“Well, I can’t quite agree with you. An acquaintance there certainly was; and, it would seem, an understanding, at one time at least; and Carmel Sherlock is quite distinct upon one point, and that is that she was the person who, he believes, came out of Sir Roke’s room. He has not the slightest doubt that she was the person whom he saw in the gallery. She was walking very quickly, and he could not hear her tread.”
“All very fine if poor Sherlock had been in his senses,” said Mark.
“I always thought Carmel Sherlock a man of very acute observation and accurate memory,” said Stour.
“Yes, and one who saw visions, in a matter where his imagination was excited. I would not hang a dog on his evidence.”
“I’m merely submitting what Sherlock very positively stated; I don’t offer any remarks of my own; but he said, in distinct terms, that he had no doubt the murder was committed by that person — Miss Agnes Marlyn.”
“Why, my good God, sir! you can’t seriously mean anything so hideous and absurd?” said Mark Shadwell, with a pale sneer.
“The meaning is not mine. I simply repeat what the dying man told me,” remarked the clergyman.
“Simply,” sneered Mark again.
“And, you know, it would be quite out of the question my presuming to suppress it,” said the vicar.
“True churchman, Temple,” muttered Shadwell, bitterly. “Your true Christian loves punishment — sacrifice, you know — and as one victim slips through our fingers, we try to lay hold on another. I don’t think you ever liked that poor young woman much?”
Stour Temple looked with an unconscious sternness for a moment, and Mark lowered his eyes before his surprised and searching gaze.
“One would naturally feel an interest in her,” began the vicar, who made it a rule never to be offended with Mark.
“Well, I think so: an orphan girl, cast on the world so very young, without kindred or friends, I do think it rather appeals to — I don’t say our Christianity — though I have read something somewhere, like ‘thinketh no evil’ — but to our manliness and decency. I say, I think it appals one, even whispering such a charge, upon the evidence of a lunatic, against a creature so defenceless and inexperienced.” White and angry looked Mark as he spoke, and as if he hated the vicar, who, in his cold way, simply added:
“You see, I tell you all this as a magistrate. It does appear quite incredible; but is there anything so mysterious and paradoxical as crime? What new and terrible ideas of human nature it gives us.”
“Oh! yes — philosophy and psychology — all very fine; but you will not get twelve men, in a Christian country, to believe on the evidence of a mad assassin, that a poor, little goodnatured governess overpowered and slew a baronet of six feet high, and without any assignable motive. Come, what do you seriously advise me to do with this notable piece of evidence? Had I better ask you to swear an information, and invite the crown to take it up? Do you think the country would ever allow such a joke to die against you and me?”
“I care very little,” said the vicar, “who laughs, provided I have acquitted myself of my duty. Different men will value that dying declaration differently. I have a full note of it with me, and am ready to make affidavit to its accuracy, whenever I may be called on.
“Yes — yes — of course; I am quite sure that Carmel Sherlock said every word you repeat; but surely you must see that to pretend we had a case for indicting Miss Marlyn — my good God I as much a lady, in all respects, as you and I are gentlemen — would be simply to utter a frantic libel. We don’t believe it; — we can’t believe it — you no more than I.”
“What steps do you mean to take?” asked the vicar.
, A silence followed.
“Well, it is not easy, at a moment,” said Mark, with a change of manner, and he walked to the window and looked out over the red blinds into the drowsy old market-place, across the jolty pavement, and to the picturesque gables, the tinted fronts and latticed windows, that looked to him like an odd dream. And he added, returning, “You would not mind giving me that copy of Sherlock’s story?”
“I’ll make a fair copy, and you shall have it,” said the vicar.
“Yes, that’s what I mean — thanks. I’ll — I’ll take an opinion upon it — an able opinion — and we’ll put our heads together. And, I suppose, we both consider it right to be perfectly silent on this subject until I shall have got professional advice to guide me?” said Mark, looking hard at him.
“Certainly,” said the vicar, with a reassuring emphasis.
“I knew you’d agree with me,” said Mark. There was a pause, and then he said: “I wonder how Sherlock is now? Let us go and see.”
Sherlock was worse, and could not live through the night. He lay in an uneasy lethargy, moaning, mumbling half sentences, turning feverishly, and nowhere and nohow finding ease — like a man dying in the fever of over-fatigue, — too exhausted for sleep, too exhausted for consciousness.
The doctor had looked in for the last time, while Mark and the vicar were talking in the inn “parlour,” and Carmel Sherlock, in a few hours more, was to die. In the night he would go — in the darkness which he had peopled with shapes and voices, and pass through the throes and shades of chaos into the wonderful life of spirits.
So, drowning now in Lethe, the struggle, growing faint and fainter, would end surely in a few hours more, and he have sunk.
Farewell the queer old room at Raby, the battered quartos, the desultory life, the enchanted Straduarius, the moonlit vigils, and that wild despairing [love, that mingled with its music like a distant song and cry — all is hopeless jumble now, colours mingling, sounds confused, floating, and moving away toward the final darkness and silence.
Mark loitered on, from hour to hour, in the little town of Applebury. I think so long as Carmel Sherlock lived, there was a feeling of suspense. It were something, if that were -ended before he mounted his horse. A few hours saw the short day out. The vicar’s business in the neighbourhood was ended. They mounted their horses at the little inn-door together.
A melancholy sunset, a wild red glare faded into darkness, and a frosty starlight followed. The vicar and Mark rode away, side by side, in silence. I don’t think a word was exchanged until they reached that point where the road to Raby diverges; and there they bid one another good night, and pursued their solitary routes homeward.
It was growing cold. Mark buttoned his wrapper closely across. One look over his shoulder he took toward the distant town of Applebury, and with a heavy heart thought of the matchless fidelity of poor Carmel Sherlock dying there in prison. Then he spurred homeward; and as he looked before him into the darkness, trees and hedges dimly gliding by, a different feeling succeeded; for was there not a beautiful face at the end of this night-ride that interested him, and made the darkness romantic?
CHAPTER XI.
A CRISIS.
NEXT morning came news from Applebury. Carmel Sherlock was dead, and Mark Shadwell was both glad and sorry. The sense of relief was disturbed, however, by the consciousness that Stour Temple had heard Sherlock’s confession, and was watching him.
It was some weeks before Shadwell saw the vicar again. He met him under the old trees, now stark and leafless in the clear wintry air, as they both rode into the little town of Raby. They had not yet reached the houses, and with one accord they both drew bridle, and came to a walk.
“I sent that case up to my attorney in town,” said Shadwell, almost the first thing after their greeting, “and had it submitted to Skelton, the Queen’s Counsel, for general advice, and he says that, taking into account the facts that are proved as to poor Sherlock’s state of mind, and unsupported as his statement is by a single particle of circumstantial evidence — considering how long it was delayed, and that the attempt to criminate another came from a person about himself to stand his trial for the crime on strong and clear evidence, there was no excuse for moving in it; in feet, he scouts it. I did not, of course, name the person whom t
he miserable man indicated.”
“Quite right,” said Temple.
“I knew you would think so. The fact is, we all know now the state of the poor fellow’s mind; and to act on his dreams as if they were facts, would be a most monstrous cruelty.”
“Can the servants throw any light upon it?” asked the vicar.
“None in the world, except negatively,” said Mark. “They saw or heard nothing, no commotion, not the slightest sound. There was only that fellow Clewson, you remember, who heard or saw anything. “What do you think of him?”
“Well, I thought he gave his evidence in a very distinct, unembarrassed way. I don’t think any one suspected him,” said the vicar, slowly, thinking as he spoke.
“Yes, I know, and I don’t suspect him now, but that’s because I don’t believe one word of poor Sherlock’s story,” said Mark. “I’m quite certain the whole thing was one of his visions; but if I fancied — which, mind you, I do not — that Sherlock’s narrative was a reality, my first suspicion would lighten upon Clewson.”
“Why on Clewson?” said Temple.
“Roke had a fancy for expensive seals and rings, and all that sort of jeweller’s finery; he had banknotes, for he told me so — he hated letters of credit, and all that sort of thing that gave him the least trouble. I think somewhere about seventy pounds was all that came to light on the inquest; but Heaven only knows! what it might have been. Don’t you see a possible motive? Remember, not a creature on earth knew, but he, what, money or valuables Roke may have had with him, or what his trinkets were like; a lot of them he may never have worn in England, don’t you see?”
“Yes, of course, to rob him; but I remember, it appeared in evidence that Roke used to secure the door between himself and his servant,” began the vicar.
“Very true,” interposed Mark; “but so he used the door opening on the gallery. Now, it is clear that on the fatal night he must have neglected one or the other; and why not that? If Clewson were the man, he would naturally, being no fool, I suppose, open the other door, and leave it so, to suggest the idea that the murderer had entered from the gallery.”
“But how about the person whom he saw leave the door?” said the vicar.
“Assuming, for the sake of testing the hypothesis, that this was so, I fancy it easier to believe that a young, harmless person like that passing near, and hearing perhaps some strange ejaculations and sounds, on reaching the door and seeing it partly open, should have listened there a moment, and possibly, even peeped, and gone away quickly on hearing Sherlock’s step approaching.”
“There may be something in that about Clewson pondered the vicar gravely. “Do you believe it?”
“Not a word of it; and so I should swear as a witness, because Sherlock has told me — and, in fact, whenever his imagination was in the slightest degree moved, he never failed to tell me — of marvels he saw. He saw Roke Wycherly come in at his door in the shape of a cock flattering his wings, with his comb bleeding. He has had conversations at the tarn at Feltram with the lady who threw herself out of the window at Wynderfel, four hundred years ago, and saw her walk over the water with the most perfect distinctness, and several hundred equally wonderful revelations. In fact, in such a situation, with nerves admittedly excited to the highest pitch, and believing himself at the moment in actual communication with demons, I could not place the smallest reliance upon any evidence of his, or the reality of anything he fancied he had seen or heard; no human being who knew anything whatever of him could.”
Here ensued a considerable interval of silence.
“The next time you are passing our way, Temple, you must look in. I’ll give you my case and Skelton’s opinion to read, and you’ll see it all in a moment; and in the meantime, I need not say how imperatively every consideration of honour, pity, and decency imposes silence upon us respecting the poor girl whose name Sherlock has mingled in his tale.”
“I quite agree with you,” said the vicar.
“Yes,” said Mark, “I knew you would.”
“A tragedy — full of instruction,” said the vicar, awaking, as it were, from a little reverie. “Had Sir Roke married early some one whom he loved and respected, how different his life, and his fate too, would have been!”
“You speak out of the fulness of your heart, Temple. You went right from your college to a curacy. If you had seen something of the world, or even married, yourself, you’d hardly have made so innocent a speech. Why, a vicious fellow becomes ten times more vicious if he marries; it’s a snare simply, and an aggravation of our miserable, hampered, sickly existence.”
The vicar sighed, and said:
“We are not agreed upon many points, I’m afraid.”
“Not upon that, certainly. It is part of priestcraft — I mean superstition — making everything irrevocable and irremediable. Vows and dedications! What can be more ridiculous and damnable than joining an unsuitable man and woman together in that irrevocable association.
“And so our discussion leaves us, as usual, pretty much where it found us,” said the vicar, with a faint smile and a shake of his head, and a short silence followed.
“Miss Marlyn is still at Raby?” said the vicar.
“Yes; it depends on my wife how soon she goes. I suppose she will take her leave whenever it is quite my wife’s convenience. Commend me to women for taking good care of themselves.”
So Miss Marlyn lingered on at Raby. I don’t think, notwithstanding this satirical speech of Mark Shadwell’s, that his wife had even a voice in the matter. He would have liked people to think that the poor little nonentity who pined out her remaining days, with some complainings and little usefulness, gently in her sick room at Raby bullied him in this, and thwarted him in other things, and had been, negatively at least, the fatal incompatibility to whom he owed his failure, and all the mortifications attendant on it.
“Mark, dear,” she said to him hesitatingly one day, “has anything been settled about Miss Marlyn since?”
“Unsettled, I suppose you mean,” said Mark, sharply. “About sending her away, eh?” and he laughed a little angrily. “There’s just this difficulty. When that miserable fellow Sherlock died, I locked up his room, and should have given myself simply up to ruin, if she had not been here to undertake — as she has done, very cheerfully — a portion of the drudgery which must be got through, day by day, to save my affairs from falling into inextricable confusion. I don’t happen to know any one else in this house who would take the trouble of copying papers and writing letters — sixteen letters only yesterday — do you?”
“I wish I could, but the doctor won’t let me write; I’m such a wretched creature, Mark — such a burden — so useless.”
“I did not say you could help it; I only venture to think it’s but reasonable I should have a little help provisionally wherever I can find it.”
“Of course, dear Mark; certainly.”
“You can do just as you please, whenever I have found any one to take Sherlock’s place — the sooner that is, of course, the better for me. In the meantime I sha’n’t undertake impossibilities, nor kill myself in the attempt, nor let myself drift into utter insolvency, merely to get rid of Miss Marlyn.”
And, muttering to himself, he left the room angrily and suddenly.
Careless and contemptuous Mark’s treatment of his wife had long been. But of late there was something of impatience and acrimony, and a perpetual harping on the folly of unsuitable marriages, and the indolence or uselessness of wives. These allusions were general, but the insult was particular, and she writhed under these cold barbarities.
There was a terrible change here. Indifference was assuming the sneer of intolerance. “He hates me — oh! he hates me — he hates me!” she used to sob, in her solitary agonies. “I made an idol of him — I adored him — and now I’m punished. Oh, Mark — Mark, darling; how have I deserved it from you? I could not help change and sickness — a weary life — useless, as you say. I know how it must try your p
atience, with all your cares, my poor, harassed darling! You are not yourself — you are not yourself: your life is one long trouble, and I know it is my fault — so helpless and wretched” — and so on, neither very logically nor coherently, but in great bitterness of spirit.
Then Rachel would come in, and her mother would smile piteously from her tears, drying them hastily; for these griefs were not for her ear, nor for any other’s.
There was also another change — a very decided one — in Miss Marlyn. Perfectly quiet, perfectly submissive, there was an irony in her docility and an exaggeration in her submissiveness that were intangibly insulting. Even had Amy Shadwell been shrewd, hard, and irascible, instead of the most timid and gentle of women, it would not have been easy for her to fasten upon a particular ground of quarrel. For this premeditated impertinence was always arranged with a view to evasion.
Sometimes the young lady, as her spirits varied, approached Mrs. Shadwell in a different vein. She would affect quite her old manner, and talk volubly, and as if in the consciousness that her conversation was exactly the thing which Mrs. Shadwell most enjoyed, though she must have seen that these interviews gave her more pain than others, and were met with very decided discouragement.
This was not wonderful, for in these communicative moods Miss Marlyn never failed, before her talk was ended, to suggest or insinuate something mysterious and untold to the prejudice of Mr. Shadwell. These vague and intangible hints, whose meaning, for one moment legible and terrific, seemed in the next to dissolve and disappear, affrighted Mrs. Shadwell, like the intrusions of a half-seen spectre.
Were these ambiguities accidental? Were they produced by chance looks and phrases? Did Miss Marlyn herself see their odd significance? They helped the effect of other changes in Miss Marlyn’s conduct, and invested that beautiful lady in the eyes of the invalid lady, with an indefinable character that was formidable.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 430