Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Two.
A Sudden Relapse.
For some time after the exit of Soeur Ursule, the English girl retains her seat, with the same demure look she had worn in the presence of the nun; while before her face the book is again open, as though she had returned to reading it. One seeing this might suppose her intensely interested in its contents. But she is not even thinking of them! Instead, of a sharp skinny ear, and a steel grey eye—one or other of which she suspects to be covering the keyhole.
Her own ear is on the alert to catch sounds outside—the shuffling of feet, the rattle of rosary beads, or the swishing of a dress against the door.
She hears none; and at length satisfied that Sister Ursule’s suspicions are spent, or her patience exhausted, she draws a free breath—the first since the séance commenced.
Then rising to her feet, she steps to a corner of the cell, not commanded by the keyhole; and there dashes the hook down, as though it had been burning her fingers!
“My first scene of deception,” she mutters to herself—“first act of hypocrisy. Have I not played it to perfection?”
She draws a chair into the angle, and sits down upon it. For she is still not quite sure that the spying eye has been withdrawn from the aperture, or whether it may not have returned to it.
“Now that I’ve made a beginning,” she murmurs on, “I must think what’s to be done in continuance; and how the false pretence is to be kept up. What will they do?—and think? They’ll be suspicious for a while, no doubt; look sharply after me, as ever! But that cannot last always; and surely they won’t doom me to dwell for ever in this dingy hole. When I’ve proved my conversion real, by penance, obedience, and the like, I may secure their confidence, and by way of reward, get transferred to a more comfortable chamber. Ah! little care I for the comfort, if convenient,—with a window out of which one could look. Then I might have a hope of seeing—speaking to some one—with heart less hard than Sister Ursule’s, and that other creature—a very hag!”
“I wonder where the place is? Whether in the country, or in a town among houses? It may be the last—in the very heart of a great city, for all this death-like stillness! They build these religious prisons with walls so thick! And the voices, I from time to time hear, are all women’s. Not one of a man amongst them! They must be the Convent people themselves! Nuns and novices! Myself one of the latter! Ha! ha! I shouldn’t have known it if Sister Ursule hadn’t informed me. Novice, indeed—soon to be a nun! No! but a free woman—or dead! Death would be better than life like this!”
The derisive smile that for a moment played upon her features passes off, replaced by the same forlorn woe-begone look, as despair comes back to her heart. For she again recalls what she has read in books—very different from that so contemptuously tossed aside—of girls, young and beautiful as herself—high-born ladies—surreptitiously taken from their homes—shut up as she—never more permitted to look on the sun’s light, or bask in its beams, save within the gloomy cloisters of a convent, or its dismally shadowed grounds.
The prospect of such future for herself appals her, eliciting an anguished sigh—almost a groan.
“Ha!” she exclaims the instant after, and again with altered air, as though something had arisen to relieve her. “There are voices now! Still of women! Laughter! How strange it sounds! So sweet! I’ve not heard such since I’ve been here. It’s the voice of a girl? It must be—so clear, so joyous. Yes! Surely it cannot come from any of the sisters? They are never joyful—never laugh.”
She remains listening, soon to hear the laughter again, a second voice joining in it, both with the cheery ring of school girls at play. The sound comes in with the light—it could not well enter otherwise—and aware of this, she stands facing that way, with eyes turned upward. For the window is far above her head.
“Would that I could see out! If I only had something on which to stand!”
She sweeps the cell with her eyes, to see only the pallet, the frail chairs, a little table with slender legs, and a washstand—all too low. Standing upon the highest, her eyes would still be under the level of the sill.
She is about giving it up, when an artifice suggests itself. With wits sharpened, rather than dulled by her long confinement—she bethinks her of a plan, by which she may at least look out of the window. She can do that by upending the bedstead!
Rash she would raise it on the instant. But she is not so; instead considerate, more than ever cautious. And so proceeding, she first places a chair against the door in such position that its back blocks the keyhole. Then, dragging bed clothes, mattress, and all to the floor, she takes hold of the wooden framework; and, exerting her whole strength, hoists it on end, tilted like a ladder against the wall. And as such it will answer her purpose, the strong webbing, crossed and stayed, to serve for steps.
A moment more, and she has mounted up, and stands, her chin resting on the window’s ledge.
The window itself is a casement on hinges; one of those antique affairs, iron framed, with the panes set in lead. Small, though big enough for a human body to pass through, but for an upright bar centrally bisecting it.
She balancing upon the bedstead, and looking out, thinks not of the bar now, nor takes note of the dimensions of the aperture. Her thoughts, as her glances, are all given to what she sees outside. At the first coup d’oeil, the roofs and chimneys of houses, with all their appurtenances of patent smoke-curers, weathercocks, and lightning conductors; among them domes and spires, showing it a town with several churches.
Dropping her eyes lower they rest upon a garden, or rather a strip of ornamental grounds, tree shaded, with walks, arbours, and seats, girt by a grey massive wall, high almost as the houses.
At a glance she takes in these inanimate objects; but does not dwell on any of them. For, soon as looking below, her attention becomes occupied with living forms, standing in groups, or in twos or threes strolling about the grounds. They are all women, and of every age; most of them wearing the garb of the nunnery, loose flowing robes of sombre hue. A few, however, are dressed in the ordinary fashion of young ladies at a boarding school; and such they are—the pensionnaires of the establishment.
Her eyes wandering from group to group, after a time become fixed upon two of the school girls; who linked arm in arm are walking backward and forward, directly in front. Why she particularly notices them, is that one of the two is acting in a singular manner; every time she passes under the window looking up to it, as though with a knowledge of something inside in which she feels an interest! Her glances interrogative, are at the same time evidently snatched by stealth—as in fear of being observed by the others. Even her promenading companion seems unaware of them.
She inside the cloister, soon as her first surprise is over, regards this young lady with a fixed stare, forgetting all the others.
“What can it mean?” she asks herself. “So unlike the rest! Surely not French! Can she be English? She is very—very beautiful!”
The last, at least, is true, for the girl is, indeed, a beautiful creature, with features quite different from those around—all of them being of the French facial type, while hers are pronouncedly Irish.
By this the two are once more opposite the window, and the girl again looking up, sees behind the glass—dim with dust and spiders’ webs—a pale face, with a pair of bright eyes gazing steadfastly at her.
She starts; but quickly recovering, keeps on as before. Then as she faces round at the end of the walk, still within view of the window, she raises her hand, with a finger laid upon her lips, seeming to say, plain as words could speak it—
“Keep quiet! I know all about you, and why you are there.”
The gesture is not lost upon the captive. But before she can reflect upon its significance the great convent bell breaks forth in noisy clangour, causing a flutter among the figures outside, with a scattering helter skelter. For it is the first summons to vespers, soon followed by the tinier tinkle of the angelus.
In a few seconds the grounds are deserted by all save one—the schoolgirl with the Irish features and eyes. She, having let go her companion’s arm, and lingering behind the rest, makes a quick slant towards the window she has been watching; as she approaches it significantly exposing something white, she holds half hidden between her fingers!
It needs no further gesture to make known her intent. The English girl has already guessed it, as told by the iron casement grating back on its rusty hinges, and left standing ajar. On the instant of its opening the white object parts from the hand that has been holding it, and like a flash of light passes through into the darksome cell, falling with a thud upon the floor.
Not a word goes with it; for she who has shown such dexterity, soon as delivering the missile, glides away; so speedily she is still in time to join the queue moving on towards the convent chapel.
Cautiously reclosing the window, Soeur Marie descends the steps of her improvised ladder, and takes up the thing that had been tossed in; which she finds to be a letter shotted inside!
Despite her burning impatience she does not open it, till after restoring the bedstead to the horizontal, and replacing all as before. For now, as ever, she has need to be circumspect, and with better reasons.
At length, feeling secure, all the more from knowing the nuns are at their vesper devotions, she tears off the envelope, and reads:—
“Mary,—Monday night next after midnight—if you look out of your window you will see friends; among them:—
“Jack Wingate.”
“Jack Wingate!” she exclaims, with a look of strange intelligence lighting up her face. “A voice from dear old Wyeside! Hope of delivery at last!”
And overcome by her emotion she sinks down upon the pallet; no longer looking sad, but with an expression contented, and beatified as that of the most devotée nun in the convent.
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Three.
A Justifiable Abduction.
It is a moonless November night, and a fog drifting down from the Pas de Calais envelopes Boulogne in its damp, clammy embrace. The great cathedral clock is tolling twelve midnight, and the streets are deserted, the last wooden-heeled soulier having ceased clattering over their cobble-stone pavements. If a foot passenger be abroad he is some belated individual groping his way home from the Café de billars he frequents, or the Cercle to which he belongs. Even the sergens de ville are scarcer than usual; those seen being huddled up under the shelter of friendly porches, while the invisible ones are making themselves yet more snug inside cabarets, whose openness beyond licensed hours they wink at in return for the accommodation afforded.
It is, in truth, a most disagreeable night: cold as dark, for the fog has frost in it. For all, there are three men in the streets of Boulogne who regard neither its chillness nor obscurity. Instead, this last is just what they desire, and for days past have been waiting for.
They who thus delight in darkness are Major Mahon, Captain Ryecroft, and the waterman, Wingate. Not because they have thoughts of doing evil, for their purpose is of the very opposite character—to release a captive from captivity. The night has arrived when, in accordance with the promise made on that sheet of paper so dexterously pitched into her cloister, the Soeur Marie is to see friends in front of her window. They are the friends; about to attempt taking her out of it.
They are not going blindly about the thing. Unlikely old campaigners as Mahon and Ryecroft would. During the interval since that warning summons was sent in, they have made thorough reconnaissance of the ground, taken stock of the convent’s precincts and surroundings; in short, considered every circumstance of difficulty and danger. They are therefore prepared with all the means and appliances for effecting their design.
Just as the last stroke of the clock ceases its booming reverberation, they issue forth from Mahon’s house; and, turning up the Rue Tintelleries, strike along a narrower street, which leads on toward the ancient cité.
The two officers walk arm in arm, Ryecroft, stranger to the place, needing guidance; while the boatman goes behind, with that carried aslant his shoulder, which, were it on the banks of the Wye, might be taken for a pair of oars. It is nevertheless a thing altogether different—a light ladder; though were it hundreds weight he would neither stagger nor groan under it. The errand he is upon knits his sinews, giving him the strength of a giant.
They proceed with extreme caution, all three silent as spectres. When any sound comes to their ears, as the shutting to of a door, or distant footfall upon the ill-paved trottoirs, they make instant stop, and stand listening—speech passing among themselves only in whispers. But as these interruptions are few, they make fair progress; and, in less than twenty minutes after leaving the Major’s house, they have reached the spot where the real action is to commence. This is in the narrow lane which runs along: the enceinte of the convent at back; a thoroughfare little used even in daytime, but after night solitary as a desert, and on this especial night dark as dungeon itself.
They know the allée well; have traversed it scores of times within the last few days, as nights, and could go through it blindfold. And they also know the enclosure wall, with its exact height, just that of the cloister window beyond, and a little less than their ladder, which has been selected with an eye to dimensions.
While its bearer is easing it off his shoulders, and planting it firmly in place, a short whispered dialogue occurs between the other two, the Major saying—
“We won’t all three be needed for the work inside. One of us may remain here—nay, must! Those sergens de ville might be prowling about, or some of the convent people themselves: in which case we’ll need warning before we dare venture back over the wall. If caught on the top of it, the petticoats obstructing—aye, or without them—’twould go ill with us.”
“Quite true,” assents the Captain. “Which of us do you propose staying here? Jack?”
“Yes, certainly. And for more reasons than one. Excited as he is now, once getting his old flame into his arms he’d be all on fire—perhaps with noise enough to awake the whole sleeping sisterhood, and bring them clamouring around us, like crows about an owl, that had intruded into the rookery. Besides, there’s a staff of male servants—for they have such—half a score of stout fellows, who’d show fight. A big bell, too, by ringing which they can rouse the town. Therefore, master Jack must remain here. You tell him he must.”
Jack is told, with reasons given, though not exactly the real ones. Endorsing them, the Major says—
“Don’t be so impatient, my good fellow! It will make but a few seconds’ difference; and then you’ll have your girl by your side, sure. Whereas, acting inconsiderately, you may never set eyes on her. The fight in the front will be easy. Our greatest danger’s from behind; and you can do better in every way, as for yourself, by keeping the rear guard.”
He thus counselled is convinced: and, though much disliking it, yields prompt obedience. How could he otherwise? He is in the hands of men his superiors in rank as experience. And is it not for him they are there; risking liberty—it may be life?
Having promised to keep his impulsiveness in check, he is instructed what to do. Simply to lie concealed under the shadow of the wall, and should any one be outside when he hears a low whistle, he is not to reply to it.
The signal so arranged, Mahon and Ryecroft mount over the wall, taking the ladder along with them, and leaving the waterman to reflect, in nervous anxiety, how near his Mary is, and yet how far off she still may be!
Once inside the garden, the other two strike off along a walk leading in the direction of the spot, which is their objective point. They go as if every grain of sand pressed by their feet had a friend’s life in it. The very cats of the Convent could not traverse its grounds more silently.
Their caution is rewarded; for they arrive at the cloister sought, without interruption, to see its casement open, with a pale face in it—a picture of Madonna on a back ground of black, through the white film looking as if it were veiled.
But though dense the fog, it does not hinder them from perceiving, that the expression of that face is one of expectancy; nor her from recognising them as the friends who were to be under the window. With that voice from the Wyeside still echoing in her ears, she sees her deliverers at hand! They have indeed come.
A woman of weak nerves would under the circumstances be excited—possibly cry out. But Soeur Marie is not such; and without uttering a word, even the slightest ejaculation, she stands still, and patiently, waits while a wrench is applied to the rotten bar of iron, soon snapping it from its support, as though it were but a stick of macaroni.
It is Ryecroft who performs this burglarious feat, and into his arms she delivers herself, to be conducted down the ladder; which is done without as yet a word having been exchanged between them.
Only after reaching the ground, and there is some feeling of safety, he whispers to her:—
“Keep up your courage, Mary! Your Jack is waiting for you outside the wall. Here, take my hand—”
“Mary! My Jack! And you—you—” Her voice becomes inaudible, and she totters back against the wall!
“She’s swooning—has fainted!” mutters the Major; which Ryecroft already knows, having stretched out his arms, and caught her as she is sinking to the earth.
“It’s the sudden change into the open air,” he says. “We must carry her, Major. You go ahead with the ladder, I can manage the girl myself.”
While speaking he lifts the unconscious form, and bears it away. No light weight either, but to strength as his, only a feather.
The Major going in advance with the ladder guides him through the mist; and in a few seconds they reach the outer wall, Mahon giving a low whistle as he approachs. It is almost instantly answered by another from the outside, telling them the coast is clear.
And in three minutes after they are also on the outside, the girl still resting in Ryecroft’s arms. The waterman wishes to relieve him, agonised by the thought that his sweetheart, who has passed unscathed, as it were, through the very gates of death, may after all be dead!
He urges it; but Mahon, knowing the danger of delay, forbids any sentimental interference, commanding Jack to re-shoulder the ladder and follow as before.
Then striking off in Indian file, the Major first, the Captain with his burden in the centre, the boatman bringing up behind, they retrace their steps towards the Rue Tintelleries.
If Ryecroft but knew who he is carrying, he would bear her, if not more tenderly, with far different emotions, and keener solicitude about her recovery from that swoon.
It is only after she is out of his arms; and lying upon a couch in Major Mahon’s house—the hood drawn back and the light shining on her face—that he experiences a thrill, strange and wild as ever felt by mortal man! No wonder—seeing it is Gwendoline Wynn!
“Gwen!” he exclaims, in a very ecstasy of joy, as her pulsing breast and opened eyes tell of returned consciousness.
“Vivian!” is the murmured rejoinder, their lips meeting in delirious contact. Poor Jack Wingate!
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Four.
Starting on a Continental Tour.
Lewin Murdock is dead, and buried—has been for days. Not in the family vault of the Wynns, though he had the right of having his body there laid. But his widow, who had control of the interment, willed it otherwise. She has repugnance to opening that receptacle of the dead, holding a secret she may well dread disclosure of.
There was no very searching enquiry into the cause of the man’s death; none such seeming needed. A coroner’s inquest, true; but of the most perfunctory kind. Several habitués of the Welsh Harp; with its staff of waiters, testified to having seen him at that hostelry till a late hour of the night on which he was drowned, and far gone in drink. The landlord advanced the narrative a stage, by telling how he conveyed him to the boat, and delivered him to his boatman, Richard Dempsey—all true enough; while Coracle capped the story by a statement of circumstances, in part facts, but the major part fictitious:—how the inebriate gentleman, after lying a while quiet at the bottom of the skiff, suddenly sprung upon his feet, and staggering excitedly about, capsized the craft, spilling both into the water!
Some corroboration of this, in the boat having been found floating keel upwards, and the boatman arriving home at Llangorren soaking wet. To his having been in this condition several of the Court domestics, at the time called out of their beds, with purpose prepense, were able to bear witness. But Dempsey’s testimony is further strengthened, even to confirmation, by himself having since taken to bed, where he now lies dangerously ill of a fever, the result of a cold caught from that chilling douche.
In this latest inquest the finding of the jury is set forth in two simple words, “Drowned accidentally.” No suspicion attaches to any one; and his widow, now wearing the weeds of sombre hue, sorrows profoundly.
But her grief is great only in the eyes of the outside world, and the presence of the Llangorren domestics. Alone within her chamber she shows little signs of sorrow; and if possible less when Gregoire Rogier is her companion; which he almost constantly is. If more than half his time at the Court while Lewin Murdock was alive, he is now there nearly the whole of it. No longer as a guest, but as much its master as she is its mistress! For that, matter indeed more; if inference may be drawn from a dialogue occurring between them some time after her husband’s death.
They are in the library, where there is a strong chest, devoted to the safe keeping of legal documents, wills, leases, and the like—all the paraphernalia of papers relating to the administration of the estate.
Rogier is at a table upon which many of these lie, with writing materials besides. A sheet of foolscap is before him, on which he has just scribbled the rough copy of an advertisement intended to be sent to several newspapers.
“I think this will do,” he says to the widow, who, in an easy chair drawn up in front of the fire, is sipping Chartreuse, and smoking paper cigarettes. “Shall I read it to you?”
“No. I don’t want to be bothered with the thing in detail. Enough, if you let me hear its general purport.”
He gives her this in briefest epitome:—
“The Llangorren estates to be sold by public auction, with all the appurtenances, mansion, park, ornamental grounds, home and out farms, manorial rights, presentation to church living, etc, etc.”
“Très bien! Have you put down the date? It should be soon.”
“You’re right, chérie. Should, and must be. So soon, I fear we won’t realise three-fourths of the value. But there’s no help for it, with the ugly thing threatening—hanging over our necks like a very sword of Damocles.”
“You mean the tongue of le braconnier?”
She has reason to dread it.
“No I don’t; not in the slightest. There’s a sickle too near his own—in the hands of the reaper, Death.”
“He’s dying, then?”
She speaks with an earnestness in which there is no feeling of compassion, but the very reverse.
“He is,” the other answers, in like unpitying tone; “I’ve just come from his bedside.”
“From the cold he caught that night, I suppose?”
“Yes; that’s partly the cause. But,” he adds, with a diabolical grin, “more the medicine he has taken for it.”
“What mean you, Gregoire?”
“Only that Monsieur Dick has been delirious, and I saw danger in it. He was talking too wildly.”
“You’ve done something to keep him quiet?”
“I have.”
“What?”
“Given him a sleeping draught.”
“But he’ll wake up again; and then—”
“Then I’ll administer another dose of the anodyne.”
“What sort of anodyne?”
“A hypodermic.”
“Hypodermic! I’ve never heard of the thing; not even the name!”
“A wonderful cure it is—for noisy tongues!”
“You excite one’s curiosity. Tell me something of its nature?”
“Oh, it’s very simple; exceedingly so. Only a drop of liquid introduced into the blood; not in the common roundabout way, by pouring down the throat, but direct injection into the veins. The process in itself is easy enough, as every medical practitioner knows. The skill consists in the kind of liquid to be injected. That’s one of the occult sciences I learnt in Italy, land of Lucrezia and Tophana; where such branches of knowledge still flourish. Elsewhere it’s not much known, and perhaps it’s well it isn’t; or there might be more widowers, with a still larger proportion of widows.”
“Poison!” she exclaims involuntarily, adding, in a timid whisper, “Was it, Gregoire?”
“Poison!” he echoes, protestingly. “That’s too plain a word, and the idea it conveys too vulgar, for such a delicate scientific operation as that I’ve performed. Possibly, in Monsieur Coracle’s case the effect will be somewhat similar; but not the after symptoms. If I haven’t made miscalculation as to quantity, ere three days are over it will send him to his eternal sleep; and I’ll defy all the medical experts in England to detect traces of poison in him. So don’t enquire further, chérie. Be satisfied to know the hypodermic will do you a service. And,” he adds, with sardonic smile, “grateful if it be never given to yourself.”
She starts, recoiling in horror. Not at the repulsive confessions she has listened to, but more through personal fear. Though herself steeped in crime, he beside her seems its very incarnation! She has long known him morally capable of anything, and now fancies he may have the power of the famed basilisk to strike her dead with a glance of his eyes!
“Bah!” he exclaims, observing her trepidation, but pretending to construe it otherwise. “Why all this emotion about such a misérable? He’ll have no widow to lament him—inconsolable like yourself. Ha! ha! Besides, for our safety—both of us—his death is as much needed as was the other. After killing the bird that threatened to devour our crops, it would be blind buffoonery to keep the scarecrow standing. I only wish, there were nothing but he between us, and complete security.”
“But is there still?” she asks, her alarm taking a new turn, as she observes a slight shade of apprehension pass over his face.
“Certainly there is.”
“What?”
“That little convent matter.”
“Mon Dieu! I supposed it arranged beyond the possibility of danger.”
“Probability is the word you mean. In this sweet world there’s nothing sure except money—that, too, in hard cash coin. Even at the best we’ll have to sacrifice a large slice of the estate to satisfy the greed of those who have assisted us—Messieurs les Jesuites. If I could only, as by some magician’s wand, convert these clods of Herefordshire into a portable shape, I’d cheat them yet; as I’ve done already, in making them believe me one of their most ardent doctrinaires. Then, chère amie, we could at once move from Llangorren Court to a palace by some Lake of Como, glassing softest skies, with whispering myrtles, and all the other fal-lals, by which Monsieur Bulwer’s sham prince humbugged the Lyonese shopkeeper’s daughter. Ha! ha! ha!”
“But why can’t it be done?”
“Ah! There the word impossible, if you like. What! Convert a landed estate of several thousand acres into cash, presto-instanter, as though one were but selling a flock of sheep! The thing can’t be accomplished anywhere; least of all in this slow-moving Angleterre, where men look at their money twice—twenty times—before parting with it. Even a mortgage couldn’t be managed for weeks—may be months—without losing quite the moiety of value. But a bona fide sale, for which we must wait, and with that cloud hanging over us! Oh! it’s damnable. The thing’s been a blunder from beginning to end; all through the squeamishness of Monsieur, votre mari. Had he agreed to what I first proposed, and done with Mademoiselle, what should have been done, he might himself still—The simpleton, sot—soft heart, and softer head! Well; it’s of no use reviling him now. He paid the forfeit for being a fool. And ’twill do no good our giving way to apprehensions, that after all may turn out shadows, however dark. In the end everything may go right, and we can make our midnight flitting in a quiet, comfortable way. But what a flutter there’ll be among my flock at the Rugg’s Ferry Chapel, when they wake up some fine morning, and rub their eyes—only to see that their good shepherd has forsaken them! A comical scene, of which I’d like being a spectator. Ha! ha! ha!”
She joins him in the laugh, for the sally is irresistible. And while they are still ha-ha-ing, a touch at the door tells of a servant seeking admittance.
It is the butler who presents himself, salver in hand, on which rests a chrome-coloured envelope—at a glance seen to be a telegraphic despatch.
It bears the address “Rev. Gregoire Rogier, Rugg’s Ferry, Herefordshire,” and when opened the telegram is seen to have been sent from Folkestone. Its wording is:—
“The bird has escaped from its cage. Prenez garde!”
Well for the pseudo-priest, and his chère amie, that before they read it, the butler had left the room. For though figurative the form of expression, and cabalistic the words, both man and woman seem instantly to comprehend them. And with such comprehension, as almost to drive them distracted! He is silent, as if struck dumb, his face showing blanched and bloodless; while she utters a shriek, half terrified, half in frenzied anger!
It is the last loud cry, or word, to which she gives utterance at Llangorren. And no longer there speaks the priest loudly, or authoritatively. The after hours of that night are spent by both of them, not as the owners of the house, but burglars in the act of breaking it!
Up till the hour of dawn, the two might be seen silently flitting from room to room—attended only by Clarisse, who carries the candle—ransacking drawers and secretaires, selecting articles of bijouterie and vertu, of little weight but large value, and packing them in trunks and travelling bags. All of which, under the grey light of morning are taken to the nearest railway station in one of the Court carriages—a large drag-barouche—inside which ride Rogier and Madame Murdock veuve; her femme de chambre having a seat beside the coachman, who has been told they are starting on a continental tour.
And so were they; but it was a tour from which they never returned. Instead, it was extended to a greater distance than they themselves designed, and in a direction neither dreamt of. Since their career, after a years interval, ended in deportation to Cayenne, for some crime committed by them in the South of France. So said the Semaphore of Marseilles.
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Five.
Coracle Dick on his Death-Bed.
As next morning’s sun rises over Llangorren Court, it shows a mansion without either master or mistress!
Not long to remain so. If the old servants of the establishment had short notice of dismissal, still more brief is that given to its latest retinue. About meridian of that day, after the departure of their mistress, while yet in wonder where she has gone, they receive another shock of surprise, and a more unpleasant one, at seeing a hackney carriage-drive up to the hall door, out of which step two men, evidently no friends to her from whom they have their wages. For one of the men is Captain Ryecroft, the other a police superintendent; who, after the shortest possible parley, directs the butler to parade the complete staff of his fellow domestics, male and female. This with an air and in a tone of authority, which precludes supposition that the thing is a jest.
Summoned from all quarters, cellar to garret, and out doors as well, their names, with other particulars, are taken down; and they are told that their services will be no longer required at Llangorren. In short, they are one and all dismissed, without a word about the month’s wages or warning! If they get either, ’twill be only as a grace.
Then they receive orders to pack up and be off; while Joseph Preece, ex-Charon, who has crossed the river in his boat, with appointment to meet the hackney there, is authorised to take temporary charge of the place; Jack Wingate, similarly bespoke, having come down in his skiff, to stand by him in case of any opposition.
None arises. However chagrined by their hasty sans façon discharge, the outgoing domestics seem not so greatly surprised at it. From what they have observed for some time going on, as also something whispered about, they had no great reliance on their places being permanent. So, in silence all submit, though somewhat sulkily; and prepare to vacate quarters they had found fairly snug.
There is one, however, who cannot be thus conveniently, or unceremoniously, dismissed—the head-gamekeeper, Richard Dempsey. For, while the others are getting their mandamus to move, the report is brought in that he is lying on his death-bed! So the parish doctor has prognosticated. Also, that he is just then delirious, and saying queer things; some of which repeated to the police “super,” tell him his proper place, at that precise moment, is by the bedside of the sick man.
Without a second’s delay he starts off towards the lodge in which Coracle has been of late domiciled—under the guidance of its former occupant Joseph Preece—accompanied by Captain Ryecroft and Jack Wingate.
The house being but a few hundred yards distant from the Court, they are soon inside it, and standing over the bed on which lies the fevered patient; not at rest, but tossing to and fro—at intervals, in such violent manner as to need restraint.
The superintendent at once sees it would be idle putting questions to him. If asked his own name, he could not declare it. For he knows not himself—far less those who are around.
His face is something horrible to behold. It would but harrow sensitive feelings to give a portraiture of it. Enough to say, it is more like that of demon than man.
And his speech, poured as in a torrent from his lips, is alike horrifying—admission of many and varied crimes; in the same breath denying them and accusing others; his contradictory ravings garnished with blasphemous ejaculations.
A specimen will suffice, omitting the blasphemy.
“It’s a lie!” he cries out, just as they are entering the room. “A lie, every word o’t! I didn’t murder Mary Morgan. Served her right if I had, the jade! She jilted me; an’ for that wasp Wingate—dog—cur! I didn’t kill her. No; only fixed the plank. If she wor fool enough to step on’t that warn’t my fault. She did—she did! Ha! ha! ha!”
For a while he keeps up the horrid cachinnation, as the glee of Satan exulting over some feat of foul diablerie. Then his thoughts changing to another crime, he goes on:—
“The grand girl—the lady! She arn’t drowned; nor dead eyther! The priest carried her off in that French schooner. I had nothing to do with it. ’Twar the priest and Mr Murdock. Ha! Murdock! I did drown him. No, I didn’t. That’s another lie! ’Twas himself upset the boat. Let me see—was it? No! he couldn’t, he was too drunk. I stood up on the skiff’s rail. Slap over it went. What a duckin’ I had for it, and a devil o’ a swim too! But I did the trick—neatly! Didn’t I, your Reverence? Now for the hundred pounds. And you promised to double it—you did! Keep to your bargain, or I’ll peach upon you—on all the lot of you—the woman, too—the French woman! She kept that fine shawl, Indian they said it wor. She’s got it now. She wanted the diamonds, too, but daren’t keep them. The shroud! Ha! the shroud! That’s all they left me. I ought to a’ burnt it. But then the devil would a’ been after and burned me! How fine Mary looked in that grand dress, wi’ all them gewgaws, rings,—chains, an’ bracelets, all pure gold! But I drownded her, an’ she deserved it. Drownded her twice—ha—ha—ha!”
Again he breaks off with a peal of demoniac laughter, long continued.
More than an hour they remain listening to his delirious ramblings, and with interest intense. For despite its incoherence, the disconnected threads joined together make up a tale they can understand; though so strange, so brimful of atrocities, as to seem incredible.
All the while he is writhing about on the bed; till at length, exhausted, his head droops over upon the pillow, and he lies for a while quiet—to all appearance dead!
But no; there is another throe yet, one horrible as any that has preceded. Looking up, he sees the superintendent’s uniform and silver buttons; a sight which produces a change in the expression of his features, as though it had recalled him to his senses. With arms flung out as in defence, he shrieks:—
“Keep back, you — policeman! Hands off, or I’ll brain you! Hach! You’ve got the rope round my neck! Curse the thing! It’s choking me. Hach!”
And with his fingers clutching at his throat, as if to undo a noose, he gasps out in husky voice:
“Gone by God.”
At this he drops over dead, his last word an oath, his last thought a fancy, that there is a rope around his neck!
What he has said in his unconscious confessions lays open many seeming mysteries of this romance, hitherto unrevealed. How the pseudo-priest, Father Rogier, observing a likeness between Miss Wynn and Mary Morgan—causing him that start as he stood over the coffin, noticed by Jack Wingate—had exhumed the dead body of the latter, the poacher and Murdock assisting him. Then how they had taken it down in the boat to Dempsey’s house; soon after, going over to Llangorren, and seizing the young lady, as she stood in the summer-house, having stifled her cries by chloroform. Then, how they carried her across to Dempsey’s, and substituted the corpse for the living body—the grave clothes changed for the silken dress with all its adornments—this the part assigned to Mrs Murdock, who had met them at Coracle’s cottage. Then, Dick himself hiding away the shroud, hindered by superstitious fear from committing it to the flames. In fine, how Gwendoline Wynn, drugged and still kept in a state of coma, was taken down in a boat to Chepstow, and there put aboard the French schooner La Chouette; carried across to Boulogne, to be shut up in a convent for life! All these delicate matters, managed by Father Rogier, backed by Messieurs les Jesuites, who had furnished him with the means!
One after another, the astounding facts come forth as the raving man continues his involuntary admissions. Supplemented by others already known to Ryecroft and the rest, with the deductions drawn, they complete the unities of a drama, iniquitous as ever enacted.
Its motives declare themselves; all wicked save one. This a spark of humanity that had still lingered in the breast of Lewin Murdock; but for which Gwendoline Wynn would never have seen the inside of a nunnery. Instead, while under the influence of the narcotic, her body would have been dropped into the Wye, just as was that wearing her ball dress! And that same body is now wearing another dress, supposed to have been prepared for her—another shroud—reposing in the tomb where all believed Gwen Wynn to have been laid!
This last fact is brought to light on the following day; when the family vault of the Wynns is re-opened, and Mrs Morgan—by marks known only to herself—identifies the remains found there as those of her own daughter!
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Six.
The Calm after the Storm.
Twelve months after the events recorded in this romance of the Wye, a boat-tourist descending the picturesque river, and inquiring about a pagoda-like structure he will see on its western side, would be told it is a summer-house, standing in the ornamental grounds of a gentleman’s residence. If he ask who the gentleman is, the answer would be, Captain Vivian Ryecroft! For the ex-officer of Hussars is now the master of Llangorren; and, what he himself values higher, the husband of Gwendoline Wynn, once more its mistress.
Were the tourist an acquaintance of either, and on his way to make call at the Court, bringing in by the little dock, he would there see a row-boat, on its stern board, in gold lettering “The Gwendoline.”
For the pretty pleasure craft has been restored to its ancient moorings. Still, however, remaining the property of Joseph Preece, who no longer lives in the cast-off cottage of Coracle Dick, but, like the boat itself, is again back and in service at Llangorren.
If the day be fine this venerable and versatile individual will be loitering beside it, or seated on one of its thwarts, pipe in mouth, indulging in the dolce far niente. And little besides has he to do, since his pursuits are no longer varied, but now exclusively confined to the calling of waterman to the Court. He and his craft are under charter for the remainder of his life, should he wish it so—as he surely will.
The friendly visitor keeping on up to the house, if at the hour of luncheon, will in all likelihood there meet a party of old acquaintances—ours, if not his. Besides the beautiful hostess at the table’s head, he will see a lady of the “antique brocaded type,” who herself once presided there, by name Miss Dorothea Linton; another known as Miss Eleanor Lees; and a fourth, youngest of the quartette, yclept Kate Mahon. For the school girl of the Boulogne Convent has escaped from its austere studies; and is now most; part of her time resident with the friend she helped to escape from its cloisters.
Men there will also be at the Llangorren luncheon table; likely three of them, in addition to the host himself. One will be Major Mahon; a second the Reverend William Musgrave; and the third, Mr George Shenstone! Yes; George Shenstone, under the roof, and seated at the table of Gwendoline Wynn, now the wife of Vivian Ryecroft!
To explain a circumstance seemingly so singular, it is necessary to call in the aid of a saying, culled from that language richest of all others in moral and metaphysical imagery—the Spanish. It has a proverb, un claco saca otro claco—“one nail drives out the other.” And, watching the countenance of the baronet’s son, so long sad and clouded, seeing how, at intervals, it brightens up—these intervals when his eyes meet those of Kate Mahon—it were easy predicting that in his case the adage will ere long have additional verification.
Were the same tourist to descend the Wye at a date posterior, and again make a call at Llangorren, he would find that some changes had taken place in the interval of his absence. At the boat dock Old Joe would likely be. But not as before in sole charge of the pleasure craft; only pottering about, as a pensioner retired on full pay; the acting and active officer being a younger man, by name Wingate, who is now waterman to the Court. Between these two, however, there is no spite about the displacement—no bickerings nor heartburnings. How could there, since the younger addresses the older as “uncle”; himself in return being styled “nevvy?”
No need to say, that this relationship has been brought about by the bright eyes of Amy Preece. Nor is it so new. In the lodge where Jack and Joe live together is a brace of chubby chicks; one of them a boy—the possible embryo of a Wye waterman—who, dandled upon old Joe’s knees, takes delight in weeding his frosted whiskers, while calling him “good grandaddy.”
As Jack’s mother—who is also a member of this happy family—forewarned him, the wildest grief must in time give way, and Nature’s laws assert their supremacy. So has he found it; and though still holding Mary Morgan in sacred, honest remembrance, he—as many a true man before, and others as true to come—has yielded to the inevitable.
Proceeding on to the Court the friendly visitor will at certain times there meet the same people he met before; but the majority of them having new names or titles. An added number in two interesting olive branches there also, with complexions struggling between blonde and brunette, who call Captain and Mrs Ryecroft their papa and mamma; while the lady who was once Eleanor Lees—the “companion”—is now Mrs Musgrave, life companion not to the curate of Llangorren Church, but its rector. The living having become vacant, and in the bestowal of Llangorren’s heiress, has been worthily bestowed on the Reverend William.
Two other old faces, withal young ones, the returned tourist will see at Llangorren—their owners on visit as himself. He might not know either of them by the names they now bear—Sir George and Lady Shenstone. For when he last saw them the gentleman was simply Mr Shenstone, and the lady Miss Mahon. The old baronet is dead, and the young one, succeeding to the title, has also taken upon himself another title—that of husband—proving the Spanish apothegm true, both in the spirit and to the letter.
If there be any nail capable of driving out another, it is that sent home by the glance of an Irish girl’s eye—at least so thinks Sir George Shenstone, with good reason for thinking it.
There are two other individuals, who come and go at the Court—the only ones holding out, and likely to hold, against change of any kind. For Major Mahon is still Major Mahon, rolling on in his rich Irish brogue as ever abhorrent of matrimony. No danger of his becoming a Benedict!
And as little of Miss Linton being transformed into a sage woman. It would be strange if she should, with the love novels she continues to devour, and the “Court Intelligence” she gulps down, keeping alive the hallucination that she is still a belle at Bath and Cheltenham.
So ends our “Romance of the Wye;” a drama of happy dénouement to most of the actors in it; and, as hoped, satisfactory to all who have been spectators.