“Of course, Mrs Milt. Quite natural. Dr North is a remarkable man, and will some day become very famous.”
“I dessay, sir,” said Mrs Milt drily. “I think you said you should stop all night?”
“Yes, Mrs Milt; and I’m afraid my business here will keep me another day, if it is not troubling you too much.”
“Oh, that don’t matter at all, sir. I’m sure master wishes you to be made very comfortable, and as far as in me lies, sir, I shall carry out his wishes.”
“Thank you, Mrs Milt. I’m sure you will,” said Cousin Thompson; and Mrs Milt rustled out of the room, looking very hard and determined, but as soon as she was out of sight deep lines of anxiety began to appear about her eyes, and she wrung her hands.
“Yes,” said Cousin Thompson, going at once to North’s table and sitting down to write a letter; “I shall sleep here to-night, Mrs Milt, and I shall sleep here to-morrow night, and perhaps a great many other nights. It is no use to be a legal adviser unless I legally look after my sick cousin’s affairs.”
Cousin Thompson’s anxiety about his cousin gave his countenance a very happy and contented look.
“Things are looking up,” he said, as he finished and fastened his letter. “Everything comes to the man who waits. Even pleasant-looking, plump Mrs Berens may – who knows?”
He carefully tore off a stamp from a sheet in the writing-table drawer, moistened it upon a very large, unpleasant-looking tongue, and affixed it to the envelope.
“Perhaps she is right, and he will be better without medical advice,” he said, with a pleasant smile upon his countenance. “Why should I interfere? That is where some people make such a mistake: they will dig up a plant to look at its roots. I prefer letting a well-growing plant alone. Yes, things are looking up. Now for my genial baronet.”
He walked out into the ball, and took his hat, just as there was a ring at the gate bell.
“Who’s this?” he said; and he walked into the dining-room and nearly closed the door, but not quite.
The next minute there were steps in the hall, the door was opened, and the curate’s bluff voice rang through the place in an inquiry after the doctor.
“He’s very poorly, sir,” said Mrs Milt, in a low and cautious voice. “I don’t really know what to make of him.”
“I do,” said Salis. “He wants rest and change, Mrs Milt.”
“Yes, sir; I think that’s it, sir.”
“I wish I could get him away. I will.”
“Will you?” said Cousin Thompson softly.
“Here, I’ll go up and see him. In his room, I suppose?”
“Excuse me, sir; I think you had better not. It irritates him. Old Moredock came last night about some trifling ailment, and poor master was quite angry about it. Then Mr Thompson went up to his door, and it seemed to irritate him. You know how tetchy and fretful it makes any one when he’s ill.”
“I want to see him, Mrs Milt. I want to talk to him.”
Cousin Thompson’s eyes twitched.
“But I’ll go by your advice.”
Mrs Milt said something in reply which the listener missed, and consequently exaggerated largely as to its value, and directly after Salis went away in a new character – to wit, that of Cousin Thompson’s mortal enemy; though Salis himself was in utter ignorance of the fact.
“Well, and how are we to-day?” said the lawyer on entering the old library at the Hall.
Sir Thomas Candlish was lying back in his chair, with a cigar in his mouth, a sporting paper on his lap, and a soda and brandy – or, rather, two brandies and a soda – at his elbow.
“How are we to-day!” he snarled. “Don’t come here talking like a cursed smooth humbug of a doctor about to feel one’s pulse.”
“But I am a doctor, and I have come to feel your pulse, my dear sir,” said Cousin Thompson laughingly.
“Eh? – what? Again! Why, there’s nothing due yet.”
“There, there, there! don’t trouble yourself, my dear Sir Thomas. There is a little amount to meet; but you are not, as you used to be, worried about money matters. You can pay.”
“Yes,” snarled Tom Candlish; “and you seem to know it, too.”
“Come, that’s unkind. It isn’t generous, my dear sir. Surely if a man lends money he has a right to claim repayment.”
“Oh, yes, I know all about that – the old, old jargon of the craft. I don’t want to borrow now. If I did I suppose I should hear all about your friend in the City, eh? – your client who advances the money, eh?”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Thompson. “One needn’t ask how you are. The old vein of fun is coming back flushed with health and strength.”
“Cursed slowly. Now, then, what do you want?”
“Oh, it is a mere trifling business.”
“A trifle.”
“It would have been serious to you once; but it is a trifle now.”
“Well, let’s have it.”
“No, no, not yet. There, I’ll take a cigar and a B. and S.”
“Ah, do,” said Candlish sarcastically. “Make yourself at home, pray.”
“To be sure I will. I’ve come to doctor you and do you good.”
“Damn all doctors!” sneered Candlish.
“Amen,” said Cousin Thompson merrily, as he took a cigar, lit it, and helped himself to the brandy. “Look here, sir; you sit alone and mope too much. You want exercise.”
“How the devil am I to take exercise, when, as soon as I get on a horse, my head begins to swim?”
“And a pretty girl or two to see you.”
Tom Candlish uttered a low, blackguardly, self-satisfied chuckle.
“Eh? I say. Hallo!” cried Cousin Thompson. “Oh, I see. Well, mum’s the word. But, come; you do want change; you’re too much alone. Now I’ve come – ”
“Oh, yes, you’ve come, and on a deuced friendly visit too.”
“Business and friendliness combined, my dear sir. Why, you used not to snub me like this. There, I meant to chat over a little money matter with you. Let’s do it pleasantly. Come up to that capital table, and let’s do it over a friendly game of billiards.”
Tom Candlish started from his seat, overturning his glass, which fell to the floor, and was shattered to atoms.
“My dear Sir Thomas! what is the matter?”
“Nothing – nothing,” he replied hoarsely. “Not well yet. A confounded spasm.”
“How unfortunate! Let me refill your glass, or shall I do it upstairs in the billiard-room?”
“Curse the billiards! I tell you I don’t play now.”
“Not play?”
“The sight of the balls rolling makes me giddy,” cried the wretched man, glaring at his visitor.
“Why, my dear sir, I’m very sorry I mentioned the game. There, let me give you a light. You’re out. That’s it. Really you ought to have the advice of a doctor.”
“Damn all doctors!” growled the baronet again.
“I can’t afford to have you ill, my dear Sir Thomas,” said Thompson, with an unpleasant laugh.
“No, you can’t afford to have me ill. Too good a cow to milk.”
Cousin Thompson laughed, and felt that he had made a mistake.
“I cannot advise you to have my cousin up, because he, too, is ill.”
Tom Candlish’s lips parted to utter a fierce oath, but he checked it, and swung himself round in his chair.
“Is he very ill?” he said eagerly.
“Yes; he seems to me to be very ill.”
“I’m glad of it – I’m very glad of it,” cried Candlish. “Come, you needn’t stare at me. I wish the beast was dead.”
“I was not staring at you,” said Cousin Thompson; “only listening. I think you and he don’t get on well; but he’s a very clever man – my cousin Horace; and if I could get a little advice from him on your case, I’m sure I would.”
“I want no advice. Only a little time. I’m coming round, I tell you – fast. But about North. Is he very bad?”
“Well, ye-es; I should say he was very bad.”
“What’s the matter? Has he caught some fever?”
“No. Oh dear, no! It’s mental. He seems a good deal unstrung. A little off his head, perhaps.”
“Why, curse it all, Thompson,” cried Candlish excitedly; “you don’t mean that the blackguard is going mad?”
“My dear Sir Thomas – my dear Sir Thomas,” said the lawyer, in a voice full of protestation; “I really cannot sit here and listen to you calling my cousin a blackguard.”
“Then stand up, man, and hear it. He is a blackguard, and I hate him, and I’d say it to his face if he were here. Now tell me, is he really bad?”
“Only a temporary attack. He is suffering, I’m afraid, from overstudy. But now to business.”
“Stop a minute, man: let me think. Hang the business! How much is it? I’ll write you a cheque. I can now, Thompson, old chap. Times are altered, eh?”
“Ah, and for the better, Sir Thomas.”
“Here, hold your tongue. Don’t talk. Let me see: not married; neither chick nor child; no brother. Why, Thompson, if North – curse him! – died, you’d have the Manor House!”
“Should I!” said Cousin Thompson, raising his eyebrows thoughtfully. “Well, yes, I suppose I am next of kin. But Horace North will outlive me.”
“Is he quite off his head?”
“Hush! don’t talk about it, my dear sir. Poor fellow, he is ill; but not so very bad. I shouldn’t like it to get about amongst his patients. People chatter and exaggerate to such an extent.”
Tom Candlish smoked furiously for a few moments, and then cast away the end of his cigar, and lit another, biting the end, and frowning at his visitor.
“Now about business,” said Thompson, at last.
“Curse business!” cried the squire, as he kept on watching the lawyer keenly. “Look here, Thompson, how was it that you two being cousins, he has so much money, and you’re as poor as Job?”
“Way of the world, my dear sir – way of the world.”
Tom Candlish sat back, chewing the end of his cigar and smoking hard.
“Look here, you Thompson! Now out with it; you don’t like Dr North?”
“Like him? I hate all doctors; just as you do.”
“That’s shuffling out of it,” said Candlish scornfully; “but you needn’t be afraid of me. I’m open enough. I’m not above speaking out and telling you I hate him. I wish you’d make a set on his pocket, and bleed him as you are so precious fond of bleeding me.”
“Oh, nonsense, nonsense!” said Cousin Thompson laughingly; and then the two men sat smoking and gazing one at the other in silence till their cigars were finished.
“Take another,” said the squire, handing the case lying upon the table.
Thompson took another, and Tom Candlish lit his third, to lie back in his chair, smoking very placidly, and staring from time to time at Thompson, who watched him in turn in a very matter-of-fact, amused way.
They rarely spoke, and when they did it was upon indifferent themes; but by degrees a mutual understanding seemed to be growing up between them, dealing in some occult way with Horace North’s health and his position in Duke’s Hampton. The Manor House estate, too, seemed to have something to do with their silent communings.
This lasted till the lawyer’s second and the squire’s third cigar were finished, and a certain amount of liquid refreshment had been consumed as well. Then Cousin Thompson suddenly threw away the stump of tobacco-leaf he had left.
“Now suppose we finish our bit of business?”
“All right,” said Candlish sulkily; and after reference to certain memoranda laid before him, he opened a secretary, wrote a cheque, and handed it to the lawyer.
“Thanks; that’s right,” said the latter, doubling the slip, and placing it in his pocket-book.
“Going back to town to-night?” said Candlish. “No.”
“To-morrow?”
“No.”
“When then?”
“Depends on how matters turn out,” said Thompson meaningly. “I suppose if I wanted a friend I might depend on you?”
“Of course, of course,” cried the squire eagerly.
“Thanks,” said Cousin Thompson. “I shall not forget, but I don’t think I shall want any help. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” said Tom Candlish warmly.
A wish of a mutual character, expressed in a contraction – that God might be with two as utter scoundrels as ever communed together over a half-hatched plot.
“Mrs Milt,” said Cousin Thompson, as he entered the Manor that night, “I have been thinking over matters, and you need not say much to your master, but I feel it to be my duty to stay here for the present, and look after his affairs.”
“But really, sir – ”
“Have the goodness to remember who you are, Mrs Milt. Leave the room!”
“And him going about in the dark watches of the night like a madman,” sighed Mrs Milt, as soon as she was alone. “If that wretch sees him, what will he think?”
“That wretch,” to wit, Cousin Thompson, was biting his nails in North’s library, and listening to a regular tramp upstairs.
“Strange thing,” he said, “but as soon as a man’s head is touched, he grows more and more like a four-footed beast.”
He smiled and listened. All was very still now, and he set to work searching drawers and the bureau for material that might be useful to him in the settlement of Horace North’s affairs, and as he searched he talked to himself.
“Let me see: it was Nebuchadnezzar – wasn’t it? – who used to go about on hands and knees eating grass.”
He examined a document or two, but did not seem satisfied with the result.
“Hah! poor Horace!” he said. “I’m very sorry for him, but I must do my duty to society, and to him as well.”
He started, for the door-handle had been touched, and, quick as lightning, he dropped the papers he held, and blew down the chimney of the lamp.
The door cracked, and as it opened slightly he could hear the church clock chiming, and then a deep-toned one boomed forth.
There was a something beside sound entered, for by the faint light which streamed in over the top of the shutters he could see a dark blotch moving slightly, and, as he felt chilled to the marrow, the dark patch changed slowly to a dimly-seen face of so ghastly a kind that he stood there gazing wildly, and fixed helplessly to the spot.
Volume Three – Chapter Nine.
Cousin Thompson’s Tooth-ache
Regularly day after day.
The restless, wild-beast pace went on upstairs with intervals hour after hour, as, for the first time for many years, Horace North felt the terrible side of his lonely life, and the want of some one in whom he could really confide – mother, wife, sister – who would believe in him fully; but there were none.
His life of study had made him self-sustaining until now. He had had no great call made upon him. But now there was the want, and he sat for hours thinking of his state, only to spring up again and tramp his room.
To whom could he fly for counsel – Salis? The old housekeeper? The old doctor in London? Thompson, his cousin, then in the place?
“No, no, no! How could I explain myself? If I told all my feelings, all I have done, they would say that I was mad.
“It is impossible to speak,” he panted.
“I am chained – thoroughly chained.”
He paused in his wearying tramp, for, like a light, there seemed to come in upon him the soft, sweet face of Mary, with her gentle look and luminous eye. She might help him, poor suffering woman. But no, no, no! It was impossible: he could not speak.
The time had come round again when, to relieve the terrible tedium of his life, he went out of his room – waiting always till the house was silent and all asleep.
He opened his door and went out cautiously, to descend to the hall, and after hesitating for a few minutes, he laid his hand upon the fastening of the front door, as if to go out, but shook his head and turned away.
Going silently into the cheerless drawing-room, he paced that, and then the dining-room in turn, till, wearying of this, he crossed to the study to open the door, paused for a moment or two, startled by the loud crack it gave, for the study seemed associated in his mind with the horror of the position he had brought upon himself.
Then, thrusting in his head slowly, it seemed to him that he was at last free, for there before him, embodied for the time, was Luke Candlish rising from a chair, much as we had last seen him at his home; and as he gazed wildly at the face dimly-seen in the dark, it seemed to him the time had indeed come when he could crush his haunting enemy beneath his heel, and, rushing forward, he tried to catch him by the throat.
“Now,” shouted North fiercely, “I have given you back your life; take it, and give me back mine in rest and peace, or, as I restored, so will I destroy.”
His hands dropped to his side, and he uttered a low moan and shrank away.
Not that it was all imagination, for he knew that he had tightly grasped a living, breathing form, which had uttered a cry of dread, and then exclaimed:
“Horace – Horace, old fellow, are you mad?”
There was a loud rustling, a faint rattling sound, as North staggered to the side of the room and sank upon the couch. Then came a scratching noise, the flash of a match, and the tiny wax light emitting a bluish flame threw up the pale, smooth face of Cousin Thompson, whose eyes were dilated with fear.
He hurried to the chimney-piece, and lit one of the candles in a bronze stand.
“Why, Horace, old fellow, what are you about?” he cried, trembling. “Thank goodness, it is you.”
North muttered some words inaudibly, afraid to trust himself to speak, and covered his face with his hands.
“Why, what’s the matter, old fellow?” said Thompson, laughing. “Oh, I see; you’ve been shut up so long, you can’t bear the light. How ridiculous, isn’t it?”
North remained silent.
“I heard a noise, and knowing you were ill, felt it my duty to come down. I could tell that some one was prowling about, and backed in here with my fist ready doubled to strike, but you were too quick for me. I’m glad I spoke.”
Still no answer.
“By Jove! what a joke! You took me for a burglar; I took you for one. What a blessing that we were not armed!”
“Armed?” said North slowly.
“Yes. Why, you might have sent a bullet through me. Well, I am glad that confounded tooth kept me awake. It has given me a chance of seeing you. Why, I had only just lain down in my clothes, after stamping about the room till I was afraid I should disturb the house. Give me something for it, there’s a good fellow.”
North hesitated for a few moments, trembling lest he should say words that would excite his cousin’s attention; but at last he rose with one hand across his eyes.
“What, are your eyes so bad?” said Cousin Thompson.
“Yes,” was the laconic reply; and North went to the surgery, took a small bottle from a drawer, the clink of a stopper or two was heard, and a peculiar smell arose, as Thompson noted, with eager eyes, how his cousin kept his back to him while dropping a small quantity from each of the bottles he took down.
“Can you see?” said Cousin Thompson, holding the candle.
“Yes, I can see, thank you,” said North, replacing the bottles on the shelf, and fitting a cork to that he held, before labelling it “poison.”
“Rub a little of that upon the outside of your face; it will allay the pain.”
“It’s awfully good of you,” said Thompson smoothly, “specially now you’re so ill. Thanks. Rub a little outside, don’t you say? I suppose this ‘poison’ is only a scarecrow. It wouldn’t hurt me if I took the lot.”
“No,” said North quietly. “It would not hurt you. The sensation would he rather pleasant.”
“I thought as much,” said Cousin Thompson, who, while he played with the bottle, watched North narrowly.
“But,” added the doctor impressively, “I should make my will first, if I were you.”
“Why?”
“Because to-morrow morning you would be past the power of doing so.”
“Oh, I say, old fellow, is it so bad as that? Make my will, eh? Physician, heal thyself! Why, you haven’t made yours.”
“No,” said North quietly; “I have not made mine. Good night, I am going to my room.”
“One moment – shall I see you to-morrow?”
“No.”
“Well, the next day, then?”
“Doubtful,” said North hurriedly, and he walked brusquely by his cousin to hurry to the staircase, and up to his own room.
“I thought not,” muttered Cousin Thompson. “That was a good bold shot right in the bull’s-eye. Now, Master Horace, the old adage is going to be proved. Every dog has his day, and this dog is going to have his. How many times have you lent him money in a cursed grudging, curmudgeon-like spirit? How often have I come here, worn out with worry and scheming to get an honest living, and you have received me – you rolling in riches – with a churlish hospitality such as I should have thrown back at you if I had not been so poor? Never mind, my dear boy; the world turns round, and those who are down to-day are up to-morrow. I can make Squire Tom squeak to a pretty tune whenever I like, and the widow – well, she’s not a bad sort of woman to come and sit in the nest she has helped to line. ‘Manor House, Duke’s Hampton: Manor House, Duke’s Hampton!’ Not a bad address. There are worse things than being a country gentleman – county magistrate is the proper term. Yes, my dear cousin, things look brighter than they have looked for years. What a blessed thing is the British law, especially where a medical question comes in. The fruit’s about ripe, and if I do not stretch out my hand to pick it, why, I must be a fool.”
“Fool!” he said, as he stood there smiling, with the lighted candle in his hand, casting strange shadows upon the lower portions of his countenance. “Fool – fool – fool! No,” he said softly, as he shook his head. “I have a few failings: I am a little weak. I admire a soft, plump, pleasant-looking widow – with money – like Mrs Berens. I like money – plenty of money, and I like Duke’s Hampton; but those are only amiable weaknesses, and I don’t think I’m a fool.”
He held up the candle and looked round as if enjoying the sense of possession, and his eyes rested on the good old-fashioned furniture, the choice selection of books, a bronze or two, and a couple of paintings by a master hand: all of which his twinkling eyes seemed to appraise and catalogue at a glance.
“Yes,” he said, smiling softly, “things look a good deal brighter now, and I like Duke’s Hampton quite well enough to come and live in – with a wife.”
He took a step or two towards the door, and paused once more, evidently enjoying his self-communings.
“No! There was a decision about that no which I liked, my dear cousin. No: he has not made his will. But it does not matter, my dear boy – not in the least, for, as far as I know, you are not going to die.”
His face lost its smile here, and he took the little bottle he had received softly from his pocket, and held it to the light.
“Poison. For outward application only.”
He read the words slowly.
“Yes,” he said, “that would be a dangerous thing in the hands of some men who saw a life standing between them and a goodly property. But no, my pretty drops! You may go back again. Not for me. I am a lawyer, and I know the law. What idiots some men have been, and at what cost to themselves! But, then, they were not lawyers, and did not know the law. Now, then, for a good night’s rest. And to-morrow. Hah!”
Volume Three – Chapter Ten.
A Visit in the Dark
“I don’t like it, Mary. North has completely shut himself up. He will not even see Mrs Milt, so she tells me, and she is getting very uneasy about his state.”
Mary looked up at her brother. She could not trust herself to speak.
“I pity him, and yet I feel annoyed and hurt, for I gave him credit for greater strength of mind.”
Mary felt that she knew what was coming, but she dared not open her lips.
“Of course it was very painful to find out the woman he had made his idol was trifling with him, but I should have thought that Horace North would have proved himself to be a man of the world, borne his burden patiently, and been enough of a philosopher to go on his way without breaking down.”
“But he is very ill.”
“Ill!” said Salis. “I feel disposed to go and shake him, and rouse him up. To tell him that this is not manly on his part.”
“And yet you own that he is suffering, Hartley.”
“Suffering? Yes; but he has no business to be suffering about a woman like – there, there, I am forgetting myself. Poor fellow! he must be very ill. You see, the upset came when he was worn out with the study and intricacies of that pet theory of his, and hence it is that he is now so low.”
Mary lay back with her eyes half closed for some time, and there was silence in the room.
“Where is Leo?” said Salis, at length.
“In her room – reading.”
“Thank Heaven she seems to be settling down calmly now. Surely this life-storm is past, Mary.”
