ONCE MORE.
The months rolled on, and Lord and Lady Hartledon did not separate. They
remained together, and were, so far, happy enough--the moonlight
happiness hinted at; and it is as I believe, the best and calmest sort
of happiness for married life. Maude's temper was unequal, and he was
subject to prolonged hours of sadness. But the time went lightly enough
over their heads, for all the world saw, as it goes over the heads of
most people.
And Lord Hartledon was a free man still, and stood well with the world.
Whatever the mysterious accusation brought against him had been, it
produced no noisy effects as yet; in popular phrase, it had come to
nothing. As yet; always as yet. Whether he had shot a man, or robbed a
bank, or fired a church, the incipient accusation died away. But the
fear, let it be of what nature it would, never died away in his mind;
and he lived as a man with a sword suspended over his head. Moreover,
the sword, in his own imagination, was slipping gradually from its
fastenings; his days were restless, his nights sleepless, an inward fever
for ever consumed him.
As none knew better than Thomas Carr. There were two witnesses who could
bring the facts home to Lord Hartledon; and, so far as was known, only
two: the stranger, who had paid him a visit, and the man Gordon, or
Gorton. The latter was the more dangerous; and they had not yet been able
to trace him. Mr. Carr's friend, Detective Green, had furnished that
gentleman with a descriptive bill of Gordon of the mutiny: "a young,
slight man, with light eyes and fair hair." This did not answer exactly
to the Gorton who had played his part at Calne; but then, in regard to
the latter, there remained the suspicion that the red hair was false.
Whether it was the same man or whether it was two men--if the phrase may
be allowed--neither of them, to use Detective Green's expressive words,
turned up. And thus the months had passed on, with nothing special to
mark them. Captain Kirton had been conveyed abroad for the winter, and
they had good news of him; and the countess-dowager was inflicting a
visit upon one of her married daughters in Germany, the baroness with the
unpronounceable name.
And the matter had nearly faded from the mind of Lady Hartledon. It would
quite have faded, but for certain interviews with Thomas Carr at his
chambers, when Hartledon's look of care precluded the idea that they
could be visits of mere idleness or pleasure; and for the secret trouble
that unmistakably sat on her husband like an incubus. At times he would
moan in his sleep as one in pain; but if told of this, had always some
laughing answer ready for her--he had dreamed he was fighting a lion or
being tossed by a bull.
This was the pleasantest phase of Lady Hartledon's married life. Her
health did not allow of her entering into gaiety; and she and her husband
passed their time happily together. All her worst qualities seemed to
have left her, or to be dormant; she was yielding and gentle; her beauty
had never been so great as now that it was subdued; her languor was an
attraction, her care to please being genuine; and they were sufficiently
happy. They were in their town-house now, not having gone back to
Hartledon. A large, handsome house, very different from the hired one
they had first occupied.
In January the baby was born; and Maude's eyes glistened with tears
of delight because it was a boy: a little heir to the broad lands of
Hartledon. She was very well, and it seemed that she could never tire
of fondling her child.
But in the first few days succeeding that of the birth a strange fancy
took possession of her: she observed, or thought she observed, that her
husband did not seem to care for the child. He did not caress it; she
once heard him sighing over it; and he never announced it in the
newspapers. Other infants, heirs especially, could be made known to the
world, but not hers. The omission might never have come to her knowledge,
since at first she was not allowed to see newspapers, but for a letter
from the countess-dowager. The lady wrote in a high state of wrath from
Germany; she had looked every day for ten days in the _Times_, and saw no
chronicle of the happy event; and she demanded the reason. It afforded a
valve for her temper, which had been in an explosive state for some time
against Lord Hartledon, that ungracious son-in-law having actually
forbidden her his house until Maude's illness should be over; telling her
plainly that he would not have his wife worried. Lady Hartledon said
nothing for a day or two; she was watching her husband; watching for
signs of the fancy which had taken possession of her.
He was in her room one dark afternoon, standing with his elbow on the
mantelpiece whilst he talked to her: a room of luxury and comfort it must
have been almost a pleasure to be ill in. Lady Hartledon had been allowed
to get up, and sit in an easy-chair: she seemed to be growing strong
rapidly; and the little red gentleman in the cradle, sleeping quietly,
was fifteen days old.
"About his name, Percival; what is it to be?" she asked. "Your own?"
"No, no, not mine," said he, quickly; "I never liked mine. Choose some
other, Maude."
"What do you wish it to be?"
"Anything."
The short answer did not please the young mother; neither did the dreamy
tone in which it was spoken. "Don't you care what it is?" she asked
rather plaintively.
"Not much, for myself. I wish it to be anything you shall choose."
"I thought perhaps you would have liked it named after your brother," she
said, very much offended on the baby's account.
"George?"
"George, no. I never knew George; I should not be likely to think of him.
Edward."
Lord Hartledon looked at the fire, absently pushing back his hair. "Yes,
let it be Edward. It will do as well as anything else."
"Good gracious, Percival, one would think you had been having babies all
your life!" she exclaimed resentfully. "'Do as well as anything else!' If
he were our tenth son, instead of our first, you could not treat it with
more indifference. I have done nothing but deliberate on the name since
he was born; and I don't believe you have once given it a thought."
Lord Hartledon turned his face upon her; and when illumined with a smile,
as now, it could be as bright as before care came to it. "I don't think
we men attach the importance to names in a general way that you do,
Maude. I shall like to have it Edward."
"Edward William Algernon--"
"No, no, no," as if the number alarmed him. "Pray don't have a string of
names: one's quite enough."
"Oh, very well," she returned, biting her lips. "William was your
father's name. Algernon is my eldest brother's: I supposed you might like
them. I thought," she added, after a pause, "we might ask Lord Kirton to
be its godfather."
"I have decided on the godfathers already. Thomas Carr will be one, and
I intend to be the other."
"Thomas Carr! A poor hard-working barrister, that not a soul knows, and
of no family or influence whatever, godfather to the future Lord
Hartledon!" uttered the offended mother.
"I wish it, Maude. Carr is the most valued friend I have in the world, or
ever can have. Oblige me in this."
"Then my brother can be the other."
"No; I myself; and I wish you would be its godmother."
"Well, it's quite reversing the order of things!" she said, tacitly
conceding the point.
A silence ensued. The firelight played on the lace curtains of the baby's
bed, as it did on Lady Hartledon's face; a thoughtful face just now.
Twilight was drawing on, and the fire lighted the room.
"Percival, do you care for the child?"
The tone had a sound of passion in it, breaking upon the silence. Lord
Hartledon lifted his bent face and glanced at his wife.
"Do I care for the child, Maude? What a question! I do care for him: more
than I allow to appear."
And if her voice had passion in it, his had pain. He crossed the room,
and stood looking down on the sleeping baby, touching at length its cheek
with his finger. He could have knelt, there and then, and wept over the
child, and prayed, oh, how earnestly, that God would take it to Himself,
not suffer it to live. Many and many a prayer had ascended from his heart
in their earlier married days, that his wife might not bear him children;
for he could only entail upon them an inheritance of shame.
"I don't think you have once taken him in your arms, Percival; you never
kiss him. It's quite unnatural."
"I give my kisses in the dark," he laughed, as he returned to where she
was sitting. And this was in a sense true; for once when he happened to
be alone for an instant with the baby, he had clasped it and kissed it in
a sort of delirious agony.
"You never had it in the _Times_, you know!"
"Never what?"
"Never announced its birth in the _Times_. Did you forget it?"
"It must have been very stupid of me," he remarked. "Never mind, Maude;
he won't grow the less for the omission. When are you coming downstairs?"
"Mamma is in a rage about it; she says such neglect ought to be punished;
and she knows you have done it on purpose."
"She is always in a rage with me, no matter what I do," returned Val,
good-humouredly. "She hoped to be here at this time, and sway us all--you
and me and the baby; and I stopped it. Ho, ho! young sir!"
The baby had wakened with a cry, and a watchful attendant came gliding
in at the sound. Lord Hartledon left the room and went straight down to
the Temple to Mr. Carr's chambers. He found him in all the bustle of
departure from town. A cab stood at the foot of the stairs, and Mr.
Carr's laundress, a queer old body with an inverted black bonnet, was
handing the cabman a parcel of books.
"A minute more and you'd have been too late," observed Mr. Carr, as Lord
Hartledon met him on the stairs, a coat on his arm.
"I thought you did not start till to-morrow."
"But I found I must go to-day. I can give you three minutes. Is it
anything particular?"
Lord Hartledon drew him into his room. "I have come to crave a favour,
Carr. It has been on my lips to ask you before, but they would not frame
the words. This child of mine: will you be its godfather with myself?"
One moment's hesitation, quite perceptible to the sensitive mind of Lord
Hartledon, and then Mr. Carr spoke out bravely and cheerily.
"Of course I will."
"I see you hesitate: but I do not like to ask any one else."
"If I hesitated, it was at the thought of the grave responsibility
attaching to the office. I believe I look upon it in a more serious light
than most people do, and have never accepted the charge yet. I will be
sponsor to this one with all my heart."
Lord Hartledon clasped his hand in reply, and they began to descend
the stairs. "Poor Maude was dreaming of making a grand thing of the
christening," he said; "she wanted to ask Lord Kirton to come to it.
It will take place in about a fortnight."
"Very well; I must run up for it, unless you let me stand by proxy.
I wish, Hartledon, you would hear me on another point," added the
barrister, halting on the stairs, and dropping his voice to a whisper.
"Well?"
"If you are to go away at all, now's the time. Can't you be seized with
an exploring fit, and sail to Africa, or some other place, where your
travels would occupy years?"
Lord Hartledon shook his head. "How can I leave Maude to battle alone
with the exposure, should it come?"
"It is a great deal less likely to come if you are a few thousand miles
away."
"I question it. Should Gorton turn up he is just the one to frighten a
defenceless woman, and purchase his own silence. No; my place is beside
Maude."
"As you please. I have spoken for the last time. By the way, any letters
bearing a certain postmark, that come addressed to me during my absence,
Taylor has orders to send to you. Fare you well, Hartledon; I wish I
could help you to peace."
Hartledon watched the cab rattle away, and then turned homewards. Peace!
There was no peace for him.
Lady Hartledon was not to be thwarted on all points, and she insisted
on a ceremonious christening. The countess-dowager would come over for
it, and did so; Lord Hartledon could not be discourteous enough to deny
this; Lord and Lady Kirton came from Ireland; and for the first time
since their marriage they found themselves entertaining guests. Lord
Hartledon had made a faint opposition, but Maude had her own way. The
countess-dowager was furiously indignant when she heard of the intended
sponsors--its father and mother, and that cynical wretch, Thomas Carr!
Val played the hospitable host; but there was a shadow on his face that
his wife did not fail to see.
It was the evening before the christening, and a very snowy evening
too. Val was dressing for dinner, and Maude, herself ready, sat by him,
her baby on her knee. The child was attired for the first time in a
splendidly-worked robe with looped-up sleeves; and she had brought it
in to challenge admiration for its pretty arms, with all the pardonable
pride of a young mother.
"Won't you kiss it for once, Val?"
He took the child in his arms; it had its mother's fine dark eyes, and
looked straight up from them into his. Lord Hartledon suddenly bent his
own face down upon that little one with what seemed like a gesture of
agony; and when he raised it his own eyes were wet with tears. Maude felt
startled with a sort of terror: love was love; but she did not understand
love so painful as this.
She sat down with the baby on her knee, saying nothing; he did not intend
her to see the signs of emotion. And this brings us to where we were.
Lord Hartledon went on with his toilette, and presently someone knocked
at the door.
Two letters: they had come by the afternoon post, very much delayed on
account of the snow. He came back to the gaslight, opening one. A full
letter, written closely; but he had barely glanced at it when he hastily
folded it again, and crammed it into his pocket. If ever a movement
expressed something to be concealed, that did. And Lady Hartledon was
gazing at him with her questioning eyes.
"Wasn't that letter from Thomas Carr?"
"Yes."
"Is he coming up? Or is Kirton to be proxy?"
"He is--coming, I think," said Val, evidently knowing nothing one way or
the other. "He'll be here, I daresay, to-morrow morning."
Opening the other letter as he spoke--a foreign-looking letter this
one--he put it up in the same hasty manner, with barely a glance; and
then went on slowly with his dressing.
"Why don't you read your letters, Percival?"
"I haven't time. Dinner will be waiting."
She knew that he had plenty of time, and that dinner would not be
waiting; she knew quite certainly that there was something in both
letters she must not see. Rising from her seat in silence, she went out
of the room with her baby; resentment and an unhealthy curiosity doing
battle in her heart.
Lord Hartledon slipped the bolt of the door and read the letters at once;
the foreign one first, over which he seemed to take an instant's counsel
with himself. Before going down he locked them up in a small ebony
cabinet which stood against the wall. The room was his own exclusively;
his wife had nothing to do with it.
Had they been alone he might have observed her coolness to him; but, with
guests to entertain, he neither saw nor suspected it. She sat opposite
him at dinner richly dressed, her jewels and smiles alike dazzling: but
the smiles were not turned on him.
"Is that chosen sponsor of yours coming up for the christening; lawyer
Carr?" tartly inquired the dowager from her seat, bringing her face and
her turban, all scarlet together, to bear on Hartledon.
"He comes up by this evening's train; will be in London late to-night, if
the snow allows him, and stay with us until Sunday night," replied Val.
"Oh! _That's_ no doubt the reason why you settled the christening for
Saturday: that your friend might have the benefit of Sunday?"
"Just so, madam."
And Lady Hartledon knew, by this, that her husband must have read the
letters. "I wonder what he has done with them?" came the mental thought,
shadowing forth a dim wish that she could read them too.
In the drawing-room, after dinner, someone proposed a carpet quadrille,
but Lord Hartledon seemed averse to it. In his wife's present mood, his
opposition was, of course, the signal for her approval, and she began
pushing the chairs aside with her own hands. He approached her quietly.
"Maude, do not let them dance to-night."
"Why not?"
"I have a reason. My dear, won't you oblige me in this?"
"Tell me the reason, and perhaps I will; not otherwise."
"I will tell it you another time. Trust me, I have a good one. What is
it, Hedges?"
The butler had come up to his master in the unobtrusive manner of a
well-trained servant, and was waiting an opportunity to speak. He said a
word in Lord Hartledon's ear, and Lady Hartledon saw a shiver of surprise
run through her husband. He looked here, looked there, as one perplexed
with fear, and finally went out of the room with a calm face, but one
that was turning livid.
Lady Hartledon followed in an impulse of curiosity. She looked after him
over the balustrades, and saw him turn into the library below. Hedges was
standing near the drawing-room door.
"Does any one want Lord Hartledon?"
"Yes, my lady."
"Who is it?"
"I don't know, my lady. Some gentleman."
She ran lightly down the stairs, pausing at the foot, as if ashamed of
her persistent curiosity. The well-lighted hall was before her; the
dining-room on one side; the library and a small room communicating on
the other. Throwing back her head, as in defiance, she boldly crossed the
hall and opened the library door.
Now what Lady Hartledon had really thought was that the visitor was Mr.
Carr; her husband was going to steal a quiet half-hour with him; and
Hedges was in the plot. She had not lived with Hartledon the best part
of a year without learning that Hedges was devoted heart and soul to his
master.
She opened the library-door. Her husband's back was towards her; and
facing him, his arms raised as if in anger or remonstrance, was the same
stranger who had caused some commotion in the other house. She knew him
in a moment: there he was, with his staid face, his black clothes, and
his white neckcloth, looking so like a clergyman. Lord Hartledon turned
his head.
"I am engaged, Maude; you can't come in," he peremptorily said; and
closed the door upon her.
She went slowly up the stairs again, not choosing to meet the butler's
eyes, past the drawing-rooms, and up to her own. The sight of the
stranger, coupled with her husband's signs of emotion, had renewed all
her old suspicions, she knew not, she never had known, of what. Jumping
to the conclusion that those letters must be in some way connected with
the mystery, perhaps an advent of the visit, it set her thinking, and
rebellion arose in her heart.
"I wonder if he put them in the ebony cabinet?" she exclaimed. "I have a
key that will fit that."
Yes, she had a key to fit it. A few weeks before, Lord Hartledon mislaid
his keys; he wanted something out of this cabinet, in which he did not,
as a rule, keep anything of consequence, and tried hers. One was found to
unlock it, and he jokingly told her she had a key to his treasures. But
himself strictly honourable, he could not suspect dishonour in another;
and Lord Hartledon supposed it simply impossible that she should attempt
to open it of her own accord.
They were of different natures; and they had been reared in different
schools. Poor Maude Kirton had learnt to be anything but scrupulous,
and really thought it a very slight thing she was about to do, almost
justifiable under the circumstances. Almost, if not quite. Nevertheless
she would not have liked to be caught at it.
She took her bunch of keys and went into her husband's dressing-room,
which opened from their bedroom: but she went on tip-toe, as one who
knows she is doing wrong. It took some little time to try the keys, for
there were several on the ring, and she did not know the right one: but
the lid flew open at last, and disclosed the two letters lying there.
She snatched at one, either that came first, and opened it. It happened
to be the one from Mr. Carr, and she began to read it, her heart beating.
"Dear Hartledon,
"I think I have at last found some trace of Gorton. There's a man of
that name in the criminal calendar here, down for trial to-morrow; I
shall see then whether it is the same, but the description tallies.
Should it be our Gorton, I think the better plan will be to leave him
entirely alone: a man undergoing a criminal sentence--and this man is
sure of a long period of it--has neither the means nor the motive to be
dangerous. He cannot molest you whilst he is working on Portland
Island; and, so far, you may live a little eased from fear. I wish--"
Mr. Carr's was a close handwriting, and this concluded the first page.
She was turning it over, when Lord Hartledon's voice on the stairs caught
her ear. He seemed to be coming up.
Ay, and he would have caught her at her work but for the accidental
circumstance of the old dowager's happening to look out of the
drawing-room and detaining him, as he was hastening onwards up the
stairs. She did her daughter good service that moment, if she had never
done it before. Maude had time to fold the letter, put it back, lock the
cabinet, and escape. Had she been a nervous woman, given to being
flurried and to losing her presence of mind, she might not have
succeeded; but she was cool and quick in emergency, her brain and fingers
steady.
Nevertheless her heart beat a little as she stood within the other room,
the door not latched behind her. She did not stir, lest he should hear
her; and she hoped to remain unseen until he went down again. A ready
excuse was on her lips, if he happened to look in, which was not
probable: that she fancied she heard baby cry, and was listening.
Lord Hartledon was walking about his dressing-room, pacing it restlessly,
and she very distinctly heard suppressed groans of mortal anguish
breaking from his lips. How he had got rid of his visitor, and what
the visitor came for, she knew not. He seemed to halt before the
washhand-stand, pour out some water, and dash his face into it.
"God help me! God help Maude!" he ejaculated, as he went down again to
the drawing-room.
And Lady Hartledon went down also, for the interruption had frightened
her, and she did not attempt to open the cabinet again. She never knew
more of the contents of Mr. Carr's letter; and only the substance of the
other, as communicated to her by her husband.