FLIGHT.
The man who called himself Henry Dunbar was lying on the tapestried
cushions of a carved oaken couch that stood before the fire in his
spacious sitting-room. He lay there, listening to the March wind
roaring in the broad chimney, and watching the blazing coals and the
crackling logs of wood.
It was three o'clock in the morning now, and the servants had left the
room at midnight; but the sick man had ordered a huge fire to be made
up—a fire that promised to last for some hours.
The master of Maudesley Abbey was in no way improved by his long
imprisonment. His complexion had faded to a dull leaden hue; his cheeks
were sunken; his eyes looked unnaturally large and unnaturally bright.
Long hours of loneliness, long sleepless nights, and thoughts that from
every diverging point for ever narrowed inwards to one hideous centre,
had done their work of him. The man lying opposite the fire to-night
looked ten years older than the man who gave his evidence so boldly and
clearly before the coroner's jury at Winchester.
The crutches—they were made of some light, polished wood, and were
triumphs of art in their way—leaned against a table close to the couch,
and within reach to the man's hand. He had learned to walk about the
rooms and on the gravel-drive before the Abbey with these crutches, and
had even learned to do without them, for he was now able to set the
lamed foot upon the ground, and to walk a few paces pretty steadily,
with no better support than that of his cane; but as yet he walked
slowly and doubtfully, in spite of his impatience to be about once
more.
Heaven knows how many different thoughts were busy in his restless
brain that night. Strange memories came back to him, as he lay staring
at the red chasms and craggy steeps in the fire—memories of a time so
long gone by, that all the personages of that period seemed to him like
the characters in a book, or the figures in a picture. He saw their
faces, and he remembered how they had looked at him; and among these
other faces he saw the many semblances which his own had worn.
O God, how that face had changed! The bright, frank, boyish
countenance, looking eagerly out upon a world that seemed so pleasant;
the young man's hopeful smile; and then—and then, the hard face that
grew harder with the lapse of years; the smile that took no radiance
from a light within; the frown that blackened as the soul grew darker.
He saw all these, and still for ever, amid a thousand distracting
ideas, his thoughts, which were beyond his own volition, concentrated
in the one plague-spot of his life, and held him there, fixed as a
wretch bound hand and foot upon the rack.
"If I could only get away from this place," he said to himself; "if I
could get away, it would all be different. Change of scene, activity,
hurrying from place to place in new countries and amongst strange
people, would have the usual influence upon me. That memory would pass
away then, as other memories have passed; only to be recalled, now and
then, in a dream; or conjured up by some chance allusion dropped from
the lips of strangers, some coincidence of resemblance in a scene, or
face, or tone, or look. _That_ memory cannot be so much worse than the
rest that it should be ineffaceable, where they have been effaced. But
while I stay here, here in this dismal room, where the dropping of the
ashes on the hearth, the ticking of the clock upon the chimney-piece,
are like that torture I have read of somewhere—the drop of water
falling at intervals upon the victim's forehead until the anguish of
its monotony drives him raving mad—while I stay here there is no hope
of forgetfulness, no possibility of peace. I saw him last night, and
the night before last, and the night before that. I see him always when
I go to sleep, smiling at me, as he smiled when we went into the grove.
I can hear his voice, and the words he said, every syllable of those
insignificant words, selfish murmurs about the probability of his being
fatigued in that long walk, the possibility that it would have been
better to hire a fly, and to have driven by the road—bah! What was he
that I should be sorry for him? Am I sorry for him? No! I am sorry for
myself, and for the torture which I have created for myself. O God! I
can see him now as he looked up at me out of the water. The motion of
the stream gave a look of life to his face, and I almost thought he was
still alive, and I had never done that deed."
These were the pleasant fireside thoughts with which the master of
Maudesley Abbey beguiled the hours of his convalescence. Heaven keep
our memories green! exclaims the poet novelist; and Heaven preserve us
from such deeds as make our memories hideous to us!
From such a reverie as this the master of Maudesley Abbey was suddenly
aroused by the sound of a light knocking against one of the windows of
his room—the window nearest him as he lay on the couch.
He started, and lifted himself into a sitting posture.
"Who is there?" he cried, impatiently.
He was frightened, and clasped his two hands upon, his forehead, trying
to think who the late visitant could be. Why should any one come to him
at such an hour, unless—unless _it_ was discovered? There could be no
other justification for such an intrusion.
His breath came short and thick as he thought of this. Had it come at
last, then, that awful moment which he had dreamed of so many
times—that hideous crisis which he had imagined under so many different
aspects? Had it come at last, like this?—quietly, in the dead of the
night, without one moment's warning?—before he had prepared himself to
escape it, or hardened himself to meet it? Had it come now? The man
thought all this while he listened, with his chest heaving, his breath
coming in hoarse gasps, waiting for the reply to his question.
There was no reply except the knocking, which grew louder and more
hurried.
If there can be expression in the tapping of a hand against a pane of
glass, there was expression in that hand—the expression of entreaty
rather than of demand, as it seemed to that white and terror-stricken
listener.
His heart gave a great throb, like a prisoner who leaps away from the
fetters that have been newly loosened.
"What a fool I have been!" he thought. "If it was that, there would be
knocking and ringing at the hall-door, instead of that cautious
summons. I suppose that fellow Vallance has got into some kind of
trouble, and has come in the dead of the night to hound me for money.
It would be only like him to do it. He knows he must be admitted, let
him come when he may."
The invalid gave a groan as he thought this. He got up and walked to
the window, leaning upon his cane as he went.
The knocking still sounded. He was close to the window, and he heard
something besides the knocking—a woman's voice, not loud, but
peculiarly audible by reason of its earnestness.
"Let me in; for pity's sake let me in!"
The man standing at the window knew that voice: only too well, only too
well. It was the voice of the girl who had so persistently followed
him, who had only lately succeeded in seeing him. He drew back the
bolts that fastened the long French window, opened it, and admitted
Margaret Wilmot.
"Margaret!" he cried; "what, in Heaven's name, brings you here at such
an hour as this?"
"Danger!" answered the girl, breathlessly. "Danger to you! I have been
running, and the words seem to choke me as I speak. There's not a
moment to be lost, not one moment. They will be here directly; they
cannot fail to be here directly. I felt as if they had been close
behind me all the way—they may have been so. There is not a moment—not
one moment!"
She stopped, with her hands clasped upon her breast. She was incoherent
in her excitement, and knew that she was so, and struggled to express
herself clearly.
"Oh, father!" she exclaimed, lifting her hands to her head, and pushing
the loose tangled hair away from her face; "I have tried to save you—I
have tried to save you! But sometimes I think that is not to be. It may
be God's mercy that you should be taken, and your wretched daughter can
die with you!"
She fell upon her knees, suddenly, in a kind of delirium, and lifted up
her clasped hands.
"O God, have mercy upon him!" she cried. "As I prayed in this room
before—as I have prayed every hour since that dreadful time—I pray
again to-night. Have mercy upon him, and give him a penitent heart, and
wash away his sin. What is the penalty he may suffer here, compared to
that Thou canst inflict hereafter? Let the chastisement of man fall
upon him, so as Thou wilt accept his repentance!"
"Margaret," said Joseph Wilmot, grasping the girl's arm, "are you
praying that I may be hung? Have you come here to do that? Get up, and
tell me what is the matter!"
Margaret Wilmot rose from her knees shuddering, and looking straight
before her, trying to be calm—trying to collect her thoughts.
"Father," she said, "I have never known one hour's peaceful sleep since
the night I left this room. For the last three nights I have not slept
at all. I have been travelling, walking from place to place, until I
could drop on the floor at your feet. I want to tell you—but the
words—the words—won't come—somehow——"
She pointed to her dry lips, which moved, but made no sound. There was
a bottle of brandy and a glass on the table near the couch. Joseph
Wilmot was seldom without that companion. He snatched up the bottle and
glass, poured out some of the brandy, and placed it between his
daughter's lips. She drank the spirit eagerly. She would have drunk
living fire, if, by so doing, she could have gained strength to
complete her task.
"You must leave this house directly!" she gasped. "You must go abroad,
anywhere, so long as you are safe out of the way. They will be here to
look for you—Heaven only knows how soon!"
"They! Who?
"Clement Austin, and a man—a detective——"
"Clement Austin—your lover—your confederate? You have betrayed me,
Margaret!"
"I!" cried the girl, looking at her father.
There was something sublime in the tone of that one word—something
superb in the girl's face, as her eyes met the haggard gaze of the
murderer.
"Forgive me, my girl! No, no, you wouldn't do that, even to a loathsome
wretch like me!"
"But you will go away—you will escape from them?"
"Why should I be afraid of them? Let them come when they please, they
have no proof against me."
"No proof? Oh, father, you don't know—you don't know. They have been to
Winchester. I heard from Clement's mother that he had gone there; and I
went after him, and found out where he was—at the inn where you stayed,
where you refused to see me—and that there was a man with him. I waited
about the streets; and at night I saw them both, the man and Clement.
Oh! father, I knew they could have only one purpose in coming to that
place. I saw them at night; and the next day I watched again—waiting
about the street, and hiding myself under porches or in shops, when
there was any chance of my being seen. I saw Clement leave the George,
and take the way towards the cathedral. I went to the cathedral-yard
afterwards, and saw the strange man talking in a doorway with an old
man. I loitered about the cathedral-yard, and saw the man that was with
Clement go away, down by the meadows, towards the grove, to the place
where——"
She stopped, and trembled so violently that she was unable to speak.
Joseph Wilmot filled the glass with brandy for the second time, and put
it to his daughter's lips.
She drank about a teaspoonful, and then went on, speaking very rapidly,
and in broken sentences—
"I followed the man, keeping a good way behind, so that he might not
see that he was followed. He went straight down to the very place
where—the murder was done. Clement was there, and three men. They were
there under the trees, and they were dragging the water."
"Dragging the water! Oh, my God, why were they doing that?" cried the
man, dropping suddenly on the chair nearest to him, and with his face
livid.
For the first time since Margaret had entered the room terror took
possession of him. Until now he had listened attentively, anxiously;
but the ghastly look of fear and horror was new upon his face. He had
defied discovery. There was only one thing that could be used against
him—the bundle of clothes, the marked garments of the murdered
man—those fatal garments which he had been unable to destroy, which he
had only been able to hide. These things alone could give evidence
against him; but who should think of searching for these things? Again
and again he had thought of the bundle at the bottom of the stream,
only to laugh at the wondrous science of discovery which had slunk back
baffled by so slight a mystery, only to fancy the water-rats gnawing
the dead man's garments, and all the oose and slime creeping in and out
amongst the folds until the rotting rags became a very part of the rank
river-weeds that crawled and tangled round them.
He had thought this, and the knowledge that strangers had been busy on
that spot, dragging the water—the dreadful water that had so often
flowed through his dreams—with, not one, but a thousand dead faces
looking up and grinning at him through the stream—the tidings that a
search had been made there, came upon him like a thunderbolt.
"Why did they drag the water?" he cried again.
His daughter was standing at a little distance from him. She had never
gone close up to him, and she had receded a little—involuntarily, as a
woman shrinks away from some animal she is frightened of—whenever he
had approached her. He knew this—yes, amidst every other conflicting
thought, this man was conscious that his daughter avoided him.
"They dragged the water," Margaret said; "I walked about—that
place—under the elms—all the day—only one day—but it seemed to last for
ever and ever. I was obliged to hide myself—and to keep at a distance,
for Clement was there all day; but as it grew dusk I ventured nearer,
and found out what they were doing, and that they had not found what
they were searching for; but I did not know yet what it was they wanted
to find."
"But they found it!" gasped the girl's father; "did they find it? Come
to that."
"Yes, they found it by-and-by. A bundle of rags, a boy told me—a boy
who had been about with the men all day—'a bundle of rags, it looked
like,' he said; but he heard the constable say that those rags were the
clothes that had belonged to the murdered man."
"What then? What next?"
"I waited to hear no more, father; I ran all the way to Winchester to
the station—I was in time for a train, which brought me to London—I
came on by the mail to Rugby—and——"
"Yes, yes; I know—and you are a brave girl, a noble girl. Ah! my poor
Margaret, I don't think I should have hated that man so much if it
hadn't been for the thought of you—your lonely girlhood—your hopeless,
joyless existence—and all through him—all through the man who ruined me
at the outset of my life. But I won't talk—I daren't talk: they have
found the clothes; they know that the man who was murdered was Henry
Dunbar—they will be here—let me think—let me think how I can get away!"
He clasped both his hands upon his head, as if by force of their iron
grip he could steady his mind, and clear away the confusion of his
brain.
From the first day on which he had taken possession of the dead man's
property until this moment he had lived in perpetual terror of the
crisis which had now arrived. There was no possible form or manner in
which he had not imagined the situation. There was no preparation in
his power to make that he had left unmade. But he had hoped to
anticipate the dreaded hour. He had planned his flight, and meant to
have left Maudesley Abbey for ever, in the first hour that found him
capable of travelling. He had planned his flight, and had started on
that wintry afternoon, when the Sabbath bells had a muffled sound, as
their solemn peals floated across the snow—he had started on his
journey with the intention of never again returning to Maudesley Abbey.
He had meant to leave England, and wander far away, through all manner
of unfrequented districts, choosing places that were most difficult of
approach, and least affected by English travellers.
He had meant to do this, and had calculated that his conduct would be,
at the worst, considered eccentric; or perhaps it would be thought
scarcely unnatural in a lonely man, whose only child had married into a
higher sphere than his own. He had meant to do this, and by-and-by,
when he had been lost sight of by the world, to hide himself under a
new name and a new nationality, so that if ever, by some strange
fatality, by some awful interposition of Providence, the secret of
Henry Dunbar's death should come to light, the murderer would be as
entirely removed from human knowledge as if the grave had closed over
him and hidden him for ever.
This is the course that Joseph Wilmot had planned for himself. There
had been plenty of time for him to think and plot in the long nights
that he had spent in those splendid rooms—those noble chambers, whose
grandeur had been more hideous to him than the blank walls of a
condemned cell; whose atmosphere had seemed more suffocating than the
foetid vapours of a fever-tainted den in St. Giles's. The passionate,
revengeful yearning of a man who has been cruelly injured and betrayed,
the common greed of wealth engendered out of poverty's slow torture,
had arisen rampant in this man's breast at the sight of Henry Dunbar.
By one hideous deed both passions were gratified; and Joseph Wilmot,
the bank-messenger, the confidential valet, the forger, the convict,
the ticket-of-leave man, the penniless reprobate, became master of a
million of money.
Yes, he had done this. He had entered Winchester upon that August
afternoon, with a few sovereigns and a handful of silver in his pocket,
and with a life of poverty and degradation, before him. He had left the
same town chief partner in the firm of Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby,
and sole owner of Maudesley Abbey, the Yorkshire estates, and the house
in Portland Place.
Surely this was the very triumph of crime, a master-stroke of villany.
But had the villain ever known one moment's happiness since the
commission of that deed—one moment's peace—one moment's freedom from a
slow, torturing anguish that was like the gnawing of a ravenous beast
for ever preying on his entrails? The author of the _Opium-Eater_
suffered so cruelly from some internal agony that he grew at last to
fancy there was indeed some living creature inside him, for ever
torturing and tormenting him. This doubtless was only the fancy of an
invalid: but what of that undying serpent called Remorse, which coils
itself about the heart of the murderer and holds it for ever in a
deadly grip—never to beat freely again, never to know a painless throb,
or feel a sweet emotion?
In a few minutes—while the rooks were cawing in the elms, and the green
leaves fluttering in the drowsy summer air, and the blue waters
rippling in the sunshine and flecked by the shadows—Joseph Wilmot had
done a deed which had given him the richest reward that a murderer ever
hoped to win; and had so transformed his life, so changed the very
current of his being, that he went away out of that wood, not alone,
but dogged step by step by a gaunt, stalking creature, a hideous
monster that echoed his every breath, and followed at his shoulder, and
clung about him, and grappled his throat, and weighed him down; a
horrid thing, which had neither shape nor name, and yet wore every
shape, and took every name, and was the ghost of the deed that he had
done.
Joseph Wilmot stood for a few moments with his hands clasped upon his
head, and then the shadows faded from his face, which suddenly became
fixed and resolute-looking. The first thrill of terror, the first shock
of surprise, were over. This man never had been and never could be a
coward. He was ready now for the worst. It may be that he was glad the
worst had come. He had suffered such unutterable anguish, such
indescribable tortures, during the time in which his guilt had been
unsuspected, that it may have been a kind of relief to know that his
secret was discovered, and that he was free to drop the mask.
While he paused, thinking what he was to do, some lucky thought came to
him, for his face brightened suddenly with a triumphant smile.
"The horse!" he said. "I may ride, though I can't walk."
He took up his cane, and went to the next room, where there was a door
that opened into the quadrangle, in which the master of the Abbey had
caused a loose box to be built for his favourite horse. Margaret
followed her father, not closely, but at a little distance, watching
him with anxious, wondering eyes.
He unfastened the half-glass door, opened it, and went out into the
quadrangular garden, the quaint old-fashioned garden, where the
flower-beds were primly dotted on the smooth grass-plot, in the centre
of which there was a marble basin, and the machinery of a little
fountain that had never played within the memory of living man.
"Go back for the lamp, Margaret," Joseph Wilmot whispered. "I must have
light."
The girl obeyed. She had left off trembling now, and carried the shaded
lamp as steadily as if she had been bent on some simple womanly errand.
She followed her father into the garden, and went with him to the loose
box where the horse was to be found.
The animal knew his master, even in that uncertain light. There was gas
laid on in the millionaire's stables, and a low jet had been left
burning by the groom.
The horse plunged his head about his master's shoulders, and shook his
mane, and reared, and disported himself in his delight at seeing his
old friend once more, and it was only Joseph Wilmot's soothing hand and
voice that subdued the animal's exuberant spirits.
"Steady, boy, steady! quiet, old fellow!" Joseph said, in a whisper.
Three or four saddles and bridles hung upon a rack in one corner of the
small stable. Joseph Wilmot selected the things he wanted, and began to
saddle the horse, supporting himself on his cane as he did so.
The groom slept in the house now, by his master's orders, and there was
no one within hearing.
The horse was saddled and bridled in five minutes, and Joseph Wilmot
led him out of the stable, followed by Margaret, who still carried the
lamp. There was a low iron gate leading out of the quadrangle into the
grounds. Joseph led the horse to this gate.
"Go back and get me my coat," he said to Margaret; "you'll go faster
than I can. You'll find a coat lined with fur on a chair in the
bedroom."
His daughter obeyed, silently and quietly, as she had done before. The
rooms all opened one into the other. She saw the bedroom with the tall,
gloomy bedstead, the light of the fire flickering here and there. She
set the lamp down upon a table in this room, and found the fur-lined
coat her father had sent her to fetch. There was a purse lying on a
dressing-table, with sovereigns glittering through the silken network,
and the girl snatched it up as she hurried away, thinking, in her
innocent simplicity, that her father might have nothing but those few
sovereigns to help him in his flight. She went back to him, carrying
the bulky overcoat, and helped him to put it on in place of the
dressing-grown he had been wearing. He had taken his hat before going
to the stable.
"Here is your purse, father," she said, thrusting it into his hand;
"there is something in it, but I'm afraid there's not very much. How
will you manage for money where you are going?"
"Oh, I shall manage very well."
He had got into the saddle by this time, not without considerable
difficulty; but though the fresh air made him feel faint and dizzy, he
felt himself a new man now that the horse was under him—the brave
horse, the creature that loved him, whose powerful stride could carry
him almost to the other end of the world; as it seemed to Joseph Wilmot
in the first triumph of being astride the animal once more. He put his
hand involuntarily to the belt that was strapped round him, as Margaret
asked that question about the money.
"Oh, yes," he said, "I've money enough—I am all right."
"But where are you going?" she asked, eagerly.
The horse was tearing up the wet gravel, and making furious champing
noises in his impatience of all this delay.
"I don't know," Joseph Wilmot answered; "that will depend upon—I don't
know. Good night, Margaret. God bless you! I don't suppose He listens
to the prayers of such as me. If He did, it might have been all
different long ago—when I tried to be honest!"
Yes, this was true; the murderer of Henry Dunbar had once tried to be
honest, and had prayed God to prosper his honesty; but then he only
tried to do right in a spasmodic, fitful kind of way, and expected his
prayers to be granted as soon as they were asked, and was indignant
with a Providence that seemed to be deaf to his entreaties. He had
always lacked that sublime quality of patience, which endures the evil
day, and calmly breasts the storm.
"Let me go with you, father," Margaret said, in an entreating voice,
"let me go with you. There is nothing in all the world for me, except
the hope of God's forgiveness for you. I want to be with you. I don't
want you to be amongst bad men, who will harden your heart. I want to
be with you—far away—where——"
"_You_ with me?" said Joseph Wilmot, slowly; "you wish it?"
"With all my heart!"
"And you're true," he cried, bending down to grasp his daughter's
shoulder and look her in the face, "you're true, Margaret, eh?—true as
steel; ready for anything, no flinching, no quailing or trembling when
the danger comes. You've stood a good deal, and stood it nobly. Can you
stand still more, eh?"
"For your sake, father, for your sake! yes, yes, I will brave anything
in the world, do anything to save you from——"
She shuddered as she remembered what the danger was that assailed him,
the horror from which flight alone could save him. No, no, no! _that_
could never be endured at any cost; at any sacrifice he must be saved
from _that_. No strength of womanly fortitude, no trust in the mercy of
God, could even make her resigned as to _that_.
"I'll trust you, Margaret," said Joseph Wilmot, loosening his grasp
upon the girl's shoulder; "I'll trust you. Haven't I reason to trust
you? Didn't I see your mother, on the day when she found out what my
history was; didn't I see the colour fade out of her face till she was
whiter than the linen collar round her neck, and in the next moment her
arms were about me, and her honest eyes looking up in my face, as she
cried, 'I shall never love you less, dear; there's nothing in this
world can make me love you less!'"
He paused for a moment. His voice had grown thick and husky; but he
broke out violently in the next instant.
"Great Heaven! why do I stop talking like this? Listen to me, Margaret;
if you want to see the last of me, you must find your way, somehow or
other, to Woodbine Cottage, near Lisford—on the Lisford Road, I think.
Find your way there—I'm going there now, and shall be there long before
you—you understand?"
"Yes; Woodbine Cottage, Lisford—I shan't forget! God speed you,
father!—God help you!"
"He is the God of sinners," thought the wretched girl. "He gave Cain a
long lifetime in which to repent of his sins."
Margaret thought this as she stood at the gate, listening to the
horse's hoofs upon the gravel road that wound through the grounds away
into the park.
She was very, very tired, but had little sense of her fatigue, and her
journey was by no means finished yet. She did not once look back at
Maudesley Abbey—that stately and splendid mansion, in which a miserable
wretch had acted his part, and endured the penalty of his guilt, for
many wearisome months She went away—hurrying along the lonely pathways,
with the night breezes blowing her loose hair across her eyes, and
half-blinding her as she went—to find the gate by which she had entered
the park.
She went out at this gateway because it was the only point of egress by
which she could leave the park without being seen by the keeper of a
lodge. The dim morning light was grey in the sky before she met any one
whom she could ask to direct her to Woodbine Cottage; but at last a man
came out of a farmyard with a couple of milk-pails, and directed her to
the Lisford Road.
It was broad daylight when she reached the little garden-gate before
Major Vernon's abode. It was broad daylight, and the door leading into
the prim little hall was ajar. The girl pushed it open, and fell into
the arms of a man, who caught her as she fainted.
"Poor girl, poor child!" said Joseph Wilmot; "to think what she has
suffered. And I thought that she would profit by that crime; I thought
that she would take the money, and be content to leave the mystery
unravelled. My poor child! my poor, unhappy child!"
The man who had murdered Henry Dunbar wept aloud over the white face of
his unconscious daughter.
"Don't let's have any of that fooling," cried a harsh voice from the
little parlour; "we've no time to waste on snivelling!"