Kitabı oku: «The Haute Noblesse: A Novel», sayfa 22
Chapter Forty Six
The Friend of Adversity
It was a dream from which he was aroused three hours later – a wild dream of a banquet served in barbaric splendour, but whose viands seemed to be snatched from his grasp each time he tried to satisfy the pangs which seemed to gnaw him within. He had fallen into a deep sleep, in which he had remained conscious of his hunger, though in perfect ignorance of what had taken place around.
His first thought was of capture, for his head was clear now, and he saw a rough hand as he gazed up wildly at a dim horn lantern.
The dread was but momentary, for a rough voice full of sympathy said: —
“There, that’s right. Sit up, my dear, and keep the blankets round you. They’re only wet at one corner. I did that bringing them in. There, drink that!”
He snatched at the bottle held to him, and drank with avidity till it was drawn away.
“That’ll put some life into you, my dear; it’s milk, and brandy too. Now eat that. It’s only bread and hake, but it was all I could manage now. To-morrow I’ll bring you something better, or I’ll know the reason why.”
Grilled fish still warm, and pleasant home-made bread. It was a feast to the starving man; and he sat there with a couple of blankets sending warmth into his chilled limbs, while the old fish-woman sat and talked after she had placed the lantern upon the sand.
“Let them go on thinking so,” said Harry at last. “Better that I should be dead to every one I know.”
“Now, Master Harry, don’t you talk like that. You don’t know what may happen next. You’re talking in the dark now. When you wake up in the sunshine to-morrow morning you’ll think quite different to this.”
“No,” he said, “I must go right away; but I shall stay in hiding here for a few days first. Will you bring me a little food from time to times unknown to any one?”
“Why of course I will, dear lad. But why don’t you put on your pea-jacket and weskit. They is dry now.”
Harry shuddered as he glanced at the rough garments the woman was turning over.
“Throw them here on the dry sand,” he said hastily. “I don’t want them now.”
“There you are then, dear lad,” said the old woman, spreading out the drowned man’s clothes; “p’r’aps they are a bit damp yet. And now I must go. There’s what’s left in the bottle, and there’s a fried mack’rel and the rest of the loaf. That’ll keep you from starving, and to-morrow night I’ll see if I can’t bring you something better.”
“And you’ll be true to me?”
“Don’t you be afraid of that,” said the old woman quietly, as Harry clasped her arm.
“Why, you are quite wet,” he said.
“Wet! Well, if you’ll tell me how to get in there with the tide pretty high and not be wet I should like to know it. Why, I had hard work to keep the basket out of the water, and one corner did go in.”
“And you’ll have to wade out,” said Harry thoughtfully.
“Well, what of that? How many times have I done the same to get alongside of a lugger after fish? Drop o’ salt water won’t hurt me, Master Harry; I’m too well tanned for that.”
“I seem to cause trouble and pain to all I know,” he said mournfully.
“What’s a drop o’ water?” said the old woman with a laugh. “Here, you keep that lantern up in the corner, so as nobody sees the light. There’s another candle there, and a box o’ matches: and now I’m going. Good-bye, dear lad.”
“Good-bye,” he said; with a shudder; “I trust you, mind.”
“Trust me! Why, of course you do. Good night.”
“One moment,” said Harry. “What is the time?”
“Lor’, how particular people are about the time when they’ve got naught to do. Getting on for twelve, I should say. There, good night. Don’t you come and get wet, too.”
She stepped boldly into the water, and waded on with the depth increasing till it was to her shoulders, and then Harry Vine watched her till she disappeared, and the yellow light of the lantern shone on the softly heaving surface, glittering with bubbles, which broke and flashed. Then, by degrees, the rushing sound made by the water died out, and the lit-up place seemed more terrible than the darkness of the nights before.
The time glided on; now it was day, now it was night; but day or night, that time seemed to Harry Vine one long and terrible punishment. He heard the voices of searchers in boats and along the cliffs overhead, and sat trembling with dread lest he should be discovered: and with but one thought pressing ever – that as soon as Poll Perrow could tell him that the heat of the search was over, he must escape to France, not in search of the family estates, but to live in hiding, an exile, till he could purge his crime.
After a while he got over the terrible repugnance, and put on the rough pea-jacket and vest which had lain upon a dry piece of the rock, for the place was chilly, and in his inert state he was glad of the warmth; while as the days slowly crept by, his sole change was the coming of the old fish-woman with her basket punctually, almost to the moment, night by night.
He asked her no questions as to where she obtained the provender she brought for him, but took everything mechanically, and in a listless fashion, never even wondering how she could find him in delicacies as well as in freshly-cooked fish and home-made bread. Wine and brandy he had, too, as much as he wished; and when there was none for him, it was Poll Perrow who bemoaned the absence, not he.
“Poor boy!” she said to herself, “he wants it all badly enough, and he shall have what he wants somehow, and if my Liza don’t be a bit more lib’ral, I’ll go and help myself. It won’t be stealing.”
Several times over she had so much difficulty in obtaining supplies that she determined to try Madelaine and the Van Heldres; but her success was not great.
“If he’d only let me tell ’em,” she said, “it would be as easy as easy.” But at the first hint of taking any one into their confidence, Harry broke out so fiercely in opposition that the old woman said no more.
“No,” he said; “I’m dead – they believe I’m dead. Let them think so still. Some day I may go to them and tell them the truth, but now let them think I’m dead.”
“Which they do now,” said the old woman.
“What do you mean?”
She hesitated to tell him what had taken place, but he pressed her fiercely, and at last he sat trembling with horror, and with great drops bedewing his brow as she told him of the finding of the body and what had followed.
It was only what he had planned and looked for, but the fruition seemed too horrible to bear, and at last a piteous groan escaped from his breast.
That night, after the old woman had gone, the food she had obtained from his old home remained untouched, and he lay there upon the sand listening to the sighing wind and the moaning and working of the waves, picturing the whole scene vividly – the finding of the body, the inquest, and the funeral.
“Yes,” he groaned again and again, “I am dead. I pray God that I may escape now, forgotten and alone, to begin a new life.”
He pressed his clasped hands to his rugged brow, and thought over his wasted opportunities, the rejected happiness of his past youth, and there were moments when he was ready to curse the weak old woman who had encouraged him in the chimerical notions of wealth and title. But all that passed off.
“I ought to have known better,” he said bitterly. “Poor weak old piece of vanity! Poor Louise! My sweet, true sister! Father!” he groaned, “my indulgent, patient father! Poor old honest, manly Van Heldre! Madelaine! my lost love!” And then, rising to his knees for the first time since his taking refuge in the cave, he bowed himself down in body and spirit in a genuine heartfelt prayer of repentance, and for the forgiveness of his sin.
One long, long communing in the gloom of that solemn place with his God. The hours glided on, and he still prayed, not in mere words, but in thought, in deep agony of spirit, for help and guidance in the future, and that he might live, and years hence return to those who had loved him and loved his memory, another man.
The soft, pearly light of the dawn was stealing in through the narrow opening, and the faint querulous cry of the gull fell upon his ear, and seemed to arouse him to the knowledge that it was once more day – a day he spent in thinking out what he should do.
Time glided slowly on, and a hundred plans had been conceived and rejected. Poll Perrow came and went, never once complaining of the difficulties she experienced in supplying him and herself, and daily did her best to supply him with everything but money. That was beyond her.
And that was the real necessary now. He must have money to enable him to reach London, and then France. So long a time had elapsed, and there had been so terrible a finale to the episode, that he knew he might endeavour to escape unchallenged; and at last, after a long hesitancy and shrinking, and after feeling that there was only one to whom he could go and confide in, and who would furnish him with help, he finally made up his mind.
It was a long process, a constant fight of many hours of a spirit weakened by suffering, till it was swayed by every coward dread which arose. He tried to start a dozen times, but the heavier beat of a wave, the fall of a stone from the cliff, the splash made by a fish, was sufficient to send him shivering back; but at last he strung himself lip to the effort, feeling that if he delayed longer he would grow worse, and that night poor old Poll Perrow reached the hiding place after endless difficulties, to sit down broken-hearted and ready to sob wildly, as she felt that she must have been watched, and that in spite of all her care and secrecy her “poor boy” had been taken away.
Chapter Forty Seven
Brother – Lover
Trembling, her eyes dilated with horror, Louise Vine stood watching the dimly-seen pleading face for some moments before her lips could form words, and her reason tell her that it was rank folly and superstition to stand trembling there.
“Harry!” she whispered, “alone? yes.”
“Hah!” he ejaculated, and thrusting in his hands he climbed into the room.
Louise gazed wildly at the rough-looking figure in sea-stained old pea-jacket and damaged cap, hair unkempt, and a hollow look in eye and cheek that, joined with the ghastly colourless skin, was quite enough to foster the idea that this was one risen from the grave.
“Don’t be scared,” he said harshly, “I’m not dead after all.”
“Harry! my darling brother.”
That was all in words, but with a low, moaning cry Louise had thrown her soft arms about his neck and covered his damp cold face with her kisses, while the tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Then there is some one left to – My darling sis!”
He began in a half-cynical way, but the genuine embrace was contagious, and clasping her to his breast, he had to fight hard to keep back his own tears and sobs as he returned her kisses.
Then the fugitive’s dread of the law and of discovery reasserted itself, and pushing her back, he said quickly: —
“Where is father?”
“At Mr Van Heldre’s. Let me – ”
“Hush! answer my questions. Where is Aunt Marguerite?”
“Gone to bed, dear.”
“And the servants?”
“In the kitchen. They will not come without I ring. But Harry – brother – we thought you dead – we thought you dead.”
“Hush! Louy, for heaven’s sake! You’ll ruin me,” he whispered as she burst into a fit of uncontrollable sobbing, so violent at times that he grew alarmed.
“We thought you dead – we thought you dead.”
It was all she could say as she clung to him, and looking wildly from door to window and back.
“Louy!” he whispered at last passionately, “I must escape. Be quiet or you will be heard.”
By a tremendous effort she mastered her emotion, and tightening her grasp upon him, she set her teeth hard, compressed her lips, and stood with contracted brow gazing in his eyes.
“Now!” he said, “can you listen?”
She nodded her head, and her wild eyes seemed so questioning, that he said quickly —
“I can’t tell you much. You know I can swim well.”
She nodded silently.
“Well, I rose after my dive and let the current carry me away till I swam ashore three miles away, and I’ve been in hiding in one of the zorns.”
“Oh, my brother?” she answered.
“Waiting till it was safe to come out.”
“But Harry!” she paused; “we – my father – we all believed you dead. How could you be so – ”
She stopped.
“Cruel?” he said firmly. “Wouldn’t it have been more cruel to be dragged off to prison and disgrace you more?”
“But – ”
“Hush! I tell you I have been in hiding. They think me dead?”
“Yes; they found you – ”
“Hush, I tell you. I have no time to explain. Let them go on thinking me dead.”
“But Harry?” she cried; “my poor broken-hearted father – Madelaine.”
“Hold your tongue!” he said in a broken voice, “unless you want to drive me mad.”
He paused, for his face was working; but at last with a stamp he controlled his emotion.
“Look here,” he said hoarsely. “I had no one to come to but you. Will you help me?”
“Harry?” she whispered reproachfully, as she clung to him more firmly.
“Hah! that’s better,” he said. “Now don’t talk, only listen. But are you sure that we shall not be overheard?”
“Quite, dear, we are alone.”
“Then listen. I have thought all this out. I’ve been a blackguard; I did knock old Van Heldre down.”
Louise moaned.
“But once more I tell you I’m not a thief. I did not rob him, and I did not go to rob him. I swear it.”
“I believe you, Harry,” she whispered.
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.”
She nodded again, unable to speak, but clung to him spasmodically, for everything seemed to swim round before her eyes.
“I am penniless. There, that proves to you I did not rob poor old Van. I want money – enough to escape over to France – to get to London first. Then I shall change my name. Don’t be alarmed,” he said tremblingly, as he felt Louise start. “I shall give up the name of Vine, but I’m not going to call myself des Vignes, or any of that cursed folly.”
“Harry!”
“All right, dear. It made me mad to think of it all. I’ve come to my senses now, and I’m going over the channel to make a fresh start and to try and prove myself a man. Some day when I’ve done this father shall know that I am alive, and perhaps then he may take me by the hand and forgive me.”
“Harry, let me send for him – let me tell him now.”
“No,” said the young man sternly.
“He loves you! He will forgive you and bless God for restoring you once more, as I do, my darling. Oh, Harry, Harry! My mother!”
“Hush,” he whispered with his voice trembling as he held her to him and stroked her face. “Hush, sis, hush!”
“Then I may send for him?”
“No, no, no?” he cried fiercely. “I am little better than a convict. He must not, he shall not know I am alive.”
“But Harry, dearest – ”
“Silence!” he whispered angrily, “I came to you, my sister, for help. No, no, dear, I’m not cross; but you talk like a woman. The dear old dad would forgive me, God bless him! I know he would, just as you have, and fall on my neck and kiss me as – as – as – Ah! Lou, Lou, Lou, my girl,” he cried, fighting against his emotion, “the law will not be like your love. You must help me to escape, at all events for a time.”
“And may I tell him where you are gone – my father and Maddy?”
“Hush!” he cried, in so wild and strange a voice that she shrank from him. “Do you want to unman me when I have planned my future, and then see me handcuffed and taken to gaol? No; Harry Vine is dead. Some day another man will come and ask the forgiveness he needs.”
“Harry!”
“But not this shivering, cowardly cur – a man, a true blameless man, whom it will take years to make. Now, then, once more, will you help me, and keep my secret?”
Louise was silent for a few moments.
“Well, never mind, you must keep my secret, for after I am gone if you said you had seen me, people would tell you that you were mad.”
“I will help you, Harry, and keep your secret, dear – even,” she added to herself, “if it breaks my heart.”
“That’s right. We’ve wasted too much time in talking as it is, and – ”
“But Harry – Madelaine – she loves you.”
He wrested himself from her violently, and stood with his hands pressed to his head. A few moments before he had been firm and determined, but the agonised thought of Madelaine and of giving her up for ever had ended the fictitious strength which had enabled him to go so far.
It was the result of his long agony shut up in that cave; and though he struggled hard he could do no more, but completely unnerved, trembling violently, and glancing wildly from time to time at the door and window, he sank at his sister’s feet and clutched her knees.
“Harry, Harry!” she whispered – she, the stronger now – “for Heaven’s sake don’t give way like that.”
“It’s all over now. I’m dead beat; I can do no more.”
“Then let me go for father; let me fetch him from Van Heldre’s.”
“Yes,” he moaned; “and while you are gone I’ll go down to the end of the point and jump in. This time I shall be too weak to swim.”
“Harry, don’t talk like that!” she cried, embracing him, as she saw with horror the pitiable, trembling state in which he was.
“I can’t help it,” he whispered as he clung to her now like a frightened child, and looked wildly at the door. “You don’t know what I’ve suffered, buried alive like, in that cave, and expecting the sea to come in and drown me. It has been one long horror.”
“But, Harry, dear, you are safe now.”
“Safe?” he groaned; “yes, to be taken by the first policeman I meet, and locked up in gaol.”
“But, Harry!” she cried, his agitation growing contagious, “I have promised. I will help you now. I’ll keep it a secret, if you think it best, dear. Harry, for Heaven’s sake be a man.”
“It’s all over now,” he groaned, “so better end it all. I wish I was dead. I wish I was dead.”
“But, Harry, dear,” she whispered, trembling now as much as he, “tell me what to do.”
“I can’t now,” he said; “I’m too weak and broken. All this has been so maddening that I’m like some poor wretch half-killed by drink. It’s too late now.”
“No, no, Harry, dear. It shall be our secret then. Up, and be a man, my brave, true brother, and you shall go and redeem yourself. Yes, I’ll suffer it all hopefully, for the future shall make amends, dear. You shall go across to France, and I will study my father’s comfort, and pray nightly for you.”
“Too late,” he moaned – “too late!”
She looked at him wildly. The long strain upon his nerves had been too great, and he was white as a sheet, and shaking violently.
“Harry, dear, tell me what to do.”
“Let them take me,” he said weakly. “It’s of no use.”
“Hush?” she said, full now of a wild desire to save him from disgrace and to aid him in his efforts to redeem the past. “Let me think. Yes; you want money.”
Full of the recollection of his former appeal, she took out her keys, opened a drawer, while he half knelt, half crouched upon the carpet. She had not much there, and, whispering to him to wait, she left the room, locking him in, and ran up to her chamber.
Harry started as he heard the snap made by the lock; but he subsided again in a helpless state, and with the disease that had been hanging about waiting to make its grand attack, gradually sapping its way.
In five minutes Louise was back.
“I have not much money,” she whispered hastily; “but here are my watch, two chains, and all the jewels I have, dear. They are worth a great deal.”
“Too late!” he moaned as he gazed up at her piteously, and for the moment he was delirious, as a sudden flush of fever suffused his cheeks.
“It is not too late,” she said firmly. “Take them. Now tell me what next to do.”
“What next?” he said vacantly.
“Yes. You must not stay here. My father may return at any time. Brother – Harry – shall I get you some clothes?”
“No – no,” he said mournfully. “I shall want no more clothes.”
“Harry!” she cried, taking his face between her hands, and drawing it round so that the light fell upon it; “are you ill?”
“Ill? yes,” he said feebly. “I’ve felt it before – in the wet cave – fever, I suppose. Lou, dear, is it very hard to die?”
“Oh, what shall I do?” cried the agitated girl, half frantic now. “Harry, you are not very ill?”
“Only sometimes,” he said slowly, as he looked round. “I seem to lose my head a bit, and then something seems to hold me back.”
“Harry!”
“Yes,” he cried, starting up; “who called? You, Louy, money – give me some money.”
“I gave you all I had, dear, and my jewels.”
“Yes, I forgot,” he said huskily, as in a moment his whole manner had changed, and with feverish energy he felt for the trinkets she had given him.
“You are ill, dear,” she whispered tenderly. “Would it not be better to let me fetch our father?”
“I’d sooner die,” he cried, catching her wrist. “No. He shall not know. There, I can see clearly now. That horrible weakness is always taking me now, and when it’s on I feel as if I should kill myself.”
“Harry!”
“Hush! I know now. We must go before he comes back.”
“We?” she said aghast.
“Yes, we. I’m not fit to be alone. You must come with me, Lou, and help me. If I go alone I shall go mad.”
“Oh, Harry! my darling brother.”
“Yes,” he cried in a hoarse whisper; “I know I shall. It’s too horrible to live alone, as I’ve been living. You must come with me and save me – from myself – from everybody. Why do you look at me like that?”
He caught her by the shoulder, and glared at her with a long, fierce stare.
“I – I could not leave home, Harry,” she said faintly.
“You must, you shall,” he cried, “unless you want me to really die.”
“But my father, dear?”
“Quick! write!” he said with the feverish energy which frightened her; and dragging open the blotter on a side table, he pointed to a chair.
“He is mad – he is mad,” she wailed to herself, as in obedience to a will far stronger at that moment than her own, she sat down and took up pen and paper.
“Write,” he said hoarsely.
“Write, Harry?”
“Yes, quick!”
In a horror of dread as she read her brother’s wild looks, and took in his feverish semi-delirium, lest he should carry out a threat which chilled her, she dipped her pen and waited as, after an evident struggle with a clouding intellect, Harry said quickly:
“Dear father, I am forced by circumstances to leave home. Do not grieve for me, I am well and happy; and no matter what you hear do not attempt to follow me. If you do you will bring sorrow upon yourself, and ruin upon one I love. Good-bye; some day all will be cleared up. Till then, your loving daughter, Louise.”
“Harry!” she sobbed, as he laid down the pen, and gazed at the tear-blurred paper. “You cannot mean this. I dare not – I could not go.”
“Very well,” he said coldly. “I told you it was too late. It does not matter now.”
“Oh,” she panted, “you are not reasonable. I have given you money. Go as you said and hide somewhere. You are weak and ill now.”
“Yes,” he said, in a voice which wrung her heart. “I am weak and ill now.”
“A little rest, dear, and the knowledge that you have the means of escaping will make you more calm.”
He looked at her with his eyes so full of wild anger that she half shrank from him, but his face changed.
“Poor little sis!” he said tenderly; “I frighten you. Look at me. Am I fit to go away alone? I know – I feel that at any moment I may break down and go off my head among strangers.”
She looked at him wildly, and as she stood trembling there in a state of agitation which overset her generally calm balance, she read in his eyes that he was speaking the truth.
“Put that note in an envelope and direct it,” he said in a slow, measured way, and mechanically, and as if for the time being his will was again stronger than hers, she obeyed him, dropped the letter on the table, and then stood gazing from it to her brother and back again.
“It’s hard upon you,” he said, with his hand to his head, as if he could think more clearly then, “hard upon the poor old dad. But it seems my only chance, Lou, my girl.”
Father – brother – what should she do?
“I can feel it now,” he said drearily. “There, I’m cool now. It’s lying in that cold, wet cave, and the horrors I’ve gone through. I’ve got something coming on – had touches of it before – in the nights,” he went on slowly and heavily, “p’r’aps it’ll kill me – better if it does.”
“No, no, Harry. Stay and let me nurse you here. We could keep it a secret from every one, and – ”
“Hold your tongue!” he said fiercely. “I might live – if I went away – where I could feel – I was safe. I can’t face the old man again. It would kill me. There, it’s too much to ask you – what’s that?”
Louise started to the door. Harry dashed to the window, and his manner was so wild and excited that she darted after him to draw him away.
“Nothing, dear, it is your fancy. There, listen, there is no one coming.”
He looked at her doubtingly, and listened as she drew him from the window.
“I thought I heard them coming,” he said. “Some one must have seen me crawl up here. Coming to take me – to gaol.”
“No, no, dear. You are ill, and fancy all this. Now come and listen to me. It would be so wild, so cruel if I were to leave my home like this. Harry! be reasonable, dear. Your alarm is magnified because you are ill. Let me – no, no, don’t be angry with me – let me speak to my father – take him into our confidence, and he will help you.”
“No,” he said sternly.
“Let me make him happy by the knowledge that you are alive.”
“And come upon him like a curse,” said Harry, as there was a tap at the door, which neither heard in the excitement of the moment, for, eager to help him, and trembling lest he should, in the excited state he was, go alone, Louise threw herself upon her knees at her brother’s feet.
“Be guided by me, dearest,” she sobbed, in a low, pained voice. “You know how I love you, how I would die if it were necessary to save you from suffering; but don’t – pray don’t ask me to go away from poor father in such a way as this.”
As she spoke a burst of hysteric sobbing accompanied her words, and then, as she raised her tear-blinded eyes, she saw that which filled her with horror. Uttering a faint cry, she threw herself before her brother, as if to shield him from arrest.
Duncan Leslie was standing in the open doorway, and at her action, he took a stride fiercely into the room.
Harry’s back was half turned toward him, but he caught a glimpse of the figure in the broad mirror of an old dressoir, and with one sweep of his arm dashed the light over upon the floor.
The heavy lamp fell with a crash of broken glass, and as Louise stood clinging to her brother, there was a dead silence as well as darkness in the room.
