A summer night passes quickly to those who have need of darkness for
their movements. When Mrs Drummond found herself at liberty to carry out
the plan she had formed, the time before her was very short. She went
back to the kitchen, and called Susan to her. Mr Burton woke up as she
came in, and they had a hurried consultation; the consequence of which
was that Susan was sent to the stables, which were not very far from the
garden door of the Gatehouse, to order a carriage to be dispatched
instantly to pick up Mr Burton at the north gate, two miles off, in the
opposite direction from the village. He could walk thus through the
grounds by paths he was familiar with, and drive to a station five miles
further off on another railway. So readily do even innocence and
ignorance fall into the shifty ways of guilt that this was Helen's plan.
He was to wait here till Susan returned, and the experiment of her
going would be a proof if the way was quite safe for him. When Susan was
gone Mrs Drummond returned alone to where her guest sat before the
kitchen fire. She had her blotting-book under her arm, and an inkstand
in her hand. 'Before you go,' she said in a low voice, 'I want you to do
something for me.'
'I will do anything for you,' he cried--'anything! Helen, I have not
deserved it. You might have treated me very differently. You have been
my salvation.'
'Hush!' she said. His thanks recalled her old feelings of distrust and
dislike rather than the new ones of pity. She put down her writing
things on the table. 'I have my conditions as well as other people,' she
said. 'I want now to know the truth.'
'What truth?'
'About Rivers's,' she said.
'Helen!'
'It is useless for you to resist or deny me,' she replied, 'you are in
my power. I am willing to do everything to serve you, but I will have a
full explanation. Write it how you please--but you shall not leave this
place till you have given me the means, when I please, and how I please,
of proving the truth.'
'What is the truth, as you call it?' he said sullenly; 'what have I to
do with it? Drummond and the rest went into it with their eyes open; all
the accounts of the concern were open to them.'
'I do not pretend to understand it,' said Helen. 'But you do. Here are
pens and paper. I insist upon a full explanation--how it was that so
flourishing a business perished in three years; where those books went
to, which Robert was so falsely accused of destroying. Oh, are you not
afraid to tire out my patience? Do you know that you are in my power?'
He gave an alarmed look at her. He had forgotten everything but those
fables about feminine weakness which are current among such men, and had
half laughed in his sleeve half an hour before at her readiness to help
and serve him. But now all at once he perceived that laughter was out of
place, and there was no time to lose. The reflection that ran through
his mind was--All must come out in a week or two--it will do her no
good; but it can do me no harm. 'If I am to give an account of the whole
history it will take me hours,' he said. 'I may as well give up all
thought of getting away to-night.' But he drew the blotting-book towards
him. Helen did not relax nor falter. She lighted another candle; she
left him to himself with a serious belief in his good faith which
startled him. She moved about the kitchen while he wrote, filling a
small flask with wine out of the solitary bottle which had been brought
out for his refreshment, and which represented the entire cellar of the
Gatehouse--even brushing the coat which he had thrown aside, that it
might be ready for him. The man watched her with the wonder of an
inferior nature. He had loved her once, and it had given him a true
pleasure to humble her when the moment came. But now the ascendancy had
returned into her hands. Had he been in her place how he would have
triumphed! But Helen did not triumph. His misery did not please, it
bowed her down to the ground. She was sad--suffering for him, ashamed,
anxious. He did not understand it. Gradually, he could not have told
how, her look affected him. He tore up the first statement he had
commenced, a florid, apologetic narrative. He tore up the second, in
which he threw the blame upon the ignorance of business of poor Drummond
and his fellow-directors. Finally he was moved so strangely out of
himself that he wrote the simple truth, and no more, without a word of
apology or explanation. Half-a-dozen lines were enough for that. The
apology would, as he said, have taken hours.
And then Susan came back. By this time he had written not only the
explanation required of him, but a letter to his wife, and was ready to
try his fate once more. Helen herself went with him to the garden door;
the path through the woods was dark, hidden from the moonlight by the
close copses and high fence, which it skirted for many a mile. And there
would not be daylight to betray him for at least an hour. He stood on
the verge of the dark wood, and took her hand. 'Helen, you have saved
me: God bless you,' he said. And in a moment this strange episode was
over, as though it had never been. She stood under the rustling trees,
and listened to his footsteps. The night wind blew chill in her face,
the dark boughs swayed round her as if catching at her garments. A
hundred little crackling sounds, echoes, movements among the copse, all
the jars and broken tones of nature that startle the fugitive, made her
heart beat with terror. If she had felt a hand on her shoulder, seizing
her instead of him, Helen would not have been surprised. But while she
stood and listened all the sounds seemed to die away again in the
stillness of the night. And the broad moonlight shone, silvering the
black trees, out of which all individuality had fled, and the music from
Dura came back in a gust, and the roll of the carriages slowly moving
about the avenue, waiting for the dancers. And but that Helen stood in
so unusual a spot, with that garden door half open behind her, and the
big key in her hand, she might have thought that all this was nothing
more than a dream.
She went in, and locked the door; and then returned to Susan's kitchen.
It was her turn now to feel the cold, after her excitement was over; she
went in shivering, and drew close to the fire. She put her head down
into her hands. The tears came to her eyes unawares; weariness had come
upon her all at once, when the necessity of exertion was over. She held
in her hand the paper she had made Burton write, but she had not energy
enough to look at it. Would it ever be of any use to her? Would he whom
it concerned ever return? Or was all this--the picture, the visit to the
Exhibition, the sudden conviction which had seized upon her--were these
all so many delusions in her dream? After a while Miss Jane, all
unconscious, excited with her unusual pleasure, and full of everything
she had seen, came and sat by her and talked. 'I told Susan to go to
bed,' said Miss Jane; 'and I wish you would go too, Mrs Drummond. I will
sit up for Norah. Oh, how proud I was of that child to-night! I suppose
it's very wrong, you know--so my mother says--but I can't help it. It is
just as well I am a single woman, and have no children of my own; for I
should have been a fool about them. The worst of all is that we shan't
keep her long. She will marry, and then what shall we do? I am sure to
lose her would break Stephen's heart.'
'She is very young,' said Helen, who answered for civility's sake alone,
and who with all the heavy thoughts in her heart and apprehensions for
the fugitive, would have given much to be left to herself.
'Yes, she is young; but not too young to do a great deal of mischief.
When I saw all those men on their knees before her!' cried Miss Jane,
with a laugh of triumph. She had never been an object of much admiration
or homage herself; men had not gone on their knees to her, though no
doubt she was more worthy than many of the foolish creatures who have
been so worshipped; but the result of this was that Miss Jane enjoyed
heartily the revenge which other women had it in their power to take for
all the slights and scorns to which she and her homely sisters had been
subjected. She liked to see 'them' punished, though 'they' were an
innocent, new generation, blameless, so far as she was concerned. She
would not have injured a fly; but her face beamed all over with delight
at the thought that it was Norah's mission to break hearts.
Thus the good soul sat and talked, while Helen listened to every sound,
and wondered where was he now? what might be happening? She did not even
hear what was being said to her until Miss Jane fell into a moralising
vein. 'The Burtons are at the height of their splendour now,' she said.
'I never saw anything so grand as it was. I don't think anything could
be grander. But oh, Mrs Drummond, people's sins find them out. There's
Clara getting bewitched by that man; everybody could see it. A man old
enough to be her father, without a scrap of character, and no money
even, I suppose. Think of that! and oh, what will all their grandeur do
for them, with Ned at the other end of the world, and Clara throwing
herself away?'
'Oh, hush, hush!' cried Helen. 'Don't prophesy any more misfortune;
there is enough without that.'
And five minutes after Norah came to the door, surrounded by the party
from the Rectory, all pale and terror-stricken, with the news which they
felt to be so terrible. 'Clara has gone away!' They stood at the door
and told this tale, huddled together in the fresh sunshine, the girls
crying, the elder women asking each other, 'what would the Burtons do?'
'She was almost rude to me. She sent me away,' Mrs Dalton said, 'or I
should have stayed with her. And Mr Burton is not there! What will she
do?' They could scarcely make up their minds to separate, worn out and
miserable as they all were. And, opposite, in the morning sunshine, two
men still watched the Gatehouse, as they had watched it all through the
night.
These miseries all ended in a misery which was comic, had any of them
had heart enough left to laugh. While she helped to undress Norah, Miss
Jane suddenly uttered a scream, which made Helen tremble from head to
foot. She had caught in her hands the pretty flounces of that white
dress, that lovely dress, Dr Maurice's present, which had turned poor
little Cinderella-Norah into an enchanted princess; but now, alas, all
limp, damp, ruined! even stained with the dewy grass and gravel across
which it had come. Miss Jane could have cried with vexation and dismay.
This was the climax of all the agonies of that wonderful night; but,
fortunately, it was not so hopeless as the others. An hour later, when
the house was all silent, and even Helen lay with her eyes shut, longing
to sleep, Miss Jane stole down-stairs again, carrying this melancholy
garment on her arm. She went to Susan's kitchen, where the fire was
still burning, and spreading it out upon the big table, took it to
pieces to see what could be done. And then she made a discovery which
drew from her a cry of joy. The dress was _grenadine_, not tarlatan!
Dear, ignorant reader, perhaps you do not know what this means? but well
did Miss Jane understand. 'Grenadine will wash!' she said to herself
triumphantly. She was a clever woman, and she was not unconscious of the
fact. She could wash and starch with any professional. Accordingly, she
set to work with scissors and soap and starch and hot irons; but, above
all, with love--love which makes the fingers cunning and the courage
strong.
Mr Burton made his escape safely. He had reached the north gate before
the dog-cart did, which came up for him just as the morning was
breaking. With this delay it so happened that when he reached the
station to which he was bound, a brougham with a white horse appeared in
sight behind, and gave him a thrill of terror; it was not a likely
vehicle certainly for his pursuers; but still it was possible that they
might have found nothing more suitable had they got scent of him at
Dura. He sprang out of the dog-cart accordingly, and took refuge in one
of the corners of the station. It was a junction, and two early morning
trains, one up and one down, passed between four and five o'clock. Both
parties accordingly had some time to wait. Mr Burton skulking behind
anything that would shelter him, made out, to his great amazement, that
the other traveller waiting about was his friend Golden, accompanied by
a cloaked and veiled woman. The fugitive grinned in ghastly satisfaction
when he saw it. He had no desire just then to encounter Golden, and in
such companionship he was safe. It was a lovely morning, fresh and soft,
cooler than July usually is, and the pair on the platform walked about
in the sun, basking in it. He watched them from behind a line of empty
carriages. The woman, whoever she was, clung close to her companion,
holding his arm clasped with both her hands; while Golden bent over her,
with his face close to her veil. 'I wonder who she is? I wonder what
they are doing here at this hour? I wonder if he has been to Dura? And,
by Jove, to think of his going in for that sort of thing, as if he were
five-and-twenty!' Mr Burton said to himself. He was full of curiosity,
almost of amazement, and he longed to go and sun himself on that same
platform too; but he was a fugitive, and he dared not. How could he tell
who might be about, or what Golden's feelings were towards him? They had
been very good friends once; but Burton had stood by Golden but feebly
at the time of the trial about Rivers's, and Golden had not stood by
Burton warmly during the time of difficulty which had culminated in
ruin. He watched them with growing curiosity, with a kind of interest
which he could not understand--with--yes, he could not deny it, with a
curious wistfulness and envy. He supposed the fellow was happy like
that, now? And as for himself, he was not happy--he was cold, weary,
anxious, afraid. He had a prison before him, perhaps a felon's
sentence--anyhow, at the least, a loud, hoarse roar of English society
and the newspapers. If he could but succeed in putting the Channel
between him and them! and there was that other man, as guilty as
himself, perhaps more guilty ('for he had not my temptations,' Mr Burton
said to himself; 'he had not a position to keep up, an expensive
establishment, a family'), sunning himself in the full morning light,
waiting for his train in the eye of day, not afraid of anybody--nay,
probably at the height of pleasure and success, enjoying himself as a
young man enjoys himself! When the pair approached a little closer to
his hiding-place than they had yet done, Burton, in his haste to get out
of the way, slipped his foot, and fell upon the cold iron rails. He rose
with a curse in his heart, the poignancy of the contrast was too much
for him. Had he but known that his appearance would have confounded his
old friend, and set all his plans to nought! Could he but have imagined
who it was that clung to Golden's arm!
But he did not. He saw the up-train arrive, and the two get into it. He
had meant to go that way himself, feeling London, of all refuges, the
most safe; but he had not courage to venture now. He waited for the
other train going down into the country. He made a rapid calculation how
he could shape his course to the sea, and get off, if not as directly,
perhaps more securely. He had found a dark overcoat in the dog-cart,
which was a boon to him; he had poor Helen's flask of wine in his
pocket. And as he got into the train, and dashed away out of the station
and over the silent, sunshiny country, where safety lay, Golden and
Golden's companion went out of Mr Burton's mind. He had a hundred things
to think of, and yet a hundred more. Why should he trouble himself
about that?
Thus the night disappeared like a mist from the face of the world; and
the 7th of July, an ordinary working day like the others,--Saturday, the
end of a common week,--rose up business-like and usual upon a host of
toiling folk, to whom the sight of it was sweet for the sake of the
resting day that came after it. Old Ann from Dura Den drove her cart
with the vegetables, and the big posy for the sick gentleman, under
Stephen's window, and wondered that it should still be closed, though it
was ten o'clock. Susan, very heavy-eyed and pale, was cleansing and
whitening her steps, upon which there had been so many footsteps last
night.
'Well, Susan, you _are_ late,' said old Ann.
'Our folks were all at that ball last night,' said Susan, 'keeping a
body up, awaiting for 'em till morning light.'
'Well, well, young folks must have their diversions. We was fond of 'em
oursels once on a day,' said the charitable old woman.
Across the road the blinds were still down in the Rectory. The young
people were all asleep; and even the elder people had been overcome with
weariness and the excitement through which, more or less, all of them
had gone. Before old Ann's cart resumed its progress, however, Stephen's
window had been opened, and signs of life began to appear. About eleven
Mrs Drummond came down-stairs. She had slept for an hour, and on waking
had felt assured that she must have been dreaming, and that all her
vision of the night was a delusion; but her head ached so, and her face
was so pale when she looked at herself in the glass, that Helen trembled
and asked herself if this was the beginning of a fever. Something must
have happened--it could not all be a dream. She knelt down to say her
prayers in front of the table, where her picture, her idol, was. And
then she saw a paper, placed upright beneath it, as flowers might be put
at a shrine. She read it then, for the first time, on her knees. It was
the paper that Reginald Burton had written, which she had taken from him
in her weariness without being able to read it. Half-a-dozen lines, no
more. She did not understand it now; but it was enough, it was final. No
one, after this, could throw reproach or scorn upon her Robert's name.
Robert! This night had been like a year, like a lifetime. It had made
her forget. Now she knelt there, and everything came back to her. She
did not say her prayers; the attitude sometimes is all that the
heavy-laden are capable of; of itself that attitude is an appeal to God,
such as a child might make who plucked at its mother's dress to attract
her notice, and looked up to her, though it could find no words to say.
Not a word came to Helen's lips. She knelt and recollected, and
thought--her mind was in a whirl, yet it was silent, not even forming a
wish. It was as if she held her breath and gazed upon something which
had taken place before her, something with which she had no connection.
'I have seen the wicked great in power, like a green bay-tree; and I
passed again, and lo! he was not.' Was that the story, written in ruin,
written in tears? And Robert! Where was he--he who had stretched out his
hands to her in the depths of despair, from hell, from across the
Atlantic, from--where?
Helen rose up piteously, and that suspense which had been momentarily
dispossessed by the urgency of more immediate claims upon her attention,
came back again, and tore her heart in twain. Oh, they might think her
foolish who did not know! but who else except Robert could have seized
her very heart with those two up-stretched hands of Dives, hands that
could have drawn her down, had she been there, out of the highest
heaven? She could trust no longer, she thought, to the lukewarm
interest of friends--to men who did not understand. She must bestir
herself to find out. She must find out if she should die.
Thus, with dry, bright eyes, and a fire new-lit in her heart which
burned and scorched her, she went down-stairs into the common world. 'I
will bring your breakfast directly, 'm,' said Susan, meeting her in the
passage, and Helen went in to the old, ghostly drawing-room, the place
which had grown so familiar to her, almost dear.
Was it the old drawing-room she had lived in yesterday? or what strange
vision was it that came across her of another room, far different, a
summer evening as this was a summer morning, a child who cried 'Mamma,
here is a letter!' Nothing--nothing! only a mere association, one of the
tricks fancy plays us. This feverish start, this sudden swimming of the
head, and wild question whether she was back in St Mary's Road, or where
she was, arose from the sight of a letter which lay, awaiting her, on
the centre of a little round table. It lay as that letter had lain some
years ago, in which he took his leave of her--as a hundred letters must
have lain since. A common letter, thrown down carelessly, without any
meaning. Oh, fool, fool that she was!