CHAPTER XXXVIII.
["WHERE'ER I CAME I BROUGHT CALAMITY."]
Tom Blake was thunderstruck. They were both standing facing one another a few feet apart. Blake was not a man to be disturbed by a trifle. He had been a good deal about in the world, and had had experience of various kinds of men and women. Many years ago he had met this woman frequently, and in the end he made love to her. Although she accepted that love and returned it, she had never taken him fully into her confidence.
In Marion Butler, as he knew her eleven or twelve years ago, there had always been a certain undefined reserve. She would not refuse to answer any question put to her, nor was there a doubt she answered truly and fully. But she always created the impression that there were questions which he could not devise or discover, and the answer to which he was in no way prepared for. He had no idea or hint of what these questions might be. He was in no way uneasy about them. He was convinced there were portions of her nature which would always be concealed from him; but he was not jealous or suspicious. He was not then even slightly disquieted by this blankness, this reticence. It had no more meaning for him than would her native tongue, had she been born a Hindoo and laid that language aside for English. She had told him she had never loved any one but him, and he believed her without the possibility of doubt. She promised to be his wife, and he believed she would have stood at the altar with him though death were his rival for the first kiss.
But now he was amazed, confounded. He had never seen the man Fahey, but he had heard and read in the papers a little about him, and from all he had gathered he fancied Fahey was a kind of upper servant or hanger-on of some kind. Davenport had spoken to him of Fahey, but the talk had been very general and vague, except with regard to the conspiracy, and the former man always showed the greatest possible disinclination to hear anything, or be asked any questions relating to the latter. Blake had never run the risk of riding a free horse to death. He got money in large sums from Mr. Davenport, but he had been judicious. There was nothing so low or coarse as blackmail hinted at by Mr. Davenport. That gentleman and he were excellent friends, and he had had bad luck, or was in want of money for some other cause, and when men became alarmed about money matters, although they were quite innocent, they often did foolish things. Look at that idiot Fahey. So Mr. Davenport, because he was a gentleman and a friend of Blake's, gave him money out of mere courtesy and good nature, and not fear, as one gives to a strange fellow-pedestrian on the footway when the stranger carries a load. There was no more hint of threat or dread of fear in the case of Mr. Davenport's offering the money, or of Blake taking it, than in the case of the meeting of two unacquainted wayfarers.
He had thought nothing the widow could tell him would take him by surprise, and here he now was fairly breathless and amazed. There was no doubt in his mind this Fahey had not been the social equal of Marion Butler, and Blake was of opinion the man's origin had been much lower than Mr. Davenport's, though whence the dead man had sprung he did not exactly know. Kilcash House had not always been the dead man's property. He had bought it only a little while before his marriage. Davenport seemed to be a man accustomed to meet men only. He was not by any means at his ease in an ordinary mixed company, and he had explained this to Blake by saying that until comparatively late in life he had been almost wholly a business man and unaccustomed to the society of ladies.
But now what ghastly light shone on the dire tragedy of the Crescent House in Dulwich! What a wonderful revelation was this! Fahey, the humble follower of the dead man, had been an admirer of the dead man's wife; and he who had been declared dead a decade of years ago was by her believed to be living, and to have been connected directly with her husband's death! No wonder he was giddy. No wonder he could find no words to speak to her. No wonder he could only stand and gaze at her in stupid fear, revolving in a dim light the ghostly pageant of the past.
It was she who broke the silence.
"I wish I were dead!"
Her voice recalled him to her presence and the immediate hour. He took her by the hand, led her to a seat, and began pacing up and down the room without speaking.
"Advise me," she went on, after a pause. "Advise me, out of mercy. If I were dead, there would be no lips to tell, no soul to suspect the horrors by which I am haunted. Advise me. You know more of me than any other living being. Shall I die?"
Still he could not speak. Her question came to his ears as though it were something apart from her personality and his consideration--as though it were a tedious impertinence rising from an indifferent source. Although he knew he was in that room with the widow of Louis Davenport, and that she had just said she believed Fahey was alive, and had killed her husband from jealousy, he could not give the situation substantial form. There were confounding murmurs in his ears, and indeterminable shadows floating before his eyes. His mind was clamorous for quiet, and the clamour stunned and confounded him.
"Speak to me," she pleaded. "I am not deserted, yet I am alone. I have always been alone since I can first remember. Only I myself have broken the solitude in which I lived. Once, long ago, I thought you were coming towards me from a distance, to share my solitude, but you--you--went by. I felt like a castaway on a desolate island, who sees a sail bear down upon him in the twilight, only to find the morning sea a barren desert of water. Should I die? That is not a hard question for you to answer, is it?"
"No; not a hard question, Marion. You must live."
"For what?"
If she had asked this question an hour ago, before she told him her horrible suspicions, he would readily have answered, "For me." As it was, such an answer would have seemed flippant, profane. But an answer of some kind must be made. He could find no answer, and said merely, "Give me time."
She sat upright on her chair. One hand and arm rested on the table, the white hand lying open upon the leaf, the thumb holding on by the edge. Her head and face were thrust forward, her chin projecting, the forehead reclining. Her eyes, wide open, followed him closely, intently, but not eagerly. She seemed curious, more than anxious. It was as though she took but a reflected interest in the question, although the reply might govern her action. She waited for him patiently. He was a long time before he spoke.
"Marion," he said at length, "if I am to be of any use to you--if even my advice is to be of service to you--I must know all--all, without reserve of any kind. On the face of it, your question is absurd. Supposing you had no code--no religious feeling in the matter; suppose you had no fear or hope of the other world, what earthly good could come of your doing violence to yourself?--of your throwing away your life suddenly?"
While he was saying this, he continued to walk up and down the room, with his eyes bent on the floor.
Her eyes had continued to follow him in the same close, intent way. Still they lacked eagerness. She was a pupil anxious to know--not an enthusiast impatient to act.
"It would," she answered, with no trace of emotion, "close up his grave for ever, and give peace to his name."
"Your husband's--your husband's grave and name! Come, Marion, let us be frank."
"In what am I uncandid?"
"You did not--you swore at the inquest you did not--love your husband, and now you are talking of killing yourself for his sake. Marion, you cannot hold such words candid."
He paused in his walk, and stood before her. He looked at her a moment, and then averted his gaze. Her eyes, although they rested intelligently on him, did not appear to identify him. They were the eyes of one occupied with the solution of a mental problem, aided by formula of which he was merely the source.
"Thomas Blake," she said, "I once thought you might grow to understand me, and then I came to the conclusion you never could. You are now further off than ever. Louis Davenport was my husband, and I belonged to him. I belong to him still. I swore--as they were good enough to remind me at the inquest--to love, honour, and obey him. I did not come to love him as women love their husbands, but my feeling towards him was whole and loyal. I was his, and I am his; and if my death, now that he is dead, can benefit him or comfort his name with quiet, I am willing to die. Do not be alarmed. I shall make no unpleasantness here. Do you think I am in the way of his rest?"
"Marion, you are talking pure nonsense. Why, your feelings as a Christian alone----"
"Who told you I was a Christian? I tell you I am a Pagan. Leave me at least the Pagan virtues of courage and fearlessness." She did not move.
He looked at her. There could be no doubt she was sincere. Mad as her words sounded, they must be taken at the full value of their ordinary meaning.
"I will not seek to break down your resolution or turn your purpose aside. But before I can be of any real use to you in the way of advice, you must trust me wholly. How am I to judge of your duty unless I know the entire case? Tell me all you know. Tell me all that passed between you and this Fahey, and all you know of the relations between him and your husband."
"I will tell you all you need know."
"Do you think you are a good judge of where your confidence in a matter of this importance should end?"
"I think I am. At all events, I shall be reticent if I consider it better not to speak."
"Well, then, go on, Marion, and tell me all you may. Mind, the more I know the more likely I am able to be of use to you."
She passed the hand not resting on the table across her forehead.
"Sit down," she said. "I can speak with greater ease while you are sitting."
He took a chair directly opposite her, and she began:
"All that I said at the inquest is true, and I told the whole truth in answer to any questions I was asked; but I did not say all that was in my mind. I have had bitter trials in my life. I will not refer again to what was once between you and me; and, remember, in anything I may say I shall have no thought of that. I put that away from my mind altogether, and it will be ungenerous of you if you draw any deduction towards our relations in the past from anything I may say. Is that understood?"
"Perfectly, Marion. I know you too well to fancy for a moment you could be guilty of the mean cowardice of talking at any one. Go on."
"Thank you. I am glad you think I am no coward." She still kept her hand before her face, as though to concentrate her attention upon her mental vision. "As I said at that awful inquest, there was never anything ever so slightly like a quarrel between Mr. Davenport and me. Except that we lived almost exclusively at Kilcash House, which was dull, I had little or nothing to complain of; and the great quiet and isolation of that place did not affect me much, for I had small or no desire to go out into the world, and after a few years it would have given me more pain than pleasure to have to mingle in society. Very shortly after my marriage I met Michael Fahey for the first time----"
"What was he like?" asked Blake, interrupting her.
"He was tall and slender. His hair was brown, his eyes light in colour--blue, I think. He wore a moustache of lighter colour than his hair, and small whiskers of the same colour. He was good-looking in a way----"
"What kind of way?"
"Well, a soft and gentle way. At first he struck me as being a man who was weak, mentally and physically. Later I had reason to think him a man of average, if not more than average, physical strength."
"About how old was he then?"
"I could not say exactly. Under thirty, I should think. He also struck me as a man of not quite good social position. His manners were uneasy, apprehensive, and his English uncertain. He was restless and ill at ease, and for my own peace of mind I was glad when I parted from him; for it struck me he would be much more comfortable if he and my husband were left alone together.
"My husband spoke to me in the highest terms of Fahey, and said that although he wished nothing to be said about it just then, or until he gave me leave to mention it, Fahey had done him useful service in his time. That was all Mr. Davenport volunteered, and I asked no question. I was sure of one thing more--namely, that the less I was with Michael Fahey the better my husband would be satisfied.
"I smiled when this conviction came first upon me. Up to the moment I felt it I had in my mind treated this Fahey as a kind of upper servant, who was to be soothed into unconsciousness that he was not an equal. For a short time I felt inclined to expostulate with Mr. Davenport on the absurdity of fancying Fahey could think of me save as the wife of his patron; but I kept silence, partly out of pride and partly out of ignorance of the relations which really existed between this man and my husband. You may, or may not, have heard of a circumstance which occurred shortly after my marriage?"
"I remember nothing noteworthy. Tell me what it was."
"At that time it was Mr. Davenport's habit to keep large sums of money in the house. Once upon his having to go away for a few days, he left me the keys of the safe in which the money was locked up. While he was away, an attempt was made to rob the house. A door was forced from outside, and two men were absolutely in my room, where I kept the key of the safe, when Fahey, who was staying in the village of Kilcash at the time, rushed in and faced the thieves. I was aroused and saw the struggle. Fortunately the men were unarmed. The light was dim--only my low night lamp.
"The first blow Fahey struck he knocked one of the men through a window. Then he and the other man struggled a long time, and at last the thief broke loose and escaped by the way he had come in. Fahey had overheard the two thieves plan the robbery in the village, and had followed them that night to our house. My husband wished the matter to be kept quiet, and so it was hushed up.
"The next time I met Fahey after that night I was alone on the downs. He was alone too. I stopped to thank him. I do not remember exactly what I said--commonplace words of gratitude, no doubt. While I was speaking I was close to him, and gazing into his face. I cut my speech short, for I saw a look in his eyes that told me I was not indifferent to him."
The widow's hand fell from her face, and she looked at her visitor with an expression of trouble and dismay.
"There was nothing distressing or alarming in that," said Blake, with an encouraging smile. "You must remember you were then, as you are now, an exquisitely lovely woman.
"'No marvel, sovereign lady; in fair field
Myself for such a face had boldly died.'"
"Ay, ay," she said, with a shudder and a glance of horror round the room. "In the stanza before the one from which you quote my fate is written:
"'Where'er I came I brought calamity.'"
She stared before her, shuddered again, and sighed.
"Well?" said he. "You have more to tell me?"
"Yes; I'll go on."