The Man Between Part 26

"I am sorry about the Manor," said Tyrrel. "I wish the dear old Squire were alive to meet Ethel and myself."

"To be sure you do. But I dare say that he is glad now to have pa.s.sed out of it. Death is a mystery to those left, but I have no doubt it is satisfying to those who have gone away. He died as he lived, very properly; walked in the garden that morning as far as the strawberry beds, and the gardener gave him the first ripe half-dozen in a young cabbage leaf, and he ate them like a boy, and said they tasted as if grown in Paradise, then strolled home and asked Joel to shake the pillows on the sofa in the hall, laid himself down, shuffled his head easy among them, and fell on sleep. So Death the Deliverer found him. A good going home! Nothing to fear in it."

"Ethel tells me that Mr. Mostyn is now living at Mostyn Hall."

"Yes, he married that girl he would have sold his soul for and took her there, four months only after her husband's death. When I was young he durst not have done it, the Yorks.h.i.+re gentry would have cut them both."

"I think," said Tyrrel, "American gentlemen of to-day felt much the same. Will Madison told me that the club cut him as soon as Mrs.

Stanhope left her husband. He went there one day after it was known, and no one saw him; finally he walked up to McLean, and would have sat down, but McLean said, 'Your company is not desired, Mr. Mostyn.' Mostyn said something in re-ply, and McLean answered sternly, 'True, we are none of us saints, but there are lines the worst of us will not pa.s.s; and if there is any member of this club willing to interfere between a bridegroom and his bride, I would like to kick him out of it.'

Mostyn struck the table with some exclamation, and McLean continued, 'Especially when the wronged husband is a gentleman of such stainless character and unsuspecting nature as Basil Stanhope--a clergyman also!

Oh, the thing is beyond palliation entirely!' And he walked away and left Mostyn."

"Well," said Madam, "if it came to kicking, two could play that game.

Fred is no coward. I don't want to hear another word about them. They will punish each other without our help. Let them alone. I hope you are not going to have a crowd at your wedding. The quietest weddings are the luckiest ones."

"About twenty of our most intimate friends are invited to the church,"

said Ethel. "There will be no reception until we return to New York in the fall."

"No need of fuss here, there will be enough when you reach Monk-Rawdon.

The village will be garlanded and flagged, the bells ring-ing, and all your tenants and retainers out to meet you."

"We intend to get into our own home without anyone being aware of it.

Come, Tyrrel, my dressmaker is waiting, I know. It is my wedding gown, dear Granny, and oh, so lovely!"

"You will not be any smarter than I intend to be, miss. You are shut off from color. I can outdo you."

"I am sure you can--and will. Here comes father. What can he want?" They met him at the door, and with a few laughing words left him with Madam.

She looked curiously into his face and asked, "What is it, Edward?"

"I suppose they have told you all the arrangements. They are very simple. Did they say anything about Ruth?"

"They never named her. They said they were going to Was.h.i.+ngton for a week, and then to Rawdon Court. Ruth seems out of it all. Are you going to turn her adrift, or present her with a few thousand dollars? She has been a mother to Ethel. Something ought to be done for Ruth Bayard."

"I intend to marry her."

"I thought so."

"She will go to her sister's in Philadelphia for a month 's preparation.

I shall marry her there, and bring her home as my wife. She is a sweet, gentle, docile woman. She will make me happy."

"Sweet, gentle, docile! Yes, that is the style of wife Rawdon men prefer. What does Ethel say?"

"She is delighted. It was her idea. I was much pleased with her thoughtfulness. Any serious break in my life would now be a great discomfort. You need not look so satirical, mother; I thought of Ruth's life also."

"Also an afterthought; but Ruth is gentle and docile, and she is satisfied, and I am satisfied, so then everything is proper and everyone content. Come for me at ten on Wednesday morning. I shall be ready. No refreshments, I suppose. I must look after my own breakfast. Won't you feel a bit shabby, Edward?" And then the look and handclasp between them turned every word into sweetness and good-will.

And as Ethel regarded her marriage rather as a religious rite than a social function, she objected to its details becoming in any sense public, and her desires were to be regarded. Yet everyone may imagine the white loveliness of the bride, the joy of the bridegroom, the calm happiness of the family breakfast, and the leisurely, quiet leave-taking. The whole ceremony was the right note struck at the beginning of a new life, and they might justly expect it would move onward in melodious sequence.

Within three weeks after their marriage they arrived at Rawdon Court. It was on a day and at an hour when no one was looking for them, and they stepped into the lovely home waiting for them without outside observation. Hiring a carriage at the railway station, they dismissed it at the little bridge near the Manor House, and sauntered happily through the intervening s.p.a.ce. The door of the great hall stood open, and the fire, which had been burning on its big hearth unquenched for more than three hundred years, was blazing merrily, as if some hand had just replenished it. On the long table the broad, white beaver hat of the dead Squire was lying, and his oak walking stick was beside it. No one had liked to remove them. They remained just as he had put them down, that last, peaceful morning of his life.

In a few minutes the whole household was aware of their home-coming, and before the day was over the whole neighborhood. Then there was no way of avoiding the calls, the congratulations, and the entertainments that followed, and the old Court was once more the center of a splendid hospitality. Of course the Tyrrel-Rawdons were first on the scene, and Ethel was genuinely glad to meet again the good-natured Mrs. Nicholas.

No one could give her better local advice, and Ethel quickly discovered that the best general social laws require a local interpretation. Her hands were full, her heart full, she had so many interests to share, so many people to receive and to visit, and yet when two weeks pa.s.sed and Dora neither came nor wrote she was worried and dissatisfied.

"Are the Mostyns at the Hall?" she asked Mrs. Nicholas at last. "I have been expecting Mrs. Mostyn every day, but she neither comes nor writes to me."

"I dare say not. Poor little woman! I'll warrant she has been forbid to do either. If Mostyn thought she wanted to see you, he would watch day and night to prevent her coming. He's turning out as cruel a man as his father was, and you need not say a word worse than that."

"Cruel! Oh, dear, how dreadful! Men will drink and cheat and swear, but a cruel man seems so unnatural, so wicked."

"To be sure, cruelty is the joy of devils. As I said to John Thomas when we heard about Mostyn's goings-on, we have got rid of the Wicked One, but the wicked still remain with us."

This conversation having been opened, was naturally prolonged by the relation of incidents which had come through various sources to Mrs.

Rawdon's ears, all of them indicating an almost incredible system of petty tyranny and cruel contradiction. Ethel was amazed, and finally angry at what she heard. Dora was her countrywoman and her friend; she instantly began to express her sympathy and her intention of interfering.

"You had better neither meddle nor make in the matter," answered Mrs.

Rawdon. "Our Lucy went to see her, and gave her some advice about managing Yorks.h.i.+remen. And as she was talking Mostyn came in, and was as rude as he dared to be. Then Lucy asked him 'if he was sick.' She said, 'All the men in the neighborhood, gentle and simple, were talking about him, and that it wasn't a pleasant thing to be talked about in the way they were doing it. You must begin to look more like yourself, Mr.

Mostyn; it is good advice I am giving you,' she added; and Mostyn told her he would look as he felt, whether it was liked or not liked.

And Lucy laughed, and said, 'In that case he would have to go to his looking-gla.s.s for company.' Well, Ethel, there was a time to joy a devil after Lucy left, and some one of the servants went on their own responsibility for a doctor; and Mostyn ordered him out of the house, and he would not go until he saw Mrs. Mostyn; and the little woman was forced to come and say 'she was quite well,' though she was sobbing all the time she spoke. Then the doctor told Mostyn what he thought, and there is a quarrel between them every time they meet."

But Ethel was not deterred by these statements; on the contrary, they stimulated her interest in her friend. Dora needed her, and the old feeling of protection stirred her to interference. At any rate, she could call and see the unhappy woman; and though Tyrrel was opposed to the visit, and thought it every way unwise, Ethel was resolved to make it. "You can drive me there," she said, "then go and see Justice Manningham and call for me in half an hour." And this resolution was strengthened by a pitiful little note received from Dora just after her decision. "Mostyn has gone to Thirsk," it said; "for pity's sake come and see me about two o'clock this afternoon."

The request was promptly answered. As the clock struck two Ethel crossed the threshold of the home that might have been hers. She shuddered at the thought. The atmosphere of the house was full of fear and gloom, the furniture dark and shabby, and she fancied the wraiths of old forgotten crimes and sorrows were gliding about the sad, dim rooms and stairways.

Dora rose in a pa.s.sion of tears to welcome her, and because time was short instantly began her pitiful story.

"You know how he adored me once," she said; "would you believe it, Ethel, we were not two weeks married when he began to hate me. He dragged me through Europe in blazing heat and blinding snows when I was sick and unfit to move. He brought me here in the depth of winter, and when no one called on us he blamed me; and from morning till night, and sometimes all night long, he taunts and torments me. After he heard that you had bought the Manor he lost all control of himself. He will not let me sleep. He walks the floor hour after hour, declaring he could have had you and the finest manor in England but for a cat-faced woman like me. And he blames me for poor Basil's death--says we murdered him together, and that he sees blood on my hands." And she looked with terror at her small, thin hands, and held them up as if to protest against the charge. When she next spoke it was to sob out, "Poor Basil!

He would pity me! He would help me! He would forgive me! He knows now that Mostyn was, and is, my evil genius."

"Do not cry so bitterly, Dora, it hurts me. Let us think. Is there nothing you can do?"

"I want to go to mother." Then she drew Ethel's head close to her and whispered a few words, and Ethel answered, "You poor little one, you shall go to your mother. Where is she?"

"She will be in London next week, and I must see her. He will not let me go, but go I must if I die for it. Mrs. John Thomas Rawdon told me what to do, and I have been following her advice."

Ethel did not ask what it was, but added,

"If Tyrrel and I can help you, send for us. We will come. And, Dora, do stop weeping, and be brave. Remember you are an American woman. Your father has often told me how you could ride with Indians or cowboys and shoot with any miner in Colorado. A bully like Mostyn is always a coward. Lift up your heart and stand for every one of your rights. You will find plenty of friends to stand with you." And with the words she took her by the hands and raised her to her feet, and looked at her with such a beaming, courageous smile that Dora caught its spirit, and promised to insist on her claims for rest and sleep.

"When shall I come again, Dora?"

"Not till I send for you. Mother will be in London next Wednesday at the Savoy. I intend to leave here Wednesday some time, and may need you; will you come?"

"Surely, both Tyrrel and I."

Then the time being on a dangerous line they parted. But Ethel could think of nothing and talk of nothing but the frightful change in her friend, and the unceasing misery which had produced it. Tyrrel shared all her indignation. The slow torture of any creature was an intolerable crime in his eyes, but when the brutality was exercised on a woman, and on a countrywoman, he was roused to the highest pitch of indignation.

When Wednesday arrived he did not leave the house, but waited with Ethel for the message they confidently expected. It came about five o'clock--urgent, imperative, entreating, "Come, for G.o.d's sake! He will kill me."

The carriage was ready, and in half an hour they were at Mostyn Hall. No one answered their summons, but as they stood listening and waiting, a shrill cry of pain and anger pierced the silence. It was followed by loud voices and a confused noise--noise of many talking and exclaiming.