Our Wills and Fates

Chapter I

Geoffrey Caernarvon was the son of a theorist who had the courage of his opinions, and came to a bad end in trying to work them out. It was a parentage alarming to decorous, practical people, and complicated by the fact that the boy's mother was a low-born, vulgar, and violent woman, from the first to the last impossible to her relations in-law. The Caernarvons had long left their native Principality ; if they had British blood in their veins they despised and ignored it. Still their name pleased them, for it was high sounding and distinctive ; George's radical friends told him maliciously that without it and a handsome portly person, his father never would have risen to be Bishop of Barminster. George was the theorist ; the Bishop's eldest son, and himself brought up for the Church. Alas ! he had early become estranged from his family ; conversing with Chartists, Socialists, Nihilists, and latter day Utopians of every sort; writing viewy books which nobody read ; running through his money in ridiculous philanthropies ; working with his hands ; and finally marrying beneath him.

His wife died young and no one regretted her, her husband least of all, for he had reconsidered the theory which had led to his marriage ; she left him with two children, of whom Geoffrey, the boy, was the younger. In that boy George Caernarvon discerned some likeness to himself, and from his cradle Geoffrey was his father's comrade and his father's champion. The gentleness of nature which had contributed not a little to the poor theorist's downfall was not reproduced in the boy. Geoffrey had all the primitive passions in full force, but no inborn admiration for the fruits of the Spirit and the consolations of the nineteenth century. He loved his father fiercely ; and he loved his dog ; he loved his mother (in theory, for his recollections of her were unpleasant) and his sister, with whom he daily contended.

These persons belonged to himself, and the sense of possession was strong in Geoffrey Caernarvon, as in the stormy soul of some outlawed and rebellious mountain ancestor. When his visionary father preached to him on the wickedness of Individualism, the child gave no faint token of response ; though his precocious eye kindled at big talk of Freedom and Rights, Loyalty and Patriotism, Fortitude and Perseverance, high Ideals and heathen Virtues. The father hoped eventually for a better adjustment of the little disciple's enthusiasms, smiling alike at his zeal for the Cause and his childish aversion to Community of Goods. " Man," said the theorist, " is the animal with the finest aptitude for acquiring ideas; and the finer the man the greater will be his variation in response to stimulation from his environment.

In a favourable environment, my son will vary favourably." But Geoffrey's environment was suddenly changed, and his education on the " Isms " in so far as it was continued at all, had to be continued by himself. One day the new Dean of Barminster (second son of the deceased Bishop) received a very startling telegram. It was worded like a letter and dated from his brother's cottage at Hawsham, the obscure county town thirty miles from London. " Dear Uncle, someone has murdered our father. Your niece Adelaide."

Chapter II

Dean Caernarvon hurried to the spot ; so did the Banker and the Barrister his younger brothers ; also Viscount Fenton one of their brother-in-laws, and Miss Matilda their sister, who was oldest (and tallest) of the whole family. They were all very greatly shocked and very greatly scandalized ; they never were able to forgive poor George for having caused them so much annoyance and distress. The Dean felt sure the atrocity had been committed by some madman ; murder by a madman seemed to him the kind least indecorous. He hoped the madman would not be found ; the newspaper reports, the inquiries, the inquest were bad enough, — a noisy trial and perhaps a public hang ing would be intolerable. When little Geoffrey, who though taciturn now and then burst out with something violent, said, " He must be killed !

I will have him killed ! " the Dean shuddered ; and talked ofthe spirit of Christianity, frightened by the ferocity of the child's dark pinched face. The story of the murder was this ; it was learned chiefly from Adelaide. George Caernarvon had been walking with his children late one stormy evening on the wild heath-covered hills above the town ; he was telling them one of his long mystic fairy-tales. "He told it very nicely; he made it very interesting," said Adelaide; " but it was nonsense, you know; and Geoffrey had a cold and ought not to have been out ; but then father always let Geoffrey do whatever he liked," she added, with a sigh, and a motherly shake of her handsome little head. A man came up and accosted them ; a horrid ugly man, whose name the children did not know, though they had seen him with their father once or twice before.

" I think he was one of mother's nasty relations," said Adelaide, with tears in her eyes ; "I am so very sorry, Uncle Cuthbert, but you know our mother wasn't really a lady and her relations aren't very nice, any of them." " My dear child ! " exclaimed the Dean, touched, and drawing the little girl kindly to his side. The father had turned pale on seeing this man, and an altercation began ; whereupon the children were sent home. Geoffrey was not content to be dismissed and he returned to the moor. Neither he nor his father came back, and Adelaide and the servant were very greatly frightened. In the early morning a shepherd found George Caernarvon lying wounded and dead on the heath, clasped in the blood stained arms of the unconscious Geoffrey, who never told what the full horrors of that night had been.

It was long indeed before the boy could be induced to supplement Adelaide's narrative at all. The official enquirers could make nothing of him and told the barrister uncle that he was half-witted ; Lord Fenton, a foolish person, suggested to the Banker that the child might have been concerned in the crime himself. But at last the Dean, having a little milk of human kindness in him, did persuade Geoffrey's lips to open, and to him the boy partly told his tale. After leaving Adelaide at home he had waited a long time in the rain, wondering where his father had gone and when he was coming back. Then a man came, running, who started so violently on perceiving the boy that his foot slipped ; and Geoffrey, thinking he would roll over the preci pice, caught him by the sleeve. But the man pushed him away with an oath, recovered his footing and ran desperately on.

Geoffrey stared at him in astonishment, seeing him quite clearly in a sudden glare of moonlight. In his hand he held a roll of papers, and he had muffled himself in his coat and drawn down his hat over his brows. When Geoffrey had touched his sleeve it felt damp, and looking at his own fingers afterwards he found them stained. The man was the same who had accosted his father two hours before when he and Adelaide had been walking with him on the moor. "Would you know him again, my boy?" asked the Dean. " Of course I should," said Geoffrey. " And, Adelaide, my dear, would you know him too ? " asked the uncle. "Oh yes," said Adelaide. "Geoffrey and I always remember faces." " Well, go on, my boy," said the Dean ; " what occurred next?" Geoffrey seemed to be relapsing into silence ; he sat for a long time his eyes fixed vacantly on the window, his lips parted and the veins standing out on his pale damp forehead.

The Dean imagined, and rightly, that in morbid memory he was living once more through that hideous night. " Oh do go on, Geoff! " sighed Adelaide ; " why can't you tell everything and have done with it ? " " Hush, my dear ; let him take his time," said the Dean. Geoffrey looked up with a faint sparkle of gratitude in his heavy eyes, and drew half a step nearer to his uncle ; then he continued his tale very quietly, and very dryly. He had heard his father calling, and he found him at a little distance lying on his back on the ground in a pool of blood. His father said a few things and after a time he died ; and Geoffrey stayed with his dead body, and did not know anything more till he found himself being carried home by the shepherd. " What did your father say to you ? " asked the Dean ; " did he say who had done it ?

" " He said it was that man." " Did he tell you who the man was? " "No." " Didn't you ask him ? " "No." " How silly of you, Geoff! " sighed Adelaide. " Did he mention anyone else, my boy? " " He said something about a woman." " What woman ? " " I don't know," said Geoffrey. " What did he say about her ? " " He said he had tried to spare the woman. He said " But Geoffrey, whose voice had grown fierce, suddenly checked himself, and would tell no more for any coaxing or any threats. That evening, however, when they had left him alone and he had no audience but his wondering dog and his own excited self, he said aloud the things he had refused to say to his catechists. " Father said he trusted me never to forget," related the boy, " and he said it would be my business to settle it. He said, ' Bring him to Justice.

Don't let him escape — never forget.' " (Alas ! George Caernarvon had referred to something quite different from what Geoffrey had supposed ; his darken ing brain had realized neither the youth of his listener nor the meagre information with which he had furnished him.) " I will not forget," said Geoffrey to himself. " I will do what he told me. I will not let the man escape. I will never forget. I will put it all down and swear it lest I should forget." He found a paper and wrote all his father's words as exactly as he could, and then laying his hand on his mother's Bible he swore aloud that he would be obedient, and that if he found the murderer to-night or to-morrow night or next year, or any time, he would have him killed ; would kill him, if possible, himself. IO OUR WILLS AND FATES. " With my own hand !

" said Geoffrey aloud, fascinated by the idea and the sound of the words. No school-boy was Geoffrey Caernarvon ; still he suspected some theatricality in these proceedings, and presently he tore his paper up and angrily burned the fragments in the fire, repenting of his oath on the Bible. " I shall remember without that ! " he said scornfully ; and told nothing to the Dean, or to Adelaide, or to anyone. A man was soon arrested, and put upon examination. His name was Timothy Kitchen ; he was a money-lender of very doubtful honesty ; a bully : possibly a little crazy, and the brother-in-law of the deceased. How the Caernarvons winced when all this was stated in public ! It was ascer tained that he had quarrelled with George, he had no satisfactory account to give of his employment on the fatal night, he had called at deceased's house during his absence, interviewed the servant, followed to the moor; blood had been found on his clothes, etc., etc.

The case against Timothy Kitchen was strong, the more so that he involved himself in a string of easily exposed falsehoods, and was impudent to the police. He was confronted by the children. Geoffrey spoke at once. " Oh no ! this certainly wasn't the man at all ! " " Tut ! " said the constables and the magistrates under their breath. Adelaide hesitated. " I don't think " she began. "Don't be in a hurry, my dear," they cautioned her, " look very carefully and remember that he has now shaved his beard." Adelaide looked again, and ticked off various items on her fingers. " Oh I see," she said ; " yes, he has a long nose, light hair and a pale face ; blue eyes. He is the same height and those are his boots. He is just what I described except for the beard. And you know I was quite sure he was one of our mother's relations."

Geoffrey pulled the Dean's sleeve impatiently. " Uncle Cuthbert, it is not the man. Do tell them it isn't the man. The real man will get off while they are bother ing with this one. Do tell them it isn't the man." " Hush, my boy, hush ! " said the Dean. Time went on ; circumstantial evidence was strongly against Timothy Kitchen ; everyone believed in his guilt, even his own wife. She tried to throw doubts on his sanity which however her son Christopher — a dingy youth with a stammer, who when asked his profession said he was " a Chr-Christian "• — was too conscientious to bear out. It was close to Assize time, and very soon Kitchen was put upon his trial for murder. By this time Geoffrey's suppressed excitement and per sistent insomnia had made him very feverish and unwell ; his evidence was not taken at the same time as Adelaide's because at the beginning of the trial he was in his bed.

Adelaide under examination and cross-examination con ducted herself with the decorum proper to anyone named Caernarvon. She identified the man unhesitatingly, having persuaded herself that her first doubt had been ridiculous. The case — of which the details need not be related here — was to everyone's satisfaction already established ; and it seemed a pity that the child Geoffrey had to be questioned at all, as neither judge nor jury was prepared to attach any importance to his view of the matter. Still justice and public opinion demanded the boy's witness and the pro ceedings were stopped till he could appear. If he should deny that Timothy Kitchen was the blood-stained fugitive whom he had encountered, the Judge intended in his charge to direct plainly that the child should not be believed ; the evidence on other grounds was overwhelming, and the boy was very young, had had a great shock, and was to all appearances not a normally reasonable being.

At last Geoffrey was brought to the court (his Aunt Emily protesting) and placed in the witness-box. He looked ill, and felt far more ill than he looked, for he was always defiant of physical discomfort. The Dean felt anxious; but the public were interested in the little boy who had been through such a terrible experience, and thought his pallor and tremulousness entirely proper to the occasion. " Will they hang the man who killed my father ? " asked Geoffrey of the officer who was bringing him in ; for his semi-delirious mind was exulting in the notion of the hang ing and he forgot that he had not yet heard of the right man's arrest. He was asked stupid questions about the nature of an oath, and was sworn and then made to talk about what seemed to him absolutely irrelevant things, till he became more and more confused though answering steadily and without manifest self-contradiction.

In describing his en counter with the supposed criminal he waked up a little, and spoke with a curious childish eloquence of which the Dean took note, reflecting that if the boy should eventually become a clergyman he would probably make an effective preacher. And then suddenly the room swam for Geoffrey and it seemed to him that his senses were leaving him. " I want him to be hung," he muttered inaudibly, clench ing his fist; and then he shuddered and said aloud, " It was such a dreadful storm," as if he again heard the howling wind and the cracking trees behind the convulsed and dying gasps of the murdered man. The public were impressed and interested by the child ; and they stood on tiptoe to see him and strained their ears for his low passionate voice. " Now, my lad, pay great attention if you please.

Can you see the defendant ? Is that the man whom you saw that evening running away ? " Geoffrey, fighting with all his might against a suddenly furious headache and holding on tightly to the woodwork before him, yet stood quite erect and unconsciously stared at the prisoner with an appearance of scrutiny. He did not hear the question, and he made no reply. " Well, is he the man ? His beard has grown again : when you saw him last he had shaved. Is he the same man ? " Geoffrey knit his brows. What were they asking ? Whether it was the same man he had last seen clean shaven ? " Oh yes," said Geoffrey, " that is the man." His voice sounded to himself a mile away, and he was much afraid he was going to burst out crying like a girl. " You are quite sure ? Why did you say No at first ? " asked the cross-examiner presently.

The aching head puzzled over this question and could not understand it. " It is the same man ! " he said impatiently, " I know it is. I am quite sure." The public were satisfied; but the lawyers glanced at each other and shook their heads. Geoffrey was dismissed and the people tried to cheer him ; but the Judge silenced them and did after all say in his charge that the testimony of a child so young and so nervous must be accepted with the utmost caution. Meantime Geoffrey's aunt had taken him home. He sat moped in the corner of the cab like a sick bird, and Aunt Emily felt anxious. Suddenly he looked up and asked — " Aunt, why didn't they say anything about the real man ? I am so afraid he won't be hung after all." " Hush, my dear Geoff, hush," said Mrs. Caernarvon. When they got home, Geoffrey broke away from his aunt, and calling his beloved dog rushed into the garden.

Presently Adelaide was sent to coax him in for tea. She found the dog lying strangled at the boy's feet, and he sitting staring at the corpse with bloodshot eyes, and breathing hard. " I killed him," said Geoffrey, thickly, " I had nothing else.'' Adelaide screamed for her aunt; and Mrs. Caernarvon, greatly shocked by this pagan sacrifice, put Geoffrey forcibly to bed, and sent for the doctor. The doctor pronounced the boy sickening of a brain fever.

Chapter III

On the morning following Mr. George Caernarvon's murder, the man who had accosted him on the moor walked into his home, a gimcrack house in a terrace of an obscure London suburb. " My dear Ernest ! " exclaimed his wife, " but how frightfully ill you look ! What is the matter ? " " Don't bother," said he, shaking off the hand which she had laid affectionately on his. She was a large made, very beautiful, young woman, though her dress was tawdry. " I've got the papers," he said ; "we are safe : you are anyhow. Lock the door now, and we'll burn 'em." " The papers ! From Stephens ! However did you manage it ? " " Stephens ? To be sure, that will do well enough. I went to Manchester for them ; no, I went to buy a hat, or a reel of cotton — what is it they make in Manchester ? And I came back yesterday and slept here last night.

Do you understand ? " As he spoke he was glancing sharply at the papers and burning them one by one. " I don't exactly understand, Ernest." " Then you are idiotic. Oh well, — if questions are asked I don't want it explained that I went in pursuit of these papers, do I ? " " No. Of course. I see. How did you get Stephens to give them up ? " " I paid him a price to be sure. Perhaps I said you'd pay him, Molly," he said, chucking her under the chin, and laughing when she showed resentment. " As a matter of fact," he continued with a shiver, "I've paid a pretty damning price for these papers. Not at all the figure I intended ; and I only hope we shan't hear more of it. And all to save you, my love ! of course. Now get me some breakfast, Moll, and pack my things. I'm off." " Where ? " " Shan't tell you that.

Best you shouldn't know just at present." " Ernest ! But you will send for me ? Promise ! " " Bless you, my decoy duck ! yes. You are useful. Only I travel quieter, my love, without your pretty face tacked on to me." He flipped her cheek carelessly, and when she said playfully, " That's all you say to me nowadays, is it ? " he answered, " Hang it ! Can't you see I'm not in a mood for love making ? Send Sally to me for a minute. And — yes — I'd like one look at the puss. She'll be losing her milk teeth, I daresay, before I see her again." His wife interrupted him, flinging herself face downwards on the sofa. " Oh how sick I am of it all, Ernest ! Why aren't we honest people, living in a hut in a desert ? " " Upon my word ! " said the man, coolly, " if you had wanted that sort of life you shouldn't have run away with me.

You did it with your eyes open — took me on approba tion first, didn't you?" " It's our poor child I think of, Ernest ! " " The puss ? Oh she won't care. She'll be like her father; born and bred in the seamy side. It's only the people who descend into it who care. You never did that till you joined on to me, Molly, did you?" Without replying to this last taunt, she went on, " It breaks my heart to think the child won't care ! Sometimes ■7 I feel as if I would even leave you to save her from that." " And go where ? To Jack Stephens ? George Caer narvon?" he looked at her curiously as if noting the effect of these names upon her. Had she any suspicion that his interview last night had been with Caernarvon at Hawsham and not with Stephens in Manchester ? Apparently not ; he resumed more gravely as if disturbed by her last suggestion : " If you throw yourself on your dear Caernarvon for instance (he and Kitchen are out of it, by the way — I expect there'll be trouble between them) I can understand, Molly, that you and the fool will do a good deal of caring, but it will hardly be a more honest existence than you began with me."

" You know perfectly that for his sake if for no other reason I would not do that. Poor George ! how we have cheated him to be sure ! Why, Ernest, don't you set him on his guard against Kitchen if you know there is something brewing ? " " I shan't interfere because I don't care a damn for your dear George or for Tim Kitchen either. Let them fight it out, and let me get away, that's all I want. Don't stand staring there, Molly, but go and fetch me the puss." She returned presently leading a fair fragile child of about six years old, whom the father caressed hastily but with fair show of affection. Then he sent mother and child away and turned to the nurse, a dwarfish girl whose manners and expression were those of the willing and ever devoted slave. He tossed her a bank note. " Look here, Sally.

That's for you." " I don't serve you for money, Sir," said the girl, quickly. " Oh I know. I bought you soul and body once for all, didn't I ? Still I give you a present now and then, my dear. There's one. You have a regard for me, Sally, haven't you ? " c "Sir, I never forgot your goodness to me!" said Sarah, fervently. " And your mistress ? You are fond of her ? " I love her like the blessed Saviour, Sir." "And my little girl?" " I'd cut my 'and off for any one of you, Sir." " Don't do that. You'd be no more use. What you are to do is this : if you are asked, say, swear, Sally, and stick to it, that I came home yesterday. Do you hear? " " Yes, Sir," said Sarah, as if this kind of thing was matter of course. " And if you are asked where I had been, say you believe I went on Tuesday to Manchester to see Jack Stephens.

(It's all right. Jack will confirm it.) And I came home yesterday at four, had dinner and slept here and went away to-day. Do you understand ? " " Yes, Sir," said Sarah. Soon after this he left the house, making his exit carelessly, though he had been attentive to enter unobserved. " He seems upset," said his wife as she returned from shutting the street door, " upset, like he'd had some shock. He hardly kissed me, Sally ! He does not love me as he did. It's all ended." " Oh dear, Ma'am," said the affectionate girl, taking her hand, "don't you be low-spirited. You know he always comes back to you. There ain't never no question about his loving of you really." The mistress sat thoughtfully with her little girl on her knee, and slow tears filled her eyes. " God be merciful to us miserable sinners 1 " she mur mured, half aloud ; and little May, seeing her troubled, put her arms round her and kissed her, like the sweet little person she always was.

Chapter IV

Geoffrey nearly died of the brain fever. His aunt nursed him assiduously, and the Dean himself spent several nights by his bed. They could not have done more, would probably have done less, for a child of their own. At last, after a great struggle for his life and for his reason, Geoffrey won the victory and began to get better. His senses returned, he smiled at Adelaide and allowed the hospital nurses to handle him without striking them. He made friends with his cousin Merton sent for to amuse him, and occasionally he talked a little on some trivial subject. The Dean was insistent that no one should speak a word to him of the tragedy, hoping that the horror of it would pass from his mind with his illness. But as Geoffrey's strength returned, so did his memory, and he became very pensive and sometimes in his weakness, tearful.

One day he sent for his uncle. "Well, young shaver, what is the matter?" said the Dean. " Uncle Cuthbert," asked Geoffrey, " have they ever caught the man who killed my father ? " "Why, yes, Geoff. Don't you remember? Ah well — never mind." " But that wasn't the man, uncle," said Geoffrey. " My dear boy — well, we need not re-open the question. It is all settled and done with." " Uncle Cuthbert, did I dream it, or was I in Court, and did I answer questions and swear ? " " You answered very well, Geoff. I fancy you have a talent for public speaking as your unhappy father had ; as I may say we all have," added the Very Reverend Dean with a smile. " Did I say that was the man ? " " You did, Geoff, and you were quite right. Poor wretch ! I shall always retain my opinion that he was insane." " Uncle, will you, if you please, take me to the Judge now ?

I must explain at once that I told lies." " Nonsense, Geoff, nonsense." " Uncle Cuthbert, they will punish that man ; who belonged to mother !— my uncle Timothy Kitchen ! He's just exactly as much my uncle as you are ! " cried Geoffrey, indignantly ; " and the real man will get off free, and it is all my fault. I promised father I'd have justice done, and now I have gone and told lies and broken my word." The Dean, a good deal alarmed, temporized ; and Geoffrey, far from satisfied, was kept quiet by bodily weakness. He could not even write a letter to the Judge, and he had to put up with vague promises that in this matter of his perjury he should " do something " when he was stronger. A few days passed, and he had reached the stage of being carried downstairs to a sofa for an hour or two. Then one morning someone carelessly left a newspaper within his reach.