CHAPTER XIV.—A BRIDAL PARTY AND A LITTLE SURPRISE.
A week passed away. The shadow of the caravan no longer fell on the green meadow by the lake, and the straggling population of Aberglyn, unsuspicious of foul play, had already forgotten both the caravan and the owner.
And if facts were to be taken into consideration in estimating the extent of her memory, Matt too had forgotten. It was common talk now, that she, the grammarless castaway, the neglected protégée of William Jones, was to be married to the master of the great house! Nay, the very day was fixed; and that very day was only two sunrises distant; and Monk of Monkshurst had in his pocket a special license, which he had procured, at an expenditure of five pounds, from London.
Doubtless, in any other more populous locality the affair would have occasioned no little scandal, and many ominous shakings of the head; but the inhabitants were few and far between, and had little or no time for idle gossiping. The coastguardsmen and their wives were the only individuals who exhibited any interest, and even their excitement was faint and evanescent, like the movements of a fish in a shallow and unwholesome pool.
But the really extraordinary part of the whole affair was the conduct of Matt herself. Apparently quite cured of her former repugnance to a union with Monk, she made no objection whatever to the performance of the ceremony, and laughed merrily when she was informed that the day was fixed. Monk, in his grim, taciturn way, was jubilant. He came to and fro constantly, and assumed the manners of a lover. Had he been less bent on one particular object two things might have struck him as curious:—(1) That Matt, though she had consented to marry him, steadfastly refused to wear his ring, or accept any other presents; and (2) that she still shrunk, with persistent and ill-disguised dislike, from his caresses.
It was now late in the month of August, and the weather was broken by troublous winds and a fretful moon. For several weeks William Jones, in his mortal terror, had refrained from visiting the cave; he had never set his foot therein, indeed, since the night of the assassination. At last he could bear the suspense no longer. Suppose some one else had discovered his treasure, and robbed him? Suppose some subterranean change had obliterated the landmarks or submerged the cavern! Suppose a thousand dreadful things! Tired of miserable supposition, William determined, despite his terror, to make sure.
So late one windy and rainy night he stole forth with his unlit lantern, and fought his way in the teeth of half a gale to the familiar place, which he found, however, with some little difficulty. He was neither superstitious nor imaginative, but throughout the journey he was a prey to nameless terrors. Every gust of wind went through his heart like a knife; every sound of wind or sea made that same heart stop and listen. Only supreme greed and miserly anxiety led him on. But at last he gained the cave, within which there was a sound as of clashing legions, clarions shrieking, drums beating, all the storm and stress of the awful waters clashing on the cliffs without, and boiling with unusual screams through the black slit between the cave and the Devil’s Cauldron.
Trembling, with perspiration standing in great beads on his face, he searched the cave for the corpse of the murdered man, expecting to find it well advanced in decomposition. Strange to say, however, it had disappeared.
William Jones was at once relieved and alarmed; relieved because he was spared a horrible experience; alarmed because he could not account for the disappearance.
A little reflection, however, suggested that one of those tidal waves so common on the coast might have arisen well up into the cavern, washed away the body from its place on the shingle, and carried it away in the direction of the Cauldron.
“In which case,” he reflected, “them coastguard chaps would find it some day among the rocks or on the shore, and think it had been drowned in the way of natur’.”
Satisfied that everything else was undisturbed, he retired as hastily as possible, sealed up the entrance to the cavern, and ran hastily home.
The morning of the marriage came—a fine sunny morning. An open dog-cart belonging to Monk, and driven by one of his servants, stood at William Jones’s door, and close to it a light country cart, borrowed by William Jones himself from a neighbouring farmer. The population, consisting of an aged coastguardsman, two coastguardsmen’s wives, and half-a-dozen dejected children, crowded in front of the cottage.
The bridegroom, attired in decent black, with a flower in his button-hole, stood waiting impatiently in the garden. Despite the festive occasion, he had a gloomy and hangdog appearance. Presently there emerged from the door William Jones, attired in a drowned seaman’s suit several sizes too large for him, and wearing a chimney-pot hat and a white rosette. Leaning on his arm was Matt, dressed in a dress of blue silk, neatly made for her by one of the coastguard women, out of damaged materials supplied by Jones, a light straw hat with blue ribbons to match, and a light lace shawl. Behind this pair hobbled William Jones’s father, whose costume was nautical like his son’s, but more damaged, and who also sported a chimney-pot hat and a white rosette.
The crowd gave a feeble cheer. Matt looked round and smiled, but mingled with her smile there was a kind of vague anxiety and expectation.
It was arranged that Monk should drive Matt in the dog-cart, while William Jones and his father followed in the commoner vehicle. At Pencroes, where the ceremony was to be performed, they were to meet with one Mr. Penarvon, a country squire and kindred spirit of Monk’s, who had promised to be “best man.”
Monk took the reins, while Matt got in and seated herself beside him, the groom getting up behind; and away they went along the sand-choked road, followed by Jones and his father.
The day was bright and merry, but Matt never thought of the old proverb,
“Happy is the bride that the sun shines on;” she was too busy examining the prospect on every side of her. All at once, as the bridal procession wound round the edge of the lonely lake, she uttered a cry of delight. There, standing in its old place by the lake-side, was the caravan.
Monk looked pale—there was something ghostly in the re-appearance even of this inanimate object. He was a man of strong nerve, however, and he speedily smiled at his own fears.
As they approached the spot they saw Tim standing near the vehicle in conversation with two strange gentlemen, one a little elderly man in black broadcloth, the other a tall, broad-shouldered fellow, wearing a light overcoat and a wideawake hat. Directly the procession approached, this group separated, and its three members walked severally into the road, he with the wideawake hat standing right in the centre of the road quietly smoking a cigar.
As the dog-cart came up he held up his hand. Unable to proceed without running him down, Monk pulled up angrily.
“What is it? Why do you block the road?” he cried fiercely, “Excuse me, governor,” returned the other coolly. “Mr. Monk of Monkhurst, I believe?”
“That’s my name.”
“Sorry to trouble you on such a day, but I should like a few words with you.”
“I cannot stay—I am going to be married!”
“So I heard,” said the man, lifting his hat and bowing with a grin to Matt. “Glad to see you, miss. How do you do? But the fact is, Mr. Monk, my business won’t keep. Be good enough to step this way.” Full of some unaccountable foreboding, inspired partly by the stranger’s suave, yet determined, manner, partly by the reappearance of the caravan, Monk alighted, and followed the other across the grass to the close vicinity of the house on wheels. The little elderly man followed, and the man who had first spoken went through the ceremony of introduction.
“This is Mr. Monk, sir. Mr. Monk, this gentleman is Mr. Lightwood, of the firm of Lightwood and Lightwood, solicitors, Chester.”
“And you—who the devil are you?” demanded Monk with his old savagery.
“My name is Marshall, Christian name, John, though my friends call me Jack,” answered the other with airy impudence. “John Marshall, governor, of the detective force.”
Monk now went pale indeed. But recovering himself he cried, “I know neither of you. I warned you that I was in haste. What do you want? Out with it!”
The little man now took up the conversation, speaking in a prim business-like voice, and occasionally referring to a large note-book which he carried.
“Mr. Monk, you are, I am informed, the sole heir male of the late Colonel Monk, your cousin by the father’s side, who was supposed to have died in India in the year 1862.”
“Yes, that’s true. What then?”
“On the report of his death, his name being included in an official list of officers killed and wounded in action, and it being understood that he died without lawful issue, you laid claim to the demesne of Monkshurst, in Cheshire, and that of the same name in Anglesea. Your claim was recognized, and in 1864 you took possession.”
“Well. Have you detained me to hear only what I already knew?”
“Pardon me, I have not finished. I have now to inform you that you inherited under a misconception, first because Colonel Monk was married and had issue, secondly, because he did not die in India, but reached the shores of England, where he perished in the shipwreck of the ship Trinidad, in the year 1864.”
Monk was livid. At this moment Jones, who had been watching the scene from a distance, came over, panting and perspiring in ill-concealed terror.
“Lor’, Mr. Monk, what’s the matter? Look ye now, we shall be late for the wedding.”
As he spoke Marshall, the detective, clapped him playfully on the shoulder.
“How d’ye do, William Jones? I’ve often heard of you, and wished to know you. Pray stop where you are. I’ll talk to you presently.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Monk now said with dogged desperation, “with all this rigmarole, Mr. Lightwood, or whatever your name is. It seems to me you are simply raving. If I am not my cousin’s heir, who is, tell me that?”
“His daughter,” said the man quietly.
“He never married, and he never had a daughter.”
“His daughter, an infant twelve or fourteen months old, sailed to England with him, was shipwrecked with him, but saved by a special Providence, and has since been living in this place under the name of Matt Jones.”
“Your intended bride, you know,” added Marshall with an insinuating smile. “Hullo, where is the young lady?”
Monk looked round towards the dog-cart and on every side, but Matt was nowhere to-be seen.
“I see her go into that theer cart,” said William Jones.
“Call her,” cried Monk. “I’ll stay no longer here. Listen to me, you two. Whether you are telling truth or lies, that girl is going to become my wife—I have her guardian’s consent, and she herself, I may tell you, fully appreciates the honour I am doing her.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Lightwood, smiling. “Unfortunately I, as Miss Monk’s legal adviser, must have a say in the matter. Doubtless this marriage would be a very pretty arrangement for keeping the late Colonel Monk’s fortune and property in your possession, but I cannot conscientiously approve of the young lady’s marriage to an assassin.”
“An assassin!—what—what do you mean?” gasped Monk, staggering as if from a blow.
“Tell him, Mr. Marshall.”
“All right, sir. Well, you see, Mr. Monk of Monkshurst,” continued the detective, grimly yet playfully, “you’re accused of making away with—murdering, in fact—a young gentleman who came to Aberglyn a few weeks ago in that little house on wheels; and this nice friend of yours,” (here he again slapped William Jones on the shoulder) “is accused of being your accomplice.”
“No, no. I never done it! I’m innocent, I am!” cried William Jones. “Tell ’em, Mr. Monk, tell ’em—I’d nowt to do with it.”
“Silence, you fool,” said the other; then he added, turning on his accusers, “You are a couple of madmen, I think! I know nothing of the young man you speak of! I have heard that he is missing, that is all; but there is no evidence that any harm has come to him, for his body has not been found.”
Here Marshall turned with a wink to William Jones, and nudged him in the ribs.
“Don’t you think now,” he asked, “it might be worth while looking for it in that little underground parlour of yours, down alongside the sea?”
William Jones uttered a despairing groan, and fell on his knees.
“I’m ruined!” he cried. “Oh, Mr. Monk, it’s your doing! Lord help me! They knows everything.”
“Curse you, hold your tongue!” said Monk, with a look of mad contempt and hatred. “These men are only playing upon your fears, but they cannot frighten me.”
“No?” remarked the detective, lighting his cigar, which had gone out. “I think we shall even manage that in time.”
As he spoke he carelessly, and as if inadvertently, drew out a pair of steel handcuffs, which he looked at reflectively, threw up and caught underhand in the air.
“You accuse me of assassination?” said Monk, trembling violently. “I warn you to beware, for I will not suffer such accusations without seeking redress. If you have any proof of the truth of your preposterous charge, produce it.”
At this moment Matt, looking bright as sunshine, leaped out of the caravan.
“There’s my proof,” said Marshall. “Miss Monk, this amiable bridegroom of yours denies being concerned in harming Mr. Charles Brinkley. Is he telling the truth?”
Matt’s face darkened, and she looked at Monk with eyes of cordial detestation.
“No,” she said, “he’s lying!”
“Matt,” cried Monk fiercely, “take care!”
“He’s lying,” she repeated, not heeding him. “I see him do it with my own two eyes, and I see William Jones helping him and looking on. They thought that no one was nigh, but I was. I was hiding behind them sacks and barrels in the cave!”
Monk now felt that the game was almost up, for he was beset on every side, and the very ground seemed opening under his feet. The wretched Jones, in a state bordering on frenzy, remained on his knees wailing over his own ruin. The two strangers, Lightwood and Marshall, looked on as calm but interested spectators. Matt, having delivered her home-thrust of accusation, stood and gazed into Monk’s face with cool defiance, “It is a plot!” Monk cried, presently, “an infamous plot to ruin me! You have-been tampering, I see, with this wild girl, whom you foolishly suppose kin to me by blood. Arrest me, if you please—I shall not take the trouble to resist, for I am perfectly innocent in this matter.”
He added, while they looked at one another as if somewhat puzzled—
“As to the girl’s relationship with my dead cousin, the very idea is absurd. Where are the proofs of her birthright?”
“Here,” said a quiet voice.
Monk turned his eyes and started back in wonder, while William Jones shrieked and fell forward on his face. Standing before them in the sunshine was the reality or the semblance of—the murdered young man of the caravan!