Chapter X: THE SEQUEL OF MISS BAYNARD's ADVENTURE

It was with a bitter sense of helplessness that Miss Baynard continued to brood over the news brought her by Andry Luce. The knowledge that, with the exception of a certain legacy to herself and sundry small bequests to old servants, the whole of her uncle's wealth, both in land and money, would go to Mrs. Bullivant and her son, who were not even cousins six times removed, cut her to the quick. The amazing injustice of the thing, so to speak, struck her dumb. To think that a man who knew full well his span of life had dwindled to a few brief hours should, in cold blood, choose to perpetrate so black a sin--for in her eyes it was nothing less--was to Nell wholly inconceivable. And all for what? Merely because his son had married beneath him, and had thereby brought to naught a certain ambitious scheme on which his heart had been set. And now the innocent child was to suffer for its father's fault, if fault it were. Oh, it was monstrous--monstrous!

Of one thing she was quite sure: she would never touch her uncle's legacy. Every shilling of it should go to the boy. But what was such a pittance in comparison with the income which, when he should come of age, ought to be his of inalienable right? Yet his name was not once mentioned in the will! The last of the Cortelyons--bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh--might die in a gutter or come to the gallows for anything the old man cared. Such a revenge was more than human; it was fiendish, and could only have been prompted by the devil. Nell burnt from head to foot with a fine flame of indignation when she thought of these things, and for the next forty-eight hours she could think of nothing else.

It was in the course of the second afternoon after Andry Luce had told her that she happened--herself unseen--to overhear the two doctors talking together as they stood for a few moments in the corridor after coming out of her uncle's room. "I give him three days at the outside," one of them said. To which the other replied: "Hum! I daresay you are right. But I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he were to go off in his sleep between now and to-morrow."

Nell gave one quick gasp, and a shudder ran through her from head to foot. She had known for some time what each day was bringing nearer, but to hear from the lips of those who knew that the end was so close came upon her with a shock, and for a moment or two made her feel as if she had suddenly come face to face with a skeleton.

It was the day Mr. Piljoy had promised to bring the will for the purpose of having it signed, and as she remembered this she could not help saying to herself: "If I could only get hold of it and destroy it, my uncle would hardly live to sign another in its stead, and Evan, as his grandfather's heir-at-law, would succeed to everything!"

Then a little derisive laugh at her folly broke from her lips. Get hold of the will, forsooth! Why, she would not be allowed to so much as set eyes on it. Her brain must be softening even to imagine such a thing.

About an hour later her uncle sent for her. It was in connection with the errand to Mr. Delafosse that he wanted to see her. Having received her instructions--given brokenly and in whispers--and had the precious MS. committed to her charge, she left the room. He gazed after her, a little wistfully as it seemed, thinking, perhaps, that she might have kissed him before going--for in his heart he loved the girl--as at another time she most likely would have done; but her proud, set face had never changed while he gave her his message, and when he had done she simply inclined her head and went. She felt that even if she were never to see him alive again she could not forgive him; but he did not know that.

About two o'clock Mr. Tew, in Mr. Piljoy's stead, arrived with the will. In the absence of Mrs. Budd, who had gone into the village, he was received by Miss Baynard, to whom he explained the nature of his business and apologized for his employer's absence.

Nell's heart grew cold as she listened. Why did not Providence intervene, and not allow so black a deed to be consummated? If only Mr. Tew's arrival had been delayed for two or three days--she would not have cared by what means--then would he have come too late, and all would have been well. As it was, she could but wring her hands in sheer helplessness.

She was going sadly upstairs to her own room (after seeing Mr. Tew planted in front of a pigeon pie), when an idea flashed across her brain which for a moment or two seemed mentally to blind her. But it was a notion at once so wild and extravagant that, after drawing one long breath, her hands went involuntarily to her head, and she said to herself, "My reason must be deserting me." For all that, she could not thrust the notion from her; indeed, it had taken such a firm grip of her that when she reached her room she found herself under compulsion to sit down and face it, and, however bizarre and impracticable it had at first seemed, to consider it dispassionately from a common-sense point of view. The idea which had so startled her, and without any conscious leading up to it on her own part, was nothing less than, in the guise of a highwayman, to stop Mr. Tew when on his way back to Arkrigg and despoil him of the will.

When a young spark of nineteen or twenty, Dick Cortelyon, on the occasion of one of his brief visits at home, had attended a fancy ball in the neighborhood in the character of a gentleman of the road. In the wardrobe in his room upstairs--a room left untouched since the date of his quarrel with his father--the dress, wig, mask, pistols, and other items of his make-up on that occasion were stored to the present day, a fact which was within Nell's cognizance. The picture of her cousin, masked and ready to set out for the ball, had impressed her girlish imagination very vividly at the time, and had often recurred to her memory since; and this recollection it must have been, acting through some sub-conscious channel, which, while asking herself despairingly how she could get possession of the will, had inspired her with the idea of turning highwayman in reality--for one night only.

We know at what decision she arrived. Instead of scouting the idea and casting it from her, as ninety-nine young women out of every hundred would have done, she determined, _coûte que coûte_, to put it to a practical issue. Whatever risks might be connected with, or follow on, the affair she was prepared to face, if only she could thereby insure the destruction of her uncle's iniquitous will.

Fortunately for her, when she came to consider, several things seemed to work in favor of her scheme, desperate as at first sight it had appeared.

In the first place, everything in the way of dress and accessories needful for the part she had made up her mind to play were there ready to her hand. In the second, John Dyce, who was to act as her escort, had known her from childhood, was devoted to her, and could be thoroughly depended upon to keep any secret she might think well to entrust him with. In point of fact, John had originally been one of her father's servants, and he it was who had brought her, a girl of twelve, to Stanbrook, where he had remained ever since, filling the part of man-of-all-work in the Squire's establishment. Then, again, it was a good thing, so far as her purpose was concerned, that a married cousin of John should be keeper of the first toll-bar on the Whinbarrow road, which was the road she would have to journey by on her errand to Mr. Delafosse.

For the last time she asked herself, "Shall I adventure it, or shall I not?" knowing all the while what the answer would be. By now the afternoon was so far advanced that she must no longer delay her preparations. She knew already that Mr. Tew would not set off on his return journey till dinner should be well over. She herself would start in the early dusk about an hour in advance of him.

She made it her first business to see John Dyce and have a little private talk with him. Next she invented an errand for her maid to a neighboring village which would keep that elderly damsel out of the way till after her own departure. Next came one of the most essential features of the programme she was bent on carrying out: the transformation of Miss Baynard into the guise of a young man.

The change was affected in due course, and a very handsome and dashing young blade she looked. She took a long survey of herself in the cheval glass, blushing and smiling as she did so. Nell was a tall, Juno-like young woman, and as her cousin Dick had been a somewhat slender, medium-sized young fellow, his clothes fitted her almost as if they had been made for her.

But servants have prying eyes, and not thus would it do for her to be seen leaving the house; besides, there was the risk of encountering some one in the village to whom her face was known. So, over her man's dress she now proceeded to put on certain articles of feminine attire, to wit, a long riding-skirt, and a mantle with a hood to it, the latter of which she drew over her head. It was a common enough costume for ladies travelling on horseback.

Into a couple of saddle-bags, which John Dyce had supplied her with, she had already stowed away a number of things. Then, when all was ready, she went down by way of the back staircase, and so out of the house, unseen by any one save a gaping kitchen wench. In the court near the stables were two horses in readiness, one of them being her mare Peggy, a birthday gift, two years before, from her godmother, Lady Carradine. John helped her into the saddle, then mounted his own horse, and two minutes later they were cantering down the avenue.

They rode through the village, and so on their way for a couple of miles or more till they reached a little wooded hollow somewhat removed from the high-road. There Nell, having doffed her riding skirt and hooded mantle (her hair having been previously brushed back from her forehead and fashioned into a queue), substituted for them the three-cornered hat worn by her cousin at the fancy ball, with, by way of overall, an ample riding cloak, well worn, which poor Dick had been used to travel in. These articles she produced from the saddle-bags. Neither was the mask forgotten. Although she had never seen Mr. Tew before that day, and then only for a few minutes, it would not do to leave the slightest opening for his recognition of her in the part she was bent on playing.

John, meanwhile, had been changing Peggy's sidesaddle for an ordinary one. That done, he again helped her to mount. It was as well for Nell in her new character that her mare had been thoroughly trained, and that she was a fearless horsewoman. Whatever awkwardness or embarrassment she might feel at first the friendly night covered up; but presently she had other things to think of than any little hot and cold shivers of her own. In the holsters in front of her were stuck a brace of unloaded pistols. John's pistols, however, were fully charged.

How Miss Baynard sped on her hare-brained expedition has already been told: how she mistook the chaise of a stranger for that of Mr. Tew; how she was fired at, but escaped with nothing worse than a fright; and how the notorious Captain Nightshade appeared in the nick of time and acted as her guide as far as Rockmount, where, under the name of Mr. Frank Nevill (that of a cousin in India) she was made welcome, and found shelter for the night.

We left her just after Mr. Cope-Ellerslie's housekeeper had shown her to her chamber; and now that the two threads of our narrative have been brought together we will take up her history from the following morning.

When "Mr. Frank Nevill" went downstairs he found an excellent breakfast awaiting him in the same room into which he had been shown overnight. He was waited upon by Mrs. Dobson, who expressed much concern at the smallness of his appetite. When the meal had come to an end she said, "At what o'clock, sir, would you like your horse to be brought round?"

"As soon as it can be got ready, for I am anxious to get on my way."

In ten more minutes he was in the saddle. In accordance with Mr. Ellerslie's promise, a serving-man on horseback was in readiness to show him the way as far as the Whinbarrow road. He did not part from Mrs. Dobson without asking her to convey to her master his warmest thanks for the hospitality which had been extended to him; nor did he forget to press a guinea into her palm, reluctant though she was to take it.

As he turned away from the house he gave it a long backward look. It was a two-storied domicile, plain to the verge of ugliness, built of roughly-hewn blocks of the dark gray stone of the country. Its walls were of great thickness, and it was roofed with huge slabs of slate, well fitted to withstand the fierce gales which assailed it during the winter months. It stood alone in the centre of a great plateau of stony, desolate moorland, which spread away on every side till it was lost in the distance. No other homestead or sign of man's occupancy or vicinage was anywhere visible. A narrow rutted lane, originally, no doubt, nothing more than a sheep track, passed close by it, seemingly coming from nowhere and leading to nowhere. Frank Nevill shuddered as he looked. What must it be like, he asked himself, to live there in winter? What man in his proper senses would think of building a house on such a spot? And yet Mr. Cope-Ellerslie seemed well satisfied to live there!

After traversing the lane for a matter of three or four miles, Frank and his conductor emerged on one of the great highways running due north and south. Crossing this, they found themselves after a little while in a tangle of country roads, among which a stranger would infallibly have lost himself. Frank's guide, however, evidently knew every foot of the way, and at the end of a couple of hours, at a point where the cross-road they had been traversing debouched into one much wider, he pulled up his horse and said: "This is the Whinbarrow road, sir; six miles straight ahead will bring you to Dunthale Prior. Do you wish me to go any further with you, sir?"

They were almost the first words the man had spoken, and Frank, as in honor bound, had refrained from putting any questions to him.

He now dismissed him with thanks and a little present for himself. Twenty minutes later he drew rein and dismounted at the first toll-bar, at which place it had been arranged that John Dyce should await his arrival.

And there honest John was, and a glad man was he to set eyes again on his young mistress. Never before had he passed so wretched a night. Fear and anxiety had rendered him half crazy, and had put all thought of sleep out of his head.

As already stated, the keeper of the toll-bar was a cousin of John Dyce; and Mrs. Nixon, his wife, now proceeded to show "Mr. Nevill" into a neat little bedroom. It was the last time that young gentleman was seen by mortal eye. At the end of half-an-hour Miss Baynard--stately and gracious, but with a defiant sparkle in her eye which seemed to say, "Challenge me who dare!"--issued from the chamber and made her way downstairs.

Miss Baynard reached Dene House on the stroke of noon, where she was warmly welcomed by Mr. Delafosse and his wife. The old bibliophile proved to be quite willing to exchange his gold stater of Epaticcus for the rare MS. on vellum which Nell had brought with her. Although genuinely grieved to receive such a bad account of his old friend, he could not help reminding himself that there were several rarities in Cortelyon's collection the possession of which he had long envied him. Well, we must all die some time, and as his friend's collection would be sure to come to the hammer, there would at length be a possibility of his becoming the owner of such articles as he especially coveted. All the more would they be valued by him for having been the property of a man he so highly esteemed.

After joining the Dene House family over their three o'clock dinner, Miss Baynard set out on her return, and, there being nothing this time to detain her on the road, Stanbrook was reached by dusk. As she rode up the avenue she glanced anxiously at the windows. Had the Squire been dead the blinds would have been drawn down. But there was no change in the usual aspect of the house, and it was with a relieved heart that she dismounted.

She went up to her uncle's room without delay when told that he had more than once asked for her. "There's a great improvement in him to-day, my dear," Mrs. Budd had said to her in the entrance hall. "Dr. Banks was quite struck by the change when he called this morning."

Nell found her uncle awake. His eyes met hers questioningly as she entered the room, but when she produced the coveted coin and placed it in his hand his face lighted up wonderfully. "Good lass! good lass!" he murmured. Then he gave a sigh of relief, and his lean fingers closed lovingly over the stater.

As to whether Miss Baynard's attempt to purloin her uncle's will was, or was not, under the circumstances morally justifiable, the writer wishes it to be understood that the point is one with which he considers himself in nowise concerned. His duty, as he apprehends it, is simply that of a recorder of facts, without taking on himself either to justify or condemn any actions, good, bad, or indifferent on the part of his characters, who are allowed to go their own way without let or hindrance, and as we all have to do, must accept and make the best of whatever consequences may result therefrom.