The first week in July brought James Conyers, the new trainer, to Mellish Park. John had made no particular inquiries as to the man’s character of any of his former employers, as a word from Mr. Pastern was all-sufficient.
Mr. Mellish had endeavored to discover the cause of Aurora’s agitation at the reading of Mr. Pastern’s letter. She had fallen like a dead creature at his feet; she had been hysterical throughout the remainder of the day, and delirious in the ensuing night, but she had not uttered one word calculated to throw any light upon the secret of her strange manifestation of emotion.
Her husband sat by her bedside upon the day after that on which she had fallen into the death-like swoon, watching her with a grave, anxious face, and earnest eyes that never wandered from her own.
He was suffering very much the same agony that Talbot Bulstrode had endured at Felden on the receipt of his mother’s letter. The dark wall was slowly rising and separating him from the woman he loved. He was now to discover the tortures known only to the husband whose wife is parted from him by that which has more power to sever than any width of land or wild extent of ocean —a secret.
He watched the pale face lying on the pillow; the large, black, haggard eyes, wide open, and looking blankly out at the faraway purple tree-tops in the horizon; but there was no clew to the mystery in any line of that beloved countenance; there was little more than an expression of weariness, as if the soul, looking out of that white face, was so utterly enfeebled as to have lost all power to feel anything but a vague yearning for rest.
The wide casement windows were open, but the day was hot and oppressive — oppressively still and sunny; the landscape sweltering under a yellow haze, as if the very atmosphere had been opaque with melted gold. Even the roses in the garden seemed to feel the influence of the blazing summer sky, dropping their heavy heads like human sufferers from headache. The mastiff Bow-wow, lying under an acacia upon the lawn, was as peevish as any captious elderly gentleman, and snapped spitefully at a frivolous butterfly that wheeled, and spun, and threw summersaults about the dog’s head. Beautiful as was this summer’s day, it was one on which people are apt to lose their tempers, and quarrel with each other by reason of the heat; every man feeling a secret conviction that his neighbor is in some way to blame for the sultriness of the atmosphere, and that it would be cooler if he were out of the way. It was one of those days on which invalids are especially fractious, and hospital nurses murmur at their vocation; a day on which third-class passengers travelling long distances by excursion-trains are savagely clamorous for beer at every station, and hate each other for the narrowness and hardness of the carriage-seats, and for the inadequate means of ventilation provided by the Railway Company; a day on which stern business men revolt against the ceaseless grinding of the wheel, and, suddenly reckless of consequences, rush wildly to the Crown and Sceptre, to cool their overheated systems with water souchy and still hock; and abnormal day, upon which the machinery of every-day life gets out of order, and runs riot throughout twelve suffocating hours.
John Mellish, sitting patiently by his wife’s side, thought very little of the summer weather. I doubt if he knew whether the month was January or June. For him earth only held one creature, and she was ill and in distress — distress from which he was powerless to save her — distress the very nature of which he was ignorant.
His voice trembled when he spoke to her.
“My darling, you have been very ill,” he said.
She looked at him with a smile so unlike her own that it was more painful to him to see than the loudest agony of tears, and stretched out her hand. He took the burning hand in his, and held it while he talked to her.
“Yes, dearest, you have been ill; but Morton says the attack was merely hysterical, and that you will be yourself again to-morrow, so there’s no occasion for anxiety on that score. What grieves me, darling, is to see that there is something on your mind — something which has been the real cause of your illness.”
She turned her face upon the pillow, and tried to snatch her hand from his in her impatience, but he held it tightly in both his own.
“Does my speaking of yesterday distress you, Aurora?” he asked, gravely.
“Distress me? Oh, no.”
“Then tell me, darling, why the mention of that man, the trainer’s name, had such a terrible effect upon you.”
“The doctor told you that the attack was hysterical,” she said, coldly; “I suppose I was hysterical and nervous yesterday.”
“But the name, Aurora, the name. This James Conyers, who is he?” He felt the hand he held tighten convulsively upon his own as he mentioned the trainer’s name.
“Who is this man? Tell me, Aurora. For God’s sake, tell me the truth.”
She turned her face toward him once more as he said this.
“If you only want the truth from me, John, you must ask me nothing. Remember what I said to you at the Chateau d’Arques. It was a secret that parted me from Talbot Bulstrode. You trusted me then, John — you must trust me to the end; or, if you can not trust me”— she stopped suddenly, and the tears welled slowly up to her large, mournful eyes as she looked at her husband.
“What, dearest?”
“We must part — as Talbot and I parted.”
“Part!” he cried; “my love, my love! Do you think there is anything upon this earth strong enough to part us, except death? Do you think that any combination of circumstances, however strange, however inexplicable, would ever cause me to doubt your honor, or to tremble for my own? Could I be here if I doubted you? could I sit by your side, asking you these questions, if I feared the issue? Nothing shall shake my confidence — nothing can. But have pity on me; think how bitter a grief it is to sit here with your hand in mine, and to know that there is a secret between us. Aurora, tell me — this man, this Conyers — what is he, and who is he?”
“You know that as well as I do. A groom once; afterward a jockey; and now a trainer.”
“But you know him?”
“I have seen him.”
“When?”
“Some years ago, when he was in my father’s service.”
John Mellish breathed more freely for a moment. The man had been a groom at Felden Woods, that was all. This accounted for the fact of Aurora’s recognizing his name, but not for her agitation. He was no nearer the clew to the mystery than before.
“James Conyers was in your father’s service,” he said, thoughtfully; “but why should the mention of his name yesterday have caused you such emotion?”
“I can not tell you.”
“It is another secret, then, Aurora,” he said, reproachfully; “or has this man anything to do with the old secret of which you told me at the Chateau d’Arques?”
She did not answer him.
“Ah! I see — I understand, Aurora,” he added, after a pause. “This man was a servant at Felden Woods; a spy, perhaps; and he discovered the secret, and traded upon it, as servants often have done before. This caused your agitation at hearing his name. You were afraid that he would come here and annoy you, making use of this secret to extort money, and keeping you in perpetual terror of him. I think I can understand it all. I am right, am I not?”
She looked at him with something of the expression of a hunted animal that finds itself at bay.
“Yes, John.”
“This man — this groom — knows something of — of the secret?”
“He does.”
John Mellish turned away his head, and buried his face in his hands. What cruel anguish! what bitter degradation! This man, a groom, a servant, was in the confidence of his wife, and had such power to harass and alarm her that the very mention of his name was enough to cast her to the earth, as if stricken by sudden death. What, in the name of Heaven, could this secret be, which was in the keeping of a servant, and yet could not be told to him? He bit his lip till his strong teeth met upon the quivering flesh, in the silent agony of that thought. What could it be? He had sworn, only a minute before, to trust in her blindly to the end; and yet — and yet — His massive frame shook from head to heel in that noiseless struggle; doubt and despair rose like twin demons in his soul: but he wrestled with them, and overcame them; and, turning with a white face to his wife, said quietly:
“I will press these painful questions no farther, Aurora. I will write to Pastern, and tell him that the man will not suit us; and —”
He was rising to leave her bedside, when she laid her hand upon his arm.
“Don’t write to Mr. Pastern, John,” she said; “the man will suit you very well, I dare say. I had rather he came.”
“You wish him to come here?”
“Yes.”
“But he will annoy you; he will try to extort money from you.”
“He would do that in any case, since he is alive. I thought that he was dead.”
“Then you really wish him to come here?”
“I do.”
John Mellish left his wife’s room inexpressibly relieved. The secret could not be so very terrible after all, since she was willing that the man who knew it should come to Mellish Park, where there was at least a remote chance of his revealing it to her husband. Perhaps, after all, this mystery involved others rather than herself — her father’s commercial integrity — her mother? He had heard very little of her mother’s history; perhaps she — Pshaw! why weary himself with speculative surmises? he had promised to trust her, and the hour had come in which he was called upon to keep his promise. He wrote to Mr. Pastern, accepting his recommendation of James Conyers, and waited rather impatiently to see what kind of man the trainer was.
He received a letter from Conyers, very well written and worded, to the effect that he would arrive at Mellish Park upon the third of July.
Aurora had recovered from her brief hysterical attack when this letter arrived; but, as she was still weak and out of spirits, her medical man recommended change of air; so Mr. and Mrs. Mellish drove off to Harrowgate upon the 28th of June, leaving Mrs. Powell behind them at the Park.
The ensign’s widow had been scrupulously kept out of Aurora’s room during her short illness, being held at bay by John, who coolly shut the door in the lady’s sympathetic face, telling her that he’d wait upon his wife himself, and that when he wanted female assistance he would ring for Mrs. Mellish’s maid.
Now, Mrs. Walter Powell, being afflicted with that ravenous curiosity common to people who live in other people’s houses, felt herself deeply injured by this line of conduct. There were mysteries and secrets afloat, and she was not to be allowed to discover them; there was a skeleton in the house, and she was not to anatomize the bony horror. She scented trouble and sorrow as carnivorous animals scent their prey, and yet she, who hated Aurora, was not to be allowed to riot at the unnatural feast.
Why is it that the dependents in a household are so feverishly inquisitive about the doings and sayings, the manners and customs, the joys and sorrows of those who employ them? Is it that, having abnegated for themselves all active share in life, they take an unhealthy interest in those who are in the thick of the strife? Is it because, being cut off, in a great measure, by the nature of their employments from family ties and family pleasures, they feel a malicious delight in all family trials and vexations, and the ever-recurring breezes which disturb the domestic atmosphere? Remember this, husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters, when you quarrel. Your servants enjoy the fun. Surely that recollection ought to be enough to keep you for ever peaceful and friendly. Your servants listen at your doors, and repeat your spiteful speeches in the kitchen, and watch you while they wait at table, and understand every sarcasm, every innuendo, every look, as well as those at whom the cruel glances and the stinging words are aimed. They understand your sulky silence, your studied and overacted politeness. The most polished form your hate and anger can take is as transparent to those household spies as if you threw knives at each other, or pelted your enemy with the side-dishes and vegetables, after the fashion of disputants in a pantomime. Nothing that is done in the parlor is lost upon these quiet, well-behaved watchers from the kitchen. They laugh at you; nay, worse, they pity you. They discuss your affairs, and make out your income, and settle what you can afford to do and what you can’t afford to do; they prearrange the disposal of your wife’s fortune, and look prophetically forward to the day when you will avail yourself of the advantages of the new Bankruptcy Act. They know why you live on bad terms with your eldest daughter, and why your favorite son was turned out of doors; and they take a morbid interest in every dismal secret of your life. You don’t allow them followers; you look blacker than thunder if you see Mary’s sister or John’s poor old mother sitting meekly in your hall; you are surprised if the postman brings them letters, and attribute the fact to the pernicious system of over-educating the masses; you shut them from their homes and their kindred, their lovers and their friends; you deny them ............