CHAPTER XXV. MEG.
Bram Elshaw heard Meg’s wild words as he rushed along the corridor towards the room out of which she had just come—Claire’s room, as he guessed, with a sob of terror rising in his throat.
The door was open. On the floor, just inside, lay what Bram at first thought to be Claire’s lifeless body. Meg had dragged her off the bed, and flung her down in an ecstasy of mad rage.
But even as he raised her in his arms, before the frightened Joan had run up to his aid, Bram was reassured. The girl was unconscious, but she was still breathing. Joan wanted to send him away.
“Leave her to me, sir, leave her to me. You can goa and fetch t’ doctor back,” cried she, as she tried jealously to take Claire out of his arms.
But Bram did not seem to hear her. He was staring into the unconscious face as if this was his last look on earth. He hung over her with all the agony of his long, faithful, unhappy love softening his own rugged face, and shining in his gray eyes.
“Oh, Claire, Claire, my little Claire, my darling, are you going away? Are you going to die?”
The words broke from his lips, hoarse, low, forced up from his heart. He did not know that he had uttered them; did not know that he was not alone with the sick girl. Joan, whose tears were running down her own face, suddenly broke into a loud sob, and shook him roughly by the shoulder.
“Put her down; do ee put her down,” she said peremptorily. “Do ye go for to think as your calling to her will do her any good? Goa ee for t’ doctor. And God forgive me for speaking harsh to ye, sir.”
“Oh Claire, Claire, my little Claire, are you going to die?”—Page 200.
And the good woman, seeing the strange alteration which came over Bram’s face as he raised his eyes from the girl’s face to hers as if he had come back from another world, changed her rough touch to a gentle pat of his shoulder, and turned away sobbing.
Bram lifted Claire from the floor with the easy strength of which his spare, lean frame gave no promise, and placed her tenderly on the bed. Then he held one of her hands for a moment, leaned over her, and kissed her forehead with the lingering but calm tenderness of a mother to her babe.
“A’ reght,” muttered he to Joan, falling once more into the broad Yorkshire he had dropped for so long, “Ah’m going.”
At the foot of the stairs he was brought suddenly to full remembrance of the hard, matter-of-fact world of every day. Mr. Cornthwaite was standing, cold and grave, buttoning up his coat, ready to go.
“Where are you going?” asked he shortly.
“For the doctor again, sir. Meg has nearly done for her, for Miss Claire.”
Mr. Cornthwaite uttered a short exclamation, which might have been meant to express compassion, but which was more like indifference, or even satisfaction. So Bram felt, in a sudden transport of anger.
“And the old man—Mr. Biron, what did she do to him?”
Bram was silent. He remembered Meg’s ferocious words, her triumphant cry that she had killed both the woman and the man she hated; and as the remembrance came back he turned quickly, and went in the direction of Theodore’s room. But Mr. Biron was lying quietly in bed, apparently unaware that anything extraordinary had happened. For when he saw Bram he only asked if he were going to stay with him. Bram excused himself, and left the room.
“Mr. Biron’s all right, sir,” he said to Mr. Cornthwaite, who had by this time reached the door, impatient to get away.
The only answer he got was a nod as Mr. Cornthwaite went out of the house.
Bram had not to go far before he found some one to run his errand for him, so that he was able to return to the house. His mind was full of a strange new thought, one so startling that it took time to assimilate it. He sat for a long time by the kitchen fire, turning the idea over in his mind, until the doctor returned, and went away again, after reporting that Claire was not so much injured by the woman’s violence as might have been feared.
It was very late when a nurse, the only one to be got on the spur of the moment, arrived at the farmhouse. Bram was still sitting by the kitchen fire. When she had been installed upstairs Joan came down for a little while.
“What, you here still, Mr. Elshaw?” cried she.
“Well, you might have known I should be,” he answered with a faint smile. “I’m here till I’m turned out, day and night now!”
“Why, sir, ye’d best goa whoam,” said Joan kindly. “Ye can do no good, and Ah won’t leave her, ye may be sure. Ah’ve sent word whoam as they mun do wi’out me till t’ mornin’.”
“Ah, but I’ve something to say to you, Joan. Look here; doesn’t it seem very strange that Mr. Cornthwaite when he is half-mad with grief at his son’s death, should come all the way out here to see his niece? And that he should say nothing more about—about the death of his son? And that he should give orders for a nurse to come, and undertake to pay all the expenses of her illness? Doesn’t it look as if——”
Joan interrupted him with a profound nod.
“Lawk-a-murcy, ay, sir. Ah’ve thowt o’ that too,” said she in an eager whisper. “And don’t ye think, sir, as it’s a deal more likely that that poor, wild body Meg killed Master Christian wi’ her strong arms and her mad freaks than that our poor little lass oop yonder did it?”
Bram sprang up.
“Joan, that’s what I’ve been thinking myself ever since the woman rushed out from here. She said she’d sent to h—— the woman and the man she hated, didn’t she? Well, if Claire was the woman, surely Mr. Christian must have been the man!”
They stared each into the face of the other, full of strong excitement, each deriving fresh hope from the hope each saw in the wide eyes of the other. At last Joan seized his hand, and wrung it in her own strong fingers with a pressure which brought the water to his eyes.
“You’ve got it, Mr. Bram, you’ve got it, Ah believe!” cried she in a tumult of feeling. “Oh, for sure that’s reght; and our poor little lass is as innocent of it as t’ new-born babe!”
Full of this idea, Bram conceived the thought of making inquiries at Meg’s own home, and he started at once with this object.
It was now very late, past eleven o’clock; but his uneasiness was too great to allow him to leave the matter till the morning. So, at the risk of reaching the farmhouse, where Meg’s parents lived, when everybody was in bed, he took a short cut across the wet, muddy fields, and arrived at his destination within an hour.
The rain had ceased by this time, and the moon peeped out from time to time, and from behind a mass of straggling clouds. The little farm lay in a nook between two hills, and as Bram drew near he saw that a light was still burning within. In getting over a gate he made a little noise, and the next moment he saw a woman’s figure come quickly out of the farmhouse.
“Meg, is that you, Meg?” asked a woman’s voice anxiously.
“No,” said Bram, “it isn’t Meg, ma’am. It’s me, from Hessel, come to ask if she’d got safe home.”
She came nearer, and peered into his face.
“And who be you?”
“My name’s Bram Elshaw. I’m a friend of the Birons at Duke’s Farm.”
“Ah!”
There was a world of sorrow, of significance, in the exclamation. After a pause, she said, not angrily, but despondently—
“Then maybe you know all about it? Maybe you can tell me more than I know myself? Have you seen anything of Meg—she’s my daughter—this evening?”
Bram hesitated. The woman went on—
“Oh, don’t be afraid to speak out, sir, if it’s bad news. We’ve been used to that of late; ever since our girl took up with t’ gentleman that has treated her so bad. It’s no use for to try to hide it; t’ poor lass herself has spread t’ news about. She’s gone right out of her mind, I do believe, sir. She wanders about, so I often have to sit up half t’ night for her, and she never gives me a hand now with t’ farm work. And as neat a hand in t’ dairy as she used to be! Well, sir, what is it? Has she made away with herself?”
“She came to Duke’s Farm to-night, and attacked Miss Biron,” said Bram.
“Well, she was jealous,” said Meg’s mother, who seemed to be less afflicted with sentiment concerning her daughter than with vexation at the loss of her services. “The lass found it hard she should lose her character, and then t’ young gentleman care more for his cousin all t’ time. Not but what Meg was to blame. She used to meet him when she knew he was going to Duke’s Farm, up in t’ ruined cottages on top of t’ hill at Hessel. So I’ve learnt since. Folks tell you these things when it’s too late to stop them!”
Bram remembered the night on which he had heard the voices in the dismantled cottages, and he remembered also with shame that he had conceived the idea that Christian’s companion might be his cousin.
“Did she tell you where she was going when she went out to-night?” asked Bram.
“She hasn’t been home since this afternoon,” replied Meg’s mother. “She went out before tea, muttering in her usual way threats against him and her,—always him and her. She never says any different. I’ve got used to her ravings; I don’t think she’d do any real harm unless to herself, poor lass!”
“I’m afraid she has this time,” said Bram gravely. “I don’t know anything more than I’ve told you; but I’m afraid you must be prepared for worse news in the morning.”
Startled, the woman pressed for an explanation. Bram, having really nothing but suspicion to go upon, could tell her nothing definite. But his suspicion was so strong that he felt no diffidence about preparing Meg’s mother for a dreadful shock. On the other hand, he was able to assure her that, whatever she might have done, her manifestly disordered state of mind would be considered in the view taken of her actions.
Then he returned to Hessel, tried the door of Duke’s Farm, and found it locked for the night. He went round to the front, looked up at the dim light burning in Claire’s room with a fervent prayer on his lips, and then climbed the hill to his own lodging.
On inquiry at the farm next morning on his way to his work Bram learnt from the nurse, who was the only person he could see, that while Mr. Biron had had a very bad night, Claire was as well as could be expected. No decided improvement could be reported as yet, nor could it indeed be expected. But she was quieter, and her temperature had gone down, temporarily at least.
He went on his way feeling a little more hopeful, after impressing upon the nurse to keep the doors locked for fear of any further incursions from poor, crazy Meg Tyzack.
On arriving at the works, he saw, as was to be expected after the tragedy of the preceding evening, an unusual stir among the workmen, who were standing about the entrance, talking in eager and excited tones. One of the workmen saluted Bram, and asked him if he had “heard t’ fresh news.”
“What’s that?” asked Bram.
“Coom this weay, sir; Ah’ll show ye.”
Bram, with a sick terror at his heart, asking himself what new horror he should be called upon to witness, followed the man through the works. The rain had come on again, a drizzling, light rain, which was already turning the morning’s dust into a thick, black paste. They passed across the yards and through the sheds, until again they reached the spot where the railway divided the works into two parts.
An exclamation broke from Bram’s lips.
“Not another—accident—here?”
For there was quite a large throng of workmen scattered over the lines on the opposite side, and culminating in one dense group not far from the spot where he had found Christian on the previous night.
“Ay, sir, it’s a woman this time.” And his voice suddenly fell to a hoarse whisper. “T’ woman as killed Mr. Christian! T’ poor creature was crazed, for sure! She got in here, nobody knows how, this morning; an’ she must ha’ throwed herself down on t’ line pretty nigh t’ place where she throwed him down last neght. She must ha’ waited for t’ mornin’ oop train. Anyway, we fahnd her lyin’ there this mornin’, poor lass!”
Bram had reached the group. He forced his way through, and looked down at the burden the men were carrying towards the very shed under the roof of which Chris had died.
The mutilated body, which had been decapitated by the heavy wheels of the train, was only recognizable by the torn and stained clothing as that of Meg Tyzack.
Bram staggered away, with his hand over his eyes.