The Knave of Diamonds by Ethel May Dell

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They came at last--bride and bridegroom--flushed and hastening through a
shower of rose petals.

Bertie was laughing all over his brown face. He was holding Dot's hand
very fast, and as they descended the red-carpeted steps into the road he
leaned to her, whispering. She laughed back at him with shining eyes, her
round face radiant beneath the orange blossom. Neither of them glanced to
right or left. Swiftly through the fallen rose leaves they crossed to the
Rectory gateway and were lost to view.

A bevy of bridesmaids ran laughing after them, and then came a pause.

Capper edged a little nearer to the churchyard steps and waited. The
clamour of bells was incessant, wholly drowning the clamour of voices.
Everyone was craning forward to see the crowd of guests. The long
procession had already begun to issue from the church porch. It moved
very slowly, for at the head of it, his hand on his mother's arm, came
Lucas Errol.

He walked with extreme difficulty, leaning on a crutch. His head was
uncovered, and the glare of the September sunlight smote full upon it.
The hair was turning very grey.

He was smiling as he came, but his brows were slightly drawn, his eyes
sunk in deep hollows.

Swiftly and comprehensively the man at the foot of the steps scanned
every detail, marked the halting, painful progress, the lined forehead.
And the next moment, as Lucas paused, preparatory to descending, he
pushed forward with characteristic decision of movement and moved upwards
to his side.

"I guess you'll find me useful at this juncture," he said.

Lucas's start of surprise was instantly followed by a smile of welcome.
He gripped Capper's hand warmly.

"The very man I want! But how in wonder did you get here? You never
walked all the way from the station?"

"I did," said Capper.

"You don't say! Why didn't you let me know? I guess we must move on. We
are blocking the gangway."

"Easy does it," said Capper. "It won't hurt 'em any to wait. Get
your arm over my shoulder. That's the way. These steps are the very
devil for you."

He bent his wiry frame to Lucas Errol's need, and helped him to descend.
At the foot he paused a moment and looked at him keenly.

"All serene," smiled Lucas. "I'll take your arm now, if it's all the
same to the mother. You didn't expect to find us plunged in wedding
gaieties, I guess."

"Wish it had been your own," said Capper.

At which Lucas turned up his face to the sky and laughed.

They crossed the flag-decked garden and entered by the conservatory door.
People were beginning to crowd about them.

"We must find you a seat somehow," said Capper.

"I must have a word with the bride and bridegroom first," Lucas declared.

But the bride and bridegroom were for the moment inaccessible, being
completely surrounded by well-wishers.

Capper seized upon the first chair he came upon and put Lucas into it.

"I seem to have come in the nick of time," he observed drily. "Why is no
one detailed to look after you? Where is that tiger's whelp Nap?"

"Nap's in America, been gone two months or more."

"That so?" There was keen satisfaction in Capper's tone. "That clears the
ground for action. And Lady Carfax? Is she here?"

"No." There was a hint of reserve in the quiet reply. "Lady Carfax is in
deep mourning for her husband."

"That so?" said Capper again. He seemed to take but casual note of the
information. He was pulling absently at his pointed yellow beard.

Lucas lay back in his chair and suffered himself to relax with a sigh.
Capper's eyes darted lizard-like over him, taking in every line of him,
keenly alive to each detail.

"If I were you I should shunt as soon as possible," he said. "Since it
isn't your own show unfortunately, I should imagine you are not
indispensable."

But at this point the throng parted, and Dot, looking very young in her
bridal white, and supremely happy, burst eagerly through,

"Oh, here you are!" she cried. "Your mother said you were close by, but I
couldn't see you anywhere. It's been too much for you. You're tired."

She bent over him in quick solicitude, then, as he smiled and drew her
down to him, stooped and kissed him, whispering a few words for his
ear alone.

Bertie was close behind her, but he had caught sight of Capper and had
stopped short with a queer expression on his boyish face, a look that was
a curious blend of consternation and relief.

A moment and he stepped up to the great doctor and took him by the elbow.
"You here already!" he said. "I didn't expect you so soon."

"I have only run down to have a look at things," said Capper. "I seem to
have pitched on a busy day. I hope you are enjoying yourself."

"Thanks!" said Bertie, with a brief laugh. "Say, Doctor, you'll let me
know your plans?"

"Certainly--when they are ripe." The green eyes gleamed humorously.
"Aren't you thinking of introducing me to Mrs. Bertie?" he suggested.

"Yes, yes, of course. But you won't do anything without me?" urged
Bertie. "I should greatly like a talk with you, but I'm afraid it can't
be managed."

"I mightily doubt if you could tell me anything that I don't know
already," said Capper, "on any subject."

"It's about Luke," said Bertie anxiously.

"Just so. Well, I guess I know more about Luke than any other person on
this merry little planet."

"Do you think he looks worse?" whispered Bertie.

Capper's long, yellow hand fastened very unobtrusively and very forcibly
upon his shoulder. "One thing at a time, good Bertie!" he said. "Weren't
you going to present me to--your wife?"

CHAPTER III

THE WOMAN'S PART

It was on a day of wild autumnal weather, when the wind moaned like a
living thing in torture about the house, and the leaves eddied and
drifted before the scudding rain, that they turned Tawny Hudson out of
his master's room, and left him crouched and whimpering like a dog
against the locked door. Save for his master's express command, no power
on earth would have driven him away, not even Capper of the curt speech
and magnetic will. But the master had spoken very definitely and
distinctly, and it was Tawny Hudson's to obey. Therefore he huddled on
the mat, rocking to and fro, shivering like some monstrous animal in
pain, while within the room Capper wrought his miracles.

Downstairs Mrs. Errol sat holding Anne's hand very tightly, and talking
incessantly lest her ears should be constrained to listen. And Anne, pale
and still, answered her as a woman talking in her sleep.

Bertie and his young bride were still absent on their honeymoon; this
also by Lucas's express desire.

"It won't help me any to have you here, boy," he had said at parting. "A
certain fuss is inevitable, but I want you out of it. I am looking to
Anne Carfax to help the dear mother."

He had known even then that he would not look in vain, and he had not
been disappointed. So, sorely against his will, Bertie had submitted,
with the proviso that if things went wrong he should be sent for
immediately.

And thus Anne Carfax, who had lived in almost unbroken seclusion since
her husband's death, now sat with Mrs. Errol's hand clasped in hers, and
listened, as one listens in a nightmare, to the wailing of the wind about
the garden and house, and the beat, beat, beat of her heart when the wind
was still.

"Could you say a prayer, dear?" Mrs. Errol asked her once.

And she knelt and prayed, scarcely knowing what she said, but with a
passion of earnestness that left her weak, quivering in every limb.

The wind was rising. It roared in the trees and howled against the panes.
Sometimes a wild gust of rain lashed the windows. It made her think of an
unquiet spirit clamouring for admittance.

"Anne dear, play to me, play to me!" besought Mrs. Errol. "If I listen I
shall go mad! No one will hear you. We are right away from his part of
the house."

And though every nerve shrank at the bare suggestion, Anne rose without
a single protest and went to the piano. She sat down before it, and
blindly, her eyes wide, fixed, unseeing, she began to play.

What she played she knew not. Her fingers found notes, chords, melodies
mechanically.

Once she paused, but, "Ah, go on, dear child! Go on!" urged Mrs. Errol.
And she went on, feeling vaguely through the maze of suspense that
surrounded them, longing inarticulately to cease all effort, but spurred
onward because she knew she must not fail.

And gradually as she played there came to her a curious sense of duality,
of something happening that had happened before, of a record repeating
itself. She turned her head, almost expecting to hear a voice speak
softly behind her, almost expecting to hear a mocking echo of the words
unspoken. "Has the Queen no further use for her jester?" No further use!
No further use! Oh, why was she tortured thus? Why, when her whole soul
yearned to forget, was she thus compelled to remember the man whose
brutal passion and insatiable thirst for vengeance had caught and crushed
her heart?

And still she played on as one beneath a spell, while the memory of him
forced the gates of her consciousness and took arrogant possession. She
saw again the swarthy face with its fierce eyes, the haughty smile, which
for her was ever tinged with tenderness. Surely--oh, surely he had loved
her once! She recalled his fiery love-making, and thrilled again to the
eager insistence of his voice, the mastery of his touch. And then she
remembered what they said of him, that women were his slaves, his
playthings, the toys he broke in wantonness and carelessly tossed aside.
She remembered how once in his actual presence she had overheard words
that had made her shrink, a wonder as to who was his latest conquest, the
cynical remark: "Anyone for a change and no one for long is his motto."
What was he doing now, she asked herself, and trembled. He had gone
without word or message of any sort. Her last glimpse of him had been in
that violet glare of lightning, inexpressibly terrible, with tigerish
eyes that threatened her and snarling lips drawn back. Thus--thus had she
seen him many a time since in the long night-watches when she had lain
sleepless and restless, waiting for the dawn.

Some such vision came to her now, forcing itself upon her shrinking
imagination. Vividly there rose before her his harsh face alert, cruel,
cynical, and the sinewy hands that gripped and crushed. And suddenly a
shuddering sense of nausea overcame her. She left the piano as one
seeking refuge from a horror unutterable. Surely this man had never loved
her--was incapable of love! And she had almost wished him back!

"There is someone in the entry, dear child," whispered Mrs. Errol. "Go
and see--go and see!"

She went, moving as one stricken blind. But before she reached the door
it opened and someone entered. She saw Capper as through a mist in which
bodily weakness and anguished fear combined to overwhelm her. And then
very steadily his arm encircled her, drew her tottering to a chair.

"It's all right," he said in his expressionless drawl. "The patient has
regained consciousness, and is doing O.K. Are you ladies thinking of
lunch? Because if so, I guess I'll join you. No, Mrs. Errol, you can't
see him before to-night at the earliest. Lady Carfax, I have a message
for you--the first words he spoke when he came to. He was hardly
conscious when he uttered them, but I guess you'll be kind of interested
to hear what they were. 'Tell Anne,' he said, 'I'm going to get well.'"

The intense deliberation with which he spoke gave her time to collect
herself, but the words affected her oddly. After a moment she rose, went
to Mrs. Errol, who had covered her face with both hands while he was
speaking, and knelt beside her. Neither of them uttered a sound.

Capper strolled to the window, his hands deep in his pockets, and looked
out upon the wind-swept gardens. He whistled very softly to himself, as a
man well satisfied.

He did not turn his head till at the end of five minutes Anne came to his
side. She was very pale but quite self-possessed.

"Mrs. Errol has gone to her room," she said. "She wished to be alone."

"Gone to have a good cry, eh?" said Capper. "Healthiest thing she could
do. And what about you?"

She smiled with lips that faintly quivered. "I am quite all right,
Doctor. And--I have ordered luncheon."

He turned fully round and looked her up and down with lightning
swiftness. "You're a very remarkable woman, Lady Carfax," he said
after a moment.

"I hope you may never be disappointed in me," she answered gravely.

"I hope so too," he said, "for there is a good deal dependent upon you."

"What do you mean?" She raised her clear eyes interrogatively.

But he baffled her, as he baffled everyone, with the very keenness of his
own scrutiny. He began to crack all his fingers in turn.

"I mean," he said, "that even I can't work miracles by myself. I can do
the elementary part. I can cut and saw and sew, but I can't heal. I can't
give life. That's the woman's part. That's where I count on you. And I
don't think you are going to fail me, Lady Carfax."

"I promise you I will do my utmost," she said very earnestly.

He nodded. "I believe you will. But even so, you can't do too much. It's
a serious case, even more serious than I expected. I don't say this to
alarm you, but I guess you had better know it. It'll be a tough, uphill
fight, and he'll need a deal of pushing behind. It may entail more than
you dream of--a big sacrifice perhaps; who knows? But you women don't shy
at sacrifices. And, believe me, he's worth a sacrifice."

"He deserves the best," she said warmly.

"Yes, but you don't take me," said Capper.

He paused a moment, then suddenly laid a quiet hand on her shoulder. "I
may be a wise man," he said, "and again I may be a meddling fool. You and
the gods must decide between you. But I'm old enough to be your father
anyway. So p'r'aps you'll bear with me. Lady Carfax, hasn't it struck you
that a time will come--probably pretty soon--when he will begin to reach
out for something that you--and you alone--can give?"

Anne's quick gesture of protest was his answer. She stood motionless, her
eyes still raised, waiting for him to continue. But he felt her tremble
under his hand. He knew that inwardly she was not so calm as she would
have had him think.

He went on in his precise, emotionless fashion, as though he perceived
nothing. "He won't ask for it--anyway till he feels he can make a fair
return. He will never ask a sacrifice of you. He will break his heart
sooner. The point is, Are you capable of offering the sacrifice unasked?
For that is what it amounts to, now that the gods have cleared the way."

"Ah!" Anne said. "And--if--not?"

She spoke rather as if to gain time than because she desired an answer.

But he answered her nevertheless very quietly, without a shade of
emotion, as if he were discussing some technical matter of no personal
interest to him. Only as he answered he took his hand from her shoulder
and thrust it back into his pocket.

"In that case he will die, having nothing left to live for. He probably
won't suffer much, simply go out like a candle. He hasn't much vitality.
He may die either way. There is no responsibility attached--only
possibilities."

He turned with the words, and walked across the room with the air of a
man who has said his say.

She uttered no word to stop him, nor did she move to follow. She stood
alone with her face to the grey storm-clouds that drifted perpetually
overhead. Somehow she did not for a moment doubt the truth of what
Capper had just told her. She even felt sub-consciously that she had
known it for some time. Neither did she ask herself what she was going
to do. For deep in the heart of her she knew already. Deep in the heart
of her she knew that when Lucas Errol began to reach out for something
which she alone could give, it would not be in vain. He had given of his
best to her, and she was ready to give of her best in return. If she
could not give him passion, she could give him that which was
infinitely greater--a deep, abiding love, a devotion born of complete
sympathy. She could give him happiness, and in the giving she might find
it for herself.

Over in the west the clouds were breaking, and a shaft of pale sunshine
streamed upon the distant hills, turning the woods to living gold. Her
eyes brightened a little as they caught the radiance. It seemed as if the
door before which she had knelt so long in impotence were opening to her
at last, as if one more opportunity were to be given her even yet after
long and bitter failure of turning her corner of the desert into a garden
of flowers and singing birds.

CHAPTER IV

THE MESSAGE

It was nearly a month after Lucas Errol's operation that Bertie and his
bride came home from their honeymoon and began the congenial task of
setting their house in order.

Dot was thoroughly in her element. The minutest details were to her
matters of vital importance.

"We must make it comfy," she said to Bertie, and Bertie fully agreed.

He had relinquished his study of the law, and had resumed his secretarial
duties, well aware that Lucas could ill spare him. He was in fact Lucas's
right hand just then, and the burden that devolved upon him was no light
one. But he bore it with a cheerful spirit, for Lucas was making
progress. Despite his utter helplessness, despite the inevitable
confinement to one room, despite the weariness and the irksomeness which
day by day were his portion, Lucas was very gradually gaining ground.
Already he suffered less severely and slept more naturally.

His last words to Capper at parting had been, "Come again in the spring
and complete the cure. I shall be ready for you."

And Capper had smiled upon him with something approaching geniality and
had answered, "You'll do it, and so shall I. So long then!"

But the months that intervened were the chief stumbling-block, and Capper
knew it. He knew that his patient would have to face difficulties and
drawbacks that might well dismay the bravest. He knew of the reaction
that must surely come when the vitality was low, and progress became
imperceptible, and the long imprisonment almost unendurable. He knew of
the fever that would lurk in the quickening blood, of the torturing cramp
that would draw the unused muscles, of the depression that was its mental
counterpart, of the black despair that would hang like a paralysing
weight upon soul and body, of the _ennui_, of the weariness of life, of
the piteous weakness that nothing could alleviate.

He had to a certain extent warned Lucas what to expect; but the time for
these things had not yet arrived. He was hardly yet past the first stage,
and his courage was buoyed up by high hopes as yet undashed. He had faced
worse things without blenching, and he had not begun to feel the monotony
that Capper had dreaded as his worst enemy.

He took a keen interest in the doings of the young couple at the Dower
House, and Dot's breezy presence was ever welcome.

As for Anne, she went to and fro between Baronmead and the Manor, of
which her husband's will had left her sole mistress, no longer leading a
hermit's life, no longer clinging to her solitude, grave and quiet, but
not wholly unhappy. Those few words Capper had spoken on the day of
Lucas's operation had made a marvellous difference to her outlook. They
had made it possible for her to break down the prison-walls that
surrounded her. They had given her strength to leave the past behind her,
all vain regrets and cruel disillusionments, to put away despair and rise
above depression. They had given her courage to go on.

Of Nap no word was ever spoken in her presence. He might have been dead,
so completely had he dropped out of her life. In fact, he was scarcely
ever mentioned by anyone, a fact which aroused in Dot a curiously keen
indignation, but upon which a certain shyness kept her from commenting.
She kept him faithfully in mind, praying for him as regularly as she
prayed for old Squinny, who still lingered on with exasperating tenacity,
and continued to enjoy such help, spiritual or otherwise, as he could
extract from the parson's daughter.

That Bertie strongly disapproved of his brother she was aware, but she
held no very high opinion of Bertie's judgment, though even he could
scarcely have forbidden her to pray for the black sheep of the family.
She had not been brought up to rely upon anyone's judgment but her own,
and, deeply as she loved him, she could not help regarding her husband
as headlong and inclined to prejudice. He was young, she reflected, and
doubtless these small defects would disappear as he grew older. True, he
was nearly four years her senior; but Dot did not regard years as in any
degree a measure of age. It was all a question of development, she would
say, and some people--women especially--developed much more quickly than
others. She herself, for instance--At which stage of the argument Bertie
invariably said or did something rude, and the rest of her logic became
somewhat confused. He was a dear boy and she couldn't possibly be cross
with him, but somehow he never seemed to realise when she was in earnest.
Another of the deficiencies of youth!

Meanwhile she occupied herself in her new home with all the zest of the
young housewife, returned calls with commendable punctuality, and settled
down once more to the many parochial duties which had been her
ever-increasing responsibility for almost as long as she could remember.

"You are not going to slave like this always," Bertie said to her one
evening, when she came in late through a November drizzle to find him
waiting for her.

"I must do what I've got to do," said Dot practically, suffering him to
remove her wet coat.

"All very well," said Bertie, whose chin looked somewhat more square than
usual. "But I'm not going to have my wife wearing herself out over what
after all is not her business."

"My dear boy!" Dot laughed aloud, twining her arm in his. "I think you
forget, don't you, that I was the rector's daughter before I was your
wife? I must do these things. There is no one else to do them."

"Skittles!" said Bertie rudely.

"Yes, dear, but that's no argument. Let's go and have tea, and for
goodness' sake don't frown at me like that. It's positively appalling.
Put your chin in and be good."

She passed her hand over her husband's face and laughed up at him
merrily. But Bertie remained grave.

"You're wet through and as cold as ice. Come to the fire and let's get
off your boots."

She went with him into the drawing-room, where tea awaited them.

"I'm not wet through," she declared, "and I'm not going to let you take
off my boots. You may, if you are very anxious, give me some tea."

Bertie pulled up a chair to the fire and put her into it; then turned
aside and began to make the tea.

Dot lay back with her feet in the fender and watched him. She was looking
very tired, and now that the smile had faded from her face this was the
more apparent.

When he brought her her tea she reached up, caught his hand, and held it
for a moment against her cheek.

"One's own fireside is so much nicer than anyone else's," she said.
"We'll have a nice cosy talk presently. How is Luke to-day?"

"Not quite so flourishing. A brute of a dog howled in the night and woke
him up. He didn't get his proper sleep afterwards."

"Poor old Luke! What a shame!"

"Yes, it made a difference. He has been having neuralgia down his spine
nearly all day. I believe he's worrying too. I'm going back after dinner
to see if I can do anything. I manage to read him to sleep sometimes,
you know."

"Shall I come too?" said Dot.

"No." Bertie spoke with decision. "You had better go to bed yourself."

She made a face at him. "I shall do nothing of the sort. I shall sit up
and do the Clothing Club accounts."

Bertie frowned abruptly. "Not to-night, Dot."

"Yes, to-night. They have got to be done, and I can think better
at night."

"You are not to do them to-night," Bertie said, with determination. "I
will do them myself if they must be done."

"My dear boy, you! You would never understand my book-keeping. Just
imagine the muddle you would make! No, I must get through them myself,
and since I must spend the time somehow till you come home, why shouldn't
I do them to-night?"

"Because I forbid it," said Bertie unexpectedly.

He was standing on the rug, cup in hand. He looked straight down at her
with the words, meeting her surprised eyes with most unwonted sternness.

Dot raised her eyebrows as high as they would go, kept them so for
several seconds, then very deliberately lowered them and began to
stir her tea.

"You understand me, don't you?" he said.

She shook her head. "Not in the least. I don't think I have ever met you
before, have I?"

He set his cup upon the mantelpiece and went suddenly down on his knees
by her side. "I haven't been taking proper care of you," he said. "But
I'm going to begin right now. Do you know when you came in just now you
gave me an absolute shock?"

She laughed faintly, her eyes fixed upon her cup "I didn't know I was
looking such a fright."

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