“As I had been watched in the street on the previous night, I had been watched to-night in the grove. The rustling dress, the shadowy figure melting in the obscurity of the rain-blotted landscape had belonged to Margaret Wilmot!
“Mr. Carter came in while I was still pondering over my mother’s letter.
“‘I’m off,’ he said, briskly. ‘Will you settle the bill, Mr. Austin? I suppose you’d like to be with me to the end of this business. You’ll go down to Maudesley Abbey with me, won’t you?’
“‘No,’ I said; ‘I will have no farther hand in this matter. Do your duty, Mr. Carter; and the reward I promised shall be faithfully paid to you. If Joseph Wilmot was the treacherous murderer of his old master, he must pay the penalty of his crime; I have neither the power nor the wish to shield him. But he is the father of the woman I love. It is not for me to help in hunting him to the gallows.’
“Mr. Carter looked very grave.
“‘To be sure, sir,’ he said; ‘I recollect now. I’ve been so wrapt up in this business that I forgot the difference it would make to you; but many a good girl has had a bad father, you know, sir, and — —’
“I put up my hand to stop him.
“‘Nothing that can possibly happen will lessen my esteem for Miss Wilmot,’ I said. ‘That point admits of no discussion.’
“I took out my pocket-book, gave the detective money for his expenses, and wished him good night.
“When he had left me, I went out into the High Street. The rain was over, and the moon was shining in a cloudless sky. Heaven knows how I should have met Margaret Wilmot had chance thrown her in my way to-night. But my mind was filled with her image; and I walked about the quiet town, expecting at every turn in the street, at every approaching footstep sounding on the pavement, to see the figure I had seen last night. But go where I would I saw no sign of her; so I came back to the hotel at last, to sit alone by the dull fire, and write this record of my day’s work.”
* * * * *
While Clement Austin sat in the lonely sitting-room at the George Inn, with his rapid pen scratching along the paper before him, a woman walked up and down the lamp-lit platform at Rugby, waiting for the branch train which was to take her on to Shorncliffe.
This woman was Margaret Wilmot — the haggard, trembling girl whose altered manner had so terrified simple-hearted Mrs. Austin.
But she did not tremble now. She had pushed her thick black veil away from her face, and though no vestige of healthy colour had come back to her cheeks or lips, her features had a set look of steadfast resolution, and her eyes looked straight before her, like the eyes of a person who has one special purpose in view, and will not swerve or falter until that purpose has been carried out.
There was only one elderly gentleman in the first-class carriage in which Margaret Wilmot took her seat when the branch train for Shorncliffe was ready; and as this one fellow-passenger slept throughout the journey, with his face covered by an expansive silk handkerchief, Margaret was left free to think her own thoughts.
The girl was scarcely less quiet than her slumbering companion; she sat in one changeless attitude, with her hands clasped together in her lap, and her eyes always looking straight forward, as they had looked when she walked upon the platform. Once she put her hand mechanically to the belt of her dress, and then shook her head with a sigh as she drew it away.
“How long the time seems!” she said; “how long! and I have no watch now, and I can’t tell how late it is. If they should be there before me. If they should be travelling by this train. No, that’s impossible. I know that neither Clement, nor the man that was with him, left Winchester by the train that took me to London. But if they should telegraph to London or Shorncliffe?”
She began to tremble at the thought of this possibility. If that grand wonder of science, the electric telegraph, should be made use of by the men she dreaded, she would be too late upon the errand she was going on.
The mail train stopped at Shorncliffe while she was thinking of this fatal possibility. She got out and asked one of the porters to get her a fly; but the man shook his head.
“There’s no flies to be had at this time of night, miss,” he said, civilly enough. “Where do you want to go?”
She dared not tell him her destination; secresy was essential to the fulfilment of her purpose.
“I can walk,” she said; “I am not going very far.” She left the station before the man could ask her any further questions, and went out into the moonlit country road on which the station abutted. She went through the town of Shorncliffe, where the diamond casements were all darkened for the night, and under the gloomy archway, past the dark shadows which the ponderous castle-towers flung across the rippling water. She left the town, and went out upon the lonely country road, through patches of moonlight and shadow, fearless in her self-abnegation, with only one thought in her mind: “Would she be in time?”
She was very tired when she came at last to the iron gates at the principal entrance of Maudesley Park. She had heard Clement Austin speak of a bridle-path through the park to Lisford, and he had told her that this bridle-path was approached by a gate in the park-fence upwards of a mile from the principal lodge.
She walked along by this fence, looking for the gate.
She found it at last; a little low wooden gate, painted white, and only fastened by a latch. Beyond the gate there was a pathway winding in and out among the trunks of the great elms, across the dry grass.
Margaret Wilmot followed this winding path, slowly and doubtfully, till she came to the margin of a vast open lawn. Upon the other side of this lawn she saw the dark frontage of Maudesley Abbey, and three tall lighted windows gleaming through the night.
CHAPTER XL.
FLIGHT.
The man who called himself Henry Dunbar was lying on the tapestried cushions of a carved oaken couch that stood before the fire in his spacious sitting-room. He lay there, listening to the March wind roaring in the broad chimney, and watching the blazing coals and the crackling logs of wood.
It was three o’clock in the morning now, and the servants had left the room at midnight; but the sick man had ordered a huge fire to be made up — a fire that promised to last for some hours.
The master of Maudesley Abbey was in no way improved by his long imprisonment. His complexion had faded to a dull leaden hue; his cheeks were sunken; his eyes looked unnaturally large and unnaturally bright. Long hours of loneliness, long sleepless nights, and thoughts that from every diverging point for ever narrowed inwards to one hideous centre, had done their work of him. The man lying opposite the fire to-night looked ten years older than the man who gave his evidence so boldly and clearly before the coroner’s jury at Winchester.
The crutches — they were made of some light, polished wood, and were triumphs of art in their way — leaned against a table close to the couch, and within reach to the man’s hand. He had learned to walk about the rooms and on the gravel-drive before the Abbey with these crutches, and had even learned to do without them, for he was now able to set the lamed foot upon the ground, and to walk a few paces pretty steadily, with no better support than that of his cane; but as yet he walked slowly and doubtfully, in spite of his impatience to be about once more.
Heaven knows how many different thoughts were busy in his restless brain that night. Strange memories came back to him, as he lay staring at the red chasms and craggy steeps in the fire — memories of a time so long gone by, that all the personages of that period seemed to him like the characters in a book, or the figures in a picture. He saw their faces, and he remembered how they had looked at him; and among these other faces he saw the many semblances which his own had worn.
O God, how that face had changed! The bright, frank, boyish countenance, looking eagerly out upon a world that seemed so pleasant; the young man’s hopeful smile; and then — and then, the hard face that grew harder with the lapse of years; the smile that took no radiance from a light within; the frown th
at blackened as the soul grew darker. He saw all these, and still for ever, amid a thousand distracting ideas, his thoughts, which were beyond his own volition, concentrated in the one plague-spot of his life, and held him there, fixed as a wretch bound hand and foot upon the rack.
“If I could only get away from this place,” he said to himself; “if I could get away, it would all be different. Change of scene, activity, hurrying from place to place in new countries and amongst strange people, would have the usual influence upon me. That memory would pass away then, as other memories have passed; only to be recalled, now and then, in a dream; or conjured up by some chance allusion dropped from the lips of strangers, some coincidence of resemblance in a scene, or face, or tone, or look. That memory cannot be so much worse than the rest that it should be ineffaceable, where they have been effaced. But while I stay here, here in this dismal room, where the dropping of the ashes on the hearth, the ticking of the clock upon the chimney-piece, are like that torture I have read of somewhere — the drop of water falling at intervals upon the victim’s forehead until the anguish of its monotony drives him raving mad — while I stay here there is no hope of forgetfulness, no possibility of peace. I saw him last night, and the night before last, and the night before that. I see him always when I go to sleep, smiling at me, as he smiled when we went into the grove. I can hear his voice, and the words he said, every syllable of those insignificant words, selfish murmurs about the probability of his being fatigued in that long walk, the possibility that it would have been better to hire a fly, and to have driven by the road — bah! What was he that I should be sorry for him? Am I sorry for him? No! I am sorry for myself, and for the torture which I have created for myself. O God! I can see him now as he looked up at me out of the water. The motion of the stream gave a look of life to his face, and I almost thought he was still alive, and I had never done that deed.”
These were the pleasant fireside thoughts with which the master of Maudesley Abbey beguiled the hours of his convalescence. Heaven keep our memories green! exclaims the poet novelist; and Heaven preserve us from such deeds as make our memories hideous to us!
From such a reverie as this the master of Maudesley Abbey was suddenly aroused by the sound of a light knocking against one of the windows of his room — the window nearest him as he lay on the couch.
He started, and lifted himself into a sitting posture.
“Who is there?” he cried, impatiently.
He was frightened, and clasped his two hands upon, his forehead, trying to think who the late visitant could be. Why should any one come to him at such an hour, unless — unless it was discovered? There could be no other justification for such an intrusion.
His breath came short and thick as he thought of this. Had it come at last, then, that awful moment which he had dreamed of so many times — that hideous crisis which he had imagined under so many different aspects? Had it come at last, like this? — quietly, in the dead of the night, without one moment’s warning? — before he had prepared himself to escape it, or hardened himself to meet it? Had it come now? The man thought all this while he listened, with his chest heaving, his breath coming in hoarse gasps, waiting for the reply to his question.
There was no reply except the knocking, which grew louder and more hurried.
If there can be expression in the tapping of a hand against a pane of glass, there was expression in that hand — the expression of entreaty rather than of demand, as it seemed to that white and terror-stricken listener.
His heart gave a great throb, like a prisoner who leaps away from the fetters that have been newly loosened.
“What a fool I have been!” he thought. “If it was that, there would be knocking and ringing at the hall-door, instead of that cautious summons. I suppose that fellow Vallance has got into some kind of trouble, and has come in the dead of the night to hound me for money. It would be only like him to do it. He knows he must be admitted, let him come when he may.”
The invalid gave a groan as he thought this. He got up and walked to the window, leaning upon his cane as he went.
The knocking still sounded. He was close to the window, and he heard something besides the knocking — a woman’s voice, not loud, but peculiarly audible by reason of its earnestness.
“Let me in; for pity’s sake let me in!”
The man standing at the window knew that voice: only too well, only too well. It was the voice of the girl who had so persistently followed him, who had only lately succeeded in seeing him. He drew back the bolts that fastened the long French window, opened it, and admitted Margaret Wilmot.
“Margaret!” he cried; “what, in Heaven’s name, brings you here at such an hour as this?”
“Danger!” answered the girl, breathlessly. “Danger to you! I have been running, and the words seem to choke me as I speak. There’s not a moment to be lost, not one moment. They will be here directly; they cannot fail to be here directly. I felt as if they had been close behind me all the way — they may have been so. There is not a moment — not one moment!”
She stopped, with her hands clasped upon her breast. She was incoherent in her excitement, and knew that she was so, and struggled to express herself clearly.
“Oh, father!” she exclaimed, lifting her hands to her head, and pushing the loose tangled hair away from her face; “I have tried to save you — I have tried to save you! But sometimes I think that is not to be. It may be God’s mercy that you should be taken, and your wretched daughter can die with you!”
She fell upon her knees, suddenly, in a kind of delirium, and lifted up her clasped hands.
“O God, have mercy upon him!” she cried. “As I prayed in this room before — as I have prayed every hour since that dreadful time — I pray again to-night. Have mercy upon him, and give him a penitent heart, and wash away his sin. What is the penalty he may suffer here, compared to that Thou canst inflict hereafter? Let the chastisement of man fall upon him, so as Thou wilt accept his repentance!”
“Margaret,” said Joseph Wilmot, grasping the girl’s arm, “are you praying that I may be hung? Have you come here to do that? Get up, and tell me what is the matter!”
Margaret Wilmot rose from her knees shuddering, and looking straight before her, trying to be calm — trying to collect her thoughts.
“Father,” she said, “I have never known one hour’s peaceful sleep since the night I left this room. For the last three nights I have not slept at all. I have been travelling, walking from place to place, until I could drop on the floor at your feet. I want to tell you — but the words — the words — won’t come — somehow — —”
She pointed to her dry lips, which moved, but made no sound. There was a bottle of brandy and a glass on the table near the couch. Joseph Wilmot was seldom without that companion. He snatched up the bottle and glass, poured out some of the brandy, and placed it between his daughter’s lips. She drank the spirit eagerly. She would have drunk living fire, if, by so doing, she could have gained strength to complete her task.
“You must leave this house directly!” she gasped. “You must go abroad, anywhere, so long as you are safe out of the way. They will be here to look for you — Heaven only knows how soon!”
“They! Who?
“Clement Austin, and a man — a detective — —”
“Clement Austin — your lover — your confederate? You have betrayed me, Margaret!”
“I!” cried the girl, looking at her father.
There was something sublime in the tone of that one word — something superb in the girl’s face, as her eyes met the haggard gaze of the murderer.
“Forgive me, my girl! No, no, you wouldn’t do that, even to a loathsome wretch like me!”
“But you will go away — you will escape from them?”
“Why should I be afraid of them? Let them come when they please, they have no proof against me.”
“No proof? Oh, father, you don’t know — you don’t know. They have been to Winchester. I
heard from Clement’s mother that he had gone there; and I went after him, and found out where he was — at the inn where you stayed, where you refused to see me — and that there was a man with him. I waited about the streets; and at night I saw them both, the man and Clement. Oh! father, I knew they could have only one purpose in coming to that place. I saw them at night; and the next day I watched again — waiting about the street, and hiding myself under porches or in shops, when there was any chance of my being seen. I saw Clement leave the George, and take the way towards the cathedral. I went to the cathedral-yard afterwards, and saw the strange man talking in a doorway with an old man. I loitered about the cathedral-yard, and saw the man that was with Clement go away, down by the meadows, towards the grove, to the place where — —”
She stopped, and trembled so violently that she was unable to speak.
Joseph Wilmot filled the glass with brandy for the second time, and put it to his daughter’s lips.
She drank about a teaspoonful, and then went on, speaking very rapidly, and in broken sentences —
“I followed the man, keeping a good way behind, so that he might not see that he was followed. He went straight down to the very place where — the murder was done. Clement was there, and three men. They were there under the trees, and they were dragging the water.”
“Dragging the water! Oh, my God, why were they doing that?” cried the man, dropping suddenly on the chair nearest to him, and with his face livid.
For the first time since Margaret had entered the room terror took possession of him. Until now he had listened attentively, anxiously; but the ghastly look of fear and horror was new upon his face. He had defied discovery. There was only one thing that could be used against him — the bundle of clothes, the marked garments of the murdered man — those fatal garments which he had been unable to destroy, which he had only been able to hide. These things alone could give evidence against him; but who should think of searching for these things? Again and again he had thought of the bundle at the bottom of the stream, only to laugh at the wondrous science of discovery which had slunk back baffled by so slight a mystery, only to fancy the water-rats gnawing the dead man’s garments, and all the oose and slime creeping in and out amongst the folds until the rotting rags became a very part of the rank river-weeds that crawled and tangled round them.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 317
