Kitabı oku: «This Man's Wife», sayfa 15
Volume Two – Chapter Sixteen.
In misery’s depths
One of many visits to the gloomy, stone-built, county gaol where Hallam was waiting his trial – for all applications for the granting of bail had been set aside – Millicent had insisted upon going alone, but without avail.
“No, Miss Milly, you may insist as long as you like; but until I’m berried, I’m going to keep by you in trouble, and I shall go with you.”
“But Thibs, my dear, dear old Thibs,” cried Millicent, flinging her arms about her neck, “don’t you see that you will be helping me by staying with Julie?”
“No, my dear, I don’t; and, God bless her! she’ll be as happy as can be with her grandpa killing slugs, as I wish all wicked people were the same, and could be killed out of the way.”
“But, Thibs, I order you to stay!”
“And you may order, my dear,” said Thisbe stubbornly. “You might order, and you might cut off my legs, and then I’d come crawling like the serpent in the Scripters – only I hope it would be to do good.”
“Oh, you make me angry with you, Thisbe. Haven’t I told you that Miss Heathery has been pressing to come this morning, and I refused her?”
“Why, of course you did, my dear,” replied Thisbe contemptuously. “Nice one she’d be to go with you, and strengthen and comfort you! Send her to your pa’s greenhouse to turn herself into a pot, and water the plants with warm water, and crying all over, and perhaps she’d do some good; but to go over to Lindum! The idea! Poor little weak thing!”
“But, Thisbe, can you not see that this is a visit that I ought to pay alone?”
“No, miss.”
“But it is: for my husband’s sake.”
“Every good husband who had left his wife in such trouble as you’re in would be much obliged to an old servant for going with you all that long journey. There, miss, once for all – you may go alone, if you like, but I shall follow you and keep close to you all the time, and sit down at the prison gate.”
“Oh, hush, Thibs!” cried Millicent, with a spasm of pain convulsing her features.
“Yes, miss, I understand. And now I’m going. I shan’t speak a word to you; I shan’t even look at you, but be just as if I was a nothing, and all the same I’m there ready for you to hear, and be a comfort in my poor way, so that you may lean on me as much as you like; and, please God, bring us all well out of our troubles. Amen.”
Poor Thisbe’s words were inconsequent, but they were sincere, and she followed her mistress to the coach, and then through the hilly streets of the old city, and finally, as she had suggested, seated herself upon a stone at the prison gates while her mistress went in.
The sound of lock and bolt chilled Millicent; the aspect of the gloomy, high-walled enclosure, with the loose bricks piled on the top to show where the wall had been tampered with, and to hinder escape, the very aspect, too, of the governor’s house, with its barred windows to keep prisoners out, as the walls were to keep them in – a cage within a cage – made her heart sink, and when after traversing stone passages, and hearing doors locked and unlocked, she found herself in the presence of her husband, her brain reeled, a mist came before her eyes, and for a while her tongue refused to utter the words she longed to speak.
“Humph!” said Hallam roughly. “You don’t seem very glad to see me.”
Her reproachful eyes gave him the lie; and, looking pale, anxious, and terribly careworn, he began to pace the floor.
The careful arrangement of the hair, the gentlemanly look, seemed to have given place to a sullen, half-shrinking mien, and it was plain to see how confinement and mental anxiety had told upon him.
In a few minutes, though, he had thrown off a great deal of this, and spoke eagerly to his wife, who, while tender and sympathetic in word and look, seemed ever ready to spur him on to some effort to free himself from the clinging stain.
This had been her task from the very first. Cast down with a feeling of degradation and sorrow, when the arrest had been made, she had, as we know, recoiled.
She had made every effort possible; had gone to her husband for advice and counsel, and had ended at his wish by taking the money Miss Heathery offered, to pay a good attorney to conduct his case; but on the first hearing, she was informed by the lawyer that a gentleman was down from town, a barrister of some eminence, who said that he had been instructed to defend Mr Hallam, and he declined to give any further information.
The despair that came over Millicent was terrible to witness; but she mastered these fits of despondency by force of will and the feverish energy with which she set to work. She visited Hallam, questioning, asking advice, instruction, and bidding him try to see his way out of the difficulty, till he grew morose and sullen, and seemed to find special pleasure in telling her that it was “all the work of that parson.”
In her feverish state, in the despair with which she had bidden herself do her duty to her wronged, her injured husband, she took all this as fact, and shutting herself up at Miss Heathery’s, refused to read the letters Bayle sent to her, or to give him an interview.
It was as if a savage spirit of hate and revenge had taken possession of her, and with blind determination she went on her way, praying for strength to make her worthy of the task of defending her injured husband, and for the overthrow of the cruel enemies who were fighting to work his ruin.
And now she was having the last interview with Hallam, for the authorities had interfered, she had had so much latitude, and he had given her certain instructions which made her start.
“Go to him?” she said, looking up wonderingly.
“Yes, of course,” he said sharply; “do you wish me to lose the slightest chance of getting off?”
“But, Robert, dear,” she said innocently, but with the energy that pervaded her speaking, “why not go bravely to your trial? The truth must prevail.”
“Oh, yes,” he said cynically; “it is a way it has in courts of law.”
“Don’t speak like that, love. I want you to hold up your head bravely in the face of your detractors, to show how you have been tricked and injured, that this man Crellock, whom you have helped, has proved a villain – deceiving, robbing, and shamefully treating you.”
“Yes,” he said; “I should like to show all that.”
“Then don’t send me to Sir Gordon. I feel that there is no mercy to be expected from either him or Mr Bayle. They both hate you.”
“Most cordially, dear. By all that’s wearisome, I wish they would let me have a cigar here.”
“No, no; think of what you are telling me to do,” she cried eagerly, as she saw him wandering from the purpose in hand. “You say I must go to Sir Gordon?”
“Yes. Don’t say it outright, but give him to understand that if he will throw up this prosecution of his, it will be better for the bank. That I can give such information as will pay them.”
“You know so much about Stephen Crellock?” she said quickly.
“Yes; I can recover a great deal, I am sure.”
“And I am to show him how cruelly he has wronged you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You desire me to do this; you will not trust to your innocence, and the efforts of the counsel?”
“Do you want to drive me mad with your questions?” he cried savagely. “If you decline to go, my lawyer shall see Sir Gordon.”
“Robert!” she said reproachfully, but with the sweet gentleness of her pitying love for the husband irritated, and beyond control of self in his trouble, apparent in her words.
“Well, why do you talk so and hesitate?” he cried petulantly.
“I will go, dear,” she said cheerfully, “and I will plead your cause to the uttermost.”
“Yes, of course. It will be better that you should go. He likes you, Millicent; he always did like you, and I dare say he will listen to you. I don’t know but what it might be wise to knock under to Bayle. But no: I hate that fellow. I always did from the first. Well, leave that now. See Sir Gordon; tell him what I say, that it will be best for the bank. You’ll win. Hang it, Millicent, I could not bear this trial: it would kill me.”
“Robert!”
“Ah, well, I’m not going to die yet, and it would be very sad for my handsome little wife to be left a widow if they hang me, or to exist with a live husband serving one-and-twenty years in the bush.”
“Robert, you will break my heart if you speak like that,” panted Millicent.
“Ah, well, we must not do that,” he cried laughingly. “Look here, though; this barrister who is to defend me, I know him – Granton, Q.C. Did your father instruct him?”
“No: he could not. Robert, we are frightfully poor.”
“Ah! it is a nuisance,” he said, “thanks to my enemies; but we’ll get through. Now then, who has instructed this man?”
“I cannot tell, dear.”
“I see it all,” he said; “it’s a plan of the enemy. They employ their own man, and he will sell me, bound hand and foot, to the Philistines.”
“Oh! Robert, surely no one would be so base.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “They want to win. It’s Sir Gordon’s doing. No, it’s Christie Bayle. I’d lay a thousand pounds he has paid the fellow’s fees.”
“Then, Robert, you will not trust him; you will refuse to let him defend you. Husband, my brave, true, innocent husband,” she cried, with her pale face flushing, “defend yourself!”
“Hush! Go to Sir Gordon at once. Say everything. I must be had out of this, Milly. I cannot stand my trial.” She could only nod her acquiescence, for a gaoler had entered to announce that the visit was at an end.
Then, as if in a dream, confused, troubled in spirit, and hardly seeing her way for the mist before her eyes, Millicent Hallam followed the gaoler back along the white stone passages and through the clanging gates, to be shut out of the prison and remain in a dream of misery and troubled thought, conscious of only one thing, and that one that a gentle hand had taken her by the arm and led her back to where they waited for the conveyance to take them home.
“These handsome men; these handsome men!” sighed Thibs, as she sat by Julia’s bed that night, tired with her journey, but reluctant to go to her own resting-place – a mattress upon the floor. “Oh! how I wish sometimes we were back at the old house, and me scolding and stubborn with poor old missus, and in my tantrums from morning to night. Ah! those were happy days.”
Thisbe shook her head, and rocked herself to and fro, and sighed and sighed again.
“My old kitchen, and my old back door, and the big dust-hole! What a house it was, and how happy we used to be! Ah! if we could only change right back and be there once more, and Miss Milly not married to no handsome scamp. Ah! and he is; Miss Milly may say what she likes, and try to believe he isn’t. He is a scamp, and I wish she had never seen his handsome face, and we were all back again, and then – Oh! – Oh! Oh! – Oh! – Oh!” cried hard, stubborn Thisbe as she sank upon her knees by the child’s bedside, sobbing gently and with the tears running down her cheeks, “and then there wouldn’t be no you. Bless you! bless you! bless you!”
She kissed the child as a butterfly might settle on a flower, so tender was her love, so great her fear of disturbing the little one’s rest.
“Oh! dear me, dear me!” she said, rising and wiping the tears from her hard face and eyes, “well, there’s whites and blacks, and ups and downs, and pleasures and pains, and I don’t know what to say – except my prayers; and the Lord knows what’s best for us after all.”
Ten minutes after, poor Thisbe was sleeping peacefully, while, with burning brow, Millicent was pacing her bed-room, thinking of the morrow’s interview with Sir Gordon Bourne.
Volume Two – Chapter Seventeen.
Mr Gemp is Curious
“I know’d – I know’d it all along,” said Old Gemp to his friends, for the excitement of his loss seemed now to have acted in an opposite direction and to be giving him strength. “I know’d he couldn’t be living at that rate unless things was going wrong. What did the magistrates say?”
“Said it was a black case, and committed him for trial,” replied Gorringe the tailor. “Ah, I don’t say that clothes is everything, Mr Gemp; but a well-made suit makes a gentleman of a man, and you never heard of Mr Thickens doing aught amiss.”
“Nor me neither, eh, Gorringe? and you’ve made my clothes ever since you’ve been in business.”
The tailor looked with disgust at his neighbour’s shabby, well-worn garments, and remained silent.
“I’d have been in the court mysen, Gorringe, on’y old Luttrell said he wouldn’t be answerable for my life if I got excited again, and I don’t want to die yet, neighbour; there’s a deal for me to see to in this world.”
“Got your money, haven’t you?”
“Ye-es, I’ve got my money, and it’s put away safe; but I wanted my deeds – my writings. I’ve lost by that scoundrel, horribly.”
“Ah, well, it might have been worse,” said Gorringe, giving a snip with his scissors that made Gemp start as if it were his own well-frayed thread of life being cut through.
“Oh, of course it might have been worse; but a lot of us have lost, eh, neighbour?”
“Dixons’ and Sir Gordon have come down very handsome over it,” said Gorringe, who was designing a garment, as he called it, with a piece of French chalk.
“And the parson,” said Gemp; “only to think of it – a parson, a curate, with one-and-twenty thousand pound in his pocket.”
“Ay, it come in handy,” said Gorringe.
“Now, where did he get that money, eh? It’s a wonderful sight for a man like him,” said Gemp, with a suspicious look.
“London. I heerd tell that he said he had been to London to get it.”
“Ay, he said so,” cried Gemp, shaking his head, “but it looks suspicious, mun. Here was he hand and glove with the Hallams, always at their house and mixed up like. I want to know where he got that money. I say, sir, that a curate with twenty thousand pound of his own is a sort o’ monster as ought to be levelled down.”
The tailor pushed up his glasses to the roots of his hair, and left off his work to hold up his shears menacingly at his crony.
“Gemp, old man,” he said, “I would not be such a cantankerous, suspicious old magpie as you for a hundred pounds; and look here, if you’re going to pull buttons off the back o’ parson’s coat, go and do it somewhere else, and not in my shop.”
“Oh! you needn’t be so up,” said Gemp. “Look here,” he cried, pointing straight at his friend, “what did Thickens say about the writings?”
“Spoke fair as a man could speak,” said Gorringe, resuming his architectural designs in chalk and cloth, “said he felt uncomfortable about the matter first when he saw Hallam give a package to a man named Crellock – chap who often come down to see him; that he was suspicious like that for two years, but never had an opportunity of doing more than be doubtful till just lately.”
“Why didn’t he speak out to a friend – say to a man like me?”
“Because, I’m telling you, it was only suspicion. Hallam managed the thing very artfully, and threw dust in Thickens’s eyes; but last of all he see his way clear, and went and told parson. And just then Sir Gordon were suspicious, too, and had got something to go upon, and they nabbed my gentleman just as he was going away.”
“And do you believe all this?” cried Gemp.
“To be sure I do. Don’t you?”
“Tchah! I’m afraid they’re all in it.”
“Ah! well, I’m not; and, as we’ve nothing to lose, I don’t care.”
“How did Hallam look?”
“Very white; and, my word! he did give parson a look when he was called up to give his evidence. He looked black at Thickens and at Sir Gordon, but he seemed regularly savage with parson.”
“Ah, to be sure!” cried Gemp. “What did I say about being thick with parson? It’s my belief that if all had their deserts parson would be standing in the dock alongside o’ Hallam.”
“And it’s my belief, Gemp, that you’re about the silliest owd maulkin that ever stepped! There, I won’t quarrel with thee. Parson? Pshaw!”
“Well, thou’lt see, mun, thou’lt see! Committed for trial, eh? And how about the other fellow!”
“What, Crellock? Oh, they’ve got him too. He came smelling after Hallam, who was like a decoy bird to him. Wanted to see him in the cage; and they let him see Hallam, and – ”
“Ah, I heard that Hallam told the constable Crellock was worse than he, and they took him too. Yes, I heard that. Hallo! here comes Hallam’s maid – doctor’s owd lass, Thisbe. Let’s get a word wi’ her.”
Gemp shuffled out of the tailor’s shop, and made for Thisbe, who was coming down the street, with her head up and her nose in the air.
“Mornin’, good mornin’,” he said, with one of his most amiable grins.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” said Thisbe sharply; and she went straight on to Miss Heathery’s, knocked sharply, and waited, gazing defiantly about the place the while.
“Well, she’s a stinger, she is!” muttered Gemp, standing scraping away at his face with his forefinger. “Do her good to be married, and hev some one with the rule over her. Humph! she’s gone. Now what does she want there?”
The answer was very simple, though it was full of mystery to Gemp. Thisbe wanted her mistress and the child, who had gone to Miss Heathery’s after dark, Millicent’s soul revolting against the idea of staying at the old home now that it was in the possession of Christie Bayle, her husband’s bitterest foe.
The gossips were quite correct. Hallam had been examined thrice before the county magistrates, and enough had been traced to prove that for a long time he had been speculating largely, losing, and making up his losses by pledging, at one particular bank, the valuable securities with which Dixons’ strong-room was charged. When one of these was wanted he pledged another and redeemed it, while altogether the losses were so heavy that, had not the old bank proprietors been very wealthy men, Dixons’ must have gone.
“Now, where’s she a-going, neighbour?” said Gemp, scraping away at his stubbly face. “I don’t feel up to it like I did, but I shall have to see.”
Gorringe peered through his glasses and the window at the figure in black that had just left Miss Heathery’s, leaning on Thisbe’s arm for a few moments, and then, as if by an effort, drawing herself up and walking alone.
The day was lovely, the sky of the deepest blue; the sun seemed to be brightening every corner of the whole town, and making the flowers blink and brighten, and the sparrows that haunted the eaves to be in a state of the greatest excitement. King’s Castor had never looked more quaintly picturesque and homelike, more the beau-ideal of an old English country town, from the coaching inn with yellow post-chaise outside, and the blue-jacketed postboy with his unnecessarily knotted whip, down to the vegetable stall at the corner of the market, where old Mrs Dims sat on an ancient rush-bottomed chair, with her feet in a brown earthenware bread-pancheon to keep them dry.
Mrs Pinet’s flower-pots were so red that they seemed like the blossoms of her plants growing unnaturally beneath the leaves, and her window, and every one else’s panes, shone and glittered with the true country brilliancy in the morning sun. Even the grass looked green growing between the cobble-stones – those pebbles that gave the town the aspect that, being essentially pastoral, the inhabitants had decided, out of compliment to their farm neighbours, to pave it with sheep’s kidneys.
But there was one blot upon it – one ugly scar, where the yellow deal boards had been newly nailed up, and the walls and window-frames were blackened with smoke; and it was when passing these ruins of her home that Millicent Hallam first shuddered, and then drew herself up to walk firmly by.
“Ah!” said Gorringe, making his shears click, “you wouldn’t feel happy if you didn’t know what was going on, would you, neighbour?”
“Eh? Know? Of course not. If it hadn’t been for me looking after the bank, where would you have all been, eh?”
Gemp spoke savagely, and pointed at the tailor as if he were going to bore a hole in his chest.
“Well, p’r’aps you did some good there, Master Gemp; but if you’d take my advice, you’d go home and keep yoursen quiet. I wouldn’t get excited about nothing, if I was you.”
“Humph! No, you wouldn’t, Master Gorringe; but some folk is different to others,” said Gemp, talking away from the doorway, with his head outside, as he peered down the street.
“Hey! look at ’em now! – the curiosity of these women folk! Here’s owd Mother Pinet with her neck stretched out o’ window, and Barton at the shop, and Cross at the ‘Chequers,’ and Dawson the carrier, all got their heads out, staring after that woman. Now, where’s she going, I wonder?”
Old Gemp stumped back into the shop, shaving away at his cheek.
“She can’t be going over to Lindum to see Hallam, because she went yesterday.”
The tailor’s shears clicked as a corner was taken out of a piece of cloth.
“She ain’t going up to the doctor’s, because he drove by half-an-hour ago with the owd lady.”
Another click.
“Can’t be going for a walk. Wouldn’t go for a walk at a time like this. I’ve often wondered why folk do go for walks, Master Gorringe. I never did.”
Click!
“Nay, Master Gemp, you could always find enough to see and do in the town, eh?”
“Plenty! plenty, mun, plenty! – I’ve got it!”
“Eh?”
“She’s going – Hallam’s wife, yonder – to see owd Sir Gordon, and beg Hallam off; and, look here, I wean’t hev it!”
Gemp banged his stick down upon the counter in a way that made the cloth spread thereon rise in waves, and became very broad of speech here, though it was a matter of pride amongst the Castor people that they spoke the purest English in the county, and were not broad of utterance, like the people on the wolds, and “down in the marsh.”
