Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  She wandered on under the fir-trees, whose dark foliage loomed against the fading sunlight like the black plumes in a funeral procession. The wind had risen with the going down of the sun, and the upper branches of the firs tossed to and fro against the low yellow light.

  Ethel shuddered at the image suggested by those waving branches — she shuddered as she thought that perhaps the greatest mercy pitying Heaven could grant to the sinful lord of Palgrave Chase was an early death, which would release him from the dread burden of his guilty shame.

  Her mind was filled with these gloomy thoughts as she wound her way, with a slow, mechanical step, amongst the pine-trees, through an atmosphere that was odorous with their faint incense-like perfume. She walked on, wrapped in her own despair, like some sleepwalker who wanders blindly hither and thither in a painful dream, until she found herself close to the lighted casement of the lodge that was kept by Margery Melwood and her son.

  No mention of this man’s name had dropped from the false lips of Gervoise Palgrave’s accuser. Herr von Volterchoker knew the secret of the poor man’s guilt; but that secret was useless to him, save so far as he could use it against the rich man.

  Ethel knew nothing of Humphrey Melwood, except that he was a handsome, gipsy-faced young man, who was ready to go through fire and water in the service of his foster-brother.

  This was enough to render the loving young wife well disposed to the reformed poacher.

  There was no garden before the lodge; the casement window looked out upon a narrow plot of grass that skirted the drive, and widened into a little shrubbery on one side of the gates. One half of the diamond-paned casement was open this evening as Ethel approached the lodge, for the wind that tossed the fir-trees was a southern wind, and the evening was warm.

  The light within the cottage was the light of a fire, and before that fire there were two figures — two figures that flung great black shadows upon the low ceiling and the whitewashed wall, and seemed to fill the little room with their presence. One of these figures was an old woman, sitting in an armchair, close to the fire; the other was a man — a man with a brown face, glittering black eyes, and tumbled raven hair — a man who was half-lying, half-sitting on the ground, with his face turned towards the fire, and his head resting on the woman’s knee.

  Some instinct, something stronger than her own weak will, led Ethel to this open window. It may have been that a shuddering horror of the loneliness around, the black fir-grove and the darkening sky, had taken possession of her. She went up to the window with slow, weary steps, that were noiseless upon the soft turf; she went up to the window with the intention of speaking to Margery Melwood and her son.

  The young wife, the beautiful heiress of the great ironmaster’s wealth, the happy child, whose girlhood had been one bright holiday, yearned now for the sound of a human voice to break the dreadful silence of her despair.

  She was close beside the little window when she was startled by the sound of her husband’s name. She paused only in the first impulse of surprise, but in that pause, brief though it was, she heard that which rooted her to the spot, as if she had been held there by a hand of iron.

  Humphrey Melwood was speaking. He was speaking to his mother, but he was not looking at her. His gaze was fixed upon the red coals before him, and Ethel saw the firelight reflected in the black depths of his gleaming eyes. The young man’s head still leaned against his mother’s knee: it leaned there, but it did not rest, for every now and then, as Humphrey spoke, he rolled his head from side to side like a wretched, fever-stricken creature who tosses to and fro upon his sleepless pillow. The old woman’s face was bent over her son, and thus completely hidden from Ethel; but from the convulsive movement of her shoulders the watcher knew that Humphrey’s mother was sobbing.

  “Yes, mother,” the young man said, “it was for his sake — for my little foster-brother, Gervoise; for my first friend, Master Gervoise; for my master, the new Earl of Haughton, — it was for him I did it.”

  These were the words that rooted Ethel to the spot on which she stood. She was standing behind the window, close to the wall of the house, and she could hear every word that was spoken within.

  “I’ve kept my secret, mother, and I must keep it to the end. There’s only one man who knows it, and he must have the devil himself for a friend, or else he couldn’t have found it out. That man who came here one night directly after my lord’s wedding — he knows it; and if he speaks and tells what he knows, they’ll hang me, I suppose. It would be almost a charity to do it, for at least that would put me out of my misery.”

  “Why did you do it, Humphrey?” cried the old woman in a stifled voice. “O, why, why did you do this dreadful deed?”

  “Why, mother? Because his happiness depended upon it; because I saw his misery, and the sight of it made me mad. He sent me that night — the night before his marriage — he sent me to fetch the woman at the King’s Head. She was in a loft over the stables asleep, the ostler told me. He showed me to the place, and I went up the steps and found her in the loft. She was lying in a drunken sleep, dressed in her walking clothes, all but her bonnet, which was lying on the ground near her. It wasn’t easy to wake her; but I did wake her at last, and I told her what Master Gervoise had ordered me to tell her. I told her that her husband wanted her.”

  He stopped, and pushed his hair away from his forehead, and stared at the fire in a gloomy silence. Then he went on again in a slow, dreamy way, as if he had been talking to himself rather than to the wretched mother who was listening to him in an agony of grief.

  “I suppose the gipsy blood that’s in me makes me different from other folks. I come of a people that don’t set much value upon their own lives or the lives of their neighbours. This woman stood in my master’s way. That thought was in my mind as I went alone to fetch her; that thought was more than ever in my mind while I was walking back to the Chase, with her by my side. She seemed a sulky kind of woman, and I fancied she was stupefied by the drink she’d taken. This was all I knew of her; but I hated her, for she stood between my master and his hopes of happiness. I took her to the house, and Master Gervoise let us in at the little door close to his own rooms. We went in with him, and he took his wife into the little inner room that’s full of books and such-like, and he left me in the other room, where he had been dining, and where the table was spread with wine and glasses. Master Gervoise had told me to drink some wine, and I sat down by the fire and filled a glass from the decanter that was nearest me. I don’t know what the wine was, but I know that it seemed very good. I went on drinking it till the bottle was empty, and my brain was all on fire when Master Gervoise came in presently alone.”

  He stopped again, and moved his head again, and then went on as he had done before, without once looking up at his mother. The night-wind sweeping past the lodge fluttered Ethel’s dress and shawl, but those within the cottage were too much wrapped in their own thoughts to take heed of the sounds without. So long as the gates remained locked, Margery Melwood fancied herself safe from any eavesdropper. It was not likely that anyone from the house would be prowling about the grounds on that dark cheerless night.

  “Master Gervoise came in to me,” said Humphrey, “and I saw at once, from his face, that all was wrong. He told me that his wife refused to go away; and he told me with the same breath that no power on earth should hinder him from keeping his engagement with Miss Hurst. There was a good deal more said; but it all came to that, first and last. The woman refused to leave England, and Gervoise swore that he would be the husband of the girl he loved. It was then that the black thought grew up in my mind; it was then that I resolved to save my master from misery and disgrace.”

  “But he asked you?” cried Margery Melwood; “he tempted you to do it?”

  “By no word, mother; by neither word nor look. He did not tempt me; it was my own love for him that tempted me. But he knew what I was going to do.”

  “He knew it?”

  “Yes, mot
her, as well as I knew the thought that was in my own mind. He knew what I meant to do, and he never bade me hold my hand. Heaven help him, and Heaven pity me! I think we were both mad that night, mother. Do you know what dreams are — those dreadful dreams in which one gropes about in the dark upon the edge of a horrible precipice, pushed on against one’s own will by a man whose face is hidden? That night seemed to me like one of those dreams. I knew what my master wanted: he wanted to get rid of that woman somehow or other; and I knew that he had only me to help him. I told him that I would get her away, safely out of the way, and that all should be right. He knew what I meant, mother. I saw it in his face; I heard it in his voice when he spoke to the woman.”

  There was a pause; and in the silence Ethel heard the southern wind sighing amongst the fir-trees, the dropping of the ashes on the hearth, and Margery Melwood’s voice moaning faintly, “O my son, my son — my wretched, guilty son!”

  “I was to take the woman back to Avondale. That was what my master said to her. He would send for her, or go himself to fetch her — I forget which he said — the following morning. To me that to-morrow morning seemed as far off as the end of the world. Master Gervoise said something to me about money. I should want money, he said, to get the woman out of the way — making believe to think there’d be the expenses of her journey, and such-like; but I knew by his shaking voice that he was telling a lie. He let us out at the little door by which he had admitted us a couple of hours before; and we went across the flower-garden, and down the steps in the cliff, the woman clinging to me as she felt her way upon the slippery stairs. I held her arm as we went along by the side of the water. She pleaded very hard to go the other way, by the high-road; she was afraid of that narrow path by the water. She pleaded very hard. O my God, I can hear her voice in my ears at this moment; I have heard it always — ever since that night! And yet I live, mother — I live, I live!”

  The young man stopped, and for the first time since Ethel had begun to watch him he covered his face with his brawny hands, and gave way to a paroxysm of grief. He went on at last, but in a broken voice, and with a wild terror in his great black eyes:

  “I took her down by the lonely pathway, mother; but I couldn’t do it at first. I hadn’t the heart to do it, though I fancied there were voices in the rushing of the water that kept crying to me that I was a coward, and that it ought to be done at once. I led her along the river-bank, not towards Avondale, but the other way, across the meadows betwixt this place and Pendon churchyard. Poor creature! she was a stranger, and she fancied I was leading her right until we got very far towards Pendon, and then she cried out that I was taking her the wrong way, that I was leading her into some lonely place where she would lose herself. I turned back when she said this, and we went towards the Chase again; but still I hadn’t the heart to do what it was in my mind to do. So presently I asked her if she would go abroad, ever the sea to America, or somewhere. I asked her if any sum of money would tempt her to do this; but she answered me in an obstinate, sulky way, and told me that nothing on earth would tempt her to leave Avondale unless her husband went with her. ‘ He has deserted me once,’ she said, in the same determined way, ‘and he shall never abandon me again while I live!’ I told her that she was a very foolish woman, and that if she cared for her own safety, for the safety of her life, she had best give way, and do what she was asked to do. God help me, mother! When I said this I wanted to give her a chance; I wanted to save her. I think I would have given my own life if I could have served my foster-brother without doing the wicked deed that was in my mind. If she had been a man, and had provoked me, and we had fallen upon one another, each of us with a knife in his hand, I would have held the sin of bloodshed light enough; but she was a woman, and we were alone together in the darkness, she clinging to me as we groped along the slippery path, and there was not a creature near to help her. I gave her that one chance. I told her if she cared for the safety of her life she would do well to give way, and not provoke Gervoise Palgrave; but she told me that her life was of little value to her, for she was a miserable wretch, and that her chief motive for living was the hope of being revenged on the man who had deserted her. Three times I gave her the same warning; three times she answered me in the same words and in the same tone; till at last she provoked me, and I put my hands upon her shoulders and held her rooted to the slippery ground, close upon the edge of the water. ‘I am going to kill you!’ I said; ‘you are as obstinate as death; but you shall never stand in the way of my master’s happiness.’ She gave a long, horrible scream, and clutched with her thin fingers at the scarf that was tied round my neck. I feel her fingers dragging at me now, mother — it is very seldom that I do not feel them — and their frozen touch creeps to my very heart, and seems to stop its beating. I pushed her backwards, her feet slipped upon the mossy ground, and she fell with a great splash into the water. I didn’t stop to see how she fell, or when she sank. I ran away, and ran with all my might; but her scream rang in my ears as I went, and the air seemed filled with the sound of it. I ran for upwards of a mile, and then I stopped and drew breath. I walked on again, and walked till morning, following every twist and turn of the river, until about an hour before daybreak, when I came in sight of a village called Renthorpe. You know it, I daresay, mother: it’s full seventeen miles from here. I found a little public-house — a humble little place, called the Hen and Chickens — where I sat all day drinking and smoking. You remember the 1st of March, Lord Haughton’s wedding-day; and you remember my coming home late at night, mother, with my boots and gaiters all stained with clay and mud?”

  “Yes, yes; I remember, I remember,” the old woman moaned. “I remember that night — too well, too well.”

  Humphrey Melwood staggered to his feet, and took his hat from a peg behind the little door that closed upon the staircase.

  “I’ve told yon all the story now, mother; and now yon know the reason of the change in me. I’ve been a wicked, guilty wretch; but what’s worst of all to me is, that my wretchedness doesn’t seem to have done any good to him I wanted to serve. I was up at the house this morning, in the hope of seeing my lord; but though it was close upon midday he hadn’t left his room, and his valet told me that he didn’t think his master would live to see harvest-time. I’m going out now, mother; don’t sit up for me if I’m late.”

  “Where are yon going, Humphrey?” the old woman asked entreatingly.

  “You know, mother, as well as I do.”

  “O Humphrey, Humphrey, you’re going to the public-house again!”

  “I’m going to the only place where I can buy forgetfulness!” the young man answered fiercely, jingling some money in the loose pocket of his velveteen shooting-jacket. “Don’t hinder me, mother, unless you want to see me mad. You’ve questioned and watched me, to [find out what was the matter with me. You know all about it now, and you know why I’ve turned sot and idler, at the very time when folks were beginning to talk of Humphrey Melwood’s growing an honest industrious fellow after all.”

  The young man opened the door, and went out upon the gravel drive. Ethel drew herself against the wall, between the door and window, and though Humphrey brushed against her dress as he passed her, he was quite unconscious of her presence. He unlocked the gates, opened one of them, and went out into the road, banging the gate behind him as he went.

  The wretched wife crept slowly away from the place where she had heard the story of her husband’s secret. To some women it might have been a relief to know that the hand they loved was free from actual guilt. But it was not so to Ethel. To her it was no comfort to know that another had done the fatal deed, since it had been done for his sake, and he had failed to intercede for the victim by so much as a word, by so much as a look.

  But was this so? Was she to accept Humphrey Melwood’s condemnation of the man she loved? Alas, yes; for Humphrey’s confession had only confirmed the mute revelation which Gervoise had already made of his guilt. The fitful colour in his face, th
e feverish sparkle in his eyes, the restless gaiety, the sudden fits of gloom — to Ethel’s innocent mind these signs had been all incomprehensible until to-day. But she had the clue to the secret now; and she looked back and saw that, from the hour of the marriage in Pendon Church, her husband’s mind had been haunted by the shadow of his victim.

  CHAPTER XXI. IDENTIFIED.

  STEPHEN HURST went to work very quietly to investigate the wild accusation made by Herr von Volterchoker. It was a strange position for him to occupy, since, in so doing, he was acting as the friend of the man who, of all other men, he had most reason to dislike. But it was a part of his compact with Ethel, since to serve her husband was to do her double service.

  “O, how she loves him!” the young man thought. “How tenderly she loves him!”

  After sitting in his study for upwards of an hour, thinking over the business before him, and deliberating on the course which he ought to pursue, the young man went to his father’s lawyer, Mr. Warboys, of Avondale — an elderly man, who was the very personification of gravity and silence, and who might safely have been trusted with the state secrets of a nation.

  To this gentleman Stephen Hurst delegated the task of watching the man who called himself Yokes, and lodged at the Rose and Crown at Pendon. The lawyer set his confidential clerk to watch Mr. Yokes’s present movements, and, if possible, he was to obtain some information about the stranger’s past history.

  Having thus secured the help of a very powerful ally, Stephen was able to leave Warwickshire. He went to London by an evening train, which reached the Euston terminus at half-past ten o’clock. He slept at an hotel close to the station, and early the next morning took a preparatory step towards investigating the details of Gervoise Palgrave’s marriage, supposing the Gervoise Palgrave of the marriage certificate exhibited by Ethel’s visitor to be one and the same with Gervoise Palgrave, Earl of Haughton.