Like all persons of strong nature, Olivia Denison grew bolder as danger
came nearer. When she recognized the man in the garden, underneath the
corridor window, it did not occur to her to call for help; but all her
energies were instantly concentrated on learning the meaning of this
intrusion. She was sure that she had not been seen. As noiselessly as
she could she shut the window, and retreated into the private passage
which led to her own apartments. There she waited, peeping cautiously
out under cover of the black shadows of the corridor, into which the
faint moonlight could not penetrate.
She heard the grinding sound made by the ladder as it was set against
the wall, and presently she saw a man’s head appear just above the
ledge outside. He raised his hand, gave three taps on the glass, and
disappeared. A minute later he mounted a step higher than before, and
tapped again. Then, with scarcely an instant’s more delay, he pushed up
the window slowly and noiselessly, and, as soon as it was wide enough,
put one leg over the sill and stood in the corridor.
Olivia, brave as she was by nature, was transfixed with alarm. What did
he want with her? What shocking confession, what horrible entreaties,
had he come to make to her like this, in the middle of the night? If
she could have shrieked aloud, if she could have run out and alarmed
the household, she would have done so now. But horror had paralyzed
her. The voice she tried to use gave only a hoarse, almost inaudible
rattle. Her limbs were rigid; her breath came and went in gasps, like
that of a person dying of asthma. She could only stand and stare at
the advancing figure, hoping desperately that the first words he
uttered would break this spell, and restore her to herself. Why did he
choose the night time to come and make her the victim of his guilty
confidences? Were they too ghastly to make by day? That this man was
the murderer of Nellie Mitchell she could not now doubt; the demeanor
of his every-day life was utterly changed; there was guilt expressed
in every furtive movement. All her respect and liking were transformed
into loathing and fear; she almost crouched against the wall as he
approached.
He reached the entrance to the corridor, and paused. If she could only
keep still enough for him to pass her! Then she could escape into the
main building of the house, and have time to think what she should do.
But he stopped short, and stretched out his hand to knock at the door.
In the darkness he could not see that it was open. But how, Olivia
suddenly asked herself, did he know there was a door there at all?
Although he moved slowly, too, it was with the manner of a man who knew
his way about the place. Part of the truth flashed suddenly into her
mind: he had been there before. By this time he had discovered that
the door was open. Passing into the corridor, he shut the door, turned
the key, and put it in his pocket. As he did so he touched Olivia,
but did not appear to know it. Now thoroughly alarmed, she flew along
the passage into her bedroom, and was in time to lock the door before
she heard his footsteps in the outer apartment. There was no lock to
the door between the two rooms. No one was likely to hear her if she
shrieked at one of the windows. Before many minutes were over she felt
that she should have to face him.
She flew across the bedroom floor to blow out the candle, thinking that
in the darkness she would have a better chance of escape. As she did
so she stumbled against a chair, which fell down with a loud noise.
A moment later there was a knock at the inner door. The girl’s heart
stood still. She remained motionless, and gave no answer. The knock was
repeated. Still she was silent. A third time came the knock, and then
a low, hoarse whisper, of one word only, startled her, and came as a
revelation--
“Nellie!”
This was the manner in which, years ago, he had visited the girl
whose love had ended by wearying him so fatally. By what means he had
forgotten the intervening years she did not know, but Olivia recognized
at once that it was not she of whom he was in search. The knowledge
restored in a moment all her courage. If, as she supposed, fear of
discovery had turned his brain, his was a madness with which she felt
she could cope. After only one moment’s hesitation, she snatched up one
of the candles, and unlocking the door she had secured, passed through
the passage into the adjoining room.
“Mr. Brander!” said she, in a voice which scarcely trembled.
She had to repeat her words three or four times before he moved from
the other door. At last he turned very slowly, and Olivia, raising the
candle high, looked curiously, and not wholly without fear, into his
face.
His eyes were closed; his breathing was heavy. He was asleep!
There flashed through her mind the remembrance of what the Vicar of
Rishton had said about somnambulism, and the strange instances of
it which had occurred in his family. It was clear to her that the
excitement occasioned by Ned Mitchell’s obstinate determination had
preyed upon the mind of the murderer, and led him at last to perform in
sleep an action which had been an habitual one with him eleven years
before.
In spite of the horror of this weird discovery, Olivia’s fears
disappeared at once. She thought she might, without waking him,
persuade him to go back as he had come. If he did wake, she knew he
would not hurt her. She began in a low, intentionally monotonous voice.
“I think you had better go back to-night. It is getting very late; it
is almost daylight.”
As before, she had to repeat her words before he grasped the sense of
them.
Then he repeated in a whisper, and as if there were something soothing
in the sound of her voice--
“Go back. Yes, go back.”
“I’ll give you a light. Come along,” she went on, coaxingly.
And without a moment’s delay she led the way out into the passage. Much
to her relief, he followed, at the same slow, heavy pace.
“Now,” she said, when they had reached the outer door, “give me the
key, please.”
He felt in his pocket obediently, and produced the key, which she,
overjoyed, almost snatched from his hand. The noise she made in her
excitement, as she opened the door, seemed to disturb him, for he began
to move restlessly, like a person on the point of waking. Once in the
corridor, however, Olivia was bold; she passed her hands several times
slowly down his arms, murmuring in a low, soothing tone, injunctions to
him to get home quickly. This treatment succeeded perfectly. His manner
lost its momentary restlessness, and it was in the same stolid way as
he came that he got out on the ladder, descended, replaced the ladder
in the long grass, and climbed over the wall.
Olivia watched his retreating figure as long as it was in sight, and
then, feeling sick and cold slunk back into her rooms, not forgetting
to lock the outer door of the passage safely behind her. Like most
women, however brave, when they have been through an exciting crisis,
she felt exhausted, limp, almost hysterical. She staggered as she
entered the bedroom, and it was with a reeling brain that she walked up
and down, up and down, unable to sleep, unable even to rest. She knew
the mystery now, and she felt that the knowledge was almost more than
she could bear.
Next morning her appearance, when she came down late to breakfast,
was so much affected by the awful night she had passed that even the
children wondered what was the matter with her. Mr. Denison, believing
it to be the result of his avoidance of her the evening before, was cut
to the heart with remorse, while his wife, alarmed at the change in
the girl, altered her tone, and did her best to be kind to her. Olivia
could not eat. Her cheeks were almost livid; her great eyes seemed to
fill her face; the hand she held out to be shaken was cold, clammy, and
trembling. Her amiable little half sister, Beatrix, saw an opening for
a disagreeable remark, and made use of it.
“Mr. Williams wouldn’t say you were pretty if he could see you now,”
said she. “Would he, mamma?”
Like most children, she was quick enough to detect how inharmonious
were the relations between her mother and her step-sister. She was
surprised to find, however, that for once she received no sympathy from
the quarter whence she expected it.
“Be quiet, Beatrix, and don’t be rude,” said Mrs. Denison, sharply,
with a glance at Olivia, on whom she thought that the reference to
the supposed cause of her distress would have some sudden and violent
effect.
“Can’t you keep those children in better order, Susan?” asked Mr.
Denison, peevishly. “Their rudeness is getting quite intolerable.”
However, Olivia scarcely heard this little discussion, and was in no
way moved by it. But when the talk turned to the proposed restoration
of St. Cuthbert’s and from that to the persons interested in it, she
grew suddenly very still, and sat looking down at her plate, listening
to each word with fear of what the next would be.
“I wonder how the vicar likes to see his wife about so constantly with
another man, if it is his own brother,” said Mrs. Denison, who, in
spite of her experience as a governess, was one of those people who
think it doesn’t matter what subjects you discuss before children,
because “they don’t understand.” “I’m sure the last week or so I’ve
scarcely seen one without the other.”
“Well, now, do you know, I thought it was awfully good-natured of her.
You know the stories that have been flying about lately. I’m sure I
don’t pretend to say whether there’s any truth in them or not; still
they have been flying about.”
“And not without some ground, you may depend,” said Mrs. Denison,
tartly.
While avoiding the subject which she supposed to be the cause of
Olivia’s present distress, her step-mother could not resist the
opportunity of giving that headstrong young lady a few gentle thrusts
on the subject of her “fancy for murderers.” Mr. Denison glanced from
his wife to his daughter, who by putting strong constraint on herself,
appeared not to notice what was being said.
“Well, and as she must know the rights of the story, it seems to me all
the kinder in Mrs. Brander to take any notice of him now, when he’s
under a cloud, as it were.”
Mrs. Denison uttered a little sound significant of doubt and scorn.
“It is to be hoped that everybody else will put as kind an
interpretation upon her conduct,” she said, drily. “Only last Tuesday
I met them as I walked back from the Towers. They were sitting in that
little cart sort of thing Mrs. Brander drives--not at all the right
kind of turnout for a clergyman’s wife, in my opinion--and talking
together so--well, so confidentially--that they took no notice of me
whatever.”
“Didn’t see you, of course,” said Mr. Denison, shortly.
“It may have been that, certainly,” assented his wife, incredulously.
“Or it may be that they are not too much lost to shame to avoid the eye
of a lady whom they respect when they feel they are not behaving quite
correctly.”
“Rubbish!” said Mr. Denison, shortly.
It was so seldom that the so-called head of the house ventured so near
to an expression of adverse opinion that there was a short silence,
which his wife broke in a dangerously dignified manner.
“Perhaps,” she began, with strong emphasis, “when the whole truth comes
to light concerning his relations with other ladies, my opinion on the
matter will not be considered ‘rubbish’ after all.”
Reginald, with the delightful relish of an innocent child for
conversation not intended for his ears, had left off making patterns
on the tablecloth with the mustard spoon, in order to listen and watch
with his mouth open. He now broke in with a happy sense that he was
making mischief.
“Oh, look, mamma, what a funny color Olivia’s face has gone!” cried he,
pointing to her with the mustard spoon.
The girl got up and left the room. Her father, who could not bear to
see any one unhappy, was miserable at the thought that he himself was
partly the cause of his darling daughter’s grief.
“Olivia, my dear child, come down--come here,” he called after her from
the hall as she fled upstairs.
She never could resist any appeal from him, so she crept down again,
unwillingly enough.
“Oh, that woman, that woman! Papa, I must go away, I can’t live with
her,” she whispered as she laid her head on his shoulder and received
his caress and incoherent attempts at comfort.
“Well, dear, what can I do?” he whispered, apologetically, back. “You
see, you were such a little thing when your mother died, and I hate a
household without a woman in it, so that even--”
“Even an objectionable woman is better than none,” suggested Olivia,
mischievously.
“Oh, no, my dear, I didn’t say that,” whispered he, hurriedly.
“No, papa, you don’t dare,” said Olivia, with a touch of her old
archness. “I really think that when a man with children marries a
second time, he ought to drown the first lot in mercy to them.”
Poor Mr. Denison looked down at her ruefully.
“My dear, I hope you didn’t mean that,” was all he ventured to say.
“Yes, I did.”
Here Mr. Denison perceived an opening for a suggestion which his wife,
of late, had been constantly urging him to make. Not being quite sure
how his daughter would take it, he hurried it out in a shamefaced
manner without looking at her.
“Since you don’t get on very well together, I wonder you don’t take the
chance of getting a nice home of your own; you know you could if you
like.”
“What; by wearing little Freddie Williams for ever on my watch chain?”
cried Olivia, turning off the suggestion as a joke to avoid paining her
father by expressing the disgust she felt.
“Well, my child, you know I shouldn’t press upon you anything that
wouldn’t make you happy; but if you wait for a husband worthy of you,
you’ll die an old maid.”
“And if you’ll go on living till you’re about a hundred and five to
keep me company, papa, I’ll be the oldest old maid in England with
pleasure,” said she, affectionately, as she kissed his cheek and ran
away upstairs.
She had some work to do this morning; work for which she must drive
all thought of last night’s adventure out of her head. As soon as she
reached her own room she unlocked the drawer in which she kept her
trinkets, and spreading them out before her on the dressing-table, she
mentally passed them in review to decide which were the most likely
to be saleable. Not a bad collection for a young girl, they formed;
though Olivia, ignorant as she was about the value of jewellery,
thought how poor they looked from the point of view at which she was
now considering them. A pair of turquoise and pearl earrings and brooch
to match, a heavy gold bracelet, a set of garnets and pearls of quaint,
old-fashioned design, a handsome silver chatelaine watch, a quantity
of silver bangles, a few very modest-looking rings, a diamond arrow
brooch, and a massive gold necklet. Everything but the arrow, which had
been a present from her father on her eighteenth birthday, looked, in
a strictly commercial light, clumsy or out of date. The arrow must be
sacrificed, she told herself with a sigh; so must the gold necklet and
bracelet, which she rightly judged to be next in value. If she could
only sell these things, and get ten or twelve pounds for them, she
could pay off a fair instalment of her father’s debt to Fred Williams
immediately, and she must trust to luck and her own determination for
the rest. So she made a parcel of the trinkets she had chosen, and,
at the last moment, packed also the turquoise and pearl set; then,
dressing hastily, she slipped out of the house, and started at a rapid
pace on her way to Matherham.
Before she reached the high road, however, she was met by Fred
Williams, who was sauntering about, pipe in mouth, at the point where
the roads met, on the chance of meeting her. He surveyed her with a
sidelong look of unwilling admiration.
“Good-morning, Miss Denison,” he said, curtly, pulling off his cap in a
sort of grudging manner. “I suppose you have nothing fresh to say to me
this morning?”
“Not at present, though I may have by-and-by,” said she, lightly.
“Oh, well, er--do you know whether your father is likely to be about
this morning? I want to see him on business.”
Olivia looked at him with great contempt from under her sweeping black
eyelashes.
“He is about, of course; but I don’t think you need trouble yourself
to see him, for I have a message to you from him. It is this: the
first instalment of the money he owes you will be paid to-day, and the
remainder very shortly. And he is very sorry to have put you to any
inconvenience by accepting the loan.”
With which speech, and a low bow, Olivia left Mr. Williams to the
enjoyment of his own society.
Then on she sped towards Matherham, not by way of the wood and St.
Cuthbert’s, but by the shorter road that went past the Towers. A great
bare building it was, standing ostentatiously on very high ground,
with a spire here, a minaret there, and various irregular erections
springing up from the roof to make good its name. Olivia laughed to
herself, and wished the lady who might ultimately obtain the hand of
her mean-spirited admirer joy of her bargain. She was not unhappy;
the fearful nature of her discovery of the night before had shaken
her out of the depression from which she had lately been suffering.
She was excited, full of indignation and of energy: her head full of
wild surmises, of fears connected with the approaching crisis. As if
trying to keep pace with her fantastic thoughts, her feet seemed to fly
along the ground. The few persons she passed stared at or curtseyed to
her without any acknowledgment; she saw no one but the people in her
thoughts.
Suddenly she was roused out of her wild reverie by hearing her own
name called in sharp tones. She looked down from the high pathway
alongside the hedge into the road, which at this point was some five
feet below. There she saw the vicarage pony carriage, containing Mrs.
Brander, who was driving, with Vernon sitting by her side. It was the
lady who had called to Olivia. Having pulled up the ponies to the side
of the road, she now beckoned to the girl in an impatient, imperious
manner, to come down.
“Good-morning,” said Olivia, coldly, without attempting to leave the
pathway. Her cheeks had grown in an instant deadly white on seeing who
was the lady’s companion; but she did not glance at him.
“I can’t stop this morning, Mrs. Brander: I’m in a great hurry,” she
said, in an unsteady voice, while her heart beat violently, and she
felt that if the interview lasted a minute longer she should not be
able to stand without support.
“But I have something important to say to you--very important. I really
must beg you to give me a moment; and, if you like, I will drive you
into Matherham myself.”
“No, thank you,” said Olivia, hastily.
“One minute, then, I beg, Miss Denison.”
The imperious lady’s voice had suddenly broken and become imploring.
Olivia, with downcast eyes, and feet that tottered under her, found a
convenient place for a descent into the road, and the next minute stood
by the pony carriage, on the side where Mrs. Brander was sitting. She
neither looked up nor spoke, but left the opening of the conversation
to the vicar’s wife, whose hands, as she held the reins, shook with a
nervousness altogether unusual with her. With strange diffidence, too,
Mrs. Brander hesitated before she spoke.
“You are walking into Matherham?” she asked, at last.
“Yes, Mrs. Brander.”
“You are sure you won’t let me drive you in?”
“Quite sure, thank you.”
“Vernon, you know, would get down; he’d rather walk I’m certain.”
Olivia’s face became suddenly crimson.
“I couldn’t think of turning Mr. Brander out,” she said coldly.
“I should be delighted,” murmured Vernon in a low tone.
In spite of all her efforts to retain her self-command, Olivia shivered
at the sound of his voice. She felt, although she never once looked at
the face of either, that both the man and the woman were watching her
intently. They had some suspicion of the knowledge she had so strangely
obtained, she was sure. There was a pause, and then Mrs. Brander spoke
again.
“You don’t look so well as usual this morning, Miss Denison,” she said,
not quite able to keep curiosity and anxiety out of her tone. “You are
quite pale. We miss your lovely roses.”
“I have had a bad night,” said Olivia, shortly, and with a sudden
determination that it would be better to let them know all she had
discovered.
The effort Mrs. Brander made to retain her usual calmness and coldness
was piteous to see. Her beautiful features quivered; her great black
eyes were dilated with apprehension.
“A bad night?” she repeated, inquiringly.
“Yes. I was frightened. A man got into my sitting-room.”
Neither of her hearers made any but the faintest attempt to affect
astonishment.
“It must have alarmed you horribly,” said Mrs. Brander with blanched
lips. “Did you call any one?”
“No.”
Over the face of the vicar’s wife came an expression of great relief.
“Have you told any one?”
“This is the first time I have mentioned it.”
There was a pause.
“Have you any idea--who--the man--was?”
“I recognized him at once, before he got in at the window. He spoke to
me, but he did not know who I was. He was asleep.”
“He spoke to you?”
“Yes. He addressed me as ‘Nellie.’”
Olivia had dropped her eyes, but she heard Mrs. Brander’s breath,
coming quickly, as if she was choking. The girl put her hand out
impulsively on the arm of the elder lady, and whispered, without
looking up--
“You made me tell you. And, after all, what does it matter? I think you
know.”
She felt her hand seized with a convulsive pressure.
“You will say nothing?” Then Mrs. Brander snatched her hand away. “No,
no; it is asking too much, of course. And perhaps, after all, it would
be of no use.”
“At any rate, Mrs. Brander, nobody but you will ever hear the story
from me.”
She ignored Vernon, as she had ignored him throughout the whole of the
interview. Mrs. Brander drew a labored sigh.
“I trust you,” she said in a hoarse voice. “A woman can keep a secret
as well as a man, I know.”
“Oh, yes,” said Olivia, simply. “Now you will let me go, will you not?”
She was frank, honest; but she was not cordial; scarcely even kind.
When Mrs. Brander pressed her hand again, however, she returned the
pressure with a firm clasp. Then, still without a glance at Vernon, she
bowed and wished the vicar’s wife “good-morning,” and, turning, resumed
her walk towards Matherham. She had not gone many yards before she
quickened her pace still more, hearing footsteps she recognized behind,
and then beside her.
It was Vernon Brander.
For some time he walked on in silence by her side, not daring to
address her. At last he said, humbly, imploringly--
“Won’t you speak to me?”
No answer.
“Have you forgotten all you once said to me about friendship?”
“No,” she answered in a frightened, constrained voice, still without
looking at him.
“Remember, what you saw last night was no worse than what you already
believed.”
“Yes it was!” panted Olivia. “It was worse; much worse--to see--to
hear. It was something I shall never forget. But don’t let us speak of
it.”
“But is it to make this difference, that you will never speak to me
again?”
“It is to make no difference; you heard me say so. You wish it; she
wishes it. I have promised.”
“I take you at your word. If you had discovered nothing you would have
let me go into Matherham with you, and you would have told me the
object of your going. Will you now?”
“Yes, if you like, Mr. Brander.” In spite of herself, her tone was more
formal than usual. “I am going to get some money to repay a loan from
that wretched little Fred Williams.”
“To your father, of course. And I suppose,” he added, glancing at the
little parcel she carried in her hand, “you are going to sell some
trinkets of your own to do so.”
“To help to do so,” answered Olivia, with a blush and a look of
surprise at his perspicacity. “The whole sum is much more than anything
of mine could fetch.”
“Will you tell me how much?”
“Thirty pounds!”
“And will you, as a pledge of what you said--that you will forget
everything--do for me what I know you would not do for any other man?”
“What is that?”
“Let me lend you the money. I spend nothing. I have a considerable
sum saved, and it will do me a pleasure--such a pleasure!” he added,
earnestly, below his breath. “It would be a mark of confidence which
would prove to me, whatever I may have done wrong--and my conscience
is not too clear, I know, you know--prove to me that you have a little
compassion, a little kindness, for me still.”
Without answering in words, Olivia, who was trembling violently, took
his hand, pressed it quickly for one moment in hers, and let it drop
hastily, as if she had been too bold.
Then, without the exchange of a single word more, they walked through
the narrow, hilly streets of Matherham, which they had now reached,
until they came to the bank where Vernon kept an account. Olivia walked
on while he went into the building; in a very few minutes he overtook
her and put an envelope into her hand. She did not thank him; he did
not give her time.
“I am very grateful,” he said simply: “I--I can’t say any more now.
Good-bye.”
Olivia looked up and spoke with a sob in her voice.
“Good-bye,” she said.
Then they looked into each other’s eyes with the long, sad look of a
farewell, and she was not surprised at his next words.
“I daresay,” he said in a hoarse voice, “that I shall be going away
from here before long; I daresay I shall have to--when the tower is
built,” he added in a whisper, looking down. “No, don’t say anything--I
couldn’t bear it.”
But Olivia, though she tried, could utter no word. She wrung his hand
and looked straight into his face with an expression of passionate
sympathy and despair. Then, without another word, they parted.