“To-day — this hour — this minute, if you can; in short, the sooner the better,” he replied, rising. “I see no reason for holding the thing back any longer. I am sorry my wishes were not complied with immediately. Pray, let there be no further hesitation or delay. I shall expect to learn this evening that all is arranged.”
Marston having thus spoken, left her abruptly — went down to his study with a swift step — shut himself in, and throwing himself into a great chair, gave a loose to his agitation, which was extreme.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Marston had sent for Mademoiselle de Barras, anxious to get through her painful task as speedily as possible. The fair French girl speedily presented herself.
“Sit down, mademoiselle,” said Mrs. Marston, taking her hand kindly, and drawing her to the priediéu chair beside herself.
Mademoiselle de Barras sate down, and, as she did so, read the countenance of her patroness with one rapid glance of her flashing eyes. These eyes, however, when Mrs. Marston looked at her the next moment, were sunk softly and sadly upon the floor. There was a heightened colour, however, in her cheek, and a quicker heaving of the bosom, which indicated the excitement of an anticipated and painful disclosure. The outward contrast of the two women, whose hands were so lovingly locked together, was almost as striking as the moral contrast of their hearts. The one, so chastened, sad, and gentle; the other, so capable of pride and passion — so darkly excitable, and yet, so mysteriously beautiful. The one, like a Niobe, seen in the softest moonshine; the other, a Venus, lighted in the glare of distant fires.
“Mademoiselle, dear mademoiselle, I am so much grieved at what I have to say, that I hardly know how to speak to you,” said poor Mrs. Marston, pressing her hand; “but Mr. Marston has twice desired me to tell you, what you will hear with far less pain than it costs me to say it.”
Mademoiselle de Barras stole another flashing glance at her companion, but did not speak.
“Mr. Marston still persists, mademoiselle, in desiring that we shall part.”
“Est il possible?” cried the Frenchwoman, with a genuine start.
“Indeed, mademoiselle, you may well be surprised,” said Mrs. Marston, encountering her full and dilated gaze, which, however, dropped again in a moment to the ground. “You may, indeed, naturally be surprised and shocked at this, to me, most severe decision.”
“When did he speak last of it?” asked she, rapidly.
“But a few moments since,” answered Mrs. Marston.
“Ha!” said mademoiselle, and remained silent and motionless for more than a minute.
“Madame,” she cried at last, mournfully, “I suppose, then, I must go; but it tears my heart to leave you and dear Miss Rhoda. I would be very happy if, before departing, you would permit me, dear madame, once more to assure Mr. Marston of my innocence, and, in his presence, to call heaven to witness how unjust are all his suspicions.”
“Do so, mademoiselle, and I will add my earnest assurances again; though, heaven knows,” she said despondingly, “I anticipate little success; but it is well to leave no chance untried.”
Marston was sitting, as we have said, in his library. His agitation had given place to a listless gloom, and he leaned back in his chair, his head supported by his hand, and undisturbed except by the occasional fall of the embers upon the hearth. There was a knock at the chamber door. His back was toward it, and, without turning or moving, he called to the applicant to enter. The door opened — closed again — a light tread was audible — a tall shadow darkened the wall — Marston looked round, and Mademoiselle de Barras was standing before him. Without knowing how or why, he rose, and stood gazing upon her in silence.
“Mademoiselle de Barras,” he said at last, in a tone of cold surprise.
“Yes, poor Mademoiselle de Barras,” replied the sweet voice of the young Frenchwoman, while her Ups hardly moved as the melancholy tones passed them.
“Well, Mademoiselle, what do you desire?” he asked, in the same cold accents, and averting his eyes.
“Ah, Monsieur, do you ask — can you pretend to be ignorant? Have you not sent roe a message — a cruel, cruel message?”
She spoke so low and gently, that a person at the other end of the room could hardly have heard her words.
“Yes, Mademoiselle de Barras, I did send you a message,” he replied, doggedly— “a cruel one you will scarcely presume to call it, when you reflect upon your own conduct, and the circumstances which have provoked the measures I have taken.”
“What have I done, Monsieur? — what circumstances do you mean?” asked she, plaintively.
“What nave you done! A pretty question truly — ha, ha!” he repeated, bitterly, and then added with suppressed vehemence— “ask your own heart, Mademoiselle.” ft I have asked — I do ask, and my heart answers — nothing,” she replied, raising her fine melancholy eyes for a moment to his face.”
“It lies, then,” ho retorted, with a fierce scoff.
“Monsieur, before heaven I swear, you wrong me foully,” she said earnestly, clasping her hands together.
“Did ever woman say she was accused rightly, Mademoiselle?” retorted Marston, with a sneer.
“I don’t know — I don’t care; I only know that I am innocent,” continued she, piteously. “I call heaven to witness you have wronged me.”
“Wronged you! — why, after all. with what have I charged you?” said he, scoffingly; “but let that pass. I have formed my opinions — arrived at my conclusions; if I have not named them broadly, you at least seem to understand their nature thoroughly. I know the world; I am no novice in the arts of women, Mademoiselle. Reserve your vows and attestations for schoolboys and simpletons; they are sadly thrown away upon me.”
Marston paced to and fro, with his hands thrust into his pockets, as he thus spoke.
“Then you don’t, or rather you will not believe what I tell you?” said she, imploringly.
“No,” he answered, drily and slowly, as he passed her; “I don’t, and I won’t (as you say) believe one word of it, so, pray spare yourself any further trouble about the matter.”
She raised her head, and darted after him a glance that seemed absolutely to blaze, and at the same time smote her little hand fast clenched upon her breast; the words, however, that trembled on her pale lips were not uttered; her eyes were again cast down, and her fingers played with the little locket that hung round her neck.
“I must make, before I go,” she said, with a deep sigh and a melancholy voice, “one confidence — one last confidence; judge me by it. You cannot choose, but believe me now; it is a secret, and it must even here be whispered, whispered, whispered!”
As she spoke, the colour fled from her face, and her tones became so strange and resolute, that Marston turned short upon his heel and stopped before her. She looked in his face; he frowned, but lowered his eyes. She drew nearer, laid her hand upon his shoulder, and whispered for a few moments in his ear. He raised his face suddenly; its features were sharp and fixed; its hue was changed; it was livid and moveless, like a face cut in gray stone. He staggered back a little, and a little more, and then a little more, and fell backward. Fortunately the chair in which he had been sitting received him, and he lay there insensible as a corpse. When at last his eyes opened, there was no gleam of triumph — no shade of anger, nothing perceptible of guilt or menace in the young woman’s countenance; the flush had returned to her cheeks; her dimpled chin had sunk upon her full, white throat; sorrow, shame, and pride seemed struggling in her handsome face; and she stood before him like a beautiful penitent, who has just made a strange and humbling shrift to her father confessor.
Next day, Marston was mounting his horse for a solitary ride through his park, when Doctor Danvers rode abruptly into the courtyard from the back entrance. Marston touched his hat, and said —
“I don’t stand onforms with you, doctor, and you, I know, will waive ceremony with me. You will find Mrs. Marston at home.”
“Nay, my dear sir,�
� interrupted the clergyman, sitting firm in his saddle, “my business lies with you to-day.”
“The devil it does!” said Marston, with discontented surprise.
“Truly it does, sir,” repeated he, with a look of gentle reproof, for the profanity of Marston’s ejaculation, far more than the rudeness of his manner, offended him, “and I grieve that your surprise should have somewhat carried you away— “
“Well, then, Doctor Danvers,” interrupted Marston, drily, and without heeding his concluding remark, “ if you really have business with me, it is, at all events, of no very pressing kind, and may be as well told after supper as now; so, pray, go into the house and rest yourself — we can talk together in the evening.”
“My horse is not tired,” said the clergyman, patting his steed’s neck; “and if you do not object, I will ride by your side for a short time, and as we go, I can say out what I have to tell.”
“Well, well, be it so,” said Marston, with suppressed impatience, and without more ceremony, he rode slowly along the avenue, and turned off upon the soft sward in the direction of the wildest portion of his wooded demesne, the clergyman keeping close beside him. They proceeded some little way at a walk before Doctor Danvers spoke.
“I have been twice or thrice with that unhappy man,” at length he said.
“What unhappy man? — unhappiness is no distinguishing singularity — is it?” said Marston, sharply.
“No, truly, you have well said,” replied Dr. Danvers; “true it is that man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. I speak, however, of your servant, Merton — a most unhappy wretch.”
“Ha! you have been with him, you say?” replied Marston, with evident interest and anxiety.
“Yes, several times, and conversed with him long and gravely,” continued the clergyman.
“Humph! I thought that had been the chaplain’s business, not yours, my good friend,” observed Marston.
“He has been unwell,” replied Dr. Danvers; “and thus, for a day or two, I took his duty, and this poor man, Merton, having known something of me, preferred seeing me rather than a stranger — and so, at the chaplain’s desire and his, I continued my visits.”
“Well, and you have taught him to pray and sing psalms, I suppose; and what has come of it all?” demanded Marston, testily.
“He does pray, indeed — poor man! and I trust his prayers are heard with mercy at the throne of grace,” said his companion, in his earnestness disregarding the scoffing tone of his companion. “He is full of compunction, and admits his guilt.”
“Ho! that is well — well for himself — well for his soul, at least — you are sure of it — he confesses — confesses his guilt?”
Marston put his question so rapidly and excitedly, that the clergy mail looked at him with a slight expression of surprise — and recovering himself, he added, in an unconcerned tone —
“Well, well — it was just as well he did so; the evidence is too clear for doubt or mystification; he knew he had no chance, and has taken the seemliest course — and, doubtless, the best for his hopes hereafter.”
“I did not question him upon the subject,” said Doctor Danvers; “I even declined to hear him speak upon it at first — but he told me he was resolved to offer no defence, and that he saw the finger of God in the fate which had overtaken him.”
“He will plead guilty, then, I suppose?” suggested Marston, watching the countenance of his companion with an anxious and somewhat sinister eye.
“His words seem to imply so much,” answered he; “and having thus frankly owned his guilt, and avowed his resolution to let the law take its due course in his case, without obstruction or evasion, I urged him to complete the grand work he had begun, and to confess to you, or to some other magistrate fully, and in detail, every circumstance connected with the perpetration of the dreadful deed.”
Marston knit his brows, and rode on for some minutes in silence. At length, he said abruptly —
“In this, it seems to me, sir, you a little exceeded your commission.”
“How so, my dear sir?” asked the clergyman.
“Why, sir,” answered Marston, “the man may possibly change his mind before the day of trial, and it is the hangman’s office, not yours, my good sir, to fasten the halter about his neck. You will pardon my freedom; but, were this deposition made as you suggest, it would undoubtedly hang him.”
“God forbid, Mr. Marston,” rejoined Danvers, “that I should induce the unhappy man to forfeit his last chances of escape, and to shut the door of human mercy against himself, but on this he seems already resolved; he says so; he has solemnly declared his resolution to me — and even against my warning, again and again reiterated the same declaration.”
“That I should have thought quite enough, were I in your place, without inviting a detailed description of the whole process by which this detestable butchery was consummated. What more than the simple knowledge of the man’s guilt does any mortal desire, guilty, or not guilty, is the plain question which the law asks, and no more; take my advice, sir, as a poor Protestant layman, and leave the arts of the confessional and inquisition to popish priests.”
“Nay, Mr. Marston, you greatly misconceive me; as matters stand, there exists among the coroner’s jury, and thus among the public, some faint and unfounded suspicion of the possibility of Merton’s having had an accessory or accomplice in the perpetration of this foul murder.
“It is a lie, sir — a malignant, d — d lie — the jury believe no such thing, nor the public neither,” said Marston, starting in his saddle, and speaking in a voice of thunder; “you have been crammed with lies, sir; malicious, unmeaning, vindictive lies; lies invented to asperse my family, and torture my feelings — suggested in my presence by that scoundrel Mervyn, and scouted by the common sense of the jury.”
“I do assure you,” replied Doctor Danvers, in a voice which seemed scarcely audible, after the stunning and passionate explosion of Marston’s wrath, “ I did not imagine that you could feel thus sorely upon the point, nay, I thought that you yourself were not without such painful doubts.”
“Again, I tell you, sir,” said Marston, in a tone somewhat calmer, but no less stern, “such doubts as you describe have no existence; your unsuspecting ear has been alarmed by a vindictive wretch, an old scoundrel who has scarce a passion left but spite towards me — few such there are, thank God — few such villains as would, from a man’s very calamities distil poison to kill the peace and character of his family.”
“I am sorry, Mr. Marston,” said the clergyman, “you have formed so ill an opinion of a neighbour, and I am very sure that Mr. Mervyn meant you no ill in frankly expressing whatever doubts still rested on his mind, after the evidence was taken.”
“He did — the scoundrel!” said Marston, furiously striking his hand, in which his whip was clutched, upon his thigh— “he did mean to wound and torture me; and with the same object he persists in circulating what he calls his doubts. Meant me no ill! forsooth I why, my good God, sir, could any man be so stupid as not to perceive that the suggestion of such suspicions — absurd, contradictory, incredible as they were — was precisely the thing to exasperate feelings, God knows, sufficiently troubled already; and not content with raising the question, where it was scouted, as I said, as soon as named, the vindictive slanderer proceeds to propagate and publish his pretended surmises — d — n “Mr. Marston, you will pardon me when I say that, as a Christian minister, I cannot suffer a spirit so ill as that you manifest, and language so unseemly as that you have just uttered, to pass unreproved,” said Danvers, solemnly. “If you will cherish those bitter and unchristian feelings, at least for the brief space that I am with you, command your fierce, unbecoming words.”
Marston was about to make a sneering retort, but restrained himself, and turned his head away.
“The wretched man himself appears now very anxious to make some further disclosures,” resumed Doctor Danvers, after a pause, “and I recommend
ed him to make them to you, Mr. Marston, as the most natural depository of such a statement.”
“Well, Mr. Danvers, to cut the matter short, as it appears that a confession of some sort is to be made, be it so. I will attend and receive it. The judges will not be here for eight or ten weeks to come, so there is no great hurry about it. I shall ride down to the town, and see him in the jail some time within the next week.”
With this assurance, Marston parted from the old clergyman, and rode on alone through the furze and fern of his wild and sombre park.
After supper that evening, Marston found himself alone in the parlour with his wife. Mrs. Marston availed herself of the opportunity to redeem her pledge to Mademoiselle de Barras. She was not aware of the strange interview which had taken place between him and the lady for whom she pleaded. The result of her renewed entreaties perhaps the reader has anticipated. Marston listened, doubted — listened, hesitated again — put questions, pondered the answers — debated the matter inwardly, and at last gruffly consented to give the young lady another trial, and permit her to remain for some time longer. Poor Mrs. Marston, little suspecting the dreadful truth, overwhelmed her husband with gratitude for granting to her entreaties (as he had predetermined to do) this fatal boon. Not caring to protract this scene — either from a disinclination to listen to expressions of affection, which had long lost their charm for him, and had become even positively distasteful, or perhaps from some instinctive recoil from the warm expression of gratitude from lips which, were the truth revealed, might justly have trembled with execration and reproach, he abruptly left the room, and Mrs. Marston, full of her good news, hastened, in the kindness of her heart, to communicate the fancied result of her advocacy to Mademoiselle de Barras.
It was about a week after this, that Marston was one evening surprised in his study by the receipt of the following letter from Dr. Danvers: —
“My DEAR SIR, — You will be shocked to hear that Merton is most dangerously ill, and at this moment in imminent peril. He is thoroughly conscious of his situation, and himself regards it as a merciful interposition of Providence to spare him the disgrace and terror of the dreadful fate which he anticipated. The unhappy man has twice repeated his anxious desire, this day, to state some facts connected with the murder of the late Sir Wynston Berkley, which, he says, it is of the utmost moment that you should hear. He says that he could not leave the world in peace without having made this disclosure, which he especially desires to make to yourself, and entreats that you will come to receive his communication as early as you can in the morning. This is indeed needful, as the physician says that he is fast sinking. I offer no apology for adding my earnest solicitations to those of the dying man; and am, dear sir, your very obedient servant, —
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 841