Lover or Friend Part 53

'WILL YOU CALL THE GUARD?'

'Plead guilty at man's bar, and go to judgment straight; At G.o.d's no other way remains to shun that fate.'

ARCHBISHOP TRENCH.

Captain Burnett had settled his business, and was returning again to Rutherford after more than a month's absence. He would willingly have lingered in town longer. Lonely as his bachelor quarters were, he felt he was safer in them than in his cosy rooms under his cousin's roof, where every hour of the day exposed him to some new trial, and where the part he played was daily becoming more difficult. In town he could at least be free; he had no need to mask his wretchedness, or to pretend that he was happy and at ease. No demands, trying to meet, were made on his sympathy; no innocently loving looks claimed a response. At least, the bare walls could tell no tales, if he sat for long hours brooding over a future that looked grim and desolate.

And he was a rich man. Heavens! what mockery! And yet how his friends would have crowded round him if they had known it! Comfort--nay, even luxury--was within his power; he could travel, build, add acre to acre; he could indulge in philanthropic schemes, ride any hobby. And yet, though he knew this, the thought of his gold seemed bitter as the apples of Sodom.

It had come too late. Ah, that was the sting--his poverty had been the gulf between him and happiness, and he had not dared to stretch his hand across it to the woman he loved; and now, when his opportunity had gone and he had lost her irrevocably, Fate had showered these golden gifts upon him, as though to bribe him as one bribes children with some gilded toy.

Was it a wonder that, as he sat trying to shape that dreary future of his, his heart was sore within him, and that now and again the thought crossed him that it might have been well for him if his battered body could have been laid to rest with those other brave fellows in Zululand?

And then he remembered how Kester had once told him that he must be the happiest man in the world. He had never quite forgotten that boyish outburst.

'Don't you see the difference?' he could hear him say. 'I have got this pain to bear, and no good comes of it; it is just bearing, and nothing else. But you have suffered in saving other men's lives; it is a kind of ransom. It must be happiness to have a memory like that!'

Was he suffering for nothing now? Would any good to himself or others come from a pain so exquisite, so rife with torture--a pain so strongly impregnated with fear and doubt that he scarcely dared own it to himself? Only now and again those few bitter words would escape his lips:

'Oh, my darling, what a mistake! Will you ever find it out before it is too late?' And then, with a groan, he would answer, as though to himself: 'Never! never!'

Old habits are strong, and it was certainly absence of mind that made Captain Burnett take his usual third-cla.s.s ticket; and he had seated himself and dismissed his porter before he bethought himself that the first-cla.s.s compartment was now within his means.

Audrey had told him laughingly that such creature comforts were dear to him--that he was a man who loved the best of things, to whom the loaves and fishes of bare maintenance were not enough without adding to them the fine linen and dainty appendages of luxury; and he had not contradicted her. But, all the same, he knew that he would have been willing to live in poverty until his life's end if he could only have kept her beside him.

Happily, the third-cla.s.s compartment was empty, and he threw himself back in the farthest corner, and, taking out his Baedeker, began to plan what he called his summer's campaign--a tour he was projecting through Holland and Belgium, and which was to land him finally in the Austrian Tyrol. He would work his way later to Rome and Florence and Venice, and he would keep Norway for the following year; and he would travel about in the desultory, dilettante sort of fas.h.i.+on that suited him best now.

He would probably go to America, and see Niagara and all the wonders of the New World, that was so young and fresh in its immensity. Indeed, he would go anywhere and everywhere, until his trouble became a thing of the past, and he had strength to live and work for the good of his fellow-creatures; but he felt that such work was not possible to him just yet.

Michael studied his Baedeker in a steady business-like way. He had made up his mind that to brood over an irreparable misfortune was unworthy of any man who acknowledged himself a Christian--that any such indulgence would weaken his moral character and make him unfit for his duties in life. The sorrow was there, but there was no need to be ever staring it in the face; as far as was possible, he would put it from him, and do the best for himself and others.

Michael's stubborn tenacity of purpose brought its own reward, for he was soon so absorbed in mapping out his route that he was quite startled at hearing the porters shouting 'Warnborough!' and the next moment the door was flung open, and a shabbily-dressed man, with the gait and bearing of a soldier, entered the compartment, and, taking the opposite corner to Michael, unfolded his paper and began to read.

Michael glanced at him carelessly. He was rather a good-looking man, he thought, with his closely-cropped gray hair and black moustache; but his scrutiny proceeded no further, for just then he caught sight of a familiar face and figure on the platform that made him shrink back into his corner, and wish that he, too, had a newspaper, behind which he could hide himself.

There was no mistaking that slim, graceful figure and the little, close black bonnet. There was something about Mrs. Blake which he would have recognised a quarter of a mile off. By Jove! she was coming towards his compartment. Her hands were full of parcels, and she was asking a gray-headed old gentleman to open the door for her--how handsome and bright and alert she looked, as she smiled her acknowledgment! The old gentleman looked back once or twice--even old fogeys have eyes for a pretty woman--but Mrs. Blake was too busy arranging her parcels in the rack to notice the impression she had made.

If only he had had that newspaper he might have pretended that he was asleep; but when the parcels were in their place she would see him.

There was nothing for him but to take the initiative.

'Let me put that up for you, Mrs. Blake;' and at the sound of his voice she turned round.

In a moment he knew that she was not pleased to see him--that if she had discovered that he was there, nothing would have induced her to enter the compartment. It was his extraordinary quickness of intuition that made him know this, and the sudden shade that crossed her face when he addressed her. Underneath Mrs. Blake's smooth speeches and charm of manner he had always been conscious of some indefinable antagonism to himself; as he had once told Geraldine, there was no love lost between them. 'In a ladylike way, she certainly hates me,' he had said.

'Dear me, Captain Burnett, how you startled me! I thought there were only strangers in the carriage. Thank you; that parcel is rather heavy.

I have been shopping in Warnborough and am terribly laden; I hope Cyril will meet me--if the omnibus be not at the station, I must certainly take a fly. I had no idea you were coming back until to-morrow. Kester certainly said to-morrow. How delighted he will be, dear boy, when I tell him I have seen you!'

'The christening will be to-morrow, you know, and I have to stand sponsor to my small cousin.'

'Ah, to be sure! How stupid of me to forget! and yet Mollie told me all about it. It is very soon--baby is only a month old, is he not? But I hear Mrs. Harcourt is not to be allowed to go to the church.'

'No; so Audrey tells me.'

'I think that a pity. When my children were christened I was always with them. To be sure, both Kester and Mollie were two months old at least.

What is your opinion, Captain Burnett--you are a strict Churchman, I know--ought not the mother to be there as a matter of course?'

Mrs. Blake spoke in a soft voice, with her usual engaging air of frankness, but Michael's answer was decidedly stiff. Of all things he hated to be entrapped into a theological argument, but he would not compromise truth.

'I think there is one thing even more desirable than the mother's presence,' he returned quickly, 'and that is that these little heathens be made Christians as soon as possible; and I think Harcourt is perfectly right to have his son baptized without exposing his wife to any risk.'

'And she is still so delicate, as dear Audrey tells me. She was up at Hillside last evening, and Cyril fetched her. My boy is a most devoted lover, Captain Burnett.'

'Cela va sans dire,' returned Michael lightly--he may be forgiven for regarding this speech in the worst possible taste--and then he stopped, attracted by a singular action on the part of their fellow-pa.s.senger.

He had put down his paper, and was leaning forward a little in his seat, and staring intently into Mrs. Blake's face.

'Good G.o.d, it is Olive!' he muttered. 'As I live, it is Olive herself!'

and then he threw out both his hands in a strange, appealing sort of way, and his face was very pale. 'Olive,' he went on, and there was something strained and pitiful in his voice, as though pleading with her; 'how am I to sit and hear you talk about the little chaps and take no notice? How am I to mind my promise and not speak to my own wife?'

Michael gave a violent start, but he had no time to speak, for Mrs.

Blake suddenly clutched his arm with a stifled scream; she looked so ghastly, so beside herself with terror, that he could not help pitying her.

'Captain Burnett,' she gasped, 'will you stop the train? I will not travel any longer with this madman. I shall die if I am in this carriage a moment longer. Don't you see he is mad? Will you call the guard?

I--I----' She sank down, unable to articulate another syllable.

Captain Burnett hardly knew how to act. They would reach the station for Rutherford in another quarter of an hour. He knew the man opposite him was no more mad than he was--there was no insanity in those deep-set, melancholy eyes, only intense pain and sadness. The very sound of his voice brought instant conviction to Michael's mind that he was speaking the truth. Whatever mystery lay beneath his words, he and Mrs. Blake were not strangers to each other--her very terror told him that.

'Mrs. Blake,' he said, endeavouring to soothe her, 'there is nothing to fear. Do try to be reasonable. No one could molest you while you are under my protection. Perhaps this gentleman,' with a quick glance at the man's agitated face and shabby coat, 'may have made some mistake. You may resemble some friend of his.'

'No fear of that,' interposed the man sullenly, and now there was an angry gleam in his eyes that alarmed Michael; 'a man can't mistake his own wife, even if he has not seen her for fifteen or sixteen years. I will take my oath before any court of justice that that is my lawful wedded wife, Olive O'Brien.'

Mrs. Blake uttered another faint scream, and covered her face with her hands. She was shaking as though in an ague fit.

'I a.s.sure you, you must have made some mistake,' replied Michael civilly; 'this lady's name is Blake: she and her family are well known to me. If you like, I will give you my card, if you should wish to satisfy yourself by making further inquiries; but, as you must see, it is only a case of mistaken ident.i.ty.'

If Michael spoke with the intent of eliciting further facts, he was not wholly unsuccessful.

'It is nothing of the kind,' returned the man roughly; 'don't I tell you it is no mistake. I can't help what she calls herself. If she has taken another husband, I'll have the law of her and bring her to shame; she has only one husband and his name is Matthew O'Brien.'

'Good heavens! do you mean that Thomas...o...b..ien, of Vineyard Cottage, is your brother?' And as Michael put this question he felt the plot was thickening.

'Yes. Tom, poor old chap! is my brother; but he knows nought about Olive and the young ones. He thinks they are dead. I told him I had lost them all. Has she not been talking about them--Cyril and Kester and my little Mollie!' And here there were tears in Matthew O'Brien's eyes.

'Hus.h.!.+' interposed Michael; 'don't say any more. Don't you see she has fainted? Will you move away a moment, that she may not see you? Open the window; make a thorough draught.'

Michael was doing all that he could for Mrs. Blake's comfort. He loosened her bonnet-strings and made his rug into a pillow, and, taking out his brandy flask, moistened her white lips. However she had sinned, he felt vaguely, as he knelt beside her, that hers would be a terrible expiation. Mat O'Brien stood a little behind, talking half to himself and half to Michael.

'Ah, he is a handy chap,' he soliloquised; 'he must have a wife of his own, I'm thinking. Poor la.s.s! she does look mortal bad. I have frighted her pretty nearly to death, but it is her own fault. I never would have hurt a hair of her head. She is as handsome as ever, and as hard-hearted, too. I used to tell her she was made of stone--not a bit of love, except for the children. She is coming to, sir,' he continued excitedly; 'I was half afraid she was dead, lying so still.'

'Yes, she is recovering consciousness,' replied Michael quietly; 'but it is rather a serious fainting fit, and I must ask you to leave her to me, Mr. O'Brien. There is my card. I shall be at Rutherford, and will try to see you to-morrow--no, not to-morrow, there is the christening--but the next day. I will come over to Vineyard Cottage; there, we are stopping. Please send a porter to me.' And then Michael turned again to his patient.