Chapter XXV: A Desperate Resolve

Lady Carradine's letter, figuratively speaking, smote poor Nell, like a bolt from the blue. She had imagined several things, any one of which might have delayed Dare's coming--he had given her to understand that his business in London would not take up more than a fortnight at the most--but no faintest dread or suspicion that, after so long a time, he would be arrested and cast for trial on a charge connected with his past career had ever entered her mind. It was like a stab in the dark by an unseen hand, and she reeled under it, and felt for a while as if she were hurt in a vital part past hope of recovery.

She did not sleep a wink during the whole of the night after her receipt of the news. Now and then she lay down for a little while on a couch, but for the most part she spent the long dark hours in pacing her room restlessly from end to end. No sooner, however, had the first streak of daylight appeared in the sky than she quitted the house, and, making her way down to the banks of the little river which ran past the foot of the park, she followed its solitary windings for some miles, till it drew near the village of Mosscrags, where the early housewives were now astir, and the laborers going forth to their work; then she turned and retraced the way she had come. It had seemed to her that she could think more clearly and coherently under the free air of heaven than in the confined space of her own chamber.

All her thinking had for its intent the answering of one question: "What can I do to help him?" But so bitterly did the sense of her powerlessness weigh upon her that she could have beaten her head against the wall in a tempest of rage and impotent passion. She could do nothing--nothing; a month-old babe would be as competent to help him as she was. The four walls of a jail held him, and there was no door of escape open to him save that last one of all which led to the gallows. Several times in the course of the night the shadows that seem to lurk so thickly around one at such times had shaped themselves into the ghastly semblance of a cross-tree with its dangling rope, which, all imaginary though it was, had caused her soul to shudder and grow sick within her.

In the days to which our narrative refers the old barbarous and inhuman penal code was still in full operation, and crimes which a short term of imprisonment with hard labor would now expiate had the last dread sentence of the law pronounced on them without hope of reprieve. At the Lanchester spring assizes of that year, as Miss Baynard did not fail to call to mind, a couple of men had been condemned to death, one of them for sheep-stealing and the other for shop-lifting. In the eye of the law the crime for which Geoffrey Dare stood committed was of a much more heinous kind than either of those, and should the charge be proved against him, as there seemed every likelihood of its being, then would the gallows seen by Nell with the eyes of her imagination develop into a very real erection on the roof of Lanchester jail. In such a case as Dare's--whether or no they succeeded in identifying him with "Captain Nightshade"--the death penalty would indubitably be exacted. Justice would demand her victim, while Mercy wept with her face turned to the wall.

And still Nell's heart echoed persistently with the cry, "What can I do to help him?" But it was a cry which both earth and heaven flung back, and to which no answer was vouchsafed her. All that day and all the next night she was like a distracted creature, but distracted after the quiet fashion of one who craves for absolute solitude, and to whom even the society of those nearest and dearest is distasteful, if not positively unbearable.

Kind-hearted Mrs. Budd was greatly put about, being altogether at a loss to divine what was the matter with Nell, and whether the strangeness of her manner was due to a mental or bodily cause. Never before had she developed such peculiar symptoms, for no more sane and healthy being ever existed. She had never swooned in her life, although swooning, at proper times and season, was regarded rather as a fashionable accomplishment than otherwise. She never fancied that she was ill when nothing ailed her, or pretended that she had lost her appetite; she was never troubled with qualms, or spasms, or "the vertigo"; and as for being dyspeptic, she did not know the meaning of the word. She had been rendered very anxious and unhappy by the abduction of Evan, and proportionately happy by his recovery, but there had been nothing in the way she bore herself at that time which at all resembled the peculiar and inexplicable mood of which she had been the victim for the last four-and-twenty hours.

It was in a certain measure due to Mrs. Budd's instinctive tact, which taught her when it was advisable to speak and when to keep silent, that she and Miss Baynard had got on so well together. On the present occasion her instinct told her that Nell was in no mood to bear questioning, and she kept a guard on her tongue accordingly. But by the afternoon of the second day her uneasiness had grown to such an extent that she felt she should be lacking in her duty to one so much younger than herself if she refrained any longer from endeavoring to discover what it was that had changed Miss Baynard so unaccountably in so short a space of time.

"My dear Elinor, what is it that ails you? Whatever is the matter with you?" she at length summoned up courage to ask. "You are not like the same girl that you were at breakfast-time yesterday."

"Am I not? And yet I am the same," replied Nell with a smile which had more of tears than mirth in it. "What is't that ails me, do you ask! Nothing more serious than a fit of the megrims, I assure you. But I am apt to be dangerous at such times. You had better not come too near me; I might grow worse and bite you."

Then, before the astonished lady had time to collect her faculties, she found herself hugged and kissed, and left alone. Half a minute later she heard Miss Baynard singing as she went upstairs to her room. Then a door clashed somewhere in the distance, and all was still.

Some time in the dead of night Nell lay down on the couch in her bedroom, and presently sank into the deep sleep of utter exhaustion. In that sleep she had a very vivid dream, from which, at the end of a couple of hours, she suddenly awoke. So strongly had the particulars of her dream impressed themselves upon her that she lay for another hour without stirring, turning them over and over in her mind till she had mastered every detail of the scheme which, as she firmly believed, had been revealed to her by some supernatural influence in her sleep.

She had scarcely eaten a mouthful of anything since her receipt of her godmother's letter, but this morning she appeared at the breakfast-table as usual, and looking as if the last two days had been blotted out of her existence. She was still a little pale, and dark round the eyes, but the eyes themselves had lost that look of almost fierce despair, as of a creature driven to bay and not knowing which way to turn, which had been their dominant expression for the last eight-and-forty hours. Now they shone with a serene and steadfast lustre, which yet had in it a something of fixed resolution, as if bent on carrying out some hidden purpose, which the busy brain behind was brooding remotely over, even while its outward attention was occupied and given with seeming abandonment to far other things.

Mrs. Budd saw and was satisfied, and was far too wise to put any further questions with reference to a state of affairs which was so evidently over and done with.

Nell followed Mrs. Budd's lead over breakfast-table-talk wherever that good lady chose to let it wander, and her divagations were many and various. She seemed in the best of spirits, and when the meal was over she indulged herself and Evan with a wild romp.

The boy had been much put about in his childish way because for the last two nights he had been banished from his Aunt Nell's chamber to that of Mrs. Budd (in those first days after his recovery Nell would not entrust him at night to the care of any of the servants), but this glorious romp made amends for everything.

After that Nell disappeared for some hours, and was engaged upstairs in her own rooms; but she joined Mrs. Budd and Evan at dinner, and in the afternoon they all drove out together and watched the sunset from the summit of Goat Scar. Then followed a long and happy evening. Never had Mrs. Budd seen the girl more seemingly merry and light-hearted than she was that day; she and the Nell of the day before were two different beings. And yet at times there would come a pause in her gayety, and for a few seconds the light in her eyes would deepen and darken, and a look would come into them as if something had suddenly crossed her vision, seen by herself alone. But, whatever it might be, it went as quickly as it had come, and with one sharp-drawn breath she was herself again.

Next day at breakfast her mood was unaltered; but again, in the course of the forenoon, she was invisible for a couple of hours. That there was some secret business afoot Mrs. Budd felt satisfied, but, being the most discreet of matrons, she would rather have tied a handkerchief over her eyes than have allowed them to see what it was evidently not intended they should see. Still, it was not without a little shock of surprise that she heard the news which Nell broke abruptly to her as soon as their two o'clock dinner had come to an end.

"I am about to leave you for a little while," said the girl, smiling bravely. "At present I can tell you neither the object of my journey nor my destination, but that you will know everything in good time I do not doubt. Neither can I fix the date of my return, because that is a point about which I am not quite clear. I leave Evan in your hands with every confidence. That you will look well after him I feel assured. He loves you and will be happy with you."

After this followed a few directions with regard to household and other matters; then Miss Baynard went to get ready for her journey.

An hour later Mrs. Budd and Evan were waiting on the steps of the main entrance to see her start. Presently, mounted on her mare Peggy, and followed by John Dyce, also on horseback, she came riding round from the stables, and a very fair and gracious picture she made in her long dark-blue riding habit, over which she wore a short gray cloak lined with black and tied with black ribbons, being in mourning for Mr. Cortelyon. Her hat was of black beaver, broad-brimmed and ornamented with two sweeping ostrich plumes of the same color.

The afternoon sun, shining upon three or four heavy ringlets of chestnut hair which had escaped from under her hat, made a golden glory of them. The late pallor of her complexion had given place to a lovely flush of color. Her eyes, while more than ordinarily brilliant, did not smile as her lips did; rather did it seem as if they were charged with the light of some great resolution which might need all her courage to carry it through.

Evan was held aloft for the sake of a last kiss. There was a fervent "Heaven keep you, darling!" a flickering smile, the glisten of a tear, a last wave of the hand, and Nell was gone. The widow and child stood hand in hand till the trees of the avenue hid her from view and the sound of hoof-beats had died into silence. Then they went back indoors, but for both the light and gladness of the house had vanished. There was a chill upon everything, their spirits included.

An hour-and-a-half's good riding brought Miss Baynard and her escort to the quaint old town of Lanchester, with its narrow streets and narrower alleyways, with its many overhanging, lopsided houses, and its grim old county jail, built of ragged graystone, which frowns blankly down from the upper end of its wide, irregularly-shaped market-place, as if in mute warning to all and sundry. Miss Baynard, whose road led her past one corner of it, shuddered involuntarily as she glanced at it out of a corner of her eye. For her just then that gray old pile was the most vitally interesting spot in the whole world.

She was bound, first of all, for Langrig, the seat of Sir James Dalrymple, which was situated in the suburbs of Lanchester. Sir James, it may be remembered, was one of the trustees appointed under Mr. Cortelyon's unsigned will, and very glad he was, when he came to learn the contents of that document, to find that it was so much waste paper, and that he would not be called upon to help in the carrying out of what he regarded as its most wicked and unjust provisions. He had a warm regard for Nell, not only for her own sake, but for that of her father, whom he had known and liked, and with whom he had spent many a roystering evening when they were young blades together about London town. Finally, it may be mentioned that Sir James was chairman of the Lanchester bench of magistrates.

"I have come to you, Sir James, on rather a singular errand," began Miss Baynard, when she had been shown into the library, where she found the baronet sitting with one leg in a gout-rest, and after the usual greetings had passed between them.

"My dear young lady, my humble services are at your command in any and every way."

"At the present time there is a certain prisoner, Mr. Geoffrey Dare by name, in Lanchester jail, awaiting his trial at the next assizes."

"Which open in three weeks from now. To be sure--to be sure. The rascal who is said to have waylaid Sir Peter Warrendale and robbed him of his watch and snuff-box, and who is shrewdly suspected of being none other than the notorious Captain Nightshade. But what about him?"

"Merely this, Sir James, that I want you to give me an order of admission--I know you have ample power to do so--to see him privately in prison. When I say privately in prison, I of course mean without witnesses."

Sir James gave vent to a low whistle. "My dear Miss Baynard, do you know that this is really a somewhat extraordinary request of yours?"

"I am quite aware of it. But let me explain why I have preferred it." She drew a long breath. Without she was prepared to tell a lie--nay, more than one--she felt sure that her request would run the risk of a refusal. Lies to her had ever been an abomination, but the aim she had set before herself was such as to leave her no option in the matter. When a man's life is at stake, and that the life of the person you love best in the world, the ordinary rules of conduct are apt to get mixed and blurred, and much may be forgiven. In such extreme cases black is liable to be regarded as white, and white as any color you please.

Miss Baynard had come prepared to answer objections, and she went on after a hardly observable pause.

"The fact of the matter is, Sir James, that Mr. Dare, in his more prosperous days, was the bosom friend of my late cousin, Dick Cortelyon, whose young son, as you are aware, has just inherited his grandfather's property. Well, it so happens that a couple of days ago, in turning over some letters and other effects which had belonged to my cousin, I came across a sort of rough diary which had been kept by him during the last year of his life. In it there is a passage in which he makes mention of a batch of rather important family papers which, after he had fallen into disgrace at home, he had entrusted to the keeping of Mr. Dare. Now, although I have sought for them high and low, I have failed to find any trace of the papers in question, and am consequently most anxious to ascertain from Mr. Dare what has become of them; indeed, I think it most likely that they are still somewhere in his keeping. Such is my reason, Sir James, for desiring an interview with him. If it could be arranged for to-day I should esteem it a great favor, as some very special business will take me from home to-morrow, and the date of my return is altogether uncertain."

"My dear Miss Baynard, not a word more is needed. I will at once write and give you a note, addressed to Captain Jeffs, the governor of the jail, authorizing him to permit you to have a private interview with the prisoner Dare. What a pity, what a damnable pity it is (begging your pardon) that a young fellow with good family and with the brilliant prospects which, I am given to understand, were once his, should have brought his kettle of fish to such a market as he seems to have done! But, as we make our bed, so must we lie on it. And now---- But, dear me! dear me! here am I running on without ever thinking to ask you what you will take in the way of refreshment. That's one of the fruits of being an old bachelor, and of having no womenfolk to keep me up to the mark and teach me not to forget the minor courtesies of life."

In the result, Nell agreed to accept a glass of the baronet's "particular old Madeira" and a biscuit. Not to have done as much as that would have been to infringe the unwritten laws of north-country hospitality.

Then said Sir James: "I had Lawyer Piljoy here t'other day. His purpose in coming was to tell me all about the lost child and its recovery, and a most amazing story it is; and, further, to consult with me as to what steps, if any, it is advisable to take in the affair. The first thing I did was to send for Staniforth, who was to have been your uncle's other trustee, and then we three laid our heads together. I need not bother you with reciting any of our arguments pro and con, but in the end we agreed that it would not, for various reasons, be advisable that any further proceedings should be taken in the matter. The child has been restored, which is the main thing to be borne in mind, and we felt pretty sure that no attempt would be made to abduct him a second time."

"You say, Sir James, that the child has been restored, which is quite true, but do you know whom we have to thank for it?"

"Haven't the remotest notion. I asked Piljoy how it came about, but he couldn't tell me. He said that if anybody knew, you did, but that beyond telling him it was the Honorable Mrs. B. who had abducted the youngster (what a she-cat that woman must be!) you had favored him with no particulars."

"It is to Mr. Geoffrey Dare, now a prisoner in Lanchester jail, that the child's recovery is due. It had been arranged that he--the boy--should be secretly transported to America, where we should never have heard of him more, when Mr. Dare, having discovered what was afoot, in the guise of a highwayman stopped the carriage in which he was being carried off, and rescued him from the wretches to whose charge he had been committed."

"Never heard of such a thing in my life, damme if I did! Um--um! I crave your pardon, my dear, but strong feelings have a way of finding their vent in strong language. And young Dare did that, did he? Well, well, we must see what can be done for him when his trial comes on. Such stuff as he seems made of is too good for the gallows. And now I will write you the promised note. I'm afraid you'll be a little later than the regulation hour for seeing prisoners, but maybe Jeffs will strain a point for once in a way. At any rate, I'll ask him to do so."