Anne Hereford. Mrs. Henry Wood
was Mr. Edwin Barley's rejoinder. "He is certainly dead, as I believe; but we must try restoratives, for all that. Make haste; bring it in a wine-glass."
She ran into the dining-room, and in the same moment Mrs. Edwin Barley came lightly down the stairs. She had on her dinner-dress, black silk trimmed with crape, no ornaments yet, and her lovely light hair was hanging down on her bare neck. The noise, as it appeared, had disturbed her in the midst of dressing.
"What is all this disturbance?" she began, as she tripped across the hall, and it was the first intimation Mr. Edwin Barley had of her presence. He might have arrested her, had there been time; but she was bending over the table too soon. Believing, as she said afterwards, that it was a load of game lying there, it must have been a great shock; the grey-and-brown woollen plaid they had flung over him, from the neck downwards, looking not unlike the colour of partridge feathers in the dim light. There was no gas in the house; oil was burnt in the hall and passages--wax-candles in the sitting-rooms.
"It is Philip King!" she cried, with a sort of shriek. "What is the matter? What is amiss with him?"
"Don't you see what it is?" returned Mr. Edwin Barley, who was all this while chafing the poor cold hands. "He has been shot in the chest; marked out in the wood, and shot down like a dog."
A cry of dread--of fear--broke from her. She began to tremble violently. "How was it done, Edwin? Who did it?"
"You."
"I!" came from her ashy lips. "Are you going mad, Edwin Barley?"
"Selina, this is as surely the result of your work as though you had actually drawn the trigger. I hope you are satisfied with it!"
"How can you be so cruel?" she asked, her bosom heaving, her breath bursting from her in gasps.
He had spoken to her in a low, calm tone--not an angry one. It changed to sorrow now.
"I thought harm would come of it; I have thought so these two days; not, however, such harm as this. You have been urging that fellow a little too much against this defenceless ward and relative of mine; but I could not have supposed he would carry it on to murder. Philip King would have died quite soon enough without that, Selina; he was following Reginald with galloping strides."
Charlotte Delves returned with a teaspoon and the brandy in a wine-glass. As is sure to be the case in an emergency, there had been an unavoidable delay. The spirit-stand was not in its place, and for a minute or two she had been unable to find it. Mr. Edwin Barley took up a teaspoonful. His wife drew away.
"Was it an accident, or--or--done deliberately?" inquired Charlotte Delves, as she stood there, holding the glass.
"It was deliberate murder!"
"Duff said so. But who did it?"
"It is of no use, Charlotte," was all the reply Mr. Barley made, as he gave her back the teaspoon. "He is quite dead."
Hasty footsteps were heard running along the avenue, and up the steps to the door. They proved to be those of Mr. Lowe, the surgeon from Hallam.
"I was walking over to Smith's to dinner, Mr. Edwin Barley, and met one of your labourers coming for me," he exclaimed, in a loud tone, as he entered. "He said some accident had happened to young King."
"Accident enough," said Mr. Edwin Barley. "Here he lies."
For a few moments nothing more was said. Mr. Lowe was stooping over the table.
"I was trying to give him some brandy when you came in."
"He'll never take brandy or anything else again," was the reply of Mr. Lowe. "He is dead."
"As I feared. Was as sure of it, in fact, as a non-professional man can well be. I believe that he died in the wood, a minute after the shot struck him."
"How did it happen?" asked the surgeon. "These young fellows are so careless!"
"I'll tell you all I know," said Mr. Barley. "We had been out shooting--he, I, and Heneage, with the two keepers. He and Heneage were not upon good terms; they were sour with each other as could be; had been cross and crabbed all day. Coming home, Heneage dropped us; whether to go forward, or to lag behind, I am unable to say. After that, we met Smith--as he can tell you, if you are going to his house. He stopped me about that right-of-common business, and began discussing what would be our better mode of proceeding against the fellows. Philip King, whom it did not interest, said he should go on, and Smith and I sat down on the bench outside the beer-shop, and called for a pint of cider. Half-an-hour we may have sat there, and then, I started for home through the wood, which cuts off the corner----"
"Philip King having gone forward, did you say?" interrupted the surgeon.
"Yes. I was nearly through the wood, when I heard a slight movement near me, and then a gun was fired. A terrible scream--the scream of a man, Lowe--succeeded in an opposite direction. I pushed through the trees, and saw Philip King. He had leaped up with the shot, and was then falling to the ground. I went to his succour, and asked who had done it. 'George Heneage,' was his answer. He had seen him raise his gun, take aim, and fire upon him."
Crouching down there on the matting, trembling though I was, an impulse prompted me to interrupt: to say that Mr. Edwin Barley's words went beyond the truth. All that Philip King had said was, that he saw George Heneage, saw him stand there. But fear was more powerful than impulse, and I remained silent. How could I dare contradict Mr. Edwin Barley?
"It must have been an accident," said Mr. Lowe. "Heneage must have aimed at a bird."
"There's no doubt that it was deliberate murder!" replied Mr. Edwin Barley. "My ward affirmed it to me with his dying lips. They were his own words. I expressed a doubt, as you are doing. 'It was Heneage,' he said; 'I tell it you with my dying lips.' A bad man!--a villain!" Mr. Barley emphatically added. "Another day or two, and I should have kicked him out of my house; I waited but a decent pretext."
"If he is that, why did you have him in it?" asked the surgeon.
"Because it is but recently that my eyes have been opened to him and his ways. This poor fellow," pointing to the dead, "lifted their scales for me in the first instance. Pity the other is not the one to be lying here!"
Sounds of hysterical emotion were heard on the stairs: they came from Mrs. Edwin Barley. It appeared that she had been sitting on the lowest step all this while, her face bent on her knees, and must have heard what passed. Mr. Barley, as if wishing to offer an apology for her, said she had just looked on Philip King's face, and it had frightened her much.
Mr. Lowe tried to persuade her to retire from the scene, but she would not, and there she sat on, growing calm by degrees. The surgeon measured something in a teaspoon into a wine-glass, filled it up with cold water, and made her drink it. He then took his leave, saying that he would call again in the course of the evening. Not a minute had he been gone, when Mr. Martin burst into the hall.
"What is this report?" he cried, in agitation. "People are saying that Philip King is killed."
"They might have said murdered," said Mr. Edwin Barley. "Heneage shot him in the wood."
"Heneage!"
"Heneage. Took aim, and fired at him, and killed him. There never was a case of more deliberate murder."
That Mr. Edwin Barley was actuated by intense animus as he said this, the tone proved.
"Poor fellow!" said the clergyman, gently, as he leaned over him and touched his face. "I have seen for some days they were not cordial. What ill-blood could have been between them?"
"Heneage had better explain that when he makes his defence," said Mr. Edwin Barley, grimly.
"It is but a night or two ago that we were speculating on his health, upon his taking a profession; we might have spared ourselves the pains, poor lad. I asked you, who was his heir-at-law, little thinking another would so soon inherit."
Mr. Edwin Barley made no reply.
"Why--good