“Shall we start again, Monsieur?”
Nordstein nodded good-humoredly.
“Start? Of course! We should never have stopped. But Madame must always be obeyed! On — on, my Antoine! Drive like the devil!”
And with devilish speed the car flew — straight ahead like a missile from a giant cannon, with a boom and a whirr and a grind — its fierce eyes of fire probing their way through the darkness — and presently silence fell upon the scene. Silence — solitude, — and a dead man, — over which the dull dawn broke in tears of drizzling rain.
CHAPTER XV
WITHIN twenty-four hours after poor pretty Azalea Everton had been laid on her bed, all clothed in white, and asleep for ever, Shadbrook the obscure became famous. Shadbrook, hidden away from the knowledge of the wider world in a remote part of the Cotswolds, suddenly leaped into unenviable notoriety. The shadow of a crime had -fallen on the dull little village, causing it to blaze like an ugly red advertisement set against the quiet hill. The whole neighborhood swarmed with reporters and photographers, and in every newspaper pictures of the scene of the murder, accompanied by sensational details of the supposed, manner in which it had been committed, appealed to the morbid taste of the lower-class public. The unhappy Vicar was put to constant torture by intrusive press-men, who made their uninvited way into his garden and came up to his very-house door, seeking to interview the servants, without any-thought for his feelings or regard for his personal privacy. Shut in the quiet sanctuary of his study, with his little son for chief companion, he was bewildered and troubled beyond expression by the cruel and selfish attempts made by these hack journalists to trade on the terrible tragedy which had darkened his life. The very day following the crime, one of the half-penny dailies, notoriously known for its vulgar commercial spirit and bad taste, published portraits of himself, his murdered wife and Dan Kiernan, all set in a group together with a paragraph beside it headed ‘Drink or Revenge?’ The paper was sent to Everton through the post by some officious person who evidently believed in the process of rubbing salt into raw wounds, — and when he saw it his soul sickened with a sense of utter and helpless despair.
“My God!” he murmured— “Is this what our country’s once clean and honorable press is coming to!”
Then, when the news arrived — as it soon did — that the dead body of a man had been found on a lonely road leading out of Wiltshire towards London, and that it had been identified as the remains of Dan Kiernan, crushed and mangled in such a way as to leave no doubt that he had been run over by a motor-car, the excitement became intensified. Offers of reward were immediately published for the discovery of the destructive car concerned, whose owners had been so selfish as to run over a man, even though he were a drunken murderer, and leave him lying in the road, — for the police felt they had been defrauded of their intended! capture, and the law sympathized with the police as having been equally cheated of fees in a criminal trial. But no one had seen any car dashing at breakneck speed through Wiltshire or any other shire, — no one appeared to have the slightest belief that any car could or would so dash through respectable English counties after midnight wholly unobserved, — whereby it will be seen and understood that Israel Nordstein knew how to use his money. Shadbrook was shaken to its phlegmatic core by hearing of Dan Kiernan’s death coming so suddenly upon that of his victim. Up at Minchin’s Brewery it was the one subject of talk among the men.
“That’s a nice way to finish up!” said one of them — Murderin’ a poor lady in the arternoon an’ gettin’ mangled to bits one’s self the same night!”
His mates nodded a solemn affirmative.
“It was drink with Dan,” — said another— “Always the drink. He’d a’ bin all right from the beginnin’ when he fust come to Shadbrook if ‘e’d a’ kep’ sober. It was the drink as set ’im wild on that devil’s wench, Jacynth Miller.”
A young fellow, sitting cross-legged on one of Minchin’s empty beer-casks, looked at them meaningly.
“It’s the drink with most of us, boys,” — he said— “It makes fools and villains of us. Why don’t we give it up?” They stared at him sheepishly, and a slow smile went the round of their faces. He was a well-educated lad and had taken a certain ‘lead’ among them by having a few of them every evening at his own lodging, talking to them and entertaining them in such a manner as to successfully keep them away from the public-house.
“Why don’t we give it up?” he repeated— “Above all, why don’t we give Minchin a lesson?”
They exchanged dubious glances.
“There’s a timber yard opening up some fifteen miles from here,” — went on the young man, doggedly— “I saw the boss yesterday. He wants men. They that can pack casks can pack timber, and the fellow that can drive a brewer’s dray can drive a wagonload of wood as easily. So I’m off. I’m going to give Minchin notice. I wish some of you would do the same!”
They listened in profound astonishment, offering no comment.
“Look here, boys,” — and the speaker grew flushed and eager— “I’m not a canting teetotaler — like Minchin. I’m not a religious humbug — like Minchin. I like to be on the square. This murder of the parson’s poor wife at Shadbrook has made me sick of Minchin, his brewery, his beer and everything connected with him! He’s as much to blame as Dan Kiernan — indeed I’m not sure he isn’t the worst criminal of the two!”
“Steady, lad, steady!” expostulated a big, burly drayman— “You’re a-goin’ it a bit too strong! It’s a bad business — an awsome bad business — but you ‘adn’t ought to blame the wrong man.”
“I blame the right man!” retorted the young fellow, hotly. “I tell you I’ve heard Kiernan threaten Mrs. Everton — ay, and Parson Everton too, — over and over again, and Minchin has heard him, and laughed. The Roman Catholic priest here warned Minchin that Kiernan was always drunk and always dangerous — and Minchin laughed again. It’s Minchin’s stuff that made Kiernan the brute he was. For it isn’t sound beer — it’s rank poison! Boys, you know it is!”
“There’s a tidy lot o’ chemicals in it, sartin sure!” — said one of the listeners— “An’ there’s very little o’ malt an’ ‘ops. We ‘ad an inspector or some such chap up ’ere four or five years ago what took samples to prove the purity o’ Minchin’s ale, an’ I’m blest if there worn’t a special lot brewed for ’im ready to sample! That’s the way things is done — sharp an’ on the sly — an’ nobody ain’t none the wiser!”
There was a silence. Then a man looked questioningly at the young fellow who had started the conversation.
“You’re really goin’ to try the timber yard, are ye?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, maybe some of us’ll go with ye. We’ll think about it.”
They dispersed then, but at six o’clock that evening twenty-five brewery hands had given notice, and Mr. Minchin’s astonishment was only equaled by his rage.
“What new game is this?” he demanded of his manager who brought him the unwelcome news; “What the devil do these fellows mean by it?”
“I really couldn’t say,” — the manager replied, uncomfortably, “I can only put it down to the general feeling of sympathy for the clergyman at Shadbrook. You see he’s always been set against the drink — and now that his wife has been murdered by one of our hands — well! — I think it’s quite likely to make the brewery unpopular.”
Minchin stretched his wide mouth in an unpleasant grin.
“Nothing will make drink unpopular,” he said— “You may bet your life on that!”
In this the manager did not presume to contradict him, and taking orders for a supply of fresh hands to replace those who had given notice — orders which, though he did not say so, he knew would be very difficult to fulfill — he withdrew.
At Shadbrook Vicarage itself the death of Dan Kiernan came as an unexpected relief. The Vicar had contemplated with indescribable horror the ordeal that would be inflicted upon him if the murde
rer of his wife were brought to trial. — the vulgar publicity that would be thrown on his erstwhile sacred domestic life, — the examination of various witnesses who might be brought forward to relate the story of Jennie Kiernan’s death and the innocent part Azalea had taken in that episode, — then would come the scandal concerning Jacynth Miller — and who knew — who could tell where Jacynth might be now, or what position she occupied? The chain of circumstance seemed interminable, — and yet from what a small link it had sprung!
Sunk in an apathy of misery, Everton was thankful at heart that this fresh agony was spared him — the agony of being perhaps compelled to testify to the truth of the manner in which Jacynth had brought disgrace into his parish, while he, like a blind fool believing only in good, had never been aware of it, and so through his stupidity had been the remote cause of the vengeance wreaked by the drunken Dan Kiernan on his innocent wife. How he blamed himself now! — how bitterly he blamed himself! He poured out all his soul to Sebastien Douay, who, listening to the full details of the story for the first time, was profoundly moved.
“You did it all for the best, my poor friend!” he said sorrowfully— “You tried to save a drunkard from fatally injuring his wife, — and if, for this act of kindness you are so cruelly afflicted, then surely the good God is not merciful! And for the dear little angel who is gone, she did also for the best, — though it would have been better that she had never spoken to this Mrs. Kiernan—”
“I sent her,” — and Richard clasped and unclasped his hands in a nervous access of desperation— “I used to think — God forgive me! — that she did not show sufficient interest in the poor for a Vicar’s wife — and I begged her to go and visit Jennie Kiernan while the woman was lying ill with the injuries her husband had inflicted upon her. And she went — reluctantly, poor darling! — but she obeyed me — so you see it was all my fault — all my foolish, blundering fault!”
Douay earnestly endeavored to console him.
“There was no fault,” — he said— “And I see not why you should accuse yourself. It was one of those trifles from which sometimes springs a tragedy, and only God knows why! Richard,” — and he paused in a perplexed sadness, then resumed— “You will not see it yet, — and you will think me brutal perhaps for even suggesting it, — but there is some reason for all this trouble that has fallen upon you, — some Divine intention behind it—”
Everton sighed in utter weariness.
“Ah, spare me that!” he entreated— “It is cruel! I am borne down to the dust by a cross too heavy for me to bear—”
“But you will not be crushed under it,” — and Douay’s eyes glowed with enthusiasm— “no, you will not be crushed! You are too strong. You will be like St. Christopher — you will carry the Christ of many sorrows through the stormy stream, and find yourself blessed by His love when the journey is at an end!”
The desolate man made no reply. He covered his eyes with his hand, and Douay saw the slow tears trickling through his fingers.
The chief comfort and help of all in the house during this time of sorrow was the child Laurence. He knew now that his mother was dead, — and he accepted the fact with a strange quietude, unbroken by tears. A look was on his face as of one who saw more than mortals could show him, and his nurse, puzzled by his tranquil demeanor, asked him once very gently whether he understood that his mother was gone away for ever. He smiled a little at this, — a wondering angel smile.
“No,” — he said— “I don’t understand that at all. She is only just a little way off, — in Heaven. She will always come to me when I call her.”
Nurse Tomkins stroked his bright hair.
“Are you sure, dear?” she asked hesitatingly.
“Yes. Aren’t you?”
She was at a loss how to reply. She had been a regular church-goer all her life, and she believed the New Testament or said she believed it, — how then was it that she had not the same trusting faith as a little child? How is it, we may surely ask, that many professing Christians do not believe in what Christ teaches, and treat as crazed persons those who do? It is one thing to be a church-goer, — it is quite another to be a real Christian, — that is to say, a follower of and believer in the Divine Master to the very letter of all He taught and prophesied, for of such as this last there are too few to form even a small society.
“You see Heaven’s quite close,” — proceeded Laurence, with grave earnestness— “And the angels don’t have to travel ever so far as we do. They just wish to be with us, or we wish them to come, and they are here in a minute. I told Dad so. Dad cried, but I told him I had seen Mummy since she went away, and when I said just how she looked, he kissed me and believed me. And he doesn’t cry so much now.”
His nurse listened in silent awe. The little lad looked like a heavenly creature himself with his fair face and big loving eyes, and she was glad that he had not been allowed to enter the death-chamber where his mother lay in her coffin under a pall of pure white flowers.
“Let him remember her as she lived,” — Everton had said— “She was his companion and playmate, as well as his mother, — let him think of her as always bright and beautiful. It is better so.”
And so it was. Laurence himself showed no desire or curiosity to penetrate into rooms where the doors were closed, nor did he appear to be in any way concerned with the dismal hush that prevailed in the house, the whispering voices, or the muffled footsteps. He was always with his father, — sometimes sitting quietly on his knee and nestling against him, — sometimes in a corner of the study window with a picture book, — but never showing any marked consciousness of the fact that his mother was no longer with him. His small personality and influence were so exquisite and remarkable that Richard almost felt himself guided and controlled by this little life for which he was responsible, — and in the child’s presence his grief was calmed, his nerves soothed, and his whole fainting spirit aroused and braced to a courage beyond his own imagined ability. For he saw that Laurence did not consider his mother as dead, but living, — living, and only a little way removed from him. And was not this the true spirit of the Christian creed? Had he, therefore, an ordained minister of the Gospel of Consolation, less faith than the instinctive confidence shown by his little son? Weary of himself and ashamed, he struggled and fought with his own bitter sorrow, which, like another Giant Despair, fell upon him full-armed with cap of steel and breast-plate of fire, — and out of each fierce contest he came forth a stronger, wiser, and purer man.
Yet when, at the close of that fatal week, the day arrived for the final laying to rest of all that was mortal of his winsome wife in Shadbrook churchyard, his strength well-nigh gave way again. The rector of a parish some thirty miles distant, a friend and old college chum of Everton’s, came to perform the sad ceremony; and at first it was doubtful whether Everton himself would be able to bear the strain of attending the funeral in his desolate capacity of chief mourner. Ghastly pale and trembling, he sat in his darkened study till the last possible moment, listening to every sound, — to the measured tramp of the feet that ascended to the room where Azalea’s body lay in its closed coffin, covered with wreaths and garlands of early spring blossoms, and then came softly treading down again under the weight of their precious burden, — it was terrible — terrible! — he said to himself over and over again; — the black paraphernalia of death ought not to be associated with so fair and bright a creature as Azalea, — Azalea, who had lain in his arms warm and sweet as a June rose, with her golden hair flowing about her, — Azalea, whose little feet had tripped through the house and garden so lightly that she seemed to float rather than walk on the ground; — how was it that she — she should now be covered in from the light and buried down in the cold moist earth? And he almost shrieked as the door of his room opened, and his old college friend entered, arrayed in white surplice and ready for the mournful rites he was called upon to perform.
“My dear Everton,” he said gently, “You look very ill.
Do you think you can come with us?”
Everton rose totteringly.
“I must!” he answered— “I must go with her to the end!”
His friend looked at him with deep compassion. As Edward Darell, formerly one of the most brilliant of Cambridge young men, he had made Everton, who was about his own age, a kind of ideal, — for though Everton was not such a showy scholar, he was far more profound — and it smote him to the heart to see him so utterly broken down. After a minute he spoke again.
“It will be à great trial for you,” — he said— “There is an enormous crowd.”
Everton heard, but scarcely comprehended.
“The Roman Catholic priest who is here,” went on Darell, “tells me he fears it may be too much for your strength. He seems very intimate with you.”
There was a tinge of reproach in his accents. Everton sighed heavily.
“Yes,” — he answered— “To a man left in a desert the first passer-by becomes an intimate.”
Darell was silent for a few seconds. Then he went on.
“You know my opinion on matters of faith,” he said slowly, “I am a little afraid for you—”
Everton turned upon him a face so wan and wild that Darell recoiled.
“You do well to be afraid for me!” he said— “I am afraid for myself! Not afraid of changing my faith, — but afraid of losing faith altogether!” He paused — then added more quietly, “Shall I come with you now?”
“If you feel able to do so,” — answered Darell— “Everything is ready.”
In another moment Everton stood bareheaded in the open air, blindly conscious of a great crowd of people, men and women, youths and girls, the men all bareheaded like himself, and all swarming round one simple little white burden of flowers which was the fragrant silent center of the throng. The sunshine was warm and brilliant, — the scent of lilac swept towards him on every breath of air, — and all visible things of nature expressed the delicate beauty of the spring. Hazily he wondered why this mass of people had gathered round his house, — why such a murmur of sorrow and pity surged through them as he appeared, — and it was as a man walking in a dream that he yielded to some one’s kindly guidance and found himself walking immediately behind that small white burden of flowers, carried by four bearers on a hand-bier so gently and slowly along. But he did not realize that a coffin lay underneath the flowers, or that his wife’s body was in the coffin. Out in the sunlight and passing through his own garden Azalea seemed still living and quite near, — she was on the lawn — she was among the roses — he would see her directly — so his thoughts rambled on disconnectedly; he was just aware that the patron of his living, Squire Hazlitt, was present — that he spoke to him and pressed his hand, and that there were tears in the bluff gentleman’s eyes, — then something leaped in his soul like a tongue of fire, and his eyes lightened with a passion sudden and terrible.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 729