Elster's Folly
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"Would he come the other way?"
"Hardly. It is so much further by the river than by the road."
"You may depend upon it that is what he has done," said Dr. Ashton. "He might think he should meet some of you that way, and get an arm to help him."
"I declare I never thought of that," exclaimed Val, his face brightening. "There he is, no doubt; perched somewhere between this and the mill, like patience on a monument, unable to put foot to the ground."
He turned away. Some of the men offered to accompany him: but he declined their help, and begged them to go on with their dinner, saying he would take sufficient servants with him, even though they had to carry Hartledon.
So Mr. Elster went, taking servants and lanterns; for in some parts of this road the trees overhung, and rendered it dark. But they could not find Lord Hartledon. They searched, and shouted, and waved their lanterns: all in vain. Very much perplexed indeed did Val Elster look when he got back again.
"Where in the world can he have gone to?" angrily questioned the countess-dowager; and she glared from her seat at the head of the table on the offender Val, as she asked it. "I must say all this is most unseemly, and Hartledon ought to be brought to his senses for causing it. I suppose he has taken himself off to a surgeon's."
It was possible, but unlikely, as none knew better than Val Elster. To get to the surgeon's he would have to pass his own house, and would be more likely to go in, and send for Mr. Hillary, than walk on with a disabled foot. Besides, if he had gone to the surgeon's, he would not stay there all this time. "I don't know what to do," said Percival Elster; and there was the same blank, perplexed look on his face that was observed the first time he came in. "I don't much like the appearance of things."
"Why, you don't think anything's wrong with him!" exclaimed young Carteret, starting-up with an alarmed face. "He's safe to turn up, isn't he?"
"Of course he will turn up," answered Val, in a dreamy tone. "Only this uncertainty, as to where to look for him, is not pleasant."
Dr. Ashton motioned Val to his side. "Are you fearing an accident?" he asked in low tones.
"No, sir."
"I am. That current by the mill is so fearfully strong; and if your brother had not the use of his one arm—and the boat was drawn onwards, beyond his control—and upset—"
Dr. Ashton paused. Val Elster looked rather surprised.
"How could it upset, sir? The skiffs are as safe as this floor. I don't fear that in the least: what I do fear is that Edward may be in some out-of-the-way nook, insensible from pain, and won't be found until daylight. Fancy, a whole night out of doors, in that state! He might be half-dead with cold by the morning."
Dr. Ashton shook his head in dissent. His dislike of boating seemed just now to be rising into horror.
"What are you going to do now, Elster?" inquired Captain Dawkes.
"Go to the mill again, I think, and find out if any one saw Hartledon leave the skiff, and which way he took. One of the servants can run down to Hillary's the while."
Dr. Ashton rose, bowing for permission to Lady Kirton; and the gentlemen with one accord rose with him, the same purpose in the mind of all—that of more effectually scouring the ground between the mill and Hartledon. The countess-dowager felt that she should like to box the ears of every one of them. The idea of danger in connection with Lord Hartledon had not yet penetrated to her brain.
At this moment, before they had left the room, there arose a strange wild sound from without—almost an unearthly sound—that seemed to come from several voices, and to be bearing round the house from the river-path. Mrs. O'Moore put down her knife and fork, and rose up with a startled cry.
"There's nothing to be alarmed at," said the dowager. "It is those Irish harvesters. I know their horrid voices, and dare say they are riotously drunk. Hartledon ought to put them in prison for it."
The sounds died away into silence. Mrs. O'Moore took her hands from her eyes, where they had been pressed. "Don't you know what it is, Lady Kirton? It is the Irish death-wail!"
It rose again, louder than before, for those from whom it came were nearing the house—a horribly wailing sound, ringing out in the silence of the night. Mrs. O'Moore crouched into her chair again, and hid her terrified face. She was not Irish, and had never heard that sound but once, and that was when her child died.
"She is right," cried her husband, the O'Moore; "that is the death-wail. Hark! it is for a chieftain; they mourn the loss of one high in the land. And—they are coming here! Oh, Elster! can DEATH have overtaken your brother?"
The gentlemen had stood spell-bound, listening to the sound, their faces a mixture of surprise and credulity. At the words they rushed out with one accord, and the women stole after them with trembling steps and blanched lips.
"If ever I saw such behaviour in all my existence!" irascibly spoke the countess-dowager, who was left alone in her glory. "The death-wail, indeed! The woman's a fool. I'll get those Irishmen transported, if I can."
In the hall the servants were gathered, cowering almost as the ladies did. Their master had flown down the hall-steps, and the labourers were coming steadily up to it, bearing something in procession. Dr. Ashton came back as quickly as he had gone out, extending his arms before him.
"Ladies, I pray you go in," he urged, in strange agitation. "You must not meet these—these Irishmen. Go back to the dining-room, I entreat you, and remain in it."
But the curiosity of women—who can suppress it? They were as though they heard not, and were pressing on to the door, when Val Elster dashed in with a white face.
"Back, all of you! You must not stay here. This is no place or sight for you. Anne," he added, seizing Miss Ashton's hand in peremptory entreaty, "you at least know how to be calm. Get them away, and keep them out of the hall."
"Tell me the worst," she implored. "I will indeed try to be calm. Who is it those men are bringing here?"
"My dear brother—my dead brother. Madam," he continued to the countess-dowager, who had now come out, dinner-napkin in hand, her curls all awry, "you must not come here. Go back to the dining-room, all of you."
"Not come here! Go back to the dining-room!" echoed the outraged dowager. "Don't take quite so much upon yourself, Val Elster. The house is Lord Hartledon's, and I am a free agent in it."
A shriek—an agonized shriek—broke from Lady Maude. In her suspense she had stolen out unperceived, and lifted the covering of the rude bier, now resting on the steps. The rays of the hall-lamp fell on the face, and Maude, in her anguish, with a succession of hysterical sobs, came shivering back to sink down at her mother's feet.
"Oh, my love—my love! Dead! dead!"
The only one who heard the words was Anne Ashton. The countess-dowager caught the last.
"Who is dead? What is this mystery?" she asked, unceremoniously lifting her satin dress, with the intention of going out to see, and her head began to nod—perhaps with apprehension—as if she had the palsy. "You want to force us away. No, thank you; not until I've come to the bottom of this."
"Let us tell them," cried young Carteret, in his boyish impulse, "and then perhaps they will go. An accident has happened to Lord Hartledon, ma'am, and these men have brought him home."
"He—he's not dead?" asked the old woman, in changed tones.
Alas! poor Lord Hartledon was indeed dead. The Irish labourers, in passing near the mill, had detected the body in the water; rescued it, and brought it home.
The countess-dowager's grief commenced rather turbulently. She talked and shrieked, and danced round, exactly as if she had been a wild Indian. It was so intensely ludicrous, that the occupants of the hall gazed in silence.
"Here to-day, and gone to-morrow!" she sobbed. "Oh—o—o—o—o—o—oh!"
"Nay," cried young Carteret, "here to-day, and gone now. Poor fellow! it is awful."
"And you have done it!" she cried, turning her grief upon the astonished boy. "You! What business had you to allure him off again in that miserable boat, once he had got home?"
"Don't trample me down, please," he indignantly returned; "I am as cut up as you can be. Hedges, hadn't you better get Lady Kirton's maid here? I think she is going mad."
"And now the house is without a master," she bemoaned, returning to her own griefs and troubles, "and I have all the arrangements thrown upon myself."
"The house is not without a master," said young Carteret, who seemed inclined to have the last word. "If one master has gone from it, poor fellow! there's another to replace him; and he is at your elbow now."
He at her elbow was Val Elster. Lady Kirton gathered in the sense of the words, and gave a cry; a prolonged cry of absolute dismay.
"He can't be its master."
"I should say he is, ma'am. At any rate he is now Lord Hartledon."
She looked from one to the other in helpless doubt. It was a contingency that had never so much as occurred to her. Had she wanted confirmation, the next moment brought it to her from the lips of the butler.
"Hedges," called out Percival sternly, in his embarrassment and grief, "open the dining-room door. We must get the hall cleared."
"The door is open, my lord."
"He Lord Hartledon!" shrieked the countess-dowager, "why, I was going to recommend his brother to ship him off to Canada for life."
It was altogether an unseemly scene at such a time. But almost everything the Countess-Dowager of Kirton did was unseemly.
CHAPTER X.
MR. PIKE'S VISIT
Percival Elster was in truth Earl of Hartledon. By one of those unexpected calamities, which are often inexplicable—and which most certainly was so as yet in the present instance—a promising young life had been snapped asunder, and another reigned in his place. In one short hour Val Elster, who had scarcely cross or coin to call his own, had been going in danger of arrest from one moment to another, had become a peer of the realm and a man of wealth.
As they laid the body down in a small room opening from the hall, and his late companions and guests crowded around in awe-struck silence, there was one amidst them who could not control his grief and emotion. It was poor Val. Pushing aside the others, never heeding them in his bitter sorrow, he burst into passionate sobs as he leaned over the corpse. And none of them thought the worse of Val for it.
"Oh, Percival! how did it happen?"
The speaker was Dr. Ashton. Little less affected himself, he clasped the young man's hand in token of heartfelt sympathy.
"I cannot think how it could have happened," replied Percival, when able to control his feelings sufficiently to speak. "It seems awfully strange to me—mysteriously so."
"If he found himself going wrong, why didn't he shout out?" asked young Carteret, with a rueful face. "I couldn't have helped hearing him."
It was a question that was passing through the minds of all; was being whispered about. How could it have happened? The body presented the usual appearance of death from drowning; but close to the left temple was a wound, and the face was otherwise disfigured. It must have been done, they thought, by coming into contact with something or other in the water; perhaps the skiff itself. Arm and ankle were both much swollen.
Nothing was certainly known as yet of Lord Hartledon from the time Mr. Carteret parted company with him, to the time when the body was found. It appeared that these Irish labourers were going home from their work, singing as they went, their road lying past the mill, when they were spoken to by the miller's boy. He stood on the species of estrade which the miller had placed there for his own convenience, bending down as far as his young head and shoulders could reach, and peering into the water attentively. "I think I see some'at in the stream," quoth he, and the men stopped; and after a short time, proceeded to search. It proved to be the dead body of Lord Hartledon, caught amongst the reeds.
It was rather a curious coincidence that Percival Elster and his servants in the last search should have heard the voices of the labourers singing in the distance. But they were too far off on their return to Hartledon to be within hearing when the men found the body.
The news spread; people came up from far and near, and Hartledon was besieged. Mr. Hillary, the surgeon, gave it as his opinion that the wound on the temple, no doubt caused before death, had rendered Lord Hartledon insensible, and unable to extricate himself from the water. The mill and cottage were built on what might be called an arm of the river. Lord Hartledon had no business there at all; but the current was very strong; and if, as was too probable, he had become almost disabled, he might have drifted to it without being able to help himself; or he might have been making for it, intending to land and rest in the cottage until help could be summoned to convey him home. How he got into the water was not known. Once in the water, the blow was easy enough to receive; he might have struck against the estrade.
There is almost sure to be some miserable coincidence in these cases to render them doubly unfortunate. For three weeks past, as the miller testified—a respectable man named Floyd—his mill had not been deserted; some one, man, boy, or woman, had always been there. On this afternoon it was closed, mill and cottage too, and all were away. What might have been simply a slight accident, had help been at hand, had terminated in an awful death for the want of it.
It was eleven o'clock before anything like order was restored at Hartledon, and the house left in quiet. The last person to quit it was Dr. Ashton. Hedges, the butler, had been showing him out, and was standing for a minute on the steps looking after him, and perhaps to cool, with a little fresh air, his perplexed brow—for the man was a faithful retainer, and the affair had shocked him in no common degree—when he was accosted by Pike, who emerged stealthily from behind one of the outer pillars, where he seemed to have been sheltering.
"Why, what have you been doing there?" exclaimed the butler.
"Mr. Hedges, I've been waiting here—hiding, if you like to call it so," was the answer; and it should be observed that the man's manner, quite unlike his usual rough, devil-may-care tone, was characterized by singular respect and earnestness. To hear him, and not see him, you might think you were listening to some staid and respectable friend of the family. "I have been standing there this hour past, keeping behind the pillar while other folk went in and out, and waiting my time to speak to you."
"To me?" repeated Hedges.
"Yes, sir. I want you to grant me a favour; and I hope you'll pardon my boldness in asking it."
Hedges did not know what to make of this. It was the first time he had enjoyed the honour of a personal interview with Mr. Pike; and the contrast between that gentleman's popular reputation and his present tone and manner struck the butler as exceedingly singular. But that the butler was in a very softened mood, feeling full of subdued charity towards all the world, he might not have condescended to parley with the man.
"What is the favour?" he inquired.
"I want you to let me in to see the poor young earl—what's left of him."
"Let you in to see the earl!" echoed Hedges in surprise. "I never heard such a bold request."
"It is bold. I've already said so, and asked you to pardon it."
"What can you want that for? It can't be for nothing but curiosity; and—"
"It's not curiosity," interrupted Pike, with an emphasis that told upon his hearer. "I have a different motive, sir; and a good motive. If I were at liberty to tell it—which I'm not—you'd let me in without another word. Lots of people have been seeing him, I suppose."
"Indeed they have not. Why should they? It is a bold thing for you to come and ask it."
"Did he come by his death fairly?" whispered the man.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed the butler, stepping back aghast. "I don't think you know what you are talking about. Who would harm Lord Hartledon?"
"Let me see him," implored the man. "It can't hurt him or anybody else. Only just for a minute, sir, in your presence. And if it's ever in my power to do you a good turn, Mr. Hedges, I'll do it. It doesn't seem likely now; but the mouse gnawed the lion's net, you know, and set him free."
Whether it was the strange impressiveness with which the request was proffered, or that the softened mood of Hedges rendered him incapable of contention, certain it was that he granted it; and most likely would wonder at himself for it all his after-life. Crossing the hall with silent tread, and taking up a candle as he went, he led the way to the room; Mr. Pike stepping after him with a tread equally silent.
"Take your hat off," peremptorily whispered the butler; for that worthy had entered the room with it on. "Is that the way to—"
"Hedges!"
Hedges was struck with consternation at the call, for it was that of his new master. He had not bargained for this; supposing that he had gone to his room for the night. However he might have been foolishly won over to accede to the man's strange request, it was not to be supposed it would be approved of by Lord Hartledon. The butler hesitated. He did not care to betray Pike, neither did he care to leave Pike alone.
"Hedges!" came the call again, louder and quicker.
"Yes, sir—my lord?" and Hedges squeezed out at the door without opening it much—which was rather a difficulty, for he was a portly man, with a red, honest sort of face—leaving Pike and the light inside. Lord Hartledon—as we must unfortunately call him now—was standing in the hall.
"Has Dr. Ashton gone?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Did he leave that address?"
Hedges knew to what his master alluded: an address that was wanted in connection with certain official proceedings that must now take place. Hedges replied that Dr. Ashton had not left it with him.
"Then he must have forgotten it. He said he would write it down in pencil. Send over to the Rectory the first thing in the morning. And, Hedges—"
At this moment a slight noise was heard within the room like the sound of an extinguisher falling; as, in fact, it was. Lord Hartledon turned towards it.
"Who is there, Hedges?"
"I—it's no one in particular, sir—my lord."
What with the butler's bewilderment on the sudden change of masters, and what with his consciousness of the presence of his visitor, he was unusually confused. Lord Hartledon noticed it. It instantly occurred to him that one of the ladies, or perhaps one of the women-servants, had been admitted to the room; and he did not consider it a proper sight for any of them.
"Who is it?" he demanded, somewhat peremptorily.
So Hedges had to confess what had taken place, and that he had allowed the man to enter.
"Pike! Why, what can he want?" exclaimed Lord Hartledon in surprise. And he turned to the room.
The moment the butler left him alone Mr. Pike's first proceeding had been to cover his head again with his wide-awake, which he had evidently removed with reluctance, and might have refused to remove at all had it been consistent with policy; his second was to snatch up the candle, bend over the dead face, and examine it minutely both with eye and hand.
"There is a wound, then, and it's true what they are saying. I thought it might have been gossip," he muttered, as he pushed the soft dark hair from the temple. "Any more suspicious marks?" he resumed, taking a rapid view of the hands and head. "No; nothing but what he'd be likely to get in the water: but—I'll swear that might have been the blow of a human hand. 'Twould stun, if it wouldn't kill; and then, held under the water—"
At this moment Mr. Pike and his comments were interrupted, and he drew back from the table on which the body was lying; but not before Lord Hartledon had seen him touching the face of the dead.
"What are you doing?" came the stern demand.
"I wasn't harming him," was the answer; and Mr. Pike seemed to have suddenly returned to his roughness. "It's a nasty accident to have happened; and I don't like this."
He pointed to the temple as he spoke. Lord Hartledon's usually good-natured brow—at present a brow of deep sorrow—contracted with displeasure.
"It is an awful accident," he replied. "But I asked what you were doing here?"
"I thought I'd like to look upon him, sir; and the butler let me in. I wish I'd been a bit nearer the place at the time: I'd have saved him, or got drowned myself. Not much fear of that, though. I'm a rat for the water. Was that done fairly?" pointing again to the temple.
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Val.
"Well—it might be, or it might not. One who has led the roving life I have, and been in all sorts of scenes, bred in the slums of London too, looks on the suspicious side of these things. And there mostly is one in all of 'em."
Val was moved to anger. "How dare you hint at so infamous a suspicion, Pike? If—"
"No offence, my lord," interrupted Pike—"and it's my lord that you are now. Thoughts may be free in this room; but I am not going to spread suspicion outside. I say, though that might have been an accident, it might have been done by an enemy."
"Did you do it?" retorted Lord Hartledon in his displeasure.
Pike gave a short laugh.
"I did not. I had no cause to harm him. What I'm thinking was, whether anybody else had. He was mistaken for another yesterday," continued Pike, dropping his voice. "Some men in his lordship's place might have showed fight then: even blows."
Percival made no immediate rejoinder. He was gazing at Pike just as fixedly as the latter gazed at him. Did the man wish to insinuate that the unwelcome visitor had again mistaken the one brother for the other, and the result had been a struggle between them, ending in this? The idea rushed into his mind, and a dark flush overspread his face.
"You have no grounds for thinking that man—you know who I mean—attacked my brother a second time?"
"No, I have no grounds for it," shortly answered Pike.
"He was near to the spot at the time; I saw him there," continued Lord Hartledon, speaking apparently to himself; whilst the flush, painfully red and dark, was increasing rather than diminishing.
"I know you did," returned Pike.
The tone grated on Lord Hartledon's ear. It implied that the man might become familiar, if not checked; and, with all his good-natured affability, he was not one to permit it; besides, his position was changed, and he could not help feeling that it was. "Necessity makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows," says the very true proverb; and what might have been borne yesterday would not be borne to-day.
"Let me understand you," he said, and there was a stern decision in his tone and manner that surprised Pike. "Have you any reason whatever to suspect that man of having injured, or attempted to injure my brother?"
"I've not," answered Pike. "I never saw him nearer to the mill yesterday than he was when he looked at us. I don't think he went nearer. My lord, if I knew anything against the man, I'd tell it out, and be glad. I hate the whole tribe. He wouldn't make the mistake again," added Pike, half-contemptuously. "He knew which was his lordship fast enough to-day, and which wasn't."
"Then what did you mean by insinuating that the blow on the temple was the result of violence?"
"I didn't say it was: I said it might have been. I don't know a thing, as connected with this business, against a mortal soul. It's true, my lord."
"Perhaps, then, you will leave this room," said Lord Hartledon.
"I'm going. And many thanks to your lordship for not having turned me from it before, and for letting me have my say. Thanks to you, sir," he added, as he went out of the room and passed Hedges, who was waiting in the hall.
Hedges closed the door after him, and turned to receive a reprimand from his new master.
"Before you admit such men as that into the most sacred chamber the house at present contains, you will ask my permission, Hedges."
Hedges attempted to excuse himself. "He was so very earnest, my lord; he declared to me he had a good motive in wanting to come in. At these times, when one's heart is almost broken with a sudden blow, one is apt to be soft and yielding. What with that feeling upon me, and what with the fright he gave me—"