Death the Knight and the Lady/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK
I found it, and having lit the candle by my bedside I got back into bed and began to smoke. The fumes of the tobacco, the utter silence of the house broken only by the occasional sighing of the wind in the trees outside, the exquisite room in which I was lying with its painted ceiling and rose petal coloured hangings, the image of Geraldine, all combined to produce in my mind a sort of delicious intoxication.
I saw now vaguely the wonderful dream that was beginning to unfold around me, the fairy tale of which I was to be the hero. I saw once more the face that had come back from the dark corridor to be kissed—ah me!
My hands rested upon a little black covered book, I had found it upon the mantelpiece, and had taken it into bed with me, thinking to put my cigarette ashes upon it. Instead of that I had shaken them off, without thinking, upon the floor.
I opened it. The first thing I saw was the picture of a skull drawn in faded ink upon the yellow title-page. Then, under the skull, written in what, even in those old days, must have been a boy's scrawl, this—
"The blacke worke of deathe herein sette downe is bye ye hande of Geoffry Lely hys page."
Whose page? I knew well.
Then, on the next leaf, in the same handwriting, but smaller and more cramped, I read the following. It was written in the old English style, and the queer spelling of the words I cannot imitate, as I write only from remembrance.
"Before daylight of that dark and bloody day a week agone now, by lantern light we left the court-yard and rode down the avenue, Sir Gerald on his black horse Badminton, I on the bay mare Pimpernel. In the black dark of the avenue nothing could I see, but followed, led by the sound of Badminton's hoofs, the clink of Sir Gerald's scabbard, and the tinkling bells of the little hawke that sat hooded and drowsing upon his wrist.
"Had I followed a common man I might have asked of him what place hath a hawke on the wrist of a man with a sword by his side and pistols at his holster, but Sir Gerald I have followed my life long without question, and without question would have ridden behind him to death.
"In the road beyond the darkness of the trees we paused, each at five paces from the other; the clouds in the easternmost part of the sky were all cracked where the day was breaking through; a dour and dark morning was it, and no sound to hear but a plover crying weep, weep, and the little tinkle ever and anon of the hawke's bells.
"I watched the wind toss Sir Gerald's black hair and lift the plume of his hat, and let it fall, and lift it again, and let it fall, light as if 'twere the fingers of a woman at play with it. He was resting in his saddle as if a-thinking, then touching Badminton with the spur, he led the way from the road on to the moor, the two horses' hoofs striking as one.
"We passed the shoulder of the hill and down to the Gimmer side, and there by the river we stopped again and Sir Gerald sat and seemed a-listening to the mutter of the water and the wuther of the wind in the reeds; but he was in sore trouble, that I knew by the way his head was bent and by the sighs that broke from him ever and anon.
"And where his trouble lay I knew, for I had but to look the way his head was turned, and see Castle Sinclair, all towers and turrets, set up against the morning which was breaking quickly out from under the clouds.
"As we sat I heard a horn sounding beyond the river bank and the yelp of a hound blown on the wind thin and sharp, and in the distance, crossing the ford of the Gimmer, I saw three horsemen; they were Sinclairs, that I knew,—General James Sinclair rode first, I could tell him by the great size of himself and his horse, and of the other two I knew one to be Rupert and the other George, but which was which no eye of mortal could tell in the dim light that was then.
"They passed the ford and rode away, a huntsman following close on, seeming to move in the midst of a waving furze bush, which was the hounds in full pack, and the last of them we heard was the toot of the horn sounding over the hillside.
"Then Sir Gerald touched Badminton again with spur, and we rode along the river bank to the ford, still warm from the crossing of the Sinclairs; and the ford behind us, we set our horses' heads straight for Castle Sinclair.
"The morning was up now, and we could hear the cocks a-crowing from the barnes lying to the thither side of the castle. In the courtyard we drew bridle, and Sir Gerald dismounted and threw his reins to me.
"At the open door above the stone steps stood Mistress Beatrice Sinclair herself; she held in her hand a silver stirrup cup. Without doubt she had lingered at the door from seeing the huntsmen off to their hunt, held mayhap by the fineness of the morning.
"I saw Sir Gerald advance to her, his plumed hat in hand, and they passed into the great hall so that I could not see them more, and there I sat to wait with no sound to save me from the stillness but the cawing of the rooks in the elm tops below, and the grinding of Badminton's teeth as they chawed on the bit.
"The clock in the turret struck six, and I sat a-thinking of Mistress Beatrice Sinclair, holding her beautiful face up to the eye of my mind, and putting beside it for contrast the dark face of Sir Gerald. Then the clock struck seven and Badminton he struck with his hind hoof on the yard pavement and neighed as if calling after his master.
"Then five minutes might have gone. I saw Sir Gerald's figure at the door, his face white as the ashes of wood, and he stumbling like a man far gone in drunkness. But drunkness it was none and that I knew, but some calamity dire and fell, and I put Badminton up to the steps in a trice, for I read the look in Sir Gerald's black eye which meant 'flight.'
"As he rose into the saddle a window shot open above, and a woman's voice cried, 'Stop them, stop them, my lady is dead, he has killed her!' Then, reeling in my saddle with the horror of the thing, I put the bridle rein to Sir Gerald's hands. He heard and saw nothing, that I knew by his eyes and his face, so, leaving Pimpernel to care for herself, I sprang on Badminton behind Sir Gerald, and taking the reins with my hands stretched out, I put spurs deep into his sides.
"The wind rushed in my ears and the cries of the woman grew faint; down hill we tore, I heard the splashing of the Gimmer water round Badminton's legs and the hoofs of him rattling on the pebbles of the ford. Then I heard behind me the clashing of the alarum bell of the castle.
"Something in Sir Gerald's right hand, hanging loose, took my eye, and I sickened at the sight, for it was the body of the little brown hawk crushed to death.
"I looked back, Castle Sinclair stood out against the blood red of the sky. Up suddenly against us rose a great man on a black horse. It was General James Sinclair spurring for the castle; he threw his horse on his haunches. Badminton he reared, and Sir Gerald fell forward before me on his neck, his dark hair all mixed with the mane. Then I drew rein, I called to Sir Gerald, but no answer made he; his lips were blue, dead he was as the little hawk crushed in his hand, dead as Mistress Beatrice Sinclair, poisoned with the selfsame poison he always carried in his ring; dead as I Geoffry Lely shall be, and that soon, from the sorrow that has fallen on me since that dark and bloody day."
There the writing stopped. I only quote from memory, but it is a good memory, for that strange bit of writing burnt itself deeply into my heart. It occupied six pages. The seventh was covered by Wilder's handwriting. It was the beginning of a horrible list, the list of the eldest sons of the Wilders. Each name stood there bracketed with the name of a Sinclair. I knew what that meant. This was the way:—
- Beatrice Sinclair—Gerald Wilder.
- John Wilder—Rupert Sinclair.
- Adam Wilder—James Sinclair-Sinclair.
- Athelstan Wilder—Arthur Reginald Sinclair,
and so on. That list horrified me, I could not go on with it. At the foot of all these names so strangely coupled together James Wilder had written a sort of prayer.
"Oh, God! how long! how much longer shall this blood red hand be held over us? I have but one little child, I implore your mercy for it. Have pity upon me and it, we have done no wrong."
That made my eyes swim so that I could scarcely see. I shut the little black book; it looked like a witch, and I determined to burn it. The fire was still red in the grate, so I got up and put it on the live coals. It burned quite cheerfully. I watched it as I lay in bed, and I muttered to myself, "Let the past die like that." I watched the cover all curling up, and little jets of blue flame spouting from the leather binding. Oh, if it were only as easy to burn the past as it is to burn a book! Then nothing was left but sullen-looking grey ashes, with little red points running over them.
Then I blew out my candle, and the room was in darkness. The wind sighed outside in the tree tops. I saw all kinds of pictures painted on the darkness, faces, and one angelic face, the last before I went to sleep—Geraldine's.