CHAPTER XXXIVTHE PURSUERSITwas a quiet week which followed at Waterchurch, and when Harry set off to London on business which he refused to talk about, and which he vaguely referred to as connected with his lawyer, Mr. Fenton bade him good-bye amiably enough. His son had neither contradicted him nor re-opened the subject of his marriage, and the Squire, with whom put off was done with, regained his composure and returned to his own affairs. He told his wife nothing, for he had lost his temper and did not wish her to find it out.Harry had said he would be absent “two or three days,” so when a week had gone and he neither wrote nor returned, his father began to wonder what he was doing. He sought Lady Harriet.“What’s Harry about in London?” he inquired. “He seems in no hurry to come back.”“I thought he would have been home before now. I hope there are no complications about his money,” she replied.Mr. Fenton fidgeted about.“I wish there were no complications about anything else,” said he, stopping in front of her. “I wasn’t such a fool as he is at his age.”“What has he been doing?” she asked, a twinge of misgiving flying through her mind.“What has he been doing? Really, Harriet, you are not brilliant! Here have we been at our wits’ end because of that girl of Lewis’, and you ask me, what has he been doing? Heavens!”“But there is nothing new, is there? Nothing we don’t know?”“He came to me about it again.”She raised her eyes quickly to his in a question, and he looked out of the window.“I told him I wouldn’t hear of it.”“And then?”“He went off. I didn’t see him till dinner that night.”“But where did he go?”“Go? How should I know where he went? I know where hewillgo, and that’s to the deuce,” said the Squire, beginning to march about the room. “The question isn’t where he went, but where he is now. That is the point of it, and I am surprised that you, Harriet, don’t see it. I shouldn’t wonder if he were sitting there with his arm round the girl’s waist at this moment.”“At Crishowell? I know Mr. Lewis would never allow that.”“Allow it? Who’d ask him to allow it, I should like to know? They needn’t be under Lewis’ nose. He’s there, you take my word for it.” At every sentence the Squire’s voice rose. “I’m not going to stand such a thing any more. It’s time somebody did something. What’s the use of our sitting here with our hands before us like so many fools, eh?”“What shall you do? You see, now he is his own master,” said Lady Harriet, sighing.“His own master? I’ll show him whether he is his own master or not! You know as well as I do that there is no entail on Waterchurch. I’ll just bring that to his notice. ‘My good boy,’ I’ll say, ‘you bring this upstart of a girl here and you’ll see whether there’s an entail or not!’ That’ll bring him round.”“I’m afraid that’s not a very good plan, Edward. That would be worse than useless.”“Pshaw! I tell you I’ll soon find out whether it’s useless!”Mr. Fenton sat down to a writing-table and began scribbling excitedly. When he had sealed up his note he rang the bell.“Is there any one in the stable?” he inquired, rather unnecessarily, seeing that it was just half-past eight in the morning. The Fentons were early people and breakfasted at eight, even in winter. Lady Harriet never sat long at the table after meals were over, and they had just left the dining-room.Before the man could answer, a steady, approaching trot was plain in the avenue, and, a moment later, there was a grinding of wheels upon the gravel.“What an extraordinary hour for any one to come,” exclaimed Lady Harriet.As she spoke, the long face of the Vicar of Crishowell’s old mare was visible through the window. She was blowing, and though only her head could be seen, it was apparent, from the way it rocked backwards and forwards, that she was cruelly distressed.The butler went out and returned.“Mr. Lewis, sir. He says he must see you particular. He wished to be shown into the study, sir.”“Is Harry here?” asked the Vicar, as his friend entered.“No,” said Mr. Fenton. “God bless me, Lewis, you look quite white.”“My niece is missing,” exclaimed the Vicar, his lips shaking; “I have come to tell you. They have gone off—Heaven forgive them for what they have done! We must go after them. I came here with a faint hope of finding Harry, but I must be off again.”The Squire took him by the arm as he was making for the door, and pulled him into a chair. He sank into it, covering his eyes.“What must you think of me, you and Lady Harriet? Fenton, I never foresaw it, blind fool that I was! She was so quiet, I never dreamed that the whole thing was not over, so far as she was concerned; she did not even seem to care.”The Squire was bewildered.“She complained of headache last night and told the maid not to call her in the morning. The girl forgot and tried to open the door. It was locked, so she got frightened and came for me, and we found the room empty. The bed had not been slept in, though one could see that she had been lying on it; she must have lain down in her clothes for fear of not awaking in time. Her handbag was gone, and her brushes and things—that is what made me suspect. I sent a boy down to a cottage on the road to Llangarth to ask if anything had been seen, and the man had heard a carriage pass a little before six and seen the lights of a postchaise. He heard it pass again on its way back not long after.”“How do you know it was Harry?” asked Mr. Fenton.“I can only guess; but who else could it be? I must be off at once. I am going to Llangarth, for I shall get some clue at the toll this end of the town. They would be obliged to pass through it.”“I will go too,” said the Squire, his hand on the bell. “You can’t get on with the same horse, Lewis. We must put in one of mine.”“Quarter to nine,” said the Vicar, pulling out his watch. “It was nearly eight when I left. Two hours ago I knew nothing.”As the two sat side by side they did not exchange a word. The horse was a good trotter, and the Squire, who drove, put him to his utmost pace.The Vicar looked blankly out on the hedges and fields which approached, passed, and dropped behind, bitterness round his closed lips. The few illusions he had ever had about his niece were fallen from him, and he understood her thoroughly. It was sordid money that had made her do this thing, that had decoyed her out into the darkness of the winter morning, and not the man who was waiting for her. If love had undone Isoline as it had undone Mary, he felt he could have recoiled from her less, though the outside world would have deemed it a worse calamity. It would have struck him to the earth indeed, but it could hardly have sickened him as this haddone. He would have given all he possessed to prevent any one belonging to himself from dealing such a blow to those he loved. There was no pretence, no veil, however thin, no excuse. It was money, money, money. She had encouraged Harry when she thought him rich, dropped him angrily, resentfully, as one drops a kitten that has scratched one, when she knew he was poor, and sprung at him again the moment his fortunes mended. And he was the son of the best friends he had. He had left Waterchurch without seeing Lady Harriet, for he had felt unable to face her.They pulled up at the toll on the near side of Llangarth, where the gatekeeper gave them what information he had. The carriage had gone through Crishowell very early, before it was light, and had repassed on its return journey about a quarter-past six—maybe twenty past, or thereabouts—he could not tell exactly. There was a lady in a black veil. He knew that, because he had turned the lantern on the inside of the carriage, and the gentleman who paid the toll was young—fair, he thought—but he couldn’t say; he didn’t know them, not he, for he was new to the place, but the gentleman had seemed in a hurry. He could give no further clue. But it was enough.They drove on to the Bull Inn, which was the only posting-house in the town, and Mr. Fenton sprang out and went in to find the landlord.“Ain’t a pair left in the place,” said an ostler, who emerged from the stable. “The ’ole lot’s out.”He began mechanically to take the Squire’s horse out of the shafts.The landlord’s tale was the same. There was a postchaise, but nothing to put into it; they might get something at the next posting-house in Welchurch, seven miles on.“What is that over there?” inquired the Vicar, pointing to a brown muzzle which was pushed out of a box at the end of the court.“That’s my old horse, sir, that I drive myself.”“Let me have that in my shafts,” said the Squire, “and I’ll make it good to you.”In a few minutes they were on their way again with their faces to Hereford, and the landlord’s horse, who had good blood in his veins, had put his head into the collar. The reason that they had been unsuccessful in getting what they wanted was simple enough; every pair was out on the road for Harry.The long tedium of the miles seemed interminable till they reached Welchurch, and the white faces of the milestones as they went past were the only things either man had the heart to notice. They were rewarded at last by the sight of the inn and by finding on inquiry that there was a light chaise and a pair of horses to be got. They took their seats grimly and set off on the next stage at a gallop.It was twenty minutes past eleven when they drew up at the Green Dragon in Hereford, and the Squire and the Vicar got out, stiff after thirty miles of sitting cramped in their seats. They did not expect Harry to leave his carriage at so prominent a place as the chief hotel in Hereford, should he mean to stay in the town, but they looked round the courtyard for the possible sign of an arrival. The place was quiet and vacant as they asked hurriedly for news, and, finding none, started for a humbler inn hard by at which they hoped they might come upon some trace of the couple. Sure enough, as they entered its precincts, they saw a carriage, splashed with mud and standing empty; beside it was a pair of unharnessed horses being groomed by two stable-helpers.“Where has that carriage come from?” inquired Mr. Fenton of one.The lad stopped hissing through his teeth and stood with the brush midway between himself and his horse.“Can’t say, I’m sure. I don’t know nothin’ about it.”“But how long has it been in, boy?”“About half-an-hour or more. That’s ’im over there in the stable.”The two men looked round, almost expecting to see Harry,and met the postillion’s red countenance and hilarious glance which beamed at them from a doorway; evidently he had had refreshment after his exertions, and, from the satisfaction on his face, it seemed unlikely that he had paid for it himself. He came forward rather unsteadily.“Have you come from Llangarth?” cried Mr. Fenton, pointing over his shoulder at the muddy vehicle.The man smiled and laid his finger along the side of his nose; whoever was responsible for his entertainment had not done the thing by halves. Then he stood a moment, his legs wide apart and his thumbs in the armholes of his open jacket, eyeing the gentlemen with vacillating complaisance.“That ’ud be lettin’ the cat out of ’er bagsh,” he replied slowly, turning away with what he supposed to be dignity.Mr. Fenton sprang after him, raising his cane, but the Vicar interposed. “That will do no good; there is a much better way than that,” he said, as he took a couple of half-crowns out of his pocket. “Look here, my man, which church did you drive them to?”“Don’t know the name of it,” replied the postillion, with a guileful look. “Unless you’re come to m—marry ’em?” he added, suddenly realizing Mr. Lewis’ clerical dress.The Vicar hated a lie of any kind, and hesitated, but his companion had no such scruples.“We shall be late if you don’t tell us,” he broke in, “and they will not be married to-day. It’s getting on for twelve.”The man stood scratching his head; his mind was turned upside down in a chaos of beer, and there was nothing to suggest that the two gentlemen who had walked into the yard had been travelling post haste.At this moment the Vicar slipped the two half-crowns into his hand. The recipient shook his head as he pocketed them.“That ’udneverdo,” he observed, in an access of tipsy morality. And, beckoning mysteriously, he led the way into the street.“Thatsh shurch,” he said, laying a careful hold upon Mr. Fenton’s coat collar, and pointing to a spire which rose, not a hundred yards away, from a railed graveyard.The two men hurried on, for they had no wish to be heralded down the street by the staggering figure. They arrived at the gate just as Isoline and Harry were emerging from the porch.The level of the street was below that of the building, and a flight of steps ran up to the door. Bride and bridegroom stood at the top, arm in arm. On Harry’s face, caught full by the light, was the trace of strong feeling and an infinite tenderness for the woman at his side; it was humble too, for he felt he had not deserved so much. He turned to her, and, in so doing, perceived his father and the Vicar looking up at them from the pavement below. Isoline saw them too, and launched a glance of triumph at them; the hour she had waited for had come, and her only regret lay in the fact that Lady Harriet was not present also. She carried a little silk bag that hung by ribbons to her arm, and she twirled it light-heartedly as she looked down at the two grey-headed men.The man and wife descended the narrow steps, Harry drawing back to let her pass on in front. She sailed forward and paused at the bottom within a few paces of her uncle and her father-in-law, hesitating whether to speak to them or not; the former’s expression was a study in mortification and pain, of which she took no notice. Catching the Squire’s eye, she made a little curtsey that she hoped might express some of the dignity in which she henceforth intended, as Mrs. Fenton, to wrap herself. But there was something in her which made it a failure.Harry went straight up to his father, feeling that he could confront any one or anything with calmness in the glad knowledge of what had just occurred, but the Squire waved him off. He met Mr. Lewis’ face of reproach.“I will take care of her, be assured, sir,” he said. Then, finding that the Vicar made no reply, he turned and followedhis wife, who was walking slowly up the street. The two men went into the church to look at the register.It was midday when the newly-married pair reached the inn where they had left their postchaise, for the wedding had taken place a little later in the morning than they intended. On driving to the church they had found two other people waiting to be married, and, as the first arrivals, the clergyman had taken them before Harry and Isoline. She had looked at the woman who stood before the altar with some interest, for she was beautiful with a beauty unusual in country girls of her class, and her face showed that she felt every word of the service; the man was a young labourer of the massive type, who wore a purple neckcloth with a bird’s-eye spot.When their own marriage was over and the other one going on, the first couple had gone into the graveyard for a short time and sat down together on a bench; it seemed as if they wished to realize quietly what had happened to them. When they came out they walked past the inn, and the two brides came face to face. Isoline stood by the door while Harry spoke to the landlord, and there was admiration in Mary’s eyes as she looked at the pretty lady in the feathered hat and the fur through which her cheek bloomed like a blush rose. The little cloud on Mrs. Fenton’s brow had lifted, and as she saw it she half smiled. Had she known the history of the girl she smiled at she would have drawn aside her skirt so that she might not so much as touch her with the hem of her garment.Mr. Fenton and the Vicar retraced their journey the same afternoon and parted, sadly enough, in Llangarth. The Squire took the chaise and post-horses on to Waterchurch, and the other, whose vehicle had been left at the Bull Inn, agreed to drive his friend’s horse back to Crishowell and to give it a night’s rest before sending it home next day.He drove through the streets, tired in every limb and sore at heart. He felt worn out and disgusted with everything, and physically very weary; he had not remembered so vividly that he was seventy odd years old for a long time.He went so slowly and was so much lost in his own thoughts that the horse had been brought to a standstill almost before he noticed a thin, shabby woman who had run from the door of a house, and was, with unexpected energy, taking hold of the bridle.“Stop!” she cried, raising her hand.The Vicar pulled up, leaning out from under the hood, and she came up close and laid hold of the dashboard, as though to prevent him forcibly from continuing his way.“There’s a man dying,” said the woman, panting a little, “an’ he wants you. You’ll have to be quick, sir; he’s mortal bad. Up there.”Mr. Lewis looked at the house she pointed at, a tumble-down building which faced the road.“It’s Hosea Evans,” she went on; “he’s come out o’ jail a fortnight.”“The landlord of the Dipping-Pool? It’s the Methodist parson he wants, not me.”“Not him. He’s been a-calling out for you all the morning. I was just off to Crishowell when I see’d you go by the door. He’s pretty nigh done, an’ he’s crying out for you. There’s somethin’ on his mind, an’ he says he can’t tell no one else.”Mr. Lewis turned the horse’s head, his own troubles retreating, as they were apt to do, before those of other people. Following his guide, he entered a small, dirty room. It was getting dusk outside, which made the miserable place dark enough to prevent his seeing anything but the one ghastly face in the corner lit up by a candle which stood on a chair by the bed. There was the movement of a dim form in the room, and the doctor who attended the very poor in the town rose from the place where he had been sitting. The woman approached the dying man and whispered close to his ear; a wan ray of relief touched his face, and he moved his hands.“He is very near his end,” said the doctor. “It is typhoid. These jails are not all that they should be, I am afraid. He has been a bad character too, poor wretch.”The Vicar went up to Hosea, and the shabby woman moved the candle away so that he might sit on the chair beside him.“I can’t see,” said Evans thickly.“I am here,” said Mr. Lewis, laying his hand on the wrist from which the pulse was fast ebbing; “what can I do for you, my brother? Shall I pray?”Hosea moved his head feebly.“No, no; I want to speak a bit, but I can’t, I’m that done.”The doctor poured some liquid into a cup and held it to his lips.“Try to swallow,” he said, “it will help you.”The innkeeper made an effort and swallowed a little.“Come near,” he whispered, and the Vicar leaned down. “I killed Vaughan,” he said, “not Rhys Walters.”Mr. Lewis was so much astonished that he did not know what to say, and merely looked into the man’s face to see whether or not he was in full possession of his senses.“Then that is what has been troubling you?” he said at last.Hosea made a sign of assent. “Me it was,” he continued feebly, “me, an’ not him. We both struck at him together, an’ my stick came down on his head and laid him his length. His no more than shaved his shoulder.”“Are you certain that what you say is true?” asked the Vicar, who was suspecting the dying man of an hallucination, but who began to see sense in the circumstantiality of his words. “If you killed him, why did Walters fly so suddenly without another blow?”“He was blinded. A stone took him in the face as he let out, an’ he never knew ’twarn’t himself as did for him. So he went off smart-like——”The effort to speak plainly was almost too much for Evans. He lay looking at the Vicar with eyes that seemed to be focussed on something very far beyond the room.“And is that everything you want to tell me?” asked Mr. Lewis, bending down in answer to a faint gesture.The dying man signed for the cup in the doctor’s hand, and, when a few more drops had been poured down his throat, he spoke again.“There’s the money too.”“What money, my man?”“My money. I’ve a mortal lot—the box below the bed. It’s for her, an’ you’ll tell her it warn’t him, not Rhys Walters. It’s to keep her. ’Tis all I can do now.”“But who do you mean, Evans? Try to tell me.”“Mary—Mary Vaughan. She was a good lass, an’ ’twas me killed him.”His voice paused, but his lips moved, and the Vicar could just distinguish the word “box.”“Shall I draw it out from under the bed?”Hosea smiled faintly.They pulled out a thick, black wooden box about a foot square, and placed it on the mattress beside him; his eyes lit up as he saw it, and his fingers worked. He had been called a “near” man in his time, and the Vicar remembered that, as landlord of the Dipping-Pool, he had always had credit for being well off, in spite of the poor place he inhabited. When the lid was opened there proved to be nothing inside it but a stuff bag. The sight of it seemed to give Evans strength. “All notes,” he said, “a hundred pound an’ over. Count them.”Mr. Lewis began to do so, Hosea’s sunken eyes following every movement of his lips. There was in bank notes one hundred and five pounds, and in coin fifteen shillings and tenpence.“Now write,” said the innkeeper, “quick.”It was not easy to find pen, ink and paper, and the woman was obliged to go out and borrow what was necessary from a more advanced neighbour; but when this had been done, the Vicar wrote out the simple sum of Hosea’s wishes. It wasplain enough; everything he owned was to go to Mary Vaughan unreservedly. He was past writing, but he insisted on the pen being given him, and, with the doctor supporting him in his arms, he made a mark where Mr. Lewis had written his name. The two men witnessed it and added their own signatures.“You are happier now that we have done that, are you not?” said Mr. Lewis. “You can trust me to see Mary Vaughan at once, and I will take care that what you want is carried out. It is right that you should do all you can for her. There is nothing else?”“No,” said Hosea, though his eyes belied his words. “I’ve been a bad man,” he whispered, after a silence. “I suppose you can’t do nothin’ for me?”“I can pray,” said the other, as he went down on his knees by the bed.He began the commendatory prayer for the dying, and as his voice ran steadily on, the room grew very still. Only the cries and footsteps in the street outside broke the quiet. The doctor was kneeling too. The window-pane showed like a thing far away in a dream, a little blue square in the close-crowding walls that pressed upon Hosea’s dying eyes. The candle guttered and went out, and the Vicar finished his prayer in the dark.When the last word was said, the doctor approached and struck a light. There was nothing left of the innkeeper but the poor, earthly husk that had clothed his imperfect soul, lying on the bed.
ITwas a quiet week which followed at Waterchurch, and when Harry set off to London on business which he refused to talk about, and which he vaguely referred to as connected with his lawyer, Mr. Fenton bade him good-bye amiably enough. His son had neither contradicted him nor re-opened the subject of his marriage, and the Squire, with whom put off was done with, regained his composure and returned to his own affairs. He told his wife nothing, for he had lost his temper and did not wish her to find it out.
Harry had said he would be absent “two or three days,” so when a week had gone and he neither wrote nor returned, his father began to wonder what he was doing. He sought Lady Harriet.
“What’s Harry about in London?” he inquired. “He seems in no hurry to come back.”
“I thought he would have been home before now. I hope there are no complications about his money,” she replied.
Mr. Fenton fidgeted about.
“I wish there were no complications about anything else,” said he, stopping in front of her. “I wasn’t such a fool as he is at his age.”
“What has he been doing?” she asked, a twinge of misgiving flying through her mind.
“What has he been doing? Really, Harriet, you are not brilliant! Here have we been at our wits’ end because of that girl of Lewis’, and you ask me, what has he been doing? Heavens!”
“But there is nothing new, is there? Nothing we don’t know?”
“He came to me about it again.”
She raised her eyes quickly to his in a question, and he looked out of the window.
“I told him I wouldn’t hear of it.”
“And then?”
“He went off. I didn’t see him till dinner that night.”
“But where did he go?”
“Go? How should I know where he went? I know where hewillgo, and that’s to the deuce,” said the Squire, beginning to march about the room. “The question isn’t where he went, but where he is now. That is the point of it, and I am surprised that you, Harriet, don’t see it. I shouldn’t wonder if he were sitting there with his arm round the girl’s waist at this moment.”
“At Crishowell? I know Mr. Lewis would never allow that.”
“Allow it? Who’d ask him to allow it, I should like to know? They needn’t be under Lewis’ nose. He’s there, you take my word for it.” At every sentence the Squire’s voice rose. “I’m not going to stand such a thing any more. It’s time somebody did something. What’s the use of our sitting here with our hands before us like so many fools, eh?”
“What shall you do? You see, now he is his own master,” said Lady Harriet, sighing.
“His own master? I’ll show him whether he is his own master or not! You know as well as I do that there is no entail on Waterchurch. I’ll just bring that to his notice. ‘My good boy,’ I’ll say, ‘you bring this upstart of a girl here and you’ll see whether there’s an entail or not!’ That’ll bring him round.”
“I’m afraid that’s not a very good plan, Edward. That would be worse than useless.”
“Pshaw! I tell you I’ll soon find out whether it’s useless!”
Mr. Fenton sat down to a writing-table and began scribbling excitedly. When he had sealed up his note he rang the bell.
“Is there any one in the stable?” he inquired, rather unnecessarily, seeing that it was just half-past eight in the morning. The Fentons were early people and breakfasted at eight, even in winter. Lady Harriet never sat long at the table after meals were over, and they had just left the dining-room.
Before the man could answer, a steady, approaching trot was plain in the avenue, and, a moment later, there was a grinding of wheels upon the gravel.
“What an extraordinary hour for any one to come,” exclaimed Lady Harriet.
As she spoke, the long face of the Vicar of Crishowell’s old mare was visible through the window. She was blowing, and though only her head could be seen, it was apparent, from the way it rocked backwards and forwards, that she was cruelly distressed.
The butler went out and returned.
“Mr. Lewis, sir. He says he must see you particular. He wished to be shown into the study, sir.”
“Is Harry here?” asked the Vicar, as his friend entered.
“No,” said Mr. Fenton. “God bless me, Lewis, you look quite white.”
“My niece is missing,” exclaimed the Vicar, his lips shaking; “I have come to tell you. They have gone off—Heaven forgive them for what they have done! We must go after them. I came here with a faint hope of finding Harry, but I must be off again.”
The Squire took him by the arm as he was making for the door, and pulled him into a chair. He sank into it, covering his eyes.
“What must you think of me, you and Lady Harriet? Fenton, I never foresaw it, blind fool that I was! She was so quiet, I never dreamed that the whole thing was not over, so far as she was concerned; she did not even seem to care.”
The Squire was bewildered.
“She complained of headache last night and told the maid not to call her in the morning. The girl forgot and tried to open the door. It was locked, so she got frightened and came for me, and we found the room empty. The bed had not been slept in, though one could see that she had been lying on it; she must have lain down in her clothes for fear of not awaking in time. Her handbag was gone, and her brushes and things—that is what made me suspect. I sent a boy down to a cottage on the road to Llangarth to ask if anything had been seen, and the man had heard a carriage pass a little before six and seen the lights of a postchaise. He heard it pass again on its way back not long after.”
“How do you know it was Harry?” asked Mr. Fenton.
“I can only guess; but who else could it be? I must be off at once. I am going to Llangarth, for I shall get some clue at the toll this end of the town. They would be obliged to pass through it.”
“I will go too,” said the Squire, his hand on the bell. “You can’t get on with the same horse, Lewis. We must put in one of mine.”
“Quarter to nine,” said the Vicar, pulling out his watch. “It was nearly eight when I left. Two hours ago I knew nothing.”
As the two sat side by side they did not exchange a word. The horse was a good trotter, and the Squire, who drove, put him to his utmost pace.
The Vicar looked blankly out on the hedges and fields which approached, passed, and dropped behind, bitterness round his closed lips. The few illusions he had ever had about his niece were fallen from him, and he understood her thoroughly. It was sordid money that had made her do this thing, that had decoyed her out into the darkness of the winter morning, and not the man who was waiting for her. If love had undone Isoline as it had undone Mary, he felt he could have recoiled from her less, though the outside world would have deemed it a worse calamity. It would have struck him to the earth indeed, but it could hardly have sickened him as this haddone. He would have given all he possessed to prevent any one belonging to himself from dealing such a blow to those he loved. There was no pretence, no veil, however thin, no excuse. It was money, money, money. She had encouraged Harry when she thought him rich, dropped him angrily, resentfully, as one drops a kitten that has scratched one, when she knew he was poor, and sprung at him again the moment his fortunes mended. And he was the son of the best friends he had. He had left Waterchurch without seeing Lady Harriet, for he had felt unable to face her.
They pulled up at the toll on the near side of Llangarth, where the gatekeeper gave them what information he had. The carriage had gone through Crishowell very early, before it was light, and had repassed on its return journey about a quarter-past six—maybe twenty past, or thereabouts—he could not tell exactly. There was a lady in a black veil. He knew that, because he had turned the lantern on the inside of the carriage, and the gentleman who paid the toll was young—fair, he thought—but he couldn’t say; he didn’t know them, not he, for he was new to the place, but the gentleman had seemed in a hurry. He could give no further clue. But it was enough.
They drove on to the Bull Inn, which was the only posting-house in the town, and Mr. Fenton sprang out and went in to find the landlord.
“Ain’t a pair left in the place,” said an ostler, who emerged from the stable. “The ’ole lot’s out.”
He began mechanically to take the Squire’s horse out of the shafts.
The landlord’s tale was the same. There was a postchaise, but nothing to put into it; they might get something at the next posting-house in Welchurch, seven miles on.
“What is that over there?” inquired the Vicar, pointing to a brown muzzle which was pushed out of a box at the end of the court.
“That’s my old horse, sir, that I drive myself.”
“Let me have that in my shafts,” said the Squire, “and I’ll make it good to you.”
In a few minutes they were on their way again with their faces to Hereford, and the landlord’s horse, who had good blood in his veins, had put his head into the collar. The reason that they had been unsuccessful in getting what they wanted was simple enough; every pair was out on the road for Harry.
The long tedium of the miles seemed interminable till they reached Welchurch, and the white faces of the milestones as they went past were the only things either man had the heart to notice. They were rewarded at last by the sight of the inn and by finding on inquiry that there was a light chaise and a pair of horses to be got. They took their seats grimly and set off on the next stage at a gallop.
It was twenty minutes past eleven when they drew up at the Green Dragon in Hereford, and the Squire and the Vicar got out, stiff after thirty miles of sitting cramped in their seats. They did not expect Harry to leave his carriage at so prominent a place as the chief hotel in Hereford, should he mean to stay in the town, but they looked round the courtyard for the possible sign of an arrival. The place was quiet and vacant as they asked hurriedly for news, and, finding none, started for a humbler inn hard by at which they hoped they might come upon some trace of the couple. Sure enough, as they entered its precincts, they saw a carriage, splashed with mud and standing empty; beside it was a pair of unharnessed horses being groomed by two stable-helpers.
“Where has that carriage come from?” inquired Mr. Fenton of one.
The lad stopped hissing through his teeth and stood with the brush midway between himself and his horse.
“Can’t say, I’m sure. I don’t know nothin’ about it.”
“But how long has it been in, boy?”
“About half-an-hour or more. That’s ’im over there in the stable.”
The two men looked round, almost expecting to see Harry,and met the postillion’s red countenance and hilarious glance which beamed at them from a doorway; evidently he had had refreshment after his exertions, and, from the satisfaction on his face, it seemed unlikely that he had paid for it himself. He came forward rather unsteadily.
“Have you come from Llangarth?” cried Mr. Fenton, pointing over his shoulder at the muddy vehicle.
The man smiled and laid his finger along the side of his nose; whoever was responsible for his entertainment had not done the thing by halves. Then he stood a moment, his legs wide apart and his thumbs in the armholes of his open jacket, eyeing the gentlemen with vacillating complaisance.
“That ’ud be lettin’ the cat out of ’er bagsh,” he replied slowly, turning away with what he supposed to be dignity.
Mr. Fenton sprang after him, raising his cane, but the Vicar interposed. “That will do no good; there is a much better way than that,” he said, as he took a couple of half-crowns out of his pocket. “Look here, my man, which church did you drive them to?”
“Don’t know the name of it,” replied the postillion, with a guileful look. “Unless you’re come to m—marry ’em?” he added, suddenly realizing Mr. Lewis’ clerical dress.
The Vicar hated a lie of any kind, and hesitated, but his companion had no such scruples.
“We shall be late if you don’t tell us,” he broke in, “and they will not be married to-day. It’s getting on for twelve.”
The man stood scratching his head; his mind was turned upside down in a chaos of beer, and there was nothing to suggest that the two gentlemen who had walked into the yard had been travelling post haste.
At this moment the Vicar slipped the two half-crowns into his hand. The recipient shook his head as he pocketed them.
“That ’udneverdo,” he observed, in an access of tipsy morality. And, beckoning mysteriously, he led the way into the street.
“Thatsh shurch,” he said, laying a careful hold upon Mr. Fenton’s coat collar, and pointing to a spire which rose, not a hundred yards away, from a railed graveyard.
The two men hurried on, for they had no wish to be heralded down the street by the staggering figure. They arrived at the gate just as Isoline and Harry were emerging from the porch.
The level of the street was below that of the building, and a flight of steps ran up to the door. Bride and bridegroom stood at the top, arm in arm. On Harry’s face, caught full by the light, was the trace of strong feeling and an infinite tenderness for the woman at his side; it was humble too, for he felt he had not deserved so much. He turned to her, and, in so doing, perceived his father and the Vicar looking up at them from the pavement below. Isoline saw them too, and launched a glance of triumph at them; the hour she had waited for had come, and her only regret lay in the fact that Lady Harriet was not present also. She carried a little silk bag that hung by ribbons to her arm, and she twirled it light-heartedly as she looked down at the two grey-headed men.
The man and wife descended the narrow steps, Harry drawing back to let her pass on in front. She sailed forward and paused at the bottom within a few paces of her uncle and her father-in-law, hesitating whether to speak to them or not; the former’s expression was a study in mortification and pain, of which she took no notice. Catching the Squire’s eye, she made a little curtsey that she hoped might express some of the dignity in which she henceforth intended, as Mrs. Fenton, to wrap herself. But there was something in her which made it a failure.
Harry went straight up to his father, feeling that he could confront any one or anything with calmness in the glad knowledge of what had just occurred, but the Squire waved him off. He met Mr. Lewis’ face of reproach.
“I will take care of her, be assured, sir,” he said. Then, finding that the Vicar made no reply, he turned and followedhis wife, who was walking slowly up the street. The two men went into the church to look at the register.
It was midday when the newly-married pair reached the inn where they had left their postchaise, for the wedding had taken place a little later in the morning than they intended. On driving to the church they had found two other people waiting to be married, and, as the first arrivals, the clergyman had taken them before Harry and Isoline. She had looked at the woman who stood before the altar with some interest, for she was beautiful with a beauty unusual in country girls of her class, and her face showed that she felt every word of the service; the man was a young labourer of the massive type, who wore a purple neckcloth with a bird’s-eye spot.
When their own marriage was over and the other one going on, the first couple had gone into the graveyard for a short time and sat down together on a bench; it seemed as if they wished to realize quietly what had happened to them. When they came out they walked past the inn, and the two brides came face to face. Isoline stood by the door while Harry spoke to the landlord, and there was admiration in Mary’s eyes as she looked at the pretty lady in the feathered hat and the fur through which her cheek bloomed like a blush rose. The little cloud on Mrs. Fenton’s brow had lifted, and as she saw it she half smiled. Had she known the history of the girl she smiled at she would have drawn aside her skirt so that she might not so much as touch her with the hem of her garment.
Mr. Fenton and the Vicar retraced their journey the same afternoon and parted, sadly enough, in Llangarth. The Squire took the chaise and post-horses on to Waterchurch, and the other, whose vehicle had been left at the Bull Inn, agreed to drive his friend’s horse back to Crishowell and to give it a night’s rest before sending it home next day.
He drove through the streets, tired in every limb and sore at heart. He felt worn out and disgusted with everything, and physically very weary; he had not remembered so vividly that he was seventy odd years old for a long time.
He went so slowly and was so much lost in his own thoughts that the horse had been brought to a standstill almost before he noticed a thin, shabby woman who had run from the door of a house, and was, with unexpected energy, taking hold of the bridle.
“Stop!” she cried, raising her hand.
The Vicar pulled up, leaning out from under the hood, and she came up close and laid hold of the dashboard, as though to prevent him forcibly from continuing his way.
“There’s a man dying,” said the woman, panting a little, “an’ he wants you. You’ll have to be quick, sir; he’s mortal bad. Up there.”
Mr. Lewis looked at the house she pointed at, a tumble-down building which faced the road.
“It’s Hosea Evans,” she went on; “he’s come out o’ jail a fortnight.”
“The landlord of the Dipping-Pool? It’s the Methodist parson he wants, not me.”
“Not him. He’s been a-calling out for you all the morning. I was just off to Crishowell when I see’d you go by the door. He’s pretty nigh done, an’ he’s crying out for you. There’s somethin’ on his mind, an’ he says he can’t tell no one else.”
Mr. Lewis turned the horse’s head, his own troubles retreating, as they were apt to do, before those of other people. Following his guide, he entered a small, dirty room. It was getting dusk outside, which made the miserable place dark enough to prevent his seeing anything but the one ghastly face in the corner lit up by a candle which stood on a chair by the bed. There was the movement of a dim form in the room, and the doctor who attended the very poor in the town rose from the place where he had been sitting. The woman approached the dying man and whispered close to his ear; a wan ray of relief touched his face, and he moved his hands.
“He is very near his end,” said the doctor. “It is typhoid. These jails are not all that they should be, I am afraid. He has been a bad character too, poor wretch.”
The Vicar went up to Hosea, and the shabby woman moved the candle away so that he might sit on the chair beside him.
“I can’t see,” said Evans thickly.
“I am here,” said Mr. Lewis, laying his hand on the wrist from which the pulse was fast ebbing; “what can I do for you, my brother? Shall I pray?”
Hosea moved his head feebly.
“No, no; I want to speak a bit, but I can’t, I’m that done.”
The doctor poured some liquid into a cup and held it to his lips.
“Try to swallow,” he said, “it will help you.”
The innkeeper made an effort and swallowed a little.
“Come near,” he whispered, and the Vicar leaned down. “I killed Vaughan,” he said, “not Rhys Walters.”
Mr. Lewis was so much astonished that he did not know what to say, and merely looked into the man’s face to see whether or not he was in full possession of his senses.
“Then that is what has been troubling you?” he said at last.
Hosea made a sign of assent. “Me it was,” he continued feebly, “me, an’ not him. We both struck at him together, an’ my stick came down on his head and laid him his length. His no more than shaved his shoulder.”
“Are you certain that what you say is true?” asked the Vicar, who was suspecting the dying man of an hallucination, but who began to see sense in the circumstantiality of his words. “If you killed him, why did Walters fly so suddenly without another blow?”
“He was blinded. A stone took him in the face as he let out, an’ he never knew ’twarn’t himself as did for him. So he went off smart-like——”
The effort to speak plainly was almost too much for Evans. He lay looking at the Vicar with eyes that seemed to be focussed on something very far beyond the room.
“And is that everything you want to tell me?” asked Mr. Lewis, bending down in answer to a faint gesture.
The dying man signed for the cup in the doctor’s hand, and, when a few more drops had been poured down his throat, he spoke again.
“There’s the money too.”
“What money, my man?”
“My money. I’ve a mortal lot—the box below the bed. It’s for her, an’ you’ll tell her it warn’t him, not Rhys Walters. It’s to keep her. ’Tis all I can do now.”
“But who do you mean, Evans? Try to tell me.”
“Mary—Mary Vaughan. She was a good lass, an’ ’twas me killed him.”
His voice paused, but his lips moved, and the Vicar could just distinguish the word “box.”
“Shall I draw it out from under the bed?”
Hosea smiled faintly.
They pulled out a thick, black wooden box about a foot square, and placed it on the mattress beside him; his eyes lit up as he saw it, and his fingers worked. He had been called a “near” man in his time, and the Vicar remembered that, as landlord of the Dipping-Pool, he had always had credit for being well off, in spite of the poor place he inhabited. When the lid was opened there proved to be nothing inside it but a stuff bag. The sight of it seemed to give Evans strength. “All notes,” he said, “a hundred pound an’ over. Count them.”
Mr. Lewis began to do so, Hosea’s sunken eyes following every movement of his lips. There was in bank notes one hundred and five pounds, and in coin fifteen shillings and tenpence.
“Now write,” said the innkeeper, “quick.”
It was not easy to find pen, ink and paper, and the woman was obliged to go out and borrow what was necessary from a more advanced neighbour; but when this had been done, the Vicar wrote out the simple sum of Hosea’s wishes. It wasplain enough; everything he owned was to go to Mary Vaughan unreservedly. He was past writing, but he insisted on the pen being given him, and, with the doctor supporting him in his arms, he made a mark where Mr. Lewis had written his name. The two men witnessed it and added their own signatures.
“You are happier now that we have done that, are you not?” said Mr. Lewis. “You can trust me to see Mary Vaughan at once, and I will take care that what you want is carried out. It is right that you should do all you can for her. There is nothing else?”
“No,” said Hosea, though his eyes belied his words. “I’ve been a bad man,” he whispered, after a silence. “I suppose you can’t do nothin’ for me?”
“I can pray,” said the other, as he went down on his knees by the bed.
He began the commendatory prayer for the dying, and as his voice ran steadily on, the room grew very still. Only the cries and footsteps in the street outside broke the quiet. The doctor was kneeling too. The window-pane showed like a thing far away in a dream, a little blue square in the close-crowding walls that pressed upon Hosea’s dying eyes. The candle guttered and went out, and the Vicar finished his prayer in the dark.
When the last word was said, the doctor approached and struck a light. There was nothing left of the innkeeper but the poor, earthly husk that had clothed his imperfect soul, lying on the bed.