CHAPTER VII
A RAPID CONVERSION.
Three days after that compact between Bothwell and Hilda, an officious friend went out of his way to inform Mr. Heathcote that his sister and Mr. Grahame had been seen together several times of late, and that their manner indicated a more than ordinary degree of intimacy. They had been observed together at the early service on Sunday morning; they had sat in the same pew; they had walked away from the church side by side—indeed, Mr. Heathcote's friend believed they had actually walked to The Spaniards together.
"It is a shame that such a man as Grahame should be allowed to be on intimate terms with an innocent girl," said the worthy rustic, in conclusion.
"My dear Badderly, I hope I am able to take care of my sister without the help of all Bodmin," retorted Heathcote shortly. "Everybody is in great haste to condemn Mr. Grahame; but you must not forget that my sister and I have been intimate with him and his family for years. We cannot be expected to turn our backs upon him all at once, because his conduct happens to appear somewhat mysterious."
Notwithstanding which kindly word for Bothwell, Edward Heathcote went straight home and questioned his sister as to her dealings with that gentleman.
Hilda admitted that she had seen Mr. Grahame two or three times within the last week, and that she had allowed him to walk home with her after the early service.
"Do you think it wise or womanly to advertise your friendship with a man who is suspected of a most abominable crime?" asked her brother severely.
"I think it wise and womanly to be true to my friends in misfortune—in unmerited misfortune," she answered firmly.
"You are very strong in your faith. And pray what do you expect will be the end of all this?"
"I expect—I hope—that some day I shall be Bothwell's wife. I shall not be impatient of your control, Edward. I am only nineteen. I hope during the next two years you will find good reason to change your opinion about Bothwell, and to give your consent to our marriage—"
"And if I do not?"
"If you do not, I must take advantage of my liberty, when I come of age, and marry him without your consent."
"You have changed your tune, Hilda. A week ago you told me that you and Bothwell would never be married. Now, you boldly announce your betrothal to him."
"We are not betrothed—yet."
"O, there is a preliminary stage, is there? A kind of purgatory which precedes the heaven of betrothal. Hilda, you are doing a most ill-advised and unwomanly thing in giving encouragement to this man, in spite of your brother's warning."
"Am I to be unjust because my brother condemns a friend unheard? Believe me, Edward, my instinct is wiser than your experience. Why do you not question Bothwell? He will answer you as frankly as he answered me. He will tell you his reasons for refusing to satisfy that London lawyer's curiosity. O Edward, how can you be so cruel as to doubt him, to harden your heart against him and against me?"
"Not against you, my darling," her brother answered tenderly. "If I thought your happiness were really at stake, that your heart were really engaged, I would do much: but I can but think you are carried away by a mistaken enthusiasm. You would never have cared for Grahame if the world had not been against him; if he had not appeared to you as a martyr."
"You are wrong there, Edward," she answered shyly, her fingers playing nervously with the collar of his coat, the darkly-fringed eyelids drooping over the lovely gray eyes. "I have liked him for a long time. Last winter we used to hunt together a good deal, you know—"
"I did not know, or I should have taken care to prevent it," said Heathcote.
"O, it was always accidental, of course," she apologised. "But in a hunting country, the fast-goers generally get together, don't they?"
"In your case there was some very fast-going, evidently."
"I used to think then that Bothwell cared for me—just a little. And then there came a change. But I know the reason of that change now; and I know that he really loves me."
"O, you are monstrous wise, child, and monstrous self-willed for nineteen years old," said her brother, in those deep grave tones of his, a voice which gave weight and power to lightest words, "and you would take your own road in life without counting the cost. Well, Hilda, for your sake I will try to get at the root of this mystery. I will try to fathom your lover's secret; and God grant I may discover that it is a far less guilty secret than I have deemed."
He kissed Hilda's downcast brow and left her. She was crying; but her tears were less bitter than they had been, for she felt that her brother was now on her side; and Edward Heathcote's championship was a tower of strength.
Once having pledged himself to anything, even against his own convictions, Heathcote was the last man to go from his word; but if he needed a stronger inducement than his sister's sorrowful pleading, that inducement was offered.
He received a note from Dora Wyllard within a few hours of his conversation with Hilda.
"Dear Mr. Heathcote,—My husband and I have both been wondering at your desertion of us. For my own part I want much to see you, and to talk to you upon a very painful subject. Will you call at Penmorval after your ride to-morrow afternoon, and let me have a few words with you alone?
"Always faithfully yours,
He kissed the little note before he laid it carefully in a drawer of his writing-table. It was a foolish thing to do, but the act was quite involuntary and half unconscious. The sight of that handwriting brought back the feeling of that old time when a letter from Dora meant so much for him. He had trained himself to think of her as another man's wife—to consider himself her friend, and her friend only. He felt himself bound in honour so to think; all the more because he was admitted to her home, because she was not afraid to call him friend. Yet there were moments when the old feeling came over him with irresistible force.
He did not ride that afternoon, but walked across the fields, and presented himself at Penmorval between four and five o'clock. Mrs. Wyllard was alone in her morning-room, a room in which everything seemed part of herself—her favourite books, her piano, her easel—all the signs of those pursuits which he remembered as the delight of her girlhood.
"You paint still, I see," he said, glancing at the easel, on which there was an unfinished picture of a beloved Blenheim spaniel; "you have not forgotten your old taste for animals."
"I have so much leisure," she answered somewhat sadly; and then he remembered her childless home.
She was very pale, and he thought she had a careworn look, as of one who had spent anxious days and sleepless nights. He took the chair to which she motioned him, and they sat opposite each other for some moments in silence, she looking down and playing nervously with a massive ivory paper-knife which was lying on the table at which she had been writing when he entered. Suddenly she lifted her eyes to his face—pathetic eyes which had looked at him once before in his life with just that appealing look.
"It is very cruel of you to believe my cousin guilty of murder," she said, coming straight to the point. "You knew my mother. Surely you must know our race well enough to know that it does not produce murderers."
"Who told you that I believed such a thing?"
"Your own actions have told me. Bothwell has been cut by the people about here; and you, who should have been his staunch friend and champion, you have kept away from Penmorval as if this house were infected, in order to avoid meeting my cousin."
"I cannot tell you a lie, Mrs. Wyllard, even to spare your feelings," replied Heathcote, deeply moved, "and yet I think you must know that I would do much to save you pain. Yes, I must admit that it has seemed to me that circumstances pointed to your cousin, as having been directly or indirectly concerned in that girl's death. His conduct became so strange at that date—so difficult to account for upon any other hypothesis."
"Has your experience of life never made you acquainted with strange coincidences?" asked Dora. "Is it impossible, or even improbable, that Bothwell should have some trouble upon his mind—a trouble which arose just about the time of that girl's death? Everything must have a date; and his anxieties happen to date from that time. I know his frank open nature, and how heavily any secret would weigh upon him."
"You believe, then, that he has a secret?"
"Yes—there is something—some entanglement which prevented his answering Mr. Distin's very impertinent questions."
"Has he confided his trouble to you? Has he convinced you of his innocence?"
"He had no occasion to do that. I never believed him guilty—I never could believe him guilty of such a diabolical crime." Tears came into her eyes as she spoke, but she dried them hastily. "Mr. Heathcote, you are a lawyer, a man of the world, a man of talent and leisure. You have been one of the first to do my kinsman a cruel wrong. Cannot you do something towards righting him? I am making this appeal on my own account—without Bothwell's knowledge. I come to you as the oldest friend I have—the one friend outside my own home in whom I can fully confide."
"You know that I would give my life in your service," he answered, with suppressed fervour. He dared not trust himself to say much. "Yes, you have but to command me. I will do all that human intelligence can do. But this is a difficult case. The only evidence against your cousin is of so vague a nature that it could not condemn him before a jury; and yet that evidence is strong enough to brand him as a possible murderer in the opinion of those who saw him under Distin's examination. He can never be thoroughly rehabilitated until the mystery of that girl's death has been fathomed, and I doubt if that will ever be. Where Joseph Distin has failed, with all the detective-police of London at his command, how can any amateur investigator hope to succeed?"
"Friendship may succeed where mere professional cleverness has been baffled," argued Dora. "I do not think that Mr. Distin's heart was in this case. At least that is the impression I derived from a few words which I heard him say to my husband just before he left us."
"Indeed! Can you recall those words?"
"Very nearly. He said he had done his best in the matter, and should not attempt to go further. And then with his cynical air he added, 'Let sleeping dogs lie, Wyllard. That is a good old saying.'"
"Don't you think that sounds rather as if he suspected your kinsman, and feared to bring trouble on your family by any further investigation?"
"It never struck me in that light," exclaimed Dora, with a distressed look. "Good heavens! is all the world so keen to suspect an innocent man? If you only knew Bothwell as I know him, you would be the first to laugh this cruel slander to scorn."
"For your sake I will try and believe in him as firmly as you do," answered Heathcote, "and as Wyllard does, no doubt."
Her countenance fell, and she was silent.
"Your husband knows of this cloud upon your cousin's name, I suppose?" interrogated Heathcote, after a pause.
"Yes, I told him how Bothwell had been treated by his Bodmin acquaintance."
"And he was as indignant as you were, I conclude?"
"He said very little," answered Dora, with a pained expression. "My regard for Bothwell is the only subject upon which Julian and I have ever differed. He has been somewhat harsh in his judgment of my cousin ever since his return from India. He disapproved of his leaving the army, and he has been inclined to take a gloomy view of his prospects from the very first."
"I see. He has not a high opinion of Bothwell's moral character?"
"I would hardly say that. But he is inclined to judge my cousin's errors harshly, and he does not understand his noble qualities as I do. I should not have been constrained to ask for your help, if Julian had been as heartily with me in this matter as he has been, in all other things."
Edward Heathcote's bronzed cheek blanched ever so little at this speech. It moved him deeply to think that in this one anxiety of her loving heart he could be more to Dora Wyllard than her husband, that she could turn to him in this trouble, with boundless confidence in his friendship. What would he not do to merit such confidence, to show himself worthy of such trust? Already he was prepared to be Bothwell's champion; he was angry with himself for ever having suspected him.
"I had another motive for appealing to you," continued Dora shyly. "I have reason to think that Bothwell is very fond of Hilda, and the dearest wish of my life is to see those two united."
"A wish which is in a fair way of being gratified," answered Heathcote. "My sister announced to me only yesterday that there is some kind of contingent engagement between her and Mr. Grahame; and that, he being free to wed her, she means to marry him when she comes of age, with or without my consent."
"My noble Hilda!" exclaimed Dora; "yes, it is just like her to accept him now when all the world is against him."
"Say that it is just like a woman," said Heathcote. "There is a leaven of Quixotism in all your sex, from the Queen to the wife-beater's victim in Seven Dials. Well, dear Mrs. Wyllard, for your sake and for Hilda's, I will be Quixotic. I will make it the business of my life to discover the mystery of that unknown girl's fate. I will pledge myself to think of nothing else, to undertake no other work or duty until I have exhausted all possible means of discovery."
"God bless you for the promise," she answered fervently. "I knew that I had one friend in the world."
A sob almost choked her utterance of those last words. She was deeply wounded by her husband's coldness in this matter of Bothwell's position. She had expected him to be as indignant as she was, to be ready to take up arms against all the world for her cousin; and he had been cold, silent, and gloomy when she tried to discuss the burning question with him. His manner had implied that he, too, suspected Bothwell, though he would not go so far as to give utterance to his suspicion.
And now to have won over this strong advocate, this brave, true-hearted champion, was a relief to her mind that almost overcame her feelings; here, where she had ever sought to preserve the calm dignity of manner which became her as Julian Wyllard's wife.
"I thank you with all my heart," she faltered, "and I am sure that my husband will be as rejoiced as I shall, if you can clear Bothwell's name from this stigma."
Heathcote rose to take leave. He felt that the business of his visit was accomplished, that he had no right to linger in Dora Wyllard's sanctum. It was the first time he had ever been admitted to her own particular nest, the one room in which she was secure from the possibility of interruption.
"Tell Hilda to come and see me," she said, as they shook hands. "She has deserted me most cruelly of late."
"Perhaps it is better for her not to be here until her engagement to your cousin is on a more definite footing."
"Ah, there is the secret in Bothwell's life—some entanglement which he half admitted to me the other day. He said that he was bound to one woman while he loved another. I guessed that Hilda was the one he loved. But who can the other be? I know of no one."
"Some lady whom he met in India, no doubt. The very air of the East is charged with complications of that kind. If your cousin is a man of honour, and if we can unriddle the railway mystery, all may yet come right. Pray do not be too anxious. Good-bye."
And so they parted, they two, who once were to have spent their lives together. Edward Heathcote walked away from Penmorval loving his old love as dearly as ever he had loved her in his passionate youth. He was young enough to love with youthful fervour even yet, although he had schooled himself to believe that youth was past for him. He was only thirty-six; Julian Wyllard's junior by nearly ten years.
Half an hour later Dora was presiding at afternoon tea in the yew-tree arbour, where her husband joined her after two hours' business talk with his land-steward. The weather was still warm enough for drinking tea out of doors, and this yew-tree arbour was Mrs. Wyllard's favourite retreat.
"How pale and tired you are looking, Julian!" she said, scrutinising her husband's face as he sank somewhat wearily into the comfortable basket-chair she had placed ready for him; "you must want some tea very badly."
"I always enjoy my afternoon cup; and you are the queen of tea-makers," answered Wyllard; "yes, I have had a tiresome talk with Gretton, who is getting old and prosy, and repeats himself infernally when he is describing the tenants' wants and grievances. He cannot tell me of the smallest repair required for a barn or pig-sty without repeating every syllable of his conversation with some garrulous old farmer, and even explaining the nature of the barn or the sty in dumb-show, 'as it might be this,' and 'as it might be that.' He maddens me with his 'as it might be.'"
"I am afraid you are growing nervous, Julian," said Dora tenderly.
She laid her cool white hand upon his forehead, and looked concerned at the touch.
"You are actually feverish. You have been irritated into a fever by that prosy old man. Why do you not superannuate poor old Gretton, and let Bothwell be your steward? He is much cleverer and more business-like than you think, and at the worst he would not prose."
"I never thought Bothwell a fit person to look after my estate, and I think him less so now," answered her husband coldly. "He is the most unpopular man in Bodmin. Do not let us talk about it any more. By the way, you have had a visitor this afternoon," he continued, as his wife handed him his tea. "I saw Heathcote go past the library-window while I was at work with Gretton. What brought him to Penmorval?"
"I asked him to come," answered Dora, very pale, but with a steadfast look in her eyes, and about the firmly-moulded lips.
She had never had a secret from her husband in her life, and although she had made her appeal to Heathcote without his advice or knowledge, she had no intention of leaving him uninformed now that the thing was done.
"You asked him to come to you—Edward Heathcote!" exclaimed Wyllard, with a surprised look. "And may I know what important business necessitated this interview?"
"You have a right to know all about it, Julian," she answered quietly. "I have asked Mr. Heathcote to give me his aid in a matter in which you have seemed unwilling to help me. You were content that my cousin should remain under a hideous stigma—shunned by those who were once his friends. I am not so content; and I have asked the son of my mother's oldest and staunchest friend to help me."
And then she told him, as briefly as possible, what kind of request she had made to Edward Heathcote, and how he had promised to help her.
Julian Wyllard was livid with anger. He set down his cup with a hand that trembled like an aspen-leaf; he rose from his chair, and paced the grassy space in front of the arbour, backwards and forwards half a dozen times, before he uttered a word. And then, coming back to his wife, he looked at her with eyes dilated with jealous frenzy.
"Why call him the son of your mother's old friend?" he exclaimed. "What need of so awkward and ambiguous a phrase? Why not call him your old lover? It is in that character you have thrown yourself upon him; it is as your old lover that you try to arouse his chivalry, that you urge him to do that which your husband's common sense revolted from. A husband is a reasoning animal, you know. He will only attempt the practical, the possible. But throw your glove to the lions, and your lover will leap into the arena and fight for it! And you take advantage of an unquenchable passion, of a despairing love, to attempt the solution of a problem to which the answer may be a rope round your cousin's neck."
"You have no right to insult me as you have done," said Dora, pale as marble, but calm in her just indignation. "You know that I am your true wife, and that my friendship for Edward Heathcote and his for me is above suspicion. As for my cousin Bothwell, I know that he has been most unjustly suspected of a foul crime; and I will not rest till the true history of that crime has been discovered. Nothing but the discovery of the real murderer can ever set Bothwell right with his fellow-men."
"Then he will have to remain in the wrong," answered Wyllard savagely. "The mystery which Distin's training and experience failed to fathom will never be brought to light by your knight-errant of The Spaniards."