She might have gathered warning from Minnie's panting summons, but had been busy over her accounts and had noticed nothing amiss.
“He wants you, Miss Percival! Don't go!” She had scarcely heard. She said, “Who wants me? Mr. Ingram? I'll come;” and though the maid stammered, “I wouldn't, oh, I wouldn't,” had gone.
The face he showed her from his bureau, where he sat huddled over a litter of papers, prepared her instantly for crisis; snarling, white and wicked, yet it had tragedy in it—as if he knew that he had himself to reckon with beyond all.
For some time he seemed not to see her, though he looked at her. He sat glooming, like a man dumb in high fever, working his lower jaw, screwing and unscrewing his hands. Afterwards she believed that he had been groping for the cruellest thing he could say, and was goaded into what he did say by the sense that he could find nothing.
“So that was your work? Your choice way! To set one of my own servants to club me.”
She looked at him blankly; but her face glowed with sudden fire. “I haven't the least notion what you mean. Who has clubbed you?”
His eyes flickered. “Glyde. Your friend. You seek your champions all about, it seems. You make things snug for yourself. It's master or man with you—it's all one.”
He spluttered his venom broadcast. She held up her head. “Are you insulting me?” He wheeled round full in his chair.
“Is it possible to insult you?”
At that she lowered her panoply of fire, and grew still. “I see that you are. I can't allow that.”
He foamed. “Bullies in your hire. Now I see what Bill Chevenix was after. And Glyde-faugh! who else?”
She watched him steadily without fear or disgust. His words held no meaning for her. “I think you must be mad,” she said. “It will be better if I go.”
He scoffed at her. “Better! You are right.” He rose in his place. “You'll go to-day.”
Sanchia regarded him deeply, almost curiously, as if he had been a plant, interesting for its rarity.
“Naturally,” she said, and left him in his staring fit.
The ordered little realm of Wanless went on its diurnal course. Luncheon was served at two by a trembling parlour-maid; the coffee was set in the hall, the cigar-box, the spirit-flame. Frodsham came for orders, Mr. Menzies reported Glyde absent without leave. These things were done by rote: yet the whole house knew the facts. Sanchia, dining in the middle of the day, plied her knife and fork with composure. It was her way to face facts once for all, tussle with them, gain or lose, and be done with them. She had been angry with Glyde, but now could think of him as “poor Struan,” Punchinello in a rustic comedy. Of Ingram, deliberately, she thought nothing. It had been necessary to survey her feelings of eight years ago, to make a sour face of disgust over them, before she could shake them out of her head. Now they were gone, and he with them: the world, with May beginning, was too sweet a place for such vermin to fester in. She had swept and ridded herself, rinsed her mouth with pure water, and now could sit to her dinner and review her plans.
But the storm burst over Wanless, at half-past four. Minnie came into her room, breathless, Mrs. Benson stertorous in her traces.
Minnie wailed, “Oh, Miss, oh, Miss Sanchia, oh, dear Miss Percival, what's going to become of us? Struan's beaten the Master, and the Sergeant's here!”
“Apes and tigers”—Mrs. Benson tolled like a bell. “Apes and tigers. What says the Book?”
Sanchia let them run, so the distorted tale was pieced together. At a quarter to twelve—it must have been that, because Emma heard the stableclock chime the half-hour—Struan was seen in his blacks. He came out of the wood-house, an ashplant in his hand. “Apes and tigers, apes and tigers,” from Mrs. Benson—his face was dreadful to see. Who said so? Who saw him? Not Minnie, for sure. It was Bella the laundrymaid—she saw him from the window, and had a turn. The window was open. “Why, Struan,” she said—but he told her to shut mouth and eyes. “The less you see, and know,” he said, “the better for you.” Poor Struan, with his tragedy airs! Bella told that to Minnie, and that she would never forget it to her dying day. It turned the beer in her stomach, she said—and now she was lying down. As he went out of the yard, a cloud came over the sun, and Bella felt the chill. She had the goose-flesh all up her back. That, they say, betokens a person walking over your grave. Somewhere in England we all have our grave-ground lying green under turf. It awaits the spade and the hour. In the morning it is green and groweth up—this was Mrs. Benson's piece, but Minnie had the rest of the stage.
The saddle-horse came flinging into the yard at one o'clock—no later. That's certain, because Frodsham was at his after-dinner pipe—or should have been: instead of which he came running in after him. Just about that time, or maybe a little before, Mr. Menzies had been asking for Struan? Where was he? Did anyone ever see such a wastrel? No man's account, he called him. Mrs. Benson tolled her apes and tigers all.
It was Minnie had seen the Master when the bell pealed. She had gone with her heart in her mouth—and oh, his collar and tie! His red ear! She had never seen anything like his face, and never must again on this side of the tomb. Wicked, oh, wicked! He showed his teeth. His face was as white as a clout. His voice was like a nutmeg-grater. “Miss Percival—here—at once.” It was all he said. She did her bidding, for servants must—but her heart bled for Miss Percival, and she felt like fainting at any minute when she waited at luncheon. He drank brandy—jerked his head towards the sideboard when he wanted more. Never said a word. And how he ate, wrenching at his food! Fit to choke him. How she had lived through the luncheon she didn't know at all. But that Struan, that quiet in an ordinary way, should have dared—with a stick in his violent hand! And the Sergeant ready for his warrant—stiff in the hall.
“A villain has got his deserts,” boomed Mrs. Benson. “My dear, you're going, it seems, and I with you. This is no place for a young lady—no, nor ever was, God be good! I know my place, to all parties; but I know that better—and now it's come upon us like a thief in the night. Well, well, well—my pretty young lady! Old women must put up with what they get, we all know—but not murderers in gentlemen's seats: no, nor beastly doings in and out of doors. I shall go, my dear, when you go—ah, me! When the wicked man ... but he's got his deserts. What! a widower—with duty and pleasure before him, combined for once, and no thanks to him!—to dally with a French doll—movable eyes and separate teeth and all—when he might have gone on his knees to a splendid young lady! And I'd have kept him there to say his prayers, which he's never done before, not since his mother died, poor old gentlewoman, worn out by the gnashings of a tiresome, God-Almighty, wicked old man, and a slip of sin who nothing was too good for. Not in this world, no! But it will be made up to him in the next, by the unquenchable worm—as he'll find out when he tries his 'down, dog' tricks; his 'drop that, will you?' None of that down there in the fire. What says the Book? My dear, my dear,” and she took the girl in her arms with a fine look about her of Niobe amid arrows, “I've a bosom for your head and a roof to shelter us both, and we'll see what we shall see. There's castles and towers for the great oneyers and their minions; but mine is in the Fulham Road, my dear; my own property out of a building society that does business for the widow and the orphan—makes it their special line, as I understand, and have treated me squarely throughout—that I will say. Yes, yes, and I'll tend you fairly, will Sarah Benson, widowed mother of a graceless son, who can feel for her poor dead mistress, mother of a worse. My lamb, you shall want for nothing.”
Fast in a good pair of arms, Sanchia snuggled and smiled. She patted Mrs. Benson's cheek, and put up her lips to her. Minnie, like a thawing icepack, ran rivers of water.
“You are good to me,” she said; “you are sweet to me. I don't mind anything when I can be sure of such friends. But you mustn't leave, you know. Really, you ought not. I shan't forget you, be sure of that, whether you stay or go.”
Mrs. Benson crooned over her, “Oh, you're not one that forgets, my precious, with your golden heart. And there's more than me will find it out.” She wiped her spectacles, breathing on the glasses, and Sanchia shook out her plumage, escaped from the nest. Ingram, without knocking, came into the room.
His rage was now cold and keen. He took in conspiracy with one glance at the three.
He spoke to Minnie. “I have been ringing for twenty minutes. The brandy in my room, and some soda-water. At once.” Scared Minnie fled. Then he turned half to Sanchia, but didn't look at her.
“I understood you were leaving this afternoon. You had better order a fly. There's the telephone.” He held out an envelope. “I think that you will find this correct.”
Sanchia was at her bureau. “Put it on the table, please,” she said, without turning; and while Ingram hovered, Mrs. Benson heaving like the sea, gathered into a combing wave and, breaking, swallowed him up.
“Money-ah! You come with money to a lady of the land! Offer me money, Mr. Ingram, if you dare. Your bread I've eaten, having baked it, and your father's bread, and not choked yet, though each mouthful might be my last. By every word out of the mouth of God, says the Book; and what shall He say of you? I've watched for this, I've seen it coming. You keep long accounts, but there's One keeps longer—and in His head, as we read. To breaking mother's heart so much, to scandal of matrimony so much—and to perjury and dirty devices, wicked dalliance, so much. When she came here—this fine young lady, so fresh and sweet—I wailed. I shook my fist at you, Mr. Ingram; 'I know what this means,' I said, 'a false tongue and a young heart.' And I waited, I tell you—for I could do nothing else. She could have come to me at any hour of any day and welcome; and I'd have told her, 'He's bad—he's rotten at the heart. He'll tire of you—neglect you—trick you—and cast you out.' But she was too proud for that; she bore it all, and not a word. And she did your work as never before, not in your time, nor your father's time; and made friends of the poor, and kept her place—sweetly and smoothly it was done. And you on your travels with foreign women—”
Ingram now emerged from the flood. “Are you mad?” he said. A dreadful calm came over Mrs. Benson, succeeding the tempest.
“'I am not mad, most noble Festus,'” she said; “but I am mother of a graceless son, and will not be cook to another. I leave your service from this hour. Your dinner is a-making, and Emma is a steady worker.” She turned to Sanchia. “The best vegetable-hand I ever had under me, Miss Percival, and I've had a score.” One further cut at Ingram she allowed herself. “I would not take a penny piece of your money now, not to save my darling from the lions.”
“You won't get it, you know,” said Ingram. “But you've had lots of 'em.” She braved that truth.
“And earned them, Mr. Ingram, as you know, better than I do.”
Ingram, ignoring her, observed quietly to Sanchia, “The sooner the better, I think.”
That was the manner of his farewell.
It was not the way she would have chosen to leave; but she reasoned with herself, as she packed her belongings, that it was probably the best way. It gave no time and little inclination for sentiment. Now, it was almost certain that had a term been ahead of her, whose end could be felt nearing, there would have been good-byes, last interviews, and last interviews but one, which are apt to be more poignant than those of the last moment of all. Even as it was there were threatenings of emotion. Wanless was stirred deeply. Mr. Menzies brought in a nosegay, and grasped her hand. “You will be sorely missed here, Miss Percival, sorely missed. Less said's the sooner mended, but you're a true young lady, greatly to be deplored.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Menzies,” she had said, “and thank you a thousand times for—”
“They are from my own plot of ground,” said the grizzled gardener, and looked away. She had his tulips in her hand, and now buried her face in them.
“Then I love them all the better,” she told him; and put in a word for Struan. “Be kind to him when you see him again—please do.”
Mr. Menzies became far-sighted. He had very blue eyes. “Ahem!” he said, in his Scotch fashion. “He'll not be here again, I doubt. He'll be away, the headstrong young man.” But he warmed to it. “Ay,” he said, “ay, Miss Percival. For your sake I'll listen to what he has to tell me.” She felt that she must be content with that. Each servant in degree must be dealt with, and Minnie comforted in her place. She was all for going that night; but had a mother and four sisters in Doncaster—all at home. Would Miss Sanchia forgive her, and accept of this Prayer-book? Miss Sanchia would; kissed her, and did.
In the carriage drive she told Mrs. Benson of her immediate intention. “I must say good-bye to Struan. We will stop at his cottage on the way. There's plenty of time.”
Mrs. Benson was strongly against it, but rather showed her mind than declared it. Mischief enough had been done through that youth—and in him, she doubted. Better let him alone. Are you to countenance violent hands? Raised against them in authority? Then where's authority? Where are Principalities and Powers? Much as she contemned Ingram, she was on his side against Struan any day. On the other hand, Sanchia was, in a manner, her guest, and could not be spoken to plainly about it. She could only shake her head.
“He's better alone, Miss Percival, alone with his devil. While the fit's on him, let 'em fight it out. And what can he be—to the likes of you?”
“He's always been a friend of mine,” she said. “He's been very foolish, very wicked; he had no business whatever to do as he did—to put me in the wrong. I'm angry with him, and he will see that I am. But—” Mrs. Benson knew the force of that “but.” It had brought the young lady to Wanless.
Yet Mrs. Benson might have triumphed if she would. Sanchia, at the cottage door, was met by the anxious tenant of it with whom Struan lodged. “He's not here, Miss,” she was told, and then, “oh, Miss, they've took him away. The Sergeant's come for him and took him. And we hear—” There had been no stopping her, but by Sanchia's way.
She walked into the cottage and put up her veil. She showed a pale, sad face. “How dreadful! I must write a note. Will you let me write here, and leave it with you—to give him when he comes?”
She wrote in pencil, “My dear Struan, I am very sorry. You made me angry, but I'm sorry now. I came to say Good-bye, as I am going away. Mrs. Benson is with me. See Mr. Menzies when you can. He has promised to help you, and, of course, I will too, if I can.—Yours always, S. J. P.” With the fold of the envelope to her tongue she paused, reflective. Then she took the note out again, read it over, and ran her pencil through the last two letters of her signature. And taking two Parma violets from the knot at her breast—a recent gift from Wanless—she put them within the paper. Thus she did deliberately—as the Fates would have her. Addressing “Mr. S. Clyde, by Mrs. Broughton,” she gave her letter in charge. “Be sure to give it him when he comes back,” she said. Then she and her protector were driven to the station.
There was a full bench, a crowded court when the accused was brought in. The hush that preceded him and the buzz when he stood up made Ingram set his teeth. The reporters, with racing pen, cleared the ground. Thus the world might read of “The Squire of Wanless, every inch a soldier,” in one journal, and of “Nevile Ingram, Esquire, of Wanless Hall,” in another. There are no politics in police reports, but broadcloth is respectable. The prisoner was described as “Struan Glyde, 23, a sickly-looking young man, who exhibited symptoms of nervousness.” It was allowed that he spoke “firmly but respectfully to the Bench,” but, on the other hand, “to the complainant he showed considerable animosity, and more than once had to be reproved by the Chairman.” The proceedings were short. “At the close there was a demonstration, which was immediately checked by the police.”
Glyde, in fact, was revealed as a narrow-faced young man, slim and olive-complexioned, having light, intent eyes, and very long eyelashes. Nervous he undoubtedly was; he twitched, he blinked, he swallowed. He looked effeminate to one judge. Another said of him to his neighbour, “As hardy as a hawk.” A newspaper called him “puny,” a rival “as tough as whip-cord.” It depended upon your reading of him—whether by externals or not. He had a quiet, fierce way with him, a glare, the look of a bird of prey. He was very self-possessed. All the papers observed it.
Ingram, playing his privilege to the last ounce, told his tale to his brother-magistrates, shortly, but with considerable effect. He had had occasion to dismiss a servant, and the prisoner had taken upon himself to resent it. Yes—in answer to a question—a female servant. Prisoner had attacked him in his own carriage-drive, had pulled him out of the saddle before he knew what he was about, and had beaten him while on the ground. He had no witnesses. There had been none. His voice, as he chopped out his phrases, was dry, his tone impartial. He took no sides, stated the facts. He spoke to the Chairman—even when he replied to the question which made him, for a moment, take breath; and he never once looked at the accused.
The Bench consulted together. Old Mr. Bazalguet, the Chairman, leaned far back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling, while two younger justices whispered to each other across his portly person, peering sideways at Ingram, who showed them his smooth head and folded arms. Colonel Vero, the fourth of the tribunal, was drawing angels on his blotting paper. Then they settled themselves, one of them with a shrug, and Sergeant Weeks told of the arrest. Accused had declined to make a statement, but had spoken certain words to his landlady, one Mrs. Broughton, to the effect that what was to come was “nothing” to what had been done. He had left in her charge papers, which the Sergeant had afterwards examined, and now had in his care. This had led to a brief interlude.
Mr. Bazalguet had caught the words. “Papers? What papers?” he asked. “Newspapers?”
“No, sir,” said Sergeant Weeks. “They were writings. Poetry and the like—and foreign tongues.” The bench sat up, and now Glyde had the hawk-look in his light eyes. Ingram stifled a yawn, and impressed the Bench.
Mr. Bazalguet, inclining his head to either side, enquired only with his eyebrows. Did we want these papers? Should we, perhaps, for form's sake examine them? Mr. Max Fortnaby was of opinion that we should. As they were handed up, the prisoner, who had been wetting his lips, said plainly, “There's nothing in them about this business,” and was reproved by Sergeant Weeks.
A formidable pile of MS. was passed up by the Clerk, whose deprecating glances were not lost upon the Chairman. But Mr. Max Fortnaby cut open the budget in the midst, and peered in.
“janua vel domina penitus crudelior ipsa”—he read. It was a footnote. He lifted his eyebrows—then his eyes upon the accused.
“Propertius? You know Latin?”
“I know some, sir.”
He returned to the MS., then again to Glyde.
“You are a bit of a poet, I see.”
“Yes, sir. I hope so.”
“If it leads you to battery, my young friend—” was his private comment. To Mr. Bazalguet he whispered, “The fellow's got scholarship. We might give these back, I think.” Mr. Bazalguet was only too happy, and Glyde saw his offspring returned. Sergeant Weeks, safe in Mr. Fortnaby's good opinion, scrupulously wrapped and tied them. Mr. Fortnaby said, “Let them go back to his landlady,” and caught the prisoner's eye.
It was now time to ask him whether he had anything to say. Glyde, perfectly master of himself, said that he pleaded Guilty, but would like to put a few questions. The Chairman, biting the tips of his fingers, nodded; and Mr. Fortnaby watched him.
Facing Ingram, who looked always to the Chairman, Glyde asked—“Did you dismiss your servant, as you put it, before I met you, or afterwards?” All eyes flew from Glyde to Ingram.
“Actually, afterwards,” it was explained. “But the thing was understood before.”
“By whom?”
“By me,” said Ingram, “and—” He stopped there. A very interesting struggle, momentary, and done in silence, took place. Glyde was daring Ingram to bring in Sanchia's name, and Ingram could not do it.
“And—?” said Glyde. “And by whom?”
Ingram paused, biting his lips. He was pale. He took a long breath, and then said, “And by you, I have no doubt.”
“Thank you,” Glyde said. Then he began again. “Did you ask me to fight with you?”
“I believe I did.”
“And I refused?”
“Yes,” said Ingram, “you did.”
“Did I say that I didn't fight with dogs?” Ingram smiled at the Chairman.
“You did not.”
“I say so now,” said Glyde, and stirred the Court. Mr. Bazalguet interfered.
“You mustn't talk like that, Glyde. We can't have it, you know.” Colonel Vero added, “Certainly not,” and stretched his long legs out.
Glyde recovered himself, and begged pardon. He was told that he might go on, in reason, but declined. “Thank you, sir. I think I'll leave it so. I own to what I did.”
He was told that he could be dealt with summarily, or sent for trial. “I'll take it from you, gentlemen,” he said, and settled himself reposefully. The Bench drew together, with the Clerk intervening.
Mr. Bazalguet, double-chinned and comfortable squire, was disturbed by this case. What troubled him was that Ingram had not been straightforward. What was this dismissal of a servant? He knew, and therefore he asked the question. Fortnaby knew also, but didn't intend to say. Everybody, indeed, knew. Romance appeals to us all in diverse ways; and it was actually romance which settled Clyde's romantic affair.
Fortnaby, Maximilian Fortnaby, had been a schoolmaster, had succeeded to an estate at forty, and retired. He, with his keen face and trim whiskers, leaning his head on his hand, thus spoke in undertones, and carried the day. “The case is clear. The young man's taught himself tongues, and has poetry. He's been taught other things, too, and has got some of them wrongly. One thing he ought to learn is that to relieve your feelings is not the way to help the oppressed. He's set himself up for a champion, and tongues have got to work. I should give him three months.” Mr. Bazalguet looked at the Clerk, who said it was a bad case. Mr. Ingram was a magistrate and—the maximum was two years. The third magistrate saw his way to impressing himself,—“Make it six months,” he said. The Chairman agreed with him, until Colonel Vero said, “I should give him a year.” That shocked him. “It'll take a long time for it to blow over, you know,” he whispered to Fortnaby, who smiled and shrugged. “I don't suppose six will hurt him. He'll be able to write after a bit.” “Ingram will go abroad, you know,” said Mr. Bazalguet. “Did you happen to know the—party?” Fortnaby looked up quickly. “I? Oh, dear no. But I gather that the less we say the better. It was not an ordinary servant.” Mr. Weir, the third magistrate, said, “A lady, I hear;” but his colleagues ignored him. Then they all sat up, and the Clerk sank into the well.
“Clyde,” said Mr. Bazalguet, “you will have to go to prison for three months, with hard labour. I hope this will be a warning to you. I do indeed.”
The prisoner was removed amid murmurs. There was some cheering outside the court—at which Ingram grimly smiled. But he was very pale, and did not leave the Sessions house until late in the afternoon. Old Mr. the hall. “You go abroad?” he asked him. Ingram said, it was probable.
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