The lawyer thought that he had never seen the house wear so dreary an aspect as it wore under the gray weeping sky. But his lordship was more practical. “These windows look the most likely,” he said after a short survey: and he dragged his unwilling attendant to the point he had marked.
A nearer view strengthened his suspicions. On the sill of one of the windows were scratches and stains. “You see?” he said. “It should not have been left to me to discover this! Probably John Audley comes from the Gatehouse by the Yew Walk.” He turned to measure the distance with his eye, the distance which divided the spot from the Iron Gate. “That’s it,” he said, “he comes — —”
Then, “Good G — d!” he muttered. “Look! Look!” Stubbs looked. They both looked. Beyond the lawn, on the farther side of the iron grille and clinging to it with both hands, a man stood bareheaded under the rain. Whether he had come uncovered, or his hat had been jerked from him by some movement caused by their appearance, they could not tell; nor how long he had stood thus, gazing at them through the bars. But they could see that his eyes never wavered, that his hands gripped the iron, and the two knew by instinct that in the intensity of his hate, the man was insensible alike to the rain that drenched him, and to the wind that blew out the skirts of his thin black coat.
Even Stubbs held his breath. Even he felt that there was something uncanny and ominous in the appearance. For the gazer was John Audley.
CHAPTER XVII
TO THE RESCUE
Stubbs was the first to collect himself, but a minute elapsed before he spoke. Then, “He must be mad,” he cried, “mad, to expose himself to the weather at his age. If I had not seen it, I couldn’t believe it!”
“I suppose it is John Audley?”
“Yes.” Then raising his voice, “My lord! I don’t think I would go to him now!”
But Audley was already striding across the lawn towards the gate. The lawyer hesitated, gave way, and followed him.
They were within twenty paces of the silent watcher when he moved — up to that time he might have been a lay figure. He shook one hand in the air, as if he would beat them off, then he turned and walked stiffly away. Half a dozen steps took him out of sight. The Yew Walk swallowed him.
But, quickly as he vanished, the lawyer had had time to see that he staggered. “I fear, my lord, he is ill,” he said. “He will never reach the Gatehouse in that state. I had better follow him.”
“Why the devil did he come here?” Audley retorted savagely. The watcher’s strange aspect, his face, white against the dark yews, his stillness, his gesture, a something ominous in all, had shaken him. “If he had stopped at home — —”
“Still — —”
“D — n him, it’s his affair!”
“Still we cannot leave him if he has fallen, my lord,” Stubbs replied with decision. And without waiting for his employer’s assent he tried the gate. It was locked, but in a trice he found the key on his bunch, turned it, and pushed back the gate. Audley noticed that it moved silently on its hinges.
Stubbs, the gate open, began to feel ashamed of his impulse. Probably there was nothing amiss after all. But he had hardly looked along the path before he uttered a cry, and hurrying forward, stooped over a bundle of clothes that lay in the middle of the walk. It was John Audley. Apparently he had tripped over a root and lain where he had fallen.
Stubbs’s cry summoned the other, who followed him through the gate, to find him on his knees supporting the old man’s head. The sight recalled Audley to his better self. The mottled face, the staring eyes, the helpless limbs shocked him. “Good G — d!” he cried, “you were right, Stubbs! He might have died if we had left him.”
“He would have died,” Stubbs answered. “As it is — I am not sure.” He opened the waistcoat, felt for the beating of the heart, bent his ear to it. “No, I don’t think he’s gone,” he said, “but the heart is feeble, very feeble. We must have brandy! My lord, you are the more active. Will you go to the Gatehouse — there is no nearer place — and get some? And something to carry him home! A hurdle if there is nothing better, and a couple of men?”
“Right!” Audley cried.
“And don’t lose a minute, my lord! He’s nearly gone.”
Audley stripped off his overcoat. “Wrap this about him!” he said. And before the other could answer he had started for the Gatehouse, at a pace which he believed that he could keep up.
Pad, pad, my lord ran under the yew trees, swish, swish across the soaking grass, about the great Butterfly. Pad, pad, again through the gloom under the yews! Not too fast, he told himself — he was a big man and he must save himself. Now he saw before him the opening into the park, and the light falling on the pale turf. And then, at a point not more than twenty yards short of the open ground, he tripped over a root, tried to recover himself, struck another root, and fell.
The fall shook him, but he was young, and he was quickly on his feet. He paused an instant to brush the dirt from his hands and knees; and it was during that instant that his inbred fear of John Audley, and the certainty that if John Audley died he need fear no more, rose before him.
Yes, if he died — this man who was even now plotting against him — there was an end of that fear! There was an end of uneasiness, of anxiety, of the alarm that assailed him in the small hours, of the forebodings that showed him stripped of title and income and consequence. Stripped of all!
Five seconds passed, and he still stood, engaged with his hands. Five more; it was his knees he was brushing now — and very carefully. Another five — the sweat broke out on his brow though the day was cold. Twenty seconds, twenty-five! His face showed white in the gloom. And still he stood. He glanced behind him. No one could see him.
But the movement discovered the man to himself, and with an oath he broke away. He thrust the damning thought from him, he sprang forward. He ran. In ten strides he was in the open park, and trotting steadily, his elbows to his sides, across the sward. The blessed light was about him, the wind swept past his ears, the cleansing rain whipped his face. Thank God, he had left behind him the heavy air and noisome scent of the yews. He hated them. He would cut them all down some day.
For in a strange way he associated them with the temptation which had assailed him. And he was thankful, most thankful, that he had put that temptation from him — had put it from him, when most men, he thought, would have succumbed to it. Thank God, he had not! The farther he went, indeed, the better he felt. By the time he saw the Gatehouse before him, he was sure that few men, exposed to that temptation, would have overcome it. For if John Audley died what a relief it would be! And he had looked very ill; he had looked like a man at the point of death. The brandy could not reach him under — well, under half an hour. Half an hour was a long time, when a man looked like that. “I’ll do my best,” he thought. “Then if he dies, well and good. I’ve always been afraid of him.”
He did not spare himself, but he was not in training, and he was well winded when he reached the Gatehouse. A last effort carried him between the Butterflies, and he halted on the flags of the courtyard. A woman, whose skirts were visible, but whose head and shoulders were hidden by an umbrella, was standing in the doorway on his left, speaking to some one in the house. She heard his footsteps and turned.
“Lord Audley!” she exclaimed — for it was Mary Audley. Then with a woman’s quickness, “You have come from my uncle?” she cried. “Is he ill?”
Audley nodded. “I am come for some brandy,” he gasped.
She did not waste a moment. She sped into the house, and to the dining-room. “I had missed him,” she cried over her shoulder. “The man-servant is away. I hoped he might be with him.”
In a trice she had opened a cellarette and taken from it a decanter of brandy. Then she saw that he could not carry this at any speed, and she turned to the sideboard and took a wicker flask from a drawer. With a steady hand and without the loss of a minute — he found her presence of mind admirable — she filled this
.
As she corked it, Mrs. Toft appeared, wiping her hands on her apron. “Dear, dear, miss,” she said, “is the master bad? But it’s no wonder when he, that doesn’t quit the fire for a week together, goes out like this? And Toft away and all!” She stared at his lordship. Probably she knew him by sight.
“Will you get his bed warmed, Mrs. Toft,” Mary answered. She gave Lord Audley the flask. “Please don’t lose a moment,” she urged. “I am following — oh yes, I am. But you will go faster.”
She had not a thought, he saw, for the disorder of her dress, or for her hair dishevelled by the wind, and scarce a thought for him. He decided that he had never seen her to such advantage, but it was no time for compliments, nor was she in the mood for them. Without more he nodded and set off on his return journey — he had not been in the house three minutes. By and by he looked back, and saw that Mary was following on his heels. She had snatched up a sun-bonnet, discarded the umbrella, and, heedless of the rain, was coming after him as swiftly and lightly as Atalanta of the golden apple. “Gad, she’s not one of the fainting sort!” he reflected; and also that if he had given way to that d — d temptation he could not have looked her in the face. “As it is,” his mind ran, “what are the odds the old boy’s not dead when we get there? If he is — I am safe! If he is not, I might do worse than think of her. It would checkmate him finely. More” — he looked again over his shoulder— “she’s a fine mover, by Gad, and her figure’s perfect! Even that rag on her head don’t spoil her!” Whereupon he thought of a certain Lady Adela with whom he was very friendly, who had political connections and would some day have a plum. The comparison was not, in the matter of fineness and figure, to Lady Adela’s advantage. Her lines were rather on the Flemish side.
Meanwhile Mary was feeling anything but an Atalanta. Wind and rain and wet grass, loosened hair and swaying skirts do not make for romance. But in her anxiety she gave small thought to these. Her one instinct was to help. With all his oddity her uncle had been kind to her, and she longed to show him that she was grateful. And he was her one relative. She had no one else in the world. He had given her what of home he had, and ease, and a security which she had never known before. Were she to lose him now — the mere fancy spurred her to fresh exertions, and in spite of a pain in her side, in spite of clinging skirts, and shoes that threatened to leave her feet, she pushed on. She was not far behind Audley when he reached the Yew Walk.
She saw him plunge into it, she followed, and was on the scene not many seconds later. When she caught sight of the little group kneeling about the prostrate man, that sense of tragedy, and of the inevitable, which assails at such a time, shook her. The thing always possible, never expected, had happened at last.
Then the coolness which women find in these emergencies returned. She knelt between the men, took the insensible head on her arm, held out her other hand for the cup. “Has he swallowed any?” she asked, taking command of the situation.
“No,” Toft answered — and she became aware that the man with Lord Audley was the servant.
She waited for no more, she tilted the cup, and by some knack she succeeded where Toft had failed. A little of the spirit was swallowed. She improvised a pillow and laid the head down on it. “The lower the better,” she murmured. She felt the hands and began to rub one. “Rub the other,” she said to Toft. “The first thing to do is to get him home! Have you a carriage? How near can you bring it, Lord Audley?”
“We can bring it to the park at the end of the walk,” he answered. “My agent has gone to fetch it.”
“Will you hasten it?” she replied. “Toft will stay with me. And bring something, please, on which you can carry him to it.”
“At once,” Audley answered, and he went off in the direction of the Great House.
“I’ve seen him as bad before, Miss,” Toft said. “I found that he had gone out without his hat and I followed him, but I could not trace him at once. I don’t think you need feel alarmed.”
Certainly the face had lost its mottled look, the eyes were now shut, the limbs lay more naturally. “If he were only at home!” Mary answered. “But every moment he is exposed to the cold is against him. He must be wet through.”
She induced the patient to swallow another mouthful of brandy, and with their eyes on his face the two watched for the first gleam of consciousness. It came suddenly. John Audley’s eyes opened. He stared at them.
His mind, however, still wandered. “I knew it!” he muttered. “They could not be there and I not know it! But the wall! The wall is thick — thick and — —” He was silent again.
The rambling mind is to those who are not wont to deal with it a most uncanny thing, and Mary looked at Toft to see what he made of it. But the servant had eyes only for his master. He was gazing at him with an absorbed face.
“Ay, a thick wall!” the sick man murmured. “They may look and look, they’ll not see through it.” He was silent a moment, then, “All bare!” he murmured. “All bare!” He chuckled faintly, and tried to raise himself, but sank back. “Fools!” he whispered, “fools, when in ten minutes if they took out a brick — —”
The servant cut him short. “Here’s his lordship!” he cried. He spoke so sharply that Mary looked up in surprise, wondering what was amiss. Lord Audley was within three or four paces of them — the carpet of yew leaves had deadened his footsteps. “Here’s his lordship, sir!” Toft repeated in the same tone, his mouth close to John Audley’s ear.
The servant’s manner shocked Mary. “Hush, Toft!” she said. “Do you want to startle him?”
“His lordship will startle him,” Toft retorted. He looked over his shoulder, and without ceremony he signed to Lord Audley to stand back.
“Bare, quite bare!” John Audley muttered, his mind still far away. “But if they took out — if they took out — —”
Toft waved his hand again — waved it wildly.
“All right, I understand,” Lord Audley said. He had not at first grasped what was wanted, but the man’s repeated gestures enlightened him. He retired to a position where he was out of the sick man’s sight.
The servant wiped the sweat from his brow. “He mustn’t see him!” he repeated insistently. “Lord! what a turn it gave me. I ask your pardon, Miss,” he continued, “but I know the master so well.” He cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder. “If the master’s eyes lit on him once, only once, when he’s in this state, I’d not answer for his life.”
Mary reproached herself. “You are quite right, Toft,” she said. “I ought to have thought of that myself.”
“He must not see any strangers!”
“He shall not. You are quite right.”
But Toft was still uneasy. He looked round. Stubbs and a man who had been working in the neighborhood were bringing up a sheep-hurdle, and again the butler’s anxiety overcame him. “D — n!” he said: and he rose to his feet. “I think they want to kill him amongst them! Why can’t they keep away?”
“Hush! Toft. Why — —”
“He mustn’t see the lawyer! He must not see him on any account.”
Mary nodded. “I will arrange it!” she said. “Only don’t excite him. You will do him harm that way if you are not careful. I will speak to them.”
She went to meet them and explained, while Stubbs, who had not seen her before, considered her with interest. So this was Miss Audley, Peter Audley’s daughter! She told them that she thought it better that her uncle should not find strangers about him when he came to himself. They agreed — it seemed quite natural — and it was arranged that Toft and the man should carry him as far as the carriage, while Mary walked beside him; and that afterwards she and Toft should travel with him. The carriage cushions were placed on the hurdle, and the helpless man was lifted on to them. Toft and the laborer raised their burden, and slowly and heavily, with an occasional stagger, they bore it along the sodden path. Mary saw that the sweat sprang out on Toft’s sallow face and that his knees shook under him. Clearly the
man was taxing his strength to the utmost, and she felt some concern — she had not given him credit for such fidelity. However, he held out until they reached the carriage.
Babbling a word now and again, John Audley was moved into the vehicle. Mary mounted beside him and supported his head, while Toft climbed to the box, and at a footpace they set off across the sward, the laborer plodding at the tail of the carriage, and Lord Audley and Stubbs following a score of paces behind. The rain had ceased, but the clouds were low and leaden, the trees dripped sadly, and the little procession across the park had a funereal look. To Mary the way seemed long, to Toft still longer. With every moment his head was round. His eyes were now on his master, now jealously cast on those who brought up the rear. But everything comes to an end, and at length they swung into the courtyard, where Mrs. Toft, capable and cool, met them and took a load off Mary’s shoulders.
“He’s that bad is he?” she said calmly. “Then the sooner he’s in his bed the better. ‘Truria’s warming it. How will we get him up? I could carry him myself if that’s all. If Toft’ll take his feet, I’ll do the rest. No need for another soul to come in!” with a glance at Lord Audley. “But if they would fetch the doctor I’d not say no, Miss.”
“I’ll ask them to do that,” Mary said.
“And don’t you worrit, Miss,” Mrs. Toft continued, eyeing the sick man judicially. “He’s been nigh as bad as this before and been about within the week. There’s some as when they wool-gathers, there’s no worse sign. But the master he’s never all here, nor all there, and like a Broseley butter-pot another touch of the kiln will neither make him nor break him. Now, Toft, wide of the door-post, and steady, man.”
Lord Audley and Stubbs had remained outside, but when they saw Mary coming towards them, the young man left Stubbs and went to meet her. “How is he?” he asked.
“Mrs. Toft thinks well of him. She has seen him nearly as ill before, she says. But if he recovers,” Mary continued gratefully, “we owe his life to you. Had you not found him he must have died. And if you had lost a moment in bringing the news, I am sure that we should have been too late.”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 591