One other parting caress, and then he was gone.
Cherrie listened until the echo of his footsteps died out in the distance, and then she threw herself on her face in the wet grass, heedless of her white dress, and cried like a spoiled child whose doll has been taken away. She was frightened, she was excited, she was grieved, but she was not remorseful. There was little compunction in her heart for the part she was to play – betraying the man who loved her and trusted her. It was the old story of Delilah and Samson over again.
The clocks of Speckport striking ten, and clearly heard this still summer night, had ceased before she came out, her cheeks pale, her eyes red with weeping. There was a dull circle round the moon, foreboding a coming storm; but what was there to give warning to poor Charley Marsh of the storm about to burst upon him?
Ann Nettleby was at the door waiting patiently for Cherrie. She turned crossly upon her when she appeared.
"I wish you would learn to come home earlier, and not keep folks out of their beds all night. What were you doing in the woods?"
"Crying," said Cherrie, quite as crossly as her sister. "I'm tired to death of this dull place. I'll go off to Greentown to-morrow."
"I wish to mercy you would; the rest of us would have some peace then. Did you expect Charley Marsh to-night?"
"No; why?"
"He's been here, then, and only just gone. Come in, and let me lock the door."
Cherrie went up to her room, but not to sleep. She sat by the window, looking out on the quiet road, the black woods, and the moon's sickly, watery glimmer, while the long hours dragged slowly on, and her sister slept. She was thinking of the eventful to-morrow – the to-morrow that was to be the beginning of a new life to her.
CHAPTER XV.
SPRINGING THE MINE
When Mr. Robert Nettleby informed his family circle that Charley Marsh was going to – well, to a certain dark spirit not to be lightly named in polite literature, he was about right. That young gentleman, mounted on the furious steed of extravagance, was galloping over the road to ruin at the rate of an express train.
Not alone, either; young McGregor, Tom Oaks, Esquire, and some dozen more young Speckportians, were keeping him company – and all ran nearly abreast in the dizzy race.
The terrible terminus – Disgrace, Misery, and Sudden Death – looked very near to some of them, very near, indeed, to the brother of Nathalie. He had taken to hard drinking of late, as a natural sequence of the other vice; gamblers must drink to drown remorse, and it was no unusual thing now for him to be helped home by pitying friends, and carried up-stairs to bed. How the mother cried and scolded; how the sister wept in passionate shame and sorrow in the silence of her own room; how he, the prodigal, suffered after, Heaven only knows, but it never came to anything.
Next day's splitting headache, and insuperable shame and remorse, must be drowned in brandy; that fatal stimulant brought the old delusive hopes – he must go back, he must win.
He was over four hundred dollars indebted to Captain Cavendish now, without possessing one dollar in the world, or the hope of one, to pay him. He had ceased to ask money from Nathalie – she had no more to give him, and Alick McGregor and Tom Oaks found enough to do to foot their own bills.
Strange to say, the primary mover of this mischief, the arch-tempter himself, George Percy Cavendish, remained unsuspected, save by a few, and went altogether unblamed. Captain Cavendish seldom lost his money, never his temper; never got excited, was ever gentlemanly and cool, though half the men about him were mad with liquor and losses, and ready to hold pistols to their heads and blow their miserable brains out.
Nathalie, humbled to the very dust with shame for Charley, never suspected her betrothed lover – never for one second; in her eyes he was the incarnation of all that was honorable and good.
It was in one of his fits of rage and remorse that Charley had asked Cherrie to fly with him. Not that he expected to atone by that; but, far from Speckport, which enchanting town was fast becoming hateful to him, and with her as his wife, he hoped to begin a new life, away from those he had disgraced. He hated Captain Cavendish with a furious and savage hatred, and it would be a demoniac satisfaction to tear Cherrie from him. For, with the eyes of jealousy, Charley saw his game, though all Speckport was blind. Miss Nettleby, at her old game of fast and loose, had put him off indefinitely. And, casting bitter reproaches to Fate, after the manner of Dick Swiveller, Charley Marsh let himself drift with the rapid current, bearing him along to a fearful end.
The day that came after the night spent by Cherrie and Captain Cavendish in the cedar dell was one of scorching, broiling heat and sunshine. The sun was like a wheel of red flame, the sky of burnished brass, the bay a sea of amber fire.
Through all the fiery glare of this fierce August morning, went Charley Marsh to the office of Dr. Leach. No longer the Charley Marsh who had been the life of Mrs. McGregor's party, that foggy May evening when Captain Cavendish had first appeared in Speckport, but a pale, sunken-cheeked, hollow-eyed vision, with parched and feverish lip, and gaze that shrunk from meeting that of his fellow-men, his temples seemed splitting, his eyes ached with the blinding gleam, and he could have cursed the heat in his impious impatience and suffering. He glanced down toward the shining bay, and thought, if it had only looked blue and cool, instead of being a lake of fire, he could have gone and lain down in its pleasant waters, and escaped forever from the miseries of this life, at least.
"Charley!"
The voice at his elbow made him bound. He turned and saw Cherrie Nettleby, her shining ebon ringlets freshly curled, her black eyes dark and dewy, her rosy cheeks bright and unwilted, her dress airy and cool – unflushed, unheated; basking, like a little salamander, in the genial sunlight, and wearing the smile of an angel. Charley could scarce believe his eyes.
"You here, Cherrie!" he cried, "this blazing day. Have you been in Speckport all night?"
"No, I got a drive in this morning, and, Charley," dropping her wicked eyes, "I came to see you!"
They were near the office. The surgery looked cool and shady, and Charley opened the door and ushered the young lady in. The shopboy had the place to himself, and he retreated to a distant corner, with a knowing grin, at sight of the pair. Dr. Leach was rarely at home. People would persist in devouring new potatoes, and green peas, and cucumbers, and string-beans, and other green stuffs, and having pains, and cramps, and cholera afterward, and the doctor was fairly run off his legs – that is to say, his horse was.
"How nice and cool it is in here," said Cherrie; "it's the hottest day came this summer, I think. What a hurry you were in leaving, last night, Charley."
"Hurry! It was past ten."
"Well, I came in a few minutes after, and was so mad when I found you were gone. I got such a jawing for being out! I won't stand it," cried Miss Cherrie, flying out in an affected temper; "I just won't!"
"Stand what?"
"Why, being scolded and put upon the way I am! It's dreadful dull, too, and I am getting tired of the place altogether; and so, I am going to leave it."
"With me, Cherrie?"
"I don't care if I do! I'm off this very day; I'll not stand it a minute longer – so, if you want me to go with you, you haven't much time to spare!"
Charley grasped both her hands, his pale face lighting with ecstasy; and the shopboy behind the pestle-and-mortar grinned delightedly at the scene, although he could not hear a word.
"My darling Cherrie!" Charley cried, "you have made me the happiest fellow alive! Wait until to-morrow, and we will be off in the boat to Boston."
Miss Nettleby fell to musing.
"Well, I don't care if I do," she said, at length. "I should like to see Boston, and the trip in the steamboat will be nice. But, look here, Charley, I've gone and told our folks and everybody else that I was going to Greentown, in this afternoon's train, and it won't do to back out."
"But you must back out, Cherrie! You cannot go to Greentown and to Boston, both."
Cherrie put on her considering-cap again, only for a moment, though, and then she looked up with a sparkling face.
"I have it, Charley! The nicest plan! This evening, at half-past five, I'll go off in the cars, and every one will think I've gone to Greentown, so my absence to-morrow won't be noticed. I'll get out at the first station, three miles off, and walk back home, but won't go in. About eight to-night you call at our house, pretending you don't know about my being off, you know; and when our Ann tells you I have gone, you go up to Lady Leroy's and stay till bed-time. Then wait around the grounds in front of the house, and I'll come to you about ten. I can stop in one of the hotels here, where they don't know me. I'll wear a thick vail until morning, and then we will hide on board the boat. Isn't it a splendid plan, Charley? They'll think I'm in Greentown, and never suspect we have gone off together!"
No poor fly ever got entangled in a spider's web more readily than did Charley Marsh in that of Captain Cavendish. He thought the plan was capital, and he told her so.
"You must be sure to wait in front of the house until I come," said the wicked little enchantress, keeping her black eyes fixed anywhere but on his face. "And here, Charley – now don't refuse – it is only a trifle, and I won't go with you, if you don't take it. I don't suppose you have much money, and father made it a present to me after Lady Leroy paid him. I must go now, because I have ever so much to do before evening. Good-bye, Charley, you won't forget anything I've said?"
Forget! That face, fair in spite of its haggardness, was radiant. Bad as Cherrie was, she had not the heart to look at him as she hurried out of the shop and down the street. If he had only known! – if he had only known! – known of the cunning trap laid for him, into which he was falling headlong – if he had only known what was to take place that fatal night!
Charley Marsh did not go home to his dinner; he had dinner enough for that day. All that long sweltering afternoon he sat in the smothering little back-office, staring out at the baked and blistered backyard, and weaving, oh! such radiant dreams of the future. Such dreams as we all weave; as we see wither to shreds, even in the next hour. Visions of a home, far, very far from Speckport, where the past should be atoned for and forgotten – a home of which Cherrie, his darling little Cherrie, should be the mistress and fireside fairy.
It was some time past five, when, awakening from these blissful day-dreams, Charley Marsh found that the little back office was so insufferably hot as not to be borne any longer, and that a most extraordinary change had come over the sky, or at least as much of the firmament as was visible from the dirty office-window. He took his hat and sauntered out, pausing in the shop-door to stare at the sky. It had turned livid; a sort of ghostly, greenish glare, all over with wrathful black clouds and bars of blood-red streaking the western horizon. Not a breath of air stirred; the trees along the streets of Speckport and in its squares hung motionless in the dead calm, and feathers and bits of paper and straw lay on the sidewalk. The sea was of the same ghastly tinge as sky and air, as if some commotion in its watery bowels had turned it sick. And, worst of all, the heat was unabated, the planked sidewalks scorched your feet as you walked, and you gasped for a mouthful of air. Speckport declined taking its tea; its butter was butter no longer, but oil; its milk had turned sour, and the water from the street-hydrants nearly warm enough to make tea of, without boiling at all. There were very few out as Charley walked down Queen Street, but among these few he encountered Mr. Val Blake, striding in the direction of Great St. Peter Street.
Val nodded familiarly.
"Hot day, Charley. Going to be a thunder-storm, I take it. By the way, she'll have an ugly night for her journey."
"Who will?"
"Little Cherrie, of course; she's off to Greentown, man! Didn't you know it? I was down at the station ten minutes ago, and saw her off. How's the mother?"
"Getting better. Good afternoon, Val," said Charley, passing on, and smiling at the news Mr. Blake had told him.
"What a clever head the little darling has to put them off the scent! Hallo, what do you want?"
Some one had shouted after him; and turning round, he saw Master Bill Blair, his hands in his pockets, his hat cocked on one side of his head, following at an extremely leisurely pace.
"I want you to hold on. I'll go part of the way with you, for I'm going home to tea," replied Mr. Blair, not hurrying himself. "It's hot enough to roast an ox, it is. You don't suppose the sky has got the jaundice, do you; it is turned as yellow as a kite's claw."
"You had better send up and inquire," said Charley, shortly, preferring his own thoughts to this companionship.
"I say, Marsh," said Bill, grinning from ear to ear, "Cherrie's gone, hasn't she? Good riddance, I say. What took her streaking off to Greentown, and whatever will you do without her?"
Mr. Marsh came to a sudden stand-still – they were in a quiet street – and took Mr. Blair by the collar.
"Look you here, Master Bill," said Charley, emphatically, "you see the water down there! Well, now take warning; the next time I find you making too free use of that tongue of yours, I'll duck you! Mind! I've said it!"
With which Mr. Marsh released him, and stalked on. Mr. Blair, pretty well used to being collared, took this admonition so much to heart, that he leaned against a lamp-post, and went off with a roar of laughter that awoke all the sleeping echoes of the place.
There was no one in the cottage parlor when Charley went in; and on the lounge in the sitting-room his mother lay asleep. He went softly up-stairs to his own room, so as not to awake her. That poor, pale, peevish, querulous, novel-reading, fond mother, when should he see her again?
A murmur of voices caught the young man's ear as he ascended; it came from Miss Rose's room – the door of which, that sultry evening, stood half open. Charley glanced in. Miss Rose, sitting at a little table, was writing, and an old woman on a chair near, with her shawl and bonnet on, rocked to and fro, and dictated. Charley knew Miss Rose was scribe to all the poor illiterate of Speckport, and knew she was at one of those sacred tasks now. He saw the pale, sweet face in profile; the drooping white eyelids, hiding the hazel eyes, and the brown hair, damp and loose, falling over her mourning-dress. He thought of what Nathalie had said – "If you must marry any one, why not Miss Rose?" as he closed the door without disturbing them.
"No, Natty," he mentally answered. "Miss Rose is an angel, which I am not, unless it be an angel of darkness. No; she is too innocent and good for such a fellow as I am. I wouldn't marry her if I could, and couldn't, I dare say, if I would."
He changed his dress, and packed his trunk, laying out a long waterproof coat on the bed, as a shield against the coming rain. Before he had finished, he heard Betsy Ann calling Miss Rose to tea. That reminded him he had had no dinner, and was hungry; so he went down stairs, and Mrs. Marsh, at sight of him, broke out in petulant complainings.
Why had he not come home to dinner? Where had he been? What was the reason it was so hot, and why was he in evening dress? And Charley laughed good-humoredly as he took his place at the table.
"Be easy, mother mine! Who could think of so preposterous a thing as dinner this sweltering day? I have been in the office since morning."
"Catty Clowrie was in here some time ago," pursued Mrs. Marsh, feebly stirring her tea, "and she told me Cherrie Nettleby had gone away up the country. What's taken her off?"
Miss Rose was kind-hearted enough not to look at him, and his mother was without her specs; so neither noticed the hot flush that arose to his face.
"How should I know? Am I Miss Nettleby's confidant? Was Nathalie in the school-room to-day, Miss Rose?"
"No."
"It was too hot, I suppose. This intense closeness can only end in a thunder-storm."
"I fancy we will have it shortly. The sky looks fearful; it has turned perfectly livid."
The meal ended, Charley walked to the window overlooking the wide sea, and stood blankly gazing out. It was nearly seven – time he was off to Redmon; and yet, with love and Cherrie beckoning him on, he was hesitating. When should he stand here again – in this pleasant home where he had spent so many happy years? When, indeed? He was going to his fate, as we all go, blindly; and there was no foreshadowing dread to whisper to him – stand back.
The clock struck seven. It was possible to linger no longer. He went over to where his mother sat, and bent over her. Miss Rose in the next room was practicing.
"Mother!" Charley said, trying to laugh, and speaking very fast, "I have not been a very good boy lately, but I am going to turn over a new leaf from to-day. You can forgive the past, mother dear, can you not, if I promise better for the future?"
Mrs. Marsh looked up at him rather surprised, but still peevish.
"I am glad to hear it, I am sure. You have been acting disgracefully of late, just as if you wanted to break my heart."
"But I don't, mother, and I am going to amend. And when after this you hear others speaking ill of me, you will be my defender, will you not, mother?"
"Of course, Charles," his mother said, pettishly, "if you deserve it."
"Good-bye, then, mother; take care of yourself, and try and forgive me."
He kissed her, and hastily left the room. Miss Rose faintly and sweetly was playing some evening hymn. He stopped a moment to look at the slight black figure – for the last time, perhaps, he thought.
"Good-bye, Miss Rose," he called out; "I am off."
She turned round with a smile.
"Good-bye, Mr. Marsh! There is a storm coming – take care!"
How little she dreamed of the storm that was coming when she gave him that warning. He went out of the cottage, closing the hall door after him; and the street and the figures in it looked blurred to him, seen through some foolish mist in his eyes.
With the waterproof overcoat thrown across his arm, his umbrella in his hand, and his hat pulled far over his eyes, Charley Marsh walked through the streets of Speckport steadily to his fate. There was an ominous hush in the stifling atmosphere, a voiceless but terrible menace in the sullen sky, the black and glassy bay, and the livid-hued evening. Charley's thoughts wandered to Cherrie. The storm would overtake her coming to town; she would get drenched, and frightened half to death, for it was going to lighten. He could not walk fast, owing to the heat, and night fell before the Nettleby cottage came in sight. With it fell the storm, flash after flash of lightning cleaving black cloud and yellow air like a two-edged sword – flash after flash, blinding, intermittent, for nearly five minutes. Then a long dull roar, that seemed to shake the town, with great plashing drops of rain, as large and heavy as peas. And then the tempest burst in its might – flash, flash, flash! – the heavens seemed one sheet of flame – the earth rocking with the ceaseless roll of thunder, and the rain descending in torrents. Some low spruce-bushes, a zigzag fence, his glazed overcoat and umbrella, were shelter enough for Charley. He sat on a rock by the wayside, his hands over his eyes, feeling as though the fierce blue glare had struck him blind. The summer-hurricane was sublime in its fury, but too violent to last long. In three-quarters of an hour the lightning and thunder had ceased, but the rain still fell heavily. Charley got up, drew out his watch, struck a match – for the night had struck in pitch black – and looked at the hour. A quarter to nine, and where, oh where, in all this tempest was poor Cherrie? He hurried on at a frantic pace, fumbling in the blind blackness, until the red light of the cottage-window streamed across the inky gloom. He never stopped to imagine what they would think of his presence there at such a time; he was too full of anxiety for Cherrie. She might have hired a cab and driven home, frightened by the storm, and he rapped loudly at the door. Ann Nettleby, lamp in hand, answered his authoritative summons.
"Is Cherrie here, Ann?"
Ann stared.
"Law, Mr. Marsh! how should she be here? Don't you know she went off to Greentown in the half-past five train?"
Charley stood looking at her, so pale and wild and wet, that Ann stared at him harder than ever.
"Is Lady Leroy worse?" she asked.
"Worse! Yes – no – I don't know. Has she been ill?"
"She's been very bad all the day. Dr. Leach has been up to see her, and our Bob's staying there all night for fear she should take another bad turn, and some one should be wanted to go for him again."
This was news to Charley.
"What is the matter with her?" he asked.
"Cramps. Did you not get Cherrie's letter?"
"What?"
"Cherrie's letter! She left a letter for you, and told me to fetch it to town to you, and I did this evening, but you weren't in, the boy said."
"Did you leave it at the office?"
"Yes."
Charley wondered what it could be about, but he did not ask Ann. He turned and walked through the darkness and the slanting rain, to Redmon House. The outer gate never was fastened, and he went under the dripping trees up to the castle of Lady Leroy. It was all in darkness, looming up a blacker spot in the blackness, but one feeble ray shone from Nathalie's room. Charley knew it was of no use entering then – past nine – when the place was closed and locked for the night, so he stood under the tall, gaunt trees, and watched that feeble, flickering ray. It seemed to connect him – to bring him in communion – with Nathalie; and when it went out, and all was dark and lonely, a light – the light of his love for her – seemed to go out of his heart with it.
And now there was nothing to do but to watch for Cherrie. He seemed to have bidden farewell to all his old friends, and have only her left. His past life seemed gliding behind him, out of sight – a newer and better life opening before him, with her by his side to share it, until they should lie down at the far end, full of years and good works. He leaned against a tree, thinking of this, and waiting. The storm was abating, the rain ceasing, the clouds parting, and a pale and watery moon staring wanly across the gloom. In another hour the clouds were scudding wildly before a rising gale, and the moon had broken out, through their black bars, lighting up the grim old house with an eerie and spectral gloom. The trees looked like tall, moaning ghosts in the sickly and fitful rays, and the loneliness of the tomb reigned over all. Another weary hour of watching, and Charley was nearly mad with impatience and anxiety. Where – where – was Cherrie? The sighing night-wind, the moaning and tossing trees, the ghastly light of the fitful moon, and the ominous silence of nature, had no answer to give him.
What was that which rent the silence of the night? A shriek from the house behind him – a woman's shriek – the sound of flying feet, a key turning in a rusty lock, and the front door thrown wide open. En sac de nuit, which means, in a short night-gown and red flannel petticoat, her head tied up in a yellow silk handkerchief, Midge rushed frantically out, followed by a man. Charley had started forward, and the moon's light fell full upon his black form in the middle of the park. Quick as lightning, the iron grasp of the dwarf was upon his collar, and the shrill voice piercing wildly the night air: "I have him! I have him! Murder! Murder! Murder!"