CHAPTER LV.
It seemed incredible that Lilian could wander far without being observed.
I soon ascertained that she had not gone away by the railway--by any
public conveyance--had hired no carriage; she must therefore be still in
the town, or have left it on foot. The greater part of the day was
consumed in unsuccessful inquiries, and faint hopes that she would return;
meanwhile the news of her disappearance had spread: how could such news
fail to do so?
An acquaintance of mine met me under the archway of Monks' Gate. He wrung
my hand and looked at me with great compassion.
"I fear," said he, "that we were all deceived in that young Margrave. He
seemed so well conducted, in spite of his lively manners. But--"
"But what?"
"Mrs. Ashleigh was, perhaps, imprudent to admit him into her house so
familiarly. He was certainly very handsome. Young ladies will be
romantic."
"How dare you, sir!" I cried, choked with rage. "And without any
colouring to so calumnious a suggestion! Margrave has not been in the
town for many days. No one knows even where he is."
"Oh, yes, it is known where he is. He wrote to order the effects which he
had left here to be sent to Penrith."
"When?"
"The letter arrived the day before yesterday. I happened to be calling at
the house where he last lodged, when at L----, the house opposite Mrs.
Ashleigh's garden. No doubt the servants in both houses gossip with each
other. Miss Ashleigh could scarcely fail to hear of Mr. Margrave's
address from her maid; and since servants will exchange gossip, they may
also convey letters. Pardon me, you know I am your friend."
"Not from the moment you breathe a word against my betrothed wife," said
I, fiercely.
I wrenched myself from the clasp of the man's hand, but his words still
rang in my ears. I mounted my horse; I rode into the adjoining suburbs,
the neighbouring villages; there, however, I learned nothing, till, just
at nightfall, in a hamlet about ten miles from L----, a labourer declared
he had seen a young lady dressed as I described, who passed by him in a
path through the fields a little before noon; that he was surprised to see
one so young, so well dressed, and a stranger to the neighbourhood (for he
knew by sight the ladies of the few families scattered around) walking
alone; that as he stepped out of the path to make way for her, he looked
hard fnto her face, and she did not heed him,--seemed to gaze right before
her, into space. If her expression had been less quiet and gentle, he
should have thought, he could scarcely say why, that she was not quite
right in her mind; there was a strange unconscious stare in her eyes, as
if she were walking in her sleep. Her pace was very steady,--neither
quick nor slow. He had watched her till she passed out of sight, amidst a
wood through which the path wound its way to a village at some distance.
I followed up this clew. I arrived at the village to which my informant
directed me, but night had set in. Most of the houses were closed, so I
could glean no further information from the cottages or at the inn. But
the police superintendent of the district lived in the village, and to him
I gave instructions which I had not given, and, indeed, would have been
disinclined to give, to the police at L----. He was intelligent and
kindly; he promised to communicate at once with the different
police-stations for miles round, and with all delicacy and privacy. It
was not probable that Lilian could have wandered in one day much farther
than the place at which I then was; it was scarcely to be conceived that
she could baffle my pursuit and the practised skill of the police. I
rested but a few hours, at a small public-house, and was on horseback
again at dawn. A little after sunrise I again heard of the wanderer. At
a lonely cottage, by a brick-kiln, in the midst of a wide common, she had
stopped the previous evening, and asked for a draught of milk. The woman
who gave it to her inquired if she had lost her way. She said "No;" and,
only tarrying a few minutes, had gone across the common; and the woman
supposed she was a visitor at a gentleman's house which was at the farther
end of the waste, for the path she took led to no town, no village. It
occurred to me then that Lilian avoided all high-roads, all places, even
the humblest, where men congregated together. But where could she have
passed the night? Not to fatigue the reader with the fruitless result of
frequent inquiries, I will but say that at the end of the second day I had
succeeded in ascertaining that I was still on her track; and though I had
ridden to and fro nearly double the distance--coming back again to places
I had left behind--it was at the distance of forty miles from L---- that I
last heard of her that second day. She had been sitting alone by a little
brook only an hour before. I was led to the very spot by a woodman--it
was at the hour of twilight when he beheld her; she was leaning her face
on her hand, and seemed weary. He spoke to her; she did not answer, but
rose and resumed her way along the banks of the streamlet. That night I
put up at no inn; I followed the course of the brook for miles, then
struck into every path that I could conceive her to have taken,--in vain.
Thus I consumed the night on foot, tying my horse to a tree, for he was
tired out, and returning to him at sunrise. At noon, the third day, I
again heard of her, and in a remote, savage part of the country. The
features of the landscape were changed; there was little foliage and
little culture, but the ground was broken into moulds and hollows, and
covered with patches of heath and stunted brushwood. She had been seen by
a shepherd, and he made the same observation as the first who had guided
me on her track,--she looked to him "like some one walking in her sleep."
An hour or two later, in a dell, amongst the furze-bushes, I chanced on a
knot of ribbon. I recognized the colour Lilian habitually wore; I felt
certain that the ribbon was hers. Calculating the utmost speed I could
ascribe to her, she could not be far off, yet still I failed to discover
her. The scene now was as solitary as a desert. I met no one on my way.
At length, a little after sunset, I found myself in view of the sea. A
small town nestled below the cliffs, on which I was guiding my weary
horse. I entered the town, and while my horse was baiting went in search
of the resident policeman. The information I had directed to be sent
round the country had reached him; he had acted on it, but without result.
I was surprised to hear him address me by name, and looking at him more
narrowly, I recognized him for the policeman Waby. This young man had
always expressed so grateful a sense of my attendance on his sister, and
had, indeed, so notably evinced his gratitude in prosecuting with Margrave
the inquiries which terminated in the discovery of Sir Philip Derval's
murderer, that I confided to him the name of the wanderer, of which he had
not been previously informed; but which it would be, indeed, impossible to
conceal from him should the search in which his aid was asked prove
successful,--as he knew Miss Ashleigh by sight. His face immediately
became thoughtful. He paused a minute or two, and then said,--
"I think I have it, but I do not like to say; I may pain you, sir."
"Not by confidence; you pain me by concealment."
The man hesitated still: I encouraged him, and then he spoke out frankly.
"Sir, did you never think it strange that Mr. Margrave should move from
his handsome rooms in the hotel to a somewhat uncomfortable lodging, from
the window of which he could look down on Mrs. Ashleigh's garden? I have
seen him at night in the balcony of that window, and when I noticed him
going so frequently into Mrs. Ashleigh's house during your unjust
detention, I own, sir, I felt for you--"
"Nonsense! Mr. Margrave went to Mrs. Ashleigh's house as my friend. He
has left L---- weeks ago. What has all this to do with--"
"Patience, sir; hear me out. I was sent from L---- to this station (on
promotion, sir) a fortnight since last Friday, for there has been a good
deal of crime hereabouts; it is a bad neighbourhood, and full of
smugglers. Some days ago, in watching quietly near a lonely house, of
which the owner is a suspicious character down in my books, I saw, to my
amazement, Mr. Margrave come out of that house,--come out of a private
door in it, which belongs to a part of the building not inhabited by the
owner, but which used formerly, when the house was a sort of inn, to be
let to night lodgers of the humblest description. I followed him; he went
down to the seashore, walked about, singing to himself; then returned to
the house, and re-entered by the same door. I soon learned that he lodged
in the house,--had lodged there for several days. The next morning, a
fine yacht arrived at a tolerably convenient creek about a mile from the
house, and there anchored. Sailors came ashore, rambling down to this
town. The yacht belonged to Mr. Margrave; he had purchased it by
commission in London. It is stored for a long voyage. He had directed it
to come to him in this out-of-the-way place, where no gentleman's yacht
ever put in before, though the creek or bay is handy enough for such
craft. Well, sir, is it not strange that a rich young gentleman should
come to this unfrequented seashore, put up with accommodation that must be
of the rudest kind, in the house of a man known as a desperate smuggler,
suspected to be worse; order a yacht to meet him here; is not all this
strange? But would it be strange if he were waiting for a young lady?
And if a young lady has fled at night from her home, and has come secretly
along bypaths, which must have been very fully explained to her
beforehand, and is now near that young gentleman's lodging, if not
actually in it--if this be so, why, the affair is not so very strange
after all. And now do you forgive me, sir?"
"Where is this house? Lead me to it."
"You can hardly get to it except on foot; rough walking, sir, and about
seven miles off by the shortest cut."
"Come, and at once; come quickly. We must be there before--before--"
"Before the young lady can get to the place. Well, from what you say of
the spot in which she was last seen, I think, on reflection, we may easily
do that. I am at your service, sir. But I should warn you that the
owners of the house, man and wife, are both of villanous character,--would
do anything for money. Mr. Margrave, no doubt, has money enough; and if
the young lady chooses to go away with Mr. Margrave, you know I have no
power to help it."
"Leave all that to me; all I ask of you is to show me the house."
We were soon out of the town; the night had closed in; it was very dark,
in spite of a few stars; the path was rugged and precipitous, sometimes
skirting the very brink of perilous cliffs, sometimes delving down to the
seashore--there stopped by rock or wave--and painfully rewinding up the
ascent.
"It is an ugly path, sir, but it saves four miles; and anyhow the road is
a bad one."
We came, at last, to a few wretched fishermen's huts. The moon had now
risen, and revealed the squalor of poverty-stricken ruinous hovels; a
couple of boats moored to the shore, a moaning, fretful sea; and at a
distance a vessel, with lights on board, lying perfectly still at anchor
in a sheltered curve of the bold rude shore. The policeman pointed to the
vessel.
"The yacht, sir; the wind will be in her favour if she sails tonight."
We quickened our pace as well as the nature of the path would permit, left
the huts behind us, and about a mile farther on came to a solitary house,
larger than, from the policeman's description of Margrave's lodgement, I
should have presupposed: a house that in the wilder parts of Scotland
might be almost a laird's; but even in the moonlight it looked very
dilapidated and desolate. Most of the windows were closed, some with
panes broken, stuffed with wisps of straw; there were the remains of a
wall round the house; it was broken in some parts (only its foundation
left). On approaching the house I observed two doors,--one on the side
fronting the sea, one on the other side, facing a patch of broken ground
that might once have been a garden, and lay waste within the enclosure of
the ruined wall, encumbered with various litter; heaps of rubbish, a
ruined shed, the carcass of a worn-out boat. This latter door stood wide
open,--the other was closed. The house was still and dark, as if either
deserted, or all within it retired to rest.
"I think that open door leads at once to the rooms Mr. Margrave hires; he
can go in and out without disturbing the other inmates. They used to
keep, on the side which they inhabit, a beer-house, but the magistrates
shut it up; still, it is a resort for bad characters. Now, sir, what
shall we do?
"Watch separately. You wait within the enclosure of the wall, hid by
those heaps of rubbish, near the door; none can enter but what you will
observe them. If you see her, you will accost and stop her, and call
aloud for me; I shall be in hearing. I will go back to the high part of
the ground yonder--it seems to me that she must pass that way; and I would
desire, if possible, to save her from the humiliation, the--the shame of
coming within the precincts of that man's abode. I feel I may trust you
now and hereafter. It is a great thing for the happiness and honour of
this poor young lady and her mother, that I may be able to declare that I
did not take her from that man, from any man--from that house, from any
house. You comprehend me, and will obey? I speak to you as a
confidant,--a friend."
"I thank you with my whole heart, sir, for so doing. You saved my
sister's life, and the least I can do is to keep secret all that would
pain your life if blabbed abroad. I know what mischief folks' tongues can
make. I will wait by the door, never fear, and will rather lose my place
than not strain all the legal power I possess to keep the young lady back
from sorrow."
This dialogue was interchanged in close hurried whisper behind the broken
wall, and out of all hearing. Waby now crept through a wide gap into the
inclosure, and nestled himself silently amidst the wrecks of the broken
boat, not six feet from the open door, and close to the wall of the house
itself. I went back some thirty yards up the road, to the rising ground
which I had pointed out to him. According to the best calculation I could
make--considering the pace at which I had cleared the precipitous pathway,
and reckoning from the place and time at which Lilian had been last
seen-she could not possibly have yet entered that house. I might presume
it would be more than half an hour before she could arrive; I was in hopes
that, during the interval, Margrave might show himself, perhaps at the
door, or from the windows, or I might even by some light from the latter
be guided to the room in which to find him. If, after waiting a
reasonable time, Lilian should fail to appear, I had formed my plan of
action; but it was important for the success of that plan that I should
not lose myself in the strange house, nor bring its owners to Margrave's
aid,--that I should surprise him alone and unawares. Half an hour, three
quarters, a whole hour thus passed. No sign of my poor wanderer; but
signs there were of the enemy from whom I resolved, at whatever risk, to
free and to save her. A window on the ground-floor, to the left of the
door, which had long fixed my attention because I had seen light through
the chinks of the shutters, slowly unclosed, the shutters fell back, the
casement opened, and I beheld Margrave distinctly; he held something in
his hand that gleamed in the moonlight, directed not towards the mound on
which I stood, nor towards the path I had taken, but towards an open space
beyond the ruined wall to the right. Hid by a cluster of stunted shrubs I
watched him with a heart that beat with rage, not with terror. He seemed
so intent in his own gaze as to be unheeding or unconscious of all else.
I stole from my post, and, still under cover, sometimes of the broken
wall, sometimes of the shaggy ridges that skirted the path, crept on, on
till I reached the side of the house itself; then, there secure from his
eyes, should he turn them, I stepped over the ruined wall, scarcely two
feet high in that place, on--on towards the door. I passed the spot on
which the policeman had shrouded himself; he was seated, his back against
the ribs of the broken boat. I put my hand to his mouth that he might not
cry out in surprise, and whispered in his ear; he stirred not. I shook
him by the arm: still he stirred not. A ray of the moon fell on his face.
I saw that he was in a profound slumber. Persuaded that it was no natural
sleep, and that he had become useless to me, I passed him by. I was at
the threshold of the open door, the light from the window close by falling
on the ground; I was in the passage; a glimmer came through the chinks of
a door to the left; I turned the handle noiselessly, and, the next moment,
Margrave was locked in my grasp.
"Call out," I hissed in his ear, "and I strangle you before any one can
come to your help."
He did not call out; his eye, fixed on mine as he writhed round, saw,
perhaps, his peril if he did. His countenance betrayed fear, but as I
tightened my grasp that expression gave way to one of wrath and
fierceness; and as, in turn, I felt the grip of his hand, I knew that
the struggle between us would be that of two strong men, each equally
bent on the mastery of the other.
I was, as I have said before, endowed with an unusual degree of physical
power, disciplined in early youth by athletic exercise and contest. In
height and in muscle I had greatly the advantage over my antagonist; but
such was the nervous vigour, the elastic energy of his incomparable frame,
in which sinews seemed springs of steel, that had our encounter been one
in which my strength was less heightened by rage, I believe that I could
no more have coped with him than the bison can cope with the boa; but I
was animated by that passion which trebles for a time all our
forces,--which makes even the weak man a match for the strong. I felt
that if I were worsted, disabled, stricken down, Lilian might be lost in
losing her sole protector; and on the other hand, Margrave had been taken
at the disadvantage of that surprise which will half unnerve the fiercest
of the wild beasts; while as we grappled, reeling and rocking to and fro
in our struggle, I soon observed that his attention was distracted,--that
his eye was turned towards an object which he had dropped involuntarily
when I first seized him. He sought to drag me towards that object, and
when near it stooped to seize. It was a bright, slender, short wand of
steel. I remembered when and where I had seen it, whether in my waking
state or in vision; and as his hand stole down to take it from the floor,
I set on the wand my strong foot. I cannot tell by what rapid process of
thought and association I came to the belief that the possession of a
little piece of blunted steel would decide the conflict in favor of the
possessor; but the struggle now was concentred on the attainment of that
seemingly idle weapon. I was becoming breathless and exhausted, while
Margrave seemed every moment to gather up new force, when collecting all
my strength for one final effort, I lifted him suddenly high in the air,
and hurled him to the farthest end of the cramped arena to which our
contest was confined. He fell, and with a force by which most men would
have been stunned; but he recovered himself with a quick rebound, and, as
he stood facing me, there was something grand as well as terrible in his
aspect. His eyes literally flamed, as those of a tiger; his rich hair,
flung back from his knitted forehead, seemed to erect itself as an angry
mane; his lips, slightly parted, showed the glitter of his set teeth; his
whole frame seemed larger in the tension of the muscles, and as, gradually
relaxing his first defying and haughty attitude, he crouched as the
panther crouches for its deadly spring, I felt as if it were a wild beast,
whose rush was coming upon me,--wild beast, but still Man, the king of
the animals, fashioned forth from no mixture of humbler races by the slow
revolutions of time, but his royalty stamped on his form when the earth
became fit for his coming.[1]
At that moment I snatched up the wand, directed it towards him, and
advancing with a fearless stride, cried,--
"Down to my feet, miserable sorcerer!"
To my own amaze, the effect was instantaneous. My terrible antagonist
dropped to the floor as a dog drops at the word of his master. The
muscles of his frowning countenance relaxed, the glare of his wrathful
eyes grew dull and rayless; his limbs lay prostrate and unnerved, his head
rested against the wall, his arms limp and drooping by his side. I
approached him slowly and cautiously; he seemed cast into a profound
slumber.
"You are at my mercy now!" said I.
He moved his head as in sign of deprecating submission.
"You hear and understand me? Speak!"
His lips faintly muttered, "Yes."
"I command you to answer truly the questions I shall address to you."
"I must, while yet sensible of the power that has passed to your hand."
"Is it by some occult magnetic property in this wand that you have
exercised so demoniac an influence over a creature so pure as Lilian
Ashleigh?"
"By that wand and by other arts which you could not comprehend."
"And for what infamous object,--her seduction, her dishonour?"
"No! I sought in her the aid of a gift which would cease did she cease
to be pure. At first I but cast my influence upon her that through her I
might influence yourself. I needed your help to discover a secret.
Circumstances steeled your mind against me. I could no longer hope that
you would voluntarily lend yourself to my will. Meanwhile, I had found in
her the light of a loftier knowledge than that of your science; through
that knowledge, duly heeded and cultivated, I hoped to divine what I
cannot of myself discover. Therefore I deepened over her mind the spells
I command; therefore I have drawn her hither as the loadstone draws the
steel, and therefore I would have borne her with me to the shores to which
I was about this night to sail. I had cast the inmates of the house and
all around it into slumber, in order that none might witness her
departure; had I not done so, I should have summoned others to my aid, in
spite of your threat."
"And would Lilian Ashleigh have passively accompanied you, to her own
irretrievable disgrace?"
"She could not have helped it; she would have been unconscious of her
acts; she was, and is, in a trance; nor, had she gone with me, would she
have waked from that state while she lived; that would not have been
long."
"Wretch! and for what object of unhallowed curiosity do you exert an
influence which withers away the life of its victim?"
"Not curiosity, but the instinct of self-preservation. I count on no life
beyond the grave. I would defy the grave, and live on."
"And was it to learn, through some ghastly agencies, the secret of
renewing existence, that you lured me by the shadow of your own image on
the night when we met last?"
The voice of Margrave here became very faint as he answered me, and his
countenance began to exhibit the signs of an exhaustion almost mortal.
"Be quick," he murmured, "or I die. The fluid which emanates from that
wand, in the hand of one who envenoms that fluid with his own hatred and
rage, will prove fatal to my life. Lower the wand from my forehead!
low--low,--lower still!"
"What was the nature of that rite in which you constrained me to share?"
"I cannot say. You are killing me. Enough that you were saved from a
great danger by the apparition of the protecting image vouchsafed to your
eye; otherwise you would--you would--Oh, release me! Away! away!"
The foam gathered to his lips; his limbs became fearfully convulsed.
"One question more: where is Lilian at this moment? Answer that question,
and I depart."
He raised his head, made a visible effort to rally his strength, and
gasped out,--
"Yonder. Pass through the open space up the cliff, beside a thorn-tree;
you will find her there, where she halted when the wand dropped from my
hand. But--but--beware! Ha! you will serve me yet, and through her!
They said so that night, though you heard them not. They said it!" Here
his face became death-like; he pressed his hand on his heart, and shrieked
out, "Away! away! or you are my murderer!"
I retreated to the other end of the room, turning the wand from him, and
when I gained the door, looked back; his convulsions had ceased, but he
seemed locked in a profound swoon.
I left the room,--the house,--paused by Waby; he was still sleeping.
"Awake!" I said, and touched him with the wand. He started up at once,
rubbed his eyes, began stammering out excuses. I checked them, and bade
him follow me. I took the way up the open ground towards which Margrave
had pointed the wand, and there, motionless, beside a gnarled fantastic
thorn-tree, stood Lilian. Her arms were folded across her breast; her
face, seen by the moonlight, looked so innocent and so infantine, that I
needed no other evidence to tell me how unconscious she was of the peril
to which her steps had been drawn. I took her gently by the hand. "Come
with me," I said in a whisper, and she obeyed me silently, and with a
placid smile.
Rough though the way, she seemed unconscious of fatigue. I placed her
arm in mine, but she did not lean on it. We got back to the town. I
obtained there an old chaise and a pair of horses. At morning Lilian
was under her mother's roof. About the noon of that day fever seized
her; she became rapidly worse, and, to all appearance, in imminent
danger. Delirium set in; I watched beside her night and day,
supported by an inward conviction of her recovery, but tortured by
the sight of her sufferings. On the third day a change for the better
became visible; her sleep was calm, her breathing regular.
Shortly afterwards she woke out of danger. Her eyes fell at once on me,
with all their old ineffable tender sweetness.
"Oh, Allen, beloved, have I not been very ill? But I am almost well now.
Do not weep; I shall live for you,--for your sake." And she bent forward,
drawing my hand from my streaming eyes, and kissed me with a child's
guileless kiss on my burning forehead.
[1] And yet, even if we entirely omit the consideration of the soul, that
immaterial and immortal principle which is for a time united to his body,
and view him only in his merely animal character, man is still the most
excellent of animals.--Dr. Kidd, On the Adaptation of External Nature to
the Physical Condition of Man (Sect. iii. p. 18).
