The Great House Part 8

"Well, I haven't come to harm to-night! On the contrary---- But there, there, man, let us get back."

"The sooner the better," Ba.s.set replied. "I nearly put out an eye as I came."

John Audley laughed. "Did you come through the yews in the dark?" he asked.

"Didn't you?"

"No, I brought a lantern." He removed as he spoke the cap of a small bull's-eye lantern and threw its light on the path. "Who's the fool now?"

"Let us get home," Ba.s.set snapped.

John Audley locked the iron gate behind them and they started. The light removed their worst difficulties and they reached the open park without mishap. But long before they gained the house the elder man's strength failed, and he was glad to lean on Ba.s.set's arm. On that a sense of weakness on the one side and of pity on the other closed their differences. "After all," Audley said wearily, "I don't know what I should have done if you had not come."

"You'd have stayed there!"

"And that would have been--Heavens, what a pity that would have been!" Audley paused and struck his stick on the ground. "I must take care of myself, I must take care of myself! You don't know, Ba.s.set, what I----"

"And I don't want to know--here!" Ba.s.set replied. "When you are safe at home, you may tell me what you like."

In the courtyard they came on Toft, who was looking out for them with a lantern. "Thank G.o.d, you're safe, sir," he said. "I was growing alarmed about you."

"Where were you," Ba.s.set asked sharply, "when I came in?" John Audley was too tired to speak.

"I had stepped out at the front to look for the master," Toft replied. "I fancied that he had gone out that way."

Ba.s.set did not believe him, but he could not refute the story. "Well, get the brandy," he said, "and bring it to the library. Mr. Audley has been out too long and is tired."

They went into the library and Toft pulled off his master's boots and brought his slippers and the spirit-tray. That done, he lingered, and Ba.s.set thought that he was trying to divine from the old man's looks whether the journey had been fruitful.

In the end, however, the man had to go, and Audley leant forward to speak.

"Wait!" Ba.s.set muttered. "He is coming back."

"How do you know?"

Ba.s.set raised his hand. The door opened. Toft came in. "I forgot to take your boots, sir," he said.

"Well, take them now," his master replied peevishly. When the man had again withdrawn, "How did you know?" he asked, frowning at the fire.

"I saw him go to take your boots--and leave them."

Audley was silent for a time, then "Well," he said, "he has been with me many years and I think he is faithful."

"To his own interests. He dogged you to-night."

"So did you!"

"Yes, but I did not hide! And he did, and hid from me, too, and lied about it. How long he had been watching you, I cannot say, but if you think that you can break through all your habits, sir, and be missing for two hours at night and a man as shrewd as Toft suspect nothing, you are mistaken. Of course he wonders. The next time he thinks it over. The third time he follows you. Presently whatever you know he will know."

"Confound him!" Audley turned to the table and jerked some brandy into a gla.s.s. Then, "You haven't asked yet," he said, "what I've done."

"If I am to choose," Ba.s.set replied, "I would rather not know. You know my views."

"I know that you didn't think I should do it? Well, I've done it!"

"Do you mean that--you've found the evidence?"

"Is it likely?" the other replied petulantly. "No, but I've been in the Muniment Room. It is fifty years since I heard my father describe its position, but I could have gone to it blindfold! I was a boy then, and the name--he was telling a story of the old lord--took my fancy. I listened. In time the thing faded, but one day when I was at the lawyer's and some one mentioned the Muniment Room, the story came back to me so clearly, that I could almost repeat my father's words."

"And you've been in the room?"

"I've been in it. Why not? A door two inches thick and studded with iron, and a lock that one out of any dozen big keys would open!" He rubbed his calves in his satisfaction. "In twenty minutes I was inside."

"And it was empty?"

"It was empty," the other agreed, with a cunning smile. "As bare as a board. A little whitewashed room, just as my father described it!"

"They had removed the papers?"

"To the bank, or to London, or to Stubbs's. The place was as clean as a platter! Not a length of green tape or an end of parchment was left!"

"Then what have you gained?" Ba.s.set asked.

Audley looked slyly at him, his head on one side. "Ay, what?" he said. "But I'll tell you my father's story. At one time the part of the room under the stairs was crumbling and the rats got in. The steward told the old lord and he went to see it. 'Brick it up!' he said. The steward objected that there would not be room--the place was full; there were boxes everywhere, some under the stairs. The old lord tapped one of the boxes with his gold-headed cane. 'What's in these!' he asked. 'Old papers,' the steward explained. 'Of no use, my lord, but curious; old leases for lives, and terriers.' 'Terriers?' cried the old lord. 'Then, by G--d, brick 'em up with the rats!' And that day at dinner he told my father the story and chuckled over it."

"And that's what you've had in your mind all this time?" Ba.s.set said. "Do you think it was done?"

"The old lord bricked up many a pipe of port, and I think that he would do it for the jest's sake. And"-- John Audley turned and looked in his companion's face--"the part under the stairs is bricked up, and the room is as square and as flush as the family vault--and very like it. The old lord," he added sardonically, "knows what it is to be bricked up himself now."

"And still there may be nothing there to help you."

Audley rose from his chair. "Don't say it!" he cried pa.s.sionately. "Or I'll say that there's no right in the world, no law, no providence, no G.o.d! Don't dare to say it!" he continued, his cheeks trembling with excitement. "If I believed that I should go mad! But it is there! It is there! Do you think that it was for naught I heard that story? That it was for naught I remembered it, for naught I've carried the story in my mind all these years? No, they are there, the papers that will give me mine and give it to Mary after me! They are there! And you must help me to get them."

"I cannot do it, sir," Ba.s.set replied firmly. "I don't think that you understand what you ask. To break into Audley's house like any common burglar, to dig down his wall, to steal his deeds----"

John Audley shook his fist in the young man's face. "His house!" he shrieked. "His wall! His deeds! No, fool, but my house, my wall, my deeds! my deeds! If the papers are there all's mine! All! And I am but taking my own! Can't you see that? Can't you see it? Have I no right to take what is my own?"

"But if the papers are not there?" Ba.s.set replied gravely. "No, sir, if you will take my advice you will tell your story, apply to the court, and let the court examine the doc.u.ments. That's the straightforward course."

John Audley flung out his arms. "Man!" he cried. "Don't you know that as long as he is in possession he can sit on his deeds, and no power on earth can force him to show them?"

Ba.s.set drew in his breath. "If that is so," he said, "it is hard. Very hard! But to go by night and break into his house--sticks in my gizzard, sir. I'm sorry, but that is the way I look at it. The man's here too. I saw him this evening. The fancy might have taken him to visit the house, and he might have found you there?"

Audley's color faded, he seemed to shrink into himself. "Where did you see him?" he faltered.

Ba.s.set told the story. "I don't suppose that the girls were really in danger," he continued, "but they thought so, and Audley came to the rescue and brought them as far as the park gap."

The other took out his silk handkerchief and wiped his brow. "As near as that," he muttered.

"Ay, and if he had found you at the house, he might have guessed your purpose."

John Audley held out a hand trembling with pa.s.sion. "I would have killed him!" he cried. "I would have killed him--before he should have had what is there!"

"Exactly," Ba.s.set replied. "And that is why I will have nothing to do with the matter! It's too risky, sir. If you take my advice you will give it up."

Audley did not answer. He sat awhile, his shoulders bowed, his eyes fixed on the hearth, while the other wondered for the hundredth time if he were sane. At length, "What is he doing here?" the old man asked in a lifeless tone. The pa.s.sion had died out of him.

"Shooting, I suppose. But there was some talk in Riddsley of his coming down to stir up old Mottisfont."

"What about?"

"Against the corn-law repeal, I suppose."

Audley nodded. But after a while, "That's a pretext," he said. "And so is the shooting. He has followed the girl."

Ba.s.set started. "Followed Mary!" he exclaimed.

"What else? I have looked for it from the first. I've pressed you to come to an understanding with her for that reason. Why the devil can't you? If you leave it much longer you'll be too late! Too late! And, by G--d, I'll never forgive you!" with a fresh spirt of pa.s.sion. "Never! Never, man!"

"I've not said that I meant to do it."

"You've not said!" Audley replied contemptuously. "Do you think that I don't know that she's all the world to you? Do you think that I've no eyes? Do you think that when you sit there watching her from behind your book by the hour together, I have not my sight? Man, I'm not a fool! And I tell you that if you're not to lose her you must speak! You must speak! Stand by another month, wait a little longer, and Philip Audley will put in his oar, and I'll not give that for your chances!" He snapped his fingers.

"Why should he put in his oar?" Ba.s.set asked sullenly. His face had turned a dull red.

John Audley shrugged his shoulders. "Do you think that she is without attractions?"

"But Audley lives in another world."

"The more likely to have attractions for her!"

"But surely he'll look for--for something more," Ba.s.set stammered.

"For a rich wife? For an alliance, as the saying is? And sleep ill of nights? And have bad dreams? No, he is no fool, if you are. He sees that if he marries the girl he makes himself safe. He makes himself safe! After me, it lies between them."

"I take it that he does think himself safe."

"Not he!" Audley replied. He was stooping over the ashes, warming his hands, but at that he jumped up. "Not he! he knows better than you! And fears! And sleeps ill of nights, d--n him! And dreams! But there, I must not excite myself. I must not excite myself. Only, if he once begins, he'll be no laggard in love as you are! He'll not sit puling and peeping and looking at the back of her head by the hour together! He'll be up and at her--I know what that big jowl means! And she'll be in his arms in half the time that you've taken to count her eyelashes!" He turned in a fresh fit of fury and seized his candle. "In his arms, I tell you, fool, while you are counting her eyelashes. Well, lose her, lose her, and I never want to see you again, or her! Never! I'll curse you both!"

He stumbled to the door and went out, a queer, gibbering, shaking figure; and Ba.s.set had no doubt at such moments that he was mad. But on this occasion he was afraid--he was very much afraid, as he sat pondering in his chair, that there was method in his madness!

CHAPTER XIII.

PETER PAUPER.

The impression which the events of the evening had made on Mary's mind was still lively when she awoke next day. It was not less clear, because like the feminine letter of the 'forties, crossed and recrossed, it had stamped itself in two layers on her mind, of which the earlier was the more vivid.

The solitude in which her days had of late been spent had left her peculiarly open to new ideas, while the quiet and wholesome life of the Gatehouse had prepared her to answer any call which those ideas might make upon her. Rescued from penury, lifted above anxiety about bed and board, no longer exposed to the panic-fears which in Paris had beset even her courageous nature, Mary had for a while been content simply to rest. She had taken the sunshine, the beauty, the ease and indolence of her life as a convalescent accepts idleness, without scruple or question.

But this could not last. She was young, nature soon rallied in her, and she had seen things and done things during the last two years which forbade her to accept such a limited horizon as satisfied most of the women of that day. Unlike them, she had viewed the world from more than one standpoint; through the grille of a convent school, from the grimy windows of a back-street in Paris; again, as it moved beneath the painted ceilings of a French salon. And now, as it presented itself in this retired house.

Therefore she could not view things as those saw them whose standpoint had never shifted. She had suffered, she still had twinges--for who, with her experience, could be sure that the path would continue easy? And so to her Mr. Colet's sermon had made a strong appeal.

It left the word which Mr. Colet had taken for his text sounding in her ears. Borne upward on the eloquence which earnestness had lent to the young preacher, she looked down on a world in torment, a world holding up piteous hands, craving, itself in ignorance, the help of those who held the secret, and whose will might make that secret sufficient to save. Love! To do to others as she would have others do to her! With every day, with every hour, with every minute to do something for others! Always to give, never to take! Above all to give herself, to do her part in that preference of others to self, which could alone right these mighty wrongs, could find work for the idle, food for the hungry, roofs for the homeless, knowledge for the blind, healing for the sick! Which could save all this world in torment, and could "Build a Heaven in h.e.l.l's despair!"

It was a beautiful vision, and in this her first glimpse of it, Mary's fancy was not chilled by the hard light of experience. It seemed so plain that if the workman had his master's profit at heart, and the master were as anxious for the weal of his men, the interests of the two would be one. Equally plain it seemed that if they who grew the food aimed at feeding the greatest number, and they who ate had the same desire to reward the grower, if every man shrank from taking advantage of other men, if the learned lived to spread their knowledge, and the strong to help the weak, if no man wronged his neighbor, but "Each for another gave his ease,"

then it seemed equally plain that love would indeed be lord of all!

Later, she might discover that it takes two to make a bargain; that charity does bless him who gives but not always him who takes; even, that cheap bread might be a dear advantage--that at least it might have its drawbacks.

But for the moment it was enough for Mary that the vision was beautiful and, as a theory, true. So that, gazing upward at the faded dimity of her tester, she longed to play her part in it. That world in torment, those countless hands stretched upward in appeal, that murmur of infinite pain, the cry of the hungry, of the widow, of men sitting by tireless hearths, of children dying in mill and mine--the picture wrought on her so strongly, that she could not rest. She rose, and though the h.o.a.r frost was white on the gra.s.s and the fog of an autumn morning still curtained the view, she began to dress.

Perhaps the chill of the cold water in which she washed sobered her. At any rate, with the comb in one hand and her hair in the other, she drifted down another line of thought. Lord Audley--how strange was the chance which had again brought them together! How much she owed him, with what kindness had he seen to her comfort, how masterfully had he arranged matters for her on the boat. And then she smiled. She recalled Ba.s.set's ill-humor, or his--jealousy. At the thought of what the word implied, Mary colored.

There could be nothing in the notion, yet she probed her own feelings. Certainly she liked Lord Audley. If he was not handsome, he had that air of strength and power which impresses women; and he had ease and charm, and the look of fashion which has its weight with even the most sensible of her s.e.x. He had all these and he was a man, and she admired him and was grateful to him. And yesterday she might have thought that her feeling for him was love.

But this morning she had gained a higher notion of love. She had learned from Etruria how near to that pattern of love which Mr. Colet preached the love of man and woman could rise. She had a new conception of its strength and its power to expel what was selfish or petty. She had seen it in its n.o.blest form in Etruria, and she knew that her feeling for Lord Audley was not in the same world with Etruria's feeling for the curate. She laughed at the notion.

"Poor Etruria!" she meditated. "Or should it be, happy Etruria? Who knows? I only know that I am heart-whole!"

And she knotted up her hair and, Diana-like, went out into the pure biting air of the morning, along the green rides h.o.a.ry with dew and fringed with bracken, under the oak trees from which the wood-pigeons broke in startled flight.

But if the energy of her thoughts carried her out, fatigue soon brought her to a pause. The evening's excitement, the strain of the adventure had not left her, young as she was, unscathed. The springs of enthusiasm waned with her strength, and presently she felt jaded. She perceived that she would have done better had she rested longer; and too late the charms of bed appealed to her.

She was at the breakfast table when Ba.s.set--he, too, had had a restless night and many thoughts--came down. He saw that she was pale and that there were shadows under her eyes, and the man's tenderness went out to her. He longed, he longed above everything to put himself right with her; and on the impulse of the moment, "I want you to know," he said, standing meekly at her elbow, "that I am sorry I lost my temper last evening."

But she was out of sympathy with him. "It is nothing," she said. "We were all tired, I think. Etruria is not down yet."

"But I want to ask your----"

"Oh dear, dear!" she cried, interrupting him with a gesture of impatience. "Don't let us rake it up again. If my uncle has not suffered, there is no harm done. Please let it rest."

But he could not let it rest. He longed to put his neck under her foot, and he did not see that she was in the worst possible mood for his purpose. "Still," he said, "you must let me say----"

"Don't!" she cried. She put her hands to her ears. Then, seeing that she had wounded him, she dropped them and spoke more kindly. "Don't let us make much of little, Mr. Ba.s.set. It was all natural enough. You don't like Lord Audley----"

"I don't."

"And you did not understand that we had been terribly frightened, and had good reason to be grateful to him. I am sure that if you had known that, you would have behaved differently. There!" with a smile. "And now that I have made the amende for you, let us have breakfast. Here is your coffee."