Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1406 page)

There was just time to whisper to him: “Sir Giles has betrayed you. Save yourself.”

“Thank you, whoever you are!”

With that reply, he suddenly and swiftly disappeared. Iris remembered the culvert, and turned towards it. There was a hiding-place under the arch, if she could only get down into the dry ditch in time. She was feeling her way to the slope of it with her feet, when a heavy hand seized her by the arm; and a resolute voice said: “You are my prisoner.”

She was led back into the road. The man who had got her blew a whistle. Two other men joined him.

“Show a light,” he said; “and let’s see who the fellow is.”

The shade was slipped aside from a lantern: the light fell full on the prisoner’s face. Amazement petrified the two attendant policemen. The pious Catholic Sergeant burst into speech: “Holy Mary! it’s a woman!”

Did the secret societies of Ireland enrol women? Was this a modern Judith, expressing herself by anonymous letters, and bent on assassinating a financial Holofernes who kept a bank? What account had she to give of herself? How came she to be alone in a desolate field on a rainy night? Instead of answering these questions, the inscrutable stranger preferred a bold and brief request. “Take me to Sir Giles” — was all she said to the police.

The Sergeant had the handcuffs ready. After looking at the prisoner’s delicate wrists by the lantern-light, he put his fetters back in his pocket. “A lady — and no doubt about it,” he said to one of his assistants.

The two men waited, with a mischievous interest in seeing what he would do next. The list of their pious officer’s virtues included a constitutional partiality for women, which exhibited the merciful side of justice when a criminal wore a petticoat. “We will take you to Sir Giles, Miss,” he said — and offered his arm, instead of offering his handcuffs. Iris understood him, and took his arm.

She was silent — unaccountably silent as the men thought — on the way to the town. They heard her sigh: and, once, the sigh sounded more like a sob; little did they suspect what was in that silent woman’s mind at the time.

The one object which had absorbed the attention of Iris had been the saving of Lord Harry. This accomplished, the free exercise of her memory had now reminded her of Arthur Mountjoy.

It was impossible to doubt that the object of the proposed meeting at the milestone had been to take measures for the preservation of the young man’s life. A coward is always more or less cruel. The proceedings (equally treacherous and merciless) by which Sir Giles had provided for his own safety, had delayed — perhaps actually prevented — the execution of Lord Harry’s humane design. It was possible, horribly possible, that a prompt employment of time might have been necessary to the rescue of Arthur from impending death by murder. In the agitation that overpowered her, Iris actually hurried the police on their return to the town.

Sir Giles had arranged to wait for news in his private room at the office — and there he was, with Dennis Howmore in attendance to receive visitors.

The Sergeant went into the banker’s room alone, to make his report. He left the door ajar; Iris could hear what passed.

“Have you got your prisoner?” Sir Giles began.

“Yes, your honour.”

“Is the wretch securely handcuffed?”

“I beg your pardon, sir, it isn’t a man.”

“Nonsense, Sergeant; it can’t be a boy.”

The Sergeant confessed that it was not a boy. “It’s a woman,” he said.

“What!!!”

“A woman,” the patient officer repeated — ”and a young one. She asked for You.”

“Bring her in.”

Iris was not the sort of person who waits to be brought in. She walked in, of her own accord.

V
II

“GOOD Heavens!” cried Sir Giles. “Iris! With my cloak on!! With my hat in her hand!!! Sergeant, there has been some dreadful mistake. This is my god-daughter — Miss Henley.”

“We found her at the milestone, your honour. The young lady and nobody else.”

Sir Giles appealed helplessly to his god-daughter. “What does this mean?” Instead of answering, she looked at the Sergeant. The Sergeant, conscious of responsibility, stood his ground and looked at Sir Giles. His face confessed that the Irish sense of humour was tickled: but he showed no intention of leaving the room. Sir Giles saw that Iris would enter into no explanation in the man’s presence. “You needn’t wait any longer,” he said.

“What am I to do, if you please, with the prisoner?” the Sergeant inquired.

Sir Giles waived that unnecessary question away with his hand. He was trebly responsible — as knight, banker, and magistrate into the bargain. “I will be answerable,” he replied, “for producing Miss Henley, if called upon. Good night.”

The Sergeant’s sense of duty was satisfied. He made the military salute. His gallantry added homage to the young lady under the form of a bow. Then, and then only, he walked with dignity out of the room.

“Now,” Sir Giles resumed, “I presume I may expect to receive an explanation. What does this impropriety mean? What were you doing at the milestone?”

“I was saving the person who made the appointment with you,” Iris said; “the poor fellow had no ill-will towards you — who had risked everything to save your nephew’s life. Oh, sir, you committed a terrible mistake when you refused to trust that man!”

Sir Giles had anticipated the appearance of fear, and the reality of humble apologies. She had answered him indignantly, with a heightened colour, and with tears in her eyes. His sense of his own social importance was wounded to the quick. “Who is the man you are speaking of?” he asked loftily. “And what is your excuse for having gone to the milestone to save him — hidden under my cloak, disguised in my hat?”

“Don’t waste precious time in asking questions!” was the desperate reply. “Undo the harm that you have done already. Your help — oh, I mean what I say! — may yet preserve Arthur’s life. Go to the farm, and save him.”

Sir Giles’s anger assumed a new form, it indulged in an elabourate mockery of respect. He took his watch from his pocket, and consulted it satirically. “Must I make an excuse?” he asked with a clumsy assumption of humility.

“No! you must go.”

“Permit me to inform you, Miss Henley, that the last train started more than two hours since.”

“What does that matter? You are rich enough to hire a train.”

Sir Giles, the actor, could endure it no longer; he dropped the mask, and revealed Sir Giles, the man. His clerk was summoned by a peremptory ring of the bell. “Attend Miss Henley to the house,” he said. “You may come to your senses after a night’s rest,” he continued, turning sternly to Iris. “I will receive your excuses in the morning.”

In the morning, the breakfast was ready as usual at nine o’clock. Sir Giles found himself alone at the table.

He sent an order to one of the women-servants to knock at Miss Henley’s door. There was a long delay. The housekeeper presented herself in a state of alarm; she had gone upstairs to make the necessary investigation in her own person. Miss Henley was not in her room; the maid was not in her room; the beds had not been slept in; the heavy luggage was labelled — ”To be called for from the hotel.” And there was an end of the evidence which the absent Iris had left behind her.

Inquiries were made at the hotel. The young lady had called there, with her maid, early on that morning. They had their travelling-bags with them; and Miss Henley had left directions that the luggage was to be placed under care of the landlord until her return. To what destination she had betaken herself nobody knew.

Sir Giles was too angry to remember what she had said to him on the previous night, or he might have guessed at the motive which had led to her departure. “Her father has done with her already,” he said; “and I have done with her now.” The servants received orders not to admit Miss Henley, if her audacity contemplated a return to her godfather’s house.

V
III

ON the afternoon of the same day, Iris arrived at the village situated in the near neighbourhood of Arthur Mountjoy’s farm.

The infection of political excitement (otherwise the hatred of England) had spread even to this remote place. On the steps of his little chapel, the priest, a peasant himself, was haranguing his brethren of the soil. An Irishman who paid his landlord was a traitor to his country; an Irishman who asserted his free birthright in the land that he walked on was an enlightened patriot. Such was the new law which the reverend gentleman expounded to his attentive audience. If his brethren there would like him to tell them how they might apply the law, this exemplary Christian would point to the faithless Irishman, Arthur Mountjoy. “Buy not of him, sell not to him; avoid him if he approaches you; starve him out of the place. I might say more, boys — you know what I mean.”

To hear the latter part of this effort of oratory, without uttering a word of protest, was a trial of endurance under which Iris trembled. The secondary effect of the priest’s address was to root the conviction of Arthur’s danger with tenfold tenacity in her mind. After what she had just heard, even the slightest delay in securing his safety might be productive of deplorable results. She astonished a barefooted boy, on the outskirts of the crowd, by a gift of sixpence, and asked her way to the farm. The little Irishman ran on before her, eager to show the generous lady how useful he could be. In less than half an hour, Iris and her maid were at the door of the farm-house. No such civilised inventions appeared as a knocker or a bell. The boy used his knuckles instead — and ran away when he heard the lock of the door turned on the inner side. He was afraid to be seen speaking to any living creature who inhabited the “evicted farm.”

A decent old woman appeared, and inquired suspiciously “what the ladies wanted.” The accent in which she spoke was unmistakably English. When Iris asked for Mr. Arthur Mountjoy the reply was: “Not at home.” The housekeeper inhospitably attempted to close the door. “Wait one moment,” Iris said. “Years have changed you; but there is something in your face which is not quite strange to me. Are you Mrs. Lewson?”

The woman admitted that this was her name. “But how is it that you are a stranger to me?” she asked distrustfully.

“If you have been long in Mr. Mountjoy’s service,” Iris replied, “you may perhaps have heard him speak of Miss Henley?”

Mrs. Lewson’s face brightened in an instant; she threw the door wide open with a glad cry of recognition.

“Come in, Miss, come in! Who would have thought of seeing you in this horrible place? Yes; I was the nurse who looked after you all three — when you and Mr. Arthur and Mr. Hugh were playfellows together.” Her eyes rested longingly on her favourite of bygone days. The sensitive sympathies of Iris interpreted that look. She prettily touched her cheek, inviting the nurse to kiss her. At this act of kindness the poor old woman broke down; she apologised quaintly for her tears: “Think, Miss, how
I
must remember that happy time — when
you
have not forgotten it.”

Shown into the parlour, the first object which the visitor noticed was the letter that she had written to Arthur lying unopened on the table.

“Then he is really out of the house?” she said with a feeling of relief.

He had been away from the farm for a week or more. Had he received a warning from some other quarter? and had he wisely sought refuge in flight? The amazement in the housekeeper’s face, when she heard these questions, pleaded for a word of explanation. Iris acknowledged without reserve the motives which had suggested her journey, and asked eagerly if she had been mistaken in assuming that Arthur was in danger of assassination.

Mrs. Lewson shook her head. Beyond all doubt the young master was in danger. But Miss Iris ought to have known his nature better than to suppose that he would beat a retreat, if all the land-leaguers in Ireland threatened him together. No! It was his bold way to laugh at danger. He had left his farm to visit a friend in the next county; and it was shrewdly guessed that a young lady who was staying in the house was the attraction which had kept him so long away. “Anyhow, he means to come back to-morrow,” Mrs. Lewson said. “I wish he would think better of it, and make his escape to England while he has the chance. If the savages in these parts must shoot somebody, I’m here — an old woman that can’t last much longer. Let them shoot me.”