“I wish I could die for you, Perdita,” was his reply, with a lack of outward emphasis that made it impressive.
She glanced sidelong at him and drew in her breath with a half sigh. He was an honest fellow and he lovedher truly. Perhaps she was sorry, for a moment, that she could not love him. For it is the pleasure of fate to turn the affairs of lovers topsy-turvey; and even so redoubtable a Marquise as Perdita might one day find herself discomfited in somewhat the same way that Tom was now. However, fate is fate and cannot be defeated.
She followed up her sigh with a smile. “I love myself too well,” she said, “to send you on any deadly errand. Shall I write the note now?”
“Yes, if you’ll be so kind. My mare needs exercise and I shall like to ride over to Hammersmith this evening. ’Tis not six o’clock yet.”
So Perdita sat down and wrote her letter and gave it to Tom, and also gave him her hand to kiss. But he said, “Not yet, if you please; I couldn’t kiss it the right way.”
Perdita said nothing. But after her rejected suitor had departed with her letter stowed away in the breast of his coat, she looked in her glass and murmured, with a queer little laugh:
“Is that a blush I see?”
Tom marched home with a solemn and dignified air, and, having caused his mare to be saddled, he mounted her and set out toward Hammersmith, on the errand which, neither to him nor to Perdita, seemed to involve any deadly peril.
ASTom Bendibow left London and approached Kensington, the afternoon was warm and still, and slight puffs of dust were beaten upward by each impact of his horse’s hoofs upon the dry road. The foliage of the trees, now past its first fresh greenness, had darkened considerably in hue, and was moreover dulled by the fine dust that had settled upon it during the preceding week of rainless weather. Pedestrians sought the grassy sides of the road, and fancied that the milestones were further apart from each other than they ought to be; and, in the fields to the right and left, the few laborers who were still at work moved with a lazy slowness, and frequently paused to straighten their backs and pass their brown forearms across their brows. Toward the north and west the pale blue of the sky was obscured by a semi-transparent film of a brownish tint, which ascended to meet the declining sun, and bade fair to overpower it ere its time. It was a day of vague, nervous discomfort, such as precedes a thunderstorm, though there were no indications that a storm was brewing. On such a day neither work nor indolence is altogether comfortable; but the mind involuntarily loiters and turns this way and that, unready to apply itself to anything, yet restless with a feeling that some undefined event is going to occur.
Mr. Bendibow’s mind did not lack subjects with which it might have occupied itself; nevertheless, no special mental activity was indicated by his features. He rode for the most part with his head bent down, and a general appearance of lassitude and dejection. Once in awhile he would cast his glance forward to take note of the way, or would speak a word to his horse; but thought seemed to be at a standstill within him; he was in the state of partial torpor which, in some natures, follows vivid and unusual emotion. He paid no heed to the meteorological phenomena, and if he felt their effects at all, probably assigned them a purely subjective origin. The sunshine of his existence was obscured before its time, and the night was approaching. He looked forward to no storm, with its stress and peril and after-refreshment; but he was ill at ease and without hope; his path was arid and dusty, and the little journey of his life would soon be without object or direction.
For the moment, however, he had his mission and his message, and he must derive what enjoyment he might therefrom. He passed listlessly through Kensington, taking small note of the familiar buildings and other objects which met his sight. Had he not beheld them a thousand times before, and would he not see them as often again? A little while more and he began to draw near Hammersmith town, and now he sat more erect in his saddle and drew his hat down upon his brows, with the feeling that he would soon be at his destination. Passing the “Plough and Harrow”, the ostler, who was crossing the road with his clinking pail, touched his forelock and grinned deferentially.
“Good day, sir—yer servant, sir! Tiresome weather to-day; a man can’t ’ardly bear his flesh. Bound for Twick’nam, sir?”
Tom shook his head.
“Oh! beg parding, sir. Seein’ Sir Francis drive by with the pair just now, I says to myself”—
“What’s that?”
“The bar’net, sir—well, ’twas mebbe an hour since; and another party along with him. So, I says to myself”—
“Go to the dooce!” ejaculated Mr. Bendibow, putting his horse in motion.
“Thankee, sir; dry weather, this, sir; ’ope yer honor’ll keep yer ’ealth.... Thankee, sir!” he added, deftly catching the coin which Tom tossed to him and spitting upon it before thrusting it in his pocket; “and if ever yer honor wants to be put in the way of as pretty a piece of ’orseflesh....” But by this time Tom was out of earshot; so the ostler winked at the chambermaid, who was looking out of the inn window, and resumed his way across the street, whistling. Tom, meanwhile, after riding quarter of a mile further, turned off to the left, and presently drew rein in front of Mrs. Lockhart’s gate. Marion was fastening some ivy to the side of the door; she turned round on hearing the horse’s hoofs; and Mr. Bendibow, having lifted his hat, descended from the saddle and hitched his bridle to the gate-post. Marion remained standing where she was.
“Good evening, Miss Lockhart,” said Tom, advancing up the path; “don’t know if you remember me—Mr. Bendibow. Hope I see you in good health.”
“Thank you, sir. Have you ridden from London? You choose dusty weather.”
Tom was aware of a lack of cordiality in the young lady’s manner, and, being in a somewhat reckless mood, he answered bluntly, “As for that, I’m not out for my own pleasure, nor on my own business neither; and I ain’t going to keep you long waiting. I’ve a letter here for Mr. Grant—that’s the name the gentleman goes by, I believe; is he at home?”
“I think Mr. Grant is in the city; at all events, he is not here.”
“I’ve a letter for him from Perdita—the Marquise Desmoines, that’s to say,” said Tom, producing the letter and twisting it about in his fingers, as if it were atalisman to cause the appearance of the person to whom it was addressed.
“If you’ll give it to me Mr. Grant shall have it when he returns,” said Marion.
“That won’t do—much obleeged to you all the same; I’m to deliver it into his own hands. You don’t know where I might find him, do you?” inquired Tom, feeling disconsolate at this miscarriage of his only remaining opportunity of usefulness in the world.
“He’ll be back some time to-night; won’t you wait for him here?” said Marion, softening a little from her first frigidity; “mother will be glad to see you, and....”
“Mr. Grant won’t be back till toward midnight, but I can tell you where you’ll find him,” interposed a voice from the air above them—the voice of Mr. Philip Lancaster, who was leaning out of his window on the floor above. “How d’ye do, Mr. Bendibow? He’s dining with your father at his place in Twickenham.”
“Dining with my father! The dooce he is!” exclaimed Tom, now disguising the surprise which this information afforded him. “I take it you’re quite sure of what you say, Mr.—er—Lancaster,” he added, growing quite red as he stared up at that gentleman.
“Mr. Grant seemed quite sure of it when he left me to-day,” Philip replied, smiling; “but ‘the best-laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley,’ you know.”
“What’s that? Well, it’s beyond me, the whole of it, that’s all I know. Dining with Sir Francis, is he? Well, stifle me if I’m going up there!” And Tom struck his foot moodily with his whip and stared at the fluttering ribbon on Marion’s bosom.
“You won’t come in, then?” said Marion, who began to have a suspicion that Mr. Bendibow had been taking a little too much wine after his dinner; wherein she did him great injustice, inasmuch as he had drunk scarce a pint of spirits in the last three days. Her tone so plainlyindicated a readiness to abbreviate the interview, that poor Tom felt it all the way through his perplexity and unhappiness.
“No, I’m going, Miss Lockhart,” he said, with a rueful bow. “I know I ain’t on my good manners this evening, but I can’t help it. If you only knew what a lot of things there is troubling me, you’d understand how ’tis with me. Beg your pardon for disturbing you, and wish you good evening.”
“Good evening,” said Marion, kindly; and unexpectedly she gave him her hand. He took it and pressed it hard, looking in her face. “Thank you,” he said. “And I like you—by George, I do! and I wish there were more women like you in the world to care something about me.” He dropped her hand and turned on his heel, for there were tears in his eyes, and he did not wish Marion to see them. He reached the gate and mounted his horse, and from that elevation saluted Marion once more; but he bestowed merely a stare upon Philip, and so rode away.
“I like that little fellow; I believe he has a good heart,” remarked Marion, addressing herself to her ivy, but speaking to Philip.
“I’m afraid he doesn’t like me,” Philip rejoined.
She paused a moment, and then said, “I don’t wonder at it.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“Oh, I can put two and two together,” answered she, nodding her head with a kind of ominous sagacity; and she would give no further explanation.
When Tom found himself upon the high road again, he stood for some time in doubt as to which way he should proceed. Obedience to Perdita required that he should ride on without delay to Twickenham; but so strongly had his feelings been revolted by the picture presented him of his father hob-nobbing amicably withthe man who ought to have been, at best, his enemy, that he could not prevail upon himself to make a third at the party. The mystery surrounding Sir Francis’ relations with Grant had in fact entered, in Tom’s opinion, upon so acute a stage of impropriety, that his own official recognition of them would necessitate instant open war and rebellion, and this crisis he was naturally willing to postpone. On the other hand, no real harm could come from waiting till next morning before delivering Perdita’s letter, inasmuch as Mr. Grant could certainly not act upon it at that hour of the night. After a minute’s irresolution, therefore, Tom turned his horse toward London, in an exceedingly bad humor.
But when he came in sight of the “Plough and Harrow” his troubled spirit conceived a sort of compromise. He would spend the night here instead of returning to London. He could then discharge his commission the first thing in the morning, and report to Perdita by breakfast time. The difference was not great, but such as it was, it was for the better. So into the court-yard of the inn he rode, with a curvet and a prance, and a despotic shout for the ostler.
Now the ostler of the “Plough and Harrow” was an old acquaintance of Mr. Thomas Bendibow’s, and under his guidance and protection Tom had enjoyed the raptures of many a cock-fight and rat-catching, and had attended many an august exhibition of the manly art of self-defense, and had betted with varying fortune (according to the ostler’s convenience) on many a private trial between horses whose jockeys were not bigotedly set on winning upon their merits. Latterly, it is true, the son of the baronet had made some efforts to walk more circumspectly than in the first flush of his hot youth, and, as a first step in this reformed career, he had abated the frequency of his consultations with Jim the ostler; and beyond an occasional chance word ortwo, and the exhibition on Tom’s part of an eleemosynary half-crown, the friendship had outwardly fallen into disrepair.
But there are seasons when the cribbed and confined soul demands release and expansion, and yearns to immerse itself once again in the sweet old streams of habit and association that lead downward, and afford a man opportunity to convince himself that some shreds of unregenerate human nature still adhere to him. Such a season had now come for Tom Bendibow, and he was resolved to let nature and the ostler have their way. Accordingly when the latter, having seen to his patron’s horse, and skillfully tested the condition of his temper, began to refer in guarded terms to the existence of the “loveliest pair of bantam chickens as hever mortal heyes did see,” Tom responded at once to the familiar hint, and no long time elapsed ere he found himself in the midst of surroundings which were more agreeable than exclusive. Into the details of these proceedings it will not, however, be necessary for us to follow him. It is enough to note that several hours passed away, during which the heir of the Bendibows subjected himself to various forms of excitement, including that derived from a peculiarly seductive species of punch; and that finally, in obedience to a sudden impulse, which seemed whimsical enough, but which was no doubt directly communicated to him by the finger of fate, he sprang to his feet and loudly demanded that his horse be brought out and saddled forthwith, for he would ride to Twickenham.
“Never you go for to think of such a thing, Mr. Bendibow,” remonstrated Jim the ostler, with much earnestness. “Why, if the night be’nt as dark as Terribus, I’ll heat my nob; and footpads as thick betwixt ’ere and there as leaves in Wallumbrogia!”
“Have out my horse in two minutes, you rascal, orI’ll footpad you! Look alive, now, and don’t let me hear any more confounded gabble, d’ye hear?”
“It do go ag’in my conscience, Mr. Bendibow,” murmured the ostler sadly, “it do indeed! Howsumever, your word is law to me, sir, now as hevermore; so ’ere goes for it!” and he arose and departed stablewards. And on the whole, he had no reason to be dissatisfied with his night’s work, as the plumpness of his breeches’ pocket testified.
Mr. Bendibow’s horse had spent the time more profitably than his master; yet he scarcely showed more disposition to be off than did the latter. There was a vaulting into the saddle, a clatter of hoofs, and a solitary lantern swinging in the hand of Jim the ostler, as he turned and made his way slowly back to his quarters, wondering “what hever could ’ave got into that boy to be hoff so sudden.”
The boy himself would have found it difficult to answer that question. A moment before the resolve had come to him, he had anticipated it no more than his horse did. But, once he had said to himself that he would ride out and meet Mr. Grant on the way back from Twickenham, the minutes had seemed hours until he was on his way. There was no reason in the thing; but many momentous human actions have little to do with reason; and besides, Tom was not at this time in a condition of mind or body in which the dictates of reason are productive of much effect. He felt that he must go, and nothing should stand in his way.
When the ostler had affirmed that it was dark, he had said no more than the truth. The brown film which had begun to creep over the heavens before sunset, had increased and thickened, until it pervaded the heavens like a pall of smoke, shutting out the stars and blackening the landscape. It was neither cloud nor fog, but seemed rather a new quality in the air, depriving it ofits transparency. Such mysterious darkenings have been not infrequent in the history of the English climate, and are called by various names and assigned to various causes, without being thereby greatly elucidated. Be the shadow what and why it might, Tom rode into the midst of it and put his horse to a gallop, though it was scarcely possible to see one side of the road from the other. He felt no anxiety about losing his way, any more than if he had been a planet with a foreordained and inevitable orbit. The silence through which he rode was as complete as the darkness; he seemed to be the only living and moving thing in the world. But the flurry of the dissipation he had been through, and the preoccupation of his purpose, made him feel so much alive that he felt no sense of loneliness.
It had been his intention to take the usual route through Kew and Richmond; but at Brentford Bridge he mistook his way, and crossing the river there, he was soon plunging through the obscurity that overhung the Isleworth side of the river. If he perceived his mistake, it did not disconcert him; all roads must lead to the Rome whither he was bound. Sometimes the leaves of low-lying branches brushed his face; sometimes his horse’s hoofs resounded over the hollowness of a little bridge; once a bird, startled from its sleep in a wayside thicket, uttered a penetrating note before replacing its head beneath its wing. By-and-by the horse stumbled at some inequality of the road and nearly lost its footing. Tom reined him in sharply, and in the momentary pause and stillness that ensued, he fancied he distinguished a faint, intermittent noise along the road before him. He put his horse to a walk, pressed his hand over his breast, to make sure that the letter was safe in its place, and peered through the darkness ahead for the first glimpse of the approaching horseman, whom he made sure was near. But he was almost within reachof him before he was aware, and had turf been under foot instead of stony road, the two might have passed each other without knowing it.
“Hullo!” cried Tom.
“Hullo, there!” responded a voice, sharp but firm; “who are you?”
“I’m Tom Bendibow. You’re Charles Grantley, ain’t you?”
“You have good eyes, sir,” answered the other, bringing his horse close alongside of Tom’s, and bending over to look him in the face.
“It’s ears and instinct with me to-night,” was Tom’s reply. “That’s all right, then. I came out to meet you. I have a letter for you from your daughter.”
“Do you ride on, Mr. Bendibow, or shall you return with me?” inquired the other, after a pause.
“I’ll go with you,” said Tom, and turning his horse, the two rode onward together side by side.
PHILIPLANCASTERhad gone to bed early this night; he sat up all the night before, trying to compel unwilling rhymes to agree with one another, and was now resolved to discover what poetic virtue lay in sleep. But sleep proved as unaccommodating as rhyme. He could not discharge his brain of the crowd of importunate and unfruitful thoughts sufficiently to attain the calm necessary for repose. In fact, he had more than loose ends of poetry to disturb him; his relations with Marion had not been in tune since the mishap in Richmond Park, and she had, up to this time, avoided explanations with a feminine ingenuity that was not to be outmanœuvred. He understood, of course, that a lady who has allowed herself to betray special regard for a man may feel offended by the discovery that the man has had intimate relations with another lady; but, as between himself and Marion, matters had not gone so far as an explicit declaration, on her side at all events; and it was therefore peculiarly difficult to accomplish a reconciliation. Not less difficult was it, apparently, to begin over again at the beginning, and persuade her to love him on a new basis, as it were. Her position was this—that she would not yield as long as any ambiguity remained touching the past relations of himself and Perdita; and that her pride or perversity would not suffer her to let that ambiguity be cleared up. Possibly, moreover, Philip may have felt that, even were the opportunity given, the ambiguity in question might not be easily removed. In these circumstances his mostprudent course, as a man of the world, would have been to renounce Marion altogether. She was not, indeed, from any worldly point of view, a desirable match. More than this she was chargeable with certain faults of temper and temperament—faults which she herself was at no pains to disguise. She was not even beautiful in the conventional sense: Philip had seen many women far more generally attractive. Finally, he could not so much as be certain that she had ever positively loved him; her regard for him may have been no more than a fancy, which no longer swayed her.... But, when all was said, Philip knew that there was something about Marion—something rare, tender and noble—which he had never found elsewhere, and which he would never find save in her. And that he had found this and recognized it, was to him reason for believing that Marion must also have perceived something worthy of love in him. Their hands, whose clasp had been severed once, would yet find one another again. Nevertheless, in more despondent moods, Philip would remind himself that love often ended in loss, and that we never reach the happiness we had imagined. It was into such a mood that he had fallen to-night.
At one time, as he lay on his bed, encompassed by darkness on which his weary mind could paint no cheerful image, he thought he heard light noises in the house, as if some one were still stirring. Had Mr. Grant returned home? No; his firm and precise step, ascending the stair, would have been unmistakable. It could not be Mrs. Lockhart, either; she was of a placid constitution, and reposed peacefully and long. Presumably, therefore, the author of the sounds was Marion, who was quite as apt to be awake at night as in the daytime, and who might have gone down stairs to get a book. A door down stairs seemed to open and shut softly, and a draft of air came up the staircase and rattledthe latch of Philip’s room. Could Marion have gone out? Philip was half inclined to get up and investigate. But the house was now quite still; and by-and-by, as he became more drowsy, he began to think that his imagination had probably played him a trick. There were always noises in old houses, at night, that made themselves. Philip was falling asleep.
But all at once he found himself wide awake, and sitting up in bed. Had he dreamed it, or was there really a knock and a voice at his door—a voice that went further into his heart than any other? There again—
“Philip Lancaster!”
He was on his feet in a moment. “Yes, Marion. What is it?”
“I want your help. Get ready and come quickly.”
“Yes,” he said, speaking low as she had done: and in a few minutes he had dressed himself and opened the door. She was standing there with bonnet and cloak.
“What has happened?” he asked in a whisper.
“Have you your pistol? We may need it.”
“It is here,” he said, stepping back to the wardrobe and taking the weapon from a drawer. At the same time he nerved himself as a man of courage who is called upon to face an unknown danger. For there was something in Marion’s manner and in the silent influence emanating from her presence that impressed him more than any words could have done with a conviction of the nearness of peril, and of intense purpose on her part to meet and avert it. For a moment the suddenness of the summons and its mysterious import had sent the blood tremulously to Philip’s heart. But as he crossed the threshold of his room Marion put out her hand and touched and clasped his own. Her touch was warm and firm, and immediately a great surge of energy and strength went through Philip’s body, making him feel doubly himself and ready to face and conquer allthe evil and wickedness of the world. The spiritual sympathy between Marion and himself, which had been in abeyance, was re-awakened by that touch and rendered deeper and more powerful than before. Their will and thought were in accord, vitalizing and confirming each other. And in the midst of his suspense and of the hardening of his nerves to confront an external demand he was conscious inwardly of a great softening and exaltation of his spirit, which, however, enhanced his external firmness instead of detracting from it. It was the secret might of love, which enters into all faculties of the mind and heart, purifying and enlarging them. Love is life, and is capable of imparting force to the sternest as well as to the tenderest thoughts and deeds.
Marion now led the way down stairs, and Philip followed her, treading lightly and wondering at what moment his strength and valor would be called upon. Marion opened the outer door, and when it closed behind them the strange blackness of the night pressed upon their eyes like a material substance. At the gate, however, appeared a small light, seemingly proceeding from a lantern, but it had very little power to disperse its rays. Nevertheless, Philip was able dimly to perceive a large white object outside the gate, which, by the aid of mother-wit, he contrived to identify as a horse. And the lantern in Marion’s hand presently revealed that the horse was attached to a wagon. She hung the lantern on the side of the wagon and loosed the horse’s rein.
“Get in after me,” she said, “and then I’ll tell you which way to drive.”
“Well?” said Philip, when he had taken his place.
“When we get to the highway keep to the right and cross the bridge. After that I’ll tell you more.”
“How did the horse and wagon come here?” Philip inquired.
“I got them just now from Jebson, the baker. He is an obliging man, and I knew he would let me have them without asking what I wanted them for.”
“Then ’twas you I heard go out awhile ago?”
“Yes. I’ve been feeling it coming all the afternoon. At last I could bear it no longer. If it had been anything else I would have done nothing. But to risk his life, merely for fear of being mistaken, was too much.”
“Whose life, Marion?”
She made no answer at first, but, when he turned toward her and sought to read her face in the darkness, she said reluctantly:
“Mr. Grant’s.”
“His life in danger?” Philip exclaimed, greatly surprised. “How do you know?”
Again the girl was silent. But after a minute she said: “You remember Tom Bendibow’s being here this afternoon.... You told him Mr. Grant was at Twickenham. He was coming home late. The road isn’t safe on a night like this, and he carried no arms.”
“Oh! then all you fear is that he may be attacked by footpads?” said Philip, feeling relieved. He had apprehended something more definite.
“I fear he will be attacked,” was her reply.
“But, in that case,” rejoined Philip, after a few moments’ reflection, “we ought to turn to the left. The road from Twickenham lies through Richmond.”
“We should not find him there,” said Marion. “He will come through Isleworth.”
“Did he tell you so?”
“No. I didn’t know that he was going to Twickenham until you said so.”
“Then why should you.... The Isleworth road is at least a mile longer.”
“We shall find him there,” she repeated, in a lowvoice. And presently she added, with a manifest effort, “I will tell you—something. You may as well know.”
“You may trust me,” said Philip, strangely moved. He could not conceive what secret there could be, connecting her with Grant, and indicating danger to the latter; and the thought that she should be involved in so sinister a mystery filled him with a tender poignancy of solicitude.
“You may not think it much—it is something about myself,” she said, partly turning away her head as she spoke. “I’ve never said anything about it to any one; mother would not understand, and father—he would have understood, perhaps, but it would have troubled him. Indeed, I don’t understand it myself—I only know it happens.”
“It’s something that keeps happening, then?” demanded Philip, more than ever perplexed.
As Marion was about to reply, the left side of the wagon lurched downwards, the horse having, in the darkness, taken them over the side of the road. Philip pulled his right rein violently, and it gave way, Mr. Jebson’s harness being old and out of repair. Philip jumped down to investigate the damage by the aid of the lantern.
“If I can find a bit of string I can mend it,” he reported to Marion.
“I’ll give you my shoe-strings,” she said, stooping to unfasten them. “They are of leather and will hold. But be quick, Philip, or we shall be too late!”
There was such urgency in her tone, that had Philip needed any stimulus, it would have been amply provided. He repaired the break with as much despatch as was consistent with security and then resumed his seat beside Marion.
“I fear we shall be too late,” she repeated; “we should have started earlier. It’s my fault; I waited too long.”
“Are you so certain”—began Philip; but she interrupted him.
“Do you remember the time Mr. Grant came home before, when they tried to shoot him and he fell from his horse?”
“Yes; you went out and met him.”
“Yes, because I knew he was coming; when we were standing there by the open window, and the flash of lightning came, I knew he was hurt. I would have gone then, only I tried to think it was my fancy; I was afraid to find I was mistaken. And when I think of it in one way—as other people would—it always seems as if it could not be true—until it happens. It has been so ever since I was a little girl.”
“Oh, a presentiment!” murmured Philip, beginning to see light.
“The name makes no difference,” returned Marion, seeming to shiver a little. “The day my father was killed, I saw him. I saw him, with the wound in his breast. I said to myself, if that turned out to be true, I should know always afterward that I must believe. When you came and told how you found him, you only told what I had seen. I could have corrected you, if you had made a mistake.”
“You saw him!” echoed Philip.
“I saw him—something in me saw him; just as I saw Mr. Grant this evening. But it wasn’t that he came to me—that he appeared before me like a ghost; but I was where he was, and saw the place as well as him. It is at the bend of the road, not far from the little brook that runs into the river.”
“I have heard of such a power, but I never knew what to think of it,” Philip said. “But, Marion, if this peril to Mr. Grant has not happened yet, you must have seen not merely what was beyond your sight, but what was in the future. How could that be?”
“I don’t know; it’s no use trying to know. It can’t be reasoned about, unless you can tell what time and space are. When such things happen to me, there seems to be no future and no past; it is all the same—all one Now. And no good ever comes of my seeing; the things come to pass, and I cannot help it. It has been a curse to me: but if we could only save Mr. Grant, I would thank God!”
“We shall soon know about that,” said Philip; “as near as I can make out in this blackness, we must be pretty near the place you spoke of, by this time.”
Marion made no reply, save by a slight movement, as if she were drawing herself together, and they drove on in silence. Their conversation had been carried on in low tones, but with deep and tremulous emphasis on Marion’s part; she was aroused and moved in a way that Philip had never seen before; the activity of the singular power which she believed herself to possess had caused the veil which usually obscured her character to roll back; and Philip was conscious of the immediate contact, as it were, of a nature warm, deep, passionate, and intensely feminine. The heavy darkness and silence of night that enveloped him and her was made, in a sense, luminous by this revelation, and the anticipation of the adventure which lay so short a distance before them overcame the intellectual coldness which was the vice of his character, and kindled the latent energies of his soul. How incongruous sounded the regular and methodical footfall of the old white horse, duskily visible in the gloom as he plodded between the shafts.
A few minutes passed thus; and then a hard, abrupt noise rang out, ending flatly, without an echo. The distance from which it came seemed not more than a hundred yards. The horse threw up his head and partly halted, but immediately resumed his jog-trot. Philip, holding the reins in his left hand, grasped his pistolwith his right, and cocked it. Marion rose to her feet, and sent forth her voice, with an astonishing volume of sound, leaping penetratingly into the night. Another shout answered hers more faintly from the blind region beyond. It was not repeated. The wagon jolted roughly over a narrow bridge that spanned a still-flowing brook. Then, like a sudden portentous birth out of sable chaos, sprang the scrambling speed of a horse’s headlong gallop, and a dark mass hurtled by, with fiery sparks smitten from the flinty road by iron-shod hoofs. It passed them and was gone, plunging into invisibility with a sort of fury of haste, as of a lost spirit rushing at annihilation.
Philip had raised his weapon to fire, but a shade of doubt made him forbear to pull the trigger. This man might not be the guilty one, and to kill an innocent man would be worse than to let a guilty man escape. Marion, who was looking straight forward, had not seemed to notice the figure at all as it swept past. All her faculties were concentrated elsewhere. The old white horse, apparently startled out of his customary impassivity, lifted up his nose and rattled the wagon along at a surprising rate. But the journey was nearly at an end.
A little way beyond the bridge, the road, which had heretofore lain between hawthorn hedges, out of which, at intervals, grew large elm or lime trees, suddenly spread out to three or four times its general breadth, forming a sort of open place of oval shape, and about half an acre in area. The road passed along one side of this oval; the rest was turf, somewhat marshy toward the left. Philip stopped the horse and he and Marion got down. He took the lantern, and they went forward on foot. The narrow rays of the lantern, striking along the ground in front, rested flickeringly upon a dark object lying near the edge of the road, next the turf. They walked up to the object and Philip stoopedto examine it, Marion standing by with her head turned away. But, at an exclamation from Philip, she started violently and began to tremble.
“There are two here!” he said.
Marion’s teeth chattered. “Dead?” she said, in a thin voice.
“No. At least, one of them is not. His heart beats, and.... Yes, he’s trying to say something.” Philip stooped lower, and let all the light of the lantern fall on this man’s face. “I don’t recognize him—or—why, it’s Bendibow!”
Marion caught her breath sharply. “Sir Francis?”
“No, no—Tom Bendibow.”
Marion said nothing, but knelt down beside the other figure, which was lying prostrate, and turned it over, so that the face was revealed. It was Mr. Grant, and he was dead, shot through the heart. After a few moments she looked up at Philip and said huskily:
“You should have fired at him.”
THEdead man’s horse had disappeared, and was probably trotting back to his stable in Twickenham. But Tom Bendibow’s steed, which knew its master, could be heard cropping the herbage a few rods away, at the other end of the open place. This sound, and the struggling breathing of Tom himself, were distinctly audible in the stillness of the night.
Marion, after there was no longer any doubt as to Mr. Grant’s being dead, sat for several minutes motionless and silent, his head resting on her lap. Philip meanwhile was examining Tom’s injuries, which proved to be a crushing blow at the base of the head, behind the right ear, and two upper ribs on the same side broken, apparently by the stamp of a horse’s hoof. It seemed hardly possible that he could live long.
“Shall I lift them into the wagon?” he asked Marion. “We should lose no time in getting home.”
“If you take out the seat of the wagon, they can lie at full length,” she said. “I will get in with them. You must ride Mr. Bendibow’s horse and lead ours.”
The plan was as good as the circumstances admitted; and Philip, assisted by Marion, succeeded in lifting the two lifeless weights into the bottom of the vehicle, in which had previously been placed a kind of pillow, improvised out of Philip’s coat and Marion’s shawl. Marion then got in and supported Tom in such a manner that the jolting might distress him as little as possible; and finally, Philip, having caught and mounted Tom’s horse, grasped the reins of the baker’s phlegmatic steed, and the party moved forward. The strange darkness,which had been at its densest at the moment of the catastrophe, now began to lighten; a star or two appeared toward the east, and gradually the heavy veil of obscurity was withdrawn in the direction of the west and south. The faces of the two victims were faintly revealed. Mr. Grant’s countenance bore a serene and austere expression; but poor Tom’s features were painful to contemplate—the heaviness of insensibility alternated there with the contractions of suffering. “Poor boy!” Marion murmured, more than once, but with an inward and musing tone, as if her compassion extended to something beyond his physical calamity. At other times this compassionate aspect gave place to an expression of stern severity; and this again was once or twice succeeded by a beautifully tender look, which deepened her eyes and made her lips move tremulously. Few words were exchanged between her and Philip during their sad journey, which seemed to both of them as long as a lifetime, and yet brief.
Brief or long, the journey ended at last, and in the paleness of early dawn, Philip, with the help of the astounded baker, who had been aroused for the purpose, carried Tom Bendibow and the body of Mr. Grant through the iron gate, and beneath the overspreading limbs of the cedar, and into the house where Mrs. Lockhart, horror-stricken and speechless, stood to receive them. Then the baker was sent for a physician; the dead man’s body was laid on the bed in his chamber, and Philip did whatever was possible to make Bendibow comfortable in his own room. The latter had by this time begun to regain the use of his senses, and with these—though only feebly and at intervals—the power of speech.
“Did the ... fellow who did this ... get off?” was his first question. To which Philip replied in the affirmative.
After a pause Tom resumed: “Well, I’m done for!”
“Nothing of the sort; you will be all right in time,” said Philip.
“No; I’m a dead man; and ... I’ll tell you what, I’m ... glad of it!” He said this with all the emphasis at his command. By-and-by he added, “What about the ... old gentleman?”
“Shot through the heart.”
Several minutes passed, and Philip thought that Tom was relapsing into unconsciousness, when he suddenly exclaimed: “Do you mean to say he’s dead?”
“He died instantly.”
“Give me ... some water,” said Tom, with a ghastly expression; and after he had drank, he continued, “I tried to help; but when I heard his voice” ... he broke off abruptly.
“Whose voice? Oh, you mean Marion’s—Miss Lockhart.”
“Very likely,” said Tom. “I’d better tell you how it all came on: I shan’t be of any use by the time the inquest begins. I rode over the river to meet him ... to give the letter, you know. Took the wrong road, but he’d taken it, too, so ... we rode along together, talking, first about Perdita: then he spoke of Miss Lockhart ... she was on his mind; he liked her, didn’t he?”
“That’s strange!” muttered Philip to himself.
“And we talked about ... well, no matter! Then my girths got loose and I got down to tighten ’em, and he rode on. Just as I was mounting I heard another horse coming along ... and there seemed to be some row.... I rode up. I heard him say, ‘Hand it over, or....’ ”
“The highwayman said that?”
“Yes,” replied Tom, after a long pause. “By that time I was almost on ’em. He fired; by the flash I saw his face.... Oh, my God!”
“You would know him again, then?”
“I shall never see him again,” replied Tom, with a certain doggedness of tone. His bearing during this conversation had been so singular, and in some respects so unaccountable, that Philip was disposed to think his mind was affected. “You had better rest,” he said kindly.
“I shall rest—till Judgment Day,” replied the wounded youth; “and I shan’t say much more before then. Oh, I have my wits about me ... more now than when that shot was fired! Just after that I heard a call somewhere down the road; I shouted back. Then he rode at me and hit me with the butt of his pistol. Well, he’s a villain; but it’s better for me to die than to hang him. I’ve had enough.”
At this point Marion came to the door with a letter in her hand, and as Philip approached her, she said to him in a low voice: “I found this in Mr. Grant’s pocket. It is addressed to Perdita Desmoines. What shall be done about it?”
Philip took the letter from her and looked at it. It was inclosed in a sealed packet of stout paper, and the address was in Mr. Grant’s handwriting. Its appearance indicated that it had been kept for some time; the corners were dog-eared and the edges somewhat worn. Across the corner of the packet was the following indorsement:
“In case of my decease to be handed at once to the person to whom it is addressed, and on no account to be opened by any other person.J. G.”
“In case of my decease to be handed at once to the person to whom it is addressed, and on no account to be opened by any other person.
J. G.”
“I can’t leave here at present,” said Lancaster, “and ’twould not be safe to trust it to a messenger. Let it wait till this evening or to-morrow.”
“What’s that about Perdita?” demanded Tom from the bed; for, with the abnormal acuteness of perceptionthat sometimes characterizes the dying, he had caught her name. “A letter for her? Send for her, Miss Lockhart, please! I want to see her before I go. And she ought to be here besides. Tell her that he’s dead and I’m dying and she’ll come.”
Philip questioned Marion’s face with a look, and she responded by a look of assent. She had long ago divined the secret of poor Tom’s love, and now the new birth in her own heart had quickened her sympathies toward all lovers. “I will write her a message and send it off immediately,” she said, walking up to the bedside and touching the boy’s hand softly with her own. “She will be here by the time the surgeon has dressed your wounds, and then you’ll be feeling better. You are not to die, sir. Madame Desmoines and I will nurse you and make you well.”
“That’s all right,” said Tom, closing his eyes with a sigh; and, yielding to his exhaustion, he sank into a semi-somnolent state which seemed likely to last some time.
“By-the-by,” said Philip, when Marion had written her message to Perdita, “there’s this boy’s father; I forgot about him; he must be summoned instantly. I’ll send word to him post-haste.”
“Do you think he will come?” she answered, glancing at him for a moment and then looking away. But before Philip could reply to so singular a query, she responded to herself, “I suppose he would. And it would be worth while to have him here. Mr. Grant was his guest last night. He might help in finding the murderer.”
“After what I’ve seen to-night,” Philip remarked, “I should hardly like to ask you where the murderer is.”
“This is different,” she returned, “I know nothing. I see only people that I love. Don’t think of me that way, Philip.”
“You know how I think of you, Marion.”
“If I did not, I could not bear this.”
They were in the little sitting-room down stairs, standing by the window where they had so often stood before. Overhead was audible occasionally the soft footfall of Mrs. Lockhart, moving about in the room where Grant lay. The east was exquisite with the tints of approaching sunrise, and the calm and strength of nature made the morning sweet. The earth, which had wheeled through the light and darkness, the life and death of so many myriad years, still maintained her tireless pace no less freshly than on the first day. Could a human heart, also, turn as hopefully from the shadows of the past, and voyage onward through untraveled paths toward the source of light? or must the dust and gloom of weary years still cling to it and make its progress dreary? Love is truly life: deprived of it, body and soul alike stagnate and decline; but, gifted with its might, we breathe the air of heaven even in the chamber of death, and our faces are illuminated even in a dungeon.
It was in the air and light of this immortal morning that Marion and Philip now looked at each other, brightened thereby from within as the sunrise brightened them from without. The utterance of their hearts was visible in their eyes, and there was hardly need of words. But the love which has not avowed itself in words is incomplete.
“Will you be my wife, Marion?” said Philip.
“Have you known me long enough?” was her reply.
“I have known you all my life.”
“But to have me will be more wearisome than to know me.”
“Marion, I love you.”
“I love you, Philip. Oh, Philip, can this be happiness that makes my heart ache so? If I did not knowthere was so much sorrow in the world, I could hardly live! Can Philip Lancaster belong to me, and I to him! I am afraid to have you know how much I love you. I am afraid to know myself. No! I will not be afraid. Take me, Philip! Kiss me.” ...
It was with reverence that Philip kissed her first; but then love overcame him. There was no one like her in the world. He would be a hero and a saint for her sake.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
About nine o’clock in the morning, Perdita, Marquise Desmoines, drove up to the gate. She alighted and walked quickly up the path to the door. Her face was vivid, and her bearing alert and full of life. Philip met her at the entrance.
“Is Tom really dying?” was her first question.
“He seems to wish it, and the surgeon gives no encouragement. He is anxious to see you.”
“Is it known who did this?”
“Nothing as yet. Tom Bendibow seemed to have something on his mind, but I think he wanders a little. He may speak more explicitly to you.”
“Take me to him,” said Perdita; and when they were at the door of the room she added: “I will see him alone.” So Philip went away, thoughtfully.
Perdita closed the door and moved up to the bedside.
Tom’s face was turned toward her: it had the pallor of coming death upon it, but her propinquity seemed to check the ebbing current of vitality, and to restore the poor youth in some measure to himself.
“Good morning, Perdita,” he said, with a feeble echo of cheerfulness in his tone. “I told you yesterday I’d like to die for you, and here I am at it, you see!”
“Do anything but that, Tom. I want you to live.”
“It can’t be done, now. I don’t believe even your marrying me would keep me alive now!” said Tom,though with an intonation as if the matter were open to question. “And it’s just as well, you know. I had no notion till now how easy dying is. It doesn’t hurt half so much as a licking at school. I rather like it.”
“I wish I knew who struck you,” said Perdita, with a frown in her eyes.
“Nobody shall ever know that: I’ve made up my mind!” said Tom gravely.
“Do you know, Tom?”
“Yes, I do know. I wanted to tell you that much, though I’ll tell nothing more. And it’s just as well I’m going, for I couldn’t stand keeping such a secret long. Don’t try to guess it, Perdita, please. Whoever he is, he’s got worse than hanging already. Let’s talk about other things. I found him—your father—and gave him the letter. He never read it; the night was like pitch. But we spoke about you. We’ve all of us made a mistake about him; he was true grit, I can tell you. Oh, here’s a letter for you, that came out of his pocket! I’m glad of it, for it was an excuse for sending for you.”
Perdita received the packet in her hand, but scarcely glanced at it. She leaned over the helpless figure of the last of the Bendibows, and stroked the hair on his forehead with a touch as light and soothing as the waft of a breeze. “My dear, dear Tom,” she said, “I wish I could have made you happy. I am not happy myself.”
“You do make me happy: and if ... I say, Perdita....”
“What, dear?”
“Do you remember when I left you yesterday I couldn’t kiss your hand, because I felt ... I’d better not. But now, you know....”
“You shall kiss my lips, dear, if you care to,” said Perdita, bending her lovely face near him.
“Oh.... But not yet, Perdita; not quite yet. Because I should like that to be the last thing ... the very last of all, you know. You go on and read your letter, and let me hold your hand; and when I’m ready I’ll press it, so: and then ... will you?”
“Yes; anything you like, dear,” she answered.
She broke the seal of the packet. It contained a second inclosure, also sealed. But there was also a loose fold of paper, on which was written the following: