“WE SHALL SAVE HIM YET.”
Bessie took the note up to Olivia’s room, and found her still kneeling
beside the bed, her arms stretched out upon the white coverlid in utter
exhaustion; and yet the hands were moving to and fro restlessly, as if
the brain were racked by anxious thought.
Bessie bent over her and softly drew the long hair from her face, which
was burning hot.
“Ah, miss, you will be ill again!” she said, reproachfully. “And he
said I was to take care of you.”
“Yes! It is always of me or some one else he is thinking!” Olivia
moaned, impatiently. “Always of some one else--never of himself. Oh,
Bessie, what shall I do to save him? What shall I do? Every hour, every
minute, that slips by so stealthily and swiftly, adds to the danger.
I can’t think; I can’t even pray. What shall I do?” and she wrung her
hands.
“Hush, hush, miss!” murmured Bessie, soothingly. “Something will be
done; the truth must come to light.”
But though she tried to speak confidently, her voice trembled, and she
had to turn her face away.
“Yes, the truth will come to light when it is too late and they
have--killed him. Oh, if there was only some one I could go to, some
one to help me! If I were only a man instead of a weak, feeble woman!
What is that?” she broke off sharply, as she caught sight of the note
in Bessie’s hand.
Bessie held it out reluctantly.
“From him!” panted Olivia.
“No, from--Mr. Bradstone, miss,” replied Bessie, pronouncing the name
as if with an effort.
Olivia drew the hand back as if the envelope had power to sting her;
then she took it slowly and read it.
With a cry she let the letter fall from her hands, and flung them
before her face as if to shut out some fearful sight. Bessie flew
to her with an exclamation; but suddenly Olivia’s emotion seemed to
change, and, darting upon the letter, took it to the window and read it
again with dilating eyes. Then she turned and grasped Bessie’s arm.
“Bessie,” she whispered, hoarsely, a strange thrill in her voice, a
strange light seeming to shine upon her face, “did you ever doubt his
innocence? Did you? Did you?” she demanded, feverishly.
Bessie looked at her indignantly.
“No; nor I! But if I had, if even for a moment such a doubt had entered
my heart, I should doubt no longer! Do you know why?” and her grasp
tightened upon Bessie’s arm and terrified her. “I will tell you!
Because Mr. Bradstone says that he saw him do it!”
Bessie shrank back with a low cry of horror.
“Says----Oh, no, no, miss!”
“Yes! Listen! No, I will not sully my lips with the lie--for it is a
lie! If it had been true he would not have waited until now! Ah, no!”
She stopped and looked before her into vacancy, her dark brows drawn
straight. “No, he would not have waited; he would have been only too
glad to tell it. Then”--her voice dropped still lower--“why does he say
it now? Why? why? Help me, Bessie,” and her hands worked convulsively.
“There is some reason. Ah!” she started and shrank, and her face went
white. “I see!”
Panting and trembling, Bessie clung to her.
“Oh, what is it, miss? What is it you think you have found out?”
“I have found out this: I am sure that Mr. Bradstone knows who
committed the murder!” replied Olivia, almost inaudibly.
Bessie’s brain reeled, and it was she who clung to Olivia for
support--Olivia, who every moment seemed to be gaining greater physical
and mental strength.
“He--he knows, and he says it was Mr. Fara----Oh, Miss Olivia!” and she
began to cry.
“Hush, hush! Let us think!” said Olivia, almost sternly. “Why does he
accuse him? Why does Bartley Bradstone screen the real criminal? Is
it some friend--some one he knows? Ah, I cannot see; it is all dark!
If there were only some one to help me! But there is no one, no one.
If Bertie----” She stopped with a cry. “But I sent him away! I have
brought trouble, nothing but trouble to all who--who loved me!” and she
hung her head and sighed. “He will not speak, he will keep silent, but
Bartley Bradstone will not be silent. He will tell this lie in open
court, and----” She stopped, and a shudder shook her from head to foot.
Then she was silent for a moment, still thinking deeply. Suddenly she
looked up. “Bertie may be in England; no one can tell. If he were--he
loves him, I know. Bessie, you must go to London----”
“Me! To London!” said Bessie, with a start; then almost instantly she
added, quietly, “Yes, miss, I can be ready in a quarter of an hour,”
and she drew herself up and stood with flashing eyes expectantly.
Olivia drew her toward her and kissed her.
“Now listen to me,” she said, in a low voice, that was firm and steady
for the first time since the awful day of the wedding--and the murder.
“First, Bessie, go to Lord Carfield’s--I will give you a note.” She
darted to her desk and wrote rapidly. “It is asking him to tell me
Lord Bertie’s address. If he says he does not know it, go to London to
the detective--Mr. McAndrew, of whom you have told me--and tell him to
find out if Lord Bertie is in England or within reach. If he is, Mr.
McAndrew is to give him this message: ‘Olivia Vanley----’” She stopped,
and her face grew red and then white. “No, ‘Olivia,’ only Olivia,
‘wants you to come to her on a matter of life or death.’ That is all.
He will ask you for money, very likely.” She flew to her jewel-case,
which Bessie had arranged, and snatched the first thing that came to
hand.
It was Faradeane’s present. Her lips quivered and her eyes filled with
tears as she looked at it, and she was putting it back in the case,
when, she stayed her hand and exclaimed, suddenly:
“Yes, this! How better could I use it than in his service? Take this
and give it to Mr. McAndrew. You will find him at Scotland Yard; see,
I have written down the address. Telegraph to me, or come back to me
with the news; and, oh, Bessie, remember that you and I, two helpless
women, are trying to save the life of the man who saved yours, and who
is risking his life now to screen some one else!”
Bessie gave a great sob, then set her teeth hard, and hurried from the
room.
In half an hour she had reached Carfield Towers and delivered the note.
Lord Carfield came out to her, as she was waiting in the brougham.
“Tell your dear mistress, my girl,” he said, sadly, “that I am as
ignorant as she is of my son’s whereabouts. Of course, it is on account
of Mr. Faradeane and this terrible mystery that she wants him?”
“Yes, my lord,” said Bessie, firmly, “and I will find him and bring him
to her, if he is to be found.”
She caught the evening up-train, and though she had never been in
London before, she faced its strangeness and its vastness without
quailing; it seemed as if Olivia had infused something of her own
desperate courage and energy into the timid country girl.
She drove to Scotland Yard, and after five minutes’ waiting, during
which, by the way, Mr. McAndrew had been calmly and keenly scrutinizing
her from behind a curtain, he entered.
Bessie delivered Olivia’s message, word for word.
He looked at her with the simple smile which made his face so innocent
and commonplace, then nodded.
“So your mistress wants to see Lord Bertie, does she?” he said, in
a kindly fashion. “Hem! so do I; and perhaps we shall both see him
presently. What’s this?” he asked, as Bessie put the necklace-case in
his hand.
“My--my mistress said you would want money, and sent this,” faltered
Bessie.
The great man smiled softly and opened the case, then suddenly his face
changed, and his eyes, as they scanned the magnificent gems closely,
grew sharp and keen. But it was only for an instant; the next moment
his expression was that of the simple, commonplace individual.
“Where did you get this from--your mistress, I mean?” he asked.
“It was her wedding present from Mr. Faradeane,” replied Bessie, in a
faltering voice.
“Oh,” he said, slowly, “from Mr. Faradeane. Hem!” He snapped-to the
case and put it in his pocket. “Yes, we detectives always want money,
and you can tell your mistress I’ll take care of this. Oh, yes, she can
rest easy. I’ll take care of it.” He stood looking at her in silence
for a moment, then he said: “And so your mistress saw Mr. Faradeane in
prison this morning, eh?”
Bessie started and crimsoned, and he laughed.
“Now you can go back; you don’t mind traveling all night, do you?
Because your mistress will be anxious, you know.”
“Oh, yes, yes,” assented Bessie, eagerly, “and if I can only take her
some good news!” and she clasped her hands.
Mr. McAndrew looked down at her thoughtfully, then he smiled and
offered her his arm. “I’ll take you to the station,” he said. He got
her some refreshment, put her in a first-class carriage, and, but not
until the train was upon the point of starting, said, “How is Mr.
Bartley Bradstone?”
Indeed, the engine shrieked and was off with its burden before Bessie
could reply.
It was not until she had traveled some distance on her return journey
that she realized, what a great many other persons before her had
realized, that, she had not got anything very definite out of Mr.
McAndrew. She had seemed, indeed, to have had no will of her own while
in his presence, and to have done exactly as he told her.
She reached Wainford very tired and very dissatisfied, and found a
carriage waiting for her.
“Why, how did you know I was coming?” she asked the coachman, who was
an old friend of hers.
“The mistress had a telegram from London,” he said. “Leastways a
telegram came for her this morning.”
Bessie stared at him with her eyes widely opened.
“I didn’t telegraph,” she said. “I meant to take a fly home.”
“Well,” he laughed, “here we are, you see, and you’d better get in,
anyhow.”
Puzzled and bewildered, she was about to follow his sensible
recommendation, when a woman, with a child in her arms, came up
quickly, and, pulling at her jacket, said, with a mixture of timidity
and earnestness:
“Stop, stop, for God’s sake, miss. I--I must speak to you! I’ve been
waiting and watching----”
Bessie turned affrightedly, and, as the light fell upon her face, the
woman shrank back with a cry of disappointment.
“Oh!” she cried, “I thought it was the young lady--leastways Mrs.
Bradstone.”
“No, I am her maid,” said Bessie. “What is it? Are you ill?” for the
woman looked worn and pale, and there were deep lines of anxiety and
trouble on her thin face.
“Ill? Yes, miss. I’m ill enough, but it isn’t that. I’m no account. It
was----” She looked round fearfully. “Come out of hearing, miss!” she
whispered, imploringly. “It may be too late--but it’s not my fault.
I’ve waited and watched, but I’m watched, too. It’s about the--murder,
miss!”
Bessie’s courage and self-possession came back in an instant.
“Wait a moment, James,” she said to the coachman, and she followed the
woman into the shadow of the station wall.
“I thought it was the young lady,” she said, speaking timidly, and with
palpable agitation, and hushing the child she carried under her shawl.
“I tried to speak to her before, by the lodge gate, where you lived.”
“I remember,” said Bessie. “You are the gypsy woman.”
“Yes, I’m Liz Lee,” assented the woman, “and I want to tell her
something that I’m a’most afraid to whisper. I’m doing it at the risk
of my life, miss, I am, indeed!” and she looked up with a piteous
terror into Bessie’s eager eyes. “He’s promised to do for me, if I dare
open my lips! And he’ll keep his promise!”
“He? Who?” asked Bessie.
“My husband,” came the reply. “He thinks I’m safe at the camp; but I
slipped out--and followed the carriage; I thought I was going to meet
the young lady.” She struggled for the breath which her agitation and
alarm seemed to deprive her of; then, looking round fearfully, went on:
“Is it true, miss, that he’ll be hung?”
Bessie’s face paled.
“Do you mean Mr. Faradeane?”
The woman nodded, with a sob.
“Yes, yes. Oh, miss, if they only knew! Him commit a murder! Why, he
wouldn’t kick a dog as bit ’im, leave alone shoot a helpless woman!”
Bessie could have fallen upon the poor creature’s neck.
“Go on, go on!” she said, trembling. “You know something! You will not
let him come to harm?”
“No, miss--if I could help it. Look here!” She drew her shawl aside,
and revealed the face of a little child sleeping peacefully in her
arms. “If it hadn’t have been for him she’d have been underground by
this time! He saved her life; yes, he did! He spoke to me as nobody
ever spoke before, and I can’t--I can’t--let him come to harm!”
“Go on! go on!” implored Bessie.
The woman drew closer to her.
“I know who did the murder, miss!” she whispered, huskily.
Bessie caught her arm.
“Tell me! tell me!” she panted.
The woman trembled under the grasp.
“Promise me, swear to me, miss, that you won’t tell who told you--that
you won’t give my name up.”
“I promise,” said Bessie, solemnly; “whatever happens, you shall come
to no hurt. I promise for him, as well as for myself.”
“Ah, no; he wouldn’t see me hurt!” said Liz Lee. “Well, then----”
She stopped suddenly and uttered a cry.
A carriage had dashed up to the station at a tremendous rate; the
whistle of the up-train was heard in the distance.
“Quick! quick!” exclaimed Bessie.
But the woman seemed to have lost all power of speech, and was staring
at the carriage from which a gentleman had alighted.
Bessie looked over her shoulder. It was Mr. Bartley Bradstone.
“You know him!” she said, instantly. “Does he know anything of the
murder; does he----”
The woman shuddered as she watched him go up the stairs.
“No, it’s a fate!” she gasped. “Oh, I’m afraid to tell, afraid,
afraid!” and she seemed unable to remove her eyes from his receding
figure.
Bessie almost shook her in her agony of suspense.
“You must!” she said. “You have gone too far.”
“If I must!” panted the woman. “Yes, he does know. Don’t let him go! Do
you hear? Stop him! Follow him----”
In her uncertainty and excitement, Bessie took half-a-dozen steps
toward the station platform.
Then she turned, and, with a start, found a man standing between her
and the woman, who was cowering against the wall, as if she had just
received a blow.
“What, you, Liz!” he said, addressing the woman, but keeping his eyes
on Bessie. “You’re drunk again, are yer? What plant have you been
a-puttin’ on this young lady? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
What’s she been a-sayin’, miss?” And he turned to Bessie with a
half-threatening, half-whining air. “Something about this yer murder,
wasn’t it? Blessed if this yer murder haven’t gone and turned my
missis’ head. Don’t pay any attention to her, miss! I ’umbly begs
pardon for her. She ought to know better than to stop a lady with her
rubbidge!” and, seizing the woman’s arm, he hurried her to the steps.
“Stop!” said Bessie, “stop! She is not drunk, and you know it! She
shall speak!”
The man glanced hurriedly up at the platform, at which the up-train was
just arriving, and, tightening his hold on the woman’s arm, swung her
round. She was crying covertly.
“Now, then, you fool, just tell the lady you was only a-playin’ it low
down on her, on the chance o’ gettin’ a copper or two,” he said. “Yah!
I’m ashamed of you! Come on, speak up. There ain’t no time.”
“Time! time, Seth?” the woman sobbed.
“Yes!” he snarled. “You know we’re a-goin’ by the train, as well as I
do.”
She shrank back, but he pulled her forward.
“Now, then, tell the lady.”
She turned her eyes upon Bessie, then let them drop.
“It--it wasn’t true, miss, as I was going to tell you,” she said.
“There you are!” exclaimed Seth, triumphantly. “Now come along!” and he
hurried the woman up the steps.
Poor Bessie sprang after them in such haste that she trod upon her
dress and fell. As she got up and raced up the steps, she heard the
slamming of the carriage doors, and found the station gate locked.
There was only one porter, and he did not hear her until the train
had started; and she leaned against the gate, trembling and almost
fainting, as the train bore Bartley Bradstone and the two gypsies
toward London.
She got back to the carriage, and was driven to the Grange, and flew to
Olivia’s room.
Olivia met her at the door. “Well!” she exclaimed, seizing her by the
hand and drawing her in, and Bessie told her all that had happened.
Olivia paced up and down.
“Oh, Bessie! Bessie! Fate is working against us. That he should have
come up at that moment! Oh, if I had but listened to her that night by
the lodge! What does it all mean? But we will find them.” She snatched
up her hat. “Help me! No, you poor thing, you are tired and worn out.
Stay there and rest.”
“Where are you going, miss?” exclaimed Bessie; but Olivia was out of
the room before she could stop her.
She came back in a little over an hour, pale, but with a resolute look
in her eyes.
“What have you done, miss?” she asked, tremulously.
“I have telegraphed to the London terminus to stop the gypsy and the
woman!” she said. “I”--her color rose for an instant--“I let them think
they had robbed me.”
Bessie uttered a cry of satisfaction.
“Oh, Miss Olivia, we shall have them, we will make that woman speak
out, and we shall save him yet.”
And the two girls, mistress and maid, cried together.
Alas! It did not occur to them that Seth the gypsy would, being as
cunning as a gypsy, give them full credit for the telegraphing idea,
and get out at some intermediate station.