Faithful Margaret: A Novel
man's countenance as I read it, warns me to start to-night."
She dropped her distrustful eyes from his, and quietly opened her
business.
"I am Miss Walsingham, of Castle Brand," she said, "and in the temporary
absence of my own lawyer, Mr. Davenport, I have come to you. I am going
out to Surrey presently, and I wish to leave some documents in your
charge until I return. They are important papers, which I must not lose,
and, since some accident might occur to them or to you, in my absence, I
will prefer that you undertake the charge in company with some other
person whose honor is considered unimpeachable. Can you name such a
person?"
The lawyer opened his eyes very wide at his new client's strange
request, but glibly ran over a list of the leading men of Regis as
candidates for the honor of Miss Walsingham's confidence.
"We shall try the Rev. Mr. Challoner," she said, "and while I arrange
the papers, your boy can carry him a note from me."
Mr. Emersham darted for stationery and wheeled a desk to his visitor
with profuse politeness, and when the note was finished he sent his boy
off at full speed to the vicarage with it.
During his absence Margaret wrote a careful account of her enemy's
attempt upon her life the previous night; copied out the letter she had
received that morning purporting to be from Dr. Gay, and concluded it
with these remarks:
"Believing my life to be in danger so long as I remain in Roland
Mortlake's vicinity, I resolve to obey the above letter, although I
expect it to lead me into some trap where I shall lose my life. However,
in the faint hope that I may be mistaken, I will begin my journey to
Llandaff to-night at seven o'clock, Dec. 1862, and return in the seven
o'clock evening train the day after to-morrow, when I shall come
straight to Mr. Emersham's office, and reclaim this trust which I have
put in his hands. If I do not return on the evening of the said day, I
shall have met my death at the hands of Roland Mortlake, who personates
Colonel St. Udo Brand, and I call upon Mr. Emersham to cause that man's
arrest for my murder."
This finished, she ordered Mr. Emersham to draw up the form of her will,
wherein she declared her wish that the Brand property should be sold,
and the proceeds used to found a charitable institution in Regis,
declaring, heedless, of Mr. Emersham's looks of astonishment, that St.
Udo Brand being dead, she had resolved that an impostor should never
occupy his place. In dead silence then she awaited the arrival of the
vicar; the lawyer sitting opposite her gnawing the feather of his pen,
and peering inquisitively at her.
Presently the blown office boy ushered in the vicar of Regis, a tall,
snowy-haired divine, whose very presence diffused an atmosphere of
safety around the persecuted woman.
She had already a slight acquaintance with him, and after a cordial
greeting from him, she explained the favor she wished to receive,
apologizing timidly for intruding her affairs upon him.
"My advisers, Mr. Davenport and Dr. Gay, are both away," she said, "and
wishing to join the doctor, I feel that I must provide against any
contingency which may arise. Will you, jointly with Mr. Emersham,
undertake the charge of these documents for two days?"
Mr. Challoner readily consented. He had always liked the earnest-faced
woman, who took her place so regularly in church, and whose praises were
sounded so frequently by the lowliest of his flock.
Symonds was called in to append his name as one of the witnesses to
Margaret Walsingham's will, Mr. Challoner being the other, and then the
office door was shut mysteriously upon the lady and her two counselors,
and gave them her instructions.
With her own hand she placed the document which condemned Roland
Mortlake as St. Udo's assassin, his note-book, and her will, in an empty
pigeon-hole of the lawyer's dusty drawers, locked it, and put the key in
the old vicar's hand.
"Come here on Thursday evening at seven o'clock," she said, "with that
key; wait until fifteen minutes past the hour, and if I do not arrive
then, you must take out the document and read it. If you fail to act up
to its instructions, a murderer will escape. I place the key in your
hand, because foul play might be attempted upon Mr. Emersham to force
him to betray my trust--foul play will not be attempted upon you."
They silently regarded the whitening face, when her womanly terrors
struggled with the fixed, fatal look of vengeance, and solemnly promised
to do her will.
Then the vicar shook hands and went away.
She looked at her watch. It was six o'clock. She had been nearly two
hours in the lawyer's office.
He had long ago lit the gas and closed the shutters, and was waiting
very patiently for her to conclude her business that he might go home to
his dinner.
"I have one more letter to write, Mr. Emersham. Will you wait a few
minutes longer?" said Margaret.
Again he poured out the assurance of the honor, etc.; and, with a wild
smile on her lips, she wrote the following daring words:
"ROLAND MORTLAKE, OR THOMS--which name you have least right to
I cannot tell--I warn you, that if I meet my death while absent
from Regis upon this journey, your doom is sealed!
"I warn you further, that if I return safely at the end of the
time I have set, your doom is sealed, if you are here to brave
it. Your only safety lies in flight before I return; and even
then I shall do my best to convict you of the murder of St. Udo
Brand, which you have confessed in your pocket-book, which has
this day been placed in safe hands--which will break the seals,
if I am not alive to break them when I intend to return to
Regis. If I perish, vengeance shall surely overtake the
murderer of St. Udo Brand and MARGARET WALSINGHAM."
She bade farewell to Mr. Emersham at last, and entering her carriage,
drove straight to a hotel near the railway station, from which she sent
Symonds home with the carriage, and intrusted her letter to him with
directions to give it to the steward to deliver to the colonel; and
warnings to Symonds not to allow himself to be questioned by Colonel
Brand.
A note to Mr. Purcell conveyed her command that he would attend upon her
journey; and cautioned him against giving Colonel Brand an inkling of
his intentions.
In a quarter of an hour the steward of Castle Brand was ushered into her
presence.
"All ready, Purcell?" demanded the lady.
"Quite ready, Miss Margaret."
"Where is Colonel Brand?"
"Still at the castle, miss."
"Did you give him my letter yourself?"
"I did, miss."
"What did he say?"
Mr. Purcell shook his head and looked disgusted.
"You must tell me what he said, Purcell?" insisted Margaret.
"He said nothing that I'd be proud to repeat, Miss Margaret," said
Purcell, sourly.
"He up and cursed you like a madman, and said, 'Let her go if she
dares!'"
"What else?"
"Ordered out his horse."
"Intending to find me before I started--do you think?"
"Yes, miss; but I left him cross-questioning Symonds, who wouldn't give
him any satisfaction."
"Very good. Now we must hasten, or we shall miss the train."
She hurried on her traveling-cloak, and, accompanied by Purcell,
descended to the station, where the train was ready to start and got on
board in time.
From behind her thick crape vail she watched every passenger who crossed
the platform to enter any of the long line of cars, and the flaming
street-lamps revealed every face distinctly.
Porters hustled each other; newsboys shouted their papers; ladies made
blind sallies to the wrong class car and lost themselves in the throng;
gentlemen with umbrellas, carpet-bags and plaids elbowed their way into
empty compartments; but Roland Mortlake was not among the mob.
She had slipped the chain and got free.
The train glided out of the shed and set itself to its night's work, and
Margaret sank back to her seat with a sigh of relief.
"I have outwitted him," she thought. "His calculations upon my expected
movements are all astray. I have taken him by surprise. I shall find Dr.
Gay in Llandaff, sure enough. I did right to go in search of him."
On rushed the train through the darkness of night.
Purcell, who sat beside his mistress, spread a plaid over the back of
her seat, and pinned it about her shoulders, grumbling that she would
take her death of cold in the drafty car; and presently she fell fast
asleep, with her head resting against the jarring panel.
Purcell, too, dozed off, and dreamed that he was in his own cozy room at
Castle Brand; and only awoke with the banging of a door ringing in his
ears and the soft hand of his mistress clutching his arm.
The train was gliding on again, but it had paused one minute at a little
country station, and a man had entered.
He was muffled in a huge fur coat, and seated himself near Margaret,
with a grunt of satisfaction that he had a whole seat to extend his legs
upon.
Margaret regarded him keenly, and he returned her gaze with stolid
indifference. Purcell growled out his disapprobation of the new-comer's
placing his clumsy foot against his mistress' long dress, and the man
serenely changed his position, wound a scarlet muffler about his
copper-colored throat, and settled himself for a nap.
He was a tall, stout man, with a heavy jaw, coarse lips turned doggedly
down at the corners, and piercing steel-blue eyes; his face was red and
his hands were large and brown; but stupid, dull, and sleepy, he seemed
unworthy of a second thought; and Margaret sank into a deep reverie and
forgot him.
On they glided; through dim villages, amid bare-branched wealds, and
over creeping rivers, which shone like misty mirrors in the faint
starlight, resting from time to time, for a few minutes, at the country
stations.
Other cars emptied and were filled again with fresh travelers; other
compartments changed their occupants from seat to seat, but the trio sat
still in this, and whiled away the time silently.
Then the train entered upon an hour's stretch of country, which it must
traverse without pausing.
The man in the fur coat, weary of steadying his drowsy head against the
corner of his seat, sat upright and drew a newspaper from his pocket.
Falling asleep over that, he produced a silver snuff-box, and refreshed
himself with a generous pinch; then he looked meditatively at the old
steward nodding comfortlessly before him, and proffered him the
snuff-box; but looking into it, he discovered that it was about empty.
This appeared to afford him peculiar gratification, for he smiled to
himself as he drew a paper parcel from his pocket, and proceeded to fill
the snuff-box with its fragrant contents.
Idly Margaret watched him thrusting the diminished parcel back into the
breast-pocket, and waking Purcell up by a vigorous poke, in order to
offer him the replenished snuff-box.
The old man's eyes brightened, he uttered a heartfelt "I thank you
kindly, sir," and inhaled a huge pinch, handing back the box with a
courtly bow.
Then, sneezing with much fervor and wiping his eyes, Purcell vowed that
he couldn't remember the day when snuff had smelt so queer; at which the
man in the fur coat roared with laughter and boasted that his was the
best; and presently Purcell's head sank down on his breast, and he took
no further notice of his _vis-a-vis_.
Margaret drew out her handkerchief and covered her face with it, for a
faint, sickening, drowsy odor was exhaling from Purcell's nostrils, and
stealing her breath away.
She next tried her smelling-salts, and requested Purcell to open the
window on his side: but he, taking no heed, she shook his arm, and, at
last, gazed into his face.