It was a very curious ménage that of the Forresters'. They were wonderfully happy, yet you could not call theirs domestic felicity. They went out perpetually every where, and were scarcely ever alone together at home. Tho cold-water cure of matrimony had not been able to cool either down into the dignity and steadiness befitting that honorable state. As far as I could see, Charley flirted as much as ever; the only difference was, that he stole upon his victims now with a sort of protecting and paternal air, merging gradually, as the interest deepened, into the old confidential style. The whole effect was, if any thing, more seductive than before.
The fair Venetians admired him intensely. His bright, clear complexion and rich chestnut hair had the charm of novelty for them. Though without the faintest respect for grammar or idiom, he spoke their language with perfect composure, confidence, and self-satisfaction, and his tones were so well adapted to the slow, soft, languid tongue, that his blunders sounded better than other men's correctness of speech. Mallem mehercule cum Platone errare. When he said "Si, Siora," it seemed as if he were calling the lady by a pet name.
Isabel did a good deal of mischief too in her unassuming way, but I think she confined her depredations chiefly to her compatriots.
The best of it was, that neither objected in the least to the other's proceedings, appearing, indeed, to consider them rather creditable than otherwise. Perhaps it would be as well if this principle of reciprocal free agency were somewhat extended, though not quite to the latitude to which they carried it.
We can not send our wives about surrounded by a detachment of semiviri to keep the peace; our climate is too uncertain, and influenza too prevalent, for us to watch their windows ourselves, as they do at Cadiz. Fancy mounting guard in Eaton Square at 4 P.M., shrouded in a yellow fog, on the chance of surprising a forbidden morning visitor!
Supposing that we could adopt either of those methods, why should they prove more efficacious than they are said to be on their native soil? If the British husband will allow nothing for the principles, charitably supposed by others to be inherent in the wife of his bosom—nothing for the Damoclean damages hanging over the imaginary plotter against his peace—why should he depreciate his own merits and powers so completely as to consider himself out of the lists altogether? If he would only desist from making himself consistently disagreeable, I believe, in most cases, his substantial interest would be little endangered.
That poor Hephæstus! The net was an ingenious device, and a pretty piece of workmanship, but—it didn't answer.
In despite of Mrs. Ellis, there are women whose mission it is not to be good housewives; they can't be useful if they would, any more than May-flies can spin silk. Like them, they can attract fish (and sometimes get snapped up if they go too close), that's all. If you marry them, you must accept them as they are, and take your chance. Be generous, then, and don't stop their waltzing. I believe there may be flirting without the most distant idea of criminality—fencing with wooden foils, where no blood is drawn.
A lady was asked the other day "what she did when an admirer became too lover-like." Her answer was, "I never had such a case." I think she spoke the truth; yet she was a coquette renowned through a good part of two hemispheres.
As for the doubts and fears of the other sex, the subject is too vast for me. To the end of time there will be Deianiras (with imaginary Ioles), Zaras, and Mrs. Caudles. Tragedy and comedy have tried in vain to frighten or to laugh them out of the indulgence of the fatal passion, that wreaks itself indiscriminately on the beat and the worst, the youngest and the oldest, the simplest and the most guileful of adult males. Let us not attempt to argue, then, but, wrapping ourselves in our virtue, endure as best we may the groundless reproaches and accusations of our ox-eyed Junos.
We did Venice very severely, with the exception of Forrester, who, after strolling once through the Palace of the Doges (a pilgrimage interrupted by many halts and profuse lamentations), declined seeing any thing more than what he could view from his gondola. I never saw any one so completely at home in that most delicious of conveyances. His Venetian friends encouraged and sympathized with him in his laziness, and pitied him with eyes and words, forever being teased about it. Indeed, he was generally left alone; but one day we were landing to see a church of great repute, and Miss Devereux made a strong appeal to him to follow her. She was a handsome, clever girl, a great favorite of Charley's. I believe they used to quarrel and make it up again about six times in every twenty-four hours. We saw that it was hopeless, but she was obstinate enough to try and persuade him.
"Now, Captain Forrester, you must come. I have set my heart upon it."
He lifted his long eyelashes in a languid satisfaction. "Thank you very much; I like people to be interested about me; but you see it's simply impossible. Look at Rinaldo; there's a sensible example for you. He doesn't mean to stir till he is obliged to do so." The handsome gondolier had already couched, to enjoy a bask in the sun, which was blazing fiercely down on his brown face and magnificent black hair.
"There is the most perfect Titian," she persisted.
"No use. I should not appreciate it," he replied. "I have been through a gallery with you before. It's a delusion and a snare. I never looked at a single picture. The canvas won't stand the comparison."
"I did not think you would have refused me," Miss Devereux went on, "particularly after last night, when you were so very—amusing." She hesitated out the last word with a blush. It evidently was not the adjective that ought to have closed the sentence.
"Amusing!" replied Charley, plaintively. "You need not say any more. I am crushed for the day. I meant to be especially touching and pathetic. Well, there's some good in every thing, though. I entertained an angel unawares."
"I shall know how far to believe you another time, at all events," she retorted, getting rather provoked.
"Don't be unjust," said Forrester, profoundly regardless of the fact that his wife was within three paces of them. "I said I was ready to die for you. So I am. You may fix the time, but I may choose the place. If you insist upon it, I'll make an end of it now—here." And he settled himself deeper into the pile of cushions.
We had no patience to listen to any more, but went off to perform our duty. Long before he had exhausted his arguments against moving, we had returned. Margaret Devereux missed seeing the church and its Titian, but she got a "great moral lesson." She never wasted her pretty pleadings in such a hopeless cause again.
I remember, when we mounted the Campanile, the solemn way in which he wished us buon viaggio. When we reached the top, we made out his figure reclining on many chairs in front of "Florian's."
He saw us, too, and lifted the glass before him to his lips with a wave of approval and encouragement, just as they do at Chamounix when the telescopes make out a few black specks on the white crests of the mountain. When we came down, he stopped us before we could say one word. "Yes, I know—it was magnificent. Bella, I see you are going to rave about the view. If you do, I'll shut you up for a week en penitence, and feed you on nothing but 'Bradshaw' and water."
We spent a very pleasant month in Venice. It did Guy good being with the Forresters. He had always been very fond of his cousin, and she seemed to suit him better than any one else now. She would sit by him for hours, talking in her low, caressing tones, that soothed him like a cool soft hand laid on a forehead fever-heated. Isabel was not afraid of him now, but a great awe mingled with her pity.
It is curious, and tells well perhaps for our human nature; neither pride of birth, nor complete success, nor profound wisdom, surrounds a man with such reverence as the being possessed with a great sorrow. At least no one can envy him; and so those who were his enemies once—like the gallant Frenchman when he saw his adversary's empty sleeve—bring their swords to the salute, and pass on.
At last we started for Rome, our party nearly filling two carriages. There are only two ways of traveling: in your own carriage, with courier and fourgon, like Russian or transatlantic noble, or with vetturino. This last mode, which was ours, is scarcely less pleasant, if you are not in a hurry. The charm of having, for a certain period, every care as to ways and means off your mind, compensates for the six-miles-an-hour pace. So we moved slowly southward through Verona, where one thinks more of the Avon than the Adige—where, in tombs poised like Mohammed's coffin, the mighty Scagliari sleep between earth and heaven, as if not quite fit for either—where are the cypresses in the trim old garden, soaring skyward till the eyes that follow grow dizzy, the trees that were green and luxuriant years before the world was redeemed. So through Mantua and Bologna down to Florence, where, I think, the spirits of Catharine and Cosmo linger yet, the women and the men all so soft-toned, and silky, and sinful, and cruel. We did not stay long there, for we had all visited it before once or twice, but kept on our way, by the upper road, to Rome, till we reached our last halting-place—Civita Castellana.
We were gathered round the wood fire after dinner (for the October evenings grew chilly as they closed in); I don't know how it was that Forrester began telling us about their flight.
"You ought to have seen Bella's baggage," he said, at last; "it was so compact. You can't fancy any thing so tiny as the sac de nuit. A courier's moneybag would make two of it. Then a vast cloak, and that's all. Quite in light marching order."
"I wonder you are not ashamed to talk about baggage," his wife retorted. "When we got to Dover, there was his servant with four immense portmanteaus and a dressing-case nearly as large, waiting for us. Was it not romantic?"
"Bah!" Charley said. "A man must have his comforts, even if he is eloping. I am sure I arranged every thing superbly. I don't know how I did it—an undeveloped talent for intrigue, I suppose."
"Was it not kind of him to take so much trouble?" Isabel asked, quite innocently, and in perfect good faith, I am sure; but her husband pinched the little pink ear that was within his reach.
"She means to be sarcastic," he said. "You've spoiled her, Guy. If I had had time to deliberate, though, I don't think I should ever have come to the post. I wonder how any one stands the training."
"I'll tell you what would have suited you exactly," Livingstone remarked—"to have been one of those men in the Arabian Nights, who wake and find themselves at a strange city's gate, 10,000 leagues from home, to whom there comes up a venerable vizier, saying, 'My son, heaven has blessed me with one daughter, a very pearl of beauty; many have sought her in marriage, but in vain. Your appearance pleases me, and I would have you for my son-in-law.'"
"Exactly," said Forrester. "I should not have minded turning out somebody else's child eventually—(they all did that, didn't they?)—for such a piece of luck as to be taken in and done for off-hand, without the trouble of thinking about it."
Instead of looking vexed, Isabel laughed merrily, and her eyes glittered as they rested on him, full of a proud, loving happiness.
"The best of it was," Charley went on, "she was in the most dreadful state of alarm and excitement all the way to Dover, looking out at every station, under the impression that she should see the bridegroom there, 'dangling his bonnet and plume' (though how he was to have got ahead of us, unless he came by electric telegraph, does not appear). What sport it would have been! I should have liked so to have seen the 'laggard in love' once more."
"He was not quite that," Isabel interrupted, rather mischievously.
"Ah! I dare say you kept him up to the traces," her husband remarked, languidly. "You have a talent that way. What 'passages,' as Varney called them, there must have been, eh! Guy? We won't hear your confession now, Puss. In pity to Mademoiselle Agläe's eyes (which are very fine), if not to your own (which are very useful), I think you had better go to bed. That ferocious vetturino will have us up at unholy hours, and is not to be mitigated."
We sat talking for a little while after Isabel left us; then Forrester rose and strolled to the window. The flood of light that poured in when he drew the curtain was quite startling, making the three beaked oil lamps look smoky and dim.
"I shall smoke my last cigar al fresco," Charley said; "I suppose it's the correct thing to do, with such a moon as that. Won't you come, Guy? I must not tempt you out into the night air, Hammond."
"Not to-night," Livingstone answered. "I am not in the humor for admiring any thing. I should be rather in your way."
One of his gloomy fits was coming over him, at which times he always chose to be alone.
"Well, I shall go and consume the 'humble, but not wholly heart-broken weed of every-day life,' as Tyrrell used to say. (Don't you remember his double-barreled adjectives?) If you hear any one singing very sweetly, don't be alarmed; you'll know it is the harmless lunatic who now addresses you; the fit won't last more than an hour. We shall be in Rome to-morrow. The only thing on my mind now is whether I shall find any thing there to carry me across the Campagna. K—— has a very fair pack, I understand, and no end of foxes."
Have you ever watched the completion of a photograph, when the nitrate of silver (or whatever the last lotion may be) is applied? First one feature comes out, that you may indulgently mistake for a tree, or a gable-end, or a mountain top; then another, till the whole picture stands out in clear, brilliant relief.
Just so when I recall that scene—little heed as I took at the time of them—every gesture, and look, and tone of Forrester's becomes as distinct as if he stood in the body before me now. I can see him standing in the shadow of the doorway, the red glare from the blazing wood with which he was lighting his cigar falling over his delicate features and bright chestnut hair—I can hear his kind soft voice as he speaks these last two words, "Al rivederci."
Whether that wish will be accomplished hereafter, God alone can tell; if so, it must be beyond the grave. In life we never saw him any more.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Three quarters of an hour later, Guy was sitting in his room, gazing at the embers on the hearth, in the attitude of moody thought that of late he was apt to fall into. Suddenly there came a timid knock at his door. When he opened it, his cousin stood on the threshold—ghost-like, against the background of darkness, with her white dressing-gown, pale cheeks, and long hair unbound.
"Guy, don't be angry," she said; "it's very foolish of me, I know; but Charley has not come in yet, and just now I am certain there was a shot quite near. Agläe heard nothing, but I did. You know he always carries a pistol. I made him do so. It is nothing, I am sure; but I am so frightened. If you would—"
She tried to smile, but that ghastly look of terror that he had seen once before, long ago, in the library at Kerton Manor, again swept over, and possessed all her face like a white chill mist.
"Don't be absurd, you silly child," Guy said, kindly. "Of course I'll go out directly, and bring him in in five minutes, to laugh at you. Now go back to your room; there's nothing on earth to be alarmed about."
But the instant she had gone, I heard his voice quick and stern: "Frank, come here." There was a door of communication between our rooms, and, though it was closed, I had caught some words of this conversation, so I was ready nearly as soon as he. Guy only staid to take a short lance-wood club, headed with a spiked steel head, which was his constant traveling companion—a very simple weapon, but deadly in his hands as the axe of Richard the King—and then we sallied out, taking our servants and some other men that were below, with torches, in case the moon should fail us unexpectedly.
Twice, three times, when we had gone a short distance, Livingstone shouted Forrester's name. His powerful voice rang far through the ravines, and struck against the rocks, rolling and reverberating in their hollows like a blast fired in a deep mine; but no answer came.
I looked at my companion very nervously. He never spoke, but I saw him gnaw his under lip till the blood ran down.
We had gone a hundred paces or so farther along a narrow path outside the town. On our right the cliff fell almost abruptly toward the river. Guy was a few paces in front, when suddenly there broke from his lips such a sound as I have never heard from those of any mortal before or since.
It is impossible to describe it. It was utterly involuntary, as if some spirit had spoken within the man—a cry of horror and of unspeakable wrath, such as might have burst from the chest of one of the Old-World giants, when the rock fell from heaven that crushed him like a worm. The Italians, used to every tone that can express passion, shrunk and cowered back in terror.
Our eyes all followed the direction of his, that were staring down upon a flat open space, clear from brush-wood, down in the hollow on our right. Our search was ended, and we knew it. The moon, that flickered and quivered elsewhere through bough and brake, settled there steadily on a single white spot.
In all the world there is but one object on which she can cast so ghastly a reflection—a dead man's face.
Guy recovered himself first, and plunged recklessly down the cliff side. When we reached him, he was supporting on his knee the head of poor Charley Forrester, stone dead, and foully murdered.
The first glance told how unavailing all human aid must be. One small deep wound just above the left temple must have been fatal instantly. Close by his side lay the instrument of the slaughter—a thin, triangular piece of granite—and, ten paces off, his pistol, one barrel discharged. His watch and (as we afterward found) his purse were gone, but an emerald ring of great value was still untouched on his finger.
I staggered back, heart-sick and faint. When I recovered I saw dimly the group of men, awe-stricken and whispering, and Guy still gazing down at the face that rested on his knee, as if it fascinated his eyes. I could not bear to look upon the piteous sight. All through the bright hair the dark blood had soaked, and a slow stream was stealing through it still; the fair features were all defaced and deformed with the wrath and agony of the last mortal struggle. Yet I do remember that, if any one definite expression still lingered there, it was bitter contempt and scorn.
"In God's name, sir, what is to be done?" It was Hardy who spoke, poor Forrester's own servant, the only Englishman among our attendants. He was choking, and could hardly gasp out the words.
Livingstone rose slowly, first pillowing the mangled head on a soft tuft of moss, tenderly as if it were conscious still. His nature was such that no shock, or pain, or sorrow to which humanity is liable, could bend or quell it, so as to deprive him, beyond a brief instant, of self-possession and calmness. It was not insensibility now, and hardly stoicism, but an elasticity of resistance and strength of endurance that, in my own knowledge, have never been matched. In history or in Indian life you might find many parallels.
He answered quite steadily, though in a low tone, as if reverencing the presence of the dead.
"There is no hope. It is useless to send for a surgeon. Hardy, you will take all the men whom you can collect and scour the country. Send to the sbirri immediately; they will go with you. There must be traces of the murderer. Frank, will you see that—he—is brought carefully to the house? I will"—he stopped, and drew a long, hard breath—"I will go and break it to Isabel." His hand, that happened to touch mine as he spoke, was damp and icy cold.
In his life Guy Livingstone had done and dared more than most men, but he never ventured on any thing so thoroughly brave, and valiant, and strong-hearted as when he left me, without another word, on that errand. For myself, though weak both in body and nerve, I swear I would rather have gone up the breach at Badajoz with the forlorn hope, than up that bank with the certainty before me of what awaited him.
Trees overhanging, and high walls on either side, and the change from the bright moonlight, made it so dark just as you approached the inn that Guy scarcely saw a white figure crouching down a few paces from the door till he was close upon it.
He threw his arm round Isabel Forrester's waist before she could pass him. Half his task was done; there was nothing to break to her now. She understood all when she saw him come back alone.
For a few moments, there they stood in the dark, no word passing between them; the only sound was her quick panting, as she struggled in his grasp, battling to get free.
"Isabel," he said, at last, gravely, "come in; I must speak to you."
No answer still, but the same desperate struggle to get loose. There was a savage, supernatural power in her writhings that taxed even his gigantic strength to hold her; as it was, he yielded unconsciously to her impulse so as to recede some paces till they issued out into the moonlight. He could scarcely recognize her features; they were all working and contorted, the lips especially horribly drawn back and tense. She bent her head down at last, and made her teeth meet in the arm that detained her.
Guy never flinched nor stirred, but spoke again in the same slow, deliberate tone.
"Isabel, come in. I swear that you shall see him when it is safe. They are bringing him back now."
She ceased struggling and stood straight up, shaking all over, straining her eyes forward to the turning in the path where the torches began to gleam.
"Is he not dead, then?" she said, in a strange, harsh voice, utterly unlike her own. Her cousin did not try to delude her; all the stern outline of his face softening in an intense pity told her enough.
Such a scream—weird, long drawn out, and unearthly, such as we fancy the Banchee's—as that which pierced through my very marrow (though I stood three hundred yards away, as if it had been uttered close at my ear), I trust I shall never hear again.
Then followed the contrast of a great stillness; for, as the last accents died away on her lips, Isabel sank down, without a struggle, into a dead swoon.
A sad satisfaction came into Guy's face. "It is best so," he muttered; "I hope she won't wake for an hour," and he carried her into the house. They were trying to revive her, unsuccessfully, when I reached it with those who bore the corpse on a litter of pine branches. By Guy's directions, it was laid on his own bed; and there the Italian women rendered the last offices to the dead man, weeping and wailing over him as though he had been a brother or dear friend—only for his rare beauty—even as the Moorish girls mourned over that fair-faced Christian knight whom they found lying, rolled in blood, by the rock of Alpujarro.
Soon they came to tell Guy that Isabel was recovering from her swoon. She was hardly conscious when he entered the room, and he heard her moaning, "I am so cold, so cold," shivering all over, though she was warmly wrapped in cloaks and shawls.
The village doctor, a mild, helpless-looking man, was sitting by her bedside. He tried to feel her pulse just then, I suppose to show that he could be of some use; but she shrunk away from him, and beckoned to her cousin to come near. He motioned to the others to leave them alone, and, kneeling down by her, took her hand in his.
"Guy, dear," she said, "I know I have been so very wicked and ungrateful to you; but you must not be angry. I have no one left to take care of me but you, now. I will try to be patient; indeed, indeed I will." Her voice was faint and exhausted, but as gentle as ever.
He held her hand faster, and bent his forehead down upon it.
"You are not wicked—only too weak to bear your sorrow. If I only knew what to do to comfort you! But I am so rough and harsh, even when I mean to be kind. I can say nothing, either. I suppose you ought to submit, but I can not tell you how; it is a lesson I have never been able to learn."
"You can do this," she said. "Let me go to him. Ah! don't refuse. I will be calm and good. Indeed I will. But I must go"—she sank her voice into a lower whisper yet—"I have not kissed him to-night."
There was something so unspeakably piteous in her tone and in her imploring eyes, that had grown quite soft again, though no tears had moistened them, that Guy could hardly answer her.
"I did not mean to refuse you, dear," he said, at last. "I won't even ask you to wait. If you are not strong enough to walk, I will carry you."
She rose slowly and painfully, as if her limbs were stiff with cold; but she could stand, and walk with his arm round her; and so these two moved slowly along the deserted passages toward the room where the corpse lay.
There was nothing shocking in its appearance now. All the traces of murder had been washed away, and they had arranged the silky chestnut hair till it concealed the wound, and fell in smooth waves over the white forehead. That sweet calm which will sometimes descend on the face of the dead, even when their end has been violent—the sad Alpen-gluth that comes only when the sun has set—was there in all its beauty. Save that the features were somewhat sharper than in life, there was nothing to mar their pure classical outline. It was well, indeed, that Guy held her back two hours ago. If Isabel had looked on them then, I believe she would have gone mad with terror, if not with sorrow. It matters much, the expression of a face, when it is sure to mingle in our dreams for many after years.
Guy led her up to the bedside, and left the room as she sank down on her knees. He remained outside the closed door, for he thought she might need help if her strength failed suddenly; and I joined him there.
For some time we heard only the quick, stormy sobs, and the kisses showering down; then came the piteous, heart-broken wail that called upon her husband's name; and then the great gush of tears that saved her. After that there was a murmur, often broken off but always renewed: we both bowed our heads reverently, for we knew the widow was praying.
She came forth at length, her head buried in her hands; but she could walk to her room unassisted, and allowed them to undress her there, without a word but thanks. Before long nature would have her way, and she was sleeping quietly.
While we were waiting the return of the men who had gone out in pursuit, Livingstone went alone into the death-chamber. He staid there some minutes. When he came out his face was paler than ever, and there was a sort of horror in his eyes.
He took my arm and led me into the room without speaking. "Do you see that?" he asked, lifting the hair gently that fell over the left check of the corpse.
Distinctly and lividly marked on the waxen flesh were the five fingers of a man's open hand.
"Do you think that was a brigand's work?" he went on, his gripe tightening till I could scarcely bear the pain. "They always strike with a weapon or with the clenched fist. Shall I tell you whose mark that is? Bruce's. If he did not murder him himself, he struck him after he was dead."
"Impossible," I said; "how could he? He has never—"
Livingstone cast my arm loose somewhat impatiently. "We shall know all some day," he growled, his whole face black with passion. "I am convinced of it. If he's on earth I'll find him; and when I do, if I show him mercy or let him go—" The imprecation that followed was not less solemn and terrible because it was muttered to his own heart.
"We must never let Isabel guess the truth," he said, when he became calmer. "It would be worse than all. She would always think she had caused this, and she has enough to bear up against already. God help her!"
Soon Agläe came to tell us that her mistress was asleep. The Frenchwoman's first impulse had been to be hysterical and helpless; it was only her terror of Guy prevailing over all others that made her, as she was, very useful.
He went to the door for an instant, and looked at Isabel. Dreamland was kinder and pleasanter to her than real life, poor child, for there was a smile on her lips that, when she was waking, would be long in visiting them. How would ships or men ever last out if there were not some harbors of refuge to rest in before going out into the wild weather again? Truly she had won hers for the moment; it looked as if an angel had come down to smooth, this time, instead of troubling the waters.
The pursuers came back empty-handed; they had not come upon the faintest trace, nor could they hear of any suspicious character having been seen in the neighborhood.
Guy betrayed no impatience when he heard this; but he went out himself with some of the best men, and spent the rest of the night and all the following morning on the quest. All to no purpose. He returned about noon, with his companions quite fagged out; but fatigue and sleeplessness seemed to have no grasp upon his frame.
Isabel was up, and had been asking for him several times. When he saw her, she offered no opposition to his wish to go on straight to Rome the next day. Neither then nor at any future time did she ever ask for any particulars of her husband's death.
Her old child-like dependence and trust in her cousin had come back, and all through the journey she was quite tranquil. It is true, we hardly ever saw her face, for her veil was closely drawn. Her grief was not the less painful to witness because it was so little demonstrative. Very old and very young women, in the plenitude of their benevolence, are good enough to sympathize with any tale of woe, however absurdly exaggerated; but men, I think, are most moved by the simple and quiet sorrows. We smile at the critical point of a spasmodic tragedy, complacently as the Lucretian philosopher looking down from the cliff on the wild sea; we yawn over the wailings of Werter and Raphael, but we ponder gravely over the last chapters of the Heir of Redclyffe, and feel a curious sensation in the throat—perhaps the slightest dimness of vision—when we read in The Newcomes how that noble old soldier crowned the chivalry of a stainless life, dying in the Gray Brother's gown.
There were many at Rome who had known Forrester and loved him well, and all these followed him to his grave. I do not think he had an enemy on earth except the man who slew him.
What are the qualifications of a general favorite? Good looks, good birth, good-humor, and good assurance will do much; but the want of one or more of these will not invalidate the election, nor the union of all four insure it. It must be very pleasant to serve in the compagnie d'élite. They have privileges to which the Line may not aspire. It does not much matter what they do. Their victories make them no enemies, and their defeats raise them up hosts of sympathizers and apologists. When they err gravely, if you hint at the misdemeanor, a "true believer" looks at you indignantly, not to say contemptuously, and says, "What could you expect? It's only poor—" Yes, it is a great gift—Amiability; and when the possessor dies, it is profoundly true that better men might be better spared.
Very soon Raymond came to take his daughter back to England. That calm old calculating machine was more deranged and shocked by the catastrophe than I should have thought it possible he would have been by any earthly disaster. He was getting older now, and more broken, it is true, and so, perhaps, was more accessible to the weakness of sympathy. At all events, nothing could be kinder and more considerate than his conduct to Isabel.
Guy and I still lingered on in Rome. He was untiring in his researches, but quite unsuccessful. Yet it was not that the police were remiss, or the country people inclined to shield the murderer. The best of them would have sold his own father to the guillotine for half the reward offered by Livingstone, for he lavished as much gold in trying to clear up that crime as in old days the Cenci or Colonna did to smother theirs. At length we were forced to give it up, and returned home in the Petrel. I own I despaired of ever being more successful; but my companion evidently had not done so, for I heard him, more than once, mutter to himself, in the same low, determined tone, "If he is on earth, I'll find him."
Immediately on our arrival, Guy went up to Bruce's home in Scotland. He only learned that the latter had not been there for a long time; but that some months back, Allan Macbane, a sort of steward and old dependent of the family, had left suddenly, summoned, it was supposed, by his master. More the people could not or would not tell.
At his banker's it was discovered that, immediately after the Forresters' marriage, he had drawn out a very large sum—not in letters of credit, but in bank-notes—and had not been heard of since. After much trouble, we did find out that one of the large notes had been changed at Florence about the time of the murder, but the description of the person did not answer in the least to that of Bruce or the man who was supposed to be his attendant. All trace stopped there. So the months rolled away. I constantly saw Guy, and sometimes was with him both in town and at Kerton, where Isabel was staying with Lady Catharine. He still appeared to have no doubt of the ultimate result of the search, which, personally or by deputy, he never intermitted for a day.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
We were sitting in Livingstone's chambers one night in the following March, and dinner was just over, when the detective was announced who for months had been in Guy's pay and on Bruce's track.
He was a stout, hale man, rather past middle age, with a rosy face, a cheerful, moist eye, and full, sensual lips—just the proper person to return thanks for "The Successful Candidates" at an agricultural meeting. Originally of a kindly convivial nature, he had grown familiar with crime till he despised it. The reward set upon the criminal's capture was his only standard of guilt. He took a real pleasure in the chase, I imagine, but had no preference for any game in particular, and was quite indifferent whether the cover he had to draw was a saloon or a cellar. He would hunt a fraudulent bankrupt or a parricide with equal zeal, and, when he had caught him, be just as jocularly affable with the one as with the other. In a drama of life and death, the fierce passions of the actors were only so many gleams of light showing him where the right path lay, for which assistance he thanked them heartily. The foulest mysteries of the sinful human heart touched and shocked him no more than the evidences of disease do the dissecting surgeon: with both it was a simple question of defective organization. The possession of secrets, far less weighty than some that he never told, have made men look worn, and miserable, and gray; but he would pat his corpulent leather pocket-book with a self-sufficient satisfaction, scarcely hinting that the publication of its contents would have caused more devastation in some well-regulated families than the bursting of a ten-inch shell in their front drawing-room.
His lips and eyes wore a smile pleasantly significant as he entered, and, before he could speak, Guy leaped up, waving his hand high in irrepressible triumph. "I told you so, Frank. I knew we should find him. Come—come quickly." He was more excited than I had seen him in the last dozen years.
I exulted too, but I confess a certain repugnance and nervousness mingled with that feeling: it was a new thing to me to stand face to face with a murderer.
Neither of us gave as much attention as it deserved to the narrative with which the officer favored us en route, of how he had been gradually getting the clew to the fugitive's many doublings and disguises till he came upon his retreat at last. "They mostly make for home when they're dead beat," he remarked, alluding to Bruce's having selected London as his final hiding-place.
We soon reached the spot—one of those dreary by-ways that trend westward out of the Waterloo Road. As we drew up, the outline of a figure revealed itself out of the darkest nook of the dim street, and a man came forward and opened the door of the cab, interchanging a word or two with our companion.
As we got out, the detective laid his hand on Guy's arm. "Gently, sir," he said. "You must be careful. We've not quite so much proof as I could wish. It would be straining a point to arrest him as it stands. I'd do it though—for you. Get him to talk, and don't hurry him; he's safe to commit himself; and we'll nail him at the first word. My comrade says he has not left his bed since yesterday. Perhaps he's ill. All the better. We can frighten him if we get his man out of the way."
Guy's hand was on the bell before the last words were said, and he rang it sharply. The two officers drew back into the shadow.
In a few moments an old man opened the door, whom we guessed to be Bruce's attendant. He had one of those stubborn, rough-hewn faces that even white hair can not soften any more than hoar-frost can the outline of a granite crag.
"What's ye're wull?" he drawled out, in the rugged Aberdeen Doric.
"I wish to see Mr. Bruce."
"No sic a pairson here," was the reply, accompanied by a vigorous effort to close the door.
A heavy groan, proceeding from a room on the ground floor, gave him the lie as he spoke. Guy threw up his head like a hound breaking from scent to view, and thrust Macbane back violently. The old man staggered and fell; but he clung round Livingstone's knees, as he groveled, till he was actually trampled down. There was a difficulty in the lock somewhere; but bolt and staple were torn away in an instant by the furious hand that grasped the handle, and so at last we stood in the presence of the man we had sought so long.
Do you remember that hideous picture in Hogarth's "Two Apprentices," where the sleeping robber is alarmed by the crash in the chimney? That was exactly Bruce's attitude. He had started into a sitting posture, and was braced up on his hands, his face thrust forward, half covered by the straight unkempt hair. What a face it was! White and flecked with sweat-drops, marbled here and there with livid stains, the lips quivering and working till they twisted themselves sometimes into a ghastly mockery of a smile, the long teeth gleaming more wolfish than ever. The iris of the prominent eyes had grown yellowish, and the whites were bloodshot, so that the light seemed to flash from them tawnily.
Bruce had always been very much afraid of Livingstone. His terror had gone on increasing during months of relentless pursuit; it had reached its climax now. Guy stood at the foot of the bed, contemplating the unhappy wretch with a cruel calmness that seemed to drive him wild. He writhed and cowered under the fixed gaze, as if it gave him physical pain.
"What are you here for?" he screamed out at last.
In strong contrast to the shrill, strained voice, the answer came slow and stern. "To arrest Charles Forrester's murderer."
Then Bruce seemed to lose his head all at once, and began to rave. It is impossible to transcribe the string of protestations, prayers for mercy, and horrible blasphemies; but there was enough of self-betrayal to complete the proof we wanted ten times told. The detective chuckled more complacently than ever as he insinuated the handcuffs round Macbane's wrists. Over all Bruce's cries, I remember, the old man's harsh voice made itself heard, "Whisht, whisht, I tell ye, and keep a quiet tongue; they canna harm ye." The other did not seem to hear him, or to notice his removal by the officers, muttering, as he went, that "we had driven his master mad, and were killing him."
Livingstone waited patiently till the outbreak had spent itself; then he said, "Get up, and come with us instantly. You shall finish your night in Newgate."
Tho sick man lay back for some moments with his eyes closed, panting and evidently quite exhausted. When he opened his eyes there was a steadiness in them which surprised us. He spoke, too, quite calmly. "I do not mean to deny any thing, nor to resist, even if I could. I am tired of running away; it is as well over; but I was taken by surprise at first. Guy Livingstone, do you choose to listen to me for five minutes? My head is clear now. I do not know how long it will last; but I do know that, after to-night, I will never speak about Forrester's death one word."
"Will you tell me how you killed him?" Livingstone asked, controlling his voice wonderfully.
"That is what I wish to do," Bruce said. I believe he was glad of the opportunity of showing us how much we had misjudged him in thinking him harmless, for a curious sort of grin was hovering about his mouth. Guy, whose eyes were bent down at the moment, did not see it, or the tale would never have been told.
"You know how you were all against me at Kerton," he began. "She did not care for me then, perhaps; but I would have been so patient and persevering that she must have loved me at last—only you never gave me fair play. Ah! do you think, because I was ugly and awkward, I had no chance?"
"No; but because she knew you were a coward," Guy said.
There was something grand in the utter indifference with which Bruce met the insult.
"You are wrong," he replied, coolly; "she did not know it. You all did, and reckoned on my being long-suffering and inoffensive. I saw, at last, what Forrester had done; yet I never guessed but that she would marry me. I trusted to her father and her own fears for keeping her straight. After marriage I would have tried still what great love and tenderness could do. I meant—never mind what I meant—it's all over now. I was nearly mad for a week after their flight. Then I became quite cool, and I said, 'I will kill him myself.' And so I did. Mind, I swear, Allan knew nothing of it till all was done. I thought I should be brave enough for that. Fifty times during the months that I tracked them, always changing my disguise, I nearly caught him alone; but each time I was balked. Wherever they went, I watched under their windows for the chance of his coming out; but I only saw—"
He gnashed his teeth, and rolled over and over in a paroxysm of jealous recollection. We guessed what he meant. Then he went on: "That night he sauntered backward and forward for some time. I thought he would not go far enough away, and I called to the devil to help me. He did; for, very soon, Forrester walked straight down the path. I crept after him till he had gone some hundred yards—my heart was beating so quickly that I could hardly breathe—then I ran forward and stood before him. I had taken off the black wig and beard that I always wore, and he knew me directly.
"'Mr. Bruce, I believe?' he said, raising his hat, just as if he had met me by appointment.
"'Yes,' I said. 'I have got you at last, as I wished.' I tried to speak as steadily as he had done; but, as the moment for action came near, my d——d cowardice made me stammer.
"'I am not invisible, as a rule,' he replied. 'You, or any friend of yours, might have found me long ago. You have been some time making up your mind. It's that unfortunate constitutional—caution, I suppose. Well, I'll meet you in Rome: it's more than you deserve.'
"'You'll fight me here—now,' I said.
"'I shall do nothing half so melodramatic,' he answered. 'I'll give you a fair chance on the ground; but, if you do not move out of my path now, I'll shoot you as I would any other disagreeable ruffian,' and he put his hand into his breast, where, I knew, he carried a pistol.
"I was brave then. I sprang in upon him all at once. 'You may shoot now, if you like,' I said. 'I swear I am quite unarmed. But show that to your wife when you go back,' and I struck him with my open hand."
(I remembered the mark on the corpse's cheek, and looked at Guy eagerly. I could not see his face, which was hidden by the curtain, but all his lower limbs were shaking and quivering.)
"I thought how it would be," Bruce went on; "he drew his hand out with the pistol in it, but he only flung it over the bank—one barrel went off in the fall—then we grappled. After wrestling for a minute or two on the narrow path, we lost our footing and rolled down the rocks; neither quitted his hold, but I fell uppermost and kept him down. He struggled desperately at first; but when he found that I was much the stronger, he lay quite still, looking up into my face. I said, 'It's my turn at last. Do you think I'll let you off?'
"He did not answer at first. I believe he would not till he had quite recovered his breath; then he said, coolly, 'No, I don't. Finish it quickly, if you can, that's all.' I would have delayed a little, to enjoy my triumph, but I thought the pistol-shot might bring some one; so I tightened my gripe on his throat, and looked round for a weapon. I found none at first, and my purpose actually began to soften when I saw him so helpless; but, as I relaxed my fingers, I heard him whisper to himself, 'Poor Bella! we have been very happy: I wish we had more time—' I got mad again directly. 'D—n you!' I cried out, 'I'll kill you now, and marry her some day.' His old insolent smile came on his lip. 'No you won't,' he said; 'you don't know how she hates you, and how we have laughed—' He had no time to say more, for I found my weapon then—a stone triangular and sharp-pointed like a dagger—and I struck him over the temple with all my force. He gave one convulsive spring that threw me clear of him, and never stirred again.
"I did not repent when it was done; I have never repented since; I do not now. I only thought how best to escape the consequences. I took his watch and purse, that brigands might be suspected, and threw them into the river a mile off. I robbed him of one thing more—this!" All his haggard face was transfigured with a ghastly triumph as he opened a small leathern case that hung round his neck, and held up before us two locks of hair.
There they were—the love-gift and the death-spoil—the memorials of defeat and of victory, of foiled affection and of gratified hate—the one, beguiled from Isabel by Bruce himself, with many earnest pleadings, in the early days of their engagement; the other, torn from her husband's temples before they were cold. The long light brown tress was scarcely more soft and satin-smooth than the chestnut curl; but one end of the last was matted, and discolored by a dark rusty stain—the stain that, the Greek poet said, all the rivers of earth flowing in one channel could never wash away—the testimony, to our ears mute enough now, but which, perhaps, will make itself heard above the Babel of all other cries at the Day of Judgment.
The two tokens were twined together lovingly, as if they were sensitive and conscious still. Bruce plucked them asunder: "I never can keep them apart," he said, querulously. Then he put them back into the case separately, and began to mutter to himself many words that I could not distinguish.
"Have you any thing more to say?" Livingstone asked. His lips were rigid and compressed like a steel-trap, opening and closing mechanically. As he spoke, he snatched the leathern bag from Bruce's hand and threw it into the blazing fire.
A sharp howl, like a flogged hound's, broke from the sick man as he saw his treasure shrivel up in the flame. Then he began to whimper out all sorts of incoherent supplications, crying "that we did not know how much he had suffered before he killed Forrester, and since too; that he had been cruelly used from the beginning; that he was very, very ill now; would not we let him die in peace?" The tears were streaming down his face. It was a sight of abasement that sent a shiver through one's veins.
Guy laid his hand on the miserable creature's shoulder. Though he scarcely touched it, I saw the great muscles starting out on his arm like ropes from the intensity of his suppressed emotion; his lower lip trembled, but his tones did not in the least. I can give no idea of their pitiless, deliberate ferocity.
"Listen!" he said. "I told you before to get up and come with us—that is my answer now. If you have life enough left to be carried to the gallows-foot, you shall never cheat the hangman."
Bruce looked up into the speaker's face for some moments. Gradually the agonized appeal in his wild eyes died away into vacancy; an expression, half cunning, half amused, stole over his face; and, leaning gently back, he began pulling threads out of the coverlet, laughing low.
The blood gushed from Guy's clenched hand as he struck it furiously against the stone mantel.
"By ——," he said, with a fearful oath, "he has escaped me, after all."
It was so. The mind, worn and strained by the terrors of the long pursuit, perhaps by remorse not acknowledged even to himself; and by the last great effort at self-control, had given way at last—forever. God had recorded his verdict, and no earthly court could try the criminal again. Bruce is living now (and I dare say will outlive most of us, for his bodily health is perfect), vicious sometimes, but never conscious; hard to please, but easy to manage, so long as his attendant is a man, and a strong one; accessible only to the one emotion which drove him mad—physical fear.
Livingstone called the officers; they came in with Macbane. The old man pretended to be very wroth when he saw his master's state, but I believe he rejoiced secretly. The credit of the family, with him, outweighed all considerations of personal attachment, and he would think public disgrace cheaply averted at any price.
On our poor detective, perhaps, the blow fell heaviest; for, after some time, Guy did come round to my idea, that no punishment we could have brought about would have been so ample and terrible; but Mr. Fitchett could not see it in that light at all. Not only was the termination of the affair dreadfully unprofessional, but the little triumph he had anticipated at the trial was spoiled. If human weakness ever could touch this great man, it was when he heard the judge pay a compliment to "the sagacity and zeal of that most efficient officer." On such occasions, his bow of conscious merit abnegating praise was, I am told, wonderful to see. After a few words of explanation, he glanced wistfully at Bruce, and shook his head, like a broken-hearted Lord Burleigh. Then he unloosed the handcuffs from Macbane's wrists, whistling all the while softly a popular air, lively in itself, with a cadence so plaintive that it might have been a penitential psalm. No romantic school-girl opening the cage to her pet starling ever displayed more hesitation and reluctance than Mr. Fitchett setting that grim old bird free.
In truth, there was no evidence to attach to the servant, so we left him and his master together. I could not have stood that room much longer. The ceaseless complacent chuckle of the idiot, and his fearful grimaces when he could not make the threads match, had the effect on my chest of a nightmare. Very slowly and silently we walked home through the darkness.