The Light of Scarthey: A Romance

by Egerton Castle

  CHAPTER XXX

  HUSBAND AND WIFE

  Tout comprendre-- c'est tout pardonner.

  Staring straight before her with haggard, unseeing eyes, her handsclasped till the delicate bones protruded, her young face lined intosudden agedness, grey with unnatural pallor, framed by the blackmasses of her dishevelled hair, it was thus Sir Adrian found his wife,when at length he was free to seek her.

  He and Rene had laid the dead man upon the bed that had been occupiedby his murderer, and composed as decently as might be the hideouscorpse of him who had been the handsomest of his race. Rene had givenhis master the tale of all he knew himself, and Sir Adrian had orderedthe boat to be prepared, determined to convey Lady Landale at oncefrom the scene of so much horror. His own return to Pulwick, moreover,to break the news to Sophia, to attend to the removal of the body andthe preparation for the funeral was of immediate necessity.

  As he approached his wife she raised her eyes.

  "What do you want with me?" she asked, with a stony look that arrestedhim, as he would gently have taken her hand.

  "I would bring you home."

  "Home!" the pale lips writhed in withering derision.

  "Yes, home, Molly," he spoke as one might to a much-loved andunreasonable sick child--with infinite tenderness and compassion--"yourown warm home, with your sister. You would like to go to Madeleine,would not you?"

  She unclasped her hands and threw them out before her with a savagegesture of repulsion.

  "To Madeleine?" she echoed, with an angry cry; and then wheelinground upon him fiercely: "Do you want to kill me?" she said, betweenher set teeth.

  Sir Adrian's weary brow contracted. He paused and looked at her withprofoundest sorrow.

  Then she asked, hoarsely:

  "Where have they taken him to?"

  "To Lancaster, I believe."

  "Will they hang him?"

  "I pray God not."

  "There is no use of praying to God, God is merciless. What will theydo to him?"

  "He will be tried, Molly, in due course, and then, according to thesentence of the judges.... My poor child, control yourself, he shallbe defended by the best lawyers that money can get. All a man can dofor another I shall do for him."

  She shot the sombre fire of her glance at him.

  "You know that I love him," she said, with a terrible composure.

  A sudden whiteness spread round Sir Adrian's lips.

  "Poor child!" he said again beneath his breath.

  "Yes, I love him. I always wanted to see him. I was sick and tired oflife at Pulwick, and that was why I went on board his ship. I wentdeliberately because I could not bear the dulness of it all. Hemistook me for Madeleine in the dark--he kissed me. Afterwards I toldhim that I loved him. I begged him to take me away with him, for ever.I love him still, I would go with him still--it is as well that youshould know. Nothing can alter it now. But he did not want me. Heloves Madeleine."

  The words fell from her lips with a steady, cruel, deliberateness. Shekept her eyes upon him as she spoke, unpityingly, uncaring whatanguish she inflicted; nay, it seemed from some strange perversity,glad to make him suffer.

  But hard upon a man as it must be to hear such a confession from hiswife's lips, doubly hard to such a one as Adrian, whose heart bled forher pain as well as for his own, he held himself without departing fora second from his wonted quiet dignity. Only in his earnest gaze uponher there was perhaps, if possible, an added tenderness.

  But she, to see him so unmoved, was moved herself to a sudden scorn.

  What manner of man was this, that not love, nor jealousy, nor angerhad power to stir?

  "And now what will you do with me?" she asked him again, with superbcontempt on eye and lip. "For a guilty wife I am to you, as far as thewill could make me, and I have no claim upon you any more."

  "No claim upon me!" he repeated, with a wonder of grief in his voice."Ah, Molly, hush child! You are my wife. The child of the woman Iloved--the woman I love for her own sake. You can no more put yourselfout of my life now than you can out of my heart; had you been asguilty in deed as you may have been in purpose my words would be thesame. Your husband's home is your home, my only wish to cherish andshelter you. You cannot escape my care, poor child, and some day youmay be glad of it. My protection, my countenance you will always have.God! who am I that I should judge you? Is there any sin of humanfrailty that a human being dare condemn? Guilty? What is your guiltcompared to mine for bringing you to this, allying my melancholy agewith your bright youth?"

  He fell into the chair opposite to her and covered his face with hishands. As, for a minute's space, his self-control wavered, she watchedhim, wearily. Her heat of temper had fallen from her very quickly; shebroke into a moan.

  "Oh, what does it matter? What does anything matter now? I love himand I have ruined him--had it not been for me he would be safe!"

  After a little silence Sir Adrian rose. "I must leave you now, I mustgo to Pulwick," he said. His heart was yearning to her, he would havegathered her to his arms as a father his erring child, but herefrained from even touching her. "And you--what would you do? Itshall be as you like."

  "I would go to Lancaster," she said.

  "The carriage shall be sent for you in the morning and Renny and hiswife shall go with you. I will see to it. After Rupert's funeral--myGod, what a night this has been!--I will join you, and together weshall work to save his life."

  He paused, hesitated, and was about to turn away when suddenly shecaught his hand and kissed it.

  He knew she would as readily have kissed Rene's hand for a likepromise; that her gratitude was a pitiable thing for him, her husband,to bear; and yet, all the way, on his sad and solitary journey toPulwick, the touch of her lips went with him, bringing a strangesweetness to his heart.

  * * * * *

  There was a vast deal of wonder in the county generally, and among theold friends of his father's house in particular, when it became knownthat Sir Adrian Landale had engaged a noted counsel to defend hisbrother's murderer and was doing all he could to avert his probabledoom. In lowered tones were whispered strange tales of Lady Landale'sescapade. People wagged wise and virtuous heads and breathedscandalous hints of her power upon her infatuated husband; and thenthey would tap their foreheads significantly. Indeed it needed all themaster of Pulwick's wide-spread reputation for mental unsoundness toenable him to carry through such proceedings without rousing moreviolent feelings. As it was, it is to be doubted whether hisinterference had any other effect than that of helping to inflame thepublic mind against the prisoner.

  The jury's verdict was a foregone conclusion; and though the learnedlawyer duly prepared a very fine speech and pocketed some monstrousfees with a great deal of complaisance, he was honest enough not tohold out the smallest hope of being able to save his client.

  The conviction was too clear, the "crimes" the prisoner had committedwere of "too horrible and bloody a character, threatening the veryfoundations of society," to admit of a merciful view of the case.

  As the trial drew near, Sir Adrian's despondency increased; each dayseemed to bring a heavier furrow to his brow, an added weight to hislagging steps. He avoided as much as possible all meetings with hiswife, who, on the contrary, recovered stronger courage with the flightof time, but whose feverish interest in his exertions was nowtransferred to some secret plans that she was for ever discussing withRene. The prisoner himself showed great calmness.

  "They will sentence me of course," he said quietly to Adrian, "butwhether they will hang me is another question. I don't think that myhour has come yet or that the cord is twisted which will hang JackSmith."

  In other moods, he would ridicule Sir Adrian's labours in his causewith the most gentle note of affectionate mockery. But, from thedesire doubtless to save one so disinterested and unworldly from anyaccusation of complicity, he was silent upon the schemes on which hepinned his hopes of escape.

  The first me
eting of the friends after the scene at Scarthey had been,of course, painful to both.

  When he entered the cell, Adrian had stretched out his hand insilence, but Captain Jack held his own pressed to his side.

  "It is like you to come," he said gloomily, "but you cannot shake thehand that stifled your brother's life out of him. And I should do itagain, Adrian! Mark you, I am not repentant!"

  "Give me your hand, Jack," said Adrian steadfastly. "I am not of thosewho shift responsibility from the dead to the living. You weregrievously treated. Oh, give me your hand, friend, can I think ofanything now but your peril and your truth to me?"

  For an instant still the younger man hesitated and inquiringly raisedhis eyes laden with anxious trouble, to the elder man's face.

  "My wife has told me all," said Sir Adrian, turning his head to hidehis twitching lip.

  And then Jack Smith's hand leaped out to meet his friend's upon animpulse of warm sympathy, and the two faced each other, looking thewords they could not utter.

  * * * * *

  The year eighteen hundred and fifteen which delivered England at lastfrom the strain of outlandish conflict saw a revival of officialactivity concerning matters of more homely interest. The powers thatwere awoke to the necessity, among other things, of putting a stop bythe most stringent means to the constant and extensive leakage in thenational revenue proceeding from the organisation of free traders orsmugglers.

  After twenty years of almost complete supineness on the part of theauthorities, the first efforts made towards a systematic "Preventive"coast service, composed of customs, excise and naval officials inproportion varied according to the localities, remained singularlyfutile. And to the notorious inability of these latter to cope withthe experience and the devilish daring of the old established freetraders, was due no doubt to the ferocity of the inquisitional lawspresently levelled against smuggling and smugglers--laws whichruthlessly trenched upon almost every element of the British subjects'vaunted personal freedom, and which added, for the time, several new"hanging cases" to the sixty odd already in existence.

  That part of the indictment against Captain Jack Smith and the othercriminals still at large, which dealt with their offences against thesmuggling act, would in later times have broken down infallibly fromwant of proper evidence: not a tittle of information was forthcomingwhich could support examination. But a judge of assizes and a jury in1815, were not to be baulked of the necessary victim by merecircumstantiality when certain offences against society and againstHis Majesty had to be avenged; and the dispensers of justice were lessconcerned with strict evidence than with the desirability of makingexamples. Strong presumption was all that was required to them to hangtheir man; and indeed the hanging of Captain Jack upon the other andmore serious counts than that of unlawful occupation, was, as has beensaid, a foregone conclusion. The triple charge of murder being but toofully corroborated.

  Every specious argument that could be mooted was of course put forwardby counsel for the defence, to show that the death of the preventivemen and of Mr. Landale on Scarthey Island and the sinking of therevenue cutter must be looked upon, on the one hand, as simplemanslaughter in self-defence, and as the result of accidentalcollision, on the other. But, as every one anticipated, the charge ofthe judge and the finding of the jury demanded strenuously the extremepenalty of the law. Besides this the judge deemed it advisable tointroduce into the sentence one of those already obsolete penalties ofposthumous degradation, devised in coarser ages for the purpose ofmaking an awful impression upon the living.

  "Prisoner at the bar," said his lordship at the conclusion of the lastday's proceedings, "the sentence of the law which I am about to passupon you and which the court awards is that you now be taken to theplace whence you came, and from thence, on the day appointed, to theplace of execution, there to be hanged by the neck until you be dead,dead, dead. And may God have mercy on your soul!"

  Captain Jack, standing bolt upright, with his eyes fixed upon thespeaker, calm as he ever had been when awaiting the enemy's broadside,hearkened without stirring a muscle. But when the judge, afterpronouncing the last words with a lingering fulness andimpressiveness, continued through the heavy silence: "And that, at asubsequent time, your body, bound in irons, shall be suspended upon agibbet erected as near as possible to the scenes of your successivecrimes, and shall there remain as a lasting warning to wrong-doers ofthe inevitable ultimate end of such an evil life as yours," a wave ofcrimson flew to the prisoner's forehead, upon which every vein swelledominously.

  He shot a glance of fury at the large flabby countenance of therighteous arbiter of his doom, whilst his hands closed themselves withan involuntary gesture of menace. Then the tide of anger ebbed; acontemptuous smile parted his lips. And, bowing with an air of lightmockery to the court, he turned, erect and easy, to follow his turnkeyout of the hall.