CHAPTER X.

BACK AGAIN AT PARK NEWTON

General St. George’s health improved so rapidly that, contrary to his first intention, he decided that he would return to England at once and, if possible, get settled down somewhere by Christmas. As he was running his eyes through the “Times” one day he saw, to his intense astonishment, that Park Newton was advertised as to be let. By the next post he sent a brief note to Kester, calling his attention to the advertisement, and asking him the meaning of it. In due course he received the following reply:

“ My Dear Uncle,—The advertisement to which you allude has no other meaning than is visible on the surface of it. Park Newton is empty, and empty it will remain as far as I am concerned. Why not, therefore, try to find a tenant for it, and make at the same time a welcome addition to my income? I know what you will say—that, as the head of the family, it is my duty to live in the family home. That is very well from your point of view, but to me the place is burdened with a memory so terrible (which time can never efface or cause to fade from my mind) that for me to live there is a sheer impossibility.

“But, apart from all this, I think you know me sufficiently well to feel sure that to me a country life would soon become insupportable. After the first freshness had worn off—after I had eaten some of my own peaches and drunk some of my own buttermilk—after I had been duly coached by my bailiff in the mysteries of subsoils and top-dressings—and after going through all the dull round of bucolic hospitality: I should be sure to cut the whole affair in disgust some fine day, and not recover my peace of mind till after a little dinner at the _Trois Frères_ and a stall at the _Gymnase_.

“So, my dear uncle, should you happen to hear of any eligible individual who would be content to pass his days among the dull but respectable commonplaces of English country life, pray try to secure him as a tenant for Park Newton, and render grateful for ever—Your affectionate nephew,

“Kester St. George.

“P.S. You say nothing in your note as to the state of your health. May I take it in this case that no news is good news, and that you are stronger and better than when I saw you last? I hope so with all my heart.”

To this General St. George sent the following answer:

“Dear Nephew,—_I_ will become the tenant of Park Newton. If one member of the family doesn’t choose to live there, all the more reason why another should. No stranger shall call the old roof-tree his home while I am alive. I am better in health, thank Heaven, and you will probably see me in England before Christmas.—Yours,

“Lionel St. George.”

In taking this step General St. George was guided as much by Richard Dering’s wishes as by his own inclinations in the matter. “Nothing could have fallen out more opportunely for the purpose I have in view,” Richard had said to him when the advertisement was first noticed.

“I can’t see in what way it will assist your views for you to immure yourself at Park Newton,” said the General.

“I shall be there on the spot itself,” answered Richard; “and that seems to me one of the first essentials.”

“You fairly puzzle me,” said the General, with a shake of the head. “I can’t see what more you can do than you have done already. It seems to me like groping in the dark.”

“You are right, uncle—it is like groping in the dark. And yet I feel as sure as that I am standing here at the present moment that sooner or later a ray of light will be vouchsafed to me from somewhere. As to when and how it will come, I know nothing; but that it will come, if I clothe my soul with patience, I never for one moment doubt.”

“My poor boy! But why not let well alone? You are wasting your life in the chase of a phantom. Be content with what you have achieved already.”

“Never—never—so help me Heaven! I will go on groping in the dark as you call it, till in that dark I clutch my enemy’s hand—and drag out of it into the full light of day the man on whose head lies the innocent blood of Percy Osmond.”

“A waste of youth, of hope, of happiness,” said the old soldier sadly.

“For me there is neither youth, nor hope, nor happiness, till my task is accomplished. Uncle, I have set myself to do this thing, and no power on earth can move me from it.”

“I am heart and soul with you, boy, as you know full well already. But at times it does seem to me as if you were following nothing better than a deceptive will-o’-the-wisp, which, the further you follow it, the further it will lead you astray.”

“No will-o’-the-wisp, uncle, but a steadfast-shining star; blood-red like Mars, if you will, but a guide across the pathless waste which leads to the goal to which I shall one day surely attain.”

Three weeks later General St. George and his nephew were settled at Park Newton, while Mrs. Garside and Edith installed themselves in a pretty little cottage, half a mile beyond the park gates, but on the side opposite to Duxley.

Lionel Dering’s marriage was still kept a profound secret: and as Edith, during the short time she had lived at Duxley, had never gone out without a thick veil over her face, there was not much fear that she would be recognized in her new home. Richard Dering rode over to the Cottage every other day, and we may be sure that Jane Culpepper was also a frequent visitor. Equally a matter of course was it that Tom Bristow, by the merest chance in the world, should often call in during the very time that Miss Culpepper was there: for Providence is kind to lovers, and seems often to arrange meetings for them, without their taking any trouble to do so on their own account.

Not a single day—nay, not a single hour had Kester St. George spent at Park Newton since his accession to the property. He had been down to Duxley on two occasions, and had taken up his quarters at the Royal Hotel, where his steward had waited upon him for the transaction of necessary business, and where the chief tenants of the estate had been invited to a banquet at his expense. But not once had he set foot even inside the park gates. He hated the place, the neighbourhood, the people. London and Paris, according to his view, were the only places fit for a man of fortune to live in, and it was from the latter place that he despatched a letter to his uncle, half ironical in tone, congratulating that veteran on his choice of the ancestral roof-tree for his future home, and hoping that he might live for fifty years to enjoy it. The General smiled grimly to himself as he read the letter and tossed it over to Richard.

“Uncle, you must invite him here before we are many weeks older,” said the latter.

“But he hates the place, and won’t come.”

“He hates the place undoubtedly, but he will come all the same if you couch your invitation properly.”

“In what terms would you like me to couch it?”

“Pardon me for saying so, but you have only got to hint that you feel you are growing old, and that you have serious thoughts of making your will before long, and then press him to come and see you.”

“And you think the bait will tempt him?”

“I am sure of it. Your property would make a nice addition to his income. He would be the most dutiful and affectionate of nephews as long as you lived; he would bury you with every outward semblance of regret; and a month later there would be another horse in his stable at Newmarket.”

“Faith, I believe you’re right, Dick! But not a single penny of my money will ever go to Kester St. George. All the same I’ll write the letter in the way you wish it to be written, when you tell me that the time for sending it has come.”

“We will let Christmas get quietly over, and then we will talk about it again.”

But still the General was puzzled. “I’m bothered if I can comprehend why you want to invite Kester to Park Newton,” he said. “You hate the man, and yet you want me to ask him to come and stop under the same roof with you, where you must, out of common courtesy, meet him once or twice a day all the time he is here.”

“The coming of Kester St. George to Park Newton may help us to another link in the chain of evidence which Bristow and I together are trying to forge out of the very poor materials at our command. It may prove in the end to be nothing better than a chain of sand—or it may prove strong enough to drag a murderer to his doom.”

The General shuddered slightly. “Your words are very strong, my boy,” he said. “I have seen so many tragedies in the course of the sixty years I have lived in this world that I have no desire ever to see another—least of all among those of my own kith and kin.”

Richard did not answer at once. He rose from his chair, went to the window, and stood gazing out across the frosty landscape. At length he spoke gravely, almost sadly.

“My hand is put to the plough, uncle, and I cannot—I dare not draw back.”

“No doubt you are right and I am wrong,” said the General, meekly. “But I sometimes tremble when I look into the future, and ask myself what all these disguises and plottings have for their aim and object.”

“They have but one aim and one object,” said Richard, sternly, “both of which are comprised in one word—and that word is Retribution.”

“‘Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord,’” answered the old soldier, in a reverent whisper.

A deep sigh came from the bosom of the younger man. Again he paused before answering. “Oh, uncle! is there no pity, no thought for me?” he said. “Think of what I have suffered, of all that I have undergone! Name, wealth, position, lost to me for ever unless I can prove I am not the murderer that the world believes me to be. My very identity gone. Obliged to die and be buried, and assume the name and identity of another man; or live the life of a hunted animal, with a price set on my head, and with the ever-present shadow of a shameful death eating the life out of me inch by inch. Oh, think of all, and pity me!”

“I have thought of it all, day and night, night and day, for months. You know that I pity you from the bottom of my soul.”

“Had it not been for you, and Edith, and Bristow—God bless him!—I should have shot myself long ago.”

“Don’t talk in that way, Dick—don’t talk in that way!”

“Unless—unless I had taught myself to live for the sake of retribution,” went on the other as if he had not heard his uncle’s words. “And retribution _is_ not vengeance; it is simple repayment—simple justice.” He paused like one deep in thought.

“Do you know, uncle,” he resumed with a startling change of tone—“do you know that a night hardly ever passes without my being visited by Percy Osmond? His cold hand touches mine and I awake to see him standing close beside me. He never speaks, he only looks at me. But oh! that look—so pleading, so reproachful, so soul-imploring! Awake and asleep it haunts me ever. It is a look that says, ‘How much longer shall I lie in my bloodstained shroud, and justice not be done upon my murderer?’ It is a look that says, Another day gone by and nothing done—nothing discovered.’ Then he fades gradually, and I see no more of him till next night; but my hand remains numb and cold for more than an hour after he has left me.”

The General was staring at Richard as if he could hardly believe the evidence of his ears. “Come,” he said very gently, “let us take a turn in the garden. The air of this room is oppressive. Give me your arm, boy. This English winter finds out the weak places in an old man’s joints.”

As they paced the garden arm in arm, Richard (or Lionel—for Lionel it was, as the reader will long ago have surmised) went back to the topic he had last been talking about. “Were I to tell to a physician what I have just told you,” he said, “he would simply put me down as the victim of a mental hallucination; he would tell me that I was suffering from a by no means uncommon form of cerebral excitement. So be it. I suppose I am the victim of a mental hallucination: but call it by what name you will, to me it is a most serious and terrible reality—a visitation that no medicines, no society, no change of scene, can alter or rid me of; that one thing alone can rid me of. When I have accomplished the bitter task that is appointed me to do, then, and then only, will this burden be lifted off my soul: then, and not till then, will Percy Osmond cease to visit me.”

Again he sighed deeply. The General pressed the arm that held his a little more tightly, but did not speak. The case was beyond his simple skill. He was powerless to comfort or console the bruised spirit by his side. In silence they finished their walk.

But comfort and consolation were not altogether denied to Lionel Dering. Edith, and she alone, had power to charm away the cloud from off his brow, the shadow from off his heart. For the time being, all his troubles and anxieties were forgotten. For a little while, when with her, he would seem like the Lionel Dering of other days: buoyant, hopeful, full of energy, and glad with the promise of the happy future before him. But when he had kissed her and said good-night, long before he reached Park Newton, the cloud would be back again as deep as before. The burden which, as he firmly believed, had been laid upon his shoulders seemed to grow heavier from day to day. “Oh that I could cast it from me!” he would often say to himself with a sort of anguish. “Why did I not go to the other side of the world at first? There peace and obscurity would have been mine. But it is too late now—too late!”