Miss Arnott's Marriage Part 16

"No? Did you? I see. That's why you were crying your heart out on the gra.s.s there, because you thought they were going to keep me from you four-and-twenty hours longer. The brutes! I should have thought you'd have found it damp enough without wanting to make it damper; but there's no accounting for tastes; yours always were your own, and I recognise the compliment. As it happens, when a gentleman's time's up on a Sunday, they let him tear himself away from them on the Sat.u.r.day.

Sunday's what they call a _dies non_; you're a lady of education, so you know what that means. You were right in reckoning that the twelve months for which they tore a husband from his wife wasn't up until tomorrow; but it seems that you didn't reckon for that little peculiarity, on account of which I said goodbye to them this morning.

See?"

"But--I don't understand!"

She threw out her arms with a gesture which was eloquent of the confusion--and worse--with which his sudden apparition had filled her.

"No? what don't you understand? It all seems to me clear enough; but, perhaps, you always were a trifle dull."

"I don't understand how you've found me! how it is that you are here!"

"Oh, that's it, is it? Now I begin to catch on. That's the simplest part of the lot. You--the wife of my bosom, the partner of my joys and sorrows--particularly of my sorrows--you never wrote me a line; you never took the slightest interest in my hard fate. For all you cared I might have died. I don't like to think that you really didn't care, but that's what it looked like." He grinned, as if he had said something humorous. "But I had a friend--a true friend--one. That friend met me this morning, where my wife ought to have met me, at the prison gates.

From that friend I learned of the surprising things which had happened to you; how you had come into a fortune--a fortune beyond the dreams of avarice. It seems strange that, under the circ.u.mstances, you weren't outside the prison, with a coach and four, waiting to bear me away in triumph to your gilded bowers. Ah-h!" He emitted a sound which might have been meant for a sigh. "But I bore up--with the aid of the first bottle of champagne I'd tasted since I saw you last--the gift of my one true friend. So, as you hadn't come to me, I came to you. You might have bungled up the dates or something; there's never any telling. I knew you'd be glad to see me--your loving husband, dear. My late arrival is due to no fault of mine; it's that beastly railway. I couldn't make out which was the proper station for this little shanty of yours! and it seems I took a ticket for the wrong one. Found myself stranded in a G.o.d-forsaken hole; no conveyance to be got; no more trains until tomorrow. So I started to walk the distance. They told me it was about five miles. About five miles! I'd like to make 'em cover it as five against the clock; they'd learn! When I'd gone about ten I met an idiot who told me there was a short cut, and set me on it. Short cut! If there's a longer cut anywhere I shouldn't care to strike it.

Directly I'd seen the back of him it came on pitch dark; and there was I, in a pathless wilderness, with no more idea of where I was going than the man in the moon. For the last two hours I've been forcing my way through what seemed to me to be a virgin forest. I've had a time!

But now I've found you, by what looks very like a miracle; and all's well that ends well. So give us a kiss, like a good girl, and say you're glad to see me. Come and salute your husband."

"You're not my husband!"

"Not--I say! Don't go and throw away your character like that. As my wife, it's precious to me, if it isn't to you."

"What do you suppose you're going to do now?"

"Now?--Do you mean this minute? Well, I did dream of a tender meeting; you know the kind of thing. As a loving wife you ought to, but, perhaps, you'd like to put that off till a little later. Now I suppose we're going up together to the little home of which I've heard, and have come so far to see; and there--well, there we'll have the tender meeting."

"I advise you not to set foot upon my ground!"

"Your ground? Our ground, you mean. Really, how you do mix things up."

"My ground, I mean. You have no more to do with it than--than the jailer who let you out of the prison gate, to prey upon the world again."

She had evidently learnt her lesson from Mr Morice in the nick of time.

"Don't be silly; you don't know what you're talking about. What's yours is mine; what's the wife's the husband's."

"That's a lie, and you know it. I know it's a lie, as you'll discover.

This side of that fence is my property. If you trespa.s.s on it I'll summon my gamekeepers--there are always plenty of them about--and I'll have you thrown off it. What you do on the other side of the fence is no business of mine. That belongs to someone who is well able to deal with men like you."

"This is a cheerful hearing, upon my word! Can this virago be the loving wife I've come all this way to see? No, it can't be--it must be a delusion. Let me tell you again--don't be silly. Where the wife is the husband's a perfect right to be. That's the law of England and it's the law of G.o.d."

"It's neither when the husband is such as you. Let me repeat my advice to you--don't trespa.s.s on my ground."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to find a gamekeeper; to warn him that bad characters are about, and to instruct him how to deal with them."

"Stop! don't talk nonsense to me like that! Have you forgotten what kind of man I am?"

"Have I forgotten! As if I ever could forget!"

"Then mind it! Come here! Where are you off to? Did you hear me tell you to come here?"

"I repeat, I'm going to find a gamekeeper. I heard you tell me; but I pay no more attention to what you tell me than the trunk of that tree."

"By----! we'll see about that!"

Descending from the fence, he moved towards her. She stopped, turned and faced him.

"What do you think you're going to do?"

"I'm going to see you mind me--that's what I'm going to do."

"Does that mean that you're going to a.s.sault me, as you used to?"

He laughed.

"a.s.sault you! Not much! Look here. What's the good of your carrying on like this? Why can't you behave like a reasonable girl, and talk sensibly?" She looked him steadily in the face; then turned on her heel. "You'd better stand still! I'm your husband; you're my wife. It's my duty to see that you obey me, and I'm going to do my duty. So just you mark my words!"

"Husband! Duty! You unutterable thing! Don't touch me! Take your hand from off my shoulder!"

"Then you stand still. I'm not going to have you slip through my fingers, and leave me here, and have the laugh on me; so don't you make any mistake, my girl. You've never had the laugh on me yet, and you never will."

"If you don't take your hand off my shoulder, I'll kill you."

Again he laughed.

"It strikes me that if there's going to be any killing done it's I who'll do it. You're getting my temper up, like you used to; and when you've got it fairly up there'll be trouble. You stand still! Do you hear me? Your eyes-- What's that?" With a sudden, vigorous movement she broke from his retaining grasp. "Would you! I'll teach you!"

He advanced, evidently meaning to renew his grip upon her shoulders.

Before he could do so she swung out her right arm with all the strength at her command, and struck him in the face. Not antic.i.p.ating such violent measures, taken unawares, he staggered blindly backwards. Ere he could recover himself she had sprung round, and was rus.h.i.+ng at the top of her speed towards the narrow, winding path along which she had come. As she gained it the moon pa.s.sed behind the clouds.

CHAPTER XII

WHAT SHE HEARD, SAW AND FOUND

She hurried along as rapidly as she could in the darkness which had followed the eclipse of the moon. Momentarily she expected to hear his footsteps coming after her. But, so far as she was able to tell, there was not a sound which suggested pursuit. Something, possibly, had prevented his giving immediate chase. In the darkness it was impossible to see where she was going, or to make out surrounding objects. What seemed to be the branch of a tree struck her across the face with such force that it brought her to an instant standing. She stood still, trembling from head to foot. The collision had partly stunned her. Her face was smarting, where it had come in contact with the unseen obstacle. For the moment she was demoralised, incapable of moving in any direction. Her breath was coming in great gasps. It would have needed very little to have made her burst into tears.

As she was gradually regaining her equilibrium, her presence of mind, a sound crashed through the darkness, which started her trembling worse than ever. It was a gunshot. Quite close at hand. So close that the flash of it flamed before her eyes. In the air about her was the smell of the powder.

Silence followed, which was the more striking, because it was contrasted with the preceding thunderclap. What had happened? Who had fired? at what? and where? The gun had been fired by someone who was on the left of where she was then standing, possibly within twenty or thirty feet. The direction of the aim, it seemed, had been at something behind her. What was there behind her at which anyone would be likely to fire, in that reckless fas.h.i.+on, at that hour of the night? Robert Champion was behind her; but the idea that anyone--

The silence was broken. Someone was striding through the brushwood towards the place which had been aimed at. She became conscious of another sound, which made her heart stand still. Was not someone groaning, as if in pain? Someone who, also, was behind her? Suddenly there was the sound of voices. The person who had strode through the underwood was speaking to the person who was groaning. Apparently she was farther off than she had supposed, or they were speaking in m.u.f.fled tones. She could only just distinguish voices. Who were the speakers, and what they said, she had not a notion. The colloquy was but a brief one. Again there was a sound of footsteps, which retreated; then, again, groans.

What did it mean? What had happened? who had come and gone? who had been the speakers? of what had they been talking? The problem was a knotty one. Should she go back and solve it? The groans which continued, and, if anything, increased in vigour, were in themselves a sufficiently strenuous appeal. That someone was in pain was evident--wounded, perhaps seriously. It seemed that whoever was responsible for that gunshot had, with complete callousness, left his victim to his fate. And he might be dying! Whoever it was, she could not let him die without, at least, attempting succour. If she did, she would be a partic.i.p.ant in a crime of which--to use an Iris.h.i.+sm--she had not only been an unseen, but also an unseeing, witness. If she let this man die without doing something to help him live, his blood would be on her hands also; certainly, she would feel it was. However repugnant the task might be, she must return and proffer aid.

She had just brought herself to the sticking point, and was about to retrace her steps, when, once more, she became conscious of someone being in movement. But, this time, not only did it come from another direction, but it had an entirely different quality. Before, there had been no attempt at concealment. Whoever had gone striding through the underwood, had apparently cared nothing for being either seen nor heard. Whoever was moving now, unless the girl's imagination played her a trick--was desirous of being neither seen nor heard. There was a stealthy quality in the movements, as if someone were stealing softly through the brushwood, taking cautious steps, keenly on the alert against hidden listeners.