Part 28 (1/2)
Gazing in turn at each of the executors she might expect little sympathy from the half cajoling regards of the one, or from the impa.s.sive scowl of the other.
”If he is an adventurer, come here with the carefully-prepared plot by which he hopes to win the Brand estates,” she said, slowly, ”he will not be likely to stop at his efforts because a woman stands in the way. He will have worked too hard and risked too much to be lightly turned from his purpose. He will have weighed well the chances of a refusal. The woman who stands in his way will be removed if she refuses to be his stepping-stone.”
”A parcel of moons.h.i.+ne!” cried Davenport, hotly.
”I implore you to believe otherwise. Do you think I would have come to you on mere suspicion? I am perfectly convinced in my own mind, sir.”
”But you must convince others as well as yourself. You must bring proofs. Why, we can think nothing but that that ancient pique of yours against the captain has touched your brain, and made you really take up this unworthy suspicion against a man who is the same as ever he was. I see no difference in him, except that he looks the worse for wear.”
”Which his hard usage makes very natural,” said Dr. Gay.
”You refuse to help me, then?”
”What would you like us to do, Miss Margaret?”
”I would like you to force this man into proving his ident.i.ty; confront him with such circ.u.mstances as must unmask his plot, if he has one; you have the power and I have not.”
”I don't see that we are authorized to molest any man upon such crazy foundations as those you have advanced; indeed, I can't consent to take one step of an unfriendly nature against the colonel. I have been a faithful solicitor for the Brands these many years, and it is late in the day to turn against them now. Give it up, Miss Walsingham.”
”I shall not give it up,” retorted Margaret rising; ”if I must work single-handed, I will, but remember, you have left me to battle with a dangerous and desperate foe.”
She left the office without another word, and slowly retraced her steps toward Seven-Oak Waaste.
She was imbued with as profound a sense of her own defenseless condition as any woman under the sun.
She invoked the help of her only protectors, and they had indignantly refused to be alarmed. If she would unmask a bold and determined villain, she must do it alone.
”I am going to have a hard struggle,” she thought; ”and it may be a struggle for my life.”
No wonder that she stood still in her walk, to turn this thought about her mind with a horrible earnestness: it took its weird and awful shape from a pa.s.sing memory of those murderously treacherous eyes which had surely taken her in more than once in the library that morning; it loomed larger and larger as she pondered, and the chill shadow of death seemed to be over her.
”For my life,” she repeated, gazing with dilated eyes into the warning future.
Castle Brand appeared grayly before her from among its bare armed oaks; the brown Waaste stretched far and wide, and a black pool lay in a gloomy hallow, deep and inky, as if its stormy face kept impa.s.sively calm over secrets of murder and violence.
For a time the natural instinct of self was strong in the heart of the lonely girl; she quailed before the dangers of her course, and almost persuaded herself to turn and fly; but her inborn courage came to her aid; a something in the soul of this naturally weak woman rose in fierce protest against allowing an impostor to triumph; her fears faded away out of sight, as implacable anger succeeded the brief emotion.
”Let _him_ wear the dead St. Udo's honors?” she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. ”Let _him_ be Ethel Brand's heir? No--not while I, the sworn keeper of the wishes of her who was to me a benefactress, can raise a hand to balk him. You wretch! you shall find Margaret Walsingham no coward.”
The rattle of a gig aroused her, and she looked round to behold Dr. Gay approaching.
”What are you standing there for, rooted to the spot?” he asked, drawing up beside her. ”Are you surveying, or inveighing?”
”The latter term is the most appropriate. I was mentally measuring my courage with that of the subject of our afternoon's consultation.”
”Step up beside me; I would like a few words with you. You left us in such a hurry that I felt it necessary to follow you.”
She obeyed him, and they leisurely approached the gates.
”Davenport and I have been thinking that it is our duty to warn you how you give wind to this extraordinary suspicion of yours; it may prove embracing, perhaps dangerous for you, and would create a great deal of needless scandal.”