Running over these considerations in my mind, I said, “I forgive you.”
“You posturing lack-wit!” she returned, and her sunk jaws quivered angrily. “D’ye play the condescending gentleman already! Dearie, your master did not take the news so calmly.”
“You have told him?”
I had risen, for the wried, and yet sly, malice of my aunt’s face was rather that of Bellona, who, as clerks avow, ever bore carnage and dissension in her train, than that of a mortal, mutton-fed woman. Elinor Sommers hated me—having God knows how just a cause—for the reason that I was my father’s son; and yet, for this same reason as I think, there was in all our intercourse an odd, harsh, grudging sort of tenderness.
She laughed now—flat and shrill, like the laughter of the damned heard in Hell between the roaring of flames. “Were it not common kindness to tell him, since this old sleek fellow’s fine daughter is to wed the cuckoo that hath your nest? Yes, Willie, yes, your master hath known since morning.”
“And Adeliza?” I asked, in a voice that tricked me.
“Heh, my Lady-High-and-Mighty hath, I think, heard nothing as yet. She will be hearing of new suitors soon enough, though, for her father, Monsieur Fine-Words, that silky, grinning thief, is very keen in a money-chase—keen as a terrier on a rat-track, may Satan twist his neck! Pshutt, dearie! here is a smiling knave who means to have the estate of Allonby as it stands; what livestock may go therewith, whether crackbrained or not, is all one to him. He will not balk at a drachm or two of wit in his son-in-law. You have but to whistle—but to whistle, Willie, and she’ll come!”
I said, “Eh, woman, and have you no heart?”
“I gave it to your father for a few lying speeches,” she answered, “and Tom Allonby taught me the worth of all such commerce.” There was a smile upon her lips, sister to that which Clytemnestra may have flaunted in welcome of that old Emperor Agamemnon, come in gory opulence from the sack of Troy Town. “I gave it—” Her voice rose here to a despairing wail. “Ah, go, before I lay my curse upon you, son of Thomas Allonby! But do you kiss me first, for you have just his lying mouth. So, that is better! And now go, my lord marquis; it is not fitting that death should intrude into your lordship’s presence. Go, fool, and let me die in peace!”
I no longer cast a cautious eye toward the whip (ah, familiar unkindly whip!) that still hung beside the door of the hut; but, I confess, my aunt’s looks were none too delectable, and ancient custom rendered her wrath yet terrible. If the farmers thereabouts were to be trusted, I knew Old Legion’s bailiff would shortly be at hand, to distrain upon a soul escheat and forfeited to Dis by many years of cruel witchcrafts, close wiles, and nameless sorceries; and I could never abide unpared nails, even though they be red-hot. Therefore, I relinquished her to the village gossips, who waited without, and I tucked my bauble under my arm.
“Dear aunt,” said I, “farewell!”
“Goodbye, Willie!” said she; “I shall often laugh in Hell to think of the crackbrained marquis that I made on earth. It was my will to make a beggar of Tom’s son, but at the last I play the fool and cannot do it. But do you play the fool, too, dearie, and”—she chuckled here—“and have your posture and your fine long words, whatever happens.”
“ ’Tis my vocation,” I answered, briefly; and so went forth into the night.
II
At the Ladder’s Foot
I came to Tiverton Manor through a darkness black as the lining of Baalzebub’s oldest cloak. The storm had passed, but clouds yet hung heavy as featherbeds between mankind and the stars; as I crossed the bridge the swollen Exe was but dimly visible, though it roared beneath me, and shook the frail timbers hungrily. The bridge had long been unsafe: Monsieur de Puysange had planned one stronger and less hazardous than the former edifice, of which the arches yet remained, and this was now in the making, as diverse piles of unhewn lumber and stone attested: meanwhile, the roadway was a makeshift of half-rotten wood that even in this abating wind shook villainously. I stood for a moment and heard the waters lapping and splashing and laughing, as though they would hold it rare and desirable mirth to swallow and spew forth a powerful marquis, and grind his body among the battered timber and tree-boles and dead sheep swept from the hills, and at last vomit him into the sea, that a corpse, wide-eyed and livid, might bob up and down the beach, in quest of a quiet grave where the name of Allonby was scarcely known. The imagination was so vivid that it frightened me as I picked my way cat-footed through the dark.
The folk of Tiverton Manor were knotting on their nightcaps, by this; but there was a light in the Lady Adeliza’s window, faint as a sick glowworm. I rolled in the seeded grass and chuckled, as I thought of what a day or two might bring about, and I murmured to myself an old cradlesong of Devon which she loved and often sang; and was, ere I knew it, carolling aloud, for pure wantonness and joy that Monsieur de Puysange was not likely to have me whipped, now, however blatantly I might elect to discourse.
Sang I:
