"But it would be such a shame."
"That I deny altogether. It was his own to do as he liked with it. Had he married I should not have expected it because I am the heir. But, if you please, aunt, do not say a word more about it."
On the Sunday morning he heard that Mrs. Morton was gone to London, and then he walked over to Bragton. He found that she had locked and sealed up everything with so much precision that she must have worked hard at the task from the hour of his death almost to that of her departure. "She never rested herself all day," said Mrs. Hopkins, "till I thought she would sink from very weariness." She had gone into every room and opened every drawer, and had had every piece of plate through her fingers, and then Mrs. Hopkins told him that just as she was departing she had said that the keys would be given to the lawyer. After that he wandered about the place, thinking what his life would be should he find himself the owner of Bragton. At this moment he almost felt that he disliked the place, though there had been times in which he had thought that he loved it too well. Of one thing he was conscious,—that if Bragton should become his, it would be his duty to live there. He must move his books, and pipes, and other household gods from Hoppet Hall and become an English Squire. Would it be too late for him to learn to ride to hounds? Would it be possible that he should ever succeed in shooting a pheasant, if he were to study the art patiently? Could he interest himself as to the prevalence or decadence of ground game? And what must he do with his neighbours? Of course he would have to entertain Mr. Mainwaring and the other parsons, and perhaps once in the year to ask Lord Rufford to dine with him. If Lord Rufford came, what on earth would he say to him?
And then there arose another question. Would it not be his duty to marry,—and, if so, whom? He had been distinctly told that Mary Masters had given her heart to some one, and he certainly was not the man to ask for the hand of a girl who had not a heart to give. And yet he thought that it would be impossible that he should marry any other person. He spent hours in walking about the grounds, looking at the garden and belongings which would so probably be his own within a week, and thinking whether it would be possible that he should bring a mistress to preside over them. Before he reached home he had made up his mind that only one mistress would be possible, and that she was beyond his reach.
On the Tuesday he received a scrawl from Mrs. Hopkins with a letter from the lawyer—addressed to her. The lawyer wrote to say that he would be down on Wednesday evening, would attend the funeral, and read his client's will after they had performed the ceremony. He went on to add that in obedience to Mrs. Morton's directions he had invited Mr. Peter Morton to be present on the occasion. On the Wednesday Reginald again went over, but left before the arrival of the two gentlemen. On the Thursday he was there early, and of course took upon himself the duty of chief mourner. Peter Morton was there and showed, in a bewildered way, that he had been summoned rather to the opening of the will than to the funeral of a man he had never seen.
Then the will was read. There were only two names mentioned in it. John Morton left £5,000 and his watch and chain and rings to Arabella Trefoil, and everything else of which he was possessed to his cousin Reginald Morton.
"Upon my word I don't know why they sent for me," said the other cousin, Peter.
"Mrs. Morton seemed to think that you would like to pay a tribute of respect," said the lawyer. Peter looked at him and went upstairs and packed his portmanteau. The lawyer handed over the keys to the new squire, and then everything was done.
"Poor old Paragon!" exclaimed Archibald Currie, as he stood with his back to the fire among his colleagues at the Foreign Office on the day after John Morton's death.
"Poor young Paragon! that's the pity of it," said Mounser Green. "I don't suppose he was turned thirty, and he was a useful man,—a very useful man. That's the worst of it. He was just one of those men that the country can't afford to lose, and whom it is so very hard to replace." Mounser Green was always eloquent as to the needs of the public service, and did really in his heart of hearts care about his office. "Who is to go to Patagonia, I'm sure I don't know. Platitude was asking me about it, and I told him that I couldn't name a man."
"Old Platitude always thinks that the world is coming to an end," said Currie. "There are as good fish in the sea as ever were caught."
"Who is there? Monsoon won't go, even if they ask him. The Paragon was just the fellow for it. He had his heart in the work. An immense deal depends on what sort of man we have in Patagonia at the present moment. If Paraguay gets the better of the Patagonese all Brazil will be in a ferment, and you know how that kind of thing spreads among half-caste Spaniards and Portuguese. Nobody can interfere but the British Minister. When I suggested Morton I knew I had the right man if he'd only take it."
"And now he has gone and died!" said Hoffmann.
"And now he has gone and died," continued Mounser Green. "'I never nursed a dear gazelle,' and all the rest of it. Poor Paragon! I fear he was a little cut about Miss Trefoil."
"She was down with him the day before he died," said young Glossop. "I happen to know that."
"It was before he thought of going to Patagonia that she was at Bragton," said Currie.
"That's all you know about it, old fellow," said the indignant young one. "She was there a second time, just before his death. I had it from Lady Penwether who was in the neighbourhood."
"My dear little boy," said Mounser Green, "that was exactly what was likely to happen, and he yet may have broken his heart. I have seen a good deal of the lady lately, and under no circumstances would she have married him. When he accepted the mission that at any rate was all over."
"The Rufford affair had begun before that," said Hoffmann.
"The Rufford affair as you call it," said Glossop, "was no affair at all."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Currie.
"I mean that Rufford was never engaged to her,—not for an instant," said the lad, urgent in spreading the lesson which he had received from his cousin. "It was all a dead take-in."
"Who was taken in?" asked Mounser Green.
"Well;—nobody was taken in as it happened. But I suppose there can't be a doubt that she tried her best to catch him, and that the Duke and Duchess and Mistletoe, and old Trefoil, all backed her up. It was a regular plant. The only thing is, it didn't come off."
"Look here, young shaver;"—this was Mounser Green again;—"when you speak of a young lady do you be a little more discreet."
"But didn't she do it, Green?"
"That's more than you or I can tell. If you want to know what I think, I believe he paid her a great deal of attention and then behaved very badly to her."
"He didn't behave badly at all," said young Glossop.
"My dear boy, when you are as old as I am, you will have learned how very hard it is to know everything. I only say what I believe, and perhaps I may have better ground for believing than you. He certainly paid her a great deal of attention, and then her friends,—especially the Duchess,—went to work."
"They've wanted to get her off their hands these six or eight years," said Currie.
"That's nonsense again," continued the new advocate, "for there is no doubt she might have married Morton all the time had she pleased."
"Yes;—but Rufford!—a fellow with sixty thousand a year!" said Glossop.
"About a third of that would be nearer the mark, Glossy. Take my word for it, you don't know everything yet, though you have so many advantages." After that Mounser Green retreated to his own room with a look and tone as though he were angry.
"What makes him so ferocious about it?" asked Glossop when the door was shut.
"You are always putting your foot in it," said Currie. "I kept on winking to you but it was no good. He sees her almost every day now. She's staying with old Mrs. Green in Portugal Street. There has been some break up between her and her mother, and old Mrs. Green has taken her in. There's some sort of relationship. Mounser is the old woman's nephew, and she is aunt by marriage to the Connop Greens down in Hampshire, and Mrs. Connop Green is first cousin to Lady Augustus."
"If Dick's sister married Tom's brother what relation would Dick be to Tom's mother? That's the kind of thing, isn't it?" suggested Hoffmann.
"At any rate there she is, and Mounser sees her every day."
"It don't make any difference about Rufford," said young Glossop stoutly.
All this happened before the will had been declared,—when Arabella did not dream that she was an heiress. A day or two afterwards she received a letter from the lawyer, telling her of her good fortune, and informing her that the trinkets would be given up to her and the money paid,—short of legacy duty,—whenever she would fix a time and place. The news almost stunned her. There was a moment in which she thought that she was bound to reject this money, as she had rejected that tendered to her by the other man. Poor as she was, greedy as she was, alive as she was to the necessity of doing something for herself,—still this legacy was to her at first bitter rather than sweet. She had never treated any man so ill as she had treated this man;—and it was thus that he punished her! She was alive to the feeling that he had always been true to her. In her intercourse with other men there had been generally a battle carried on with some fairness. Diamond had striven to cut diamond. But here the dishonesty had all been on one side, and she was aware that it had been so. In her later affair with Lord Rufford, she really did think that she had been ill used; but she was quite alive to the fact that her treatment of John Morton had been abominable. The one man, in order that he might escape without further trouble, had in the grossest manner, sent to her the offer of a bribe. The other,—in regard to whose end her hard heart was touched, even her conscience seared,—had named her in his will as though his affection was unimpaired. Of course she took the money, but she took it with inward groans. She took the money and the trinkets, and the matter was all arranged for her by Mounser Green.
"So after all the Paragon left her whatever he could leave," said Currie in the same room at the Foreign Office. A week had passed since the last conversation, and at this moment Mounser Green was not in the room.
"Oh, dear no," said young Glossy. "She doesn't have Bragton. That goes to his cousin."
"That was entailed, Glossy, my boy."
"Not a bit of it. Everybody thought he would leave the place to another Morton, a fellow he'd never seen, in one of those Somerset House Offices. He and this fellow who is to have it, were enemies,—but he wouldn't put it out of the right line. It's all very well for Mounser to be down on me, but I do happen to know what goes on in that country. She gets a pot of money, and no end of family jewels; but he didn't leave her the estate as he might have done."
At that moment Mounser Green came into the room. It was rather later than usual, being past one o'clock;—and he looked as though he were flurried. He didn't speak for a few minutes, but stood before the fire smoking a cigar. And there was a general silence,—there being now a feeling among them that Arabella Trefoil was not to be talked about in the old way before Mounser Green. At last he spoke himself. "I suppose you haven't heard who is to go to Patagonia after all?"
"Is it settled?" asked Currie.
"Anybody we know?" asked Hoffmann.
"I hope it's no d—— outsider," said the too energetic Glossop.
"It is settled;—and it is somebody you know;—and it is not ad——outsider; unless, indeed, he may be considered to be an outsider in reference to that branch of the service."
"It's some consul," said Currie. "Backstairs from Panama, I'll bet a crown."
"It isn't Backstairs, it isn't a consul. Gentlemen, get out your pocket-handkerchiefs. Mounser Green has consented to be expatriated for the good of his country."
"You going to Patagonia!" said Currie. "You're chaffing," said Glossop. "I never was so shot in my life," said Hoffmann.
"It's true, my dear boys."
"I never was so sorry for anything in all my born days," said Glossop, almost crying. "Why on earth should you go to Patagonia?"
"Patagonia!" ejaculated Currie. "What will you do in Patagonia?"
"It's an opening, my dear fellow," said Mounser Green leaning affectionately on Glossop's shoulder. "What should I do by remaining here? When Drummond asked me I saw he wanted me to go. They don't forget that kind of thing." At that moment a messenger opened the door, and the Senator Gotobed, almost without being announced, entered the room. He had become so intimate of late at the Foreign Office, and his visits were so frequent, that he was almost able to dispense with the assistance of any messenger. Perhaps Mounser Green and his colleagues were a little tired of him;—but yet, after their fashion, they were always civil to him, and remembered, as they were bound to do, that he was one of the leading politicians of a great nation. "I have secured the hall," he said at once, as though aware that no news could be so important as the news he thus conveyed.
"Have you indeed?" said Currie.
"Secured it for the fifteenth. Now the question is—"
"What do you think," said Glossop, interrupting him without the slightest hesitation. "Mounser Green is going to Patagonia, in place of the poor Paragon."
"I beg to congratulate Mr. Green with all my heart."
"By George I don't," said the juvenile clerk. "Fancy congratulating a fellow on going to Patagonia! It's what I call an awful sell for everybody."
"But as I was saying I have the hall for the fifteenth."
"You mean to lecture then after all," said Green.
"Certainly I do; I am not going to be deterred from doing my duty because I am told there is a little danger. What I want to know is whether I can depend on having a staff of policemen."
"Of course there will be police," said Green.
"But I mean some extra strength. I don't mind for myself, but I should be so unhappy if there were anything of a commotion." Then he was assured that the officers of the police force would look to that, and was assured also that Mounser Green and the other gentlemen in the room would certainly attend the lecture. "I don't suppose I shall be gone by that time," said Mounser Green in a melancholy tone of voice.
Rufford, March 5th.My dear Miss Trefoil,I am indeed sorry that I should have offended you by acceding to a suggestion which, I think I may say, originated with your mother. When she told me that her circumstances and yours were not in a pecuniary point of view so comfortable as they might be, I did feel that it was in my power to alleviate that trouble. The sum of money mentioned by my lawyer was certainly named by your mother. At any rate pray believe that I meant to be of service.As to naming a place where we might meet, it really could be of no service. It would be painful to both of us and could have no good result. Again apologizing for having inadvertently offended you by adopting the views which Lady Augustus entertained, I beg to assure you that I am,Yours faithfully,Rufford.
Rufford, March 5th.
My dear Miss Trefoil,
I am indeed sorry that I should have offended you by acceding to a suggestion which, I think I may say, originated with your mother. When she told me that her circumstances and yours were not in a pecuniary point of view so comfortable as they might be, I did feel that it was in my power to alleviate that trouble. The sum of money mentioned by my lawyer was certainly named by your mother. At any rate pray believe that I meant to be of service.
As to naming a place where we might meet, it really could be of no service. It would be painful to both of us and could have no good result. Again apologizing for having inadvertently offended you by adopting the views which Lady Augustus entertained, I beg to assure you that I am,
Yours faithfully,
Rufford.
This letter came from the peer himself, without assistance. After his interview with Lady Augustus he simply told his Mentor, Sir George, that he had steadfastly denied the existence of any engagement, not daring to acquaint him with the offer he had made. Neither, therefore, could he tell Sir George of the manner in which the young lady had repudiated the offer. That she should have repudiated it was no doubt to her credit. As he thought of it afterwards he felt that had she accepted it she would have been base indeed. And yet, as he thought of what had taken place at the house in Piccadilly, he was confident that the proposition had in some way come from her mother. No doubt he had first written a sum of money on the fragment of paper which she had preserved;—and the evidence would so far go against him. But Lady Augustus had spoken piteously of their joint poverty,—and had done so in lieu of insisting with a mother's indignation on her daughter's rights. Of course she had intended to ask for money. What other purpose could she have had? It was so he had argued at the moment, and so he had argued since. If it were so he would not admit that he had behaved unlike a gentleman in offering the money. Yet he did not dare to tell Sir George, and therefore was obliged to answer Arabella's letter without assistance.
He was not altogether sorry to have his £8000, being fully as much alive to the value of money as any brother peer in the kingdom, but he would sooner have paid the money than be subject to an additional interview. He had been forced up to London to see first the father and then the mother, and thought that he had paid penalty enough for any offence that he might have committed. An additional interview with the young lady herself would distress him beyond anything,—would be worse than any other interview. He would sooner leave Rufford and go abroad than encounter it. He promised himself that nothing should induce him to encounter it. Therefore, he wrote the above letter.
Arabella, when she received it, had ceased to care very much about the insult of the offer. She had then quarrelled with her mother, and had insisted on some separation even without any arrangement as to funds. Requiring some confidant, she had told a great deal, though not quite all, to Mrs. Connop Green, and that lady had passed her on for a while to her husband's aunt in London. At this time she had heard nothing of John Morton's will, and had perhaps thought with some tender regret of the munificence of her other lover, which she had scorned. But she was still intent on doing something. The fury of her despair was still on her, so that she could not weigh the injury she might do herself against some possible gratification to her wounded spirit. Up to this moment she had formed no future hope. At this epoch she had no string to her bow. John Morton was dead;—and she had absolutely wept for him in solitude, though she had certainly never loved him. Nor did she love Lord Rufford. As far as she knew how to define her feelings, she thought that she hated him. But she told herself hourly that she had not done with him. She was instigated by the true feminine Medea feeling that she would find some way to wring his heart,—even though in the process she might suffer twice as much as he did. She had convinced herself that in this instance he was the offender. "Painful to both of us!" No doubt! But because it would be painful to him, it should be exacted. Though he was a coward and would fain shirk such pain, she could be brave enough. Even though she should be driven to catch him by the arm in the open street, she would have it out with him. He was a liar and a coward, and she would, at any rate, have the satisfaction of telling him so.
She thought much about it before she could resolve on what she would do. She could not ask old Mrs. Green to help her. Mrs. Green was a kind old woman, who had lived much in the world, and would wish to see much of it still, had age allowed her. Arabella Trefoil was at any rate the niece of a Duke, and the Duke, in this affair with Lord Rufford, had taken his niece's part. She opened her house and as much of her heart as was left to Arabella, and was ready to mourn with her over the wicked lord. She could sympathise with her too, as to the iniquities of her mother, whom none of the Greens loved. But she would have been frightened by any proposition as to Medean vengeance.
In these days,—still winter days, and not open to much feminine gaiety in London, even if, in the present constitution of her circumstances, gaiety would have come in her way,—in these days the hours in her life which interested her most, were those in which Mr. Mounser Green was dutifully respectful to his aunt. Patagonia had not yet presented itself to him. Some four or five hundred a year, which the old lady had at her own disposal, had for years past contributed to Mounser's ideas of duty. And now Arabella's presence at the small house in Portugal Street certainly added a new zest to those ideas. The niece of the Duke of Mayfair, and the rejected of Lord Rufford, was at the present moment an interesting young woman in Mounser Green's world. There were many who thought that she had been ill-used. Had she succeeded, all the world would have pitied Lord Rufford;—but as he had escaped, there was a strong party for the lady. And gradually Mounser Green, who some weeks ago had not thought very much of her, became one of the party. She had brought her maid with her; and when she found that Mounser Green came to the house every evening, either before or after dinner, she had recourse to her accustomed lures. She would sit quiet, dejected, almost broken-hearted in the corner of a sofa; but when he spoke to her she would come to life and raise her eyes,—not ignoring the recognised dejection of her jilted position, not pretending to this minor stag of six tines that she was a sprightly unwooed young fawn, fresh out of the forest,—almost asking him to weep with her, and playing her accustomed lures, though in a part which she had not hitherto filled.
But still she was resolved that her Jason should not as yet be quit of his Medea. So she made her plot. She would herself go down to Rufford and force her way into her late lover's presence in spite of all obstacles. It was possible that she should do this and get back to London the same day,—but, to do so, she must leave London by an early train at 7 A.M., stay seven or eight hours at Rufford, and reach the London station at 10 P.M. For such a journey there must be some valid excuse made to Mrs. Green. There must be some necessity shown for such a journey. She would declare that a meeting was necessary with her mother, and that her mother was at any town she chose to name at the requisite distance from London. In this way she might start with her maid before daylight, and get back after dark, and have the meeting with her mother—or with Lord Rufford as the case might be. But Mounser Green knew very well that Lady Augustus was in Orchard Street, and knew also that Arabella was determined not to see her mother. And if she declared her purpose, without a caution to Mounser Green, the old woman would tell her nephew, and the nephew would unwittingly expose the deceit. It was necessary therefore that she should admit Mounser Green to, at any rate, half a confidence. This she did. "Don't ask me any questions," she said. "I know I can trust you. I must be out of town the whole day, and perhaps the next. And your aunt must not know why I am going or where. You will help me?" Of course he said that he would help her; and the lie, with a vast accompaniment of little lies, was told. There must be a meeting on business matters between her and her mother, and her mother was now in the neighbourhood of Birmingham. This was the lie told to Mrs. Green. She would go down, and, if possible, be back on the same day. She would take her maid with her. She thought that in such a matter as that she could trust her maid, and was in truth afraid to travel alone. "I will come in the morning and take Miss Trefoil to the station," said Mounser, "and will meet her in the evening." And so the matter was arranged.
The journey was not without its drawbacks and almost its perils. Summer or winter Arabella Trefoil was seldom out of bed before nine. It was incumbent on her now to get up on a cold March morning,—when the lion had not as yet made way for the lamb,—at half-past five. That itself seemed to be all but impossible to her. Nevertheless she was ready and had tried to swallow half a cup of tea, when Mounser Green came to the door with a cab a little after six. She had endeavoured to dispense with this new friend's attendance, but he had insisted, assuring her that without some such aid no cab would be forthcoming. She had not told him and did not intend that he should know to what station she was going. "You begged me to ask no questions," he said when he was in the cab with her, the maid having been induced most unwillingly to seat herself with the cabman on the box,—"and I have obeyed you. But I wish I knew how I could help you."
"You have helped me, and you are helping me. But do not ask anything more."
"Will you be angry with me if I say that I fear you are intending something rash?"
"Of course I am. How could it be otherwise with me? Don't you think there are turns in a person's life when she must do something rash. Think of yourself. If everybody crushed you; if you were ill-treated beyond all belief; if the very people who ought to trust you doubted you, wouldn't you turn upon somebody and rend him?"
"Are you going to rend anybody?"
"I do not know as yet."
"I wish you would let me go down with you."
"No; that you certainly cannot. You must not come even into the station with me. You have been very good to me. You will not now turn against me."
"I certainly will do nothing but what you tell me."
"Then here we are,—and now you must go. Jane can carry my hand-bag and cloak. If you choose to come in the evening at ten it will be an additional favour."
"I certainly will do so. But Miss Trefoil, one word." They were now standing under cover of the portico in front of the railway station, into which he was not to be allowed to enter. "What I fear is this;—that in your first anger you may be tempted to do something which may be injurious to—to your prospects in life."
"I have no prospects in life, Mr. Green."
"Ah;—that is just it. There are for most of us moments of unhappiness in which we are tempted by our misery to think that we are relieved at any rate from the burden of caution, because nothing that can occur to us can make us worse than we are."
"Nothing can make me worse than I am."
"But in a few months or weeks," continued Mounser Green, bringing up in his benevolence all the wisdom of his experience, "we have got a new footing amidst our troubles, and then we may find how terrible is the injury which our own indiscretion has brought on us. I do not want to ask any questions, but—it might be so much better that you should abandon your intention, and go back with me."
She seemed to be almost undecided for a moment as she thought over his words. But she remembered her pledge to herself that Lord Rufford should find that she had not done with him yet. "I must go," she said in a hoarse voice.
"If you must—"
"I must go. I have no way out of it. Good-bye, Mr. Green; I cannot tell you how much obliged to you I am." Then he turned back and she went into the station and took two first-class tickets for Rufford. At that moment Lord Rufford was turning himself comfortably in his bed. How would he have sprung up, and how would he have fled, had he known the evil that was coming upon him! This happened on a Thursday, a day on which, as Arabella knew, the U. R. U. did not go out;—the very Thursday on which John Morton was buried and the will was read at Bragton.
She was fully determined to speak her mind to the man and to be checked by no feminine squeamishness. She would speak her mind to him if she could force her way into his presence. And in doing this she would be debarred by no etiquette. It might be that she would fail, that he would lack the courage to see her, and would run away, even before all his servants, when he should hear who was standing in his hall. But if he did so she would try again, even though she should have to ride out into the hunting-field after him. Face to face she would tell him that he was a liar and a slanderer and no gentleman, though she should have to run round the world to catch him. When she reached Rufford she went to the town and ordered breakfast and a carriage. As soon as she had eaten the meal she desired the driver in a clear voice to take her to Rufford Hall. Was her maid to go with her? No. She would be back soon, and her maid would wait there till she had returned.
This thing that she was doing required an infinite amount of pluck,—of that sort of hardihood which we may not quite call courage, but which in a world well provided with policemen is infinitely more useful than courage. Lord Rufford himself was endowed with all the ordinary bravery of an Englishman, but he could have flown as soon as run into a lion's den as Arabella was doing. She had learned that Lady Penwether and Miss Penge were both at Rufford Hall, and understood well the difficulty there would be in explaining her conduct should she find herself in their presence. And there were all the servants there to stare at her, and the probability that she might be shown to the door and told that no one there would speak to her. She saw it all before her, and knew how bitter it might be;—but her heart was big enough to carry her through it. She was dressed very simply, but still by no means dowdily, in a black silk dress, and though she wore a thick veil when she got out of the fly and rang the door bell, she had been at some pains with her hair before she left the inn. Her purpose was revenge; but still she had an eye to the possible chance,—the chance barely possible of bringing the man to submit.
When the door was opened she raised her veil and asked for Lord Rufford;—but as she did so she walked on through the broad passage which led from the front door into a wide central space which they called the billiard-room but which really was the hall of the house. This she did as a manifesto that she did not mean to leave the house because she might be told that he was out or could not be seen, or that he was engaged. It was then nearly one o'clock, and no doubt he would be there for luncheon. Of course he might be in truth away from home, but she must do her best to judge of that by the servant's manner. The man knew her well, and not improbably had heard something of his master's danger. He was, however, very respectful and told her that his lordship was out in the grounds;—but that Lady Penwether was in the drawing-room. Then a sudden thought struck her, and she asked the man whether he would show her in what part of the grounds she might find Lord Rufford. Upon that he took her to the front door and pointing across the park to a belt of trees, showed her three or four men standing round some piece of work. He believed, he said, that one of those men was his lordship.
She bowed her thanks and was descending the steps on her way to join the group, when whom should she see but Lady Penwether coming into the house with her garden-hat and gloves. It was unfortunate; but she would not allow herself to be stopped by Lady Penwether. She bowed stiffly and would have passed on without a word, but that was impossible. "Miss Trefoil!" said Lady Penwether with astonishment.
"Your brother is just across the park. I think I see him and will go to him."
"I had better send and tell him that you are here," said her ladyship.
"I need not trouble you so far. I can be my own messenger. Perhaps you will allow the fly to be sent round to the yard for half-an-hour." As she said this she was still passing down the steps.
But Lady Penwether knew that it behoved her to prevent this if it might be possible. Of late she had had little or no conversation with her brother about Miss Trefoil, but she had heard much from her husband. She would be justified, she thought, in saying or in doing almost anything which would save him from such an encounter. "I really think," she said, "that he had better be told that you are here," and as she spoke she strove to put herself in the visitor's way. "You had better come in, Miss Trefoil, and he shall be informed at once."
"By no means, Lady Penwether. I would not for worlds give him or you so much trouble. I see him and I will go to him." Then Lady Penwether absolutely put out her hand to detain her; but Arabella shook it off angrily and looked into the other woman's face with fierce eyes. "Allow me," she said, "to conduct myself at this moment as I may think best. I shall do so at any rate." Then she stalked on and Lady Penwether saw that any contest was hopeless. Had she sent the servant on with all his speed, so as to gain three or four moments, her brother could hardly have fled through the trees in face of the enemy.
Lord Rufford, who was busy planning the prolongation of a ha-ha fence, saw nothing of all this; but, after a while he was aware that a woman was coming to him, and then gradually he saw who that woman was. Arabella when she had found herself advancing closer went slowly enough. She was sure of her prey now, and was wisely mindful that it might be well that she should husband her breath. The nearer she drew to him the slower became her pace, and more majestic. Her veil was well thrown back, and her head was raised in the air. She knew these little tricks of deportment and could carry herself like a queen. He had taken a moment or two to consider. Should he fly? It was possible. He might vault over a railed fence in among the trees, at a spot not ten yards from her, and then it would be impossible that she should run him down. He might have done it had not the men been there to see it. As it was he left them in the other direction and came forward to meet her. He tried to smile pleasantly as he spoke to her. "So I see that you would not take my advice," he said.
"Neither your advice nor your money, my lord."
"Ah,—I was so sorry about that! But, indeed, indeed,—the fault was not mine."
"They were your figures that I saw upon the paper, and by your orders, no doubt, that the lawyer acted. But I have not come to say much of that. You meant I suppose to be gracious."
"I meant to be—goodnatured."
"I daresay. You were willing enough to give away what you did not want. But there must be more between us than any question of money. Lord Rufford you have treated me most shamefully."
"I hope not. I think not."
"And you yourself must be well aware of it,—quite as well aware of it as I am. You have thrown me over and absolutely destroyed me;—and why?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Because you have been afraid of others; because your sister has told you that you were mistaken in your choice. The women around you have been too many for you, and have not allowed you to dispose of your hand, and your name, and your property as you pleased. I defy you to say that this was not your sister's doing." He was too much astounded to contradict her rapidly, and then she passed on, not choosing to give him time for contradiction. "Will you have the hardihood to say that you did not love me?" Then she paused thinking that he would not dare to contradict her then, feeling that in that she was on strong ground. "Were you lying when you told me that you did? What did you mean when I was in your arms up in the house there? What did you intend me to think that you meant?" Then she stopped, standing well in front of him, and looking fixedly into his face.
This was the very thing that he had feared. Lord Augustus had been a trouble. The Duke's letter had been a trouble. Lady Augustus had been a trouble; and Sir George's sermons had been troublesome. But what were they all when compared to this? How is it possible that a man should tell a girl that he has not loved her, when he has embraced her again and again? He may know it, and she may know it,—and each may know that the other knows it;—but to say that he does not and did not then love her is beyond the scope of his audacity,—unless he be a heartless Nero. "No one can grieve about this so much as I do," he said weakly.
"Cannot I grieve more, do you think,—I who told all my relatives that I was to become your wife, and was justified in so telling them? Was I not justified?"
"I think not."
"You think not! What did you mean then? What were you thinking of when we were coming back in the carriage from Stamford,—when with your arms round me you swore that you loved me better than all the world? Is that true? Did you so swear?" What a question for a man to have to answer! It was becoming clear to him that there was nothing for him but to endure and be silent. Even to this interview the gods would at last give an end. The hour would pass, though, alas, so slowly, and she could not expect that he should stand there to be rated much after the accustomed time for feeding. "You acknowledge that, and do you dare to say that I had no right to tell my friends?"
There was a moment in which he thought it was almost a pity that he had not married her. She was very beautiful in her present form,—more beautiful he thought than ever. She was the niece of a Duke, and certainly a very clever woman. He had not wanted money and why shouldn't he have married her? As for hunting him,—that was a matter of course. He was as much born and bred to be hunted as a fox. He could not do it now as he had put too much power into the hands of the Penwethers, but he almost wished that he had. "I never intended it," he said.
"What did you intend? After what has occurred I suppose I have a right to ask such a question. I have made a somewhat unpleasant journey to-day, all alone, on purpose to ask that question. What did you intend?" In his great annoyance he struck his shovel angrily against the ground. "And I will not leave you till I get an answer to the question. What did you intend, Lord Rufford?" There was nothing for him but silence and a gradual progress back towards the house.
But from the latter resource she cut him off for a time. "You will do me the favour to remain with me here till this conversation is ended. You cannot refuse me so slight a request as that, seeing the trouble to which you have put me. I never saw a man so forgetful of words. You cannot speak. Have you no excuse to offer, not a word to say in explanation of conduct so black that I don't think here in England I ever heard a case to equal it? If your sister had been treated so!"
"It would have been impossible."
"I believe it. Her cautious nature would have trusted no man as I trusted you. Her lips, doubtless, were never unfrozen till the settlements had been signed. With her it was a matter of bargain, not of love. I can well believe that."
"I will not talk about my sister."
"It seems to me, Lord Rufford, that you object to talk about anything. You certainly have been very uncommunicative with reference to yourself. Were you lying when you told me that you loved me?"
"No."
"Did I lie when I told the Duchess that you had promised me your love? Did I lie when I told my mother that in these days a man does not always mention marriage when he asks a girl to be his wife? You said you loved me, and I believed you, and the rest was a thing of course. And you meant it. You know you meant it. When you held me in your arms in the carriage you know you meant me to suppose that it would always be so. Then the fear of your sister came upon you, and of your sister's husband,—and you ran away! I wonder whether you think yourself a man!" And yet she felt that she had not hit him yet. He was wretched enough; and she could see that he was wretched;—but the wretchedness would pass away as soon as she was gone. How could she stab him so that the wound would remain? With what virus could she poison her arrow, so that the agony might be prolonged? "And such a coward too! I began to suspect it when you started that night from Mistletoe,—though I did not think then that you could be all mean, all cowardly. From that day to this, you have not dared to speak a word of truth. Every word has been a falsehood."
"By heavens, no."
"Every word a falsehood! and I, a lady,—a lady whom you have so deeply injured, whose cruel injury even you have not the face to deny,—am forced by your cowardice to come to you here, because you have not dared to come out to meet me. Is that true!"
"What good can it do?"
"None to me, God knows. You are such a thing that I would not have you now I know you, though you were twice Lord Rufford. But I have chosen to speak my mind to you and to tell you what I think. Did you suppose that when I said I would meet you face to face I was to be deterred by such girl's excuses as you made? I chose to tell you to your face that you are false, a coward, and no gentleman, and though you had hidden yourself under the very earth I would have found you." Then she turned round and saw Sir George Penwether standing close to them.
Lord Rufford had seen him approaching for some time, and had made one or two futile attempts to meet him. Arabella's back had been turned to the house, and she had not heard the steps or observed the direction of her companion's eyes. He came so near before he was seen that he heard her concluding words. Then Lord Rufford with a ghastly attempt at pleasantry introduced them. "George," he said, "I do not think you know Miss Trefoil. Sir George Penwether;—Miss Trefoil."
The interview had been watched from the house and the husband had been sent down by his wife to mitigate the purgatory which she knew that her brother must be enduring. "My wife," said Sir George, "has sent me to ask Miss Trefoil whether she will not come into lunch."
"I believe it is Lord Rufford's house," said Arabella.
"If Miss Trefoil's frame of mind will allow her to sit at table with me I shall be proud to see her," said Lord Rufford.
"Miss Trefoil's frame of mind will not allow her to eat or to drink with such a dastard," said she turning away in the direction of the park gates. "Perhaps, Sir George, you will be kind enough to direct the man who brought me here to pick me up at the lodge." And so she walked away—a mile across the park,—neither of them caring to follow her.
It seemed to her as she stood at the lodge gate, having obstinately refused to enter the house, to be an eternity before the fly came to her. When it did come she felt as though her strength would barely enable her to climb into it. And when she was there she wept, with bitter throbbing woe, all the way to Rufford. It was over now at any rate. Now there was not a possible chance on which a gleam of hope might be made to settle. And how handsome he was, and how beautiful the place, and how perfect would have been the triumph could she have achieved it! One more word,—one other pressure of the hand in the post-chaise, might have done it! Had he really promised her marriage she did not even now think that he would have gone back from his word. If that heavy stupid duke would have spoken to him that night at Mistletoe, all would have been well! But now,—now there was nothing for her but weeping and gnashing of teeth. He was gone, and poor Morton was gone; and all those others, whose memories rose like ghosts before her;—they were all gone. And she wept as she thought that she might perhaps have made a better use of the gifts which Providence had put in her way.
When Mounser Green met her at the station she was beyond measure weary. Through the whole journey she had been struggling to restrain her sobs so that her maid should neither hear nor see them. "Don't mind me, Mr. Green; I am only tired,—so tired," she said as she got into the carriage which he had brought.
He had with him a long, formal-looking letter addressed to herself. But she was too weary to open it that night. It was the letter conveying the tidings of the legacy which Morton had made in her favour.
At this time Senator Gotobed was paying a second visit to Rufford Hall. In the matter of Goarly and Scrobby he had never given way an inch. He was still strongly of opinion that a gentleman's pheasants had no right to eat his neighbour's corn, and that if damage were admitted, the person committing the injury should not take upon himself to assess the damage. He also thought,—and very often declared his thoughts,—that Goarly was justified in shooting not only foxes but hounds also when they came upon his property, and in moments of excitement had gone so far as to say that not even horses should be held sacred. He had, however, lately been driven to admit that Goarly himself was not all that a man should be, and that Mrs. Goarly's goose was an impostor. It was the theory,—the principle for which he combated, declaring that the evil condition of the man himself was due to the evil institutions among which he had been reared. By degrees evidence had been obtained of Scrobby's guilt in the matter of the red herrings, and he was to be tried for the offence of putting down poison. Goarly was to be the principal witness against his brother conspirator. Lord Rufford, instigated by his brother-in-law, and liking the spirit of the man, had invited the Senator to stay at the Hall while the case was being tried at the Rufford Quarter Sessions. I am afraid the invitation was given in a spirit of triumph over the Senator rather than with genuine hospitality. It was thought well that the American should be made to see in public the degradation of the abject creature with whom he had sympathised. Perhaps there were some who thought that in this way they would get the Senator's neck under their heels. If there were such they were likely to be mistaken, as the Senator was not a man prone to submit himself to such treatment.
He was seated at table with Lady Penwether and Miss Penge when Lord Rufford and his brother-in-law came into the room, after parting with Miss Trefoil in the manner described in the last chapter. Lady Penwether had watched their unwelcome visitor as she took her way across the park and had whispered something to Miss Penge. Miss Penge understood the matter thoroughly, and would not herself have made the slightest allusion to the other young lady. Had the Senator not been there the two gentlemen would have been allowed to take their places without a word on the subject. But the Senator had a marvellous gift of saying awkward things and would never be reticent. He stood for a while at the window in the drawing-room before he went across the hall, and even took up a pair of field-glasses to scrutinise the lady; and when they were all present he asked whether that was not Miss Trefoil whom he had seen down by the new fence. Lady Penwether, without seeming to look about her, did look about her for a few seconds to see whether the question might be allowed to die away unanswered. She perceived, from the Senator's face, that he intended to have an answer.
"Yes," she said, "that was Miss Trefoil. I am very glad that she is not coming in to disturb us."
"A great blessing," said Miss Penge.
"Where is she staying?" asked the Senator.
"I think she drove over from Rufford," said the elder lady.
"Poor young lady! She was engaged to marry my friend, Mr. John Morton. She must have felt his death very bitterly. He was an excellent young man; rather opinionated and perhaps too much wedded to the traditions of his own country; but, nevertheless, a painstaking, excellent young man. I had hoped to welcome her as Mrs. Morton in America."
"He was to have gone to Patagonia," said Lord Rufford, endeavouring to come to himself after the sufferings of the morning.
"We should have seen him back in Washington, Sir. Whenever you have anything good in diplomacy you generally send him to us. Poor young lady! Was she talking about him?"
"Not particularly," said his lordship.
"She must have remembered that when she was last here he was of the party, and it was but a few weeks ago,—only a little before Christmas. He struck me as being cold in his manner as an affianced lover. Was not that your idea, Lady Penwether?"
"I don't think I observed him especially."
"I have reason to believe that he was much attached to her. She could be sprightly enough; but at times there seemed to come a cold melancholy upon her too. It is I fancy so with most of your English ladies. Miss Trefoil always gave me the idea of being a good type of the English aristocracy." Lady Penwether and Miss Penge drew themselves up very stiffly. "You admired her, I think, my Lord."
"Very much indeed," said Lord Rufford, filling his mouth with pigeon-pie as he spoke, and not lifting his eyes from his plate.
"Will she be back to dinner?"
"Oh dear no," said Lady Penwether. There was something in her tone which at last startled the Senator into perceiving that Miss Trefoil was not popular at Rufford Hall.
"She only came for a morning call," said Lord Rufford.
"Poor young woman. She has lost her husband, and, I am afraid, now has lost her friends also. I am told that she is not well off;—and from what I see and hear, I fancy that here in England a young lady without a dowry cannot easily replace a lover. I suppose, too, Miss Trefoil is not quite in her first youth."
"If you have done, Caroline," said Lady Penwether to Miss Penge, "I think we'll go into the other room."
That afternoon Sir George asked the Senator to accompany him for a walk. Sir George was held to be responsible for the Senator's presence, and was told by the ladies that he must do something with him. The next day, which was Friday, would be occupied by the affairs of Scrobby and Goarly, and on the Saturday he was to return to town. The two started about three with the object of walking round the park and the home farm—the Senator intent on his duty of examining the ways of English life to the very bottom. "I hope I did not say anything amiss about Miss Trefoil," he remarked, as they passed through a shrubbery gate into the park.
"No; I think not."
"I thought your good lady looked as though she did not like the subject."
"I am not sure that Miss Trefoil is very popular with the ladies up there."
"She's a handsome young woman and clever, though, as I said before, given to melancholy, and sometimes fastidious. When we were all here I thought that Lord Rufford admired her, and that poor Mr. Morton was a little jealous."
"I wasn't at Rufford then. Here we get out of the park on to the home farm. Rufford does it very well,—very well indeed."
"Looks after it altogether himself?"
"I cannot quite say that. He has a land-bailiff who lives in the house there."
"With a salary?"
"Oh yes; £120 a year I think the man has."
"And that house?" asked the Senator. "Why, the house and garden are worth £50 a year."
"I dare say they are. Of course it costs money. It's near the park and had to be made ornamental."
"And does it pay?"
"Well, no; I should think not. In point of fact I know it does not. He loses about the value of the ground."
The Senator asked a great many more questions and then began his lecture. "A man who goes into trade and loses by it, cannot be doing good to himself or to others. You say, Sir George, that it is a model farm;—but it's a model of ruin. If you want to teach a man any other business, you don't specially select an example in which the proprietors are spending all their capital without any return. And if you would not do this in shoemaking, why in farming?"
"The neighbours are able to see how work should be done."
"Excuse me, Sir George, but it seems to me that they are enabled to see how work should not be done. If his lordship would stick up over his gate a notice to the effect that everything seen there was to be avoided, he might do some service. If he would publish his accounts half-yearly in the villagenewspaper—"
"There isn't a village newspaper."
"In theRufford Gazette. There is aRufford Gazette, and Rufford isn't much more than a village. If he would publish his accounts half-yearly in theRufford Gazette, honestly showing how much he had lost by his system, how much capital had been misapplied, and how much labour wasted, he might serve as an example, like the pictures of 'The Idle Apprentice.' I don't see that he can do any other good,—unless it be to the estimable gentleman who is allowed to occupy the pretty house. I don't think you'd see anything like that model farm in our country, Sir."
"Your views, Mr. Gotobed, are utilitarian rather than picturesque."
"Oh!—if you say that it is done for the picturesque, that is another thing. Lord Rufford is a wealthy lord, and can afford to be picturesque. A green sward I should have thought handsomer, as well as less expensive, than a ploughed field, but that is a matter of taste. Only why call a pretty toy a model farm? You might mislead the British rustics."
They had by this time passed through a couple of fields which formed part of the model farm, and had come to a stile leading into a large meadow. "This I take it," said the Senator looking about him, "is beyond the limits of my Lord's plaything."
"This is Shugborough," said Sir George, "and there is John Runce, the occupier, on his pony. He at any rate is a model farmer." As he spoke Mr. Runce slowly trotted up to them touching his hat, and Mr. Gotobed recognized the man who had declined to sit next to him at the hunting breakfast. Runce also thought that he knew the gentleman. "Do you hunt to-morrow, Mr. Runce?" asked Sir George.
"Well, Sir George, no; I think not. I b'lieve I must go to Rufford and hear that fellow Scrobby get it hot and heavy."
"We seem all to be going that way. You think he'll be convicted, Sir?"
"If there's a juryman left in the country worth his salt, he'll be convicted," said Mr. Runce, almost enraged at the doubt. "But that other fellow;—he's to get off. That's what kills me, Sir George."
"You're alluding to Mr. Goarly, Sir?" said the Senator.
"That's about it, certainly," said Runce, still looking very suspiciously at his companion.
"I almost think he is the bigger rogue of the two," said the Senator.
"Well," said Runce; "well! I don't know as he ain't. Six of one and half a dozen of the other! That's about it." But he was evidently pacified by the opinion.
"Goarly is certainly a rascal all round," continued the Senator. Runce looked at him to make sure whether he was the man who had uttered such fearful blasphemies at the breakfast-table. "I think we had a little discussion about this before, Mr. Runce."
"I am very glad to see you have changed your principles, Sir."
"Not a bit of it. I am too old to change my principles, Mr. Runce. And much as I admire this country I don't think it's the place in which I should be induced to do so." Runce looked at him again with a scowl on his face and with a falling mouth. "Mr. Goarly is certainly a blackguard."
"Well;—I rather think he is."
"But a blackguard may have a good cause. Put it in your own case, Mr. Runce. If his Lordship's pheasants ate up yourwheat—"
"They're welcome;—they're welcome! The more the merrier. But they don't. Pheasants know when they're well off."
"Or if a crowd of horsemen rode over your fences, don't youthink—"
"My fences! They'd be welcome in my wife's bedroom if the fox took that way. My fences! It's what I has fences for,—to be ridden over."
"You didn't exactly hear what I have to say, Mr. Runce."
"And I don't want. No offence, sir, if you be a friend of my Lord's;—but if his Lordship was to say hisself that Goarly was right, I wouldn't listen to him. A good cause,—and he going about at dead o'night with his pockets full of p'ison! Hounds and foxes all one!—or little childer either for the matter o' that, if they happened on the herrings!"
"I have not said his cause was good, Mr. Runce."
"I'll wish you good evening, Sir George," said the farmer, reining his pony round. "Good evening to you, sir." And Mr. Runce trotted or rather ambled off, unable to endure another word.
"An honest man, I dare say," said the Senator.
"Certainly;—and not a bad specimen of a British farmer."
"Not a bad specimen of a Briton generally;—but still, perhaps, a little unreasonable." After that Sir George said as little as he could, till he had brought the Senator back to the hall.
"I think it's all over now," said Lady Penwether to Miss Penge, when the gentlemen had left them alone in the afternoon.
"I'm sure I hope so,—for his sake. What a woman to come here by herself, in that way!"
"I don't think he ever cared for her in the least."
"I can't say that I have troubled myself much about that," replied Miss Penge. "For the sake of the family generally, and the property, and all that, I should be very very sorry to think that he was going to make her Lady Rufford. I dare say he has amused himself with her."
"There was very little of that, as far as I can learn;—very little encouragement indeed! What we saw here was the worst of it. He was hardly with her at all at Mistletoe."
"I hope it will make him more cautious;—that's all," said Miss Penge. Miss Penge was now a great heiress, having had her lawsuit respecting certain shares in a Welsh coal-mine settled since we last saw her. As all the world knows she came from one of the oldest Commoner's families in the West of England, and is, moreover, a handsome young woman, only twenty-seven years of age. Lady Penwether thinks that she is the very woman to be mistress of Rufford, and I do not know that Miss Penge herself is averse to the idea. Lord Rufford has been too lately wounded to rise at the bait quite immediately; but his sister knows that her brother is impressionable and that a little patience will go a long way. They have, however, all agreed at the hall that Arabella's name shall not again be mentioned.
Rufford was a good deal moved as to the trial of Mr. Scrobby. Mr. Scrobby was a man who not long since had held his head up in Rufford and had the reputation of a well-to-do tradesman. Enemies had perhaps doubted his probity; but he had gone on and prospered, and, two or three years before the events which are now chronicled, had retired on a competence. He had then taken a house with a few acres of land, lying between Rufford and Rufford Hall,—the property of Lord Rufford, and had commenced genteel life. Many in the neighbourhood had been astonished that such a man should have been accepted as a tenant in such a house; and it was generally understood that Lord Rufford himself had been very angry with his agent. Mr. Scrobby did not prosper greatly in his new career. He became a guardian of the poor and quarrelled with all the Board. He tried to become a municipal counsellor in the borough, but failed. Then he quarrelled with his landlord, insisted on making changes in the grounds which were not authorised by the terms of his holding, would not pay his rent, and was at last ejected,—having caused some considerable amount of trouble. Then he occupied a portion of his leisure with spreading calumnies as to his Lordship, and was generally understood to have made up his mind to be disagreeable. As Lord Rufford was a sportsman rather than anything else Scrobby studied how he might best give annoyance in that direction, and some time before the Goarly affair had succeeded in creating considerable disturbance. When a man will do this pertinaciously, and when his selected enemy is wealthy and of high standing, he will generally succeed in getting a party round him. In Rufford there were not a few who thought that Lord Rufford's pheasants and foxes were a nuisance,—though probably these persons had never suffered in any way themselves. It was a grand thing to fight a lord,—and so Scrobby had a party.
When the action against his Lordship was first threatened by Goarly, and when it was understood that Scrobby had backed him with money, there was a feeling that Scrobby was doing rather a fine thing. He had not, indeed, used his money openly, as the Senator had afterwards done; but that was not Scrobby's way. If Goarly had been ill-used any help was legitimate, and the party as a party was proud of their man. But when it came to pass that poison had been laid down, "wholesale" as the hunting men said, in Dillsborough Wood, in the close vicinity of Goarly's house, then the party hesitated. Such strategy as that was disgusting;—but was there reason to think that Scrobby had been concerned in the matter? Scrobby still had an income, and ate roast meat or boiled every day for his dinner. Was it likely that such a man should deal in herrings and strychnine?
Nickem had been at work for the last three months, backed up by funds which had latterly been provided by the lord's agent, and had in truth run the matter down. Nickem had found out all about it, and in his pride had resigned his stool in Mr. Masters' office. But the Scrobby party in Rufford could not bring itself to believe that Nickem was correct. That Goarly's hand had actually placed the herrings no man either at Rufford or Dillsborough had doubted. Such was now Nickem's story. But of what avail would be the evidence of such a man as Goarly against such a man as Scrobby? It would be utterly worthless unless corroborated, and the Scrobby party was not yet aware how clever Nickem had been. Thus all Rufford was interested in the case.
Lord Rufford, Sir George Penwether, his Lordship's agent, and Mr. Gotobed, had been summoned as witnesses,—the expenditure of money by the Senator having by this time become notorious; and on the morning of the trial they all went into the town in his Lordship's drag. The Senator, as the guest, was on the box-seat with his Lordship, and as they passed old Runce trotting into Rufford on his nag, Mr. Gotobed began to tell the story of yesterday's meeting, complaining of the absurdity of the old farmer's anger.
"Penwether told me about it," said the Lord.
"I suppose your tenant is a little crazy."
"By no means. I thought he was right in what he said, if I understood Penwether."
"He couldn't have been right. He turned from me in disgust simply because I tried to explain to him that a rogue has as much right to be defended by the law as an honest man."
"Runce looks upon these men as vermin which ought to be hunted down."
"But they are not vermin. They are men;—and till they have been found guilty they are innocent men."
"If a man had murdered your child, would he be innocent in your eyes till he was convicted?"
"I hope so;—but I should be very anxious to bring home the crime against him. And should he be found guilty even then he should not be made subject to other punishment than that the law awards. Mr. Runce is angry with me because I do not think that Goarly should be crushed under the heels of all his neighbours. Take care, my Lord. Didn't we come round that corner rather sharp?"
Then Lord Rufford emphatically declared that such men as Scrobby and Goarly should be crushed, and the Senator, with an inward sigh declared that between landlord and tenant, between peer and farmer, between legislator and rustic, there was, in capacity for logical inference, no difference whatever. The British heart might be all right; but the British head was,—ah,—hopelessly wooden! It would be his duty to say so in his lecture, and perhaps some good might be done to so gracious but so stolid a people, if only they could be got to listen.
Scrobby had got down a barrister from London, and therefore the case was allowed to drag itself out through the whole day. Lord Rufford, as a magistrate, went on to the bench himself,—though he explained that he only took his seat there as a spectator. Sir George and Mr. Gotobed were also allowed to sit in the high place,—though the Senator complained even of this. Goarly and Scrobby were not allowed to be there, and Lord Rufford, in his opinion, should also have been debarred from such a privilege. A long time was occupied before even a jury could be sworn, the barrister earning his money by brow-beating the provincial bench and putting various obstacles in the way of the trial. As he was used to practice at the assizes of course he was able to domineer. This juror would not do, nor that. The chairman was all wrong in his law. The officers of the Court knew nothing about it. At first there was quite a triumph for the Scrobbyites, and even Nickem himself was frightened. But at last the real case was allowed to begin, and Goarly was soon in the witness-box. Goarly did not seem to enjoy the day, and was with difficulty got to tell his own story even on his own side. But the story when it was told was simple enough. He had met Mr. Scrobby accidentally in Rufford and they two had together discussed the affairs of the young Lord. They came to an agreement that the young Lord was a tyrant and ought to be put down, and Scrobby showed how it was to be done. Scrobby instigated the action about the pheasants, and undertook to pay the expenses if Goarly would act in the other little matter. But, when he found that the Senator's money was forthcoming, he had been anything but as good as his word. Goarly swore that in hard cash he had never seen more than four shillings of Scrobby's money. As to the poison, Goarly declared that he knew nothing about it; but he certainly had received a parcel of herrings from Scrobby's own hands, and in obedience to Scrobby's directions, had laid them down in Dillsborough Wood the very morning on which the hounds had come there. He owned that he supposed that there might be something in the herrings, something that would probably be deleterious to hounds as well as foxes,—or to children should the herrings happen to fall into children's hands; but he assured the Court that he had no knowledge of poison,—none whatever. Then he was made by the other side to give a complete and a somewhat prolonged account of his own life up to the present time,—this information being of course required by the learned barrister on the other side; in listening to which the Senator did become thoroughly ashamed of the Briton whom he had assisted with his generosity.
But all this would have been nothing had not Nickem secured the old woman who had sold the herrings,—and also the chemist, from whom the strychnine had been purchased as much as three years previously. This latter feat was Nickem's great triumph,—the feeling of the glory of which induced him to throw up his employment in Mr. Masters' office, and thus brought him and his family to absolute ruin within a few months in spite of the liberal answers which were made by Lord Rufford to many of his numerous appeals. Away in Norrington the poison had been purchased as much as three years ago, and yet Nickem had had the luck to find it out. When the Scrobbyites heard that Scrobby had gone all the way to Norrington to buy strychnine to kill rats they were Scrobbyites no longer. "I hope they'll hang 'un. I do hope they'll hang 'un," said Mr. Runce quite out loud from his crowded seat just behind the attorney's bench.
The barrister of course struggled hard to earn his money. Though he could not save his client he might annoy the other side. He insisted therefore on bringing the whole affair of the pheasants before the Court, and examined the Senator at great length. He asked the Senator whether he had not found himself compelled to sympathise with the wrongs he had witnessed. The Senator declared that he had witnessed no wrongs. Why then had he interfered? Because he had thought that there might be wrong, and because he wished to see what power a poor man in this country would have against a rich one. He was induced still to think that Goarly had been ill-treated about the pheasants;—but he could not take upon himself to say that he had witnessed any wrong done. But he was quite sure that the system on which such things were managed in England was at variance with that even justice which prevailed in his own country! Yes;—by his own country he did mean Mickewa. He could tell that learned gentleman in spite of his sneers, and in spite of his evident ignorance of geography, that nowhere on the earth's surface was justice more purely administered than in the great Western State of Mickewa. It was felt by everybody that the Senator had the best of it.
Mr. Scrobby was sent into durance for twelve months with hard labour, and Goarly was conveyed away in the custody of the police lest he should be torn to pieces by the rough lovers of hunting who were congregated outside. When the sentence had reached Mr. Runce's ears, and had been twice explained to him, first by one neighbour and then by another, his face assumed the very look which it had worn when he carried away his victuals from the Senator's side at Rufford Hall, and when he had turned his pony round on his own land on the previous evening. The man had killed a fox and might have killed a dozen hounds, and was to be locked up only for twelve months! He indignantly asked his neighbour what had come of Van Diemen's Land, and what was the use of Botany Bay.
On their way back to Rufford Hall, Lord Rufford would have been triumphant, had not the Senator checked him. "It's a bad state of things altogether," he said. "Of course the promiscuous use of strychnine is objectionable."
"Rather," said his Lordship.
"But is it odd that an utterly uneducated man, one whom his country has left to grow up in the ignorance of a brute, should have recourse to any measure, however objectionable, when the law will absolutely give him no redress against the trespass made by a couple of hundred horsemen?" Lord Rufford gave it up, feeling the Senator to be a man with whom he could not argue.