# A Group of Noble Dames/Part 2/The Honourable Laura

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DAME THE TENTH
       THE HONOURABLE LAURA
    By the Spark
IT was a cold and gloomy Christmas Eve. The mass of cloud overhead was almost impervious to such daylight as still lingered on; the snow lay several inches deep upon the ground, and the slanting downfall which still went on threatened to considerably increase its thickness before the morning. The Prospect Hotel, a building standing near the wild north coast of Lower Wessex, looked so lonely and so useless at such a time as this that a passing wayfarer would have been led to forget summer possibilities, and to wonder at the commercial courage which could invest capital, on the basis of the popular taste for the picturesque, in a country subject to such dreary phases. That the district was alive with visitors in August seemed but a dim tradition in weather so totally opposed to all that tempts mankind from home. However, there the hotel stood immovable; and the cliffs, creeks, and headlands which were the primary attractions of the spot, rising in full view on the opposite side of the valley, were now but stern angular outlines, while the townlet in front was tinged over with a grimy dirtiness rather than the pearly gray that in summer lent such beauty to its appearance.
Within the hotel commanding this outlook the landlord walked idly about with his hands in his pockets, not in the least expectant of a visitor, and yet unable to settle down to any occupation which should compensate in some degree for the losses that winter idleness entailed on his regular profession. So little, indeed, was anybody expected, that the coffee-room waiter—a genteel boy, whose plated buttons in summer were as close together upon the front of his short jacket as peas in a pod—now appeared in the back yard, metamorphosed into the unrecognizable shape of a rough country lad in corduroys and hobnailed boots, sweeping the snow away, and talking the local dialect in all its purity, quite oblivious of the new polite accent he had learned in the hot weather from the well-behaved visitors. The front door was closed, and, as if to express still more fully the sealed and chrysalis state of the establishment, a sand-bag was placed at the bottom to keep out the insidious snowdrift, the wind setting in directly from that quarter.
The landlord, entering his own parlour, walked to the large fire which it was absolutely necessary to keep up for his comfort, no such blaze burning in the coffee-room or elsewhere, and after giving it a stir returned to a table in the lobby, whereon lay the visitors’ book—now closed and pushed back against the wall. He carelessly opened it; not a name had been entered there since the 19th of the previous November, and that was only the name of a man who had arrived on a tricycle, who, indeed, had not been asked to enter at all.
While he was engaged thus the evening grew darker; but before it was as yet too dark to distinguish objects upon the road winding round the back of the cliffs, the landlord perceived a black spot on the distant white, which speedily enlarged itself and drew near. The probabilities were that this vehicle—for a vehicle of some sort it seemed to be—would pass by and pursue its way to the nearest railway-town as others had done. But, contrary to the landlord’s expectation, as he stood conning it through the yet unshuttered windows, the solitary object, on reaching the corner, turned into the hotel-front, and drove up to the door.
It was a conveyance particularly unsuited to such a season and weather, being nothing more substantial than an open basket-carriage drawn by a single horse. Within sat two persons, of different sexes, as could soon be discerned, in spite of their muffled attire. The man held the reins, and the lady had got some shelter from the storm by clinging close to his side. The landlord rang the hostler’s bell to attract the attention of the stable-man, for the approach of the visitors had been deadened to noiselessness by the snow, and when the hostler had come to the horse’s head the gentleman and lady alighted, the landlord meeting them in the hall.
The male stranger was a foreign-looking individual of about eight-and-twenty. He was close-shaven, excepting a moustache, his features being good, and even handsome. The lady, who stood timidly behind him, seemed to be much younger—possibly not more than eighteen, though it was difficult to judge either of her age or appearance in her present wrappings.
The gentleman expressed his wish to stay till the morning, explaining somewhat unnecessarily, considering that the house was an inn, that they had been unexpectedly benighted on their drive. Such a welcome being given them as landlords can give in dull times, the latter ordered fires in the drawing and coffee-rooms, and went to the boy in the yard, who soon scrubbed himself up, dragged his disused jacket from its box, polished the buttons with his sleeve, and appeared civilized in the hall. The lady was shown into a room where she could take off her snow-damped garments, which she sent down to be dried, her companion, meanwhile, putting a couple of sovereigns on the table, as if anxious to make everything smooth and comfortable at starting, and requesting that a private sitting-room might be got ready. The landlord assured him that the best upstairs parlour—usually public—should be kept private this evening, and sent the maid to light the candles. Dinner was prepared for them, and, at the gentleman’s desire, served in the same apartment; where, the young lady having joined him, they were left to the rest and refreshment they seemed to need.
That something was peculiar in the relations of the pair had more than once struck the landlord, though wherein that peculiarity lay it was hard to decide. But that his guest was one who paid his way readily had been proved by his conduct, and dismissing conjectures, he turned to practical affairs.
About nine o’clock he re-entered the hall, and, everything being done for the day, again walked up and down, occasionally gazing through the glass door at the prospect without, to ascertain how the weather was progressing. Contrary to prognostication, snow had ceased falling, and, with the rising of the moon, the sky had partially cleared, light fleeces of cloud drifting across the silvery disk. There was every sign that a frost was going to set in later on. For these reasons the distant rising road was even more distinct now between its high banks than it had been in the declining daylight. Not a track or rut broke the virgin surface of the white mantle that lay along it, all marks left by the lately arrived travellers having been speedily obliterated by the flakes falling at the time.
And now the landlord beheld by the light of the moon a sight very similar to that he had seen by the light of day. Again a black spot was advancing down the road that margined the coast. He was in a moment or two enabled to perceive that the present vehicle moved onward at a more headlong pace than the little carriage which had preceded it; next, that it was a brougham drawn by two powerful horses; next, that this carriage, like the former one, was bound for the hotel-door. This desirable feature of resemblance caused the landlord to once more withdraw the sand-bag and advance into the porch.
An old gentleman was the first to alight. He was followed by a young one, and both unhesitatingly came forward.
‘Has a young lady, less than nineteen years of age, recently arrived here in the company of a man some years her senior?’ asked the old gentleman, in haste. ‘A man cleanly shaven for the most part, having the appearance of an opera-singer, and calling himself Signor Smithozzi?’
‘We have had arrivals lately,’ said the landlord, in the tone of having had twenty at least—not caring to acknowledge the attenuated state of business that afflicted Prospect Hotel in winter.
‘And among them can your memory recall two persons such as those I describe?—the man a sort of baritone?’
‘There certainly is or was a young couple staying in the hotel; but I could not pronounce on the compass of the gentleman’s voice.’
‘No, no; of course not. I am quite bewildered. They arrived in a basket-carriage, altogether badly provided?’
‘They came in a carriage, I believe, as most of our visitors do.’
‘Yes, yes. I must see them at once. Pardon my want of ceremony, and show us in to where they are.’
‘But, sir, you forget. Suppose the lady and gentleman I mean are not the lady and gentleman you mean? It would be awkward to allow you to rush in upon them just now while they are at dinner, and might cause me to lose their future patronage.’
‘True, true. They may not be the same persons. My anxiety, I perceive, makes me rash in my assumptions!’
‘Upon the whole, I think they must be the same, Uncle Quantock,’ said the young man, who had not till now spoken. And turning to the landlord: ‘You possibly have not such a large assemblage of visitors here, on this somewhat forbidding evening, that you quite forget how this couple arrived, and what the lady wore?’ His tone of addressing the landlord had in it a quiet frigidity that was not without irony.
‘Ah! what she wore; that’s it, James. What did she wear?’
‘I don’t usually take stock of my guests’ clothing,’ replied the landlord drily, for the ready money of the first arrival had decidedly biassed him in favour of that gentleman’s cause. ‘You can certainly see some of it if you want to,’ he added carelessly, ‘for it is drying by the kitchen fire.’
Before the words were half out of his mouth the old gentleman had exclaimed, ‘Ah!’ and precipitated himself along what seemed to be the passage to the kitchen; but as this turned out to be only the entrance to a dark china-closet, he hastily emerged again, after a collision with the inn-crockery had told him of his mistake.
‘I beg your pardon, I’m sure; but if you only knew my feelings (which I cannot at present explain), you would make allowances. Anything I have broken I will willingly pay for.’
‘Don’t mention it, sir,’ said the landlord. And showing the way, they adjourned to the kitchen without further parley. The eldest of the party instantly seized the lady’s cloak, that hung upon a clothes-horse, exclaiming: ‘Ah! yes, James, it is hers. I knew we were on their track.’
‘Yes, it is hers,’ answered the nephew quietly, for he was much less excited than his companion.
‘Show us their room at once,’ said the old man.
‘William, have the lady and gentleman in the front sitting-room finished dining?’
‘Yes, sir, long ago,’ said the hundred plated buttons.
‘Then show up these gentlemen to them at once. You stay here to-night, gentlemen, I presume? Shall the horses be taken out?’
‘Feed the horses and wash their mouths. Whether we stay or not depends upon circumstances,’ said the placid younger man, as he followed his uncle and the waiter to the staircase.
‘I think, Nephew James,’ said the former, as he paused with his foot on the first step—‘I think we had better not be announced, but take them by surprise. She may go throwing herself out of the window, or do some equally desperate thing!’
‘Yes, certainly, we’ll enter unannounced.’ And he called back the lad who preceded them.
‘I cannot sufficiently thank you, James, for so effectually aiding me in this pursuit!’ exclaimed the old gentleman, taking the other by the hand. ‘My increasing infirmities would have hindered my overtaking her to-night, had it not been for your timely aid.’
‘I am only too happy, uncle, to have been of service to you in this or any other matter. I only wish I could have accompanied you on a pleasanter journey. However, it is advisable to go up to them at once, or they may hear us.’ And they softly ascended the stairs.
On the door being opened, a room too large to be comfortable, lit by the best branch-candlesticks of the hotel, was disclosed, before the fire of which apartment the truant couple were sitting, very innocently looking over the hotel scrap-book and the album containing views of the neighbourhood. No sooner had the old man entered than the young lady—who now showed herself to be quite as young as described, and remarkably prepossessing as to features—perceptibly turned pale. When the nephew entered, she turned still paler, as if she were going to faint. The young man described as an opera-singer rose with grim civility, and placed chairs for his visitors.
‘Caught you, thank God!’ said the old gentleman breathlessly.
‘Yes, worse luck, my lord!’ murmured Signor Smithozzi, in native London-English, that distinguished alien having, in fact, first seen the light in the vicinity of the City Road. ‘She would have been mine to-morrow. And I think that under the peculiar circumstances it would be wiser—considering how soon the breath of scandal will tarnish a lady’s fame—to let her be mine to-morrow, just the same.’
‘Never!’ said the old man. ‘Here is a lady under age, without experience—child-like in her maiden innocence and virtue—whom you have plied by your vile arts, till this morning at dawn——’
‘Lord Quantock, were I not bound to respect your gray hairs——’
‘Till this morning at dawn you tempted her away from her father’s roof. What blame can attach to her conduct that will not, on a full explanation of the matter, be readily passed over in her and thrown entirely on you? Laura, you return at once with me. I should not have arrived, after all, early enough to deliver you, if it had not been for the disinterestedness of your cousin, Captain Northbrook, who, on my discovering your flight this morning, offered with a promptitude for which I can never sufficiently thank him, to accompany me on my journey, as the only male relative I have near me. Come, do you hear? Put on your things; we are off at once.’
‘I don’t want to go!’ pouted the young lady.
‘I daresay you don’t,’ replied her father drily. ‘But children never know what’s best for them. So come along, and trust to my opinion.’
Laura was silent, and did not move, the opera gentleman looking helplessly into the fire, and the lady’s cousin sitting meditatively calm, as the single one of the four whose position enabled him to survey the whole escapade with the cool criticism of a comparative outsider.
‘I say to you, Laura, as the father of a daughter under age, that you instantly come with me. What? Would you compel me to use physical force to reclaim you?’
‘I don’t want to return!’ again declared Laura.
‘It is your duty to return nevertheless, and at once, I inform you.’
‘I don’t want to!’
‘Now, dear Laura, this is what I say: return with me and your cousin James quietly, like a good and repentant girl, and nothing will be said. Nobody knows what has happened as yet, and if we start at once, we shall be home before it is light to-morrow morning. Come.’
‘I am not obliged to come at your bidding, father, and I would rather not!’
Now James, the cousin, during this dialogue might have been observed to grow somewhat restless, and even impatient. More than once he had parted his lips to speak, but second thoughts each time held him back. The moment had come, however, when he could keep silence no longer.
‘Come, madam!’ he spoke out, ‘this farce with your father has, in my opinion, gone on long enough. Just make no more ado, and step downstairs with us.’
She gave herself an intractable little twist, and did not reply.
‘By the Lord Harry, Laura, I won’t stand this!’ he said angrily. ‘Come, get on your things before I come and compel you. There is a kind of compulsion to which this talk is child’s play. Come, madam—instantly, I say!’
The old nobleman turned to his nephew and said mildly: ‘Leave me to insist, James. It doesn’t become you. I can speak to her sharply enough, if I choose.’
James, however, did not heed his uncle, and went on to the troublesome young woman: ‘You say you don’t want to come, indeed! A pretty story to tell me, that! Come, march out of the room at once, and leave that hulking fellow for me to deal with afterward. Get on quickly—come!’ and he advanced toward her as if to pull her by the hand.
‘Nay, nay,’ expostulated Laura’s father, much surprised at his nephew’s sudden demeanour. ‘You take too much upon yourself. Leave her to me.’
‘I won’t leave her to you any longer!’
‘You have no right, James, to address either me or her in this way; so just hold your tongue. Come, my dear.’
‘I have every right!’ insisted James.
‘How do you make that out?’
‘I have the right of a husband.’
‘Whose husband?’
‘Hers.’
‘What?’
‘She’s my wife.’
‘James!’
‘Well, to cut a long story short, I may say that she secretly married me, in spite of your lordship’s prohibition, about three months ago. And I must add that, though she cooled down rather quickly, everything went on smoothly enough between us for some time; in spite of the awkwardness of meeting only by stealth. We were only waiting for a convenient moment to break the news to you when this idle Adonis turned up, and after poisoning her mind against me, brought her into this disgrace.’
Here the operatic luminary, who had sat in rather an abstracted and nerveless attitude till the cousin made his declaration, fired up and cried: ‘I declare before Heaven that till this moment I never knew she was a wife! I found her in her father’s house an unhappy girl—unhappy, as I believe, because of the loneliness and dreariness of that establishment, and the want of society, and for nothing else whatever. What this statement about her being your wife means I am quite at a loss to understand. Are you indeed married to him, Laura?’
Laura nodded from within her tearful handkerchief. ‘It was because of my anomalous position in being privately married to him,’ she sobbed, ‘that I was unhappy at home—and—and I didn’t like him so well as I did at first—and I wished I could get out of the mess I was in! And then I saw you a few times, and when you said, “We’ll run off,” I thought I saw a way out of it all, and then I agreed to come with you—oo-oo!’
‘Well! well! well! And is this true?’ murmured the bewildered old nobleman, staring from James to Laura, and from Laura to James, as if he fancied they might be figments of the imagination. ‘Is this, then, James, the secret of your kindness to your old uncle in helping him to find his daughter? Good Heavens! What further depths of duplicity are there left for a man to learn!’
‘I have married her, Uncle Quantock, as I said,’ answered James coolly. ‘The deed is done, and can’t be undone by talking here.’
‘Where were you married?’
‘At St. Mary’s, Toneborough.’
‘When?’
‘On the 29th of September, during the time she was visiting there.’
‘Who married you?’
‘I don’t know. One of the curates—we were quite strangers to the place. So, instead of my assisting you to recover her, you may as well assist me.’
‘Never! never!’ said Lord Quantock. ‘Madam, and sir, I beg to tell you that I wash my hands of the whole affair! If you are man and wife, as it seems you are, get reconciled as best you may. I have no more to say or do with either of you. I leave you, Laura, in the hands of your husband, and much joy may you bring him; though the situation, I own, is not encouraging.’
Saying this, the indignant speaker pushed back his chair against the table with such force that the candlesticks rocked on their bases, and left the room.
Laura’s wet eyes roved from one of the young men to the other, who now stood glaring face to face, and, being much frightened at their aspect, slipped out of the room after her father. Him, however, she could hear going out of the front door, and, not knowing where to take shelter, she crept into the darkness of an adjoining bedroom, and there awaited events with a palpitating heart.
Meanwhile the two men remaining in the sitting-room drew nearer to each other, and the opera-singer broke the silence by saying, ‘How could you insult me in the way you did, calling me a fellow, and accusing me of poisoning her mind toward you, when you knew very well I was as ignorant of your relation to her as an unborn babe?’
‘Oh yes, you were quite ignorant; I can believe that readily,’ sneered Laura’s husband.
‘I here call Heaven to witness that I never knew!’
‘Recitativo—the rhythm excellent, and the tone well sustained. Is it likely that any man could win the confidence of a young fool her age, and not get that out of her? Preposterous! Tell it to the most improved new pit-stalls.’
‘Captain Northbrook, your insinuations are as despicable as your wretched person!’ cried the baritone, losing all patience. And springing forward he slapped the captain in the face with the palm of his hand.
Northbrook flinched but slightly, and calmly using his handkerchief to learn if his nose was bleeding, said, ‘I quite expected this insult, so I came prepared.’ And he drew forth from a black valise which he carried in his hand a small case of pistols.
The baritone started at the unexpected sight, but recovering from his surprise said, ‘Very well, as you will,’ though perhaps his tone showed a slight want of confidence.
‘Now,’ continued the husband, quite confidingly, ‘we want no parade, no nonsense, you know. Therefore we’ll dispense with seconds?’
The signor slightly nodded.
‘Do you know this part of the country well?’ Cousin James went on, in the same cool and still manner. ‘If you don’t, I do. Quite at the bottom of the rocks out there, just beyond the stream which falls over them to the shore, is a smooth sandy space, not so much shut in as to be out of the moonlight; and the way down to it from this side is over steps cut in the cliff; and we can find our way down without trouble. We—we two—will find our way down; but only one of us will find his way up, you understand?’
‘Quite.’
‘Then suppose we start; the sooner it is over the better. We can order supper before we go out—supper for two; for though we are three at present——’
‘Three?’
‘Yes; you and I and she——’
‘Oh yes.’
‘——We shall be only two by and by; so that, as I say, we will order supper for two; for the lady and a gentleman. Whichever comes back alive will tap at her door, and call her in to share the repast with him—she’s not off the premises. But we must not alarm her now; and above all things we must not let the inn-people see us go out; it would look so odd for two to go out, and only one come in. Ha! ha!’
‘Ha! ha! exactly.’
‘Are you ready?’
‘Oh—quite.’
‘Then I’ll lead the way.’
He went softly to the door and downstairs, ordering supper to be ready in an hour, as he had said; then making a feint of returning to the room again, he beckoned to the singer, and together they slipped out of the house by a side door.
The sky was now quite clear, and the wheelmarks of the brougham which had borne away Laura’s father, Lord Quantock, remained distinctly visible. Soon the verge of the down was reached, the captain leading the way, and the baritone following silently, casting furtive glances at his companion, and beyond him at the scene ahead. In due course they arrived at the chasm in the cliff which formed the waterfall. The outlook here was wild and picturesque in the extreme, and fully justified the many praises, paintings, and photographic views to which the spot had given birth. What in summer was charmingly green and gray, was now rendered weird and fantastic by the snow.
From their feet the cascade plunged downward almost vertically to a depth of eighty or a hundred feet before finally losing itself in the sand, and though the stream was but small, its impact upon jutting rocks in its descent divided it into a hundred spirts and splashes that sent up a mist into the upper air. A few marginal drippings had been frozen into icicles, but the centre flowed on unimpeded.
The operatic artist looked down as he halted, but his thoughts were plainly not of the beauty of the scene. His companion with the pistols was immediately in front of him, and there was no handrail on the side of the path toward the chasm. Obeying a quick impulse, he stretched out his arm, and with a superhuman thrust sent Laura’s husband reeling over. A whirling human shape, diminishing downward in the moon’s rays farther and farther toward invisibility, a smack-smack upon the projecting ledges of rock—at first louder and heavier than that of the brook, and then scarcely to be distinguished from it—then a cessation, then the splashing of the stream as before, and the accompanying murmur of the sea, were all the incidents that disturbed the customary flow of the little waterfall.
The singer waited in a fixed attitude for a few minutes, then turning, he rapidly retraced his steps over the intervening upland toward the road, and in less than a quarter of an hour was at the door of the hotel. Slipping quietly in as the clock struck ten, he said to the landlord, over the bar hatchway—
‘The bill as soon as you can let me have it, including charges for the supper that was ordered, though we cannot stay to eat it, I am sorry to say.’ He added with forced gaiety, ‘The lady’s father and cousin have thought better of intercepting the marriage, and after quarrelling with each other have gone home independently.’
‘Well done, sir!’ said the landlord, who still sided with this customer in preference to those who had given trouble and barely paid for baiting the horses. ‘“Love will find out the way!” as the saying is. Wish you joy, sir!’
Signor Smithozzi went upstairs, and on entering the sitting-room found that Laura had crept out from the dark adjoining chamber in his absence. She looked up at him with eyes red from weeping, and with symptoms of alarm.
‘What is it?—where is he?’ she said apprehensively.
‘Captain Northbrook has gone back. He says he will have no more to do with you.’
‘And I am quite abandoned by them!—and they’ll forget me, and nobody care about me any more!’ She began to cry afresh.
‘But it is the luckiest thing that could have happened. All is just as it was before they came disturbing us. But, Laura, you ought to have told me about that private marriage, though it is all the same now; it will be dissolved, of course. You are a wid—virtually a widow.’
‘It is no use to reproach me for what is past. What am I to do now?’
‘We go at once to Cliff-Martin. The horse has rested thoroughly these last three hours, and he will have no difficulty in doing an additional half-dozen miles. We shall be there before twelve, and there are late taverns in the place, no doubt. There we’ll sell both horse and carriage to-morrow morning; and go by the coach to Downstaple. Once in the train we are safe.’
‘I agree to anything,’ she said listlessly.
In about ten minutes the horse was put in, the bill paid, the lady’s dried wraps put round her, and the journey resumed.
When about a mile on their way, they saw a glimmering light in advance of them. ‘I wonder what that is?’ said the baritone, whose manner had latterly become nervous, every sound and sight causing him to turn his head.
‘It is only a turnpike,’ said she. ‘That light is the lamp kept burning over the door.’
‘Of course, of course, dearest. How stupid I am!’
On reaching the gate they perceived that a man on foot had approached it, apparently by some more direct path than the roadway they pursued, and was, at the moment they drew up, standing in conversation with the gatekeeper.
‘It is quite impossible that he could fall over the cliff by accident or the will of God on such a light night as this,’ the pedestrian was saying. ‘These two children I tell you of saw two men go along the path toward the waterfall, and ten minutes later only one of ’em came back, walking fast, like a man who wanted to get out of the way because he had done something queer. There is no manner of doubt that he pushed the other man over, and, mark me, it will soon cause a hue and cry for that man.’
The candle shone in the face of the Signor and showed that there had arisen upon it a film of ghastliness. Laura, glancing toward him for a few moments observed it, till, the gatekeeper having mechanically swung open the gate, her companion drove through, and they were soon again enveloped in the white silence.
Her conductor had said to Laura, just before, that he meant to inquire the way at this turnpike; but he had certainly not done so.
As soon as they had gone a little farther the omission, intentional or not, began to cause them some trouble. Beyond the secluded district which they now traversed ran the more frequented road, where progress would be easy, the snow being probably already beaten there to some extent by traffic; but they had not yet reached it, and having no one to guide them their journey began to appear less feasible than it had done before starting. When the little lane which they had entered ascended another hill, and seemed to wind round in a direction contrary to the expected route to Cliff-Martin, the question grew serious. Ever since overhearing the conversation at the turnpike, Laura had maintained a perfect silence, and had even shrunk somewhat away from the side of her lover.
‘Why don’t you talk, Laura,’ he said with forced buoyancy, ‘and suggest the way we should go?’
‘Oh yes, I will,’ she responded, a curious fearfulness being audible in her voice.
After this she uttered a few occasional sentences which seemed to persuade him that she suspected nothing. At last he drew rein, and the weary horse stood still.
‘We are in a fix,’ he said.
She answered eagerly: ‘I’ll hold the reins while you run forward to the top of the ridge, and see if the road takes a favourable turn beyond. It would give the horse a few minutes’ rest, and if you find out no change in the direction, we will retrace this lane, and take the other turning.’
The expedient seemed a good one in the circumstances, especially when recommended by the singular eagerness of her voice; and placing the reins in her hands—a quite unnecessary precaution, considering the state of their hack—he stepped out and went forward through the snow till she could see no more of him.
No sooner was he gone than Laura, with a rapidity which contrasted strangely with her previous stillness, made fast the reins to the corner of the phaeton, and slipping out on the opposite side, ran back with all her might down the hill, till, coming to an opening in the fence, she scrambled through it, and plunged into the copse which bordered this portion of the lane. Here she stood in hiding under one of the large bushes, clinging so closely to its umbrage as to seem but a portion of its mass, and listening intently for the faintest sound of pursuit. But nothing disturbed the stillness save the occasional slipping of gathered snow from the boughs, or the rustle of some wild animal over the crisp flake-bespattered herbage. At length, apparently convinced that her former companion was either unable to find her, or not anxious to do so, in the present strange state of affairs, she crept out from the bushes, and in less than an hour found herself again approaching the door of the Prospect Hotel.
As she drew near, Laura could see that, far from being wrapped in darkness, as she might have expected, there were ample signs that all the tenants were on the alert, lights moving about the open space in front. Satisfaction was expressed in her face when she discerned that no reappearance of her baritone and his pony-carriage was causing this sensation; but it speedily gave way to grief and dismay when she saw by the lights the form of a man borne on a stretcher by two others into the porch of the hotel.
‘I have caused all this,’ she murmured between her quivering lips. ‘He has murdered him!’ Running forward to the door, she hastily asked of the first person she met if the man on the stretcher was dead.
‘No, miss,’ said the labourer addressed, eyeing her up and down as an unexpected apparition. ‘He is still alive, they say, but not sensible. He either fell or was pushed over the waterfall; ’tis thoughted he was pushed. He is the gentleman who came here just now with the old lord, and went out afterward (as is thoughted) with a stranger who had come a little earlier. Anyhow, that’s as I had it.’
Laura entered the house, and acknowledging without the least reserve that she was the injured man’s wife, had soon installed herself as head nurse by the bed on which he lay. When the two surgeons who had been sent for arrived, she learned from them that his wounds were so severe as to leave but a slender hope of recovery, it being little short of miraculous that he was not killed on the spot, which his enemy had evidently reckoned to be the case. She knew who that enemy was, and shuddered.
Laura watched all night, but her husband knew nothing of her presence. During the next day he slightly recognized her, and in the evening was able to speak. He informed the surgeons that, as was surmised, he had been pushed over the cascade by Signor Smithozzi; but he communicated nothing to her who nursed him, not even replying to her remarks; he nodded courteously at any act of attention she rendered, and that was all.
In a day or two it was declared that everything favoured his recovery, notwithstanding the severity of his injuries. Full search was made for Smithozzi, but as yet there was no intelligence of his whereabouts, though the repentant Laura communicated all she knew. As far as could be judged, he had come back to the carriage after searching out the way, and finding the young lady missing, had looked about for her till he was tired; then had driven on to Cliff-Martin, sold the horse and carriage next morning, and disappeared, probably by one of the departing coaches which ran thence to the nearest station, the only difference from his original programme being that he had gone alone.
During the days and weeks of that long and tedious recovery, Laura watched by her husband’s bedside with a zeal and assiduity which would have considerably extenuated any fault save one of such magnitude as hers. That her husband did not forgive her was soon obvious. Nothing that she could do in the way of smoothing pillows, easing his position, shifting bandages, or administering draughts, could win from him more than a few measured words of thankfulness, such as he would probably have uttered to any other woman on earth who had performed these particular services for him.
‘Dear, dear James,’ she said one day, bending her face upon the bed in an excess of emotion. ‘How you have suffered! It has been too cruel. I am more glad you are getting better than I can say. I have prayed for it—and I am sorry for what I have done; I am innocent of the worst, and—I hope you will not think me so very bad, James!’
‘Oh no. On the contrary, I shall think you very good—as a nurse,’ he answered, the caustic severity of his tone being apparent through its weakness.
Laura let fall two or three silent tears, and said no more that day.
Somehow or other Signor Smithozzi seemed to be making good his escape. It transpired that he had not taken a passage in either of the suspected coaches, though he had certainly got out of the county; altogether, the chance of finding him was problematical.
Not only did Captain Northbrook survive his injuries, but it soon appeared that in the course of a few weeks he would find himself little if any the worse for the catastrophe. It could also be seen that Laura, while secretly hoping for her husband’s forgiveness for a piece of folly of which she saw the enormity more clearly every day, was in great doubt as to what her future relations with him would be. Moreover, to add to the complication, whilst she, as a runaway wife, was unforgiven by her husband, she and her husband, as a runaway couple, were unforgiven by her father, who had never once communicated with either of them since his departure from the inn. But her immediate anxiety was to win the pardon of her husband, who possibly might be bearing in mind, as he lay upon his couch, the familiar words of Brabantio, ‘She has deceived her father, and may thee.’
Matters went on thus till Captain Northbrook was able to walk about. He then removed with his wife to quiet apartments on the south coast, and here his recovery was rapid. Walking up the cliffs one day, supporting him by her arm as usual, she said to him, simply, ‘James, if I go on as I am going now, and always attend to your smallest want, and never think of anything but devotion to you, will you—try to like me a little?’
‘It is a thing I must carefully consider,’ he said, with the same gloomy dryness which characterized all his words to her now. ‘When I have considered, I will tell you.’
He did not tell her that evening, though she lingered long at her routine work of making his bedroom comfortable, putting the light so that it would not shine into his eyes, seeing him fall asleep, and then retiring noiselessly to her own chamber. When they met in the morning at breakfast, and she had asked him as usual how he had passed the night, she added timidly, in the silence which followed his reply, ‘Have you considered?’
‘No, I have not considered sufficiently to give you an answer.’
Laura sighed, but to no purpose; and the day wore on with intense heaviness to her, and the customary modicum of strength gained to him.
The next morning she put the same question, and looked up despairingly in his face, as though her whole life hung upon his reply.
‘Yes, I have considered,’ he said.
‘Ah!’
‘We must part.’
‘O James!’
‘I cannot forgive you; no man would. Enough is settled upon you to keep you in comfort, whatever your father may do. I shall sell out, and disappear from this hemisphere.’
‘You have absolutely decided?’ she asked miserably. ‘I have nobody now to c-c-care for——’
‘I have absolutely decided,’ he shortly returned. ‘We had better part here. You will go back to your father. There is no reason why I should accompany you, since my presence would only stand in the way of the forgiveness he will probably grant you if you appear before him alone. We will say farewell to each other in three days from this time. I have calculated on being ready to go on that day.’
Bowed down with trouble, she withdrew to her room, and the three days were passed by her husband in writing letters and attending to other business-matters, saying hardly a word to her the while. The morning of departure came; but before the horses had been put in to take the severed twain in different directions, out of sight of each other, possibly for ever, the postman arrived with the morning letters.
There was one for the captain; none for her—there were never any for her. However, on this occasion something was enclosed for her in his, which he handed her. She read it and looked up helpless.
‘My dear father—is dead!’ she said. In a few moments she added, in a whisper, ‘I must go to the Manor to bury him … Will you go with me, James?’
He musingly looked out of the window. ‘I suppose it is an awkward and melancholy undertaking for a woman alone,’ he said coldly. ‘Well, well—my poor uncle!—Yes, I’ll go with you, and see you through the business.’
So they went off together instead of asunder, as planned. It is unnecessary to record the details of the journey, or of the sad week which followed it at her father’s house. Lord Quantock’s seat was a fine old mansion standing in its own park, and there were plenty of opportunities for husband and wife either to avoid each other, or to get reconciled if they were so minded, which one of them was at least. Captain Northbrook was not present at the reading of the will. She came to him afterward, and found him packing up his papers, intending to start next morning, now that he had seen her through the turmoil occasioned by her father’s death.
‘He has left me everything that he could!’ she said to her husband. ‘James, will you forgive me now, and stay?’
‘I cannot stay.’
‘Why not?’
‘I cannot stay,’ he repeated.
‘But why?’
‘I don’t like you.’
He acted up to his word. When she came downstairs the next morning she was told that he had gone.
Laura bore her double bereavement as best she could. The vast mansion in which she had hitherto lived, with all its historic contents, had gone to her father’s successor in the title; but her own was no unhandsome one. Around lay the undulating park, studded with trees a dozen times her own age; beyond it, the wood; beyond the wood, the farms. All this fair and quiet scene was hers. She nevertheless remained a lonely, repentant, depressed being, who would have given the greater part of everything she possessed to ensure the presence and affection of that husband whose very austerity and phlegm—qualities that had formerly led to the alienation between them—seemed now to be adorable features in his character.
She hoped and hoped again, but all to no purpose. Captain Northbrook did not alter his mind and return. He was quite a different sort of man from one who altered his mind; that she was at last despairingly forced to admit. And then she left off hoping, and settled down to a mechanical routine of existence which in some measure dulled her grief; but at the expense of all her natural animation and the sprightly wilfulness which had once charmed those who knew her, though it was perhaps all the while a factor in the production of her unhappiness.
To say that her beauty quite departed as the years rolled on would be to overstate the truth. Time is not a merciful master, as we all know, and he was not likely to act exceptionally in the case of a woman who had mental troubles to bear in addition to the ordinary weight of years. Be this as it may, eleven other winters came and went, and Laura Northbrook remained the lonely mistress of house and lands without once hearing of her husband. Every probability seemed to favour the assumption that he had died in some foreign land; and offers for her hand were not few as the probability verged on certainty with the long lapse of time. But the idea of remarriage seemed never to have entered her head for a moment. Whether she continued to hope even now for his return could not be distinctly ascertained; at all events she lived a life unmodified in the slightest degree from that of the first six months of his absence.
This twelfth year of Laura’s loneliness, and the thirtieth of her life drew on apace, and the season approached that had seen the unhappy adventure for which she so long had suffered. Christmas promised to be rather wet than cold, and the trees on the outskirts of Laura’s estate dripped monotonously from day to day upon the turnpike-road which bordered them. On an afternoon in this week between three and four o’clock a hired fly might have been seen driving along the highway at this point, and on reaching the top of the hill it stopped. A gentleman of middle age alighted from the vehicle.
‘You need drive no farther,’ he said to the coachman. ‘The rain seems to have nearly ceased. I’ll stroll a little way, and return on foot to the inn by dinner-time.’
The flyman touched his hat, turned the horse, and drove back as directed. When he was out of sight, the gentleman walked on, but he had not gone far before the rain again came down pitilessly, though of this the pedestrian took little heed, going leisurely onward till he reached Laura’s park gate, which he passed through. The clouds were thick and the days were short, so that by the time he stood in front of the mansion it was dark. In addition to this his appearance, which on alighting from the carriage had been untarnished, partook now of the character of a drenched wayfarer not too well blessed with this world’s goods. He halted for no more than a moment at the front entrance, and going round to the servants’ quarter, as if he had a preconceived purpose in so doing, there rang the bell. When a page came to him he inquired if they would kindly allow him to dry himself by the kitchen fire.
The page retired, and after a murmured colloquy returned with the cook, who informed the wet and muddy man that though it was not her custom to admit strangers, she should have no particular objection to his drying himself; the night being so damp and gloomy. Therefore the wayfarer entered and sat down by the fire.
‘The owner of this house is a very rich gentleman, no doubt?’ he asked, as he watched the meat turning on the spit.
‘’Tis not a gentleman, but a lady,’ said the cook.
‘A widow, I presume?’
‘A sort of widow. Poor soul, her husband is gone abroad, and has never been heard of for many years.’
‘She sees plenty of company, no doubt, to make up for his absence?’
‘No, indeed—hardly a soul. Service here is as bad as being in a nunnery.’
In short, the wayfarer, who had at first been so coldly received, contrived by his frank and engaging manner to draw the ladies of the kitchen into a most confidential conversation, in which Laura’s history was minutely detailed, from the day of her husband’s departure to the present. The salient feature in all their discourse was her unflagging devotion to his memory.
Having apparently learned all that he wanted to know—among other things that she was at this moment, as always, alone—the traveller said he was quite dry; and thanking the servants for their kindness, departed as he had come. On emerging into the darkness he did not, however, go down the avenue by which he had arrived. He simply walked round to the front door. There he rang, and the door was opened to him by a man-servant whom he had not seen during his sojourn at the other end of the house.
In answer to the servant’s inquiry for his name, he said ceremoniously, ‘Will you tell The Honourable Mrs. Northbrook that the man she nursed many years ago, after a frightful accident, has called to thank her?’
The footman retreated, and it was rather a long time before any further signs of attention were apparent. Then he was shown into the drawing-room, and the door closed behind him.
On the couch was Laura, trembling and pale. She parted her lips and held out her hands to him, but could not speak. But he did not require speech, and in a moment they were in each other’s arms.
Strange news circulated through that mansion and the neighbouring town on the next and following days. But the world has a way of getting used to things, and the intelligence of the return of The Honourable Mrs. Northbrook’s long-absent husband was soon received with comparative calm.
A few days more brought Christmas, and the forlorn home of Laura Northbrook blazed from basement to attic with light and cheerfulness. Not that the house was overcrowded with visitors, but many were present, and the apathy of a dozen years came at length to an end. The animation which set in thus at the close of the old year did not diminish on the arrival of the new; and by the time its twelve months had likewise run the course of its predecessors, a son had been added to the dwindled line of the Northbrook family.
At the conclusion of this narrative the Spark was thanked, with a manner of some surprise, for nobody had credited him with a taste for tale-telling. Though it had been resolved that this story should be the last, a few of the weather-bound listeners were for sitting on into the small hours over their pipes and glasses, and raking up yet more episodes of family history. But the majority murmured reasons for soon getting to their lodgings.
It was quite dark without, except in the immediate neighbourhood of the feeble street-lamps, and before a few shop-windows which had been hardily kept open in spite of the obvious unlikelihood of any chance customer traversing the muddy thoroughfares at that hour.
By one, by two, and by three the benighted members of the Field-Club rose from their seats, shook hands, made appointments, and dropped away to their respective quarters, free or hired, hoping for a fair morrow. It would probably be not until the next summer meeting, months away in the future, that the easy intercourse which now existed between them all would repeat itself. The crimson maltster, for instance, knew that on the following market-day his friends the President, the Rural Dean, and the bookworm would pass him in the street, if they met him, with the barest nod of civility, the President and the Colonel for social reasons, the bookworm for intellectual reasons, and the Rural Dean for moral ones, the latter being a staunch teetotaller, dead against John Barleycorn. The sentimental member knew that when, on his rambles, he met his friend the bookworm with a pocket-copy of something or other under his nose, the latter would not love his companionship as he had done to-day; and the President, the aristocrat, and the farmer knew that affairs political, sporting, domestic, or agricultural would exclude for a long time all rumination on the characters of dames gone to dust for scores of years, however beautiful and noble they may have been in their day.
The last member at length departed, the attendant at the museum lowered the fire, the curator locked up the rooms, and soon there was only a single pirouetting flame on the top of a single coal to make the bones of the ichthyosaurus seem to leap, the stuffed birds to wink, and to draw a smile from the varnished skulls of Vespasian’s soldiery.
THE END
Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.