Therewere sounds of music and laughter faintly audible through the drawing-room door. The music ceased as the door opened, and the gentlemen entered an atmosphere of brilliant light, and fragrant with the pleasant aroma of tea.
“Pray, Miss Arden, don't let us interrupt you,” said Mr. Longcluse. “I thought I heard singing as we came up the stairs.” He had come to the piano, and was now at her side.
She did not sing or play, but Vivian Darnley thought that her conversation with Longcluse, as, with one knee on his chair, he leaned over the back of it and talked, seemed more interesting than usual.
“I say, Reginald,” said David Arden softly to his brother, “I must run down and pay Martha Tansey my usual visit. She's in her room, I suppose. I'll steal away and return quietly.”
And so he was gone. He closed the door softly behind him, and slowly descended the wide staircase, with many vague conjectures and images revolving in his mind. He paused at the great window on the landing, and looked out upon the solemn and familiar landscape. A brilliant moon was high in the sky, and the stars glimmered brightly. His hand was on the window as he looked out, thinking.
Uncle David was a man impulsive, prompt, sanguine—a temperament, in short, which, directed by an able intellect, would have made a good general. When an idea had got into his head, he could not rest until he had worked it out. On the whole, throughout his life these fits of sudden and feverish concentration had been effective, and aided his fortunes. It is, perhaps, an unbusiness-like temperament; but commercial habits and example had failed to control that natural ardour, and, when once inflamed, it governed his actions implicitly.
An idea, very vague, very little the product of reason, had now taken possession of his brain, and he relied upon it as an intuition. He had been thinking over it. It first warmed, then simmered, then, as it were, boiled. The process had been one of an hour and more, as he sat at his brother's table and took his share in the conversation. When the steam got up and the pressure rose to the point of action, forth went Uncle David to have his talk with his early friend Tansey. He stopped, as I have said, at the great window on the staircase, and looked out and up. The moon was splendid; the stars were glimmering brightly; they looked down like a thousand eyes set upon him, to watch the prowess and perseverance of the man on whom fate had imposed a mission.
Some idea like this seized him, for, like many men of a similar temperament, he had an odd and unconfessed vein of poetry in his nature. He had looked out and up in a listless abstraction, and the dark heaven above him, brilliant with its eternal lights, had for a moment withdrawn and elevated his thoughts as if he had entered a cathedral.
“What specks and shadows we are, and how eternal is duty! And if we are in another place to last like those unfailing lights—to become happy or wretched, and, in either state, indestructible for ever—what signify the labour and troubles of life, compared with that by which our everlasting fate is fixed? God help us! Am I consulting revenge or conscience in pursuing this barren inquiry? Do I mistake for the sublime impulse of conscience a vulgar thirst for blood? I think not. I never harboured malice; I hate punishing people. But murder is a crime against God himself, respecting which he imposes duties upon man, and seconds them by all the instincts of affection. Dare I neglect them, then, in the case of poor loving Harry, my brother?”
The drawing-room door had been opened a little, the night being sultry, and through it now came the clear tones of a well-taught baritone. It was singing a slow and impassioned air, and its tones, though sweet, chilled him with a strange pain. It seemed like instinct that told him it was the stranger's voice. One moment's thought would have proved it equally. There was no one else present to suspect but Vivian Darnley, and he was no musician; but to David Arden it seemed that if a hundred people were there he should have felt it all the same, and intuitively recognised it as Longcluse's voice.
“What is it in that voice which is so hateful? What is it in that passion which sounds insincere? What gives to those sweet tones a latent discord, that creeps so coldly through my nerves?”
So thought David Arden, as, with one hand still upon thewindow-sash, he listened and turned toward the open door, with a frown akin to one of pain.
Spell-bound, he listened till the song was over, and sighed and shook his ears with a sort of shudder when the music ceased.
“I don't know why I stayed to listen. Face—voice—what is the agency about that fellow? I daresay I'm a fool, but I can't help it, and I must bring the idea to the test.”
He descended the stairs slowly, crossed the hall, and walked thoughtfully down the passage leading to the housekeeper's room. At this hour the old woman had it usually to herself. He knocked at the housekeeper's door, and recognised the familiar voice that answered.
“How do you do, Martha?” said he, striding cheerily into the room.
“Ah! Master David? So it is, sure!”
“Ay, sure and sure, Martha,” said he, taking the old woman's hand, with his kind smile. “And how are you, Martha? Tell me how you are.”
“I won't say much. I'm not so canty as you'll mind me. I'm an old wife now, Master David, and not much for this world, I'mthinking,” she answered dolorously.
“You may outlive much younger people, Martha; we are all in the hands of God,” said David, smiling. “It seems to me but yesterday that I and poor Harry used to run in here to you from our play in the grounds, and you had always a bit of something for us hungry fellows to eat, come when we might.”
“Ah, ha! Yes, ye were hungry fellows then—spirin' up, fine tall lads. Reginald was never like ye; he was seven years older than you. And hungry? Yes! The cold turkey and ham, ye mind—by Jen! Ihaveseen ye eat hearty; and pancakes—ye liked them best of all. And it went a' into a good skin. I will say—you and Master Harry (God be wi' him!) a fine, handsome pair o' lads ye were. And you're a handsome fellow still, Master David, and might have married well, no doubt; but man proposes and God disposes, and time and tide 'll wait for no man, and what's one man's meat's another man's poison. Who knows and all may be for the best? And that Mr. Longcluse is dining here to-day?” she added, not very coherently, and with a sudden gloom.
“Yes, Martha, that Mr. Longcluse is dining here to-day; and Master Dick tells me you did not fall in love with him at first sight, when they paid you a visit here. Is that true?”
“I don't know. I don't know what. The sight of him—or the sound of his voice, I don't know which—gave me a turn,” said the old woman.
“Well, Martha, I don't like his face, either. He gave me,also, what you call a turn. He's very pale, and I felt as if I had been frightened by him when I was a child; and yet he must be some five and twenty years younger than I am, and I'm almost certain I never saw him before. So I say it must be something that's no' canny as you used to say. What do you think, Martha?”
“Ye may be funnin', Master David. Ye were always a canty lad. But it's o'er true. I can't bring to mind what it is—I can't tell—but something in that man's face gev me a sten. I conceited I was just goin' to swound; and he looked sa straight at me, like a ghost.”
“Master Richard says you looked very hard at Mr. Longcluse; you had both a good stare at each other,” said Uncle David. “He thought there was going to be a recognition.”
“Did I? Well, no: I don't know him, Ithink. 'Tis all a jummlement, like. I couldn't bring nout to mind.”
“I know, Martha, you liked poor Harry well,” said David Arden, not with a smile, but with a very sad countenance.
“That I did,” said Mrs. Tansey.
“And I think you like me, Martha?”
“Ye're not far wrong there, Master David.”
“And for both our sakes—for mine and his, for the dead no less than the living—I am sure you won't allow any thought of trouble, or nervousness, or fear of lawyers' browbeating, or that sort of thing, to deter you from saying, wherever and whenever justice may require it, everything you know or suspect respecting that dreadful occurrence.”
“The death o' Master Harry, ye mean!” exclaimed Mrs. Tansey sternly, drawing herself up on a sudden, with a pale frown, and looking full at him. “Meto hide or hold back aught that could bring the truth to light! Oh! Master David, do you know what ye're sayin'?”
“Perfectly,” said he, with a melancholy smile; “and I am glad it vexes you, Martha, because I need no answer on that point more than your honest voice and face.”
“Keep back aught, man!” she repeated, striking her hand on the table. “Why, lad, I'd lose that old hand under the chopper for one gliff o' the truth into that damned story. Why, lawk! where's yer head, boy? Wasn't I maist killed myself, for sake o' him that night?”
“Ay, Martha, brave girl, I'm satisfied; and I ask your pardon for the question. But years bring alteration, you know; and I'm changed in mind myself in many ways I never could have believed. And everyone doesn't see with me that it is our duty to explore a crime like that, to track the villain, if we can, and bring him to justice.Youdo, Martha; but there are many in whose veins poor Harry's blood is running,who don't feel like you. Master Richard said that the gentleman looked as if he did not know what to make of you; ‘and, by Jove!’ said he, ‘Ididn't either—Martha stared so.’”
“I couldn't help. 'Twas scarce civil; but truly I couldn't, Sir,” said Martha Tansey, who had by this time recovered her equanimity. “He did remind me of summat.”
“We will talk of that by-and-by, Martha; we will try to recall it. What I want you first to tell me is exactly your recollection of the lamentable occurrence of that night. I have a full note of it at home; but I have not looked at it for years, and I want my recollection confirmed to-night, that you and I may talk over some possibilities which I should like to examine with your help.”
“I can talk of it now,” said the old woman; “but for many a year after it happened I dare not. I could not sleep for many a night after I told it to anyone. But now I can bear it. So, Master David, you may ask what you please.”
“First let me hear your recollection of what happened,” said David Arden.
“Ay, Master David, that I will. Sit ye down, for my old bones won't carry me standing no time now, and sit I must. Right well ye're lookin', and right glad am I to see it, Master David; and ye were always a handsome laddie. God bless ye, and God be wi' the old times! And poor Master Harry—poor laddie!—I liked him well. You two looked beautiful, walkin' up to t' house together—two conny, handsome boys ye were.”
“Thesun don't touch these windows till nigh nightfall. In the short days o' winter, the last sunbeam at the settin' just glints along the wall, and touches a sprig or two o' them scarlet geraniums on the windastone. 'Tis a cold room, Master David. In summer evenins, like this, ye have just a chilly flush o' thesunsettin', and, before it's well on the windas, the bats and beetles is abroad, and the moth is flittin', and the gloamin' fa's,” said the old woman. “The windas looks to the west, but also a bit to the north, ye'll mind, and that's the cause o't. I don't complain. I ha' suffered it these thirty years and more, and 'tain't worth while, for the few years that's left, makin' a blub and a blither about it. I'm an old wife now, Master David, and there can't be many more years for me left aboon the grass, sa I e'en let be and taks the world easy, ye see; and that's the reason I aye keep a bit o' wood burnin' on the hearth—it keeps the life in my old bones—and I hope it ain't too warm for you, Master David?”
“Not a bit, Martha. This side of the house is cool. I remember that our room, when we were boys, looked out from it, high up, you recollect, and it never was hot.”
“That's it, ye were in the top o' the house; and poor Harry, wi' his picturs o' horses and dogs hangin' up on the wa's. Lawk! it seems but last week. How the years flits! I often thinks of him. See what a moon there is to-night. 'Twas just such a moon that night, only frostier, ye see—the same clear sky and bright moon; 'twould make ye wink to look at. Ye're not too hot wi' that bit o' wood lightin' in the grate?”
“I like the fire, Martha, and I like the moon, and I like your company best of all.”
The truth was, he did like the flicker of the wood fire. The flame was cheery, and took off something of the dismal shadow that stole over everything whenever he applied his affectionate mind to the horrors of the dreadful night on which he was now ruminating. One of the window-shutters was open, and the chill brilliancy of the moon, and the deep blue sky, were serenely visible over the black foreground of trees. The wavering of the redder light of the fire, as its reflection spread and faded upon the wainscot, was warm and pleasant; and, had their talk been of less ghastly things, would have brightened their thoughts with a sense of comfort.
“I have not very long to stay, Martha,” said David Arden, looking at his watch, “so tell me your recollection as accurately as you can. Let me hearthatfirst; and then I want to ask you for some particular information, which I am sure you can give me.”
“Why not? Who should I give it sooner to? Will ye take a cup o' coffee? No. Well, a glass o' curaçoa? No. And what will ye take?”
“You forget that I have taken everything, and come to you with all my wants supplied. So now, dear Martha, let me hear it all.”
“I'll tell ye all about it. I was younger and stronger, mind, than I am now, by twenty years and more. 'Tis a short time to look back on, but a good while passing, and leaves many a gap and change, and many a scar and wrinkle.”
There was a palpable tremble always in Mrs. Tansey's voice, in the thin hand she extended towards him, and in the head from which her old eyes glittered glassily on him.
“The road is very lonely by night—the loneliest road in all England. When it passes ten o'clock, you might listen till cock-crow for a footfall. Well, I, and Thomas Ridley, and Anne Haslett, was all the people at Mortlake just then, the family being in the North, except Master Harry. He went to a race across country, that was run that day; and he told me, laughing, he would not ask me to throw an old shoe after him, as he stood sure to win two thousand pounds. And away he went, little thinking, him and me, how our next meetin' would be. At that time old Tom Clinton—ye'll mind Clinton?”
“To be sure I do,” acquiesced David Arden.
“Well, Tom was in the gatehouse then; after he died, his daughter's husband got it, ye know. And when he had outstayed his time by two hours—for he was going northwards in the morning, and told me he'd be surely back before ten—I began to grow frightened, and I put on my bonnet and cloak, and down I runs to the gatehouse, and knocks up Tom Clinton. It was nigh twelve o'clock then. When Tom came to the door,having dressed in haste, I said, ‘Tom, which way will Master Harry return? he's not been since.’ And says Tom, ‘If he's comin' straight from the course, he'll come down from the country; but if he's dinin' instead in London, he'll come up the Islington way.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘go you, Tom, to the turn o' the road, and look and listen for sight or sound, and bring me word.’ I don't know what was frightenin' me. He was often later, and I never minded; but something that night was on my mind, like a warning, for I couldn't get the fear out o' my heart. Well, who comes ridin' back but Dick Wallock, the groom, that had drove away with him in the gig in the mornin'; and glad I was to see his face at the gate. It was bright moonlight, and says I, ‘Dick, how is Master Harry? Is all well with him?’ So he tells me, ay, all was well, and he goin' to drive the gig out himself from town. He was at a place—you'llmind the name of it—where it turned out they played cards and dice, and won and lost like—like fools, or worse, as some o' them no doubt was. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘go you up, as he told you, with the horse, and I'll stay here till he comes back, if it wasn't till daybreak.’ For all the time, ye see, my heart misgave me that there was summat bad to happen; and when Tom Clinton came back, says I, ‘Tom, you go in, and get to your room, and let me sit down in your kitchen; and I'll let him in when he comes, for I can't go up to the house, nor close an eye, till he comes.’ Well, it was a full hour after, and I was sittin' in the kitchen window that looks out on the road, starin' wide awake, and lookin', now one way and now another, up and down, when I hears the clink of a footfall on the stones, and a tall, ill-favoured man walks slowly by, and turns his face toward the window as he passed.”
“You saw him distinctly, then?” said David.
“As plain as ever I saw you. An ill-favoured fellow in a light drab great coat wi' a cape to it. He looked white wi' fear, and wild big eyes, and a high hooked nose—a tall chap wi' his hands in his pockets, and a low-crowned hat on. He went on slow, till a whistle sounded, and then he ran down the road a bit toward the signal.”
“That was toward the Islington side?”
“Ay, Sir, and I grew more uneasy. I was scared wi' the sight o' such a man at that time o' night, in that lonesome place, and the whistlin' and runnin'.”
“Did you see the same man again that night?” asked David.
“Yes, 'twas the same I saw afterwards—Lord ha' mercy on us! I saw him again, at his murderin' work. Oh, Master David! it makes my brain wild, and my skin creep, to think o' that sight.”
“I did wrong to interrupt you; tell it your own way, Martha,and I can afterwards ask you the questions that lie near my heart,” said Mr. Arden.
“'Tis easy told, Sir; the candle was burnt down almost in the socket, and I went to look out another—but before I could find one, it went out. 'Twas but a stump I found and lighted, after I saw that fellow in the light drab surtout go by. I wished to let them know, if they had any ill design, there was folks awake in the lodge. But he was gone by before I found the matches, and now that he was comin' again, the candle went out—things goes so cross. It was to be, ye see. Well, while I was rummagin' about, looking for a candle, I heard the sound of a horse trotting hard, and wheels rollin' along; so says I, ‘Thank God!’ for then I was sure it must be Harry, poor lad. So I claps on my bonnet, and out wi' me, wi' t' key. I thought I heard voices, as the hoofs and wheels came clinkin' up to the gate; but I could not be quite sure. I was huffed wi' Master Harry for the long wait he gev me, and the fright, and I took my time comin' round the corner of the gatehouse. And thinks I to myself, he'll be offerin' me a seat in the gig up to the house, but I won't take it. God forgi'e me for them angry thoughts to the poor laddie that I was never to have a word wi' more! When I came to the gate there was never a call, and nothing but voices talking and gaspin' like, under their breath a'most, and a queer scufflin' sound, that I could not make head nor tail on. So I unlocked the wicket, and out wi' me, and, Lord ha' mercy on us, what a sight for me! The gig was there, with its shafts on the ground, and its back cocked up, and the iron-grey flat on his side, lashin' and scramblin', poor brute, and two villains in the gig, both pullin' at poor Master Harry, one robbin', and t'other murderin' him. I took one o' them—a short, thick fellow—by the skirt o' his coat, to drag him out, and I screamed for Tom Clinton to come out. The short fellow turned, and struck at me wi' somethin'; but, lucky for me, 'appen, the lashin' horse that minute took me on the foot, and brought me down. But up I scrambles wi' a stone in my hand, and I shied it, the best I could, at the head o' the villain that was killin' Master Harry. But what can a woman do? It did not go nigh him, I'm thinkin'. I was, all the time, calling on Tom to come, and cryin' ‘Murder!’ that you'd think my throat'd split. That bloody wretch in the gig had got poor Master Harry's head back over the edge of it, and his knee to his chest, a-strivin' to break his neck across the back-rails; and poor dear lad, Master Harry, he just scritched, ‘Yelland Mace! for God's sake!’ They were the last words I ever heard from him, and I'll never forget that horrid scritch, nor the face of the villain that was over him, like a beast over its prey. He was tuggin' at his throat, like you'd be tryin' to tear up a tree by the roots—you never see such a face. Histeeth was set, and the froth comin' through, and his black eyebrows screwed together, you'd think they'd crack the thin hooked nose of him between them, and he pantin' like a wild beast. He looked like a madman, I tell you; 'twas bright moonlight, and the trees bare, and the shadows of the branches was switchin' across his face.”
“You saw that face distinctly?” asked David Arden.
“As clear as yours this minute.”
“Now tell me—and think first—was he a bit like that Mr. Longcluse whose appearance startled you the other evening?” asked Mr. Arden, in a very low tone, with his eyes fixed on her intensely.
“No, no, no! not a bit. He had a small mouth and white teeth, and a great beak of a nose. No, no, no! not he. I saw him strike somethin' that shone—a knife or a dagger—into the poor lad's throat, and he struck it down at my head, as you know, and I mind nothin' after that. I'll carry the scar o' that murderer's blow to my grave. There's the whole story, and God forgi'e ye for asking me, for it gi'es me t' creepins for a week after; and I didn't conceit 'twould 'a' made me sa excited, Sir, or I would not 'a' bargained to tell it to-night—not that I blame ye, Master David, for I thought, myself, that I could bear it better—and I do believe, as I have gone so far in it, 'tis better to make one job of it, and a finish. So ye'll ask me any question ye like, and I'll make the best answer I can; only, Master David, ye'll not be o'er long about it?”
“You are a good creature, Martha. I am sorry to pain you, but I pain myself, and you know why I ask these questions.”
“Ay, Sir, and I'd rather hear ye ask them than see you sit as easy under all that as some does, that owed the poor fellow as much love as ever you did, and were as near akin.”
“I am puzzled, Martha, and hitherto I have been baffled, but I won't give it up yet. You say that the wretch who struck you was a singular-looking man, at least as you describe him. I know, Martha, I can rely upon your caution—you will not repeat to any one what passes in our interview.” He lowered his voice. “You do not think that this Mr. Longcluse—a rich gentleman, you know and a person who thinks he's of some consequence, a person whom we must not look at, you know, as if he had two heads—you really don't think that this Mr. Longcluse has any resemblance to the villain whom you saw stab my brother, and who struck you?”
“Not he—no more than I have. No, no, Mr. Longcluse is quite another sort of face; but for all that, when he came in here, and I saw him before me, his face and his speech reminded me of that night.”
“How was that, Martha? Did he resemble the other man—the man who was aiding?”
“That fellow was hanged, ye'll mind, Master David.”
“Yes, but a likeness might have struck and startled you.”
“No, Sir—no, Master David, not him; surely not him. I can't bring it to mind, but it frightens me. Itisqueer, Sir. All I can say for certain is this, Master David. The minute I heard his voice, and got sight of his face, like that,” and she dropped her hand on the table, “the thought of that awful night came back, bright and cold, Sir, and them black shadows—'twas all about me, I can't tell how, and I hope I may never see him again.”
“Do you think there was another man by, besides the two villains in the gig?” suggested David Arden.
“Not a living soul except them and myself. Poor Master Harry said to Tom Clinton, ye'll mind, for he lived half-an-hour after, and spoke a little, though faint and with great labour, and says he, ‘There were two: Yelland Mace killed me, and Tom Todry took the money.’ Tom Clinton heard him say that, and swore to it before the justice o' peace, and after, on the trial. No, no, there wasn't a soul there but they two villains, and the poor dear lad they murdered, and me and Tom Clinton, that might as well 'a' bin in York for any good we did. Oh, no, Heaven forbid I should be so unmannerly as to compare a gentleman like Mr. Longcluse to such folk as that! Oh, lawk, no, Sir! But there's something, there's a look—or a sound in his voice—I can't get round it quite—but it reminds me of something about that night, with a start like, I can't tell how—something unlucky and awful—and I would not see him again for a deal.”
“Well, Martha, a thousand thanks. I'm puzzled, as I said. Perhaps it is only something strange in his face that caused that odd misgiving. ForIwho saw but one of the wretches engaged in the crime, the man who was convicted, who certainly did not in the slightest degree resemble Mr. Longcluse, experienced the same unpleasant sensation on first seeing him. I don't know how it is, Martha, but the idea clings to me, as it does to you. Some light may come. Something may turn up. I can't get it out of my mind that somehow—it may be circuitously—he has, at least, got the thread in his fingers that may lead us right. Good-night, Martha. I have got the Bible with large print you wished for; I hope you will like the binding. And now, God bless you! It is time I should bid them good-night up-stairs. Farewell, my good old friend.” And, so saying, he shook her hard and shrivelled hand.
His steps echoed along the long tiled passage, with its one dim light, and his mind was still haunted by its one obscure idea.
“It is strange,” he thought, “that Martha and I—the only two living persons, I believe, who care still for poor Harry, and feel alike respecting the expiation that is due to his memory—should both have been struck with the same odd feeling on seeing Longcluse. From that white sinister face, it seems to me, I know not why, will shine the light that will yet clear all up.”
WhileMartha Tansey was telling her grisly story in the housekeeper's room, and David Arden listening to the oft-told tale, for the sake of the possible new lights which the narration might throw upon his present theory, the little party in the drawing-room had their music and their talk. Mr. Longcluse sang the song which, standing beside Uncle David on the landing, near the great window on the staircase, we have faintly heard; and then he sang that other song, of the goblin wooer, at Alice's desire.
“Was the poor girl fool enough to accept his invitation?” inquired Miss Maubray.
“That I really can't say,” laughed Mr. Longcluse.
“Yes, indeed, poor thing! I so hope she didn't,” said Lady May.
“It's very likely she did,” interposed Sir Reginald, opening his eyes—every one thought he was dozing—“nothing more foolish, and therefore, nothing more likely. Besides, if she didn't, she probably did worse. Better to go straight to the——”
“Oh, dear Reginald!” exclaimed Lady May.
“Than by a tedious circumbendibus. I suppose her parents highly disapproved of the goblin; wasn't that alone an excellent reason for going away with him?”
And Sir Reginald closed his eyes again.
“Perhaps,” said Miss Maubray aside to Vivian Darnley, “that romantic young lady may have had a cross papa, and thought that she could not change very much for the worse.”
“Shall I tell that to Sir Reginald?—it would amuse him,” inquired Darnley.
“Not as my remark; but I make you a present of it.”
“Thanks; but that, even with your permission, would be a plagiarism, and robbing you of his applause.”
Vivian Darnley was very inattentive to his own nonsense. He was talking very much at random, for his mind, and occasionally his eyes, were otherwise occupied.
Alice Arden was sitting near the piano, and talking to Mr. Longcluse.
“Is that meant to be a ghost, I wonder, in our sense, like the ghost of Wilhelm in the ballad of Leonora? or is the lover a demon?”
“A demon, surely,” answered Longcluse, “a spirit appointed to her destruction. In an old ghostly writer there is a Latin sentence,Unicuique nascenti, adest dæmon vitæ mystagogus, which I will translate, ‘There is present at the birth of every human being a demon, who is the conductor of his life.’ Be it fortunate, or be it direful, to this supernatural influence he owes it all. So they thought; and to families such a demon is allotted also, and they prosper or wane as his function is ordained. I wonder whether such demons ever enter into human beings, and, in the shape of living men, haunt, plague, and ruin their predestinated victims.”
This sort of mysticism for a time they talked, and then wandered away to other themes, and the talk grew general; and Mr. Longcluse, with a pang, discovered that it was late. He had something on his mind that night. He had an undivulged use, also, to which to apply David Arden. As the hour drew near it weighed more and more heavily at his heart. That hour must be observed; he wished to be away before it arrived. There was still ample time; but Lady May was now talking of going, and he made up his mind to say farewell.
Lingeringly Mr. Longcluse took his leave. But go he must; and so, a last touch of the hand, a last look, and the parting is over. Down-stairs he runs; his groom and his brougham are at the door. What a glorious moon! The white light upon all things around is absolutely dazzling. How sharp and black the shadows! How light and filmy rises the old house! How black the nooks of the thick ivy! Every drop of dew that hangs upon its leaves, or on the drooping stalks of the neglected grass, is transmuted into a diamond. As he stands for an instant upon the broad platform of the steps, he looks round him with a deep sigh, and with a strange smile of rapture. The man standing with the open door of the brougham in his hand caught his eye.
“Go you down as far as the little church, before you reach the ‘Guy of Warwick,’ in the village, quite close to this—you know it—and wait there for me. I shall walk.”
The man touched his hat, shut the door, and mounted thebox beside the driver, and away went the brougham. Mr. Longcluse lit a cigarette, and slowly walked down the broad avenue after the vehicle. By the time he had got about half-way, he heard the iron gates swing together, the sound of the wheels was lost in distance, and the feeling of seclusion returned. In the same vague intoxication of poetry and romance, he paused and looked round again, and sighed. The trunk of a great tree overthrown in the last year's autumnal gales, with some of its boughs lopped off, lay on the grass at the edge of the avenue. There remained a little of his cigarette to smoke, and the temptation of this natural seat was irresistible; so he took it, and smoked, and gazed, and dreamed, and sometimes, as he took the cigarette from his lips, he sighed—never was man in a more romantic vein. He looked back on the noble front of the picturesque old house. The cold moonlight gleamed on most of the window-panes: but from a few tall windows glowed faintly the warmer light of candles. If anyone had ever felt the piercing storms of life, the treachery of his species, and the mendacity of the illusions that surround us, Longcluse was that man. He had accepted the conditions of life, and was a man of the world; but no boy of eighteen was ever more in love than he at this moment.
Gazing back at the dim glow that flushed through the tall window-blinds of the distant drawing-room, his fancy weaving all those airy dreams that passion lives in, this pale, solitary man—whom no one quite knew, who trusted no one, who had his peculiar passions, his sorrows, his fears, and strange remembrances; everything connected with his origin, vicissitudes, and character, except this one wild hope, locked up, as it were, in an iron casket, and buried in a grave fathoms deep—was now floated back, he knew not how, to that time of sweet perturbation and agonising hope at which the youth of Shakespeare's time were wont to sigh like a furnace, and indite woeful ballads to their mistress's eyebrows. Now he saw lights in an upper room. Imagination and conjecture were in a moment at work. No servant's apartment, its dimensions were too handsome; and had not Sir Reginald mentioned that his room was upon a level with the hall? Just at this moment Lady May's carriage drove down the avenue and past him. Yes, she had run up direct to her room on bidding Lady May good-night. How he drank in these rosy lights through his dark eyes! and how their tremble seemed to quicken the pulsations of his heart! Gradually his thoughts saddened, and his face grew dark.
“Two doors in life—only in this life, if all bishops and curates speak truth—one or other shut for ever in the next. The gate to heaven, the gate to hell. Heaven!Facilis decensus.Life is such a sophism. Yet even those canting dogs in the pulpitcan't bark away the truth. God sees not with our eyes! Revealed religion—Mahomet, Moses, Mormon, Borgia! What is the first lesson inscribed by his Maker on every man's heart, instinct, intellect? I read the mandate thus: ‘Take the best care you can of number one.’ Bah! ‘It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.’”
Uncle David's carriage now drove by.
“There goes that sharp girl—pretty, vain—and they're all vain; they ought to be vain; they could not please if they were not. Vain she is—devoured, mind, soul, passion, by vanity. Yes, and power—the lust of power, conquest, acquisition. She's greedy and crafty, I daresay. Oh! Alice, who was ever quite like you? The most beautiful, the best, my darling! Oh! enchantress, work the miracle, and make this forlorn man what he might be!”
It passed like a magic-lantern picture, and was gone. The distant clang of the iron gate was heard again, the avenue was deserted and silent, and Longcluse once more alone in his dream. He was looking towards the house, sometimes breaking into a few murmured words, sometimes smoking, and just as his cigarette was out he saw a figure approaching. It was Uncle David, who was walking down the avenue. It so happened that his mind was at that moment busy with Mr. Longcluse, and it was with an odd little shock, therefore, that he saw the very man—whom he fancied by that time to be at least two miles away—rise up in his path, and stand before him, smiling, in the moonlight.
“Oh!—Mr. Longcluse?” exclaimed David Arden, coming suddenly to a halt.
“So it is,” said Longcluse, with a little laugh. “You are surprised to find me here, and I fancied I had seen your carriage go on.”
“So you did; it is waiting near the gate for me. Can I give you a seat into town?”
“Thanks,” said Longcluse, smiling; “mine is waiting for me a little further on.”
Longcluse walked slowly on toward the gate, with David Arden at his side.
“My ward, Miss Maubray, has gone on with Lady May, and Darnley went with them. So I'm not such a brute as I should be if I were making a young lady wait while I was enjoying the moonlight.”
“It was this wonderful moon that led me, also, into this night-ramble on foot,” said Mr. Longcluse; “I found the temptation absolutely irresistible.”
As they thus talked, Mr. Longcluse had formed the resolution of choosing that moment for a confidence which, consideringhow slender was his acquaintance with Mr. David Arden, was, to say the least, a little bold and odd. They had not very far to walk before reaching the gate, so, a little abruptly turning the course of their talk, Mr. Longcluse said, with a chilly little laugh, and a smile more pallid than ever in the moonlight—
“By-the-bye, we were talking of that shocking occurrence in the Saloon Tavern; and connected with it, I have had two threatening letters.”
“Indeed!” said David Arden.
“Fact, I assure you,” said Mr. Longcluse, with a shrug and another cold little laugh.
David Ardenlooked at Mr. Longcluse with a sudden glance, that was, for a moment, shrinking and sharp. This confidence connected with such a scene chimed in, with a harmony that was full of pain, with the utterly vague suspicions that had somehow got into his imagination.
“Yes, and I have been a little puzzled,” continued Longcluse. “They say the man who is his own lawyer has a fool for his client; but there are other things besides law to which the spirit of the canon more strongly still applies. I think you could give me just the kind of advice I need, if you were not to think my asking it too great a liberty. I should not dream of doing so if the matter were simply a private one, and began and ended in myself; but you will see in a moment that public interests of some value are involved, and I am a little doubtful whether the course I am taking is in all respects the right one. I have had two threatening letters; would you mind glancing at them? The moon is so brilliant, one has no difficulty in reading. This is the first. And may I ask you, kindly, until I shall have determined, I hope, with your aid, upon a course, to treat the matter as quite between ourselves? I have mentioned it to but one other person.”
“Certainly,” said David, “you have a right to your own terms.”
He took the letter and stopped short where he was, unfolding it. The light was quite sufficient, and he read the odd and menacing letter which Mr. Longcluse had received a few evenings before, as we know, at Lady May's. It was to the following effect:
“Sir,—The unfortunate situation in which you stand, the proof being so, as you must suppose, makes it necessary for you to act considerately, and no nonsense can be permitted by your well wishers. The poor man has his conscience all one as as the rich, and must be cautious as well as him. I can not put myself in no dainger for you, Sir, nor won't hold back the truth, so welp me. I have heerd tell of your boote bin took away. I would be happy to lend an and, Sir, to recover that property. How all will end otherwise I regrett. Knowing well who it will be that takes so mutch consern for your safety, you cannot doubt who I am, and if you wishes to meat me quiet to consult, you need only to name the place and time in the times newspaper, which I sees it every day. It must be put part in one days times, for the daite, saying a friend will show on sich a night, and in next days times for the place, saying the dogs will meet at sich and sich a place, and it shall hev the attenshen of yourFast Frend.”
“Sir,—The unfortunate situation in which you stand, the proof being so, as you must suppose, makes it necessary for you to act considerately, and no nonsense can be permitted by your well wishers. The poor man has his conscience all one as as the rich, and must be cautious as well as him. I can not put myself in no dainger for you, Sir, nor won't hold back the truth, so welp me. I have heerd tell of your boote bin took away. I would be happy to lend an and, Sir, to recover that property. How all will end otherwise I regrett. Knowing well who it will be that takes so mutch consern for your safety, you cannot doubt who I am, and if you wishes to meat me quiet to consult, you need only to name the place and time in the times newspaper, which I sees it every day. It must be put part in one days times, for the daite, saying a friend will show on sich a night, and in next days times for the place, saying the dogs will meet at sich and sich a place, and it shall hev the attenshen of your
Fast Frend.”
“That's a cool letter, upon my word,” said David Arden. “Have you an idea who wrote it?”
“Yes, a very good guess. I'll tell you all that if you allow me, just now. I should say, indeed, an absolute certainty, for I have had another this afternoon with the name of the writer signed, and he turns out to be the very man whom I suspected. Here it is.”
David Arden's curiosity was piqued. He took the last note and read as follows:—
“Sir,—My last Letter must have came to Hand, and you been in reseet of it since the 11th instant, has took no Notice thereoff, I have No wish for justice, as you may Suppose, and has no Fealing against you Mr. Longcluse Persanelly and to shew you plainly that Such is the case, I will meet you for an intervue if such is your Wishes in your Own house, if you should Rayther than name another place. I do not objeck To one frend been Present providing such Be not a lawyer. The subjek been Dellicat, I will Attend any hour and Place you appoint. If you should faile I must put my Proofs in the hands of the police, for I will take it for a sure sine of guilt if you fail after this to appoint for a meating.“I remain, Sir, Your obedient servent,“Paul Davies.“No. 2 Rosemary Court.”
“Sir,—My last Letter must have came to Hand, and you been in reseet of it since the 11th instant, has took no Notice thereoff, I have No wish for justice, as you may Suppose, and has no Fealing against you Mr. Longcluse Persanelly and to shew you plainly that Such is the case, I will meet you for an intervue if such is your Wishes in your Own house, if you should Rayther than name another place. I do not objeck To one frend been Present providing such Be not a lawyer. The subjek been Dellicat, I will Attend any hour and Place you appoint. If you should faile I must put my Proofs in the hands of the police, for I will take it for a sure sine of guilt if you fail after this to appoint for a meating.
“I remain, Sir, Your obedient servent,“Paul Davies.
“No. 2 Rosemary Court.”
“Well, that's pretty frank,” said Longcluse, observing that he had read to the end.
“Extremely. What do you suppose his object to be—to extort money?”
“Possibly; but he may have another object. In any case, he wants to make money by this move.”
“Very audacious, then. He must know, if he is fit for histrade, how much risk there is in it; and his signing his name and address to his letter, and seeking an interview with a witness by seems to me utterly infatuated,” said David Arden, with his eye upon Mr. Longcluse.
“So it does, except upon one supposition; I mean that the man believes his story,” said Mr. Longcluse, walking beside him, for they had resumed their march towards the gate.
“Really! believes that you committed the murder?” said Uncle David, again coming to a halt and looking full at him.
“I can't quite account for it otherwise,” said Longcluse; “and I think the right course is for me to meet him. But I have no intimacies in London, and that is my difficulty.”
“How? Why don't you arrest him?” said David Arden.
David Arden had seldom felt so oddly. A quarter-of-an-hour since, he expected to have been seated in his carriage with his ward and Vivian Darnley, driving into town in quiet humdrum fashion, by this time. How like a dream was the actual scene! Here he was, standing on the grass among the noble timber, under the moonlight, with the pale face beside him which had begun to haunt him so oddly. The strange smile of his mysterious companion, the cold tone that jarred sweetly, somehow, on his ear, lending a sinister eccentricity to the extraordinary confession he was making.
In this situation, which had come about almost unaccountably, there was a strange feeling of unreality. Was this man, from whom he had felt an indescribable repulsion, now by his side, and drawing him, in this solitude, into a mysterious confidence? and had not this confidence anunaccountablethough distant relation to the vague suspicions that had touched his mind? With a little effort he resumed,—
“I beg pardon, but if the case were mine I should put the letters at once into the hands of the police and prosecute him.”
“Precisely my own first impulse. But the letters are more cautiously framed than you might at first sight suppose. I should be placed in an awkward position were my prosecution to fail.Iam obliged to think of this because, although I am nothing to the public, I am a good deal to myself. But I've resolved to take a course not less bold, though less public. I am determined to meet him face to face with an unexceptionable witness present, and to discover distinctly whether he acts from fraud or delusion, and then to proceed accordingly. I have communicated with him.”
“Oh, really!”
“Yes, I was clear I ought to meet him, but I would consent to nothing with an air of concealment.”
“I think you were right, Sir.”
“He wanted our meeting by night on board a Thames boat; then in a dilapidated house in Southwark; then in a deserted house that is to be let in Thames Street; but I named my own house, in Bolton Street, at half-past twelve to-night.”
“Then you really wish to see him. I suppose you have thought it well over; but I am always for taking such miscreants promptly by the throat. However, as you say, cases differ, and I daresay you are well advised.”
“And now may I venture a request, which, were it not for two facts within my knowledge, I should not presume to make? But I venture it to you, who take so special an interest in this case, because you have already taken trouble and, like myself, contributed money to aid the chances of discovery; and because only this evening you said you would bestow more labour, more time, and more money with pleasure to procure the least chance of an additional light upon it: now it strikes me as just possible that the writer of those letters may be, to some extent, honest. Though utterly mistaken about me, still he may have evidence to give, be it worth much or little; and so, Mr. Arden, having the pleasure of being known to some members of your family, although till to-night by name only to you, I beg as a great kindness to a man in a difficulty, and possibly in the interests of the public, that you will be so good as to accompany me, and be present at the interview, that cannot be so well conducted before any other witness whom I can take with me.”
David Arden paused for a moment, but independently quite of his interest in this case: he felt a strange curiosity about this pale man, whose eyes from under their oblique brows gleamed back the cold moonlight; while a smile, the character of which a little puzzled him, curled his nostril and his thin lip, and showed the glittering edge of his teeth. Did it look like treachery? or was it defiance, or derision? It was a face, thus seen, so cadaverous and Mephistophelian, that an artist would have given something for a minute to fix a note of it in white and black.
David Arden was not to be disturbed in a practical matter by a pictorial effect, however, and in another moment he said—
“Yes, Mr. Longcluse, as you desire it I will accompany you, and see this fellow, and hear what he has to say.Certainly.”
“That's very kind—only what I should have expected, also, from your public spirit. I'm extremely obliged.”
They resumed their walk towards the gate.
“I shall get into my brougham and call at home, to tell themnot to expect me for an hour or so. And what is the number of your house?”
He told him; and David Arden having offered to take him, in his carriage, to the place where his own awaited him, which however he declined, they parted for a little time, and Mr. Arden's brougham quickly disappeared under the shadow of the tall trees that lined the curving road.