“Well, you won’t let me,” said John Gurdon. “I didn’t see it all; but them two nearly come to a fight, when Miss Lee jumped forward and held Mr. Norton, and master carried her ladyship—you mustn’t say ‘young missus’ now—on to the Rectory. Regular row and confusion, you know. I do wish they’d be off. All the company’s gone; and there’s that beautiful breakfast going a-begging, and all because two people want the same woman. Just as if there weren’t plenty of women in the world ready to jump at a husband! I never see such fools!”
“Didn’t you, Mr. Greatgrand?” exclaimed Jane, firing up. “You’re a nasty, unfeeling good-for-nothing—there! You’re worse than that Mr. Norton himself, shamming dead all these years on purpose to come back and break that poor dear angel’s heart. There, it’s no use; I hate you! that I do; and if I’m to sit in that rumble with you, hour after hour, I shall be ill, that I shall, so now. Keep your hands to yourself, for I have done with you quite. There, go and answer that bell.”
Jane flounced out of the kitchen, and John Gurdon, who was at the Rectory, to help wait at the wedding-breakfast, hurried into the hall, for there had come the loud ringing of a bell, succeeded by a clamour of voices.
“I tell you I will see her!” exclaimed Philip Norton, angrily, as he stood in the hall, with Ada clinging to his arm.
“Come in here, pray!—for Heaven’s sake, come in here, Norton,” cried the Rector, opening the drawing-room door. “This is not seemly—we are all grieved; but do not insult my child.”
“Insult, old man!” exclaimed Norton angrily, as he followed him into the room; and then he uttered a cry of rage, for, unwittingly, the Rector had asked him into the very room where, angry and mortified, his newly-wedded wife up-stairs with her mother, Sir Murray Gernon was striding up and down.
In a moment the young men had each other by the throat, and stood glaring into each other’s eyes, heedless that Ada and the Rector clung to first one and then the other, in a vain attempt to separate them.
“Murray! for my child’s sake!” exclaimed the Rector.
“Philip! oh, for Heaven’s sake, stop this madness!” whispered Ada.
Sir Murray Gernon cooled down in an instant, though still retaining his grasp.
“I am quite calm, Mr. Elstree,” he said; “but this man must leave the house at once.”
“Calm!” shouted Philip Norton, mad almost with rage. “Thief! robber! you have stolen her from me. She is mine—my wife—sworn to be mine; and you, amongst you, have made her false to her vows.”
“Mr. Norton,” said Sir Murray, “are you a gentleman?”
“How dare you—you dog—ask me that?”
“Leave this house, then; and I will meet you at any future time, should you, in your cooler moments, wish it. I did intend to leave for the Continent this afternoon; but I will stay. I pity you—upon my soul, I do—but you must know that no one is to blame. You are, or ought to be, aware that the Gazette published your death nearly four years ago, and that you have been truly mourned for. No one has been faithless, but your memory has been respected as well as cherished. You have come in a strange and mad way; but we are ready to overlook all that, as due to the excitement and bitterness of your feelings. I now ask you, as a gentleman, for the sake of her parents, for your own sake—for the sake of my wife—to leave here quietly, and to try to look calmly upon the present state of affairs. I have done.”
As Sir Murray ceased speaking he suffered his hand to fall from Norton’s throat, and stood calmly facing him, gazing into the other’s fierce, wild eyes unblenched, while, as if the calm words of reason had forced themselves to his heart, he, too, allowed his hands to fall, and as the fierce rage seemed to fade out of his countenance, a strange shiver passed through his frame, and he looked in a pitiful, pleading way from face to face, as if seeking comfort, before speaking, in a cracked, hollow voice:
“Too late!—too late! But no, not yet! You,” he exclaimed, turning to Sir Murray, “you will be generous. You will waive this claim. See here!” he cried excitedly, as with outstretched hands he pleaded to the husband: “I was cut down, as you know, in hard fight, and I woke to find myself a prisoner amongst the hill tribes; and ever since, for what has seemed a life-time, I have been held a slave, a captive—beaten, starved, ill-used in every conceivable way; but look here!” he cried, tearing from his breast a little leather purse, and opening it. “See here!” he cried, taking out a few dry flower-stalks: “her flowers, given me when, young and ardent, we plighted troth—forget-me-nots; true blue—and we swore to live one for the other. Man! man! those few withered blossoms have been life to me when, cut and bruised, I could have gladly lain down beneath the hot Indian sun and gasped out my last breath. I believe my captors tried to kill me with ill-usage; but I said I would not die—I would live to look once more upon her face, even though it were to breathe my last at her feet. And now—now, after hardships that would make your blood run cold, I escape, and reach home, what do I find? Her, worse than dead—worse than dead! But no! it cannot be so. You, sir—I ask you humbly—I ask you as a supplicant—forgive my mad words, and tell me that you waive your claim. You will be generous towards us; the law will do the rest. You, sir,” he cried, turning to the Rector, “plead with me. I am no beggar. I come back to find myself rich. Help me, for poor Marion’s sake! Do not condemn her to a life that must be only such a captivity as mine! Am I right? You will both be generous, and this horrid dream of despair is at an end!”
He advanced a step nearer to Sir Murray; but the latter turned from him.
“Speak to him, sir,” he said to the Rector. “It will be better that I should go.”
Sir Murray’s head was bent as he left the room, not daring to trust himself to gaze again upon the wild, appealing face turned towards him; while, as the door closed, Philip Norton turned to the Rector, who, poor man, stood wringing his hands, hardly knowing what to do or say. But the next moment, with a groan of despair, Philip Norton let his head drop upon his breast, for he read his sentence in the old man’s eyes. But again, with an effort, he roused himself, and caught Ada’s hands in his, sending a wild thrill through the poor girl’s frame, as she averted her head, and listened, with beating heart, to his words.
“You turn from me too,” he said, bitterly; and he did not retract his words, though Ada started as if stung, and met his gaze, her face breathing, in every lineament, love and sympathy, though he could not read it then. “You know, young as you were then, how I loved her. Plead for me. Ask her to come to me, if but for a minute. But, no—no—no!” he cried, despairingly, “it is too late! I thought to have gained heaven, and the door is shut in my face. Too late—too late!” and then, with the same hopeless, groping, half-blind look in his countenance, he reeled towards the door, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, but, mad with grief, striving blindly to leave the house, his hopes crushed, his life seeming blotted out by the blackness of despair. He passed into the hall, and there stood for a minute; but only to mutter to himself: “Weak—weak—broken—too late!”
There was no one in the hall, and he passed out on to the lawn, making his way towards the little wicket-gate which led into the churchyard, and, passing through, he stumbled over grave after grave, till unseen, with a deep groan, he fell heavily, to lie, with his face buried in his hands, weeping like a child, the strength of his nature crushed out of him by the terrible blow he had received, and for hours after he heard, felt, saw, nothing external.
Meanwhile, struggling hard with herself, Ada Lee had watched Philip as he staggered from the room, the tears welling down her cheeks, and a strange, wild feeling mingled with the compassion she felt for his sufferings. It was only by a violent effort that she restrained herself from running to his side, as she saw his blind, hopeless exit; but, as she heard the door close, the place seemed to swim round, and then, overcome by the excitement of the past hour, she threw out her hands and would have fallen, had not her uncle caught her in his arms.
Two