XXXVIII
Jeffray came to a halt before Mr. Lancelot, who flourished his hat, made his cousin a stiff bow, as though he were saluting an acknowledged enemy.
“I have the honor, sir, to wish you a very good-morning. I must apologize”—and Mr. Lot chuckled—“for disturbing you with the lady yonder. Mr. Jeffray—Mr. Robert Beaty, permit me to introduce you to each other.”
The two gentlemen bowed with the most perfect gravity. Jeffray held himself very upright after the salute, his lips compressed into a straight line.
“And for what purpose, gentlemen,” he said, striking straight at the heart of the matter, “am I indebted for the pleasure of your presence here at Rodenham?”
Jeffray’s composure did not appear to trouble Mr. Hardacre for a moment. He expected a certain measure of impudence from his cousin, seeing that he had a trim waist and a plumb figure to inspire him. Lot nodded to Mr. Beaty, and signed to him to withdraw. The useful supernumerary received the hint in silence, and strolling away towards the end of the terrace, amused himself by staring hard at Bess.
Lot Hardacre drew Sir Peter’s epistle from his pocket, and handed it to Richard with a bow.
“Be so good as to read it,” he said, bluntly.
Jeffray, imagining its contents, broke the seal and ran his eyes rapidly over Dr. Jessel’s elegant sentences. He colored a little as he read the letter, the declamatory abuse spreading itself before him, the charges of cowardice and dishonor awakening in him a feeling of quiet contempt. Jeffray read the letter through without one single shock of compunction or of shame. He folded it up again composedly, knowing that Lot was watching him, and taking therefore a pride in flouting his cousin’s curiosity.
“I am much honored by Sir Peter Hardacre’s bad opinion of me,” he said, tearing the letter in pieces and scattering them upon the stones.
Mr. Lot’s red face grew a shade redder.
“The devil you are?” he answered.
“It is very evident, sir, that a man of low character like myself, is—on your father’s showing—utterly unworthy of approaching Miss Hardacre with a view to matrimony.”
“Then, sir, you admit the truth of the charges made in my father’s letter?”
Jeffray kept his eyes fixed on his cousin’s red and lowering face.
“I recognize none of these charges,” he retorted, calmly, “for the simple reason that I feel myself justified by my own conscience. I do not love your sister, sir, I have no intention of doing her the great wrong of perjuring myself by promising to marry her.”
Mr. Lot took three strides to the left and three strides back again, as though setting to a partner in a dance. He turned and faced Jeffray again, his eyes glinting with anger, his clinched fists quivering with the inclination to dash itself in his kinsman’s face.
“This is your answer, sir?” he said.
“My answer, Lot.”
“Then, sir, I call you just what you are, a most infernal scoundrel.”
Jeffray, cooling in contrast to his cousin’s indignation, bowed to him, and condescended to smile.
“Thanks for your bad opinion, cousin,” he said.
“Cousin, damn you, don’t call me cousin! Tell me who the wench is who is making play for you over here.”
Jeffray drew himself instantly.
“Let me advise you, sir,” he said, “to refrain from repeating an insult to a woman’s honor.”
Mr. Lot gave a deep, ventral laugh, flashed a contemptuous look at his cousin, and cocked his thumb towards Bess.
“You needn’t talk so fine about such baggage,” he said.
“Lot Hardacre!”
“You can see the color of her stockings, eh? I tell you, Richard Jeffray, you have insulted my sister’s affections, jilted her, sir, for a mere drab. Take it straight in the face.”
Mr. Lot’s fist lunged out suddenly, but Jeffray, who had been watching for the blow, sprang back out of the reach of his cousin’s arm.
“Be careful,” he said, whipping out his sword and presenting the point towards Mr. Lot, “I will run you through if you try any of your drayman’s methods.”
Lot glared at him and felt for his sword-hilt.
“Will you fight?” he roared.
“Readily.”
“I’ll give you a mark to remember, sir—by gad, I will!”
Jeffray bowed to him very quietly.
“Permit me to call my second,” he said, “Mr. Richard Wilson is in the library.”
“Fetch him out,” growled the hero of the moment.
“The lawn below the terrace will serve us.”
Jeffray turned, sword in hand, and entered the house. He crossed the hall, found Wilson reading in the library, and explained the affair to him in a few words. The painter appeared distressed and by no means eager to further the quarrel. Jeffray smothered his objections, appealed to him as a friend, and soon had Wilson out upon the terrace. Mr. Beaty and Lot Hardacre were conferring together in undertones. On the seat at the end of the terrace sat Bess, looking restless and alert about the eyes. She started up when Jeffray reappeared with Wilson upon the terrace, and moved some paces towards him.
Jeffray, after introducing Wilson to Mr. Robert Beaty, withdrew with a slight bow and passed on to speak with Bess. Knowing that Lot Hardacre was watching him narrowly, he bore himself with all the courtliness he could command towards the girl, and pointed her back to the seat that she had just abandoned.
“I have a debt of honor to pay,” he said, with a smile.
“You are going to fight that man?”
“Yes.”
“Who is he? I hate him.”
“I will tell you everything afterwards. Will you go into the house or stay here on the terrace?”
Their eyes met, and they stood looking at each other with a mute and indescribable tenderness.
“I will stay here,” she said, at last.
“Well chosen,” he answered her.
She held out her hands, stooping a little towards him, her face bathed in the dearness of her love.
“God keep you safe—”
“For your sake, Bess?”
“Yes, yes, for my sake, Mr. Richard.”
Jeffray bent, took her hand, touched it momentarily with his lips. He turned and walked back to where the three gentlemen were waiting at the head of the stairway leading to the lawns. Bess had gone back to her seat against the balustrade. She knelt on it, pressing her hands to her bosom, her eyes following Jeffray as he passed down with the others from the terrace.
Mr. Beaty and Dick Wilson chose their ground immediately below the stairway where the old turf spread a crisp green under their feet. The swords were measured, and found to be of equal length. Lot Hardacre stripped off his red coat and gaudy waistcoat, gave them to his second, and rolled up his shirt-sleeves over his plump and muscular forearms. He threw his hat aside on the grass, wiped his right hand on his breeches, and took his sword from Mr. Beaty with a genial and meaning grin. Mr. Lot was at no loss for confidence and courage despite the proverbial cowardice of bullies. Undoubtedly he despised Jeffray, smiling rather contemptuously as he ran his eyes over his cousin’s slim and graceful figure.
Jeffray had thrown aside his coat and waistcoat, and was standing facing Lot, in black breeches, white silk stockings, and spotless shirt. The point of his sword rested on the grass. Wilson, who was looking at him anxiously, marked the firm, compressed mouth, the alert brightness in the dark eyes, the fine pose of the sinewy and agile figure. The lad was on his mettle, and looked as quiet and dangerous as any veteran. His simple directness of movement contrasted with Mr. Hardacre’s shoulder-swinging swagger and all the flourish and gusto of his self-conceit.
They saluted and began. Bess, leaning on the balustrading of the terrace, with her chin between her hands, watched them as though magnetized. Lot Hardacre had opened the attack with a series of florid and rather clumsy passes that suggested more strength and bombast than clear skill. He smiled all the time, his mouth slightly open, his blue eyes agleam. Jeffray appeared in no way flustered by the hectoring vigor of his cousin’s assault. He kept his temper and took the measure of his man, parrying all thrusts with an alertness and precision that betrayed how well he had profited by his schooling at The Wells.
It was not long before Lot Hardacre began to sweat. The expression on his round and buxom face changed remarkably. He smiled no longer, but looked puzzled and not a little impatient. Who the devil would have thought that this scholar fellow could make so good a fight of it? Instinctive and obstinate contempt got the better of Mr. Hardacre’s temper. He began to fume and swear under his breath at finding Jeffray’s sword ever at point against him. What, should he, Lot Hardacre, be kept playing by a mere lad who could do nothing but write poetry!
Losing his coolness and his self-restraint, he closed in on his cousin, and put yet more dash and spirit into his attack. Even to Bess’s keen but uncritical eyes it seemed that the big man was no match for Jeffray in litheness and suppleness of wrist. Richard was swifter, cooler, defter on his feet. He carried himself as though he could go on fencing for an hour, while Lot, red and sweaty, stamped to and fro, grunting and laboring, setting his teeth, and breathing fiercely through his nostrils.
Suddenly the whole method of the bout changed. Jeffray’s sword began to stab and glimmer, coming at every pass within perilous nearness to his cousin’s skin. Lot Hardacre began to tire and give ground. He seemed flurried, bustled, winded, and out of heart. Jeffray pressed him harder than before, amused by the astonished fury on his cousin’s face. He took his chance at last, and clinched the argument. Feinting, he lunged in under Lot’s swerving blade, and ran him through the flesh of the right breast a hand’s-breadth below the shoulder.
Lot Hardacre snarled like a hurt dog, staggered, and fell back against Mr. Beaty, who had sprung forward to catch him. A broadening patch of scarlet showed on the white shirt, and blood trickled down the wounded man’s sword-arm. He recovered himself, thrust Bob Beaty off with an oath, and stood on guard. Jeffray, who was watching him with his point lowered, drew back and held his sword crosswise across his thigh.
“You are hard hit, Lot,” he said; “you are not fit to fight again.”
Mr. Hardacre ground his teeth and swore at him.
“Are you afraid?” he retorted.
“I warn you—”
“Damn you, put your point up.”
Lot made a dash at him, his mouth working, his eyes looking like the eyes of an angry dog. He thrust savagely at Jeffray, laboring with his breath, blood soaking his white shirt. Once his point grazed Jeffray, and for the moment Bess thought that the sword had passed through his body. Richard, losing patience at last as he realized the sincerity of his cousin’s hate, threw more fierceness into his play, and drove at Lot with swift good-will. For a minute or less there was a grim shimmering and shrilling of steel, a fine tussle fought out fiercely to a finish. Lot let fly a wild thrust, missed, over-reached himself, staggered as he tried to recover. In an instant Jeffray’s sword stabbed out in a flashing counter. The point smote Lot full in the chest.
Lot Hardacre gave a sharp, savage cry, faltered, and fell back two steps. His sword wavered helplessly in the air, his knees bent under him. Both Beaty and Wilson ran to catch him as he staggered and sank. The sword fell from his relaxed fingers. Jeffray, shocked at the sight of this strong man’s agony of defeat, threw his sword away, and bent over his cousin in generous distress.
“How is it with you, Lot?”
“A good quittance, and be damned to you.”
Bob Beaty knelt supporting Lot’s shoulders and pressing his hand over the frothing wound in the man’s chest.
“My God,” he said, “what fools! We brought no surgeon.”
Jeffray, who was looking down at his cousin with mute regret, turned suddenly, and, picking up Lot’s gaudy waistcoat, doubled it into a pad and thrust it into Beaty’s hand.
“Hold it over the wound,” he said; “we must get him into the coach. Drive to Stott’s house at Rookhurst. Quick, Dick, take his shoulders.”
Between them they lifted Lot Hardacre, gray-faced and bloody, weak as a sick child, and carried him up the stairway along the terrace to the coach. A frightened and shaking serving-man opened the coach door. They lifted Lot in as gently as they could, and laid him along the seat with his head resting against Bob Beaty’s shoulder. The serving-man slammed the door and climbed up to the seat behind the coach. The postilion whipped up his horses, and the clumsy carriage swung away on its great springs, leaving Jeffray and Dick Wilson watching it side by side from the terrace.
XXXIX
The anger had melted out of Jeffray’s heart from the moment that he had helped to lift his cousin’s body and bear it with Beaty and Wilson to the coach. The reaction was but the recoiling of a sensitive nature from the violence that had brought a strong man in anguish to the ground. He stood watching the coach as it rolled along between the trees casting up a cloud of summer dust that drifted idly over the long grass.
Wilson, understanding something of the regret that had seized upon his friend’s mind, laid his hand upon Jeffray’s shoulder.
“It was no fault of yours, Richard,” he said, looking earnestly into Jeffray’s face.
The younger man hung his head and sighed.
“He forced the quarrel on me, Dick.”
“And what is more, sir, he had no intention of showing you much mercy. You cannot blame yourself for the poor devil’s fury.”
Jeffray turned at last and remembered Bess. He had almost forgotten her in the fierce emotions of the moment, and in the vision of Lot lying bleeding on the grass. She was still kneeling on the stone bench at the end of the terrace, her elbows on the balustrading, her face between her hands. Wilson’s eyes were also fixed upon this solitary figure, suggesting in its bleak aloofness some tragic influence working silently upon the unfolding of the play. The painter glanced inquiringly at Jeffray, nor was the significance of the look lost upon his friend.
“I can trust you, Dick,” he said.
“I hope so, sir. I have seen something of the world.”
“Wait for me in the library.”
Wilson nodded.
“I will be with you in an hour.”
Jeffray, his shirt stained with Lancelot’s blood, passed back down the stairway to the lawn, and took his coat from the sundial where he had left it. Bess followed him from the terrace, wondering what had caused the quarrel between Richard and the big man with the red face.
“Thank God, you are safe,” she said, proud of him in her woman’s way. “Why did you fight? Tell me; I do not understand.”
Jeffray stooped and picked up the sword that lay on the grass where he had thrown it when Lot fell.
“Do you know who that man was?” he asked her.
“No.”
“Lancelot Hardacre.”
“Sir Peter’s son?”
“Yes.”
“Why did he come to quarrel with you?”
“Because I had refused to marry his sister.”
They stood silent a moment, looking at each other, each knowing by intuition what was passing in the other’s mind. A great weight of doubt had been lifted from Jeffray’s heart. Life had taken a simpler meaning for him now that Lot Hardacre’s blood had set the seal of enmity upon the past. The action of an hour had sundered him irretrievably from Jilian and brought him nearer to this child of the woods.
“Bess,” he said, holding his sword between his hands, “I never loved this woman. Do you believe me when I tell you that?”
She colored, and her eyes flashed up to his.
“Yes, I believe it.”
“It is you whom I love, Bess. Now, before God, I have told you the truth.”
He set the sword by the point in the grass, reached out and took her hands.
“I want to do what is best for you,” he said.
“I know—I know—”
“We have come to life’s crossways, dear; give me a night to see my way.”
She looked up fearlessly into his face.
“I trust you,” she said, simply. “I trust you with all I have.”
He led her across the terrace to the house, and into the blue parlor beyond the dining-room. There he left her by the open window with the scent of thyme and woodbine floating in upon the air.
Crossing the hall, Jeffray went into the great salon that had been of old the prior’s parlor, and rang the bell for Peter Gladden. The butler, curious behind his respectful suavity, entered, to stare inquisitively at his master’s white and determined face. The sword that had pierced Lot’s body lay naked upon the table.
“Gladden.”
The butler bowed.
“Tell your wife to prepare the best bedroom. See that everything is in order.”
“Your servant, sir.”
“Mrs. Elizabeth Grimshaw is to be my guest. Your wife must wait on her in person. Let her meals be served her in her bedroom. Your wife, Gladden, must sleep in the dressing-room that opens from Mrs. Grimshaw’s room. Understand me in this, Gladden, that every command must be obeyed.”
The butler, astonished, but too well disciplined to betray the feeling, bowed again to his master and appeared all deference and submission.
“Gladden.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let one single piece of disrespect be shown to this lady, and you and your wife are dismissed from my service instantly.”
Jeffray found Dick Wilson sitting smoking at the open window of the library with his feet resting on the sill. He dropped his fat calves when Richard entered, and looked at him a little uneasily over his shoulder. Both men remembered the night of the Hardacre ball, when Wilson had confessed the truth of his old love affair with Miss Jilian. Jeffray felt that he could trust the painter, and he was in the spirit to treat him as a friend. Drawing up a chair beside Dick Wilson’s, he sat himself down before the open window.
“You saw the girl on the terrace, Dick?” he asked.
Wilson turned restlessly in his chair, his chin sunk upon his shabby green waistcoat.
“I did,” he said, quietly.
“Do you remember where you saw her before?”
The painter shook his head and frowned as though mystified.
“You remember the day we drove to Thorney Chapel?”
Wilson cocked one shrewd blue eye at Jeffray, and removed his pipe-stem from between his lips.
“You have set me thinking, sir,” he said, suddenly.
“The girl on the terrace—”
“And the rebellious bride—”
“You realize the identity.”
Simply and with no choosing of words, no rounding of sentences, Jeffray told Wilson the tale of Bess of the Woods, how she had been forced to marry Dan, and of the mystery that appeared to surround her birth. The painter sat hunched up in his chair, sucking at his pipe, and blowing out clouds of smoke. His rugged face was grave and sympathetically attentive; he grunted expressively from time to time, watching Jeffray with his keen and humorous blue eyes. The lad had developed, strengthened marvellously in these few weeks. Wilson had not yet escaped from the astonishment with which he had watched Lot Hardacre go down before Jeffray’s rapid passes.
There was a short silence at the end of Jeffray’s confessional. Wilson sat motionless in his chair, pulling at his pipe and staring out of the window.
“Well, sir, well?” he said at last.
Jeffray sprang up and began to pace the room. The telling of Bess’s story seemed to have rendered the past more vivid and real to him, the passion of the present more flowing and tumultuous.
“You are wondering what I am going to do?” he asked.
“Exactly, sir, exactly,” said Wilson, bluntly, yet without cynicism.
Jeffray stayed his striding from wall to wall, and stood with one hand gripping the back of the painter’s chair.
“The woman’s life is in danger,” he said.
Wilson nodded reflectively.
“Her husband has to be considered. She shall not go back to him.”
Dick Wilson swung himself up out of his chair, and stood staring at Jeffray with a frown upon his face. The two men looked each other in the eyes without flinching.
“Doubtless you think me mad, Dick,” said Jeffray, quietly.
Wilson bowed down his head and half turned towards the window. He laid his pipe upon the sill, thrust his hands into his breeches-pockets, and stood with sloped shoulders, the attitude of a man bowed down by thought. He appeared almost afraid of facing Jeffray. There was so much grimness in the dénouement that he flinched for the moment from hazarding an opinion.
“A grave step, sir,” he said at last.
“Grave for us both, Dick.”
“How much does the girl know?”
“She knows everything.”
“Is she ready to be advised by you?”
“We have taken a night to search our hearts.”
Wilson was not one of those creatures who carry their prejudices and opinions about with them like samples of snuff and insist on presenting them to friends and acquaintances. He was not a moral person in the ecclesiastical sense. A man of the world, he knew the thousand entanglements that are cast about those who dare to depart from the paths of propriety.
“Have you thought the matter over, sir?” he said at last, laying his hand with a look of affection on Jeffray’s shoulder.
“I am ready to face it, Dick,” he answered.
“It is a great lottery, sir—a great lottery.”
Jeffray’s lips twitched, but his face never lost its determination.
“I love this woman, Dick,” he said, simply; “I would risk my immortal soul for her. How can I send her back to this brute of a husband? What have I to lose in Sussex? If poor Lot dies, I cannot rest here with his blood upon my hands. The girl’s life, too, is in danger. They meant to shoot her, Dick—shoot her—by Heaven, that they shall not! How can I turn her away at such an hour?”
Wilson shook his head and stared sadly through the open window.
“It is a great lottery, lad,” he said—“a great lottery.”
Jeffray drew close to him and held out his hand.
“Then, Dick,” he said, “I can take my destiny like a brave man. Better to stand for the truth—than shirk it for a lie. May I call you still my friend?”
Wilson turned with something between a snort and a sigh.
“Egad, sir, I will remain your friend despite all the women in Christendom.”
And the two men shook hands.
Jeffray, remembering what had happened at the parsonage, and realizing that the Grimshaws of Pevensel were desperate men, determined to remain on the watch all night with pistols and a drawn sword on the table before him. Bess was alone in the great bedroom, sleeping in the very bed, with its carved pillars and red silk canopy, in which Jeffray had been born. Wilson stumped off to his room about midnight, after talking over with Jeffray the events of the day, and listening for the twelfth time to Richard’s passionate assertion that Bess had not come of a peasant stock.
When Wilson had taken his candle and gone to bed, Jeffray settled himself in the library, unlocked the bureau, and prepared for the composing of several letters. He wrote to the Lady Letitia at The Wells, informing her of the result of his quarrel with the Hardacres. He wrote also to Jilian a single letter, expressing his sorrow that he should have spilled her brother’s blood.
Feverish with the ever-flowing current of his thoughts, he went and seated himself before the open window of the library. The night was calm and windless, blessed by the faces of a thousand stars. The trees slumbered about the house; the scent of roses and of honeysuckle hung heavy on the air.
Jeffray turned and looked round the shadowy room. The candles on the table where the pistols lay were burning steadily towards their silver sockets. The books ranged close along the walls seemed to recall unnumbered memories of the past. There were the books he had loved and leaned over as a boy—Mandeville’s travels, old Froissart, Chaucer’s tales, Shakespeare, Milton, andThe Book of Martyrs. There on the bureau lay the brown-covered Thomas à Kempis that had been daily in his dead father’s hands. Jeffray seemed to see the old man’s figure moving dimly in the dusk, with Roger, his black spaniel, at his heels. Poor Roger lay in the rose garden under a red rose-tree. The bent but stately figure in its black coat, white ruffles, and cravat, with the heavy peruke falling on either side of the pale and courtly face, had vanished hardly a year ago from the old house. Jeffray wondered like a child whether his father could see him still, whether he was grieved by his son’s madness.
As Jeffray watched on the dawn began to creep up into the eastern sky. The trees about the house, still wrapped in the mystery of the night, stood outlined against a broadening sheet of gold. The chanting of birds flooded up from the thickets; wild life began to wake; the stars sank back behind the deepening blue of day. Rabbits scurried over the dew-drenched grass-land of the park and came and went amid the bracken. Blackbirds bustled and chattered in the garden. The woods flashed and kindled. Vapors of rose flushed the opalescent bosoms of the clouds.
Jeffray leaned his elbows on the window-sill and watched the deepening of the dawn. It was mysteriously strange to him, instinct with a new and prophetic beauty. How still the whole world seemed save for the singing of the birds! The garden, with its many colors of gold and scarlet, azure, purple, and white, spread itself like some rich tapestry for the coming of the daughters of the dawn. The great cedars still seemed asleep. The cypresses and yews were webbed with gold.
Jeffray started suddenly, and half turned in his chair. Some one was stirring in the silent house; he heard a door open, swift footsteps upon the stairs. They came down and down into the half darkness of the hall like light descending into some ancient tower. Jeffray sprang up and went towards the door. A flood of light streamed down through one of the traceried windows of the hall. It fell upon the stairway and the polished woodwork of the floor, making the black timber seem like glistening water.
Down the stairs came Bess. Her black hair was gathered up in masses about her pale and wistful face. Her eyes, that looked like the eyes of one who had been long awake, were turned yearningly towards him.
“Bess.”
She came more slowly down the last few steps, the sunlight falling on her face, her lips apart, her eyes shining.
“I could not sleep.”
She stood before him, breathing deeply, and gazing in his face.
“I could not sleep, and I felt that I must come to you. You told me that you would watch till the morning.”
Jeffray’s face was in the shadow, but there was no mistaking the expression thereon.
“I have made up my mind, Bess,” he said.
She looked at him, gave a low cry, and stretched out her hands.
“You will not send me back to him!”
“No.”
“Let me be your servant—anything; do not send me away. I will go with you anywhere. I will go with you to the end of the world.”
So the dawn came for them, while in Pevensel Dan and old Isaac had been toiling through the night. They had taken the treasure-chest from the Monk’s Grave and buried it deep in the woods towards Holy Cross. They knew that Bess had fled to Rodenham, for Solomon had followed her through the woods, and had met a carter on the road who had passed the girl on the heath. A laborer had seen a woman climb the palings of the park, and Solomon had tramped home to his brother with the news. Isaac had sworn that Dan’s wife should be recovered, but first they had buried the treasure in a place unknown to Bess.
XL
For an hour Jeffray walked alone in the garden that morning, thinking over the future and his duty to Bess. He had sworn to his own heart that she should not fall again into her husband’s hands, and yet in the making of this vow he had taken a grave step on the path of life. Jeffray was in no temper to be scared by calumny or slander. He had fought his fight and proved his power to act according to his conscience. His thoughts were not for himself that morning, but for the woman whose life was pledged to him for love.
About ten o’clock he left the garden for the library, and, opening his bureau, wrote a long letter to his attorney at Lincoln’s Inn. Then he unlocked an old dower-chest that stood beside the fireplace, and lifted out the strong-box where he kept what money he required. Wilson, who was smoking at the window, watched him counting out the gold pieces and the notes upon the table. The lad was so serious and intent on it that the painter realized how grimly he was in earnest.
“Three hundred guineas, Dick—three hundred guineas. Enough powder and shot to serve for the time being.”
Wilson took his pipe-stem from between his teeth.
“Plenty of hard cash, sir,” he said. “What are you going to do with it? Hire some sly fox of a lawyer?”
Jeffray looked up with a frown.
“No, not that, Dick. I am preparing for what I hold to be my duty.”
“Well, sir, well?”
“I am going to save this woman from the past, and act with honor for her, even though our love may come to nothing.”
Wilson sat up and looked hard at Jeffray, profoundly interested in the problem-play before him.
“You can trust me, sir; what do you mean to do?”
“Make her a new life, Dick.”
“Yes.”
“Money is nothing to me. I can give her all of it she needs in this world, a home, and safety from all sordid care and dread.”
“Well, what then?”
Jeffray leaned back against the wall, and looked out gravely through the open window.
“I have not found the end yet,” he said.
Wilson nodded.
“She has trusted me; God help me to deserve her trust.”
As the morning wore on, Wilson noticed that an increasing restlessness was taking possession of the rebel. He grew moody, distraught, and silent, called for wine, and wandered hesitatingly about the room. The painter began to wonder whether Jeffray’s enthusiasm was abating, and whether he was tempted to regard the adventure in a more cold and calculating light. The affair reminded the painter of love as it was pictured in the old ballads. The beggar’s daughter of Bethnal Green could have had no more monstrously impossible romance than this peasant girl in a Sussex forest.
Mr. Wilson’s surmises, however, were utterly at fault, though logic upheld them with an obvious display of probabilities. It was his ignorance of Lot Hardacre’s fate that was troubling Jeffray at the eleventh hour. No news had come from Rookhurst, and his cousin might have bled to death in the coach for all Jeffray knew to the contrary. Bess’s surrender, the bustle of preparation, had carried Richard above the wreckage of the past for the morning. The memory of Lot’s gray face and bloody body haunted him as the hours passed by.
The restless stirrings of compunction were not to be refused a hearing. Jeffray met his fears with the answer of action. He would ride to Rookhurst, go to Stott’s house, and hear the truth from the surgeon’s own lips.
“I cannot rest, Dick,” he said, “until I have heard the truth about poor Lot.”
Wilson suggested that he might send a servant.
“Dick,” quoth the younger man, sadly, “that would be ungenerous of me. It was my sword that did the deed.”
“True, sir, true.”
“You will remain on guard this afternoon? Bess is in the blue parlor beyond the dining-room. You will find my pistols in the library.”
Wilson smiled as though amused at the responsibility that was thrust upon him.
“I will play the Cerberus, sir,” he said. “Go to Rookhurst, and may you find Mr. Hardacre alive.”
Jeffray saw Bess before he left the house, and explained the nature of his purpose to her. She was a little loath for him to go, having learned to feel already a sweet and strange security in his presence. He kissed her, and smiled, not sorry in his heart that even the small leave-takings of love could bring regret into the woman’s eyes. She went with him to the terrace, and parted from him with a pressure of the hand.
Jeffray recovered much of his fervor as he swung through Rodenham and on towards Rookhurst. The west wind set the woods a-whimper, the foxgloves waving above the bracken. Dog-roses were threading the hedge-rows, delicate in coloring as pink sea-shells. Honeysuckle trailed from the oak-saplings and the hazels, and the fields were green with the rising corn. In the meadows the hay rippled, sinuous as the sea under the passing wind, and over the dense green of the summer woods sunlight and cloud shadows raced and played.
It was about four o’clock when Jeffray saw the little town of Rookhurst straggling red-roofed down the slope of a hill. A gray tower with a white-shingled spire flashed up in the sunlight above the gables, chimneys, and dormer-windows. There were orchards lying about the town, and every house seemed overrun with roses. Meadows, still golden with buttercups, and afire with sorrel and red clover, ran down to the stream that flickered on towards the sea.
Jeffray rode down King Street into the market-place, his horse’s hoofs clattering on the round cobbles, quaint casements opening through clematis and roses on either hand. An Old World quiet, a calm air of contented indolence seemed to hang over the red roofs of the little town. The good people of Rookhurst took life as though it was an endless June. The quiet shops were cursed with no surfeit of customers, and the dogs slept on the sunny side of the footway. The very clock in the church-tower smote the quarters as though Time were no demon to be obeyed.
Surgeon Stott’s house stood in one corner of the market-place, beyond the timbered pump-house, where a few old men were basking on the benches. The house was painted white, and had a flight of six red-brick steps leading up to the green front-door. Red-and-white chintz curtains were looped back from the windows, and the window-boxes were filled with flowers. Jeffray walked his horse round the pump-house, and saw that straw had been spread over the brown cobbles to deaden sound. He was on the point of dismounting when the green door opened, and Miss Jilian herself came down the steps, followed by a servant in the Hardacre livery.
Jeffray flushed up to the roots of his hair. The lady’s eyes had swept over him, flashing and scintillating with scorn. Instinctively he had raised his hat to her, but there was no flicker of recognition on her face. Strangely enough, Jeffray’s respect for Miss Hardacre deepened of a sudden. He saw her trip round the market-place in her big bonnet, the footman following her, and disappear within the doorway of the Blue Boar, Rookhurst’s most aristocratic inn.
Jeffray, sensitive to Miss Hardacre’s scorn, hesitated whether he should dismount and inquire at the house for Mr. Lancelot. In the height of his indecision, the green door opened again, and Surgeon Stott, in blue coat and buckskin breeches, appeared upon the steps. He bowed to Jeffray and lifted his hat. Richard wheeled his horse round close to the footway, and looked earnestly in the surgeon’s face.
“Can I speak with you a moment, Stott?”
The surgeon’s features relaxed into a kindly smile. He came down the six red steps, and stood on the flagged footway, his fingers playing with the gold seals that reposed upon his white waistcoat.
“How is my cousin, Stott. I have ridden over to inquire?”
The gentleman in the blue coat half closed his eyes, threw out his stomach, and cleared his throat.
“Mr. Hardacre has had a nasty mauling, sir,” he said; “but I have done the best for him.”
“Will he recover?”
Surgeon Stott glanced searchingly at Jeffray.
“The lung was touched, sir, and he was bleeding like a pig when they brought him in here yesterday. It is my opinion, however, that Mr. Hardacre’s vitality will pull him through.”
“Thank God,” said the younger man, with genuine and hearty relief.
The surgeon’s broad face beamed. He liked Jeffray, and felt that he was sincere in his spirit of regret.
“It was a narrow margin, sir,” he said, “another finger’s-breadth, and your sword would have touched the heart. Young blood, Mr. Jeffray, young blood! You gentlemen in the twenties are apt to be hot in the head, and the mischief’s sooner made than mended. I have nothing to do with the quarrel, sir, and I hope the incident will breed no ill-feeling between us.”
Jeffray held out his hand to the surgeon.
“Why should it, Stott?” he said. “I am grateful to you for saving my cousin’s life. I will not explain the nature of the quarrel; you are probably wiser than I am in some respects.”
Stott gave Jeffray a shrewd look, and grimaced expressively in the direction of the Blue Boar.
“A lady, as usual, sir,” he said, “though family differences are no business of mine. I have to mend bodies, sir, not to tinker at hearts.”
“True,” answered the younger man, thoughtfully, “and whatever you may hear said against me in the future, Stott, you may remember that I acted as my honor desired. We are not always our own masters in this world, sir; there is a thing called destiny that pushes us forward through the thorns.”
And with a last hand-shake, Jeffray clattered out of Rookhurst market-place, feeling a happier man than when he had entered it.
Clearing the streets of the little town, he saw that heavy clouds were massing in the northwestern sky. The atmosphere had been preternaturally clear, the domed foliage of the distant woods, the swell of the southern downs standing out in beautiful distinctness under the June sky. Old Gladden had been grumbling all the morning at the heat, prophesying thunder and a heavy fall of rain. As Jeffray climbed slowly up the long slope towards the forest ridge, the black outliers moving ahead of the massive wall of vapor began to stream across the sun. The whole landscape was bathed in a strange splendor of slanting sunlight, the woods and meadows lying a wondrous green under the imminent gloom of the purple north.
Jeffray pricked up his horse, and came at a fast trot into Rodenham village. Already there were vague mutterings running athwart the distant sky. Outside the Wheat Sheaf Inn Jeffray came upon some twenty troopers of a regiment of Light-Horse drinking beer at the wooden tables, their horses picketed upon the green. Some of the men were watching the thunder-clouds, reckoning on the drenching of the outer man as they were moistening the inner. Their cornet, a dark-faced youth with a hooked nose and a libidinous mouth, came to the doorway of the inn with George Gogg as Jeffray passed. The innkeeper saluted the Squire, the officer staring at him with an insolence of militant youth, as though remarking, “And who the devil may you be?” Jeffray attached no significance to the incident for the moment. He supposed that the troopers were on the march, and that the cornet had called a halt out of courtesy to the coming storm.
As Jeffray turned in under the yews at the park gate he was stopped by the lodge-keeper’s wife running out in a red petticoat and a very slatternly pair of stays. The woman, who was something of a drunkard, appeared flushed and excited. She had the eager, officious look of a common creature big with information.
“Well, Mrs. Wilder, what is it?”
“My man’s gone up to the house, your honor; there’s been a scrimmage at the priory.”
Jeffray’s face hardened on the instant.
“A scrimmage! What do you mean?”
The woman appeared to swell with the satisfaction of her sensational confession. Her red and coarse-featured face shone out at Jeffray with every suggestion of ill omen.
“Mr. Gladden sent down word, sir, as how a number of rough fellows from the forest have broke in, cut the painter gentleman over the head, and trussed up the young woman as was staying with ye.”
Jeffray waited to hear no more. He insulted the woman’s eloquence by clapping in his spurs and leaving her standing open-mouthed and loose-bosomed in the road. It was even as the lodge-keeper’s wife had told him. Jeffray entered the house to find Dick Wilson propped up on the library sofa with a bandaged and bloody head. Bess was gone.