AT FAULT.
Gilbert Fenton took up his abode at the dilapidated old inn at Crosber,
thinking that he might be freer there than at the Grange; a dismal place
of sojourn under the brightest circumstances, but unspeakably dreary for
him who had only the saddest thoughts for his companions. He wanted to be
on the spot, to be close at hand to hear tidings of the missing girl, and
he wanted also to be here in the event of John Holbrook's return--to come
face to face with this man, if possible, and to solve that question which
had sorely perplexed him of late--the mystery that hung about the man who
had wronged him.
He consulted Ellen Carley as to the probability of Mr. Holbrook's return.
The girl seemed to think it very unlikely that Marian's husband would
ever again appear at the Grange. His last departure had appeared like a
final one. He had paid every sixpence he owed in the neighbourhood, and
had been liberal in his donations to the servants and hangers-on of the
place. Marian's belongings he had left to Ellen Carley's care, telling
her to pack them, and keep them in readiness for being forwarded to any
address he might send. But his own books and papers he had carefully
removed.
"Had he many books here?" Gilbert asked.
"Not many," the girl answered; "but he was a very studious gentleman. He
spent almost all his time shut up in his own room reading and writing."
"Indeed!"
In this respect the habits of the unknown corresponded exactly with those
of John Saltram. Gilbert Fenton's heart beat a little quicker at the
thought that he was coming nearer by a step to the solution of that
question which was always uppermost in his mind now.
"Do you know if he wrote books--if he was what is called a literary
man--living by his pen?" he asked presently.
"I don't know; I never heard his wife say so. But Mrs. Holbrook was
always reserved about him and his history. I think he had forbidden her
to talk about his affairs. I know I used to fancy it was a dull life for
her, poor soul, sitting in his room hour after hour, working while he
wrote. He used not to allow her to be with him at all at first, but
little by little she persuaded him to let her sit with him, promising not
to disturb him by so much as a word; and she never did. She seemed quite
happy when she was with him, contented, and proud to think that her
presence was no hindrance to him."
"And you think he loved her, don't you?"
"At first, yes; but I think a kind of weariness came over him
afterwards, and that she saw it, and almost broke her heart about it.
She was so simple and innocent, poor darling, it wasn't easy for her to
hide anything she felt."
Gilbert asked the bailiff's daughter to describe Mr. Holbrook to him, as
she had done more than once before. But this time he questioned her
closely, and contrived that her description of this man's outward
semblance should be especially minute and careful.
Yes, the picture which arose before him as Ellen Carley spoke was the
picture of John Saltram. The description seemed in every particular to
apply to the face and figure of his one chosen friend. But then all such
verbal pictures are at best vague and shadowy, and Gilbert knew that he
carried that one image in his mind, and would be apt unconsciously to
twist the girl's words into that one shape. He asked if any picture or
photograph of Mr. Holbrook had been left at the Grange, and Ellen Carley
told him no, she had never even seen a portrait of Marian's husband.
He was therefore fain to be content with the description which seemed so
exactly to fit the friend he loved, the friend to whom he had clung with
a deeper, stronger feeling since this miserable suspicion had taken root
in his mind.
"I think I could have forgiven him if he had come between us in a bold
and open way," he said to himself, brooding over this harassing doubt of
his friend; "yes, I think I could have forgiven him, in spite of the
bitterness of losing her. But to steal her from me with cowardly
treacherous secrecy, to hide my treasure in an obscure corner, and then
grow weary of her, and blight her fair young life with his coldness,--can
I forgive him these things? can all the memory of the past plead with me
for him when I think of these things? O God, grant that I am mistaken;
that it is some other man who has done this, and not John Saltram; not
the man I have loved and honoured for fifteen years of my life!"
But his suspicions were not to be put away, not to be driven out of his
mind, let him argue against them as he might. He resolved, therefore,
that as soon as he should have made every effort and taken every possible
means towards the recovery of the missing girl, he would make it his
business next to bring this thing home to John Saltram, or acquit him for
ever.
It is needless to dwell upon that weary work, which seemed destined to
result in nothing but disappointment. The local constabulary and the
London police alike exerted all their powers to obtain some trace of
Marian Holbrook's lost footsteps; but no clue to the painful mystery was
to be found. From the moment when she vanished from the eyes of the
servant-woman watching her departure from the Grange gate, she seemed to
have disappeared altogether from the sight of mankind. If by some
witchcraft she had melted into the dim autumnal mist that hung about the
river-bank, she could not have left less trace, or vanished more
mysteriously than she had done. The local constabulary gave in very soon,
in spite of Gilbert Fenton's handsome payment in the present, and noble
promises of reward in the future. The local constabulary were honest and
uninventive. They shook their heads gloomily, and said "Drownded."
"But the river has been dragged," Gilbert cried eagerly, "and there has
been nothing found."
He shuddered at the thought of that which might have been hauled to shore
in the foul weedy net. The face he loved, changed, disfigured, awful--the
damp clinging hair.
"Holes," replied the chief of the local constabulary, sententiously;
"there's holes in that there river where you might hide half a dozen
drownded men, and never hope to find 'em, no more than if they was at the
bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Lord bless your heart, sir, you Londoners
don't know what a river is, in a manner of speaking," added the man, who
was most likely unacquainted with the existence of the Thames, compared
with which noble stream this sluggish Hampshire river was the veriest
ditch. "I've known a many poor creatures drownded in that river, and
never one of 'em to come to light--not that the river was dragged for
_them_. Their friends weren't of the dragging class, they weren't."
The London police were more hopeful and more delusive. They were always
hearing of some young lady newly arrived at some neighbouring town or
village who seemed to answer exactly to the description of Mrs. Holbrook.
And, behold, when Gilbert Fenton hurried off post-haste to the village or
town, and presented himself before the lady in question, he found for the
most part that she was ten years older than Marian, and as utterly unlike
her as it was possible for one Englishwoman to be unlike another.
He possessed a portrait of the missing girl--a carefully finished
photograph, which had been given to him in the brief happy time when she
was his promised wife; and he caused this image to be multiplied and
distributed wherever the search for Marian was being made. He neglected
no possible means by which he might hope to obtain tidings; advertising
continually, in town and country, and varying his advertisements in such
a manner as to insure attention either from the object of his inquiries,
or any one acquainted with her.
But all his trouble was in vain. No reply, or, what was worse, worthless
and delusive replies, came to his advertisements. The London police, who
had pretended to be so hopeful at first, began to despair in a visible
manner, having put all their machinery into play, and failed to obtain
even the most insignificant result. They were fain to confess at last
that they could only come to pretty much the same conclusion as that
arrived at by their inferiors, the rustic officials; and agreed that in
all probability the river hid the secret of Marian Holbrook's fate. She
had been the victim of either crime or accident. Who should say which?
The former seemed the more likely, as she had vanished in broad daylight,
when it was scarcely possible that her footsteps could go astray; while
in that lonely neighbourhood a crime was never impossible.
"She had a watch and chain, I suppose?" the officer inquired. "Ladies
will wear 'em."
Gilbert ascertained from Ellen Carley that Marian had always worn her
watch and chain, had worn them when she left the Grange for the last
time. She had a few other trinkets too, which she wore habitually, quaint
old-fashioned things, of some value.
How well Gilbert remembered those little family treasures, which she had
exhibited to him at Captain Sedgewick's bidding!
"Ah," muttered the officer when he heard this, "quite enough to cost her
her life, if she met with one of your ugly customers. I've known a murder
committed for the sake of three-and-sixpence in my time; and pushing a
young woman into the river don't count for murder among that sort of
people. You see, some one may come by and fish her out again; so it can't
well be more than manslaughter."
A dull horror came over Gilbert Fenton as he heard these professional
speculations, but at the worst he could not bring himself to believe that
these men were right, and that the woman he loved had been the victim of
some obscure wretch's greed, slain in broad daylight for the sake of a
few pounds' worth of jewelry.
When everything had been done that was possible to be done in that part
of the country, Mr. Fenton went back to London. But not before he had
become very familiar with the household at the Grange. From the first he
had liked and trusted Ellen Carley, deeply touched by her fidelity to
Marian. He made a point of dropping in at the Grange every evening, when
not away from Crosber following up some delusive track started by his
metropolitan counsellors. He always went there with a faint hope that
Ellen Carley might have something to tell him, and with a vague notion
that John Holbrook might return unexpectedly, and that they two might
meet in the old farm-house. But Mr. Holbrook did not reappear, nor had
Ellen any tidings for her evening visitor; though she thought of little
else than Marian, and never let a day pass without making some small
effort to obtain a clue to that mystery which now seemed so hopeless.
Gilbert grew to be quite at home in the little wainscoted parlour at the
Grange, smoking his cigar there nightly in a tranquil contemplative mood,
while Mr. Carley puffed vigorously at his long clay pipe. There was a
special charm for him in the place that had so long been Marian's home.
He felt nearer to her, somehow, under that roof, and as if he must needs
be on the right road to some discovery. The bailiff, although prone to
silence, seemed to derive considerable gratification from Mr. Fenton's
visits, and talked to that gentleman with greater freedom than he was
wont to display in his intercourse with mankind. Ellen was not always
present during the whole of the evening, and in her absence the bailiff
would unbosom himself to Gilbert on the subject of his daughter's
undutiful conduct; telling him what a prosperous marriage the girl might
make if she had only common sense enough to see her own interests in the
right light, and wasn't the most obstinate self-willed hussy that ever
set her own foolish whims and fancies against a father's wishes.
"But a woman's fancies sometimes mean a very deep feeling, Mr. Carley,"
pleaded Gilbert; "and what worldly-wise people call a good home, is not
always a happy one. It's a hard thing for a young woman to marry against
her inclination."
"Humph!" muttered the bailiff in a surly tone. "It's a harder thing for
her to marry a pauper, I should think, and to bring a regiment of
children into the world, always wanting shoes and stockings. But you're a
bachelor, you see, Mr. Fenton, and can't be expected to know what shoes
and stockings are. Now there happens to be a friend of mine--a steady,
respectable, middle-aged man--who worships the ground my girl walks on,
and could make her mistress of as good a house as any within twenty miles
of this, and give a home to her father in his old age, into the bargain;
for I'm only a servant here, and it can't be expected that I am to go on
toiling and slaving about this place for ever. I don't say but what I've
saved a few pounds, but I haven't saved enough to keep me out of the
workhouse."
This seemed to Gilbert rather a selfish manner of looking at a daughter's
matrimonial prospects, and he ventured to hint as much in a polite way.
But the bailiff was immovable.
"What a young woman wants is a good home," he said decisively; "whether
she has the sense to know it herself, or whether she hasn't, that's what
she's got to look for in life."
Gilbert had not spent many evenings at the Grange before he had the
honour of being introduced to the estimable middle-aged suitor, whose
claims Mr. Carley was always setting forth to his daughter. He saw
Stephen Whitelaw, and that individual's colourless expressionless
countenance, redeemed from total blankness only by the cunning visible in
the small grey eyes, impressed him with instant distrust and dislike.
"God forbid that frank warm-hearted girl should ever be sacrificed to
such a fellow as this," he said to himself, as he sat on the opposite
side of the hearth, smoking his cigar, and meditatively contemplating Mr.
Whitelaw conversing in his slow solemn fashion with the man who was so
eager to be his father-in-law.
In the course of that first evening of their acquaintance, Gilbert was
surprised to see how often Stephen Whitelaw looked at him, with a
strangely-attentive expression, that had something furtive in it, some
hidden meaning, as it seemed to him. Whenever Gilbert spoke, the farmer
looked up at him, always with the same sharp inquisitive glance, the same
cunning twinkle in his small eyes. And every time he happened to look at
Mr. Whitelaw during that evening, he found the watchful eyes turned
towards him in the same unpleasant manner. The sensation caused by this
kind of surveillance on the part of the farmer was so obnoxious to him,
that at parting he took occasion to speak of it in a friendly way.
"I fancy you and I must have met before to-night, Mr. Whitelaw," he said;
"or that you must have some notion to that effect. You've looked at me
with an amount of interest my personal merits could scarcely call for."
"No, no, sir," the farmer answered in his usual slow deliberate way; "it
isn't that; I never set eyes on you before I came into this room
to-night. But you see, Ellen, she's interested in you, and I take an
interest in any one she takes to. And we've all of us thought so much
about your searching for that poor young lady that's missing, and taking
such pains, and being so patient-like where another would have given in
at the first set-off--so, altogether, you're a general object of
interest, you see."
Gilbert did not appear particularly flattered by this compliment. He
received it at first with rather an angry look, and then, after a pause,
was vexed with himself for having been annoyed by the man's clumsy
expression of sympathy--for it was sympathy, no doubt, which Mr. Whitelaw
wished to express.
"It has been sad work, so far," he said. "I suppose you can give me no
hint, no kind of advice as to any step to be taken in the future."
"Lord bless you, no sir. Everything that could be done was done before
you came here. Mr. Holbrook didn't leave a stone unturned. He did his
duty as a man and a husband, sir. The poor young lady was
drowned--there's no doubt about that."
"I don't believe it," Gilbert said, with a quiet resolute air, which
seemed quite to startle Mr. Whitelaw.
"You don't believe she was drowned! You mean to say you think she's
alive, then?" he asked, with unusual sharpness and quickness of speech.
"I have a firm conviction that she still lives; that, with God's
blessing, I shall see her again."
"Well, sir," Mr. Whitelaw replied, relapsing into his accustomed
slowness, and rubbing his clumsy chin with his still clumsier hand, in a
thoughtful manner, "of course it ain't my place to go against any
gentleman's convictions--far from it; but if you see Mrs. Holbrook before
the dead rise out of their graves, my name isn't Stephen Whitelaw. You
may waste your time and your trouble, and you may spend your money as it
was so much water, but set eyes upon that missing lady you never will;
take my word for it, or don't take my word for it, as you please."
Gilbert wondered at the man's earnestness. Did he really feel some kind
of benevolent interest in the fate of a helpless woman, or was it only a
vulgar love of the marvellous and horrible that moved him? Gilbert leaned
to the latter opinion, and was by no means inclined to give Stephen
Whitelaw credit for any surplus stock of benevolence. He saw a good deal
more of Ellen Carley's suitor in the course of his evening visits to the
Grange, and had ample opportunity for observing Mr. Whitelaw's mode of
courtship, which was by no means of the demonstrative order, consisting
in a polite silence towards the object of his affections, broken only by
one or two clumsy but florid compliments, delivered in a deliberate but
semi-jocose manner. The owner of Wyncomb Farm had no idea of making hard
work of his courtship. He had been angled for by so many damsels, and
courted by so many fathers and mothers, that he fancied he had but to say
the word when the time came, and the thing would be done. Any evidence of
avoidance, indifference, or even dislike upon Ellen Carley's part,
troubled him in the smallest degree. He had heard people talk of young
Randall's fancy for her, and of her liking for him, but he knew that her
father meant to set his heel upon any nonsense of this kind; and he did
not for a moment imagine it possible that any girl would resolutely
oppose her father's will, and throw away such good fortune as he could
offer her--to ride in her own chaise-cart, and wear a silk gown always on
Sundays, to say nothing of a gold watch and chain; and Mr. Whitelaw meant
to endow his bride with a ponderous old-fashioned timepiece and heavy
brassy-looking cable which had belonged to his mother.