A Terrible Secret by May Agnes Fleming (world of reading txt) 📖

closed and locked, Lady Helena suddenly fell down on the stone floor before her niece and held up her hands.

"Inez," she said, "in Heaven's name hear me! You are shielding some one--that guilty man--you saw him do this deed. Speak out! Save yourself--let the guilty suffer. What is he, that you should perish for his sake? He was always evil and guilty--forget his blood flows in your veins--speak out and save yourself. Let him who is guilty suffer for his own crime!"

The soft September twilight was filling the room. One pale flash of sunset came slanting through the grated window and fell on Inez Catheron's face. She stood in the middle of the floor, her clasped hands hanging loosely before her, an indescribable expression on her face.

"Poor Juan," she said, wearily; "don't be too hard on him, Aunt Helena. We have none of us ever been too gentle with him in his wrong doing, and he wasn't really bad at heart _then_. If any letter should come from him to you, for me, say nothing about it--bring it here. I don't think he will be taken; he can double like a hare, and he is used to being hunted. I hope he is far away at sea before this. For the rest, I have nothing to say--nothing. I can live disgraced and die a felon if need be, but not ten thousand disgraceful deaths can make me speak one word more than I choose to utter."

Lady Helena's stifled sobbing filled the room. "Oh, my child! my child!" she cried; "what madness is this, and for one so unworthy!"

"But there will be no such tragical ending. I will be tried at the Assizes and acquitted. They _can't_ bring me in guilty. Jane Pool's circumstancial evidence may sound very conclusive in the ears of Mr. Justice Smiley, but it won't bring conviction with a grand jury. You see it wasn't sufficient even for the coroner. The imprisonment here will be the worst, but you will lighten that. Then when it is all over, I will leave England and go back to Spain, to my mother's people. They will receive me gladly, I know. It is growing dark, Aunt Helena--pray don't linger here longer."

Lady Helena arose, her face set in a look of quiet, stubborn resolve.

"Take good care of poor Victor, and watch the baby well. He is the last of the Catherons now, you know. Don't let any one approach Victor but Mrs. Marsh, and warn her not to speak of my arrest--the shock might kill him. I wish--I wish I had treated her more kindly in the past. I feel as though I could never forgive myself now."

"You had better not talk so much, Inez," her aunt said, almost coldly. "You may be overheard. I don't pretend to understand you. You know best, whether he, for whom you are making this sacrifice, deserves it or not. Good-night, my poor child--I will see you early to-morrow."

Lady Helena, her lips set in that rigid line of resolve, her tears dried, rode back to Catheron Royals. The darkness had fallen by this time--fallen with black, fast-drifting clouds, and chill whistling winds. Two or three lights, here and there, gleamed along the lofty facade of the old mansion, now a house of mourning indeed. Beneath its roof a foul, dark murder had been done--beneath its roof its master lay ill unto death. And for the guilty wretch who had wrought this ruin, Inez Catheron was to suffer imprisonment, suspicion, and life-long disgrace. The curse that the towns-people invoked on Juan Catheron, Lady Helena had it in her heart to echo.

Her first act was to dismiss Jane Pool, the nurse.

"We keep servants, not spies and informers, at Catheron Royals," she said, imperiously. "Go to Mrs. Marsh--what is due you she will pay. You leave Catheron Royals without a character, and at once."

"I'm not afraid, my lady," Jane Pool retorted, with a toss of her head. "People will know why I'm turned away, and I'll get plenty of places. I knew I would lose my situation for telling the truth, but I'm not the first that has suffered in a good cause."

Lady Helena had swept away, disdaining all reply. She ascended to Sir Victor's room--the night-lamp burned low, mournful shadows filled it. A trusty nurse sat patiently by the bedside.

"How is he now?" asked his aunt, bending above him.

"Much the same, your ladyship--in a sort of stupor all the time, tossing about, and muttering ceaselessly. I can't make out anything he says, except the name Ethel. He repeats that over and over in a way that breaks my heart to hear."

The name seemed to catch the dulled ear of the delirious man.

"Ethel," he said, wearily. "Yes--yes I must go and fetch Ethel home. I wish Inez would go away--her black eyes make one afraid--they follow me everywhere. Ethel--Ethel--Ethel!" He murmured the name dreamily, tenderly. Suddenly he half started up in bed and looked about him wildly. "What brings Juan Catheron's picture here? Ethel! come away from him. How dare you meet him here alone?" He grasped Lady Helena's wrist and looked at her with haggard, bloodshot eyes. "He was your lover once--how dare he come here? Oh, Ethel you won't leave me for him! I love you--I can't live without you--_don't_ go. Oh, my Ethel! my Ethel! my Ethel!"

He fell back upon the bed with a sort of sobbing cry that brought the tears streaming from the eyes of the tender-hearted nurse.

"He goes on like that continual, my lady," she said, "and it's awful wearing. Always 'Ethel.' Ah, it's a dreadful thing?"

"Hooper will watch with you to-night, Martha," Lady Helena said. "Mrs. Marsh will relieve you to-morrow. No stranger shall come near him. I will take a look at baby before going home. I shall return here early to-morrow, and I need not tell you to be very watchful!--I know you will."

"You needn't indeed, my lady," the woman answered, mournfully. "I was his mother's own maid, and I've nursed him in my arms, a little white-haired baby, many a time. I will be watchful, my lady."

Lady Helena left her and ascended to the night nursery. She had to pass the room where the tragedy had been enacted. She shivered as she went by. She found the little heir of Catheron Royals asleep in his crib, guarded by the under-nurse--head-nurse now, _vice_ Mrs. Pool cashiered.

"Take good care of him, nurse," was Lady Helena's last charge, as she stooped and kissed him, tears in her eyes; "poor little motherless lamb."

"I'll guard him with my life, my lady," the girl answered, sturdily. "No harm shall come to _him_."

Lady Helena returned to Powyss Place and her convalescent husband, her heart lying like a stone in her breast.

"If I hadn't sent for Victor that night--if I had left him at home to protect his wife, this might never have happened," she thought, remorsefully; "_he_ would never have left her alone and unprotected, to sleep beside an open window in the chill night air."

Amid her multiplicity of occupations, amid her own great distress, she had found time to write to Mr. Dobb and his wife a touching, womanly letter. They had come down to see their dead daughter and departed again. She had been taken out of their life--raised far above them, and even in death they would not claim her.

And now that the funeral was over, Inez in prison, the tumult and excitement at an end, who shall describe the awful quiet that fell upon the old house. A ghastly stillness reigned--servants spoke in whispers, and stole from room to room--the red shadow of Murder rested in their midst. And upstairs, in that dusk chamber, while the nights fell, Sir Victor lay hovering between life and death.


CHAPTER XII.

THE FIRST ENDING OF THE TRAGEDY.

Eight days after the burial of Lady Catheron, several events, occurred that wrought the seething excitement of Chesholm to boiling-over point--events talked of for many an after year, by cottage fireside and manor hearth.

The first of these, was Miss Catheron's examination before the police magistrate, and her committal to jail, until the assizes. The justice before whom the young lady appeared was the same who had already issued his warrant for her arrest--a man likely to show her little favor on account of her youth, her beauty, or her rank. Indeed the latter made him doubly bitter; he was a virulent hater of the "bloated aristocracy." Now that he had one of them in his power, he was determined to let the world at large, and Chesholm in small see that neither station nor wealth could be shields for crime.

She took her place in the prisoner's dock, pale, proud, disdainful. She glanced over the dark sea of threatening faces that thronged the court-room, with calmly haughty eyes--outwardly unmoved. Her few friends were there--few indeed, for nearly all believed that if hers was not the hand that had struck the blow, she had been at least her brother's abettor. Many were brought forward who could swear how she had hated my lady; how she had taken every opportunity to insult and annoy her; how again and again my lady had been found crying fit to break her heart after the lash of Miss Inez's stinging tongue. She had loved Sir Victor--she was furiously jealous of his wife--she had fiery Spanish blood in her veins, and a passionate temper that stopped at nothing. Jane Pool was there, more bitter than ever--more deadly in her evidence. Hooper was there, and his reluctantly extorted testimony told dead against her. The examination lasted two days. Inez Catheron was re-committed to prison to stand her trial for murder at the next assizes.

The second fact worthy of note was, that despite the efforts of the Chesholm police, in spite of the London detectives, no tale or tidings of Juan Catheron were to be found. The earth might have opened and swallowed him, so completely had he disappeared.

The third fact was, that Sir Victor Catheron had reached the crisis of his disease and passed it safely. The fever was slowly but steadily abating. Sir Victor was not to die, but to "take up the burden of life again"--a dreary burden, with the wife he had loved so fondly, sleeping in the vaults of Chesholm Church.

The fourth fact was, that the infant heir of the Catherons had been removed from Catheron Royals to Powyss Place, to be brought up under the watchful eye and care of his grand-aunt, Lady Helena.

On the evening of the day that saw Inez Catheron committed for trial, the post brought Lady Helena a letter. The handwriting, evidently disguised, was unfamiliar, and yet something about it set her heart throbbing. She tore it open; it contained an inclosure. There were but three lines for herself:

* * * * *

"DEAR LADY H.: If you will permit a reprobate to be on such familiar terms with your highly respectable name, I address I----, under cover to you, as per order. J.C."

* * * * *

The inclosure was sealed. Lady Helena destroyed her own, and next day drove to