Faithful Margaret: A Novel
"Sleep soundly, miss. Good-night."
The door was locked again, and Margaret sat down to her cup of coffee
and her ponderings.
She was quite calm, quite strong of purpose when she opened her desk,
laid the note-book upon it, and began her task.
And what a story these notes, remarks, and hinted plots disclosed to
her!
It commenced with, strange to say, a description of herself, her
position at Castle Brand, what she said when summoned to receive St. Udo
Brand's note on the night of Mrs. Brand's death. Then followed the
words:
"I believe I could do it. My own perseverance tells me I could do it;
the devil in the shape of Calembours tells me I could do it."
Leaf after leaf of such hints were read and laid to heart, then a
paragraph which made those deep gray eyes grow black with apprehension.
"All right. Am _sure_ I can do it. My chances doubled by the actors
themselves. The will is in favor of M. W. St. U. scornfully washes his
hands of the affair, preferring a pretty face and poverty. Stupid devil,
to throw away such a birthright! Lucky dog, who is to be his successor?
Let the rogue win the race. I am so tired of the dodges, the twists, the
aliases, the lurkings, that I will put on the greatest disguise of all,
a gentleman swell, and try what freedom is like, and the sea-captain's
daughter, and Seven-Oak Waaste. St. U. sails to-morrow for the United
States, and I send company with him which will twist him into shape more
than the haughty dog expects. Be kind to him, oh, captivating chevalier!
be attentive to him, oh, patient _Thoms_!"
Then came a complete interview between St. Udo Brand and the
"Chevalier," purporting to have taken place on board the steamer going
to New York, with this laudatory conclusion:
"Thoms, you are no fool. Thoms, I really think you are a genius."
Leaf after leaf again. The firm lip curved with stern determination, the
brain quick and comprehending.
The copy of the farewell letter from St. Udo to herself was the next
glimpse of a familiar past, with the leaf turned down just where the
cunning hypocrite had marked the place during that walk under the oaks.
Then a copy of his letter to Lady Juliana Ducie, in which he had "pinned
his faith" to her sleeve, with a memorandum attached of, "Faithfully
mailed by good Thoms; and thus ends St. U.'s affair with little Ducie.
Now he will fight like a devil with these Yankees."
Following this was the transcription of two letters to Gay and
Davenport, in which St. Udo had scornfully explained the fact of his
departure from England.
Then came the secret of his ready recognition of Lady Juliana when she
stood before him in the Brands' reception-room. Her photograph, painted
beautifully, was pasted into a cunning little pocket, and her
description was written out at full, as if the picture were not to be
trusted alone.
Initials of strange names--addresses in London, scraps of information
about officers in the Guards--a frequent (see private album)--carefully
noted _bon mots_ of different English friends of the colonel's,
anecdotes of London life, all headed by the significant note:
"Brand's daily gossip.--Study well."
Then came a copy of Lady Juliana's letter of dismissal, with the
comment:
"Thoms, my boy, you did well to search that vest pocket."
This grim pleasantry of the genial writer closed what appeared to be
part the first in the movements of the watched man.
Let her think before she turned the leaf; let her rest her whirling
brain awhile, and examine this curious idea which had slid into her
mind. Who was Thoms!
In this memorandum book he purported to be a valet. Was Thoms Roland
Mortlake? Could he have crawled round his purpose under the disguise of
a body-servant, touching daily the man whom he meant to murder?
Put these thoughts of horror away--go on to the end.
Part the second commenced with St. Udo's first battle, and his part in
it minutely described.
Then followed letters from the executors of the Brand estates, in which
Margaret saw her departure to become school-teacher freely commented on
as a freak which would soon wear itself out.
Then suddenly followed, dashed down in a rough, unsteady hand, as if in
the dark, five or six pages of phonetic writing.
Patiently Margaret spelled it out--the life of St. Udo Brand, as told to
the Chevalier de Calembours at the midnight camp-fire. Every minute
detail, every passing mention of a friend, of a place visited, of
scenes, adventures, college incidents; also what made the heart burn in
the breast of the woman who was reading these records--a few sad
sentences which told the secret of poor St. Udo's bitterness.
"Calembours, I would have been a better man now but for one grave
mistake which I made early in life. I loved a woman passionately and
purely; she was my first conception of love, and would have perfected in
me a noble manhood had she been worthy. She broke the trust--vilely
cheated me, and fled with an officer in the artillery, a man whom all
pure women would have shrunk from; and she was lost, as she might have
foreseen. Since then, to perdition to the sex, say I, and their cant of
feminine purity, for of all crafty, insatiable, double-faced hypocrites
I have found woman to be the worst."
The next few leaves were covered with crude specimens of writing. St.
Udo's name again and again, until it was a perfect imitation of St.
Udo's hand, and, after this, the notes were written in the
newly-acquired style, as if to perfect the cunning forger.
Then was faithfully narrated an interview between "the chevalier" and
Colonel Brand, in which the former was proposing to his friend to turn
traitor, and go with him to the South, and take up arms against their
present comrades.
And, as a brave man would answer, so answered the honest Englishman,
heaping epithets of scorn and anger on the little traitor. Attached to
this was the memorandum:
"Calembours has parted with my man; not good for Calembours; he has
broken the bargain. Thoms has stuck by Brand; invaluable Thoms; so will
he stick by Brand while he lives. He says so. Has he very long to live?
No."
On the succeeding page came a sudden change; a few wild sentences in the
breathlessness of rage.
"He has given me the slip. He has slipped the noose and got away. Where?
where? Have I lost him? have I lost my prize at the last trick, my
Castle Brand, my good luck, my fair play, my amends for seven months of
toil under his boot-heel? No, not while I have brain to plan, or body to
track him. I swear to leave this book untouched until I have found him
and left him a lump of clay."
Leaf by leaf is turned over; the pale hand stops and trembles down to
her side.
Here is a note. If he has kept his vow, this note is a record of St.
Udo's murder. She reads a date, and her eyes seem to pulsate with blind
fire.
"September 1st. The deed is done. Lost in the skurry of a midnight
sortie. 'Killed in battle,' his men will say; but--Thoms knows better!
He tracked him with his long sleuth-hound through the swamps, and the
surging morass, and the long, hot highway, the spikey groves, the dark
fens, and through hunger and danger of death; and he found him! Why not
keep his promise? He stole his history, habits, phrases, manners,
friends; and now, the lesson being learned, Thoms may keep his promise,
made to himself. He stooped this moonlit night upon the battle-field,
and stole his master's life, and stood erect--not _Thoms, the ignoble
valet, but St. Udo, the heir of Castle Brand_!"
Margaret paused, sick and heart-quenched.
Memory brought back the vision of the battle-field, and of the wounded
hero, and of the brooding assassin, and reason stood aghast at the
manifest overturn of her natural laws.
"Grant me days enough to avenge him, high Heaven!" she cried, with a
passion of tears.
She would allow herself no luxury of sorrow; she repressed these tears,
trimmed her candles--took up her bitter task again.
Part the third showed that the murderer had arrived in England; that he
had lurked about the castle for a few days before presenting himself,
and acquainted himself with as many necessary facts as possible. After
this came the appearance of the pseudo-heir before the executors.
"I have stepped into the wrong man's shoes with marvelous ease, and I
have seen my future wife. Could anything be more appropriate, I wonder,
than for her to faint at sight of me? I am resolved to marry her. It
wouldn't be fair play to silence _her_ as I silenced some one who is in
his grave; and when we are man and wife I will tell her where she first
saw her husband."
The second entry was not quite so confident:
"The girl is going to be troublesome. Confound her! why has she taken
such a dislike to me?"
Entry the third still more expressive of alarm:
"What's this I hear? The girl left Gay's house without any explanation,
and gone to Castle Brand. What does that mean? Has she taken anything
into her head against _me_?
"I think she has seen with those mystical eyes of hers the deep ruts on
my wrists and ankles; and I think she is looking back a dozen years to
the man who lay in chains and cursed her cup of cold water. Confound
her! I am afraid of her."
There were other allusions to her which made her eyes blaze with
indignation, intermixed with careful entries of names or localities
which might be useful to the adventurer; and still, step by step, the
purpose of the man slowly unfolded itself. He had expected at first to
deceive Margaret Walsingham with the rest, and to win the fortune by
marrying her.
"A more monstrous fate," thought the girl, "than death."
But it soon appeared that she had betrayed her distrust, and he was
quietly waiting a chance to remove her. One note broke out thus:
"The girl will be my ruin, unless _I shut the hatches_ on her. She has
shown her hand to-day in three different attempts to make me betray
myself. By Heaven, she will succeed if she tries that long; but I have
made a counter plot which, clever as she is, she can't evade. I have
been beforehand with her, and won the confidence of the executors. I
have also announced my determination to propose to-morrow for her. If
she refuses, that's a sign that I let the hatch drop; if she accepts,
hold up the hatch a while, and give her another chance."
The result of his proposal showed how unlooked for her answer had been.
"She's a move in advance again--clever she devil; I am quite thrown out.
Proposed according to plan; was put off for a month. I think her demand
of a month's time to consider means a month's time to run me to the end
of my chain. My chain would run out in a week with her at the right end
of it; so I suppose it must be once, twice, thrice, and _down goes the
hatch_!"
The next entry was written with the sneer of a triumphant demon:
"Thought you would trip me, did you? Silly fool, to tamper with your
crazy hatch-door! Don't you know that when it drops you will suffocate?
So you expected me to be caught by Lady Juliana Ducie, did you? No, no,
my bride of death, I have pored over her picture too often. But for your
fine intention you shall suffer, Margaret Walsingham!
"My lady is a mighty fine-feathered bird for _me_ to have fluttering
round me. I have a mind to marry the marquis' daughter when the
watch-dog of the castle has died of her little sickness; wouldn't that
be fair play all round?"
The succeeding notes described two visits to London, in which the daring
wretch had penetrated into the Marquis of Ducie's residence, and had
private interviews with my lady, who seemed to be straining every nerve
to win him from Miss Walsingham; and it closed with the ominous
sentence:
"Little Ducie proves so much to my taste that I will go down to Surrey,
and _drop that hatch_!"