The Reluctant Widow (6 page)

The landlord, a respectable, middle-aged man whose ordinarily cheerful countenance was just now overlaid with gloom, came in at that moment. His brow lightened at sight of Carlyon, and he said, “I don’t know when I’ve been more glad to see your lordship. I’ve been thinking to myself it was a lucky chance I happened to see your lordship on the road to Highnoons, so it was, for poor Master Nick was in a rare taking, and small blame to him! But what I say, and will swear to anywhen, my lord, is that he never had no thought to go sticking my knife into Mr. Eustace! And as for the start of it all, I’ll tell the crowner to his head Master Nick was speaking comely as you please to Mr. Eustace, until Mr. Eustace went beyond what flesh and blood could stand, let alone a high-couraged young gentleman, which we all know Master Nick is!”

“Is Mr. Eustace alive?” demanded Carlyon.

“Oh, ay, my lord! He’s alive, but none so valiant, by what I hear from the doctor. Don’t you be afeard for Master Nick, my lord! I saw the whole, and there’s no crowner going to shake me.”

“The whole village will just about say as how it were Mr. Eustace as done the thing!” said the helpful Jem eagerly.

“I’ll go up to Mr. Eustace. Do you keep this fool, Jem, from ruining all, Hitchin! And bring coffee for the lady, and for Mr. Presteign!”

He left the room, the landlord at his heels, and strode up the short corridor to the staircase. Hitchin said, “I see your lordship’s brought Parson along, but asking your pardon, it ain’t a parson Mr. Eustace is in the mood to see, nor ever was. I misdoubt me Parson won’t like it, for he’s got no know, though a pleasant enough gentleman, and preaches a comfortable sermon, I’m sure. Howsever, it’s as well to have everything shipshape and aboveboard, I dare say.”

“Exactly so!” Carlyon said.

Chapter IV

The room which Carlyon softly entered at the head of the staircase was a wainscoted apartment, hung with dimity curtains and containing a four-poster bed which stood out into the room. Under the patchwork quilt, and propped up by pillows, lay a young man, his head a little fallen to one side. One lock of his lank, dark hair was tumbled across his brow; his lips, which were almost bloodless, were slightly parted, and he was breathing short and fast. The light cast by a branch of candles on a near-by table showed that his countenance had assumed a ghastly pallor. He seemed to be sleeping.

A grizzled man, wearing the conventional frock coat, but not the wig, of a doctor of medicine, was seated by the bedside, but he looked up when he heard the door open, and at once rose and went to meet Carlyon. “I thought you would come, my lord,” he said, in a lowered tone. “Upon my soul, this is a bad business—a very bad business!” “As you say. How is he?”

“I can do nothing for him. The knife entered the stomach. He is sinking, and I do not expect him to outlive the night.”

“Is he in possession of his faculties?”

The doctor smiled grimly. “Quite enough so to be casting about in his mind for some means of doing you an injury, my lord.”

Carlyon glanced toward the bed. “I hope he may not have hit upon the only way in which he can accomplish it.”

“He has done so, but you need feel no alarm on that score.” “He has done so?”

“Oh, yes! But no one but Hitchin and myself has heard what he has to say. When I found what he would be at I took care to send the nurse about her business. If this had to happen it is as well it has happened where he is too well known to have the power of working mischief.” “What are you talking of?”

The doctor looked at him under his brows. “No, it would not occur to you, I suppose, my lord. Mr. Cheviot, however, knows well that he can best hurt you through your brothers. He has told me that Mr. Nicholas set out to murder bun, and at your instigation. He would like to think that he could bring Mr. Nick to the scaffold.”

For a moment Carlyon did not speak. The light, flickering in a little draft, cast his features into relief against the wall. The doctor watched a muscle twitch beside his strong mouth. Then he said, “Let him think it. I can trust Hitchin. I shall hope to give his thoughts another direction. Can he go through a ceremony of marriage?”

The doctor’s brows rose quickly. “So you are at that, are you?” he muttered. “Yes, but whom will you find, my lord? It has been in my mind, but I see no way of accomplishing it. There is too little time left.”

“I have brought a lady with me who is willing to marry him. She is belowstairs, with Presteign.”

The doctor stared at him, a look of appreciative amusement creeping into his eyes. “You have, eh? My lord, after all the years I have known you, ay, and after the scrapes I’ve seen you in, and the bones I’ve set for you, I wonder that you should still have the power to surprise me! But will he consent?”

“Yes, for you could never bring him to believe that I do not covet his estate. He has suspected me ever since I first broached the matter to him of nourishing some evil design for which his marriage was to serve as a mask.”

He stopped, for Eustace Cheviot had stirred and opened his eyes. The doctor stepped up to the bed and felt his pulse.

“Damn you, take your hands off me!” Eustace whispered. “I know I am done for!” Carlyon walked forward to the other side of the bed and stood there looking down at him. The clouded eyes regarded him stupidly for a moment and seemed gradually to regain intelligence. An expression of malevolence crossed the sharp features. Eustace uttered in a faint voice, “I wish I had married to spite you, by God, I do! You thought you could gammon me, but I wasn’t as green as you thought, Carlyon!”

“Were you not?” Carlyon said evenly.

“You had some precious scheme to throw dust in the eyes of the world. I don’t know the whole, but I fancy I was to be married so that it might appear that you had no designs upon Highnoons. And then you would have disposed of me, would you not? Ah, but I am more up to smoke than you thought for, my dear cousin, and I would have willed Highnoons away from you within an hour of leaving the church. You thought I had not sense enough to make my will speedily, but I had!”

“You do yourself harm by talking so much, Mr. Cheviot,” interposed the doctor. A spasm of pain twisted Cheviot’s face; his eyes closed for an instant, but opened again and fixed themselves once more on Carlyon’s face. “Your precious Nick was too quick for you!” he sneered.

“Too quick for you as well, Eustace.”

Eustace moved his head restlessly on the pillow. “Yes, by God!” he muttered. “You’ll have it all! Damn you, damn you!”

“Yes, I shall have it all.”

“Ay, but I’ll turn it to dust and ashes for you! You will have to see Nick stand his trial! He murdered me, do you hear? He meant to murder me!”

“I may have to see him stand his trial, but his credit is better than yours, Cousin, and the only witness to your quarrel is devoted to my interest. I shall see Nick acquitted.” The calm certainty with which he spoke had its effect. The dying man gave a groan and made a convulsive attempt to drag himself up on his elbow.

“For God’s sake, my lord, take care what you are about!” the doctor muttered, restraining him.

“But he will have to stand his trial!” Eustace gasped. “Your pride won’t stomach that, whatever the event!”

“No,” Carlyon agreed. “Both my schemes and yours have miscarried. You would see your estate safe from my machinations; I would save Nicky from yours, if I could. Well, I do not value Highnoons above Nicky. I will let it go.”

Cheviot glared at him, his befogged brain only half comprehending what was said to him, clinging obstinately to its one idea. “How? How?” he panted.

“You may be married, here and now, and bequeath Highnoons to your wife.” Cheviot frowned, as though trying to concentrate his wits. “How will that serve you?” he asked suspiciously.

“It will serve me.”

“And you will not step into my shoes?” “I shall not step into your shoes.”

“I’ll do it!” Cheviot said, plucking at the sheet. “Yes, I’ll do it! I don’t care about Nick. I’ll die happy to think I’ve foiled you!”

Carlyon nodded, and walked to the door. The doctor followed him, out onto the landing. “You will not do it, my lord!”

“I shall do it. It is what he wishes.”

“He does not understand above half of what you would be at! In all the years of my practice I never met a creature so wholly devoid of good! Well I know what patience you have used toward him, what forbearance! It seems to make him hate you the more. He is a vile fellow! But this—! No, it will not do, my lord!”

“It will do very well. He does not know why I do it, but it is what he wants, and since I have no purpose in my head but to escape an inheritance I do not desire, I shall not sleep the less sound for having in some sort deceived him.”

“Ay, but will it answer, my lord?” the doctor urged. “To marry him out of hand now might not prove of service to Mr. Nicholas. It must seem—”

“Oh, I am not thinking of Nicky!” Carlyon said. “He stands in no danger. But it will be better for the lady if it is not generally known that she sees Cheviot for the first time this evening. I think that may be contrived.”

“Good God!” said the doctor weakly. “Is it so indeed? You go quite beyond me, my lord! How will you contrive it?”

“Oh, a long-standing betrothal, perhaps—kept secret.” “Kept secret!” exploded Greenlaw. “And why?”

Carlyon was halfway down the first flight of stairs but he paused and looked up, his rather rare smile softening his face. “My dear sir! For fear of my devilish stratagems, of course!” “Mr. Edward!” pronounced Greenlaw awfully. “That is, my Lord Carlyon!” “Yes?”

The doctor stared down at him with a fulminating eye. “Nothing!” he said, and went back to his patient.

Carlyon was met at the foot of the stairs by the landlord, who came out of the coffee room to intercept him. “My lord, the lady would not partake of any refreshment,” he said. “And Parson took a fancy to a drop of Hollands, as is his custom.”

“Very well. Have you a pen, ink, and some paper?”

The landlord admitted, with a puzzled frown, that he had these commodities. His brow cleared suddenly. “To be sure! Mr. Eustace will be wishful to make his will!” he discovered. “But it queers me a trifle to know—well, my lord—the lady!”

“The lady is betrothed to Mr. Eustace.”

Hitchin’s eyes started at him. “Betrothed to Mr. Eustace!” he gasped. “And her so pleasant-spoken and genteel!”

“And Mr. Eustace,” pursued Carlyon, ignoring this involuntary outburst, “is desirous of marrying her, so that she may be provided for after his death.”

The landlord appeared to have difficulty in controlling his voice. He succeeded in enunciating,

“Yes, my lord!” and tottered away to find the pen and paper He found, after some search, a serviceable quill. He regarded it severely, and made it the recipient of a pithy confidence. “Mr. Eustace, is it?” he said scathingly. “Adone-do! Mr. Eustace never took no such notion into his wicked head, and well you know it! Mr. Eustace to be worriting himself over such things! Ay, justabout, he would! Out of your head that came, my lord, don’t tell me!” The quill, very naturally, returned no answer. Hitchin sniffed and picked up the inkpot. “And a very good thing for you it will be to be shut of Mr. Eustace!” he said.

Carlyon, meanwhile, had entered the parlor. He found Miss Rochdale and the parson seated on either side of the fireplace. Miss Rochdale looked tired and a little pale, and there was a rather scared look in the eyes which she raised to his. He smiled reassuringly at her, and said, “Now, if you will come upstairs with me, Miss Rochdale, if you please!” She said nothing. Mr. Presteign got up from his chair and asked nervously, “My lord, am I to infer that Mr. Cheviot is willing to have this ceremony performed?”

“Very willing.”

“Lord Carlyon!” said Miss Rochdale faintly.

“Yes, Miss Rochdale, in a little while. There is nothing to alarm you. Come!” She rose and laid her hand on his proffered arm. He patted it briefly and led her to the door. She whispered, “Oh, pray do not—I am sure—”

“No, just trust me!” he said.

She could think of no reason why she should, but it did not seem possible to say so. She went with him up the stairs and into the sickroom.

Eustace Cheviot’s eyes were open, his head turned toward the door. Miss Rochdale gazed at him almost fearfully, but he was not looking at her. His eyes remained riveted to his cousin’s face, searching it in suspicion and a kind of avid eagerness which gave him something of the look of as bird of prey. Miss Rochdale’s clutch tightened on Carlyon’s arm instinctively.

He did not seem to notice it, but led her forward. “Are you of the same mind as ever, Eustace?” he asked, in his cool way.

“Yes, I tell you!”

The doctor was looking curiously at Miss Rochdale. She felt the color mount to her cheeks, and was glad to stand at the bed head, out of the direct light of the candles. It did not occur to her until some time afterward that neither then nor at any time during the unreal ceremony did her bridegroom look at her. She felt stupid, as though she had been drugged, or hypnotized into acting without her own volition. She watched the doctor, the parson, Carlyon, seeing how they conferred together, but without comprehending what they said; observing their movements, but so divorced from them that she could never afterward remember quite what had happened in that grim room hung with dimity curtains. All that imprinted itself on her memory was the pattern of the wallpaper, the gay lozenges of color which made up the patchwork quilt covering the bed, and the way one lock of Cheviot’s hair clung dankly to his brow. When her hand was put into his she started, and looked round wildly. The laboring voice from among the tumbled pillows was whispering after the parson words which he had to bend his head to catch.