AN ABDUCTION.
So far as a man not very resolute can be said to have made up his
mind to anything, Charles Fairfield had quite made up his, driven thus
fairly into a corner, to fight his battle now, and decisively. He would
hold no terms and offer no compromise. Let her do her worst. She had
found out his secret. Oh! brother Harry, had _you_ played him false?
And she had quoted _your_ opinion against him. Had you been inflaming
this insane enemy with an impracticable confidence?
Well, no matter, now; all the better, perhaps. There was already an
end of concealment between that enemy and himself, and soon would be
of suspense.
“God help me! at the eve of what an abyss I stand. That wretched
woman, poor as she is, and nearly mad, in a place like London she’ll
be certain to find lawyers only too glad to take up her case, and
force me to a trial--first, a trial to prove a marriage and make costs
of me, and then, Heaven knows what more; and the publicity, and the
miserable uncertainty; and Alice, poor little Alice. Merciful Heaven!
what had she done to merit this long agony and possible ruin?”
He peeped into the dining-room as he passed, but all was there as he
had left it. Alice had not been in it. So at the kitchen door he
knocked.
“Who’s there? Is anyone there?”
Encouraged by his voice old Dulcibella answered from within. The door
was opened, and he entered.
A few moments’ silence, except for Alice’s murmured and sobbing
welcome, a trembling, close embrace, and he said, with a gentle look,
in a faint tone--
“Alice, darling, I have no good news to tell. Everything has gone
wrong with me, and we must leave this. Let Dulcibella go up and get
such things as are necessary to take with you; but, Dulcibella, mind
you tell nobody your mistress is leaving this. And, Alice, you’ll come
with me. We’ll go where they can neither follow nor trace us; and let
fate do its worst. We may be happier yet in our exile than ever we
were at home. And when they have banished me they have done their
worst.”
His tenderness for Alice, frozen for a time, had returned. As she
clung to him, her large, soft gray eyes looking up in his face so
piteously moved him. He had intended a different sort of
speech--colder, dryer--and under the spell of that look had come this
sudden gush of a better feeling--the fond clasp of his arm, and the
hurried kiss he pressed upon her cheek.
“I said, Alice, happier, _happier_, darling, a thousandfold. For the
present I speak in riddles. You have seen how miserable I am. I’ll
tell you everything by-and-by. A conspiracy, I do believe, an
unnatural conspiracy, that has worn out my miserable brain and
spirits, and harassed me to death. I’ll tell you all time enough, and
you’ll say it is a miracle I have borne it as I do. Don’t look so
frightened, you poor little thing. We are perfectly safe; I’m in no
real danger, but harassed incessantly--only harassed, and that, thank
God, shall end.”
He kissed her again very tenderly, and again; and he said--
“You and Dulcibella shall go on. Clinton will drive you to Hatherton,
and there you’ll get horses and post on to Cranswell, and I will
overtake you there. I must go now and give him his directions, and I
may as well leave you this note. I wrote it yesterday. You must have
some money--there is some in it, and the names of the places, and
we’ll be there to-night. And what is it, darling? You look as if you
wished to ask me something.”
“I--I was going to ask--but I thought perhaps I ought not until you
can tell me everything--but you spoke of a conspiracy, and I was going
to ask whether that dreadful woman who got into my room has anything
to do with it.”
“Nonsense, child, that is a miserable mad woman;” he laughed dismally.
“Just wait a little, and you shall know all I know myself.”
“She’s not to stay here, I mean, of course, if anything should prevent
our leaving this to-day.”
“Why should you fancy that?” he asked, a little enigmatically.
“Mrs. Tarnley said she was going to the madhouse.”
“We’ll see time enough, you shall see her no more,” he said, and away
he went, and she saw him pass by the window and out of the yard. And
now she had leisure to think how ill he was looking, or rather to
remember how it had struck her when he had appeared at the door. Yes,
indeed, worn out and harassed to death. Thank God, he was now to
escape from that misery, and to secure the repose which it was only
too obvious he needed.
Dulcibella returned with such things as she thought indispensable, and
she and her mistress were soon in more animated discussion than they
had engaged in since the scenes of the past night.
Charles Fairfield had to make a call at farmer Chubbs’ to persuade him
to lend his horse, about which he made a difficulty. It was not far up
the glen towards Church Carwell, but when he came back he found the
Grange again in a new confusion.
When Charles Fairfield, ascending the steep and narrow road which
under tall trees darkly mounts from the Glen of Carwell to the plateau
under the grey walls of the Grange, had reached that sylvan platform,
he saw there, looking in the direction of Cressley Common, in that
dim, religious light, Tom Clinton, in his fustian jacket, scratching
his head and looking, it seemed, with interest, after some receding
object. A little behind him, similarly engrossed, stood old Mildred
Tarnley, with her hand above her eyes, though there was little need of
artificial shade in that solemn grove, and again, a little to her
rear, peeped broad-shouldered Lilly Dogger, standing close to the
threshold of the yard door.
Tom Clinton was first to turn about, and sauntering slowly toward the
house, he spoke something to Mrs. Tarnley, who, waiting till he
reached her, turned about in the same direction, and talking gravely,
and looking over their shoulders, as people sometimes do in the
direction in which a runaway horse has disappeared, they came to a
standstill at the door, under the great ash-tree, whose columnar stem
is mantled with thick ivy, and there again looking back, the little
girl leaning and listening, unheeded, against the door-post, the group
remained in conference.
Had Charles Fairfield been in his usual state of mind his curiosity
would have been piqued by an appearance of activity so unusual in his
drowsy household. As it was, he cared not, but approached, looking
down upon the road with his hands in his pockets listlessly.
Mrs. Tarnley whispered something to Tom and jogged him in the ribs,
looking all the time at the approaching figure of Charles Fairfield.
The master of the Grange approached, looked up, and saw Tom standing
near, with the air of one who had something to say. Mrs. Tarnley had
drawn back, a little doubtful possibly, of the effect on his nerves.
“Well, Tom, Chubbs will lend the horse,” said Charles. “We’ll go
round to the stable, I’ve a word to say.”
Tom touched his hat, still looking in his face with an inquiring and
ominous expression.
“Do you want to say anything particular, Tom?” asked his master, with
a sudden foreboding of some new ill.
“Nothing, sir, but Squire Rodney of Wrydell, has come over from
Wykeford.”
“He’s here--is he?” asked Charles, paler on a sudden.
“He’s gone, sir, please.”
“Gone, is he? Well, well, there’s not much in that.”
“’Twas only, sir, that he brought two men wi’ him.”
“Do you mean?--you don’t mean--what men did he bring?”
“Well, they was constable folk, I believe, they must a’ bin, for they
made an arrest.”
“A _what_, do you mean?”
“He made out a writin’, and he ’ad me in, and questioned me, but I’d
nout to tell, sir, and he asked where you was, and I told him, as you
ordered I was to say, you was gone, and he took the mistress’s her
story, and made her make oath on’t, and the same wi’ the others--Mrs.
Tarnley, and the little girl, and the blind woman, she be took up for
murder, or I don’t know for what, only he said he could not take no
bail for her, so they made her sure, and has took her off, I do
suppose, to Wykeford pris’n.”
“Of course, that’s right, I suppose, all right, eh?” Charles looked as
if he was going to drop to the earth, so leaden was his hue, and so
meaningless the stare with which he looked in Tom’s face.
“But--but--who sent for him? I didn’t. D---- you, who sent for him?
’Twasn’t I. And--and who’s master here? Who the devil sent for that
meddling rascal from Wykeford?”
Charles’s voice had risen to a roar as he shook Tom furiously by the
collar.
Springing back a bit, Tom answered, with his hand grasping his collar
where the squire had just clutched him.
“I don’t know, I didn’t, and I don’t believe no one did. It’s a smart
run from here across the common. I don’t believe no one sent from the
Grange--I’m sure no one went from this--not a bit, not a toe, not a
soul, I’m sure and certain.”
“What’s this, what’s this, what the devil’s all this, Tom?” said the
squire, stamping, and shaking his fist in the air, like a man
distracted.
“Why did you let her go--why did you let them take her--d---- you?
I’ve a mind to pitch you over that cliff and smash you.”
“Well, sir,” said Tom, making another step or two back, and himself
pale and stern now, with his open hand raised, partly in deprecation,
“where’s the good o’ blamin’ me? what could I do wi’ the law again me,
and how could I tell what you’d think, and _’twarn’t_ no one from this
sent for him, not one, but news travels apace, and who’s he can stop
it?--not me, nor _you_,” said Tom, sturdily, “and he just come over of
his own head, and nabbed her.”
“My God! It’s done. I thought you would not have allowed me to be
trampled on, and the place insulted; I took ye for a man, Tom. Where’s
my horse--by heaven, I’ll have him. I’ll make it a day’s work he’ll
remember. That d---- Rodney, coming down to my house with his
catchpoles, to pay off old scores, and insult me.”
With his fist clenched and raised, Charles Fairfield ran furiously
round to the stable yard, followed cautiously by Tom Clinton.