while the events recorded in the last chapter had been taking place, robert streightley had been down to middlemeads to give the necessary orders for the immediate reduction of the establishment there. it was an act over which a great many people would have been sillily sentimental, but one which affected robert streightley very little indeed. the stately old mansion had never been his home, though it had contained his wife and his household gods; he had never had the same regard for it as for the dingy brixton villa, where every thing was so old and mean and common. even when he first bought the place, and inhabited it in the early days of his wedded life, long before the falseness of his position and the chance of some day being compelled to return to his old and quiet mode of life had dawned on him, he had felt uncomfortable and out of place at middlemeads. but latterly, as speculation after speculation "went wrong" in the city, and as scarcely a week passed without the addition of some new improvement, the importation of some fresh luxury by katharine's orders, the negative feelings with which he had regarded that estate, for the possession of which he was so much envied and hated, grew into positive dislike; he remembered that the first time he had seen the place was the day before he had had that fatal conference with mr. guyon, and he began to associate most of his troubles with the name of middlemeads.
he would have sold the place at once but for two reasons; the first and chiefest of which was, that katharine took great pleasure and interest in it--more pleasure and interest than she had taken in any thing else during her married life; the other, that the sale of his country estate, which, with the county people who visited there and the swells whom he entertained, had been so much talked of among his friends in the city, would be a confession of weakness which robert streightley shrunk from meeting. besides, all would probably come right very soon; the house of streightley and son was too firmly established not to be able to stand a shock or two; and by reducing the establishment at middlemeads he should effect a considerable saving, while the sale of a portion of the valuable timber on the estate would bring in a sum of ready money, of which he was greatly in need. this done, he drove off to the railway, caught the up-train, and was on his way to london.
he was alone in the railway carriage; there was no old gentleman rustling a newspaper, no young gentleman playing with his watch-chain, no humorous children to trample on his feet,--nothing to disturb the train of thought into which he fell. by no means a pleasant train of thought, for a dead weight was at his heart, and he felt a horrible sense of something--he knew not what--but some calamity hanging over him. something, some trifle had reminded him of the day on which mr. guyon had told him of frere's proposal for katharine's hand, and now he could not get the subject out of his head: the words seemed to ring in his ears; and when he closed his eyes, that peculiar look with which mr. guyon had suggested the suppression of frere's letter seemed to rise before him. what had his life been since then? he had married katharine! o yes, she was his wife; but had he ever obtained from her one grain of confidence, one look of love? had not his business transactions gone wrong ever since? had he not suffered under perpetual qualms of conscience ever since he became a silent confederate in that monstrous fraud of which katharine, his wife, was one of the victims? in his case, at least, retribution had not been long delayed; the first mutterings of the avenging storm had been long since heard, and now something told him that the storm itself was close at hand. he would welcome it in all its fury, though it stripped him of all his wealth and left him to begin life anew, if it only could bear away on its wings the barrier existing between katharine and himself; if it only enabled him to prove to her his worship of her; if it only raised in her for him one tithe of the love with which he regarded her.
it was a dark, dull, damp evening when robert streightley alighted from the cab in which he had driven from the railway, and knocked at his own door in portland place. the enormously stout middle-aged man, who for a by no means poor wage consented to pass his life in alternately sitting in and getting out of a porter's chair, like a leathern bee-hive, was usually sufficiently on the alert to recognise his master's rap, and give him speedy admission; but on this occasion mr. streightley had to knock three times, and when the porter opened the door there was a strange odd look on his face, which made his master think he had been drinking. robert passed by him quickly and went into the library, where he rang the bell. it was answered by william, the footman who had opened the door for katharine when she left the house.
"is your mistress in the cedar-room? is there any one with her?"
"missus is not in the cedar-room, sir, and there is no pusson with her, as i knows of. missus ain't at home, sir."
"o, very well. what time did she order the carriage to fetch her?"
"the carriage isn't ordered at all, sir. missus said she wouldn't want the carriage."
"do you know where your mistress is?"
"she said she was goin' to queen anne street, sir."
"very good. i'll go across myself and bring her home."
"begging your pardon, sir, i don't think you'll find missus at queen anne street, sir."
"no! what do you mean?"
"why, sir, mamzell augustus went across about six o'clock, sir, to know whether missus was comin' home to dress, sir, and they said at queen anne street that she'd never been there since she left in the morning."
"never been there? and--o, she's probably gone out with mr. guyon."
"good lord, sir!" said the footman, startled out of all propriety; "i forgot, sir, you didn't know--the hold gent's dead!"
"dead? mr. guyon dead?"
"yes, sir; had a fit at croydon races last evening, sir, and died hearly this morning. beg pardon, sir, shall i tell anderson to bring you a glass of brandy, sir?"
"eh? no, thank you, william--yes--you may, if you please. i feel--" and robert streightley clutched at a chair near him, and sunk into it, with trembling limbs and beating heart.
mr. anderson, the staid butler, brought a small decanter of brandy, filled a liqueur-glass, and handed it to his master, whose hand shook so that the glass rattled against his teeth. after the discreet domestic had withdrawn, robert streightley sat in his chair, glaring straight before him, revolving in his mind a hundred subjects, all equally dismal. katharine's absence, first of all, what could that mean? what could have induced it? was it in any way connected with mr. guyon's death? mr. guyon's death, poor man! not one with whom he had any thing in common except--that horrible conspiracy always cropping up! mr. guyon dead? well, then, there was an end to the chance of any betrayal of that mystery; he might rest secure that--good god! where could his wife have gone to? could she have learned--no; that was impossible. still, why had she left his house, without leaving any trace of her whereabouts? lady henmarsh was not in town; but she might have gone to some other friend's house, where she could receive that womanly kindness and consolation which, in the first shock of her grief, her heart sought for. it was absurd in him to have imagined that, under such circumstances, she would remain in her own house alone, without a soul to speak to in confidence. she would return soon; he would wait up to receive her.
so through the long hours of that night, having dismissed the household to rest, robert streightley sat in his library, the door of which opened on the hall, in eager anticipation of his wife's return. the sharp ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed running a race with the solemn ticking of the clock in the hall; the rumble of the cabs outside, the footfalls of the passers-by, fell with monotonous solemnity on his ear; the dead silence at the back of the house, broken only by the wailing of dissipated cats, oppressed him; and the keen anguish of his own thoughts made him occasionally clasp his forehead and utter some ejaculation; but still he sat there, looking out into the dimly-lighted hall, and waiting for his wife's return. that mr. guyon was dead, had died suddenly and in a ghastly manner, he yet scarcely realised: he had heard the fact, and that was all; he had not thought over it; his thoughts were entirely occupied with the fact of his wife's absence. to account for this he had now no possible satisfactory theory. had she been persuaded to remain at the house of any friend to whom she might have gone, a message to that effect would surely have been sent to portland place. the shock of her father's death might have been too much for her; and in walking to the house of some friend she might have been seized with illness; at that moment she might be lying unknown in some hospital, or--and as the thought came across him robert streightley started to his feet, his mind half made up to sally forth at once, and set the detective force at work to discover katharine's whereabouts. but before he had advanced a few steps his cautious common-sense came to his aid. he was a weak, hot-headed fool, and his usual powers of reasoning had been, he argued to himself, a little impaired by the mental strain to which during the last few weeks he had been subjected. nothing was known yet of his wife's disappearance. even to the household their mistress's absence was a mere subject for discussion over the supper-beer, where no one had a substantial theory to broach, but all arrived at a general conclusion, originally propounded by the cook, that "master not being at home, she'd gone away, poor soul, to some other friend's nigh by; and not expectin' him, they'd kep her, as was only right and jest when she was in trouble." if he were to raise a hue and cry, it would become at once a public scandal; and from a public scandal, from the mere thought of the knowledge that his friends were discussing his domestic affairs, robert streightley shrunk in horror and dismay. no; he would take no step, at least for the next few hours; morning must bring the solution of the mystery, and for that solution he would wait. arrived at this determination, he turned out his lamp, and crept up stairs to bed.
to bed, but not to sleep. for hours he lay tossing on his hot pillow, racked with dismal doubt. where was his wife? to whom had she gone in her time of trouble? that she had not remained to share her grief with him would have been, under other circumstances, a sufficient cause of dissatisfaction for her husband; but robert, calmly reviewing--as calmly as he could, poor fellow--his real position in the dull dead watches of the night, was forced to acknowledge to himself that there had never been any confidence between him and katharine, which would warrant him in looking for such a display of affection. on the other hand, a doubt of her having infringed the strictest rules of propriety never crossed his mind. never, during the whole course of her married life, had she given him occasion for the slightest suspicion of jealousy. with all her undeniable beauty, with all the attention she perforce commanded, she had not shown the smallest symptom of coquetry. if she had not come heart-whole to him, if hers had not been a love-match, if he had not been the beau ideal of her girlish fancy, by no act of hers could that have become patent to the ever-watchful, always censorious world. where, then, was she gone? her position was so peculiar, even to robert's unworldly view; she had lived so self-contained a life since her marriage, that she could scarcely be said to have any special friends. acquaintances she had by the score; but one does not go to acquaintances in the time of trouble; while her quondam chaperone, lady henmarsh, her only intimate, was away, and mrs. stanbourne, from whom she might justly have sought consolation, was far from england. where could she have gone? still revolving this question in his mind, robert, just as day was dawning, fell into a fitful feverish sleep, haunted by horrible dreams, in which he and katharine, the dead man and gordon frere, all played conspicuous parts, being mixed up in that dreadfully grotesque manner only possible under dream-influence.
he seemed only to have closed his eyes--in reality he had been asleep but a couple of hours--when he was aroused by a knocking at the door, and the voice of his servant, who, according to usual custom, had brought the post-letters to his bedroom door. in an instant streightley sprang up, all the events of the previous day--guyon's death, katharine's absence, his own misery--all flashing upon him at once, opened the door, and there, on the top of the little heap, saw a letter in katharine's well-known hand. he seized it instantly, was about to tear it open, and stopped--stopped, for his heart was beating loudly, and there was a choking sensation in his throat, and a film over his eyes. he sat down on a chair, placed the letter on the table beside him, and passed his hand over his brow. the whole room reeled before him; he felt that he must, and yet that he dared not break that seal. the answer to the question that had been tormenting him all night, the key to the enigma of his wife's departure, lay before him, and yet he hesitated to avail himself of it. he remained irresolute for some minutes; then he took up the letter quietly, opened it, and read as follows:
"this is the last time i shall ever hold communication with you, and therefore it is well that i should be explicit. by the merest accident i have become acquainted with the plot by which the whole of my life was maimed and perverted, my happiness blighted, my feelings trampled on, and my girlish pride mortified and humbled. in that plot were two conspirators; one who basely sold an honest, trusting, loving girl--his daughter; the other, who, by the mere accidental advantage of his wealth, was enabled to buy that girl for his wife. by neither, save as a mere matter of barter, something to be bought and sold, was i, that girl, considered. one of the plotters has been removed beyond the reach of my vengeance, and i shall take care to prevent the other from any opportunity of further villainy, so far as i am concerned. i have turned my back upon my father's corpse, and i turn my back on your house. i leave behind me all the price at which you purchased me; i take nothing with me but my mother's jewels, to which i suppose i have a right, and the unalterable determination which i have formed; and that is, in this world or the next, living or dying, never to forgive you, robert streightley, for your share in my degradation, and never to look upon your face again.--k.s."
