Volume Iii Part 50 (1/2)

”And because your unde, James O'Keefe, heard the report that got about concerning that man and Miss Lorimer, he ran his own soul into a guilt that may by this time have deepened into the crime of murder. Oh, Eleanor! when shall we remember that 'vengeance is mine, saith the Lord?'”

”_My life, and all that is in it!_” The words came forth softly, and Mr. Brewer, turning round, saw Jenifer.

”He has been before the magistrates at Marston, Mr. Brewer. He has denied all knowledge of everything about it. He is remanded on the charge--waiting for more evidence--waiting to see whether Mr. Erskine lives or dies. I hired a gig, and came off here to you as fast as I could be driven. Mr. May, in the old office, says that if Mr. Erskine dies, it will be hard to save him. But the doctor's man tells me Mr.

Erskine has neither had voice nor sight since he was found--I saw Father Daniels in the street, and he, too, is evidence against the poor creature. He knows of Corny Nugent's letter; and Corny wrote to Jem also, so Jem told me, and he came off here to make sure that Horace Erskine and Henry Evelyn were the same people. And he walked from the Northend railway station, and asked his way to Beremouth, and got a gossip with the gate-keeper, and settled to come on to Marston.

And he met Lady Greys took in the carriage, and asked where Eleanor lived, and inquired his way. Did you know him, Eleanor?”

”Yes, I knew him directly; and it was partly because I knew him that I directed him on to you.”

”Then he lost his way, and took to getting out of the park by walking straight away in the direction he knew Marston to be lying in. And he got by what we call 'the threshetts,' sir--the water for keeping the fishponds from shallowing--and there he must have fallen in, for he says he climbed the hedge just after, and walked straight away through the gra.s.s fields and meadows, and seeing the lights where the Fells were tending the sick cow last night, he got in there, all dripping wet, as the town-clock struck twelve. He does not deny to the magistrates that if he had found Horace Erskine and Henry Evelyn to be one and the same man, that he might have been tempted to evil; he does not deny that. He says he felt sore tempted to go straight to Beremouth House and have him out from sleep and bed, if to do so could have been possible, and to have given him his punishment on the spot.

He says he wished as he wandered through the park that something might send the man who had injured us all so sorely out to him, to meet him in the way, that they might have come hand to hand, and face to face.

He says he has had more temptations since Corny Nugent's letter to him, and more heart-stirrings in the long silent time before it came, than he can reckon up; and that he has felt as if a dark spirit goaded him to go round the world after that man, and never cease following him till he had made his own false tongue declare to all the earth his own false deeds--but something, he says, kept him back. Always kept him back till now; till now, when Corny's last letter said that Erskine was surely gone to Beremouth to be married. Then, he said, it was as if something sent him--ah yes; and sent him _here_ to see the man, to make sure who he was. To tell you, as a brother Catholic, the whole truth--to keep from the dear convert mother the bitter grief of seeing her child bound to a man whom she could never call that child's husband. So {329} he came, Mr. Brewer. He came, and he was found here--but he knows no more of the punishment of that poor man, that poor girl's husband”--pointing to Eleanor--”than an unborn babe. As I hear him speak, I trace the power of the prayer that I took up long ago in my helplessness--when I could not manage my own troubles, my own life, my own responsibilities, it came into my heart to offer all to him. '_My life and all that is in it_.' You and yours have been in it, Mr. Brewer. Your wife has been in it, her life, and her child's--you, too, my dear,” turning to Claudia,--”you whom I have loved like one belonging to me--you have been in it; and that woman, my sister's legacy to my poor helplessness. There were so many to care for, to fear for, to suffer for, and to love--how could I put things right, or keep off dangers? I could only give up all to the Father of us all--'_My life, and all that is in it_.' And I tell you this, Mr.

Brewer--I tell it [to] you because my very soul seems to know it, and my lips must utter it: In that life there will be no red-handed punishment--no evil vengeance--no vile murder, nor death without repentance. I cannot tell you, I cannot even guess, how that bad man got into this trouble--I have no knowledge of whose hands he fell into--but not into the hands of any one who belongs to me, or to that life which has been so long given into G.o.d's keeping.”

Jenifer stopped speaking. She had been listened to with a mute attention. Her hearers could not help feeling convinced by her earnestness. She had spoken gently, calmly, sensibly. The infection of her entire faith in the providence of G.o.d seized them. They, too, believed. Lady Greystock, the only one not a Catholic, said afterward that she felt quite overpowered by the simple trust that Jenifer showed, and the calm strength with which it endowed her. And Lady Greystock was the first to answer her.

”It is no time for self-indulgence,” she said. ”Father, Eleanor and I must both go to Beremouth. And we must stay there. We must be there on the spot, to see how these things are accounted for--to know how matters end--to help, as far as we may, to bring them right.”

And so, before two hours were over, Jenifer was back in Mrs. Morier's parlor, and Mary Lorimer was with her; sent there to stay; and Lady Greystock and Mrs. Evelyn were at Beremouth.

There was silence in the house, that sort of woful silence that belongs to the anxiety of a dreadful suspense. Toward evening there were whispered hopes--Mr. Erskine was better, people thought. But the severest injuries were about the neck and throat, the chest and shoulders. His hair had been cut off in large patches where the head wounds were--his face was disfigured with the bandages that the treatment made necessary. He lay alive, and groaning. He was better.

When more was known about the injuries done to the throat and chest, something less doubtful would be said as to his recovery. ”If he can't swallow, he'll die,” said one nurse. ”He can live long enough without swallowing,” said another. And still they waited.

At night, Eleanor and Lady Greystock stood in the room, with Mr.

Brewer, far off by the door, looking at him. There was no love in either heart. The poor wife shrank away, almost wis.h.i.+ng that the period of desertion might last for ever.

A week pa.s.sed, a terribly long week. He could swallow. He could speak.

He could see out of one eye. He had his senses. He had said something about his arm. He would be ready in another week to give some account of all he had gone {330} through. He would be able, perhaps, to identify the man. In the meantime, James O'Keefe was safe in custody.

And Jenifer was saying her prayer--”_My life, and all that is in it;_”

still quite sure, with a strong, simple, never-failing faith, that the great evil of a human and remorseless vengeance was not in it. And yet, as time pa.s.sed on, and, notwithstanding every effort made by the police, backed by the influence of all that neighborhood, and by Mr.

Brewer himself, not a mark of suspicion was found against any one else, it seemed to come home to every one's mind with the force of certainty that James O'Keefe had tried to murder Horace Erskine--that James O'Keefe had done this thing, and no one else.

Very slowly did Horace seem to mend--very slowly. When questions were put to him in his speechless state, he seemed to grow so utterly confused as to alarm his medical attendants. It was made a law at Beremouth that he was to be kept in perfect quietness. James O'Keefe was again brought before the magistrates, and again remanded; and still this time of trial went on, and still, when it was thought possible to speak to Horace on the subject of his injuries, he grew so utterly confused that it was impossible to go on with the matter.

Was there to be no end to this misery? The waiting was almost intolerable. The knowledge that now existed in that house of Horace Erskine's life made it very easy to understand his confusion and incoherency when spoken to of his injuries. But the lingering--the weight of hope deferred--the long contemplation of the miserable sufferer--the slowness of the pa.s.sage of time, was an inexpressible burthen to the inhabitants of Beremouth.

One sad evening, Lady Greystock and her father, on the terrace, talked together. ”Come with me to the deer-pond, Claudia.” She shrank from the proposal ”Nay,” he said, ”come! You said at Blagden that half victories were powerless things. You must not be less than your own words. Come to the deer-pond--now.” So she took his arm and they walked away. It was the beginning of a sweet, soft night--the evening breezes played about them, and they talked together in love and confidence, as they crossed the open turf, and were lost in the thickets that gathered round the gnarled oak and stunted yew that marked the way to the pond.

It had been many years since Claudia had seen its peaceful waters; terrible in dreams once; and now saddened by a history that would belong to it for ever. They reached the spot, and stood there talking.

Suddenly they heard a sound, they started--a tearing aside of the turning boughs--a sound, strong, positive, angry--then a gentle rustling of the leaves, a soft movement of the feathery fern--and Lady Greystock had let go her father's arm, and was standing with her hand on the head, between the antlers, of a huge old deer--Dapple--”Don Dapple,” as the children had called him--and speaking to him tenderly--”Oh, Dapple, do you know me? Oh, Dapple--alas! poor beast--did you do it--that awful thing? Are you so fierce, poor beast--were you the terrible avenger?” How her tears fell! How her whole frame trembled! How the truth came on her as she looked into the large, tearful eyes of the once tame buck, that had grown fanciful and fierce in its age, and of whom even some of the keepers had declared themselves afraid. Mr. Brewer took biscuit from his coat-pocket, chance sc.r.a.ps from lunches, secreted from days before, when he had been out on long rounds through the farms. These old Dapple nibbled, and made royal gestures of satisfaction and approval--and there, viewing his stately head in the water, where his spreading antlers were mirrored, they left him to walk home, with one wonder out of their hearts, and another--wondering awe at the thing that had happened among them--to by their for ever.

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They came back, they called the doctors, they examined the torn clothes. They wondered they had never thought of the truth before.

Time went on. And at last, when Horace could speak, and they asked him about the old deer at the pond, he said that it was so--it was as they had thought. It had been an almost deadly struggle between man and beast; and Horace was to bear the marks upon the face and form that had been loved so well to his life's end. A broken-featured man, lame, with a stiff arm, and a sightless eye--and the story of his ruined life no longer a secret--known to all.