In the Dead of Night: A Novel. Volume 2 (of 3)

by T. W. Speight

And yet, being in possession of all this bitter knowledge, Tom Bristow made no really determined effort to break away, and to try the cure which is said to be often wrought by time and absence even in cases as desperate as his. Metaphorically speaking, he hugged the shackles that bound him, and gloried in the loss of his freedom: a very sad condition, indeed, for any reasonable being to fall into.

It was curious what a number of opportunities Tom and Jane seemed to find for seeing each other, and how often they found themselves together, quite fortuitously as it were, and without any apparent volition of their own in the matter. Sometimes Tom would be mooning about the High Street in the middle of the forenoon at the very time that the Pincote pony-carriage drew up against one or another of the shops, and then what more natural than that Jane and he should have three minutes’ conversation together on the pavement? Sometimes Jane would walk into Merton’s library at the very moment that Tom was critically choosing a novel which, when borrowed, he would carefully omit to read. How quickly half an hour—nay an hour—would pass at such times, and that in conversation of the most commonplace kind!

Sometimes Jane, wandering absently with a book in her hands, through the Pincote woods and meadows, would find herself, after a time, on the banks of the carefully preserved stream—river it could hardly be called—which wandered at its own sweet will through Squire Culpepper’s demesne. There, strange to relate, she would find Mr. Bristow whipping the stream; very inartistically it must be admitted; but trying his best to make believe that he was a very skilful angler indeed.

What wings the sunny minutes put themselves on at such times! How quickly the yellow afternoons faded and waned, and Jane would look round at last, quite startled to find that twilight had come already. Then Tom would accompany her part of the way back towards the house, his fishing-basket empty indeed, but his heart overbrimming with the happiness of perfect love.

Once every now and again the Squire, meeting Tom casually in the street, would ask him to dinner at Pincote. Memorable occasions those, never to be forgotten either by Tom or Jane, when, with the drawing-room all to themselves, while the Squire snoozed for an hour in his easy-chair in the dining-room, they could sit and talk, or pretend to play chess, or make believe to be deeply interested in some portfolio of engravings, or to be altogether immersed in a selection from the last new opera, turning over the leaves and strumming a few bars experimentally here and there; while, in reality, rapt up in and caring for nothing and nobody but themselves.

Yet never once was a single word of love whispered between them, whatever mutual tales their eyes might tell. Jane still held herself as engaged to Edward Cope; but she had made up her mind that as soon as that young gentleman should return from America she would see him, and tell him that she had discovered her error—that she no longer cared for him as a woman ought to care for the man she is about to marry; and she would appeal to his generosity to relieve her from an engagement that had now become utterly distasteful to her. His letters from abroad were so infrequent, so brief, and so utterly unlover-like, that she did not anticipate much difficulty in obtaining her request. But, as she was well aware, there was a certain amount of mule-like obstinacy in the character of Edward Cope, and it was quite possible that when he found she no longer cared for him, he might cling to her all the more firmly. What if he should refuse to release her? The contemplation of such a possibility was not a pleasant one. What she should do in such a case she could not even imagine. But it would be time enough to think of that when the necessity for thinking of it should have arisen.

But even if released from her engagement to Edward Cope, Jane knew that she would still be as far as ever from the haven of her secret hopes, and that without running entirely counter to her father’s wishes and prejudices, the haven in question could never be reached by her. But although it might never be possible for her to marry the man whom she secretly loved, she was fully determined in her own mind never to marry any one else, however strongly the world might consider her to be bound by the fetters of her odious engagement. Edward Cope, although he might refuse to release her from her promise, should never force her into becoming his wife.

The fact of having been appealed to by Tom. Bristow to find a shelter for his friend, when that friend was in dire trouble, seemed to draw him closer to Jane than anything else. From that hour her feelings towards him took a warmer tinge than they had ever assumed before. There was something almost heroic in her eyes in the friendship between Lionel and Tom, and that she should have been called upon to assist, in however humble a way, in the escape of the former was to her a proof of confidence such as she could never possibly forget. She never met Tom without inquiring for the last news as to the movements of Lionel and his wife; and Tom, on his side, took care to keep her duly posted up in everything that concerned them. A week or so after the departure of Lionel for Cumberland, Jane had been taken by Tom to Alder Cottage and introduced to Edith. How warmly the latter thanked her for what she had done need not be told here. In that hour of their meeting was laid the foundation of one of those friendships, rare between two women, which death alone has power to sever.

However deeply Mr. Tom Bristow might be in love, however infatuated he might be on one particular point, he in nowise neglected his ordinary business avocations, nor did he by any means spend the whole of his time in Duxley and its neighbourhood. He was frequently in London; nor was either Liverpool or Manchester unacquainted with his face, for Tom’s speculative proclivities expended themselves in many and various channels. The project to bring Duxley, by means of a branch railway from one of the great trunk lines, into closer connection with some of the chief centres of industry in that part of the country, was one which had always engaged his warmest sympathies. But the project, after having been safely incubated, and launched in glowing terms before the public, had been quietly allowed to collapse, its promoters having taken alarm at certain formidable engineering difficulties which had not presented themselves during the preliminary survey of the route.

This put Tom Bristow on his mettle. He had been familiar from boyhood with the country for twenty miles round Duxley, and he felt sure that a much more favourable route than the one just abandoned might readily be found if properly looked for. Taking a practical surveyor with him, and the ordnance map of the district, Tom went carefully over the ground in person, trudging mile after mile on foot, in all sorts of weather, seeing his way after a time, little by little, to the elaboration of a project much bolder in idea and wider in scope than any which had ever entered the thoughts of the original projectors.