It was a long interview. Humphrey Melwood, looking at the clock every now and then, kept close count of the time. It was tiresome work sitting by the low fire waiting and doing nothing, while these two passionate creatures upbraided each other in the next room. The gamekeeper found the time hang very heavily upon his hands; and the only entertainment he could find for himself was an occasional recourse to the decanters upon the table before him. He drank a good deal in this manner; and when the interview between the husband and wife had lasted a little more than an hour, Humphrey Melwood fell into a doze, with his arms lying upon the table, and his fingers still resting upon the stem of his half-filled glass.
He was awakened suddenly by the opening of the door and the hasty entrance of Lord Haughton, with the lamp in his hand. The young man closed the door behind him, placed the lamp upon the table, and then walked to the low mantelpiece. He stood there with his elbows resting upon the marble, and his face covered with his hands.
“I cannot bear it,” he said; “it is too cruel — it is too bitter a burden. I shall blow out my brains! I shall do something to put an end to all this.”
Humphrey Melwood rose, and went close to his foster-brother.
“Won’t she go, Master Gervoise?” he asked.
“No, she won’t go; she won’t consent to anything except to fasten herself upon me for ever and ever. She will compel me to be false to every vow that I have made to the woman I love. O Humphrey, if you knew how we love each other, Ethel and I! I am not a fool or a coxcomb; but I know that my poor girl’s heart will break if she ever has to learn the truth. We love each other so dearly; we love each other—” Gervoise broke down, and burst into a passion of tears. Humphrey Melwood, half-stupefied with the wine he had been drinking, stared hopelessly at his foster-brother.
“Don’t, Master Gervoise,” he cried, “don’t, now; don’t, for pity’s sake! You’ll make me mad like, if you do that. It hurts me to hear you; it hurts me. I feel — I feel almost as if I could—”
The gamekeeper stopped, with his teeth set and his clenched hand suddenly lifted, as if he would have struck down some invisible foe; but his arm dropped slowly by his side, and he gave a long sigh. The fumes of the wine had mounted to his brain by this time, and all the latent fierceness of his halfsavage character had been aroused by the strong drink and the sight of his master’s grief.
“I can’t bear it, Master Gervoise,” he said; “I can’t bear it. I give you fair warning that I shall do something desperate if you go on like that. It makes me mad, Master Gervoise — it makes me mad.”
“I can’t help it, Humphrey,” answered Lord Haughton, turning from the mantelpiece, and dropping into an arm-chair by the fire; “I can’t help it. I know I must seem a fool and a coward; but it’s no use fighting against it. They showed me Ethel in her wedding-dress last night, Humphrey. I can see her blushing face now as she stood before me, half-hidden under her pure white veil. My beautiful, innocent darling, are you to be sacrificed because I have been a villain? I love her so dearly, Humphrey, with the truest, tenderest, purest love that man ever felt for woman; and am I to give her up, and break the noblest heart that ever beat in woman’s breast, because that creature in there trades upon the mistake of my youth — the one mad folly of my wretched youth?”
He sat staring at the dying embers in the low grate. Humphrey watched the young man’s gloomy face with a strange expression in his fierce black eyes.
“But won’t she go, Master Gervoise?” the gamekeeper said presently; “that woman in there, can’t you get her to go away, and let you alone? You are rich, and can afford to give her plenty of money. Won’t that keep her quiet?”
“No, Humphrey; nothing will satisfy her — nothing but my ruin. It’s that she wants; that, and nothing else. I begged her to go to Australia, America — anywhere. I told her a lie, for I said that I would join her there by and by; but the she-devil only laughed in my face, with a horrible, half-drunken laugh. She’ll stick to me, she says. Until this hour I have believed that it was she who took my son away upon the night of the races; but she declares that she has never been in this part of the country until to-day, and that she has never seen? the child since I took him away from London. Her manner seems like truth, and the boy’s disappearance remains a mystery. She has been tramping all over the country, searching for me in almost every town in England. She only came into Avondale by chance this afternoon, about a quarter of an hour before she saw me in the market-place. She knows nothing. I have told her that this house belongs to a nobleman, and that I am only a dependent here. If she knew the truth, there’d be no getting her away from the place. As it is, I’m bewildered how to act. O Humphrey, when my wedding-day drew near, and I heard no news of that woman, I thought that she was dead. I did think that, so help me Heaven, or I would not have gone on; I would have drawn back at the last, and told my dear girl the truth. But now — what am I to do? — what am I to do?”
The gamekeeper did not answer directly. He had kept his eyes fixed upon the low red light in the fireplace while his foster-brother had been talking, as if more absorbed by his own thoughts than by Lord Haughton’s passionate words. Now he lifted his eyes and looked full in the earl’s face.
“Are you bent upon keeping your word to Miss Hurst, Master Gervoise?” he asked.
“Am I bent on keeping my word to her?” cried Gervoise. “I tell you, Humphrey, I love her better than my life; she is all the world to me.”
“And if this woman in yonder could be only got out of the way, you’d risk all the rest?”
“There would be nothing to fear if she were out of the way. I would risk everything except the chance of her following me to the altar and proclaiming the tie that binds us. I would risk everything but that.”
“You would, Master Gervoise?”
“I would,”
“But you think it’s no good persuading her to emigrate somewhere far away?”
“No good; I’ve tried hard enough to induce her to that. I’ve tried to persuade her, and I’ve tried to bribe her, but she only laughed at me.”
“She’s quiet now,” muttered Humphrey, pointing to the door.
“Yes; she has exhausted herself with her own violence; but she won’t be quiet long. She’ll break in upon us presently, I daresay. What am I to do, Humphrey? We must arrange some plan — we must do something; or else—”
“Or else what, Master Gervoise?”
“I must go to Ethel to-morrow morning and tell her all the miserable truth.”
“That would be hard for you to have to do, Master Gervoise?”
“Hard for me!” cried Gervoise; “it would be death to me! I tell you, Humphrey, unless I can keep my faith to Ethel at mid-day to-morrow, I will shoot myself before midnight!”
Humphrey Melwood got up and walked to and fro, with his hands in his pockets, looking at the floor.
The gamekeeper was a fine, handsome fellow, of the semi-savage type, with a muscular frame and sunburnt face, and broad, brawny hands. There was gipsy blood in his veins, and he had the glittering gipsy eyes, the blue-black hair, the flashing white teeth, and the roving, restless nature. He had the gipsy cunning, and the gipsy love of fine dress and gay colours. To-night he wore a velveteen shooting-jacket, with great shining mother-of-pearl buttons, and he had a rainbow-hued woollen comforter twisted round his strong, full throat. He walked up and down the room for two or three minutes, as if arguing some question in his mind. Then he stopped suddenly by the window.
“It’s no use, Master Gervoise,” said the gamekeeper. “I’m a poor ignorant fellow; I can’t think of anything to help you, except—”
He dropped his voice, and did not attempt to finish the sentence. The hoarse roar of the rushing waters under the bank seemed to distract his attention; for his black eyes kept wandering restlessly towards the window, as if their glance unconsciously followed the direction of the sound to which he listened.
“Do you think you can get her away quietly f
or to-night, Master Grervoise?”
“Only by going with her.”
“But you can’t do that. You’ve told her that you’re only a dependent in this house, and that the nobleman this place belongs to is a sort of master over you, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I told her that.”
“Very well then, you can easy tell her that you must get your master’s leave before you go away from the house. Tell her, if she’ll go away back to Avondale with me — quietly — you’ll join her at the King’s Head early to-morrow morning, and go back to London with her. You could tell her that, couldn’t you?”
“Yes, I might tell her that, and persuade her to go away with you to-night; but—”
“But what?”
“When to-morrow morning comes, what then? Am I to keep my promise? Am I to tell Ethel—”
“Never mind about to-morrow morning, Master Grervoise. There’s a long time between this and the hour for your wedding. Something may happen — to — take this woman — out of your way — between this and then.”
The gamekeeper spoke in a voice little louder than a whisper, and he kept his eyes fixed upon the ground all the time. Gervoise started up out of his chair, and looked at Humphrey Melwood with a strange expression — an expression in which a wild and sudden horror was mingled with a wild and sudden joy.
“What do you mean?” he cried, in a half-broken voice. “You don’t mean — you don’t mean that—”
He stopped, and stood still, with that strange look fixed upon his face.
The gamekeeper never raised his eyes from the ground. He pointed to the closed door without looking up —
“Has she got any papers about her — her marriage-certificate—”
“No, she tells me she has lost it.”
“Lost it?”
“Yes; but that won’t help me. She knows the name of the church where she was married. The parish register will tell everything.”
“Ah, I forgot that. But she has no certificate about her—”
“No.”
“No letters, or anything of that kind?”
“No. She has been tramping here and there about the country. It isn’t likely she’d have any letters about her. No one has cared to write to her lately, poor wretch.”
There was another silent pause; and still the dismal roar of the waterfall below the bank sounded hoarsely in the solemn stillness of the winter night.
The two men stood opposite to each other upon the broad hearthrug; the gamekeeper always looking downwards, Gervoise with his eyes fixed upon his foster-brother’s face. The hands of the little clock upon the mantelpiece pointed to ten minutes before one.
“Go and see if you can get her to go away quietly with me, Master Gervoise,” Humphrey Melwood said presently.
“But what are you going to do with her?” Gervoise asked, in a hesitating, constrained manner. “How will you get her away, so that there may be no interruption of the wedding to-morrow? How do you mean to get her away from this part of the country without her finding out who I am?”
“Never you mind that, Master Gervoise! You’ve asked me to serve you, and I’m ready to do it. What I said about shedding every drop of my blood for you, if you wanted it, wasn’t quite such foolish sentimental talk as it seemed, perhaps. I’d do it, Master Gervoise — I’d do it!” cried the gamekeeper, with his eyes flaming. “You say that you’d go and kill yourself if you had to break your faith with that young lady at Hyford Hall. You sha’n’t break your faith. Get this woman to go away quietly with me. That’s all I want. Get her to go away quietly. You’re sure that nothing will persuade her to go to America or Australia?”
“I’m quite sure.”
“You’ve tried everything?”
“Yes, I’ve tried everything.”
“Very well; then get her to go away with me — quietly.” Lord Haughton made no answer. He stood for a moment thinking; then he went into the next room.
Humphrey Melwood went to the oriel window, opened it, and looked out upon the shadowy lawn.
The moon, which rose late, was rising now, and there was a faint silvery glimmer in the wintry sky.
Humphrey Melwood could see the outline of the trees in the park upon the other side of the river, black against the sky, and the rippling waters of the cascade glimmering here and there in the dim light. The air was bitter cold, and the wind was moaning upon the river, with a slow, dismal sound that was like the wail of a human voice.
Gervoise found his wife sitting where he had left her, asleep. Her bonnet had slipped off, and her head had dropped upon the cushioned arm of her chair, with all the loose dishevelled hair falling about her haggard forehead.
If anything could have moved Lord Haughton’s heart to pity this woman, it might have been the sight of that wan, white face, lying helplessly upon the velvet cushion. It had been a pretty face once, and he had loved its fresh young prettiness after his own fashion. But he had no pity for this woman now; he looked upon her only as an impediment to the gratification of his newest wish. He had no more merciful feeling towards this miserable woman, who had been his wife, than he would have had for any inanimate obstacle that divided him from the new object of his selfish passion.
He had no pity in his heart. He had only a vague fear — a horrible dread. He felt as if he had been standing upon the verge of a dismal abyss, whose depth he could not fathom.
“Agatha,” he said.
The woman started and looked up at him, half asleep, half awake.
“Do you know how late it is? You can’t stay here any longer. It’s past one o’clock.”
Agatha Palgrave rubbed her eyes with her thin hands, and sat blinking at her husband for some moments before she seemed to understand him.
“You must go away, Agatha. The inn at Avondale will be shut up for the night. If you stay here any later you mayn’t be able to get in.”
“You’ll go away with me?”
“Yes — at least, I’ll come to you early to-morrow morning. I can’t leave without seeing the master of this house.”
“Gervoise, you are trying to deceive me,” cried the woman, starting up, and grasping at her husband’s wrist; “you are trying to deceive me. I know it by your face; you are as white as death.”
“I’m tired to death,” answered Gervoise; “you may believe me, or not, as you please, Agatha; but I tell you you must leave this house to-night.”
There was a firmness in his tone that seemed like truth. The wretched woman was tired out. Her miserable wanderings hither and thither had enfeebled her constitution,. already impaired by intemperance. She was quite worn out now, and submitted to her husband’s will from sheer want of strength.
“You will promise to come to me the first thing to-morrow morning?” she said.
“Yes, yes.”
“At daybreak?”
“At daybreak.”
“Very well. Remember, if I don’t see you then, I shall come back here after you. I’m not to be put off easily, remember, Gervoise. I’ve suffered enough to make me desperate. How am I to get back to Avondale without you? I don’t know the way.”
“The person who brought you here will take you back again.”
“Who is that man?”
“One of the servants belonging to this place.”
“He’s a strange kind of person. I asked him ever so many questions as we came along about you, and how it was you were living here; but he wouldn’t answer one of them.”
“He was very wise. Come, Agatha.”
The woman gave a weary sigh, and then drew her ragged shawl round her.
“Since you’re so rich, you may as well give me something to buy decent clothes with,” she said sneeringly; “I want them badly enough.”
“I’ll give you anything — everything — to-morrow. Come.” He went into the next room, slowly followed by his wife. Humphrey was standing near an open window waiting for his foster-brother.
“My wife will go back to Avondale wi
th you, Humphrey,” Lord Haughton said.
He led the way out into the little passage, and opened the half-glass door. Agatha went out first, and stood upon the lawn waiting for Humphrey.
“You will want money,” whispered Gervoise in the gamekeeper’s ear; “here is my purse. I will send you more tomorrow.”
He pushed the purse into Humphrey Melwood’s hand, but the young man rejected it.
“I don’t want your money,” he answered, in an angry whisper; “and you know that I don’t.”
He waited for no remonstrance, but stepped out upon the lawn, and taking the woman by the wrist, told her to keep close to him.
“Are we going back the same way we came?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I don’t like that way — it’s dangerous.”
“I’ll take care of you. Come.”
The young man led Agatha Palgrave to the rustic steps in the cliff. Step by step they descended — he first, she behind him — very slowly. The moaning wind that swept along the stream blew coldly in their faces. The frost was beginning to break, and a drizzling rain was falling. Lord Haughton stood in the narrow doorway while those two went down to the path by the river. He could hear their voices as they descended the steep rustic stairs — the woman’s feeble little cries of terror, the man’s gruff answers to those piteous exclamations. Then he heard nothing more except the perpetual sound of the waterfall, roaring with a dismal monotony in the stillness of the night.
The Earl of Haughton went back to the room where he had dined. He sat down by the hearth and replenished the fire, then he went over to the open window and seated himself in the deep oaken window-seat. He sat there with his folded arms resting upon the broad sill, and looked out into the garden, dimly visible in the faint wintry moonlight. He was heedless of the cold wet wind that blew upon his face; he was indifferent to the lateness of the night.
A quarter of an hour after Humphrey and Agatha descended the steps in the cliff a distant sound mingled itself with the mournful moaning of the wind. This time it was not the wind only that sounded in the stillness. This time there was, indeed, the long, dismal wail of a human voice.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 1077
