Anne Hereford. Mrs. Henry Wood
asked Mr. Barley, curiously, lifting his head.
"Oh, she got frightened last night when poor Philip was brought in, and ran out in the fog after me with nothing on."
He released my arm, and Mr. Barley put a chair for me beside him, and gave me some breakfast. I had taken quite a liking to him, he was so simple and kind. He told me he had no little girls or boys of his own, and his wife was always ill, unable to go out.
"Mrs. Edwin Barley appears exceedingly poorly," said Charlotte Delves, when she returned. "Lowe said he should be here this morning; he shall see her when he comes. She must have taken cold."
Scarcely had she spoken when the surgeon arrived. Mr. Edwin Barley went upstairs with him. Mr. Lowe came down alone afterwards, and I caught a moment to speak to him when no one was listening.
"Will my Aunt Selina get well, sir?"
"I do not know, my dear," he answered, turning upon me his grave face. "I fear she is going to be very ill."
Sunday came to an end; oh, such a dull day it had seemed!--and Monday morning dawned. It was Selina's birthday: she was twenty-one.
Nothing could be heard of George Heneage. The police scoured the country; handbills were printed, offering a reward for his apprehension; no effort was left untried, but he was not found. Opinions were freely bandied about: some said he must have escaped in the fog, and got off by the railway from Nettleby, or by the other line beyond Hallam; others thought he was lying concealed near the spot still. Mr. Edwin Barley was in great anger at his escape, and avowed he would pursue him to the death.
Not on this day, but the following one, Tuesday, Mr. Heneage's father came to the house--a fine old gentleman, with white hair. Mr. Lowe corrected me for calling him old, and said he could not be much more than fifty. I had not then the experience to know that while young people call fifty old, those past that age are apt to style it young. I saw him twice as he went along the passages, but was not close to him. He was a courteous, gentlemanly man, but seemed bowed down with grief. It was said he could not understand the calamity at all, and decidedly refused to believe in his son's guilt. If the shot had in truth proceeded from him, the gun must have gone off by accident.
"Then why should he run away?" argued Mr. Edwin Barley.
He stayed in the house altogether but about two hours, and had an interview with Mrs. Edwin Barley in her bedroom before his departure. Refreshments were laid for him, but he declined to touch anything: I heard the servants commenting on it.
In the afternoon the coroner's inquest sat. It was held in the dining-room. The chief witness was Mr. Edwin Barley. I was not called upon, and Selina said it was a proof that he had not mentioned I was present at the time. You may be sure I took care not to mention it; neither did she. Nothing transpired touching the encounter at the summer-house; therefore the affair appeared to the public involved in mystery. Mr. Edwin Barley protested that it was a mystery to him. He could not conceive what motive Heneage could have had in taking Philip King's life. Mr. Edwin Barley testified that Philip King, in dying, had asserted he saw George Heneage take aim and fire at him, and there was nobody to contradict the assertion. I knew Philip King had not said so much; but no one else knew it, save Mrs. Edwin Barley, and she only from me. They did not require her to appear at the inquest; it was assumed that she knew nothing whatever about the transaction.
Charlotte Delves was called, at the request of the jury, because Philip King had sat with her in her parlour for half an hour the morning of his death; but she proved that he had not touched upon anything unpleasant, or spoken then of George Heneage. The feeling between them had not been good, she testified, and there used to be bickering and disputes. "What about?" asked the jury; but Miss Delves only answered that she "could not say." The fact was, Mr. Edwin Barley in his stern way had ordered her not to bring in his wife's name.
While the inquest was sitting I stayed in Selina's room. She seemed very restless, turning about in bed continually, and telling me to listen how it was "going on." But I could hear nothing, though I went often on the stairs to try.
"What was that stir just now, Anne?" she asked, when it was late.
"They called from the dining-room to have the chandelier lighted. John went in and did it."
"Is it dark, Anne?"
"Not dark. It is getting dark."
Dark it appeared to be in the chamber, for the crimson silk curtains were drawn before the large, deep bay-window, and also partially round the bed. You could distinguish the outline of objects, and that was all. I went close up to the bed and looked at her; she was buried in the pillows: that she was very ill I knew, for a physician from Nettleby had come that morning with Mr. Lowe.
"I think it must be over," she said, as a bustle was heard below. "Go and see, dear."
I went half-way down the stairs in the dark. Nobody had thought to light the hall-lamp. Sure enough, they were pouring out of the room, a crowd of dark figures, talking as they came, and slowly making for the hall-door. Suddenly I distinguished Mr. Edwin Barley coming towards the stairs.
To his study, as I thought, and back went I, not caring to encounter him. Added to my childish dislike and fear of Mr. Edwin Barley, since Saturday night another impulse to avoid him had been added: a dread, which I could not divest myself of, that he might question me as to that meeting at the summer-house, and to the subsequent interview with George Heneage. Selina had ordered me to be silent; but if he found anything out and questioned me, what could I do? I know that the fear was upon me then and for a long time afterwards.
I crept swiftly back again up the stairs, and into my aunt's room. Surely he was not coming to it! Those were his footsteps, and they drew nearer: he could not have turned into his study! No, they came on. In the impulse of the moment, I pushed behind the heavy window-curtain. It was drawn straight across from wall to wall, leaving a space between it and the bow of the window nearly as large as a small room. There were three chairs there, one in the middle of the window and at the two sides. I sat down on one of them, and, pulling the white blind slightly aside, looked out at the dark figures who were then sauntering down the avenue.
"Well, it's over," said Mr. Edwin Barley to his wife, as he came in and shut the door. "And now all the work will be to find him."
"How has it ended?" she asked.
"Wilful murder. The coroner was about to clear the room, but the jury intimated that they required no deliberation, and returned their verdict at once."
"Wilful murder against whom?"
"Against George Heneage. Did you suppose it was against you or me?"
There was a pause. I felt in miserable indecision, knowing that I ought, in honour, to go out and show myself, but not daring to do it. Selina resumed, speaking as emphatically as her inflamed throat permitted.
"I cannot believe--I never will believe--that George Heneage was capable of committing murder. His whole nature would rise up against it: as his father said in this room a few hours ago. If the shot did come from his gun, it must have been fired inadvertently."
"The shot did come from his gun," returned Mr. Edwin Barley. "There's no 'if' in the question."
"I am aware you say so; but it was passing strange that you, also with your gun, should have been upon the spot. Now, stay!--don't put yourself in a passion. I cannot help saying it. I think all this suspense and uncertainty are killing me!"
Mr. Edwin Barley dragged a chair to the side of the bed, anger in the very sound. I felt ready to drop, lest he should see me through the slit in the curtain.
"We will have this out, Selina. It is not the first time you have given utterance to hints that you ought to be ashamed of. Do you suspect that I shot Philip King?"
His tone was so stern that, perhaps, she did not like to say "yes" outright, and tampered with the question.
"Not exactly that. But there's only your word to prove that it was George Heneage. And you know how incensed