Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Which was as much as to say there was more behind it. Dr. Ashton mentally washed his hands of Percival Elster as a future son-in-law.

  The first intimation that ill-starred gentleman received of the untoward turn affairs were taking was from the Rector himself.

  Mr. Percival Elster had been chuckling over that opportune sore throat, as a means of keeping his brother indoors; and it never occurred to him that Lord Hartledon would venture out at all on the Monday. Being a man with his wits about him, it had not failed to occur to his mind that there was a possibility of Lord Hartledon’s being arrested in place of himself; but so long as Hartledon kept indoors the danger was averted. Had Percival Elster seen his brother go out he might have plucked up courage to tell him the state of affairs.

  But he did not see him. Lounging idly — what else had he, a poor prisoner, to do? — in the sunny society of Maude Kirton and other attractive girls, Mr. Elster was unconscious of the movements of the household in general. He was in his own room dressing for dinner when the truth burst upon him.

  Dr. Ashton was a straightforward; practical man — it has been already stated — who went direct to the point at once in any matters of difficulty. He arrived at Hartledon a few minutes before the dinner-hour, found Mr. Elster was yet in his dressing-room, and went there to him.

  The news, the cool, scornful anger of the Rector, the keen question— “Was he mad?” burst upon the unhappy Val like a clap of thunder. He was standing in his shirt-sleeves, ready to go down, all but his coat and waistcoat, his hair-brushes in the uplifted hands. Hands and brushes had been arrested midway in the shock. The calm clerical man; all the more terrible then because of his calmness; standing there with his cold stinging words, and his unhappy culprit facing him, conscious of his heinous sins — the worst sin of all: that of being found out.

  “Others have done so much before me, sir, and have not made the less good men,” spoke Val, in his desperation.

  Dr. Ashton could not help admiring the man, as he stood there in his physical beauty. In spite of his inward anger, his condemnation, his disappointment — and they were all very great — the good looks of Percival Elster struck him forcibly with a sort of annoyance: why should these men be so outwardly fair, so inwardly frail? Those good looks had told upon his daughter’s heart; and they all loved her, and could not bear to cause her pain. Tall, supple, graceful, strong, towering nearly a head above the doctor, he stood, his pleasing features full of the best sort of attraction, his violet eyes rather wider open than usual, the waves of his silken hair smooth and bright. “If he were only half as fair in conduct as in looks!” muttered the grieved divine.

  But those violet eyes, usually beaming with kindness, suddenly changed their present expression of depreciation to one of rage. Dr. Ashton gave a pretty accurate description of how the crisis had been brought to his knowledge — that Lord Hartledon had come to the Rectory, with his mistaken assailant, to be identified; and Percival Elster’s anger was turned against his brother. Never in all his life had he been in so great a passion; and having to suppress its signs in the presence of the Rector only made the fuel burn more fiercely. To ruin him with the doctor by going there with the news! Anywhere else — anywhere but the Rectory!

  Hedges, the butler, interrupted the conference. Dinner was waiting. Lord Hartledon looked at Val as the two entered the room, and was rather surprised at the furious gaze of reproach that was cast back on him.

  Miss Ashton was not there. No, of course not! It needed not Val’s glance around to be assured of that. Of course they were to be separated from that hour; the fiat was already gone forth. And Mr. Val Elster felt so savage that he could have struck his brother. He heard Dr. Ashton’s reply to an inquiry — that Mrs. Ashton was feeling unusually poorly, and Anne remained at home with her — but he looked upon it as an evasion. Not a word did he speak during dinner: not a word, save what was forced from him by common courtesy, spoke he after the ladies had left the room; he only drank a great deal of wine.

  A very unusual circumstance for Val Elster. With all his weak resolution, his yielding nature, drinking was a fault he was scarcely ever seduced into. Not above two or three times in his life could he remember to have exceeded the bounds of strict, temperate sobriety. The fact was, he was in wrath with himself: all his past follies were pressing upon him with bitter condemnation. He was just in that frame of mind when an object to vent our fury upon becomes a sort of necessity; and Mr. Elster’s was vented on his brother.

  He was waiting at boiling-point for the opportunity to “have it out” with him: and it soon came. As the gentlemen left the dining-room — and in these present days they do not, as a rule, sit long, especially when the host is a young man — Percival Elster touched his brother to detain him, and shut the door on the heels of the rest.

  Lord Hartledon was surprised. Val’s attack was so savage. He was talking off his superfluous wrath, and the wine he had taken did not tend to cool his heat. Lord Hartledon, vexed at the injustice, lost his temper; and for once there was a quarrel, sharp and loud, between the brothers. It did not last long; in its very midst they parted; throwing cutting words one at the other. Lord Hartledon quitted the room, to join his guests; Val Elster strode outside the window to cool his brain.

  But now, look at the obstinate pride of those two foolish men! They were angry with each other in temper, but not in heart. In Percival Elster’s conscience there was an underlying conviction that his brother had acted only in thoughtless impulse when he carried the misfortune to the Rectory; whilst Lord Hartledon was even then full of plans for serving Val, and considered he had more need to help him than ever. A day or two given to the indulgence of their anger, and they would be firmer friends than ever.

  The large French window of the dining-room, opening to the ground, was flung back by Val Elster; and he stepped forth into the cool night, which was beautifully fine. The room looked towards the river. The velvet lawn, wet with the day’s rain, lay calm and silent under the bright stars; the flowers, clustering around far and wide, gave out their sweet and heavy night perfume. Not an instant had he been outside when he became conscious that some figure was gliding towards him — was almost close to him; and he recognised Mr. Pike. Yes, that worthy gentleman appeared to be only then arriving on his evening visit: in point of fact, he had been glued ear and eye to the window during the quarrel.

  “What do you want?” demanded Mr. Elster.

  “Well, I came up here hoping to get a word with you, sir,” replied the man in his rough, abrupt manner, more in character with his appearance and lawless reputation than with his accent and unmistakable intelligence. “There was a nasty accident a few hours ago: that shark came across his lordship.”

  “I know he did,” savagely spoke Val. “The result of your informing him that I was Lord Hartledon.”

  “I did it for the best, Mr. Elster. He’d have nabbed you that very time, but for my putting him off the scent as I did.”

  “Yes, yes, I am aware you did it for the best, and I suppose it turned out to be so,” quickly replied Val, some of his native kindliness resuming its sway. “It’s an unfortunate affair altogether, and that’s the best that can be said of it.”

  “What I came up here for was to tell you he was gone.”

  “Who is gone?”

  “The shark.”

  “Gone!”

  “He went off by the seven train. Lord Hartledon told him he’d communicate with his principals and see that the affair was arranged. It satisfied the man, and he went away by the next train — which happened to be the seven-o’clock one.”

  “How do you know this?” asked Mr. Elster.

  “This way,” was the answer. “I was hovering about outside that shed of mine, and I saw the encounter at the parson’s gate — for that’s where it took place. The first thing the fellow did when it was all over was to bolt across the road, and accuse me of purposely misleading him. ‘Not a bit of it,’ said I; ‘if I did mislead y
ou, it was unintentional, for I took the one who came over the bridge on Saturday to be Lord Hartledon, safe as eggs. But they have been down here only a week,’ I went on, ‘and I suppose I don’t know ’em apart yet.’ I can’t say whether he believed me; I think he did; he’s a soft sort of chap. It was all right, he said: the earl had passed his word to him that it should be made so without his arresting Mr. Elster, and he was off to London at once.”

  “And he has gone?”

  Mr. Pike nodded significantly. “I watched him go; dodged him up to the station and saw him off.”

  Then this one danger was over! Val might breathe freely again.

  “And I thought you would like to know the coast was clear; so I came up to tell you,” concluded Pike.

  “Thank you for your trouble,” said Mr. Elster. “I shall not forget it.”

  “You’ll remember it, perhaps, if a question arises touching that shed,” spoke the man. “I may need a word sometime with Lord Hartledon.”

  “I’ll remember it, Pike. Here, wait a moment. Is Thomas Pike your real name?”

  “Well, I conclude it is. Pike was the name of my father and mother. As to Thomas — not knowing where I was christened, I can’t go and look at the register; but they never called me anything but Tom. Did you wish to know particularly?”

  There was a tone of mockery in the man’s answer, not altogether acceptable to his hearer; and he let him go without further hindrance. But the man turned back in an instant of his own accord.

  “I dare say you are wanting to know why I did you this little turn, Mr. Elster. I have been caught in corners myself before now; and if I can help anybody to get out of them without trouble to myself, I’m willing to do it. And to circumvent these law-sharks comes home to my spirit as wholesome refreshment.”

  Mr. Pike finally departed. He took the lonely way, and only struck into the high-road opposite his own domicile, the shed. Passing round it, he hovered at its rude door — the one he had himself made, along with the ruder window — and then, treading softly, he stepped to the low stile in the hedge, which had for years made the boundary between the waste land on which the shed stood and Clerk Gum’s garden. Here he halted a minute, looking all ways. Then he stepped over the stile, crouched down amongst Mr. Gum’s cabbages, got under shelter of the hedge, and so stole onwards, until he came to an anchor at the kitchen-window, and laid his ear to the shutter, just as it had recently been laid against the glass in the dining-room of my Lord Hartledon.

  That he had a propensity for prying into the private affairs of his neighbours near and distant, there could be little doubt about. Mr. Pike, however, was not destined on this one occasion to reap any substantial reward. The kitchen appeared to be wrapped in perfect silence. Satisfying himself as to this, he next took off his heavy shoes, stole past the back door, and so round the clerk’s house to the front. Very softly indeed went he, creeping by the wall, and emerging at last round the angle, by the window of the best parlour. Here, most excessively to Mr. Pike’s consternation, he came upon a lady doing exactly what he had come to do — namely, stealthily listening at the window to anything there might be to hear inside.

  The shrill scream she gave when she found her face in contact with the wild intruder, might have been heard over at Dr. Ashton’s. Clerk Gum, who had been quietly writing in his office, came out in haste, and recognized Mrs. Jones, the wife of the surly porter at the station, and step-mother to the troublesome young servant, Rebecca. Pike had totally disappeared.

  Mrs. Jones, partly through fright, partly in anger arising from a long-standing grievance, avowed the truth boldly: she had been listening at the parlour-shutters ever since she went out of the house ten minutes ago, and had been set upon by that wolf Pike.

  “Set upon!” exclaimed the clerk, looking swiftly in all directions for the offender.

  “I don’t know what else you can call it, when a highway robber — a murderer, if all tales be true — steals round upon you without warning, and glares his eyes into yours,” shrieked Mrs. Jones wrathfully. “And if he wasn’t barefoot, Gum, my eyes strangely deceived me. I’d have you and Nancy take care of your throats.”

  She turned into the house, to the best parlour, where the clerk’s wife was sitting with a visitor, Mirrable. Mrs. Gum, when she found what the commotion had been about, gave a sharp cry of terror, and shook from head to foot.

  “On our premises! Close to our house! That dreadful man! Oh, Lydia, don’t you think you were mistaken?”

  “Mistaken!” retorted Mrs. Jones. “That wild face isn’t one to be mistaken: I should like to see its fellow in Calne. Why Lord Hartledon don’t have him taken up on suspicion of that murder, is odd to me.”

  “You’d better hold your tongue about that suspicion,” interposed Mirrable. “I have cautioned you before, I shouldn’t like to breathe a word against a desperate man; I should go about in fear that he might hear of it, and revenge himself.”

  In came the clerk. “I don’t see a sign of any one about,” he said; “and I’m sure whoever it was could not have had time to get away. You must have been mistaken, Mrs. Jones.”

  “Mistaken in what, pray?”

  “That any man was there. You got confused, and fancied it, perhaps. As to Pike, he’d never dare come on my premises, whether by night or day. What were you doing at the window?”

  “Listening,” defiantly replied Mrs. Jones. “And now I’ll just tell out what I’ve had in my head this long while, Mr. Gum, and know the reason of Nancy’s slighting me in the way she does. What secret has she and Mary Mirrable got between them?”

  “Secret?” repeated the clerk, whilst his wife gave a faint cry, and Mirrable turned her calm face on Mrs. Jones. “Have they a secret?”

  “Yes, they have,” raved Mrs. Jones, giving vent to her long pent-up emotion. “If they haven’t, I’m blind and deaf. If I have come into your house once during the past year and found Mrs. Mirrable in it, and the two sitting and whispering, I’ve come ten times. This evening I came in at dusk; I turned the handle of the door and peeped into the best parlour, and there they were, nose and knees together, starting away from each other as soon as they saw me, Nance giving one of her faint cries, and the two making believe to have been talking of the weather. It’s always so. And I want to know what secret they have got hold of, and whether I’m poison, that I can’t be trusted with it.”

  Jabez Gum slowly turned his eyes on the two in question. His wife lifted her hands in deprecation at the idea that she should have a secret: Mirrable was laughing.

  “Nancy’s secret to-night, when you interrupted us, was telling me of a dream she had regarding Lord Hartledon, and of how she mistook Mr. Elster for him the morning he came down,” cried the latter. “And if you have really been listening at the shutters since you went out, Mrs. Jones, you should by this time know how to pickle walnuts in the new way: for I declare that is all our conversation has been about since. You always were suspicious, you know, and you always will be.”

  “Look here, Mrs. Jones,” said the clerk, decisively; “I don’t choose to have my shutters listened at: it might give the house a bad name, for quarrelling, or something of that sort. So I’ll trouble you not to repeat what you have done to-night, or I shall forbid your coming here. A secret, indeed!”

  “Yes, a secret!” persisted Mrs. Jones. “And if I don’t come at what it is one of these days, my name’s not Lydia Jones. And I’ll tell you why. It strikes me — I may be wrong — but it strikes me it concerns me and my husband and my household, which some folks are ever ready to interfere with. I’ll take myself off now; and I would recommend you, as a parting warning, to denounce Pike to the police for an attempt at housebreaking, before you’re both murdered in your bed. That’ll be the end on’t.”

  She went away, and Clerk Gum wished he could denounce her to the police. Mirrable laughed again; and Mrs. Gum, cowardly and timid, fell back in her chair as one seized with ague.

  Beyond giving an occasional dole
to Mrs. Jones for her children — and to tell the truth, she clothed them all, or they would have gone in rags — Mirrable had shaken her cousin off long ago: which of course did not tend to soothe the naturally jealous spirit of Mrs. Jones. At Hartledon House she was not welcomed, and could not go there; but she watched for the visits of Mirrable at the clerk’s, and was certain to intrude on those occasions.

  “I’ll find it out!” she repeated to herself, as she went storming through the garden-gate; “I’ll find it out. And as to that poacher, he’d better bring his black face near mine again!”

  CHAPTER VIII.

  THE WAGER BOATS.

  Tuesday morning rose, bright and propitious: a contrast to the two previous days arranged for the boat-race. All was pleasure, bustle, excitement at Hartledon: but the coolness that had arisen between the brothers was noticed by some of the guests. Neither of them was disposed to take the first step towards reconciliation: and, indeed, a little incident that occurred that morning led to another ill word between them. An account that had been standing for more than two years was sent in to Lord Hartledon’s steward; it was for some harness, a saddle, a silver-mounted whip, and a few trifles of that sort, supplied by a small tradesman in the village. Lord Hartledon protested there was nothing of the sort owing; but upon inquiry the debtor proved to be Mr. Percival Elster. Lord Hartledon, vexed that any one in the neighbourhood should have waited so long for his money, said a sharp word on the score to Percival; and the latter retorted as sharply that it was no business of his. Again Val was angry with himself, and thus gave vent to his temper. The fact was, he had completely forgotten the trifling debt, and was as vexed as Hartledon that it should have been allowed to remain unpaid: but the man had not sent him any reminder whilst he was away.

  “Pay it to-day, Marris,” cried Lord Hartledon to his steward. “I won’t have this sort of thing at Calne.”

  His tone was one of irritation — or it sounded so to the ears of his conscious brother, and Val bit his lips. After that, throughout the morning, they maintained a studied silence towards each other; and this was observed, but was not commented on. Val was unusually quiet altogether: he was saying to himself that he was sullen.