THE DEED THAT HAD BEEN DONE IN THE WOOD.
The bare-headed seafaring man who stood in the centre of the hall was
Captain Samuel Prodder. The scared faces of the servants gathered round
him told more plainly than his own words, which came hoarsely from his
parched white lips, the nature of the tidings that he brought.
John Mellish strode across the hall, with an awful calmness on his
white face; and parting the hustled group of servants with his strong
arms, as a mighty wind rends asunder the storm-beaten waters, he placed
himself face to face with Captain Prodder.
"Who are you?" he asked sternly: "and what has brought you here?"
The Indian officer had been aroused by the clamour, and had emerged,
red and bristling with self-importance, to take his part in the
business in hand.
There are some pies in the making of which everybody yearns to have
a finger. It is a great privilege, after some social convulsion has
taken place, to be able to say, "I was there at the time the scene
occurred, sir;" or, "I was standing as close to him when the blow was
struck, ma'am, as I am to you at this moment." People are apt to take
pride out of strange things. An elderly gentleman at Doncaster, showing
me his comfortably-furnished apartments, informed me, with evident
satisfaction, that Mr. William Palmer had lodged in those very rooms.
Colonel Maddison pushed aside his daughter and her husband, and
struggled out into the hall.
"Come, my man," he said, echoing John's interrogatory, "let us hear
what has brought you here at such a remarkably unseasonable hour."
The sailor gave no direct answer to the question. He pointed with his
thumb across his shoulder towards that dismal spot in the lonely wood,
which was as present to his mental vision now as it had been to his
bodily eyes a quarter of an hour before.
"A man!" he gasped; "a man--lyin' close agen' the water's edge,--shot
through the heart!"
"Dead?" asked some one, in an awful tone. The voices and the questions
came from whom they would, in the awe-stricken terror of those first
moments of overwhelming horror and surprise. No one knew who spoke
except the speakers; perhaps even they were scarcely aware that they
had spoken.
"Dead?" asked one of those eager listeners.
"Stone dead."
"A man--shot dead in the wood!" cried John Mellish; "what man?"
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the grave old butler, laying his hand
gently upon his master's shoulder: "I think, from what this person
says, that the man who has been shot is--the new trainer, Mr.--Mr.----"
"Conyers!" exclaimed John. "Conyers! who--who should shoot him?" The
question was asked in a hoarse whisper. It was impossible for the
speaker's face to grow whiter than it had been, from the moment in
which he had opened the drawing-room door, and looked out into the
hall; but some terrible change not to be translated into words came
over it at the mention of the trainer's name.
He stood motionless and silent, pushing his hair from his forehead, and
staring wildly about him.
The grave butler laid his warning hand for a second time upon his
master's shoulder.
"Sir--Mr. Mellish," he said, eager to arouse the young man from the
dull, stupid quiet into which he had fallen,--"excuse me, sir; but if
my mistress should come in suddenly, and hear of this, she might be
upset, perhaps. Wouldn't it be better to----"
"Yes, yes!" cried John Mellish, lifting his head suddenly, as if
aroused into immediate action by the mere suggestion of his wife's
name,--"yes! clear out of the hall, every one of you," he said,
addressing the eager group of pale-faced servants. "And you, sir," he
added to Captain Prodder, "come with me."
He walked towards the dining-room door. The sailor followed him, still
bare-headed, still with a semi-bewildered expression in his dusky face.
"It aint the first time I've seen a man shot," he thought; "but it's
the first time I've felt like this."
Before Mr. Mellish could reach the dining-room, before the servants
could disperse and return to their proper quarters, one of the
half-glass doors, which had been left ajar, was pushed open by the
light touch of a woman's hand, and Aurora Mellish entered the hall.
"Ah, ha!" thought the ensign's widow, who looked on at the scene,
snugly sheltered by Mr. and Mrs. Lofthouse; "my lady is caught a
second time in her evening rambles. What will he say to her goings-on
to-night, I wonder?"
Aurora's manner presented a singular contrast to the terror and
agitation of the assembly in the hall. A vivid crimson flush glowed in
her cheeks and lit up her shining eyes. She carried her head high, in
that queenly defiance which was her peculiar grace. She walked with a
light step; she moved with easy, careless gestures. It seemed as if
some burden which she had long carried had been suddenly removed from
her. But at sight of the crowd in the hall she drew back with a look of
alarm.
"What has happened, John?" she cried; "what is wrong?"
He lifted his hand with a warning gesture,--a gesture that plainly
said: Whatever trouble or sorrow there may be, let her be spared the
knowledge of it; let her be sheltered from the pain.
"Yes, my darling," he answered quietly, taking her hand and leading
her into the drawing-room; "there is something wrong. An accident has
happened--in the wood yonder; but it concerns no one whom you care
for. Go, dear; I will tell you all, by-and-by. Mrs. Lofthouse, you
will take care of my wife. Lofthouse, come with me. Allow me to shut
the door, Mrs. Powell, if you please," he added to the ensign's widow,
who did not seem inclined to leave her post upon the threshold of the
drawing-room. "Any curiosity which you may have about the business
shall be satisfied in due time. For the present, you will oblige me by
remaining with my wife and Mrs. Lofthouse."
He paused, with his hand upon the drawing-room door, and looked at
Aurora.
She was standing with her shawl upon her arm, watching her husband; and
she advanced eagerly to him as she met his glance.
"John," she exclaimed, "for mercy's sake, tell me the truth! _What_ is
this accident?"
He was silent for a moment, gazing at her eager face,--that face whose
exquisite mobility expressed every thought; then, looking at her with
a strange solemnity, he said gravely, "You were in the wood just now,
Aurora?"
"I was," she answered; "I have only just left the grounds. A man passed
me, running violently, about a quarter of an hour ago. I thought he was
a poacher. Was it to him the accident happened?"
"No. There was a shot fired in the wood some time since. Did you hear
it?"
"I did," replied Mrs. Mellish, looking at him with sudden terror and
surprise. "I knew there were often poachers about near the road, and I
was not alarmed by it. Was there anything wrong in that shot? Was any
one hurt?"
Her eyes were fixed upon his face, dilated with that look of wondering
terror.
"Yes; a--a man was hurt."
Aurora looked at him in silence,--looked at him with a stony face,
whose only expression was an utter bewilderment. Every other feeling
seemed blotted away in that one sense of wonder.
John Mellish led her to a chair near Mrs. Lofthouse, who had been
seated, with Mrs. Powell, at the other end of the room, close to the
piano, and too far from the door to overhear the conversation which had
just taken place between John and his wife. People do not talk very
loudly in moments of intense agitation. They are liable to be deprived
of some portion of their vocal power in the fearful crisis of terror
or despair. A numbness seizes the organ of speech; a partial paralysis
disables the ready tongue; the trembling lips refuse to do their duty.
The soft pedal of the human instrument is down, and the tones are
feeble and muffled, wandering into weak minor shrillness, or sinking to
husky basses, beyond the ordinary compass of the speaker's voice. The
stentorian accents in which Claude Melnotte bids adieu to Mademoiselle
Deschapelles mingle very effectively with the brazen clamour of the
Marseillaise Hymn; the sonorous tones in which Mistress Julia appeals
to her Hunchback guardian are pretty sure to bring down the approving
thunder of the eighteenpenny gallery; but I doubt if the noisy energy
of stage-grief is true to nature, however wise in art. I'm afraid that
an actor who would play Claude Melnotte with a pre-Raphaelite fidelity
to nature would be an insufferable bore, and utterly inaudible beyond
the third row in the pit. The artist must draw his own line between
nature and art, and map out the extent of his own territory. If he
finds that cream-coloured marble is more artistically beautiful than a
rigid presentment of actual flesh and blood, let him stain his marble
of that delicate hue until the end of time. If he can represent five
acts of agony and despair without once turning his back to his audience
or sitting down, let him do it. If he is conscientiously true to his
_art_, let him choose for himself how true he shall be to nature.
John Mellish took his wife's hand in his own, and grasped it with a
convulsive pressure that almost crushed the delicate fingers.
"Stay here, my dear, till I come back to you," he said. "Now,
Lofthouse!"
Mr. Lofthouse followed his friend into the hall, where Colonel
Maddison had been making the best use of his time by questioning the
merchant-captain.
"Come, gentlemen," said John, leading the way to the dining-room;
"come, colonel, and you too, Lofthouse; and you, sir," he added to the
sailor, "step this way."
The _débris_ of the dessert still covered the table, but the men did
not advance far into the room. John stood aside as the others went in,
and entering the last, closed the door behind him, and stood with his
back against it.
"Now," he said, turning sharply upon Samuel Prodder, "what is this
business?"
"I'm afraid it's sooicide--or--or murder," answered the sailor gravely.
"I've told this good gentleman all about it."
This good gentleman was Colonel Maddison, who seemed delighted to
plunge into the conversation.
"Yes, my dear Mellish," he said eagerly; "our friend, who describes
himself as a sailor, and who had come down to see Mrs. Mellish, whose
mother he knew when he was a boy, has told me all about this shocking
affair. Of course the body must be removed immediately, and the sooner
your servants go out with lanterns for that purpose the better.
Decision, my dear Mellish, decision and prompt action are indispensable
in these sad catastrophes."
"The body removed!" repeated John Mellish; "the man is dead, then."
"Quite dead," answered the sailor; "he was dead when I found him,
though it wasn't above seven minutes after the shot was fired. I left a
man with him--a young man as drove me from Doncaster--and a dog,--some
big dog that watched beside him,--howling awful, and wouldn't leave
him."
"Did you--see--the man's face?"
"Yes."
"You are a stranger here," said John Mellish; "it is useless,
therefore, to ask you if you know who the man is."
"No, sir," answered the sailor, "I didn't know him; but the young man
from the Reindeer----"
"He recognized him?"
"Yes; he said he'd seen the man in Doncaster only the night before; and
that he was your--trainer, I think he called him."
"Yes, yes."
"A lame chap."
"Come, gentlemen," said John, turning to his friends, "what are we to
do?"
"Send the servants into the wood," replied Colonel Maddison, "and have
the body carried----"
"Not here," cried John Mellish, interrupting him,--"not here; it would
kill my wife."
"Where did the man live?" asked the colonel.
"In the north lodge. A cottage against the northern gates, which are
never used now."
"Then let the body be taken there," answered the Indian soldier; "let
one of your people run for the parish constable; and you'd better send
for the nearest surgeon immediately, though, from what our friend here
says, a hundred of 'em couldn't do any good. It's an awful business!
Some poaching fray, I suppose."
"Yes, yes," answered John quickly; "no doubt."
"Was the man disliked in the neighbourhood?" asked Colonel Maddison;
"had he made himself in any manner obnoxious?"
"I should scarcely think it likely. He had only been with me about a
week."
The servants, who had dispersed at John's command, had not gone very
far. They had lingered in corridors and lobbies, ready at a moment's
notice to rush out into the hall again, and act their minor parts in
the tragedy. They preferred doing anything to returning quietly to
their own quarters.
They came out eagerly at Mr. Mellish's summons. He gave his orders
briefly, selecting two of the men, and sending the others about their
business.
"Bring a couple of lanterns," he said; "and follow us across the Park
towards the pond in the wood."
Colonel Maddison, Mr. Lofthouse, Captain Prodder, and John Mellish,
left the house together. The moon, still slowly rising in the broad,
cloudless heavens, silvered the quiet lawn, and shimmered upon the
tree-tops in the distance. The three gentlemen walked at a rapid pace,
led by Samuel Prodder, who kept a little way in advance, and followed
by a couple of grooms, who carried darkened stable-lanterns.
As they entered the wood, they stopped involuntarily, arrested by
that solemn sound which had first drawn the sailor's attention to the
dreadful deed that had been done--the howling of the dog. It sounded in
the distance like a low, feeble wail: a long monotonous death-cry.
They followed that dismal indication of the spot to which they were to
go. They made their way through the shadowy avenue, and emerged upon
the silvery patch of turf and fern, where the rotting summer-house
stood in its solitary decay. The two figures--the prostrate figure
on the brink of the water, and the figure of the dog with uplifted
head--still remained exactly as the sailor had left them three-quarters
of an hour before. The young man from the Reindeer stood aloof from
these two figures, and advanced to meet the newcomers as they drew near.
Colonel Maddison took a lantern from one of the men, and ran forward
to the water's edge. The dog rose as he approached, and walked slowly
round the prostrate form, sniffing at it, and whining piteously. John
Mellish called the animal away.
"This man was in a sitting posture when he was shot," said Colonel
Maddison, decisively. "He was sitting upon this bench."
He pointed to a dilapidated rustic seat close to the margin of the
stagnant water.
"He was sitting upon this bench," repeated the colonel; "for he's
fallen close against it, as you see. Unless I'm very much mistaken, he
was shot from behind."
"You don't think he shot himself, then?" asked John Mellish.
"Shot himself!" cried the colonel; "not a bit of it. But we'll soon
settle that. If he shot himself, the pistol must be close against him.
Here, bring a loose plank from that summer-house, and lay the body upon
it," added the Indian officer, speaking to the servants.
Captain Prodder and the two grooms selected the broadest plank they
could find. It was moss-grown and rotten, and straggling wreaths of
wild clematis were entwined about it; but it served the purpose for
which it was wanted. They laid it upon the grass, and lifted the body
of James Conyers on to it, with his handsome face--ghastly and horrible
in the fixed agony of sudden death--turned upward to the moonlit sky.
It was wonderful how mechanically and quietly they went to work,
promptly and silently obeying the colonel's orders.
John Mellish and Mr. Lofthouse searched the slippery grass upon the
bank, and groped amongst the fringe of fern, without result. There was
no weapon to be found anywhere within a considerable radius of the body.
While they were searching in every direction for this missing link in
the mystery of the man's death, the parish-constable arrived with the
servant who had been sent to summon him.
He had very little to say for himself, except that he supposed it was
poachers as had done it; and that he also supposed all particklars
would come out at the inquest. He was a simple rural functionary,
accustomed to petty dealings with refractory tramps, contumacious
poachers, and impounded cattle, and was scarcely master of the
situation in any great emergency.
Mr. Prodder and the servants lifted the plank upon which the body lay,
and struck into the long avenue leading northward, walking a little
ahead of the three gentlemen and the constable. The young man from the
Reindeer returned to look after his horse, and to drive round to the
north lodge, where he was to meet Mr. Prodder. All had been done so
quietly that the knowledge of the catastrophe had not passed beyond the
domains of Mellish Park. In the summer evening stillness James Conyers
was carried back to the chamber from whose narrow window he had looked
out upon the beautiful world, weary of its beauty, only a few hours
before.
The purposeless life was suddenly closed. The careless wanderer's
journey had come to an unthought-of end. What a melancholy record, what
a meaningless and unfinished page! Nature, blindly bountiful to the
children whom she has yet to know, had bestowed her richest gifts upon
this man. She had created a splendid image, and had chosen a soul at
random, ignorantly enshrining it in her most perfectly fashioned clay.
Of all who read the story of this man's death in the following Sunday's
newspapers, there was not one who shed a tear for him; there was not
one who could say, "That man once stepped out of his way to do me a
kindness; and may the Lord have mercy upon his soul!"
Shall I be sentimental, then, because he is dead, and regret that he
was not spared a little longer, and allowed a day of grace in which
he might repent? Had he lived for ever, I do not think he would have
lived long enough to become that which it was not in his nature to be.
May God, in His infinite compassion, have pity upon the souls which
He has Himself created; and where He has withheld the light, may He
excuse the darkness! The phrenologists who examined the head of William
Palmer declared that he was so utterly deficient in moral perception,
so entirely devoid of conscientious restraint, that he could not help
being what he was. Heaven keep us from too much credence in that
horrible fatalism! Is a man's destiny here and hereafter to depend
upon bulbous projections scarcely perceptible to uneducated fingers,
and good and evil propensities which can be measured by the compass or
weighed in the scale?
The dismal _cortège_ slowly made its way under the silver moonlight,
the trembling leaves making a murmuring music in the faint summer air,
the pale glowworms shining here and there amid the tangled verdure. The
bearers of the dead walked with a slow but steady tramp in advance of
the rest. All walked in silence. What should they say? In the presence
of death's awful mystery, life made a pause. There was a brief interval
in the hard business of existence; a hushed and solemn break in the
working of life's machinery.
"There'll be an inquest," thought Mr. Prodder, "and I shall have to
give evidence. I wonder what questions they'll ask me?"
He did not think this once, but perpetually; dwelling with a
half-stupid persistence upon the thought of that inquisition which
must most infallibly be made, and those questions that might be
asked. The honest sailor's simple mind was cast astray in the utter
bewilderment of this night's mysterious horror. The story of life was
changed. He had come to play his humble part in some sweet domestic
drama of love and confidence, and he found himself involved in a
tragedy; a horrible mystery of hatred, secrecy, and murder; a dreadful
maze, from whose obscurity he saw no hope of issue.
A beacon-light glimmered in the lower window of the cottage by the
north gates,--a feeble ray, that glittered like a gem from out a bower
of honeysuckle and clematis. The little garden-gate was closed, but it
only fastened with a latch.
The bearers of the body paused before entering the garden, and the
constable stepped aside to speak to Mr. Mellish.
"Is there anybody lives in the cottage?" he asked.
"Yes," answered John; "the trainer employed an old hanger-on of my
own,--a half-witted fellow called Hargraves."
"It's him as burns the light in there, most likely, then," said the
constable. "I'll go in and speak to him first. Do you wait here till I
come out again," he added, turning to the men who carried the body.
The lodge-door was on the latch. The constable opened it softly, and
went in. A rushlight was burning upon the table, the candlestick placed
in a basin of water. A bottle half filled with brandy, and a tumbler,
stood near the light; but the room was empty. The constable took his
shoes off, and crept up the little staircase. The upper floor of the
lodge consisted of two rooms,--one, sufficiently large and comfortable,
looking towards the stable-gates; the other, smaller and darker, looked
out upon a patch of kitchen-garden and on the fence which separated Mr.
Mellish's estate from the high road. The larger chamber was empty; but
the door of the smaller was ajar; and the constable, pausing to listen
at that half-open door, heard the regular breathing of a heavy sleeper.
He knocked sharply upon the panel.
"Who's there?" asked the person within, starting up from a truckle
bedstead. "Is't thou, Muster Conyers?"
"No," answered the constable. "It's me, William Dork, of Little
Meslingham. Come down-stairs; I want to speak to you."
"Is there aught wrong?"
"Yes."
"Poachers?"
"That's as may be," answered Mr. Dork. "Come down-stairs, will you?"
Mr. Hargraves muttered something to the effect that he would make his
appearance as soon as he could find sundry portions of his rather
fragmentary toilet. The constable looked into the room, and watched
the "Softy" groping for his garments in the moonlight. Three minutes
afterwards Stephen Hargraves slowly shambled down the angular wooden
stairs, which wound in a corkscrew fashion, affected by the builders of
small dwellings, from the upper to the lower floor.
"Now," said Mr. Dork, planting the "Softy" opposite to him, with the
feeble rays of the rushlight upon his sickly face,--"now then, I want
you to answer me a question. At what time did your master leave the
house?"
"At half-past seven o'clock," answered the "Softy," in his whispering
voice; "she was stroikin the half-hour as he went out."
He pointed to a small Dutch clock in a corner of the room. His
countrymen always speak of a clock as "she."
"Oh, he went out at half-past seven o'clock, did he?" said the
constable; "and you haven't seen him since, I suppose?"
"No. He told me he should be late, and I wasn't to sit oop for him.
He swore at me last night for sitting oop for him. But is there aught
wrong?" asked the "Softy."
Mr. Dork did not condescend to reply to this question. He walked
straight to the door, opened it, and beckoned to those who stood
without in the summer moonlight, patiently waiting for his summons.
"You may bring him in," he said.
They carried their ghastly burden into the pleasant rustic chamber--the
chamber in which Mr. James Conyers had sat smoking and drinking a few
hours before. Mr. Morton, the surgeon from Meslingham, the village
nearest to the Park-gates, arrived as the body was being carried in,
and ordered a temporary couch of mattresses to be spread upon a couple
of tables placed together, in the lower room, for the reception of the
trainer's corpse.
John Mellish, Samuel Prodder, and Mr. Lofthouse remained outside the
cottage. Colonel Maddison, the servants, the constable, and the doctor,
were all clustered round the corpse.
"He has been dead about an hour and a quarter," said the doctor, after
a brief inspection of the body. "He has been shot in the back; the
bullet has not penetrated the heart, for in that case there would have
been no hæmorrhage. He has respired after receiving the shot; but death
must have been almost instantaneous."
Before making his examination, the surgeon had assisted Mr. Dork, the
constable, to draw off the coat and waistcoat of the deceased. The
bosom of the waistcoat was saturated with the blood that had flowed
from the parted lips of the dead man.
It was Mr. Dork's business to examine these garments, in the hope
of finding some shred of evidence which might become a clue to the
secret of the trainer's death. He turned out the pockets of the
shooting coat, and of the waistcoat; one of these packets contained a
handful of halfpence, a couple of shillings, a fourpenny-piece, and
a rusty watch-key; another held a little parcel of tobacco wrapped
in an old betting-list, and a broken meerschaum pipe, black and
greasy with the essential oil of bygone shag and bird's-eye. In one
of the waistcoat pockets Mr. Dork found the dead man's silver watch,
with a blood-stained ribbon and a worthless gilt seal. Amongst all
these things there was nothing calculated to throw any light upon the
mystery. Colonel Maddison shrugged his shoulders as the constable
emptied the paltry contents of the trainer's pockets on to a little
dresser at one end of the room.
"There's nothing here that makes the business any clearer," he said;
"but to my mind it's plain enough. The man was new here, and he brought
new ways with him from his last situation. The poachers and vagabonds
have been used to have it all their own way about Mellish Park, and
they didn't like this poor fellow's interference. He wanted to play the
tyrant, I dare say, and made himself obnoxious to some of the worst of
the lot; and he's caught it hot, poor chap!--that's all I've got to
say."
Colonel Maddison, with the recollection of a refractory Punjaub strong
upon him, had no very great reverence for the mysterious spark that
lights the human temple. If a man made himself obnoxious to other men,
other men were very likely to kill him. This was the soldier's simple
theory; and, having delivered himself of his opinion respecting the
trainer's death, he emerged from the cottage, and was ready to go home
with John Mellish, and drink another bottle of that celebrated tawny
port which had been laid in by his host's father twenty years before.
The constable stood close against a candle, that had been hastily
lighted and thrust unceremoniously into a disused blacking-bottle, with
the waistcoat still in his hands. He was turning the blood-stained
garment inside out; for while emptying the pockets he had felt a thick
substance that seemed like a folded paper, but the whereabouts of which
he had not been able to discover. He uttered a suppressed exclamation
of surprise presently; for he found the solution of this difficulty.
The paper was sewn between the inner lining and the outer material of
the waistcoat. He discovered this by examining the seam, a part of
which was sewn with coarse stitches and a thread of a different colour
to the rest. He ripped open this part of the seam, and drew out the
paper, which was so much bloodstained as to be undecipherable to Mr.
Dork's rather obtuse vision. "I'll say naught about it, and keep it to
show to th' coroner," he thought; "I'll lay he'll make something out
of it." The constable folded the document and secured it in a leathern
pocket-book, a bulky receptacle, the very aspect of which was wont to
strike terror to rustic defaulters. "I'll show it to th' coroner," he
thought; "and if aught particklar comes out, I may get something for my
trouble."
The village surgeon having done his duty, prepared to leave the crowded
little room, where the gaping servants still lingered, as if loth to
tear themselves away from the ghastly figure of the dead man, over
which Mr. Morton had spread a patchwork coverlet, taken from the bed
in the chamber above. The "Softy" had looked on quietly enough at the
dismal scene, watching the faces of the small assembly, and glancing
furtively from one to another beneath the shadow of his bushy red
eyebrows. His haggard face, always of a sickly white, seemed to-night
no more colourless than usual. His slow whispering tones were not more
suppressed than they always were. If he had a hang-dog manner and a
furtive glance, the manner and the glance were both common to him.
No one looked at him; no one heeded him. After the first question as
to the hour at which the trainer left the lodge had been asked and
answered, no one spoke to him. If he got in anybody's way, he was
pushed aside; if he said anything, nobody listened to him. The dead
man was the sole monarch of that dismal scene. It was to him they
looked with awe-stricken glances; it was of him they spoke in subdued
whispers. All their questions, their suggestions, their conjectures,
were about him, and him alone. There is this to be observed in the
physiology of every murder,--that before the coroner's inquest the sole
object of public curiosity is the murdered man; while immediately after
that judicial investigation the tide of feeling turns; the dead man is
buried and forgotten, and the suspected murderer becomes the hero of
men's morbid imaginations.
John Mellish looked in at the door of the cottage to ask a few
questions.
"Have you found anything, Dork?" he asked.
"Nothing particklar, sir."
"Nothing that throws any light upon this business?"
"No, sir."
"You are going home, then, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir, I must be going back now; if you'll leave some one here to
watch----"
"Yes, yes," said John; "one of the servants shall stay."
"Very well, then, sir; I'll just take the names of the witnesses
that'll be examined at the inquest, and I'll go over and see the
coroner early to-morrow morning."
"The witnesses; ah, to be sure. Who will you want?"
Mr. Dork hesitated for a moment, rubbing the bristles upon his chin.
"Well, there's this man here, Hargraves, I think you called him," he
said presently; "we shall want him; for it seems he was the last that
saw the deceased alive, leastways as I can hear on yet; then we shall
want the gentleman as found the body, and the young man as was with him
when he heard the shot: the gentleman as found the body is the most
particklar of all, and I'll speak to him at once."
John Mellish turned round, fully expecting to see Mr. Prodder at
his elbow, where he had been some time before. John had a perfect
recollection of seeing the loosely-clad seafaring figure standing
behind him in the moonlight; but, in the terrible confusion of his
mind, he could not remember exactly _when_ it was that he had last seen
the sailor. It might have been only five minutes before; it might have
been a quarter of an hour. John's ideas of time were annihilated by
the horror of the catastrophe which had marked this night with the red
brand of murder. It seemed to him as if he had been standing for hours
in the little cottage-garden, with Reginald Lofthouse by his side,
listening to the low hum of the voices in the crowded room, and waiting
to see the end of the dreary business.
Mr. Dork looked about him in the moonlight, entirely bewildered by the
disappearance of Samuel Prodder.
"Why, where on earth has he gone?" exclaimed the constable. "We _must_
have him before the coroner. What'll Mr. Hayward say to me for letting
him slip through my fingers?"
"The man was here a quarter of an hour ago, so he can't be very far
off," suggested Mr. Lofthouse. "Does anybody know who he is?"
No; nobody knew anything about him. He had appeared as mysteriously as
if he had risen from the earth, to bring terror and confusion upon it
with the evil tidings which he bore. Stay; some one suddenly remembered
that he had been accompanied by Bill Jarvis, the young man from the
Reindeer, and that he had ordered the young man to drive his trap to
the north gates, and wait for him there.
The constable ran to the gates upon receiving this information; but
there was no vestige of the horse and gig, or of the young man. Samuel
Prodder had evidently taken advantage of the confusion, and had driven
off in the gig under cover of the general bewilderment.
"I'll tell you what I'll do, sir," said William Dork, addressing
Mr. Mellish. "If you'll lend me a horse and trap, I'll drive into
Doncaster, and see if this man's to be found at the Reindeer. We _must_
have him for a witness."
John Mellish assented to this arrangement. He left one of the grooms
to keep watch in the death chamber, in company with Stephen Hargraves
the "Softy;" and, after bidding the surgeon good night, walked slowly
homewards with his friends. The church clock was striking twelve as
the three gentlemen left the wood, and passed through the little iron
gateway on to the lawn.
"We had better not tell the ladies more than we are obliged to tell
them about this business," said John Mellish, as they approached
the house, where the lights were still burning in the hall and
drawing-room; "we shall only agitate them by letting them know the
worst."
"To be sure, to be sure, my boy," answered the colonel. "My poor
little Maggie always cries if she hears of anything of this kind; and
Lofthouse is almost as big a baby," added the soldier, glancing rather
contemptuously at his son-in-law, who had not spoken once during that
slow homeward walk.
John Mellish thought very little of the strange disappearance of
Captain Prodder. The man had objected to be summoned as a witness,
perhaps, and had gone. It was only natural. He did not even know
his name; he only knew him as the mouthpiece of evil tidings, which
had shaken him to the very soul. That this man Conyers--this man of
all others, this man towards whom he had conceived a deeply-rooted
aversion, an unspoken horror--should have perished mysteriously by
an unknown hand, was an event so strange and appalling as to deprive
him for a time of all power of thought, all capability of reasoning.
Who had killed this man,--this penniless good-for-nothing trainer? Who
could have had any motive for such a deed? Who----? The cold sweat
broke out upon his brow in the anguish of the thought.
Who had done this deed?
It was not the work of any poacher. No. It was very well for Colonel
Maddison, in his ignorance of antecedent facts, to account for it in
that manner; but John Mellish knew that he was wrong. James Conyers had
only been at the Park a week. He had neither time nor opportunity for
making himself obnoxious; and, beyond that, he was not the man to make
himself obnoxious. He was a selfish, indolent rascal, who only loved
his own ease, and who would have allowed the young partridges to be
wired under his very nose. Who, then, had done this deed?
There was only one person who had any motive for wishing to be rid
of this man. One person who, made desperate by some great despair,
enmeshed perhaps by some net hellishly contrived by a villain,
hopeless of any means of extrication, in a moment of madness,
might have--No! In the face of every evidence that earth could
offer,--against reason, against hearing, eyesight, judgment, and
memory,--he would say, as he said now, _No!_ She was innocent! She was
innocent! She had looked in her husband's face, the clear light had
shone from her luminous eyes, a stream of electric radiance penetrating
straight to his heart,--and he had trusted her.
"I'll trust her at the worst," he thought. "If all living creatures
upon this wide earth joined their voices in one great cry of
upbraiding, I'd stand by her to the very end, and defy them."
Aurora and Mrs. Lofthouse had fallen asleep upon opposite sofas; Mrs.
Powell was walking softly up and down the long drawing-room, waiting
and watching,--waiting for a fuller knowledge of this ruin which had
come upon her employer's household.
Mrs. Mellish sprang up suddenly at the sound of her husband's step as
he entered the drawing-room.
"Oh, John!" she cried, running to him and laying her hands upon his
broad shoulders, "thank Heaven you are come back! Now tell me all!
Tell me all, John! I am prepared to hear anything, no matter what. This
is no ordinary accident. The man who was hurt----"
Her eyes dilated as she looked at him, with a glance of intelligence
that plainly said, "I can guess what has happened."
"The man was very seriously hurt, Lolly," her husband answered quietly.
"What man?"
"The trainer recommended to me by John Pastern."
She looked at him for a few moments in silence.
"Is he dead?" she asked, after that brief pause.
"He is."
Her head sank forward upon her breast, and she walked away, quietly
returning to the sofa from which she had arisen.
"I am very sorry for him," she said; "he was not a good man. I am sorry
he was not allowed time to repent of his wickedness."
"You knew him, then?" asked Mrs. Lofthouse, who had expressed unbounded
consternation at the trainer's death.
"Yes; he was in my father's service some years ago."
Mr. Lofthouse's carriage had been waiting ever since eleven o'clock,
and the rector's wife was only too glad to bid her friends good-night,
and to drive away from Mellish Park and its fatal associations; so,
though Colonel Maddison would have preferred stopping to smoke another
cheroot while he discussed the business with John Mellish, he was fain
to submit to feminine authority, and take his seat by his daughter's
side in the comfortable landau, which was an open or a close carriage
as the convenience of its proprietor dictated. The vehicle rolled away
upon the smooth carriage-drive; the servants closed the hall-doors,
and lingered about, whispering to each other, in little groups in
the corridors and on the staircases, waiting until their master and
mistress should have retired for the night. It was difficult to think
that the business of life was to go on just the same though a murder
had been done upon the outskirts of the Park, and even the housekeeper,
a severe matron at ordinary times, yielded to the common influence, and
forgot to drive the maids to their dormitories in the gabled roof.
All was very quiet in the drawing-room where the visitors had left
their host and hostess to hug those ugly skeletons which are put away
in the presence of company. John Mellish walked slowly up and down the
room. Aurora sat staring vacantly at the guttering wax candles in the
old-fashioned silver branches; and Mrs. Powell, with her embroidery in
full working order, threaded her needles and snipped away the fragments
of her delicate cotton as carefully as if there had been no such thing
as crime or trouble in the world, and no higher purpose in life than
the achievement of elaborate devices upon French cambric.
She paused now and then to utter some polite commonplace. She regretted
such an unpleasant catastrophe; she lamented the disagreeable
circumstances of the trainer's death; indeed, she in a manner inferred
that Mr. Conyers had shown himself wanting in good taste and respect
for his employer by the mode of his death; but the point to which she
recurred most frequently was the fact of Aurora's presence in the
grounds at the time of the murder.
"I so much regret that you should have been out of doors at the time,
my dear Mrs. Mellish," she said; "and, as I should imagine from the
direction which you took on leaving the house, actually near the place
where the unfortunate person met his death. It will be so unpleasant
for you to have to appear at the inquest."
"Appear at the inquest!" cried John Mellish, stopping suddenly, and
turning fiercely upon the placid speaker. "Who says that my wife will
have to appear at the inquest?"
"I merely imagined it probable that----"
"Then you'd no business to imagine it, ma'am," retorted Mr. Mellish,
with no very great show of politeness. "My wife will not appear. Who
should ask her to do so? Who should wish her to do so? What has she to
do with to-night's business? or what does she know of it more than you
or I, or any one else in this house?"
Mrs. Powell shrugged her shoulders.
"I thought that, from Mrs. Mellish's previous knowledge of this
unfortunate person, she might be able to throw some light upon his
habits and associations," she suggested mildly.
"Previous knowledge!" roared John. "What knowledge should Mrs. Mellish
have of her father's grooms? What interest should she take in their
habits or associations?"
"Stop," said Aurora, rising and laying her hand lightly on her
husband's shoulder. "My dear, impetuous John, why do you put yourself
into a passion about this business? If they choose to call me as a
witness, I will tell all I know about this man's death; which is
nothing but that I heard a shot fired while I was in the grounds."
She was very pale; but she spoke with a quiet determination, a calm
resolute defiance of the worst that fate could reserve for her.
"I will tell anything that is necessary to tell," she said; "I care
very little what."
With her hand still upon her husband's shoulder, she rested her head on
his breast, like some weary child nestling in its only safe shelter.
Mrs. Powell rose, and gathered together her embroidery in a pretty,
lady-like receptacle of fragile wicker-work. She glided to the door,
selected her candlestick, and then paused on the threshold to bid Mr.
and Mrs. Mellish good night.
"I am sure you must need rest after this terrible affair," she
simpered; "so I will take the initiative. It is nearly one o'clock.
_Good_ night."
If she had lived in the Thane of Cawdor's family, she would have wished
Macbeth and his wife a good night's rest after Duncan's murder; and
would have hoped they would sleep well; she would have curtsied and
simpered amidst the tolling of alarm-bells, the clashing of vengeful
swords, and the blood-bedabbled visages of the drunken grooms. It
must have been the Scottish queen's _companion_ who watched with the
truckling physician, and played the spy upon her mistress's remorseful
wanderings, and told how it was the conscience-stricken lady's habit
to do thus and thus; no one but a genteel mercenary would have been
so sleepless in the dead hours of the night, lying in wait for the
revelation of horrible secrets, the muttered clues to deadly mysteries.
"Thank God, she's gone at last!" cried John Mellish, as the door closed
very softly and very slowly upon Mrs. Powell. "I hate that woman,
Lolly."
Heaven knows I have never called John Mellish a hero; I have never set
him up as a model of manly perfection or infallible virtue; and if he
is not faultless, if he has those flaws and blemishes which seem a
constituent part of our imperfect clay, I make no apology for him; but
trust him to the tender mercies of those who, not being _quite_ perfect
themselves, will, I am sure, be merciful to him. He hated those who
hated his wife, or did her any wrong, however small. He loved those who
loved her. In the great power of his wide affection, all self-esteem
was annihilated. To love her was to love him; to serve her was to do
him treble service; to praise her was to make him vainer than the
vainest school-girl. He freely took upon his shoulders every debt that
she owed, whether of love or of hate; and he was ready to pay either
species of account to the uttermost farthing, and with no mean interest
upon the sum total. "I hate that woman, Lolly," he repeated; "and I
sha'n't be able to stand her much longer."
Aurora did not answer him. She was silent for some moments, and when
she did speak, it was evident that Mrs. Powell was very far away from
her thoughts.
"My poor John!" she said, in a low soft voice, whose melancholy
tenderness went straight to her husband's heart; "my dear, how happy we
were together for a little time! How very happy we were, my poor boy!"
"Always, Lolly," he answered,--"always, my darling."
"No, no, no!" said Aurora suddenly; "only for a little while. What a
horrible fatality has pursued us! what a frightful curse has clung
to me! The curse of disobedience, John; the curse of Heaven upon my
disobedience. To think that this man should have been sent here, and
that he----"
She stopped, shivering violently, and clinging to the faithful breast
that sheltered her.
John Mellish quietly led her to her dressing-room, and placed her in
the care of her maid.
"Your mistress has been very much agitated by this night's business,"
he said to the girl; "keep her as quiet as you possibly can."
Mrs. Mellish's bedroom, a comfortable and roomy apartment, with a low
ceiling and deep bay windows, opened into a morning-room, in which
it was John's habit to read the newspapers and sporting periodicals,
while his wife wrote letters, drew pencil sketches of dogs and horses,
or played with her favourite Bow-wow. They had been very childish and
idle and happy in this pretty chintz-hung chamber; and going into it
to-night in utter desolation of heart, Mr. Mellish felt his sorrows all
the more bitterly for the remembrance of those bygone joys. The shaded
lamp was lighted on the morocco-covered writing-table, and glimmered
softly on the picture-frames, caressing the pretty modern paintings,
the simple, domestic-story pictures which adorned the subdued gray
walls. This wing of the old house had been refurnished for Aurora, and
there was not a chair or a table in the room that had not been chosen
by John Mellish with a special view to the comfort and the pleasure of
his wife. The upholsterer had found him a liberal employer, the painter
and the sculptor a noble patron. He had walked about the Royal Academy
with a catalogue and a pencil in his hand, choosing all the "pretty"
pictures for the ornamentation of his wife's rooms. A lady in a scarlet
riding-habit and three-cornered beaver hat, a white pony, and a pack of
greyhounds, a bit of stone terrace and sloping turf, a flower-bed, and
a fountain, made poor John's idea of a pretty picture; and he had half
a dozen variations of such familiar subjects in his spacious mansion.
He sat down to-night, and looked hopelessly round the pleasant chamber,
wandering whether Aurora and he would ever be happy again: wondering if
this dark, mysterious, storm-threatening cloud would ever pass from
the horizon of his life, and leave the future bright and clear.
"I have not been good enough," he thought; "I have intoxicated myself
with my happiness, and have made no return for it. What am I that I
should have won the woman I love for my wife, while other men are
laying down the best desires of their hearts a willing sacrifice, and
going out to fight the battle for their fellow-men? What an indolent
good-for-nothing wretch I have been! How blind, how ungrateful, how
undeserving!"
John Mellish buried his face in his broad hands, and repented of
the carelessly happy life which he had led for one-and-thirty
thoughtless years. He had been awakened from his unthinking bliss by a
thunder-clap, that had shattered the fairy castle of his happiness, and
laid it level with the ground; and in his simple faith he looked into
his own life for the cause of the ruin which had overtaken him. Yes,
it must be so; he had not deserved his happiness, he had not earned
his good fortune. Have you ever thought of this, ye simple country
squires, who give blankets and beef to your poor neighbours in the
cruel winter-time, who are good and gentle masters, faithful husbands,
and tender fathers, and who lounge away your easy lives in the pleasant
places of this beautiful earth? Have you ever thought that, when all
our good deeds have been gathered together, and set in the balance,
the sum of them will be very small when set against the benefits you
have received? It will be a very small percentage which you will yield
your Master for the ten talents intrusted to your care. Remember John
Howard, fever-stricken and dying; Mrs. Fry labouring in criminal
prisons; Florence Nightingale in the bare hospital chambers, in the
close and noxious atmosphere, amongst the dead and the dying. These
are the people who return cent. per cent. for the gifts intrusted to
them. These are the saints whose good deeds shine amongst the stars for
ever and ever; these are the indefatigable workers who, when the toil
and turmoil of the day is done, hear the Master's voice in the still
even-time; welcoming them to His rest.
John Mellish, looking back at his life, humbly acknowledged that it had
been a comparatively useless one. He had distributed happiness to the
people who had come into his way; but he had never gone out of his way
to make people happy. I dare say that Dives was a liberal master to his
own servants, although he did not trouble himself to look after the
beggar who sat at his gates. The Israelite who sought instruction from
the lips of inspiration was willing to do his duty to his neighbour,
but had yet to learn the broad signification of that familiar epithet;
and poor John, like the rich young man, was ready to serve his Master
faithfully, but had yet to learn the manner of his service.
"If I could save _her_ from the shadow of sorrow or disgrace, I would
start to-morrow barefoot on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem," he thought.
"What is there that I would not do for her? what sacrifice would seem
too great? what burden too heavy to bear?"
END OF VOL. II.