Gwen Wynn Part 71

Not long to remain so. If the old servants of the establishment had short notice of dismissal, still more brief is that given to its latest retinue. About meridian of that day, after the departure of their mistress, while yet in wonder where she has gone, they receive another shock of surprise, and a more unpleasant one, at seeing a hackney carriage drive up to the hall door, out of which step two men, evidently no friends to her from whom they have their wages. For one of the men is Captain Ryecroft, the other a police superintendent; who, after the shortest possible parley, directs the butler to parade the complete staff of his fellow-domestics, male and female. This with an air and in a tone of authority which precludes supposition that the thing is a jest.

Summoned from all quarters, cellar to garret, and outdoors as well, their names, with other particulars, are taken down; and they are told that their services will be no longer required at Llangorren. In short, they are one and all dismissed, without a word about the month's wages or warning! If they get either, 'twill be only as a grace.

Then they receive orders to pack up and be off; while Joseph Preece, ex-Charon, who has crossed the river in his boat, with appointment to meet the hackney there, is authorized to take temporary charge of the place; Jack Wingate, similarly bespoke, having come down in his skiff, to stand by him in case of any opposition.

None arises. However chagrined by their hasty _sans facon_ discharge, the outgoing domestics seem not so greatly surprised at it. From what they have observed for some time going on, as also something whispered about, they had no great reliance on their places being permanent. So, in silence all submit, though somewhat sulkily; and prepare to vacate quarters they had found fairly snug.

There is one, however, who cannot be thus conveniently, or unceremoniously, dismissed--the head gamekeeper, Richard Dempsey. For, while the others are getting their _mandamus_ to move, the report is brought in that he is lying on his death-bed! So the parish doctor has prognosticated. Also, that he is just then delirious, and saying queer things; some of which repeated to the police "super," tell him his proper place at that precise moment is by the bedside of the sick man.

Without a second's delay, he starts off towards the lodge in which Coracle has been of late domiciled--under the guidance of its former occupant, Joseph Preece--accompanied by Captain Ryecroft and Jack Wingate.

The house being but a few hundred yards distant from the Court, they are soon inside it, and standing over the bed on which lies the fevered patient; not at rest, but tossing to and fro--at intervals, in such violent manner as to need restraint.

The superintendent at once sees it would be idle putting questions to him. If asked his own name, he could not declare it; for he knows not himself--far less those who are around.

His face is something horrible to behold. It would but harrow sensitive feelings to give a portraiture of it. Enough to say, it is more like that of demon than man.

And his speech, poured as in a torrent from his lips, is alike horrifying--admission of many and varied crimes, in the same breath denying them and accusing others, his contradictory ravings garnished with blasphemous e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns.

A specimen will suffice, omitting the blasphemy.

"It's a lie!" he cries out, just as they are entering the room. "A lie, every word o't! I didn't murder Mary Morgan. Served her right if I had, the jade! She jilted me; an' for that wasp Wingate--dog--cur! I didn't kill her. No; only fixed the plank. If she wor fool enough to step on't, that warn't my fault. She did--she did! Ha! ha! ha!"

For a while he keeps up the horrid cachinnation, as the glee of Satan exulting over some feat of foul _diablerie_. Then his thoughts changing to another crime, he goes on,--

"The grand girl--the lady! She arn't drowned; nor dead eyther! The priest carried her off in that French schooner. I had nothing to do with it. 'Twar the priest and Mr. Murdock. Ha! Murdock! I _did_ drown _him_.

No, I didn't. That's another lie! T'was himself upset the boat. Let me see--was it? No! he couldn't--he was too drunk. I stood up on the skiff's rail. Slap over it went. What a duckin' I had for it, and a devil o' a swim too! But I did the trick--neatly! Didn't I, your Reverence? Now for the hundred pounds. And you promised to double it--you did! Keep to your bargain, or I'll peach upon you--on all the lot of you--the woman, too--the French woman! She kept that fine shawl--Indian they said it wor. She's got it now. She wanted the diamonds, too, but daren't keep _them_. The shroud! Ha! the shroud!

That's all they left _me_. I ought to 'a burnt it. But then the devil would 'a been after and burned me! How fine Mary looked in that grand dress, wi' all them gewgaws, rings,--chains an' bracelets, all pure gold! But I drownded her, an' she deserved it, that she did. Drownded her twice--ha--ha--ha!"

Again he breaks off with a peal of demoniac laughter, long continued.

More than an hour they remain listening to his delirious ramblings, and with interest intense. For, despite its incoherence, the disconnected threads joined together make up a tale they can understand; though so strange, so brimful of atrocities, as to seem incredible.

All the while he is writhing about on the bed; till at length, exhausted, his head droops over upon the pillow, and he lies for a while quiet--to all appearance dead!

But no; there is another throe yet--one horrible as any that has preceded. Looking up, he sees the superintendent's uniform and silver b.u.t.tons--a sight which produces a change in the expression of his features, as though it had recalled him to his senses. With arms flung out as in defence, he shrieks,--

"Keep back, you ---- policeman! Hands off, or I'll brain you! Hach!

You've got the rope round my neck! Curse the thing! It's choking me.

Hach!"

And with his fingers clutching at his throat, as if to undo a noose, he gasps out in husky voice,--

"Gone, by G----."

At this he drops over dead, his last word an oath, his last thought a fancy that there is a rope around his neck!

What he has said in his unconscious confessions lays open many seeming mysteries of this romance, hitherto unrevealed. How the pseudo-priest, Father Rogier, observing a likeness between Miss Wynn and Mary Morgan--causing him that start as he stood over the coffin, noticed by Jack Wingate--had exhumed the dead body of the latter, the poacher and Murdock a.s.sisting him. Then how they had taken it down in the boat to Dempsey's house; soon after, going over to Llangorren, and seizing the young lady, as she stood in the summer-house, having stifled her cries by chloroform. Then, how they carried her across to Dempsey's, and subst.i.tuted the corpse for the living body--the grave-clothes changed for the silken dress with all its adornments--this the part a.s.signed to Mrs. Murdock, who had met them at Coracle's cottage. Then, d.i.c.k himself hiding away the shroud, hindered by superst.i.tious fear from committing it to the flames. In fine, how Gwendoline Wynn, drugged and still kept in a state of coma, was taken down in a boat to Chepstow, and there put aboard the French schooner _La Chouette_; carried across to Boulogne, to be shut up in a convent for life! All these delicate matters, managed by Father Rogier, backed by _Messieurs les Jesuites_, who had furnished him with the means!

One after another the astounding facts come forth as the raving man continues his involuntary admissions. Supplemented by others already known to Ryecroft and the rest, with the deductions drawn, they complete the unities of a drama, iniquitous as ever enacted.

Its motives declare themselves--all wicked save one: this a spark of humanity that had still lingered in the breast of Lewin Murdock, but for which Gwendoline Wynn would never have seen the inside of a nunnery.

Instead, while under the influence of the narcotic, her body would have been dropped into the Wye, just as was that wearing her ball dress! And that same body is now wearing another dress, supposed to have been prepared for her--another shroud--reposing in the tomb where all believed Gwen Wynn to have been laid!

This last fact is brought to light on the following day, when the family vault of the Wynns is re-opened, and Mrs. Morgan--by marks known only to herself--identifies the remains found there as those of her own daughter!

CHAPTER LXXIII.

THE CALM AFTER THE STORM.

Twelve months after the events recorded in this romance of the Wye, a boat-tourist descending the picturesque river, and inquiring about a paG.o.da-like structure he will see on its western side, would be told it is a summer-house, standing in the ornamental grounds of a gentleman's residence. If he ask who the gentleman is, the answer would be, Captain Vivian Ryecroft! For the ex-officer of Hussars is now the master of Llangorren; and, what he himself values higher, the husband of Gwendoline Wynn, once more its mistress.

Were the tourist an acquaintance of either, and on his way to make call at the Court, bringing in by the little dock, he would there see a row boat, on its stern board, in gold lettering, "_The Gwendoline_." For the pretty pleasure craft has been restored to its ancient moorings. Still, however, remaining the property of Joseph Preece, who no longer lives in the cast-off cottage of Coracle d.i.c.k, but, like the boat itself, is again back and in service at Llangorren.

If the day be fine, this venerable and versatile individual will be loitering beside it, or seated on one of its thwarts, pipe in mouth, indulging in the _dolce far niente_. And little besides has he to do, since his pursuits are no longer varied, but now exclusively confined to the calling of waterman to the Court. He and his craft are under charter for the remainder of his life, should he wish it so--as he surely will.

The friendly visitor keeping on up to the house, if at the hour of luncheon, will in all likelihood there meet a party of old acquaintances--ours, if not his. Besides the beautiful hostess at the table's head, he will see a lady of the "antique brocaded type," who herself once presided there, by name Miss Dorothea Linton; another known as Miss Eleanor Lees; and a fourth, youngest of the quartette, _yclept_ Kate Mahon. For the school girl of the Boulogne Convent has escaped from its austere studies, and is now most part of her time resident with the friend she helped to escape from its cloisters.

Men there will also be at the Llangorren luncheon table; likely three of them, in addition to the host himself. One will be Major Mahon; a second the Reverend William Musgrave; and the third, Mr. George Shenstone! Yes; George Shenstone, under the roof, and seated at the table of Gwendoline Wynn, now the wife of Vivian Ryecroft!

To explain a circ.u.mstance seemingly so singular, it is necessary to call in the aid of a saying, culled from that language richest of all others in moral and metaphysical imagery--the Spanish. It has a proverb, _un claco saca otro claco_--"one nail drives out the other." And, watching the countenance of the baronet's son, so long sad and clouded, seeing how, at intervals, it brightens up--these intervals when his eyes meet those of Kate Mahon--it were easy predicting that in his case the adage will ere long have additional verification.

Were the same tourist to descend the Wye at a date posterior, and again make a call at Llangorren, he would find that some changes had taken place in the interval of his absence. At the boat dock Old Joe would likely be. But not as before in sole charge of the pleasure craft; only pottering about, as a pensioner retired on full pay; the acting and active officer being a younger man, by name Wingate, who is now waterman to the Court. Between these two, however, there is no spite about the displacement--no bickerings nor heartburnings. How could there, since the younger addresses the older as "uncle"; himself in return being styled "nevvy"?

No need to say that this relations.h.i.+p has been brought about by the bright eyes of Amy Preece. Nor is it so new. In the lodge where Jack and Joe live together is a brace of chubby chicks; one of them a boy--the possible embryo of a Wye waterman--who, dandled upon old Joe's knees, takes delight in weeding his frosted whiskers, while calling him "good granddaddy."

As Jack's mother--who is also a member of this happy family--forewarned him, the wildest grief must in time give way, and Nature's laws a.s.sert their supremacy. So has he found it; and though still holding Mary Morgan in sacred, honest remembrance, he--as many a true man before, and others as true to come--has yielded to the inevitable.

Proceeding on to the Court, the friendly visitor will at certain times there meet the same people he met before; but the majority of them having new names or t.i.tles. An added number in two interesting olive branches there also, with complexions struggling between _blonde_ and _brunette_, who call Captain and Mrs. Ryecroft their papa and mamma; while the lady who was once Eleanor Lees--the "companion"--is now Mrs.

Musgrave, life companion, not to the _curate_ of Llangorren Church, but its _rector_. The living having become vacant, and in the bestowal of Llangorren's heiress, has been worthily bestowed on the Reverend William.

Two other old faces, withal young ones, the returned tourist will see at Llangorren--their owners on visit as himself. He might not know either of them by the names they now bear--Sir George and Lady Shenstone--for when he last saw them, the gentleman was simply Mr. Shenstone, and the lady Miss Mahon. The old baronet is dead, and the young one, succeeding to the t.i.tle, has also taken upon himself another t.i.tle--that of husband--proving the Spanish apothegm true, both in the spirit and to the letter.

If there be any nail capable of driving out another, it is that sent home by the glance of an Irish girl's eye--at least, so thinks Sir George Shenstone, with good reason for thinking it.

There are two other individuals, who come and go at the Court--the only ones holding out, and likely to hold, against change of any kind. For Major Mahon is still Major Mahon, rolling on in his rich Irish brogue, as ever abhorrent of matrimony. No danger of his becoming a benedict!

And as little of Miss Linton being transformed into a sage woman. It would be strange if she should, with the love novels she continues to devour, and the "Court Intelligence" she gulps down, keeping alive the hallucination that she is still a belle at Bath and Cheltenham.

So ends our "Romance of the Wye"--a drama of happy _denouement_ to most of the actors in it; and, as hoped, satisfactory to all who have been spectators.

THE END