 Chapter 35 of Sons of Fire by Mary Elizabeth Braden This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. It is the stars. Morning brought no relief of mind to Mrs. Warnock since it brought no news of her son, but before night there was even greater anxiety at Beechhurst, where Alan Carew's mother arrived late in the evening, summoned by a letter from her son, dispatched 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 someone at Matjim 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 Matjim 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 Alan, and there was no beach-hurst 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 blank 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 tet-a-tet dinner. The only shadow upon her happy thought of him was her knowledge of what his faithful heart must need 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 be cherished 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. He 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, suffocate 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 in, chatting sociably about the improvements in the neighborhood and the prospects of the hunting season, and O bitter agony of disappointment when the door of Beechhurst was open, 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. As Mr. Caretaker gone away again, she asked as the man helped her out of the carriage, thinking vaguely that Alan might have started off her suffocate that morning and that she and he were traveling to and fro at cross purposes. Mr. Caretaker has not been home, my lady, not been home while he arrived yesterday by the train. I came by tonight. The station master told me so. Then he must be visiting somewhere in the neighborhood, 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 Alan 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, luggage-less, 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. Alan 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 that 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. Alan 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 seen put out at hearing where she was the soldier's 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. Warnock 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 anyone 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, Alan and Geoffrey exclaimed, 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 temper 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 him 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. Warnock is missing and that my son has not been heard of since he left your door. He has not been at the manor. Mrs. Warnock 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 Alan changed his mind on finding the state of things here and went off to Suffolk pretending to anticipate my journey. Oh, I dare say I am frightening myself for nothing. Will you let me ride 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 is 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 write your telegram and send it off instantly. She rang the bell and then seated herself quietly at her writing table while Alan's mother sank into a chair the image of helplessness. What shall I say? Do Alan Carew van Dyke 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 addressed with a searching eye, lest Suzette's writing should offer any excuse for mistakes. The telegram was handed to the servant with the 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. Disco manner, 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. E, what do you mean? The horse, my lady, he's been on his legs two hours already and the manner's a good three mile, but I suppose I shall be able to wash out his mouth there before I take him home. Yes, yes, you may do what you like, only get me to the manner as fast as you can. Allen had not been seen at the manner. No one had rung the hall doorbell yesterday after luncheon. Mrs. Warnock'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. Jeffrey Warnock's impatient temper always choosing an easier mode of egress than that ponderous hall door which required a servant's attendance or else closed without bang that reverberated through the house. Whatever Allen's intention might have been when he left Marsh House, he had not come to discomb. Lady Emily and Mrs. Warnock were softened in their feelings for each other by a mutual terror, but Allen's mother dwelt upon the fact that the two young men, as fellow travelers of old, might have started off upon some expedition, a run up to London to see some new production at the theater, 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 Allen. Mrs. Warnock tried to take the same hopeful view, but she was of a less hopeful temperament and she knew too much of Jeffrey's jealous distrust of his rival to believe that there had been any companionable feeling between the two young men since Allen'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. Someone 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. Warnock clasped Lady Emily's hand in silence and shook her head despondently. What is it you fear? Asked Allen's mother. I don't know, but I am full of fear for Jeffrey, 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. Warnock's mysterious agitations, and Allen'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 anyone 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. Warnock 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. Allen Carew. Ah, it is dreadful to think of. Dreadful to tell you. I came myself. I wouldn't let anyone 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 tomorrow 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 maroon, 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 mistresses made to the manor with her things, ordered Mrs. Warnock hurriedly, and then to her own servant waiting at the carriage door, home as fast as you 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. O 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 have fought 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, wail the unhappy woman her head sunk upon her knees for hands working convulsively amongst her loosened hair. He will not die, cried Mrs. Warnock 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 daresay, your son who left him in the desert, who came sneaking home to steal his comrade's sweetheart. Your son is safe, selfish wretches of that kind are never in danger. Mrs. Warnock bore this insulting speech and 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 Jeffrey Warnock'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 Alan's face under the broad linen bandage which covered forehead and eyes, the lips livid and speechless, looking with agonized heart at this spectacle, Alan'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 tomorrow, he said. Are they trying to find the wretches who did it? Ask 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 the 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 underworld within a few paces of the path, there is a gate in the fence opening into the high road in 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 large gates, the drive would be enmissed through Karoo's straight course from Marsh House here. Yes, yes, and it was a tramp, you are sure 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 tomorrow morning. Send for a London detective the best they 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 him, pray. There is nothing else in the world that I can do, but while I am praying, you will work, and when the wretch who did this cruel deed, he 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 Alan 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 of the grosses 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 cops at Discombe. Mr. Warnock 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 coach built his 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'd 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 dispatched 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 cop 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 and Mrs. Mornington was one of those excellent mistresses who stand their nonsense from their servants. The cop went to discombe at a fast trot and returned stable words still faster indulging in occasional spurts of country, which as mistress did not check with her usual severity. She saw no one but servants at the Manor House. Mrs. Warnock was in her own room quite prostrate. The butler explained that Emily was with Mr. Carew who had passed a bad night and was certainly no better this morning if she were no worse. Is it very serious, David? Mrs. Mornington asked the trustworthy old servant. I'm afraid it couldn't be much worse, man. 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 have much hopes of him. Never mind your hopes, David. If the doctors can pull him through, a gang man can get over a good deal. If he can get over having his head mashed and lying for 27 hours in a wood, he must have a better constitution than ever I heard tell him. The wretch who attacked him has not been found yet, I suppose, no man, not yet, nor never likely to be so far as I can see. He had seven and 20 hours start, you see, man. 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 David, who felt that he had been presuming on an old servant's license. 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 way late in the dusk on Thursday evening, attacked and plundered by a tramp of 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 roughians 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 gentries don't consider things so nicely. No doubt Alan showed fight, and the roughian would have no mercy. Do you think he will die? Oh, aunt, how terrible if he were to die. And Jeffrey's still away. Mrs. Warnock miserable about him. Yes, that's the strangest part of the business. What kind of induced Jeffrey 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 Discomb, for poor lady Emily, I'm very sorry for her, but I'm obliged to think of you. His behavior places you in such an awkward position, a ridiculous position. Your wedding date 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 Discomb. People can say anything they like, sees that answered wearily. Her father had been questioning her, with the same strain as her aunt. She was tired to heart sickness to talk about Jeffrey. 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 he had poked the fire almost savagely, and pulled the chair back 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 hard to think of them. Hordely embarrassing, said Mrs. Mornington. You'd 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 mansion. I have nothing to tell. Nothing that Bessie cannot found out from other people, but she is not a gossip. And she is always sympathica. End of Chapter 35. Chapter 36 of Sons of Fire by Mary Elizabeth Bratton. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Madness or crime. Days grew into weeks, and the slow anxious hours brought very little change in Alan's condition, and certainly no change which the doctors could call a substantial improvement. Physician and surgeon from London, famous specialists both, came at weekly intervals and testified to the good fight which the patient was making and the latent power of a frame which had been strained and wasted by the hardships of African travel and which was now called upon to recover from severe injuries. Consciousness had returned but not reason. The young man had not once recognized the mother who rarely left his bedside, but whose bland and pleasant countenance was so sorely altered by grief and anxiety that even in the full possession of his senses he might hardly have known her. The power of speech had returned but only in delirious utterances or in a strange gibberish which poor Lady Emily mistook for an African language but which was really the nonsense tongue of a disordered brain. The doctors pronounced the case was not utterly without hope but they would commit themselves to nothing further than this. It was a wonder to have kept him alive so long his recovery would be almost a miracle. Two trained nurses from the county hospital alternated the daily and nightly watch by the sick bed and Lady Emily shared the days and sometimes the nights duty humbly assisting the skilled attendants grateful for being permitted to aid in the smallest service for the son who lay helpless inert and observing on that bed which even yet might be his bed of death. No one but those three women and the doctors was allowed to enter Alan's room. Mrs. Warnock was very kind and sympathetic in spite of torturing anxieties about her son's unexplained absence but she expressed no desire to see Alan and she seldom saw Lady Emily for more than a few minutes in the course of the day the whole house was ordered with reference to the sick room. Oregon and Piana were closed and done and a funereal silence reigned everywhere and so the wintry days went by and rain and rough weather made a sufficient excuse for Suzette staying quietly at home and seeing very little of the outer world. Mrs. Mornington took the social aspect of the crisis entirely on her own hands and informed her friends that the wedding had been deferred partly on account of Alan's illness and for other reasons which she was not at liberty to explain. My niece is very capricious, she said. I hope she has not sent Mr. Warnock off to Africa again, exclaimed Mrs. Robach, such a brilliant young man with a house so peculiarly adapted for entertaining should not be allowed to become an absentee. It is too great a loss for such a place as this where so few people entertain. Mrs. Robach's estimate of her acquaintance was always based upon their capacity for entertaining, though she herself on this scale would have been marked zero. Now I don't think he will go back to Africa, but my niece and he have agreed to part for a short time at any rate. She is sending back all her wedding presents this week. Oh, pray don't let her send me that absurd Japanese paper knife. I only chose it because it is so deliciously ugly and queer. And I knew that marrying a man of Mr. Warnock means she wouldn't want anything costly or useful, no fish knives or salt sellers. Well, if it really is off or likely to be off, Mr. Robach said with solemnly confidential air, I don't mind saying in confidence that I think your niece has acted wisely. The young man is a genius, no doubt, but he's a little bit overstrung for not to co-pair a lot in Musica, don't you know? And one never knows whether that sort of thing won't go further, tapping his forehead suggestively. Oh, Das Maktnacht, the poor dear young man, is toke, only toke, not the lay, protested Mrs. Robach who affected a polyglot style. Ah, but the mother, don't you know? That's where the danger comes in. The mother has never been quite right, argued her husband. I'm not going to accept congratulations, said Mrs. Mornington. I'm very sorry the marriage has been postponed. Mr. Warnock and Suzette are admirably adapted for each other and he is no more crack than I am. And remember, the marriage is put off, not broken off. All the more reason why she should not send me back that Japanese absurdity, said Mrs. Robach, as if the paper knife were of as much consequence as the marriage. Suzette saw Mrs. Warnock nearly every day during that time of trouble, sometimes at disco, where they sat together in the music room or paced the wintry garden, staying very little to each other, but the elder woman taking comfort from the presence of the younger. I am miserable about him, she told Suzette, and that was all she would ever say of her son. She had no suggestions to offer as to the cause of his disappearance. She uttered no complaint of his unkindness. Suzette inquired if the police had made any discovery about Alan's assailant. No, nothing, or at least Mrs. Warnock had heard of nothing. Lady Emily may know more than she cares to tell me, she said, Oh, I think not, living in your house indebted so deeply to your kindness. She could not be so churlish as to keep anything back. She thinks of nothing but her son, she would have no mercy upon anyone who had injured him. Her tone startled Suzette with the recurrence of a terror which she had tried to dismiss from her mind as groundless and irrational. No, no, of course not, who could expect her to have mercy. However hard the law might be, she would never think the sentence hard enough. Her only son, her idolized son, brought to the brink of the grave, perhaps doomed to die in spite of all that can be done for him. Suzette tried to shut out that horrible idea, the hideous fancy that the Ruffian who had attacked Alan Carew was no casual offender, extemporizing a crime on the suggestion of the moment for the chance, contents of a gentleman's purse, and an obvious watch and chain. Murder so brutal is not often the result of a chance encounter. Yet such things have been, and the alternative of a private vengeance of indicted jealousy, culminating in attempted murder, was too horrible. Yet that dreadful suspicion haunted Suzette's pillow in the long winter nights, nights of wakefulness and sorrow. Where was he that miserable man who had won her heart in spite of her better reason and in loving whom she had seldom been without the sense of trouble and fear his want of mental balance had been painfully obvious to her, even in their happiest hours, and she had felt that there was peril in the nature so capricious and so intense. She had discovered that for him, religion was no strong rock. He had laughed away every serious question and had made her feel that in all the most solemn thoughts of life and afterlife, they were divided by an impassable gulf. On his side all that is boldest and saddest in modern thought, on her side the simple unquestioning faith, which she had accepted in the dawn of her reason, and which satisfied an intellect not given to speculate upon the unknowable. She had found that note only upon religious questions, but even on the moral code of this life there were wide differences in their ideas, dimly and with growing apprehension. She had defined the element of lawlessness in Geoffrey's character revealed in his admiration of men for whom neither religion nor law had been a restraining influence, men for whom passion had been ever the guiding star. Lives that to her seemed only criminal were extolled by him as sublime. Such or such a man whose unbridled will had wrought ruin for himself and others was lauded as one who had known the glory of life of the capitalist meaning who had barely lived, not crawled between earth and heaven. In her own simple, unpretentious way, Suzette had tried to combat opinions which had shocked her, and then Geoffrey had laughed off her fears and had promised that for her sake he would think as she thought he would school himself to accept a spiritual guide of her choosing. Shall my master be Suzette? Shall I be broad and liberal with Stanley? Severe with Manning? Intense with Lydden? Mystical with Newman? Thou for my sake at Allah's shrine and I? You know the rest. I will do anything to make my dearest happy. Anything except pretend, Geoffrey, you must never do that. Mustn't I? Then we'd better leave religion out of the question until perhaps it may grow up in my mind suddenly like Jonah's gourd out of my love for you. In all the weary time while Alan was lying at the gate of death and Geoffrey had so strangely vanished, Suzette had never doubted the love of her betroth. The possibility of change or fickleness on his part never entered into her mind. Of the truth and intensity of his affection, she who had been his betrothed for nearly half a year could not doubt. Her fears and anxieties took her darker form than any fear of alienated feelings or inconstancy. Suicide, crime, madness were the things she feared, though she never expressed her fears. Her father heard no lamentations from those pale lips, but he could read the marks of distress in her countenance and he was grieved and anxious for her sake. He too invoked the powers of the detective police but quietly and without anybody's knowledge he went up to London and put the case of Geoffrey's disappearance before one of the sages philosophers who had ever adorned the detective force at Scotland Yard now retired and practicing delicate investigations on his own account. Do you suppose there has been a fatal accident or that he has been keeping out of the way on purpose? He asked after all particulars have been stated an accident would have been heard of before now. No doubt he is keeping out of the way. Have you any reason to suppose him mentally afflicted? Afflicted? No. Excentric perhaps though I should hardly call him that. Capricious, somewhat whimsical. Mentally afflicted? No. Decidedly not. That trick of keeping out of the way is a very common thing in madness. If he is not mad there must be some strong reason for his disappearance. He must have done something to put himself in jeopardy. Impossible. No, no, no. I can't entertain the idea for a moment cried the general thinking of that murderous attack in the wood. Do you wish us to make inquiries? No, no, better not. The young man's mother is having everything done. I'm not a relationer. I only wanted the benefit of her professional opinion. I thought you might be able to throw some light. No two cases are quite alike, sir. But I think you will find I am right here and that in this case there is lunacy or there has been a crime. Madness or crime? He used the general as he left the office. I can't go back to Suzette and tell her that. I must take her away again. He announced his intention of starting for the Riviera next morning at the breakfast table, but his daughter implored him piteously to let her stay at matcheon. It would be so heartless to go away while Alan is hovering between life and death and while she left the sentence unfinished she could not trust herself to speak of Jeffrey. End of Chapter 36 Chapter 37 of Sons of Fire by Mary Elizabeth Braden This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. He hath awakened from the dream of life. It was the day which was to have seen Suzette's wedding the 13th of December, a dull, mild December promising that green Christmas which is said to people church yards with newcomers a December to gladden the heart of the fox hunter and disappoint the skater. Sitting in melancholy solitude by the drawing room fire on this gray, rainy morning, Suzette was glad to remember that she had prevented the sending out of invitation cards and that very few people in matcheon knew the intended date of that wedding which was never to be. There were not many to think of her with a special pity on this particular day sitting alone in her desolation in her dark, surged frock with the black poodle caro and her piano for her only companions even the companionship of that beloved piano had failed her since Jeffrey's disappearance. Music was too closely associated with his presence there was not a single composition in her portfolio that did not recall him not an air she played that did not bring back the words he had spoken when last her fingers followed the caprices of the composer. He had been her master as well as her lover he had taught her the subtleties of musical expression had breathed mind into her music. Bessie Edgefield knew the date but Bessie was sympathetic and never officious or obtrusive she would drop in by and by no doubt pretending not to remember anything particular about the day she would be full of some little bit of village news or a new book from Moody's or Mrs. Roebuck's Last Bonnet. The wedding was to have been at two o'clock a sensible, comfortable hour giving the bride ample leisure in which to put on her wedding finery. The hours between breakfast and luncheon seemed longer than usual that morning a long blank weariness after Suzette had seen her father mount and right away on his favorite hunter the hounds met on the other side of the downs on the borders of Hampshire it would be late most likely before she would welcome that kind father to the comfortable fireside and listen or at least pretend to listen to the varying fortunes of an adventurous day and in the meantime she had the day all before her to expose of as best she might that day which was to have seen her a bride. Was she sorrowing for the lover who had forsaken her as she sat looking with sad, tearless eyes into the fire was she regretting the happiness that might have been thinking of a life which should have been cloudless No, she had never contemplated a life of cloudless happiness with Jeffrey Warnock she had loved that fiery spirit by a mind stronger than her own and she had submitted almost as a slave submits to her captor Mentally she had been in bondage able to see all that was faulty and perilous in the character of her conqueror yet loving him in spite of his faults but today his image was associated with the great terror, a terror of undiscovered crime the fear that when next she heard his name spoken she would hear of him as an arrested criminal or as a suicide self-slaughtered in some quiet spot where the searchers must needs be slow to find him two o'clock she had tried all her best love books in the endeavor to forget the dark realities of life but books did not help her today she never went into the dining room for a formal luncheon when her father was out for the day preferring some light refreshment of the kind which one hears of in Miss Austin's novels as the tray, a modest meal of cake and fruit with nothing more substantial than a sandwich today even the sandwich was impossible her lips were dry with an inward fever her hands were cold as ice her forehead was burning was it raining? she asked the servant no the rain had ceased an hour ago the man told her she started up with a feeling of relief at the idea of escape from the dull silent house put on her hat and jacket and went out of the glass door into the garden where the mild winter had left a few flowers pale Dijon roses amidst the thick foliage of honeysuckle and magnolia on the south wall a lingering chrysanthemum here and there in a sheltered bend of the shrubbery the air was full of the sweetness of herbs and flowers and the freshness of the rain yes it was a relief to be walking about looking at the shrubs shaking the rain from the feathery branches of the deodars searching for late violets behind a border of close clipped box it was a comfortable old-fashioned garden full of things that had been growing for the best part of a century a garden of broad gravel walks and square grass plots espaliers hiding asparagus beds the scent of sweet herbs conquering the more delicate odors of violets and rare roses a dear old garden to be happy in and a quiet retreat in which to walk alone with sorrow Suzette walked alone with her sorrow for nearly an hour thankful for the hazard which had carried her energetic aunt to Salisbury two days before on a visit to her friends in the clothes and had thus spared her Mrs. Mornington society on this particular day to have been comforted to have been availed over would have added to her burden to walk alone in this dull old garden was best not alone anymore she heard the rustling of branches at the other end of the long green alley and a footstep a heavier foot fall than best see edge feels on the moist gravel her heart throbbed with a startled expectancy joy or fear she had no time to know which feeling predominated before she saw her lover coming quickly towards her he was dressed now that she had been accustomed to see him in the quarter right waistcoat short tweed coat and knickerbockers of rusty out-of-door life but in a frock coat like grey trousers and white waistcoat and was wearing a Sunday hat she had time to note these details and the mall may zone carnation in his coat and the light gloves which he was carrying before he was at her side with wild bloodshot eyes grasping her arm with a strong hand while those smart lavender gloves dropped from his unconscious grasp and fell on the wet gravel to be trampled underfoot like weeds why were you not at the church why are you wearing that dingy frock you and your bridesmaids ought to have been ready an hour ago I've been waiting for you have you forgotten what this day means Jeffrey have not you forgotten what madness to come back like this what have you been doing with your life since the 14th of November where have you been hiding where hiding nonsense I've been traveling I took it into my head when Alan was coming back that you didn't care for me that he was the favorite lover in spite of all I had extorted your promise and you were sorry you had ever given it and I thought the best thing for me would be to make myself scarce in Africa, Australia, anywhere the world is big enough for two people to give each other a wide berth but not big enough for Alan and me if you liked him better than me I was a fool that's all a fool to doubt my dearest but there is no time to lose we must be married before three come to the church as you are what does it matter I've put on my war paint you see my valet seemed to think I was mad I've seen your mother yes she's been plaguing me with questions I gave her the slip Alan is there in my house the irony of fate isn't it hovering between life and death my mother told me how long will he hesitate between two opinions I left them wondering and hurried to the church to meet you only to find emptiness no one there not even the sexton but there is still time we can be married you and I we can start for the other end of the world tonight Jeffrey why did you go away looking up at that wild face with infinite terror in her own the restless eyes the convulsive working of the dry hot lips told their story only too plainly the story of a mind distraught dear Jeffrey she said gently with unspeakable pity for this human wreck there can be no marriage today we are all in great trouble about Alan about Alan always about Alan he interrupted savagely what is Alan to do with the matter it is our wedding day, yours and mine I don't want Alan for my best man there can be no marriage while Alan is ill lying in your house so nearly murdered perhaps even yet to die from that cruel usage they are looking for his murderer Jeffrey was it wise for you to come back to this place knowing that? knowing what? that Alan's mother is determined to find the man who so nearly killed her son what have I to do with her determination I shall neither hinder nor help her oh the crafty smile the malice and the cunning in that face a look which Suzette had never seen till now a look which made that one splendid countenance seem the face of a stranger she shrank from him involuntarily he saw the sudden look of repulsion and tightened his grasp upon her arm until she gave a cry of pain did I hurt you loosening his grasp with a laugh what a fluttering little dove it is so easily scared so easily hurt come Suzette you are not going to cheat me are you this is the thirteenth of December do you hear the thirteenth the date fixed and appointed by you by your very self you shall not evade your own appointment come love come he took a few rapid steps forward dragging her along with him lifting her off her feet in his vehemence but stopping suddenly when he found she was nearly falling Jeffrey how rough you are I didn't mean to be rough but there's not a moment to lose why won't you come I am not coming it is your madness to talk of our wedding you have been away for a whole month of your own accord our marriage has been put off indefinitely poor Jeffrey looking at his haggard face with sudden tenderness how dreadfully ill you look worse than the night you arrive from Zanzibar I will go back to the manor with you and see you safe and at rest with your dear mother no no I am never going back to the manor where that dead man lies dead oh God I am not dead what do you mean I don't want their dead man there well he may live perhaps I don't want him there his presence poisons my house as his influence has poisoned my life he has been a blight upon me like me they say like me but of a different fiber I know how to fight from my own hand will you come with me to the church quietly of your own accord no no impossible then I'll make you savagely seizing her in his arms I won't be fooled I won't be cheated I'm here to fulfill my part of the bond I've not forgotten the date then with a swift change of mood he loosened his angry hold upon her fell on his knees at her feet crying over the poor little hand which he clasped in both his own pity me Susette pity me I am the most miserable wretch in the world I've been wandering about England a hateful country no solitude people staring and prying everywhere a miserable overcrowded place where a man cannot be alone with his troubles where there is no space for thought or memory but I did not forget you your image was always there touching his forehead that never faded only I forgot other things or hardly knew which were dreams or which were real a dream yes a dream and then only yesterday the date upon a newspaper seen by accident I've read no newspaper since I left Discombe reminded me of today I was at Podstow yesterday afternoon and out of the way village on the Cornish coast and it has taken me all my time to get here to Discombe today in time to dress for my wedding you should have seen my servant's face when I rang for him I went into the house by the old door in the lobby and walked up to my dressing room without meeting a mortal one never does meet anyone at Discombe the house is like the tomb of the fairers long passages emptiness silence he had risen from his knees at Suzette's entreaty and was walking by her side walking fast speaking with breathless rapidity eager self-absorbed holding her lightly now by the arm as they paced the gravel walk Higson was always a fool I could see what he was thinking when I made him put out my frock coat the fellow thought I was mad he wanted me to take a warm bath and lie down for a bit before I saw my mother he talked in a smooth weedling way comment people talk to lunatics as if they were children and then he ran off to fetch my mother and she came poor soul and kissed and cried over me and thanked God with one breath for my return and with the next wailed about Allen Allen was there close by in my room I was not to speak above my breath lest I should disturb him I went to another room to dress but I had ever so much trouble with Higson before I could get the things I wanted London things he called him and wouldn't I have this or that anything except what I asked for so you see I had a lot of trouble I walked to the church and found it was two o'clock and not a soul there Jeffery what could you expect I expected you to keep your word this is our wedding day I expected to find my bride we must wait Jeffery there is plenty of time no there is no time I want to take you with me to the great lake far away from this cramped narrow country these teeming over crowded cities a soil crisscrossed with railways shut in with streets and houses not one wide horizon like that inland sea how you would adore it as I do in storm or in calm always beautiful always grand a place made for the mind to grow in for the heart to rest in how often in the deep of the moonlight nights I've wandered up and down those smooth sands thinking of you conjuring up your image in such warm reality that it froze my blood when I looked and saw that the real woman was not at my side you will go to Africa with me Suzette yes dear yes by and by all that's what Higson said when I told him to put out a frock curd by and by but I answered with a now that made him jump hark there's someone coming a step on the gravel a light step a girl's quick footfall it was the vicar's daughter fresh and blooming in winter frock and winter hut a creature of the kind that is usually nail flat on a barn door with coiled gracefully round the little felt hat pretending to have come from Siberia at the site of Jeffrey she started and looked aghast Mr. Warnock I thought you were hundreds of miles away so I was yesterday afternoon but I happened to remember my wedding day and here I am only to find that other people have forgotten oh you happen to remember said Bessie still staring at the white waistcoat Malmay zone carnation the light gray trousers stained with rain and mud from the knee downwards and worst of all the haggard countenance of the wearer you only remembered yesterday how funny Ms. Edgefield would have made the same remark about a funeral in her present startle condition of mind match them have plenty of stuff for conversation within the next few days for by that subtle process by which facts are various versions of facts are circulated in a rustic neighborhood people became aware of Jeffrey Warnock's return to disco and of dreadful scenes that have occurred at Marsh House where he had stayed for a couple of days during which period Suzette was living at the Grove under her aunt and uncle's protection yes there had been scenes tragical scenes at Marsh House Mrs. Warnock had been hastily summoned there and had stayed under General Vincent Roof till unhappy son was removed in medical custody where the matching people knew not though there were positive assertions as to locality on the part of the more energetic talkers a physician had been summoned from London a man of repute in mental cases and Mrs. Warnock's broom had driven away from Marsh House in the wintry dusk with a pair of horses and had not returned to the manor till late on the following day whereby it was concluded that the journey had been at least 20 miles Mr. Warnock had been taken away placed under restraint people told each other arriving at the fact by the usual inductor process and on this occasion unhappily accurate in their deduction Jeffrey was in a doctor's care a mad man with lucid intervals not violent except in brief flashes of angry despair but with occasional hallucinations that delirium without fever which constitutes lunacy from the standpoint of law and medicine before he passed into that dim underworld of the private lunatic asylum he had admitted in more than one while torrent of self accusation his treacherous desertion of Alan in Africa is savage assault upon Alan in the wood they had met and Alan had created him for that treacherous desertion and for stealing his sweetheart Suzette's name had been like a lighted fuse to an infernal machine and then the latent savage which is in every man had leaped into life and there had been a deadly struggle a fight for existence on Alan's part a murderous onslaught from Jeffrey it needed not the opinion of experts from Scotland Yard nor yet the discovery of Alan's watch and signet ring under the rotten leaves in the deep hollow of an old oak half a mile from the spot where he himself had been found to substantiate Jeffrey's self accusation his unhappy mother who was with him at Marsh House throughout those last dreadful hours of raving and unrest had never doubted his guilt from the time of his reappearance at Discomb it was months before Alan returned to the world of active life he left the manor long before actual convalescence not once during those slow hours of returning health that he allude to the cause of his terrible illness and on his mother timidly questioning him he professed to have no recollection of the assault which had been so nearly fatal let the past remain a blank mother no good can come by trying to remember he was especially gentle and affectionate to Mrs. Warnock on her rare visits to his room during the earlier stages of his convalescence Jeffrey's name was not spoken by either but Alan's sympathetic manner told the unhappy mother that he knew her grief and pitied her Lady Emily was by no means ungrateful for the lavish hospitality with which Mrs. Warnock's house and household had been devoted to her son yet she shrank with a natural abhorrence from a scene which was associated with Alan's peril and Jeffrey's crime no kindness of Mrs. Warnock's could lessen that horror and Lady Emily did her utmost to hasten the patient's removal to his own house short of risking a relapse when she saw him established in his cheerful bed chamber at Beechhurst she felt as if she had taken him out of a charnel house into the pleasant world of the living and the happy a world to which Jeffrey Warnock was faded never to return quite hopeless was the verdict of medical authority Mrs. Warnock left Discom and was said to be living in complete seclusion attended upon by two or three of the oldest of the manner of servants in a cottage near the private asylum where his son was a prisoner for life before mid-summer Alan's health was completely restored and mother and son left for Suffolk for the pastures and pine woods the long white roads the windy commons the wide horizons and large level spaces flooded with the red and gold of sunsets that are said to surpass the splendor of sunsets and more picturesque scenery Lady Emily would have been completely happy in this quiet interlude this tranquil pause in the drama of life had not Alan talked of going back to Africa before the end of the year why not he asked when she remonstrated with him Africa doesn't mean a life long separation mother or I would not dream of going there every year shortens the journey six weeks I think Consul John Stone called it to Lake Danganika if I go I promise to return in less than two years you would hardly have time to miss me in your busy days here busy about such poor trifles Alan do you think my farm could fill the place of my son if you were away one great care hour of my life and think what an anxious winter I went through a season of fear and trembling this plea prevailed he could not disregard the care and love that had been lavished upon him no he would not allow himself to be drawn back to that dark continent which is said to exercise a subtle influence over those who have once crossed her far reaching planes and rested beside her wide waters and lived her life of adventure and surprise he was too soon for the son to leave his mother she having none but him he had done with love but duty still claimed him and he stayed a quiet winter at Beachhurst with his mother to keep house for him a good deal of hunting and so much attention and kindly feeling from everybody in the neighborhood that he could not altogether play the hermit he was forced into visiting and entertaining his friends and Lady Emily was very happy she was the fastest in the lovelier circle of matching while the shutters were closed at Fendike and the bailiff had full sway on the white farm allowed to do what he liked there which was generally something different from what his mistress liked life was made easier for Alan that winter by the absence of Suzette who was traveling with her father easier and emptier for the one presence which would have given a zest to life was wanting for her since she could never be anything to him the disappearance of his rival would make no difference in her feelings for Alan for no doubt her affection for Jeffrey would only be strengthened by their tragic separation and her lovers miserable fate if she should ever care for anyone else it would be a stranger Alan told himself in those long reveries which the mere sight of a well-known garden wall or the chimneys of Marsh House seen above the leafless elms as he could evoke she will never waste a thought upon me other people were more hopeful Mrs. Mornington told her friends in confidence that her nieces acceptance of that unfortunate young man had been a folly into which she had been entrapped by Jeffrey's dominant temper and by her passion for music she never loved that unhappy young man as she once loved Alan Carew and now no doubt she and Mr. Carew will make it up and Mary said the confidant male or female as the case might be not now but some day yes perhaps replied Suzette's aunt with a significant nod and the day came when Jeffrey Warnock's passionate heart was still forever had been still for more than two years and when to him at rest in the silence of the family burial place at Disco by the side of the mother who had only survived him by a few weeks the sound of Suzette's wedding bells the knowledge of Alan's happiness could bring no pain Alan's day came long and late after years of patient waiting when Suzette had attained the sober age of 6 and 20 but it was a day of cloudless happiness which promised to last to the end of life no fear of the future marred the joy of the present the later love that had grown up in Suzette's heart for her first lover was too strongly based upon knowledge and esteem to suffer the shatter of change the end end of chapter 37 end of Sons of Fire by Mary Elizabeth Bratton