Chapter XXIX: The Viper on the Hearth

Whether or not the vulnerary water distilled from the plantain in the year of its becoming a bird possessed the phœnix-like properties attributed to it by its concoctor, certain it is that from the moment of Mrs Harlock’s taking the stranger in hand the man’s hurts began to mend; and within a month of his being received into the house he was pronounced by his attendant in a fit state to take himself out of it. He demurred over the verdict, protesting that only his own resolution and desire to appear grateful were feigning a cure which in his inner self he knew to be far from assured; but his precise plaints, after a private consultation among the conspirators, were ignored, and he was given definite notice that, as from the first day of May, he was to consider them discharged of any further obligations regarding him, and must make his plans accordingly. He submitted perforce, and, it is to be assumed, took them at their word, for his plans, when he came to develop them, showed a full appreciation of the independence of action presented to him, and were very certainly his own. He went--but only to return.

During those weeks of his convalescence no least hint of his presence in the Grange had been allowed to percolate through to its master, who, indeed, more than ever since his nephew’s departure, had shut himself away in complete isolation from his household. Nor had a whisper of the secret the place contained been let penetrate to the outer world. Absolute loyalty to their service was, as Brion had very well known, an assured asset with those faithful souls, and observance to the letter of his instructions could be depended on. So rigidly, indeed, had his directions been followed that from first to last the invalid had been able to inform himself in no solitary particular of the constitution of the household into which he had been admitted. He knew from Brion the name of its head, and that was all. That, it may be said, had conveyed something to him, but something which required substantiation and consideration. The question was, how to bring about, what he most desired, a personal interview. It was already, to his mind, a sheer Providence which had brought him, though by way of travail, to a house actually marked for early visitation on his list. For there is need no longer to skirmish about the truth regarding Master John Melton. He was in very fact one of those _agents provocateurs_ already alluded to as being sent by the Jesuit Allen to England to test popular feeling and sow sedition. Not in Orders himself, he was possessed, nevertheless, of sufficient dogmatism to qualify him for such a mission, his English blood further suiting him for the task. He was, moreover, a dry and crafty creature, born for an Inquisitor. Part of his business was to analyse the sources of disaffection, and to involve such waverers as he could in the conspiracy against the Queen’s life, which even then was germinating in the breasts of certain Catholic extremists. Among such presumptive confederates, it seemed, the name of Quentin Bagott figured as that of one who had secretly recanted his heresy, and might be used as a local agent for the insidious dissemination of treason. How the information had been acquired is of little matter; it was of a piece with much that jumped to certain conclusions from insufficient premises. In any case a visit to the ex-Judge had been assigned a foremost place in the itinerary mapped out for Allen’s emissary.

And here he was, by a very Providence, as has been said--inscrutably severe in its methods though it might be--actually on the premises which he might in vain have sought to enter lacking that Divine castigation. It seemed incredible that his good fortune stood to be stultified through the perversity of a party of fools, too obstinately loyal to their instructions to give him the least tether for his operations. Nor should it be--on that he was determined--whatever close watch they kept over their tongues, or over his movements when once he was in a condition to rise and creep about his room. He was able to learn so much--that he owed this rigid supervision to the man who had rescued him, and could form, perhaps, his own shrewd conclusions as to some of Brion’s reasons for desiring to keep him and his Uncle apart. For this Melton was as sharp as a ferret, and had that sort of microscopic mental eye which can discover whole truths in grains of unconsidered suggestion. So, when the time came, he went, quite quietly and tamely, and his watchers breathed a sigh of relief that their responsibility was at an end.

That same night Quentin Bagott was sitting in his chamber alone. A solitary lamp burned over his head, diluting but not obliterating a patch of moonlight which fell through the open casement upon the floor. The window looked out upon the waste ground to the rear of the Grange, and was flung wide, for the night was still and warm. He sat, his eyes fixed on the carpet, on the patch of moonlight there, drearily hypnotised by it. There was a criss-cross pattern in it which seemed to entangle his brain. Wrenching himself once free from the obsession, he turned to the table to drink, and again came round to stare at the carpet. Something had happened to it. In the thick of the moonlit lattice lay a folded scrap of paper which had not been there before. It looked as if entangled in the meshes--or in his brain. He sat staring at it, trying to think. Suddenly he rose unsteadily, and stooped, and gained the thing, and unfolded it and read. He stood a long time reading; then went softly and quickly to the window and bent out.

‘_Lavabo inter innocentes manus meas_,’ he said low into the night.

A man came out of the shadows and approached the window.

‘_Et circumdabo altare tuum, Domine_,’ he responded, small and quiet.

‘Whence come you--and wherefore?’ asked Bagott in a fearful voice.

‘From Heaven--for your salvation,’ was the solemn answer.

So, by way of the main gate, and the tree across the moat, had Melton achieved his purpose. He had simply ‘evacuated’ to order, had gone straight round by the copse, and had lain hidden all day in the secret place of which only he knew. Then at night he had emerged, and by good fortune had reached his quarry.

He was never again to drop what he had seized until he had sucked it dry. From that moment he had the sodden and bewildered brain at his mercy. By what specious arts he had prevailed could never afterwards be known; but somehow, working upon his victim’s superstitious fears, he ended by establishing a complete control over him. He was to go brazenly about it, too, never before witnesses so much as hinting at the question of religion, but letting it be assumed that the tie between him and Bagott was purely one of mutual liking and good-will. In all this he was guided by a very definite purpose, which only ultimately came to light. Whatever at the outset might have been the singleness of his motives, temptation changed it into one of gripping and savage cupidity. He had suddenly seen his way to the acquisition of unexpected wealth, and the prospect was too much for his caution. He dared to stake on the chance, and he came within an ace of succeeding.

As to the tricked and jockeyed household, the knowledge of their humiliation came soon enough to them. It synchronised with the arrival before his master’s door of Nol porter, prepared to perform at the usual hour his usual bedtime duties. He heard voices speaking within, and stood stupefied to listen; then heaved away on creaking boot-tips to call Phineas. The master-cook came. ‘Anan?’ said he.

‘Hist!’ whispered Nol: ‘Put thy ear hither, and tell me. Who is it?’

Phineas listened, and came about, his long face aghast.

‘John Melton,’ said he.

Nol stared a moment; then, his jaw set grim, opened the door and walked into the room. His master sat facing him; the stranger stood by the table, a thin, wintry, but wholly unperturbed smile upon his lips.

‘_Soyez le bienvenu!_’ he murmured, with an indrawn snigger.

Nol made an ugly gesture:--

‘Out of this you go!’ said he.

The stranger just glanced at his host. Bagott half rose in his chair, his eyes red with fury:--

‘Away, thou dog, thou villain!’ he roared. ‘What; you’d so dare to my guest, and before my face! I’ll requite thee, dog!’

He rocked and panted, mouthing like a mad thing.

‘’Twas Master Brion’s order,’ said Nol sulkily.

The Judge banged his fist on the table.

‘Who is master here, thou beast? Disobey me at thy peril. I have not yet so abrogated my authority’--he made a sudden effort to command himself; and went on in a quieter voice, which yet shook with agitation: ‘Master Brion judged within the limits of his knowledge, which was not all, nor near all. I have learned the whole truth from this gentleman, who indeed was on his way to visit me when that misfortune befell him. My nephew did well and prudently, acting for the best; and you did well to follow his instructions. But that is done. Henceforth this becomes _my_ guest, whom I commit to your duty to serve and honour. Attend to it well.’

He sank back in his chair, waving the two from the room, and with dismay at their hearts they left him. What was to be done? Nothing that they could see. They were on the horns of as bitter a dilemma as could have perplexed two honest, troubled heads. They could not act in opposition to their lawful master: they dared not make a public scandal of the business, lest its consequences should visit themselves on that loved but dishonoured head. There was nothing, for their part, but to continue to keep the fact of the stranger’s presence in the house a secret from the world, and to abide whatever issue might arise, pending their young lord’s return. How the man had succeeded in procuring that interview was a mystery to them; but they had done their part faithfully, and were not in any way to blame for the miscarriage of their plans.

Thence ensued a strange glooming time, which, running into months, was destined to culminate in nothing less than tragedy. The man remained on, an accepted inmate of the house, and steadily assuming a position of authority in it. Whatever moral hold he had acquired over the haunted mind of its master he used with crafty effect to advantage himself in the name of the Cause. He was served, as directed, but with a sullenness and repressed hostility which he did not fail to note and record. After all, he had the courage of his qualities, and was playing a desperate game, whose success depended upon the audacity of the ‘bluff’ he could bring to bear upon it.

Still time--being, in the commercial sense, of the essence of the contract--had to be considered in the maturation of his designs. An inopportune return of the nephew might upset all his calculations, and what was to be done must be done unhurriedly but promptly. However he went about his work, he went about it effectively, approaching his end step by step. It became soon enough apparent that Quentin Bagott was falling under the complete domination of this interloper, whom he had taken to his heart and confidence. He deferred to him, clung to him, gave it to be understood that he had delegated to him his own authority in domestic matters, to issue what directions he thought fit. The household accepted the situation, with a sort of mutinous resignation to a state of things they could not help; but evil was in their hearts. It seemed to them that their master was yielding the last remains of his vitality to this sinister, thin-lipped bloodsucker; that, under the dark influence to which he had succumbed, he was waxing steadily in feebleness and dependence. There came a time when he would hardly allow John Melton out of his sight, holding to him as if upon him alone depended his own last hope of moral and material safety. It was strange and pitiful; but worse was to follow.

One day Nol was called in by his master, and instructed by him to ride into Ashburton with a note to a certain scrivener and attorney, much in demand locally, requesting that gentleman to attend, with his clerk, at the Grange at his early convenience. The two came, and had been closeted with their client but a brief time, when Nol and Phineas were ordered into the presence. They came, wondering, to find the men of law standing at the table, their master sunk into the great chair where he habitually sat, and Melton withdrawn into the window, where he stood viewing the waste prospect, as if wholly absorbed in it.

Quentin Bagott regarded the newcomers, as they entered, from deep eyes sunk in hollow sockets. He looked wasted and exhausted; but his voice, when he spoke, measured out its words as if he had rehearsed them all carefully beforehand. He held a document, which he lifted and tapped in a slow feeble way.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I have sent for ye two to mark and digest the substance of that which is in my hand. It is my last Will and testament, drawn up by me, a lawyer, revoking all former Wills, duly executed, and witnessed by these two in whose presence I have attached my signature. Would ye, who cannot read, know what are its terms? They are briefly stated. To my dear friend, John Melton, I give and bequeath unconditionally all this messuage and dwelling-house known as the Moated Grange, to do and devise with it, his heirs and assigns, as shall be his pleasure from the date of my death thenceforth. And I ask him, if he will, and so he survive me, to continue to employ and make provision for such of my good and faithful retainers as shall be in my service at the time.’

Mr Melton turned in his place at the window, and bent to a little dry bow, silently acquiescing. No one might have guessed from his sober manner the cold jubilation which was thrilling his breast. He had won to the anteroom of that for which, during these long months, he had been steadily scheming with all the craft and finesse at his command, and it would be his own fault now if he failed in the final fruition of his hopes. But poor rueful Nol cared nothing for that provision affecting his own well-being. He stood all amazed, understanding only enough of the legal jargon to gather that it deposed his young lord from his full and equitable rights. Fairly blubbering, he threw himself on his knees before the Judge, and bellowed out a protest:--

‘Don’t do it, Sir. Think of our poor young master!’

Bagott regarded the suppliant without animus. He even smiled indulgently on him.

‘I have not forgotten him, good Nol,’ he said. ‘The residue of the estate is his--of more independent value to a young man than this hampering property ever would or could be. I have not forgotten him, my good, faithful fellow.’

But Nol would not be comforted. ‘Wait till he returns, good master,’ he cried. ‘Think again once and twice before you do it.’

‘I have thought a thousand times,’ answered Bagott, still with a strange mildness, ‘and always to the same end. None of you knows, none of you can know, all that I owe to this my friend, since he came to fill the vacant place caused by another’s secession.’

‘He hath corrupt your mind,’ cried Nol despairingly.

‘Harkee, good man,’ answered his master: ‘I bear with you because I love you. I love you all, who have served me so long and singly; and because of my love I would have you abet, not balk me in a step my very conscience demands. Come, Nol, come Phineas, please your old master by pleasing him who will one day take his place, it may be in no great time.’

That set Nol howling; but it conquered him, poor simple soul. He swore, and Phineas swore, that they would all, answering for the others, try to act up to their lord’s wishes, and so they stumbled out. When they were gone, Bagott produced wine, with which he regaled the mildewed men of law--too accustomed, like undertakers, to the laying-out and burying of human hopes to be in any way affected by the grief they had witnessed, but flattered over their employment by so great a lawyer--and, having presently got rid of them, turned to his inseparable companion, and said pantingly, as he placed the Will in his hands:--

‘In trust, then, Melton, for the future, when the true faith is restored to our land, and the seminary we wot of shall form itself within these desolate walls, and the Chapel be reconsecrated to the service of the holy Mass.’

Significant words, betraying something of the trend of recent events.

‘I accept the trust,’ said Melton simply, as he received the document--‘_in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti_.’ But the thought beneath the words ran as thus: ‘Hot hands. He will be the worse for this rally. How long? Will he last till the nephew’s return? The worse for me: but even then, not failure. We must pile on the fuel.’

‘Bagott,’ he said aloud; ‘this effort has been too much for you. You must take means to restore the vital spark, or I will not answer for the consequences.’

He poured liberally from a flask, while the other watched him with a sort of dull, exhausted eagerness; and once, twice, thrice he poured again--and so gained his end.

‘You drunken dog,’ he said to the insensible figure. ‘Will you never die?’

Three weeks later Nol, being called in betimes to support his master to his bedchamber, and having hard ado, despite his great strength, to keep the almost inert form from slipping to the floor, paused at the first landing to breathe himself before proceeding. As he stood for a moment, with a sudden convulsive wrench Bagott stiffened his whole body, tore free, and swaying one instant, before the other could clutch at him, went down, and rolled crashing from the stair-head into the hall. When they picked him up he was dead.