The Man Between, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [the snowy day read aloud txt] 📗

one of your rights. You will find plenty of friends to stand with you." And with the words she took her by the hands and raised her to her feet, and looked at her with such a beaming, courageous smile that Dora caught its spirit, and promised to insist on her claims for rest and sleep.

"When shall I come again, Dora?"

"Not till I send for you. Mother will be in London next Wednesday at the Savoy. I intend to leave here Wednesday some time, and may need you; will you come?"

"Surely, both Tyrrel and I."

Then the time being on a dangerous line they parted. But Ethel could think of nothing and talk of nothing but the frightful change in her friend, and the unceasing misery which had produced it. Tyrrel shared all her indignation. The slow torture of any creature was an intolerable crime in his eyes, but when the brutality was exercised on a woman, and on a countrywoman, he was roused to the highest pitch of indignation. When Wednesday arrived he did not leave the house, but waited with Ethel for the message they confidently expected. It came about five o'clock--urgent, imperative, entreating, "Come, for God's sake! He will kill me."

The carriage was ready, and in half an hour they were at Mostyn Hall. No one answered their summons, but as they stood listening and waiting, a shrill cry of pain and anger pierced the silence. It was followed by loud voices and a confused noise--noise of many talking and exclaiming. Then Tyrrel no longer hesitated. He opened the door easily, and taking Ethel on his arm, suddenly entered the parlor from which the clamor came. Dora stood in the center of the room like an enraged pythoness, her eyes blazing with passion.

"See!" she cried as Tyrrel entered the room--"see!" And she held out her arm, and pointed to her shoulder from which the lace hung in shreds, showing the white flesh, red and bruised, where Mostyn had gripped her. Then Tyrrel turned to Mostyn, who was held tightly in the grasp of his gardener and coachman, and foaming with a rage that rendered his explanation almost inarticulate, especially as the three women servants gathered around their mistress added their railing and invectives to the general confusion.

"The witch! The cat-faced woman!" he screamed. "She wants to go to her mother! Wants to play the trick she killed Basil Stanhope with! She shall not! She shall not! I will kill her first! She is mad! I will send her to an asylum! She is a little devil! I will send her to hell! Nothing is bad enough--nothing----"

"Mr. Mostyn," said Tyrrel.

"Out of my house! What are you doing here? Away! This is my house! Out of it immediately!"

"This man is insane," said Tyrrel to Dora. "Put on your hat and cloak, and come home with us."

"I am waiting for Justice Manningham," she answered with a calm subsidence of passion that angered Mostyn more than her reproaches. "I have sent for him. He will be here in five minutes now. That brute"--pointing to Mostyn--"must be kept under guard till I reach my mother. The magistrate will bring a couple of constables with him."

"This is a plot, then! You hear it! You! You, Tyrrel Rawdon, and you, Saint Ethel, are in it, all here on time. A plot, I say! Let me loose that I may strangle the cat-faced creature. Look at her hands, they are already bloody!"

At these words Dora began to sob passionately, the servants, one and all, to comfort her, or to abuse Mostyn, and in the height of the hubbub Justice Manningham entered with two constables behind him.

"Take charge of Mr. Mostyn," he said to them, and as they laid their big hands on his shoulders the Justice added, "You will consider yourself under arrest, Mr. Mostyn."

And when nothing else could cow Mostyn, he was cowed by the law. He sank almost fainting into his chair, and the Justice listened to Dora's story, and looked indignantly at the brutal man, when she showed him her torn dress and bruised shoulder. "I entreat your Honor," she said, "to permit me to go to my mother who is now in London." And he answered kindly, "You shall go. You are in a condition only a mother can help and comfort. As soon as I have taken your deposition you shall go."

No one paid any attention to Mostyn's disclaimers and denials. The Justice saw the state of affairs. Squire Rawdon and Mrs. Rawdon testified to Dora's ill-usage; the butler, the coachman, the stablemen, the cook, the housemaids were all eager to bear witness to the same; and Mrs. Mostyn's appearance was too eloquent a plea for any humane man to deny her the mother-help she asked for.

Though neighbors and members of the same hunt and clubs, the Justice took no more friendly notice of Mostyn than he would have taken of any wife-beating cotton-weaver; and when all lawful preliminaries had been arranged, he told Mrs. Mostyn that he should not take up Mr. Mostyn's case till Friday; and in the interval she would have time to put herself under her mother's care. She thanked him, weeping, and in her old, pretty way kissed his hands, and "vowed he had saved her life, and she would forever remember his goodness." Mostyn mocked at her "play-acting," and was sternly reproved by the Justice; and then Tyrrel and Ethel took charge of Mrs. Mostyn until she was ready to leave for London.

She was more nearly ready than they expected. All her trunks were packed, and the butler promised to take them immediately to the railway station. In a quarter of an hour she appeared in traveling costume, with her jewels in a bag, which she carried in her hand. There was a train for London passing Monk-Rawdon at eight o'clock; and after Justice Manningham had left, the cook brought in some dinner, which Dora asked the Rawdons to share with her. It was, perhaps, a necessary but a painful meal. No one noticed Mostyn. He was enforced to sit still and watch its progress, which he accompanied with curses it would be a kind of sacrilege to write down. But no one answered him, and no one noticed the orders he gave for his own dinner, until Dora rose to leave forever the house of bondage. Then she said to the cook:

"See that those gentlemanly constables have something good to eat and to drink, and when they have been served you may give that man"--pointing to Mostyn--"the dinner of bread and water he has so often prescribed for me. After my train leaves you are all free to go to your own homes. Farewell, friends!"

Then Mostyn raved again, and finally tried his old loving terms. "Come back to me, Dora," he called frantically. "Come back, dearest, sweetest Dora, I will be your lover forever. I will never say another cross word to you."

But Dora heard not and saw not. She left the room without a glance at the man sitting cowering between the officers, and blubbering with shame and passion and the sense of total loss. In a few minutes he heard the Rawdon carriage drive to the door. Tyrrel and Ethel assisted Dora into it, and the party drove at once to the railway station. They were just able to catch the London train. The butler came up to report all the trunks safely forwarded, and Dora dropped gold into his hand, and bade him clear the house of servants as soon as the morning broke. Fortunately there was no time for last words and promises; the train began to move, and Tyrrel and Ethel, after watching Dora's white face glide into the darkness, turned silently away. That depression which so often follows the lifting of burdens not intended for our shoulders weighed on their hearts and made speech difficult. Tyrrel was especially affected by it. A quick feeling of something like sympathy for Mostyn would not be reasoned away, and he drew Ethel close within his arm, and gave the coachman an order to drive home as quickly as possible, for twilight was already becoming night, and under the trees the darkness felt oppressive.

The little fire on the hearth and their belated dinner somewhat relieved the tension; but it was not until they had retired to a small parlor, and Tyrrel had smoked a cigar, that the tragedy of the evening became a possible topic of conversation. Tyrrel opened the subject by a question as to whether "he ought to have gone with Dora to London."

"Dora opposed the idea strongly when I named it to her," answered Ethel. "She said it would give opportunities for Mostyn to slander both herself and you, and I think she was correct. Every way she was best alone."

"Perhaps, but I feel as if I ought to have gone, as if I had been something less than a gentleman; in fact, as if I had been very un-gentle."

"There is no need," answered Ethel a little coldly.

"It is a terrible position for Mostyn."

"He deserves it."

"He is so sensitive about public opinion."

"In that case he should behave decently in private."

Then Tyrrel lit another cigar, and there was another silence, which Ethel occupied in irritating thoughts of Dora's unfortunate fatality in trouble-making. She sat at a little table standing between herself and Tyrrel. It held his smoking utensils, and after awhile she pushed them aside, and let the splendid rings which adorned her hand fall into the cleared space. Tyrrel watched her a few moments, and then asked, "What are you doing, Ethel, my dear?"

She looked up with a smile, and then down at the hand she had laid open upon the table. "I am looking at the Ring of all Rings. See, Tyrrel, it is but a little band of gold, and yet it gave me more than all the gems of earth could buy. Rubies and opals and sapphires are only its guard. The simple wedding ring is the ring of great price. It is the loveliest ornament a happy woman can wear."

Tyrrel took her hand and kissed it, and kissed the golden band, and then answered, "Truly an ornament if a happy wife wears it; but oh, Ethel, what is it when it binds a woman to such misery as Dora has just fled from?"

"Then it is a fetter, and a woman who has a particle of self-respect will break it. The Ring of all Rings!" she ejaculated again, as she lifted the rubies and opals, and slowly but smilingly encircled the little gold band.

"Let us try now to forget that sorrowful woman," said Tyrrel. "She will be with her mother in a few hours. Mother-love can cure all griefs. It never fails. It never blames. It never grows weary. It is always young and warm and true. Dora will be comforted. Let us forget; we can do no more."

For a couple of days this was possible, but then came Mrs. Nicholas Rawdon, and the subject was perforce opened. "It was a bad case," she said, "but it is being settled as quickly and as quietly as possible. I believe the man has entered into some sort of recognizance to keep the peace, and has disappeared. No one will look for him. The gentry are against pulling one another down in any way, and this affair they don't want talked about. Being all of them married men, it isn't to be expected, is it? Justice Manningham was very sorry for the little lady, but he said also