Why was he not a little more or a little less wicked? If the latter, he might never have been in his present fix. If the other, he might find a short way out of the thicket— “hew his way out with a bloody axe” — and none but those whose secrecy he might rely on be the wiser!
Avaunt, horrible shadows! Such beckoning phantoms from the abyss were not tempters, but simply terrors. No, he was far more likely to load a pistol, put the muzzle in his mouth, and blow his harrassed brains out.
CHAPTER XVI.
AN ABDUCTION.
So far as a man not very resolute can be said to have made up his mind to anything, Charles Fairfield had quite made up his, driven thus fairly into a corner, to fight his battle now, and decisively. He would hold no terms and offer no compromise. Let her do her worst. She had found out his secret. Oh! brother Harry, had you played him false? And she had quoted your opinion against him. Had you been inflaming this insane enemy with an impracticable confidence?
Well, no matter, now; all the better, perhaps. There was already an end of concealment between that enemy and himself, and soon would be of suspense.
“God help me! at the eve of what an abyss I stand. That wretched woman, poor as she is, and nearly mad, in a place like London she’ll be certain to find lawyers only too glad to take up her case, and force me to a trial — first, a trial to prove a marriage and make costs of me, and then, Heaven knows what more; and the publicity, and the miserable uncertainty; and Alice, poor little Alice. Merciful Heaven! what had she done to merit this long agony and possible ruin?”
He peeped into the dining-room as he passed, but all was there as he had left it. Alice had not been in it. So at the kitchen door he knocked.
“Who’s there? Is anyone there?”
Encouraged by his voice old Dulcibella answered from within. The door was opened, and he entered.
A few moments’ silence, except for Alice’s murmured and sobbing welcome, a trembling, close embrace, and he said, with a gentle look, in a faint tone —
“Alice, darling, I have no good news to tell. Everything has gone wrong with me, and we must leave this. Let Dulcibella go up and get such things as are necessary to take with you; but, Dulcibella, mind you tell nobody your mistress is leaving this. And, Alice, you’ll come with me. We’ll go where they can neither follow nor trace us; and let fate do its worst. We may be happier yet in our exile than ever we were at home. And when they have banished me they have done their worst.”
His tenderness for Alice, frozen for a time, had returned. As she clung to him, her large, soft gray eyes looking up in his face so piteously moved him. He had intended a different sort of speech — colder, dryer — and under the spell of that look had come this sudden gush of a better feeling — the fond clasp of his arm, and the hurried kiss he pressed upon her cheek.
“I said, Alice, happier, happier, darling, a thousandfold. For the present I speak in riddles. You have seen how miserable I am. I’ll tell you everything by-and-by. A conspiracy, I do believe, an unnatural conspiracy, that has worn out my miserable brain and spirits, and harassed me to death. I’ll tell you all time enough, and you’ll say it is a miracle I have borne it as I do. Don’t look so frightened, you poor little thing. We are perfectly safe; I’m in no real danger, but harassed incessantly — only harassed, and that, thank God, shall end.”
He kissed her again very tenderly, and again; and he said —
“You and Dulcibella shall go on. Clinton will drive you to Hatherton, and there you’ll get horses and post on to Cranswell, and I will overtake you there. I must go now and give him his directions, and I may as well leave you this note. I wrote it yesterday. You must have some money — there is some in it, and the names of the places, and we’ll be there tonight. And what is it, darling? You look as if you wished to ask me something.”
“I — I was going to ask — but I thought perhaps I ought not until you can tell me everything — but you spoke of a conspiracy, and I was going to ask whether that dreadful woman who got into my room has anything to do with it.”
“Nonsense, child, that is a miserable mad woman;” he laughed dismally. “Just wait a little, and you shall know all I know myself.”
“She’s not to stay here, I mean, of course, if anything should prevent our leaving this to-day.”
“Why should you fancy that?” he asked, a little enigmatically.
“Mrs. Tarnley said she was going to the madhouse.”
“We’ll see time enough, you shall see her no more,” he said, and away he went, and she saw him pass by the window and out of the yard. And now she had leisure to think how ill he was looking, or rather to remember how it had struck her when he had appeared at the door. Yes, indeed, worn out and harassed to death. Thank God, he was now to escape from that misery, and to secure the repose which it was only too obvious he needed.
Dulcibella returned with such things as she thought indispensable, and she and her mistress were soon in more animated discussion than they had engaged in since the scenes of the past night.
Charles Fairfield had to make a call at farmer Chubbs to persuade him to lend his horse, about which he made a difficulty. It was not far up the glen towards Church Carwell, but when he came back he found the Grange again in a new confusion.
When Charles Fairfield, ascending the steep and narrow road which under tall trees darkly mounts from the Glen of Carwell to the plateau under the grey walls of the Grange, had reached that sylvan platform, he saw there, looking in the direction of Cressley Common, in that dim, religious light, Tom Clinton, in his fustian jacket, scratching his head and looking, it seemed, with interest, after some receding object. A little behind him, similarly engrossed, stood old Mildred Tarnley, with her hand above her eyes, though there was little need of artificial shade in that solemn grove, and again, a little to her rear, peeped broad-shouldered Lilly Dogger, standing close to the threshold of the yard door.
Tom Clinton was first to turn about, and sauntering slowly toward the house, he spoke something to Mrs. Tarnley, who, waiting till he reached her, turned about in the same direction, and talking gravely, and looking over their shoulders, as people sometimes do in the direction in which a runaway horse has disappeared, they came to a standstill at the door, under the great ash-tree, whose columnar stem is mantled with thick ivy, and there again looking back, the little girl leaning and listening, unheeded, against the doorpost, the group remained in conference.
Had Charles Fairfield been in his usual state of mind his curiosity would have been piqued by an appearance of activity so unusual in his drowsy household. As it was, he cared not, but approached, looking down upon the road with his hands in his pockets listlessly.
Mrs. Tarnley whispered something to Tom and jogged him in the ribs, looking all the time at the approaching figure of Charles Fairfield.
The master of the Grange approached, looked up, and saw Tom standing near, with the air of one who had something to say. Mrs. Tarnley had drawn back, a little doubtful possibly, of the effect on his nerves.
“Well, Tom Chubbs will lend the horse,” said Charles. “We’ll go round to the stable, I’ve a word to say.”
Tom touched his hat, still looking in his face with an inquiring and ominous expression.
“Do you want to say anything particular, Tom?” asked his master, with a sudden foreboding of some new ill.
“Nothing, sir, but Squire Rodney of Wrydell, has come over from Wykeford.”
“He’s here — is he?” asked Charles, paler on a sudden.
“He’s gone, sir, please.”
“Gone, is he? Well, well, there’s not much in that.”
“’Twas only, sir, that he brought two men wi’ him.”
“Do you mean? — you don’t mean — what men did he bring?”
“Well, they was constable folk, I believe, they must a’ bin, for they made an arrest.”
“A what, do you mean?”
“He made out a writin’, and he ‘ad me in, and questioned
me, but I’d nout to tell, sir, and he asked where you was, and I told him, as you ordered I was to say, you was gone, and he took the mistress’s her story, and made her make oath on’t, and the same wi’ the others — Mrs. Tarnley, and the little girl, and the blind woman, she be took up for murder, or I don’t know for what, only he said he could not take no bail for her, so they made her sure, and has took her off, I do suppose, to Wykeford pris’n.”
“Of course, that’s right, I suppose, all right, eh?” Charles looked as if he was going to drop to the earth, so leaden was his hue, and so meaningless the stare with which he looked in Tom’s face.
“But — but — who sent for him? I didn’t. D —— you, who sent for him? ’Twasn’t I. And — and who’s master here? Who the devil sent for that meddling rascal from Wykeford?”
Charles’s voice had risen to a roar as he shook Tom furiously by the collar.
Springing back a bit, Tom answered, with his hand grasping his collar where the squire had just clutched him.
“I don’t know, I didn’t, and I don’t believe no one did. It’s a smart run from here across the common. I don’t believe no one sent from the Grange — I’m sure no one went from this — not a bit, not a toe, not a soul, I’m sure and certain.”
“What’s this, what’s this, what the devil’s all this, Tom?” said the squire, stamping, and shaking his fist in the air, like a man distracted.
“Why did you let her go — why did you let them take her — d —— you? I’ve a mind to pitch you over that cliff and smash you.”
“Well, sir,” said Tom, making another step or two back, and himself pale and stern now, with his open hand raised, partly in deprecation, “where’s the good o’ blamin’ me? what could I do wi’ the law again me, and how could I tell what you’d think, and ‘twarn’t no one from this sent for him, not one, but news travels a-pace, and who’s he can stop it? — not me, nor you,” said Tom, sturdily, “and he just come over of his own head, and nabbed her.”
“My God! It’s done. I thought you would not have allowed me to be trampled on, and the place insulted; I took ye for a man, Tom. Where’s my horse — by heaven, I’ll have him. I’ll make it a day’s work he’ll remember. That d —— Rodney, coming down to my house with his catchpoles, to pay off old scores, and insult me.”
With his fist clenched and raised, Charles Fairfield ran furiously round to the stable yard, followed cautiously by Tom Clinton.
CHAPTER XVII.
PURSUIT.
Having her own misgivings as to the temper in which her master would take this coup of the arrest, Mildred Tarnley prudently kept her own counsel, and retreated nearly to the kitchen door, while the éclaircissement took place outside. Popping in and out to see what would come of it, old Mildred affected to be busy about her mops and tubs. After a time, in came Tom, looking sulky and hot.
“Is he comin’ this way?” asked Mildred.
“Not him,” answered Tom.
“Where is he?”
“‘Twixt this and Wykeford,” he answered, “across the common he’s ridin’.”
“To Wykeford, hey?”
“To Wykeford, every foot, if he don’t run him down on the way; and when they meet — him and Squire Rodney— ‘twill be hot and shrewd work between them, I tell ye. I’d a rid wi’ him myself if there was a beast to carry me, for three agin one is too long odds.”
“Ye don’t mean to tell me!” exclaimed Mildred, planting her mop perpendicularly on the ground, and leaning immovably on this sceptre.
“Tell ye what?”
“There’s goin’ to be rough work like that on the head o’t?”
“Hot blood, ma’am. Ye know the Fairfields. They folk don’t stand long jawin’. It’s like when the blood’s up the hand’s up too.”
“And what’s he to fight for — not that blind beldame, sure?”
“I want my mug o’ beer,” said Tom, turning the conversation.
“Yes, sure,” she said, “yes, ye shall have it. But what for should master Charles go to wry words wi’ Squire Rodney, and what for should there be blows and blood spillin’ between ‘em? Nonsense!”
“I can’t help ‘em. I’d lend master a hand if I could. Squire Rodney’s no fool neither— ‘twill e’en be fight dog, fight bear — and there’s two stout lads wi’ him will make short work o’t.”
“Ye don’t think he’s like to be hurt, do ye?”
“Well, ye know, they say fightin’ dogs comes haltin’ home. He’s as strong as two, that’s all, and has a good nag under him. Now gi’e me my beer.”
“‘Twon’t be nothin’, Tom, don’t you think, Tom? It won’t come to nothin’?”
“If he comes up wi’ them ‘twill be an up-and-down fight, I take it. ’Twas an unlucky maggot bit him.”
“Bit who?”
“What but the Divil brought Squire Rodney over here?”
“Who knows?” answered the dame, fumbling in her pocket for the key of the beer-cellar— “I’m goin’ to fetch your beer, Tom.”
And away she went, and in a minute returned with his draught of beer.
“And I think,” she said, setting it down before him, “’twas well done, taking that beast to her right place, do it who might. She’s just a bedlam Bess — clean out o’ her wits wi’ wickedness — mad wi’ drink and them fits she has. We knows here what she is, and bloody work she’d a made last night wi’ that poor young lady, that’ll never be the same again — the old limb — and master himself, though he’s angered a bit because Justice Rodney did not ask his leave to catch a murderer, if ye please, down here at the Grange!”
“There’s more in it, mayhap, than just that,” said Tom, blowing the froth off his beer.
“To come down here without with your leave or by your leave, to squat in the Grange here like gipsey would on Cressley Common, as tho’ she was lady of all — to hurt who she pleased, and live as she liked. More in’t than that, ye say, what more?”
“Hoot, how should I know? Mayhap she thinks she’s as good a right as another to a bit and a welcome down here.”
“She was here before — years enough gone now, and long enough she stayed, and cost a pretty penny, too, I warrant you. Them was more tired of her than me — guest ever, welcome never, they say. She was a play-actor, or something, long ago — a great idle huzzy, never would earn a honest penny, nor do nothing useful, all her days.”
“Ay, Joan reels ill and winds worse, and de’il a stomach she has to spin — that’ll be the way wi’ her, I swear — ha, ha, ha. She’ll not be growin’ richer, I warrant — left in the mud and found in the mire — they folk knows nout o’ thrift, and small luck and less good about ‘em.”
“If ye heard her talk, Tom, ye’d soon know what sort she is, always cravin’ — she would not leave a body a shillin’ if she could help it.”
“Ay, I warrant, women, priests, and poultry have never enough,” said Tom. “I know nout about her, nor who she’s a lookin’ after here, but she’s safe enough now I take it; and bloody folks, they say, digs their own graves. But as I said, I knows nout about her, and I say nout, and he that judges as he runs may owertake repentance.”
“’Tis easy judgin’ here, I’m thinkin’. Killin’ and murder’s near akin, and when Mr. Charles cools a bit, he’ll thank Squire Rodney for riddin’ his house of that blind serpent. ’Tis somethin’ to be so near losing his wife. So sure as your hand’s on that mug it would a’ bin done while the cat’s lickin’ her ear if he had not bounced in on the minute, and once dead, dead as Adam.”
“Who loseth his wife and sixpence hath lost a tester, they do say,” answered Tom, with a laugh.
“None but a born beast would say so!” said Mildred Tarnley, with a swarthy flush, and striking her hand sternly on the table.
“Well, ’tis only a sayin’, ye know, and no new one neither,” said Tom, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, and standing up. “But the mistress is a pretty lady, and a kind — and a gentle-born as all may
see, and I’d give or take a shrewd blow or two, or harm should happen her.”
“Ye’d be no man else, Tom, and I don’t doubt ye. Little thought I last night what was in her head, the sly villain, when I left her back again in her bed, and the cross door shut and locked. Lord a’ mercy on us! To think how the fiend works wi’ his own — smooth and sly sometimes, as if butter would not melt in her mouth.”
“’Tis an old sayin’ —
“‘When the cat winketh, Little wots mouse what the cat thinketh.’”
said Tom, with a grin and a wag of his head.
“She was neither sleek, nor soft, nor sly for that matter, when I saw her. I thought she’d a’ had her claws in my chops; such a catamaran I never did see.”
“And how’s the young lady?” asked Tom, clapping his greasy hat on his head.
“Hey! dear! I’m glad ye asked,” exclaimed the old woman— “easier she’ll be, no doubt, now that devil’s gone. But, dearie me! all’s in a jumble till Master Charles comes back, for she’ll not know, poor thing, what she’s to do till he talks wi’ her — now all’s changed.”
And Mildred trotted off to see for herself, and to hear what the young lady might have to say.
CHAPTER XVIII.
DAY — TWILIGHT — DARKNESS.
In their homely sitting-room, with old Dulcibella in friendly attendance, Mildred Tarnley found Alice. It is not always that a dreadful impression makes itself immediately manifest. Nature rallies all her forces at first to meet the danger. A certain excitement of resistance sustains the system through a crisis of horror, and often for a long time after; and it is not until this extraordinary muster of the vital forces begins to dissolve and subside that the shattered condition of the normal powers begins to declare itself.
The scene which had just occurred was a dreadful ordeal for Alice. To recount, and with effort and minuteness, to gather into order the terrific incidents of the night preceding, relate them bit by bit to the magistrate as he wrote them down, make oath to their truth as the basis of a public prosecution, and most dreadful — the having to see and identify the spectre who had murderously assailed her on the night before.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 504
