LATER IN THE DAY.
It happened that Clerk Gum had business on hand the day of the inquest,
which obliged him to go to Garchester. He reached home after dark; and
the first thing he saw was his wife, in what he was pleased to call a
state of semi-idiocy. The tea-things were laid on the table, and
substantial refreshment in the shape of cold meat, and a plate of muffins
ready for toasting, all for the clerk's regalement. But Mrs. Gum herself
sat on a low chair by the fire, her eyes swollen with crying.
"What's the matter now?" was the clerk's first question.
"Oh, Gum, I told you you ought not to have gone off to-day. You might
have stayed for the inquest."
"Much good I should do the inquest, or the inquest do me," retorted the
clerk. "Has Becky gone?"
"Long ago. Gum, that dream's coming round. I said it would. I _told_ you
there was ill in store for Lord Hartledon; and that Pike was mixed up in
it, and Mr. Elster also in some way. If you'd only listen to me--"
The clerk, who had been brushing his hat and shaking the dust from his
outer coat--for he was a careful man with his clothes, and always
well-dressed--brought down his hand upon the table with some temper.
"Just stop that. I've heard enough of that dream, and of all your dreams.
Confounded folly! Haven't I trouble and worry enough upon my mind,
without your worrying me every time I come in about your idiotic dreams?"
"Well," returned Mrs. Gum, "if the dream's nothing, I'd like to ask why
they had Pike up to-day before them all?"
"Who had him up?" asked the clerk, after a pause. "Had him up where?"
"Before the people sitting on the body of Lord Hartledon. Lydia Jones
brought me the news just now. 'They had Pike the poacher up,' says she.
'He was up before the jury, and had to confess to it.' 'Confess to what,'
said I. 'Why, that he was about in the woods when my lord met his end,'
said she; 'and it's to know how my lord did meet it, and whether the
poacher mightn't have dealt that blow on his temple and robbed him after
it.' Gum--"
"There's no suspicion of foul play, is there?" interrupted the clerk, in
strangely subdued tones.
"Not that I know of, except in Lydia's temper," answered Mrs. Gum. "But
I don't like to hear he was up there at all."
"Lydia Jones is a foul-tongued woman, capable of swearing away any man's
life. Is Pike in custody?"
"Not yet. They've let him off for the present. Oh, Gum, often and often
do I wish my days were ended!"
"Often and often do I wish I'd a quiet house to come to, and not be
bothered with dreams," was the scornful retort. "Suppose you toast the
muffins."
She gave a sigh or two, put her cap straight, smoothed her ragged hair,
and meekly rose to obey. The clerk was carefully folding up the outer
coat, for it was one he wore only on high-days, when he felt something in
the pocket--a small parcel.
"I'd almost forgotten this," he exclaimed, taking it out. "Thanks to you,
Nance! What with your dreams and other worryings I can't think of my
proper business."
"What is it?" she asked.
"A deed Dr. Ashton's lawyer got me to bring and save his clerk a
journey--if you must know. I'll take it over at once, while the tea's
brewing."
As Jabez Gum passed through his own gate he looked towards Mr. Pike's
dwelling; it was only natural he should do so after the recent
conversation; and he saw that worthy gentleman come stealing across the
waste ground, with his usual cautious step. Although not given to
exchanging courtesies with his neighbour, the clerk walked briskly
towards him now, and waited at the hurdles which divided the waste ground
from the road.
"I hear you were prowling about the mill when Lord Hartledon met with his
accident," began the clerk, in low, condemning tones.
"And what if I was," asked Pike, leaning his arms on the hurdles and
facing the clerk. "Near the mill I wasn't; about the woods and river I
was; and I saw him pass down in the sculling boat with his disabled arm.
What of it, I ask?"
Pike's tone, though short, was civil enough. The forced appearance before
the coroner and public had disturbed his equanimity in no slight degree,
and taken for the present all insolence out of him.
"Should any doubt get afloat that his lordship's death might not have
been accidental, your presence at the spot would tell against you."
"No, it wouldn't. I left the spot before the accident could have
happened; and I came back to Calne with a witness. As to the death having
been something worse than accident, not a soul in the place has dreamt of
such a thing except me."
"Except you! What do you mean?"
Pike leaned more over the hurdles, so as to bring his disreputable face
closer to Mr. Gum, who slightly recoiled as he caught the low whisper.
"I don't think the death was accidental. I believe his lordship was just
put out of the way quietly."
"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed the shocked clerk. "By whom? By you?" he
added, in his bewilderment.
"No," returned the man. "If I'd done it, I shouldn't talk about it."
"What do you mean?" cried Mr. Gum.
"I mean that I have my suspicions; and good suspicions they are. Many a
man has been hung on less. I am not going to tell them; perhaps not ever.
I shall wait and keep my eyes open, and bring them, if I can, to
certainties. Time enough to talk then, or keep silent, as circumstances
may dictate."
"And you tell me you were not near the place at the time of the
accident?"
"_I_ wasn't," replied Mr. Pike, with emphasis.
"Who was?"
"That's my secret. And as I've a little matter of business on hand
to-night, I don't care to be further delayed, if it's all the same to
you, neighbour. And instead of your accusing me of prowling about the
mill again, perhaps you'll just give a thought occasionally to what I
have now said, keeping it to yourself. I'm not afraid of your spreading
it in Calne; for it might bring a hornets' nest about your head, and
about some other heads that you wouldn't like to injure."
With the last words Mr. Pike crossed the hurdles and went off in the
direction of Hartledon. It was a light night, and the clerk stood and
stared after him. To say that Jabez Gum in his astonishment was uncertain
whether he stood on his head or his heels, would be saying little; and
how much of these assertions he might believe, and what mischief Mr. Pike
might be going after to-night, he knew not. Drawing a long sigh, which
did not sound very much like a sigh of relief, he at length turned off to
Dr. Ashton's, and the man disappeared.
We must follow Pike. He went stealthily up the road past Hartledon,
keeping in the shade of the hedge, and shrinking into it when he saw any
one coming. Striking off when he neared the mill, he approached it
cautiously, and halted amidst some trees, whence he had a view of the
mill-door.
He was waiting for the boy, David Ripper. Fully convinced by the lad's
manner at the inquest that he had not told all he knew, but was keeping
something back in fear, Mr. Pike, for reasons of his own, resolved to
come at it if he could. He knew that the boy would be at work later than
usual that night, having been hindered in the afternoon.
Imagine yourself standing with your back to the river, reader, and take a
view of the premises as they face you. The cottage is a square building,
and has four good rooms on the ground floor. The miller's thrifty wife
generally locked all these rooms up if she went out, and carried the keys
away in her pocket. The parlour window was an ordinary sash-window, with
outside shutters; the kitchen window a small casement, protected by a
fixed net-work of strong wire. No one could get in or out, even when the
casement was open, without tearing this wire away, which would not be a
difficult matter to accomplish. On the left of the cottage, but to your
right as you face it, stands the mill, to which you ascend by steps. It
communicates inside with the upper floor of the cottage, which is used
as a store-room for corn; and from this store-room a flight of stairs
descends to the kitchen below. Another flight of stairs from this
store-room communicated with the open passage leading from the back-door
to the stable. This is all that need be said: and you may think it
superfluous to have described it at all: but it is not so.
The boy Ripper at length came forth. With a shuddering avoidance of the
water he came tearing along as one running from a ghost, and was darting
past the trees, when he found himself detained by an arm of great
strength. Mr. Pike clapped his other hand upon the boy's mouth, stifling
a howl of terror.
"Do you see this, Rip?" cried he.
Rip did see it. It was a pistol held rather inconveniently close to the
boy's breast. Rip dearly loved his life; but it nearly went out of him
then with fear.
"Now," said Pike, "I've come up to know about this business of Lord
Hartledon's, and I will know it, or leave you as dead as he is. And I'll
have you took up for murder, into the bargain," he rather illogically
continued, "as an accessory to the fact."
David Ripper was in a state of horror; all idea of concealment gone out
of him. "I couldn't help it," he gasped. "I couldn't get out to him; I
was locked up in the mill. Don't shoot me."
"I'll spare you on one condition," decided Pike. "Disclose the whole of
this from first to last, and then we may part friends. But try to palm
off one lie upon me, and I'll riddle you through. To begin with: what
brought you locked up in the mill?"
It was a wicked tale of a wicked young jail-bird, as Mr. Pike (probably
the worse jail-bird by far of the two) phrased it. Master Ripper had
purposely caused himself to be locked in the mill, his object being to
supply himself with as much corn as he could carry about him for the
benefit of his rabbits and pigeons and other live stock at home. He had
done it twice before, he avowed, in dread of the pistol, and had got away
safe through the square hole in the passage at the foot of the back
staircase, whence he had dropped to the ground. To his consternation on
this occasion, however, he had found the door at the foot of the stairs
bolted, as it never had been before, and he could not get to the passage.
So he was a prisoner all the afternoon, and had exercised his legs
between the store-room and kitchen, both of which were open to him.
If ever a man showed virtuous indignation at a sinner's confession, Mr.
Pike showed it now. "That's how you were about in the stubble-field
setting your traps, you young villain! I saw the coroner look at you. And
now about Lord Hartledon. What did you see?"
Master Ripper rubbed the perspiration from his face as he went on with
his tale. Pike listened with all the ears he possessed and said not a
word, beyond sundry rough exclamations, until the tale was done.
"You awful young dog! You saw all that from the kitchen-window, and never
tried to get out of it!"
"I _couldn't_ get out of it," pleaded the boy. "It's got a wire-net
before it, and I couldn't break that."
"You are strong enough to break it ten times over," retorted Pike.
"But then master would ha' known I'd been in the mill!" cried the boy, a
gleam of cunning in his eyes.
"Ugh," grunted Pike. "And you saw exactly what you've told me?"
"I saw it and heard the cries."
"Did he see you?"
"No; I was afeard to show myself. When master come home, the first thing
he did was t' unlock that there staircase door, and I got out without his
seeing me--"
"Where did you hide the grain you were loaded with?" demanded Pike.
"I'd emptied it out again in the store-room," returned the boy. "I told
master there were a loose skiff out there, and he come out and secured
it. Them harvesters come up next and got him out of the water."
"Yes, you could see fast enough what you were looking for! Well, young
Rip," continued Mr. Pike, consolingly, "you stand about as rich a chance
of being hanged as ever you'll stand in all your born days. If you'd
jumped through that wire you'd have saved my lord, and he'd have made it
right for you with old Floyd. I'd advise you to keep a silent tongue in
your head, if you want to save your neck."
"I was keeping it, till you come and made me tell with that there
pistol," howled the boy. "You won't go and split on me?" he asked, with
trembling lips.
"I won't split on you about the grain," graciously promised Pike. "It's
no business of mine. As to the other matter--well, I'll not say anything
about that; at any rate, yet awhile. You keep it a secret; so will I."
Without another word, Pike extended his hand as a signal that the culprit
was at liberty to depart; and he did so as fast as his legs would carry
him. Pike then returned the pistol to his pocket and took his way back to
Calne in a thoughtful and particularly ungenial mood. There was a doubt
within him whether the boy had disclosed the truth, even to him.
Perhaps on no one--with the exception of Percival--did the death of Lord
Hartledon leave its effects as it did on Lady Kirton and her daughter
Maude. To the one it brought embarrassment; to the other, what seemed
very like a broken heart. The countess-dowager's tactics must change as
by magic. She had to transfer the affection and consideration evinced for
Edward Lord Hartledon to his brother; and to do it easily and naturally.
She had to obliterate from the mind of the latter her overbearing dislike
to him, cause her insults to be remembered no more. A difficult task,
even for her, wily woman as she was.
How was it to be done? For three long hours the night after Lord
Hartledon's death, she lay awake, thinking out her plans; perhaps for the
first time in her life, for obtuse natures do not lie awake. The death
had affected her only as regarded her own interests; she could feel for
none and regret none in her utter selfishness. One was fallen, but
another had risen up. "Le roi est mort: vive le roi!"
On the day following the death she had sought an interview with Percival.
Never a woman evinced better tact than she. There was no violent change
in her manner, no apologies for the past, or display of sudden affection.
She spoke quietly and sensibly of passing topics: the death, and what
could have led to it; the immediate business on hand, some of the changes
it entailed in the future. "I'll stay with you still, Percival," she
said, "and look after things a bit for you, as I have been doing for your
brother. It is an awful shock, and we must all have time to get over it.
If I had only foreseen this, how I might have spared my temper and poor
Maude's feelings!"
She looked out of the corner of her eye at the young man; but he betrayed
no curiosity to hear more, and she went on unasked.
"You know, Val, for a portionless girl, as Maude is, it was a great blow
to me when I found her fixing her heart upon a younger son. How cross and
unjust it made me I couldn't conceal: mothers are mothers. I wanted her
to take a fancy to Hartledon, dear fellow, and I suppose she could not,
and it rendered me cross; and I know I worried her and worried my own
temper, till at times I was not conscious of what I said. Poor Maude! she
did not rebel openly, but I could see her struggles. Only a week ago,
when Hartledon was talking about his marrying sometime, and hinting that
she might care fox him if she tried, she scored her beautiful drawing all
over with ugly marks; ran the pencil through it--"
"But why do you tell me this now?" asked Val.
"Hartledon--dear me! I wonder how long I shall be getting accustomed to
your name?--there's only you and me and Maude left now of the family,"
cried the dowager; "and if I speak of such things, it is in fulness of
heart. And now about these letters: do you care how they are worded?"
"I don't seem to care about anything," listlessly answered the young man.
"As to the letters, I think I'd rather write them myself, Lady Kirton."
"Indeed you shall not have any trouble of that sort to-day. _I'll_ write
the letters, and you may indulge yourself in doing nothing."
He yielded in his unstable nature. She spoke of business letters, and it
was better that he should write them; he wished to write them; but she
carried her point, and his will yielded to hers. Would it be a type of
the future?--would he yield to her in other things in defiance of his
better judgment? Alas! alas!
She picked up her skirts and left him, and went sailing upstairs to her
daughter's room. Maude was sitting shivering in a shawl, though the day
was hot.
"I've paved the way," nodded the old woman, in meaning tones. "And
there's one fortunate thing about Val: he is so truthful himself, one may
take him in with his eyes open."
Maude turned _her_ eyes upon her mother: very languid and unspeculative
eyes just then.
"I gave him a hint, Maude, that you had been unable to bring yourself to
like Hartledon, but had fixed your mind on a younger son. Later, we'll
let him suspect who the younger son was."
The words aroused Maude; she started up and stood staring at her mother,
her eyes dilating with a sort of horror; her pale cheeks slowly turning
crimson.
"I don't understand," she gasped; "I _hope_ I don't understand. You--you
do not mean that I am to try to like Val Elster?"
"Now, Maude, no heroics. I'll not see _you_ make a fool of yourself as
your sisters have done. He's not Val Elster any longer; he is Lord
Hartledon: better-looking than ever his brother was, and will make a
better husband, for he'll be more easily led."
"I would not marry Val for the whole world," she said, with strong
emotion. "I dislike him; I hate him; I never could be a wife to Val
Elster."
"We'll see," said the dowager, pushing up her front, of which she had
just caught sight in a glass.
"Thank Heaven, there's no fear of it!" resumed Maude, collecting her
senses, and sitting down again with a relieved sigh; "he is to marry Anne
Ashton. Thank Heaven that he loves her!"
"Anne Ashton!" scornfully returned the countess-dowager. "She might have
been tolerated when he was Val Elster, not now he is Lord Hartledon. What
notions you have, Maude!"
Maude burst into tears. "Mamma, I think it is fearfully indecent for you
to begin upon these things already! It only happened last night, and--and
it sounds quite horrible."
"When one has to live as I do, one has to do many things decent and
indecent," retorted the countess-dowager sharply. "He has had his hint,
and you've got yours: and you are no true girl if you suffer yourself now
to be triumphed over by Anne Ashton."
Maude cried on silently, thinking how cruel fate was to have taken one
brother and spared the other. Who--save Anne Ashton--would have missed
Val Elster; while Lord Hartledon--at least he had made the life of one
heart. A poor bruised heart now; never, never to be made quite whole
again.
Thus the dowager, in her blindness, began her plans. In her blindness! If
we could only foresee the ending of some of the unholy schemes that many
of us are apt to weave, we might be more willing to leave them humbly in
a higher Hand than ours. Do they ever bring forth good, these plans, born
of our evil passions--hatred, malice, utter selfishness? I think not.
They may seem to succeed triumphantly, but--watch the triumph to the end.