thus bess and jeffray rode into rodenham together, while the scent of the wet grass floated on the warm air, and the great cedars smelled of lebanon. the storm shower had beaten down the grass in places, so that in the dim light it seemed like the swirling eddies of a restless sea. a night-jar whirred in the beechwoods above the road. rabbits scurried hither and thither. jeffray could faintly see the heads of his deer rising above the bracken on the edge of the wood.
soon the old house, black-chimneyed, a pile of shadows, with here and there a window gleaming, rose up before them out of the east. bess drew her breath in deeply, seeing that his eyes were fixed upon the place. she was wondering whether he was sad at leaving such a home to go alone with her into strange lands.
“of what are you thinking?” he asked her, suddenly.
“i was thinking of that,” she said, pointing to the house.
“yes.”
“can you leave it all for me?”
“why not?” he asked, with no wavering of his words.
“it is your home.”
“and will be yours.”
“ah—”
“some day, when the clouds are gone. we are young yet; we can take our home with us in our hearts.”
she looked at him very dearly, yet with some sadness in her eyes.
“i am wondering,” she said.
“yes, what are you wondering, bess?”
“whether i can make you happy, i who am so poor and ignorant.”
“i have no doubts,” he said, “no doubts whatsoever.”
as they rode up to the terrace with the gardens and shrubberies dim and full of perfume under the night sky, dick wilson and gladden came out from the porch. wilson gave jeffray a hearty hail, running forward with out-stretched hand, his eyes twinkling below the bandages that swathed his head.
“egad, sir,” he said, “i am glad to see you alive. the wilful man has won his way.”
jeffray had dismounted, but bess was still on her horse looking down half shyly, half haughtily at the painter, as though mistrusting the good-will of her lover’s friend. wilson, who had the instinct of chivalry quick and warm under his ugly exterior, went to her with a twinkle in his eyes, and, bowing in the most impressive fashion, took her hand and kissed it.
“may i ask your pardon, madam,” he said, quaintly, “for having proved such a dunderhead of a fellow this afternoon?”
bess eyed him questioningly.
“you have been wounded?” she asked.
“a slight cut, a slight cut across the pate with a hanger. i am a clumsy fool at my weapons. may i have the honor of helping you to dismount?”
bess was down beside him before the words were half passed his lips. she stood at her full height before the painter, the light from one of the windows falling on her face. wilson understood of a sudden how this tall, proud-faced forest child had set jeffray’s manhood in a blaze.
jeffray, who had been speaking to gladden, came back and laid his hand on wilson’s shoulder.
“this is mrs. elizabeth grimshaw, dick,” he said, with the pride of a lover; “you have been paying your respects to her.”
“i have, sir, i have,” quoth the painter with a bow.
bess, who had taken a liking to this ugly but honest-eyed man, smiled at him, and held out a hand.
“i thank you for having helped us,” she said.
“don’t thank me, madam,” retorted the painter, bluntly. “mr. richard here is quite capable of fighting his own battles.”
they laughed—the three of them, bess and jeffray looking into each other’s eyes. wilson still studying with inevitable admiration the face and figure of the woman who had changed a dreamer into a man of fire and action. peter gladden was waiting at the hall-door, smirking, and rubbing his smooth chin with his fingers. jeffray, giving his hand to bess, led her with an old-world courtliness up the steps and into the house. the butler stood aside, bowing and fixing his eyes deferentially upon his master’s shoes. he cast a peering, birdlike glance at bess after she had passed, grinned as he caught mr. wilson’s eye, and smothered the smirk instantly as the painter’s stare snubbed him. jeffray led bess to the dining-room where supper had been spread hastily upon the table. he drew back a chair for her, dismissed gladden, who came in with a mincing shuffle, and prepared to wait on bess in person.
“you must eat,” he said, bending slightly over her chair.
she lay back and looked at him, her eyes shining through her half-closed lashes.
“i am not hungry.”
“no, but you must keep up your strength. i will carve you some venison, and here is good red wine. i shall stand behind your chair till i am satisfied with you. and then—”
“and then?” she said, smiling with her eyes.
“i shall send you above to bed. the coach will be ready for us at seven. come now, you must humor me; i have the guarding of your health.”
an hour later bess was lying under the crimson canopy in the great bed above, her limbs between the white sheets, her black hair in a love tangle on the pillow. jeffray had called gladden to him in the dining-room, and given him his orders. poor gladden imagined that the family dignity must be sinking very deep into the mire. he met the amazing foolhardiness of it all with melancholy stoicism, finished the contents of a half-emptied wine-bottle when his master had gone, and confessed to himself that time and women can wreck empires.
jeffray found dick wilson in the library, lighting his pipe at one of the candles, sucking in his cheeks, and looking as solemn over the ceremony as though the truth of immortality hung upon the proper kindling of the weed. he cocked one eye at jeffray, smiled, and set himself with his back to the mantle-shelf, one white cotton stocking in wrinkles half way down his leg, his waistcoat fastened by two solitary buttons, the folds of the bandage slipping over his left eyebrow. he puffed away at his pipe, while jeffray turned to the bureau, unlocked it, and took out the letters he had written the previous morning.
“you will see these delivered, dick,” he said, “after i am gone?”
wilson looked at his friend keenly.
“so you are going, sir?” he said.
“yes, i have ordered the coach at seven. we have no time to be married in england.”
wilson screwed up his lips and blew forth an expressive stream of smoke.
“what, you are going to be married!”
“yes. the girl’s husband is dead.”
“the devil he is!”
“there has been a tussle between garston’s smugglers and the king’s men; the fellow grimshaw was shot in the scrimmage.”
a look of most unchristian satisfaction spread itself over the painter’s face. he stepped forward and held out his hand.
“i congratulate you, sir—i congratulate you.”
“thanks, dick.”
“the stumbling-block is removed out of the path of propriety. and why, if i may ask you, must you be in such an infatuated hurry to be gone?”
“there are reasons, dick, that i cannot divulge to you.”
“snub me, sir, snub me if i seem too forward. you can come by a license in a few days; there must be some obliging surrogate in the neighborhood. at the worst you can travel up to london, march to doctors’ commons, and secure a proper passport to the seventh heaven.”
jeffray, pacing to and fro with his shoulders squared and the heels of his shoes coming down squarely on the polished floor, shook his head, and refused the suggestion.
“i have my reasons, dick,” he said, “and i have thought the whole thing through for myself. some years ago old sugg could have married us here in my own house, and for my sake i should like to see lord hardwicke and his grandmotherly legislation damned. i want to get the girl away from all the pother that will be brewing, to save her from the tongues of our most christian friends. to-morrow we drive to lewes; the next day to the sea.”
wilson rammed down the tobacco in his pipe with the end of his little finger, relit it at the candle, and puffed on reflectively.
“well, sir,” he said, “i should like to know how you rescued the lady.”
and jeffray told him, all save the way in which dan grimshaw met his death.
it was well after midnight when peter gladden lighted jeffray to his room. portmanteaus and valises were scattered about, some half filled, others yawning for the white linen, breeches, silk stockings, and clothes that covered the floor in confusion. jeffray insisted on gladden completing the packing before he went to bed. he had already discovered a polite and voiceless antagonism in the old man’s manner, as though gladden persisted in believing that the romance was but the madness of an hour. he helped the butler to fill and strap the valises, and then dismissed him, ordering him to wake him at five.
the candles were still burning in the library when the dawn came creeping into the east. wilson, rubbing his eyes as he woke from a short sleep, heard the rumbling of wheels as the great coach was drawn out of the coach-house into the stable-yard. there was the jingling of harness being cleaned, the sound of rough voices gossiping together, an occasional coarse laugh bursting out upon the misty air. the grooms were discussing their master’s love affair. wilson yawned and stretched his limbs, climbed up out of his chair, snuffed the candles, and went out into the hall.
he met jeffray coming down the oak stairs, a cloak over one arm, his sword under the other. as the men shook hands there was the sound of a door opening in the gallery above. light footsteps came down the stairway; bess, with her gray cloak over her shoulders, descended slowly towards the hall. she looked fresh and pure after her night’s rest, her eyes soft and dewy, her red lips parted in a smile. jeffray waited for her at the foot of the stairs. he took her hand and kissed it, and led her into the dining-room, looking into her eyes.
“you are rested?” he asked her, with a pressure of the hand.
“yes—quite.”
“we shall start in an hour or two. we have much to do at lewes.”
bess looked at her clothes, her short skirt and green petticoat, and then glanced at jeffray.
“i have thought of all that,” he said, smiling.
“ah—”
“you shall look as fine a lady as any in sussex. silks and brocades, bess, you shall have them all.”
in the midst of all the bustle of preparation, a trooper of the light-horse regiment came cantering through the park with a letter for richard jeffray tucked under his white belt. wilson saw the speck of scarlet from the terrace, and, walking down the drive, met the man as he reined up before the iron gates closing the garden. the trooper produced his letter and explained that he had been told, to deliver it into mr. jeffray’s hands. jeffray himself appeared on the terrace at the same moment, and the painter, beckoning to him, turned back with the soldier.
“a letter for you, sir,” he said, as jeffray came up to them.
the trooper saluted, and delivered the despatch. jeffray ordered him to ride round to the stable and have his horse watered, and rubbed down with straw.
“from your cornet, i presume?” he asked.
the man nodded and rode on in the direction of the stables.
jeffray and the painter went back to the terrace and leaned against the balustrade. there was an anxious frown on jeffray’s face as he broke the seal, and spread the letter on the stone coping before him. he ran his eyes over the straggling and ill-formed sentences, his face clearing as he neared the end.
“sir,—having promised to obtain for you any information bearing upon mrs. elizabeth grimshaw’s past, i send you a rough copy of an extraordinary confession made to me by an old woman we found tied to a chair in one of the cottages. i cannot promise you how much truth there is in her tale, but on searching the place called the monk’s grave, we discovered that the turf some twenty paces from the old tree that grows on the mound there, had been trampled down quite recently. on digging we found the earth very loose, as though it had been lately turned, also a ragged piece of sail cloth, but no treasure. it is probable that the money has been taken up and hidden elsewhere, and the suspicion is strengthened by the fact that the old man, isaac grimshaw, is still at large. the man whom we found dead in the grass has been sworn to as mrs. elizabeth grimshaw’s husband.
“i trust that these facts will be of interest to you.
“unfortunately my duties here prevent me from dining with you to-day. i take the liberty of postponing the pleasure till to-morrow.
“james jellicoe,
“cornet in his majesty’s—regiment of horse.”
enclosed within the letter, jeffray found a page torn from a pocket-book, and covered with the cornet’s boyish writing. he held it towards wilson, and they spelled it out together, experiencing some difficulty in deciphering the sentences that seemed to have been written in the dusk.
statement made by mrs. ursula grimshaw this 1st day of july, 17 —:
“i am isaac grimshaw’s sister. the girl bess, my nephew’s wife, is not of our blood. twenty years ago come michaelmas, four sailor men came into the forest with a treasure chest, arms, and a young child. they lodged in my brother isaac’s cottage, and he and they talked much together. the chest contained much money and precious things. my brother isaac and his son john, who has been dead these fifteen years, murdered these four sailors when they were drunk, and buried their bodies in the forest. we kept the child as one of us, and called her bess, and hid the treasure in the woods.
“my brother isaac told me that the four sailors had murdered the captain and crew of their ship, also a king’s officer and his wife who were passengers. bess, who was the lady’s child, they saved out of pity, and because she was scarcely three years old. the ship, whose name i never knew, was scuttled in a fog off beachy head, the four sailor men coming ashore in the jolly-boat with the treasure and the child. the chest was buried in the forest near a place known as the monk’s grave. this, god help me! is all i know. i have kept this secret twenty years.”
jeffray and the painter looked hard into each other’s eyes when they had read the confession through. there was a slight flush as of triumph on jeffray’s face, as he held out his hand exultantly to wilson.
“we go to lewes after all,” he said.
“sir!”
“i shall send a letter back by the trooper to cornet jellicoe, thanking him, and saying that i have gone to lewes on legal business. we will cross the water to-morrow, god helping us!”
wilson gave his friend a keen look, and tapped the letter with his finger.
“there is still a mystery here, sir,” he said.
“what does it matter, dick—what does it matter?”
“if this be true—”
“true! why, damn it, dick, i have always believed it true. do you think that girl was born in a hovel?”
