Henry Dunbar

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"I am getting seriously uncomfortable about this man," Mr. Dunbar
exclaimed at last. "Can you send a messenger to the Ferns, to ask if he
has been seen there?"

"Certainly, sir. One of the lads in the stable shall get a horse ready,
and ride over there directly. Will you write a note to Mrs. Marston,
sir?"

"A note? No. Mrs. Marston is a stranger to me. My old friend Michael
Marston did not marry until after I left England. A message will do just
as well. The lad has only to ask if any messenger from Mr. Dunbar has
called at the Ferns; and if so, at what time he was there, and at what
hour he left. That's all I want to know. Which way will the boy go;
through the meadows, or by the high road?"

"By the high road, sir; there's only a footpath across the meadows. The
shortest way to the Ferns is the pathway through the grove between here
and St. Cross; but you can only walk that way, for there's gates and
stiles, and such like."

"Yes, I know; it was there I parted from my servant--from this man
Wilmot."

"It's a pretty spot, sir, but very lonely at night; lonely enough in the
day, for the matter of that."

"Yes, it seems so. Send your messenger off at once, there's a good
fellow. Joseph Wilmot may be sitting drinking in the servants' hall at
the Ferns."

The landlord went away to do his guest's bidding.

Mr. Dunbar flung himself into a low easy-chair, and took up a newspaper.
But he did not read a line upon the page before him. He was in that
unsettled frame of mind which is common to the least nervous persons
when they are kept waiting, kept in suspense by some unaccountable
event. The absence of Joseph Wilmot became every moment more
unaccountable: and his old master made no attempt to conceal his
uneasiness. The newspaper dropped out of his hand: and he sat with his
face turned towards the door: listening.

He sat thus for more than an hour, and at the end of that time the
landlord came to him.

"Well?" exclaimed Henry Dunbar.

"The lad has come back, sir. No messenger from you or any one else has
called at the Ferns this afternoon."

Mr. Dunbar started suddenly to his feet, and stared at the landlord. He
paused for a few moments, watching the man's face with a thoughtful
countenance. Then he said, slowly and deliberately,--

"I am afraid that something has happened."

The landlord fidgeted with his ponderous watch-chain, and shrugged his
shoulders with a dubious gesture.

"Well, it is _strange_, sir, to say the least of it. But you don't think
that----"

He looked at Henry Dunbar as if scarcely knowing how to finish his
sentence.

"I don't know what to think," exclaimed the banker. "Remember, I am
almost as much a stranger in this country as if I had never set foot on
British soil before to-day. This man may have played me a trick, and
gone off for some purpose of his own, though I don't know what purpose.
He could have best served his own interests by staying with me. On the
other hand, something may have happened to him. And yet what _can_ have
happened to him?"

The landlord suggested that the missing man might have fallen down in a
fit, or might have loitered somewhere or other until after dark, and
then lost his way, and wandered into a mill-stream. There was many a
deep bit of water between Winchester Cathedral and the Ferns, the
landlord said.

"Let a search be made at daybreak to-morrow morning," exclaimed Mr.
Dunbar. "I don't care what it costs me, but I am determined this
business shall be cleared up before I leave Winchester. Let every inch
of ground between this and the Ferns be searched at daybreak to-morrow
morning; let----"

He did not finish the sentence, for there was a sudden clamour of
voices, and trampling, and hubbub in the hall below. The landlord opened
the door, and went out upon the broad landing-place, followed by Mr.
Dunbar.

The hall below was crowded by the servants of the place, and by eager
strangers who had pressed in from outside; and the two men standing at
the top of the stairs heard a hoarse murmur; which seemed all in one
voice, though it was in reality a blending of many voices; and which
grew louder and louder, until it swelled into the awful word "Murder!"

Henry Dunbar heard it and understood it, for his handsome face grew of a
bluish white, like snow in the moonlight, and he leaned his hand upon
the oaken balustrade.

The landlord passed his guest, and ran down the stairs. It was no time
for ceremony.

He came back again in less than five minutes, looking almost as pale as
Mr. Dunbar.

"I'm afraid your friend--your servant--is found, sir," he said.

"You don't mean that he is----"

"I'm afraid it is so, sir. It seems that two Irish reapers, coming from
Farmer Matfield's, five mile beyond St. Cross, stumbled against a man
lying in a little streamlet under the trees----"

"Under the trees! Where?"

"In the very place where you parted from this Mr. Wilmot, sir."

"Good God! Well?"

"The man was dead, sir; quite dead. They carried him to the Foresters'
Arms, sir, as that was the nearest place to where they found him; and
there's been a doctor sent for, and a deal of fuss: but the doctor--Mr.
Cricklewood, a very respectable gentleman, sir--says that the man had
been lying in the water hours and hours, and that the murder had been
done hours and hours ago."

"The murder!" cried Henry Dunbar; "but he may not have been murdered!
His death may have been accidental. He wandered into the water,
perhaps."

"Oh, no, sir; it's not that. He wasn't drowned; for the water where he
was found wasn't three foot deep. He had been strangled, sir; strangled
with a running-noose of rope; strangled from behind, sir, for the
slip-knot was pulled tight at the back of his neck. Mr. Cricklewood the
surgeon's in the hall below, if you'd like to see him; and he knows all
about it. It seems, from what the two Irishmen say, that the body was
dragged into the water by the rope. There was the track of where it had
been dragged along the grass. I'm sure, sir, I'm very sorry such an
awful thing should have happened to the--the person who attended you
here."

Mr. Dunbar had need of sympathy. His white face was turned towards the
landlord's, fixed in a blank stare. He had not seemed to listen to the
man's account of the crime that had been committed, and yet he had
evidently heard everything; for he said presently, in slow, thick
accents,--

"Strangled--and the body dragged down--to the water Who--who could--have
done it?"

"Ah! that's the question, indeed, sir. It must all have been done for
the sake of a bit of money, I suppose; for there was an empty
pocket-book found by the water's edge. There are always tramps and
such-like about the country at this time of year; and some of them will
commit almost any crime for the sake of a few pounds. I remember--ah, as
long ago as forty years and more--when I was a bit of a boy in
pinafores, there was a gentleman murdered on the Twyford road, and they
did say----"

But Mr. Dunbar was in no humour to listen to the landlord's
reminiscences. He interrupted the man's story with a long-drawn sigh,--

"Is there anything I can do? What am I to do?" he said. "Is there
anything I can do?"

"Nothing, sir, until to-morrow. The inquest will be held to-morrow, I
suppose."

"Yes--yes, to be sure. There'll be an inquest."

"An inquest! Oh, yes, sir; of course there will," answered the landlord.

"Remember that I am a stranger to English habits. I don't know what
steps ought to be taken in such a case as this. Should there not be some
attempt made to find--the--the murderer?"

"Yes, sir; I've _no doubt_ the constables are on the look-out already.
There'll be every effort made, depend upon it; but I'm really afraid
this is a case in which the murderer will escape from justice."

"Why so?"

"Because, you see, sir, the man has had plenty of time to get off; and
unless he's a fool, he must be far away from here by this time, and then
what is there to trace him by--that's to say, unless you could identify
the money, or watch and chain, or what not, which the murdered man had
about him?"

Mr. Dunbar shook his head.

"I don't even know whether he wore a watch and chain," he said; "I only
met him this morning. I have no idea what money he may have had about
him."

"Would you like to see the doctor, sir--Mr. Cricklewood?"

"Yes--no--you have told me all that there is to tell, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir."

"I shall go to bed. I'm thoroughly upset by all this. Stay. Is it a
settled thing that this man who has been found murdered is the person
who accompanied me to this house to-day?"

"Oh, yes, sir; there's no doubt about that. One of our people went down
to the Foresters' Arms, out of curiosity, as you may say, and he
recognized the murdered man directly as the very gentleman that came
into this house with you, sir, at four o'clock to-day."

Mr. Dunbar retired to the apartment that had been prepared for him. It
was a spacious and handsome chamber, the best room in the hotel; and one
of the waiters attended upon the rich man.

"As you've been accustomed to have your valet about you, you'll find it
awkward, sir," the landlord had said; "so I'll send Henry to wait upon
you."

This Henry, who was a smart, active young fellow, unpacked Mr. Dunbar's
portmanteau, unlocked his dressing-case, and spread the gold-topped
crystal bottles and shaving apparatus upon the dressing-table.

Mr. Dunbar sat in an easy-chair before the looking-glass, staring
thoughtfully at the reflection of his own face, pale in the light of the
tall wax-candles.

He got up early the next morning, and before breakfasting he despatched
a telegraphic message to the banking-house in St. Gundolph Lane.

It was from Henry Maddison Dunbar to William Balderby, and it consisted
of these words:--

"_Pray come to me directly, at the George, Winchester. A very awful
event has happened; and I am in great trouble and perplexity. Bring a
lawyer with you. Let my daughter know that I shall not come to London
for some days_."

All this time the body of the murdered man lay on a long table in a
darkened chamber at the Foresters' Arms.

The rigid outline of the corpse was plainly visible under the linen
sheet that shrouded it; but the door of the dread chamber was locked,
and no one was to enter until the coming of the coroner.

Meanwhile the Foresters' Arms did more business than had been done there
in the same space of time within the memory of man. People went in and
out, in and out, all through the long morning; little groups clustered
together in the bar, discoursing in solemn under-tones; and other groups
straggled on the seemed as if every living creature in Winchester was
talking of the murder that had been done in the grove near St. Cross.

Henry Dunbar sat in his own room, waiting for an answer to the
telegraphic message.

CHAPTER X.

LAURA DUNBAR.

While these things had been happening between London and Southampton,
Laura Dunbar, the banker's daughter, had been anxiously waiting the
coming of her father.

She resembled her mother, Lady Louisa Dunbar, the youngest daughter of
the Earl of Grantwick, a very beautiful and aristocratic woman. She had
met Mr. Dunbar in India, after the death of her first husband, a young
captain in a cavalry regiment, who had been killed in an encounter with
the Sikhs a year after his marriage, leaving his young widow with an
infant daughter, a helpless baby of six weeks old.

The poor, high-born Lady Louisa Macmahon was left most desolate and
miserable after the death of her first husband. She was very poor, and
she knew that her relations in England were very little better off than
herself. She was almost as helpless as her six-weeks' old baby; she was
heart-broken by the loss of the handsome young Irishman, whom she had
fondly loved; and ill and broken down by her sorrows, she lingered in
Calcutta, subsisting upon her pension, and too weak to undertake the
perils of the voyage home.

It was at this time that poor widowed Lady Louisa met Henry Dunbar, the
rich banker. She came in contact with him on account of some money
arrangements of her dead husband's, who had always banked with Dunbar
and Dunbar; and Henry, then getting on for forty years of age, had
fallen desperately in love with the beautiful young widow.

There is no need for me to dwell upon the history of this courtship.
Lady Louisa married the rich man eighteen months after her first
husband's death. Little Dorothea Macmahon was sent to England with a
native nurse, and placed under the care of her maternal relatives; and
Henry Dunbar's beautiful wife became queen of the best society in the
city of palaces, by the right of her own rank and her husband's wealth.

Henry Dunbar loved her desperately, as even a selfish man can sometimes
love for once in his life.

But Lady Louisa never truly returned the millionaire's affection. She
was haunted by the memory of her first and purest love; she was tortured
by remorseful thoughts about the fatherless child who had been so
ruthlessly banished from her. Henry Dunbar was a jealous man, and he
grudged the love which his wife bore to his dead rival's child. It was
by his contrivance the girl had been sent from India.

Lady Louisa Dunbar held her place in Calcutta society for two years. But
in the very hour when her social position was most brilliant, her beauty
in the full splendour of its prime, she died so suddenly that the
fashionables of Calcutta were discussing the promised splendour of a
ball, for which Lady Louisa had issued her invitations, when the tidings
of her death spread like wildfire through the city--Henry Dunbar was a
widower. He might have married again, had he pleased to do so. The
proudest beauty in Calcutta would have been glad to become the wife of
the sole heir of that dingy banking-house in St. Gundolph Lane.

There was a good deal of excitement upon this subject in the matrimonial
market for two or three years after Lady Louisa's death. A good many
young ladies were expressly imported from England by anxious papas and
mammas, with a view to the capture of the wealthy widower.

But though Griselda's yellow hair fell down to her waist in glossy,
rippling curls, that shone like molten gold; though Amanda's black eyes
glittered like the stars in a midnight sky; though the dashing Georgina
was more graceful than Diana, the gentle Lavinia more beautiful than
Venus,--Mr. Dunbar went among them without pleasure, and left them
without regret.

The charms of all these ladies concentrated in the person of one perfect
woman would have had no witchery for the banker. His heart was dead. He
had given all the truth, all the passion of which his nature was
capable, to the one woman who had possessed the power to charm him.

To seek to win love from him was about as hopeless as it would have been
to ask alms of a man whose purse was empty. The bright young English
beauties found this out by and by, and devoted themselves to other
speculations in the matrimonial market.

Henry Dunbar sent his little girl, his only child, to England. He parted
with her, not because of his indifference, but rather by reason of his
idolatry. It was the only unselfish act of his life, this parting with
his child; and yet even in this there was selfishness.

"It would be sweet to me to keep her here," he thought; "but then, if
the climate should kill her; if I should lose her, as I lost her mother?
I will send her away from me now, that she may be my blessing by-and-by,
when I return to England after my father's death."

Henry Dunbar had sworn when he left the office in St. Gundolph Lane,
after the discovery of the forgery, that he would never look upon his
father's face again,--and he kept his oath.

This was the father to whose coming Laura Dunbar looked forward with
eager anxiety, with a heart overflowing with tender womanly love.

She was a very beautiful girl; so beautiful that her presence was like
the sunlight, and made the meanest place splendid. There was a
queenliness in her beauty, which she inherited from her mother's
high-born race. But though her beauty was queenlike, it was not
imperious. There was no conscious pride in her aspect, no cold hauteur
in her ever-changing face. She was such a woman as might have sat by the
side of an English king to plead for all trembling petitioners kneeling
on the steps of the throne. She would have been only in her fitting
place beneath the shadow of a regal canopy; for in soul, as well as in
aspect, she was worthy to be a queen. She was like some tall white lily,
unconsciously beautiful, unconsciously grand; and the meanest natures
kindled with a faint glow of poetry when they came in contact with her.

She had been spoiled by an adoring nurse, a devoted governess, masters
who had fallen madly in love with their pupil, and servants who were
ready to worship their young mistress. Yes, according to the common
acceptation of the term, she had been spoiled; she had been allowed to
have her own way in everything; to go hither and thither, free as the
butterflies in her carefully tended garden; to scatter her money right
and left; to be imposed upon and cheated by every wandering vagabond who
found his way to her gates; to ride, and hunt, and drive--to do as she
liked, in short. And I am fain to say that the consequence of all this
foolish and reprehensible indulgence had been to make the young heiress
of Maudesley Abbey the most fascinating woman in all Warwickshire.

She was a little capricious, just a trifle wayward, I will confess. But
then that trifling waywardness gave just the spice that was wanting to
this grand young lily. The white lilies are never more beautiful than
when they wave capriciously in the summer wind; and if Laura Dunbar was
a little passionate when you tried to thwart her; and if her great blue
eyes at such times had a trick of lighting up with sudden fire in them,
like a burst of lurid sunlight through a summer storm-cloud, there were
plenty of gentlemen in Warwickshire ready to swear that the sight of
those lightning-flashes of womanly anger was well worth the penalty of
incurring Miss Dunbar's displeasure.

She was only eighteen, and had not yet "come out." But she had seen a
great deal of society, for it had been the delight of her grandfather to
have her perpetually with him.

She travelled from Maudesley Abbey to Portland Place in the company of
her nurse,--a certain Elizabeth Madden, who had been Lady Louisa's own
maid before her marriage with Captain Macmahon, and who was devotedly
attached to the motherless girl.

But Mrs. Madden was not Laura Dunbar's only companion upon this
occasion. She was accompanied by her half-sister, Dora Macmahon, who of
late years had almost lived at the Abbey, much to the delight of Laura.
Nor was the little party without an escort; for Arthur Lovell, the son
of the principal solicitor in the town of Shorncliffe, near Maudesley
Abbey, attended Miss Dunbar to London.

This young man had been a very great favourite with Percival Dunbar and
had been a constant visitor at the Abbey. Before the old man died, he
told Arthur Lovell to act in everything as Laura's friend and legal
adviser; and the young lawyer was very enthusiastic in behalf of his
beautiful client. Why should I seek to make a mystery of this
gentleman's feelings? He loved her. He loved this girl, who, by reason
of her father's wealth, was as far removed from him as if she had been a
duchess. He paid a terrible penalty for every happy hour, every
delicious day of simple and innocent enjoyment, that he had spent at
Maudesley Abbey; for he loved Laura Dunbar, and he feared that his love
was hopeless.

It was hopeless in the present, at any rate; for although he was
handsome, clever, high-spirited, and honourable, a gentleman in the
noblest sense of that noble word, he was no fit husband for the daughter
of Henry Dunbar. He was an only son, and he was heir to a very
comfortable little fortune: but he knew that the millionaire would have
laughed him to scorn had he dared to make proposals for Laura's hand.

But was his love hopeless in the future? That was the question which he
perpetually asked himself.

He was proud and ambitious. He knew that he was clever; he could not
help knowing this, though he was entirely without conceit. A government
appointment in India had been offered to him through the intervention of
a nobleman, a friend of his father's. This appointment would afford the
chance of a noble career to a man who knew how to seize the golden
opportunity, which mediocrity neglects, but which genius makes the
stepping-stone to greatness.

The nobleman who made the offer to Arthur Lovell had written to say that
there was no necessity for an immediate decision. If Arthur accepted the
appointment, he would not be obliged to leave England until the end of a
twelvemonth, as the vacancy would not occur before that time.

"In the meanwhile," Lord Herriston wrote to the solicitor, "your son can
think the matter over, my dear Lovell, and make his decision with all
due deliberation."

Arthur Lovell had already made that decision.

"I will go to India," he said; "for if ever I am to win Laura Dunbar, I
must succeed in life. But before I go I will tell her that I love her.
If she returns my love, my struggles will be sweet to me, for they will
be made for her sake. If she does not----"

He did not finish the sentence even in his own mind. He could not bear
to think that it was possible he might hear his death-knell from the
lips he worshipped. He had gladly seized upon the opportunity afforded
by this visit to the town house.

"I will speak to her before her father returns," he thought; "she will
speak the truth to me now fearlessly; for it is her nature to be
fearless and candid as a child. But his coming may change her. She is
fond of him, and will be ruled by him. Heaven grant he may rule her
wisely and gently!"

On the 17th of August, Laura and Mrs. Madden arrived in Portland Place.

Arthur Lovell parted with his beautiful client at the railway station,
and drove off to the hotel at which he was in the habit of staying. He
called upon Miss Dunbar on the 18th; but found that she was out shopping
with Mrs. Madden. He called again, on the morning of the 19th; that
bright sunny August morning on which the body of the murdered man lay in
the darkened chamber at Winchester.

It was only ten o'clock when the young lawyer made his appearance in the
pleasant morning-room occupied by Laura Dunbar whenever she stayed in
Portland Place. The breakfast equipage was still upon the table in the
centre of the room. Mrs. Madden, who was companion, housekeeper, and
confidential maid to her charming young mistress, was officiating at the
breakfast-table; Dora Macmahon was sitting near her, with an open book
by the side of her breakfast-cup; and Miss Laura Dunbar was lounging in
a low easy-chair, near a broad window that opened into a conservatory
filled with exotics, that made the air heavy with their almost
overpowering perfume.

She rose as Arthur Lovell came into the room, and she looked more like a
lily than ever in her long loose morning-dress of soft semi-diaphanous
muslin. Her thick auburn hair was twisted into a diadem that crowned her
broad white forehead, and added a couple of inches to her height. She
held out her little ringed hand, and the jewels on the white fingers
scintillated in the sunlight.

"I am so glad to see you, Mr. Lovell," she said. "Dora and I have been
miserable, haven't we, Dora? London is as dull as a desert. I went for a
drive yesterday, and the Lady's Mile is as lonely as the Great Sahara.
There are plenty of theatres open, and there was a concert at one of the
opera-houses last night; but that disagreeable Elizabeth wouldn't allow
me to go to any one of those entertainments. Grandpapa would have taken
me. Dear grandpapa went everywhere with me."

Mrs. Madden shook her head solemnly.

"Your gran'pa would have gone after you to the remotest end of this
world, Miss Laura, if you'd so much as held your finger up to beckon of
him. Your gran'pa spiled you, Miss Laura. A pretty thing it would have
been if your pa had come all the way from India to find his only
daughter gallivanting at a theaytre."

Miss Dunbar looked at her old nurse with an arch smile. She was very
lovely when she smiled; she was very lovely when she frowned. She was
most beautiful always, Arthur Lovell thought.

"But I shouldn't have been gallivanting, you dear old Madden," she
cried, with a joyous silver laugh, that was like the ripple of a cascade
under a sunny sky. "I should only have been sitting quietly in a private
box, with my rapid, precious, aggravating, darling old nurse to keep
watch and ward over me. Besides, how could papa be angry with me upon
the first day of his coming home?"

Mrs. Madden shook her head again even more solemnly than before.

"I don't know about that, Miss Laura. You mustn't expect to find Mr.
Dunbar like your gran'pa."

A sudden cloud fell upon the girl's lovely face.

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