The Man with a Shadow

He went slowly down into the hall, and as he reached it the dining-room door, which was also ajar, closed softly, and North knit his brow and bit his lip as he turned his back to it and entered the study.

He closed and locked the door after him; and, as he did so, the housekeeper’s face appeared at the baize door, and Cousin Thompson’s at that of the dining-room.

Mrs Milt noticed the movement of the dining-room door, and stole softly back with a sigh, while, after waiting for a few minutes, with a peculiarly low cunning expression of countenance, Cousin Thompson took a little brass wedge from his pocket, and stuck it beneath the door, so as to hold it a few inches open, sufficiently to enable him to hear when the study was opened again, and then seated himself watchfully by the window, where he could command a good view of the principal gate.

As soon as he was in the study, North looked sadly round at his books and tables, where everything was methodically arranged, and scrupulously neat and clean, the old housekeeper’s hand being visible on every side.

“Poor old woman!” muttered the doctor. “As if she felt sure that I should not be ill long.”

He walked to the French window, which looked out upon the green lawn with its shrubbery surroundings, beyond which were the meadows and the purling stream.

It was a scene of peace and beauty that should have been welcome to the most exacting, and it was not without its effect upon the doctor, who carefully closed and fastened the window before crossing to the door leading into his surgery, which he opened, and looked in to see that the outer door was closed.

Returning to the study table, the baize communication swung to, and North sat down, quite calm and collected now, and began to write.

He paused to think several times, but only to go on more earnestly, till he had done, when he read that which he had written, made a slight alteration or two, and then carefully folded and placed the papers in large envelopes, one of which he directed, “To my executors,” and laid in a prominent place upon the table, where it could not fail to be seen; the other to his London medical friend.

Apparently not satisfied, he took up the envelope, and placed it in another, after which he wrote upon a sheet of paper:

“Mrs Milt. Place this enclosure in my executors’ hands yourself.”

Then directing the outer envelope to the housekeeper, he smiled with satisfaction, and had just laid it upon the table, duly fastened down, when a faint chink made him turn his head in the direction of the surgery.

North listened, and the faint sound of a bottle touching another was repeated.

He rose and went softly to the door, which was not latched, opened it, and saw a hand dart down that was extended, as he stood face to face with Dally Watlock.

In his surprise North did not speak, for he had been under the impression that he had fastened the door, and this gave the girl time to recover herself.

“Oh, I beg your pardon, sir,” she said, with a smile; “I only pushed that bottle back in its place. It was nearly off the shelf.”

“What do you want?” said North sharply.

“Gran’fa, please sir, said I was to come on and tell you he wanted you.”

“Tell him I can’t come,” said North shortly. “Why did you come here, and not to the front?”

“Oh, wasn’t this right, sir?” said Dally apologetically. “I am so sorry, sir. But gran’fa said: ‘Go to Dr North’s surgery,’ and I came here. Please, sir, he says you’re to send him some of that same stuff you gave him before.”

North stood with his brows knit for a moment, and then went to a cupboard, took out a bottle of brandy, half full, and handed it to the girl.

“Take that,” he said, “and tell him to use it discreetly. I cannot come.”

“Oh, thank you, sir. Gran’fa ’ll be so pleased, sir; and master ’ll be so glad when I tell him you’re so much better; and Miss Mary, too.”

North winced, and then frowned, as he passed the girl to open the outer door, and feign her to go.

She smiled and curtsied as she passed out, the door being closed sharply behind her, and she heard a bolt shoot.

“Yes,” she muttered, with her countenance changing as she thrust the bottle carefully into her dress-pocket, with the result that there was another faint chink; “you may lock it now. I don’t care. But wasn’t it near?”

She hesitated for a moment, as if about to go out by the front, but Cousin Thompson was not puzzled by seeing her pass, for she returned by the way she came, down the kitchen garden to the meadows, and through them and down by the river till she reached the nearest point to the Rectory garden, through which she passed, after stopping to pick a handful of parsley to carry into the house.

Volume Three – Chapter Seventeen.

Besieged

Dally had not reached the Rectory, and Horace North had not sat long thinking over the girl’s words in a way which puzzled him, as it brought a curious feeling of rest and satisfaction to his brain, before a carriage came sharply along the King’s Hampton road, and passed Moredock’s cottage and Mrs Berens’ pretty villa-like home. North was seated, with his head resting upon his hand, thinking.

Miss Mary would be so pleased, the girl had said – pleased that he was better.

It seemed strange to him, but the words set him picturing Mary Salis in the old days at the Rectory; then her accident, and how he had tended her. Then he thought of the sweet, pale, patient face, as she passed through that long time of bodily suffering, to be followed by the lasting period of what must have been terrible mental anguish as she found herself to be a hopeless, helpless invalid – changed, as it were by one sad blow, from a young and active girl to a dependent cripple.

“Poor, gentle, patient Mary!” he said softly; and then, like a flash, his mind turned to the sister – her sick couch, her delirious declaration of her love, and his weak, blind folly in not grasping the fact that the tenderness she lavished upon him was meant for another.

“No, you can’t. Master’s better, and he’s engaged, and can’t see patients.”

North started up on his seat, rigid, and with a wild look in his eyes, as he heard these loudly uttered words, and then sprang to the door.

“Now, my dear Mrs Milt,” said a soft, unctuous voice, which he knew only too well, “pray do not be excited. How can you speak like that?”

“I speak what I think and feel, sir,” retorted the old lady sharply. “What do these people want with master?”

“To ask him to go and attend upon a patient who is in a dying state. There: pray come away. Really, Mrs Milt, you must not interfere like this.”

“I tell you, sir, master don’t want to see patients, and he can’t come out; so you must send them away.”

“Really, Mrs Milt,” said Cousin Thompson, “this is insufferable. My good woman, you forget yourself.”

Every word reached North as he stood close to the door and realised that there was one woman ready to fight in his defence.

North stood there, with his hands clenched and his brow rugged, glaring angrily, for he well knew what this meant. The voices were heard retiring, and the sound of the dining-room door closing, and muffling them suddenly, told him as plainly as if he had seen that the housekeeper had followed Cousin Thompson into that room, where an angry altercation seemed to be in progress.

“Hah!” ejaculated the miserable man; “canting and unscrupulous to the end. He is keeping her in parley while his people do their work.”

He laughed bitterly, for at that moment the door was tried softly, and then there was a gentle tapping on the panel.

“May my money prove a curse to him, and the whole place constantly remind him of his treachery,” he muttered, as the soft tapping was repeated, and a low voice, which he did not recognise, said:

“Dr North – Dr North! Can I speak to you a minute?”

He made no answer, but drew back to the table.

“Will they dare to break in?” he said to himself, as his face wore a look of bitter scorn and contempt.

Just then Mrs Milt’s voice could be heard raised loudly in protest; but it was in vain. Cousin Thompson, under the pretext of holding a parley, had entrapped her in the dining-room, and then interposed his person whenever she attempted to leave by door or window.

The tapping at the door ceased, and there was a sound of whispering; whilst a minute after a stoutly-built, rather hard-faced man, with a determined look, suddenly appeared at the French window looking on the garden, and tried the handle.