CHAINS OR THE GALLOWS.
Mrs. Chetwode, sitting in her room at Castle Brand at half-past seven of
the night, heard a dreadful racket of horse's hoofs on the frozen court
below; and, looking down from her window, she saw the colonel throwing
himself from the saddle, and striding up the front steps in red-hot
haste.
A thundering knock at the door announced the humor of the gentleman, and
the meek old lady hurried into the upper hall to see him when he entered
the lower, murmuring to herself with mild astonishment:
"What's sent the man back in such a temper, I wonder? My! he's always
ranting about one thing or another; no wonder my poor miss hates him."
The man who opened to the colonel recoiled in astonishment from his fell
scowl, as he brushed past him and sprang up stairs, three at a time.
In the absence of the mistress of Castle Brand, the unwelcome guest had
appropriated to himself a suite of apartments in the castle, announcing
his intention of waiting there for the return of the fugitive, and had
lived a short but merry season in luxury and splendor; what wonder that
he loathed the brutal fates which were conspiring to thrust him out of
his paradise into outer darkness.
The maid who was replenishing the colonel's fire, against his return
from his ride, heard a savage oath behind her, and, favored by the
darkness, slipped behind the door in a fright and stared with all her
eyes at the colonel lighting his lamp, and banging down his desk upon
the table.
He cursed everything he touched with the most blasphemous imprecations
all the time he was removing papers and letters to his private
pocket-book--all the time he was cramming his purse with gold and bank
notes--all the time he was tossing his rich wardrobe into a valise.
Then he strode to the door, and turning on the threshold, sent a
terrible scowl over the magnificent chamber, glittering with the flash
of rich ornaments and the sheen of satin curtains. The veins swelled out
on his forehead, and his pale lips twitched convulsively.
"All lost--all lost!" groaned the man in a despairing voice, and closed
the door with a bang that shook the walls, and echoed through the vast
halls like the report of a cannon.
Then he went into the drawing-room where the housekeeper had taken
refuge. When she saw him coming along the passage, and with a diabolical
sneer of his face, he went to the marble-topped tables, mantel slabs,
chiffoniers, and tiny tea-poys all laden with articles of _bijouterie_,
and swept off the most costly of the ornaments into his rapacious
valise; packing in paperweights of solid amethyst, vases of cut
cornelian, ruby-spar, and frosted silver; pitching above them priceless
gems of art in miniature, statuettes cut from topaz and chrysolites,
(each cost a little fortune,) and then locking up his valise and making
off with it "for all the world as if he was a traveling packman or a
thief," as Mrs. Chetwode gasped out to Sally the cook, when she could
seek the safety of the kitchen, for fright.
Then this eccentric colonel strode down stairs and took his ample
Spanish riding-cloak off the pin and wrapping himself in it, with the
startled John's help, he stepped to the dining-room door and drew a
lowering glance around the majestic chamber.
There was a fine portrait of St. Udo Brand in his best days, painted
upon the panel over the fire-place, and the ruddy light of the great
astral lamp shone richly over the bold eyes and frank brow of the true
heir of Castle Brand.
The skulking, demonized face in the doorway glared with frantic fury at
the proud, high countenance on the wall, and a malediction burst from
the writhing lips in a hissing whisper.
"Fool! you deserved your fate," said that strange whisper--"You had
everything and I had nothing--I, the elder, the first born. Yet you
threw your luck away with infernal pride, and beguiled me on to my ruin!
Devil! even in your grave you put out your hand to give me the fatal
push."
He turned on his heel after that and fled from the Castle as if the
Avenger of Blood was at his back, and ordering out the best blood-horse
in the stables, he mounted and galloped down the drive.
Between the castle and the lodge he looked behind and spied his
blood-hound Argus, tearing from the kennel after him.
The old lodge-keeper, who had hobbled out to open the gate, seeing that
the colonel was in such a hurry, was amazed to hear his hoarse tones
raised like a madman's, while he ordered the dog home again, and
threatened him in shocking language.
The dog crouched among the withered leaves until his master was riding
on again, and then he slunk after him as before.
For the second time the colonel looked round at him, and catching him
creeping after, he threw himself from the saddle, and seizing the hound
by the collar, beat him with his weighted whip until the poor animal
yelled with pain, and then he rode on again.
Still the dog dragged his bleeding limbs after his brutal master, and
sought to keep him company, for he was his only friend, and had he not
followed him many a weary mile?
For the third time the colonel looked behind, and caught the faithful
brute following him. He drew a pistol from his breast, and leveled it
full at the cowering hound, which nevertheless crawled close up to him,
and whined, and licked his master's foot; he shot him through the head
and rode on.
So his last friend fell dead by his merciless hand, his faithful serving
had not availed to save him, his obedience had not helped him; when he
was no longer of use to Roland Mortlake, and might be in his way, he
crushed the creature that had loved him, and fled without him.
At the lodge-gate he turned for the last time in his saddle, and looked
at the grand old castle standing in the midst of its rich domain, and
looking like a Druid rock out of the chill moonlight.
A gleam of wicked envy broke from his basilisk eyes; he shook his
clenched hand frantically at the stately pile, and the howl of a hungry
tiger burst hoarsely from his throat.
"It's mine by rights!" he cried in a frenzy, "and yet I've lost it
forever! I might have been made for life, and now there's nothing left
me but the chains or the gallows."
He finished with a vehement volley of oaths, his wolfish face grew black
with passion, his tall frame bowed upon his horse's mane in an access of
abject fear, and plunging his spurs in his startled steed's flanks, he
bounded away like the wind, but not on the road to Regis.
Mrs. Chetwode was ringing her hands over the despoiled drawing-room, and
maids were crying and whispering that the colonel had gone mad, and the
men were winking shrewdly to each other in token of their belief that
the colonel wasn't just what he should be, when a posse of the queen's
officers appeared on the scene, demanding the person of Roland Mortlake,
_alias_ St. Udo Brand.
Too much disgusted with the colonel's low conduct that evening to care
what scrape he had got into, the housekeeper went down to the
constables, and described his proceedings with a plaintive regard to
truth which met with but small favor from those functionaries.
No sooner had they wrung from her a description of the clothes he
departed in and from the lodge-keeper, the road he had taken, then they
galloped off in chase, leaving Mrs. Chetwode in the very middle of her
succinct account of the caskets and ornaments "costing no end of money,
which the rogue had took off with him."
Further disgusted with the unmannerly conduct of "them low-lived
police," the prim housekeeper received Mr. Purcell and his news that
Miss Margaret was safe home again, with elation, that she could fairly
cry with joy to hear that the dear young miss was coming back, for she
had feared many a time since she has gone away, that the colonel meant
that she should never come back.
In truth her life had not been very genial those two days, with the
colonel tramping his rooms like a caged hyena, and pouncing out upon her
whenever a strange rap came to the door, as if he was looking every
minute for some dreadful message from Regis.
"Pretending to want my blessed miss back so bad," cried Mrs. Chetwode,
with a snort of disbelief. "Him as always snarled like a sick dog if
ever her name was spoke by the servants. Where was he all that night
after she went off, I'd like to hear? Out he goes, sir, ten minutes
after you left this house to join Miss Margaret, and he never came back
till daylight; and he wasn't at his own hotel, for his own man came here
and said so. He was after mischief, I tell you, Mr. Purcell," concluded
the worthy lady.
"That he was, the rascal," assented Purcell, wrathfully. "He was
telegraphing his orders to his low accomplice, whom he had sent off to
keep Miss Margaret in fear of her life all the way. Well, well, his
day's done, Mrs. Chetwode, and I pray to goodness that he may be caught
before the morning. You are to go down to the town and stay with Miss
Margaret at the office till she sets the case in Mr. Emersham's hands.
She's afraid to come to the castle till the colonel is safely locked
up."
Margaret was sitting by Mr. Emersham's smoking fire, pale and exhausted,
but with eyes that shone with undiminished animation.
The venerable vicar sat beside her, softly pressing her hand between his
own two; and the dashing young lawyer was just finishing the reading of
the case he had made out of the contents of Margaret's toilfully written
document.
Mrs. Chetwode came to the travel-weary girl, and burst into a fond gush
of tears.
"La sakes! Miss Margaret, I can't help it," sobbed the old lady, "to see
you so white and worried is enough to break one's heart."
"The would-be-colonel, where is he?" clipped in the ready lawyer.
"Gone, sir, without e'er a good-by!"
"Oh, Mrs. Chetwode, have you let him escape?" cried Margaret, springing
up wildly.
"I couldn't stop him, Miss Margaret, dear. He ramped through the castle
like a madman, and then went off at full speed on Roanoke."
"Oh, me--he has escaped! Oh, Mrs. Chetwode!" moaned Margaret, sinking
back in her chair and bursting into a violent fit of weeping.
Incessant anxiety, apprehension, and suspense had begun to tell upon
her, she could not bear up a moment longer; and this disappointment was
too much for her; so she fell into a passion of tears, and sobbed, and
cried out hysterically that St. Udo's enemy had got away, and that St.
Udo would never be avenged now!--until the compassionate vicar supported
her to her carriage and got her driven to the castle.
So Mrs. Chetwode put her to bed, and nursed her, and wept over her, and
got her to sleep at last; and she did not awake for at least twelve
hours.
Next day Mr. Emersham sent up his card to Miss Walsingham, desiring an
interview.
Willingly she hastened down stairs to see him, burning with impatience
to hear his errand.
"Is the man found?" was her first eager question.
The bustling young lawyer subsided instantly.
"Haw, no, not quite caught yet," he admitted, "but he's almost as good
as ours now, my dear madam. I visited O'Grady this morning, and caused
him to turn queen's evidence against his accomplice in this business,
and--aw, I may say the prisoner, I mean the culprit--is done for."
He did not explain that O'Grady had been bribed by the magnificent
promises of the quick-witted Emersham to leak out a little of the truth,
just enough to give the detectives a fresh clue to his probable
hiding-place; and that poor O'Grady was just then imprecating the
dashing young lawyer from earth to a hotter place as a cheat, a liar,
and a traitor, when he found out that he had used him as a tool.
Mr. Emersham also showed his client a telegram which the detectives had
sent him, stating that they had got on the criminal's track, and
expected to come up with him very soon now.
On the whole his visit did much to heighten Margaret's feverish
impatience, and filled her with some of his own sanguine hopes.
When the young gentleman had gone, Margaret wandered through the wide,
echoing rooms with a sense of freedom which she had never experienced
before; a feeling of affection for these familiar chambers, for the sake
of her who had owned them, and of him who should have now possessed
them.
How she had loved the tender-hearted and freakish Madam Brand, no soul
save herself and that dead woman had known; and loving her as she did,
could she do else than lay a like sentiment at the feet of her only
kinsman, the hapless St. Udo.
Pacing through these lofty rooms the lonely girl thought over her
checkered past; she breathed a sigh over the pathetic memory of her fond
and foolish patroness; she gave a smile of scorn to the man who had come
like a curse in the noble St. Udo's stead; the hateful impostor, whose
last abject depredation had been but the type of his crawling,
insatiable nature, which, sleuth-hound like, held on to the prey to the
very last, and made off with a miserable mouthful of it rather than
nothing.
But when she came to the portrait of St. Udo Brand, in the long crimson
dining-room, the fierce flicker softened in her yearning eyes, and a
sacred, tender smile dawned on her lips.
She studied the grand, passionate-speaking countenance, whose features
were cast in a mold fitted to express the noblest emotions, till the
soulful eyes seemed to seek hers with a living beam of gratitude; till
the fine lips seemed to thrill with a gentle smile, and the souls of St.
Udo Brand and Margaret Walsingham appeared to have met face to face for
the first time, and to hold sweet communion together.
Great tears slowly dropped from Margaret's passionate eyes and washed
her cheeks, her tender lip quivered with the thoughts that were swaying
her heart; for a quick wild pang of grief smote her to think that he was
in his grave.
He had scorned her, he had trampled her under foot, and she forgave him
all, and wept that he was dead.
For oh, the heart of such a woman is capable of a love, which, to love
of softer women, is as glowing wine to water, as the towering, scorching
flame of the red volcano to the chill pale ray of the winter morn.
In the afternoon of the same day, Mrs. Chetwode came into Margaret's
room with the news that Mr. Davenport was below, inquiring for an
immediate interview.
"He do look raised, Miss Margaret," said Mrs. Chetwode; "he snaps round
like an angry watch-dog."
He came up to Miss Walsingham's parlor and burst in, hot, red, loud, and
angry.
"Ha! you have seen fit to return to your post, sir," cried Margaret,
woman-like anticipating the fray.
"Return, madam!" fired the lawyer. "Am I here too soon for you,
madam--how long did you want me to stay?"
"I did not want you to go, sir," said Margaret.
"Hear her, oh, hear her!" screamed the lawyer, appealing to the cornice,
"if that is not upright and downright insanity, show me a maniac in
Bedlam. Madam," with grim pleasantry, "shall you banish me to the top of
Mont Blanc in your next letter about a mythological Colonel Brand?"
She maintained a dignified silence.
"Madam, since your little scheme to get both your guardians out of the
way has succeeded so well, will you do me the favor of confessing what
you have done with the colonel?"
"I have unmasked him, Mr. Davenport, and shown the world a murderer."
"What the duse do you mean, young lady?"
"He is proved an impostor, Mr. Davenport, believe me for once."
"Pig-headed as ever, I see," groaned the lawyer. "Come tell me why you
sent me to Bala?" in a wheedling tone. "Be calm and give your reasons
frankly."
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I did not send you to Bala."
"Confound the woman!" shouted Davenport, "she denies everything. She is
mad! she'll deny the work of her own hand next, I do believe. Why did
you write me this letter, Miss Margaret Walsingham?" (snatching it from
his pocket and waving it like a banner of victory before her eyes.)
"Your own handwriting--your own signature, madam. Please do not shock me
by denying it."
She looked at the letter--her own familiar chirography started her out
of countenance.
Truly, Roland Mortlake's was an accommodating genius.
Thus it ran:
"DEAR MR. DAVENPORT:--I have just receive an extraordinary
telegram from some Dr. Lythwaite in Bala, Merioneth. I inclose
it to you. Does it not convince you that my suspicions have a
just foundation? If you can withstand the evidence of this
stranger, who has never heard of my suspicions, you are
willfully shutting your eyes to a plain fact.
"St. Udo Brand lies ill at Bala--send Davenport to receive his
instructions to Gelert's Hotel, Coventry street.'
"That is what the telegram says; now I request that for once
you will obey my wish, and fly thither by the first train.
"Tell no one, not even Gay, for he is in the confidence of this
wretch here. Heaven knows whether you are not the same.
"Yours, anxiously,
"MARGARET WALSINGHAM."
In the envelope was the bogus telegram; no wonder that the lawyer,
suspicious though he was, had been completely deceived this time.
"I can show you as strange an epistle, which I received," cried
Margaret, going to her desk for Dr. Gay's purported letter, and handing
it to Mr. Davenport.
He read it and turned it over in blank surprise.
"Extraordinary!" muttered the lawyer. "Could Gay have got another
telegram! Then you didn't send the doctor off, did you?"
"No, indeed, Mr. Davenport, nor you, either. Your untimely absence
almost cost me my life, as you would have heard had you made any
inquiries as to the state of affairs at Emersham's law office, before
you came over here. We have all been infamously duped, sir, by a wretch
unworthy of the name of man--but he shall soon expiate his crimes on the
scaffold. All these communications have been cleverly forged by no other
than Roland Mortlake, who is now flying for his life from the officers
of justice."
"Extraordinary! most extraordinary!" aspirated Mr. Davenport.
He was getting very quiet, his purple face was fading into a frightened
gray, his rousing tones were sinking into a soft dejection; he began to
scent a mistake from afar, and to shoulder the humiliation.
And at this auspicious moment, Mrs. Chetwode opened the door and
announced Dr. Gay, just arrived, to demand his explanation.
The lawyer stepped to the door to warn Dr. Gay of his error, and shook
hands with the solemnity of a sexton greeting the chief mourner at a
funeral.
"There's been a terrible blunder here," said he, spiritlessly; "we've
both allowed ourselves to be made confounded fools of by a rascal. Have
you heard anything in the town?"
"Not I," returned the little doctor, who looked as if he had not slept
for a week. "I've just come home, and rushed over here as fast as a
horse's legs could carry me. How are you now, Miss Margaret?"
"Well, thank you, and overjoyed to see you back again. I feel safe now,"
murmured Margaret, looking up in her counselor's face with a gentle
glance. "There will be an end to all misunderstanding now, and we shall
be friends as we used to be."
Mr. Davenport was wiping his forehead with his enormous bandanna, and
looking very foolish; and Dr. Gay stared from one to the other, and got
more mystified every minute.
"Have you made anything of this queer business?" asked he.
"Gad! sir, I think we have," returned the lawyer; "and more than we
bargained for. We've caught a rascal in it!"
"Rascal enough!" sighed the little doctor, wearily. "He led me a fine
dance of it. I suppose you want to hear what induced me to fly off at a
tangent to the other side of England, don't you? A Welsh gentleman,
calling himself Mr. Grayly, a tall, red-faced blue-eyed chap in a fur
coat, called on me at nine o'clock on Tuesday morning, with the strange
tidings that he had come from New Radnor in Wales--fancy that--and got
me to believe it, too, the rogue--where the true Colonel Brand was lying
sick at the country house of a brother officer in the Guards. I was
struck dumb, and didn't know what to think, till a dispatch came per
telegraph from the colonel himself, begging me to come and see him, and
assuring me that Grayly would tell me all about him. So Grayly hustled
me off on the half-past nine train, before I had time to think of
anything. At ---- in Berks my friend the Welshman got out, saying that
he had an hour's business to transact there, but that I could go on, and
he would overtake me in Cirencester; so off I went alone, thinking no
evil. But I've never seen him since, the dog."
"Miss Margaret received this letter, posted in the same village,"
interposed Mr. Davenport, exhibiting it grimly.
Dr. Gay read it with stupefied wonder.
"St. George and the Dragon!" muttered he, "this is a cruel hoax. Who
could have written that so like me. Grayly did it, I suppose, though."
"Grayly, _alias_ O'Grady, posted it," said Margaret; "but he was
employed to do so. Another than he wrote it, a cleverer forger. Well,
how did your adventure end?"
"Oh, as might have been expected. I posted on, mad with excitement, to
New Radnor in search of the sick man, and Grayly's instructions brought
me to the door of a ladies' private boarding-school, where I was well
stared at, and no doubt laughed at for my stupidity. So, finding that I
had been cheated by a rogue who probably wanted to play off a practical
joke upon my credulity--(I suppose everybody is laughing at Miss
Margaret's suspicions of the colonel here, she must have mentioned them
somewhere)--I came back quicker than I went, determined to sift the
matter well."
"I need prepare your minds no better for the disclosures you must now
hear," said Margaret, "for you will not discredit my story, after the
mortifying experiences which you have had. I will not reproach you for
your past injustice to me, for your desertion of my cause to the side of
my enemy, or for your unfounded suspicion of my sanity. I only regret
that your past inactivity has forced me to put this desperate case in
the hands of a stranger who could not feel the interest in it which you
should have felt. But no more of this. I shall explain all to you."
She faithfully narrated all that had happened since the night on which
she had obtained possession of Roland Mortlake's pocket-book.
The two executors heard the recital; Dr. Gay with groans of horror, Mr.
Davenport in meek and abject silence.
It was almost pathetic to observe the humility with which the
overbearing lawyer received the intelligence of his egregious credulity
and wanton obstinacy, but he did not say a word until the narration was
completed, and then he dejectedly begged Miss Margaret to give him
something to do for her.
They took counsel together, and at last parted with mutual good will and
cordiality; Dr. Gay going back to his wife in such a maze of stupid
preoccupation as submerged him in conjugal hot water for many a day;
while Mr. Davenport pugnaciously burst into young Emersham's office and
electrified him like a torpedo, on the subject of O'Grady's proper
handling.
The days passed by--Andrew Davenport and Seamore Emersham, counsels for
the plaintiff, announced their case complete; the chain of evidence
which was to strangle Roland Mortlake, wanted not a link of the judicial
measure required; his own confessions were there, his accomplice O'Grady
was there with his secret disclosures; the witnesses were on the
ground--all was complete, and nothing wanting except the criminal.
It was to no purpose, the doubling and twisting of secret detectives,
many a day might pass away before they could overtake the game on that
road, for he was perfect in such a part, his life had been one long race
through tortuous paths, with the sword of justice pursuing him.
The hue and cry of outraged law rang wrathfully through the land; the
public papers teemed with accounts of the great Castle Brand plot; the
public mind execrated Roland Mortlake as a revolting rogue to murder so
much better a man than himself, that he might steal his station; but the
hero of the universal tongue kept discreet obscurity, and ventured not
within the radius of his evil popularity.
Still O'Grady kept whispering his strange disclosures, and, under the
upper stratum of wordy clamor, the sly detectives, led by Davenport, dug
away at the secret lead, with hopes of coming treasure.
The dark-faced mistress of Castle Brand wore her soul out in pining for
the end; and day by day she saw the wintry sun go down with a cry
against the slow moving arm of justice; mingled with a piteous
self-reproach when she noted the fierce spirit which had been born in
her.
Her thin cheek seldom lost its feverish carmine, nor her eyes their
lance-like gleam; her magnificent figure was uplifted with perpetual
imperiousness; a Fulvia, a Semiramis, a black browed Nemesis, was
Margaret Walsingham in those bitter days of her suspense.
Yet she could weep soft, tender tears before St. Udo's portrait, and hug
the phantom chains of her supernal love to as love-some a heart as ever
man won.
But passion and patience will not work in double harness, they wear the
life out in their unceasing strife; and though she had lived through
terrible scenes, she felt that she could not live through this.
But it is a long lane which has no turning; Margaret's turned very
suddenly, and ushered her into a fairy land, whose ghost lights dazzled
her eyes; whose strange, wild, awful beauty filled her soul with eternal
sunshine.
Thus it fell out.