The Great House Part 20

At last, "How long they are!" Mary cried. "What are they doing? Are they never----"

She stopped. The footsteps of two men coming through the hall had reached her ears, and she recognized the tread of one--recognized it with a rush of relief so great, of thankfulness so overwhelming that she was startled and might well have been more than startled, had she been free to think of anything but the lost man. It was Ba.s.set's step, and she knew it--she would have known it, she felt, among a hundred! He had come! An instant later he stood in the doorway, booted and travel-stained, his whip in his hand, just as he had dropped from the saddle--and with a face grave indeed, but calm and confident. He seemed to her to bring relief, help, comfort, safety, all in one!

"Oh!" she cried. "You are here! How--how good of you!"

"Not good at all," he answered, advancing to the table and quietly taking off his gloves. "Your messenger met me half-way to Blore. I was coming into Riddsley to a meeting. I had only to ride on. Of course I came."

"But the meeting?" she asked fearfully. Was he only come to go again?

"D--n the meeting!" he answered, moved to anger by the girl's pale face. "Will you give me a cup of tea, Toft? I will hear Miss Audley's account first. Keep Petch and the other man. We shall want them. In twenty minutes I'll talk to you. That will do."

Ah, with what grat.i.tude, with what infinite relief, did Mary hear his tone of authority! He watched Toft out of the room and, alone with her, he looked at her. He saw that her hand shook as she filled the teapot, that her lips quivered, that she tried to speak and could not. And he felt an infinite love and pity, though he drove both out of his voice when he spoke. "Yes, tea first," he said coolly, as he took off his riding coat. "I've had a long journey. You must take another cup with me. You can leave things to me now. Yes, two lumps, please, and not too strong." He knocked together the logs, and warmed his hands, stooping over the fire with his back to her. Then he took his place at the table, and when he had drunk half a cup of tea, "Now," he said, "will you tell me the story from the beginning. And take time. More haste, less speed, you know."

With a calmness that surprised herself, Mary told the tale. She described the first alarm, the hunt through the house, the discoveries in the bedroom, Toft's breakdown, last of all the search through the park and the finding of the flask.

He listened gravely, asking a question now and then. When she had done, "What of Toft?" he inquired. "Not been very active, has he? Not given you much help?"

"No! But how did you guess?" she asked in surprise.

"I'm afraid that Toft knows more than he has told you. For the rest," he looked at her kindly, "I want you to give up the hope of finding your uncle alive. I have none. But I think I can promise you that there has been no suffering. If it turns out as I imagine, he was dead before he was missed. What the doctor expected has happened. That is all."

"I don't understand," she said.

"And I don't want to say more until I know for certain. May I ring for Toft?" She nodded. He rang, and after a pause, during which he stood, silent and waiting, the servant came in. He shot a swift glance at them, and dropped his eyes.

"Tell Petch and the other man to be ready to start with us in five minutes," Ba.s.set said. "Let them fetch a hurdle, and do you put a mattress on it. I suppose--you made sure he was dead, Toft, before you left him?"

The man flinched before the sudden question, but he showed less emotion than Mary. Perhaps he had expected it. After a pause, during which Ba.s.set did not take his eyes from him, "I made sure," he said in a low voice. "As G.o.d sees me, I did! But if you think I raised a hand to him----"

"I don't!" Ba.s.set said sternly. "I don't think so badly of you as that. But nothing but frankness can save you now. Is he in the Great House?"

Toft opened his mouth, but he seemed unable to speak. He nodded.

"What about the flask?"

"I dropped it," the man muttered. He turned a shade paler. "I could not bear to think he was lying there. I thought it would lead the search--that way, and they would find him."

"I see. That's enough now. Be ready to start at once."

The man went out. "Good heavens!" Mary cried. She was horror-stricken. "And he has known it all this time! Do you think that he--he had any part----"

"Oh no. He was alone with Mr. Audley when he collapsed, and he lost his head. They were together in the Great House--it was a difficult position--and he did not see his way to explain. He may have seen some advantage in gaining time--I don't know. The first thing to be done is to bring your uncle home. I will see to that. You have borne up n.o.bly--you have done your part. Do you go to bed now."

Something in his tone, and in his thought for her, brought old times to Mary's mind and the blood to her pale cheek. She did not say no, but she would not go to bed. She made Etruria come to her, and the two girls sat in the parlor listening and waiting, moving only when it was necessary to snuff the candles. It was a grim vigil. An hour pa.s.sed, two hours. At length they caught the first distant murmur, the tread of men who moved slowly and heavily under a burden--there are few who have not at one time or another heard that sound. Little by little the shuffling feet, the subdued orders, the jar of a stumbling bearer, drew nearer, became more clear. A gust of wind swept through the hall, and moaned upwards through the ancient house. The candles on the table flickered. And still the two sat spell-bound, clasping cold hands, as the unseen procession pa.s.sed over the threshold, and for the last time John Audley came home to sleep amid his books--heedless now of right or claim, or rank or blood.

A few minutes later Ba.s.set entered the parlor. His face betrayed his fatigue, and his first act was to go to the sideboard and drink a gla.s.s of wine. Mary saw that his hand shook as he raised the gla.s.s, and grat.i.tude for what he had done for her brought the tears to her eyes. He stood a moment, leaning in utter weariness against the wall--he had ridden far that day. And Mary had been no woman if she had not drawn comparisons.

Opportunity had served him, and had not served the other. Nor, had her betrothed been here, could he have helped her in this pinch. He could not have taken Ba.s.set's place, nor with all the will in the world could he have done what Ba.s.set had done.

That was plain. Yet deep down in her there stirred a faint resentment, a complaint hardly acknowledged. Audley was not here, but he might have been. It was his doing that she had not told her uncle, and that John Audley had pa.s.sed away in ignorance. It was his doing that in her trouble she had had to lean on the other. It was not the first time during the long hours of the day that the thought had come to her; and though she had put it away, as she put it away now, the opening flower of love is delicate--the showers pa.s.s but leave their mark.

When Etruria had slipped out, and left them, Ba.s.set came forward, and warmed himself at the fire. "Perhaps it is as well you did not go to bed," he said. "You can go now with an easy mind. It was as I thought--he lay on the stairs of the Great House and he had been dead many hours. Dr. Pepper will tell us more to-morrow, but I have no doubt that he died of syncope brought on by exertion. Toft had tried to give him brandy."

Shocked and grieved, yet sensible of relief, she was silent for a time. She had known John Audley less than a year, but he had been good to her in his way and she sorrowed for him. But at least she was freed from the nightmare which had ridden her all day. Or was she? "May I know what took him there?" she asked in a low voice. "And Toft?"

"He believed that there were papers in the Great House, which would prove his claim. It was an obsession. He asked me more than once to go with him and search for them, and I refused. He fell back on Toft. They had begun to search--so Toft tells me--when Mr. Audley was taken ill. Before he could get him down the stairs, the end came. He sank down and died."

With a shudder Mary pictured the scene in the empty house. She saw the light of the lantern fall on the huddled group, as the panic-stricken servant strove to pour brandy between the lips of the dying man; and truly she was thankful that in this strait she had Ba.s.set to support her, to a.s.sist her, to advise her! "It is very dreadful," she said. "I do not wonder that Toft gave way. But had he--had my uncle--any right to be there?"

"In his opinion, yes. And if the papers were there, they were his papers, the house was his, all was his. In my opinion he was wrong. But if he believed anything, he believed that he was justified in what he did."

"I am glad of that!"

"There must be an inquest, I am afraid," Ba.s.set continued. "One or two will know, and one or two more will guess what Mr. Audley's errand was. But Lord Audley will have nothing to gain by moving in it. And if only for your sake--but you must go to bed. Etruria is waiting in the hall. I will send her to you. Good-night."

She stood up. She wished to thank him, she longed to say something, anything, which would convey to him what his coming had been to her. But she could not find words, she was tongue-tied. And Etruria came in.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE NEWS FROM RIDDSLEY.

The business which had taken Audley away on the morrow of his engagement had been no mere pretext. The crisis in political life which Peel's return to office had brought about was one of those upheavals which are of rare promise to the adventurous. The wise foresaw that the party which Sir Robert had led would be riven from top to bottom. Old allies would be flung into opposing camps, and would be reaching out every way for support. New men would be learning their value, and to those who dared, all things might be added. Places, prizes, honors, all might be the reward of those who knew how to choose their side with prudence and to support it with courage. The clubs were like hives of bees. All day long and far into the winter night Pall Mall roared under the wheels of carriages. About the doors of Whitehall Gardens, where Peel lived, men gathered like vultures about the prey. And, lo, in a twinkling and as by magic the Conservative party vanished in a cloud of dust, to reappear a few days later in the guise of Peelites and Protectionists--Siamese twins, who would not live together, and could not live apart.

At such a time it was Audley's first interest to be as near as possible to the hub of things and to place himself in evidence as a man concerned. He had a little influence in the Foreign Office, he had his vote in the House of Lords. And though he did not think that these would suffice, he trusted that, reinforced by the belief that he carried the seat at Riddsley in his pocket, they might be worth something to him.

Unfortunately he could deal with one side only. If Stubbs were right he could pa.s.s for the owner of the borough only as long as he opposed Sir Robert. He could return the younger Mottisfont and have the credit of returning him, in the landed interest; but however much it might suit his book--and it was of that book he was thinking as he travelled to Lord Seabourne's--he could not, if Stubbs were right, return a member in the other interest.

Now when a man can sell to one party only, tact is needed if he is to make a good bargain. Audley saw this. But he knew his own qualities and he did not despair. The occasion was unique, and he thought that it would be odd if he could not pluck from the confusion something worth having; some place under the Foreign Office, a minor emba.s.sy, a mission, something worth two, or three, or even four thousand a year.

He travelled up to town thinking steadily of the course he would pursue, and telling himself that he must be as cunning as the serpent and as gentle as the dove. He must let no whip cajole him, and no Tory browbeat him. For he had only this to look to now: a rich marriage was no longer among the possibilities. Not that he regretted his decision in that matter as yet, but at times he wondered at it. He told himself that he had been impulsive, and setting this down to the charms of his mistress he gave himself credit for disinterested motives. And then, too, he had made himself safe!

Still there were difficulties in the way of his ambition, which appeared more clearly at Seabourne Castle, where Lady Adela was a fellow-guest, and in London than at Riddsley; difficulties of shrewd whips, who knew the history of the borough by heart, and had figures at their fingers' ends; difficulties of arrogant leaders, who talked of his duty to the land and a.s.sumed that duty was its own reward. Above all, there was the difficulty that he could only sell to the party that was out of office and must pay in promises--bills drawn at long dates and for which no discounters could be found. For who could say when the landed interest, made up of stupid bull-headed men like Lord George Bentinck and Stubbs, a party without a leader and with divided counsels, would be in power? They were a mob rather than a party, and like every other mob were ready to sacrifice future prospects to present revenge.

That was a terrible difficulty, and his lords.h.i.+p did not see how he was to get over it. To the Peelites who could pay, cash down, in honors and places, he could not sell. Nor to the Liberals under little Lord John, though to their promises some prospect of office gave value. So that at times he almost despaired. For he had only this to look to now; if he failed in this he would have love and he would have Mary, and he would have safety, but very little besides. If his word had not been given to Mary, he might almost have reconsidered the matter.

The die was cast, however. Yet many a man has believed this, and then one fine morning he has begun to wonder if it is so--the cast was such an unlucky, if not an unfair one! And presently he has seen that at the cost of a little pride, or a little consistency, or what not, he might call the game drawn. That is, he might--if he were not the soul of honor that he is!

By and by under the stress of circ.u.mstances his lords.h.i.+p began to consider that point. He did not draw back, he did not propose to draw back; but he thought that he would keep the door behind him ajar. To begin with, he did not overwhelm Mary with letters--his public engagements were so many; and when he wrote he wrote on ordinary matters. His pen ran more glibly on party gossip than on their joint future; he wrote as he might have written to a cousin rather than to his sweetheart. But he told himself that Mary was not versed in love letters, nor very pa.s.sionate. She would expect no more.

Then one fine morning he had a letter from Stubbs, which told him that there was to be a real contest in Riddsley, that the Horn and Corn platform was to be challenged, and that the a.s.sailant was Peter Ba.s.set. Stubbs added that the Working Men's Inst.i.tute was beside itself with joy, that Hatton's and Banfield's hands were solid for repeal, and that the fight would be real, but that the issue was a foregone conclusion.

The news was not altogether unwelcome. The contest gave value to the seat, and increased my lord's claim; on that party, unfortunately, they could only pay in promises. It also tickled my lord's vanity. His rival, unhorsed in the lists of love, had betaken himself, it seemed, to other lists, in which he would as surely be beaten.

"Poor beggar!" Audley thought. "He was always a day late! Always came in second! I don't know that I ever knew anything more like him than this! From the day I first saw him, standing behind John Audley's counsel at the suit, right to this day, he has always been a loser!"

And he smiled as he recalled the poor figure Ba.s.set had cut as a squire of dames.

A week later Stubbs wrote again, and this time his news was startling. John Audley was dead. Stubbs wrote in the first alarm of the discovery, word of which had just been brought into the town. He knew no particulars, but thought that his lords.h.i.+p should be among the first to learn the fact. He added a hasty postscript, in which he said that Mr. Ba.s.set was proving himself a stronger candidate than either side had expected, and that not only were the bra.s.s-workers with him but a few of the smaller fry of tradesmen, caught by his cry of cheap bread. Stubbs closed, however, with the a.s.surance that the landed interest would carry it by a solid majority.

"D--n their impudence!" Lord Audley exclaimed. And after that he gave no further heed to the postscript. As long as the issue was certain, the election was Mottisfont's and Stubbs's affair. As for Ba.s.set, the more money he chose to waste the better.

But John Audley's death was news--it was great news! So he was gone at last--the man whom he had always regarded as a menace! Whom he had feared, whose very name had rung mischief in his ears, by whom, during many a sleepless night, he had seen himself ousted from all that he had gained from t.i.tle, income, lands, position! He was gone at last; and gone with him were the menace, the danger, the night alarms, the whole pile of gloomy fancies which apprehension had built up!

The relief was immense. Audley read the letter twice, and it seemed to him that a weight was lifted from him. John Audley was dead. In his dressing-gown and smoking-cap my lord paced his rooms at the Albany and said again and again, "He's dead! By gad, he's dead!" Later, he could not refrain from the thought that if the death had taken place a few weeks earlier, in that first attack, he would have been under no temptation to make himself safe. As it was--but he did not pursue the thought. He only reflected that he had followed love handsomely!

A day later a third letter came from Stubbs, and one from Mary. The tidings they brought were such that my lord's face fell as he read them, and he swore more than once over them. John Audley, the lawyer wrote, had been found dead in the Great House. He had been found lying on the stairs, a lantern beside him. Stubbs had visited the house the moment the facts became known. He had examined the muniment room and found part of the wall broken down, and in the room two boxes of papers which had been taken from a recess which the breach had disclosed. One of the boxes had been broken open. At present Stubbs could only say that the papers had been disturbed, he could not say whether any were missing. He begged his lords.h.i.+p--he was much disturbed, it was clear--to come down as quickly as possible. In the meantime, he would go through the papers and prepare a report. They appeared to be family doc.u.ments, old, and not hitherto known to his lords.h.i.+p's advisers.

Audley was still swearing, when his man came in. "Will you wear the black velvet vest, my lord?" he asked, "or the flowered satin?"

"Go to the devil!" his master cried--so furiously that the man fled without more.

When he was gone Audley read the letter again, and came to the conclusion that in making himself safe he had builded more wisely than he knew. For who could say what John Audley had found? Or who, through those papers, had a hold on him? He remembered the manservant's visit, and the thing looked black. Very black. Alive or dead, John Audley threatened him.

Then he felt bitterly angry with Stubbs. There had been the most shocking carelessness. Had he not himself pointed out what was going on? Had he not put it to Stubbs that the place should be guarded? But the lawyer, stubborn in his belief that there were no papers there, had done nothing. Nothing! And this had come of it! This which might spell ruin!

Or, no. Stubbs had indeed done his best to ruin him, but he had saved himself. He turned with relief to Mary's letter.

It was written sadly, and it was rather cold. He noticed this, but her tone did not alarm him, because he set it down to the reserve of his own letters.

He took care to answer this letter, however, by that day's post, and he wrote more affectionately than before--as if her trouble had broken down a reserve natural to him. He wrote with tact, too. He could not attend the funeral; the dead man's feelings towards him forbade that he should. But his agent would attend, and his carriage and servants. When he had written the letter he was satisfied with it: more than satisfied when he had added a phrase implying that their happiness would not long be postponed.

After he had posted the letter he wondered if she would expect him to come to her. It was a lonely house and with death in it--but no, in the circ.u.mstances it was not possible. He would go down to The b.u.t.terflies next day. That would be the most that could be expected of him. He would be at hand if she needed anything.

But when the next day came he did not go. A letter from a man belonging to the inner circle of politics reached him. The great man, who had been and might be again in the Cabinet, suggested a meeting. Nothing came of the meeting--it was one of those will-of-the-wisps that draw the unwary on until they find themselves committed. But it kept Audley in London, and it was not until the evening of Monday, the day of the funeral, that, chilled and out of temper, after posting the last stage from Stafford, he reached his quarters at The b.u.t.terflies, and gave short answers to Mrs. Jenkinson's inquiries after his health.

"Poor dear young man!" she said, when she rejoined her sisters. "He has a kind heart and he feels it. Mr. John was Mr. John, and odd, very odd. But still he was an Audley!"

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE AUDLEY BIBLE.

Angry with Stubbs as he was--and with some reason--Lord Audley was not the man to bite off his nose to spite his face. He pondered long what he would say to him, and more than once he rehea.r.s.ed the scene, toning down this phrase and pruning that. For he knew that after all Stubbs was a good agent. He was honest, he thought much and made much of the property, and nothing would be gained by changing him. Then his influence in the borough was such that even if my lord quarrelled with him, Mottisfont would hardly venture to discard him.

For these reasons Audley had no mind to break with his agent. But he did wish to punish him. He did wish to make his displeasure felt. And he wished this the more because he began to suspect that if Stubbs had been less bigoted, he might have carried the borough the way he wished--the way that would pay him best.

Stubbs on his side foresaw an unpleasant quarter of an hour. He had been too easy. He had paid too little heed to John Audley's trespa.s.ses, and had let things pa.s.s that he should have stopped. Then, too, he had been over-positive that there were no more doc.u.ments at the Great House. Evil had not come of this, but it might have; and he made up his mind to hear some hard words.

But when he obeyed my lord's summons his reception tried his patience. A bright fire burned in the grate, half a dozen wax candles shed a softened light on the room. The wine stood at Audley's elbow, and his gla.s.s was half full. But he did not give Stubbs even two fingers, nor did he ask him to take wine. And his tone was colder than Stubbs had ever known it. He made it plain that he was receiving a servant, and a servant with whom he was displeased.

Still he was Lord Audley, something of divine right survived in him, and Stubbs knew that he had been himself in the wrong. He took the bull by the horns. "You are displeased, my lord," he said, as he took the seat to which the other pointed. "And I admit with some cause. I have been mistaken and, perhaps, a little remiss! But it is the exception, and it will be a lesson to me. I am sorry, my lord," he added frankly. "I can say no more than that."

"And much good that will do us," my lord growled, "in certain events, Mr. Stubbs!"

"At any rate it will be a sharp lesson to me," Stubbs replied. "It has cost Mr. Audley his life."

"He had no right to be there!"

"No, my lord, he had no right to be there. But he would not have been there if I had seen that the place was properly secured. I take all the blame."

"Unfortunately," the other flung at him contemptuously, "you cannot pay the penalty; that may fall upon me. Anyway, it was a d--d silly thing, Mr. Stubbs, to leave the place open, and you see what has come of it."

"I cannot deny it, my lord," Stubbs said patiently. "But I hope that nothing will come of it. I will tell your lords.h.i.+p first what my own observations were. I made a careful examination of the two chests of papers and I came to the conclusion that Mr. Audley had done little more than open the first when he was taken ill. One chest showed some disturbance. The upper layer had been taken out and replaced. The other box had not been opened."

"What if he found what he wanted and searched no further?" Audley asked grimly. "But the point of the matter does not lie there. It lies in another direction, as I should have thought any lawyer would see."

"My lord?"

"Who was with him?" Lord Audley rapped the table with his fingers. "That's the point, sir! Who was with him?"

"I think I have ascertained that," Stubbs replied, less put out than his employer expected. "I have little doubt that his man-servant, a man called Toft, was with him."

"Ha!" the other exclaimed, "I expected that!"

Stubbs raised his eyebrows. "You know him, my lord?"

"I know him for a d--d blackmailing villain!" Audley broke out. Then he remembered himself. He had not told Stubbs of the blackmailing. And, after all, what did it matter? He had made himself safe. Whatever papers he had found, John Audley was dead, and John Audley's heiress was going to be his wife! The danger to him was naught, and the blackmailer was already disarmed. Still he was not going to spare Stubbs by telling him that. Instead, "What did the boxes contain?" he asked ungraciously.

"Nothing of any value when I examined them, my lord. Old surrenders, fines, and recoveries with some ancient terriers. I could find no doc.u.ment among them that related to the t.i.tle."

"That may be," Audley retorted. "But John Audley expected to find something that related to the t.i.tle! He knew more than we knew. He knew that those boxes existed, and he knew what he expected to find in them."

"No doubt. And if your lords.h.i.+p had given me a little more time I should have explained before this that he was disappointed in his expectation; nay, more, that it was that disappointment--as I have little doubt--that caused his collapse and death."

"How the devil do you know that?"

"If your lords.h.i.+p will have patience I will explain," Stubbs said, a gleam of malice in his eyes. He rose from his seat and took from a chair beside the door a parcel which he had laid there on his entrance. "I have here that which he found, and that which I don't doubt caused his death."

"The deuce you have!" Audley cried, rising to his feet in his surprise. And he watched with all his eyes while the lawyer slowly untied the tape and spread wide the wrappers. The action disclosed a thick quarto volume bound in blue leather, sprinkled on the sides with silver b.u.t.terflies, and stamped with the arms of Audley. "Good G--d!" Audley continued, "the Family Bible!"

"Yes, the Family Bible," the lawyer answered, gazing at it complacently, "about which there was so much talk at the opening of the suit. It was identified by a score of references, called for by both sides, sought for high and low, and never produced!"