TALBOT BULSTRODE MAKES ATONEMENT FOR THE PAST.
John Mellish and Talbot Bulstrode walked to and fro upon the lawn
before the drawing-room windows on that afternoon on which the
detective and his underling lost sight of Stephen Hargraves. It was a
dreary time, this period of watching and waiting, of uncertainty and
apprehension; and poor John Mellish chafed bitterly under the burden
which he had to bear.
Now that his friend's common sense had come to his relief, and that
a few plain out-spoken sentences had dispersed the terrible cloud of
mystery; now that he himself was fully assured of his wife's innocence,
he had no patience with the stupid country people who held themselves
aloof from the woman he loved. He wanted to go out and do battle for
his slandered wife; to hurl back every base suspicion into the faces
that had scowled upon his idolized Aurora. How could they dare, these
foul-minded slanderers, to harbour one base thought against the purest,
the most perfect of women? Mr. Mellish of course quite forgot that he,
the rightful defender of all this perfection, had suffered his mind to
be for a time obscured beneath the black shadow of that vile suspicion.
He hated the old friends of his youth for their base avoidance of
him; the servants of his household for a half-doubtful, half-solemn
expression of face, which he knew had relation to that growing
suspicion, that horrible suspicion, which seemed to grow stronger with
every hour. He broke out into a storm of rage with the gray-haired
butler, who had carried him pick-a-back in his infancy, because the
faithful retainer tried to hold back certain newspapers which contained
dark allusions to the Mellish mystery.
"Who told you I didn't want the 'Manchester Guardian,' Jarvis?" he
cried fiercely; "who gave you the right to dictate what I'm to read or
what I'm to leave unread? I do want to-day's 'Guardian;' to-day's, and
yesterday's, and to-morrow's, and every other newspaper that comes
into this house. I won't have them overhauled by you, or anyone, to
see whether they're pleasant reading or not, before they're brought to
me. Do you think _I'm_ afraid of anything these penny-a-liner fellows
can write?" roared the young squire, striking his open hand upon the
table at which he sat. "Let them write their best or their worst of me.
But let them write one word that can be twisted into an insinuation
upon the purest and truest woman in all Christendom, and, by the Lord
above me, I'll give them such a thrashing--penny-a-liners, printers,
publishers, and every man-Jack of them--as shall make them remember the
business to the last hour of their lives!"
Mr. Mellish said all this in despite of the restraining presence of
Talbot Bulstrode. Indeed, the young member for Penruthy had by no means
a pleasant time of it during those few days of anxiety and suspense.
A keeper set to watch over a hearty young jungle-tiger, and bidden
to prevent the noble animal from committing any imprudence, might
have found his work little harder than that which Mr. Bulstrode did,
patiently and uncomplainingly, for pure friendship's sake.
John Mellish roamed about in the custody of this friendly keeper,
with his short auburn hair tumbled into a feverish-looking mass, like
a field of ripening corn that had been beaten by a summer hurricane,
his cheeks sunken and haggard, and a bristling yellow stubble upon his
chin. I dare say he had made a vow neither to shave nor be shaven until
the murderer of James Conyers should be found. He clung desperately
to Talbot Bulstrode, but he clung with still wilder desperation to
the detective, the professional criminal hunter, who had in a manner
tacitly pledged himself to the discovery of the real homicide.
All through the fitful August day, now hot and still, now overclouded
and showery, the master of Mellish Park went hither and thither,--now
sitting in his study; now roaming out on the lawn; now pacing up and
down the drawing-room, displacing, disarranging, and overturning the
pretty furniture; now wandering up and down the staircase, lolling
on the landing-places, and patrolling the corridor outside the rooms
in which Lucy and Aurora sat together making a show of employing
themselves, but only waiting, waiting, waiting, for the hoped-for end.
Poor John scarcely cared to meet that dearly-loved wife; for the great
earnest eyes that looked in his face always asked the same question so
plainly,--always appealed so piteously for the answer that could not be
given.
It was a weary and a bitter time. I wonder, as I write of it, when
I think of a quiet Somersetshire household in which a dreadful deed
was done, the secret of which has never yet been brought to light,
and perhaps never will be revealed until the Day of Judgment, what
must have been suffered by each member of _that_ family? What slow
agonies, what ever-increasing tortures, while that cruel mystery
was the "sensation" topic of conversation in a thousand happy
home-circles, in a thousand tavern-parlours and pleasant club-rooms!--a
common and ever-interesting topic, by means of which travellers in
first-class railway carriages might break down the ceremonial icebergs
which surround each travelling Englishman, and grow friendly and
confidential; a safe topic upon which even tacit enemies might talk
pleasantly without fear of wrecking themselves upon hidden rocks of
personal insinuation. God help that household, or any such household,
through the weary time of waiting which it may please Him to appoint,
until that day in which it shall be His good pleasure to reveal the
truth! God help all patient creatures labouring under the burden of an
unjust suspicion, and support them unto the end!
John Mellish chafed and fretted himself ceaselessly all through that
August day at the non-appearance of the detective. Why didn't he come?
He had promised to bring or send them news of his proceedings. Talbot
in vain assured his friend that Mr. Grimstone was no doubt hard at
work; that such a discovery as he had to make was not to be made in
a day; and that Mr. Mellish had nothing to do but to make himself as
comfortable as he could, and wait quietly for the event he desired so
eagerly.
"I should not say this to you, John," Mr. Bulstrode said by-and-by,
"if I did not believe--as I know this man Grimstone believes--that we
are upon the right track, and are pretty sure to bring the crime home
to the wretch who committed it. You can do nothing but be patient, and
wait the result of Grimstone's labours."
"Yes," cried John Mellish; "and in the mean time all these people are
to say cruel things of my darling, and keep aloof from her, and--No,
I _can't_ bear it, Talbot; I can't bear it. I'll turn my back upon
this confounded place; I'll sell it; I'll burn it down; I'll--I'll do
anything to get away, and take my precious one from the wretches who
have slandered her!"
"That you shall _not_ do, John Mellish," exclaimed Talbot Bulstrode,
"until the murderer of James Conyers has been discovered. Go away,
then, as soon as you like; for the associations of this place cannot
be otherwise than disagreeable to you--for a time, at least. But until
the truth is out, you must remain here. If there is any foul suspicion
against Aurora, her presence here will best give the lie to that
suspicion. It was her hurried journey to London which first set people
talking of her, I dare say," added Mr. Bulstrode, who was of course
entirely ignorant of the fact that an anonymous letter from Mrs. Powell
had originally aroused the suspicions of the Doncaster constabulary.
So through the long summer's day Talbot reasoned with and comforted his
friend, never growing weary of his task, never for one moment losing
sight of the interests of Aurora Mellish and her husband.
Perhaps this was a self-imposed penalty for the wrong which he had done
the banker's daughter long ago in the dim star-lit chamber at Felden.
If it was so, he did penance very cheerfully.
"Heaven knows how gladly I would do her a service," he thought; "her
life has been a troubled one, in spite of her father's thousands. Thank
Heaven, my poor little Lucy has never been forced into playing the
heroine of a tragedy like this; thank Heaven, my poor little darling's
life flows evenly and placidly in a smooth channel!"
He could not but reflect with something of a shudder that it might have
been his wife whose history was being canvassed throughout the West
Riding. He could not be otherwise than pleased to remember that the
name of the woman he had chosen had never gone beyond the holy circle
of her own home, to be the common talk among strangers.
There are things which are utterly unendurable to some people, but
which are not at all terrible in the eyes of others. John Mellish,
secure in his own belief in his wife's innocence, would have been
content to carry her away with him, after razing the home of his
forefathers to the ground, and defying all Yorkshire to find a flaw
or speck upon her fair fame. But Talbot Bulstrode would have gone mad
with the agony of the thought that common tongues had defiled the name
he loved, and would, in no after-triumph of his wife's innocence, been
able to forget or to recover from the torture of that unendurable
agony. There are people who cannot forget, and Talbot Bulstrode was one
of them. He had never forgotten his Christmas agony at Felden Woods,
and the after-struggle at Bulstrode Castle; nor did he ever hope to
forget it. The happiness of the present, pure and unalloyed though
it was, could not annihilate the anguish of the past. _That_ stood
alone,--so many months, weeks, days, and hours of unutterable misery,
riven away from the rest of his life, to remain for ever a stony
memorial upon the smooth plains of the past.
Archibald Martin Floyd sat with his daughter and Lucy, in Mrs.
Mellish's morning-room, the pleasantest chamber for many reasons, but
chiefly because it was removed from the bustle of the house, and from
the chance of unwelcome intrusion. All the troubles of that household
had been made light of in the presence of the old man, and no word
had been dropped before him, which could give him reason to guess that
his only child had been suspected of the most fearful crime that man
or woman can commit. But Archibald Floyd was not easily to be deceived
where his daughter's happiness was in question; he had watched that
beautiful face--whose ever-varying expression was its highest charm--so
long and earnestly, as to have grown familiar with its every look. No
shadow upon the brightness of his daughter's beauty could possibly
escape the old man's eyes, dim as they may have grown for the figures
in his banking-book. It was Aurora's business, therefore, to sit by
her father's side in the pleasant morning-room, to talk to him and
amuse him; while John rambled hither and thither, and made himself
otherwise tiresome to his patient companion, Talbot Bulstrode. Mrs.
Mellish repeated to her father again and again, that there was no cause
for uneasiness; they were merely anxious--naturally anxious--that the
guilty man should be found and brought to justice; nothing more.
The banker accepted this explanation of his daughter's pale face very
quietly; but he was not the less anxious,--anxious he scarcely knew
why, but with the shadow of a dark cloud hanging over him, that was not
to be driven away.
Thus the long August day wore itself out, and the low sun--blazing a
lurid red behind the trees in Mellish Wood, until it made that pool
beside which the murdered man had fallen, seem a pool of blood--gave
warning that one weary day of watching and suspense was nearly done.
John Mellish, far too restless to sit long at dessert, had roamed out
upon the lawn: still attended by his indefatigable keeper, Talbot
Bulstrode, and employed himself in pacing up and down the smooth grass
amid Mr. Dawson's flower-beds, looking always towards the pathway
that led to the house, and breathing suppressed anathemas against the
dilatory detective.
"One day nearly gone, thank Heaven, Talbot!" he said, with an impatient
sigh. "Will to-morrow bring us no nearer what we want, I wonder?
What if it should go on like this for long? what if it should go
on for ever, until Aurora and I go mad with this wretched anxiety
and suspense? Yes, I know you think me a fool and a coward, Talbot
Bulstrode; but I can't bear it quietly, I tell you I can't. I know
there are some people who can shut themselves up with their troubles,
and sit down quietly and suffer without a groan; but I can't. I must
cry out when I am tortured, or I should dash my brains out against the
first wall I came to, and make an end of it. To think that anybody
should suspect my darling! to think that they should believe her to
be----"
"To think that _you_ should have believed it, John!" said Mr.
Bulstrode, gravely.
"Ah, there's the cruelest stab of all," cried John; "if _I_,--I who
know her, and love her, and believe in her as man never yet believed in
woman,--if _I_ could have been bewildered and maddened by that horrible
chain of cruel circumstances, every one of which pointed--Heaven help
me!--at her!--if _I_ could be deluded by these things until my brain
reeled, and I went nearly mad with doubting my own dearest love, what
may strangers think--strangers who neither know nor love her, but who
are only too ready to believe anything unnaturally infamous? Talbot, I
_won't_ endure this any longer. I'll ride into Doncaster and see this
man Grimstone. He _must_ have done some good to-day. I'll go at once."
Mr. Mellish would have walked straight off to the stables; but Talbot
Bulstrode caught him by the arm.
"You may miss the man on the road, John," he said. "He came last night
after dark, and may come as late to-night. There's no knowing whether
he'll come by the road, or the short cut across the fields. You're as
likely to miss him as not."
Mr. Mellish hesitated.
"He mayn't come at all to-night," he said; "and I tell you I can't bear
this suspense."
"Let _me_ ride into Doncaster, then, John," urged Talbot; "and you stay
here to receive Grimstone if he should come."
Mr. Mellish was considerably mollified by this proposition.
"Will you ride into the town, Talbot?" he said. "Upon my word, it's
very kind of you to propose it. I shouldn't like to miss this man upon
any account; but at the same time I don't feel inclined to wait for the
chance of his coming or staying away. I'm afraid I'm a great nuisance
to you, Bulstrode."
"Not a bit of it," answered Talbot, with a smile.
Perhaps he smiled involuntarily at the notion of how little John
Mellish knew what a nuisance he had been through that weary day.
"I'll go with very great pleasure, John," he said, "if you'll tell them
to saddle a horse for me."
"To be sure; you shall have Red Rover, my covert hack. We'll go round
to the stables, and see about him at once."
The truth of the matter is, Talbot Bulstrode was very well pleased
himself to hunt up the detective, rather than that John Mellish should
execute that errand in person; for it would have been about as easy for
the young squire to have translated a number of the 'Sporting Magazine'
into Porsonian Greek, as to have kept a secret for half an hour,
however earnestly entreated, or however conscientiously determined to
do so.
Mr. Bulstrode had made it his particular business, therefore, during
the whole of that day, to keep his friend as much as possible out of
the way of every living creature, fully aware that Mr. Mellish's manner
would most certainly betray him to the least observant eyes that might
chance to fall upon him.
Red Rover was saddled, and, after twenty loudly whispered injunctions
from John, Talbot Bulstrode rode away in the evening sunlight. The
nearest way from the stables to the high road took him past the north
lodge. It had been shut up since the day of the trainer's funeral,
and such furniture as it contained left to become a prey to moths and
rats; for the Mellish servants were a great deal too superstitiously
impressed with the story of the murder to dream of readmitting
those goods and chattels which had been selected for Mr. Conyers's
accommodation to the garrets whence they had been taken. The door had
been locked, therefore, and the key given to Dawson the gardener, who
was to be once more free to use the place as a storehouse for roots and
matting, superannuated cucumber-frames, and crippled garden tools.
The place looked dreary enough, though the low sun made a gorgeous
illumination upon one of the latticed windows that faced the crimson
west, and though the last leaves of the roses were still lying upon the
long grass in the patch of garden before the door out of which Mr.
Conyers had gone to his last resting-place. One of the stable-boys had
accompanied Mr. Bulstrode to the lodge in order to open the rusty iron
gates, which hung loosely on their hinges, and were never locked.
Talbot rode at a brisk pace into Doncaster, never drawing rein until
he reached the little inn at which the detective had taken up his
quarters. Mr. Grimstone had been snatching a hasty refreshment, after a
weary and useless perambulation about the town, and came out with his
mouth full, to speak to Mr. Bulstrode. But he took very good care not
to confess that since three o'clock that day neither he nor his ally
had seen or heard of Mr. Stephen Hargraves, or that he was actually no
nearer the discovery of the murderer than he had been at eleven o'clock
upon the previous night, when he had discovered the original proprietor
of the fancy waistcoat, with buttons by Crosby, Birmingham, in the
person of Dawson the gardener.
"I'm not losing any time, sir," he said, in answer to Talbot's
inquiries; "my sort of work's quiet work, and don't make no show till
it's done. I've reason to think the man we want is in Doncaster; so I
stick in Doncaster, and mean to, till I lay my hand upon him, unless
I should get information as would point further off. Tell Mr. Mellish
I'm doing my duty, sir, and doing it conscientious; and that I shall
neither eat nor drink nor sleep more than just as much as'll keep human
nature together, until I've done what I've set my mind on doing."
"But you've discovered nothing fresh, then?" said Talbot; "you've
nothing new to tell me?"
"Whatever I've discovered is neither here nor there yet awhile, sir,"
answered the detective vaguely. "You keep your heart up, and tell Mr.
Mellish to keep his heart up, and trust in me."
Talbot Bulstrode was obliged to be content with this rather doubtful
comfort. It was not much, certainly; but he determined to make the best
of it to John Mellish.
He rode out of Doncaster, past the Reindeer and the white-fronted
houses of the wealthier citizens of that prosperous borough, and
away upon the smooth high road. The faint shimmer of the pale pearly
moonlight lit up the tree-tops right and left of him, as he left the
suburb behind, and made the road ghostly beneath his horse's feet. He
was in no very hopeful humour, after his interview with Mr. Grimstone,
and he knew that hungry-eyed members of the Doncaster constabulary were
keeping stealthy watch upon every creature in the Mellish household,
and that the slanderous tongues of a greedy public were swelling into a
loud and ominous murmur against the wife John loved. Every hour, every
moment, was of vital importance. A hundred perils menaced them on every
side. What might they not have to dread from eager busy-bodies anxious
to distinguish themselves, and proud of being the first to circulate
a foul scandal against the lovely daughter of one of the richest men
upon the Stock Exchange? Hayward the coroner, and Lofthouse the rector,
both knew the secret of Aurora's life; and it would be little wonder
if, looking at the trainer's death by the light of that knowledge, they
believed her guilty of some share in the ghastly business which had
terminated the trainer's service at Mellish Park.
What if, by some horrible fatality, the guilty man should escape,
and the truth never be revealed! For ever and for ever, until her
blighted name should be written upon a tombstone, Aurora Mellish must
rest under the shadow of this suspicion. Could there be any doubt
that the sensitive and highly-strung nature would give way under the
unendurable burden; that the proud heart would break beneath the
undeserved disgrace? What misery for her! and not for her alone, but
for every one who loved her, or had any share in her history! Heaven
pardon the selfishness that prompted the thought, if Talbot Bulstrode
remembered that he would have some part in that bitter disgrace; that
his name was allied, if only remotely, with that of his wife's cousin;
and that the shame which would make the name of Mellish a byword, must
also cast some slur upon the escutcheon of the Bulstrodes. Sir Bernard
Burke, compiling the romance of the county families, would tell that
cruel story, and hinting cautiously at Aurora's guilt, would scarcely
fail to add, that the suspected lady's cousin had married Talbot
Raleigh Bulstrode, Esq., eldest son and heir of Sir John Walter Raleigh
Bulstrode, Baronet, of Bulstrode Castle, Cornwall.
Now, although the detective had affected a hopeful and even mysterious
manner in his brief interview with Talbot, he had not succeeded in
hoodwinking that gentleman, who had a vague suspicion that all was not
quite right, and that Mr. Joseph Grimstone was by no means so certain
of success as he pretended to be.
"It's my firm belief that this man Hargraves has given him the slip,"
Talbot thought. "He said something about believing him to be in
Doncaster, and then the next moment added that he might be further off.
It's clear, therefore, that Grimstone doesn't know where he is; and in
that case it's as likely as not that the man's made off with his money,
and will get away from England, in spite of us. If he does this----"
Mr. Bulstrode did not finish the sentence. He had reached the north
lodge, and dismounted to open the iron gate. The lights of the house
shone hospitably far away beyond the wood, and the voices of some men
about the stable-gates sounded faintly in the distance; but the north
lodge and the neglected shrubbery around it were as silent as the
grave, and had a certain phantom-like air in the dim moonlight.
Talbot led his horse through the gates. He looked up at the windows
of the lodge, as he passed, half involuntarily; but he stopped with a
suppressed exclamation of surprise, at the sight of a feeble glimmer,
which was not the moonlight, in the window of that upper chamber in
which the murdered man had slept. Before that exclamation had well-nigh
crossed his lips, the light had disappeared.
If any one of the Mellish grooms or stable-boys had beheld that brief
apparition, he would have incontinently taken to his heels, and rushed
breathless to the stables, with a wild story of some supernatural
horror in the north lodge; but Mr. Bulstrode being altogether of
another mettle, walked softly on, still leading his horse, until he
was well out of ear-shot of any one within the lodge, when he stopped
and tied the Red Rover's bridle to a tree, and turned back towards the
north gates, leaving the corn-fed covert hack cropping greedily at dewy
hazel twigs, and any greenmeat within his reach.
The heir of Sir John Walter Raleigh Bulstrode crept back to the lodge,
almost as noiselessly as if he had been educated for Mr. Grimstone's
profession, choosing the grassy pathway beneath the trees for his
cautious footsteps. As he approached the wooden paling that shut in
the little garden of the lodge, the light which had been so suddenly
extinguished, reappeared behind the white curtain of the upper window.
"It's queer!" mused Mr. Bulstrode, as he watched the feeble glimmer;
"but I dare say there's nothing in it. The associations of this place
are strong enough to make one attach a foolish importance to anything
connected with it. I think I heard John say the gardeners keep their
tools there, and I suppose it's one of them. But it's late, too, for
any of them to be at work."
It had struck ten while Mr. Bulstrode rode homeward; and it was more
than unlikely that any of the Mellish servants would be out at such a
time.
Talbot lingered by the wicket-gate, irresolute as to what he should do
next, but thoroughly determined to see the last of this late visitor
at the north lodge, when the shadow of a man flitted across the white
curtain,--a shadow even more weird and ungainly than such things
are;--the shadow of a man with a hump-back!
Talbot Bulstrode uttered no cry of surprise; but his heart knocked
furiously against his ribs, and the blood rushed hotly to his face. He
never remembered having seen the "Softy;" but he had always heard him
described as a hump-backed man. There could be no doubt of the shadow's
identity; there could be still less doubt that Stephen Hargraves had
visited that place for no good purpose. What could bring him there--to
that place above all other places, which, if he were indeed guilty,
he would surely most desire to avoid? Stolid, semi-idiotic, as he was
supposed to be, surely the common terrors of the lowest assassin, half
brute, half Caliban, would keep him away from that spot. These thoughts
did not occupy more than those few moments in which the violent beating
of Talbot Bulstrode's heart held him powerless to move or act; then,
pushing open the gate, he rushed across the tiny garden, trampling
recklessly upon the neglected flower-beds, and softly tried the door.
It was firmly secured with a heavy chain and padlock.
"He has got in at the window, then," thought Mr. Bulstrode. "What, in
Heaven's name, could be his motive in coming here?"
Talbot was right. The little lattice-window had been wrenched nearly
off its hinges, and hung loosely among the tangled foliage that
surrounded it. Mr. Bulstrode did not hesitate a moment before he
plunged head foremost into the narrow aperture through which the
"Softy" must have found his way, and scrambled as he could into the
little room. The lattice, strained still further, dropped, with a
crashing noise, behind him; but not soon enough to serve as a warning
for Stephen Hargraves, who appeared upon the lowest step of the tiny
corkscrew staircase at the same moment. He was carrying a tallow candle
in a battered tin candlestick in his right hand, and he had a small
bundle under his left arm. His white face was no whiter than usual,
but he presented an awfully corpse-like appearance to Mr. Bulstrode,
who had never seen him, or noticed him, before. The "Softy" recoiled,
with a gesture of intense terror, as he saw Talbot; and a box of
lucifer-matches, which he had been carrying in the candlestick, rolled
to the ground.
"What are you doing here?" asked Mr. Bulstrode, sternly; "and why did
you come in at the window?"
"I warn't doin' no wrong;" the "Softy" whined piteously; "and it aint
your business neither," he added, with a feeble attempt at insolence.
"It is my business. I am Mr. Mellish's friend and relation; and I have
reason to suspect that you are here for no good purpose," answered
Talbot. "I insist upon knowing what you came for."
"I haven't come to steal owght, anyhow," said Mr. Hargraves; "there's
nothing here but chairs and tables, and 'taint loikely I've come arter
them."
"Perhaps not; but you have come after something, and I insist upon
knowing what it is. You wouldn't come to this place unless you'd a very
strong reason for coming. What have you got there?"
Mr. Bulstrode pointed to the bundle carried by the "Softy." Stephen
Hargraves' small red-brown eyes evaded those of his questioner, and
made believe to mistake the direction in which Talbot looked.
"What have you got there?" repeated Mr. Bulstrode; "you know well
enough what I mean. What have you got there, in that bundle under your
arm?"
The "Softy" clutched convulsively at the dingy bundle, and glared at
his questioner with something of the savage terror of some ugly animal
at bay. Except that in his brutalized manhood, he was more awkward, and
perhaps more repulsive, than the ugliest of the lower animals.
"It's nowght to you, nor to anybody else," he muttered sulkily. "I
suppose a poor chap may fetch his few bits of clothes without being
_called_ like this?"
"What clothes? Let me see the clothes."
"No, I won't; they're nowght to you. They--it's only an old weskit as
was give me by one o' th' lads in th' steables."
"A waistcoat!" cried Mr. Bulstrode; "let me see it this instant. A
waistcoat of yours has been particularly inquired for, Mr. Hargraves.
It's a chocolate waistcoat, with yellow stripes and brass buttons,
unless I'm very much mistaken. Let me see it."
Talbot Bulstrode was almost breathless with excitement. The "Softy"
stared aghast at the description of his waistcoat, but he was too
stupid to comprehend instantaneously the reason for which this garment
was wanted. He recoiled for a few paces, and then made a rush towards
the window; but Talbot's hands closed upon his collar, and held him as
if in a vice.
"You'd better not trifle with me," cried Mr. Bulstrode; "I've been
accustomed to deal with refractory Sepoys in India, and I've had a
struggle with a tiger before now. Show me that waistcoat!"
"I won't!"
"By the Heaven above us, you shall!"
"I won't!"
The two men closed with each other in a hand-to-hand struggle. Powerful
as the soldier was, he found himself more than matched by Stephen
Hargraves, whose thick-set frame, broad shoulders, and sinewy arms
were almost Herculean in, their build. The struggle lasted for a
considerable time,--or for a time that seemed considerable to both of
the combatants; but at last it drew towards its termination, and the
heir of all the Bulstrodes, the commander of squadrons of horse, the
man who had done battle with bloodthirsty Sikhs, and ridden against
the black mouths of Russian cannon at Balaclava, felt that he could
scarcely hope to hold out much longer against the half-witted hanger-on
of the Mellish stables. The horny fingers of the "Softy" were upon his
throat, the long arms of the "Softy" were writhing round him, and in
another moment Talbot Bulstrode lay upon the floor of the north lodge,
with the "Softy's" knee planted upon his heaving chest.
Another moment, and in the dim moonlight,--the candle had been thrown
down and trampled upon in the beginning of the scuffle,--the heir of
Bulstrode Castle saw Stephen Hargraves fumbling with his disengaged
hand in his breast-pocket.
One moment more, and Mr. Bulstrode heard that sharp metallic noise only
associated with the opening of a clasp-knife.
"E'es," hissed the "Softy," with his hot breath close upon the fallen
man's cheek, "you wanted t' see th' weskit, did you; but you sha'n't,
for I'll serve you as I served him. 'Taint loikely I'll let you stand
between me and two thousand pound."
Talbot Raleigh Bulstrode had a faint notion that a broad Sheffield
blade flashed in the silvery moonlight; but at this moment his senses
grew confused under the iron grip of the "Softy's" hand, and he knew
little, except that there was a sudden crashing of glass behind him,
a quick trampling of feet, and a strange voice roaring some seafaring
oath above his head. The suffocating pressure was suddenly removed from
his throat; some one, or something, was hurled into a corner of the
little room; and Mr. Bulstrode sprang to his feet, a trifle dazed and
bewildered, but quite ready to do battle again.
"Who is it?' he cried.
"It's me, Samuel Prodder," answered the voice that had uttered that
dreadful seafaring oath. "You were pretty nigh done for, mate, when
I came aboard. It aint the first time I've been up here after dark,
takin' a quiet stroll and a pipe, before turning in over yonder." Mr.
Prodder indicated Doncaster by a backward jerk of his thumb. "I'd
been watchin' the light from a distance, till it went out suddenly
five minutes ago, and then I came up close to see what was the
matter. I don't know who you are, or what you are, or why you've been
quarrelling; but I know you've been pretty near as nigh your death
to-night as ever that chap was in the wood."
"The waistcoat!" gasped Mr. Bulstrode; "let me see the waistcoat!"
He sprang once more upon the "Softy," who had rushed towards the door,
and was trying to beat out the panel with his iron-bound clog; but this
time Mr. Bulstrode had a stalwart ally in the merchant-captain.
"A bit of rope comes uncommon handy in these cases," said Samuel
Prodder; "for which reason I always make a point of carrying it
somewhere about me."
He plunged up to his elbow in one of the capacious pockets of his
tourist peg-tops, and produced a short coil of tarry rope. As he might
have lashed a seaman to a mast in the last crisis of a wreck, so he
lashed Mr. Stephen Hargraves now, binding him right and left, until the
struggling arms and legs, and writhing trunk, were fain to be still.
"_Now_, if you want to ask him any questions, I make no doubt he'll
answer 'em," said Mr. Prodder, politely. "You'll find him a deal
quieter after that."
"I can't thank you now," Talbot answered hurriedly; "there'll be time
enough for that by-and-by."
"Ay, ay, to be sure, mate," growled the captain; "no thanks is needed
where no thanks is due. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"Yes, a good deal presently; but I must find this waistcoat first.
Where did he put it, I wonder? Stay, I'd better try and get a light.
Keep your eye upon that man while I look for it."
Captain Prodder only nodded. He looked upon his scientific lashing of
the "Softy" as the triumph of art; but he hovered near his prisoner in
compliance with Talbot's request, ready to fall upon him if he should
make any attempt to stir.
There was enough moonlight to enable Mr. Bulstrode to find the lucifers
and candlestick after a few minutes' search. The candle was not
improved by having been trodden upon; but Talbot contrived to light it,
and then set to work to look for the waistcoat.
The bundle had rolled into a corner. It was tightly bound with a
quantity of whip-cord, and was harder than it could have been had it
consisted solely of the waistcoat.
"Hold the light for me while I undo this," Talbot cried, thrusting the
candlestick into Mr. Prodder's hand. He was so impatient that he could
scarcely wait while he cut the whip-cord about the bundle with the
"Softy's" huge clasp-knife, which he had picked up while searching for
the candle.
"I thought so," he said, as he unrolled the waistcoat; "the money's
here."
The money was there, in a small Russia-leather pocket-book, in which
Aurora had given it to the murdered man. If there had been any
confirmation needed for this fact, the savage yell of rage which broke
from Stephen's lips would have afforded that confirmation.
"It's the money," cried Talbot Bulstrode. "I call upon you, sir, to
bear witness, whoever you may be, that I find this waistcoat and this
pocket-book in the possession of this man, and that I take them from
him after a struggle, in which he attempts my life."
"Ay, ay! I know him well enough," muttered the sailor; "he's a bad 'un;
and him and me have had a stand further, before this."
"And I call upon you to bear witness that this man is the murderer of
James Conyers."
"WHAT?" roared Samuel Prodder; "him! Why, the double-dyed villain:
it was him that put it into my head that it was my sister Eliza's
chi--that it was Mrs. Mellish----"
"Yes, yes, I know. But we've got him now. Will you run to the house,
and send some of the men to fetch a constable, while I stop here?"
Mr. Prodder assented willingly. He had assisted Talbot in the first
instance without any idea of what the business was to lead to. Now he
was quite as much excited as Mr. Bulstrode. He scrambled through the
lattice, and ran off to the stables, guided by the lighted windows of
the groom's dormitories.
Talbot waited very quietly while he was gone. He stood at a few paces
from the "Softy," watching Mr. Hargraves as he gnawed savagely at his
bonds, in the hope perhaps of setting himself free.
"I shall be ready for you," the young Cornishman said quietly,
"whenever you're ready for me."
A crowd of grooms and hangers-on came with lanterns before the
constables could arrive; and foremost amongst them came Mr. John
Mellish, very noisy and very unintelligible. The door of the lodge was
opened, and they all burst into the little chamber, where, heedless of
grooms, gardeners, stable-boys, hangers-on, and rabble, John Mellish
fell on his friend's breast and wept aloud.
* * * * *
L'ENVOI.
What more have I to tell of this simple drama of domestic life? The end
has come. The element of tragedy which has been so intermingled in the
history of a homely Yorkshire squire and his wife, is henceforth to be
banished from the record of their lives. The dark story which began
in Aurora Floyd's folly, and culminated in the crime of a half-witted
serving-man, has been told from the beginning to the end. It would be
worse than useless to linger upon the description of a trial which took
place at York at the Michaelmas Assizes. The evidence against Stephen
Hargraves was conclusive; and the gallows outside York Castle ended
the life of a man who had never been either help or comfort to any one
of his fellow-creatures. There was an attempt made to set up a plea
of irresponsibility upon the part of the "Softy," and the _sobriquet_
which had been given him was urged in his defence; but a set of
matter-of-fact jurymen looking at the circumstances of the murder,
saw nothing in it but a most cold-blooded assassination, perpetrated
by a wretch whose sole motive was gain; and the verdict which found
Stephen Hargraves guilty, was tempered by no recommendation to mercy.
The condemned murderer protested his innocence up to the night before
his execution, and upon that night made a full confession of his crime,
as is generally the custom of his kind. He related how he had followed
James Conyers into the wood upon the night of his assignation with
Aurora, and how he had watched and listened during the interview. He
had shot the trainer in the back while Mr. Conyers sat by the water's
edge looking over the notes in the pocket-book, and he had used a
button off his waistcoat instead of wadding, not finding anything else
suitable for the purpose. He had hidden the waistcoat and pocket-book
in a rat-hole in the wainscot of the murdered man's chamber, and, being
dismissed from the lodge suddenly, had been compelled to leave his
booty behind him, rather than excite suspicion. It was thus that he had
returned upon the night on which Talbot found him, meaning to secure
his prize and start for Liverpool at six o'clock the following morning.
Aurora and her husband left Mellish Park immediately after the
committal of the "Softy" to York prison. They went to the south of
France, accompanied by Archibald Floyd, and once more travelled
together through scenes which were over-shadowed by no sorrowful
association. They lingered long at Nice, and here Talbot and Lucy
joined them, with an impedimental train of luggage and servants, and a
Normandy nurse with a blue-eyed girl-baby. It was at Nice that another
baby was born, a black-eyed child--a boy, I believe--but wonderfully
like that solemn-faced infant which Mrs. Alexander Floyd carried to the
widowed banker two-and-twenty years before at Felden Woods.
It is almost supererogatory to say that Samuel Prodder, the
sea-captain, was cordially received by hearty John Mellish and his
wife. He is to be a welcome visitor at the Park whenever he pleases
to come; indeed, he is homeward bound from Barbadoes at this very
time, his cabin-presses filled to overflowing with presents which he
is carrying to Aurora, in the way of chillis preserved in vinegar,
guava-jelly, the strongest Jamaica rum, and other trifles suitable
for a lady's acceptance. It may be some comfort to the gentlemen
in Scotland Yard to know that John Mellish acted liberally to the
detective, and gave him the full reward, although Talbot Bulstrode had
been the captor of the "Softy."
So we leave Aurora, a little changed, a shade less defiantly bright,
perhaps, but unspeakably beautiful and tender, bending over the cradle
of her first-born; and though there are alterations being made at
Mellish, and loose-boxes for brood mares building upon the site of the
north lodge, and a subscription tan-gallop being laid across Harper's
Common, I doubt if my heroine will care so much for horseflesh, or
take quite so keen an interest in weight-for-age races as compared to
handicaps, as she has done in the days that are gone.
THE END.