The clerk contrived to block his way.
"I beg your pardon, sir, I don't think Mr. Medler's in; but I'll go and see."
"You needn't give yourself the trouble. I saw your master let himself in at this door a minute ago. I suppose you were too busy to hear him come in."
The clerk coughed a doubtful kind of cough, significant of perplexity.
"Upon my word, sir, I believe he's out; but I'll see."
"Thanks; I'd rather see myself, if you please," Gilbert said, passing the perturbed clerk before that functionary could make up his mind whether he ought to intercept him.
He opened the office-door and went in. Mr. Medler was sitting at his desk, bending over some formidable document, with the air of a man who is profoundly absorbed by his occupation; with the air also, Gilbert thought, of a man who has been what is vernacularly called "on the listen."
"Good-morning, Mr. Medler," Gilbert said politely; "your clerk had such a conviction of your being out, that I had some difficulty in convincing him you were at home."
"I've only just come in; I suppose Lucas didn't hear me."
"I suppose not; I've been here twice before in search of you, as I conclude you have been told. I have expected to hear from you daily."
"Well, yes—yes," replied the lawyer in a meditative way; "I am aware that I promised to write—under certain circumstances."
"Am I to conclude, then, that you were silent because you had nothing to communicate? that you have obtained no tidings of any kind respecting Mrs. Holbrook?"
Mr. Medler coughed; a cough no less expressive of embarrassment than that of his clerk.
"Why, you see, Mr. Fenton," he began, crossing his legs, and rubbing his hands in a very deliberate manner, "when I made that promise with reference to Mrs. Holbrook, I made it of course without prejudice to the interests or inclinations of my client. I might be free to communicate to you any information I received upon this subject—or I might find myself pledged to withhold it."
Gilbert's face flushed with sudden excitement.
"What!" he cried, "do you mean to say that you have solved the mystery of Marian Holbrook's fate? that you know her to be alive—safe—well, and have kept back the knowledge from me?"
"I have been compelled to submit to the wishes of my client. I will not say that I have not offered considerable opposition to her desire upon this point, but finding her resolution fixed, I was bound to respect it."
"She is safe—then all this alarm has been needless? You have seen her?"
"Yes, Mr. Fenton, I have seen her."
"And she—she forbade you to let me know of her safety? She was willing that I should suffer all the anguish of uncertainty as to her fate? I could not have believed her so unkind."
"Mrs. Holbrook had especial reasons for wishing to avoid all communication with former acquaintances. She explained those reasons to me, and I fully concurred in them."
"She might have such reasons with regard to other people; she could have none with reference to me."
"Pardon me, she mentioned your name in a very particular manner."
"And yet she has had good cause to trust in my fidelity."
"She has a very great respect and esteem for you, I am aware. She said as much to me. But her reasons for keeping her affairs to herself just now are quite apart from her personal feeling for yourself."
"I cannot understand this. I am not to see her then, I suppose; not to be told her address?"
"No; I am strictly forbidden to disclose her address to any one."
"Yet you can positively assure me that she is in safety—her own mistress—happy?"
"She is in perfect safety—her own mistress—and as happy as it is possible she can be under the unfortunate circumstances of her married life. She has left her husband for ever; I will venture to tell you so much as that."
"I am quite aware of that fact."
"How so? I thought Mr. Holbrook was quite unknown to you?"
"I have learnt a good deal about him lately."
"Indeed!" exclaimed the lawyer, with a genuine air of surprise.
"But of course your client has been perfectly frank in her communications with you upon this subject?" Gilbert said. "Yes; I know that Mrs. Holbrook has left her husband, but I did not for a moment suppose she had left him of her own free will. From my knowledge of her character and sentiments, that is just the last thing I could have imagined possible. There was no quarrel between them; indeed, she was expecting his return with delight at the very time when she left her home in Hampshire. The thought of sharing her fortune with him was one of perfect happiness. How can you explain her abrupt flight from him in the face of this?"
"I am not free to explain matters, Mr. Fenton," answered the lawyer; "you must be satisfied with the knowledge that the lady about whom you have been so anxious is safe."
"I thank God for that," Gilbert said earnestly; "but that, knowledge of itself is not quite enough. I shall be uneasy so long as there is this secrecy and mystery surrounding her fate. There is something in this sudden abandonment of her husband which is painfully inexplicable to me."
"Mrs. Holbrook may have received some sudden revelation of her husband's unworthiness. You are aware that a letter reached her a few hours before she left Hampshire? There is no doubt that letter influenced her actions. I do not mind admitting a fact which is so obvious."
"The revelation that could move her to such a step must have been a very startling one."
"It was strong enough to decide her course," replied the lawyer gravely.
"And you can assure me that she is in good hands?" Gilbert asked anxiously.
"I have every reason to suppose so. She is with her father."
Mr. Medler announced this fact as if there were nothing extraordinary in it. Gilbert started to his feet.
"What!" he exclaimed; "she is with Mr. Nowell—the father who neglected her in her youth, who of course seeks her now only for the sake of her fortune? And you call that being in good hands, Mr. Medler? For my own part, I cannot imagine a more dangerous alliance. When did Percival Nowell come to England?"
"A very short time ago. I have only been aware of his return within the last two or three weeks. His first step on arriving in this country was to seek for his daughter."
"Yes; when he knew that she was rich, no doubt."
"I do not think that he was influenced by mercenary motives," the lawyer said, with a calm judicial air. "Of course, as a man of the world, I am not given to look at such matters from a sentimental point of view. But I really believe that Mr. Nowell was anxious to find his daughter, and to atone in some measure for his former neglect."
"A very convenient repentance," exclaimed Gilbert, with a short bitter laugh. "And his first act is to steal his daughter from her home, and hide her from all her former friends. I don't like the look of this business, Mr. Medler; I tell you so frankly."
"Mr. Nowell is my client, you must remember, Mr. Fenton. I cannot consent to listen to any aspersion of his character, direct or indirect."
"And you positively refuse to tell me where Mrs. Holbrook is to be found?"
"I am compelled to respect her wishes as well as those of her father."
"She has been placed in possession of her property, I suppose?"
"Yes; her grandfather's will has been proved, and the estate now stands in her name. There was no difficulty about that—no reason for delay."
"Will you tell me if she is in London?" Gilbert asked impatiently.
"Pardon me, my dear sir, I am pledged to say nothing about Mrs. Holbrook's whereabouts."
Gilbert gave a weary sigh.
"Well, I suppose it is useless to press the question, Mr. Medler," he said. "I can only repeat that I don't like the look of this business. Your client, Mr. Nowell, must have a very strong reason for secrecy, and my experience of life has shown me that there is very seldom mystery without wrong doing of some kind behind it. I thank God that Mrs. Holbrook is safe, for I suppose I must accept your assurance that she is so; but until her position is relieved from all this secrecy, I shall not cease to feel uneasy as to her welfare. I am glad, however, that the issue of events has exonerated her husband from any part in her disappearance."
He was glad to know this—glad to know that however base a traitor to himself, John Saltram had not been guilty of that deeper villany which he had at times been led to suspect.
Gilbert Fenton left Mr. Medler's office a happier man than when he had entered it, and yet only half satisfied. It was a great thing to know that Marian was safe; but he would have wished her in the keeping of any one rather than of him whom the world would have called her natural protector.
Nor was his opinion of Mr. Medler by any means an exalted one. No assertion of that gentleman inspired him with heart-felt confidence; and he had not left the lawyer's office long before he began to ask himself whether there was truth in any portion of the story he had heard, or whether he was not the dupe of a lie.
Strange that Marian's father should have returned at so opportune a moment; still more strange that Marian should suddenly desert the husband she had so devotedly loved, and cast in her lot with a father of whom she knew nothing but his unkindness. What if this man Medler had been lying to him from first to last, and was plotting to get old Jacob Nowell's fortune into his own hands?
"I must find her," Gilbert said to himself; "I must be certain that she is in safe hands. I shall know no rest till I have found her."
Harassed and perplexed beyond measure, he walked through the busy streets of that central district for some time without knowing where he was going, and without the faintest purpose in his steps. Then the notion suddenly flashed upon him that he might hear something of Percival Nowell at the shop in Queen Anne's Court, supposing the old business to be still carried on there under the sway of Mr. Tulliver; and it seemed too early yet for the probability of any change in that quarter.
Gilbert was in the Strand when this notion occurred to him. He turned his steps immediately, and went back to Wardour-street, and thence to the dingy court where he had first discovered Marian's grandfather.
There was no change; the shop looked exactly the same as it had looked in the lifetime of Jacob Nowell. There were the same old guineas in the wooden bowl, the same tarnished tankards and teapots on view behind the wire-guarded glass, the same obscure hints of untold riches within, in the general aspect of the place.
Mr. Tulliver darted forward from his usual lurking-place as Gilbert went in at the door.
"O!" he exclaimed, with undisguised disappointment, "it's you, is it, sir? I thought it was a customer."
"I am sorry to disappoint your expectation of profit. I have looked in to ask you two or three questions, Mr. Tulliver; that is all."
"Any information in my power I'm sure I shall be happy to afford, sir. Won't you be pleased to take a seat?"
"How long is it since you saw Mr. Nowell, your former employer's son?" Gilbert asked, dropping into the chair indicated by the shopman, and coming at once to the point.
Mr. Tulliver was somewhat startled by the question. That was evident, though he was not a man who wore his heart upon his sleeve.
"How long is it since I've seen Mr. Nowell—Mr. Percival Nowell, sir?" he repeated, staring thoughtfully at his questioner.
"Yes; you need not be afraid to speak freely to me; I know Mr. Nowell is in London."
"Well, sir, I've not seen him often since his father's death."
Since his father's death! And according to Mr. Medler, Jacob Nowell's son had only arrived in England after the old man's death;—or stay, the lawyer had declared that he had been only aware of Percival's return within the last two or three weeks. That was a different thing, of course; yet was it likely this man could have returned, and his father's lawyer have remained ignorant of his arrival?
Gilbert did not allow the faintest expression of surprise to appear on his countenance.
"Not often since your master's death: but how often before?"
"Well, he used to come in pretty often before the old man died; but they were both of 'em precious close. Mr. Percival never let out that he was my master's son, but I guessed as much before he'd been here many times."
"How was it that I never came across him?"
"Chance, I suppose; but he's a deep one. If you'd happened to come in when he was here, I daresay he'd have contrived to slip away somehow without your seeing him."
"When did he come here last?" asked Gilbert.
"About a fortnight ago. He came with Mr. Medler, the lawyer, who introduced him formally as my master's son; and they took possession of the place between them for Mrs. Holbrook, making an arrangement with me to carry on the business, and making precious hard terms too."
"Have you seen Mrs. Holbrook since that morning when she left London for Hampshire, immediately after her grandfather's death?"
"Never set eyes on her since then; but she's in London, they told me, living with her father. She came up to claim the property. I say, the husband must be rather a curious party, mustn't he, to stand that kind of thing, and part company with her just when she's come into a fortune?"
"Have you any notion where Mrs. Holbrook or her father is to be found? I should be glad to make you a handsome present if you could enlighten me upon that point."
"I wish I could, sir. No, I haven't the least idea where the gentleman hangs out. Oysters ain't closer than that party. I thought he'd get his paw upon his father's money, somehow, when I used to see him hanging about this place. But I don't believe the old man ever meant him to have a sixpence of it."
There was very little satisfaction, to be obtained from Mr. Tulliver; and except as to the one fact of Percival Nowell's return, Gilbert left Queen Anne's Court little wiser than when he entered it.
Brooding upon the revelations of that day as he walked slowly westward, he began to think that Percival and Mr. Medler had been in league from the time of the prodigal son's return, and that his own exclusion from the will as executor, and the substitution of the lawyer's name, had been brought about for no honourable purpose. What would a weak inexperienced woman be between two such men? or what power could Marian have, once under her father's influence, to resist his will? How she had fallen under that influence so completely as to leave her husband and her quiet country home, without a word of explanation, was a difficult question to answer; and Gilbert Fenton meditated upon it with a troubled mind.
He walked westward, indifferent where he went in the perplexity of his thoughts, anxious to walk off a little of his excitement if he could, and to return to his sick charge in the temple in a calmer frame of mind. It was something gained, at the worst, to be able to return to John Saltram's bedside freed from that hideous suspicion which had tormented him of late.
Walking thus, he found himself, towards the close of the brief winter day, at the Marble Arch. He went through the gate into the empty Park, and was crossing the broad road near the entrance, when an open carriage passed close beside him, and a woman's voice called to the coachman to stop.
The carriage stopped so abruptly and so near him that he paused and looked up, in natural wonderment at the circumstance. A lady dressed in mourning was leaning forward out of the carriage, looking eagerly after him. A second glance showed him that this lady was Mrs. Branston.
"How do you do, Mr. Fenton," she cried, holding out her little black-gloved hand: "What an age since I have seen you! But you have not forgotten me, I hope?"
"That is quite impossible, Mrs. Branston. If I had not been very much absorbed in thought just now, I should have recognised you sooner. It was very kind of you to stop to speak to me."
"Not at all. I have something most particular to say to you. If you are not in a very great hurry, would you mind getting into the carriage, and letting me drive you round the Park? I can't keep you standing in the road to talk."
"I am in no especial hurry, and I shall be most happy to take a turn round the Park with you."
Mrs. Branston's footman opened the carriage-door, and Gilbert took his seat opposite the widow, who was enjoying her afternoon drive alone for once in a way; a propitious toothache having kept Mrs. Pallinson within doors.
"I have been expecting to see you for ever so long, Mr. Fenton. Why do you never call upon me?" the pretty little widow began, with her usual frankness.
"I have been so closely occupied lately; and even if I had not been so, I should have scarcely expected to find you in town at this unfashionable season."
"I don't care the least in the world for fashion," Mrs. Branston said, with an impatient shrug of her shoulders. "That is only an excuse of yours, Mr. Fenton; you completely forgot my existence, I have no doubt. All my friends desert me now-a-days—older friends than you. There is Mr. Saltram, for instance. I have not seen him for—O, not for ever so long," concluded the widow, blushing in the dusk as she remembered that visit of hers to the Temple—that daring step which ought to have brought John Saltram so much nearer to her, but which had resulted in nothing but disappointment and regret—bitter regret that she should have cast her womanly pride into the very dust at this man's feet to no purpose.
But Adela Branston was not a proud woman; and even in the midst of her regret for having done this foolish thing, she was always ready to make excuses for the man she loved, always in danger of committing some new folly in his behalf.
Gilbert Fenton felt for the poor foolish little woman, whose fair face was turned to him with such a pleading look in the wintry twilight. He knew that what he had to tell her must needs carry desolation to her heart—knew that in the background of John Saltram's life there lurked even a deeper cause of grief for this gentle impressionable little soul.
"You will not wonder that Mr. Saltram has not called upon you lately when you know the truth," he said gravely: "he has been very ill."
Mrs. Branston clasped her hands, with a faint cry of terror.
"Very ill—that means dangerously ill?"
"Yes; for some time he was in great danger. I believe that is past now; but I am not quite sure of his safety even yet. I can only hope that he may recover."
Hope that he might recover, yes; but to be a friend of his, Gilbert's, never more. It was a dreary prospect at best. John Saltram would recover, to seek and reclaim his wife, and then those two must needs pass for ever out of Gilbert Fenton's life. The story would be finished, and his own part of it bald enough to be told on the fly-leaf at the end of the book.
Mrs. Branston bore the shock of his ill news better than Gilbert had expected. There is good material even in the weakest of womankind when the heart is womanly and true.
She was deeply shocked, intensely sorry; and she made no attempt to mask her sorrow by any conventional speech or pretence whatsoever. She made Gilbert give her all the details of John Saltram's illness, and when he had told her all, asked him plainly if she might be permitted to see the sick man.
"Do let me see him, if it is possible," she said; "it would be such a comfort to me to see him."
"I do not say such a thing is not possible, my dear Mrs. Branston; but I am sure it would be very foolish."
"O, never mind that; I am always doing foolish things. It would only be one folly more, and would hardly count in my history. Dear Mr. Fenton, do let me see him."
"I don't think you quite know what you are asking, Mrs. Branston. Such a sick-bed as John Saltram's would be a most painful scene for you. He has been delirious from the beginning of his illness, and is so still. He rarely has an interval of anything like consciousness, and in all the time that I have been with him has never yet recognised me; indeed, there are moments when I am inclined to fear that his brain may be permanently deranged."
"God forbid!" exclaimed Adela, in a voice that was choked with tears.
"Yes, such a result as that would be indeed a sore calamity. I have every wish to set your mind at ease, believe me, Mrs. Branston, but in John Saltram's present state I am sure it would be ill-advised for you to see him."
"Of course I cannot press the question if you say that," Adela answered despondently; "but I should have been so glad if you could have allowed me to see him. Not that I pretend to the smallest right to do so; but we were very good friends once—before my husband's death. He has changed to me strangely since that time."
Gilbert felt that it was almost cruel to keep this poor little soul in utter ignorance of the truth. He did not consider himself at liberty to say much; but some vague word of warning might serve as a slight check upon the waste of feeling which was going on in the widow's heart.
"There may be a reason for that change, Mrs. Branston," he said. "Mr. Saltram may have formed some tie of a kind to withdraw him from all other friendships."
"Some attachment, you mean!" exclaimed the widow; "some other attachment," she added, forgetting how much the words betrayed. "Do you think that, Mr. Fenton? Do you think that John Saltram has some secret love-affair upon his mind?"
"I have some reason to suspect as much, from words that he has dropped during his delirium."
There was a look of unspeakable pain in Mrs. Branston's face, which had grown deadly pale when Gilbert first spoke of John Saltram's illness. The pretty childish lips quivered a little, and her companion knew that she was suffering keenly.
"Have you any idea who the lady is?" she asked quietly, and with more self-command than Gilbert had expected from her.
"I have some idea."
"It is no one whom I know, I suppose?"
"The lady is quite a stranger to you."
"He might have trusted me," she said mournfully; "it would have been kinder in him to have trusted me."
"Yes, Mrs. Branston; but Mr. Saltram has unfortunately made concealment the policy of his life. He will find it a false policy sooner or late."
"It was very cruel of him not to tell me the truth. He might have known that I should look kindly upon any one he cared for. I may be a very foolish woman, Mr. Fenton, but I am not ungenerous."
"I am sure of that," Gilbert said warmly, touched by her candour.
"You must let me know every day how your friend is going on, Mr. Fenton," Adela said after a pause; "I shall consider it a very great favour if you will do so."
"I will not fail."
They had returned to Cumberland-gate by this time, and at Gilbert's request Mrs. Branston allowed him to be set down near the Arch. He called a cab, and drove to the Temple; while poor Adela went back to the splendid gloom of Cavendish-square, with all the fabric of her future life shattered.
Until this hour she had looked upon John Saltram's fidelity to herself as a certainty; she knew, now that her hope was slain all at once, what a living thing it had been, and how great a portion of her own existence had taken its colour therefrom.
It was fortunate for Mrs. Branston that Mrs. Pallinson's toothache, and the preparations and medicaments supplied to her by her son—all declared to be infallible, and all ending in ignominious failure—occupied that lady's attention at this period, to the exclusion of every other thought, or Adela's pale face might have excited more curiosity than it did. As it was, the matron contented herself by making some rather snappish remarks upon the folly of going out to drive late on a January afternoon, and retired to administer poultices and cataplasms to herself in the solitude of her own apartment soon after dinner, leaving Adela Branston free to ponder upon John Saltram's cruelty.
"If he had only trusted me," she said to herself more than once during those mournful meditations; "if he had only given me credit for some little good sense and generosity, I should not feel it as keenly as I do. He must have known that I loved him—yes, I have been weak enough to let him see that—and I think that once he used to like me a little—in those old happy days when he came so often to Maidenhead. Yes, I believe he almost loved me then."
And then the thought that this man was lying desperately ill, perhaps in danger of death, blotted out every other thought. It was so bitter to know him in peril, and to be powerless to go to him; worse than useless to him were she by his side, since it was another whose image haunted his wandering brain—another whose voice he longed to hear.
She spent a sleepless melancholy night, and had no rest next day, until a commissionnaire brought her a brief note from Gilbert Fenton, telling her that if there were any change at all in the patient, it was on the side of improvement.
CHAPTER XXXV
BOUGHT WITH A PRICE
Ellen Carley was not allowed any time to take back the promise given to her father, had she been inclined to do so. Mr. Whitelaw made his appearance at the Grange early in the evening of the 2nd of January, with a triumphant simper upon his insipid countenance, which was inexpressibly provoking to the unhappy girl. It was clear to her, at first sight of him, that her father had been at Wyncomb that afternoon, and her hateful suitor came secure of success. His wooing was not a very romantic episode in his commonplace existence. He did not even attempt to see Ellen alone; but after he had been seated for about half-an-hour in the chimney-corner, nestling close to the fire in a manner he much affected, being of a particularly chilly temperament, given to shiver and turn blue on the smallest provocation, he delivered himself solemnly of the following address:—
"I make no doubt, Miss Carley, that you have taken notice for some time past of my sentiments towards yourself. I have never made any secret of those sentiments, neither have I talked much about them, not being a man of many words. I used to fancy myself the very reverse of a marrying man, and I don't say but what at this moment I think the man who lives and dies a bachelor does the wisest for his own comfort and his own prosperity. But we are not the masters of our feelings, Miss Carley. You have growed upon me lately somehow, so that I've got not to care for my life without you. Ask Mrs. Tadman if my appetite hasn't fell off within this last six months to a degree that has frightened her; and a man of my regular habits must be very far gone in love, Miss Carley, when his appetite forsakes him. From the time I came to know you as a young woman, in the bloom of a young woman's beauty, I said to myself, 'That's the girl I'll marry, and no other.' Your father can bear me out in that, for I said the same to him. And finding that I had his approval, I was satisfied to bide my time, and wait till you came round to the same way of thinking. Your father tells me yesterday afternoon, and again this afternoon, that you have come round to that way of feeling. I hope he hasn't deceived me, Miss Carley."
This was a very long speech for Stephen Whitelaw. It was uttered in little gasps or snatches of speech, the speaker stopping at the end of every sentence to take breath.
Ellen Carley sat on that side of the comfortable round table most remote from Mr. Whitelaw, deadly pale, with her hands clasped before her. Once she lifted her eyes with a piteous look to her father's face; but he was smoking his pipe solemnly, with his gaze fixed upon the blazing logs in the grate, and contrived not to see that mute despairing appeal. He had not looked at his daughter once since Stephen Whitelaw's arrival, nor had he made any attempt to prepare her for this visit, this rapid consummation of the sacrifice.
"Come, Miss Carley," said the former rather impatiently, after there had been a dead silence of some minutes, "I want to get an answer direct from your own lips. Your father hasn't been deceiving me, has he?"
"No," Ellen said in a low voice, almost as if the reply were dragged from her by some physical torture. "If my father has given you a promise for me, I will keep it. But I don't want to deceive you, on my part, Mr. Whitelaw," she went on in a somewhat firmer tone. "I will be your wife, since you and my father have settled that it must be so; but I can promise no more than that. I will be dutiful and submissive to you as a wife, you may be sure—only——"
Mr. Whitelaw smiled a very significant smile, which implied that it would be his care to insure his wife's obedience, and that he was troubled by no doubts upon that head.
The bailiff broke-in abruptly at this juncture.
"Lord bless the girl, what need is there of all this talk about what she will be and what she won't be? She'll be as good a wife as any woman in England, I'll stake my life upon that. She's been a good daughter, as all the world knows, and a good daughter is bound to make a good wife. Say no more about it, Nell. Stephen Whitelaw knows he'll make no bad bargain in marrying you."
The farmer received this remark with a loud sniff, expressive of offended dignity.
"Very likely not, William Carley," he said; "but it isn't every man that can make your daughter mistress of such a place as Wyncomb; and such men as could do it would look for money with a wife, however young and pretty she might be. There's two sides to a bargain, you see, William, and I should like things to be looked at in that light between you and me."
"You've no call to take offence, Steph," answered the bailiff with a conciliating grin. "I never said you wasn't a good match for my girl; but a pretty girl and a prudent clever housekeeper like Nell is a fortune in herself to any man."
"Then the matter's settled, I suppose," said Mr. Whitelaw; "and the sooner the wedding comes off the better, to my mind. If my wife that is to be wants anything in the way of new clothes, I shall be happy to put down a twenty-pound note—or I'd go as far as thirty—towards 'em."
Ellen shook her head impatiently.
"I want nothing new," she said; "I have as many things as I care to have."
"Nonsense, Nell," cried her father, frowning at her in a significant manner to express his disapproval of this folly, and in so doing looking at her for the first time since her suitor's advent. "Every young woman likes new gowns, and of course you'll take Steph's friendly offer, and thank him kindly for it. He knows that I'm pretty hard-up just now, and won't be able to do much for you; and it wouldn't do for Mrs. Whitelaw of Wyncomb to begin the world with a shabby turn-out."
"Of course not," replied the farmer; "I'll bring you the cash to-morrow evening, Nell; and the sooner you buy your wedding-gown the better. There's nothing to wait for, you see. I've got a good home to take you to. Mother Tadman will march, of course, between this and my wedding-day. I sha'n't want her when I've a wife to keep house for me."
"Of course not," said the bailiff. "Relations are always dangerous about a place—ready to make mischief at every hand's turn."
"O, Mr. Whitelaw, you won't turn her out, surely—your own flesh and blood, and after so many years of service. She told me how hard she had worked for you."
"Ah, that's just like her," growled the farmer. "I give her a comfortable home for all these years, and then she grumbles about the work."
"She didn't grumble," said Ellen hastily. "She only told me how faithfully she had served you."
"Yes; that comes to the same thing. I should have thought you would have liked to be mistress of your house, Nell, without any one to interfere with you."
"Mrs. Tadman is nothing to me," answered Ellen, who had been by no means prepossessed by that worthy matron; "but I shouldn't like her to be unfairly treated on my account."
"Well, we'll think about it, Nell; there's no hurry. She's worth her salt, I daresay."
Mr. Whitelaw seemed to derive a kind of satisfaction from the utterance of his newly-betrothed's Christian name, which came as near the rapture of a lover as such a sluggish nature might be supposed capable of. To Ellen there was something hideous in the sound of her own name spoken by those hateful lips; but he had a sovereign right so to address her, now and for evermore. Was she not his goods, his chattels, bought with a price, as much as a horse at a fair?
That nothing might be wanting to remind her of the sordid bargain, Mr. Whitelaw drew a small canvas bag from his pocket presently—a bag which gave forth that pleasant chinking sound that is sweet to the ears of so many as the music of gold—and handed it across the hearth to William Carley.
"I'm as good as my word, you see," he said with a complacent air of patronage. "There's the favour you asked me for; I'll take your IOU for it presently, if it's all the same to you—as a matter of form—and to be given back to you upon my wedding-day."
The bailiff nodded assent, and dropped the bag into his pocket with a sigh of relief. And then the two men went on smoking their pipes in the usual stolid way, dropping out a few words now and then by way of social converse; and there was nothing in Mr. Whitelaw's manner to remind Ellen that she had bound herself to the awful apprenticeship of marriage without love. But when he took his leave that night he approached her with such an evident intention of kissing her as could not be mistaken by the most inexperienced of maidens. Poor Ellen indulged in no girlish resistance, no pretty little comedy of alarm and surprise, but surrendered her pale lips to the hateful salute with the resignation of a martyr. It was better that she should suffer this than that her father should go to gaol. That thought was never absent from her mind. Nor was this sacrifice to filial duty quite free from the leaven of selfishness. For her own sake, as much as for her father's, Ellen Carley would have submitted to any penalty rather than disgrace. To have him branded as a thief must needs be worse suffering than any life-long penance she might endure in matrimony. To lose Frank Randall's love was less than to let him learn her father's guilt.
"The daughter of a thief!" she said to herself. "How he would despise himself for having ever loved me, if he knew me to be that!"
CHAPTER XXXVI
COMING ROUND
Possessed with a thorough distrust of Mr. Medler and only half satisfied as to the fact of Marian's safety, Gilbert Fenton lost no time in seeking professional aid in the work of investigating this perplexing social mystery. He went once more to the metropolitan detective who had been with him in Hampshire, and whose labours there had proved so futile. The task now to be performed seemed easy enough. Mr. Proul (Proul was the name of the gentleman engaged by Gilbert) had only to discover the whereabouts of Percival Nowell; a matter of no great difficulty, Gilbert imagined, since it was most likely that Marian's father had frequent personal communication with the lawyer; nor was it improbable that he would have business with his agent or representative, Mr. Tulliver, in Queen Anne's Court. Provided with these two addresses, Gilbert fancied that Mr. Proul's work must needs be easy enough.
That gentleman, however, was not disposed to make light of the duty committed to him; whether from a professional habit of exaggerating the importance of any mission undertaken by him, or in perfect singleness of mind, it is not easy to say.
"It's a watching business, you see sir," he told Gilbert, "and is pretty sure to be tedious. I may put a man to hang about this Mr. Medler's business all day and every day for a month at a stretch, and he may miss his customer at the last, especially as you can't give me any kind of description of the man you want."
"Surely your agent could get some information out of Medler's clerk; it's in his trade to do that kind of thing, isn't it?"
"Well, yes, sir; I don't deny that I might put a man on to the clerk, and it might answer. On the other hand, such a gentleman's clerk would be likely to be uncommon well trained and uncommon little trusted."
"But we want to know so little," Gilbert exclaimed impatiently; "only where this man lives, and who lives with him."
"Yes," murmured Mr. Proul, rubbing his chin thoughtfully; "it ain't much, as you say, and it might be got out of the clerk, if the clerk knows it; but as to Mrs. Holbrook having got away from Hampshire and come to London, that's more than I can believe. I worked that business harder and closer than ever I worked any business yet. You told me to spare neither money nor time, and I didn't spare either; though it was more a question of time than money, for my expenses were light enough, as you know. I don't believe Mrs. Holbrook could have got away from Malsham station up to the time when I left Hampshire. I'm pretty certain she couldn't have left the place any other way than by rail; I'm more than certain she couldn't have been living anywhere in the neighbourhood when I was hunting for her. In short, it comes to this—I stick to my old opinion, that the poor lady was drowned in Malsham river."
This was just what Gilbert, happily for his own peace, could not bring himself to believe. He was ready to confide in Mr. Medler as a model of truth and honesty, rather than admit the possibility of Marian's death.
"We have this man Medler's positive assertion, that Mrs. Holbrook is with her father, you see, Mr. Proul," he said doubtfully.
"That for Medler's assertion!" exclaimed the detective contemptuously; "there are lawyers in London who will assert anything for a consideration. Let him produce the lady; and if he does produce her, I give him leave to say that Thomas Henry Proul is incapable of his business; or, putting it in vulgar English, that T.H.P. is a duffer. Of course I shall carry out any business you like to trust me with, Mr. Fenton, and carry it out thoroughly. I'll set a watch upon Mr. Medler's offices, and I'll circumvent him by means of his clerk, if I can; but it's my rooted conviction that Mrs. Holbrook never left Hampshire."
This was discouraging; and with that ready power to adapt itself to circumstances which is a distinguishing characteristic of the human mind, Gilbert Fenton began to entertain a very poor opinion of the worthy Proul's judgment. But not knowing any better person whose aid he could enlist in this business, he was fain to confide his chances of success to that gentleman, and to wait with all patience for the issue of events. Much of this dreary interval of perpetual doubt and suspense was spent beside John Saltram's sick bed. There were strangely mingled feelings in the watcher's breast; a pitying regret that struggled continually with his natural anger; a tender remembrance of past friendship, which he despised as a shameful weakness in his nature, but could not banish from his mind, as he sat in the stillness of the sick-room, watching the helpless creature who had once kept as faithful a vigil for him.
To John Saltram's recovery he looked also as to his best chance of restoring Marian to her natural home. The influence that he himself was powerless to bring to bear upon Percival Nowell's daughter might be easily exerted by her husband.
"She was lured away from him, perhaps, by some specious lie of her father's, some cruel slander of the husband. There had been bitter words between them. Saltram has betrayed as much in his wandering talk; but to the last there was no feeling but love for him in her heart. Ellen Carley is my witness for that; nothing less than some foul lie could have tempted her away from him."
In the meantime, pending the sick man's recovery, the grand point was to discover the whereabouts of Marian and her father; and for this discovery Gilbert was compelled to trust to the resources of the accomplished Proul. So eager was he for the result, that if he could have kept a watch upon Mr. Medler's office with his own eyes, he would have done so; but this being out of the question, and the more prudent course a complete avoidance of the lawyer's neighbourhood, he could only await the result of his paid agent's researches, in the hope that Mr. Nowell was still in London, and would have need of frequent communication with his late father's solicitor. The first month of the year dragged itself slowly to an end, and the great city underwent all those pleasing alternations, from snow to mud, from the slipperiness of a city paved with plate-glass to the sloppiness of a metropolis ankle-deep in a rich brown compound of about the consistency and colour of mock-turtle soup, which are common to great cities at this season; and still John Saltram lingered on in the shabby solitude of his Temple chambers, slowly mending, Mr. Mew declared, towards the end of the month, and in a fair way towards recovery. The time came at last when the fevered mind began to cease from its perpetual wanderings; when the weary brain, sorely enfeebled by its long interval of unnatural activity, dropped suddenly into a state of calm that was akin to apathy.
The change came with an almost alarming suddenness. It was at the beginning of February, close upon the dead small hours of a bleak windy night, and Gilbert was keeping watch alone in the sick-room, while the professional nurse slept comfortably on the sofa in the sitting-room. It was his habit now to spend the early part of the night in such duty as this, and to go home to bed between four and five in the morning, at which time the nurse was ready to relieve guard.
He had been listening to the dismal howling of the winds, threatening damage to neighbouring chimney-pots of rickety constitution, and thinking idly of the men that had come and gone amidst those old buildings, and how few amongst them all had left any mark behind them; inclined to speculate too how many of them had been men capable of better work than they had done, only carelessly indifferent to the doing of it, like him who lay on that bed yonder, with one muscular arm, powerful even in its wasted condition, thrown wearily above his head, and an undefinable look, that seemed half pain, half fatigue, upon his haggard face.
Suddenly, while Gilbert Fenton was meditating in this idle desultory manner, the sleeper awakened, looked full at him, and called him by his name.
"Gilbert," he said very quietly, "is it really you?"
It was the first time, in all his long watches by that bed, that John Saltram had recognised him. The sick man had talked of him often in his delirium; but never before had he looked his former friend in the face with one ray of recognition in his own. An indescribable thrill of pain went through Gilbert's heart at the sound of that calm utterance of his name. How sweet it would have been to him, what a natural thing it would have seemed, to have fallen upon his old friend's breast and wept aloud in the deep joy of this recovery! But they were friends no longer. He had to remember how base a traitor this man had been to him.
"Yes, John, it is I."
"And you have been here for a long time. O God, how many months have I been lying here? The time seems endless; and there have been so many people round me—a crowd of strange faces—all enemies, all against me. And people in the next room—that was the worst of all. I have never seen them, but I have always known that they were there. They could not deceive me as to that—hiding behind that door, and watching me as I lay here. You might have turned them out, Gilbert," he added peevishly; "it seems a hard thing that you could let them stay there to torment me."
"There has been no one in either of the rooms, John; no one but myself and the hired nurse, the doctors, and Mrs. Pratt now and then. These people have no existence out of your sick fancy. You have been very ill, delirious, for a long time. I thank God that your reason has been restored to you; yes, I thank God with all my heart for that."
"Have I been mad?" the other asked.
"Your mind has wandered. But that has passed at last with the fever, as the doctors hoped it might. You are calm now, and must try to keep yourself quiet; there must be no more talk between us to-night."
The sick man took no notice of this injunction; but for the time was not disobedient, and lay for some minutes staring at the watcher's face with a strange half-vacant smile upon his own.
"Gilbert," he said at last, "what have they done with my wife? Why has she been kept away from me?"
"Your wife? Marian?"
"Yes Marian. You know her name, surely. Did she know that I was ill, and yet stayed away from me?"
"Was her place here, John Saltram?—that poor girl whom you married under a false name, whom you tried to hide from all the world. Have you ever brought her here? Have you ever given her a wife's license, or a wife's place? How many lies have you not told to hide that which any honest man would have been proud to confess to all the world?"
"Yes, I have lied to you about her, I have hidden my treasure. But it was for your sake, Gilbert; it was for the sake of our old friendship. I could not bear to lose you; I could not bear to stand revealed before you as the weak wretch who betrayed your trust and stole your promised wife. Yes, Gilbert, I have been guilty beyond all measure. I have looked you in the face and told you lies. I wanted to keep you for my friend; I could not stand the thought of a life-long breach between us. Gilbert, old friend, have pity on me. I was weak—wicked, if you like—but I loved you very dearly."
He stretched out his bony hand with an appealing gesture, but it was not taken. Gilbert sat with his head turned away, his face hidden from the sick man.
"Anything would have been better than the course you chose," he said at last in a very quiet voice. "If she loved you better than me—than me, who would have thought it so small a thing to lay down my life for her happiness, or to stand aloof and keep the secret of my broken heart while I blest her as the cherished wife of another—if you had certain reason to be sure she loved you, you should have asserted your right to claim her love like a man, and should have been prompt to tell me the bitter truth. I am a man, and would have borne the blow as a man should bear it. But to sneak into my place behind my back, to steal her away from me, to marry her under a false name—a step that might go far to invalidate the marriage, by the way—and then leave me to piece-out the broken story, syllable by syllable, to suffer all the torture of a prolonged suspense, all the wasted passion of anger and revenge against an imaginary enemy, to find at last that the man I had loved and trusted, honoured and admired beyond all other men throughout the best years of my life, was the man who had struck this secret blow—it was the conduct of a villain and a coward, John Saltram. I have no words to speak my contempt for so base a betrayal. And when I remember your pretended sympathy, your friendly counsel—O God! it was the work of a social Judas; nothing was wanted but the kiss."
"Yes," the other answered with a faint bitter laugh; "it was very bad. Once having begun, you see, it was but to add one lie to another. Anything seemed better than to tell you the truth. I fancied your devotion for Marian would wear itself out much sooner than it did—that you would marry some one else; and then I thought, when you were happy, and had forgotten that old fancy, I would have confessed the truth, and told you it was your friend who was your rival. It might have seemed easy to you to forgive me under those happier circumstances, and so our old friendship might never have been broken. I waited for that, Gilbert. Don't suppose that it was not painful to me to act so base a part; don't suppose that I did not suffer. I did—in a hundred ways. You have seen the traces of that slow torture in my face. In every way I had sinned from my weak desire to win my love and yet keep my friend; and God knows the burden of my sin has been heavy upon me. I will tell you some day—if ever I am strong enough for so many words, and if you will hear me out patiently—the whole story of my temptation; how I struggled against it, and only gave way at last when life seemed insupportable to me without the woman I loved."
After this he lay quiet again for some minutes, exhausted by having spoken so long. All the factitious strength, which had made him loud and violent in his delirium, was gone; he seemed as weak as a sick child.
"Where is she?" he asked at last; "why doesn't she come to me? You have not answered that question."
"I have told you that her place is not here," Gilbert replied evasively. "You have no right to expect her here, never having given her the right to come."
"No; it is my own fault. She is in Hampshire still, I suppose. Poor girl, I would give the world to see her dear face looking down at me. I must get well and go back to her. When shall I be strong enough to travel?—to-morrow, or if not to-morrow, the next day; surely the next day—eh, Gilbert?"
He raised himself in the bed in order to read the answer in Gilbert's face, but fell back upon the pillows instantly, exhausted by the effort. Memory had only returned to him in part. It was clear that he had forgotten the fact of Marian's disappearance,—a fact of which he had seemed half-conscious long ago in his delirium.
"How did you find out that Marian was my wife?" he asked presently, with perfect calmness. "Who betrayed my secret?"
"Your own lips, in your delirious talk of her, which has been incessant; and if collateral evidence were needed to confirm your words, this, which I found the other day marking a place in your Shakespeare."
Gilbert took a scrap of ribbon from his breast, a ribbon with a blue ground and a rosebud on it,—a ribbon which he had chosen himself for Marian, in the brief happy days of their engagement.
John Saltram contemplated the scrap of colour with a smile that was half sombre, half ironical.
"Yes, it was hers," he said; "she wore it round that slim swan's throat of hers; and one morning, when I was leaving her in a particularly weak frame of mind, I took it from her neck and brought it away in my bosom, for the sake of having something about me that she had worn; and then I put it in the book, you see, and forgot all about it. A fitting emblem of my love—full of passion and fervour to-day, at the point of death to-morrow. There have been times when I would have given the world to undo what I had done, when my life seemed blighted by this foolish marriage; and again, happier moments, when my wife was all the universe to me, and I had not a thought or a dream beyond her. God bless her! You will let me go to her, Gilbert, the instant I am able to travel, as soon as I can drag myself anyhow from this bed to the railway? You will not stand between me and my love?"
"No, John Saltram; God knows, I have never thought of that."
"And you knew I was a traitor—you knew it was my work that had destroyed your scheme of happiness—and yet have been beside me, watching me patiently through this wretched illness?"
"That was a small thing to do You did as much, and a great deal more, for me, when I was ill in Egypt. It was a mere act of duty."
"Not of friendship. It was Christian charity, eh, Gilbert? If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; and so on. It was not the act of a friend?"
"No, John Saltram, between you and me there can never again be any such word as friendship. What little I have done for you I think I would have done for a stranger, had I found a stranger as helpless and unfriended as I found you. I am quite sure that to have done less would have been to neglect a sacred duty. There is no question of obligation. Till you are on your feet again, a strong man, I will stand by you; when that time comes, we part for ever."
John Saltram sank back upon his pillow with a heavy sigh, but uttered no protest against this sentence. And this was all that came of Gilbert's vengeful passion against the man who had wronged him; this was the end of a long-cherished anger. "A lame and impotent conclusion," perhaps, but surely the only end possible under the circumstances. He could not wage war against a feeble creature, whose hold on life was still an uncertainty; he could not forget his promise to Marian, that no harm should come to her husband through any act of his. So he sat quietly by the bedside of his prostrate foe, watched him silently as he fell into a brief restless slumber, and administered his medicine when he woke with a hand that was as gentle as a woman's.
Between four and five o'clock the nurse came in from the next room to take her place, refreshed by a sleep of several hours; and then Gilbert departed in the chill gloom of the winter's morning, still as dark as night,—departed with his mind lightened of a great load; for it had been very terrible to him to think that the man who had once been his friend might go down to the grave without an interval of reason.