for an hour jeffray walked alone in the garden that morning, thinking over the future and his duty to bess. he had sworn to his own heart that she should not fall again into her husband’s hands, and yet in the making of this vow he had taken a grave step on the path of life. jeffray was in no temper to be scared by calumny or slander. he had fought his fight and proved his power to act according to his conscience. his thoughts were not for himself that morning, but for the woman whose life was pledged to him for love.
about ten o’clock he left the garden for the library, and, opening his bureau, wrote a long letter to his attorney at lincoln’s inn. then he unlocked an old dower-chest that stood beside the fireplace, and lifted out the strong-box where he kept what money he required. wilson, who was smoking at the window, watched him counting out the gold pieces and the notes upon the table. the lad was so serious and intent on it that the painter realized how grimly he was in earnest.
“three hundred guineas, dick—three hundred guineas. enough powder and shot to serve for the time being.”
wilson took his pipe-stem from between his teeth.
“plenty of hard cash, sir,” he said. “what are you going to do with it? hire some sly fox of a lawyer?”
jeffray looked up with a frown.
“no, not that, dick. i am preparing for what i hold to be my duty.”
“well, sir, well?”
“i am going to save this woman from the past, and act with honor for her, even though our love may come to nothing.”
wilson sat up and looked hard at jeffray, profoundly interested in the problem-play before him.
“you can trust me, sir; what do you mean to do?”
“make her a new life, dick.”
“yes.”
“money is nothing to me. i can give her all of it she needs in this world, a home, and safety from all sordid care and dread.”
“well, what then?”
jeffray leaned back against the wall, and looked out gravely through the open window.
“i have not found the end yet,” he said.
wilson nodded.
“she has trusted me; god help me to deserve her trust.”
as the morning wore on, wilson noticed that an increasing restlessness was taking possession of the rebel. he grew moody, distraught, and silent, called for wine, and wandered hesitatingly about the room. the painter began to wonder whether jeffray’s enthusiasm was abating, and whether he was tempted to regard the adventure in a more cold and calculating light. the affair reminded the painter of love as it was pictured in the old ballads. the beggar’s daughter of bethnal green could have had no more monstrously impossible romance than this peasant girl in a sussex forest.
mr. wilson’s surmises, however, were utterly at fault, though logic upheld them with an obvious display of probabilities. it was his ignorance of lot hardacre’s fate that was troubling jeffray at the eleventh hour. no news had come from rookhurst, and his cousin might have bled to death in the coach for all jeffray knew to the contrary. bess’s surrender, the bustle of preparation, had carried richard above the wreckage of the past for the morning. the memory of lot’s gray face and bloody body haunted him as the hours passed by.
the restless stirrings of compunction were not to be refused a hearing. jeffray met his fears with the answer of action. he would ride to rookhurst, go to stott’s house, and hear the truth from the surgeon’s own lips.
“i cannot rest, dick,” he said, “until i have heard the truth about poor lot.”
wilson suggested that he might send a servant.
“dick,” quoth the younger man, sadly, “that would be ungenerous of me. it was my sword that did the deed.”
“true, sir, true.”
“you will remain on guard this afternoon? bess is in the blue parlor beyond the dining-room. you will find my pistols in the library.”
wilson smiled as though amused at the responsibility that was thrust upon him.
“i will play the cerberus, sir,” he said. “go to rookhurst, and may you find mr. hardacre alive.”
jeffray saw bess before he left the house, and explained the nature of his purpose to her. she was a little loath for him to go, having learned to feel already a sweet and strange security in his presence. he kissed her, and smiled, not sorry in his heart that even the small leave-takings of love could bring regret into the woman’s eyes. she went with him to the terrace, and parted from him with a pressure of the hand.
jeffray recovered much of his fervor as he swung through rodenham and on towards rookhurst. the west wind set the woods a-whimper, the foxgloves waving above the bracken. dog-roses were threading the hedge-rows, delicate in coloring as pink sea-shells. honeysuckle trailed from the oak-saplings and the hazels, and the fields were green with the rising corn. in the meadows the hay rippled, sinuous as the sea under the passing wind, and over the dense green of the summer woods sunlight and cloud shadows raced and played.
it was about four o’clock when jeffray saw the little town of rookhurst straggling red-roofed down the slope of a hill. a gray tower with a white-shingled spire flashed up in the sunlight above the gables, chimneys, and dormer-windows. there were orchards lying about the town, and every house seemed overrun with roses. meadows, still golden with buttercups, and afire with sorrel and red clover, ran down to the stream that flickered on towards the sea.
jeffray rode down king street into the market-place, his horse’s hoofs clattering on the round cobbles, quaint casements opening through clematis and roses on either hand. an old world quiet, a calm air of contented indolence seemed to hang over the red roofs of the little town. the good people of rookhurst took life as though it was an endless june. the quiet shops were cursed with no surfeit of customers, and the dogs slept on the sunny side of the footway. the very clock in the church-tower smote the quarters as though time were no demon to be obeyed.
surgeon stott’s house stood in one corner of the market-place, beyond the timbered pump-house, where a few old men were basking on the benches. the house was painted white, and had a flight of six red-brick steps leading up to the green front-door. red-and-white chintz curtains were looped back from the windows, and the window-boxes were filled with flowers. jeffray walked his horse round the pump-house, and saw that straw had been spread over the brown cobbles to deaden sound. he was on the point of dismounting when the green door opened, and miss jilian herself came down the steps, followed by a servant in the hardacre livery.
jeffray flushed up to the roots of his hair. the lady’s eyes had swept over him, flashing and scintillating with scorn. instinctively he had raised his hat to her, but there was no flicker of recognition on her face. strangely enough, jeffray’s respect for miss hardacre deepened of a sudden. he saw her trip round the market-place in her big bonnet, the footman following her, and disappear within the doorway of the blue boar, rookhurst’s most aristocratic inn.
jeffray, sensitive to miss hardacre’s scorn, hesitated whether he should dismount and inquire at the house for mr. lancelot. in the height of his indecision, the green door opened again, and surgeon stott, in blue coat and buckskin breeches, appeared upon the steps. he bowed to jeffray and lifted his hat. richard wheeled his horse round close to the footway, and looked earnestly in the surgeon’s face.
“can i speak with you a moment, stott?”
the surgeon’s features relaxed into a kindly smile. he came down the six red steps, and stood on the flagged footway, his fingers playing with the gold seals that reposed upon his white waistcoat.
“how is my cousin, stott. i have ridden over to inquire?”
the gentleman in the blue coat half closed his eyes, threw out his stomach, and cleared his throat.
“mr. hardacre has had a nasty mauling, sir,” he said; “but i have done the best for him.”
“will he recover?”
surgeon stott glanced searchingly at jeffray.
“the lung was touched, sir, and he was bleeding like a pig when they brought him in here yesterday. it is my opinion, however, that mr. hardacre’s vitality will pull him through.”
“thank god,” said the younger man, with genuine and hearty relief.
the surgeon’s broad face beamed. he liked jeffray, and felt that he was sincere in his spirit of regret.
“it was a narrow margin, sir,” he said, “another finger’s-breadth, and your sword would have touched the heart. young blood, mr. jeffray, young blood! you gentlemen in the twenties are apt to be hot in the head, and the mischief’s sooner made than mended. i have nothing to do with the quarrel, sir, and i hope the incident will breed no ill-feeling between us.”
jeffray held out his hand to the surgeon.
“why should it, stott?” he said. “i am grateful to you for saving my cousin’s life. i will not explain the nature of the quarrel; you are probably wiser than i am in some respects.”
stott gave jeffray a shrewd look, and grimaced expressively in the direction of the blue boar.
“a lady, as usual, sir,” he said, “though family differences are no business of mine. i have to mend bodies, sir, not to tinker at hearts.”
“true,” answered the younger man, thoughtfully, “and whatever you may hear said against me in the future, stott, you may remember that i acted as my honor desired. we are not always our own masters in this world, sir; there is a thing called destiny that pushes us forward through the thorns.”
and with a last hand-shake, jeffray clattered out of rookhurst market-place, feeling a happier man than when he had entered it.
clearing the streets of the little town, he saw that heavy clouds were massing in the northwestern sky. the atmosphere had been preternaturally clear, the domed foliage of the distant woods, the swell of the southern downs standing out in beautiful distinctness under the june sky. old gladden had been grumbling all the morning at the heat, prophesying thunder and a heavy fall of rain. as jeffray climbed slowly up the long slope towards the forest ridge, the black outliers moving ahead of the massive wall of vapor began to stream across the sun. the whole landscape was bathed in a strange splendor of slanting sunlight, the woods and meadows lying a wondrous green under the imminent gloom of the purple north.
jeffray pricked up his horse, and came at a fast trot into rodenham village. already there were vague mutterings running athwart the distant sky. outside the wheat sheaf inn jeffray came upon some twenty troopers of a regiment of light-horse drinking beer at the wooden tables, their horses picketed upon the green. some of the men were watching the thunder-clouds, reckoning on the drenching of the outer man as they were moistening the inner. their cornet, a dark-faced youth with a hooked nose and a libidinous mouth, came to the doorway of the inn with george gogg as jeffray passed. the innkeeper saluted the squire, the officer staring at him with an insolence of militant youth, as though remarking, “and who the devil may you be?” jeffray attached no significance to the incident for the moment. he supposed that the troopers were on the march, and that the cornet had called a halt out of courtesy to the coming storm.
as jeffray turned in under the yews at the park gate he was stopped by the lodge-keeper’s wife running out in a red petticoat and a very slatternly pair of stays. the woman, who was something of a drunkard, appeared flushed and excited. she had the eager, officious look of a common creature big with information.
“well, mrs. wilder, what is it?”
“my man’s gone up to the house, your honor; there’s been a scrimmage at the priory.”
jeffray’s face hardened on the instant.
“a scrimmage! what do you mean?”
the woman appeared to swell with the satisfaction of her sensational confession. her red and coarse-featured face shone out at jeffray with every suggestion of ill omen.
“mr. gladden sent down word, sir, as how a number of rough fellows from the forest have broke in, cut the painter gentleman over the head, and trussed up the young woman as was staying with ye.”
jeffray waited to hear no more. he insulted the woman’s eloquence by clapping in his spurs and leaving her standing open-mouthed and loose-bosomed in the road. it was even as the lodge-keeper’s wife had told him. jeffray entered the house to find dick wilson propped up on the library sofa with a bandaged and bloody head. bess was gone.
