Fenton's Quest - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (snow like ashes series TXT) 📗

himself there quietly, looked intently at the altered face, which stared at him without a gleam of recognition.

"Speak to me, John Saltram," he said. "You know me, don't you--the man who was once your friend, Gilbert Fenton?"

The other burst into a wild bitter laugh. "Gilbert Fenton--my friend, the man who trusts me still! Poor old Gilbert! and I fancied that I loved him, that I would have freely sacrificed my own happiness for his."

"And yet you betrayed him," Gilbert said in a low distinct voice. "But that may be forgiven, if you have been guilty of no deeper wrong than that. John Saltram, as you have a soul to be saved, what have you done with Marian--with--your wife?"

It cost him something, even in that moment of excitement, to pronounce those two words.

"Killed her!" the sick man answered with the same mad laugh. "She was too good for me, you see; and I grew weary of her calm beauty, and I sickened of her tranquil goodness. First I sacrificed honour, friendship, everything to win her; and then I got tired of my prize. It is my nature, I suppose; but I loved her all the time; she had twined herself about my heart somehow. I knew it when she was lost."

"What have you done with her?" repeated Gilbert, in a low stern voice, with his grasp upon John Saltram's arm.

"What have I done with her? I forget. She is gone--I wanted my freedom; I felt myself fettered, a ruined man. She is gone; and I am free, free to make a better marriage."

"O God!" muttered Gilbert, "is this man the blackest villain that ever cumbered the earth? What am I to think, what am I to believe?"

Again he repeated the same question, with a stem kind of patience, as if he would give this guilty wretch the benefit of every possible doubt, the unwilling pity which his condition demanded. Alas! he could obtain no coherent answer to his persistent questioning. Vague self-accusation, mad reiteration of that one fact of his loss; nothing more distinct came from those fevered lips, nor did one look of recognition flash into those bloodshot eyes.

The time at which this mystery was to be solved had not come yet; there was nothing to be done but to wait, and Gilbert waited with a sublime patience through all the alternations of a long and wearisome sickness.

"Talk of friends," Mrs. Pratt exclaimed, in a private conference with the nurse; "never did I see such a friend as Mr. Fenting, sacrificing of himself as he do, day and night, to look after that poor creature in there, and taking no better rest than he can get on that old horsehair sofy, which brickbats or knife boards isn't harder, and never do you hear him murmur."

And yet for this man, whose, battle with the grim enemy, Death, he watched so patiently, what feeling could there be in Gilbert Fenton's heart in all the days to come but hatred or contempt? He had loved him so well, and trusted him so completely, and this was the end of it.

Christmas came while John Saltram was lying at death's door, feebly fighting that awful battle, struggling unconsciously with the bony hand that was trying to drag him across that fatal threshold; just able to keep himself on this side of that dread portal beyond which there lies so deep a mystery, so profound a darkness. Christmas came; and there were bells ringing, and festive gatherings here and there about the great dreary town, and Gilbert Fenton was besieged by friendly invitations from Mrs. Lister, remonstrating with him for his want of common affection in preferring to spend that season among his London friends rather than in the bosom of his family.

Gilbert wrote: to his sister telling her that he had particular business which detained him in town. But had it been otherwise, had he not been bound prisoner to John Saltram's sick-room, he would scarcely have cared to take his part in the conventional feastings and commonplace jovialities of Lidford House. Had he not dreamed of a bright home which was to be his at this time, a home beautified by the presence of the woman he loved? Ah, what delight to have welcomed the sacred day in the holy quiet of such a home, they two alone together, with all the world shut out!


CHAPTER XXXI.


ELLEN CARLEY'S TRIALS.

Christmas came in the old farm-house near Crosber; and Ellen Carley, who had no idea of making any troubled thoughts of her own an excuse for neglect of her household duties, made the sombre panelled rooms bright with holly and ivy, laurel and fir, and busied herself briskly in the confection of such pies and puddings as Hampshire considered necessary to the due honour of that pious festival. There were not many people to see the greenery and bright holly-berries which embellished the grave old rooms, not many whom Ellen very much cared for to taste the pies and puddings; but duty must be done, and the bailiff's daughter did her work with a steady industry which knew no wavering.

Her life had been a hard one of late, very lonely since Mrs. Holbrook's disappearance, and haunted with a presence which was most hateful to her. Stephen Whitelaw had taken to coming to the Grange much oftener than of old. There was seldom an evening now on which his insignificant figure was not to be seen planted by the hearth in the snug little oak-parlour, smoking his pipe in that dull silent way of his, which was calculated to aggravate a lively person like Ellen Carley into some open expression of disgust or dislike. Of late, too, his attentions had been of a more pronounced character; he took to dropping sly hints of his pretensions, and it was impossible for Ellen any longer to doubt that he wanted her to be his wife. More than this, there was a tone of assurance about the man, quiet as he was, which exasperated Miss Carley beyond all measure. He had the air of being certain of success, and on more than one occasion spoke of the day when Ellen would be mistress of Wyncomb Farm.

On his repetition of this offensive speech one evening, the girl took him up sharply:--

"Not quite so fast, if you please, Mr. Whitelaw," she said; "it takes two to make a bargain of that kind, just the same as it takes two to quarrel. There's many curious changes may come in a person's life, no doubt, and folks never know what's going to happen to them; but whatever changes may come upon me, _that_ isn't one of them. I may live to see the inside of the workhouse, perhaps, when I'm too old for service; but I shall never sleep under the roof of Wyncomb Farmhouse."

Mr. Whitelaw gave a spiteful little laugh.

"What a spirited one she is, ain't she, now?" he said with a sneer. "O, you won't, won't you, my lass; you turn up that pretty little nose of yours--it do turn up a bit of itself, don't it, though?--at Wyncomb Farm and Stephen Whitelaw; your father tells a different story, Nell."

"Then my father tells a lying story," answered the girl, blushing crimson with indignation; "and it isn't for want o' knowing the truth. He knows that, if it was put upon me to choose between your house and the union, I'd go to the union--and with a light heart too, to be free of you. I didn't want to be rude, Mr. Whitelaw; for you've been civil-spoken enough to me, and I daresay you're a good friend to my father; but I can't help speaking the truth, and you've brought it on yourself with your nonsense."

"She's got a devil of a tongue of her own, you see, Whitelaw," said the bailiff, with a savage glance at his daughter; "but she don't mean above a quarter what she says--and when her time comes, she'll do as she's bid, or she's no child of mine."

"O, I forgive her," replied Mr. Whitelaw, with a placid air of superiority; "I'm not the man to bear malice against a pretty woman, and to my mind a pretty woman looks all the prettier when she's in a passion. I'm not in a hurry, you see, Carley; I can bide my time; but I shall never take a mistress to Wyncomb unless I can take the one I like."

After this particular evening, Mr. Whitelaw's presence seemed more than ever disagreeable to poor Ellen. He had the air of her fate somehow, sitting rooted to the hearth night after night, and she grew to regard him with a half superstitious horror, as if he possessed some occult power over her, and could bend her to his wishes in spite of herself. The very quietude of the man became appalling to her. Such a man seemed capable of accomplishing anything by the mere force of persistence, by the negative power that lay in his silent nature.

"I suppose he means to sit in that room night after night, smoking his pipe and staring with those pale stupid eyes of his, till I change my mind and promise to marry him," Ellen said to herself, as she meditated angrily on the annoyance of Mr. Whitelaw's courtship. "He may sit there till his hair turns gray--if ever such red hair does turn to anything better than itself--and he'll find no change in me. I wish Frank were here to keep up my courage. I think if he were to ask me to run away with him, I should be tempted to say yes, at the risk of bringing ruin upon both of us; anything to escape out of the power of that man. But come what may, I won't endure it much longer. I'll run away to service soon after Christmas, and father will only have himself to thank for the loss of me."

It was Mr. Whitelaw who appeared as principal guest at the Grange on Christmas-day; Mr. Whitelaw, supported on this occasion by a widowed cousin of his who had kept house for him for some years, and who bore a strong family likeness to him both in person and manner, and Ellen Carley thought that it was impossible for the world to contain a more disagreeable pair. These were the guests who consumed great quantities of Ellen's pies and puddings, and who sat under her festal garlands of holly and laurel. She had been especially careful to hang no scrap of mistletoe, which might have afforded Mr. Whitelaw an excuse for a practical display of his gallantry; a fact which did not escape the playful observation of his cousin, Mrs. Tadman.

"Young ladies don't often forget to put up a bit of mistletoe," said this matron, "when there's a chance of them they like being by;" and she glanced in a meaning way from Ellen to the master of Wyncomb Farm.

"Miss Carley isn't like the generality of young ladies," Mr. Whitelaw answered with a glum look, and his kinswoman was fain to drop the subject.

Alone with Ellen, sly Mrs. Tadman took occasion to launch out into enthusiastic praises of her cousin; to which the girl listened in profound silence, closely watched all the time by the woman's sharp gray eyes. And then by degrees her tone changed ever so little, and she owned that her kinsman was not altogether faultless; indeed it was curious to perceive what numerous shortcomings were coexistent with those shining merits of his.

"He has been a good friend to me," continued the matron; "that