For some moments there was silence. Then, in a voice that was subdued and yet resolute, Ethel asked:
“Why do you come to me with this story?”
“Because you are the person most interested in Lord Haughton’s welfare, and it is with you I must come to an understanding as to whether I am to keep this matter secret, or do my duty, and see Gervoise Palgrave’s dead wife avenged.”
“No, sir,” answered Stephen Hurst, crossing the threshold of the inner room as he spoke, “it is not with Lady Haughton, but with me, that you must come to an understanding.”
At the sudden aspect of this young man, who entered the room with his head erect, and his eyes flashing with indignant fire, the valiant Herr von Volterchoker faltered a little; but he recovered himself quickly enough, and it was in a tone of supreme insolence that he said:
“You have listeners, then, hanging about your rooms, it seems, Lady Haughton?”
“No, sir,” answered Stephen; “but on this occasion Lady Haughton happened to have her friend and kinsman near at hand when she had most need of his service.”
Herr von Volterchoker seemed rather discomposed by this speech.
Ethel tottered forward a few paces, and flung herself on the ground at her cousin’s feet.
“This is not true,” she cried, “this cannot be true. O Stephen, speak to me, for pity’s sake; give me some comfort, for this man has almost driven me mad — say that it is not true.”
“I do not believe that he has spoken the whole truth, Ethel,” Stephen replied, raising the distracted girl from the ground. “He may have spoken some of the truth, perhaps; and a little truth eked out by a good deal of falsehood makes the terrible machinery by which many a man has paid the penalty of crimes he never committed. Sit down, Ethel; sit down, and calm yourself. Let me talk to this man.”
“This man has a name as well as other men,” observed Mr. Vokes insolently, “and you may as well call him by it while you’re about it. My name’s Yokes, at your service — William Yokes.”
He flung himself upon a low couch near the window as he spoke, and stretched out his long legs; but he was by no means as much at home as he had been before Stephen’s appearance, though he tried to carry off his lurking uneasiness by a little extra swagger.
“Why have you come here with this story about Lord Haughton?” Stephen asked, in a calm business-like tone. “If you’re an honest man, and want to use your information in the interests of society, why don’t you go straight to the nearest magistate and tell him what you suspect?”
“O Stephen,” cried Ethel, “is this the way you help me?” But the young rector took no notice of this interruption. He never removed his eyes from Herr von Volterchoker’s face.
“If you’re an honest man, take your suspicions to the proper quarter,” he said; “don’t bring them here.”
“But suppose I’m not an honest man,” returned Mr. Yokes, folding his arms and confronting Stephen with an air of spurious confidence. “Suppose I’m not an honest man — at any rate, no more honest than the generality of my species. Suppose I want to turn my information to good account, for my own benefit, and not for the advantage of society at large. How if, having found this secret, I’m prepared to sell it in the best market? How then?”
“Then yon are a scoundrel,” answered Stephen, “and we must deal with you as a scoundrel.”
“Very probably. But it sometimes happens that a scoundrel picks up a big diamond, and the precious stone’s worth just as much as if it had been picked up by the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
“But how if the pretended diamond is only a bit of glass, Mr. Yokes? How if your secret is no secret, but merely a concoction of your own lively brain?”
“I can prove one part of it in half a second,” answered Mr. Vokes; “I can prove that Gervoise Palgrave was married before he married his present wife, for I have the certificate of his first marriage in my pocket.”
He took out his pocket-book as he spoke, selected the certificate from several other papers, walked to where Stephen Hurst was seated, and held the document open before him while he read it.
“This paper certifies the marriage of Gervoise Palgrave with one Agatha Pickshaw,” said Stephen very coolly; “but how do I know that the Gervoise Palgrave here named was Gervoise Palgrave, Lord Haughton?”
There was rather an awkward pause after this. Ethel watched the two men breathlessly, with a terrible interest in every word that was spoken.
“O, as for that,” exclaimed Herr von Volterchoker, “that’s easy enough to prove.”
“Possibly; but it remains to be proved. People are not found guilty of murder upon very slight evidence nowadays, and the evidence you have to bring against Lord Haughton isn’t strong enough to hang a dog.”
Mr. Vokes put the certificate in his pocket. He sat down again, and amused himself by gnawing his finger-nails furiously, like a savage cur mumbling a stolen bone. It had been easy enough to frighten a loving woman, who was ready to take alarm at the first whisper of danger to the man she loved; but it was a very different matter to confront this self-possessed young parson, who seemed to have all his wits about him.
“Perhaps I had better try to dispose of my information elsewhere,” the clown said presently.
He was white with suppressed rage, and he trembled as he spoke.
“I really think you had,” Stephen replied, with consummate politeness; “your information has had no effect here but to occasion causeless alarm in Lady Haughton’s mind.”
“Very well, sir,” answered the clown, with a savage sneer; “I make no doubt I shall find a market for my secret. I told Lady Haughton that I possessed the proof of her husband’s guilt; she will know that I have spoken the truth — when it is too late.”
He put on his hat and went towards the door.
“Stephen,” cried Ethel passionately, “you will never surely let this man go?”
“If his secret is worth buying, I will pay him for it,” Stephen said quietly. “I don’t believe that it is; but if I am hasty in coming to that conclusion, let Mr. Yokes meet me at my lawyer’s office to-morrow at two o’clock. I shall be ready to hear anything he may have to say.”
“I shall not condescend to enter into any negotiation with you, sir,” answered Mr. Yokes. “When next I discuss this business it will be with the Earl of Haughton himself.”
Upon this the clown stalked away, followed by Stephen, who saw Mr. Yokes to the staircase, and committed him to the care of one of the lounging footmen always to be found in the neighbourhood of the hall.
The young man then went back to Ethel. She was standing near the window, pale, but very calm. She had wiped the tears from her swollen eyelids, but the expression of her face was more piteous than if it had been drowned in tears.
“Stephen,” she said imploringly, “since you have heard what this man has said, I can only look to you for help. I know that it is not true — it cannot be true; but I look to yon to protect my husband from this man. There may be some secret — some cloud upon his past life; and if it is so, I am ready to bear my part of the burden. I love him so dearly, that if there is suffering to be endured, I would bear it willingly for his sake. I would bear it gladly, if by so doing I could save him one pang.”
Stephen turned to the window and looked out at the sloping shrubberies as Ethel said this. How vainly he had yearned for this girl’s love, and the supreme blessing had been withheld from him to be given so freely to Gervoise Palgrave, the handsome stranger, the chance acquaintance of a few weeks! Even to his Christian patience it seemed a hard thing; but he had promised to be her faithful and constant friend, and he was prepared to perform his promise unflinchingly.
“The man who has just gone away from this house is a scoundrel and a swindler, Ethel,” he said presently. “I watched his face just now, while I was talking to him. He has no fatal secret to dispose of. I saw the coward under the mask of the braggart: there is nothing to be feared from him.
But there may be some half-truth in what he has said. The certificate of marriage which he showed me may actually relate to some early marriage of your husband.”
“But why should Gervoise conceal that marriage from me?”
“The union may have been unhappy, or so humble a marriage that Lord Haughton was too proud to speak of it.”
“I cannot think that,” Ethel said mournfully. “I cannot think that Gervoise would disavow his wife.”
Stephen was silent. He remembered the period before Ethel’s marriage, and he remembered how Lord Haughton had for a considerable time refrained from any declaration of his love, after that affection had become an obvious fact to every observer. Did not this in some manner bear out the stranger’s assertion that Gervoise Palgrave’s first wife had only died within a very short time of his marriage with Ethel? Stephen was too generous to reveal such thoughts as these to the unhappy wife, who so early needed his consolation and support.
“Do not let this man’s slanders disturb you, Ethel,” he said. “It will be for me to sift this business quietly, without prejudice to Lord Haughton’s interests. In the mean time I beg you to banish the affair from your mind.”
“I will try to do so, for my husband’s sake.”
“He is very ill, then?”
“Yes, very ill. He was ill when he left Paris, and he seems much worse this morning. I never thought I should have so sad a welcome to Palgrave Chase. I look to you for help, Stephen. You promised to be my friend, and I bitterly need your friendship. I must say good-bye now, for I must go and see if Gervoise wants me. Will you stay and dine with us, Stephen?”
Mr. Hurst declined this invitation.
“I shall be of more use to you elsewhere, Ethel,” he said. “I want to think this matter over very quietly before I decide how I shall act in your behalf.”
He took Lady Haughton’s cold hand in his own, and pressed it tenderly.
“God bless you, Ethel!” he said. “If unselfish wishes could help you, you would not long be unhappy.”
He went back to his pretty parsonage at Pendon, and shut himself in the little room which he made his study. He made a pencil memorandum of the particulars of the marriage certificate, and jotted down the name of the bride, Agatha Pickshaw, and the name of the church at which the marriage had taken place. The church was Saint Margaret’s, Westminster.
“My first step must be to find out if the Gervoise Palgrave mentioned in this document is Gervoise Palgrave, Lord Haughton,” thought the young man; “and my next step shall be to inquire into the character of Gervoise Palgrave’s accuser.”
CHAPTER XX. HUMPHREY’S CONFESSION.
ETHEL went straight to her husband’s room after Stephen Hurst had left her. Gervoise had risen now, and was sitting near the fire in his study, pale and haggard-looking, wrapped in a long dark velvet dressing-gown, and with his unkempt hair falling in disorder upon his forehead. He looked up as his wife entered the room, and held out his hand to her.
“I thought you were out, my darling,” he said.
“No, Gervoise, I have been home a long time; but—”
“You have had visitors, I suppose?”
“Yes,” Ethel answered, hesitating a little; “Stephen Horst has been with me.”
“That’s strange.”
“Why strange, dear Gervoise?”
“Because I have just sent one of the grooms to fetch his father, and Mr. Warboys.”
“To fetch Mr. Warboys the lawyer!” cried Laura; “what do you want with him, Gervoise?”
Lord Haughton sighed.
“If I were to tell you, my pet, you would be unhappy,” he said. “You are too good for me, Ethel, too bright and beautiful. Happiness has very rarely reigned at Palgrave Chase, my darling, and when she enters her reign is never long. I think the house is doomed, Ethel, and all who dwell in it.”
“Gervoise — Gervoise!”
The frightened girl fell on her knees by her husband’s side. Doubt and fear took possession of her. She saw some vague confirmation of the stranger’s fearful accusations in her husband’s manner, and she trembled from head to foot as she knelt by his side.
“O Gervoise,” she cried piteously, “it can’t be true — it can’t be true! Tell me that it is not true!”
Lord Haughton turned his haggard eyes upon his wife’s face.
“What do you mean, Ethel?”
She did not answer him at first, but she still knelt at his feet, looking up at his white, careworn face. She looked at him and saw something more than physical weakness or physical pain in those wan and altered lineaments. She pitied him with all her woman’s heart, with all the force of her pure and noble soul, and yet something within her, stronger than her own will, seemed to urge her on to sound the depths of those secret thoughts that had been so carefully hidden from her.
“Gervoise,” she said in a low voice, and then she went on speaking very slowly, and with her innocent eyes fixed upon her husband’s face as she spoke, “Gervoise, I had a dreadful dream last night, and the remembrance of it haunts me to-day. I dreamt that a man came to me, a man whose face I had never seen before, and spoke to me of you. O Gervoise, he told me that there was a blight upon our wedding morning, and that the shadow of death came between us and divided us when we should have been happiest and most united. He told me this, and then he led me out from this house into the dark night, and led me on until we came to a stream of black, troubled water, and on the flat shore beside that troubled river there lay the body of a woman, drowned, Gervoise — drowned, poor wretched creature. The moon had been hidden by the clouds until that moment, but in that moment the clouds swept away, and I saw the woman’s face. Shall I tell you whose face it was, Gervoise? It was the face of the woman who stopped your horse in Avondale market-place on the day before our wedding.”
Gervoise Palgrave groaned aloud, and hid his face upon his wife’s breast. Her arms crept round him, and held him there; not perhaps with their old impulsive love and confidence, but with the sheltering tenderness of a mother who clings to the child she loves — the child from whom no guilt, however black or horrible, can alienate her unreasoning affection.
“It is all true, then,” the wretched wife murmured to herself, in a low, broken voice, while her husband’s face was hidden upon her shoulder, “it is all true; and there is nothing left for me upon this earth except to comfort and pity him.” Her husband’s head grew heavier and heavier as it lay upon her shoulder.
She tried to lift it, and could not; and then, in a sudden panic, screamed aloud for help.
Lord Haughton’s valet came rushing in at the sound of that terrified voice.
“O, look at him, help him!” Ethel cried; “his face is as white as death. He is dying!”
But the servant reassured her. His lordship had only fainted, the man said. He brought cold water and hartshorn. Gervoise Palgrave’s eyes opened presently, and he stared about him with a faint convulsive shudder. The valet led his master into the adjoining room and persuaded him to lie down.
Ethel stood near the fireplace in the study, staring blankly at the burning coals. It seemed to her as if the powers of her mind were paralysed. She could not realise the full horror of her position. She knew that it was horrible, and that was all. She knew that her husband was guilty, since he had tacitly confessed his guilt. She knew that he was guilty, and that she loved him in spite of his guilt.
She went into the adjoining room presently and would have seated herself beside the bed upon which Gervoise was lying; but the valet whispered to her that Dr. Wilmington, the Birmingham physician, bad specially ordered rest and quiet for his patient. He was to be kept alone, and was to sleep as much as possible. The recovery of his physical strength entirely hinged upon the perfect repose of his mind.
Ethel bowed her head submissively and went away to the pretty dressing-room, in which modern elegance was blended exquisitely with the quaint grandeur of the past — the room which had been prepared f
or a happy wife, and in which a miserable woman flung herself upon her knees, and wept aloud for her guilty husband.
She wept and prayed for him; she tried to think of the nature of his guilt, but she could not. Her love came between his image and the crime which she believed him to have committed, and she could not realise the extent of his wickedness. She remained for hours half kneeling, half lying beside a prie-dieu chair in her dressing-room. The tears poured in torrents at first, and then dried and left her eyes bloodshot and haggard. Sometimes her lips moved in passionate prayer and supplication for the guilty creature to whom her heart so obstinately clung; at other times she sank into a kind of stupor, in which she had only a vagué sense of some overwhelming grief which had suddenly darkened her life.
She remained thus until the low western sunlight glowed redly upon her window, and flecked the oaken wainscot with crimson brightness. Then she rose half mechanically, and drew a shawl round her, for the fire had burnt itself out, and she was cold and shivering.
The broad window of her dressing-room was ajar, and beyond the window there was an iron balcony, and a light iron stair leading down into the flower-garden, below which the waterfall rushed over the mossy crags and boulders. With her shawl wrapped closely round her, Ethel went slowly down the iron steps, and across the smooth turf, winding in and out amongst the beds of bright flowers, until she came to the steps in the side of the river-bank — the rugged steps down which Gervoise Palgrave’s first wife had gone to her death, on the bleak, starless eve of Ethel’s wedding-day.
The young countess little knew whose footsteps had trodden the pathway she was now following. She went down the rugged mossy steps, and across a little rustic wooden bridge that spanned the waterfall. She went mechanically, scarcely knowing whither she went, wandering anywhere in the agonised restlessness of her grief.
The gray twilight was creeping over the sky, and the low streaks of vivid crimson in the west grew lurid in the gathering darkness, and glinted upon the black trunks of the trees like splashes of wet blood; so, at least, it seemed to Ethel, to whose tortured mind all common things assumed strange, distorted images.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 1083
