CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Twelve minutes after the three o’clock “all-clear” was given, a single rider approached at a leisurely walk, his face concealed by the brim of a hat. He was tall and sinewy and sat casual and confident astride a wonderful beast, as rain fell in persistent and heavy streams. The officer on duty, a Second Lieutenant by the name of Skipp watched as the rider sauntered up the main path toward the house.
“Who goes there?” called Skipp, holding a lantern up to his eye level with a shaky hand. The four privates on watch with him climbed to their feet unsteadily on hearing his voice. An empty bottle rolled off the porch and into the dirt at the bottom of the steps. The rider edged closer still, silent and foreboding in the dark. “Make yourself known!” With this command, the horseman held up a hand and eased to a stop. He was, at this point, but ten yards from the steps on which the guards were stationed. He dismounted with agility and ease.
“Will you inform the Colonel that his steward has arrived, please?”
“And your name, sir?”
“Trippier. Mr. Trippier has arrived with a gift for Colonel Forster.”
“And you would… you… you would have me rouse the Colonel at this hour, sir?” the bosky Lieutenant asked between burps.
“He must be informed of my arrival at this instant!”
“Certainly, sir, Mr…”
“ Trippier .”
“Yes, Mr. Trippier,” Skipp replied, turning and unlocking the door behind him after fumbling about with the keys.
“And do not forget to tell him about the gift!”
“Of course—a gift!”
With that, the Lieutenant was inside and the rider out of the rain on the porch. The four soldiers stood there, loosely clutching their weapons, two of them nearly asleep on their feet. One of them sat suddenly and with a thump, then, turned over on his belly with a deep groan.
“You lads fancy a swig?” Though there were only four men, a dozen times the word “aye” was uttered. The rider pulled a large bottle from under his coat and said, “Drink up.” The liquor was immediately snatched from his hand and passed around. Even the louse on the floor sat up for a taste. Just then, the wind whipped across the yard sending a steady sheet of rain nearly horizontal through the adjacent trees. The whiskey bottle clanked to the planked floor, rolling toward the steps as liquid poured from the open end. “You are going to lose it,” the rider called. Three of the guards scrambled and barely managed to save it before it rolled out of reach. They breathed heavily and then passed it around once more, until it was empty. The lone standing man inhaled deeply and sucked on the top row of his teeth. He heard a rushed and tottering set of steps approach inside the house and watched the door open.
“The Colonel will see you now, Mr.—hiccup—Mr…”
“Enjoy a drink—on me, Lieutenant,” said the man as he handed Skipp a smaller bottle from his other coat pocket.
“Much obliged, sir,” he responded, taking the bottle, and greedily opening it.
“May I?” asked the rider, with his hand extended toward the key in the soldier’s hand.
“Oh, yes of course,” Skipp answered, handing the keys over as he slouched against the house.
“And also, this, please,” he said while taking the lantern from the guard.
With that, the rider entered, locking the door behind him, pocketing the key.
“Trippier!” came a booming voice from the upper floor. “Trippier is that you?”
“Aye,” answered the rider, water dripping steadily down his coat and pooling on the lacquered floor beneath him.
“I hear that you have brought me a gift!”
“I have,” he answered, slowly approaching the steps.
“I hope it is news from the north!” bellowed Colonel Forster from his bedroom.
“Perhaps.”
“That would be the best gift of all—hearing from you that the Wickhams have indeed been snuffed out!” The rider took each step casually, in no rush whatsoever. The house was dark, and he held the lantern low, casting light solely on the step ahead of him. “Or perhaps George is gone to the diet of worms, and you have brought Miss Lydia here for my enjoyment—and after all this time!” The rider silently reached the top step. He held the lantern to eye level and peered down the hall to his left and his right. “Tell me man! —What gift shall I receive?”
“One you will never have expected,” replied the rider, following the Colonel’s voice toward the bedroom.
“Have you acquired a chill on your journey, Trippier?”
“No, sir. Why do you ask?” the insouciant reply echoed down the hall.
“Your voice is much more raspy and deep than I remember it,” the Colonel attested.
“Well, perhaps I have brought in a chill,” replied the rider, turning the corner to enter the bedroom. He held the lantern in front of him in such a way that it cast an enormous shadow on the wall behind him.
“Well, whatever you have, I hope you have brought me a fine young maiden! It has been months now since I—” with that, Colonel Forster let out an audible gasp, seeing the shadow and seeing the man—much larger than Mr. Trippier—enter his bedchamber. “Are you the butcher?”
Bingley slowed to a halt and nodded. He then lifted the brim of his hat, allowing the lantern to unveil his face. “Good evening, Colonel Forster.”
The Colonel gazed intently, a labyrinth of emotions crossing his countenance. In what was a flash but seemed an eternity, Forster recognized the face before him: “Mr… Bingley ?”
“At your service, Colonel.”
“You… you ? —Are the butcher ?”
“I see that my reputation precedes me,” Bingley retorted.
“But how? —How is it possible?” Forster stammered.
“Does it not become me?”
“Surely, I would have imagined it to have been a phantom, or a hell-hound of the lowest order.”
“Then I surmise that you imagined wrongly,” Bingley stated with a resigned smile. “And I admit, as much as your lack of imagination benefits me particularly in my endeavour to remain anonymous, it is perplexing that you have envisioned your phantom as a man of little means, of no morals, and without a doubt bearing an illness of the mind that demands that he should be restrained, if he should deserve to live at all. In short, you have conceived in your tormentor, the very thing you have yourself become. But nay, I am not any of those things. I am an avenger born of your own class—an angel of death sent as a scourge upon devils in human form.”
“I am sorry,” Colonel Forster blubbered.
“If I was indeed your steward, and I had in fact brought a certain Mrs. Lydia Wickham with me—if she stood before you this very moment, begged for her chastity and her life—would you have heard her pleas? Would you have suddenly altered your state of mind that you might have been capable of the smallest token of mercy?” The Colonel’s eyes were as large as walnuts. Frantically, though, he began searching to the room, his head darting back and forth until he settled upon the object on his bedside table. With the ungainly leap typical of a bacon fed man of middle age, he clutched a pistol and pointed it toward Bingley, trembling wildly. The force of his mad scramble left the down quilt and sheets in a crumbled ball on the floor. “Oh, Colonel ,” Bingley said, reaching down slowly and placing the lantern next to his feet. “We can do this my way, which while certainly unpleasant, would not inflict upon you nearly the suffering of the hard way.”
“May I write a letter to my wife?” Forster wailed.
Bingley shook his head and pursed his lips. “This is not that kind of death.”
Forster swallowed hard, then in one swift motion, shoved the barrel of the pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. A blast of smoke and sound filled the room and for a moment, Bingley’s ears rang like a bell. Colonel Forster’s remains reeled backward and flopped onto the bed, the pistol dangling from his index finger. Bingley calmly put his hand to his ear and flexed his jaw. He spat on the floor, then with the toe of his Marylebone collection boot, calmly tipped the lantern over, sending the flame rolling toward the dishevelled bedding on the floor.
He was outside through the back door, careful to lock it behind him, walked through the drunken camp, and unseen into oblivion like the ghost he was. Within ten minutes complete, the house burned to the ground—the Colonel’s corpse with it. The men who awoke from the porch in a vain and jug-bitten attempt to douse the flames were unable to locate the key to gain entry and perhaps save the Colonel—along with his steward—from being consumed in the blaze.