A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.
"My proofs are these," answered Margaret, forcing herself to speak quietly. "He acts exactly as a man would act who was personating some one else. He knows the true St. Udo's history to a certain extent, and cleverly acts upon it; but go beyond the part he has rehearsed, and he betrays the most extraordinary confusion. When first I saw him I was astonished at the change which a few months in America had made. The longer I studied him the more palpable became his disguise to my eyes; and I am now morally convinced that my suspicions are well founded."
"All this is nothing," said Mr. Davenport. "You have advanced no proofs, except to show that from the first day of his return you conceived a dislike to him."
"I made him commit himself wholly to-day," continued Margaret, anxiously. "The first time he betrayed his ignorance of the contents of that letter which St. Udo Brand wrote me upon leaving the castle; the second time he was so puzzled by the fastening of the library glass door, that he could not open it. That door, Mr. Davenport, which Mrs. Brand's grandson used exclusively."
"And would you condemn a man upon such accidents of memory as these?"
"Had St. Udo Brand that cowardly glance, that crime-darkened visage, that crawling, scheming softness?" cried Margaret, with flashing eyes. "Ugh! he is a serpent drawing his slimy folds into our midst—he is a travesty on the dead hero of yonder battle-field."
"You did not always think so well of Captain Brand," retorted the lawyer, with another exchange of glances with Gay; "and I should think that seeing him once—and that under circumstances rather damaging to him—you would hardly be capable of judging of his heroism or other good qualities, in comparison with any one."
"I am not deceived," said Margaret; "and, if you will watch this man, you cannot be deceived either."
The executors remained eying each other with a dubious frown.
This charge was leaving a very disagreeable impression on their minds. The physician remarked the gleaming eyes beside him with a speculation as to the sanity of his ward.
The lawyer ruminated over her communication with a speculation as to her honesty.
"Be careful, Miss Walsingham, not to get yourself into trouble," said Mr. Davenport.
"It might prove very damaging to your character to defame the man who was to have shared with you Mrs. Brand's estates."
"Would it not be more damaging to my character and to yours, Mr. Davenport, as retainer of the Brand estates, to allow an impostor a foothold at Seven-Oak Waaste?"
"Fair and softly, madam. He can't have a foothold unless you are pleased to accept him as your husband. Why attempt any exposure at all? Why not suffer his attentions until he proposes, and then dismiss him as if you were dismissing the veritable St. Udo. Be he who he may, he can't gain a foothold after that."
Margaret's face waxed paler.
Gazing in turn at each of the executors she might expect little sympathy from the half cajoling regards of the one, or from the impassive scowl of the other.
"If he is an adventurer, come here with the carefully-prepared plot by which he hopes to win the Brand estates," she said, slowly, "he will not be likely to stop at his efforts because a woman stands in the way. He will have worked too hard and risked too much to be lightly turned from his purpose. He will have weighed well the chances of a refusal. The woman who stands in his way will be removed if she refuses to be his stepping-stone."
"A parcel of moonshine!" cried Davenport, hotly.
"I implore you to believe otherwise. Do you think I would have come to you on mere suspicion? I am perfectly convinced in my own mind, sir."
"But you must convince others as well as yourself. You must bring proofs. Why, we can think nothing but that that ancient pique of yours against the captain has touched your brain, and made you really take up this unworthy suspicion against a man who is the same as ever he was. I see no difference in him, except that he looks the worse for wear."
"Which his hard usage makes very natural," said Dr. Gay.
"You refuse to help me, then?"
"What would you like us to do, Miss Margaret?"
"I would like you to force this man into proving his identity; confront him with such circumstances as must unmask his plot, if he has one; you have the power and I have not."
"I don't see that we are authorized to molest any man upon such crazy foundations as those you have advanced; indeed, I can't consent to take one step of an unfriendly nature against the colonel. I have been a faithful solicitor for the Brands these many years, and it is late in the day to turn against them now. Give it up, Miss Walsingham."
"I shall not give it up," retorted Margaret rising; "if I must work single-handed, I will, but remember, you have left me to battle with a dangerous and desperate foe."
She left the office without another word, and slowly retraced her steps toward Seven-Oak Waaste.
She was imbued with as profound a sense of her own defenseless condition as any woman under the sun.
She invoked the help of her only protectors, and they had indignantly refused to be alarmed. If she would unmask a bold and determined villain, she must do it alone.
"I am going to have a hard struggle," she thought; "and it may be a struggle for my life."
No wonder that she stood still in her walk, to turn this thought about her mind with a horrible earnestness: it took its weird and awful shape from a passing memory of those murderously treacherous eyes which had surely taken her in more than once in the library that morning; it loomed larger and larger as she pondered, and the chill shadow of death seemed to be over her.
"For my life," she repeated, gazing with dilated eyes into the warning future.
Castle Brand appeared grayly before her from among its bare armed oaks; the brown Waaste stretched far and wide, and a black pool lay in a gloomy hallow, deep and inky, as if its stormy face kept impassively calm over secrets of murder and violence.
For a time the natural instinct of self was strong in the heart of the lonely girl; she quailed before the dangers of her course, and almost persuaded herself to turn and fly; but her inborn courage came to her aid; a something in the soul of this naturally weak woman rose in fierce protest against allowing an impostor to triumph; her fears faded away out of sight, as implacable anger succeeded the brief emotion.
"Let him wear the dead St. Udo's honors?" she ejaculated. "Let him be Ethel Brand's heir? No—not while I, the sworn keeper of the wishes of her who was to me a benefactress, can raise a hand to balk him. You wretch! you shall find Margaret Walsingham no coward."
The rattle of a gig aroused her, and she looked round to behold Dr. Gay approaching.
"What are you standing there for, rooted to the spot?" he asked, drawing up beside her. "Are you surveying, or inveighing?"
"The latter term is the most appropriate. I was mentally measuring my courage with that of the subject of our afternoon's consultation."
"Step up beside me; I would like a few words with you. You left us in such a hurry that I felt it necessary to follow you."
She obeyed him, and they leisurely approached the gates.
"Davenport and I have been thinking that it is our duty to warn you how you give wind to this extraordinary suspicion of yours; it may prove embracing, perhaps dangerous for you, and would create a great deal of needless scandal."
"You wish me to be utterly silent on the subject?"
"Well, yes, my dear; it is by far the safest plan."
She pondered deeply for a few minutes.
"I promise to keep my convictions to myself, until I have found such proofs against him as will satisfy you and Mr. Davenport."
"Has Colonel Brand left the castle?" asked the doctor, as the lodge-keeper opened the gates.
"No sir: there he is"—pointing under the trees—"him and his doag. It comed tearing oop from the village like a mad thing, an hour agone, and yelped like a frog until its maister comed to it."
There under the naked trees, kicking up the withered leaves in the little clouds, shuffled the colonel, with head dropped on his breast, and folded arms; so deep in reverie that he seemed unconscious of all outside of his own brain.
Round and round he walked in an idle circle upon the leaf padded park under the naked trees, and the long tan sleuth-hound glided after him with dropped nose and stealthy tread, as if he, too, were tracking game; and a malicious fancy might have suggested that the man was followed by a moral shadow of himself.
"There he lurks," spoke Margaret, with loathing scorn, as they left the lodge behind; "patient, lean sleuth-hound upon the scent, and watching for the moment to spring. Is that the gay and reckless St. Udo Brand—the brave soldier and the idol of women—the man who scorned a presumed fortune-hunter, and left all for love? Does the blood of good Ethel Brand flow in the veins of such a hound as yonder schemer? He would lick the dust of my feet for money—he whom you insult the memory of the Brands by believing in!"
"Assuredly the girl is touched," thought Gay.
They almost drove upon the colonel before he was aware of them, and so noiseless had been their approach that he appeared utterly bewildered with consternation when Gay addressed him.
"A bleak day, colonel."
"Yes, a bleak day, a very bleak day," said the wily voice, while the twitching face slowly got into company order.
"Having a walk about the oaks, sir? Rather desolate-looking at this time of the year."
"Particularly desolate up at the castle, doctor. I was glad to turn out and bear Argus company. Is Miss Walsingham sufficiently wrapped for this cold wind?"
"Oh, I hope so," answered Gay, looking in vain for a reply in Margaret's stern face.
"She has been taking a little drive with me, I picked her up on the road there."
"Little drive," repeated Colonel Brand, with a slightly sarcastic emphasis, "preceded by a little walk. Did you find our friend Davenport at his post my dear lady?"
Margaret started, and turned her flashing eyes upon the smiling interrogator.
"By what unworthy means have you ascertained my movements?" she demanded.
"Why, dear Miss Walsingham, your housekeeper informed me, when I asked her the cause of your abrupt departure from me, that you had gone to see Mr. Davenport."
The girl sat staring at him in dumb indignation. She had communicated her design to no one in the house and the colonel was telling her a lie to her very face. It was perfectly patent to her that he had dogged her footsteps.
"Are you coming up to Castle Brand?" asked Gay, nervously staving off an expected explosion.
"I—think not," answered the colonel, with a glance baleful as dead lights on a grave; "Miss Walsingham evidently is indifferent to my society. Why, do you know, doctor, I came here to-day expecting a delightful afternoon with her in the library, where first we met, and, like the lonely Marguerite of wicked Faust, she melted from my view, and I found but Mephistopheles taunting me at my elbow in the shape of old memories of years which might have been better spent—called up by the associations of the room."
"She's shy yet—she's shy," said the doctor, in a prompting tone. "Ar'n't you, dear?"
It was utterly out of Margaret's power to do anything but look at St. Udo Brand, as represented by the man among the withered leaves, with a cold stare of scorn.
"The bleak wind is injuring Miss Walsingham's complexion," said the sneering voice again. "I will release her from the freezing process, and myself from Paradise. Good-evening."
Dr. Gay drove his impassive ward up to the steps of Castle Brand, and set her down between the griffiths couchant, and she stood forlornly there clinging to his hand.
"I am afraid to stay here alone," she whispered. "Do come and stay with me, dear doctor, until that terrible man is taken away."
"I—I'm afraid Mrs. Gay might object to such an arrangement, dear; she is a person who—who generally objects—who is opposed to leaving her own home under any circumstances."
"I did not think of Mrs. Gay. Well will you please ask Mr. Davenport to come? Will you implore him to come? He has nothing to keep him, and I am so defenseless here."
"I will mention your request, but I think he will say what I feel without saying—it is a pity you left my house the way you did."
With that parting shot, the little doctor bade his adieu, stepped into his gig, and cheerfully drove away.
Oh, this horrible Waaste! Listen how the harsh wind moans over it, and rises into savage shrieks.
The old trees creak and sigh like the surge of an angry sea; the ancient windows rattle in their stone sockets; the ghostly Brands all down the gallery seem to shudder in their massive frames, as if an ominous Present were casting its shadows back to their centuried Past: the face of Ethel, the beautiful, looks down upon the companion she once loved and cherished as if she would say, in the limitless pride of her heart:
"I trust to you, Margaret Walsingham; keep my name pure, or let it die."
The candles flicker and wave in phantom gusts of wind; long shadows flit about with wide-spreading wings; the brain of the lonely girl is peopled with visions of horror.
Let her double-lock her chamber door, or pace in restlessness the echoing halls, Ethel Brand's bequest has come like a curse to poor Margaret.
A note arrived at the castle next morning from Dr. Gay, which stirred her up to feverish excitement, and showed her a speedy crisis.
"My Dear Ward:—I write more for the purpose of giving you time to prepare your answer, and (may I presume it?) to give you a little timely advice as to the nature of your answer, than for the sake of the communication itself.
"Yesterday, upon leaving you, I had a very momentous interview with Colonel Brand (he returned to Regis with me in the gig), in which he placed himself in the most candid and open manner upon my friendship, and explained to me what he wished to be his future course.
"After commenting with a great deal of proper feeling upon his former extravagances of life, he said that it was little wonder that a highly organized young lady like Miss Walsingham should feel a distrust of him, and that he was quite conscious of a revulsion of feeling on Miss Walsingham's part which his most heartfelt apologies for his former rudeness could not remove. He then implored me to put him upon a way to do away with the bad impression he had created, so that he might win your affection.
"'For,' he declared, with tears in his eyes, 'I have learned to love her to distraction: and if I am ever to be anything, her hand must beckon me on.'
"His sincerity so invited my sympathy that I was within an ace of disclosing to him your ridiculous suspicion, but upon second thoughts concluded that it would wound him too much. However, I proposed to stand his friend with you; so henceforth look upon me in that light.
"He then informed me that he desired to win your consent to marry him purely from personal affection, and that if you would only be his wife, he should insist upon having the whole of the Brand estates settled upon you, in case any one might accuse him of mercenary motives. And, in short, he concluded by disclosing to me his determination to end his suspense by proposing to you this evening. I urged upon him that it would be too premature, but he answered, with deep emotion:
"'She hates me more and more every day. Let me touch her noble heart by my great love, and she will pity, and in time endure me.'
"I don't know whether the course he has marked out will have that effect or not, but this I hope—that you will not turn away your co-heir without due reason.
"And now for my bit of advice.
"Weigh well before the evening the possibility of your having been unjust in your suspicions of the man who is going to offer you his hand; if you do conscientiously, you will come to the conclusion that you have been unjust.
"Then ask yourself if it will be right, or generous, or honorable to dismiss St. Udo Brand from his rightful home and fortune, now that he is willing to bestow it upon you, and only for your love.
"Hoping that the next occasion of our meeting will be more pleasing than the last, I remain your obedient servant,
"R. Gay.
"P.S.—I mentioned last night to Davenport your desire to have him move into the castle for a while, and he utterly refuses to do anything so absurd and extraordinary.
"R. G."
Thus plainly showing that they washed their hands of their ward's vagaries, the executors not only refused her their countenance, but seemed inclined to go over to the enemy.
With what indignant scorn Margaret read the account of his presumed love for herself!
"He has taken his measures," she mused, "to force me into showing my hand, before I have taken one move against him. He is too clever for me. What shall I do?"
Pondering hour after hour, at length she made up her little plan with doubt and misgiving.
"Colonel Brand is coming here this evening, Mrs. Chetwode," she said, as the dusk slowly deepened on stone parapet and spiked rail, "and I wish you to bear me company in the library. You know I do not like the colonel, so you must be my chaperon."
When the suitor came to his lady's bower, on a horse which smoked with hard and furious riding, and when he followed the servant to the library, he found the lady of his heart standing with a demeanor in every way proper for the occasion, while the old housekeeper, in her best black satin, sat behind the statue of St. George, sedately knitting.
"May I entreat the honor of a private interview?" asked the smooth voice.
"We can be as private here as you wish," was the polite reply. "My housekeeper cannot hear anything unless you specially address her."
The colonel bowed and expressed himself satisfied, but if the angry glance which he cast among the murky shadows, where the bright needles clicked, meant anything, the colonel lied.
He took the chair assigned him, but evidently his proposed form of declaration was routed by this unexpected arrangement.
His fingers plucked at his dark mustache in a nervous and undecided manner, and he took a long time to deliberate before he could trust himself to launch upon the momentous subject.
"I am aware," at length began the lover, in a constrained voice, "that Miss Walsingham has conceived very unfriendly feelings toward me—an enmity, I might almost call it—for has she not expressed as much? And I have come here this evening with the hope of making a successful effort to come to an amicable understanding with her, and it will be my last trial."
Always sinking his tones a little lower, and bending to his listener, a little nearer, and casting watchful glances toward the corner where the bright needles clicked, the last word came to sound like a muttered threat, far more than the appeal of a lovesick adorer.
"If," continued he, "Miss Walsingham thinks better of these unfriendly feelings, and expresses herself willing to listen to reason, I will most gladly offer her my hand, if she will deign to accept it as the hand of her husband, and will do all in my power to make her not repent her choice; and if she acts faithfully by me, I will act faithfully by her. Does she consider it possible to say 'yes' to this proposal?"
Coldly avoiding the chance of coming to that mutual understanding which his dropped tones and significant looks insisted upon, Margaret answered in measured accents thus, decorously:
"I am not sufficiently acquainted with Colonel Brand to feel able to give him a decided answer with due appreciation of his virtues. If he will be kind enough to wait four weeks, by that time I shall have made up my mind."
The suitor tapped his heel with his cane and meditated. If his frowning brow and furious eyes did not belie him, this response was an unexpected one, and routed his previous plans.
"Have I checkmated you?" thought Margaret. "You dread the delay of four weeks? Yes, you do, I see it in your wicked face, and I say to myself, 'Well done, Margaret!'"
"I have no motive beyond your own welfare," responded the lover, "when I urge you to place the day of your answer a little nearer."
"Is that a threat? Shall I turn round and tell Mrs. Chetwode that Colonel Brand has threatened me because I cannot promise to accept him without deliberation?"
"You have misunderstood me, then I shall say to your housekeeper. I shall explain that your weak health reminded me of the danger of protracted anxiety, and that then I urged you, for your own welfare, to place the day of your answer a little nearer."
There was a pause, and the two antagonists eyed each other firmly.
"In spite of the danger to my welfare," said Margaret, with unmistakable emphasis, "I must insist on taking a month to consider your proposal. I shall take as much care as possible of my health meanwhile, so that you may have no reason to complain of my imprudence."
"You are determined, then?" said the colonel, rising, with cold fury in his eyes. His repressive power was almost forsaking him, and it was with difficulty that he preserved that decorous gentleness of manner which he had donned with such care.
"Yes, I am determined."
There she stood, waiting with freezing smile for him to go. No gentleman could decently stay another moment under such circumstances.
A sudden impulse, quick as thought, moved Margaret to accompany him to the door; a certain expression on his face stirred up a Babel of memories; it was gone, and they were gone, but she would sound the same waters again.
"Keep the door shut, John, because of the draft," she said to the servant, passing out under the stars with her adorer.
"I shall feel obliged if you only communicate with me through Mr. Davenport," said she, touching the stone lintel with her hand, "until the next four weeks elapse. I shall specially invite you to the castle should I wish to see you at any time, and I expect you to obey the call."
The colonel bowed silently.
A wild, wan moon came out through a riven cloud and shone on Castle Brand. The man on the lowest step and the woman on the highest, gazed fixedly into each other's faces; his, fierce, envious, and distrustful, hers, watchful, cold, and unflinching.
Waiting breathlessly for that wave of memory to beat upon the sands again, it came with the grouping of certain incidents, and with the magic spell of association.
The time had come when the false seeming of this man should drop like a garment. The time had come when a light from the past should break upon Margaret with the suddenly shining moon. The time had come when their souls were revealed to each other and doomed to recognition despite the most perfect masking which rascality could assume to compass its end or purity devise to hide from peril.
These two had stood thus before, the moon gleaming coldly on both—his horse pawing in the shadow, a dying woman in the Brand state chamber.
Margaret turned suddenly on her heel and shut the door. She leaned against the staircase pillars and clasped her hands under the eyes of the astonished John.
"I know him now," she muttered; "he was here the night of Mrs. Brand's death. His name was Roland Mortlake!"