Bewitched (Bantam Series No. 16) (15 page)

“I do not know what you are talking about,” the Marquis said. “Stop this nonsense and answer my question. Will you face a trial or go abroad?”

“I will do neither!” Jethro Ruck retorted. “I stay here and enjoy myself as the sixth Marquis of Ruckley.”

As he spoke, he drew his hands from behind his back and Saviya gave a little gasp of horror.

Jethro Ruck held two pistols and each was pointing at the Marquis’s chest.

“If you kill me,” the Marquis said contemptuously, “you will be hanged for murder.”

“On the contrary “ Jethro Ruck replied, “I shall have killed you in self-defence.”

He gave a little chuckle.

“You have played right into my hands, dear Fabius. The servants saw you arrive and they will all be prepared to swear that you were in a vengeful mood as you strode up the steps and crossed the Hall. They will have heard us talking, and what could be more understandable than that you should lose your temper at my impertinence and shoot me down with your own dueling-pistol?”

There was so much venom in his voice that Saviya felt as if she could not move and that her breath was constricted in her throat.

She saw now how mad they had been to come to the house without weapons; without any defence against a man more deadly than a cobra; more vengeful than a cornered rat.

“You are thinking,” Jethro Ruck said jeeringly, “that your Gypsy strumpet might give evidence against me. Do not blind yourself to the truth. No-one would take the word of a Gypsy against that of the sixth Marquis of Ruckley!”

There was a note of triumph in his tone before he went on: “You have threatened me, Fabius. No-one can deny that. Unfortunately you have not provided yourself with the means to make your threat effective. My plan, therefore, is quite clear.”

He smiled the smile of a man who holds all the trump cards.

“As I will tell the Magistrates, you threatened me, Fabius and, when I would not agree to your preposterous suggestions, you attempted to kill me. This pistol, which has been fired, will be found in your hand. To protect myself, I returned your fire and, being of course a better shot than you, I am the victor!”

There was something horrible and gloating in the way Jethro Ruck spoke.

Then as he raised the pistol in his right hand slowly to bring it down at the Marquis, there was a sudden movement!

Even as his finger tightened on the trigger, a flash of steel shot through the air and entered his throat.

It was so quick that the Marquis could hardly understand what had happened.

Jethro Ruck staggered and then fell backwards. As he did so, there was a deafening report and the bullet from his pistol shattered the ceiling above their heads.

For a moment the Marquis stood shocked and unable to move. And before he could do so there was a voice behind him and footsteps crossing the room.

The Marquis turned his head.

“Colonel Spencer!” he ejaculated.

“I am glad to see you are unharmed, Fabius.”

The Chief Constable was an elderly but distinguished figure, and his expression was one of gravity.

“You heard what was said?” the Marquis enquired.

“I was trying to make up my mind what I should do,” Colonel Spencer replied. “I had the feeling that if I entered the room unexpectedly Jethro might have finished you off quicker than he intended.”

“I threw the dagger which killed him,” the Marquis said quickly, putting his hand as he spoke on Saviya’s to prevent her from contradicting him.

“It was an act of self-defence,” the Chief Constable said as if he understood, “and it is quite immaterial who handled the weapon in question.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” the Marquis said gratefully. “I would not have wished my—future wife to be involved in this unpleasantness.”

As he spoke, he felt Saviya’s fingers go rigid beneath his.

“I will congratulate you, Fabius, under more pleasant circumstances,” the Chief Constable said. “At the moment I have my duty to perform.”

“I understand,” the Marquis said. “Do you wish me to send for the servants?”

The Chief Constable walked to Jethro Ruck’s fallen body and looked down at him.

There was no doubt that he was dead. Blood was oozing from the wound and there was a stream of blood from between his thin lips.

Looking at the dagger, the Marquis knew that it had been a brilliant throw on Saviya’s part. She had pierced Jethro’s throat in exactly the most vulnerable spot, and with a force which he knew came from the flexibility of the muscles in her wrist.

“I am sorry your cousin’s life should have ended like this,” the Chief Constable said quietly. “I have known you both since you were children, and as you grew up together you appeared to be close friends.”

“We were,” the Marquis answered, “until when we became men, Jethro was eaten up with jealousy and envy. He wanted so desperately to be in my shoes.”

“Hobley has told me,” the Chief Constable said, “of the other attempts he made on your life.”

“Because you were my father’s friend, Colonel,” the Marquis said in a low voice, “can you arrange that there is as little scandal as possible?”

“I will do what I can,” the Colonel promised. “As I was actually present at Jethro’s death, my evidence will be sufficient for the Magistrates. It was a duel of honour and there will be few legal formalities.”

“In a duel of honour it is customary for the survivor to go abroad for a few months, and that is what I intend to do,” the Marquis answered.

“That is wise of you,” the Colonel approved, “and now I suggest you leave everything in my hands, Fabius. As a very great friend of the Ruck family, I promise you that the real truth of what has happened between you and Jethro will never go beyond the four walls of this room.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” the Marquis said. “I knew I could rely on you, and that you of all people would understand.”

He held out his hand and then as they shook hands the Chief Constable said:

“I
want above all things, Fabius, to see you take your father’s place in the County. I know that a young man who has played a brilliant part in the war needs the relaxation and amusements that only London can give him. But there is work to be done here.”

His eyes were on the Marquis’s face and he continued:

“With the new lands, which I hear have come into your possession, I hope that Ruckley House will see a great deal more of you in the future.”

The Marquis knew that what the Chief Constable was saying to him had a far deeper meaning than appeared on the surface.

He was well aware that without mentioning Saviya she was uppermost in Colonel Spencer’s mind.

The Marquis had recognised as Jethro staggered and died from the impact of the dagger that there was only one place for Saviya in his life—and that was as his wife.

She had not only saved his life for the third time, but she had killed a man in his defence.

As he thought of her he realised she was not at his side. He looked round the room, then thought that perhaps, to avoid looking at the dead body of Jethro, she had gone in search of The Reverend.

The Chief Constable had already moved towards the door, and as the Marquis followed him into the Hall he started to give instructions to Bush for the removal of Jethro Rucks body.

The Marquis began to walk towards the Library. Then as he passed a footman, he said:

“Where is Miss Saviya?”

“She left the house, M’Lord.”

The Marquis looked at the man in astonishment and then he strode across the Hall and out onto the steps.

The Chief Constable’s carriage was outside and Hobley was talking to the Coachman.

The Valet came towards the Marquis with a question in his eyes.

“Where is Miss Saviya?” the Marquis asked for the second time.

“She came out a few moments ago, M’Lord, and took the horse on which I returned with Colonel Spencer, and rode towards the wood.”

“Fetch me a horse from the stables,” the Marquis said sharply to a footman who was standing behind him.

The man ran off and Hobley looking up at his master found it impossible to ask the questions which hovered on his lips.

He knew that something had gravely perturbed the Marquis and, with an anxious expression on his face, he went into the house to find out for himself what had happened.

There was a few minutes’ delay before a groom appeared from the stables riding the Marquis’s favourite black stallion.

He jumped down and almost before he reached the ground, the Marquis had swung himself into the saddle.

Without a word he galloped off across the Park towards the woods.

As he went he was afraid with a fear that was almost like an iron hand clutching at his heart.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Marquis urged his horse on until he reached the woods, wondering how he could find Saviya’s tribe and where they were likely to be.

He remembered she had told him that they had moved, after Jethro began searching for her.

While the Marquis realised that it was impossible to hide fifty people for long, the woods were large enough for him to have to spend several days in searching for them unless he was exceptionally lucky.

He had the inescapable feeling that Saviya had always meant to leave him when he was well enough.

He knew she was deeply conscious of the differences of rank between them, and she was far too intelligent not to realise, as he did, the unavoidable implications were he to set up a lasting liaison with a Gypsy.

Saviya was so sensitive, and they were so closely attuned to each other, that the Marquis knew she was well aware of his anxiety concerning the problems which would arise from their living together. And marriage would arouse even greater difficulties, not only from his point of view, but from Saviya’s.

He knew she had not spoken idly when she had said that the most terrible thing that could happen to a Gypsy was to be exiled from the tribe.

Because their society was so close-knit and they kept themselves apart from other people, exile was to them as bad if not worse than excommunication to a Roman Catholic.

Marriage between a Gypsy and a non-Gypsy was universally disapproved by all the tribes that were pure Romany.

Saviya had told the Marquis once that, even though in some exceptional instances a marriage might not bring exclusion from the tribe, the outlaw whether it was a man or woman no longer had the right to the name of Gypsy.

“Sometimes,” she went on, “this ostracism extends to the whole family and lineage of the guilty party.”

“That sounds to me unfair—cruel!” the Marquis exclaimed.

“It is worse than death!” Saviya had said quietly.

Remembering this conversation now, the Marquis was certain that the fact that he had told the Chief Constable that Saviya was to be his wife had driven her away from him.

“I love you!” he had said to Saviya one evening when she had been sitting in the caravan at the door, and he had been watching her from the bed.

He saw the sudden light in her eyes which illuminated her face and made her almost dazzlingly beautiful.

Then he had asked:

“What is love, Saviya? For I have never known it until now.”

She had looked away from him and he knew by the sudden concentration in her face that she was trying to find a serious and sensible answer to his question.

“I think that love,” she said after a moment, “is when someone else matters so completely that one no longer has even a thought of self. One almost ceases to exist because only in the other is one alive.”

She turned her face towards the Marquis and her eyes shone like stars as she finished:

“One lives for him and one would ... die for him.”

“Is that how you feel about me?” the Marquis asked.

She had risen then to come and kneel beside his bed.

“You know it is. All I want is for you to be happy.”

“I am happy as long as you are with me.”

He had held her close and yet with a new perception he knew that she was not entirely his.

There was some barrier between them; some reserve that he had felt and not understood. Yet now, he thought with a sense of despair, he knew what it was.

‘How can I convince her,’ he asked himself, ‘that nothing is of importance except our love, except the need we have for each other?’

He remembered how in the past he had never believed that he could fall in love. He had not understood when Eurydice had told him that love was more important than rank.

She had given up being a Duchess for an American whose way of life was entirely different from her own, and with whom she could in fact have little in common except love.

No! He had not understood.

He had even been inclined to laugh at anyone who could be swept off their feet to such an extent that they would alter their whole way of life—forget the past and all it implied for an emotion so intangible that one could not even explain it.

“I am not laughing now!’ the Marquis told himself almost savagely.

He had to find Saviya, but he knew that the sands of time were running out.

If, as he suspected, the Gypsies were in the process of leaving, if they once moved away from the vicinity, how would he ever find her again?

They were wanderers and nomads. At the same time centuries of being persecuted had taught them how to evade detection; how to vanish into a labyrinth of woods and mountains, hills and valleys, so that it was almost impossible to find them.

The Marquis, riding as quickly as he could, guided his horse through the tree-trunks until he came to the place in the wood where he himself had been hidden for three weeks.

With a sudden pang of dismay he realised the caravan was no longer there.

Saviya’s own special painted caravan, in which he had known a happiness that had never been his before, was not where he had left it that morning.

Then he told himself that if it had so recently been moved, there should be the marks of the wheels.

His eyes searched the ground but it was not easy. There was either moss on which no marks could be seen or low undergrowth through which the wheels of a cart could pass without leaving an impression.

Twisting and turning, straining his eyes for some clue which might lead him to Saviya, the Marquis had ridden for over half an hour before finally he came to an open space.

He knew immediately that this was where the camp must have been before Jethro had tried to kill him, and Saviya had saved his life. There were the remains of fires but they were only ashes.

It was not a camp-site that had just been vacated, but one on which the woodland flowers were already beginning to hide the fact that it had ever been used by human beings.

But here at last the Marquis had the clue! A wheel mark!

He could see that it would lead him deeper into the forest that stood on the south side of the Estate and was in parts almost impenetrable.

‘That is exactly where the Gypsies would have gone if they wished to hide,’ he told himself.

He found what appeared to be a bridle-path and knew it was just wide enough to allow a caravan to travel along it.

He followed it, all the time conscious that he must move quickly or Saviya might elude him forever.

He knew then with a pain that was both physical and mental that he could not lose her.

It was not only her beauty that attracted him. It was that she was in all truth the other part of himself.

He knew now why he had always felt lonely in his life and somehow apart from other people. He had not been a whole person—he had not been complete. It was Saviya who was the completion of himself as he was the completion of her.

‘I love you!’ he said in his heart. ‘Oh, my darling, do you not understand how much I love you? How could you do this to me?’

He rode on feeling at times almost frantic as the wood bewildered him, and he felt as if instead of advancing he was going round in circles and coming back to the place from which he had first started.

Then suddenly—so suddenly it was almost a shock—he found them!

There were eight caravans, most of them far larger and more elaborate than Saviya’s, and they were on the point, the Marquis knew, of moving off.

The horses were between the shafts, some of the Gypsies were already holding the reins in their hands, others were folding tents and stowing a number of objects away inside and beneath the caravans.

They were talking amongst themselves in their own language, until as the Marquis appeared there was a sudden silence.

He reined in his horse and a number of dark-skinned faces were turned towards him and suspicious black eyes regarded him questioningly.

They were an exceedingly good-looking collection of people, the Marquis appreciated, with their high cheek-bones, black eyes and dark hair. They were in fact more Russian-looking than any Gypsies he had seen in the past.

There were children with small, oval faces and large gazelle-like eyes, and several older women with red handkerchiefs over their heads and huge gold ear-rings dangling from their ears.

The Marquis moved his horse forward a little.

“I wish,” he said, “to speak to your Voivode.”

The man to whom he addressed his remark did not answer but merely pointed his hand to the far end of the clearing.

As the Marquis rode in the direction he saw a rather more elaborate caravan than the rest and standing in front of it, apparently unaware of his approach, was a tall man talking with Saviya.

The man saw him first and Saviya turned. The Marquis saw a sudden expression of radiant gladness on her face. Then it disappeared as if a cloud hid the sun.

The Marquis rode up to them and dismounted.

He found the Voivode was almost as tall as himself, and anyone would have known by his bearing and his clothes that he was a Chieftain.

His coat was blue and he wore very high boots. On his short jacket he had a large number of gold buttons and there was a heavy gold chain hung with pendants round his neck.

The Marquis had heard Saviya speak of the Voivode’s staff called
bare esti robli rupui,
which was the last remaining relic of a Kings sceptre.

It was made entirely of silver and the hilt, octagonal in shape, was adorned with a red tassel. The staff was engraved with the
Semno,
the authentic Sign of the Gypsies comprising the five ritual figures.

The Marquis held out his hand.

“I am the Marquis of Ruckley and you, I think, are Saviya’s father.”

“I have been expecting you,” the Voivode replied.

“And yet you were leaving?” the Marquis said sharply.

He looked at Saviya as he spoke and saw in her eyes raised to his a look of pleading as if she wanted him to understand why she had run away from him.

“What do you want with us?” the Voivode asked. “We are grateful for the hospitality of your woods. Now it is time for us to go.”

“I have come,” the Marquis said quietly, “to ask your permission to take your daughter, Saviya, as my wife.”

“You would marry her?”

There was no surprise in the Voivode’s voice. He merely looked at the Marquis as if he was seeking deep into his character and personality to find the answer to his question.

He had a dignity about him which made it not an impertinent act, but simply the summing up of one man by another without a question of class or caste.

“No!” Saviya said before her father could speak. “No, it is not ... possible!”

Her voice was passionate with intensity.

Then sharply, and in a voice of authority, the Voivode spoke to her in Romany.

The Marquis could not understand the words but the sense was very obvious.

He was rebuking her, telling her it was not her place to speak. Saviya bent her head.

“I am sorry, father,” she said in English.

“We will discuss this,” the Voivode said to the Marquis, “and Saviya, I wish you to hear what I have to say.”

He stepped past the Marquis as he spoke to address the tribe.

He obviously told them they would not be leaving for a little while; for the Gypsy men, who had been watching with undisguised curiosity the Marquis’s conversation with the Voivode, now turned away to unharness their horses.

The women began to re-kindle the fire in the centre of the clearing, which was practically extinguished.

The Voivode led the way to his caravan and Saviya brought a chair which she set down beside the steps.

The Voivode seated himself on the steps and Saviya sank down on the grass at his feet.

The Marquis tried to meet her eyes; to re-assure her; to tell her by a look if not by words not to be afraid.

But her head was still bowed after her father’s rebuke and her eyes were on the grass.

She looked very lovely but sadly forlorn, and the Marquis longed to put his arms around her and hold her close.

He knew she was unhappy. At the same time she had been unable to repress the sudden radiance in her eyes when she had first seen him riding towards them.

A Gypsy approached the Voivode and the Marquis was offered a glass of wine which he accepted.

It was red and a good quality. He supposed that the Gypsies must have brought it with them on their journey across Europe.

The horses were unharnessed and taken away from the caravan, and now that they were out of earshot of the other members of the tribe the Voivode said with a grave voice:
“You wish to marry Saviya?”

“I want her to be my wife,” the Marquis replied.

He saw a little quiver go through Saviya as he spoke, but still she did not raise her head.

“This is what I knew was Saviya’s destiny,” the Voivode said slowly.

The Marquis looked at him in considerable surprise. Such a reply was far from what he had expected.

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