CHAPTER XIX.
It was the evening of a beautiful day in February, when Chandos Winslow returned by the lanes at the back of Northferry house towards his gardener's cottage. The scene and the hour were peaceful; and their tranquillity overspread his heart as if a balm were poured upon it. Frosts had departed to the pole. A west wind, slightly veering to the south, had brought the breath of summer from the distant lands. The early-loving thrush was singing his first sweet song upon the top of a bare tree. It was very pleasant. Chandos wished he had been born a gardener. Nevertheless, he hurried his pace; for he had a rose to tend. He fancied--he hoped that she might soon be by the little basin of gold and silver fish; but he had only two ways of approaching it: one by the gate near his own house, one by that at the other end of the grounds, which would have brought him before the windows of the mansion. He went into the cottage then for the key; and there good dame Humphreys detained him, impatient, for a few minutes, telling him how kind Miss Rose had been, coming down often to see little Tim; and how the boy had been sent daily to the school in the village, from which he had not yet come back, though it was late; and how the gentleman, who had been there with him one night, (i. e. Lockwood,) had been there the night before, and again, not ten minutes before, asking about him, and exceedingly anxious to see him, and very much provoked to find he had not come back; and how he had gone away grumbling and mumbling, as the old woman called it, and saying to himself, that as he, Mr. Acton, was not there, he must do it himself, for there was no time to be lost.
Chandos did not mark her much; but merely telling her, if Lockwood returned, to say that he would be back in half-an-hour, he took up a light Dutch hoe, which stood in the corner of the cottage parlour, and went out to the garden.
With a hand trembling with that sweet expectation which sometimes shakes the powerful frame even more than the feeble one, he opened the garden gate and went in. Close to the entrance he met one of the labourers in the garden, who wished him good evening, and said he was glad to see him, for the busy time was coming on. The man was going home for the night, and Chandos soon got rid of him, and of one of the boys who followed; for the sky was already very grey, and he feared that any delay might deprive him of the sweet moments coveted. He felt sure he should find Rose there. The very air seemed to breathe of love. She could not be absent.
He was right. Rose was beside the marble basin, but her eyes were dropping tears into it. He leaned the hoe against one of the pillars, and her hand was soon in his. Chandos could not resist the impulse to hold her for one moment to his heart.
"Oh, do not; do not, Chandos," she said. "I have much, very much to tell you; and it is all sad."
"Speak, dear Rose," he answered; "let me hear it at once. Tell me everything; tell me anything but that you are not mine--that you are to be another's."
"Oh, no; it is not that," she said, with a faint smile. "I have not time to tell you to-night, for you see it is growing quite dusk. Come to-morrow. I must see you--I must speak with you."
"Oh, stay one minute!" cried her lover, detaining her; "let me know something, at least, of what it is that grieves you--but a few words, dear Rose."
"They must be very sad ones," she answered. "My father is ruined, Chandos. My poor sister, dear, dear Emily, has consented, to save him from immediate destruction, to wed, with terrible haste, a man she does not, cannot love--your own brother, Chandos--and, oh!--what is worse than all--I fear, I am sure, she loves another;" and Rose wept bitterly.
Chandos was silent for an instant, holding her hand in his, and gazing upon her with love and sympathy; but the next instant he heard voices speaking, and steps advancing, in the narrow winding walk behind.
"Good Heaven, it is your brother!" cried Rose. "I hear his terrible voice. Fly! fly! Where can I escape him?"
"Up that walk, dear girl," replied Chandos. "I will easily avoid him. I will leap the hedge there. But let me see you safe first."
"No, no! Go at once, go at once," she cried; and Chandos, in obedience to her wish, passed through between the pillars, and leaped the low hedge which bordered a haw-haw that divided the grounds of Northferry from the neighbouring fields. He had, at first, proposed to cross the next enclosure at once, and return to his cottage; but it was lighter beyond the precincts of the garden, than under the shadow of the trees. He did not wish his brother to find him there; he wished to assure himself that Rose got away unseen, and he remained on the other side of the hedge, which, as he stood with his feet at the bottom of the haw-haw, overtopped his head by about nine inches. He had no idea that he would be witness to more than his brother passing by along the walk, which approached within about ten paces of the haw-haw on one side, and which skirted the little factitious ruin above the fish-pond, within a foot or two, on the other. Had he had an idea of the possibility even of his becoming an eves-dropper, he would not have hesitated, but crossed the field at once; but the path was, as I have said, at ten paces' distance, and unless the persons walking along it spoke very loud, it was impossible for any one in the haw-haw to hear more than an occasional word, unless the passers-by paused. Thus much is necessary to the character of Chandos. He paused, but it was to conceal himself, not to listen.
The moment after he had leapt the hedge, Sir William Winslow appeared at the turn of the little path; but he was preceded a step by another. His brother's figure Chandos recognised at once, notwithstanding the growing obscurity; but, for an instant, he could not distinguish who was his companion; for the short, slight-made man, who accompanied the baronet, was wrapped in one of those loose formless sort of coats, called paletôts. The next moment, however, the sound of their voices, raised exceedingly high, and in angry tones, reached him as he stood and gazed through the hedge; and he recognized that of Mr. Roberts. None of the words were distinct; but it was evident that both were highly excited; and, by the sharp and vehement gestures of Roberts, so unlike his usual, quiet, and staid demeanour, and by the rapid pace at which he walked, with the baronet following, Chandos judged that the good steward was endeavouring to escape from provocation beyond endurance, even to his tranquil and equable disposition. Just as they came up to the little Greek temple, which had been built over the fish-pond--that is to say, at the nearest point of the walk to the spot where Chandos was concealed--Sir William Winslow laid a grasp upon Roberts's collar, as if to stop him in his rapid advance, exclaiming at the same moment, "Damn you, Sir, what do you mean?"
Roberts instantly shook off his grasp, and whirled round confronting him. At the same moment he exclaimed vehemently, "I will not, Sir William Winslow! If you will have it, I believe you burnt it."
The baronet instantly struck him with his fist, exclaiming, "You damned rascal!" The next instant his eye seemed to light upon the Dutch hoe, which Chandos had left leaning against the pillar. He snatched it up, struck the steward a violent blow on the head with it, which brought him instantly to the ground, and added another as he fell.
Chandos sprang up, struggled over the hedge, and ran forward. But his brother, hearing some one coming, darted away up the shrubbery walks, and was out of sight in a moment. Kneeling down by poor Roberts's side, the young gentleman raised his head. But what was his horror and distress, when he found that the two middle fingers of his left hand rested in a deep indentation in the skull, while a gaping wound in the scalp, cut by the iron of the hoe, was pouring forth blood profusely! Bending closely down, he saw a portion of the brain mingled with the gray hair; and, with a feeling of sickening horror at his heart, he laid the body gently on the ground again, and gazed at it for several minutes, as if the sight had turned him into stone.
Oh, what a dark and terrible moment was that! What a whirlpool of horrible thoughts did his brain become! What anguish of mind--what wavering hesitation of purpose--what indignation--what sorrow did he not feel! The first impulse was to run and call for assistance; but then he shook his head, and murmured "He is dead! he is dead! No aid can ever bring him back to life." Bending down again, he pressed his hand upon the wrist, and then upon the heart. There was no pulsation. All was still for ever! The complicated machine was broken, never to be repaired again. The lamp drowned out, not to be re-lighted.
What should he do? How should he act? He had seen an honest, upright, noble-minded man murdered before his eyes: but the murderer was his own brother! They had lain in the same womb; they had hung at the same breast; they had joyed in the same smiles; the same blood flowed in their veins;--and yet one was a murderer, the other, the witness of the crime. It was a terrible struggle. Duty called upon him to denounce the criminal; indignation prompted him to the same course. By that very brother's acts, brotherly love had long seemed extinguished between them. Yet Chandos could not make up his mind to be his brother's accuser, to give him up to trial and to death.
"I cannot--I cannot," he said, after a long and painful revery. "Poor Roberts, I can do thee no good; and I cannot be a destroying angel to my own race. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay;'" and, turning away from the fatal scene, he hurried back to the small gate which led out towards his own cottage.