Aurora Floyd. Volume 3

CHAPTER X.
UNDER A CLOUD

Talbot Bulstrode and his wife came to Mellish Park a few days after the return of John and Aurora. Lucy was pleased to come to her cousin; pleased to be allowed to love her without reservation; grateful to her husband for his gracious goodness in setting no barrier between her and the friend she loved.

And Talbot, – who shall tell the thoughts that were busy in his mind, as he sat in a corner of the first-class carriage, to all outward appearance engrossed in the perusal of a 'Times' leader?

I wonder how much of the Thunderer's noble Saxon English Mr. Bulstrode comprehended that morning! The broad white paper on which the 'Times' is printed serves as a convenient screen for a man's face. Heaven knows what agonies have been sometimes endured behind that printed mask! A woman, married, and a happy mother, glances carelessly enough at the Births and Marriages and Deaths, and reads perhaps that the man she loved, and parted with, and broke her heart for, fifteen or twenty years before, has fallen, shot through the heart, far away upon an Indian battle-field. She holds the paper firmly enough before her face; and her husband goes on with his breakfast, and stirs his coffee, or breaks his egg, while she suffers her agony, – while the comfortable breakfast-table darkens and goes away from her, and the long-ago day comes back upon which the cruel ship left Southampton, and the hard voices of well-meaning friends held forth monotonously upon the folly of improvident marriages. Would it not be better, by-the-by, for wives to make a practice of telling their husbands all the sentimental little stories connected with the pre-matrimonial era? Would it not be wiser to gossip freely about Charles's dark eyes and moustache, and to hope that the poor fellow is getting on well in the Indian service, than to keep a skeleton, in the shape of a phantom ensign in the 87th, hidden away in some dark chamber of the feminine memory?

But other than womanly agonies are suffered behind the 'Times.' The husband reads bad news of the railway company in whose shares he has so rashly invested that money which his wife believes safely lodged in the jog-trot, three-per-cent. – yielding Consols. The dashing son, with Newmarket tendencies, reads evil tidings of the horse he has backed so boldly, perhaps at the advice of a Manchester prophet, who warranted putting his friends in the way of winning a hatful of money for the small consideration of three-and-sixpence in postage-stamps. Visions of a book that it will not be very easy to square; of a black list of play or pay engagements; of a crowd of angry book-men clamorous for their dues, and not slow to hint at handy horse-ponds, and possible tar and feathers, for defaulting swells and sneaking "welshers"; all these things flit across the disorganized brain of the young man, while his sisters are entreating to be told whether the 'Crown Diamonds' is to be performed that night, and if "dear Miss Pyne" will warble Rode's air before the curtain falls. The friendly screen hides his face; and by the time he has looked for the Covent Garden advertisements, and given the required information, he is able to set the paper down and proceed calmly with his breakfast, pondering ways and means as he does so.

Lucy Bulstrode read a High-Church novel, while her husband sat with the 'Times' before his face, thinking of all that had happened to him since he had first met the banker's daughter. How far away that old love-story seemed to have receded since the quiet domestic happiness of his life had begun in his marriage with Lucy! He had never been false, in the remotest shadow of a thought, to his second love; but now that he knew the secret of Aurora's life, he could but look back and wonder how he should have borne that cruel revelation if John's fate had been his; if he had trusted the woman he loved in spite of the world, in spite of her own strange words, which had so terribly strengthened his worst fears, so cruelly redoubled his darkest doubts.

"Poor girl!" he thought; "it was scarcely strange that she should shrink from telling that humiliating story. I was not tender enough. I confronted her in my obstinate and pitiless pride. I thought of myself rather than of her, and of her sorrow. I was barbarous and ungentlemanly; and then I wondered that she refused to confide in me."

Talbot Bulstrode, reasoning after the fact, saw the weak points of his conduct with a preternatural clearness of vision, and could not repress a sharp pang of regret that he had not acted more generously. There was no infidelity to Lucy in this thought. He would not have exchanged his devoted little wife for the black-browed divinity of the past, though an all-powerful fairy had stood at his side ready to cancel his nuptials and tie a fresh knot between him and Aurora. But he was a gentleman, and he felt that he had grievously wronged, insulted and humiliated a woman whose worst fault had been the trusting folly of an innocent girl.

"I left her on the ground in that room at Felden," he thought, – "kneeling on the ground, with her beautiful head bowed down before me. O my God, can I ever forget the agony of that moment! Can I ever forget what it cost me to do that which I thought was right!"

The cold perspiration broke out upon his forehead as he remembered that bygone pain, as it may do with a cowardly person who recalls too vividly the taking out of a three-pronged double-tooth, or the cutting off of a limb.

"John Mellish was ten times wiser than I," thought Mr. Bulstrode; "he trusted to his instinct, and recognized a true woman when he met her. I used to despise him at Rugby because he couldn't construe Cicero. I never thought he'd live to be wiser than me."

Talbot Bulstrode folded the 'Times' newspaper, and laid it down in the empty seat by his side. Lucy shut the third volume of her novel. How should she care to read when it pleased her husband to desist from reading?

"Lucy," said Mr. Bulstrode, taking his wife's hand (they had the carriage to themselves – a piece of good fortune which often happens to travellers who give the guard half-a-crown), – "Lucy, I once did your cousin a great wrong; I want to atone for it now. If any trouble, which no one yet foresees, should come upon her, I want to be her friend. Do you think I am right in wishing this, dear?"

"Right, Talbot!"

Mrs. Bulstrode could only repeat the word in unmitigated surprise. When did she ever think him anything but the truest and wisest and most perfect of created beings?

Everything seemed very quiet at Mellish when the visitors arrived. There was no one in the drawing-room, nor in the smaller room within the drawing-room; the Venetians were closed, for the day was close and sultry; there were vases of fresh flowers upon the tables; but there were no open books, no litter of frivolous needlework or drawing-materials, to indicate Aurora's presence.

"Mr. and Mrs. Mellish expected you by the later train, I believe, sir," the servant said, as he ushered Talbot and his wife into the drawing-room.

"Shall I go and look for Aurora?" Lucy said to her husband. "She is in the morning-room, I dare say."

Talbot suggested that it would be better, perhaps, to wait till Mrs. Mellish came to them. So Lucy was fain to remain where she was. She went to one of the open windows, and pushed the shutters apart. The blazing sunshine burst into the room, and drowned it in light. The smooth lawn was aflame with scarlet geraniums and standard roses, and all manner of gaudily-coloured blossoms; but Mrs. Bulstrode looked beyond this vividly-tinted parterre to the thick woods, that loomed darkly purple against the glowing sky.

It was in that very wood that her husband had declared his love for her; the same wood that had since been outraged by violence and murder.

"The – the man is buried, I suppose, Talbot?" she said to her husband.

"I believe so, my dear."

"I should never care to live in this place again, if I were Aurora."

The door opened before Mrs. Bulstrode had finished speaking, and the mistress of the house came towards them. She welcomed them affectionately and kindly, taking Lucy in her arms, and greeting her very tenderly; but Talbot saw that she had changed terribly within the few days that had passed since her return to Yorkshire, and his heart sank as he observed her pale face and the dark circles about her hollow eyes.

Could she have heard – ? Could anybody have given her reason to suppose – ?

"You are not well, Mrs. Mellish," he said, as he took her hand.

"No, not very well. This oppressive weather makes my head ache."

"I am sorry to see you looking ill. Where shall I find John?" asked Mr. Bulstrode.

Aurora's pale face flushed suddenly.

"I – I – don't know," she stammered. "He is not in the house; he has gone out – to the stables – or to the farm, I think. I'll send for him."

"No, no," Talbot said, intercepting her hand on its way to the bell. "I'll go and look for him. Lucy will be glad of a chat with you, I dare say, Aurora, and will not be sorry to get rid of me."

Lucy, with her arm about her cousin's waist, assented to this arrangement. She was grieved to see the change in Aurora's looks, the unnatural constraint of her manner.

Mr. Bulstrode walked away, hugging himself upon having done a very wise thing.

"Lucy is a great deal more likely to find out what is the matter than I am," he thought. "There is a sort of freemasonry between women, an electric affinity, which a man's presence always destroys. How deathly pale Aurora looks! Can it be possible that the trouble I expected has come so soon?"

He went to the stables, but not so much to look for John Mellish as in the hope of finding somebody intelligent enough to furnish him with a better account of the murder than any he had yet heard.

"Some one else, as well as Aurora, must have had a reason for wishing to get rid of this man," he thought. "There must have been some motive: revenge, – gain, – something which no one has yet fathomed."

He went into the stable-yard; but he had no opportunity of making his investigation, for John Mellish was standing in a listless attitude before a small forge, watching the shoeing of one of his horses. The young squire looked up with a start as he recognized Talbot, and gave him his hand, with a few straggling words of welcome. Even in that moment Mr. Bulstrode saw that there was perhaps a greater change in John's appearance than in that of Aurora. The Yorkshireman's blue eyes had lost their brightness, his step its elasticity; his face seemed sunken and haggard, and he evidently avoided meeting Talbot's eye. He lounged listlessly away from the forge, walking at his guest's side in the direction of the stable-gates; but he had the air of a man who neither knows nor cares whither he is going.

"Shall we go to the house?" he said. "You must want some luncheon after your journey." He looked at his watch as he said this. It was half-past three, an hour after the usual time for luncheon at Mellish.

"I've been in the stables all the morning," he said. "We're busy making our preparations for the York Summer."

"What horses do you run?" Mr. Bulstrode asked, politely affecting to be interested in a subject that was utterly indifferent to him, in the hope that stable-talk might rouse John from his listless apathy.

"What horses!" repeated Mr. Mellish vaguely. "I – I hardly know. Langley manages all that for me, you know; and – I – I forget the names of the horses he proposed, and – "

Talbot Bulstrode turned suddenly upon his friend, and looked him full in the face. They had left the stables by this time, and were in a shady pathway that led through a shrubbery towards the house.

"John Mellish," he said, "this is not fair towards an old friend. You have something on your mind, and you are trying to hide it from me."

The squire turned away his head.

"I have something on my mind, Talbot," he said quietly. "If you could help me, I'd ask your help more than any man's. But you can't – you can't!"

"But suppose I think I can help you?" cried Mr. Bulstrode. "Suppose I mean to try and do so, whether you will or no? I think I can guess what your trouble is, John; but I thought you were a braver man than to give way under it; I thought you were just the sort of man to struggle through it nobly and bravely, and to get the better of it by your own strength of will."

"What do you mean!" exclaimed John Mellish. "You can guess – you know – you thought! Have you no mercy upon me, Talbot Bulstrode? Can't you see that I'm almost mad, and that this is no time for you to force your sympathy upon me? Do you want me to betray myself? Do you want me to betray – "

He stopped suddenly, as if the words had choked him, and, passionately stamping his foot upon the ground, walked on hurriedly, with his friend still by his side.

The dining-room looked dreary enough when the two men entered it, although the table gave promise of a very substantial luncheon; but there was no one to welcome them, or to officiate at the banquet.

John seated himself wearily in a chair at the bottom of the table.

"You had better go and see if Mrs. Bulstrode and your mistress are coming to luncheon," he said to a servant, who left the room with his master's message, and returned three minutes afterwards to say that the ladies were not coming.

The ladies were seated side by side upon a low sofa in Aurora's morning-room. Mrs. Mellish sat with her head upon her cousin's shoulder. She had never had a sister, remember; and gentle Lucy stood in place of that near and tender comforter. Talbot was perfectly right; Lucy had accomplished that which he would have failed to bring about. She had found the key to her cousin's unhappiness.

"Ceased to love you, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Bulstrode, echoing the words that Aurora had last spoken. "Impossible!"

"It is true, Lucy," answered Mrs. Mellish, despairingly. "He has ceased to love me. There is a black cloud between us now, now that all secrets are done away with. It is very bitter for me to bear, Lucy; for I thought we should be so happy and united. But – but it is only natural. He feels the degradation so much. How can he look at me without remembering who and what I am? The widow of his groom! Can I wonder that he avoids me?"

"Avoids you, dear?"

"Yes, avoids me. We have scarcely spoken a dozen words to each other since the night of our return. He was so good to me, so tender and devoted during the journey home, telling me again and again that this discovery had not lessened his love, that all the trial and horror of the past few days had only shown him the great strength of his affection; but on the night of our return, Lucy, he changed – changed suddenly and inexplicably; and now I feel that there is a gulf between us that can never be passed again. He is alienated from me for ever!"

"Aurora, all this is impossible," remonstrated Lucy. "It is your own morbid fancy, darling."

"My fancy!" cried Aurora bitterly. "Ah, Lucy, you cannot know how much I love my husband, if you think that I could be deceived in one look or tone of his. Is it my fancy that he averts his eyes when he speaks to me? Is it my fancy that his voice changes when he pronounces my name? Is it my fancy that he roams about the house like a ghost, and paces up and down his room half the night through? If these things are my fancy, Heaven have mercy upon me, Lucy; for I must be going mad."

Mrs. Bulstrode started as she looked at her cousin. Could it be possible that all the trouble and confusion of the past week or two had indeed unsettled this poor girl's intellect?

"My poor Aurora!" she murmured, smoothing the heavy hair away from her cousin's tearful eyes: "my poor darling! how is it possible that John should change towards you? He loved you so dearly, so devotedly; surely nothing could alienate him from you."

"I used to think so, Lucy," Aurora murmured in a low, heart-broken voice; "I used to think nothing could ever come to part us. He said he would follow me to the uttermost end of the world; he said that no obstacle on earth should ever separate us; and now – "

She could not finish the sentence, for she broke into convulsive sobs, and hid her face upon her cousin's shoulder, staining Mrs. Bulstrode's pretty silk dress with her hot tears.

"Oh, my love, my love!" she cried piteously, "why didn't I run away and hide myself from you? why didn't I trust to my first instinct, and run away from you for ever? Any suffering would be better than this! any suffering would be better than this!"

Her passionate grief merged into a fit of hysterical weeping, in which she was no longer mistress of herself. She had suffered for the past few days more bitterly than she had ever suffered yet. Lucy understood all that. She was one of those people whose tenderness instinctively comprehends the griefs of others. She knew how to treat her cousin; and in less than an hour after this emotional outbreak Aurora was lying on her bed, pale and exhausted, but sleeping peacefully. She had carried the burden of her sorrow in silence during the past few days, and had spent sleepless nights in brooding over her trouble. Her conversation with Lucy had unconsciously relieved her, and she slumbered calmly after the storm. Lucy sat by the bed watching the sleeper for some time, and then stole on tiptoe from the room.

She went, of course, to tell her husband all that had passed, and to take counsel from his sublime wisdom.

She found Talbot in the drawing-room alone; he had eaten a dreary luncheon in John's company, and had been hastily left by his host immediately after the meal. There had been no sound of carriage-wheels upon the gravelled drive all that morning; there had been no callers at Mellish Park since John's return; for a horrible scandal had spread itself throughout the length and breadth of the county, and those who spoke of the young squire and his wife talked in solemn under-tones, and gravely demanded of each other whether some serious step should not be taken about the business which was uppermost in every body's mind.

Lucy told Talbot all that Aurora had said to her. This was no breach of confidence in the young wife's code of morality; for were not she and her husband immutably one, and how could she have any secret from him?

"I thought so!" Mr. Bulstrode said, when Lucy had finished her story.

"You thought what, dear?"

"That the breach between John and Aurora was a serious one. Don't look so sorrowful, my darling. It must be our business to reunite these divided lovers. You shall comfort Aurora, Lucy; and I'll look after John."

Talbot Bulstrode kissed his little wife, and went straight away upon his friendly errand. He found John Mellish in his own room, – the room in which Aurora had written to him upon the day of her flight; the room from which the murderous weapon had been stolen by some unknown hand. John had hidden the rusty pistol in one of the locked drawers of his Davenport; but it was not to be supposed that the fact of its discovery could be locked up or hidden away. That had been fully discussed in the servants' hall; and who shall doubt that it had travelled further, percolating through some of those sinuous channels which lead away from every household?

"I want you to come for a walk with me, Mr. John Mellish," said Talbot, imperatively; "so put on your hat, and come into the park. You are the most agreeable gentleman I ever had the honour to visit, and the attention you pay your guests is really something remarkable."

Mr. Mellish made no reply to this speech. He stood before his friend, pale, silent, and sullen. He was no more like the hearty Yorkshire squire whom we have known, than he was like Viscount Palmerston or Lord Clyde. He was transformed out of himself by some great trouble that was preying upon his mind; and being of a transparent and childishly truthful disposition, was unable to disguise his anguish.

"John, John!" cried Talbot, "we were little boys together at Rugby, and have backed each other in a dozen childish fights. Is it kind of you to withhold your friendship from me now, when I have come here on purpose to be a friend to you – to you and to Aurora?"

John Mellish turned away his head as his friend mentioned that familiar name; and the gesture was not lost upon Mr. Bulstrode.

"John, why do you refuse to trust me?"

"I don't refuse. I – Why did you come to this accursed house?" cried John Mellish, passionately; "why did you come here, Talbot Bulstrode? You don't know the blight that is upon this place, and those who live in it, or you would have no more come here than you would willingly go to a plague-stricken city. Do you know that since I came back from London not a creature has called at this house? Do you know that when I and – and – my wife – went to church on Sunday, the people we knew sneaked away from our path as if we had just recovered from typhus fever? Do you know that the cursed gaping rabble come from Doncaster to stare over the park-palings, and that this house is a show to half the West Riding? Why do you come here? You will be stared at, and grinned at, and scandalized, – you, who – Go back to London to-night, Talbot, if you don't want to drive me mad."

"Not till you trust me with your troubles, John," answered Mr. Bulstrode firmly. "Put on your hat, and come out with me. I want you to show me the spot where the murder was done."

"You may get some one else to show it you," muttered John, sullenly; "I'll not go there!"

"John Mellish!" cried Talbot suddenly, "am I to think you a coward and a fool? By the heaven that's above me, I shall think so if you persist in this nonsense. Come out into the park with me; I have the claim of past friendship upon you, and I'll not have that claim set aside by any folly of yours."

The two men went out upon the lawn, John complying moodily enough with his friend's request, and walked silently across the park towards that portion of the wood in which James Conyers had met his death. They had reached one of the loneliest and shadiest avenues in this wood, and were, in fact, close against the spot from which Samuel Prodder had watched his niece and her companion on the night of the murder, when Talbot stopped suddenly, and laid his hand on the squire's shoulder.

"John," he said, in a determined tone, "before we go to look at the place where this bad man died, you must tell me your trouble."

Mr. Mellish drew himself up proudly, and looked at the speaker with gloomy defiance lowering upon his face.

"I will tell no man that which I do not choose to tell," he said firmly; and then with a sudden change that was terrible to see, he cried impetuously, "Why do you torment me, Talbot? I tell you that I can't trust you – I can't trust any one upon earth. If – if I told you – the horrible thought that – if I told you, it would be your duty to – I – Talbot, Talbot, have pity upon me – let me alone – go away from me – I – "

Stamping furiously, as if he would have trampled down the cowardly despair for which he despised himself, and beating his forehead with his clenched fists, John Mellish turned away from his friend, and, leaning against the gnarled branch of a great oak, wept aloud. Talbot Bulstrode waited till the paroxysm had passed away before he spoke again; but when his friend had grown calmer, he linked his arm about him, and drew him away almost as tenderly as if the big Yorkshireman had been some sorrowing woman, sorely in need of manly help and comfort.

"John, John," he said gravely, "thank God for this; thank God for anything that breaks the ice between us. I know what your trouble is, poor old friend, and I know that you have no cause for it. Hold up your head, man, and look straightforward to a happy future. I know the black thought that has been gnawing at your poor foolish manly heart: you think that Aurora murdered the groom!"

John Mellish, started, shuddering convulsively.

"No, no," he gasped; "who said so – who said – ?"

"You think this, John," continued Talbot Bulstrode; "and you do her the most grievous wrong that ever yet was done to woman; a more shameful wrong than I committed when I thought that Aurora Floyd had been guilty of some base intrigue."

"You don't know – " stammered John.

"I don't know! I know all, and foresaw trouble for you, before you saw the cloud that was in the sky. But I never dreamt of this. I thought the foolish country people would suspect your wife, as it always pleases people to try and fix a crime upon the person in whom that crime would be more particularly atrocious. I was prepared for this; but to think that you – you, John, who should have learned to know your wife by this time – to think that you should suspect the woman you have loved of a foul and treacherous murder!"

"How do we know that the – that the man was murdered?" cried John vehemently. "Who says that the deed was treacherously done? He may have goaded her beyond endurance, insulted her generous pride, stung her to the very quick, and in the madness of her passion – having that wretched pistol in her possession – she may – "

"Stop!" interrupted Talbot. "What pistol? you told me the weapon had not been found."

"It was found upon the night of our return."

"Yes; but why do you associate this weapon with Aurora? What do you mean by saying that the pistol was in her possession?"

"Because – O my God! Talbot, why do you wring these things from me?"

"For your own good, and for the justification of an innocent woman; so help me, Heaven!" answered Mr. Bulstrode. "Do not be afraid to be candid with me, John. Nothing would ever make me believe Aurora Mellish guilty of this crime."

The Yorkshireman turned suddenly towards his friend, and leaning upon Talbot Bulstrode's shoulder, wept for the second time during that woodland ramble.

"May God in heaven bless you for this, Talbot!" he cried passionately. "Ah, my love, my dear, what a wretch I have been to you! but Heaven is my witness that, even in my worst agony of doubt and horror, my love has never lessened. It never could! – it never could!"

"John, old fellow," said Mr. Bulstrode, cheerfully, "perhaps, instead of talking this nonsense, which leaves me entirely in the dark as to everything that has happened since you left London, you will do me the favour to enlighten me as to the cause of these foolish suspicions."

They had reached the ruined summer-house and the pool of stagnant water, on the margin of which James Conyers had met with his death. Mr. Bulstrode seated himself upon a pile of broken timber, while John Mellish paced up and down the smooth patch of turf between the summer-house and the water, and told, disjointedly enough, the story of the finding of the pistol, which had been taken out of his room.

"I saw that pistol upon the day of the murder," he said. "I took particular notice of it; for I was cleaning my guns that morning, and I left them all in confusion while I went down to the lodge to see the trainer. When I came back – I – "

"Well, what then?"

"Aurora had been setting my guns in order."

"You argue, therefore, that your wife took the pistol?"

John looked piteously at his friend; but Talbot's grave smile reassured him.

"No one else had permission to go into the room," he answered. "I keep my papers and accounts there, you know; and it's an understood thing that none of the servants are allowed to go there, except when they clean the room."

"To be sure! But the room is not locked, I suppose?"

"Locked! of course not!"

"And the windows – which open to the ground – are sometimes left open, I dare say?"

"Almost always in such weather as this."

"Then, my dear John, it may be just possible that some one who had not permission to enter the room did, nevertheless, enter it, for the purpose of abstracting this pistol. Have you asked Aurora why she took upon herself to rearrange your guns? – she had never done such a thing before, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, very often. I'm rather in the habit of leaving them about after cleaning them; and my darling understands all about them as well as I do. She has often put them away for me."

"Then there was nothing particular in her doing so upon the day of the murder. Have you asked her how long she was in your room, and whether she can remember seeing this particular pistol, among others?'

"Ask her!" exclaimed John; "how could I ask her, when – "

"When you have been mad enough to suspect her. No, my poor old friend; you made the same mistake that I committed at Felden. You presupposed the guilt of the woman you loved; and you were too great a coward to investigate the evidence upon which your suspicions were built. Had I been wise enough, instead of blindly questioning this poor bewildered girl, to tell her plainly what it was that I suspected, the incontrovertible truth would have flashed out of her angry eyes, and one indignant denial would have told me how basely I had wronged her. You shall not make the mistake that I made, John. You must go frankly and fearlessly to the wife you love, tell her of the suspicion that overclouds her fame, and implore her to help you to the uttermost of her power in unravelling the mystery of this man's death. The assassin must be found, John; for so long as he remains undiscovered, you and your wife will be the victims of every penny-a-liner who finds himself at a loss for a paragraph."

"Yes," Mr. Mellish answered bitterly, "the papers have been hard at it already; and there's been a fellow hanging about the place for the last few days whom I've had a very strong inclination to thrash. Some reporter, I suppose, come to pick up information."

"I suppose so," Talbot answered thoughtfully; "what sort of a man was he?"

"A decent-looking fellow enough; but a Londoner, I fancy, and – stay!" exclaimed John suddenly, "there's a man coming towards us from the turnstile; and unless I'm considerably mistaken, it's the very fellow."

Mr. Mellish was right.

The wood was free to any foot-passenger who pleased to avail himself of the pleasant shelter of spreading beeches, and the smooth carpet of mossy turf, rather than tramp wearily upon the dusty highway.