6
The following days Mrs. Oke was in a condition of quite unusual goodspirits. Some visitors--distant relatives--were expected, and although shehad expressed the utmost annoyance at the idea of their coming, she was nowseized with a fit of housekeeping activity, and was perpetually aboutarranging things and giving orders, although all arrangements, as usual,had been made, and all orders given, by her husband.
William Oke was quite radiant.
"If only Alice were always well like this!" he exclaimed; "if only shewould take, or could take, an interest in life, how different things wouldbe! But," he added, as if fearful lest he should be supposed to accuse herin any way, "how can she, usually, with her wretched health? Still, it doesmake me awfully happy to see her like this."
I nodded. But I cannot say that I really acquiesced in his views. It seemedto me, particularly with the recollection of yesterday's extraordinaryscene, that Mrs. Oke's high spirits were anything but normal. There wassomething in her unusual activity and still more unusual cheerfulness thatwas merely nervous and feverish; and I had, the whole day, the impressionof dealing with a woman who was ill and who would very speedily collapse.
Mrs. Oke spent her day wandering from one room to another, and from thegarden to the greenhouse, seeing whether all was in order, when, as amatter of fact, all was always in order at Okehurst. She did not giveme any sitting, and not a word was spoken about Alice Oke or ChristopherLovelock. Indeed, to a casual observer, it might have seemed as if allthat craze about Lovelock had completely departed, or never existed.About five o'clock, as I was strolling among the red-brick round-gabledouthouses--each with its armorial oak--and the old-fashioned spallieredkitchen and fruit garden, I saw Mrs. Oke standing, her hands full of Yorkand Lancaster roses, upon the steps facing the stables. A groom wascurrycombing a horse, and outside the coach-house was Mr. Oke's littlehigh-wheeled cart.
"Let us have a drive!" suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Oke, on seeing me. "Lookwhat a beautiful evening--and look at that dear little cart! It is so longsince I have driven, and I feel as if I must drive again. Come with me. Andyou, harness Jim at once and come round to the door."
I was quite amazed; and still more so when the cart drove up before thedoor, and Mrs. Oke called to me to accompany her. She sent away the groom,and in a minute we were rolling along, at a tremendous pace, along theyellow-sand road, with the sere pasture-lands, the big oaks, on eitherside.
I could scarcely believe my senses. This woman, in her mannish little coatand hat, driving a powerful young horse with the utmost skill, andchattering like a school-girl of sixteen, could not be the delicate,morbid, exotic, hot-house creature, unable to walk or to do anything, whospent her days lying about on couches in the heavy atmosphere, redolentwith strange scents and associations, of the yellow drawing-room. Themovement of the light carriage, the cool draught, the very grind of thewheels upon the gravel, seemed to go to her head like wine.
"It is so long since I have done this sort of thing," she kept repeating;"so long, so long. Oh, don't you think it delightful, going at this pace,with the idea that any moment the horse may come down and we two bekilled?" and she laughed her childish laugh, and turned her face, no longerpale, but flushed with the movement and the excitement, towards me.
The cart rolled on quicker and quicker, one gate after another swinging tobehind us, as we flew up and down the little hills, across the pasturelands, through the little red-brick gabled villages, where the people cameout to see us pass, past the rows of willows along the streams, and thedark-green compact hop-fields, with the blue and hazy tree-tops of thehorizon getting bluer and more hazy as the yellow light began to graze theground. At last we got to an open space, a high-lying piece of common-land,such as is rare in that ruthlessly utilised country of grazing-grounds andhop-gardens. Among the low hills of the Weald, it seemed quitepreternaturally high up, giving a sense that its extent of flat heather andgorse, bound by distant firs, was really on the top of the world. The sunwas setting just opposite, and its lights lay flat on the ground, stainingit with the red and black of the heather, or rather turning it into thesurface of a purple sea, canopied over by a bank of dark-purple clouds--thejet-like sparkle of the dry ling and gorse tipping the purple like sunlitwavelets. A cold wind swept in our faces.
"What is the name of this place?" I asked. It was the only bit ofimpressive scenery that I had met in the neighbourhood of Okehurst.
"It is called Cotes Common," answered Mrs. Oke, who had slackened the paceof the horse, and let the reins hang loose about his neck. "It was herethat Christopher Lovelock was killed."
There was a moment's pause; and then she proceeded, tickling the flies fromthe horse's ears with the end of her whip, and looking straight into thesunset, which now rolled, a deep purple stream, across the heath to ourfeet--
"Lovelock was riding home one summer evening from Appledore, when, as hehad got half-way across Cotes Common, somewhere about here--for I havealways heard them mention the pond in the old gravel-pits as about theplace--he saw two men riding towards him, in whom he presently recognisedNicholas Oke of Okehurst accompanied by a groom. Oke of Okehurst hailedhim; and Lovelock rode up to meet him. 'I am glad to have met you, Mr.Lovelock,' said Nicholas, 'because I have some important news for you'; andso saying, he brought his horse close to the one that Lovelock was riding,and suddenly turning round, fired off a pistol at his head. Lovelock hadtime to move, and the bullet, instead of striking him, went straight intothe head of his horse, which fell beneath him. Lovelock, however, hadfallen in such a way as to be able to extricate himself easily from hishorse; and drawing his sword, he rushed upon Oke, and seized his horse bythe bridle. Oke quickly jumped off and drew his sword; and in a minute,Lovelock, who was much the better swordsman of the two, was having thebetter of him. Lovelock had completely disarmed him, and got his sword atOke's throat, crying out to him that if he would ask forgiveness he shouldbe spared for the sake of their old friendship, when the groom suddenlyrode up from behind and shot Lovelock through the back. Lovelock fell, andOke immediately tried to finish him with his sword, while the groom drew upand held the bridle of Oke's horse. At that moment the sunlight fell uponthe groom's face, and Lovelock recognised Mrs. Oke. He cried out, 'Alice,Alice! it is you who have murdered me!' and died. Then Nicholas Oke spranginto his saddle and rode off with his wife, leaving Lovelock dead by theside of his fallen horse. Nicholas Oke had taken the precaution of removingLovelock's purse and throwing it into the pond, so the murder was put downto certain highwaymen who were about in that part of the country. Alice Okedied many years afterwards, quite an old woman, in the reign of CharlesII.; but Nicholas did not live very long, and shortly before his death gotinto a very strange condition, always brooding, and sometimes threateningto kill his wife. They say that in one of these fits, just shortly beforehis death, he told the whole story of the murder, and made a prophecy thatwhen the head of his house and master of Okehurst should marry anotherAlice Oke descended from himself and his wife, there should be an endof the Okes of Okehurst. You see, it seems to be coming true. We have nochildren, and I don't suppose we shall ever have any. I, at least, havenever wished for them."
Mrs. Oke paused, and turned her face towards me with the absent smile inher thin cheeks: her eyes no longer had that distant look; they werestrangely eager and fixed. I did not know what to answer; this womanpositively frightened me. We remained for a moment in that same place, withthe sunlight dying away in crimson ripples on the heather, gilding theyellow banks, the black waters of the pond, surrounded by thin rushes, andthe yellow gravel-pits; while the wind blew in our faces and bent theragged warped bluish tops of the firs. Then Mrs. Oke touched the horse, andoff we went at a furious pace. We did not exchange a single word, I think,on the way home. Mrs. Oke sat with her eyes fixed on the reins, breakingthe silence now and then only by a word to the horse, urging him to an evenmore furious pace. The people we met along the roads must have thought thatthe horse was running away, unless they noticed M
rs. Oke's calm manner andthe look of excited enjoyment in her face. To me it seemed that I was inthe hands of a madwoman, and I quietly prepared myself for being upset ordashed against a cart. It had turned cold, and the draught was icy in ourfaces when we got within sight of the red gables and high chimney-stacks ofOkehurst. Mr. Oke was standing before the door. On our approach I saw alook of relieved suspense, of keen pleasure come into his face.
He lifted his wife out of the cart in his strong arms with a kind ofchivalrous tenderness.
"I am so glad to have you back, darling," he exclaimed--"so glad! I wasdelighted to hear you had gone out with the cart, but as you have notdriven for so long, I was beginning to be frightfully anxious, dearest.Where have you been all this time?"
Mrs. Oke had quickly extricated herself from her husband, who had remainedholding her, as one might hold a delicate child who has been causinganxiety. The gentleness and affection of the poor fellow had evidently nottouched her--she seemed almost to recoil from it.
"I have taken him to Cotes Common," she said, with that perverse look whichI had noticed before, as she pulled off her driving-gloves. "It is such asplendid old place."
Mr. Oke flushed as if he had bitten upon a sore tooth, and the double gashpainted itself scarlet between his eyebrows.
Outside, the mists were beginning to rise, veiling the park-land dottedwith big black oaks, and from which, in the watery moonlight, rose on allsides the eerie little cry of the lambs separated from their mothers. Itwas damp and cold, and I shivered.