Hard Cash Part 108

"Is this intrusion agreeable to you, Miss Dodd?" said Mr. Hurd respectfully, by way of courting her. She made no reply, but only looked wildly at Alfred still, and quivered visibly.

"Pray, sir," said Alfred, turning on Mr. Hurd, "have you any right to interfere between us two?"

"None whatever," said Julia hastily. "Mr. Hurd, I need no one: I will permit no one to say a word to him. Mr. Hardie knows he cannot enter a house where I am--without an explanation."

"What, before a couple of curates?"

"Do not be insolent to my friends, sir," said Julia, panting.

This wounded Alfred deeply. "Oh, as you please," said he. "Only if you put me on my defence before strangers, I shall, perhaps, put you to the blush before them."

"Why do you come here, sir?" said Julia, not deigning to notice his threat.

"To see my betrothed."

"Oh, indeed!" said she bitterly; "in that case why have you postponed your visit so long?"

"I was in prison."

"In prison?"

"In the worst of all prisons; where I was put because I loved you; where I was detained because I persisted in loving you, you faithless, inconstant girl."

He choked at these words; she smiled--a faint, uncertain smile. It died away, and she shook her head, and said sadly--

"Defend yourself, and then call me as many names as you like. Where was this prison?"

"It was an asylum: a madhouse."

The girl stared at him bewildered. He put his hand into his pocket and took Peggy's letter. "Read that," he said. She held it in her hand, and looked him in the face to divine the contents. "Read it," said he, almost fiercely; "that was the decoy." She held it shaking in her hands, and stared at it. I don't know whether she read it or not.

He went on: "The same villain who defrauded your father of his money, robbed me of my wife and my liberty: that Silverton House was a lunatic asylum, and ever since then (Oh, Julia, the agony of that day) I have been confined in one or other of those h.e.l.ls; sane amongst the mad; till Drayton House took fire, and I escaped: for what? To be put on my defence, by you. What have you suffered from our separations compared with the manifold anguish I have endured, that you dare to receive the most injured and constant of mankind like this, you who have had your liberty all this time, and have consoled yourself for my absence with a couple of curates?"

"For shame," said Julia, blushing to the forehead, yet smiling in a way her companions could not understand.

"Miss Dodd, will you put up with these insults?" said Mr. Hurd.

"Ay, and a thousand more," cried Julia, radiant, "and thank Heaven for them; they prove his sincerity. You, who have thought proper to stay and hear me insult my betrothed, and put my superior on his defence, look how I receive his just rebuke: Dear, cruelly used Alfred, I never doubted you in my heart, no not for a moment; forgive me for taunting you to clear yourself; you who were always the soul of truth and honour.

Forgive me: I too have suffered; for I thought my Alfred was dead.

Forgive me."

And with this she was sinking slowly to her knees with the most touching grace, all blushes, tears, penitence, happiness, and love; but he caught her eagerly. "Oh! G.o.d forbid," he cried: and in a moment her head was on his shoulder, and they mingled their tears together.

It was Julia who recovered herself first, and shrank from him a little, and murmured, "We are not alone."

The misgiving came rather late: and they were alone.

The other gentlemen had comprehended at last that it was indelicate to remain: they had melted quietly away; and Peterson rushed down the street; but Hurd hung disconsolate about that very entry, where Alfred had just desponded before him.

"Sit by me, my poor darling, and tell me all," said Julia.

He began; but, ere he had told her about his first day at his first asylum, she moaned and turned faint at the recital, and her lovely head sank on his shoulder. He kissed her, and tried to comfort her, and said he would not tell her any more.

But she said somewhat characteristically, "I insist on your telling me all--all. It will kill me." Which did not seem to Alfred a cogent reason for continuing his narrative. He varied it by telling her that through all his misery the thought of her had sustained him. Alas, in the midst of their Elysium a rough voice was heard in the pa.s.sage inquiring for Mr. Hardie. Alfred started up in dismay: for it was Rooke's voice. "I am undone," he cried. "They are coming to take me again; and, if they do, they will drug me; I am a dead man."

"Fly!" cried Julia; "fly! upstairs: the leads."

He darted to the door, and out on the landing.

It was too late. Rooke had just turned the corner of the stairs, and saw him. He whistled and rushed after Alfred. Alfred bounded up the next flight of stairs: but, even as he went, his fighting blood got up; he remembered his pistol: he drew it, turned on the upper landing, and levelled the weapon full at Rooke's forehead. The man recoiled with a yell, and got to a respectful distance on the second landing. There he began to parley. "Come, Mr. Hardie, sir," said he, "that is past a joke: would you murder a man?"

"It's no murder to kill an a.s.sa.s.sin in defence of life or liberty; and I'll kill you, Rooke, as I would kill a wasp, if you lay a finger on me."

"Do you hear that?" shouted Rooke to some one below.

"Ay, I hear," replied the voice of Hayes.

"Then loose the dog. And run in after him."

There was a terrible silence; then a scratching was heard below: and, above, the deadly click of the pistol-hammers brought to full c.o.c.k.

And then there was a heavy pattering rush, and Vulcan came charging up the stairs like a lion. He was half-muzzled; but that Alfred did not know; he stepped forward and fired at the tremendous brute somewhat unsteadily; and missed him, by an inch; the bullet glanced off the stairs and entered the wall within a yard of Rooke's head: ere Alfred could fire again, the huge brute leaped on him, and knocked him down like a child, and made a grab at his throat; Alfred, with admirable presence of mind, seized a banister, and, drawing himself up, put the pistol to Vulcan's ear, and fired the other barrel just as Rooke rushed up the stairs to secure his prisoner; the dog bounded into the air and fell over dead with shattered skull, leaving Alfred bespattered with blood and brains, and half blinded: but he struggled up, and tore the banister out in doing so, just as a heavy body fell forward at his feet: it was Rooke stumbling over Vulcan's carca.s.s so unexpectedly thrown in his path: Alfred cleared his eyes with his hand, and as Rooke struggled up, lifted the banister high above his head, and, with his long sinewy arm and elastic body, discharged a blow frightful to look at, for youth, strength, skill, and hate all swelled, and rose, and struck together in that one furious gesture. If the wood had held, the skull must have gone. As it was, the banister broke over' the man's head (and one half went spinning up to the ceiling). The man's head cracked under the banister like a gla.s.s bottle; and Rooke lay flat and mute, within the blood running from his nose and ears. Alfred hurled the remnant of the banister down at Hayes and the others, and darted into a room (it was Julia's bedroom), and was heard to open the window, and then drag furniture to the door, and barricade it. This done, he went to load his pistol, which he thought he had slipped into his pocket after felling Rooke. He found to his dismay it was not there. The fact was, it had slipped past his pocket and fallen down.

During the fight, shriek upon shriek issued from the drawing-room.

But now all was still. On the stairs lay Vulcan dead, Rooke senseless: below, Julia in a dead faint. And all in little more than a minute.

Dr. Wolf arrived with the police and two more keepers, new ones in the place of Wales and Garrett discharged; and urged them to break into the bedroom and capture the maniac: but first he was cautious enough to set two of them to watch the back of the house. "There," he said, "where that load of hay is going in: that is the way to it. Now stand you in the yard and watch."

This last mandate was readily complied with; for there was not much to be feared on the stones below from a maniac self-immured on the second story. But to break open that bedroom door was quite another thing. The stairs were like a shambles already--a chilling sight to the eyes of mercenary valour.

Rooke was but just sensible: the others hung back. But presently the pistol was found sticking in a pool of gore. This put a new face on the matter; and Dr. Wolf himself showed the qualities of a commander. He sent down word to his sentinels in the yard to be prepared for any attempt on Alfred's part, however desperate: and he sent a verbal message to a stately gentleman who was sitting anxious in lodgings over the way, after bribing high ad low, giving out money like water to secure the recapture, and so escape what he called his unnatural son's vengeance; for he knew him to be by nature bold and vindictive like himself. After these preliminaries, Doctor Wolf headed his remaining forces--to wit, two keepers, and two policemen, and thundered at the bedroom door, and summoned Alfred to surrender.

Now among the spectators who watched and listened with bated breath, was one to whom this scene had an interest of its own. Mr. Hurd, disconcerted by Alfred's sudden reappearance, and the lovers'

reconciliation, had hung about the entry very miserable; for he was sincerely attached to Julia. But, while he was in this stupor, came the posse to recapture Alfred, and he heard them say so. Then the shots were fired within, then Wolf and his men got in, and Mr. Hurd, who was now at the door, got in with them to protect Julia, and see this dangerous and inconvenient character disposed of. He was looking demurely on at a safish distance, when his late triumphant rival was summoned to surrender.

No reply.

Dr. Wolf coaxed.

No reply.

Dr. Wolf told him he had police as well as keepers, and resistance would be idle.

No reply.

Dr. Wolf ordered his men to break in the door.