UNDER THE TREES.
It was the same noble-looking man Calne had ever known, as he went down
the road, throwing a greeting to one and another. Lord Hartledon was not
a whit less attractive than Val Elster, who had won golden opinions from
all. None would have believed that the cowardly monster Fear was for ever
feasting upon his heart.
He came to a standstill opposite the clerk's house, looked at it for
a moment, as if deliberating whether he should enter, and crossed the
road. The shades of evening had begun to fall whilst he talked with the
surgeon. As he advanced up the clerk's garden, some one came out of the
house with a rush and ran against him.
"Take care," he lazily said.
The girl--it was no other than Miss Rebecca Jones--shrank away when
she recognized her antagonist. Flying through the gate she rapidly
disappeared up the street. Lord Hartledon reached the house, and made his
way in without ceremony. At a table in the little parlour sat the clerk's
wife, presiding at a solitary tea-table by the light of a candle.
"How are you, Mrs. Gum?"
She had not heard him enter, and started at the salutation. Lord
Hartledon laughed.
"Don't take me for a housebreaker. Your front-door was open, and I came
in without knocking. Is your husband at home?"
What with shaking and curtseying, Mrs. Gum could scarcely answer. It was
surprising how a little shock of this sort, or indeed of any sort, would
upset her. Gum was away on some business or other, she replied--which
caused their tea-hour to be delayed--but she expected him in every
moment. Would his lordship please to wait in the best parlour, she asked,
taking the candle to marshal him into the state sitting-room.
No; his lordship would not go into the best parlour; he would wait two or
three minutes where he was, provided she did not disturb herself, and
went on with her tea.
Mrs. Gum dusted a large old-fashioned oak chair with her apron; but he
perched himself on one of its elbows.
"And now go on with your tea, Mrs. Gum, and I'll look on with all the
envy of a thirsty man."
Mrs. Gum glanced up tremblingly. Might she dare offer his lordship a cup?
She wouldn't make so bold but tea _was_ refreshing to a parched throat.
"And mine's always parched," he returned. "I'll drink some with you, and
thank you for it. It won't be the first time, will it?"
"Always parched!" remarked Mrs. Gum. "Maybe you've a touch of fever, my
lord. Many folk get it at the close of summer."
Lord Hartledon sat on, and drank his tea. He said well that he was always
thirsty, though Mrs. Gum's expression was the better one. That timid
matron, overcome by the honour accorded her, sat on the edge of her
chair, cup in hand.
"I want to ask your husband if he can give me a description of the man
who was concerned in that wretched mutiny on board the _Morning Star_,"
said Lord Hartledon, somewhat abruptly. "I mean the ringleader, Gordon.
Why--What's the matter?"
Mrs. Gum had jumped up from her chair and began looking about the room.
The cat, or something else, had "rubbed against her legs."
No cat could be found, and she sat down again, her teeth chattering. Lord
Hartledon came to the conclusion that she was only fit for a lunatic
asylum. Why did she keep a cat, if its fancied caresses were to terrify
her like that?
"It was said, you know--at least it has been always assumed--that Gordon
did not come back to England," he continued, speaking openly of his
business, where a more prudent man would have kept his lips closed. "But
I have reason to believe that he did come back, Mrs. Gum; and I want to
find him."
Mrs. Gum wiped her face, covered with drops of emotion.
"Gordon never did come back, I am sure, sir," she said, forgetting all
about titles in her trepidation.
"You don't know that he did not. You may think it; the public may think
it; what's of more moment to Gordon, the police may think it: but you
can't _know_ it. I know he did."
"My lord, he did not; I could--I almost think I could be upon my oath he
did not," she answered, gazing at Lord Hartledon with frightened eyes and
white lips, which, to say the truth, rather puzzled him as he gazed back
from his perch.
"Will you tell me why you assert so confidently that Gordon did not come
back?"
She could not tell, and she knew she could not.
"I can't bear to hear him spoken of, my lord," she said. "He--we look
upon him as my poor boy's murderer," she broke off, with a sob; "and it
is not likely that I could."
Not very logical; but Lord Hartledon allowed for confusion of ideas
following on distress of mind.
"I don't like to speak about him any more than you can like to hear," he
said kindly. "Indeed I am sorry to have grieved you; but if the man is in
London, and can be traced--"
"In London!" she interrupted.
"He was in London last autumn, as I believe--living there."
An expression of relief passed over her features that was quite
perceptible to Lord Hartledon.
"I should not like to hear of his coming near us," she sighed, dropping
her voice to a whisper. "London: that's pretty far off."
"I suppose you are anxious to bring him to justice, Mrs. Gum?"
"No, sir, not now; neither me nor Gum," shaking her head. "Time was,
sir--my lord--that I'd have walked barefoot to see him hanged; but the
years have gone by; and if sorrow's not dead, it's less keen, and we'd be
thankful to let the past rest in peace. Oh, my lord, _don't_ rake him up
again!"
The wild, imploring accents quite startled Lord Hartledon.
"You need not fear," he said, after a pause. "I do not care to see Gordon
hanged either; and though I want to trace his present abode--if it can be
traced--it is not with a view to injuring him."
"But we don't know his abode, my lord," she rejoined in faint
remonstrance.
"I did not suppose you knew it. All I want to ask your husband is, to
give me a description of Gordon. I wish to see if it tallies with--with
some one I once knew," he cautiously concluded. "Perhaps you remember
what the man was said to be like?"
She put her fingers up to her brow, leaning her elbow on the table. He
could not help observing how the hand shook.
"I think it was said that he had red hair," she began, after a long
pause; "and was--tall, was it?--either tall or short; one of the two. And
his eyes--his eyes were dark eyes, either brown or blue."
Lord Hartledon could not avoid a smile. "That's no description at all."
"My memory is not over-good, my lord: I read his description in the
handbills offering the reward; and that's some time ago now."
"The handbills!--to be sure!" interrupted Lord Hartledon, springing from
his perch. "I never thought of them; they'll give me the best description
possible. Do you know where--"
The conference was interrupted by the clerk. He came in with a large
book in his hand; and a large dog, which belonged to a friend, and had
followed him home. For a minute or two there was only commotion, for the
dog was leaping and making friends with every one. Lord Hartledon then
said a few words of explanation, and the quiet demeanour of the clerk,
as he calmly listened, was in marked contrast to his wife's nervous
agitation.
"Might I inquire your lordship's reasons for thinking that Gordon came
back?" he quietly asked, when Lord Hartledon had ceased.
"I cannot give them in detail, Gum. That he did come back, there is no
doubt about whatever, though how he succeeded in eluding the vigilance
of the police, who were watching for him, is curious. His coming back,
however, is not the question: I thought you might be able to give me a
close description of him. You went to Liverpool when the unfortunate
passengers arrived there."
But Clerk Gum was unable to give any satisfactory response. No doubt he
had heard enough of what Gordon was like at the time, he observed, but
it had passed out of his memory. A fair man, he thought he was described,
with light hair. He had heard nothing of Gordon since; didn't want to,
if his lordship would excuse his saying it; firmly believed he was at
the bottom of the sea.
Patient, respectful, apparently candid, he spoke, attending his guest,
hat in hand, to the outer gate, when it pleased him to depart. But, take
it for all in all, there remained a certain doubtful feeling in Lord
Hartledon's mind regarding the interview; for some subtle discernment had
whispered to him that both Gum and his wife could have given him the
description of Gordon, and would not do so.
He turned slowly towards home, thinking of this. As he passed the waste
ground and Pike's shed, he cast his eyes towards it; a curl of smoke
was ascending from the extemporized chimney, still discernible in the
twilight. It occurred to Lord Hartledon that this man, who had the
character of being so lawless, had been rather suspiciously intimate with
the man Gorton. Not that the intimacy in itself was suspicious; birds
of a feather flocked together; but the most simple and natural thing
connected with Gorton would have borne suspicion to Hartledon's mind now.
He had barely passed the gate when some shouting arose in the road behind
him. A man, driving a cart recklessly, had almost come in contact with
another cart, and some hard language ensued. Lord Hartledon turned his
head quickly, and just caught Mr. Pike's head, thrust a little over the
top of the gate, watching him. Pike must have crouched down when Lord
Hartledon passed. He went back at once; and Pike put a bold face on the
matter, and stood up.
"So you occupy your palace still, Pike?"
"Such as it is. Yes."
"I half-expected to find that Mr. Marris had turned you from it,"
continued Lord Hartledon, alluding to his steward.
"He wouldn't do it, I expect, without your lordship's orders; and I don't
fancy you'll give 'em," was the free answer.
"I think my brother would have given them, had he lived."
"But he didn't live," rejoined Pike. "He wasn't let live."
"What do you mean?" asked Lord Hartledon, mystified by the words.
Pike ignored the question. "'Twas nearly a smash," he said, looking at
the two carts now proceeding on their different ways. "That cart of
Floyd's is always in hot water; the man drinks; Floyd turned him off
once."
The miller's cart was jogging up the road towards home, under convoy of
the offending driver; the boy, David Ripper, sitting inside on some empty
sacks, and looking over the board behind: looking very hard indeed, as it
seemed, in their direction. Mr. Pike appropriated the gaze.
"Yes, you may stare, young Rip!" he apostrophized, as if the boy could
hear him; "but you won't stare yourself out of my hands. You're the
biggest liar in Calne, but you don't mislead me."
"Pike, when you made acquaintance with that man Gorton--you remember
him?" broke off Lord Hartledon.
"Yes, I do," said Pike emphatically.
"Did he make you acquainted with any of his private affairs?--his past
history?"
"Not a word," answered Pike, looking still after the cart and the boy.
"Were those fine whiskers of his false? that red hair?"
Pike turned his head quickly. The question had aroused him.
"False hair and whiskers! I never knew it was the fashion to wear them."
"It may be convenient sometimes, even if not the fashion," observed Lord
Hartledon, his tone full of cynical meaning; and Mr. Pike surreptitiously
peered at him with his small light eyes.
"If Gorton's hair was false, I never noticed it, that's all; I never saw
him without a hat, that I remember, except in that inquest-room."
"Had he been to Australia?"
Pike paused to take another surreptitious gaze.
"Can't say, my lord. Never heard."
"Was his name Gorton, or Gordon? Come, Pike," continued Lord Hartledon,
good-humouredly, "there's a sort of mutual alliance between you and me;
you did me a service once unasked, and I allow you to live free and
undisturbed on my ground. I think you _do_ know something of this man;
it is a fancy I have taken up."
"I never knew his name was anything but Gorton," said Pike carelessly;
"never heard it nor thought it."
"Did you happen to hear him ever speak of that mutiny on board the
Australian ship _Morning Star_? You have heard of it, I daresay: a George
Gordon was the ringleader."
If ever the cool impudence was suddenly taken out of a man, this question
seemed to take it out of Pike. He did not reply for some time; and when
he did, it was in low and humble tones.
"My lord, I hope you'll pardon my rough thoughts and ways, which haven't
been used to such as you--and the sight of that boy put me up, for
reasons of my own. As to Gorton--I never did hear him speak of the thing
you mention. His name's Gorton, and nothing else, as far as I know; and
his hair's his own, for all I ever saw."
"He did not give you his confidence, then?"
"No, never. Not about himself nor anything else, past or present."
"And did not let a word slip? As to--for instance, as to his having been
a passenger on board the _Morning Star_ at the time of the mutiny?"
Pike had moved away a step, and stood with his arms on the hurdles, his
head bent on them, his face turned from Lord Hartledon.
"Gorton said nothing to me. As to that mutiny--I think I read something
about it in the newspapers, but I forget what. I was just getting up from
some weeks of rheumatic fever at the time; I'd caught it working in the
fields; and news don't leave much impression in illness. Gorton never
spoke of it to me. I never heard him say who or what he was; and I
couldn't speak more truly if your lordship offered to give me the shed
as a bribe."
"Do you know where Gorton might be found at present?"
"I swear before Heaven that I know nothing of the man, and have never
heard of him since he went away," cried Pike, with a burst of either fear
or passion. "He was a stranger to me when he came, and he was a stranger
when he left. I found out the little game he had come about, and saved
your lordship from his clutches, which he doesn't know to this day. I
know nothing else about him at all."
"Well, good evening, Pike. You need not put yourself out for nothing."
He walked away, taking leave of the man as civilly as though he had been
a respectable member of society. It was not in Val's nature to show
discourtesy to any living being. Why Pike should have shrunk from the
questions he could not tell; but that he did shrink was evident; perhaps
from a surly dislike to being questioned at all; but on the whole Lord
Hartledon thought he had spoken the truth as to knowing nothing about
Gorton.
Crossing the road, he turned into the field-path near the Rectory; it was
a little nearer than the road-way, and he was in a hurry, for he had not
thought to ask at what hour his wife dined, and might be keeping her
waiting.
Who was this Pike, he wondered as he went along; as he had wondered
before now. When the man was off his guard, the roughness of his speech
and demeanour was not so conspicuous; and the tone assumed a certain
refinement that seemed to say he had some time been in civilized society.
Again, how did he live? A tale was told in Calne of Pike's having been
disturbed at supper one night by a parcel of rude boys, who had seen him
seated at a luxurious table; hot steak and pudding before him. They were
not believed, certainly; but still Pike must live; and how did he find
the means to do so? Why did he live there at all? what had caused him to
come to Calne? Who--
These reflections might have lasted all the way home but for an
interruption that drove every thought out of Lord Hartledon's mind, and
sent the heart's blood coursing swiftly through his veins. Turning a
corner of the dark winding path, he came suddenly upon a lady seated on a
bench, so close to the narrow path that he almost touched her in passing.
She seemed to have sat down for a moment to do something to her hat,
which was lying in her lap, her hands busied with it.
A faint cry escaped her, and she rose up. It was caused partly by
emotion, partly by surprise at seeing him, for she did not know he was
within a hundred miles of the place. And very probably she would have
liked to box her own ears for showing any. The hat fell from her knees
as she rose, and both stooped for it.
"Forgive me," he said. "I fear I have startled you."
"I am waiting for papa," she answered, in hasty apology for being found
there. And Lord Hartledon, casting his eyes some considerable distance
ahead, discerned the indistinct forms of two persons talking together. He
understood the situation at once. Dr. Ashton and his daughter had been to
the cottages; and the doctor had halted on their return to speak to a
day-labourer going home from his work, Anne walking slowly on.
And there they stood face to face, Anne Ashton and her deceitful lover!
How their hearts beat to pain, how utterly oblivious they were of
everything in life save each other's presence, how tumultuously confused
were mind and manner, both might remember afterwards, but certainly were
not conscious of then. It was a little glimpse of Eden. A corner of the
dark curtain thrown between them had been raised, and so unexpectedly
that for the moment nothing else was discernible in the dazzling light.
Forget! Not in that instant of sweet confusion, during which nothing
seemed more real than a dream. He was the husband of another; she was
parted from him for ever; and neither was capable of deliberate thought
or act that could intrench on the position, or tend to return, even
momentarily, to the past. And yet there they stood with beating hearts,
and eyes that betrayed their own tale--that the marriage and the parting
were in one sense but a hollow mockery, and their love was indelible as
of old.
Each had been "forgetting" to the utmost of the poor power within, in
accordance with the high principles enshrined in either heart. Yet what
a mockery that forgetting seemed, now that it was laid before them naked
and bare! The heart turning sick to faintness at the mere sight of each
other, the hands trembling at the mutual touch, the wistful eyes shining
with a glance that too surely spoke of undying love!
But not a word of this was spoken. However true their hearts might be,
there was no fear of the tongue following up the error. Lord Hartledon
would no more have allowed himself to speak than she to listen. Neither
had the hands met in ordinary salutation; it was only when he resigned
the hat to her that the fingers touched: a touch light, transient, almost
imperceptible; nevertheless it sent a thrill through the whole frame. Not
exactly knowing what to do in her confusion, Miss Ashton sat down on the
bench again and put her hat on.
"I must say a word to you before I go on my way," said Lord Hartledon.
"I have been wishing for such a meeting as this ever since I saw you at
Versailles; and indeed I think I wished for nothing else before it. When
you think of me as one utterly heartless--"
"Stay, Lord Hartledon," she interrupted, with white lips. "I cannot
listen to you. You must be aware that I cannot, and ought not. What are
you thinking about?"
"I know that I have forfeited all right to ask you; that it is an
unpardonable intrusion my presuming even to address you. Well, perhaps,
you are right," he added, after a moment's pause; "it may be better that
I should not say what I was hoping to say. It cannot mend existing
things; it cannot undo the past. I dare not ask your forgiveness: it
would seem too much like an insult; nevertheless, I would rather have it
than any earthly gift. Fare you well, Anne! I shall sometimes hear of
your happiness."
"Have you been ill?" she asked in a kindly impulse, noticing his altered
looks in that first calm moment.
"No--not as the world counts illness. If remorse and shame and repentance
can be called illness, I have my share. Ill deeds of more kinds than one
are coming home to me. Anne," he added in a hoarse whisper; his face
telling of emotion, "if there is one illumined corner in my heart, where
all else is very dark, it is caused by thankfulness to Heaven that you
were spared."
"Spared!" she echoed, in wonder, so completely awed by his strange manner
as to forget her reserve.
"Spared the linking of your name with mine. I thank God for it, for your
sake, night and day. Had trouble fallen on you through me, I don't think
I could have survived it. May you be shielded from all such for ever!"
He turned abruptly away, and she looked after him, her heart beating a
great deal faster than it ought to have done.
That she was his best and dearest love, in spite of his marriage, it
was impossible not to see; and she strove to think him very wicked for
it, and her cheek was red with a feeling that seemed akin to shame.
But--trouble?--thankful for her sake, night and day, that her name was
not linked with his? He must allude to debt, she supposed: some of those
old embarrassments had augmented themselves into burdens too heavy to be
safely borne.
The Rector was coming on now at a swift pace. He looked keenly at Lord
Hartledon; looked twice, as if in surprise. A flush rose to Val's
sensitive face as he passed, and lifted his hat. The Rector, dark and
proud, condescended to return the courtesy: and the meeting was over.
Toiling across Lord Hartledon's path was the labourer to whom the Rector
had been speaking. He had an empty bottle slung over his shoulder, and
carried a sickle. The man's day's work was over, and had left fatigue
behind it.
"Good-night to your lordship!"
"Is it you, Ripper?"
He was the father of the young gentleman in the cart, whom Mr. Pike had
not long before treated to his opinion: young David Ripper, the miller's
boy. Old Ripper, a talkative, discontented man, stopped and ventured to
enter on his grievances. His wife had been pledging things to pay for
a fine gown she had bought; his two girls were down with measles; his
son, young Rip, plagued his life out.
"How does he plague your life out?" asked Lord Hartledon, when he had
listened patiently.
"Saying he'll go off and enlist for a soldier, my lord; he's saying it
always: and means it too, only he's over-young for't."
"Over-young for it; I should think so. Why, he's not much more than a
child. Our sergeants don't enlist little boys."
"Sometimes he says he'll drown himself by way of a change," returned old
Ripper.
"Oh, does he? Folk who say it never do it. I should whip it out of him."
"He's never been the same since the lord's death that time. He's always
frightened: gets fancying things, and saying sometimes he sees his
shadder."
"Whose shadow?"
"His'n: the late lord's."
"Why does he fancy that?" came the question, after a perceptible pause.
Old Ripper shook his head. It was beyond his ken, he said. "There be only
two things he's afeared of in life," continued the man, who, though
generally called old Ripper, was not above five-and-thirty. "The one's
that wild man Pike; t'other's the shadder. He'd run ten mile sooner than
see either."
"Does Pike annoy the boy?"
"Never spoke to him, as I knows on, my lord. Afore that drowning of his
lordship last year, Davy was the boldest rip going," added the man, who
had long since fallen into the epithet popularly applied to his son.
"Since then he don't dare say his soul's his own. We had him laid up
before the winter, and I know 'twas nothing but fear."
Lord Hartledon could not make much of the story, and had no time to
linger. Administering a word of general encouragement, he continued his
way, his thoughts going back to the interview with Anne Ashton, a line or
two of Longfellow's "Fire of Driftwood" rising up in his mind--
"Of what had been and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead."