The supper was a very silent meal. Old Hugo was evidently not inclined
to converse,--he ate his food quickly, almost ravenously, without
seeming to be conscious that he was eating. Robin Clifford glanced at
him now and again watchfully, and with some anxiety,--an uncomfortable
idea that there was something wrong somewhere worried him,--moreover he
was troubled by the latent feeling that presently his uncle would be
sure to ask if all was "settled" between himself and Innocent.
Strangely enough, however, the old man made no allusion to the subject.
He seemed to have forgotten it, though it had been the chief matter on
which he had laid so much stress that morning. Each minute Innocent
expected him to turn upon her with the dreaded question--to which she
would have had to reply untruly, according to the plan made between
herself and Robin. But to her great surprise and relief he said nothing
that conveyed the least hint of the wish he had so long cherished. He
was irritable and drowsy,--now and again his head fell a little forward
on his chest and his eyes closed as though in utter weariness. Seeing
this, the practical Priscilla made haste to get the supper finished and
cleared away.
"You be off to bed, Mister Jocelyn," she said,--"The sooner the better,
for you look as tired as a lame dog that 'as limped 'ome twenty miles.
You ain't fit to be racketing about markets an' drivin' bargains."
"Who says I'm not?" he interrupted, sitting bolt upright and glaring
fiercely at her--"I tell you I am! I can do business as well as any
man--and drive a bargain-ah! I should think so indeed!--a hard-and-fast
bargain!--not easy to get out of, I can tell you!--not easy to get out
of! And it has cost me a pretty penny, too!"
Robin Clifford glanced at him enquiringly.
"How's that?" he asked--"You generally make rather than spend!"
Jocelyn gave a sudden loud laugh.
"So I do, boy, so I do! But sometimes one has to spend to make! I've
done both to-day--I've made and I've spent. And what I've spent is
better than keeping it--and what I've made--ay!--what I've
made--well!--it's a bargain, and no one can say it isn't a fair one!"
He got up from the supper table and pushed away his chair.
"I'll go," he said--"Priscilla's right--I'm dog-tired and bed's the
best place for me." He passed his hand over his forehead. "There's a
sort of buzzing in my brain like the noise of a cart-wheel--I want
rest." As he spoke Innocent came softly beside him and took his arm
caressingly. He looked down upon her with a smile. "Yes, wilding, I
want rest! We'll have a long talk out tomorrow--you and I and Robin.
Bless thee, child! Good-night!"
He kissed her tenderly and held out one hand to Clifford, who cordially
grasped it.
"Good boy!" he said-"Be up early, for there's much to do--and Landon
won't be home till late--no--not till late! Get on with the field
work--for if the clouds mean anything we shall have rain." He paused a
moment and seemed to reflect, then repeated slowly--"Yes, lad! We shall
have rain!--and wind, and storm! Be ready!--the fine weather's
breaking!"
With that he went, walking slowly, and they heard him stumble once or
twice as he went up the broad oak staircase to his bedroom. Priscilla
put her head on one side, like a meditative crow, and listened. Then
she heaved a sigh, smoothed down her apron and rolled up her eyes.
"Well, if Mister Jocelyn worn't as sober a man as any judge an' jury,"
she observed--"I should say 'e'd bin drinkin'! But that ain't it. Mr.
Robin, there's somethin' gone wrong with 'im--an' I don't like it."
"Nor I," said Innocent, in a trembling voice, suggestive of tears. "Oh,
Robin, you surely noticed how strange he looked! I'm so afraid! I feel
as if something dreadful was going to happen--"
"Nonsense!" and Robin assumed an air of indifference which he was far
from feeling--"Uncle Hugo is tired--I think he has been put out--you
know he's quick-tempered and easily irritated--he may have had some
annoyance in the town--"
"Ah! And where's Landon?" put in Priscilla, with a dark nod--"That do
beat me! Why ever the master should 'ave let a man like that go on the
loose for a night an' a day is more than I can make out! It's sort of
tempting Providence--that it is!"
Clifford flushed and turned aside. His fight with Landon was fresh in
his mind--and he began to wonder whether he had done rightly in telling
his uncle how it came about. But meeting Innocent's anxious eyes, which
mutely asked him for comfort, he answered--
"Oh, well, there's nothing very much in that, Priscilla! I daresay
Landon wanted a holiday--he doesn't ask for one often, and he's kept
fairly sober lately. Hadn't we better be off to bed? Things will
straighten out with the morning."
"Do you really think so?" Innocent sighed as she put the question.
"Of course I think so!" answered Robin, cheerily. "We're all tired, and
can't look on the bright side! Sound sleep is the best cure for the
blues! Good-night, Innocent!"
"Good-night!" she said, gently.
"Good-night, Priscilla!"
"Good-night, Mr. Robin. God bless ye!"
He smiled, nodded kindly to them both, and left the room.
"There's a man for ye!" murmured Priscilla, admiringly, as he
disappeared--"A tower of strength for a 'usband, which the Lord knows
is rare! Lovey, you'll never do better!"
But Innocent seemed not to hear. Her face was very pale, and her eyes
had a strained wistful expression.
"Dad looks very ill," she said, slowly--"Priscilla, surely you
noticed--"
"Now, child, don't you worry--'tain't no use"--and Priscilla lit two
bedroom candles, giving Innocent one--"You just go up to bed and think
of nothing till the morning. Mister Jocelyn is dead beat and put out
about something--precious 'ungry too, for he ate his food as though he
hadn't 'ad any all day. You couldn't expect him to be pleasant if he
was wore out."
Innocent said nothing more. She gave a parting glance round the room to
assure herself that everything was tidy, windows bolted and all safe
for the night, and for a fleeting moment the impression came over her
that she would never see it look quite the same again. A faint cold
tremor ran through her delicate little body--she felt lonely and
afraid. Silently she followed Priscilla up the beautiful Tudor
staircase to the first landing, where, moved by a tender, clinging
impulse, she kissed her.
"Good-night, you dear, kind Priscilla!" she said--"You've always been
good to me!"
"Bless you, my lovey!" answered Priscilla, with emotion--"Go and sleep
with the angels, like the little angel you are yourself! And mind you
think twice, and more than twice, before you say 'No' to Mr. Robin!"
With a deprecatory shake of her head, and a faint smile, Innocent
turned away, and passed through the curious tortuous little corridor
that led to her own room. Once safely inside that quiet sanctum where
the Sieur Amadis of long ago had "found peace," she set her candle down
on the oak table and remained standing by it for some moments, lost in
thought. The pale glimmer of the single light was scarcely sufficient
to disperse the shadows around her, but the lattice window was open and
admitted a shaft of moonlight which shed a pearly radiance on her
little figure, clothed in its simple white gown. Had any artist seen
her thus, alone and absorbed in sorrowful musing, he might have taken
her as a model of Psyche after her god had flown. She was weary and
anxious--life had suddenly assumed for her a tragic aspect. Old
Jocelyn's manner had puzzled her--he was unlike himself, and she
instinctively felt that he had some secret trouble on his mind. What
could it be? she wondered. Not about herself and Robin--for were he as
keen on "putting up the banns" as he had been in the morning he would
not have allowed the matter to rest. He would have asked straight
questions, and he would have expected plain answers,--and they would,
in accordance with the secret understanding they had made with each
other, have deceived him. Now there was no deception necessary--he
seemed to have forgotten--at least for the present--his own dearest
desire. With a sigh, half of pain, half of relief, she seated herself
at the table, and opening its one deep drawer with a little key which
she always wore round her neck, she began to turn over her beloved pile
of manuscript, and this occupied her for several minutes. Presently she
looked up, her eyes growing brilliant with thought, and a smile on her
lips.
"I really think it might do!" she said, aloud--"I should not be afraid
to try! Who knows what might happen? I can but fail--or succeed. If I
fail, I shall have had my lesson--if I succeed--"
She leaned her head on her two hands, ruffling up her pretty hair into
soft golden-brown rings.
"If I succeed!--ah!--if I do! Then I'll pay back everything I owe to
Dad and Briar Farm!--oh, no! I can never pay back my debt to Briar
Farm!--that would be impossible! Why, the very fields and trees and
flowers and birds have made me happy!--happier than I shall ever be
after I have said good-bye to them all!--good-bye even to the Sieur
Amadis!"
Quick tears sprang to her eyes--and the tapering light of the candle
looked blurred and dim.
"Yes, after all," she went on, still talking to the air, "it's better
and braver to try to do something in the world, rather than throw
myself upon Robin, and be cowardly enough to take him for a husband
when I don't love him. Just for comfort and shelter and Briar Farm! It
would be shameful. And I could not marry a man unless I loved him quite
desperately!--I could not! I'm not sure that I like the idea of
marriage at all,--it fastens a man and woman together for life, and the
time might come when they would grow tired of each other. How cruel and
wicked it would be to force them to endure each other's company when
they perhaps wished the width of the world between them! No--I don't
think I should care to be married--certainly not to Robin."
She put her manuscript by, and shut and locked the drawer containing
it. Then she went to the open lattice window and looked out--and
thought of the previous night, when Robin had swung himself up on the
sill to talk to her, and they had been all unaware that Ned Landon was
listening down below. A flush of anger heated her cheeks as she
recalled this and all that Robin had told her of the unprepared attack
Landon had made upon him and the ensuing fight between them. But now?
Was it not very strange that Landon should apparently be in such high
favour with Hugo Jocelyn that he had actually been allowed to stay in
the market-town and enjoy a holiday, which for him only meant a bout of
drunkenness? She could not understand it, and her perplexity increased
the more she thought of it. Leaning far out over the window-sill, she
gazed long and lovingly across the quiet stretches of meadowland,
shining white in the showered splendour of the moon--the tall
trees--the infinite and harmonious peace of the whole scene,--then,
shutting the lattice, she pulled the curtains across it, and taking her
lit candle, went to her secluded inner sleeping-chamber, where, in the
small, quaintly carved four-poster bed, furnished with ancient tapestry
and lavendered linen, and covered up under a quilt embroidered three
centuries back by the useful fingers of the wife of Sieur Amadis de
Jocelin, she soon fell into a sound and dreamless slumber.
The hours moved on, bearing with them different destinies to millions
of different human lives, and the tall old clock in the great hall of
Briar Farm told them off with a sonorous chime and clangour worthy of
Westminster itself. It was a quiet night; there was not a breath of
wind to whistle through crack or key-hole, or swing open an unbolted
door,--and Hero, the huge mastiff that always slept "on guard" just
within the hall entrance, had surely no cause to sit up suddenly on his
great haunches and listen with uplifted ears to sounds which were to
any other creature inaudible. Yet listen he did--sharply and intently.
Raising his massive head he snuffed the air--then suddenly began to
tremble as with cold, and gave vent to a long, low, dismal moan. It was
a weird noise--worse than positive howling, and the dog himself seemed
distressfully conscious that he was expressing something strange and
unnatural. Two or three times he repeated this eerie muffled cry--then,
lying down again, he put his nose between his great paws, and, with a
deep shivering sigh, appeared to resign himself to the inevitable.
There followed several moments of tense silence. Then came a sudden
dull thud overhead, as of a heavy load falling or being thrown down,
and a curious inexplicable murmur like smothered choking or groaning.
Instantly the great dog sprang erect and raced up the staircase like a
mad creature, barking furiously. The house was aroused--doors were
flung open--Priscilla rushed from her room half dressed--and Innocent
ran along the corridor in her little white nightgown, her feet bare,
and her hair falling dishevelled over her shoulders.
"What is it?" she cried piteously--"Oh, do tell me! What is it?"
Robin Clifford, hearing the dog's persistent barking, had hastily
donned coat and trousers and now appeared on the scene.
"Hero, Hero!" he called--"Quiet, Hero!"
But Hero had bounded to his master Jocelyn's door and was pounding
against it with all the force of his big muscular body, apparently
seeking to push or break it open. Robin laid one hand on the animal's
collar and pulled him back--then tried the door himself--it was locked.
"Uncle Hugo!"
There was no answer.
He turned to one of the frightened servants who were standing near. His
face was very pale.
"Fetch me a hammer," he said--"Something--anything that will force the
lock. Innocent!"--and with deep tenderness he took her little cold
hands in his own--"I wish you would go away!"
"Why?" and she looked at him with eyes full of terror. "Oh no, no! Let
me be with you--let me call him!"--and she knelt outside the closed
door--"Dad! Dear Dad! I want to speak to you! Mayn't I come in? I'm so
frightened--do let me come in. Dad!"
But the silence remained unbroken.
"Priscilla!"--and Robin beckoned to her--"keep Innocent beside you--I'm
afraid--"
Priscilla nodded, turning her head aside a moment to wipe away the
tears that were gathering in her eyes,--then she put an arm round
Innocent's waist.
"Don't kneel there, lovey," she whispered--"It's no good and you're in
the way when they open the door. Come with me!--there's a dear!"--and
she drew the trembling little figure tenderly into her arms.
"There!--that'll be a bit warmer!" and she signed to one of the farm
maids near her to fetch a cloak which she carefully wrapped round the
girl's shoulders. Just then the hammer was brought with other tools,
and Robin, to save any needless clamour, took a chisel and inserted it
in such a manner as should most easily force the catch of the door--but
the lock was an ancient and a strong one, and would not yield for some
time. At last, with an extra powerful and dexterous movement of his
hand, it suddenly gave way--and he saw what he would have given worlds
that Innocent should not have seen--old Hugo lying face forward on the
floor, motionless. There was a rush and a wild cry--
"Dad! Dad!"
She was beside him in a moment, trying with all her slight strength to
lift his head and turn his face.
"Help me--oh, help me!" she wailed. "He has fainted--we must lift
him--get some one to lift him on the bed. It is only a faint--he will
recover--get some brandy and send for the doctor. Don't lose time!--for
Heaven's sake be quick! Robin, make them hurry!"
Robin had already whispered his orders,--and two of the farm lads,
roused from sleep and hastily summoned, were ready to do what he told
them. With awed, hushed movements they lifted the heavy fallen body of
their master between them and laid it gently down on the bed. As the
helpless head dropped back on the pillow they saw that all was
over,--the pinched ashen grey of the features and the fast glazing eyes
told their own fatal story--there was no hope. But Innocent held the
cold hand of the dead man to her warm young bosom, endeavouring to take
from it its cureless chill.
"He will be better soon," she said,--"Priscilla, bring me that
brandy--just a little will revive him, I'm sure. Why do you stand there
crying? You surely don't think he's dead?--No, no, that isn't possible!
It isn't possible, is it, Robin? He'll come to himself in a few
minutes--a fainting fit may last quite a long time. I wish he had not
locked his door--we could have been with him sooner."
So she spoke, tremblingly nursing the dead hand in her bosom. No one
present had the heart to contradict her--and Priscilla, with the tears
running down her face, brought the brandy she asked for and held it
while she tenderly moistened the lips of the corpse and tried to force
a few drops between the clenched teeth--in vain. This futile attempt
frightened her, and she looked at Robin Clifford with a wild air.
"I cannot make him swallow it," she said--"Can you, Robin? He looks so
grey and cold!--but his lips are quite warm."
Robin, restraining the emotion that half choked him and threatened to
overflow in womanish weeping, went up to her and tried to coax her away
from the bedside.
"Dear, if you could leave him for a little it would perhaps be better,"
he said. "He might--he might recover sooner. We have sent for the
doctor--he will be here directly--"
"I will stay here till he comes," replied the girl, quietly. "How can
you think I would leave Dad when he's ill? If we could only rouse him a
little--"
Ah, that "if"! If we could only rouse our beloved ones who fall into
that eternal sleep, would not all the riches and glories of the world
seem tame in comparison with such joy! Innocent had never seen
death--she could not realise that this calm irresponsiveness, this cold
and stiffening rigidity, meant an end to the love and care she had
known all her life--love and care which would never be replaced in
quite the same way!
The first peep of a silver dawn began to peer through the lattice
window, and as she saw this suggestion of wakening life, a sudden dread
clutched at her heart and made it cold.
"It will be morning soon," she said--"Priscilla, when will the doctor
come?"
Scarcely had she said the words when the doctor entered. He took a
comprehensive glance round the room,--at the still form on the bed--at
the little crouching girl--figure beside it--at Priscilla, trembling
and tearful--at Robin, deadly pale and self-restrained--at the
farm-lads and servants.
"When did this happen?" he said.
Robin told him.
"I see!" he said. "He must have fallen forward on getting out of bed. I
rather expected a sudden seizure of this kind." He made his brief
examination. The eyes of the dead man were open and glassily staring
upward--he gently closed the lids over them and pressed them down.
"Nothing to be done," he went on, gently--"His end was painless."
Innocent had risen--she had laid the cold hand of the corpse back on
its breast--and she stood gazing vacantly before her in utter misery.
"Nothing to be done?" she faltered--"Do you mean that you cannot rouse
him? Will he never speak to me again?"
The doctor looked at her gravely and kindly.
"Not in this world, my dear," he said--"in the next--perhaps! Let us
hope so!"
She put her hand up to her forehead with a bewildered gesture.
"He is dead!" she cried--"Dead! Oh, Robin, Robin! I can't believe
it!--it isn't true! Dad, dear Dad! My only friend! Good-bye--good-bye,
Dad!--good-bye, Briar Farm--good-bye to everything--oh, Dad!"
Her voice quavered and broke in a passion of tears.
"I loved him as if he were my own father," she sobbed. "And he loved me
as if I were his own child! Oh, Dad, darling Dad! We can never love
each other again!"