 CHAPTER III PART ONE OF HILDA WADE For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, reading by Lars Rolander. Hilda Wade, a woman with tenacity of purpose by Grant Allen. CHAPTER III PART ONE THE EPISODE OF THE WIFE WHO DID HER DUTY To make you understand my next yarn, I must go back to the date of my introduction to Hilda. It is witchcraft, I said the first time I saw her at Legate's luncheon party. She smiled a smile which was bewitching, indeed, but by no means witch-like. A frank, open smile with just a touch of natural feminine triumph in it. No, not witchcraft, she answered, helping herself with her dainty fingers to a burnt almond from the Venetian glass dish. Not witchcraft, memory aided perhaps by some native quickness of perception. Though I say it myself, I never met anyone I think whose memory goes quite as far as mine does. You don't mean quite as far back, I cried jesting, for she looked about twenty-four and had cheeks like a ripe nectarine, just as pink and just as softly downing. She smiled again, showing a row of semi-transparent teeth with a gleam in the depths of them. She was certainly most attractive. She had that indefinable, incommunicable, unanalyseable personal quality, which we know as charm. No, not as far back, she repeated, though indeed I often seem to remember things that happened before I was born, like when Elizabeth's visit to Kenilworth, I recollect so vividly all that I have heard or read about them, but as far in extent, I mean, I never let anything drop out of my memory. As this case shows you, I can recall even quite unimportant and casual bits of knowledge when any chance clue happens to bring them back to me. She had certainly astonished me. The occasion for my astonishment was the fact that when I handed her my card. Dr. Hubert Ford Cumberledge, St. Nathaniel's Hospital, she had glanced at it for a second and exclaimed without sensible pause or break. Oh, then of course you were half-welsh as I am. The instantaneous and apparent inconsecutiveness of her inference took me aback. Well, yes I am half-welsh, I replied. My mother came from carnivoreshire, but why then, and of course, I failed to perceive your train of reasoning? She laughed a son a little laugh like one well accustomed to receive such inquiries. Fancy asking a woman to give you the train of reasoning for her intuitions, she cried merrily. That shows Dr. Cumberledge that you are a mere man, a man of science, perhaps, but not a psychologist. It also suggests that you are a confirmed bachelor, a married man accepts intuitions without expecting them to be based on reasoning. Well, just this once I will stretch a point to a knight in you. If I recollect right, your mother died about three years ago? You are quite correct. Then you knew my mother? Oh, dear me, no! I never even met her. Why then? Her look was mischievous. But, unless I mistake, I think she came from Henryquid near Bangor. Wales is a village, I exclaimed, catching my breath. Every Welsh person seems to know all about every other. My new acquaintance smiled again. When she smiled, she was irresistible, a laughing face protruding from a clouded biafaneous drapery. Now shall I tell you how I came to know that? She asked, poising a glazed cherry on her desert fork in front of her. Shall I explain my trick like the conjures? Conjures never explain anything, I answered. They say, so you see, that's how it's done, with a swift whisk of the hand. And leave yours much in the darkness ever. Don't explain like the conjures, but tell me how you guessed it. She shut her eyes and seemed to turn her glance inward. About three years ago, she began slowly, like one who reconstructs with an half-forgotten scene. I saw a notice in the Times, verse, deaths, and marriages. On the 27th of October, was it the 27th? The keen brown eyes opened again for a second and flashed inquiry into mine. Quite right, I answered nodding. I thought so. On the 27th of October, at Brynmore Bournemouth, Emily Alvin Josephine Widow of the late Thomas Cumberlage, sometime colonel of the 7th Bengal Regiment of Foot, and daughter of Yolo Gwyn Ford Esquire, J.P., of Henry Quaid near Bangor. Am I correct? She lifted her dark eyelashes once more and flooded me. You are quite correct, I answered surprised. And that is really all that you knew of my mother? Absolutely all. The moment I saw your card, I thought to myself in a breath, Ford Cumberlage, what do I know of those two names? I have some link between them. Ah, yes, found Mrs. Cumberlage, wife of Colonel Thomas Cumberlage of the 7th Bengals, was a Miss Ford daughter of a Mr. Ford of Bangor. That came to me like a lightning gleam. Then I said to myself again, Dr. Hubert Ford Cumberlage must be their son. So there you have the train of reasoning. Women can reason sometimes. I had to think twice, though, before I could recall the exact words the Times noticed. And you can do the same with everyone? Everyone? Oh, come now! That is expecting too much. I have not read, marked, learnt, and inwardly digested everyone's family announcements. I don't pretend to be the peerage, the clergy list, and the London Directory rolled into one. I remembered your family all the more vividly, no doubt because of the pretty and unusual old Welsh names, Olven and Gioro Gwynn Ford, which fixed themselves on my memory by their mere beauty. Everything about Wales always attracts me. My Welsh side is uppermost, but I have hundreds, oh, thousands of such facts stored and pigeon-holed in my memory. If anybody else cares to try me, she glanced round the table. Perhaps we may be able to test my power that way. Two or three of the company accepted her challenge, giving the full names of their sisters or brothers. And in three cases out of five, my witch was able to supply either the notice of their marriage or some other, like, published circumstance. In the instance of Charlie Bear, it is true she went wrong, just at first, though only in a single small particular. It was not Charlie himself who was cassetteed to a sublip tenancy in the Warwickshire Regiment, but his brother Walter. However, the moment she was told of this slip, she corrected herself at once and added like lightning. Ah, yes! How stupid of me! I have mixed up the names. Charles Casselis Bear got an appointment on the same day in the Rhodesian Mounted Police, didn't he? Which was, in point of fact, quite accurate. But I am forgetting that all this time I have not even now introduced my witch to you. Hilda Wade, when I first saw her, was one of the prettiest, cheeriest and most graceful girls I have ever met. A dusky blonde, brown-eyed, brown-haired with a creamy vaccine whiteness of skin that was yet warm and peachy downy. And I wish to insist from the outset upon the plain fact that there was nothing uncanny about her. In spite of her singular faculty of insight, which sometimes seemed to illogical people almost weird or airy, she was, in the main, a bright, well-educated, sensible, winsome, long-tennis-playing English girl. Her vivacious spirits rose superior to her surroundings, which were often sad enough. But she was above all things wholesome, unaffected and sparkling, a gleam of sunshine. She laid no claim to supernatural powers. She held no dealings with familiar spirits. She was simply a girl of strong personal charm endowed with an astounding memory and a rare measure of feminine intuition. Her memory, she told me, she shared with her father and all her father's family. They were famous for their prodigious faculty in that respect. Her impulsive temperament and quick instincts, on the other hand, descended to her. She thought from her mother and her Welsh ancestry. Externally, she seemed thus at first sight little more than the ordinary, pretty, light-hearted English girl with a taste for field sports, especially riding, and a native love for the country. But at times one caught in the brightened colour of her lustrous brown eyes certain curious undercurrents of depth, of reserve, and of a questioning wistfulness which made you suspect the presence of the profounder elements in her nature. From the earliest moment of our acquaintance indeed I can say with truth that Hilda Wade interested me immensely. I felt drawn. Her face had that strange quality of compelling attention for which we have as yet no English name but which everybody recognizes. You could not ignore her. She stood out. She was the sort of girl one was constrained to notice. It was Legate's first luncheon party since his second marriage. Big bearded, genial, he beamed round on us jubilant. He was proud of his wife and proud of his recent cute seaship. The new Mrs. Legate sat at the head of the table, handsome, capable, self-possessed, a vivid vigorous woman and a model hostess. Though still quite young, she was large and commanding. Everybody was impressed by her. Such a good mother to those poor motherless children, all that ladies declared in a chorus of applause. And indeed she had the face of a splendid manager. I said as much in an undertone that she would not be able to find a wife who sat beside me, though I ought not to have discussed them at their own table. Hugo Legate seems to have made an excellent choice, I murmured. Mace and Eti will be lucky indeed to be taken care of by such a competent stepmother. Don't you think so? My witch glanced up at her hostess with a piercing dart of the keen brown eyes, raised and then electrified me by uttering in the same low voice audible to me alone. But quite clearly and unhesitatingly these astounding words, I think before twelve months are out, Mr. Legate will have murdered her. For a minute I could not answer. So startling was the effect of this confident prediction. One does not expect to be told such things at lunch over the port and peaches about one's dearest friends beside their own mahogany, and the assured air of unfaltering conviction with which Hilda Wade said it to a complete stranger took my breath away. Why did she think so at all? And if she thought so, why choose me as the recipient of her singular confidences? I gasped and wondered, do you fancy anything so unlikely? I asked the side at last behind the bay bowl of voices. You're quite a larmy. She rolled a mouthful of apricot eyes reflectively on her tongue, and then murmured in a similar aside, don't ask me now, some other time will do. But I mean what I say. Believe me, I do not speak at random. She was quite right, of course. Continue would have been equally rude and foolish. I had perforce to bottle up my curiosity for the moment and wait till my Sibyl was in the mood for interpreting. After lunch, we adjourned to the drawing room. Almost at once, Hilda Wade flitted up with her brisk step to the corner where I was sitting. Oh, Dr. Cumberlidge, she began as if nothing odd had occurred before. I was so glad to meet you and have a chance of talking to you, because I do so want to get a nurse's place at St Nathaniel's. A nurse's place, I exclaimed a little surprised, surveying her dress of palest and softest Indian Muslim, for she looked to me far too much of a butterfly for such serious work. Do you really mean it, or are you one of the ten thousand modern young ladies who are in quest of a mission, without understanding that missions are unpleasant? Nursing, I can tell you, is not all crimped cap and becoming uniform. I know that, she answered, growing grave. I ought to know it. I am a nurse already at St George's Hospital. You are a nurse, and at St George's, yet you want to change to Nathaniel's? Why? St George's is in a much nicer part of London, and the patients there come on an average from a much better class than ours in Smithfield. I know that too, but Sebastian is at St Nathaniel's, and I want to be near Sebastian. Professor Sebastian, I cried, my face lighting up with a gleam of enthusiasm at our great teacher's name. Ah, if it is to be under Sebastian that you desire, I can see you mean business. I know now you are in earnest. In earnest, she echoed, that strange deeper shade coming over a face as she spoke, while her tone altered. Yes, I think I am in earnest. It is my object in life to be near Sebastian, to watch him and observe him. I mean to succeed, but I have given you my confidence, perhaps too hastily, and I must implore you not to mention my wish to him. You may trust me implicitly, I answered. Oh, yes, I saw that, she put in with a quick gesture. Of course, I saw by your face you were a man of honour, a man one could trust, for I would not have spoken to you, but you promise me? I promise you, I replied, naturally flattered. She was delicately pretty, and her quaint oracular air, so incongruous with the dainty face and the fluffy brown hair, peaked me not a little. That special mysterious commodity of charm seemed to pervade all she did and said. So I added, and I will mention to Sebastian that you wish for a nurse's place at Nathaniel's. As you have had experience and can be recommended, I suppose by the gate-sister, with whom she had come, no doubt you can secure an early vacancy. Thanks so much, she answered, with that delicious smile. It had an infantile simplicity about it, which contrasted most picantly with her prophetic manner. Only I went on, assuming a confidential tone, you really must tell me why you said that just now about Hugo Legate. Recollect your Delphian utterances have gravely astonished and disquieted me. Hugo is one of my oldest and dearest friends, and I want to know why you have formed this sudden bad opinion of him. Not of him, but of her, she answered to my surprise, taking a small Norwegian dagger from the what-not and playing with it to distract the tension. Come, come now, I try drawing back. You are trying to mystify me. This is deliberate seer, Mongari. You are presuming on your powers, but I am not the sort of man to be caught by horoscopes. I decline to believe it. She turned on me with a meaning glance. Those truthful eyes fixed me. I am going from here straight to my hospital. She murmured with a quiet air of knowledge talking, I mean to say, like one who really knows. This room is not the place to discuss this matter, is it? If you will walk back to St. George's with me, I think I can make you see and feel that I am speak not at haphazard, but from observation and experience. Her confidence roused my most vivid curiosity. When she left, I left with her. The legates lived in one of those new streets of large houses on Campton Hill, so that our way eastward lay naturally through Kensington Gardens. It was a sunny June day, when light pierced even through the smoke of London, and the shrubberies breathed the breath of white liliacs. Now what did you mean by that enigmatic saying, I asked my new Cassandra, as we stroll down the St. Layden path. Woman's intuition is all very well in its way, but a mere man be excused if he asks for evidence. She stopped short as I spoke, and gazed full into my eyes. Her hand fingered her parasol handle. I meant what I said, she answered with emphasis. Within one year, Mr. Legate will have murdered his wife. You may take my word for it. Legate, I cried, never. I know the man so well. A big, good-natured, kindly schoolboy. He's the gentlest and best of mortals. Legate, a murderer, impossible. Her eyes were far away. Has it never occurred to you, she asked slowly, with her python assayer, that there are murders and murders, murders which depend in the main upon the murderer and also murders which depend in the main upon the victim? The victim? What do you mean? Well, there are brutal men who commit murder out of sheer brutality, the ruffians of the slums, and there are sordid men who commit murder for sordid money, the insurers who want to forestall their policies, the poisoners who want to inherit property. But have you ever realized that there are also murders who become so by accident through their victims' idiosyncrasy? I thought all the time while I was watching Mrs. Legate, that woman is of the sort predestined to be murdered, and when you asked me, I told you so. I may have been imprudent. Still I saw it, and I said it. But this is second sight, I cried drawing away. Do you pretend to prevision? No, not second sight. Nothing uncanny, nothing supernatural, but prevision, yes, prevision-based, not on omens or auguris, but on solid fact on what I have seen and noticed. Explain yourself, O prophetess. She let the point of her parasol make a curved trail on the gravel and followed its serpentine wavings with her eyes. You know our house surgeon? She asked at last, looking up of a sudden. What, Travers? Oh, intimately! Then come to my wardency. After you have seen, you will perhaps believe me. Nothing that I could say would get any further explanation out of her just then. You would laugh at me if I told you she persisted. You won't laugh when you have seen it. We walked on in silence as far as Hyde Park corner. There my swing stripped lightly up the steps of St. George's hospital. Get Mr. Travers' leave, she said with a nod and a bright smile. To visit nurse Wade's ward? Then come up to me there in five minutes. I explained to my friend the house surgeon that I wished to see certain cases in the accident ward, of which I had heard. He smiled a restrained smile. Nurse Wade, no doubt. But of course gave me permission to go up and look at them. Stop a minute, he added, and I'll come with you. When we got there my witch had already changed her dress and was waiting for us demurely in the neat dove-colored gown and smooth white apron of the hospital nurses. She looked even prettier and more meaningful so then in her ethereal outside summer cloud, Muslim. Come over to this bed, she said at once to Travers and myself without the least air of mystery. I will show you what I mean by it. Nurse Wade has remarkable insight. Travers whispered to me as we went. I can believe it, I answered. Look at this woman. She went on a side in a love voice. No, not the first bed. The one beyond it, number sixty. I don't want the patient to know you are watching her. Do you observe anything odd about her appearance? She is somewhat the same type I began as Mrs. before I could get out the words Legate, her warning eye and puckering forehead had stopped me. As the lady we were discussing, she interposed with a quiet wave of one hand. Yes, in some points very much so. You notice in particular her scanty hair so thin and poor though she is young and good looking. It is certainly rather a feeble crop for a woman of her age, I admitted, and pale at that and washy. Precisely. It's done up behind about as big as a nutmeg. Now observe the contour of her back as she sits up there. It is curiously curved, isn't it? Very, I replied. Not exactly stoop nor yet quite a hunch, but certainly an odd spinal configuration. Like our friends once more? Like our friends exactly. Hilda Wade looked away, lest she should attract the patient's attention. Well, that woman was brought in here half dead. Assaulted by her husband, she went on with a note of unobtrusive demonstration. We get a great many such cases. Travers put in with true medical unconcerned. Very interesting cases. A nurse Wade has pointed out to me the singular fact that in almost all instances the patients resemble one another physically. Incredible, I cried. I can understand that there might well be a type of men who assault their wives, but not surely type of women who get assaulted. That is because you know less about it than nurse Wade, Travers answered, with an annoying smile of superior knowledge. Our instructors moved on to another bed, laying one gentle hand as she passed on a patient's forehead. The patient glanced gratitude. That one again, she said once more, half indicating a cot at a little distance. Number 74. She has much the same thin hair, spares weak and colorless. She has much the same curved back and much the same aggressive self-assertive features. Looks capable, doesn't she? A born housewife, while she too was knocked down and kicked half dead the other night by her husband. It is certainly odd, I answered. How very much they both recall. Our friend at lunch, yes, extraordinary. See here, she pulled out a pencil and drew the quick outline of a face in her notebook. That is what is central and essential to the type. They have this sort of profile. Women with faces like that always get assaulted. Travers glanced over her shoulder. Quite true, he assented with his bourgeois nod. Nurse Wade in her time has shown me dozens of them. Round dozens, baker's dozens, they all belong to that species. In fact, when a woman of this type is brought into us, wounded now, I ask at once, husband, and the invariable answer comes pat. Well, yes, sir, we had some words together. The effect of words, my dear fellow, is something truly surprising. They can pierce like a dagger, I'm used, and leave an open wound behind that requires dressing. Travers added unsuspecting. Practical man travers. But why do they get assaulted, the women of this type? I ask still bewildered. Number 87 has her mother just come to see her. My sorcerers interposed. She's an assault case brought in last night. Badly kicked and bruised about the head and shoulders. Speak to the mother. She'll explain it all to you. End of Chapter 3, Part 1, read by Lars Rolander. Chapter 3, Part 2 of Hilda Wade This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org reading by Lars Rolander. Hilda Wade, a woman with tenacity of purpose, by Grant Allen. Chapter 3, Part 2. Travers and I moved over to the cotter hand scarcely indicated. Well, your daughter looks pretty comfortable this afternoon in spite of the little fuss. Travers began tentatively. Yes, she is a bit tidy, thanky. The mother answered, smoothing her soiled black gown, grown green with long service. She'll get on now, play scored. But Joe must did for her. How did it all happen? Travers asked in a jaunty tone to draw her out. While it was like this, sir, your see, my daughter she said, Liddy, as keeps herself to herself as the saying is. And old sir, it up. She keeps up a proper pride and minds her house in earl and lones. She ain't no gadabat, but she avatang she av. The mother lowered her voice cautiously, lest the Liddy should hear. I don't deny it that she avatang atoms, though, threw myself having suffered from it. And when she do go on, Lord bless you, why there ain't no stop-nover. Oh, she has a tongue, has she? Travers replied surveying the case critically. Well, you know she looks like it. So she do, sir, so she do. And Joe is a man as wouldn't hurt a baby, not when he's sober. Joe wouldn't. But he'd been at, that's where it is, and he come only a bit fresh through having been at the friendly Lid. And may daughter year see she up and give it to him. My word, she did give it to him. And Joe is a peaceable man when he ain't a bit fresh. He's more like a friend to her than a husband. Joe is. But he lost his temper that time, as you may say, by reason of being fresh. And he knocked her abat a little, and knocked her teeth at. So we brought her to the hospital. The injured woman raised herself up in bed with a vindictive scowl, displaying as she did so the same way like her back as in the other cases. But we've sent him to the lock up, she continued. The scowl giving way fast to a radiant joy of victory as she contemplated her triumph. And what's more, I add the last word of him. And he'll get six months for this, the neighbor says. And when he comes at again, my God, won't he catch it? You look capable of punishing him for it, I answered as I spoke. I shuddered, for I saw her expression was precisely the expression Mrs. Legate's face had worn for a passing second, while her husband accidentally trod on her dress as we left the dining room. My witch moved away, we followed. Well, what do you say to it now? She asked, gliding among the beds with noiseless feet and ministering fingers. Say to it, I answered, that it is wonderful, wonderful, you have quite convinced me. You would think so, Travers Putin, if you had been in this ward as often as I have and observed their faces. It's a dead certainty, sooner or later that type of woman is cocksure to be assaulted. In a certain rank of life perhaps, I answered, still off to believe it. But not surely in ours, gentlemen do not knock down their wives and kick their teeth out. My sibles smiled. No, their class tells, she admitted. They take longer about it and suffer more provocation. They curb their tempers, but in the end one day they are goaded beyond endurance and then a convenient knife, a rusty old sword, a pair of scissors, anything that comes handy, like that dagger this morning. One wild blow, half unpremeditated and the thing is done. Twelve good men and true will find it willful murder. I felt really perturbed. But can we do nothing? I cried to warn poor Hugo. Nothing I fear, she answered. After all, character must work itself out in its interactions with character. He has married that woman and he must take the consequences. Does not each of us in life suffer perforce of the nemesis of his own temperament? Then is there not also a type of men who assault their wives? That is the odd part of it, no. All kinds, good and bad, quick and slow, can be driven to it at last. The quick tempered stab or kick, the slow device some deliberate means of ridding themselves of their burden. But surely we might caution Legate of his danger. It is useless. He would not believe us. We cannot be at his elbow to hold back his hand when the bad moment comes. Nobody will be there, as a matter of fact, for women of this temperament, born-naggers in short, since that's what it comes to when they are also ladies graceful and gracious as she is, never nag at all before outsiders. To the world they are bland. Everybody says, what charming talkers! They are angels abroad, devils at home, as the proverb puts it. Some night she will provoke him when they are alone till she has reached his utmost limit of endurance, and then she drew one hand across her dove-like throat. It will be all finished. You think so? I'm sure of it. We human beings go straight like sheep to our natural destiny. But that is fatalism. No, not fatalism. Insight into temperament. Fatalists believe that your life is arranged for you beforehand from without, willy-nilly, you must act so. I only believe that in this jostling word your life is mostly determined by your own character in its interaction with the characters of those who surround you. Temperament works itself out. It is your own acts and deeds that make up fate for you. For some months after this meeting neither Hilda Wade nor I saw anything more of the legates. They left town for Scotland at the end of the season and when all the grouse had been duly slaughtered and all the salmon duly hooked they went on to Leicestershire for the opening of Foxhunting. So it was not till after Christmas that they returned to Campton Hill. Meanwhile I had spoken to Dr. Sebastian about Miss Wade and on my recommendation he had found her a vacancy at our hospital. A most intelligent girl, Cumberledge he remarked to me with a rare burst of approval for the professor was always critical after she had been at work for some weeks at St. Nathaniel's. I am glad you introduced her here. A nurse with brains is such a valuable accessory unless of course she takes to thinking the nurse Wade never thinks she is a useful instrument does what she is told and carries out one's orders implicitly. She knows enough to know when she doesn't know I answered which is really the rarest kind of knowledge. Unrecorded among young doctors the professor retorted with his sadonic smile they think they understand the human body from top to toe when in reality they might do the measles. Early in January I was invited again to lunch with the legates. Hilda Wade was invited too the moment we entered the house we were both of us aware that some grim change had come over it. Legate met us in the hall in his old genial style it is true but still with a certain reserve a curious wail timidity which we had not known in him big and good-humored as he was with kindly eyes beneath the shaggy eyebrows he seemed strangely subdued now the boyish buoyancy had gone out of him he spoke rather lower than was his natural key and welcomed us warmly though less effusively than of old an irreproachable house made in a spotless cap ushered us into the transfigured drawing room Mrs. Legate in a pretty cloth-dress neatly tailor-made rose to meet us beaming the vapid smile of the perfect hostess that impartial smile which falls like the rain from heaven on good and bad indifferently so charmed to see you again Dr. Cumberlich she bubbled out with a cheerful hair she was always cheerful mechanically cheerful from a sense of duty such a pleasure to meet dear Hugo's old friends and Miss Wade too how delightful you look so well, Miss Wade oh, you're both at St. Nathaniel's now, aren't you? so you can come together what a privilege for you, Dr. Cumberlich to have such a clever assistant or rather fellow-worker it must be a great life yours, Miss Wade such a swear of usefulness if we can only feel we are doing good that is the main matter for my own part I like to be mixed up with every good work that's going on in my neighborhood I'm the soup kitchen, you know and I'm visitor at the workhouse and I'm the dorker society and the mutual improvement class and the prevention of cruelty for animals and to children and I'm sure I don't know how much else so that, what with all that and what with dear Hugo and the darling children she glanced affectionately at Macy and Etty who sat both upright, very mute and still in their best and stiffest frocks on two stools in the corner I can hardly find time for my social duties oh, dear Miss Slagate one of her visitors said with a fusion from beneath a nodding bonnet she was the wife of a rural dean from Staffordshire everybody's agree that your social duties are performed to a marvel they are the envy of Kensington we all of us wonder indeed how one woman can find time for all of it our hostess looked pleased well, yes and she answered gazing down at her fawn-coloured dress with a half suppressed smile of self-satisfaction I flatter myself I can get through about as much work in a day as anybody her eye wandered round her rooms with a modest air of placid self-approval which was almost comic everything in them was as well kept and as well polished as good servants thoroughly drilled could make it plain or respect anywhere a miracle of neatness indeed when I carelessly drew the norwegian dagger from its cupboard as we waited for lunch and found that it stuck in the sheat I almost started to discover that rust could intrude into that orderly household I recollected then how Hilda Wade had pointed out to me during those six months at St Nathaniel's the women whose husbands assaulted them were almost always notable housewives as they say in America good souls who pride themselves not a little on their skill in management they were capable practical mothers of families with a boundless belief in themselves a sincere desire to do their duty as far as they understood it and a habit of impressing their virtues upon others which was quite beyond all human endurance Placidity was their note provoking Placidity I felt sure it must have been of a woman of this type that the famous phrase was coined Clara dear the husband said shall we go into lunch you dear stupid boy are we not all waiting for you to give your arm to Lady Maitland the lunch was perfect and it was perfectly served the silver glowed the linen was marked with in a most artistic monogram I noticed that the table decorations were extremely pretty somebody complimented our hostess upon them Mrs. Legate nodded and smiled they arranged them dear Hugo in his blundering way the big darling forgot to get me the orchids I had ordered so I had to make shift with what few things our own wee conservatory afforded still with a little taste and a little ingenuity she surveyed her handiwork with just pride and left the rest to our imaginations only you ought to explain Clara Legate began in a depreciatory tone now you darling old bear we won't harp on that twice tall tale again Clara interrupted with a knowing smile let us leave one another's misdeeds and one another's explanations for their proper swear the family circle the orchids did not turn up that is the point we managed to make shift with the plumbago and the geraniums may see my sweet not that pudding if you please too rich for you darling I know your digestive capacity is better than you do I have told you 50 times it doesn't agree with you a small slice of the other one yes mama may see answered with a cout and cowering air yes mama in the self same tone if the second mrs. Legate had ordered her to hang herself I saw you in the park yesterday on your bicycle eti Legate's sister mrs. Mallet put in but do you know dear I didn't think your jacket was half warm enough mama doesn't like me to wear a warmer one the child answered with a visible shudder of recollection my precious eti what nonsense for a violent exercise like bicycling where one gets so hot so unbecomingly hot you would be simply stifle darling I caught a darted glance which accompanied the words and which made eti recoil into the recesses of her pudding but yesterday was so cold Clara mrs. Mallet went on actually venturing post the infallible authority a nipping morning and such a flimsy coat might not the dear child be allowed to judge for herself in a matter purely of her own feelings mrs. Legate with just the shadow of a shrug was all sweet reasonableness she smiled more swively than ever surely Lina she remonstrated in her frankest and most convincing tone no best what is good for dear eti when I have been watching her daily for more than six months past and taking the greatest pains to understand both her constitution and her disposition she needs hardening eti does hardening don't you agree with me you go Legate shuffled uneasily in his chair big man as he was with his great black beard and manly bearing I could see afraid to differ from her overtly well perhaps Clara he began peering from under the shaggy eyebrows it would be best for a delicate child like eti mrs. Legate smiled a compassionate smile I forgot she code sweetly dear you go never can understand the upbringing of children it is a sense denied him we women know with a sage nod they were wild little savages when I took them in hand first weren't you Macy do you remember dear how you broke the looking glass in the boudoir like an untamed young monkey talking of monkeys mr. Cotswold have you seen those delightful clever amusing French pictures at that place in suckwork street there's a man there a Parisian I forget his honoured name le blanc le noir le brun or something but he's a most humorous artist and he paints monkeys and storks and all sorts of queer beasties almost as quaintly and expressively as you do mine I say almost for I never will allow that any Frenchman could do anything quite so good quite so funnily mock you marabous and professors what a charming hostess Mrs. Legate makes the painter observed to me after lunch such tact such discrimination and what a devoted stepmother she's one of the local secretaries of the society for the prevention of cruelty to children I said dryly and charity begins at home Hilda Wade added in a significant aside we walked home together as far as Stanhope Gate our sense of doom oppressed us and yet I said turning to her as we left the doorstep I don't doubt Mrs. Legate really believes she is a model stepmother of course she believes it my witch answered she has no more doubt about that than about anything else doubts are not in her line she does everything exactly as it ought to be done who should know if not she and therefore she is never afraid of criticism hardening indeed that poor slender tender shrinking little attic a frail exotic she would harden her into skeleton if she had her way nothing's much harder than a skeleton I suppose except Mrs. Legate's manner of training one I should be sorry to think I broke in that that sweet little floating thistle down of a child I once knew was to be done to death by her as for that she will not be done to death Hilda answered in her confident way Mrs. Legate won't live long enough I started you think not I don't think I'm sure of it we are at the fifth act now such Mr. Legate closely all through lunch and I'm more confident than ever that the end is coming he's temporarily crushed but he is like steam in a boiler seething seething seething one day she will sit on the safety valve and the explosion will come when it comes she raised a loft one quick hand in the air as if striking a dagger home goodbye to her for the next few months I saw much of Legate and the more I saw of him the more I saw that my witch's prognosis was essentially correct they never quarreled but Mrs. Legate in a run obtrusive way held a quiet hand of her husband which became increasingly apparent in the midst of her fancy work those busy fingers were never idle she kept her eyes well fixed on him now and again I saw him glance at his motherless girls with what looked like a tender protecting regret especially when Clara had been most openly drilling them but he dared not interfere she was crushing their spirit as she was crushing their fathers and all bear in mind for the best of motives she had their interest at heart she wanted to do what was right for them her manner to him and to them was always honey sweet in all externals yet one could somehow feel it was the velvet club that masked the iron hand not cruel not harsh even but severely irresistibly unflinchingly crushing eti my dear get your brown hat at once what's that going to rain for your opinion on the weather my own suffices a headache oh nonsense headaches are caused by want of exercise nothing so good for a touch of headache as a nice brisk walk in Kensington Gardens may see don't hold your sister's hand like that it is imitation sympathy you are aiding and abetting her in setting my wishes at naught now no long faces what I require is cheerful obedience a bland autocratic martinette smiling inexorable poor pale eti grew thinner and warner under her law daily while Macy's temper naturally docile was being spoiled before one's eyes by persistent needless thwarting as spring came on however I began to hope that things were really mending legate look brighter some of his own careless happy go lucky self came back again at intervals he told me once with a wistful sigh that he thought of sending the children to school in the country it would be better for them he said and would take a little work of dear Clara's shoulders for never even to me was he disloyal to Clara I encouraged him in the idea he went on to say that the great difficulty in the way was Clara she was so conscientious she thought it her duty to look after the children herself and couldn't bear to delegate any part of that duty to others besides she had such an excellent opinion of the Kensington High School when I told Hilda Wade of this she set her teeth together and answered at once that settles it here he will insist upon their going to save them from that woman's ruthless kindness and she will refuse to give up any part of what she calls her duty he will reason with her he will plead for his children she will be adamant not angry it is never the way of the temperament to get angry just calmly, sedately and insupportably provoking when she goes too far she will flare up at last some taunt will rouse him the explosion will come and the children will go to their aunt Lina whom they dot upon when all is said and done it is the poor man I pity you said within 12 months that was a boat drawn at a venture it may be a little sooner it may be a little later but next week or next month it is coming it is coming June smiled upon us once more and on the afternoon of the 13th the anniversary of our first lunch together at the Legates I was up at my work in the accident ward at St. Nathaniel's well the edus of June have come sister Wade I said when I met her paralleling Caesar but not yet gone she answered and a profound sense of foreboding spread over her speaking face as she uttered the words her oracle disquited me why I dined there last night I cried and all seemed exceptionally well the calm before the storm perhaps she murmured just at that moment I heard a boy crying in the street Palma Olga said airier special edition shocking tragedy at the west end awful murder airier special globe Palma extra special a weird tremor broke over me I walked down into the street and bought a paper there it stared me in the face on the middle page tragedy at Campton Hill well known barrister murders his wife sensational details I looked closer and read it was as I feared the leg gates after I left their house the night before husband and wife must have quarrelled no doubt of the question of the children schooling and at some provoking word as it seemed you go must have snatched up a knife a little ornamental norwegian dagger the report said which happened to lie close by on the cabinet in the drawing room and plunged it into his wife's heart the unhappy lady died instantaneously by all appearances and the dystopic crime was not discovered by the servants till eight o'clock this morning Mr. Legate is missing I rushed up with the news to nurse Wade who was at work in the accident ward she turned pale but bent over her patient and said nothing it is fearful to think I groaned out at last for us who know all that poor Legate will be hanged for it hanged for attempting to protect his children he will not be hanged my witch answered with the same unquestioning confidence as ever why not I asked astonished once more at this bold prediction she went on bandaging in the arm of the patient whom she was attending because he will commit suicide she replied without moving a muscle how do you know that she stuck a steel safety pin with deft fingers into the roll of lint when I have finished my day's work she answered slowly still continuing the bandage I may perhaps find time to tell you end of chapter 3 part 2 read by Lash Rolander chapter 4 part 1 of Hilda Wade this is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by Lash Rolander Hilda Wade a woman with tenacity of purpose by Grant Allen chapter 4 part 1 the episode of the man who would not commit suicide after my poor friend Legate had murdered his wife in a sudden access of uncontrollable anger under the deepest provocation the police naturally began to inquire for him it is a way they have the police are no respecters of persons neither do they pry into the question of motives they are but poor casuists a murder is for them a murder and a murderer a murderer it is not their habit to divide and distinguish between case and case with Hilda Wade's analytical accuracy as soon as my duties at St. Nathaniel's permitted me on the evening of the discovery I rushed round to Mrs. Mallet's Legate's sister I had been detained at the hospital for some hours however, watching a critical case and by the time I reached Great Stanhope Street I found Hilda Wade in her nurse's dress there before me Sebastian it seemed had given her leave out for the evening she was a super numeracy nurse attached to his own observation cuts a special attendant for scientific purposes to get an hour or so whenever she required it Mrs. Mallet had been in the breakfast room with Hilda before I arrived but as I reached the house she rushed upstairs to wash her red eyes and compose herself a little before the strain of meeting me so I had the opportunity for a few words alone first with my prophetic companion you said just now at Nathaniel's I burst out that Legate would not be hanged he would commit suicide what did you mean by that what reason had you for thinking so Hilda sank into a chair by the open window pulled the flower abstractedly from the vase at her side and began picking it to pieces florid after florid with twitching fingers she was deeply moved well, consider his family history she burst out at last looking up at me with her large brown eyes as she reached the last petal her redity counts and after such a disaster she said disaster not crime I noted mentally the reservation implied in the word her redity counts I answered oh yes it counts much but what about Legate's family history I could not recall any instance of suicide among his forebears well his mother's father was general fascally you know she replied after pause in a strange oblique manner Mr. Legate is general fascally's eldest grandson exactly I broke in with the man's desire for solid fact in place of vague intuition but I failed to see quite what that has to do with it the general was killed in India during the mutiny I remember of course killed bravely fighting yes but it was on a forlorn hope for which she volunteered and in the course of which she is said to have walked straight into an almost obvious ambush gate of the enemies now my dear Miss Wade I always drop the title of nurse by request when once we were well clear I have every confidence you're aware in your memory and your insight but I do confess I failed to see what bearing this incident can have on poor youth's chances of being hanged or committing suicide she picked a second flower and once more pulled out petal after petal as she reached the last again she answered slowly you must have forgotten the circumstances it was no mere accident general fascally had made a serious strategical blunder at Jhansi he had sacrificed the lives of his subordinates needlessly he could not bear to face the survivors in the course of the retreat he volunteered to go on this forlorn hope which might equally well have been led by an officer of lower rank and he was permitted to do so by Sir Colin in command the means of retrieving his lost military character he carried his point but he carried it recklessly taking care to be shot through the heart himself in the first onslaught that was virtual suicide honorable suicide to avoid disgrace at the moment of supreme remorse and horror you are right I admitted doctor minutes consideration I see it now I should never have thought of it that is the use of being a woman she answered I waited a second once more and used still that is only one doubtful case I objected there was another you must remember his uncle Alfred Alfred Legate no he died in his bed quietly Alfred Fascally what a memory you have I cried astonished why that was before our time in the days of the Chartist riots she smiled a certain curious sibling smile of hers her earnest face looked prettier than ever I told you I could remember many things that happened before I was born she answered this is one of them you remember it directly how impossible have I not often explained to you that I am no diviner I read no book of faith I call no spirits from the vastly deep I simply remember with exceptional clearness what I read and hear and I have many times heard the story about Alfred Fascally so have I but I forget it unfortunately I can't forget that is a sort of disease with me he was a special constable in the Chartist riots and being a very strong and powerful man like his nephew Hugo he used his truncheon his special constable's baton or whatever you call it with excessive force upon a starving London tailor in the mob near Charing Cross the man was hit on the forehead badly hit so that he died almost immediately of concussion of the brain a woman rushed out of the crowd at once seized the dying man laid his head on her lap and shrieked out in a wildly despairing voice that he was her husband and the father of 13 children Alfred Fascally who never meant to kill the man or even to hurt him but was laying about him roundly without realizing the terrific force of his blows was so horrified at what he had done when he heard the woman's cry that he rushed off straight to Waterloo Bridge in an agony of remorse and flung himself over he was drowned instantly I recall the story now I answered but do you know as it was told me I think they said the mob threw Fascally over in their desire for vengeance that is the official account told by the Legates and the Fascalis they like to have it believed their kinsman was murdered not that he committed suicide but my grandfather I started during the 12 months that I had been brought into daily relations with Hilda Wade that was the first time I had heard her mention any member of her own family except once her mother my grandfather who knew him well and was present in the crowd at the time assured me many times that Alfred Fascally really jumped over of his own accord not pursued by the mob and that his last horrified words as he leaped were I never meant it I never meant it however the family have always had luck in their suicides the jury believed the throwing over story of a powerful murder against some person or persons unknown luck in their suicides what a curious phrase and you say always were there other cases then constructively yes one of the Legates you must recollect went down with his ship just like his uncle the general in India when he might have quitted her it is believed he had given a mistaken order you remember of course he was navigating lieutenant another Marcus was said to have shot himself by accident while cleaning his gun after a quarrel with his wife but you have heard all about it the Rome was on my side he moaned you know when they picked him up dying in the gun room and one of the Fascally girls his cousin of whom his wife was jealous that beautiful Linda became a Catholic and went into a convent at once on Marcus's death which after all in such cases is merely a religious and moral way of committing suicide I mean for a woman who takes the veil just to cut herself off from the world and who has no vocation as I hear she had not she filled me with amazement that is true I have been exclaimed when one comes to think of it it shows the same temperament in fiber but I should never have thought of it no well I believe it is true for all that in every case one sees they choose much the same way of meeting a reverse a blunder an unpremeditated crime the brave way is to go through with it the cowardly way is to hide one's head incontinently in a river a nose or a convent cell the gate is not a coward I interposed with warm no not a coward a manly spirited great hearted gentleman but still not quite of the bravest type he lacks one element the gates have physical courage enough and to spare but their moral courage fails them at a pinch they rush into suicide or its equivalent at critical moments out of pure boyish impulsiveness a few minutes later Mrs. Mallet came in she was not broken down on the contrary she was calm, stoically, tragically, pitably calm with that ghastly calmness which is more terrible by far than the most hearted grief her face, though deadly white did not move a muscle not a tear was in her eyes even her bloodless hands hardly twitched at the folds over hastily assumed black gown she clenched them after a minute when she had grasped mine silently I could see that the nail stuck deep into the palms in her painful resolve to keep herself from collapsing Hilda weighed with infinite sisterly tenderness led her over to a chair by the window in the summer twilight and to one quivering hand in hers I have been telling Dr. Cumberlidge Lena about what I most fear for your dear brother, darling and I think he agrees with me Mrs. Mallet turned to me with hollow eyes still preserving her tragic calm I'm afraid of it too she said her drawn lips tremulous Dr. Cumberlidge we must get him back we must induce him to face it and yet I answered slowly turning it over in my own mind he has run away at first why should he do that if he means to commit suicide I hated to utter the words before that broken soul but there was no way out of it Hilda interrupted me with a quiet suggestion how do you know he has run away she asked are you not taking it for granted that if he meant suicide he would blow his brains out in his own house but surely that would not be the legate way they are gentle natured folk they would never blow their brains out or cut their throats for all we know he may have made straight for Waterloo Bridge she framed her lips with unspoken words unseen by Mrs. Mallet like his uncle Alfred that is true I answered lip reading I never thought of that either still I do not attach importance to this idea she went on I have some reason for thinking he has run away elsewhere and if so our first task must be to entice him back again what are your reasons I ask humbly whether they might be I knew enough of Hilda Wade by this time to know that she had probably good grounds for accepting them oh they may wait for the present she answered other things are more pressing first let Lina tell us what she thinks of most moment Mrs. Mallet braced herself up visibly to a distressing effort you have seen the body of Dr. Cambridge no dear Mrs. Mallet I have not I came straight from Nathaniel's I have had no time to see it Dr. Sebastian has viewed it by my wish he has been so kind and he will be present at representing the family at the post mortem he notes that the wound was inflicting with a dagger a small ornamental Norwegian dagger which always lay as I know on the little what not blue sofa I nodded a scent exactly I have seen it there it was blunt and rusty a mere toy knife not at all the sort of weapon a man would make use of who designed to commit a deliberate murder the crime if there was a crime which we do not admit must therefore have been fully unpremeditated I bowed my head for us who knew you would not saying she leaned forward eagerly Dr. Sebastian has pointed out to me a line of defense which would probably succeed if we could only induce poor Hugo to adopt it he has examined the blade and scabbard and finds that the dagger fits its sheet very tight so that it can only be withdrawn with considerable violence the blade sticks I nodded again he needs a hard tool to wrench it out he has also inspected the wound and assures me its character is such that it might have been self inflicted she paused now and again and brought out her words with difficulty self inflicted he suggests therefore that this may have happened it is admitted will be admitted the servants overheard it we can make no reservation there we have an opinion an altercation even took place between Hugo and Clara that evening she started suddenly why it was only last night it seems like ages an altercation about the children schooling Clara held strong views on the subject of the children her eyes blinked hard which Hugo did not share we throw out the hint then that Clara during the course we must call it a dispute accidentally took up this dagger and toyed with it you know her habit of toying when she had no knitting or needle work in the course of playing with it we suggest she tried to pull the knife out of its sheat failed held it up so point upward pulled again pulled harder with a jerk at last the sheat came off the dagger sprang up it wounded Clara fatally Hugo knowing that they had disagreed knowing that the servants had heard and seeing her fall suddenly dead before him was seized with horror the legate impulsiveness lost his head rushed out fancied the accident would be mistaken for murder but why a QC don't you know recently married most attached to his wife it is plausible isn't it so plausible I answered looking it straight in the face that it has but one weak point we might make a coroner's jury or even a common jury accepted on Sebastian's expert evidence Sebastian can work wonder but we could never make Hilda Wade finished the sentence for me as I paused you could a gate consent I lowered my head you have said it I answered not for the children's sake Mrs. Mallet cried with clasped hands not for the children's sake even I answered consider for a moment Mrs. Mallet is it true do you believe it she threw herself back in her chair with a dejected face oh as for that she cried warily crossing her hands before you and Hilda who know all what need to pre-varicate how can I believe it we understand how it came about that woman that woman the real wonder is Hilda murmured soothing her white hand that he contained himself so long well we all know Hugo I went on as quietly as I was able and knowing Hugo we know that he might be urged to commit this wild act in a fierce moment of indignation righteous indignation on behalf of his motherless girls under tremendous provocation but we also know that having once committed it he would never stoop to his own it by a subtle future the heartbroken sister let her head drop faintly so Hilda told me she murmured and what Hilda says in these matters is almost always final we debated the question for some minutes more then Mrs Mallet cried at last at any rate he has fled for the moment and his flight alone brings the worst suspicion upon him that is our chief point we must find out where he is and if he has gone right away we must bring him back to London where do you think he has taken refuge? the police Dr Sebastian as ascertained are watching the railway stations and the ports for the continent very like the police Hilda exclaimed with more than a touch of contempt in her voice as if a clever man of the world like Hugo Legate would run away by rail or start off to the continent every Englishman is noticeable on the continent it would be sheer madness you think he's not gone there then? I cried deeply interested of course not that is the point I hinted at just now he has defended many persons accused of murder and he often spoke to me of their incredible folly when trying to escape in going by rail or in setting out from England for Paris an Englishman he used to say is least observed in his own country in this case I think I know where he's gone how he went there where then? where comes last? how first? it is a question of inference explain we know your powers well I take it for granted that he killed her we must not mince matters about twelve o'clock for after that hour the servants told Lina he was quiet in the drawing room next I conjecture he went upstairs to change his clothes he could not go forth on the world in an evening suit and the housemaid says his black coat and trousers were lying as usual on a chair in his dressing room which shows at least that he was not unduly flurried after that he put on another suit no doubt what suit I hope the police I suppose you must just accept the situation that we are conspiring to defeat the ends of justice no no Mrs. Mallet cried to bring him back voluntarily that he may face his trial like a man yes dear that is quite right however the next thing of course would be that he would shave in whole or in part his big black beard was so very conspicuous he would certainly get rid of that before attempting to escape the servants being in bed he was not pressed for time he had the whole night before him so of course he shaved on the other hand the police you may be sure will circulate his photograph we must not shirk these points for Mrs. Mallet wins again will circulate his photograph beard and all and that will really be one of our safeguards for the bushy beard so masks the face that without it Hugo would be scarcely recognizable I conclude therefore that he must have shown himself before leaving home though naturally I did not make the police a present of the hint by getting Lena to ask any questions in that direction of the housemaid you are probably right I answered but would you have a racer who was coming to that no certainly he would not he had not shaved for years and they kept no man servants which makes it difficult for him to borrow one from a sleeping man so what he would do would doubtless be to cut off his beard or part of it quite close with a pair of scissors and then get himself properly shaved next morning in the first country town he came to the first country town certainly that leads up to the next point we must try to be cool and collected she was quivering with suppressed emotion herself as she said it but her soothing hands delay on Mrs. Mallets the next thing is he would leave London but not by rail you say he's an intelligent man and in the course of defending others has thought about this matter why expose himself to the needless risk and observation of a railway station no I saw at once what he would do beyond doubt he would cycle he always wondered it was not done often under similar circumstances but has his bicycle gone lean I look it has not I should have expected as much I told her to note that point very unobtrusively so as to avoid giving the police the clue she saw the machine in the outer hall as usual he is too good a criminal lawyer to have dreamt of taking his own Mrs. Mallet interposed with another effort but where could he have hired or bought one at that time of night I exclaimed nowhere without exciting the gravist suspicion therefore I conclude he stopped in London for the night sleeping at a hotel without luggage and paying for his room in advance it is frequently done and if he arrived late very little notice would be taken of him big hotels about the strand I'm told have always a dozen such casual bachelor guests every evening and then and then this morning he would buy a new bicycle a different make from his own at the nearest shop would rig himself out at some ready-made tailors with a fresh tourist suit probably an ostentatiously tweedy bicycling suit and with that in his luggage carrier would make straight on his machine for the country he could change in some cops and bury his own clothes avoiding the blunders he has seen in others perhaps he might ride for the first 20 or 30 miles out of London to some minor side station and then go on by train towards his destination quitting the rail again at some unimportant point where the main west road crosses the Great Western or the Southwest line Great Western or Southwest why those two in particular then you have settled in your own mind which direction he's taken pretty well I judge by analogy Nina your brother was brought up in the west country was he not Mrs. Mallet gave a weary nod in North Devon she answered on the wild stretch of moor but heartland and clovelly Hilda Wade seemed to collect herself now Mr. Legate is essentially a Kelt a Kelt in temperament she went on he comes by origin an ancestry from a rough heather clad country he belongs to the more land in other words his type is the mountaineers but the mountaineers instinct in similar circumstances is what why to fly straight to his native mountains in an agony of terror in an excess of despair when all else fails he strikes a beeline for the hills he loves rationally or irrationally he seems to think he can hide there Hugo Legate with his Frank Boyish nature his great Devonian frame is sure to have done so I know his mood he has made for the west country you are right Hilda Mrs. Mallet exclaimed with conviction I'm quite sure from what I know of Hugo that to go to the west would be his first impulse and the Legates are always governed by first impulses my character reader added she was quite correct from the time we two were at Oxford together I as an undergraduate he as a don I had always noticed that mark trait in my dear old friends temperament after short pause Hilda broke the silence again the sea again the sea the Legates love the water any place on the sea where he went much as a boy any lonely place I mean in that North Devon district Mrs. Mallet reflected a moment yes there was a little bay a mere gap in high cliffs with some fisherman's huts and a few yards of beach where he used to spend much of his holidays it was a weird looking break in a grim sea wall of dark red rocks where the tide rolling in from the Atlantic the very thing has he visited since he grew up to my knowledge never Hilda's voice had a ring of certainty then that is where we shall find him dear we must look there first he is sure to revisit just such a solitary spot by the sea when trouble overtakes him End of chapter 4 part 1 read by Lars Rolander chapter 4 part 2 of Hilda Wade this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by Lars Rolander Hilda Wade a woman with tenacity of purpose by Grant Allen chapter 4 part 2 later in the evening as we were walking home towards Nathaniels together I asked Hilda why she had spoken throughout with such unwavering confidence oh it was simple enough she answered there were two things that helped me through which I didn't like to mention in detail before Lina one was this the legates have all of them an instinctive horror of the sight of blood therefore they almost never commit suicide by shooting themselves or cutting their throats Marcus who shot himself in the gun room was an exception to both rules he never minded blood he could cut up a deer but Hugo refused to be a doctor because he could not stand the sight of an operation and even as a sportsman he never liked to pick up himself he said it sickened him he rushed from that room last night I feel sure in a physical horror at the deed he had done and by now he is as far as he can get from London the sight of his act drove him away not craven fear of an arrest if the legates kill themselves a seafaring race on the whole their impulse is to trust to water and the other thing well, that was about the mountaineer's homing instinct I have often noticed it I could give you fifty instances only I didn't like to speak of them before Lina there was Williams for example the doll jelly man who killed a gamekeeper at Petworth in a poaching affray he was taken on Cader Idris skulking among rocks a week later then there was that unhappy young fellow McKinnon who shot his sweet heart at Leicester he made straight as the crow flies for his home in the Isle of Skye and there drowned himself in familiar waters Lindner the Tyrolyse again who stabbed the American swindler at Monte Carlo was tracked after a few days to his native place Saint Valentin in the Tsillertal it is always so mountaineers in distress fly to their mountains it is a part of their nostalgia I know it from within too if I were in poor you will the gates place what do you think I would do why hide myself at once in the greenest recesses of our Carnarvonshire mountains what an extraordinary insight into character you have I cried you seem to divine what everybody's action will be under given circumstances she paused and held her parasol half poised in her hand character determines action she said slowly at last that is the secret of the great novelists they put themselves behind and within their characters and so make us feel that every act of their personages is not only natural but even given the conditions inevitable we recognize that their story is the so logical outcome of the interaction of their dramatist persona now I am not a great novelist I cannot create and imagine characters and situations but I have something of the novelist's gift I apply the same method to the real life of the people around me I try to throw myself into the person of others and to feel how their character will compel them to act in each set of circumstances to which they may expose themselves in one word I said you are a psychologist a psychologist she assented I suppose so and the police well the police are not they are at best but bungling materialists they require a clue what need of a clue if you can interpret character so certain was Hilda Wade of her conclusions indeed that Mrs. Malat begged me next day to take my holiday at once which I could easily do and go down to the little bay in the Heartland district of which she had spoken in search of Hugo I consented she herself proposed to set out quietly for Bidford where she could be within easy reach of me in order to hear of my success or failure while Hilda Wade whose summer vacation was to have begun in two days time offered to ask for an extra day's leave so as to accompany her the broken hearted sister accepted the offer and secrecy being above all things necessary we set off by different routes the two women by Waterloo myself by Paddington we stopped that night at different hotels in Bidford but next morning Hilda showed out on her bicycle and accompanied me on mine for a mile or two along the tortuous way towards Heartland take nothing for granted she said as we parted and be prepared to find poor Hugo Legate's appearance greatly changed he has eluded the police and their clues so far therefore I imagine he must have largely altered his dress and exterior I will find him I answered if he's anywhere within twenty miles of Heartland she wave her hand to me in farewell I rode on after she left me towards the high promontory in front the wildest and least visited part of North Devon torrents of rain had fallen during the night the slimy cartrats and cattle tracks on the moor were brimming with water it was a lowering day the clouds drifted low black peat bogs filled the hollows grey stone homesteads lonely and forbidding stood out here and there against the curved skyline even the high road was uneven and in places flooded for an hour I passed hardly a soul at last near a crossroad with a defaced finger post I descended from my machine and consulted my ordinance map on which Mrs. Mallet had marked omnously with a cross of red ink the exact position of the little fishing hamlet where Hugo used to spend his holidays I took the turning which seemed to me most likely to lead to it but the tracks were so confused and the run of the lanes so uncertain let alone the map being some years out of date that I soon felt I had lost my bearings by a little wayside in half hidden in a deep comb with bog on every side I descended and asked for a bottle of ginger bear for the day was hot and close in spite of the packed clouds as they were opening the bottle I inquired casually the way to the red gap bathing place the landlord gave me directions which confused me worse than ever ending at last with a concise remark and then Sir Tuordrimor turns to the right and to the left Allbringy right up alongside it I despaired of finding the way by these unintelligible sailing orders but just at that moment as luck would have it another cyclist flew past the first soul I had seen on the road that morning he was a man with a loose knit air of a shop assistant badly got up in a rather loud and obtrusive tourist suit a brown homespun with baggy knickerbockers and thin thread stockings I judged him a gentleman on the cheap at sight very stylish this suit complete only 37 and 6 months the landlady glanced out at him with a friendly nod he turned and smiled at her but did not see me for I stood in the shade behind the half open door a two-stache and a not unpleasing careless face his features I thought were better than his garments however the stranger did not interest me just then I was far too full of more important matters why don't he tighten follow thick there gentlemen sir the landlady said pointing one large red hand out to him Urdo go down to Urdgap to swim every morning Mr. John Smith the Oxford they do colon he can't go wrong if he do follow on to the gap Urds lodging to the world warmer moors and Urds that fund of the say the fishermen do tell me as wasn't never any gentleman like him I tossed off my ginger beer jumped on to my machine and followed the retreating brown back of Mr. John Smith of Oxford the most non-committing name round sharp corners and over ratty lanes tied deep in mud across the rusty red moor till all at once at a turn a gap of stormy sea appeared wedge shaped between two shelving rock walls it was a lonely spot rocks hemmed it in big breakers walled it the sewester roared through the gap I rode down among loose stones and waterworn channels in the solid grit very carefully but the man in brown had torn over the wild path with reckless haste zig-sacking madly and was now on the little three-cornered patch of beach undressing himself with a sort of careless glee and flinging his clothes down anyhow on the shingle beside him something about the action caught my eye that movement of the arm was not it could not be no, no, not Hugo a very ordinary person and legate for the stamp of a born gentleman he stood up there at last he flung out his arms as if to welcome the boisterous wind to his snaked bosom then with a sudden burst of recognition the man stood revealed we had bathed together a hundred times in London and elsewhere the face, the clad figure the dress all were different but the body the actual frame and make of the man the well-knit limbs the splendid trunk no disguise could alter it was legate himself big powerful figures that ill-made suit those baggy knickerbrokers the slouch cap the thin thread stockings had only distorted and hidden his figure now that I saw him as he was he came out the same bold and manly form as ever he did not notice me he rushed down with a certain wild joy into the turbulent water and plunging in with a loud cry buffeted the huge waves with those strong curving arms of his the so wester was rising each breaker as it reared caught him on its crest and tumbled him over like a cork but like a cork he rose again he was swimming now arm over arm straight out seaward I saw the lifted hands between the crest and the trow for a moment I hesitated whether I ought to strip and follow him was he doing as so many others of his house had done courting death from the water but some strange hand rang me who was I that I should stand between Jugo Legate and the ways of Providence the Legates loved ever the ordeal by water presently he turned again before he turned I had taken the opportunity to look hastily at his clothes Hilda Wade had surmised the right once more the outer suit was a cheap affair from a big ready-made tailor in St. Martin's Lane turned out by the thousand the underclothing on the other hand was new and unmarked but fine in quality bought no doubt at Bidford an eerie sense of doom stole over me I felt the end was near I withdrew behind a big rock and waited there unseen till Jugo had landed he began to dress again without troubling to dry himself I drew a deep breath of relief then this was not suicide by the time he had pulled on his vest and drawers I came out suddenly from my ambush and faced him a fresh shock awaited me I could hardly believe my eyes it was not Legate no nor anything like him nevertheless the man rose with a little cry an advanced half crouching towards me you are not hunting me down with the police he exclaimed his neck held low and his forehead wrinkling the voice the voice was Legates it was an unspeakable mystery Jugo I cried dear Jugo hunting you down could you imagine it he raised his head straight forward and grasped my hand he cried but a proscribed and hounded man if you knew what a relief it is to me to get out on the water you forget all there I forget it the red horror you mean just now to drown yourself no if I had meant it I would have done it you but for my children's sake I will not commit suicide then listen I cried I told him in a few words of his sister's scheme Sebastian's defense the plausibility of the explanation the whole long story he gazed at me moody yet it was not Jugo no no he said shortly and as he spoke it was he I have done it I have killed her I will not owe my life to a falsehood not for the children's sake down impatiently I have a better way for the children I will save them still you but you are not afraid to speak to a murderer dear Jugo I know all and to know all is to forgive all he grasped my hand once more no all he cried with a despairing gesture oh no no one knows all but myself not even the children but the children know much forgive me Lena knows something she will forgive me you know a little you forgive me the world can never know it will brand my darlings as a murderer's children it was the act of a minute I interposed and though she is dead poor lady and one must speak no ill of her we can at least gather dimly his voice was like lead for the children's sake yes he answered as in a dream it was all for the children I have killed her murdered her she has paid her penalty and poor dead soul I will utter no word against her the woman I have murdered but one thing I will say if omniscient justice sends me for this to eternal punishment I can endure it gladly like a man knowing that so I have redeemed my Marian's motherless girls from a deadly tyranny it was the only sentence in which he ever alluded to her I sat down by his side and watched him closely mechanically, methodically he went on with his dressing the more he dressed the less could I believe it was Jugo I had expected to find him close shaven so did the police by their printed notices instead of that he had shaved his beard and whiskers but only trimmed his moustache trimmed it quite short so as to reveal the boyish corners of the mouth a trick which entirely altered his rugged expression but that was not all what puzzled me most was the eyes they were not Jugos imagine why by degrees the truth dawned upon me his eyebrows were naturally thick and shaggy great overhanging growth interspersed with many of those stiff long hairs to which Darwin called attention in certain men as surviving traits from a monkey-like ancestor in order to disguise himself Jugo had pulled out all these coarser hairs leaving nothing on his brows but the left and closely pressed coat of down which underlies the longer bristles in all such cases this had fully altered the expression of the eyes which no longer looked out keenly from their cavernous penthouse but being decreed of their relief had acquired a much more ordinary and less individual aspect from a good natured but shaggy giant my old friend was transformed by his shaving and his costume into a well-fed and well-grown but not very colossal commercial gentleman Jugo was scarcely six feet high indeed, though by his broad shoulders and bushy beard he had always impressed one with such a sense of size and now that the hair-suitness had been got rid of and the dress altered he hard-destruct one as taller or bigger than the average of his fellows we sat for some minutes and talked the gate would not speak of Clara and when I asked him his intentions he shook his head moodyly I shall act for the best he said what of best is left to guard the dear children it was a terrible price to pay for their redemption but it was the only one possible and in a moment of wrath I paid it now I have to pay in turn myself I do not shirk it you will come back to London then and stand your trial I asked eagerly come back to London he cried with a face of white panic he the two had seemed to me rather relieved in expression than otherwise his countenance had lost its worn and anxious look he was no longer watching each moment over his children's safety come back to London and face my trial but it was the court or the hanging I was shirking no no not that but it the red horror I must get away from it to the sea to the water to wash away the stain as far from it that red pool as possible I answered nothing I left him to face his own remorse in silence at last he rose to go I held one foot undecided on his bicycle I leave myself in heaven's hands he said as a lingered it will require the ordeal is by water so I judged I answered tell Lena this from me he went on still loitering that if she will trust me I will strive to do the best that remains for my darlings I will do it so what tomorrow he mounted his machine and sailed off my eyes followed him up the path with sad forebodings all day long I loitered about the gap it consisted of two bays the one I had already seen and another divided from it by a saw edge of rock in the further co crouched a few low stone cottages a broad bottomed sailing boat lay there up high on the beach about three o'clock as I sat and watched two men began to launch it the sea ran high tide coming in the so wester still increasing in force to a gale at the signal stop on the cliff the danger cone was hoisted white spray danced in air big black clouds rolled up seething from windward low thunder rumbling a storm threatened one of the men was legate the other a fisherman he jumped in and put off through the surf with an air of triumph he was a splendid sailor his boat leapt through the breakers and flew before the wind with a mere rag of canvas dangerous weather to be out I exclaimed to the fisherman who stood with hands buried in his pockets watching him are that or be sure the man answered don't like the look go it but think their gentleman is one of oxford he do tell me and them a main ventures some luck the college folk is off by itself through the storm also where as londie will he reach it I asked anxiously having my own idea on the subject don't seem like it sir do it or must an or mustn't and yet again or must powerful odd place or be to make in a storm to be sure londie said the Lord would decide but or wouldn't be warned or wouldn't and full how do you focus the saying is must go their own full how do you why to perdition it was the last I saw gate alive next morning the lifeless body of the man who was wanted for the camp and hill mystery was cast up by the waves on the shore of londie the Lord had decided you go had not miscalculated luck in their suicides Hilda Wade said and strange to say the luck of the legate stood him in good state still by a miracle of fate his children were not commanded as a murderous daughters Sebastian gave evidence at the inquest on the wife's body self inflicted a recoil accidental I'm sure of it his specialist knowledge his assertive certainty combined with that arrogant masterful manner of his and his keen eagle eye overboard the jury abed by the great man's look they brought in a submissive death by misadventure the coroner thought it a most proper finding had made the most of the legate horror of blood the newspapers charitably surmised that the unhappy husband crazed by the instantaneous unexpectedness of his loss had wandered away like a madman to the scenes of his childhood and had there been drowned by accident while trying to cross a stormy to Lundy under some wild impression that he would find his dead wife alive on the island nobody whispered murder everybody dwelt on the utter absence of motive a model husband such a charming young wife and such a devoted step mother we three alone knew we three and the children on the day when the jury stood in their verdict at the adjourned inquest on Mrs. Legate Hilda Wade stood in the room trembling and white faced awaiting their decision when the foreman uttered the words death by misadventure she burst into tears of relief he did well she cried to me passionately he did well that poor father he placed his life in the hands of his maker asking only for mercy to his innocent children and mercy has been shown to him and to them he was taken gently in the way he wished it would have broken my heart for those two poor girls if the verdict had gone otherwise he knew how terrible a lot it is to be called a murderer's daughter I did not realize at the time with what profound depth of personal feeling she said it End of Chapter 4 Part 2 Read by Loesch Rolander