It was quite true: Mrs. Darkham was at the very portals of death. Whether those great gates were to be opened for her, or she could be dragged back from them, was the question that troubled the physicians who attended her.
Perhaps it troubled her husband more than them. He was sitting now in his library, in the big chair, with his arms hanging listlessly over the arms of it, and his head pushed somewhat forward. He was thinking.
The doctors had come and gone, and both were agreed. It was almost an impossibility, but not quite; she might, if such and such a change occurred, live. If not, death lay before her—a death into which she would enter without revisiting, even in thought, this world again. Dr. Bland, an elderly man, and one of great and deserved reputation, gave it as his opinion that if death did not ensue in a very few hours, hope might be entertained. Dillwyn had nodded an assent, and had said a few words too—to the effect that such grave caseshadbeen known to recover even after hope seemed at an end. He had kept his eyes carefully averted from the husband of the injured woman whilst saying this. He had looked at him when he first entered the room, but he could not trust himself to look again. There was something terrible in Darkham's face, something hungry, ravenous. An animal stalking its prey might have looked like that.
And now Darkham sat alone in his library thinking—thinking. They had given it as their opinion that she would die—those two who left—that shewould die!Would leave him free— free of her accursed company!
A sort of fierce joy rose up and seized upon him. It caught and shook him. Free! free! After all these years! Free! She was dying. Surely, certainly! In a few hours her breath would cease, and no more would her odious, vulgar words and accents make him shrink and shudder. She would be gone to the Great Unknown, and he—-
And it would be none of his doing—none! Here the great passionate joy that thrilled him seemed to culminate. He would be rid of her, without a single effort of his own. Had he even dreamed of making an effort?.... He would be quit of her in an hour or two—a day at latest. Surely the stars in their courses were fighting for him!
What was it they had said, those two? that if—if—he pressed his hands, both of them, to his head—that if she lasted until morning she might recover! Fools! She would not recover. Death was on her face when last he saw her. Pshaw! he was a better judge than either of them. Bland—an old man, too old; and Dillwyn—a young idiot, who followed his leader naturally! But he—he knew!—he who was in the prime of life, and had studied death—and life—in all their varied ways.
Yes, he knew! Siva, the Destroyer, lay hovering above the woman —whom the law called his wife—with outspread wings, awaiting the moment to descend and clutch his prey. Soon—soon—let it be!
Oh, to be delivered from her! From this creature who made life a torture; who had dragged him with a chain all these interminable years—the years of a marriage that had damned him! When he could have risen, that chain had nailed him to the earth, had clipped his soaring wings, had withered every moment of his life. Truly a young man starting in life should look well to the way he is going, and should choose a wife meet for him. Marriage is not for an hour, but for all eternity—sometimes!
This one, however! It will not last so long. This marriage will end soon, thank—-
He broke off abruptly. Who was he thanking?
He rose suddenly and went to the door. He would go upstairs and see how things were going on. He shook a little as he put his foot upon the first step of the stairs, and looked back as if he would willingly change his mind and return to the library. But he overcame himself, and went steadily upstairs.
So he went, and entered the room, and beckoned to the nurse in charge that she need not stay. She rose at his bidding, and slipped through the farther door, glad enough to get away for and hour or so. Her employer was a doctor and the husband of the sick woman under her charge, and so she felt safe in leaving her. Besides which, it was a hopeless case. The nurse had seen many such in the London hospitals, and though some as bad had pulled through, still, the percentage lay the other way.
Darkham went up to where the silent figure lay, and ruthlessly pulled back one of the curtains at the end of the old-fashioned bedstead.
The light from the dying day streamed in through the window, and lay on the dull, yellow face that rested on the pillow. It lit it up and showed it in all its ugliness.
Darkham bent over it—lower—lower still, and looked—and looked again. Was there a change?wasthere?
Already the face looked like that of a corpse. The lips were a little parted, as if the strength to close them was gone, and the upper teeth showed through them in a ghastly fashion.
And yet it seemed to the husband bending over her that there was some slight return of strength, of consciousness, in the face beneath him. It was so slight as to be all but unseen by any, save one passionately interested either in her recovery or her death. If, after all—-
He bent still lower, and then raised himself with a frown and a quick sigh. No, he had been mistaken. Death would be her portion this night. The two men who had just left had said it. Well, they were right. She would die to-night.
He sat down in a distant arm-chair that still gave him a full view of the bed, and gazed with uncompromising sternness at the form thereon.
He fell a-musing again. How death-like she looked! How close to the last breath! Just a step one way or the other—this way to life, that way to the grave. A touch, a single movement, and she would be beyond the line that divides the darkness from the light.
Great heavens! how, even in the helplessness of her, her face retains its old expression! The vulgar sneer still dominates it, the drawn lips are still replete with venom. What a life he has had with her! A life? Nay, a death.
The night was descending, but out of the misty darkness of the room a girl's face stood—calm, cold, lovely. There from the end of the room it looked at him, the eyes shining clear as day and full of truth.
He turned uneasily, and rose and began to pace the room stealthily, silently, yet with a sort of cruel spring in every step. It was as though he could hardly keep himself in; as if some vitality within him was at work, and urged him forward— forward—always forward.
Why had the accident been so slow a thing? Death—instantaneous death—how much more merciful it would have been to her, to him! A heavier fall, by half an inch or so, and all would have been at an end. There would have been no more room left for doubt, for fear, or for joy. He did not mince matters to himself as he walked there to and fro like a caged lion. He was strong enough to tell himself the truth.
He stopped himself in his strange hurrying up and down, and once more approached the bed. He bent over her and lifted her hand that lay so miserably helpless within his, and then let it fall again.
It sank upon the coverlet with a little dull thud, scarce audible, save to him whose ears were strained to hear, whose senses were so preternaturally on the alert. Why had her head been so hard, or else those flags so soft! A less thing had killed a score of fools before this.
Something in her face again arrested him. Surely there was a change. He placed his ear close to her mouth and listened. When he uplifted himself presently his face had taken a grayish tinge. Her breath was certainly stronger and steadier.
He went back to the arm-chair and seated himself slowly in it.
He rose, as though he found it impossible to be still, and laid his hand upon the mantelpiece. His grasp was so hard that his knuckles stood out white against the black marble. That devil, Dillwyn, had said she might recover. No doubt his hope was father to his opinion. He would do him, Darkham, a bad turn wherever he could. There had been occasions lately in the neighbourhood when this young fool thought—strove—to wrestle with him in professional matters. There was that affair of General Montgomery's the day before last when Dillwyn had been called in to the Cedars. The general was an important person in the place, and though scarcelyen rapportwith Darkham, had generally employed him up to this. He thought of Dillwyn, of Agatha's face as he had seen it at Miss Firs-Robinson's dance—looking into Dillwyn's—of the preference shown to the latter by General Montgomery and a few other unimportant people, but people who always mean the thin end of the wedge in such affairs, and his clasp upon the arms of the chair grew tighter.
He broke off and glanced again at the bed, this time hurriedly, shortly. He saw her there, motionless, torpid, her sullen breaths coming with strange trouble from her breast. When would they cease! That was the one thought. When they ceased he would be free.
Presently he crept towards her again, and again bent over her and listened. He hadnotbeen mistaken, then! Yes, the breath was stronger; he even imagined now that her hand stirred a little. He stood up. A minute passed in which he hardly breathed.
In that minute he knew what he was going to do.
He went back to his chair again, however, and fought it out with himself. Pah! what was it, after all, but to bring to a quicker end a life that the doctors had all but declared gone? Whatwasit they had said? So deep was the intensity of his desire to go back to that consultation of the two doctors and their verdict that he hardly heard a faint movement in the room, a slow stirring of the curtains that half hid the bed.
At last he remembered. If she were to live for a certain number of hours there might be hope—a vague hope truly, said Dr. Bland, and not to be depended on, but a hope. If not, she must die. She had lived for many hours now, almost to the time mentioned, andstillshe breathed.
The nurse came to the door and opened it. He recollected himself in a moment, but hardly dared turn his face to hers. He told her by a motion of his hand, a softly muttered word, to go away; that the patient was still doing well, that he had hopes, that he wished to stay there. And the woman withdrew, praising him in her heart as a husband full of love and grief and anguish.
It was a slight interruption, but it half maddened him for the moment, although his iron nerve carried him through it.
He rose. The day was now at an end, and he lit a night-lamp with a careful hand—a hand that never trembled; and then he went again, and stared down at her. If she woke again to life there would be no longer life for him. It was to be either he or she.
The face was lying helpless, looking up at him, as it were, showing ghastly in the dim light. He had had no actual design in his mind until his eyes rested on those lips, but then all at once the means to the end became quite clear. His mind grew bright as day. He saw it all! It would not take long, and it was sure—and safe.
He went swiftly but noiselessly to a chest of drawers at the farther end of the room, and drew out the top shelf—always with a marvellous noiselessness. This drawer that usually—even in the broad daylight—creaked loudly when opened, now beneath the velvet fingers gave no sound whatever. He stooped forward, peering into the drawer, moving a thing here and there, and finally brought out something—a soft linen substance—a handkerchief, apparently, and moved with it to the basin-stand near him.
A squalid basin-stand of common deal. Certainly the poor, detested creature now lying prone upon the bed, utterly at his mercy, had not cost him much—had at least one virtue, that of prudence. Of course, if she had cost him more, if she had brought him by her extravagance to his last penny, she would have been of some importance in his eyes; he might even have learned to see something in her, in spite of her huge defects; but she had done nothing beyond being ugly—that, it must be allowed, she had done quite handsomely—and stupid, and vulgar, and all the rest of it.
He raised the water-jug. It made a little sound, and he looked behind him. No—no one had heard. That no one could see he was sure. Who was there in the room save he—and—and that unsightly object on the bed? He looked sharply, however, round the room, peering here and there, as people will whofeela presence yet cannot see it; but he saw nothing.
He abandoned his first thought of pouring water into the basin, and put back the jug very slowly into its original place. How foolish that first thought was!
With another half-unconscious glance round him he lowered the handkerchief into the jug—slowly, delicately—until the water surrounded his hand and it. How cool the water was—how refreshing! He would have a bath presently—afterwards. Cold water was the best of all pick-me-ups.
He lifted the handkerchief, cautiously, yet a little drip fell from it. One-two-three! They sounded like a knell from hell! They terrified him—for a moment.
He glanced suddenly over his shoulder, once again to the bed where that silent form lay. Had she heard? Had she known? He thought he saw a movement of the curtains, but a second later he dismissed the fancy with a deep indrawn breath.
He was in that state of mind now that even if shehadknown— if she had been capable of rising and denouncing him—he would still have caught her by the throat and pressed her back upon her pillows and deliberately strangled the life out of her. It was decided. Fate had sent her so far upon her road, but now her travelling was over, and the end of her was to be bitter and ignominious and unknown.
The handkerchief was saturated. He went towards the bed and bent down. The terrible open mouth, with the hideousness of it, seemed to give him a demoniac courage. He folded the cloth and laid it softly over it and the faintly breathing nostrils. He pressed the damp covering down—down—moulding it to the nose and mouth as one might who was taking a cast of some one dead and unknown to him, and with quite as strong a calm and carefulness.
A moment—a frightful moment—and then she stirred, the big head swayed from side to side. Darkham—white, rigid—watched her as she moved in her terrible impotence, but still held the cloth. It was but a momentary struggle, after all; suddenly it ceased. She lay now, rigid, white—the cloth still upon her face; her eyes had opened in the dying struggle and looked up at him, pale, horrible. But her breath—her breath was gone. She was dead!
A moment—a frightful moment—and then she stirred. It was but a momentary struggle after all; suddenly it ceased. She was dead!
He stood for a long time watching her. At least it seemed a long time. He had released his hold of the death-cloth, but it still lay on her face, covering the lips and nose, and leaving only those frightfully glaring eyes to be seen. They were wide open, and seemed fixed on him. He laid his hand upon her lids, and with a brutal haste forced back the lids upon the dying eyes.
He drew in his breath sharply, and leaning against one of the four posts, compelled himself to listen—to watch.
Not a sound in the house. And not a sound here, either. The breathing had ceased—was still. All was over. Those men had been right, then. There was so little life left in her that recovery was impossible. If he had only waited, nature would have done its own work unaided.
Once again that mad rush of exultation ran within her veins. Once again he sat in the room with Agatha Nesbitt—saw her, listened to her charming voice. He stooped over the woman in the bed, and in a wild ecstasy tore the murderous cloth from off her face. A smothered yell of triumph broke from him. She was dead—dead— dead!
It was over—done! He was free! He reeled against the bedpost and tried to collect himself—to check the terrible laughter that rose to his lips. He was free at last.
His curious excitement came to an end at last, and he roused himself. He looked at the clock, and found that it was quite an hour since—since that. He turned his eyes then on his wife's face and saw it was quite calm. There was nothing to wonder at— no sign of a struggle. There had been very little struggle indeed, life was so low within her. He assured himself that she looked natural enough, and touched the bedclothes here and there. Then he rang the bell violently, thrusting the wet handkerchief into the inside pocket of his coat as he did so; and presently the nurses came to the door, stepping softly, delicately, yet with fear on their faces. To them he told the sad news. He feared he had been a little drowsy, and she—his voice broke—must have passed away in her sleep. His manner was perfect, and they were all impressed by it, especially the nurse whom he had dismissed some hours ago, telling her he would sit up with the patient. She said afterwards that he looked heart-broken, but so calm—the calmness of despair, no doubt.
They went with him to the bed, and bent over the silent form. There was no breath coming now from the parted lips; the features looked rigid. The face was placid, stern, with that Sphinx-like expression on it that the dead so often wear.
Darkham himself lifted the arms—oh, so tenderly!—and crossed them on her breast. Tears rose to the nurses' eyes. How he had loved her!
"Go!" he said to them in a broken voice. "I shall watch here."
They heard him lock the door after them, and felt sad with pity at the thought of the lonely vigil the broken-hearted husband was about to keep in the dim death-chamber.
He listened intently to the sound of their departing footsteps, then cautiously opened a second door that led into an adjoining room. It was a sort of dressing-room, that had been used by his wife as a place for lumber of all sorts. It was untidy, but it was large, and sitting at the far end of it one might feel far away from the bedroom outside. He struck a match with a cautious hand—a hand that it gave him a sensation of admiration to see did not tremble, and lit a candle. This he placed on the floor behind a brass-bound trunk of gigantic size that effectually hid its rays from any one who might be outside the windows to-night.
He sat down, prepared to watch for the dawn. Well, it came early, anyway. He seated himself on a box, and began to arrange his plans. There was nothing to condemn him anywhere. She had been so far gone already that the slight stoppage of her breath that he had occasioned had made no effect upon her. Her face was quite calm and placid; and he could quote the words of Bland and Dillwyn at any moment. Besides, why should he be suspected? Who was there to suspect him?
As for himself—his manner—he could rely upon that. He held up his hand before him, and noticed boastingly that it was firm, and strong, and steady. After all, what had he done? Merely hastened the departure of a life—not taken it. Why, if he had taken it years ago, who could blame him? That devil, thwarting his every movement, destroying his life, killing him soul and body—of what use was she to the world? A mere clod, swelling the list of those who dam the flow of the tide that leads to all light and progress. Why, it was a righteous deed!
His head was resting against a wardrobe. His eyes closed. His thoughts were brilliant to-night; they flew here and there. The candle was burning dimly, and before he knew it he had lost consciousness—he was asleep.
He slept, and dreamt he was in hell! He struggled madly, and the struggle with an over-whelming mass of fiends, who were dragging him towards a caldron full of pitch, roused him. The madness, indeed, lasted only a few minutes, and left him wide awake. He woke with a violent start, and looked hurriedly around him. All was still.
He sat up. A sensation of damp upon his chest troubled him. He thrust his hand into his inner pocket, and drew out—the handkerchief!
With a curse he flung it from him—far as he could throw it— gazing at it with wide, fascinated eyes. For the moment he was afraid of it; then sense returned to him, and all his old strength, and he was himself again. He picked up the handkerchief deliberately, and placed it once more in his pocket. A grim smile at his own folly lit his dark features.
Even as he so sat smiling at his past weakness, a strange sound smote upon his ear. It was the sound of some heavy body falling on the ground. Seemingly it came from the next room—from the room where the dead body lay. He rose and went quietly to the door of it, and stood there listening. And as he listened a low crooning smote upon his ear. How well he knew it!
The boy! How hadhecome there, with all the doors locked? He now went quickly forward, through the door and into the room beyond. There he stood still, as if frozen into stone. An awful sight awaited him!
....
The bed he had left so decorously arranged was now in frightful disorder. The clothes were flung here and there, and on the floor, half out of the bed and half in it, lay—his wife.
Her arms were flung out, and her head was lying on one arm, the scanty gray locks parted, and showing bald patches in this place and that. The face was almost hidden, but he could see the nose and a little blood coming from it.
As he stood gazing at it, a movement on his right attracted him. It came from behind the curtains—a squat, unwieldy form, with working mouth and eyes on fire. He knew it. It was his—son!
The poor creature drew closer and closer by degrees to the form upon the floor, as if frightened, and not understanding. When had he ever before seen his mother like this? But as he came up to her he touched her, and, getting no response, he touched her again, and again, and finally, as if some light had dawned upon his darkened mind, he caught her, and lifted her head upon his knees, and began to lavish on her a whole world of endearments. Standing behind the bed-curtains, as he had stood for hours, in a dull, faithful determination to be near her, he had seen her fall out of bed, and then surprise and horror had produced that crooning noise that Darkham had heard. He now bent his face to hers, and with uncouth gestures tried to wipe away the blood that was already congealing round the nostrils.
She had probably come to life again for some brief moments, and fought and gasped for breath, and then by a last mighty effort had flung herself on the side of the bed.
With so much strengthshe must have recoveredhad he not hastened her death with that wet rag! He faced that thought with the strong callousness he had shown all through.
But the boy? He looked upon the wretched object crouched upon the floor, and advanced towards him. Taking him by the shoulder, he shook him sharply. The boy looked up with vacant eyes, and Darkham motioned him imperiously to move aside. At any moment some one might come to the door, and though it was locked, still, to refuse admission—-
Edwy, trained to fear him, rose sullenly, and once more retreated into the shadow of the curtains, and, squatting down upon the ground, sat gibbering, his eyes always on the corpse.
Darkham, stooping, lifted his wife. With some fear he gazed upon her. But she was now dead indeed. He laid her back upon the bed and felt her heart. It was still. Once again he closed the eyes, sponged the slight bloodstains from her face, and rearranged the bed-clothes. Again he folded the arms across her breast in the exact position in which they had been when the nurses saw her last. The minutest detail he thought of and followed out.
The slight distortion of the features, now visible, would not be noticed or treated seriously. And an hour or two, besides, would probably do away with it. An hour after death makes the dead face so different, even when death has been hard.
It was all finished now, and the boy only remained to be got rid of; he could not stay here.
Much as Darkham disliked being left alone in this terrible room, still he disliked more the companionship of this loathsome idiot. There was always the thought, too, that heknew—hadseen! For the first time he felt thankful that his only child had been born deaf and dumb, and a fool. If only he had been born blind as well!
He unlocked the door softly, and motioned to his son to go. The idiot shook his head. He understood what his father meant, but, though accustomed to obey him, he now felt as if to leave the room that held his mother—a mother so strange, so changed, but still his mother—was impossible to him. She might wake and want him.
Darkham imperiously, by a second gesture, ordered him to leave the room, and, seeing he did not move, went toward him.
As he advanced, the idiot rose. A low howl broke from him. Suddenly, as if with a mad desire for vengeance, he flung himself upon his father and tore and wrestled with him savagely. It was the anger of an enraged brute; the boy's nails seemed to tear into Darkham's flesh.
The struggle, however, lasted only for a minute or two. With a mighty effort, Darkham wrenched himself free, and the idiot, his hands working convulsively, dashed from the room.
"Isn't it frightful!" said old Miss Firs-Robinson, exclaiming as much with her hands as with her tongue. "Such a death!"
"A terrible death, indeed," returned Mrs. Poynter—a pretty, fashionable-looking young woman—with deep commiseration. "So sudden!"
It was the next day, and the news of Mrs. Darkham's death had spread and was now known far and wide. All the people in Rickton had "a day," and this one belonged to Miss Firs-Robinson. A most blessed thing, as everyone wanted to meet every one else and discuss with them the tragedy. It was the rector's wife who had been the first to use the word "tragedy," and it had caught on at once. "She is so clever, you know. Always the right word on every occasion. Really quite talented! The rector could never get on without her; she has been the making of him. That last sermon of his about regeneration, surely—well!And she does write, you know, for some of the papers. At all events, she has been known to answer a charade most successfully. Youmustremember. It began with "My first was an ass.""
Lord Ambert and Elfrida were playing tennis in the courts below against Captain Poynter and a rather pretty girl who was staying with the Poynters.
Mr. Blount was standing on the terrace close to the nearest point from which the tennis-court could be seen. He was supposed to be making himself agreeable to the companion Fate had accorded him for the moment, but in reality he was watching Elfrida with a sad but absorbed gaze. Agatha Nesbitt, sitting at the end of the terrace, seemed to read his thoughts, and beckoned him to come to her. She herself was sitting where whoever came to the hall-door could be readily seen.
"And I hear," said Mrs. Poynter, arching her brows and putting on a look of perfect misery, "that Dr. Darkham is absolutely inconsolable."
"Oh my dear, do you think so? Well, I don't know, I'm sure." Miss Firs-Robinson as she spoke turned purple. "He is—well, you know, I don't like him. But dissolute—one should be charitable, my dear. I confess I have thought him a little queer at times in his ways, but nothing so far gone as that. No, no."
"You mistake me," said Mrs. Poynter, flushing delicately, yet with a glance round her. She wanted to laugh, but it is so impossible to laugh alone. She caught Dicky Browne's eye at this moment, however, and was happy.
"I'm sure I do, my dear," said old Miss Firs-Robinson heartily, who was really a good soul. "Poor man! I'm talking of Dr. Darkham, Dicky; he's gone all to pieces, they tell me, over this business."
"I hope sincerely nobody will put him together again," returned Mr. Browne piously.
"Such a feeling man!" said Mrs. Greatorex, dropping into a chair near them. "No wonder he is in such a terrible state. I fear this sad occurrence will place the neighbourhood in grief for some time."
"I suppose so. And yet"—Mrs. Poynter turned to her next neighbour—"You see, she was such a stranger to us, poor woman!Sucha stranger!" She lifted her pale-gray gloves here, and did something to her veil. "Didyou" said she gently, looking at Mrs. Greatorex, "see much or her?"
Mrs. Poynter's voice was wonderful. It was a perfect coo, like a dove's. And she was very good-natured, too, in her own way, but ithadto be her own way. She detested anything unpleasant, anything that interfered with her, anything that rubbed her up the wrong way, and she certainly detested Dr. Darkham. But she had a little way with her that precluded the idea of her detesting anybody.
"Oh yes, very, very often," said Mrs. Greatorex sweetly. "I always tried to do what I could for her, poor creature!"
"And you?" said Mrs. Poynter, turning to Miss Firs-Robinson, who was looking grim. The old lady had been studying Mrs. Greatorex.
"Did you see much of her?"
"Well, as little as I could help," said the spinster with all the candour that adorned her, and a trifle of anger besides. "Because a more odious, a more unpleasant person I never met in my life."
"Oh, dear Miss Firs-Robinson!" cried the rector's wife, a little sallow woman. "You should remember, you should indeed. She is dead, you know."
"Yes, I do know," said the old lady in a loud voice, "but how does that alter matters? If the dead want to be praised, they ought to behave themselves properly whilst they are alive, andshedidn't. I am sorry the poor woman died like that, without returning to consciousness even for a little while."
"It was quite hopeless from the very first," said Mrs. Poynter.
"Dr. Bland and Dr. Dillwyn were both quite agreed about that."
"Oh no!" Agatha spoke as if involuntarily. "Not quite agreed. Dr. Dillwyn told me she might recover."
"Told you?" questioned Mrs. Greatorex quite gently. Then with a little smile: "But when, dear Agatha?"
The girl looked at her and paused. She seemed to struggle with a certain confusion.
Mrs. Greatorex, who would have made a splendid diplomatist, at once regretted her question, and stepped into the breach. She had made up her mind that her niece was to settle herself in life well, and to have her even "mentioned" with so deplorable a detrimental as Dillwyn—a young doctor just making his first breach through the wall of life—would be destruction. She therefore came to Agatha's rescue, and accepted the question as answered.
"He seems to have had two minds on the subject," she said slightingly, "which only shows how ridiculous it would be to place any confidence in his opinion. Young men of his age are not to be relied upon."
"I wonder if the party at Ambert Towers will be put off?" said the rector's wife, lowering her voice and speaking confidentially. "It was to be on Thursday next." "I should think not. Lord Ambert is not the sort of man to—-"
"No, he is not, indeed."
"He seems to me more reserved than unsympathetic," said Mrs. Greatorex, who always supported him on principle. Were they not of the same class? "Are you going?" asked she, addressing Mrs. Poynter.
"We've been asked," said that pretty woman, with downcast lids.
"But do you think one should go—with this death so very recent? Are"—she paused prettily—"areyougoing?"
"Not as to a party"—with muchempressement. "It will, I feel sure, be a quiet affair, on account of poor Dr. Darkham's bereavement."
"Oh, bereavement!" Mrs. Poynter permitted herself first a smile, and then gave way to a subdued laugh. "I say, mustn't he be glad?" said she.
"My dear Mrs. Poynter, hush! If any one should hear you! And, really, you take quite a wrong view of it. You are worse than Mr. Browne, who says quite dreadful things. I admire Dr. Darkham, you know—I do indeed. I think him an ideal man. Fancy his devotion to that dreadful being all these years!" She lifted her hands.
"Such a handsome man, my dear Mrs. Poynter; he is one in a thousand."
"So glad," said Mrs. Poynter, rather frivolously. "Two of him in a thousand would be more than one could endure. To me he always seems—don't you know—well, so out of it."
"Out of it?"
"Well, notinit, don't you know. A—a little on one side— eh? A little—well, vulgar is a horrid word, isn't it? Oh, how d'ye do, Lord Ambert? Been winning as usual?"
"Not as usual. I've been winning to-day because Miss Firs-Robinson has been my partner!"
"Oh, I like that," said Elfrida, who was with him. "As if I was the least use to you! You could have won the game quite as well without me—better, I dare say. I don't believe I made five good strokes all day. My ball wentintothe net, instead of over it, every time. I'm a perfect fraud!" She looked up at Blount suddenly, brilliantly, intentionally. "Now am I not, Mr. Blount?"
Blount hesitated and coloured, and Lord Ambert stared at him superciliously. Blount shook his head.
"You must let me contradict you," said he shyly, boyishly.
"Shall I get you some tea?" asked Ambert, who was frowning.
"No, thank you. There is claret-cup somewhere, if one could only find it. Mr. Blount, will you come with me on a voyage of discovery?"
Poor Blount! His eyes lit up. He went quickly to her, and she led him a fool's dance for the next ten minutes.
Ambert strolled leisurely away in an opposite direction, his face set and angry.
"What a pity it is that shewillencourage that poor boy!" said Mrs. Poynter to Agatha. "And when her mind is so entirely made up to marry Lord Ambert!"
"Then you think—-"
"I am afraid she is a terrible flirt," said Agatha. Whereon they both laughed.
"Here comes John Dillwyn," said Mrs. Poynter presently. "And straight to us.Youare not a flirt, I know, Agatha—which makes me all the more afraid for you. You know he hasn't a penny. Well, John," taking a sympathetic note at once, "so that poor woman has slipped through your fingers. We are all so shocked about it. There was no hope from the beginning, I suppose?"
"I don't think that. I fully believed there was a chance for her, but it was a bare one. Still—-"—he knitted his brows as if perplexed—"I believed in it."
"You mustn't say that now, John," said Mrs. Poynter, patting her cousin's arm; "you have your fortune to make, you know, and mistakes are fatal. Ah, you'll get on, John; you have the courage to confess your faults," said his cousin, smiling; "but don't confess them before unappreciative people. Dr. Darkham is, of course, very—-"
"I saw him only for a moment this morning. He looked like death himself. I had no idea he—er—cared for her so much. His face looked quite changed."
"Agatha, I think we must go now," said a cold voice. Mrs. Greatorex laid her hand on Agatha's shoulder. "How d'ye do, Dr. Dillywn? I hope you have seen poor Dr. Darkham, and that he is bearing up?"
"He seems greatly cut up," said Dillwyn.
"Ah, as I said. So sympathetic, so tender-hearted! I should so like to tell him how I feel for him."
"I am afraid you will have no chance of doing that except by letter. He is leaving home directly after the funeral for some months."
"And are you to look after his patients?" asked Mrs. Greatorex, turning to Dillwyn.
"Oh no"—smiling. "I am not big enough for that. Bland is to see to them."
Once settled in the fly, that on all occasions was borrowed from the inn to convey them to such distances as Mrs. Greatorex could not walk, the latter turned to her niece.
"When did Dr. Dillwyn tell you Mrs. Darkham might recover?" asked she very quietly.
"Last evening. I was standing at the gate, and he happened to be passing by. I asked him about Mrs. Darkham's condition, and he told me he thought shemightrecover, but it was very doubtful."
"I should think," said Mrs. Greatorex presently, "between you and me, that Dr. Darkham is feeling profoundly relieved at this present moment."
"You mean—-"
"That that woman was the curse of his existence for the past twenty years."
"She was dreadful, certainly. But Dr.—Dr. Dillwyn said he looked so sorry."
"It was a shock, of course, but he will recover from that in no time. And he is a handsome man, and rich and clever."
"Yes." Agatha looked at her as if wondering. There had been some meaning in her tone that the girl felt but did not understand.
"Yes. Don't you see? There is a chance for you now," said Mrs. Greatorex playfully, but with deadly meaning. The girl, after a swift glance at her, turned away. She felt cold and sick. Was this woman human, to pretend—to jest so—on the very threshold of death? And was it all jesting? She drew a long breath, as if suffocating.
"How can you talk like that?" she said.
"Nothing is more pleasant to the eye," said Lord Bacon, "than green grass nicely shorn." And truly his quaint Lordship would have been pleased had he been able to look upon Mrs. Poynter's grass to-day. It was shorn and shaven as close as the priest of old who was so unkind as to marry the pretty maid forlorn to that dreadfully tattered old man we have all known in our story books. For summer was gone to sleep, and lay prone upon the earth covered with her dead rose-leaves—only to wake again hereafter.
And now Autumn reigned. The dahlias in the long borders were shining like coloured stars, and the asters and sunflowers still upheld their heads. In the smaller beds the good begonias, who never crave for rest until dread frost compels them, shed great splendour where they lay. But they are frail things, and drop from their stems in a night when harsh winds assail them.
June, July, August, all have gone. And with them every thought of the poor woman who had been done to death so strangely, only three months ago! One never talked of Mrs. Darkham now, though every one said a good deal about, Dr. Darkham, who had come back three weeks ago from that sad trip he had taken to shake off his grief.
His grief appeared excellently well shaken off, they all said. He seemed quite to ignore it, indeed, when he returned, looking pale and thin certainly, but more interested in social surroundings. He was more full of life than he had ever been before.
Mr. Sparks, a young man staying with the Poynters, who during the last year had contracted an unfortunate passion for photographing his friends, was now standing out on the lawn, with his instrument of torture before him, and his head buried in a dirty velveteen cloth. He "meant well," as they say, but he never did it. He was abnormally tall and thin, and his hair fell over his forehead; the atrocities that he had committed no doubt preyed upon his conscience. To add to his other misfortunes, he was a friend of Dicky Browne, who to-day was taking great joy out of him.
"We'll be taken in a group," decided Mr. Browne, after a long discussion; "we can be taken separately afterwards, if we have the courage."
He looked at Mrs. Poynter, who had been most eager to get a sitting all to herself. She was pretty, and she knew it, and why shouldn't others know it? She was unaware of Mr. Sparks's peculiar talent, certainly, or perhaps she would not have been so desirous of seeing herself or her children—two lovely little beings of six and eight—once again on paper.
"Now I'm ready, if you are!" roared Mr. Sparks from the centre of the lawn.
"One minute!" shouted back Dicky Browne.
He was settling everybody, and pulling out their skirts. This made all the women mad.
"Are you ready?" roared out Sparks again, who was suffocating from his incessant visits beneath the velveteen cloth. It was a very warm day.
"One moment." Dr. Dillwyn had just come in, and where was he to be placed? He made straight for Agatha, and Dicky could not fail to see the significance of the smile with which she greeted him.
"Is there room for me here?" That was his whisper.
"Yes, yes," she said softly, gently. So he laid his hand on the arm of her chair, and stood erect.
There was a moment of awful tension. All were putting on their worst smiles and the most fatally imbecile expression, and Mr. Sparks was about to withdraw the cap, when a lively crash was heard and a smothered shriek.
They all sprang to their feet, and the tableau was spoiled. It was Dicky, of course. As usual, he had chosen the frailest seat in the place as a support for his rather stout frame—this time a milking-stool of delicate proportions; and one of the legs had come off, and now Dicky and it were floundering together on the floor of the veranda, buried in one common ruin.
The party in the veranda broke up and went here and there through the gardens, or else back to the tennis-courts. Tea was going on in a large tent on the lawn, and presently Elfrida, who had seated herself in a garden-chair outside the tent, and had sent Lord Ambert for some coffee, saw Mr. Blount standing near her. Elfrida looked up at him. She was quite alone—a singular occurrence so far as she was concerned—and for the first time, therefore, she was able to look at Blount with a critical eye. It struck her first that he was the youngest-looking man she had ever seen, and then, for she was fond of analysis, she told herself she regarded him like that simply because Lord Ambert was so very far from young.
Presently Blount looked round and saw her, and such a light of gladness grew upon his face as could not be mistaken.
"Can't I do something for you?" asked he.
"You can indeed; you can sit here beside me and amuse me, and tell me things."
"Tell you things?" He laughed at this; he was feeling extraordinarily happy. "What can I tell you that could interest you?"
"Well, one thing," said this finished coquette, "your Christian name. When one likes a person, one always wants to know how those who love him call him."
She smiled at him divinely, bending here pretty head towards him. She looked very lovely in her exquisite gown—a delicate petunia shade, clouded with lace—and the curate, looking at her, lost his head a little. He looked back at her, with all the passionate and very real love he felt for her showing now openly within his honest young eyes.
Blount woke from his mad dream, and to a most unpleasant reality. The Rev. Thomas Blount was a name that could be seen very often on cards for soirees, or placards for temperance meetings, or invitations to tea for girls' friendly societies. It hurt him in some strange way that she had never noticed those cards and placards. If she had even liked him, she would have felt some such small interest in him.
"I'll tell you, of course," said he. Yet he hesitated.Thomas! How could he tell her his name was Thomas? It was, indeed, one of his greatest griefs that he had to sign himself so when he came to this parish. Thomas was such a respectable name!
"Ah, I know now!" cried Elfrida, as he hesitated. "It is Thomas. I saw it in a—-"
"Oh, really, you know, it isnotmy name," said Blount. "I'm always called Tom by my friends."
"Yes?" Elfrida turned and gave him a wonderful little look from under her hat—a charming hat all covered with violets. "AmIyour friend?" asked she.
"My friend?" he stammered, and then stopped. Something in her face, her eyes, that were looking over her shoulder at some one approaching, checked another word. He, too, looked hastily backwards, to see Ambert coming out of the tent and approaching them, a cup in his hand and a scowl upon his brow. Mrs. Greatorex and Miss Firs-Robinson were behind him.