Much Darker Days

An idea now occurred to me for the first time. Many men would long ere now have asked their mothers to chaperon them. It flashed across me that I had a mother.

He who says ‘mother’ says ‘chaperon.’

I would take my Philippa to my mother. Philippa was now completely convalescent.

I can only attribute my lingering to the sense of fatality that all things would come round and be all square.

Love I had laid aside till I could see my way a little clearer in the certainly perplexing combination of circumstances. Nevertheless, Philippa, I say it advisedly, seemed to me a good deal more pure and innocent than when we first met. True, she had been secretly married to a man under a name which she knew to be false.

True, she had given birth to a baby whose later fate remains a mystery even to this day. True, her hands were stained with the blood of Sir Runan Errand.

But why speak of Redistribution, why agitate for Woman’s Suffrage, if trifles like these are to obstruct a girl’s path in society?

Philippa’s wrongs had goaded her to madness. Her madness was responsible for the act. She was not mad any longer. Therefore she was not responsible. Therefore Philippa was innocent.

If she became mad again, then it would be time to speak of guilt.

But would these arguments be as powerful with a British as they certainly would have proved with a French jury?

Once Philippa seemed to awaken to a sense of the situation.

Once she asked me ‘How she came to my home that night?’

‘You came out of the whirling snow, and in a high state of delirium,’ I answered, epigrammatically.

‘I thought I came on foot,’ she replied, dreamily.

‘But, Basil,’ she went on, ‘what afterwards? What’s the next move, my noble sportsman?’

What, indeed! Philippa had me there.

Clearly it was time to move.

In order to avert suspicion, I thought it was better not to shut up my house.

For the same purpose, I did a little in crime on my own account.

A man tires of only being an accessory.

William, the Sphynx, obviously ‘was in the know,’ as sporting characters say. Was in the know of what was in the snow! I must silence William.

I took my measures quietly.

First I laid in two dozen of very curious pale sherry at half-a-crown.

I bought each bottle at a separate shop in a different disguise (making twenty-four in all), that my proceedings might not attract attention.

I laid down the deadly fluid with all proper caution in the cellar.

At parting from William I gave him five shillings and the cellar key, telling him to be very careful, and await my instructions.

I knew well that long before my ‘instructions’ could reach him, the faithful William would be speechless, and far beyond the reach of human science.

His secret would sleep with the White Groom.

Then Philippa and I drove to town, Philippa asking me conundrums, like Nebuchadnezzar.

‘There was something I dreamed of. Tell me what it was?’ she asked.

But, though better informed than the Wise Men and Soothsayers of old, I did not gratify her unusual desire.

On reaching town I drove straight to the hotel at which my mother was staying.

It was one of those highly-priced private hotels in the New Out.

As, however, I had no desire to purchase this place of entertainment, the exorbitant value set on it by its proprietors did not affect my spirits.

In a few minutes I had told my mother all save two things: the business of the baby, and the fate which had overtaken Sir Runan.

With these trifling exceptions she knew all.

To fall into Philippa’s arms was, to my still active parent, the work of a moment.

Then Philippa looked at me with an artless wink.

‘Basil, my brother, you are really too good.’

Ah, how happy I should have felt could that one dark night’s work have been undone!

CHAPTER VII. – Rescue And Retire!

HITHERTO I have said little about my mother, and I may even seem to have regarded that lady in the light of a temporary convenience. My readers will, however, already have guessed that my mother was no common character.

Consider for a moment the position which she so readily consented to occupy.

The trifling details about the sudden decease of Sir Runan and the affair of the baby, as we have seen, I had thought it better not to name to her.

Matters, therefore, in her opinion, stood thus: —

Philippa was the victim of a baronet’s wiles.

When off with the new love, she had promptly returned and passed a considerable time under the roof of the old love; that is, of myself.

Then I had suddenly arrived with this eligible prospective daughter-in-law at my mother’s high-priced hotel, and I kept insisting that we should at once migrate, we three, to foreign parts – the more foreign the better.

I had especially dilated on the charms of the scenery and the salubrity of the climate in countries where there was no extradition treaty with England.

Even if there was nothing in these circumstances to arouse the watchful jealousy of a mother, it must be remembered that, as a chaperon, she did seem to come a little late in the day.