It was a pretty place; its name, Sunny Mead, an appropriate one. For the bright sun (not far yet above the horizon) of the clear and cold December day, shone on it cheerily: on the walls of the dwelling-house--on the green grass of the spreading lawn, with its groups of flowering laurestina and encompassing trees, that in summer cast a grateful shade. The house was small, but compact; the prospect from the windows, with its expanse of wood and hill and dale, a charming one. At its best it was a simple, unpretending place, but as pleasant a homestead for moderate desires as could be found in the county of Surrey.
In a snug room, its fire blazing in the grate, its snowy breakfast cloth, laden with china and silver, drawn near the large window that looked upon the lawn, sat the owner, Sir Vincent Yorke, and his cousin Gerald. As soon as breakfast should be over, they were going out shooting; but the baronet was by no means one who liked to disturb his morning's comfort by starting at dawn: shooting, as well as everything else in life, he liked to take easily. Gerald had arrived the previous night: it was the first time Gerald had seen Sunny Mead: and the very unpretending rank it took amidst baronets' dwelling-places, surprised him. Sir Vincent's marriage was fixed for the following month, January; and he gratified Gerald much by saying that he thought of asking him to be groomsman.
"Aw!--very happy--immensely so," responded Gerald with his most fashionable drawl, that so grated on a true and honest ear.
"Sunny Mead has this advantage; one can come to it and be quiet," observed Sir Vincent. "There's not room for more than three or four servants in it. My father used to call it the homestead: that's just what it is, and it doesn't pretend to be aught else. More coffee? Try that partridge pie. Have you seen Roland lately?"
The cynical expression of disparagement that pervaded Gerald's face at the question, made Sir Vincent smile.
"Aw--I say, don't you spoil my breakfast by bringing uphim," spoke Gerald. "The best thing he can do is to go out to Port Natal again. A capital pie!"
"This devilled turkey's good, too. You'll try it presently?" spoke the baronet. "How is Hamish Channing?"
Gerald's skin turned of a dark hue. Was Sir Vincent purposely annoying him? Catching up his coffee-cup to take a long draught, he did not answer.
"I never saw so fine a fellow in all my life," resumed Sir Vincent. "Never was so taken with a face at first sight as with his. William Yorke was staying there at the time of my father's funeral, and I went next day to call. That's how I saw Channing. He promised to come and see me; but somebody told me the other day he was ill."
"Aw--yes," drawled Gerald. "Seedy, I believe."
"What's the matter with him?"
"Temper," said Gerald. "Wrote a book, and had some reviews upon it, and it put him out, I hear."
"But it was a first-rate book, Gerald; I read it, and the reviews were all wrong: suppose some contemptible raven of envy scrawled them. The book's working its way upwards as fast as it can now."
"Who says so?" cried Gerald.
"I do. I had the information from a reliable source. By-the-way, is there anything in that story of Roland's--that he is engaged to Channing's sister? or is it fancy?"
"I do wish you'd let the fellow's name be; he's not so very good to talk of," retorted Gerald, in a rage.
But Roland was not so easily put out of the conversation. As luck had it, when the servant brought Sir Vincent's letters in, there was one from Roland amidst them. Vincent laughed outright as he read it:--
"Dear Vincent,--I happened to overhear old Greatorex say yesterday that Sir Vincent Yorke wanted a working bailiff for the land at Sunny Mead. I! wish! to! offer! myself! for! the! situation! There! I put it strong that you may not mistake. Of course, I am a relative, which I can't help being; and a working bailiff is but a kind of upper servant. But I'll be very glad of the place if you'll give it me, and will do my duty in it as far as I can, putting my best shoulder to the wheel; and I'll never presume upon our being cousins to go into your house uninvited, or put myself in your way; and my wife would not call on Lady Yorke if she did not wish it. I'll be the bailiff--you the master.
"I don't tell you I'm a first hand at farming; but, if perseverance and sticking to work can teach, I shall soon learn it. I picked up some experience at Port Natal; and had to drive waggons and other animals. I'm great in pigs. The droves I had to manage of the grunting, obstinate wretches, out there, taught me enough of them. Of course I know all about haymaking; and I'd used to be one of the company at old Pierce's harvest homes, on his farm near Helstonleigh. I don't suppose you'd want me to thresh the wheat myself; but I'm strong to do it, and would not mind. I would be always up before dawn in spring to see to the young lambs; and I'd soon acquire the ins and outs of manuring and draining. Do try me, Vincent! I'll put my shoulder to the wheel in earnest for you. There'd be one advantage in taking me--that I should be honest and true to your interests. Whereas some bailiffs like to serve themselves better than their masters.
"As to wages, I'd leave that to you. You'd not give less than a hundred a year to begin with; and at the twelvemonth's end, when I had made myself qualified, you might make it two. Perhaps you'd give the two hundred at once. I don't wish to presume because I'm a relative; and if the two hundred would be too much at first (for, to tell the truth, I don't know how bailiffs' pay runs), please excuse my having named it. I expect there are lots of pretty cottages to be hired down there; may be there's one on the estate appropriated to the bailiff. I may as well mention that I am a first-rate horseman, and could gallop about like a fire-engine; having nearly lost my life more times than one, learning to ride the wild cattle when up the country at Port Natal.
"I think that's all I have to say. Only try me! If you do, you will find how willing I am. Besides being strong, I am naturally active, with plenty of energy: the land should not go to ruin for the want of being looked after. My object in life now is to get a certainty that will bring me in something tolerably good to begin, and go on to three hundred a year, or more; for I should not like Annabel to take pupils always. I don't know whether a bailiff ever gets as much.
"Bede Greatorex can give you a good character of me for steadiness and industry. And if I have stuck to this work, I should do better by yours; for writing I hate, and knocking about a farm I'd like better than anything.
"You'll let me have an answer as soon as convenient. If you take me I shall have to order leggings and other suitable toggery from Carrick's tailor; and he might be getting on with the things.
"Wishing you a merry Christmas, which will soon be here (don't I recollect one of mine at Port Natal, when I had nothing for dinner and the same for supper), I remain, dear Vincent, yours truly,
"Roland Yorke.
"Sir Vincent Yorke."
To watch the curl of Gerald's lip, the angry sarcasm of his face, as he perused this document, which the baronet handed to him with a laugh, was amusing. It might have made a model of scorn for a painter's easel. Dropping the letter from his fingers, as if there were contamination in its very touch, he flicked it across the table.
"You'll send it back to him in a blank envelope, won't you?"
"No; why should I?" returned Sir Vincent, who was good-natured in the main, easy on the whole. "I'll answer him when I've time. Do you know, Gerald, I think you rather disparage Roland."
Gerald opened his astonished eyes. "Disparage him! Howcanhe be disparaged?--he is just as low as he can be. An awful blot, nothing else, on the family escutcheon."
"The family don't seem to be troubled much by him--saving me. He appears to regard me as a sheet-anchor--who can provide for the world, himself included. I rather like the young fellow; he is so genuine."
"Don't call him young," reproved Gerald; "he'll be twenty-nine next May."
"And in mind and manners he is nineteen."
"He talks of pigs--see what he has broughthisto," exclaimed Gerald, somewhat forgetting his fashion. "The--aw--low kind of work he condescends to do--the mean way he is not ashamed to confess he lives in! Every bit of family pride has gone out of him, and given place to vulgar instincts."
"As Roland has tumbled into the mire, better for him to be honest and work," returned Sir Vincent, mincing with his dry toast and one poached egg, for he was delicate in appetite. "What else could he do? Of course there's the credit system and periodical whitewashings, but I should not care to go in for that kind of thing myself."
"Are you in want of a bailiff?" growled Gerald, wondering whether the last remarks were meant to be personal.
"Greatorex has engaged one for me. How are you getting on yourself, Gerald?"
"Not--aw--at all. I'm awfully hard up."
"You always are, Ger, according to your story," was the baronet's remark, laughing slightly.
And somehow the laugh sounded in Gerald's ear as a hard laugh--as one that boded no good results to the petition he meant to prefer before his departure--that Sir Vincent would accommodate him with a loan.
"He's close-fisted as a miser," was Gerald's mental comment. "His father all over again. Neither of them would part with a shilling save for self-gratification: and both could spend enough onthat. I'll ask him for a hundred, point blank, before I leave; more, if I can feel my way to do it. Fortune is shamefully unequal in this life. There's Vin with his baronetcy, and his nice little place here and every comfort in it, and his town house, and his clear four thousand a-year, and no end of odds and ends of money besides, nest eggs of various shapes and sizes, and his future wife a seventy thousand pounder in her own right; and here's myself by his side, a better man than he any day, with not a coin of my own in the whole world, nor likely to drop into one by inheritance, and afraid to venture about London for fear of being nabbed! Curse the whole thing! He is shabby in trifles too. To give me a miserable two days' invitation. Two days! I'll remain twenty if I can."
"You don't eat, Gerald."
"I've made a famous breakfast, thank you. Do you spend Christmas down here, Vincent?"
"Not I. The day after tomorrow, when you leave me, I start for Paris."
"For Paris!" echoed Gerald, his mouth falling at the sudden failure of his pleasant scheme.
"Miss Trehern and her father are there. We shall remain for the jour de l'an, see the bonbon shops, and all that, and then come back again."
"And I hope the bonbon shops will choke him!" thought kindly Gerald.
Sir Vincent Yorke did not himself go in for keepers and dogs. There was little game on his land, and he was too effeminate to be much of a sportsman. He owned two guns, and that comprised the whole of his shooting paraphernalia. Breakfast over, he had his guns brought, and desired Gerald to take his choice.
Now the handling and understanding of guns did not rank amidst Gerald Yorke's accomplishments. Brought up in the cathedral town, only away from it on occasions at Dr. Yorke's living (and that happened to be in a town also), the young Yorkes were not made familiar with outdoor sports. Dr. Yorke had never followed them himself, and saw no necessity for training his sons to them. Even riding they were not very familiar with. Roland's letter had just informed Sir Vincent that he had nearly lost his lifelearning to ridethe wild horses when up the country at Port Natal. Probably he had learnt also to understand something about guns: we may be very sure of one thing, that if he did not understand them, he would have voluntarily avowed it. Not so Gerald. Gerald, made up of artificialisms--for nothing seemed real about him but his ill-temper--touched the guns here, and fingered the guns there, and critically examined them everywhere, as if he were the greatest connoisseur alive, and had invented a breech-loader himself; and finally said he would takethisone.
So they went out, each with his gun and a favourite dog of the baronet's, Spot, and joined a neighbour's shooting party, as had been arranged. Colonel Clutton's land joined Sir Vincent's; he was a keen lover of sport, always making up parties for it, and if Sir Vincent went out at all, it was sure to be with Colonel Clutton.
"To-day and tomorrow will be my last turn out this season," observed the baronet, as they walked along. "Not sorry for it. One gets a large amount of fatigue: don't think the slaughter compensates for that."
Reaching the meeting-place, they found a party of some three or four gentlemen and two keepers. Gerald was introduced to Colonel Clutton, an elderly man with snow-white hair. The sport set in. It was late in the season, and the birds were getting scarce or wary, but a tolerably fair number fell.
"The gentleman don't seem to handle his gun gainly, sir, as if he'd played with one as a babby," observed one of the keepers confidentially in Sir Vincent's ear.
He alluded to Gerald Yorke. Sir Vincent turned and looked. Though not much addicted to shooting, he was thoroughly conversant with it: and what he saw, as he watched Gerald, a little surprised him.
"I say, Gerald Yorke, you must take care," he called out. "Did you never handle a gun before?"
The suggestion offended Gerald: the question nettled him. His face grew dark.
"What do you mean, Sir Vincent?" was his angry answer. He would have liked to affirm his great knowledge of shooting: but his chief practice had been with a pop-gun at school.
Sir Vincent laughed a little. "Don't do any mischief, that's all."
It might have been that the public caution caused Gerald to be more careless, just to prove his proficiency; it might have been that it tended to flurry him. Certainly he would not have caused harm wilfully; but nevertheless it took place.
Not ten minutes after Sir Vincent had spoken, he was crossing a narrow strip of open ground towards a copse. Gerald, leaping through a gap in the hedge not far behind, carrying his gun (like a senseless man) on full cock, contrived, in some inexplicable manner, to discharge it. Whether his elbow caught in the leafless branches, or the trigger caught, or what it was, Gerald Yorke never knew, and never will know to his dying day. The charge went off; there was a cry, accompanied by shouts of warning, somebody on the ground in front, and the rest running to surround the fallen man.
"You have no right to come out, sir, unless you can handle a gun properly!" spoke Colonel Clutton to Gerald, in the moment's confusion. "I have been watching your awkwardness all the morning."
Gerald looked pale with fear, dark with anger. He made no reply whatever only pressed forward to see who was down, the men, in their velveteen coats and leggings, looking much alike. Sir Vincent Yorke.
"It's not much, I think," said the baronet good-naturedly, as he looked up at Gerald. "But I say, though, you should have candidly answered me that you were not in the habit of shooting, when I sent you the invitation."
No, it was not much. A few shots had entered the calf of the left leg. They got out pocket-handkerchiefs, and tied them tightly round to stop the hemorrhage. The dog, Spot, laid his head close to his master's face, and whined pitiably.
"What sense them dumb animals have!--a'most human!" remarked the keeper.
"This will stop my Paris trip," observed Sir Vincent, as they were conveying him home.
"Better that was stopped than your wedding," replied Colonel Clutton, with a jesting smile. "You keep yourself quiet, now, that you may be well forthat. Don't talk."
Sir Vincent acquiesced readily. At the best of times he was sensitive to pain, and somewhat of a coward in regard to his own health. At home he was met by a skilful surgeon. The shots were extracted, and Sir Vincent was made comfortable in bed. Gerald Yorke waylaid the doctor afterwards.
"Is it serious? Will he do well? Sir Vincent is my cousin."
"Oh--Mr. Yorke; the gentleman whose gun unfortunately caused the mishap," was the answering remark. "Of course these accidents are always serious, more or less. This one might have been far worse than it is."
"He will do well?"
"Quite well. At least, I hope so. I see nothing to hinder it. Sir Vincent will be a tractable patient, you see; and a good deal lies in that."
"There's no danger, then?"
"Oh no: no danger."
Gerald, relieved on the score of apprehension of consequences, had the grace to express his regret and sorrow to the baronet. Sir Vincent begged him to think no more about it: only recommended him not to go out with a party in future, until he had had some practice. Gerald, untrue to the end, said he was a little out of practice; should soon get into it again. Sir Vincent made quite light of the hurt; it was nothing to speak of, the doctor had said; would not delay his marriage, or anything. But he did not ask Gerald to remain: and that gentleman, in spite of his hints, and his final offer to stay, found he was expected to go. Sir Vincent expressed his acknowledgments, but said he wished for perfect quiet.
So on the day following the accident, Gerald Yorke returned to town; which was a day sooner than, even at the worst, he had bargained for; and arrived in a temper. Taking one untoward disappointment with another, Gerald's mood could not be expected to be heavenly. He had fully intended to come away with his pockets lined--if by dint of persuasion Sir Vincent could be seduced into doing it. As it was, Gerald had not broached the subject. Sir Vincent was to be kept entirely quiet; and Gerald, with all his native assurance, could not ask a man for money, whom he had just shot.
Pacing his carpet, in the worst state of perturbation possible, was the Rev. Mr. Ollivera. He had so paced it all the morning. Neglecting his ordinary duties, staying indoors when he ought to have been out, unable to eat or to rest, he and his mind were alike in a state of most distressing indecision. The whole of the night had he tossed and turned, and rose up again and again to walk his room, struggling with his conscience. For years past, he had, so to say, lived on the anticipation of this hour: when the memory of his dear brother should be cleared of its foul stain, and the true criminal brought to light. And, now that it had come, he was hesitating whether or not to take advantage of it: whether to let the stain remain, and the criminal escape.
Torn to pieces with doubt and pain, was he. Unable to seewherehis duty lay, more than once, with lifted hands and eyes and heart, a cry to Heaven to direct him broke from his lips. Passages of Scripture, bearing both ways, crowded on his mind, to puzzle him the more; but there was one great lesson he could not ignore--the loving, merciful teaching of Jesus Christ.
About one o'clock, when the remembrance of the miserable grave, and of him who had been so miserably put into it, lay very strong upon him, Alletha Rye came into the room with some white cravats of the parson's in her hand. She was neat and nice as usual, wearing a soft merino gown with white worked cuffs and collars, her fair hair smooth and abundant.
"I have done the best I could with them, sir: cut off the edges and hemmed them afresh," she said. "After that, I passed the iron over them, and they look just as if fresh got up.
"Thank you," murmured Mr. Ollivera, the colour flushing his face, and speaking in a confused kind of manner, like a man overtaken in a crime.
"Great heaven, can I go on with it?" he exclaimed, as she went out, leaving the neckerchiefs on the table. "Is it possible to believe that shedidit?--with her calm good face, with her clear honest eye?" he continued in an agony of distress. "Oh, for guidance! that I may be shown what my course ought to be!" As a personal matter, to give Alletha Rye into custody would cause him grievous pain. She had lived under the same roof with him, showing him voluntarily a hundred little courtesies and kindnesses. These white cravats of his, just put to rights, had been undertaken in pure good will.
How very much of our terrible seasons of distress might be spared to us, if we could but see a little further than the present moment; than the atmosphere immediately around. Henry William Ollivera might have been saved his: had he but known that while he was doubting, another was acting. Mr. Greatorex had taken it into his own hands, and the house's trouble was, even then, at the very door. In after life, Henry Ollivera never ceased to be thankful that it was not himself who brought it.
A commotion below. Mr. Roland Yorke had entered, and was calling out to the house to bring his dinner. It was taken to him in the shape of some slices of roast mutton and potatoes. When Mrs. Jones had a joint herself, Roland was served from it. That she was no gainer by the bargain, Mrs. Jones was conscious of; the small sum she allowed herself in repayment out of the weekly sovereign, debarred it: but Roland was favoured for the sake of old times.
Close almost upon that, there came a rather quiet double knock at the street door, which Miss Rye went to answer. Roland thought he recognised a voice, and ran out, his mouth full of mutton.
"Why, it's never you, old Butterby! What brings you in London again?"
Whatever brought Mr. Butterby to London, something curious appeared to have brought him to Mrs. Jones's. A policeman had followed him in, and was shutting the street door, with a manner quite at home. There escaped a faint cry from Alletha, and her face turned white as ashes. Roland stared from one to the other.
"What on earth's the matter?" demanded he.
"I'd like to speak to you in private for a minute, Miss Rye," said Mr. Butterby, in a low civil tone. "Tompkins, you wait there."
She went higher up the passage and looked round something liked a stag at bay. There was no unoccupied room to take him to. Mr. Brown's frugal dinner tray (luncheon, as he called it) was in his, awaiting his entrance. That the terrible man of law with his officer had come to arresthimAlletha never doubted. A hundred wild ideas of telegraphing him some impossible warning,notto enter, went teeming through her brain. Tompkins stood on the entrance mat; Roland Yorke, with his accustomed curiosity, put his back against his parlour door-post to watch proceedings.
"Miss Rye, I'd not have done this of my own accord, leastways not so soon, but it has been forced upon me," whispered Mr. Butterby. "I've got to ask you to go with me."
"To askme?" she tremblingly said, while he was showing her a paper: probably the warrant.
"Are you so much surprised: after that there avowal you made to me last night? If I'd gone and told a police officer that I had killed somebody, it would not astonish me to be took."
Her face fell. The pallor of her cheeks was coloured by a faint crimson; her eyes flashed with a condemning light.
"I told you in confidence, as one friend might speak to another, in defence of him who was not there to defend himself," she panted. "How could I suppose you would hasten treacherously to use it against me?"
"Ah," said Mr. Butterby, "in things of that sort us law defenders is just the wrong sort to make confidants of. But now, look here, Miss Rye, I didn't go and abuse that confidence, and though it is me that has put the wheels of the law in motion, it is done in obedience to orders, which I had no power to stop. I'm sorry to have to do it: and I've come down with the warrant myself out of respect to you, that things might be accomplished as genteel as might be."
"Now then, Alletha! Do you know that your dinner's getting cold? What on earth are you stopping there for? Who is it?"
The interruption was from Mrs. Jones, called out through the nearly closed door of her parlour. Alletha, making no response, looked fit to die.
"Have you come to arrest me?" she whispered.
"Well, it's about it, Miss Rye. Apprehend, that is. We'll get a cab and you'll go in it with my friend there, all snug and quiet. I'm vexed that young Yorke should just be at home. Tried to get here half an hour earlier, but--"
Mrs. Jones's door was pulled open with a jerk. To describe the aggravated astonishment on her face when she saw the state of affairs, would be a work of skill. Alletha with a countenance of ghastly fear; Mr. Butterby whispering to her; the policeman on the door mat; Roland Yorke looking leisurely on.
"Well, I'm sure!" exclaimed Mrs. Jones. "What may be the meaning of this?"
There could be no evasion now. Had Alletha in her secret heart hoped to keep it from her tart, condemning, and strong-minded sister, the possibility was over. She went down the few steps that led to the room, and entered it; Mr. Butterby close behind her. The latter was shutting the door, when Roland Yorke walked in, taking French leave.
Which of the two stared the most, Mrs. Jones or Roland, and which of the two felt inclined to abuse Mr. Butterby the most, when his errand became known, remains a question to this day. Roland's championship was hot.
"You know you always do take the wrong people, Butterby!"
"Now, young Mr. Yorke, just you concern yourself with your own business, and leave other folk's alone," was the detective's answering reprimand. "I don't see what call you have to be in this here room at all."
In all the phases of the affair, with its attendant conjectures and suspicions, from the first moment that she saw John Ollivera lying dead in her house, the possibility of Alletha's being cognisant of its cause, much less connected with it, had never once entered the head of Mrs. Jones. She stared from one to the other in simple wonder.
"Whatis it you charge my sister with, Butterby?--the death of Counsellor Ollivera?"
"Well, yes; that's it," he answered.
"And how dare you do it?"
"Now, look you here, Mrs. Jones," said Butterby, in a tone of reason, putting his hand calmly on her wrist, "I've told Miss Rye, and I tell you, that these proceedings are instituted by the law, not by me; if I had not come to carry them out, another would, who might have done it in a rougher manner. A woman of your sense ought to see the matter in its right light. I don't say she's guilty, and I hope she'll be able to prove that she's not; but I can tell you this much, Mrs. Jones, there's them that have had their suspicions turned upon her from the first."
Beinga woman of sense, as Mr. Butterby delicately insinuated, Mrs. Jones began to feel a trifle staggered. Not at his words: they had little power overhermind, but at Alletha's appearance. Leaning against the wall there, white, faint, silent, she looked like one guilty, rather than innocent. And it suddenly struck Mrs. Jones that she did not attempt a syllable in her own defence.
"Why don't you speak out, girl?" she demanded, in her tartest tone. "You can, I suppose?"
But the commotion had begun to cause attention in the quiet house. Not so much from its noise, as by that subtle instinct that makes itself heard, we cannot tell how; and Mr. Ollivera came in.
"Who has done this?" he briefly asked of the detective.
"Mr. Greatorex, sir."
"The next thing they'll do may be to take me up on the charge," spoke Mrs. Jones with acrimony. "What on earth put this into their miserable heads?Youdon't suspect her, I hope, Mr. Ollivera?"
He only looked at Mrs. Jones in silence by way of answer, a grave meaning in his sad face. It spoke volumes: and Mrs. Jones, albeit not one to give way to emotion, or any other kind of weakness, felt as if a jug of cold water were being poured down her back. Straightforward, always, she put the question to him with naked plainness.
"Doyou suspect her?"
"I have suspected her," came the low tones of Mr. Ollivera in answer. "Believe me, Mrs. Jones, whatever may be the final result of this, I grieve for it bitterly."
"I say, why can't you speak up, and say you did not do it?" stamped Roland in his championship. "Don't be frightened out of your senses by Butterby. He never pitches upon the right person; Mrs. J. remembersthat."
"As this here talking won't do any good--and I'm sure if it would I'd let it go on a bit--suppose we make a move," interposed Butterby. "If you'd like to put up a few things to take with you, Miss Rye, do so. You'll have to go to Helstonleigh."
"Oh law!" cried Roland. "I say, Butterby, it's a mistake, I know. Let her go. Come! you shall have all my dinner."
"Don't stand there like a statue, as if you were moonstruck," said Mrs. Jones, seizing her sister to administer a slight shaking. "Tell them you are innocent, girl, if you can; and let Butterby go about his business."
And in response, Alletha neither spoke nor moved.
But at this moment another actor came upon the scene. A knock at the front door was politely answered at once by the policeman, glad, no doubt, to have something to do, and Mr. Brown entered, arriving at home for his midday meal. Roland dashed into the passage.
"I say, Brown, hereisa stunning shame. Old Butterby's come to take up Alletha Rye."
"Take her up for what?" Mr. Brown calmly asked.
"For the killing and slaying of Counsellor Ollivera, he says. But in these things he never was anything but a calf."
Mr. Brown turned into his room, put down his hat and a small paper parcel, and went on to the scene. Before he could say a word, Alletha Rye burst forth like one demented.
"Don't come here Mr. Brown. We've nothing to do with strangers. I can't have all the world looking at me."
Mr. Brown took a quiet survey of matters with perfect self-possession, and then drew Mr. Butterby towards his room, just as though he had possessed the authority of Scotland Yard. Mrs. Jones was left alone with her sister, and caught hold of her two hands.
"Now then! What is the English of this? Had you aught to do with the death of Mr. Ollivera?"
"Never," said Alletha; "I would not have hurt a hair of his head."
Mrs. Jones, at the answer, hardly knew whether to slap the young woman's face or to shriek at her. All this disgrace brought upon her house, and Alletha to submit to it in unrefuting tameness! As a preliminary, she began a torrent of words.
"Hush!" said Alletha. "They think me guilty, and at present they must be let think it. I cannot help myself: if Butterby conveys me to Helstonleigh, he must do it."
Mrs. Jones was nearly staggered out of her passion. The cold water went trickling down again. Not at once could she answer.
"Lord help the wench for a fool! Don't you know that! if you are conveyed to Helstonleigh it would be to take your trial at the next assizes? Would you facethat?"
"I cannot tell," wailed Alletha, putting up her thin hand to her troubled face. "I must have time to think."
But we must follow Mr. Brown. As he passed into his room and closed the door, he took a tolerably long look into Butterby's eyes: possibly hoping to discover whether that astute officer knew him for Godfrey Pitman. He obtained no result. Had Mr. Butterby been a born natural he could not have looked more charmingly innocent. That he chose to indulge this demand for an interview for purposes of his own, those who knew him could not doubt. They stood together before the fireless hearth; however cold the weather might be, Mr. Brown's fire went out after breakfast and was not re-lighted until night.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Butterby. With so much confusion in there"--nodding in the direction of Mrs. Jones's parlour--"I am not sure that I fully understood. Is it true that you are about to take Miss Rye into custody on suspicion of having caused the death of John Ollivera?"
"I have took her," was the short answer. "It is nothing to you, I suppose."
"It is this much to me: that I happen to be in a position to testify that she did not do it."
"Oh, you think so, do you," said Butterby, in a civil but slightly mocking tone. "I've knowed ten men at least swear to one man's innocence of a crime, and him guilty all the while. Don't say it was perjury: appearances is deceptive, and human nature's soft."
"I affirm to you, in the hearing of Heaven, that Alletha Rye was innocent of the death of John Ollivera," said Mr. Brown in a solemn tone that might have carried conviction to even a less experienced ear. "She had nothing whatever to do with it. Until the following morning, when she found him, she was as ignorant as you that he was dead."
"Then why don't she speak up and say so? Not that it could make any difference at the present stage of affairs."
"Will you let me ask who it is that has had her apprehended? Mr. Bede Greatorex?"
"Bede Greatorex has had nothing to do with it. 'Twas his father."
"Well now, I have a favour to ask you, Mr. Butterby," continued the other after a pause. "The good name of a young woman is a great deal easier lost than regained, as no one can tell better than yourself. It will be an awful thing if Alletha Rye, being innocent--as I swear to you she is--should be accused of this dreadful crime before the world. You have known her a long while: will you not stretch a point to save it?"
"That might depend a good deal upon what the point was," replied Mr. Butterby.
"A very simple one. Only this--that you would stay proceedings until I have had time to see Bede Greatorex. Let her remain here, in custody of course--for I am not so foolish as to suppose you could release her--but don't molest her; don't take her away. In fact,treat her as though you knewshe were wrongfully accused. You may be obliged to me for this later, Mr. Butterby--I won't say in the interests of humanity, but of justice."
Various thoughts and experiences of the past, as connected with Bede Greatorex, came crowding into the mind of Butterby. His lips parted with a smile, but it was not a favourable one.
"I think that Bede Greatorex could join with me in satisfying you that it was not Miss Rye," urged the petitioner. "I am almost sure he can do this if he will.
"Which is as much as to say that both he and you have got your suspicions turned on some other quarter," rejoined Butterby. "Who was it?"
That Mr. Brown's cheeks took a darker tinge at the direct query, was plain to be seen. He made no answer.
"Come! Who did that thing?Youknow."
"If I do not know--and I am unable to tell you that I do, Mr. Butterby--I can yet make a shrewd guess at it."
"And Bede Greatorex too, you say?"
"I fancy he can."
Looking into each other's eyes, those two deep men, there ensued a silence. "If it wasn't this woman," whispered Butterby, "perhaps it was another."
The clerk opened his lips to speak in hasty impulse: but he closed them again, still looking hard at the officer.
"Whether it was or not, the woman was not Alletha Rye."
"Then," said Mr. Butterby, following out his own private thoughts, and giving the table an emphatic slap, which caused the frugal luncheon tray to jingle, "this thing will never be brought to trial."
"I don't much think it will," was the significant answer. "But you will consent to what I ask? I won't be away long. A quarter of an hour will suffice for my interview with Bede Greatorex."
Weighing chances and possibilities, as it lay in the business of Mr. Butterby to do; knowing who the man before him was, with the suspicion attaching to him, he thought it might be as well to keep him under view. There was no apparent intention to escape; the clerk seemed honest as the day on this present purpose, and strangely earnest; but Mr. Butterby had learnt to trust nobody.
"I'll go with yon," said he. "Tompkins will keep matters safe here. Come on. Hang me if this case ever had its fellow: it turns one about with its little finger."
They stood near each other, Bede Greatorex and his managing clerk, while Mr. Butterby paced the passage outside.
When interrupted, Bede had his elbow on the mantelpiece, his brow bent on his thin fingers. A good blazing fire here, the coal crackling and sparkling cheerily. Bede dropped his elbow.
"What is it, Mr. Brown?" he rather languidly asked.
Mr. Brown, closing the door, went straight up and said what it was: Alletha Rye had been apprehended. But he looked anywhere, as he spoke, rather than into the face of his master. A face that grew suddenly white and cold: and Mr. Brown, in his delicacy of mind, would not appear to see it.
"What a cursed meddler that Butterby is!" exclaimed Bede.
"I fancy he had no option in this, sir; that it was not left to his choice."
"Who did it, then?"
"Mr. Greatorex. This must be remedied at once, sir."
By the authoritative manner in which he spoke, it might have been thought that Bede Greatorex was the servant, Brown the master. Bede put his elbow on the shelf again, and pushed back his hair in unmistakable agitation. It was growing thin now, the once luxuriant crop; and silver threads were interwoven with the black ones.
"She must be saved," repeated Mr. Brown.
"I suppose so. Who is to do it?"
"I must, sir. If no one else does."
Bede raised his eyes to glance at his clerk; but it was not a full free glance, and they were instantly dropped again.
"You are the Godfrey Pitman, they tell me, who was in the house at the time."
"Yes, I am. But have you not known it all along, Mr. Bede Greatorex?"
"All along from when?"
Mr. Brown hesitated. "From the time I came here as clerk."
"No; certainly I have not."
"There were times, sir, when I fancied it."
A long silence. Even now, whatever secret, or association, there might be between these two men, neither was at ease with the other. Bede especially seemed to shrink from farther explanation.
"I have known but for a short while of your identity with Godfrey Pitman," he resumed. "And with George Winter. I have been waiting my own time to confer with you upon the subject. We have been very busy."
We have been very busy! If Bede put that forth as an excuse, it did not serve him: for his hearer knew it was not the true one. He simply answered that theyhadbeen very busy. Not by so much as a look or a syllable would George Winter--let us at last give him his true name--add to the terrible pain he knew his master to be suffering.
"About Miss Rye, sir? She must be extricated from her unpleasant position."
"Yes, of course."
"And her innocence proved."
"At the expense of another?" asked Bede, without lifting his eyes.
"No," answered the other in a low tone. "I do not think that need be."
Bede looked straight into the fire, his companion full at the window-blind, drawn half way down; neither of them at one another.
"How will you avoid it?" asked Bede.
"I think it may be avoided, sir. For a little while past, I have foreseen that some such a crisis as this would come: and I have dwelt and dwelt upon it until I seem to be able to track out my way in it perfectly clear."
Bede cracked the coal in the grate; which did not require cracking. "Do you mean that you have foreseen Miss Rye would be taken? Such a thought in regard to her never crossed my mind."
"Nor mine. I allude to myself, sir. If once I was discovered to be the so-called Godfrey Pitman--and some instinct told me the discovery was at last approaching--I knew that I should, in all probability, be charged with the murder of Mr. Ollivera. I--an innocent man--would not suffer for this, Mr. Greatorex; I should be obliged, in self-defence, to repel the accusation: and I have been considering how it might be done without compromising others. I think it can be."
"How?" repeated Bede shortly.
"By my not telling the whole truth. By not knowing--I mean not having recognized the--the one--who would be compromised if I did tell it. I think this is feasible, sir."
Just a momentary glance into each other's eyes; no more; and it spoke volumes. Bede, facing the fire again, stood several minutes in deep consideration. George Winter seemed occupied with one of his gloves that had a refractory button.
"In any case it must now be known who you are," said Bede.
"That will not signify. In throwing the onus of the----" he seemed to hesitate, as he had once hesitated in the last sentence--"the death off Miss Rye, I throw it equally off my own shoulders. I have for some months wished that I could declare myself."
"Why have you not done it?"
George Winter looked at his master, surprise in his eyes. "It is not for my own sake that I have kept it concealed, sir."
No. Bede Greatorex knew that it was forhis; at least for his interests; and he felt the obligation in his heart. He did not speak it; pride and a variety of other unhappy feelings kept him silent. Of all the miserable moments that the death of John Ollivera had entailed upon him, this confidential interview with his clerk was not the least of them. Forced though he was to hold it, he hated it with his whole soul.
"You took that cheque from my desk," said Bede. "And wrote me the subsequent letter."
"I did not take it from the desk, sir. Your expressed and continuous belief--that you had put it in--was a mistaken one. It must have slipped from your hands when about to lock up the other papers you held, and fluttered under the desk table. Perhaps you will allow me to give you the explanation now."
Bede nodded.
"In the morning of the day that the cheque was lost, you may remember coming into the front room and seeing a stranger with me. His name was Foster; a farmer and corn-dealer near Birmingham. I had been out on an errand; and, on turning in again, a gentleman stopped me to enquire the way. While I was directing him there ensued a mutual recognition. In one sense I owed him some money: forty-four pounds. Samuel Teague, of whom you may have heard----"
"I know," interrupted Bede.
"Samuel Teague, just before he ran away, had got me to put my name to a bill for him; Mr. Foster, in all good faith, had let him have the money for it. It had never been repaid. But upon Mr. Foster's meeting me that morning, he gave me my choice--to find the money for him before he left London, or be denounced publicly as George Winter. I thought he would have denounced me then. He came into the office and would not be got rid of: saying that he had looked for me too long to let me go, now that I was found. What I was to do I did not know.Ihad no objection to resume my own name, for I had cleared myself with Johnson and Teague, but it must have involved the exposure relating to the affair at Helstonleigh. The thought occurred to me of declaring the dilemma to you, letting you decide whether that exposure should come, or whether you would lend me the forty-four pounds to avert it. But I shrank from doing that."
"Why?" again interposed Bede.
"Because I thoughtyouwould dislike my entering upon the subject, sir. I have shrunk from it always. Now that the necessity is forced upon me, I am shrinking from it as I speak."
Ah, but not so much as Bede was. "Go on."
"While I sat at my desk, inwardly deliberating, Mr. Frank came in, asking you to draw out a cheque for Sir Richard Yorke for forty-four pounds. The strange coincidence between the sum and the money demanded of me, struck me as being most singular. It strikes me so still. Later in the morning, I came into this room with some deeds, and saw a piece of paper lying under the table. Upon picking it up--which I did simply to replace it on the desk--I found it was the cheque. My first thought was that it must be a special, almost a supernatural, intervention in my favour; my second, that it was just possible you had left it there for me to take. Both ideas very far-fetched and imaginatory, as I saw at once. But I used the cheque, Mr. Bede Greatorex. I went home, put on the false hair I had worn as Godfrey Pitman, for I have it by me still, and got the cheque cashed in gold. It was not for my sake I did this; I hated it bitterly. And then I hesitated to use the money. At night I went to Mr. Foster's hotel, and told him that I would get the money for him by the following nightif I could; if I could not, he must carry out his threat of denouncing me to the public and Mr. Greatorex. Foster consented to wait. I returned to my lodgings and wrote that anonymous note to you, sir, not telling you who had taken the cheque; merely saying that exposure was threatened of the private circumstances, known only to one or two, attendant on Mr. Ollivera's death at Helstonleigh; that the money had been taken to avert the exposure, and would be applied to that purpose, provided you were agreeable. If not, and you wished the money returned, you were requested to drop a note without loss of a moment to a certain address: if no such note were written, the money would be used in the course of the day, and things kept silent as heretofore. You sent no answer, and I paid it to Foster in the evening. I have never been able to decide whether you suspected me as the writer, or not."
"No. I fancied it might be Hurst."
"Hurst!" exclaimed George Winter in great surprise.
Bede looked up for a moment. "I felt sure the cheque must have been taken by one of you in the next room. Not knowing you then for Godfrey Pitman, my thoughts fell on Hurst. His father was the attendant surgeon, and might have made some critical discovery."
"I don't see how he could have done that, sir," was the dissenting answer.
"Nor did I. But it is the doubt in these cases that causes the fear. I should like to ask you a question--was it by accident or purposed design that you came to our house as a clerk?"
"Purely by accident. When the misfortunes fell upon me in Birmingham, and I was unwise enough to follow Samuel Teague's example and run away, I retained one friend, who stood by me. After quitting Helstonleigh on the Monday night, I concealed myself elsewhere for three or four days, and then went to him in Essex, where he lived. He procured me a clerkship in a lawyer's office in the same county, Mr. Cale's, with whom I stayed about a year. Mr. Cale found me very useful, and when his health failed, and he retired in consequence from practice, he sent me up here to Mr. Greatorex with a strong recommendation."
"You have served us well," said Bede. "Was not your quitting Birmingham a mistake?"
"The worst I ever made. I solemnly declare that I was entirely innocent. Not only innocent myself, but unsuspicious of anything wrong on the part of Samuel Teague. He took me in, as he took in everybody else. Johnson and Teague know it now, and have at length done me the justice to acknowledge it. I knew of young Teague's profuse expenditure: he used to tell me he had the money from his uncle old Mr. Teague, and it never occurred to me to doubt it. Where I erred, was in going to the old man and blurting out the truth. He died of the shock. I shall never forgive myself for that: it seemed to me always as though I had murdered him. With his dead form, as it seemed, pursuing me, with the knowledge that I was to be included in the charge of forgery, I lost my sober senses. In my fright, I saw no escape but in flight; and I got away on the Sunday afternoon as far as Helstonleigh. It was in the opposite direction to the one Samuel Teague was thought to have taken, and I wanted to see Alletha Rye, if it were practicable, and assure her before we finally parted, that, though bad enough, I was not quite the villain people were making me out to be. There--there are strange coincidences in this life, Mr. Bede Greatorex."
"You may well say that," answered Bede.
"And one of the strangest was that of my accidentally meeting Alletha Rye five minutes after I reached Helstonleigh. Forgetting my disguise, I stopped to accost her--and have not forgotten her surprise yet. But I had not courage then to tell her the truth: I simply said I was in trouble through false friends, and was ill--which was really the case--and I asked her if she could shelter me for a day or two, or could recommend me to a place where I might be private and to myself. The result was, that I went to Mrs. Jones's house, introduced as a stranger, one Godfrey Pitman. I hit upon the name haphazard. And before I left it I was drawn into that business concerning Mr. Ollivera."
Bede Greatorex made no answer. A coincidence! one of heaven's sending.
"Why so much ill-luck should have fallen upon me I cannot tell," resumed George Winter. "I started in life, hoping and intending to do my duty as conscientiously as most men do it; and I've tried to, that's more. Fate has not been kind to me."
"There are others that it has been less kind to," spoke Bede, his tone marked with ill-suppressed agitation. "Your liabilities in Birmingham? Are they wiped out?"
"Others' liabilities you mean, sir; I had none of my own. Yes, I have scraped, and saved, and paid; paid all. I am saving now to repayyouthe forty-four pounds, and have about twenty pounds towards it. But for having my good old mother on my hands--she lives in Wales--I should have been clear earlier."
"You need not trouble yourself about the forty-four pounds," said Bede, recognising the wondrous obligations he and his were under to this silent, self-denying man.
"If it were forty-four hundred, sir, I should work on until I paid it, life being granted me."
"Very well," replied Bede. "I may be able to recompense you in another way."
If Bede Greatorex thought that any simple order of his would release Miss Rye from custody, he found himself mistaken. Butterby, called into the conference, was almost pleasantly derisive.
"You'll assure me she was not guilty! and Mr. Brown there can assure me she was not guilty! And, following them words up, you say, 'Let her go, Butterby!' Why, you might about as well tell me to let the stars drop out of the sky, Mr. Bede Greatorex. I've no more power over one than I have over the other."
"But she is innocent," reiterated Bede. "Mr. Brown here--you know who he is--can testify to it."
Butterby gave a careless nod in the direction of Mr. Brown--as much as to say that his knowing who he was went for a matter of course. But he was sternly uncompromising.
"Look here, Mr. Bede Greatorex. It's all very well for you to say to me Miss Rye's innocent; and for that there clever gentleman by your side to say she's innocent--and himself too, I suppose he'd like to add; but you, as a lawyer, must know that all that is of no manner of use. If you two will bring forward the right party, and say, 'This is the one that was guilty,' andproveit to the satisfaction of the law and Mr. Greatorex, that would be another thing. Only in that case can Miss Rye be set at liberty."
"You--you do not know what family interests are involved in this, Mr. Butterby," Bede said, in a tone of pain.
"Can guess at 'em," responded Butterby.
Bede inwardly thought the boast was a mistaken one, but he let it pass.
"If my father were acquainted with the true facts of the case," spoke he, "he would never bring it to a public trial; I tell you this on my honour."
"You know yourself who the party was; I see that," said Butterby.
"I do--Heaven spare me!"
There was a strange tone of helplessness mingling with the anguish of the avowal, as if Bede could contend with fate no longer. Even the officer felt for him. George Winter looked round at him with a glance of caution, as much as to say there was no necessity to avow too much. Bede bent his head, and strove to see, as well as the hour's trouble and perplexity would allow him, what might and what might not be done. Butterby, responsible to the magistrates at Helstonleigh who had granted the warrant, would have to be satisfied, as well as Mr. Greatorex.
Another minute, and Bede went forth to seek an interview with his father, who was alone in his room. Bede, almost as though he were afraid of his courage leaving him, entered upon the matter before he had well closed the door. Not in any torrent of words: he spoke but a few, and those with almost painful calmness: but his breath was laboured, himself perceptibly agitated.
"Give my authority to Butterby to release Alletha Rye from custody, because you happen to know that she is innocent!" exclaimed Mr. Greatorex in surprise. "Why, what can you mean, Bede?"
Bede told his tale. Hampered by various doubting fears lest he might drop an unsafe word, it was rather a lame one. Mr. Greatorex leaned back in his chair, and looked up at Bede as he listened. They held, unconsciously, much the same position as they had that March day nearly five years ago in another room, when the tale of the death was first told, Bede having then just got up with it from Helstonleigh Mr. Greatorex sitting, Bede standing with his arm on the mantelpiece, his face partly turned away. Bede had grown quite into the habit of standing thus, to press his hand to his brow: it seemed as though some weight or pain were always there.
"I don't understand you, Bede," spoke Mr. Greatorex frankly. "You tell me that you know of your own cognisance Alletha Rye was innocent? That you knew it at the time?"
"Almost of my own cognisance," corrected Bede.
"Which must be equivalent to saying that you know who was guilty."
"No; I don't know that," murmured Bede, his face growing damp with the conscious lie.
"Then what do you know, that you should wish to interfere? You have always said it was a case of suicide."
"It was not that, father," was Bede's low, shrinking answer. But he looked into his father's eyes with thrilling earnestness as he gave it.
Mr. Greatorex began to feel slightly uncomfortable. He detested mystery of all kinds; and there was something unpleasantly mysterious in Bede's voice and looks and words and manner.
"Did you know at the time that it was not suicide?" pursued Mr. Greatorex.
Howshould Bede get through this? say what he must say, and yet not say too much? He inwardly asked himself the question.
"There was just a suspicion of it on my mind, sir. Anyway, Alletha Rye must be set at liberty."
"I do not understand what you say, Bede; I do not understandyou. Your manner on this subject has always been an enigma. William Ollivera holds the opinion that you must be screening someone."
A terrible temptation, hard to battle with, assailed Bede Greatorex at the charge--to avow to his father who and what he had been screening ever since the death. He forced himself to silence until it had passed.
"What is troubling you, Bede?"
Mr. Greatorex might well ask it; with that sad countenance in front of him, working with its pain. In his grievous perplexity, Bede gave the true answer.
"I was thinking if it were possible for Pitman's explanation to be avoided, father."
"What! Is Pitman found?"
"Yes, he is found," quietly answered Bede. "He----"
The room door was opening to admit some visitors, and Bede turned. Surely the propitious star to the House of Greatorex could not be in the ascendant. For they were Judge Kene and Henry William Ollivera.
And the concealment that he had striven and toiled for, and worn out his health and life to keep; fighting ever, mentally or bodily, against Fate's relentless hand, was felt to be at an end by Bede Greatorex.