Olivia

For more than a fortnight Olivia wandered in the valley of the shadow of death; then the crisis came and passed, and life still counted her among its subjects. But her recovery was so slow that another fortnight elapsed before, thin and pale, a bruised and broken lily, she was carried from her bedroom to her boudoir.

During all the time of almost unendurable anxiety and suspense Bessie had scarcely left her. No nurse could have shown more devotion, no sister more tender and self-sacrificing love.

Almost as thin and pale as Olivia, she watched beside her night and day, fully repaid if Olivia’s hand closed upon hers with a feeble pressure, or if she murmured gratefully her name.

Quite a thrill of relief ran through the county at the news of her convalescence, and attention, which had been mainly devoted to her, concentrated itself upon the man who lay in prison awaiting his trial, and upon Mr. Bartley Bradstone.

He had never been popular; but those who liked him least—and no one liked him overmuch—felt constrained to pity him. He seldom left The Maples, excepting to walk up to the Grange to inquire after his bride, and those few persons who chanced to meet him were struck by the change in his appearance. He had been rather ruddy and robust, but he was now thin and emaciated, and looked ten years older than he had done on the day of his wedding. There was not only a look of age, but an expression of anxious unrest, which struck every one who saw him; and, strange to say, the wan and haggard expression on his face did not leave it when Olivia was pronounced out of danger.

“That poor devil Bradstone has been completely bowled over,” one man said. “Looks as if he had all the care of the world on his shoulders,” and that very exactly described Bartley Bradstone’s appearance.

He haunted the Grange daily; but he had not seen Olivia since the wedding day.

“Keep him away from her, if you wish her recovery to continue,” the doctor had said, and the poor squire repeated his words.

“Oh, I won’t worry her,” said Bartley Bradstone, in the dull, apathetic manner which had settled upon him. “Sick people take all sorts of fancies; she’ll see me when she’s better, and—and we’ll get away.”

“Yes, yes,” said the squire, with a heavy sigh. “When all this trouble is over. It is this terrible murder which hangs like a dark cloud over us all.”

“Does—does she speak of it at all?” asked Bartley Bradstone, looking down at the carpet, as if he were suddenly interested in the pattern.

The squire shook his head.

“Not to me; not to Bessie, I think. She has seen no one else, excepting the doctor.”

“That’s right,” said Bartley Bradstone. “Don’t let anybody talk to her about it; she’ll forget it before long.”

It almost seemed as if Olivia had already forgotten it, for day after day passed and she made no mention of the terrible incident which had stricken her down. She lay on the sofa, her thin and now fragile form carefully enwrapped, her hands folded lightly in her lap; her lovely eyes, strained with hidden pain, fixed on the elms which showed through the window. Bessie, who even now scarcely ever left her, would sit silent for hours, sometimes with a book, sometimes at needlework. It was only when the squire entered that Olivia’s pale face warmed with a smile. But one morning, after a long silence, she said, so quietly but suddenly that Bessie started and let the work fall from her hands:

“Bessie, tell me all; tell me the truth.”

“About Mr. Faradeane, miss?” faltered Bessie, who had not yet learned to call her mistress by her wedded title.

“Yes,” said Olivia, turning her eyes upon her with solemn entreaty and insistence. “Don’t be afraid; I am strong enough. Tell me all. What have they done with him?”

Bessie’s lips quivered and her eyes filled.

“They have sent him for trial, miss,” she replied in a low voice.

Olivia looked at her steadily, and her breath came in quick little pants.

“Sent him for trial? They think he is guilty?” she said. “He, who would not hurt a dog, shoot a helpless woman! Why should he do it? Who was she?”

Bessie shook her head.

“No one knows, miss. Mr. Faradeane will not say anything, and—and that is why they say he did it. If he would only speak and explain, then people would believe him.”

Olivia remained silent for a few moments, thinking deeply, her hands tightly clasped.

“And he will say nothing?” she inquired in a low voice.

“Nothing, miss; not a word!” said Bessie, the tears rolling down her cheeks; “and they all say—the servants in the hall—that the detective from London”—Olivia started and looked at her—“says that if he will not explain he—he will——”

She stopped with a choking little sob.

There were no tears in Olivia’s eyes. Hot and brilliant, they looked out at the window, the lines graven deep in her white forehead.

“There is some mystery,” she said in a low voice. “I know that he did not do it.”

“Who did, miss?” sobbed Bessie. “Some one did it—some one they can’t find; and everybody knowing Mr. Faradeane was in the wood, and that the pistol was his, will believe him guilty. Why, oh, why doesn’t he speak out?”

Olivia was silent for a moment, then she raised herself on her elbow.

“Where is he?” she asked.

“In Wainford jail, miss,” replied Bessie, piteously. “He has been there ever since—ever since the day of the wedding——”

“And the murder!” breathed Olivia. “He is shut up there with no friend to help him, while the guilty man is free!” Her eyes flashed, and she drew a long breath of repressed and passionate indignation. “Is there no one to help him—no one trying to save him?”

Bessie shook her head.

“I don’t know, miss. They say that no one can help him, unless he will help himself.”

Olivia thought for a moment, then she sat up with a strange expression of resolution in her eyes.

“Bessie, I must see him.”

Bessie started and stared at her.

“You, miss! Oh, how can you! They will not let him come out to you!”

“No, I must go to him,” said Olivia, quietly.

“To him—to the prison!” exclaimed Bessie. “Oh, miss, you cannot! The squire—Mr. Bradstone—would not permit it!”

Olivia’s lips twitched at the sound of her husband’s name.

“They must not know,” she said, slowly and thoughtfully, as if she were earnestly considering the question; “they must not know. Stop, Bessie”—for Bessie, aghast at the proposal, was about to remonstrate—“I have made up my mind. If all the world said I should not see him, I would contrive to do so. In Wainford jail?” She put her hand to her brow. “That is Colonel Summerford’s. He would do anything for me; he will not refuse to let me see him.”

Her hands began to move restlessly, and she glanced at the clock with wistful impatience.

“Oh, no, no; not to-day, miss,” pleaded Bessie. “You are not strong enough; you will be ill again, and—oh, not to-day, dear, dear Miss Olivia!”

“I am quite strong,” said Olivia, rising and stretching out her hands. “How do I know that to-morrow may not be too late? We will go this afternoon—yes, this afternoon.”

“But what can you do, miss?” gasped Bessie, who knew that when her mistress had made up her mind any further remonstrance would be useless.

Olivia sighed heavily.

“I do not know,” she said, looking from side to side with a troubled expression in her eyes. “I cannot tell—till I see him. I shall know then!”

“Oh, dear!” breathed Bessie. “I am so afraid; you are so weak still.”

“I am strong enough to walk to Wainford and back to help—him,” came the low but quick response. “But there is no need for that. Go down and order the brougham; say that I wish to go out for a drive—that I will have no one but you with me. No one need know where we are going. Afterward, I do not care who knows.”

Then, as Bessie still stood hesitating and trembling, she turned upon her almost fiercely.

“Did he stop to think of the consequences when you were in danger? Have you forgotten that?”

Bessie’s face went crimson, and she flung up her hands before it; then, her face quite pale again, she looked at Olivia with a strange, intense reproachfulness, and left the room.

At three o’clock Olivia, leaning on Bessie’s arm, went down the stairs. Notwithstanding her assertions, she felt very weak, and her limbs seemed to quiver and tremble. The brougham was at the door, and the squire stood ready to help her in, with a couple of thick wraps on his arm.

“Are you sure you are strong enough, dear?” he asked, anxiously. “And will you not let me come with you?”

She put her arm round his neck and kissed him.

“No, dear; Bessie and I are going alone. Don’t be anxious; I am getting quite strong again now. Tell James to drive round the park.”

The squire wrapped the shawls round her tenderly, and the brougham drove off.

Olivia leaned back with her eyes closed for some minutes, but when the lodge had been left behind she sat up with a new life and eagerness in her eyes.

“Tell him now to drive to the jail,” she said.

Bessie gave the order, and the coachman, after a moment or two of inert astonishment, turned the horses’ heads.

The brougham pulled up at the prison, and Olivia made ready to get out.

“Shan’t I ask the colonel to come to you, miss?” asked Bessie, who was white with anxiety.

Olivia shook her head.

“No,” she said. “It would be easier for him to refuse while I am sitting here; it will be more difficult—oh, I will make it impossible for him to do so, once I am inside his office,” and her voice seemed suddenly to have got back something of its old ring and firmness.

They got out, and, without knocking, Olivia opened the office door.

The colonel looked up from the desk at which he was writing, and stared speechlessly for a moment at the vision of fragile loveliness. Then he sprang to his feet and came round to her.

“Great Heaven, Miss Olivia! I beg pardon—Mrs. Bradstone. You here! What is the matter? Where is the squire?” and as he held her hand he tried to lead her gently to a chair; but Olivia stood firm, and with her thin fingers twining round his, looked at him steadily, though her heart was beating wildly, and the color coming and going in her face.

“Nothing has happened, dear Colonel Summerford, and my father is not here. I am alone, excepting for my maid. I have come to ask a great favor of you. You will not refuse me?”

“A favor?” echoed the colonel; “my dear young lady! Come out of the draught, for Heaven’s sake!” he broke off, for she looked so wan and slight that it seemed to him as if a breath of air would waft her away. “I did not know you were well enough to be out. Are you? And to come here! What is it you want me to do? Of course I will not refuse you; you know that.”

“Yes, I know that,” she murmured, in the sweet voice which had never failed yet to reach men’s hearts. “I want you to let me see Mr. Faradeane.”

The colonel literally gasped for breath.

“To—to see the prisoner—Mr. Faradeane!” he exclaimed under his breath. “My dear, dear girl, you cannot be serious.”

She forced a smile.

“Do not be alarmed, Colonel Summerford. I am quite sensible now, and not delirious. And I do want to see Mr. Faradeane.”

“To see Mr. Faradeane!” he repeated, as if he could not quite realize it even yet. “But what for, in the name of Heaven?”

“Must I tell you that?” she asked, still looking at him steadily, though her lips quivered. “I want to tell him that I know he did not commit this—that he is charged with, and that——”

She stopped.

“It’s quite impossible!” he said, gravely. “Quite—quite! Don’t ask me, I beg of you!”

“But I do ask you,” she murmured, her eyes melting with entreaty. “Why is it impossible? You are governor, and can do what you like”—the colonel was too much troubled to smile—“and you said you would not refuse me.”

“But,” he retorted, soothingly, with a look of relief, “fortunately, it isn’t for me to grant or refuse. It is for Mr. Faradeane, and he has informed me that he will see no one.”

“I do not care for that,” she said, in the tone which only a woman knows how to use. “He will see me, because I shall not wait to ask him!”

The poor colonel tugged at his mustache.

“But—good Heaven, my dear girl, does your father know?—surely he doesn’t know that you have come on this—forgive me—mad errand?”

“No, he doesn’t know,” said Olivia, steadily. “But if he had known, he would have let me. Colonel Summerford, you know I have been very ill?” she purred, bending toward him with a piteous entreaty in her lovely eyes. “You don’t want to send me away to be as bad again?”

“God forbid!” responded the colonel, anxiously.

“Well, then, do as I ask you. Ah, you and I are such old friends—you won’t refuse me what I have so set my heart on.”

“Well, well, well!” he exclaimed, pacing up and down, and tugging at his mustache furiously. “I——Confound it, how can I refuse you? You would coax the heart out of a stone dog. But I’m doing the maddest, wickedest thing, and I’ll have to answer for it to the squire, and Lord knows whom else! There—don’t cry!”

“I am not crying!” she said, biting her lip.

“I’ll send up and ask him——”

“No!” she said, quickly, and she put her hand on his arm. “You must not do that; you must take me to him unannounced; you must not give him time or the chance to refuse to see me. Take me to him now!”

Colonel Summerford pursed his lips.

“I don’t know who could resist you; I can’t!” he said in despair, and he held out his arm. “Mind, you are to stay a few minutes only, and the warder——”

“There must be no one with us,” she said, firmly. “No one. I must be alone.”

The colonel groaned.

“In for a penny, in for a pound! My dear, if I am sacked for this, you will have to keep me in my old age.”

And he tried to smile. He led her along the corridor, and, dismissing the warder with a nod, himself opened the cell door.

“A visitor for you, Mr. Faradeane,” he said.

Olivia drew her arm from his, paused a moment to draw a long breath, then entered the cell.

Faradeane was lying on the hard pallet, his face resting on his arm. He raised his head, and opened his lips as if about to speak; then he rose and stared, his eyes dilating, his arms stretched out. He had not been asleep, but had been dreaming awake, and it is possible that he thought her a vision conjured up by his infinite longing and despair.

“Olivia!” he murmured, unconsciously. “Olivia!”

She glided across the narrow cell, and held out both her hands.

“Yes, it is I!” she said, and at the sound of her voice he trembled, and his pale, worn face grew crimson.

“You here!” he said, almost inaudibly. “Why have you come? This is no place for you—a prison!”

“It is no place for you!” she retorted, and as she spoke her lovely eyes flashed into his, and her fingers closed tightly on his thin hands.