He had done his best to forget Edith, who had soon died of being a shady curate's wife in Australia, but he had not been able to encompass it.He used, occasionally, to dream she was kneeling by the bed in her childish nightgown saying her prayers aloud, and would waken crying--as he had cried in those awful young days.Against social immorality or village light-mindedness he was relentlessly savage.He allowed for no palliating or exonerating facts.He began to see red when he heard of or saw lightness in a married woman, and the outside world frequently said that this characteristic bordered on monomania.
Nigel Anstruthers, having met him once or twice, had at first been much amused by him, and had even, by giving him an adroitly careful lead, managed to guide him into an expression of opinion.The Duke, who had heard men of his class discussed, did not in the least like him, notwithstanding his sympathetic suavity of manner and his air of being intelligently impressed by what he heard.Not long afterwards, however, it transpired that the aged rector of Broadmorlands having died, the living had been given to Ffolliott, and, hearing it, Sir Nigel was not slow to conjecture that quite decently utilisable tools would lie ready to his hand if circumstances pressed; this point of view, it will be seen, being not illogical.A man who had not been a sort of hermit would have heard enough of him to be put on his guard, and one who was a man of the world, looking normally on existence, would have reasoned coolly, and declined to concern himself about what was not his affair.But a parallel might be drawn between Broadmorlands and some old lion wounded sorely in his youth and left to drag his unhealed torment through the years of age.On one subject he had no point of view but his own, and could be roused to fury almost senseless by wholly inadequately supported facts.He presented exactly the material required--and that in mass.
About the time the flag was run up on the tower at Stornham Court a carter, driving whistling on the road near the deserted cottage, was hailed by a man who was walking slowly a few yards ahead of him.The carter thought that he was a tramp, as his clothes were plainly in bad case, which seeing, his answer was an unceremonious grunt, and it certainly did not occur to him to touch his forehead.A minute later, however, he "got a start," as he related afterwards.The tramp was a gentleman whose riding costume was torn and muddied, and who looked "gashly," though he spoke with the manner and authority which Binns, the carter, recognised as that of one of the "gentry" addressing a day-labourer.
"How far is it from here to Medham?" he inquired.
"Medham be about four mile, sir," was the answer."Ibe carryin' these 'taters there to market.""I want to get there.I have met with an accident.My horse took fright at a pheasant starting up rocketting under his nose.He threw me into a hedge and bolted.I'm badly enough bruised to want to reach a town and see a doctor.Can you give me a lift?""That I will, sir, ready enough," making room on the seat beside him."You be bruised bad, sir," he said sympathetically, as his passenger climbed to his place, with a twisted face and uttering blasphemies under his breath.
"Damned badly," he answered."No bones broken, however.""That cut on your cheek and neck'll need plasterin', sir.""That's a scratch.Thorn bush," curtly.
Sympathy was plainly not welcome.In fact Binns was soon of the opinion that here was an ugly customer, gentleman or no gentleman.A jolting cart was, however, not the best place for a man who seemed sore from head to foot, and done for out and out.He sat and ground his teeth, as he clung to the rough seat in the attempt to steady himself.He became more and more "gashly," and a certain awful light in his eyes alarmed the carter by leaping up at every jolt.Binns was glad when he left him at Medham Arms, and felt he had earned the half-sovereign handed to him.
Four days Anstruthers lay in bed in a room at the Inn.No one saw him but the man who brought him food.He did not send for a doctor, because he did not wish to see one.He sent for such remedies as were needed by a man who had been bruised by a fall from his horse.He made no remark which could be considered explanatory, after he had said irritably that a man was a fool to go loitering along on a nervous brute who needed watching.Whatsoever happened was his own damned fault.
Through hours of day and night he lay staring at the white-washed beams or the blue roses on the wall paper.They were long hours, and filled with things not pleasant enough to dwell on in detail.Physical misery which made a man writhe at times was not the worst part of them.There were a thousand things less endurable.More than once he foamed at the mouth, and recognised that he gibbered like a madman.
There was but one memory which saved him from feeling that this was the very end of things.That was the memory of Broadmorlands.While a man had a weapon left, even though it could not save him, he might pay up with it--get almost even.The whole Vanderpoel lot could be plunged neck deep in a morass which would leave mud enough sticking to them, even if their money helped them to prevent its entirely closing over their heads.He could attend to that, and, after he had set it well going, he could get out.There were India, South Africa, Australia--a dozen places that would do.And then he would remember Betty Vanderpoel, and curse horribly under the bed clothes.It was the memory of Betty which outdid all others in its power to torment.