Much Darker Days Part 4

After that her fate, and mine too, depended on the eccentricities of a jury, the chartered libertinism of an ermined judge, the humour of the law, on a series of points without precedent concerning which no monograph had as yet been written; and, as a last desperate resource, on the letters of a sympathetic British public in the penny papers.

The penny papers, the criminal's latest broadsheet anchor! Under the exasperating circ.u.mstances, Philippa remained as well as could be expected. She spoke little, but ate and drank a good deal. Day after day the brave black frost lasted, and the snowy grave hid all that it would have been highly inconvenient for me to have discovered. The heavens themselves seemed to be s.h.i.+elding us and working for us. Do the heavens generally s.h.i.+eld accessories after the fact, and ladies who have shortened the careers of their lords? These questions I leave to the casuist, the meteorologist, the compilers of weather forecasts, and other const.i.tuted authorities on matters connected with theology and the state of the barometer.

I have not given the year in which these un.o.btrusive events occurred.

Many who can remember that mighty fall of snow, exceeding aught in the recollection of the oldest inhabitant, and the time during which the frost kept it on the earth, will be able and willing to fix the date.

I do not object to their thus occupying their leisure with chronological research.

If they feel at all baffled by the difficulties of the problem, I will give them an additional 'light': _Since that year there has been no weather like it_.

Answers may be sent to the Puzzle Editor of _Truth_.

Day by day Philippa grew better and better. This appears to be the usual result, of excessively seasonable weather acting on a const.i.tution previously undermined by bigamy, murder, and similar excesses.

I spare all technical summary of the case, sufficient to say that this was one of the rare instances in which the mind, totally unhinged, is restored to its balance by sixty drops of laudanum taken fasting, with a squeeze of lemon, after violent exercise on an empty stomach.

The case is almost unique; but, had things fallen out otherwise, this story could never have been got ready in time to romp in before the other Christmas Annuals.

Matters would have become really _too_ complicated!

As Philippa recovered, it became more and more evident even to the most dilatory mind that the sooner she left the scene of her late unrehea.r.s.ed performance the better.

The baronet had not yet been missed--indeed, he never _was_ missed, and that is one of the very most remarkable points in the whole affair.

When he _did_ come to be missed, however, he would naturally be sought for in the neighbourhood of the most recent and attractive of his wives.

That wife was Philippa.

Everything pointed to instant flight.

But how was I to get Philippa to see this? _Ex hypothesi_ she knew nothing of the murder. On the other hand, all her pure, though pa.s.sionate nature would revolt against sharing my home longer than was necessary. But would not the same purity prevent her from accompanying me abroad?

Brother and sister we had called ourselves but Philippa had never been the dupe of this terminology.

Besides, was not her position, in any case, just a little shady?

An idea now occurred to me for the first time. Many men would long ere now have asked their mothers to _chaperon_ them. It flashed across me that I had a mother.

He who says 'mother' says 'chaperon.'

I would take my Philippa to my mother. Philippa was now completely convalescent.

I can only attribute my lingering to the sense of fatality that all things would come round and be all square.

Love I had laid aside till I could see my way a little clearer in the certainly perplexing combination of circ.u.mstances. Nevertheless, Philippa, I say it advisedly, seemed to me a good deal more pure and innocent than when we first met. True, she had been secretly married to a man under a name which she knew to be false.

True, she had given birth to a baby whose later fate remains a mystery even to this day. True, her hands were stained with the blood of Sir Runan Errand.

But why speak of Redistribution, why agitate for Woman's Suffrage, if trifles like these are to obstruct a girl's path in society?

Philippa's wrongs had goaded her to madness. Her madness was responsible for the act. She was not mad any longer. Therefore she was not responsible. Therefore Philippa was innocent.

If she became mad again, then it would be time to speak of guilt.

But would these arguments be as powerful with a British as they certainly would have proved with a French jury?

Once Philippa seemed to awaken to a sense of the situation.

Once she asked me 'How she came to my home that night?'

'You came _out of_ the whirling snow, and _in_ a high state of delirium,' I answered, epigrammatically.

'I thought I came on foot,' she replied, dreamily.

'But, Basil,' she went on, 'what afterwards? What's the next move, my n.o.ble sportsman?'

What, indeed! Philippa had me there.

Clearly it was time to move.

In order to avert suspicion, I thought it was better not to shut up my house.

For the same purpose, I did a little in crime on my own account.

A man tires of only being an accessory.

William, the Sphynx, obviously 'was in the know,' as sporting characters say. Was in the know of what was in the snow! I must silence William.

I took my measures quietly.

First I laid in two dozen of very curious pale sherry at half-a-crown.

I bought each bottle at a separate shop in a different disguise (making twenty-four in all), that my proceedings might not attract attention.

I laid down the deadly fluid with all proper caution in the cellar.

At parting from William I gave him five s.h.i.+llings and the cellar key, telling him to be very careful, and await my instructions.

I knew well that long before my 'instructions' could reach him, the faithful William would be speechless, and far beyond the reach of human science.

His secret would sleep with the White Groom.

Then Philippa and I drove to town, Philippa asking me conundrums, like Nebuchadnezzar.

'There was something I dreamed of. Tell me what it was?' she asked.

But, though better informed than the Wise Men and Soothsayers of old, I did not gratify her unusual desire.

On reaching town I drove straight to the hotel at which my mother was staying.