 CHAPTER XXXIX LIFE at Fairview was going on in the old, quiet way. Sir Everett had made but little change in his habits since his return from Algiers. The only difference was that he lived more alone and spent much of the time that of old he had given to his daughter in the seclusion of his own study. Dulcey felt the change, but she offered no protest against it. She and her father seemed to have drifted imperceptibly from the old, happy, familiar companionship into reserve and strangeness. He no longer spent the idle hour or so before dinner lounging in one of Dulcey's comfortable arm-chairs while she played to him, and Chopin's mournful melodies seemed sadder than ever now that Dulcey sat alone at her piano. Of the gradual decay in Sir Everett's health and strength there could be no question. He had the air of a man whose days are numbered, and who knows that the number thereof is small. It might be a question of months or even years, but that idea of an indefinite lease of life which a man has while his limbs retain their vigour and his heart beat sound and strong was at an end for ever. He had been to London since his return to see the famous doctor who last December had pronounced with delicate ambiguity that oracular sentence which the patient knew to mean his death warrant, and the physician had instructed him in the art of spinning an attenuated thread to the fag end. But this process of spinning out the thread was a weary one, and Sir Everett's soul revolted against it even although he obeyed. He was to live quietly, to court repose, perfect tranquillity of mind and body above all other earthly blessings, since in that lay his soul chance of prolonging his life. I have led a secluded life the last twelve years, said Sir Everett, with no amusements or excitements of any kind. I have lived alone, with my books and my daughter. The physician looked at him with an incredulous smile, as who would say, Why will my patients persist in lying to me when it's so easy for me to find them out? You tell me so, he said gravely, And I cannot gain say you, but your heart tells of violent agitations of an organisation worn out by passionate emotion and mental pain. Dulcy might have drooped and died from sheer loneliness and melancholy in those days, had it not been for Lady Frances Grange and her brother. Frances having once put her hand to the plough was not the kind of young woman to let go until she had made her furrow. Having promised Sir Everett to be a friend and a sister to Dulcy, she was resolutely bent upon keeping her word. She came to fair view two or three times a week, and she insisted upon Dulcy driving her ponies to Blatchmarden almost as often. Thus the two girls rarely spent the day apart, and this companionship absorbed the greater part of Dulcy's leisure, since her mornings were chiefly devoted to visiting among the poor and teaching in the school. Of late she had given herself up to this work with a perseverance and self-abnegation which she had scarcely shown in happier days, tender and affectionate as she had ever been in her care for the poor and suffering. But now that all the hope and gladness had gone from her own life, the cares and joys of others were the chief occupation of her mind. She shrank from all thoughts that turned inward. She was glad to be busy about other people's business. Those long mornings at her easel or her piano, which had once been so sweet to her, would now have been full of pain, since they would have given her leisure for thought. Had she been left to herself in the time of her first great sorrow, she would hardly have made so noble a stand against the selfish grief which broods and despairs. But she was urged to action and sustained in her course by a new friend who had a strong influence upon her mind. This was Mr. Haldimund, who from the hour he first saw her face had determined to rescue her from the slough of despond into which she was falling, to make life bright and pleasant to her once again. Not for a moment did he give her reason to suspect that he knew her story, or that he was going out of his way to console her. He appealed to her in the cause of others. He sought to interest her in the sorrows of others. He made her believe that he wanted her help among his poor and could not get on without it. And she responded nobly to his call. If he saw any sign of flagging, any willingness to fall back upon her lonely days at Fairview, he was at her side to stimulate her to exertion. She walked and drove many a mile in the course of her charitable visits, and the pretty Roan ponies were known far afield in distant cottages on the remotest edge of the sparsely populated parish. Sometimes she was inclined to doubt her power to do good, except in the substantial form of benevolence which ministered to the bodily wants of the poor. But when she hinted at her incapacity and expressed her fears to Arthur Haldimund, he gave her such warm assurance that she was feigned to believe him. You think because you cannot preach and dogmatize to these poor creatures that you are doing no good, he said. That is a great mistake. You influence them for good in a world of ways. Your bright face, your innocence of all evil, your gentleness of manner. All these have a purifying, elevating effect which poor people feel without being conscious of it. They would not utter a course unholy word in your presence on any account, and gradually if they see you often, they will leave off course bad language altogether. They would not like to be rough to their children before you who are so gentle, and by degrees the habit of gentleness will grow upon them. The education of imitation goes on all through life, and what is to become of those poor creatures who never see anything beautiful or gracious that they can imitate. Believe me, dear Miss Courtenay, your trouble is not thrown away. In several cottages where you have been, I have seen a new brightness in the furniture, flower pots in the windows, and nose-gay on the table, as if things had been smartened up to do you honour. And if you leave a palpable trace of this kind be assured you leave some trace of your goodness in the hearts of those you talk with. Why the fact that these people love you and are anxious for your visits ought in itself to be a sufficient reward? Yes, faltered Dulcy, looking ashamed of herself. I'm very ungrateful. I do love them all, poor things, and it's very nice to know that they're glad to see me. Mr. Haldeman came to fervour you as often as the many duties of his parish would allow him, and he was one of the few people whose societies he ever had enjoyed. The curate was a scholar, a man of wide culture, and scholars were rare within a ten-mile radius of Osthorpe, in which rural district men gave their minds chiefly to sport and agriculture, and thought they knew all that life could teach them when they had learned how to choose a horse, and were acquainted with the elements of farrierry. Mr. Haldeman was made welcome at fervour you. He dropped in whenever he liked, and it seemed to Dulcy that her father was always happier and more at his ease with her when Mr. Haldeman was present than when he and she were alone. If the curate came in at tea-time, Sir Everett would join him in the morning-room, where Mr. Haldeman unconsciously had appropriated to himself Morton's particular chair. He was a desperate tea-drinker, and had almost lived upon tea and bread and butter during his busy life in Whitechapel. My dinner was always a movable feast, he said gaily, and there were days when I forgot to die in. But at whatever hour I came in, my housekeeper always brought me a pot of strong tea, and a plate of substantial bread and butter, and you have no idea how well I throw upon that schoolgirl diet. I had no such luxuries as you give me, Miss Nun of these daintinesses in the way of cake and toast. I'm afraid you and Osthorp are spoiling me for the battle of life. You seem to work very hard at Osthorp, said Dulcy, though you came here to rest. I could not live without work of some kind, but here I only play at working. You have no idea what work means in a London back slum, or of the despair that creeps into a man's mind when he finds himself in the middle of a world where everything is wrong, and feels his incapability of setting it right. Oh, but I daresay you did a great deal of good, said Dulcy. I did what I could. I rolled the big stone a little way up the hill. I filled a few of the bottomless buckets. I cleansed one little corner of the Orgian stables, and I daresay by this time that particular corner is just as dirty as all the rest. Yes, Miss Courtney, it is disheartening work. You who live among green fields where something of the freshness and simplicity of nature still remains in the hearts of men can hardly imagine the horror of London poverty. Everybody at Osthorp liked Mr. Haldeman, his cheerful, energetic, active temperament contrasted delightfully with the languid graces of Mr. Mork, who, finding that he would not be allowed to carry out his own particular ritual in all its fullness, had contented himself with a very sleepy performance of his duties, reserving all the forces of his intellect for future exercise in a more congenial sphere. The parish had thus been in a great manner left to take care of itself, and it awakened to new life under Mr. Haldeman's vigorous administration. Delcy was very glad that Sir Everett should make a friend of the new curate. Indeed, he of all men was the friend she would have chosen for her father, for she had a strong belief in his goodness, his wide sympathy with all human sorrow. Not once had the father and daughter talked confidentially together since their homecoming. Each seemed carefully to avoid unreserved conversation. When they talked together it was always of indifferent matters, of art or literature or the events of the day, of their own lives, their own feelings, neither spoke. One day Sir Everett told Delcy that he meant to take her to Egypt in the late autumn. My doctor says Egypt will suit me, he said, and I dare say you will like to go there. Oh, very much! I've always wished to see Egypt. I'm glad of that, and in the meantime now that you have an agreeable friend in Lady Francis, I suppose you will not mind staying at Fairview. No, Papa, I'm quite content to be at Fairview. This was true, for although Delcy had felt at first that it would be intensely painful for her to be in the neighbourhood of her discarded lover, that the knowledge that he was near her, the dread of meeting him, would make life a burden, she had gradually grown accustomed to the idea that all was ended between them, and had begun to think of her engagement as a thing of the past. It seemed so long ago, since she had been utterly happy in the gladness of a girlhood that had lacked no blessing which earth can give. She thought of herself and her bygone happiness as if she had been thinking of another person. She thought of the Morton Blake whom she had known and loved as someone who had passed from this earth altogether. A Morton Blake remained, but not the one who had loved her. She fancied she could meet him and speak to him as a stranger almost without a pang, so completely had she resigned herself to the idea that their parting was irrevocable, that under no circumstances could they ever renew the broken tie. She met Dora Blake one day in the village and paused shyly, blushing crimson and afraid to speak, but Ms Blake took both her hands and held them lovingly, looking at her with unaltered affection. Why, Dulcey, were you going to pass me by, she exclaimed? I didn't know what to do, faltered Dulcey, with tears in her eyes. I thought you might be angry with me. Angry with you? Oh, no, sweet love, whatever might happen I should never blame you. I know my Dulcey's lovely character too well. I am sorry, dear, very sorry, that things should have fallen out as they have, but I cannot blame you for obeying your father. Not one harsh word about Sir Everad. Dulcey felt unspeakably grateful. Oh, dear Ms Blake, you're always good. You are able to pity and understand everyone. I hope Tiny and Horatia are not very angry with me. Oh, Tiny is apt to be a little unreasonable, said Ms Blake, and Horatia has a rather hard way of looking at things. But they were always fond of you, dear, and I think what they feel most is being deprived of your society. I should like to come and see you, love, but I feel that it's better for me to stay away. Your father might think that I was trying to bring you and Morton together again. In any case, I do not think he would care to see me at Fairview. Dulcey felt in her heart that Ms Blake was right. It's a sad loss for me, she said. There's no one, after my father, that I love better than you. I am ever so much happier now that I know you've not turned against me. Dulcey went home with her heart considerably lightened, and played lawn tennis with Francis Grange, Lord Bevel, and Mr Haldemond, with something of her old gaiety. The sunk lawn below the terrace at Fairview was admirably adapted for tennis, and Francis had insisted upon two afternoons a week being set apart for the game. She told Mr Haldemond that if he chose to play he would be welcome, though he was such a tremendous swell that he made the whole contest ridiculously one-sided. And if he didn't choose to join them, they must find some obliging non-entity to make a forth. But it happened somehow that Mr Haldemond could always find time for a game of tennis at Fairview, and a cup of tea afterwards, sometimes in the morning-room, sometimes in a delightful little circular tent which Francis had persuaded Dulcey to set up between two great-seeders on the upper lawn. On this particular afternoon, when Dulcey had been cheered by her meeting with Miss Blake, the curate was delighted at the new brightness of her face. He had been watching and waiting for the lifting of the cloud that veiled her beauty, and now he fancied the shadow was passing away, and that he should see her as Mrs Aspinall had described her to him in the radiance of her joyous girlhood. She is beginning to forget Morton Blake, he thought. I wish the man were a thousand leagues away instead of being at her door. Bevel was devoted in his attentions, following Dulcey like her shadow, but alas for the young man's hopes, she accepted his devotion as carelessly as if he had been some affectionate newfoundland or impressionable collie, frisking and leaping about her. She took his complimentary speeches as so many tremendous jokes, laughing at them heartily, and she treated him as cordially as if he had been her brother. It's no use fan, he told his sister despairingly, when that young lady tried to inspire him by shoring him of Sir Everett's approval. What's the good of the father being friendly to me if the daughter doesn't care a straw for me? And I know she doesn't. That parson fellow has as good a chance as I. The words had an ominous sound to Francis Grange's ear. What if the curate had a better chance than Bevel? What if he were about the most dangerous rival who could have appeared upon the field? He was handsome, of noble presence, a thorough gentleman, cultured, widely read, traveled, interesting in every way, and Fanny knew that he was deeply interested in Dulcey. He must be got out of the way somehow, she said to herself. Or Bevel will not have the ghost of a chance. I must warn Sir Everett of the danger. She took an early opportunity of being alone with the baronet for a few minutes on the terrace, while the others were loitering on the tennis lawn. Dear Sir Everett, she began, sidling up to him in her pretty coquettish way, being perfectly at ease with him by this time, and having a lurking idea that he liked her, and thought all her way is charming. I am going to take a most awful liberty. I hope you won't be too dreadfully angry. I don't think it is in my power to be angry with you, unless you were to desert poor Dulcey and turn your back upon Fairview. Oh, par de danger, said Fanny, with a smile and a sigh. I'm too happy here. Oh, but I have been thinking. Please don't be cross. I have been thinking that if you really would like Dulcey to marry Bevel, you are hardly wise in encouraging such an attractive person as Mr. Haldemond to make himself at home here. Please don't fly out at me. Sir Everett showed no disposition to any savage outburst, nor did he seem half so much surprised and concerned, as Lady Frances expected him to be. He only looked gravely meditative, and he answered her in his gentlest tone. I should like Dulcey to marry Bevel, he said, for I believe he is a good, true-hearted young fellow, and that he would make her happy. I am still worldly-minded enough to wish that my daughter should be Countess of Blatch-Martin, and that her inheritance should help to restore the fortunes of a noble family. But if to be your brother's wife now, and a Countess by and by, be not her surest road to happiness, I will forego my own scheme, pleasant as it is to me. I want her to be happy. I want to see the old brightness come back to her face before I die. I want to be sure that she has a faithful protector, a shield and defence against all earthly troubles. If I am not to see her happy in my way, I should like to see her happy in hers. And if she would rather be a country parson's wife than an embryo Countess, I must bow to fate. You were not so indulgent about Morton, said Francis with a touch of vexation. She was so grieved on Bevel's account that she could not refrain from inflicting this little stab. Sir Everett gave her a darker glance than she had ever had from him. I think I told you some time ago that I had my own reasons for my conduct in that matter, and that I did not care to be questioned about them. He said coldly. And poor Francis felt that her zeal had carried her too far. The fact was that Sir Everett was better aware than anybody else of Arthur Haldeman's growing influence upon his daughter's life. He saw that Haldeman was doing that which he, the father, felt himself powerless to do. He was diverting Dulce's mind from her sorrow. He was giving her that active share in the life and cares of others, which is the best distraction for a troubled mind. And if a warmer feeling should grow out of this interest, if the advisor and friend should ripen into the lover, Sir Everett was prepared to accept the result and to be thankful. I only want her to be happy, he said to himself. I have destroyed her first hopes. I have blighted her girlhood. What a God that I might see her secure of a happy womanhood before I go. End of Chapter 39 Mr. Jeb's cold became much worse after Tinker's dismissal. He had been guilty of extreme imprudence on the night which followed that domestic revolution. Summoned suddenly by one of his distant patients, he had gone out on foot and had stayed out till after midnight, much to the discomforture and alarm of his devoted wife. The natural consequence of this disregard of self showed itself in a violent influenza, which kept Mr. Jeb confined to his bed for two days, half smothered under a mountain of blankets with his head swathed in flannel, and his patients left to their fate. This self-devotion of Mr. Jeb, ingoing forth from his fireside at the call of duty, after having made up his mind to stay at home and nurse himself, was a new development of character which sorely puzzled Jane Barnard. During her residence under the parish doctor's roof, she had seen quite enough of him to know that unselfishness was not his dominant quality. He was fairly good-natured in an easy-going self-indulgent way, but self was assuredly the central figure in his own particular plan of the universe, and nothing seemed less likely than that he should peril his own health by a muddy walk of four or five miles out and home, in order to give the solace of his skill to an unimportant patient. The more deeply Mrs. Barnard considered the matter, the more did she incline to connect Mr. Jeb's absence from the domestic hearth with the mysterious disappearance of Tinker. She had made inquiries at the three sugar loaves, and had there learnt that Tinker had knocked up the house at a quarter past eleven, and had asked for a night's lodging, that he was obviously the worst for liquor, and had therefore been refused such accommodation, whereat he had resulted to language of a particularly savage and blasphemous character, and had gone on his way. From that hour no one belonging to the sugar loaves had seen him. Where had he been, and what had he been doing with himself between half past nine and a quarter past eleven? It was not likely that he would return to his haystack, having the means of procuring himself a supper and a night's lodging. One of two things must have happened. Either the conversation in the lane had been overheard by someone, and the groom had been bribed to give Mrs. Barnard the slip, or the man had changed his mind, deeming the promised reward too small or too uncertain to compensate him for the risk he must run in trying to earn it. In any case, it was clear that Tinker had gone, and it seemed more than likely that he meant to hold no further communication with Mrs. Barnard. While this disappointment was still fresh in her mind, her thoughts were suddenly turned into a new direction by a letter from the governor of the prison where her father was confined. She had contrived to see this gentleman at the time of Vargas's removal from high-clear jail to the convict settlement, and her story, told with an intense earnestness rare in women of her class, had interested him deeply. He had promised to do all in his power to alleviate her father's position, and to bring him into a right way of thinking. Your father's health has been failing for some time, he said, and for the last three weeks he has been in the infirmary. He is not suffering from any painful or incurable disease. His malady is the wearing out of the machine, the natural result of a life of hardship and deprivation. If you would like to see him again, and I know you would, it would be well to come at once. The doctor tells me that in cases of this kind it is very difficult to calculate how long a patient may last. He may linger for weeks or months, or may expire suddenly, going out like the flame of a candle. In this case, the decay seems rapid. The ship by which Jane Barnard was to have sailed had already gone, all her plans having been altered by Tinker's revelation, and Mrs. Jeb was congratulating herself upon her good fortune in keeping so excellent a servant. And now Jane told her mistress that she must have three days' leave of absence, or possibly might be obliged to remain away still longer. Indeed, ma'am, I think you'd better suit yourself as quick as you can, she said. I can be no more good to you. I have to go and see a sick relative, and if he dies I must go to my home in America. So I don't see the use of my coming back here except to fetch my luggage. Mrs. Jeb sighed and assented. But I don't expect ever to have any one I shall like as well as I do you, Jane, she said piteously. Mrs. Barnard packed her box and left the homestead early on a bright June morning, so early that she had a full hour on her hands before the omnibus left Osthorpe to convey railway travellers to the station at Highclair. This surplus hour she meant to employing going to Tangley Manor. Mr. Blake had distinctly told her that she was to make no further appeal to him, but to a person of Jane's persevering temper this counted for nothing. She was determined that if it were any way possible Morton Blake should see her father before he died. It was only eight o'clock when she presented herself at the Manor House, but Morton was an early riser, and had already made the round of his garden and stables, and was strolling on the lawn before the house. He recognized the intruder as she came along the carriage-drive, and he went across the grass to speak to her. You have come again, he said, in spite of what I told you the other day. Oh yes, sir, because something has happened which makes it my duty to trouble you. Please read that letter, sir. She gave him the Governor's letter, and waited in silence while he read it. Are you going to your father? Yes, sir. I'm going from here to Osthor Plain, where I shall meet the omnibus for Highclair. And you're going from Highclair to London, and from London to Portland? Yes. I shall not get to Portland until late in the evening. Too late to see my poor father, I'm afraid. I shall have to wait till tomorrow morning for that. And what do you want me to do? Oh, sir, cannot you guess what I want? I want you to see my father before he dies. I want you to hear his story from his own lips. For then, strange and unlikely, as it all seems, I don't think you will refuse to believe him. Oh, think, Mr. Blake! It is not a very great sacrifice that I ask from you. It will only cost you two days of your life, and it may put the whole story of the past in a new light. You are an important woman, said Morton. But I believe you are an honest woman. Will you go to Portland, sir? Yes, answered Morton, after some moments thought. I will, at once, but without much delay at any rate. You see what the doctor says. I will go to town by the night-mail, and will go to Portland by the first train to model-morning. Jane Barnard thanked him warmly, earnestly, and in the fewest possible words, and then she went across the sunny common, above which the skylarks were caroling joyously, to Osthorpe Lane, and waited till the queer, stunted-looking omnibus, which seemed to belong to a particular breed maintained for such work, came grinding along in a cloud of dust, and took her place in the musty interior, where there were only two other passengers. She had no encumbrance but her handbag, and thus, lightly burdened, she set forth on her lonely journey, gladdened by the thought of Morton's promise. He was the kind of man whom nobody would ever think of doubting. His word, once given, was an all-sufficient security. At two o'clock on the following day, Jane Barnard and Morton Blake were both seated in one of the well-ventilated, spotlessly clean cells of the infirmary at Portland, the fresh sea air blowing in through an open window near the ceiling, the sunbeams dancing on the whitewashed wall, and Humphry Vargas lying on his narrow bed, weaker than a newborn infant, and as near the unknown darkness that girdles life round as the babe that has just been called into the light. He was dying. The last threads in the strand were fast raveling out. Quietly, painlessly, and in full possession of his senses to the last, the narrow span of his days was wearing swiftly to the clothes. Jane sat beside his bed, with the horny, toil-forrode hand clasped close in hers, loving him in that last hour almost as well as she had loved him thirty years ago, when she was a little girl and gambled on his knee and could not believe that there was a fault in Daddy. Infinite pity grew into infinite love in these last hours of the sinner's life. Mr. Blake has come all this way to hear the truth from your own lips, she said gently. You'll tell him everything, won't you, Father dear? Tell him why you confessed to a crime that you hadn't done, why you told a lie to make yourself blacker than you were. I'd been that drove and wear it, said Vargas, fixing his glazing eye on Morton, with a look that had all the awfulness of death in it, mingled with a raven-like cunning, which was grotesquely suggestive of Barnaby's famous bird. It was Constable's ear and magistrates there till there wasn't one blooming corner of this blooming earth where a poor bloke could smoke his pipe in peace. Sometimes it was the casual ward, and sometimes it was the least side of a stack, and sometimes it was the jail. And the jail was a deal cleaner and comfortabler than the pauper's refuge. What I got to lose, do you think? Nothing. What I got to gain? Everything. If I'd confessed only to cleaning out a dead man's pockets, society would have made nothing of me. Oh, he's a common kind of everyday criminal he is, folks would have said. Let him bide. But society's all as interested in a murderer, and the colder blood a rary does it, the more society values him. I think, as I sat under the edge, I'd buy where Mr Blake lay, that blooming October night, as it wouldn't be a bad investment for the fag end of a pauper's life. A lot of old tabbies would come and sing psalms over me, and tell me the biggest sinner I was, the more sure and certain to go to glory if I took kindly to their tracks, and sung their hymns loud enough. And I thought as though they'd never hang me, and old and like me, for a murder done twenty years ago. And if they didn't hang me, I thought they'd make much of me, as an interesting subject for tracks and hymns, a victim to a guilty conscience, and a shining example to hardened sinners. Are you telling the truth, as Morton, who had never removed his eyes from the dying man's face during this statement? Why should I tell you a lie? demanded Vargas with a ghastly grin. I've nothing to gain by lies now. I've told precious many, but now I'm sliding down into a pit that none of you can pick me out of. I may as well indulge myself with the luxury of truth. I didn't kill Musta Blake. I never lifted hand against him. I can look in your face, you be in his son, and say that with a clear conscience. And it ain't in many things my conscience is clear, is it, Jane McGurl? It ain't clear of being a bad father, and a bad husband, and a drunken black-ard, but it's clear of shedding a fellow-creature's blood. When I came along Oz Thorpe Lane that night at dusk, hard by the pollarded oak, I see something lying in the ditch, and I goes down on my marabones to see what it is. It was a gentleman in a red coat, lying face downward in the mud, dead as a doornail. I turned him over gently, and I laid my hand upon his heart, and I made certain sure that the life was out of him, and that there was nothing I could do to bring it back. And then, without no malice against him, I took his watch and chain and emptied his pockets. His property was no use to him any more, poor bloke, and Lord knows I wanted it bad enough. Where had you been all day? Oh, anging about the lanes and woods, and pretty much as I told Sir Everard, only that part about seeing Mr. Blake ride by, and going up to him and taking all of his bridle, that was all lies. A man who lies once will lie twice, said Morton. I don't know what to believe. The dying man's utter godlessness, his disregard of all the virtues from his boyhood upwards, made his testimony of so little worth. A man who would swear anything doubtless to serve any purpose, yet here and now, with the grave so near, what object could he have to serve? What gain or comfort could he get by lying? Do you know and believe that you have an immortal soul? asked Morton earnestly, that after you have cast off the worn-out husk of life, you must answer in another world for the deeds you have done in this? Oh, that's what the chaplain has taught me, answered Vargas Meekly. He's a educated man, and he ought to know. But do you believe in a world to come? Oh, yes, I believe that this world could never be so rough on a poor garment like me, if there wasn't something better somewhere else to make things square for us. This was a self-interested way of considering the subject, but the man seemed sincere. And knowing that you are on the brink of the grave, do you declare that you did not kill my father? I do. Do you know who did? No. CHAPTER 41 That would be an unholy alliance. It was mid-summer, and the lanes and woods round Osthorpe were in their flush of summer beauty, the freshness still upon the green, the glory and colour of the hedgerows at their brightest. Honey-suckles hung their sweet blossom above the ferns on every bank, and all the little homely wildflowers, dear to cottage-children, dappled the grass with indescribable varieties of colour. Here spread a purple clover-field, there the white blossoms of a bean-field shed their delicate perfume on the warm air. Tangley Common was a blaze of golden bloom, and Tangley Wood, a deep, dark land of shadow, pleasant to rest in after the vivid world outside. Here, Delcy came often, sometimes with Francis Grange and sometimes alone. Near, though the wood was to the manor house, she had never yet encountered Morton or his sisters, or even Lizzie Hardman. She knew their habits, and that they rarely left the manor house gardens, except to ride or drive or go to church. Idle meandering in the wood had no charm for either of the sisters. Horatia was too practical and business-like, and tiny too lazy, and Morton, the ambitious, hard-working Morton, was of all men the least inclined to waste his time in dreamy ramblings under beech and boughs. Delcy had seen Lucy Green several times since their first meeting. She had found the poor sickly mother sitting on her favorite bank, sometimes struggling with a little bit of needlework, while her children sported about among the fern, as happy and careless of the future as young fawns or frisky little rabbits. But now that the shelter of the beech boughs had grown darker and thicker, now that the fierce midsummer sun could hardly penetrate the dense roof of foliage, poor Lucy was feigned to stay at home, waiting for that last melancholy journey which should carry her to her quiet rest in Osthorpe Churchyard. The end was very near. The patient was not buoyed up by those delusive hopes which cheer the last days of some consumptive sufferers. She knew that her mother and sister had both been victims to the same disease, and she was prepared to die as they had died. Her husband had been over from Avonmore to see her more than once, and had shown himself deeply moved at the prospect of their last parting. He was not altogether heartless, and even in his selfishness clung with a feeble fondness to the wife he had once loved, who had once been bright and gay and worthy of a husband's pride. We should have got on beautifully together if we had been able to keep the wolf from the door, shouldn't we, Loose? he asked, as if in apology for his failure in the domestic character. But when poverty is always staring one in the face it's juiced hard to be a model husband and father. I've had my faults as a wife, Charlie dear, said the invalid meekly. I don't pretend to have been perfect. Well, perhaps you've been overanxious, and you've nagged and worried of fellow a trifle more than was needful. But let bygones be bygones. I was always fond of you, Loose. I hope you know that. Oh, I like to believe it, Charlie, side the wife, clasping his hand in her wasted fingers. You won't neglect the children when I'm gone, will you, dear? Nuglet them? cried Green, as if he had always been the most devoted parent. Why, what else shall I have to live for? Oh, but when you're running about to concerts, to hear new singers. My dear, that is a matter of business. I must attend to my profession. Oh, Charlie dear, I wouldn't mind that, if the profession would keep you and the children. Well, dearest, perhaps I have been a little volatile. But I'm sobering down, Loose. I have been juiced lonely and low-spirited since you left home. The place was never anything but a hole at the best. But it seemed ten times drearier when you were gone. Though you used to nag and whimper abominably now and again, my pet. You know you did. I couldn't help saying what was in my mind, Churchill. Oh, don't call me Churchill, lovey, or I shall think you're angry with me. Oh no, Charlie dear. I'm not angry. I'm only anxious about the children. They're so young, and you're such a young man to be left with such responsibility. Miss Blake has promised to keep Matty at the school here. She's getting on so nicely, and she's so bright, and it would be a pity for her to go back to Avonmore, where the air doesn't suit her off so well, and where she'd have to muddle away her time looking after the little ones. She's to board with the school, mistress, and to help her a little in keeping things straight and tidy. And in a year or two, she'll be a pupil teacher, Miss Blake says, and later on Miss Blake will get her a place somewhere as a nursery governess. Gentile drudgery, said Mr. Green contemptuously. Oh well, of course dear, she'll have to work for a living. But we must all do that in some way or other. Mr. Green sighed, assenting to one of the hardest truths in nature. He had an honest abhorrence of work and regimen of all kinds. He sometimes thought that he ought to have been created a butterfly, without having been obliged to endure the laborious preliminary stages of caterpillar and chrysalis. He came and went almost as lightly as that picturesque insect. As Mrs. Green grew worse and the end was obviously approaching, Dulcy's visits to the cottage became more frequent. Lucy had attached herself to a mistress' daughter with an almost romantic warmth of feeling. A visit from Dulcy brightened her when her spirits were at the lowest ebb, and Dulcy, seeing the cheering effect of her presence, could not refuse to come. Here too, on neutral ground, she sometimes met Aunt Dora, and this was an extra inducement. They could talk in Lucy's sick room as freely as if they'd been alone, and Dulcy was made happy by discovering anew on each occasion that she had lost nothing of Ms. Blake's affection. One brilliant day at the end of June, a day of surpassing brightness and beauty, when the mere idea of dry as dust business or work of any kind seemed an insult to common sense, Dulcy went with a basket of magnificent cherries and a few choice roses to spend an afternoon with the invalid. She had a volume of Tennyson in her pocket, for it was one of Lucy's delights to hear poetry, and Dulcy took pleasure in reading to her. Matty, the eldest girl, had been withdrawn from school to assist in nursing her mother, as the little servant had her hands full in attending to the smaller children and doing the housework. When Dulcy opened the cottage door, all was silent below stairs. She peeped into the kitchen and threw the open window, and saw the servant hanging out linen to dry at the bottom of the garden, and then she went lightly up the steep, narrow stair, and was just going to open the door of the sick room when the sound of her voice within set her heart beating violently. Morton's voice, and no other, could have so moved her. She drew back, and was going downstairs again, when Matty came out of the children's bedroom, which was just behind the mother's room. Oh, if you please, miss! Mr. Blake is with mother. Will you come into our room if you don't want to see him? said Matty, who was a precocious child and knew all about Dulcy's broken engagement. I think I'd better go away, faltered Dulcy, handing the girl her basket. Please give your mother these flowers and cherries with my love. I'll come another day. She was turning to run downstairs, but Matty caught hold of her gown. Oh, pray, pray, don't go, miss! she exclaimed, her eyes filling with tears. Mother will be so disappointed. She loves to see you, and she says she has so few days left now. That argument was irresistible. Dulcy stayed. Mr. Blake has been with mother a good time already, and I don't suppose he'll be very much longer, explained Matty. If you don't mind coming into our room, miss, and sitting down, he needn't see you at all. The one sitting-room downstairs was the only way to the front door. Through this Morton must inevitably pass when he left the house. Dulcy therefore gladly consented to wait in the children's room. He's quite tidy, please, miss, Matty said, with a deprecating air. The room was the pink of neatness, brightened and smartened by various small efforts at artistic decoration on the part of Matty and the servant. Coloured prints from the illustrated papers had been pasted on the white-washed wall. A few little bits of cheap crockery adorned the mantle shelf and chest of drawers. The bed linen was as white as snow. The muslin window curtain looked as if it had been put up fresh that morning, and on the broad sill of the old-fashioned casement stood a large mug of stocks and carnations which filled the room with their perfume. Altogether Matty's bedroom was a chamber in which the proudest lady of the land might be content to sit for a little while, for chance to meditate upon the homely graces of humble life. Dulcy turned to compliment the little girl upon the tidiness of her room, but found that Matty had gone. There was a door between the children's room and that of the invalid, and it had been left half open in order that the sweet summer air might circulate freely through the two rooms. In this wise every word spoken in Lucy's room was distinctly audible to Dulcy, and the very first sentence she heard riveted her to the spot, forgetful of every consideration, except the desire to hear more. Why did you keep these facts from me when I came to your tavern more? asked Morton. Because he'd been good and generous to me, and I felt bound to shield him. But since I've been living here through the long wakeful nights, that's one of the worst things in my illness, you know, sir. I get so little sleep. I've brooded and brooded till my brain felt on fire, and it has been dreadful to be obliged to keep silence about it all. I felt that I must tell the truth to someone, whatever harm it might do. At one time I thought I would tell Mr. Haldeman, for as a minister I suppose he would be bound in honour not to tell again. But then it seemed as if you had the best right to know. And so I made up my mind to tell you everything before I was taken away. She paused for a little to recover her strength, while Morton sat quietly waiting, with calm, intent eyes fixed upon her face. Promise me one thing, sir? said Lucy earnestly. Promise me that you will do nothing to bring sorrow upon Miss Courtney. How can I promise that? Do you think I would willingly bring sorrow upon her? Do you suppose it is of my own free will I imparted from her? She was dearer to me than my life. I shall always honour and love her. But that love cannot alter the fatal past. If her father killed mine—oh, he was deeply wronged! He loved his wife passionately. He was a slave to her. There's no sacrifice he wouldn't have made for her. There never was such a husband. And she ought to have given him back love for love. I say that, although I was so fond of her. She was thoughtless and false and cruel. Yes, though her natural disposition was all softness and sweetness, though she was kind and generous to every creature that came in her way, except her husband. To him she was harder than stone. And all because she was madly in love with your father. Oh, why did she not marry my father instead of Sir Everett? Why, indeed, that sin lies at Lady George's door. God knows how hardly she used her daughter, and what wicked lies were told about Mr. Blake. Somehow or other Lady George contrived to make Miss Alice think that your father was in love with someone else—a young widow who had just settled in our part of the country, and who was riding to Hounds and making a great dash. There is no doubt this Mrs. Mountjoy set her cap at Mr. Blake, and it was common talk that they were going to be married. Anyhow, Miss Alice believed what her mother told her. We'd all gone to the south of France for Lady George's health, and Sir Everett had come after us, and Mr. Blake hadn't. For I believe Lord George and he had had words, and he wasn't allowed to visit at the house any more. And so Miss Alice gave way all at once in a pet, and the marriage was patched up suddenly, and they were married at the Protestant Church at Cannes, and went off to Italy for the honeymoon. It was all done in a hurry. Lady George didn't give her daughter time to think what she was doing. I can see the little foreign church now, and the February sunlight shining on Miss Alice's lovely head. And I know I wondered to think how soon it was all done and over, and perhaps the peace and happiness of a lifetime thrown away forever. And so it proved to be. Oh, God, help them both poor things. When did Lady Courtney see my father again? said Morton. Oh, not till she'd been married many months, and we came to Fairview after travelling about a great deal. Her spirits were very variable while we were going from place to place. Sometimes she was full of life and gaiety, and seemed delighted with everything she saw and everybody she met. And I think at such times Sir Everett was very happy. Then all of a sudden she drooped and fretted in a secret way, which I know troubled him dreadfully. She'd spend hours alone in her room crying as if her heart would break, and she would never tell him what it was that grieved her. She would confess to nothing except to being out of spirits. Then the sorrowful mood would pass away and she'd be all brightness and life again. And so things went on till we came back to England, and she began her quiet married life at Fairview. And did she seem happy then? asked Morton. No, the coming home upset her terribly. I suppose it was the idea of being so nearer old lover and hearing people talk about him at every hand's turn. He and Sir Everett had been college friends and were very much attached to each other. I don't believe Sir Everett knew at this time that Mr. Blake had been in love with Miss Alice. Lady George was such a clever manager and things had been kept so close. Anyhow, Sir Everett had invited his old friend to Fairview, and Mr. Blake used to come as often as he liked and was always welcome. Many and many a time from the upstairs window where I sat at my work, I have seen him and Lady Courtney dawdling about the gardens, looking at the roses and talking to each other, much the same as they used in the old days when she was Alice Rothney. And Sir Everett was so generous-minded and unsuspecting and trusted his wife so thoroughly. I felt that it was all wrong. I felt as if we were all standing on the brink of a precipice. But what could I do? You might have warned Lady Courtney of her danger. I did one day venture to say a few words. She was very angry and told me I'd forgotten my place. And then in her old impulsive way she put her arms round my neck and kissed me, and said it was she that was in the wrong, and she sobbed in my arms, poor darling, and said she was a miserable woman. Believe me, Mr. Blake, I did what I could in my poor way to hold her back from the gulf to which she was hurrying. But fate was stronger than her will or mine. And it was only her sad, early death that saved her from ruin. Did she and my father ever meet in secret? Yes, sir, that was the worst of it. They met by accident at first, and then by appointment. Even knows how it was, I found it all out, for nobody told me. But I had got to watch her closely at that time, full of fear for what was coming, and I knew as well as possible when she used to go out for one of her lonely walks that she was going to meet Mr. Blake. Before that time she had seldom walked beyond the grounds. When she went out it was to drive or ride. But now she had taken her fancy for walking alone, two or three times a week. Sometimes she had come home with a few wild flowers in her bosom, and I knew the country well enough to be able to guess from the flowers she wore, where she had been. There was a flower that I had never seen anywhere, but in Tangly Wood, a particularly large dark hair-bell, and I saw that she often brought home a little bunch of these. She had put them in one of the vases in her dressing room, and be as careful of them as if all the hot-house flowers in the room were worthless in comparison. Once I lost patience with her somehow, and cried out in a sudden fit of passion, oh, did he pick him? And she was dreadfully angry, and asked me how I dared speak to her like that. The sick woman stopped, sinking back upon her pillow, and smiled with a curiously bitter smile at some vivid memory of those past days. You see, sir, it never entered into my lady's head that I was flesh and blood like herself, and had a heart to feel and suffer, and had perhaps been foolish enough to fling it away where it wasn't wanted. Well, sir, things went on from bad to worse, and soon they were not content with meeting two or three times a week, but they must write to each other between wiles, and the letters were to be left in a hollow oak in tangley wood, just in the quietest, loneliest part of the wood, ever so far from any pathway or cattle-track, and I must fetch and carry for them. Oh, I know it was wrong now, and I knew it then, but she coaxed and kissed and bribed me, and seemed so miserable when I refused that I gave way, and I used to carry her letters and fetch his, and was a regular go-between. And that was how the whole story came out. How did it happen? Oh, I think Sir Everide's fellow must have watched me, and found out that I went to tangley wood. He had wanted to keep company with me, and I'd refused, and he turned spiteful, so that he and I hardly spoke to each other. Oh, well, perhaps he fancied I'd had some other sweet art, and that I went to tangley wood to meet him. I believe he told his master as much as this, and that I was not a fit person to be about Lady Courtney. For one day, when I went to fetch Mr. Blake's letter, Sir Everide followed me on horseback. I saw him riding along the road ever so far behind me as I crossed the common, but I didn't think he'd come my way, and I had no idea of danger. He may fancy what I felt when I turned round after getting my letter, and saw him riding quietly towards me under the beach-bows, his horses hooves making no sound on the mossy turf. He came upon me so sudden that I gave a little screech, and had enough presence of mind to try and hide the letter. What letter is that? he asked, and I stammered out something about my lady. Oh, you insolent hussy he cried. How dare you, mixed lady, caught in his name with your low intrigues. And he bent over his horse's neck and snatched the letter out of my hand before I knew what he was doing. If I hadn't known till that moment what a proud man he was, I should have known it then by the look he gave me when I mentioned my lady's name. There was no address upon the letter. He tore it open and read it, sitting there under the beach-bows. And I never in my life saw anything so dreadful as the change that came over his face as he read. He took no more notice of me than if I'd been a worm, but dug his heels into his horse's sides and galloped off onto the low bows. I thought he must have dashed his brains out as he rode in among the trees. I guessed by the direction he'd taken that he was going back to Fairview, and I would have given ten years of my life if I could have got there before him, but of course that was impossible. Lucy paused once more and lay back for a little while upon her pillow, the dew of weakness on her pale forehead. Morton was too deeply moved for speech. He handed her the glass of lemonade that stood on the little table by her side, and sat quietly waiting for her to continue her narrative. Well, I ran till I came to the edge of the wood, and then walked as fast as ever I could the rest of the way. I went into the house through the offices and asked one of the men's servants if there ever I'd had come home. The man said his master and Lady Courtney were both in the morning room. I went to the door and stood outside listening, and then hearing no sound of voices, I went in softly and found no one in the room but my lady, and she was lying on the ground in a dead faint. I brought her to, and then she told me there'd been a dreadful scene, and implored me to take a letter straight to Tangley Manor and give it into Mr Blake's own hands. It's a matter of life and death, Lucy, she said. You stood by me so far, and you must stand by me to the end. How could I refuse her when she asked me, poor dear, when she looked at me so pitiously, with tears streaming down her pale cheeks? I have not a friend in the world but you, Lucy, she said. And after that I would have gone through fire and water for her. So I told her to look sharp and write the letter, and I'd take it, come what might. And take it I did, after dark, whilst her Everett was at dinner. For he was such a proud man that he went through all the mockery of a set dinner, just for the sake of throwing dust in the servant's eyes, I suppose. And he was such a curious man that he took no trouble to watch me or my lady, either. She went to her room directly as she'd written her letter, and locked herself in. And there I found her when I came home after seeing your father at Tangley Manor. Did you tell my father anything? No, I only gave him the letter. That was all I had to do. He came out of the dining-room where he was sitting, with his children round him, after dinner. Two little girls in white frocks, and a boy. I suppose the boy was you. Yes, I was the boy. God help me, how well I can remember that evening hour with my father, and how he used to make himself a boy in order to amuse and interest us. Mr. Blake asked me if there was anything wrong, but I told him he would learn everything from the letter, and then I hurried away. That was the last time I ever saw his face. The bright manly face, with its pleasant look that I knew so well. Just as I was on the threshold of the hall door, he caught my hand in his and rung it warmly. God bless you, Lucy, he said. Whatever may happen, I know you were true to us. And then he tried to squeeze a banknote into my hand, but I wouldn't have it. I wouldn't have taken a sixpence from him if I'd been starving, though I loved him and honored him with all my soul. But I shall never forget the touch of his hand or the sound of his voice that night. They've been a part of my life ever since. She was silent for a little while, as if her thoughts had fixed themselves upon the picture of the past. And her eyes had a dreamy look, as she lay gazing at the bright square of blue sky, framed by the fluttering leaves which wreathe the little casement. My lady kept her room all the next day. She was very low, poor thing, and inclined to be hysterical. I was with her all day, for indeed she was too ill to be left. So ever I'd went out directly after breakfast in his hunting clothes, and I wondered that he should go out hunting that day. He'd not seen his wife since the previous afternoon. He did not come back to dinner, and before he came home my lady had got much worse, and we'd sent for Mr. Jeb, and he had advised sending to High Clear for old Dr. Newland. I don't like the look of things, he said. She hasn't as much strength as a canary bird. At what time did ever I'd come home that evening? asked Morton, almost breathless in his eagerness. Well, I don't know the exact hour. I'm telling you the whole truth now, Mr. Blake, for good or evil, I'm keeping nothing back. It was late, ever so long after seven. It might have been eight or even later, but I was sitting by my poor mistress' side, and I was keeping no count of time, except to think that every minute was an hour, in my anxiety for that feeble life which was fighting with death. Sir Everard came straight to his wife's room, and took my place by the bed. He didn't look at me or speak to me. He seemed to see no one but her, and he took very little heed of anything that was said to him. He sat as still as a stone figure, till by and by the doctor beckoned him out of the room. And then he sat by the fire in the dressing room, just as still and lifeless, so that I thought he was asleep, till I went in to fetch something. And then I saw his eyes fixed on the fire, with an awful look in them. At eleven o'clock the baby was born, and at half past Sir Everard was brought in to see his wife. The doctors had very little hope of her. I could see that by their faces. But the monthly nurse, a stupid old woman from Eichlear, who had no merit except having been a nurse in ever so many county families, pretended to take a cheerful view of my lady's condition, and declared she would come through everything beautifully. The two doctors went downstairs to get a little refreshment, and this chattering old woman was in the dressing room with the baby. The door between the two rooms stand in a jar, while Sir Everard sat by his wife's bed, and I remained in the bedroom in attendance upon her. He was very tender to her, and seemed full of grief. —Dalyn, you are going to get better very soon, he said. —I hope not, she answered. I hope I'm going to die. —Oh, my dearest, do not say that, he said gently. That is too cruel. —But I must say it, Everard, she answered. My life is all wrong. I have offended against you, though I'm not the vile creature you called me yesterday, and I'm steeped in misery. I hope God will be merciful and take me away from this wretched world. —My dearest, he said, you have your baby to live for, your dear little daughter, and new life will begin for you from tonight. In help beside the bed and took her hand in his and kissed it, but she snatched it away impatiently. —Your hand is as cold as ice, she cried. I'm afraid of you. Well, just at this moment I heard whisperings in the next room, and then the old nurse exclaimed, Lord have mercy on us, Mr. Blake. And then there was more whispering, and then the word murdered sounded distinctly above all the rest. My lady lifted herself up in the bed and gave a loud shriek. —Walter Blake is murdered, she cried, and you have done it. She stretched her arm out, pointing to her husband, and then fell back upon her pillow in hysterics. —Oh, you wicked old woman, I cried to the nurse, run downstairs for the doctor. I held my lady in my arms and tried to keep her quiet, but she threw herself about on her pillow as if she wanted to beat herself to death, and every now and then she gave a little cry, like a creature that has got its death wound and feels life ebbing away. The cries got fainter and fainter, so Everard was on his knees by her side, imploring her to listen to him, to be reasonable, to be merciful. —You did it, she cried. You were the murderer. Well, the doctors rushed into the room just after she'd said this. Old Doctor Newland took her wrist in his hand, and bent down to look at her eyes, and I knew by the glance he gave Mr. Jeb that all was over. She never spoke again, but turned her poor weary head restlessly from side to side, and flung her arms about with the same dreadful restlessness till the end. —Oh, Mr. Blake, it was a terrible deathbed, and it was piteous to see her husband kneeling by her side, and to hear him and treating her to be calm, to be merciful to him, promising that the rest of her day should be happy if she would but try to live for his sake, promising to be her slave, the very dirt under her feet if she would but live for him. But prayers couldn't lengthen her short life. It was easy to see how her strength was ebbing with every restless movement in that dreadful death-struggle. I think she was sensible to the very last. The last look she turned upon her husband is in my mind today, a look full of horror. —He did not deny that he'd killed my father, said Morton interrogatively. Oh, he may have taken her words from me raving, and had thought it useless to contradict her. Oh, but surely had he been able to do so, he would have declared his innocence of such a crime. That would have been easy to do were he ever so guilty. You've no right to think anythin' worse of him because he let his dying wife's words go by like the raven of fever, which nobody ever tries to argue with. His old mind may have been taken up by the thought that she was dying. Oh, Mr. Blake, I want to be just to him, to be merciful to him on my deathbed. There was a time when I thought my lady spoke the truth that night, that the mystery of your father's death was made clear to her in her last agony. But today I want to see things calmly and reasonably. I thought it was my duty to tell you all I knew, for I misled you that day even more. I wanted to shield Sir Everett as far as I could, for he's been a good friend to me. He turned me off after his wife's death, but he told me that if ever I was in poverty, I was to apply to him, and he would help me, because Lady Courtney had been fond of me. And after my marriage, when Green and I were in sore trouble for our rent, I wrote to Sir Everett, and he sent me ten pounds, and he told me he would send me the same sum quarterly as long as I wanted help. And Gordon knows how my children and I would have lived without that forty pounds a year. So you see, sir, I am deeply beholden to Sir Everett, just as I am beholden to you, for all your goodness to me. And it's only been the trouble of my mind that has made me tell you all this. You have done very right to tell me. I have long been tormented by suspicions of the truth, and it's well for me to know all that can be known. One thing I will tell you for your comfort. I shall never try to bring Sir Everett Courtney to justice, though I firmly and thoroughly believe that he is my father's murderer. For his daughter's sake he is safe from my revenge, but I will unravel the web of his mystery. I will make myself master of his secret, and only when I stand face to face with him and charge him with his crime shall I feel that I've done my duty as a son. And you will not try to win Miss Courtney for your wife? No. That would be an unholy alliance. There came a faint little murmur, like a cry of pain from the next room, but Morton took no heed of it, for just at the same moment a man's firm tread sounded on the stair, and Mr. Haldeman's cheery voice exclaimed, Ever so much better this heavenly day, I hope, Mrs. Green? End of Chapter 41 That faint cry of pain was the one expression of anguish rung from Delcey's wounded heart. She had heard all that sad story, even to those last words of Morton's. An unholy alliance. Yes, it was but an echo of those still more terrible words spoken on his sick bed, the daughter of the murderer and the son of the murdered. She had but too well comprehended the idea that prompted that speech, even though it seemed but the baseless utterance of delirium, the thought of it had poisoned her life. Her father was suspected of a foul murder, Morton, whom she deemed wisest among mankind, had come to this terrible conclusion. And then, reading back along the story of her life, she had seen how much there was in the circumstances of the last six months to give colour to such a suspicion. Her father's unreasonable opposition to Morton's suit in the first instance, his still more unreasonable cancelment of her engagement, his deepening gloom, the gulf between them which seemed widening day by day. The thought of these things had weighed heavily upon Delcey's heart ever since that day when she had sat beside Morton's bed and had felt herself repudiated by him. And now came this painful story of the past, and the knowledge that her mother's last words had accused her father of Walter Blake's murder. Morton rose as Arthur Haldemond entered the sick room. I will come and see you tomorrow, Mrs. Green, he said. And if there's anything I can do for you in the meantime. Oh, no, thank you, sir. I'm well taken care of. If I was a duchess, I couldn't be better off. Miss Blake and Miss Courtney are always bringing me luxuries. And Mr. Haldemond comes to read to me sometimes and cheers me up wonderfully. I think there must be something comfortable in the sound of your voice, sir, she said, looking at the curate with the faint smile. I hope there is more comfort in what I read than in my voice, Mrs. Green, though it tickles a man's vanity to be so complimented, answered Mr. Haldemond in the easy tone that made him seem an old acquaintance wherever he went. Morton had called upon the curate soon after his arrival at Osthorpe, but they had seen very little of each other since. For though Mr. Haldemond was always able to find time for lawn tennis at Fairview, he was generally too busy to accept Miss Blake's invitations to afternoon tea at Tangley Manor, a fact which tiny took to heart, as she was passionately fond of tennis, had succeeded in getting an exceptionally fine ground and considered herself a crack player. Oh, we're not good enough for Mr. Haldemond, she said. We smell of trade. I suppose he will go to no one who hasn't a long pedigree. Aunt Dora defended the curate warmly. He is as good as gold, she said, and I won't hear him made light of because he doesn't choose to waste the time which he wants for good works in playing at bat and ball with a chit like you. No, but he's always ready for bat and ball with a chit like Dulcy. His good works go by the board when she wants him, retorted tiny. Mr. Haldemond and Morton shook hands as the latter left the room, and then the curate seated himself by the bed and took out his book. As you've been chatting with Mr. Blake, I shan't let you talk, he said pleasantly, for I feel sure you're tired. Will you eat a little of that nice-looking jelly while I read to you? He handed her a plate of carved foot jelly, putting the spoon into her feeble hand, and watching her as she took a few morsels, with such languid appetite as showed she ate rather to please him than herself. He was turning over the leaves of his testament, looking for a comforting chapter, when he was startled by a sound in the next room, a very audible sob. Oh, what is that? he asked, putting down his book. Is one of the children in trouble? Not my friend Matty, I hope. The children? What was it? Yes, there is someone crying, exclaimed the invalid, lifting herself up in the bed. Oh, is one of them hurt, do you think? Don't be frightened, said Mr. Haldemond. It's nothing, I daresay. I'll see into it. He went into the next room. Delcy was on her knees by Matty's little bed, her face buried in the coverlet, her whole frame shaken by her sobs. Arthur Haldemond had just the presence of mind to call out to the invalid, all right, Mrs. Green, it's not one of the children. And to shut the door between the two rooms. And then, with his heart aching as it had seldom ached in his life, he knelt beside Delcy and laid his hand gently on her shoulder. Delcy, what has happened to distress you? Oh, for God's sake, tell me, he said, with infinite tenderness. Never before had he called her by her Christian name, but in this moment he could not for worlds have said Miss Courtney. Delcy, he repeated, what is a miss with you? Everything, my whole life, she sobbed. Don't try to comfort me, Mr. Haldemond. I'm hopelessly miserable. But I will try to comfort you. I will not believe that your sorrow is incurable. There is no hopeless misery on this earth. At our worst, we have the prospect of comfort and happiness in the world to come. Yes, but that is such a long way off, answered Delcy drearily. And we all want to be happy here. I suppose that's only human. But my sorrow stretches to the world beyond earth. There's no comfort for me, none. You will never make me believe that, said Arthur Haldemond firmly. Can you not trust me freely, thoroughly, as I would trust you in any trouble of mine? Think of me first as a priest, secondly as your faithful friend. What is it that makes you unhappy? Is it the breaking of your engagement to Mr. Blake? For, if it were, that alone, perhaps—he faulted just a little here, looking at her with a soul-searching gaze—the interference of a disinterested friend might be useful, and your father might consent to the renewal of your betrothal. Oh, no, no, no, she cried hastily. That can never be. Morton and I have made up our minds about that. We're both resigned to being parted. There are reasons why we can never marry. Then that is not your sorrow. No, she answered with a heart-breaking sigh. Thank God! ejaculated Mr. Haldemond in a low voice. I have been very sorry. I grieved very much at parting with Morton. But that pain was a dead, dull sorrow that I could bear, and which would have lessened I dare say as the years went by. No, that is not my trouble. That grief is bearable. You mystify, you torture me, said Mr. Haldemond. I would give half my life—all my life—to comfort you. For God's sake, trust me! I am a man of the world. I know how to face the difficulties and perplexities of life. It must go hard with me if I cannot help you. Only confide in me. That is impossible, she answered gravely, and in a tone so resolute even in its gentleness that Arthur Haldemond knew her decision was irrevocable. Why can you not tell me the nature of your sorrow? Because it's somebody else's sorrow as well as mine. I can pour out my grief to no one but God. Pray forget all about it, put it out of your mind. You can do no good in any way, and you may do great harm if you talk about my trouble. Talk about it? Delcy, what do you take me for? he asked reproachfully. Oh, I beg your pardon. I forgot that with you all secrets are safe. It is a part of your office to be trusted in the hour of trouble. She had risen from her knees and dried her tears, and was standing quietly by the window, pale and grave, and with a womanly dignity in her face and manner that claimed his respect as much as her grief claimed his pity. He went across to her and took her hand, and stood beside her looking down at the fair girlish face made womanly by a great sorrow. Delcy, my heart always yearns to a creature in trouble, he said, if it were only one of the dumb things in the fields. But to see you sorrowful, to see you bowed down by a grief that I must not know and cannot comfort, that is too bitter. Delcy, my delight, my love, do you not understand that your griefs are more to me than all other sorrow in the world? That you are dearer to me than anything upon this earth? From the happy Sabbath when I first saw your sweet sad face with its pathetic pain, I have been learning to love you. I think I loved you at the first that my heart leapt into life at the sight of your face kindling with a fire it had never felt before. Delcy, tell me, is it hopeless for me? Have you any remnant of love left for me? Were it but the least and faintest spark of that holy fire I would be content, knowing that I could cherish and warm it into a flame? She stood before him with downcast eyes, letting him tell his story. A delicate bloom crept into her pallid cheeks as she listened, a faint smile curved the faintly tinted lips. At last she lifted her eyelids and looked at him with sad, serious eyes. You've been very good to me, she murmured. Pray believe that I am grateful and that I honour and esteem you. I'm proud to think that you care for me and I shall carry the memory of your words to my grave. Yes, I shall always remember you as one of the best and truest friends Heaven has given me, but you must never again talk to me of love. You must think of me as if I were a Roman Catholic and had taken the veil. I shall never marry. The same reason that forbids my marriage with Morton would prevent my marrying anyone else. And if there had not been this obstacle, if you were free to engage yourself, even then I could have no heart to give, she answered. Think what a little while ago I was engaged to Morton. But is he still as dear to you as when that engagement was broken, asked Mr. Haldemond? Is he still the master of your heart? A vivid blush dyed Dulce's cheeks and brow. She turned her head hastily away. The hand which Arthur Haldemond was holding trembled in his, and she drew it from his gentle clasp. You have no right to ask such questions, she said, drawing herself up a little. I have told you the truth. I shall never marry. I shall take care of my dear father and be his faithful companion as long as he lives. And then, if I lose him, I suppose God will take care of me. All her calmness deserted her in a moment, and tears streamed from her eyes. Good-bye, she said, hurrying to the door. Oh, don't follow me, please. Don't. I'm better by myself. Arthur Haldemond reluctantly obeyed her. I see light, he said to himself, whatever her sorrow is, it is her father's trouble rather than hers. It shall be my task to fathom the mystery and to cure the evil. He left the cottage half an hour later, proud and hopeful. For that sudden glow of colour indulged his face, the fair head turned shyly from him, had told him that her heart secretly acknowledged a new master, that Morton was no longer without a rival in her love. Elizabeth Braddon Chapter 43 Morton's Brilliant Idea Morton Blake went home that afternoon, confirmed in his belief in Sir Everard's guilt. That belief had taken root in his mind in spite of himself, and had slowly grown upon him as time went by. Shaft O'Jab's story of the hoof prince of a second horse on the spot where the murder was committed fitted curiously with the story of the finding of the spur, and the groom's disappearance gave way to his evidence, for it indicated that he had been tampered with by someone in Sir Everard's interest. And now Lucy Green's deathbed confession made the whole mystery clear, set before Morton's eyes as in a picture the tragedy of his father's death, the husband loving deeply, deeply wronged, and avenging himself horribly upon his treacherous friend. Dearly as Morton loved his father, and bitterly as he deplored his untimely fate, he could not as a man withhold his pity from the murderer. Had the two men met formally, face to face, as they might have done fifty years ago, and the lover had died by the hand of the betrayed husband, the world could hardly have condemned the successful dualist. It was just possible that Walter Blake had not fallen without a struggle for life, that he had wrestled with his assailant before he received his death-stroke. It was hardly consistent with Sir Everard's character and education to have played the stealthy assassin. But that his hands had been died in Walter Blake's blood, that the man who had just died in Portland prison had played a fool's part, and accused himself of a crime he had not committed, Morton was thoroughly convinced. He remembered Sir Everard's reluctance to accept the vagabond's confession, his willingness to let the man escape, how he had been incredulous from the first. He remembered his ghastly face in the witness-box, when his dead wife's name had been imported into the inquiry. Now, he told himself, he knew that Sir Everard was the murderer. It was no longer a matter of suspicion or darkly brooding fear, it was conviction. And more than conviction, it was knowledge. What was he to do? Humphrey Vargas was dead. Justice to him demanded no sacrifice from the living. He had passed altogether out of the question. And anxious as Mrs. Barnard was to clear her children from the reproach involved in her father's supposed guilt, it would have been hard to sacrifice Dulce's tenderest feelings to a morbid sensitiveness on the part of a vagabond's daughter. Mrs. Barnard's children must take their chance, thought Morton. Their grandfather inflicted this disgrace upon his name of his own free will, being a thief and a vagabond already, and it is no duty of mine to wipe the stain from his grandchildren's pedigree. Two considerations were now paramount in his mind. First, the thought that his father's dishonour must be kept from the gossip of the newspapers and the tittle-tattle of clubs and coteries. It would be a poor thing to avenge his father's death by bringing Sir Everard to the dock, if in so doing he must reveal the one dark spot in his father's life, the one dishonour in an honourable career, to the malignant scrutiny of a world that loves to hear of sin in high places. Secondly, for Dulce's sake, for the love of her who must ever seem to him purest and sweetest among women, he would do much to shield Sir Everard from the law, even while he longed to pour upon him the vials of an orphaned son's wroth. He walked in tangly wood till the summer light was deepening into shadow, brooding upon what he had heard, meditating upon the duty that lay before him, and thinking how he could best make that duty fit in with the other claims upon his time and thought. His ambition, that ardent desire to be of some use in his generation to leave the world in some wise better than he found it, which is the loftiest kind of ambition, had been reawakened by Lizzie Hardman's influence. Life, which for a while had seemed a burden to him, had again become full of work and hope. His days were no longer empty, albeit the rosy light of first love shone upon them no more. He had taught himself to believe that there were other joys for which a man might live, the delight of success in good work, the rapture of improving the lives of other people. The election at Blackford was to take place at the end of the session, and it was already known in the big bustling town that Morton Blake was going to stand. His speeches at High Clear and the pamphlet on compulsory education which he had lately published had won him friends among the most enlightened section of the working classes. He was not a man to please extreme radicals. He had the warmest sympathy with the operatives claims and wrongs, but he saw in trade unionism disadvantages and perils in the future, which outweighed the benefits to be derived from it in the present. He had therefore openly declared himself adverse to the system, and had in so doing hazarded his popularity among a constituency chiefly consisting of working men. But he had the courage of his opinions, and was prepared to defend them in the teeth of dead cats and rotten eggs, or any symbolism by which the sons of Toil might choose to express their opinions. Lizzie had told him that he was sure of success at Blackford, that he would there be appreciated and understood, and of late he had fallen quite unconsciously into the habit of thinking Miss Hardman the most enlightened person among his acquaintances. She has such a well-balanced mind, such a calm, dispassionate way of looking at things that I don't think she would be led astray by her own regard for me, he told himself, and if it were only out of gratitude for all her goodness to me, I ought to pay her the poor compliment of taking her advice. He had thought a good deal about Lizzie lately, giving her all the thought he had to spare after the one absorbing idea of Sir Everard's guilt, and the secondary consideration of his own parliamentary prospects. He was deeply impressed with a sense of obligation to Lizzie for her devotion to him during his illness and his slow return to health. He wanted to testify his gratitude in some permanent and substantial manner, and upon this very evening he found an opportunity of taking his Aunt Dora into his confidence and asking her advice in the matter. They were loitering about the garden together, looking at the standard roses in the cultivation whereof Miss Blake took special pride, while the two girls played lawn tennis with Lord Bevel and Lady Francis, who had dropped in after dinner. Francis and Morton seemed to have grown less intimate since his illness. He knew that she had become Delcy's bosom friend, and he shrank with a morbid sensitiveness from any conversation which might lead to the mention of Delcy's name. Francis saw that he in some measure avoided her. She was pained and wounded by his coldness, but she was too generous to be angry. There was a time when a cold look from him hurt me like a sharp sword, she said to herself, but that time is past and gone. Morton is no longer all the world to me. Indeed, I almost wondered that I could ever have cared about such a commonplace young man. Aunty said Morton with a sudden seriousness, as they stood before a superb Marshal Neal. Has Lizzie any money of her own? Why, Morton, what a question! She has plenty of money. But if you mean by inheritance, not a penny. Her people were quite poor. Her grandfather and yours were fellow workmen together in the same foundry. But while your grandfather climbed to the top of the ladder, hers remained at the bottom. They were staunch friends to the last, and when I heard that Matthew Hardman's eldest son had been left a widower with six children, I felt I should be showing respect to my dear father's memory by taking the smallest of them off his hands altogether and adopting her as my own. Poor Matthew died soon after, and Lizzie's nearest relation is his brother, who was very good and helpful in planting out the three surviving children. Of course I shall leave Lizzie well provided for. She must know that, though I've never told her so in plain words. Oh, of course, dearest Aunty, but in the meantime Lizzie has no money that is absolutely her own. I don't know what you mean by absolutely her own. I give her an allowance for her gowns and pocket money. It is paid quarterly, and is as much her own as money can be. She spends very little of it upon herself, dear child, for its her delight to help others. Hmm, and every time she receives this allowance she must feel a sense of obligation. It is a gift, however freely given, not an income arising from capital in her own possession. Good gracious Morton, what a commercial mind you must have! What difference can it make to her? A good deal, I imagine, to a girl of sensitive nature. Lizzie loves me too well, and is too sure of my love to feel any obligation in the matter. My dear Aunty, the sense of obligation is just the one feeling that cannot be eradicated from the human mind. In some natures it cometh up as the flower we call gratitude. In others it is a weed that strangles affection. Now I am at this moment laboring under the sense of obligation to Lizzie, and I want to prove to her that I am grateful. You know how more than good she was to me during my illness. Can I ever forget it? Well, now I want to reward her kindness. I can never extinguish the obligation in a really substantial manner, and I have been thinking that I could hardly do better than invest say, four thousand pounds in her own name in north-western stock, and quietly hand her the certificates in an envelope with my love. That would give her about one hundred and sixty pounds a year, and she need no longer be dependent upon you for her gowns and bonnets. Morton! cried Miss Blake, turning indignantly upon her nephew, I'm astonished at you. Oh, my dearest Aunty, I am surprised at your want of proper feeling. What, do you think that such devotion, such tenderness as Lizzie's, are to be bought and paid for? Oh, well, no, of course not. But I think such goodness ought to be recompensed in some substantial manner. That is only another way of saying that it ought to be paid for. I did not think you could be so unkind. Oh, that's rather rough upon a fellow Aunty when he's trying to be kind. It only shows me how little you understand Lizzie's nature. I am very glad you mooted the question to me rather than to her. Had you made such a proposition to Lizzie herself, you would have broken her heart. Is she so sensitive? She is very sensitive, where you're concerned. The phrase struck Morton as curious, but he attached no direct signification to it. He thought his aunt was just a little foolish in her readiness to take offence for her protégé. Well, my dear Aunty, he said after a pause, I suppose you are right. No doubt women understand each other's feelings much better than we, rougher creatures, can comprehend the gentler sex. I could very well afford to part with four thousand pounds, and I fancied it would be nice for Lizzie to have a little income of her own, too fritter away upon small charities and presents to her needy brother and sisters in Blackfoot. But since you say it must not be, I must content myself with offering her some substantial present. A diamond bracelet, or a pony carriage, or something of that kind. What do you say to a pony carriage, with the most perfect thing in cobs to draw it? And then Lizzie could never be snubbed by my sisters when she wanted a drive. I think she would be absolutely enchanted. She is very fond of driving and adores horses. To have a cob of her own would be delightful to her. Tiny and Horatia have always been rather grudging in allowing her the use of the ponies. I'll see Jeb this afternoon, and get him to look out for a cob. We must have something perfect. And Dulliner of Avonmore shall build the carriage. Has light and dainty a thing as Queen Mab's car. I would much rather have given her the railway stock. But if the pony trap will please her, I am content. This time you really have hit upon a brilliant idea, Morton, said his aunt, smiling at him. Not that there is the least need to make her a present of any kind. Such goodness as hers is always its own reward. I suppose that's why the recipients take so little trouble to show their gratitude. And said Morton, laughing.