CHAPTER XII.
"IT IS THE STARS."
Morning brought no relief of mind to Mrs. Wornock, since it brought no news of her son; but before night there was even greater anxiety at Beechhurst, where Allan Carew's mother arrived late in the evening, summoned by a letter from her son, despatched from Southampton on the previous day, announcing his arrival, and asking her to join him at Beechhurst.
"I would go straight to Suffolk," he wrote, "knowing how anxious my dear, tender-hearted mother will be to welcome her wanderer home, only—only I think you know that there is some one at Matcham about whose feelings I have still a shadow of doubt, still a lingering hope. I go there first, where perhaps I may meet you; and if I find that faint hope to be only a delusion, I know you will sympathize with my final disappointment.
"I have passed through many adventures and some dangers since I left the great lake. I have been ill, and I have been lonely; but I come back to England the same man who went away—unchanged in heart and mind. However altered you may find the outer man, the inner man is the same."
Having telegraphed from Waterloo to announce her arrival at Matcham Road Station, Lady Emily was bitterly disappointed at not finding her son waiting for her on the platform. She looked eagerly out into the November darkness, searching for the well-known figure among the few people standing here and there along the narrow platform. There was no Allan, and there was no Beechhurst carriage waiting for her.
The station-master recognized her as she alighted, and came to assist in the selection of her luggage, while a porter ran off to order a fly from the inn outside.
"Mr. Carew was expected home yesterday. Did he come?" asked Lady Emily, with that faint sickness of despair which follows on such a disappointment.
She had pictured the moment of reunion over and over again during the journey—had fancied how he would look, what he would say to her, and the delight of their long confidential talk on the drive home, and the pleasure of theirtête-à-têtedinner. The only shadow upon her happy thought of him was her knowledge of what his faithful heart must needs suffer when he found that Suzette had engaged herself to his rival.
The station-master informed Lady Emily that Mr. Carew had arrived the day before, by this very train. He had evidently sent no notice of his arrival, as there was no carriage to meet him. He had very little luggage with him—only a portmanteau and a bale of rugs and sticks, which had been sent to Beechhurst by the station 'bus. Mr. Carew had walked home.
He was at home, then. The gladness of reunion was only delayed for an hour. His mother tried to make light of her disappointment and of his neglect. He had given an order to the stable, perhaps, and it had been forgotten. There was a mistake somewhere, but no unkindness on his part.
"Was my son looking in pretty good health?" she asked the station-master.
"Yes, my lady, allowing for the wear and tear of a sea-voyage, Mr. Carew looked pretty well; but he looked pulled down a bit since he went away. You mustn't be surprised at a little change in that way."
"Yes, yes, no doubt he is altered. Years of travel and fatigue and danger. Ah, there is the fly; they have been very quick. Come, Taylor," to the middle-aged, homely Suffolk abigail who stood on guard over her mistress's luggage.
The drive through the November night seemed longer to the lady inside the carriage, sitting alone and longing for the sight of her son's face, than to her maid on the box beside John coachman, of the Station Inn, chatting sociably about the improvements in the neighbourhood and the prospects of the hunting season. And, oh, bitter agony of disappointment when the door of Beechhurst was opened, and Lady Emily saw only a half-lit hall and staircase, and the stolid countenance of butler and caretaker, whose informal attire too plainly showed her that his master was not in the house.
"Has Mr. Carew gone away again?" she asked, as the man helped her out of the carriage, thinking vaguely that Allan might have started off for Suffolk that morning, and that she and he were travelling to and fro at cross purposes.
"Mr. Carew has not been home, my lady."
"Not been home? Why, he arrived yesterday by the train I came by to-night. The station-master told me so."
"Then he must be visiting somewhere in the neighbourhood, my lady. Some luggage was brought at nine o'clock; but my master has not been home."
She stood looking at the man dumbly, paralyzed by apprehension. Where could Allan be? what could he have done with himself? His letter had asked her to meet him in that house. He had arrived at the station twenty-four hours before he could expect her; he had sent home his luggage, and had walked out of the station in the most casual manner, saying that he was going home. Was it credible that he would go to anybody else's house, straight from the station, luggageless, newly landed after a long sea-voyage? No man in his senses would so act. Yet there was but one course for an anxious mother to take, and Lady Emily returned to the fly, and ordered the man to drive to Marsh House.
Allan might have gone straight to Suzette. Who could tell what effect the news of her approaching marriage might have upon his mind? His letter told his mother that he still hoped; and the change from hope to despair would be crushing. He might have hurried away from the scene of his disappointment, careless how or where he went, so long as he got himself far away from the place associated with his fickle sweetheart.
Suzette was at home, and received Lady Emily kindly, forgetting all that had gone before in her compassion for the mother's distress.
Allan had called at Marsh House on the previous evening during Suzette's absence. He had been told that she was at the Manor, and the servant had understood him to say that he was going on to the Manor. He had seemed put out at hearing where she was, the soldier servant had told his young mistress.
"And were you not at the Manor when he called?" Lady Emily asked.
"No; I left before lunch; but instead of coming home, where I was not expected, I spent the afternoon at the Vicarage and on the golf-ground with Bessie Edgefield."
"And Mr. Wornock was with you most of the time, I suppose?"
"Not any of the time."
"Is he away, then?"
"No. If you must know the truth, we had—well, I can hardly say, we had quarrelled; but Geoffrey had been very disagreeable, and I was glad to leave him to himself for the afternoon."
"You are good friends again now, no doubt?"
"We have not seen each other since. Geoffrey has gone away, without letting any one know where he was going, and his poor mother is anxious and unhappy about him. He is so impetuous—so erratic."
"And you, his sweetheart, are still more anxious, no doubt?"
"I am anxious chiefly for his poor mother's sake. She is too easily frightened."
"Can they have gone away together, anywhere?" said Lady Emily.
"Together—Allan and Geoffrey!" exclaimed Suzette. "No, I don't think they would do that."
"Why not? They were together for two years in Africa."
"Yes, but that was different. I don't think, in Geoffrey's state of mind, that he would have gone on a journey with your son. He has a jealous temper, I am sorry to say, and he was irritable and unreasonable yesterday when he heard of—Mr. Carew's return. Is it likely that he would have gone off on any expedition with your son to London or anywhere else?"
"Then where is my son? He was here at this hour yesterday. He left here to go to the Manor; and now you tell me that Mr. Wornock is missing, and that my son has not been heard of since he left your door."
"He has not been at the Manor. Mrs. Wornock would have told me if he had called. I was with her all this morning. She is wretched about Geoffrey. They are both safe, I dare say; but their disappearance is very alarming."
"Alarming, yes. It means something dreadful—something I dare not think of—unless, indeed, Allan changed his mind on finding the state of things here, and went off to Suffolk, intending to anticipate my journey. Oh, I dare say I am frightening myself for nothing. Will you let me write a telegram?" looking distractedly round the room for pens and ink.
"Dear Lady Emily, pray don't be too anxious. One is so often frightened for nothing. My father has only to be an hour later than usual on a hunting day in order to make me half distracted. Please sit down by the fire, here in this comfortable chair. I'll write your telegram, and send it off instantly."
She rang the bell, and then seated herself quietly at her writing-table, while Allan's mother sank into a chair, the image of helplessness.
"What shall I say?"
"To Allan Carew, Fendyke, Millfield, Suffolk."I am miserable at not finding you here. Reply immediately, with full information as to your plans."EMILY CAREW."
"To Allan Carew, Fendyke, Millfield, Suffolk.
"I am miserable at not finding you here. Reply immediately, with full information as to your plans.
"EMILY CAREW."
"God grant I may hear of him there," said Lady Emily, when she had read message and address with a searching eye, lest Suzette's writing should offer any excuse for mistakes. The telegram was handed to the servant with instructions to take it himself to the post-office; and then Lady Emily kissed Suzette with a sad remorseful kiss, and went back to the fly.
"Discombe Manor," she told the man, with very little consideration for the hard-working fly-horse.
"Yes, my lady; it'll be about as much as he can do."
"He? What do you mean?"
"The horse, my lady. He's been on his legs two hours a'ready, and the Manor's a good three mile; but I suppose I shall be able to wash out his mouth there before I takes him home?"
"Yes, yes; you may do what you like; only get me to the Manor as fast as you can."
Allan had not been seen at the Manor. No one had rung the hall-door bell yesterday after luncheon. Mrs. Wornock's monastic solitude was not often intruded upon by visitors; and yesterday there had been no one. The door had not been opened after Miss Vincent went out, Geoffrey Wornock's impatient temper always choosing an easier mode of egress than that ponderous hall door, which required a servant's attendance, or else closed with a bang that reverberated through the house. Whatever Allan's intention might have been when he left Marsh House, he had not come to Discombe.
Lady Emily and Mrs. Wornock were softened in their feelings for each other by a mutual terror; but Allan's mother dwelt upon the fact that the two young men, as travellers of old, might have started off upon some expedition; a run up to London to see some new production at the theatre; a billiard match; anything in which young men might be interested.
"They must be much better friends than before they went to Africa—much closer companions," urged Lady Emily. "I feel there is less reason for fear now that I know your son is missing as well as Allan."
Mrs. Wornock tried to take the same hopeful view; but she was of a less hopeful temperament, and she knew too much of Geoffrey's jealous distrust of his rival to believe that there had been any companionable feeling between the two young men since Allan's return.
"Oh, I am afraid, I am afraid!" she moaned piteously, wringing her hands in an agony of apprehension.
"What is it you fear? What calamity can have happened which would involve both your son and mine? Surely nothing dreadful could happen to both our sons, and yet no tidings come either to you or to me. Wherever they were—if any accident happened—one or other of them would be recognized. Some one would bring us the news. No; I have been anxious and unhappy; but I am sure now that I have been needlessly anxious. We shall hear from them—very soon."
Mrs. Wornock clasped Lady Emily's hand in silence, and shook her head despondently.
"What is it you fear?" asked Allan's mother.
"I don't know—but I am full of fear for Geoffrey—for both of them."
Lady Emily left her, depressed and dispirited by the fear which shrunk from shaping itself in words. The disposition to take a hopeful view of the case did not last in the face of Mrs. Wornock's mysterious agitations, and Allan's mother went back to Beechhurst stupefied with anxiety, able only to walk about the house, in and out of the empty rooms, in helpless misery.
That state of not knowing what to fear ended suddenly soon after nine o'clock, when there came the sound of wheels, and a carriage stopped at the hall door. Lady Emily rushed to the door and opened it with her own hands, before any one had time to ring the bell; opened it to find herself face to face with the woman she had left only two hours before.
Mrs. Wornock was stepping out of her carriage as the hall door opened. She wore neither bonnet nor cloak, only a shawl wrapped round her head and shoulders.
"He is found!" she said, agitatedly. "Will you come with me?"
"Your son?"
"No; Allan Carew. Ah, it is dreadful to think of, dreadful to tell you. I came myself; I wouldn't let any one else——"
"He is dead!" cried Lady Emily, her heart feeling like ice, her knees trembling under her.
"No, no! Dreadfully hurt—but not dead. There is hope still—Mr. Podmore does not give up hope. I have sent a messenger to Salisbury. We shall have Dr. Etheridge to-morrow morning—or I will send to London——"
"Where is my son—my murdered—dying son?"
"No, no, no—not dying—not murdered. Don't I tell you there is hope? He is at Discombe—they have put him in Geoffrey's room. Everything is being done. He may recover—he will, he must recover."
Lady Emily was seated in the brougham, unconscious of the movements that had conveyed her there; the butler was at the hall door by this time, staring in blank wonder, not knowing what to think of this rapid departure.
"Send your mistress's maid to the Manor with her things," ordered Mrs. Wornock, hurriedly. And then to her own servant, waiting at the carriage door, "Home—as fast as he can drive."
"Why was he taken to your house, and not to his own?" asked Lady Emily, in a dull whisper, when the carriage had driven out of the gates.
"Because it was so much nearer to bring him. He was found in our woods—robbed—and hurt, cruelly hurt. There is a dreadful wound upon his head, and there are signs of a desperate struggle—as if he had fought for his life——"
"Oh, God, that he should be murdered—here in England—within an hour's walk of his own house! And I have dreamt of him in some dreadful danger—from savage beasts, savage men—night after night, in those dreary years he was away—and that he should come home—home—to love, and happiness, and safety, as I thought—to meet the fate I had been fearing! I prayed God day and night for him—prayed that he might be brought back to me in safety. And he came back—came back only to die," wailed the unhappy woman, her head sunk upon her knees, her hands working convulsively amongst her loosened hair.
"He willnotdie," cried Mrs. Wornock, fiercely. "Don't I tell you that he will not die? The wound need not be fatal; the doctor said it was not a hopeless case. Why do you go on raving—as if you wanted him to die—as if you were bent on being miserable—and driving me mad?"
"You! What have you to do with it? He is not your son. Your son is safe enough, I dare say. Your son—who left him in the desert—who came home to steal his comrade's sweetheart. Your son is safe. Such a man as that is never in danger."
Mrs. Wornock bore this insulting speech in silence; and there was no word more on either side for the rest of the journey.
Not without hope! Looking down at the motionless form lying on Geoffrey Wornock's bed, in the large airy room, the hand on the coverlet as white as the lawn sheet, the face disfigured and hardly to be recognized as Allan's face under the broad linen bandage which covered forehead and eyes, the lips livid and speechless—looking with agonized heart at this spectacle, Allan's mother found it hard to believe the doctor's assurance that the case was not, in his humble opinion, utterly hopeless.
"We shall know more to-morrow," he said.
"Are they trying to find the wretch who did it?" asked Lady Emily. "God grant he may be hanged for murder, if my son is to die."
"I shall go from here to the police-station, and take all necessary steps, if I have your ladyship's authority for doing so. The keeper who found your poor son sent a lad off to give information."
"Yes, yes. And you will offer a reward—a large reward. My poor boy—my dear, dear son—to see him lying there—quite unconscious—speechless—helpless. My murdered boy! Where did they find him—how——"
"Lying in a little hollow among the underwood, within a few paces of the path. There is a gate in the fence opening into the high-road, and a footpath, and cart-track, which cut into the main drive four or five hundred yards from the gate. It is a point at which he might be likely to meet a tramp—as it is so near the road—and a long way from any of the lodge gates. The drive would be in Mr. Carew's straight course from Marsh House here."
"Yes, yes! And it was a tramp—you are sure of that—a common robber—who attacked him?"
"Evidently. His pockets were turned inside out—his watch was gone."
"There was a day when no one man would have dared to attack my son."
"There may have been two men. The ground was a good deal trampled, the keeper told me; but they would be able to see very little by the light of a couple of lanterns brought from the stables to the north lodge. We shall see the footsteps, and be able to come to a better idea of the struggle, to-morrow morning."
"Send for a London detective—the best that can be got," Lady Emily interrupted eagerly.
"Be sure we will do all that can be done."
"He has no father to take his part," she went on, distractedly; "no wife—no sweetheart even—to care for him—only a poor, weak mother. If he should die, there will be only one broken heart in the world—only one——"
"Dear lady, why anticipate the worst?" remonstrated the doctor.
"Yes, yes, I am wrong. I must cast myself upon God's mercy. I am not an irreligious woman. I will pray for my son. There is nothing else in the world that I can do. But while I am praying you will work—you will find the wretch who did this cruel deed. You will send for the cleverest doctor in London—the one man of all men who can cure my poor boy."
"You may trust me, Lady Emily. Nothing shall be forgotten or deferred."
It was not till the following morning that the news of Allan Carew's condition, and his presence at Discombe, reached General Vincent and his daughter. Mrs. Mornington was the bearer of those dismal tidings. Always active, alert, and early afoot, she heard of the tragedy from the village tradesmen, and was told three conflicting versions of the story—first at the grocer's, where she was assured that Mr. Carew had breathed his last five minutes after he was carried into the Manor House; next from the butcher's wife, a very ladylike person, rarely seen except through glass, in a little counting-house, giving on to the shop—and who opened her glass shutter on purpose to inform Mrs. Mornington that both young gentlemen had been picked up for dead in the copse at Discombe; Mr. Wornock shot through the heart, Mr. Carew with a bullet in his left temple, the result of a duel to the death. A third informant, taking the air in front of the coachbuilder's workshop—where everybody's carriages went sooner or later for repairs—assured Mrs. Mornington that there hadn't been much harm done, and that Mr. Carew, who had had his pockets picked by a tramp, had been more frightened than hurt.
Mrs. Mornington was not the kind of person to languish in uncertainty about any fact in local history while she possessed the nerves of speech and locomotion. Before the coach-builder finished his rambling story, she had despatched a village boy to the Grove to order her pony-cart to be brought her as quickly as the groom could get it ready; and her orders being always respected, the honest bay cob met her, rattling his bit and whisking his tail from joyous freshness, at the bend of the village street, within a quarter of an hour of the messenger's start. The boy had run his fastest; the groom had not lost a moment; for Mrs. Mornington was one of those excellent mistresses who stand no nonsense from their servants.
The cob went to Discombe at a fast trot, and returned stablewards still faster, indulging in occasional spurts of cantering, which his mistress did not check with her usual severity.
She saw no one but servants at the Manor House. Mrs. Wornock was in her own room, quite prostrate, the butler explained; Lady Emily was with Mr. Carew, who had passed a bad night, and was certainly no better this morning, even if he were no worse.
"Is it very serious, Davidson?" Mrs. Mornington asked the trustworthy old servant.
"I'm afraid it couldn't be much worse, ma'am. The doctor from Salisbury was here at nine o'clock, and was upstairs with Mr. Podmore very near an hour; but he didn't look very cheerful when he left—no more did Mr. Podmore. And there's another doctor been telegraphed for from London. If doctors can save the poor gentleman's life, he'll be spared. But I saw his face last night when he was carried upstairs, and I can't sayI'vemuch hopes of him."
"Never mind your hopes, Davidson, if the doctors can pull him through. A young man can get over a good deal."
"If he can get over having his head mashed—and lying for twenty-seven hours in a wood—he must have a better constitution than ever I heard tell of."
"The wretch who attacked him has not been found yet, I suppose?"
"No, ma'am, not yet, nor never likely to be, so far as I can see. He had seven and twenty hours' start, you see, ma'am; and if a professional thief couldn't get off with that much law, the profession can't be up to much; begging your pardon, ma'am, for venturing to express an opinion," concluded Davidson, who felt that he had been presuming on an old servant's licence.
Mrs. Mornington told him she was very glad to hear his opinion, and then handed him cards for the two ladies, on each of which she had scribbled assurances of sympathy; and with this much information from the fountain-head, she appeared in the drawing-room at Marsh House, where she found Suzette sitting by the fire in a very despondent mood. Her lover's mysterious disappearance after something which was very like a quarrel, was not a cheering incident in her life; and now Lady Emily's anxiety about her son—the fact that he, too, should be missing—increased her trouble of mind.
She listened aghast to her aunt's story.
"What does it mean?" she faltered. "What can it mean?"
"The meaning is plain enough, I think. This poor young man was waylaid in the dusk on Thursday evening—attacked and plundered."
"By a tramp?"
"By one of the criminal classes—a ticket-of-leave man, perhaps, rambling from Portland to London, ready to snatch any opportunity on the way. There's very little use in speculating about a wretch of that class. There are plenty of such ruffians loose in the world, I dare say."
"But it would have served a robber's purpose just as well to have only stunned him."
"Oh, those gentry don't consider things so nicely. No doubt Allan showed fight. And the ruffian would have no mercy."
"Do you think he will die? Oh, aunt, how terrible if he were to die. And Geoffrey still away—Mrs. Wornock miserable about him!"
"Yes, that's the strangest part of the business! What can have induced Geoffrey to take himself off in that mysterious way? Have you any idea why he went?"
"No. I have no idea."
"If he is keeping away of his own accord—if nothing dreadful has happened to him—his conduct is most insulting to you."
"Never mind me, aunt; while there is this trouble at Discombe—for poor Lady Emily."
"I am very sorry for her; but I am obliged to think of you. His behaviour places you in such an awkward position—a ridiculous position. Your wedding-day fixed—hurried on with red-hot impatience by this young man—and he, the bridegroom, missing! What do you suppose people will say?"
"I have no suppositions about people outside our lives. I can only think of the sorrow at Discombe. People can say anything they like," Suzette answered wearily.
Her father had been questioning her, and had talked very much in the same strain as her aunt. She was tired to heart-sickness of talk about Geoffrey. All had grown dark in her life; and darkest of all was her thought of her betrothed.
There had been that in his manner when she parted with him which had filled her with a shapeless dread, a terror not to be lightly named, a terror she had not ventured to suggest even to her father. And here was her aunt teasing her about other people—utterly indifferent people—and their ideas.
"What will peoplenotsay?" exclaimed Mrs. Mornington, after a troubled pause, in which she had poked the fire almost savagely, and pulled a chairback straight. "I must have a serious talk with your father. Is he at home?"
"No. He is out shooting."
"Shooting? It is scarcely decent of him in the present state of affairs. Any more presents?"
"I don't know. Yes; there was a box came this morning. I haven't opened it. Please don't talk of presents. It is too horrid to think of them."
"Horridly embarrassing," said Mrs. Mornington. "You had better come to the Grove, Suzette. There's no good in your moping alone here. And you may have visitors in the afternoon prying and questioning."
"Thanks, aunt, I would rather be at home. I shall deny myself to everybody except Bessie Edgefield."
"Ah, and you'll tell her everything, and she will tell everybody in Matcham."
"I have nothing to tell—nothing that Bessie cannot find out from other people. But she is not a gossip; and she is alwayssimpatica."