PROOF POSITIVE
Anthony Clyne had made no moan, but, both in his pride and his better
feelings, he had suffered more than the world thought through
Henrietta’s elopement. He was not in love with the girl whom he had
chosen for his second wife and the mother of his motherless child. But
no man likes to be jilted. No man, even the man least in love, can bear
with indifference or without mortification the slur which the woman’s
desertion casts on him. At best there are invitations to be cancelled,
and servants to be informed, and plans to be altered; the condolences
of some and the smiles of others are to be faced. And many troubles and
much bitterness. The very boy, the apple of his eye and the core of his
heart, had to be told—something.
And Anthony Clyne was proud. No man in Lancashire set more by his birth
and station, or had a stronger sense of his personal dignity; so that
in doing all these things he suffered. He suffered much. Nor did it end
with that. His own world knew him, and took care not to provoke him by
a tactless word or an inquisitive question. But the operatives in his
neighbourhood, who hated him and feared him, and thanked God for aught
that hurt him, gibed him openly. Taunts and jests were flung after him
in the streets of Manchester; and men whose sweethearts had been flung
down or roughly used on the day of Peterloo inquired after his
sweetheart as he passed before the mills.
But he made no sign. And no one dreamed that the suffering went farther
than the man’s pride, or touched his heart. Yet it did. Not that he
loved the girl; but because she was of his race, and because her own
branch of the family cast her off, and because the man with whom she
had fled could do nothing to protect her from the consequences of her
folly. For these reasons—and a little because of a secret nobility in
his own character—he suffered vicariously; he felt himself responsible
for her. And the responsibility seemed more heavy after he had seen
her; after he had borne away from Windermere the picture of the girl
left pale and proud and lonely by the lake side.
For her figure haunted him. It rose before him in the most troublesome
fashion and at the most improper times; at sessions when he sat among
his peers, or at his dinner-table in the middle of a tirade against the
radicals and Cobbett. It touched him in the least expected and most
tender points; awaking the strongest doubts of himself, and his
conduct, and his wisdom that he had ever entertained. It barbed the
dart of “It might have been” with the rankling suspicion that he had
himself to thank for failure. And where at first he had said in his
haste that she deserved two dozen, he now remembered her defence, and
added gloomily, “Or I! Or I!” The thought of her fate—as of a thing for
which he was responsible—thrust itself upon him in season and out of
season. He could not put her out of his mind, he could not refrain from
dwelling on her. And thinking in this way he grew every day less
content with the scheme of life which he had framed for her in his
first contempt for her. The notion of her union with Mr. Sutton, good,
worthy man as he deemed the chaplain, now jarred on him unpleasantly.
And more and more the scheme showed itself in another light than that
in which he had first viewed it.
Such was his state of mind, unsettled if not unhappy, and harassed if
not remorseful, when a second thunderclap burst above his head, and in
a moment destroyed even the memory of these minor troubles. He loved
his child with the love of the proud and lonely man who loves more
jealously where others pity, and clings more closely where others look
askance. A fig for their pity! he cried in his heart. He would so rear
his child, he would so cherish him, he would so foster his mind, that
in spite of bodily defect this latest of the Clynes should be also the
greatest. And while he foresaw this future in the child and loved him
for the hope, he loved him immeasurably more for his weakness, his
helplessness, his frailty in the present. All that was strong in the
man of firm will and stiff prejudice went out to the child in a
passionate yearning to protect it; to shield it from unfriendly looks,
even from pity; to cover it from the storms of the world and of life.
Personally a brave man Clyne feared nothing for himself. The hatred in
which he was held by a certain class came to his ears from time to time
in threatening murmurs, but though those who knew best were loudest in
warning, he paid no heed. He continued to do what he held to be his
duty. Yet if anything had had power to turn him from his path it had
been fear on his son’s account; it had been the very, very small share
which the boy must take in his peril. And so, at the first hint he had
removed the child from the zone of trouble, and sent him to a place
which he fancied safe; a place which the boy loved, and in the quiet of
which health as well as safety might be gained. If the name of Clyne
was hated where spindles whirled and shuttles flew, and men lived their
lives under a pall of black smoke, it was loved in Cartmel by farmer
and shepherd alike; and not less by the rude charcoal-burners who plied
their craft in the depths of the woods about Staveley and Broughton in
Furness.
On that side he thought himself secure. And so the blow fell with all
the force of the unexpected. The summons of the panic-stricken servants
found him in his bed; and it was a man who hardly contained himself,
who hardly contained his fury and his threats, who without breaking his
fast rode north. It was a hard-faced, stern man who crossed the sands
at Cartmel at great risk—but he had known them all his life—and won at
Carter’s Green the first spark of comfort and hope which he had had
since rising. Nadin was before him. Nadin was in pursuit,—Nadin, by
whom all that was Tory in Lancashire swore. Surely an accident so
opportune, a stroke of mercy and providence so unlikely—for the odds
against the officer’s presence were immense—could not be unmeant, could
not be for nothing! It seemed, it must be of good augury! But when
Clyne reached his house in Cartmel, and the terrified nurse who knew
the depth of his love for the boy grovelled before him, the household
had no added hope to give him, no news or clue. And he could but go
forward. His horse was spent, but they brought him a tenant’s colt, and
after eating a few mouthfuls he pressed on up the lake side towards
Bowness, attended by a handful of farmers’ sons who had not followed on
the first alarm.
Even now, hours after the awakening, and when any moment might end his
suspense, any turn in the road bring him face to face with the
issue—good or bad, joy or sorrow—he dared not think of the child. He
dared not let his mind run on its fear or its suffering, its terrors in
the villains’ hands, or the hardships which its helplessness might
bring upon it. To do so were to try his self-control too far. And so he
thought the more of the men, the more of vengeance, the more of the
hour which would see him face to face with them, and see them face to
face with punishment. He rejoiced to think that abduction was one of
the two hundred crimes which were punishable with death: and he swore
that if he devoted his life to the capture of these wretches they
should be taken. And when taken, when they had been dealt with by judge
and jury, they should be hanged without benefit of clergy. There should
be no talk of respite. His services to the party had earned so much as
that—even in these days when radicals were listened to over much, and
fanatics like Wolseley and Burdett flung their wealth into the wrong
scale.
At Bowness there was no news except a word from Nadin bidding him ride
on. And without alighting he pressed on, sternly silent, but with eyes
that tirelessly searched the bleak, bare fells for some movement, some
hint of flight or chase. He topped the hill beyond Bowness, and drew
rein an instant to scan the islets set here and there on the sullen
water. Then, after marking carefully the three or four boats which were
afloat, he trotted down through Calgarth woods. And on turning the
corner that revealed the long gabled house at the Low Wood landing he
had a gleam of hope. Here at last was something, some stir, some
adequate movement. In the road were a number of men, twenty or thirty,
on foot or horseback. A few were standing, others were moving to and
fro. Half of them carried Brown Besses, blunderbusses, or old
horse-pistols, and three or four were girt with ancient swords lugged
for the purpose from bacon-rack or oak chest. The horses of the men
matched as ill as their arms, being of all heights and all degrees of
shagginess, and some riders had one spur, and some none. But the troop
meant business, it was clear, and Anthony Clyne’s heart went out to
them in gratitude. Hitherto he had ridden through a country-side
heedless or ignorant of his loss, and of what was afoot; and the tardy
intelligence, the slow answer, had tried him sorely. Here at last was
an end of that. As the honest dalesmen, gathered before the inn, hauled
their hard-mouthed beasts to the edge of the road to make way for him,
and doffed their hats in silent sympathy, he thanked them with his
eyes.
In spite of his empty sleeve he was off his horse in a moment.
“Have they learned anything?” he asked, his voice harsh with suppressed
emotion.
The nearest man began to explain in the slow northern fashion. “No, not
as yet, your honour. But we shall, no doubt, i’ good time. We know that
they landed here in a boat.”
“Ay, your honour, have no fear!” cried a second. “We’ll get him back!”
And then Nadin came out.
“This way, if you please, Squire,” he said, touching his arm and
leading him aside. “We are just starting to scour the hills, but—— “he
broke off and did not say any more until he had drawn Clyne out of
earshot.
Then, “It’s certain that they landed here,” he said, turning and facing
him. “We know that, Squire. And I fancy that they are not far away. The
holt is somewhere near, for it is here we lost the other fox. I’m
pretty sure that if we search the hills for a few hours we’ll light on
them. But that’s the long way. And damme!” vehemently, “there’s a short
way if we are men and not mice.”
Clyne’s eyes gleamed.
“A short way?” he muttered. In spite of Nadin’s zeal the Manchester
officer’s manner had more than once disgusted his patron. It had far
from that effect now. The man might swear and welcome, be familiar, he
what he pleased, if he would also act! If he would recover the child
from the cruel hands that held it! His very bluntness and burliness and
sufficiency gave hope. “A short way?” Clyne repeated.
Nadin struck his great fist into the other palm.
“Ay, a short way!” he answered. “There’s a witness here can tell us all
we want if she will but speak. I am just from her. A woman who knows
and can set us on the track if she chooses! And we’ll have but to ride
to covert and take the fox.”
Clyne laid his hand on the other’s arm.
“Do you mean,” he asked huskily, struggling to keep hope within bounds,
“that there is some one here—who knows where they are?”
“I do!” Nadin answered with an oath. “And knows where the child is. But
she’ll not speak.”
“Not speak?”
“No, she’ll not tell. It’s the young lady you were here about before,
Squire, to be frank with you.”
“Miss Damer?” in a tone of astonishment.
“Ay, Squire, she!” Nadin replied. “She! And the young madam knows, d——n
her! It’s all one business, you may take it from me! It’s all one gang!
She was at the place where they landed after dark last night.”
“Impossible!” Clyne cried. “Impossible! I cannot believe you.”
“Ay, but she was. She let herself down from a window when the house had
gone to bed that she might get there. Ay, Squire, you may look, but she
did. She did not meet them; she was too soon or too late, we don’t know
which. But she was there, as sure as I am here! And I suspect—though
Bishop, who is a bit of a softy, like most of those London men, doesn’t
agree—that she was in the thing from the beginning, Squire! And planned
it, may be, but you’d be the best judge of that. Any way, we are agreed
that she knows now. That is clear as daylight!”
“Knows, and will not tell?” Clyne cried. Such conduct seemed too
monstrous, too wicked to the man who had strained every nerve to reach
his child, who had ridden in terror for hours, trembling at the passage
of every minute, grudging the loss of every second. “Knows, and will
not tell!” he repeated. “Impossible!”
“It’s not impossible, Squire,” Nadin answered. “We’re clear on it.
We’re all clear on it.”
“That she knows where the child is?” incredulously. “Where they are
keeping it?”
“That’s it.”
“And will not say?”
Nadin grinned.
“Not for us,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “She may for you. But
she is stubborn as a mule. I can’t say worse than that. Stubborn as a
mule, Squire!”
Clyne raised his hand to hide the twitching nostril, the quivering lip
that betrayed his agitation. But the hand shook. He could not yet
believe that she was privy to this wickedness. But—but if she only knew
it now and kept her knowledge to herself—she was, he dared not think
what she was. A gust of passion took him at the thought, and whitened
his face to the very lips. He had to turn away that the coarse-grained,
underbred man beside him might not see too much. And a few seconds went
by before he could command his voice sufficiently to ask Nadin what
evidence he had of this—this monstrous charge. “How do you know—I want
to be clear—how do you know,” he asked, sternly meeting his eyes, “that
she left the house last night to meet them? That she was there to meet
them? Have you evidence?” He could not believe that a woman of his
class, of his race, would do this thing.
“Evidence?” Nadin answered coolly. “Plenty!” And he told the story of
the foot-prints, and of Mr. Sutton’s experiences in the night; and
added that one of the child’s woollen mits had been found between the
bottom-boards of a boat beached at that spot—a boat which bore signs of
recent use. “If you are not satisfied and would like to see his
reverence,” he continued, “and question him before you see her—shall I
send him to you?”
“Ay, send him,” Clyne said with an effort. He had been incredulous, but
the evidence seemed overwhelming. Yet he struggled, he tried to
disbelieve. Not because his thoughts still held any tenderness for the
girl, or he retained any remnant of the troublesome feeling that had
haunted him; for the shock of the child’s abduction had driven such
small emotions from his mind. But with the country rising about him,
amid this gathering of men upon whom he had no claim, but who asked
nothing better than to be brought face to face with the authors of the
outrage—with these proofs of public sympathy before his eyes it seemed
impossible that a woman, a girl, should wantonly set herself on the
other side, and shield the criminals. It seemed impossible. But then,
when the first news of her elopement with an unknown stranger had
reached him, he had thought that impossible! Yet it had turned out to
be true, and less than the fact; since the man was not only beneath
her, but a radical and a villain!
“But I will see Sutton,” he muttered, striving to hold his rage in
check. “I will see Sutton. Perhaps he may be able to explain. Perhaps
he may be able to put another face on the matter.”
The chaplain would fain have done so; more out of a generous pity for
the unfortunate girl than out of any lingering hope of ingratiating
himself with her. But he did not know what to say, except that though
she had gone to the rendezvous she had not seen nor met any one. He
laid stress on that, for he had nothing else to plead. But he had to
allow that her purpose had been to meet some one; and at the weak
attempt to excuse her Clyne’s rage broke forth.
“She is shameless!” he cried. “Shameless! Can you say after this that
she has given up all dealings with her lover? Though she passed her
word and knows him for a married man?”
The chaplain shook his head.
“I cannot,” he said sorrowfully. “I cannot say that. But——”
“She gave her word! Tome. To others.”
“I allow it. But——”
“But what? What?” with hardly restrained rage. “Will you still, sir,
take her side against the innocent? Against the child, whom she has
conspired to entrap, to carry off, perhaps to murder?”
“Oh, no, no!” Mr. Sutton cried in unfeigned horror. “That I do not
believe! I do not believe that for an instant! I allow, I admit,” he
continued eagerly, “that she has been weak, and that she has madly,
foolishly permitted this wretch to retain a hold over her.”
“At any rate,” Clyne retorted, his rage at a white heat, “she has lied
to me!”
“I admit it.”
“And to others!”
The chaplain could only hold out his hands in deprecation.
“You will admit that she has continued to communicate with a man she
should loathe? A man whom, if she were a modest girl, she would loathe?
That she has stolen to midnight interviews with him, leaving this house
as a thief leaves it? That she has cast all modesty from her?”
“Do not, do not be too hard on her!” Sutton cried, his face flushing
hotly. “Captain Clyne, I beg—I beg you to be merciful.”
“It is she who is hard on herself! But have no fear,” Clyne continued,
in a voice cold as the winter fells and as pitiless. “I shall give her
fifteen minutes to come to her senses and behave herself—not as a
decent woman, I no longer ask that, but as a woman, any woman, the
lowest, would behave herself, to save a child’s life. And if she
behaves herself—well. And if not, sir, it is not I who will punish her,
but the law!”
“She will speak,” the chaplain said. “I think she will speak—for you.”
He was deeply and honestly concerned for the girl: and full of pity for
her, though he did not understand her.
“But—suppose I saw her first?” he suggested. “Just for a few minutes? I
could explain.”
“Nothing that I cannot,” Captain Clyne answered grimly. “And for a few
minutes! Do you not consider,” with a look of suspicion, “that there
has been delay enough already? And too much! Fifteen minutes,” with a
recurrence of the bitter laugh, “she shall have, and not one minute
more, if she were my sister!”
Mr. Sutton’s face turned red again.
“Remember, sir,” he said bravely, “that she was going to be your wife.”
“I do remember it!” Clyne retorted with a withering glance. “And thank
God for His mercy.”