DOLFF blotted himself out against the wall, under the tree which bent over the wall of his own garden, and threw a rugged shadow on the pavement. He was invisible in the gloom of the wintry night. They went up in their boldness almost to the very door, and stood there whispering, yet starting at every noise. Dolff could scarcely hear Janet’s hesitating little voice, but he drank in every sound of Meredith’s.
“No, no; there will be nobody out at this hour. Don’t be afraid. Ah! there might be Dolff. No; Dolff’s waiting for you to come in to teach him his new song, Janet. Little daring! to train a lout like that. Well, you’ll keep your eyes open, and if you hear or see anything further, report to me at once. It’s very important. What do you say? Don’t be in such a fright, dearest; nobody will see us.”
Then there came a murmur from Janet, too low to be heard.
“Yes, there you’re right. There might be Vicars, the everlasting Vicars whose occupation will be gone, and who will have to return to be a butler, like the others. Oh, no, I’ve no pity for Vicars. I daresay it was he who put his mistress up to it. Mind you keep a good look-out. You don’t know how important it may be for me. Yes, I know I must go. It will be droll after this, won’t it, to meet solemnly, as if we had not seen each other for ages, and didn’t care if we never met again? Eh? To be sure, I’m going to dinner, and you are never seen on those occasions. Poor little Janet, eating her morsel up in the nursery, like a naughty child, and knowing there’s some one downstairs. Never mind, I shall only think of you the more.”
“And make fun of me with her?” said Janet, in a sharper, more audible tone.
“With Gussy, bless her! No, she never lets me make fun. She don’t understand it. You needn’t be jealous, little one, though I avow it’s droll enough, the position altogether: to keep her in good humor—and then you, you little spitfire.”
Janet was not audible but in the movement of her figure, the twist of her shoulders, the poise of her head, there was a question and remonstrance as clear as words.
“Why do I do it? Oh, it’s all very complicated, very difficult to understand. I couldn’t explain unless I had time. Unfair! no; there’s nothing unfair, don’t you know, in love or in war. Don’t be afraid; she’s of the careless kind, it will do her no harm. I ought not? Well, perhaps not, strictly speaking. But when does one do everything one ought? This is not right—perhaps not; but it’s all the more sweet, eh, little one? And as for Gussy!” he laughed, that triumphant laugh which, even to Janet’s bewildered ears, was not without offence, “for Gussy——” with a gurgle of mirth in the words.
Janet could never understand how that horrible moment went, nor how it all happened. Something seemed suddenly to hurtle through the air, a dark, swift, rapid thing, like a thunderbolt. She had scarcely felt the sensation of being pushed away when she was conscious of Meredith lying at her feet, his white face upturned to the faint light, and of that dark thing over him seizing him, dashing his head against the pavement. Janet uttered a cry, but it was not her cry that brought flying feet along the road in both directions, and evoked a little tumult round the insensible figure. She mingled with it instinctively; she could not tell why, keeping silent, partly that she was struck dumb with terror, partly with an instinct of self-preservation, which seized her in this strange, sudden, awful emergency. When the door was opened—and her senses were so acute that she saw it was Vicars who had rushed to see what the commotion was—she managed to steal in unseen, to fly upstairs, and shelter herself in her room. What did it matter where she went? He had been killed before her eyes, with the laugh on his lips. Killed—struck dead at a blow! And she had seen it done, and knew who had done it, and was all mixed up and involved in the horrible, horrible catastrophe. It may seem cruel that this was Janet’s first thought, but she was so young. She had done her share of all this wrong so carelessly, with no particular meaning, thinking not much harm.
“Not much harm,” she said to herself, piteously.
No harm, no harm—only to amuse herself; and lo! it had come to murder, to sudden, swift fate. She was all one throb from head to foot, of horror and panic and wild excitement. Had any one seen her? Would she be mixed up in it? Would she have to stand forward and avow it all before the world in the light of day! Oh, what could Janet do? Where could she fly? How escape the dreadful revelation, the story which would be spread over all the world, the horrible fact of being mixed up in a murder? For the second time, when he seized Meredith by the shoulders, and dashed his head against the stones, she had recognized Dolff’s face, distorted, almost beyond recognition, by passion. What could be more dreadful than to be the witness of it all, the only one who could tell—mixed up in it as no one else in the world could be?
By and by she heard sounds of men tramping, and a great commotion below. They were bringing him in here—him—it—the body. Janet’s head went round, she was on the verge of fainting, but called back her senses by a supreme effort, saying to herself that if she were found fainting she would be betrayed, and that nothing but her own self-possession and courage could now save her. She dipped her head into a basin of water, put off her outdoor things, even her shoes, on which there were signs of her walk, and stole out to the gallery to look over the banisters. She was pale, and there was horror in her face, but that was no more than the circumstances called forth.
He was lying on a couch which had been wheeled into the hall, and round him there was a little crowd, a doctor, who seemed to have sprung out of the earth, as everybody did, and who stood over the prostrate figure examining it. What was the use? Janet could scarcely keep herself from crying out, when she had seen him killed. Killed! Oh, what was the use? Gussy, very pale, but with all her wits about her, stood at the foot of the sofa. There was a policeman in the hall, and an eager crowd filling up the doorway with a ring of staring heads. And there he lay killed, killed! And Janet, horror-stricken, speechless, mixed up in it! the only witness of what had been done. That dreadful instinct of self-preservation presently impelled her to further steps; that and the anxiety she felt to know everything, to know especially how far it was known that she was mixed up in it.
“What is it? what is it?” she whispered to Gussy, feeling herself by Miss Harwood’s side; “is it an accident?”
“We can’t tell what it is: it is Mr. Meredith,” said Gussy, in a low, stern tone.
Janet uttered a cry—what more natural?—and, stealing one glance at the white upturned face, hid her own in her hands. It was only what an inexperienced girl would naturally do brought suddenly into such a presence. Nobody noticed her or thought of her. In the dark she had escaped entirely unseen.
Then there stole a little balm into her despairing soul. The doctor, after a hurried examination, turned round to say that the man was still alive, and begged that a well-known surgeon in the neighborhood should be immediately sent for. Gussy, who was very pale but perfectly calm, and complete mistress of the situation, herself superintended the removal of the couch into the dining-room, which was spacious and well aired, and had everything removed which was out of place.
The table was already spread for the dinner at which Meredith was to have been one of the chief guests and Dolff to have occupied the place of master of the house. Fortunately Gussy did not as yet know the double misery involved. It was dreadful enough to have this calamity fall so suddenly without warning upon the domestic happiness and calm. The dinner-table, with all its pretty arrangements of flowers and shining crystal and plate, was such a mockery of the sudden, unexplained, incomprehensible catastrophe, that this touch of the familiar and commonplace almost broke down Gussy’s composure. She dismantled it noiselessly with her own hands, assisted eagerly, as she remembered afterwards with compunction and gratitude, by Janet, who clung closely to her like her shadow, following where she went with an anxious endeavor to be of use, which went to Gussy’s heart. They removed the incongruous ornaments in less time than half-a-dozen housemaids would have done, and pushed the table aside.
When the surgeon arrived, Janet was ready to be sent on any errand, and did everything with noiseless rapidity, looking not at the figure on the sofa, which she seemed incapable of regarding, but at Gussy for her orders. She was like an obedient, docile slave. When the ladies were sent out of the room she still clung to Miss Harwood like her shadow, moving only when she moved. In the hall the policeman still held his place, with several of the people who had surged in after him and who were giving their several accounts of the transaction.
“I see it all,” said one. “I was on the other side of the road, and I see it all. There was a woman with the poor gentleman. I can’t tell you what kind of a woman; not much good, I shouldn’t think—or perhaps she was a-begging. There wasn’t light enough to see. And all in a moment some one made a spring upon him. I don’t know where he came from, officer. I see him dash on the gentleman as if he had fallen out of the sky. And down he went like a nine-pin, and afore I could get across the road the other lifts him up again and down with his head upon the ground.”
Gussy was standing by, listening intently, and Janet behind, half-hidden in her shadow, listening too, with such wild yet paralyzing sensation, wondering would he know her if he saw her—this man who had seen it all—shrinking behind her protectress faint and sick with the unreality, the fact and falsehood mingled in which her feet were caught.
Gussy’s voice so close to her even made her start, “Have they got the man? Is he known?”
The witness turned to her with an instinctive transfer of his attention.
“He just disappeared, mum, as he came. Afore I could come up to them he was gone.”
“I saw a man running round the corner,” said another, “but I took no notice, for I didn’t know then what was up.”
“I’ll tell you what, miss,” said another, “the fellow’s in your garden if he’s anywhere. I see some one dart in when your man-servant came out. I’ll take my oath he did.”
“In our garden! Has there been any search? Have you done anything to secure the man? Can anyone identify him? What are you standing there for,” cried Gussy, “doing nothing, if that wretch is within reach? Policeman——”
“I’m a-looking after the murdered man, miss,” said the policeman. “I did sound my rattle, and there’s two of my mates about. I shouldn’t say but it might be a good chance to search the garden, unless they’ve got him outside.”
“Go then, go, for heaven’s sake, and do it,” cried Gussy. “He may have escaped by this time. Mr. Meredith’s friends will give a reward. I myself—” she suddenly faltered and grew pale, leaning back upon Janet for support. “Go, go,” she cried, faintly, “go and find the murderer.”
Janet had to put her arms round her to support her. Oh, what things were beating in the breast that afforded that support. The murderer! was not she too the murderer? she, whom no one would recognize, who would never be punished, save by the consciousness which would be her inheritance forever. Horror and trouble, and the dreadful fear of betraying herself, of being mixed up in it, kept Janet upright as if in a frame of iron. The murderer! Oh, heaven! if they should find him, and if he should point her out and let all the world know how deeply she was mixed up in it! She supported Gussy, yet clung to her, looking with eyes of anguish at the policeman who got out his lantern and prepared to go.
“I think Mr. Harwood is in the garden,” she said, “he was—walking there—a little while ago.”
“Dolff!” said Gussy, recovering herself; then she added, “I hear my brother is in the garden; he will help you. Oh, do not lose any more time; go! go!”
Was it to save Dolff that Janet said this, or to betray him? Oh, not to betray him certainly, for that would be to betray herself. It seemed to her that the sight of him would kill her; yet could she but warn him by a word—only a word! If he had the presence of mind to be calm, to make that rabble understand that he was the son of the house.
Her heart sank within her as they trooped out into the dark garden; the policeman with his lantern, a few of the boldest of the men following him, the rest hanging about in the front of the house talking over this wonderful adventure, which was so terrible, an unthinking, unoffending man struck down in a moment; but a godsend to all the idle loiterers who spring out of the earth whenever such an excitement is to be had.
The hall was cleared of all the intruders that pushed into it; the servants who had been hanging about retired; Gussy went into the drawing-room to carry the dreadful news to her mother: and Janet, who could not rest, to whom some outlet for her overwhelming excitement was necessary, went out into the porch, and, raising her voice, told the spectators to go away.
“Don’t you see that the noise you make will do harm?” she cried. “It may hurt the—the poor gentleman who is—so ill. It will warn the—the man who did it if he should be here. Oh, go away, go away, for God’s sake. What do you want here? Go away! oh, go away!”
She went out in her excitement, moving them towards the garden door, which still stood open, haunted by some mere lookers-on to whom the news had been carried by the extraordinary rapidity of rumor, which would call forth a crowd in the midst of a desert. Though she was so slight and young, so little able to influence them, yet they yielded before her, moving out, indistinguishable in the darkness, obeying the natural right of a member of the household to clear its precincts, though with a little grumbling and remonstrance.
“We want to get hold on the murderer.” “We want to see as he doesn’t escape.” “He’s far enough off by this,” cried a sceptic. “The police get hold on a fellow like that! not as I ever heard tell on.”
“Oh, go away, go away,” cried Janet, following them to the door.
She pushed it close after them, shutting it with a sharp snap, comforted a little to have got rid of so many at least; but not, it seemed of all. As she turned back some one caught her by the arm. All Janet’s composure, her courage, her over-mastering resolution not to betray herself, could not withstand this new shock. She gave a cry. It seemed to her in her dreadful agitation as if the next thing would be that some one would thunder, “You are the woman who was with him” in her ear.
It seemed almost tame to her that the tragic whisper she heard, hoarse and miserable, emphasized by another crushing pressure of her arm, was “Is he dead? Is he dead?” and no more.