The Weird Sisters: A Romance. Volume 1 of 3

CHAPTER IX

A FLASK OF COGNAC

When the Weeslade Valley Bank declined to advance five thousand pounds on the Weeslade Steamship Company's river passenger-boat the Rodwell, they had two reasons for the refusal: first, they were not prepared to lock up money at the time; second, a report reached them that the Rodwell was in bad condition.

In the winter of the year 1865 the Rodwell had lain up, undergoing repairs, and then the discovery was made that her condition was far from satisfactory. Many of her plates were no thicker than brown-paper, and just at the bends aft the point of a scraper had absolutely gone through a plate.

The boilers, too, were found to be in an unsatisfactory condition, and the machinery needed thorough overhauling.

But they wanted the boat for the summer traffic, and had no time to get all she required done before the fine weather; so she was patched for the time, the intention being to lay her up the following autumn and put her in good repair; in the meantime one new boiler was to be made for her.

Towards the middle of April she began running as usual with passengers between Daneford and Seacliff.

On her third trip she broke down; something went wrong with her machinery, and she had to be towed into Seacliff by another steamer.

As this accident occurred early in the season there were few passengers, and little excitement arose from the circumstance.

Almost the whole trade of the Rodwell consisted of carrying seaside folk from Daneford to Seacliff and back again. She sailed every week-day of the season from Seacliff to Daneford at half-past seven in the morning, and from Daneford to Seacliff at half-past six in the afternoon. Many of the business men of the city kept their families all the season at Seacliff, they themselves coming and going between the little town and the city daily, and enjoying the advantages of sleeping in sea-freshened air and two bright pleasant sails of a couple of hours each in the day.

When, in overhauling the Rodwell in 1865, they found the boilers in not a satisfactory condition, they took off five pounds of steam. "Better to be sure than sorry," they said. This reduction of steam made the Rodwell slower in 1866 than in previous years.

On Tuesday, the 14th of August, 1866, the engineer of the Rodwell made a report to the owners, and was directed to work her at another five pounds' reduction of pressure.

When Grey advanced the five thousand pounds on the mortgage he made no enquiry into her condition. He knew the boat very well, had many times travelled by her between Daneford and Seacliff. He knew she was worth more than the money asked for, and as no mortgage existed upon her he felt he should be quite secure if the company ensured her, and handed him a policy for five thousand pounds. His position was that if the company did not pay the interest on his money and his money itself, ultimately he could seize the Rodwell; and if the steamboat were lost by any chance of wind or water he should get his money from the insurance company.

Mr. Grey was as familiar with the steamboat Rodwell as any man in Daneford. He had often spent the summer months with his wife at Seacliff, and had been a passenger in the boat hundreds of times. He knew all the men employed on her; he knew every exterior brass plate and hinge and bolt. He could go about her blindfold, and steer her up or down the river. He didn't understand machinery, but often said he could command, steer, and attend to the engines all by himself, and save the wages of the crew.

Daneford was proud of all its institutions, and after Wat there were few it felt more complaisant about than the pretty town and picturesque scenery of Seacliff and the faithful Rodwell, the town being regarded as the country sweetheart, the milkmaid lover of the city, and the steamboat as the Mercury of the love-making.

It was Grey's intention to spend the month of September, 1866, at Seacliff. He did not own a house there. It had been his custom to rent a small white cottage that hung half-way down a red cliff surrounding one of the blue bays clustering around the high headland on which the white town was built.

He did not regard his sojourn at Seacliff with any lively anticipations. It was pleasant to steam up and down the blue river between the sunlit green shores, through the sweet odours from the woods and hedges freshened and spiritualised by the full broad river. The morning swim in the strong sea-water brought the sense of health and vigour and power into his frame. The breakfast, ample, well cooked, appetising, with blithe company, full of inspiriting talk and resolute happiness, in the steamer's cabin, would cure a misanthrope and buoy the heart of a cynic. The joyous solemnity of that cigar on deck afterwards would reconcile an anchorite to comfort. Yet for all these advantages Henry Walter Grey did not like his season at Seacliff.

The evening voyage was no less to be enjoyed. After the dust and worry of the city's day it was good to feel the moist winds blowing through your hair, against your forehead; to hear the cooling swirl of the water at the bow, and the far-off wash of the steamer's swells upon the shadowy shore; to watch the crimson sunset, and the coming of the pale-blue stars, and the red moon that, slowly rising from the hot earth to the limpid sky, grew mild and fair, while under it the white earth sailed silent down the ocean of the dark; to feel the hallowed peace of night ascending from earth to God.

But it ruined all to know in that cottage above the bay on the ledge of red cliff one waited who was no companion, yet bound to him for life; to know year by year the chasm between them widened; and that above that chasm hung a spirit of evil, the bad angel of a terrible weakness, which might at any moment become visible to all those standing by, and ruin her, and bring on him pity – pity, that boneless scorn more unendurable than contempt or loathing.

In the deep seclusion of the Manor, Grey felt the skeleton in his house was pretty safely hidden; here in Seacliff there were innumerable chances of discovery. It is more than likely he would not have gone to Seacliff in the summer if by any possibility he could safely avoid it. But all the well-off people of Daneford went every year to the little town, and to depart from the custom would be to attract a dangerous attention to himself and his household. It had been his custom of former years to stay at Seacliff for three months of summer; but in the year 1866 he resolved to limit his stay to one month – the month of September.

When he and she were at home in the Manor House, she was more directly under his control, immediately under his observation. But on leaving Seacliff in the morning he was always weighed down by the dread that in this little town of much gossip something might leak out while he was away. She might go into the town, and in some incautious way betray her fault, and destroy all the respect people felt for her – all the respect they felt for his wife.

What an awful millstone to carry about with one! Fancy the men at the street-corners chatting together, or groups standing at the Chamber of Commerce windows, or the members of the Club, or his own staff at the Bank, looking after him with compassionate eyes, and saying: "Poor Wat! How sad and worn and broken-down he looks! What a wretched thing! What a dreadful thing when a man's wife is a – drunkard!"

The last word was always haunting his ears, always booming in the hollow caverns through which his fears followed him during sleep; and although the habit of Mrs. Grey had not yet become so confirmed as to justify the application of such an odious epithet, her case was growing no better, growing rather worse with time.

All the Midharst money was gone. Her fault was at most a vice; but he had committed a crime. He lay between two fears; he was threatened by two discoveries. Someone might find out about her, and blast the fame of the Manor House; someone might find out about him, and blast the Daneford Bank, and lock him up in jail, and brand the name he bore with ignominy.

In such a state of mind was Grey when the 16th of August arrived and evening brought him home. The husband and wife sat down alone to dinner, sat down alone to the last dinner they were ever to eat together.

"Bee," said Grey to his wife, when the dessert had been brought in and the servants had gone, "do you think you could go down to Seacliff in the Rodwell to-morrow evening, and look up the cottage? I saw the estimable and penurious landlord of it to-day. It's not occupied this month, and he wanted me to take it from the 20th. I'm half inclined to accept his offer. He says we can have it from the 20th of this month to the end of September for a month's rent. It would be almost worth while to take him at his word, and hear how he'd whine if I gave him a cheque for the month's rent only. What are those two famous items out of last year's bill?"

"Brunswick varnish, for the kitchen coal-scuttle, 2d.; and a pair of brass stair-eyes, one lost and one damaged, 2d.," quoted Mrs. Grey seriously, as if the imposition was intolerable.

"Yes, yes. That's it. Brunswick varnish and stair-eyes," laughed Grey. "And at the end of all the items for damage was the general observation: 'The same being in excess of reasonable wear and tear.' Didn't he make us whiten all the ceilings, too, on the grounds that we stopped far into the season and blackened them with the lamps?"

"Yes, Wat."

"Is it three or four times we have paid, Bee, for cracking that soup-tureen? The old crack, you know."

"We've paid, I think, Wat, only twice for that crack, but he has charged us with the ladle every year, although we never had one."

"Why, this old Parkinson is much more amusing than a state-jester of old, and not half so impudent or expensive." Mr. Grey smiled, and rubbed his smooth cheek with his white hand. After a moment's enjoyment of his recollections of Parkinson, he returned to the question. "Well, Bee, will you go down in the Rodwell with me to-morrow evening? We can have a breath of sea-air, a look at Parkinson and the cottage, and come back by the boat in the morning."

"Very well, Wat. Of course I'll go with you."

"Now let me see. The best plan will be for you to go from this to the boat. Be on board at a quarter-past six, and stay there until I come. You won't forget?"

"No, Wat."

"You're quite sure you won't forget?" Of late Mrs. Grey's memory had shown signs of giving way.

"I'll be there, certainly," she answered, a little hotly. "You don't think my memory is so bad I am likely to forget anything that gives me a chance of getting out of this dull house."

"Because," he said, holding up his finger to quiet her displeasure, "I may not be able to get away from the office until just half-past six. I shall be at the boat in time. You will go aboard and sit down aft, and wait for me."

Having thus arranged for the following evening, Grey lapsed into silence, and his wife withdrew.

Those after-dinner hours, which, to the prosperous man are the most placid and full of content, were now to Grey full of fears and subtle agonies when he had no company. The necessity all through the day for showing a fair front to the world and keeping up his reputation for cordial joviality no longer existed when he found himself alone in his own dining-room.

Then he exposed his imagination to all the dangers and difficulties in his path. Here, this 16th of August, was he safe over all the wreck of that awful month of May, but at what a cost? The commission of a disgraceful crime and the perpetual dread of a damning discovery.

The financial crisis had shattered trade, dispersed confidence, and ruined enterprise. The last penny of the baronet's money had been taken, and was gone; and yet no remarkable prosperity, nothing in the meanest way approaching what he had calculated upon, had set in towards him. Even in the recent days of over-trading, when money was dear, the deposits in the Daneford Bank had been more than during the past few months. Things were not likely to mend in time for him. At the present rate twenty years could not bring in half the sum he wanted, and he might be called to disgorge within eighteen months, within a much less time should the old baronet suddenly die and matters take a turn unfavourable to his interest with regard to the guardianship of the heiress – his care over her not reaching, he supposed, beyond her twenty-first birthday. Merciful Heavens! what could deliver him?

And then followed the invariable reply: There is nothing to save you from infamy but marriage with Maud Midharst.

Then the memory of his wife's faults came up before him like an indictment seeking her life. She was flighty, unwise, dull, uncompanionable – intemperate.

She was no pleasure to him. She seemed to be the source of no pleasure to herself. If the Powers of good would only take her, what a blessed relief to him!

If the Powers of any denomination whatever would only take her and leave him free!

He rose, and strode up and down the long room, his face puckered and pinched, his hands clutched, his eyebrows dragged down over his eyes until the eyes disappeared, those eyes wont to be so free and open.

If the Powers of any denomination whatever – His thoughts paused a while, his brows relaxed, his whole face changed character, put on holiday attire. With a light foot and a pleasant smile he approached the chimney-piece and pulled the bell.

"James," he said, when the man entered, "bring me a flask of cognac."

While the servant was going to the cellar he said to himself, with a gentle smile, "I have been very thoughtless about that press in the Tower of Silence. I have left claret and port and sherry there, but until now I never remembered brandy! How careless I have been."

In a few minutes James returned with the bottle, drew the cork, decanted the brandy, and left.

Grey took up the decanter with a cordial smile on his face, walked towards the tower-room, the first-floor room in the Tower of Silence upon the top of which the wasted skeleton of the huge tank stood out clear against the quiet summer stars.

It was now past eleven o'clock. No profounder silence reigned by night in deserted mine deep in the bowels of the earth, in Asian desert open to the glittering stars and the pale radiance of the moon, on the dark peaks of mighty alp that reaches upward into the thin windless air, than in the chambers and passages of the fearful Manor House.

As he draws near the door of the tower-room he carries the decanter of brandy in one hand, a lighted candle in the other. When only a few feet separate him from the door he pauses suddenly, and looks earnestly forward. There are two keys for that door, one is on his ring, the other is in the possession of his wife. He holds the lamp high above his head, and listens intently. Yes; there is someone inside.

While he waits he hears a lock shot. Presently the door opens, and with a cry of surprise and fear his wife confronts him.

"Bee," he says, without allowing the smile to relax, "is this you? I thought you were gone to bed."

"I went to my room," says the unhappy woman, trembling and looking down, "but I could not sleep. I was very nervous and – and, Wat, I thought a glass of port might do me good."

"Of course it will. Of course it will," he says, in a soft voice. "I was just going to put this in the cupboard." He holds up the decanter.

"What is that?" she asks, in a voice full of uneasiness and fear.

"Only a little brandy. It's not a rattlesnake or a petard that you need be afraid of, Bee," he replies, in a bantering tone.

"No, no, Wat," she cries, drawing back a pace and holding up her hands as though she saw some fearful object in her way. "We don't want any brandy here. Indeed we don't."

"What nonsense!" he laughs. "But, seriously, Bee, you know we must have some brandy here. Suppose one of the servants, or any chance caller were to become suddenly faint, what could you do without brandy?"

"Don't put it there, Wat! For my sake, for God's sake, don't put it there!" She covers her face with her hands, and trembles again.

"There now, Bee, go to bed, and don't be silly. I should never be able to forgive myself if any harm came of there being no brandy that could be readily got at."

With slow heavy steps the woman passes him, and, as she reaches the end of the short corridor, throws up her hands to heaven, sobs out, "God be merciful to me!" and bursts into tears.

He waits until she is out of the passage, then shrugs his shoulders, and, with the old, genial smile upon his face deposits the decanter of cognac in the cupboard of the room on the first floor of the tower, of that tower which, in a moment of grim humour, he had called the Tower of Silence.

CHAPTER X

ON THE THRESHOLD OF DEATH

Mr. Grey breakfasted early, Mrs. Grey late. Nothing was said by either to the other on the night of the 16th. On Friday morning, the morning of the 17th of August, 1866, Mrs. Grey was still sleeping when her husband left the house.

The morning was bright and clear, and as the banker strode on briskly to the city he hummed an air to keep him company. His voice was indifferent, his ear was indifferent, and yet it was more invigorating to hear him blundering out wild approximations to a tune than to listen to a moderately accomplished drawing-room vocalist. The banker seemed unable to keep the natural gladness of his nature within bounds; the accomplished vocalist follows an everyday handicraft or trade with the tools of which he is familiar and expert.

As Grey walked to his office that bright Friday morning he met many friends and acquaintances. He had a nod, a wave of the hand, a cheerful word, a kind enquiry, a jovial wish, a congratulation for each, according to person and circumstances.

He carried his black bag in his hand. In the black bag were some books, some papers, and the revolver. Nothing particular occurred to him on the way to the Bank. Nothing particular awaited him upon his arrival at the office. All was going on smoothly and prosperously – but very slowly, very slowly towards bringing back the baronet's money.

Two was his luncheon hour, and at two he went out. He lunched at his club, and then strolled down to the Chamber of Commerce to see the latest Exchange telegrams, and have a chat with some of the merchants and traders and shipowners of Daneford. He got back to the office at a little after three.

Nothing particular had occurred during his absence. He went into his private room and disposed of some routine affairs. Then, having no business to do, he threw up the window, and looking out, began to whistle softly a recitative of his own invention.

After a little while he stopped whistling, and thought: "I shall be here two hours by myself this evening. I don't think I could do anything better than burn that book." In a little while more he made up his mind. "Yes; I will burn it. It would tell against me in any case. Even suppose by any miracle I am able to get that money together again, the dates would betray me. Then it is better to have neither book nor Stock than a tell-tale book only. Dead men and burnt books tell no tales. Yes; up the chimney it shall go. If I am able to replace that money, the making of a new book will be an easy task, a graceful amusement."

Mr. Grey had always kept the Midharst (Consols) account in his own handwriting, and in a book to which none but himself had access. This was a small book bound in rough calf, having a patent lock and key. Before the Bank closed at four o'clock he went down to the strong-room and took up this book to his private office.

By about half-past four all the clerks had left the office, and Mr. Aldridge had gone out to pick up an appetite for dinner. Grey locked the two doors that led into his office, opened the little ledger, and having cut the book out of the cover, he locked up the cover in a safe in the wall of his own office. There were two reasons for doing this: 1. The cover was, with the appliances at his command, indestructible. 2. He could get new paper bound into the old cover; and those of his staff who were familiar with the outside of the book would not be able to detect any difference between the original and the counterfeit.

When the cover of the book had been concealed under lock and key he sat down in front of the grate, and began tearing up the book into single leaves, and burning each one separately in the empty grate.

As the record of the baronet's twenty years of grinding, exaction, and penurious living changed into flame and smoke and ashes, Grey's thoughts were busy with the awful aspects of his position, and now, for the first time, a new element of fear entered into the case.

He suddenly stopped in his work and looked round him with a ghastly smile. Last night he had been calculating that his only way of avoiding exposure lay through the freedom of himself to marry Maud. But suppose anything were to happen to his wife now. Suppose she died that very day; suppose she had died a week ago, a month ago; what would have occurred? He should then be a childless widower, younger in appearance and in manner than in years, and even young enough in years to be the suitor of any girl. Was it likely if he were so circumstanced Sir Alexander might not think of altering the will, of introducing into it another guardian, executor, or trustee? True, Sir Alexander was not an ordinary man, and had unlimited confidence in him, Grey; but surely he could not be such a fool as to leave his daughter and his daughter's fortune in the hands solely of a popular, good-looking, and an agreeable widower of forty-five?