The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 49

"Your brother?" repeated Mr. Brewer to Jenifer, who stood stiff and upright by his side.

"My half-brother, James O'Keefe."

"There is some one at the front door; will you open it?"

Jenifer guessed at the personage to be found there. But she went steadily through the front pa.s.sage, and, opening the door, let the policeman who had been waiting enter, and then she came back to the kitchen without uttering a word. As the man entered Mr. Brewer laid his hand on the sleeper's shoulder, and woke him. He opened his fine grey eyes, and looked round surprised. "On suspicion of having committed an a.s.sault on Mr. Horace Erskine last night, in the park at Beremouth," said the policeman, and the stranger stood up a prisoner.

He began to speak; but the policeman stopped him. "It is a serious case," he said. "It may turn out murder. You are warned that anything you say will be used against you at your trial." "Are you a magistrate, sir?" asked O'Keefe as he turned to Mr. Brewer. "Yea; I am. I hope you will take the man's advice, and say nothing."

"But I may say I am innocent?" "Every word you say is at your own risk." "I ran no risk in saying that I am innocent--that I never saw this Horace Erskine last night--though if I had seen him--"

"I entreat you to be silent; you must have a legal adviser"--"I! Who do I know?"' "You shall be well looked to, and well advised," said Jenifer. "There are those in this town, in the office where Lansdowne Lorimer worked, who will work for me."

It was very hard for Mr. Brewer not to promise on the spot that he would pay all possible expenses. But the recollection of the disfigured and perhaps dying guest in his own house rose to his mind, and he had a painful feeling that he was retained on the other side.

However, he said to Jenifer that perfect truth and sober justice anybody might labor for in any way. And with this sort of broad hint he left the house, and Jenifer saw the stranger taken off in safe custody, and, mounting his horse, rode toward Blagden. He asked for his daughter; and he was instantly admitted, and shown upstairs into her sitting-room--there he found Claudia, looking well and happy, engaged in some busy work, in which Eleanor was helping her.

"Oh, my dear father!" and Lady Greystock threw the work aside, and jumped up, and into the arms that waited for her.

It was always a sort of high holiday when Mr. Brewer come by himself to visit his daughter. When the sound of the brown-topped boots was {325} heard on the stairs, like a voice of music to Claudia's heart, all human things gave way, for that gladness that her father's great heart brought and gave away, all round him, to everybody, everywhere--but _there_, there, where his daughter lived--there, among the friends with whom she had recovered from a great illness and got the better of a threatened, life-long woe--there Mr. Brewer felt some strong influence making him _that_, which people excellently expressed when they said of him--"he was more than ever himself that day."

Now Mr. Brewer's influence was to make those to whom he addressed himself honest, open, and good. He was loved and trusted. It did not generally enter into people's minds to deceive Mr. Brewer. Candor grew and gained strength in his presence. Candor took to herself the teachings of wisdom; candor listened to the advice of humility; candor threw aside all vain-glorious garments when Mr. Brewer called for her company, and candor put on, forthwith, the crown of truth. "My darling!" said Mr. Brewer, as he kissed Claudia; "my darling!"

"Oh, my dear father--my father, my dear father!" so answered Claudia.

Then she pushed forward a chair; and then Eleanor made ready to leave the room. "Yes, go; go for half an hour, Mrs. Evelyn. But don't be out of the way; I have a fancy for a little chat with you, too, to-day." A grave smile spread itself over Eleanor's placid face as she said she should come back when Lady Greystock sent for her, and then she went away. Once more, when she was gone, Mr. Brewer stood up and taking Claudia's hand, kissed her. "My darling," he said, "I have something to say, and I can only say it to you--I have some help to ask for, and only you can help me. But are you strong enough to help me; are you loving enough to trust me?"

"I will try to be all you want, father; I _am_ strong; I _can_ trust--but if you want to know how much I love you--why, you know I can't tell you that--it is more than I can measure, I am afraid. Don't look grave at me. It can't be anything very solemn, if _I_ can help you; or anything of much importance, if my help is worth your having."

"Your help is absolutely necessary; at least necessary to my own comfort--now, Claudia. Tell your father why you broke off your engagement with Horace Erskine."

"_He_ did it"--she trembled. Her father took her little hand into the grasp of his strong one, and held it with an eloquent pressure.

"He wanted more money, father. It came as a test. He was in debt. I had loved him, as if--as if he had been what _you_ must have been in your youth. You were my one idea of man. I had had no heart to study but yours. I learnt that Horace Erskine was unworthy. He was a coward.

The pressure of his debts had crushed him into meanness. He asked me to bear the trial, and to save him. I did. I did, father!"

"Yes, my darling."

He never looked at her. Only the strong fingers closed with powerful love on the little hand within their grasp. "But you were fond of Sir Geoffrey?"

"Yes; and glad, and grateful. I should have been very happy--but--"

"But he died," said her father, helping her.

"But Horace sent to Sir Geoffrey the miniature I had given him--letters--and a lock of my poor curling hair--" How tight the pressure of the strong hand grew. "I found the open packet on the table"--she could not say another word. Then a grave, deep voice told the rest for her--"And your honored husband's soul went up to G.o.d and found the truth"--and the head of the poor memory-stricken daughter found a refuge on her father's breast, and she wept there silently.

"And that made you ill, my darling; my dear darling Claudia--my own {326} dear daughter! Thank you, my precious one. And you don't like Beremouth now?"

"I love Beremouth, and everything about it," cried Lady Greystock, raising her head, and gathering all her strength together for the effort; "but I dare not see this man--and I would rather never look again on the deer-pond in the park, because there he spoke: there he promised--there I thought all life was to be as that still pool, deep, and overflowing with the waters of happiness and their never-ceasing music. We used to go there every day. I have not looked on it since--I could not bear to listen to the rush of the stream where it falls over the stones between the roots of the old trees, between whose branches the tame deer would watch us, and where old Dapple--the dear old beauty whose name I have never mentioned in all these years---used to take biscuits from our hands. Does old Dapple live, father? Dapple, who was called _'old'_ nine years ago?" And Lady Greystock looked up, and took her hand from her father's grasp, and wiped her eyes, and wetted her fair forehead from a bowl of water, and tried by this question to get away from the misery that this sudden return to the long past had brought to mind.

"Dapple lives," said Mr. Brewer. And then he kissed her again, and thanked her, and said "they should love each other all the better for the confidence he had asked and she had given."

"But why did you ask?"

"I want to have my luncheon at your early dinner," said Mr. Brewer, not choosing to answer her. "You do dine early, don't you?"

"Yes, and to-day Eleanor was going to dine with me."

"Quite right. And I want to speak to her. Claudia, something has happened. You most know all before long. Everybody will know. You had better be in the room while I speak to Eleanor. Let us get it over.

But you had better take your choice. It is still about Horace that I want to speak--to speak to Eleanor, I mean."

"I should wish to be present," said Claudia. And she rose and rang the bell.

"Will you ask Mrs. Evelyn to come to us?" she said, when her servant appeared. In a very few minutes in walked Eleanor.

"Mrs. Evelyn," said Mr. Brewer, "last night you directed a man to seek Jenifer at Mrs. Morier's house. That man was James O'Keefe, Jenifer's half-brother. You knew him?" "Yes, Mr. Brewer, I knew him." "But he did not know you?" "No." "He asked about you. Why did you send him to Marston?" "Because he could there learn all he wanted to know. I am not going to bring the shadow of my troubles into this kind house."

"That was your motive?" "Yes. But I might have had more motives than one. I think that was uppermost; and on that motive I believe that I acted."

"That man was in the park. At the lodge-gate he had made inquiries after my guest, Mr. Erskine. That man was at Mrs. Fell's, the dairy-woman, at midnight. He was not through; he had, he said, fallen into the water--he described the place, and they knew it to be the deer-pond."

As Mr. Brewer went on in his plain, straightforward way, both women listened to him with the most earnest interest; but as he proceeded Eleanor Evelyn fixed her eye on him with an anxiety and a mingled terror that had a visible effect on Mr. Brewer, who hesitated in his story, and who seemed to be quite distracted by the manner of one usually so very calm and so unfailingly self-processed.

"Now Mr. Erskine had gone out into the park late. Mr. Erskine, my dear friends,--Mr. Erskine _never came back._" {327} He paused, and collected his thoughts once more, in order to go on with his story.

"We went to seek for him. He was found at last, at the deer-pond, surrounded by the evidences of a hard struggle having taken place there, a struggle in which he had only just escaped with his life. He has been ill-treated in a way that it is horrible to contemplate. He is lying now in danger of death. And this morning I have a.s.sisted in the capture of James O'Keefe, whom I found by Mrs. Morier's kitchen fire, for this possible murder. I should tell you that Mr. Erskine is just as likely to die as to live."

"Mr. Brewer," said Eleanor, rising up and taking no notice of Lady Greystock's deathlike face,--"Mr. Brewer, is there any truth in a report that has reached me from a man who was in the elder Mr.

Erskine's service in Scotland--a report to the effect that Mr. Horace Erskine wished to propose marriage, or had proposed marriage, to Miss Lorimer?"

"There _is_ truth in that report," said Mr. Brewer.

"Then I must see that man," said Mrs. Evelyn. "Before this terrible affair can proceed, I must see Horace Erskine. If indeed it be true that he has received this terrible punishment, I can supply a motive for James O'Keefe's conduct that any jury ought to take into consideration."

"But O'Keefe denies having ever seen him," said Mr. Brewer. "He does not deny having inquired about him. He even said words before me that would make me suppose that he had come into this neighborhood on purpose to see him, and to take some vengeance upon him. Mr. Erskine is found with the marks of the severest ill-usage about him, and you say you can supply a motive for such a deed. O'Keefe, however, denies all but the will to work evil; he confesses to the will to do the deed, but denies having done it."

"I must see Mr. Erskine," was all that Eleanor answered. "I must see Mr. Erskine. Whether he sees me or not, _I_ must see _him_."

The young woman was standing up--her face quite changed by the expression of anxious earnestness that animated it.

"I must see Mr. Erskine. Mr. Brewer, you must so manage it that I must see Mr. Erskine without delay."

"But you would do no good," said Mr. Brewer, in a very stern tone and with an utter absence of all his natural sympathy. "The man is so injured that his own mother could not identify him."

"Then may G.o.d have mercy on us!" cried Eleanor, sinking into a chair.

"If I could only have seen that man before this woe came upon us!"

And then that woman burst into one of those uncontrollable fits of tears that are the offspring of despair. Lady Greystock looked at her for a moment, and then rose from her chair. "Victories half won are neither useful nor honorable," she said. "Wait, Eleanor, I will show you what that man was."

She opened a large metal-bound desk, curiously inlaid, and with a look of wondrous workmans.h.i.+p. She said, looking at her father, "I left this at Beremouth, never intending to see it again, But it got sent here a few years ago. It has never been opened since I locked it before my wedding day." She opened it, and took out several packets and small parcels. Then she opened one--it was a miniature case which matched that one of herself which had been so cruelly sent to good, kind Sir Geoffrey--she opened it "Who is that, Eleanor?" It was curious to see how the eyes, blinded by tears, fastened on it "My husband--my husband--Henry Evelyn. My husband, Mr. Brewer. Oh, Lady Greystock, thank G.o.d that at any cost he did not run his soul still {328} farther into sin by bringing on you and on himself the misery of a marriage unrecognized by G.o.d."