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 approaches. 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, agonized by the thought that his sweetheart, who had 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 whom 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!
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 inquiry 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 awhile 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."
"Tres-bien! Have you put down the date? It should be soon."
"You're right, chèrie. Should, and must be. So soon, I fear we won't realize 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 inquire further, chèrie. 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—maybe months—without losing quite the moiety of value. But a bonâ 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 year's interval, ended in deportation to Cayenne, for some crime committed by them in the South of France. So said the Semaphore of Marseilles.
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 outdoors 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 authorized 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! T'was 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, that she did. 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 G——."
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!
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 granddaddy."
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 denouement to most of the actors in it; and, as hoped, satisfactory to all who have been spectators.