Part 3, Chapter XV.
Widowed Indeed.
“Better take the lady away, sir,” said the warder whom Luke had last addressed, and who had shown some rough feeling, as he beckoned him aside. “There’ll be an inquest, of course, and I must have your card and the names of the others. There’s sure to be a row, too, about your hitting Smith.”
Luke took out his card-case without a word.
“Lady his wife, sir?” said the man.
“Yes, and her uncle,” replied Luke, giving the name of the hotel where they were staying. “I think we’ll come on to the prison and see the governor.”
“As you like, sir,” said the warder; “but if I might advise, I’d say take the lady away at once, and cool down yourself before you come. You could do no good now.”
“You are right, warder,” said Luke, quietly, as he slipped a couple of sovereigns into the man’s hand. “Send for the proper help, and—You understand me. He was a gentleman.”
“You leave it to me, sir,” said the warder; “I know he was, and a high-spirited one, too. Ah, there goes the fog.”
And, as if by magic, the dense cloud of grey mist rolled away, and the sun shone down brightly upon the little white cambric handkerchief wet with tears, spread a few moments before over the blindly-staring eyes looking heavenwards for the half-asked pardon.
Portlock was standing there, resting his hands upon his stout umbrella, gazing at where his niece knelt as if in prayer by her husband’s corpse, and he started slightly as Luke laid a hand upon his shoulder.
“Let us go back,” he whispered, and he pointed to Sage.
The old farmer went to her and took her hand.
“Sage, my child,” he whispered, “come: let us go.”
She looked up at him with a blank, woebegone aspect, and clung to his hand.
“Not one loving word, uncle,” she said, slowly, but in a voice that reached no other ears. “Not one word for me, or for my little orphans. Oh, Cyril, Cyril,” she moaned, as she bent over him, raising the kerchief and kissing his brow, “did you love me as I loved you?”
She rose painfully as her uncle once more took her hand to lead her to the fly, where he seated himself by her side, Luke taking his place by the driver; and as they drove sadly back to the old cathedral town, the fog that had been over the land appeared to cling round and overshadow their hearts.
It seemed to Luke as he sat there thinking of Sage’s sufferings that Nature was cruel, and as if she was rejoicing over Cyril Mallow’s death, for the scene now looked so bright and fair. He wished that the heavens would weep, to be in unison with the unhappy woman’s feelings, and that all around should wear a mourning aspect in place of looking so bright and gay. Upon his right the deep blue sea danced in the brilliant sunshine. Far behind the grey fog was scudding over the high lands, looking like a veil of silver ever changing in its hues. Here and there the glass of some conservatory flashed in the sun-rays and darted pencils of glittering light. The tints upon the hills, too, seemed brighter than when they came, and he gazed at them with a dull, chilling feeling of despair.
It seemed to him an insult to the suffering woman within the fly, and with his heart throbbing painfully in sympathy with her sorrow, he thought how strangely these matters had come about.
For the past three months this idea had been in his head: to obtain the order for Sage to see her husband; but he had had great difficulty in obtaining that he sought, and now that he had achieved his end, what had it brought? Sorrow and despair—a horror such as must cling even to her dying day.
The driver respected his companion’s silence for a time, but finding at last that there was no prospect of Luke speaking, he ventured upon a remark—
“Very horrid, zir, warn’t it?”
“Terrible, my man, terrible,” said Luke, starting from his reverie.
“I shall be called at the inquest, I s’pose. This makes the third as I’ve been had up to, and all for convicts zhot when trying to escape, I don’t think it ought to be ’lowed.”
Luke was silent, and the man made no further attempts at conversation on their way to the hotel.
The inquest followed in due course, and in accordance with the previous examinations of the kind. The convict who attempted to escape did it at his own risk, his life being, so to say, forfeit to the laws, and after the stereotyped examinations of witnesses, the regular verdict in such cases was returned, the chaplain improving his discourse on the following Sunday by an allusion to the escaped man’s awful fate, and the necessity for all present bearing their punishment with patience and meekness to the end.
The warning had such a terrible effect upon the men that not a single attempt to escape occurred afterwards for forty-eight hours, that is to say, until the next sea-fog came over the land, when three men from as many working parties darted off, and of these only one was recaptured, so that the lesson taught by Cyril Mallow’s death was without effect.
There was some talk of a prosecution of Luke for striking the warder, but on the governor arriving at a knowledge of the facts, he concluded that it would be better not to attack one so learned in the law; besides which, the authorities were always glad to have anything connected with one of their judicial murders put out of sight as soon as possible, lest people of Radical instincts should make a stir in Parliament, and there should be a great call for statistics, a Committee of Inquiry, and other troublesome affairs. Consequently no more was said, and Luke Ross, after seeing Sage and her uncle to the station, returned to his solitary chambers, and laboured hard at the knotty cases that were thrust constantly into his hands.
For work was the opiate taken by Luke Ross to ease the mental pain he so often suffered when he allowed his thoughts to dwell upon the past. He found in it relief, and, unconsciously, it brought him position and wealth.
He had not revisited Lawford, but from time to time the solicitor there who had the settlement of his father’s affairs sent him statements, accompanying them always with a little business-like chat, that he said he thought his eminent fellow-townsman would like to have.
Luke used to smile at that constantly-recurring term, “eminent fellow-townsman,” which the old solicitor seemed very fond of using; but he often used to sigh as well when he read of the changes that took place as time glided on. How that Fullerton had ceased to carp at church matters, and raise up strife against church rates, being called to his fathers, and lying very peacefully in his coffin when the man he had so often denounced read the solemn service of the church, and stood by as he was laid in that churchyard.
The Rector, too, Luke learned, had grown very old and broken of late, and it was expected, people said, that poor Mrs Mallow could not last much longer, for she had been smitten more sorely at the news of the death of her erring son, the paralysis having taken a greater hold, and weakened terribly her brain.
“Old Mr Mallow goes a good deal to Kilby Farm,” the solicitor said in one of his letters, “and the little grandchildren go about with him in the woods. Portlock talks of giving up his farm and retiring, but he’ll never do it as long as he lives, and so I tell him.
“If there’s any farther news I will save it, and send it with my next,” he continued. “But I should advise you to take Warton’s offer for the house in the marketplace on a lease of seven (7), fourteen (14), or twenty-one (21) years, determinable on either side. He will put in a new plate-glass front, and do all repairs himself. He is a substantial man, Warton, and you could not do better with the property.—I am, dear sir, your obedient servant,
“James Littler.
“P.S.—I have directed this letter to your chambers in King’s Bench Walk. I little thought when I drew up the minutes of meeting deciding on your appointment as Master of Lawford School—an arrangement opposed, as you may remember, in meeting, by late Fullerton—I should ever have the honour of addressing you as an eminent counsel.”
Luke wrote back by return:—
“Dear Mr Littler,—Thank you for your kind management of my property. I hold Mr Warton in the greatest respect, and there is no man in Lawford I would sooner have for my tenant. But there are certain reasons, which you may consider sentimental, against the arrangement. I wish the old house and its furniture to remain quite untouched, and widow Lane to stay there as long as she will. She was very kind to my father in his last illness, and she has had her share of trouble. I am sure he would have wished her to stay.
“Very glad to hear of any little bits of news. Yes, certainly, put my name down for what you think right for the coal fund and the other charity.—Very truly yours,
“Luke Ross.”