Monica, Volume 2 (of 3)

“Monica!” he cried passionately, “you shall hear me. I will be heard! You shall not judge me till I can plead my own cause. The veriest criminal is heard in his defence.”

He advanced a step nearer, but she recoiled before him, and pointed to the door.

“Go, Sir Conrad, unless you wish to be expelled by my servants. I will listen to nothing.”

She moved as if to summon assistance, but he sprang forward and seized her hand, holding her wrist in so fierce a grasp that she could neither free herself nor reach the bell. She was a prisoner at his mercy.

But Monica was a true Trevlyn, and a stranger to mere physical fear. The madness in his gleaming eyes, the ferocity of his whole aspect, were sufficiently alarming. She knew in this vast place that it would be in vain to call for help, no one would hear her voice; but she faced her enemy with cool, inflexible courage, trusting to her own strong will, and the inherent cowardice of a man who could thus insult a woman alone in her husband’s house.

“Loose me, Sir Conrad!” she said.

“Not until you have heard me.”

“I will not hear you. I know as much of your story as there is any need I should. Loose me, I say! Do you know that my husband will be here immediately? Do you wish him to expel you from his house?”

Conrad laughed wildly, a sort of demoniac laugh, that made her shudder in spite of herself. Was he mad? Yes, mad with drink and with fury – not irresponsible, yet so blind, so crazed, so possessed with thoughts of vengeance, that he was almost more dangerous than a raving maniac would have been. His eyes glowed with sullen fire. His voice was hoarse and strained.

“Do I wish him to find me here? Yes, I do – I do!” he laughed wildly. “Kiss me, Monica – call me your friend again! There is yet time – show him you are not his slave – show him how you assert yourself in his absence.”

Monica recoiled with a cry of horror; but the strength of madness was upon him. He held her fast by the wrist. It was unspeakably hideous to be alone in that dim place with this terrible madman.

“Monica, I love you – you shall – you must be mine!”

Was that another step without? It was – it was! Thank Heaven he had come!

“Randolph! Randolph! Randolph!”

Monica’s voice rang out with that sudden piercing clearness that bespeaks terror and distress.

The next moment Conrad was hurled backwards, with a force that sent him staggering against the wall, breathless and powerless. Before he could recover himself he was lifted bodily off his feet, shaken like a rat, and literally thrown down the terrace steps, rolling over and over in the descent, till he lay at the foot stunned, bruised and shaken. He picked himself slowly up, muttering curses as he limped away. Little were his curses heeded by the two he had left behind.

Monica, white, trembling, unnerved by all she had gone through during the past minutes, held out her arms to her husband.

“Randolph! Oh, Randolph!”

He clasped her close to his heart, and held her there as if he never meant to let her go. He bent his head over her, and she felt his kisses on her cheek. He did not doubt – he did not distrust her! His strong arms pressed her even closer and closer. She lay against his breast, feeling no wish ever to leave that shelter. Oh, he was so true and noble – her own loving, faithful husband! How she loved him she had never known until that supreme moment.

At last she stirred in his arms and lifted her face to his.

“Randolph, you must never leave me again,” she said. “I cannot bear it – I cannot.”

“I will not, my dear wife,” he answered. “Never again shall aught but death part thee and me.”

She clung to him, half shuddering.

“Ah! do not talk of death, Randolph. I cannot bear it – I cannot listen.”

He pressed a kiss upon her trembling lips.

“Does my wife love me now?” he asked, very gravely and tenderly. “Let me hear it from your own sweet lips, my Monica.”

“Ah, Randolph, I love, I love you;” she lifted her eyes to his as she spoke. There was something almost solemn in their deep, earnest gaze. “Randolph, I do not think any one but your wife could know such a love as mine.”

“Not your husband?” he asked, returning her look with one equally full of meaning. “Monica, you may love as well, but I think you cannot love more than I do.”

She laid her head down again. It was unspeakably sweet to hear him say so, to feel his arms about her, to know that they were united at last, and that nothing could part them now.

“Not even death,” said Monica to herself; “for love like ours is stronger than death.”

“How came that scoundrel here?” asked Randolph, somewhat later as they stood together on the terrace, watching the moonlight on the sea.

“I think he came to frighten me – perhaps to try and hurt us once more by his wicked words and deeds. Randolph, is he mad? He looked so dreadful to-day. He was not the old Conrad I once knew. It was terrible – till you came.”

“I believe at times he is mad,” answered Randolph, “with a sort of madness that is not actual insanity, though somewhat akin to it. It is the madness of ungovernable passion and hatred that rises up in him from time to time against certain individuals, and becomes, as it seems, a sort of monomania with him. It was so with his friend and benefactor Colonel Hamilton, when once he felt himself found out. Ever since the horsewhipping I administered to him, I believe he has felt vindictively towards me. Our paths led us wide apart for several years, but as soon as we met again the old enmity rose up once more. He tried to hurt me through my wife.” Randolph looked down at her with a proud smile upon his handsome face. “I need not say how utterly and miserably he has failed.”

Monica glanced up at him, a world of loving confidence in her eyes; yet the clinging clasp of her hands tightened upon his arm. He fancied she trembled a little.

“What is it, my Monica?”

She pressed a little more closely towards him.

“Randolph, do you think he will try to hurt you now – try to do you some injury?”

The husband smiled re-assuringly at her.

“Hurt me? How, Monica?”

“Oh, I don’t know; but he has spoken such cruel, wicked words. He said he had vowed to ruin our happiness – he looked as if he meant it – so vindictive, so terrible!” she shivered a little.

He took her hands, and held them in his warm, strong clasp.

“Are you afraid of what that bad man says, Monica – a man who is a coward and a scoundrel of the deepest dye? Are you afraid of idle threats from his lips? How could he ruin our happiness now?”

She looked up at him, still with a sort of undefined trouble in her eyes.

“He might hurt you, Randolph,” she half whispered. “What hurts you, hurts me. If – if – he were to take you away from me – ”

Randolph laid his hand smilingly upon her lips.

“My darling, you are unnerved by the fright he gave you. When was Monica troubled by idle fears before?”

“I don’t know what I fear, Randolph; but I have feelings sometimes – premonitions, presentiments, and I cannot shake them off. Ever since Conrad came, I felt a kind of horror of him, even though I tried to call him friend. Sometimes I think it must mean something.”

“No doubt it does,” answered Randolph. “It is the natural shrinking of your pure soul from his evil, vicious nature. I can well understand it. It could hardly be otherwise. He could not deceive you long.”

She looked gravely out before her.

“No, I do not think he really deceived me long – not my innermost self of all. But I was very self-willed. I wanted to judge for myself, and I could not judge him rightly. I believed him. I did not want to be unjust – and he deceived me.”

Randolph smiled and laid his hand caressingly upon her shoulder. She looked up with a smile.

“That is right, Monica. You must put away these sad, wistful looks. We must not let this evening’s happiness be marred by any doubts and fears. You have your husband again. Is not that enough?”

She turned and laid her head against his shoulder. His arm was fast about her in a moment. She drew a long breath, almost like a sigh.

“Randolph, I think that moments like this must be a foretaste of heaven.”

He kissed her, and she added, low and dreamily:

“Only there, there will be no fear of parting. Death could not part us there.”

“Death could not sunder our hearts even here, my Monica,” said Randolph. “Some love is for eternity.”

“Yes,” she answered, looking out over the wide sea with a deep smile, that seemed as if it were reading the future in the vast, heaving expanse of moon-lit water. “Our love is like that – not for time alone, but for eternity.”

He caught the gravity of her mood. Some subtle sympathy drew them ever closer and more close together.

“And so,” he added gravely and tenderly, “we need fear nothing; for nothing can alter that one great thing. Nothing can change our love. We belong to one another always – always.”

She stood very still and quiet.

“Yes,” she said, “for ever and ever. Randolph, if we could both die to-night I think it would be a happy thing for us.”

“Why?”

“Because then there would be no parting to fear.”

“And now?”

“Now I do fear it. I fear it without knowing why. He will part us if he can.”

Randolph strained his wife close to his heart.

“If he can! Monica, look up; put away these idle fears, my love. Can I not take care of you and of myself? Let us put him for ever out of our lives.”

“Ah! if only we could!” breathed Monica.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.

A SHADOW

The days that followed were very full of happiness and peace for Monica and her husband. They were alone together in the dim old castle, far away from the busy whirl of life they had so gladly left behind, free to be with each other every moment of the flying hours, learning to know and to love one another with a more perfect comprehending love with each succeeding day.

Not one tiny cloud of reserve or distrust clouded the sunshine of their horizon. Monica had laid before Randolph that unlucky letter of Lady Diana’s, had listened with a sort of mingling of delight and indignation to his comments on the composition – delight to hear that he had always loved her from the first, that in gratifying her father’s desire he had but been gratifying the dearest desire of his own heart – indignation towards the mischief-making relative, who had tried to deceive and humiliate her, who had told her one half of the story and concealed the other.

But indignation was only a momentary feeling. Monica was too happy to cherish resentment. Her anger was but a passing spark.

“I should like to speak my mind to Lady Diana,” remarked Randolph, as he tore the paper into small fragments and tossed them over the cliff. “I always distrusted her wisdom, but I did not look for deliberate malice like that. Why did you not show me that letter when it came, Monica, and let me see what I had to say to it?”

She looked up with a smile.

“Because I was so foolish and distrustful in those days. I did long to once, but then came the thought – Suppose it should be true?”

And then they both smiled. There was a charm and sweetness in thus discussing the past, with the light of the happy present shining upon it.

“But she meant to be your friend, Randolph. We must not forget that. I suppose she thought that you would tell me of your love, but that she ought to inform me of your generosity. Poor Aunt Diana! we should get on better now. In those days, Randolph, I think I was very difficile– very wilful and unapproachable. I used to think it would kill me ever to leave Trevlyn. I think now that it would have been the ruin of me to stay. It is not good to grow up in one narrow groove, and to gain no knowledge of anything beyond.”

“That is quite true, Monica. Does that mean that you will be willing to leave Trevlyn, by and-bye?”

“I shall be willing to do anything that you wish, Randolph. You know I would go anywhere with you. Do you want to take me away again?”

“Presently I think I do. I should like to take you to Scotland in August, to stay a month or two at my little shooting-box there. You would like the free, roving life you could lead there, amongst that world of heather. And then there are things to be done at Trevlyn. Monica, will you be able to reconcile yourself to changes here?”

“Changes?”

“Yes. I should like to see Trevlyn restored to what it must have been a century ago. The glory has departed of late years, but you have only to look round to see what the place must have been once. I want to restore that faded glory – not to introduce glaring changes, but to make it something like what it must have been when our ancestors lived there long years ago. Would you like that, Monica? It would not go against you, would it, to see Trevlyn look so? I want it to be worthy of the mistress who will preside there. It is a wish that has haunted me ever since I entered its precincts and met you there.”

Monica was glad to enter into any plan proposed by her husband. She was willing he should restore Trevlyn in any way that he wished; but she preferred that he should make his own arrangements about it, and let her only judge by the result. She could not yet enter with any sense of realisation into projects for making Trevlyn other than she had known it all her life; but she trusted Randolph’s taste and judgment, and let him plan and settle everything as he would.

She was ready to leave home whenever he wished it, the more so that Conrad Fitzgerald still occupied a suite of rooms in his half dismantled house, and hung about the neighbourhood in an odd, aimless sort of fashion.

How he spent his time no one seemed to know, but he must have developed roving tendencies, for Monica was constantly seeing him in unexpected places, down by the rocky shore, wandering over the trackless downs, or crouching in the heather or behind a tree, as she and her husband passed along in their daily walks or rides.

He never met them face to face. He appeared to endeavour always to keep out of sight. Randolph, as a matter of fact, seldom saw him, and paid no heed, when he did, to the vindictive scowl upon the yet beautiful face. But Monica seemed haunted by this persistent watching and waiting. She was ever on the look-out for the crouching figure in some place of concealment, for the glitter of the fierce blue eyes, and the cruel sneer of the pale lips. She felt intensely nervous and timid beneath that sense of espionage; and she was glad when August came, and she was to leave Trevlyn and its spectre behind.

Accounts from Germany were very good. Arthur wrote little pencil notes every week, informing Monica that he was getting on “like a house on fire,” and singing the praises of Tom, who had stayed so long with him, “like the good fellow he was,” and would have remained longer only it really wasn’t worth while.

“I’m afraid I’ve been very unjust to Tom,” said Monica. “I want to tell him so when he comes back. May we wait till he does? I want to hear all about Arthur at first hand, as I may not go to see him yet.”

So they waited for the return of the traveller.

Monica did sincerely wish to hear about Arthur, but she had something else to report to Tom as well. She had the greatest confidence in his acuteness and penetration, and could sometimes say to him what she would have despaired of communicating intelligibly to any one else.

There was no difficulty in securing a private interview when once he had come back. Every one knew how anxious Monica would be to hear every detail of Arthur’s present life, and Tom resigned himself, and told his tale with all possible fulness and accuracy.

Monica listened with an absorbed look upon her face. When he had told all, she said simply:

“Thank you, Tom, for all your goodness to him. I am very sorry I ever misunderstood you, and said such hard things of and to you. You have got the best of it in the end, by heaping coals of fire upon me.”

He smiled slightly.

“My dear Monica, you don’t suppose I troubled my head over your ladyship’s righteous wrath. I found it very amusing, I assure you.”

“I believe you did,” assented Monica, smiling in turn; “which made things a little trying for me. Tom, I believe you have always been my friend, even when we have seemed most bitterly opposed.”

The sudden earnestness of her manner made him look at her keenly, and he spoke without his usual half-mocking intonation.

“I hope so, Monica. I wish to have the right to call myself your friend.”

He looked steadily at her, knowing there was more to follow. She was silent for a time, and then came a sudden and most unexpected question, and one apparently most irrelevant.

“Do you know Sir Conrad Fitzgerald?”

“I used to know him when he was a child. I knew him slightly at Oxford. He has made no attempt to renew the acquaintance since he has been down here; and, judging by what I have heard, I should not be inclined to encourage him if he did.”

“But there would be nothing extraordinary in your visiting him?”

“Possibly not; but I cannot say I have any wish to try the experiment.”

“You know his history, perhaps? – the dark stain.”

“I heard of it at the time it happened – not from Trevlyn, though. It’s a sort of story that doesn’t make one yearn to renew acquaintance with the hero.”

For a few moments Monica sat very still and silent. Then she asked quietly:

“Do you think he is the kind of man to be dangerous?”

“Dangerous?”

“Yes – if he had taken a vow of vengeance. Do you think – ?”

“Well, what?”

“Think he would try very hard to accomplish such a vow? Do people never in these days try to do an injury to a man they hate?”

Tom began to understand her now.

“Well, one cannot lay down hard and fast lines; but it is not now customary for a man to attempt the sort of vengeance that he would have done a century or so back. He tries in these days to hurt an enemy morally by injuring his reputation; and I think no one need stand in much awe of Fitzgerald, least of all a man like your husband. It is necessary to possess a reputation of one’s own to undermine that of another with much success. Fitzgerald certainly has a reputation, but not the kind that makes him dangerous as an enemy.”

Monica heard this dictum in silence. She did not appear much relieved, and he saw it.

“Now you anticipate,” he continued, quite quietly and unemotionally, “that he will make a regular attack upon Trevlyn one of these days?”

“I am afraid so sometimes,” answered Monica. “It may be very foolish; but I am afraid. He always seems watching us. Hardly a day goes by but I see him, with such an evil look in his eye. Tom, I sometimes think that he is going mad.”

The young man’s face changed slightly.

“That, of course, would put a new colour on the matter. Have you any reasons upon which to base your suspicions?”

“Nothing that you would perhaps call reasons, but they make me suspicious. Randolph, spoke of a touch of insanity that he had fancied lurked in his brain. At least, when he hates he seems to hate with a ferocity that suggests the idea of madness. Tom, if you were to see him, should you know?”

Tom mused a little.

“I might be able to hazard a shrewd guess, perhaps. Why do you want so much to know?”

Without answering, Monica propounded another question. “If he were mad, he would be much more dangerous, would he not?”

“Yes; and if really dangerous, could be placed under proper control.”

A look of relief crossed Monica’s face.

“Could that be done?”

“Certainly, if absolute madness could be proved. But you know in many cases this is most difficult to demonstrate; and in Fitzgerald’s independent position it might be exceedingly hard to get the needful evidence.”

Her face clouded again.

“But you will see him, Tom? You will try to find out?”

He hesitated a little. To tell the truth he did not care about the job. He had a hearty contempt for the man himself, did not attach much weight to Monica’s suspicions, and thought her fears far-fetched. But her pleading face prevailed.

“Well, Monica, if you particularly wish it, I will endeavour to meet him, and enter into a sort of speaking acquaintance. I don’t promise to force myself upon him if he avoids me pointedly, but I will do what I can in a casual sort of way to find out something about him. But it is not at all likely he will prove mad enough to be placed under restraint.”

“I believe he drinks,” said Monica, softly. “He used not to, but I believe he does now.”

“Well, if he has a screw loose and drinks as well, he may make an end of himself in time. At any rate, if it will relieve your mind, I will find out what I can about him.”

“Thank you, Tom; I am very much obliged to you; and if you cannot do much, at least you can keep your eye upon him, and let me know how long he stays here. I – I – it may be very foolish; but I don’t want Randolph to come back till he has gone.”

Tom’s eyebrows went up.

“Then you really are afraid?”

She smiled faintly.

“I believe I am.”

“Well, it sounds very absurd; but I have a sort of a faith in your premonitions. Anyway, I will keep your words in mind, and do what I can; and we will try and get him off the field before you are ready to return to it. I should not think the attractions of the place will hold him long.”

So Monica went off to Scotland with a lightened heart; and yet the shadow of the haunting fear did not vanish entirely even in the sunshine of her great happiness.

CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.

IN SCOTLAND

“An empty sky and a world of heather.”

Such was the scene that met Monica’s eye as she stepped out into the clear morning sunshine, and gazed out over the wide expanse of moorland that lay in a kind of purple glory all around her.

Randolph’s shooting-box was situated in a very lonely, yet wonderfully picturesque spot. It seemed as if it had just been dropped down upon its little craggy eminence amid this rolling sea of billowy heather, and had anchored itself there without more ado. There was no attempt at park or garden, or enclosed ground of any kind. The moor itself was park and garden in one, and the heather and gorse grew right up to the wide terrace walk upon which the south windows of the little house opened. A plantation of pine and fir behind gave protection from the winter winds, and shade from the summer sun; but save for this little wood – an oasis in a blooming desert – the moor stretched away in its wild freedom on every hand, the white road alone, glimpses of which could be seen here and there, seeming to connect it with the great world beyond.

Trevlyn was lonely and isolated enough, but it almost seemed to Monica, as she gazed over the sunny moorland that glorious summer morning, as if she had never been so utterly remote from the abode of man as she was to-day.

There was a step behind her, and a hand was laid upon her shoulder.

“Well, Monica?”

She turned to him with lips that quivered as they smiled.

“It is all so exquisite, Randolph – so perfect. You did not tell me half.”

“You like it, my Monica?”

“Like it! It seems as if you and I were just alone in the world together.” He bent his head and touched her brow with his lips.

“And that contents you, Monica?”

She looked up with eloquent eyes.

“Need you ask that question now?”

His smile expressed an unspeakable happiness; he put his arm about her saying softly:

“There are some questions one never tires of hearing answered, sweet wife. Ah, Monica! when I think of the past, I feel as if it were almost necessary to have lived through that, to know what such happiness as ours can be. It is the former doubt that makes the present certainty so unutterably sweet. Do you ever feel that yourself, my darling?”

He spoke gravely and gently, as they stood together in the golden sunshine. She looked up into his face with deep love and reverence, yet he felt her slight form quiver in his clasp. He looked at her smilingly.

“What is it, Monica?”

“Nothing – only a strange feeling I have sometimes. I know what you mean, Randolph. You are quite, quite right – only do not let us to-day think of the sorrow that went before. Let us be happy with one another.”