TOO LATE.
I must now go back a little. After my suspicions had been aroused as to
the state of Charley’s feelings, I hesitated for a long time before I
finally made up my mind to tell him the part Clara had had in the loss
of my sword. But while I was thus restrained by dread of the effect the
disclosure would have upon him if my suspicions were correct, those
very suspicions formed the strongest reason for acquainting him with
her duplicity; and, although I was always too ready to put off the evil
day so long as doubt supplied excuse for procrastination, I could not
have let so much time slip by and nothing said but for my absorption in
Mary.
At length, however, I had now resolved, and one evening, as we sat
together, I took my pipe from my mouth, and, shivering bodily, thus
began:
‘Charley,’ I said, ‘I have had for a good while something on my mind,
which I cannot keep from you longer.’
He looked alarmed instantly. I went on.
‘I have not been quite open with you about that affair of the sword.’
He looked yet more dismayed; but I must go on, though it tore my very
heart. When I came to the point of my overhearing Clara talking to
Brotherton, he started up, and, without waiting to know the subject of
their conversation, came close up to me, and, his face distorted with
the effort to keep himself quiet, said, in a voice hollow and still and
far-off, like what one fancies of the voice of the dead:
‘Wilfrid, you said Brotherton, I think?’
‘I did, Charley.’
‘She never told me that!’
‘How could she when she was betraying your friend?’
‘No no!’ he cried, with a strange mixture of command and entreaty;
‘don’t say that. There is some explanation. There _must_ be.’
‘She told _me_ she hated him,’ I said.
‘_I know_ she hates him. What was she saying to him?’
‘I tell you she was betraying me, your friend, who had never done her
any wrong, to the man she had told me she hated, and whom I had heard
her ridicule.’
‘What do you mean by betraying you?’
I recounted what I had overheard. He listened with clenched teeth and
trembling white lips; then burst into a forced laugh. ‘What a fool I
am! Distrust _her!_ I will _not_. There is some explanation! There
_must_ be!’
The dew of agony lay thick on his forehead. I was greatly alarmed at
what I had done, but I could not blame myself.
‘Do be calm, Charley,’ I entreated.
‘I am as calm as death,’ he replied, striding up and down the room with
long strides.
He stopped and came up to me again.
‘Wilfrid,’ he said, ‘I am a damned fool. I am going now. Don’t be
frightened--I am perfectly calm. I will come and explain it all to you
to-morrow--no--the next day--or the next at latest. She had some reason
for hiding it from me, but I shall have it all the moment I ask her.
She is not what you think her. I don’t for a moment blame you--but--are
you sure it was--Clara’s--voice you heard?’ he added with forced
calmness and slow utterance.
‘A man is not likely to mistake the voice of a woman he ever fancied
himself in love with.’
‘Don’t talk like that, Wilfrid. You’ll drive me mad. How should she
know you had taken the sword?’
‘She was always urging me to take it. There lies the main sting of the
treachery. But I never told you where I found the sword.’
‘What can that have to do with it?’
‘I found it on my bed that same morning when I woke. It could not have
been there when I lay down.’
‘Well?’
‘Charley, I believe _she_ laid it there.’
He leaped at me like a tiger. Startled, I jumped to my feet. He laid
hold of me by the throat, and griped me with a quivering grasp.
Recovering my self-possession, I stood perfectly still, making no
effort even to remove his hand, although it was all but choking me. In
a moment or two he relaxed his hold, burst into tears, took up his hat,
and walked to the door.
‘Charley! Charley! you must _not_ leave me so,’ I cried, starting
forwards.
‘To-morrow, Wilfrid; to-morrow,’ he said, and was gone.
He was back before I could think what to do next. Opening the door half
way, he said--as if a griping hand had been on _his_ throat--
‘I--I--I--don’t believe it, Wilfrid. You only said you believed it. _I_
don’t. Good night. I’m all right now. _Mind, I don’t believe it._’
He, shut the door. Why did I not follow him?
But if I had followed him, what could I have said or done? In every
man’s life come awful moments when he must meet his fate--dree his
weird--alone. Alone, I say, if he have no God--for man or woman cannot
aid him, cannot touch him, cannot come near him. Charley was now in one
of those crises, and I could not help him. Death is counted an awful
thing: it seems to me that life is an infinitely more awful thing.
In the morning I received the following letter:--
‘Dear Mr Cumbermede,
‘You will be surprised at receiving a note from me--still more at its
contents. I am most anxious to see you--so much so that I venture to
ask you to meet me where we can have a little quiet talk. I am in
London, and for a day or two sufficiently my own mistress to leave the
choice of time and place with you--only let it be when and where we
shall not be interrupted. I presume on old friendship in making this
extraordinary request, but I do not presume in my confidence that you
will not misunderstand my motives. One thing only I _beg_--that you
will not inform C.O. of the petition I make.
‘Your old friend,
‘C.C.’
What was I to do? To go, of course. She _might_ have something to
reveal which would cast light on her mysterious conduct. I cannot say I
expected a disclosure capable of removing Charley’s misery, but I did
vaguely hope to learn something that might alleviate it. Anyhow, I
would meet her, for I dared not refuse to hear her. To her request of
concealing it from Charley, I would grant nothing beyond giving it
quarter until I should see whither the affair tended. I wrote at
once--making an appointment for the same evening. But was it from a
suggestion of Satan, from an evil impulse of human spite, or by the
decree of fate, that I fixed on that part of the Regent’s Park in which
I had seen him and the lady I now believed to have been Clara walking
together in the dusk? I cannot now tell. The events which followed have
destroyed all certainty, but I fear it was a flutter of the wings of
revenge, a shove at the spokes of the wheel of time to hasten the
coming of its circle.
Anxious to keep out of Charley’s way--for the secret would make me
wretched in his presence--I went into the City, and, after an early
dinner, sauntered out to the Zoological Gardens, to spend the time till
the hour of meeting. But there, strange to say, whether from insight or
fancy, in every animal face I saw such gleams of a troubled humanity
that at last I could bear it no longer, and betook myself to Primrose
Hill.
It was a bright afternoon, wonderfully clear, with a crisp frosty feel
in the air. But the sun went down, and one by one, here and there,
above and below, the lights came out and the stars appeared, until at
length sky and earth were full of flaming spots, and it was time to
seek our rendezvous.
I had hardly reached it when the graceful form of Clara glided towards
me. She perceived in a moment that I did not mean to shake hands with
her. It was not so dark but that I saw her bosom heave and a flush
overspread her countenance.
‘You wished to see me, Miss Coningham,’ I said. ‘I am at your service.’
‘What is wrong, Mr Cumbermede? You never used to speak to me in such a
tone.’
‘There is nothing wrong if you are not more able than I to tell what it
is.’
‘Why did you come if you were going to treat me so?’
‘Because you requested it.’
‘Have I offended you, then, by asking you to meet me? I trusted you. I
thought _you_ would never misjudge me.’
‘I should be but too happy to find I had been unjust to you, Miss
Coningham. I would gladly go on my knees to you to confess that fault,
if I could only be satisfied of its existence. Assure me of it, and I
will bless you.’
‘How strangely you talk! Some one has been maligning me.’
‘No one. But I have come to the knowledge of what only one besides
yourself could have told me.’
‘You mean--’
‘Geoffrey Brotherton.’
‘_He!_ He has been telling you--’
‘No--thank heaven! I have not yet sunk to the slightest communication
with _him_.’
She turned her face aside. Veiled as it was by the gathering gloom, she
yet could not keep it towards me. But after a brief pause she looked at
me and said,
‘You know more than--I do not know what you mean.’
‘I do know more than you think I know. I will tell you under what
circumstances I came to such knowledge.’
She stood motionless.
‘One evening,’ I went on, ‘after leaving Moldwarp Hall with Charles
Osborne, I returned to the library to fetch a book. As I entered the
room where it lay, I heard voices in the armoury. One was the voice of
Geoffrey Brotherton--a man you told me you hated. The other was yours.’
She drew herself up, and stood stately before me.
‘Is that your accusation?’ she said. ‘Is a woman never to speak to a
man because she detests him?’
She laughed--I thought drearily.
‘Apparently not--for then I presume you would not have asked me to meet
you.’
‘Why should you think I hate _you_?’
‘Because you have been treacherous to me.’
‘In talking to Geoffrey Brotherton? I do hate him. I hate him more than
ever. I spoke the truth when I told you that.’
‘Then you do not hate me?’
‘No.’
‘And yet you delivered me over to my enemy bound hand and foot, as
Delilah did Samson.--I heard what you said to Brotherton.’
She seemed to waver, but stood--speechless, as if waiting for more.
‘I heard you tell him that I had taken that sword--the sword you had
always been urging me to take--the sword you unsheathed and laid on my
bed that I might be tempted to take it--why I cannot understand, for I
never did you a wrong to my poor knowledge. I fell into your snare, and
you made use of the fact you had achieved to ruin my character, and
drive me from the house in which I was foolish enough to regard myself
as conferring favours rather than receiving them. You have caused me to
be branded as a thief for taking--at your suggestion--that which was
and still is my own!’
‘Does Charley know this?’ she asked, in a strangely altered voice.
‘He does. He learned it yesterday.’
‘O my God!’ she cried, and fell kneeling on the grass at my feet.
‘Wilfrid! Wilfrid! I will tell you all. It was to tell you all about
this very thing that I asked you to come. I could not bear it longer.
Only your tone made me angry. I did not know you knew so much.’
The very fancy of such submission from such a creature would have
thrilled me with a wild compassion once; but now I thought of Charley
and felt cold to her sorrow as well as her loveliness. When she lifted
her eyes to mine, however--it was not so dark but I could see their
sadness--I began to hope a little for my friend. I took her hand and
raised her. She was now weeping with down-bent head.
‘Clara, you shall tell me all. God forbid I should be hard upon you!
But you know I cannot understand it. I have no clue to it. How could
you serve me so?’
‘It is very hard for me--but there is no help now: I must confess
disgrace, in order to escape infamy. Listen to me, then--as kindly as
you can, Wilfrid. I beg your pardon; I have no right to use any old
familiarity with you. Had my father’s plans succeeded, I should still
have had to make an apology to you, but under what different
circumstances! I will be as brief as I can. My father believed you the
rightful heir to Moldwarp Hall. Your own father believed it, and made
my father believe it--that was in case your uncle should leave no heir
behind him. But your uncle was a strange man, and would neither lay
claim to the property himself, nor allow you to be told of your
prospects. He did all he could to make you, like himself, indifferent
to worldly things; and my father feared you would pride yourself on
refusing to claim your rights, unless some counter-influence were
used.’
‘But why should your father have taken any trouble in the matter?’ I
asked.
‘Well, you know--one in his profession likes to see justice done; and,
besides, to conduct such a case must, of course, be of professional
advantage to him. You must not think him under obligation to the
present family: my grandfather held the position he still occupies
before they came into the property.--I am too unhappy to mind what I
say now. My father was pleased when you and I--indeed I fancy he had a
hand in our first meeting. But while your uncle lived he had to be
cautious. Chance, however, seemed to favour his wishes. We met more
than once, and you liked me, and my father thought I might wake you up
to care about your rights, and--and--but--’
‘I see. And it might have been, Clara, but for--’
‘Only, you see, Mr Cumbermede,’ she interrupted with a half-smile, and
a little return of her playful manner--‘_I_ didn’t wish it.’
‘No. You preferred the man who _had_ the property.’
It was a speech both cruel and rude. She stepped a pace back, and
looked me proudly in the face.
Prefer that man to _you_, Wilfrid! No. I could never have fallen so low
as that. But I confess I didn’t mind letting papa understand that Mr
Brotherton was polite to me--just to keep him from urging me
to--to--You _will_ do me the justice that I did not try to make you--to
make you--care for me, Wilfrid?’
‘I admit it heartily. I will be as honest as you, and confess that you
might have done so--easily enough at one time. Indeed I am only half
honest after all: I loved you once--after a boyish fashion.’
She half smiled again. ‘I am glad you are believing me now,’ she said.
‘Thoroughly,’ I answered. ‘When you speak the truth, I must believe
you.’
‘I was afraid to let papa know the real state of things. I was always
afraid of him, though I love him dearly, and he is very good to me. I
dared not disappoint him by telling him that I loved Charley Osborne.
That time--you remember--when we met in Switzerland, his strange ways
interested me so much! I was only a girl--but--’
‘I understand well enough. I don’t wonder at any woman falling in love
with my Charley.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, with a sigh which seemed to come from the bottom
of her heart. ‘You were always generous. You will do what you can to
right me with Charley--won’t you? He is very strange sometimes.’
‘I will indeed. But, Clara, why didn’t Charley let _me_ know that you
and he loved each other?’
‘Ah! there my shame comes in again! I wanted--for my father’s sake, not
for my own--I need not tell you that--I wanted to keep my influence
over you a little while--that is, until I could gain my father’s end.
If I should succeed in rousing you to enter an action for the recovery
of your rights, I thought my father might then be reconciled to my
marrying Charley instead--’
‘Instead of me, Clara. Yes--I see. I begin to understand the whole
thing. It’s not so bad as I thought--not by any means.’
‘Oh, Wilfrid! how good of you! I shall love you next to Charley all my
life.’
She caught hold of my hand, and for a moment seemed on the point of
raising it to her lips.
‘But I can’t easily get over the disgrace you have done me, Clara.
Neither, I confess, can I get over your degrading yourself to a private
interview with such a beast as I know--and can’t help suspecting you
knew--Brotherton to be.’
She dropped my hand, and hid her face in both her own.
‘I did know what he was; but the thought of Charley made me able to go
through with it.’
‘With the sacrifice of his friend to his enemy?’
‘It was bad. It was horridly wicked. I hate myself for it. But you know
I thought it would do you no harm in the end.’
‘How much did Charley know of it all?’ I asked.
‘Nothing whatever. How could I trust his innocence? He’s the simplest
creature in the world, Wilfrid.’
‘I know that well enough.’
‘I could not confess one atom of it to him. He would have blown up the
whole scheme at once. It was all I could do to keep him from telling
you of our engagement; and that made him miserable.’
‘Did you tell him I was in love with you? You knew I was, well enough.’
‘I dared not do that,’ she said, with a sad smile. ‘He would have
vanished--would have killed himself to make way for you.’
‘I see you understand him, Clara.’
‘That will give me some feeble merit in your eyes--won’t it, Wilfrid?’
‘Still I don’t see quite why you betrayed me to Brotherton. I dare say
I should if I had time to think it over.’
‘I wanted to put you in such a position with regard to the Brothertons
that you could have no scruples in respect of them such as my father
feared from what he called the over-refinement of your ideas of honour.
The treatment you must receive would, I thought, rouse every feeling
against them. But it was not _all_ for my father’s sake, Wilfrid. It
was, however mistaken, yet a good deal for the sake of Charley’s friend
that I thus disgraced myself. Can you believe me?’
‘I do. But nothing can wipe out the disgrace to me.’
‘The sword was your own. Of course I never for a moment doubted that.’
‘But they believed I was lying.’
‘I can’t persuade myself it signifies greatly what such people think
about you. I except Sir Giles. The rest are--’
‘Yet you consented to visit them.’
‘I was in reality Sir Giles’s guest. Not one of the others would have
asked me.’
‘Not Geoffrey?’
‘I owe _him_ nothing but undying revenge for Charley.’ Her eyes flashed
through the darkness; and she looked as if she could have killed him.
‘But you were plotting against Sir Giles all the time you were his
guest?’
‘Not unjustly, though. The property was not his, but yours--that is, as
we then believed. As far as I knew, the result would have been a real
service to him, in delivering him from unjust possession--a thing he
would himself have scorned. It was all very wrong--very low, if you
like--but somehow it then seemed simple enough--a lawful stratagem for
the right.’
‘Your heart was so full of Charley!’
‘Then you do forgive me, Wilfrid?’
‘With all my soul. I hardly feel now as if I had anything to forgive.’
I drew her towards me and kissed her on the forehead. She threw her
arms round me, and clung to me, sobbing like a child.
‘You will explain it all to Charley--won’t you?’ she said, as soon as
she could speak, withdrawing herself from the arm which had
involuntarily crept around her, seeking to comfort her.
‘I will,’ I said.
We were startled by a sound in the clump of trees behind us. Then over
their tops passed a wailful gust of wind, through which we thought came
the fall of receding footsteps.
‘I hope we haven’t been overheard,’ I said. ‘I shall go at once and
tell Charley all about it. I will just see you home first.’
‘There’s no occasion for that, Wilfrid; and I’m sure I don’t deserve
it.’
‘You deserve a thousand thanks. You have lifted a mountain off me. I
see it all now. When your father found it was no use--’
‘Then I saw I had wronged you, and I couldn’t bear myself till I had
confessed all.’
‘Your father is satisfied, then, that the register would not stand in
evidence?’
‘Yes. He told me all about it.’
‘He has never said a word to me on the matter; but just dropped me in
the dirt, and let me lie there.’
‘You must forgive him too, Wilfrid. It was a dreadful blow to him, and
it was weeks before he told me. We couldn’t think what was the matter
with him. You see he had been cherishing the scheme ever since your
father’s death, and it was a great humiliation to find he had been
sitting so many years on an addled egg,’ she said, with a laugh in
which her natural merriment once more peeped out.
I walked home with her, and we parted like old friends. On my way to
the Temple I was anxiously occupied as to how Charley would receive the
explanation I had to give him. That Clara’s confession would be a
relief I could not doubt; but it must cause him great pain
notwithstanding. His sense of honour was so keen, and his ideal of
womankind so lofty, that I could not but dread the consequences of the
revelation. At the same time I saw how it might benefit him. I had
begun to see that it is more divine to love the erring than to love the
good, and to understand how there is more joy over the one than over
the ninety and nine. If Charley, understanding that he is no divine
lover, who loves only so long as he is able to flatter himself that the
object of his love is immaculate, should find that he must love Clara
in spite of her faults and wrong-doings, he might thus grow to be less
despairful over his own failures; he might, through his love for Clara,
learn to hope for himself, notwithstanding the awful distance at which
perfection lay removed.
But as I went I was conscious of a strange oppression. It was not
properly mental, for my interview with Clara had raised my spirits. It
was a kind of physical oppression I felt, as if the air, which was in
reality clear and cold, had been damp and close and heavy.
I went straight to Charley’s chambers. The moment I opened the door, I
knew that something was awfully wrong. The room was dark--but he would
often sit in the dark. I called him, but received no answer. Trembling,
I struck a light, for I feared to move lest I should touch something
dreadful. But when I had succeeded in lighting the lamp, I found the
room just as it always was. His hat was on the table. He must be in his
bed-room. And yet I did not feel as if anything alive was near me. Why
was everything so frightfully still? I opened the door as slowly and
fearfully as if I had dreaded arousing a sufferer whose life depended
on his repose. There he lay on his bed, in his clothes--fast asleep, as
I thought, for he often slept so, and at any hour of the day--the
natural relief of his much-perturbed mind. His eyes were closed, and
his face was very white. As I looked, I heard a sound--a drop--another!
There was a slow drip somewhere. God in heaven! Could it be? I rushed
to him, calling him aloud. There was no response. It was too true! He
was dead. The long snake-like Indian dagger was in his heart, and the
blood was oozing slowly from around it.
I dare not linger over that horrible night, or the horrible days that
followed. Such days! such nights! The letters to write!--The friends to
tell!--Clara!--His father!--The police!--The inquest!
* * * * *
Mr Osborne took no notice of my letter, but came up at once. Entering
where I sat with my head on my arms on the table, the first
announcement I had of his presence was a hoarse deep broken voice
ordering me out of the room. I obeyed mechanically, took up Charley’s
hat instead of my own, and walked away with it. But the neighbours were
kind, and although I did not attempt to approach again all that was
left of my friend, I watched from a neighbouring window, and following
at a little distance, was present when they laid his form, late at
night, in the unconsecrated ground of a cemetery.
I may just mention here what I had not the heart to dwell upon in the
course of my narrative--that since the talk about suicide occasioned by
the remarks of Sir Thomas Browne, he had often brought up the
subject--chiefly, however, in a half-humorous tone, and from what may
be called an aesthetic point of view as to the best mode of
accomplishing it. For some of the usual modes he expressed abhorrence,
as being so ugly; and on the whole considered--I well remember the
phrase, for he used it more than once--that a dagger--and on one of
those occasions he took up the Indian weapon already described and
said--‘such as this now,’--was ‘the most gentleman-like usher into the
presence of the Great Nothing.’ As I had, however, often heard that
those who contemplated suicide never spoke of it, and as his manner on
the occasions to which I refer was always merry, such talk awoke little
uneasiness; and I believe that he never had at the moment any conscious
attraction to the subject stronger than a speculative one. At the same
time, however, I believe that the speculative attraction itself had its
roots in the misery with which in other and prevailing moods he was so
familiar.