of us at our host-looked somewhat guiltily. He was deep in thought, his eyes on the stove; but he seemed to feel our gaze upon him, and he looked up abruptly. "Master Van Tree-" he said, and stopped.

"You know him well?" the Duchess said, appealing to him softly. We felt a kind of sorrow for him, and some delicacy, too, about accusing one of his countrymen of a thing so cowardly. "Do you think it is possible," she continued with an effort-"possible that he can have done this, Master Lindstrom?"

"I have known him from a boy," the merchant said, looking up, a hand on either knee, and speaking with a simplicity almost majestic, "and never knew him do a mean thing, madam. I know no more than that." And he looked round on us.

"That is a good deal; still, he went off in a fit of jealousy when Master Carey brought Dymphna home. We must remember that."

"Yes, I would he knew the rights of that matter," said the Dutchman heartily.

"And he has been hanging about the place all day," my lady persisted.

"Yes," Master Lindstrom rejoined patiently; "yet I do not think he did this."

"Then who did?" she said, somewhat nettled.

That was the question. I had my opinion, as I saw Master Bertie and the Duchess had. I did not doubt it was Van Tree. Yet a thought struck me. "It might be well," I suggested, "that some one should ask Mistress Anne whether the door was open when she left the room. She passed out just in front of me."

"But she does not go by the door," my lady objected.

"No, she would turn at once and go upstairs," I agreed. "But she could see the door from the foot of the stairs-if she looked that way, I mean."

The Duchess assented, and went out of the room to put the question. We three, left together, sat staring at the dull flame of the lamp, and were for the most part silent, Master Bertie only remarking that it was after midnight. The suspicion he and I entertained of Van Tree's guilt seemed to raise a barrier between us and our host. My wound, slight as it was, smarted and burned, and my head ached. After midnight, was it? What a day it had been!

When the Duchess came back, as she did in a few minutes, both Anne and Dymphna came with her. The girls had risen hastily, and were shivering with cold and alarm. Their eyes were bright, their manner was excited. They were full of sympathy and horror and wonder, as was natural; of nervous fear for themselves, too. But my lady cut short their exclamations. "Anne says she did not notice the door," she said.

"No," the girl answered, trembling visibly as she spoke. "I went up straight to bed. But who could it be? Did you see nothing of him as he struck you? Not a feature? Not an outline?"

"No," I murmured.

"Did he not say a word?" she continued, with strange insistence. "Was he tall or short?" Her dark eyes dwelling on mine seemed to probe my thoughts, as though they challenged me to keep anything back from her. "Was it the man you hurt this morning?" she suggested.

"No," I answered reluctantly. "This man was short."

"Short, was he? Was it Master Van Tree, then?"

We, who felt also certain that it was Van Tree, started, nevertheless, at hearing the charge put into words before Dymphna. I wondered, and I think the others did, too, at Mistress Anne's harshness. Even my lady, so blunt and outspoken by nature, had shrunk from trying to question the Dutch girl about her lover. We looked at Dymphna, wondering how she would take it.

We had forgotten that she could not understand English. But this did not serve her; for without a pause Mistress Anne turned to her, and unfalteringly said something in her scanty Dutch which came to the same thing. A word or two of questioning and explanation followed. Then the meaning of the accusation dawned at last on Dymphna's mind. I looked for an outburst of tears or protestations. Instead, with a glance of wonder and great scorn, with a single indignant widening of her beautiful eyes, she replied by a curt Dutch sentence.

"What does she say?" my lady exclaimed eagerly.

"She says," replied Master Lindstrom, who was looking on gravely, "that it is a base lie, madam."

On that we became spectators. It seemed to me, and I think to all of us, that the two girls stood apart from us in a circle of light by themselves; confronting one another with sharp glances as though a curtain had been raised from between them, and they saw one another in their true colors and recognized some natural antagonism, or, it might be, some rivalry each in the other. I think I was not peculiar in feeling this, for we all kept silence for a space as though expecting something to follow. In the middle of this silence there came a low rapping at the door.

One uttered a faint shriek; another stood as if turned to stone. The Duchess cried for her child. The rest of us looked at one another. Midnight was past. Who could be abroad, who could want us at this hour? As a rule we should have been in bed and asleep long ago. We had no neighbors save the cotters on the far side of the island. We knew of no one likely to arrive at this time with any good intent.

"I will open," said Master Lindstrom. But he looked doubtfully at the women-folk as he said it.

"One minute," whispered the Duchess. "That table is solid and heavy. Could you not-"

"Put it across the door?" concluded her husband. "Yes, we will." And it was done at once, the two men-my lady would not let me help-so arranging it that it prevented the door being opened to its full width.

"That will stop a rush," said Master Bertie with satisfaction.

It did strengthen the position, yet it was a nervous moment when our host prepared to lower the bar. "Who is there?" he cried loudly.

We waited, listening and looking at one another, the fear of arrest and the horrors of the Inquisition looming large in the minds of some of us at least. The answer, when it came, did not reassure us. It was uttered in a voice so low and muffled that we gained no information, and rather augured treachery the more. I remember noticing how each took the crisis; how Mistress Anne's face was set hard, and her breath came in jerks; how Dymphna, pale and trembling, seemed yet to have eyes only for her father; how the Duchess faced the entrance like a queen at bay. All this I took in at a glance. Then my gaze returned to Master Lindstrom, as he dropped the bar with a jerk. The door was pushed open at once as far as it would go. A draught of cold air came in, and with it Van Tree. He shut the door behind him.

Never were six people so taken aback as we were. But the newcomer, whose face was flushed with haste and excitement, observed nothing. Apparently he saw nothing unexpected even in our presence downstairs at that hour, nothing hostile or questioning in the half circle of astonished faces turned toward him. On the contrary, he seemed pleased. "Ah!" he exclaimed gutturally. "It is well! You are up! You have taken the alarm!"

It was to me he spoke, and I was so surprised by that, and by his sudden appearance, so dumfounded by his easy address and the absence of all self-consciousness on his part, so struck by a change in him, that I stared in silence. I could not believe that this was the same half-shy, half-fierce young man who had flung away a few hours before in a passion of jealousy. My theory that he was the assassin seemed on a sudden extravagant, though here he was on the spot. When Master Lindstrom asked, "Alarm! What alarm?" I listened for his answer as I should have listened for the answer of a friend and ally, without hesitation, without distrust. For in truth the man was transfigured; changed by the rise of something to the surface which ordinarily lay hid in him. Before, he had seemed churlish, awkward, a boor. But in this hour of our need and of his opportunity he showed himself as he was. Action and purpose lifted him above his outward seeming. I caught the generous sparkle in his eye, and trusted him.

"What!" he said, keeping his voice low. "You do not know? They are coming to arrest you. Their plan is to surround the house before daybreak. Already there is a boat lying in the river watching the landing-stage."

"Whom are they coming to arrest?" I asked. The others were silent, looking at this strange messenger with mingled feelings.

"All, I fear," he replied. "You, too, Master Lindstrom. Some one has traced your English friends hither and informed against you. I know not on what ground you are included, but I fear the worst. There is not a moment to be lost if you would escape by the bridge, before the troop who are on the way to guard it arrives."

"The landing-stage, you say, is already watched?" our host asked, his phlegmatic coolness showing at its best. His eyes roved round the room, and he tugged, as was his habit when deep in thought, at his beard. I felt sure that he was calculating which of his possessions he could remove.

"Yes," Van Tree answered. "My father got wind of the plan in Arnheim. An English envoy arrived there yesterday on his way to Cleves or some part of Germany. It is rumored that he has come out of his road to inquire after certain English fugitives whom his Government are anxious to seize. But come, we have no time to lose! Let us go!"

"Do you come too?" Master Lindstrom said, pausing in the act of turning away. He spoke in Dutch, but by some inspiration born of sympathy I understood both his question and the answer.

"Yes, I come. Where Dymphna goes I go, and where she stops I stop, though it be at Madrid itself," the young man answered gallantly. His eyes kindled, and he seemed to grow taller and to gain majesty. The barrier of race, which had hindered me from viewing him fairly before, fell in a trice. I felt now only a kindly sorrow that he had done this noble thing, and not I. I went to him and grasped his hand; and though I said nothing, he seemed, after a single start of surprise, to understand me fully. He understood me even better, if that were possible, an hour later, when Dymphna had told him of her adventure with the Spaniard, and he came to me to thank me.

Ordered myself to be idle, I found all busy round me, busy with a stealthy diligence. Master Lindstrom was packing his plate. Dymphna, pale, but with soft, happy eyes-for had she not cause to be proud? – was preparing food and thick clothing. The Duchess had fetched her child and was dressing it for the journey. Master Bertie was collecting small matters, and looking to our arms. In one or other of these occupations-I can guess in which-Van Tree was giving his aid. And so, since the Duchess would not let me do anything, it chanced that presently I found myself left alone for a few minutes with Anne.

I was not watching her. I was gnawing my nails in a fit of despondency, reflecting that I was nothing but a hindrance and a drawback to my friends, since whenever a move had to be made I was sure to be invalided, when I became aware, through some mysterious sense, that my companion, who was kneeling on the floor behind me, packing, had desisted from her work and was gazing fixedly at me. I turned. Yes, she was looking at me; her eyes, in which a smoldering fire seemed to burn, contrasting vividly with her pale face and contracted brows. When she saw that I had turned-of which at first she did not seem aware-she rose and came to me, and laid a hand on my shoulder and leaned over me. A feeling that was very like fright fell upon me, her manner was so strange. "What is it?" I stammered, as she still pored on me in silence, still maintained her attitude. "What is the matter, Anne?"

"Are you quite a fool?" she whispered, her voice almost a hiss, her hot breath on my cheek. "Have you no sense left, that you trust that man?"

For a moment I failed to understand her. "What man?" I said. "Oh, Van Tree!"

"Ay, Van Tree! Who else? Will you go straight into the trap he has laid for you?" She moistened her lips with her tongue, as though they were parched. "You are all mad! Mad, I think! Don't you see," she continued, stooping over me again and whispering hurriedly, her wild eyes close to mine, "that he is jealous of you?"

"He was," I said uneasily. "That is all right now."

"He was? He is!" she retorted. "He went away wild with you. He comes back smiling and holding out his hand. Do you trust him? Don't you see-don't you see," she cried, rocking me to and fro with her hand in her excitement, "that he is fooling you? He is leading us all into a trap that has been laid carefully enough. What is this tale of an English envoy on his way to Germany? Rubbish! Rubbish, I tell you."

"But Clarence-"

"Bah! It was all your fancy!" she cried fiercely, her eyes for the moment flitting to the door, then returning to my face. "How should he find us here? Or what has Clarence to do with an English envoy?"

"I do not know," I said. She had not in the least persuaded me. In a rare moment I had seen into Van Tree's soul and trusted him implicitly. "Please take care," I added, wincing under her hand. "You hurt me!"

She sprang back with a sudden change of countenance as if I had struck her, and for a moment cowered away from me, her former passion still apparent fighting for the mastery in her face. I set down her condition to terror at the plight we were all in, or to vexation that no one would take her view. The next moment I went farther. I thought her mad, when she turned abruptly from me and, flying to the door by which Van Tree had entered, began with trembling fingers to release the pin which confined the bar.

"Stop! stop! you will ruin all!" I cried in horror. "They can see that door from the river, and if they see the light, they will know we are up and have taken the alarm; and they may make a dash to secure us. Stop, Anne! Stop!" I cried. But the girl was deaf. She tugged desperately at the pin, and had already loosened the bar when I caught her by the arms, and, pushing her away, set my back against the door. "Don't be foolish!" I said gently. "You have lost your head. You must let us men settle these things, Anne."

She was indeed beside herself, for she faced me during a second or two as though she would spring upon me and tear me from the door. Her hands worked, her eyes gleamed, her strong white teeth showed themselves. I shuddered. I had never pictured her looking like that. Then, as steps sounded on the stairs and cheerful voices-cheerful they seemed to me as they broke in on that strange scene-drew nearer, she turned, and walking deliberately to a seat, fell to weeping hysterically.

"What are you doing to that door?" cried the Duchess sharply, as she entered with the others. I was securing the bar again.

"Nothing," I said stolidly. "I am seeing that it is fast."

"And hoity toity, miss!" she continued, turning to Anne. "What has come over you, I would like to know? Stop crying, girl; what is the matter with you? Will you shame us all before this Dutch maid? Here, carry these things to the back door."

Anne somehow stifled her sobs and rose. Seeming by a great effort to recover composure, she went out, keeping her face to the last averted from me.

We all followed, variously laden, Master Lindstrom and Van Tree, who carried between them the plate-chest, being the last to leave. There was not one of us-even of us who had only known the house a few weeks-who did not heave a sigh as we passed out of the warm lamp-lit parlor, which, littered as it was with the debris of packing, looked still pleasant and comfortable in comparison with the darkness outside and the uncertain future before us. What, then, must have been the pain of parting to those who had never known any other home? Yet they took it bravely. To Dymphna, Van Tree's return had brought great happiness. To Master Lindstrom, any ending to a long series of anxieties and humiliations was welcome. To Van Tree-well, he had Dymphna with him, and his side of the plate-chest was heavy, and gave him ample employment.

We passed out silently through the back door, leaving the young Dutchman to lock it behind us, and flitted, a line of gliding shadows, through the orchard. It was two o'clock, the sky was overcast, a slight drizzle was falling. Once an alarm was given that we were being followed; and we huddled together, and stood breathless, a clump of dark figures gazing affrightedly at the tree trunks which surrounded us, and which seemed-at least to the women's eyes-to be moving, and to be men closing in on us. But the alarm was groundless, and with no greater mishap than a few stumbles when we came to the slippery edge of the creek, we reached the boat, and one by one, admirably ordered by our host, got in and took our seats. Van Tree and Master Lindstrom pushed us off; then they swung themselves in and paddled warily along, close under the bank, where the shadows of the poplars fell across us, and our figures blended darkly with the line of rushes on the shore.