CHAPTER XXVI.
"At the house of Lady Danvers, say you? on the far edge of Dorsetshire?" said the voice of an old man, tremulous, and eager with strong passion.
"Yes, my dear lord," replied Robert Woodhall, "at Danvers's New Church, a place where a strong-armed man could pitch a crown piece into three counties. He has doubtless chosen that retreat, partly because he fancies a warrant may be easily evaded, partly--"
"But are you sure, Robert--quite sure?" asked Lord Woodhall; "do not let us make another mistake."
"I am quite sure," answered his young cousin; "I have the news from three of our own people who have seen him there. You know my mother's place lies at no great distance, and the whole country round rings with the rumor that he is to be married to Lady Danvers--the cause, probably, of his taking the life of a better man than himself."
"Married to the gallows first!" cried Lord Woodhall, vehemently. "Call a servant, boy; bid him bring my hat and cloak. I will away to the king. Monmouth lies about there, they say; he was last heard of marching toward Exeter. Feversham and Churchill are after him, and the troops may serve our purpose as well as the king's."
"Shall I attend you, sir?" said Robert.
"No, no," answered the old lord; "stay here till I come back. Go and comfort poor Margaret. She bears up a little now, but still weeps often. It will gladden her heart to hear that there is a chance of catching her brother's murderer at last."
A slight, hardly perceptible smile curled upon Robert Woodhall's lip; but, turning away to conceal the emotions of which he was conscious, he called Lord Woodhall's servants to their master, and then saw him deferentially to the door.
There are as great varieties in love as in any other passion; seldom found altogether pure, it is mixed with a thousand various alloys, some more, some less congenial to itself. Now it must not be supposed that Robert Woodhall was altogether without love of a certain kind for his fair cousin Margaret. True, it was of a coarse nature, even in its very origin. Her beauty--her fresh, warm, healthful loveliness, had its attractions for a man who, even before he could count manhood, had sated himself with licentious pleasures. But even this baser sort of love was mingled with many other feelings. Ambition had its share, and avarice; and, strange to say, spite and revenge too. He saw that Margaret did not love him; he felt intuitively that she would never love him; but that conviction diminished not in the least the ardor of his pursuit. It prompted a desire to pain, to grieve her, whenever he could do so without appearing as the active agent, but took not the least from the desire to possess her as his wife, nor shook his resolution to attain that object by any means, however base.
Quietly walking up the stairs, he entered the room where she usually sat during the morning, but found it vacant. He sat for a few minutes, gazing forth from the window into the street, till the door opened, and Margaret herself appeared. With a cold inclination of the head, she was about to withdraw immediately. But her cousin called to her, saying, "Margaret, Margaret, I have something to tell you from your father. He wishes you to stay with me till his return, when he will give you further tidings."
Margaret obeyed at once, entered, sat down, and drew an embroidery frame toward her.
"Very satisfactory intelligence has been received this morning," said Robert Woodhall, "which my lord, your father, has gone to make the most of. We have discovered the place where poor Henry's murderer lies concealed."
The tears rose in Margaret's beautiful eyes, but still she would not hear Ralph called by such a name. "You have no right, sir," she said, "so boldly to announce my cousin Ralph a murderer till he has been proved so."
Robert Woodhall saw her emotion with infinite pleasure, but he answered in a quiet tone, though with a slightly-curled lip, "I did not know that there was any doubt of it."
"Great doubt," replied Margaret; "I, for one, do not believe that Ralph would ever draw his sword against poor Henry; and there are others, wiser, and better able to judge than myself, who do not believe it either."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Robert Woodhall, with unfeigned surprise; "pray who?"
"For one, the Duke of Norfolk," answered Margaret.
"You astonish me," said Robert, musing; "then pray whom do you and the good duke suspect?"
There was something contemptuous and bitter in his tone, which kindled a momentary anger in Margaret's breast, and she answered, "No one in particular, Robert Woodhall; but we should suspect you just as soon as poor Ralph. Pray where is he, if you have discovered?"
One of his slight, shrewd, sarcastic smiles came upon Robert Woodhall's face; and he answered, "He is at Danvers's New Church, the seat of the fair Hortensia, to whom he is about to be married, if the hangman does not previously perform for him a ceremony of a different kind."
"Unfeeling, heartless man!" exclaimed Margaret, rising, with her face flushed, to quit the room; but Robert placed himself in her way, saying, "Your father wishes you to stay here until he returns.--Why do you call me unfeeling, Margaret? I did not intend to either offend or grieve you."
Margaret returned and seated herself, but when he again asked the question, she replied, "If my father wishes me to remain, I will remain; but I remain not to converse with you, Robert Woodhall. I tell you, I doubt you--nay, more, I do not believe you. More than once I have detected you in saying things that were untrue; and I will now know, as soon as my father returns, whether it was his wish or will that I should remain with one whose society is unpleasant to me."
The pale, somewhat yellowish tinge of Robert Woodhall's face gave way to burning red. He felt that he was understood--unmasked by a woman--by a mere girl; and there is no offense so bitter to a villain as to have his character unveiled.
"I will repay you," he thought, "I will repay you!" but, at the same time, he would have given a good deal to have escaped from the room, in order to meet Lord Woodhall ere he saw his daughter, and to guard against the questions she might ask. He suffered some minutes to pass however, for the purpose of covering his maneuver, but then rising, he said, "Your father is longer than I expected. I fear I must go; I have an engagement."
Grief is a great teacher of the human heart; and Margaret had learned much since first she was presented to the reader. "Your pardon Robert Woodhall," she said; "you stay here till my father returns. What you have told me is either true or false. If it be true, you are bound to remain with me, as I was commanded to remain with you--Nay, not a word! Sit down, or I will call those who will make you."
She was nearer to the door than himself, and she moved toward it, and laid her hand upon the latch.
Before Robert Woodhall could recover from his surprise, the voice of the old lord sounded below, and the next moment his step was heard upon the stairs. Margaret stood quietly by the door. Her cousin did not venture to move; but few human hearts have felt the rage which filled his at that moment. A minute after, Lord Woodhall entered the room, and ere he could speak of any thing else, Margaret exclaimed, with a boldness unusual with her, especially in speaking to her parent, "My dear lord and father, this gentleman tells me that it was your command I should remain here with him till you returned. I beseech you tell me whether this is true or false; I do not believe it."
"False!" cried the old lord, sharply; "I never said such a word. What is the meaning of this, sir?"
"Only a little lover's artifice, my dear lord," replied Robert Woodhall, with a pleasant smile; "I did but stretch your words a little. You said I was to go and stay with her till you came back, and I chose to read your meaning that she was to stay with me."
"Lover!" said Margaret, with a bitter emphasis, and was turning to quit the room, when the old lord detained her by the hand, saying, "Oh, is that all? Stay, stay, Margaret, this is no very unforgiveable offense--stay! I have news for you."
"I hope good news, my lord," said Robert Woodhall. "The king, I trust, has entered into your views?"
"As warmly as heart could wish," replied the old nobleman. "Feversham has received his commands to order Colonel Kirke to occupy Danvers's New Church with his regiment, and to arrest the fugitive. The object is to be concealed, and the occupation of the house and village to pass for a mere military operation till they have got the murderer in their hands; otherwise he might escape us again, boy, in the troubled state of the country."
"Your lordship calls him murderer," said Robert Woodhall, quietly, eager to make mischief between the parent and the child, "but Mistress Margaret objects to my use of that term, and says she does not believe Ralph Woodhall committed the act."
"How is that--how is that?--not believe?" cried Lord Woodhall, turning toward his daughter, and dropping her hand.
"The Duke of Norfolk does not believe it, my lord," replied Margaret; "I received a letter from him this morning with the trinkets I left behind me in my room at Norwich. He says that he has reason to believe some great mistake has been committed, and that my cousin Ralph is quite free from all participation in the deed."
"Who does he suspect, then?" demanded Lord Woodhall.
"I will bring you his letter, my father," replied Margaret, fixing her eyes firmly upon the face of Robert Woodhall; "you will there see that he suspects a very different person, and will comprehend why to remain in that gentleman's society was most unpleasant to your daughter."
"What does he say--what does he say? No need of the letter just now," cried the impetuous old lord; "I can read that afterward: tell me the substance of what he says."
"I have told you part, my father," replied Margaret; "but he adds that it is clearly proved there was no quarrel between Ralph and poor Henry, though there was between Ralph and Master Robert Woodhall. He says they parted perfectly friends at supper; that they never met afterward during the whole night; that no challenge was ever actually delivered to Ralph; and that he has good reason to believe, from circumstances which have lately come to his knowledge, that my cousin never returned to Norwich after he himself had sent him away to escort Lady Danvers on her journey. He says, indeed, that to have done so, in the circumstances of which he is personally cognizant, implies almost an impossibility. The duke adds," continued Margaret, with a voice which trembled a little at the gravity of the words she was about to utter, "that undoubtedly Robert Woodhall attempted to produce a quarrel between Ralph and my poor brother; and he remarks that Henry's death could be of no possible advantage to Ralph, but that it might be to other persons."
Lord Woodhall glared round with a look of bewildered rage; but Robert caught the ball at the rebound with great skill. "His grace of Norfolk must think that you take a great interest, Mistress Margaret, in your poor cousin Ralph," he said; "but that is of no matter. Strange as it may seem, my dear lord, I am very glad that this foolish suspicion has been so plainly stated. An innocent man laughs at such things; he does not run away from investigation. Indeed, did not the duke's dislike of myself blind him, he could not fail to see how ridiculous all this is. Henry's own letter to the duke himself, which you have seen, shows that the challenge was given and accepted; and I can prove easily, not only that I never quitted my room that night, but that I did all in my power to dissuade Henry from the course that he was following. He was headstrong, and would have his own way. My servant can prove many of these facts. He is in the house; call him up and examine him. I wish no previous interview with him; I have no lesson to teach him."
The man was called; but he had already taught himself his own lesson; and he mentioned those facts only, of all that occurred at Norwich, which could show his master's character in the fairest light.
Lord Woodhall was quite satisfied, but Margaret was not. She had a sort of instinct in this case, and it led her right.