He had turned to her expecting, even hoping, to find fear shining in her eyes. What he saw was admiration and more than a hint of tenderness. He was disconcerted, but he made shift to conceal the fact. ‘I am waiting for your answer,’ he said.
‘Lud, sir, how can I answer you? When you are angry you terrify me. Is it a crime that I should be grateful to so obliging and handsome a gentleman? And so scrupulous withal. How many in your place but would have sought to take advantage of an unprotected woman? But that,’ she ended, with a wide-eyed adoring look, ‘is something you would never do.’
A flicker of self-complacency kindled in his heart. The flattery was gross enough; but was there not, after all, something to be said for her point of view? Embarrassed by the thought of his own nobility he gave a nervous cough and fixed his gaze on distance. But when his glance travelled, as it needs must, in her direction again, he found her eyes still softly shining upon him with undiminished radiance. And it could not be denied that they were uncommonly pretty eyes in their fashion.
‘You never would,’ she repeated. ‘Would you?’
‘Indeed I trust not,’ he answered: awkwardly enough, for self-satisfaction was giving place now to discomfort.
‘No,’ she said, in melting accents, ‘you would never betray me. Not even,’ she added, sighing wistfully, ‘not even if I asked you to.’
‘What do you mean?’ He looked at her steadily, but she did not flinch. Her meaning was evident enough, but her motive was obscure. If her passion was real, it was as inconvenient as flattering; but it was flattering first of all, and disturbing. If feigned, what did she think to gain by the pretence? But the answer to that was not beyond all conjecture; and suddenly it flashed into his mind that this was a woman who had just been bereaved of one she called her brother, and it made the case no better that in calling him so she had probably lied. ‘Mrs Robinson,’ said Marden coldly,’ for that is what you call yourself, I fancy, I think it time you heard some plain speaking. The man you called George Robinson, the man you called your brother, carried on his person some very curious marks and some very curious articles of property. Item, on his forearm an obscene drawing tattooed—unusual decoration for a gentleman. Item, an ill-scrawled letter written in thieves’ jargon: still more unusual. Item, a black mask for the eyes, such as gentlemen of the road are in the habit of assuming in their more modest moments. Item . . . but perhaps I weary you with these details?’
The change in her face startled him, even though he had expected it. Fear distorted her. She was hunted, an outcast. He wondered that he had ever thought her pretty.
‘I am a magistrate, Mrs Robinson, and during those days when you so wisely kept yourself retired to your room, prostrated as you were with your grief, I did my best to get at the truth of this affair. Your brother, or whatever he was to you, met his death by falling from his horse, the very horse you have been riding today. There was a witness, a man called Noke, and it would have been my duty to question that witness’s honesty but for one or two circumstances. First, the body had not been robbed; and there was no mark on it to suggest that he had been assaulted. Second, the pretty trifles I have enumerated for you, and other evidence which I took the trouble to obtain from other sources, convinced me that the world was well rid of a rascal.’ He paused, to note the effect of his words. The woman did not speak. Her face was gray, and she lacked even the presence of mind to faint. ‘There was another thing we found. A lady’s jewel-case.’
Her eyes grew wider. She nodded.
‘The jewels are yours?’ asked Marden.
She nodded again.
‘Or your mistress’s?’ said he. ‘Which is it?’
There was a long silence. The woman summoned all her reserves of courage, and Marden, watching, could not but admire her for it. She spoke at last in a voice quivering with suppressed hysteria. ‘I thought he was a gentleman. I swear I did. If I’d thought he was such a dirty rat . . .’
‘If he was the fellow I believe him to have been,’ said Marden, seeing that she was disinclined to continue, ‘he was not without a smattering of education. That makes him the more a scoundrel. These smooth-tongued gentlemanly rogues are the worst of a poisonous crew, and you were fortunate, my girl, that you did not have your throat cut. But that’s not all, as I’d best warn you. Had I done my strict duty I should have committed you to the Assizes on suspicion of being that fellow’s accomplice. But it would give me no pleasure to be the means of bringing a young woman to the gallows, so here we are, on our way to Upchurch, where, whatever you do or have done, you will be outside my jurisdiction.’ He rose. ‘Come along, madam,’ he said, with grim friendliness, ‘we must go see if our horses are ready. We’ve spent time enough here. We must make haste. And on the road you shall tell me who taught you to play the lady so deftly. It will make a good story, I’ll warrant.’
CHAPTER 8
IN WHICH, ACCORDING TO ITS CUSTOM, THE IMPOSSIBLE HAPPENS
Fedrum, when Marden reached it, was already full of dusk; but the dusk, to his quickened imagination, was no more than a soft dark cloak for the shining limbs of beauty. He left his horse in the care of a servant, and having been shewn to his room, and having washed away the soil and weariness of the journey, he went in search of Dr Humphrey, whom he found, according to his expectations, at work or at dream in his laboratory. At Marden’s entry the doctor looked up, fixed his gaze upon him, but gave no sign of greeting. His eyes were lit with a remote speculation. He was a small spare man, in age a trifle over sixty. The angularity of his features, his sharp nose and his shaggy brows, gave him the look of a highly intelligent and benevolent dog. As befitted a man of his age and station, he was dressed soberly, and in a less recent mode than that affected by Marden; and, unlike his young friend, he wore a wig, a grey wig whose colour contrasted sharply with the blackness of his brows. The curve of his nostril, the firm line of his mouth, suggested delicacy and resolution; the large eyes, heavy-lidded and with pouches pendent, were so brightly illumined by the mind that looked through them as to quicken the whole aging face with the animation of quest. He gazed unseeing at his guest; and Marden stood in the doorway waiting patiently, amusedly, for recognition.
‘Ah, Marden! I am delighted to see you, my dear sir. So you’ve arrived at last, I see. Yes, I see you have.’ As though to see still better, he came forward to meet the young man. ‘Is your horse looked to? Has my daughter been informed?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Marden. ‘At least I fully believe so. If not, there’s time enough. I would not have her disturbed yet. Bad news will keep.’ He ended with a wry, selfconscious smile. For now the idea of meeting Celia made him nervous; and he was ready to think himself an interloper, and to shun the encounter he had so eagerly sought all day.
‘Bad news? What bad news is this?’ The doctor blinked sympathetically.
‘I was referring, sir, to my own audacity, to my . . . that is . . . in short, to my unexpected arrival at your house.’ He hurried on, blushing for his gaucherie. ‘Guessing you to be here, sir, I took the liberty of seeking you unannounced. But I see you are engaged——’
‘Liberty fiddlesticks!’ said his host, with some asperity. ‘Engaged I am truly: poking and prying into the nature of things, like any child staring at an ant-hilclass="underline" but never so deeply engaged as not to welcome you, my dear sir.’ The two men bowed to each other. ‘You come at a happy moment,’ added Dr Humphrey. ‘I am on the point of trying an experiment in aerostatics. Come now: you shall see it.’ His voice was excited, his eyes fiery with eagerness. ‘But first,’ said he, with an abrupt difficult resumption of formal politeness, ‘tell me your news. You have had an agreeable journey?’