Essential Science Fiction Novels - Volume 7. Karel Čapek

by the unparalleled success of Mr. Hector D’Estrange, who, riding in the six races printed on the card for competition, came in first, the winner of every one of them. This success is all the more remarkable, inasmuch as four of the winners were non-favourites, so that the wins must be ascribed to the splendid horsemanship of their jockey. The feat is unparalleled, the nearest approach to it being when Captain ‘Doggie’ Smith in 1880 carried off all the races on the card except one, being defeated in a match which closed the day’s proceedings between Lord Hastings’ Memory, and Lord James Douglas’ The General. In this match ‘Doggie’ Smith rode Lord Hastings’ mare, and Lord James Douglas his own horse, The General.”

      Such is the announcement chronicled in a well-known weekly sporting paper a few days after the Melton Hunt Steeplechases of 1804, scoring yet another triumph on the path of thoroughness for Hector D’Estrange.

      IV

      “So you will not?”

      “A thousand times, no!”

      They are standing facing each other are the speakers—one a beautiful, tall, graceful woman, with masses of rich gold hair coiled upon her noble head, and eyes whose light is like the turquoise gem, the other a middle-sized, handsome, good-looking man, whose dark eyes gleam with fury and disappointed passion.

      We have seen them both before, this man and woman, seen them on more than one occasion; for it is not difficult to recognise in that evil-featured man the person of Lord Westray, or in that beautiful woman that of Speranza de Lara.

      He has come here for no good purpose has the “wicked earl.” Ever since, on the Burton Flats, he had fallen across the lovely woman whose life he had made a desert, Lord Westray had been a prey to a consuming passion to regain that which he had lost. Twice in her life Speranza had defied him, and on each occasion he had had his revenge. The first was when, as a girl of seventeen, she had refused him, and he, through the instrumentality of his cruel mother, who had played on her love for her brothers, had forced her to become his wife. The second was when, in defiance of man’s laws, she had fled from his vile brutality and hateful presence, with the first and last love of her young life, poor Harry Kintore; and he, following up those two to the sunny land where they had sought a refuge, and where they asked for no other boon but to be allowed to live with and for each other, had shot down in her very presence the man to save whom she would have given a thousand lives of her own.

      And now he is here, oblivious of all his past brutality, to insult her with yet another proposal, one more hideous than any he has ever made before. Consumed with passion for this woman, who had defied him, he has actually come to propose that she shall forget the past and remarry him!

      Forget the past! Is it likely? Will the memory of her suffering childhood ever pass away? Will the recollection of her wedding day fade from her mind? Will the six years of torture as his wedded wife disappear like a dream? Above all, can she ever forget her first meeting with Harry Kintore, the heart’s awakening that came with it, or the terrible moment when, struck down at her feet, his dear eyes looked their love for the last time? Impossible.

      He grinds his teeth with rage does Lord Westray as her clear, sad voice distinctly gives him his answer. He is racking his brain for a means of overcoming her, and forcing her once more to obey his will. The fact that she defies him, hates him, loathes him, has refused him, only arouses in him more madly than ever the desire to become possessed of her once again. Lord Westray possesses, in a heightened degree, in an aggravated form, the characteristic peculiar to all men, of desiring that which is either hard to get, or which denies itself to them, and which, if once obtained, fades in value in their eyes. It is Speranza’s resistance to his wishes that fires him with the fury of a wild animal to regain her.

      “You shall repent this!” he mutters angrily. “Speranza, you should know better than to defy me. Have I not been a match for you twice? and, by God I if you do not do as I ask now I will be again.”

      She shudders with horror as she hears his cold-blooded words, triumphing at his past deeds of brutality and crime. She pulls herself together, however. She is alone with him, and must keep him at bay. Speranza is no coward.

      “I do not fear you,” she answers haughtily; “you cannot do me more evil than you have already. I am beyond the reach of your vengeance now. Nothing you can do can harm me!”

      “I don’t know so much about that,” he replies savagely. “How about Hector D’Estrange?”

      She starts, and the rich blood flushes to her face as she eyes him with evident terror. Can it be that he knows? that he will unveil the secret before—but no, it is impossible; she has it safe enough.

      He notes the start, the crimson blush, and the look of terror, and he congratulates himself on having, by a chance shot, hit on the right point to cow her.

      “You’re a fine person to play the prude and the proper,” he says, with a sneer. “They used to tell me that you were inconsolable over that ass Kintore, but the beauty of Hector D’Estrange appears to have effected a sudden cure. I congratulate you on your new conquest. You have aimed high. He is the rising man of his day, and you have thrown your net well to catch the golden fish. Are you not ashamed of yourself, however, woman,—you who are over the forties, to take up with a boy of twenty-one?”

      She flushes again. Then he does not know? Thank God for that! How young she looks as she stands there in her unfading beauty, with a look in her blue eyes of contemptuous loathing. She will let him believe what he likes, so that he does not know the truth; that is all she desires to hide from him.

      In pursuance of this desire she answers:

      “Hector D’Estrange and I are friends. I am not ashamed to own it. Neither he nor I require your advice, however, as to how our friendship is to be conducted. And now I bid you leave me. I order you from my house, which I inhabit not by your charity.”

      “No, but by the charity of Harry Kintore, you wanton!” he answers with an oath. “You knew pretty well what you were about when you got the fool to settle all his estates and money on you, which you now lavish on Hector D’Estrange, but——”

      “Peace, devil! fiend in human shape!” she cries furiously, as she clenches her hands, and brings the right one down with a crash on the table beside her. He notices a flash on one of the fingers. All the others are ringless but this one, and on it sparkles two splendid diamonds and sapphires set deep in their .broad thick band of gold. He knows this ring of old. He saw it long ago, when she held the dying head of Harry Kintore in her hands, and he knows that it was the young man’s gift to her. That she should wear it, now that she has taken up with Hector D’Estrange, mystifies him.

      He is about to reply, when the door of the room they are in opens, and Lord Westray finds himself face to face with Hector. He is a head and shoulders taller than the earl is this young man, and as he advances into the room the latter’s face falls slightly, and his fingers move nervously by his side. Like all bullies, Lord Westray is a coward, and doesn’t half fancy his position.

      But there is no angry look in Hector D’Estrange’s eyes; only from their sapphire depths looks out a cold, calm expression of contempt.

      “Lord Westray,” he remarks, in a voice impressive because of its very quietness, “for what reason have we the honour of your presence here? Allow me to inform you that this honour is not desired by Mrs. de Lara. Your brougham is at the door. I must request you to seek it.”

      He says no more, but stands with the handle of the door in his hand, waiting for the earl to obey. This latter looks at him fiercely, the eyes of the two meet. Those of the bully and depraved coward cannot face the calm, disdainful look of Hector D’Estrange; they fall before it, and in another moment the earl is gone.

      They listen to the wheels of the departing brougham as it rattles through the streets in the direction of South Kensington. As its echoes die away the young man turns to Speranza.

      “Mother,” he exclaims, “has he been here to insult you? Ah, mother! God only knows