The Knave of Diamonds, Ethel May Dell [fun books to read for adults txt] 📗

in silence. At length, "I'm sorry you didn't like being in at the death," he said. "I thought you would be pleased."
"Pleased!" she said, and shuddered again.
"Personally," said Nap, "I enjoy a kill."
Anne's face expressed horror.
"Yes," he said recklessly, "I am like that. I hunt to kill. It is my nature." A red gleam shone suddenly in his fiery eyes. He looked at her aggressively. "What do you hunt for anyway?" he demanded.
"I don't think I shall hunt any more," she said.
"Oh, nonsense, Lady Carfax! That's being ultrasqueamish," he protested. "You mustn't, you know. It's bad for you."
"I can't help it," she said. "I never realised before how cruel it is."
"Of course it's cruel," said Nap. "But then so is everything, so is life. Yet you've got to live. We were created to prey on each other."
"No, no!" she said quickly, for his words hurt her inexplicably. "I take the higher view."
"I beg your pardon," said Nap, in the tone of one refusing a discussion.
She turned to him impulsively. "Surely you do too!" she said, and there was even a note of pleading in her voice.
Nap's brows met suddenly. He turned his eyes away. "I am nothing but an animal," he told her rather brutally. "There is nothing spiritual about me. I live for what I can get. When I get the chance I gorge. If I have a soul at all, it is so rudimentary as to be unworthy of mention."
In the silence that followed he looked at her again with grim comprehension. "P'r'aps you don't care for animals," he suggested cynically. "To change the subject, do you know we are leaving the hunt behind?"
She reined in somewhat reluctantly. "I suppose we had better go back."
"If your majesty decrees," said Nap.
He pulled the mare round and stood motionless, waiting for her to pass. He sat arrogantly at his ease. She could not fail to note that his horsemanship was magnificent. The mare stood royally as though she bore a king. The man's very insignificance of bulk seemed to make him the more superb.
"Will you deign to lead the way?" he said.
And Anne passed him with a vague sense of uneasiness that almost amounted to foreboding. For it seemed to her as if for those few moments he had imposed his will upon hers, had without effort overthrown all barriers of conventional reserve, and had made her acknowledge in him the mastery of man.
Rejoining the hunt, she made her first deliberate attempt to avoid him, an attempt that was so far successful that for the next hour she saw nothing of him beyond casual glimpses. She did not join her husband, for he resented her proximity in the hunting-field.
They drew blank in a wood above the first kill, but finally found after considerable delay along a stubbly stretch of ground bordering Baronmead, a large estate that the eldest Errol had just bought. The fox headed straight for the Baronmead woods and after him streamed the hunt pell-mell along a stony valley.
It was not Anne's intention to be in at a second death that day, and she deliberately checked the grey's enthusiasm when he would have borne her headlong through the scampering crowd. To his indignation, instead of pursuing the chase in the valley, she headed him up the hill. He protested with vehemence, threatening to rebel outright, but Anne was determined, and eventually she had her way. Up the hill they went.
It was a scramble to reach the top, for the ground was steep and sloppy, but on the summit of the ridge progress was easier. She gave the grey the rein and he carried her forward at a canter. From here she saw the last of the horsemen below her sweep round the curve towards Baronmead, and the hubbub growing fainter in the distance told her that the hounds were already plunging through the woods. Ahead of her the ridge culminated in a bare knoll whence it was evident that she could overlook a considerable stretch of country. She urged her animal towards it.
The mist was thickening in the valley, and it had begun to drizzle. The watch on her wrist said two o'clock, and she determined to turn her face homewards as soon as she had taken this final glimpse.
The grey, snorting and sweating, stumbled up the slippery ascent. He was plainly disgusted with his rider's tactics. They arrived upon the summit, and Anne brought him to a standstill. But though she still heard vague shoutings below her the mist had increased so much in the few minutes they had taken over the ascent that she could discern nothing. Her horse was winded after the climb, however, and she remained motionless to give him time to recover. The hubbub was dying away, and she surmised that the fox had led his pursuers out on the farther side of the woods. She shivered as the chill damp crept about her. A feeling of loneliness that was almost physical possessed her. She half wished that she had not forsaken the hunt after all.
Stay! Was she quite alone? Out of the clinging, ever-thickening curtain there came sounds--the sounds of hoofs that struggled upwards, of an animal's laboured breathing, of a man's voice that encouraged and swore alternately.
Her heart gave a sudden sharp throb. She knew that voice. Though she had only met the owner thereof three times she had come to know it rather well. Why had he elected to come that way, she asked herself? He almost seemed to be dogging her steps that day.
Impulse urged her to strike in another direction before he reached her. She did not feel inclined for another _tete-a-tete_ with Nap Errol just then.
She tapped the grey smartly with her switch, more smartly than she intended, for he started and plunged. At the same instant there broke out immediately below them a hubbub of yelling and baying that was like the shrieking of a hundred demons. It rose up through the fog as from the mouth of an invisible pit, and drove the grey horse clean out of his senses. He reared bolt upright in furious resistance to his rider's will, pawed the air wildly, and being brought down again by a sharp cut over the ears, flung out his heels in sheer malice and bolted down the hill, straight for that pandemonium of men and hounds. If the pleasures of the hunt failed to attract his mistress, it was otherwise with him, and he meant to have his fling in spite of her.
For the first few seconds of that mad flight Anne scarcely attempted to check his progress. She was taken by surprise and was forced to give all her attention to keeping in the saddle.
The pace was terrific. The scampering hoofs scarcely seemed to touch the ground at all. Like shadows they fled through the rising mist. It struck chill upon her face as they swooped downwards. She seemed to be plunging into an icy, bottomless abyss.
And then like a dagger, stabbing through every nerve, came fear, a horror unspeakable of the depth she could not see, into which she was being so furiously hurled. She was clinging to the saddle, but she made a desperate effort to drag the animal round. It was quite fruitless. No woman's strength could have availed to check that headlong gallop. He swerved a little, a very little, in answer, that was all, and galloped madly on.
And then--all in a moment it came, a moment of culminating horror more awful than anything she had ever before experienced--the ground fell suddenly away from the racing feet. A confusion of many lights danced before her eyes--a buzzing uproar filled her brain--she shot forward into space....


CHAPTER VIII
THE RIDE HOME

Sir Giles was in a decidedly evil temper as he rode home from the hunt in the soaking rain that afternoon. The second fox had led them miles out of the way, and they had not been rewarded by a kill. The brute had eluded them, profiting by the downpour that had washed away the scent. So Sir Giles, having solaced himself several times with neat brandy from the large silver flask without which he never rode abroad, was in anything but a contented mood with the world in general and his own luck in particular. Dusk had long descended when at length he turned in at his own gates. He had given up urging his jaded animal, being too jaded himself for the effort. But, hearing a clatter of hoofs on the drive before him, he did rouse himself to holler into the darkness, supposing that his wife was ahead of him. If it were she, she was later in returning than was her wont, but no answer came back to him, and he did not repeat his call. After all, why should he hail her? He did not want her company, Heaven knew. That stately demeanour of hers which once had attracted him generally inspired in him a savage sense of resentment nowadays. There were times when he even suspected her of despising him--him, the lord of the Manor, who had given her all she possessed in the world!
He swore a furious oath under his breath as he rode. The darkness ahead of him was all pricked by tiny red sparks, that glanced and flashed like fireflies whichever way he looked. He rubbed his eyes and they departed, only to swarm again a little farther on. The rain had soaked him to the skin. He shivered and swore again as he fumbled for his flask.
The fiery gleams faded wholly away as the raw spirit warmed his blood and revived his brain. He drew a breath of relief. Again he heard the sound of a horse's feet some distance in front. They seemed to fall unevenly, as though the animal were lame. Could it be the grey, he asked himself? If so, why had Anne not answered his call? She must have heard him. He ground his teeth. It was like her habitual impudence to ignore him thus. He gathered himself together and sent a furious bellow into the darkness.
But there came back no reply. The hoofs ahead seemed to quicken into a shambling trot, that was all. And after a little he heard them no more.
She had reached the house then, and gone within into light and comfort, and again feverishly he execrated her for not waiting for him, the cold and the rain and the dark notwithstanding. Again fitfully he began to see those leaping points of light; but it was only here and there. Whenever he focussed his attention upon them they eluded him. For these also he held his wife in some fashion responsible. What did she mean by leaving him thus? How dared she enter the house that was his while he was still groping without? He believed that she would shut his own door against him if she dared. He was sure she hated him, as he hated her--as he hated her!
And then--suddenly a strange thing happened. Suddenly, clear-cut as a cameo before his fevered vision, there arose against the dripping darkness his wife's face. Pale and pure as the face of a saint, it shone before him like a star. There was no reproach in the level eyes; there was no contempt. But they looked through him, they looked beyond him, and saw him not.
A violent tremor went through him, a nameless, unspeakable dread. The curses died upon his lips. He stared and stared again.
And while he stared, the vision faded before his eyes into nothingness. He was alone once more in the darkness and the drenching rain; alone with a little gibing voice that seemed to come from