CHAPTER XXI
ZALLONY'S SON
Gavin permitted her to escape his arms when he heard the Earl calling to them from the Italian garden above the river. A sense of exultation, of ecstasy no words could measure, possessed him as he watched the slim white-clad figure, here disappearing, there showing itself again between the ramparts of the splendid trees. She was his, henceforth and forever. All her beauty, her charm, her intellect, every grace of speech and manner had passed to his possession.
This stately girl of whom the countryside spoke as of some wondrous divinity, she had promised to become his wife; for him the warm kisses of her lips, the declared secrets of her eloquent eyes, the passionate ardor of her embraces. Yesterday he would have called himself a madman to have dared the meanest of the hopes which now might be regarded with equanimity. To-night he could recall them with that kind incredulity which even attends the first hours of such an avowal as this. What act or purpose of his life had brought him such a reward; why had she deemed him worthy? he asked himself. He was neither a vain man nor a fool. If he contemplated his good fortune with a just trepidation, none the less he believed himself to merit it. She loved him, and henceforth might claim his life. This was the whole lesson of the first brief moments of delight.
Gavin was far too excited to think of returning to the Castle; nor had he any wish to speak to the Earl until his own story presented itself to him in some reasonably plausible shape. Under other circumstances, he could have understood the anger and the impatience which such a declaration might bring upon him; but these he did not expect at Melbourne Hall. Robert Forrester seemed to him rather an aristocrat by accident than by birth. He, himself, would not in any case consider the dignity of his own life and calling as beneath that of one whose ancestors had been the jest of London in the days of the Stuarts. He had the right of an honored name, of considerable achievement, and of his youth; and by these he claimed her. Moreover, the secrets of the Hall were now his own; and he understood that the forgotten years stalked as ghosts through the splendid chambers, speaking of passions outlived and of the aftermath to be garnered from their fields. Father and daughter alike were reaping that which had been sown in Bukharest more than twenty years ago. From his just judgment, from her birthright, it lay upon the stranger to save them. Gavin determined to begin his work that very night.
He had lighted a pipe when Evelyn left him, and with this glowing in the darkness, he set out, with no definite purpose in his mind, toward the gypsy encampment down in the hollow by the river. Behind him, Melbourne Hall stood up as a glittering palace of a wonder-world, its windows casting out their brilliant jets to make blacker darkness in the gardens, and many a picture revealed to speak of ancient centuries and the momentous history of the house. Ahead of him lay the moonlit park, the giant yews and elms, the matchless oaks, glades and dells, where from the elves should come unsurpassable avenues and all the beauty of the forest scene. Gavin walked on, however, oblivious of the night or its wonders. He had a vague idea that he might learn something from the rogues and vagabonds who had followed Count Odin to Melbourne Hall; and, with this idea indicating his path, he came presently to the thicket beyond which the encampment lay. There a sound of voices arrested his attention. Plainly, he said, a woman was speaking; and while the surprise of this discovery was still upon him, the music of a violin, weird and echoing, began to accompany the speaker in a song so plaintive that the very spirit of sorrow appeared to breathe in every note of it.
Gavin listened to the music spell-bound, and yet a little ashamed of his position. No possible advantage to himself or others would have induced him to play an eavesdropper's part at Melbourne or elsewhere. If he lingered in the shadow of the thicket, it was because the music compelled him and he could not escape its fascinations. When the sound of the voice died away, he turned about to come at the encampment by another road; and then he became aware for the first time that he did not stand there alone. A pair of black eyes, shining like a cat's in the darkness, looked up at him as it were from his very shoulder. Returning their gaze, but not without a quickening pulse and some apprehension of danger, he could, at length, outline the figure of a man, slim and agile, and yet not without a certain grace to be perceived even in such a light. That this fellow was one of the gypsies he had no doubt at all. The clear moonlit night revealed the oval face, the restless eyes, the long, tapering hands of a Romany. Gavin remarked the hands particularly, for one of them was thrust into the bosom of a spotlessly white and clinging shirt—and that hand, he said, covered the hilt of a gypsy's knife. So it was to be a hazardous encounter after all. He understood too well that if he moved so much as a foot, this gypsy would stab him.
"Why do you watch us, sir?"
The English was execrable but the meaning quite plain. Gavin answered as abruptly:
"I am listening to your music."
The gypsy, utterly lost in his attempts to continue in a tongue of which he knew so little, stammered for an instant and then asked curtly:
"Do you speak German, sir?"
"Possibly as well as you do; I have been three years in that excellent country."
"Please to tell me who you are, then, and why you come to his Excellency's house?"
Gavin laughed at the impertinence of it. Speaking in fluent German, he said:
"I might very well put that question to you. Shall I say, then, that I am not here to answer your questions. Come, we had better be frank with each other. I may be able to help you."
This was a new idea to the gypsy and one that caused him some perplexity. A little reflection convinced him that the stranger was right.
"Very well," he said, "we will talk about it. Come to my tent and Djala shall make us coffee. Why not be friends? Yes, we might help each other, as you say. Let us talk first and then we can quarrel."
He led the way through a path of the dell, powdering the ground with the golden dust of wild flowers as he went. The encampment had been enlarged considerably since Evelyn discovered it on the gypsies first coming to Moretown. There were no less than seven tents; and the biggest of these, the one to which Gavin's guide now conducted him, had been furnished with lavish generosity. Old silver lamps from the Hall cast a warm, soft light upon the couches and rugs about; there were old tapestries hung against the canvas; tables glittering with silver ornaments; a buffet laden with bottles and silver boxes. But the chief ornament was Djala, a little Hungarian girl, and such a perfect picture of wild beauty that Gavin stared at her amazed.
"Here is Djala," the guide said, with a gesture of his hand toward her. "I am known as Zallony's son. His Excellency may have spoken of me."
"I know nothing," said Gavin simply. "Permit me to tell the young lady that she has a charming voice. I have never heard music that fascinated me so much."
"It is the music of a nation of musicians, sir. Please to sit down. Djala will serve us cigarettes and coffee."
The girl laughed pleasantly, showing a row of shining white teeth and evidently understanding that a compliment had been paid her by the stranger. When she had served the coffee and cigarettes, she ran away with a coquette's step and they heard her singing outside to the soft accompaniment of a zither. Zallony's son smoked meanwhile with the contemplative silence of the Oriental; and Gavin, waiting for him, would not be the first to break the truce.
"So you have been in Germany, sir?"
"I was there three years," said Gavin.
"You know Bukharest, it may be?"
"Not at all, though a lady's book was on the point of sending me to the Carpathians."
"You should go and see my country; it is the finest in the world."
"I will take care to do so on the earliest opportunity."
"Make friends with my people and they will be your friends. We never forget, sir. That is why I am here in this English country, because we never forget."
"The best of qualities.... They tell me that your father was his Excellency's friend in Roumania many years ago."
The gypsy looked at him questioningly.
"It is as you say, sir. They were brothers of the hills. When the houses burned and the women ran from the soldiers, then men said it is Zallony and the English lord. There was another with them. He is in prison now—he who was my father's friend. Sir, I come to England to give him liberty."
Gavin was greatly interested. He drained the little cup of coffee, and, filling a pipe slowly, he said:
"What forbids your success?"
Zallony's son looked him straight in the face.
"A lady known to us—she may forbid it, sir."
"You cannot mean the Lady Evelyn?"
"We will not speak of names. You have her confidence. Say to her that when she is false to my friend, Count Odin, I will kill her."
"But that is nonsense. What has she to do with it? Your affair is with the Earl, her father. Why do you speak of her?"
"Because there is only one door by which my father's friend can win his liberty. Let Georges Odin's son marry an Englishwoman and my Government will release him."
"That is your view. Do you forget his Excellency's influence? Why should he not petition the Government at Bukharest for this man's liberty?"
"Because, in that case, his own life would be in danger. We are a people that never forgets. I have told you so. If Georges Odin were at liberty, he would cross the world to find his enemy. That is our nature. We love and hate as an Eastern people should. The man who does us a wrong must repay, whoever he is. It would be different if the young Count had an English wife. That is why I wish it."
Gavin smiled almost imperceptibly.
"It is quite clear that you know little of England," he said. "This language suits your own country very well. Permit me to say that it is ridiculous in ours. If Lord Melbourne had any hand in your friend's imprisonment, which I doubt, he is hardly likely to be influenced by threats. I should say that you are going the wrong way to work. As to the Lady Evelyn, I will tell you that she will never be the wife of one of your countrymen. If you ask a reason, it is a personal one, and before you now. She is going to marry me. It is just as well that we should understand as much at once."
The gypsy heard the news as one who had expected to hear it. He smoked for a little while in silence. Then he said:
"I appreciate the courtesy of your admission. That which I thought it necessary to tell you at first, I must now repeat ... this lady is the betrothed of my friend, Count Odin. I remain in England as the guardian of his honor. If you are wise, you will leave the house without further warning. My friend is absent, and until he is here I must speak for him. We do not know you and wish you no harm. Let this affair end as it began. You would be foolish to do otherwise."
Gavin heard the threat without any sign of resentment whatever.
"You are talking the language of the Carpathians, not of London," he said, with a new note of determination in his tone. "I will answer you in my English way. I have asked Lady Evelyn to marry me, and she will do so before the year is out. That is final. For the rest, I remind you again that you are not in Bukharest."
He rose, laughing, and offered his hand.
"Good-night," he said. "They will be anxious about me at the Castle."
It was the gypsy's turn to smile.
"I have dealt fairly with you," he said; "for that which is now to come, do not blame me when it comes."
"Too late is often never," replied Gavin lightly; and with that he left him.
The gypsy girl, Djala, had ceased to sing as he quitted the tent and the rest of the encampment was in darkness. But as he crossed the home park, a burly figure upon a black horse loomed up suddenly from the shadows and there was still moonlight enough for him to recognize the Earl.
"He is going to his gypsy friends," Gavin said to himself. "Then he knows that this brigand's son has spoken to me—ah, I wonder!"