Once on the high ground, I had as good a view of the surrounding country as I could wish, and I saw Frank Penrose and John Rashleigh strike out across the park to the beacon fields, and then divide. All the while I had a fear in my heart that the boy had drowned himself, and would be found with the rising tide floating face downwards in the wash below Polkerris cliffs. There was no sign of the boat, and I judged it to be to the westward, beyond Polkerris and the Gribben.
Back and forth we went along the causeway, with Matty pushing my chair, and still no sign of a living soul, nothing but the cattle grazing on the farther hills, and the ripple of a breeze blowing the corn upon the skyline.
Presently I sent Matty within doors for a cloak, for the breeze was freshening, and on her return she told me that stragglers were already pouring into the park from the roads, women and children, and old men, all with makeshift bundles on their backs, begging for shelter, for the route was cut to Truro and the rebels were everywhere. My sister Mary was at her wits’ ends to know what to say to them, and many of them were already kindling fires down in the warren and making rough shelter for the night.
“As I came out just now,” said Matty, “a litter borne by four horses came to rest in the courtyard, and a lady within demanded harborage for herself and her young daughters. I heard the servant say they had been nine hours upon the road.”
I thanked God in my heart that we had remained at Menabilly and not lost our heads like these other poor unfortunates.
“Go back, Matty,” I said, “and see what you can do to help my sister. None of the servants have any sense left in their heads.”
She had not been gone more than ten minutes before I saw two figures coming across the fields towards me. One of them, seeing me upon the causeway, waved his arm, while with the other he held fast to his companion.
It was John Rashleigh, and he had Dick with him.
When they reached me I saw the boy was dripping wet, and scratched about the face and hands by brambles, but for once he was not bothered by the sight of blood, but stared at me defiantly.
“I will not go,” he said. “You cannot make me go.”
John Rashleigh shook his head at me, and shrugged his shoulders in resignation. “It’s no use, Honor,” he said. “We shall have to keep him. There’s a wash on the beaches now, and I’ve signaled to the boat to make sail and take the tutor across the bay to Mevagissey or Gorran, where he must make shift for himself. As for this lad, I found him halfway up the cliff, a mile from Polkerris—he had been waist-deep in water for the past three hours. God only knows what Sir Richard will say to the bungle we have made.”
“Never mind Sir Richard. I will take care of him,” I said, “when—and if—we ever clap eyes on him again. That boy must return to the house with me and be shifted into dry clothes before anything else is done with him.”
Now, the causeway at Menabilly is set high, as I have said, commanding a fine view both to east and to west, and at this moment, I know not why, I turned my head towards the coast road that descended down to Pridmouth from Coombe and Fowey, and I saw, silhouetted on the skyline above the valley, a single horseman. In a moment he was joined by others, who paused an instant on the hill, and then, following their leader, plunged down the narrow roadway to the cove. John saw them too, for our eyes met, and we looked at one another long and silently, while Dick stood between us, his eyes downcast, his teeth chattering.
Richard in the old days was wont to tease me for my south-coast blood, so sluggish, he averred, compared with that which ran through his own north-coast veins, but I swear I thought, in the next few seconds, as rapidly as he had ever done or was likely yet to do.
“Have you your father’s keys?” I said to John.
“Yes,” he said.
“All of them?”
“All of them.”
“On your person now?”
“Yes.”
“Then open the door of the summerhouse.”
He obeyed me without question—thank God his stern father had taught him discipline—and in an instant we stood at the threshold with the door flung open.
“Lift the mat from beneath the desk there,” I said, “and raise the flagstone.” He looked at me then in wonder, but went without a word to do as I had bidden him. In a moment the mat was lifted, and the flagstone too and the flight of steps betrayed to view. “Don’t ask me any questions, John,” I said. “There is no time. A passage runs underground from those steps to the house. Take Dick with you now, first replacing the flagstone above your heads, and crawl with him along the passage to the further end. You will come to a small room, like a cell, and another flight of steps. At the top of the steps is a door, which opens, I believe, from the passage end. But do not try to open it until I give you warning from the house.”
I could read the sense of what I said go slowly to his mind, and a dawn of comprehension come into his eyes.
“The chamber next to yours?” he said. “My uncle John?”
“Yes,” I said. “Give me the keys. Go quickly.”
There was no trouble now with Dick. He had gathered from my manner that danger was deadly near and the time for truancy over. He bolted down into the hole like a frightened rabbit. I watched John settle the mat over the flagstone, and then, descending after Dick he lowered the stone above his head and disappeared. The summerhouse was as it had been, empty, and untouched. I leaned over in my chair and turned the key in the lock, and then put the keys inside my gown. I looked out to the eastward and saw that the skyline was empty. The troopers would have reached the cove by now, and, after they had watered their horses at the mill, would climb up the further side and be at Menabilly within ten minutes. The sweat was running down my forehead clammy cold, and as I waited for Matty to fetch me—and God only knew how much longer she would be—I thought how I would give all I possessed in the world at that moment for one good swig of brandy.
Far out on the beacon hills I could see Frank Penrose still searching hopelessly for Dick, while in the meadows to the west one of the women from the farm went calling to the cows, all oblivious of the troopers who were riding up the lane.
And at that moment my godchild Joan came hurrying along the causeway to fetch me, her pretty face all strained and anxious, her soft dark hair blowing in the wind.
“They are coming,” she said. “We have seen them from the windows. Scores of them, on horseback, riding now across the park.”
Her breath caught in a sob, and she began running with me along the causeway, so that I too was caught in a sudden panic and could think of nothing but the wide door of Menabilly still open to enfold me. “I have searched everywhere for John,” she faltered, “but I cannot find him. One of the servants said they saw him walking out towards the Gribben. Oh, Honor—the children—what will become of us? What is going to happen?”
I could hear shouting from the park, and out on the hard ground beyond the gates came the steady rhythmic beat of horses trotting; not the light clatter of a company, but line upon line of them, the relentless measure of a regiment, the jingle of harness, the thin alien sound of a bugle.
They were waiting for us by the windows of the gallery, Alice, and Mary, the Sawles, the Sparkes, a little tremulous gathering of frightened people, united now in danger, and two other faces that I did not know, the peaky, startled faces of strange children with lace caps upon their heads and wide lace collars. I remembered then the unknown lady who had flung herself upon my sister’s mercy, and as we turned into the hall, slamming the door behind us, I saw the horses that had drawn the litter still standing untended in the courtyard, save that the grooms had thrown blankets upon them, colored white and crimson, and stamped at the corners with a dragon’s head. A dragon’s head… but even as my memory swung back into the past I heard her voice, cold and clear, rising above the others in the gallery. “If only it can be Lord Robartes, I can assure you all no harm will come to us. I have known him well these many years, and am quite prepared to speak on your behalf.”
“I forgot to tell you,” whispered Joan. “She came with her two daughters, scarce an hour ago. The road was held, and they could not pass St. Blazey. It is Mrs. Denys of Orley Court.”
Her eyes swung round to me. Those same eyes, narrow, heavy lidded, that I had seen often in my more troubled dreams, and her gold hair, golder than it had been in the past, for art had taken counsel with Nature and outstripped it. She stared at the sight of me, and for a second I caught a flash of odd discomfort like a flicker in her eyes, and then she smiled her slow, false, well-remembered smile, and, stretching out her hands, she said, “Why, Honor, this is indeed a pleasure. Mary did not tell me that you too were here at Menabilly.”
I ignored the proffered hand, for a cripple in a chair can be as ill mannered as she pleases, and as I stared back at her in my own fashion, with suspicion and foreboding in my heart, we heard the horses ride into the courtyard and the bugles blow. Poor Temperance Sawle went down upon her knees, the children whimpered, and my sister Mary, with her arm about Joan and Alice, stood very white and still. Only Gartred watched with cool eyes, her hands playing gently with her girdle.
“Pray hard and pray fast, Mrs. Sawle,” I said. “The vultures are gathering.”
And, since there was no brandy in the room, I poured myself some water from a jug, and raised my glass to Gartred.