CHAPTER XXXVII
THE OLD WOMAN
There was silence in the tiny cottage parlor as the young girl made thisextraordinary announcement in a firm if toneless voice, withoutflinching and meeting with a sort of stubborn pride the five pairs ofeyes which were now riveted upon her.
From outside came the hum of many voices, dull and subdued, like thebuzzing of a swarm of bees, and against the small window panes theincessant patter of icy rain driven and lashed by the gale. Anon thewind moaned in the wide chimney, ... it seemed like the loud sigh of theFates, satisfied at the tangle wrought by their relentless fingers inthe threads of all these lives.
Sir Marmaduke, after a slight pause, had contrived to utter anoath--indicative of the wrath he, as Lady Sue's guardian, should havefelt at her statement. Squire Boatfield frowned at the oath. He hadnever liked de Chavasse and disapproved more than ever of the man'sattitude towards his womenkind now.
The girl was in obvious, terrible distress: what she was feeling at thismoment when she was taking those around her into her confidence could beas nothing compared to what she must have endured when she first heardthe news that her strange bridegroom had been murdered.
The kindly squire, though admitting the guardian's wrath, thought thatits violent expression was certainly ill-timed. He allowed Sue torecover herself, for the more calm was her attitude outwardly, the moreterrible must be the effort which she was making at self-control.
Sue's eyes were fixed steadily upon her guardian, and Richard Lambert'supon her. Both these young people who had carved their own Fate in thevery rock which now had shattered their lives, seemed to be searchingfor something vague, unavowed and mysterious which instinct told themwas there, but which was so elusive, so intangible that the soul of eachrecoiled, even whilst it tried to probe.
Entirely against her will Sue--whilst she looked on her guardian--couldthink of nothing save of that day in Dover, the lonely church, thegloomy vestry, and that weird patter of the rain against the windowpanes.
She was not ashamed of what she had done, only of what she had felt forhim, whom she now believed to be dead; that she gave him her fortune wasnothing, she neither regretted nor cared about that. What, in the mindof a young and romantic girl, was the value of a fortune squandered,when that priceless treasure--her first love--had already been thrownaway? But now she would no longer judge the dead. The money which he hadfilched from her, Fate and a murderous hand had quickly taken back fromhim, crushing beneath those chalk boulders his many desires, his vastambitions, a worthless life and incomparable greed.
Her love, which he had stolen ... that he could not give back: not thatardent, whole-souled, enthusiastic love; not the romantic idealism, thehero-worship, that veil of fantasy behind which first love is wont tohide its ephemerality. But she would not now judge the dead. Herromantic love lay buried in the lonely church at Dover, and she wasstriving not to think even of its grave.
Squire Boatfield's kindly voice recalled her to her immediatesurroundings and to the duty--self-imposed--which had brought herthither.
"My dear child," he said, speaking with unwonted solemnity, "if what youhave just stated be, alas! the truth, then indeed, you and you only canthrow some light on the terrible mystery which has been puzzling us all... you may be the means which God hath chosen for bringing an evildoerto justice.... Will you, therefore, try ... though it may be verypainful to you ... will you try and tell us everything that is in yourmind ... everything which may draw the finger of God and our poor eyesto the miscreant who hath committed such an awful crime."
"I fear me I have not much to tell," replied Sue simply, "but I feelthat it is my duty to suggest to the two magistrates here present what Ithink was the motive which prompted this horrible crime."
"You can suggest a motive for the crime?" interposed Sir Marmaduke,striving to sneer, although his voice sounded quite toneless, for histhroat was parched and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, "byGad! 'twere vastly interesting to hear your ladyship's views."
He tried to speak flippantly, at which Squire Boatfield frowneddeprecation. Lambert, without a word, had brought a chair near to LadySue, and with a certain gentle authority, he forced her to sit down.
"It was a crime, of that I feel sure," said Sue, "nathless, that can beeasily proven ... when ... when it has been discovered whether money andsecurities contained in a wallet of leather have been found among PrinceAmede's effects."
"Money and securities?" ejaculated Sir Marmaduke with a loud oath, whichhe contrived to bring forth with the violence of genuine wrath, "Moneyand securities? ... Forsooth, I trust ..."
"My money and my securities, sir," she interposed with obvious hauteur,"which I had last night and in this self-same room placed in the handsof Prince Amede d'Orleans, my husband."
She said this with conscious pride. Whatever change her feelings mayhave undergone towards the man who had at one time been the embodimentof her most cherished dreams, she would not let her sneering guardiansee that she had repented of her choice.
Death had endowed her exiled prince with a dignity which had never beenhis in life, and the veil of tragedy which now lay over the mysteriousstranger and his still more mysterious life, had called forth to itsuttermost the young wife's sense of loyalty to him.
"Not your entire fortune, my dear, dear child, I hope ..." ejaculatedSquire Boatfield, more horror-struck this time than he had been whenfirst he had heard of the terrible murder.
"The wallet contained my entire fortune," rejoined Sue calmly, "all thatMaster Skyffington had placed in my hands on the day that my fatherwilled that it should be given me."
"Such folly is nothing short of criminal," said Sir Marmaduke roughly,"nathless, had not the gentleman been murdered that night he would haveshown Thanet and you a clean pair of heels, taking your money with him,of course."
"Aye! aye! but he was murdered," said Squire Boatfield firmly, "thequestion only is by whom?"
"Some footpad who haunts the cliffs," rejoined de Chavasse lightly,"'tis simple enough."
"Simple, mayhap ..." mused the squire, "yet ..."
He paused a moment and once more silence fell on all those assembled inthe small cottage parlor. Sir Marmaduke felt as if every vein in hisbody was gradually being turned to stone.
The sense of expectancy was so overwhelming that it completely paralyzedevery other faculty within him, and Editha's searching eyes seemed likea corroding acid touching an aching wound. Yet for the moment there wasno danger. He had so surrounded himself and his crimes with mystery thatit would take more than a country squire's slowly moving brain to drawaside that weird and ghostlike curtain which hid his evil deeds.
No! there was no danger--as yet!
But he cursed himself for a fool and a coward, not to have goneaway--abroad--long ere such a possible confrontation threatened him. Hecursed himself for being here at all--and above all for having left thesmith's clothes and the leather wallet in that lonely pavilion in thepark.
Squire Boatfield's kind eyes now rested on the old woman, who, awed andsilent--shut out by her infirmities from this strange drama which wasbeing enacted in her cottage--had stood calm and impassive by, trying toread with that wonderful quickness of intuition which the poverty of onesense gives to the others--what was going on round her, since she couldnot hear.
Her eyes--pale and dim, heavy-lidded and deeply-lined--rested often onthe face of Richard Lambert, who, leaning against the corner of thehearth, had watched the proceedings silently and intently. When theQuakeress's faded gaze met that of the young man, there was a quick andanxious look which passed from her to him: a look of entreaty forcomfort, one of fear and of growing horror.
"And so the exiled prince lodged in your cottage, mistress?" saidSquire Boatfield, after a while, turning to Mistress Lambert.
The old woman's eyes wandered from Richard to the squire. The look offear in them vanished, giving place to good-natured placidity. Sheshuffled forward, in the manner which had so oft
irritated her lodger.
"Eh? ... what?" she queried, approaching the squire, "I am somewhat hardof hearing these times."
"We were speaking of your lodger, mistress," rejoined Boatfield, raisinghis voice, "harm hath come to him, you know."
"Aye! aye!" she replied blandly, "harm hath come to our lodger.... Nay!the Lord hath willed it so.... The stranger was queer in his ways.... Idon't wonder that harm hath come to him...."
"You remember him well, mistress?--him and the clothes he used to wear?"asked Squire Boatfield.
"Oh, yes! I remember the clothes," she rejoined. "I saw them again onthe dead who now lieth in Adam's forge ... the same curious clothes of atruth ... clothes the Lord would condemn as wantonness and vanity.... Isaw them again on the dead man," she reiterated garrulously, "the frillsand furbelows ... things the Lord hateth ... and which no Christianshould place upon his person ... yet the foreigner wore them ... he hadnone other ... and went out with them on him that night that the Lordsent him down into perdition...."
"Did you see him go out that night, mistress?" asked the squire.
"Eh? ... what? ..."
"Did he go out alone?"
The dimmed eyes of the old woman roamed restlessly from face to face. Itseemed as if that look of horror and of fear once more struggled toappear within the pale orbs. Yet the squire looked on her with kindness,and Lady Sue's tear-veiled eyes expressed boundless sympathy. Richard,on the other hand, did not look at her, his gaze was riveted on SirMarmaduke de Chavasse with an intensity which caused the latter to meetthat look, trying to defy it, and then to flinch before its expressionof passionate wrath.
"We wish to know where your nephew Adam is, mistress," now broke in deChavasse roughly, "the squire and I would wish to ask him a fewquestions."
Then as the Quakeress did not reply, he added almost savagely:
"Why don't you answer, woman? Are ye still hard of hearing?"
"Your pardon, Sir Marmaduke," interposed Lambert firmly, "my aunt is oldand feeble. She hath been much upset and over anxious ... seeing that mybrother Adam is still from home."
Sir Marmaduke broke into a loud and prolonged laugh.
"Ha! ha! ha! good master ... so I understand ... your brother is fromhome ... whilst the wallet containing her ladyship's fortune hasdisappeared along with him, eh?"
"What are they saying, lad?" queried the old woman in her tremblingvoice, "what are they saying? I am fearful lest there's something wrongwith Adam...."
"Nay, nay, dear ... there's naught amiss," said Lambert soothingly,"there's naught amiss...."
Instinctively now Sue had risen. Sir Marmaduke's cruel laugh had gratedhorribly on her ear, rousing an echo in her memory which she could notunderstand but which caused her to encircle the trembling figure of theold Quakeress with young, protecting arms.
"Are Squire Boatfield and I to understand, Lambert," continued SirMarmaduke, speaking to the young man, "that your brother Adam hasunaccountably disappeared since the night on which the foreigner metwith his tragic fate? Nay, Boatfield," he added, turning to the squire,as Lambert had remained silent, "methinks you, as chief magistrate,should see your duty clearly. 'Tis a warrant you should sign andquickly, too, ere a scoundrel slip through the noose of justice. I canon the morrow to Dover, there to see the chief constable, but Pyot andhis men should not be idle the while."
"What is he saying, my dear?" murmured Mistress Lambert, timorously, asshe clung with pathetic fervor to the young girl beside her, "what isthe trouble?"
"Where is your nephew Adam?" said de Chavasse roughly.
"I do not know," she retorted with amazing strength of voice, as shegently but firmly disengaged herself from the restraining arms thatwould have kept her back. "I do not know," she repeated, "what is it tothee, where he is? Art accusing him perchance of doing away with thatforeign devil?"
Her voice rose shrill and resonant, echoing in the low-ceilinged room;her pale eyes, dimmed with many tears, with hard work, and harder pietywere fixed upon the man who had dared to accuse her lad.
He tried not to flinch before that gaze, to keep up the air of mockery,the sound of a sneer. Outside the murmur of voices had become somewhatlouder, the shuffling of bare feet on the flag-stones could now bedistinctly heard.