Who was the discriminating judge who had marked these passages and underlined these letters? The book was newly published, it was in the Quarry House, and there were three occupants of the Quarry House. Was it Mr. Mardale? The mere question raised a laugh. Resilda? Never. Major Lashley then? If not Major Lashley, who else?
It flashed into his mind that here in this book he might hold the history of the Major’s long courtship of Resilda. But he dismissed the notion contemptuously. Gibson Jerkley had told him of that courtship, and of the girl’s reluctance to respond to it. Besides Resilda was never the woman in this story. Perhaps the first volume might augment it and give the clue to the woman’s identity. Sir Charles hunted desperately through the shelves. Nowhere was the first volume to be found. He wasted half-an-hour before he understood why. Of course the other volume would be in the woman’s keeping, and how in the world to discover her?
Things moved very quickly with Sir Charles that afternoon. He had shut up the volume and laid it on the table, the while he climbed up and down the library steps. From the top of the steps he glanced about the room in a despairing way, and his eyes lit upon the table. For the first time he remarked the binding which was of a brown leather. But all the books on the shelves were bound uniformly in marble boards with a red backing. He sprang down from the steps with the vigour of a boy, and seizing the book looked in the fly leaf for a name. There was a name, the name of a bookseller in Leamington, and as he closed the book again, some one rapped upon the door. Sir Charles opened it and saw Mr. Mardale. He gave the old gentleman no time to speak.
“Mr. Mardale,” said he, “I am a man of plethoric habits, and must needs take exercise. Can you lend me a horse?”
Mr. Mardale was disappointed as his manner showed. He had perhaps at that very moment hit upon a new and most revolutionary invention. But his manners hindered him from showing more than a trace of the disappointment, and Sir Charles rode out to the bookseller at Leamington, with the volume beneath his coat.
“Can you show me the companion to this?” said he, dumping it down upon the counter. The bookseller seized upon the volume and fondled it.
“It is not fair,” he cried. “In any other affair but books, it would be called at once sheer dishonesty. Here have been my subscribers clamouring for the Memoirs for six months and more.”
“You hire out your books!” cried Sir Charles.
“Give would be the properer word,” grumbled the man.
Sir Charles humbly apologised.
“It was the purest oversight,” said he, “and I will gladly pay double.
But I need the first volume.”
“The first volume, Sir,” replied the bookseller in a mollified voice, “is in the like case with the second. There has been an oversight.”
“But who has it?”
The bookseller was with difficulty persuaded to search his list. He kept his papers in the greatest disorder, so that it was no wonder people kept his volumes until they forgot them. But in the end he found his list.
“Mrs. Ripley,” he read out, “Mrs. Ripley of Burley Wood.”
“And where is Burley Wood?” asked Sir Charles.
“It is a village, Sir, six miles from Leamington,” replied the bookseller, and he gave some rough directions as to the road.
Sir Charles mounted his horse and cantered down the Parade. The sun was setting; he would for a something miss his supper; but he meant to see Burley Wood that day, and he would have just daylight enough for his purpose. As he entered the village, he caught up a labourer returning from the fields. Sir Charles drew rein beside him.
“Will you tell me, if you please, where Mrs. Ripley lives?”
The man looked up and grinned.
“In the churchyard,” said he.
“Do you mean she is dead?”
“No less.”
“When did she die?”
“Well, it may have been a month or two ago, or it may have been more.”
“Show me her grave and there’s a silver shilling in your pocket.”
The labourer led Fosbrook to a corner of the churchyard. Then upon
a head-stone he read that Mary Ripley aged twenty-nine had died on
December 7th. December the 7th thought Sir Charles, five days before
Major Lashley died. Then he turned quickly to the labourer.
“Can you tell me when Mrs. Ripley was buried?”
“I can find out for another shilling.”
“You shall have it, man.”
The labourer hurried off, discovered the sexton, and came back. But instead of the civil gentleman he had left, he found now a man with a face of horror, and eyes that had seen appalling things. Sir Charles had remained in the churchyard by the grave, he had looked about him from one to the other of the mounds of turf, his imagination already stimulated had been quickened by what he had seen; he stood with the face of a Medusa.
“She was buried when?” he asked.
“On December the 11th,” replied the labourer.
Sir Charles showed no surprise. He stood very still for a moment, then he gave the man his two shillings, and walked to the gate where his horse was tied. Then he inquired the nearest way to the Quarry House, and he was pointed out a bridle-path running across fields to a hill. As he mounted he asked another question.
“Mr. Ripley is alive?”
“Yes.”
“It must be Mr. Ripley,” Sir Charles assured himself, as he rode through the dusk of the evening. “It must be … It must be …” until the words in his mind became a meaningless echo of his horse’s hoofs. He rode up the hill, left the bridle-path for the road, and suddenly, and long before he had expected, he saw beneath him the red square of the Quarry House and the smoke from its chimneys. He was on that very road up which he and Gibson Jerkley had looked that morning. Down that road, he had said, would come the man who knew how Major Lashley had disappeared, and within twelve hours down that road the man was coming. “But it must be Mr. Ripley,” he said to himself.
None the less he took occasion at supper to speak of his ride.
“I rode by Leamington to Burley Wood. I went into the churchyard.”
Then he stopped, but as though the truth was meant to come to light,
Resilda helped him out.
“I had a dear friend buried there not so long ago,” she said. “Father, you remember Mrs. Ripley.”
“I saw her grave this afternoon,” said Fosbrook, with his eyes upon Mr. Mardale. It might have been a mere accident, it was in any case a trifling thing, the mere shaking of a hand, the spilling of a spoonful of salt upon the table, but trifling things have their suggestions. He remembered that Resilda, when she had waked up on the night of December the 11th to find herself alone, had sought out her father, who was still up, and at work in the big drawing-room. He remembered too that the window of that room gave on to a terrace of grass. A man might go out by that window — aye and return without a soul but himself being the wiser.
Of course it was all guess work and inference, and besides, it must be Mr. Ripley. Mr. Ripley might as easily have discovered the secret of the Memoirs as himself — or anyone else. Mr. Ripley would have justification for anger and indeed for more — yes for what men who are not affected are used to call a crime … Sir Charles abruptly stopped his reasoning, seeing that it was prompted by a defence of Mr. Mardale. He made his escape from his hosts as soon as he decently could and retired to his room. He sat down in his room and thought, and he thought to some purpose. He blew out his candle, and stole down the stairs into the hall. He had met no one. From the hall he went to the library-door and opened it — ever so gently. The room was quite dark. Sir Charles felt his way across it to his chair in the corner. He sat down in the darkness and waited. After a time inconceivably long, after every board in the house had cracked a million times, he heard distinctly a light shuffling step in the passage, and after that the latch of the door release itself from the socket. He heard nothing more,
for a little, he could only guess that the door was being silently opened by some one who carried no candle. Then the shuffling footsteps began to move gently across the room, towards him, towards the corner where he was sitting. Sir Charles had had no doubt but that they would, not a single doubt, but none the less as he sat there in the dark, he felt the hair rising on his scalp, and all his body thrill. Then a hand groped and touched him. A cry rang out, but it was Sir Charles who uttered it. A voice answered quietly:
“You had fallen asleep. I regret to have waked you.”
“I was not asleep, Mr. Mardale.”
There was a pause and Mr. Mardale continued.
“I cannot sleep to-night, I came for a book.”
“I know. For the book I took back to Leamington to-day, before I went to visit Mrs. Ripley’s grave.”
There was a yet longer pause before Mr. Mardale spoke again.
“Stay then!” he said in the same gentle voice. “I will fetch a light.” He shuffled out of the room, and to Sir Charles it seemed again an inconceivably long time before he returned. He came back with a single candle, which he placed upon the table, a little star of light, showing the faces of the two men shadowy and dim. He closed the door carefully, and coming back, said simply:
“You know.”
“Yes.”
“How did you find out?”
“I saw the grave. I noticed the remarkable height of the mound. I guessed.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Mardale, and in a low voice he explained. “I found the book here one day, that he left by accident. On December 11th Mrs. Ripley was buried, and that night he left the house — for the stables, yes, but he did not return from the stables. It seemed quite clear to me where he would be that night. People hereabouts take me for a man crazed and daft, I know that very well, but I know something of passion, Sir Charles. I have had my griefs to bear. Oh, I knew where he would be. I followed over the hill down to the churchyard of Burley Wood. I had no thought of what I should do. I carried a stick in my hand, I had no thought of using it. But I found him lying full-length upon the grave with his lips pressed to the earth of it, whispering to her who lay beneath him…. I called to him to stand up and he did. I bade him, if he dared, repeat the words he had used to my face, to me, the father of the girl he had married, and he did — triumphantly, recklessly. I struck at him with the knob of my stick, the knob was heavy, I struck with all my might, the blow fell upon his forehead. The spade was lying on the ground beside the grave. I buried him with her. Now what will you do?”
“Nothing,” said Sir Charles.
“But Mr. Jerkley asked you to help him.”
“I shall tell a lie.”
“My friend, there is no need,” said the old man with his gentle smile. “When I went out for this candle I …” Sir Charles broke in upon him in a whirl of horror.
“No. Don’t say it! You did not!”
“I did,” replied Mr. Mardale. “The poison is a kindly one. I shall be dead before morning. I shall sleep my way to death. I do not mind, for I fear that, after all, my inventions are of little worth. I have left a confession on my writing-desk. There is no reason — is there? — why he and she should be kept apart?”
It was not a question which Sir Charles could discuss. He said nothing, and was again left alone in the darkness, listening to the shuffling footsteps of Mr. Mardale as, for the last time, he mounted the stairs.
MR. MITCHELBOURNE’S LAST ESCAPADE.
IT WAS IN the kitchen of the inn at Framlingham that Mr. Mitchelbourne came across the man who was afraid, and during the Christmas week of the year 1681. Lewis Mitchelbourne was young in those days, and esteemed as a gentleman of refinement and sensibility, with a queer taste for escapades, pardonable by reason of his youth. It was his pride to bear his part in the graceful tactics of a minuet, while a saddled horse waited for him at the door. He delighted to vanish of a sudden from the lighted circle of his friends into the byways where none knew him, or held him of account, not that it was all vanity with Mitchelbourne though no doubt the knowledge that his associates in London Town were speculating upon his whereabouts tickled him pleasurably through many a solitary day. But he was possessed both of courage and resource, qualities for which he found too infrequent an exercise in his ordinary life; and so he felt it good to be free for awhile, not from the restraints but from the safeguards, with which his social circumstances surrounded him. He had his spice of philosophy too, and discovered that these sharp contrasts, — luxury and hardship, treading hard upon each other and the new strange people with whom he fell in, kept fresh his zest of life.
Thus it happened that at a time when families were gathering cheerily each about a single fireside, Mr. Mitchelbourne was riding alone through the muddy and desolate lanes of Suffolk. The winter was not seasonable; men were not tempted out of doors. There was neither briskness nor sunlight in the air, and there was no snow upon the ground. It was a December of dripping branches, and mists and steady pouring rains, with a raw sluggish cold, which crept into one’s marrow.
The man who was afraid, a large, corpulent man, of a loose and heavy build, with a flaccid face and bright little inexpressive eyes like a bird’s, sat on a bench within the glow of the fire.
“You travel far to-night?” he asked nervously, shuffling his feet.
“To-night!” exclaimed Mitchelbourne as he stood with his legs apart taking the comfortable warmth into his bones. “No further than from this fire to my bed,” and he listened with enjoyment to the rain which cracked upon the window like a shower of gravel flung by some mischievous urchin. He was not suffered to listen long, for the corpulent man began again.
“I am an observer, sir. I pride myself upon it, but I have so much humility as to wish to put my observations to the test of fact. Now, from your carriage, I should judge you to serve His Majesty.”
“A civilian may be straight. There is no law against it,” returned Mitchelbourne, and he perceived that the ambiguity of his reply threw his questioner into a great alarm. He was at once interested. Here, it seemed, was one of those encounters which were the spice of his journeyings.
“You will pardon me,” continued the stranger with a great assumption of heartiness, “but I am curious, sir, curious as Socrates, though I thank God I am no heathen. Here is Christmas, when a sensible gentleman, as upon my word I take you to be, sits to his table and drinks more than is good for him in honour of the season. Yet here are you upon the roads to Suffolk which have nothing to recommend them. I wonder at it, sir.”
“You may do that,” replied Mitchelbourne, “though to be sure, there are two of us in the like case.”
“Oh, as for me,” said his companion shrugging his shoulders, “I am on my way to be married. My name is Lance,” and he blurted it out with a suddenness as though to catch Mitchelbourne off his guard. Mitchelbourne bowed politely.
“And my name is Mitchelbourne, and I travel for my pleasure, though my pleasure is mere gipsying, and has nothing to do with marriage. I take comfort from thinking that I have no friend from one rim of this country to the other, and that my closest intimates have not an inkling of my whereabouts.”
Mr. Lance received the explanation with undisguised suspicion, and at supper, which the two men took together, he would be forever laying traps. Now he slipped some outlandish name or oath unexpectedly into his talk, and watched with a forward bend of his body to mark whether the word struck home; or again he mentioned some person with whom Mitchelbourne was quite unfamiliar. At length, however, he seemed satisfied, and drawing up his chair to the fire, he showed himself at once in his true character, a loud and gusty boaster.
“An exchange of sentiments, Mr. Mitchelbourne, with a chance acquaintance over a pipe and a glass — upon my word I think you are in the right of it, and there’s no pleasanter way of passing an evening. I could tell you stories, sir; I served the King in his wars, but I scorn a braggart, and all these glories are over. I am now a man of peace, and, as I told
you, on my way to be married. Am I wise? I do not know, but I sometimes think it preposterous that a man who has been here and there about the world, and could, if he were so meanly-minded, tell a tale or so of success in gallantry, should hamper himself with connubial fetters. But a man must settle, to be sure, and since the lady is young, and not wanting in looks or breeding or station, as I am told—”
“As you are told?” interrupted Mitchelbourne.
“Yes, for I have never seen her. No, not so much as her miniature. Nor have I seen her mother either, or any of the family, except the father, from whom I carry letters to introduce me. She lives in a house called ‘The Porch’ some miles from here. There is another house hard by to it, I understand, which has long stood empty and I have a mind to buy it. I bring a fortune, the lady a standing in the county.”
“And what has the lady to say to it?” asked Mitchelbourne.
“The lady!” replied Lance with a stare. “Nothing but what is dutiful, I’ll be bound. The father is under obligations to me.” He stopped suddenly, and Mitchelbourne, looking up, saw that his mouth had fallen. He sat with his eyes starting from his head and a face grey as lead, an image of panic pitiful to behold. Mitchelbourne spoke but got no answer. It seemed Lance could not answer — he was so arrested by a paralysis of terror. He sat staring straight in front of him, and it seemed at the mantelpiece which was just on a level with his eyes. The mantelpiece, however, had nothing to distinguish it from a score of others. Its counterpart might be found to this day in the parlour of any inn. A couple of china figures disfigured it, to be sure, but Mitchelbourne could not bring himself to believe that even their barbaric crudity had power to produce so visible a discomposure. He inclined to the notion that his companion was struck by a physical disease, perhaps some recrudescence of a malady contracted in those foreign lands of which he vaguely spoke.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 757