L. T. Meade

“ Nancy with some difficulty disengaged herself from her lover’s arms.
“I have something to tell you,” she said—her face was like a sheet. “Something happened last night after you left, and—Adrian—I am not free to marry you—I am not free to marry anyone! I am a doomed woman; a doom is on me and I cannot be your wife!”
She covered her face with her trembling hands; tears rained down her cheeks.
“I swear,” said Rowton, “that there is not a doom on this wide earth which shall part us. What is the matter, child? Tell me.”
“I cannot; it is a secret.” ”

“ Nancy was dressed for the opera in one of her new costumes; it was white, shaded off to the faintest tinge of rose. She looked something like a summer cloud when she was dressed in these billows of diaphanous texture; the pearls round her neck gave the last touch to the dazzling effect.
“You look like the heart of a sea-shell,” said her husband; “there, let me look at you from this distance; yes, the effect is perfect. Now again, favour me by standing so. Now you resemble a sunset cloud; you are all poetry, you are a dream. In fact you are a living, walking poem.”
“Don’t, Adrian,” she said. ”

“ I shall go mad, I shall go mad.”
“No, Nancy, you will do nothing of the kind,” said Rowton. He spoke, on purpose, in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. “You are over excited now and very much upset. Put on your hat, darling, and let us go outside. It is not so gloomy out as in; this tumble-down old Grange is enough to give the blues to anyone. You don’t live another week in such a hole. Wait, my angel, until you know what life really is, and life with me. I’ll show you what it is to live. Why, you won’t know yourself—no more dull days, no more cold and starvation. ”

“ The lips were now so thin that they looked like a mere thread. The men all waited in perfect silence. They knew this mood of their leader, and trembled before it.
“There is only one thing to be done,” said Long John; “I name it with regret, but it must be done.”
“What is that?” asked Scrivener.
“We have had too much to do with our gentleman leader—he has defied us and put us in peril. Men, if we do not wish, each one of us, to taste the sweets of penal servitude, if three or four of us do not wish to swing by the neck until they die, Rowton must go.”
“He must go, it is true,” echoed Scrivener. ”

“ Follett’s voice dropped—the animation went out of it.
“There, child, all the pictures have faded,” he said. “The curtain has dropped—the old life is shut away by a door which can never be opened, for Anthony is dead. Let me weep for him, Nancy—I will; I must. Tears come slowly to the dying, but they rise in my eyes now when I remember Anthony. He is dead—he was murdered—he lies in his grave, but his murderer still sees the sunshine and feels the sweet breath of life—his murderer lives.”
“But you are not to blame for that,” said Nancy; “no man could do more than you have done. ”

“ Money commands willing labour. Money banishes fatigue; money destroys illusions. There was a time when I should have slaved myself to death to produce results which, by the magic wand of your money, Nance, can be made ten times more beautiful than any toil of mine could possibly effect. Well, never mind, you are the wife of the richest, the gayest, the most delightful man in the whole county. Ah, and here comes that angel of virtue to speak for himself. How go the festivities, my friend?” she continued, holding out her hand to Rowton, who entered the boudoir at that moment. ”

“ Does the fact of your being a girl alter love? Did not you love the dead boy? I die. It is the will of the Almighty to take me away before my work is accomplished; but I leave behind me a child, my lineal descendant, the loving playmate of the murdered boy, the girl into whose ears he whispered his young secrets, the girl who kissed his young lips. This girl is no weakling, she can take up my work; she shall. I insist, I command, I will listen to no silly cowardly entreaties. Do you hear me, Nancy? I die before another sun rises, but my unfinished work drops on to your shoulders ”

“ Nay, hear me out”—he raised his hand to interrupt a flow of words which were rushing to Nancy’s lips—“I am speaking against myself and against my own interests when I so advise you; but I am not without heart, madam, and I have seen in the past how sad your life was and how you suffered. It is my profession to hunt down criminals—to scent crime to its source. In this case let me do what is contrary to my profession—let me leave the curtain unlifted. Mrs. Rowton, may I persuade you to leave justice and revenge in this special case to Heaven?”
“I cannot,” said Nance. ”

“ Pearls suit you best however, you are so maidenly, so delicate, so youthful. Heavens! to think that one like you should belong to one like me. My darling, my treasure, what have I done that Providence should be so good to me?”
“And what have I done to deserve such a husband?” she answered.
“Do not say that,” he said, his tone completely changing; “you do not really know me.”
“I know what you are to me; I know that in all the world no more gallant gentleman, no braver prince amongst men could live.”
“Come, come, Nancy, it is bad to flatter,” he said; but his eyes shone and his lips trembled. ”

“ Jacob did not catch sight of Rowton again that day, although he kicked his heels for a long time at the door of the hotel.
Punctually at the appointed hour the men met at the smoking club in Chelsea. Their full number was present. Long John looked at his best. At such moments he could be delightful. He was gracious now, unbending; there was not a shadow of care on his brow; his great eyes glowed with the softest and sweetest expression, his lips unbent in genial smiles. There are times when even men of the Silver School can relax, and, to all appearance, forget their cares. ”

“ It had been long years now since Rowton Heights had so resounded to mirth and merry-making.
For days before the ball the house was full of eager and expectant guests. Smart young men from town and the prettiest girls of the neighbourhood gladly accepted invitations to stay at the Heights. The host and hostess were seen on this occasion at their very best. Nance, under her husband’s protecting wing, lost much of her inborn shyness. Her gentle beauty, her sweet low voice, her affectionate and sympathetic manner, could not fail to make her a universal favourite. ”

“ Mrs. Ferguson looked puzzled. She knew nothing whatever with regard to the bride whom Rowton was bringing home. Had he really by any possibility married beneath him?
But one glance at Nancy’s lovely face dispelled this illusion. The sweet face stole straight down to the old woman’s heart.
“If Hester does not quite please you, ma’am, you’ll be sure to tell me,” she said; “but she seems a clever girl, and particularly good at doing hair.”
“I have always arranged my own hair,” said Nance; “but I suppose if it is necessary I must submit.” She sighed a little as she spoke. ”

“ I guessed that this queer stone would fit you to perfection. You are so fair that the sort of devildom of the thing comes out all the better from contrast.”
“Upon my word, that diamond looks almost uncanny,” cried Lady Georgina. “What possessed you to get it for your wife?”
“Because of its rarity, and because I am rather fond of the uncanny,” said Rowton, with a slight laugh. “The price of this gem, like a good woman, is above rubies.”
“Well, it certainly is magnificent,” said Lady Georgina. “It will be remarked by everyone in the room.”
“Why not? I mean it to be,” answered Rowton. ”

“ Your brother was murdered; for six long years I have been searching for the man who took his life—I have been a hunter in pursuit of my prey. There is a man alive on this earth whom I must find, my grip must hold him, my revenge must reach him. I die without scenting my quarry, but you must follow where I leave off. There, my brain is clouded, I cannot think, not definitely, not clearly—a short time ago I had a suspicion. I wish Crossley, the detective, were here, I could tell him. It seemed to me that I had got hold of a clue at last, but it has slipped from my fingers, from my memory ”

“ I think he trusted me fully.”
“With his secret?” said Rowton.
“Yes,” replied Nancy, “with his secret.”
“And you think,” continued the young man, again favouring her with a queer glance, “that because you have a secret, you and I are to part?”
“Yes; I can be no fit wife for you—it breaks my heart to have to say it. I love you more than I have any words to express, but I have got a dreadful thing to do, Adrian, and I can be no fit wife for any man until it is accomplished.” ”

“ It is not only the death of my father. Fathers and mothers die in the course of nature, but children still live on. No, it is not that. The burden laid upon me is of such a character that I must part from you. I must, Adrian, I must; the thought drives me mad. I wish I had never been born.”
All Nancy’s apparent composure gave way at this [39] juncture. Dry, tearless sobs shook her from head to foot; she tottered as if a storm had really blown over her, and but for Rowton’s protecting arms would have fallen. ”

“ Now, Nancy, do you really believe that a slender bit of a girl like you can oppose a man of my sort, more particularly when you confess how much you love me? Why, the last obstacle to our marriage was withdrawn last night, and now you talk about a secret, as if any secret that ever existed can come between us. After all, Nance, that old father of yours was a very crabbed nut to crack—well, he is out of the way, now. ”

“ Never mind, Nancy, it is in your honour.”
“In mine,” she said in astonishment; “how very sweet of them!”
“I never told you, darling,” said her husband, “that in your own house amongst your servants and our tenantry, you will take the position of a great lady.”
“I! a great lady!” she said; “I! poor little starved Nance of the Grange.”
“But starved no longer, and the Grange may well now be forgotten,” he said. “I told you that I was rich, did I not?”
“Yes. Have you not proved it?” she said; “why, you are made of money; I never heard of anyone throwing money away so lavishly.” ”

“ You must take the sour with the sweet, the dark with the light, like all the rest of us, Mrs. Rowton. Your husband will certainly leave you again. He is a wanderer not only by nature, but by heredity. His father was one of the most celebrated travellers of his day. His grandfather could never stay three months in the same place, and as to Adrian, he has been already over the greater part of the world. ”

“ They knew each other by a certain code or cipher; they had their own peculiar way of shaking hands; their own peculiar nod or smile; they were in short, a dangerous secret society, their object being to upset morality and turn the system which makes a man’s property his own topsy-turvy. Often they met at a lonely public-house; often in the heart of the busy town; but their favourite place of meeting was in the house of a private individual near the Chelsea Embankment—the very place where Rowton had gone to see Long John just before his mission to Spain. ”

“ Why, you poor little girl, I am not a bit like that in reality. Do you think I have no wild blood in me. Don’t I look at times, at times—the truth now, Nancy—don’t I look at times a very Ishmaelite, a man whose hand might be against every other man? Has not my eye a wild gleam in it? Look at me now, Nance, and say truly what you think.”
“You never appear anything to me but what I have just said,” she answered, giving him a somewhat timid glance, “but it is true that others have told me——”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Rowton, “I thought that whisper would get about. ”

“ He mentioned a date; it was the year of Anthony Follett’s death.
“I wonder,” thought Nance to herself, “if Adrian could help me in my strange and awful search. I will not think to-night of that terrible fate which hangs over me.”
She tried to force her thoughts from the subject, but try as she would, they hovered round it. She suddenly felt cold and miserable; her conscience seemed to reproach her for her present extraordinary bliss; she thought of her dead father, the desolate Grange, and the long six years of misery. Her present life seemed like a dream ”

“ I have heaps of money. I am a landed proprietor. In another part of England, a long way from here, there is a beautiful mansion which belongs to your humble servant, Adrian Rowton—it is furnished richly, softly, luxuriously. In short, I have a nest of down for my wild bird, and I can deck her with jewels. Oh! child, how lovely you will look when you wear your husband’s diamonds. ”

“ Why will you ever and always run yourself down?” she said, a note of pain in her voice.
“To you I am what I seem,” he said; “for you I could, devil that I am—yes, Nancy, for you I could almost become an angel.” He unloosed her suddenly as he said the words. “Get to bed, child,” he said; “take off those pearls and that diamond.”
Nance put her hand to her head, took the black diamond from her hair, and then slipped the row of pearls from her neck.
“I am glad to be rid of these priceless treasures,” she said. “Had you not better take them down to the safe at once, Adrian? ”