The Star-Gazers

Volume Three – Chapter Seventeen.

The Last Look Around

About two years after his marriage, Philip Oldroyd was some five miles from home on the capital cob, a present from Sir John, one of his own breeding, when temptation fell in his way, for the Queen’s hounds came along in full cry, and after them a very full field.

“I must have a gallop for once in a way,” said the doctor, and, yielding to the temptation, away he went, till, feeling he had done enough, he was about to draw rein, when he saw that something was wrong on his left. Cantering up, he was directly after one of a group helping to free a lady from her fallen horse, which was struggling frantically to extricate itself from a ditch into which both had come down.

A gate was brought, the lady borne to the nearest cottage, and Oldroyd’s services eagerly accepted.

“Badly injured,” he said, after a rapid examination. “Someone had better ride over and get a carriage from the nearest place – an open carriage in which a hurdle and mattress can be laid. I’ll stay and do my best, but I should telegraph to town for Sir Randall Bray. An operation will be necessary. Are any of the lady’s friends here?”

“No; but I saw Major Rolph leading the field half-an-hour ago. This is Mrs Rolph.”

Oldroyd started, and bent down over the insensible woman for a moment, at the same time softly pressing back the thick, dark hair from her clammy brow, and there were the lineaments he had not before recognised; it was the face of the keeper’s daughter, softened and refined, though now terribly drawn with pain.

“Yes, doctor, she’s gettin’ over it,” said Hayle, one day when Oldroyd met him close to Brackley. “But she’s had a near shave. It’s you, though, as saved her life, same as you did mine.”

“I’m glad she’s better, I’m sure,” said Oldroyd. “And you – do you ever feel your old wound?”

“Oh, yes, just a twinge or two when the weather changes. But Sir John’s very kind, and things go very easy with me now, thanks to you, sir – thanks to you.”

“Oh, all right, Hayle, all right. Got a good show of pheasants this winter? Plenty left?”

“Heaps, sir. Oh, you may trust me. I look pretty sharp after ’em, I can tell you. I know, I do.”

The great dark fellow gave a solemn wink as he stood before Oldroyd, in his brown velveteen coat and buttons, with a capital double gun under his arm.

“Yes, I suppose you do,” said the doctor. “Game-keeping is better than poaching, eh?”

“When you’ve got a good master, sir. But, look here, sir, when are you coming over? Sir John said you were last week.”

“As soon as I can; too busy yet.”

“When you do, sir, you shall have as fine a bit o’ shooting as a gentleman could wish to have. Talk about a warm corner, sir; it shall be the best in the whole preserves.”

“Well, I’m glad your daughter is getting better. Is there any prospect of her coming down here?”

“Not a bit, sir, and I don’t know as I want her. They don’t want me, and I don’t want them. You see I’m not a fool, doctor. I know well enough that if I went seeing ’em, it would look bad before the servants. I shouldn’t be comfortable. I should want to go down in the kitchen to have my meals, so I don’t go.”

“Perhaps it is wise,” said Oldroyd. “I’m sure it is, sir. He’s made a lady of her, and, of course, he couldn’t make a gentleman of me. Judy sends me some money now and then, but I allus have it sent back. I couldn’t take his money. He don’t like me, and has never forgiven me, and I don’t like him. Poor lass! She’d have done better and been happier if she’d stopped at home, and took to some stout young chap of our lot.”

“Poacher?”

“Well, no, sir,” said the great dark fellow, smiling grimly; “keeper, sir. There’s not many poachers about here now. I told all I knowed as they must clear out, for I meant to do my dooty; and they saw that it was sense, for there’d be no chance for them again a man as knowed as much as I did, so they went off.”

“By the way, Hayle,” said the doctor, “didn’t you go to the major on the day before his appointed wedding?”

“Night, sir, night? I went to him straight as soon as I knew it for certain; but it was days before I could get to him. When I did get face to face with him, I says, ‘It’s my Judith, captain,’ I says, ‘or one of us is going to be hung for this night’s work.’ He blustered a bit, and tried to frighten me; but he couldn’t do that; and when he found I meant mischief, he gave in. He swore he’d marry her, but he cheated me then. Next time I got hold of him, there was no nonsense, I can tell you. He rang for his man to fetch the police, and I went off; but he never stirred after that without seeing me watching him, and at last he gave in out of sheer fright, and come to where I’d got Judith waiting, and he married her. If he hadn’t, I’d have – ”

The man’s lips tightened, and he involuntarily cocked the double gun he carried, but only to lower it once more beneath his arm.

“I’m not a boasting man, sir,” said the keeper huskily; “but I loved that gal, and the man who did her harm was no better than so much varmin to me. I should have stopped at nothing, sir; I was that wound up. He’d give me nothing but treachery, leading my gal astray, making her lie and say she was going to nurse the old granny out there on the common, when it was only to go off in the woods to him. I told him of it all, and that I was a father – her father. I told him a rat would fight for its young, and that if he expected, because I was a common man, I was not going to do my duty by my gal, he was mistaken.

“‘Why, what will you do?’ he says.

“‘Do?’ I says to him; ‘do you think I’ve forgotten that you shot me down out there in the fir wood that night?’

“‘It was an accident,’ he says.

“‘It was no accident,’ I says. ‘There was light enough for me to see you take aim at me; and then, when I was lying half dead there in my bed, you took advantage of it to lead my child away. It’s no use for you to pretend you didn’t know. She told you fast enough that I was lying there, and that made it safe.’

“‘Look here, sir,’ I says at last, ‘there shall be no more shilly-shally between you and me. As I say, I’ll let bygones be bygones, if you’ll do the right thing. If you don’t – well, p’r’aps it won’t be this year, nor next year. My chance will come some day, and then – ’”

There was a pause, and Oldroyd marked the strange glare in the keeper’s eyes as he drew in his breath with a loud hiss.

“Yes, doctor,” he said, after looking round him for a few moments, as if in search of the object he named, “he’d have been like so much varmin to me, and if he hadn’t married my poor lass, I should have shot him as I would a stoat.”

Time ran on after its fashion, but few changes took place at Brackley. Sir John Day used to thank Oldroyd for introducing to him the best keeper who ever stepped, for Hayle was the higher in favour from his being a man who was a capital judge of stock, and one who could keep a good eye upon the farm when the squire went away year by year for a long stay abroad. When at home, Glynne was her uncle’s constant companion in his botanical walks, and these generally ended in her being left at the cottage where Mrs Alleyne, widowed of son as well as husband, took up her residence in full view of the gloomy old Firs, lately taken by a famous astronomer, who vastly altered the former occupant’s position by his eagerness to acquire Moray Alleyne’s costly instruments which had been carefully cared for by his mother’s hands.

At The Warren, Mrs Rolph, grown careworn and grey, resided still with her niece for companion, her son never having been there since Marjorie was left to her despair. The servants were not above talking, and rumours reached Brackley Hall that Mrs Rolph had cursed her son, and was never going to see him again, that it was a place no servant could stop in, for the old lady’s temper was awful, and Miss Marjorie as mad as a March hare; while even Oldroyd hinted to his wife, after being called in, that Miss Emlin was rather flighty and strange.

“They never go out anywhere,” he said; “and from what I saw, I should say they are always either quarrelling or making it up. Seem fond of one another though, all the same.”

“But what do you mean by flighty and strange?” said Lucy. “You don’t mean ready to flirt with men?”

Oldroyd burst into a hearty laugh, and caught up his youngest child.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he cried. “Never will I be false to thee. How does the song go? She’s got the complaint that ladies have who have been crossed in love as folks call it. Seriously, dear, I should not be surprised if she did turn a little crazy.”

“Oh, Phil; how horrible!”

“Yes; my dear,” he said seriously, but with a humorous twinkle in his eye; “I understand these things. I knew a young doctor once who very nearly became a candidate for a private asylum.”

“Phil! – Yes; what is it?”

“Messenger, ma’am, from Brackley. Would master be kind enough to step over.”

“Oh, Phil, dear; Glynne is ill,” cried Lucy, piteously. “I had a presentiment last night. Here, I’ll take the children over to mamma, and come with you.”

“Wait a moment,” cried Oldroyd, and he ran out to speak to Sir John’s groom and came back.

“All right,” he said. “No one ill? Something about Hayle the keeper the man says. Wanted directly.”

“Poor fellow’s wound has broken out again,” thought Oldroyd, as he jumped into the dog-cart the groom had waiting, and he questioned the man, who only knew that the keeper had come in to see Sir John that morning, and then he had been sent off to fetch the doctor.

“Terrible dry time, sir,” said the man as the horse sped along toward the park. “We out of the stables had all to go and help the gardeners two whole days watering.”

“Yes; the crops are suffering badly, my man.”

“They just are, sir. The lake’s half empty, and the fish getting sick, and Hayle says the boggy bits beyond the park where they get the snipe in winter’s nearly all dried up.”

“The conversation ended as the dog-cart was rattled up the lime avenue, and there, at the great porch, stood Sir John, the major, and Hayle the keeper.”

“Morning! Glad you’ve come,” said Sir John, shaking hands. “That will do, Smith.”

The groom, who was eager to know what was the matter, drove sulkily round to the stables, while Sir John took the doctor’s arm.

“Look here, Oldroyd,” he said; “the keeper has made a discovery in the bog wood over yonder.”

“Poacher shot!” exclaimed the doctor.

“Wait and see,” said Sir John, who was looking pallid; while the major had a peculiarly stern look in his fierce face.

Oldroyd bowed, and they walked rapidly across the park, and through some of the preserves. Then in and out among the pines till an open moorland patch was reached, dotted here and there with scrubby pines, and here Sir John turned.

“Now, Hayle,” he said; “you lead.”

The keeper went in front, and Sir John followed; while the major came abreast of the doctor.

“We thought it better to have you with us, doctor,” whispered the major. “It’s a terrible business – a clearing up of a sad event from what I can see.”

Oldroyd felt more mystified than ever, but he was soon to be illumined, for the keeper led them over the dry cotton rushes and rustling reeds to a dried up pool, half in the open, half hidden by a dense growth of alder.

Here he paused and pointed.

“On yonder, Sir John, about fifty yards.”

The baronet walked straight forward, parting the growth with his stout stick, till he stopped short at the edge of a dried up pool, where the first thing Oldroyd saw was Marjorie Emlin seated on the edge, where a wiry tuft of rushes grew, with her feet amongst the dried confervae and crowfoot at the bottom of the pool. She had taken off her hat, and the sun turned her rich, tawny, red hair to gold as she bent over something which glittered in her hands; and this she transferred to one wrist as they came up.

It was not till they were close beside her that she turned her head, and nodded and smiled in a childish, vacant way, and then held up the glittering bracelet upon her wrist for them to admire.

“Better speak to her,” whispered Sir John. “Hayle says she’s quite mad.”

Oldroyd stooped and picked up the hat and handed it to the girl.

“The sun is very powerful,” he said; “had you not better put it on.”

She snatched the hat with childish petulance, and then held up the bracelet again.

“It’s the one she gave to Glynne,” said Sir John involuntarily.

Marjorie looked at him sharply, and then pointed down at something covered partially by the dried scum of the pool.

“Quick, for God’s sake, get her away, Oldroyd!” whispered the major, stepping between the wretched woman and the ghastly remains at her feet.

The task did not prove an easy one, for Marjorie resented the doctor’s interference, and seemed determined to stay, but suddenly turned upon her heel and walked away, looking back once to smile and nod at the group standing by the bed of the dried up pool.

“I found her here, sir, this morning, soon after breakfast, and tried to persuade her to come away,” said Hayle; “but, poor girl, she didn’t seem to know me a bit, and I didn’t like to go and tell Mrs Rolph, for I’m afraid she’s crazed.”

“He came on and told us, Oldroyd,” said Sir John; “and we thought it would be better to have you here. How long is it since you were by here, Hayle?”

“Close upon three weeks, Sir John,” said the keeper; “and there was a little water left in the pool then. Shall I try and find out who it is?”

Sir John looked at the remains with horror. “Better leave it to the police,” he said. “They must be told, of course. Try, though, if there are any means of identification, and pick up the loose cases. Jem,” he whispered, with a look of horror, “has judgment come upon this man as we see?”

The major made no reply, but eagerly watched the keeper who picked up case after case, rotted and stained by the mud in which they had lain. These were placed together, and then Hayle stooped to cut open a discoloured piece of velveteen which had once been brown.

From this he extracted a rusty knife, and a tobacco-box of brass, which set all at rest directly, for Hayle held the latter before Sir John.

“Don’t want any further search to find out that, Sir John,” he said sharply. “A man has been missing from these parts for years now, and there’s his name.”

Sir John looked at the tarnished metal box, with a shudder of disgust and horror for the memories it revived, and read there roughly scratched upon the lid – “Caleb Kent.”

“Remember what I said to you one day, Lucy?” said Oldroyd, about a year later. “I think it was that day when I was called over to Brackley about something being found.”

“Oh, Phil, don’t bring that up,” cried Lucy, with a shudder; “but what do you mean?”

“About Miss Emlin. I’ve just come from there.”

“Yes, dear. Some fresh trouble?”

He nodded his head gravely.

“They’ve taken her to a private asylum. I did not say anything to you before, for fear of upsetting you, but she was not fit to be left with poor old Mrs Rolph, and she has tried to drown herself twice.”