The funeral of the trainer had not yet taken place, and it was scarcely a pleasant thing for Mr. Mellish to remember that the body of the murdered man still lay, stark and awful, in the oak coffin that stood upon trestles in the rustic chamber at the north lodge.
“I’ll pull that place down, Lolly,” John said, as he turned away from an open window, through which he could see the Gothic chimneys of the trainer’s late habitation glimmering redly above the trees. “I’ll pull the place down, my pet. The gates are never used, except by the stable-boys; I’ll knock them down, and the lodge too, and build some loose boxes for the broodmares with the materials. And we’ll go away to the south of France, darling, and run across to Italy, if you like, and forget all about this horrid business.”
“The funeral will take place tomorrow, John, will it not?” Aurora asked.
“Tomorrow, dear!—tomorrow is Wednesday, you know. It was upon Thursday night that—”
“Yes, yes,” she answered, interrupting him. “I know; I know.”
She shuddered as she spoke, remembering the ghastly circumstances of the night to which he alluded; remembering how the dead man had stood before her, strong in health and vitality, and had insolently defied her hatred. Away from Mellish Park, she had only remembered that the burden of her life had been removed from her, and that she was free. But here—here upon the scene of the hideous story—she recollected the manner of her release; and that memory oppressed her even more terribly than her old secret, her only sorrow.
She had never seen or known in this man, who had been murdered, one redeeming quality, one generous thought. She had known him as a liar, a schemer, a low and paltry swindler, a selfish spendthrift, extravagant to wantonness upon himself, but meaner than words could tell towards others; a profligate, a traitor, a glutton, a drunkard. This is what she had found behind her schoolgirl’s fancy for a handsome face, for violet-tinted eyes, and soft-brown curling hair. Do not call her hard, then, if sorrow had no part in the shuddering horror she felt as she conjured up the image of him in his death-hour, and saw the glazing eyes turned angrily upon her. She was little more than twenty; and it had been her fate always to take the wrong step, always to be misled by the vague finger-posts upon life’s high-road, and to choose the longest, and crookedest, and hardest way towards the goal she sought to reach.
Had she, upon the discovery of her first husband’s infidelity, called the law to her aid—she was rich enough to command its utmost help, though Sir Cresswell Cresswell did not then keep the turnpike upon such a royal road to divorce as he does now—she might have freed herself from the hateful chains so foolishly linked together, and might have defied this dead man to torment or assail her.
But she had chosen to follow the counsel of expediency, and it had led her upon the crooked way through which I have striven to follow her. I feel that there is much need of apology for her. Her own hands had sown the dragon’s teeth, from whose evil seed had sprung up armed men, strong enough to rend and devour her. But then, if she had been faultless, she could not have been the heroine of this story; for I think some wise man of old remarked, that the perfect women were those who left no histories behind them, but went through life upon such a tranquil course of quiet well-doing as left no footprints on the sands of time; only mute records hidden here and there, deep in the grateful hearts of those who had been blest by them.
The presence of the dead man within the boundary of Mellish Park made itself felt throughout the household that had once been such a jovial one. The excitement of the catastrophe had passed away, and only the dull gloom remained—a sense of oppression not to be cast aside. It was felt in the servants’ hall, as well as in Aurora’s luxurious apartments. It was felt by the butler as well as by the master. No worse deed of violence than the slaughter of an unhappy stag, who had rushed for a last refuge to the Mellish Park flower-garden, and had been run down by furious hounds upon the velvet lawn, had ever before been done within the boundary of the young squire’s home. The house was an old one, and had stood, gray and ivy-shrouded, through the perilous days of civil war. There were secret passages, in which loyal squires of Mellish Park had hidden from ferocious Roundheads bent upon riot and plunder. There were broad hearthstones, upon which sturdy blows had been given and exchanged by strong men in leathern jerkins and clumsy iron-heeled boots; but the Royalist Mellish had always ultimately escaped—up a chimney, or down a cellar, or behind a curtain of tapestry; and the wicked Praise-the-Lord Thompsons, and Smiter-of-the-Philistines Joneses, had departed after plundering the plate-chest and emptying the wine-barrels. There had never before been set upon the place in which John Mellish had first seen the light, the red hand of murder.
It was not strange, then, that the servants sat long over their meals, and talked in solemn whispers of the events of the past week. There was more than the murder to talk about. There was the flight of Mrs. Mellish from beneath her husband’s roof upon the very day of the inquest. It was all very well for John to give out that his wife had gone up to town upon a visit to her cousin, Mrs. Bulstrode. Such ladies as Mrs. Mellish do not go upon visits without escort, without a word of notice, without the poorest pretence of bag and baggage. No; the mistress of Mellish Park had
