One of the Wicked. A novel

Front matter

ONE OF THE WICKED A NOVEL ONE OF THE WICKED A NOVEL BY GODFREY BURCHETT AUTHOR OF "DOMINIC PENTERNE." " Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back When gold and silver becks me to come on." — King John IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II. LONDON WARD AND DOWNEY 12 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. S. Cowan di Co., Printers, Perth. CONTENTS. VOLUME II. Chap. pAGE XXI. AFFINITY, ...... 3 XXII. PEDRO PERSONALLY CONDUCTS EVENTS, . 19 XXIII. FIAT JUSTITIA, ..... 48 XXIV. RUAT CŒLUM, ..... 68

Part II

I. A PORTMANTEAU, ..... 75 II. A MALCONTENT, . . . . . 85 III. FRIENDS OF ORDER, .... 95 IV. THE SERVICES OF MR. BLEEM, . . . I05 V. REST AND RECREATION, . . . . 113 VI. BURGLARIOUS ENTRY, . . . . I23 VII. EMILY CONN, ..... 135 VIII. THE CONSEQUENCES OF CAPUA, . . 143 IX. AN AFFAIR OF OUTPOSTS, . . . . 15S X. THE DECISIVE BATTLE, . . . . 168 XL LOVE LOOKS IN, . . . . . . 195 XII. REQUITED, . . . . . .211 XIII. UNA CARO, . PART \— Continued. VOL. IL A

CHAPTER XXI. AFFINITY.

0>J the following morning Eve, fur-clad and attended by her two little shaggy, warlike terriers, strolled out after breakfast to review her own ideas and those of other people concerning the circumstances which sur rounded Antony's widow. The ground had a frosty ring under her footsteps, the sun struck dazzling, many-hued rays and stars out of the little frozen pools, as out of mirrors, where the water had found no time to slip away into the earth before frost stretched it stiff. Eve was troubled by her thoughts ; she wished to stand face to face with her own discontent and form her estimate of its worth. This discontent had been called up partly by her uncle, partly by the annoying, silent conviction evident in Senley, partly by the caution and diffidence which tempered enthusiasm in Mr. Tack.

Every one about her was prepared to accept whatever decision about Esther might come forth as the result of putting the established machinery of trials in motion. Eve was not willing to accept that. To everyone about her the established machinery was more or less sacred — " fetish," she called it — speaking to Mrs. Muir. To Eve it was no fetish. And her advisers were clearly disposed to take Guilty or Not Guilty, according to the oracle, for an answer, and oppose, passively at least, all attempts to pry into the reasons of the oracle's finding when it had been once declared, or to upset the dictum by rebellious warfare of enquiry. Eve was determined to be content with nothing less than Esther's complete vindication publicly and apologetically set forth, no matter who might be concerned, and for this she felt keen to fight.

She could not bring other people to see that the truth about Esther might be one thing and the verdict, like the one already given, another, and that the difference between the two was worth battling over. So she intended to have a colloquy with the rebellion in her mind while she walked in one of the avenues and to arrive at an understanding with it. To torment her would come sudden pangs of doubt that these wise AFFINITY. 5 people might in uncompromising reality be right. These spasms of mistrust troubled her walk. The only friend thoroughly sympathetic to her mind was her colleague in Esther's defence ; with him she could talk quite freely, for they had a basis of schemes and arguments in common ; it was not necessary to affect a deference for public opinion with Laurence Ayesmere, few things were fetish to him ; rebellion found an echo in his comments, and he would be as severe towards those who would accept contentedly whatever fate might send to Esther as she herself.

It was pleasant to talk to him. Eve prolonged her stroll, weighing pro's and con's and skirmishing in mental satire with various imaginary, estimable folk who had authority and condemned Esther, to the end of the avenue where rose a heavy iron gate betwixt stone pillars. On these squatted heraldic beasts, amazed at their own rampancy and moss-grown. There was no porter's lodge by this gate ; it stood fastened by a chain and heavy padlock and was seldom used. Sometimes, if a tree had been felled within, the prone trunk was conducted through it slowly as a mio-hty man might be drawn from the gates of his fore fathers. At other times its weather-greened repose was unbroken ; to its moral-whispering antiquity the foliage in summer, the bare, fine members of the line of limes in winter formed a harmonious background.

When Eve came up to it the sun was sparkling about all its angles, the creatures of the College of Heralds grinned vauntingly, and once more the extensive claims of oligarch}'- in the last century seemed to be gilded by life and favour. She looked through the bars, a charming, fresh and unexpected product to result from a lengthy process of quick-quarrelling assertion and haughty exclusion of the vulgar. "No getting out," said Eve to her dogs, laughing, " unless we could climb over like trespassing schoolboys. You can't because you aren't tall enough, and I can't because I've rejected the advantages of the divided skirt." She turns, musing again, half confident as to the issue of the conflict to which she is committed, half wearied at the little and hardly-raised faith she gains. A thin nozzle is thrust into her loosely pendant hand.

She finds Ayesmere's deer-hound by her side ; with amicable and encouraging glance and gesture he guides her, disdainful of the tip-toe jealousy of Crock, in the direction that he wishes. She comes upon Ayesmere disputing with Senley where two gravel paths cross each other. AFFINITY. 7 " Really, Mr. Ayesmere ! " says the agent with the frigid, bridling indignation of a cold prudent man. " Bones ! " insists Laurence with absurd emphasis, "bones stewed into broth, a splendid animator of the blood, Mr. Senley. I am surprised you did not know it, you, a mathematician. Let me advise them for you. Now, in friendliness, I assure you that you need them. A man who cultivates method in his life falls into too great a regularity and the circulation becomes sluggish ; his mind sleeps ; the fair provoke it in vain.

Stewed bones in broth stir such a man. Why, he is apt to be offended at the very warnings of his friends ! Believe me, Mr. Senley, method makes us cold, we must be warmed by bones." Senley is preparing a cutting rebuff when Eve joins them. " Miss Wynside," said Ayesmere, " Mr. Senley is vexed with me because I tell him to vivify his method with stewed bones." Senley looks all the things he does not say. He mentions to Eve some pretext of business and stalks off, self-contained. Eve feels that she ought to be a little vexed with her colleague for harassing him and tries to repress, not with complete success, the merriment that arises in her. She commences to stroll with Laurence towards the house. " I think I ought to fall out with you for deranging Mr. Senley," she begins ; " he is a great friend of mine and he can't bear to be interfered with."

"I like him very much," replies Laurence, "but he must listen to a friendly word for his own benefit patiently, since he is a self-controlled philosopher. I have been telling him he congeals his disposition with regularity. Somebody should warn him that the flowers of his heart cannot blossom under his own scornful eye. Its frostiness nips them." He adds meditatively, " Sometimes I have thought Miss Toyse ham might admire his excellence. She must not do so in vain." Eve laughs in spite of herself. The notion of Senley accepting such incense is hopelessly ludicrous. But she ends by repenting of her mockery and says, " Now, Mr. Ayesmere, I will defend him. I shall preserve him from you. It upsets him seriously to be tackled. At breakfast he will push aside his bowl of porridge. I can see his face."

And she laughs again. " If he re collects that somebody has made fun of him he will be quite misanthropic. Mr. Senley always has porridge for breakfast at half-past seven. I wish I didn't laugh about him myself." AFFINITY. 9 " Well, I'll take his place," says Laurence, " I'll gladly be laughed at as long as you will laugh. You see, I'm hardened to it." Then, too wise to venture perceptibly on compliment, he asks about her visit to Esther and its result ; and explains that to hear about it he was calling on her at that time. He thought he ought to hear at once ; to wait till the afternoon might mean a loss of oppor tunities. So she tells him and, expansive to the ear of a fellow-rebel, joins quite a fulness of comment about motives, personal opinions and sentiments to her nar rative. Eve concludes, " I feel quite sure I shall carry her off triumphantly.

But I'm not so sure as to the means. I repine constantly at the thought of her having to go through so much, the trial and the tormenting, and the mass of people who will doubt her and won't keep their mind from listening to only one side. Oh, that troubles me so ! Do you doubt her ? " Omnia vincit amor, even truthfulness. Ayesmere, tempted by her question, tells a deliberate fib. He says that he does not. His conviction has been strong from the first, he pursues gravely, and has remained intact ; he makes a little speech. Then he looks at her with frank, serious eyes, meeting her glance. Laurence has not acquired his experience for nothing. " Oh, that is good, excellent ! " says Eve, delighted. " I shall be able to tell Esther that someone else beside me believed in her throughout. I have wished to do that !

A man's conviction is worth so much more than a woman's. Oh, it would be to her," she adds, answering a gesture of protest on his part, " it would comfort her quite differently. It's held women are apt to be fanciful, and we doubt about it ourselves. But a man's opinion is a sort of dark, fixed current ; they respect it among themselves — " " Sometimes ! " interposes Ayesmere. " I should so like my uncle to know about it," she continues. Then she pauses, " It vexes him when people disagree with him," she adds disappointedly, " I'd better not tell him till afterwards." But she brightens. Eve is in a light-hearted, talkative mood. A turn in their path brings them in plain view of the sea. Away beyond the marshes it lies, palely blue, bounded by a white streak as though the foam were a blade at work severing earth and water.

Yellow sands fringe it hazily around the headlands. The green flats look wind-swept, even at that distance, by the powerful breath that sports forward and backward over them. The village of Abbot's Kirby, midway to the inlet, gathers its roofs sleepily under the drowsy, roosting AFFINITY. 11 tower and little tiled spire of its church ; a grey corner of Pedro's dwelling shows them its tranquil repose far off. The view stands like a dream-picture untroubled by passion, as though the sleeper slept in maidenly in nocence. Eve points to it. " I love that sight," she says, and her eyes linger on it ; then with returning gaiety she asks, " Do you see this stretch of it from your house, Mr. Ayesmere ? " " Yes," he answers, " but I am nearer to the marshes, and they look more sad. About my house and over the levels in front of it the wind moans incorrigibly.

Shall I tell you a fancy of mine about it, a fable it suggests ? The sea is a barbarian ; his spouse, the earth, has turned from him, won to civilization. Out in his wild places and along her thresholds, where he may come, he sighs after her, sings the chant of his race to her, hoping. He moans after her, sends his breath up after her ; one hears his uncouth lament. He wooes her vainly back by savage mourning incessantly. I seem to feel that the sadness of it dwells upon the flats that lie before my home." " I like the fancy," responds Eve, admiring, yet charm ingly critical ; " why don't you write, Mr. Ayesmere ? I'm sure I should like to read anything written by you. You would be true and unsparing, yet fanciful as well." This from Eve means much. The qualifications which she requires in a wielder of the pen are many and rare ; she has the highest opinion of his calling.

Ayesmere laughs. " Now you compliment me," he says, " and I'm flat tered by that because compliment is not all men's meed from you. But I feel that I'm no magician to make ink perform my bidding. I possess some half-dozen fancies, five of them are borrowed, and the sixth acquired by sad experience, and shared by all who pretend to the dignity of having lived. I cannot persistently write those same fancies ; I hate a man whose notions recur again and again like the flashes from a revolving light, the same illumination after the same obscurity. If you would give me some of your imaginings I would write them." " My imaginings at present are all horribly indignant," answers Eve, "but if I wrote I should like to write opinions." "Oh, pray believe I haven't any!" says Ayesmere, " the one crime from which I am entirely free.

I am quite like a child in that. I know when I am hungry and thirsty, but don't attempt to know what is true and what isn't ; sad character ! " "Now, that is dangerous," replies Eve. "Oh, I have opinions." she continues, sighing, " I wish I AFFINITY. 13 hadn't. It's terribly self-sufficient in me, isn't it ? But I can't possibly help it. My descent is partly Scotch, and then it's born in one to be opinionated, and angry sometimes. There are numberless things about which I'm just as convinced and just as stubborn as about Esther. No, I can't help it," she adds, " I make opinions, they come to me at all sorts of odd times, and then I have to submit to them and argue for them." Storan's words about Eve's wilfulness occur to Ayes mere, but Storan is blind to the sweetness of face which passes its own reassuring comment on that wilfulness: " Now," says Ayesmere, " do a charity, Miss Wynside ; give me your opinions !

I will accept them. In sober earnest it would be serviceable to me to have a code." Eve in her turn laughs. " Why, a disciple of mine would be a notorious heretic, and illogical too. He would have a miserable life. Beginning with my uncle, everyone would fall upon him, and he would never have a reason that could stand on its legs to defend him." " He would have the reason of being your disciple," observes Laurence, but he is pleased that she does not mark the words. To display admiration of her would make her shrink sensitively into reticence. The blitheness of the morning, the sparkle of her own fresh life, and the encouragement she has found in his confederacy about Esther, have brought Eve unconsciously to an open talkative mood. Of this Ayesmere intends to take advantage, so as to prolong' his double pleasure in this idle conversation, the pleasure of listen ing to her, and the pleasure of seeing unfolded for him the changino; hues and fancies of her mind.

So he be gins to suggest topics about which he hints that he is doubtful, hesitating as to what he likes or dislikes, thinks, or disbelieves. And Eve, unheeding and buoy ant, discusses this, dismisses that, in lightsome serious ness, with here a momentary frown, and there a little wave of the hand ; not that Eve is self-complacent, but the spirit of the hour calls out such talk from her quite naturally. Besides, as she has said, she is just touched with Caledonian spirit. Ayesmere, one theme at an end, diligently twists a fresh fibre into their dialogue, and they stroll slowly, he warily suggesting points whereon she, with sunny gravity, passes judgment : he comments laughingly, and spins his twine a.fresh. Yet as he listens, his interest progresses from play to earnest : for the likeness between his thoughts and hers is not merely artificial, the manufacture of his predetermined consent, it is real.

He hears with a stirring of delight that moves in some place of his heart not far from the ranges of pain, the speech of a sister-nature ; " kindred consciousness " reveals itself between them, joining them as with a marvellous texture, now airy and shot with AFFINITY. 15 gold, now dark, hardly visible, altogether wonderful and beautiful ; the threads of similarity and contrast are delicately woven into that magical fabric called af finitv. Eve's comrade will not let her flag in converse or reflect on what she does, and she passes forward in her speech, sometimes talking nonsense. They speak of plays. For modern drama and the art of the stage-carpenter Eve shows herself severe. " The women in those plays," she happens to observe, casually explaining her dissatisfaction, " don't do what is right.

And yet they aren't natural ! " At which in genuous outburst Ayesmere smiles unseen. She inter rupts herself to point to some standard roses of which numbers shiver primly and uncomfortably on a stretch of lawn. " My uncle loves them," saj's Eve, " and Mrs. Muir attends upon them on summer mornings like a votary, hovering round with scissors. Sometimes she wears goloshes. The roses make me sad, they seem so out of place, as though one wandered into woodland and found that the civilised master of it had posted trim, cold sentries at measured distances. Roses should cluster on a house." They speak of climate, and Eve invades Italy. She grows enthusiastic, extolling Gari baldi. " Fancy fighting all one's life for liberty," she exclaims. "The very breath of heaven dwelt in him, untainted and unclouded," answers Ayesmere, with con viction.

Eve wanders on and alludes to what has impressed her profoundly: the great Italian's method of choosing a wife. " Not to have known her or ex perimented on her character ! " says she, " to have obeyed his heart ! One must be great to trust Pro vidence like that ! " Ayesmere smiles once more : he would be quite willing to trust Providence. He warns her that authorities of the Primrose League might think her worship of the Liberator indiscreet. They revert to the sea, and Eve talks with childish eagerness about yachting. She cannot go, everyone about her detests the pastime. " But a yacht manned with Englishmen," she tells Ayesmere, " an Englishman fits into the picture of the sea. Oh, I could pick a crew that would look like a living hornpipe ! Ringleted foreigners I almost hate ! " He assents, and Eve drawn through a recollection of Prade's yacht, which he never uses, to a recollection of Esther, begins to grow self-conscious.

Ayesmere puts music before her to lure her back to discursiveness. " Music," he says, " is like the soul of a great master growing up in the world. In Mozart it touches joy so lightly and so lightly flies to sadness, plays about sorrow and hovers over passion, free to come and go like the unchained spirit of a child : in Beethoven the image of its destiny, spiritual and grand, AFFINITY. 17 rises before its youth and the sweep of glorious notes rushes suddenly over it. All that man can do and dare, man chained to the rock of his savage destiny and in rebellion against the gods, rises and marches in the sound, majestic, irresistible, glorious in conquest. In Wagner, love has come, and the great, invincible soul, uttering the full note of the yearning of its unsolaced agony, is so tender, that even the pain which rings in it weeps.

Music, like man, is seeking the voice which can answer its suffering and still the pain by its answer. What will their marriage be ? And who will be chosen to sing the awful dirge of the great heart's passing ? " The words and Ayesmere's zeal in delivering them have touched Eve. They have strolled to a part of the grounds which is overlooked from the library window, and during the last sentence a third person has ap proached them : it is Eve's uncle. So she does not reply to Ayesmere, who turns to greet Mr. Wynside. But the colour in her cheeks is delicately heightened, and in her eyes is the charming look for which Ayes mere has longed. Her frank true spirit seems to have come forth to them that it may show its friendship for him. The elder man notices this as well, and an ex pression of displeasure crosses his features.

If senior relatives are often jealous of the most unimpeachable VOL. II. B suitors of their pets, is not the clergyman well justified in grudging a success to so undesirable a pretender as Ayesmere ? He directs his speech to Laurence and remarks : "I see that the Rembrandt which was one of the gems of the collection at Ayesmere Manor is coming into this neighbourhood once more. It has passed into the possession of the younger Mr. Prade." The hint is effectual. His past and his poverty return to Ayesmere's mind, and bitterness surges suddenly up in his heart. He gazes sternly at Mr. Wynside, whose eyes fall before his own. Then he says, fiercely : " The incidents of my ruin have ceased to interest me. They linger in the memory of my friends in more in dulgent soil." He leaves them very shortly, and Eve says no further words to him except " Good-bye."

Then her colour glows again and fades. Again her eyes speak compre hension and friendship, and her hand is not hastily withdrawn from his. Ayesmere weighs her sympathy against the mistrust and rebuke of her adviser. The result upon the mood of this flippant person is, that he vaults the next gate he comes to and spends all his small change among urchins bj' setting them to scramble for it.

CHAPTER XXII PEDRO PERSONALLY CONDUCTS EVENTS

Joe Roby was to admit the police to the knowledge which he had of Esther's guilty meeting with Antony upon the marshes about a week before the assizes were held. Pedro did not wish his ally to divulge before that time, lest his brilliant revelation should be tested in too leisurely a fashion. In the meanwhile he treated Roby as one whom he protected on account of virtuous endeavours towards amended ways. He had handed him the sum of £20 in all as an earnest of his good in tentions. " You're an honest fellow," Pedro would say approv ingly, after delivering an instalment, at which Joe grinned and Pedro himself smiled imperceptibly ; it need scarcely be said that the payments were made in cash since sovereigns could hardly be identified, in case complications arose, as having been in Pedro's possession.

Joe was saving nearly three quarters of this profit for turf speculation during the ensuing season, under the guidance of his friend in the know ; the remainder he spent chiefly in drink, pool and fancy articles. He had also increased his stock of ferrets. He had received an admirable education as actor in the affair, an education accomplished by the talented Pedro without ever passing beyond his region of mys tery ; he never stepped across the safe bounds of mere suggestion into an actual admission of complicity, and Joe stood, when primed, a living achievement of Malle rock's splendid art. A morning having been selected for the publication of Roby's evidence, all the arrangements for it were completed with fine clearness and definiteness. The subject-matter of it was reduced to the utmost simplicity lest Joe, being unpractised in narrative, should make a mistake in delivering it, and the whole process of divulging was planned strongly and plainly.

Joe's enterprise was to commence on the night before he communicated with the police. He was then to tell his tale to the widow, his mother, and he was to urge her that she should on the following morning repeat it to Pedro himself and intercede for him, Joe, who had so long kept back such material evidence. As for Pedro's reason for desiring to be re-informed of his own fictions in this roundabout way, it was a simple one. He had to display immediate knowledge of Joe's confession in Pirley, and he ought obviously to have come by his information from an external source. When Mrs. Roby visited him, he listened to her con fused version of his neat invention with kindly dignity, and received her entreaties that he would be lenient with good nature. Yes, he announced, he would think as lightly of the case as he could, he was glad to learn so important a truth even at that late hour.

Had her son actually started for Pirley ? He had. Well, since the lad was speaking straightforwardly at last, he could see there was a good intention in the boy. He always respected a good intention, it would bear great weight with him. The widow should try to encourage her son in acting rightly. She might rest assured that so far nothing had occurred which would put an end to Pedro's favourable feeling towards her. He warned her not to be talkative to gossips, gave her a glass of wine and cut short her abundant words by conducting her to the door himself. He ordered his dog-cart, and when it came round, appeared on the steps of his house with a grave face, took the reins and carried Esther's ruin and affliction with him to Pirley. When he arrived there, he lunched at the chief hotel and then wended his way to the offices of Byke and Bilstaffe.

Mr. Bilstaffe was sitting at his office table which was covered with papers, and was engaged upon some business; he was rather sur prised to see his client at that hour. Bilstaffe more than suspected Pedro of being a most profound knave, but admitted to himself that he did not understand him. Pedro, after shaking hands, sat down near the table, and having given his moustache a single twirl, remarked : "I've come over to see you about something that's important." " It's in the case of Esther Stillfleet, I suppose ? " " Yes. It's in the case of Esther Stillfleet. It en dangers her life, and I don't want that done." This was absolutely true; he wished her to confess and shun the uncertainties of a full and fair trial ; yet the assertion astonished Bilstaffe, so that he turned in his chair. But he said nothing, he waited for Pedro to continue.

" The fact is," said Mallerock, looking steadily at the lawyer, for Pedro was a man who never allowed his eyes to drop away or to show a hair's-breadth 0f movement when he thought there was scrutiny, " I have reason to know there has been a confession, or rather a statement. A lad has come over here this morning to inform the police that he saw Stillfleet meet my brother on the marshes that day." Then he gave Bilstaffe more in detail the forged history of which Roby was the chosen vessel. He spoke coldly and unconcernedly, for he knew the man with whom he was dealing. He felt no assurance that he should make his lawyer believe in the chapter of accidents which he preached, but he could rely on himself not to give him, by any error in demeanour, a handle for hinting his opinion. When Pedro had completed the simple tale with the trimmings and accompaniments which explained his own selected attitude, Bilstaffe had altogether passed out of the unwonted thrill of surprise which Pedro had been able to cause in him, both by his matter and his manner.

" What's the value of his evidence ? " he asked. Pedro shrugged his shoulders. " You are a better judge of that than I. He is a lout of a fellow and comes from a place which has a typically bad name up and down the countryside. You know that, however. He's one of the Rushness End fellows." " Oh yes," says Bilstaffe, " where old Radlett comes from. Have you given me the fellow's story com pletely?" " I think so," replies Pedro. " It's rather difficult to pick it up accurately from his mother's statement. She rambles about, and I've no doubt leaves out portions of the tale. You know the way of old women of that sort in those circumstances." Pedro, now he is speaking of the widow, utilizes her to emphasise a point. " His mother," he remarks presently, " explains why the lad's been lying perdu all this while.

When he learned of the murder, he was afraid to come forward. His mother says he expected they'd accuse him of killing Antony himself." " Oh," observes Mr. Bilstaffe. " Why's he gone now, I wonder ? " " The old women says it's the Salvation Army ; but that's doubtful." Joe had it in his instructions to relate that preaching to which he had listened in Pirley, had moved him to truthfulness. This, Pedro thought, would both add a glamour as of being natural to his conduct, and would prejudice a large section of the more foolishly impres sionable in the county in favour of believing his testimony. "Yes, it's doubtful," says Bilstaffe, meditatively. After a moment's thought he looks up at Pedro and asks once more, " What's the value of his evidence ? Do you know how much is against him ? " " He's been in jail for poaching, once, I believe.