"IT IS THE STARS."
Morning brought no relief of mind to Mrs. Wornock, since it brought no
news of her son; but before night there was even greater anxiety at
Beechhurst, where Allan Carew's mother arrived late in the evening,
summoned by a letter from her son, despatched from Southampton on the
previous day, announcing his arrival, and asking her to join him at
Beechhurst.
"I would go straight to Suffolk," he wrote, "knowing how anxious my
dear, tender-hearted mother will be to welcome her wanderer home,
only--only I think you know that there is some one at Matcham about
whose feelings I have still a shadow of doubt, still a lingering hope.
I go there first, where perhaps I may meet you; and if I find that
faint hope to be only a delusion, I know you will sympathize with my
final disappointment.
"I have passed through many adventures and some dangers since I left
the great lake. I have been ill, and I have been lonely; but I come
back to England the same man who went away--unchanged in heart and
mind. However altered you may find the outer man, the inner man is the
same."
Having telegraphed from Waterloo to announce her arrival at Matcham
Road Station, Lady Emily was bitterly disappointed at not finding her
son waiting for her on the platform. She looked eagerly out into the
November darkness, searching for the well-known figure among the few
people standing here and there along the narrow platform. There was no
Allan, and there was no Beechhurst carriage waiting for her.
The station-master recognized her as she alighted, and came to assist
in the selection of her luggage, while a porter ran off to order a fly
from the inn outside.
"Mr. Carew was expected home yesterday. Did he come?" asked Lady
Emily, with that faint sickness of despair which follows on such a
disappointment.
She had pictured the moment of reunion over and over again during the
journey--had fancied how he would look, what he would say to her, and
the delight of their long confidential talk on the drive home, and the
pleasure of their _tête-à-tête_ dinner. The only shadow upon her happy
thought of him was her knowledge of what his faithful heart must needs
suffer when he found that Suzette had engaged herself to his rival.
The station-master informed Lady Emily that Mr. Carew had arrived the
day before, by this very train. He had evidently sent no notice of
his arrival, as there was no carriage to meet him. He had very little
luggage with him--only a portmanteau and a bale of rugs and sticks,
which had been sent to Beechhurst by the station 'bus. Mr. Carew had
walked home.
He was at home, then. The gladness of reunion was only delayed for an
hour. His mother tried to make light of her disappointment and of his
neglect. He had given an order to the stable, perhaps, and it had been
forgotten. There was a mistake somewhere, but no unkindness on his part.
"Was my son looking in pretty good health?" she asked the
station-master.
"Yes, my lady, allowing for the wear and tear of a sea-voyage, Mr.
Carew looked pretty well; but he looked pulled down a bit since he went
away. You mustn't be surprised at a little change in that way."
"Yes, yes, no doubt he is altered. Years of travel and fatigue and
danger. Ah, there is the fly; they have been very quick. Come, Taylor,"
to the middle-aged, homely Suffolk abigail who stood on guard over her
mistress's luggage.
The drive through the November night seemed longer to the lady inside
the carriage, sitting alone and longing for the sight of her son's
face, than to her maid on the box beside John coachman, of the Station
Inn, chatting sociably about the improvements in the neighbourhood
and the prospects of the hunting season. And, oh, bitter agony of
disappointment when the door of Beechhurst was opened, and Lady Emily
saw only a half-lit hall and staircase, and the stolid countenance of
butler and caretaker, whose informal attire too plainly showed her that
his master was not in the house.
"Has Mr. Carew gone away again?" she asked, as the man helped her out
of the carriage, thinking vaguely that Allan might have started off for
Suffolk that morning, and that she and he were travelling to and fro at
cross purposes.
"Mr. Carew has not been home, my lady."
"Not been home? Why, he arrived yesterday by the train I came by
to-night. The station-master told me so."
"Then he must be visiting somewhere in the neighbourhood, my lady. Some
luggage was brought at nine o'clock; but my master has not been home."
She stood looking at the man dumbly, paralyzed by apprehension. Where
could Allan be? what could he have done with himself? His letter had
asked her to meet him in that house. He had arrived at the station
twenty-four hours before he could expect her; he had sent home his
luggage, and had walked out of the station in the most casual manner,
saying that he was going home. Was it credible that he would go to
anybody else's house, straight from the station, luggageless, newly
landed after a long sea-voyage? No man in his senses would so act. Yet
there was but one course for an anxious mother to take, and Lady Emily
returned to the fly, and ordered the man to drive to Marsh House.
Allan might have gone straight to Suzette. Who could tell what effect
the news of her approaching marriage might have upon his mind? His
letter told his mother that he still hoped; and the change from hope to
despair would be crushing. He might have hurried away from the scene
of his disappointment, careless how or where he went, so long as he got
himself far away from the place associated with his fickle sweetheart.
Suzette was at home, and received Lady Emily kindly, forgetting all
that had gone before in her compassion for the mother's distress.
Allan had called at Marsh House on the previous evening during
Suzette's absence. He had been told that she was at the Manor, and the
servant had understood him to say that he was going on to the Manor. He
had seemed put out at hearing where she was, the soldier servant had
told his young mistress.
"And were you not at the Manor when he called?" Lady Emily asked.
"No; I left before lunch; but instead of coming home, where I was not
expected, I spent the afternoon at the Vicarage and on the golf-ground
with Bessie Edgefield."
"And Mr. Wornock was with you most of the time, I suppose?"
"Not any of the time."
"Is he away, then?"
"No. If you must know the truth, we had--well, I can hardly say, we had
quarrelled; but Geoffrey had been very disagreeable, and I was glad to
leave him to himself for the afternoon."
"You are good friends again now, no doubt?"
"We have not seen each other since. Geoffrey has gone away, without
letting any one know where he was going, and his poor mother is anxious
and unhappy about him. He is so impetuous--so erratic."
"And you, his sweetheart, are still more anxious, no doubt?"
"I am anxious chiefly for his poor mother's sake. She is too easily
frightened."
"Can they have gone away together, anywhere?" said Lady Emily.
"Together--Allan and Geoffrey!" exclaimed Suzette. "No, I don't think
they would do that."
"Why not? They were together for two years in Africa."
"Yes, but that was different. I don't think, in Geoffrey's state
of mind, that he would have gone on a journey with your son. He
has a jealous temper, I am sorry to say, and he was irritable and
unreasonable yesterday when he heard of--Mr. Carew's return. Is it
likely that he would have gone off on any expedition with your son to
London or anywhere else?"
"Then where is my son? He was here at this hour yesterday. He left here
to go to the Manor; and now you tell me that Mr. Wornock is missing,
and that my son has not been heard of since he left your door."
"He has not been at the Manor. Mrs. Wornock would have told me if he
had called. I was with her all this morning. She is wretched about
Geoffrey. They are both safe, I dare say; but their disappearance is
very alarming."
"Alarming, yes. It means something dreadful--something I dare not
think of--unless, indeed, Allan changed his mind on finding the state
of things here, and went off to Suffolk, intending to anticipate my
journey. Oh, I dare say I am frightening myself for nothing. Will you
let me write a telegram?" looking distractedly round the room for pens
and ink.
"Dear Lady Emily, pray don't be too anxious. One is so often frightened
for nothing. My father has only to be an hour later than usual on a
hunting day in order to make me half distracted. Please sit down by the
fire, here in this comfortable chair. I'll write your telegram, and
send it off instantly."
She rang the bell, and then seated herself quietly at her
writing-table, while Allan's mother sank into a chair, the image of
helplessness.
"What shall I say?"
"To Allan Carew, Fendyke, Millfield, Suffolk.
"I am miserable at not finding you here. Reply immediately, with
full information as to your plans.
"EMILY CAREW."
"God grant I may hear of him there," said Lady Emily, when she had read
message and address with a searching eye, lest Suzette's writing should
offer any excuse for mistakes. The telegram was handed to the servant
with instructions to take it himself to the post-office; and then Lady
Emily kissed Suzette with a sad remorseful kiss, and went back to the
fly.
"Discombe Manor," she told the man, with very little consideration for
the hard-working fly-horse.
"Yes, my lady; it'll be about as much as he can do."
"He? What do you mean?"
"The horse, my lady. He's been on his legs two hours a'ready, and the
Manor's a good three mile; but I suppose I shall be able to wash out
his mouth there before I takes him home?"
"Yes, yes; you may do what you like; only get me to the Manor as fast
as you can."
Allan had not been seen at the Manor. No one had rung the hall-door
bell yesterday after luncheon. Mrs. Wornock's monastic solitude was
not often intruded upon by visitors; and yesterday there had been no
one. The door had not been opened after Miss Vincent went out, Geoffrey
Wornock's impatient temper always choosing an easier mode of egress
than that ponderous hall door, which required a servant's attendance,
or else closed with a bang that reverberated through the house.
Whatever Allan's intention might have been when he left Marsh House, he
had not come to Discombe.
Lady Emily and Mrs. Wornock were softened in their feelings for each
other by a mutual terror; but Allan's mother dwelt upon the fact that
the two young men, as travellers of old, might have started off upon
some expedition; a run up to London to see some new production at
the theatre; a billiard match; anything in which young men might be
interested.
"They must be much better friends than before they went to Africa--much
closer companions," urged Lady Emily. "I feel there is less reason for
fear now that I know your son is missing as well as Allan."
Mrs. Wornock tried to take the same hopeful view; but she was of a
less hopeful temperament, and she knew too much of Geoffrey's jealous
distrust of his rival to believe that there had been any companionable
feeling between the two young men since Allan's return.
"Oh, I am afraid, I am afraid!" she moaned piteously, wringing her
hands in an agony of apprehension.
"What is it you fear? What calamity can have happened which would
involve both your son and mine? Surely nothing dreadful could happen to
both our sons, and yet no tidings come either to you or to me. Wherever
they were--if any accident happened--one or other of them would be
recognized. Some one would bring us the news. No; I have been anxious
and unhappy; but I am sure now that I have been needlessly anxious. We
shall hear from them--very soon."
Mrs. Wornock clasped Lady Emily's hand in silence, and shook her head
despondently.
"What is it you fear?" asked Allan's mother.
"I don't know--but I am full of fear for Geoffrey--for both of them."
Lady Emily left her, depressed and dispirited by the fear which shrunk
from shaping itself in words. The disposition to take a hopeful view
of the case did not last in the face of Mrs. Wornock's mysterious
agitations, and Allan's mother went back to Beechhurst stupefied with
anxiety, able only to walk about the house, in and out of the empty
rooms, in helpless misery.
That state of not knowing what to fear ended suddenly soon after nine
o'clock, when there came the sound of wheels, and a carriage stopped
at the hall door. Lady Emily rushed to the door and opened it with her
own hands, before any one had time to ring the bell; opened it to find
herself face to face with the woman she had left only two hours before.
Mrs. Wornock was stepping out of her carriage as the hall door opened.
She wore neither bonnet nor cloak, only a shawl wrapped round her head
and shoulders.
"He is found!" she said, agitatedly. "Will you come with me?"
"Your son?"
"No; Allan Carew. Ah, it is dreadful to think of, dreadful to tell you.
I came myself; I wouldn't let any one else----"
"He is dead!" cried Lady Emily, her heart feeling like ice, her knees
trembling under her.
"No, no! Dreadfully hurt--but not dead. There is hope still--Mr.
Podmore does not give up hope. I have sent a messenger to Salisbury.
We shall have Dr. Etheridge to-morrow morning--or I will send to
London----"
"Where is my son--my murdered--dying son?"
"No, no, no--not dying--not murdered. Don't I tell you there is hope?
He is at Discombe--they have put him in Geoffrey's room. Everything is
being done. He may recover--he will, he must recover."
Lady Emily was seated in the brougham, unconscious of the movements
that had conveyed her there; the butler was at the hall door by this
time, staring in blank wonder, not knowing what to think of this rapid
departure.
"Send your mistress's maid to the Manor with her things," ordered
Mrs. Wornock, hurriedly. And then to her own servant, waiting at the
carriage door, "Home--as fast as he can drive."
"Why was he taken to your house, and not to his own?" asked Lady Emily,
in a dull whisper, when the carriage had driven out of the gates.
"Because it was so much nearer to bring him. He was found in our
woods--robbed--and hurt, cruelly hurt. There is a dreadful wound upon
his head, and there are signs of a desperate struggle--as if he had
fought for his life----"
"Oh, God, that he should be murdered--here in England--within an hour's
walk of his own house! And I have dreamt of him in some dreadful
danger--from savage beasts, savage men--night after night, in those
dreary years he was away--and that he should come home--home--to love,
and happiness, and safety, as I thought--to meet the fate I had been
fearing! I prayed God day and night for him--prayed that he might be
brought back to me in safety. And he came back--came back only to die,"
wailed the unhappy woman, her head sunk upon her knees, her hands
working convulsively amongst her loosened hair.
"He will _not_ die," cried Mrs. Wornock, fiercely. "Don't I tell you
that he will not die? The wound need not be fatal; the doctor said it
was not a hopeless case. Why do you go on raving--as if you wanted him
to die--as if you were bent on being miserable--and driving me mad?"
"You! What have you to do with it? He is not your son. Your son is safe
enough, I dare say. Your son--who left him in the desert--who came
home to steal his comrade's sweetheart. Your son is safe. Such a man as
that is never in danger."
Mrs. Wornock bore this insulting speech in silence; and there was no
word more on either side for the rest of the journey.
* * * * *
Not without hope! Looking down at the motionless form lying on Geoffrey
Wornock's bed, in the large airy room, the hand on the coverlet
as white as the lawn sheet, the face disfigured and hardly to be
recognized as Allan's face under the broad linen bandage which covered
forehead and eyes, the lips livid and speechless--looking with agonized
heart at this spectacle, Allan's mother found it hard to believe the
doctor's assurance that the case was not, in his humble opinion,
utterly hopeless.
"We shall know more to-morrow," he said.
"Are they trying to find the wretch who did it?" asked Lady Emily. "God
grant he may be hanged for murder, if my son is to die."
"I shall go from here to the police-station, and take all necessary
steps, if I have your ladyship's authority for doing so. The keeper who
found your poor son sent a lad off to give information."
"Yes, yes. And you will offer a reward--a large reward. My
poor boy--my dear, dear son--to see him lying there--quite
unconscious--speechless--helpless. My murdered boy! Where did they find
him--how----"
"Lying in a little hollow among the underwood, within a few paces of
the path. There is a gate in the fence opening into the high-road, and
a footpath, and cart-track, which cut into the main drive four or five
hundred yards from the gate. It is a point at which he might be likely
to meet a tramp--as it is so near the road--and a long way from any of
the lodge gates. The drive would be in Mr. Carew's straight course from
Marsh House here."
"Yes, yes! And it was a tramp--you are sure of that--a common
robber--who attacked him?"
"Evidently. His pockets were turned inside out--his watch was gone."
"There was a day when no one man would have dared to attack my son."
"There may have been two men. The ground was a good deal trampled, the
keeper told me; but they would be able to see very little by the light
of a couple of lanterns brought from the stables to the north lodge. We
shall see the footsteps, and be able to come to a better idea of the
struggle, to-morrow morning."
"Send for a London detective--the best that can be got," Lady Emily
interrupted eagerly.
"Be sure we will do all that can be done."
"He has no father to take his part," she went on, distractedly; "no
wife--no sweetheart even--to care for him--only a poor, weak mother. If
he should die, there will be only one broken heart in the world--only
one----"
"Dear lady, why anticipate the worst?" remonstrated the doctor.
"Yes, yes, I am wrong. I must cast myself upon God's mercy. I am not
an irreligious woman. I will pray for my son. There is nothing else
in the world that I can do. But while I am praying you will work--you
will find the wretch who did this cruel deed. You will send for the
cleverest doctor in London--the one man of all men who can cure my poor
boy."
"You may trust me, Lady Emily. Nothing shall be forgotten or deferred."
* * * * *
It was not till the following morning that the news of Allan Carew's
condition, and his presence at Discombe, reached General Vincent and
his daughter. Mrs. Mornington was the bearer of those dismal tidings.
Always active, alert, and early afoot, she heard of the tragedy from
the village tradesmen, and was told three conflicting versions of the
story--first at the grocer's, where she was assured that Mr. Carew had
breathed his last five minutes after he was carried into the Manor
House; next from the butcher's wife, a very ladylike person, rarely
seen except through glass, in a little counting-house, giving on to
the shop--and who opened her glass shutter on purpose to inform Mrs.
Mornington that both young gentlemen had been picked up for dead in
the copse at Discombe; Mr. Wornock shot through the heart, Mr. Carew
with a bullet in his left temple, the result of a duel to the death.
A third informant, taking the air in front of the coachbuilder's
workshop--where everybody's carriages went sooner or later for
repairs--assured Mrs. Mornington that there hadn't been much harm done,
and that Mr. Carew, who had had his pockets picked by a tramp, had been
more frightened than hurt.
Mrs. Mornington was not the kind of person to languish in uncertainty
about any fact in local history while she possessed the nerves of
speech and locomotion. Before the coach-builder finished his rambling
story, she had despatched a village boy to the Grove to order her
pony-cart to be brought her as quickly as the groom could get it
ready; and her orders being always respected, the honest bay cob met
her, rattling his bit and whisking his tail from joyous freshness, at
the bend of the village street, within a quarter of an hour of the
messenger's start. The boy had run his fastest; the groom had not lost
a moment; for Mrs. Mornington was one of those excellent mistresses who
stand no nonsense from their servants.
The cob went to Discombe at a fast trot, and returned stablewards still
faster, indulging in occasional spurts of cantering, which his mistress
did not check with her usual severity.
She saw no one but servants at the Manor House. Mrs. Wornock was in her
own room, quite prostrate, the butler explained; Lady Emily was with
Mr. Carew, who had passed a bad night, and was certainly no better this
morning, even if he were no worse.
"Is it very serious, Davidson?" Mrs. Mornington asked the trustworthy
old servant.
"I'm afraid it couldn't be much worse, ma'am. The doctor from Salisbury
was here at nine o'clock, and was upstairs with Mr. Podmore very near
an hour; but he didn't look very cheerful when he left--no more did Mr.
Podmore. And there's another doctor been telegraphed for from London.
If doctors can save the poor gentleman's life, he'll be spared. But I
saw his face last night when he was carried upstairs, and I can't say
_I've_ much hopes of him."
"Never mind your hopes, Davidson, if the doctors can pull him through.
A young man can get over a good deal."
"If he can get over having his head mashed--and lying for twenty-seven
hours in a wood--he must have a better constitution than ever I heard
tell of."
"The wretch who attacked him has not been found yet, I suppose?"
"No, ma'am, not yet, nor never likely to be, so far as I can see.
He had seven and twenty hours' start, you see, ma'am; and if a
professional thief couldn't get off with that much law, the profession
can't be up to much; begging your pardon, ma'am, for venturing to
express an opinion," concluded Davidson, who felt that he had been
presuming on an old servant's licence.
Mrs. Mornington told him she was very glad to hear his opinion, and
then handed him cards for the two ladies, on each of which she had
scribbled assurances of sympathy; and with this much information from
the fountain-head, she appeared in the drawing-room at Marsh House,
where she found Suzette sitting by the fire in a very despondent
mood. Her lover's mysterious disappearance after something which was
very like a quarrel, was not a cheering incident in her life; and now
Lady Emily's anxiety about her son--the fact that he, too, should be
missing--increased her trouble of mind.
She listened aghast to her aunt's story.
"What does it mean?" she faltered. "What can it mean?"
"The meaning is plain enough, I think. This poor young man was waylaid
in the dusk on Thursday evening--attacked and plundered."
"By a tramp?"
"By one of the criminal classes--a ticket-of-leave man, perhaps,
rambling from Portland to London, ready to snatch any opportunity on
the way. There's very little use in speculating about a wretch of that
class. There are plenty of such ruffians loose in the world, I dare
say."
"But it would have served a robber's purpose just as well to have only
stunned him."
"Oh, those gentry don't consider things so nicely. No doubt Allan
showed fight. And the ruffian would have no mercy."
"Do you think he will die? Oh, aunt, how terrible if he were to die.
And Geoffrey still away--Mrs. Wornock miserable about him!"
"Yes, that's the strangest part of the business! What can have induced
Geoffrey to take himself off in that mysterious way? Have you any idea
why he went?"
"No. I have no idea."
"If he is keeping away of his own accord--if nothing dreadful has
happened to him--his conduct is most insulting to you."
"Never mind me, aunt; while there is this trouble at Discombe--for poor
Lady Emily."
"I am very sorry for her; but I am obliged to think of you. His
behaviour places you in such an awkward position--a ridiculous
position. Your wedding-day fixed--hurried on with red-hot impatience by
this young man--and he, the bridegroom, missing! What do you suppose
people will say?"
"I have no suppositions about people outside our lives. I can only
think of the sorrow at Discombe. People can say anything they like,"
Suzette answered wearily.
Her father had been questioning her, and had talked very much in the
same strain as her aunt. She was tired to heart-sickness of talk about
Geoffrey. All had grown dark in her life; and darkest of all was her
thought of her betrothed.
There had been that in his manner when she parted with him which had
filled her with a shapeless dread, a terror not to be lightly named,
a terror she had not ventured to suggest even to her father. And here
was her aunt teasing her about other people--utterly indifferent
people--and their ideas.
"What will people _not_ say?" exclaimed Mrs. Mornington, after a
troubled pause, in which she had poked the fire almost savagely, and
pulled a chairback straight. "I must have a serious talk with your
father. Is he at home?"
"No. He is out shooting."
"Shooting? It is scarcely decent of him in the present state of
affairs. Any more presents?"
"I don't know. Yes; there was a box came this morning. I haven't opened
it. Please don't talk of presents. It is too horrid to think of them."
"Horridly embarrassing," said Mrs. Mornington. "You had better come to
the Grove, Suzette. There's no good in your moping alone here. And you
may have visitors in the afternoon prying and questioning."
"Thanks, aunt, I would rather be at home. I shall deny myself to
everybody except Bessie Edgefield."
"Ah, and you'll tell her everything, and she will tell everybody in
Matcham."
"I have nothing to tell--nothing that Bessie cannot find out from other
people. But she is not a gossip; and she is always _simpatica_."