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Chapter Thirty Three

For some moments neither spoke.

“Was this your doing?” cried Leigh, at last, and he turned upon his sister angrily.

At that moment Jenny was lying back, trembling and agitated, with her eyes half closed, but her brother’s words stung her into action.

“You heard what Mr Claud Wilton said,” she retorted, angrily. “How dare you speak to me like this, Pierce, knowing what you do?”

He uttered an impatient ejaculation.

“Yes, that is how you treat me now,” she said, piteously; “your troubles have made you doubting and suspicious. Have I not suffered enough without you turning cruel to me again?”

“How can you expect me to behave differently when I find you encouraging that cad here? It is all the result of the way in which you forgot your self-respect and what was due to me.”

“That’s cruel again, Pierce. You know why I acted as I did.”

“Pah!” he exclaimed; “and now I find you encouraging the fellow.”

“I was as much taken by surprise as you were, dear,” she said.

“And to use the fellow’s words, do you think I am blind? It was plain enough to see that you were pleased that he came.”

“I was not,” she cried, angrily now. “I tell you I was quite taken by surprise. I was horrified and frightened, and I was glad when I saw you coming, for I wanted you to punish him for daring to come.”

Leigh looked at his sister in anger and disgust.

“If I can read a woman’s countenance,” he said, mockingly, “you were gratified by every word he said to me.”

“I don’t know – I can’t tell how it was,” she faltered with her pale cheeks beginning to flame again, “but I’m afraid I was pleased, dear.”

“I thought so,” he cried, mockingly.

“I couldn’t help liking the manly, brave way in which he spoke up. It sounded so true.”

“Yes, very. Brave words such as he has said in a dozen silly girls’ ears. And he told you before I came that he loved you?”

“Yes, dear.”

“And you told him that his ardent passion was returned,” he sneered.

“I did not. I could have told him I hated him, but I could not help feeling sorry, for I have behaved very badly, flirting with him as I did.”

“And pity is near akin to love, Jenny,” cried Leigh, with a harsh laugh, “and very soon I may have the opportunity of welcoming this uncouth oaf for a brother-in-law, I suppose. Oh, what weak, pitiful creatures women are! People cannot write worse of them than they prove.”

Jenny was silent, but she looked her brother bravely in the face till his brows knit with anger and self-reproach.

“What do you mean by that?” he cried, angrily.

“I was only thinking of the reason why you speak so bitterly, Pierce.”

“Pish!” he exclaimed; and there was another silence.

“Mrs Wilton came this afternoon and brought me a chicken and some wine and grapes,” said Jenny, at last.

“Like her insolence. Send them back.”

“No. She was very kind and nice, Pierce. She was full of self-reproach for the way in which poor Kate Wilton was treated.”

“Bah! What is that to us?”

“A great deal, dear. She is half broken-hearted about it, and says it was all the Squire’s doing, and that she was obliged. He wished his son to marry Kate.”

“The old villain!”

“And she says that poor Kate is lying drowned in the lake.”

Leigh started violently, and his eyes looked wild with horror, but it was a mere flash.

“Pish!” he ejaculated, “a silly woman’s fancy. The ladder at the window contradicted that. It was an elopement and that scoundrel who was here just now was somehow at the bottom of it. He helped.”

“No,” said Jenny, quietly, “he was not, I am sure. There is some mystery there that you ought to probe to the bottom.”

“That will do,” he said, sharply, and she noticed that there was a peculiar startled look in her brother’s eyes. “Now listen to me. You will pack up your things. Begin to-night. Everything must be ready by mid-day to-morrow.”

“Yes, dear,” she said, meekly. “Are you going to send me away?”

“No, I am going to take you away. I cannot bear this life any longer.”

“Then we leave here?”

“Yes, at once.”

“Have you sold the place?”

“Bah! Who could buy it?”

“But your patients, Pierce?”

“There is another man within two miles. There, don’t talk to me.”

“Won’t you confide in me, Pierce?” said Jenny, quickly. “I can’t believe that we are going because of what has just happened. You must have heard some news.”

He frowned, and was silent.

“Very well, dear,” she said, meekly. “I am glad we are going, for I believe you will try and trace out poor Kate.”

“A fly will be here at mid-day,” he said, without appearing to hear her words, and her eyes flashed, for all told her that she was right and that the sudden departure was not due to the encounter with Claud. But that meeting had sealed his lips in anger, just when he had reached home full of eagerness to confide in his sister that he had at last obtained a slight clew to Kate’s whereabouts.

For he had been summoned to the village inn to attend a fly-driver, who had been kicked by his horse. The man was a stranger, and the injury was so slight that he was able to drive himself back to his place, miles away. But in the course of conversation, while his leg was being dressed, he had told the Doctor that he once had a curious fare in that village, and he detailed Garstang’s proceedings, ending by asking Leigh if he knew who the lady was.

Chapter Thirty Four

“Here! Hi! Hold hard!”

Pierce Leigh paid no heed to the hails which reached his ears as he was crossing Bedford Square one morning; but he stopped short and turned angrily when a hand was laid heavily upon his shoulder, to find himself face to face with Claud Wilton, who stood holding out his hand.

“I saw you staring up at Uncle Robert’s old house, but it’s of no use to look there.”

“What do you mean, sir?” said Leigh sternly.

“Get out! You know. Well, aren’t you going to shake hands?”

There was something so frank and open in the young man’s look and manner that Leigh involuntarily raised his hand, and before a flash of recollection could telegraph his second intent it was seized and wrung, vigorously.

“That’s better, Doctor,” cried Claud. “How are you?”

“Oh, very well,” said Pierce shortly.

“Well, you don’t look it. No, no, don’t give a fellow the cold shoulder like that. I say, I came ever so long ago and called on the new people here, for I thought perhaps she might have been to her old home, but it was only a fancy. No go; she hadn’t been there.”

“You will excuse me, Mr Wilton,” said Pierce, coldly; “I am busy this morning – a patient. I wish you good day.”

“No, you don’t. I’ve had trouble enough to find you, so no cold shoulder, please. It’s no good, for I won’t lose sight of you now. I say: it was mean to cut away from Northwood like you did.”

“Will you have the goodness to point out which road you mean to take, Mr Wilton,” said Leigh, wrathfully, “and then I can choose another?”

“No need, Doctor; your road’s my road, and I’ll stick to you like a ‘tec’.”

Leigh’s eyes literally flashed.

“There, it’s of no use for you to be waxy, Doctor, because it won’t do a bit of good. I’ve got a scent like one of my retrievers; and I’ve run you down at last.”

“Am I to understand then, sir, that you intend to watch me?” said Leigh, sternly.

“That’s it. Of course I do. I’ve been at it ever since you left the old place. When I make up my mind to a thing I keep to it – stubborn as pollard oak.”

“Indeed,” said Leigh, sarcastically; “and now you have found me, pray what do you want?”

“Jenny!” said Claud, with the pollard oak simile in voice and look.

“Confound your insolence, sir!” cried Leigh, fiercely. “How dare you speak of my sister like that?”

“’Cause I love her, Doctor, like a man,” and there was a slight quiver in the speaker’s voice; but his face was hard and set, and when he spoke next his words sounded firm and stubborn enough. “I told her so, and I told you so; and whether she’ll have me some day, or whether she won’t, it’s all the same, I’ll never give her up. She’s got me fast.”

In spite of his anger, Leigh could not help feeling amused, and Claud saw the slight softening in his features, and said quickly: “I say, tell me how she is.”

“My sister’s health is nothing to you, sir, and I wish you good morning.”

He strode on, but Claud took step for step with him, in spite of his anger.

“It’s of no use, Doctor, and you can’t assault me here in London. I shall find out where you live, so you may just as well be civil. Tell me how she is.”

Leigh made no reply, but walked faster.

“Her health nothing to me,” said Claud, in a low, quick way. “You don’t know; and I shan’t tell you, because you wouldn’t believe, and would laugh at me. I say, how would you like it if someone treated you like this about Kate?”

“Silence, sir! How dare you!” thundered Leigh, facing round sharply and stopping short.

“Don’t shout, Doctor; it will make people think we’re rowing, and collect a crowd. But I say, that was a good shot; had you there. Haven’t found her yet, then?”

“My good fellow, will you go your way, and let me go mine?”

“In plain English, Doctor, no, I won’t; and if you knock me down I’ll get up again, put my hands in my pockets, and follow you wherever you go. I shan’t hit out again, though I am in better training and can use my fists quicker than, you can, and I’ve got the pluck, too, as I could show you. Do just what you like, call me names or hit me, but I shan’t never forget you’re Jenny’s brother. Now, I say, don’t be a brute to a poor fellow. It ain’t so much of a sin to love the prettiest, dearest, little girl that ever breathed.”

“Will you be silent?”

“Oh, yes, if you’ll talk to a fellow. You might be a bit more feeling, seeing you’re in the same boat.”

“You insufferable cad!” cried Leigh, furiously.

“Yes, that’s it. Quite right – cad; that’s what I am, but I’m trying to polish it off, Doctor. I say, tell me how she is. She was so bad.”

“My sister has quite recovered.”

“Hooray!” cried Claud, excitedly. “But, I say – the ankle. How is it?”

“Look here, my good fellow, you must go. I will not answer your questions. Are you mad or an idiot?”

“Both,” said Claud, coolly. “I say, you know, about that ankle. I believe you were so savage that night that you kicked it and broke it.”

“What!” cried Leigh, excitedly. “My good fellow, what do you take me for?”

“Her brother, with an awful temper. Her father would not treat me like you do, if he was alive. It was a cowardly, cruel act for a man to do.”

“You are quite mistaken, sir,” said Leigh, coldly, as he wondered to himself that he should be drawn out like this. “My sister was unfortunate enough to sprain her ankle.”

“Glad of it,” said Claud, bluntly. “I was afraid it was your doing, and whenever I see you it sets my monkey up and makes me want to kick you. Well, you’ve told me how she is, and that’s some pay for all my hunting about in town. I say, there’s another chap down at Northwood stepped into your shoes already. The mater has had him in for the guv’nor’s gout. He caught a cold up here with the hunting for Kate. It turned to gout, and I’ve had all the hunting to do. Now you and I will join hands and run her down.”

Leigh made an angry gesture, which was easy enough to interpret – “How am I to get rid of this insolent cad?”

Claud laughed.

“You can’t do it,” he said. “I say, Doctor, sink the pride, and all that sort of thing. It’s of no use to refuse help from a fellow you don’t like, if he’s in earnest and means well. Now, just look here. ’Pon my soul, it’s the truth. Kate Wilton has got a hundred and fifty thou., and your sister hasn’t got a penny. I’m not such a fool as you think, for I can read you like a book. You were gone on Cousin Kate long before you were asked to our house, and you’d give your life to find her; and, mind, I don’t believe it’s for the sake of her money. Well, I’m doing all I can to find her, and have been ever since you came away. Why? I’ll tell you. Because it will please little Jenny, who about worships you, though you don’t deserve it. And I tell you this, Doctor: if I had found her I’d have come and told you straight – if I could have found you, for Jenny’s sake.”

Leigh looked at him fixedly, trying hard to read the young man’s face, but there was no flinching, no quivering of eyelid, or twitch about the lips. Claud gazed at him with a straightforward, dogged look which carried with it conviction.

“Look here,” sud Claud, “I haven’t found out where she is.”

“Indeed?” said Leigh, guardedly.

“But I’ve found out one thing.”

With all the young doctor’s mastery of self, he could not help an inquiring glance.

Claud saw it, and smiled.

“She did not go off with Harry Dasent I found out that.”

Leigh remained silent.

“Ara now look here. I’ve gone over it all scores of times, trying to think out where she can be, and that there’s some relation or friend she bolted off to so as to get away from us, but I can’t fix it on anyone, and go where I will, from our cousins the Morrisons down to old Garstang – who’s got the guv’nor under has thumb, and could sell us up to-morrow if he liked – I can’t get at it. But the scent seems to be most toward old Garstang, and I mean to try back there. The guv’nor said it was his doing, to help Harry Dasent, but that’s all wrong. Those two hate one another like poison, and I can’t make out any reason which would set Garstang to work to get her away. He’d do it like a shot to get her money, but he can’t touch that, for I’ve read the will again. Nobody but her husband can get hold of that bit of booty, and I wish you may get it. I do, ’pon my soul. Still, I’m growing to think more and more that foxy Garstang’s the man.”

They had been walking steadily along side by side while this conversation was going on, and at last, fully convinced that Claud would not be shaken off, and even if he were would still watch him, Leigh walked straight on to his new home, and stopped short at a door whereon was a new brass plate, while the customary red bull’s-eyes were in the lamp like danger signals to avert death and disease – the accidents of life’s great railway.

“Now, Mr Wilton,” he said, shortly, “you have achieved your purpose and tracked me home.”

“And no thanks to you,” said Claud, with one of his broad grins. “Won’t ask me in, I suppose?”

“No, sir, I shall not.”

“All right I didn’t expect you would. Of course I should have found you out some time from the directories.”

“My name is not in them, sir.”

“Oh, but it soon would be, Doctor. I say, shall you tell her you have seen me?”

“For cool impudence, Mr Claud Wilton,” said Leigh, by way of answer, “I have never seen your equal.”

“’Tisn’t impudence, Doctor,” said Claud, earnestly; “it’s pluck and bull-dog. I haven’t been much account, and I don’t come up to what you think a fellow should be.”

“You certainly do not,” said Leigh, unable to repress a smile.

“I know that, but I’ve got some stuff in me, after all, and when I take hold I don’t let go.”

He gave Leigh a quick nod, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, walked right on, without looking back, Leigh watching him till he turned a corner, before taking out a latch-key and letting himself into the house.

“The devil does not seem so black as he is painted, after all,” he said, as he wiped his feet, and at the sound Jenny, quite without crutches, came hurrying down the stairs.

“Oh, Pierce, dear, have you been to those people in Bedford Street? They’ve been again twice, and I told them you’d gone.”

“Ugh!” ejaculated Leigh. “What a head I have! Someone met me on the way, and diverted my thoughts. I’ll go at once.”

And he hurried out.

Chapter Thirty Five

It was a splendid grand piano whose tones rang, through the house, and brought poor Becky, with her pale, anaemic, tied-up face, from the lower regions, to stand peering round corners and listening till the final chords of some sonata rang out, when she would dart back into hiding, but only to steal up again as slowly and cautiously as a serpent, and thrust out her head from the gloom which hung forever upon the kitchen stairs, when Kate’s low, sweet voice was heard singing some sad old ballad, a favourite of her father’s, one which brought up the happy past, and ended often enough in the tears dropping silently upon the ivory keys.

Such a song will sometimes draw tears from many a listener; the melody, the words, recollections evoked, the expression given by the singer, all have their effect; and perhaps it was a memory of the baker (or milkman) which floated into poor, timid, shrinking Becky, for almost invariably she melted into tears.

“She says it’s like being in heaven, ma’am,” said Sarah Plant, giving voice upstairs to her child’s strained ideas of happiness. “And really the place don’t seem like the same, for, God bless you! you have made us all so happy here.”

Kate sighed, for she did not share the happy feeling. There were times when her lot seemed too hard to bear. Garstang was kindness itself; he seemed to be constantly striving to make her content. Books, music, papers, fruit, and flowers – violets constantly as soon as he saw the brightening of her eyes whenever he brought her a bunch. Almost every expressed wish was gratified. But there was that intense longing for communion with others. If she could only have written to poor, amiable, faithful Eliza or to Jenny Leigh, she would have borne her imprisonment better; but she had religiously studied her new guardian’s wishes upon that point, yielding to his advice whenever he reiterated the dangers which would beset their path if James Wilton discovered where she was.

“As it is, my dear child,” he would say again and again, “it is sanctuary; and I’m on thorns whenever I am absent, for fear you should be tempted by the bright sunshine out of the gloom of this dull house, be seen by one or other of James Wilton’s emissaries, and I return to find the cage I have tried so hard to gild, empty – the bird taken away to another kind of captivity, one which surely would not be so easy to bear.”

“No, no, no; I could not bear it!” she cried, wildly. “I do not murmur. I will not complain, guardian; but there are times when I would give anything to be out somewhere in the bright open air, with the beautiful blue sky overhead, the soft grass beneath my feet, and the birds singing in my ears.”

“Yes, yes, I know, my poor dear child,” he said, tenderly. “It is cruelly hard upon you, but what can I do? I am waiting and hoping that James Wilton on finding his helplessness will become more open to making some kind of reasonable terms. I am sure you would be willing to meet him.”

“To meet him again? Oh, no, I could not. The thought is horrible,” she cried. “He seems to have broken faith so, after all his promises to my dying father.”

“He has,” said Garstang, solemnly; “but you misunderstand me; I did not mean personally meet him, but in terms, which would be paying so much money – in other words, buying your freedom.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” she cried, wildly, “at any cost. It is as you said one evening, guardian; I am cursed by a fortune.”

“Cursed indeed, my dear. But there, try and be hopeful and patient, and we will have more walks of an evening. Only to think of it, our having to steal out at night like two thieves, for a dark walk in Russell Square sometimes. I don’t wonder that the police used to watch us.”

“If I could only write a few letters, guardian!”

“Yes, my dear, if you only could. I cannot say to you, do not, only lay the case before you once again.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” she said, hastily wiping away a few tears. “I am very, very foolish and ungrateful; but now that’s all over, and I am going to be patient, and wait for freedom. I am far better off than many who are chained to a sick bed.”

“No,” he said, gently, shaking his head at her; “far worse off. Sickness brings a dull lassitude and indifference to external things. The calm rest of the bedroom is welcome, and the chamber itself the patient’s little world. You, my dear, are in the full tide of life and youth, with all its aspirations, and must suffer there, more. But there; I am working like a slave to settle a lot of business going through the courts; and as soon as I can get it over we will take flight somewhere abroad, away from the gilded cage, out to the mountains and forests, where you can tire me out with your desires to be in the open air.”

“I – I don’t think I wish to leave England,” she said, hesitatingly, and with the earnest far-off look in her eyes that he had seen before.

“Well, well, we will find some secluded place by the lakes, where we are not likely to be found out, and where the birds will sing to you. And, here’s a happy thought, Kate, my child – you shall have some fellow prisoners.”

“Companions?” she said, eagerly.

“Yes, companions,” he replied, with a smile; “but I meant birds – canaries, larks – what do you say to doves? They make charming pets.”

“No, no,” she said, hastily; “don’t do that, Mr Garstang. One prisoner is enough.”

He bowed his head.

“You have only to express your wishes, my child,” he said. – “Then you are going to try and drive away the clouds?”

“Oh, yes, I am going to be quite patient,” she said, smiling at him; and she placed her hands in his.

“Thank you,” he said, gently; and for the first time he drew her nearer to him, and bent down to kiss her forehead – the slightest touch – and then dropped her hands, to turn away with a sigh.

And the days wore on, with the prisoner fighting hard with self, to be contented with her lot. She practiced hard at the piano, and studied up the crabbed Gothic letters of the German works in one of the cases. Now and then, too, she sang about the great, gloomy house, but mostly to stop hurriedly on finding that she had listeners, attracted from the lower regions.

But try how she would to occupy her thoughts, she could not master those which would bring a faint colour to her cheeks. For ever and again the calm, firm countenance of Pierce Leigh would intrude itself, and the colour grew deeper, as she felt that there was something strange in all this, especially when he of whom she thought had never, by word or look, given her cause to think that he cared for her. And yet, in her secret heart, she felt that he did. And what would he think of her? He could not know anything of her proceedings, but little of her reasons for fleeing from her uncle’s care.