Dolff blotted himself out against the wall, under the tree which bent over the wall of his own garden, and threw a rugged shadow on the pavement. He was invisible in the gloom of the wintry night. They went up in their boldness almost to the very door, and stood there whispering, yet starting at every noise. Dolff could scarcely hear Janet’s hesitating little voice, but he drank in every sound of Meredith’s. “No, no; there will be nobody out at this hour. Don’t be afraid. Ah! there might be Dolff. No; Dolff’s waiting for you to come in to teach him his new song, Janet. Little dar{196}ing! to train a lout like that. Well, you’ll keep your eyes open, and if you hear or see anything further, report to me at once. It’s very important. What do you say? Don’t be in such a fright, dearest; nobody will see us.”
Then there came a murmur from Janet, too low to be heard.
“Yes, there you’re right. There might be Vicars, the everlasting Vicars whose occupation will be gone, and who will have to return to be a butler, like the others. Oh, no, I’ve no pity for Vicars. I daresay it was he who put his mistress up to it. Mind you keep a good look-out. You don’t know how important it may be for me. Yes, I know I must go. It will be droll after this, won’t it, to meet solemnly, as if we had not seen each other for ages, and didn’t care if we never met again? Eh? To be sure, I’m going to dinner, and you are never seen on those occasions. Poor little Janet, eating her morsel up in the nursery, like a naughty child, and knowing there’s some one downstairs. Never mind, I shall only think of you the more.”
“And make fun of me with her?” said Janet, in a sharper, more audible tone.
“With Gussy, bless her! No, she never lets me make fun. She don’t understand it. You needn’t be jealous, little one, though I avow it’s droll enough, the position altogether: to keep her in good humor—and then you, you little spitfire.”
Janet was not audible but in the movement of her figure, the twist of her shoulders, the poise of her head, there was a question and remonstrance as clear as words.
“Why do I do it? Oh, it’s all very complicated, very difficult to understand. I couldn’t explain unless I had time. Unfair! no; there’s nothing unfair, don’t you know, in love or in war. Don’t be afraid; she’s of the careless kind, it will do her no harm. I ought not? Well, perhaps not, strictly speaking. But when does one do everything one ought? This is not right—perhaps not; but it’s all the more sweet, eh, little one? And as for Gussy!” he laughed, that triumphant laugh which, even to Janet’s bewildered ears, was not without offence, “for Gussy——” with a gurgle of mirth in the words.
Janet could never understand how that horrible moment went, nor how it all happened. Something seemed suddenly to hurtle through the air, a dark, swift, rapid thing, like a thunderbolt. She had scarcely felt the sensation of being pushed away when she was conscious of Meredith lying at her feet, his white face upturned to the faint light, and of that dark thing over him seizing him, dashing his head against the pavement. Janet uttered a cry, but it was not her cry that brought flying feet along the road in both directions, and{197} evoked a little tumult round the insensible figure. She mingled with it instinctively; she could not tell why, keeping silent, partly that she was struck dumb with terror, partly with an instinct of self-preservation, which seized her in this strange, sudden, awful emergency. When the door was opened—and her senses were so acute that she saw it was Vicars who had rushed to see what the commotion was—she managed to steal in unseen, to fly upstairs, and shelter herself in her room. What did it matter where she went? He had been killed before her eyes, with the laugh on his lips. Killed—struck dead at a blow! And she had seen it done, and knew who had done it, and was all mixed up and involved in the horrible, horrible catastrophe. It may seem cruel that this was Janet’s first thought, but she was so young. She had done her share of all this wrong so carelessly, with no particular meaning, thinking not much harm.
“Not much harm,” she said to herself, piteously.
No harm, no harm—only to amuse herself; and lo! it had come to murder, to sudden, swift fate. She was all one throb from head to foot, of horror and panic and wild excitement. Had any one seen her? Would she be mixed up in it? Would she have to stand forward and avow it all before the world in the light of day! Oh, what could Janet do? Where could she fly? How escape the dreadful revelation, the story which would be spread over all the world, the horrible fact of being mixed up in a murder? For the second time, when he seized Meredith by the shoulders, and dashed his head against the stones, she had recognized Dolff’s face, distorted, almost beyond recognition, by passion. What could be more dreadful than to be the witness of it all, the only one who could tell—mixed up in it as no one else in the world could be?
By and by she heard sounds of men tramping, and a great commotion below. They were bringing him in here—him—it—the body. Janet’s head went round, she was on the verge of fainting, but called back her senses by a supreme effort, saying to herself that if she were found fainting she would be betrayed, and that nothing but her own self-possession and courage could now save her. She dipped her head into a basin of water, put off her outdoor things, even her shoes, on which there were signs of her walk, and stole out to the gallery to look over the banisters. She was pale, and there was horror in her face, but that was no more than the circumstances called forth.
He was lying on a couch which had been wheeled into the{198} hall, and round him there was a little crowd, a doctor, who seemed to have sprung out of the earth, as everybody did, and who stood over the prostrate figure examining it. What was the use? Janet could scarcely keep herself from crying out, when she had seen him killed. Killed! Oh, what was the use? Gussy, very pale, but with all her wits about her, stood at the foot of the sofa. There was a policeman in the hall, and an eager crowd filling up the doorway with a ring of staring heads. And there he lay killed, killed! And Janet, horror-stricken, speechless, mixed up in it! the only witness of what had been done. That dreadful instinct of self-preservation presently impelled her to further steps; that and the anxiety she felt to know everything, to know especially how far it was known that she was mixed up in it.
“What is it? what is it?” she whispered to Gussy, feeling herself by Miss Harwood’s side; “is it an accident?”
“We can’t tell what it is: it is Mr. Meredith,” said Gussy, in a low, stern tone.
Janet uttered a cry—what more natural?—and, stealing one glance at the white upturned face, hid her own in her hands. It was only what an inexperienced girl would naturally do brought suddenly into such a presence. Nobody noticed her or thought of her. In the dark she had escaped entirely unseen.
Then there stole a little balm into her despairing soul. The doctor, after a hurried examination, turned round to say that the man was still alive, and begged that a well-known surgeon in the neighborhood should be immediately sent for. Gussy, who was very pale but perfectly calm, and complete mistress of the situation, herself superintended the removal of the couch into the dining-room, which was spacious and well aired, and had everything removed which was out of place.
The table was already spread for the dinner at which Meredith was to have been one of the chief guests a............