CHAPTER VII
Half an hour afterward Stephen Davenant passed down the stairs on tiptoe, though the tramp of an armed host could not disturb old Ralph Davenant now – passed down with his hand pressed against his breast pocket, in which lay the stolen will. Had the sheet of blue foolscap been composed of red-hot iron instead of paper, Stephen could not have felt its presence more distinctly and uncomfortably; it seemed to burn right through his clothes and scorch his heart; he could almost fancy, in his overstrained state, that it could be seen through his coat.
He paused a moment outside the library door, one white hand fingering his pale lips, the other vainly striving to keep away from his breast pocket, and listened to the tramp, tramp of Jack as he walked up and down the room. Any other face would have been more endurable than Jack’s, with its fiercely frank gaze and outspoken contempt.
At last he opened the door and entered, his handkerchief in his hand. Jack stopped and looked at him.
“I have been waiting for you,” he said.
“My poor uncle!”
Jack looked at him with keen scrutiny, mingled with unconcealed scorn.
“I have been waiting for you, in case you wished to say anything before I went.”
“What?” murmured Stephen, with admirably feigned surprise and regret. “You will not go, my dear Jack! not to-night.”
“Yes, to-night,” said Jack quietly. “I couldn’t stop in the house – I shall go to the inn.”
“But – ”
“No, thanks!” said Jack, cutting him short.
“Oh, do not thank me,” murmured Stephen, meekly. “I may have no right to offer you hospitality, the house may be yours.”
“Well, I think you could give a pretty good guess on that point,” said Jack, bluntly; “but let that pass. I am going to the ‘Bush.’ If you or Mr. Hudsley want me – where is Hudsley?” he broke off to inquire.
“Mr. Hudsley is up-stairs sealing up the safe and things,” said Stephen humbly. “He wished me to assist him, but I had rather that he should do it alone – perhaps you would go through the house with him?”
Jack shook his head.
“As you please,” murmured Stephen, with a resigned sigh. “Mr. Hudsley is quite sufficient; he knows where everything of importance is kept. You will have some refreshments after your journey, my dear Jack?”
“No, thanks,” said Jack; “I want nothing – I couldn’t eat anything. I’ll go now.”
“Are you going, Mr. Newcombe?” said Mr. Hudsley, entering and looking from one to the other keenly.
“I am going to the ‘Bush;’ I shall stay there in case I am wanted.”
“The funeral had better be fixed for Saturday. You and Mr. Stephen will be the chief mourners.” Then he turned to Stephen. “I have sealed up most of the things. Is there anything you can suggest?”
“You know all that is required; we leave everything to you, Mr Hudsley. I think I may speak for my cousin – may I not, Jack?”
Jack did not reply, but put on his gloves.
“I will go now,” he said. “Good-night, Mr. Hudsley.”
The old lawyer looked at him keenly as he took his hand.
“I shall find you at the ‘Bush?’” he said.
“Yes,” replied Jack, and was leaving the room when Stephen rose and followed him.
“Good-night, my dear Jack,” he said. “Will you not shake hands on – on such an occasion?”
Jack strode to the door and opened it without reply, then turned and, as if with an effort, took the hand which Stephen had kept extended.
“Good-night,” he said, dropping the cold fingers, and strode out.
Stephen looked after him a moment with his meek, long-suffering expression of face changed into a malignant smile of triumph, and his hand went up to his breast pocket.
“Good-night, beggar!” he murmured, and closed the door.
Mr. Hudsley was still standing by the library-table, toying absently with the keys, a thoughtful frown on his brow, which did not grow any lighter as Stephen entered, making great play with the pocket-handkerchief.
“I think I also may go now, Mr. Stephen,” he said. “Nothing more can be done to-night. I will be here in the morning with my clerk.”
“I suppose nothing more can be done. You have sealed up all papers and jewels? I am particularly anxious that nothing shall be left informal.”
“I don’t think there is anything unsealed that should have been.”
“A very strange scene, the final one, Mr. Stephen.”
“Awful, awful, Mr. Hudsley. My poor uncle seemed quite delirious at the last.”
“Hem!” grunted the old lawyer, putting his hat to his lips and looking over it at the white, smooth face. “You think he was delirious – ”
“Don’t you, Mr. Hudsley? Do you think that he was conscious of what he was saying? You have been his legal adviser and confidant for years; you would know whether there was any meaning in his wild and incoherent statement about the will. As you are no doubt aware, my poor uncle never broached the subject of his intentions to me.”
“I know of only one will – that of last year. That will I executed for him; it is the will locked up in the safe up-stairs. I have a copy at the office,” he added, dryly.
“You – you don’t think there is any other – any other later will?” he asked, softly.
“I didn’t think so until an hour ago. I am not sure that I think so now. Do you?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “My uncle was not the man to draw up a will with his own hand, and his confidence, and I may say affection for you, were so great that he would not have gone to any other legal adviser to do it for him. No, I do not think there is any other will; of course, I do not know the contents of the will in the safe.”
“Of course not,” said Mr. Hudsley, in a tone so dry that it seemed to rasp his throat.
“And yet I cannot understand, my poor uncle’s outbreak, except by attributing it to delirium.”
“Hem!” said Mr. Hudsley. “Well, in case there should have been any meaning and significance in it, my clerk and I will make a careful search to-morrow.”
“Yes,” murmured Stephen, “and I devoutly trust that should a later will be in existence, you may find it.”
“I hope we may,” said Mr. Hudsley. “Good-night!”
Stephen accompanied him to the door as he had accompanied the doctor and Jack, and saw him into the brougham, and then turned back into the house with a look of release, which, however, gradually changed to one of lurking fear and indefinite dread.
“Conscience makes cowards of us all.”
It makes a worse coward of Stephen Davenant than he was naturally.
As he stood in the deserted hall, and looked round, at its vast dimness, at the carved gallery and staircase, somber and dull for want of varnish, and listened to the faint, ghostly noises made by the awe-stricken servants moving to and fro overhead, a chill crept over him, and he wished that he had kept one of them, even Jack, to bear him company.
With fearful gaze he peered into the darkness, scarcely daring to cross the hall and enter the library. For all the stillness, he fancied he could hear that last shriek of the dying man ringing through the house; for all the darkness, the slim, bent figure seemed to be moving to and fro, the dark piercing eyes turned upon him with furious accusation. Even when he had summoned up courage to enter the library, locking the door after him, the eyes seemed to follow him, and with a shudder that shook him from head to foot he poured out a glass of brandy and drank it down.
The Spirit of Evil certainly invented brandy for cowards.
Stephen set down the empty glass and looked round the room – another man.
He even smiled in a ghostly kind of fashion as he took the will from his pocket and opened it.
“Poor Jack!” he murmured, with a sardonic display of the white teeth. “This no doubt makes you master of Hurst Leigh; but Providence has decreed that the spendthrift shall be disappointed. Yes, I am the humble instrument chosen. I am – ”
He stopped suddenly with a start, for he had been reading as he soliloquized, and he had come upon words that struck him to the very heart’s core.
Was he dreaming, or had his senses taken leave of him?
With beating heart and white, parched lips he stared at the paper until the lines of crabbed handwriting danced before his astounded eyes.
If brevity is the soul of wit, old Ralph Davenant’s will was wit itself. It consisted of five paragraphs.
The first was merely the usual preamble declaring the testator to be of sound mind.
The second ran thus:
“To John Newcombe I will and bequeath the sum of fifty thousand pounds, the said sum to be realized by the sale or transfer of bonds and stocks, at the discretion of James Hudsley.”
Enough in this to move Stephen, but it paled into insignificance before what followed:
“To my nephew, Stephen Davenant, I will and bequeath the set of Black’s sermons in twenty-nine volumes, standing on the second shelf in the library, having remarked the affection which the said Stephen Davenant bore the said volumes, and accepting his repeated assertions that his attendance upon me was wholly disinterested.”
An ugly flash and an evil glitter swept over Stephen’s white face and eyes, and his teeth ground together maliciously.
“To each and every one of my servants I bequeath the sum of one hundred pounds, such sum to be forfeited by each and every one who assumes mourning for my death, which each and every one has anxiously looked forward to.
“And lastly, I will and bequeath the remainder of my property of whatsoever kind, be it money, houses, lands, or property of any description, to my only daughter and child, Eunice Davenant, the same to be held in trust for her sole use and benefit by James Hudsley.
“And I hereby inform him, and the world at large, that the said Eunice Davenant is the only issue of my marriage with Caroline Hatfield; that the said marriage was celebrated in secret at the Church of Armfield, in Sussex, in June, 18 – . And that the said Eunice Davenant, my daughter, is in the keeping of one Gideon Rolfe, woodman, of Warden Forest, who has reared her as his own child, and who is unacquainted with the facts of my secret marriage, and I decree and appoint James Hudsley sole guardian, trustee, and ward of the aforesaid Eunice Davenant, and at her hands I crave forgiveness for my neglect of her mother and herself.
“(Signed)Ralph Davenant,“Hurst Leigh.
“Witness – George Goodman,“Coachman, Hurst Leigh.
“Martha Goodman,“Cook, Hurst Leigh.”
White, breathless, Stephen held the paper in his clinched hands and stared at the astounding contents.
Eunice Davenant the squire’s daughter.
His overstrained brain refused to realize it.
Old Ralph Davenant married! Married! It was impossible.
Oh, yes, that was it. A smile, a ghastly smile shone on his face. It was a joke– a vile, malicious joke, worthy of the crabbed, misanthropical old man! A villainous joke, set down just to bring about litigation, and create trouble and confusion between the two young men, himself and Jack Newcombe. And yet – and the smile died away and left his face fearful and haggard – and yet that awful fury of the dying man when he knew that the will had been stolen.
No, it was no jest. The marriage had taken place; there was a daughter, and she was the heiress of all that immense, untold wealth, except the fifty thousand pounds left to Jack Newcombe, while he – he, Stephen Davenant, the next of kin, the man who had been working, lying, toadying for the money, was left with a set of musty sermons.
Rage filled his heart; stifling, choking with fury, the disappointed schemer struck the senseless paper with his clinched fist, and ground his teeth at it; then, suddenly, as if by a swift inspiration, he remembered that this accursed will, which would reduce him to beggary, and leave an unknown girl and his hated cousin wealthy, was in his hands; that he and he only knew of its existence. With a sudden revulsion of feeling he sprang to his feet, and held the paper at arm’s length and laughed softly at it, as if it were endued with sense, and could appreciate its helplessness.
Then he drew the candle near, folded the paper into a third of its size, held it to the candle – and drew it back again, overcome by that fascination which almost invariably exercises itself on such occasions – that peculiar reluctance to destroy the thing whose existence can destroy the possessor.
The flame flickered and licked the frail paper; the smoke curled round its edge; and yet – and yet he could not destroy it.
Instead, he sat down, and with clinched teeth unfolded the will and read it – read it again and again, until every word was burned and seared into his brain.
“Eunice Davenant! Eunice Davenant! Curse her!” he groaned out.
But even as the words left his lips a sound rose, the unmistakable tap – tap of something – some finger striking the window-pane.
Biting his bloodless lips to prevent himself calling out in his ecstasy of fear, he thrust the will into his pocket, caught up the candle, swept the curtains aside, and started back.
The light fell full upon the face of a young girl.
CHAPTER VIII
The face at the window was that of a young girl of about two-and-twenty.
It would be hard to say whether Stephen Davenant was pleased or annoyed by this apparition. That he was surprised there could be no doubt, for he almost dropped the candle in his astonishment, and fumbled at the lock of the window for some moments before he could open it.
“Laura!” he exclaimed, “can it be you? Great Heavens! Impossible!”
With a little gasp of relief and suppressed excitement, the girl stepped into the room, and leaned upon his arm, panting with a commingling of weariness and fear.
“My dear Laura,” he said, still holding the candle, “how did you come here? Why – ”
“Oh, Stephen, is it really you? I was afraid that I had made some mistake – that I had come all this way – ”
“You do not mean to say you have come all the way from London alone – alone!”
“Yes, I have come all the way from London. Do not be angry with me, Stephen. I – I could not wait any longer. It seemed so long! Why did you leave me without a word? I did not know whether you were alive or dead. Three weeks – think, three weeks! How could you do it?”
“Hush! hush! Do not speak so loud,” he whispered. “Did anyone see you come in?”
“No one. I have been waiting in the shrubs for – oh, hours! I saw the visitors go away – an old gentleman and a young one – and I saw your shadow behind the blind,” and she pointed to the window. “I have been outside waiting, and dreading to knock in case you should not be alone.”
“You – you saw my shadow?” he said, with an uneasy smile. “Did you see – I mean, what was I doing?”
“I did not see distinctly; I was listening for voices. Oh, Stephen, I am so weary!”
He drew a chair for her, and, motioning her to sit, mixed a glass of brandy-and-water, and stood over her holding her wrist and looking down at her with an uneasy smile.
“Now,” he said, taking the glass from her, “tell me all about it – how you came, and why? Speak in a whisper.”
“You don’t need to ask me why, Stephen,” she said, leaning forward and laying her hand upon his arm, her dark eyes fixed on his half-hidden ones. “Why did you leave me so long without a word?”
“I will tell you directly,” he answered. “Tell me how you came – alone! Great Heaven!”
“Alone, yes; why not? I was not afraid. I came by the train.”
“But – but – ” he said, with a little flush and a shifting glance, “how did you know where I was?”
“You would never guess! You do not deserve that I should tell you. Well, I followed Slummers!”
“Followed Slummers!” he echoed, with a forced smile.
“Yes, I met him in the street; you are going to ask me why I did not ask him where you were,” she broke off with a smile and a shake of her head.
“Because I knew he would not tell me. Stephen, I do not like that man, and he does not like me. Why do you trust him so?”
“You followed Slummers – well?”
“To the station. I was behind him when he took his ticket, and I took one for the same place. I was quite close behind him, but he did not see me. I got into the train at the last moment, and I followed him from the station here.”
“My dear Laura,” he murmured, soothingly; “how rash, how thoughtless!”
“Was it?” she said. “Perhaps it was. I did not stop to think.”
“But now – now what are you to do?”
“Don’t be angry with me, Stephen, now I am here. You must tell me what I am to do.” Then her eyes wandered round the house. “What a large house! Is it yours, Stephen?”
“Eh?” he said, starting slightly. “I – I – don’t know – I mean it was my uncle’s. I was going to write to-night and tell you where I was, and why I did not write before.”
“Why didn’t you?” she said, with gentle reproach.
“Because,” he replied, “I could not – it was impossible. I could not leave the house, and could not trust the letter to a servant. My uncle has been very ill: he – he – lies dead up-stairs.”
“Up-stairs! Oh, Stephen!”
“You see,” he exclaimed reproachfully, “that I have a good excuse, that I have not desert – left you without a word for no cause.”
“Forgive me, Stephen, dear!” she murmured, penitently. “Do not be angry with me. Say you are glad to see me now I have come.”
“Of course I am glad to see you, but I am not glad you have come, my dear Laura. What am I to do with you? I am not alone here, you know. The house is full of servants; any moment someone may come in. Think of the awkward position in which your precipitancy has placed me – has placed both of us!”
“I never thought of that – I did not know. Why did you not tell me you were with your uncle? Oh, Stephen, why have you hidden things from me?”
“Hidden things?” he echoed, with ill-concealed impatience. “I did not think that it was worth telling. I did not know that I was coming – I was fetched suddenly. Now that I come to think of it, I told Slummers to call and tell you.”
“And he forgot it – on purpose. I hate Slummers!”
“Poor Slummers!” murmured Stephen. “Never mind him, however. We must think now of what is to be done with you. You – you cannot stay here.”
“Can I not? No, I suppose not. I can go back,” she added, with a touch of bitterness.
“My darling,” he said, coaxingly, “I am afraid you must go back. There is an up-train – the last – in half an hour.”
The girl leaned back and clasped her hands in her lap.
“I am very sorry,” he said, grasping her arm; “but what can I do? You cannot stay here. That’s impossible. There is only one inn in the place, and your appearance there would arouse curiosity, and – oh, that, too, is quite impossible! My poor Laura, why did you come?”
“Yes,” she said, slowly, “it was foolish to come. You are not glad to see me, Stephen.”
He bent over her and kissed her, but she put him from her with a touch of her hand, and rose wearily.
“I will go,” she said. “Yes, I was wrong to come. Tell me the way,” and she drew her jacket close.
“Don’t look so grieved, dear,” he murmured. “What am I to do? If there was any place – but there is not. See, I will come with you to the station. We shall have to walk, I am afraid; I dare not order a carriage. My poor child, if you had only foreseen these difficulties.”
“Do not say any more,” she interrupted coldly. “I am quite convinced of my folly and am ready to go.”
“Sit down and wait while I get my hat. We must get away unobserved. Suspicious eyes are watching my every movement to-night. I can’t tell you all, but I will soon. Sit down, my darling; I will not be gone a moment. If anyone comes to the door, step through the window and conceal yourself.”
Unlocking the door noiselessly he went out, turning the key after him.
Barely a minute elapsed before he was in the room again.
Warm though the night was he put on an overcoat and turned up the collar so that it hid the lower part of his face.
Locking the door after him, he came up to the table, poured out another glass of brandy-and-water, and got some biscuits.
“Come,” he said, “you must eat some of these. Put some in your pocket. And you must drink this, my poor darling, or you will be exhausted.”
She put back the glass and plate from her with a gesture of denial.
“I could not eat,” she said. “I do not want anything, and I shall not be exhausted. Let us go; this house makes me shudder,” and she moved to the window and passed out.
“Laura, my dear Laura,” murmured Stephen, in his most dulcet tones, “why are you angry with me?”
“I am not angry with you,” she said, and the voice, cold and constrained, did not seem the same as that in which she had greeted him a quarter of an hour ago. “I am angry with myself; I am filled with self-scorn.”
“My dear Laura,” he began, soothingly, but she interrupted him with a gesture.
“You are quite right; I was wrong to come. You have not said so in so many words, but your face, your eyes, your very smile have told me so plainly.”
“What have I said?”
“Nothing,” she answered, without hesitation, and with the same air of cold conviction. “If you had said angry words, had been harsh and annoyed openly, and yet been glad to see me, I could have forgiven myself, but you were not glad to see me. If I had been in your place – but I am a woman. Don’t say any more. Is the station near?”
“My dear Laura,” murmured Stephen for the third time, and now more softly than ever, “more must be said. I am anxious, naturally anxious, to learn whether this – this sudden journey can be concealed.”
It was quite true, he was anxious, very anxious – on his own account.