"Sin and shame are ever tied together
With Gordian knots, of such a strong thread spun,
They cannot without violence be undone."--WEBSTER.
"Sharper than the stings of death!"--REYNOLDS.
Upon Pullingham a great cloud has descended. It has gathered in one
night,--swiftly, secretly,--and has fallen without warning, crushing
many hearts beneath it. Shame, and sin, and sorrow, and that most
terrible of all things--uncertainty--have come together to form it,
while doubt and suspicion lie in its train.
Ruth Annersley is missing! She has disappeared,--utterly!
entirely!--leaving no trace behind her, no word, no line to relieve
the heart of the old man, her father, and which is slowly beginning to
break, as the terrible truth dawns upon him.
Only yester eve she had poured out his tea as usual, had bidden him
good night,--lovingly, indeed, but not as one would bid an eternal
farewell. Afterwards, he remembered, she had not given him--on that
night of all others--the customary kiss, but had passed away from him
coldly, callously--or was it that she feared?
Tired out with his day's work, the miller had gone to bed The girl,
as was her habit ever since the longer evenings had set in, had gone
for a little walk into the dewy woods, where we are told "every bough
that moves over our head has an oracular wisdom." Alas! that they
should have taught her so little. She had crossed the road before the
very eyes of her household, had entered the green forest of
early-breaking leaves, had faded from sight, and never came back
again.
The old man, who rises and goes to bed with the sun (most constant
companion of simple minds), had slept peacefully all night, never
doubting that the child of his heart lay dreaming calm and happy
dreams in her own room. Not until the morning was far advanced did he
discover that Ruth's bed had known no occupant the night before.
Afterwards, too, he remembered how little this thought had jarred upon
him just at first. It was strange, vexing; she should have told him
where she meant to spend her evening; but, beyond that, it caused him
no pang, no suspicion.
Her aunt lived in a neighboring town,--probably she had gone there. It
was only four miles away,--a walk Ruth had taken many a day, and
thought nothing of it; but it was imprudent starting on such a journey
so late in the evening; and, besides, there was always the old mare to
drive her there and back.
Messengers were despatched to her aunt's house, but they returned
bringing no tidings. She was not there--had not been for over a
fortnight.
Day wanes; twilight is descending,--
"Melting heaven with earth,
Leaving on craggy hills and running streams
A softness like the atmosphere of dreams."
All day the miller has sat apart, his snow-white head upon his arms,
in the room her hands had beautified and made so dear. With passionate
indignation he has thrust from him all the attempts at sympathy, all
the hurtful, though well-meant, offers of assistance held out to him
by kindly neighbors. Silent, and half maddened by his thoughts, he
sits dogged and silent, refusing food, and waiting only for her who
never comes.
But when, at length, the gloaming comes, and day is over, without
bringing to him the frail form of her he so desires, he rises, and,
pushing back his chair, goes up to Hythe, and into the presence of
Lord Sartoris.
"_You_ will find me my girl," he says, and then he tells him all the
story.
Sartoris listens, and, as he does so, sickens with doubt that is
hardly a doubt, and fear that is nearly a certainty. Is this the end
he has so dreaded? Is this the creeping horror that has of late so
tortured him? Alas for the unblemished honor of the old name that for
centuries has held itself _sans peur et sans reproche_.
How can he dare to offer consolation to old Annersley? He covers his
face with his hands, and bends forward over the table. There is
something in his attitude that denotes despair, and renders more keen
the agony in Annersley's bosom.
"Why do you do that?" he cries, fiercely. "What is there to groan
about? Nothing, I tell you! The child has gone too far,--has lost her
way. She didn't understand. She cannot find her road home.--No
more--no more!"
His excitement and grief are pitiful to see. He wrings his hands; his
whole bearing and expression are at variance with his hopeful words.
"She will come back in an hour or two, mayhap," he says, miserably,
"and then I shall feel that I have disturbed your lordship: but I am
in a hurry, you see: I want her, and I cannot wait."
"What do you want me to do for you?" says Sartoris, very humbly. He
feels that he can hardly lift his eyes in this man's presence.
"Find her! That is all I ask of you. Find her, dead or alive! You are
a great man,--high in authority, with power, and servants at command.
Find me my child! Oh, _man_, help me, in some way!"
He cries this in an impassioned tone. He is totally overcome. His poor
old white head falls helplessly upon his clasped arms.
Sartoris, pale as death, and visibly affected, can make no reply. He
trembles, and stands before the humble miller as one oppressed with
guilt.
Annersley mistakes his meaning, and, striding forward, lays his hand
upon his arm.
"You are silent," he says, in a terrible tone, made up of grief and
anguish more intense than words can tell. "You do not think she is in
the wrong, do you? You believe her innocent? Speak!--speak!"
"I do," responds Sartoris, and only his own heart knows that he lies.
Yet his tone is so smothered, so unlike his usual one, that he hardly
recognizes it himself.
"If Mr. Branscombe were only here," says Annersley, in a stricken
voice, after a lengthened pause, "he would help me. He has always been
a kind friend to me and mine."
Lord Sartoris draws a deep breath, that is almost a sob.
"When does he return, my lord?"
"On Saturday. He said so, at least, when leaving."
"A long time," murmurs the old man, mournfully. "She will be home
before that,--if she ever comes at all." His head sinks upon his
breast. Then he rouses himself, and, glancing at Lord Sartoris, says
entreatingly, "Won't you write to him, my lord? Do, I implore of you,
and conjure him to return. If any one can help me it will be Mr.
Dorian."
"I shall write to him now,--now,--at once," says Sartoris,
mechanically, feeling how hideous is the mockery of this promise,
knowing what he thinks he knows. Even yet he clings to the hope that
he has been mistaken.
Thus he soothes the old man with vain promises, and so gets rid of
him, that he may be left alone with his own thoughts.
Shall he go to Dorian? This is the first engrossing idea. Yet it
affords but little consolation. To see him, to hear him, to listen to
a denial from his lips; that is what it holds out to him, and it is
all insufficient. How shall he believe him, knowing the many things
that have occurred? How treat his very most eager denial as anything
but a falsehood?
For hours he paces to and fro, pondering on what is the best course to
pursue. He is not his father, that he can coerce him. By nature
suspicious (though tender-hearted and indulgent in other ways), it
comes easily to him to believe that even the man in whom he has
trusted has been found wanting.
"To doubt is worse than to have lost," says Massinger; and surely he
is right. Sartoris, in deep perplexity, acknowledges the truth of this
line, and tells himself that in his old age he has been sorely tried.
The whole world seems changed. Sunshine has given place to gloom; and
he himself stands alone,--
"Stoynde and amazde at his own shade for dreed,
And fearing greater daungers than was nede."
Not until he is thoroughly exhausted, both in mind and body, does he
decide on leaving for town by the mid-day train next day.
In the mean time he will telegraph to Claridge's, some faint
remembrance lingering with him of Dorian's having made mention of that
hotel as being all any one's fancy could possibly paint it.
But the morrow brings its own tidings.
It is almost noon, and Sartoris, sitting in his library, writing some
business letters,--preparatory to catching the up train to town,--is
disturbed by a light knock at the door.
"Come in," he calls out, impatiently; and Simon Gale, opening the
door, comes slowly in.
He is a very old man, and has been butler in the family for more years
than he himself can count. His head is quite white, his form a little
bent; there is, at this moment, a touch of deep distress upon his face
that makes him look even older than he is.
"Are you busy, my lord?" asks he, in a somewhat nervous tone.
"Yes; I am very much engaged. I can see no one, Gale. Say I am
starting for town immediately."
"It isn't that, my lord. It is something I myself have to say to you.
If you could spare me a few minutes----." He comes a little nearer,
and speaks even more earnestly. "It is about Ruth Annersley."
Lord Sartoris, laying down his pen, looks at him intently.
"Close the door, Simon," he says, hurriedly, something in the old
servant's manner impressing him. "I will hear you. Speak, man: what is
it?"
"A story I heard this morning, my lord, which I feel it my duty to
repeat to you. Not that I believe one word of it. You will remember
that, my lord,--_not one word_." The grief in his tone belies the
truth of his avowal. His head is bent. His old withered hands clasp
and unclasp each other nervously.
"You are trembling," says Lord Sartoris. "Sit down. This news,
whatever it is, has unstrung you."
"It has," cries Simon, with vehemence. "I _am_ trembling; I _am_
unstrung. How can I be otherwise when I hear such a slander put upon
the boy I have watched from his cradle?"
"You are speaking of----?" demands Sartoris, with an effort.
"Mr. Dorian." He says this in a very low tone; and tears, that always
come so painfully and so slowly to the old, shine in his eyes. "His
sad complexion wears grief's mourning livery." He covers his face with
his hands.
Sartoris, rising from his seat, goes over to the window, and so stands
that his face cannot be seen.
"What have you got to say about Mr. Branscombe?" he asks, in a harsh,
discordant tone.
"My lord, it is an impertinence my speaking at all," says Gale.
"Go on. Let me know the worst. I can hardly be more miserable than I
am," returns Sartoris.
"It was Andrews, the under-gardener, was telling me," begins Simon,
without any further attempt at hesitation. "This morning, early, I met
him near the Ash Grove. 'Simon,' he says, 'I want to speak wi'ye. I
have a secret on my mind.'
"'If you have, my man, keep it,' says I. 'I want none o' your
secrets.' For in truth he is often very troublesome, my lord, though a
well-meaning youth at bottom.
"'But it is on my conscience,' says he, 'and if I don't tell it to you
I shall tell it to some one else, because tell it I must, or bust!'
"So when he went that far, my lord, I saw as how he was real uneasy,
and I made up my mind to listen. And then he says,--
"'Night before last feyther was coming through the copse wood that
runs t'other side o' the fence from Master Annersley's, and there, in
the thickest part o' it, he saw Miss Ruth a standing, and wi' her was
Mr. Branscombe.'
"'Which Mr. Branscombe?' says I.
"'Mr. Dorian,' he says, 'He seen him as plain as life, though it was
dusk, standing wi' his back half turned towards him, but not so turned
but what he could see his ear and part o' his face. He had a hold o'
Miss Ruth's hands; and was speaking very earnest to her, as though he
were persuading her to something she were dead against. And she were
crying very bitter, and trying to draw her hands away; but presently
she got quiet like; and then they went away together, slowly at first,
but quicker afterwards, in the direction of the wood that leads to
Langham. He did not stir a peg until they was out o' sight, he was so
afeard o' being seen. And now it is on his conscience that he did not
speak sooner, ever since he saw old Mr. Annersley yesterday, like a
mad creature, looking for his girl.'
"That was his story, my lord. And he told it as though he meant it. I
said to him as how Mr. Dorian was in Lonnun, and that I didn't believe
one word of it; and then he said,--
"'Lonnun or no Lonnun, there is no mistake about it. If, as you say,
he did go up to Lonnun, he must ha' come down again by the Langham
train, for he see him wi' his two eyes.'
"'Mr. Horace is very like Mr. Dorian,' I said. (Forgive me, my lord,
but there was a moment when I would gladly have believed the blame
might fall on Mr. Horace.) 'There are times when one can hardly know
them asunder;' but he scouted this notion.
"'Feyther seen him,' he said. 'He had one o' them light overcoats on
he is so fond o' wearing. It was him, and no other. He noticed the
coat most perticler. And a damn'd shame it is for him! If you don't
believe me, I can't help you. I believe it: that is enough for me.'"
Gale ceases speaking. And silence follows that lasts for several
minutes. Then he speaks again:
"I ask your pardon, my lord, for having so spoken about any member of
the family. But I thought it was only right you should know."
"You have acted very kindly." Even to himself his tone is strained
and cold. "This Andrews must be silenced," he says, after a little
pause, full of bitterness.
"I have seen to that, my lord. After what I said to him, he will
hardly speak again to any one on the subject."
"See to it, Simon. Let him fully understand that dismissal will be the
result of further talk."
"I will, my lord." Then, very wistfully, "Not that any one would
distrust Mr. Dorian in this matter. I feel--I know, he is innocent."
Lord Sartoris looks at him strangely; his lips quiver; he seems old
and worn, and as a man might who has just seen his last hope perish.
"I envy you your faith," he says, wearily; "I would give half--nay,
all I possess, if I could say that honestly."
Just at this moment there comes an interruption.
"A telegram, my lord," says one of the men, handing in a yellow
envelope.
Sartoris, tearing it open, reads hurriedly.
"I shall not go to town, Gale," he says, after a minute or two of
thought. "Counter-order the carriage. Mr. Branscombe comes home
to-night."