第56章 CHAPTER XI(4)
Then the time being on a dangerous line they parted. But Ethel could think of nothing and talk of nothing but the frightful change in her friend, and the unceasing misery which had produced it. Tyrrel shared all her indignation. The slow torture of any creature was an intolerable crime in his eyes, but when the brutality was exercised on a woman, and on a countrywoman, he was roused to the highest pitch of indignation.
When Wednesday arrived he did not leave the house, but waited with Ethel for the message they confidently expected. It came about five o'clock--urgent, imperative, entreating, "Come, for God's sake! He will kill me."The carriage was ready, and in half an hour they were at Mostyn Hall. No one answered their summons, but as they stood listening and waiting, a shrill cry of pain and anger pierced the silence. It was followed by loud voices and a confused noise--noise of many talking and exclaiming. Then Tyrrel no longer hesitated. He opened the door easily, and taking Ethel on his arm, suddenly entered the parlor from which the clamor came. Dora stood in the center of the room like an enraged pythoness, her eyes blazing with passion.
"See!" she cried as Tyrrel entered the room--"see!" And she held out her arm, and pointed to her shoulder from which the lace hung in shreds, showing the white flesh, red and bruised, where Mostyn had gripped her. Then Tyrrel turned to Mostyn, who was held tightly in the grasp of his gardener and coachman, and foaming with a rage that rendered his explanation almost inarticulate, especially as the three women servants gathered around their mistress added their railing and invectives to the general confusion.
"The witch! The cat-faced woman!" he screamed. "She wants to go to her mother!
Wants to play the trick she killed Basil Stanhope with! She shall not! She shall not! Iwill kill her first! She is mad! I will send her to an asylum! She is a little devil! Iwill send her to hell! Nothing is bad enough --nothing----""Mr. Mostyn," said Tyrrel.
"Out of my house! What are you doing here? Away! This is my house! Out of it immediately!""This man is insane," said Tyrrel to Dora.
"Put on your hat and cloak, and come home with us.""I am waiting for Justice Manningham," she answered with a calm subsidence of passion that angered Mostyn more than her reproaches.
"I have sent for him. He will be here in five minutes now. That brute"--pointing to Mostyn--"must be kept under guard till I reach my mother. The magistrate will bring a couple of constables with him.""This is a plot, then! You hear it! You!
You, Tyrrel Rawdon, and you, Saint Ethel, are in it, all here on time. A plot, I say! Let me loose that I may strangle the cat-faced creature. Look at her hands, they are already bloody!"At these words Dora began to sob passionately, the servants, one and all, to comfort her, or to abuse Mostyn, and in the height of the hubbub Justice Manningham entered with two constables behind him.
"Take charge of Mr. Mostyn," he said to them, and as they laid their big hands on his shoulders the Justice added, "You will consider yourself under arrest, Mr. Mostyn."And when nothing else could cow Mostyn, he was cowed by the law. He sank almost fainting into his chair, and the Justice listened to Dora's story, and looked indignantly at the brutal man, when she showed him her torn dress and bruised shoulder. "I entreat your Honor," she said, "to permit me to go to my mother who is now in London." And he answered kindly, "You shall go. You are in a condition only a mother can help and comfort. As soon as I have taken your deposition you shall go."No one paid any attention to Mostyn's disclaimers and denials. The Justice saw the state of affairs. Squire Rawdon and Mrs.
Rawdon testified to Dora's ill-usage; the butler, the coachman, the stablemen, the cook, the housemaids were all eager to bear witness to the same; and Mrs. Mostyn's appearance was too eloquent a plea for any humane man to deny her the mother-help she asked for.
Though neighbors and members of the same hunt and clubs, the Justice took no more friendly notice of Mostyn than he would have taken of any wife-beating cotton-weaver; and when all lawful preliminaries had been arranged, he told Mrs. Mostyn that he should not take up Mr. Mostyn's case till Friday; and in the interval she would have time to put herself under her mother's care.
She thanked him, weeping, and in her old, pretty way kissed his hands, and "vowed he had saved her life, and she would forever remember his goodness." Mostyn mocked at her "play-acting," and was sternly reproved by the Justice; and then Tyrrel and Ethel took charge of Mrs. Mostyn until she was ready to leave for London.
She was more nearly ready than they ex- pected. All her trunks were packed, and the butler promised to take them immediately to the railway station. In a quarter of an hour she appeared in traveling costume, with her jewels in a bag, which she carried in her hand.
There was a train for London passing Monk-
Rawdon at eight o'clock; and after Justice Manningham had left, the cook brought in some dinner, which Dora asked the Rawdons to share with her. It was, perhaps, a necessary but a painful meal. No one noticed Mostyn. He was enforced to sit still and watch its progress, which he accompanied with curses it would be a kind of sacrilege to write down. But no one answered him, and no one noticed the orders he gave for his own dinner, until Dora rose to leave forever the house of bondage. Then she said to the cook: