“I saw a Fury whetting a death-dart.”
Lord Cheriton liked to take his summer holiday on a sunny sea-shore
where there were not many English visitors. Paramé St. Malo fulfilled
both these conditions. It afforded him a vast expanse of golden
sands, firm beneath his foot, steeped in sunshine for the most part,
on which to pace to and fro, lifting his eyes dreamily now and then
to the sea-girt city, with its stony rampart, and its quaint Louis
Quatorze mansions, facing the sea in the sober dignity of massive
stone façade and tall windows; grey old houses, which seem too good
for the age in which they find themselves, solid enough to last
through long centuries, and to outlive all that yet lingers of that
grandiose France in which they were built. Roof above roof rises the
Breton city, steep old streets leading up to Cathedral and Municipal
Palace, with the crocketed steeple for its pinnacle, shining with a
pale brilliance in the summer sunlight, verdureless, and with but
little colour save the reflected glory of the skies, and the jasper
green of the sea in its ring of golden sand.
Lord Cheriton affected Paramé because, though it was within a summer
night’s journey from his own Isle of Purbeck, it was thoroughly
out of the beaten track, and he was tolerably secure from those
hourly encounters with his most particular friends, to which he must
have submitted at Baden or Spa, at Trouville or Dieppe. Paramé was
Parisian or nothing. The smart people all came from Paris. English
smartness had its centre at Dinard, and the English who patronize
Dinard will tell you there is no other paradise on earth, and that
its winter climate is better than that of the Riviera, if people
would only have faith. So long as the Cheritons could keep out of the
way of exploring friends from Dinard, his Lordship was exempt from
the amusements which to some minds make life intolerable.
Lady Cheriton was distinctly social in her instincts, and looked
Dinard-wards sometimes from her lotus-land with a longing eye. She
would have liked to ask some nice people to luncheon; and she knew
so many nice people at Dinard. She would have liked to organize
excursions to Mont St. Michel, or up the Rance to Dinan. She would
have liked to plunge into all manner of innocent gaieties; but her
husband stamped out these genial yearnings.
“It seems such a pity not to have people over to dinner when there
are such nice operettas and vaudevilles every night at the Casino,”
she sighed.
“And if you had them over to dinner, how do you suppose they would
get back?” asked her husband, sternly. “Would you wish to keep them
all till next morning, and be bored with them at breakfast?”
That intervening strip of sea, narrow as it was, afforded unspeakable
comfort to Lord Cheriton. It was an excuse for refusing to go over
and take afternoon tea with people he was supposed to hold in his
heart of hearts in the way of friendship.
“You can go, Maria, if you like,” he told his wife; “but I am not a
good sailor, and I came here on purpose to be quiet.”
This was his Lordship’s answer to every hospitable suggestion. He had
come to Paramé for rest; and not for gadding about, or entertainments
of any kind.
So the long summer days succeeded each other in a lazy monotony, and
whatever gaiety there might be in the great white hotel, the English
law-lord and his wife had no share in it. They occupied a suite of
light, airy rooms in the west pavilion, and were served apart from
the vulgar herd, after the fashion which befitted a person of Lord
Cheriton’s distinction. They had only their body servants, man and
maid, so they were waited upon by the servants of the hotel, and they
drove about the dusty, level roads between St. Servans and Dol in a
hired landau, driven by a Breton coachman. Lady Cheriton was dull,
but contented. She had always submitted to her husband’s pleasure. He
had been a very indulgent husband in essentials, and he had made her
a peeress. Her married life had been eminently satisfactory; and she
could afford to endure one summer month of monotony amidst pleasant
surroundings. She dropped in at the Casino every evening, while
Lord Cheriton read the papers in the seclusion of his salon—with
the large French window wide open to the blue sea, and the blue
moonlight—hearing the tramp of feet on the terrace, or the sea wall
beyond, or now and again strains of lively music from the theatre,
where the little opera company from Paris were singing Lecocq’s
joyous music.
People used to turn round to look at Lady Cheriton as she walked
gravely between the rows of seats to her place near the orchestra,
his Lordship’s valet following with an extra shawl, an opera-glass,
and a footstool. He established her in her chair, and then retired
discreetly to the back of the theatre to await her departure, and to
escort her safely back to the hotel. He was a large, serious-looking
man, a French Swiss, who had lived ten years in Italy, and over
fifteen years in Lord Cheriton’s service, and who spoke French,
Italian, German, and English indifferently.
Lady Cheriton was handsome still, with a grand Spanish beauty which
time had touched lightly. She was tall and dignified in carriage,
though a shade stouter than she could have wished, and she dressed to
perfection with sobriety of colouring and richness of material. Her
life had been full of pleasantness, her only sorrow being the loss
of her infant sons, which she had not taken to heart so deeply as
the proud father who had pined for an heir to his newly won honours.
She had her daughter, her first-born, the child for whom her heart
had first throbbed with the strange new love of maternity. She shed
some natural tears for the boy-babies, and then she let Juanita fill
their place in her heart, and her life again seemed complete in its
sum of happiness. And now in this sleepy summer holiday—cut off
from most things that she cared for—Juanita’s letters had been her
chief joy—those happy, innocent, girlish letters, overflowing with
fond, foolish praise of the husband she loved, letters made up of
nothings—of what he had said to her, and what she had said to him—and
where they had taken afternoon tea—and of their morning ride, or
their evening walk, and of those plans for the long future which they
were always making, projecting their thoughts into the time to come,
and laying out those after years as if they were a certainty.
There had been no fairer morning than that which followed the night
of the murder. Lord Cheriton was an early riser at all seasons,
most of all in the summer, when he was generally awake from five
o’clock, and had to beguile an hour or so with one of the books on
the table by his bed—a well-thumbed “Horace” or a duodecimo “Don
Quixote,” in ten volumes, which went everywhere with him. By seven
o’clock he was dressed, and ready to begin the day; and between that
hour and breakfast it was his habit to attend to the correspondence
which had accumulated during the previous day. This severe rule was
suspended, however, at Paramé, and he gave himself up to restful
vacuity, strolling up and down the sands, or walking round the walls
of St. Malo, or sauntering into the cathedral in a casual way for an
early mass, enjoying the atmosphere of the place, with its old-world
flavour.
On this particular morning he went no further than the sands, where
he paced slowly to and fro in front of the long white terrace, hotel,
and casino, heedless alike of Parisian idlesse coquetting with the
crisp wavelets on the edge of the sea, and of the mounted officer
yonder drilling his men upon the sandy flat towards St. Malo. He was
in a mood for idleness, but with him, idleness was only a synonym for
deep thought. He was meditating upon his only child’s future, and
telling himself that he had done well for her.
Sir Godfrey Carmichael would be made Baron Cheriton in the days to
come, when he, the first Baron, should be laid in the newly built
vault in the cemetery outside Dorchester. He was not going to sever
himself from his kindred in that last sleep, albeit they were
common folk. He would lie under the Egyptian sarcophagus which he
had set up in honour of his father, the crockery dealer, and his
mother, the busy, anxious house-wife. The sarcophagus was plain
and unpretentious, hardly too good for the shopkeeper; yet with a
certain solid dignity which was not unbefitting the law-lord, almost
as massive as that mammoth cross which marks the resting-place of
Henry Brougham in the fair southern land. He had chosen the monument
with uttermost care, so that it might serve the double purpose. He
had looked at the broad blank panel many a time, wondering how his
own name would look upon it, and whether his daughter would have a
laurel wreath sculptured above it. It might be that admiring friends
would suggest his being laid in the Abbey, hard by those shabby
disused courts where he had pleaded and sat in judgment through so
many laborious years; and it might be that the suggestion would be
accepted by Dean and Chapter, and that the panel on the Dorchester
sarcophagus would remain blank. James Dalbrook knew that he had
deserved well of posterity, and, above all, of the ruling powers.
He had been staunch and unwavering in his adherence to his own
party, and he knew that he had a strong claim upon any Conservative
Ministry. He had sounded those in authority, and he had been assured
that there would be very little difficulty in getting Sir Godfrey
Carmichael a peerage by-and-by, when he, Lord Cheriton, should be no
more. Sir Godfrey’s family was one of the oldest in the country, and
he had but to deserve well of his party, when he had got his seat,
to insure future favours. As the owner of the Cheriton and Milbrook
estates, he would be a worthy candidate for one of those coronets
which seem to be dealt round so freely by expiring Ministries, as
it were a dying father dividing his treasures among his weeping
children. So far as any man can think with satisfaction of the days
when he shall be no more—and when this world will go on, badly, of
course, but somehow, without him—Lord Cheriton thought of those
far-off years when Godfrey Carmichael should be owner of Cheriton
Chase. The young man had shown such fine qualities of heart and mind,
and, above all, had given such unobtrusive evidence of his affection
for Juanita’s father, that the elder man must needs give measure for
measure; therefore Godfrey had been to Lord Cheriton almost as a son.
The union of his humbly born daughter with one of the oldest families
in the south of England gratified the pride of the self-made man. His
own pedigree might be of the lowliest; but his grandson would be
able to look back upon a long line of ancestors, glorified by many
a patrician alliance. Strong and stern as was the fabric of James
Dalbrook’s mind, he was not superior to the Englishman’s foible, and
he loved rank and ancient lineage. He was a Tory to the core of his
heart; and it was the earnestness and thoroughness of his convictions
which had given him weight with his party. Wherever he spoke or
whatever he wrote—and he had written much upon current politics in
the _Saturday Review_, and the higher-class monthlies—bore the stamp
of a Cromwellian vigour and a Cromwellian sincerity.
He had never felt more at ease than upon that balmy summer morning,
pacing those golden sands in quiet meditation—brooding over Juanita’s
last letter received overnight—with its girlish raptures, its girlish
dreams; picturing her in the near future as happy a mother as she was
a bride, with his grandson, the third Baron Cheriton of the future,
in her lap. He smiled at his own foolishness in thinking of that
first boy-baby by the title which was but one of the possibilities of
a foreshadowed sequence of events; yet he found himself repeating the
words idly, to the rhythm of the wavelets that curled and sparkled
near his feet—third Baron Cheriton, Godfrey Dalbrook Carmichael,
third Baron Cheriton.
The cathedral clock was striking nine as he went into the hotel. The
light breakfast of coffee and rolls was laid on a small round table
near the window. Lady Cheriton was sitting in a recess between the
massive stone columns which supported the balcony above, reading
yesterday’s _Morning Post_ in her soft grey cashmere peignoir, whose
flowing lines gave dignity to her figure. Her dark hair, as yet
untouched by time, was arranged with an elegant simplicity. The fine
old lace about her throat harmonized admirably with the pale olive of
her complexion. She looked up at her husband with her placid smile,
and gave him her hand in affectionate greeting.
“What a morning, James! One feels it a privilege to live. What a
superb day it would be for Mont St. Michel!”
“A thirty-mile drive in the dust! Do you really think that it is the
best use to which to put a summer day? You may be sure there will be
plenty of worthy people of the same opinion, and that the rock will
swarm with cheap tourists, and pretty little Madame Poulard will be
put to the pin of her collar to feed them all.”
She had seated herself at the table by this time, and was pouring out
coffee with a leisurely air, smiling at her husband all the time,
thinking him the greatest and wisest of men, even when he restrained
her social instincts. She was never tired of looking at that massive
face, with its clearly defined features, sharply cut jaw, and large
grey eyes—dark and deep as the eyes of the earnest thinker rather
than the shrewd observer. The strong projection of the lower brow
indicated keen perceptions, and the power of rapid judgment; but
above the perceptive organs the upper brow towered majestically,
giving the promise of a mind predominant in the regions of thought
and imagination—such a brow as we look upon with reverence in the
portraits of Walter Scott.
Intellectually the brow was equal to Scott’s; morally there was
something wanting. Neither benevolence nor veneration was on a par
with the reasoning faculties. Tory principles with Lord Cheriton were
not so much the result of an upward-looking nature as they were with
Scott. This, at least, is the opinion at which a phrenologist might
have arrived after a careful contemplation of that powerful brow.
Lord Cheriton sipped his coffee, and leaned back in his arm-chair,
with his face to the morning sea. He sat in a lazy attitude, still
thoughtful, with those pleasant thoughts which are the repose of the
working man’s brain.
The tide was going out; the rocky islets stood high out of the water;
the sands were widening, till it seemed almost as if the sea were
vanishing altogether from this beautiful bay.
“I suppose they will finish their honeymoon in a week or two, and
move on to the Priory,” said Lord Cheriton, by-and-by, revealing the
subject of his reverie.
“Yes, Juanita says we may go home as early as the second week in
August if we like. She is to be at the Priory in time to settle down
before the shooting begins. They will have visitors in September—his
sisters, don’t you know—the Morningsides and the Grenvilles, and
children and nurses—a house full. Lady Jane ought to be there to help
her to entertain.”
“I don’t think Nita will want any help. She will be mistress of the
situation, depend upon it, and would be if there were forty married
sisters with their husbands and belongings. She seemed to be mistress
of us all at Cheriton?”
“She is so clever,” sighed the mother, remembering that Cheriton
House would no longer be under that girlish sovereignty.
The grave looking French-Swiss valet appeared with a telegram on a
salver.
“Who can have sent me a _petit bleu_?” exclaimed Lord Cheriton, who
was accustomed to receive a good many of those little blue envelopes
when he was in Paris, but expected no such communications at St Malo.
Before leaving for his holiday he had impressed upon land steward and
house steward that he was not to be bothered about anything.
“If there is anything wanted you will communicate with Messrs.
Dalbrook,” he said. “They have full powers.”
And yet here was some worrying message—some question about a lease
or an agreement, or somebody’s rick had been burnt, or somebody’s
chimney had fallen through the roof. He opened the little envelope
with a vexed air, resentful of an unexpected annoyance. He read the
message, and then sat blankly staring; read again, and rose from his
seat suddenly with a cry of horror.
Never in his life had he experienced such a shock; never had those
iron nerves, that heart, burned hard in the furnace of this world’s
strife, been so tried. He stood aghast, and could only give the
little paper—with its type-printed syllables—to his scared wife,
while he stood gazing at summer sky and summer sea in a blank
helplessness, realizing dimly that something had happened which must
change the whole course of the future, and overthrow every plan he
had ever made.
“The third Baron Cheriton.” Strange, but in that awful moment the
words he had repeated idly on the sands half an hour ago echoed again
in his ear.
Alas, he felt as if that title for which he had toiled was already
extinct. He saw, as in a vision, the velvet cap and golden coronet
upon the coffin lid, as the first and last Lord Cheriton was carried
to his grave. That prophetic vision must needs be realized within a
few years. There would be no one to succeed him.
Murdered! Why? By whom? What devil had been conjured out of hell to
cut short that honest, stainless life? What had Godfrey Carmichael
done that a murderer’s hand should be raised against him?
* * * * *
Lady Cheriton’s softer nature found relief in tears before the day
was done; tears and agonized pacings up and down those rooms where
life had been so placid in the sunlight—agonized supplications that
God would take pity upon her widowed girl.
“So young, and so happy, and a widow—a widow before her nineteenth
birthday,” wailed the mother.
Lord Cheriton’s grief was of a sterner kind, and found no outlet
in words. He held a brief consultation with his valet, a soldierly
looking man, who had fought under Garibaldi in Burgundy, when the
guerilla captain made his brilliant endeavour to save sinking France.
They looked at time-tables and calculated hours. The express to Paris
would not arrive in time for the evening mail _viâ_ Calais and Dover.
It was Saturday. The cargo boat would cross to Southampton that
night, and influence would obtain accommodation for his Lordship and
party on board her. The valet took a fly and drove off to the quay
to find the South-Western superintendent, and secure a private cabin
for his master and mistress. They would have the boat to themselves,
and would be at Southampton at seven o’clock next morning, and at
Cheriton before noon, even if it were necessary to engage a special
engine to take them there.
Lord Cheriton telegraphed to his daughter.
“Your mother and I will be with you to-morrow morning. Be brave for
our sakes. Remember that you are all we have to live for.”
Another telegram to the house-steward ordered a close carriage to be
in attendance at Wareham Station at ten o’clock on Sunday morning.
“How quietly you bear it, James,” his wife told Lord Cheriton,
wonderingly, when the mode of their return had been arranged, and her
maid was packing her trunks, with those soberly handsome gowns which
had been the wonder of many a butterfly Parisienne.
She called him by his Christian name now as in their earliest years
of wedded life. It was only on ceremonious occasions, and when the
eye of society was upon her, that she addressed him by his title.
That stern quietude of his, the fine features set and rigid,
frightened her more than a loquacious grief would have done. And yet
she hardly knew whether he felt the calamity too much for words; or
whether he did not feel it enough.
“Poor Godfrey,” she sighed, “he was so good to me—all that a son
could have been—murdered! My God! my God! how horrible. If it had
been any other kind of death one might bear it—and yet that _he_
should die at all would be too dreadful. So young, so handsome—cut
off in the flower of his days! And she loved him so. She has loved
him all her life. What will become of her without him?”
“What will become of her?” that was the mother’s moaning cry all
through that dreary day.
Lord Cheriton paced the sands as far as he could go from that giddy
multitude in front of the sea wall—beyond the little rocky ridge by
the pleasant Hôtel des Bains, where the young mothers, and nurses,
and children, and homely, easy-going visitors congregate—away towards
Cancale, where all was loneliness. He walked up and down, meditating
upon his blighted hopes. He knew now that he had loved this young man
almost as well as he loved his own daughter, and that his death had
shattered as fair a fabric as ever ambition built on the further side
of the grave.
“She will go in mourning for him all the days of my life, perhaps,”
he thought, “and then some day after I am in my grave she will fall
in love with an adventurer, and the estate I love and the fortune I
have saved will be squandered on the Turf or thrown away at Monte
Carlo.”
A grim smile curled his lip at a grim thought, as he paced that
lonely shore beyond the jutting cliff and the villa on the point.
“I am sorry I left the Bench when I did,” he thought; “it would have
been something to have put on the black cap and passed sentence upon
that poor lad’s murderer.”
Who was his murderer, and what the motive of the crime? Those were
questions which Lord Cheriton had been asking himself with maddening
iteration through that intolerable summer day. He welcomed the fading
sunlight of late afternoon. He could eat nothing; would not even sit
down to make a pretence of dining; but waited chafing in the great
stone hall of the hotel for the carriage that was to take him and his
wife to the steamer.