Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “I was looking for you, Lord Hartledon. If you require any assistance or information in the various arrangements that now devolve upon you, I shall be happy to render both. There will be a good deal to do one way or another; more, I dare say, than your inexperience has the least idea of. You will have your solicitor at hand, of course; but if you want me, you know where to find me.”

  The Rector’s words were courteous, but the tone was not warm, and the title “Lord Hartledon” grated on Val’s ear. In his impulse he grasped the speaker’s hand, pouring forth a heartfelt prayer.

  “Oh, Dr. Ashton, will you not forgive me? The horrible trouble I brought upon myself is over now. I don’t rejoice in it under the circumstances, Heaven knows; I only speak of the fact. Let me come to your house again! Forgive me for the past.”

  “In one sense the trouble is over, because the debts that were a formidable embarrassment to Mr. Elster are as nothing to Lord Hartledon,” was the reply. “But let me assure you of one thing: that your being Lord Hartledon will not make the slightest difference to my decision not to give you my daughter, unless your line of conduct shall change.”

  “It is changed. Dr. Ashton, on my word of honour, I will never be guilty of carelessness again. One thing will be my safeguard, though all else should fail — the fact that I passed my word for this to my dear brother not many hours before his death. For my sake, for Anne’s sake, you will forgive me!”

  Was it possible to resist the persuasive tones, the earnestness of the honest, dark-blue eyes? If ever Percival Elster was to make an effort for good, and succeed, it must be now. The doctor knew it; and he knew that Anne’s happiness was at stake. But he did not thaw immediately.

  “You know, Lord Hartledon—”

  “Call me Val, as you used to do,” came the pleading interruption; and Dr. Ashton smiled in spite of himself.

  “Percival, you know it is against my nature to be harsh or unforgiving; just as I believe it contrary to your nature to be guilty of deliberate wrong. If you will only be true to yourself, I would rather have you for my son-in-law than any other man in England; as I would have had when you were Val Elster. Do you note my words? true to yourself.”

  “As I will be from henceforth,” whispered Val, earnest tears rising to his eyes.

  And as he would have been but for his besetting sin.

  CHAPTER XII.

  LATER IN THE DAY.

  It happened that Clerk Gum had business on hand the day of the inquest, which obliged him to go to Garchester. He reached home after dark; and the first thing he saw was his wife, in what he was pleased to call a state of semi-idiocy. The tea-things were laid on the table, and substantial refreshment in the shape of cold meat, and a plate of muffins ready for toasting, all for the clerk’s regalement. But Mrs. Gum herself sat on a low chair by the fire, her eyes swollen with crying.

  “What’s the matter now?” was the clerk’s first question.

  “Oh, Gum, I told you you ought not to have gone off to-day. You might have stayed for the inquest.”

  “Much good I should do the inquest, or the inquest do me,” retorted the clerk. “Has Becky gone?”

  “Long ago. Gum, that dream’s coming round. I said it would. I told you there was ill in store for Lord Hartledon; and that Pike was mixed up in it, and Mr. Elster also in some way. If you’d only listen to me—”

  The clerk, who had been brushing his hat and shaking the dust from his outer coat — for he was a careful man with his clothes, and always well-dressed — brought down his hand upon the table with some temper.

  “Just stop that. I’ve heard enough of that dream, and of all your dreams. Confounded folly! Haven’t I trouble and worry enough upon my mind, without your worrying me every time I come in about your idiotic dreams?”

  “Well,” returned Mrs. Gum, “if the dream’s nothing, I’d like to ask why they had Pike up to-day before them all?”

  “Who had him up?” asked the clerk, after a pause. “Had him up where?”

  “Before the people sitting on the body of Lord Hartledon. Lydia Jones brought me the news just now. ‘They had Pike the poacher up,’ says she. ‘He was up before the jury, and had to confess to it.’ ‘Confess to what,’ said I. ‘Why, that he was about in the woods when my lord met his end,’ said she; ‘and it’s to know how my lord did meet it, and whether the poacher mightn’t have dealt that blow on his temple and robbed him after it.’ Gum—”

  “There’s no suspicion of foul play, is there?” interrupted the clerk, in strangely subdued tones.

  “Not that I know of, except in Lydia’s temper,” answered Mrs. Gum. “But I don’t like to hear he was up there at all.”

  “Lydia Jones is a foul-tongued woman, capable of swearing away any man’s life. Is Pike in custody?”

  “Not yet. They’ve let him off for the present. Oh, Gum, often and often do I wish my days were ended!”

  “Often and often do I wish I’d a quiet house to come to, and not be bothered with dreams,” was the scornful retort. “Suppose you toast the muffins.”

  She gave a sigh or two, put her cap straight, smoothed her ragged hair, and meekly rose to obey. The clerk was carefully folding up the outer coat, for it was one he wore only on high-days, when he felt something in the pocket — a small parcel.

  “I’d almost forgotten this,” he exclaimed, taking it out. “Thanks to you, Nance! What with your dreams and other worryings I can’t think of my proper business.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “A deed Dr. Ashton’s lawyer got me to bring and save his clerk a journey — if you must know. I’ll take it over at once, while the tea’s brewing.”

  As Jabez Gum passed through his own gate he looked towards Mr. Pike’s dwelling; it was only natural he should do so after the recent conversation; and he saw that worthy gentleman come stealing across the waste ground, with his usual cautious step. Although not given to exchanging courtesies with his neighbour, the clerk walked briskly towards him now, and waited at the hurdles which divided the waste ground from the road.

  “I hear you were prowling about the mill when Lord Hartledon met with his accident,” began the clerk, in low, condemning tones.

  “And what if I was,” asked Pike, leaning his arms on the hurdles and facing the clerk. “Near the mill I wasn’t; about the woods and river I was; and I saw him pass down in the sculling boat with his disabled arm. What of it, I ask?”

  Pike’s tone, though short, was civil enough. The forced appearance before the coroner and public had disturbed his equanimity in no slight degree, and taken for the present all insolence out of him.

  “Should any doubt get afloat that his lordship’s death might not have been accidental, your presence at the spot would tell against you.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. I left the spot before the accident could have happened; and I came back to Calne with a witness. As to the death having been something worse than accident, not a soul in the place has dreamt of such a thing except me.”

  “Except you! What do you mean?”

  Pike leaned more over the hurdles, so as to bring his disreputable face closer to Mr. Gum, who slightly recoiled as he caught the low whisper.

  “I don’t think the death was accidental. I believe his lordship was just put out of the way quietly.”

  “Heaven forbid!” exclaimed the shocked clerk. “By whom? By you?” he added, in his bewilderment.

  “No,” returned the man. “If I’d done it, I shouldn’t talk about it.”

  “What do you mean?” cried Mr. Gum.

  “I mean that I have my suspicions; and good suspicions they are. Many a man has been hung on less. I am not going to tell them; perhaps not ever. I shall wait and keep my eyes open, and bring them, if I can, to certainties. Time enough to talk then, or keep silent, as circumstances may dictate.”

  “And you tell me you were not near the place at the time of the accident?”

  “I wasn’t,” replied Mr. Pike, with emphasis.r />
  “Who was?”

  “That’s my secret. And as I’ve a little matter of business on hand to-night, I don’t care to be further delayed, if it’s all the same to you, neighbour. And instead of your accusing me of prowling about the mill again, perhaps you’ll just give a thought occasionally to what I have now said, keeping it to yourself. I’m not afraid of your spreading it in Calne; for it might bring a hornets’ nest about your head, and about some other heads that you wouldn’t like to injure.”

  With the last words Mr. Pike crossed the hurdles and went off in the direction of Hartledon. It was a light night, and the clerk stood and stared after him. To say that Jabez Gum in his astonishment was uncertain whether he stood on his head or his heels, would be saying little; and how much of these assertions he might believe, and what mischief Mr. Pike might be going after to-night, he knew not. Drawing a long sigh, which did not sound very much like a sigh of relief, he at length turned off to Dr. Ashton’s, and the man disappeared.

  We must follow Pike. He went stealthily up the road past Hartledon, keeping in the shade of the hedge, and shrinking into it when he saw any one coming. Striking off when he neared the mill, he approached it cautiously, and halted amidst some trees, whence he had a view of the mill-door.

  He was waiting for the boy, David Ripper. Fully convinced by the lad’s manner at the inquest that he had not told all he knew, but was keeping something back in fear, Mr. Pike, for reasons of his own, resolved to come at it if he could. He knew that the boy would be at work later than usual that night, having been hindered in the afternoon.

  Imagine yourself standing with your back to the river, reader, and take a view of the premises as they face you. The cottage is a square building, and has four good rooms on the ground floor. The miller’s thrifty wife generally locked all these rooms up if she went out, and carried the keys away in her pocket. The parlour window was an ordinary sash-window, with outside shutters; the kitchen window a small casement, protected by a fixed net-work of strong wire. No one could get in or out, even when the casement was open, without tearing this wire away, which would not be a difficult matter to accomplish. On the left of the cottage, but to your right as you face it, stands the mill, to which you ascend by steps. It communicates inside with the upper floor of the cottage, which is used as a store-room for corn; and from this store-room a flight of stairs descends to the kitchen below. Another flight of stairs from this store-room communicated with the open passage leading from the back-door to the stable. This is all that need be said: and you may think it superfluous to have described it at all: but it is not so.

  The boy Ripper at length came forth. With a shuddering avoidance of the water he came tearing along as one running from a ghost, and was darting past the trees, when he found himself detained by an arm of great strength. Mr. Pike clapped his other hand upon the boy’s mouth, stifling a howl of terror.

  “Do you see this, Rip?” cried he.

  Rip did see it. It was a pistol held rather inconveniently close to the boy’s breast. Rip dearly loved his life; but it nearly went out of him then with fear.

  “Now,” said Pike, “I’ve come up to know about this business of Lord Hartledon’s, and I will know it, or leave you as dead as he is. And I’ll have you took up for murder, into the bargain,” he rather illogically continued, “as an accessory to the fact.”

  David Ripper was in a state of horror; all idea of concealment gone out of him. “I couldn’t help it,” he gasped. “I couldn’t get out to him; I was locked up in the mill. Don’t shoot me.”

  “I’ll spare you on one condition,” decided Pike. “Disclose the whole of this from first to last, and then we may part friends. But try to palm off one lie upon me, and I’ll riddle you through. To begin with: what brought you locked up in the mill?”

  It was a wicked tale of a wicked young jail-bird, as Mr. Pike (probably the worse jail-bird by far of the two) phrased it. Master Ripper had purposely caused himself to be locked in the mill, his object being to supply himself with as much corn as he could carry about him for the benefit of his rabbits and pigeons and other live stock at home. He had done it twice before, he avowed, in dread of the pistol, and had got away safe through the square hole in the passage at the foot of the back staircase, whence he had dropped to the ground. To his consternation on this occasion, however, he had found the door at the foot of the stairs bolted, as it never had been before, and he could not get to the passage. So he was a prisoner all the afternoon, and had exercised his legs between the store-room and kitchen, both of which were open to him.

  If ever a man showed virtuous indignation at a sinner’s confession, Mr. Pike showed it now. “That’s how you were about in the stubble-field setting your traps, you young villain! I saw the coroner look at you. And now about Lord Hartledon. What did you see?”

  Master Ripper rubbed the perspiration from his face as he went on with his tale. Pike listened with all the ears he possessed and said not a word, beyond sundry rough exclamations, until the tale was done.

  “You awful young dog! You saw all that from the kitchen-window, and never tried to get out of it!”

  “I couldn’t get out of it,” pleaded the boy. “It’s got a wire-net before it, and I couldn’t break that.”

  “You are strong enough to break it ten times over,” retorted Pike.

  “But then master would ha’ known I’d been in the mill!” cried the boy, a gleam of cunning in his eyes.

  “Ugh,” grunted Pike. “And you saw exactly what you’ve told me?”

  “I saw it and heard the cries.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “No; I was afeard to show myself. When master come home, the first thing he did was t’ unlock that there staircase door, and I got out without his seeing me—”

  “Where did you hide the grain you were loaded with?” demanded Pike.

  “I’d emptied it out again in the store-room,” returned the boy. “I told master there were a loose skiff out there, and he come out and secured it. Them harvesters come up next and got him out of the water.”

  “Yes, you could see fast enough what you were looking for! Well, young Rip,” continued Mr. Pike, consolingly, “you stand about as rich a chance of being hanged as ever you’ll stand in all your born days. If you’d jumped through that wire you’d have saved my lord, and he’d have made it right for you with old Floyd. I’d advise you to keep a silent tongue in your head, if you want to save your neck.”

  “I was keeping it, till you come and made me tell with that there pistol,” howled the boy. “You won’t go and split on me?” he asked, with trembling lips.

  “I won’t split on you about the grain,” graciously promised Pike. “It’s no business of mine. As to the other matter — well, I’ll not say anything about that; at any rate, yet awhile. You keep it a secret; so will I.”

  Without another word, Pike extended his hand as a signal that the culprit was at liberty to depart; and he did so as fast as his legs would carry him. Pike then returned the pistol to his pocket and took his way back to Calne in a thoughtful and particularly ungenial mood. There was a doubt within him whether the boy had disclosed the truth, even to him.

  Perhaps on no one — with the exception of Percival — did the death of Lord Hartledon leave its effects as it did on Lady Kirton and her daughter Maude. To the one it brought embarrassment; to the other, what seemed very like a broken heart. The countess-dowager’s tactics must change as by magic. She had to transfer the affection and consideration evinced for Edward Lord Hartledon to his brother; and to do it easily and naturally. She had to obliterate from the mind of the latter her overbearing dislike to him, cause her insults to be remembered no more. A difficult task, even for her, wily woman as she was.

  How was it to be done? For three long hours the night after Lord Hartledon’s death, she lay awake, thinking out her plans; perhaps for the first time in her life, for obtuse natures do not lie awake. The death had affected her only as regarded he
r own interests; she could feel for none and regret none in her utter selfishness. One was fallen, but another had risen up. “Le roi est mort: vive le roi!”

  On the day following the death she had sought an interview with Percival. Never a woman evinced better tact than she. There was no violent change in her manner, no apologies for the past, or display of sudden affection. She spoke quietly and sensibly of passing topics: the death, and what could have led to it; the immediate business on hand, some of the changes it entailed in the future. “I’ll stay with you still, Percival,” she said, “and look after things a bit for you, as I have been doing for your brother. It is an awful shock, and we must all have time to get over it. If I had only foreseen this, how I might have spared my temper and poor Maude’s feelings!”

  She looked out of the corner of her eye at the young man; but he betrayed no curiosity to hear more, and she went on unasked.

  “You know, Val, for a portionless girl, as Maude is, it was a great blow to me when I found her fixing her heart upon a younger son. How cross and unjust it made me I couldn’t conceal: mothers are mothers. I wanted her to take a fancy to Hartledon, dear fellow, and I suppose she could not, and it rendered me cross; and I know I worried her and worried my own temper, till at times I was not conscious of what I said. Poor Maude! she did not rebel openly, but I could see her struggles. Only a week ago, when Hartledon was talking about his marrying sometime, and hinting that she might care fox him if she tried, she scored her beautiful drawing all over with ugly marks; ran the pencil through it—”

  “But why do you tell me this now?” asked Val.

  “Hartledon — dear me! I wonder how long I shall be getting accustomed to your name? — there’s only you and me and Maude left now of the family,” cried the dowager; “and if I speak of such things, it is in fulness of heart. And now about these letters: do you care how they are worded?”

  “I don’t seem to care about anything,” listlessly answered the young man. “As to the letters, I think I’d rather write them myself, Lady Kirton.”