Chapter XVII Well-founded Fears
One slight reprieve did Gerald and his wife allow themselves, as they talked over their future plans. It was decided that he should not disclose his identity until he had reached the district where the crime had been committed. Until then they would make the most of each other’s companionship, Madelaine and Robin going with him to California, so that they might be together as long as possible before the final separation.
“I must find out about berths and the dates of sailing,” said Gerald, “and in the meanwhile, we had better go to London or Liverpool, where we can easily lose ourselves in the crowd.”
“Why not remain here?” asked his wife. “It is such a quiet little place, and people have got accustomed to look upon you as an ordinary lodger, who has been delayed by illness in Mrs. Potter’s rooms. No one here would ever dream of associating you with what happened ten years ago on the other side of the world.”
Gerald’s brow clouded.
“Sunbury is one of the most dangerous spots on earth for me at the present time,” he replied. “Two men only were witnesses of my deed, and one of them has lately come to live here. If he should happen to come across me, there is nothing to hinder him from handing me over at once to the nearest magistrate, in which case the few precious days that still remain to us would be lost. I heard about him at the inn when I first arrived, and it was because of this that I so hastily decided to leave the place. I was on my way to the station when I came upon Robin’s castle, and falling asleep there from sheer exhaustion, was found by the boys next morning when they came to play. If it had not been for the illness brought on by exposure and drenching on the night of the storm, I should have been across the sea by this time, so as to place as many miles as possible between him and me. When I plead guilty at the bar, I wish to do so of my own free will, not because force has been brought to bear upon me from outside.”
“Who can it be?” asked Madelaine anxiously. “Surely no one would do you any harm after all these years.”
“I should be utterly helpless in his hands if he chose to lodge an accusation against me,” answered Gerald. “His name is Thomas Field. He was in Wattie’s hut the night on which I killed the old man, and he saw the whole thing. He was with me when I took my mad plunge into the river, and therefore imagines me to be dead, but he would certainly recognize me if I stayed on here. You told me he fulfilled his promise of writing to tell you of my death. Did he not give you his name when he wrote?”
“I got a short letter from a man who signed himself, T.A.F.,” said Madelaine. “He sent back your watch and chain at the same time. Why, of course those are Mr. Thomas Algernon Field’s initials! How strange that I never connected them before! He gave me no address, so I was never able to write and ask for further details.”
“Did he return nothing but the watch?” enquired her husband. “There were some papers I left for him to forward also.”
“He enclosed your diary,” replied Madelaine, “but he said your papers had been lost in the river when you were drowned.”
“Surely I could not have been absent-minded enough to put them into my pocket again!” exclaimed Gerald. “I am certain that I handed them over to him in the hut, but the truth is that I was in such a state of mind at the time, that I may have picked them up again without knowing it. They were documents concerning a piece of land that I had staked out away up in the wilds as a sort of speculation, and I asked him to advise you about it. It wasn’t worth very much, and probably would have turned out a failure as most of my ventures have done, but I wanted you to know it was there, in case you might have made a few pounds on it. I should like to ask Field about it, only that I dare not face him again.”
“Oh, Gerald,” rejoined Madelaine, “I would not trust that man! He looks as if he could be cruel as well as hard. Do not run the risk of putting your life into his power. Let us fly while we can, for you are liable to meet him at any moment, and you might be snatched from me almost before our little time together is begun.”
“To tell you the truth, I have met him already,” said her husband, “but he evidently took me for a spirit, believing that I had done away with myself so long before.”
Gerald proceeded to give his wife an account of the unexpected meeting at the entrance of the little house in the wood, when the flash of lightning had suddenly revealed the two old acquaintances to each other, and Field had dashed the supposed apparition to the ground.
“I was barely able to crawl to good Mrs. Potter’s,” he continued, “but she took me in, and there I have been until to-day, when I ventured out for the first time, longing for another glimpse of the little angel-messenger who had tended me so lovingly in his leafy bower. No wonder that I loved the lad, seeing he was my own son!”
It was late according to the primitive habits of Sunbury when Gerald at last rose to leave.
“I must go back now to my worthy landlady,” he remarked, “or she will wonder what has become of me. I will come over early in the morning, and we can make arrangements to leave for London to-morrow afternoon. Please God, Madelaine, we shall have some blessed days together, before we need to part again.”
“I shall be thankful when we are off,” said his trembling wife. “Do be careful, Gerald, and keep out of Mr. Field’s way. I don’t like to think of you showing your face at all while you are here.”
“I’ll take good care, dearest,” he replied, “so don’t you worry. Now I must just run up and take a peep at little Robin before I go. Oh, Madelaine, if you only knew how I have hungered for a sight of you and the child! I can’t think how it was that my instinct did not tell me who he was, when he came to me in the wood. It was the name that put me off.”
“I could not call him ‘Gerald,’ even though we christened him so,” explained Madelaine, as she stood beside her husband, looking down at the sleeping boy. “It was too precious a word to be used for anyone but you, and I got to speak of him as ‘Robin’ that first winter after we came to England, because of his bright eyes and rosy cheeks, and the name has stuck to him ever since.”
The interview next morning was satisfactorily concluded, and Gerald was on his way back to Mrs. Potter’s house.
His heart was lighter than it had been for many a long day, as he walked through the wood. Although a terribly dark cloud loomed ahead, a rainbow seemed to have thrown itself across the grey and troubled sky, and rays of love and hope shone all around.
It was still early, not yet nine o’clock, and he was congratulating himself on having encountered no one either on his way to or from Sea View Cottage. One more bend in the woodland path, and Mrs. Potter’s chimneys would be in sight.
He swung round the turn, and almost collided with a man who was walking briskly in the opposite direction to which he was himself going.
Words of apology rose to his lips, but they died away in dismay before they were uttered.
He was face to face with Thomas Field.
“So it was you after all, and no ghost!” exclaimed the squire. “How is it that you have turned up here, Barker? What do you want with me, dogging my footsteps like this?”
To Gerald’s surprise Field’s countenance had assumed an expression of the utmost fear and dislike, as he suddenly realized who it was that had thus encountered him.
“I must have given him an uncommonly bad shock that night when I came upon him during the storm,” thought Gerald, as his mind took a rapid survey of the past. “He looks perfectly terrified at the mere sight of me, though it is I who have cause to be frightened of him, not he of me. I suppose it’s because he has so long accustomed himself to think of me as dead.”
“You were my friend once, Field,” he added aloud, “and I must throw myself on your mercy again. I have no wish to intrude my presence upon you. Let me disappear, as you did before, to be lost in the waters of oblivion. I ask no more than to be left to go my way unquestioned and alone.”
A look of relief overspread the millionaire’s features, and his aggressively domineering manner reasserted itself.
“Well, Barker,” he said roughly, “many a time have I wondered if I was right in letting you slip through the fingers of justice as I did that night. Death by drowning was too easy a way of escape for a man who had murdered another in the cold-blooded fashion in which you finished off old Wattie. My duty, no doubt, is to report you, now that I know you are again at large.”
Gerald winced at the coarse cruelty of the words, and his thoughts flew to Madelaine and the boy. Would the cup be dashed from his lips, just when he was about to taste the sweetness of life for the last time?
“I have long ago repented of my sin,” he replied humbly, “and strong drink has been put far from me since that day. It brought misery enough then to make me shun it for ever. I have suffered, Field, and I know I have been forgiven by my God. I can but ask man to have pity likewise.”
“You don’t deserve it,” was the harsh reply, “but I suppose I can’t hit a fellow when he’s down, so I’ll give you one more chance. I shall not hand you over to the law this time, but I tell you plainly if I find you loafing about here again, you’ll have to pay for it. My conscience will not permit me to let you off so easily a third time, so you had better keep out of my way. I’ll give you a friendly tip, though, before you go. You have more occasion perhaps than you know to avoid Sunbury. I’m not the only man here who holds the key to your past. Probably you have your own reasons for banishing from your mind the fact that you were ever acquainted with Blustering Ben, the hunter, but he will not so quickly forget you. He was a chum of old Wattie’s too, so he would not be so lenient as I am, supposing he caught sight of you here. You know what he saw last time you met, so take my advice and don’t run your neck into the noose sooner than is necessary. The faster you make yourself scarce the better for everyone.”
“Thank you,” said Gerald, though his spirit chafed at the insulting speech. “I had no idea Ben was in Sunbury. I have certainly no wish to meet him again.”