He shuddered slightly as he paced his darkened room, knowing instinctively how many steps to take in each direction, and what to avoid. For Death, familiar as it was to him, was not without its terrors.
He was so young, and, as it seemed now, the hopes of the past arose once more before him, the faith in the prizes of fame which he would win, his love for Leo, and the promises which had led him on.
But so sure as these thoughts assumed form there was another to rise like a dense cloud of horror and cover everything, as he felt that, come what might, he would be haunted ever by this unseen presence – the spirit which he had freed from its envelope of clay – and this could have but one end.
He felt that he had tried everything. He had forced himself to calmness, and marked out course after course of treatment such as he would have prescribed to some poor wretch who had consulted him in such a case; and when all was still at night he had stolen down to his surgery, and mingled for his own use sedatives and tonics, but all to no effect. If anything, his malady increased.
Two days before Salis had gone over to King’s Hampton, Cousin Thompson came once more to his bedroom door, to beg that he would come down and see his friend.
“It is impossible,” he had replied hoarsely.
“But he has come down again, vastly improved by your treatment; and without you he feels that he would be a dying man. Come, you cannot refuse.”
North held out for a time, and at last gave way, more from the desire of getting rid of his cousin and the patient than from any wish to repeat his advice.
“I’ll come this time,” he said; “but this visit must be final. There are hundreds of doctors who can advise the man better than I.”
“Doubtless,” said Cousin Thompson; “but that is not the point. There is not one in any of those hundreds in whom my poor friend will have the faith that he has in you.”
The argument was unanswerable.
“I will be down in a few minutes,” North said; and trying hard to master the nervous feeling which came over him, and wondering whether he could get through the interview without some absurd utterance, he drew aside the blind to accustom his eyes once more to the light.
It was some moments before he could face it, and then he looked despairingly at the wan, haggard face before him in the glass.
He shrank from it at first, but looked again and again, without the feeling of horror that had pervaded him before. His countenance was changed, and terribly wan and drawn; eyes and cheeks were sunken, so that the former seemed set in deep, cavernous holes; but as he gazed he did not seem to dread the sound of mocking laughter, or of some strange utterance which he could not control, and proceeded to make himself somewhat more presentable for those below.
“And they come to me for help,” he muttered, “who want it more than any man on earth.”
As he opened his door he frowned, for he caught sight of the old housekeeper hastily beating a retreat, and a shiver ran through him as he felt how he was watched.
But he went on down into the hall, where a low murmur of voices told him that his visitors were in the drawing-room.
What followed was a matter of a minute or two.
He entered the room quickly, his coming having been unheard; and Cousin Thompson, who was speaking earnestly to the two gentlemen from town, started quickly away and then said hastily:
“Ah, North! Why, you seem better. Let me get you a chair. You want no introductions, and I’ll leave you together.”
He approached North with a chair, and the latter took it, gazing keenly at the visitors the while; but as Thompson was passing he caught him by the collar and checked him, holding him fast, as he threw the chair from him with a crash.
Thompson turned white as so much curd, and tried for a moment to extricate himself, but his cousin’s grasp was like iron, and he turned a pitiable face to the two visitors, the taller of whom advanced quickly.
“My dear Dr North,” he said, “pray be calm. Another seat, my dear sir; pray sit down.”
North seemed as if he had not heard him. He had searchingly gazed from one to the other, and then his eyes appeared to blaze as his left hand joined his right at Thompson’s throat.
“You cursed, treacherous, cowardly hound!” he literally yelled, and dashing him backward, so that he fell with a crash against a table, which was overturned, North strode from the room without another word, and made the house echo with the bang he gave the door.
Thompson did not attempt to rise till the visitors held out their hands to assist him to a couch.
“My dear sir, are you hurt?” asked the first man.
“Hurt!” cried Thompson savagely. “Could you be half strangled and then thrown down without being hurt? But you see now. You doubted before: you see now.”
“Yes, perfectly,” said the second visitor calmly. “Oh, yes, I think that we are quite satisfied now. What do you say?”
“Perfectly,” said the first slowly; and as soon as the lawyer had satisfied himself that he was not seriously hurt, they adjourned to the library, where Mrs Milt was summoned to provide sherry and biscuits; and soon after the two visitors re-entered their carriage, and were driven back to King’s Hampton in time to catch the first train back to town.
Volume Three – Chapter Thirteen.
Mrs Milt Takes up Lunch
“The last hope gone!” cried North, as he rushed upstairs and entered his room, to close and lock the door, overcome, as it were, with a despairing dread.
“I might have known it,” he panted excitedly. “The cruel, treacherous hound! I might have known that he had some hidden meaning in what he was doing. Friend from town – no faith in any one but me, forsooth! And I such a miserable, easily deceived child that I was ready to believe it all.”
Without thinking of what he did, he seated himself at the dressing-table, rested his elbows thereon, and gazed straight before him in the glass, but without seeing his distorted, haggard face.
“And it has come to that!” he groaned.
He, in his cunning, is taking all the necessary steps, such as a legal practitioner would know to be necessary, and I am to be carried off on these men’s certificates to some death in life, while my affectionate Cousin Thompson takes possession here.
“And he could,” he mused; “everything has been arranged for him. I am not mad; I am perfectly sane, but, Heaven knows, I am acting like a madman – like one possessed. I go always with this terrible shadow enveloping me, and I cannot shake it off, try how I may.
“What shall I do?
“Salis! No, I cannot tell him. Mr Delton? No, no, no! I could not speak out. What would they say? They must declare it to be a mania if I tell them the simple truth, and how dare I confess to having instituted those experiments on Luke Candlish?
“Was ever man so cursed for his endeavours? I have branded myself as one who is mad, and I must bear the stigma.”
He clenched his fist and glared before him, recalling the scene in his drawing-room, and burst into a scornful laugh – a laugh so full of savage anger that he started and looked wildly about him in dread.
He calmed down though in a few minutes, and sat repeating the words that had passed.
“I must have been blind not to have seen it before,” he cried aloud; “and now what is to follow?”
He looked up at the light shining down through the drawn curtain, and hurriedly shut it out, to reseat himself and think.
Flight! Yes, he could easily escape from his cousin and his machinations – the Continent – America – or he might boldly face him, and prove that the charge of lunacy was without basis.
But how, when he dared not show his face anywhere lest he should betray himself before his fellow-men?
“It is of no use,” he sighed bitterly; “I am conquered and I must succumb.
“But Cousin Thompson?
“Curse him!” he cried passionately, as he rose and began his old wild-beast tramp again. “What fate is too bad for such a man? Why did I not keep my hold when I had him by the throat?”
He stopped short, and in a paroxysm of mental agony threw himself upon a chair, nerveless, helpless, ready to give up and think that his cousin was right, and that the sooner he was placed under restraint the better, or else sought that other way of escape from his troubles.
As he writhed there in his agony, Mrs Milt was coming up the stairs with a tray covered with a fair white napkin, and on which was a covered dish exhaling an odour which the old dame had settled in her own mind would be certain to tempt her master.
“Poor fellow!” she said to herself; “he’s half starving himself, and perhaps I’ve done wrong in letting him have his own way. I ought to have gone up and made him eat. He’d have scolded and abused me, but I should have done him good.”
Mrs Milt had nearly reached the room, when she uttered an ejaculation of horror, and, setting down the tray upon the carpet, ran swiftly back to close a baize door.
“If he heard it,” she half sobbed, “he would think poor master mad, and heaven knows what would happen then.”
She hurried again to where she had left the tray, and then on to the door, as from within she heard a wild burst of boisterous laughter, and then a fierce oath, and the sounds of a struggle, ending in a crash as of a table being overturned.
“What shall I do?” groaned the poor woman, as, for the moment, she clapped her hands to her face, and stopped her ears, but only to snatch them down wildly, as the strange sounds continued. “He must be alone here, and if I call for help they’ll say he’s mad.”
She stood wringing her hands for a time as a terrible scene appeared to be taking place within that closed room. There was the trampling of feet – the sound as of a struggle. North’s voice in angry denunciation of some one who kept bursting forth into mocking peals of laughter, and then shouting as men shout when excited with the chase, till the room re-echoed. Then again North’s voice came, as if speaking furiously in a low voice, which changed directly afterwards to one of piteous appeal, breaking off into a moan. As the doctor’s voice ceased there was another mocking laugh, apparently from close by the door, and directly after came a crash as if a chair had been used as a weapon, a blow had been struck, and the chair shivered. While vividly painting the scene in her own mind, helped as she was by the sounds, the old housekeeper seemed to see her master hurl the portion of a broken chair which remained in his hands into the corner of the room, where it rattled upon the floor.
“There’s murder being done,” panted the old woman, as she caught at the handle of the door now, and stood clinging to it, while she pressed her other hand upon her heaving bosom.
As if in answer to her words, there was another coarse burst of laughter, and the sound of some one bounding to the door, two hands seeming to shake the panel, and her master’s voice came through, muffled but distinct.
“Curse you! I have you now! Is there no way of forcing you back into your grave?”
A loud rustling sound as of a struggle which was continued to the other side of the room, and the housekeeper’s hair felt to her as if something cold and strange were moving it, while a deathly perspiration broke out upon her face.
“Who is in there with him?” she thought. “What does it mean? There must be some one there, and murder is being done. Help! help!” she shrieked in her agony of fear, as she rattled the handle of the door, and beat upon the panels. “Help! help!” and then in her horror she turned and staggered towards the stairs, as the door was flung open, she felt herself seized from behind and dragged into the room, the door swinging to, and she was forced backwards in the utter darkness, listening to the hoarse sound of the hot breath which fanned her cheek as a hand was pressed heavily over her mouth.
Volume Three – Chapter Fourteen.
An Opportune Arrival
“Silence, you mad woman! Do you want to bring them here? Do you want to have me dragged away like some miserable prisoner?”
“Oh, master – dear master,” sobbed the frightened woman piteously, as the hand was removed from her lips, and she sank at North’s knees and embraced them. “What does it all mean? – what does it all mean?”
“What does all what mean?”
“All that noise – that noise?” sobbed the housekeeper in a broken voice. “Have you – have you killed him?”
“Killed him?” cried North harshly. “Killed whom? There is no one here.”
“There is – there is, sir. I heard it all.”
“Hush!” cried North. “Listen. Is any one coming? Did they hear in the kitchen?”
“No, sir. I couldn’t bear for any one else but me to hear it all,” sobbed the trembling woman. “I went back and shut the door.”
“Then no one has heard – no one knows – but you?”
“No, sir.”
“My cousin?”
“He has gone out, sir.”
“Hah! Then it is a secret still,” muttered North.
The old housekeeper struggled to her feet, for his words and manner horrified her. She alone had heard what had taken place, and it seemed to her that within a few steps her master’s victim must be lying prone, and that even her life was not safe now.
Her first instinct was to make for the door, but he had hold of her wrist, and she sank once more at his feet, with a low sobbing cry.
“I’m an old woman, now,” she cried, “and a year or two more or less don’t matter much.”
The same harsh, mocking laugh broke out again, chilling her to the marrow, and then North uttered a hoarse, harsh expiration of the breath, and stamped his foot angrily.
Then there was a pause, broken only by the old woman’s painful sobs.
“My poor old Milt,” said North gently, as he raised her from the ground. “Why, what were you thinking – that I would do you any harm?”
“I – I couldn’t help it, sir; but – but I don’t think so now. Oh, master – dear master, I thought you had killed some one. What does it mean? – what does it mean?”
He did not answer for a few moments, and when he spoke again there was an indescribable, mournful sadness in his voice. “What are you thinking?” he said. She answered with a sob. “I’ll tell you,” he said; “you think that I am mad.”
“No, no, no! master – my great, clever, noble master,” cried the old woman passionately. “Only ill – only very ill; and you can cure yourself. Yes, yes; pray say that you can!”
“No,” he said bitterly. “No. It has come to the worst. There, go: I am worn out, and want to rest.”
“But you will let me help you, dear,” she said, speaking with the tenderness of a mother towards the boy she worshipped with a lavish love. “Let me do something – let me help you, dear. It is overwork. Your poor brain is troubled. Let me open the window, and let in light and air, and then you shall go to bed; and I’ll bathe your poor head, and you shall tell me what to mix. You know how I can nurse and tend you now you are ill.”
North took the old woman’s head between his hands as they stood there in the darkness, and kissed her on the forehead.
“Yes, the best and gentlest of nurses,” he said quietly.
“And you will let me help you, sir?”
“Yes; but not now. It was a kind of fit you heard – nothing more. Now go. See that I am not disturbed. Perhaps I can sleep. There: you know there is no one here.”
“Yes, my dear, of course – of course. I ought to have known better; I know now. And you will try to sleep?”
“Yes – I promise you, yes.
“Let me go down and get something for you; tell me what, and the quantities.”
“Yes,” said North eagerly, for she seemed to be opening before him the gates of release from his life of horror; but he shook his head as he called to mind how familiar she was with his surgery, and that if he bade her mix what he wished, she would turn suspicious and refuse.
“What shall I do, my dear?” said the old woman tenderly.
“Nothing now,” he said; “sleep will be best. Let me go to sleep.”
The old housekeeper sighed; but she made no opposition, and let him gently lead her to the door and shut her out, where she stood with her apron to her eyes, listening for a few moments to the loud snap given by the lock, and the dull, low sound of his pacing feet.
Then the old woman seemed to change.
She let fall her apron and tightened her lips. Her eyes grew keen and eager, and she gazed straight before her, deep in thought.
In a few moments her mind was made up.
“He must have proper help,” she said softly; and with an activity not to be expected of one at her time of life, she hurried up to her bedroom, to come out in a few minutes dressed for going out.
“I must fetch help,” she said eagerly, and going to North’s door she listened for a few moments more before hurrying down to the door, when a step on the gravel made her utter a cry of joy.
The man she was going to seek was coming up to the house, and the next minute she had confided to Salis all she felt and knew, and he had gone back to Mary, before hurrying away to telegraph to town.
Volume Three – Chapter Fifteen.
Dally’s Plans
“It’s little better than murder: it’s cruel, that’s what it is. What does he mean by being ill and shutting hisself up, and won’t see anybody? What right has a doctor to go and be ill? Yah!”
Old Moredock stared his clock full in the face as it ticked away slowly and regularly in the most unconcerned way.
“Yes! go it!” cried the old man, “go on marking it off, all your minutes and hours, but I don’t mean to die yet, so you needn’t think it. I’m not so old as all that, and if doctor ’ll only get well, I’ll astonish some on ’em.”
He changed his position, stared at his fire, and laboriously, and with many a groan, got down his old leaden tobacco box and pipe, filled slowly, lit up, and began to smoke; but somehow he did not seem to enjoy his pipe, and removed it again and again to go on muttering to himself.
“Well, suppose I did? A man must make a few pounds to keep himself out of the workhouse. They should pay the saxon better if they didn’t want him to. Tchah! What’s a few old bones?”
There was an interval of smoking, and then the old man resumed his complainings.
“Turning ill like that. What did he go and turn ill like that for, just as I wanted him so badly? It’s too bad o’ doctor. I wouldn’t ha’ let him go to the old morslem if I’d known he’d turn queer arterward. It’s my b’leef that young Tom Candlish gave him an ugly knock that night. But I warn’t there. Hi – hi – hi! I warn’t there. I didn’t want to be mixed up with it.”
He shifted his seat, and as he did so painfully, his jaw dropped, and he sat fixed and staring at the window, where at one corner there was a curious, rough-looking object, which remained stationary for some time and then moved slowly till first one and then a second eye appeared, gazed into the little cottage interior, and slowly descended again.
“Who – who – what’s that?” faltered the old man. “Is it – is it – tchah! It’s Joe Chegg, peeping and prying again to see if my Dally’s here.”
Recovering from his scare, the old man smoked away viciously for a time, and then grinned hideously.
“If I’d only been well,” he muttered, “and that doctor had let me have some more of his stuff, I’d ha’ took my spade and crope round by the back, and I’d ha’ come ahint that iddit and give him such a flop. Sneaking allus after my Dally, as if it was like she’d wed a thing like him.”
“Why don’t doctor come?” he groaned, as a twinge made him twist painfully in his seat. “It’s about murder: that’s what it is; and they all want to get rid of me now – parson and all; and then things ’ll go to ruin about the old church. But they may get a new saxon if they like. Let ’em have Joe Chegg: I don’t care. Much good he’ll do ’em. Disgrace to the old church: that’s what he’ll be; and go in o’ Sundays smelling of paint and putty, till he most drives Parson Salis mad. Disgrace to the church: that’s what he’ll be. Eh? eh? Who’s that? Who’s that? Hallo! Eh? Who’s that at the door? You, Dally? Oh, you’ve come at last!”
“Yes, gran’fa, I’ve come at last,” said the girl in a sullen tone.
“I might ha’ died for all you’d ha’ cared,” grumbled the old man; “but I wouldn’t – nay, I wouldn’t do that.”
Dally made no answer, but plumped herself down on the old shred hearthrug, and put her hands round one knee, so as to stare at the fire.
“Well,” said the old man after a pause, “ain’t you going to speak?”
Dally turned and looked at him sharply, with her brow knit and her mouth tightened up; but she only shook her head.
“Never been a-nigh me for three days,” grumbled Moredock; “after all I’ve done for you. But don’t you make too sure. Young ’uns often goes ’fore old folk, and maybe I’ll bury you, and Joe Chegg too, if he don’t mind what he’s about.”
Dally paid no heed, but stared at the fire.
“Seen doctor?” said Moredock.
Dally looked round again as if she did not quite hear his question, and then shook her head again.
“Never mind; I don’t want him,” grumbled the old man. “Let him doctor hisself. I’m not so bad but what I can get well without him. I’m not worn out yet! I’m not worn out yet!”
Dally paid no heed, and her curious attitude and her silence took the old man’s attention at last. He reached round painfully till he could get hold of a thick oak stick, whose hook held it upon the back of the covered arm-chair.
With this the old man poked at his grandchild to draw her attention to him.
“Here, Dally, what’s the matter? Here!”
“Don’t!” cried the girl angrily; but he poked at her again.
“Don’t, gran’fa! do you hear?” she cried, giving herself a vicious twist; but the old man only chuckled, and deliberately changing his hold upon his stick, he leaned forward, with one hand upon the arm-chair, till he could reach Dally easily as she crouched there, half turned from the old sexton, staring thoughtfully at the fire.
The old man chuckled softly as he extended the stick as a shepherd might his crook, till he could hook Dally by the neck, and drew her slowly towards him, grasping the stick now with both hands.
“Don’t, gran’fa!” cried the girl fiercely, as she started up and took hold of the stick with both hands, getting her neck out of the hook, and struggling with her grandfather for its possession, in which she was triumphant, and ending by nearly dragging Moredock from his seat, as she made a final snatch, obtained the stick, and threw it viciously across the room.
“You – you – you nearly – you fetch that stick!”
“I won’t stand it, gran’fa!” cried Dally, ignoring his command, and stamping her foot as she stared at him. “I won’t have it! If he thinks he’s got a baby to deal with, like Leo Salis, he’s mistaken.”
“Eh? eh?” croaked the old man, staring at her, and forgetting the stick, as he saw the girl’s excitement.
“He’s not going to play with me, gran’fa, and so I’ll tell him.”
“Eh? Who, Dally? Joe Chegg?”
“He said he’d marry me.”
Then sharply:
“He’s not going to play with me, and so I precious soon mean to tell him. He should marry me if I followed him all round the world for ever. There!”
She emphasised her words with a stamp, and then, taking the old man by the shoulders, she pushed him back in his chair, and arranged his collar and tie – the one, a limp piece of linen; the other, something a little more limp and loose.
“What’s the matter, Dally? What’s wrong, my gel?”
“After the way he has talked to me, and then to go off like that without a word!”
“But you don’t want him, Dally, and I don’t want him.”
“Yes, I do; and I’ll have him, too!” cried the girl, with savage vehemence.
“Nay, nay. He’s an iddit.”
“Yes, I know that,” cried Dally vindictively; “and a drunken idjut; but I don’t care for that.”
“He was here to-night, staring in at the corner of the windy there.”
“What, Tom Candlish?” cried Dally excitedly.
“Nay, nay; Joe Chegg.”
“Joe Chegg!” cried Dally, in a tone of disgust that would have cut the village Jack-of-all-trades to the heart. “Who said anything about Joe Chegg? I was talkin’ about young squire.”
“Eh? About young squire? Well, Dally, well? When’s it to be?”
“It’s going to be soon, gran’fa, or I’ll know the reason why; I’m not going to have him playing Miss Leo off against me.”
“Nay, that I wouldn’t, Dally,” cried the old man.
“She’s got to mind, or she may be ill again,” cried the girl, with a vindictive look in her eyes.
