Fenton's Quest Part 55

"He'll drive fast enough, I daresay, if you give him half-a-crown," Mr.

Whitelaw answered with a grin; "but don't let him go and do my horse any damage, or you'll have to pay for it."

"Of course. You'd like to get the price of a decent animal out of me for that broken-kneed hard-mouthed brute of yours," replied the stranger with a scornful laugh. "I think there never was such a money-grubbing, grinding, grasping beggar since the world began. However, you've seen the last shilling you're ever likely to get out of me; so make the best of it; and remember, wherever I may be, there are friends of mine in this country who will keep a sharp look-out upon you, and let me know precious quick if you don't stick to your part of our bargain like an honest man, or as nearly like one as nature will allow you to come. And now good-night, Mr. Whitelaw.--Ladies, your humble servant."

He was gone before Ellen or Mrs. Tadman could reply to his parting salutation, had they been disposed to do so. Mr. Whitelaw went out with him, and gave some final directions to the stable-lad who was to drive the chaise-cart, and presently came back to the parlour, looking considerably relieved by his guest's departure.

Mrs. Tadman rushed at once to the expression of her fears.

"Stephen Whitelaw," she exclaimed solemnly, "tell us the worst at once.

It's no good keeping things back from us. That man has come here to turn us out of house and home. You've sold Wyncomb."

"Sold Wyncomb! Have you gone crazy, you old fool?" cried Mr. Whitelaw, contemplating his kinswoman with a most evil expression of countenance.

"What's put that stuff in your head?"

"Your own doings, Stephen, and that man's. What does he come here for, with his masterful ways, unless it's to turn us out of house and home?

What did you show him the house for? Nigh upon an hour you were out of this room with him, if you were a minute. Why did money pa.s.s from him to you? I saw you put it in your pocket--a bundle of bank-notes."

"You're a prying old catemeran!" cried Mr. Whitelaw savagely, "and a drunken old fool into the bargain.--Why do you let her muddle herself with the gin-bottle like that, Ellen? You ought to have more respect for my property. You don't call that taking care of your husband's house.--As for you, mother Tadman, if you treat me to any more of this nonsense, you will find yourself turned out of house and home a precious deal sooner than you bargained for; but it won't be because of my selling Wyncomb.

Sell Wyncomb, indeed! I've about as much thought of going up in a balloon, as of parting with a rood or a perch of my father's land."

This was a very long speech for Mr. Whitelaw; and, having finished it, he sank into his chair, quite exhausted by the unusual effort, and refreshed himself with copious libations of gin-and-water.

"What was that man here for, then, Stephen? It's only natural I should want to know that," said Mrs. Tadman, abashed, but not struck dumb by her kinsman's reproof.

"What's that to you? Business. Yes, there _has_ been money pa.s.s between us, and it's rather a profitable business for me. Perhaps it was horse-racing, perhaps it wasn't. That's about all you've any call to know. I've made money by it, and not lost. And now, don't let me be bothered about it any more, if you and me are to keep friends."

"I'm sure, Stephen," Mrs. Tadman remonstrated in a feebly plaintive tone, "I've no wish to bother you; there's nothing farther from my thoughts; but it's only natural that I should be anxious about a place where I've lived so many years. Not but what I could get my living easy enough elsewhere, as you must know, Stephen, being able to turn my hand to almost anything."

To this feeble protest Mr. Whitelaw vouchsafed no answer. He had lighted his pipe by this time, and was smoking and staring at the fire with his usual stolid air--meditative, it might be, or only ruminant, like one of his own cattle.

But all through that night Mr. Whitelaw, who was not commonly a seer of visions or dreamer of dreams, had his slumbers disturbed by some unwonted perplexity of spirit. His wife lay broad awake, thinking of that prolonged and piercing cry, which seemed to her, the more she meditated upon it, in have been a cry of anguish or of terror, and could not fail to notice this unusual disturbance of her husband's sleep. More than once he muttered to himself in a troubled manner; but his words, for the most part, were incoherent and disjointed--words of which that perplexed listener could make nothing.

Once she heard him say, "A bad job--dangerous business."

CHAPTER XL.

IN PURSUIT.

John Saltram improved daily at Hampton Court. In spite of his fierce impatience to get well, in order to engage in the search for Marian--an impatience which was in itself sufficient to militate against his well-being--he did make considerable progress on the road to recovery. He was still very weak, and it must take time to complete his restoration; but he was no longer the pale ghost of his former self that Gilbert had brought down to the quiet suburb.

It would have been a cruel thing to leave him much alone at such a time, or it would have seemed very cruel to Gilbert Fenton, who had ever present in his memory those old days in Egypt when this man had stood him in such good stead. He remembered the days of his own sickness, and contrived to perform his business duties within the smallest time possible, and so spend the rest of his life in the comfortable sitting-rooms looking out upon Bushy-park on the one side, and on the other upon the pretty high road before the Palace grounds.

Nor was there any sign in the intercourse of those two that the bond of friendship between them was broken. There was, it is true, a something deprecating in John Saltram's manner that had not been common to him of old, and in Gilbert Fenton a deeper gravity than was quite natural; but that was all. It was difficult to believe that any latent spirit of animosity could lurk in the mind of either. In sober truth, Gilbert, in his heart of hearts, had forgiven his treacherous friend. Again and again he had told himself that the wrong he had suffered was an unpardonable offence, a thing not to be forgiven upon any ground whatever. But, lo, when he looked into his mind to discover the smouldering fires of that burning anger which he had felt at first against the traitor, he could find nothing but the gray ashes of a long-expired flame. The wrong had been suffered, and he loved his old friend still. Yes, there was that in his heart for John Saltram which no ill-doing could blot out.

So he tended the convalescent's couch with a quiet devotion that touched the sinner very deeply, and there was a peace between those two which had in it something almost sacred. In the mind of the one there was a remorseful sense of guilt, in the heart of the other a pitying tenderness too deep for words.

One night, as they were together on opposite sides of the fire, John Saltram lying on a low sofa drawn close to the hearth, Gilbert seated lazily in an easy-chair, the invalid broke out suddenly into a kind of apology for his wrong-doing.

The conversation had flagged between them after the tea-things had been removed by the brisk little serving-maid of the lodgings; Gilbert gazing meditatively at the fire, John Saltram so quiet that his companion had thought him asleep.

"I said once that I would tell you all about that business," he began at last, in a sudden spasmodic way; "but, after all there is so little to tell. There is no excuse for what I did; I know that better than you can know it. A man in my position, who had a spark of generosity or honour, would have strangled his miserable pa.s.sion in its birth, would have gone away directly he discovered his folly, and never looked upon Marian Nowell's face again. I did try to do that, Gilbert. You remember that last night we ever spent together at Lidford--what a feverishly-happy night it was; only a cottage-parlour with a girl's bright face shining in the lamplight, and a man over head and ears in love, but a glimpse of paradise to that man. I meant that it should be the last of my weakness, Gilbert. I had pledged myself to that by all the outspoken oaths wherewith a man can bind himself to do his duty. And I did turn my back upon the scene of my temptation, as you know, heartily resolved never to approach the edge of the pit again. I think if you had stayed in England, Gilbert, if you had been on the spot to defend your own rights, all would have gone well, I should have kept the promise I had made for myself."

"It was so much the more sacred because of my absence, John," Gilbert said.

"Perhaps. After all, I suppose it was only a question of opportunity.

That particular devil who tempts men to their dishonour contrived that the business should be made fatally easy for me. You were away, and the coast was clear, you know. I loved you, Gilbert; but there is a pa.s.sion stronger than the love which a man feels for his dearest friend. I meant most steadfastly to keep my faith with you; but you were away, and that fellow Forster plagued me to come to him. I refused at first--yes, I held out for a couple of months; but the fever was strong upon me--a restless demon not to be exorcised by hard work, or dissipation even, for I tried both. And then before you were at the end of your journey, while you were still a wanderer across the desolate sea, happy in the thought of your dear love's fidelity, my courage gave way all at once, and I went down to Heatherly. And so I saw her, and saw that she loved me--all unworthy as I was; and from that hour I was a lost man; I thought of nothing but winning her."

"If you had only been true to me, even then, John; if you had written to me declaring the truth, and giving me fair warning that you were my rival, how much better it would have been! Think what a torture of suspense, what a world of wasted anger, you might have saved me."

"Yes, it would have been the manlier course, no doubt," the other answered; "but I could not bring myself to that. I could not face the idea of your justifiable wrath. I wanted to win my wife and keep my friend. It was altogether a weak notion, that idea of secrecy, of course, and couldn't hold water for any time, as the result has shown; but I thought you would get over your disappointment quickly--those wounds are apt to heal so speedily--and fall in love elsewhere; and then it would have been easy for me to tell you the truth. So I persuaded my dear love, who was easily induced to do anything I wished, to consent to our secret being kept from you religiously for the time being, and to that end we were married under a false name--not exactly a false name either. You remember my asking you if you had ever heard the name of Holbrook before your hunt after Marian's husband? You said no; yet I think you must have seen the name in some of my old college books. I was christened John Holbrook. My grandmother was one of the Holbrooks of Horley-place, Suss.e.x, people of some importance in their day, and our family were rather proud of the name. But I have dropped it ever since I was a lad."

"No, I don't think I can ever have seen the name; I must surely have remembered it, if I had seen it."

"Perhaps so. Well, Gilbert, there is no more to be said. I loved her, selfishly, after the manner of mankind. I could not bring myself to give her up, and pursued her with a pa.s.sionate persistence which must plead _her_ excuse. If her uncle had lived, I doubt whether I should ever have succeeded. But his death left the tender womanly heart weakened by sorrow; and so I won her, the dearest, truest wife that ever man was blest withal. Yet, I confess to you, so wayward is my nature, that there have been moments in which I repented my triumph--weak hours of doubt and foreboding, in which I fear that dear girl divined my thoughts. Since our wretched separation I have fancied sometimes that a conviction of this kind on her part is at the root of the business, that she has alienated herself from me, believing--in plain words--that I was tired of her."

"Such an idea as that would scarcely agree with Ellen Carley's account of Marian's state of mind during that last day or two at the Grange. She was eagerly expecting your return, looking forward with delight to the pleasant surprise you were to experience when you heard of Jacob Nowell's will."

"Yes, the girl told me that. Great heavens, why did I not return a few days earlier! I was waiting for money, not caring to go back empty-handed; writing and working like a n.i.g.g.e.r. I dared not meet my poor girl at her grandfather's, since in so doing I must risk an encounter with you."

After this they talked of Marian's disappearance for some time, going over the same ground very often in their helplessness, and able, at last, to arrive at no satisfactory conclusion. If she were with her father, she was with a bad, unscrupulous man. That was a fact which Gilbert Fenton no longer pretended to deny. They sat talking till late, and parted for the night in very different spirits.

Gilbert had a good deal of hard work in the City on the following day; a batch of foreign correspondence too important to be entrusted to a clerk, and two or three rather particular interviews. All this occupied him up to so late an hour, that he was obliged to sleep in London that night, and to defer his return to Hampton till the next day's business was over.

This time he got over his work by an early hour, and was able to catch a train that left Waterloo at half-past five. He felt a little uneasy at having been away from the convalescent so long though he knew that John Saltram was now strong enough to get on tolerably without him, and that the people of the house were careful and kindly, ready at any moment to give a.s.sistance if it were wanted.

"Strange," he thought to himself, as the train approached the quiet, river-side village--"strange that I should be so fond of the fellow, in spite of all; that I should care more for his society than that of any man living. It is the mere force of habit, I suppose. After all these years of liking, the link between us is not to be broken, even by the deepest wrong that one man can do another."

The spring twilight was closing in as he crossed the bridge and walked briskly along an avenue of leafless trees at the side of the green. The place had a peaceful rustic look at this dusky hour. There were no traces of that modern spoiler the speculative builder just hereabouts; and the quaint old houses near the barracks, where lights were twinkling feebly here and there, had a look of days that are gone, a touch of that plaintive poetry which pervades all relics of the past. Gilbert felt the charm of the hour; the air still and mild, the silence only broken by the cawing of palatial rooks; and whatever tenderness towards John Saltram there was lurking in his breast seemed to grow upon him as he drew nearer to their lodgings; so that his mood was of the softest when he opened the little garden-gate and went in.

"I will make no further pretence of enmity," he said to himself; "I will not keep up this farce of estrangement. We two will be friends once more.

Life is not long enough for the rupture of such a friendship."

There was no light shining in the parlour window, no pleasant home-glow streaming out upon the night. The blank created by this unwonted darkness chilled him somehow, and there was a vague sense of dread in his mind as he opened the door. There was no need to knock. The simple household was untroubled by the fear of burglariously-disposed intruders, and the door was rarely fastened until after dark.

Gilbert went into the parlour; all was dark and silent in the two rooms, which communicated with folding doors, and made one fair-sized apartment.

There were no preparations for dinner; he could see that in the deepening dusk. The fire had been evidently neglected, and was at an expiring point.

"John!" he called, stirring the fire with a vigorous hand, whereby he gave it the _coup-de-grace_, and the last glimmer sank to darkness.

"John, what are you doing?"

He fancied the convalescent had fallen asleep upon the sofa in the inner room; but when he went in search of him, he found nothing but emptiness.

He rang the bell violently, and the brisk maid-servant came flying in.

"Oh, dear, sir, you did give me and missus such a turn!" she said, gasping, with her hand on her heart, as if that organ had been seriously affected. "We never heard you come in, and when the bell rung----"