Miss Arnott's Marriage

A brief encounter which took place between them, as they were leaving the court, filled her with a tumult of emotions which it was altogether beyond her power to analyse. He came out of the door as she was getting into her car. Immediately advancing to her side he addressed her without any sort of preamble.

"I congratulate you upon the clearness with which you gave your evidence, and on the touch of feminine sympathy which it betrayed for the prisoner. I fear, however, that that touch of sympathy may do him more harm than you probably intended."

There was something in the words themselves, and still more in the tone in which they were uttered, which sent the blood surging up into her face. She stared at him in genuine amazement.

"You speak to me like that? – you? Certainly you betrayed no touch of sympathy. I can exonerate you from the charge of injuring him by exhibiting anything of that kind."

"I was in rather a difficult position. Don't you think I was? Unluckily I was not at my ease, which apparently you were."

"I never saw anyone more at his ease than you seemed to be. I wondered how it was possible."

"Did you? Really? What a curious character yours is. And am I to take it that you were uneasy?"

"Uneasy? I-I loathed myself."

"Not actually? I can only assure you that you concealed the fact with admirable skill."

"And-I loathed you."

"Under the circumstances, that I don't wonder at at all. You would. I even go further. Please listen to me carefully, Miss Arnott, and read, as you very well can, the meaning which is between the lines. If a certain matter goes as, judging from present appearances, it very easily may go, I may have to take certain action which may cause you to regard me with even greater loathing than you are doing now. Do not mistake me on that point, I beg of you."

"If I understand you correctly, and I suppose I do, you are quite right in supposing that I shall regard you with feelings to which no mere words are capable of doing justice. I had not thought you were that kind of man."

Events marched quickly. Jim Baker was brought up before the magistrates three times, and then, to Miss Arnott's horror, he was committed for trial on the capital charge. She could hardly have appeared more affected if she herself had been committed. When the news was brought to her by Day, the butler, who still remained in her service, she received it with a point-blank contradiction.

"It's not true. It can't be true. They can't have done anything so ridiculous."

The old man looked at his young mistress with curious eyes, he himself seemed to be considerably disturbed.

"It's quite true, miss. They've sent him to take his trial at the assizes."

"I never heard of anything so monstrous. But, Day, it isn't possible that they can find him guilty?"

"As for that, I can't tell. They wouldn't, if I was on the jury, I do know that."

"Of course not, and they wouldn't if I was."

"No, miss, I suppose not."

Day moved off, Miss Arnott following him with her eyes, as if something in his last remark had struck her strangely.

A little later, when talking over the subject with Mrs Plummer, the elder lady displayed a spirit which seemed to be beyond the younger one's comprehension. Miss Arnott was pouring forth scorn upon the magistrates.

"I have heard a great deal of the stupidity of the Great Unpaid, but I had never conceived that it could go so far as this. There is not one jot or tittle of evidence to justify them in charging that man with murder."

Mrs Plummer's manner as she replied was grim.

"I wonder to hear you talk like that."

"Why should you wonder?"

"I do wonder." Mrs Plummer looked her charge straight in the face oddly. Miss Arnott had been for some time conscious of a continual oddity in the glances with which the other favoured her. Without being aware of it she was beginning to entertain a very real dislike for Mrs Plummer; she herself could scarcely have said why. "For my part I have no hesitation in saying that I think it a very good thing they have sent the man for trial; it would have been nothing short of a public scandal if they hadn't. On his own confession the man's an utterly worthless vagabond, and I hope they'll hang him.

"Mrs Plummer!"

"I do; and you ought to hope so."

"Why ought I to hope so?"

"Because then there'll be an end of the whole affair."

"But if the man is innocent?"

"Innocent!" The lady emitted a sound which might have been meant to typify scorn. "A nice innocent he is. Why you are standing up for the creature I can't see; you might have special reason. I say let them hang him, and the sooner the better, because then there'll be an end of the whole disgusting business, and we shall have a little peace and quietude."

"I for one should have no peace if I thought that an innocent man had been hanged, merely for the sake of providing me with it. But it is evidently no use our discussing the matter. I can only say that I don't understand your point of view, and I may add that there has been a good deal about you lately which I have not understood."

Mrs Plummer's words occasioned her more concern than she would have cared to admit; especially as she had a sort of vague feeling that they were representative of the state of public opinion, as it existed around her. Rightly or wrongly she was conscious of a very distinct suspicion that most of the people with whom she came into daily and hourly contact would have been quite willing to let Jim Baker hang, not only on general principles, but also with a confused notion-as Mrs Plummer had plainly put it-of putting an end to a very disagreeable condition of affairs.

In her trouble, not knowing where else to turn for advice or help, she sent for Mr Stacey. After dinner she invited him to a tête-à-tête interview in her own sitting-room, and then and there plunged into the matter which so occupied her thoughts.

"Do you know why I have sent for you, Mr Stacey?"

"I was hoping, my dear young lady, that it was partly for the purpose of affording me the inexpressible pleasure of seeing you again."

She had always found his urbanity a little trying, it seemed particularly out of place just now. Possibly she did not give sufficient consideration to the fact that the old gentleman had been brought out of town at no small personal inconvenience, and that he had just enjoyed a very good dinner.

"Of course there was that; but I am afraid that the principal reason why I sent for you is because of this trouble about Jim Baker."

"Jim Baker?"

"The man who is charged with committing the murder in Cooper's Spinney."

"I see, or, rather, I do not see what connection you imagine can exist between Mr Baker and myself."

"He is innocent-as innocent as I am."

"You know that of your own knowledge?"

"I am sure of it."

"What he has to do is to inspire the judge and jury with a similar conviction."

"But he is helpless. He is an ignorant man and has no one to defend him. That's what I want you to do-I want you to defend him."

"Me! Miss Arnott!" Mr Stacey put up his glasses the better to enable him to survey this astonishing young woman. He smiled benignly. "I may as well confess, since we are on the subject of confessions" – they were not, but that was by the way-"that there are one or two remarks which I should like to make to you, since you have been so kind as to ask me to pay you this flying visit; but, before coming to them, let us first finish with Mr Baker. Had you done me the honour to hint at the subject on which you wished to consult me, I should at once have informed you that I am no better qualified to deal with it than you are. We-that is the firm with which I am associated-do no criminal business; we never have done, and, I think I am safe in assuring you, we never shall do. May I ask if you propose to defray any expenses which may be incurred on Mr Baker's behalf? or is he prepared to be his own chancellor of the exchequer?"

"He has no money; he is a gamekeeper on a pound a week. I am willing to pay anything, I don't care what."

"Then, in that case, the matter is simplicity itself. Before I go I will give you the name of a gentleman whose reputation in the conduct of criminal cases is second to none; but I warn you that you may find him an expensive luxury."

"I don't care how much it costs."

Mr Stacey paused before he spoke again; he pressed the tips of his fingers together; he surveyed the lady through his glasses.

"Miss Arnott, will you permit me to speak to you quite frankly?"

"Of course, that's what I want you to do."

"Then take my very strong advice and don't have anything to do with Mr Baker. Don't interfere between him and the course of justice, don't intrude yourself in the matter at all. Keep yourself rigidly outside it."

"Mr Stacey! Why?"

"If you will allow me to make the remarks to which I just now alluded, possibly, by the time I have finished, you will apprehend some of my reasons. But before I commence you must promise that you will not be offended at whatever I may say. If you think that, for any cause whatever, you may be disposed to resent complete candour from an old fellow who has seen something of the world and who has your best interests very much at heart, please say so and I will not say a word."

"I shall not be offended."

"Miss Arnott, you are a very rich young lady."

"Well?"

"You are also a very young lady."

"Well again?"

"From such a young lady the world would-not unnaturally-expect a certain course of action."

"How do you mean?"

"Why don't you take up that position in the world to which you are on all accounts entitled?"

"Still I don't quite understand."

"Then I will be quite plain-why do you shut yourself up as if, to use a catch phrase, you were a woman with a past?"

Miss Arnott started perceptibly-the question was wholly unexpected. Rising from her chair she began to re-arrange some flowers in a vase on a table which was scarcely in need of her attentions.

"I was not aware that I did."

"Do you mean that seriously?"

"I imagined that I was entitled to live the sort of life I preferred to live without incurring the risk of criticism-that is what I mean."

"Already you are beginning to be offended. Let us talk of the garden. How is it looking? Your uncle was very proud of his garden. I certainly never saw anything finer than his roseries. Do you still keep them up?"

"Never mind the roseries, or the garden either. Why do you advise me not to move a finger in defence of an innocent man, merely because I choose to live my own life?"

"You put the question in a form of your own; which is not mine. To the question as you put it I have no answer."

"How would you put it?"

"Miss Arnott, in this world no one can escape criticism; – least of all unattached young ladies; – particularly young ladies in your very unusual position. I happen to know that nothing would have pleased your uncle better than that you should be presented at Court. Why don't you go to Court? Why don't you take your proper place in Society?"

"Because I don't choose."

"May I humbly entreat you to furnish me with your reasons?"

"Nor do I choose to give you my reasons."

"I am sorry to hear it, since your manner forces me to assume that you have what you hold to be very sufficient reasons. Already I hear you spoken of as the 'Peculiar Miss Arnott.' I am bound to admit not wholly without cause. Although you are a very rich woman you are living as if you were, relatively, a very poor one. Your income remains practically untouched. It is accumulating in what, under the circumstances, I am constrained to call almost criminal fashion. All sorts of unpleasant stories are being connected with your name-lies, all of them, no doubt; but still, there they are. You ought to do something which would be equivalent to nailing them to the counter. Now there is this most unfortunate affair upon your own estate. I am bound to tell you that if you go out of your way to associate yourself with this man Baker, who, in spite of what you suggest, is certainly guilty in some degree, and who, in any case, is an irredeemable scoundrel; if you persist in pouring out money like water in his defence, although you will do him no manner of good, you may do yourself very grave and lasting injury."

"That is your opinion?"

"It is."

"I thank you for expressing it so clearly. Now may I ask you for the name of the gentleman-the expert criminal lawyer-to whom you referred? and then we will change the subject."

He gave her the name, and, later, in the seclusion of his own chamber, criticised her mentally, as Mr Whitcomb once had done.

"That girl's a character of an unusual kind. I shouldn't be surprised if she knows more about that lamentable business in Cooper's Spinney than she is willing to admit, and, what's more, if she isn't extremely careful she may get herself into very serious trouble."

CHAPTER XVIII

AT THE FOUR CROSS-ROADS

The next morning Miss Arnott sent a groom over to Oak Dene with this curt note: -

"I shall be at the Wycke Cross-at the four crossroads-this afternoon at half-past three, alone. I shall be glad if you will make it convenient to be there also. There is something which it is essential I should say to you. V. A."

The groom brought back, in an envelope, Mr Hugh Morice's visiting card. On the back of it were four words, -

"I will be there."

And Mr Hugh Morice was there before the lady. Miss Arnott saw his car drawn up by the roadside, long before she reached it. She slackened her pace as she approached. When she came abreast of it she saw that its owner was sitting on a stile, enjoying a pipe. Taking his pipe out of his mouth, his cap off his head, he advanced to her in silence.

"Am I late?" she asked.

"No, it is I who am early."

They exchanged glances-as it were, neutral glances-as if each were desirous, as a preliminary, of making a study of the other. She saw-she could not help seeing-that he was not looking well. The insouciance with which, mentally, she had always associated him, had fled. The touch of the daredevil, of the man who looks out on to the world without fear and with something of humorous scorn, that also had gone. She did not know how old he was, but he struck her, all at once, as being older than she had supposed. The upper part of his face was seamed with deep lines which had not always, she fancied, been so apparent. There were crow's-feet in the corners of his eyes, the eyes themselves seemed sunken. The light in them was dimmed, or perhaps she only fancied it. It was certain that he stooped more than he had used to do. His head hung forward between his broad shoulders, as if the whole man were tired, body, soul and spirit. There was something in his looks, in his bearing, a suggestion of puzzlement, of bewilderment, of pain, which might come from continuous wrestling with an insistent problem which defied solution, which touched her to the heart, made her feel conscious of a feeling she had not meant to feel. And because she had not intended to harbour anything even remotely approaching such a feeling, she resented its intrusion, and fought against herself so that she might appear to this man to be even harder than she had proposed to be.

On his part he saw, seated in her motor car, a woman whom he would have given all that he possessed to have taken in his arms and kept there. His acumen was greater, perhaps, than hers; he saw with a clearness which frightened him, her dire distress, the weight of trouble which bore her down. She might think that she hid it from the world, but, to him, it was as though the flesh had been stripped from her nerves, and he saw them quivering. He knew something of this girl's story; this woman whose childhood should have been scarcely yet behind her, and he knew that it had brought that upon her face which had no right to be there even though her years had attained to the Psalmist's span. And because his whole nature burned within him with a desire that she might be to him as never woman had been before, he was unmanned. He was possessed by so many emotions, all warring with each other, that, for the moment, he was like a helmless ship, borne this way and that, he knew not why or whither.

Then she was so hard, looked at him out of eyes which were so cold, spoke to him as if it were only because she was compelled that she spoke to him at all. How could he dare to hint-though only in a whisper-at sympathy, or comfort? He knew that she would resent it as bitterly as though he had lashed her with a whip. And, deeming herself the victim of an outrage, the probabilities were that she would snatch the supposititious weapon out of his hand and strike him with all her force with the butt of it.

So that, in the end, her trouble would be worse at the end than it had been at the beginning. He felt that this was a woman who would dree her own weird, and that from him, of all men in the world, she would brook only such interference, either by deed word, as she herself might choose to demand.

When they had done studying one another she put her hand up to her face, as if to brush away cobwebs which might have been spun before her eyes, and she asked, -

"Shall we talk here?"

His tone was as stiff and formal as hers had been.

"As you please. It depends upon the length to which our conversation is likely to extend. As I think it possible that what you have to say may not be capable of compression within the limits of a dozen words, I would, suggest that you should draw your car a little to one side here, where it would not be possible for the most imaginative policeman to regard it as an obstruction to the traffic which seldom or never comes this way; and that you should then descend from it, and say what you have to say under the shade of these trees, and in the neighbourhood of this stile."

She acted on his suggestion, and took off the long dust cloak which she was wearing, and tossed it on the seat of her car. Going to the stile she leaned one hand on the cross bar. He held out his pipe towards her.

"May I smoke?"

"Certainly, why not? I think it possible that you may require its soothing influence before we have gone very far."

There was something in her voice which seemed as if it had been meant to sting him; it only made him smile.

"I also think that possible."

She watched him as, having refilled and relighted his pipe, he puffed at it, as if he found in the flavour of the tobacco that consolation at which she had hinted. Perceiving that he continued to smoke in silence she spoke again, as if she resented being constrained to speak.

"I presume that you have some idea of what it is I wish to say to you?"

He shook his head.

"I haven't."

"Really?"

"Absolutely. If you will forgive my saying so, and I fear that you are in an unforgiving mood, I have ceased attempting to forecast what, under any stated set of circumstances, you may either say or do. You are to me what mathematicians call an unknown quantity; you may stand for something or for nothing. One never knows."

"I have not the honour to understand you, Mr Morice."

"Don't imagine that I am even hinting at a contradiction; but I hope, for both our sakes, that you understand me better than I do you."

"I think that's very possible."

"I think so also; alas! that it should be so."

"You may well say, alas!"

"You are right; I may."

She was silent, her lips twitching, as if with impatience or scorn.

"My acquaintance with the world is but a slight one, Mr Morice; and, unfortunately, in one respect it has been of an almost uniform kind. I have learned to associate with the idea of a man something not agreeable. I hoped, at one time, that you would prove to be a variation; but you haven't. That is why, in admitting that I did understand you a little, I think that you were justified in saying, alas!"

"That, however, is not why I said it, as I should have imagined you would have surmised; although I admire the ingenuity with which you present your point of view. But, may I ask if you have ordered me to present myself at Wyche Cross with the intention of favouring me with neatly turned remarks on the subject of men in general and of myself in particular?"

"You know I haven't."

"I am waiting to know it."

"I had not thought that anyone fashioned in God's image could play so consummately the hypocrite."

"Of all the astounding observations! Is it possible that you can have overlooked your own record?"

As he spoke the blood dyed her face; she swerved so suddenly that one felt that if it had not been for the support of the stile she might have fallen. On the instant he was penitent.

"I beg your pardon; but you use me in such a fashion; you say such things, that you force me to use my tongue."

"Thank you, you need not apologise. The taunt was deserved. I have played the hypocrite; I know it-none know it better. But let me assure you that, latterly, I have continued to play the hypocrite for your sake."

"For my sake?"

"For your sake and for yours only, and you know it."

"I know it? This transcends everything! The courage of such a suggestion, even coming from you, startles me almost into speechlessness. May I ask you to explain?"

"I will explain, if an explanation is necessary, which we both know it is not!"

He waved his pipe with an odd little gesture in the air.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed.

CHAPTER XIX

THE BUTTONS OFF THE FOILS

Outwardly she was the calmer of the two. She stood upright and motionless; he was restless and fidgety, as if uneasy both in mind and body. She kept her eyes fixed steadily upon his face; he showed a disposition to elude her searching glance. When she spoke her tone was cool and even.

"You have accused me of playing the hypocrite. It is true, I have. I have allowed the world to regard me as a spinster, when I was a married woman; as free when I was bound. I have told you that I should have ceased before this to play the hypocrite, if it had not been for you. You have-pretended-to doubt it. Well, you are that kind of man. And it is because you are that kind of man that I am constrained to ask if you wish me now to cease to play the hypocrite and save Jim Baker's life?"

"Is not that a question for your consideration rather than for mine?"

"You propose to place the responsibility upon my shoulders!"

"Would you rather it were on mine?"

"That is where it properly belongs."

"In dealing with you I am at a serious disadvantage, since you are a woman and I am a man. The accident of our being of different sexes prevents my expressing myself with adequate precision."

"You appear to be anxious to take refuge even when there is nothing behind which you can hide. The difference in our sexes has never prevented you from saying to me exactly what you pleased, how you pleased-you know it. Nor do I intend to allow your manhood to shelter you. Mr Morice, the time for fencing's past. When life and death are hanging in the balance, words are weightless. I ask you again, do you intend to save Jim Baker's life?"

"I have yet to learn that it is in imminent peril."

"Then acquire that knowledge now from me. I am informed that if someone is not discovered, on whom the onus of guilt can be indubitably fixed, the probabilities are that Jim Baker will be hanged for murder."

"And you suggest that I should discover that-unhappy person?"

"I ask you if you do not think the discovery ought to be made, to save that wretched creature?"

"What I am anxious to get at, before I commit myself to an answer is this-presuming that I think the discovery should be made, do you suggest that it should be made by you or by me?"

"Mr Morice, I will make my meaning plainer, if the thing be possible. When-that night-in the wood it happened, I thought that it was done for me. I still think that might have been the motive; partly, I confess, because I cannot conceive of any other, though the misapprehension was as complete as it was curious. I did not require that kind of service-God forbid! And, therefore, thinking this-that I was, though remotely, the actual cause-it appears to me that I was, and am, unable to speak, lest it would seem that I was betraying one whose intention was to render me a service."