Gwen Wynn: A Romance of the Wye

“You can be, if so inclined.”

“I’m ever so inclined, as I’ve sayed. But how, your Reverence? In this hard work-o’-day world ’tant so easy to get rich.”

“For you, easy enough. No labour and not much more difficulty than transporting your coracle five or six miles across the meadows.”

“Somethin’ to do wi’ the coracle, have it?”

“No; ’twill need a bigger boat – one that will carry three or four people. Do you know where you can borrow such, or hire it?”

“I think I do. I’ve a friend, the name o’ Rob Trotter, who’s got just sich a boat. He’d lend it me, sure.”

“Charter it, if he doesn’t. Never mind about the price. I’ll pay.”

“When might you want it, your Reverence?”

“On Thursday night, at ten, or a little later – say half-past.”

“And where am I to bring it?”

“To the Ferry; you’ll have it against the bank by the back of the Chapel burying-ground, and keep it there till I come to you. Don’t leave it to go up to the ‘Harp,’ or anywhere else; and don’t let any one see either the boat or yourself, if you can possibly avoid it. As the nights are now dark at that hour, there need be no difficulty in your rowing up the river without being observed. Above all, you’re to make no one the wiser of what you’re to do, or anything I’m now saying to you. The service I want you for is one of a secret kind, and not to be prattled about.”

“May I have a hint o’ what it is?”

“Not now; you shall know in good time – when you meet me with the boat. There will be another along with me – may be two – to assist in the affair. What will be required of you is a little dexterity, such as you displayed on Saturday night.”

No need the emphasis on the last words to impress their meaning upon the murderer. Too well he comprehends, starting in his chair as if a hornet had stung him.

“How – where?” he gasps out in the confusion of terror.

The double interrogatory is but mechanical, and of no consequence. Hopeless any attempt at concealment or subterfuge; as he is aware on receiving the answer, cool and provokingly deliberate.

“You have asked two questions, Monsieur Dick, that call for separate replies. To the first, ‘How?’ I leave you to grope out the answer for yourself, feeling pretty sure you’ll find it. With the second I’ll be more particular, if you wish me. Place – where a certain foot plank bridges a certain brook, close to the farmhouse of Abergann. It – the plank, I mean – last Saturday night, a little after nine, took a fancy to go drifting down the Wye. Need I tell you who sent it, Richard Dempsey?”

The man thus interrogated looks more than confused – horrified, well nigh crazed. Excitedly stretching out his hand, he clutches the bottle, half fills the tumbler with brandy, and drinks it down at a gulp. He almost wishes it were poison, and would instantly kill him!

Only after dashing the glass down does he make reply – sullenly, and in a hoarse, husky voice:

“I don’t want to know, one way or the other. Damn the plank! What do I care?”

“You shouldn’t blaspheme, Monsieur Dick. That’s not becoming – above all, in the presence of your spiritual adviser. However, you’re excited, as I see, which is in some sense an excuse.”

“I beg your Reverence’s pardon. I was a bit excited about something.”

He has calmed down a little, at thought that things may not be so bad for him after all. The priest’s last words, with his manner, seem to promise secrecy. Still further quieted as the latter continues:

“Never mind about what. We can talk of it afterwards. As I’ve made you aware – more than once, if I rightly remember – there’s no sin so great but that pardon may reach it – if repented and atoned for. On Thursday night you shall have an opportunity to make some atonement. So, be there with the boat!”

“I will, your Reverence; sure as my name’s Richard Dempsey.”

Idle of him to be thus earnest in promising. He can be trusted to come as if led in a string. For he knows there is a halter around his neck, with one end of it in the hand of Father Rogier.

“Enough!” returns the priest. “If there be anything else I think of communicating to you before Thursday I’ll come again – to-morrow night. So be at home. Meanwhile, see to securing the boat. Don’t let there be any failure about that, coûte que coûte. And let me again enjoin silence – not a word to any one, even your friend Rob. Verbum sapientibus! But as you’re not much of a scholar, Monsieur Coracle, I suppose my Latin’s lost on you. Putting it in your own vernacular, I mean: keep a close mouth, if you don’t wish to wear a necktie of material somewhat coarser than either silk or cotton. You comprehend?”

To the priest’s satanical humour the poacher answers, with a sickly smile, —

“I do, Father Rogier; perfectly.”

“That’s sufficient. And now, mon bracconier, I must be gone. Before starting out, however, I’ll trench a little further on your hospitality. Just another drop, to defend me from these chill equinoctials.”

Saying which he leans towards the table, pours out a stoop of the brandy – best Cognac from the “Harp” it is – then quaffing it off, bids “bon soir!” and takes departure.

Having accompanied him to the door, the poacher stands upon its threshold looking after, reflecting upon what has passed, anything but pleasantly. Never took he leave of a guest less agreeable. True, things are not quite so bad as he might have expected, and had reason to anticipate. And yet they are bad enough. He is in the toils – the tough, strong meshes of the criminal net, which at any moment may be drawn tight and fast around him; and between policeman and priest there is little to choose. For his own purposes the latter may allow him to live; but it will be as the life of one who has sold his soul to the devil!

While thus gloomily cogitating he hears a sound, which but makes still more sombre the hue of his thoughts. A voice comes pealing up the glen – a wild, wailing cry, as of some one in the extreme of distress. He can almost fancy it the shriek of a drowning woman. But his ears are too much accustomed to nocturnal sounds, and the voices of the woods, to be deceived. That heard was only a little unusual by reason of the rough night – its tone altered by the whistling of the wind.

“Bah!” he exclaims, recognising the call of the screech-owl, “it’s only one o’ them cursed brutes. What a fool fear makes a man!”

And with this hackneyed reflection he turns back into the house, rebolts the door, and goes to his bed; not to sleep, but lie long awake – kept so by that same fear.

Volume Two – Chapter Eight

The Game of Pique

The sun has gone down upon Gwen Wynn’s natal day – its twenty-first anniversary – and Llangorren Court is in a blaze of light. For a grand entertainment is there being given – a ball.

The night is a dark one; but its darkness does not interfere with the festivities; instead, heightens their splendour, by giving effect to the illuminations. For although autumn, the weather is still warm, and the grounds are illuminated. Parti-coloured lamps are placed at intervals along the walks, and suspended in festoonery from the trees, while the casement windows of the house stand open, people passing in and out of them as if they were doors. The drawing-room is this night devoted to dancing; its carpet taken up, the floor made as slippery as a skating rink with beeswax – abominable custom! Though a large apartment, it does not afford space for half the company to dance in; and to remedy this, supplementary quadrilles are arranged on the smooth turf outside – a string and wind band from the neighbouring town making music loud enough for all.

Besides, all do not care for the delightful exercise. A sumptuous spread in the dining-room, with wines at discretion, attracts a proportion of the guests; while there are others who have a fancy to go strolling about the lawn, even beyond the coruscation of the lamps; some who do not think it too dark anywhere, but the darker the better.

The élite of at least half the shire is present, and Miss Linton, who is still the hostess, reigns supreme in fine exuberance of spirits. Being the last entertainment at Llangorren over which she is officially to preside, one might imagine she would take things in a different way. But as she is to remain resident at the Court, with privileges but slightly, if at all, curtailed, she has no gloomy forecast of the future. Instead, on this night present she lives as in the past; almost fancies herself back at Cheltenham in its days of splendour, and dancing with the “first gentleman in Europe” redivivus. If her star be going down, it is going in glory, as the song of the swan is sweetest in its dying hour.

Strange, that on such a festive occasion, with its circumstances attendant, the old spinster, hitherto mistress of the mansion, should be happier than the younger one, hereafter to be! But in truth, so is it. Notwithstanding her great beauty and grand wealth – the latter no longer in prospective, but in actual possession – despite the gaiety and grandeur surrounding her, the friendly greetings and warm congratulations received on all sides – Gwen Wynn is herself anything but gay. Instead, sad, almost to wretchedness!

And from the most trifling of causes, though not as by her estimated; little suspecting she has but herself to blame. It has arisen out of an episode, in love’s history of common and very frequent occurrence – the game of piques. She and Captain Ryecroft are playing it, with all the power and skill they can command. Not much of the last, for jealousy is but a clumsy fencer. Though accounted keen, it is often blind as love itself; and were not both under its influence they would not fail to see through the flimsy deceptions they are mutually practising on one another. In love with each other almost to distraction, they are this night behaving as though they were the bitterest enemies, or at all events as friends sorely estranged.

She began it; blamelessly, even with praiseworthy motive; which, known to him, no trouble could have come up between them. But when, touched with compassion for George Shenstone, she consented to dance with him several times consecutively, and in the intervals remained conversing – too familiarly, as Captain Ryecroft imagined – all this with an “engagement ring” on her finger, by himself placed upon it – not strange in him, thus fiancé, feeling a little jealous; no more that he should endeavour to make her the same. Strategy, old as hills, or hearts themselves.

In his attempt he is, unfortunately, too successful; finding the means near by – an assistant willing and ready to his hand. This in the person of Miss Powell; she also went to church on the Sunday before in Jack Wingate’s boat – a young lady so attractive as to make it a nice point whether she or Gwen Wynn be the attraction of the evening.

Though only just introduced, the Hussar officer is not unknown to her by name, with some repute of his heroism besides. His appearance speaks for itself, making such impression upon the lady as to set her pencil at work inscribing his name on her card for several dances, round and square, in rapid succession.

And so between him and Gwen Wynn the jealous feeling, at first but slightly entertained, is nursed and fanned into a burning flame – the green-eyed monster growing bigger as the night gets later.

On both sides it reaches its maximum, when Miss Wynn, after a waltz, leaning on George Shenstone’s arm, walks out into the grounds, and stops to talk with him in a retired, shadowy spot.

Not far off is Captain Ryecroft observing them, but too far to hear the words passing between. Were he near enough for this, it would terminate the strife raging in his breast, as the sham flirtation he is carrying on with Miss Powell – put at end to her new sprung aspirations, if she has any.

It does as much for the hopes of George Shenstone – long in abeyance, but this night rekindled and revived. Beguiled, first by his partner’s amiability in so oft dancing with, then afterwards using him as a foil, he little dreams that he is but being made a catspaw. Instead, drawing courage from the deception, emboldened as never before, he does what he never dared before – make Gwen Wynn a proposal of marriage. He makes it without circumlocution, at a single bound, as he would take a hedge upon his hunter.