IN MRS. TANSEY'S ROOM.
There were sounds of music and laughter faintly audible through the
drawing-room door. The music ceased as the door opened, and the
gentlemen entered an atmosphere of brilliant light, and fragrant with
the pleasant aroma of tea.
"Pray, Miss Arden, don't let us interrupt you," said Mr. Longcluse. "I
thought I heard singing as we came up the stairs." He had come to the
piano, and was now at her side.
She did not sing or play, but Vivian Darnley thought that her
conversation with Longcluse, as, with one knee on his chair, he leaned
over the back of it and talked, seemed more interesting than usual.
"I say, Reginald," said David Arden softly to his brother, "I must run
down and pay Martha Tansey my usual visit. She's in her room, I suppose.
I'll steal away and return quietly."
And so he was gone. He closed the door softly behind him, and slowly
descended the wide staircase, with many vague conjectures and images
revolving in his mind. He paused at the great window on the landing, and
looked out upon the solemn and familiar landscape. A brilliant moon was
high in the sky, and the stars glimmered brightly. His hand was on the
window as he looked out, thinking.
Uncle David was a man impulsive, prompt, sanguine--a temperament, in
short, which, directed by an able intellect, would have made a good
general. When an idea had got into his head, he could not rest until he
had worked it out. On the whole, throughout his life these fits of
sudden and feverish concentration had been effective, and aided his
fortunes. It is, perhaps, an unbusiness-like temperament; but commercial
habits and example had failed to control that natural ardour, and, when
once inflamed, it governed his actions implicitly.
An idea, very vague, very little the product of reason, had now taken
possession of his brain, and he relied upon it as an intuition. He had
been thinking over it. It first warmed, then simmered, then, as it were,
boiled. The process had been one of an hour and more, as he sat at his
brother's table and took his share in the conversation. When the steam
got up and the pressure rose to the point of action, forth went Uncle
David to have his talk with his early friend Tansey. He stopped, as I
have said, at the great window on the staircase, and looked out and up.
The moon was splendid; the stars were glimmering brightly; they looked
down like a thousand eyes set upon him, to watch the prowess and
perseverance of the man on whom fate had imposed a mission.
Some idea like this seized him, for, like many men of a similar
temperament, he had an odd and unconfessed vein of poetry in his nature.
He had looked out and up in a listless abstraction, and the dark heaven
above him, brilliant with its eternal lights, had for a moment withdrawn
and elevated his thoughts as if he had entered a cathedral.
"What specks and shadows we are, and how eternal is duty! And if we are
in another place to last like those unfailing lights--to become happy or
wretched, and, in either state, indestructible for ever--what signify
the labour and troubles of life, compared with that by which our
everlasting fate is fixed? God help us! Am I consulting revenge or
conscience in pursuing this barren inquiry? Do I mistake for the sublime
impulse of conscience a vulgar thirst for blood? I think not. I never
harboured malice; I hate punishing people. But murder is a crime against
God himself, respecting which he imposes duties upon man, and seconds
them by all the instincts of affection. Dare I neglect them, then, in
the case of poor loving Harry, my brother?"
The drawing-room door had been opened a little, the night being sultry,
and through it now came the clear tones of a well-taught baritone. It
was singing a slow and impassioned air, and its tones, though sweet,
chilled him with a strange pain. It seemed like instinct that told him
it was the stranger's voice. One moment's thought would have proved it
equally. There was no one else present to suspect but Vivian Darnley,
and he was no musician; but to David Arden it seemed that if a hundred
people were there he should have felt it all the same, and intuitively
recognised it as Longcluse's voice.
"What is it in that voice which is so hateful? What is it in that
passion which sounds insincere? What gives to those sweet tones a latent
discord, that creeps so coldly through my nerves?"
So thought David Arden, as, with one hand still upon the window-sash, he
listened and turned toward the open door, with a frown akin to one of
pain.
Spell-bound, he listened till the song was over, and sighed and shook
his ears with a sort of shudder when the music ceased.
"I don't know why I stayed to listen. Face--voice--what is the agency
about that fellow? I daresay I'm a fool, but I can't help it, and I must
bring the idea to the test."
He descended the stairs slowly, crossed the hall, and walked
thoughtfully down the passage leading to the housekeeper's room. At this
hour the old woman had it usually to herself. He knocked at the
housekeeper's door, and recognised the familiar voice that answered.
"How do you do, Martha?" said he, striding cheerily into the room.
"Ah! Master David? So it is, sure!"
"Ay, sure and sure, Martha," said he, taking the old woman's hand, with
his kind smile. "And how are you, Martha? Tell me how you are."
"I won't say much. I'm not so canty as you'll mind me. I'm an old wife
now, Master David, and not much for this world, I'm thinking," she
answered dolorously.
"You may outlive much younger people, Martha; we are all in the hands of
God," said David, smiling. "It seems to me but yesterday that I and poor
Harry used to run in here to you from our play in the grounds, and you
had always a bit of something for us hungry fellows to eat, come when we
might."
"Ah, ha! Yes, ye were hungry fellows then--spirin' up, fine tall lads.
Reginald was never like ye; he was seven years older than you. And
hungry? Yes! The cold turkey and ham, ye mind--by Jen! I _have_ seen ye
eat hearty; and pancakes--ye liked them best of all. And it went a' into
a good skin. I will say--you and Master Harry (God be wi' him!) a fine,
handsome pair o' lads ye were. And you're a handsome fellow still,
Master David, and might have married well, no doubt; but man proposes
and God disposes, and time and tide 'll wait for no man, and what's one
man's meat's another man's poison. Who knows and all may be for the
best? And that Mr. Longcluse is dining here to-day?" she added, not very
coherently, and with a sudden gloom.
"Yes, Martha, that Mr. Longcluse is dining here to-day; and Master Dick
tells me you did not fall in love with him at first sight, when they
paid you a visit here. Is that true?"
"I don't know. I don't know what. The sight of him--or the sound of his
voice, I don't know which--gave me a turn," said the old woman.
"Well, Martha, I don't like his face, either. He gave me, also, what you
call a turn. He's very pale, and I felt as if I had been frightened by
him when I was a child; and yet he must be some five and twenty years
younger than I am, and I'm almost certain I never saw him before. So I
say it must be something that's no' canny as you used to say. What do
you think, Martha?"
"Ye may be funnin', Master David. Ye were always a canty lad. But it's
o'er true. I can't bring to mind what it is--I can't tell--but something
in that man's face gev me a sten. I conceited I was just goin' to
swound; and he looked sa straight at me, like a ghost."
"Master Richard says you looked very hard at Mr. Longcluse; you had both
a good stare at each other," said Uncle David. "He thought there was
going to be a recognition."
"Did I? Well, no: I don't know him, I _think_. 'Tis all a jummlement,
like. I couldn't bring nout to mind."
"I know, Martha, you liked poor Harry well," said David Arden, not with
a smile, but with a very sad countenance.
"That I did," said Mrs. Tansey.
"And I think you like me, Martha?"
"Ye're not far wrong there, Master David."
"And for both our sakes--for mine and his, for the dead no less than the
living--I am sure you won't allow any thought of trouble, or
nervousness, or fear of lawyers' browbeating, or that sort of thing, to
deter you from saying, wherever and whenever justice may require it,
everything you know or suspect respecting that dreadful occurrence."
"The death o' Master Harry, ye mean!" exclaimed Mrs. Tansey sternly,
drawing herself up on a sudden, with a pale frown, and looking full at
him. "_Me_ to hide or hold back aught that could bring the truth to
light! Oh! Master David, do you know what ye're sayin'?"
"Perfectly," said he, with a melancholy smile; "and I am glad it vexes
you, Martha, because I need no answer on that point more than your
honest voice and face."
"Keep back aught, man!" she repeated, striking her hand on the table.
"Why, lad, I'd lose that old hand under the chopper for one gliff o' the
truth into that damned story. Why, lawk! where's yer head, boy? Wasn't I
maist killed myself, for sake o' him that night?"
"Ay, Martha, brave girl, I'm satisfied; and I ask your pardon for the
question. But years bring alteration, you know; and I'm changed in mind
myself in many ways I never could have believed. And everyone doesn't
see with me that it is our duty to explore a crime like that, to track
the villain, if we can, and bring him to justice. _You_ do, Martha; but
there are many in whose veins poor Harry's blood is running, who don't
feel like you. Master Richard said that the gentleman looked as if he
did not know what to make of you; 'and, by Jove!' said he, '_I_ didn't
either--Martha stared so.'"
"I couldn't help. 'Twas scarce civil; but truly I couldn't, Sir," said
Martha Tansey, who had by this time recovered her equanimity. "He did
remind me of summat."
"We will talk of that by-and-by, Martha; we will try to recall it. What
I want you first to tell me is exactly your recollection of the
lamentable occurrence of that night. I have a full note of it at home;
but I have not looked at it for years, and I want my recollection
confirmed to-night, that you and I may talk over some possibilities
which I should like to examine with your help."
"I can talk of it now," said the old woman; "but for many a year after
it happened I dare not. I could not sleep for many a night after I told
it to anyone. But now I can bear it. So, Master David, you may ask what
you please."
"First let me hear your recollection of what happened," said David
Arden.
"Ay, Master David, that I will. Sit ye down, for my old bones won't
carry me standing no time now, and sit I must. Right well ye're lookin',
and right glad am I to see it, Master David; and ye were always a
handsome laddie. God bless ye, and God be wi' the old times! And poor
Master Harry--poor laddie!--I liked him well. You two looked beautiful,
walkin' up to t' house together--two conny, handsome boys ye were."