Over certain accidents God draws a natural veil. And, if the accident has not harmed the mind of its subject, all may yet be well. The veil is a woman’s longing and it covers much. Under the banner of love a sacrifice that is not killed recovers apace. The veil hides all. A girl may lie naked to death, and yet find her life again, and even forget in a little while what had happened to her.
As soon as Susie reached her home, her father blamed her for being late and for not laying his supper as she was used to do. Had James Dawe spoken kindly to her, Susie might not have gained possession of herself so easily. His rudeness and angry words made things ordinary again, and having once prepared herself for Death’s embrace, she did not care now what happened to her. She was quite ready, she told her father, to marry Mr. Mere the next day.
When supper was over and while Susie was washing the plates in the back-house, there came a soft knock at the front door. Susie sighed. She supposed that Mr. Mere was come. Her father would soon call her, and the farmer would wish to use her as countrymen do use the women they are soon to wed. She did not care what he did.
Her father now called to her to come to the parlour, although his tone of voice was quieter than she had expected. Susie went, expecting to see Mr. Mere, but she was welcomed by Lord Bullman.
If ever a man was made to change a dull and musty atmosphere, charged with dour cruelty, into a lighter kind of fancy, that man was Lord Bullman. Even Mr. Pix could not always regard his master—if his back was turned—without a smile. Lord Bullman’s look of ponderous displeasure at all he saw in the country—unless his gaze encountered a fair maid—his almost impossible pride in his own presence, and a simplicity of purpose, that he considered the utmost cunning, could never fail to amuse an onlooker. According to an old established custom in the family, the Bullmans, though a little brusque with their wives, had always been extremely civil and polite to their mistresses.
Lord Bullman bowed low to Susie. Indeed, he had reason to, for he had never in his life seen a young girl look so lovely.
Susie was very pale. Her love for Death had changed her into a creature that hardly seemed to be a being of this world.
James Dawe withdrew.
Lord Bullman bowed to Susie again. But, before he sat with her upon the sofa, he wished, he said, to ask her one question.
Susie smiled and permitted him to whisper.
“I have never,” murmured Lord Bullman, eagerly, “been able to pass a happy night of love since a certain fashion of clothes has been used by women in bed. But you, my dear, I know, wear a nightgown.”
“I have worn one ever since I can remember,” answered Susie gaily, “and I am sure I can be as happy with old fashions as you, my lord.”
“And,” exclaimed Lord Bullman, sitting joyfully beside Susie on the sofa, “you will not mind my talking to you a little before we go to bed?”
“I will listen to you gladly,” observed Susie.
“Even if I talk about thieves and robbers?” cried Lord Bullman.
“Talk as long as you like,” replied Susie, “and of anything you many choose.”
Never had Lord Bullman been answered so prettily. Those ladies of pleasure that he had been wont to visit sometimes had always, after their first embraces were over, made a mock of him, and even before their playing, did he wish to talk a little seriously, they would not permit it.
But Lord Bullman was not behaving to Susie quite as he intended to. While walking to Dodder, he had made up his mind what he meant to do. He had decided to go to bed with Susie first, and then to talk to her afterwards. But, as soon as he saw her, his feelings took a different turn. He saw her at once as a young woman who would listen to a man’s conversation in the most kindly manner, yielding a ready sympathy to the utmost folly. Unless it were Mr. Titball, no one had ever cared to listen to his views upon any local case of the thieving of even a hen-roost.
Did he mention anything of the kind—a little timidly, of course—to his valet, that amiable young man would change the subject to the poetry of Robert Browning. Mr. Dapper, the present butler, would do worse, for when Lord Bullman happened once to be dining alone, and mentioned—in quite a social manner—the case of a man who had broken through one window and three locked doors and then, though he had the house entirely at his mercy, only stole the kitchen-maid’s chemise, Mr. Dapper without any reply or word of comment, poured out for his lordship a glass of cold water.
Lord Bullman was now completely at his ease.
“According to a learned lawyer that I have lately consulted,” he observed, “there is nothing mentioned in the ‘droit de seigneur’ about the right to talk. That law, it appears—if the old Latin can be depended upon—only covers certain familiarities that are too common to name, and are often a little too creature-like to do. If you have no objection, my dear, we will, for the present, pass over these country matters, for I have something far more important to talk of.”
Lord Bullman sighed and took her hand.
“Ever since,” he said, “I heard of the robbery in Merly Wood, I have been busy looking for the thief, and also considering very carefully the motive that could lead a man to undress a poor suicide—hanged and dead—and to steal his clothes.”
“Perhaps they were better than his own,” suggested Susie.
“I also thought that might be so,” said Lord Bullman, “until I met the tailor, John Death, at Daisy Huddy’s.”
Susie frowned.
“I went there for no harm,” said Lord Bullman hastily, “but I had only to look once at that man John to know that he was a thief. I was sure of it the first moment I saw him, and I can assure you, Susie, by my soul, that he is the worst of robbers.”
Susie’s face coloured, then again grew deadly pale.
“In my own garden,” went on Lord Bullman, “near to a few paltry dead flowers, I knew that he was the man who had taken the clothes from the corpse.”
Susie shuddered.
“After being put upon a false scent by a girl named Winnie, I interviewed the Shelton policeman.”
Susie smiled.
“You have never read lawyer Coke, my dear?”
Susie shook her head. Lord Bullman looked relieved.
“One must,” he said, “discover a motive for the crime. This is how I saw the matter. When I was a tiny boy, I very much wished to obtain a doll dressed in the finest hussar uniform, that belonged to my cousin Margaret—”
“You stole it?” cried Susie.
“No, I only tried to,” replied my lord. “Margaret discovered me in her bedroom and began to cry. My motive was simple, but who would wish to rob a corpse of clothes that were not paid for?—the bill would follow the thief. I found the case more difficult as I proceeded in it, and soon thought it necessary to consult counsel. This is what I have discovered. It appears that Tailor John had a kind of right to the clothes of the dead man.”
“He helped to make them perhaps?” said Susie.
Lord Bullman kissed her hand.
“You have guessed rightly, child,” he cried, “and they were not paid for. Mr. Triggle, the man who hanged himself, had always been a very vain person, and when he determined to end his life, he wished to wear his best clothes. He ordered them for the purpose. They were made for him by a jobbing tailor of Maidenbridge, with whom I myself once had dealings”—Lord Bullman blushed—“and who has left the town and cannot be found. He is believed to have changed his name from Love to Death. The clothes were delivered to Mr. Triggle, but the bill was unpaid. I have learned from Mrs. Triggle, who still bemoans the loss of her good man, that her husband had agreed with the tailor, Love, that if the clothes were not paid for by a certain date, he, the tailor, had the right to his own again.
“Though I am but a poor theologian,” observed Lord Bullman, “John Death does not appear to have done any more harm to this man than God does to us when we die. He takes our garment of flesh from us, that is given by Love, and returns it to the proper owner—our Mother Earth. But our laws are not God’s.”
Lord Bullman smiled.
“Though Death cannot be charged with theft—and there his nose deceived me—yet he shall and can be sent to prison for a common assault. Tomorrow I will make out a warrant for John’s arrest.”
Susie praised his cleverness.
Lord Bullman rose to go. He bowed low to Susie.
“I only called to wish you every happiness,” he said, as he opened the door to go out.