The Weird Sisters: A Romance. Volume 3 of 3

CHAPTER IX

BANKER AND BARONET

Next noon, as appointed, Grey called at the "Warfinger Hotel" and saw Sir William. The interview was a brief one. Sir William informed the banker he had made up his mind to only one thing so far, namely, to keep the secret and do nothing for a month or two. "This looks very like compounding a felony," said the young man, "but I am prepared to take that risk."

Grey went away respited. It was a great relief nothing was to be done at once, but when something came to be done what would it be? That was the question which followed Grey day and night, waking and sleeping, through two long weary months. One qualifying fact operated greatly in his favour: day after day he lost susceptibility. Something was happening which dulled his sense of danger or exposure. He had begun to forget more and more, and it was only on rare occasions he had a clear and well-defined idea of his position. He had a weak conviction Sir William would not have him prosecuted, but what would the young man do?

But if the tyranny of the theft had lost its poignancy, he had two fiercer troubles left.

Every old broken-down woman he met in the street was his mother. By day he met his mother a thousand times; she crawled close to the wall, she had sold all her clothes for bread, she had worn out her boots, and her bare feet, her poor old bare feet, touched the cold wet streets. If he took up a paper his eye fell on some paragraph relating to the death in great misery of an old woman over seventy who had seen better days.

But it was when the twilight had died, and all the land lay in the dark trance of night, the prime actor in his mental disaster entered on the scene.

In order that he might marry Maud and so cover up his robbery, he had taken upon him the awful burden of blood. Now Maud had slipped through his grasp, and there was a chance his theft might still remain undisclosed. What was his position with regard to the deed of the seventeenth of August? If the warm-breathing body of his wife were by his side he should be in no worse position.

When the dusk came down upon the earth, when the fields lay under the shadow of the wings of ill angels, the warm and breathing body of his wife was not at his side, but there, no matter where he might sit, was the clammy cold thing he had left that night on the top of the Tower of Silence. It lay in passage and hall, and in the dining-room it was always stiff and stark behind his chair, where he could not see it, but whence the clammy chill radiating from it reached his back and froze his spirit.

That was not the worst, for it was vague; not the figure of his wife so much as that of the victim of murder. Over one shoulder, he knew not which, came that face, not now calm and passionless as before, but full of love and tender reproach, an expression in which the love out-measured the reproach ten thousand-fold. It was this new look of old love made him shut his fists, and grind his teeth, and sob and groan.

From the ghastly caverns of night's silence whispers of her voice came to him pleading for mercy.

"Do not, for God's sake, Wat, do not send me in my sin before my Maker!"

These awful whispers made him start and stare, and caused the cold sweat to start from all the pores of his body.

Then followed night and dreams. When he awoke after dreams he always thought the dreaming worse than waking. When he sought his bed at night he prayed for dreams as a relief. In the privacy of his own room, and in the still deeper privacy of dreams, he was always in her presence when the rustle of her dress made his pulses thicken with joy.

These dreams were his only resting-places. But, unfortunately, not only did they not last always, but towards the end of each it changed and died in an awful sense of unascertainable disaster. Something had happened to his love, something so hideous and unheard of, that not man or woman, beast or stone, would tell him the secret. With a great shout he awoke, sprang out of bed to seek for his love through all the world, tore open the door, and found his murdered wife lying across the threshold, and upon his hands her blood.

Day by day the influence of these terrors wrought on Grey until his eyes grew dim, his hands palsied, his gait feeble, and his mind dull. He forgot oftener now than formerly. In the midst of business transactions he would stop suddenly, put his hand to his head, mutter a few incoherent words, cease speaking for a while, and then exclaim piteously: "I have forgotten something! I have forgotten something!"

All who came in contact with him saw he was breaking down. They said:

"Poor Grey loved his wife so deeply, so tenderly, he is losing his reason for loss of her."

This popular verdict was not only a great cause of drawing sympathy towards the widower, but almost wholly washed away the stain which had smirched his dead wife's name. For those who had heard of her failing, and believed it fact, now asked themselves:

"How could any man care for a woman so afflicted? How could any man wear away his life in sorrow for the loss of an intemperate wife?"

The evening Grey first visited Sir William Midharst at the "Warfinger Hotel" the young man went to the Castle and had a long talk with Maud, in which she told him of Grey's extraordinary conduct on the occasion of the unknown old woman's visit. She did not tell him she suspected the banker had been trying to make himself more than agreeable to her. He did not say anything to her of the scene between the banker and himself at the "Warfinger." He heard all Maud had to say to him without comment beyond expressions of surprise.

"I know the whole secret," he thought, "but I must have time to think out the situation before I decide on a course of action. When I have considered all the points I shall not be slow to move."

As he was going down a corridor after saying good-night to Maud Mrs. Grant overtook him.

She said: "How can you account for Mr. Grey's conduct, Sir William? I cannot understand it at all. Of course Maud told you all. You do not think his manner of wooing likely to win?"

"His manner of wooing! I was told nothing of his wooing. Did he make love to Maud?"

"Ah, did she not tell you. I suppose the poor child felt it might not be delicate to mention the matter. He has been making downright love to her. She told me all about it. That's the extraordinary part of the thing; he has been making love to her, and then he breaks out into that violent manner all at once. Acting, indeed! I don't believe a word of it."

"So," thought Sir William to himself, as he went home to his hotel, "I did not know the whole secret, but I think I have it all now. Of course, if he married Maud he need say nothing about the money. It's all gone, no doubt. A man would not tell such a lie and offer to back it up with a bullet. Let me see now. My return has forced his hand. He saw he had no chance of winning Maud. What a preposterous idea to think of his making love to my angel Maud! What insolent presumption! Poor Maud a beggar through his means! It is well I am not. I suppose we can live on the old estate as the Midharsts have done for generations before us. I am full of hope. I am drunk with the belief Maud shall be mine. I think she is glad I am back, and will be glad to see me every day. Fancy seeing Maud every day from this out! Fancy being permitted to take her hand, and to feel that hand on my arm! Fancy being able to say 'Maud' a thousand times a day to herself and not to an image of her. Oh, Maud, my beautiful, be with me for ever as the flowers are with summer.

"What shall I do with this scoundrel Grey? He was very nearly too deep for me. He imposed on me, but that is all over now. What am I to do with him? If he is prosecuted there will be worry, and the past will be gone into, and the peculiarities of Sir Alexander, among other things his hatred of me and the, let me say, friendship between his daughter and me.

"They might call Maud, these lawyers have no taste, no sense of propriety. Think of putting Maud in the box and cross-examining her, and – yes, by Heavens, some of those legal bullies might be ungentle to my lily sweet Maud.

"What a wonderful thing Maud's hand is. It is like the moon, always the same, and yet you can't be in sight of it without looking at it often.

"But this scoundrel Grey. I wish I were done with him. I have given up all taste for affairs and difficulties. I am become bucolic. Suppose he is prosecuted we can't get the money back, for such a prosecution would shut up his Bank. We should have all the trouble and worry for nothing. Then what is the object of prosecuting the scoundrel?

"It is strange about Maud's hand. I thought as I looked at it this evening that if I were dying of wounds on a battle-field, parched with that last terrible thirst, and Maud came and put her hand on my forehead, the thirst would leave me. I know it would.

"But about Grey?

"Yes. Isn't it too bad that when I have Maud to think about this wretched Grey should thrust himself in between Maud and me. I wish the devil would take Grey. He'll want that bland burglar sometime, and he'd oblige me greatly by taking him now.

"What a beautiful thing Maud's ear is. While I was looking at it to-night I found out why when I speak to her I seem to pray; it is because I know my words must reach the spirit of a saint.

"But here is this Grey. I am to meet him to-morrow and let him know my decision. I wish the devil would take him now, or Heaven would inspire me what to do with him. If the money had been mine I should before going to bed to-night sign a receipt for the full amount, send the receipt to him, and beg of him never to allude to the matter again.

"If the money was mine!

"Ah! That is a thought worth considering twice.

"If I marry Maud the supposititious money will be mine. I don't want the money if I could get it, and I can't get it, or any of it, if I wanted it. The prosecution would involve nothing but trouble and worry.

"Come, on the day I marry Maud, I'll give him a clear receipt for it! But I'll put him off for a couple of months and then tell him.

"If all the rest of the world were mine on the day I marry Maud, and it would save her worry not to take it, I should pass it by.

"My gentle Maud, you are the infinite sum of all my earthly hopes to which nothing can be added, from which nothing can be taken away."

CHAPTER X

GREY REMEMBERS

Grey sat in his breakfast-room turning over his letters. Suddenly his eyes fell on one and remained fixed on it.

"At last," he thought, "at last I am to hear something of her, of my poor old mother. Whatever this tells me is all I am likely ever to know of her until I die. To-night I cut off for ever my connection with the career of Wat Grey. To-day Wat Grey departs this life of Daneford."

He broke the envelope and found these unsigned, undated words:

"Through the kindness of some honest friends of your honest father I am now in a London almshouse, so I am fully provided for. I think it only right you should know this. I have seen by the papers that Sir William Midharst will, the morning you get this, marry Miss Midharst. I handed that lady all I had in the world to the last penny. I do not know how you have evaded discovery so long. But follow my example, and give back to the robbed all you have left in the world. These are my last words to you."

He put down the letter, sighed, and muttered:

"An ungracious final leave-taking, mother, an ungracious farewell. The giving back forms no part of my plan. Sir William would not touch a penny. You yourself will relent and be sorrowful when you hear of this day's events, for they will get into the papers as well as the marriage of Sir William. The newspapers will have the marriage paragraph, and then one headed, 'Shocking Death of Mr. Henry Walter Grey.'

"No, mother, I must save my name and save my reputation, and both can be best preserved by sacrificing Wat Grey. Wat Grey must go to keep his name good. There is no need he should really die. It will be quite enough if he change his habitation and his name.

"I am not strong enough to fight it out any longer. I cannot leave this house as it is, and this house is killing me. It is killing me slowly with its awful sights and sounds and memories. I must, I will fly. This very night I shall leave it for ever, and I shall leave it incapable of telling any tales.

"At one blow I shall destroy its sights, and its sounds, and its memories, and cut myself off from it, Daneford, and the past for ever. I shall get rid of all the burden I bear. I shall break away from all my old associations, all things to remind me of the past. With twenty thousand pounds in my pocket, and the whole breadth of sunny France between me and this place, I shall be at ease. They may charge my memory with the crime of theft, but I shall leave evidence of my innocence behind me. Farleg may come back and accuse my name of murder; but he will have neither Wat Grey nor evidence against Wat Grey, for Wat Grey and the evidence against him will disappear together, and I will live a quiet life beyond the Alps or the Pyrenees."

He leant back in his chair and reviewed his preparations with the deliberate complaisance of one whose plans were unassailable.

"Yes, everything so far is arranged. I have the money. I have the letter written to Aldridge, saying I enclose Sir William's acknowledgment for the amount of Consols converted into cash at his request, and handed to him on this the day of his wedding with Miss Midharst. I also tell Aldridge I send him this to put in the strong-room, as I shall not go into town to-morrow, but stay at home attending to some final business connected with the Midharst affairs. I have paid all the small legacies, and made investments to yield the annuities. For two months I have been sleeping in the tower-room, so that no one will expect me to sleep anywhere else. I have got that rope-ladder ready to hook on the bar of the back window, and the piece of twine rove through the hook to unship the ladder when I am down safe on the ground. Once I am on the ground I start on my way to France, and I walk to-night at the burial of the past. There can be no hitch. Things must run smooth. To-morrow I shall be free! Free!"

He stood up and looked around him triumphantly. Suddenly his face grew pale and expressionless. He pressed his hand to his forehead, his lips opened feebly, and he muttered:

"I have forgotten something! I have forgotten something!"

He dropped down in his chair, and for a few minutes his face did not alter. All at once the natural look came back. He rose again, shook himself briskly, and said:

"Another of those half-fainting fits I have been free from so long. They were worst when my mind was most tortured. Of late I have been almost free from them. They will disappear altogether when I get south, and to-morrow at this hour I shall be out of bondage."

It was now time to set out for the Castle. It had been arranged that he should attend and give away the bride. "If I am not present," said the banker to Sir William, "there will be no end of remarks made, and if I do attend it will be as Miss Midharst's guardian, in which capacity, there being no relative, I ought to give away the bride." And Sir William, seeing no harm in this, and wanting to avert comment as much as possible, consented.

A full year had not elapsed since the death of Sir Alexander, but several considerations beyond the impatience of the baronet made it desirable the wedding should take place at once.

Maud was alone in the world and had no protector but him. She was in mourning, and objected to go to London and be brought out so soon after her father's death. The Castle was lonely and dreary. They were engaged to be married, and it could make no difference to anyone, and could be no offence against the puny laws of society, if they got married within the year and lived quietly at the Castle until the time of mourning had passed. Then they could go to London. They should know very few people at first, but that would soon be altered.

So the marriage had been fixed to take place on Wednesday the 8th of August, 1877.

The wedding was to be strictly private. No one was to be present but Mrs. Grant and Mr. Grey. The ceremony was to be performed by the rector, and the tenants were informed that the bride and bridegroom desired no demonstration of any kind.

After the ceremony Sir William and Lady Midharst were to return to the Castle, where no unusual preparation would be made to receive them.

This simple programme was carried out without let or accident. Grey and the baronet drove from Daneford, Maud and Mrs. Grant from the Castle, to the quiet country church, where the rector performed the short service by request. In the vestry Sir William handed Grey an envelope containing something. He said, "This is it, Grey." No more.

From the church the four drove back to Island Ferry. Here Grey bade the party good-bye. Sir William in saying good-bye added, under his breath, so that no one but Grey heard him, "for ever." Grey echoes the "for ever" in his heart, but took no further notice of the supplement to the farewell.

The banker then drove back to the Manor House.

"My last visit to the Castle," he thought, as he swept up the carriage-drive. "My last entry into the Manor House. To-day I bid a life-long adieu to the Weird Sisters. I am not sorry. I am over weary and want rest. I have allowed nothing to stand between me and ambition. I have lost the game and now I want only peace. What I have done cannot be undone. In a new climate, among new people, the past, the Weird Sisters, the Towers of Silence, and the story of my tower will fade into the background, and the things of the seventeenth of August will become as vague and shadowy to my mind as the story of the Spanish lady whose bones were found on the top of the tower in Warfinger Castle."

He had many things to arrange at the Manor that day, and had determined not to go to the Bank. He opened the envelope Sir William had given him, and found in it what he had been promised: a receipt in full for claims upon him in settlement of Miss Midharst's money. This receipt he put into the letter he had ready written for Aldridge and posted it. There had been trouble about the marriage settlement, but as Grey was guardian, and the baronet knew all about the money, things had gone smoothly in the end.

He spent most of the remainder of the day in the library looking through various books and accounts, but having slight interest in them. The day before a girl marries she cannot take a very lively interest in the gardener's work at her father's house. She is going to wear another name, break from old associations, and take up her residence in a new home. By to-morrow Grey would have changed his name, broken from old associations, and taken up his residence in a new home.

Day grew on and at last dinner-hour arrived. He was too much excited to eat; he played with a cutlet, and drank three glasses of marvellous brown sherry for which he was famous. After dinner, although he rarely touched spirits, he had a glass of brandy-and-water with his cigar.

At eight o'clock he rang for coffee. When James came with it he said: "I am going to bed soon. I shall not require you or any of the others again to-night. I shall want breakfast half an hour earlier than usual in the morning, at eight o'clock. Call me at five minutes to seven. I am not going to town to-morrow, but shall stay at home all day. Good-night."

Grey waited a few minutes to give James time to get out of hearing. Then he rose, and took his way to the room he had slept in of late, the first floor of the Tower of Silence.

It was now half-past eight.

"In half an hour I shall be free," he exclaimed rapturously to himself, as he turned up the gas.

He shook the thick shutters of the window to ascertain that they were secure. He lit a candle, went up those hideous stairs to the first floor, bolted the shutters on the front window there and the shutters on the landing window.

"I do not want the neighbours to see it too soon or they might come and rescue me." He chuckled at the idea of being rescued, and descended to the storey beneath. On the landing here the window stood open. He looked out. All was still below. None of his household had ever occasion to go to the rear of the house after nightfall. No stranger could approach the house at the rear unless by passing through that hideous grove.

The night was calm and dark and still. "Nothing could be better," thought Grey, as he fixed the hooks of a ladder of ropes to an iron bar of the small balcony, and ascertained that the twine by which these hooks were to be unshipped ran freely through the ring screwed into the window-frame.

"All's well," he thought. "Now be quick!"

Going back again into the first-floor room, he rapidly took off his black frock-coat, light trousers, and waistcoat, and put on a tight-fitting corduroy suit, a pair of false whiskers and moustaches, and a low round hat.

When this was done he looked in the glass, and started back with a shout. "By Jove!" cried he, after a moment; "I thought all was lost. I thought my own reflection was another man's! I am already another man. I feel it in every fibre. No one who knew me, and thinks I am dead, would recognise me. I might walk down the streets of Daneford to-morrow, and talk about my own sad end to my most intimate friend, and he would not recognise me. The Daneford Bank would open an account for me to-morrow in the name of Grey, and observe no likeness between their new customer and their old master. I am a new man already. I feel new blood in all my veins, new sinews in all my limbs; the nightmare of the past is vanishing; I shall sleep now of nights, and whistle once more while I dress of mornings. Ten thousand times better this feeling than all the pomp my ambition longed for with the canker and the care."

He took from the pocket of the coat he had removed a small packet, thinking: "All I want is the money. Twenty thousand pounds will be a large fortune in either Spain or Italy."

He threw the clothes he had worn on the bed, opened the cupboard, and took out one after another four cans. Two of these he emptied over his own bed, one on the floor and furniture, and one on the landing and first flight of the stairs. Turpentine!

He then threw the four cans on the bed, wrenched off the gas-brackets and set fire to the gas at the ends of the broken pipes.

He cast one hasty glance round.

"All right!"

He struck a match and held it to the saturated bed.

A little spirt of flame shot out of the counterpane to the match. The spirt of flame then fell back and spread slowly until it formed a spire as large as a pine-cone.