Witness for the Defence Part 31

"You knew that I would not go beyond," she said.

"Yes."

"But you did not know why?" There was a note of urgency in her voice.

"I guessed," he said. "I mean I played with guesses--oh not seriously,"

and he laughed. "There runs Stane Street from Chichester to London and through London to the great North Wall. Up that road the Romans marched and back by that road they returned to their galleys in the water there by Chichester. I pictured you living in those days, a Boadicea of the Weald who had set her heart, against her will, on some das.h.i.+ng captain of old Rome camped here on the top of Bignor Hill. You crept from your own people at night to meet him in the lane at the bottom. Then came week after week when the street rang with the tramp of soldiers returning from London and Lichfield and the North to embark in their boats for Gaul and Rome."

"They took my captain with them?" cried Stella, laughing with him at the conceit.

"Yes, so my fable ran. He pined for the circus and the theatre and the painted ladies, so he went willingly."

"The brute," cried Stella. "And so I broke my heart over a decadent philanderer in a suit of bright bra.s.s clothes and remember it thirteen hundred years afterwards in another life! Thank you, Captain Hazlewood!"

"No, you don't actually remember it, Stella, but you have a feeling that round about Stane Street you once suffered great humiliation and unhappiness." And suddenly Stella rode swiftly past him, but in a moment she waited for him and showed him a face of smiles.

"You see I have crossed Stane Street to-day, d.i.c.k," she said. "We'll ride on to Arundel."

"Yes," answered d.i.c.k, "my story won't do," and he remembered a sentence of hers spoken an hour and a half ago: "My thoughts do not go back as far as you think."

At all events she was emanc.i.p.ated to-day, for they rode on until at the end of a long gentle slope the great arch of the gate into Arundel Park gleamed white in a line of tall dark trees.

CHAPTER XXI

THE LETTER IS WRITTEN

But Stella's confidence did not live long. Mr. Hazlewood was a child at deceptions; and day by day his anxieties increased. His friends argued with him--his folly and weakness were the themes--and he must needs repel the argument though his thoughts echoed every word they used. Never was a man brought to such a piteous depth of misery by the practice of his own theories. He sat by the hour at his desk, burying his face amongst his papers if d.i.c.k came into the room, with a great show of occupation. He could hardly bear to contemplate the marriage of his son, yet day and night he must think of it and search for expedients which might put an end to the trouble and let him walk free again with his head raised high.

But there were only the two expedients. He must speak out his fears that justice had miscarried, and that device his vanity forbade; or he must adopt Pettifer's suggestion, and from that he shrank almost as much. He began to resent the presence of Stella Ballantyne and he showed it.

Sometimes a friendliness, so excessive that it was almost hysterical, betrayed him; more usually a discomfort and constraint. He avoided her if by any means he could; if he could not quite avoid her an excuse of business was always on his lips.

"Your father hates me, d.i.c.k," she said. "He was my friend until I touched his own life. Then I was in the black books in a second."

d.i.c.k would not hear of it.

"You were never in the black books at all, Stella," he said, comforting her as well as he could. "We knew that there would be a little struggle, didn't we? But the worst of that's over. You make friends daily."

"Not with your father, d.i.c.k. I go back with him. Ever since that night--it's three weeks ago now--when you took me home from Little Beeding."

"No," cried d.i.c.k, but Stella nodded her head gloomily.

"Mr. Pettifer dined here that night. He's an enemy of mine."

"Stella," young Hazlewood remonstrated, "you see enemies everywhere," and upon that Stella broke out with a quivering troubled face.

"Is it wonderful? Oh, d.i.c.k, I couldn't lose you! A month ago--before that night--yes. Nothing had been said. But now! I couldn't, I couldn't! I have often thought it would be better for me to go right away and never see you again. And--and I have tried to tell you something, d.i.c.k, ever so many times."

"Yes?" said d.i.c.k. He slipped his arm through hers and held her close to him, as though to give her courage and security. "Yes, Stella?" and he stood very still.

"I mean," she said, looking down upon the ground, "that I have tried to tell you that I wouldn't suffer so very much if we did part, but I never could do it. My lips shook so, I never could speak the words." Then her voice ran up into a laugh. "To think of your living in a house with somebody else! Oh no!"

"You need have no fear of that, Stella."

They were in the garden of Little Beeding and they walked across the meadow towards her cottage, talking very earnestly. Mr. Hazlewood was watching them secretly from the window of the library. He saw that d.i.c.k was pleading and she hanging in doubt; and a great wave of anger surged over him that d.i.c.k should have to plead to her at all, he who was giving everything--even his own future.

"King's Bench Walk," he muttered to himself, taking from the drawer of his writing-table a slip of paper on which he had written the address lest he should forget it. "Yes, that's the address," and he looked at it for a long time very doubtfully. Suppose that his suspicions were correct! His heart sank at the supposition. Surely he would be justified in setting any trap. But he shut the drawer violently and turned away from his writing-table. Even his pamphlets had become trivial in his eyes. He was brought face to face with real pa.s.sions and real facts, he had been fetched out from his cloister and was blinking miserably in a full measure of daylight. How long could he endure it, he wondered?

The question was settled for him that very evening. He and his son were taking their coffee on a paved terrace by the lawn after dinner. It was a dark quiet night, with a clear sky of golden stars. Across the meadow the lights shone in the windows of Stella's cottage.

"Father," said d.i.c.k, after they had sat in a constrained silence for a little while, "why don't you like Stella any longer?"

The old man bl.u.s.tered in reply:

"A lawyer's question, Richard. I object to it very strongly. You a.s.sume that I have ceased to like her."

"It's extremely evident," said d.i.c.k drily. "Stella has noticed it."

"And complained to you of course," cried Mr. Hazlewood resentfully.

"Stella doesn't complain," and then d.i.c.k leaned over and spoke in the full quiet voice which his father had grown to dread. There rang in it so much of true feeling and resolution.

"There can be no backing down now. We are both agreed upon that, aren't we? Imagine for an instant that I were first to blazon my trust in a woman whom others suspected by becoming engaged to her and then endorsed their suspicions by breaking off the engagement! Suppose that I were to do that!"

Mr. Hazlewood allowed his longings to lead him astray. For a moment he hoped.

"Well?" he asked eagerly.

"You wouldn't think very much of me, would you? Not you nor any man. A cur--that would be the word, the only word, wouldn't it?"

But Mr. Hazlewood refused to answer that question. He looked behind him to make sure that none of the servants were within hearing. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper.

"What if Stella has deceived you, d.i.c.k?"

It was too dark for him to see the smile upon his son's face, but he heard the reply, and the confidence of it stung him to exasperation.

"She hasn't done that," said d.i.c.k. "If you are sure of nothing else, sir, you may be quite certain of what I am telling you now. She hasn't done that."

He remained silent for a few moments waiting for any rejoinder, and getting none he continued:

"There's something else I wanted to speak to you about."

"Yes?"

"The date of our marriage."