Chapter 11

A FRIEND IN NEED.

Rose Lancaster had never looked prettier than that Sunday night, as she tripped into church, a soft ruffle of fur setting off the delicate fair face, a large velvet hat resting on the golden hair. Dixon, with a proud air of possession, walked in behind her, and, seating himself at her side, proved his proprietorship by producing her Prayer-book from his pocket, and finding all her places for her throughout the service. When Rose dared to lift her head and look about her, she gave a sigh of relief to see that Tom was not present.

"I dare say he thought I should like it best if he stayed away," she thought. She was thankful that the question of her marriage was decided and well decided.

The moon had risen when the service ended. There was a group of people collected outside the church-gate discussing the village gossip before they dispersed to their several homes.

Dixon pulled Rose's arm through his own, and, not allowing her to linger for a moment, led her off. They did not either of them notice that a man with a hat well pulled over his eyes followed them at some little distance; and not until the village was left behind, and the pair had turned into the road, which, with many a wind, led up to the Court, did he attempt to lessen the space which separated them. Then, as unconsciously Rose and Dixon walked more slowly, Tom quickened his steps, and was alongside of them before they realized his presence. He pushed back his hat; and Rose broke into a smothered cry of alarm as the moonlight fell upon the haggard face and wild eyes of her rejected lover, and she clung the tighter to Dixon's arm.

Tom's laugh was not pleasant to listen to. "You asked for my company, Rose, but you don't seem best pleased now I've come," he said; "but, pleased or not, I'll walk with you to-night, and say a thing or two it's right for you to hear before we part company for good."

"I wrote to you," stammered Rose. "I sent it by a special messenger on Saturday night to tell you that, after thinking things over, I'd--I'd----"

"She made up her mind that I should be the best husband for her," said Dixon, putting a protecting arm round Rose's shoulder, and finishing off the sentence she found it so difficult to frame.

The words and the action alike maddened Tom. Was Rose to be protected from him when, to give her pleasure and shield her from pain, had been his one thought for the last eighteen months?

"It's only fair that, as she's chucked me for you, she should know the sort of man she's got hold of," he stuttered.

"I didn't lose my place for being so drunk that it took the parson the best part of the night to see me home, did I?" sneered Dixon.

"No, you didn't. But Rose shall hear now who plotted to make me drunk that night, and who informed against me next day. It was you, you sly, sneaking scamp!--deny it if you dare? If it comes to character who's got the better one, you or I? No man can throw a dirty, dishonest trick at me! And you! Who squares the corn-merchant? Who cooks every bill that goes into the Court? Don't I know it? Have I lived nearly a year under the same roof that covered you, without finding out pretty well how you've managed to feather your nest so as to make it fine enough for the pretty bird you've caught; and if I'd chosen to round on you when you got me turned out, where would you be now, I'd like to know? You would not be coachman at the Court."

Dixon had turned livid with rage, but kept his head.

"You are a poor, drunken fool, and don't know what you are saying, or I'd make you swallow your words."

"You wouldn't! I could prove them!" went on Tom, choking with passion. "And as you've cheated in work, you've cheated in love. You've cheated me, and you've cheated that one as followed you sobbing and crying from the place where you last came from, and who you'd promised faithful to marry, and who you'd walked with for three years and more. I had the story from the woman where I lodge. The girl spent the night there, and she was pretty nigh broken-hearted. She'd even got her wedding-gown."

Dixon sprang across the road like a tiger, and gave Tom such a swinging box on the ear that, for a moment, he reeled again. And then, all the devil in Tom was loosed, and he leaped on his foe, gripping him by the throat until every vein in his forehead stood out in blue knots. The action was so unexpected and so rapid that Dixon found it impossible to free himself. The men swayed to and fro in each other's embrace, finally falling heavily together with a sickening thud upon the road. Tom was uppermost, and picked himself up with a rather ghastly smile, but Dixon lay there rigid and motionless.

"Get up!" said Tom, poking him with the toe of his boot. "You won't be so ready to interfere with me another time." But Dixon did not stir.

Rose, who had tried to stop the quarrel by every artifice in her power, knelt down by the side of her lover. And suddenly a cry so shrill, so despairing, broke the air, that Tom's heart stood still and the blood froze in his veins.

"Tom! Tom!--you wicked man, you've killed him!" she shrieked.

And Tom, sobered by the cry, and realizing in all its horror the meaning of the words, turned like guilty Cain and fled. There was but one place for him now: the river--the river, and the end of it all. He was making for it straight, flying by the nearest cut across the fields, leaping ditches, scrambling through hedges, regardless of the brambles that scored his face and hands. Like a hare hunted by the hounds he fled; away from his own guilty action, away from the woman he loved, to the river which would sweep him swiftly, painlessly to rest and forgetfulness. But would it? He had stumbled accidentally into the path which led towards the cottage where he lodged, and turned his head as he ran to take one last glance at the light which glimmered in the window. He could see the river now; he was nearing the brink. There was but one field between him and it, when he became conscious of a pursuing step. Somebody was already on his scent. The question now was whether he should die by his own act, or be delivered over to the terrible hands of justice; and at that thought Tom redoubled his speed to outstrip his pursuer. It was a desperate race, for his strength was nearly spent. His long fast had told upon him, and the fictitious power of the spirit he had swallowed had passed away. His breath was coming in quick, short gasps. His foot caught in a tussock of grass, and he fell face foremost to the ground, and, before he could regain his feet, a hand was on his collar.

"Let me go! Let me go!" he cried, struggling desperately in the hands of his capturer. "If I've killed him I'm ready to die too. You can't do more than hang me! One more moment and I'd have been in the river. Let me go, I say!"

"I shall _not_ let you go; you are either mad or drunk--incapable of taking care of yourself," said a low, clear voice; and Tom was lifted to a standing posture by the rector's strong arms.

* * * * * *

When Dixon had called late on Saturday night to ask the rector to put up his banns on the morrow, Mr. Curzon's thoughts flew straight to Tom. So this was the end of his love-story, poor fellow! and he feared that it would go hardly with the lad.

"Maybe he will come to see me to-morrow. And, if not, I will see him," he had said.

He had noticed with satisfaction that Tom was in his accustomed place on Sunday morning, and did not see him slip out of church after the publishing of the banns; but on Sunday night he missed him, and, the minute service was ended, he set off for the cottage where he lodged. He had reached the field-path which led to it, when he heard the sound of footsteps that stumbled in their running, and, pausing to look round, he saw a figure, which he did not immediately recognize in the moonlight as Tom's, dashing across the pathway in the direction of the river. Almost before he knew what he was doing the rector gave chase, for he felt the man meant mischief: a conviction which grew into certainty as he gained upon the runaway, and recognized him as the man whom he sought.

Tom attempted no further resistance, and, from his incoherent utterances, Mr. Curzon presently gathered what had occurred.

"And you ran off and left Rose with her dead lover? I could not have believed you such a coward, Tom!" he said, unable to keep back the indignation and scorn he felt. "This is no place for you and me; we must go back at once, and see if anything can be done."

Nothing was said as the two hastened back to the spot where Dixon was left lying; but, to the utter astonishment of both, when they arrived there, Rose and Dixon had gone.

"Either some vehicle has driven by which has conveyed Dixon to the Court, or he was, by God's mercy, only stunned," said the rector. "We'll go on and find out."

Tom made no answer, but followed the rector's lead. In a kind of dumb despair he felt he was walking to meet his fate. They made their way first to the stables, anxious not to give the alarm at the house until they knew the extent of the mischief. The usual orderly quiet prevailed, and, in response to the rector's knock, the groom, who had played such a faithless part by Rose, appeared.

"Is Dixon in? Can I see him for a moment?" asked Mr. Curzon, guardedly.

"He came in, sir, about a quarter of an hour since, but he's gone straight up to bed. He'd a nasty fall--did not know quite how he'd done it, slipped up on his heel, he said, and fell on the back of his head. Rose Lancaster was with him, and seemed terrible cut up about it, said he lay like a dead thing; and she would never have got him home if it had not been that a cart drove by and gave 'em both a lift."

"Thank you. Tell Dixon that I'll come round in the morning to see how he is."

"We need do nothing more to-night; your worst fear is not realized," he said, as he and Tom turned towards home. "Now you will come back to supper with me, and we will trace your sin to its very root, please God. You've had a warning that I think you are not likely to forget."

But Tom, in the sudden relief from the horrible fear that he had inadvertently taken the life of a fellow creature, had broken into a passion of sobs, shedding such tears as a man sheds but once in a lifetime--scalding tears of bitter repentance and shame.

He and Mr. Curzon sat talking far into the night, and Tom told the story truly, keeping nothing back.

"You've let drink and passion get the upper hand, Tom. You have put the love of a woman before the love of God, and you've come near to wrecking your life and hers in consequence. It would not have mended matters if you had hurried yourself into another world to which you have given so little thought, would it? It was a mad, wicked thought! a thought of the devil's own suggestion; but you are saved for the beginning of a better life, a new life in new surroundings."

Tom glanced up quickly. "Not in Tasmania," he said. "The squire won't send me, after this."

"You'll tell him about it, then," replied Mr. Curzon, with a heart-throb of thanksgiving that Tom was ready to face out the consequences of his action.

"Oh yes; I shall tell him. He might hear it any way, but I'd rather tell him myself."

"Very good. Now you had better go home to bed, and, if you have never said a real prayer before, you will say one to-night, Tom, to the God who has saved you from falling over a precipice of crime."

Tom nodded; his heart was too full to speak.

When the morning broke it found the rector in his study where Tom had left him, still upon his knees, for here and there, in this hurrying nineteenth century world, there is yet found a disciple who, like the Master whom he serves, will spend whole nights in prayer. Was not the salvation of a soul at stake?

A fresh development of Rose Lancaster's love-affairs was brought to Mr. Curzon's notice on Monday, for the first person he met, as he left the rectory in the morning, was Rose herself--a crumpled dishevelled Rose, whose toilet gave evidence of hurry, and whose eyes were red with weeping.

"Oh, sir, I've come because I didn't know what to do. We're all in dreadful trouble!--Dixon's gone!"

"Not dead!" cried the rector in horror.

"Oh no; he's run away. And oh, it's cruel, cruel! to have used me like this," said Rose, her sobs bursting out afresh.

"I wonder what has made him do it? Has he left no note behind him?"

"Not a line--nor a message for me," replied Rose. "Only a scrawl in pencil which the groom found on the saddle-room table, to say that nobody need try to trace him. And only to think that our banns were put up yesterday."

"I think you are wasting your tears over a heartless scamp!" said the rector, a little impatiently. "Did you come with any message from the Court?"

"No, sir; I only came to ask you if I ought to tell?"

"To tell what?"

"All that happened last night. There was a dreadful quarrel between Dixon and Tom Burney; and that's how Dixon got hurt. He was stunned, and I thought he was dead; and Tom ran off, and, when Dixon came to himself, his one notion was that I was not to tell any one how he came by his fall."

"So you promised to back him up in a lie!" said the rector, coldly. "One can scarcely wonder that you wished to keep the thing quiet, however. You've terribly misused God's good gift of a pretty face, Rose. You have played with two men; and chosen the wrong one, and driven the other half off his head with misery. Mercifully the good God has saved you from what must have been a miserable marriage, for there is more in Dixon's disappearance than we can see just yet."

Rose's tears dried with her gathering indignation. It had not occurred to her to blame herself in any way; she felt rather in the position of the ill-used heroine of a tragedy in real life.

"Then you think I ought to tell," she said a little sulkily.

"I certainly think your mistress ought to know exactly what happened. You need not tell any one else, that I know of."

So Rose returned to the Court greatly crestfallen; and her account of the quarrel, and Tom's vague threats about Dixon's character, put Mrs. Webster on to the right clue as to the causes of his sudden flight. He was found to have been guilty of repeated acts of dishonesty, so cleverly concealed that, but for the fear that Tom would report him, he might have gone on for years longer, respected and trusted by his employers. As the time seemed ripe for flight, however, he had taken with him the change of a big cheque that Mrs. Webster had given him to cash on the Saturday, and which he had told her glibly that he could not get cashed until the Monday. Each fresh revelation filled Rose with misery and shame; and, behind all, was the one fact that she had kept to herself: the memory of Tom's mention of that other girl that Dixon had jilted--the crowning taunt which had hurried Dixon into showing fight.

"And it must have been true, or it would not have made him so angry," thought Rose.

It was a bitter pill for the vain little thing to swallow: the conviction that she had all along occupied the second place in Dixon's affections, and that he had cast her away, like that other girl, without any compunction. Tom would not have done it; and at the remembrance of him Rose's eyes filled with tears. Rose was returning from the village, whither she had been sent on a message, and she shivered a little as she passed the scene of the last night's disaster; and her alarm found expression in a little cry when she saw Tom Burney standing there, too, and yet there was nothing to terrify her in the deprecating glance of his troubled eyes.

"Rose," he said, stretching out his hands, "I don't wonder that you hate the sight of me, but you can afford to speak kindly to me for this once? God knows I'm sorry enough for what I've done, heart sorry. I came here to look at the place again, where I nearly killed a man, just to let it burn in so that I mayn't forget."

"But--but--you can't have heard that he's not much hurt even? that he's run away and taken a lot of money that does not belong to him?"

"Oh yes," said Tom, drearily. "But that does not alter things; I can't forget that I nearly killed him--and myself."

"Oh, Tom, not that! not that!" cried Rose, for the first time pierced by a pang of keen remorse.

"Yes. I should have drowned myself if Mr. Curzon had not stopped me," said Tom, simply. "I was mad, I think, with misery and drink."

Then Rose understood the full meaning of the rector's words that morning.

"I did not mean to try and see you before I went away," went on Tom, brokenly; "but I'm glad of the chance to ask your forgiveness for the hurt I might have done to the man you wished to marry."

"Oh don't! please don't talk like that!" said Rose, Tom's utter self-abasement and humility rousing all her better nature. "Don't you see that it's you who ought to forgive me for the cruel way I've treated you; and if you'd died, Tom, and my wickedness had killed you, how could I have ever lifted up my head again? I see now how wicked I've been. I wanted to marry Dixon because he promised to give me everything I liked: a pretty house and a little servant, and pretty clothes and things. It was not because I loved him best."

Tom threw back his head with a little cry.

"Rose," he said, coming a step nearer. "Rose, my dear; it can't hurt to tell me now. In two days I'm going away for good and all. I have told the squire all about it, and he is going to overlook it and send me across the seas just the same as if nothing had happened; but when I'm gone, it would make me happy to know that you had ever loved me just a little bit."

"I do," said Rose. "I think I've loved you all the time."

Tom drew a long breath, but did not attempt to come closer.

"Thank you," he said, with an odd thrill in his voice. "I'll go away and think of it. It will help me to be good, for I'll have a try at that, Rose, my dear. I'll keep clear of the drink; I'm going up to the rector to-night to tell him I'm ready to sign. He asked me to do it before; and don't I wish I had listened to him! But now I'll do it without the asking."

There was some difference in Tom that Rose felt but could not define, some influence over him that was stronger than her own. She had been conscious before that she had but to speak and he would try his utmost to carry out her whim; but to-day, miserable as he was, oppressed by the weight of sin, she felt respect for a certain strength of purpose that seemed developed in him. Mr. Curzon was right; she had chosen the wrong man. Never had she valued Tom's love as she did now when she was just about to lose it.

"Then you are going directly?" she almost whispered.

"Yes; I leave here the day after to-morrow, and I sail in about a fortnight. The squire thought the sooner I was out of the way the better."

"Shall you ever come back?"

"I don't know."

"Nor ever write?" asked Rose, with a sob in her throat.

"That's as may be; I'd write to one who cared."

"I care. Write to me, please?"

She was looking at him with pleading eyes, but he would not trust himself to return her glance.

"Rose," he said, "there's not the woman now that I would ask to be my wife. I'm guilty, before God, of two black sins; but if He gives me time to live it down and earn a clean name again----"

"He will! He will!" said Rose. "And, Tom, it does not matter if it's years, I'll wait." And then she put her arms round his neck and kissed him.

His face was ashen grey; his arms ached with the longing to return her embrace and hold her close to his heart, but he let her go.

"Before God, Rose, my darling, I'll live worthy of your kiss! Maybe it won't be long before I dare return it."

The next instant he was gone, not daring to look back at her.