Up to the hour of his departure from Acol Court, Sir Marmaduke had been convinced that neither his sister-in-law nor Lady Sue had heard of the news which had set the whole of Thanet in commotion. Acol Court lies very isolated, well off the main Canterbury Road, and just for two days and a half Master Hymn-of-Praise Busy had contrived to hold his tongue.
Most of the village gossips, too, met at the local public bars, and had had up to now no time to wander as far as the Court, nor any reason to do so, seeing that Master Busy was always to be found at Prospect Inn and always ready to discuss the mystery in all its bearings, with anyone who would share a pint of ale with him.
Sir Marmaduke had taken jealous care only to meet the ladies at meal-time, and under penalty of immediate dismissal had forbidden Hymn-of-Praise to speak to the serving-wench of the all-absorbing topic.
So far Master Busy had obeyed, but at the last moment, just before starting for Acol village, Sir Marmaduke had caught sight of Mistress Charity talking to the stableman in the yard. Something in the wench's eyes told him—with absolute certainty that she had just heard of the murder.
That morbid and tenacious curiosity once more got hold of him. He would have given all he possessed at this moment—the entire fruits of his crime perhaps—to know what that ignorant girl thought of it all, and it caused him acute, almost physical pain, to refrain from questioning her.
There was enough of the sense of self-protection in him, however, to check himself from betraying such extraordinary interest in the matter: but he turned on his heel and went quickly back to the house. He wanted to catch sight of Editha's face, if only for a moment; he wanted to see for himself, then and there, if she had also heard the news.
As he entered the hall, she was coming down the stairs. She had on her cloak and hood as if preparing to go out. Their eyes met and he saw that she knew.
Knew what? He broke into a loud and fierce laugh as he met her wildly questioning gaze. There was a look almost of madness in the hopeless puzzlement of her expression.
Of course Editha must be hopelessly puzzled. The very thought of her vague conjecturings had caused him to laugh as maniacs laugh at times.
The mysterious French prince had been found on the sands murdered and mutilated. . . . But then . . .
Still laughing, Sir Marmaduke once more turned, running away from the house now and never pausing until his foot had touched the stirrup and his fingers were entangled in the damp mane of the mare. Even whilst he settled himself into the saddle as comfortably as he could, the grim humor of Editha's bewilderment caused him to laugh, within himself.
The nag stepped slowly along in the mud at first, then broke into a short trot. The two serving-men had started on ahead with their lanterns; they would, of course, be walking all the way.
The icy rain mingled with tiny flakes of snow was insufferably cutting and paralyzing: yet Sir Marmaduke scarcely heeded it, until the mare became unpleasantly uncertain in her gait. Once she stumbled and nearly pitched her rider forward into the mud: whereupon, lashing into her, he paid more heed to her doings.
Once just past the crossroad toward St. Nicholas, he all but turned his horse's head back towards Acol Court. It seemed as if he must find out now at once whether Editha had spoken to Lady Sue and what the young girl had done and said when she heard, in effect, that her husband had been murdered.
Nothing but the fear of missing the last look at the body of Adam Lambert ere the lid of the coffin was nailed down stopped him from returning homewards.
Anon he came upon Busy and Toogood painfully trudging in the mire, and singing lustily to keep themselves cheerful and warm.
Sir Marmaduke drew the mare in, so as to keep pace with his men. On the whole, the road had been more lonely than he liked and he was glad of company.
Outside the Lamberts' cottage a small crowd had collected. From the crest of the hill the tiny bell of Acol church struck the hour of two.
Squire Boatfield had ridden over from Sarre, and Sir Marmaduke—as he dismounted—caught sight of the heels and crupper of the squire's well-known cob. The little crowd had gathered in the immediate neighborhood of the forge, and de Chavasse, from where he now stood, could not see the entrance of the lean-to, only the blank side wall of the shed, and the front of the Lamberts' cottage, the doors and windows of which were hermetically closed.
Up against the angle formed by the wall of the forge and that of the cottage, the enterprising landlord of the local inn had erected a small trestle table, from behind which he was dispensing spiced ale, and bottled Spanish wines.
Squire Boatfield was standing beside that improvised bar, and at sight of Sir Marmaduke he put down the pewter mug which he was in the act of conveying to his lips, and came forward to greet his friend.
"What is the pother about this foreigner, eh, Boatfield?" queried de Chavasse with gruff good-nature as he shook hands with the squire and allowed himself to be led towards that tempting array of bottles and mugs on the trestle table.
The yokels who were assembled at the entrance of the forge turned to gaze with some curiosity at the squire of Acol. De Chavasse was not often seen even in this village: he seldom went beyond the boundary of his own park.
All the men touched their forelocks with deferential respect. Master Jeremy Mounce humbly whispered a query as to what His Honor would condescend to take.
Sir Marmaduke desired a mug of buttered ale or of lamb's wool, which Master Mounce soon held ready for him. He emptied the mug at one draught. The spiced liquor went coursing through his body, and he felt better and more sure of himself. He desired a second mug.
"With more substance in it, Master Landlord," he said pleasantly. "Nay, man! ye are not giving milk to children, but something warm to cheer a man's inside."
"I have a half bottle of brandy here, good Sir Marmaduke," suggested Master Mounce with some diffidence, for brandy was an over-expensive commodity which not many Kentish squires cared to afford.
"Brandy, of course, good master!" quoth de Chavasse lustily, "brandy is the nectar of the gods. Here!" he added, drawing a piece of gold from a tiny pocket concealed in the lining of his doublet, "will this pay for thy half-bottle of nectar."
"Over well, good Sir Marmaduke," said Master Mounce, as he stooped to the ground. From underneath the table he now drew forth a glass and a bottle: the latter he uncorked with slow and deliberate care, and then filled the glass with its contents, whilst Sir Marmaduke watched him with impatient eyes.
"Will you join me, squire?" asked de Chavasse, as he lifted the small tumbler and gazed with marked appreciation at the glistening and transparent liquid.
"Nay, thanks," replied Boatfield with a laugh, "I care naught for these foreign decoctions. Another mug, or even two, of buttered ale, good landlord," he added, turning to Master Mounce.
In the meanwhile petty constable Pyot had stood respectfully at attention ready to relate for the hundredth time, mayhap, all that he knew and all that he meant to know about the mysterious crime.
Sir Marmaduke would of a surety ask many questions, for it was passing strange that he had taken but little outward interest in the matter up to now.
"Well, Pyot," he now said, beckoning to the man to approach, "tell us what you know. By Gad, 'tis not often we indulge in a genuine murder in Thanet! Where was it done? Not on my land, I hope."
"The watches found the body on the beach, your Honor," replied Pyot, "the head was mutilated past all recognition . . . the heavy chalk boulders, your Honor . . . and a determined maniac methinks, sir, who wanted revenge against a personal enemy. . . . Else how to account for such a brutal act? . . ."
"I suppose," quoth Sir Marmaduke lightly, as he sipped the brandy, "that the identity of the man has been quite absolutely determined."
"Aye! aye! your Honor," rejoined Pyot gravely, "the opinion of all those who have seen the body is that it is that of a foreigner . . . Prince of Orleans he called himself, who has been lodging these past months at this place here!"
And the petty constable gave a quick nod in the direction of the cottage.
"Ah! I know but little about him," now said Sir Marmaduke, turning to speak to Squire Boatfield, "although he lived here, on what is my own property, and haunted my park, too . . . so I've been told. There was a good deal of talk about him among the wenches in the village."
"Aye! I had heard all about that prince," said Squire Boatfield meditatively, "lodging in this cottage . . . 'twas passing strange."
"He was a curious sort of man, your Honor," here interposed Pyot. "We got what information about him we could, seeing that the smith is from home, and that Mistress Lambert, his aunt, I think, is hard of hearing, and gave us many crooked answers. But she told us that the stranger paid for his lodging regularly, and would arrive at the cottage unawares of an evening and stay part of the night . . . then he would go off again at cock-crow, and depart she knew not whither."
The man paused in his narrative. Something apparently had caused Sir Marmaduke to turn giddy.
He tugged at his neckbands and his hand fell heavily against the trestle-table.
"Nay! 'tis nothing," he said with a harsh laugh as Master Mounce with an ejaculation of deep concern ran round to him with a chair, whilst Squire Boatfield quickly put out an arm as if he were afraid that his friend would fall. "'Tis nothing," he repeated, "the tramp in the cold, then this heady draught. . . . I am well I assure you."
He drank half a glass of brandy at a draught, and now the hand which replaced the glass upon the table had not the slightest tremor in it.
"'Tis all vastly interesting," he remarked lightly. "Have you seen the body, Boatfield?"
"Aye! aye!" quoth the squire, speaking with obvious reluctance, for he hated this gruesome subject. "'Tis no pleasant sight. And were I in your shoes, de Chavasse, I would not go in there," and he nodded significantly towards the forge.
"Nay! 'tis my duty as a magistrate," said Sir Marmaduke airily.
He had to steady himself against the table again for a moment or two, ere he turned his back on the hospitable board, and started to walk round towards the forge: no doubt the shaking of his knees was attributable to the strong liquor which he had consumed.
The little crowd parted and dispersed at his approach. The lean-to wherein Adam Lambert was wont to do his work consisted of four walls, one of which was that of the cottage, whilst the other immediately facing it, had a wide opening which formed the only entrance to the shed. A man standing in that entrance would have the furnace on his left: and now in addition to that furnace also the three elm chairs, whereon rested a rough deal case, without a lid, but partly covered with a sheet.
To anyone coming from the outside, this angle of the forge would always seem weird and even mysterious even when the furnace was blazing and the sparks flying from the anvil, beneath the smith's powerful blows, or when—as at present—the fires were extinguished and this part of the shed, innocent of windows, was in absolute darkness.
Sir Marmaduke paused a moment under the lintel which dominated the broad entrance. His eyes had some difficulty in penetrating the density which seemed drawn across the place on his left like some ink-smeared and opaque curtain.
The men assembled outside, watched him from a distance with silent respect. In these days the fact of a gentleman drinking more liquor than was good for him was certes not to his discredit.
The fact that Sir Marmaduke seemed to sway visibly on his legs, as he thus stood for a moment outlined against the dark interior beyond, roused no astonishment in the minds of those who saw him.
Presently he turned deliberately to his left and the next moment his figure was merged in the gloom.
Round the angle of the wall Squire Boatfield was still standing, sipping buttered ale.
Less than two minutes later, Sir Marmaduke reappeared in the doorway. His face was a curious color, and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead, and as he came forward he would have fallen, had not one of the men stepped quickly up to him and offered a steadying arm. But there was nothing strange in that.
The sight of that which lay in Adam Lambert's forge had unmanned a good many ere this.
"I am inclined to believe, my good Boatfield," quoth Sir Marmaduke, as he went back to the trestle-table, and poured himself out another half-glass full of brandy, "I am inclined to believe that when you advised me not to go in there, you spoke words of wisdom which I had done well to follow."
But the effort of the past few moments had been almost more than Marmaduke de Chavasse could bear.
Anon when the church bell over at Acol began a slow and monotonous toll he felt as if his every nerve must give way: as if he must laugh, laugh loudly and long at the idiocy, the ignorance of all these people who thought that they were confronted by an impenetrable mystery, whereas it was all so simple . . . so very, very simple.
He had a curious feeling as if he must grip every one of these men here by the throat and demand from each one separately an account of what he thought and felt, what he surmised and what he guessed when standing face to face with the weird enigma presented by that mutilated thing in its rough deal case. He would have given worlds to know what his friend Boatfield thought of it all, or what had been the petty constable's conjectures.
A haunting and devilish desire seized him to break open the skulls of all these yokels and to look into their brains. Above all now the silence of the cottage close to him had become unendurable torment. That closed door, the tiny railing which surrounded the bit of front garden, that little gate the latch of which he himself so oft had lifted, all seemed to hold the key to some terrible mystery, the answer to some fearful riddle which he felt would drive him mad if he could not hit upon it now at once.
The brandy had fired his veins: he no longer felt numb with the cold. A passion of rage was seething in him, and he longed to attack with fists and heels those curtained windows which now looked like eyes turned mutely and inquiringly upon him.
But there was enough sanity in him yet to prevent his doing anything rash: an uncontrolled act might cause astonishment, suspicion mayhap, in the minds of those who witnessed it. He made a violent effort to steady himself even now, above all to steady his voice and to veil that excited glitter which he knew must be apparent in his eyes.
"Meseems that 'tis somewhat strange," he said quite calmly, even lightly, to Squire Boatfield who seemed to be preparing to go, "that these people—the Lamberts—who alone knew the . . . the murdered man intimately, should keep so persistently, so determinedly out of the way."
Even while the words escaped his mouth—certes involuntarily—he knew that the most elementary prudence should have dictated silence on this score, and at this juncture. The man was about to be buried, the disappearance of the smith had passed off so far without comment. Peace, the eternal peace of the grave, would soon descend on the weird events which occupied everyone's mind for the present.
What the old Quakeress thought and felt, what Richard—the brother—feared and conjectured was easy for Sir Marmaduke to guess: for him, but for no one else. To these others the silence of the cottage, the absence of the Lamberts from this gathering was simple enough of explanation, seeing that they themselves felt such bitter resentment against the dead man. They quite felt with the old woman's sullenness, her hatred of the foreigner who had disturbed the serenity of her life.
Everyone else was willing to let her be, not to drag her and young Lambert into the unpleasant vortex of these proceedings. Their home was an abode of mourning: it was proper and seemly for them to remain concealed and silent within their cottage; seemly, too, to have curtained their windows and closed their doors.
No one wished to disturb them; no one but Sir Marmaduke, and with him it was once again that morbid access of curiosity, the passionate, intense desire to know and to probe every tiny detail in connection with his own crime.
"The old woman Lambert should be made to identify the body, before it is buried," he now repeated with angry emphasis, seeing that a look of disapproval had crossed Squire Boatfield's pleasant face.
"We are satisfied as to the man's identity," rejoined the squire impatiently, "and the sight is not fit for women's eyes."
"Nay, then she should be shown the clothes and effects. . . . And, if I mistake not, there's Richard Lambert, my late secretary, has he laid sworn information about the man?"
"Yes, I believe so," said Boatfield with some hesitation.
"Nay, Boatfield, an you are so reluctant to do your duty in this matter, I'll speak to these people myself. . . . You are chief constable of the district . . . indeed, 'tis you should do it . . . and in the meanwhile I pray you, at least to give orders that the coffin be not nailed down."
The kindly squire would have entered a further protest. He did not see the necessity of confronting an old woman with the gruesome sight of a mutilated corpse, nor did he perceive justifiable cause for further formalities of identification.
But Sir Marmaduke having spoken very peremptorily, had already turned on his heel without waiting for his friend's protest, and was striding across the patch of rough stubble, which bordered the railing round the front of the cottage. Squire Boatfield reluctantly followed him. The next moment de Chavasse had lifted the latch of the gate, crossed the short flagged path and now knocked loudly against the front door.
Apparently there was no desire for secrecy or rebellion on the part of the dwellers of the cottage, for hardly had Sir Marmaduke's imperious knock echoed against the timbered walls, than the door was opened from within by Richard Lambert who, seeing the two gentlemen standing on the threshold, stepped back immediately, allowing them to pass.
The old Quakeress and Richard were seemingly not alone. Two ladies sat in those same straight-backed chairs, wherein, some fifty hours ago Adam Lambert and the French prince had agreed upon that fateful meeting on the brow of the cliff.
Sir Marmaduke's restless eyes took in at a glance every detail of that little parlor, which he had known so intimately. The low lintel of the door, which had always forced him to stoop as he entered, the central table with the pewter candlesticks upon it, the elm chairs shining like mirrors in response to the Quakeress' maddening passion for cleanliness.
Everything was just as it had been those few hours ago, when last he had picked up his broad-brimmed hat from the table and walked out of the cottage into the night. Everything was the same as it had been when his young girl-wife pushed a leather wallet across the table to him: the wallet which contained the fortune that he had not yet dared to turn fully to his own account.
Aye! it was all just the same: for even at this moment as he stood there in the room, Sue, pale and still, faced him from across the table. For a moment he was silent, nor did anybody speak. Squire Boatfield felt unaccountably embarrassed, certain that he was intruding, vaguely wondering why the atmosphere in the cottage was so heavy and oppressive.
Behind him, Richard Lambert had quietly closed the front door; the old woman stood in the background; the dusting-cloth which she had been plying so vigorously had dropped out of her hand when the two gentlemen had appeared in her little parlor so unexpectedly.
Sir Marmaduke was the first to break the silence.
"My dear Sue," he said curtly, "this is a strange place indeed wherein to find your ladyship."
He cast a sharp, inquiring glance at her, then at his sister-in-law, who was still sitting by the hearth.
"She insisted on coming," said Mistress de Chavasse with a shrug of the shoulders, "and I had not the power to stop her; I thought it best, therefore, to accompany her."
She was wearing the cloak and hood which Sir Marmaduke had seen round her shoulders when awhile ago he had met her in the hall of the Court. Apparently she had started out with Sue in his immediate wake, and now he had a distinct recollection that while the mare was slowly ambling along, he had looked back once or twice and seen two dark figures walking some fifty yards behind him on the road which he himself had just traversed.
At the moment he had imagined that they were some village folk, wending their way towards Acol: now he was conscious of nerve-racking irritation at the thought that if he had only turned the mare's head back toward the Court—as he had at one time intended to do—he could have averted this present meeting—it almost seemed like a confrontation—here, in this cottage on the self-same spot, where thought of murder had first struck upon his brain.
There was something inexplicable, strangely puzzling now in Sue's attitude.
When de Chavasse had entered, she had risen from her chair and, as if deliberately, had walked over to the spot where she had stood during that momentous interview, when she relinquished her fortune entirely and without protest, into the hands of the man whom she had married, and whom she believed to be her lord.
Her gaze now—calm and fixed, and withal vaguely searching—rested on her guardian's face. The fixity of her look increased his nerve-tension. The others, too, were regarding him with varying feelings which were freely expressed in their eyes. Boatfield seemed upset and somewhat resentful, the old woman sullen, despite the deference in her attitude, Lambert defiant, wrathful, nay! full of an incipient desire to avenge past wrongs.
And dominating all, there was Editha's look of bewilderment, of puzzledom in her face at a mystery whereat her senses were beginning to reel, that mute questioning of the eyes, which speaks of turbulent thoughts within.
Sir Marmaduke uttered an exclamation of impatience.
"You must return to the Court and at once," he said, avoiding Sue's gaze and speaking directly to Editha, "the men are outside, with lanterns. You'll have to walk quickly an you wish to reach home before twilight."
But even while he spoke, Sue—not heeding him—had turned to Squire Boatfield. She went up to him, holding out her hands as if in instinctive childlike appeal for protection, to a kindly man.
"This mystery is horrible!" she murmured.
Boatfield took her small hands in his, patting them gently the while, desiring to soothe and comfort her, for she seemed deeply agitated and there was a wild look of fear from time to time in her pale face.
"Sir Marmaduke is right," said the squire gently, "this is indeed no place for your ladyship. I did not see you arrive or I had at once persuaded you to go."
De Chavasse would again have interposed. He stooped and picked up Sue's cloak which had fallen to the ground, and as he went up to her with the obvious intention of replacing it around her shoulders, she checked him, with a slight motion of her hand.
"I only heard of this terrible crime an hour ago," she said, speaking once more to Boatfield, "and as I methinks, am the only person in the world who can throw light upon this awesome mystery, I thought it my duty to come."
"Of a truth 'twas brave of your ladyship," quoth the squire, feeling a little bewildered at this strange announcement, "but surely . . . you did not know this man?"
"If the rumor which hath reached me be correct," she replied quietly, "then indeed did I know the murdered man intimately. Prince Amédé d'Orléans was my husband."
There was silence in the tiny cottage parlor as the young girl made this extraordinary announcement in a firm if toneless voice, without flinching and meeting with a sort of stubborn pride the five pairs of eyes which were now riveted upon her.
From outside came the hum of many voices, dull and subdued, like the buzzing of a swarm of bees, and against the small window panes the incessant patter of icy rain driven and lashed by the gale. Anon the wind moaned in the wide chimney, . . . it seemed like the loud sigh of the Fates, satisfied at the tangle wrought by their relentless fingers in the threads of all these lives.
Sir Marmaduke, after a slight pause, had contrived to utter an oath—indicative of the wrath he, as Lady Sue's guardian, should have felt at her statement. Squire Boatfield frowned at the oath. He had never liked de Chavasse and disapproved more than ever of the man's attitude towards his womenkind now.
The girl was in obvious, terrible distress: what she was feeling at this moment when she was taking those around her into her confidence could be as nothing compared to what she must have endured when she first heard the news that her strange bridegroom had been murdered.
The kindly squire, though admitting the guardian's wrath, thought that its violent expression was certainly ill-timed. He allowed Sue to recover herself, for the more calm was her attitude outwardly, the more terrible must be the effort which she was making at self-control.
Sue's eyes were fixed steadily upon her guardian, and Richard Lambert's upon her. Both these young people who had carved their own Fate in the very rock which now had shattered their lives, seemed to be searching for something vague, unavowed and mysterious which instinct told them was there, but which was so elusive, so intangible that the soul of each recoiled, even whilst it tried to probe.
Entirely against her will Sue—whilst she looked on her guardian—could think of nothing save of that day in Dover, the lonely church, the gloomy vestry, and that weird patter of the rain against the window panes.
She was not ashamed of what she had done, only of what she had felt for him, whom she now believed to be dead; that she gave him her fortune was nothing, she neither regretted nor cared about that. What, in the mind of a young and romantic girl, was the value of a fortune squandered, when that priceless treasure—her first love—had already been thrown away? But now she would no longer judge the dead. The money which he had filched from her, Fate and a murderous hand had quickly taken back from him, crushing beneath those chalk boulders his many desires, his vast ambitions, a worthless life and incomparable greed.
Her love, which he had stolen . . . that he could not give back: not that ardent, whole-souled, enthusiastic love; not the romantic idealism, the hero-worship, that veil of fantasy behind which first love is wont to hide its ephemerality. But she would not now judge the dead. Her romantic love lay buried in the lonely church at Dover, and she was striving not to think even of its grave.
Squire Boatfield's kindly voice recalled her to her immediate surroundings and to the duty—self-imposed—which had brought her thither.
"My dear child," he said, speaking with unwonted solemnity, "if what you have just stated be, alas! the truth, then indeed, you and you only can throw some light on the terrible mystery which has been puzzling us all . . . you may be the means which God hath chosen for bringing an evildoer to justice. . . . Will you, therefore, try . . . though it may be very painful to you . . . will you try and tell us everything that is in your mind . . . everything which may draw the finger of God and our poor eyes to the miscreant who hath committed such an awful crime."
"I fear me I have not much to tell," replied Sue simply, "but I feel that it is my duty to suggest to the two magistrates here present what I think was the motive which prompted this horrible crime."
"You can suggest a motive for the crime?" interposed Sir Marmaduke, striving to sneer, although his voice sounded quite toneless, for his throat was parched and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, "by Gad! 'twere vastly interesting to hear your ladyship's views."
He tried to speak flippantly, at which Squire Boatfield frowned deprecation. Lambert, without a word, had brought a chair near to Lady Sue, and with a certain gentle authority, he forced her to sit down.
"It was a crime, of that I feel sure," said Sue, "nathless, that can be easily proven . . . when . . . when it has been discovered whether money and securities contained in a wallet of leather have been found among Prince Amédé's effects."
"Money and securities?" ejaculated Sir Marmaduke with a loud oath, which he contrived to bring forth with the violence of genuine wrath, "Money and securities? . . . Forsooth, I trust . . ."
"My money and my securities, sir," she interposed with obvious hauteur, "which I had last night and in this self-same room placed in the hands of Prince Amédé d'Orléans, my husband."
She said this with conscious pride. Whatever change her feelings may have undergone towards the man who had at one time been the embodiment of her most cherished dreams, she would not let her sneering guardian see that she had repented of her choice.
Death had endowed her exiled prince with a dignity which had never been his in life, and the veil of tragedy which now lay over the mysterious stranger and his still more mysterious life, had called forth to its uttermost the young wife's sense of loyalty to him.
"Not your entire fortune, my dear, dear child, I hope . . ." ejaculated Squire Boatfield, more horror-struck this time than he had been when first he had heard of the terrible murder.
"The wallet contained my entire fortune," rejoined Sue calmly, "all that Master Skyffington had placed in my hands on the day that my father willed that it should be given me."
"Such folly is nothing short of criminal," said Sir Marmaduke roughly, "nathless, had not the gentleman been murdered that night he would have shown Thanet and you a clean pair of heels, taking your money with him, of course."
"Aye! aye! but he was murdered," said Squire Boatfield firmly, "the question only is by whom?"
"Some footpad who haunts the cliffs," rejoined de Chavasse lightly, "'tis simple enough."
"Simple, mayhap . . ." mused the squire, "yet . . ."
He paused a moment and once more silence fell on all those assembled in the small cottage parlor. Sir Marmaduke felt as if every vein in his body was gradually being turned to stone.
The sense of expectancy was so overwhelming that it completely paralyzed every other faculty within him, and Editha's searching eyes seemed like a corroding acid touching an aching wound. Yet for the moment there was no danger. He had so surrounded himself and his crimes with mystery that it would take more than a country squire's slowly moving brain to draw aside that weird and ghostlike curtain which hid his evil deeds.
No! there was no danger—as yet!
But he cursed himself for a fool and a coward, not to have gone away—abroad—long ere such a possible confrontation threatened him. He cursed himself for being here at all—and above all for having left the smith's clothes and the leather wallet in that lonely pavilion in the park.
Squire Boatfield's kind eyes now rested on the old woman, who, awed and silent—shut out by her infirmities from this strange drama which was being enacted in her cottage—had stood calm and impassive by, trying to read with that wonderful quickness of intuition which the poverty of one sense gives to the others—what was going on round her, since she could not hear.
Her eyes—pale and dim, heavy-lidded and deeply-lined—rested often on the face of Richard Lambert, who, leaning against the corner of the hearth, had watched the proceedings silently and intently. When the Quakeress's faded gaze met that of the young man, there was a quick and anxious look which passed from her to him: a look of entreaty for comfort, one of fear and of growing horror.
"And so the exiled prince lodged in your cottage, mistress?" said Squire Boatfield, after a while, turning to Mistress Lambert.
The old woman's eyes wandered from Richard to the squire. The look of fear in them vanished, giving place to good-natured placidity. She shuffled forward, in the manner which had so oft irritated her lodger.
"Eh? . . . what?" she queried, approaching the squire, "I am somewhat hard of hearing these times."
"We were speaking of your lodger, mistress," rejoined Boatfield, raising his voice, "harm hath come to him, you know."
"Aye! aye!" she replied blandly, "harm hath come to our lodger. . . . Nay! the Lord hath willed it so. . . . The stranger was queer in his ways. . . . I don't wonder that harm hath come to him. . . ."
"You remember him well, mistress?—him and the clothes he used to wear?" asked Squire Boatfield.
"Oh, yes! I remember the clothes," she rejoined. "I saw them again on the dead who now lieth in Adam's forge . . . the same curious clothes of a truth . . . clothes the Lord would condemn as wantonness and vanity. . . . I saw them again on the dead man," she reiterated garrulously, "the frills and furbelows . . . things the Lord hateth . . . and which no Christian should place upon his person . . . yet the foreigner wore them . . . he had none other . . . and went out with them on him that night that the Lord sent him down into perdition. . . ."
"Did you see him go out that night, mistress?" asked the squire.
"Eh? . . . what? . . ."
"Did he go out alone?"
The dimmed eyes of the old woman roamed restlessly from face to face. It seemed as if that look of horror and of fear once more struggled to appear within the pale orbs. Yet the squire looked on her with kindness, and Lady Sue's tear-veiled eyes expressed boundless sympathy. Richard, on the other hand, did not look at her, his gaze was riveted on Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse with an intensity which caused the latter to meet that look, trying to defy it, and then to flinch before its expression of passionate wrath.
"We wish to know where your nephew Adam is, mistress," now broke in de Chavasse roughly, "the squire and I would wish to ask him a few questions."
Then as the Quakeress did not reply, he added almost savagely:
"Why don't you answer, woman? Are ye still hard of hearing?"
"Your pardon, Sir Marmaduke," interposed Lambert firmly, "my aunt is old and feeble. She hath been much upset and over anxious . . . seeing that my brother Adam is still from home."
Sir Marmaduke broke into a loud and prolonged laugh.
"Ha! ha! ha! good master . . . so I understand . . . your brother is from home . . . whilst the wallet containing her ladyship's fortune has disappeared along with him, eh?"
"What are they saying, lad?" queried the old woman in her trembling voice, "what are they saying? I am fearful lest there's something wrong with Adam. . . ."
"Nay, nay, dear . . . there's naught amiss," said Lambert soothingly, "there's naught amiss. . . ."
Instinctively now Sue had risen. Sir Marmaduke's cruel laugh had grated horribly on her ear, rousing an echo in her memory which she could not understand but which caused her to encircle the trembling figure of the old Quakeress with young, protecting arms.
"Are Squire Boatfield and I to understand, Lambert," continued Sir Marmaduke, speaking to the young man, "that your brother Adam has unaccountably disappeared since the night on which the foreigner met with his tragic fate? Nay, Boatfield," he added, turning to the squire, as Lambert had remained silent, "methinks you, as chief magistrate, should see your duty clearly. 'Tis a warrant you should sign and quickly, too, ere a scoundrel slip through the noose of justice. I can on the morrow to Dover, there to see the chief constable, but Pyot and his men should not be idle the while."
"What is he saying, my dear?" murmured Mistress Lambert, timorously, as she clung with pathetic fervor to the young girl beside her, "what is the trouble?"
"Where is your nephew Adam?" said de Chavasse roughly.
"I do not know," she retorted with amazing strength of voice, as she gently but firmly disengaged herself from the restraining arms that would have kept her back. "I do not know," she repeated, "what is it to thee, where he is? Art accusing him perchance of doing away with that foreign devil?"
Her voice rose shrill and resonant, echoing in the low-ceilinged room; her pale eyes, dimmed with many tears, with hard work, and harder piety were fixed upon the man who had dared to accuse her lad.
He tried not to flinch before that gaze, to keep up the air of mockery, the sound of a sneer. Outside the murmur of voices had become somewhat louder, the shuffling of bare feet on the flag-stones could now be distinctly heard.
The next moment a timid knock against the front door caused everyone to start. A strange eerie feeling descended on the hearts of all, of innocent and of guilty, of accuser and of defender. The knock seemed to have come from spectral hands, for 'twas followed by no further sound.
Then again the knock.
Lambert went to the door and opened it.
"Be the quality here?" queried a timid voice.
"Squire Boatfield is here and Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse," replied Lambert, "what is it, Mat? Come in."
The squire had risen at sound of his name, and now went to the door, glad enough to shake himself free from that awful oppression which hung on the cottage like a weight of evil.
"What is it, Mat?" he asked.
A man in rough shirt and coarse breeches and with high boots reaching up to the thigh was standing humbly in the doorway. He was bareheaded and his lanky hair, wet with rain and glittering with icy moisture, was blown about by the gale. At sight of the squire he touched his forelock.
"The hour is getting late, squire," he said hesitatingly, "we carriers be ready. . . . 'Tis an hour or more down to Minster . . . walking with a heavy burden I mean. . . . If your Honor would give the order, mayhap we might nail down the coffin lid now and make a start."
Marmaduke de Chavasse, too, had turned towards the doorway. Both men looked out on the little crowd which had congregated beyond the little gate. It was long past three o'clock now, and the heavy snow clouds overhead obscured the scanty winter light, and precipitated the approach of evening. In the gray twilight, a group of men could be seen standing somewhat apart from the others. All were bareheaded, and all wore rough shirts and breeches of coarse worsted, drab or brown in color, toning in with the dull monochrome of the background.
Between them in the muddy road stood the long deal coffin. The sheet which covered it, rendered heavy with persistent wet, flapped dismally against the wooden sides of the box. Overhead a group of rooks were circling whilst uttering their monotonous call.
A few women had joined their men-folk, attracted by the novelty of the proceedings, yielding their momentary comfort to their feeling of curiosity. They had drawn their kirtles over their heads and looked like gigantic oval balls, gray or black, with small mud-stained feet peeping out below.
Sue had thrown an appealing look at Squire Boatfield, when she saw that dismal cortège. Her husband, her prince! the descendant of the Bourbons, the regenerator of France lying there—unrecognizable, horrible and loathsome—in a rough wooden coffin hastily nailed together by a village carpenter.
She did not wish to look on him: and with mute eyes begged the squire to spare her and to spare the old woman, who, through the doorway had caught sight of the drabby little crowd, and of the deal box on the ground.
Lambert, too, at sight of the cortège had gone to the Quakeress, the kind soul who had cared for him and his brother, two nameless lads, without home save the one she had provided for them. He trusted in Squire Boatfield's sense of humanity not to force this septuagenarian to an effort of nerve and will altogether beyond her powers.
Together the two young people were using gentle persuasion to get the old woman to the back room, whence she could not see the dreary scene now or presently, the slow winding of the dismal little procession down the road which leads to Minster, and whence she could not hear that weird flapping of the wet sheet against the side of the coffin, an echo to the slow and muffled tolling of the church bell some little distance away.
But the old woman was obstinate. She struggled against the persuasion of young arms. Things had been said in her cottage just now, which she must hear more distinctly: vague accusations had been framed, a cruel and sneering laugh had echoed through the house from whence one of her lads—Adam—was absent.
"No! no!" she said with quiet firmness, as Lambert urged her to withdraw, "let be, lad . . . let be . . . ye cannot deceive the old woman all of ye. . . . The Lord hath put wool in my ears, so I cannot hear . . . but my eyes are good. . . . I can see your faces. . . . I can read them. . . . Speak man!" she said, as she suddenly disengaged herself from Richard's restraining arms and walked deliberately up to Marmaduke de Chavasse, "speak man. . . . Didst thou accuse Adam?"
An involuntary "No!" escaped from the squire's kindly heart and lips. But Sir Marmaduke shrugged his shoulders.
The crisis which by his own acts, by his own cowardice, he himself had precipitated, was here now. Fatality had overtaken him. Whether the whole truth would come to light he did not know. Truly at this moment he hardly cared. He did not feel as if he were himself, but another being before whom stood another Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse, on whom he—a specter, a ghoul, a dream figure—was about to pass judgment.
He knew that he need do nothing now, for without his help or any effort on his part, that morbid curiosity which had racked his brain for two days would be fully satisfied. He would know absolutely now, exactly what everyone thought of the mysterious French prince and of his terrible fate on Epple sands.
Thank Satan and all his hordes of devils that heavy chalk boulders had done so complete a work of obliteration.
But whilst he looked down with complete indifference on the old woman, she looked about from one face to the other, trying to read what cruel thoughts of Adam lurked behind those obvious expressions of sympathy.
"So that foreign devil hath done mischief at last," she now said loudly, her tremulous voice gaining in strength as she spoke, "the Lord would not allow him to do it living . . . so the devil hath helped him to it now that he is dead. . . . But I tell you that Adam is innocent. . . . There was no harm in the lad . . . a little rough at times . . . but no harm . . . he'd no father to bring him up . . . and his mother was a wanton . . . so there was only the foolish old woman to look after the boys . . . but there's no harm in the lad . . . there's no harm!"
Her voice broke down now in a sob, her throat seemed choked, but with an effort which seemed indeed amazing in one of her years, she controlled her tears, and for a moment was silent. The gray twilight crept in through the door of the cottage, where Mat, bareheaded and humble, still waited for the order to go.
Sir Marmaduke would have interrupted the old woman's talk ere this, but his limbs were now completely paralyzed: he might have been made of stone, so rigid did he feel himself to be: a marble image, or else a specter, a shadow-figure that existed yet could not move.
There was such passionate earnestness in the old woman's words that everyone else remained dumb. Richard, whose heart was filled with dread, who had endured agonies of anxiety since the disappearance of his brother, had but one great desire, which was to spare to the kind soul a knowledge which would mean death or worse to her.
As for Editha de Chavasse, she was a mere spectator still: so puzzled, so bewildered that she was quite convinced at this moment, that she must be mad. She could not encounter Marmaduke's eyes, try how she might. The look in his face horrified her less than it mystified her. She alone—save the murderer himself—knew that the man who lay in that deal coffin out there was not the mysterious foreigner who had never existed.
But if not the stranger, then who was it, who was dead? and what had Adam Lambert to do with the whole terrible deed?
Sue once more tried to lead Mistress Lambert gently away, but she pushed the young girl aside quite firmly:
"Ye don't believe me?" she asked, looking from one face to the other, "ye don't believe me, yet I tell ye all that Adam is innocent . . . and that the Lord will not allow the innocent to be unjustly condemned. . . . Aye! He will e'en let the dead arise, I say, and proclaim the innocence of my lad!"
Her eyes—with dilated pupils and pale opaque rims—had the look of the seer in them now; she gazed straight out before her into the rain-laden air, and it seemed almost as if in it she could perceive visions of avenging swords, of defending angels and accusing ghouls, that she could hear whisperings of muffled voices and feel beckoning hands guiding her to a world peopled by specters and evil beings that prey upon the dead.
"Let me pass!" she said with amazing vigor, as Squire Boatfield, with kindly concern, tried to bar her exit through the door, "let me pass I say! the dead and I have questions to ask of one another."
"This is madness!" broke in Marmaduke de Chavasse with an effort; "that body is not a fit sight for a woman to look upon."
He would have seized the Quakeress by the arm in order to force her back, but Richard Lambert already stood between her and him.
"Let no one dare to lay a hand on her," he said quietly.
And the old woman escaping from all those who would have restrained her, walked rapidly through the doorway and down the flagged path rendered slippery with the sleet. The gale caught the white wings of her coif, causing them to flutter about her ears, and freezing strands of her gray locks which stood out now all round her head like a grizzled halo.
She could scarcely advance, for the wind drove her kirtle about her lean thighs, and her feet with the heavy tan shoes sank ankle deep in the puddles formed by the water in the interstices of the flagstones. The rain beat against her face, mingling with the tears which now flowed freely down her cheeks. But she did not heed the discomfort nor yet the cold, and she would not be restrained.
The next moment she stood beside the rough wooden coffin and with a steady hand had lifted the wet sheet, which continued to flap with dull, mournful sound round the feet of the dead.
The Quakeress looked down upon the figure stretched out here in death—neither majestic nor peaceful, but horrible and weirdly mysterious. She did not flinch at the sight. Resentment against the foreigner dimmed her sense of horror.
"So my fine prince," she said, whilst awed at the spectacle of this old woman parleying with the dead, carriers and mourners had instinctively moved a few steps away from her, "so thou wouldst harm my boy! . . . Thou always didst hate him . . . thou with thy grand airs, and thy rough ways. . . . Had the Lord allowed it, this hand of thine would ere now have been raised against him . . . as it oft was raised against the old woman . . . whose infirmities should have rendered her sacred in thy sight."
She stooped, and deliberately raised the murdered man's hand in hers, and for one moment fixed her gaze upon it. For that one moment she was silent, looking down at the rough fingers, the coarse nails, the blistered palm.
Then still holding the hand in hers, she looked up, then round at every face which was turned fixedly upon her. Thus she encountered the eyes of the men and women, present here only to witness an unwonted spectacle, then those of the kindly squire, of Lady Sue, of Mistress de Chavasse, and of her other lad—Richard—all of whom had instinctively followed her down the short flagged path in the wake of her strange and prophetic pilgrimage.
Lastly her eyes met those of Marmaduke de Chavasse. Then she spoke slowly in a low muffled voice, which gradually grew more loud and more full of passionate strength.
"Aye! the Lord is just," she said, "the Lord is great! It is the dead which shall rise again and proclaim the innocence of the just, and the guilt of the wicked."
She paused a while, and stooped to kiss the marble-like hand which she held tightly grasped in hers.
"Adam!" she murmured, "Adam, my boy! . . . my lad! . . ."
The men and women looked on, stupidly staring, not understanding yet, what new tragedy had suddenly taken the place of the old.
"Aunt, aunt dear," whispered Lambert, who had pushed his way forward, and now put his arm round the old woman, for she had begun to sway, "what is the matter, dear?" he repeated anxiously, "what does it mean?"
And conquering his own sense of horror and repulsion, he tried to disengage the cold and rigid hand of the dead from the trembling grasp of the Quakeress. But she would not relinquish her hold, only she turned and looked steadily at the young lad, whilst her voice rose firm and harsh above the loud patter of the rain and the moaning of the wind through the distant; trees.
"It means, my lad," she said, "it means all of you . . . that what I said was true . . . that Adam is innocent of crime . . . for he lies here dead . . . and the Lord will see that his death shall not remain unavenged."
Once more she kissed the rough hand, beautiful now with that cold beauty which the rigidity of death imparts; then she replaced it reverently, silently, and fell upon her knees in the wet mud, beside the coffin.