Studies in love and in terror Part 15

"I'll come to-morrow, and rather early, Catherine. Then I'll be able to confess before Ma.s.s." He was speaking in his usual voice, but he still held her hand, and she felt his grip on it tightening, bringing welcome hurt.

"And you'll leave----?"

"For Plymouth to-morrow afternoon," he said briefly. He dropped her hand, which now felt numbed and maimed, and pa.s.sed through the gate without looking back.

She stood a moment watching him as he strode down the field path. It had suddenly become, from day, night,--high time for Charles to be indoors.

Forgetting to lock the gate, she turned and retraced her steps through the orchard, and so made her way up to where her husband and the old priest were standing awaiting her.

As she approached them, she became aware that something going on in the valley below was absorbing their close attention. She felt glad that this was so.

"There it is!" cried Charles Nagle angrily. "I told you that they'd begin their d.a.m.ned practice again to-night!"

Slowly through the stretch of open country which lay spread to their right, the Bridport Wonder went puffing its way. Lanterns had been hung in front of the engine, and as it crawled sinuously along it looked like some huge monster with myriad eyes. As it entered the wood below, the dark barrel-like body of the engine seemed to give a bound, a lurch forward, and the men that manned it laughed out suddenly and loudly. The sound of their uncouth mirth floated upwards through the twilight.

"James's ale has made them merry!" exclaimed Charles, wagging his head.

"And he, going through the wood, will just have met the puffing devil. I wish him the joy of the meeting!"

II

It was five hours later. Mrs. Nagle had bidden her reverend guest good night, and she was now moving about her large, barely furnished bedchamber, waiting for her husband to come upstairs.

The hours which had followed James Mottram's departure had seemed intolerably long. Catherine felt as if she had gone through some terrible physical exertion which had left her worn out--stupefied. And yet she could not rest. Even now her day was not over; Charles often grew restless and talkative at night. He and Mr. Dorriforth were no doubt still sitting talking together downstairs.

Mrs. Nagle could hear her husband's valet moving about in the next room, and the servant's proximity disturbed her.

She waited awhile and then went and opened the door of the dressing-room. "You need not sit up, Collins," she said.

The man looked vaguely disturbed. "I fear that Mr. Nagle, madam, has gone out of doors," he said.

Catherine felt dismayed. The winter before Charles had once stayed out nearly all night.

"Go you to bed, Collins," she said. "I will wait up till Mr. Nagle comes in, and I will make it right with him."

He looked at her doubtingly. Was it possible that Mrs. Nagle was unaware of how much worse than usual his master had been the last few days?

"I fear Mr. Nagle is not well to-day," he ventured. "He seems much disturbed to-night."

"Your master is disturbed because Mr. Mottram is again leaving England for the Indies." Catherine forced herself to say the words. She was dully surprised to see how quietly news so momentous to her was received by her faithful servant.

"That may be it," said the man consideringly, "but I can't help thinking that the master is still much concerned about the railroad. I fear that he has gone down to the wood to-night."

Catherine was startled. "Oh, surely he would not do that, Collins?" She added in a lower tone, "I myself locked the orchard gate."

"If that is so," he answered, obviously relieved, "then with your leave, madam, I'll be off to bed."

Mrs. Nagle went back into her room, and sat down by the fire, and then, sooner than she had expected to do so, she heard a familiar sound. It came from the chapel, for Charles was fond of using that strange and secret entry into his house.

She got up and quietly opened her bedroom door.

From the hall below was cast up the dim light of the oil-lamp which always burnt there at night, and suddenly Catherine saw her husband emerge from the chapel pa.s.sage, and begin walking slowly round the opposite side of the gallery. She watched him with languid curiosity.

Charles Nagle was treading softly, his head bent as if in thought.

Suddenly he stayed his steps by a half-moon table on which stood a large Chinese bowl filled with pot-pourri; and into this he plunged his hands, seeming to lave them in the dry rose-leaves. Catherine felt no surprise, she was so used to his strange ways; and more than once he had hidden things--magpie fashion--in that great bowl. She turned and closed her door noiselessly; Charles much disliked being spied on.

At last she heard him go into his dressing-room. Then came the sounds of cupboard doors being flung open, and the hurried pouring out of water.... But long before he could have had time to undress, she heard the familiar knock.

She said feebly, "Come in," and the door opened.

It was as she had feared; her husband had no thought, no intention, of going yet to bed. Not only was he fully dressed, but the white evening waistcoat he had been wearing had been changed by him within the last few moments for a waistcoat she had not seen before, though she had heard of its arrival from London. It was of cashmere, the latest freak of fashion. She also saw with surprise that his nankeen trousers were stained, as if he had been kneeling on damp ground. He looked very hot, his wavy hair lay damply on his brow, and he appeared excited, oppressively alive.

"Catherine!" he exclaimed, hurrying up to the place where she was standing near the fire. "You will bear witness that I was always and most positively averse to the railroad being brought here?" He did not wait for her to answer him. "Did I not always say that trouble would come of it--trouble to us all? Yet sometimes it's an ill thing to be proved right."

"Indeed it is, Charles," she answered gently. "But let us talk of this to-morrow. It's time for bed, my dear, and I am very weary."

He was now standing by her, staring down into the fire.

Suddenly he turned and seized her left arm. He brought her unresisting across the room, then dragged aside the heavy yellow curtains which had been drawn before the central window.

"Look over there, Catherine," he said meaningly. "Can you see the Eype?

The moon gives but little light to-night, but the stars are bright. I can see a glimmer at yon window. They must be still waiting for James to come home."

"I see the glimmer you mean," she said dully. "No doubt they leave a lamp burning all night, as we do. James must have got home hours ago, Charles." She saw that the cuff of her husband's coat was also covered with dark, damp stains, and again she wondered uneasily what he had been doing out of doors.

"Catherine?" Charles Nagle turned her round, ungently, and forced her to look up into his face. "Have you ever thought what 'twould be like to live at the Eype?"

The question startled her. She roused herself to refute what she felt to be an unworthy accusation. "No, Charles," she said, looking at him steadily. "G.o.d is my witness that at no time did I think of living at the Eype! Such a wish never came to me----"

"Nor to me!" he cried, "nor to me, Catherine! All the long years that James Mottram was in Jamaica the thought never once came to me that he might die, and I survive him. After all we were much of an age, he had but two years the advantage of me. I always thought that the boy--my aunt's son, curse him!--would get it all. Then, had I thought of it--and I swear I never did think of it--I should have told myself that any day James might bring a wife to the Eype----"

He was staring through the leaded panes with an intent, eager gaze. "It is a fine house, Catherine, and commodious. Larger, airier than ours--though perhaps colder," he added thoughtfully. "Cold I always found it in winter when I used to stay there as a boy--colder than this house. You prefer Edgecombe, Catherine? If you were given a choice, is it here that you would live?" He looked at her, as if impatient for an answer.

"Every stone of Edgecombe, our home, is dear to me," she said solemnly.

"I have never admired the Eype. It is too large, too cold for my taste.

It stands too much exposed to the wind."

"It does! it does!" There was a note of regret in his voice. He let the curtain fall and looked about him rather wildly.

"And now, Charles," she said, "shall we not say our prayers and retire to rest."

"If I had only thought of it," he said, "I might have said my prayers in the chapel. But there was much to do. I thought of calling you, Catherine, for you make a better sacristan than I. Then I remembered Boney--poor little Boney crushed by the miller's dray--and how you cried all night, and that though I promised you a far finer, cleverer dog than that poor old friend had ever been. Collins said, 'Why, sir, you should have hid the old dog's death from the mistress till the morning!' A worthy fellow, Collins. He meant no disrespect to me. At that time, d'you remember, Collins had only been in my service a few months?"

It was an hour later. From where she lay in bed, Catherine Nagle with dry, aching eyes stared into the fire, watching the wood embers turn from red to grey. By her side, his hand in hers, Charles slept the dreamless, heavy slumber of a child.

Scarcely breathing, in her anxiety lest he should wake, she loosened her hand, and with a quick movement slipped out of bed. The fire was burning low, but Catherine saw everything in the room very clearly, and she threw over her night-dress a long cloak, and wound about her head the scarf which she had worn during her walk to the wood.