The Great House Part 12

But Audley was already striding across the lawn towards the gate. The lawyer hesitated, gave way, and followed him.

They were within twenty paces of the silent watcher when he moved--up to that time he might have been a lay figure. He shook one hand in the air, as if he would beat them off, then he turned and walked stiffly away. Half a dozen steps took him out of sight. The Yew Walk swallowed him.

But, quickly as he vanished, the lawyer had had time to see that he staggered. "I fear, my lord, he is ill," he said. "He will never reach the Gatehouse in that state. I had better follow him."

"Why the devil did he come here?" Audley retorted savagely. The watcher's strange aspect, his face, white against the dark yews, his stillness, his gesture, a something ominous in all, had shaken him. "If he had stopped at home----"

"Still----"

"D--n him, it's his affair!"

"Still we cannot leave him if he has fallen, my lord," Stubbs replied with decision. And without waiting for his employer's a.s.sent he tried the gate. It was locked, but in a trice he found the key on his bunch, turned it, and pushed back the gate. Audley noticed that it moved silently on its hinges.

Stubbs, the gate open, began to feel ashamed of his impulse. Probably there was nothing amiss after all. But he had hardly looked along the path before he uttered a cry, and hurrying forward, stooped over a bundle of clothes that lay in the middle of the walk. It was John Audley. Apparently he had tripped over a root and lain where he had fallen.

Stubbs's cry summoned the other, who followed him through the gate, to find him on his knees supporting the old man's head. The sight recalled Audley to his better self. The mottled face, the staring eyes, the helpless limbs shocked him. "Good G--d!" he cried, "you were right, Stubbs! He might have died if we had left him."

"He would have died," Stubbs answered. "As it is--I am not sure." He opened the waistcoat, felt for the beating of the heart, bent his ear to it. "No, I don't think he's gone," he said, "but the heart is feeble, very feeble. We must have brandy! My lord, you are the more active. Will you go to the Gatehouse--there is no nearer place--and get some? And something to carry him home! A hurdle if there is nothing better, and a couple of men?"

"Right!" Audley cried.

"And don't lose a minute, my lord! He's nearly gone."

Audley stripped off his overcoat. "Wrap this about him!" he said. And before the other could answer he had started for the Gatehouse, at a pace which he believed that he could keep up.

Pad, pad, my lord ran under the yew trees, swish, swish across the soaking gra.s.s, about the great b.u.t.terfly. Pad, pad, again through the gloom under the yews! Not too fast, he told himself--he was a big man and he must save himself. Now he saw before him the opening into the park, and the light falling on the pale turf. And then, at a point not more than twenty yards short of the open ground, he tripped over a root, tried to recover himself, struck another root, and fell.

The fall shook him, but he was young, and he was quickly on his feet. He paused an instant to brush the dirt from his hands and knees; and it was during that instant that his inbred fear of John Audley, and the certainty that if John Audley died he need fear no more, rose before him.

Yes, if he died--this man who was even now plotting against him--there was an end of that fear! There was an end of uneasiness, of anxiety, of the alarm that a.s.sailed him in the small hours, of the forebodings that showed him stripped of t.i.tle and income and consequence. Stripped of all!

Five seconds pa.s.sed, and he still stood, engaged with his hands. Five more; it was his knees he was brushing now--and very carefully. Another five--the sweat broke out on his brow though the day was cold. Twenty seconds, twenty-five! His face showed white in the gloom. And still he stood. He glanced behind him. No one could see him.

But the movement discovered the man to himself, and with an oath he broke away. He thrust the d.a.m.ning thought from him, he sprang forward. He ran. In ten strides he was in the open park, and trotting steadily, his elbows to his sides, across the sward. The blessed light was about him, the wind swept past his ears, the cleansing rain whipped his face. Thank G.o.d, he had left behind him the heavy air and noisome scent of the yews. He hated them. He would cut them all down some day.

For in a strange way he a.s.sociated them with the temptation which had a.s.sailed him. And he was thankful, most thankful, that he had put that temptation from him--had put it from him, when most men, he thought, would have succ.u.mbed to it. Thank G.o.d, he had not! The farther he went, indeed, the better he felt. By the time he saw the Gatehouse before him, he was sure that few men, exposed to that temptation, would have overcome it. For if John Audley died what a relief it would be! And he had looked very ill; he had looked like a man at the point of death. The brandy could not reach him under--well, under half an hour. Half an hour was a long time, when a man looked like that. "I'll do my best," he thought. "Then if he dies, well and good. I've always been afraid of him."

He did not spare himself, but he was not in training, and he was well winded when he reached the Gatehouse. A last effort carried him between the b.u.t.terflies, and he halted on the flags of the courtyard. A woman, whose skirts were visible, but whose head and shoulders were hidden by an umbrella, was standing in the doorway on his left, speaking to some one in the house. She heard his footsteps and turned.

"Lord Audley!" she exclaimed--for it was Mary Audley. Then with a woman's quickness, "You have come from my uncle?" she cried. "Is he ill?"

Audley nodded. "I am come for some brandy," he gasped.

She did not waste a moment. She sped into the house, and to the dining-room. "I had missed him," she cried over her shoulder. "The man-servant is away. I hoped he might be with him."

In a trice she had opened a cellarette and taken from it a decanter of brandy. Then she saw that he could not carry this at any speed, and she turned to the sideboard and took a wicker flask from a drawer. With a steady hand and without the loss of a minute--he found her presence of mind admirable--she filled this.

As she corked it, Mrs. Toft appeared, wiping her hands on her ap.r.o.n. "Dear, dear, miss," she said, "is the master bad? But it's no wonder when he, that doesn't quit the fire for a week together, goes out like this? And Toft away and all!" She stared at his lordship. Probably she knew him by sight.

"Will you get his bed warmed, Mrs. Toft," Mary answered. She gave Lord Audley the flask. "Please don't lose a moment," she urged. "I am following--oh yes, I am. But you will go faster."

She had not a thought, he saw, for the disorder of her dress, or for her hair dishevelled by the wind, and scarce a thought for him. He decided that he had never seen her to such advantage, but it was no time for compliments, nor was she in the mood for them. Without more he nodded and set off on his return journey--he had not been in the house three minutes. By and by he looked back, and saw that Mary was following on his heels. She had s.n.a.t.c.hed up a sun-bonnet, discarded the umbrella, and, heedless of the rain, was coming after him as swiftly and lightly as Atalanta of the golden apple. "Gad, she's not one of the fainting sort!" he reflected; and also that if he had given way to that d--d temptation he could not have looked her in the face. "As it is," his mind ran, "what are the odds the old boy's not dead when we get there? If he is--I am safe! If he is not, I might do worse than think of her. It would checkmate him finely. More"--he looked again over his shoulder--"she's a fine mover, by Gad, and her figure's perfect! Even that rag on her head don't spoil her!" Whereupon he thought of a certain Lady Adela with whom he was very friendly, who had political connections and would some day have a plum. The comparison was not, in the matter of fineness and figure, to Lady Adela's advantage. Her lines were rather on the Flemish side.

Meanwhile Mary was feeling anything but an Atalanta. Wind and rain and wet gra.s.s, loosened hair and swaying skirts do not make for romance. But in her anxiety she gave small thought to these. Her one instinct was to help. With all his oddity her uncle had been kind to her, and she longed to show him that she was grateful. And he was her one relative. She had no one else in the world. He had given her what of home he had, and ease, and a security which she had never known before. Were she to lose him now--the mere fancy spurred her to fresh exertions, and in spite of a pain in her side, in spite of clinging skirts, and shoes that threatened to leave her feet, she pushed on. She was not far behind Audley when he reached the Yew Walk.

She saw him plunge into it, she followed, and was on the scene not many seconds later. When she caught sight of the little group kneeling about the prostrate man, that sense of tragedy, and of the inevitable, which a.s.sails at such a time, shook her. The thing always possible, never expected, had happened at last.

Then the coolness which women find in these emergencies returned. She knelt between the men, took the insensible head on her arm, held out her other hand for the cup. "Has he swallowed any?" she asked, taking command of the situation.

"No," Toft answered--and she became aware that the man with Lord Audley was the servant.

She waited for no more, she tilted the cup, and by some knack she succeeded where Toft had failed. A little of the spirit was swallowed. She improvised a pillow and laid the head down on it. "The lower the better," she murmured. She felt the hands and began to rub one. "Rub the other," she said to Toft. "The first thing to do is to get him home! Have you a carriage? How near can you bring it, Lord Audley?"

"We can bring it to the park at the end of the walk," he answered. "My agent has gone to fetch it."

"Will you hasten it?" she replied. "Toft will stay with me. And bring something, please, on which you can carry him to it."

"At once," Audley answered, and he went off in the direction of the Great House.

"I've seen him as bad before, Miss," Toft said. "I found that he had gone out without his hat and I followed him, but I could not trace him at once. I don't think you need feel alarmed."

Certainly the face had lost its mottled look, the eyes were now shut, the limbs lay more naturally. "If he were only at home!" Mary answered. "But every moment he is exposed to the cold is against him. He must be wet through."

She induced the patient to swallow another mouthful of brandy, and with their eyes on his face the two watched for the first gleam of consciousness. It came suddenly. John Audley's eyes opened. He stared at them.

His mind, however, still wandered. "I knew it!" he muttered. "They could not be there and I not know it! But the wall! The wall is thick--thick and----" He was silent again.

The rambling mind is to those who are not wont to deal with it a most uncanny thing, and Mary looked at Toft to see what he made of it. But the servant had eyes only for his master. He was gazing at him with an absorbed face.

"Ay, a thick wall!" the sick man murmured. "They may look and look, they'll not see through it." He was silent a moment, then, "All bare!" he murmured. "All bare!" He chuckled faintly, and tried to raise himself, but sank back. "Fools!" he whispered, "fools, when in ten minutes if they took out a brick----"

The servant cut him short. "Here's his lordship!" he cried. He spoke so sharply that Mary looked up in surprise, wondering what was amiss. Lord Audley was within three or four paces of them--the carpet of yew leaves had deadened his footsteps. "Here's his lordship, sir!" Toft repeated in the same tone, his mouth close to John Audley's ear.

The servant's manner shocked Mary. "Hush, Toft!" she said. "Do you want to startle him?"

"His lordship will startle him," Toft retorted. He looked over his shoulder, and without ceremony he signed to Lord Audley to stand back.

"Bare, quite bare!" John Audley muttered, his mind still far away. "But if they took out--if they took out----"

Toft waved his hand again--waved it wildly.

"All right, I understand," Lord Audley said. He had not at first grasped what was wanted, but the man's repeated gestures enlightened him. He retired to a position where he was out of the sick man's sight.

The servant wiped the sweat from his brow. "He mustn't see him!" he repeated insistently. "Lord! what a turn it gave me. I ask your pardon, Miss," he continued, "but I know the master so well." He cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder. "If the master's eyes lit on him once, only once, when he's in this state, I'd not answer for his life."

Mary reproached herself. "You are quite right, Toft," she said. "I ought to have thought of that myself."

"He must not see any strangers!"

"He shall not. You are quite right."

But Toft was still uneasy. He looked round. Stubbs and a man who had been working in the neighborhood were bringing up a sheep-hurdle, and again the butler's anxiety overcame him. "D--n!" he said: and he rose to his feet. "I think they want to kill him amongst them! Why can't they keep away?"

"Hush! Toft. Why----"

"He mustn't see the lawyer! He must not see him on any account."

Mary nodded. "I will arrange it!" she said. "Only don't excite him. You will do him harm that way if you are not careful. I will speak to them."

She went to meet them and explained, while Stubbs, who had not seen her before, considered her with interest. So this was Miss Audley, Peter Audley's daughter! She told them that she thought it better that her uncle should not find strangers about him when he came to himself. They agreed--it seemed quite natural--and it was arranged that Toft and the man should carry him as far as the carriage, while Mary walked beside him; and that afterwards she and Toft should travel with him. The carriage cushions were placed on the hurdle, and the helpless man was lifted on to them. Toft and the laborer raised their burden, and slowly and heavily, with an occasional stagger, they bore it along the sodden path. Mary saw that the sweat sprang out on Toft's sallow face and that his knees shook under him. Clearly the man was taxing his strength to the utmost, and she felt some concern--she had not given him credit for such fidelity. However, he held out until they reached the carriage.

Babbling a word now and again, John Audley was moved into the vehicle. Mary mounted beside him and supported his head, while Toft climbed to the box, and at a footpace they set off across the sward, the laborer plodding at the tail of the carriage, and Lord Audley and Stubbs following a score of paces behind. The rain had ceased, but the clouds were low and leaden, the trees dripped sadly, and the little procession across the park had a funereal look. To Mary the way seemed long, to Toft still longer. With every moment his head was round. His eyes were now on his master, now jealously cast on those who brought up the rear. But everything comes to an end, and at length they swung into the courtyard, where Mrs. Toft, capable and cool, met them and took a load off Mary's shoulders.

"He's that bad is he?" she said calmly. "Then the sooner he's in his bed the better. 'Truria's warming it. How will we get him up? I could carry him myself if that's all. If Toft'll take his feet, I'll do the rest. No need for another soul to come in!" with a glance at Lord Audley. "But if they would fetch the doctor I'd not say no, Miss."

"I'll ask them to do that," Mary said.

"And don't you worrit, Miss," Mrs. Toft continued, eyeing the sick man judicially. "He's been nigh as bad as this before and been about within the week. There's some as when they wool-gathers, there's no worse sign. But the master he's never all here, nor all there, and like a Broseley b.u.t.ter-pot another touch of the kiln will neither make him nor break him. Now, Toft, wide of the door-post, and steady, man."

Lord Audley and Stubbs had remained outside, but when they saw Mary coming towards them, the young man left Stubbs and went to meet her. "How is he?" he asked.

"Mrs. Toft thinks well of him. She has seen him nearly as ill before, she says. But if he recovers," Mary continued gratefully, "we owe his life to you. Had you not found him he must have died. And if you had lost a moment in bringing the news, I am sure that we should have been too late."

The young man might have given some credit to Stubbs, but he did not; perhaps because time pressed, perhaps because he felt that his virtue in resisting a certain temptation deserved its reward. Instead he looked at Mary with a sympathy so ardent that her eyes fell. "Who would not have done as much?" he said. "If not for him--for you."

"Will you add one kindness then?" she answered. "Will you send Dr. Pepper as quickly as possible?"

"Without the loss of a minute," he said. "But one thing before I go. I cannot come here to inquire, yet I should like to know how he goes on. Will you walk a little way down the Riddsley road at noon to-morrow, and tell me how he fares?"

Mary hesitated. But when he had done so much for them, when he had as good as saved her uncle's life, how could she be churlish? How could she play the prude? "Of course I will," she said frankly. "I hope I shall bring a good report."

"Thank you," he said. "Until to-morrow!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

MASKS AND FACES.

Cherbuliez opens one of his stories with the remark that if the law of probabilities ruled, the hero and heroine would never have met, seeing that the one lived in Venice and the other seldom left Paris. That in spite of this they fell in with one another was enough to suggest to the lady that Destiny was at work to unite them.

He put into words a thought which has entertained millions of lovers. If in face of the odds of three hundred and sixty-four to one Phyllis shares her birthday with Corydon, if Frederica sprains her ankle and the ready arm belongs to a Frederic, if Mademoiselle has a grain de beaute on the right ear, and Monsieur a plain mole on the left--here is at once matter for reverie, and the heart is given almost before the hands have met.

This was the fourth occasion on which Audley had come to Mary's rescue, and, sensible as she was, she was too thoroughly woman to be proof against the suggestion. On three of the four occasions the odds had been against his appearance. Yet he had come. To-day in particular, as if no pain that threatened her could be indifferent to him, as if no trouble approached her but touched a nerve in him, he had risen from the very ground to help and sustain her.

Could the coldest decline to feel interest in one so strangely linked with her by fortune? Could the most prudent in such a case abstain from day dreams, in which love and service, devotion and constancy, played their parts?

Sic itur ad astra! So men and women begin to love.

She spent the morning between the room in which John Audley was making a slow recovery, and the deserted library which already wore a cold and unused aspect. In the one and the other she felt a restlessness and a disturbance which she was fain to set down to yesterday's alarm. The old interests invited her in vain. Do what she would, she could not keep her mind off the appointment before her. Her eyes grew dreamy, her thoughts strayed, her color came and went. At one moment she would plunge into a thousand attentions to her uncle, at another she opened books only to close them. She looked at the clock--surely the hands were not moving! She looked again--it could not be as late as that! The truth was that Mary was not in love, but she was ready to be in love. She was glad and sorry, grave and gay, without reason; like a stream that dances over the shallows, and rippling and twinkling goes its way through the sunshine, knowing nothing of the deep pool that awaits it.

Presently, acting upon some impulse, she opened a drawer in one of the tables. It contained a portrait in crayons of Peter Ba.s.set, which John Audley had shown her. She took out the sketch and set it against a book where the light fell upon it, and she examined it. At first with a smile--that he should have been so mad as to think what he had thought! And then with a softer look. How hard she had been to him! How unfeeling! Nay, how cruel!

She sat for a long time looking at the portrait. But in fact she had forgotten that it was before her, when the clock, striking the half--hour before noon, surprised her. Then she thrust the portrait back into its drawer, and went with a composed face to put on her hat.

The past summer had been one of the wettest ever known, for rain had fallen on five days out of seven. But to-day it was fine, and as Mary descended the road that led from the house towards Riddsley, a road open to the vale on one side and flanked on the other by a rising slope covered with brushwood, a watery sun was shining. Its rays, aided by the clearness of the air, brought out the colors of stubble and field, flood and coppice, that lay below. And men looking up from toil or pleasure, leaning on spades or pausing before they crossed a stile, saw the Gatehouse transformed to a fairy lodge, gray, clear--cut, glittering, breaking the line of forest trees--saw it as if it had stood in another world.

Mary looked back, looked forward, admired, descended. She had made up her mind that Lord Audley would meet her at a turn near the foot of the hill, where a Cross had once stood, and where the crumbling base and moss-clothed steps still bade travellers rest and be thankful.

He was there, and Mary owned the attraction of the big smiling face and the burly figure, that in a rough, caped riding-coat still kept an air of fashion. He on his side saw coming to meet him, through the pale sunshine, not as yesterday an Atalanta, but a cool Dian, with her hands in a large m.u.f.f.

"You bring a good report, I hope?" he cried before they met.

"Very good," Mary replied, sparkling a little as she looked at him--was not the sun shining? "My uncle is much better this morning. Dr. Pepper says that it was mainly exertion acting on a weak heart. He expects him to be downstairs in a week and to be himself in a fortnight. But he will have to be more careful in future."

"That is good!"

"He says, too, that if you had not acted so promptly, my uncle must have died."

"Well, he was pretty far gone, I must say."

"So, as he will not thank you himself, you must let me thank you." And Mary held out the hand she had hitherto kept in her m.u.f.f. She was determined not to be a prude.

He pressed it discreetly. "I am glad," he said. "Very glad. Perhaps after this he may think better of me."

She laughed. "I don't think that there is a chance of it," she said.

"No? Well, I suppose it was foolish, but do you know, I did hope that this might bring us together."

"You may dismiss it," she answered, smiling.

"Ah!" he said. "Then tell me this. How in the world did he come to be there? Without a hat? Without a coat? And so far from the house?"

Mary hesitated. He had turned, they were walking side by side. "I am not sure that I ought to tell you," she said. "What I know I gathered from a word that Mr. Audley let fall when he was rambling. He seems to have had some instinct, some feeling that you were there and to have been forced to learn if it was so."

"But forced? By what?" Lord Audley asked. "I don't understand."

"I don't understand either," Mary answered.

"He could not know that we were there?"

"But he seems to have known."