Chapter Thirty Eight.
“Give me your Confidence.”
It was Monday morning, and a bright and beautiful day. Three people sat at breakfast at Cranston Hall, the third being Frank Marsland, Roy’s quondam purchaser. The wintry sun shone brilliantly in a cloudless sky, though without power, for the hard frost lay in silvery patches, wholly unaffected by his searching beams.
“Do you feel like skating to-day, Marsland?” said Roland, breaking off from the discussion of a grand festival service they had attended at Wandsborough Church the night before, and as to the detail of which the guest had been seeking information from Olive.
“I should think so. Ice good, eh, Dorrien?”
“First-rate. I had it flooded last night, and it’ll be like glass.”
A sound of voices in the hall, then the door opened without ceremony, and there entered Eustace and his youngest sister, each armed with a pair of skates.
“Salve! All hail, Macbeth! Glorificamus, all round!” cried the former. “Roland, old chap, you don’t seem quite the thing. In the words of the poet, you look decidedly ‘chippy.’”
“Enough to make one, you ruffian, to have a cyclone like yourself bursting upon one’s quiet breakfast-room without any warning.”
“Haw! haw! Coffee, yes, decidedly. Breakfast? no—emphatically,” cried Eustace, running two replies into one. “And, Olive, I must say, it’s disgraceful of you, reared in the sweet seclusion of a virtuous rectory, only just sitting down to breakfast at ten o’clock. Disgraceful, I repeat.”
“Oh, Eusty, in the words of the poet—shut up!” laughed Olive. “Mr Marsland, I don’t think you’ve met my sister?” And she introduced them. Sophie had grown up a very pretty girl. Her vivacity, however, was dashed with a tinge of shyness in the company of strangers, which was rather “fetching.” Now she looked very engaging in her furry winter costume, her bright face sparkling with animation, and crowned by a becoming arrangement of golden hair. Marsland’s somewhat susceptible heart was impressed.
“No. But I think we should have broken the ice, anyhow, Mrs Dorrien,” he answered with a laugh.
“Break the ice? No you don’t,” cried the irrepressible Eustace. “At least not till this evening, when we flood it. And now, look sharp and finish the oats, good people, for we’ve come to pick you up, and Spelder Fields is over two miles off.”
“All right. I’ll send and order the waggonette,” said Roland, getting up.
“Waggonette be hanged!” was the ceremonious rejoinder. “We are going to ride Shanks His Mare. And I tell you what, Roland, you lazy dog, you had better do ditto. Some leg work, this gorgeous morning, will do you all the good in the world. Quite set you up again,” he grinned, with a wink at Marsland.
“Set me up, eh? But I turned in before you did!”
“Did he, Olive? No, I won’t bet. I’ll have no chance against your combined perjuries. But Roland, why didn’t you turn up at our place last night and feed, instead of sneaking off home. The dad was expecting you. He wanted to run you against that great gun, Hurrell, the padre who held forth. Wasn’t he lively, eh?”
“Eusty, you irreverent boy, don’t talk shop,” said Olive impatiently.
“All serene. We had a regular sacerdotal feed though, with the dad in the chair and Margaret in the vice-chair. Concerning whom, old Crustibore, the ex-archdeacon of Seringapatam, who’s stone deaf and takes snuff, remarked to his neighbour in a strident stage-whisper what a young-looking woman ‘Mrs Ingelow’ was, to be the mother of that dashing fellow opposite. I thought the dad would have choked. As for me I roared outright, but I took care to look in another direction, so it didn’t matter.”
“It wasn’t ‘dashing fellow’ at all, Olive,” struck in Sophie. “What Dr Crustibore really said was ‘that lanky rascal.’”
All shouted, except Eustace, who affected to regard the interruption as unworthy of notice.
“Yes,” he went on. “It’s a pity you weren’t there to keep Sophie in order. She behaved disgracefully, the more so that ‘great was the company of the preachers.’”
“Ah! I’ve been waiting for that quotation,” cried Sophie, sharp as a needle. “Olive, he made use of it about twenty times last night—went all round the room planting it everywhere. I heard it myself at least ten times, and knowing Eusty as we do, it’s safe to put the total figure at twenty. And now he’s transplanted it here. I knew he would. Dragged it in by the head and shoulders, too—literally.”
“Twenty times! Say a hundred while you’re about it.”
“It was twenty at least. Why, Margaret heard him three times, and scowled at him for a profane person.”
“Who hadn’t got any ‘birthright’ to sell,” cut in Eustace. “But you should have heard that child. She got in among a knot of those doleful chaps, all neck and spectacles, regular gargoyles, you know, and played the very mischief. You know that lank chap, Berriman, who brought out those asinine articles on celibacy. Well, she soon worked round to that topic, and made of it a peg whereon to hang such a jobation, that they stared at her in horrified amaze, and scattered as if a shell had dropped in among them. You see, she spoke feelingly. That sort of doctrine tends to spoil trade.”
“Pooh! None of your gargoyles for me,” laughed Sophie.
“No. Nothing less than a gay Hussar will suit her,” rejoined Eustace. “There are two in the regiment that’ll be just the thing—both much of a muchness. I’m going to bring them over next time I get leave, and then, O Sophonisba, my child, you can smile on the survivor.”
“No,” retorted the girl mischievously. “I don’t like soldiers—cavalrymen least of all. Civilians are much nicer. Look at Roland, for instance. He doesn’t tire one with a lot of third-hand chaff.”
“Oh, come! I say, Olive, do you allow that?” cried the irrepressible subaltern. “In view of the approximate passing of the Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Bill, I call upon you to quell such sentiments, and to repudiate their enunciator—trix, rather.”
The ice at Spelder Fields was in fine order. It was a large, flooded meadow on one of the Cranston farms, and although the Squire could have kept it closed to the public, that course would have roused such an amount of ill-feeling as to render the experiment not worth while, for it had been used from time immemorial. It was the rule, however, that anything tending to spoil the ice should be rigorously excluded, and elides were strictly taboo, while any approach to yahooism was promptly nipped in the bud. As the townspeople could not turn out till evening, during the daytime the privileged few had things all their own way.
We shall not, however, follow our party throughout the day. Be it briefly recorded, however, that Marsland surrendered at discretion to Sophie’s blue eyes and golden hair, and fresh, bewitching ways, and constituted himself her guide, philosopher and friend, and fetch-and-carry generally, through the uncertain and mazy evolutions of the ice—and how Eustace poured out the vials of his exuberant chaff upon them and upon everybody, and notably upon a brace of shaven and spectacled young clerics, who rather fancied themselves on skates, and, with singular unanimity of intent, were bent on imbuing Sophie with the same idea, but that our friend Marsland sailed in and cut out the prize from under their guns, apparently with the full approval of the prize itself.
“Time to knock off and give King Mob his innings,” cried Roland, whirling up to the bank and casting himself thereon.
“Oh, hang it, old man! Isn’t it rather soon?” objected Marsland, who, hand-in-hand with a certain blue-eyed young lady, glided by just in time to catch the suggestion.
“Rather soon! I should think it was!” echoed Sophie.
“I think Mr Dorrien’s right,” said Clara Neville, who had just been taking a turn or two round the ice with the first speaker. “It’s disagreeable being here when the place is full of rough people. Besides, it’s getting late.”
Ill-natured friends were wont to whisper that the fair Clara was getting somewhat passée and soured, and that the qualifications of the future aspirant to Ardleigh Court would not be so narrowly scrutinised now as of yore. But the answer to this libel was that she had refused two very good offers and one indifferent one. Her sister, Maud, was married, and Clara was left alone in the ancestral halls. And now she had made up her mind to smile favourably on Frank Marsland, who had on a former occasion or two begun to show her attention, when again that detestable Rectory furnished a thorn for her side. That chit of a girl had upset the plan, even as her sister had done years before. Poor Clara had not enjoyed her day.
“Er—Dorrien—if you don’t mind, I think we—er—I—will have half an hour more of it,” stammered Marsland. “Miss Sophie says she’d rather walk back—er—and I’ll see her safe home.”
“All right, Marsland,” replied his host. “Olive dear, do you mind driving back without me? You can take Margaret in the waggonette.” He had taken off his skates, and was standing with one foot on the step of the vehicle, wherein sat his wife, wrapped in furs, and looking very sweet in the crisp, frosty air. “Your father and I are going to walk. Oh, and by the way, he says they all can go straight back with us to dinner, so you’d better go on ahead and arrange accordingly.”
“Very well, dear. But I quite envy you your lovely walk.”
“Not a few quite envy me my lovely something else,” he replied meaningly.
“What? Oh, you dear old goose!” she laughed, blushing at the delicate compliment, her dark eyes flashing at him a bright glance of affection. “Now go and find Margaret—there she is, just coming off the ice—and then we’ll go.”
“Well, Roland, my boy, this sort of thing makes a man feel young again,” said the rector, as they began to step cut briskly on their homeward way. The sun had gone down, and the bare trees stood against the cloudless sky in delicate tracery, as in a steel engraving. The dead leaves crackled underfoot, and behind them the ring of the skates on the ice, and the voices and laughter of the skaters grew fainter and fainter.
“I suppose it does,” answered the other shortly, with a glance around as if to make sure that no one was within earshot. Then after a pause—
“Look. From where we now stand, it will take us the best part of an hour to walk home—I can call it home now—and the Hall is nearly in the centre of the estate. Well, all this I gave up of my own free will—flung it away with both hands. For what? For love. But even that which I had bought at the price of my birthright, was snatched from me not many hours after its purchase, for the very day after I had done this I learned that I was a ruined man.”
“My dear boy, I can never blame myself enough for my short-sightedness in that wretched business,” cried the old man in a distressed voice, letting his hand fall affectionately on the other’s shoulder.
“There is no question of blame in the matter,” went on Roland, speaking quickly and decisively. “And now, do you ever regret that things turned out as they did? Have you ever had during this year and a half which has passed since you gave Olive to me—any reason for misgivings as to her future?”
“Never, Roland—never! Not for a moment! You have been as a dear son to me, and my other children look upon you as a brother, indeed.”
Again there was a pause. The rector, understanding well that these questions were leading to something, refrained from interposing.
“Well—now I ask—could anything that might happen—that might come to light, rather—cause you to entertain such misgivings now?”
It was the rector’s turn to hesitate. Whither was the conversation drifting? His mind reverted to the rumours current in Wandsborough shortly after Roland’s disappearance, and his brow slightly clouded. Before he could reply Roland struck in.
“I know what you are thinking of. I solemnly assure you again, that those rumours were absolutely false. Whatever might happen would affect myself alone. On Olive’s account you need feel no anxiety whatever.”
“That is all I was hesitating about, Roland. And now, my dear boy, if you feel that you can give me your confidence, it may be that you will have no cause to regret it.”
The younger man made no immediate reply. If ever there were time and place for confidence, it was here, in the sweet and peaceful quiet of the evening, the moonlight sleeping upon the hill and the bare, leafless woods lying still and ghostly against the slopes. That confidence he was resolved to make at all costs. No longer could he bear his terrible burden unaided, for a desperate idea had occurred to him. Who could he more certainly trust than his old and revered friend, the rector himself? No man living. But what he shrank from was the possible—nay, probable—loss of intimacy that would result from the avowal. Dr Ingelow was an Anglican priest, but then he was also a father. No word would pass his lips—but would it not hasten his steps to the grave once the old man learned that his daughter’s husband was a murderer, a man whose life would be forfeit for the rest of his days? And how should he meet a murderer on terms of friendship from day to day? To Roland, circumstanced as he was, there seemed a strange, subtle, protecting influence in the cordial intimacy existing between himself and the old priest, and he dreaded to cut away this sheet-anchor with his own hand. So this idea had slipped from him in despair, and he seemed as one hopelessly drifting.
And then again a new hope leaped into existence. Dr Ingelow had been a great traveller in his younger days. He knew what it was to carry his life in his hand. He had seen men shot down on very slight provocation in wild, lawless regions where a man must be ready to answer for his acts, and even his words, with his life, if not quick enough to defend it. Surely no man living was more qualified to judge of a case by its own merits. He would take a broader view than the cut-and-dried rules of a high-pressure, artificial state of society, recognising that England is not the world, nor yet its law-giver.
And now, walking beside his friend in the gathering gloom, Roland thought the moment had come. The remembrance of his resolution was strong in his mind, and he could imagine the rector once more the cool, wary traveller in wild countries, where friends stood by each other to the death.
“My confidence!” he echoed huskily. “I greatly fear I may regret giving it, but—” and again he paused, his features working strangely.
What a wonderful thing is life with its contrasts! Only two friends returning home this lovely evening from a day of healthful exercise, the cheerful voices of those they had left behind scarcely out of earshot. No more than this would the casual saunterer along that unfrequented footpath through the plantations meet or see. Yet, what could be of more awful moment than the subject of their discussion! If the supernatural powers to which one of these two lays claim exist, such powers are bounded by no considerations of time or locality; are dependent on no such matters of detail as official insignia. They exist or they do not, and if the former, can neither be qualified nor limited. Can it be that these silent woods—these glittering stars looking down through the leafless boughs, are about to witness a solemn act of absolution, and that from one of these men will be lifted a terrible weight of blood-guilt—even the curse of Cain! Surely it seems that those peaceful stars reflect the light of angelic eyes, and that even the voice of God might be heard in this secluded place.
But it is Earth after all. Whatever confidence might have been imminent, an interruption befalls, a diversion is created—and by what? Only a dog.
Ranging at will, forgotten of his master, Roy’s quick ear has detected a stealthy footfall among the dry crisp leaves, and there he stands, with hair erect and fangs bared, snarling savagely at a dark, thickset form, whose efforts to pacify him only seem to augment his hostility.
“Come away, Roy, you rascal—come away, sir, d’you hear?” cried Roland. The dog obeyed, and retreated reluctantly to his master’s side, keeping up a running fire of most threatening growls. “Down, sir. And now, who are you?”
“It’s only me, sir,” answered a gruff voice.
“Oh, it’s you, is it, Devine? By the way, have you been over at the Hall?”
“Well, sir,” answered the man in rather hang-dog fashion, “I’ve a bin over to see Mister Lucas about them dawgs the Kurnel was to have, and took a short cut back.”
“I see. Is that shoot to come off the day after to-morrow, do you know?”
“Well, sir, the Kurnel don’t seem to have made up his mind. But he’ll be sure to let you know. There’s lots o’ rabbits in the cliff jest above Smugglers’ Ladder, sir,” added the keeper, in a different tone, looking Roland keenly in the face. “Such lots are there, that they pitches each other over, sometimes. I see’d one wunst, one moonlight night.”
Although feeling as if suddenly shot through the heart, Roland made no sign. With a short nod, he turned away. Roy, still growling deeply, walked close at his side, as if his instinct told him that his beloved master might come to need more than all the watchfulness of the most faithful of friends in the impending peril. It was the third time of late that Stephen Devine had let fall a sinister hint.
This interruption had given the rector time to reflect, and with a foresight which, when he came to look back upon it in the days that were coming, seemed to him little short of inspired, he now saw that the interruption was an opportune one. He was the first to break the silence, and his tones were very grave and solemn.
“Roland, my dear son, I will gladly receive your confidence, but not here. There must be no possibility of interruption, and no half measures—and—there may be other reasons. I can see you are overwrought and tired now, therefore rest and place yourself in a calm and composed disposition. Then we will talk, and more freely.”
Not another word passed between them. The confidential strain in which they had been interrupted seemed to preclude lighter topics. And they were nearly home now.