Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “I do not, my dear lady. I assure you I fully understand your position. The fact is, I was too much surprised and I am too anxious for your safety not to think immediately of securing that — ahem — that unfortunate man.”

  “Oh, it is not my safety! It is not only my safety—”

  “I understand — yes — of course you are anxious about him. But it is doubtless not our business to aid the law in its course, provided we do not oppose it.”

  “It is something else,” murmured Mrs. Goddard. “Oh! how shall I tell you,” she moaned turning her pale cheek to the back of the chair.

  The vicar looked at her and began to think it was perhaps some strange case of conscience with which he had to deal. He had very little experience of such things save in the rude form they take among the labouring classes. But he reflected that it was likely to be something of the kind; in such a case Mrs. Goddard would naturally enough have sent for him, more as her clergyman than as her friend. She looked like a person suffering from some great mental strain. He sat down beside her and took her passive hand. He was moved, and felt as though he might have been her father.

  “My dear,” he said kindly, almost as though he were speaking to a child, “have you anything upon your mind, anything which distresses you? Do you wish to tell me? If so I will do my very best to help you.”

  Mrs. Goddard’s fingers pressed his hand a little, but her face was still turned away.

  “It is Mr. Juxon,” she almost whispered. If she had been watching the vicar she would have noticed the strange air of perplexity which came over his face when he heard the squire’s name.

  “Yes — Mr. Juxon,” she moaned. Then the choked-down horror rose in her throat. “Walter means to murder him!” she almost screamed. “Oh, my God, my God, what shall I do!” she cried aloud clasping her hands suddenly over her face and rocking herself to and fro.

  The vicar was horror-struck; he could hardly believe his ears, and believing them his senses swam. In his wildest dreams — and the good man’s dreams were rarely wild — he had never thought that such things could come near him. Being a very good man and, moreover, a wise man when he had plenty of time for reflection, he folded his hands quietly and bent his head, praying fervently for the poor tortured woman who moaned and tossed herself beside him. It was a terrible moment. Suddenly she controlled herself and grasping one of the arms of the chair looked round at her silent companion.

  “You must save him,” she said in agonised tones, “you must save them both! Do not tell me you cannot — oh, do not tell me that!”

  It was a passionate and heart-broken appeal, such a one as few men would or could resist, coming as it did from a helpless and miserably unhappy woman. Whether the vicar was wise in giving the answer he did, it would be hard to say: but he was a man who honestly tried to do his best.

  “I will try, my dear lady,” he said, making a great resolution. Mrs. Goddard took his hand and pressed it in both of hers, and the long restrained tears flowed fast and softly over her worn cheeks. For some moments neither spoke.

  “If you cannot save both — you must save — Mr. Juxon,” she said at last, breathing the words rather than speaking them.

  The vicar knew or guessed what it must cost her to hint that her husband might be captured. He recognised that the only way in which he could contribute towards the escape of the convict was by not revealing his hiding-place, and he accordingly refrained from asking where he was concealed. He shuddered as he thought that Goddard might be lying hidden in the cottage itself, for all he could tell, but he was quite sure that he ought not to know it. So long as he did not know where the forger was, it was easy to hold his peace; but if once he knew, the vicar was not capable of denying the knowledge. He had never told a lie in his life.

  “I will try,” he repeated; and growing calmer, he added, “You are quite sure this was not an empty threat, my dear friend? Was there any reason — a — I mean to say, had this unfortunate man ever known Mr. Juxon?”

  “Oh no!” answered Mrs. Goddard, sinking back into her chair. “He never knew him.” Her tears were still flowing but she no longer sobbed aloud; it had been a relief to her overwrought and sensitive temperament to give way to the fit of weeping. She actually felt better, though ten minutes earlier she would not have believed it possible.

  “Then — why?” asked Mr. Ambrose, hesitating.

  “My poor husband was a very jealous man,” she answered. “I accidentally told him that the cottage belonged to Mr. Juxon and yesterday — do you remember? You walked on with Mr. Juxon beyond the turning, and then he came back to see me — to tell me of my husband’s escape. Walter saw that and — and he thought, I suppose — that Mr. Juxon did not want you to see him coming here.”

  “But Mr. Juxon had just promised me to go and see you,” said the honest vicar.

  “Yes,” said poor Mrs. Goddard, beginning to sob again, “but Walter — my husband — thinks that I — I care for Mr. Juxon — he is so jealous,” cried she, again covering her face with her hands. The starting tears trickled through her fingers and fell upon her black dress. She was ashamed, this time, for she hated even to speak of such a possibility.

  “I understand,” answered Mr. Ambrose gravely. It certainly did not strike him that it might be true, and his knowledge of such characters as Walter Goddard was got chiefly from the newspapers. He had often noticed in reports of trials and detailed descriptions of crimes that criminals seem to become entirely irrational after a certain length of time, and it was one of the arguments he best understood for demonstrating that bad men either are originally, or ultimately become mad. To men like the vicar, almost the only possible theory of crime is the theory of insanity. It is positively impossible for a man who has passed thirty or forty years in a quiet country parish to comprehend the motives or the actions of great criminals. He naturally says they must be crazy or they would not do such things. If Goddard were crazy enough to commit a forgery, he was crazy enough for anything, even to the extent of suspecting that his wife loved the squire.

  “I think,” said Mr. Ambrose, “that if you agree with me it will be best to warn Mr. Juxon of his danger.”

  “Of course,” murmured Mrs. Goddard. “You must warn him at once!”

  “I will go to the Hall now,” said the vicar bravely. “But — I am very sorry to have to dwell on the subject, my dear lady, but, without wishing in the least to know where the — your husband is, could you tell me anything about his appearance? For instance, if you understand what I mean, supposing that Mr. Juxon knew how he looked and should happen to meet him, knowing that he wished to kill him — he might perhaps avoid him, if you understand me?”

  The vicar’s English was a little disturbed by his extreme desire not to hurt Mrs. Goddard’s feelings. If the squire and his dog chanced to meet Walter Goddard they would probably not avoid him as the vicar expressed it; that was a point Mr. Ambrose was willing to leave to Mrs. Goddard’s imagination.

  “Yes — must you know?” she asked anxiously.

  “We must know that,” returned the vicar.

  “He is disguised as a poor tramp,” she said sorrowfully. “He wears a smock-frock and an old hat I think. He is pale — oh, poor, poor Walter!” she cried again bursting into tears.

  Mr. Ambrose could say nothing. There was nothing to be said. He rose and took his hat — the old tall hat he wore to his parishioners’ funerals. They were very primitive people in Billingsfield.

  “I will go at once,” he said. “Believe me, you have all my sympathy — I will do all I can.”

  Mary Goddard thanked him more by her looks than with any words she was able to speak. But she was none the less truly grateful for his sympathy and aid. She had a kind of blind reliance on him which made her feel that since she had once confided her trouble and danger nothing more could possibly be done. When he was gone, she sobbed with relief, as before she had wept for fear; she was hysterical, unstrung, utterly unlike herself.

 
But as the vicar went up towards the Hall he felt that he had his hands full, and he felt moreover an uneasy sensation which he could not have explained. He was certainly no coward, but he had never been in such a position before and he did not like it; there was an air of danger about, an atmosphere which gave him a peculiarly unpleasant thrill from time to time. He was not engaged upon an agreeable errand, and he had a vague feeling, due, the scientists would have told him, to unconscious ratiocination, which seemed to tell him that something was going to happen. People who are very often in danger know that singular uneasiness which warns them that all is not well; it is not like anything else that can be felt. No one really knows its cause, unless it be true that the mind sometimes reasons for itself without the consciousness of the body, and communicates to the latter a spasmodic warning, the result of its cogitations.

  To say to the sturdy squire, “Beware of a man in a smock-frock, one Goddard the forger, who means to murder you,” seemed of itself simple enough. But for the squire to distinguish this same Goddard from all other men in smock-frocks was a less easy matter. The vicar, indeed, could tell a strange face at a hundred yards, for he knew every man, woman and child in his parish; but the squire’s acquaintance was more limited. Obviously, said Mr. Ambrose to himself, the squire’s best course would be to stay quietly at home until the danger was passed, and to pass word to Policeman Gall to lay hands on any particularly seedy-looking tramps he happened to see in the village. It was Gall’s duty to do so in any case, as he had been warned to be on the look-out. Mr. Ambrose inwardly wondered where the man could be hiding. Billingsfield was not, he believed, an easy place to hide in, for every ploughman knew his fellow, and a new face was always an object of suspicion. Not a gipsy tinker entered the village but what every one heard of it, and though tramps came through from time to time, it would be a difficult matter for one of them to remain two days in the place without attracting a great deal of attention. It was possible that Walter Goddard might have been concealed for one night in his wife’s house, but even there he could not have remained hidden for two days without being seen by Mrs. Goddard’s two women servants. The vicar walked rapidly through the park, looking about him suspiciously as he went. Goddard might at that very moment be lurking behind any one of those oaks; it would be most unpleasant if he mistook the vicar for the squire. But that, the vicar reflected, was impossible on account of his clerical dress. He reached the Hall in safety and stood looking down among the leafless trees, waiting for the door to be opened.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  MR. JUXON RECEIVED the vicar in the library as he had received him on the previous day; but on the present occasion Mr. Ambrose had not been sent for and the squire’s face wore an expression of inquiry. He supposed his friend had come to ask him the result of the interview with Mrs. Goddard, and as he himself was on the point of going towards the cottage he wished the vicar had come at a later or an earlier hour.

  “I have a message to give you,” said Mr. Ambrose, “a very important message.”

  “Indeed?” answered the squire, observing his serious face.

  “Yes. I had better tell you at once. Mrs. Goddard sent for me this morning. She has actually seen her husband, who must be hiding in the neighbourhood. He came to her drawing-room window last night and the night before.”

  “Dear me!” exclaimed Mr. Juxon. “You don’t tell me so!”

  “That is not the worst of the matter,” continued the vicar, looking very grave and fixing his eyes on the squire’s face. “This villainous fellow has been threatening to take your life, Mr. Juxon.”

  Mr. Juxon stared at the vicar for a moment in surprise, and then broke into a hearty laugh.

  “My life!” he cried. “Upon my word, the fellow does not know what he is talking about! Do you mean to say that this escaped convict, who can be arrested at sight wherever he is found, imagines that he could attack me in broad daylight without being caught?”

  “Well, no, I suppose not — but you often walk home at night, Mr.

  Juxon — alone through the park.”

  “I think that dog of mine could manage Mr. Goddard,” remarked the squire calmly. “And pray, Mr. Ambrose, now that we know that the man is in the neighbourhood, what is to prevent us from finding him?”

  “We do not know where he is,” replied the vicar, thanking the inspiration which had prevented him from asking Mrs. Goddard more questions. He had promised to save Goddard, too, or at least not to facilitate his capture. But though he was glad to be able to say honestly that he did not know where he was, he began to doubt whether in the eyes of the law he was acting rightly.

  “You do not know?” asked the squire.

  “No; and besides I think — perhaps — we ought to consider poor Mrs.

  Goddard’s position.”

  “Mrs. Goddard’s position!” exclaimed Mr. Juxon almost angrily. “And who should consider her position more than I, Mr. Ambrose? My dear sir, I consider her position before all things — of course I do. But nothing could be of greater advantage to her position than the certainty that her husband is safely lodged in prison. I cannot imagine how he contrived to escape — can you?”

  “No, I cannot,” answered Mr. Ambrose, thrusting his hands into his pockets and biting his long upper lip.

  “By the bye, did the fellow happen to say why he meant to lay violent hands on me?” inquired Mr. Juxon.

  “Since you ask — he did. It appears that he saw you going into the cottage, and immediately became jealous—”

  “Of me?” Mr. Juxon coloured a little beneath his bronzed complexion, and grew more angry. “Well, upon my word! But if that is true I am much obliged for your warning. Fellows of that sort never reason — he will very likely attack me as you say. It will be quite the last time he attacks anybody — the devil shall have his own, Mr. Ambrose, if I can help him to it—”

  “Dear me! Mr. Juxon — you surprise me,” said the vicar, who had never heard his friend use such strong language before.

  “It is enough to surprise anybody,” remarked the squire. “I trust we shall surprise Mr. Goddard before night. Excuse me, but when did he express his amiable intentions towards me?”

  “Last night, I believe,” replied Mr. Ambrose, reluctantly.

  “And when did he see me going into the cottage?”

  “Yesterday afternoon, I believe.” The vicar felt as though he were beginning to break his promise of shielding the fugitive, but he could not refuse to answer a direct question.

  “Then, when he saw me, he was either in the cottage or in the park. There was no one in the road, I am quite sure.”

  “I do not know,” said the vicar, delighted at being able to say so. He was such a simple man that Mr. Juxon noticed the tone of relief in which he denied any knowledge of Goddard’s whereabouts on the previous day as compared with his reluctance to answer upon those points of which he was certain.

  “You are not anxious that Goddard should be caught,” said the squire rather sharply.

  “Frankly,” returned the vicar, “I do not wish to be instrumental in his capture — not that I am likely to be.”

  “That is none of my business, Mr. Ambrose. I will try and catch him alone. But it would be better that he should be taken alive and quietly—”

  “Surely,” cried the vicar in great alarm, “you would not kill him?”

  “Oh no, certainly not. But my dog might, Mr. Ambrose. They are ugly dogs when they are angry, and they have a remarkable faculty for finding people who are lost. They used to use them in Russia for tracking fugitive serfs and convicts who escaped from Siberia.”

  Mr. Ambrose shuddered. The honest squire seemed almost as bloodthirsty in his eyes as the convict Goddard. He felt that he did not understand Mr. Juxon. The idea of hunting people with bloodhounds seemed utterly foreign to his English nature, and he could not understand how his English friend could entertain such a thought; he probably forgot that a few generations earlier the hunting of all kinds of men,
papists, dissenters, covenanters and rebels, with dogs, had been a favourite English sport.

  “Really, Mr. Juxon,” he said in an agitated tone, “I think you would do much better to protect yourself with the means provided by the law. Considerations of humanity—”

  “Considerations of humanity, sir, are at an end when one man threatens the life of another. You admit yourself that I am not safe unless Goddard is caught, and yet you object to my method of catching him. That is illogical.”

  The vicar felt that this was to some extent true; but he was not willing to admit it. He knew also that if he could dissuade the squire from his barbarous scheme, Goddard would have a far better chance of escape.

  “I think that with the assistance of Gall and a London detective—” he began.

  “Gall is an old woman, Mr. Ambrose, and it will take twenty-four hours to get a detective from town. In twenty-four hours this man may have attacked me.”

  “He will hardly attempt to force his way into your house, Mr. Juxon.”

  “So then, I am to stay at home to suit his convenience? I will not do any such thing. Besides, in twenty-four hours Goddard may have changed his mind and may have taken himself off. For the rest of her life Mrs. Goddard will then be exposed to the possibility of every kind of annoyance.”

  “He would never come back, I am sure,” objected the vicar.

  “Why not? Every time he comes she will give him money. The more money she gives him the more often he will come, unless we put an end to his coming altogether.”

  “You seem to forget,” urged Mr. Ambrose, “that there will be a vigorous search made for him. Why not telegraph to the governor of Portland?”

  “I thought you wanted to save Mrs. Goddard from needless scandal; did you not?” returned the squire. “The governor of Portland would send down a squad of police who would publish the whole affair. He would have done so as soon as the man escaped had he known that Mrs. Goddard lived here.”

  “I wonder how Goddard himself knew it,” remarked Mr. Ambrose.