"Steady, steady, my lord," Stubbs said, interposing discreetly. Hitherto he had not spoken. "There's no need to quarrel! I am sure that Mr. Ba.s.set's intentions are friendly. It will be better if he just tells us what these doc.u.ments are which are now put forward. We shall then be able to judge where we stand."

"Go ahead," Audley said, averting his face and sulkily relapsing against the mantel-shelf. "Put your questions! And, for G.o.d's sake, let's get to the point!"

"The paper that is pertinent is a deed," Ba.s.set explained. "I have the heads of it here. A deed made between Peter Paravicini Audley, your ancestor, the Audley the date of whose marriage has been always in issue--between him on the one side, and his father and two younger brothers on the other."

"What is the date?" Stubbs asked.

"Seventeen hundred and four."

"Very good, Mr. Ba.s.set." Stubbs's tone was now as even as he could make it, but an acute listener would have detected a change in it. "Proceed, if you please."

Before Ba.s.set could comply, my lord broke in. "What's the use of this? Why the d--l are we going into it?" he cried. "If this man is out for plunder I will make him smart as sure as my name is Audley! And any one who supports him. In the meantime I want to hear no more of it!"

Ba.s.set moved in his chair as if he would rise. Stubbs intervened.

"That is one way of looking at it, my lord," he said temperately. "And I'm not saying that it is the wrong way. But I think we had better hear what Mr. Ba.s.set has to say. He is probably deceived----"

"He has let himself be used as a catspaw!" Audley cried. His face was flushed and there was an ugly look in his eyes.

"But he means us well, I am sure," the lawyer interposed. "At present I don't see"--he turned and carefully snuffed one of the candles--"I don't see----"

"I think you do!" Ba.s.set answered. He had had a long day and he had come on an unpleasant business. His own temper was not too good. "You see this, at any rate, Mr. Stubbs, that such a deed may be of vital import to your client."

"To me?" Audley exclaimed. Was it possible that the thing he had so long feared--and had ceased to fear--was going to befall him? Was it possible that at the eleventh hour, when he had burnt his boats, when he had thought all danger at an end--no, it was impossible! "To me?" he repeated pa.s.sionately.

"Yes," Ba.s.set replied. "Or, rather, it would be of vital import to you in other circ.u.mstances."

"In what other circ.u.mstances? What do you mean?"

"If you were not about to marry the only person who, with you, is interested."

Audley cut short, by a tremendous effort, the execration that burst from his lips. His face, always too fleshy for his years, swelled till it was purple. Then, and as quickly, the blood ebbed, leaving it gray and flabby. He would have given much, very much at this moment to be able to laugh or to utter a careless word. But he could do neither. The blow had been too sudden, too heavy, too overwhelming. Only in his nightmares had he seen what he saw now!

Meanwhile Stubbs, startled by the half-uttered oath and a little out of his depth--for he had heard nothing of the engagement--intervened. "I think, my lord," he said, "you had better leave this to me. I think you had, indeed. We are quite in the dark and we are not getting forward. Let us have the facts, Mr. Ba.s.set. What is the gist of this deed? Or, first, have you seen it?"

"I have."

"And read it?"

"I have."

"It appears to you--I only say it appears--to be genuine?"

"I have no doubt that it is genuine," Ba.s.set replied. "It bears the marks of age, and it was found in the chest with the old Bible. If the book is genuine----"

The lawyer raised his hand. "Too fast," he said. "You say it was found! You mean that this man says it was found?"

"Yes."

"Precisely. But there is a difference. Still, we have cleared the ground. Now, what does this deed purport to be?"

Ba.s.set produced a slip of paper. "An agreement," he read from it, "between Peter Paravicini Audley and his father and his two younger brothers. After admitting that the entry of the marriage in the register is misleading and that no marriage took place until after the birth of his son, Peter Paravicini undertakes that, in consideration of his father and his brothers taking no action and making no attack upon his wife's reputation, she being their cousin, he will not set up for the said son, or the issue of the said son, any claim to the t.i.tle or estates."

Audley listened to the description, so clear and so precise, and he recognized that it tallied with the deed which tradition had always held to exist but of which John Audley had been able to give no proof. He heard, he understood; yet while he listened and understood, his mind was working to another end, and viewing with pa.s.sion the tragedy which fate had prepared for him. Too late! Too late! Had this become known a week, only a week, earlier, how lightly had the blow fallen! How impotently! But he had cut the rope, he had severed the strands once carefully twisted, that bound him to safety! And then the irony, the bitterness, the cruelty of those words of Ba.s.set's, "in other circ.u.mstances!" They bit into his mind.

Still he suffered in silence, and only his stillness and his unhealthy color betrayed the despair that gripped and benumbed his soul. Stubbs did not look at him; perhaps he was careful not to look at him. The lawyer sat thinking and drumming gently with his fingers on the table. "Just so, just so," he said presently. "On the face of it, the doc.u.ment of which Mr. John Audley tried to give secondary evidence, and which a person fraudulently inclined would of course concoct. That touch of the cousin well brought in!"

"But the lady was his cousin," Ba.s.set said.

"All the world knows it," the lawyer retorted coolly, "and use has been made of the knowledge. But, of course, there are a hundred things to be proved before any weight can be given to this doc.u.ment; its origin, the custody from which it comes, the signatures, the witnesses. Its production by a man who has once endeavored to blackmail is alone suspicious. And the deed itself is at variance with the evidence of the Bible."

"But that variance bears out the deed, which is to secure the younger sons' rights while covering the reputation of the lady."

The lawyer shook his head. "Very clever," he said. "But, frankly, the matter has an ugly look, Mr. Ba.s.set."

"Lord Audley says nothing," Ba.s.set replied, nettled by the lawyer's phrase.

"And will say nothing," Stubbs rejoined genially, "if he is advised by me. In the circ.u.mstances, as I understand them, he is not affected as he might be, but this is still a serious matter. We are not quarrelling with you for coming to us, Mr. Ba.s.set. On the contrary. But I would like to know why the man came to you."

"The answer is simple," Ba.s.set explained. "I am Mr. Audley's executor. On his account, I am obliged to be interested. The moment I learned this I saw that, be it true or false, I must disclose it to Miss Audley. But I thought it fair to open it to Lord Audley first that he might tell the young lady himself, if he preferred to do so."

Stubbs nodded. "Very proper," he replied. "And where, in the meantime, is this--precious doc.u.ment?"

"I lodged it with Mr. Audley's bankers this afternoon."

Stubbs nodded again. "Also very proper," he said. "Just so."

Ba.s.set rose. "I've told you what I know. If there is nothing more?" he said. He looked at Audley, who had turned his back on them and, with his hands in his pockets and one foot on the fender, was gazing into the fire.

"I think that's all," Stubbs hastened to say. "I am sure that his lordship is obliged to you, Mr. Ba.s.set, though it is a hundred to one that there is nothing in this."

At that, however, Audley turned about. He had pulled himself together, and his manner was excellent. "I would like to say that for myself," he said frankly, "I owe you many thanks for the straightforward course you have taken, Ba.s.set. You must pardon my momentary annoyance. Perhaps you will kindly keep this business to yourself for--shall we say--three days? I will speak myself to my cousin, but I should like to make one or two inquiries first."

Ba.s.set agreed willingly. He hated the whole thing and his part in it. It forced him to champion, or to seem to champion, Mary against her betrothed; and so set him in that kind of opposition to his rival which he loathed. It was only after some hesitation that he had determined to see Audley, and now that he had seen him, the sooner he was clear of the matter the happier he would be. So, "Certainly," he repeated, thinking that the other was taking it very well. "And now, as I have had a hard day, I will say good-night."

"Good-night, and believe me," my lord added warmly, "we recognize the friendliness of your action."

Outside, in the darkness of the road, Ba.s.set drew a breath of relief. He had had a hard day and he was utterly weary. But he had come now, thank G.o.d, to an end of many things; of the canva.s.s he had detested and the contest in which he had been beaten; of his relations with Mary, whom he had lost; of this imbroglio, which he hated; of Riddsley and the Gatehouse and the old life there! He could go to his inn and sleep the clock round. In his bed he would be safe, he would be free from troubles. It seemed to him a refuge. Till the morrow he need think of nothing, and when he came forth again it would be to a new life. Henceforth Blore, his old house and his starved acres must bound his ambitions. With the money which John Audley had left him he would dig and drain and fence and build, and be by turns Talpa the mole and Castor the beaver. In time, as he began to see the fruit of his toil, he would win to some degree of content, and be glad, looking back, that he had made this trial of his powers, this essay towards a wider usefulness. So, in the end, he would come through to peace.

But at this point the current of his thoughts eddied against Toft, and he cursed the man anew. Why had he played these tricks? Why had he kept back this paper? Why had he produced it now and cast on others this unpleasant task?

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

TOFT'S LITTLE SURPRISE.

Toft had gone into Riddsley on the polling-day, but had returned before the result was known. "What the man was thinking of," his wife declared in wrath, "beats me! To be there hours and hours and come out no wiser than he went, and we waiting to hear--a babe would ha' had more sense! The young master that we've known all our lives, to be in or out, and we to know nothing till morning! It pa.s.ses patience!"

Mary had her own feelings, but she concealed them. "He must know how it was going when he left?" she said.

"He doesn't know an identical thing!" Mrs. Toft replied. "And all he'd say was, 'There, there, what does it matter?' For all the world as if he spoke to a child! 'What else matters, man?' says I. 'What did you go for?' But there, Miss, he's beyond me these days! I believe he's going like the poor master, that had a bee in his bonnet, G.o.d forgive me for saying it! But what'd one not say, and we to wait till morning not knowing whether those plaguy Repealers are in or out!"

"But Mr. Ba.s.set is for Repeal," Mary said.

"What matter what he's for, if he's in?" Mrs. Toft replied loftily. "But to wait till morning to know--the man's no better than a numps!"

In the end, it was Mr. Colet who brought the news to the Gatehouse. He brought it to Etruria and so much of moment with it that before noon the election result had been set aside as a trifle, and Mary found herself holding a kind of court in the parlor--Mr. Colet plaintiff, Etruria defendant, Mrs. Toft counsel for the defence. Absence had but strengthened Mr. Colet's affection, and he came determined to come to an understanding with his mistress. He saw his way to making a small income by writing sermons for his more indolent brethren, and, in the meantime, Mr. Ba.s.set was giving him food and shelter; in return he was keeping Mr. Ba.s.set's accounts, and he was saving a little, a very little, money. But the body of his plea rested not on these counts, but on the political change. Repeal was in the air, repeal was in the country. Vote as Riddsley might, the Corn Laws were doomed. His opinions would no longer be banned; they would soon be the opinions of the majority, and with a little patience he might find a new curacy. When that happened he wished to marry Etruria.

"And why not?" Mary asked.

"I will never marry him to disgrace him," Etruria replied. She stood with bowed head, her hands clasped before her, her beautiful eyes lowered.

"But you love him?" Mary said, blushing at her own words.

"If I did not love him I might marry him," Etruria rejoined. "I am a servant, my father's a servant. I should be wronging him, and he would live to know it."

"To my way o' thinking, 'Truria's right," her mother said. "I never knew good come of such a marriage! He's poor, begging his reverence's pardon, but, poor or rich, his place is there." She pointed to the table. "And 'Truria's place is behind his chair."

"But you forget," Mary said, "that when she is Mr. Colet's wife her place will be by his side."

"And much good that'll do him with the parsons and such like, as are all gleg together! If he's in their black books for preaching too free--and when you come to t.i.thes one parson is as like another as pigs o' the same litter--he'll not better himself by taking such as Etruria, take my word for it, Miss!"

"I will never do it," said Etruria.

"But," Mary protested, "Mr. Colet need not live here, and in another part people will not know what his wife has been. Etruria has good manners and some education, Mrs. Toft, and what she does not know she will learn. She will be judged by what she is. If there is a drawback, it is that such a marriage will divide her from you and from her father. But if you are prepared for that?"

Mrs. Toft rubbed her nose. "We'd be willing if that were all," she said. "She'd come to us sometimes, and there'd be no call for us to go to her."

Mr. Colet looked at Etruria. "If Etruria will come to me," he said, "I will be ashamed neither of her nor her parents."

"Bravely said!" Mary cried.

"But there's more to it than that," Mrs. Toft objected. "A deal more. Mr. Colet nor 'Truria can't live upon air. And it's my opinion that if his reverence gets a curacy, he'll lose it as soon as it's known who his wife is. And he can't dig and he can't beg, and where'll they be with the parsons all sticking to one another as close as wax?"

"He'll not need them!" replied a new speaker, and that speaker was Toft. He had entered silently, none of them had seen him, and the interruption took them aback. "He'll not need them," he repeated, "nor their curacies. He'll not need to dig nor beg. There's changes coming. There's changes coming for more than him, Miss. If Mr. Colet's willing to take my girl she'll not go to him empty-handed."

"I will take her as she stands," Mr. Colet said, his eyes shining. "She knows that."

"Well, you'll take her, sir, asking your pardon, with what I give her," Toft answered. "And that'll be five hundred pounds that I have in hand, and five hundred more that I look to get. Put 'em together and they'll buy what's all one with a living, and you'll be your own rector and may snap your fingers at 'em!"

They stared at the man, while Mrs. Toft, in an awestruck tone, cried, "You're out of your mind, Toft! Five hundred pounds! Whoever heard of the like of us with that much money?"

"Silence, woman," Toft said. "You know naught about it."

"But, Toft," Mary said, "are you in earnest? Do you understand what a large sum of money this is?"

"I have it," the man replied, his sallow cheek reddening. "I have it, and it's for Etruria."

"If this be true," Mr. Colet said slowly, "I don't know what to say, Toft."

"You've said all that is needful, sir," Toft replied. "It's long I've looked forward to this. She's yours, and she'll not come to you empty-handed, and you'll have no need to be ashamed of a wife that brings you a living. We'll not trouble except to see her at odd times in the year. It will be enough for her mother and me that she'll be a lady. She never was like us."

"Hear the man!" cried Mrs. Toft between admiration and protest. "You'd suppose she wasn't our child!"

But Mary went to him and gave him her hand. "That's very fine, Toft," she said. "I believe Etruria will be as happy as she is good, and Mr. Colet will have a wife of whom he may be proud. But Etruria will not be Etruria if she forgets her parents or your gift. Only you are sure that you are not deceiving yourself?"

"There's my bank-book to show for half of it," Toft replied. "The other half is as certain if I live three months!"

"Well, I declare!" Mrs. Toft cried. "If anybody'd told me yesterday that I'd have--'Truria, han't you got a word to say?"

Etruria's answer was to throw her arms round her father's neck. Yet it is doubtful if the moment was as much to her as to the ungainly, grim--visaged man, who looked so ill at ease in her embrace.

The contrast between them was such that Mary hastened to relieve the sufferer. "Etruria will have more to say to Mr. Colet," she said, "than to us. Suppose we leave them to talk it over."

She saw the Tofts out after another word or two, and followed them. "Well, well, well!" said Mrs. Toft, when they stood in the hall. "I'm sure I wish that everybody was as lucky this day--if all's true as Toft tells us."

"There's some in luck that don't know it!" the man said oracularly. And he slid away.

"If he said black was white, I'd believe him after this," his wife exclaimed, "asking your pardon, Miss, for the liberties we've taken! But you'd always a fancy for 'Truria. Anyway, if there's one will be pleased to hear the news, it's the Squire! If I'd some of those nine here that voted against him I'd made their ears burn!"

"But perhaps they thought that Mr. Ba.s.set was wrong," Mary said.

"What business had they o' thinking?" Mrs. Toft replied. "They had ought to vote; that's enough for them."

"Well, it does seem a pity," Mary allowed. And then, because she fancied that Mrs. Toft looked at her with meaning, she went upstairs and, putting on her hat and cloak, went out. The day was cold and bright, a sprinkling of snow lay on the ground, and a walk promised her an opportunity of thinking things over. Between the b.u.t.terflies, at the entrance to the flagged yard, she hung a moment in doubt, then she set off across the park in the direction of the Great House.

At first her thoughts were busy with Etruria's fortunes and the mysterious windfall which had enriched Toft. How had he come by it? How could he have come by it? And was the man really sane? But soon her mind took another turn. She had strayed this way on the morning after her arrival at the Gatehouse, and, remembering this, she looked across the gray, frost-bitten park, with its rows of leafless trees and its naked vistas. Her mind travelled back to that happy morning, and involuntarily she glanced behind her.

But to-day no one followed her, no one was thinking of her. Ba.s.set was gone, gone for good, and it was she who had sent him away. The May morning when he had hurried after her, the May sunshine, gay with the songs of larks and warm with the scents of spring were of the past. To-day she looked on a bare, cold landscape and her thoughts matched it. Yet she had no ground to complain, she told herself, no reason to be unhappy. Things might have been worse, ah, so much worse, she reflected. For a week ago she had been a captive, helpless, netted in her own folly! And now she was free.

Yes, she ought to be happy, being free; and, more than free, independent.

But she must go from here. And for many reasons the thought of going was painful to her. During the nine months which she had spent at the Gatehouse it had become a home. Its panelled rooms, its austerity, its stillness, the ancient woodlands about it were endeared to her by the memory of lamp-lit evenings and long summer days. The very plainness and solitude of the life, which had brought the Tofts and Etruria so near to her, had been a charm. And if her sympathy with her uncle had been imperfect, still he had been her uncle and he had been kind to her.

All this she must leave, and something else which she did not define; which was bound up with it, and which she had come to value when it was too late. She had taken bra.s.s for gold, and tin for silver! And now it was too late. So that it was no wonder that when she came to the hawthorn-tree where she had gathered her may that morning, a sob rose in her throat. She knew the tree! She had marked it often. But to-day there was no one to follow her, no one to call her back, no one to say that she should go no farther. Ba.s.set was gone, her uncle was dead.

Telling herself that, as she would never see it again, she would go as far as the Great House, she pushed on to the Yew Walk. Its recesses showed dark, the darker for the sprinkling of snow that lay in the park. But it was high noon, there was nothing to fear, and she pursued the path until she came to the crumbling monster that tradition said was a b.u.t.terfly.

She was still viewing it with awe, thinking now of the duel which had taken place there, now of her uncle's attack, when a bird moved in the copse and she glanced nervously behind her, expecting she knew not what. The dark yews shut her in, and involuntarily she shivered. What if, in this solitary place--and then through the silence the sharp click of the Iron Gate reached her ear.

The stillness and the a.s.sociations shook her nerves. She heard footsteps and, hardly knowing what she feared, she slipped among the trees and stood half-hidden. A moment pa.s.sed and a man appeared. He came from the Great House. He crossed the opening slowly, his chin sunk upon his breast, his eyes bent on the path before him. A moment and he was gone, the way she had come, without seeing her.