CHAPTER XIX
HAUNTED
That one thought dominated all else in the mind of Philip Chater. Shebelieved him innocent—and she loved him. True, the message was not forhim, in reality; it was for the man who lay in an unknown grave. But,having taken that dead man’s place, he claimed this message also, asbelonging to him.
“I have taken the burden of his sins upon me—I am in peril of my lifeon account of them,” he thought. “Surely I have the right to claim thissweeter portion of what was his, as some leaven in the weight of mypunishment. Yes—I’ll see her first; after that, if they capture me,I’ll go back with a light heart.”
Caution was necessary in approaching the village; for, by the time hereached it, daylight had fully come, and the people were astir. Keepingwell on the outskirts of it, and yet in a place from which he couldeasily and rapidly reach the spot he had marked out in his mind as hisdestination, he came to a little copse, on the edge of some fields, andsettled himself, as comfortably as possible, in a deep dry ditch,overhung with brambles and bushes, which completely hid him from thesight of any one passing near. Knowing that he must wait untilnightfall, before daring to venture out, he resolved to remain in thisplace, with all the patience he could muster.
He had borrowed from Captain Quist a little tobacco and a pipe; and,after cautiously looking about him, he filled and lit this, and beganto feel more resigned to his position. From where he lay, he could see,through the tangled growth above him, the towers and chimneys of ChaterHall; raising his head a little he could see a path, which wound acrosssome slightly rising ground, and appeared to lead from the Hall down tothe road near which he lay—entry to the road from it being obtainedthrough a wooden gate in the high paling, which surrounded the groundsat the point where they joined the road. The Hall being high above him,he could see this path in its windings and twistings very clearly; and,as it was a short cut to the village, it appeared to be used prettyoften.
It amused and interested the fugitive, lying hidden there, to watchthis path, and those who came down it; he found himself wondering idlywhether he should ever tread that path again or set foot in ChaterHall, and under what circumstances.
Knowing nothing of the locality, Philip had not chosen his hiding placeso well as he had hoped; for presently he was startled by the noise ofwheels behind him. Rising hurriedly, he looked over a bank, sheer downinto a road below—a road not so broad as that which lay at somedistance in front of him, but broad enough for vehicles. Indeed, thevehicle which Philip had heard had stopped immediately below him, and aman in it was alighting. So close was it, and so immediately underneathwhere he lay in the thick undergrowth, that Philip could heardistinctly what this man said to the driver.
“I brought you this way—because I have a fancy for going up to theHall unannounced—just a mere whim of mine. I can get over from here.It’ll be—ha—ha—a little surprise for them—won’t it!”
The man muttered something, which Philip could not catch; received hisfare; turned his horse’s head, and drove back the way he had come. Theman stood quite still in the road, until the vehicle was out of sight;then began to climb the bank, which led to the place where Philip wasconcealed.
At first, Philip was afraid that the man had seen him, and was comingstraight for him; he dived down, and lay flat, scarcely daring tobreathe. But the stranger, who evidently knew the place well, came onsteadily, until he stood within a few yards of the spot where Philipcrouched; then he stopped, and looked straight across at the distantchimneys of Chater Hall. As he stood there, Philip found himselfwatching the man with an eagerness greater than he would have felt atthe appearance of any chance stranger; for he knew the face of thisman. Once again, he seemed to stand at the entrance to a little court,leading down to the river, at Woolwich; once again, to see a man dashpast him, and to catch a glimpse of a face—gone in an instant, andseemingly forgotten—but well enough remembered now. Again, too, heseemed to stand on the terrace at Chater Hall, on that night of theburglary, striving to peer in through a window; to see the curtainsuddenly flung back, and the room bright with lights, and that sameface staring out at him. Small wonder that his heart beat heavily, ashe lay crouched among the bushes, looking up at the man above him.
The stranger, for his part, seemed to hesitate what to do; made a stepforward more than once, as if to go boldly across the road, and up thepath to the house before him; and as often stopped, and turned about,and waited where he was.
Philip Chater was beginning to wonder what was to happen, and was halfresolved—in the wild hurry of the thoughts which came crowding uponhim—to spring out, and confront the man, when another figure seemed tospring almost from the grass near at hand, and to make rapidly towardsthe first comer. Philip, raising his head quickly, no sooner caughtsight of this second man, than he dropped down flat again, at thebottom of the ditch.
It was Inspector Tokely; and that gentleman came forward with athreatening aspect, and stopped within about a yard of the other, whowas much taller than himself.
“Mr. Ogledon, I believe,” said the Inspector, grimly; and Philip almostjumped out of his place again, at the mention of that name.
“Well—what of it?” was the surly reply; and it almost seemed to thelistening man as though the speaker looked Tokely up and downsuperciliously as he spoke.
“What of it, sir!” cried the other, fiercely. “This of it, Mr.Ogledon—that you have insulted and maltreated the Law, as personifiedin me—in _me_, sir! That I have been lured into your presence, and,while in the execution of my duty, have been struck on a tenderspot—to wit, the head—by a debauched companion of yours, and with ahard and heavy substance—to wit, a decanter; such assault beingcommitted in order to delay, frustrate, postpone, or prevent the arrestof a certain person against whom I held a warrant. Damme, sir—whathave you to say to that?” exclaimed the little man, suddenly losing hislegal technicalities in an outburst of fury.
“I dare say you think you have cause of complaint against me”—beganthe other, coolly; but Tokely burst in again, more furiously than ever.
“Cause of complaint!” he almost shrieked. “When a man—and that man anofficer of the Law—has a bump raised on his head, which compels him towear his hat like a giddy youth on a bank-holiday excursion, and whichprevents his lying with comfort in his bed—and the abettor of theoutrage talks about cause of complaint!—I wonder, sir, what you willthink when you occupy a cell, on account of this—eh, sir?”
“I am extremely sorry,” replied Ogledon—“very sorry indeed that youshould have been caused any inconvenience. My friend is not—notresponsible for his actions at times—and he—he mistook you for someone else.” All this time, Ogledon was working round the Inspector, andwatching him narrowly. The Inspector, for his part, respecting the sizeand apparent strength of the other, began to move away; but flung backa taunt or two as he went.
“You shall hear from me again, sir!” cried the little man, savagely.“You and your decanter! You may like to know that I got my prisoner,after all.”
“To the devil with your prisoner!” cried Ogledon without looking round.The little man stopped, although at a safe distance, and even came backa pace or two.
“Oho!” he cried, with a vicious laugh—“I thought he was a friend ofyours? I suppose you don’t own him now—eh?”
“I certainly own no interest in any prisoners,” said the other,glancing round at Tokely for a moment, and then turning away again.
“Indeed!” exclaimed the Inspector, more loudly even than before. “Yetyou don’t mind living in his house, and knocking people about with hisdecanters!”
“What on earth are you talking about?” asked Ogledon, with a new andsudden interest.
The Inspector came a little nearer. “About your friend—Mr. DandyChater!” With this last shot, he turned and began to walk away down thehill.
Philip, looking out cautiously, saw the man who had been addressed a
sOgledon start, as if a blow had been struck him; hesitate for a moment,with a face that was ghastly; and then start off at a run after Tokely.The Inspector, who was totally unprepared for pursuit, was overtaken ina few strides; seized; swung round; and confronted with the startledface of the other man.
“Stop—stop—and listen to me!” cried Ogledon, wildly. “What ofthis—this man—this prisoner—this”—he appeared to have somedifficulty in getting out the name from his throat—as though it stuckthere a little—“this Dandy Chater?”
“Ah—that stirs you up a bit—does it?” said Tokely, grinning. “Let metell you then, that your friend Mr. Dandy Chater lies at this moment inChelmsford Jail, awaiting his trial for murder—ah—that makes yourface turn white—eh?—murder committed in this very village.”
Ogledon had dropped his hands from the other’s shoulders, and wasstaring at him, with an expression of stupid wonderment, incredulityand deadly fear. After a moment or two, he said, in a sort ofwhisper—“Then I did read of it; I haven’t merely seen the name inevery paper I’ve picked up—just in the same fashion as I have seen iton the lips of every man I met; heard it in every wind that blew; seenit spelled in the stars on every night-sky.” He broke off suddenly, andlooked at the other man, as if only just aware at that moment of hispresence; looked at him silently for a space; and then burst into apeal of the most frightful laughter imaginable.
“There’s nothing like being merry, when you’ve got a chance,” said theInspector, savagely.
“Merry!” cried the other, with another shout of laughter. “You’d makethe dead rise from their graves, to laugh at such a jest as this!Merry! And so you’ve got Dandy Chater safe in Chelmsford Jail—haveyou? Well—keep him safe; lock and bolt and bar him in—and stop upevery chink and keyhole—or, by Heaven!—Dandy Chater may give you theslip, my man! Dandy Chater in Chelmsford Jail!”
He burst into another frightful roar of laughter, and turned away;while the Inspector, after looking at him oddly, for a few moments,continued his way down the hill towards the road. Ogledon stopped inthe same spot as before, near where Philip still lay, and sat down onthe bank, above the very ditch in which the fugitive crouched, but withhis back towards him.
“My God—what does this mean?” He spoke aloud, quite unconsciously, inthe strong emotion which was upon him. “Is this some devil’s trick, tofrighten and trouble me? Or has Something come back to earth, to takeup again its old way of life, and mock me?” He stretched out oneclenched hand, and looked at it. “With this hand I struck him down; myeyes saw him lying dead; other eyes have seen him—food forworms—taken from the river. Yet this Thing starts up again, full oflife, the very next day; haunts the places where he was known; appearseven to me; stands out as a living fact to all men, and is even printedabout, in black and white, before my eyes. Am I going mad; is this somedistortion of the brain? Do I dream that every one talks of him, evenin a chance meeting like this a few minutes since—or what is it?”
After a time, he got up, and spoke more resolutely.
“I’ve allowed myself to think of him too much; I’ll do so no longer.I’ve heard of men who, dwelling on one frightful vision always, grow atlast to see it in everything about them—hear it in every word that’suttered—until it fills every fibre of their being, like some horribledisease, and saps their reason and their life. I’ll have no more of it;the man is dead, and I stand in his place; let that end it.”
He turned about resolutely, and went down by the road the Inspector hadtaken. After a little time, Philip, from his place of concealment, sawhim mounting the path opposite, on the way to Chater Hall.
Through the weary hours, Philip waited, crouched where he was, crampedand stiff, until night came on, and the moon rose, in ghostly fashion,over the hill before him. Then, very cautiously, and looking all abouthim in case of surprise, he started for the Cottage.
There was a recklessness upon him, greater than any he had felt yet.What happened after this night he scarcely seemed to care; to see thatone woman once again, and hold her in his arms, and hear from her ownlips the message she had sent him, seemed enough. Whatever Fate mighthave in store for him after that did not seem to matter; this onenight, at least, he was free, and he was going to the woman he loved.
Still, with all his recklessness, he was careful not to expose himselfto any danger of capture; in a little time, he became quite an adept atdodging behind hedges, or dropping down flat among thick undergrowth,when any one came near him. But he reached the boundary hedge of thegarden he remembered so well at last, and crouched behind it, strivingto peer through—wondering how he should reach her, or make hispresence known.
Voices in the garden, quite near to him, struck upon his ear; voices ofa man and a woman—that of the man soft, smooth, and pleading—that ofthe woman angry, contemptuous, and scornful. And he knew both voices atonce.
The two who talked in that garden in the moonlight appeared to befurther up the lawn than the spot where he was; looking eagerly in thatdirection, he saw that the regularity of the trim hedge was broken by athick growth of small trees, whose branches swept down to the ground.Gliding along noiselessly, he got amongst these, and lay flat, within afew feet of the pair upon the lawn; could see them distinctly, standingthere facing each other—Ogledon and Madge Barnshaw. That they hadarrived at a crisis of some kind in their talk was evident; for Madgestood proudly erect and defiant, looking at the man, who slashedsavagely at the grass with a cane he held.
“Will nothing move you?” Ogledon was saying, without looking up at her.“Do you think it is nothing for me, who am no mere boy, to be the sportof a girl—do you think it’s nothing for me to have to plead, again andagain, with you, when it is my nature to bend people to my will, andgain what I desire by force?”
“I have told you—many, many times already—that you might as wellfling yourself against a rock, as strive to move me by any pleading.You are a coward, in any case, to assail me like this, when I havealready told you that my heart is given to some one else——”
“Bah!—a mere girlish whim—a boy-and-girl affair, that should havebeen forgotten and done with in the days of pinafores. Besides, DandyChater is”—he hesitated, and seemed for a moment uncertain what tosay; turned the sentence swiftly, and asked instead, with his keen eyesraised to her face—“By the way—where is this wonderful lover ofyours?”
There was a pause for a moment, while the listener almost held hisbreath, and while Ogledon never took his eyes from her face. Then shewent a little nearer to him, and held her head more proudly still.
“In a prison—there to await his trial on a fearful charge—of which Ibelieve him innocent. But, though he appeared twice as black as menpaint him, and as you, his evil spirit, have tried to make him, I wouldhold to him to the last; would cry, before you and all others—‘I lovehim—I love him—I love him!’ Now, what think you your pleading will dofor you?”
The man had turned, and walked a step or two away; his hand had gone upnervously to his lips. “What does it mean?” Philip heard him mutter.“They all say it—even she says it. Go where I will, this Thing followsme—this name is dinned into my ears.” He turned swiftly towards her.“Why do you lie to me?” he cried harshly; “why do you repeat what everyone else repeats? Do you think to frighten me away by such——” Hestopped confusedly, and laughed. “There—I don’t know what I am saying;I—I lose myself sometimes. I—I’m not well; I’ll come—some othertime—to see you.”
Without another word he turned quickly and hurried out of the gardenleaving the girl standing alone in the moonlight. Philip waited untilhe heard the gate click, and the footsteps of the man dying away in thedistance; then he came out of his hiding-place, and spoke her name in awhisper. She turned about swiftly, and would have cried out, but thathe caught her in his arms, and laid a hand lightly on her lips.
“Hush, dearest,” he whispered—“I have escaped from prison, to come toyou; just to look into your dear eyes—to touch your lips—to know tha
tall is well with you, and that you are not changed towards me. Don’tspeak for a moment; there is much that I must say to you. There issmall chance of my final escape; I must I fear inevitably be caught,and taken back again to stand my trial.”
“But you are innocent, Dandy dear,” she whispered, hurriedly; “and youcan prove your innocence.”
“As God above is my witness, I am absolutely innocent,” he replied.“But I cannot—I dare not prove it; some day you will understand thereason. If I was never firm upon this matter before, I am firm fromto-night. But, if it should go hard with me, and there should be no wayof escape, I want you to promise one thing.”
“Anything—everything,” she whispered, earnestly.
“If it should come to that, and there is no other way—find the man whowas here with you just now—and ask him to tell you all he knows aboutDandy Chater. He—and he alone—can establish my innocence. But thismust only be done as a last resource. Will you promise that?”
She had begun to question him wildly and eagerly, when he suddenlyraised his hand to silence her; they both stood listening. The gardengate had clicked again.
Philip dropped down among the shadows of the trees, and crept inamongst them again. Across the turf came a figure, noiselessly, andstopped before Madge, who had walked a few paces away from where Philiplay. The figure was that of Ogledon.
“I had no intention of troubling you again—at least, to-night”—hesaid, in a curiously strained voice, as though he were keeping controlof it with difficulty—“but there is something I should like to askyou. I have been away—on the Continent—and have only returned a fewhours ago. This lover of yours and cousin of mine—this DandyChater——”
“In Chelmsford Jail,” she reminded him, with a smile.
“In Chelmsford Jail. When—when did you see him last?”
She was on the point of answering, in some equivocal fashion whichshould not betray the fugitive, when she stopped, struck dumb by theexpression on Ogledon’s face. He was looking past her, at somethingbehind; turning, she saw Philip standing bareheaded and perfectly stillin the moonlight, against the background of dark trees.
Ogledon stood for a moment, with his eyes starting, and his breathcoming and going in gasps, while Philip stood absolutely rigid; then,with a terrible cry, he dropped forward upon his knees, and covered hisface with his hands. When he ventured to look up again, Philip hadvanished into the shadows.