The White Virgin Part 29

"Wait a minute. You hear, madam--bring him to the dogs if I like.

Schemed against me. Time I schemed against him."

"So you shall, my dear boy," said Wrigley. "Now am I to see you to bed?"

"I don't want you for a valet," said Jessop. "I want you to do my dirty work."

Wrigley gave him an angry look, but turned the spiteful remark off with a laugh.

"All right, old fellow; you shall. Now may I go?"

"Yes, be off."

"Good-night, then."

"No: stop and help me up to bed."

"I will, with pleasure," said Wrigley, giving Janet an encouraging look.

"Now then."

Jessop rose, took his friend's arm, offered with a smile, and suffered himself to be led to the door.

"Which room, Mrs Reed?" said Wrigley.

"Come along, I know," snarled Jessop.

"All right, dear boy. You shall show me, then. Good-night, Mrs Reed.

The cabman is waiting; and as soon as I've seen him in bed, I'll slip off."

"Thank you," said Janet coldly, as she gazed searchingly at the smooth, well-dressed, polished man, and felt a strong repellent force at work.

Then the door closed, and she sank in a chair, helpless, hopeless, listening to the steps upon the stairs, and thinking of her husband's words.

"And I let myself be led to believe that this man loved me," she thought, in her bitterness,--"this man, who could degrade me as he has to-night before his companion."

But her thoughts changed from her own misery to Jessop's threats against his brother.

"What does he mean?" she asked herself. "Ruin him?"

She sat gazing before her wildly, her heart throbbing at the thought of the man she had told herself she loved coming to harm; but directly after Jessop's other utterances flooded her mind, and swept the thought of trouble befalling Clive right away.

For was this true? So soon after his fathers death! Was there some one whom he had met, some one beautiful--fair to see?

"What is it to me?" she said scornfully. "He is not worthy of a second thought. Better Jessop's wife, even if he sinks lower still."

She listened and heard steps, then the front door closed, and lastly the sound of wheels. Then lying back in the chair, she prepared to rest there for the night, while Jessop sat up in bed, waiting for her to come, thoroughly sobered now.

For as soon as Wrigley had helped him up to and across the chamber, Jessop had felt two nervous hands seize him by the throat, and he was flung quickly and silently back on the bed.

"Look here, you miserable, brainless idiot!" whispered Wrigley savagely, as he held him down.

"Here, what are you doing?"

"Silence, fool! or I'll choke the miserable life out of you. Now are you sober enough to understand? Mind this; if by any words of yours-- any of your cursed blabbings, this business comes to grief, I warn you to run for your life."

"What?"

"For there are those in it now who would not scruple much about making you pay."

"Pay?" faltered Jessop, as he gazed in the fierce face so close to his.

"Yes, my dear friend, and so that the world would be none the wiser when you were dead."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

DINAH SEEKS SAFETY.

Clive Reed crossed the spoil bank one evening after a busy day at the mine, leaving a black cloud of smoke still rising where the furnaces were hard at work, turning the grey stone ore into light silvery metal, which was run off into the moulds ready for stamping there as ordinary soft lead; then, after several purifyings, as hard solid ingots of silver.

For the place had rapidly developed, gang after gang of men had been set on, miners, artificers, smelters; and in the eyes of the mining world the far-seeing man now sleeping calmly in his grave was loudly praised, and his son and the shareholders envied for their good fortune over a property that a couple of years before no one would have touched; even when Grantham Reed had acquired it, they had been ready to ask whether he was mad.

And now, day by day, the new lode which Clive had discovered was giving up such great wealth that the shares were of almost fabulous value, and not to be had at any price.

For the original scheme of continuing the old working and profiting by the clumsy way of production in the past, with its immense waste, had as yet not been touched. The "White Virgin" was rendering up her hidden treasures contained in the new lode, and it looked as if these were inexhaustible.

It had been a long, hara.s.sing experience for Clive to get everything in perfect going order, for the work--administrative and executive--had all fallen upon his shoulders. But it had been a labour which had brought him rest and ease of mind. When the hours of toil, too, were over, a sweet feeling of peace had gradually grown up, till the wild moorland had become to him a place of beauty; the river deep down in its narrow valley a home of enchantment, from which he tore himself at the rare times when he was compelled to visit London and attend the board meetings of his company.

At first he did not know why it was that his father's death and the discovery of Janet's weakness had grown to seem so far back in the past.

When he first came down to the ruined mine, he felt old and careworn; he walked with his head bent, his eyes fixed upon the ground, but their mental gaze turned inward upon the misery in his heart. Now, after these few months, he was himself again, and Janet, his brother, and all that agony and despair, were misty and fading fast away.

"It's the work," he used to say, "the work. Nothing like action for a diseased mind." Then by slow degrees after his brother's visit the truth began to dawn upon him. At first he doubted, and ridiculed the idea; then he began to wonder, and lastly to ask himself what manner of man he really was. He had believed himself to be strong and determined of purpose, and now he told himself that he must be weak as water, and that, in spite of the past, he had never thoroughly felt a strong man's genuine love.

"Yes," he said, as he walked slowly along that narrow shelf-like path towards the Major's house, "it is the truth--the simple truth."

The evening was closing in, and the darkness gathered fast in the shadowy valley where the river rippled, so that by the time he reached the spot where the perpendicular side of the mountain had been cut away, forming the sides of a tunnel, with here and there a gap forming a cavernous niche, it was quite obscure for some fifty yards. But the thoughtful man was so wrapped up in the mission he had on hand, that he did not notice the faint odour of a cigar, as if some one had lately pa.s.sed there smoking; neither did he turn his head to the right and look up when a small stone came rattling down from above; but, as if Fate was leading him into a temptation, he suddenly stopped and stood gazing off to his left at where, in the south-east, a bright star was rising out of the mists.

Had he turned and looked up, he would have seen a man's face peering over a rugged block of stone which effectually hid the watcher's body, and that between the face and him a piece of rock was balanced and held by two hands, either occupied in retaining it, or ready to send it cras.h.i.+ng down.

It would have been a perilous position for a man to have walked close under that stone where the track was most worn, for the other part skirted the edge of the precipice, which fell sheer two hundred feet, and hence was bad for those who had not a steady nerve.

But Clive Reed's nerve was once again steady, and he had chosen to walk to the edge and then to stop and gaze down into the gathering darkness.

For a few moments he did think of how easily any one might fall there, and what a fate it would be if the stones which had been left roof-like by the old workers who had made that path should come crumbling down.

But the thought pa.s.sed away, thrust out by others, some pleasant and full of delight, others serious of import, and connected with the purpose of that night.

He pa.s.sed on directly after, and a faint rustling sound was heard from the narrow rift which led upward behind the loosened stone. The face had disappeared, but a bright light flashed up from behind the rock, and once more the odour of tobacco began to be diffused in the cavernous gloom of the place.

But it was bright and clear where Clive Reed walked on, and his mind too was quite clear, his purpose determined, as he strode on now at a rapid pace till he reached the path down by the river, and then turned up suddenly in front of the cottage, where he stopped short once more to look up at the light s.h.i.+ning out of the little drawing-room window.

It was open, and he could see that Dinah was seated at work; and, as if irresistibly attracted by her, he advanced quickly two or three steps to enter by the window; but he suddenly turned off by the path leading to the door.