A Tale of a Lonely Parish Part 28

"Certainly, Augustin," said his wife. Therewith the good vicar left her and went to bury Tom Judd's baby, divided in his mind between rejoicing over his favourite pupil's success and lamenting, as he sincerely did, the misfortunes which befell his paris.h.i.+oners. When he left the churchyard an hour later he was met by Martha, who came from the cottage with a message begging that the vicar would come to Mrs. G.o.ddard as soon as possible. Martha believed her mistress was ill, she wanted to see Mr.

Ambrose at once. Without returning to the vicarage he turned to the left towards the cottage.

Mrs. G.o.ddard had slept that night, being exhausted and almost broken down with fatigue. But she woke only to a sense of the utmost pain and distress, realising that to-day's anxiety was harder to bear than yesterday's, and that to-morrow might bring forth even worse disasters than those which had gone before. Her position was one of extreme doubt and peril. To tell any one that her husband was in the neighbourhood seemed to be equivalent to rooting out the very last remnant of consideration for him which remained in her heart, the very last trace of what had once been the chief joy and delight of her life. She hesitated long. There is perhaps nothing in human nature more enduring than the love of man and wife; or perhaps one should rather say than the love of a woman for her husband. There appear to be some men capable of being so completely estranged from their wives that there positively does not remain in them even the faintest recollection of what they have once felt, nor the possibility of feeling the least pity for what the women they once loved so well may suffer. There is no woman, I believe, who having once loved her husband truly, could see him in pain or distress, or in danger of his life, without earnestly endeavouring to help him. A woman may cease to love her husband; in some cases she is right in forgetting her love, but it would be hard to find a case where, were he the worst criminal alive, had he deceived her a thousand times, she would not at least help him to escape from his pursuers or give him a crust to save him from starvation.

Mary G.o.ddard had done her best for the wretch who had claimed her a.s.sistance. She had fed him, provided him with money, refused to betray him. But if it were to be a question of giving him up to the law, or of allowing her best friend to be murdered by him, or even seriously injured, she felt that pity must be at an end. It would be doubtless a very horrible thing to give him up, and she had gathered from what he had said that if he were taken he would pay the last penalty of the law. It was so awful a thing that she groaned when she thought of it. But she remembered his ghastly face in the starlight and the threat he had hissed out against the squire; he was a desperate man, with blood already on his hands. It was more than likely that he would do the deed he had threatened to do. What could be easier than to watch the squire on one of those evenings when he went up the park alone, to fall upon him and take his life? Of late Mr. Juxon did not even take his dog with him. The savage bloodhound would be a good protector; but even when he took Stamboul with him by day, he never brought him at night. It was too long for the beast to wait, he used to say, from six to nine or half past; he was so savage that he did not care to leave him out of his sight; he brought mud into the cottage, or into the vicarage as the case might be--if Stamboul had been an ordinary dog it would have been different.

Those Russian bloodhounds were not to be trifled with. But the squire must be warned of his danger before another night came on.

It was a difficult question. Mrs. G.o.ddard at first thought of telling him herself; but she shrank from the thought, for she was exhausted and overwrought. A few days ago she would have been brave enough to say anything if necessary, but now she had no longer the courage nor the strength. It seemed so hard to face the squire with such a warning; it seemed as though she were doing something which would make her seem ungrateful in his eyes, though she hardly knew why it seemed so. She turned more naturally to the vicar, to whom she had originally come in her first great distress; she had only once consulted him, but that one occasion seemed to establish a precedent in her mind, the precedent of a thing familiar. It would certainly be easier. After much thought and inward debate, she determined to send for Mr. Ambrose.

The fatigue and anxiety she had undergone during the last two days had wrought great changes in her face. A girl of eighteen or twenty years may gain delicacy and even beauty from the physical effects of grief, but a woman over thirty years old gains neither. Mrs. G.o.ddard's complexion, naturally pale, had taken a livid hue; her lips, which were never very red, were almost white; heavy purple shadows darkened her eyes; the two or three lines that were hardly noticeable, but which were the natural result of a sad expression in her face, had in two days become distinctly visible and had almost a.s.sumed the proportions of veritable wrinkles. Her features were drawn and pinched--she looked ten years older than she was.

Nothing remained of her beauty but her soft waving brown hair and her deep, pathetic, violet eyes. Even her small hands seemed to have grown thin and looked unnaturally white and transparent.

She was sitting in her favourite chair by the fire, when the vicar arrived. She had not been willing to seem ill, in spite of what Martha had said, and she had refused to put cus.h.i.+ons in the chair. She was making an effort, and even a little sense of physical discomfort helped to make the effort seem easier. She was so much exhausted that she felt she must not for one moment relax the tension she imposed upon herself lest her whole remaining strength should suddenly collapse and leave her at the mercy of events. But Mr. Ambrose was startled when he saw her and feared that she was very ill.

"My dear Mrs. G.o.ddard," he said, "what is the matter? Are you ill? Has anything happened?"

As he spoke he changed the form of his question, suddenly recollecting that Mr. Juxon had probably on the previous afternoon told her of her husband's escape, as he had meant to do. This might be the cause of her indisposition.

"Yes," she said in a voice that did not sound like her own, "I have asked you to come because I am in great trouble--in desperate trouble."

"Dear me," said the vicar, "I hope not!"

"Not desperate? Perhaps not. Dear Mr. Ambrose, you have always been so kind to me--I am sure you can help me now." Her voice trembled.

"Indeed I will do my best," said the vicar who judged from so unusual an outburst that there must be really something wrong. "If you could tell me what it is--" he suggested.

"That is the hardest part of it," said the unhappy woman. She paused a moment as though to collect her strength. "You know," she began again, "that my husband has escaped?"

"A terrible business!" exclaimed the good man, nodding, however, in affirmation to the question she asked.

"I have seen him," said Mary G.o.ddard very faintly, looking down at her thin hands. The vicar started in astonishment.

"My dear friend--dear me! Dear, dear, how very painful!"

"Indeed, you do not know what I have suffered. It is most dreadful, Mr.

Ambrose. You cannot imagine what a struggle it was. I am quite worn out."

She spoke with such evident pain that the vicar was moved. He felt that she had more to tell, but he had hardly recovered from his surprise.

"But, you know," he said, "that was the whole object of warning you. We did not really believe that he would come here. We were so much afraid that he would startle you. Of course Mr. Juxon told you he consulted me--"

"Of course," answered Mrs. G.o.ddard. "It was too late. I had seen him the night before."

"Why, that was the very night we were here!" exclaimed Mr. Ambrose, more and more amazed. Mrs. G.o.ddard nodded. She seemed hardly able to speak.

"He came and knocked at that window," she said, very faintly. "He came again last night."

"Dear me--I will send for Gall at once; he will have no difficulty in arresting him--"

"Oh please!" interrupted Mrs. G.o.ddard in hysterical tones. "Please, please, dear Mr. Ambrose, don't!"

The vicar was silent. He rose unceremoniously from his chair and walked to the window, as he generally did when in any great doubt. He realised at once and very vividly the awful position in which the poor lady was placed.

"Pray do not think I am very bad," said she, almost sobbing with fear and emotion. "Of course it must seem dreadful to you that I should wish him to escape!"

The vicar came slowly back and stood beside her leaning against the chimney-piece. It did not take him long to make up his mind. Kind-hearted people are generally impulsive.

"I do not, my dear lady. I a.s.sure you I fully understand your position.

The fact is, I was too much surprised and I am too anxious for your safety not to think immediately of securing that--ahem--that unfortunate man."

"Oh, it is not my safety! It is not only my safety--"

"I understand--yes--of course you are anxious about him. But it is doubtless not our business to aid the law in its course, provided we do not oppose it."

"It is something else," murmured Mrs. G.o.ddard. "Oh! how shall I tell you," she moaned turning her pale cheek to the back of the chair.

The vicar looked at her and began to think it was perhaps some strange case of conscience with which he had to deal. He had very little experience of such things save in the rude form they take among the labouring cla.s.ses. But he reflected that it was likely to be something of the kind; in such a case Mrs. G.o.ddard would naturally enough have sent for him, more as her clergyman than as her friend. She looked like a person suffering from some great mental strain. He sat down beside her and took her pa.s.sive hand. He was moved, and felt as though he might have been her father.

"My dear," he said kindly, almost as though he were speaking to a child, "have you anything upon your mind, anything which distresses you? Do you wish to tell me? If so I will do my very best to help you."

Mrs. G.o.ddard's fingers pressed his hand a little, but her face was still turned away.

"It is Mr. Juxon," she almost whispered. If she had been watching the vicar she would have noticed the strange air of perplexity which came over his face when he heard the squire's name.

"Yes--Mr. Juxon," she moaned. Then the choked-down horror rose in her throat. "Walter means to murder him!" she almost screamed. "Oh, my G.o.d, my G.o.d, what shall I do!" she cried aloud clasping her hands suddenly over her face and rocking herself to and fro.

The vicar was horror-struck; he could hardly believe his ears, and believing them his senses swam. In his wildest dreams--and the good man's dreams were rarely wild--he had never thought that such things could come near him. Being a very good man and, moreover, a wise man when he had plenty of time for reflection, he folded his hands quietly and bent his head, praying fervently for the poor tortured woman who moaned and tossed herself beside him. It was a terrible moment. Suddenly she controlled herself and grasping one of the arms of the chair looked round at her silent companion.

"You must save him," she said in agonised tones, "you must save them both! Do not tell me you cannot--oh, do not tell me that!"

It was a pa.s.sionate and heart-broken appeal, such a one as few men would or could resist, coming as it did from a helpless and miserably unhappy woman. Whether the vicar was wise in giving the answer he did, it would be hard to say: but he was a man who honestly tried to do his best.

"I will try, my dear lady," he said, making a great resolution. Mrs.

G.o.ddard took his hand and pressed it in both of hers, and the long restrained tears flowed fast and softly over her worn cheeks. For some moments neither spoke.

"If you cannot save both--you must save--Mr. Juxon," she said at last, breathing the words rather than speaking them.

The vicar knew or guessed what it must cost her to hint that her husband might be captured. He recognised that the only way in which he could contribute towards the escape of the convict was by not revealing his hiding-place, and he accordingly refrained from asking where he was concealed. He shuddered as he thought that G.o.ddard might be lying hidden in the cottage itself, for all he could tell, but he was quite sure that he ought not to know it. So long as he did not know where the forger was, it was easy to hold his peace; but if once he knew, the vicar was not capable of denying the knowledge. He had never told a lie in his life.

"I will try," he repeated; and growing calmer, he added, "You are quite sure this was not an empty threat, my dear friend? Was there any reason--a--I mean to say, had this unfortunate man ever known Mr. Juxon?"

"Oh no!" answered Mrs. G.o.ddard, sinking back into her chair. "He never knew him." Her tears were still flowing but she no longer sobbed aloud; it had been a relief to her overwrought and sensitive temperament to give way to the fit of weeping. She actually felt better, though ten minutes earlier she would not have believed it possible.

"Then--why?" asked Mr. Ambrose, hesitating.

"My poor husband was a very jealous man," she answered. "I accidentally told him that the cottage belonged to Mr. Juxon and yesterday--do you remember? You walked on with Mr. Juxon beyond the turning, and then he came back to see me--to tell me of my husband's escape. Walter saw that and--and he thought, I suppose--that Mr. Juxon did not want you to see him coming here."

"But Mr. Juxon had just promised me to go and see you," said the honest vicar.