Cassell's Family Magazine/A Missing Witness/Chapter 9

E sent Morris with the trap to the station the moment he returned from the farrier's; and then, after a long and anxious interval of suspense, little mother and I, sitting under the verandah trying to fix our thoughts upon the books in our laps, caught the welcome sound of wheels, and ran quickly to the garden gate.

“There they are!” we cried in a breath.

Elsie was driving, her cheeks flushed with colour, joy smiling in her face, her eyes sparkling with excitement, and by her side was our dear old Phil: browner and fuller in the face for his long voyage, perhaps, but otherwise just the same honest, open, kindly, earnest old friend we had ever known him. He kissed us, and it seemed quite natural that he should, for we felt that he was even more to us now than a friend. And then as we entered the garden, father came from the house in his light grey suit; and the two men took each other's hands, and looked in each other's eyes with the fearless steadfastness of those who wish to know and be known. It quickened our pulses to see the smile that broke over their manly faces, for it told us that these two whom we loved so dearly had gauged one another's character and found nothing wanting to fulfil their expectations.

There was something hysterical in Elsie's delight which was easily attributable to reaction from her late distress; but they told us nothing then about the meeting with James Redmond. Philip only explained how, after waiting a few minutes at the station, he had asked the nearest way to our house, and met Elsie in the meadow, whence they returned to the station, seeing the chaise going towards it along the road.

We had only time to show him the house and the room we had prepared for him before dinner. He admired everything duly, and when we told him how father had prepared it for us, he said, slipping his arm round Elsie's waist and turning to him—

“You will have to do the same for us if you want to keep us near you.”

After dinner, Elsie took him away to see her pigeons, and the puppies, and the cow, before it grew too dark, and we thought it advisable to let them go alone; but it was quite dark before they returned, for the beauty of the woods tempted them to stray beyond the orchard, and their happiness made them forgetful of time and us.

Then we had a real Yorkshire tea; and, after that, Phil opened a great leather case that had been brought from the station, and showed us what it contained; and all, save his own personal effects, which might have been packed in a Dorothy bag, was for us—beautiful things brought from all parts of the world, and some of them very costly indeed. But it was not their price, nor even their beauty, which gave them their real value: it was the reflection that wherever he had wandered he had thought of us and searched for things to please us. He had even thought of father.

“Elsie told me that you smoked,” he said, dragging out a great packet of true “Virginia”; “but she added that your baccy was not up to mine; so here's some that we can smoke together to obviate invidious distinctions.”

We left them smoking together when we went up to bed—Phil wanting to know about the trout-fishing and otter-hunting. And we three women sat together for an hour talking about Phil, and looking again at the treasures he had brought us; and it was good to our ears to hear the sound of those two manly voices as they talked together below.

When we were in bed, Elsie told me what had happened in the meadow.

“I think I lost consciousness just for a moment or two,” she added. “I couldn't faint quite, because my darling Phil was there, holding me in his great arms, and giving me strength and courage. I seemed to see things through a whirling mist, but I was conscious of that horrible Redmond dragging himself out of the ditch, the mud all clinging to his hands and clothes, and I heard him sa3 to Phil—

“'You'll find this the worst day's work you've ever done in your life, and you shall rue it to your dying day, as sure as my name's Jimmy Redmond.'

“'You shall be paid for your work, do what you will,' answered Phil, 'and you may think yourself lucky you get off now without the flogging you deserve.'

“Of course, I had told Phil in my letters all about the wretch, and mother's terror, and we both agreed that it would he best to say nothing to her of this affair. I think it is quite clear that he will keep well out of the way while Phil is here; but doesn't it seem like a fatality that I should twice be the means of betraying our whereabouts to this man?”

I felt less disposed to regard it as a fatality. His coming by the same train as Philip, and making his way across the meadows as the nearest cut to Farleigh. were not a very remarkable coincidence; but it seemed to me that his presence in Farleigh was due to something more than mere accident.

Something striking the window awoke me in the morning; but Elsie was already up and dressed, all save the last touch which is the most tedious part of dressing; and as she opened the window a bunch of rosebuds came up, with a cheery “Good-morning” from Phil.

They came in late to breakfast—“we must expect that,” said father. Phil had been down to the beck “prospecting for trout,” and Elsie had wreaths of travellers' joy, and tufts of heather, and sprays of golden bracken to offer as excuses for their delay.

“But what do you think?” said Elsie in a tone of desolation, when the history of their lovely walk had been told; “Phil is going away to-morrow.”

“To-morrow!” we exclaimed.

“Won't do to neglect the main chance,” said Phil. “My noble relative has to be settled with, and there's a trout rod—I've kept a loving eye upon it for years—to be bought.”

“But you said you might not be back for a whole week.”

“Unless I'm lucky enough to finish my business before.”

We knew that he would not leave us so soon or for so long if it had not been necessary, so we put the best face we could upon our disappointment—Elsie as well as we. And the next morning we bade him good bye at the garden-gate, and Elsie drove him down to the station.

He had taken his ticket, and was standing with Elsie on the platform, when he said gravely—

“I don't think I'll go by this train, Elsie.”

“Why not, dear?” she asked joyfully.

“Because I fancy I saw the red face of that consummate rascal, Redmond, on the bridge a minute ago.”

“Oh, if it were any reason but that, I'd have you stay—you know that, Phil—but not if that is your only reason. I will not give him the chance to insult me again, or if he dares!”

Philip tells me that as she spoke she looked capable of thrashing James Redmond, or anyone else, with her own hand. Then, the anger melting from her eyes, she pressed his arm a little closer to her side as they walked down the platform, and she said—

“Oh, Phil, you must let me prove that I have courage—that I can take care of myself, when I have not your dear arm to in me.”

“You shall, love.”

“I sometimes think, Phil, what a poor, frivolous, light-headed girl I am. Dol has twice as much character—she's like little mother, and—and I have thought she would be a better wife for such a man as you than I could he. But I do know this, love,” she said with growing energy, “if there should come a time when it pleases God to put me to the trial, I shall prove that I am something better than an idle child, something worthier of my husband's love.”

The train came in, and Elsie watched it glide away, taking Philip and with him, as it seemed, her heart; she stood there till the train became a mere speck upon the line, and could think only of Philip.

A porter touched his hat, and put a folded piece of paper in her hand. She looked at it and opened it in a kind of bewilderment. Some lines were written in pencil, and she read—

“I've got something to say to you as it's for your good you shall hear. Go into the waiting-room, and I will join you there. The porter shall stand outside where you can see him and call to him, if you find it nesusary. If you won't see me, you'll force me to call upon your mother and spile her happiness, besides bringing John Evans and the whole fambly to disgrace and ruin. Mind you, there's no danger for you, as you can give me into custody if I don't behave like a gentleman, and I give you this one chance of saving your fambly from certin shame and utter ruin.—J. R.

“N.B.—Send this paper back by the porter if you agree.”

Elsie did not hesitate a moment: she folded the paper, gave it to the expectant porter, and walked into the empty waiting-room. She placed herself on the further side of the broad table, and waited for the coming interview with every nerve braced up to meet an attack which she foresaw must be one of an intimidating kind, her pulse beating high with the exultant belief that she should come out well from the encounter and prove herself to be “something better than an idle child.”

Presently, through the open door she perceived James Redmond carrying a bulky blue bag in his hand, and the porter with him.

“There's a shillin' for you, my man,” said Redmond, stopping the porter and speaking in a tone to be heard by Elsie, “and you shall have another if you stand just there and come in when you're called.”

Then he came into the waiting-room, taking off his hat, and stood before Elsie, bowing and looking at her under his brows with a strange mixture of abject humility and set purpose in his face.

Elsie pointed to the opposite side of the table, and he came up to the indicated place, setting his hat on one side, his bag on the other, and his great hands on the table as he leant forward to speak.

“Elsie,” he began in a voice that was thick and husky.

“Miss Heatherly is my name.”

“Miss Heatherly,” accepting the correction meekly, “you're the fust and only gal as ever made a fool of me, and the fust and only as ever made me make a fool of myself. When I parted from your mother at Wood Green, I said I should find you out if I found it wuth my while; and I have found you. But when I said that, I thought to myself I should never want to see you again and I shouldn't try to, seein' as I was wastin' time and loosin' money in a matter unworthy of a man of business. But I was mistook—I didn't know the holt you'd got on me—I couldn't ha' believed as any living creature in the whole world could take that holt on my brain and body as you have. I tell you, I've tried all a mortal man could try to shake off this madness—for it is a madness wus than dram-drinking—and I've failed. I own to it: I've failed as was never yet beaten before by anything where my will was concerned. I tell you, I've gone and walked down past the house where you lived a dozen times after you was gone, and knowin' all the while it was madness. I've bought photographs of beautiful women, because I fancied I see a blee in 'em of you. I've gone after other gals that called you to my mind, and chucked 'em up when I see how far and away they come behind you. And look here”—he grasped his waistcoat with both hands and shook it to show its looseness—“I've gone down more 'an half a stone in these past five months. 'Five months more of this,' says I to myself, 'and I shall be a member for Colney Hatch.' Then, I see it was wuth while to find you. And I have found you. And when I did find you, that madness took holt on me and overmastered every idea of discretion”

“If you tell me this as an apology,” Elsie began; but he interrupted her quickly.

“It ain't no apology; I should do it again if I got the chance, though I was to be chucked into a dozen ditches after'ards. I tell you, I ain't got no sort of control over myself, and to prove it I'll show you what I'll do. I'm wuth fifteen thousand pounds and more: every penny piece that I possess I'll settle on you by any legal act a lawyer can draw up in your behalf. I'll make myself absolutely dependent on you for a crust of bread and cheese, if you will consent to end my purgatory and be my wife.”

“If all the world were yours to offer me and I were at the last extremity of want, I would refuse you.”

“Wait a bit, I've something more to say.”

“I've heard enough—too much. I will hear no more. I loathe your very presence, I despise and hate you”

“I know you do; and I love you all the more for it.”

“Do you wish me to call the porter?”

“Yes; if you wish him to know what your mother would give her life to conceal—if you are indifferent enough to her happiness to publish openly what even I have had the mussy to keep secret.”

“Your threat doesn't frighten me.”

“Then call the porter and let us see if the reading of this does not frighten him.” With these words he opened his bag and produced a packet of newspaper cuttings tied round with a piece of red tape. “Read it for yourself fust, if you still doubt,” he added, throwing the packet on the table; but glancing at the fire behind him, he snatched it up again as quickly.

Elsie saw the glance and understood the significance of his act, which was so unpremeditated as to force the conclusion upon her that his threat was not without foundation. Redmond perceived her doubt, and took advantage of it.

“The feller as chucked me in the ditch counts for something in your refusal,” he said, tapping his knuckles reflectively with the packet—“the feller who went off just now in the train. You think he'll marry you, maybe; but suppose I tell you that you can't marry him, nor anyone else with a rag on his back or any self-respeck except me—how then? Would fifteen thousand pounds, carriages, horses, mansions, and everything else the money would buy, be despised, missy?

“I have answered you already,” she replied.

“You won't believe me, eh? Well, I'll soon convince you.” He slowly untied the red tape that bound the cuttings as he continued: “I'll convince you at a glance that you can't dare to marry that feller as chucked me in the ditch it he's the gent he looks. I told him that should be the wust day's work he'd ever done, and I'll prove it by knockin' the bottom out of his chance of gettin' you. Just cast your eye on that there headline.” He laid the cuttings out on the table facing Elsie, keeping them flat with his outspread hands.

An unfathomable dread caused Elsie to hesitate for an instant; but reluctantly she dropped her eyes upon the headline printed in bold type, and then as she read, started as if a knife had been struck into her heart.

These were the words she read:—

“There's no mistake about it,” said Redmond, pursuing his advantages. “See, here's the date—just eleven years ago come November. Eleven years since your mother couldn't hold up her head no longer in North Wales, and bolted with you and your sister that you might not know of your father's crime and the shame that lays for ever on your name. Now can you marry that feller?”

Elsie put up her hand to her throat to loosen the collar that seemed to be strangling her—

“No, no!” she gasped, “that cannot be true. Another might bear the same name.”

“Oh, don't run away with that error. Here, I'll read the whole evidence if you like; but it ain't necessary. See, here's my name as a witness for po'r George—James Redmond; here's your mother's name—Olive Heatherly; here's even your name and your sister's in your mother's cross-examination—'My children, Elsie and Dorothy, were at school,' she says, 'when Mr. Pettigrew called and made his offer'—the offer your father overheard, that made him mad with jealousy and led him to kill his governor, Pettigrew. Shall I read you the lot?”

“No, no!—no, no!” cried Elsie, feeling a fresh gash in her heart with each proof of her father's crime.

“You know enough to see. as no decent man will marry you now—except me.”

“If my father was maddened with jealousy,” Elsie faltered, speaking rather to herself than to Redmond, and as if in answer to her own argument—“and if my father is dead”

“But he ain't dead,” whispered Redmond, leaning forward and thrusting out his chin in savage exultation.

“Not dead!” Elsie answered incredulously.

“No more dead than I am. Listen—your father was convicted of having murdered Joseph Pettigrew, and attempted to murder Yates, who discovered him with the sledge-hammer in his hand. He was sentenced to death; but on the petition got up by me, his old pal, that sentence was remitted to penal servitude for life. For ten years he served as a convict at Dartmoor, and then he escaped—escaped about last Christmas, as near as I can make out. Your mother soon after made out that he was dead—put on black and the rest. Whether she grieved much, you know better 'an what I do. She told me he was dead, and I, like a fool, believed her. And so I might now—only my tool-maker brought a wonderful shaper to me, as he wanted me to go in for showing, as it could do everything pretty near except talk. I seemed for to know the tool the moment I clapped eyes on it; and then it struck me that I had seen a model like it amongst the things po'r George left behind in the pattern-shop. I went and hunted it up, and here it is. Perhaps you've seen it before. He drew from his bag a wooden model of the shaper she had seen working in father's shop. “P'or George was for ever inventing something, and most of 'em failures, so I hadn't taken any account of this, not bein' a mechanic, otherways I might have patented it myself years ago, and made a mint of money out of it. 'Now,' says I to myself, holding it up so, 'is it likely this idea could strike another man in such a way that he could work out all the parts similar, or ain't it?' and reason answered, 'it ain't.' 'Then,' says I, looking at the patentees' names on the new shaper, 'either Thomas Gardener or John Evans is my old friend po'r George, as have got out of prison and taken another name. And further,' says I, 'where p'or George is, there I shall find my other old friends, Olive Heatherly and her two gals.' So, bein' now mad to find you, I hunts up the address of Evans & Gardener, comes over here, and the first person I meet after leaving the station is you. 'Now,' ses I, 'it's a sure thing.' So I asks for Mrs. Heatherly, and find she's quite lately been married to John Evans. Then I hung about, and out of the workshop alongside of your mother's cottage comes my old friend po'r George—and there you are. Now, missy, you know why you can't many that feller; for as sure as heaven and earth, if you try to do so, you'll find me and a constable standing betwixt you and the altar, and your father shall be taken publicly for an escaped convict and a condemned murderer. I say, and I swear it, I'll do this if you try to marry another. But I'll do more: if you don't marry me, I'll be a life-long terror to your father and mother. I'll hunt them down. I'll haunt them night and day, until your father kills himself in despair and your mother is taken to the madhouse. You've got to choose between that fate for them or the other fate for yourself. I stick to my bargain: you shall have what legal settlement you want, and for my own sake you may be sure I shall keep your father's secret. I'm done,” he added, putting the model and the papers in his bag. “I'll leave you now, and I'll wait patiently in the neighbourhood for one week to give you time to make up your mind. Your father and mother's happiness—their very life is in your hands; and if at the end of the week you don't say you'll be my wife, their death and dishonour will be upon your head.”

He left Elsie standing by the table like a thing of stone. And when he was gone, she must have fallen to the ground insensible.