‘O HEAVEN! THAT ONE MIGHT READ THE BOOK OF FATE!’
CHURCHILL PENWYN looked something the worse for that half-hour’s
excitement overnight when the Manor House party assembled at breakfast,
between eight and nine next morning. The days began early at Penwyn, and
only Lady Cheshunt was guilty of that social malingering involved in a
chronic headache, which prevented her appearing on the dewy side of
noon. Perhaps Mr. Penwyn’s duties as host during the previous evening
might have fatigued him a little. He had a weary look in that bright
morning sunshine—a look of unrest, as of one who had slept but little in
the night hours. Madge glanced at him every now and then with
half-concealed anxiety. Every change, were it ever so slight, in that
one beloved face was visible to her.
‘I hope last night’s business has not worried you, love,’ she said
tenderly, making some excuse for carrying him his breakfast-cup with her
own hands. ‘The diamonds are safe, and no doubt the man will be properly
punished for his audacity.’
Churchill had told her all about the attempted robbery, in his clear,
passionless way, but not a word of that interview in the study, between
gentleman and vagabond. Madge, merciful to all innocent sufferers, had
no sentimental compassion for this frustrated burglar, but desired that
he should be duly punished for his crime.
‘I am not particularly worried, dear. It was rather an unpleasant ending
to a pleasant evening, that is all.’
They were still seated at the breakfast-table, and Sir Lewis Dallas was
still listening with rapt attention to Viola’s account of her feelings
at the sight of the thief, when the butler, who had left the room a few
minutes before, in compliance with a whispered request from his
subordinate, re-entered, solemn of aspect, and full of that
self-importance common to the craft.
‘The man has been taken again, sir, and is in the village lock-up,’ he
announced to his master.
Churchill rose hastily.
‘Taken again! What do you mean? I left him locked up in my study at two
o’clock this morning.’
‘Yes, sir, but he unfastened the shutters and got out of the window, and
would have got clean off, I dare say, if Tyrrel, the gamekeeper, and his
son hadn’t been about with a couple of dogs, on the look-out for
poachers. The dogs smelt him out just as he was getting over the fence
in the pine wood, and the Tyrrels collared him, and took him off to the
lock-up then and there. He fought hard, Tyrrel says, and would have been
almost a match for the two of ’em if it hadn’t been for the dogs. They
turned the scale,’ concluded the butler, grandly.
‘Imagine the fellow so nearly getting off!’ exclaimed Sir Lewis. ‘I
wonder it didn’t strike you that he would get out at the window, Penwyn.
You locked the door, and thought you had him safe. Something like the
painter fellow, who went in for the feline species, and cut two holes in
his studio door, a big one for his cat, and a little one for her kitten,
forgetting that the little cat could have got through the big cat’s
door. That’s the way with you clever men, you’re seldom up to trap in
trifles.’
‘Rather stupid of me, I confess,’ said Churchill, ‘but I suppose I was a
little obfuscated by the whole business. One hasn’t a burglar on one’s
hands every night in the week. However,’ he added, slowly, ‘he’s safe in
the lock-up; that’s the grand point, and I shall have the pleasure of
assisting at his official examination at twelve o’clock.’
‘Are the petty sessions on to-day?’ asked Sir Lewis, warmly interested.
‘How jolly!’
‘You don’t mean to say that you take any interest in that sort of
twaddle?’ said Churchill.
‘Anything in the way of crime is interesting to me,’ replied the young
man; ‘and to assist at the examination of the ruffian who frightened
Miss Bellingham will be rapture. I only regret that the old hanging laws
are repealed.’
‘I don’t feel quite so unmerciful as that,’ said Madge, ‘but I should
like the man to be punished, if it were only as an example. It isn’t
nice to lose the sense of security in one’s own house, to be afraid to
open one’s window after dark, and to feel that there may be a burglar
lurking in every corner.’
‘And to know that your burglar is your undeveloped assassin,’ added Sir
Lewis. ‘I’ve no doubt that scoundrel would have tried to murder us both
last night if it hadn’t been for my biceps and Churchill’s revolver.’
The breakfast party slowly dispersed, some to the grounds, some to the
billiard-room. Every one had letters to write, or some duty to perform,
but no one felt in the cue for performance. Nor could anybody talk of
anything except the burglar, Viola’s courage, Churchill’s coolness in
the hour of peril, and carelessness in the matter of the shutters. Lady
Cheshunt required to have bulletins carried to her periodically, while
she sipped orange Pekoe in the luxurious retirement of an Arabian bed.
Thus the morning wore on till half-past eleven, at which time the
carriage was ordered to convey Mrs. Penwyn, Miss Bellingham, and Sir
Lewis Dallas to the village inn, attached whereto was the justices’
room, where Mr. Penwyn and his brother magistrate, or magistrates, were
to meet in solemn assembly.
Viola and Sir Lewis were wanted as witnesses. Mrs. Penwyn went,
ostensibly to take care of her sister, but really because she was
acutely anxious to see the result of the morning’s work. That look of
secret care in her husband’s face had disturbed her. Looks which for the
world at large meant nothing had their language for her. She had studied
every line of that face, knew its lights and shadows by heart.
The day was lovely, another perfect August day. The shining faces of the
reapers turned towards them as they drove past the golden fields, broad
peasant faces, sun-browned, and dewy with labour’s honourable sweat. All
earth was gay and glad. Madge Penwyn looked at this fair world sadly,
heavy with a vague sense of secret care. The skylark sang his thrilling
joy-notes high up in the blue vault that arched these golden lands, and
the note of rapture jarred upon the wife’s ear.
‘I’m afraid we have been too happy, Churchill and I,’ she thought, and
then recalled two lines of Hood’s, full of deepest pathos,—
‘For there is e’en a happiness
That makes the heart afraid.’
They had been utterly happy only a little while ago, but since that
confession of Churchill’s, the wife’s heart had been burdened with a
secret grief. And to-day she felt that hidden care keenly. Something in
her husband’s manner had suggested concealed anxieties, fears, cares
which he could not or would not share with her. ‘If he did but know how
loyal I could be to him,’ she thought, ‘he would hardly shrink from
trusting me.’
Viola was full of excitement, and quite ferociously disposed towards the
burglar.
‘I suppose to-day’s business is only a kind of rehearsal,’ she said,
gaily, ‘and that we shall have to give our evidence again at Bodmin
assizes. And some pert young barrister on the Western Circuit will
browbeat me and try to make me contradict myself, and make fun of me,
and ask if I had put my hair in papers, or had unplaited my chignon when
I ran downstairs after the burglar.’
‘I should like to see him do it,’ muttered Sir Lewis, in a vengeful
tone.
They were in Penwyn village by this time, the old-fashioned straggling
village, two rows of cottages scattered apart on the wide high road, a
tiny Methodist chapel in a field, the pound, the lock-up, big enough for
one culprit, and the village inn, attached to which there was the
justice-room, a long narrow upper chamber, with a low ceiling.
All the inhabitants of Penwyn had turned out to see the great folks. It
was like an Irish crowd, children, old women, and young matrons with
infants in their arms. The children had just turned out from the pretty
Gothic school-house, which Mr. Penwyn had built for them. They bobbed
deferentially as their patroness descended from her carriage, and a
murmur of praise and love ran through the little crowd—sweetest chorus
to a woman’s ear.
‘We ought to be happy in this fair land,’ thought Madge, as her heart
thrilled at the sight of her people. ‘It is like ingratitude to God to
keep one secret care when He has blessed us so richly.’
------------------------------------------------------------------------