AN IGNOMINIOUS EXIT.
The windows were thrown open to the bright morning air; the late autumn
birds were singing, the trees were gently waving; even the gloomy
pine-walk opposite had a ray of sunlight on it. Little thought I as I
stood in the oak-parlour with my great happiness, little thought the
servants as they went about their work, that some one lay dead in the
west wing.
Breakfast waited on the table; the postman came with the letters;
Hickens looked in to see if he might bring the urn. He waited on us far
more than the rest did, although he was butler, knowing that Mr.
Chandos liked it.
A stir in the hall at last: Mrs. Penn's voice speaking to Lizzy Dene.
The tones were low, but they reached my ear.
"I cannot think you delivered that letter last evening, Lizzy. I ought
to have received an answer long before this."
"Not deliver it, ma'am!" returned Lizzy, with every sound of surprise.
"I gave it in to the young man at the door."
"Wait a moment, Lizzy: what a hurry you are in! Are you sure Mr. Edwin
Barley was at home?"
"Of course I am not sure," returned Lizzy: and I pictured Mrs. Penn to
myself at that moment: her cheeks flushing red, her eyes flashing fire.
"You deceitful woman! You told me last night Mr. Edwin Barley was at
home!"
"Ma'am, I told you the young man said he was at home. I can't stay here
a minute longer: if Hill finds me gossiping here, she'll be fit to pull
my ears for me."
A slight rustling in the portico. I looked from the window and saw Mrs.
Penn go flying away as speedily as a middle-aged, portly women can fly.
Mr. Chandos came into the room at the same time.
"How is your brother, Mr. Chandos?"
"Better, I trust, than he has been for many years in this life. It is
over, Anne. He died at twelve last night."
The words struck on me as a great shock. Over! Dead!
"He was sensible to the last moment. It was a happy death," continued
Mr. Chandos, in a low, solemn tone. "Truly may it be said that he has
'come out of great tribulation.' God receive and bless him!"
I sat down. Mr. Chandos turned over the letters in an abstracted kind
of manner, but did not really look at them. When I thought I might
venture to speak, I mentioned Mrs. Penn's reproach to Lizzy Dene, and
her running off after (there was no doubt) to Mr. Edwin Barley.
"Ay, I saw her go," he replied. "The answer she has been waiting for
were the police, on their mission to arrest my brother George. They may
come now. And presently will do so," he added, "for I have sent for
them."
"For the police again! What for?"
He made no answer. Emily came in, looking as he did, rather subdued.
She spoke civilly to me: with death in a house people keep down their
temper. Mr. Chandos rang the bell for breakfast, and then we all stood
at the window.
"Where's Dr. Laken?" asked Emily.
"Gone out," replied Mr. Chandos. "He breakfasted early."
"How unfortunate it is that I should have arrived just now!" she
exclaimed, after a pause, during which we were all silent. "The
carriages must not go out, I suppose, for the next few days."
"Ill doing is sure to bring its own punishment, Emily," Mr. Chandos
said to her, jestingly, with a sad smile. "You should not have run
away."
"We shall have Alfred over after me, I expect. His gastric fever will
politely vanish when it is necessary that his wife should be looked up.
But I am _glad_ that I was here, Harry, after all," she added, her
voice changing to one of deep feeling, "for it enabled me to see the
last of _him_."
"I am glad that he was here," observed Mr. Chandos, "for it afforded
the opportunity of his receiving comforts and attendance in his illness
that he could not have had abroad. Now that the awful dread of his
being discovered has passed away, I see how certainly all things were
for the best."
"He stayed here a long while this time."
"He was too ill to leave. We could not urge it. The final end seemed
rapidly and surely approaching."
"Do you call his illness consumption?"
"Not the consumption that attacks most people. If ever man died of a
broken heart, George has."
"Did he come home to die? I mean, knowing that he was soon about to
die?"
"No. He was weak and emaciated when he came, worn to a shadow; but he
did not become really ill, dangerously ill, until afterwards."
"Do the servants know of it?" she asked, lowering her voice. "Will they
be told of it?"
"Certainly not. We hope to keep it private to the end."
"But there must be——"
"Yes, yes," he hastily interrupted, seeing she would have alluded to
the funeral. "Laken manages all that. What a bright morning it is!"
Mr. Chandos leaned from the window as if to turn the conversation.
Emily, easily swayed, plucked a piece of mignonette.
"I suppose mamma will come downstairs to-day. Well, it's time she did."
"It is," asserted Mr. Chandos.
"For more reasons than one," she tartly added, which was a lance-shaft
at me.
Hickens came in with the urn. Seeing the letters lying there untouched,
he spoke with the familiarity of a privileged servant.
"The Indian mail is in, sir."
Mr. Chandos turned quickly to the table. "I see it is, Hickens." But I
don't think he had seen it until then.
"I suppose there's nothing for me from Alfred," said Madame de
Mellissie, languidly looking round. "I'm not anxious to read it if
there is: it would only be full of groans and scolding. Or from Tom,
either? He never writes to me."
Mr. Chandos shook his head. "There's only one from Tom, and that is to
me."
"But I see another Indian letter," she said, slowly approaching the
table. "It has a black seal."
"Not from Thomas: it is in a strange handwriting. It is addressed to my
mother."
"Any letters for my lady, sir?" asked Hill, entering the parlour.
"Two. One of them from India, tell her; but not from Sir Thomas."
Hill retreated with the letters. Emily placed herself in my seat at the
head of the table, and we began breakfast. It was a poor meal for all
of us that morning. Mr. Chandos drank his coffee at a draught, and
opened his brother's letter.
"They were on the eve of action, Emily," he presently said. "Just going
into it when Thomas wrote this. Some local engagement."
"Is it well over?"
"I hope so. But he closed this letter at once. Here is what he says in
conclusion: 'I shall drop this into the post now, and if I come out of
the turmoil safely, give you a second note to say so. That is, if the
post should not have gone: if it has, you must wait another fortnight.'
Where's the evening paper?" added Mr. Chandos, seeking out a newspaper
which had come with the letters, and tearing it open. "News of this
action, however unimportant it was, ought to have come by telegraph."
He had scarcely said this when Hill came in, speaking and looking like
one in alarm. I thought of the police; I fancy Mr. Chandos did.
"Sir—Mr. Harry—my lady wishes you to come to her instantly."
He appeared aroused by the tone—or the looks—and went out at once,
opening the sheets of the newspaper as he did so. Madame de Mellissie
demanded of Hill what he was wanted for.
"I hardly know what, ma'am. Something very sad, I fear, has happened."
Emily started to her feet. "Hill, that letter never contained bad news
from India?—from Sir Thomas?"
"It has got bad news of some sort in it, for certain," was Hill's
rejoinder. "My lady gave a great scream before she had read three
lines, and said some confused words about her 'darling son Thomas.' The
fear upon me, ma'am, is, that he has been hurt in battle."
Worse than that! worse than that! It came upon me with a prevision as I
thought of the black seal and the strange handwriting. Emily, impulsive
in all she did, went running up to the west wing. While I waited alone
for them to return with some news, good or bad, I heard Mrs. Penn come
in and accost Lizzy Dene, who was rubbing the brasses in the hall.
"Where is the letter I gave you last night?" she curtly demanded, her
tone very sharp.
"Why, ma'am, what's the use of asking me?" returned the undaunted
Lizzy, after a faint pause. "Mr. Edwin Barley's people must know more
about that."
"The letter you delivered was not my letter."
"Not your letter!" repeated Lizzy Dene, evidently affecting the most
genuine surprise. "I don't know what you mean, ma'am."
"The letter you left at Mr. Edwin Barley's, instead of being the one I
handed to you, was some rubbishing circular of the fashions. How dared
you do such a thing?"
"My goodness me!" exclaimed Lizzy. "To think of that! But, Mrs. Penn,
it's not possible."
"Don't talk to me about its not being possible! You have been wilfully
careless. I must have my letter produced."
"I declare to goodness I don't know where it is, or what has become of
it, if—as you say, ma'am, it was not the one I gave in to the young
man," spoke Lizzy, this time with real earnestness. I had a letter of
fashions in my basket; but it's odd I could make such a mistake!
"You did make it," Mrs. Penn angrily rejoined. "Where is the letter
now?"
"Ma'am, I can't imagine. It must have been spirited away."
"Don't talk nonsense to me about 'spirited.' If you gave in the one for
the other, you must still have had my letter left in your basket. What
did you do with it?"
"If you offered me a thousand pounds to tell, I couldn't," was Lizzy's
answer. "Looking upon it as nothing but a letter of the fashions, I
thought it was of no moment, else I remember opening my basket after
leaving Mr. Barley's, and seeing there was nothing in it. I wondered
then what could have gone with the fashions. I'm sure, ma'am, I am
verry sorry."
Mrs. Penn went upstairs. It was apparently a profitless inquiry. Lizzy
Dene rubbed away again at her brass, and I waited and waited. The
servants began to stand about in groups, coming perpetually into the
hall; the rumour that something was wrong in India had spread.
By-and-by the truth was brought down by Hill, with great tears upon her
face. Sir Thomas Chandos was dead.
It was not a false report, as had once come, of his death. Ah, no. He
had fallen in battle, gallantly leading his men to the charge. The
Commander-in-Chief in India had written to Lady Chandos with his own
hand: he said how much her son was regretted—that all the officers who
could be spared attended the funeral. A shot had struck him in the
breast. He had but time to say a few words, and died, his mother's name
being the last upon his lips.
Hickens entered the oak-parlour and drew down the white blinds. While
talking of Sir Thomas he burst into tears. It all proved to me how much
Thomas Chandos had been liked by those about him.
The breakfast things were taken away; an hour passed, and the morning
was growing weary, when Mr. Chandos came down, traces of emotion on his
face. Alas! he was no longer "Mr." but Sir Harry Chandos.
The first person I heard give him his title was Dr. Laken. How strange
it was!—had the news arrived only on the previous morning, the title
must have remained in abeyance. Poor, banned, dying George had been the
heir to it by right of birth but I suppose the law would not have given
it to him. Dr. Laken called Mr. Chandos "Sir Harry" three or four times
in the presence of the servants very pointedly. I thought he wanted to
impress tacitly upon them the fact that there was no intervening heir.
It was very strange; all: those blinds that they had not dared to draw
down for George, the grief they had not liked to show, the mourning
they might have been doubtful whether to assume; all did duty for both
brothers now, and might be open and legitimate.
"I think the shadow of death had fallen upon Thomas when he wrote,"
said Mr. Chandos, in a low tone. And Dr. Laken echoed the words
questioningly.
"The shadow of death?"
"I mean the prevision of it. Throughout his letter to me a vein of
sadness runs; and he concludes it, 'Farewell, Harry; God bless you!' He
never so wrote before. You shall read the letter, Laken: my mother has
it now."
Lady Chandos had been coming down that day, they said; but the news had
stopped it, and she would not now be seen until the morrow. The morning
went on. Two official-looking people came, gentlemen, and were taken by
Dr. Laken to the west wing. I gathered that it had something to do with
identification, in case there should be any doubt afterwards of the
death: both of them had known George Heneage in the days gone by.
The blinds were down throughout the house. Every room was dull. Madame
de Mellissie evidently found it so, and came in listlessly to the
oak-parlour. She seemed very cross: perhaps at seeing her brother
there; but he had only come to it a minute before.
"Harry, I suppose Chandos will be looking up again, and taking its part
in county gaieties after awhile—as it never has done yet?"
"Yes," he answered; "after a while."
"It would not be a bad plan for me to reside here occasionally as its
mistress. Mamma goes back to the old Heneage homestead: she always
intended to do so, if this crisis came in poor George's life, leaving
you here to manage the estate for Thomas. And now it is yours, to
manage for yourself. What changes!"
"Changes indeed! I wish I could be the manager for him still."
"You will want a mistress for it; and I shall be glad to escape at
times from home. I get sick and tired of Paris."
"Many thanks, Emily, but the future mistress of Chandos is already
bespoken."
Her fair face flushed; and there was a very tart ring in her voice when
she spoke again.
"Do you forget that your position is changed? When you gave me that
hint last evening, you were, comparatively speaking, an obscure
individual; now you are Sir Harry Chandos, a powerful and very wealthy
baronet."
What he answered, I know not. There was a smile on his face as I left
the room and strolled outside. The sound of approaching footsteps
caused me to look down the avenue, and the look sent me running in
again. Two of the police who had been there before were approaching on
foot.
"I have been waiting for them," said Mr. Chandos, quietly. I _cannot_
get quite at once into the way of calling him anything else. "Emily,
will you oblige me by going up to Mrs. Chandos, and make some excuse
for taking her into the west wing at once. You can stay here, or go to
another room, as you like, Anne."
I went up to my chamber. Madame de Mellissie was already passing along
the gallery, her arm linked within that of Mrs. Chandos. Mrs. Penn
advanced to the well of the staircase and saw the police. A glow of
triumph overspread her whole face.
"Sooner here than I thought for!" she exclaimed. "You will see
something now, Anne Hereford."
They came up the stairs, Mr. Chandos with them. Mrs. Penn retreated to
the door of the east wing, but she could not resist the temptation of
standing at it to look. They went towards her.
"Not here," she said, waving her hand in the direction of the west
wing. "The person for whom your visit is intended is _there_."
"Pardon me, madam," interposed Mr. Chandos; "the visit of these
officers is to _you_."
"To me! What do you mean?" she asked, after a pause, her voice rising
to a shriek.
Never did I see a change so great come over a human countenance. They
all retreated into the east wing, and the door was closed. What took
place I learnt later.
In the most courteous manner possible, consistent with the
circumstances, Mr. Chandos explained to Mrs. Penn why the police had
come for her. He had reason to believe _she_ was the person who had
been disturbing the tranquillity of Chandos, he said. When she had
offered her boxes for search before, he had declined to permit them to
be touched: he must, much as he regretted the necessity, order them to
be searched now. All this we heard later. Mrs. Penn was taken to. What
she said, never transpired: resistance would have been simply foolish;
and she made up for it by insolence. The police quietly did their duty;
and found ample proof: a few skeleton keys, that would open any lock in
the house, the chief. Her own lace was was there; Mr. Chandos's
memorandum-book. She had came into the house to spy; feverishly hoping
to find out the abiding place of George Heneage.
Her bitter animosity against him had but grown with years. An
accidental circumstance had brought to her a suspicion that George
Heneage's hiding-place was in England; and she had laid her plans and
entered Chandos in the full intention of discovering it. My presence
there had somewhat baffled her: she could not go peeping about in my
sight; she took Mr. Chandos's private book from his desk in the hope
that it might help her to the discovery she had at heart, and then
invented the story of losing her lace to divert the scent from herself.
Later, she conceived another scheme—that of getting me out of the
house; and she stole the money to put it into my box; and arranged the
supposed opening of her reticule in my room, and the reading of her
sealed letter; and abstracted the letter I had put on the hall-table,
hoping Mr. Chandos would fall into the trap and send me from Chandos.
_Now_ could be understood her former anxiety that the police should
search her boxes and mine; hers were ready for the inspection, mine had
the money in them; and, at that time (as I knew later) also the
memorandum-book. Something else was found in her boxes besides skeleton
keys—a grey cloak. Putting one thing with another, Mr. Chandos thought
he had little need of further speculation as to who had stopped his
horse in the avenue that night, and caused his fall from it. And the
reason may as well be mentioned here, though it is anticipating our
knowledge of it. She had lingered about the private groves of Chandos
until dusk that afternoon, hoping to see Mr. Edwin Barley, whose house
she was forbidden; in going forth at length, openly, having put her
cloak on because she was cold—and how it was Hill had not seen it on
her arm when talking with her in the portico, was a mystery, for she
had brought it to Chandos, left it in the hall there, and taken it upon
her departure—in going down the avenue she met Mr. Chandos riding up
it. She had never before seen him, and she took him in the dusk for his
brother. She actually thought she was encountering George Heneage; and
the noise with which she approached the horse and flung up her arms,
was not made to frighten the animal, but simply to express execration,
in her great surprise. At the same moment, even as it escaped her, she
discovered her mistake, and that it was not George Heneage.
"Now, madam," said Mr. Chandos, the search over, the proofs in the
officers' hands, "what have you to urge why I should not give you into
custody? You have been living in my mother's house under false colours;
you have been rifling locks; you have taken my money; you have been
writing anonymous letters, and carrying tales to Mr. Edwin Barley."
"All that I have done, I was justified in doing," she answered, braving
it out. "I was at work in your house, Harry Chandos, as a detective: my
acts bore but one aim—the discovery of your brother, the murderer. And
I have succeeded. In an hour's time from this, perhaps, the tables will
be turned. As to your money, Mr. Chandos, it is wrapped in paper and
directed to you. I don't steal money."
"What palliation have you to offer for your conduct? what excuse
against my giving you into custody?" repeated Mr. Chandos.
"If you choose to do it, _do_ it," she returned. "Some one of far
greater import than I will be shortly taken into custody from this
house. I am of the kin of the Barleys: you and they are implacable
enemies: all stratagems are fair when the discovery of criminals,
hiding from the law, is in question. I have only done my duty; I would
do it again. Give me into custody if you like, Mr. Chandos. The tables
will soon be turned."
"No, they will not be turned in the sense you would insinuate, and for
that reason I can afford to be generous," answered Mr. Chandos. "Had
real harm come of this matter, I would have prosecuted you to the
utmost rigour of the law. But, as it is beyond your power now, or Mr.
Edwin Barley's either, to do us harm, you may go from us scot-free. But
I cannot allow you to remain longer at Chandos. Forgive the seeming
inhospitality, if I say I would prefer that you should not wait to
partake of another meal in the house. Your things shall be sent after
you. Or, if you prefer to gather them together, these officers will
wait while you do it, and then escort you from my house into that of
Mr. Edwin Barley."
"I will not be escorted abroad by police officers," she passionately
answered.
"You possess no choice, madam. I have, so far, given you into their
charge: and they will take care to undertake it."
A very short while seemed to suffice to put her things together, and
Mrs. Penn came forth, attended by the two officers. In some mood of
reckless defiance, or perhaps to conceal herself as much as possible
from the gaze of the world, she had put on the grey cloak and drawn the
hood over her head.
Mr. Chandos recognised her at once, as she had looked that night. He
could but be a gentleman, and had gone out to the hall in courtesy when
she came down to depart. The sight of her thus startled him for a
moment.
"Ah, I should have known you anywhere, Mrs. Penn. What had I or my
horse done to you that you should attack us?"
She turned and faced him. It really seemed as though she believed
herself in the right in all the past acts, and felt proud to have done
so well. All this while, it must be remembered, she supposed George
Heneage was alive in the west wing, and would soon be taken from it to
a criminal prison. She could afford to make concessions now.
"It was not you or your horse I attacked intentionally. I mistook you
for another. For that brother of yours, Mr. Chandos, whose liberty will
soon be put beyond jeopardy, and his life after it. Your great likeness
to George Heneage, as he looked in those old days at Hallam, is
unfortunate. For one thing, it has caused me to hate you; when, to
speak candidly, I think in yourself there is not much to hate.
You"—turning her flashing eyes on the men—"are seeing me out of the
house because I have acted my part effectually in it; a part that Sir
Richard Mayne himself would say I was justified in; but there is a
greater criminal concealed above, for whom a warrant is, as I expect,
already in force."
"You are wrong," said Mr. Chandos. "Were the whole establishment of
Scotland Yard to make their appearance here, each with a warrant in his
hand, they would scarcely execute it. It has been a long, a weary, and
a wearing battle: Edwin Barley against George Heneage: but God has
shown himself on the side of mercy."
The words puzzled her a little. "Has he escaped?" she fiercely asked.
"Has he left the house?"
"He has not left it, Mrs. Penn; he is in the west wing." She threw up
her head with a glow of triumph, and walked rapidly away down the broad
walk, the policemen escorting her.
Standing at the back of the hall in utter amazement, partly at seeing
Mrs. Penn go forth at all, partly at the object she presented in the
grey cloak, was Lizzy Dene. "Miss," she said to me, as I stood just
inside the great dining-room, "I should say she must have been the one
to frighten Black Knave that night."
"Perhaps she was, Lizzy. Her cloak is grey."
An impulse came over me that I would ask Lizzy Dene the motive of her
suspicious conduct in the past. Now that the culprit had turned out to
be Mrs. Penn, Lizzy Dene must have been innocent. Stepping within the
large dining-room, I asked her there and then.
"Ah," said she, with a sort of fling out of the hands, habitual to her
when annoyed or in pain, "I don't mind telling now. I was in trouble at
that time."
"What do you mean, Lizzy?"
"I have got a brother, Miss; as steady, well-meaning a man as you'd
wish to see," she answered, coming nearer and dropping her voice to a
low tone. "He came into this neighbourhood in search of work, he and
his wife. Oh, but it's she that's the plague; and a fine worry he has
had with her, on and off. She's wild; if there's a wake or a dance
within ten miles, she'll be off after it: and at times she has been
seen the worse for drink. Not that you'd think it, to look at her;
she's a pretty, neat, jaunty young woman; never a pleasanter than she
when she chooses. Well, try as he would, he couldn't get work in these
parts, except an odd job now and again: and you know, Miss, when
everything is going out, and nothing's coming in, it don't take long
for any few pounds that may have been saved in an old stocking, to come
to an end."
"That's true enough, Lizzy."
"_Theirs_ did. And what should they do when all was gone but come to me
to help them. I did it. I helped them till I was tired, till I could
help no longer. She, it was, mostly that asked; he'd never have begged
a sixpence from me but when driven to it by sheer want. She pestered my
very life out, coming here continually, and when I told her I had no
more money to give, and it was of no use asking for it, then she prayed
for broken victuals. Things had got very low with them. 'Who's that
woman that's always creeping here after Lizzy Dene!' the servants said.
'Who's that man that we see her with!' they'd say again. And I did not
choose to say who. Both of them had got shabby then, in rags almost;
and he, what with the ill luck and her conduct, had been seen twice in
drink. My lady is excessively particular that the servants she has
about her shall belong to respectable people; Hill, she's always on the
watch; and what I feared was that I might be turned from my place. It
was not a pleasant life for me, Miss."
I thought it could not have been.
"One afternoon—the same that the accident occurred to Mr. Chandos—Tilda
had been up to the house, begging as usual. She vowed, if I would not
relieve her with either money or food, to do some damage to the family:
but she had been having a drop of beer, and I paid no attention to her,
and wouldn't give her anything. I may be giving for ever, I said to
her, and she went away, threatening. After she was gone, I kept
thinking over what she had said—that she'd do some damage to the
family—the words wouldn't go away from me, and I got right down
frightened, lest she should put her threat in force. What if she should
fire one of the haystacks, or poison the poultry?—all sorts of horrors
I kept on imagining. I begged some cold meat of the cook, inventing a
story of a poor sick family, and collected some broken bits of bread,
with a pinch of tea, and ran out with it all in a basket, at the dusk
hour. They were lodging in one of the lanes close by; and when I got
there I found Tilda had not been in. I couldn't stop; I gave the things
to John, and told him he must keep Tilda away or I should lose my
place; he promised he'd do what he could, but added that I knew as well
as he did how little she'd be said. In hurrying back through the
avenue, with my basket, I came upon Mr. Chandos lying there; you were
standing by him. Miss, when I heard what had happened, as true as that
we are here, I was afraid that she had done it. I went back and taxed
her with it; she had come in then, but she was sullen and would not say
yes nor no. I was frightened out of my senses for fear it should come
out; and I tried to lay it upon the gipsies. But the next day, when her
temper came to her, she vowed and protested that she'd had nothing to
do with it. I thought then it really was the gipsies, and wished to
bring it home to them. That's the truth, Miss, as I'm here living."
"And what were you doing in my room that night, Lizzy?"
"What night, Miss?"
"When I surprised you, and you appeared so confused. The excuse you
made was that you were looking for the ghost."
"And so I was looking for it, Miss," she answered: "I was doing nothing
else. One of the girls had said the ghost was abroad that night, and I
thought I'd look. Between Tilda and the ghost my time was a bad one
just then. I'm sure I was thankful when she and John left these parts.
He has got work at the malting in a distant town, and they are doing
well. I wish the ghost could be got rid of as easily."
If Lizzy Dene had but known how entirely the poor ghost had gone out of
the world for ever! Would Chandos ever lose its belief in it?
"I have told you this, Miss, because I thought you seemed to suspect
me; and I didn't deserve it. I'm true to the family, to the backbone,
Miss; and so I always will be. My lady has confidence in me; she has
known me a long while."
The explanation over, Lizzy Dene left me. I crossed the hall to enter
the oak-parlour just in time to see Hickens open the front door to a
visitor, and to hear a colloquy. My heart seemed to shrink within me at
the voice, for it was Mr. Edwin Barley's. What could have brought _him_
to the house, boldly inquiring for its inmates?
It appeared that Mrs. Penn, on her stealthy visit to his house that
morning, had not seen him. Upon inquiring for Mr. Barley she was told
he had gone out betimes, shooting. The information took her aback. Go
out shooting, when his enemy, for whom he had been searching night and
day these ten years, was found to be close at hand, waiting to be
apprehended! And she forthwith accused the footman of not delivering to
his master the note left at the house the previous night, upon which
she had the pleasure of hearing that the note was duly delivered to Mr.
Edwin Barley, and turned out to be a circular of the fashions. All she
could do then was to write a few lines, giving him the information
about George Heneage, with a charge that it should be put into Mr.
Barley's hands the instant he set foot in the house. But Mr. Barley did
not return to it quickly. The birds were shy that day.
Later, when he was at length going home, his gun in one hand and a
brace of pheasants in the other, he encountered a procession. Turning
out at the lodge-gates came Mrs. Penn, one policeman walking by her
side, another behind; and, following on, Mrs. Penn's luggage in a truck
propelled by a man in the Chandos livery. Mr. Edwin Barley naturally
stopped; although he had not been on good terms with Mrs. Penn for some
years; and inquired the meaning of what he saw.
"You are the only relative I have left in the world, Mr. Edwin Barley;
will you, as such, suffer this indignity to be put upon me?" were the
first words she spoke. And he, thus called upon, turned in his haughty,
menacing manner on the officers. She _was_ his relative, as she said,
and he possessed some right feeling.
"What is the meaning of this? Unhand the lady! Why are you guarding her
in that offensive manner?"
"We have orders, sir, to see the lady safely away from Chandos."
"Who gave you the orders?"
"Mr. Chandos."
Mr. Edwin Barley said something about making Mr. Chandos retract his
orders before the day was over; but the men were not to be intimidated.
"The lady has not been behaving on the square, sir, and we thought at
first she would be given into custody. But Mr. Chandos considered it
over; and said, as she had been able to effect no great harm, he'd let
her go."
Mr. Edwin Barley looked to Mrs. Penn for an explanation. Instead of
giving it, she whispered in his ear the information about George
Heneage. For the first time for years, Mr. Edwin Barley's face twitched
with powerful emotion.
"WHAT do you say?" he asked in his surprise and bewilderment.
"What I say is plain: George Heneage, the murderer of your ward, the
indirect murderer of your wife, is in concealment at Chandos," said
Mrs. Penn, rather tragically. "The mysteries of that west wing have
been cleared to me. Anne Hereford penetrated to it yesterday for some
purpose of her own, and saw him: an emaciated being she described him,
bearing a striking resemblance to Harry Chandos. Now what do you say to
my having entered the house as a detective, Mr. Edwin Barley? And it is
for having pursued my investigations that Mr. Chandos has turned me
forth in in this ignominious manner."
Mr. Edwin Barley drew in his lips. She said not a word, be it
understood, of the illegitimate mode in which she had pursued the said
investigation. He turned matters rapidly over in his mind, and then
addressed the policeman.
"What were you intending to do with this lady?"
"Our orders were to see her into your house, sir. Nothing more."
"My mission in this part of the world is over," interrupted Mrs. Penn;
"I shall leave it for London this afternoon. Until then, say for an
hour or two, I shall be glad to find a shelter in your house, Mr. Edwin
Barley."
"Very good. After that you are at liberty, I presume, to take orders
from me?" he added to the officers. And they signified they were if he
had any to give.
"You can then follow me to Chandos. Stay outside the house, and be
ready to obey the signal I shall give you. Be prepared to take into
custody a criminal who has been evading the law for years, and who will
probably make a desperate resistance. What do you say? No warrant?
Nonsense. I am in the commission of the peace, and will absolve you of
any consequences."
Laying his gun and birds on the top of the luggage, Mr. Edwin Barley
turned to Chandos. The policemen, who had not the remotest intention of
quitting their prisoner until they had seen her within Mr. Barley's
doors continued their way thither. Thus it happened: and the voice of
Edwin Barley demanding to see Lady Chandos greeted my dismayed ears as
I crossed the hall. Why he should have asked for Lady Chandos, he
himself best knew: the demand was an imperative one.
"My lady cannot be seen, sir," was the reply of Hickens. "She is
better, I hear; but she is not yet out of her rooms. Sir Harry is
within."
"Who do you say is within?" cried Mr. Edwin Barley, probably thinking
his ears might deceive him.
"Sir Harry Chandos."
"Sir Harry," repeated Mr. Edwin Barley, wondering doubtless whether
Hickens had lost his senses. "What do you mean by calling him that."
"I call him nothing but what's right, sir. He is Sir Harry now,
unfortunately: that is unfortunately for poor Sir Thomas. News came
this morning, sir, that Sir Thomas has been killed in battle. We have
got the house shut up for him."
Mr. Edwin Barley took a step backwards, and looked at the white blinds,
closely drawn behind, the windows. The tidings took him by surprise.
Having gone out shooting before the letters and papers were delivered,
he was in ignorance of the morning's news.
"I am sorry to hear it," he said. "It is an additional blow for Lady
Chandos; and she does not need it. Sir Thomas was the best of the three
sons: I had no grudge against him. But Mr. Harry Chandos does not take
the title, my man."
"Oh yes, he does, sir. He is now Sir Harry Chandos."
"I tell you _no_," returned Mr. Edwin Barley, with a grim smile. "He is
just as much Sir Harry Chandos as I am: it is not he who comes into the
title. Let it pass, however."
"Did you want him, sir?" inquired Hickens, quitting at once the
controversy like a well-trained servant.
"I do. But I would very much have preferred to see Lady Chandos first."
"That is quite out of the question, sir," concluded Hickens, as he
conducted his visitor to the state drawing-room. Oh, but it was a
relief to me—shivering just inside the oak-parlour—to hear him pass it!
As will readily be understood, I have to relate things now that did not
at the time come under my personal sight or hearing: they only reached
me later. Mr. Edwin Barley looked upon his prisoner as _his_; as much
his own, with those two keen policemen posted outside the house and he
inside it, as though George Heneage had lain at his feet manacled and
fettered. He could not resist the temptation of entering the house that
contained his long-evading enemy.
Hickens took out his revenge. Returning with his master to the large
drawing-room, he contrived to let it be known that he maintained his
own opinion; giving the introduction with great emphasis—
"Mr. Edwin Barley, Sir Harry."