WAS IT A RUSE?
The tide of horror was mounting higher, the waters gurgled to her lips, and her own feeble hands must raise a footway from out of the hissing waves to bear her safely over.
"Where now, miss?" asked Symonds, holding the coach door in his hand.
"Drive to the office of Seamore Emersham, the lawyer," said Margaret.
The coachman mounted to the box, turned the carriage, and rolled down the street again.
"Can it be doubted that my guardians have been purposely sent out of the way, that I may not appeal to them for protection?" she thought. "No, I am not deceived; Mortlake is too talented a plotter to leave a door of safety open for his victim. With what plausible excuse can he have duped the suspicious Davenport, and the humane Gay, that they have both left me in his power? No doubt he expected to keep me a prisoner in the castle until I had either capitulated or fallen a victim to his rage. But I have escaped him, and am free to seek protection where I please, and since my friends have allowed themselves to be cheated by the villain, I shall lay my case before this other lawyer, Mr. Emersham. I have only to disclose the outrage attempted last night, and my enemy shall be arrested. Oh! you arch fiend! you did not expect this chapter in the story, did you? No, you wretch, you do not know that Margaret Walsingham is posting to sure victory, and your certain destruction!"
Symonds drew up before Mr. Emersham's windows, and the lawyer himself looked out at this unwonted vision of a carriage at his door, and drew back with a smirk of satisfaction!
Margaret had her foot on the step, her hand on the servant's shoulder, and was about to alight, when a triviality stayed her steps, an incident changed her purpose—she sat down again and waited.
Through the drab-colored mire of the village street, a man was trudging, his scarlet coat the one object of interest in the lonely street, an envelope in his outstretched hand shining like a flag of truce—he hurried eagerly toward the Castle Brand carriage—the village postman.
Reaching the pavement before the lawyer's door, he handed Margaret a letter, and touched his hat deferentially.
"Thought I couldn't catch yer in time," panted the old man to Symonds, "and there's 'immediate' on the letter. I saw yer pass the post office, and knew it would save me the tramp to the Waaste if I could catch up. Good-day, sir."
He trudged away, and the coachman lounged about the pavement awaiting his mistress' pleasure.
The letter was written in the welcome hand of Dr. Gay, and Margaret devoured its contents with sparkling eyes.
Thus the good old doctor wrote:
"My Dear Miss Margaret:
"I am writing this from——, in Berks, where I have stopped for an hour to dine. I have been very unexpectedly called away to Llandaff, to follow out this extraordinary case of yours, and am anxious to run it through before I agitate you; hence my sudden departure.
"When the worry of starting off was over, and I had time to think over your position, I realized how uncomfortable you would be under the sole charge of Davenport, who is always rather hard upon you, considering that you are in a precarious state of mind, so I thought of a very good plan for you. I require to stay in Wales for a week or so, and will stop at Caerlyon's Hotel, a very nice house, in Llandaff, where you might be quite comfortable. Suppose then, you run off from the colonel and come to me?
"I hope you will be pleased with the idea, for you need a change badly. You can take Purcell with you and come by rail as far as Cirencester, where you take the coach. Depend upon it, I shall look for you every day. Think of it, and start to-morrow.
"Your obedient servant,
"Rufus Gay."
Margaret laid down the letter with a trembling hand, and put that hand to her forehead wildly. A dark suspicion had assailed her from the moment she began to read, and now she sat wrapped in perplexity and terror.
"Is this a snare for me also?" thought she. "Is this letter forged?"
She seized it again and pored over it with keen eyes; but its neat, cramped chirography revealed nothing. She had had many notes from Dr. Gay in precisely these finical characters.
The postmarks were all there upon the envelope, the sentences in the letter echoed the doctor's every day speech. The whole missive seemed too bona fide to doubt for a moment.
And yet she doubted and hesitated, and longing frantically to obey the welcome request which was couched in the familiar language of her old friend, she thrust the hope from her with suspicion and loathing.
Torn between two opinions she gazed with stony eyes into vacancy; while the sharp young lawyer eyed her inquisitively from his office window, and Symonds lounging about the pavement, ventured to whistle a few dreary notes to remind his mistress of his existence, and beat his arms across his breast, to suggest to her the bitterness of the wintry wind. She looked at him at last, with a resolute face, and commanded him to see whether Mr. Emersham was alone.
"I have nothing to hope for but death, if I stay here," mused Margaret, almost calmly, "and I can meet no worse if I obey this letter, and go away. I may as well have the benefit of the doubt, and go to Llandaff, since there is a possibility that this Letter is not forged. Yes, I can fear no worse fate than death, and that menaces me here every moment of my guardians' absence. I will obey the letter and go."
A dingy office boy, answering Symonds' knock, announced that Mr. Emersham was entirely disengaged, and Margaret alighted, and entered the office.
The lawyer hastened to salute her, and had her seated, and the door shut with much alacrity. She bestowed upon him one piercing glance; the shallow eyes answered her appeal for wise counsel in the negative; the blasé mouth answered her hopes for protection also in the negative. The fast young lawyer was clearly not the man to whom she could trust her secret or in whom she could place confidence.
The fast young lawyer's smartly furnished office and diamond ring, spoke of a thriving practice; but his old office-coat, his idle hands clasped behind him, his reckless swagger and his insincere face spoke more reliable of shams, and shifts, and unscrupulous quirks to fill the empty purse. Clearly, Mr. Seamore Emersham was a man to be bought with money; and Roland Mortlake was the man to buy him; no disclosures must be made by Margaret Walsingham before him.
"Dr. Gay's letter said to me 'start to-morrow,'" thought she, "but this man's countenance as I read it, warns me to start to-night."
She dropped her distrustful eyes from his, and quietly opened her business.
"I am Miss Walsingham, of Castle Brand," she said, "and in the temporary absence of my own lawyer, Mr. Davenport, I have come to you. I am going out to Surrey presently, and I wish to leave some documents in your charge until I return. They are important papers, which I must not lose, and, since some accident might occur to them or to you, in my absence, I will prefer that you undertake the charge in company with some other person whose honor is considered unimpeachable. Can you name such a person?"
The lawyer opened his eyes very wide at his new client's strange request, but glibly ran over a list of the leading men of Regis as candidates for the honor of Miss Walsingham's confidence.
"We shall try the Rev. Mr. Challoner," she said, "and while I arrange the papers, your boy can carry him a note from me."
Mr. Emersham darted for stationery and wheeled a desk to his visitor with profuse politeness, and when the note was finished he sent his boy off at full speed to the vicarage with it.
During his absence Margaret wrote a careful account of her enemy's attempt upon her life the previous night; copied out the letter she had received that morning purporting to be from Dr. Gay, and concluded it with these remarks:
"Believing my life to be in danger so long as I remain in Roland Mortlake's vicinity, I resolve to obey the above letter, although I expect it to lead me into some trap where I shall lose my life. However, in the faint hope that I may be mistaken, I will begin my journey to Llandaff to-night at seven o'clock, Dec. 1862, and return in the seven o'clock evening train the day after to-morrow, when I shall come straight to Mr. Emersham's office, and reclaim this trust which I have put in his hands. If I do not return on the evening of the said day, I shall have met my death at the hands of Roland Mortlake, who personates Colonel St. Udo Brand, and I call upon Mr. Emersham to cause that man's arrest for my murder."
This finished, she ordered Mr. Emersham to draw up the form of her will, wherein she declared her wish that the Brand property should be sold, and the proceeds used to found a charitable institution in Regis, declaring, heedless, of Mr. Emersham's looks of astonishment, that St. Udo Brand being dead, she had resolved that an impostor should never occupy his place. In dead silence then she awaited the arrival of the vicar; the lawyer sitting opposite her gnawing the feather of his pen, and peering inquisitively at her.
Presently the blown office boy ushered in the vicar of Regis, a tall, snowy-haired divine, whose very presence diffused an atmosphere of safety around the persecuted woman.
She had already a slight acquaintance with him, and after a cordial greeting from him, she explained the favor she wished to receive, apologizing timidly for intruding her affairs upon him.
"My advisers, Mr. Davenport and Dr. Gay, are both away," she said, "and wishing to join the doctor, I feel that I must provide against any contingency which may arise. Will you, jointly with Mr. Emersham, undertake the charge of these documents for two days?"
Mr. Challoner readily consented. He had always liked the earnest-faced woman, who took her place so regularly in church, and whose praises were sounded so frequently by the lowliest of his flock.
Symonds was called in to append his name as one of the witnesses to Margaret Walsingham's will, Mr. Challoner being the other, and then the office door was shut mysteriously upon the lady and her two counselors, and gave them her instructions.
With her own hand she placed the document which condemned Roland Mortlake as St. Udo's assassin, his note-book, and her will, in an empty pigeon-hole of the lawyer's dusty drawers, locked it, and put the key in the old vicar's hand.
"Come here on Thursday evening at seven o'clock," she said, "with that key; wait until fifteen minutes past the hour, and if I do not arrive then, you must take out the document and read it. If you fail to act up to its instructions, a murderer will escape. I place the key in your hand, because foul play might be attempted upon Mr. Emersham to force him to betray my trust—foul play will not be attempted upon you."
They silently regarded the whitening face, when her womanly terrors struggled with the fixed, fatal look of vengeance, and solemnly promised to do her will.
Then the vicar shook hands and went away.
She looked at her watch. It was six o'clock. She had been nearly two hours in the lawyer's office.
He had long ago lit the gas and closed the shutters, and was waiting very patiently for her to conclude her business that he might go home to his dinner.
"I have one more letter to write, Mr. Emersham. Will you wait a few minutes longer?" said Margaret.
Again he poured out the assurance of the honor, etc.; and, with a wild smile on her lips, she wrote the following daring words:
"Roland Mortlake, or Thoms—which name you have least right to I cannot tell—I warn you, that if I meet my death while absent from Regis upon this journey, your doom is sealed!
"I warn you further, that if I return safely at the end of the time I have set, your doom is sealed, if you are here to brave it. Your only safety lies in flight before I return; and even then I shall do my best to convict you of the murder of St. Udo Brand, which you have confessed in your pocket-book, which has this day been placed in safe hands—which will break the seals, if I am not alive to break them when I intend to return to Regis. If I perish, vengeance shall surely overtake the murderer of St. Udo Brand and Margaret Walsingham."
She bade farewell to Mr. Emersham at last, and entering her carriage, drove straight to a hotel near the railway station, from which she sent Symonds home with the carriage, and intrusted her letter to him with directions to give it to the steward to deliver to the colonel; and warnings to Symonds not to allow himself to be questioned by Colonel Brand.
A note to Mr. Purcell conveyed her command that he would attend upon her journey; and cautioned him against giving Colonel Brand an inkling of his intentions.
In a quarter of an hour the steward of Castle Brand was ushered into her presence.
"All ready, Purcell?" demanded the lady.
"Quite ready, Miss Margaret."
"Where is Colonel Brand?"
"Still at the castle, miss."
"Did you give him my letter yourself?"
"I did, miss."
"What did he say?"
Mr. Purcell shook his head and looked disgusted.
"You must tell me what he said, Purcell?" insisted Margaret.
"He said nothing that I'd be proud to repeat, Miss Margaret," said Purcell, sourly.
"He up and cursed you like a madman, and said, 'Let her go if she dares!'"
"What else?"
"Ordered out his horse."
"Intending to find me before I started—do you think?"
"Yes, miss; but I left him cross-questioning Symonds, who wouldn't give him any satisfaction."
"Very good. Now we must hasten, or we shall miss the train."
She hurried on her traveling-cloak, and, accompanied by Purcell, descended to the station, where the train was ready to start and got on board in time.
From behind her thick crape vail she watched every passenger who crossed the platform to enter any of the long line of cars, and the flaming street-lamps revealed every face distinctly.
Porters hustled each other; newsboys shouted their papers; ladies made blind sallies to the wrong class car and lost themselves in the throng; gentlemen with umbrellas, carpet-bags and plaids elbowed their way into empty compartments; but Roland Mortlake was not among the mob.
She had slipped the chain and got free.
The train glided out of the shed and set itself to its night's work, and Margaret sank back to her seat with a sigh of relief.
"I have outwitted him," she thought. "His calculations upon my expected movements are all astray. I have taken him by surprise. I shall find Dr. Gay in Llandaff, sure enough. I did right to go in search of him."
On rushed the train through the darkness of night.
Purcell, who sat beside his mistress, spread a plaid over the back of her seat, and pinned it about her shoulders, grumbling that she would take her death of cold in the drafty car; and presently she fell fast asleep, with her head resting against the jarring panel.
Purcell, too, dozed off, and dreamed that he was in his own cozy room at Castle Brand; and only awoke with the banging of a door ringing in his ears and the soft hand of his mistress clutching his arm.
The train was gliding on again, but it had paused one minute at a little country station, and a man had entered.
He was muffled in a huge fur coat, and seated himself near Margaret, with a grunt of satisfaction that he had a whole seat to extend his legs upon.
Margaret regarded him keenly, and he returned her gaze with stolid indifference. Purcell growled out his disapprobation of the new-comer's placing his clumsy foot against his mistress' long dress, and the man serenely changed his position, wound a scarlet muffler about his copper-colored throat, and settled himself for a nap.
He was a tall, stout man, with a heavy jaw, coarse lips turned doggedly down at the corners, and piercing steel-blue eyes; his face was red and his hands were large and brown; but stupid, dull, and sleepy, he seemed unworthy of a second thought; and Margaret sank into a deep reverie and forgot him.
On they glided; through dim villages, amid bare-branched wealds, and over creeping rivers, which shone like misty mirrors in the faint starlight, resting from time to time, for a few minutes, at the country stations.
Other cars emptied and were filled again with fresh travelers; other compartments changed their occupants from seat to seat, but the trio sat still in this, and whiled away the time silently.
Then the train entered upon an hour's stretch of country, which it must traverse without pausing.
The man in the fur coat, weary of steadying his drowsy head against the corner of his seat, sat upright and drew a newspaper from his pocket. Falling asleep over that, he produced a silver snuff-box, and refreshed himself with a generous pinch; then he looked meditatively at the old steward nodding comfortlessly before him, and proffered him the snuff-box; but looking into it, he discovered that it was about empty.
This appeared to afford him peculiar gratification, for he smiled to himself as he drew a paper parcel from his pocket, and proceeded to fill the snuff-box with its fragrant contents.
Idly Margaret watched him thrusting the diminished parcel back into the breast-pocket, and waking Purcell up by a vigorous poke, in order to offer him the replenished snuff-box.
The old man's eyes brightened, he uttered a heartfelt "I thank you kindly, sir," and inhaled a huge pinch, handing back the box with a courtly bow.
Then, sneezing with much fervor and wiping his eyes, Purcell vowed that he couldn't remember the day when snuff had smelt so queer; at which the man in the fur coat roared with laughter and boasted that his was the best; and presently Purcell's head sank down on his breast, and he took no further notice of his vis-a-vis.
Margaret drew out her handkerchief and covered her face with it, for a faint, sickening, drowsy odor was exhaling from Purcell's nostrils, and stealing her breath away.
She next tried her smelling-salts, and requested Purcell to open the window on his side: but he, taking no heed, she shook his arm, and, at last, gazed into his face.
It was chalk-white, a deadly perspiration bathed lip and brow; the half-closed eyelids showed the eyeballs glazed and sightless, and his breast heaved painfully, as if a ton-weight lay upon it.
Margaret Walsingham came to herself in an instant—she grew cool and calm.
She knew now that the man who sat opposite to her had been hired by Mortlake to murder her.
No more tremors of fear, no more hurried plans for escape, no more hoping for some fortunate circumstance to save her. She felt that her time had come; and she knew that she must succumb to her fate. She saw how well her destruction was planned; she traced out the tragedy with terrific distinctness, she saw herself seized by these great, cruel hands in the first tunnel whose resounding roar could drown her death-shriek, and the pistol fired off at her ear, or the silent knife plunged into her bosom; and she knew how easy it would be for her murderer to leave the car at the next station and escape forever.
Before she raised herself from her speechless examination of her drugged servant, she had foreseen her death, and accepted it with a stony despair.
She mechanically turned to pull down the window at her own side, but the rough hand of the murderer met hers and arrested the act; his steel-blue eyes gleamed into hers, and drove her back to her corner, where she sat gazing like a dumb animal into the man's face, with her arms folded over her breast, a frail shield which he laughed at.
Some minutes passed, the servant partially recovered consciousness, and was plied with a handkerchief saturated with chloroform and pressed to his nostrils; and, when he was swaying to and fro in his seat like a dead man, with every lurch of the car, the ruffian turned to the unhappy woman beside him with a mischievous, fatal look in his coarse face.