CHAPTER XLIX
AT STORNHAM AND AT BROADMORLANDS
The exulting wind had swept the clouds away, and the moon
rode in a dark blue sea of sky, making the night light purely
clear, when they drew a little apart, that they might better
see the wonderfulness in each other's faces. It was so
mysteriously great a thing that they felt near to awe.
"I fought too long. I wore out my body's endurance, and now I am
quaking like a boy. Red Godwyn did not begin his wooing like
this. Forgive me," Mount Dunstan said at last.
"Do you know," with lovely trembling lips and voice,
"that for long--long--you have been unkind to me?"
It was merely human that he should swiftly enfold her
again, and answer with his lips against her cheek.
"Unkind! Unkind! Oh, the heavenly woman's sweetness
of your telling me so--the heavenly sweetness of it!" he
exclaimed passionately and low. "And I was one of those who
are `by the roadside everywhere,' an unkempt, raging beggar,
who might not decently ask you for a crust."
"It was all wrong--wrong!" she whispered back to him,
and he poured forth the tenderest, fierce words of confession
and prayer, and she listened, drinking them in, with now and
then a soft sob pressed against the roughness of the enrapturing
tweed. For a space they had both forgotten her hurt,
because there are other things than terror which hypnotise
pain. Mount Dunstan was to be praised for remembering it
first. He must take her back to Stornham and her sister without
further delay.
"I will put your saddle on Anstruthers' horse, or mine, and
lift you to your seat. There is a farmhouse about two miles
away, where I will take you first for food and warmth. Perhaps
it would be well for you to stay there to rest for an hour
or so, and I will send a message to Lady Anstruthers."
"I will go to the place, and eat and drink what you
advise," she answered. "But I beg you to take me back to
Rosalie without delay. I feel that I must see her."
"I feel that I must see her, too," he said. "But for
her--God bless her!" he added, after his sudden pause.
Betty knew that the exclamation meant strong feeling, and
that somehow in the past hours Rosalie had awakened it. But
it was only when, after their refreshment at the farm, they
had taken horse again and were riding homeward together,
that she heard from him what had passed between them.
"All that has led to this may seem the merest chance,"
he said. "But surely a strange thing has come about. I
know that without understanding it." He leaned over and
touched her hand. "You, who are Life--without understanding
I ride here beside you, believing that you brought me back."
"I tried--I tried! With all my strength, I tried."
"After I had seen your sister to-day, I guessed--I knew.
But not at first. I was not ill of the fever, as excited rumour
had it; but I was ill, and the doctors and the vicar were
alarmed. I had fought too long, and I was giving up, as I
have seen the poor fellows in the ballroom give up. If they
were not dragged back they slipped out of one's hands. If
the fever had developed, all would have been over quickly.
I knew the doctors feared that, and I am ashamed to say I
was glad of it. But, yesterday, in the morning, when I was
letting myself go with a morbid pleasure in the luxurious relief
of it--something reached me--some slow rising call to effort
and life."
She turned towards him in her saddle, listening, her lips
parted.
"I did not even ask myself what was happening, but I
began to be conscious of being drawn back, and to long
intensely to see you again. I was gradually filled with a
restless feeling that you were near me, and that, though I could
not physically hear your voice, you were surely CALLING to
me. It was the thing which could not be--but it was--and
because of it I could not let myself drift."
"I did call you! I was on my knees in the church asking
to be forgiven if I prayed mad prayers--but praying the same
thing over and over. The villagers were kneeling there, too.
They crowded in, leaving everything else. You are their
hero, and they were in deep earnest."
His look was gravely pondering. His life had not made a mystic
of him--it was Penzance who was the mystic --but he felt himself
perplexed by mysteriously suggestive thought.
"I was brought back--I was brought back," he said. "In
the afternoon I fell asleep and slept profoundly until the
morning. When I awoke, I realised that I was a remade man.
The doctors were almost awed when I first spoke to them.
Old Dr. Fenwick died later, and, after I had heard about it,
the church bell was tolled. It was heard at Weaver's farm-
house, and, as everybody had been excitedly waiting for the
sound, it conveyed but one idea to them--and the boy was
sent racing across the fields to Stornham village. Dearest!
Dearest!" he exclaimed.
She had bowed her head and burst into passionate sobbing.
Because she was not of the women who wept, her moment's
passion was strong and bitter.
"It need not have been!" she shuddered. "One cannot
bear it--because it need not have been!"
"Stop your horse a moment," he said, reining in his own,
while, with burning eyes and swelling throat, he held and
steadied her. But he did not know that neither her sister
nor her father had ever seen her in such mood, and that she
had never so seen herself.
"You shall not remember it," he said to her.
"I will not," she answered, recovering herself. "But for one
moment all the awful hours rushed back. Tell me the rest."
"We did not know that the blunder had been made until
a messenger from Dole rode over to inquire and bring messages
of condolence. Then we understood what had occurred
and I own a sort of frenzy seized me. I knew I must see you,
and, though the doctors were horribly nervous, they dare not
hold me back. The day before it would not have been
believed that I could leave my room. You were crying out
to me, and though I did not know, I was answering, body and
soul. Penzance knew I must have my way when I spoke to
him--mad as it seemed. When I rode through Stornham village,
more than one woman screamed at sight of me. I shall
not be able to blot out of my mind your sister's face. She
will tell you what we said to each other. I rode away from
the Court quite half mad----" his voice became very gentle,
"because of something she had told me in the first wild moments."
Lady Anstruthers had spent the night moving restlessly
from one room to another, and had not been to bed when
they rode side by side up the avenue in the early morning
sunlight. An under keeper, crossing the park a few hundred
yards above them, after one glance, dashed across the sward
to the courtyard and the servants' hall. The news flashed
electrically through the house, and Rosalie, like a small ghost,
came out upon the steps as they reined in. Though her lips
moved, she could not speak aloud, as she watched Mount
Dunstan lift her sister from her horse.
"Childe Harold stumbled and I hurt my foot," said Betty,
trying to be calm.
"I knew he would find you!" Rosalie answered quite
faintly. "I knew you would!" turning to Mount Dunstan,
adoring him with all the meaning of her small paled face.
She would have been afraid of her memory of what she
had said in the strange scene which had taken place before
them a few hours ago, but almost before either of the two
spoke she knew that a great gulf had been crossed in some
one inevitable, though unforeseen, leap. How it had been
taken, when or where, did not in the least matter, when she
clung to Betty and Betty clung to her.
After a few moments of moved and reverent waiting, the
admirable Jennings stepped forward and addressed her in
lowered voice.
"There's been little sleep in the village this night, my lady,"
he murmured earnestly. "I promised they should have a sign,
with your permission. If the flag was run up--they're all
looking out, and they'd know."
"Run it up, Jennings," Lady Anstruthers answered, "at once."
When it ran up the staff on the tower and fluttered out in
gay answering to the morning breeze, children in the village
began to run about shouting, men and women appeared at
cottage doors, and more than one cap was thrown up in the
air. But old Doby and Mrs. Welden, who had been waiting
for hours, standing by Mrs. Welden's gate, caught each
other's dry, trembling old hands and began to cry.
The Broadmorlands divorce scandal, having made conversation
during a season quite forty years before Miss Vanderpoel
appeared at Stornham Court, had been laid upon a lower
shelf and buried beneath other stories long enough to be
forgotten. Only one individual had not forgotten it, and he
was the Duke of Broadmorlands himself, in whose mind it
remained hideously clear. He had been a young man,
honestly and much in love when it first revealed itself to him,
and for a few months he had even thought it might end by
being his death, notwithstanding that he was strong and in
first-rate physical condition. He had been a fine, hearty
young man of clean and rather dignified life, though he was
not understood to be brilliant of mind. Privately he had
ideals connected with his rank and name which he was not
fluent enough clearly to express. After he had realised that
he should not die of the public humiliation and disgrace, which
seemed to point him out as having been the kind of gullible
fool it is scarcely possible to avoid laughing at--or, so it
seemed to him in his heart-seared frenzy--he thought it not
improbable that he should go mad. He was harried so by
memories of lovely little soft ways of Edith's (his wife's
name was Edith), of the pretty sound of her laugh, and of
her innocent, girlish habit of kneeling down by her bedside
every night and morning to say her prayers. This had so
touched him that he had sometimes knelt down to say his, too,
saying to her, with slight awkward boyishness, that a fellow
who had a sort of angel for his wife ought to do his best to
believe in the things she believed in.
"And all the time----!" a devil who laughed used to
snigger in his ear over and over again, until it was almost
like the ticking of a clock during the worst months, when it
did not seem probable that a man could feel his brain whirling
like a Catherine wheel night and day, and still manage
to hold on and not reach the point of howling and shrieking
and dashing his skull against wails and furniture.
But that passed in time, and he told himself that he passed
with it. Since then he had lived chiefly at Broadmorlands
Castle, and was spoken of as a man who had become religious,
which was not true, but, having reached the decision that
religion was good for most people, he paid a good deal of
attention to his church and schools, and was rigorous in the
matter of curates.
He had passed seventy now, and was somewhat despotic
and haughty, because a man who is a Duke and does not go
out into the world to rub against men of his own class and
others, but lives altogether on a great and splendid estate,
saluted by every creature he meets, and universally obeyed and
counted before all else, is not unlikely to forget that he is a
quite ordinary human being, and not a sort of monarch.
He had done his best to forget Edith, who had soon died
of being a shady curate's wife in Australia, but he had not
been able to encompass it. He used, occasionally, to dream
she was kneeling by the bed in her childish nightgown saying
her prayers aloud, and would waken crying--as he had cried
in those awful young days. Against social immorality or
village light-mindedness he was relentlessly savage. He
allowed for no palliating or exonerating facts. He began to
see red when he heard of or saw lightness in a married woman,
and the outside world frequently said that this characteristic
bordered on monomania.
Nigel Anstruthers, having met him once or twice, had at
first been much amused by him, and had even, by giving him
an adroitly careful lead, managed to guide him into an
expression of opinion. The Duke, who had heard men of his class
discussed, did not in the least like him, notwithstanding his
sympathetic suavity of manner and his air of being intelligently
impressed by what he heard. Not long afterwards,
however, it transpired that the aged rector of Broadmorlands
having died, the living had been given to Ffolliott, and, hearing
it, Sir Nigel was not slow to conjecture that quite decently
utilisable tools would lie ready to his hand if circumstances
pressed; this point of view, it will be seen, being not
illogical. A man who had not been a sort of hermit would have
heard enough of him to be put on his guard, and one who was a man
of the world, looking normally on existence, would have
reasoned coolly, and declined to concern himself about what was
not his affair. But a parallel might be drawn between
Broadmorlands and some old lion wounded sorely in his youth and
left to drag his unhealed torment through the years of age. On
one subject he had no point of view but his own, and could be
roused to fury almost senseless by wholly inadequately supported
facts. He presented exactly the material required--and
that in mass.
About the time the flag was run up on the tower at Stornham
Court a carter, driving whistling on the road near the
deserted cottage, was hailed by a man who was walking slowly
a few yards ahead of him. The carter thought that he was a
tramp, as his clothes were plainly in bad case, which seeing,
his answer was an unceremonious grunt, and it certainly did
not occur to him to touch his forehead. A minute later,
however, he "got a start," as he related afterwards. The tramp
was a gentleman whose riding costume was torn and muddied,
and who looked "gashly," though he spoke with the manner
and authority which Binns, the carter, recognised as that of
one of the "gentry" addressing a day-labourer.
"How far is it from here to Medham?" he inquired.
"Medham be about four mile, sir," was the answer. "I
be carryin' these 'taters there to market."
"I want to get there. I have met with an accident. My
horse took fright at a pheasant starting up rocketting under
his nose. He threw me into a hedge and bolted. I'm badly
enough bruised to want to reach a town and see a doctor. Can
you give me a lift?"
"That I will, sir, ready enough," making room on the seat
beside him. "You be bruised bad, sir," he said sympathetically,
as his passenger climbed to his place, with a twisted face
and uttering blasphemies under his breath.
"Damned badly," he answered. "No bones broken, however."
"That cut on your cheek and neck'll need plasterin', sir."
"That's a scratch. Thorn bush," curtly.
Sympathy was plainly not welcome. In fact Binns was
soon of the opinion that here was an ugly customer, gentleman
or no gentleman. A jolting cart was, however, not the best
place for a man who seemed sore from head to foot, and done
for out and out. He sat and ground his teeth, as he clung
to the rough seat in the attempt to steady himself. He became
more and more "gashly," and a certain awful light in his
eyes alarmed the carter by leaping up at every jolt. Binns
was glad when he left him at Medham Arms, and felt he
had earned the half-sovereign handed to him.
Four days Anstruthers lay in bed in a room at the Inn. No
one saw him but the man who brought him food. He did
not send for a doctor, because he did not wish to see one. He
sent for such remedies as were needed by a man who had
been bruised by a fall from his horse. He made no remark
which could be considered explanatory, after he had said
irritably that a man was a fool to go loitering along on a
nervous brute who needed watching. Whatsoever happened was his
own damned fault.
Through hours of day and night he lay staring at the white-
washed beams or the blue roses on the wall paper. They were
long hours, and filled with things not pleasant enough to
dwell on in detail. Physical misery which made a man
writhe at times was not the worst part of them. There were
a thousand things less endurable. More than once he foamed
at the mouth, and recognised that he gibbered like a madman.
There was but one memory which saved him from feeling
that this was the very end of things. That was the memory
of Broadmorlands. While a man had a weapon left, even
though it could not save him, he might pay up with it--get
almost even. The whole Vanderpoel lot could be plunged
neck deep in a morass which would leave mud enough sticking
to them, even if their money helped them to prevent its
entirely closing over their heads. He could attend to that,
and, after he had set it well going, he could get out. There
were India, South Africa, Australia--a dozen places that
would do. And then he would remember Betty Vanderpoel,
and curse horribly under the bed clothes. It was the memory
of Betty which outdid all others in its power to torment.
On the morning of the fifth day the Duke of Broadmorlands
received a note, which he read with somewhat annoyed
curiosity. A certain Sir Nigel Anstruthers, whom it appeared
he ought to be able to recall, was in the neighbourhood, and
wished to see him on a parochial matter of interest. "Parochial
matter" was vague, and so was the Duke's recollection of the
man who addressed him. If his memory served him rightly,
he had met him in a country house in Somersetshire, and had
heard that he was the acquaintance of the disreputable eldest
son. What could a person of that sort have to say of parochial
matters? The Duke considered, and then, in obedience to
a rigorous conscience, decided that one ought, perhaps, to give
him half an hour.
There was that in the intruder's aspect, when he arrived in
the afternoon, which produced somewhat the effect of shock. In
the first place, a man in his unconcealable physical condition
had no right to be out of his bed. Though he plainly refused to
admit the fact, his manner of bearing himself erect, and even
with a certain touch of cool swagger, was, it was evident,
achieved only by determined effort. He looked like a man
who had not yet recovered from some evil fever. Since the
meeting in Somersetshire he had aged more than the year
warranted. Despite his obstinate fight with himself it was
obvious that he was horribly shaky. A disagreeable scratch or
cut, running from cheek to neck, did not improve his personal
appearance.
He pleased his host no more than he had pleased him at
their first encounter; he, in fact, repelled him strongly, by
suggesting a degree of abnormality of mood which was
smoothed over by an attempt at entire normality of manner.
The Duke did not present an approachable front as, after
Anstruthers had taken a chair, he sat and examined him
with bright blue old eyes set deep on either side of a dominant
nose and framed over by white eyebrows. No, Nigel
Anstruthers summed him up, it would not be easy to open the
matter with the old fool. He held himself magnificently aloof,
with that lack of modernity in his sense of place which, even
at this late day, sometimes expressed itself here and there in
the manner of the feudal survival.
"I am afraid you have been ill," with rigid civility.
"A man feels rather an outsider in confessing he has let
his horse throw him into a hedge. It was my own fault
entirely. I allowed myself to forget that I was riding a
dangerously nervous brute. I was thinking of a painful and
absorbing subject. I was badly bruised and scratched, but
that was all."
"What did your doctor say?"
"That I was in luck not to have broken my neck."
"You had better have a glass of wine," touching a bell.
"You do not look equal to any exertion."
In gathering himself together, Sir Nigel felt he was forced
to use enormous effort. It had cost him a gruesome physical
struggle to endure the drive over to Broadmorlands, though it
was only a few miles from Medham. There had been something
unnatural in the exertion necessary to sit upright and keep
his mind decently clear. That was the worst of it. The fever
and raging hours of the past days and nights had so shaken him
that he had become exhausted, and his brain was not alert. He
was not thinking rapidly, and several times he had lost sight of
a point it was important to remember. He grew hot and cold
and knew his hands and voice shook, as he answered. But,
perhaps--he felt desperately--signs of emotion were not bad.
"I am not quite equal to exertion," he began slowly. "But
a man cannot lie on his bed while some things are undone--
a MAN cannot."
As the old Duke sat upright, the blue eyes under his bent
brows were startled, as well as curious. Was the man going
out of his mind about something? He looked rather like it,
with the dampness starting out on his haggard face, and the
ugly look suddenly stamped there. The fact was that the
insensate fury which had possessed and torn Anstruthers as he
had writhed in his inn bedroom had sprung upon him again
in full force, and his weakness could not control it, though it
would have been wiser to hold it in check. He also felt
frightfully ill, which filled him with despair, and, through
this fact, he lost sight of the effect he produced, as he stood
up, shaking all over.
"I come to you because you are the one man who can most
easily understand the thing I have been concealing for a good
many years."
The Duke was irritated. Confound the objectionable idiot,
what did he mean by taking that intimate tone with a man
who was not prepared to concern himself in his affairs?
"Excuse me," he said, holding up an authoritative hand,
"are you going to make a confession? I don't like such
things. I prefer to be excused. Personal confidences are not
parochial matters."
"This one is." And Sir Nigel was sickeningly conscious that
he was putting the statement rashly, while at the same time
all better words escaped him. "It is as much a parochial
matter," losing all hold on his wits and stammering, "as
was--as was--the affair of--your wife."
It was the Duke who stood up now, scarlet with anger.
He sprang from his chair as if he had been a young man in
whom some insult had struck blazing fire.
"You--you dare!" he shouted. "You insolent blackguard!
You force your way in here and dare--dare----!"
And he clenched his fist, wildly shaking it.
Nigel Anstruthers, staggering on his uncertain feet, would
have shouted also, but could not, though he tried, and he
heard his own voice come forth brokenly.
"Yes, I dare! I--your--my own--my----!"
Swaying and tottering, he swung round to the chair he
had left, and fell into it, even while the old Duke, who stood
raging before him, started back in outraged amazement. What
was the fellow doing? Was he making faces at him? The
drawn malignant mouth and muscles suggested it. Was he
a lunatic, indeed? But the sense of disgusted outrage changed
all at once to horror, as, with a countenance still more
hideously livid and twisted, his visitor slid helplessly from his
seat and lay a huddling heap of clothes on the floor.
