"Who was that I saw crossing the lawn a little while ago?" said Mr.
Tracy, speaking to his valet, who came in to assist him in dressing
for dinner.
"I saw a gentleman at the door asking for Acton, Sir," replied the
servant; "and, as one of the men met him coming back this afternoon, I
told the person that he would most likely find him in the garden; for
he seemed quite a gentleman, and in a great hurry to speak with him. I
hope I did not do wrong, Sir?"
"Oh dear, no," answered Mr. Tracy; "I am glad to hear Acton has come
back. Let him know to-morrow morning, that I want to talk to him."
Mr. Tracy went on calmly with his dressing; and when he had done, as
the second bell had rung, he took up a book and read. He was very
grave. Thought was importunate; for, though he had freed himself from
present difficulties, yet the future was dark and menacing; and, at
what a price had he purchased temporary relief? His daughter's
happiness--he felt it--had been the sacrifice. He saw that she did
not, that she could not love Sir William Winslow; and yet the baronet,
bending all the energies of his mind to the speedy gratification of
the passion which moved him, had skilfully contrived, with as little
appearance of selfish policy as possible, to make the sum which was
immediately necessary to Mr. Tracy dependent upon the time of the
union of his daughter with himself. Without entering into long
explanations, he had stated that he had the power to settle that sum
upon his wife; implying, untruly, that he had not the power of lending
it under other circumstances. Mr. Tracy was obliged to accept his
terms without inquiry. Emily yielded with despair in her heart, and
dark forebodings in her mind. She had but one consolation--one
support--that, by the sacrifice of all that was most dear, she was
saving her father. She repeated it to herself a thousand times a-day;
and kept it ever before her in the weary and wearing hours of the
night. It was the only means she had of keeping the bitter anguish of
her spirit from bursting forth before every eye. Do what she would, it
did sometimes appear: and Mr. Tracy felt the silent reproach, and
dared not pause and think; but filled every moment with some
occupation, however trifling, which might withdraw his mind from the
terrible consciousness, that he was sacrificing his child.
When the bell rang, he walked down to the drawing-room with a quick
step. His two daughters were there alone--Emily exceedingly pale, but
calm, though very grave; Rose striving for cheerfulness with an effort
almost hysterical. The General was absent in London. Sir William
Winslow was not yet down, though he had only arrived that morning from
town, and might be supposed to feel eagerness to be with his betrothed
as much as possible. Five, ten minutes passed; dinner was announced;
and then some more time went by; till, at length, Mr. Tracy sent up a
servant to inform his guest that they waited for him; and in a few
minutes more, Sir William presented himself. His appearance, however,
struck everybody as very strange. His face was usually florid; his
manner calm and resolute; his tone quick and decided,--but now his
cheek was like a sheet of gray paper; his eyes wandering and haggard;
his step vacillating; his tone wavering, and his words confused. He
apologized for the tardiness of his appearance, saying, that he had
felt fatigued with his journey, and somewhat ill, and had fallen
asleep. Emily expressed no concern or sympathy, though his excuses
were principally addressed to her. They had had a full explanation
together. He knew the terms on which he obtained her hand; and she did
not wish him to suppose her moved by feelings she did not experience.
It was her person he sought to possess, not her love. That he
obtained; she could give no more.
Mechanically he offered her his arm, to take her in to dinner; sat
beside her, and talked. It was strange, rambling conversation;
sometimes distilled drop by drop, as if each word were the last he
would ever speak; sometimes frightfully rapid. They formed a strange
contrast, he and Emily--she in her calm taciturnity; he in his
perturbed, unequal eloquence. Yet there were strong feelings at the
heart of both: hers high, grand, ennobling; a battle fought, a
struggle striven, a victory won over self:--his turbulent, agitating,
oppressive; a fierce contest, a terrible strife, a losing battle
against remorse and dismay. There was nothing harsh, nothing resisting
in her demeanour. It was all done; the combat of the mind was
over--the assent was given: she yielded herself to the knife: she was
Jephthah's daughter in the mountains, the expiation of her father's
folly, prepared or preparing for the sacrifice. She was cold. How
could she be otherwise? But there was no harshness.
He, on the contrary, was strangely excited. Every time the door
opened, he turned round with a start, and looked with straining eyes
behind him. When the butler asked in a whisper of Mr. Tracy, what
wines he should set upon the table after dinner--a question he had
forgotten to put before--Sir William Winslow listened with all his
ears to catch the sounds, as if they bore matter of life and death to
him; and when Mr. Tracy answered aloud, "Some red hermitage and
claret," he applied himself to talk again with exceeding vehemence.
The shadow of the dead haunted him. The gaunt spectre of Remorse was
ever before his eyes.
Doubt too--terrible, vague, cloudy, indefinite doubt, the most
oppressive of all states of mind, the most fearful form of
Nemesis--hung over him like a brooding fury. "Was he really dead?" he
asked himself; "Was the man slain?" He had fallen very heavily. That
last blow had been followed by a sound strange and frightful: the
cracking of solid bone mingled with a deathly groan. The eyes--he had
seen them even in the dim twilight--had swum mortally in the sinking
head. There had been a gasp which he did not like to think of, a dire
clutching after breath of lungs that would receive it no more. What he
would have given to creep quietly and silently down those wintry
walls, and look at the spot where he had left him! to feel about with
his hands in the darkness, and ascertain if the body was still there!
But he sat chained to his seat in marble terror. He dared not turn his
eyes towards the side where the deed had been done; he hardly dared to
think of it, lest his thoughts unwittingly should find a tongue to
bear witness against him. Yet he remembered that no one had seen the
deed, as far as he knew; that he had met the object of his crime by
accident, as he was returning to the house after a short walk in the
grounds; that he had encountered no one by the way, either going or
coming; that he had even gone out of the house by one of the
conservatories, which led directly to a close and narrow walk, so that
none could tell he had ever set his foot across the threshold. All
these seemed comfortable reflections; but yet, strange to say, they
brought neither comfort nor assurance. There is a consciousness that
murder has its mysterious witnesses, which ever sits heavily on the
felon's spirit. Why, he knew not, but he felt detected, even while he
strove to prove to himself that detection was impossible. Oh, crime is
a terrible thing!
Nevertheless the whole of dinner-time passed over quietly: there was
nothing took place to cause alarm; and when Emily and Rose left the
table, Mr. Tracy remarked, "Sir William, you do not seem well. If you
would take my advice, you would send for our worthy surgeon, Mr.
Woodyard, and adopt some precautionary measures. I think you must have
overfatigued yourself."
"I had a hard day's work in London, yesterday," replied his guest,
"running after those lawyers all day long; and I travelled all night.
I did not sleep either, though I usually sleep as well in a carriage
as a bed. Perhaps I am a little heated. My face is flushed, is it
not?"
It was as pale as death.
By Mr. Tracy's persuasion the surgeon was sent for; and was soon in
the house.
"Well, what is the matter with you?" he asked, as soon as the young
baronet was pointed out as his patient; and, pressing his hand upon
the pulse, he stared into Sir William's face, as if he wished to put
him out of countenance.
"I do not know, doctor," replied the other. "I do not feel well--am
fatigued--have got a head-ache--my temples throb; and my thoughts are
somewhat confused."
"You have got something on your mind," said Sandy Woodyard, thinking
of Emily, whom the old man loved dearly, and did not like to see
sacrificed; "your conscience is not quiet, I should think--this is all
mental."
"What do you mean, Sir?" asked Sir William Winslow, fiercely; his
pride and his courage coming arm in arm to his aid the moment he was
attacked in front.
"I mean just what I say," replied the surgeon, nothing daunted; "there
is no sign in the pulse or the temperature of the skin, to show any
corporeal ailment. It must be mental; and the best thing to prevent
the mind acting too strongly on the body, will be to let you blood.
Bring me a basin and a good stout stick, flunky."
Sir William Winslow submitted willingly enough, though he hated the
old man mortally, for words which touched rudely but unwittingly on
the deep concealed wound. Sandy Woodyard made him grasp the stick
tightly in his hand, pierced the arm, and as the blood spirted forth,
indulged in a grim smile, muttering. "Ay, black--damned black--black
blood as ever I saw--very needful to draw this off--we must have a
good drop!"
And a good drop he did certainly take; for, whether, from judging it
really necessary, or from a slight touch of malice, he bled the
baronet till he fainted. Sir William was carried to his room, and soon
brought to consciousness again; but good Mr. Woodyard was not aware
that, in one respect, at least, he had conferred a favour, by
affording a fair excuse to his patient for not joining the party below
any more that night. Even that was a relief; but it was not till the
next morning that Sir William Winslow was aware of all he had escaped.
It was the custom at Northferry, for the under gardener, every night,
before he retired to rest, to perambulate the grounds, and then to let
loose some large dogs, serving as very necessary guards to a place
which, by its open boundaries, and solitary situation, was much
exposed to depredation. On the night in question, about ten o'clock,
he sallied forth, when the moon was just rising, faint, dim, and
watery, as she not unfrequently appears after one of those fine, warm,
unseasonable, February days, with a few thin lines of gray and white
cloud drawn across her sickly disk. She gave a good deal of light,
however; and he took his way along the paths, rather enjoying the walk
than feeling it a burthensome task. When he approached the confines of
the grounds, on the field side, and came near the little temple so
often mentioned, he saw, by the beams of the moon, something lying,
partly on the path, partly off, like a large dog curled up to spring
at him; and he paused in doubt and some alarm. The object remained
quite still; and drawing slowly nearer, he found it was the body of a
man. He touched the hand; it was deadly cold; and in terror and
consternation he ran straight across the lawns back to the house.
Servants and lights soon followed him down to the spot; and
consternation and horror reached their height, when it was found, that
the very person who a few hours before had been asking for the
head-gardener, at the mansion, had been murdered in the grounds. The
body was already quite stiff; but it was taken up and carried into one
of the tool-houses, while some of the people ran back to give Mr.
Tracy information of the event. The rest gathered round the corpse as
it lay upon a gardener's bench; and many were the comments made--some
ridiculous and almost laughable, some sad, some sublime in their
simplicity.
"Well, it is a queer thing to see a dead man, any how," said one of
the spectators, in a very low tone; "they all look so dull like."
"Poor man! I wonder what his wife is thinking about now," said
another.
"Ah! he saw the sun go down that will rise again to-morrow as bright
as ever, and he see it no more," was the observation of an old
servant. "Well, my night will soon come too. God send it be not a
bloody one, like his!"
Mr. Tracy was soon upon the spot; and walking up to the body, he took
a lantern from the hands of one of the men and held it near the
corpse, before he asked for any further information than he had
received by the way.
"I have seen that face before," he said, after considering the
countenance of the dead man for a moment. "It surely is Mr. Roberts,
the steward and agent of Sir Harry Winslow. Yes, it certainly is his
face. Here, come forward, Taylor, and bear witness what we find upon
the body. This is a most strange and terrible affair. I feel almost
sure that this is poor Roberts, and the fact of his being killed in
these grounds is most extraordinary."
The man he spoke to was his butler, and advancing to his master's
side, he held the lantern while Mr. Tracy examined the contents of the
dead man's pockets. The first thing that was taken out seemed to
settle the identity at once. It was a letter, which had been opened,
addressed to "Richard Roberts, Esquire, Winslow Abbey;" and although
Mr. Tracy proceeded to read it, in search of any information which
could lead to a discovery of the murderer, it may be unnecessary to
give the contents in this place, as they have been already laid before
the reader. The epistle, in short, was that which Chandos had written
the night before, after having quitted the park; but to Mr. Tracy's
mind it conveyed no hint of the state of the case. He only saw, that
Mr. Winslow had written somewhat sharply, and he thought, "The poor
young man will regret this when he finds what a sad fate has overtaken
an old and faithful servant of his family."
He handed over the letter, when he had read it, to the butler, with a
pencil, saying, "Mark it;" and then proceeded with his examination.
Nothing had been taken from the body. The watch was there; the purse
was safe in the pocket, though it contained a good deal of money. The
pocket-book, with various papers, receipts, bills, promissory notes,
memoranda, and letters, was also there. Even a pair of silver
spectacles, in a morocco-leather case, had not been disturbed in the
waistcoat pocket; and it became apparent that robbery had not been the
object, or that the assassin had been disturbed before he had time to
reap the fruits of his crime.
The next object of examination was the exact spot where the body had
been found; and Mr. Tracy proceeded thither with the under-gardener,
followed by all the rest. There were but few traces of feet, for the
gravel walk was hard; but there was a quantity of blood where the poor
man had lain; and while Mr. Tracy was looking narrowly at the place,
one of the men cried, "Here is what did it, Sir;" and at the same time
took up the Dutch hoe which was lying on the grass hard by. On holding
the lantern to the tool, some blood and gray hair was found upon the
blunt edge, and at one corner; and Mr. Tracy ordered it to be
conveyed, exactly as it was, to the tool-house, whither, after having
concluded his personal inspection of the spot, he returned himself. He
there paused and meditated, and at length said to the under-gardener,
"Go and call Mr. Acton hither."
In a few minutes, Chandos was in the tool-house. He was perfectly calm
and grave, for he had had time to think and to determine upon his
conduct.
"Here is a very terrible affair, Acton," said Mr. Tracy. "This poor
gentleman has been murdered in the grounds, close to the fish-pond. He
asked at the house for you, it seems; and was directed to seek you in
the garden. Look at him close, and tell me who he is."
"I do not need to look nearer, Sir," replied Chandos, gazing firmly on
the corpse; "it is the body of poor Mr. Roberts, the late Sir Harry
Winslow's agent--as good a man as ever lived."
"Did he find you in the garden?" asked Mr. Tracy.
"No, Sir," replied Chandos; "I quitted the garden after speaking a
few words to Miss Rose Tracy, by the basin, as she was feeding the
gold-fish."
"That must have been very nearly at the time he was seeking you," said
Mr. Tracy. "I saw him cross the lawn, and I saw my daughter return
about ten minutes afterwards. Did you quit the garden immediately
after you saw her?"
"Immediately," answered Chandos.
"Do you know whose hoe that is?" inquired Mr. Tracy, pointing to the
one that lay by the dead man.
"Mine, Sir," replied Chandos at once; "I left it leaning against the
pillar." And, taking it up, he added, as he looked at it, "The murder
must have been committed with this."
"Leave it there," said Mr. Tracy. "Pray what did Mr. Roberts want with
you?"
"Of that I can have no notion, Sir," was the young gentleman's reply.
"I did not even know that he had been seeking me, till you informed me
of the fact just now." He saw that some suspicion was beginning to
attach itself to him; but Chandos Winslow was not a man to suffer
himself to feel personal alarm easily, and he remained so calm and
self-possessed, that Mr. Tracy felt that some vague doubts which he
had entertained had done him injustice.
"This affair," he said, at lengthy "is as strange as terrible, and
must be immediately inquired into further. Taylor, you remain here
with one of the men till the constable can be brought up from the
village. Then give the body and the hoe into his charge, and render
him every assistance he may require; but nothing must be taken away or
altered till the coroner, to whom I shall write immediately, arrives.
Let everybody, too, avoid the spot where the crime was committed, in
order that any traces which may perhaps be apparent to-morrow, though
we have not been able to find them to-night, may not be effaced."
"It may perhaps be better, Sir," said Chandos, "to keep the door by my
cottage locked. Then the men will not pass that way to their work.
Here is my key; I can go round by the house. Sandes has also a key,
which can be fetched from him, if you like."
"Do you know when Sandes left the garden?" asked Mr. Tracy quickly, as
if a new thought had struck him.
"A little before myself," answered Chandos. "I met him and his boy in
the walk going homeward."
"And are you certain this crime had not been committed before he went
home?" was the next inquiry.
"Perfectly, Sir," said Chandos; "for I must have seen the body if it
lay by the fish-pond, as you said just now. Sandes must have been out
of the grounds, if he went straight forward, before I reached the
basin."
"It is all very strange!" said Mr. Tracy; and, taking the key, he left
the spot, followed close by Chandos, and some of the servants. No
further conversation took place, however; and the young gentleman,
with a feeling of deep gloom, returned to his cottage, leaving fate to
direct the course of events which had commenced so terribly.