Part 14

That did not assuage my fears, though it was some comfort henceforth to be spared the pretence of blindness to his flittings--a comfort, I think, to him as well as to me, though his silence on the main point was not to be broken. Ah! if he had only had the courage to set my mind at rest, before its fears grew to a frenzy beyond my control!

Now, as time went on, my hearing grew morbidly acute--during the dark hours of his nightly absences, when I was fastened lonely and frightened into my attic, and sleep refused to come to me--to certain shufflings and whisperings--sounds scarce to be distinguished from the wind and the rain--which filtered to me from the depths below. Sometimes it would seem a sough of blown voices; sometimes a suggestion of _dragging_; sometimes the low rumble of a cart on the turf, which set my pulses knocking in my ears. Then when, succeeding an ominous silence, George’s step would come mounting stealthily by the trap, on tiptoe thence to his room, I would shudder in the thought of dreadful footprints going by my screen, and would feign the deep-breathing of slumber, lest he should be moved to stop and call to me softly in the voice I had not yet learned to resist.

And so at last, out of all this torment of apprehension, out of the sleepless waitings and breathless listenings, had emerged a spectre, real and present in the end, to whose whispered hauntings I had long struggled to close my ears; whose approach I had sought to stay, beating my hands in air; whose name I had not dared to breathe to myself. And it was murder.

Yes, murder. So only, and only so, was logically expounded that perverted creed of Nature. Livid, terrifying, his hands stained with blood, I saw him in its ghastly glair; saw him savagely wreaking on the social order the wrongs he had suffered at its hands; saw him reverted to the beast he worshipped, tearing his kind, a common robber and assassin.

I will not say that I was convinced and overwhelmed in a breath. For long the hideous shadow of the phantom was poor proof against the sun of present love; would thin, attenuate to a mere gross mist in the light of kind embraces, and honest laughter, and a manly candour--on all, alas! but the subject that most corroded. Only when that later spectre of our estrangement crept between, did it assume a dreadful complexion, glooming through the other. And so, at last, the appalling confirmation.

It had been for weeks a terror to me to creep by the secret passage into Portlock’s kitchen, on the rare occasions when my brief visits there, for the sake of some small change and play of liberty, were invited. For the hole entered close by the locked door, which had come to figure to me for the seal on all most nameless horrors; and I could not pass it by but with averted head, and nostrils held from breathing, and a sickness like to the death I felt it contained. Rather would I strain a little the chance of capture without; and often now, when George was sleeping--for he lay late after his night excursions--I would put the ladder to the hill, and climb, and wander in the hidden furrow above, sometimes as far as the gravel-pit, and there indulge my misery, daring even at the worst a thought of escape. For at length, so far as we knew, the chase of us had ceased altogether, and Portlock was no longer interrogated for possible information.

Wandering thus, greatly unhappy, my thoughts would often recur for shelter to the peaceful nunnery; to my little loving Patty, the dearest pleader of a sister’s repentance; most, and with a self-humbling remorse, to the faithful, unexacting soul whom I had deserted in the tower. What if I had been misled by specious arguments to wound incurably where I had wrought to cure? Could I ever in that case forgive the false advocate? O, surely there was a greater Nature than she in whose name were perpetrated deeds of violence and reprisal? There was the human, the humorous, the tolerant large philosophy of being which Gogo had revealed in his story of himself. _His_ misfortunes had but made him forswear the false goddess in whom weaker men sought to justify their passions. I could never think of him but as the Pan of these later days--the poor limping Pan of our era, beguiled into a hospital, and persuaded to an operation, and shorn of his limp and his legs together. One might meet him begging on a city bridge, and look wondering down for the song of the water in the rushes that were not; one might read his hairy breast into dreams of red dead bracken, and see his eyes, under their matted brows, like little forest pools reflecting glimpses of the sky, and not guess who he was, for he would never whine of better days. He always took fortune like a fallen god, did Gogo. He always smelt sweet, did my monster. And he had not erred in love before he found me.

Could that be said of another? I was never quite able to forget that discarded favourite who had warned a threatened brother and assisted him to escape. Though I had never deigned to give the thought place in my mind, the unacknowledged shadow of it, of what had been her inducement to the act, slept in me, to rise presently and add its quota of darkness to the whole. I was very unhappy--very forlorn and tired and unhappy.

But, on that morning, as it blew bitter cold without, and I longed for the fire that was never ours in that chill cellar but by proxy of the chimney-back, I brought myself to go down, and scratch out the signal to Portlock to let me pass if it were practicable. He responded at once, drawing away the grate; and I crept in and through, and stood up on the farther side. Instantly a grumpy exclamation from him, as instantly clapped back with his great hand on his mouth, took my eyes to my skirt, whereto for a flash I had seen his directed. And there, smearing the pale folds of it, was a long, foul streak of blood.

“Where did this come from?” I cried in a dismayed voice, for the moment too shocked to reflect.

I fancied he shook upon his great gelatinous calves, that the little eyes set in the vast oyster of his face were blinking shiftily, alert to my movements while he turned over the dull masses of his brain for an answer.

“Rabbits--dinner,” at length he rumbled.

But I had realised it all while he stuck fast. Desperate in my heart-sickness, I made a hurried step to pass him; and instantly he moved backwards, and filled the doorway into the little front parlour by way of which I had hoped to escape into the forest.

“Let me pass,” I cried wildly. “I want air.”

He pointed to the copper.

“Not safe. That way.”

“I can’t,” I cried. “It was there I picked this up: you know it was.” Then I quite lost my reason. “You are a murderer!” I shrieked. “You are all murderers here! You rob and kill, and drag the poor bodies through and hide them in the cellar behind the door. Let me pass--I can’t live here--I can bear it no longer!”

I raved and cried; I beat helplessly on that huge drum of flesh. It stood stolid, insensible, completely stopping the aperture.

“Go--ask cap’en,” was all it said.

I fell back from him on the word. The sense of an immediate necessity of self-control was flashed upon my consciousness. Above or below--either way my passage was guarded. I was between the devil and the deep sea; and, in an irrepressible burst of frenzy, I had confessed myself, let slip my tortured demon, and so, perhaps, spoken my own death-sentence. The terror of the thought drove out the lesser loathing. I must temporise--finesse.

“Yes,” I said, “I will. I will not rest now till I know.”

The return by that foul sewer, the fearful issue by the closed door, were experiences as horrible as any in my life. What crawling thread might not be still drawing from the obscure reservoir beyond? What hideous witness not fastening silent to me in the darkness, that it might rise with my rising and shriek to the light for vengeance? But I forced myself, in my mortal fear, to tread softly, and on very panic tiptoe climbed from the hateful pit, and crossed the room above. I paused a moment, on my shuddering way, for assurance of _his_ steady breathing; and then with cold deft hands set the ladder in place, and mounted it, and, drawing it after me into the thicket, fled along the passage. I had no thought of what I should do. I only wanted to escape: to put as long a distance as possible between myself and that spectre, confessed in all its blood-guiltiness at last. Half blinded, torn by flint and briar, I broke at length through the farther thicket, and sank, trembling and exhausted, upon the bank of the gravel-pit beyond.

I had sat there I know not how long, my face in my hands, the alarum in my heart deafening me to all outward sounds--the storming trees above; the cold sabre of the wind slashing into the bushes of my refuge, as if it would lay me bare--when suddenly I felt the clinch of a hand on my shoulder, and screamed, and looked up. Three fellows, in a common livery, had descended softly upon me from above, and I was captured without an effort.

I rose, staggering, to my feet, my face like ashes, my poor hands clasped in entreaty. But not a word could I force from my white lips.

“You must come with us, miss, if you please,” said the man who held me, civilly enough.

“Where?” I made out to whisper.

He pointed with a riding-whip. I followed the direction of his hand; and there, on the rim of the pit above, silhouetted against the sky, sat a single horseman. I had no reason to doubt who it was. Even at that distance, the lank red jaw of him was sign enough of the fox. I was trapped at last, and when I had thought myself securest.

Now, I do not know what desperate resignation came to me all in a moment. As well this way out as another. “Very well,” I said quietly, “I will go with you.”

They were surprised, I could see, by my submission, and all the more alert, on its unexpected account, to hover about my going. But their strong arms were not the less considerate, for that reason, to support me, overwrought as I was, in my passage to the open daylight above; and, almost before I realised it, I was standing before the Earl of Herring.

He sat as stiff and relentless in his saddle as an Attila, his red eyes staring, a very wickedness of foretasted relish grinning in his hungry teeth. A fourth servant in livery stood a little apart, holding his own and the others’ horses.

“So,” said the master, whispering as out of a dream, “you are caught at last, my lady.”

I felt for the first time a little flush come to my cheeks, and answered his gaze resolutely.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘caught,’ my lord,” I said. “These are not the days of King John.”

He rubbed his gloved hand across his chin.

“No, by God!” he said, with a hoarse chuckle. “But they are the days of King Hardrough, by your leave.”

“I have done no wrong.”

“Tell that to my lady,” said he.

“Jealousy has no ears.”

He gave a hyæna laugh.

“Misfortune has not chastened you, I see,” crowed he.

“It has not tried to,” I said, “till this moment. Now you have seen me, will you let me go, and ride back to tell Mrs. de Crespigny that she has nothing more to fear from my rivalry?”

He regarded me with a delighted humour.

“When I go, you come with me.”

“O no!”

“O yes! straight back to Dr. Peel and his whippings.”

“You will not--you will not!” I clasped my hands upon his knee in a frenzy of terror. I was quite broken in a moment. “Don’t send me back to that hell!” I implored.

He lusted over my fear. He could not for long bring himself to ease it.

“What have you got to offer me to stay my hand?” he said at last.

I was silent.

“Harkee!” he said. “I will help you out. Will you give me my bastard brother?”

“He is my brother too; I swear it.”

“Pish!” said he; “will you give up your paramour?”

“Not if you call him by that name.”

“Why, there, I knew,” said he, “you was in hiding together somewhere. Smoke the red earl, if you can. Call him by what name you will, and lead me to him.”

I hung my head, and burst into tears.

“He has deceived me.”

“What did I say?”

“Not that--not that. If I betray him, ’tis only in the hope of his being persuaded to some reformation. You will not work him evil?”

“That I swear. ’Tis only that I want to keep him out of harm’s way.”

I looked up, breathless. This assurance was at least a comfort.

“What will you do with him?”

“Leave that to me. The question is, what has he done with you?”

How could I not answer him? To win my brother from this vileness--was it not worth the sacrifice of myself? With many tears and falterings, I told him the story of my sojourn in the verderer’s cottage; of the secret chambers, and our life therein; finally, with bitter reluctance, of the shadow that had risen to estrange us, and the bloody confirmation of my fears that was to witness even now on my gown.

He grinned horribly over the revelation.

“That Portlock!” he rejoiced to himself; “that Portlock! A good throat for the hangman! But, for your murderings--I warrant ’tis a fatter bone I’ve to pick with our gentleman.”

He fell into a little musing, scowling fit; then, suddenly dismounting, bade me get into his saddle.

“Where are you going to take me?” I said.

“Where,” he answered, “but to your cottage?”

“O no!” I cried; “not back there!”

“What!” he said, grinning; “is Madam Judas yet short of her price?”

“What price have I taken? It is not to be Judas to betray brother to brother for virtue’s sake.”

He bent, in a sawing laugh.

“How apt the jade is! Let me tell you, madam, that virtue is an inner commodity, and spoils when too much on the lips.”

He forced me to mount, signed to his fellows to follow, and, taking the bridle, led me down the hill.

“Now, for your price,” said he, as he walked. “Well, I would have bid more for sound goods; but--what say ye?--you are happy on relations--would you like to be my daughter?”

I hung my head, without replying. It was true he was old enough to be my father. This misery must cast me once more on the world, a prey to all unimaginable evils. What chance else remained to me to protect myself and make my fortune serve my honour?

While I was still quietly weeping, we reached the cottage from the front, and halted. The earl motioned, and his suite gathered round and knocked on the door. In the silence that ensued we could hear the sound as of an unwieldy beast within shuffling to and fro. The verderer had seen us through the window, and knew himself for lost. Presently one put his knee to the panels, whispering for orders.

“Curse it, no,” hissed his master; “he may hear us.”

“If he does, he cannot escape,” I murmured. “I pulled the ladder after me.”

With that he raised his hand, and the door crashed in. I caught one glimpse of Portlock’s face--it was a mere white slab of terror--and turned away.

“Now,” said the earl in my ear; but I shuddered from him.

“I won’t--don’t ask me--it is not in the price!”

He uttered an impatient oath, bade one of his men hastily to my side, and himself, with the other three, strode into the cottage.

I don’t know how long passed; it may have been minutes, and seemed an hour. All the time a low snuffling reached me from the interior. The bitter wind had loosened my hair, and I caught its strands to my ears, to my eyes, and rocked in my saddle, trying to shut out everything. Presently a man came forth, to join the other by my side.

“Garamighty, Job!” muttered he; “his honour be cap’en of the gang, and no mistake. You should see his larder.”

“Ah! what’s in it?” asked the first.

“Ten fat bucks, as I’m a saint,” answered the other. “We know now where the pick o’ the herd’s gone to, eh?”

I sat up, listening.

“What larder?” I asked faintly; for, indeed, I knew of none.

The man touched his hat, half deferential, half impudent.

“’Tis through the secret passage your ladyship, so to speak, opened to us--a locked door in the little cellar beyant.”

I shrunk from him.

“You said--what did you say was in it?”

“What but a show of venison, miss--piled to the roof, one might say. He must ’a made a ryle living out o’ deer-stealing, by your leave.”

He had--and that was the whole truth of the secret he had withheld from me! All the time I had been torturing my fears into madness, he had been abroad in the midnight woods, murdering, not men, but deer; in league with an ignoble crew for a paltry gain. This romance of a social ostracism revenging itself on a social hypocrisy: savage, melancholy, yielding to love only the troubled sweetness of its soul--what did it confess itself at last? O, glorious, to be first consul to a little republic of poachers! To vindicate one’s independence by picking the pockets of the king! It was all explained now--the whisperings, the draggings, the creaking carts--in that butchers’ shambles, the secret store of a gang of deer-stealers. He was no better than a cutpurse. In my bitter mortification, I could have wept tears of shame. “I am justified of my act,” I cried to myself. “Better that he should think me a traitor now, than live to curse me for withholding my hand when there was time and opportunity to save him!”

Nevertheless, when they led him forth presently bound and quiet, I could not face his eyes, but cowered before the unspoken reproach and sorrow in them. He came up quite close to me.

“It was your own fault,” I muttered in my hair. “Why would you never tell me?”

“I was wrong,” he said, quite simply. “You must forgive me for what I have taken from you, Diana. If it is any comfort to you to know, the poor little unrealised bond between us reconciles me to this--and all that is to come.”

I felt as if my heart broke then and there. I was conscious of the red earl watching us. The other turned to him, with a laugh like death’s.

“Take your reversion, brother,” said he. “As for me, I am for the madhouse, I suppose.”

At a grinding word, two of the men helped him to mount, and moved away with him. I never saw him again. The other two entered the cottage, to fetch and escort Mr. Portlock to his doom. I was left alone with his lordship.

My heart was broken. I left it scattered on the turf, with all the fragments of the past.

“Now, papa devil,” I said, with a shriek of laughter, “what about your dutiful daughter?”

XXI. I AM METAMORPHOSED

I had loved, and lost, and buried my dream of yesterday. It lay fathoms deep in the green forest. From the moment of my resurrection I knew myself for a changeling--a fairy creature quite other than the soft, emotional child who had cried herself to sleep on last night’s hearth. George was in his house of discipline; Portlock, with others, transported; my past was broken for me beyond repair. Facing me instead were the battlements and pinnacles of a new dominion, with what infinite potentialities behind its walls! Conscience makes no conquests. With my rebirth had come the lust to supply the deficiencies of the old. I laid my love in its grave with tears and kisses, and turned intrepid to the assault.

Memory, my friend, makes men good critics, but bad romancers. I was too indulgent of my kind to be the first: beauty invited me: I would forget. Remorse is, indeed, of all self-indulgences the most useless. It reconciles an offended Heaven to us no more than do tearful sighs win a wife her husband’s condonation of an ill-cooked dinner. An inch-narrow of reformation is better than an ell-broad of apology. Let our sweetness of to-day, rather, be our experience of yesterday. The gods find no entertainment in regrets. They shower their benefits on the unminding; and in the gifts of the present we are justified of our past actions. It is only when we are rich that we can afford to put up tablets to our memories; whence follows that we cannot more honour the dead than by taking our profit of the living. Well, once I had lived _for_ others; now I would live _on_ them--a word of distinction and a world of difference.

His lordship took me straight to London, and gave me a little suite of rooms in his fine house in Berkeley Square, where I was to remain during the next three years, until, in fact, I was come legally of age. He had decided, on reflection, that I was to be his niece. He was a very great man, and this gift was only one of many in his disposal. It was no business of mine how he accounted to the world for my title. _My_ interest was only to justify it, with a view to my position in life when I was become marriageable. Wherefore I would consent to give him none of my duty until he had drawn up a settlement in my favour, to date from my majority. I had had enough of unprofitable bargains.

Perhaps he would never have consented to this--for, like all covetous pluralists, he was parsimonious--had not the death of the young viscount about this time moved him to seek comfort in an artificial relationship for the real one he had lost. In the hearts of the worst of us, I suppose, such vacancies yearn to be filled; and so the poor childless wretch took his opportunity, and adopted me. I hope I acquitted myself properly for the favour; but, in truth, I could never quite forgive him his treachery to his brother.

In the meantime, I developed rapidly, and had my little court, quite exclusive of _les convenances_. The ladies, of course, looked askance at me; but what did I care? I had only to curtsey to my glass to procure the reason. And they made their _modistes_ their deputies in paying me the sincerest flattery. Instead, I experienced the high distinction of a whole _entourage_ of carpet-knights--captains and parsons and diplomatists unending--who came to ogle their own images in my blue eyes, and, losing their heads like Narcissus from giddiness, tumbled in by the score, until I was stocked as full under each brow as an abbot’s pond. It was a rare sport to throw crumbs of comfort to these gaping creatures, and see them rise and jostle one another for the best pickings. I assure you, my friend, I was a queen in my sphere, and had as much need to practise diplomacy. It was that first attached me to politics--the knowledge of into what good coin for bribery and the traffic of State secrets those pretty orbs might be converted. So soon, sure, as amongst my parliamentary followers I distinguished my favourites, I began to sift my political opinions, and to work for the handsomest. I have traced my measures in both Houses, believe me, my little monsieur: I have pulled some strings, sitting in my boudoir, with results as far-reaching as St. Stephen’s. Ah, well! they were days! But I will be true to myself in not bewailing them. Memory, in my philosophy, is a very lean old pauper, crumbling dried herbs into his broth. I never could abide mint sauce unless plucked from the green.