Buch lesen: «The Squire's Daughter», Seite 7

"Well, yes, but I came to the conclusion that it was only a passing mood. She has not picked up her strength as rapidly as I could have desired, but, given time, and I have little doubt she will be just the same as ever. I am sorry she has written to you on the matter."

"I noticed a change in her before I went away. In fact, she was decidedly cool."

"But it will pass, my lord. I am sure it will. We must not hurry her. Don't take her 'No' as final. Let the matter remain in abeyance for a month or two. Now I will ring for her and leave you together. But take my advice and don't let her settle the matter now."

Sir John met Dorothy in the hall, and intimated that Lord Probus was waiting for her in the library. She betrayed no surprise whatever. In fact, she expected he would hurry back on receipt of her letter, and so was quite ready for the interview.

They did not remain long together. Lord Probus saw that, for the present at any rate, her mind was absolutely made up. But he was not prepared, nevertheless, to relinquish his prize.

She looked lovelier in his eyes than she had ever done before. He felt the charm of her budding womanhood. She was no longer a schoolgirl to be wheedled and influenced by the promise of pretty things. Her eyes had a new light in them, her manner an added dignity.

"Be assured," he said to her, in his most chivalrous manner, "that your happiness is more to me than my own. But we will not regard the matter as settled yet. Let things remain in abeyance for a month or two."

"It is better we should understand each other once for all," she said decisively, "for I am quite sure time will only confirm me in my resolution."

"No, no. Don't say that," he pleaded. "Think of all I can give you, of all that I will do for you, of all the love and care I will lavish upon you. You owe it to me not to do this thing rashly. Let us wait, say, till the new year, and then we will talk the matter over again." And he took her hand and kissed it, and then walked slowly out of the room.

CHAPTER XIII
GATHERING CLOUDS

The following afternoon Sir John went for a walk in the plantation alone. He was in a very perturbed and anxious condition of mind. Lord Probus had taken his advice, and refused to accept Dorothy's "No" as final; but that by no means settled the matter. He feared that at best it had only postponed the evil day for a few weeks. What if she continued in the same frame of mind? What if she had conceived any kind of romantic attachment for young Penlogan, into whose arms she had been thrown more than once?

Of course, Dorothy would never dream of any alliance with a Penlogan. She was too well bred for that, and had too much regard for the social order. But all the same, such an attachment would put an end to Lord Probus's hopes. She would be eternally contrasting the two men, and she would elect to remain a spinster until time had cured her of her love-sickness. In the meanwhile he would be upon the rocks financially, or in some position even worse than that.

"It is most annoying," he said to himself, with knitted brows and clenched hands, "most confoundedly annoying, and all because of that young scoundrel Penlogan. If I could only wring his neck or get him clear out of the district it would be some satisfaction."

The next moment the sound of snapping twigs fell distinctly on his ear. He turned suddenly and caught a momentary glimpse of a white face peering over a hedge.

"By Heaven, it's that scoundrel Penlogan!" was the thought that darted suddenly through his mind. The next moment there was a flash, a report, a stinging pain in his left arm and cheek, and then a moment of utter mental confusion.

He recovered himself in a moment or two and took to his heels. He had been shot, he knew, but with what effect he could not tell. His left arm hung limply by his side and felt like a burning coal. His cheek was smarting intolerably, but the extent of the damage he had no means of ascertaining. He might be fatally hurt for all he knew. Any moment he might fall dead in the road, and the young villain who had shot him might go unpunished.

"I must prevent that if possible," he said to himself, as he kept running at the top of his speed. "I must hold out till I get home. Oh, I do hope my strength will not fail me! It's a terrible thing to be done to death in this way."

The perspiration was running in streams down his face. His breath came and went in gasps, but he never slackened his pace for a moment; and still as he ran the conviction grew and deepened in his mind that a deliberate attempt had been made to murder him.

He came within sight of the house at length, and began to shout at the top of his voice —

"Help! help! Murder! Be quick – "

The coachman and the stable boy, who happened to be discussing politics in the yard at the moment, took to their heels and both ran in the same direction. They came upon their master, hatless and exhausted, and were just in time to catch him in their arms before he sank to the ground.

"Oh, I've been murdered!" he gasped. "Think of it, murdered in my own plantation! Carry me home, and then go for the doctor and the police. That young Penlogan shall swing for this."

"But you can't be murdered, master," the coachman said soothingly, "for you're alive and able to talk."

"But I'm nearly done for," he groaned. "I feel my life ebbing away fast. Get me home as quickly as you can. I hope I'll live till the policeman comes."

The two men locked hands, and made a kind of chair for their master, and then marched away towards the house.

Sir John talked incessantly all the distance.

"If I die before I get home," he said, "don't forget what I am telling you. Justice must be done in a case like this. Won't there be a sensation in the county when people learn that I was deliberately murdered in my own plantation!"

"But why should Ralph Penlogan want to murder you?" the coachman queried.

"Why? Don't ask me. He came to the house the day his father died and threatened me. I saw murder in his eyes then. I believe he would have murdered me in my own library if he had had the chance. But make haste, for my strength is ebbing out rapidly."

"I don't think you are going to die yet, sir," the coachman said cheerfully.

"Oh, I don't know! I feel very strange. I keep praying that I may live to get home and give evidence before the proper authorities. It seems very strange that I should come to my end this way."

"But you may recover, sir," the stable boy interposed. "There's never no knowing what may happen in this world."

"Please don't talk to me," he said petulantly. "You are wasting time while you talk. I want to compose my mind. It's an awfully solemn thing to be murdered, but he shall swing for it as sure as I'm living at this moment! Don't you think you can hurry a little faster?"

Sir John had considerably recovered by the time they reached the house, and was able to walk upstairs and even to undress with assistance.

While waiting for the doctor, Dorothy came and sat by his side. She was very pale, but quite composed. Hers was one of those natures that seemed to gather strength in proportion to the demands made upon it. She never fainted or lost her wits or became hysterical. She met the need of the moment with a courage that rarely failed her.

"Ah, Dorothy," he said, in impressive tones, "I never thought I should come to this, and at the hands of a dastardly assassin."

"But are you sure it was not an accident, father?" she questioned gently.

"Accident?" he said, and his eyes blazed with anger. "Has it come to this, that you would screen the man who has murdered your father?"

"Let us not use such a word until we are compelled," she replied, in the same gentle tones. "You may not be hurt as much as you fear."

"Whether I am hurt much or little," he said, "the intention was there. If I am not dead, the fault is not his."

"But are you sure it was he who fired at you?"

"As sure as I can be of anything in this world. Besides, who else would do it? He threatened me the day his father died."

"Threatened to murder you?"

"Not in so many words, but he had murder in his eyes."

"But why should he want to do you any harm? You never did any harm to him."

For a moment or two Sir John hesitated. Should he clench his argument by supplying the motive? He would never have a better opportunity for destroying at a single blow any romantic attachment that she may have cherished. Destroy her faith in Ralph Penlogan – the handsome youth with pleasant manners – and her heart might turn again to Lord Probus.

But while he hesitated the door opened, and Dr. Barrow came hurriedly into the room, followed by a nurse.

Dorothy raised a pair of appealing eyes to the doctor's face, and then stole sadly down to the drawing-room to await the verdict.

As yet her faith in Ralph Penlogan remained unshaken. She had seen a good deal of him during the last few weeks, and the more she had seen of him the more she had admired him. His affection for his mother and sister, his solicitude for their comfort and welfare, his anxiety to take from their shoulders every burden, his impatience to get well so that he might step into his dead father's place and be the bread-winner of the family, had touched her heart irresistibly. She felt that a man could not be bad who was so good to his mother and so kind and chivalrous to his sister.

Whether or no she had done wisely in going to the Penlogans' cottage was a question she was not quite able to answer. Ostensibly she had gone to see Mrs. Penlogan, who had not yet recovered from the shock caused by her husband's death, and yet she was conscious of a very real sense of disappointment if Ralph was not visible.

That she should be interested in him was the most natural thing in the world. They had been thrown together in no ordinary way. They had succoured each other in times of very real peril – had each been the other's good angel. Hence it would be folly to pretend the indifference of absolute strangers. Socially, their lives lay wide as the poles asunder, and yet there might be a very true kinship between them. The only drawback to any sort of friendship was the confession she had unwittingly listened to while he lay dazed and unconscious in the plantation.

How much it amounted to she did not know. Probably nothing. It was said that people in delirium spoke the exact opposite of what they meant. Ralph had reiterated that he hated her father. Probably he did nothing of the kind. Why should he hate him? At any rate, since he began to get better he had said nothing, as far as she was aware, that would convey the remotest impression of such a feeling. His words respecting herself probably had no more meaning or value, and she made an honest effort to forget them.

She had questioned him as to what he could remember after the branch of the tree struck him. But he remembered nothing till the following day. For twenty-four hours his mind was a complete blank, and he was quite unsuspicious that he had spoken a single word to anyone. And yet, try as she would, whenever she was in his presence, his words kept recurring to her. There might be a worse tragedy in his life than that which had already occurred.

These thoughts kept chasing each other like lightning through her brain, as she sat waiting for the verdict of the doctor.

He came at length, and she rose at once to meet him.

"Well, doctor?" she questioned. "Let me know the worst."

She saw that there was a perplexed and even troubled look in his eyes, and she feared that her father was more seriously hurt than she had imagined.

"There is no immediate danger," he said, taking her hands and leading her back to her seat. They were great friends, and she trusted him implicitly.

She gave a little sigh of relief and waited for him to speak again.

"The main volume of the charge just missed him," he went on, after a pause. "Had he been an inch or two farther to the left, the chances are he would never have spoken again."

"But you think that he will get better?"

"Well, yes. I see no cause for apprehension. His left shoulder and arm are badly speckled, no doubt, but I don't think any vital part has been touched."

Dorothy sighed again, and for a moment or two there was silence. Then she said, with evident effort —

"But what about – about – young Penlogan?"

"Ah, that I fear is a more serious matter," he answered, with averted eyes. "I sincerely trust that your father is mistaken."

"You are not sure that he is?"

"It seems as if one can be sure of nothing in this world," he answered slowly and evasively, "and yet I could have trusted Ralph Penlogan with my life."

"Does father still persist that it was he?"

"He is quite positive, and almost gets angry if one suggests that he may have been mistaken."

"Well, doctor, and what will all this lead to?" she questioned, making a strong effort to keep her voice steady.

"For the moment I fear it must lead to young Penlogan's arrest. There seems no way of escaping that. Your father's depositions will be taken as soon as Mr. Tregonning arrives. Then, of course, a warrant will be issued, and most likely Penlogan will spend to-night in the police-station – unless – " Then he paused suddenly and looked out of the window.

"Unless what, doctor?"

"Well, unless he has tried to get away somewhere. It will be dark directly, and under cover of darkness he might get a long distance."

"But that would imply that he is guilty?"

"Well – yes. I am assuming, of course, that he deliberately shot at your father."

"Which I am quite sure he did not do."

"I have the same conviction myself, and yet he made no secret of the fact that he hated your father."

"But why should he hate my father?"

"You surely know – " Then he hesitated.

"I know nothing," she answered. "What is the ground of his dislike?"

"Ah, here is Mr. Tregonning's carriage," he said, in a tone of relief. "Now I must run away. Keep your heart up, and don't worry any more than you can help."

For several moments she walked up and down the room with a restless yet undecided step. Then she made suddenly for the door, and three minutes later she might have been seen hurrying along the drive in the swiftly gathering darkness as fast as her feet could carry her.

"I'll see him for myself," she said, with a resolute light in her eyes. "I'll get the truth from his own lips. I'm sure he will not lie to me."

It was quite dark when she reached the village, save for the twinkling lights in cottage windows.

She met a few people, but no one recognised her, enveloped as she was in a heavy cloak. For a moment or two she paused before the door of the Penlogans' cottage. Her heart was beating very fast, and she felt like a bird of evil omen. If Ralph was innocent, then he knew nothing of the trouble that was looming ahead, and she would be the petrel to announce the coming storm.

She gave a timid rat-tat at the door, and after a moment or two it was opened by Ruth.

"Why, Miss Dorothy!" And Ruth started back in surprise.

"Is your brother at home?" Dorothy questioned, with a little gasp.

"Why, yes. Won't you come in?"

"Would you mind asking him to come to the door. I have only a moment or two to spare."

"You had better come into the passage," Ruth said, "and I will go at once and tell him you are here."

Dorothy stepped over the threshold and stood under the small lamp that lighted the tiny hall.

In a few moments Ralph stood before her, his cheeks flushed, and an eager, questioning light in his eyes.

She looked at him eagerly for a moment before she spoke, and could not help thinking how handsome he looked.

"I have come on a strange errand," she said, speaking rapidly, "and I fear there is more trouble in store for you. But tell me first, have you ever lifted a finger against my father?"

"Never, Miss Dorothy! Why do you ask?"

"And you have never planned, or purposed, or attempted to do him harm?"

"Why, no, Miss Dorothy. Why should you think of such a thing?"

"My father was shot this afternoon in Treliskey Plantation. He saw a face for a moment peering over a hedge; the next moment there was a flash and a report, and a part of the charge entered his left arm and shoulder. He is in bed now, and Mr. Tregonning is taking his depositions. He vows that it was your face that he saw peering over the hedge – that it was you who shot him."

Ralph's face grew ashen while she was speaking, and a look almost of terror crept into his eyes. The difficulty and peril of his position revealed themselves in a moment. How could he prove that Sir John Hamblyn was mistaken?

"But you do not believe it, Miss Dorothy?" he questioned.

"You tell me that you are innocent?" she asked, almost in a whisper.

"I am as innocent as you are," he said; and he looked frankly and appealingly into her eyes.

For a moment or two she looked at him in silence, then she said in the same low tone —

"I believe you." And she held out her hand to him, and then turned towards the door.

He had a hundred things to say to her, but somehow the words would not come. He watched her cross the threshold and pass out into the darkness, and he stood still and had not the courage to follow her. It would have been at least a neighbourly thing to see her to the lodge gates, for the night was unillumined by even a star, but his lips refused to move. He stood stock-still, as if riveted to the ground.

How long he remained there staring into the darkness he did not know. Time and place were swallowed up and lost. He was conscious only of the steady approach of an overwhelming calamity. It was gathering from every point of the compass at the same time. It was wrapping him round like a sable pall. It was obliterating one by one every star of hope and promise.

Ruth came to look for him at length, and she uttered a little cry when she saw him, for his face was like the face of the dead.

CHAPTER XIV
THE STORM BURSTS

"Why, Ralph, what is the matter?" And Ruth seized one of his hands and stared eagerly and appealingly into his face.

He shook himself as if he had been asleep, then closed the door quietly and followed her into the living-room.

"Are you not well, Ralph?" Ruth persisted, as she drew up his chair a little nearer the fire. Mrs. Penlogan laid her knitting in her lap, and her eyes echoed Ruth's inquiry.

"I've heard some bad news," he said, speaking with an effort, and he dropped into his chair and stared at the fire.

"Bad news!" both women echoed. "What has happened, Ralph?"

He hesitated for a moment, then he told them the story as Dorothy had told it to him.

"But why should you worry?" Ruth questioned quickly. "You were nowhere near the plantation."

"But how am I to prove it?" he questioned.

"Have you been alone all the afternoon?"

"Absolutely."

"But you have surely seen someone?"

"As bad luck would have it, I have not seen a soul."

"But some people may have seen you."

"That is likely enough. Twenty people in the village looking from behind their curtains may have seen me walk out with a gun under my arm."

"And it's the first time you've carried a gun since we left Hillside."

"The very first time, and it looks as if it will be the last."

"But surely, Ralph, no one would believe for a moment that you could do such a thing?" his mother interposed. "It's been some awkward accident, you may depend. It will all come out right in the morning."

"I'm very sorry for you, mother," he said slowly. "You've had trouble enough lately, God knows. We all have, for that matter. But it is of no use shutting our eyes to the fact that this is a very awkward business, and while we should hope for the best, we should prepare for the worst."

"What worst do you refer to, Ralph?" she asked, a little querulously. "You surely do not think – "

"I hardly know what to think, mother," he interrupted, for it was quite clear she did not realise yet the gravity of the situation. "It may mean imprisonment and the loss of my good name, which would mean the loss of everything and the end of the world for me."

"Oh no; surely not," and the tears began to gather in her eyes.

"The trouble lies here," he went on. "Everybody knows that I hate the squire. We all do, for that matter, and for very good reasons. As it happens, I have been out with a gun this afternoon, and have brought home a couple of rabbits. I shot them in Dingley Bottom, but no one saw me. Somebody trespassing in the plantation came upon the squire. He was climbing over a hedge, and very likely in drawing back suddenly something caught the trigger and the gun went off. Now unless that man confesses, what is to become of me?"

"But he will confess. Nobody would let you be wrongfully accused," she interrupted.

He shook his head dubiously. "Most people are so anxious to save their own skin," he said, "that they do not trouble much about what becomes of other people."

"But if the worst should come to the worst, Ralph," Ruth questioned timidly, "what would it mean?"

"Transportation," he said gloomily.

Mrs. Penlogan began to cry. It seemed almost as if God had forsaken them, and her faith in Providence was in danger of going from her. She and Ruth had been bewailing the hardness of their lot that afternoon while Ralph was out with his gun. The few pounds saved from the general wreck were nearly exhausted. When the funeral expenses had been paid, and the removal accounts had been squared, there was very little left. To make matters worse, Ralph's accident had to be added to their calamities. He was only just beginning to get about again, and when the doctor's bill came in they would be worse than penniless, they would be in debt.

And now suddenly, and without warning, this new trouble threatened them. A trouble that was worse than poverty – worse even than death. Their good name, they imagined, was unassailable, and if that went by the board, everything would be lost.

Ralph sat silent, and stared into the fire. In the main his thoughts were very bitter, but one sweet reflection came and went in the most unaccountable fashion. One pure and almost perfect face peeped at him from between the bars of the grate and vanished, but always came back again after a few minutes and smiled all the more sweetly, as if to atone for its absence.

Why had Dorothy Hamblyn taken the trouble to interview him? Why was she so interested in his fate? How was it that she was so ready to accept his word? To give any rational answer to these questions seemed impossible. If she felt what he felt, the explanation would be simple enough; but since by no exercise of his fancy or imagination could he bring himself to that view of the case, her conduct – her apparent solicitude – remained inexplicable.

Nevertheless, the thought of Dorothy was the one sweet drop in his bitter cup. The why and wherefore of her interest might remain a mystery, yet the fact remained that of her own free will she had come to see him that she might get the truth from his own lips, and without any hesitation she had told him that she believed his word. Sir John might hunt him down with all the venom of a sleuth hound, but he would always have this crumb of consolation, that the Squire's daughter believed in him still.

He had given up trying to hate her. Nay, he accepted it as part of the irony of fate that he should do the other thing. He could not understand why destiny should be so relentlessly cruel to him, why every circumstance and every combination of circumstances should unite to crush him. But he had to accept life as he found it. The world seemed to be ruled by might, not by justice. The strong worked their will upon the weak. It was the fate of the feeble to go under; the helpless cried in vain for deliverance, the poor were daily oppressed.

He found his youthful optimism a steadily diminishing quantity. His father's fate seemed to mock the idea of an over-ruling Providence. If there was ever a good man in the parish, his father was that man. No breath of slander had ever touched his name. Honest, industrious, pure-minded, God-fearing, he lived and wrought with all his might, doing to others as he would they should do to him. And yet he died of a broken heart, defeated and routed in the unequal contest, victimised by the uncertain chances of life, ground to powder by laws he did not make, and had no chance of escaping. And in that hour of overwhelming disaster there was no hand to deliver him save the kindly hand of death.

"And what is there before me?" he asked himself bitterly. "What have I to live for, or hope for? The very springs of my youth seem poisoned. My love is a cruel mockery, my ambitions are frost-nipped in the bud."

For the rest of the evening very little was said. Supper was a sadly frugal meal, and they ate it in silence. Ruth and her mother could not help wondering how long it would be ere they would have no food to eat.

Ralph kept listening with keen apprehension for the sound of a measured footstep outside the door. At any moment he might be arrested. Sir John was one of the most important men in St. Goram, hence the law would be swift to take its course. The policemen would be falling over each other in their eagerness to do their duty.

The tall grandfather's clock in the corner beat out the moments with loud and monotonous click. The fire in the grate sank lower and lower. All the village noises died down into silence. Mrs. Penlogan's chin, in spite of her anxiety, began to droop upon her bosom.

"I think we shall be left undisturbed to-night," Ralph said, with a pathetic smile. "Perhaps we had better get off to bed."

Mrs. Penlogan rose at once and fetched the family Bible and handed it on to Ruth. It fell open at the 23rd Psalm: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want."

Ruth read it in a low, even voice. It was her father's favourite portion – his sheet-anchor when the storms of life raged most fiercely. Now he was beyond the tempest and beyond the strife.

For the first time Ralph felt thankful that he was dead.

"Dear old father," he said to himself. "He has got beyond the worry and the pain. His heart will ache no more for ever."

They all knelt down when the psalm ended; but no one prayed aloud.

Ralph remained after the others had gone upstairs. It seemed of little use going to bed, he felt too restless to sleep.

Ever since Dorothy went away he had been expecting Policeman Budda to call with a warrant for his arrest. Why he had not come he could not understand. He wondered if Dorothy had interceded with her father, and his eyes softened at the thought.

He did not blame himself for loving her in a restrained and far-off way. She was so fair and sweet and generous. That she was beyond his reach was no fault of his – that he had carried her in his arms and pressed her to his heart was the tragedy as well as the romance of his life. That she had watched by him and succoured him in the plantation was only another cord that bound his heart to her. That he should love her was but the inevitable sequence of events.

It was foolish to blame himself. He would be something less than man if he did not love her. He had tried his hardest not to – had struggled with all his might to put the memory of her out of his heart. But he gave up the struggle weeks ago. It was of no use fighting against fate. It was part of the burden he had been called upon to bear, and he would have to bear it as bravely and as patiently as he knew how.

He was not so vain as to imagine that she cared for him in the smallest degree – or ever could care. Moreover, she was engaged to be married, and would have been married months ago but for her accident.

Ralph got up from his chair and began to walk about the room. Dorothy Hamblyn was not for him, he knew well enough, and yet whenever he thought of her marrying Lord Probus his whole soul revolted. It seemed to him like sacrilege, and sacrilege in its basest form.

It was nearly midnight when he stole silently and stealthily to his little room, and soon after he fell fast asleep.

When he opened his eyes again the light of a new day filled the room, and a harsh and unfamiliar voice was speaking rapidly in the room below. Ralph leaned over the side of his bed for a moment or two and listened.

"It's Budda's voice," he said to himself at length, and he gave a little gasp. If Dorothy had interceded for him, her intercession had failed. The law would now have to take its course.

He dressed himself carefully and with great deliberation. He would not show the white feather if he could help it. Besides, it was just possible he might be able to clear himself. He would not give up hope until he was compelled to.

Budda was very civil and even sympathetic. He sat by the fire while Ralph ate his breakfast, and retailed a good deal of the gossip of the village so as to lessen the strain of the situation. Ralph replied to him with an air of well-feigned indifference and unconcern. He would rather die than betray weakness before a policeman.

Mrs. Penlogan and Ruth moved in and out of the room with set faces and dry eyes. They knew how to endure silently. So many storms had beaten upon them that it did not seem to matter much what came to them now. Also they knew that the real bitterness would come when Ralph's place was empty.

Budda appeared to be in no hurry. It was all in his day's work, and since Ralph showed no disposition to bolt, an hour sooner or later made no difference. He read the terms of the warrant with great deliberation and in his most impressive manner. Ralph made no reply. This was neither the time nor the place to protest his innocence.

Breakfast over, Ralph stretched his feet for a few moments before the fire. Budda talked on; but Ralph said nothing. He sprang to his feet at length and got on his hat and overcoat, while his mother and Ruth were out of the room.

"Now I am ready," he said; and Budda at once led the way.

He met his mother and sister in the passage and kissed them a hurried good-morning, and almost before they knew what had happened the door closed, and Ralph and the policeman had disappeared.