London Pride, Or, When the World Was Younger by M. E. Braddon (books to read for beginners TXT) 📖

as he started up from his knees to support her sinking figure. She was in his arms, unconscious—the image of death.

He kissed her on the brow.

"My soul, I will owe nothing to thy helplessness," he whispered. "Thy free will shall decide whether I live or die."

Another sound had mingled with the rushing waters as her senses left her—the sound of knocking at a distant door. It grew louder and louder momently, indicating a passionate impatience in those who knocked. The sound came from the principal door, and there was a long corridor between that door and Fareham's room.

He stood listening, undecided; and then he laid the unconscious form gently on the thick Persian carpet—knowing that for recovery the fainting girl could not lie too low. He cast one agitated glance at the white face looking up at the ceiling, and then went quickly to the hall.

As he came near, the knocking began again, with greater vehemence, and a voice, which he knew for Sir John's, called—

"Open the door, in the King's name, or we will break it open!"

There was a pause; those without evidently waiting for the result of that last and loudest summons.

Fareham heard the hoofs of restless horses trampling the gravel drive, the jingle of bit and chain, and the click of steel scabbards.

Sir John had not come alone.

"So soon; so devilish soon!" muttered Fareham. And then, as the knocking was renewed, he turned and left the hall without a word of answer to those outside, and hastened back to the room where he had left Angela. His brow was fixed in a resolute frown, every nerve was braced. He had made up his mind what to do. He had the house to himself, and was thus master of the situation, so long as he could keep his pursuers on the outside. The upper servants—half a dozen coach-loads—had been packed off to London, under convoy of Manningtree and Mrs. Hubbock. The under servants—rank and file—from housemaids to turnspits, slept in a huge barrack adjoining the stables, built in Elizabeth's reign to accommodate the lower grade of a nobleman's household. These would not come into the house to light fires and sweep rooms till six o'clock at the earliest; and it was not yet four. Lord Fareham, therefore, had to fear no interruption from his own people.

There was broad daylight in the house now; yet he looked about for a candle; found one on a side-table, in a tall silver candlestick, and stopped to light it, before he raised the lifeless figure from the floor and lifted it into the easiest position for carrying, the head lying on his shoulder. Then, holding the slender waist firmly, circled by his left arm, he took the candlestick in his right hand, and went out of the room with his burden, along a passage leading to a seldom-used staircase, which he ascended, carrying that tall, slim form as if it had been a feather-weight, up flight after flight, to the muniment room in the roof. From that point his journey, and the management of that unconscious form, and to dispose safely of the lighted candle, became more difficult, and occupied a considerable time; during which interval the impatience of an enraged father and a betrothed husband, outside the hall door, increased with every minute of delay, and one of their mounted followers, of whom they had several, was despatched to ride at a hand-gallop to the village of Chilton, and rouse the Constable, while another was sent to Oxford for a Magistrate's warrant to arrest Lord Fareham on the charge of abduction. And meanwhile the battering upon thick oaken panels with stout riding-whips, and heavy sword-hilts, and the calling upon those within, were repeated with unabated vehemence, while a couple of horsemen rode round the house to examine other inlets, and do picket duty.

The Constable and his underling were on the ground before that stubborn citadel answered the reiterated summons; but at last there came the sound of bolts withdrawn. An iron bar dropped from its socket with a clang that echoed long and loud in the empty hall, the door opened, and Fareham appeared on the threshold, corpse-like in the cold raw daylight, facing his besiegers with a determined insolence.

"Thou most infernal villain!" cried Sir John, rushing into the hall, followed closely by Denzil and one of the men, "what have you done with my daughter?"

"Which daughter does your honour seek? If it be she whom you gave me for a wife, she has broken the bond, and is across the sea with her paramour?"

"You lie—reprobate! Your wife had doubtless business relating to her French estate, which called her to Paris. My daughters are honest women, unless by your villainy, one, who should have been sacred, as your sister by affinity, should bear a blighted name. Give me back my daughter, villain—the girl you lured from her home by the foulest deceit!"

"You cannot see the lady to-day, gentlemen; even though you threaten me with your weapons," pointing with a sardonic smile to their drawn swords, "and out-number me with your followers. The lady is gone. I am alone in the house to submit to any affront your superior force may put upon me."

"Our superiority can at least search your house," said Denzil. "Sir John, you had best take one way and I another. I doubt I know every room and passage in the Abbey."

"And your yeoman's manners offer a handsome return for the hospitality which made you acquainted with my house," said Fareham, with a contemptuous laugh.

He followed Denzil, leaving Sir John to grope alone. The house had been deserted but for a few days, yet the corridors and rooms had the heavy atmosphere of places long shut from sunshine and summer breezes; while the chilling hour, the grey ghostly light, added something phantasmal and unnatural to the scene.

Denzil entered room after room—below stairs and above—explored the picture-gallery, the bed-chambers, the long low ball-room in the roof, built in Elizabeth's reign, when a wing had been added to the Abbey, and of late used only for lumber. Fareham followed him close, stalking behind him in sullen silence, with an unalterable gloom upon his face which betrayed no sudden apprehensions, no triumph or defeat. He followed like doom, stood quietly on one side as Denzil opened a door; waited on the threshold while the searcher made his inspection, always with the same iron visage, offering no opposition to the entrance of this or that chamber; only following and watching, silent, intent, sphinx-like; till at last, fairly worn out by blank disappointment, Denzil turned upon him in a sudden fury.

"What have you done with her?" he cried, desperately. "I will stake my life she has not left this house, and by Him who made us you shall not leave it living unless I find her."

He glanced downward at the naked sword he had carried throughout his search. Fareham's was in the scabbard, and he answered that glance with an insulting smile.

"You think I have murdered her, perhaps," he said. "Well, I would rather see her dead than yours. So far I am in capacity a murderer."

They met Sir John in Lady Fareham's drawing-room, when Denzil had gone over the whole house, trusting nothing to the father's scrutiny.

"He has stabbed her and dropped her murdered body down a well," cried the Knight, half distraught. "He cannot have spirited her away otherwise. Look at him, Denzil; look at that haggard wretch I have called my son. He has the assassin's aspect."

Something—it might be the room in which they were standing—brought back to Angela's betrothed the memory of that Christmas night when aunt and niece had been missing, and when he, Denzil, had burst into this room, where Fareham was seated at chess; who, at the first mention of Angela's name, started up, white with horror, to join in the search. It was he who found her then; it was he who had hidden her now; and in the same remote and secret spot.

"Fool that I was not to remember sooner!" cried Denzil. "I know where to find her. Follow me, Sir John. Andrew"—calling to the servant who waited in the hall—"follow us close."

He rushed along a passage, ran upstairs faster than old age, were it ever so eager, could follow. But Fareham was nearly as fast—nearly, but not quite, able to overtake him; for he was older, heavier, and more broken by the fever of that night's work than his colder-tempered rival.

Denzil was some paces in advance when he reached the muniment room. He found the opening in the wainscot, and the steep stair built into the chimney. Half way to the bottom there was a gap—an integral part of the plan—and a drop of six feet; so that a stranger in hurried pursuit would be likely to come to grief at this point, and make time for his quarry to escape by the door that opened on the garden. Memory, or wits sharpened by anxiety, enabled Denzil to avoid this trap; and he was at the door of the Priest's Hole before Fareham began the descent.

Yes, she was there, kneeling in a corner, a candle burning dimly on a stone shelf above her head. She was in the attitude of prayer, her head bent, her face hidden, when the door opened, and she looked up and saw her betrothed husband.

"Denzil! How did you find me here?"

"I should be a poor slave if I had not found you, remembering the past. Great God, how pale you are! Come, love, you are safe. Your father is here. Angela, thou that art so soon to be my wife—face to face—here—before we leave this accursed pit—tell me that you did not go with that villain, except for the sake of your sick sister—that you were the victim of a heartless lie—not a party to a trick invented to blind your father and me!"

"I doubt I have not all my senses yet," she said, putting her hand to her head. "I was told my sister wanted me, and I came. Where is Lord Fareham?"

The terror in her countenance as she asked that question froze Denzil. Ah, he had known it all along! That was the man she loved. Was she his victim—and a willing victim? He felt as if a great gulf had opened between him and his betrothed, and that all his hopes had withered.

Fareham was at his elbow in the next moment. "Well, you have found her," he said; "but you shall not have her, save by force of arms. She is in my custody, and I will keep her; or die for her if I am outnumbered!"

"Execrable wretch! would you attempt to detain her by violence? Come, madam," said Denzil, turning coldly to Angela, "there is a door on those stairs which will let you out into the air.

"The door will not open at your bidding!" Fareham said fiercely.

He snatched Angela up in his arms before the other could prevent him, and carried her triumphantly to the first landing-place, which was considerably below that treacherous gap between stair and stair. He had the key of the garden door in his pocket, unlocked it, and was in the open air with his burden before Denzil could overtake him.

He found himself caught in a trap. He had his coach-and-six and armed postillions waiting close by, and thought he had but to leap into it with his prey and spirit her off towards Bristol; but between the coach and the door one of Sir John's pickets was standing, who the moment the door opened whistled his loudest, and brought Constable and man and another armed servant running helter-skelter round an angle of the house, and so crossing the very path to the coach.

"Fire upon him if he tries to pass you!" cried Denzil.

"What! And shoot the lady you have professed to love!" exclaimed Fareham, drawing himself up, and standing firm as a rock, with Angela motionless in his arms.

He dropped her to her feet, but held her against his left shoulder with an iron hold, while he drew his sword and made a rush for the coach. Denzil sprang into his path, sword in hand, and their blades crossed with a shrill clash and rattle of steel. They fought like demons, Fareham holding Angela behind him, sheltering her with his body, and swaying from side to side in his sword-play with a demoniac swiftness and suppleness, his thick dark brows knitted over eyes that flamed with a fiercer fire than flashed from steel meeting steel.