The Duke's Daughter and The Fugitives vol. 3/3 by Mrs. Oliphant - HTML preview

CHAPTER XV.
MR GOULBURN WAS DEAD.

It was hard to tell how it had happened. There was the mark on his forehead of a blow, but to all appearance it was a blow accidentally inflicted as he fell, and not done by any hand, and it was not sufficient to have been the cause of his death. That the state of his heart sufficiently explained. But whether it was the sight of the thief which had brought on the final paroxysm, or whether they had come into actual conflict, or if the disease was so far advanced that any trifling shock would have done it, it was more difficult to decide. All the drawers of the bureau were found pulled out, and the one in which the money had been kept was rifled. Even on this point, however, the juge de paix found it difficult to refrain from blaming the deceased for his own loss. The keys had been left in the drawer—could anything be more foolish? it was a premium upon robbery; the shutters unfastened, so that any one could push them apart; the window open within that, the room left vacant, protected only by the veilleuse, and the keys in the drawers. It was the Englishman himself who had laid a trap for the robber, who had invited him, actually invited him to come and help himself; but he had fallen into the trap which he had laid. It was difficult for the prudent Frenchman not to breathe a fervent “served him right,” with such variety of expression as the exigencies of a more elaborate language required; but no trace could be found of the thief and possible murderer. He had evidently jumped from the window, leaving the shutters open and the room fully displayed, but it was not till after his escape that the village had been roused. Père Goudron had heard the leap, but nothing more. In the investigation that followed, suspicion was directed against Antoine, who had been seen by several persons watching M. Goudron’s house; but it was conclusively proved that Antoine had left that afternoon for the chef-lieu, where he had gone to complete all the necessary arrangements for his acceptance as Baptiste’s substitute. He had been escorted a league on his way by several of his friends, so on that point there could be no mistake.

The affair of l’Anglais made, as may be supposed, an enormous sensation at Latour. Nothing like it, so far as was known, had ever happened in the village. The juge de paix sat, en permanence, for a number of days examining everybody. They even examined the other Englishmen who were living at the château, and who declared themselves acquainted with the victim. They were very sharply questioned indeed, so that it occurred to Sir John that they were themselves suspected of the deed, an idea which was the cause of endless discourses on his part, and disquisitions upon the differences between English and French law, very much, it need not be said, to the disadvantage of the latter. The Comtesse for her part scoffed at the instruction altogether. She would hear nothing of a possible murder. The man, she said, had death in his face; had she not said so, the first moment she saw him? She had seen him but once, but she had been fully aware what was to be expected; so fully that she had not even urged him to return home, which she would have done had the case seemed to her less serious; for it was better that he should die in Latour than that he should die in the railway, or in an inn, where his daughters would have no one near them but absolute strangers. Madame de Vieux-bois justified her own previsions on this point by sending at once for Helen and little Janey, who, after their father had been laid in the little burying-ground among all the little crosses, with their blue and yellow decorations, came to the château grateful, but half stupefied with all that had happened to them. Helen, at least, was in this condition, for poor little Janey’s despair had been brief, as was natural at her age. But the elder sister had gone through a great many terrible experiences during those two or three days. She had been examined at great length by the magistrate, not only on the circumstances of the fatal night, but on all the antecedents of her family, the reason of her father’s residence at Latour, why he had left England, everything about him; and then she had undergone an examination by Sir John, less solemn perhaps, but not less harassing. Sir John was strongly opposed to the engagement, which Charley Ashton instantly proclaimed. He declared it to be entirely out of the question, and risked a quarrel not only with his cousin, but with his betrothed and her family. Madame de Vieux-bois, indeed, did not hesitate to agree with him that if the match was so extremely unsuitable as he said, it would be well that it should be put a stop to; but she had herself no responsibility in the matter, and her interest, she confessed, was much more strong in Helen than in M. Charles, who, she was glad to think, ne la plaisait pas from his first appearance. But Cécile and also Thérèse were very eager for Helen’s happiness, and very indignant that any attempt should be made against it.

“What!” cried Cécile, beautiful in her generous wrath and wonder, “les Anglais! who believe in nothing but lofe, who blame so much all our arrangements between parents, our ideas upon marriage! You who say there is nothing but a great passion which should bring two people together! Look at the book of M. Taine of the Academy, he who is such an admirable writer, who has so much observed England. That is what he says, and I believe it, I! Lofe, that is the true bond, not a similarity of circumstances, the dot and the position, and how it will advance one’s career. But you—you—an Englishman, so English! you,” she cried, with a ring of disappointment in her voice,—“you, mon D’John, mon fiancé à moi! that you should try to separate them because my Helen, my poor friend, is——

“Come, Cécile,” cried Sir John, “is—— that’s just it. It’s not that she is poor. To be poor is bad enough, I don’t say that I approve of it; but it is the bad connection, that is what I dislike. A bankrupt, a—a—swin—— Well, I won’t call the dead man names. That is what I object to. I don’t say a word against the girl; but, after all, Charley is my cousin, and a young fellow with all his life before him, and, hang it all! it is my duty to take care of him.”

“And Helen is my friend!” said Cécile. She was shaken in her idea of her lover’s perfection, and she was shaken in her confidence in the English nation, and the pre-eminence of “lofe” in all their affairs—which she had hitherto devoutly believed in, and of which Charley Ashton’s conduct had given her delightful assurance. As for Thérèse, she was fully of Cécile’s opinion, but yet could not help feeling that if M. Charles had behaved like a reasonable creature, and fulfilled the expectations formed of him before his arrival, it would have been better for himself. For herself, Thérèse was glad things had happened otherwise; she was relieved that her mamma had given up all intention of marrying her for that year. But so far as M. Charles was concerned, for him it would have been a great deal better. With this reservation, which on the whole quickened her zeal by mingling it with a grain of pity, Thérèse threw herself generously and warmly into Helen’s cause.

When the instruction was terminated, and all had been investigated that could be investigated, there was a complete failure in every attempt to trace the criminal. The French law, so suspicious and peremptory, failed just as English criminal proceedings, so much more halting and imperfect, so often fail. Antoine’s alibi seemed complete. There was no evidence to be found which connected him with the incidents of the fatal night. Mr Goulburn’s English cheque-book was found indeed, torn up and defaced, on the road by which he must have travelled to the chef-lieu of the department; but the culprit, whoever he had been, would most likely have travelled by the same road. The only other thing which that culprit had dropped was the morocco letter-case which Helen had brought from her father’s room at Fareham on the night of their flight. After all the examinations were over, this was restored to her. She came in, carrying it in her hand, to the library where Sir John was spending his morning. It was nearly three weeks after her father’s death, and hostile though Sir John was, both to the dead father and the living daughter, it was partly on their account that his visit had been prolonged. He did not choose to leave them in possession of the field, and he was anxious to save Charley, as he said to himself, from the clutches of the girl, who, being Goulburn’s daughter, was no doubt an adventuress too. A violent controversy on this subject had, indeed, been going on between the two men, when Helen softly opened the door and went in upon them. Sir John was seated at a writing-table with a flushed and angry countenance, while Charley, not less excited, paced about the library. It was a large, long room on the upper floor, with a row of long windows looking out upon the woods and the park. The two men, whose angry voices she had heard without paying much attention to them as she approached, suddenly stopped with embarrassed faces as she made her appearance at the door. Sir John, with an air half of anger, half of surprise, pushed back his chair from the table and looked at her, while Charley hurried to her side and took her hand to lead her forward.

“Did you want me, Helen?” he said, in a tone doubly tender, drawing her hand within his arm. At this little exhibition Sir John uttered an angry “humph!”

“I came to bring you this,” said Helen. “I do not know what it is best to do with it. We brought it out of Fareham with us. Papa always said it was Janey’s fortune. But if it is true, as you say, that he owes people money—yes, I know it is true; he told me so himself—this ought, perhaps, to be taken to pay some of them. As for Janey, she is very little, she does not want much now, and I have a hundred a-year—that will be enough for her and me.’

“Let me see it,” said Sir John, with some eagerness.

Nobody had been allowed to see the papers so long as they remained in the magistrate’s hands. He opened them out with a great deal of interest, shaking one after another out of the case. As he looked at them, opening each in succession, gleams of excitement passed over his face. He made hurried calculations under his breath; there were coupons, vouchers of money invested, many things quite unintelligible to Helen. Sir John’s fingers trembled with eagerness as he turned them over; there were various kinds of excitement and pleasure combined in his survey—pleasure in so much money recovered, for himself as well as his fellow-sufferers, fierce satisfaction in finding the culprit as bad as he hoped, the delight of being able to think and say “I told you so,” all intensifying the pleasure of a new incident after long suspense. The two others looked on with very different feelings. Helen was not alive to the meaning of it all. She stood by even with a kind of consolation and gentle content in the thought that whatever wrong her father might have done would now be partially made up. She did not look at the face with which her lover regarded these discoveries, the disgust and pain and shame on his countenance conveyed no idea to her inexperience. She did not like Sir John, but she thought his exclamations, his looks of cruel elation, were only his disagreeable way of showing pleasure in the recovery of the money. She stood looking on for some time quite calmly. And then she said, “Will you divide it among the poorest people, please? He would have liked that best.”

Sir John broke out with a fierce laugh. “No,” he said rudely, “I cannot do sentimental injustice, Miss Helen. Your father had made a pretty provision for you, I must say; you ought to be obliged to his providence. But for this lucky chance, whoever suffered, he had very well feathered his nest.”

“Harvey!” cried Ashton, vehemently, “how can you speak before her of a lucky chance?”

Sir John pushed back his chair farther from the table and looked at them. “I call it so,” he said, “in every point of view. It is the best thing that could have happened for the man himself, and it is the highest luck for the children, and for you, if you insist like a fool in connecting yourself with such a——”

“Silence!” thundered Charley, making a step forward—“not another word!”

“I know nothing to prevent me saying as many words as I please,” said Sir John, eyeing him with exasperating coolness.

Helen stood between the two excited men in the quiet of her innocence, not understanding for the first moment what their angry voices meant. Then her pale and almost passive face became transformed; slowly, gradually, the light rose in it, kindling her eyes, quickening the colour on her cheeks. She turned from one to the other, listening, entering into the meaning. At last she detached herself entirely from her lover, drawing her hand from his arm, and stood alone, with a kind of proud humility. She stopped till Sir John had made that last remark. His tone, the very sound of his voice filled her with wonder and dismay. She knew no reason for this hostility.

“My father is dead,” she said with simple dignity; “if he has done wrong he is in God’s hands; and we are two girls, fatherless and motherless. Is it with us you are angry, Sir John? It must be with me, for Janey is a child. What is it that I have done? If it is anything that I can put right, and you will tell me, I will do it. Why is it you look and speak to me so?”

Sir John was taken entirely aback. He looked at her and faltered. She put Charley away with her hand, with a smile and quivering lip. She would stand alone while he spoke to her.

“No,” she said, “not you; do not come near me. Let him tell me what I have done wrong.”

Sir John Harvey was a man of experience. He knew how to conduct himself in most emergencies. He was not apt to be put out. But when he found himself confronted by this young, solitary, friendless creature, who had but one person to stand by her in all the world, and he the one whom her powerful, prosperous enemy was endeavouring to detach from her, the courage and the strength were taken out of him. Sir John, so big and strong and well-to-do, faltered before the small, weak, desolate girl. He could not meet her eyes; his voice and countenance failed him.

“I—I have nothing to say to you, Miss Goulburn,” he said. “I did not approve of your father; he has made a great deal of mischief, and ruined many people; but he is dead, as you say. I don’t pretend to judge him. The only thing is,” he added, getting courage as he went on, “the only thing is—what you must see yourself—that a connection with you cannot do any man any good; that it must, in short, more or less, do harm. Your giving up this,” he continued quickly, careless of Charley’s loud interruption, “is very creditable to you. It will make everybody think better of you. Still, notwithstanding——”

“Helen, if you listen to that man, if you stand any longer and hear me insulted, I will think—I will believe you care for me no longer,” Charley Ashton cried.

She looked from one to the other with tears in her eyes. “I have nobody in the world to tell me which is right,” said Helen. She was far beyond shedding of tears, the moisture in her eyes was a powerful concentrated dew of suffering through which her troubled eyes looked out. At this moment there came another knock at the door, a quiet little knock low down, as of a creature of small stature, sounding against the lower panels; and then a small voice called from the same altitude, “Helen, Helen, open, Helen! I tan’t open the door.”

Sir John turned his face and his chair round towards the little voice, and sat there attentively expecting what was to come. Charley made one step to it and opened it, leaving the passage free. Janey appeared in the threshold in her black frock, her fair little face rising out of it like a flower, her little figure, so lightly poised, standing against the background of the panelled wall. She looked round upon them with the perfect calm of childhood. Then her eyes were caught by the pocketbook on the table. Janey was not afraid of Sir John nor of any one in the wide world. She went up to the table and took the precious case into her little hands.

“This is Janey’s fortune,” she said, looking up with a smile into the face of the man beside her. “Are you doing to keep it safe for me?”

He sat and looked at her, helpless; he would have knocked down any man who had seized upon it—wrested it from the most powerful claimant; but before the little child he was helpless. He gazed at her blankly, stupidly, in the height of his dismay.

“I will not dive it to Sir John,” said Janey, “because he does not look kind. He does not like Helen or me; he did not like papa: but I will dive it to Charley, for he is the one that is good. Catch, Charley!” cried the little girl, throwing the precious case like a ball across the table. She clapped her hands when Ashton caught it, with a laugh of childish pleasure. A ball or a fortune, what did it matter to Janey? “And look, Helen, who is coming!” the child said. “I was sent to tell you, but I forgot. Here she is coming! she is coming! and we are all doing home to our own house, and never to cry any more.”

In another moment Helen’s forlorn solitude, her helpless loneliness were over. She flew past Sir John, who rose stumbling to his feet, and Charley, who stood bewildered with Janey’s fortune in his hand, and fell into the outstretched arms of a smiling and weeping woman who had come in after Janey, at the open door.

Doubt, and danger, and suspicion of herself and of everything around her, had been closing about Helen. She had looked around her vainly into the blackness and found no guidance, no one even to tell her what she ought to do. She had no mother, nor any friend that absolutely belonged to her; nevertheless, when she flew into Mrs Ashton’s arms, the world had settled down again out of those giddy whirlings and confused eccentricities. She did not know what she might be called upon to do or to give up; but life had taken its natural shape again to the bewildered girl. She was not out of the labyrinth, but she had found the clue.

After the arrival of these strangers, Charley Ashton’s father and step-mother, the village of Latour advanced daily in its knowledge of the ways of the English,—a most curious and interesting study, which gave great amusement to the cottagers. Mr and Mrs Ashton took the apartments in M. Goudron’s house which had been so sadly vacated by l’Anglais, he who had escaped from all his pursuers by a night journey more sudden than any of his previous flights. The Latourois had been very sorry for the man who had died among them; but they were very glad, as was natural, to forget that tragical conclusion, and to amuse themselves with all the difficulties about monsieur’s bath, and madame’s tea. The Curé looked with amused tolerance, yet contempt, at the costume of the clergyman, and at the droll pretences of that Protestant personage to be a priest like himself; and Madame Dupré, with an effort, for the sake of the benefactor who had liberated Baptiste, put up with the fastidiousness of the new visitors who turned up their noses at her pot-au-feu, and expected to find the refinements of the Trois Frères in the little auberge. “Talk of French cookery!” the new-comers cried; and they endeavoured to teach Margot how to “cook a joint” over her handful of charcoal, and to make English mustard out of the dark-complexioned powder which was all that was to be had in Latour. To see them walking about for ever, taking perpetual constitutionals, filled the villagers with wonder. But it would be impossible to describe the interest of Blanchette and Baptiste when there dawned upon them a pleasing certainty of the fate which was reserved for mademoiselle. Little Blanchette was the one who had divined it from the first. The day M. Charles had come to the château, that very day she had read it in his face. The loves of Cécile and Sir John afforded them no such sympathetic satisfaction. And indeed, Sir John took his departure immediately, carrying with him the valuable case which held Janey’s fortune. He washed his hands, he said, of the other matter. The Ashtons were on the spot to look after it for themselves, and if the father did not object to such a connection, of course it was no concern of his, who was merely a cousin. A cloud, a faint veil of separation, fell between Helen and the girls at the château, in consequence of Sir John’s opposition. Perhaps it gave Cécile her first experience of the difficulties that attend marriage with an Englishman. She did her best to be loyal both to her friend and her future husband, but the conflict was not without pain.

But what did any such paltry pain matter in the opening of the new day which came to Helen out of the clouds of the morning, sweet and dazzling in all the glories of life and spring? Her oldest friends put her hand into her lover’s hand, and his father said the blessing over them. Let all the Sir Johns in the world object, what harm could it do? They went to Paris and bought the bride her Indian outfit,—she who had nothing. Helen’s hundred a-year had accumulated as her father had said. It came from her mother, and was honestly hers, and there was no reason why she should not use it. And it was at Paris that the young pair were married; and from thence that they set out to their distant home. But before they left Latour there was a pretty ceremony, at which their presence was indispensable. Helen and little Janey put aside their black dresses and put on white ones to honour Blanchette’s marriage. And when the religious ceremony took place, after the first day’s performance at the Mairie, the bride herself, holding her husband by the hand, turned aside and led the way among all the iron crosses on the graves to the place where l’Anglais lay under a green mound, without any name. He had forfeited his name, his good fame, and honour. Nevertheless little Blanchette wept over the mound, and, kneeling down in her veil and myrtle crown, laid a white wreath upon the grass, and said a prayer for his soul. Did it do him any good in those dark countries whither the fugitive had taken flight “unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d”?

“Ma bonne, douce demoiselle,” said Blanchette amid her tears, “how he was good to us, monsieur votre père! Never shall a week pass when you are far, far away from Latour, but Baptiste and me, we will say a prayer for the repose of his soul.”

The others said nothing, but stood silent about the nameless grave. What harm he had done, what suffering he had caused! and yet he was but as other men, and gratitude gave him a prayer and a tear.

THE END.