Volume Two—Chapter Thirteen.
Moredock Keeps his Word.
Old Moredock kept his word, for after leaving North alone to carry out his experiment, he went round the old church, proceeding cautiously from tombstone to tombstone, his red, watery eyes twinkling with excitement, till he reached the belfry door.
This yielded to the key he always carried, deep down in his old coat pocket, and passing through into the lower part of the tower, he continued his way by the low, arched doorway to the font.
Here he paused and listened, but all was perfectly still, and, running his hand along the tops of the pews, he went slowly on till he reached the screen, where he hesitated for a few moments, and then littering a low chuckle, that sounded like that of a cuckoo over a caterpillar feast, he turned aside, mounted the stairs, and seated himself in the pulpit, where he made himself comfortable with the big purple velvet cushion, and waited patiently for what was to come.
He had not to wait long, for as he sat, with his arms resting on the front of the oaken erection, his ears twitching, a familiar sound in the church porch warned him that some one was at hand.
Drawing in his breath he strained his eyes, and before long he had the satisfaction of seeing the matter-of-fact elucidation of the mystery which had shaken his well-hardened nerves, for though much less plainly seen, and from a different point of view, there was the draped head which had alarmed him passing before the pulpit, round into the chancel, and into the vestry, whose latch gave a slight click.
“Yes,” he muttered; “doctor shall find you, and to-night, my lady. You don’t stand between her and her rights.”
He chuckled in anticipation of the scene that was to come, and, slowly descending from the pulpit, followed the figure till he was pretty close to the chancel door, but inside the rectory pew, over whose side he could listen as he knelt on the cushion of one of the seats, but quite ready to bob down into sheltering darkness should there be a risk of being seen.
Again he had not long to wait, for as he listened he heard the sound of a key in the outer door, the entering of some one, the withdrawal of the key, its insertion on the vestry side, and the locking of the door, followed by a low murmuring of voices.
“Pretty doves!” muttered the old sexton. “Coo away, sweet, soft critters! Mummy, am I, Squire Tom? Hideous old figure, am I, Miss Leo? Oh, you needn’t deny it. You’ve told my Dally I was, scores of times. All right. He! he! he! Chilly place to make love. Dessay you’ll catch colds, so I’ll bring the doctor!”
He kept his word, and North had his hand upon the latch, while Moredock gleefully rubbed his hands in anticipation of a scene that should relieve some of the tedium of his existence, and advance his grandchild’s ends, but quietly slipped away home.
“I’d like to see it,” he said; “but there may be trouble, and I’m best away.”
As if fate had determined that Horace North should be fully enlightened as to the character of the woman he worshipped, it so happened that as the door was thrown open, Tom Candlish was striking a flaming fusee.
The sharp crick—crick—crack of the explosive end overcame the sound made by the latch, and the match burst into a reddish blue flame, illuminating the whole place, for the young squire for the moment was too much taken aback to cast it down.
North uttered a hoarse groan as he gazed at the group before him: Tom Candlish seated in the curate’s chair by the oaken table, and Leo upon his knee with her arm about his neck, and her head resting upon his shoulder, while seen by the lurid light there appeared to be a couple of clergymen, one in black, the other in white, standing behind them in the background, as if to give sanction to their proceedings by performing some holy rite.
“The devil!” shouted Candlish, as Leo leaped from his lap, and crouched away in one corner of the vestry, her shame concealed by the sudden darkness that fell as Tom Candlish cast down the match.
“You scoundrel!” cried North, as, furious with rage, he dashed at the man whom he felt to have been the cause of his agonising pang.
For a moment he had turned towards where he had seen Leo shrink away, his eyes flashing as if he could have withered the wretched creature whom he had believed to be all that was good and true, but who, in spite of his passion for her, seemed now to be too base to be worthy even of a word.
He could not crush her. He could not assail her with the bitterness of the words which rushed to his lips. The veil had fallen from his eyes, and in that dire moment, as he saw her hanging upon the neck of the brutal, coarse young squire, his doting love turned to a savage hate.
But he could not crush her; he could not strike her even with his contempt; but a fierce laugh escaped his throat as he felt how good and kind fate had been to him in giving him the opportunity for taking ample revenge.
And how sweet it seemed as he sprang in the dusk at Tom Candlish.
Fate was kind to him again for the moment, for, as if instinctively, North’s hands caught the sturdy young giant in his fierce grip, and for a few moments they swayed here and there, striking against the wall, the simple furniture of the place, crashing against the closet where the registers were kept, and tearing down the surplice and gown to trample them on the floor.
“Are you mad, doctor?” panted Tom Candlish.
“Yes,” came hissing through the doctor’s teeth.
“Don’t be a cursed fool. Recollect where you are.”
“Recollect where I am!” cried North with a bitter laugh. “You say that to me, you sacrilegious hound!”
They swayed here and there again, North striving hard to get a hand free to strike a blow, but in vain; and the struggle was one savage wrestle, in which the weaker man seemed to be made the equal of the stronger by the passion in his breast.
Meanwhile Leo Salis, trembling in every limb, crouched in the dark far corner of the vestry, and half lay huddled up, listening to the fierce struggle, too much unnerved to move.
At last, though, the desire to escape—to make her way home—mastered all else, and she made for the nearest point of exit—the door into the churchyard; but though she passed her hand over it again and again, the key was not there. Tom Candlish had it in his pocket, and he was unable to set her free.
She tried to creep past the contending couple to the chancel door, but as she strove for it, Tom Candlish was driven against her, nearly fell, and uttered a savage curse, which drowned her cry of agony, for he had crushed her delicate hand beneath his heel.
She shrank back into the corner again, sobbing with fear: but as the struggle continued she nerved herself once more, and this time rose to her feet and tried the other way, just as Tom Candlish was gaining the mastery, and swung North round so savagely that he struck the wretched girl, and drove her heavily against the wall.
Leo uttered a hoarse gasp, and stretched out her hands to save herself, when her left touched the oaken door leading into the chancel.
This revived her just as her feelings were overcoming her and she was turning faint.
With a quick motion she caught the latch, dragged it up, passed through the opening, and, closing the heavy oaken door, sped along the chancel and south aisle to the big door, unlatched it, and, hardly knowing what she did, passed into the porch, and relocked the door before running down to the lych-gate, round to the meadows, and then breathlessly back to the Rectory garden.
“Safe!” she panted; “safe!” as she reached the rustic summer-house, and climbed rapidly up to gain her room, and, after softly closing the casement, sink down sobbing on the floor, bathed in perspiration, and with her breath coming in sobs. “That idiot will not dare to speak. I hope Tom will half kill him. What an escape! But no one will know.”
At this thought she breathed more freely, in happy ignorance of the fact that Dally was just closing her window, gleefully hoping that there had been a scene.
That scene was over now, for as the big south door closed on Leo the struggle was at its fiercest, and Tom Candlish was getting the worst of the encounter.
“Loose my throat, North!” he cried. “So cursedly ungentlemanly.”
“Yes; I am dealing with a scoundrel, whom Hartley Salis thrashed, and I’ll thrash you too, you dog!”
As he spoke, he dealt with his now freed hand a fierce blow right between Tom Candlish’s eyes, making him stagger back.
But the triumph was momentary, for, rendered savage by the pain, the young squire flung himself upon his adversary, and bore him back as a jingling of a falling key was heard. The wrestling grew wilder and fiercer, and then Horace North felt as if his legs were suddenly enmeshed. He strove to free them, but in vain; and before he could recover the ground he had lost he was flung heavily, his head coming with a crash upon the stone floor, just where the matting did not cover it, and he lay without motion, and made no sound.
“Curse him for a fool! Let him lie there till he comes to,” panted Tom Candlish. “Where’s the key? What a fool! I heard it fall as we struggled. Matches? They went too, and if they didn’t I daren’t light one.”
He felt his way to the chancel door, but in his confusion he could not open it, as Leo had made it fast.
“She’s got away home by now,” muttered Candlish. “Where’s my hat? All right; I put it on the window-ledge. Hah!—yes, that will do.”
He stepped up on the oaken chest beneath the long, narrow window, opened the iron-framed casement, and, squeezing himself through, stood in a bent attitude, holding on for a few moments, and then leaped down into the black darkness.
A dull thud as he came down on the gravel, a crushing blow, followed by another rapidly given; a heavy groan, and then silence.
A minute later a rustling sound as of some one stealing away.