Olivia

Bessie took the note up to Olivia’s room, and found her still kneeling beside the bed, her arms stretched out upon the white coverlid in utter exhaustion; and yet the hands were moving to and fro restlessly, as if the brain were racked by anxious thought.

Bessie bent over her and softly drew the long hair from her face, which was burning hot.

“Ah, miss, you will be ill again!” she said, reproachfully. “And he said I was to take care of you.”

“Yes! It is always of me or some one else he is thinking!” Olivia moaned, impatiently. “Always of some one else—never of himself. Oh, Bessie, what shall I do to save him? What shall I do? Every hour, every minute, that slips by so stealthily and swiftly, adds to the danger. I can’t think; I can’t even pray. What shall I do?” and she wrung her hands.

“Hush, hush, miss!” murmured Bessie, soothingly. “Something will be done; the truth must come to light.”

But though she tried to speak confidently, her voice trembled, and she had to turn her face away.

“Yes, the truth will come to light when it is too late and they have—killed him. Oh, if there was only some one I could go to, some one to help me! If I were only a man instead of a weak, feeble woman! What is that?” she broke off sharply, as she caught sight of the note in Bessie’s hand.

Bessie held it out reluctantly.

“From him!” panted Olivia.

“No, from—Mr. Bradstone, miss,” replied Bessie, pronouncing the name as if with an effort.

Olivia drew the hand back as if the envelope had power to sting her; then she took it slowly and read it.

With a cry she let the letter fall from her hands, and flung them before her face as if to shut out some fearful sight. Bessie flew to her with an exclamation; but suddenly Olivia’s emotion seemed to change, and, darting upon the letter, took it to the window and read it again with dilating eyes. Then she turned and grasped Bessie’s arm.

“Bessie,” she whispered, hoarsely, a strange thrill in her voice, a strange light seeming to shine upon her face, “did you ever doubt his innocence? Did you? Did you?” she demanded, feverishly.

Bessie looked at her indignantly.

“No; nor I! But if I had, if even for a moment such a doubt had entered my heart, I should doubt no longer! Do you know why?” and her grasp tightened upon Bessie’s arm and terrified her. “I will tell you! Because Mr. Bradstone says that he saw him do it!”

Bessie shrank back with a low cry of horror.

“Says——Oh, no, no, miss!”

“Yes! Listen! No, I will not sully my lips with the lie—for it is a lie! If it had been true he would not have waited until now! Ah, no!” She stopped and looked before her into vacancy, her dark brows drawn straight. “No, he would not have waited; he would have been only too glad to tell it. Then”—her voice dropped still lower—“why does he say it now? Why? why? Help me, Bessie,” and her hands worked convulsively. “There is some reason. Ah!” she started and shrank, and her face went white. “I see!”

Panting and trembling, Bessie clung to her.

“Oh, what is it, miss? What is it you think you have found out?”

“I have found out this: I am sure that Mr. Bradstone knows who committed the murder!” replied Olivia, almost inaudibly.

Bessie’s brain reeled, and it was she who clung to Olivia for support—Olivia, who every moment seemed to be gaining greater physical and mental strength.

“He—he knows, and he says it was Mr. Fara——Oh, Miss Olivia!” and she began to cry.

“Hush, hush! Let us think!” said Olivia, almost sternly. “Why does he accuse him? Why does Bartley Bradstone screen the real criminal? Is it some friend—some one he knows? Ah, I cannot see; it is all dark! If there were only some one to help me! But there is no one, no one. If Bertie——” She stopped with a cry. “But I sent him away! I have brought trouble, nothing but trouble to all who—who loved me!” and she hung her head and sighed. “He will not speak, he will keep silent, but Bartley Bradstone will not be silent. He will tell this lie in open court, and——” She stopped, and a shudder shook her from head to foot. Then she was silent for a moment, still thinking deeply. Suddenly she looked up. “Bertie may be in England; no one can tell. If he were—he loves him, I know. Bessie, you must go to London——”

“Me! To London!” said Bessie, with a start; then almost instantly she added, quietly, “Yes, miss, I can be ready in a quarter of an hour,” and she drew herself up and stood with flashing eyes expectantly.

Olivia drew her toward her and kissed her.

“Now listen to me,” she said, in a low voice, that was firm and steady for the first time since the awful day of the wedding—and the murder. “First, Bessie, go to Lord Carfield’s—I will give you a note.” She darted to her desk and wrote rapidly. “It is asking him to tell me Lord Bertie’s address. If he says he does not know it, go to London to the detective—Mr. McAndrew, of whom you have told me—and tell him to find out if Lord Bertie is in England or within reach. If he is, Mr. McAndrew is to give him this message: ‘Olivia Vanley——’” She stopped, and her face grew red and then white. “No, ‘Olivia,’ only Olivia, ‘wants you to come to her on a matter of life or death.’ That is all. He will ask you for money, very likely.” She flew to her jewel-case, which Bessie had arranged, and snatched the first thing that came to hand.

It was Faradeane’s present. Her lips quivered and her eyes filled with tears as she looked at it, and she was putting it back in the case, when, she stayed her hand and exclaimed, suddenly:

“Yes, this! How better could I use it than in his service? Take this and give it to Mr. McAndrew. You will find him at Scotland Yard; see, I have written down the address. Telegraph to me, or come back to me with the news; and, oh, Bessie, remember that you and I, two helpless women, are trying to save the life of the man who saved yours, and who is risking his life now to screen some one else!”

Bessie gave a great sob, then set her teeth hard, and hurried from the room.

In half an hour she had reached Carfield Towers and delivered the note. Lord Carfield came out to her, as she was waiting in the brougham.

“Tell your dear mistress, my girl,” he said, sadly, “that I am as ignorant as she is of my son’s whereabouts. Of course, it is on account of Mr. Faradeane and this terrible mystery that she wants him?”

“Yes, my lord,” said Bessie, firmly, “and I will find him and bring him to her, if he is to be found.”

She caught the evening up-train, and though she had never been in London before, she faced its strangeness and its vastness without quailing; it seemed as if Olivia had infused something of her own desperate courage and energy into the timid country girl.

She drove to Scotland Yard, and after five minutes’ waiting, during which, by the way, Mr. McAndrew had been calmly and keenly scrutinizing her from behind a curtain, he entered.

Bessie delivered Olivia’s message, word for word.

He looked at her with the simple smile which made his face so innocent and commonplace, then nodded.

“So your mistress wants to see Lord Bertie, does she?” he said, in a kindly fashion. “Hem! so do I; and perhaps we shall both see him presently. What’s this?” he asked, as Bessie put the necklace-case in his hand.

“My—my mistress said you would want money, and sent this,” faltered Bessie.

The great man smiled softly and opened the case, then suddenly his face changed, and his eyes, as they scanned the magnificent gems closely, grew sharp and keen. But it was only for an instant; the next moment his expression was that of the simple, commonplace individual.

“Where did you get this from—your mistress, I mean?” he asked.

“It was her wedding present from Mr. Faradeane,” replied Bessie, in a faltering voice.

“Oh,” he said, slowly, “from Mr. Faradeane. Hem!” He snapped-to the case and put it in his pocket. “Yes, we detectives always want money, and you can tell your mistress I’ll take care of this. Oh, yes, she can rest easy. I’ll take care of it.” He stood looking at her in silence for a moment, then he said: “And so your mistress saw Mr. Faradeane in prison this morning, eh?”

Bessie started and crimsoned, and he laughed.

“Now you can go back; you don’t mind traveling all night, do you? Because your mistress will be anxious, you know.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” assented Bessie, eagerly, “and if I can only take her some good news!” and she clasped her hands.

Mr. McAndrew looked down at her thoughtfully, then he smiled and offered her his arm. “I’ll take you to the station,” he said. He got her some refreshment, put her in a first-class carriage, and, but not until the train was upon the point of starting, said, “How is Mr. Bartley Bradstone?”

Indeed, the engine shrieked and was off with its burden before Bessie could reply.

It was not until she had traveled some distance on her return journey that she realized, what a great many other persons before her had realized, that, she had not got anything very definite out of Mr. McAndrew. She had seemed, indeed, to have had no will of her own while in his presence, and to have done exactly as he told her.

She reached Wainford very tired and very dissatisfied, and found a carriage waiting for her.

“Why, how did you know I was coming?” she asked the coachman, who was an old friend of hers.

“The mistress had a telegram from London,” he said. “Leastways a telegram came for her this morning.”

Bessie stared at him with her eyes widely opened.

“I didn’t telegraph,” she said. “I meant to take a fly home.”

“Well,” he laughed, “here we are, you see, and you’d better get in, anyhow.”

Puzzled and bewildered, she was about to follow his sensible recommendation, when a woman, with a child in her arms, came up quickly, and, pulling at her jacket, said, with a mixture of timidity and earnestness:

“Stop, stop, for God’s sake, miss. I—I must speak to you! I’ve been waiting and watching——”

Bessie turned affrightedly, and, as the light fell upon her face, the woman shrank back with a cry of disappointment.

“Oh!” she cried, “I thought it was the young lady—leastways Mrs. Bradstone.”

“No, I am her maid,” said Bessie. “What is it? Are you ill?” for the woman looked worn and pale, and there were deep lines of anxiety and trouble on her thin face.

“Ill? Yes, miss. I’m ill enough, but it isn’t that. I’m no account. It was——” She looked round fearfully. “Come out of hearing, miss!” she whispered, imploringly. “It may be too late—but it’s not my fault. I’ve waited and watched, but I’m watched, too. It’s about the—murder, miss!”

Bessie’s courage and self-possession came back in an instant.

“Wait a moment, James,” she said to the coachman, and she followed the woman into the shadow of the station wall.

“I thought it was the young lady,” she said, speaking timidly, and with palpable agitation, and hushing the child she carried under her shawl. “I tried to speak to her before, by the lodge gate, where you lived.”

“I remember,” said Bessie. “You are the gypsy woman.”

“Yes, I’m Liz Lee,” assented the woman, “and I want to tell her something that I’m a’most afraid to whisper. I’m doing it at the risk of my life, miss, I am, indeed!” and she looked up with a piteous terror into Bessie’s eager eyes. “He’s promised to do for me, if I dare open my lips! And he’ll keep his promise!”

“He? Who?” asked Bessie.

“My husband,” came the reply. “He thinks I’m safe at the camp; but I slipped out—and followed the carriage; I thought I was going to meet the young lady.” She struggled for the breath which her agitation and alarm seemed to deprive her of; then, looking round fearfully, went on: “Is it true, miss, that he’ll be hung?”

Bessie’s face paled.

“Do you mean Mr. Faradeane?”

The woman nodded, with a sob.

“Yes, yes. Oh, miss, if they only knew! Him commit a murder! Why, he wouldn’t kick a dog as bit ’im, leave alone shoot a helpless woman!”

Bessie could have fallen upon the poor creature’s neck.

“Go on, go on!” she said, trembling. “You know something! You will not let him come to harm?”

“No, miss—if I could help it. Look here!” She drew her shawl aside, and revealed the face of a little child sleeping peacefully in her arms. “If it hadn’t have been for him she’d have been underground by this time! He saved her life; yes, he did! He spoke to me as nobody ever spoke before, and I can’t—I can’t—let him come to harm!”

“Go on! go on!” implored Bessie.

The woman drew closer to her.

“I know who did the murder, miss!” she whispered, huskily.

Bessie caught her arm.

“Tell me! tell me!” she panted.

The woman trembled under the grasp.

“Promise me, swear to me, miss, that you won’t tell who told you—that you won’t give my name up.”

“I promise,” said Bessie, solemnly; “whatever happens, you shall come to no hurt. I promise for him, as well as for myself.”

“Ah, no; he wouldn’t see me hurt!” said Liz Lee. “Well, then——”

She stopped suddenly and uttered a cry.

A carriage had dashed up to the station at a tremendous rate; the whistle of the up-train was heard in the distance.

“Quick! quick!” exclaimed Bessie.

But the woman seemed to have lost all power of speech, and was staring at the carriage from which a gentleman had alighted.

Bessie looked over her shoulder. It was Mr. Bartley Bradstone.

“You know him!” she said, instantly. “Does he know anything of the murder; does he——”

The woman shuddered as she watched him go up the stairs.

“No, it’s a fate!” she gasped. “Oh, I’m afraid to tell, afraid, afraid!” and she seemed unable to remove her eyes from his receding figure.

Bessie almost shook her in her agony of suspense.

“You must!” she said. “You have gone too far.”

“If I must!” panted the woman. “Yes, he does know. Don’t let him go! Do you hear? Stop him! Follow him——”

In her uncertainty and excitement, Bessie took half-a-dozen steps toward the station platform.

Then she turned, and, with a start, found a man standing between her and the woman, who was cowering against the wall, as if she had just received a blow.

“What, you, Liz!” he said, addressing the woman, but keeping his eyes on Bessie. “You’re drunk again, are yer? What plant have you been a-puttin’ on this young lady? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. What’s she been a-sayin’, miss?” And he turned to Bessie with a half-threatening, half-whining air. “Something about this yer murder, wasn’t it? Blessed if this yer murder haven’t gone and turned my missis’ head. Don’t pay any attention to her, miss! I ’umbly begs pardon for her. She ought to know better than to stop a lady with her rubbidge!” and, seizing the woman’s arm, he hurried her to the steps.

“Stop!” said Bessie, “stop! She is not drunk, and you know it! She shall speak!”

The man glanced hurriedly up at the platform, at which the up-train was just arriving, and, tightening his hold on the woman’s arm, swung her round. She was crying covertly.

“Now, then, you fool, just tell the lady you was only a-playin’ it low down on her, on the chance o’ gettin’ a copper or two,” he said. “Yah! I’m ashamed of you! Come on, speak up. There ain’t no time.”

“Time! time, Seth?” the woman sobbed.

“Yes!” he snarled. “You know we’re a-goin’ by the train, as well as I do.”

She shrank back, but he pulled her forward.

“Now, then, tell the lady.”

She turned her eyes upon Bessie, then let them drop.

“It—it wasn’t true, miss, as I was going to tell you,” she said.

“There you are!” exclaimed Seth, triumphantly. “Now come along!” and he hurried the woman up the steps.

Poor Bessie sprang after them in such haste that she trod upon her dress and fell. As she got up and raced up the steps, she heard the slamming of the carriage doors, and found the station gate locked. There was only one porter, and he did not hear her until the train had started; and she leaned against the gate, trembling and almost fainting, as the train bore Bartley Bradstone and the two gypsies toward London.

She got back to the carriage, and was driven to the Grange, and flew to Olivia’s room.

Olivia met her at the door. “Well!” she exclaimed, seizing her by the hand and drawing her in, and Bessie told her all that had happened.

Olivia paced up and down.

“Oh, Bessie! Bessie! Fate is working against us. That he should have come up at that moment! Oh, if I had but listened to her that night by the lodge! What does it all mean? But we will find them.” She snatched up her hat. “Help me! No, you poor thing, you are tired and worn out. Stay there and rest.”

“Where are you going, miss?” exclaimed Bessie; but Olivia was out of the room before she could stop her.

She came back in a little over an hour, pale, but with a resolute look in her eyes.

“What have you done, miss?” she asked, tremulously.

“I have telegraphed to the London terminus to stop the gypsy and the woman!” she said. “I”—her color rose for an instant—“I let them think they had robbed me.”

Bessie uttered a cry of satisfaction.

“Oh, Miss Olivia, we shall have them, we will make that woman speak out, and we shall save him yet.”

And the two girls, mistress and maid, cried together.

Alas! It did not occur to them that Seth the gypsy would, being as cunning as a gypsy, give them full credit for the telegraphing idea, and get out at some intermediate station.