Archibald Floyd came back from church, and found his two children sitting side by side in one of the broad windows, watching for his arrival, and whispering together like lovers, as I have said they were.
They dined pleasantly together later in the evening; and a little after dark the phaeton was brought round to the terrace-steps, and Aurora kissed her father as she wished him good night.
"You will come up to town, and be present at the marriage, sir, I know," John whispered, as he took his father-in-law's hand. "Talbot Bulstrode will arrange all about it. It is to take place at some out-of-the-way little church in the City. Nobody will be any the wiser, and Aurora and I will go back to Mellish as quietly as possible. There's only Lofthouse and Hayward know the secret of the certificate, and they——"
John Mellish stopped suddenly. He remembered Mrs. Powell's parting sting.Sheknew the secret. But how could she have come by that knowledge? It was impossible that either Lofthouse or Hayward could have told her. They were both honourable men, and they had pledged themselves to be silent.
Archibald Floyd did not observe his son-in-law's embarrassment; and the phaeton drove away, leaving the old man standing on the terrace-steps looking after his daughter.
"I must shut up this place," he thought, "and go to Mellish to finish my days. I cannot endure these separations; I cannot bear this suspense. It is a pitiful sham, my keeping house, and living in all this dreary grandeur. I'll shut up the place, and ask my daughter to give me a quiet corner in her Yorkshire home, and a grave in the parish churchyard."
The lodge-keeper turned out of his comfortable Gothic habitation to open the clanking iron gates for the phaeton; but John drew up his horses before they dashed into the road, for he saw that the man wanted to speak to him.
"What is it, Forbes?" he asked.
"Oh, it's nothing particular, sir," the man said, "and perhaps I oughtn't to trouble you about it; but did you expect any one down to-day, sir?"
"Expect any one here?—no!" exclaimed John.
"There's been a person inquirin', sir, this afternoon,—two persons, I may say, in a shay-cart, but one of 'em asked particular if you was here, sir, and if Mrs. Mellish was here; and when I said yes, you was, the gent says it wasn't worth troublin' you about—the business as he'd come upon—and as he'd call another time. And he asked me what time you'd be likely to be leavin' the Woods; and I said I made no doubt you'd stay to dinner up at the house. So he says, 'All right,' and drives off."
"He left no message, then?"
"No, sir. He said nothin' more than what I've told you."
"Then his business could have been of no great importance, Forbes," answered John, laughing. "So we needn't worry our heads about him. Good-night."
Mr. Mellish dropped a five-shilling piece into the lodge-keeper's hand, gave Talbot's horses their heads, and the phaeton rolled off London-wards over the crisp gravel of the well-kept Beckenham roads.
"Who could the man have been?" Aurora asked, as they left the gates.
"Goodness knows, my dear," John answered carelessly. "Somebody on racing business, perhaps."
Racing business seems to be in itself such a mysterious business that it is no strange thing for mysterious people to be always turning up in relation to it. Aurora, therefore, was content to accept this explanation; but not without some degree of wonderment.
"I can't understand the man coming to Felden after you, John," she said. "How could he know that you were to be there to-day?"
"Ah, how indeed, Lolly!" returned Mr. Mellish. "He chanced it, I suppose. A sharp customer, no doubt; wants to sell a horse, I dare say, and heard I didn't mind giving a good price for a good thing."
Mr. Mellish might have gone even further than this, for there were manyhorseygentlemen in his neighbourhood, past masters in the art they practised, who were wont to say that the young squire, judiciously manipulated, might be induced to give a remarkably good price for a very bad thing; and there were many broken-down, slim-legged horses in the Mellish stables that bore witness to the same fact. Those needychevaliers d'espritwho think that Burke's landed gentry were created by Providence and endowed with the goods of this world for their especial benefit, just as pigeons are made plump and nice-eating for the delectation of hawks, drove a wholesale trade upon the young man's frank simplicity and hearty belief in his fellow-creatures. I think it is Eliza Cook who says, "It is better to trust and be deceived, than own the mean, poor spirit that betrays;" and if there is any happiness in being "done," poor John enjoyed that fleeting delight pretty frequently.
There was a turn in the road between Beckenham and Norwood; and as the phaeton swept round, a chaise or dog-cart, a shabby vehicle enough, with a rakish-looking horse, drove close up, and the man who was driving asked the squire to put him in the nearest way to London. The vehicle had been behind them all the way from Felden, but had kept at a very respectful distance until now.
"Do you want to get to the City or the West End?" John asked.
"The West End."
"Then you can't do better than follow us," answered Mr. Mellish; "the road's clean enough, and your horse seems a good one to go. You can keep us in sight, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir, and thank ye."
"All right, then."
Talbot Bulstrode's thorough-breds dashed off, but the rakish-looking horse kept his ground behind them. He had something of the insolent, off-hand assurance of a butcher's horse, accustomed to whirl a bare-headed blue-coated master through the sharp morning air.
"I was right, Lolly," Mr. Mellish said, as he left the dog-cart behind.
"How do you mean, dear?" asked Aurora.
"The man who spoke to us just now is the man who has been inquiring for me at Felden. He's a Yorkshireman."
"A Yorkshireman!"
"Yes; didn't you hear the north-country twang?"
No: she had not listened to the man, nor heeded him. How should she think of anything but her new-born happiness—the new-born confidence between herself and the husband she loved?
Do not think her hard-hearted or cruel if she forgot that it was the death of a fellow-creature, a sinful man stricken down in the prime of youth and health, that had given her this welcome release. She had suffered so much, that the release could not be otherwise than welcome, let it come how it might.
Her nature, frank and open as the day, had been dwarfed and crippled by the secret that had blighted her life. Can it be wondered, then, that she rejoiced now that all need of secrecy was over, and this generous spirit might expand as it pleased?
It was past ten when the phaeton turned into Halfmoon Street. The men in the dog-cart had followed John's directions to the letter; for it was only in Piccadilly that Mr. Mellish had lost sight of them amongst other vehicles travelling backwards and forwards on the lamp-lit thoroughfare.
Talbot and Lucy received their visitors in one of the pretty little drawing-rooms. The young husband and wife had spent a quiet day together; going to church in the morning and afternoon, dining alone, and sitting in the twilight, talking happily and confidentially. Mr. Bulstrode was no Sabbath-breaker; and John Mellish had reason to consider himself a peculiarly privileged person, inasmuch as the thorough-breds had been permitted to leave their stables for his service; to say nothing of the groom, who had been absent from his hard seat in the servants' pew at a fashionable chapel, in order that he might accompany John and Aurora to Felden.
The little party sat up rather late, Aurora and Lucy talking affectionately together, side by side, upon a sofa in the shadow of the room, while the two men lounged in the open window. John told his host the history of the day, and in doing so casually mentioned the man who had asked him the way to London.
Strange to say, Talbot Bulstrode seemed especially interested in this part of the story. He asked several questions about the men. He asked what they were like; what was said by either of them; and made many other inquiries, which seemed equally trivial.
"Then they followed you into town, John?" he said finally.
"Yes; I only lost sight of them in Piccadilly, five minutes before I turned the corner of the street."
"Do you think they had any motive in following you?" asked Talbot.
"Well, I fancy so; they're on the look-out for information, I expect. The man who spoke to me looked something like a tout. I've heard that Lord Stamford's rather anxious about my West-Australian colt, the Pork Butcher. Perhaps his people have set these men to work to find out if I'm going to run him in the Leger."
Talbot Bulstrode smiled bitterly, almost mournfully, at the vanity of horse-flesh. It was painful to see this light-hearted young squire looking in such ignorant hopefulness towards an horizon upon which graver and more thoughtful men could see a dreadful shadow lowering. Mr. Bulstrode was standing close to the balcony; he stepped out amongst the china boxes of mignonette, and looked down into the quiet street. A man was leaning against a lamp-post, some few paces from Talbot's house, smoking a cigar, and with his face turned towards the balcony. He finished his cigar deliberately, threw the end into the road, and walked away while Talbot kept watch; but Mr. Bulstrode did not leave his post of observation, and about a quarter of an hour afterwards he saw the same man lounging slowly along the pavement upon the other side of the street. John, who sat within the shadow of the window-curtains, lolling against them, and creasing their delicate folds with the heavy pressure of his broad back, was utterly unconscious of all this.
Early the next morning Mr. Bulstrode and Mr. Mellish took a Hansom cab, and rattled down to Doctors' Commons, where, for the second time in his life, John gave himself up to be fought for by white-aproned ecclesiastical touts, and eventually obtained the Archbishop of Canterbury's gracious sanction of his marriage with Aurora, widow of James Conyers, only daughter of Archibald Floyd, banker. From Doctors' Commons the two gentlemen drove to a certain quiet, out-of-the-way church within the sound of Bow bells, but so completely hidden amongst piles of warehouses, top-heavy chimneys, sloping roofs, and other eccentricities of masonry, that any unhappy bridegroom, who had appointed to be married there, was likely enough to spend the whole of the wedding-day in futile endeavours to find the church-door. Here John discovered a mouldy clerk, who was fetched from some habitation in the neighbourhood with considerable difficulty, by a boy, who volunteered to accomplish anything under heaven for a certain copper consideration; and to this clerk Mr. Mellish gave notice of a marriage which was to take place upon the following day, by special licence.
"I'll take my second marriage-certificate back with me," John said, as he left the church; "and then I should like to see who'll dare to look me in the face, and tell me that my darling is not my own lawfully-wedded wife."
He was thinking of Mrs. Powell as he said this. He was thinking of the pale, spiteful eyes that had looked at him, and of the woman's tongue that had stabbed him with all a little nature's great capacity for hate. He would be able to defy her now; he would be able to defy every creature in the world who dared to breathe a syllable against his beloved wife.
Early the next morning the marriage took place. Archibald Floyd, Talbot Bulstrode, and Lucy were the only witnesses; that is to say, the only witnesses with the exception of the clerk and the pew-opener, and a couple of men who lounged into the church when the ceremony was half over, and slouched about one of the side aisles, looking at the monuments, and talking to each other in whispers, until the parson took off his surplice, and John came out of the vestry with his wife upon his arm.
Mr. and Mrs. Mellish did not return to Halfmoon Street; they drove straight to the Great Northern Station, whence they started by the afternoon express for Doncaster. John was anxious to return; for remember that he had left his household under very peculiar circumstances, and strange reports might have arisen in his absence.
The young squire would perhaps have scarcely thought of this, had not the idea been suggested to him by Talbot Bulstrode, who particularly urged upon him the expediency of returning immediately.
"Go back, John," said Mr. Bulstrode, "without an hour's unnecessary delay. If by any chance there should be some further disturbance about this murder, it will be much better for you, and Aurora too, to be on the spot. I will come down to Mellish myself in a day or two, and will bring Lucy with me, if you will allow me."
"Allow you, my dear Talbot!"
"Iwillcome, then. Good-bye, and God bless you! Take care of your wife."
Mr. Samuel Prodder, returning to London after having played his insignificant part in the tragedy at Mellish Park, found that city singularly dull and gloomy. He put up at some dismal boarding-house, situated amid a mazy labyrinth of brick and mortar between the Tower and Wapping, and having relations with another boarding-house in Liverpool. He took up his abode at this place, in which he was known and respected. He drank rum-and-water, and played cribbage with other seamen, made after the same pattern as himself. He even went to an East-End theatre upon the Saturday night after the murder, and sat out the representation of a nautical drama, which he would have been glad to have believed in, had it not promulgated such wild theories in the science of navigation, and exhibited such extraordinary experiments in the manoeuvring of the man-of-war, upon which the action of the play took place, as to cause the captain's hair to stand on end in the intensity of his wonder. The things people did upon that ship curdled Samuel Prodder's blood, as he sat in the lonely grandeur of the eighteenpenny boxes. It was quite a common thing for them to walk unhesitatingly through the bulwarks and disappear in what ought to have been the sea. The extent of browbeating and humiliation borne by the captain of that noble vessel; the amount of authority exercised by a sailor with loose legs; the agonies of sea-sickness, represented by a comic countryman, who had no particular business on board the gallant bark; the proportion of hornpipe-dancing and nautical ballad-singing gone through, as compared to the work that was done,—all combined to impress poor Samuel with such a novel view of her Majesty's naval service, that he was very glad when the captain who had been browbeaten suddenly repented of all his sins,—not without a sharp reminder from the prompter, who informed thedramatis personæ,in a confidential voice that it wasparsttwelve, and they'd better cut it short,—joined the hands of the contumacious sailor and a young lady in white muslin, and begged them to be 'appy.
It was in vain that the captain sought distraction from the one idea upon which he had perpetually brooded since the night of his visit to Mellish Park. He would be wanted in Yorkshire to tell what he knew of the dark history of that fatal night. He would be called upon to declare at what hour he had entered the wood, whom he had met there, what he had seen and heard there. They would extort from him that which he would have died rather than tell. They would cross-examine, and bewilder, and torment him, until he told them everything,—until he repeated, syllable by syllable, the passionate words that had been said,—until he told them how, within a quarter of an hour of the firing of the pistol, he had been the witness of a desperate scene between his niece and the murdered man,—a scene in which concentrated hate, vengeful fury, illimitable disdain and detestation had been expressed by her—by her alone:—the man had been calm and moderate enough. It was she who had been angry; it was she who had given loud utterance to her hate.
Now, by reason of one of those strange inconsistencies common to weak human nature, the captain, though possessed night and day by a blind terror of being suddenly pounced upon by the minions of the law, and compelled to betray his niece's secret, could not rest in his safe retreat amid the labyrinths of Wapping, but must needs pine to return to the scene of the murder. He wanted to know the result of the inquest. The Sunday papers gave a very meagre account, only hinting darkly at suspected parties. He wanted to ascertain for himself what had happened at the inquest, and whether his absence had given rise to suspicion. He wanted to see his niece again,—to see her in the daylight, undisturbed by passion. He wanted to see this beautiful tigress in her calmer moods, if she ever had any calmer moods. Heaven knows the simple merchant-captain was well-nigh distracted as he thought of his sister Eliza's child, and the awful circumstances of his first and only meeting with her.
Was she—that which he feared people might be led to think her, if they heard the story of that scene in the wood? No, no, no!
She was his sister's child,—the child of that merry, impetuous little girl, who had worn a pinafore and played hop-scotch. He remembered his sister flying into a rage with one Tommy Barnes for unfair practices in that very game, and upbraiding him almost as passionately as Aurora had upbraided the dead man. But if Tommy Barnes had been found strangled by a skipping-rope or shot dead from a pea-shooter in the next street a quarter of an hour afterwards, would Eliza's brother have thought that she must needs be guilty of the boy's murder? The captain had gone so far as to reason thus, in his trouble of mind. His sister Eliza's child would be likely to be passionate and impetuous; but his sister Eliza's child would be a generous, warm-hearted creature, incapable of any cruelty in either thought or deed. He remembered his sister Eliza boxing his ears on the occasion of his gouging out the eyes of her wax-doll; but he remembered the same dark-eyed child sobbing piteously at the spectacle of a lamb that a heartless butcher was dragging to the slaughter-house.
But the more seriously Captain Prodder revolved this question in his mind, the more decidedly his inclination pointed to Doncaster; and early upon that very morning on which the quiet marriage had taken place in the obscure City church, he repaired to a magnificent Israelitish temple of fashion in the Minories, and there ordered a suit of such clothes as were most affected by elegant landsmen. The Israelitish salesman recommended something light and lively in the fancy-check line; and Mr. Prodder, submitting to that authority as beyond all question, invested himself in a suit which he had contemplated solemnly athwart a vast expanse of plate-glass, before entering the temple of the Graces. It was "Our aristocratic tourist," at seventy-seven shillings and sixpence, and was made of a fleecy and rather powdery-looking cloth; in which the hues of baked and unbaked bricks predominated over a more delicate hearthstone tint,—which latter the shopman declared to be a colour that West-End tailors had vainly striven to emulate.
The captain, dressed in "Our aristocratic tourist," which suit was of the ultra cut-away and peg-toppy order, and with his sleeves and trousers inflated by any chance summer's breeze, had perhaps more of the appearance of a tombola than is quite in accordance with a strictly artistic view of the human figure. In his desire to make himself utterly irrecognizable as the seafaring man who had carried the tidings of the murder to Mellish Park, the captain had tortured himself by substituting a tight circular collar and a wisp of purple ribbon for the honest half-yard of snowy linen which it had been his habit to wear turned over the loose collar of his blue coat. He suffered acute agonies from this modern device, but he bore them bravely; and he went straight from the tailor's to the Great Northern Railway Station, where he took his ticket for Doncaster. He meant to visit that town as an aristocratic tourist; he would keep himself aloof from the neighbourhood of Mellish Park, but he would be sure to hear the result of the inquest, and he would be able to ascertain for himself whether any trouble had come upon his sister's child.
The sea-captain did not travel by that express which carried Mr. and Mrs. Mellish to Doncaster, but by an earlier and a slower train, which lumbered quietly along the road, conveying inferior persons, to whom time was not measured by a golden standard, and who smoked, and slept, and ate, and drank resignedly enough, through the eight or nine hours' journey.
It was dusk when Samuel Prodder reached the quiet racing-town from which he had fled away in the dead of the night so short a time before. He left the station, and made his way to the market-place, and from the market-place he struck into a narrow lane that led him to an obscure street upon the outskirts of the town. He had a great terror of being led by some unhappy accident into the neighbourhood of the Reindeer, lest he should be recognized by some hanger-on of that hotel.
Half-way between the beginning of the straggling street and the point at which it dwindled and shrank away into a country lane, the captain found a little public-house called the Crooked Rabbit,—such an obscure and out-of-the-way place of entertainment that poor Samuel thought himself safe in seeking for rest and refreshment within its dingy walls. There was a framed-and-glazed legend of "good beds" hanging behind an opaque window-pane,—beds for which the landlord of the Crooked Rabbit was in the habit of asking and receiving almost fabulous prices during the great Leger week. But there seemed little enough doing at the humble tavern just now, and Captain Prodder walked boldly in, ordered a steak and a pint of ale, with a glass of rum-and-water, hot, to follow, at the bar, and engaged one of the good beds for his accommodation. The landlord, who was a fat man, lounged with his back against the bar reading the sporting news in the 'Manchester Guardian;' and it was the landlady who took Mr. Prodder's orders and showed him the way into an awkwardly-shaped parlour, which was much below the rest of the house, and into which the uninitiated visitor was apt to precipitate himself head foremost, as into a well or pit. There were several small mahogany tables in this room, all adorned with sticky arabesques, formed by the wet impressions of the bottom rims of pewter pots; there were so many spittoons that it was almost impossible to walk from one end of the room to the other without taking unintentional foot-baths of sawdust; there was an old bagatelle-table, the cloth of which had changed from green to dingy yellow, and was frayed and tattered like a poor man's coat; and there was a low window, the sill of which was almost on a level with the pavement of the street.
The merchant-captain threw off his hat, loosened the slip of ribbon and the torturing circular collar supplied him by the Israelitish outfitter, and cast himself into a shining mahogany arm-chair close to this window. The lower panes were shrouded by a crimson curtain, and he lifted this very cautiously and peered for a few moments into the street. It was lonely enough and quiet enough in the dusky summer's evening. Here and there lights twinkled in a shop window, and upon one threshold a man stood talking to his neighbour. With one thought always paramount in his mind, it is scarcely strange that Samuel Prodder should fancy these people must necessarily be talking of the murder.
The landlady brought the captain the steak he had ordered, and the tired traveller seated himself at one of the tables and discussed his simple meal. He had eaten nothing since seven o'clock that morning, and he made very short work of the three-quarters of a pound of meat that had been cooked for him. He finished his beer, drank his rum-and-water, smoked a pipe, and then, as he had the room still to himself, he made an impromptu couch of Windsor chairs arranged in a row, and, in his ownparlance, turned-in upon this rough hammock to take a brief stretch.
He might have set his mind at rest, perhaps, before this, had he chosen. He could have questioned the landlady about the murder at Mellish Park; she was likely to know as much as any one else he might meet at the Crooked Rabbit. But he had refrained from doing this because he did not wish to draw attention to himself in any way, as a person in the smallest degree interested in the murder. How did he know what inquiries had possibly been made for the missing witness? There was perhaps some enormous reward offered for his apprehension, and a word or a look might betray him to the greedy eyes of those upon the watch to obtain it.
Remember that this broad-shouldered seafaring man was as ignorant as a child of all things beyond the deck of his own vessel, and the watery high-roads he had been wont to navigate. Life along shore was a solemn mystery to him,—the law of the British dominions a complication of inscrutable enigmas, only to be spoken of and thought of in a spirit of reverence and wonder. If anybody had told him that he was likely to be seized upon as an accessory before the fact, and hung out of hand for his passive part in the Mellish Park catastrophe, he would have believed them implicitly. How did he know how many Acts of Parliament his conduct in leaving Doncaster without giving his evidence might come under? It might be high treason, lese-majesty,—anything in the world that is unpronounceable and awful,—for aught this simple sailor knew to the contrary. But in all this it was not his own safety that Captain Prodder thought of. That was of very little moment to this light-hearted, easy-going sailor. He had perilled his life too often on the high seas to set any exaggerated value upon it ashore. If they chose to hang an innocent man, they must do their worst; it would be their mistake, not his; and he had a simple seaman-like faith, rather vague, perhaps, and not very reduceable to anything like thirty-nine articles, which told him there were sweet little cherubs sitting up aloft who would take good care that any such sublunary mistake should be rectified in a certain supernal log-book, upon whose pages Samuel Prodder hoped to find himself set down as an honest and active sailor, always humbly obedient to the signals of his Commander.
It was for his niece's sake, then, that the sailor dreaded any discovery of his whereabouts; and it was for her sake that he resolved upon exercising the greatest degree of caution of which his simple nature was capable.
"I won't ask a single question," he thought; "there's sure to be a pack of lubbers dropping in here, by-and-by, and I shall hear 'em talking about the business as likely as not. These country folks would have nothing to talk about if they didn't overhaul the ship's books of their betters."
The captain slept soundly for upwards of an hour, and was awakened at the end of that time by the sound of voices in the room, and the fumes of tobacco. The gas was flaring high in the low-roofed parlour when he opened his eyes, and at first he could scarcely distinguish the occupants of the room for the blinding glare of light.
"I won't get up," he thought; "I'll sham asleep for a bit, and see whether they happen to talk about the business."
There were only three men in the room. One of them was the landlord, whom Samuel Prodder had seen reading in the bar; and the other two were shabby-looking men, with by no means too respectable a stamp either upon their persons or their manners. One of them wore a velveteen cut-away coat with big brass buttons, knee-breeches, blue stockings, and highlows. The other was a pale-faced man, with mutton-chop whiskers, and dressed in a shabby-genteel costume, that gave indication of general vagabondage rather than of any particular occupation.
They were talking of horses when Captain Prodder awoke, and the sailor lay for some time listening to a jargon that was utterly unintelligible to him. The men talked of Lord Zetland's lot, of Lord Glasgow's lot, and the Leger and the Cup, and made offers to bet with each other, and quarrelled about the terms, and never came to an agreement, in a manner that was utterly bewildering to poor Samuel; but he waited patiently, still feigning to be asleep, and not in any way disturbed by the men, who did not condescend to take any notice of him.
"They'll talk of the other business presently," he thought; "they're safe to talk of it."
Mr. Prodder was right.
After discussing the conflicting merits of half the horses in the racing calendar, the three men abandoned the fascinating subject; and the landlord re-entering the room after having left it to fetch a fresh supply of beer for his guests, asked if either of them had heard if anything new had turned up about that business at Mellish Park.
"There's a letter in to-day's 'Guardian,'" he added, before receiving any reply to his question, "and a pretty strong one. It tries to fix the murder upon some one in the house, but it don't exactly name the party. It wouldn't be safe to do that yet awhile, I suppose."
Upon the request of the two men, the landlord of the Crooked Rabbit read the letter in the Manchester daily paper. It was a very clever letter, and a spirited one, giving a synopsis of the proceedings at the inquest, and commenting very severely upon the manner in which that investigation had been conducted. Mr. Prodder quailed until the Windsor chairs trembled beneath him as the landlord read one passage, in which it was remarked that the stranger who carried the news of the murder to the house of the victim's employer, the man who had heard the report of the pistol, and had been chiefly instrumental in the finding of the body, had not been forthcoming at the inquest.
"He had disappeared mysteriously and abruptly, and no efforts were made to find him," wrote the correspondent of the 'Guardian.' "What assurance can be given for the safety of any man's life when such a crime as the Mellish Park murder is investigated in this loose and indifferent manner? The catastrophe occurred within the boundary of the Park fence. Let it be discovered whether any person in the Mellish household had a motive for the destruction of James Conyers. The man was a stranger to the neighbourhood. He was not likely, therefore, to have made enemies outside the boundary of his employer's estate, but he may have had some secret foe within that limit. Who was he? where did he come from? what were his antecedents and associations? Let each one of these questions be fully sifted, let a cordon be drawn round the house, and every creature living in it be held under the surveillance of the law until patient investigation has done its work, and such evidence has been collected as must lead to the detection of the guilty person."
To this effect was the letter which the landlord read in a loud and didactic manner, that was very imposing, though not without a few stumbles over some hard words, and a good deal of slapdash jumping at others.
Samuel Prodder could make very little of the composition, except that it was perfectly clear he had been missed at the inquest, and his absence commented upon. The landlord and the shabby-genteel man talked long and discursively upon the matter; the man in the velveteen coat, who was evidently a thorough-bred cockney and only newly arrived in Doncaster, required to be told the whole story before he was upon a footing with the other two. He was very quiet, and generally spoke between his teeth, rarely taking the unnecessary trouble of removing his short clay-pipe from his mouth, except when it required refilling. He listened to the story of the murder very intently, keeping one eye upon the speaker and the other on his pipe, and nodding approvingly now and then in the course of the narrative.
He took his pipe from his mouth when the story was finished, and filled it from an india-rubber pouch, which had to be turned inside-out in some mysterious manner before the tobacco could be extricated from it. While he was packing the loose fragments of shag or bird's-eye neatly into the bowl of the pipe with his stumpy little finger, he said, with supreme carelessness—
"I know'd Jim Conyers."
"Did you now?" exclaimed the landlord, opening his eyes very wide.
"I know'd him," repeated the man, "as intimate as I know'd my own mother; and when I read of the murder in the newspaper last Sunday, you might have knocked me down with a feather. 'Jim's got it at last,' I said; for he was one of them coves that goes through the world cock-a-doodling over other people to sich a extent, that when theydodrop in for it, there's not many particular sorry for 'em. He was one of your selfish chaps, this here; and when a chap goes through this life makin' it his leadin' principle to care about nobody, he mustn't be surprised if it ends by nobody carin' for him. Yes, I know'd Jim Conyers," added the man, slowly and thoughtfully, "and I know'd him under rather pecooliar circumstances."
The landlord and the other man pricked up their ears at this point of the conversation.
The trainer at Mellish Park had, as we know, risen to popularity from the hour in which he had fallen upon the dewy turf in the wood, shot through the heart.
"If there wasn't any particklar objections," the landlord of the Crooked Rabbit said, presently, "I should oncommonly like to hear anything you've got to tell about the poor chap. There's a deal of interest took about the matter in Doncaster, and my customers have scarcely talked of anything else since the inquest."
The man in the velveteen coat rubbed his chin and smoked his pipe reflectively. He was evidently not a very communicative man; but it was also evident that he was rather gratified by the distinction of his position in the little public-house parlour.
This was no other than Mr. Matthew Harrison, the dog-fancier; Aurora's pensioner, the man who had traded upon her secret, and made himself the last link between her and the low-born husband she had abandoned.
Samuel Prodder lifted himself from the Windsor chairs at this juncture. He was too much interested in the conversation to be able to simulate sleep any longer. He got up, stretched his legs and arms, made elaborate show of having just awakened from a profound and refreshing slumber, and asked the landlord of the Crooked Rabbit to mix him another glass of that pineapple-rum grog.
The captain lighted his pipe while his host departed upon this errand. The seaman glanced rather inquisitively at Mr. Harrison; but he was fain to wait until the conversation took its own course, and offered him a safe opportunity of asking a few questions.
"The pecooliar circumstances under which I know'd James Conyers," pursued the dog-fancier, after having taken his own time and smoked out half a pipeful of tobacco, to the acute aggravation of his auditory, "was a woman,—and a stunner she was, too; one of your regular spitfires, that'll knock you into the middle of next week if you so much as asks her how she does in a manner she don't approve of. She was a woman, she was, and a handsome one, too; but she was more than a match for James, with all his brass. Why, I've seen her great black eyes flash fire upon him," said Mr. Harrison, looking dreamily before him, as if he could even at that moment see the flashing eyes of which he spoke; "I've seen her look at him, as if she'd wither him up from off the ground he trod upon, with that contempt she felt for him."
Samuel Prodder grew strangely uneasy as he listened to this man's talk of flashing black eyes and angry looks directed at James Conyers. Had he not seen his niece's shining orbs flame fire upon the dead man only a quarter of an hour before he received his death-wound? Only so long—Heaven help that wretched girl!—only so long before the man for whom she had expressed unmitigated hate had fallen by the hand of an unknown murderer.
"She must have been a tartar, this young woman of yours," the landlord observed to Mr. Harrison.
"She was a tartar," answered the dog-fancier: "but she was the right sort, too, for all that; and what's more, she was a kind friend to me. There's never a quarter-day goes by that I don't have cause to say so."
He poured out a fresh glass of beer as he spoke, and tossed the liquor down his capacious throat with the muttered sentiment, "Here's towards her."
Another man had entered the room while Mr. Prodder had sat smoking his pipe and drinking his rum-and-water, a hump-backed, white-faced man, who sneaked into the public-house parlour as if he had no right to be there, and seated himself noiselessly at one of the tables.
Samuel Prodder remembered this man. He had seen him through the window in the lighted parlour of the north lodge when the body of James Conyers had been carried into the cottage. It was not likely, however, that the man had seen the captain.
"Why, if it isn't Steeve Hargraves from the Park!" exclaimed the landlord, as he looked round and recognized the "Softy"; "he'll be able to tell plenty, I dare say. We've been talking of the murder, Steeve," he added, in a conciliatory manner.
Mr. Hargraves rubbed his clumsy hands about his head, and looked furtively, yet searchingly, at each member of the little assembly.
"Ay, sure," he said; "folks don't seem to me to talk about owght else. It was bad enoogh oop at the Park; but it seems worse in Doncaster."
"Are you stayin' up town, Steeve?" asked the landlord, who seemed to be upon pretty intimate terms with the late hanger-on of Mellish Park.
"Yes, I'm stayin' oop town for a bit; I've been out of place since the business oop there; you know how I was turned out of the house that had sheltered me ever since I was a boy, and you know who did it. Never mind that; I'm out o' place now, but you may draw me a mug of ale; I've money enough for that."
Samuel Prodder looked at the "Softy" with considerable interest. He had played a small part in the great catastrophe, yet it was scarcely likely that he should be able to throw any light upon the mystery. What was he but a poor half-witted hanger-on of the murdered man, who had lost all by his patron's untimely death?
The "Softy" drank his beer, and sat, silent, ungainly, and disagreeable to look upon, amongst the other men.
"There's a reg'lar stir in the Manchester papers about this murder, Steeve," the landlord said, by way of opening a conversation; "it don't seem to me as if the business was goin' to be let drop over-quietly. There'll be a second inquest, I reckon, or a examination, or a memorial to the Secretary of State, or summat o' that sort, before long."
The "Softy's" face, expressionless almost always, expressed nothing now but stolid indifference; the stupid indifference of a half-witted ignoramus, to whose impenetrable intellect even the murder of his own master was a far-away and obscure event, not powerful enough to awaken any effort of attention.
"Yes; I'll lay there'll be a stir about it before long," the landlord continued. "The papers put it down very strong that the murder must have been done by some one in the house; by some one as had more knowledge of the man, and more reason to be angry against him, than strangers could have. Now you, Hargraves, were living at the place; you must have seen and heard things that other people haven't had the opportunity to hear. What doyouthink about it?"
Mr. Hargraves scratched his head reflectively.
"The papers are cleverer nor me," he said at last; "it wouldn't do for a poor fond chap like me to go agen such as them. I think what they think. I think it was some one about the pleace did it; some one that had good reason to be spiteful again him that's dead."
An imperceptible shudder passed over the "Softy's" frame as he alluded to the murdered man. It was strange with what gusto the other three men discussed the ghastly subject; returning to it persistently in spite of every interruption, and in a manner licking their lips over its gloomiest details. It was surely more strange that they should do this, than that Stephen Hargraves should exhibit some reluctance to talk freely upon the dismal topic.
"And who do you think had cause to be spiteful agen him, Steeve?" asked the landlord. "Had him and Mr. Mellish fell out about the management of the stable?"
"Him andMr.Mellish had never had an angry word pass between 'em, as I've heerd of," answered the "Softy."
He laid such a singular emphasis upon the wordMr.that the three men looked at him wonderingly, and Captain Prodder took his pipe from his mouth and grasped the back of a neighbouring chair as firmly as if he had entertained serious thoughts of flinging that trifle of furniture at the "Softy's" head.
"Who else could it have been, then, as had a spite against the man?" asked some one.
Samuel Prodder scarcely knew who it was who spoke, for his attention was concentrated upon Stephen Hargraves; and he never once removed his gaze from the white face, and dull, blinking eyes.
"Who was it that went to meet him late at night in the north lodge?" whispered the "Softy." "Who was it that couldn't find words that was bad enough for him, or looks that was angry enough for him? Who was it that wrote him a letter,—I've got it, and I mean to keep it too,—askin' of him to be in the wood at such-and-such a time upon the very night of the murder? Who was it that met him there in the dark,—as others could tell as well as me? Who was it that did this?"
No one answered. The men looked at each other and at the "Softy" with open mouths, but said nothing. Samuel Prodder grasped the topmost bar of the wooden chair still more tightly, and his broad bosom rose and fell beneath his tourist waistcoat like a raging sea; but he sat in the shadow of the queerly-shaped room, and no one noticed him.
"Who was it that ran away from her own home and hid herself, after the inquest?" whispered the "Softy." "Who was it that was afraid to stop in her own house, but must run away to London without leaving word where she was gone for anybody? Who was it that was seen upon the mornin' before the murder, meddlin' with her husband's guns and pistols, and was seen by more than me, as them that saw her will testify when the time comes? Who was this?"
Again there was no answer. The raging sea laboured still more heavily under Captain Prodder's waistcoat, and his grasp tightened, if it could tighten, on the rail of the chair; but he uttered no word. There was more to come, perhaps, yet; and he might want every chair in the room as instruments with which to appease his vengeance.
"You was talkin', when I just came in, a while ago, of a young woman in connection with Mr. James Conyers, sir," said the "Softy," turning to Matthew Harrison; "a black-eyed woman, you said; might she have been his wife?"
The dog-fancier started, and deliberated for a few moments before he answered.
"Well, in a manner of speaking, she was his wife," he said at last, rather reluctantly.
"She was a bit above him, loike—wasn't she?" asked the "Softy." "She had more money than she knew what to do with—eh?"
The dog-fancier stared at the questioner.
"You know who she was, I suppose?" he said suspiciously.
"I think I do," whispered Stephen Hargraves. "She was the daughter of Mr. Floyd, the rich banker oop in London; and she married our squire while her first husband was alive; and she wrote a letter to him that's dead, askin' of him to meet her upon the night of the murder."
Captain Prodder flung aside the chair. It was too poor a weapon with which to wreak his wrath; and with one bound he sprang upon the "Softy," seizing the astonished wretch by the throat, and overturning a table, with a heap of crashing glasses and pewter pots, that rolled away into the corners of the room.
"It's a lie!" roared the sailor; "you foul-mouthed hound! you know that it's a lie! Give me something," cried Captain Prodder; "give me something, somebody, and give it quick, that I may pound this man into a mash as soft as a soaked ship's biscuit; for if I use my fists to him I shall murder him, as sure as I stand here. It's my sister Eliza's child you want to slander, is it? You'd better have kept your mouth shut while you was in her own uncle's company. I meant to have kep' quiet here," cried the captain, with a vague recollection that he had betrayed himself and his purpose; "but was I to keep quiet and hear lies told of my own niece? Take care," he added, shaking the "Softy," till Mr. Hargraves's teeth chattered in his head, "or I'll knock those crooked teeth of yours down your ugly throat, to hinder you from telling any more lies of my dead sister's only child."
"They weren't lies," gasped the "Softy," doggedly; "I said I've got the letter, and I have got it. Let me go, and I'll show it to you."
The sailor released the dirty wisp of cotton neckerchief by which he had held Stephen Hargraves; but he still retained a grasp upon his coat-collar.
"Shall I show you the letter?" asked the "Softy."
"Yes."
Mr. Hargraves fumbled in his pockets for some minutes, and ultimately produced a dirty scrap of crumpled paper.
It was the brief scrawl which Aurora had written to James Conyers, telling him to meet her in the wood. The murdered man had thrown it carelessly aside after reading it, and it had been picked up by Stephen Hargraves.
He would not trust the precious document out of his own clumsy hands, but held it before Captain Prodder for inspection.
The sailor stared at it, anxious, bewildered, fearful; he scarcely knew how to estimate the importance of the wretched scrap of circumstantial evidence. There were the words, certainly, written in a bold, scarcely feminine, hand. But these words in themselves proved nothing until it could be proved that his niece had written them.
"How do I know as my sister Eliza's child wrote that?" he asked.
"Ay, sure; but she did though," answered the "Softy." "But, coom, let me go now, will you?" he added, with cringing civility; "I didn't know you was her uncle. How was I to know owght about it? I don't want to make any mischief agen Mrs. Mellish, though she's been no friend to me. I didn't say anything at the inquest, did I? though I might have said as much as I've said to-night, if it comes to that, and have told no lies. But when folks bothermeabout him that's dead, and ask this and that and t'oother, and go on as if I had a right to know all about it, I'm free to tell my thoughts, I suppose? surely I'm free to tell my thoughts?"
"I'll go straight to Mr. Mellish, and tell him what you've said, you scoundrel!" cried the captain.
"Ay, do," whispered Stephen Hargraves maliciously; "there's some of it that'll be stale news to him, anyhow."
Mr. and Mrs. Mellish returned to the house in which they had been so happy; but it is not to be supposed that the pleasant country mansion could be again, all in a moment, the home that it had been before the advent of James Conyers the trainer, and the acting of the tragedy that had so abruptly concluded his brief service.
No; every pang that Aurora had felt, every agony that John had endured, had left a certain impress upon the scene in which it had been suffered. The subtle influences of association hung heavily about the familiar place. We are the slaves of such associations, and we are powerless to stand against their silent force. Scraps of colour and patches of gilding upon the walls will bear upon them, as plainly as if they were covered with hieroglyphical inscriptions, the shadows of the thoughts of those who have looked upon them. Transient and chance effects of light or shade will recall the same effects, seen and observed—as Fagin observed the broken spike upon the guarded dock—in some horrible crisis of misery and despair. The commonest household goods and chattels will bear mute witness of your agonies: an easy-chair will say to you, "It was upon me you cast yourself in that paroxysm of rage and grief;" the pattern of a dinner-service may recall to you that fatal day on which you pushed your food untasted from you, and turned your face, like grief-stricken King David, to the wall. The bed you lay upon, the curtains that sheltered you, the pattern of the paper on the walls, the common every-day sounds of the household, coming muffled and far-away to that lonely room in which you hid yourself,—all these bear record of your sorrow, and of that hideous double action of the mind which impresses these things most vividly upon you at the very time when it would seem they should be most indifferent.
But every sorrow, every pang of wounded love, or doubt, or jealousy, or despair, is a fact—a fact once, and a fact for ever; to be outlived, but very rarely to be forgotten; leaving such an impress upon our lives as no future joys can quite wear out. The murder has been done, and the hands are red. The sorrow has been suffered; and however beautiful Happiness may be to us, she can never be the bright virginal creature she once was; for she has passed through the valley of the shadow of death, and we have discovered that she is not immortal.
It is not to be expected, then, that John Mellish and his wife Aurora could feel quite the same in the pretty chambers of the Yorkshire mansion as they had felt before the first shipwreck of their happiness. They had been saved from peril and destruction, and landed, by the mercy of Providence, high and dry upon the shore that seemed to promise them pleasure and security henceforth. But the memory of the tempest was yet new to them; and upon the sands that were so smooth to-day they had seen yesterday the breakers beating with furious menace, and hurrying onward to destroy them.
The funeral of the trainer had not yet taken place, and it was scarcely a pleasant thing for Mr. Mellish to remember that the body of the murdered man still lay, stark and awful, in the oak coffin that stood upon trestles in the rustic chamber at the north lodge.
"I'll pull that place down, Lolly," John said, as he turned away from an open window, through which he could see the Gothic chimneys of the trainer's late habitation glimmering redly above the trees. "I'll pull the place down, my pet. The gates are never used, except by the stable-boys; I'll knock them down, and the lodge too, and build some loose boxes for the brood-mares with the materials. And we'll go away to the south of France, darling, and run across to Italy, if you like, and forget all about this horrid business."
"The funeral will take place to-morrow, John, will it not?" Aurora asked.
"To-morrow, dear!—to-morrow is Wednesday, you know. It was upon Thursday night that——"
"Yes, yes," she answered, interrupting him. "I know; I know."
She shuddered as she spoke, remembering the ghastly circumstances of the night to which he alluded; remembering how the dead man had stood before her, strong in health and vitality, and had insolently defied her hatred. Away from Mellish Park, she had only remembered that the burden of her life had been removed from her, and that she was free. But here—here upon the scene of the hideous story—she recollected the manner of her release; and that memory oppressed her even more terribly than her old secret, her only sorrow.
She had never seen or known in this man, who had been murdered, one redeeming quality, one generous thought. She had known him as a liar, a schemer, a low and paltry swindler, a selfish spendthrift, extravagant to wantonness upon himself, but meaner than words could tell towards others; a profligate, a traitor, a glutton, a drunkard. This is what she had found behind her school-girl's fancy for a handsome face, for violet-tinted eyes, and soft-brown curling hair. Do not call her hard, then, if sorrow had no part in the shuddering horror she felt as she conjured up the image of him in his death-hour, and saw the glazing eyes turned angrily upon her. She was little more than twenty; and it had been her fate always to take the wrong step, always to be misled by the vague finger-posts upon life's high-road, and to choose the longest, and crookedest, and hardest way towards the goal she sought to reach.
Had she, upon the discovery of her first husband's infidelity, called the law to her aid,—she was rich enough to command its utmost help, though Sir Cresswell Cresswell did not then keep the turnpike upon such a royal road to divorce as he does now,—she might have freed herself from the hateful chains so foolishly linked together, and might have defied this dead man to torment or assail her.
But she had chosen to follow the counsel of expediency, and it had led her upon the crooked way through which I have striven to follow her. I feel that there is much need of apology for her. Her own hands had sown the dragon's teeth, from whose evil seed had sprung up armed men, strong enough to rend and devour her. But then, if she had been faultless, she could not have been the heroine of this story; for I think some wise man of old remarked, that the perfect women were those who left no histories behind them, but went through life upon such a tranquil course of quiet well-doing as left no footprints on the sands of time; only mute records hidden here and there, deep in the grateful hearts of those who had been blest by them.
The presence of the dead man within the boundary of Mellish Park made itself felt throughout the household that had once been such a jovial one. The excitement of the catastrophe had passed away, and only the dull gloom remained—a sense of oppression not to be cast aside. It was felt in the servants' hall, as well as in Aurora's luxurious apartments. It was felt by the butler as well as by the master. No worse deed of violence than the slaughter of an unhappy stag, who had rushed for a last refuge to the Mellish Park flower-garden, and had been run down by furious hounds upon the velvet lawn, had ever before been done within the boundary of the young squire's home. The house was an old one, and had stood, gray and ivy-shrouded, through the perilous days of civil war. There were secret passages, in which loyal squires of Mellish Park had hidden from ferocious Roundheads bent upon riot and plunder. There were broad hearth-stones, upon which sturdy blows had been given and exchanged by strong men in leathern jerkins and clumsy iron-heeled boots; but the Royalist Mellish had always ultimately escaped,—up a chimney, or down a cellar, or behind a curtain of tapestry; and the wicked Praise-the-Lord Thompsons, and Smiter-of-the-Philistines Joneses, had departed after plundering the plate-chest and emptying the wine-barrels. There had never before been set upon the place in which John Mellish had first seen the light, the red hand of MURDER.
It was not strange, then, that the servants sat long over their meals, and talked in solemn whispers of the events of the past week. There was more than the murder to talk about. There was the flight of Mrs. Mellish from beneath her husband's roof upon the very day of the inquest. It was all very well for John to give out that his wife had gone up to town upon a visit to her cousin, Mrs. Bulstrode. Such ladies as Mrs. Mellish do not go upon visits without escort, without a word of notice, without the poorest pretence of bag and baggage. No; the mistress of Mellish Park had fled away from her home under the influence of some sudden panic. Had not Mrs. Powell said as much, or hinted as much? for when did that lady-like creature ever vulgarize her opinions by stating them plainly? The matter was obvious. Mr. Mellish had taken, no doubt, the wisest course: he had pursued his wife and had brought her back, and had done his best to hush up the matter; but Aurora's departure had been a flight,—a sudden and unpremeditated flight.
The lady's-maid,—ah, how many handsome dresses, given to her by a generous mistress, lay neatly folded in the girl's boxes on the second story!—told how Aurora had come to her room, pale and wild-looking, and had dressed herself unassisted for that hurried journey, upon the day of the inquest. The girl liked her mistress, loved her, perhaps; for Aurora had a wondrous and almost dangerous faculty for winning the love of those who came near her; but it was so pleasant to have something to say about this all-absorbing topic, and to be able to make oneself a feature in the solemn conclave. At first they had talked only of the murdered man, speculating upon his life and history, and building up a dozen theoretical views of the murder. But the tide had turned now, and they talked of their mistress; not connecting her in any positive or openly expressed manner with the murder, but commenting upon the strangeness of her conduct, and dwelling much upon those singular coincidences by which she had happened to be roaming in the park upon the night of the catastrophe, and to run away from her home on the day of the inquest.
"Itwasodd, you know," the cook said; "and them black-eyed women are generally regular spirity ones.Ishouldn't like to offend Master John's wife. Do you remember how she paid into t' 'Softy'?"
"But there was naught o' sort between her and the trainer, was there?" asked some one.
"I don't know about that. But 'Softy' said she hated him like poison, and that there was no love lost between 'em."
But why should Aurora have hated the dead man? The ensign's widow had left the sting of her venom behind her, and had suggested to these servants, by hints and innuendos, something so far more base and hideous than the truth, that I will not sully these pages by recording it. But Mrs. Powell had of course done this foul thing without the utterance of one ugly word that could have told against her gentility, had it been repeated aloud in a crowded drawing-room. She had only shrugged her shoulders, and lifted her straw-coloured eyebrows, and sighed half regretfully, half deprecatingly; but she had blasted the character of the woman she hated as shamefully as if she had uttered a libel too gross for Holywell Street. She had done a wrong that could only be undone by the exhibition of the blood-stained certificate in John's keeping, and the revelation of the whole story connected with that fatal scrap of paper. She had done this before packing her boxes; and she had gone away from the house that had sheltered her, well-pleased at having done this wrong; and comforting herself yet further by the intention of doing more mischief through the medium of the penny post.
It is not to be supposed that the Manchester paper, which had caused so serious a discussion in the humble parlour of the Crooked Rabbit, had been overlooked in the servants' hall at Mellish Park. The Manchester journals were regularly forwarded to the young squire from that metropolis of cotton-spinning and horse-racing; and the mysterious letter in the 'Guardian' had been read and commented upon. Every creature in that household, from the fat housekeeper, who had kept the keys of the store-room through nearly three generations, to the rheumatic trainer, Langley, had a certain interest in the awful question. A nervous footman turned pale as that passage was read which declared that the murder had been committed by some member of the household; but I think there were some younger and more adventurous spirits—especially a pretty housemaid, who had seen the thrilling drama of 'Susan Hopley' performed at the Doncaster theatre during the spring meeting—who would have rather liked to be accused of the crime, and to emerge spotless and triumphant from the judicial ordeal, through the evidence of an idiot, or a magpie, or a ghost, or some other witness common and popular in criminal courts.
Did Aurora know anything of all this? No; she only knew that a dull and heavy sense of oppression in her own breast made the very summer atmosphere floating in at the open windows seem stifling and poisonous; that the house, which had once been so dear to her, was as painfully and perpetually haunted by the ghastly presence of the murdered man, as if the dead trainer had stalked palpably about the corridors wrapped in a blood-stained winding-sheet.
She dined with her husband alone in the great dining-room. They were very silent at dinner, for the presence of the servants sealed their lips upon the topic that was uppermost in their minds. John looked anxiously at his wife every now and then, for he saw that her face had grown paler since her arrival at Mellish; but he waited until they were alone before he spoke.
"My darling," he said, as the door closed behind the butler and his subordinate, "I am sure you are ill. This business has been too much for you."
"It is the air of this house that seems to oppress me, John," answered Aurora. "I had forgotten all about this dreadful business while I was away. Now that I have come back, and find that the time which has been so long to me—so long in misery and anxiety, and so long in joy, my own dear love, through you—is in reality only a few days, and that the murdered man still lies near us, I—; I shall be better when—when the funeral is over, John."
"My poor darling, I was a fool to bring you back. I should never have done so, but for Talbot's advice. He urged me so strongly to come back directly. He said that if there should be any disturbance about the murder, we ought to be upon the spot."
"Disturbance! What disturbance?" cried Aurora.
Her face blanched as she spoke, and her heart sank within her. What further disturbance could there be? Was the ghastly business as yet unfinished, then? She knew—alas! only too well—that there could be no investigation of this matter which would not bring her name before the world linked with the name of the dead man. How much she had endured in order to keep that shameful secret from the world! How much she had sacrificed in the hope of saving her father from humiliation! And now, at the last, when she had thought that the dark chapter of her life was finished, the hateful page blotted out,—now, at the very last, there was a probability of some new disturbance which would bring her name and her history into every newspaper in England.
"Oh, John, John!" she cried, bursting into a passion of hysterical sobs, and covering her face with her clasped hands; "am I never to hear the last of this? Am I never, never, never to be released from the consequences of my miserable folly?"
The butler entered the room as she said this; she rose hurriedly, and walked to one of the windows, in order to conceal her face from the man.
"I beg your pardon, sir," the old servant said; "but they've found something in the park, and I thought perhaps you might like to know——"
"They've found something! What?" exclaimed John, utterly bewildered between his agitation at the sight of his wife's grief and his endeavour to understand the man.
"A pistol, sir. One of the stable-lads found it just now. He went to the wood with another boy to look at the place where—the—the man was shot; and he's brought back a pistol he found there. It was close against the water, but hid away among the weeds and rushes. Whoever threw it there, thought, no doubt, to throw it in the pond; but Jim, that's one of the boys, fancied he saw something glitter, and sure enough it was the barrel of a pistol; and I think must be the one that the trainer was shot with, Mr. John."
"A pistol!" cried Mr. Mellish; "let me see it."
His servant handed him the weapon. It was small enough for a toy, but none the less deadly in a skilful hand. It was a rich man's fancy, deftly carried out by some cunning gunsmith, and enriched by elaborate inlaid work of purple steel and tarnished silver. It was rusty, from exposure to rain and dew; but Mr. Mellish knew the pistol well, for it was his own.
It was his own; one of his pet playthings; and it had been kept in the room which was only entered by privileged persons,—the room in which his wife had busied herself with the rearrangement of his guns upon the day of the murder.
Talbot Bulstrode and his wife came to Mellish Park a few days after the return of John and Aurora. Lucy was pleased to come to her cousin; pleased to be allowed to love her without reservation; grateful to her husband for his gracious goodness in setting no barrier between her and the friend she loved.
And Talbot,—who shall tell the thoughts that were busy in his mind, as he sat in a corner of the first-class carriage, to all outward appearance engrossed in the perusal of a 'Times' leader?
I wonder how much of the Thunderer's noble Saxon English Mr. Bulstrode comprehended that morning! The broad white paper on which the 'Times' is printed serves as a convenient screen for a man's face. Heaven knows what agonies have been sometimes endured behind that printed mask! A woman, married, and a happy mother, glances carelessly enough at the Births and Marriages and Deaths, and reads perhaps that the man she loved, and parted with, and broke her heart for, fifteen or twenty years before, has fallen, shot through the heart, far away upon an Indian battle-field. She holds the paper firmly enough before her face; and her husband goes on with his breakfast, and stirs his coffee, or breaks his egg, while she suffers her agony,—while the comfortable breakfast-table darkens and goes away from her, and the long-ago day comes back upon which the cruel ship left Southampton, and the hard voices of well-meaning friends held forth monotonously upon the folly of improvident marriages. Would it not be better, by-the-by, for wives to make a practice of telling their husbands all the sentimental little stories connected with the pre-matrimonial era? Would it not be wiser to gossip freely about Charles's dark eyes and moustache, and to hope that the poor fellow is getting on well in the Indian service, than to keep a skeleton, in the shape of a phantom ensign in the 87th, hidden away in some dark chamber of the feminine memory?
But other than womanly agonies are suffered behind the 'Times.' The husband reads bad news of the railway company in whose shares he has so rashly invested that money which his wife believes safely lodged in the jog-trot, three-per-cent.-yielding Consols. The dashing son, with Newmarket tendencies, reads evil tidings of the horse he has backed so boldly, perhaps at the advice of a Manchester prophet, who warranted putting his friends in the way of winning a hatful of money for the small consideration of three-and-sixpence in postage-stamps. Visions of a book that it will not be very easy to square; of a black list of play or pay engagements; of a crowd of angry book-men clamorous for their dues, and not slow to hint at handy horse-ponds, and possible tar and feathers, for defaulting swells and sneaking "welshers"; all these things flit across the disorganized brain of the young man, while his sisters are entreating to be told whether the 'Crown Diamonds' is to be performed that night, and if "dear Miss Pyne" will warble Rode's air before the curtain falls. The friendly screen hides his face; and by the time he has looked for the Covent Garden advertisements, and given the required information, he is able to set the paper down and proceed calmly with his breakfast, pondering ways and means as he does so.
Lucy Bulstrode read a High-Church novel, while her husband sat with the 'Times' before his face, thinking of all that had happened to him since he had first met the banker's daughter. How far away that old love-story seemed to have receded since the quiet domestic happiness of his life had begun in his marriage with Lucy! He had never been false, in the remotest shadow of a thought, to his second love; but now that he knew the secret of Aurora's life, he could but look back and wonder how he should have borne that cruel revelation if John's fate had been his; if he had trusted the woman he loved in spite of the world, in spite of her own strange words, which had so terribly strengthened his worst fears, so cruelly redoubled his darkest doubts.
"Poor girl!" he thought; "it was scarcely strange that she should shrink from telling that humiliating story. I was not tender enough. I confronted her in my obstinate and pitiless pride. I thought of myself rather than of her, and of her sorrow. I was barbarous and ungentlemanly; and then I wondered that she refused to confide in me."
Talbot Bulstrode, reasoning after the fact, saw the weak points of his conduct with a preternatural clearness of vision, and could not repress a sharp pang of regret that he had not acted more generously. There was no infidelity to Lucy in this thought. He would not have exchanged his devoted little wife for the black-browed divinity of the past, though an all-powerful fairy had stood at his side ready to cancel his nuptials and tie a fresh knot between him and Aurora. But he was a gentleman, and he felt that he had grievously wronged, insulted and humiliated a woman whose worst fault had been the trusting folly of an innocent girl.
"I left her on the ground in that room at Felden," he thought,—"kneeling on the ground, with her beautiful head bowed down before me. O my God, can I ever forget the agony of that moment! Can I ever forget what it cost me to do that which I thought was right!"
The cold perspiration broke out upon his forehead as he remembered that bygone pain, as it may do with a cowardly person who recalls too vividly the taking out of a three-pronged double-tooth, or the cutting off of a limb.
"John Mellish was ten times wiser than I," thought Mr. Bulstrode; "he trusted to his instinct, and recognized a true woman when he met her. I used to despise him at Rugby because he couldn't construe Cicero. I never thought he'd live to be wiser than me."
Talbot Bulstrode folded the 'Times' newspaper, and laid it down in the empty seat by his side. Lucy shut the third volume of her novel. How should she care to read when it pleased her husband to desist from reading?
"Lucy," said Mr. Bulstrode, taking his wife's hand (they had the carriage to themselves—a piece of good fortune which often happens to travellers who give the guard half-a-crown),—"Lucy, I once did your cousin a great wrong; I want to atone for it now. If any trouble, which no one yet foresees, should come upon her, I want to be her friend. Do you think I am right in wishing this, dear?"
"Right, Talbot!"
Mrs. Bulstrode could only repeat the word in unmitigated surprise. When did she ever think him anything but the truest and wisest and most perfect of created beings?
Everything seemed very quiet at Mellish when the visitors arrived. There was no one in the drawing-room, nor in the smaller room within the drawing-room; the Venetians were closed, for the day was close and sultry; there were vases of fresh flowers upon the tables; but there were no open books, no litter of frivolous needlework or drawing-materials, to indicate Aurora's presence.
"Mr. and Mrs. Mellish expected you by the later train, I believe, sir," the servant said, as he ushered Talbot and his wife into the drawing-room.
"Shall I go and look for Aurora?" Lucy said to her husband. "She is in the morning-room, I dare say."
Talbot suggested that it would be better, perhaps, to wait till Mrs. Mellish came to them. So Lucy was fain to remain where she was. She went to one of the open windows, and pushed the shutters apart. The blazing sunshine burst into the room, and drowned it in light. The smooth lawn was aflame with scarlet geraniums and standard roses, and all manner of gaudily-coloured blossoms; but Mrs. Bulstrode looked beyond this vividly-tintedparterreto the thick woods, that loomed darkly purple against the glowing sky.
It was in that very wood that her husband had declared his love for her; the same wood that had since been outraged by violence and murder.
"The—the man is buried, I suppose, Talbot?" she said to her husband.
"I believe so, my dear."