The Revellers

Colonel Grant drew himself up. He caught Bolland’s shoulder.

“Bear with me,” he said. “I have suffered much. I lost my wife and two children, one unborn. They were torn from me as though by a destroying tempest. One is given back, after thirteen long years of mourning. Can you not spare me a place in his affections?”

“Ay, ay,” growled John. “We’re nobbut owd folk at t’ best, an’ t’ lad was leavin’ oor roof for school in a little while. We can sattle things like sensible people, if on’y Martha here will gie ower greetin’. It troubles me sair to hear her lamentin’. We’ve had no sike deed i’ thirty-fower years o’ married life.”

The man was covering his own distress by solicitude in his wife’s behalf. She knew it. She wiped her eyes defiantly with her apron and made pretense to smile, though she had received a shock she would remember to her dying day. Some outlet was necessary for her surcharged feelings. She whisked around on the crowd of amazed domestics, dairymaids and farmhands, pressing on each other’s heels in the passage.

“What are ye gapin’ at?” she cried shrilly. “Is there nowt te deä? If tea’s overed, git on wi’ yer work, an’ be sharp aboot it, or I’ll side ye quick!”

The stampede that followed relieved the situation. The servants faded away under her fiery glance. Colonel Grant smiled.

“I am glad to see,” he said, “that you maintain discipline in your regiment.”

“They’re all ears an’ neä brains,” she said. “My, but I’m that upset I hardly ken what I’m sayin’. Mebbe ye’ll finish yer tale, sir. I’m grieved I med sike a dash at ye, but I couldn’t bide – ”

“There, there,” said John, with his gruff soothing, “sit ye doon an’ listen quietly. I guessed their business t’ first minnit I set eyes on t’ colonel. Why, Martha, look at him. He hez Martin’s eyes and Martin’s mouth. Noo, ye’d hev dark-brown hair, I reckon, when ye were a lad, sir?”

For answer, Colonel Grant stooped to the lawyer’s papers and took from them a framed miniature.

“That is my portrait at the age of twelve,” he said, placing it before them.

“Eh, but that caps owt!” cried Martha. “It’s Martin hissel! Oh, my honey, how little did I think what was coomin’ when I set yer shirt an’ collar ready, an’ med ye tidy te gan te tea wi’ t’ fine folk at t’ vicarage. An’ noo ye’re a better bred ’un than ony of ’em. The Lord love ye! Here ye are, smilin’ at me. They may mak’ ye a colonel or a gin’ral, for owt I care: ye’ll nivver forgit yer poor old muther, will ye, my bairn!”

She kissed the miniature as if it were Martin’s own presentment. The men left her to sob again in silence. Soon she calmed herself sufficiently to ask:

“But why i’ t’ wulld did that poor lass throw herself an’ her little ’un inte t’ street?”

Mr. Dobson took up his story once more:

“She explained her action in a pathetic letter to her husband. She was ill, lonely, and poverty-stricken. She brooded for days on General Grant’s cruel words and still more cruel letter. They led her to believe that she was the unwitting cause of her husband’s ruin. She resolved to free him absolutely and at the same time preserve his name from notoriety. Therefore she wrote him a full account of her change of name, and told him that her children would die with her.”

“That was a mad thing te deä.”

“Exactly. The doctor who knew her best told her husband six months later that Mrs. Grant was, in his opinion, suffering from an unrecognized attack of puerperal fever. It was latent in her system, and developed with the trouble so suddenly brought upon her.”

“Yon was a wicked owd man – ”

“The general was called to account by a higher power. Mrs. Grant wrote him also a statement of her intentions. Next morning he read of her death, and a second attack of apoplexy proved fatal. Her letter did not reach her husband until after a battle in which he was wounded. He cabled to us, and we made every inquiry, but it was remarkable how chance baffled our efforts. In the first instance, the policeman whom you encountered in Ludgate Hill and who knew you had adopted the child, had left the force and emigrated, owing to some unfortunate love affair. In the second, several newspapers reported the child as dead, though the records of the inquest soon corrected that error. Thirdly, someone named Bolland died in the hotel where you stayed and was buried at Highgate – ”

“My brother,” put in John.

“Yes; we know now. But conceive the barrier thus placed in our path when the dates of the two events were compared long afterwards.”

The farmer looked puzzled. The solicitor went on:

“Of course, you wonder why there should have been any delay, but the Coroner’s notes were lost in a fire. Nevertheless, we advertised in dozens of newspapers.”

“We hardly ever see a paper, sir,” said Martha.

“Yet, the wonder is that some of your friends did not see it and tell you. Finally, a sharp-witted clerk of ours solved the Highgate Cemetery mystery, and the advertisements were repeated. Colonel Grant was back in India by that time trying hard to leave his bones there, by all accounts, and perhaps we did not spend as much money on this second quest as if he were at home to authorize the expenditure.”

“When was that, sir – t’ second lot o’ advertisements, I mean?” asked John.

“Quite a year after Mrs. Grant’s death.”

Bolland stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“I remember,” he said, “a man at Malton fair sayin’ summat aboot an inquiry for me. But yan o’ t’ hands rode twenty miles across counthry te tell me that Martin had gotten t’ measles, an’ I kem yam that neet.”

“Naturally, I can give you every proof of my statements,” said Mr. Dobson. “They are all here – ”

“Mebbe ye’ll know this writin’,” interrupted Martha, laying down the miniature for the first time. She unlocked a drawer, took out a small tin box, and from its depths produced, among other articles, a crumbling sheet of note paper. On it was written:

“My name is not Martineau. I have killed myself and my boy. If he dies with his unhappy mother he will never know the miseries of this life.”

It was unsigned, undated, a hurried scrawl in faded ink.

“Margaret’s handwriting,” said Colonel Grant, looking at the pathetic message with sorrow-laden eyes.

“It was found on t’ poor leddy’s dressin’-table, fastened wi’ a hatpin. An’ these are t’ clothes Martin wore when he fell into John’s arms. Nay, sir,” she added, as Colonel Grant began examining the little frock, “she took good care, poor thing, that neäbody should find oot wheä she was. Ivvery mark hez bin picked off.”

“Martin is his feyther’s son, or I ken nowt aboot stock,” cried John Bolland, making a fine effort to dispel the depression which again possessed the little gathering at sight of these mournful mementoes of the dead past. “Coom, gentlemen, sit ye doon an’ hev some tea. Ye’ll not be for takkin’ Martin away by t’ next train. Martha, what’s t’ matter wi’ ye? I’ve nivver known folk be so lang i’ t’ hoose afore an’ not be asked if they had a mooth.”

“Ye’re on t’ wrang gait this time, John,” she retorted. “I axed ’em afore ye kem in. By this time, sure-ly, ye’ll be wantin’ soom ham an’ eggs?” she added to the visitors.

“By Jove! I believe I could eat some,” laughed the colonel.

Martha smiled once more. She liked Martin’s father. Each moment the first favorable impression was deepening. She was on the point of bustling away to the back kitchen, when they all heard the patter of feet, in desperate haste, approaching the front door. Elsie Herbert dashed in. She was hatless. Her long brown hair was floating in confusion over her shoulders and down her back. She was crying in great gulps and gasping for breath.

“Oh, Mr. Bolland!” she wailed. “Oh, Mrs. Bolland! – what shall I say? Martin is hurt. He fell off the swing. Angèle did it! I’ll kill her! I’ll tear her face with my hands! Oh, come, someone, and help father. He is trying to bring back Martin’s senses. What shall I do? – it was all on my account. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”

And she sank fainting to the floor.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SEVEN FULL YEARS

But Martin was not dead, nor even seriously injured. At first, the affair looked so ugly – its main features were so incomprehensible – that Mr. Herbert was startled into somewhat panic-stricken action. Here was Martin lying unconscious on the ground, with Elsie kneeling by his side, passionately beseeching him in one breath to speak to her, and in the next accusing Angèle Saumarez of murder.

The vicar was not blameworthy, in that he failed to grasp either the nature of the accusation or its seeming unreasonableness.

The single rope of the gymnastic swing erected in the garden for Elsie’s benefit had been cut deliberately with a sharp knife a few inches above the small bar on which the user’s weight was supported by both hands. Of the cutting there could be no manner of doubt. The jagged edges of the few strands left by a devilish ingenuity – so that the swing must need be in violent motion before the rope snapped – were clearly visible at the point of severance. But who had done this thing, and with what deadly object in view? And why did Elsie pitch on Angèle Saumarez so readily, glaring at her with such eyes of vengeance that the vicar was constrained to order, with the utmost sternness of which he was capable, that the torrent of words should cease. Indeed, he dispatched her to acquaint the Bollands with tidings of the disaster as a haphazard pretext to get her out of the way. Apart from sensing the accident’s inexplicable motive, its history was simple enough.

Before tea was served, Martin and Elsie were using the swing alternately, vying with each other in the effort to touch with their toes the leaves of a tree nearly twenty feet distant from the vertical line of the rope. Angèle, of course, took no part in this contest; she contented herself with a sarcastic incredulity when Elsie vowed that she had accomplished the feat twice already.

Martin, stronger, but less skilled in the trick of the swing than the girl, strove hard to excel her. Yet he, too, fell short by a few inches time after time. At last, Elsie vowed that when she was rested after tea she would prove her words, and threw a pebble at the branch which she claimed to have reached a week ago.

Neither Mrs. Saumarez nor the vicar attached any weight to the somewhat emphatic argument between the two girls. It was a splendid contest between Martin and Elsie. It interested the elders for conflicting reasons.