Kitabı oku: «Elster's Folly», sayfa 16

"What brings him here? How dare he come uninvited?"

"I heard him say, my lady, that finding he had a Sunday to spare, he thought he would come and pass it at Hartledon," said the well-trained Hedges.

Ere the words had left his lips Lord Hartledon and Mr. Carr were present; the latter in a state of utter amazement and in his travelling dress, having only removed his overcoat.

"You'll be my groomsman, Carr," said Hartledon. "We have no adherents; this is a strictly private affair."

"Did you send for Mr. Carr?" whispered the countess-dowager, looking white through her rouge.

"No; his coming has taken me by surprise," replied Hartledon, with a nervousness he could not wholly conceal.

They passed rapidly through the passages, marshalled by Hedges. Lord Hartledon led his bride, the countess-dowager walked with the clergyman, and Mr. Carr brought up the rear. The latter gentleman was wondering whether he had fallen into a dream that he should wake up from in the morning. The mode of procession was a little out of the common order of such affairs; but so was the marriage.

Now it happened, not very long before this, that Dr. Ashton was on his way home from a visit to a sick parishioner—a poor man, who said he believed life had been prolonged in him that his many years' minister should be at his deathbed. Dr. Ashton's road lay beyond Hartledon, and in returning he crossed the road, which brought him out near the river, between Hartledon and the Rectory. Happening to cast his eyes that way, he saw a light where he had never seen one before—in the little unused chapel. Peering through the trees at the two low diamond-paned windows, to make sure he was not mistaken, Dr. Ashton quickened his pace: his thoughts glancing at fire.

He was well acquainted with Hartledon; and making his way in by the nearest entrance, he dashed along the passages to the chapel, meeting at length one of the servants.

"John," he panted, quite out of breath with hurrying, "there's a light in the chapel. I fear it is on fire."

"Not at all, sir," replied the man. "We have been lighting it up for my lord's marriage. They have just gone in."

"Lighting it up for what?" exclaimed Dr. Ashton.

"For my lord's marriage, sir. He's marrying Lady Maude. It's the old dowager, sir, who has got it up in this queer way," continued the man, venturing on a little confidential gossip with his Rector.

Dr. Ashton paused to collect his wits ere he walked into the chapel. The few wax-candles the servants had been able to put about only served to make the gloom visible. The party were taking their places, the young clergyman directing them where to stand. He opened his book and was commencing, when a hand was laid upon Hartledon's shoulder.

"Lord Hartledon, what is the meaning of this?"

Lord Hartledon recognised the voice, and broke into a cold perspiration. He gave no answer; but the countess-dowager made up for his silence. Her temper, none of the mildest, had been considerably exasperated by the visit of the fox-hunters; it was made worse by the arrival of Mr. Carr. When she turned and saw what this formidable interruption was, she lost it altogether, as few, calling themselves gentlewomen, can lose it. As she peered into the face of Dr. Ashton, her own was scarlet and yellow, and her voice rose to a shriek.

"You prying parson, where did you spring from? Are you not ashamed to dodge Lord Hartledon in his own house? You might be taken up and imprisoned for it."

"Lord Hartledon," said Dr. Ashton, "I—"

"How dare you persist, I ask you?" shrieked the old woman, whilst the young clergyman stood aghast, and Mr. Carr folded his arms, and resolutely fixed his eyes on the floor. "Because Hartledon once had a flirtation with your daughter, does that give you leave to haunt him as if you were his double?"

"Madam," said Dr. Ashton, contriving still to subdue his anger, "I must, I will speak to Lord Hartledon. Allow me to do so without disturbance. Lord Hartledon, I wait for an answer: Are you about to marry this young lady?"

"Yes, he is," foamed the dowager; "I tell you so. Now then?"

"Then, madam," proceeded the doctor, "this marriage owes its rise to you. You will do well to consider whether you are doing them a kindness or an injury in permitting it. You have deliberately set yourself to frustrate the hopes of Lord Hartledon and my daughter: will a marriage, thus treacherously entered into, bring happiness with it?"

"Oh, you wicked man!" cried the dowager. "You would like to call a curse upon them."

"No," shuddered Dr. Ashton; "if a curse ever attends them, it will not be through any wish of mine. Lord Hartledon, I knew you as a boy; I have loved you as a son; and if I speak now, it is as your pastor, and for your own sake. This marriage looks very like a clandestine one, as though you were ashamed of the step you are taking, and dared not enter on it in the clear face of day. I would have you consider that this sort of proceeding does not usually bring a blessing with it."

If ever Val felt convicted of utter cowardice, he felt so then. All the wretched sophistry by which he had been beguiled into the step, by which he had beguiled himself; all the iniquity of his past conduct to Miss Ashton, rose up before his mind in its naked truth. He dared not reply to the doctor for very shame. A sorry figure he cut, standing there, Lady Maude beside him.

"The last time you entered my house, Lord Hartledon, it was to speak of your coming marriage with Anne—"

"And you would like him to go there again and arrange it," interrupted the incensed dowager, whose head had begun to nod so vehemently that she could not stop it. "Oh yes, I dare say!"

"By what right have you thus trifled with her?" continued the Rector, ignoring the nodding woman and her words, and confronting Lord Hartledon. "Is it a light matter, think you, to gain a maiden's best love, and then to desert her for a fresh face? You have been playing fast-and-loose for some little time: and I gave you more than one opportunity of retiring, if you so willed it—of openly retiring, you understand; not of doing so in this secret, disreputable manner. Your conscience will prick you in after-life, unless I am mistaken."

Val opened his lips, but the Rector put up his hand.

"A moment yet. That I am not endeavouring to recall Anne's claims on you in saying this, I am sure you are perfectly aware, knowing me as you do. I never deemed you worthy of her—you know that, Lord Hartledon; and you never were so. Were you a free man at this moment, and went down on your knees to implore me to give you Anne, I would not do it. You have forfeited her; you have forfeited the esteem of all good men. But that I am a Christian minister, I should visit your dishonour upon you as you deserve."

"Will you cease?" raved the dowager; and Dr. Ashton wheeled round upon her.

"There is less excuse for your past conduct, madam, than for his. You have played on Lord Hartledon's known irresolution to mould him to your will. I see now the aim of the letter you favoured me with at Cannes, when you requested, with so much candour, that he might be left for a time unfettered by any correspondence with Miss Ashton. Well, you have obtained your ends. Your covetous wish that you and your daughter should reign at Hartledon is on the point of being gratified. The honour of marrying Lady Maude was intended both by you and her for the late Lord Hartledon. Failing him, you transferred your hopes to the present one, regardless of who suffered, or what hearts or honour might be broken in the process."

"Will nobody put this disreputable parson outside?" raved the dowager.

"I do not seek to bring reproach home to you; let that, ladies, lie between yourselves and conscience. I only draw your attention to the facts; which have been sufficiently patent to the world, whatever Lord Hartledon may think. And now I have said my say, and leave you; but I declare that were I performing this burlesque of a marriage, as that young clergyman is about to do, I should feel my prayers for the divine blessing to attend it were but a vain mockery."

He turned to leave the chapel with quick steps, when Lord Hartledon, shaking off Maude, darted forward and caught his arm.

"You will tell me one thing at least: Is Anne not going to marry Colonel Barnaby?"

"Sir!" thundered the doctor. "Going to marry whom?"

"I heard it," he faltered. "I believed it to be the truth."

"You may have heard it, but you did not believe it, Lord Hartledon. You knew Anne better. Do not add this false excuse to the rest."

Pleasant! Infinitely so for the bridegroom's tingling ears. Dr. Ashton walked out of the chapel, and Val stood for a few moments where he was, looking up and down in the dim light. It might be that in his mental confusion he was deliberating what his course should be; but thought and common sense came to him, and he knew he could not desert Lady Maude, having brought matters so far to an end.

"Proceed," he said to the young clergyman, stalking back to the altar. "Get—it—over quickly."

Mr. Carr unfolded his arms and approached Lord Hartledon. He was the only one who had caught the expression of the bride's face when Hartledon dropped her arm. It spoke of bitter malice; it spoke, now that he had returned to her, of an evil triumph; and it occurred to Thomas Carr to think that he should not like a wife of his to be seen with that expression on her bridal face.

"Lord Hartledon, you must excuse me if I do not remain to countenance this wedding," he said in low but distinct tones. "Before hearing what I have heard from that good man, I had hesitated about it; but I was lost in surprise. Fare you well. I shall have left by the time you quit the chapel."

He held out his hand, and Val mechanically shook it. The retreating steps of Mr. Carr, following in the wake of Dr. Ashton, were heard, as Lord Hartledon spoke again to the clergyman with irritable sharpness:

"Why don't you begin?"

And the countess-dowager fanned herself complacently, and neither she nor Maude cared for the absence of a groomsman. But Maude was not quite hardened yet; and the shame of her situation was tingeing her eyelids.

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE STRANGER

Lord Hartledon was leading his bride through the chapel at the conclusion of the ceremony, when his attention was caught by something outside one of the windows. At first he thought it was a black cat curled up in some impossible fashion, but soon saw it was a dark human face. And that face he discovered to be Mr. Pike's, peering earnestly in.

"Hedges, send that man away. How dare he intrude himself in this manner? How has he got up to the window?"

For these windows were high beyond the ordinary height of man. Hedges went out, a sharp reprimand on his tongue, and found that Mr. Pike had been at the trouble of carrying a heap of stones from a distance and piling them up to stand upon.

"Well, you must have a curiosity!" he exclaimed, in his surprise. "Just put those stones back in their places, and take yourself away."

"You are right," said the man. "I have a curiosity in all that concerns the new lord. But I am going away now."

He leaped down as he spoke, and began to replace the stones. Hedges went in again.

The carriage, waiting to convey them away, was already at the door, the impatient horses pawing the ground. Maude changed her dress with all speed; and in driving down the road by starlight they overtook Thomas Carr, carrying his own portmanteau. Lord Hartledon let down the window impulsively, as if he would have spoken, but seemed to recollect himself, and drew it up again.

"What is it?" asked Maude.

"Mr. Carr."

It was the first word he had spoken to her since the ceremony. His silence had frightened her: what if he should resent on her the cruel words spoken by Dr. Ashton? Sick, trembling, her beautiful face humble and tearful enough now, she bent it on his shoulder in a shower of bitter tears.

"Oh, Percival, Percival! surely you are not going to punish me for what has passed?"

A moment's struggle with himself, and he turned and took both her hands in his.

"It may be that neither of us is free from blame, Maude, in regard to the past. All we can now do, as it seems to me, is to forget it together, and make the best of the future."

"And you will forget Anne Ashton?" she whispered.

"Of course I shall forget her. I ask nothing better than to forget her from this moment. I have made you my wife; and I will try to make your happiness."

He bent and kissed her face. Maude, in some restlessness, as it seemed, withdrew to her own corner of the carriage and cried softly; and Lord Hartledon let down the glass again to look back after Thomas Carr and his portmanteau in the starlight.

The only perfectly satisfied person was the countess-dowager. All the little annoying hindrances went for nothing now that the desired end was accomplished, and she was in high feather when she bade adieu to the amiable young clergyman, who had to depart that night for his curacy, ten miles away, to be in readiness for the morrow's services.

"If you please, my lady, Captain Kirton has been asking for you once or twice," said Hedges, entering the dowager's private sitting-room.

"Then Captain Kirton must ask," retorted the dowager, who was sitting down to her letters, which she had left unopened since their arrival in the morning, in her anxiety for other interests. "Hedges, I should like some supper: I had only a scrambling sort of dinner. You can bring it up here. Something nice; and a bottle of champagne."

Hedges withdrew with the order, and Lady Kirton applied herself to her letters. The first she opened was from the daughter who had married the French count. It told a pitiful tale of distress, and humbly craved to be permitted to come over on a fortnight's visit, she and her two sickly children, "for a little change."

"I dare say!" emphatically cried the dowager. "What next? No, thank you, my lady; now that I have at least a firm footing in this house—as that blessed parson said—I am not going to risk it by filling it with every bothering child I possess. Bob departs as soon as his leg's well. Why what's this?"

She had come upon a concluding line as she was returning the letter to the envelope. "P.S. If I don't hear from you very decisively to the contrary, I shall come, and trust to your good nature to forgive it. I want to see Bob."

"Oh, that's it, is it!" said the dowager. "She means to come, whether I will or no. That girl always had enough impudence for a dozen."

Drawing a sheet of paper out of her desk, she wrote a few rapid lines.

"Dear Jane,

"For mercy's sake keep those poor children and yourself away! We have had an aweful infectious fever rageing in the place, which it was thought to be cured, but it's on the break out again—several deaths, Hartledon and Maude (married of course) have gone out of its reach and I'm thinking of it if Bob's leg which is better permits. You'd not like I dare say to see the children in a coffin apiece and yourself in a third, as might be the end. Small-pox is raging at Garchester a neighbouring town, that will be awful if it gets to us and I hear it's on the road and with kind love believe me your affectionate

"MOTHER.

"P.S. I am sorry for what you tell me about Ugo and the state of affairs chey vous. But you know you would marry him so there's nobody to blame. Ah! Maude has gone by my advice and done as I said and the consequence is she's a peeress for life and got a handsome young husband without a will of his own."

The countess-dowager was not very adroit at spelling and composition, whether French or English, as you observe. She made an end of her correspondence, and sat down to a delicious little supper alone; as she best liked to enjoy these treats. The champagne was excellent, and she poured out a full tumbler of it at once, by way of wishing good luck to Maude's triumphant wedding.

"And it is a triumph!" she said, as she put down the empty glass. "I hope it will bring Jane and the rest to a sense of their folly."

A triumph? If you could only have looked into the future, Lady Kirton! A triumph!

The above was not the only letter written that evening. At the hotel where Lord and Lady Hartledon halted for the night, when she had retired under convoy of her maid, then Val's restrained remorse broke out. He paced the room in a sort of mad restlessness; in the midst of which he suddenly sat down to a table on which lay pens, ink, and paper, and poured forth hasty sentences in his mind's wretched tumult.

"My Dear Mrs. Ashton,

"I cannot address you in any more formal words, although you will have reason to fling down the letter at my presuming to use these now—for dear, most dear, you will ever be to me.

"What can I say? Why do I write to you? Indeed to the latter question I can only answer I do not know, save that some instinct of good feeling, not utterly dead within me, is urging me to it.

"Will you let me for a moment throw conventionality aside; will you for that brief space of time let me speak truly and freely to you, as one might speak who has passed the confines of this world?

"When a man behaves to a woman as I, to my eternal shame, have this day behaved to Anne, it is, I think, a common custom to regard the false man as having achieved a sort of triumph; to attribute somewhat of humiliation to the other.

"Dear Mrs. Ashton, I cannot sleep until I have said to you that in my case the very contrary is the fact. A more abject, humiliated man than I stand at this hour in my own eyes never yet took his sins upon his soul. Even you might be appeased if you could look into mine and see its sense of degradation.

"That my punishment has already come home to me is only just; that I shall have to conceal it from all the world, including my wife, will not lessen its sting.

"I have this evening married Maude Kirton. I might tell you of unfair play brought to bear upon me, of a positive assurance, apparently well grounded, that Anne had entered into an engagement to wed another, could I admit that these facts were any excuse for me. They are no excuse; not the slightest palliation. My own yielding folly alone is to blame, and I shall take shame to myself for ever.

"I write this to you as I might have written it to my own mother, were she living; not as an expiation; only to tell of my pain; that I am not utterly hardened; that I would sue on my knees for pardon, were it not shut out from me by my own act. There is no pardon for such as I. When you have torn it in pieces, you will, I trust, forget the writer.

"God bless you, dear Mrs. Ashton! God bless and comfort another who is dear to you!—and believe me with true undying remorse your once attached friend,

"Hartledon."

It was a curious letter to write; but men of Lord Hartledon's sensitive temperament in regard to others' feelings often do strange things; things the world at large would stare at in their inability to understand them. The remorse might not have come home to him quite so soon as this, his wedding-day, but for the inopportune appearance of Dr. Ashton in the chapel, speaking those words that told home so forcibly. Such reproach on these vacillating men inflicts a torture that burns into the heart like living fire.

He sealed the letter, addressing it to Cannes; called a waiter, late as it was, and desired him to post it. And then he walked about the room, reflecting on the curse of his life—his besetting sin—irresolution. It seemed almost an anomaly for him to make resolves; but he did make one then; that he would, with the help of Heaven, be a MAN from henceforth, however it might crucify his sensitive feelings. And for the future, the obligation he had that day taken upon himself he determined to fulfil to his uttermost in all honour and love; to cherish his wife as he would have cherished Anne Ashton. For the past—but Lord Hartledon rose up now with a start. There was one item of that past he dared not glance at, which did not, however, relate to Miss Ashton: and it appeared inclined to thrust itself prominently forward to-night.

Could Lord Hartledon have borrowed somewhat of the easy indifference of the countess-dowager, he had been a happier man. That lady would have made a female Nero, enjoying herself while Rome was burning. She remained on in her snug quarters at Hartledon, and lived in clover.

One evening, rather more than a week after the marriage, Hedges had been on an errand to Calne, and was hastening home. In the lonely part of the road near Hartledon, upon turning a sharp corner, he came upon Mirrable, who was standing talking to Pike, very much to the butler's surprise. Pike walked away at once; and the butler spoke.

"He is not an acquaintance of yours, that man, Mrs. Mirrable?"

"Indeed no," she answered, tossing her head. "It was like his impudence to stop me. Rather flurried me too," she continued: and indeed Hedges noticed that she seemed flurried.

"What did he stop you for? To beg?"

"Not that. I've never heard that he does beg. He accosted me with a cool question as to when his lordship was coming back to Hartledon. I answered that it could not be any business of his. And then you came up."

"He is uncommon curious as to my lord. I can't make it out. I've seen him prowling about the grounds: and the night of the marriage he was mounted up at the chapel window. Lord Hartledon saw him, too. I should like to know what he wants."

"By a half-word he let drop, I fancy he has a crotchet in his head that his lordship will find him some work when he comes home. But I must go on my way," added Mirrable. "Mrs. Gum's not well, and I sent word I'd look in for half-an-hour this evening."

Hedges had to go on his way also, for it was close upon the countess-dowager's dinner-hour, at which ceremony he must attend. Putting his best foot forward, he walked at more than an ordinary pace, and overtook a gentleman almost at the very door of Hartledon. The stranger was approaching the front entrance, Hedges was wheeling off to the back; but the former turned and spoke. A tall, broad-shouldered, grey-haired man, with high cheek-bones. Hedges took him for a clergyman from his attire; black, with a white neckcloth.

"This is Hartledon House, I believe," he said, speaking with a Scotch accent.

"Yes, sir."

"Do you belong to it?"

"I am Lord Hartledon's butler."

"Is Lord Hartledon at home?"

"No, sir. He is in France."

"I read a notice of his marriage in the public papers," continued the stranger, whose eyes were fixed on Hedges. "It was, I suppose, a correct one?"

"My lord was married the week before last: about ten or eleven days ago."

"Ay; April the fourteenth, the paper said. She is one of the Kirton family. When do you expect him home?"

"I don't know at all, sir. I've not heard anything about it."

"He is in France, you say, Paris, I suppose. Can you furnish me with his address?"

Up to this point the colloquy had proceeded smoothly on both sides: but it suddenly flashed into the mind of Hedges that the stranger's manner was somewhat mysterious, though in what the mystery lay he could not have defined. The communicative man, true to the interests of his master, became cautious at once: he supposed some of Lord Hartledon's worries, contracted when he was Mr. Elster, were returning upon him.

"I cannot give his address, sir. And for the matter of that, it might not be of use if I could. Lord and Lady Hartledon did not intend remaining any length of time in one place."

The stranger had dug the point of his umbrella into the level greensward that bounded the gravel, and swayed the handle about with his hand, pausing in thought.

"I have come a long way to see Lord Hartledon," he observed. "It might be less trouble and cost for me to go on to Paris and see him there, than to start back for home, and come here again when he returns to England. Are you sure you can't give me his address?"

"I'm very sorry I can't, sir. There was a talk of their going on to Switzerland," continued Hedges, improvising the journey, "and so coming back through Germany; and there was a talk of their making Italy before the heat came on, and stopping there. Any way, sir, I dare say they are already away from Paris."

The stranger regarded Hedges attentively, rather to the discomfiture of that functionary, who thought he was doubted. He then asked a great many questions, some about Lord Hartledon's personal habits, some about Lady Maude: the butler answered them freely or cautiously, as he thought he might, feeling inclined all the while to chase the intruder off the premises. Presently he turned his attention on the house.

"A fine old place, this, Mr. Butler."

"Yes, sir."

"I suppose I could look over it, if I wished?"

Hedges hesitated. He was privately asking himself whether the law would allow the stranger, if he had come after any debt of Lord Hartledon's, to refuse to leave the house, once he got into it.

"I could ask Lady Kirton, sir, if you particularly wished it."

"Lady Kirton? You have some one in the house, then!"

"The Dowager Lady Kirton's here, sir. One of her sons also—Captain Kirton; but he is confined to his room."

"Then I would rather not go in," said the stranger quickly. "I'm very disappointed to have come all this way and not find Lord Hartledon."

"Can I forward any letter for you, sir? If you'd like to intrust one to me, I'll send it as soon as we know of any certain address."

"No—no, I think not," said the stranger, musingly. "There might be danger," he muttered to himself, but Hedges caught the words.

He stood swaying the umbrella-handle about, looking down at it, as if that would assist his decision. Then he looked at Hedges.

"My business with Lord Hartledon is quite private, and I would rather not write. I'll wait until he is back in England: and see him then."

"What name, sir?" asked Hedges, as the stranger turned away.

"I would prefer not to leave my name," was the candid answer. "Good evening."

He walked briskly down the avenue, and Hedges stood looking after him, slightly puzzled in his mind.

"I don't believe it's a creditor; that I don't. He looks like a parson to me. But it's some trouble though, if it's not debt. 'Danger' was the word: 'there might be danger.' Danger in writing, he meant. Any way, I'm glad he didn't go in to that ferreting old dowager. And whatever it may be, his lordship's able to pay it now."