A Tale of a Lonely Parish

by F. Marion Crawford

There were other things besides his crime of forgery which had acted far more powerfully upon Mary Goddard's mind, and which had broken for ever all ties of affection; circumstances which had appeared during his trial and which had shown that he had not only been unfaithful to those who trusted him, but had been unfaithful to the wife who loved him. That was what she could not forgive; it was the memory of that which rose like an impassable wall between her and him, worse than his frauds, his forgery, worse almost than his murder. He had done that which even a loving woman could not pardon, that which was past all forgiveness. That was why his sudden appearance roused no tender memories, elicited seemingly so little sympathy from her. She was too good a woman to say it, but she knew in her heart that she wished him dead, the very possibility of ever seeing him again gone from her life for ever, no matter how.

But she must see him again, nevertheless, and to-morrow. To-morrow, too, she would have to meet the squire, and appear to act and talk as though nothing had happened in this terrible night. That would be the hardest of all, perhaps; even harder than meeting her husband for a brief moment in order to give him the means of escape. She felt that in helping him she was participating in his crimes, and yet, she asked herself, what woman would have acted differently? What woman, even though she might hate her husband with her whole soul, and justly, would yet be so hard-hearted as to refuse him assistance when he was flying for his life? It would be impossible. She must help him at any cost; but it was hard to feel that she must see the squire and behave with indifference, while her husband was lurking in the neighbourhood, when a detective might at any moment come to the door, and demand to search the house.

These thoughts passed very quickly through her overwrought brain, as she knelt in the passage; kneeling because she felt she could no longer stand, the passionate tears streaming down her face, her small hands pressing her temples. Then she struggled to her feet and dried her eyes, steadying herself against the wall for a moment. She had almost forgotten little Nellie whom she had left in the drawing-room. She had told the child, when she went back to her, leaving Goddard alone in the dark, that the man was a poor starving tramp, but that she did not want Nellie to see him, because he looked so miserable. She would give him something to eat and send him away, she said, and meanwhile Nellie should sit by the drawing-room fire and wait for her. The child trusted her mother implicitly and was completely reassured. Mrs. Goddard dried her eyes, and re-entered the room. Nellie was curled up in a big chair with a book; she looked up quickly.

"Why, mamma," she said, "you have been crying!"

"Have I, darling? I daresay it was the sight of that poor man. He was very wretched."

"Is he gone?" asked the child.

It was unusually late and Nellie was beginning to be sleepy, so that she was more easily quieted than she could have been in ordinary circumstances. It might have struck her as strange that a wandering tramp should know her mother's Christian name, as still more inexplicable that her mother should have been willing to admit such a man at so late an hour. She had been badly frightened, but trusting her mother as she did, her terror had quickly disappeared and had been quickly followed by sleepiness.

But Mrs. Goddard. did not sleep that night. She felt as though she could never sleep again, and for many hours she lay thinking of the new element of fear which had so suddenly come into her life at the very time when she believed herself to be safe for many years to come. She longed to know where her wretched husband was; whether he had found shelter for the night, whether he was still free or whether he had even then fallen into the hands of his pursuers. She knew that she could not have concealed him in the house and that she had done all that lay in her power for him. But she started at every sound, as the rain rattled against the shutters and the wind howled down the chimney.

Walter Goddard, however, was safe for the present and was even luxuriously lodged, considering his circumstances, for he was comfortably installed amongst the hay in the barn of the "Feathers" inn. He had been in Billingsfield since early in the afternoon and had considered carefully the question of his quarters for the night. He had observed from a distance the landlord of the said inn, and had boldly offered to do a "day's work for a night's lodging." He said he was "tramping" his way back from London to his home in Yorkshire; he knew enough of the sound of the rough Yorkshire dialect to pass for a native of that county amongst ignorant labourers who had never heard the real tongue. The landlord of the Feathers consented to the bargain and Goddard was told that he might sleep in the barn if he liked, and should take a turn at cutting chaff the next day to pay for the convenience. The convict slept soundly; he was past lying awake in useless fits of remorse, and he was exhausted with his day's journey. Moreover he had now the immediate prospect of obtaining sufficient money to carry him safely out of the country, and once abroad he felt sure of baffling pursuit. He was an accomplished man and spoke French with a fluency unusual in Englishmen; he determined to get across the channel in some fishing craft; he would then make his way to Paris and enlist in the Foreign Legion. It would be safer than trying to go to America, where people were invariably caught as they landed. It was a race for life and death, and he knew it. Had he been able to obtain clothes, money and a disguise in London he would have travelled by rail. But that had been impossible and it now seemed a wiser plan to "tramp" it. His beard was growing rapidly and would soon make a complete disguise. Village constables are generally simple people, easily imposed upon, very different from London detectives; and hitherto he felt sure that he had baffled pursuit by the mere simplicity of his proceedings. The intelligent officials of Scotland Yard were used to forgers and swindlers who travelled by express trains and crossed to America by fashionable steamers. It did not strike them as very likely that a man of Walter Goddard's previous tastes and habits could get through the country in the guise of a tramp. If he had been possessed at the time of his escape of the money he so much desired he would probably have been caught; as it was, he got away without difficulty, and at the very time when every railway station and every port in the kingdom were being watched for him, he was lurking in the purlieus of Whitechapel, and then tramping his way east in comparative safety, half starved, it is true, but unmolested.

That he was disappointed at the reception his wife had given him did not prevent him from sleeping peacefully that night. One thing alone disturbed him, and that was her mention of Mr. Juxon, in whose house, as she had told him, she lived. It seems incredible that a man in Walter Goddard's position, lost to every sense of honour, a criminal of the worst type, who had deceived his wife before he was indicted for forgery, who had certainly cared very little for her at any time, should now, in a moment of supreme danger, feel a pang of jealousy on hearing that his wife lived in the vicinity of the squire and occupied a house belonging to him. But he was too bad himself not to suspect others, especially those whom he had wronged, and the feeling was mingled with a strong curiosity to know whether this woman, who now treated him so haughtily and drew back from him as from some monstrous horror, was as good as she pretended to be. He said to himself that on the next day at dawn he would slip out of the barn and try whether he could not find some hiding-place within easy reach of the cottage, so as to be able to watch her dwelling at his ease throughout the day. The plan seemed a good one. Since he was obliged to wait twenty-four hours in order to get the money he wanted, he might as well employ the time profitably in observing his wife's habits. It would be long, he said to himself with a bitter sneer, before he troubled her again—he would just like to see.