Chapter Fourteen.“Who’s the letter from, Pierce?”“One of the medical brokers, as they call themselves—the man I wrote to;” and the young doctor tossed the missive contemptuously across the breakfast table to his sister, who caught it up eagerly and read it through.“Of course,” she cried, with her downy little rounded cheeks flushing, and a bright mocking look in her eyes; “and I quite agree with him. He says you are too modest and diffident about your practice; that the very fact of its being established so many years makes it of value; that no one would take it on the terms you propose, and that you must ask at least five hundred pounds, which would be its value plus a valuation of the furniture. How much did you ask?”“Nothing at all.”“What!” cried Jenny, dropping her bread and butter.“I said I was willing to transfer the place to any enterprising young practitioner who would take the house off my hands, and the furniture.”“Oh, you goose—I mean gander!”“Thank you, Sissy.”“Well, so you are—a dear, darling, stupid old brother,” cried the girl, leaping up to go behind the young doctors chair, covered his eyes with her hands, and place her little soft white double chin on the top of his head. “There you are! Blind as a bat! Five hundred pounds! Pooh! Rubbish! Stuff! Why, it’s worth thousands and thousands, and, what is more, happiness to my own old Pierce.”“I thought that subject was tabooed, Sissy.”“I don’t care; I have broken the taboo. I have risen in rebellion, and I’ll fight till I die for my principles.”“Brave little baby,” he said mockingly, as he took the little hands from his eyes and prisoned them.“Yes,” she said, meaningly, “braver than you know.”“Jenny! You have not dared to speak about such a thing?” he cried, turning upon her angrily.“Not such a little silly,” she replied. “What! make her draw in her horns and retire into her shell, and begin thinking my own dear boy is a miserable money-hunter? Not I, indeed. For shame, sir, to think such a thing of me! I never even told her what a dear good fellow you are, worrying yourself to death to keep me, and bringing me to live in the country, because you thought I was pining and growing pale in nasty old Westminster and its slums.”“That’s right,” said Pierce, with a faint sigh.“Let her find out naturally what you are; and she is finding it out, for don’t you make any mistake about it, Miss Katherine Wilton is young, but she has plenty of shrewd common sense, as I soon found out, and little as I have seen of her I soon saw that she was quite awake to her position. Girls of sense who have fortunes soon smell out people’s motives; and if they think they are going to marry her right off to that out-door sport, Claud, they have made a grand mistake.”“But you have not dared to talk about your foolish ideas to her, Jenny?”“Not a word. Oh, timid, modest frere! I put on my best frock and my best manners when we went there to dinner, and I was as nice and ladylike as a girl could be. Reward:—Kate took to me at once, and we became friends.”Leigh uttered a sigh of relief.“But if I had dared I could have told her what a coward you are, and how ashamed I am of you.”“For not playing the part of a contemptible schemer, Sis?”“Who wants you to, sir? Why, money has nothing to do with it. Now, answer me this, Pierce. If she were only Miss Wilton without a penny, wouldn’t you propose for her at once?”“No, Sis; I would not.”“You wouldn’t?”“No, I wouldn’t be so contemptible as to take such a step when I am little better than a pauper.”“Boo! What nonsense. You a pauper! An educated gentleman, acknowledged to be talented in his profession. But I know you’d marry her to-morrow and turn your poor little sister out of doors if you had an income. Bother incomes and money! It’s all horrid, and causes all the misery there is in the world. Pierce, you shan’t run away from here and leave the poor girl to be married to that wretched boy.”“Jenny, dear, be serious. I really must get away from here as soon as I can.”“Oh, Pierce! Don’t talk about it, dear. It is only to make yourself miserable through these silly ideas of honour; and it is to make me wretched, too, just when I am so well and so happy, and all that nasty London cough gone. I declare if you take me away I’ll pine away and die.”“No, you shan’t, Sissy. You can’t, with your own clever special physician at your side,” he said merrily.“Not if you could help it, I know. But Pierce, darling, don’t be such a coward. It’s cruel to her to run away, and leave her unprotected.”“Hold your tongue!” said Leigh peremptorily. “I tell you that is all imagination on your part.”“And I tell you it is a fact I’ve seen and heard quite enough. Old Wilton is very poor, and he wants to get the money safe in his family. Mrs Wilton is only the old puss whose paws he is using for tongs. As for Claud—Ugh! I could really enjoy existence if I might box his big ears. Now look here, big boy,” cried Jenny, impulsively snatching up the agent’s letter: “I am going to burn this, for you shan’t go away and make a medical martyr of yourself, just because the dearest girl in the world—who likes you already for your straightforward manly conduct towards her—happens to have a fortune, and your practice beginning to improve, too.”“My practice beginning to improve!” he cried, contemptuously.“Yes, sir, improve; didn’t you have a broken boy to mend yesterday? and haven’t you a chance of the parish practice, which is twenty pounds a year? and oh, hooray, hooray! I am so glad, there’s somebody ill at the Manor again. I hope it’s Clodpole Claud this time,” and she wildly waltzed round the room, waving the letter over her head, before stopping by the fire, throwing the paper in, and plumping down in a chair, looking demure and solemn as a nun.For Tom Jonson, the groom from the Manor, had driven over in the dog-cart, pulled up short, and now rang sharply at the bell.Leigh turned pale, for the man’s manner betokened emergency, and he could only associate this with the patient to whom he had been called before.“Will you come over at once, sir, please?”“Miss Wilton worse?”“Oh, no, sir. Something wrong with young Master.” Leigh uttered a sigh of relief, and stepped back for his hat.“Mr Wilton, junior, taken ill, dear,” he said. “I heard, Pierce. Do kill him, or send him into a consumption.”
“Who’s the letter from, Pierce?”
“One of the medical brokers, as they call themselves—the man I wrote to;” and the young doctor tossed the missive contemptuously across the breakfast table to his sister, who caught it up eagerly and read it through.
“Of course,” she cried, with her downy little rounded cheeks flushing, and a bright mocking look in her eyes; “and I quite agree with him. He says you are too modest and diffident about your practice; that the very fact of its being established so many years makes it of value; that no one would take it on the terms you propose, and that you must ask at least five hundred pounds, which would be its value plus a valuation of the furniture. How much did you ask?”
“Nothing at all.”
“What!” cried Jenny, dropping her bread and butter.
“I said I was willing to transfer the place to any enterprising young practitioner who would take the house off my hands, and the furniture.”
“Oh, you goose—I mean gander!”
“Thank you, Sissy.”
“Well, so you are—a dear, darling, stupid old brother,” cried the girl, leaping up to go behind the young doctors chair, covered his eyes with her hands, and place her little soft white double chin on the top of his head. “There you are! Blind as a bat! Five hundred pounds! Pooh! Rubbish! Stuff! Why, it’s worth thousands and thousands, and, what is more, happiness to my own old Pierce.”
“I thought that subject was tabooed, Sissy.”
“I don’t care; I have broken the taboo. I have risen in rebellion, and I’ll fight till I die for my principles.”
“Brave little baby,” he said mockingly, as he took the little hands from his eyes and prisoned them.
“Yes,” she said, meaningly, “braver than you know.”
“Jenny! You have not dared to speak about such a thing?” he cried, turning upon her angrily.
“Not such a little silly,” she replied. “What! make her draw in her horns and retire into her shell, and begin thinking my own dear boy is a miserable money-hunter? Not I, indeed. For shame, sir, to think such a thing of me! I never even told her what a dear good fellow you are, worrying yourself to death to keep me, and bringing me to live in the country, because you thought I was pining and growing pale in nasty old Westminster and its slums.”
“That’s right,” said Pierce, with a faint sigh.
“Let her find out naturally what you are; and she is finding it out, for don’t you make any mistake about it, Miss Katherine Wilton is young, but she has plenty of shrewd common sense, as I soon found out, and little as I have seen of her I soon saw that she was quite awake to her position. Girls of sense who have fortunes soon smell out people’s motives; and if they think they are going to marry her right off to that out-door sport, Claud, they have made a grand mistake.”
“But you have not dared to talk about your foolish ideas to her, Jenny?”
“Not a word. Oh, timid, modest frere! I put on my best frock and my best manners when we went there to dinner, and I was as nice and ladylike as a girl could be. Reward:—Kate took to me at once, and we became friends.”
Leigh uttered a sigh of relief.
“But if I had dared I could have told her what a coward you are, and how ashamed I am of you.”
“For not playing the part of a contemptible schemer, Sis?”
“Who wants you to, sir? Why, money has nothing to do with it. Now, answer me this, Pierce. If she were only Miss Wilton without a penny, wouldn’t you propose for her at once?”
“No, Sis; I would not.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“No, I wouldn’t be so contemptible as to take such a step when I am little better than a pauper.”
“Boo! What nonsense. You a pauper! An educated gentleman, acknowledged to be talented in his profession. But I know you’d marry her to-morrow and turn your poor little sister out of doors if you had an income. Bother incomes and money! It’s all horrid, and causes all the misery there is in the world. Pierce, you shan’t run away from here and leave the poor girl to be married to that wretched boy.”
“Jenny, dear, be serious. I really must get away from here as soon as I can.”
“Oh, Pierce! Don’t talk about it, dear. It is only to make yourself miserable through these silly ideas of honour; and it is to make me wretched, too, just when I am so well and so happy, and all that nasty London cough gone. I declare if you take me away I’ll pine away and die.”
“No, you shan’t, Sissy. You can’t, with your own clever special physician at your side,” he said merrily.
“Not if you could help it, I know. But Pierce, darling, don’t be such a coward. It’s cruel to her to run away, and leave her unprotected.”
“Hold your tongue!” said Leigh peremptorily. “I tell you that is all imagination on your part.”
“And I tell you it is a fact I’ve seen and heard quite enough. Old Wilton is very poor, and he wants to get the money safe in his family. Mrs Wilton is only the old puss whose paws he is using for tongs. As for Claud—Ugh! I could really enjoy existence if I might box his big ears. Now look here, big boy,” cried Jenny, impulsively snatching up the agent’s letter: “I am going to burn this, for you shan’t go away and make a medical martyr of yourself, just because the dearest girl in the world—who likes you already for your straightforward manly conduct towards her—happens to have a fortune, and your practice beginning to improve, too.”
“My practice beginning to improve!” he cried, contemptuously.
“Yes, sir, improve; didn’t you have a broken boy to mend yesterday? and haven’t you a chance of the parish practice, which is twenty pounds a year? and oh, hooray, hooray! I am so glad, there’s somebody ill at the Manor again. I hope it’s Clodpole Claud this time,” and she wildly waltzed round the room, waving the letter over her head, before stopping by the fire, throwing the paper in, and plumping down in a chair, looking demure and solemn as a nun.
For Tom Jonson, the groom from the Manor, had driven over in the dog-cart, pulled up short, and now rang sharply at the bell.
Leigh turned pale, for the man’s manner betokened emergency, and he could only associate this with the patient to whom he had been called before.
“Will you come over at once, sir, please?”
“Miss Wilton worse?”
“Oh, no, sir. Something wrong with young Master.” Leigh uttered a sigh of relief, and stepped back for his hat.
“Mr Wilton, junior, taken ill, dear,” he said. “I heard, Pierce. Do kill him, or send him into a consumption.”
Chapter Fifteen.Leigh hardly heard his sister’s words, for he hurried out and sprang into the dog-cart, where the groom was full of the past day’s trouble, and ready to pour into unwilling ears what he had heard from Samuel, who knew that Mr Garstang, the solicitor from London, knocked down young Master about money, he thought, and that he had heard Mr Claud say something about his father kicking him.“Missus wanted to send for you last night, sir, but Master wouldn’t have it, and this morning they couldn’t make him hear in his room. Poor chap, I expect he’s very bad.”The man would have gone on talking, but finding his companion silent and thoughtful, he relapsed into a one-sided conversation with the horse he drove, bidding him “come on,” and “look alive,” and “be steady,” till he turned in at the avenue and cantered up to the hall door.Mrs Wilton was there, tearful and trembling.“Oh, do make haste, Mr Leigh,” she cried. “How long you have been!”“I came at once, madam; is your son in his room?”“Yes, yes—dead by this time. Pray, come up.”He sprang up the stairs in a very unprofessional way, forgetting the necessity for a medical man being perfectly calm and cool, and Wilton met him on the landing.“Oh, here you are. Haven’t got the door open yet. Curse the old wood! It’s like iron. Maria, go and get all the keys you can find.”“Yes, dear, but while the men are doing that hadn’t we better try and get poor Claud’s door open?”“No, hers first,” cried Wilton, and Leigh started.“I understood that it was your son who needed help,” he said.“Never mind him for a bit. You must see to my niece first;” and in a few seconds Leigh was in possession of the fact that the maid had been unable to make her mistress hear; that since then they could get no response to constant calling and knocking, and the door had resisted all their efforts to get it open.On reaching the end of the corridor Leigh found the maid, white and trembling, holding her apron pressed hard to her lips, while the footman and two gardeners, after littering the floor with unnecessary tools, were now trying to make a hole with a chisel large enough to admit the point of a saw, so as to cut round the lock.“Wood’s like iron, sir,” said the gardener, who was operating.“But would it not be easier to put a ladder to the window, and break a pane of glass?” said Leigh, impatiently.“Oh, Lord!” cried Wilton, “who would be surrounded with such a set of fools! Come along. Of course. Here, one of you, go and fetch a ladder.”The second gardener hurried off down the back stairs, while his master led the way to the front, leaving Mrs Wilton and the maid tapping at the bedroom door.“Oh, do, do speak, my darling,” sobbed Mrs Wilton. “If it’s only one word, to let us know you are alive.”“Oh, don’t, don’t pray say that ma’am,” sobbed the maid. “My poor dear young mistress! What shall I do—what shall I do?”Mrs Wilton made no reply, but, free from her husband’s coercion now, she hurried along the corridor to the other wing, to begin knocking at her son’s door, and then went down upon her knees, with her lips to the keyhole, begging him within to speak.“Such a set of blockheads,” growled Wilton; “and I was just as bad, Doctor. In the hurry and excitement that never occurred to me. You see you’ve come in cool, and ready to grasp everything. Poor girl, she was a bit upset yesterday, and I suppose it was too much for her. Boys will be boys, and I had a quarrel with my son.”This in a confidential whisper, as they crossed the hall, but Leigh hardly heard him in his anxiety, and as they passed out and along the front of the house he said, hurriedly:“I’ll go on, sir. I see they have the ladder there.”“What!” cried Wilton, excitedly, “they can’t have got it yet, and—God bless me! what does this mean?”He broke into a run, for there, in full view now, at the end of the house, with its broad foot in a flower-bed, was one of the fruit-gathering ladders, just long enough to reach the upper windows, and resting against the sill beneath that of Kate’s room.He reached the place first, clapped his hands upon the sides, and ascended a couple of rounds, but stepped back directly, with his florid face mottled with white, and his lips quivering with excitement as he spoke.“Here, you’re a lighter man than I, Doctor; go up. The window’s open, too.”Leigh sprang up, mad now with anxiety and a horrible dread; but as he reached the window he paused and hesitated, for more than one reason, the principal being a fear of finding that which he suspected true.“In with you, man—in with you,” cried Wilton; “it is no time for false delicacy now;” and as he spoke he began to ascend in turn.Leigh sprang in, and at a glance saw that the bed had not been pressed, and that there was no sign of struggle and disturbance in the daintily furnished room. No chair overset, no candlestick upon the floor, but all looking as if ready for its occupant, save that an extinguisher was upon one of the candles beside the dressing-table glass.“Gone!” cried a hoarse voice behind him, as he stood there, shrinking in the midst of the agony he felt, for it seemed to him like a sacrilege to be present.Leigh started round, to find Wilton’s head at the open casement, and directly after the heavy man stepped in.“No, no,” he shouted back, as the ladder began to bend again. “Not you. Stop below. No; take this ladder to the hall door, and wait.”He banged to, and fastened the casement, after seizing the top of the ladder, and giving it a thrust which sent it over with a crash on to the gravel.“Don’t seem like a doctor’s business, sir,” continued Wilton, gravely; “but you medical men have to be confidential, so keep your tongue quiet about what you have seen.”Leigh bowed his head, for he could not speak. A horrible sensation, as if he were about to be attacked by a fit, assailed him, and he had to battle with it to think and try to grasp what this meant. One moment there was the fear that violence had been used; the next that it meant a willing flight; and he was fiercely struggling with the bitter thoughts which came, suggesting that his love for this delicate, gentle girl was a mockery, for she was either weak, or had long enough before bound herself to another, when he was brought back to the present by the action of the Squire, who, after a sharp glance round, stooped to pick up the door-key from where it lay on the carpet after being turned and pushed out by means of a piece of wire, in the hope, as suggested by Samuel, that it could be picked out afterwards at the bottom of the door, a plan which had completely failed.Wilton thrust in the key, turned it, and opened the door, to admit his wife and the maid.“Miss Kate, Miss Kate,” cried the latter.“Call louder,” said Wilton, mockingly. “There’s no one here.”“James, James, my dear, what does this mean?” cried Mrs Wilton excitedly.“Bed not been slept in; window open—ladder outside—can’t you see?”Eliza looked at him wildly, as if she could not grasp his words; then with a cry she rushed to a wardrobe, dragged it open, and examined the hooks and pegs.“Hat—waterproof!” she cried; and then with a faint shriek—“Gone?”“Yes, gone,” said Wilton brutally. “Here, Maria; this way.”“Yes, yes; Claud’s room. Come quickly, Doctor, pray.”Pierce Leigh followed the Wiltons along the corridor, hardly knowing where he was going, in the wild turmoil which raged, in his brain. There were moments when he felt as if he were going mad; others when he was ready to think that he was suffering from some strange aberration which distorted everything he saw and heard, till he was brought back to himself by the Squire’s voice which begat an intense desire to know the worst.“Here, Claud,” he shouted, after thumping hard at his son’s bedroom door without result. “Claud! No nonsense, sir; I want you. Something serious has happened. Answer at once if you are here.”There was not a sound to be heard, and Mrs Wilton sobbed aloud.“Oh, my boy, my boy! I’m sure he is dead.”“Bah!” cried Wilton, angrily. “Here, who has been trying to get in this room?”No one answered, and Wilton bent down and looked through the keyhole.“Has anyone pushed the key out to make it fall inside?”A low murmur of inquiry followed the question, but there was no reply.“Come round to the front, Doctor,” said Wilton then, and Leigh followed him in silence downstairs and out to where the men were waiting with the ladder.This was placed up against the window which matched with Kate’s at the other end of the house, and at a sign from Wilton, Leigh once more mounted, acting in a mechanical way, as if he were no longer master of his own acts, but completely influenced by his companion.“Window fastened?” cried Wilton.“Yes.”“Break it. Mind; don’t cut your hand.”But as Wilton spoke there was the crash of glass, Leigh thrust in his hand, and unfastened the casement, which he flung open and stepped in, the Squire following.In this case the bed was tumbled from Claud having been lying down outside, but it was evident to his father that he had descended in the ordinary way, after locking his room and placing the key in his pocket, so as to make it seem that he was still in the room.“That will do,” said Wilton, gruffly. “We can go down, and it must be by the way we came.”He looked at the young doctor as if expecting him to ask some questions, but Leigh did not speak a word, merely drawing back for his companion to descend.“You’ll hold your tongue about all this, Mr Leigh?” he said.“Of course, sir,” said the young man coldly. “It is no affair of mine.”“No, nor anybody else’s but mine,” cried Wilton, fiercely. Then as soon as he reached the foot of the ladder he gazed fiercely at his two men.“Take that ladder back,” he said; “and mind this: if I find that any man I employ has been chattering about this business, I discharge him on the instant.—Thank you, Doctor, for coming. Of course, you will make a charge. The young lady seems to prefer fresh air.”Leigh looked at him wildly, and strode rapidly away.“Disappointed at losing his patient,” muttered Wilton, as he went in, to find his wife waiting for him with both her trembling hands extended.“Quick!” she cried; “tell me the worst,” as she caught his arm.He passed his arm about her waist, and seemed to sweep her into the library, where he closed the door, and pushed her down into an easy chair.“There is no worst,” he said, in a low voice. “Now, look here; you must keep your mouth shut, and be as surprised as I am. It’s all right. She was only a bit scared yesterday. The boy knew what he was about. The cunning jade has bolted with him.”“Gone—Kate?” cried Mrs Wilton.“Yes; Claud was throwing dust in our stupid old eyes. The money won’t go out of the family, old girl. They’re on the way to be married now, and as for John Garstang—let him do his worst.”“Pierce, darling, what has happened?” cried Jenny, as her brother entered the room and sank into a chair. “Oh,” she cried wildly, as she flew to him to throw her arms about his neck and gazed in his ghastly face, “it was for Kate. Oh, Pierce, don’t say she’s dead!”“Yes,” he said, in a voice full of agony; “dead to me.”
Leigh hardly heard his sister’s words, for he hurried out and sprang into the dog-cart, where the groom was full of the past day’s trouble, and ready to pour into unwilling ears what he had heard from Samuel, who knew that Mr Garstang, the solicitor from London, knocked down young Master about money, he thought, and that he had heard Mr Claud say something about his father kicking him.
“Missus wanted to send for you last night, sir, but Master wouldn’t have it, and this morning they couldn’t make him hear in his room. Poor chap, I expect he’s very bad.”
The man would have gone on talking, but finding his companion silent and thoughtful, he relapsed into a one-sided conversation with the horse he drove, bidding him “come on,” and “look alive,” and “be steady,” till he turned in at the avenue and cantered up to the hall door.
Mrs Wilton was there, tearful and trembling.
“Oh, do make haste, Mr Leigh,” she cried. “How long you have been!”
“I came at once, madam; is your son in his room?”
“Yes, yes—dead by this time. Pray, come up.”
He sprang up the stairs in a very unprofessional way, forgetting the necessity for a medical man being perfectly calm and cool, and Wilton met him on the landing.
“Oh, here you are. Haven’t got the door open yet. Curse the old wood! It’s like iron. Maria, go and get all the keys you can find.”
“Yes, dear, but while the men are doing that hadn’t we better try and get poor Claud’s door open?”
“No, hers first,” cried Wilton, and Leigh started.
“I understood that it was your son who needed help,” he said.
“Never mind him for a bit. You must see to my niece first;” and in a few seconds Leigh was in possession of the fact that the maid had been unable to make her mistress hear; that since then they could get no response to constant calling and knocking, and the door had resisted all their efforts to get it open.
On reaching the end of the corridor Leigh found the maid, white and trembling, holding her apron pressed hard to her lips, while the footman and two gardeners, after littering the floor with unnecessary tools, were now trying to make a hole with a chisel large enough to admit the point of a saw, so as to cut round the lock.
“Wood’s like iron, sir,” said the gardener, who was operating.
“But would it not be easier to put a ladder to the window, and break a pane of glass?” said Leigh, impatiently.
“Oh, Lord!” cried Wilton, “who would be surrounded with such a set of fools! Come along. Of course. Here, one of you, go and fetch a ladder.”
The second gardener hurried off down the back stairs, while his master led the way to the front, leaving Mrs Wilton and the maid tapping at the bedroom door.
“Oh, do, do speak, my darling,” sobbed Mrs Wilton. “If it’s only one word, to let us know you are alive.”
“Oh, don’t, don’t pray say that ma’am,” sobbed the maid. “My poor dear young mistress! What shall I do—what shall I do?”
Mrs Wilton made no reply, but, free from her husband’s coercion now, she hurried along the corridor to the other wing, to begin knocking at her son’s door, and then went down upon her knees, with her lips to the keyhole, begging him within to speak.
“Such a set of blockheads,” growled Wilton; “and I was just as bad, Doctor. In the hurry and excitement that never occurred to me. You see you’ve come in cool, and ready to grasp everything. Poor girl, she was a bit upset yesterday, and I suppose it was too much for her. Boys will be boys, and I had a quarrel with my son.”
This in a confidential whisper, as they crossed the hall, but Leigh hardly heard him in his anxiety, and as they passed out and along the front of the house he said, hurriedly:
“I’ll go on, sir. I see they have the ladder there.”
“What!” cried Wilton, excitedly, “they can’t have got it yet, and—God bless me! what does this mean?”
He broke into a run, for there, in full view now, at the end of the house, with its broad foot in a flower-bed, was one of the fruit-gathering ladders, just long enough to reach the upper windows, and resting against the sill beneath that of Kate’s room.
He reached the place first, clapped his hands upon the sides, and ascended a couple of rounds, but stepped back directly, with his florid face mottled with white, and his lips quivering with excitement as he spoke.
“Here, you’re a lighter man than I, Doctor; go up. The window’s open, too.”
Leigh sprang up, mad now with anxiety and a horrible dread; but as he reached the window he paused and hesitated, for more than one reason, the principal being a fear of finding that which he suspected true.
“In with you, man—in with you,” cried Wilton; “it is no time for false delicacy now;” and as he spoke he began to ascend in turn.
Leigh sprang in, and at a glance saw that the bed had not been pressed, and that there was no sign of struggle and disturbance in the daintily furnished room. No chair overset, no candlestick upon the floor, but all looking as if ready for its occupant, save that an extinguisher was upon one of the candles beside the dressing-table glass.
“Gone!” cried a hoarse voice behind him, as he stood there, shrinking in the midst of the agony he felt, for it seemed to him like a sacrilege to be present.
Leigh started round, to find Wilton’s head at the open casement, and directly after the heavy man stepped in.
“No, no,” he shouted back, as the ladder began to bend again. “Not you. Stop below. No; take this ladder to the hall door, and wait.”
He banged to, and fastened the casement, after seizing the top of the ladder, and giving it a thrust which sent it over with a crash on to the gravel.
“Don’t seem like a doctor’s business, sir,” continued Wilton, gravely; “but you medical men have to be confidential, so keep your tongue quiet about what you have seen.”
Leigh bowed his head, for he could not speak. A horrible sensation, as if he were about to be attacked by a fit, assailed him, and he had to battle with it to think and try to grasp what this meant. One moment there was the fear that violence had been used; the next that it meant a willing flight; and he was fiercely struggling with the bitter thoughts which came, suggesting that his love for this delicate, gentle girl was a mockery, for she was either weak, or had long enough before bound herself to another, when he was brought back to the present by the action of the Squire, who, after a sharp glance round, stooped to pick up the door-key from where it lay on the carpet after being turned and pushed out by means of a piece of wire, in the hope, as suggested by Samuel, that it could be picked out afterwards at the bottom of the door, a plan which had completely failed.
Wilton thrust in the key, turned it, and opened the door, to admit his wife and the maid.
“Miss Kate, Miss Kate,” cried the latter.
“Call louder,” said Wilton, mockingly. “There’s no one here.”
“James, James, my dear, what does this mean?” cried Mrs Wilton excitedly.
“Bed not been slept in; window open—ladder outside—can’t you see?”
Eliza looked at him wildly, as if she could not grasp his words; then with a cry she rushed to a wardrobe, dragged it open, and examined the hooks and pegs.
“Hat—waterproof!” she cried; and then with a faint shriek—“Gone?”
“Yes, gone,” said Wilton brutally. “Here, Maria; this way.”
“Yes, yes; Claud’s room. Come quickly, Doctor, pray.”
Pierce Leigh followed the Wiltons along the corridor, hardly knowing where he was going, in the wild turmoil which raged, in his brain. There were moments when he felt as if he were going mad; others when he was ready to think that he was suffering from some strange aberration which distorted everything he saw and heard, till he was brought back to himself by the Squire’s voice which begat an intense desire to know the worst.
“Here, Claud,” he shouted, after thumping hard at his son’s bedroom door without result. “Claud! No nonsense, sir; I want you. Something serious has happened. Answer at once if you are here.”
There was not a sound to be heard, and Mrs Wilton sobbed aloud.
“Oh, my boy, my boy! I’m sure he is dead.”
“Bah!” cried Wilton, angrily. “Here, who has been trying to get in this room?”
No one answered, and Wilton bent down and looked through the keyhole.
“Has anyone pushed the key out to make it fall inside?”
A low murmur of inquiry followed the question, but there was no reply.
“Come round to the front, Doctor,” said Wilton then, and Leigh followed him in silence downstairs and out to where the men were waiting with the ladder.
This was placed up against the window which matched with Kate’s at the other end of the house, and at a sign from Wilton, Leigh once more mounted, acting in a mechanical way, as if he were no longer master of his own acts, but completely influenced by his companion.
“Window fastened?” cried Wilton.
“Yes.”
“Break it. Mind; don’t cut your hand.”
But as Wilton spoke there was the crash of glass, Leigh thrust in his hand, and unfastened the casement, which he flung open and stepped in, the Squire following.
In this case the bed was tumbled from Claud having been lying down outside, but it was evident to his father that he had descended in the ordinary way, after locking his room and placing the key in his pocket, so as to make it seem that he was still in the room.
“That will do,” said Wilton, gruffly. “We can go down, and it must be by the way we came.”
He looked at the young doctor as if expecting him to ask some questions, but Leigh did not speak a word, merely drawing back for his companion to descend.
“You’ll hold your tongue about all this, Mr Leigh?” he said.
“Of course, sir,” said the young man coldly. “It is no affair of mine.”
“No, nor anybody else’s but mine,” cried Wilton, fiercely. Then as soon as he reached the foot of the ladder he gazed fiercely at his two men.
“Take that ladder back,” he said; “and mind this: if I find that any man I employ has been chattering about this business, I discharge him on the instant.—Thank you, Doctor, for coming. Of course, you will make a charge. The young lady seems to prefer fresh air.”
Leigh looked at him wildly, and strode rapidly away.
“Disappointed at losing his patient,” muttered Wilton, as he went in, to find his wife waiting for him with both her trembling hands extended.
“Quick!” she cried; “tell me the worst,” as she caught his arm.
He passed his arm about her waist, and seemed to sweep her into the library, where he closed the door, and pushed her down into an easy chair.
“There is no worst,” he said, in a low voice. “Now, look here; you must keep your mouth shut, and be as surprised as I am. It’s all right. She was only a bit scared yesterday. The boy knew what he was about. The cunning jade has bolted with him.”
“Gone—Kate?” cried Mrs Wilton.
“Yes; Claud was throwing dust in our stupid old eyes. The money won’t go out of the family, old girl. They’re on the way to be married now, and as for John Garstang—let him do his worst.”
“Pierce, darling, what has happened?” cried Jenny, as her brother entered the room and sank into a chair. “Oh,” she cried wildly, as she flew to him to throw her arms about his neck and gazed in his ghastly face, “it was for Kate. Oh, Pierce, don’t say she’s dead!”
“Yes,” he said, in a voice full of agony; “dead to me.”
Chapter Sixteen.“Dead? Dead to you? Pierce, speak to me,” cried Jenny. “What do you mean?”“What I say. They are a curious mixture of weakness and duplicity.”“Who are, dear?” said Jenny, with a warm colour taking the place of the pallor which her brother’s words had produced. “Why will you go on talking in riddles?”“Women. Their soft, quiet ways force you to believe in them, and then comes some sudden enlightening to prove what I say.”Jenny caught him by the shoulder as he sat in his chair, looking ghastly.“Tell me what you mean,” she cried excitedly.“Only the falling to pieces of your castle in the air,” he said, with a mocking laugh. “The marriage you arranged between the pauper physician and the rich heiress. I can easily be strictly honorable now.”“Will you tell me what you mean, Pierce?” cried the girl, angrily. “What has happened? Is someone ill at the Manor House?”“No,” he said, bitterly.“Then why were you sent for?”“To see an imaginary patient.”“Pierce, if you do not wish me to go into a fit of hysterical passion,” cried the girl, “tell me what you mean. Why—were—you—sent—for?”“Because,” replied Leigh, imitating his sister’s manner of speaking, “Mise—Katherine—Wilton—and—Mr Claud—were—supposed—to—be—lying—speechless in their rooms, and—ha-ha-ha! their doors could not be forced.”“Pierce, what is the matter with you?” cried Jenny, excitedly; “do you know what you are saying?”“Perfectly,” he cried, his manner changing from its mocking tone to one of fierce passion. “When I reached the place, a way was found in, and the birds were flown.”“Birds—flown,” cried Jenny, looking more and more as if she doubted her brother’s sanity; “what birds?”“The fair Katherine, and that admirable Crichton, Claud.”“Flown?” stammered Jenny, who looked now half stunned.“Well, eloped,” he cried, savagely, “to Gretna Green, or a registry office. Who says that Northwood is a dull place, without events?”“Kate Wilton eloped with her cousin Claud!”“Yes, my dear,” said Pierce, striving hard to speak in a careless, indifferent tone, but failing dismally, for every word sounded as if torn from his breast, his quivering lips bespeaking the agony he felt.There was silence for a few moments, and then Jenny exclaimed:“Pierce, is this some cruel jest?”“Do I look as if I were jesting?” he cried wildly, and springing up he cast aside the mask beneath which he had striven to hide the agony which racked him. “Jesting! when I am half mad with myself for my folly. Driveling pitiful idiot that I was, ready to believe in the first pretty face I see, and then, as I have said, I find how full of duplicity and folly a woman is.”“Mind what you are saying, Pierce,” cried his sister, who seemed to be strangely moved; “don’t say words which will make you bitterly repent. Tell me again; I feel giddy and sick. I must be going to be taken ill, for I can’t have heard you aright, or there must be some mistake.”“Mistake!” he cried, with a savage laugh. “Don’t I tell you—I have just come from there? Has not old Wilton hid me keep silence? And I came babbling it all to you.”“Stop!” said Jenny thoughtfully; “Kate could not do such a thing. When was it?”“Who can tell?—late last night—early this morning. What does it matter?”“It is not true,” cried Jenny, with her eyes flashing. “How dare you, who were ready to go down on your knees and worship her, utter such a cruel calumny.”“Very well,” he cried bitterly; “then it is not true; I have not been there this morning, and have not looked in their empty rooms. Tell me I am a fool and a madman, and you will be very near the truth.”“I don’t care,” cried Jenny angrily; “and it’s cruel—almost blasphemous of you to say such a thing about that poor sweet girl whom I had already grown to love. She elope with her cousin—run away like a silly girl in a romance! It is impossible.”“Yes, impassible,” he said mockingly, as he writhed in his despair and agony.“Pierce, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. There! I can only talk to you in a commonplace way, though all the time I am longing for words full of scorn and contempt with which to crush you. No, I’m not, my poor boy, because I can see howyouare suffering. Oh, Pierce! Pierce!” she continued, sobbing as she threw her arms about his neck; “how can you torture yourself so by thinking such a thing of her?”“Good little girl,” he said tenderly, moved as he was by her display of affection. “I shall begin to respect myself again now I find that my bright, clever little sister could be as much deceived as I.”“I have not been deceived in her. She is all that is beautiful, and good, and true. Of course, I believe in her, and so do you at heart, only you are half mad now, and deceived.”“Yes, half mad, and deceived!”“Yes. There is something behind all this—I know,” cried Jenny, wildly. “They have persecuted her so, and encouraged that wretched boy to pay her attentions, till in despair she has run away to take refuge with some other friends.”“With Claud Wilton!” said Pierce, bitterly.“Silence, sir! No. Women are not such weak double-faced creatures as you think. No, it is as I say; and oh! Pierce, dear, he was out late last night, and when he got back found her going away and followed her.”“Fiction—imagination,” he said bitterly. “You are inventing all this to try and comfort me, little woman, but your woven basket will not hold water. It leaks at the very beginning. How could you know that he was out late last night?”Jenny’s cheeks were scarlet, and she turned away her face.“There, you see, you are beaten at once, Jenny, and that I have some reason for what I have said about women; but there are exceptions to every rule, and my little sister is one of them. I did not include her among the weak ones.”To his astonishment she burst into a passionate storm of sobs and tears, and in words confused and only half audible, she accused herself of being as weak and foolish as the rest, and, as he made out, quite unworthy of his trust.“Oh! Pierce, darling,” she cried wildly, as she sank upon her knees in front of his chair; “I’m a wicked, wicked girl, and not deserving of all you think about me. Believe in poor Kate, and not in me, for indeed, indeed, she is all that is good and true.”“A man cannot govern his feelings, Sissy,” he said, half alarmed now at the violence of her grief. “I must believe in you always, as my own little girl. How could I do otherwise, when you have been everything to me for so long, ever since you were quite a little girl and I told you not to cry for I would be father and mother to you, both.”“And so you have been, Pierce, dear,” she sobbed, “but I don’t deserve it—I don’t deserve it.”“I don’t deserve to have such a loving little companion,” he said, kissing her tenderly. “Haven’t I let my fancy stray from you, and am I not being sharply punished for my weal mess?”She suddenly hung back from him and pressed her hair from her temples, as he held her by the waist.“Pierce!” she said sharply, and there was a look of anger in her eyes, “he is a horrid wretch.”“People do not give him much of a character,” said Leigh bitterly, “but that would be no excuse for my following him to wring his neck.”“I believe he would be guilty of any wickedness. Tell me, dear; do you think it possible—such things have been done?”“What things?” he said, wondering at her excited manner.“It is to get her money, of course; for it would be his then. Do you think he has taken her away by force?”Leigh started violently now in turn, and a light seemed to flash into his understanding, but it died out directly, and he said half pityingly, as he drew her to him once again:“Poor little inventor of fiction,” he said, with a harsh laugh. “But let it rest, Sissy; it will not do. These things only occur in a romance. No, I do not think anything of the kind; and what do you say to London now?”
“Dead? Dead to you? Pierce, speak to me,” cried Jenny. “What do you mean?”
“What I say. They are a curious mixture of weakness and duplicity.”
“Who are, dear?” said Jenny, with a warm colour taking the place of the pallor which her brother’s words had produced. “Why will you go on talking in riddles?”
“Women. Their soft, quiet ways force you to believe in them, and then comes some sudden enlightening to prove what I say.”
Jenny caught him by the shoulder as he sat in his chair, looking ghastly.
“Tell me what you mean,” she cried excitedly.
“Only the falling to pieces of your castle in the air,” he said, with a mocking laugh. “The marriage you arranged between the pauper physician and the rich heiress. I can easily be strictly honorable now.”
“Will you tell me what you mean, Pierce?” cried the girl, angrily. “What has happened? Is someone ill at the Manor House?”
“No,” he said, bitterly.
“Then why were you sent for?”
“To see an imaginary patient.”
“Pierce, if you do not wish me to go into a fit of hysterical passion,” cried the girl, “tell me what you mean. Why—were—you—sent—for?”
“Because,” replied Leigh, imitating his sister’s manner of speaking, “Mise—Katherine—Wilton—and—Mr Claud—were—supposed—to—be—lying—speechless in their rooms, and—ha-ha-ha! their doors could not be forced.”
“Pierce, what is the matter with you?” cried Jenny, excitedly; “do you know what you are saying?”
“Perfectly,” he cried, his manner changing from its mocking tone to one of fierce passion. “When I reached the place, a way was found in, and the birds were flown.”
“Birds—flown,” cried Jenny, looking more and more as if she doubted her brother’s sanity; “what birds?”
“The fair Katherine, and that admirable Crichton, Claud.”
“Flown?” stammered Jenny, who looked now half stunned.
“Well, eloped,” he cried, savagely, “to Gretna Green, or a registry office. Who says that Northwood is a dull place, without events?”
“Kate Wilton eloped with her cousin Claud!”
“Yes, my dear,” said Pierce, striving hard to speak in a careless, indifferent tone, but failing dismally, for every word sounded as if torn from his breast, his quivering lips bespeaking the agony he felt.
There was silence for a few moments, and then Jenny exclaimed:
“Pierce, is this some cruel jest?”
“Do I look as if I were jesting?” he cried wildly, and springing up he cast aside the mask beneath which he had striven to hide the agony which racked him. “Jesting! when I am half mad with myself for my folly. Driveling pitiful idiot that I was, ready to believe in the first pretty face I see, and then, as I have said, I find how full of duplicity and folly a woman is.”
“Mind what you are saying, Pierce,” cried his sister, who seemed to be strangely moved; “don’t say words which will make you bitterly repent. Tell me again; I feel giddy and sick. I must be going to be taken ill, for I can’t have heard you aright, or there must be some mistake.”
“Mistake!” he cried, with a savage laugh. “Don’t I tell you—I have just come from there? Has not old Wilton hid me keep silence? And I came babbling it all to you.”
“Stop!” said Jenny thoughtfully; “Kate could not do such a thing. When was it?”
“Who can tell?—late last night—early this morning. What does it matter?”
“It is not true,” cried Jenny, with her eyes flashing. “How dare you, who were ready to go down on your knees and worship her, utter such a cruel calumny.”
“Very well,” he cried bitterly; “then it is not true; I have not been there this morning, and have not looked in their empty rooms. Tell me I am a fool and a madman, and you will be very near the truth.”
“I don’t care,” cried Jenny angrily; “and it’s cruel—almost blasphemous of you to say such a thing about that poor sweet girl whom I had already grown to love. She elope with her cousin—run away like a silly girl in a romance! It is impossible.”
“Yes, impassible,” he said mockingly, as he writhed in his despair and agony.
“Pierce, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. There! I can only talk to you in a commonplace way, though all the time I am longing for words full of scorn and contempt with which to crush you. No, I’m not, my poor boy, because I can see howyouare suffering. Oh, Pierce! Pierce!” she continued, sobbing as she threw her arms about his neck; “how can you torture yourself so by thinking such a thing of her?”
“Good little girl,” he said tenderly, moved as he was by her display of affection. “I shall begin to respect myself again now I find that my bright, clever little sister could be as much deceived as I.”
“I have not been deceived in her. She is all that is beautiful, and good, and true. Of course, I believe in her, and so do you at heart, only you are half mad now, and deceived.”
“Yes, half mad, and deceived!”
“Yes. There is something behind all this—I know,” cried Jenny, wildly. “They have persecuted her so, and encouraged that wretched boy to pay her attentions, till in despair she has run away to take refuge with some other friends.”
“With Claud Wilton!” said Pierce, bitterly.
“Silence, sir! No. Women are not such weak double-faced creatures as you think. No, it is as I say; and oh! Pierce, dear, he was out late last night, and when he got back found her going away and followed her.”
“Fiction—imagination,” he said bitterly. “You are inventing all this to try and comfort me, little woman, but your woven basket will not hold water. It leaks at the very beginning. How could you know that he was out late last night?”
Jenny’s cheeks were scarlet, and she turned away her face.
“There, you see, you are beaten at once, Jenny, and that I have some reason for what I have said about women; but there are exceptions to every rule, and my little sister is one of them. I did not include her among the weak ones.”
To his astonishment she burst into a passionate storm of sobs and tears, and in words confused and only half audible, she accused herself of being as weak and foolish as the rest, and, as he made out, quite unworthy of his trust.
“Oh! Pierce, darling,” she cried wildly, as she sank upon her knees in front of his chair; “I’m a wicked, wicked girl, and not deserving of all you think about me. Believe in poor Kate, and not in me, for indeed, indeed, she is all that is good and true.”
“A man cannot govern his feelings, Sissy,” he said, half alarmed now at the violence of her grief. “I must believe in you always, as my own little girl. How could I do otherwise, when you have been everything to me for so long, ever since you were quite a little girl and I told you not to cry for I would be father and mother to you, both.”
“And so you have been, Pierce, dear,” she sobbed, “but I don’t deserve it—I don’t deserve it.”
“I don’t deserve to have such a loving little companion,” he said, kissing her tenderly. “Haven’t I let my fancy stray from you, and am I not being sharply punished for my weal mess?”
She suddenly hung back from him and pressed her hair from her temples, as he held her by the waist.
“Pierce!” she said sharply, and there was a look of anger in her eyes, “he is a horrid wretch.”
“People do not give him much of a character,” said Leigh bitterly, “but that would be no excuse for my following him to wring his neck.”
“I believe he would be guilty of any wickedness. Tell me, dear; do you think it possible—such things have been done?”
“What things?” he said, wondering at her excited manner.
“It is to get her money, of course; for it would be his then. Do you think he has taken her away by force?”
Leigh started violently now in turn, and a light seemed to flash into his understanding, but it died out directly, and he said half pityingly, as he drew her to him once again:
“Poor little inventor of fiction,” he said, with a harsh laugh. “But let it rest, Sissy; it will not do. These things only occur in a romance. No, I do not think anything of the kind; and what do you say to London now?”
Chapter Seventeen.“What are you going to do, James, dear?” said Mrs Wilton.“Eh?”“What are you going to do, dear? Oh, you don’t know what a relief it is to me. I was going to beg you to have the pike pond dragged.”James Wilton’s strong desire was to do nothing, and give his son plenty of time; but there was a Mrs Grundy even at Northwood, and she had to be studied.“Do? Errum!” He cleared his throat with a long imposing, rolling sound. “Well, search must be made for them directly, and they must be brought back. It is disgraceful I did mean to sit down and do nothing, but it will not do. I am very angry and indignant with them both, for Kate is as bad as Claud. It must not be said that we connived at the—the—the—what’s the word?—escapade.”“Of course not, my dear; and it is such a pity. Such a nice wedding as she might have had, and made it a regular ‘at home,’ to pay off all the people round I’d quite made up my mind about my dress.”“Oh, I’m glad of that,” said Wilton, with a grim smile. “Nothing like being well prepared for the future. Have you quite made up your mind about your dress when I pop off? Crape, of course?”“James, my darling, you shouldn’t. How can you say such dreadful things?”“You make me—being such a fool.”“James!”“Hold your tongue, do. Yes, I must have inquiries made.”“But do you feel quite sure that they have eloped like that?”“Oh, yes,” he said, thoughtfully; “there’s no doubt about it.”“I don’t know, my dear,” said Mrs Wilton, plaintively. “It seems so strange, when she was so ill and in such trouble.”“Bah! Sham! Like all women, kicking up a row about the first kiss, and wanting it all the time.”“James, my dear, you shouldn’t say such things. It was no sham. She was in dreadful trouble, I’m sure, and I cannot help thinking about the pike pond. It haunts me—it does indeed. Don’t you think that in her agony she may have gone and drowned herself?”“Yes, that’s it,” said Wilton, with a scowl at his wife.“Oh! Horrible! I was having dreadful dreams all last night. You do think so, then?”“Yes, you’ve hit it now, old lady. She must have jumped down from her window on to the soft flower-bed, and then gone and fetched the ladder, and put it up there, and afterwards gone and called Claud to come down and go hand in hand with her, so as to have company.”“Jumped down—the ladder—what did she want a ladder for, James, dear?”“What do people want ladders for? Why, to come down by.”“But she was down, dear. I—I really don’t know what you mean. You confuse me so. But, oh, James, dear, you don’t mean that about Claud?”“Why not? Depend upon it, they’re at the bottom of that hole where the pig was drowned, and the pike are eating bits out of them.”“James!—Oh, what a shame! You’re laughing at me.”“Laughing at you? You’d make a horse laugh at you. Such idiocy. Be quiet if you can. Don’t you see how worried and busy I am? And look here—if anyone calls out of curiosity, you don’t know anything. Refer ’em to me.”“Yes, my dear. But really it is very shocking of the young people. It’s almost immoral. But you think they will get married directly?”“Trust Claud for that. Fancy the jade going off in that way. Ah, they’re all alike.”“No, James; I would sooner have died than consented to such a proceeding.”“Not you. Now be quiet.”“Going out, dear?”“Only round the house for a few minutes. By the way, have you examined Eliza—asked her what Kate has taken with her?”“Yes, dear. Nothing at all but her hat, scarf, and cloak. Such a shabby way of getting married.”“Never mind that,” said Wilton; and he went into the hall, through the porch and on to the place where the ladder had been found.There was little to find there but the deep impressions made by the heels, except that a man’s footprints were plainly to be seen; and Wilton returned to his wife, rang the bell, and assuming his most judicial air waited.“Send Miss Kate’s maid here,” he said, sternly.“Yes, sir.”“Stop. Look here, Samuel, you are my servant, and I call upon you to speak the whole truth to me about this matter, one which, on further thought, I feel it to be my duty to investigate. Now, tell me, did you know anything about this proceeding on Mr Claud’s part?”“No, sir; ’strue as goodness, I didn’t.”“Mr Claud did not speak to you about it?”“No, sir.”“Didn’t you see him last night?”“No, sir; I went up to his room to fetch his boots to bring down and dry, but the door was locked, but when I knocked and asked for them he did say something then.”“Yes, what did he say?”Samuel glanced at his mistress and hesitated.“Don’t look at me, Samuel,” said Mrs Wilton; “speak the whole truth.”“Yes; what did he say?” cried Wilton, sternly.“Well, sir, he told me to go to the devil.”Wilton coughed.“That will do. Go and fetch Miss Wilton’s maid.”Eliza came, looking red-eyed and pale, but she could give no information, only assure them that she did not understand it, but was certain something must be wrong, for Miss Kate would never have taken such a step without consulting her.And so on, and so on. A regular examination of the servants remaining followed in quite a judicial manner, and once more Kate’s aunt and uncle were alone.“There,” he said; “I think I have done my duty, my dear. Perhaps, though, I ought to drive over to the station and make inquiries there; but I don’t see what good it would do. I could only at the most find out that they had gone to London.”“Don’t you think, dear, that you ought to communicate with the police?”“No; what for?”“To trace them, dear. The police are so clever; they would be sure to find them out.”Wilton coughed.“Perhaps we had better wait, my dear. I fully anticipate that they will come back to-night—or to-morrow morning, full of repentance to ask our forgiveness; and er—I suppose we shall have to look over it.”“Well, yes, my dear,” said Mrs Wilton. “What’s done can’t be undone; but I’m sure I don’t know what people will say.”“I shall be very stern with Claud, though, for it is a most disgraceful act. I wonder at Kate.”“Well, I did, my dear, till I began to think, and then I did not; for Claud has such a masterful way with him. He was always too much for me.”“Yes,” said Wilton dryly; “always. Well, we had better wait and see if they come back.”“I am terribly disappointed, though, my dear, for we could have had such a grand wedding. To go off like that and get married, just like a footman and housemaid. Don’t you remember James and Sarah?”“Bah! No, I don’t remember James and Sarah,” said Wilton irascibly.“Yes, you do, my dear. It’s just ten years ago, and you must remember about them both wanting a holiday on the same day, and coming back at night, and Sarah saying so demurely: ‘Please, ma’am, we’ve been married.’”Wilton twisted his chair round and kicked a piece of coal on the top of the fire which required breaking.“James, my dear, you shouldn’t do that,” said his wife, reprovingly. “You’re as bad as Claud, only he always does it with his heel. There is a poker, my dear.”“I thought you always wanted it kept bright.”“Well, it does look better so, dear. But I do hope going off in the night like that won’t give Kate a cold.”Wilton ground his teeth and was about to burst into a furious fit of anger against his wife’s tongue, but matters seemed to have taken so satisfactory a turn since the previous day that the bite was wanting, and he planted his heels on the great hob, warmed himself, and started involuntarily as he saw in the future mortgages, first, second and third, paid off, and himself free from the meshes which he gave Garstang the credit of having spun round him. As for Claud, he could, he felt, mould him like wax. So long as he had some ready money to spend he would be quiet enough, and, of course, it was all for his benefit, for he would succeed to the unencumbered estates.Altogether the future looked so rosy that Wilton chuckled at the glowing fire and rubbed his hands, without noticing that the fire dogs were grinning at him like a pair of malignant brazen imps; and just then Mrs Wilton let her work fall into her lap and gave vent to a merry laugh.“What now?” said Wilton, facing round sharply. “Don’t do that. Suppose one of the servants came in and saw you grinning. Just recollect that we are in great trouble and anxiety about this—this—what you may call it—escapade.”“Yes, dear; I forgot. But it does seem so funny.”“Didn’t seem very funny last night.”“No, dear, of course not; and I never could have thought our troubles would come right so soon. But only think of it; those two coming back together, and Kate not having changed her name. There won’t be a thing in her linen that will want marking again.”“Bah!” growled Wilton. “Yes, what is it?” he cried, as the footman appeared.“Beg pardon, sir, but Tom Jonson had to go to the village shop for some harness paste, and it’s all over the place.”“Oh, is it?” growled Wilton. “Of course, if Mr Tom Jonson goes out on purpose to spread it.”“I don’t think he said a word, sir, but they were talking about it at the shop, and young Barker saw ’em last.”“Barker—Barker? Not—”“Yes, sir, him as you give a month to for stealing pheasants’ eggs. That loafing chap.”“He saw them last night? Here, go and tell Smith to fetch him here before me.”Samuel smiled.“Do you hear, sir? Don’t stand grinning there.”“No, sir; certainly not, sir,” said the man, “but Tom Jonson thought you’d like to see him, sir, and he collared him at once and brought him on.”“Quite right. Bring him in at once. Stop a moment. Put two or three ‘Statutes at Large’ and ‘Burns’ Justice of the Peace’ on the table.”The man hurriedly gave the side-table a magisterial look with four or fire pie-crust coloured quartos and a couple of bulky manuals, while Wilton turned to his wife.“Here, Maria,” he growled, in a low tone; “you’d better be off.”“Oh, don’t send me away, please, dear,” she whispered; “it isn’t one of those horrid cases you have sometimes, and I do so want to hear.”“Very well; only don’t speak.”“No, my dear, not a word,” whispered Mrs Wilton, and she half closed her eyes and pinched her lips together, but her ears twitched as she sat waiting anxiously for the return of the footman, followed by the groom, who seemed to have had no little trouble in pushing and dragging a rough-looking lout of about eighteen into the room, where he stood with his smock frock raised on each side so as to allow his hands to be thrust deeply into his trousers pockets.“Take your hat off,” said Samuel, in a sharp whisper.“Sheeawn’t!” said the fellow, defiantly. “I arn’t done nothin’.”Samuel promptly knocked the hat off on to the floor, which necessitated a hand being taken slowly from a pocket to pick it up.“Here, don’t you do that ag’in,” cried the lad.“Silence, sir. Stand up,” cried Wilton.“Mayn’t I pick up my hat? I arn’t done nothin’.”“Say ‘sir’,” whispered the footman.“Sheeawn’t. I arn’t done nothin’, I tell yer. No business to bring me here.”“Silence, sir,” cried Wilton, taking up a pen and shaking it at the lad, which acted upon him as if it were some terrible judicial wand which might write a document consigning him to hard labour, skilly, and bread and water in the county jail. The consequence being that he stood with his head bent forward, brow one mass of wrinkles, and mouth partly open, staring at the fierce-looking justice of the peace.“Listen to me: you are not brought here for punishment.”“Well, I arn’t done nothin’,” said the lad.“I am glad to hear it, and I hope you will improve, Barker. Now, what you have to do is to answer a few questions, and if you do so truthfully and well, you will be rewarded.”“Beer?” said the lout, with a grin.“My servant will give you some beer as you go out, but first of all I shall give you a shilling.”The fellow grinned.“Shall I get the book and swear him, sir?” said Samuel, who was used to the library being turned into a court for petty cases.“There is no need,” said Wilton austerely. “Now, my lad, answer me.”“Yes, I sin ’em both last night.”“Saw whom?”“Young Squire and his gal.”“Young Squire” made Mrs Wilton smile; “his gal” seemed to set her teeth on edge.“Humph! Are you sure?” said Wilton.“Sewer? Ay, I know young Squire well enough. Hit me many a time. Haw-haw! Know young Squire—I should think I do!”“Say ‘sir,’” whispered Samuel again.“Sheeawn’t,” cried the fellow. “You mind your own business.”“Attend to me, sir,” cried Wilton, in his sternest bench manner.“Well, I am a-try’n’ to, master, on’y he keeps on kedgin’ me.”“Where did you see my son and—er—the lady?”“Where did I sin ’em? Up road.”“Where were you?”“Ahint the hedge.”“And what were you doing behind the hedge—wiring?”“Naw. On’y got me bat-fowling nets.”“But you were hiding, sir?”“Well, what o’ that? ’Bliged to hide. Can’t go out anywhere o’ nights now wi’out summun watching yer. Can’t go for a few sparrers but some on ’em says its pardridges.”“What time was it?”“Hey?”“What time was it?”“I d’know; nine or ten, or ’leven. Twelve, may-be.”“Well?”“Hey?”“What then?”“What then? Nothin’ as I knows on. Yes, there weer; he puts his arm round her waist, and she give him a dowse in the faace.”“Humph! Which way did they go then?”“Up road.”“Did you follow them?”“What’d I got to follow ’em for? Shouldn’t want nobody to follow me when I went out wi’ a gal.”Wilton frowned.“Did you see any carriage about, waiting?”“Naw.”“What did you do then?”“Waited till they was out o’ sight.”“Yes, and what then?”“Ketched sparrers, and they arn’t game.”The lout looked round, grinning at all present, as if he had posed the magistrate in whose presence he was standing, till his eyes lit on Mrs Wilton, who was listening to him intently, and to her he raised his hand, passing the open palm upward past his face till it was as high as he could reach, and then descending the arc of a circle, a movement supposed in rustic schools to represent a most respectful bow.“Ah, Barker, Barker!” said the recipient, shaking her head at him; “you never come to the Sunday school now.”“Grow’d too big, missus,” said the lad, grinning, and then noisily using his cuff for the pocket-handkerchief he lacked.“We are never too big to learn to be good, Barker,” continued Mrs Wilton, “and I’m afraid you are growing a bad boy now.”“Oh, I don’t know, missus; I shouldn’t be a bad ’un if there was no game.”“That will do, that will do,” said the Squire, impatiently. “That’s all you know, then, sir?”“Oh, no; I knows a lot more than that,” said the lad, grinning.“Then why the deuce don’t you speak?”“What say?”“Tell me what more you know about Mr Claud and the lady, and I’ll give you another shilling.”“Will yer?” cried the lad, eagerly. “Well, I’ve seed’d ’em five or six times afore going along by the copse and down the narrow lane, and I sin him put his arm round her oncet, and I was close by, lying clost to a rabbud hole; and she says, ‘How dare you, sir! how dare you!’ just like that I dunno any more, and that makes two shillin’.”“There; be off. Take him away, Samuel, and give him a horn of beer.”“Yes sir—Now, then, come on.”But the lad stood and grinned, first at the Squire and then at Mrs Wilton, rubbing his hands down his sides the while.“D’yer hear?” whispered the footman, as the groom opened the door. “Come on.”“Sheeawn’t.”“Come on. Beer.”“But he arn’t give me the two shillings yet.”“Eh? Oh, forgot,” said the Squire.“Gahn. None o’ your games. Couldn’t ha’ forgetted it so soon.”“There—Take him away.”Wilton held out a couple of shillings, and the fellow snatched them, bit both between his big white teeth, stuffed one in each pocket, made Mrs Wilton another bow, and turned to go; but his wardrobe had been sadly neglected, and at the first step one of the shillings trickled down the leg of his trousers, escaped the opening into his ill-laced boot, rattled on the polished oaken floor, and then ran along, after the fashion of coins, to hide itself in the darkest corner of the room. But Barker was too sharp for it, and forgetting entirely the lessons he had learned at school about ordering “himself lowly and reverently to all his betters,” he shouted: “Loo, loo, loo!” pounced upon it like a cat does upon a mouse, picked it up, and thrust it where it could join its fellow, and turned to Mrs Wilton.“Hole in the pocket,” he said, confidentially, and went off to get the beer.“Bah! Savage!” growled Wilton, as the door closed. “There, Maria, no doubt about it now.”“No, my dear, and we can sleep in peace.”But Mrs Wilton was wrong save and except the little nap she had after dinner while her husband was smoking his pipe; for that night, just before the last light was out—that last light being in the Squire’s room where certain arrangements connected with hair and pieces of paper had detained Mrs Wilton nearly half an hour after her husband had announced in regular cadence that he was fast asleep—there came a long ringing at the hall door bell.It was so utterly unexpected in the silence and solitude of the country place that Mrs Wilton sprang from her seat in front of the dressing-glass, jarring the table so that a scent-bottle fell with a crash, and injuring her knees.“James—James!” she cried.“Eh, what’s the matter?” came from the bed, as the Squire sat up suddenly.“Fire! Fire! Another stack burning, I’m sure.”Wilton sprang out of bed, ran to the window, tore aside the blind, flung open the casement, and looked down.“Where is it?” he shouted, for he had more than once been summoned from his bed to rick fires.“Where’s what?” came in a familiar voice.Wilton darted back, letting fall the blind.“Slip on your dressing gown,” he said, hastily, “and pull out those confounded things from your hair. They’ve come back.”“Oh, my dear, and me this figure!” cried the lady, and for the next ten minutes there was a hurried sound of dressing going on.“Look sharp,” said Wilton. “I’ll go down and let them in. You’d better rouse up Cook and Samuel; they’ll want something to eat.”“I won’t be two minutes, my dear. Take them in the library; the wood ashes will soon glow up again. My own darlings! I am glad.”Mrs Wilton was less, for by the time the heavy bolts, lock, and bar had been undone, she was out of her room, and hurried to the balustrade to look down into the hall, paying no heed to the cool puff of wind that rushed upward and nearly extinguished the candle her husband had set down upon the marble table.“My own boy!” she sighed, as she saw Claud enter, and heard his words.“Thankye,” he said. “Gone to bed soon.”“The usual time, my boy,” said Wilton, in very different tones to those he had used at their last meeting. “But haven’t you brought her?”“Brought her?”“Yes; where’s Kate?”“Fast asleep in bed by now, I suppose,” said the young man sulkily.“Oh, but you should have brought her. Where have you come from?”“Fast train down. London. Didn’t suppose I was going to stop here, did you, to be kicked?”“Don’t say any more about that, my boy. It’s all over now; but why didn’t you bring her down?”“Oh, Claud, my boy, you shouldn’t have left her like that.”“Brought her down—Kate—shouldn’t have left,” said the young man, excitedly. “Here, what do you both mean?”“There, nonsense; what is the use of dissimulation now, my boy,” said Wilton. “Of course we know, and—there—it’s of no use to cry over spilt milk. We did not like it, and you shouldn’t have both tried to throw dust in our eyes.”“Look here, guv’nor, have you been to a dinner anywhere to-night?”“Absurd, sir. Stop this fooling. Where did you leave Kate?”“In bed and asleep, I suppose.”“But—but where have you been, then?”“London, I tell you. Shouldn’t have been back now, only I couldn’t find Harry Dasent. He’s off somewhere, so I thought I’d better come back. I say, is she all right again?”“I knew it! I knew it!” shrieked Mrs Wilton. “I said it from the first. Oh, James, James!—The pond—the pond! She’s gone—she’s gone!”“Who’s gone?” stammered Claud, looking from father to mother, and back again.“Kate, dear; drowned—drowned,” wailed Mrs Wilton.“What!” shouted Claud.“Look here, sir,” said his father, catching him by the arm in a tremendous grip, as he raised the candle to gaze searchingly in his son’s face; “let’s have the truth at once. You’re playing some game of your own to hide this—this escapade.”“Guv’nor!” cried the young man, catching his father by the arm in turn; “put down that cursed candle; you’ll burn my face. You don’t mean to say the little thing has cut?”
“What are you going to do, James, dear?” said Mrs Wilton.
“Eh?”
“What are you going to do, dear? Oh, you don’t know what a relief it is to me. I was going to beg you to have the pike pond dragged.”
James Wilton’s strong desire was to do nothing, and give his son plenty of time; but there was a Mrs Grundy even at Northwood, and she had to be studied.
“Do? Errum!” He cleared his throat with a long imposing, rolling sound. “Well, search must be made for them directly, and they must be brought back. It is disgraceful I did mean to sit down and do nothing, but it will not do. I am very angry and indignant with them both, for Kate is as bad as Claud. It must not be said that we connived at the—the—the—what’s the word?—escapade.”
“Of course not, my dear; and it is such a pity. Such a nice wedding as she might have had, and made it a regular ‘at home,’ to pay off all the people round I’d quite made up my mind about my dress.”
“Oh, I’m glad of that,” said Wilton, with a grim smile. “Nothing like being well prepared for the future. Have you quite made up your mind about your dress when I pop off? Crape, of course?”
“James, my darling, you shouldn’t. How can you say such dreadful things?”
“You make me—being such a fool.”
“James!”
“Hold your tongue, do. Yes, I must have inquiries made.”
“But do you feel quite sure that they have eloped like that?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, thoughtfully; “there’s no doubt about it.”
“I don’t know, my dear,” said Mrs Wilton, plaintively. “It seems so strange, when she was so ill and in such trouble.”
“Bah! Sham! Like all women, kicking up a row about the first kiss, and wanting it all the time.”
“James, my dear, you shouldn’t say such things. It was no sham. She was in dreadful trouble, I’m sure, and I cannot help thinking about the pike pond. It haunts me—it does indeed. Don’t you think that in her agony she may have gone and drowned herself?”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Wilton, with a scowl at his wife.
“Oh! Horrible! I was having dreadful dreams all last night. You do think so, then?”
“Yes, you’ve hit it now, old lady. She must have jumped down from her window on to the soft flower-bed, and then gone and fetched the ladder, and put it up there, and afterwards gone and called Claud to come down and go hand in hand with her, so as to have company.”
“Jumped down—the ladder—what did she want a ladder for, James, dear?”
“What do people want ladders for? Why, to come down by.”
“But she was down, dear. I—I really don’t know what you mean. You confuse me so. But, oh, James, dear, you don’t mean that about Claud?”
“Why not? Depend upon it, they’re at the bottom of that hole where the pig was drowned, and the pike are eating bits out of them.”
“James!—Oh, what a shame! You’re laughing at me.”
“Laughing at you? You’d make a horse laugh at you. Such idiocy. Be quiet if you can. Don’t you see how worried and busy I am? And look here—if anyone calls out of curiosity, you don’t know anything. Refer ’em to me.”
“Yes, my dear. But really it is very shocking of the young people. It’s almost immoral. But you think they will get married directly?”
“Trust Claud for that. Fancy the jade going off in that way. Ah, they’re all alike.”
“No, James; I would sooner have died than consented to such a proceeding.”
“Not you. Now be quiet.”
“Going out, dear?”
“Only round the house for a few minutes. By the way, have you examined Eliza—asked her what Kate has taken with her?”
“Yes, dear. Nothing at all but her hat, scarf, and cloak. Such a shabby way of getting married.”
“Never mind that,” said Wilton; and he went into the hall, through the porch and on to the place where the ladder had been found.
There was little to find there but the deep impressions made by the heels, except that a man’s footprints were plainly to be seen; and Wilton returned to his wife, rang the bell, and assuming his most judicial air waited.
“Send Miss Kate’s maid here,” he said, sternly.
“Yes, sir.”
“Stop. Look here, Samuel, you are my servant, and I call upon you to speak the whole truth to me about this matter, one which, on further thought, I feel it to be my duty to investigate. Now, tell me, did you know anything about this proceeding on Mr Claud’s part?”
“No, sir; ’strue as goodness, I didn’t.”
“Mr Claud did not speak to you about it?”
“No, sir.”
“Didn’t you see him last night?”
“No, sir; I went up to his room to fetch his boots to bring down and dry, but the door was locked, but when I knocked and asked for them he did say something then.”
“Yes, what did he say?”
Samuel glanced at his mistress and hesitated.
“Don’t look at me, Samuel,” said Mrs Wilton; “speak the whole truth.”
“Yes; what did he say?” cried Wilton, sternly.
“Well, sir, he told me to go to the devil.”
Wilton coughed.
“That will do. Go and fetch Miss Wilton’s maid.”
Eliza came, looking red-eyed and pale, but she could give no information, only assure them that she did not understand it, but was certain something must be wrong, for Miss Kate would never have taken such a step without consulting her.
And so on, and so on. A regular examination of the servants remaining followed in quite a judicial manner, and once more Kate’s aunt and uncle were alone.
“There,” he said; “I think I have done my duty, my dear. Perhaps, though, I ought to drive over to the station and make inquiries there; but I don’t see what good it would do. I could only at the most find out that they had gone to London.”
“Don’t you think, dear, that you ought to communicate with the police?”
“No; what for?”
“To trace them, dear. The police are so clever; they would be sure to find them out.”
Wilton coughed.
“Perhaps we had better wait, my dear. I fully anticipate that they will come back to-night—or to-morrow morning, full of repentance to ask our forgiveness; and er—I suppose we shall have to look over it.”
“Well, yes, my dear,” said Mrs Wilton. “What’s done can’t be undone; but I’m sure I don’t know what people will say.”
“I shall be very stern with Claud, though, for it is a most disgraceful act. I wonder at Kate.”
“Well, I did, my dear, till I began to think, and then I did not; for Claud has such a masterful way with him. He was always too much for me.”
“Yes,” said Wilton dryly; “always. Well, we had better wait and see if they come back.”
“I am terribly disappointed, though, my dear, for we could have had such a grand wedding. To go off like that and get married, just like a footman and housemaid. Don’t you remember James and Sarah?”
“Bah! No, I don’t remember James and Sarah,” said Wilton irascibly.
“Yes, you do, my dear. It’s just ten years ago, and you must remember about them both wanting a holiday on the same day, and coming back at night, and Sarah saying so demurely: ‘Please, ma’am, we’ve been married.’”
Wilton twisted his chair round and kicked a piece of coal on the top of the fire which required breaking.
“James, my dear, you shouldn’t do that,” said his wife, reprovingly. “You’re as bad as Claud, only he always does it with his heel. There is a poker, my dear.”
“I thought you always wanted it kept bright.”
“Well, it does look better so, dear. But I do hope going off in the night like that won’t give Kate a cold.”
Wilton ground his teeth and was about to burst into a furious fit of anger against his wife’s tongue, but matters seemed to have taken so satisfactory a turn since the previous day that the bite was wanting, and he planted his heels on the great hob, warmed himself, and started involuntarily as he saw in the future mortgages, first, second and third, paid off, and himself free from the meshes which he gave Garstang the credit of having spun round him. As for Claud, he could, he felt, mould him like wax. So long as he had some ready money to spend he would be quiet enough, and, of course, it was all for his benefit, for he would succeed to the unencumbered estates.
Altogether the future looked so rosy that Wilton chuckled at the glowing fire and rubbed his hands, without noticing that the fire dogs were grinning at him like a pair of malignant brazen imps; and just then Mrs Wilton let her work fall into her lap and gave vent to a merry laugh.
“What now?” said Wilton, facing round sharply. “Don’t do that. Suppose one of the servants came in and saw you grinning. Just recollect that we are in great trouble and anxiety about this—this—what you may call it—escapade.”
“Yes, dear; I forgot. But it does seem so funny.”
“Didn’t seem very funny last night.”
“No, dear, of course not; and I never could have thought our troubles would come right so soon. But only think of it; those two coming back together, and Kate not having changed her name. There won’t be a thing in her linen that will want marking again.”
“Bah!” growled Wilton. “Yes, what is it?” he cried, as the footman appeared.
“Beg pardon, sir, but Tom Jonson had to go to the village shop for some harness paste, and it’s all over the place.”
“Oh, is it?” growled Wilton. “Of course, if Mr Tom Jonson goes out on purpose to spread it.”
“I don’t think he said a word, sir, but they were talking about it at the shop, and young Barker saw ’em last.”
“Barker—Barker? Not—”
“Yes, sir, him as you give a month to for stealing pheasants’ eggs. That loafing chap.”
“He saw them last night? Here, go and tell Smith to fetch him here before me.”
Samuel smiled.
“Do you hear, sir? Don’t stand grinning there.”
“No, sir; certainly not, sir,” said the man, “but Tom Jonson thought you’d like to see him, sir, and he collared him at once and brought him on.”
“Quite right. Bring him in at once. Stop a moment. Put two or three ‘Statutes at Large’ and ‘Burns’ Justice of the Peace’ on the table.”
The man hurriedly gave the side-table a magisterial look with four or fire pie-crust coloured quartos and a couple of bulky manuals, while Wilton turned to his wife.
“Here, Maria,” he growled, in a low tone; “you’d better be off.”
“Oh, don’t send me away, please, dear,” she whispered; “it isn’t one of those horrid cases you have sometimes, and I do so want to hear.”
“Very well; only don’t speak.”
“No, my dear, not a word,” whispered Mrs Wilton, and she half closed her eyes and pinched her lips together, but her ears twitched as she sat waiting anxiously for the return of the footman, followed by the groom, who seemed to have had no little trouble in pushing and dragging a rough-looking lout of about eighteen into the room, where he stood with his smock frock raised on each side so as to allow his hands to be thrust deeply into his trousers pockets.
“Take your hat off,” said Samuel, in a sharp whisper.
“Sheeawn’t!” said the fellow, defiantly. “I arn’t done nothin’.”
Samuel promptly knocked the hat off on to the floor, which necessitated a hand being taken slowly from a pocket to pick it up.
“Here, don’t you do that ag’in,” cried the lad.
“Silence, sir. Stand up,” cried Wilton.
“Mayn’t I pick up my hat? I arn’t done nothin’.”
“Say ‘sir’,” whispered the footman.
“Sheeawn’t. I arn’t done nothin’, I tell yer. No business to bring me here.”
“Silence, sir,” cried Wilton, taking up a pen and shaking it at the lad, which acted upon him as if it were some terrible judicial wand which might write a document consigning him to hard labour, skilly, and bread and water in the county jail. The consequence being that he stood with his head bent forward, brow one mass of wrinkles, and mouth partly open, staring at the fierce-looking justice of the peace.
“Listen to me: you are not brought here for punishment.”
“Well, I arn’t done nothin’,” said the lad.
“I am glad to hear it, and I hope you will improve, Barker. Now, what you have to do is to answer a few questions, and if you do so truthfully and well, you will be rewarded.”
“Beer?” said the lout, with a grin.
“My servant will give you some beer as you go out, but first of all I shall give you a shilling.”
The fellow grinned.
“Shall I get the book and swear him, sir?” said Samuel, who was used to the library being turned into a court for petty cases.
“There is no need,” said Wilton austerely. “Now, my lad, answer me.”
“Yes, I sin ’em both last night.”
“Saw whom?”
“Young Squire and his gal.”
“Young Squire” made Mrs Wilton smile; “his gal” seemed to set her teeth on edge.
“Humph! Are you sure?” said Wilton.
“Sewer? Ay, I know young Squire well enough. Hit me many a time. Haw-haw! Know young Squire—I should think I do!”
“Say ‘sir,’” whispered Samuel again.
“Sheeawn’t,” cried the fellow. “You mind your own business.”
“Attend to me, sir,” cried Wilton, in his sternest bench manner.
“Well, I am a-try’n’ to, master, on’y he keeps on kedgin’ me.”
“Where did you see my son and—er—the lady?”
“Where did I sin ’em? Up road.”
“Where were you?”
“Ahint the hedge.”
“And what were you doing behind the hedge—wiring?”
“Naw. On’y got me bat-fowling nets.”
“But you were hiding, sir?”
“Well, what o’ that? ’Bliged to hide. Can’t go out anywhere o’ nights now wi’out summun watching yer. Can’t go for a few sparrers but some on ’em says its pardridges.”
“What time was it?”
“Hey?”
“What time was it?”
“I d’know; nine or ten, or ’leven. Twelve, may-be.”
“Well?”
“Hey?”
“What then?”
“What then? Nothin’ as I knows on. Yes, there weer; he puts his arm round her waist, and she give him a dowse in the faace.”
“Humph! Which way did they go then?”
“Up road.”
“Did you follow them?”
“What’d I got to follow ’em for? Shouldn’t want nobody to follow me when I went out wi’ a gal.”
Wilton frowned.
“Did you see any carriage about, waiting?”
“Naw.”
“What did you do then?”
“Waited till they was out o’ sight.”
“Yes, and what then?”
“Ketched sparrers, and they arn’t game.”
The lout looked round, grinning at all present, as if he had posed the magistrate in whose presence he was standing, till his eyes lit on Mrs Wilton, who was listening to him intently, and to her he raised his hand, passing the open palm upward past his face till it was as high as he could reach, and then descending the arc of a circle, a movement supposed in rustic schools to represent a most respectful bow.
“Ah, Barker, Barker!” said the recipient, shaking her head at him; “you never come to the Sunday school now.”
“Grow’d too big, missus,” said the lad, grinning, and then noisily using his cuff for the pocket-handkerchief he lacked.
“We are never too big to learn to be good, Barker,” continued Mrs Wilton, “and I’m afraid you are growing a bad boy now.”
“Oh, I don’t know, missus; I shouldn’t be a bad ’un if there was no game.”
“That will do, that will do,” said the Squire, impatiently. “That’s all you know, then, sir?”
“Oh, no; I knows a lot more than that,” said the lad, grinning.
“Then why the deuce don’t you speak?”
“What say?”
“Tell me what more you know about Mr Claud and the lady, and I’ll give you another shilling.”
“Will yer?” cried the lad, eagerly. “Well, I’ve seed’d ’em five or six times afore going along by the copse and down the narrow lane, and I sin him put his arm round her oncet, and I was close by, lying clost to a rabbud hole; and she says, ‘How dare you, sir! how dare you!’ just like that I dunno any more, and that makes two shillin’.”
“There; be off. Take him away, Samuel, and give him a horn of beer.”
“Yes sir—Now, then, come on.”
But the lad stood and grinned, first at the Squire and then at Mrs Wilton, rubbing his hands down his sides the while.
“D’yer hear?” whispered the footman, as the groom opened the door. “Come on.”
“Sheeawn’t.”
“Come on. Beer.”
“But he arn’t give me the two shillings yet.”
“Eh? Oh, forgot,” said the Squire.
“Gahn. None o’ your games. Couldn’t ha’ forgetted it so soon.”
“There—Take him away.”
Wilton held out a couple of shillings, and the fellow snatched them, bit both between his big white teeth, stuffed one in each pocket, made Mrs Wilton another bow, and turned to go; but his wardrobe had been sadly neglected, and at the first step one of the shillings trickled down the leg of his trousers, escaped the opening into his ill-laced boot, rattled on the polished oaken floor, and then ran along, after the fashion of coins, to hide itself in the darkest corner of the room. But Barker was too sharp for it, and forgetting entirely the lessons he had learned at school about ordering “himself lowly and reverently to all his betters,” he shouted: “Loo, loo, loo!” pounced upon it like a cat does upon a mouse, picked it up, and thrust it where it could join its fellow, and turned to Mrs Wilton.
“Hole in the pocket,” he said, confidentially, and went off to get the beer.
“Bah! Savage!” growled Wilton, as the door closed. “There, Maria, no doubt about it now.”
“No, my dear, and we can sleep in peace.”
But Mrs Wilton was wrong save and except the little nap she had after dinner while her husband was smoking his pipe; for that night, just before the last light was out—that last light being in the Squire’s room where certain arrangements connected with hair and pieces of paper had detained Mrs Wilton nearly half an hour after her husband had announced in regular cadence that he was fast asleep—there came a long ringing at the hall door bell.
It was so utterly unexpected in the silence and solitude of the country place that Mrs Wilton sprang from her seat in front of the dressing-glass, jarring the table so that a scent-bottle fell with a crash, and injuring her knees.
“James—James!” she cried.
“Eh, what’s the matter?” came from the bed, as the Squire sat up suddenly.
“Fire! Fire! Another stack burning, I’m sure.”
Wilton sprang out of bed, ran to the window, tore aside the blind, flung open the casement, and looked down.
“Where is it?” he shouted, for he had more than once been summoned from his bed to rick fires.
“Where’s what?” came in a familiar voice.
Wilton darted back, letting fall the blind.
“Slip on your dressing gown,” he said, hastily, “and pull out those confounded things from your hair. They’ve come back.”
“Oh, my dear, and me this figure!” cried the lady, and for the next ten minutes there was a hurried sound of dressing going on.
“Look sharp,” said Wilton. “I’ll go down and let them in. You’d better rouse up Cook and Samuel; they’ll want something to eat.”
“I won’t be two minutes, my dear. Take them in the library; the wood ashes will soon glow up again. My own darlings! I am glad.”
Mrs Wilton was less, for by the time the heavy bolts, lock, and bar had been undone, she was out of her room, and hurried to the balustrade to look down into the hall, paying no heed to the cool puff of wind that rushed upward and nearly extinguished the candle her husband had set down upon the marble table.
“My own boy!” she sighed, as she saw Claud enter, and heard his words.
“Thankye,” he said. “Gone to bed soon.”
“The usual time, my boy,” said Wilton, in very different tones to those he had used at their last meeting. “But haven’t you brought her?”
“Brought her?”
“Yes; where’s Kate?”
“Fast asleep in bed by now, I suppose,” said the young man sulkily.
“Oh, but you should have brought her. Where have you come from?”
“Fast train down. London. Didn’t suppose I was going to stop here, did you, to be kicked?”
“Don’t say any more about that, my boy. It’s all over now; but why didn’t you bring her down?”
“Oh, Claud, my boy, you shouldn’t have left her like that.”
“Brought her down—Kate—shouldn’t have left,” said the young man, excitedly. “Here, what do you both mean?”
“There, nonsense; what is the use of dissimulation now, my boy,” said Wilton. “Of course we know, and—there—it’s of no use to cry over spilt milk. We did not like it, and you shouldn’t have both tried to throw dust in our eyes.”
“Look here, guv’nor, have you been to a dinner anywhere to-night?”
“Absurd, sir. Stop this fooling. Where did you leave Kate?”
“In bed and asleep, I suppose.”
“But—but where have you been, then?”
“London, I tell you. Shouldn’t have been back now, only I couldn’t find Harry Dasent. He’s off somewhere, so I thought I’d better come back. I say, is she all right again?”
“I knew it! I knew it!” shrieked Mrs Wilton. “I said it from the first. Oh, James, James!—The pond—the pond! She’s gone—she’s gone!”
“Who’s gone?” stammered Claud, looking from father to mother, and back again.
“Kate, dear; drowned—drowned,” wailed Mrs Wilton.
“What!” shouted Claud.
“Look here, sir,” said his father, catching him by the arm in a tremendous grip, as he raised the candle to gaze searchingly in his son’s face; “let’s have the truth at once. You’re playing some game of your own to hide this—this escapade.”
“Guv’nor!” cried the young man, catching his father by the arm in turn; “put down that cursed candle; you’ll burn my face. You don’t mean to say the little thing has cut?”