The King's General Read Online Free Page A

you accused me to my mother?"
    They both looked at me, and I knew I had to leave the room. I went out into the garden and fed the pigeons, but the peace was gone from the place. From that moment all went ill with them and with us all. Kit's nature seemed to change. He wore a harassed air, wretchedly unlike himself, and a coolness grew up between him and my father, who had hitherto agreed so well.
    Kit showed himself suddenly aggressive to my father and to us all, finding fault with the working of Lanrest and comparing it to Radford, and in contrast to this was his abject humility before Gartred, a humility that had nothing fine about it but made him despicable to my intolerant eyes.
    The next year he stood for West Looe in Parliament and they went often to London, so we did not see them much, but when they came to Lanrest there seemed to be this continual strain about their presence, and once a heated quarrel between Kit and Robin, one night when my parents were from home. It was midsummer, very stifling and warm, and I, playing truant from my nursery, crept down to the garden in my nightgown. The household were abed. I remember flitting like a little ghost before the windows. The casement of the guest chamber was open wide, and I heard Kit's voice, louder than usual, lifted in argument. Some devil interest in me made me listen.
    "It is always the same," he said, "wherever we go. You make a fool of me before all men, and now tonight before my very brother. I tell you I cannot endure it longer."
    I heard Gartred laugh and I saw Kit's shadow reflected on the ceiling by the quivering candlelight. Their voices were low for a moment, then Kit spoke again for me to hear.
    "You think I remark nothing," he said. "You think I have sunk so low that to keep you near me, and to be allowed to touch you sometimes, I will shut my eyes to everyone. Do you think it was pleasant for me at Stowe to see how you looked upon Antony Denys that night when I returned so suddenly from London? A man with grown children, and his wife scarce cold in her grave? Are you entirely without mercy for me?"
    That terrible pleading note I so detested had crept back into his voice again, and I heard Gartred laugh once more. "And this evening," he said, "I saw you smiling here across the table at him, my own brother." I felt sick and rather frightened, but curiously excited, and my heart thumped within me as I heard a step beside me on the paving and, looking over my shoulder, I saw Robin standing beside me in the darkness.
    "Go away," he whispered to me, "go away at once."
    I pointed to the open window.
    "It is Kit and Gartred," I said. "He is angry with her for smiling at you."
    I heard Robin catch his breath and he turned as if to go, when suddenly Kit's voice cried out, loud and horrible, as though he, agrownman, were sobbing like a child. "If that happens I shall kill you. I swear to God I shall kill you." Then Robin, swift as an arrow, stooped to a stone and, taking it in his hand, he flung it against the casement, shivering the glass to fragments.
    "Damn you for a coward, then," he shouted. "Come and kill me instead."
    I looked up and saw Kit's face, white and tortured, and behind him Gartred with her hair loose on her shoulders. It was a picture to be imprinted always on my mind, those two there at the window, and Robin suddenly different from the brother I had always known and loved, breathing defiance and contempt. I felt ashamed for him, for Kit, for myself, but mostly I was filled with hatred for Gartred who had brought the storm to pass and remained untouched by it.
    I turned and ran, with my fingers in my ears, and crept up to bed with never a word to anyone and drew the covers well over my head, fearing that by morning they would all three of them be discovered slain there in the grass. But what passed between them further I never knew. Day broke and all was as before, except that Robin rode away soon after breakfast and he did not return until after