FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
Bess was saved from witnessing the terrible scene of her husband’s
degradation.
Old Marks, beside himself with grief and horror, yet had the presence
of mind to keep her in the lodge.
He persuaded her that her husband’s safety depended upon her not being
seen, and she stopped indoors throughout all the riot and hubbub.
George had glanced anxiously among the crowd, fearing to see his wife’s
pale face and tears, but he was spared that blow.
When he was gone, old Marks went back to the lodge like a man in a
dream, and broke the terrible news to his daughter.
Bess refused to believe it. She would have rushed out and gone to her
husband there and then. She would have proclaimed herself his wife
gladly, now trouble had come upon him, but her father reasoned with her
and showed her how futile such a course would be.
‘George does not want it known,’ he told her, and Bess, remembering how
secret George had kept their marriage, believed that her father was
right.
‘What can I do?’ she moaned. ‘I am his wife, and my place is by his
side. He has got into all this trouble for my sake. But for me he could
have gone away, and this horrible mistake would never have occurred.’
‘Mistake!’ said old Marks; ‘don’t you believe, then, that George is
guilty?’
‘Guilty! Listen, father. I know my George to be one of the bravest,
noblest-hearted men in the world. How dare you insult him by suggesting
that he is guilty?’
Gradually, as Bess now realised the position of affairs, she worked
herself up into a state of excitement, and talked at random. She would
do this, she would do that. She paced the little room, now weeping, now
crying out that there was a plot against them, and that her father was
in it.
The old man endeavoured to calm her, promising that he would go up to
the hall again, and get all the information he could.
Marks himself fully believed the young squire guilty. A hundred little
things recurred to his mind to strengthen his belief. George’s
mysterious arrival, travel-stained and penniless, his waiting till
nightfall, and his desire to enter the hall unobserved when his father
was alone, his hurried flight, and his mysterious instructions with
regard to Bess—all these things pointed to the fact that the young man
had attempted to rob his father, and in the struggle had injured him.
Old Squire Heritage himself said as much. It was true he seemed
bewildered, but to all the questions put to him about the strange and
terrible business he simply murmured, ‘My son! my only son!’ Marks felt
as if he had been a traitor to his old master in the part he had played
in the affair.
‘How could he ha’ done it? how could he ha’ done it?’ he muttered to
himself as, pale and agitated, he listened to the little group of
servants talking near the house.
No one doubted for a moment that the young squire was the guilty
person. Had he not been caught red-handed? Who his companion in the
crime was they could only conjecture. He had got clear away.
When Marks joined the group they turned on to him with a hundred
questions. Had he let Master George in? Had he heard anything about his
daughter?
No one knew that Bess was even then at the lodge. George had been so
cautious that, except to Marks, their arrival was a secret.
The servants hazarded a hundred conjectures as to what could have led
the young squire to commit such an awful deed. They had noticed his
dusty clothing and his haggard look, and they had almost pitied him
until they saw their old master’s terrible condition, and remembered
who was the cause of it.
Marks, nervous lest he should, in his agitation, betray how much he
kuew, barely answered the questions addressed to him. He asked
anxiously how the squire was, and learned that he was worse. Then he
went back, heavy-hearted and red-eyed, to tell his poor girl as hopeful
a tale as he might.
On the way he met a constable who had been searching the grounds.
The man stopped him.
‘You are the gate-keeper?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ stammered Marks, for the man was eyeing him keenly.
‘Did you let young Heritage in through the gates or see him pass?’
‘I let him in.’
‘Was he alone?’
Marks went hot and cold. Was Bess to be dragged into this dreadful
business? He had heard of the London lawyers and trials, and how all
your life came out in court, and how they cross-examined you till your
heart was laid bare. Was he going to be treated like this? He
remembered that he had enticed the dog away, and his heart almost stood
still. Why, in a court of justice he would seem to be in league with
the accused! And Bess! They would make out, ten to one, that it was
through her it all came about!
He stammered out something to the constable about not being quite
himself.
‘You’re agitated now,’ said the constable, ‘and no wonder. It’s a nasty
affair for the family. You’re an old servant, I believe? Well, I’ll
come and see you to-morrow, and take a note of your evidence. Did you
have any conversation with the young man when he came in?’
‘A little.’
‘All right. Well, think it over to-night, and let me know tomorrow what
it was. You’ll be an important witness. Goodnight.’
Marks hardly knew how he got back to the lodge.
Once inside, he bolted the door, and fell into his old armchair a prey
to the greatest agitation.
Bess came from the inner room, her eyes swollen with weeping.
‘Bess, my lass,’ said the old man, in a hollow voice, ‘there’s bad
news. The old squire’s worse, and everybody thinks as Master George is
guilty. The police are working up evidence a ready, and they want me.’
‘You will tell them, father, that it could not be George, won’t you?
You will tell them he came down here to ask his father’s forgiveness,
not to rob and injure him.’
‘I’m afraid, my lass, that nothing I could say would do Master George
much good. I fear it ‘ud only do him a power o’ harm. There’s one thing
we can do for him as I’m sure he’d be glad on.’
‘What’s that, father?’ said Bess eagerly.
‘Get away from here, both on us. He don’t want you mixed up in it, I
know, and I’d sooner cut my right hand off than go and speak agen him
in court.’
At first Bess would not hear of flight, but gradually her father
persuaded her that for George’s sake it was the best thing possible.
Besides, what could she do if she remained?
She would be a marked woman; something for the curious to gaze at, and
for the neighbours to talk about. When the trial was over, and George’s
innocence was proved, then she could show herself among her old
companions without a blush. She had not her husband’s permission even
to call herself by his name.
She was still Mrs. Smith. She could not take advantage of his position
to proclaim herself Mrs. Heritage. Her father was right.
It was best for all that they should get away from Heritage Hall at
once. It was no home for her now, and her father declared he could
never look the old squire in the face again.
‘I shall feel like a thief, stealing away in the night,’ he said; ‘but,
for Master George’s sake, I must do it. If they got me before the
lawyers, and made me speak what I know, it ud hang him.’
‘Father!’
Bess had seized the old lodge-keeper by the arm, and her face was
ashy-white.
‘No! no! I don’t mean that, my lass,’ he said, trying to soothe lier.
‘That’s only a manner of speaking, like. Of course there ain’t no
murder in it. Squire’ll be all right in a day or two.’
‘And George will be free?’
‘Ay, ay, my lass, o’ course he will; and till then you and I will go up
to London, and keep out o’ the way o’ curious folk, as wants to know
more o’ their neighbours’ business than is good for ‘em. We’ll go up to
London, and bide till we hear news o’ the young master.’
In the silence of the night an old man and a young woman stole out of
the gates of Heritage Park.
The old man looked back with lingering glances at the old place which
had been home to him for forty years.
He had his little store of money with him, and something that he prized
beyond gold—his greatest earthly treasure—his Bess.
Miserable as were the circumstances that had reunited them, he yet felt
his load of trouble lightened when he remembered that she was by to
cheer him.
‘Cheer up, my girl!’ he said, as they passed into the darkness. ‘It was
an evil day when the squire cast his son off, and it’s brought nothing
but trouble; but, please God, all will come right yet.’
Bess made no reply.
She was thinking of how hopefully, a few short hours since, she had
come back to the old place, and wondering how anybody could possibly
believe her dear, kind, gentle husband guilty of the terrible crime of
which he was accused.