The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 20

Sae dauntingly gaed he;
He played a spring and danced it round
Beneath – ”

never mind what. The band played the spring and I danced it round, while my cousin eyed me with extorted approval. The quadrille includes an absurd figure – called, I think, La Pastourelle. You take a lady with either hand, and jig them to and fro, for all the world like an Englishman of legend parading a couple of wives for sale at Smithfield; while the other male, like a timid purchaser, backs and advances with his arms dangling.

“I’ve lived a life of sturt and strife,
I die by treacherie – ”

I challenged Alain with an open smile as he backed before us; and no sooner was the dance over, than I saw him desert Lady Frazer on a hurried excuse, and seek the door to satisfy himself that his men were on guard.

I dropped laughing into a chair beside Flora. “Anne,” she whispered; “who is on the stairs?”

“Two Bow Street runners.”

If you have seen a dove – a dove caught in a gin! “The back stairs!” she urged.

“They will be watched too. But let us make sure.” I crossed to the tea-room, and, encountering a waiter, drew him aside. Was there a man watching the back entrance? He could not tell me. For a guinea would he find out? He went, and returned in less than a minute. Yes, there was a constable below. “It’s just a young gentleman to be put to the horn for debt,” I explained, recalling the barbarous and, to me, still unmeaning phrase. “I’m no speiring,” replied the waiter.

I made my way back, and was not a little disgusted to find my chair occupied by the unconscionable Chevenix.

“My dear Miss Flora, you are unwell!” Indeed, she was pale enough, poor child, and trembling. “Major, she will be swooning in another minute. Get her to the tea-room, quick! while I fetch Miss Gilchrist. She must be taken home.”

“It is nothing,” she faltered: “it will pass. Pray do not – ” As she glanced up, she caught my meaning. “Yes, yes: I will go home.”

She took the Major’s arm, while I hurried to the card-room. As luck would have it, the old lady was in the act of rising from the green table, having just cut out from a rubber. Mr. Robbie was her partner; and I saw (and blessed my star for the first time that night) the little heap of silver, which told that she had been winning.

“Miss Gilchrist,” I whispered, “Miss Flora is faint: the heat of the room – ”

“I’ve not observed it. The ventilation is considered pairfect.”

“She wishes to be taken home.”

With fine composure she counted back her money, piece by piece, into a velvet reticule.

“Twelve and sixpence,” she proclaimed. “Ye held good cards, Mr. Robbie. Well, Mosha the Viscount, we’ll go and see about it.”

I led her to the tea-room: Mr. Robbie followed. Flora rested on a sofa in a truly dismal state of collapse, while the Major fussed about her with a cup of tea. “I have sent Ronald for the carriage,” he announced.

“H’m,” said Miss Gilchrist, eyeing him oddly. “Well, it’s your risk. Ye’d best hand me the teacup, and get our shawls from the lobby. You have the tickets. Be ready for us at the top of the stairs.”

No sooner was the Major gone than, keeping an eye on her niece, this imperturbable lady stirred the tea and drank it down herself. As she drained the cup – her back for the moment being turned on Mr. Robbie – I was aware of a facial contortion. Was the tea (as children say) going the wrong way?

No: I believe – aid me Apollo, and the Nine! I believe – though I have never dared, and shall never dare to ask – that Miss Gilchrist was doing her best to wink!

On the instant entered Master Ronald with word that the carriage was ready. I slipped to the door and reconnoitred. The crowd was thick in the ball-room; a dance in full swing; my cousin gambolling vivaciously, and, for the moment, with his back to us. Flora leaned on Ronald, and, skirting the wall, our party gained the great door and the vestibule, where Chevenix stood with an armful of cloaks.

“You and Ronald can return and enjoy yourselves,” said the old lady, “as soon as ye’ve packed us off. Ye’ll find a hackney coach, no doubt, to bring ye home.” Her eye rested on the two runners, who were putting their heads together behind the Major. She turned on me with a stiff curtsy. “Good-night, sir, and I am obliged for your services. Or stay – you may see us to the carriage, if ye’ll be so kind. Major, hand Mr. What-d’ye-call some of your wraps.”

My eyes did not dare to bless her. We moved down the stairs – Miss Gilchrist leading, Flora supported by her brother and Mr. Robbie, the Major and I behind. As I descended the first step, the red-headed runner made a move forward. Though my gaze was glued upon the pattern of Miss Gilchrist’s Paisley shawl, I saw his finger touch my arm! Yes, and I felt it, like a touch of hot iron. The other man – Moleskin – plucked him by the arm: they whispered. They saw me bareheaded, without my overcoat. They argued, no doubt, that I was unaware; was seeing the ladies to their carriage; would of course return. They let me pass.

Once in the boisterous street, I darted round to the dark side of the carriage. Ronald ran forward to the coachman (whom I recognised for the gardener, Robie). “Miss Flora is faint. Home, as fast as you can!” He skipped back under the awning. “A guinea to make it faster!” I called up from the other side of the box-seat; and out of the darkness and rain I held up the coin and pressed it into Robie’s damp palm. “What in the name – !” He peered round, but I was back and close against the step. The door was slammed. “Right away!”

It may have been fancy; but with the shout I seemed to hear the voice of Alain lifted in imprecation on the Assembly Room stairs. As Robie touched up the grey, I whipped open the door on my side and tumbled in – upon Miss Gilchrist’s lap.

Flora choked down a cry. I recovered myself, dropped into a heap of rugs on the seat facing the ladies, and pulled-to the door by its strap.

Dead silence from Miss Gilchrist!

I had to apologise, of course. The wheels rumbled and jolted over the cobbles of Edinburgh; the windows rattled and shook under the uncertain gusts of the city. When we passed a street lamp it shed no light into the vehicle, but the awful profile of my protectress loomed out for a second against the yellow haze of the pane, and sank back into impenetrable shade.

“Madam, some explanation – enough at least to mitigate your resentment – natural, I allow.” – Jolt, jolt! And still a mortuary silence within the coach! It was disconcerting. Robie for a certainty was driving his best, and already we were beyond the last rare outposts of light on the Lothian Road.

“I believe, madam, the inside of five minutes – if you will allow – ”

I stretched out a protesting hand. In the darkness it encountered Flora’s. Our fingers closed upon the thrill. For five, ten beatific seconds our pulses sang together, “I love you! I love you!” in the stuffy silence.

“Mosha Saint-Yvey!” spoke up a deliberate voice (Flora caught her hand away), “as far as I can make head and tail of your business – supposing it to have a modicum of head, which I doubt – it appears to me that I have just done you a service; and that makes twice.”

“A service, madam, I shall ever remember.”

“I’ll chance that, sir; if ye’ll kindly not forget yoursel’.”

In resumed silence we must have travelled a mile and a half, or two miles, when Miss Gilchrist let down the sash with a clatter, and thrust her head and mamelone cap forth into the night.

“Robie!”

Robie pulled up.

“The gentleman will alight.”

It was only wisdom, for we were nearing Swanston. I rose. “Miss Gilchrist, you are a good woman; and I think the cleverest I have met.”

“Umph,” replied she.

In the act of stepping forth I turned for a final handshake with Flora, and my foot caught in something and dragged it out upon the road. I stooped to pick it up, and heard the door bang by my ear.

“Madam – your shawl!”

But the coach lurched forward; the wheels splashed me; and I was left standing alone on the inclement highway.

While yet I watched the little red eyes of the vehicle, and almost as they vanished, I heard more rumbling of wheels, and descried two pairs of yellow eyes upon the road, towards Edinburgh. There was just time enough to plunge aside, to leap a fence into a rain-soaked pasture; and there I crouched, the water squishing over my dancing-shoes, while with a flare, a slant of rain, and a glimpse of flogging drivers, two hackney carriages pelted by at a gallop.

CHAPTER XXXII

EVENTS OF FRIDAY MORNING: THE CUTTING OF THE GORDIAN KNOT

I pulled out my watch. A fickle ray – the merest filtration of moonlight – glimmered on the dial. Fourteen minutes past one! “Past yin o’clock, and a dark, haary moarnin’.” I recalled the bull voice of the watchman as he had called it on the night of our escape from the Castle – its very tones: and this echo of memory seemed to strike and reverberate the hour closing a long day of fate. Truly, since that night the hands had run full circle, and were back at the old starting-point. I had seen dawn, day: I had basked in the sunshine of men’s respect; I was back in Stygian night – back in the shadow of that infernal Castle – still hunted by the law – with possibly a smaller chance than ever of escape – the cockshy of the elements – with no shelter for my head but a Paisley shawl of violent pattern. It occurred to me that I had travelled much in the interval, and run many risks, to exchange a suit of mustard-yellow for a Paisley shawl and a ball dress that matched neither it nor the climate of the Pentlands. The exhilaration of the ball, the fighting spirit, the last communicated thrill of Flora’s hand, died out of me. In the thickening envelope of sea-fog I felt like a squirrel in a rotatory cage. That was a lugubrious hour.

To speak precisely, those were seven lugubrious hours; since Flora would not be due before eight o’clock, if, indeed, I might count on her eluding her double cordon of spies. The question was, whither to turn in the meantime? Certainly not back to the town. In the near neighbourhood I knew of no roof but “The Hunters’ Tryst,” by Alexander Hendry. Suppose that I found it (and the chances in that fog were perhaps against me), would Alexander Hendry; aroused from his bed, be likely to extend his hospitality to a traveller with no more luggage than a Paisley shawl? He might think I had stolen it. I had borne it down the staircase under the eyes of the runners, and the pattern was bitten upon my brain. It was doubtless unique in the district and familiar: an oriflamme of battle over the barter of dairy produce and malt liquors. Alexander Hendry must recognise it, and with an instinct of antagonism. Patently it formed no part of my proper wardrobe: hardly could it be explained as a gage d’amour. Eccentric hunters trysted under Hendry’s roof; the Six-Foot Club, for instance. But a hunter in a frilled shirt and waistcoat sprigged with forget-me-nots! And the house would be watched, perhaps. Every house around would be watched.