“A mind not to be changed by place or time.”
Christmas at Dorchester was not a period of festivity to which
Theodore Dalbrook had hitherto looked forward with ardent
expectations, but in this particular December he found himself
longing for that holiday season even as a schoolboy might long for
release from Latin Grammar and suet pudding, and for the plenteous
fare and idle days of home. He longed for the grave old town with its
Roman relics and leafless avenues; longed for it, alas! not so much
because his father, brother, and sisters dwelt there, as because it
was within a possible drive of Milbrook Priory, and once being at
Dorchester he had a fair excuse for going to see his cousin. Many and
many a time in his chambers at the Temple he had felt the fever-fit
so strongly upon him that he was tempted to put on his hat, rush out
of those quiet courts and stony quadrangles to the bustle of the
Embankment, spring into the first hansom that came within hail, and
so to Waterloo, and by any train that would carry him to Wareham
Station, and thence to the Priory, only to look upon Juanita’s face
for a little while, only to hold her hand in his, once at greeting
and once at parting, and then back into the night and the loneliness
of his life, and law books and precedents, and Justinian and Chitty,
and all that is commonplace and dry-as-dust in man’s existence.
He had refrained from such foolishness, and now Christmas was at
hand, his sisters were making the house odious with holly and laurel,
the old cook was chopping suet for the traditional pudding which
he had loathed for the last ten years, and he had a fair excuse for
driving along the frosty roads to visit his widowed cousin. He had a
pressing invitation from Lord Cheriton to spend two or three days of
his holiday time at the Chase, an invitation which he had promptly
accepted; but his first visit was to Lady Carmichael.
He found the house in all things unlike what it had been when last
he saw it. The dear Grenvilles had been persuaded to spend their
Christmas in Dorsetshire, and the Priory was full of children’s
voices, and the traces of children’s occupation. Theodore had known
Jessica Grenville before her marriage, yet it was not the less a
shock to find himself confronted by a portly matron and a brood of
children in that room where he had seen Juanita’s sad face bent
over her embroidery. There was no trace of Juanita in the spacious
drawing-room to-day, and the fact of her absence almost unhinged
him, and put him at a disadvantage in his conversation with Mrs.
Grenville, who received him with gracious loquacity, and insisted
upon his giving an immediate opinion upon the different degrees of
family likeness to be seen in her four children there present.
“Those two are decided Carmichaels,” she said, putting forward a
rather flabby boy and a pudding-faced girl, “and the other two are
thorough Grenvilles,” indicating the latter and younger pair, who
were seated on the floor building a Tower of Babel with a lately
received present of bricks, and carrying out the idea by their own
confusion of tongues.
Theodore felt glad he was not a Grenville if that was the type. He
murmured some vague civility about the children, while he shook hands
with Lady Jane, who had come forward shyly to welcome him, almost
obliterated by her more loquacious daughter.
“Don’t you think Johnnie the very image of his poor dear uncle?”
asked Mrs. Grenville urgently, a question which always agonized Lady
Jane, who could not see the faintest likeness between her snub-nosed
and bilious-looking grandchild and her handsome son.
Theodore was too nervous to be conscious of his own untruthfulness
in replying in the affirmative. He was anxious to have done with the
children, and to hear about his cousin.
“I hope Juanita is not ill?” he said.
“Oh, no, she is pretty well,” replied Lady Jane, “but we keep her as
quiet as we can, and of course the children are rather trying for
her——”
“Nobody can say that they are noisy children,” interjected the happy
mother.
“So she seldom leaves her own rooms till the evening,” continued Lady
Jane. “You would like to see her at once, I dare say, Mr. Dalbrook?
And I know she will be pleased to see you.”
She rang, and told the footman to inquire if Lady Carmichael was
ready to see Mr. Dalbrook, and Theodore had to occupy the interval
until the footman’s return with polite attentions to the four
children. He asked Lucy whence she had obtained those delightful
bricks, thereby eliciting the information that the bricks were not
Lucy’s, but Godolphin’s, only he “let her play with them,” as he
observed magnanimously. He was gratified with the further information
that the tower now in process of elevation was not a church, but
the Tower of Babel; and he was then treated to the history of that
remarkable building as related in Holy Writ.
“_You_ didn’t know that, did you?” remarked Godolphin, boastfully,
when he had finished his narration in a harsh bawl, being one of
those coarse brats whom their parents boast of as after the pattern
of the infant Hercules.
The footman returned before Godolphin had wrung a confession of
ignorance from the nervous visitor, and Theodore darted up to follow
him out of the room.
He found Juanita reclining on a low couch near the fire in a
dimly-lighted room, that room which he remembered having entered
only once before, on the occasion of an afternoon party at the
Priory, when Sir Godfrey had taken him to his den to show him a
newly acquired folio copy of Thomson’s “Seasons,” with the famous
Bartolozzi mezzotints. It was a good old room, especially at this
wintry season, when the dulness of the outlook was of little
consequence. The firelight gleamed cheerily on the rich bindings of
the books, and on the dark woodwork, and fondly touched Juanita’s
reclining figure and the rich folds of her dark plush tea-gown.
“How good of you to come to see me so soon, Theodore!” she said,
giving him her hand. “I know you only came to Dorchester yesterday.
The girls were here the day before, and told me they expected you.”
“You did not think I should be in the county very long without
finding my way here, did you, Juanita?”
“Well, no, perhaps not. I know what a true friend you are. And now
tell me, have you made any further discoveries?”
“One more discovery, Juanita, as I told you briefly in my last
letter. I have traced the Squire’s daughter to the sad close of a
most unhappy life—and so ends the Strangway family as you know of
their existence—that is to say, those three Strangways who had some
right to feel themselves aggrieved by the loss of the land upon which
they were born.”
“Tell me all you heard from Miss Newton. Your letter was brief and
vague, but as I knew I was to see you at Christmas I waited for
fuller details. Tell me everything, Theodore.”
He obeyed her, and related the bitter, commonplace story of Evelyn
Strangway’s life, as told him by her old governess. There were no
elements of romance in the story. It was as common as the Divorce
Court or the daily papers.
“Poor creature! Well, there ends my theory, at least about her,” said
Juanita, gloomily. “Her brothers were dead, and she was dead, long
before that fatal night. Did they bequeath their vengeance to any
one else, I wonder? Who else is there in this world who had reason
to hate my father or me? And I know that no creature upon this earth
could have cause to hate my husband.”
“In your father’s calling there is always a possibility of a deadly
hate, inexplicable, unknown to the subject. Remember the fate of Lord
Mayo. A judge who holds the keys of life and death must make many
enemies.”
“Yes,” she sighed, “there is that to be thought of. Oh, my dearest
and best, why did you ever link your life with that of a Judge’s
daughter? I feel as if I had lured him to his doom. I might have
foreseen the danger. I ought never to have married. What right
had I? Some discharged felon lay in wait for him—some relentless,
Godless, hopeless wretch—whom my father had condemned to long
imprisonment—whose angry heart my father had scorched with his
scathing speech. I have read some of his summings up, and they have
seemed cruel, cruel, cruel—so cold, so deliberate, so like a god
making light of the sins of men. Some wretch, coming maddened out of
his silent cell, and seeing my husband—that white, pure life, that
brave, strong youth—prosperous, honoured, happy—seeing what a good
man’s life can be—lay in wait like a tiger, to destroy that happy
life. If it was not one of the Strangways who killed him, it must
have been such a man.”
Her eyes shone, and her cheeks flushed with a feverish red. Theodore
took her hand, held it in both his own, and bent to kiss the cold
fingers—not with a lover’s ardour, fondly as he loved; but with a
calm and brotherly affection which soothed her agitated heart. He
loved her well enough to be able to subjugate himself for her sake.
“My dear Juanita, if you would only withdraw your thoughts from
this ghastly subject! I will not ask you to forget. That may
be impossible. I entreat you only to be patient, to leave the
chastisement of crime to Providence, which works in the dark, works
silently, inevitably, to the end for which we can only grope in a
lame and helpless fashion. Be sure the murderer will stand revealed
sooner or later. That cruel murder will not be his last crime, and in
his next act of violence he may be less fortunate in escaping every
human eye. Or if that act is to be the one solitary crime of his life
something will happen to betray him—some oversight of his own, or
some irrepressible movement of a guilty conscience will give his life
to the net, as a bird flies into a trap. I beseech you, dear, let
your thoughts dwell upon less painful subjects—for your own sake—for
the sake——”
He faltered, and left his sentence unfinished, and Juanita knew that
his sisters had told him something. She knew that the one hope of
her blighted life, hope which she had hardly recognized as hope yet
awhile, was known to him.
“I can never cease to think of that night, or to pray that God
will avenge that crime,” she said, firmly. “You think that is an
unchristian prayer perhaps, but what does the Scripture say? ‘Whoso
sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’ Christ came to
confirm that righteous law. Oh! it is well to be a humanitarian—to
sign petitions against capital punishment,—but let your nearest and
dearest be murdered, and you will be quick to recognize the justice
of that old inexorable law—a life for a life. That is what _I_ want,
Theodore—the life of the man who killed my husband.”
“If I can help to bring about that end, Juanita, believe me that I
will not shrink from the task; but at present I must own that I am
off the track, and see no likelihood of succeeding where a trained
detective has failed. Could I but find a shred of evidence to put me
on the trail, I would pursue that clue to the bitter end; but so far
all is dark.”
“Yes, all is dark!” she answered, dejectedly; and then, after a
pause, she said, “You are going to stay at Cheriton, I hear?”
“I am to spend three days there at the turn of the year, just before
I go back to London. I have chambers in Ferret-court, over the rooms
in which your father spent the golden years of his youth, the years
that made him a great man. It will be very interesting to me to hear
him talk over those years, if I can beguile him into talking of
himself, a subject which he so seldom dwells upon.”
“Ask him if he ever made a bitter enemy. Ask him for his experience
as a Judge at Assizes—find out, if you can, whether he ever provoked
the hatred of a bad vindictive man.”
“I will question your father, Juanita.”
“Do! He will not let me talk to him about the one subject that
occupies my mind. He always stops me on the threshold of any
inquiries. He might surely help me to find the murderer, with his
highly trained intellect, with his experience of the darkest side of
human nature. But he will not help me. He would talk more freely to
you, no doubt.”
“I will sound him,” answered Theodore, and then he tried to beguile
her into talking of other things—her home, her surroundings.
“It must be a comfort to you to have Lady Jane.”
“A comfort! She is all that I have of happiness—all that reminds
me of Godfrey. My mother and father are very dear to me—I hope you
believe that, Theodore?—but our lives are parted now. My mother is
wrapped up in her husband. Neither of them can sympathize with me as
_his_ mother can. Their loss is not the same as ours. We two are one
in our grief.”
“And she is a buffer between you and the outer world, I see. She
bears the burdens that would weigh you down. Those children, for
instance—no doubt they are charming, as children go; but I fancy they
would worry you if you had too much of them.”
“They would kill me,” said Juanita, smiling at him for the first
time in their interview. “I am not very fond of children. It sounds
unwomanly to say so, but I often find myself wishing they could be
born grown up. Fortunately, Lady Jane adores them. And I am glad to
have the Grenvilles at Christmas time. I want all things to be as
they would have been were my dearest here. I lie here and look round
this room, which was his, and think and think, and think of him till
I almost fancy he is here. Idle fancy! Mocking dream! Oh! if you knew
how often I dream that he is living still, and that I am still his
happy wife. I dream that he has been dead—or at least that we have
all believed that he was dead—but that it was a mistake. He is alive;
our own for long years to come. The wild rapture of that dream wakes
me, and I know that I am alone. God keep you, Theodore, from such a
loss as mine!”
“I must gain something before I can lose it,” he answered, with a
shade of bitterness. “I see myself, as the years go on, hardening
into a lonely old bachelor, outliving the capacity for human
affection.”
“That is nonsense-talk. You think so just now, perhaps. There is no
one beyond your own family you care for, and you fancy yourself shut
out from the romance of life—but your day will come, very suddenly,
perhaps. You will see some one whom you can care for. Love will
enter your life unawares, and will fill your heart and mind, and the
ambition that absorbs you now will seem a small thing.”
“Never, Juanita. I don’t mean to plague you with any trouble of mine.
You have given me your friendship, and I hope to be worthy of it;
but pray do not talk to me of the chances of the future. My future
is bounded by the hope of getting on at the Bar. If I fail in that I
fail in everything.”
“You will not fail. There is no reason you should not prosper in your
profession as my father prospered. I often think that you are like
him—more like him than you are like your own father.”
Their talk touched on various subjects after this—on the great events
of the world, the events that make history—on books and theatres, and
then upon Sarah Newton, whose plan of life interested Juanita.
He told her of the girl called Marian, and her inquiries about
Cheriton.
“I wonder if you ever knew her among your villagers,” he said. “I
should much like to know who she is. She interests me more than I
can say. There is a refinement in her manners and appearance that
convinces me she must have belonged to superior people. She was never
born in a labourer’s cottage, or amidst a small shopkeeper’s shabby
surroundings. She was never taught at a National School, or broken
into domestic service.”
“And she was once very handsome, you say?”
“Yes, she must have been beautiful, before illness and trouble set
their marks upon her face. She is only a wreck now, but there is
beauty in the wreck.”
“How old do you suppose her to be?”
“Eight or nine and twenty. It is difficult to guess a woman’s age
within two or three years, and this woman’s face is evidently aged by
trouble; but I don’t think she can be thirty.”
“There is only one person I can think of who would in any manner
answer your description,” said Juanita, thoughtfully.
“Who is that?”
“Mercy Porter. You must have heard about Mercy Porter, the daughter
of the woman at the West Lodge.”
“Yes, yes, I remember. She ran away with a middle-aged man—an army
man—one of your father’s visitors.”
“I was a child at the time, and of course I heard very little about
it. I only knew that Mercy Porter who used to come to tea with
mother, and who played the piano better than my governess, suddenly
vanished out of our lives, and that I never saw her again. My mother
was quite fond of her, and I remember hearing of her beauty, though
I was too young myself to know what beauty meant. I could not think
any one pretty who wore such plain frocks, and such stout useful
boots as Mercy wore. Her mother certainly did nothing to set off her
good looks, or to instil vanity. Years after, my mother told me how
the girl disappeared one summer evening, and how Mrs. Porter came
distracted to the house, and saw my father, and stormed and raved at
him in her agony, saying it was _his_ friend who had blighted her
daughter’s youth—_his_ work that she had gone to her ruin. He was
very patient and forbearing with her, my mother said, for he pitied
her despair, and he felt that he was in some wise to blame for having
brought such an unprincipled man as Colonel Tremaine to Cheriton,
a man who had carried ruin into many homes. Mercy had been seen to
leave Wareham Station with him by the night mail. He had a yacht at
Weymouth. She wrote to her mother from London a fortnight afterwards,
and Mrs. Porter brought the letter to my mother and father one
morning, as they sat at breakfast. It was a heart-broken letter—the
letter of a poor foolish girl who flings away her good name and
her hope of Heaven, with her eyes open, and knows the cost of her
sacrifice, and yet can’t help making it. I was engaged to Godfrey
when I first heard Mercy’s story, and I felt so sorry for her, so
sorry, in the midst of my happy love. What had I done to deserve
happiness more than she, that life should be so bright for me and so
dark for her. I did not know that my day of agony was to come.”
“Did you ever hear how Colonel Tremaine treated her?”
“No; I believe my father wrote him a very severe letter, and called
upon him to repair the wrong he had done; but I don’t think he even
took so much trouble as to answer that letter. His regiment was
ordered off to India two or three years afterwards, and he was killed
in Afghanistan about six years ago.”
“And has nothing been heard of Mercy since her flight?”
“Nothing.”
“I wonder her mother has sat at home quietly all these years instead
of making strenuous efforts to find her lost lamb,” said Theodore.
“Ah, that is almost exactly what Godfrey said of her. He seemed to
think her heartless for taking things so quietly. She is a curious
woman—self-contained, and silent. I sometimes fancy she was more
angry than grieved at Mercy’s fate. Mother says she turns to ice at
the slightest mention of the girl’s name. Don’t you think love would
show itself differently?”
“One can never be sure about other people’s sentiments. Love has many
languages.”
Their talk drifted to more commonplace subjects. And then Theodore
rose to take leave.
“You must dine at the Priory before your holiday is over, Theo,”
said his cousin, as they shook hands. “Let me see—to-morrow will be
Christmas Day—will you come the day after, and bring the sisters? It
is too long a drive for a winter night, so you must stay; there is
plenty of room.”
“Are you sure we shall not bore you?”
“I am sure you will cheer me. My sister-in-law is very good—but
Lady Jane is the only person in this house of whom I do not get
desperately tired, including myself,” she added, with a sigh. “Please
say you will come, and I will order your rooms.”
“We will come then. Good night, Juanita.”
The shadows were falling as he drove away, after refusing tea in the
drawing-room and a further acquaintance with the wonderful children.
He looked forward to that evening at the Priory with an eager
expectancy that he knew to be supreme foolishness, and when the
evening came, it brought some measure of disappointment with it.
Juanita was not so well as she had been upon Christmas Eve. She was
not able to dine downstairs, and the family dinner, at which the
Etonian Tom, Johnnie, and Lucy were allowed to take their places in
virtue of Christmas time, was a dull business for Theodore. His only
pleasure was in the fact that he sat on Lady Jane’s right hand, and
was able to talk with her of Juanita. Even that pleasure was alloyed
with keenest pain; for Lady Jane’s talk was of that dead love which
cast its shadow over Juanita’s youth, or of that dim and dawning hope
which might brighten the coming days—and neither in the love of the
past nor in the love of the future had Theodore any part. Juanita was
on her sofa by the drawing-room fire when he and Mr. Grenville left
the dining-room, after a single glass of claret, and a brief review
of the political situation. Theodore’s sisters were established
on each side of her. There was no chance for him while they were
absorbing her attention, and he retired disconsolately to the group
in the middle of the room, where Mrs. Grenville and Lady Jane were
seated on a capacious ottoman with the children about them.
Johnnie and Lucy, who had over-eaten themselves, were disposed to be
quiet, the little girl leaning her fair curls and fat shining cheek
against her grandmother’s shoulder with an air that looked touching,
but which really indicated repletion; Johnnie sprawling on the carpet
at his mother’s feet, and wishing he had not eaten _that_ mince-pie,
telling himself that, on the whole, he hated mince-pie, and envying
his brother Tom, who had stolen off to the saddle-room to talk to
the grooms. Godolphin and Mabel having dined early, were full of
exuberance, waiting to be “jumped,” which entertainment Theodore had
to provide without intermission for nearly half an hour, upheaving
first one and then another towards the ceiling, first a rosy bundle
in ruby velvet, and then a rosy bundle in white muslin, laughing,
screaming, enraptured, to be caught in his arms, and set carefully
on the ground, there to await the next turn. Theodore slaved at this
recreation until his arms ached, casting a furtive glance every
now and then at the corner by the fireplace where his sisters were
treating Juanita to the result of their latest heavy reading.
At last, to his delight, Lucy recovered from her comatose condition,
and began to thirst for amusement.
“Let’s have magic music,” she said; “we can all play at that, Granny
and all. You know you love magic music, Granny. Who’ll play the
piano? Not mother, she plays so badly,” added the darling, with
childlike candour.
“Sophy shall play for you,” cried Theodore; “she’s a capital hand at
it.”
He went over to his sister.
“Go and play for the children, Sophy,” he said. “I’ve been doing my
duty. Go and do yours.”
Sophy looked agonized, but complied; and he slipped into her vacant
seat.
He sat by his cousin’s side for nearly an hour, while the children,
mother, and grandmother played their nursery game to the sound of
dance-music, now low, now loud, neatly executed by Sophy’s accurate
fingers. Their talk was of indifferent subjects, and the lion’s
share of the conversation was enjoyed by Janet; but to Theodore it
was bliss to be there, by his cousin’s side, within sound of her
low melodious voice, within touch of her tapering hand. Just to sit
there, and watch her face, and drink in the tones of her voice, was
enough. He asked no more from Fate, yet awhile.
He had a long talk with her in her own room next morning, before he
went back to Dorchester, and the talk was of that old subject which
absorbed her thoughts.
“Be sure you find out all you can from my father,” she said at
parting.
* * * * *
Life at Cheriton Chase bore no impress of the tragedy that had
blighted Juanita’s honeymoon. There were no festivities this winter;
there was no large house-party. There had been a few quiet elderly or
middle-aged visitors during the shooting season, and there had been
some slaughter of those pheasants which were wont to sit, ponderous
and sleepy as barn-door fowls, upon the five-barred gates, and
post-and-rail fences of the Chase. But even those sober guests—old
friends of husband and wife—had all departed, and the house was empty
of strangers when Theodore arrived there, in time for dinner on New
Year’s Eve. Nothing could have suited him better than this. He wanted
to be _tête-à-tête_ with Lord Cheriton; to glean all in the way of
counsel or reminiscence that might fall from those wise lips.
“If there is a man living who can teach me how to get on in my
profession it is James Dalbrook,” he said to himself, thinking of his
cousin by that name which he had so often heard his father use when
talking of old days.
Lady Cheriton greeted him affectionately, made him sit by her in
the library, where a richly embroidered Japanese screen made a cosy
corner by the fireplace, during the twenty minutes before dinner. She
was a handsome woman still, with that grand-looking Spanish beauty
which does not fade with youth, and she was dressed to perfection in
lustreless black silk, relieved by the glitter of jet here and there,
and by the soft white crape kerchief, worn _à la_ Marie-Antoinette.
There was not one thread of grey in the rich black hair, piled in
massive plaits upon the prettily shaped head. Theodore contemplated
her with an almost worshipping admiration. It was Juanita’s face he
saw in those classic lines.
“I want to have a good talk with you, Theo,” she said; “there is no
one else to whom I can talk so freely now my poor Godfrey is gone. We
sit here of an evening, now, you see. The drawing-room is only used
when there are people in the house, and even then I feel miserable
there. I cannot get his image out of my mind. Cheriton insists that
the room shall be used, that it shall not be made a haunted room—and
no doubt it is best so,—but one cannot forget such a tragedy as that.”
“I hope Juanita will forget some day.”
“Ah, that is what I try to hope. She is so young, at the very
beginning of life, and it does seem hard that all those hopes for
which other women live should be over and done with for her. I wish
I could believe in the power of Time to cure her. I wish I could
believe that she will be able to love somebody else as she loved
Godfrey. If she does, I dare say it will be some new person who has
had nothing to do with her past life. I had been in and out of love
before I met James Dalbrook, but the sight of him seemed like the
beginning of a new life. I felt as if it had been preordained that I
was to love him, and only him—that nothing else had been real. Yes,
Theodore,”—with a sigh,—“you may depend, if ever she should care for
anybody, it will be a new person.”
“Very lucky for the new person, and rather hard upon any one who
happens to have loved her all his life.”
“Is there any one—like that?”
“I think you know there is, Lady Cheriton.”
“Yes, yes, my dear boy, I know,” she answered kindly, laying her
soft hand upon his. “I won’t pretend not to know. I wish, with all
my heart, you could make her care for you, Theodore, a year or two
hence. You would be a good and true husband to her, a kind father to
Godfrey’s child—that fatherless child. Oh, Theodore, is it not sad
to think of the child who will never—not for one brief hour—feel the
touch of a father’s hand, or know the blessing of a father’s love?
Such a dead blank where there should be warmth and life and joy! We
must wait, Theo. Who can dispose of the future? I shall be a happy
woman if ever you can tell me you have won the reward of a life’s
devotion.”
“God bless you for your goodness to me,” he faltered, kissing the
soft white hand, so like in form and outline to Juanita’s hand, only
plumper and more matronly.
They dined snugly, a cosy trio, in a small room hung with genuine old
Cordovan leather, and adorned with Moorish crockery, a room which
was called her Ladyship’s parlour, and which had been one of Lord
Cheriton’s birthday gifts to his wife, furnished and decorated during
her absence at a German spa. When Lady Cheriton left them, the two
men turned their chairs towards the fire, lighted their cigars, and
settled themselves for an evening’s talk.
The great lawyer was in one of his pleasantest moods. He gave
Theodore the benefit of his experience as a stuff-gown, and did all
that the advice of a wise senior can do towards putting a tyre on the
right track.
“You will have to bide your time,” he said in conclusion; “it is
a tedious business. You must just sit in your chambers and read
till your chance comes. Always be there, that’s the grand point.
Don’t be out when Fortune knocks at your door. She will come in a
very insignificant shape on her earlier visits—with a shabby little
two-guinea brief in her hand; but don’t you let that shabby little
brief be carried to somebody else just because you are out of the
way. I suppose you are really fond of the law.”
“Yes, I am very fond of my profession. It is meat and drink to me.”
“Then you will get on. Any man of moderate abilities is bound to
succeed in any profession which he loves with a heart-whole love; and
your abilities are much better than moderate.”
There was a little pause in the talk while Lord Cheriton threw on a
fresh log and lighted a second cigar.
“I have been meditating a good deal upon Sir Godfrey’s murder,” said
Theodore, “and I am perplexed by the utter darkness which surrounds
the murderer and his motive. No doubt you have some theory upon the
subject.”
“No, I have no theory. There is really nothing upon which to build
a theory. Churton, the detective, talked about a vendetta—suggested
poacher, tenant, tramp, gipsy, any member of the dangerous classes
who might happen to consider himself aggrieved by poor Godfrey. He
even went so far as to make a very unpleasant suggestion, and urged
that there might be a woman at the bottom of the business, speculated
upon some youthful intrigue of Godfrey’s. Now, from all I know of
that young man, I believe his life had been blameless. He was the
soul of honour. He would never have dealt cruelly with any woman.”
“And you, Lord Cheriton,” said Theodore, hardly following the latter
part of his cousin’s speech in his self-absorption.
His kinsman started and looked at him indignantly.
“And you—in your capacity of judge, for instance—have you never made
a deadly foe?”
“Well, I suppose the men and women I have sentenced have hardly loved
me; but I doubt if the worst of them ever had any strong personal
feeling about me. They have taken me as a part of the machinery of
the law—of no more account than the iron door of a cell or a beam of
the scaffold.”
“Yet there have been instances of active malignity—the assassination
of Lord Mayo, for instance.”
“Oh, the assassin in that case was an Indian, and a maniac. We live
in a different latitude. Besides, it is rather too far-fetched an
idea to suppose that a man would shoot my son-in-law in order to
avenge himself upon me.”
“The shot may have been fired under a misapprehension. The figure
seated reading in the lamplight may have been mistaken for you.”
“The assassin must have been uncommonly short-sighted to make such a
mistake. I won’t say such a thing would be impossible, for experience
has taught me that there is nothing in this life too strange to be
true; but it is too unlikely a notion to dwell upon. Indeed, I think,
Theodore, we must dismiss this painful business from our minds. If
the mystery is ever to be cleared up, it will be by a fluke; but even
that seems to me a very remote contingency. Have you not observed
that if a murderer is not caught within three months of his crime he
is hardly ever caught at all? I might almost say if he is not caught
within one month. Once let the scent cool and the chances are a
hundred to one in his favour.”
“Yet Juanita has set her heart upon seeing her husband avenged.”
“Ah, that is where her Spanish blood shows itself. An Englishwoman,
pure and simple, would think only of her sorrow. My poor girl hungers
for revenge. Providence may favour her, perhaps, but I doubt it.
The best thing that can happen to her will be to forget her first
husband, fine young fellow as he was, and choose a second. It is
horrible to think that the rest of her life is to be a blank. With
her beauty and position she may look high. I am obliged to be
ambitious for my daughter, you see, Theodore, since Heaven has not
spared me a son.”
Theodore saw only too plainly that, whatever favour his hopes
might have from soft-hearted Lady Cheriton, his own kinsman, James
Dalbrook, would be against him. This mattered very little to him at
present, in the face of the lady’s indifference. One gleam of hope
from Juanita herself would have seemed more to him than all the
favour of parents or kindred. It was her hand that held his fate: it
was she alone who could make his life blessed.
New Year’s Day was fine but frosty, a sharp, clear day on which
Cheriton Park looked loveliest, the trees made fairy-like by the
light rime, the long stretches of turf touched with a silvery
whiteness, the distant copses and boundary of pine-trees half hidden
in a pale grey mist.
Theodore walked across the park with Lady Cheriton to the eleven
o’clock service in the church at the end of Cheriton village. It was
nearly a mile from the great house to the fine old fifteenth-century
church, but Lady Cheriton always walked to church in decent weather,
albeit her servants were conveyed there luxuriously in a capacious
omnibus specially retained for their use. On the way along the
silent avenue Theodore told her of his meeting with Miss Newton’s
_protégée_, and of Juanita’s idea that the woman called Marian might
be no other than Mercy Porter.
“I certainly remember no other case of a girl about here leaving her
home under disgraceful circumstances—that is to say, any girl of
refinement and education,” said Lady Cheriton. “There have been cases
among the villagers, no doubt; but if this girl of yours is really a
superior person, and really comes from Cheriton, I think Juanita is
right, and that you must have stumbled upon Mercy Porter. Her mother
ought to be told about it, without delay.”
“Will you tell her, or will you put me in the way of doing so?”
“Would you like to see Mrs. Porter?”
“Yes. I feel interested in her, chiefly because she may be Marian’s
mother. I shall have to go to work very carefully, so as not to cause
her too keen a disappointment in the event of Juanita’s guess being
wrong.”
“I do not know that you will find her very soft-hearted where her
daughter is concerned,” replied Lady Cheriton, thoughtfully. “I
sometimes fear that she has hardened herself against that unhappy
girl. The troubles of her own early life may have hardened her,
perhaps. It is not easy to bear a long series of troubles with
patience and gentleness.”
“Do you know much of her history?”
“Only that she lost her husband when she was still a young woman,
and that she was left to face the world penniless with her
young daughter. If my husband had not happened to hear of her
circumstances, Heaven knows what would have become of her. He had
been intimate with her husband when he was a young man in London, and
it seemed to him a duty to do what he could for her; so he pensioned
off an old gardener who used to live in that pretty cottage, and
he had the cottage thoroughly renovated for Mrs. Porter. She had a
little furniture of a rather superior kind warehoused in London, and
with this she was able to make a snug and pretty home for herself, as
you will see, if you call upon her after the service. You are sure to
see her at church.”
“Was she very fond of her little girl in those days?”
“I hardly know. People have different ways of showing affection.
She was very strict with poor Mercy. She educated her at home, and
never allowed her to associate with any of the village children.
She kept the child entirely under her own wing, so that the poor
little thing had actually no companion but her mother, a middle-aged
woman, saddened by trouble. I felt very sorry for the child, and
I used to have her up at the house for an afternoon now and then,
just to introduce some variety into her life. When she grew up into
a beautiful young woman, her mother seemed to dislike these visits,
and stipulated that Mercy should only come to see me when there were
no visitors in the house. She did not want her head turned by any
of those foolish compliments which frivolous people are so fond of
paying to a girl of that age, never thinking of the mischief they
may do. I told her that I thought she was over-careful, and that as
Mercy must discover that she was handsome sooner or later, it was
just as well she should gain some experience of life at once. Her
instinctive self-respect would teach her how to take care of herself;
and if she could be safe anywhere, she would be safe with me. Mrs.
Porter is a rather obstinate person, and she took her own way. She
kept Mercy as close as if she had been an Oriental slave; and yet,
somehow, Colonel Tremaine contrived to make love to her, and tempted
her away from her home. Perhaps, if that home had been a little less
dismal, the girl might not have been so easily tempted.”
They had left the park by this time and were nearing the church.
A scanty congregation came slowly in after Lady Cheriton and her
companion had taken their seats in the chancel pew. The congregation
was chiefly feminine. Middle-aged women in every-day bonnets and
fur-trimmed cloaks, with their shoulders up to their ears. Girls in
felt hats and smart, tight-fitting jackets. A few pious villagers of
advanced years, spectacled, feeble, with wrinkled faces half hidden
under poke bonnets: two representative old men with long white hair
and quavering voices, whose shrill treble was distinguishable above
the rustic choir.
Amidst this sparse congregation Theodore had no difficulty in
discovering Mrs. Porter.
She sat in one of the front benches on the left side of the aisle,
which side was reserved for the tradespeople and humbler inhabitants
of Cheriton; while the benches on the right were occupied by the
county people, and some small fry who ranked with those elect of
the earth—with them, but not of them—a retired banker and his wife,
the village doctor, the village lawyer, and two or three female
annuitants of good family.
A noticeable woman, this Mrs. Porter, anywhere. She was tall and
thin, straight as a dart, with strongly marked features and white
hair. Her complexion was pale and sallow, the kind of skin which is
generally described as sickly. If she had ever been handsome, all
traces of that former beauty had disappeared. It was a hard face,
without womanly charm, yet with an unmistakable air of refinement.
She wore her neat little black straw bonnet and black cloth mantle
like a lady, and she walked like a lady, as Theodore saw presently,
when that portion of the little band of worshippers which did not
remain for the celebration dribbled slowly out of church.
He left Lady Cheriton kneeling in her pew, and followed Mrs. Porter
out of the porch and along the village street, and thence into that
rustic lane which led to the West Lodge. He had spoken to her only
once in his life, on a summer morning, when he had happened to find
her standing at her garden gate, and when it had been impossible for
her to avoid him. He knew that she must have seen him going in and
out of the park gates often enough for his appearance to be familiar
to her, so he had no scruple in introducing himself.
“Good morning, Mrs. Porter,” he said, overtaking her in the deeply
sunk lane, between those rocky banks where hart’s-tongue and
polypodium grew so luxuriantly in summer, and where even in this
wintry season the lichens and mosses spread their rich colouring over
grey stone and brown earth, and above which the snow-laden boughs
showed white against the blue brightness of the sky.
She turned and bowed stiffly.
“Good morning, sir.”
“You haven’t forgotten me, I hope. I am Theodore Dalbrook, of
Dorchester. I think you must have seen me pass your window too often
to forget me easily?”
“I am not much given to watching the people who pass in and out, sir.
When his Lordship gave me the cottage, he was good enough to allow
me a servant to open the park gate, as he knew that I was not strong
enough to bear exposure to all kinds of weather. I am free to live my
own life therefore, without thinking of his Lordship’s visitors.”
“I am sorry to intrude myself upon your notice, Mrs. Porter, but I
want to speak to you upon a very delicate subject, and I must ask
your forgiveness in advance if I should touch upon an old wound.”
She looked at him curiously, shrinkingly even, with a latent anger
in her pale eyes, eyes that had been lovely once, perhaps, but which
time or tears had faded to a glassy dulness.
“I have no desire to discuss old wounds with any one,” she said
coldly. “My troubles at least are my own.”
“Not altogether your own, Mrs. Porter. The sorrow of which I am
thinking involves another life—the life of one who has been dear to
you.”
“I have nothing to do with any other life.”
“Not even with the life of your only child?”
“Not even with the life of my only child,” she answered doggedly.
“She left me of her own accord, and I have done with her for ever. I
stand utterly alone in this world—utterly alone,” she repeated.
“And if I tell you that I think and believe I have found your
daughter in London—very poor—working for her living, very sad and
lonely, her beauty faded, her life joyless—would you not wish to know
more—would not your heart yearn towards her?”
“No! I tell you I have done with her. She has passed out of my life.
I stand alone.”
There was a tone of finality in these words which left no room for
argument.
Theodore lifted his hat, and walked on.