Dead Man's Love

CHAPTER VIII.

MISERY'S BEDFELLOW

For what seemed a long time, but was after all but a matter of moments, we stood in that room, facing each other; and perhaps the bitterest thing to me then, with the knowledge in my mind of what I had to say, was that when at last she broke silence she should speak to me with tenderness.

"John, dear," she said softly, "there is some mystery here that I don't understand; I want to know all about it – all about you. I trust you as I trust no other man on earth; there can be nothing you are afraid to tell me."

Having struck me that unconscious blow, she sat down calmly, and smiled at me, and waited; I thought that never had poor prisoner trembled before his judge as I trembled then.

"I want you to throw your mind back," I began at last, seeing that I must get the business over, "to the night when last you saw Gregory Pennington."

She started, and looked at me more keenly; leaned forward over the table beside her, and kept her eyes fixed on my face.

"I remember the evening well," she said. "We stood together in the grounds of the house; he left me to go into that house to see my guardian. And I have never seen him since."

"When you met Gregory Pennington that night," I went on, "I lay in the darkness quite near to you, a forlorn and hunted wretch, clad in a dress such as you have never seen – the dress of a convict."

She got up quickly from her chair, and retreated from me; yet still she kept her eyes fixed on my face. And now I began to see that my cause was hopeless.

"I had broken out of my prison that day, a prison far away in the country. I was hunted, and hopeless, and wretched; the hand of every man was against me. I had taken money that did not belong to me, and I had received a savage sentence of ten years' imprisonment. I had served but one, when the life and the manhood in me cried aloud for liberty; and on that night when you met Pennington in the garden I was free."

"Why were you in that place at all?" she whispered.

"That place was as good as any other, if it could provide me with that I wanted, food and clothing," I answered her. "I saw young Pennington go into the house; a little later I followed him. Only, as you will understand, I could not enter by the door; I broke into the place like the thief I was."

"I understand that that was necessary," she said, nodding slowly. "I do not judge you for that."

"When I got into the house," I went on hurriedly, "I found that a tragedy had taken place. I implore you to believe that I am telling the truth and nothing but the truth; I could not lie to you. Your friend Gregory Pennington had met with an accident."

She read what was in my face; she drew a deep breath, and caught at the back of the chair by which she stood. "You mean that he was dead?" she whispered.

I nodded. "For what reason I know not, although I can guess; but Gregory Pennington had hanged himself."

She closed her eyes for a moment, and I thought as she swayed a little that she was going to faint. I had taken a step towards her when she opened her eyes suddenly, and I saw a great anger and indignation blazing in them. "It's a lie!" she exclaimed, "he was the last person to do such a thing. He was the brightest, and best, and sweetest lad that ever loved a girl, and loved her hopelessly."

"There you have it," I suggested. "Had you not told him that night that you could not love him?"

"Yes, but that would not have sent him to his death," she retorted. "But go on; I want to know what was done, and why I never heard about this until now."

"I want you to understand, if you can, two things," I went on steadily. "First, there was a dead man and a living one; and the living one was a hunted fugitive. Second, there was, in a slight degree, a faint resemblance between the dead man and the living, in colouring, and height, and general appearance."

She looked at me for a moment or two in silence; then she nodded her head. "Yes, I see that now," she answered, "although I never noticed it before."

"While I was in the room with the dead man, Dr. Just put in an appearance. To be brief, he wanted to keep the matter from you, because he knew the boy had been your friend; he took pity on me, and wanted to save me. He knew that they were hunting for a convict, who might perhaps be thought to be something like the dead man; at his suggestion I changed clothes with Gregory Pennington, and started under another name."

I turned away from her then; I dared not look at her. For a time there was a dead silence in the room, broken only by the curious slow ticking of an old eight-day clock in the corner. I remember that I found myself mechanically counting the strokes while I waited for her to speak.

When at last I could bear the tension no longer I looked round at her. She stood there, frozen, as it were, in the attitude in which I had seen her, looking at me with a face of horror. Then at last, in a sort of broken whisper, she got out a sentence or two.

"You – you changed clothes? Then he – he became the convict – dead? What – what became of him?"

"He lies buried – in my name – within the walls of Penthouse Prison."

She stared at me for a moment as though not understanding; seemed to murmur the words under her breath. Then she clapped her hands suddenly over her face.

"Oh – dear God!" she cried out.

I began to murmur excuses and pleadings. "The fault was not mine, the boy was dead, and no further harm could come to him. I wanted to live – I was so young myself, and I wanted to begin life again. I never thought – "

She dropped her hands, and faced me boldly; I saw the tears swimming in her eyes. "You never thought!" she cried. "You never thought of what it meant for him, with no sin upon him, to lie in a felon's grave! You never thought that there was anyone on earth might miss him, and sorrow for him, and long for him! You wanted to live – you, that had broken prison – you, a common thief! You coward!"

I said no more; it seemed almost as if the solid earth was slipping away from under my feet. I cared nothing for what might happen to me; I knew that I had lost her, and that I should never touch her hand again in friendship. I stood there, waiting, as though for the sentence she must pronounce.

"I never want to see your face again," she said at last, in a low voice. "I do not know yet what I shall do; I have not had time to think. But I want you to go away, to leave me; I have done with you."

"I will not leave you," I said doggedly. "You are in danger!"

She laughed contemptuously. "Then I won't be saved by you!" she exclaimed. "There are honest men in the world; I would not trust you, nor appeal to you, if I had no other friend on earth."

"I know the danger better than you do," I answered, "and I will not leave you."

"That man who burst into the house just now, he seemed to know you," she said, after a moment's pause. "Who is he?"

"A fellow jail-bird of mine," I answered bitterly.

"Then go to him," she said. "Are you so dense that you don't understand what I think of you, you thing without a name! Will nothing move you?"

"Nothing, until I know that you are safe," I answered.

There was a light cane lying on the table with Harvey Scoffold's hat and gloves. In a very fury of passion she suddenly dropped her hand upon it, and caught it up. I know that my face turned darkly red as I saw what her intention was; but I did not flinch. She struck me full across the face with it, crying as she did so, "Now go!" dropped the cane, and burst into tears at the same moment. I could bear no more; I turned about, and walked out of the room, and out of the house. I did not seem to remember anything until I found myself walking at a great rate under the stars, down towards London.

My feelings then I will not attempt to describe. I seemed to be more utterly lost than ever; the sorry comedy was played out, and I walked utterly friendless and alone, caring nothing what became of me. If I remembered that Debora stood in peril of her life, and had but small chance of escape from some horrible death, I tried to thrust that thought away from me; for the blow she had struck me seemed to have cut deep into my soul. Of all the homeless wretches under the stars that night, surely I was the one most to be pitied!

I found myself after a time on Hampstead Heath, and lay down there in a quiet spot under the trees, and stared up at the stars, wondering a little, perhaps, why Fate had dealt so hardly with me, and had never given me a real chance. I remembered my unhappy boyhood, and my long years of drudgery in my uncle's house; I remembered with bitterness that now to-night I was a creature with no name and no place in the world, with no hopes and no ambitions. Tears of self-pity sprung to my eyes as I lay there in the darkness, wondering what the day was to bring me.

I had a few shillings in my pocket, and when I knew the dawn was coming I started off down into London, in the hope to lose myself and my miseries in the crowded streets. But there I found that apparently everyone had some business to be engaged upon; everyone was hurrying hither and thither, far too busy to take note of me or of my downcast face. The mere instinct to live kept me clear of the traffic, or I must have been run over a hundred times in the day, so little did I trouble where I walked, or what became of me. When my body craved for food I went into an eating-house, and sat shoulder to shoulder with other men, who little suspected who I was, or what was my strange story. But then everyone against whom one rubs shoulders in a great city must have some strange story of their own to tell, if they cared to say what it was.

I spent the long day in the streets; but at night a curious fascination drew me across Hampstead Heath, and so in the direction of the cottage in which Harvey Scoffold lived. I had no hope of seeing the girl; I only felt it would be some poor satisfaction to me to see the house in which she was; perhaps my very presence there might serve in some vague way to shield her from harm; for by this time I had come to the conclusion that Scoffold was as much her enemy and mine as anyone else by whom she was surrounded.

I wandered about unhappily there for more than an hour; I was just turning away, when the old woman I had seen on the previous night came out of the door of the cottage, and advanced down the garden to the little gate in the fence. I think a cat must have got astray; for she called to some animal fretfully more than once. She was just turning away again, when I ventured to step up to the gate.

"I hope the young lady is quite well?" I said, in a low tone.

She looked at me curiously; looked especially, I thought, at the long livid weal across my face. "Ah! I remember you now, sir," she said; "I didn't recognise you for a moment. But, bless you, sir, they've all gone away."

"Gone away?" I echoed.

"Yes, sir. Mr. Scoffold and the young lady went off early this morning, sir; Mr. Scoffold said that letters were to be addressed to him at the house of Dr. Bardolph Just. I've got the address inside, sir, if you should want it."

I told her I did not want it, and I turned away abruptly. I could not understand the position at all; I wondered how Harvey Scoffold had persuaded her to go back to that house, and to the man she so much dreaded. I saw how badly I had blundered in the matter, and how I had done the very thing I had striven not to do. She would trust Harvey Scoffold; she would believe in his honesty, as I had believed in it; and I was convinced now that he was working hand in glove with Bardolph Just. I stood out there in the darkness, cursing myself, and the world, and everyone, with the solitary exception of Debora Matchwick.

On one point I was resolute; I would go on to the house of the doctor, and would be near at hand in case the girl wanted me. It was a mad idea, and I now recognise it as such; but at the time it seemed that I might be able to do some good. I set off at once, tired out as I was, for Bardolph Just's house.

It was not yet late, and the house was still lighted up when at last I came to it. I opened the gate in the wall noiselessly, and went in; crept forward among the trees, until I was quite near to the house. I think I had a sort of vague idea that I would get in somehow, and confront the doctor; for, after all, nothing much worse could happen to me than had already befallen me. While I waited irresolutely in the grounds, a door opened at one side of the house, letting out a little flood of light for a moment; then the door was closed again, and I saw a figure coming swiftly towards me through the trees. I drew back behind one of the trees, and watched; presently the figure passed so close to me, going steadily in the direction of the gate, that I could see the face clearly. It was Martha Leach, habited for a journey.

There was such a grim, set purpose in the face that, after she had gone a yard or two, I turned on an instinct and followed her. I heard the latch of the gate click, as she went out, closing the gate after her; unfortunately it clicked again a moment or two later, when I in turn passed out in her wake. I flattened myself against the wall, because Martha Leach had stopped in the road, and had looked back. Fortunately for me she did not return; after a momentary pause she went on again rapidly, taking a northern direction.