A Changed Heart: A Novel

"But I'll pay him for it! I'll teach him to despise me! I only hope they may hang him – the villain! Hard labor for life would not be half punishment enough for him!"

They talk of presentiments! Surely, there never was such a thing, else why had George Cavendish no dim foreshadowing of the doom darkening so rapidly around him. He had told Val Blake he had an engagement. So he had; it was in Prince Street, with Mr. Tom Oaks, who had returned to Speckport, and who was going the road to ruin faster than any victim Captain Cavendish had ever in hand before. It was growing dusk when they left the gambling-hell; and Mr. Oaks was poorer and Captain Cavendish richer by several hundred pounds than when they entered. The gorgeous coloring of the sunset yet flared in the sky, though the crimson and amber were flecked with sinister black. Captain Cavendish drew out a gold hunting-watch, and looked at the hour. "Past six," he said, carelessly; "I shall be late at Redmon, I fear. The hour is seven, I believe. Do you drive there this evening?"

"No," said Mr. Oaks, with a black scowl, "I hope my legs will be palsied if ever they cross the threshold of that woman! I'm not a hound, to fawn on people who kick me!"

Captain Cavendish only smiled – he rarely lost his temper – and went off to his hotel, whistling an opera air. He passed under Cherrie's window; but no prescience of the flashing black eyes above troubled the serenity of his mind. He was walking steadily to his fate, as we all walk – blindly, unconsciously.

Captain Cavendish was the last to arrive at Redmon – all the other guests were assembled in the drawing-room when he entered, and they had been discussing him and his departure for the last quarter of an hour.

The dinner party at Redmon was a very pleasant one; and every one, except, perhaps, the stately hostess herself, was very gay and animated. Mr. Wyndham, despite the trouble he was in about his poor mad mother, was the most entertaining and agreeable of hosts. The ladies, when they flocked back to the drawing-room, enthusiastically pronounced Mr. Wyndham "a perfect love!" and declared they quite envied Mrs. Wyndham a husband who could tell such charming stories, and who was so delightfully clever and talented. And Olive Wyndham smiled, and sat down at the piano to do her share of the entertaining, with that dreary pain at her beating and rebellious heart that never seemed to leave it now. Yes, it was a very pleasant evening; and Captain Cavendish found it so, and lingered strangely, talking to his hostess after all the rest had gone. Lieutenant the Honorable L. H. Blank, who was waiting for him on the graveled drive outside, grew savage as he pulled out his watch and saw it wanted only a quarter of twelve.

"Confound the fellow!" he muttered, "does he mean to stay all night talking to Mrs. Wyndham, and I am sleepy. Oh, here he is at last! I say, Cavendish, what the dickens kept you?"

Captain Cavendish laughed, as he vaulted into his saddle.

"What's your hurry, my dear fellow? I was talking to Mrs. Wyndham, and common politeness forbade my cutting the conversation short."

"Common bosh! Mrs. Wyndham was yawning in your face, I dare say! My belief is, Cavendish, you are as much in love with that black-eyed goddess now as ever."

"Pooh! it was only a flirtation all through; and I would as soon flirt with a married lady any day as a single one. She looked superb to-night, did not she, in that dress that flashed as she walked – was it pink or white – and that ivy crown on her head?"

"She always looks superb! I should like to fetch such a wife as that back to old England. A coronet would sit well on that stately head."

A strangely-bitter regret for what he had lost smote the heart of Captain Cavendish. It might have been. He might have brought that black-eyed divinity as his wife to England, but for Paul Wyndham. Why had she preferred that man to him?

"I wonder if she loves him?" he said aloud.

"Who? – her husband? Do you know, Cavendish, she puzzles me there. She treats him with fearfully frigid politeness, but she never ceases to watch him. If he were any kind of man but the kind he is, I should say she was jealous of him. He is a capital fellow, anyhow, and I like him immensely."

They rode through the iron gates as he spoke, which clanged noisily behind them. The night was not very bright, for the moon struggled through ragged piles of black cloud, and only glimmered with a wan and pallid light on the earth. The trees loomed up black against the clear sky, and cast vivid and unearthly shadows across the dusty road. A sighing wind moaned fitfully through the wood, and the trees surged and groaned, and rocked to and fro restlessly. It was a spectral night enough, and the young lieutenant shivered in the fitful blast.

"I feel as if I had taken a shower-bath of ice-water," he said. "Wasn't it somewhere near here that Val Blake saw the ghost? Good Heavens! What's that?"

As he spoke, there suddenly came forth from the shadow of the tree, as if it took shape from the blackness, a figure – a woman's figure, with long disordered fair hair, and a face white as snow. Captain Cavendish gave an awful cry as he saw it; the cry startled his horse – only a half-tamed thing at best – and, with a loud neigh, it started off like an arrow from a bow. The horse of Lieutenant Blank, either taking this as a challenge, or frightened by the sudden appearance of the woman, pricked up its ears and fled after, with a velocity that nearly unseated his rider. The lieutenant overtook his companion as they clattered through the streets of the town, and the face of Captain Cavendish was livid.

"For Heaven's sake, Cavendish!" cried the young man, "what was that? What was that we saw?"

"It was Nathalie Marsh!" Captain Cavendish said, in an awful voice. "Don't speak to me, Blank! I am going mad!"

He looked as if he was, as he galloped furiously out of sight, waking the sleeping townsfolk with the thunder of his horse's hoofs. He had heard the story of the ghost, and had laughed at it, with the rest; but he had heard it in broad daylight, and the most timid of us can laugh at ghost-stories then. He had not been thinking of her, and he had seen her – he had seen her at midnight – true ghostly hour – on the lonesome Redmon road, with her death-white face and streaming hair! He had seen her – he had seen the ghost of Nathalie Marsh!

Mr. Johnston, the sleepy valet, sitting up for his master, recoiled in terror as that master crossed the threshold of the room. Captain Cavendish only stared vaguely as the man spoke to him, and strode by him and into his room, with an unearthly glare in his eyes and the horrible lividness of death in his face. Mr. Johnston stood appalled outside the door, wondering if his master had committed a murder on the way home – nothing less could excuse his looking like that. Once, half an hour after, Captain Cavendish opened his door, still "looking like that," and ordered brandy, in a voice that did not sound like his own; and Mr. Johnston brought it, and got the door slammed in his face afterward.

The usually peaceful slumbers of Mr. Johnston were very much disturbed that night by this extraordinary conduct on the part of his master. He lost at least three hours' sleep perplexing himself about it, for never since he had had the honor of being the captain's man, had that gentleman behaved so singularly, or exhibited so ghastly and deathlike a face. When, in the early watches of the morning, he presented himself at his master's door with towels and water, it was in a state of mingled curiosity and terror; but he found there was no call for the latter emotion. Beyond looking uncommonly pale and hollow-eyed (sure tokens of a sleepless night), Captain Cavendish was perfectly himself again; and whether this was owing to the brandy he had drank or the exhilarating effect of the morning sunshine, Mr. Johnston could not tell, but he was inclined to set it down to the brandy. Even the paleness and hollow-eyedness was not noticeable after he had shaved and dressed, and partaken of his breakfast, and sauntered out, swinging his cane and smoking his cigar, to kill thought in the bustling streets of the town. Val Blake, standing in his office-door, hailed him as he passed.

"How are you, Cavendish? Heavenly morning, isn't it? Have you any particular engagement for this afternoon?"

"This afternoon? What hour?"

"Oh, about three. You must postpone your engagements to accommodate me."

"I have none so early. I dine with the mess at six. What is it?"

"A little surprise that I have in store for you. Drop into Darcy's office about five, and we'll give you a little surprise!"

"A little surprise! Of what nature, pray?"

"Honor bright!" said Val, turning to run up-stairs. "I won't tell. Will you come?"

"Oh, certainly! It will kill time as well as anything else."

He sauntered on unsuspiciously, never dreaming he was sealing his own fate, Val Blake had no compunctions about entrapping him. He was so artful a villain he must be taken by surprise, or he might baffle them yet.

"So slippery an eel," argued Mr. Blake to himself, "must not be handled with gloves. He may as well walk into Darcy's office himself, as be brought there by a couple of police-officers."

Captain Cavendish returned to his hotel early, and avoided all places where he was likely to meet Lieutenant Blank. Of all people, he wanted to shun him from henceforth; of all subjects, he never wanted to speak of the terrible fright he had received the previous night. So he returned to his rooms, and smoked and read, and wrote letters, and dined at two, and as the town clock was striking five, he was opening the door of Mr. Darcy's office. And still no presentiment of what was so near dawned darkly upon him; no weird foreboding thrilled in nameless dread through his breast; no dim and gloomy shadowing of the awful retribution overtaking him so fast, made his step falter or his heart beat faster as he opened that door. Perhaps it is only to good men that their angel-guardians whisper in that "still small voice" those mystic warnings, that tell us poor pilotless mariners on the sea of life of the shoals and quicksands ahead. Perhaps it is only men like this man, whose souls are stone-blind, that cannot see dimly the hidden shipwreck at hand. He saw nothing, felt nothing; he walked in carelessly, and saw Mr. Darcy, old Squire Tod, and Mr. Blake, sitting close together and talking earnestly. He wondered why they all looked so grave, and why two constables, who had been looking out of a window, should place themselves one on each side of the door, as if on guard, as he came in. He wondered, but nothing more. Mr. Darcy arose very gravely, very gravely bowed, and presented him with a chair.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said, indifferently, "I have dropped in on my way to the mess-room, at the request of Mr. Blake, who told me there was a surprise in store for me here."

"There is, sir," replied Mr. Darcy, in a strange tone. "There is a surprise in there for you, and not a very pleasant one, either. Mr. Blake was quite right."

Something in his voice chilled Captain Cavendish, for the first time; but he stared at him haughtily, and pulled out his gold hunting-watch.

"I dine at six," he said coldly. "It is past five now. I beg you will let me know what all this means, as fast as possible. I have no time to spare."

"You will make time for our business, Captain Cavendish; and as for the mess-dinner, I think you must postpone that altogether to-day."

"Sir," cried Captain Cavendish, rising; but Mr. Darcy returned his gaze stonily.

"Sit down, sir, sit down! The business that rendered your presence here necessary is of so serious a nature – so very serious a nature, that all other considerations must yield before it. You will not go to the mess-dinner, I repeat. I do not think you will ever dine at the mess-table again."

The face of Captain Cavendish turned ghastly, in spite of every effort, and he turned with a look of suppressed fury at Val Blake.

"You traitor!" he said, "you have done this. Your invitation was only a snare to entrap me."

"Honest men, Captain Cavendish," said Mr. Blake, composedly, "fear no snare, dread no trap. It is only criminals, living in daily dread of detection, who need fear their fellow-men. I preferred you should enter here of your own accord, to being brought here handcuffed by the officials of the law."

Every drop of blood had left the face of the Englishman; but he strove manfully to brave it out.

"I cannot comprehend what you mean by these insults," he said. "Who dare talk to me, an English officer and a gentleman, of handcuffs and crimes?"

"We dare," replied Mr. Darcy. "We, in whom the laws of the land are invested. These laws you have vilely broken, Mr. Cavendish – for I understand you have sold out of the service, and have no longer claim to military rank. In the name of the law, George Cavendish, I arrest you for the willful murder of Jane Leroy!"

It was an utter impossibility for the white face of the man to grow whiter than it had been for the last ten minutes; but at the last words he gave a sort of gasp, and caught at the arms of the chair on which he sat. If they had wanted moral conviction before of his guilt, they wanted it no longer – it was written in every line of his bloodless face, in every quiver of his trembling lips, in every choking gasp of breath he drew. They sat looking at him with solemn faces, but no one spoke. They were waiting for him to recover from the shock, and break the silence. He did break it at last; but in a voice that shook so, the words seemed to fall to pieces in his mouth.

"It is false!" he said, trying to steady his shaky voice. "I deny the charge. Charley Marsh was tried and found guilty long ago. He is the murderer!"'

"Charley Marsh is an innocent man – you are the murderer. Your own face is your accuser," said Mr. Darcy. "I never saw guilt betrayed more plainly in all my life. You murdered Jane Leroy – yes, strangled her for her pitiful wealth."

"Who has told you this infernal story?" exclaimed the infuriated captive, glaring upon the lawyer. "Has that d – d scoundrel found – " He stopped suddenly, nearly choking himself with his own words, and the phlegmatic lawyer finished the sentence.

"Found Cherrie? – yes! You see there is no hope for you now. Here, Cherrie, my girl, come out!"

There was a door standing ajar opposite them, that looked as if it led into some inner and smaller office. As the door opened wide, the prisoner caught a glimpse of two men, only a glimpse; for the next moment Cherrie stood before him. The last faint glimmer of hope died out in his breast at sight of her with that vindictive look in her face.

"Oh, you villain!" screamed Cherrie, shaking her fist at him, her black eyes flashing fire. "You mean, lying, deceitful villain! I'll fix you off for the way you have treated me! I'll tell everything – I have told it, and I'll tell it again, and again, and again; and I hope they'll hang you, and I'll go to see you hung with the greatest pleasure, I will!"

Here Cherrie, who had not drawn breath, and was scarlet in the face, had to stop for a second, and Mr. Darcy struck in:

"Hold your tongue, Cherrie! Not another word! Stick to facts – abuse is superfluous. You see, Captain Cavendish, with the evidence of this witness, nothing more is needed but drawing out a warrant for your arrest. She is prepared to swear positively to your guilt."

"I don't doubt it," said Captain Cavendish, with a bitter sneer; "such a creature as she is would swear to anything, I dare say. We all know the character of Cherrie Nettleby."

"Silence, sir!" thundered Mr. Darcy; "you are the very last who should cast a stone at her – you, who have deliberately led her to her ruin!"

"He told me I was his wife," sobbed Cherrie, hysterically, "or I never should have gone. I never knew it was a sham marriage, until Mr. Blake told me so down in Charlottetown. We were married in the Methodist meeting-house, and I thought it was a minister; and Mr. Blake was there, and I thought it was all right! Oh, dear me!" sobbed Cherrie, the hysterics growing alarming; "everybody was in a wicked plot against me, and I was only a poor girl, and not up to them; and I wish I had never been born – so there!"

Squire Tod and Mr. Darcy turned with looks of stern inquiry upon Mr. Blake.

"What does this mean?" asked old Squire Tod. "You never said anything about this, Blake."

"No," said Val, perfectly undisturbed; "I only told you Cherrie had run away with Captain Cavendish."

"That is my irreproachable accuser, you see," said Captain Cavendish, with sneering sarcasm. "What that woman says is true; I did inveigle her into a sham marriage, but Mr. Val Blake managed the whole affair – got the church and the sham clergyman, and deceived that crying fool there fifty times more than I did; for she trusted him!"

Squire Tod's face darkened into a look of stern severity as he turned upon Val.

"Mr. Blake," he said, "I am more astonished and shocked by this than anything I have heard yet. That you should be guilty of so base and unmanly an act – you, whom we all respected and trusted – as to entrap a poor weak-minded child (for she was only a child) to misery and ruin! Shame, shame on you, sir, for such a coward's act!"

Very few people ever suspected Val Blake of dignity. One would have thought he must have shrunk under these stern words, abashed. But he did not – he held his head proudly erect – he rose with the occasion, and was dignified.

"One moment!" he said, "wait one moment, squire, before you condemn me! Gentlemen," he rose up and threw wide the door of the room from which Cherrie had emerged, "gentlemen, please to come out."

Everybody looked, curious and expectant. Cherrie ceased the sobbing to look, and even Captain Cavendish forgot for a moment his supreme peril, in waiting for what was to come next.

Two gentlemen, the Reverend Mr. Drone, of the Methodist persuasion, and another clerical and white neck-clothed gentleman, came out and stood before the company. Mr. Drone was well known, the other was a stranger, a young man, with rather a dashing air, considering his calling, and a pair of bright, roving dark eyes. Captain Cavendish had only seen him once in his life before, but he recognized him instantaneously.

"You all know Mr. Drone, gentlemen," said Val, "this other is the Reverend Mr. Barrett, of Narraville. Mr. Barrett, it is a year since you were in Speckport is it not?"

"It is," replied Mr. Barrett, with the air of a witness under cross-examination.

"Will you relate what occurred on the last night of your stay in this town, on the occasion of that visit?"

"With pleasure, sir! I am a minister of the Gospel, gentlemen, as you may see," said Mr. Barrett, bowing to the room, "and a cousin of Mr. Drone's. I had been settled about two years up in Narraville last summer, when I took it into my head to run down here for a week or so on a visit to Mr. Drone. I had known Mr. Blake for years, and had a very high respect for his uprightness and integrity, else I never should have complied with the singular request he made me the day before I left."

"What was the request?" asked Mr. Darcy, on whom a new light was bursting.

"He came to me," said Mr. Barrett, "and having drawn from me a promise of strict secrecy, told me a somewhat singular story. A gentleman of rank and position, an English officer, had fallen in love with a gardener's pretty daughter, a young lady with more beauty than common sense, and wanted to entrap her into a sham marriage. He had intrusted the case to Mr. Blake, whose principles, he imagined, were as loose as his own, and Mr. Blake told me he would inevitably succeed in his diabolical plot if we did not frustrate him. Mr. Blake's proposal was, that I should marry them in reality, while letting him think it was only a mockery of a holy ordinance. He urged the case upon me strongly; he said the man was a gambler, a libertine, and a fortune-hunter; that he was striving to win for his wife a most estimable young lady – Miss Marsh – for her fortune merely; that if he succeeded, she would be miserable for life, and that this was the only way to prevent it. He told me the man was so thoroughly bad, that all compunctions would be thrown away on him; and at last I consented. To prevent a great crime, I married them privately in Mr. Drone's church. Mr. Blake was the witness, and the marriage is inserted in the register. I told Mr. Drone before I left, and he consented to keep the matter secret until such time as it was necessary to divulge it. I married George Percy Cavendish and Charlotte Nettleby the night before I left Speckport, and took a copy of the certificate with me; and I am ready to swear to the validity of the marriage at any time and in any place. I recognize them both, and that man and woman are lawfully husband and wife!"

Mr. Barrett bowed and was silent. Poor Cherrie, with one glad cry, sprang forward and fell on her knees before Mr. Val Blake, and did him theatrical homage on the spot. Val lifted her up, and looked in calm triumph at the baffled Englishman, and saw that that gentleman's face was purple with furious rage.

"Liar!" he half screamed, glaring with tigerish eyes as he heard Mr. Barrett, "it is false! You never performed it – I never saw you before!"

"You have forgotten me, I dare say," said Mr. Barrett, politely, "but I had the pleasure of marrying you to this lady, nevertheless. It is easily proved, and I am prepared to prove it on any occasion."

"You may as well take it easy, Cavendish," said Val. "Cherrie is your wife fast enough! Don't cry, Cherrie, it's all right now, and you're Mrs. Cavendish as sure as Church and State can make you."

"It's a most extraordinary story," said Squire Tod, "and I hardly know what to say to you, Blake. How came you to let him get engaged to Miss Henderson, knowing this?"

"Oh," said Val, carelessly, "Miss Henderson never cared a snap about him; and then Paul Wyndham came along and cut him out, just as I was getting ready to tell the story. I meant to make him find Cherrie before he left Speckport, and publish the marriage; only Providence let me find her out myself, to clear the innocent, and bring this man's guilt home. I had to keep Cherrie in the dark, as I never would have got that confession out of her."

"Well," said Mr. Darcy, rising, "it is growing dark, and I think there is no more to be done this evening. Burke, call a cab. Captain Cavendish, you will have to exchange the mess-room for the town-jail to-night."

Captain Cavendish said nothing. His fury had turned to black, bitter sullenness, and his handsome face was disturbed by a savage scowl.

"You, gentlemen, and you, Mrs. Cavendish," said Mr. Darcy, bowing to Cherrie, and smiling slightly, "will hold yourselves in readiness to give evidence at the trial. I think we will have no difficulty in bringing out a clear case of willful murder."

An awful picture came before the mind of the scowling and sullen captain. A gaping crowd in the raw dawn of a cheerless morning, a horrible gallows, the dangling rope, the hangman's hand adjusting it round his neck, the drop, a convulsed figure quivering in the air in ghastly agony, and then – Great beads of cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and his livid face was contracted by a spasm of mortal agony. Then he saw the two clergymen, Mr. Blake, and Cherrie standing up to go.

"I think I'll take you home, Cherrie," said Val, "I'll get another cab for you! Won't they open their eyes when they see you, though?"

Mr. Blake and Cherrie departed, followed by the two clergymen; and no one spoke to the ghastly-looking man, sitting, guarded by the constable, staring at the floor, with that black, desperate scowl, that so changed his face that his nearest friend would hardly have known it. Cherrie trembled and shrank away as she passed him, and did not breathe freely until she was safely seated in the cab beside Val, and rattling away through the streets on her way home.

Home! how poor Cherrie's heart longed for the peace of that little cottage where those who loved her, and had mourned her, dwelt. She was crying quietly, as she sat silently away in a corner, thinking what a long, and wretched, and forlorn, and dreary year the last had been, and what a foolish girl she had been, and how much she owed to Val Blake.

Mr. Blake did not disturb her reflections; he was thinking of wronged Charley Marsh, exiled from home, branded as a felon.