The Hunt Ball Mystery Part 29

"I was so overwhelmed by the sudden and terrible end to our adventure that I could think of nothing. By a great piece of luck a belated dray came along on its way to Branchester. Into this, with the driver's help, we lifted poor Archie; and then Henshaw and I drove on in his trap to prepare the hospital authorities for the patient's arrival. The doctor after a cursory examination gave very little hope, and I left the hospital in a most wretched state of mind, feeling more than indirectly responsible for the end of that bright young life. Henshaw arranged for the horse and smashed dogcart to be fetched from the scene of the accident, and then he asked where in the town he should escort me.

"I thanked him and said, a good deal to his surprise, that I was not going to stop in Branchester, but would hire a fly and drive to my destination. I stood, of course, in a hideously false position, and that he very soon began to divine; he would not hear of my getting a fly at that hour of the night, but insisted on driving me in his trap to wherever I wished to go.

"Unhappily I had no idea of the man's character, or I should never have dreamt of accepting his offer; but I was then in no state of mind to judge his nature or question his motives; he had proved himself infinitely kind and resourceful, so in my lonely and agitated condition I consented, little imagining what the dire result to me would be.

"On the drive back to my home I was naturally in a horribly distressed state of mind, and hardly dared think of the future. My companion tactfully refrained from much talking, although I had an idea that his curiosity was greatly excited to learn the explanation of the affair; he put occasionally a leading question which I always evaded, when he took the hint and did not press his inquiries. So far as every one else was concerned there had been no idea of connecting me with poor Archie Jolliffe. The hospital people believed that he had been driving alone, and that I had been in the trap with Henshaw. I dare say they took me for his sister or his wife.

"At last, after one of the most wretched hours I ever spent--and I have had more than my fair share of trouble--we reached Haynthorpe, and on the outskirts of the village I asked Henshaw to set me down. He stopped and looked at me curiously.

"'Can't you trust me to drive you to your home?'" he said insinuatingly.

"I replied that I preferred to get down where we were, and thanked him as warmly as I was able for all his services.

"'You haven't even told me your name,' he protested, 'Mine is Clement Henshaw; I am staying at Flinton for hunting.'

"My answer was that he must not think me ungrateful, but that I would rather not tell him my name. It could be of no consequence to him.

"'I should like at least,' he urged, 'to be allowed to drive over and report how your--friend--or was it your brother?--is getting on.'

"I thanked him, made the best excuse I could for refusing, got down from the trap and hurried off through the dark village street, thankful to get away from those awkward questions.

"But if I thought I had finally got rid of Mr. Clement Henshaw I was, in my ignorance of the man, woefully mistaken."

CHAPTER XXIV

HOW THE STORY ENDED

"When I reached the house luck unexpectedly favoured me. My maid, whom I had been obliged to take, up to a certain point, into my confidence, and who, after the manner of her cla.s.s, had acquired more than a sympathetic inkling of the way my people had been treating me, was waiting up on the look-out for my return, and quietly let me in. She told me that no one but herself had any idea that I was out of the house; she had led them to believe that I had gone to bed early with a headache, which considering the stress of the past two days was plausible enough. So I got back safely to my room which it had not seemed likely. I should ever enter again, and next morning I could see that my over-night's adventure was quite unsuspected.

"Naturally I antic.i.p.ated a continuation of my stepmother's attempts to force me into the marriage she had in view, and it rather puzzled me to understand why they seemed to be dropped. The prospective bridegroom did not come to the house, and, stranger still, his name was not mentioned.

The explanation was soon forthcoming. I did not see the newspapers just then, in fact I have an idea they were purposely kept away from me; but some people who were calling mentioned a big society-scandal coming on in the Law Courts in which this precious peer was desperately involved. The relief with which I heard the news was unbounded considering all it meant for me, but my joy was turned to bitter grief by the news that Archie Jolliffe after lying unconscious for nearly a week had died of his injury. I had contrived, during the days he lingered, to make secret inquiries as to his condition, and so knew that what would have seemed my heartless absence from his bedside had made no difference to him."

"Poor fellow," Gifford commented.

"It was unspeakably sad," Edith Morriston continued, "but it seemed like fate, seeing how things rearranged themselves afterwards. Certainly if I was to blame for his piteous end, I was to pay the penalty. For no sooner was I out of one trouble than another was ready for me.

"After this long preface, I come to the most unpleasant episode of Henshaw and his persecution.

"On the day I heard of poor Archie's death I had gone out for a walk possessed by a great longing to be alone in my grief. On my way home by a woodland path leading to the Hall grounds, I, to my great annoyance, came upon Clement Henshaw. I can't say I was altogether surprised, for I had caught a glimpse of some one very like him in the village a day or two before. Of that I had thought little, merely taking care that the man did not see me. But now there was no avoiding him, and I had more than a suspicion that he had been lying in wait for me. At the risk of appearing horribly ungrateful I made up my mind on the instant to try to pa.s.s him with a bow, but need not say that was utterly futile. He stood directly in my path, and raised his hat.

"'I am sorry to be the bearer of sad news, Miss Morriston,' he said.

"So he had found out my name, a.s.suredly not by accident, and the fact angered me, perhaps unreasonably.

"'I have heard of Mr. Jolliffe's death,' I replied coldly, 'if that is what you have to tell me.'

"'I thought,' he rejoined, with a.s.surance, 'it quite possible you might not have heard so soon.'

"From his manner I began to see that the man was likely to become an annoyance if he were not snubbed, but soon discovered that it was not so easily done. I thanked him coldly enough, and tried to dismiss him, but he insisted on walking with me. What could I do? He seemed determined to force his company upon me and I could not run away. He tried to get out of me how I had come to be driving with Archie that night, and although I evaded his questions it was plain that he had a shrewd inkling of the reason. Not to weary you with a long account of this disagreeable and humiliating affair, I will only say that from that day forward I became subject to a determined system of persecution from Clement Henshaw. He waylaid me on every possible occasion, holding over me a covert threat of the exposure of my escapade, till at last I was absolutely afraid to go outside the house for fear of meeting him."

"He wanted to marry you?" Gifford suggested.

Edith Morriston gave a little shudder. "I suppose so. He was always making love to me, and was quite impervious to snubbing. When, in consequence of my keeping within bounds of the house and garden, he could not see me, he took to writing, and kept me in terror lest one of his letters should fall into my stepmother's hands. I wished afterwards that I had taken a bold line, confessed what had happened, and defied the consequences. I think it was the fear of being disgraced in my brother's eyes on his return which kept me from doing so.

"In the midst of my worry my father fell into a state of bad health and we took him down to the Devons.h.i.+re coast for change of air. Needless to say Henshaw soon found out our retreat, and to my dismay appeared there.

His persecution went on with renewed vigour and I, having less chance there of escaping it, was nearly at my wits' end, when fate curiously enough again intervened. We were caught in a storm on a long country excursion, my stepmother got a severe chill and within a week was dead.

We returned to Haynthorpe, my father being now in a very precarious state of health, Henshaw followed us with a pertinacity that was almost devilish. But I now ventured to defy his threats of exposing me; he strenuously denied any such intention and declared himself madly in love with me. I had now taken courage enough to reject him uncompromisingly; I forbade him ever to speak to me again, and, as after that he disappeared from the village, began to flatter myself that I had got rid of him.

"My father grew worse now from day to day; he lingered through the summer and with the chill days of autumn the end came. d.i.c.k hurried home and arrived just in time to see him alive. He left a much larger fortune than we had supposed him to possess, and d.i.c.k, always fond of sport, was soon in negotiation for this place which had come into the market.

"No sooner had we settled in here than, to my horror, Clement Henshaw began to renew his persecution. He had evidently heard that I had inherited a good share of my father's fortune, and was worth making another effort for. He recommenced to write to me, he came down secretly and waylaid me, and when everything else failed he resorted to threats, not veiled as before, but open and unmistakable. He vowed that if I persisted in refusing to marry him he would take good care that I should never marry any one else. He held, he said, my reputation in his hand; he hoped he should never have to use his power, but I ought to consider the state of his feelings towards me and not goad him to desperate measures.

In short he took all the joy out of my life, for I had come from mere dislike simply to loathe the man who could show himself such a dastardly cad. And the worst of it was that I saw no way out of it. d.i.c.k is a good fellow and very fond of me, but, although you might not think it, he is almost absurdly proud of the family name and its unsmirched record. And if I had confided in him, and he had horsewhipped Henshaw, what good could that have done? It would simply have infuriated the man, who would have at once made public my escapade, and few people would have given me the credit of its being innocent. d.i.c.k had just sunk a large part of his fortune in this place, he had taken over the hounds and was certain of becoming popular. All that would be nullified and upset if this man, Henshaw, chose to let loose his tongue. For how could I even pretend to deny his story? At the very least the truth would mean a hateful reflection on my dead father, and the whole thing would have led to an intolerable scandal. Yet it seemed as though this could be avoided in no other way but by marrying my persecutor, a man whom I had reason to hate and who had shown himself to be such an unchivalrous bully. About this time--that is shortly before the Hunt Ball--rumours had got about the neighbourhood that I was going to marry Lord Painswick. He was certainly paying me a good deal of attention, and I fancy d.i.c.k would have liked the match, but I could not bring myself to care for Painswick, and indeed his courts.h.i.+p only added to my other worries.

"But Clement Henshaw heard the rumour and it had naturally the effect of rousing his wretched pursuit of me to greater activity. He vowed with brutal vehemence that I should not marry Painswick, and declared that when our engagement was announced he would tell him the story he had against me. That in itself did not trouble me much since I had no intention of marrying Painswick; still the man's relentless persecution was getting more than I could bear.

"I now come to the night of the Hunt Ball. For some days previously I had seen or heard nothing of Henshaw, and had even begun to hope that something might have happened to make the man abandon his line of conduct. I might have known him better. To my intense annoyance and dismay I saw him come into the ballroom with all the hateful a.s.surance that was so familiar to me. I could not well escape, seeing that I was acting as hostess. For a while he, beyond a formal greeting, let me alone. But I felt what was surely coming, and it was almost a relief when he took an opportunity of asking for a dance.

"He must have seen the hate in my eyes as in my hesitation they met his, for he said with a forced laugh, 'You need not do violence to your feelings by dancing with me, Miss Morriston, if you don't care to, but there is something I must say to you. Let us come out of the crowd to where we shall not be overheard.'

"I had never felt so madly furious with the man as at that moment; and it was with a reckless desire to tell him in strong language my opinion of his tactics, to insult him, if that were possible, to declare that I would die rather than yield to him, that I led the way to the tower. My desire to get out of the crowd was even greater than his, for a mad hope possessed me that in some desperate way I might bring our relations to a final issue.

"We went into the sitting-out room. 'Some one will be coming in here,' he objected. 'Is there a room upstairs where we can talk?'

"'There is a room up there,' I answered, as steadily as my indignation would let me, and unheeding the idea of compromising myself I went up the dark staircase in front of him. Naturally the idea that our stormy interview was to have a witness would have been the last thing to enter my mind; it never occurred to me to make sure no one was already in the room when we entered it.

"You know what happened, Mr. Gifford, so I need not go through that. The man showed himself the cowardly bully that he was. Somehow up there alone with him, as at least I thought, in the dark, my courage gave way, and it was only when the man sought in his vehemence to take hold of me that anger and disgust cast out fear. It was quite by accident that I touched and caught up the chisel lying on the window-sill. As the man's hand sought me it struck the edge of the chisel, and got a wound; that must have been how the blood came upon my dress. He seized my arm, and after a struggle wrenched the implement away. But I never struck him with it, far from giving him his death-blow. The chisel was never in my hand afterwards. When I rushed for the door in a sudden panic, for, knowing that I had hurt him, I believed the man in his rage might be capable of anything, and when in springing after me he stumbled and fell, the chisel must have been held by him edge upwards, and so pierced him to his death."

"That, I am certain now," Gifford said, "is what must have happened."

"And you thought I had stabbed him?" the girl said with a reproachful smile.

"I hardly dare ask you to forgive me for harbouring such a thought," he replied. "Yet had it been true I, who had been a witness of the man's vile conduct, could never have blamed you. If ever an act was justifiable--"

An elongated shadow shot forward on the ground in front of them. Gifford stopped abruptly, and with an involuntary action his companion clutched his arm as both looked up expectantly. Next moment Gervase Henshaw stood before them.

CHAPTER XXV

DEFIANCE

For some moments Henshaw did not speak; indeed, it was probable that the unexpected success of his search for Edith Morriston--for such doubtless was his object--had so disagreeably startled him, that he was unable to pull those sharp wits of his together at once. But the expression which flashed into his eyes, and that came instantaneously, was of so vengeful and threatening a character, that Gifford felt glad he was there to protect the girl from her now enraged persecutor.