Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (349 page)

“This is a hole and corner to have one’s life sought in,” said Sir Francis. “You Wiltshire-men are of a band together, like all of the West Country.”

The Earl suddenly spun round upon his heel.

“Sir Francis,” he said, “it will give me pleasure to meet you in the Assembly Rooms at High Wycombe, or in any other town of the East Country you please, with the town-crier sent round and none but East Country men present, if you doubt my impartiality.”

“My lord,” Sir Francis said, “I will talk of your impartiality when I am through with this affair.”

“Oh,
paucas palabras
!” Mr. Roland exclaimed, “can we not dig holes in each other’s ribs without first letting off all the wind in our bodies?”

“Well, gentlemen, get to your places,” the Earl exclaimed.

They stood back to back, and again started out. The Signora had begun to peel the stocking from Mr. Bettesworth’s leg.

“I protest,” he exclaimed violently, “this is none of my brother’s quarrel, but mine,” and he kicked his legs in the attempt to rise. Nevertheless his head fell back and he groaned. Mr. Williams was disembarrassing himself of the gentlemen’s coats, laying them in order upon the tree-trunk, so that he might have his hands free to tear up the handkerchief that the Signora held out to him.

“Into what a savage race have I fallen,” he exclaimed, “and what a man of blood is my benefactor!”

The Signora looked up at him with her humorous eyes.

“Friend,” she said, “have you passed your early years, like Achilles, in an Academy of the fair sex?”

“Why, I am a minister of God,” he answered; “the time has come for repentance and for instant conversion. Have faith.”

“Misericordia!” the Signora exclaimed, “I come from the Holy City, and the proverb has it, ‘Go to Rome and lose your faith.’”

Having torn the handkerchief in half, Mr. Williams, with something of an attempt to clap his heels together, and with something of an attempt to bow, handed her the strips of white linen.

“Madam,” he said, “since you have come from Rome, where faith is lost, it may be a sign that you seek it. I am here that can provide it.”

The Signora looked at him with an amused and gentle incredulity.

“Reverend sir,” she said, “you are attempting a sally, which I had not awaited of you. But I lived five years in the close society of His Holiness Innocent the Fourteenth — may his blessed soul pray for me! — and if after that you can inculcate into me one scintilla of faith, you will achieve a miracle more astounding than that of St. Diadomene, who
 
converted dung beetles.”

Behind their backs the Earl of Pembroke exclaimed loudly: “Let go! And may God have mercy on your souls!”

The minister spun round upon his heel, the; Signora negligently turned her head.

The combatants were walking slowly towards each other with both gravity and decorum, and having, reached a point at about the middle of their course, with an excess of courtesy each saluted the other,
 
waving their rapiers in a wide curve, and setting the “hilts just to their chins. Sir Francis’ sword was first down — and, at point, Mr. Roland’s followed it. They touched blades, they elevated their left hands.

Almost invisibly, with a sudden pressure, the knight’s sword was borne down. Mr. Roland’s had the air of being shot upwards by a spring. His point entered the knight’s shoulder, just upon the shoulder blade, and with so much force that Sir Francis fell backwards on to one knee. His sword dropped to the ground, and he supported himself with one hand, an expression of extreme pain contorting his mouth. Mr. Roland looked curiously at the point of his sword.

“I am sorry, my lord,” he said, “that I gave you no longer an entertainment, but there has been here too much talk.”

The shrill and joyous voice of Maria exclaimed from the window above —

“Why didn’t’ee pink un through the heart, Roland?”

And Mr. Roland, sure of his ascendancy, waved his hand negligently up at her, whilst the Earl exclaimed, “Oh, fie! oh, fie! naughty madam!”

Mr. Roland dropped the sword at his brother’s feet.

“If yours was not the arm, yours was the blade,” he said. “They shall never laugh at us Bettesworths for swordsmen, whatever they do for fools.”

He took the half handkerchiefs from the Signora’s hands.

“This popinjay has more need of corking than my brother,” he said, and going over to Sir Francis, he prepared himself to push strips of torn linen into the wound, that was beginning broadly to discolour the knight’s grey brocaded waistcoat.

“A bloody day!” the Methodist exclaimed. “A woeful and bloody day!”

“Friend,” the Signora answered him, “I have seen seven gentlemen contend together for permission to pick up my handkerchief, and of them all but three left the room alive!”

CHAPTER IV
.

IT was, indeed, from Mr. Williams that they learned all that they were destined to learn of what had happened to Mr. Bettesworth during his progress from Ashford to Winterbourne. Mr. Jack Williamson having been not too drunk to get the horses out of the stable, had been, nevertheless, by far too gone in liquor to distinguish between his own and the horse of his employer, so that he had ridden off into the country with no very clear idea of any destination at all, and had vanished into the night. The Methodist had led Mr. Bettesworth very faithfully through the fog to the park gates, where they found tethered the horse of Mr. Roland himself and the rather sorry yellow nag which had been allotted to Mr. Jack Williamson.

“My benefactor,” the Methodist said, “acted during all this time as if he had had a disordered intellect. Yea, it was as if God had sent into his brain a cloud of smoke, or a bewilderment of vapour.” Mr. Bettesworth, it appeared, had forgotten his men and had forgotten his resources. He had consulted the Methodist as to what road it was likely the abductors of Lydia Chuckel would have taken to get to Town. He had to take into account that on the one hand they would desire to travel

with all the expedition they might use; on the other, they could not take a very direct route, since they would know that Mr. Bettesworth would be very soon released from jail — nay, they themselves had encouraged his release. The London road went through Charing, and for most of its length, even as far as Maidstone, it would be fairly good going. This road they would scarcely take, since they might be very certain to be speedily pursued by Mr. Bettesworth and his men. The only other road that they would be certain of travelling — for ways through the Weald were mere quagmires — was one that made through the village of Great Chart.

Mr. Williams was unable to account for Mr. Bettesworth’s actions—”How could we, being but two, avail against so many?” Nevertheless they set out as hard as they could lather through the misty uplands and valleys. Perhaps Mr. Bettesworth was unwilling to lose time waiting for his men? Perhaps he laid so much to the account of his single arm that he could rid himself of all the abductors? Or perhaps it was a mere madness, without any definite object as without any calculation. So they rode, through the thick mist that was up to their horses’ ears, beneath a moonlight full of black shadows; a half-mad man upon a spiritless horse, followed faithfully by a half-crazed priest, who was as full of misgivings as of gratitude. To the Methodist Mr. Bettesworth, with his wealth, his rank, and, above all, his assurance, appeared to be a gentleman in the extreme, valuable to a flock already oppressed. Mr. Bettesworth had promised to distend his purse-strings till at least their cause was sifted and adjudged orthodox or heretical by Convocation; and this was more than, either by praying or field-preachings, they had so far achieved.

At Charing they heard from the pike-keeper that three hours before eight riders, going very fast, had passed through to the westward. They reached Biddenden at dawn, and heard as much again. An hour later Mr. Bettesworth’s horse cast a shoe, and when they stopped at a forge they heard just the same tale — that eight riders had passed three hours before, going, however, to the northwards towards Orpington. One of these riders, indeed, had, like them, been delayed by a cast shoe, which the smith declared had been very curiously lost, inasmuch as the nails had had all the appearance of having been wrenched out by force, and the other shoes being very newly put on. This appeared to afford the smith so much reason for conjecture that he dwelt upon it, and every permutation of the chances that can befall horseshoes, — such as inefficient nailing by a previous farrier, nails in themselves lacking or flawed, the sudden striking of a stone; or even as happened, so it is said, to Sir Greville Bevell in foreign parts, whose horse trode upon a lodestone and had all its shoes and nails wrenched off at once.

Having eaten nothing at all by night or day, they came, just three-quarters of an hour later, outside the Good Intent Inn, upon six horses tethered by the head to a rack manger. Four men in Major Penruddock’s livery, which was of Cornish yellow with black worsted epaulettes, were upon the instant howling to them to stop; and drawn out from the door by the great noise, his face very hang-dog and his eyes lacking lustre, came the Honourable Simon Harcourt of His Majesty’s Privy Council.

Mr. Bettesworth, so the Methodist said, descended from his beast as if he were falling into the road. He strode up to Mr. Harcourt with his whip raised, uttering blasphemies that Mr. Williams declared to have passed any comfortable imagination of mankind. Mr. Harcourt, on the other hand, was in a condition of rage quite as lamentable, while his voice was the more shrill, so that through a scene which appeared to be mostly tumult and babel, the Methodist could hear him repeating again and again: “Before God, you may find her, for I have her not.”

And, Mr. Bettesworth being held back by one of the retainers in Major Penruddock’s livery, Mr. Harcourt, with an expression of vacuous imbecility remained, his hands deep in his breeches pockets, and his hat upon the back of his head, upon the red brick steps of the inn, gazing at his muddied boots.

Mr. Harcourt’s horse, it appeared, had cast a shoe, as Mr. Bettesworth and Mr. Williams had already heard. Now Mr. Harcourt’s charger, Turenne, which Mr. Harcourt had won at lansquenet, in the year 1733, from the Maréchal de Crequy in Paris, was the apple of Mr. Harcourt’s eye, so that with the shoe cast he would not, as any other man would have done, ride forward upon a servant’s horse, leaving the servant to follow upon Turenne. But he must stop at the forge himself to see that Turenne’s hoofs were not over-pared, or his nose injured by too tight a twist, so that, leaving the main body of them to progress, he had remained behind at the forge.

Riding onwards, he had come upon the six servants, four of Major Penruddock’s and two of his own, halted at the inn. They gave him word that Major Penruddock and Lydia Chuckel, having been closeted in an upper room, over pots of breakfast ale and a dish of bacon — this being the first meal they had enjoyed since leaving Ashford — Major Penruddock and Lydia Chuckel had ridden forward, bidding the men await Mr. Harcourt there at the inn; and the dire point was that they had never passed the next turnpike, which was three-quarters of a mile down the road. They must thus, it seemed, have gone away across the trackless country. There was no finding them! There was not so much as finding any trace of them. Mr. Harcourt knew that Lydia Chuckel was open to bribery, for had not he and the Major, on the night before, succeeded by offering a very high bribe, in which both he and the Major were to share, in making her leave the protection of Mr. Bettesworth.

“So that we are to imagine,” Mr. Williams said, “that by a new treachery of Major Penruddock’s — namely, that he himself would pay the whole of the bribe, and doubtless more in addition — this damsel had been induced to go away with the Major alone.”

They were both by this time — and this they knew for a fact, Mr. Harcourt having later written it to Mr. Bettesworth at Ashford Manor-house — sheltering at Norfolk House. And thus the Duke claimed, through the aid of Major Penruddock, to have won his part of the wager — which was that he should house the original of “Celia in her Arbour.” Major Penruddock claimed to have won his portion of the wager from Mr. Harcourt in that he had found Celia. Mr. Harcourt had lost to the Duke in that he had failed very signally in the attempt to bring her to Town; and Sir Francis Dashwood having lost to the Duke, had for the moment lost also to Mr. Bettesworth since he had wagered that he would marry Celia. Sir Francis, indeed, might still win his wager by coming to terms with the Duke and Major Penruddock, since he might purchase Lydia Chuckel from these two gentlemen. Still, this was considered unlikely, since it was known that the Major had converted Lydia into his kept mistress with a sealed settlement, the use of a glass coach so long as she remained faithful, and four footmen of her own.

And after that Mr. Williams reported that he and his benefactor had undertaken incredible voyages. They had gone across country, in one direction and another, until they had reached the outskirts of London itself. But at the point when they had reached the post which marks the limit of the coal and wine dues of the City of London — upon Keston Common, where they had lit off their horses to drink a pot of ale in a low pot-house — Mr. Bettesworth abandoned all hope of recovering Lydia. This resolution, Mr. Williams reported, had seemed to shake him as much as sudden conversions of faith had shaken sinners in jails that he had seen.

“But, alas!” Mr. Williams said, “abandoning the idea of carnal triumph, did he seek spiritual peace? Oh no, oh no! He turned his mind solely upon revenge, and from that hour onwards spoke but little and seemed to be dead to this world.” The only sign, in fact, that Mr. Bettesworth had shown that he knew there were other beings besides himself in the world, was that from that hour they had ridden more slowly, since there was no longer such need for haste, and their poor beasts were tired and trembling. Mr. Bettesworth was determined to have the life of Mr. Chuckel, and then those of Sir Francis Dashwood and of Major Penruddock. Since Mr. Harcourt had been as much fooled as himself, he was content to spare his life.

Their horses had had thirty hours’ rest at Ashford Manor-house, where Mr. Bettesworth had returned to see to the arrest and the hanging of the land-steward.

At Ashford Manor-house they found, of coherent persons, only Mrs. Chuckel, whom Mr. Williams reported to be a personable woman, showing signs of being ready to listen to his ministrations, had he only had the time to devote to her. Mr. Chuckel, however, had disappeared with a gentle urbanity, informing his wife that he never intended to see her again; that he hoped to hear that Lydia was hanged for picking of pockets, or whipped at the cart’s tail; and that he intended to live on his honourable savings in the West of England until the day of his death. And Mrs. Chuckel was able to inform Mr. Bettesworth that she was convinced — her husband having with success run his three ship-loads of smuggled goods — Mrs. Chuckel was convinced that Mr. Bettesworth would find her husband’s accounts in order. The money of his takings to the last penny was to be found in a corner cupboard in their bedroom, the keys of this were in Mrs. Chuckel’s keeping; and his tallies and papers were in the upper drawer of her bureau. So that Mr. Bettesworth had, at any rate upon all the scrutiny that he then had leisure to give to the accounts, no pretence whatever for the arrest of the fugitive. A civil action might lie against him for deserting his post without notice, but, effectively, Mr. Chuckel had escaped scot-free. And at the thought of Mr. Chuckel’s urbane defiance, of his jaunty step and his self-satisfied face, such a fever of rage overcame Mr. Bettesworth that he had perforce to spend a night in bed. But upon the receipt of a letter next morning from Mr. Harcourt, giving him the news not only that Lydia Chuckel was with Major Penruddock under the protection of the Duke of Norfolk, but that Sir Francis Dashwood was reported to be paying his court to Lady Eshetsford, Mr. Bettesworth had been seized with so hot a desire to effect the downfall of Sir Francis that he forgot alike Mr. Chuckel, the exposure of the Ashford magistrates, and the avenging of the wrongs of the stick-gatherer and the dead prostitute. They had set out incontinently for Wiltshire, having no luggage, and only a very little money; but Mr. Bettesworth had borrowed from the estate funds. Mr. Bettesworth’s servants having waited at the Manor-house for three days, had set out at their own discretion upon the road to London.