mr. norcot invited himself to fox tor farm for christmas, but maurice malherb begged him to change his mind. peter's generous offer of a loan had not been accepted; but he knew that fox tor farm was now mortgaged to meet malherb's demands.
within the home circle a great difference of opinion obtained, yet it was impossible to argue the matter out, because it referred to lovey lee. grace felt positive that the miser had returned to her hiding-place; the master expressed an opinion equally strong that john lee had abstracted the fortune and hastened with it for safety to the continent. his reasons he would not give; but that made no uncommon difficulty, for he was not used to offer reasons. his daughter marvelled at his obstinacy, for her heart well knew that john was incapable of such an act. he understood the significance of the amphora, and would have gloried to restore it at any personal risk. the matter slowly ceased to be a subject of conversation, not that malherb forbade it, for he longed to discuss the possibility, and welcomed any shadow of hope; but now rumours of peace had grown into a promise. it seemed to grace malherb as though her ambitions for john lee and cecil stark were to be realised; because while peace with america was soon to be declared, bonaparte had left elba, and europe awakened from her brief respite.
malherb sank into a settled but a gentle melancholy. gloom folded him like a garment; yet he was kindly and even considerate to all. he ceased to hunt, a circumstance that brought more tears to his wife's eyes than any other, for she appreciated its full force. a thousand times he had dreaded the day when his passion for sport could be gratified no more. she had heard him desire to die before infirmity should keep him from riding to hounds. now he abandoned his delight without a murmur; at a wrench he tore twenty years out of his book of life and performed the operation with indifference. in secret he marvelled at himself and at the tremendous operations of chance that could thus alter the whole ingrained tenour and bent of his existence.
christmas came, and grace with her mother rode to worship at holne. harvey woodman was responsible for annabel's safety, since she sat on a pillion behind him; while grace rode 'c?sar.'
"peace comes to us through every sense," said mrs. malherb as they returned homeward. "it is in the air to feel, on men's tongues to hear, in their eyes to see. 'peace on earth,' too, i pray. peace everywhere, but——"
she broke off with a sigh. to speak further was not possible before mr. woodman. but now harvey made a diversion. they were at the top of ter hill, half a mile distant from home, when his keen eyes caught sight of a small black object afar off on the moor. he watched a while, then spoke.
"if there ban't that baggering sow as got out a week ago an' master thought was stolen! 'tis her for sartain."
the wandering beast was a distinguished matron, and her loss had caused annoyance.
"how glad the master will be!" cried mrs. malherb. "don't lose sight of her on any account, woodman. indeed, you will do well to follow her at once. i can easily walk home from here."
she alighted, and harvey galloped off to secure the pig.
"send bickford or one of 'em after me!" he shouted back to the ladies.
the day was fine and the moor dry and frozen, but bickford grumbled not a little at his duty, for the christmas dinner only waited to be eaten when mrs. malherb and her daughter returned. the servants' hall was full of grateful savours; the peat blazed in a pure, still heart of red-hot fire under a purple corona of flame; the walls were decked with holly and fir; it was a scene painful to leave. but the labourer soon returned, for he had not gone far when he met harvey riding homeward at a great pace.
"where's the pig to?" he asked.
"'twas no pig at all, but a message from heaven," gasped mr. woodman.
"if i didn't know, i should say you was drunk," answered bickford; "but you wouldn't have dared get in liquor, having to ride back with missis. be you mazed or pixy-led in daylight?"
"mazed i be—to think—but five mile from our very doors—that awful—my flesh be creaming to my bones with the sight, an' my scalp's crawling down my back."
"you've catched the small-pox, i reckon. i'd best walk to windward of 'e."
"i can say nought till i stand afore the company. then i'll properly terrify the whole pack of 'e."
as they entered the servants' hall maurice malherb was already standing over a great sirloin at one end of the table, while mr. beer carved two turkeys at the other. threads of holly berries glittered against the shining green. there was a smell of gravy and evergreens in the air, and bright sunshine poured through the windows. on christmas day the family dined with their men and women, for it was an old custom of the malherbs to do so.
now appeared harvey woodman, and conscious that perhaps the greatest moment of his life had come, he determined to make the most of it.
"for the love of charity a drop of brandy, souls!" he cried. "oh, your honour's goodness—such a shock as i've had—such a thing! i failed away in my middle when i seed it an' nigh dropped off the hoss."
"fegs!" said bickford, "when i comed to un, the man looked as if he'd been drawed through a brimble hedge backwards!"
mrs. woodman rushed to her husband's side, and malherb, putting down the carvers, also approached.
"speak," he said. "what has happened? are you ill?"
"the pig, the pig, your honour. to the beam her went—straight as any christian; an' me after her. then, far beyond, in they gashly bogs where the jacky-twoads dance on moony summer nights, i seed the horridest sight ever these eyes rested on. i knowed there was a dead thing there very soon, an' thought 'twas a pony. but when i comed nearer—there—let me have another drink—my inward organs turn to vinegar when i think upon it."
"speak on," said malherb. he stood before mr. woodman with his eyes fixed upon him.
"first i seed a great patch of rotted turf; for a dead body decays the grass under it, your honour; then i seed a litter of bones lying on the stones around about, where the crows an' buzzards had carried 'em for cleaner picking; an' then—lor-amercy! a human face-bone staring at me with hollow eyes an' grinning like death! i plucked up courage, however, an' got off my hoss an' went up to the rames of the poor soul. an' next thing i knowed was that i'd found out the secret of that old mullygrubs, lovey lee! to hell the old vixen went; not to france as was thoughted, for there was an awful crack in her skull upon the brow. all rags an' bones she was; an' i seed her old petticoat made of stolen sacks, an' her sun-bonnet, catched in a thorn bush an' black wi' blood yet; an' the long white hair of her shed round about in locks hither an' thither, like the cotton grass that waves on the bogs. let me drink, for the picture of that unholy masterpiece do cleave to my brain like moss to a rock."
a great hum of excitement followed upon this news. then malherb spoke.
"let us eat our dinner with what appetite we may," he said, in a dull and hollow voice. "forget what we have heard until to-morrow. then we will go with a sledge and a pair of oxen and gather up her dust and coffin it."
"don't let the old varmint lie beside that american gentleman, your honour's goodness," said dinah beer; "for 'twould be an unseemly thing that such evil earth should rise, come judgment, so near his clay."
malherb stared round the table and spoke again in the heavy accents of one who talks in sleep.
"she shall lie at widecombe in holy ground; and when we bury her i will tell you something concerning her."
they supposed that he spoke of lovey lee's rumoured treasures. then the meal began, but no joy accompanied it. the men whispered, and woodman repeated his story again and again, adding some particulars with each recital.
the banquet had turned into a funeral feast, whereat nobody loved the dead. this tragedy, indeed, added a zest to their food; they could not leave the subject, but returned to it between every mouthful. then, like thunder upon their whisperings and excited speculations, burst the master's voice.
"have done, ghouls! cease to speak of this matter any more. do you not remember that the house honours your board to-day? sweeten your speech, i pray you."
everybody lapsed into uneasy silence and soon afterwards malherb, his wife and daughter, rose and left the company.
then the voices broke loose and this rare business was turned and twisted and tasted by many tongues.
that night maurice malherb told his wife the thing he had done; and she thrust her meek disposition behind her and derided the crime as nothing, even while her teeth chattered with terror to hear him tell it.
"we are the ministers of god," she said. "to you fell this dreadful duty. it is well, because you had to do it. forget it—pray god to let you forget it. none else must know but your wife."
"the sin—the sin. you are blind to that, or pretend to be. heaven forces no man into sin. to say so is to deny free will. i have ever been on the side of freedom."
"she was doomed to die."
"her death was the hangman's work—not mine. murder! a malherb a common murderer."
"sins are forgiven before they are committed. the lord was born and died to forgive this deed."
"vain comfort. what is forgiveness to me? 'tis a bribe for women and children. can it make a reasonable man easy? god may forgive me; can i forgive myself? there lies the poison of evil-doing. this awful climax to my life of wrath has brought about such a thing as—— the everlasting cannot give me yesterday, or bridle the sun and lead it back into the east. the thing done—the thing done—what will banish that? it lies frozen in time for all eternity. god's own voice is vain to heal; his own hand powerless to take this sword from my heart—the sword i have planted there myself. the thing done. yesterday! yesterday! that's the prayer that such as i am pray, and know, even while we pray, that it is in vain. she was a woman with hidden good in her, because she was human and made in the image of god; and when we put those ashes under the earth—i shall tell all that stand beside the pit that 'twas i slew her."
"you never shall!" she cried, leaping from her bed and striking flint on steel. "i have not thwarted your life until this night. i have yielded to every wish, trusted your wisdom in all things, never rebelled even in unspoken thoughts—questioned nothing. but upon this i'll speak, and struggle, and weary the air, and weep till i madden you into sense. i've done your will for near five-and-twenty years; and please god will do it for five-and-twenty more; but to-night, i'm a maiden again—a maid of the carews; and you shall obey me, as you obeyed when you came a-courting."
"hide that light and come to bed. you will be cold. i have spoken. at least let there be peace between us."
"there shall be no peace. you forget that you have a wife and a daughter."
"'tis the part of sin to make us egoists—as all suffering does. and 'tis the part of sin not to stop at the sinner. god grants that interest on wickedness to the devil: that the ill deed done should strike more than he who does it."
but his wife poured out a flood of alternate entreaties and commands; and he marvelled even in that hour that the helpmate of many years had hidden so much from him.
"there is a greatness of purpose in you that i had not guessed," he said. "maybe no man knows all of his wife until he comes before her a master sinner as i do now. she smiles on his fair hour, content to see him happy; but with storm—— it is my glory in this agony to know—— and yet no woman was ever born to lead me. to bury the dead without confession would be to act a lie. she shall have her rights and her revenge."
"we are not bound to trumpet our sins. and the rights of the dead are in the hand of the lord. if it is his will that you suffer more than you have suffered, it will happen so. by making this unhappy thing known, you throw all into disorder, and strew many paths with difficult problems."
"what then? difficulty is the road that every man walks."
until dawn of day they spoke together; and then maurice malherb fell asleep and his wife, fancying that she had conquered, crept out of bed and knelt and thanked god for victory.
yet her husband's waking words shattered annabel's hope.
"i'm fixed and bate no jot of my intention," he said. "all shall know the thing i have done. i clung to the shadow of doubt like a coward. now there is not even a shadow of doubt to cling to. come what may to me, i'll speak. and for you—you who have shown what courage lies in you at a bad cause, now let it be your part to support a good one."
