CHAPTER XXXVI.
“Mine after-life! what is mine after-life?My day is closed! the gloom of night is come!A hopeless darkness settles o’er my fate!”
“Mine after-life! what is mine after-life?My day is closed! the gloom of night is come!A hopeless darkness settles o’er my fate!”
“Mine after-life! what is mine after-life?My day is closed! the gloom of night is come!A hopeless darkness settles o’er my fate!”
“Mine after-life! what is mine after-life?
My day is closed! the gloom of night is come!
A hopeless darkness settles o’er my fate!”
It seemed to Lord Cheriton as he drove to Victoria Street in Dr. Mainwaring’s brougham, that the day which had just come to an end had been the longest day of his life. He looked back at the sunny morning hour in which he had lingered over the business of the toilet, brooding upon that discovery of the pistol, his spirits weighed down by a vague foreboding, a dim horror of approaching evil, scarcely able to measure the extent of his own fears. He recalled the moment at which his valet brought him Theodore’s brief summons to the West Lodge—a moment that had given new reality to all he dreaded—a summons which told him that the shadowy horror which had been beside his pillow all through the night was going to take a tangible shape. Oh, God, how long it seemed since that pencilled line was put into his hand—since he stood in the blinding sunshine staring at the curt summons—before he recovered himself so far as to turn to his servant with his habitual grave authority, and give some trivial order about his overcoat.
Since then what slow agonies of apprehension—what self-abasement before the daughter whom he met for the first time as his daughter, face to face! What terror lest the woman whom his perfidy had driven to madness and to crime should be called upon to answer to the law for that crime—while England should ring with the story ofhistreachery, andhishidden sin! He felt as if he had lived through half a lifetime of shame and agony between the vivid light of the August morning and the cool grey shadows of the August night. He leant back in his corner of the cosy little brougham, pale and dumb, a worn-out man, and his friend the physician respected his silence.
“Will you come home and dine with me, Cheriton?” said Dr. Mainwaring, as they crossed the bridge. “It may be pleasanter for you than the solitude of your own rooms.”
“You are very good. No, I am not fit for society, not even for yours. I am deeply indebted to you—I feel that you are indeedmy friend—and that you will do all that can be done to make that broken life yonder endurable.”
“You may be sure of that. I would do as much were Mrs. Porter a nameless waif whom I had found by the road side; but as your friend she will have an unceasing interest for me. Shall you stay long enough in town to be able to spare time to go and see her at the Grange?”
“No, I must go back to Dorsetshire to-morrow. I doubt if I shall ever see her again. Accept that fact as the strongest proof of my confidence in you. Had I any doubt as to her treatment I would see her from time to time, at whatever cost of pain to myself.”
“There is nothing but pain, then, in your present feeling about that poor lady?”
“Nothing but pain.”
“And yet—forgive me if I touch an old wound—I think you must once have loved her?”
The shadows were deepening, the lamps shone with faint yellow light upon the grey stone parapet, and the interior of the carriage was very dark. Perhaps it was the darkness which emboldened Dr. Mainwaring to push his inquiry to this point.
“You are right,” his friend answered slowly. “I loved her once.”
The brougham stopped at his lordship’s door in Victoria Street, and then drove northwards with the physician. There was time for much serious reflection between Westminster and Welbeck Street.
“My new patient must be carefully looked after,” mused the doctor, “for I’m afraid there’s more meaning in her self-accusation than there generally is in such cases, and that Sir Godfrey Carmichael’s murderer is now in my keeping.”
The long August day passed very quietly at Milbrook Priory. Lady Cheriton arrived in the afternoon, and the three generations spent the summer hours on the lawn, mother and daughter sitting at work under the tulip trees, grandson and nurse in that state of perpetual motion which is infancy’s only alternative with perpetual slumber.
Theodore spent his afternoon in a somewhat restless fashion, and appeared as if possessed by a rage for locomotion. He rambled about the grounds, explored the shrubberies, and every yard of the plantation that girdled the little park. He went to both lodges, and talked to the caretaker at each. He made two different excursions to the village, on pretence of making inquiries at the Post Office, but in reality with the idea of meeting with, or hearing of, Mrs. Porter, should she have wandered that way. He behaved like amember of the secret police who had been charged with the guardianship of the most precious life in the land; and if his movements betrayed the nervous anxiety of the amateur, rather than the business-like tranquillity of the professional, he made up in earnestness for what he lacked in training and experience.
It was on his return from his second sauntering perambulation of the village that he found Lord Cheriton’s telegram waiting for him at the Priory. The relief that message brought was unspeakable, and his countenance showed the change in his feelings when he rejoined the two ladies on the lawn.
“Something very pleasant must have happened to you, Theodore,” said Juanita. “You have been looking the picture of gloom all day, and now you are suddenly radiant. Have you been talking to one of the Vicar’s pretty daughters?”
“No, Juanita; neither of those wax-doll beauties glorified my path. I heard their treble voices on the other side of the holly-hedge as I passed the Vicarage, and I’m afraid they were quarrelling. I have had good news from London.”
“From my father?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Theodore, why do you torture me by hiding things from me? Something has happened, I know.”
“You will know all in a few days, Juanita. Thank God, a great fear that has haunted me for some time past is now at an end. I can look at you and your child without seeing the shadow of an enemy across your path.”
She looked at him searchingly.
“All this amounts to nothing,” she said. “I have never feared for myself or thought of myself. Will my husband’s death be avenged, and soon, soon, soon? That is the question.”
“That is a question which you yourself may be called upon to answer—and very soon,” he said.
He would say no more, in spite of her feverish eagerness, her impatient questionings.
“I have changed my mind, Juanita,” he said presently. “I will not bore you with my company till I am free to answer your questions. The motive for my presence in this house is at an end.”
“Is it? What has become of the suspicious characters my father talked about?”
“The danger has not come this way—as he feared it might.”
“Stay,” she said. “Whether there is danger or not you are going to stay. I will not be played fast and loose with by any visitor. Mother likes to have you here, and baby likes you.”
“Not so well as he likes Cuthbert Ramsay,” retorted Theodore, with almost involuntary bitterness.
This time Juanita’s blush was an obvious fact.
She walked away from her cousin indignantly.
“You may go or stay, as you please,” she said; and he stayed, stayed to be a footstool under her feet if she liked—stayed with a heart gnawed by jealousy, consumed by despair.
“It is useless—hopeless beyond the common measure of hopelessness,” he told himself. “She never cared for me in the past, and she will never care for me in the future. I am doomed to stand for ever upon the same dull plane of affectionate indifference. If I were dangerously ill she would nurse me; if I were in difficulties she would load me with benefits; if I were dead she would be sorry for me; but she is fonder of Ramsay, whom she has seen half a dozen times in her life, than she will ever be of me.”
Lord Cheriton returned to Dorsetshire on the following afternoon. He drove from Wareham to the Priory, and had a longtête-à-têtewith Theodore in the garden before dinner.
“You have acted for my daughter throughout this miserable business,” he said, when he had told all that was to be told about Mrs. Porter’s seclusion at Cheshunt. “She has confided in you more completely even than in me—her father, and I leave my cause in your hands. You must plead to the daughter for the erring father, whose sin has exercised a fatal influence upon her life. Win her forgiveness for me—win her pity for that most unhappy woman, if you can. It is a difficult task which I entrust to you, Theodore, but I believe in your power to move that generous heart to mercy.”
“You may believe in my devotion to you both,” said Theodore, and Lord Cheriton left the Priory without seeing his wife and daughter, who had gone to dress for dinner just before his arrival, and who came to the drawing-room presently, both expecting to find him there.
Theodore explained his hasty departure as best he might.
“Your father drove over to speak to me upon a matter of business,” he said to Juanita. “He was tired after his journey, and preferred going home to dine.”
“He was not ill, I hope?” cried Lady Cheriton, with a look of alarm.
“No, there is nothing amiss with him, except fatigue.”
Juanita looked at him intently, eager to question him, but the butler’s entrance to announce dinner stopped her, and she told Theodore to give his arm to her mother, and followed them both to the dining-room.
The meal was a mockery as far as two out of the three were concerned. Juanita was nervous and ill at ease, impatient of the lengthy ceremonial. Theodore ate hardly anything, but kept up a slipshod conversation with Lady Cheriton, talked about the grandchild’sabnormal intelligence, and assured her in reply to her reiterated inquiries that her husband was not ill, was not even looking ill, and that there was no reason for her to go back to the Chase that night, as she was disposed to do.
Juanita rose abruptly before the grapes and peaches had been taken round.
“Would you mind coming to my room at once, Theodore?” she said. “I want half an hour’s talk with you about—business. You will excuse my leaving you, won’t you, mother?”
“My dear child, I shall be glad to get half an hour in the nursery. Boyle tells me that little rascal is never so lively as just before he settles down for the night.”
Lady Cheriton went off in one direction, Juanita and Theodore in the other.
The lamp was lighted in the study, on the table where two rows of books told of the widow’s studious solitude.
Theodore glanced at the titles of those neatly arranged volumes and saw that they were mostly upon scientific subjects.
“I did not know that you were fond of science, Juanita?” he said.
“I am not. I used to hate it. I am as ignorant as a baby. I don’t believe I know any more about the moon than Juliet did when she accused it of inconstancy. Only when one comes to my age one ought to improve one’s self. Godfrey will be asking me questions before I am much older—and when he wants to know whether the earth goes round the sun or the sun round the earth, I must be prepared to answer him.”
She spoke with a nervous air, facing him in the soft clear lamplight, her hand upon the row of books, her eyes eager and questioning.
“You have seen my father, Theodore. Is the embargo removed?”
“It is.”
“And you know who murdered my husband?”
“So far as the assassin’s own confession is to be believed, yes.”
“He has confessed—he is in prison—he will be hanged,” she cried breathlessly.
“The murderer has confessed—but is not in prison—and will not be hanged—at least I trust not, in God’s mercy.”
“You are full of pity for a murderer, Theodore,” she cried bitterly. “Have you no pity for my husband? Is his death to go unpunished? Is his life—the life that might have been as long as it was happy—is that to count for nothing?”
“It is to count for much, Juanita. Believe me, your husband is avenged. His death was a sacrifice to a broken heart and a disordered brain. The hand that killed him is the hand of one who cannot be called to account—the hand of a madwoman.”
“A woman?”
“Yes, a woman. The woman you have seen many a time as you passed in and out of Cheriton Chase in your father’s carriage by the West Gate.”
“Mrs. Porter?”
“Yes.”
“Great God! why did she kill my husband?”
“Because she was unhappy—because she had suffered until sorrow had obscured her intellect, till her life had become one long thirst to do evil—one hatred of youth and beauty, and innocent gladness like yours. She saw you in your wedded happiness, and she thought of a happiness which was once her own day dream—the hope and dream of patient, self-denying years. She struck at you through your husband. She struck at your father through you.”
“My father! What was he to her—ever, except a friend and benefactor?”
“He was once more than that to Evelyn Strangway.”
“Strangway!” shrieked Juanita, clasping her hands. “Did I not tell you so from the first? It was the footstep of a Strangway that crept past our window, while we sat together in our happiness, without thought of peril. It was a Strangway who killed my husband. You told me that they were all dead and gone—that the race was extinct—that the people I feared were phantoms. I told you it was a Strangway who fired that shot, and you see my instinct was truer than your reason—and there was a Strangway at our gates—disguised—under a false name—looking at us with smooth, hypocritical smiles—nursing her wrath to keep it warm.”
“Unhappily your instinct hit upon the fatal truth. The hatred of the Strangways was not dead. One member of that family survived, and cherished a more than common malignity against the race that had blotted out the old name.”
“But my father, how had he provoked her hatred?”
“He once loved her, Juanita—many years ago—before he saw your mother’s face. Evelyn Strangway and he had been lovers—pledged to each other by a solemn promise. As a man of honour he should have kept that promise; there were stringent reasons that bound him. But he saw your mother and loved her, and broke with Evelyn Strangway—openly, with no unmanly deceit; but still there was the broken promise, and that involved a deep wrong. He believed that wrong forgiven. He believed the more in her pardon because it was her earnest desire to live unrecognized and unnoticed upon the estate where she was born. He could not fathom the depth of hatred in that warped nature. He did all that there was left to him to do—having taken his own course and entered upon a new and fairer life with the woman he loved—tomake amends to the woman he had deserted. He never suspected the depth of her feelings—he never suspected the seeds of madness, with its ever present dangers. He did what in him lay to atone for the sin of his youth; but that sin found him out, and it was his bitter lot to see his beloved daughter the innocent victim of his wrong-doing. He trusted me to tell you this miserable story, Juanita. He humbles himself in the dust before you, stricken at the thought of your suffering. He appeals through me to your love and to your pity. How am I to answer him when I answer for you?”
She was silent for some moments after he had asked this final question, her eyes fixed, her chest heaving with the stormy beating of her heart.
“What has become of this woman—this pitiless devil?” she gasped.
“She is in a madhouse.”
“Is no punishment to overtake her? Is she not to be tried for her life? Let them prove her mad, or let them find her guilty, and hang her—hang her—hang her. Her life for his, her worn-out remnant of wretched, disappointed days for his bright young life, with all its promise and all its hope.”
“It would be a poor revenge, Juanita, to take so poor a life. This unhappy woman is under restraint that will, in all probability, last till the day of her death. Her crime is known only to your father and to me. Were it to become known to others she would have to stand in the dock, and then the whole story would have to be told—the story of your father’s broken promise—of this woman’s youth, bound so closely with his that to many it would seem almost as if they stood side by side at the bar. Do you think that the fierce rapture of revenge could ever atone to you for having brought dishonour upon your father’s declining years, Juanita?”
“And my husband’s death is to go unavenged?”
“Do you think there is no retribution in the slow agony of a shattered mind—the long blank days of old age in a lunatic asylum, the apathy of a half-extinguished intellect varied by flashes of bitter memory? God help and pity such a criminal, for her punishment must be heavier than hemp and quick-lime.”
She seemed scarcely to hear him. She was walking up and down the room, her hands clenched, her brows contracted over the fixed eyes.
“I caught just one glimpse of her as we drove past; but that glimpse ought to have been enough,” she said. “I can see her face as we passed the lodge, looking out at us from the parlour window, within a few hours of my darling’s death—a pale vindictive face—yes, vindictive. I ought to have understood; I ought to have taken warning, and guarded my beloved one from her murderous hate.”
“What am I to say to your father, Juanita? I ought not to leave him long in doubt. Think what it is for a father to humiliate himself before his daughter—to sue for pardon.”
“Oh, but he must not do that. I have nothing to forgive. How could he understand that there could be such diabolical malignity in any human breast? How could he think that the wrong done by him would be revenged upon that innocent head? Oh, if she had gone a nearer way to revenge herself—if she had killed me, rather than him. It is such bitterness to know that my love brought him untimely death—that he might have been here now, happy, with long years of honour and content before him if he had chosen any other wife.”
“It is hopeless to think of what might have been, Nita. Your husband was happy in your love—and not unhappy in his death. Such a fate is far better than the dull and slow decay which closes many a fortunate life—the inch by inch dissolution of a protracted old age—the gradual extinction of mind and feeling—the apathetic end. You must not talk as if your husband’s death was the extremity of misfortune.”
“It was—for me. Can I forget what it was to lose him? Oh, there is no use in talking of my loss. I wanted to avenge his death. I have lived for that—and I am cheated of even that poor comfort.”
“What shall I say to your father?”
“Say that I will do nothing to injure him—or to distress my mother. I will remember that I am their daughter, as well as Godfrey’s widow. Good night, Theodore. You have done your uttermost to help me. We cannot help it, either of us, if Fate was against us.”
She gave him her hand, very cold, but with the firm grasp of friendship. The very touch of that hand told him he would never be more to her than a friend. Not so is a woman’s hand given when the impassioned heart goes with it.