Archibald Malmaison Part 8

What could have induced the plaintiff to imagine that such direct evidence was not forthcoming, Sergeant Runnington confessed himself at a loss to understand. He had cherished hopes, for the sake of common decency, for the sake of the respect due to the Bench, for the sake of human nature, that his learned brother on the other side would have been able to hold forth a challenge which it would be, in some degree, worth his while to answer; he regretted sincerely to say that those hopes had not been by any means fulfilled.

Had he been previously made aware of the course of attack which the plaintiff had had the audacity to adopt, he could have saved him and other persons much trouble, and the Court some hours of its valuable time, by the utterance of a single word, or, indeed, without the necessity for any words at all. Really, this affair, about which so much noise had been made, was so ridiculously simple and empty that he almost felt inclined to apologize to the Court and to the gentlemen of the jury for showing them how empty and simple it was. But, indeed, he feared that the apology, if there was to be one, was not due from his side.

It was not for him to decide upon the motives which had prompted the plaintiff to bring this action. He should be sorry to charge any one with malice, with unconscionable greed, with treacherous and impudent rapacity.

It belonged to the plaintiff to explain why he had carried this case into court, and what were his grounds for supposing that it could be made to issue to his credit and advantage.

For his own part, he should content himself with producing the doc.u.ments which the learned counsel on the other side had professed himself so anxious to get a sight of, and to humbly request that the plaintiff be nonsuited with costs.

Thus ended the great trial. People could hardly, at first, believe their own ears and eyes; but when the doc.u.ments were acknowledged to be perfectly genuine and correct, when the learned Mr. Adolphus relinquished the case, not without disgust, and when the Court, after some very severe remarks upon the conduct of the plaintiff, had concluded a short address by adopting the learned Sergeant Runnington's suggestion as to the costs--when all was settled, in short, in the utterly absurd s.p.a.ce of two hours and three quarters, then at last did society awake to a perception of the fact that it had been most egregiously and outrageously swindled, and that the Honorable Richard Pennroyal was the swindler.

n.o.body was at the pains to conceal these sentiments from the honorable gentleman, and he left the court with as little sympathy as ever disappointed suitor had.

Poor man! he suffered enough, in more ways than one, on that disastrous day, yet one shame and agony, the sharpest of all, was spared him--he did not see the look and the smile that were exchanged between his wife and Sir Archibald Malmaison, when the decision of the Court was made known.

XII.

We are now drawing near the last scene of this strange and sinister history. The action confines itself almost entirely to the three chief figures.

If Pennroyal had been twenty years younger when this catastrophe fell upon him, it might merely have had the effect of enraging him; but he was near fifty years of age, and old for his years, and it seems to have overwhelmed and cowed him. The cat still in his house, like a rat in his hole, saying nothing, and noticing nothing, but drinking a great deal of brandy. The fiery stuff did not excite him; it merely had the effect of keeping him from sinking into unconsciousness of his misery. He knew that he was a ruined man, and that it was too late to retrieve his ruin. Means and energy were alike lacking, and could never be supplied. He sat in his chair, and brooded over all his life, and realized the utterness of his failure; and nothing could rouse him--not even the intelligence that his enemy, Sir Archibald, having by the death of his aunt, Miss Tremount, come into an inheritance of upward of seventy thousand pounds, was buying up the mortgages, and would probably foreclose on him when he got him thoroughly in his power. Archibald had beaten him, and he would fight no more. Let him enjoy his triumph, and push it to the utmost. There was one point, at all events, on which Richard had the better of him, and this thought brought with it the sole spark of comfort that these evil days afforded him. He had his wife--the woman to win whom Sir Archibald would have given all his lands and fortune, and his soul into the bargain. Yes, Kate was his, and his only; and it was the resolve to keep her his, and thus spite his enemy as long as possible, that withheld Richard from seeking relief in suicide at this juncture. So Providence leads men from agony to worse agony, with intent, doubtless, to torture out of them the evil which they will not voluntarily relinquish.

One winter evening, Richard sitting brooding and sipping brandy as usual, with a lamp burning on the table beside him, and the embers of the fire flickering on the broad hearth at his feet, there came a light, measured step and the rustle of a dress, and he knew that his wife was in the room.

He raised his haggard visage and looked at her. What a G.o.ddess of beauty she seemed! How young, graceful, lovely! How pure and clear were the tints of her face, how l.u.s.trous dark her eyes, how soft her ample hair! How peerless she was! and all she was--all this treasure of fragrant womanhood--was his, and not another's. Ay, and his willingly; she really loved him, he thought; she had shown it of late; she cared for him, old, ruined, and degraded though he was. It was a strange thing; it was a pleasant thing. Perhaps, he thought, if he had had such a creature to love him in earlier days, he might not have been where he was now. But then, in earlier days, he was not a ruined and wasted man.

"Kate!"

"Yes, Richard."

"Oh, never speak so formally! Am I not d.i.c.k, thy own dear old d.i.c.k--eh?"

"I did not mean to be formal."

"Come and sit here beside me--no, here, on the arm of my chair. It was good of you to come in here. I was getting lonesome. I wanted my Kate to tell me she loved me--eh?"

"I only came in to say good-night. It is late."

"Late?--pooh! It's not nine o'clock. Stay and be sociable a bit. There, I won't touch another drop if you'll stay."

"I'm tired; I have a headache. You don't want me."

"Not want you! Ay, but I do though! Without you, Kate, I should have been a dead man weeks ago. Not want you!"

"Nonsense! what do you mean? You have drunk too much already, I fear."

"I mean that, but for you, I'd have blown my brains out the day of the trial--after I'd blown out his, the scoundrel! But since I have you, I know a way to worry him better than by blowing his brains out. To know that you are mine is h.e.l.l to him. And in that h.e.l.l I'll keep him, as long as my body and soul will hang together!"

"What should he care whether I am yours or not?"

"Because he loves you--that's why he cares! Ay, you needn't start. He loves you, and it's h.e.l.l to him to feel that another man has you. How many thousand pounds do you think he'd give to kiss this little hand as I kiss it now? I wish he could see me do it!"

"Nonsense, you are crazy.... And so you only care for me to spite him?"

"No, not that. G.o.d knows--if there is a G.o.d--I love you, Kate, with all there is left of me--except what hates him! That's my life--love for you and hate for him. And I believe I hate him less than I love you, though that's saying a great deal!"

"Oh, I think you love that brandy better than you do me."

"You do? If you say so, I'll never touch it again!"

"Oh, I don't care. I don't want you to give up anything that makes you comfortable."

"Ay, you do love me, don't you, Kate?"

"Come, Richard, our courting days are over. And I must go. Good-by!"

"No, don't go! I feel, somehow, as if I couldn't spare you to-night."

"Shall I pour you out another gla.s.s?"

"Yes--no! I'll drink no more to-night. Kate...."

"Well?"

"I'm getting old. In the natural course of things I should die long before you. I sha'n't die yet a while--but some time, you know. Will you promise something?"

"I'll promise nothing to-night. I dare say you'll outlive me."

"Promise, come what will, you'll never marry him; eh, Kate?"

"Really, Richard, I--I never heard anything so foolis.h.!.+ I can't stay to hear any more such talk. You are not your right self. There--let me go!"

"Go?--go where? Gad, I've a mind to say you sha'n't go! Well, yes, I didn't mean it; forgive me, Kate! Only you're my wife, you know, and I'm your husband; and I love you; and somehow I feel afraid to let you out of my sight--as if I might not see you again. Well, then.... But one thing you shall do--you shall give me a kiss before you go! Else you sha'n't go at all!"

Thus compelled, Mrs. Pennroyal kissed her husband, or let herself be kissed by him; and then she escaped from the room, with a shudder and a sinking of the heart.

Richard Pennroyal sat there alone; the embers of the fire were now gray and lifeless. He stirred them with his foot, and they fell into ashes. He felt cold. How still the house was; how lonely! And he had no pleasant thoughts to keep him company now that his wife had left him; but many thoughts, many memories that were far from pleasant, were lying in wait for him in the dark corners of his mind, ready to leap out upon him if he gave them a chance. Among them, why did the foolish face of crazy old Jane, his wife of many years ago, persist in obtruding itself? Why did it wear that look of stupid, unreasonable reproach? yes, unreasonable; for how was he to blame? He had but let things take their course; no more than that ... well, scarcely more! And yet that face, that silly old face, that dull, lifeless, drowned old face, kept meeting his in the dark corners, turn where he would. If he closed his eyes, it was still visible through the eyelids, and seemed nearer than ever.

So he opened his eyes; and there hovered the face, in the gloom beyond the lamp. What an expression! Was it signalling him to come away? Was it mocking him for fearing to come? Fearing? He was not afraid. He was a Pennroyal; he had n.o.ble blood in his veins; though he was now a bit old and shaky, and had, perhaps, been taking a little too much brandy of late.

But--afraid! not he. Why, he would follow the thing, if it came to that; follow it to....

He rose slowly from his chair, still keeping his eyes steadily fixed upon it, and moved toward it, with his hands outstretched. He did not get any nearer to it; it was retreating before him, like a will-o'-the-wisp. He kept on, crossing the length of the room; it seemed to pa.s.s through the substance of the door, and yet he saw it beyond. He opened the door softly; yes, there it was in the hall. A pistol was lying on the little table beside the door, which Richard knew to be loaded. Mechanically, and without looking at it, he took it up as he pa.s.sed. Then down the hall on tiptoe, the shadowy, unmeaning face marshalling him the way, and leering at him if he hesitated. Ay, he would follow it to the end, now.

Fortunately, the house-door stood open; there would be no noise in getting out. Out they glided, pursuer and pursued, into the cold stillness of the night. There was a moon, but it was dim and low down. The shadows seemed more real than the light. There was no snow to betray footprints. But whither would this chase lead? It seemed to be heading toward the northwest--toward Malmaison; ay, and toward the pool that lay on the borders of the estate. Richard shuddered when he thought of that pool, and of the grisly significance of his being led thither by this witless, idiotic old phantom of his dead wife's face. Stay, the face seemed to have got itself a body within the last few moments: it was a gray figure that now flitted on before him; gray and indistinct in the dim moonlight, with noiseless, waving drapery. It was going the very path that old Jane had gone that day, many years ago--her last day on earth; and yet, was she not here again to-night? And she was leading him to the pool; and what then?

Swiftly she flitted onward, some seventy paces in advance apparently, now lost in shadow, now reappearing in the light. She never turned nor beckoned, but kept straight on, and Richard had much ado to keep pace with her. At length he caught the gleam of the dark pool some little distance beyond. He set his teeth, and came on. The gray phantom had paused at last. But was that Jane after all? Not Jane's was that tall and graceful figure. This must be some other woman's ghost. Was it a ghost? And if so, was that another--that man who issued from behind a clump of bushes, and came toward her? The two figures met; the man took the woman in his arms, and kissed her many times on the lips and eyes. Kisses! ay, those were kisses indeed! Now they seemed to be conversing together; his arms were round her waist. The moonlight revealed his features; it was the enemy--it was Archibald Malmaison! And the woman was not the dead wife, but the living one.

"We are perfectly safe, my darling," Archibald was saying. "The room was all prepared for you, and there is no possibility of discovery. There will be a great outcry and confusion for a week or so, and they will search for you, dead and alive; and I along with the rest, the better to disarm suspicion. It will be settled, at last, that you must have escaped to some foreign country; or, maybe, Richard himself will fall under suspicion of having made away with you, as he did with his first wife. Sooner or later, at any rate, they will give up the search; and, whether or not, we shall always be free to each other. You could not persuade any one at Malmaison to so much as put his nose into the east chamber, and as to the other, you and I are the only living creatures who even dream of its existence.

Darling, you will not mind being a prisoner for a little while, since love will be a prisoner with you?"