Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  The squire doubted whether he would be willing to exchange his personality for that of Mr. Booley.

  “Well — what then?” he said. “I think I would try to be merciful.”

  “Yes; but suppose that in being merciful, you just allowed that lady the time necessary to present her beloved husband with a convenient little pill, just to shorten his sufferings? And suppose that—”

  “Really, Mr. Booley, I think you make very unwarrantable suppositions,” said Mr. Juxon severely. “I cannot suppose any such thing.”

  “Many women — ladies too — have done that to save a man from hanging,” returned Mr. Booley, fixing his grey eye on the squire.

  “Hanging?” repeated the latter in surprise. “But Goddard is not to be hanged.”

  “Of course he is. What did you expect?” Mr. Booley looked surprised in his turn.

  “But — what for?” asked the squire very anxiously. “He has not killed anybody—”

  “Oh — then you don’t know how he escaped?”

  “No — I have not the least idea — pray tell me.”

  “I don’t wonder you don’t understand me, then,” said Mr. Booley. “Well, it is a short tale but a lively one, as they say. Of course it stands to reason in the first place that he could not have got out of Portland. He was taken out for a purpose. You know that after his trial was over, all sorts of other things besides the forgery came out about him, proving that he was altogether a very bad lot. Now about three weeks ago there was a question of identifying a certain person — it was a very long story, with a bad murder case and all the rest of it — commonplace, you know the sort — never mind the story, it will all be in the papers before long when they have got it straight, which is more than I have, seeing that these affairs do get a little complicated occasionally, you know, as such things will.” Mr. Booley paused. It was evident that his command of the English tongue was not equal to the strain of constructing a long sentence.

  “This person, whom he was to identify, was the person murdered?” inquired

  Mr. Juxon.

  “Exactly. It was not the person, but the person’s body, so to say. Somebody who had been connected with the Goddard case was sure that if Goddard could be got out of prison he could do the identifying all straight. It did not matter about his being under sentence of hard labour — it was a private case, and the officer only wanted Goddard’s opinion for his personal satisfaction. So he goes to the governor of Portland, and finds that Goddard had a very good character in that institution — he was a little bit of a gay deceiver, you see, and knew how to fetch the chaps in there and particularly the parson. So he had a good character. Very good. The governor consents to send him to town for this private job, under a strong force — that means three policemen — with irons on his hands. When they reached London they put him in a fourwheeler. Those things are done sometimes, and nobody is the wiser, because the governor does it on his own responsibility, for the good of the law, I suppose. I never approved of it. Do you follow me, Mr. Juxon?”

  “Perfectly,” answered the squire. “He was driven from the station with three policemen in a hackney-coach, you say.”

  “Exactly so. It was a queer place where the body was — away down in the Minories. Ever been there, Mr. Juxon? Queer place it is, and no mistake. I would like to show you some little bits of London. Well, as I was saying, the fourwheeler went along, with two policemen inside with Goddard and one on the box. Safe, you would say. Not a bit of it. Just the beggar’s luck, too. It was dusk. That is always darker than when the lamps are well going. The fourwheeler ran into a dray-cart, round a corner where they were repairing the street. The horse went down with a smash, shafts, lamp, everything broken to smithereens, as they say. The policeman jumps off the box with the cabby to see what is the matter. One of the bobbies — the policemen I would say — it’s a technical term, Mr. Juxon — gets out of the cab to see what’s up, leaving Goddard in charge of the other. Then there is a terrific row; more carts come up, more fourwheelers — everybody swearing at once. Presently the policeman who had got out comes back and looks in to see if everything is straight. Not a bit of it again. Other door of the cab was open and — no Goddard. But the policeman was lying back in the corner and when they struck a light and looked, they found he was stone dead. Goddard had brained him with the irons on his wrists. No one ever saw him from that day to this. He must have known London well — they say he did, and he was a noted quick runner. Being nightfall and rather foggy as it generally is in those parts he got clear off. But he killed the man who had him in charge and if he lives he will have to swing for it. May be Mrs. Goddard does not know that — may be she does. That is the reason I don’t want her to be left alone with him. No doubt she is very good and all that, but she might just take it into her head to save the government twenty feet of rope.”

  “I am very much surprised, and very much shocked,” said the squire

  gravely. “I had no idea of this. But I will answer for Mrs. Goddard.

  Why was all this never In the papers — or was there an account of it, Mr.

  Booley?”

  “Oh no — it was never mentioned. We felt sure that we should catch him and until we did we — I mean the profession — thought it just as well to say nothing. The governor remembered to have read a letter from Goddard’s wife, just telling him where she was living, about two years ago. Being harmless, he passed it and never copied the address; then he could not remember it. At last they found it in his cell, hidden away somehow. The beggar had kept it.”

  “Poor fellow!” exclaimed Mr. Juxon. In the silence which followed, the sound of wheels was heard outside. Doctor Longstreet had arrived.

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  WHILE MR. AND Mrs. Ambrose were together in the library downstairs, while John Short was waking from the short sleep he had enjoyed, and while the squire was listening in the study to Mr. Booley’s graphic account of the convict’s escape, Mrs. Goddard was alone with her husband, watching every movement and listening intently to every moaning breath he drew.

  In the desperate anxiety for his fate, she forgot herself and seemed no longer to feel fatigue or exhaustion from all she herself had suffered. She stood long by his bedside, hoping that he might recognise her and yet fearing the moment when he should recover his senses. Then she noticed that the morning sun was pouring in through the window and she drew a curtain across, to shade his eyes from the glare. Whether the sudden changing of the light affected Goddard, as it does sometimes affect persons in the delirium of a brain fever, or whether it was only a natural turn in his condition, she never knew. His expression changed and acquired that same look of strange intelligence which John Short had noticed in the night; the flush sank from his forehead and gave place to a luminous, transparent colour, his eyelids once more moved naturally, and he looked at his wife as she stood beside him, and recognised her. He was weaker now than when he had spoken with John Short six hours earlier, but he was more fully in possession of his faculties for a brief moment. Mary Goddard trembled and felt her hands turn cold with excitement.

  “Walter, do you know me now?” she asked very softly.

  “Yes,” he said faintly, and closed his eyes. She laid her hand upon his forehead; the coldness of it seemed pleasant to him, for a slight smile flickered over his face.

  “You are better, I think,” she said again, gazing intently at him.

  “Mary — it is Mary?” he murmured, slowly opening his eyes and looking up to her. “Yes — I know you — I have been dreaming a long time. I’m so tired—”

  “You must not talk,” said she. “It will tire you more.” Then she gave him some drink. “Try and sleep,” she said in a soothing tone.

  “I cannot — oh, Mary, I am very ill.”

  “But you will get well again—”

  Goddard started suddenly, and laid his hand upon her arm with more force than she suspected he possessed.

  “Where am I?” he asked, staring about t
he room. “Is this your house,

  Mary? What became of Juxon?”

  “He is not hurt. He brought you home in his arms, Walter, to his own house, and is taking care of you.”

  “Good heavens! He will give me up. No, no, don’t hold me — I must be off”

  He made a sudden effort to rise, but he was very weak. He fell back exhausted upon his pillow; his fingers gripped the sheet convulsively, and his face grew paler.

  “Caught — like a rat!” he muttered. Mary Goddard sighed.

  Was she to give him hope of escape? Or should she try to calm him now, and when he was better, break the truth to him? Was she to make him believe that he was safe for the present, and hold out a prospect of escape when he should be better, or should she tell him now, once for all, while he was in his senses, that he was lost? It was a terrible position. Love she had none left for him, but there was infinite pity still in her heart and there would be while he breathed. She hesitated one moment only, and it may be that she decided for the wrong; but it was her pity that moved her, and not any remnant of love.

  “Hush, Walter,” she said. “You may yet escape, when you are strong enough. You are quite safe here, for the present. Mr. Juxon would not think of giving you up now. By and by — the window is not high, Walter, and I shall often be alone with you. I will manage it.”

  “Is that true? Are you cheating me?” cried the wretched man in broken tones. “No — you are speaking the truth — I know it — God bless you, Mary!” Again he closed his eyes and drew one or two long deep breaths.

  Strange to say, the blessing the miserable convict called down upon her was sweet to Mary Goddard, sweeter than anything she remembered for a long time. She had perhaps done wrong in giving him hopes of escaping, but at least he was grateful to her. It was more than she expected, for she remembered her last meeting with him, and the horrible ingratitude he had then shown her. It seemed to her that his heart had been softened a little; anything was better than that rough indifference he had affected before. Presently he spoke again.

  “Not that it makes much difference now, Mary,” he said. “I don’t think there is much left of me.”

  “Do not say that, Walter,” she answered gently. “Rest now. The more you rest the sooner you will be well again. Try and sleep.”

  “Sleep — no — I cannot sleep. I have murdered sleep — like Macbeth, Mary, like Macbeth — Do you remember Macbeth?”

  “Hush,” said Mary Goddard, endeavouring to calm him, though she turned pale at his strange quotation. “Hush—”

  “That is to say,” said the sick man, heedless of her exhortation and soothing touch, “that is to say, I did not. He was very wide awake, and if I had not been quick, I should never have got off. Ugh! How damp that cellar was, that first night. That is where I got my fever. It is fever, I suppose?” he asked, unable to keep his mind for long in one groove. “What does the doctor say? Has he been here?”

  “Yes. He said you would soon be well; but he said you must be kept very quiet. So you must not talk, or I will go away.”

  “Oh Mary, don’t go — don’t go! It’s like — ha! ha! it’s quite like old times, Mary!” He laughed harshly, a hideous, half-delirious laugh.

  Mary Goddard shuddered but made a great effort to control herself.

  “Yes,” she said gently, “it is like old times. Try and think that it is the old house at Putney, Walter. Do you hear the sparrows chirping, just as they used to do? The curtains are the same colour, too. You used to sleep so quietly at the old house. Try and sleep now. Then you will soon get well. Now, I will sit beside you, but I will not talk any more — there — are you quite comfortable? A little higher? Yes — so. Go to sleep.”

  Her quiet voice soothed him, and her gentle hands made his rest more easy. She sat down beside him, thinking from his silence that he would really go to sleep; hoping and yet not hoping, revolving in her mind the chances of his escape, so soon as he should be strong enough to attempt it, shuddering at the thought of what his fate must be if he again fell into the hands of the police. She did not know that a detective was at that moment in the house, determined to carry her husband away so soon as the doctor pronounced it possible. Nothing indeed, not even that knowledge could have added much to the burden of her sorrows as she sat there, a small and graceful figure with a sad pathetic face, leaning forward as she sat and gazing drearily at the carpet, where the sunlight crept in beneath the curtains from the bright world without. It seemed to her that the turning point in her existence had come, and that this day must decide all; yet she could not see how it was to be decided, think of it as she might. One thing stood prominent in her thoughts, and she delighted to think of it — the generosity of Charles Juxon. From first to last, from the day when she had frankly told him her story and he had accepted it and refused to let it bring any difference to his friendship for her, down to this present time, when after being basely attacked by her own husband, he had nobly brought the wretch home and was caring for him as for one of his own blood — through all and in spite of all, the squire had shown the same unassuming but unfailing generosity. She asked herself, as she sat beside the sick man, whether there were many like Charles Juxon in the world. There was the vicar, but the case was very different. He too had been kind and generous from the first; but he had not asked her to marry him — she blushed at the thought — he had not loved her. If Charles Juxon loved her, his generosity to Goddard was all the greater.

  She could not tell whether she loved him, because her ideas were what the world calls simple, and what, in heaven, would be called good. Her husband was alive; none the less so because he had been taken away and separated from her by the law — he was alive, and now was brought face to face with her again. While he was living, she did not suppose it possible to love another, for she was very simple. She said to herself truly that she had a very high esteem for the squire and that he was the best friend she had in the world; that to lose him would be the most terrible of imaginable losses; that she was deeply indebted to him, and she even half unconsciously allowed that if she were free she might marry him. There was no harm in that, she knew very well. She owed her own husband no longer either respect or affection, even while she still felt pity for him. Her esteem at least, she might give to another; nay, she owed it, and if she had refused Charles Juxon her friendship, she would have called herself the most ungrateful of women. If ever man deserved respect, esteem and friendship, it was the squire.

  Even in the present anxiety she thought of him, for his conduct seemed the only bright spot in the gloom of her thoughts; and she sincerely rejoiced that he had escaped unhurt. Had any harm come to him, she would have been, if it were possible, more miserable than she now was. But he was safe and sound, and doing his best to help her — doing more than she knew, in fact, at that very moment. There was at least something to be thankful for.

  Goddard stirred again, and opened his eyes.

  “Mary,” he said faintly, “they won’t catch me after all.”

  “No, Walter,” said she, humouring him. “Sleep quietly, for no one will disturb you.”

  “I am going where nobody can catch me. I am dying—”

  “Oh, Walter!” cried Mary Goddard, “you must not speak like that. You will be better soon. The doctor is expected every moment.”

  “He had better make haste,” said the sick man with something of the roughness he had shown at their first meetings. “It is no use, Mary. I have been thinking about it. I have been mad for — for very long, I am sure. I want to die, Mary. Nobody can catch me if I die — I shall be safe then. You will be safe too — that is a great thing.”

  His voice had a strange and meditative tone in it, which frightened his wife, as she stood close beside him. She could not speak, for her excitement and fear had the mastery of her tongue.

  “I have been thinking about it — I am not good for much, now — Mary — I never was. It will do some good if I die — just because I shall be out of the wa
y. It will be the only good thing I ever did for you.”

  “Oh Walter,” cried his wife in genuine distress, “don’t — don’t! Think — you must not die so — think of — of the other world, Walter — you must not die so!”

  Goddard smiled faintly — scornfully, his wife thought.

  “I daresay I shall not die till to-morrow, or next day — but I will not live,” he said with sudden energy. “Do you understand me, I will not live! Bah!” he cried, falling back upon his pillow, “the grapes are sour — I can’t live if I would. Oh yes, I know all about that — my sins. Well, I am sorry for them. I am sorry, Mary. But it is very little good — people always laugh at — deathbed repentance—”

  He stopped and his thoughts seemed wandering. Mary Goddard gave him something to drink and tried to calm him. But he moved restlessly, though feebly.

  “Softly, softly,” he murmured again. “He is coming — close to me. Get ready — now — no not yet, yes — now. Ugh!” yelled Goddard, suddenly springing up, his eyes starting from his head. “Ugh! the dog — oh!”

  “Hush, Walter,” cried his wife, pushing him back. “Hush — no one will hurt you.”

  “What — is that you, Mary?” asked the sick man, trembling violently. Then he laughed harshly. “I was off again. Pshaw! I did not really mean to hurt him — he need not have set that beast at me. He did not catch me though — Mary, I am going to die — will you pray for me? You are a good woman — somebody will hear your prayers, I daresay. Do, Mary — I shall feel better somehow, though I daresay it is very foolish of me.”

  “No, Walter — not foolish, not foolish. Would you like me to call Mr.

  Ambrose? he is a clergyman — he is in the house.”

  “No, no. You Mary, you — nobody will hear anybody else’s prayers — for me — for poor me—”

  “Try and pray with me, Walter,” said Mary Goddard, very quietly. She seemed to have an unnatural strength given to her in that hour of distress and horror. She knelt down by the bedside and took his wounded hand in hers, tenderly, and she prayed aloud in such words as she could find.