Читать книгу Judith of the Red Hand - J. Monk Foster - Страница 16

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The Limes, the residence of Mrs. Warren Lathom, was a substantial and unpretentious house of brick, which stood well back from the highway, almost midway between the village of Saxilham and the town of Saxilford. There was plenty of green timber about it, and a well-kept lawn in front; behind were shrubberies and trim flower beds, all gorgeous in their seasons.

Here Gabriel Blackwood and the stately mistress of the place were walking leisurely one afternoon early in June. The rhododendrons were ablaze with pink and red blossoms; set in the green sward were rainbow-hued patches of sweet-scented flowers; the warm air was tempered by a breeze redolent of lush meadows; and coming to a little rustic summer-house almost buried with climbing plants the strolling pair sought coolness and rest therein.

"Do you know, my dear Mrs. Warren Lathom," Blackwood remarked presently, as he flicked the white ash from the tip of the cigar he was smoking, "that one of your sweetest charms is your absolute frankness with your friends, combined with your entire lack of all affectation."

"I love frankness, Mr. Blackwood," she said, pleasantly, with her wide dark eyes upon him, "and affectation is my especial scorn."

"Then you will not mind me being very frank now?"

"I love frankness more than all else in big, strong, masterful men, who move and influence that corner of the world, big or little, which they live in."

"You remember that night we first met?" he asked.

"I shall always remember it," she replied.

"So shall I; but there is a special reason in my case."

"Indeed. What is it, Mr. Blackwood?"

"Yourself. Do you know that on the evening of the ball the Mayor gave I had almost made up my mind to do one thing. Then I had the pleasure of meeting you, and when I went away later, I had quite resolved to do one of two things."

"How remarkable!" she cried. "But one may not ask, I suppose, what was the single object which became doubled afterwards?"

"I am going to tell you. Before I married, when I was a poor and obscure pitman merely, I loved one belonging to my own walk in life—a pit-brow girl in her teens, very simple, honest and beautiful, and one who was well fitted in every way for a decent workman's wife. When I was free again and well-to-do, that liking of mine was, I found, still alive in me; and when I went to the ball that night I had almost decided to marry her."

"A pit-brow girl!" she cried, with wide eyes. "You marry a woman of that class? The thing seems impossible. No matter how true and pure and beautiful she might be, she was no wife for you!"

"So I thought—and, hence, my indecision."

"That, then, was the one thing in your mind when you went to his worship's party. What of the two things—one of which you had resolved to do, when you went away?"

"I swore then that if I did not marry you, Mrs. Warren Lathom, I would marry my first love—the pit-brow lassie of whom I have told you."

He tossed away the end of his cigar as he finished speaking and leant across the table between them, his eager look challenging her. She laughed lowly then, and her fine eyes sparkled with audacious mischief.

"Your frankness is delicious," she murmured. "How I love you for it! Now let me be equally frank with you, Mr. Blackwood. I, too, made a solemn vow that night, when I first met and danced with you."

"One may not inquire as to the nature of a lady's vows?" he queried.

"You may," and for the first time her eyes fell before his.

"Tell me, then!" he cried.

"Gladly. Well I vowed in my heart that night that if I did not marry Gabriel Blackwood I would remain a widow all my life."

"Margaret! You mean this?" he asked, and as the words fell from his lips he jumped to his feet.

"Heaven knows I do, Gabriel!" she said solemnly, as she also rose.

"And you will marry me?"

"Whenever you wish."

She placed her white hand in his own strong brown one, and he drew her to him, warmly kissing her unreluctant lips. It was quite a minute later ere he spoke again.

"And when shall our wedding be, Margaret?"

"As soon as you desire, dear Gabriel."

"The last Wednesday in this month then. That will not be too early, dear?" he asked.

"No day can be too soon!" she whispered, as she put her shapely arms about his neck and kissed him of her own sweet will.

* * * * * *

The month of June was nearing its end, and the village of Saxilham was enjoying a holiday. The Hill End Mine was closed for that day, Wednesday; the two new pits close by were lying idle also; the hundred and fifty or so of village miners, the half-hundred of surface hands and pit-brow women were "playing" as well; and the talk that bright morning in almost every house was the marriage to be solemnised at eleven o'clock between Gabriel Blackwood and Mrs. Warren Lathom.

The mine-owner would have preferred that his second wedding should have been marked by the simplicity and quietness which characterised his first marriage; but the betrothed lady on this occasion had other views, Blackwood had fallen in with them, and the miners had been accorded a day's idleness. The ceremony in the church was to be an imposing one, and the bridal feast was to be on a most elaborate scale.

Shortly before eleven o'clock the little church at Saxilham was well filled with expectant villagers; married folks and marriageable youths and maids being crowded into the old-fashioned pews nearest the altar, a low animated murmur of conversation filling the sacred edifice, until stately bride and handsome bridegroom filed along the aisle with their friends promptly at the stroke of the hour.

Behind the rest of the sightseers and quite alone, a woman sat stiffly upright in a pew. She was plainly dressed and closely veiled, but there was a shimmer of russet hair under her bonnet, and now and again one or two of the villagers would turn to glance her way.

The ceremony went on; the soft droning of the clergyman's words could be heard through the church; the responses of the bridal pair were less distinct; then knees were bent, the last words were spoken, and Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel Blackwood passed into the vestry with their friends, to set their names in the register there.

Some minutes later husband and wife, bridesmaids and groomsman, filed back along the aisle homeward. And then in an instant the holy calm of God's house was converted into a scene of confusion and horror.

That veiled woman sitting alone had jumped to her feet as the newly-wedded pair neared her, had cast back her veil as they came abreast, had taken a swift step forward, and plunged a knife into the bridegroom's back. Next moment she had stabbed herself and tumbled to the flags, even as Gabriel Blackwood fell.

The dramatic episode was over in a moment and ere anyone could interfere. Then men shouted, women screamed and fainted, and all pressed forward to scan the stricken man and his assailant. The bride had not fainted, but she had fallen on a seat, ashen-faced and quivering with horror. And just at that moment the voice of a Hill End pit-brow woman rang through the church.

"It's Red Judith!" she shrieked. "Red Judith!"

"Yes, it's Red Judith!" a big, dark-faced pitman—Roderick Norbury—shouted passionately. "Red Judith—Judith o' th' Red Hand now! An' it serves him right, by heaven!"