THE immense ball-room was now a blaze of light, and full, though by no means crowded, with brilliant company. One of the windows, as Steve had said, had been thrown up, and through it the scene was as distinctly displayed to Ralph as though he were within.
He stood there alone, for a feeling of respect kept others from the immediate neighbourhood.
He beheld fair Letty, hostess and belle in one, moving from group to group, who broke out into smiles at her approach; he beheld dark Rose whirl by “in gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls”—the self-same “parure” which had enslaved poor Anne Rees—and followed by many an admiring eye. He beheld Master Walter's smiling face bent down to whisper to some blushing girl, who forgot, perhaps, for the moment that the handsome captain was already married—that he had been entrapped by that scheming young person with the extremely self-confident manner. Lastly, he beheld the man he sought talking with a gentleman of apoplectic habit, and the air of a prosperous licensed victualler, but who was no less a personage than the Earl of Marrobone, and Lord-lieutenant of Wheatshire. His Lordship had sought the open window for fresh air, and the two were conversing upon county matters, in which Sir Richard, young as he was, already took the keenest interest.
“You will take your seat on the bench at once, Sir Richard, I hope,” were the first words which Derrick caught. “Your commission is, of course, already made out, and you will probably receive it to-morrow.”
“I thank you, my Lord. Yes, I shall make a point of being a regular attendant at the petty sessions.”
“And you will be wanted, too, at Dalwynch; for between ourselves, the old general yonder is a little past his work in that way. I don't wish to prejudice you, I am sure, against a man in such a respectable position; but the fact is, he and I are not such good friends as we might be. He wants me to make Mr Chesham—you know, of course, who that is, the relation in which they stand to one another, and so on—a magistrate for the county. Now, I do think that that is a distinction which should never be conferred upon any natural son—that is, unless the family of the father should be really of mark, which is not the case with our friend the general, whatever may be said of Lady Theresa. I don't think, because a man has married into the peerage, that he should therefore be himself admitted to all the privileges of good birth.”
“With all deference, my Lord,” returned Sir Richard stiffly, “I consider that under no circumstances whatever, no matter whether the father be peer or commoner, should the commission of the peace be conferred upon a bastard.”
“Then Richard Lisgard must never sit upon the bench at Dalwynch!” exclaimed a malignant voice close beside the speaker.
In an instant, Sir Richard was upon the lawn without, face to face with his insulter. No one in the ball-room, save the two gentlemen who had been conversing together, had overheard the exclamation, and his Lordship had not caught it distinctly. The band was playing on, as accurately as before, and the dancers were dancing in tune; the cavaliers were whispering their soft nothings, and the ladies making their sweet replies, while the two men without—the one so scrupulously apparelled in the latest fashion, the other dishevelled, travel-stained, and in all respects what we call “a Rough,” but both as brave as lions—were grappling one another by their throats. Sir Richard, who never forgot any man's face—a faculty not uncommon with persons of his class and character—had recognised Ralph Derrick, the turbulent interloper in his parish, the evil counsellor of his brother, at the first glance; and enraged at his audacious trespass at such a time, quite as much as by his late brutal insult to himself, which he set down as the result of drink, he threw himself upon the gold-digger with the utmost fury. The Earl of Marrobone stepped outside also, and closed behind him the ball-room window; the stout old nobleman was one of the coolest hands in England, and never lost his presence of mind. Even thus debarred from making that public exposure of the young baronet which Derrick had promised himself, he might have said something which his Lordship would not have forgotten—for he was one of those who had seen too much of the world to believe anything untrue merely because it seemed impossible—but that, at the first touch of Sir Richard's fingers, Ralph's fury deprived him of all utterance except a few desperate imprecations. He would have liked, with folded arms, to have impeached the young baronet as a base-born impostor (for he felt convinced that the reason for my Lady's flight was known to him and the rest of the family), and have stated his own wrongs in a few earnest and pregnant words before the whole company in yonder room; but now that he had his enemy so close, “the blind wild beast of force within him, whose home is in the sinews of a man,” was driven to strike and strike again. So the precious half-minute that elapsed before help came to Sir Richard, was wasted, and Derrick found himself helpless, and with his wrongs untold, in the clutch of half-a-dozen men, and one of them the village policeman, whom Steve had found at last, and despatched for that very purpose.
“Take him and lock him up,” exclaimed Lord Marrobone, perceiving that Sir Richard was too excited to speak. “A night in the watch-house will sober the drunken brute, and cool his courage. Take him away, I say,” for Ralph began to weave afresh his choicest flowers of speech—mere onion-ropes of the wickedest words—“and put the foulmouthed scoundrel into quod!” So they bore Ralph forth, not without very rough treatment, through the gates, and cast him into a small but well-secured tenement, known as “the Cage,” but so seldom used in the orderly little village, that it was in the occupation of a certain white rabbit and her family (pets of the constable's children), who had to be ejected, to make room for this very different tenant.
Sir Richard Lisgard went up stairs to refit, and returned to the ball-room, where none had even remarked his absence, with an unimpeachable white cravat concealing an ugly bruise upon his windpipe; but all smiles had departed from his noble features, and it was observed by Mrs Walter Lisgard, in confidential conversation with the Honourable Poppin Jay, that her dear brother-in-law looked more like Don Quixote de la Mancha even than usual. He had made up his mind that, under the circumstances, it was impossible he could be upon the bench of magistrates while Derrick's case was being entered into, and was disturbed by the apprehension that the old general would not look upon the matter in a sufficiently important light, or punish the offender with all the rigour of the law.
By no means quietly, however, had the affair passed off without doors. There was nothing, according to rumour, which drunken Derrick had not done in the way of misbehaviour towards the young baronet, from bad words to the use of a bowie-knife, and nothing which he did not deserve. The news flew from mouth to mouth like wildfire; the tenantry, the peasantry, and the household were all in possession of the facts—and of very much more than the facts, within half an hour of their real or supposed occurrence. Last of all to hear it was Mistress Forest, for whom a wholesome respect was entertained by all the domestics, and to whom, being notoriously the object of Derrick's affections, it was of course a delicate matter to communicate such intelligence. Little Anne Rees, however, stole up stairs to Mary's own room, where she knew my Lady's waiting-maid was sitting, far from all the noise and gaiety, and thinking sadly of her poor dear mistress and her troubles. “O ma'am, please ma'am, such a dreadful thing have happened!” said she. “Mr Derrick have come back again.—Don't ye faint; don't ye take on so” (for Mistress Forest had turned as white as Anne's own apron); “he's not dead. But he's gone and pitched into Sir Richard before all the company, and they fought together dreadful, I don't know how long.”
“What did he say, girl?” exclaimed Mistress Forest eagerly; “I mean, what did they fight about?”
“Well, he did not say much, didn't Mr Derrick, beyond cussing most uncommon strong. It took six on 'em to carry him away, for all the world like a corpse, except for his kicking and swearing; and when they said he would be up before the bench on Thursday, he said 'He wished it was to-morrow, that was all;' and at the same time he laughed that wicked, that it went quite cold to the small of my back.”
“And where have they put the poor man, after all?”
“In the Cage, ma'am. The key was not to be found, but they've barred him up just like a wild beast. And oh, Mistress Forest, it isn't my place, and I ask your pardon, but don't you give him no more encouragement, for he is a wild beast, and nothing less, if you could only see him.”
“That will do, Anne; though I'm obliged to you for coming to tell me. I must speak to Sir Richard to-morrow, and try and beg him off. Good-night.”
“And aren't you coming down to supper, nor to see the fireworks, nor nothing?” inquired the little maid in amazement.
“No, Anne; I was not in a humour for such things before, and certainly I am not so now. I am going to bed.”
But no sooner had the grateful little girl—who, though she waited no longer on Mrs Walter (who had brought her own maid with her), yet always remembered that she owed her enfranchisement to Mistress Forest—gone down stairs, than Mary took up her bonnet and cloak, and hurried softly after her. It was impossible not to meet persons at every turn; but it was not difficult, in the general hubbub and excitement, to avoid their observation; and this she did. The night was very dark; and once away from the gleam and glitter of the house and lawn, Mary had to slacken her pace even down the avenue she knew so well. When she was half-way down it, as nearly as she could guess, she heard a noisy throng of men approaching from the other direction, and shrank on one side, behind a tree. Some of them carried lanterns, and as they went by, she recognised Styles, the rural policeman, and also Mr Steve.
“I am as sorry as can be,” the latter was saying, “and would much rather see the poor fellow well away.”
“Take care you go no further than wishing, however,” responded the guardian of the law. “It would be a bad night's work for any man who should let that fellow out, mind you: ordered into custody by the Lord-lieutenant hisself, and charged with assault and battery of a baroknight—I never set eyes on such an owdacious scamp.”
“He's simply mad, that's all,” returned Steve, sadly—“mad with drink. For whoever heard one in his senses, or even drunk in a natural way, talk such infernal rubbish! Didn't he say he was 'my Lady's' husband!” The answer was drowned in a great shout of laughter, and so the men passed on. Mary waited until she was sure there were no more to come, then walked on with her arms outstretched before her, as fast as she dared go. Suddenly there was a sharp and rusty shriek behind her, and a glare of lurid light which shewed her the gateway right in front.
“They have begun to fire the rockets,” muttered she; “so there will be nobody in the village, that is certain.” The little street, much lighter than the way by which she had hitherto come, was indeed quite empty, but by no means noiseless; a sound of confused shouting came dully up from the bottom of the hill, where, as she well knew, the Cage was situated; and truly, as Anne Rees had said, it struck upon the ear like the roaring of some angry beast making night hideous. Mary stopped for a moment to listen; and when she went on, her face was paler, though not less determined-looking than before.
“Sir Richard is a bastard—a bastard—a bastard! My Lady is not nearly so good as she should be; and I'm her husband in the lock-up! Down with the Lisgards—down with them; and down they shall come!”
These were the words, but interspersed with the most hideous imprecations, with which Mistress Forest's ears were greeted as she approached the little round house. Taking advantage of a momentary pause in the stream of denunciation, she knocked with her clenched hand at the nail-studded door.
“Sir Richard is a bastard! no more Sir Richard than you are!” shrieked the voice within. “Be sure you go to the magistrates' meeting at Dalwynch on Thursday, and let all Mirk go with you; then shall you see pride have a fall, and the Lisgards come down with a run! Down with them—down with them—and down they shall come!”
“Ralph—Ralph Derrick, it is me.”
“Who's me? a woman?” inquired the prisoner eagerly. “Then I'll tell you about my Lady, because you'll enjoy it. She's not my Lady; she's no more my Lady than you are.”
“Ralph Gavestone, I know that,” answered Mistress Forest, with her mouth glued to a crack in the door.
“Oh, you know that, do you? Then you must be the devil, whom I have lately suspected to be of the female gender, and am now convinced of it. You are of course aware, then, that I am her husband?”
“Yes, I am.—Will you be quiet, and go away to Dalwynch, and not try to enter the Abbey grounds again this night, if I let you out?”
“Certainly. To-day is Tuesday, or it was so before midnight. I shall therefore have to wait for my revenge till Thursday, if I am not set free; whereas, if you let me out, I can go to work at once; I can see an attorney to-morrow morning. That should please you rarely, if you are indeed the devil. There's another bolt still over the hole through which I kicked Steve's leg. I left my mark on some of them, mind you—R. G.”
Mary Forest had opened the Cage; and behold there stood her whilom lover, bleeding and ragged, his red beard plucked a thousand ways, his features haggard, his eyes flaming with rage and hate.
“Oh, it's you, is it?” said he, with something of softness in his turbid but vehement speech. “I might have known that, if I had thought a little. But it's no good, my partridge—plump still, though a little gray. I'm meat for your mistress now; I am the master of Mirk; or at least I shall be in a day or two. I'm her Ladyship's husband—better luck than she deserves, you'll think; and I can't be two women's husband at the same time, any more than my Lady could have two mates. That was her little mistake, for which she's about to reap the fruits. Sir Richard is a bastard—a bastard—a bastard!”
“You said that if I unbarred this door, you would start for Dalwynch,” observed Mistress Forest firmly. “You used to be a man whose word could be relied on. Why do you not go?”
“I am going at once, my plump one. You have revenged yourself and me at the same time. There is no kindness in this, I well understand, you know; there is no such thing as kindness in the world.”
“You are wrong there, Ralph Gavestone. It is because I love my mistress, rather than pity you—although I do pity you still—that I have come hither to save you from a night's lodging in such a place. It would have grieved my mistress to the heart to think you were so served, I know.”
“To the what?” returned Ralph with a savage laugh. “To her heart, did you say? Why, the thing doesn't exist, wench! If, however, there does still cling to her anything of the sort, when I tell them that Sir Richard's a bastard, that'll wring it.”
“Blessed are the Merciful, for they shall receive mercy,” cried Mistress Forest, terrified at the deadly menace of his tone, and uttering her words as though they were a charm against an evil spirit.
“Blessed are the merciful!” echoed Ralph bitterly. “That may be so, for I have never known them; but cursed are the treacherous and the false! You have heard of the avenging angel—well, though my wings are so tattered and torn just now, that's me. Do you see the mimic lightning yonder over the Abbey? It will be stricken to-morrow from turret to basement by a forked shaft. Down with the Lisgards, and down they shall come!”
Shrieking this to a sort of frenzied measure, he suddenly broke away, and took the Dalwynch road, up Mirkland Hill. Mary listened with some feeling of relief to his fading strains, then sighed, and wiped from her eyes a few honest tears.
“He was not always a bad man, I am sure,” soliloquised she pitifully, “and now God forgive him—he knows not what he's doing! He is mad.”
THE day after a great festivity in a great house is generally a dull one. It begins late; for both servants and guests are wearied, and there is nothing about it which is not inferior to other days except the luncheon, which in the way of “sweets,” at all events, is always exceptionally good. Sir Richard, however, who went through life as nearly as could be to an automaton, was up at his usual time; and descending to the empty breakfast-room, beheld, seated in an arm-chair which he had wheeled to the window, a little wizzened old man, in brightest Hessian boots, drab breeches, and a cut-away coat with flap-pockets of the fashion of half a century ago.
“Dr Haldane!” exclaimed the young man in extreme amazement. “God bless my soul and body!”
“I hope he will, sir,” rejoined the visitor drily, extending three fingers somewhat stiffly.
“No, sir; surely your whole hand!” cried the baronet warmly. “Your face is the pleasantest sight—save that of my dear mother's—that I could hope to set eyes on in Mirk Abbey; and I am not going to be fobbed off with such a salutation as that.”
“You get nothing more from me, Richard, unless the business I have come about—very much against the grain, I can tell you—gets satisfactorily accomplished.”
“Does it relate to my dear mother, sir?”
“Of course it does, young man. What else, do you think, would have had power to break my resolution—to bring me hither—to this room, in which I have not set foot these twenty years, and where I last sat, side by side—with—— But what is that to you? I suppose a man is not very likely to be moved by the memories of a dead father, who pays no respect to the feelings of his living mother.”
“I am not aware, Dr Haldane,” began Sir Richard with some haughtiness——
“I know that, sir,” broke in the other impetuously. “You are so wrapped up in selfishness—you and that scampish brother of yours—that neither of you have any thought except for your own miserable quarrels. You were not aware, I dare say, that their constant repetition is driving your mother into her grave, as they have already driven her from her once happy home; and it is because you don't know it—because you won't see it—that I am come hither, once for all, to inform you of the fact. But perhaps such a little matter has no interest in your eyes: in which case, I assure you, since it is entirely for her sake, and not at all for yours, that I have come, I shall be exceedingly glad to go away again.”
“Have you any message to deliver, Dr Haldane,” asked the baronet with an angry flush, “direct from my mother, or are you merely stating your own doubtless valuable, but quite unasked-for opinions?”
“I have a message from her to deliver to you, and to the rest of you, young man; and if you think it worth while to send for your brother and sister, you had better do so.”
The young man rang the bell, and gave the necessary orders. Dr Haldane took up a book of family prayers that lay beside him, and grunted cynically as he read Sir Richard's name on the title-page. “What a work for a fellow like this to write his name in, who drives his mother out of her own house!” muttered he, and then affected to be immersed in the contents. The baronet did not reply, but occupied himself in opening his letters, one of which was from Madame de Castellan. That lady expressed herself as “desolated” at the news of her old friend's departure from the Abbey, the cause of which she was dying to hear. “If, however,” ran the postscript, “the absence of my Lady was for any reason likely to continue, might not Mary Forest be despatched, at all events in the meantime, to Belcomb, where Madame was absolutely without any waiting-maid at all—with the exception of old Rachel—until another could be procured from France, to supply the place of wicked Annette, departed almost without a word of warning.”
“Cunning old wretch!” murmured Sir Richard, crumpling up the pale thin paper with its scratchy foreign caligraphy, and throwing it into the grate. “She thinks of nothing but herself.”
“How odd!” exclaimed the little doctor bitterly. “The lady's case must be quite unique.”
Not a word more was spoken by either until Letty entered, a little pale, but looking exquisitely lovely.
“Dear Dr Haldane, who would have thought of seeing you here? How pleased I am!”
The doctor rose with alacrity from his seat, and kissed her affectionately upon the forehead.
“I am sure,” said she with earnest gravity, “that you have brought us news of dearest mamma.”
“So you have thought of her, have you, little one?” answered he fondly. (Letty was about three inches taller than the doctor.) “I fancied she would have been no longer missed. Everybody was so happy here yesterday, I am told; and everything went on so well without her.”
“It did not, indeed,” returned Letty indignantly. “Nothing seemed to go right in her absence, notwithstanding all I could do; and as for being happy, I can answer for myself and my brothers, that not five minutes elapsed all day without our thinking of her, and grieving for her loss. And oh, dear Dr Haldane, do you know why she has left us in this sad manner, and when we shall see her back again?”
“I have her own explanation of why she has left Mirk Abbey,” replied the doctor; “but as for her return, that will depend upon yourselves—I mean upon Sir Richard and Captain Lisgard. For you, Letty, she bids me say have been at all times what a loving child should be to a parent.—Master Walter, your servant, sir.—No; I will not shake hands with a man who ruins his mother by gambling debts, and breaks her heart with hatred of his own brother.”
“That is not true, at least I do hope, Walter?” said Sir Richard quickly.
“No; false, upon my honour,” returned the captain. “My mother never told you to say that, sir.”
“Not quite that—no, she did not,” admitted the little old man, whose eyes had begun to lose their hard and inexorable expression, notwithstanding his harsh words, from the moment that Walter entered the room. It was so difficult even for a social philosopher to be severe and stern with that young man. “Yet I am bound to say, Walter, that it is you who have been most to blame with respect to that good mother, who only lives but for her children, and whose very love for them has compelled her to withdraw herself from beneath this roof. I will not now dwell upon your clandestine marriage; I leave yourself to imagine how the want of trust in your best friend as well as parent evinced in that hasty step must have wounded her loving heart. Nor do I wish—that is to say, your mother herself requests me not to bear hardly upon you with respect to your gambling debts. You know the full extent of them perhaps—yes, I was afraid of that—better than she does even yet; but she has paid enough of them already to seriously embarrass her own affairs.”
“I have made a solemn promise never to bet or gamble more, Dr Haldane,” said the captain hoarsely.
“I am glad of it, Walter; but what I was about to say was, that in this case, as well as in that of your marriage, it was not so much the error itself, as the want of frankness evidenced by your concealment of the matter. To be ashamed of having done wrong, is a proper feeling enough; but if it be not accompanied by the acknowledgment of the offence, it only shews one to be a coward, not a penitent. However, bad as your conduct has been in these two particulars, your mother would doubtless have done her best to forget, as she hastened in both instances to forgive it. But what she could not forget, since it happened every day and every hour, were the quarrels between yourself and your brother.” Here the doctor turned sharply round on the young baronet, who had been hitherto listening, not, perhaps, without complacency, to the catalogue of his brother's misdeeds.—“I think, from what I have seen myself, Richard, that it is you who are most in fault here. It is no use your looking proud and cold on me. I never cared three brass farthings for such airs, though they now and then misbecame even your poor father, who was worth a dozen of you. But this ridiculous assumption of superiority—founded upon mere accident of birth—naturally offends a high-spirited young man like Walter, who, if he was in your place, would certainly not make himself odious in that way, however he might fail in other matters belonging to your position, which suffers nothing, I readily allow, in your able hands. That you have the administrative faculty in a high degree, sir, I concede; but this is not Russia, and if it were, you are not the Czar.”
“No man in Mirk ever called me a tyrant, Dr Haldane.”
“Perhaps no man ever dared, sir; but I dare to say that a son whose conduct is such that his mother can no longer bear to witness it, is something worse than a tyrant. And be sure that if you continue so to behave, you will never see her face under this roof again.”
“My God, but this is very horrible!” cried Sir Richard, striking his forehead. “I had no idea—I never dreamed that matters were coming to any such pass as this.—Walter—brother, did it seem to you that we were so very like to Cain and Abel?”
The two young men embraced, perhaps for the first time in their lives.
“Oh, when you tell her what you have seen, sir, do you think my mother will come back?” cried Richard, with the tears in his fine eyes.
“I cannot say that; I am sure, however, that she will be greatly comforted. May I tell her that this is not a mere impulse of the moment, but that you are resolved from this time forth to be brothers indeed?”
“I will do my very best, Walter.”
“And I mine, Richard,” answered the other. “Don't reproach yourself like that”—for the vast frame of his elder brother shook with sobs—“it is much more my fault than yours: and you have been very good to me about my debts; kinder than most fellows in your position would have been—yes, you have, Dick; yes, you have. How very, very long it is since I have called you Dick; not since we were at school together! You used to call me Watty, then, you know.”
“Yes, Watty; yes. I had almost forgotten it. Let us go to our mother at once, lad—as we used to do when we made up our quarrels in the old times—and ask her to come back again, and take her place here, where we all miss her so much.—Where is she, Dr Haldane?”
“I don't know—that is, I may not tell, my boy,” returned the old gentleman hesitatingly, who, with Letty's hand fast clasped in his, was staring out of window as hard as he could, but his eyes were very dim.
“Have you nothing more to tell us, sir?” asked Sir Richard humbly.
“Well, no, boys. The letter”——
“The letter!” ejaculated Letty; “I remember now that dear mamma told me herself that when this very thing should come to pass—although I little knew at the time to what she was alluding—we should find a letter in her desk.”
“It is not there now: she put it into my hands, and I—I tore it up,” observed the doctor. “I have told you faithfully all that it contained, with one exception. I do not choose to speak of that, dear Letty, and I have your mother's permission not to do so.”
“Let me speak of it, then,” said Sir Richard, stealing his arm round his sister's waist, and kissing her very tenderly. “The message the doctor will not give respects yourself, dear, and his son Arthur. My foolish pride”——
“Pride, indeed!” broke in the little old man impetuously; “your confounded impertinence, I call it.”
“Very well, doctor,” continued the baronet smiling; “let it be so, if you will. I had the audacity to suppose, Letty, that Mr Arthur Haldane was not good enough for you.”
“Nor is he,” contested the little doctor with irritation. “Nobody's good enough for Letty Lisgard. But he is as good as can be found in England, that I will say, though the young man is my own son. And if he does not make you a pattern husband, I'll cut him off with a shilling.”
“I shall be glad to give you away to such an honest fellow, Letty,” said the baronet warmly; “so let that matter be considered settled.”
It was very pleasant to see the blushing girl hiding her tearful face in the old man's arms. “O mamma, mamma,” murmured she, “how happy I should be if you were but with us!”
“Well, well, that will be soon, I hope, my dear,” said the doctor, patting her silken head. “I will do all I can on my part to persuade her: I am sure I shall make her happy with this news.”
“Yes; but in the meantime,” said Letty, “how terrible it must be for her to be all alone. If you know where she is, can you not at least send Forest to be with her?”
“No, no; but, by the by, I have forgotten to do your mother's bidding with respect to that very person. She expressly desired that until her own return to Mirk, Mary may be sent to Belcomb, where Madame de Castellan is just now in saddest need of her.”
“Ay, she writes to me that she has lost her French maid,” said Sir Richard, picking up the crumpled note: “in that case, Mary had better go off at once.”
“There is worse trouble at Belcomb than that,” remarked the doctor gravely. “That poor fellow Derrick, who, I hear, made so much disturbance at the fête yesterday, has met with a sad accident.”
“Why, the man was put in the Cage quite safe,” said Sir Richard.
“Yes; but unfortunately for himself, he was let out again, and starting in the dark over Mirkland Hill, whole drunk, and half mad, the poor wretch wandered into the mill-yard.”
“Through that gap in the wall!” exclaimed the baronet with excitement. “Didn't I say the very last time we went by, that some accident would happen there, through that man Hathaway's neglect?”
“Well, it has happened now, with a vengeance,” pursued the doctor drily. “I was sent for this morning at two o'clock, to Belcomb, where this poor fellow had been carried, because it was a better place for him to lie in than the mill. Hathaway had been working overtime, it seems; the sails were going till near midnight, and the story is that this poor fellow strayed beneath them, and was absolutely taken up and carried round; but, at all events, he lies there, very ill—dying, I think—with concussion of the brain, and Heaven knows what beside. I dare not-move him even to examine his ribs.”
“Good God! what can we do for him?” exclaimed Sir Richard. “Is there nothing we can send?”
“He has everything he requires, or that he ever will have need of, poor fellow, in this world. But old Rachel is not a good hand at nursing, while Madame de Castellan, although good-natured enough—for a Frenchwoman—is quite incapable of such a task; so you couldn't do better than send Mary, as Madame has requested, though little knowing how much she would have need of her: her assistance will be invaluable, and indeed some sort of help must be had at once. I am going over there myself immediately, and will take her in my gig, if you can spare her, Miss Letty, and will tell her to get ready.”
“By all means,” cried Letty, hastily leaving the room upon that errand.
“Of course, all notion of prosecuting this poor fellow is now put out of the question, whatever happens,” observed the doctor.
“Quite so—quite so,” answered the baronet eagerly. “Poor drunken wretch; I am sure I'm very sorry. And I tell you what, Dr Haldane, if this man dies, there should be some sort of deodand laid upon that Mill. Hathaway ought to be punished for wilful neglect.”
“That won't bring the poor man to life again, though,” observed the doctor.
“No, of course not; though, if one may be allowed to say so, he really led such a sad life, by all accounts, it seems almost as well that he should end it. It would be a happy release, I mean, if he was to die, poor fellow; don't you think so?”
“Yes, I do. It would be better for himself, and better for others,” returned the doctor very gravely.
“Just so,” said Sir Richard; “better for all concerned. Poor man!”
HOWEVER Dr Haldane, at my Lady's own request, may have misrepresented to the young folks at the Abbey the motives which had caused her flight, he told them truth as respected Derrick. That unfortunate man had indeed met with the frightful mischance described. When he left Mary Forest on the previous night, his mind confused with vague revengeful passion, and his brain muddled with blows, as well as with the spirits he had of late taken in such quantities, and the effects of which were beginning to tell upon his exhausted frame, he had staggered up Mirkland Hill almost like one in a dream. The night was pitchy dark, and although ever and anon a burst of light came forth from the fireworks in the Abbey grounds, they were of course perfectly useless for his guidance. The top of the hill being quite bare of trees, was less obscure than the way he had already come, and in any other circumstances he could scarce have come to harm; but as it was, stumbling blindly on with his head low, he entered the mill-yard through that fatal gap in the wall, without even knowing he had left the highroad. The very roaring of the sails, which revolved dangerously near the ground, might have warned him, but that his ears were already occupied with the seething and tumult of his own brain; and when the terrible thing struck him, before which he went down upon the instant as the ox falls before the poleaxe, he never so much as knew from what he had received his hurt. There he lay for more than an hour, underneath the whirling sails, which one after another came round to peer over his haggard face, gashed with that frightful wound. The lad in charge knew nothing of what had happened, being engaged in the top story watching the fireworks in the park beneath; but about midnight he stopped the mill, and descending with his lantern, its rays by chance fell upon Ralph's prostrate body. Some persons returning from the festivities at the Abbey happened to be going by at that very time, and with their assistance he was carried across the road to the lodge at Belcomb (there being no sort of accommodation for one in his condition at the mill), and from thence to Madame de Castellan's little cottage.
That lady was for the time, as she had stated in her letter to Sir Richard, the sole inhabitant of Belcomb; but with the injured man, old Rachel and her husband the gatekeeper of course arrived, and the former did what she could as sick-nurse until the arrival of Dr Haldane, for whom a messenger was at once despatched. The old Frenchwoman, who was aroused with difficulty, and characteristically kept them waiting at the door while she made herself fit for the reception of company, was so shocked and terrified by what had happened, that she was at first of no use at all. She had expressed herself in broken English as being very glad to be of any service to the poor sufferer while they were bearing him within, and had even busied herself in procuring hot water and bandages; but no sooner did she catch sight of his ghastly face, seamed with that cruel gash, than all her resolution appeared to desert her, and she swooned away. By the time the doctor arrived, however, she had established herself in the sick-room, and although he had described her as incapable of doing much in the way of tendance, she was at least doing her best.
As for Ralph, he lay breathing stertorously, but quite motionless and unconscious. His mighty chest rose and fell, but by no means equably; his large brown hairy hands lay outstretched before him on the white coverlet; his face washed clean indeed from the recent blood-stains, but with the tangled beard still clotted with gore. It seemed strange that that powerful English frame of his should lie there so helplessly, while Madame, with her snow-white hair and delicate fragile hands, was ministering to him with such patient care; she that must have been his senior, one would have thought to look at them, by at least twenty years. Perhaps it was the sense of this contrast which caused the doctor to glance from the one to the other so earnestly, even before he commenced his examination of the wounded man.
“Will he live?” asked Madame in English. “God knows,” added she with trembling accents, “that I have no other wish within my heart but to hear you say 'Yes.'”
“Of course, Madame,” returned the other with meaning, “I do not pay you so ill a compliment as to suppose you to wish him dead, because he inconveniences you by his presence here; but I cannot say 'Yes' or 'No,' He is terribly hurt. The spine is injured; and there are ribs broken which I cannot even look to now. But it is here”—he pointed to the forehead—“where the worst danger lies: unhappily, the mischief has been done when he was—in the worst possible state to bear such a blow in such a place.”
“Does he know, doctor”——
“He knows nothing, Madame; perhaps he may never know. You must not speak so much, however; or, if so, pray use your native tongue. It is better, if consciousness does return, that the brain should be kept quite quiet. I think you had better retire to your room, Madame, and leave myself and Rachel to manage.”
“Yes, yes, we can do very well, lady,” assented old Rachel. “This is not a place for such as Madame, is it, sir? If we could only get Mistress Forest, now; she is first-rate at nursing; she nursed me for three whole nights last winter, when I was most uncommon had with the shivers, caught a-coming from Dalwynch in the spring-cart—and the cover on it, when it don't rain, is worse than nothing, for there's such a draught drives right through it”——
“Yes, yes,” interrupted the doctor impatiently; “you are quite right, Rachel. We'll send for Mistress Forest the first thing in the morning: she can easily be spared from the Abbey, now my Lady's away.”
“Ah, the more's the pity!” returned old Rachel. “And this looks almost like a judgment, don't it, sir, that this poor man, who was so rude to my dear mistress—or wanted to be, as I have heard—should have been carried in under her own roof here, feet foremost”——
“Be silent, woman!” broke in Madame de Castellan with severity. “We have nothing to do with Lady Lisgard's affairs here. This house is my house for the present; this wounded man is my guest.”
“Speak French, speak French, Madame,” exclaimed the doctor imploringly. “Did you not hear me say so before? You had much better return to bed.”
“No, no,” returned Madame, in her native tongue; “I cannot do it. I will be prudent, I will be careful for the future; but I cannot leave him, until, at all events, Mary Forest comes. O send her—send her, and let this woman go, whose presence is intolerable to me.”
Accordingly, in his visit to Belcomb about noon next day, the doctor brought Mistress Forest over with him, who was at once installed as Ralph Derrick's sick-nurse; old Rachel being sent home to the lodge. No change had as yet taken place in the sufferer; but the doctor's practised eye perceived that one was impending. This time, he made a long and earnest examination of his patient.
“Will he live?” asked Madame again, when he had finished, with the same, earnestness, nay, even anguish as before.
“There is hope; yes, I think there is hope,” returned the doctor cautiously.
“Thank God for that; I thank Him for His great mercy!” ejaculated Madame with clasped hands and upturned eyes.
“Who is that?” inquired a hoarse voice from the bed. The words were indistinct, and uttered with difficulty, but on every ear within that room they smote with the most keen significance. The two women turned deadly pale; and even the doctor's finger shook as he placed it to his lips, in sign that they should keep silent.
“Hush, my good friend,” said he to the wounded man, whose eyes were now open wide, and staring straight before him: “you must not talk just now; speaking is very bad for you.”
“Who is that who was thanking God because there was hope of my life?” reiterated Ralph. “Neither man nor woman has any cause to do that, I'm sure; while some have cause enough to pray that I were dead already, or at least had lost my wits. Doctor—for I suppose you are a doctor—have I lost my wits or not? Am I a sane man, or one not in my right mind?”
“Hush, hush; you are sane enough of course, except to keep on talking thus when I tell you that to speak is to do yourself the most serious harm.”
“You hear him—all you in the room here,” continued the sick man in a voice which, though low and feeble, had a sort of malignant triumph in it, which grated on the ear. “This doctor says I am quite sane. He says also that there is hope of my life—just a shadow of a hope. He is wrong there, for I shall die. But, anyhow, I lie in peril of death, and yet in my right mind. Therefore, what I say is to be credited—that, I believe, is the law; and even the law is right sometimes. What I am about to say is Truth—every word of it. I wish to make a statement.—No, I will take no medicines; pen and ink, if I could only write, would be more welcome than the Elixir of Life, but I cannot.” Here a groan was wrung from his parched and bloodless lips. “O Heaven! the pain I suffer; it is the foretaste of the hell for which I am bound!”
“O sir,” ejaculated Mistress Forest, moving to the bed foot, so as to shew herself to his staring eyes, “think of heaven, not of hell. Ask for pardon of God, and not of revenge upon man.”
“Ah, it is you, is it, good wench? I thought that no one else could have wished me well so piously a while ago. You did me an ill turn, although you did not mean to do so, when you let me out of the Cage last night. Was it last night, or a week, or a month ago?”
“It was only last night,” interposed the doctor gravely. “Now, do not ask any more questions, or I shall have to forbid them being answered. It is my duty to tell you that with every word you speak your life is ebbing away.”
“Then there is the less time to lose,” answered Derrick obstinately. “As for answering me, I do not want that. All I ask of you is, that you shall listen; and what I say, I charge you all, as a dying man, to remember—to repeat—to proclaim.” Here he paused from weakness.—“Doctor,” gasped he, “a glass of brandy—a large glass, for I am used to it. I must have it.—Good. I feel stronger now. Do you think, if you took down my words in writing, that I could manage”—here a shudder seemed to shake his poor bruised and broken frame, as though with the anticipation of torture—“to set down my name at the bottom of it?”
“No, my poor fellow—no. You could no more grasp a pen at present than you could rise and leave this house upon your feet. You must feel that yourself.”
“I do—I do,” groaned Ralph. “It is all the more necessary, then, that you should listen. My real name is not that one by which I have, been known at Mirk. It is not Derrick, but Gavestone: the same name, good wench, by which your mistress went before she was married to Sir Robert Lisgard. But that was not her maiden name—no, no. Do you not wonder while I tell you this? or did I speak of it last night, when I was mad with drink and rage?”
“You said something of the sort, sir; but I knew it all before that. You are my Lady's husband, and Sir Richard and the rest are all her bastard children—that is, in the eye of the law.”
“You knew it, did you?” returned Ralph after a pause. “You were in the plot with her against me, then? I am glad of that. I should be sorry to have left the world fooled to the last; for I thought that you at least were an honest wench, although all the world else were liars. So, after all, you knew it, did you? Well, at all events, it is news to the doctor here.”
“No, sir,” returned the old gentleman, quietly applying some Eau de Cologne and water to the patient's brow; “I must confess I knew it also.”
“And yet you told nobody!” ejaculated Ralph. “You suffered this imposture to go on unexposed!”
“I only heard of the facts, you speak of—from Lady Lisgard's own lips—two days ago at furthest,” returned Dr Haldane; “and I certainly told nobody, since the telling could do no good to any human being—not even to yourself, for instance—and would bring utter ruin and disgrace upon several worthy persons.”
“Ha, ha!” chuckled the patient hoarsely; “you are right, there. Disgrace upon that insolent Sir Richard, and on that ungrateful puppy, Master Walter.”
“True,” continued the doctor gravely; “and upon Miss Letty, who is dear to all who know her, but dearest to the poor and friendless.”
“I am sorry for her,” said Derrick; “but I am not sorry for my Lady—she that could look me in the face, and hear me tell the story of our early love, and of her own supposed death, to avert which I so gladly risked my life, and all without a touch of pity.”
“No, sir, with much pity,” broke forth Mistress Forest. “I myself know that her heart bled for you. She never loved Sir Robert as she did you, ungrateful man! She loved you dead and alive; she loves you now, although you pursue her with such cruel hate, and would bring shame upon all her innocent children.”
“Ay, why not?” answered Ralph. “Have they not had their day, and is it not my turn at last? Who is the woman behind the curtains? Let her stand forth, that I may see her; she, at least, is not a creature of 'my Lady,' like you and the doctor here, and ready, for her sake, to hide the truth and perpetuate my wrongs. Let that woman stand forth, I say.”