Weyman Stanley John
The Great House

CHAPTER XXXIV
BY THE CANAL

It was noon on that day, the day of the meeting at Riddsley, and Mary was sitting in the parlor at the Gatehouse. She was stooping over the fire with her eyes on the embers. The old hound lay beside her with his muzzle resting on her shoe, and Mrs. Toft, solidly poised on her feet, on the farther side of the table, rolled her apron about her arms and considered the pair.

"It's given us all a rare shock," she said as she marked the girl's listless pose, "the poor Master's death! That sudden and queer, too! I don't know that I'm better for it, myself, and Toft goes up and down like a toad under a harrow, he's that restless! For 'Truria, she's fairly mazed. Her body's here and her thoughts are lord knows where. Toft, he seems to think something will come of her and her reverend-"

"I hope so," Mary said gently.

"But it's beyond me what Toft thinks these days. I asked him point-blank yesterday, 'Toft,' I says, 'are we going or are we staying?' And, bless the man, he looks at me as if he'd eat me. 'Take time and you'll know,' he says. 'But whose is the house?' I asks, 'and who's to pay us?' 'God knows!' he says, and whiffs out of the room like one of these lucifers!"

"I think that the house is Mr. Basset's," Mary explained, "for the rest of the lease; that's about three years."

"But you'll not be staying, begging your pardon, Miss? I suppose you'll be naming the day soon? The Master's gone and his lordship will be wanting you somewhere else than here."

"Yes, Mrs. Toft," Mary said quietly. "I suppose so."

Mrs. Toft looked for a blush and saw none, and she drew her conclusions. She went on another tack. "There's like to be a fine rumpus in the town to-day," she said comfortably. "The Squire's brought a foreigner down to trim their nails, and there's to be a wagon and speaking and such like foolishness at the Maypole. As if all the speeches of all the fools in Staffordshire would lower the quartern loaf! Anyway, if what Petch says is true, the farmers are that mad there's like to be lives lost!"

Mary stooped and carefully put a piece of wood on the fire.

"And, to be sure, they're a rough lot," Mrs. Toft continued, dropping her apron. "I'm not forgetting what happened to the reverend Colet, and I wish the young master safe out of it. It's all give and no take with him, too much for others and too little for himself! I'm thinking if anybody's hurt he'll be there or thereabouts."

Mary turned. "Is Petch-couldn't Petch go down and-"

"La, Miss," Mrs. Toft answered-the girl's face told her all that she wished to know-"Petch don't dare, with his lordship on the other side! But, all said and done, I'll be bound the young master'll come through. It's a pity, though," she continued thoughtfully, as she began to dust the sideboard, "as people don't know their own minds. There's the Squire, now. He's lived quiet and pleasant all these years and now he must dip his nose into this foolishness, same as if he dipped it into hot worts when Toft's a-brewing! I don't know what's come to him. He goes riding up to Blore these winter nights, twenty miles if it's a furlong, when this house is his! He's more like to take his death that way, if I'm a judge."

"Is he doing that?" Mary asked in a small voice.

"To be sure," Mrs. Toft returned. "What else! Which reminds me, Miss, are those papers to go to the bank to-day?"

"I believe so."

"Well, you're looking that peaky, you'd best take a jaunt with them. Why not? It's a fine day, and if there is a bit of a clash there's none will hurt you. Do you go, Miss, and get a little color in your cheeks. At worst, you'll bring back the news and I'm sure we're that dead-alive and moped a little's a godsend!"

"I think I will go," Mary said.

So when the gig, which was to convey the boxes to the bank, arrived about three, she mounted beside the driver. Here, were it only for an hour, was distraction and a postponement of that need to decide, to choose between two courses, which was crushing her under its weight.

For Mary was very unhappy. That moment which had proved to her that she did not love the man she was to marry and did love another, had stamped itself on her memory, never to be wiped from it. In Audley's company, and for a time after they had parted, the shock had numbed her mind and dulled her feelings. But once alone and free to think, she had grasped all that the discovery meant-to her and to him; and from that moment she had not known an instant of ease.

She saw that she had made a terrible mistake, and one so vital that, if nothing could be done, it must wreck her happiness and another's happiness. And what was she to do? What ought she to do? In a moment of emotion, led astray by that love of love which is natural to women, and something swayed-so she told herself in scorn-by

Those glories of our blood and state,

which to women are not shadows, she had made this mistake, and now, self-tricked, she had only herself to blame if

 
Sceptre and crown
Were tumbled down
And in the dust were lesser made
Than the poor crooked scythe and spade!
 

But to see her folly did not avail. What was she to do?

Ought she to tell the truth, however painful it might be, to the man whom she had deceived? Or ought she to go through with it, to do her duty and save him at least from hurt? Either way, she had wrecked her own craft, but she might still hope to save his. Or-might she hope? She was not certain even of this.

What was she to do? Hour after hour she asked herself the question, sometimes looking through the windows with eyes that saw nothing, at others pacing her room in a fever of anxiety. What was she to do? She could not decide. Now she thought one thing, now another. And time was passing. No wonder that she was glad even of the distraction of this journey to Riddsley that at another time had been so dull an adventure! It was, at least, a reprieve, a respite from the burden of decision.

She would not own, even to herself, that she had any other thought in going, or that anxiety had any part in her restlessness. From that side of the battle she turned her eyes with all the strength of her will. Her conduct had been that of a silly girl rather than that of a woman who had seen and suffered; but she was not light-and besides Basset was cured. She was only unfortunate, and desperately unhappy.

As they drove by the old Cross at the foot of the hill she averted her eyes. Surely it must have been in some other life that she had made it the object of a walk, and had told herself that she would never forget it.

Alas, she had been right. She would never forget it!

The man who drove saw that her face matched her mourning, and he left her to her thoughts, so that hardly a word passed between them until they were close upon the outskirts of the town. Then the driver, to whom the dull winter landscape, the lines of willows, and the low water-logged fields, were no novelty, pricked up his ears.

"Dang me!" he said, "they've started! There's a fine rumpus in the town. Do you hear 'em, Miss? That's a band I'm thinking?"

"I hope no one will be hurt."

The man winked at his horse. "None of the right side, Miss," he said slyly. "But it might be a hanging, front o' Stafford gaol, by the roar! I met a tidy lot going in as I came out, a right tidy lot! I'm blest," after listening a moment, "if they're not coming this way!"

"I hope they won't do anything to-"

"La, Miss," the man answered, misreading her anxiety and interrupting her, "they'll never touch us. And for the old nag, he's yeomanry. He'd not start if he met a mile o' funerals!"

Certainly the noise was growing. But the lift of the canal bridge and bank, which crossed the road a hundred yards before them, hid all of the town from them save a couple of church towers, some tiled roofs, and the brick gable of Hatton's Works. The man whipped up his horse.

"Teach they Manchester chaps a trick!" he muttered. "Shouldn't wonder if there'll be work for the crowner out of this! Gee-up, old nag, let's see what's afoot! 'Pears to me," as the shouting grew plainer, "we'll be in at the death yet, Miss!"

Mary winced at the word, but if the man feared that she would refuse to go on, he was mistaken. On the contrary, she looked eagerly to the front as the old horse, urged by the whip, took the rise of the bridge at a canter, and, having reached the crown, relapsed into an absent-minded walk.

"Dang me!" cried the driver, greatly excited, "but they do mean business! It's in knee in neck with 'em! Never thought it would come to this. And who is't they've got, Miss?"

Certainly there was something out of the common on foot. Moving to meet the gig, and filling the road from ditch to ditch, appeared a disorderly crowd of two or three hundred persons. Cheering, hooting, and brandishing sticks, they came on at something between a walk and a run, although in the heart of the mass there was a something that now and again checked the movement, and once brought it to a stand. When this happened the crowd eddied and flowed about the object in its centre and presently swept on again with the same hooting and laughter.

But in the laughter, as in the hooting, there was, after each of these pauses, a more savage note.

"What is it?" Mary cried, as the driver, scared by the sight, pulled up his horse. "What is it?"

"D-n me," the man replied, forgetting his manners, "if I don't think it's Ben Bosham they've got! It is Ben! And they're for ducking him! It's mortal deep by the bridge there, and s'help me, if it's not ten to one they drown him!"

"Ben Bosham?" Mary repeated. Then she recalled the name. She remembered what Mrs. Toft had said of him-that the man had a wife and would bring her to ruin. The crowd was not fifty yards from them now and was still coming on. To the left a track ran down to the towing-path and the canal, and already the leaders of the mob were swerving in that direction. As they did so-and were once more checked for a moment-Mary espied among them a man's bald head twisting this way and that, as he strove to escape. The man was struggling desperately, his clothes almost torn from his back, but he was helpless in the hands of a knot of stout fellows, and after a brief resistance he was hauled forcibly on. A hundred jeering voices rose about him, and a something cruel in the sound chilled Mary's blood. The dreary scene, the sluggish canal, the flat meadows, the rising mist, all pressed on her mind and deepened the note of tragedy.

But on that she broke the spell. The blood in her spoke. She clutched the driver's arm and shook it. "Go on!" she cried. "Go on! Drive into them!"

The man hesitated-he saw that the crowd was in no jesting mood. But the old horse felt the twitch on the reins and started, and having the slope with him, trotted gently forward as if the road were empty before him. The crowd waved and shouted, and cursed the driver. But the horse, thinking perhaps that this was some new form of parade, only cocked his ears and ambled on till he reached the foremost. Then a man seized the rein, jerked it, and stopped him.

In a moment Mary sprang down, heedless of the fact that she was one woman among a hundred men. She faced the crowd, her eyes bright with indignation. "Let that man go," she cried. "Do you hear? Do you want to murder him?" And, advancing a step, she laid her hand on Ben Bosham's ragged, filthy sleeve-he had been down more than once and been rolled in the mud. "Let him go!" she continued imperiously. "Do you know who I am, you cowards? Let him go!"

"Yah!" shouted the crowd, and drowned her voice and pressed roughly about her, threatened her. One of the foremost asked her what she would do, another cried that she had best make herself scarce! Furious faces surrounded her, fists were shaken at her. But Mary was not daunted. "If you don't let him go, I shall go to Lord Audley!" she said.

"You're a fool meddling in this!" cried a voice. "We're only going to wash the devil!"

"You will let him go!" she replied, facing them all without fear and, advancing a step, she actually plucked the man from the hands that held him. "I am Miss Audley! If you do not let him go-"

"We're only going to wash him, lady," whined one of the men who held him.

"That's all, lady!" chimed in half-a-dozen. "He wants it!"

But Ben was not of that opinion, or he did not value cleanliness. "They're going to drown me!" he spluttered, his eyes wild. All the fight had been knocked out of him. "They're paid to do it! They'll drown me!"

"And sarve him right!" shouted half-a-dozen at the rear of the crowd. "Sarve him right, the devil!"

"They will not do it!" Mary said firmly. "They'll not lay another hand on you. Get in! Get in here!" And then to the crowd, "For shame!" she cried. "Stand back!"

The man was so shaken that he could not help himself, but she pushed, the driver pulled, and in a trice, before the mob had recovered from its astonishment, Ben was above their heads, on the seat of the gig-a blubbering, ragged, mud-caked figure with a white face and bleeding lips. "Go on!" Mary said in the same tone, and the gig moved forward, the old yeomanry horse tossing its head. She moved on beside it with her hand on the rail.

The mob let them pass, but closed in behind them, and after a pause began to jeer-a little in amusement, a little to cover its defeat. In a moment farce took the place of tragedy; the danger was over. "We'll tell your wife, Ben!" screamed a youth, and the crowd laughed and followed. Other wits took their turn. "You'll want a new coat for the wedding, Ben!" cried one. And now and again amid the laughter a sterner note survived. "We'll ha' you yet, Ben!" a man would cry. "You're not out of the wood yet, Ben!"

Mary's face burned, but she stuck to her post, plodding on beside the gig, and after this fashion the queer procession, heralded by a score of urchins crying the news, entered the streets of the town. On either side women thronged the doorways and steps, and while some cried, "Bravo, Miss!" others laughed and called to their neighbors to come out and see the sight. And still the crowd clung to the rear of the gig, and hooted and laughed and pretended to make forays on it.

Mary had hoped to shake them off, but as they persisted in following and no relief came-for Basset and his rescue party had gone to the canal by another road-she saw nothing for it but to go on to Lord Audley's. With a curt word she made the man turn that way.

The crowd still attended, curious, amused. It had doubled its numbers, nay, had trebled them. There were friends as well as foes among them now, some of Hatton's men, some of Banfield's, yellow favors as well as blue. If Mary had known it, she might have set Ben down and not a hand would have been laid upon him. Even the leaders of the riot were now thankful that they had not carried the matter farther. Enough had been done.

But Mary did not know this. She thought that the man was still in peril. She did not dream of leaving him. And it was at the head of a crowd of three or four hundred of the riff-raff of Riddsley that she broke in upon the quiet of the suburban road in which The Butterflies stood. Tumultuously, followed by laughter and hooting and cheers, she swept along it with her train, and came to a halt before the house.

No house was ever more surprised. Mrs. Wilkinson's scared face peered above one blind, her sisters' caps showed above another. Was it an accident? Was it a riot? Was it a Puseyite protest? What was it? Every servant, every neighbor, Lord Audley himself came to the windows.

Mary signed to the driver to help Ben down, and the moment the man's foot touched the ground she grasped his arm. With a burning face, but with her head in the air, she guided his stumbling footsteps through the gate and along the paved walk. They came together to the door. They went in.

The crowd formed up five deep along the railings, and waited in wondering silence to see what would happen. What would his lordship say? What would his lordship do? This was bringing the election to his doors with a vengeance, and there were not a few of the better sort who saw the fun of the situation.

CHAPTER XXXV
MY LORD SPEAKS OUT

Mary had passed through twenty minutes of tense excitement. The risk had been slight, after the first moment of intervention, but she had not known this, and she was still trembling with indignation, a creature all fire and passion, when the door of The Butterflies opened to admit her. Leaving Ben Bosham on the threshold she lost not a moment, but with her story on her lips, hurried up the stairs, and on the landing came plump upon Lord Audley.

From the window he had seen something of what was afoot below. He had recognized Mary and the tattered Bosham, and he had read the riddle, grasped the facts, and cursed the busybody, all within thirty seconds. "D-n it! this passes everything," he had muttered to himself as he turned from the window in disgust. "This is altogether too much!" And he had opened the door-ready also to open his mind to her!

"What in the world is it?" he asked. He held the door for her to enter. "What has happened? I could not believe my eyes when I saw you in company with that wretched creature!" he continued. "And all the tagrag and bobtail in the place behind you? What is it, Mary?"

She felt the check, and the color, which excitement had brought to her cheeks, faded. But she thought that it was only that he did not understand, and, "That wretched creature, as you call him," she cried, "has just escaped from death. They were going to murder him!"

"Murder him?" Audley repeated. He raised his eyebrows. "Murder him?" coldly. "My dear girl, don't be silly! Don't let yourself be carried away. You've lost your head. And, pardon me for saying it, I am afraid have made a fool of yourself! And of me!"

"But they were going to throw him into the canal!" she protested.

"Going to wash him!" he replied cynically. "And a good thing too! It's a pity they left the job undone. The man is a low, pestilent fellow!" he continued severely, "and obnoxious to me and to all decent people. The idea of bringing him, and that pleasant tail, to my house-my dear girl, it's absurd!"

He made no attempt to soften his tone or suppress his annoyance, and she stared at him in astonishment. Yet she still thought, or she strove to think, that he did not understand, and tried to make the facts clear. "But you don't know what they were like," she protested. "You were not there. They had torn the clothes from his back-"

"I can see that."

"And he was so terrified that it was dreadful to see him! They were handling him brutally, horribly! And then I came up and-"

"And lost your head!" he said. "I dare say you thought all this. But do you know anything about elections?"

"No-"

"Have you ever see an election in progress before?"

"No."

"Just so," he replied dryly. "Well, if you had, you would know that brawls of this kind are common things, the commonest of things at such a time, and that sensible people turn their backs on them. You've chosen to turn the farce into a tragedy, and in doing so you've made yourself ridiculous-and me too!"

"If you had seen them," she said, "I do not think you would speak as you are speaking."

"My dear girl," he replied, and shrugged his shoulders, "I have seen many such things, many. But there is one thing I have never seen, and that is a man killed in an election squabble! The whole thing is childish-silly! The least knowledge of the world-"

"Would have saved me from it?"

"Exactly! Would have saved you from it!" he answered austerely. "And me from a very annoying incident! Peers have nothing to do with elections, as you ought to know; and to bring this mob of all sorts to my door as if the matter touched me, is to compromise me. It is past a joke!"

Mary stared. She was trying to place herself. Certainly this was the room in which she had taken tea, and this was the man who had welcomed her, who had hung over her, whose eyes had paid her homage, who had foreseen her least want, who had lapped her in observance. This was the man and this the room, and there was the chair in which good Mrs. Wilkinson had sat and beamed on her.

But there was a change somewhere; and the change was in the man. Could it mean that he, too, had made a mistake and now recognized it? That he, too, had found that he did not love? But in that case this was not the way to confess an error. His tone, his manner, which held no respect for the woman and no softness for the sweetheart, were far from the tone of one in the wrong. On the contrary, they presented a side of him which had been hitherto hidden from her; a phase of the strength that she had admired, which shocked her even while, as deep calls to deep, it roused her pride. She remembered that she was his betrothed, and that he had wooed her, he had chosen her. And on slight provocation he spoke to her in this strain!

She sought the clue, she fancied that she held it, and from this moment she was on her guard. She was quiet, but there was a smouldering fire in her eyes. "Perhaps I was wrong," she said. "I have had little experience of these things. But are not you, on your side, making too much of this? Too much of a very small, a very natural mistake? Isn't it a trifle after all?"

"Not so much of a trifle as you think!" he retorted. "A man in my position has to follow a certain line of conduct. A girl in yours should be careful to guide herself by my views. Instead, out of a foolish sentimentality, you run directly counter to them! It is too late to consider your relation to me when the harm is done, my dear."

"Perhaps we have neither of us considered the relation quite enough?" she said.

"I am not sure that we have." And again, "I am not sure, Mary, that we have," he repeated more soberly.

She knew what he meant now-knew what was in his mind almost as clearly as if, instead of grasping his conclusion, she had been a party to his reasons. And she closed her lips, a spot of color in each cheek. In other circumstances she would have taken on herself a full, nay, the main share, of the blame. She would have been quick to admit that she, too, had made a mistake, and that no harm was done.

But his manner opened her eyes to many things that had been a puzzle to her. Thought is swift, and in a flash her mind had travelled over the whole course of their engagement, had recalled his long absence, the chill of his letters, the infrequency of his visits; and she saw by that light that this was no sudden shift, but an occasion sought and seized. Therefore she would not help him. She at least had been honest, she at least had been in earnest. She had tricked, not him only, but herself!

She closed her lips and waited, therefore. And he, knowing that he had now burned his boats, had to go on. "I am not sure that we did think enough about it?" he said doggedly. "I have suspected for some time that I acted hastily in-in asking you to be my wife, Mary."

"Indeed?" she said.

"Yes. And what has happened to-day, proving that we look at things so differently, has confirmed my suspicion. It has convinced me-" he looked down at his table, avoiding her eyes, but continued firmly-"that we are not suited to one another. The wife of a man, placed as I am, should have an idea of values, a certain reserve, that comes of a knowledge of the world; above all, no sentimental notions such as lead to mistakes like this." He indicated the street by a gesture. "If I was mistaken a while ago in listening to my feelings rather than to my prudence, if I gave you credit for knowledge which you had had no means of gaining, I wronged you, Mary, and I am sorry for it. But I should be doing you a far greater wrong if I remained silent now."

"Do you mean," she asked in a low voice, "that you wish it to be at an end between us? That you wish to-to throw me over?"

He smiled awry. "That is an unpleasant way of putting it, isn't it?" he said. "However, I am in the wrong, and I have no right to quarrel with a word. I do think that to break off our engagement at once is the best and wisest thing for both of us."

"How long have you felt this?" she asked.

"For some time," he replied, measuring his words, "I have been coming slowly-to that conclusion."

"That I am not fitted to be your wife?"

"If you like to put it so."

Then her anger, hitherto kept under, flamed up. "Then what right," she cried, "if that was in your mind, had you to treat me as you treated me at Beaudelays-in the garden? What right had you to kiss me? Rather, what right had you to insult me? For it was an insult-it was an insult, if you were not going to marry me! Don't you know, sir, that it was vile? That it was unforgivable?"

She had never looked more handsome, never more attractive than at this moment. The day was failing, but the glow of the fire fell on her face, and on her eyes sparkling with anger. He took in the picture, he owned her charm, he even came near to repenting. But it was too late, and "It may have been vile-and you may not forgive it," he answered hardily, "but I'd do it again, my dear, on the same provocation!"

"You would-"

"I would do it again," he repeated coolly. "Don't you know that you are handsome enough to turn any man's head? And what is a kiss after all? We are cousins. If you were not such a prude, I would kiss you now?"

She was furiously angry-or she fancied that she was. But it may be that, deep down in her woman's mind, she was not truly angry. And, indeed, how could she be angry when in her heart a little bird was beginning to sing-was telling her that she was free, that presently this cloud would be behind her, and that the sky would be blue? Already the message was making itself heard, already she was finding it hard to keep up appearances, to frown upon him and play her part.

Yet she flashed out at him. Was he not going too fast, was he not riding off too lightly? "Oh!" she cried, "You dare to say that! Even while you break off with me!"

But his selfish, masterful nature had now the upper hand. He had eaten his leek and he was anxious to be done with it. "And what then?" he said. "I believe that you know that I am right. I believe that you know that we are not suited to one another."

"And you think I will let you go at a word?"

"I think you will let me go," he said, "because you are not a fool, Mary. You know as well as I do that you might be 'my lady' at too high a price. I'm not the most manageable of men. I'd make a decent husband, all being well. But I'm not meek and I'd make a very unhandy husband malgré moi."

The threat exasperated her. "I know this at least," she retorted, "that I would not marry you now, if you were twenty times my lord! You have behaved meanly, and I believe falsely! Not to-day! You are speaking the truth to-day. But I believe that from the start you had this in your mind, that you foresaw this, and were careful not to commit yourself too publicly! What I don't understand is why you ever asked me to be your wife-at all?"

"Look in the glass!" he answered impudently.

She put that aside. "But I suppose that you had a reason!" she returned. "That you loved me, that you felt for me anything worthy of the name of love is impossible! For the rest, let me tell you this! If I ever felt thankful for anything I am thankful for the chance that brought me to your house to-day-and brought me to the truth!"

"Anything more to say?" he asked flippantly. The way she was taking it suited him better than if she had wept and appealed. And then she was so confoundedly good-looking in her tantrums!

"Nothing more," she said. "I think that we understand one another now. At any rate, I understand you. Perhaps you will kindly see if I can leave the house without annoyance."

He looked into the street. Dusk had fallen, the lamplighter was going his rounds. Of the crowd that had attended Mary to the house no more than a handful remained; the nipping air, the attractions of free beer, the sound of the muffin-bell, had drawn away the rest. The driver of the gig was moving to and fro, now looking disconsolately at the windows, now beating his fingers on his chest.

"I think you can leave with safety," Audley said with irony. "I will see you downstairs."

"I will not trouble you," she answered.

"But, surely, we may still be friends?"

She looked him in the face. "We need not be enemies," she answered. "And, perhaps, some day I may be able to think more kindly of you. If that day comes I will tell you. Good-bye." She went out without touching his hand. She went down the stairs.

She drove through the dusky, dimly-lighted streets in a kind of dream, seeing all things through a pleasant haze. The bank was closed and to deliver up her papers she had to go into the bank-house. The glimpse she had of the cheerful parlor, of the manager's wife, of his two children playing the Royal Game of Goose at a round table, enchanted her. Presently she was driving again through the darkling streets, passing the Maypole, passing the quaint, low-browed shops, lit only by an oil lamp or a couple of candles. The Audley Arms, the Packhorse, the Portcullis, were all alight and buzzing with the voices of those who fought their battles over again or laid bets on this candidate or that. What the speaker had said to Lawyer Stubbs and what Lawyer Stubbs had said to the speaker, what the "Duke" thought, who would have to pay for the damage, and the odds the stout farmer would give that wheat wouldn't be forty shillings a quarter this day twelvemonth if the Repeal passed-scraps of these and the like poured from the doorways as she drove by.

All fell in delightfully with her mood and filled her with a sense of well-being. Even when the streets lay behind her, and the driver hunched his shoulders to meet the damp night-fog and the dreary stretch that lay beyond the canal-bridge, Mary found the darkness pleasant and the chill no more than bracing. For what were that night, that chill beside the numbing grip from which she had just-oh, thing miraculous! – escaped! Beside the fetters that had been lifted from her within the last hour! O foolish girl, O ineffable idiot, to have ever fancied that she loved that man!