MR. PENNITHORNE was at the Castle almost all the day during which so many things occurred. While the children wandered in the wood and young Lord Stanton went in search of them, the Vicar could not leave the centre of anxiety. There was no possibility of going upon that quest till the evening, and good Mr. Pen thought it his bounden duty to stay with John to “take off his attention,” to distract his mind if possible from the object of his anxieties. It was all John Musgrave could do, by way of consideration for an old friend, to put up with these attentions, but he managed to do so without betraying his impatience, and Mr. Pen thought he had performed the first duty of friendship. He suggested everything he could think of that might have happened; most of his suggestions going to prove that Lilias was in very great peril indeed, though she might be saved by various ingenious ways. And he took Mary aside and shook his head, and said he was afraid it was a very bad business. He believed, good man, that he was of the greatest use to them both, and congratulated himself on having stayed to discharge this Christian duty. But Mrs. Pen at the Vicarage got cross and nervous, and did not think her husband was doing his duty to his home. When a telegram came in the afternoon, she was not only curious but frightened—for telegrams she thought were always messages of evil. What could it tell but harm? Perhaps that her father had been taken ill (Mr. Pen himself had no family, nor anybody to speak of belonging to him); perhaps that the investment had gone wrong in which all their little money was. She tore it open in great agitation, and read as follows:—
“John Musgrave is in the county and near you. Do you remember what is your duty as a magistrate, and what is the penalty of not performing it?”
Mrs. Pen read this alarming missive two or three times over before she could understand what it meant. John Musgrave! By degrees it became clear to her. This was why her husband deserted her, and spent his whole day at the Castle. He a magistrate, whose first duty it was to send John Musgrave to prison. The penalty—what was the penalty? The poor woman was in such a frenzy of agitation and terror that she did not know what to believe. What could they do to him if it was found out? She went to the window and looked for him; she went out and walked to the garden gate; she was not able to keep still. The penalty—what was it? Could they put him in prison instead of the criminal he allowed to go free? That seemed the most natural thing, and imagination conjured up before her the dreadful scene of Mr. Pen’s arrest, perhaps when he was going to church, perhaps when the house was full of people—everybody seeing—everybody knowing it. Mrs. Pen saw her husband dragged along the road in handcuffs before she came to an end of her imaginations. Was there nothing she could do to save him? She was ready to put herself in the breach, to say, like a heroine, “Take me, and let him go free?” but it did not appear to her likely that the myrmidons of the law would pay any attention to such a touching interposition. Then it occurred to her to look who it was, a thing she had not noticed at first, who had sent this kind warning. But this alarmed her more and more. It was some one who called himself “Friend,” who had taken the trouble from a distant place in the midland counties to telegraph thus to Mr. Pennithorne. A friend—it was then an anonymous warning, a very alarming thing indeed to the vulgar mind. Mrs. Pen worked herself up into a state of intense nervous agitation. She sent for the gardener that she might send him at once to the Castle for her husband. But before he came another train of reflections came across her mind. John Musgrave was her William’s friend. He was devoted to the family generally, and to this member of it in particular. Was he not capable of going to prison—of letting himself be handcuffed and dragged along the public road, and cast into a dungeon, rather than give up his friend to justice? Oh, what could the poor woman do? If she could but take some step—do something to save him before he knew.
All at once there occurred to Mrs. Pen a plan of action which would put everything right—save William in spite of himself, and without his knowledge, and put John Musgrave in the hands of justice without any action of his which could be supposed unfriendly. She herself, Mrs. Pen, did not even know John, so that if she betrayed him it would be nothing unkind, nobody could blame her, not Mary Musgrave herself. When the gardener came, instead of sending him to the Castle for her husband, she sent him to the village to order the fly in which she occasionally paid visits; and she put on her best clothes with a quiver of anxiety and terror in her heart. She put the telegram in her pocket, and drove away—with a half-satisfaction in her own appearance and half-pride in bidding the man drive to Elfdale, to Sir Henry Stanton’s, mingling with the real anxiety in her heart. She was frightened too at what she was about to do—but nobody could expect from her any consideration for John Musgrave, whom she had never seen; whereas, to save her husband from the consequences of his foolish faithfulness, was not that the evident and first duty of a wife? It was a long drive, and she had many misgivings as she drove along, with plenty of time to consider and reconsider all the arguments she had already gone over; but yet when she got to Elfdale she did not seem to have had any time to think at all. She was hurried in, before she knew, to Sir Henry Stanton’s presence. He was the nearest magistrate of any importance, and Mrs. Pen had a slight visiting acquaintance, of which she was very proud, with Lady Stanton. Had she repented at the last of her mission, she could always make out to herself that it was Lady Stanton she had come to visit. But it was Sir Henry whom she asked for, alarm for her husband at the last moment getting the better of her fears.
Sir Henry received her with a great deal of surprise. What could the little country clergyman’s wife want with him? But he was still more surprised when he heard her errand. John Musgrave at home!—within reach—daring justice—defying the law! His wife had told him of some supposed discovery which she at least imagined likely to clear Musgrave, by bringing in another possible criminal, but that must be some merely nonsensical theory he had no doubt, such as women and boys are apt to indulge:—for if anything could be worse than women, Sir Henry felt it was boys inspired by women, and carrying out their fancies. Therefore he had paid very little regard to what his wife said. Mrs. Pennithorne had the advantage of rousing him into excitement. “What! come back!—daring justice to touch him—insulting the family of the man he had killed, and the laws of the country!” Sir Henry fumed at the audacity, the evident absence of all remorse or compunction. “He must be a shameless, heartless ruffian,” he said; and then he looked at the harmless little woman who had brought him this news. “It is very public-spirited to bestir yourself in the matter,” he said. “Have you seen the man, Mrs. Pennithorne, or how have you come to know?”
“I have not seen him. Sir Henry. I don’t know anything about him, therefore nobody could say that it was unkind in me. How can you have any feeling for a person you never saw? I got—the news—to-day when my husband was at the Castle—he did not tell me—he has nothing to do with it. He is a great friend of the Musgraves, Sir Henry; and I was told if he knew and did not tell it would bring him into trouble; so I came to you. I thought it was a wife’s duty. I did not wait till he came in to show him the telegram, but I came straight on to you.”
“Then you got a telegram?”
“Did I say a telegram?” she said, frightened. “Oh—I did not think what I was saying. But why should I conceal it? Yes, indeed, Sir Henry, this afternoon there came a telegram. I have never had a moment’s peace since then. I thought at first I would send for him and see what he would do, but then I thought—he thinks so much of the Musgraves—no doubt it would be a trouble to him to go against them; and so I thought before he came in I would come to you. I would not do anything without consulting my husband in any ordinary way, indeed, I assure you, Sir Henry. I am not a woman of that kind; but in a thing that might have brought him into such trouble—— ”
“And is that telegram all you know, Mrs. Pennithorne?”
A horrible dread that he was going to disapprove of her, instead of commending her, ran through her mind.
“It is all,” she said, faltering; “I have it in my pocket.”
To show the telegram was the last thing in her mind, yet she produced it now in impetuous self-defence. Having made such a sacrifice as she had done, acted on her own authority, incurred the expense of the fly, absented herself from home without anybody’s knowledge (though William was far too much wrapped up in the Musgraves to be aware of that), it was more than Mrs. Pennithorne could bear to have her motives thus unappreciated. She held out the telegram without pausing to think. He took it, and read it, with a curious look on his face. Sir Henry took a low view of wives, and of women in general. If she belonged to him how he would put her down, this meddling woman! but he was glad to learn what she had to tell, and to be able to act upon it. To approve of your informant and to use the information obtained are two very different things.
“This is a threat,” he said; “this is a very curious communication, Mrs. Pennithorne. Do you know who sent it? Friend! Is it a friend in the abstract, or does your husband know any one of the name?”
“I don’t know who it is. Oh no, Sir Henry. William knows no one—no one whom I don’t know! His friends are my friends. My husband is the best of men. He has not a secret from me. If I may seem to be acting behind his back it is only to save him, Sir Henry—only for his good.”
“You are acting in the most public-spirited way, Mrs. Pennithorne; but it is very strange, and I wonder who could have sent it. Do you know any one at this place?”
“Nobody,” she said, composing herself, yet not quite satisfied either, for public-spirited was but a poor sort of praise. She was conscious that she was betraying her husband as well as John Musgrave, and nothing but distinct applause and assurance that she had saved her William could have put her conscience quite at ease.
“It is very odd—very odd,” he said; “but I am very much obliged to you for bringing this information to me, and I shall lose no time in acting upon it. For a long time, a very long time, this man has evaded the law; but it will not do to defy it—it never does to defy it. He shall find that it is more watchful than he thought.”
“And, Sir Henry, of course it is of my husband I must think first. You will not say he knew? You will not let him get into trouble about it?—a clergyman, a man whom every one looks up to! You will save him from the penalty, Sir Henry? Indeed I have no reason to believe he knew at all; he has never seen this thing. I don’t suppose he knows at all. But he might be so easily got into trouble! Oh, Sir Henry! you will not let them bring in William’s name?”
“I shall take care that Mr. Pennithorne is not mentioned at all,” he said, with a polite bow; but he did not add, “You are a heroic woman and you have saved your husband,” which was the thing poor Mrs. Pen wanted to support her. She put back her telegram in her pocket very humbly, and rose up, feeling herself more a culprit than a heroine, to go away. At this moment Lady Stanton herself came in hurriedly.
“I heard Mrs. Pennithorne was here,” she said, with a half-apology to her husband, “and I thought I might come and ask what was the last news from Penninghame—if there was any change. I am not interrupting—business?”
“No; you will be interested in the news Mrs. Pennithorne brings me,” said Sir Henry, with a certain satisfaction. “Mr. Musgrave’s son John, in whom you have always shown so much interest, Walter Stanton’s murderer—— ”
“No, no,” she said, with a shudder, folding her hands instinctively; “no, no!” The colour went out of her very lips. She was about to hear that he had died. He must have died on the very day she saw him. She listened, looking at her husband all pale and awe-stricken, with a gasp in her throat.
—“Is here,” said Sir Henry, deliberately. “Here, where it was done, defying the law.”
Mary uttered a great cry of mingled relief and despair.
“Then it was he—it was he—and no ghost!” she cried.
“What! you knew and never told me? I am not so happy in my wife,” said Sir Henry, with a threatening smile, “as Mr. Pennithorne.”
“Oh, was it he—was it he?—no spirit—but himself? God help him,” cried Lady Stanton, with sudden tears. “No, I could not have told you, for I thought it was an apparition. And I would not, Henry,” she added with a kind of generous passion, “I would not, if I could. How could I betray an innocent man?”
“Happily Mrs. Pennithorne has saved you the trouble,” he said, getting up impatiently from his seat. He resented his wife’s silence, but he scorned the other woman who had brought him the news. “Do not let me disturb you, ladies, but this is too important for delay. The warrant must be out to-night. I trust to your honour, or I might arrest you both,” he said with a sneer—“two fair prisoners—lest you should warn the man and defeat justice again.”
“Henry, you are not going to arrest him—to arrest him—after what I told you? I told you that Geoff—— ”
“Geoff! send Geoff to your nursery, to play with your children, Lady Stanton,” he cried, in rising wrath, “rather than make a puppet of him to carry out your own ideas. I have had enough of boys’ nonsense and women’s. Go to your tea-table, my lady, and leave me to manage my own concerns.”
Then Lady Stanton—was it not natural?—with a white, self-contained passion, turned upon the other commonplace woman by her side, who stood trembling before the angry man, yet siding with him in her heart, as such women do.
“And is it you that have betrayed him?” she cried; “do you know that your husband owes everything to him—everything? Oh, it cannot be Mr. Pen’s doing—he loved them all too well. If it is you, how will you bear to have his blood on your head? God knows what they may prove against him, or what they may do to him; but whatever it is, it will be a lie, and his blood will be on your head. Oh, how could you, a woman, betray an innocent man?”
Lady Stanton’s passion, Sir Henry’s lowering countenance, the sudden atmosphere of tragedy in which she found herself, were too much for poor Mrs. Pen. She burst into hysterical crying, and dropped down upon the floor between these two excited people. Perhaps it was as good a way as any other of extricating herself out of the most difficult position in which a poor little, well-intentioned clergywoman had ever been.