CHAPTER II.
A week had gone by, and Margaret was still at Bryanston Square.
She had lost count of time; she could not have told how long ago she had left the preacher on the threshold of the old house in which her childhood and girlhood had been passed.
"Ye'll find me when ye want me. Ye'd best stay wi' him till th' end," Barnabas had said.
He had caught a glimpse of the grand hall, of the painted walls and ceilings; then the door had shut between them, and he had turned away rather grimly. Those heathen gods and goddesses seemed to the preacher fitting ornaments for the "heathenism" of luxury. But Margaret had gone up the shallow stairs, looking neither to right nor left, straight to her father at last! no one hindering. Mr. Deane was propped up on pillows; his breath was coming short and fast, his eyes were very bright, his whole soul seemed in them. When Meg crossed the room, the strained look relaxed; when she knelt by his side, he laughed weakly.
"Ah, I thought you'd do it, Meg!" he said. "Forgive? why, little daughter, between you and me that's not the word! but you're—you're mine again—and home!"
He shut his eyes then, like a tired child who goes to sleep when its treasure is put into its hand; and Meg knelt on motionless, with her head on the pillow by his side. She had neither sight nor hearing for any one else.
He dozed, it might be for half an hour; then woke again, and the nurse, who had been sitting at the foot of the bed, got up and moved softly about, and brought a cup of arrowroot to him, and Meg fed him in spoonfuls.
He was too weak to lift his hand to his lips; but he whispered to her to turn to the light, and to take off her bonnet, that he might see her better. She laid it on the floor by her side, uncovering the short waves of hair, that grew, exactly as her father's grew, low on the forehead.
"Has he cut off your hair, Meg?" said Mr. Deane. The sight seemed to distress, even to make him a little angry. "He had no business to do that!"
"He didn't," said Meg. "I cut it off myself long ago. Barnabas was sorry when he noticed that it was gone."
"Well, I'm glad he had the grace to be sorry. Don't go away." And he fell asleep again, with his hand on hers.
It was like a dream to be sitting in that softly carpeted room, with the scent of roses in the air, and the companions of her girlhood round her.
Laura came softly in presently, and sat down beside her. The sisters looked at each other for a moment, not daring to speak, lest they should wake him. Laura tried to smile a welcome; then her blue eyes filled with unusual tears.
"Meg, Meg! Is it you really? Will you vanish, if I kiss you? Is it safe to try?" she asked under her breath.
Meg leaned forward, without releasing her hand, and they kissed softly.
"I shall stay—till the end," she whispered in return.
So, very quietly and gently, Margaret Thorpe stole back to the place Meg Deane had left; but knew, even while her heart was filled with thankfulness, that, though the place might be the same, yet the girl who had left it would return no more.
Mr. Deane woke with a contented smile on his lips. "I dreamt of you, my Meg," he said. And, from that moment, he seemed to have simply put aside all that had happened since Meg had been his spoilt darling of long ago.
His mind wandered to her nursery rather than to her girlish days—to that very far away time, before Mrs. Russelthorpe's reign, when his little girl had sat on his knee, and ruled him with sweet baby tyranny.
Margaret tried once to recall his mind to the present; for her heart ached for a few words that she might treasure—words spoken to her real and womanly self; but the attempt distressed him, and she gave it up.
She slept on the sofa in his room; for he became uneasy when she was out of his sight; but the ebbing away of his life was quiet and gradual as the ebb of a summer sea.
Perhaps the faculty he had always possessed of forgetting troublesome matters helped to make his last days happy.
Apparently he utterly forgot the existence of the preacher. The grown-up daughter had given him more pain than pleasure; but the baby girl had been an unmixed joy. He loved to call her by the old pet names of her childhood. Laura, who came every day, watched her sister wonderingly. Once, when Meg playfully answered some allusion to an old family joke, Laura felt a sudden longing to thrust aside the veil, to ask Meg about all the strange experiences that were surely in the background, to beg her to say whether the preacher was kind or cruel to her; but they both refrained from bringing any subject into that chamber which was already sanctified by the approach of the great healer.
Mrs. Russelthorpe came in one day, and stood by the bedside.
Mr. Deane turned his head away from her, as if her presence reminded him of something he preferred to forget; then, apparently with some effort, he recalled his thoughts.
"You must make friends with your aunt, little Meg. We must bury old grudges before—what is it?—before the sun goes down. It is going down fast!"
Meg held out her hand across the bed—for his sake she would have made friends with any one; but Mrs. Russelthorpe shook her head. "There is no need for us to go through that farce; for his thoughts have wandered again."
"Aunt Russelthorpe," said Meg, "let us both watch by him now; we both care for him—there is room for us both."
"No!" said her aunt. "There is room for only one of us two, Margaret; and he has chosen. Let us have no pretences. Stay where you are. You have won!" and Meg stayed.
She used to read to him by the hour, because he loved the sound of her voice, going on and on in the low monotonous key that soothed him. It was doubtful whether he ever followed the sense of what she read, and, as a matter of fact, Meg, though she would sit half the day with her hand in his and her head bent over a book, would have been puzzled if called on to give an account of what her tongue had been mechanically repeating.
The atmosphere was so peaceful that it seemed as if Time himself stood still for a space with folded wings. "You are keeping so close to me, little Meg," her father said once with a dreamy smile,—"so close, that if you don't take care, when I go through the great gates, you will slip in too by mistake."
Meg pressed closer to him still; and yet, for all her clinging, she knew that there was a life's experience, even now, between him and her.
A thick velvet curtain, curiously embroidered in gold silks, hung across the door. It shut out the whole of the outside world for five days.
At the end of that time, Laura, pushing it aside, touched Meg's shoulder as she sat in her usual place.
"Your husband is outside," she said. "I passed him on my way in. He told me to tell you that he should like a minute's sight of you, but that you need not hurry—he could wait."
Meg made a sign that she would come; and presently, taking a shawl from Laura, slid gently out of the room, while her father's eyes were closed.
She opened the front door and stood at the top of the steps, shivering a little, though the evening was hot, for the flower-scented room upstairs was hotter.
A street musician was playing, and some children were shouting and dancing. After the silence she had left behind that curtain, the merry tune and the unsubdued voices sounded strangely loud and bold.
"My lass," said the preacher. "Ye are lookin' liker a bit o' moonlight than ever! Come down to me."
And Meg, putting the shawl over her head, ran down, and stood beside him on the pavement. They walked down the length of the square together. The street player ceased playing for a moment to stare at the woman who had stepped out of the front door of No. 35 to keep company with a working man, and then the tune ground on again.
"Barnabas," she said in a low voice, "I shall come to you the very moment that—that he does not need me. I do not think Aunt Russelthorpe would keep me a second."
"And you'll not need to ask her!" said the preacher quickly. "Come to me any time, lass; though ye'll find it a bit uncomfortable, I'm afear'd! Still, we'll do somehow."
He frowned, considering the possibilities of Giles' house, then turned to her with a smile. "Do you feel as if ye'd stepped backwards a year or so?"
"No!" said Margaret. "There is no such thing as 'going back,' in reality. Is that Laura making a sign to me? No! it is only the lace curtain moving. He is still asleep, then. Tell me why you came, Barnabas. Had you anything especial to say to me?"
But her glance still rested anxiously on the window.
"Ay, I had some'ut to tell ye," he answered; "though I had nigh forgotten it in seeing ye. I've been a bit fashed about—ye'll be surprised, Margaret—about Mr. Cohen. Do you know whereabouts he lives? Happen, it was a delusion; but yet, I'd as lief be sartain that it's not him who is lyin' murdered i' the marshes."
He paused; but Margaret was too much surprised to speak.
"I'd ha' liked," he went on, more to himself than her, "I'd ha' liked to ha' had it out betwixt him and me, in a fair fight wi' no quarter asked—only I was sworn, and I'm glad I didn't. But that's one thing; and to think o' him bein' struck down from behind, lyin' there alone for days an' nights, helpless i' the sunlight an' the moonlight; cut off wi'out the chance of givin' a free blow; that's different. Where does he live? I must make my mind easy."
Meg was thoroughly roused this time, even to a momentary forgetting of that room upstairs.
"Mr. Sauls murdered!" she said. "It can't be true. What makes you fancy that? It is too horrible; it can't be true!"
She looked at his troubled face anxiously. Had his violent feeling against Mr. Sauls, and his equally strong remorse and efforts to subdue it, given rise to a morbid imagination on the subject? She knew (she understood the preacher better than of old) how violent both his hate and his horror of himself for so hating could be.
"Ay, it's horrible," he answered. "Margaret! when the lust for a man's blood has been strong, and then one hears of a sudden that, mayhap, the man's been killed, one feels as if one's own thought had gotten shape and killed him!"
There was a thrill in the preacher's voice that made Meg draw closer to him. They had reached the end of the square, but she turned again.
"Will you not tell me more?" she asked.
He hesitated. "If I tell ye, do ye hold that I tell ye as countin' ye one wi' mysel'? An' will 'ee feel bound, as I hold myself bound, to keep it secret?"
"Yes," said Meg.
"Some one confessed to me that he'd killed a man as was walking alone across the marshes, an' robbed him. And it came to my mind as it were Mr. Sauls. There aren't many about us as are worth the robbing, an' very few but labourers as takes that way to th' farm. The man as told me was in a sort o' fever; I didn't think he was goin' to live, and no more did he; he was terrible scared o' dying, or I fancy he'd never ha' let it out. All one night he was very bad; then he quieted down an' slept, an' awoke up a bit better, eatin' as if he'd been clemmed, but not takin' notice o' what I said to him, nor seemingly understandin' a word. I tried to persuade him to gi'e himsel' up to justice, but it seemed just waste o' breath. I went down to get him some'ut more to eat, an' when I came back he were gone! he must ha' got his clothes on and just slipped through the window; happen, he understood a bit more nor I thought!"
"Who is the man?" asked Meg, in a horrified whisper.
"I'd as lief not tell ye that," said Barnabas; "for ye'd better not know."
"If—if it is true—what shall you do?"
"Nothing!" he answered decidedly. "What is told i' that way must be as safe as if it hadn't been breathed. I'd ha' tried to make the murderer confess and be hung, for the savin' o' his soul; but I'd not tell on him mysel', I'd sooner go to the gallows; an', mind, ye ha' sworn it shall be th' same wi' you, Margaret."
"Yes," she said; "it shall be the same with me—as if I were yourself." She spoke solemnly, though little guessing all that that promise would mean.
"And after all," she added more lightly, for, indeed, this idea was too startling to realise, "after all, Mr. Sauls is, probably, perfectly well and comfortable. I cannot remember his address, but my sister may know it. I will ask her for it, and send it down to you. Ah, she is waving her hand to me at the window. Father must be awake."
"I must e'en let ye go, I suppose," said Barnabas; "for, an' I hold ye, your soul 'ull slip through my fingers, an' go an' watch by him all the same. God be with ye, my dear!"
He released her unwillingly, and Margaret ran back to her father. Mr. Deane was wide awake and slightly flushed.
"Meg! Meg! I dreamed I had lost you, that you had leaped over a precipice," he cried.
He was excited, and not quite himself. He recognised her on her return to his room; but, as the day wore on, he became more feverish, and in the evening he was delirious.
All through the night he talked eagerly to his dead wife, evidently believing her to be present; but in the small hours the fever left him, and, in the collapse that followed it, he died. He died with Meg's hand clasped in his, with his head on his sister's shoulder; but unconscious of the presence of either of the women, each of whom had, in her way, loved him better than all else in the world.
Laura stood at the foot of the bed during the last terrible hour, with her arm round Kate, who had come just in time. Kate kept turning her beautiful head away,—she could hardly bear to see this death struggle.
Margaret's eyes never moved from her father's face. When Mr. Deane's head fell forward on his breast, the last sobbing breath drawn, the awful involuntary fight for life over, Meg's expression relaxed, as if she, too, were relieved.
"It is over!" she said.
Only when some one tried to unclasp the living hand from his she fell on her knees with a smothered cry—after all, she had not gone with him.
Laura led Kate away, crying bitterly; if Mr. Deane had been the best and most dependable father on earth, instead of merely the most charmingly affectionate when he happened to be at home, they would not have loved him more, possibly they would have loved him less; for a woman's love will fill up the measure wherein a man falls short of what he might have been.
Mrs. Russelthorpe closed his eyes—eyes that had looked their last on a world which had generally treated him very well; then went to her room with lips pressed closely together.
Meg knelt on till the grey dawn crept in, and some one entering disturbed her.
"You can do no more for him now. Come away; indeed, Meg, you must come," said Laura.
Laura looked pale, and even a little nervous. She dreaded Meg's grief, remembering how "hard" the little sister, whom they had rather neglected, had always taken everything.
But this Meg was not the "little sister" of old; or rather, perhaps, her identity was hidden under a new garb.
She rose from her knees dry-eyed and composed.
"I am going back to my husband," she said. "Father does not want me now, as you say. Barnabas has been very good. He has waited all these days. I should like to stay till after the funeral, but——"
"Come home with me!" said Laura.
She put her hand on her sister's arm and grasped her tightly.
"Don't disappear, Meg! I don't want to lose you; you—you are so like him," she whispered, with a glance at the bed, where that quiet figure lay in the deep peace that neither grief nor love should ever move again.
"I promised Barnabas that I would not stay," said Margaret; but a quiver passed over her face. Laura drew her gently out of the room and shut the door.
"I could not tell you in there," she said, with the sentiment that we all have against talking of mundane matters in the chamber of death, "but I have a message for you from your husband. I went down to give him the address you asked me for yesterday, because I wished to speak to him, to see for myself what sort of a man he is. While I was speaking to him he"—Laura hesitated a second—"he was summoned away. He bid me tell you that he may be absent several days, but that you were not to 'fash' about him, but just bide quiet; if he were not here when the end came, I told him I would take you back with me. He said you would know that he would come for you so soon as ever he could."
"Yes, I know," said Meg simply. "What was the call?"
"He said he was called to a place where he could not have you by him."
Laura coloured, wondering what the next question would be; but Meg was apparently satisfied.
The preacher's movements were apt to be erratic, and his decisions were often arbitrary. The "call" might probably be to some abode of vice and misery into which he shrank from taking her.
"Are you sure you want me, Laura?"
"Quite sure," said Laura emphatically.
She put her arm round her sister while she spoke, and the two left the house together. Barnabas Thorpe had been arrested on Mrs. Russelthorpe's doorstep before Laura's eyes; but there was, she assured herself, no need to tell Meg that, just now.
If he were innocent he would be set free again, and would come to claim his wife quite soon enough; if he were guilty—but no! oddly enough, Laura found it simply impossible to believe him guilty. The big gaunt man with the deeply furrowed face and the eager eyes, that had the look of the enthusiast and potential martyr in them, had impressed her curiously. Laura had felt no name too bad for the canting rascal who had stolen Margaret; but the reality and intense personality of the preacher had at least momentarily pierced through her prejudice.
Barnabas Thorpe was no hypocrite; her womanly instinct spoke for him, though her pride and reason were against him. The last-named qualities woke up only when the spell of his presence was removed.
"I am glad he has gone; after all, you belong to us, Meg," she said.
CHAPTER III.
While Mr. Deane's life was ebbing slowly away in Bryanston Square, George Sauls was making a good fight for his at the farm.
Tom Thorpe had found him on the afternoon of the preacher's departure, the sun shining down pitilessly on the upturned face, the arms spread wide.
Lifting him up, Tom found the wound at the back of the head, made with a bill-hook or hatchet. Whoever had done that, had also turned his victim over to rifle the pockets; for a man hit from behind would naturally fall on his face, and, moreover, the pockets were empty.
"Dead as a door nail!" said Tom. He had remarkably good nerve, but this was a ghastly discovery to come on, on a fine summer's day.
Mr. Sauls was wet with dew; he must have lain there all night. A spider had spun a thread across his chest; it glittered with diamond drops, more numerous and less costly than those that had been stolen. Tom, in lifting him, disturbed also a small brown bird, that had been debating whether this gentleman was really dead—so dead that she might venture to pick off that bit of white cotton hanging from the lining of his pocket, and use it for her household purposes. She had been hopping gradually nearer, but had had her suspicion that, for all his stillness, he was not quite harmless yet; her instinct was keener than Tom's.
Mr. Sauls suddenly opened his eyes and looked at Tom.
"Not at all!" he said. "I'm not dead yet." And then he relapsed into unconsciousness; and, for once in his life, Tom was startled.
"I don't say but what it's queer to ha' one's foot knock up agin a murdered man when one's mind's runnin' on naught but crops," he explained afterwards; "but I ain't a maid wi' nerves; I didn't mind that. It wur his eyes openin' and fixin' me, just as I wur thinkin' there'd ha' to be an inquest, as did gi'e me a bit of a turn. Besides, he'd no business to come to life; he had ought to ha' been killed wi' a mark that deep at the bottom o' his skull."
The doctor, when at last they got one, was of the same opinion; the wound would have killed most men, he said; and why Mr. Sauls didn't die, remained a mystery, except, of course, that he was treated with exceptional skill.
George clung to life with that tenacity which he showed in everything. He was dangerously ill for a fortnight; then began to recover, to the surprise of every one, except his mother, who had been quite hopeful all along, and had replied cheerfully to an attempt to warn her of the probable end.
"Danger? My dear sir, it will be dangerous for the man who tried to murder George! but, please God, my son will live to see that villain hang."
Mr. Sauls had been carried to the farm, that being the only house near. Tom had bound up the patient's head as best he could, regretting that the preacher's more practised and skilful fingers were not available. It seemed barely possible that Mr. Sauls could live till further aid should arrive.
Mr. Thorpe rode into N—— and gave notice to the police of what had occurred. He went also to the inn, and, assisted by the landlord, searched for some clue as to the whereabouts of the unfortunate man's relatives. They found a letter torn in half, and lying in the fireplace of the room Mr. Sauls had slept in. Piecing it together, they made out the signature:—
"Your affectionate old mother,
"Rebecca Sauls."
And the address: "20 Hill Street".
Mr. Thorpe sat down and wrote a letter to Mrs. Sauls, acquainting her with the evil chance that had befallen her son. Writing was not the labour to him that it was to Barnabas, for he had been a scholar in his day. The letter was clear and well expressed.
"If you wish to come to the farm to nurse Mr. Sauls," he wrote as an after-thought, "we shall be honoured in doing our best to make you comfortable."
It was kindly done, for he had a nervous dislike to strangers; but the old fellow was too true a gentleman at heart to be anything but cordial in the circumstances: and Mrs. Sauls accepted his invitation without a moment's hesitation. She would have started off for the North Pole, if George had happened to come to grief there!
Tom was relieved when he saw her settled in the sick room, taking possession with an air of assured capability. He would have done his best for any man thrown on his mercy, and picked up wounded by the way; but he was glad to be rid of the care of this patient.
"That chap hates us," he remarked. "Oh, ay—I know, dad; he could be civil (leastways as a rule) because he wanted to come, and he ain't the soart to let his temper play maister to his wants; but we're the last he'll like bein' obligated to—more especial as I fancy he an' Barnabas have had words."
"What makes you think that?" said his father.
"Long John told me that much," said Tom. "He overheard some'ut behind a hay rick. I wur down on him for eavesdropping, an' I doan't know what 'twas about——Hallo! what are ye wantin'?" The last question was addressed to a man who had come up behind the Thorpes.
"I was sent up to make inquiries as to how soon the gentleman will be fit to give evidence," said the stranger.
He had been listening with all his ears, and it struck him that he had collected a not unimportant fact himself. So Mr. Sauls and the preacher had had words!
Tom shrugged his shoulders; on the whole, it did not seem probable that Mr. Sauls' evidence would ever be given on this side of the grave. At present, he lay babbling the wildest nonsense, while the would-be murderer was probably escaping comfortably.
At last, however, there came a day when George woke up with recognition in his eyes. His mother, who was sitting by him, trembled with pleasure when she saw it. He looked ghastly enough with his sallow face swathed in white bandages; but Rebecca Sauls had never heard any sound that so nearly moved her to happy tears as the sound of her son's voice speaking sensibly, albeit somewhat crossly again.
"What are you doing here, mother?" said he. "I suppose I've been ill; but I'm sure there couldn't have been the least necessity for you to come. What's been the matter with me?" He put his hand to his head and tried hard to sit upright, but fell back. "H'm! I must have been rather bad," he said. "Have I been falling from a five storey window? It feels like it. I wish I could remember! I say, this isn't my room, and where the deuce——"
"You are in Caulderwell Farm," said his mother. "You have been very ill. Mr. Tom Thorpe picked you up in the marsh, near what they call the 'Pixies' Pool'."
"Well, go on," he said sharply. A horrible fear that he had lost his memory came over him.
"He brought you here because this was the only house near; and his father wrote to me, thinking that you were dying—I told them they were wrong, my dear. You are going to get well."
She was afraid of exciting him; and yet, compelled by the intense anxiety of his expression, and knowing her son, knew better than to refuse to satisfy him.
"What was the matter with me?" he asked.
"The matter was a blow on the back of your head," she began.
Then she paused, for George laughed with grim satisfaction. "Ah! I remember," he said. "I remember now! mother, I was afraid——"
He left the sentence unfinished, not caring to say what he had feared.
"I remember," he repeated again; "he hit me from behind in the dusk. Yes, and his brother thought I was done for, and I sat up and startled him, and then it got dark again. Upon my word, the saints hit hard! But he should have made quite sure while he was about it; dead men tell no tales! I think I am alive enough to give him trouble yet! A half-killed enemy is a dangerous thing, isn't it?"
"My dear," said his mother, putting her wrinkled hand on his, "I hope that whoever attempted to kill you may find that true; but you must get well before anything. Don't let yourself get excited now, only just tell me, who was it?"
"Who? there was only one man within a mile of me!" said George. "It was the preacher! I didn't see him, naturally, for I've no eyes behind; but he must have run after me, and taken payment for old debts! He had had provocation enough. I declare, if he'd given me warning and hit fairly, I'd have cried 'quits'; but to cant about being 'sworn' and then to hit in the dark——"
"If there is any law in England they ought to hang him for it," said Mrs. Sauls. "I cannot remember ever to have heard of so wicked and shameful a crime!"
And George smiled. "No?" he said. "And you've heard of a good many too! Do you know I doubt whether the judge will see that the fact of its being I who suffered, so increases the crime as to render it blacker than any other on the records! Judges are so dense. Why, mother, I believe you are crying! I shouldn't have thought it of you!"
"I don't know whatever makes me," she said, hastily drying her eyes. "It was joy at hearing you laughing at me, like yourself, my boy, I suppose. If you'd only heard the nonsense you've been chattering all day and night, and the way you've been calling for some one!"
"Have I?" he said uneasily. "For whom? for you?"
The old woman met his glance with a look of such tenderness as transfigured her harsh features.
"No; men don't call for their mothers like that," she said. "It was just a sick fancy, and I took care nobody but me heard—though I know better than to take account of such things. Bless you! I've put it all out of my head now. I have a bad memory for what's said in fever."
"Ah," he said, "you're the wisest woman I know! There's no doubt from whom I got my brains. When I'm Lord Chancellor, I'll own you gave me a good many shoves uphill."
He laughed, but there was a meaning under the joke. Mr. Sauls' vulgar old mother had a large place in the heart which, as well as the brains, he perhaps inherited from her. He pulled her towards him, and kissed her.
"Thanks!" he said. And Rebecca Sauls knew quite well that the thanks were not so much for the "shoves uphill" as for the "bad memory".
"I wish I could give you all you want, my son," she said sadly.
If her own life's blood could have given him his heart's desire, he should have had it, of course.
He recovered tolerably steadily after that, bending his endeavours to that end with a sort of dogged patience, obeying the doctor's orders, and refusing to allow himself to get excited, because he was so determined that he would get well.
He was not a sweet-tempered invalid, like Mr. Deane. He had been strong all his life, and it exasperated him to feel himself weak and dependent; but his mother rejoiced rather than otherwise when George was cross: it was a good sign, she thought, and better for him.
Only on one point he insisted—whatever might be the risk of moving him, he would not stay one day longer than was absolutely necessary under the farm roof.
Every one remonstrated, even Tom; who, though he had no great liking for Mr. Sauls, felt it a slur on their hospitality that any guest should leave them before he was fit to walk across a room.
"If ye aren't comfortable, ma'am, I'm sorry," said Tom. "But doan't 'ee let him go fro' this and die on the road! It ain't fair on us; and, considerin' I picked your son up, ye might listen to me."
"He wants to see you," said Mrs. Sauls, nodding her head with an emphatic little gesture. She had tried to dissuade George from this interview, but he would have it. "I am afraid I must ask you to go to him, Mr. Thomas; but please remember that he is ill."
Tom stared, and then laughed good-naturedly; the old lady spoke sharply, but her hand was shaking as she stood holding up her silk gown in the middle of the yard.
"Are ye feared I'll talk too loud?" he said. "I know how to behave in a sick room, ma'am. Dad and I tuk very good care o' him afore ye came. I'll leave my boots in the kitchen, and tread as soft as I can."
She followed him upstairs and stood outside the door. Tom wondered, half amused, what she imagined he was likely to do to her precious son. Did she fancy that he would quarrel with a sick man? why should he? He supposed she distrusted him because he looked so queer.
"Well, sir; are ye feelin' a bit better?" he asked as he entered. Mr. Sauls was in an elaborate fur-trimmed dressing-gown (he had a strong taste for personal luxury), and was sitting in an armchair that his mother had sent to N——town for, and a screen was arranged to keep out the draught.
His face was thin, and so were the brown hands that lay on his knee; he did not look fit to be out of bed.
"Oh yes, I'm better," he said. "I've cheated the undertaker and mine enemy this time!"
"I'm glad o' that," said Tom heartily. "Do you know who your enemy is, sir?"
Mr. Sauls looked at him rather oddly. "I believe so."
"Come!" said Tom cheerfully; "that's a good thing. Ye'll not gi'e him the chance o' playin' that game twice, I should think. There's a policeman downstairs wantin' to speak wi' ye, sir. I was goin' to let him in, when Mrs. Sauls axed me to go up mysel' first. Do ye want for aught? We'd liefer ye stayed wi' us till ye can be moved safely. Why, th' country side 'ull cry shame on us if we let ye be jolted along that road afore your wound's rightfully healed."
"Ah," said George, "the country side will understand why I couldn't stay under your roof, and why you won't want to keep me."
The real kindliness of Tom Thorpe's hospitality made him flinch a little from what he meant to say.
"It's difficult to come to the point," he went on; "because I must own that I am under a heavy obligation to you. Probably—no, certainly—I should have died if you had not picked me up; and my mother and I have been living in your father's house, and have received kindness at his hands——"
"Well?" said Tom.
George Sauls sat upright, his thin face flushing slightly.
"Well!" he said; "I can't prosecute your brother while I am eating your father's bread and salt, and I won't insult you by thanking you for your hospitality in the circumstances. As soon as I am outside your door, of course I shall give my evidence. No doubt you will agree with me that the sooner I go the better."
He watched Tom narrowly while he spoke. He was prepared for a burst of anger; "these hunchbacks generally have queer tempers," he thought; and it is a ticklish business to tell a man who has taken you into his house that you intend to bring an action against his brother for attempted murder.
"Do ye mean," said Tom slowly, "that ye are goin' to swear as Barnabas tried to kill ye?"
"I am going to swear that, to the best of my belief, he did," said George. "I didn't, of course, see my assailant; I tried to force a quarrel on your brother, and he refused to fight with me on religious grounds." He shrugged his shoulders slightly. For a few seconds the preacher had imposed even on him; he remembered he had half believed the man honest; but, in his right mind, George felt that a fellow who refused to fight "on religious grounds" was capable of any meanness; and, possibly, as a rule he was right; only his pocket measure couldn't gauge exceptions.
"It would have been pleasanter," he continued, "to have left your house without mentioning my intention of proceeding against your brother; but I confess I have a prejudice in favour of fair play, and I owe you an apology for having accepted your hospitality. I don't carry sentiment so far as to refrain from prosecuting the preacher because you carried me home; but I will certainly refuse to answer any questions while I am under this roof. Probably the delay will give the culprit time to escape; but——"
"Look 'ee here," said Tom; and he spoke so quietly that Mrs. Sauls, listening outside, afraid lest George in his weak state should be injured, could not distinguish the words. "Look 'ee here. Ye are ill; so I can't answer ye as I would like. Ye say Barnabas meant to murder ye, an' left ye for dead. Keep your opinion; you're welcome; no one 'ull be wishful to share it wi' ye, I'm thinking; but, when you come to 'probably,' I know what he'd probably do, if he was here—an', by your leave, I'll do it for him."
He opened the door wide, and shouted down the stairs:—
"Ask the man from N——town to step up at once, Cousin Tremnell. Mr. Sauls has important evidence to give, an' it won't keep!"
Then he turned to that gentleman with a short laugh:
"If ye mean to throw mud at Barnabas, do it an' welcome," said he. "It doan't seem to me greatly to your credit, sir; an' I doan't fancy ye'll find it stick. Ye needn't wait to be clear o' this roof; we're much obliged, but (I'm speaking for Barnabas) we'd rayther ye didn't delay."
"H'm," said George; "he is more fortunate than most prophets—his own brother swears by him!"
CHAPTER IV.
Meg sat in the nursery in Laura's home, with Laura's child on her lap.
The child had been ailing, but had finally fallen asleep with his head on her shoulder. Margaret was fond of children, and little boys especially generally took to her.
This year-old baby, who was too young to regard her with wonder or pity, was a comfort to her, and she felt most at ease in his society. Laura was kind, but brimming over with unspoken questions; and Laura's husband obviously patronised the "poor thing" who had made such a "shocking mistake," and who must, he thought, be truly glad to find herself in comfortable quarters again!
She had made mistakes enough, to be sure! She had committed a most terrible and fatal one in marrying for any reason but that which alone sanctifies marriage; but, at least, she was not ashamed of her preacher. Meg's soft grey eyes would brighten dangerously when this portly and rather self-indulgent gentleman too evidently pitied her. What was he that he should dare to despise Barnabas Thorpe?
Nevertheless, her heart warmed to Laura. The tie of blood drew the sisters together: they mourned the same father, at any rate; though, in Meg's case, the mourning was tempered by deep thankfulness in having been allowed to see him once more.
Laura came into the room presently, and sat down on the low rocking-chair by the fireplace, letting her busy hands be idle for once, while she watched the sister who had the fascination of an enigma for her.
The semi-darkness, the cosy quietness of the nursery, thawed their mutual reserve.
"I expect that Barnabas will come for me to-morrow. I wonder what can have kept him so long," said Meg. "I am glad that you persuaded me to stay here with you, Laura. It is good for one to have a breathing space to bury remembrances in. I don't think that I missed a word or look of father's while I was with him, now I feel as if I could put that away. One doesn't forget, but one must lay one's grief decently below the surface; and you have given me time to do that."
"I hate to think that you may be spirited away—and to I don't know what hardships," cried Laura impetuously.
But Meg shook her head. "I don't want to stay for ever! It is very pretty and 'soft'; it has been pleasant to sit in easy chairs and tread on velvety carpets, and, above all, to see you again; but I couldn't bear to live this life now. Even as it is, I feel as if there were a sort of disloyalty in the enjoyment of it. You must not fancy that I am being dragged away against my will, when Barnabas fetches me. I believe you imagine all sorts of horrors, Laura; but, indeed, I am telling you the truth! The preacher is very good to me. I don't think there is another man in the world who would have been so good."
"He ought to be," said Laura; "seeing that you threw away everything else for love of him."
"Oh no, it was not for love!" cried Meg. "And he never supposed that it was."
"Then you were madder than I thought." Laura sat bolt upright to give force to her emphatic whisper. She had grown stout and matronly since the days when she had advised her sister to "marry any decently rich man who would be good to her," and her views had ripened. "If people marry for love, at least they have their cake, even though they may get through it pretty soon, and go hungry when it's eaten. I've sometimes thought that I hardly saw that side of the question enough when I was young. I was terribly afraid of sentiment. But you, Meg—you, who of all women I ever met were the most high-flown!—if you didn't love him, what possessed you?"
"It is an old story now," said Meg, colouring. "Let it be. Barnabas understands about it. No one else ever will." She was silent for a few minutes, thinking of that scene at Ravenshill which she had but half understood at the time. "It is only afterwards that we know what we have done! I wonder whether all things that have happened to us will be seen by us in the right colours and the right proportion, as soon as we are in the next world. Will they all seem to shift into different places, like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope?"
"My dear," said Laura, with the twinkle that Meg remembered of old, "I am distinctly of the earth, earthy. I don't know, and I don't much care, about the next world; but I am curious about this one. I should like to hear what happened to the Meg I used to know. Where did he take you? Were you tolerably happy, or—or not?"
"I was happy when he was preaching," said Meg. "What shall I tell you?" She reflected a moment, and then began drawing word pictures of scenes by the way—of the tramps they had talked to; of the gipsies over whose fires they had sat; of meetings on heathery hills, and on village commons. She dwelt rather on the lighter side of her experiences, and her stories illustrated the gentler traits of the preacher's character—his tenderness for very old people and young children, and his hopefulness. She told how he had given a screw of tobacco to a dirty old tramp incarcerated in a far-off northern gaol, and how, on the beadle's rebuking him for his leniency, he had said: "She's ower ninety, man! ower deaf to hear the preachin' o' goodwill; but the 'baccy 'ull carry a bit o' th' message, an' she'll understan' that".
And she laughed a little over the minor perplexities that had beset her own path when she had struggled along by his side.
"It is different now, for I am older, and have grown accustomed to so much; but oh, Laura, I did not laugh then! So many funny things happened to me, small troubles that I had never reckoned on. For example, my boots wore out. I remember that we were walking along the bed of a stream, and every stone I trod on hurt me. You don't know how they hurt, when one's feet are blistered, and one's boots are in holes. It was only six weeks since I had left Aunt Russelthorpe's house, and it seemed too strange and unnatural to go to the preacher about that sort of thing. I couldn't ask him for money. I thought it would be easier to walk barefoot than to do that; and, after all, one can get through almost anything if one determines that one will. So I limped on, and should have reached the next village all right, if I hadn't trodden on a bit of broken glass. I was unlucky that day; it went through the hole right into my heel. I sat down on a stone and clenched my hands together; I was so afraid of fainting, and the sharp pain made me feel sick. I can see that valley now, with the purple heather and bracken glowing on each side, and the big boulders, and the brown stream brawling in the middle of it, and the preacher tramping steadily along, with his back to me. Of course, he discovered, after a time, that I was not by him, and turned back to look for me; and, just when he reached me, a round soft sheep with curly horns and a broad face jumped up close behind my stone and scuttled away up the hill. It startled me so that it shook the tears, which I had been trying to keep back, down my cheeks, and I found myself sobbing like a baby. Barnabas stood and stared at me; I had never done that sort of thing before, and he was immensely surprised. Then he said: 'You poor little soul, ye just doan't knaw what to do for weariness'. And he sat down and consoled me as if I had been ten instead of twenty-one; and cut my boot off with his pocket-knife, and took the splinter of glass out; and finally picked me up and carried me into the next village. From that day, he took only too much care of me; but he is always tender to any one who is unhappy."
Her thoughts had flown to another time when the difficulties of the life she had chosen had pressed on her more heavily than during those first experiences of physical discomfort.
"He thinks," she said in a low voice, "that no mistake and no sin can be so strong as God is. It is that belief which gives him power over those who have fallen very low. Of course most people agree with him in theory, but he is quite sure of it practically, which is different."
"He has need of his hopefulness," said Laura drily. She had just made up her mind to tell Meg of the arrest; but the nurse came in at that moment, and she put off breaking the news a little longer.
Meg gave up the baby reluctantly, and they went down into the lamp-lit dining-room; Laura very full of thought. This fanatical preacher, with his mania for "converting," with his pernicious views about the intrinsic evil of wealth, had done plenty of harm, she considered; and yet she allowed to herself that his influence was for good too. Margaret was morally a stronger woman now than she had been in her variable and emotional girlhood. Laura remarked also that, though no one could call her sister "pretty" in these days, yet the distinction which she had always possessed was hers still and in larger measure. Meg looked like a queen in disguise in her shabby dress. Alas! alas! and it was all wasted on a street "tuborator," who, at the best, was a mad enthusiast, and, at the worst, a shameful rogue!
Laura's meditations made her unusually silent. Mr. Ashford talked on somewhat pompously, and pressed Meg to eat with rather patronising warmth, for "it was not every day that Mrs. Thorpe got such a meal"; and Meg herself did her best to rise to the occasion and converse pleasantly with her host.
The silver, and the cut glass, and the flowers pleased her eye; for pretty things were to Margaret, as they had been to her father, very sweet. She had spoken the truth when she had said she could not have borne to live in luxury now; yet for a breathing space she enjoyed it.
In nine cases out of ten it is the people with the keenest senses who take to asceticism. He who has never been intoxicated by the scent of flowers has never known the necessity of retiring into a wilderness.
Dinner was half over when Laura saw Meg's colour change. "It is only the man from the bonnet shop. It cannot be any one for you, Meg," she said quickly. Indeed, she fancied that she had good reason to know that it could not possibly be Barnabas Thorpe. Was he not in Newgate?
"It is not Barnabas. It is—Tom!" cried Margaret.
She rose hastily from her chair; and Laura, following the direction of her eyes, saw Tom's queer deformed figure through the open door. He had been standing in the hall; but when Margaret's exclamation reached him, he walked into the dining-room, thinking she had meant to call him.
To Laura this extraordinary person seemed a threatening embodiment from that outside world which claimed her sister. To Mr. Ashford he was a most impertinent intruder; but Meg made a quick step towards him. "Oh, Tom, is anything wrong at the farm?" she asked. And then turning to Laura: "This is my brother-in-law."
"I should ask your pardon for disturbing you, ma'am," said Tom, looking at Laura; "but I ha' need of a word with Barnabas' wife."
The accent, and still more the decided way in which he stated what he wanted, reminded Laura of the preacher.
He spoke quite civilly, but the peremptoriness jarred on her. Tom Thorpe was possessed by a sort of defiant repulsion, and glowered indignantly on Margaret and her fine relatives. So she was here in this grand room feasting and amusing herself? but she was "Barnabas' wife" all the same, and he was in prison!
"You shall have as many words as you like with me at once," said Margaret. "May I take him into the library, Laura? Oh, I hope that your father is not ill?"
Tom glanced at the bit of crape on her sleeve and answered, softened: "No, no, lass. Naught o' that kind's happened. Dad's right enough. There's naught but what ye must know already."
"But she does not know!" Laura murmured faintly.
Ten minutes later they heard Meg's visitor go.
"Dear me! Your poor sister will hardly like to appear again to-night," Mr. Ashford said compassionately. "She must be terribly ashamed of her scamp of a husband, though that kind of thing is what she must expect after having——Oh, here she is!"
Margaret's head was very erect, and there was a bright spot of colour on each cheek.
"My brother-in-law has been telling me that my husband has been arrested on Mr. Sauls' charge, and taken to gaol," she said. And there was a prouder ring than usual in her generally low voice. "Mr. Sauls' brain must have suffered! I am sorry for him."
"You are angry with him, you mean!" remarked Laura.
"No," said Mrs. Thorpe. "Any one who is so mad as to think it possible that Barnabas could have done such a thing is not worth being angry with. He knows no better, I suppose, poor thing!"
Laura looked at her husband with a momentary gleam of fun.
"I must get a room close to Newgate, so that I can go in and out as often as I am allowed," continued Meg. "Tom is going to take me to the prison to-morrow. Will you excuse me if I go and put my things together now?"
Laura laughed, albeit a little sadly, when the door closed behind her.
"It has been a queer story from first to last," she said. "But do you think, after that, that she is ashamed of him?"
"She doesn't care much for him," said Mr. Ashford. "If she did, she would be more anxious."
An hour later Margaret had finished packing her clothes into a small bundle, and stood considering a leathern box she held in her hands: should she take it with her or not?
She opened it with the reverent touch a woman gives to relics. There was the pearl ring that her mother, another Margaret, had worn; Laura's first baby socks tenderly treasured; and an unfinished silk purse that had been in process of making when death took that, as well as all other tasks, from the pretty hands that had been so prone to give.
There also was a faded bundle of letters tied with ribbon. The last that Meg unfolded had been penned two days before the writer's death. No one had imagined that she was in any danger; but there was an undercurrent of foreboding, sounding through the overflowing tender happiness which the letter expressed, a foreboding which, as Meg remembered to have heard, had wakened Mr. Deane's anxiety and brought him home just in time.
"Indeed, sweetheart, an' I were to die to-morrow, I should want you only to remember that no woman was ever happier than I have been, and I think none other was ever so happy, seeing that none other was your wife. I long to make up to those not so fortunate as I; but I cannot. I would pray for a long life, only not beyond yours; but if it is not given me" (again that iteration of warning, mingling with her passionate satisfaction in her married life), "I shall yet have been more blessed than any other woman. It will have been worth while to have lived only to have loved you—and——"
Meg put the letter down—surely this was too sacred for any eyes but his to whom it was written; a shame came over her that she had read so much.
Some one else had once said to her: "It is worth while". This dead voice, that was yet so instinct with life, now, after all these years, reiterated it.
She gave Laura the box the next morning, before she left.
"It wouldn't be safe to carry jewels with me to the part of London I am going to," she explained. "Will you take care of them for me? They are best left behind."
She turned the key in the lock, and put the box in Laura's hands.
"There are letters there too," she said. "They are so alive, that, I suppose, father could not bear to burn them. I began to read one; but I did not finish it—I felt as if I oughtn't to."
"Ought not? Why, he left them to you especially!" said Laura. "Who has a better right?"
"I felt as if I had no right to them," said Meg.