Volume One—Chapter Five.
The Doctor is King.
“Don’t be flurried, my dear,” said Doctor Asher, as, in a calm, business-like way, he saw to Gartram being laid easily on the floor, where he had fallen in the study.
“But he looks so ghastly. You do not think—”
“Yes, I do, my child,” said the doctor cheerfully. “Not what you think, because I know. He has another fit precisely the same as the last, and it was evidently a sudden seizure, just as he had risen from his chair, after writing that letter.”
“Then there is no danger?”
“Oh, dear, no. That’s right, you see. We’ll have this mattress on the floor; and he can lie here. Don’t be alarmed.”
“But I am horribly alarmed.”
“Then you must not be, my child. I will not conceal the fact from you that he will probably be subject to more fits, and may have one at any time.”
“But I feel so helpless.”
“So does a doctor, my dear. We try all we can, but time has to perform the greater part of the cure, after we have done all we can to avoid suffocation, and the patient injuring himself in his struggles. There, there; he’s going on all right, and you’ve been a very good, brave girl. I quite admire your behaviour all through; and another time, if I am not here, you will know exactly how to act.”
“Oh, don’t talk of another time, Doctor Asher.”
“Well, I will not,” he said, smiling. “Now, don’t be alarmed, but keep perfectly cool, for I must go back and see to that poor fellow at the quarry.”
“Yes, of course. But, doctor, if my poor father should be taken worse?”
“He will not be taken worse, but gradually mend. I shall not be very long away.”
“No, no; pray don’t be long.”
“No; and mind you are my assistant. So you must be cool and self-possessed. Shall I send Miss Dillon to sit with you?”
“Yes, please, do,” said the agitated girl, as she gazed wildly at her father’s altered face.
Doctor Asher seemed rather to resemble a very smooth, black tom cat, and, as he drew down his cuffs, and passed his white hands over his glossy coat, an imaginative person would not have been much surprised to see him begin to lick himself, to remove a few specks caused by the business in which he had been engaged.
As he left the study and crossed the hall, with its polished granite flooring, his delicate manner of proceeding toward the drawing-room, and stepping from one to another of the oases of Eastern rugs, was still like the progress of the cat who believed the polished granite to be water, and tried to avoid wetting his paws.
When he laid his hand upon the drawing-room door, a murmur of voices came from within, and, as he entered, Mary Dillon jumped up from the low ottoman upon which she had been seated, talking to Glyddyr, and ran quickly to the doctor’s side.
“How is he?” she said excitedly.
“Better, certainly. Miss Gartram wants you to go and stay with her.”
“Yes, of course. Good-bye, Mr Glyddyr, and thank you for being so kind.”
She spoke as she ran to the door, jerked the last words back over her shoulder, and was gone, leaving the doctor face to face with the visitor.
“How is he?” said the latter. “You can speak plainly to me.”
“To be sure I can, my dear sir. Ah, what a world this is. Yesterday we were taking our champagne in the saloon of your charming yacht, to-day—”
“You are keeping me waiting for an answer,” said Glyddyr, rather stiffly.
“So I am,” said the doctor, smiling. “Well, how is he? Rather bad. Nasty fit of his usual sort.”
“Then he is subject to these fits?”
“Most decidedly.”
“But what caused it?”
“Worry. From what I can gather, he must have some upset when out walking. Our friend has a temper.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Glyddyr.
“Then he has had some quarrel with this poor fellow who is hurt. The terrible accident followed, and, with the customary crass obstinacy of rustic, ignorant workmen, the poor fellow and his comrades lay the blame of a trouble, caused by their own stupidity, upon their employer.”
“Yes, I see. Caused great mental disturbance?”
“Exactly, my dear sir. He being a man who, in the labour of making money, has nearly worried himself to death.”
“Yes.”
“And who now worries himself far more to keep it.”
“Ah, money is hard to keep,” said Glyddyr, with a smile.
“He has found it so, sir. When the old bank broke years ago, it hit him to the tune of many thousands.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes; and that set him building this place for his protection. I shouldn’t wonder if he has quite a bank here.”
“Indeed! The the old man is rich?”
“Rich! I thought every one knew that. Better be poor and happy.”
“As we are, eh, doctor? Well, it’s a terrible worry—money.”
This was accompanied by a peculiar look which the doctor interpreted, and replied to with one as suggestive.
“No danger, I hope, to the old gentleman?”
“No, no. Fits are not favourable to health, though.”
“Well, no danger this time, I hope?”
“Not a bit. He’ll feel the shock for a few days. That’s all.”
“And the other patient?”
“Hah, yes; I’m just going over there.”
“He is very bad, you say?”
“Bad! I expect to find him gone.”
The doctor nodded, and left the room.
“Bah! how I do hate them,” said Glyddyr. “I’d have walked down with him, but I always feel as if I were smelling physic.”
Glyddyr stood tapping the bottom of his watch, which he had just taken from his pocket, as he talked in a low tone, just as if he were conversing with the little round face before him.
“How wild the old boy was—just after he had been talking to me as he had. Pshaw! I don’t mind. Rustic bit of courtship. Half-bumpkin sort of fellow, and poor as Job. Old man wouldn’t have him at any price. The gipsy! Been carrying on with him, then, eh? Well, it’s always the way with your smooth, drooping little violets. Regular flirtation. I don’t mind. I wouldn’t give a dump for a girl without a bit of spirit in her. It’s all right. Friends at court—a big friend at court. But no more fits for friends—at present, I hope. I’ll get him to come on a cruise, and bring her. Tell the old boy it will do him good. Get the doctor on my side, and make him prescribe a trip round the islands, with him to come as medical attendant. Nothing to do, and unlimited champagne. Real diplomacy. By Jupiter, Parry, you are a clever one, though you do get most awfully done on the turf!”
“Yes,” he said, after another look at the watch, for the purpose now of seeing the time, “that’s the plan—a long sea trip round the islands, with sentiment, sighs and sunsets; and, as they said in the old melodramas, ‘Once aboard the lugger, she is mine.’ For, lugger read steam yacht, schooner-rigged Fair Star, of Cowes; Parry Glyddyr, owner.”
He laughed in a low, self-satisfied way, and then moved toward the door.
“Well, it’s of no use to wait here,” he said. “They will not show up again. I can call, though, as often as I like. Come again this evening, and see her then. She can’t refuse. I’ll go now and see how the salmon fisher is getting on.”
Volume One—Chapter Six.
In Charge.
“Mary, dear, don’t deceive me for the sake of trying to give me comfort,” said Claude, as she knelt in the study, beside the mattress upon which her father lay breathing stertorously.
“Claude, darling, I tease you and say spiteful things sometimes, but you know you can trust me.”
“Yes, yes, dear, I know; but you don’t answer me.”
“I have told you again and again that your father is just like he was last time, and the best proof of there being no danger is Doctor Asher staying away so long.”
“It’s that which worries me so. He promised to come back soon.”
“Don’t be unreasonable, dear. You know he went to the quarry where that man is dangerously hurt.”
“Yes. Poor Sarah! How she must suffer! It is very terrible. But look now, Mary—that dark mark beneath papa’s eyes.”
“Yes, I can see it,” said Mary, rising quickly, and going to the table, where she changed the position of the lamp, with the result that the dark shadow lay now across the sleeper’s lips. “There, that is not a dangerous symptom, Claudie.”
“Don’t laugh at me, Mary. You can’t think how I alarmed I am. These fits seem to come more frequently than they used. Ought not papa to have more advice?”
“It would be of no use, dear. I could cure him.”
“You?”
“Yes; or he could cure himself.”
“Mary!”
“Yes,” said the little, keen-looking body, kneeling down by her cousin’s side; “uncle has only to leave off worrying about making more money and piling up riches that he will never enjoy, and he would soon be well again.”
Claude sighed.
“See what a life he leads, always in such a hurry that he cannot finish a meal properly; and as to taking a bit of pleasure in any form, he would think it wicked. I haven’t patience with him. Yes, I have, poor old fellow—plenty. He has been very good to miserable little me.”
“Of course he has, dear,” said Claude, throwing her arms about her cousin’s neck and kissing her, with the result that the sharp-looking, self-contained little body uttered an hysterical cry, clung to her, and burst out sobbing wildly, as if all control was gone.
“Mary, darling, don’t, pray don’t. You distress me. What is the matter?”
“I’m miserable, wretched,” sobbed the poor girl, with her face hidden in her cousin’s breast. “I always seem to be doing something wrong. It’s just as if, when I tried to make people happy, I was a kind of imp of mischief, and caused trouble.”
“No, no, no! What folly.”
“It isn’t folly; it’s quite true. See what I did this morning.”
Claude felt her cheeks begin to burn, and she tried to speak, but the words would not come.
“I knew that Chris Lisle had gone up the east river fishing, and I was sure he longed to see you, and I was quite certain you wanted to see him.”
“Mary, be silent,” cried Claude, in an excited whisper; “it is not true.”
“Yes, it is, dear. You know it is, and I could see that he was miserable, and had been since you went on board Mr Glyddyr’s yacht, so I felt that it would be quite right to take you round there, so that you might meet and make it up. And see what mischief I seem to have made.”
“Yes,” said Claude gravely, as she metaphorically put on her maiden mask of prudery; “and you know now that it was very, very thoughtless of you.”
“Thoughtless!” said Mary, looking up with a quick look, half-troubled, half-amused; “didn’t I think too much?”
“Don’t talk, Mary,” said Claude primly. “You may disturb poor papa. It was very wicked and meddlesome and weak, and you don’t know what harm you have done.”
Mary Dillon’s face was flushed and tear-stained, and her eyes looked red and troubled; but she darted a glance at her cousin so full of mischievous drollery, that Claude’s colour deepened, and she turned away troubled, and totally unable to continue the strain of reproof.
She was spared further trouble by a cough heard in the hall.
“Wipe your eyes quickly, Mary,” she whispered; “here is Doctor Asher at last.”
Mary jumped up, and stepped to the window, where she was half hidden by the curtains, as there was a gentle tap at the door, the handle was turned, and the doctor, looking darker and more stern than ever, entered the room.
He whisperingly asked how his patient had been, as he went down on one knee by the mattress, made a short examination, and turned to Claude, who, with parted lips, was watching him anxiously.
“You think him worse?” she whispered.
“Indeed I do not,” he said quickly. “Nothing could be better. He will sleep heavily for a long time.”
“But did you notice his heavy breathing?”
“Of course I did,” said the doctor rising, “and you have no cause for alarm. Ah, Miss Mary, I did not see you at first.”
“Don’t deceive me, Doctor Asher,” said Claude, in agonised tones; “tell me the worst.”
“There is no worse to tell you, my dear child. I dare say your father will be well enough to sit up to-morrow.”
“Thank heaven!” said Claude to herself. Then, turning to the doctor: “How is poor Isaac Woodham?”
“Don’t ask me.”
“How dreadful!”
“Yes; it was a terrible accident.”
“But is there no hope?”
“You asked me not to deceive you,” said the doctor gravely. “None at all.”
Just then the sick man moaned slightly in his sleep, and made an uneasy movement which took his daughter back to his side.
“Don’t be alarmed, my child,” said the doctor encouragingly; “there is nothing to fear.”
“But I am alarmed,” said Claude; “and I look forward with horror to the long night when I am alone with him.”
“You are going to sit up with him?”
“Of course.”
“Divide the night with your cousin.”
“Yes—but—”
“Well—what is it?”
“Oh, Doctor Asher, don’t leave him. Pray, pray, stay here.”
“But I have to go and see that poor fellow twice during the night.”
“I had forgotten him,” sighed Claude. “Couldn’t you stop here, and go and see him in the night?”
“Well, I might do that,” said the doctor thoughtfully; “but really, my child, there is no necessity.”
“If you could stop, Doctor Asher,” interposed Mary, “it would be a great relief to poor Claude, who is nervous and hysterical about my uncle’s state.”
“Very well,” was the cheerful reply. “I’ll tell you what; I’ll sit with you till about nine, and then go and see poor Woodham. Then I’ll come back and stay up with Mr Gartram till about three, when you shall be called to relieve me.”
“But I shall not go to bed,” said Claude decidedly.
“I am your medical man, and I prescribe rest,” said the doctor, smiling. “I don’t want any more patients at present. You and your cousin will go and lie down early, and then come and relieve me, so that I can go and see poor Woodham again. After that I shall return here, and you can let me have a sofa ready, to be called if wanted. There, I am the doctor, and a doctor rules in a sick house.”
“Must I do as you say?” asked Claude pleadingly.
“Yes; you must,” he replied; and so matters were settled.
Doctor Asher walked down to the quarry cottage to see his patient there, and did what he could to alleviate the poor fellow’s pain, always avoiding the inquiring look in the wife’s eyes, and then he returned to the Fort.
“How is he now?” asked Claude anxiously.
“Very bad,” was the reply.
“You will find coffee all ready on the side-table, doctor,” said Claude; “and there is a spirit lamp and the stand and glasses. There are cigars on the shelf; but you will let me sit up too?”
“To show that you have no confidence in your medical man.”
“Oh, no, no; but Mary and I might be of some use.”
“And of none at all to-morrow, my dears. You must both go to bed, and be ready to relieve me.”
“But is there anything else I can do to help you?”
“Yes; what I say—go to bed at once.”
Claude hesitated a few moments, and then walked quickly to the side of the mattress, knelt down, kissed her father lovingly, and then rose.
“Come, Mary,” she said. “And you will ring the upstairs bell if there’s the slightest need?”
“Of course, of course. There, good-night; I shall ring punctually at two.”
He shook hands, and the two girls left the room unwillingly, and proceeded slowly upstairs.
“Well lie down in your room, Mary,” said Claude; “it is so much nearer the bell. Do you know, I feel so dreadfully low-spirited? It is as if a terrible shadow had come over the place, and—don’t laugh at me—it seemed to grow darker when Doctor Asher came into the room.”
“What nonsense! Because he is all in black.”
“Do you think he is to be trusted, Mary?”
“I don’t know. I don’t like him, and I never did. He is so sleek and smooth, and I hate him to call us ‘my dear’ in that nasty, patronising, paternal sort of way.”
“Then let’s sit up.”
“No, no. It would be absurd. I daresay we should feel the same about any other doctor.”
“I do hope he will take great care of poor papa,” sighed Claude; and the door closed after them as they entered their room.
If Doctor Asher was not going to take great care of Norman Gartram, it was very evident that he was going to take very great care of himself, for as soon as he was alone he struck a match, lit the spirit lamp, lifted the lid of the coffee pot, and found that it was still very hot, and then, removing a stopper in the spirit stand, he poured out into a cup a goodly portion of pale brandy.
He had just restored the stopper to the spirit decanter, saying to himself, “Nice, thoughtful little girl!” when Gartram moaned and moved uneasily.
The doctor crossed to him directly, went down on one knee, and felt to see that his patient’s neck was well opened.
“Almost a pity not to have had him undressed,” he said to himself. “What’s the matter with you—uncomfortable? Why, poor old boy,” he continued, with a half laugh, as his hands busily felt round the sick man, “how absurd!”
He had passed a hand through the opening in Gartram’s shirt front, and after a little effort succeeded in unbuckling a cash belt which was round his patient’s waist, drawing the whole out, and noting that on one side there was a pocket stuffed full and hard as he threw the belt carelessly on the table.
“Nice wadge that for a man to lie on. There, old fellow, you’ll be more comfortable now.”
As if to endorse his words, Gartram uttered a deep sigh, and seemed to settle off to sleep.
“Breeches pockets full too, I daresay,” muttered the doctor; “and shouldn’t be surprised if there’s a good, hard bunch of keys somewhere in his coat. Doesn’t trouble him, though.”
He rose, and went back to the tray at the side, filled the already primed coffee cup and carried it to the table, wheeled forward an easy chair, selected a cigar, which he lit, and then threw himself back and sipped his coffee and smoked.
“Yes, sweet little girl Claude,” he thought; “make a man a good wife—good rich wife, and if—no, no, not the slightest chance for me, and I’ll go on as I am, and make the best of it.”
He had another sip.
“Delicious coffee, fine cigar. Worse things than being a doctor. We get as much insight of family matters as the parsons, and are trusted with more secrets.”
He laughed to himself as he lay back.
“Yes, nice little heiress, Claude,” he said again. “Wonder who’ll get her—Christopher the salmon fisher, or our new yachting friend? I think I should back Glyddyr.”
He smoked on, and thought seriously for some time about his other patient, and after a time he emitted a cloud of smoke which he had retained in his mouth, as he turned himself with a jerk from one side of his great easy chair to the other.
“No,” he said, “impossible to have done more. The Royal College of Surgeons couldn’t save him.”
He smoked on in silence, sipping his coffee from time to time, gazing the while at Gartram, upon whom the light shone faintly, just sufficient to show his stern-looking, deeply-marked face.
“Yours is a good head, my dear patient,” he mused. “Well-cut features, and a look of firm determination in your aspect, even when your eyes are closed. You miss something there, for you have keen, piercing eyes, but for all that you look like what you are, a stubborn, determined Englishman, who will have his own way over everything so long as his works will make him go. When they run down, he comes to me for help, and I am helping him. Yes, you were sure to get on and heap up money, and build grand houses, and slap your pocket-book and say: ‘I am a rich man,’ and ‘I laugh at and deride the whole world,’ and so you do, my dear sir, all but the doctor, who, once he has you, has you all his life, and can do what he likes with you. I have you hard, Norman Gartram, and I am licenced; I have you completely under me, and so greatly am I in possession of you, that I could this night say to you die, and you would die; or I could bid you live, and you would live. A simple giving or a simple taking. A movement with the tactus eruditus of a physician, and then the flag would be down, the King of the Castle would be gone, and a new king would reign in the stead—or queen,” he added, with a laugh.
“Ah, you people trust us a great deal, and we in return trust you—a very long time often before we can get paid. Not you, my dear Gartram, you always were a hard cash man. But you people trust us a great deal, and our power is great.
“And ought not to be abused,” he said hastily. “No, of course not. No one ought to abuse those who trust. Capital coffee this,” he added, as he partook of more. “Grand thing to keep a man awake.
“Humph! Tired. Ours is weary work,” and he yawned.
“I believe I should have been a clever fellow,” mused the doctor, “if I had not been so confoundedly lazy. There’s something very interesting in these cases. In yours, for instance, my fine old fellow, it sets one thinking whether I could have treated you differently, and whether I could do anything to prevent the recurrence of these fits.”
He smoked on in silence, and then shook his head.
“No,” he said, half aloud; “if there is a fire burning, and that is kept burning, all that we can do is to keep on smothering it for a time. It is sure to keep on eating its way out. He has a fire in his brain which he insists upon keeping burning, so until he quenches it himself, all I can do is to stop the flames by smothering it over by my medical sods. You must cure yourself, Norman Gartram; I cannot cure you. No, and you cannot cure yourself, for you will go on struggling to make more money that you have no use for, till you die. Poor devil!”
He said the last two words aloud, in a voice full of pitying contempt. Then, after another sip of his coffee, he looked round for a book, drew the lamp close to his right shoulder, and picked up one or two volumes, but only to throw them down again; and he was reaching over for another when his eye fell upon the cash belt with its bulging contents.
“Humph,” he ejaculated, as he turned it over and over, and noted that it had been in service a long time. “Stuffed very full. Notes, I suppose. Old boy hates banking. Wonder how much there is in? Very dishonourable,” he muttered; “extremely so, but he has placed himself in my hands.”
He drew out a pocket-book.
“Wants a new elastic band, my dear Gartram. Out of order. I must prescribe a new band. Let me see; what have we here? Notes—fivers—tens—two fifties. Droll thing that these flimsy looking scraps of paper should represent so much money. More here too—tens, all of them.”
He drew forth from the pockets of the book dirty doubled-up packets of Bank of England notes, and carelessly examined them, refolding them, and returning them to their places.
“What a capital fee I might pay myself,” he said, with an unpleasant little laugh; “and I don’t suppose, old fellow, that you would miss it. Certainly, my dear Gartram, you would be none the worse. Extremely one-sided sometimes,” he said, “to have had the education of a gentleman and run short. Yes, very.”
He returned the last notes to the pocket, and raised a little flap in the inner part.
“Humph! what’s this? An old love letter. No: man’s handwriting:—‘instructions to my executors.’”
He gave vent to a low whistle, glanced at the sleeping man, then at the door, and back at his patient before laying down the pocket-book, and turning the soiled little envelope over and over.
“Not fastened down,” he muttered. “I wonder what—Oh, no: one can’t do that.”
He hastily picked up the pocket-book, and thrust the note back into its receptacle, but snatched it out again, opened it quickly, and read half aloud certain of the sentences which caught his attention—“‘Granite closet behind book cases—vault under centre of study—big granite chest’.”
“Good heavens!” he said, after a pause, during which he read through the memorandum again; then refolding it and returning it to the envelope, he hastily placed the writing in its receptacle, and in turn this was put in the pocket-book. Lastly, the book was returned to the pouch in the belt, which latter was thrust hastily into one of the drawers of the writing-table, the key turned and taken out.
“Give it to Mademoiselle Claude,” he said, with a half laugh. “What an awkward thing if I had been tempted to behave as some would have done under the circumstances.”
He took out a delicate lawn handkerchief, unfolded it, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and then proceeded to do the same to his hands, which were cold and damp.
“That coffee is strong,” he said, “or it is my fancy; perhaps the place is too warm.”
He walked up and down the room two or three times, gazing anxiously at the bookshelves, and then at the table, where the floor was covered with a thick Turkey carpet; but he turned away and refilled his cup with coffee and brandy, found that his cigar was out, and threw the stump away before helping himself to a fresh one, and smoking heavily for some time, evidently thinking deeply.
Then, apparently unable to resist the temptation, he rose and walked to the door, opened it and listened, found that all was silent, closed it again, and after glancing at his patient, who was sleeping heavily, he hastily drew out the key, opened the drawer, and, after a momentary hesitation, took out the belt.
In another minute, the yellow looking memorandum was in his hands, being studied carefully before it was restored to its resting-place, and again locked up.
“I did not know I had so much curiosity in my nature,” he said, with a half laugh. “Well, the study of mankind is man, doesn’t some one say, and I’m none the worse for a little extra knowledge of a friend’s affairs. I might be called upon to give advice some day.”
Oddly enough, the knowledge again affected the doctor so that he wiped his brow and hands carefully, and then sat gazing thoughtfully before him as he sipped and smoked and seemed to settle down into a calm, restful state, which at times approached drowsiness.
Upon these occasions he rose and softly paced the room, stopping to listen to his patient’s breathing, and twice over feeling his pulse.
“Could not be going on better,” he muttered.
Finally, during one of his turns up and down, he heard a step outside the door, followed by a light tap, and Claude entered.
The doctor started, and looked at her wildly.
“Why have you come down?” he said.
“Come down? How is he? I overslept myself, and it is half-past two.”
“Is it so late as that?”
“Doctor Asher!” cried Claude excitedly, as she caught him by the arm, “you are keeping something back.”
Her words seemed to smite him, and he tried vainly to speak. It was as if he had suddenly been startled by some terrible shock, and he stared at Claude with his jaw slightly fallen.
“Why don’t you speak?”
“Keeping something back,” he said hoarsely. “No!”
“No? Why do you say that? You seem so confused and changed. Tell me, for heaven’s sake; my father—”
“Better—better,” he said, recovering himself, and speaking loudly, but in a husky voice. “I—I have been a little drowsy, I suppose, with the long watching. Not correct, but natural.”
She looked at him wonderingly, he seemed so strange, and unable to contain herself, she turned to where her father lay, with her heart throbbing wildly, and something seemed to whisper to her the words, “He is dead.”
Volume One—Chapter Seven.
Sarah Woodham’s Vow.
It was after many hours of stupor, and when Doctor Asher, the physician of Danmouth, had gone back to the Fort, from a hurried visit to his injured patient, that Isaac Woodham unclosed his eyes, and lay gazing at the pale, agony-drawn face of his wife, upon which the light of the solitary candle fell.
“What’s the matter?” he said hoarsely.
“Ike, husband,” whispered the suffering woman.
“Oh, yes; I remember now,” he said, with a piteous groan. “I always knew it would come.”
“Ike, dear, can I do anything?” said his wife tenderly.
“Yes.”
“Tell me what, dear?”
“I’ll tell you soon,” groaned the man. “I knew it would come; I always felt it. Ah, my girl, my girl, I’ve preached to them often, and talked about the end of a good Christian man, but it’s very, very hard to die.”
“Die! oh, Isaac, don’t say that.”
“Yes; and to die through him—through that tyrant, and all to make him rich.”
“No, no; you’ll get better, dear, as Roberts did, and Jackson, who were worse than you.”
“Hah!” he cried, making a gesticulation, as if to cast aside his wife’s vain words; and then, with a sudden access of force that was startling, he caught at her hand.
“Sally, my lass,” he whispered harshly, “Gartram has murdered me.”
“Isaac, my poor husband, don’t say that.”
“It was all his doing. He always thwarted me, and interfered when I had to blast.”
“Pray, pray be still, dear. You are so bad and weak. The doctor said you were to be kept quiet, and not to talk.”
“Doctor knew it was all over. I am a dying man.”
“No, no, my darling.”
“Yes, I’ll say it, and more too while I have time. But for Gartram, I should be well and strong now. Oh, how I hate him! Curse him for a dog!”
“Isaac!—darling husband.”
“Yes; I always hated him, the oppressor and tyrant. He made me mad about blasting that bit of rock, and I felt I must do it—my way; but he bullied me till my hands were all of a tremble, and I was thinking about what he said till I wasn’t myself, and the stuff went off too soon. But it was his doing. He murdered me; and if it hadn’t been for him, I should have been right.”
“Oh, my darling!”
“Hush, don’t cry, my lass. It’s all over now, but I can’t die peaceful like yet.”
“Let me put your poor hands together, Ike, and I’ll pray for you.”
“Yes, my lass, but not yet. I’m dying, Sally—fast.”
“No, no, Ike. There, let me give you a drop of the stuff the doctor left. It’ll do you good.”
“Nothing’ll do me good but you.”
“Ike, dear, be still and I’ll run and fetch the doctor; he’s at the Fort. Gartram has had a bad fit.”
“Curse him!”
“No, no, dear, don’t curse. You make me shiver.”
There was a terrible silence in the gloomy cottage room, where the ghastly face of the injured man seemed to loom out of the darkness, and looked weird and strange. The woman tried to quit his side, but he held her tightly as he lay gazing straight up at her, his breath coming in a laboured way, as if he had to force each inspiration, suffering agony the while; and if ever the stamp of death was set-plainly upon human countenance, it was upon his.
“Sally,” he gasped, and his voice was changing rapidly. “Sally!”
“Yes, dear.”
“Don’t leave me. Where are you?”
“Here, darling; holding your hands.”
“Why did you put out the light?”
“Isaac, my own dear man!”
“Listen. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, dear, yes.”
“I’m dying fast, and I shall never rest without—without you do what I say.”
“Yes, dear, I’ll do anything you tell me—you know I will.”
“That’s right. Quick, before it’s too late.”
“Oh, if help would only come,” moaned the woman.
“No help can come, my lass. Now, put your hand under me and lift my head on your shoulder. That’s right. Ah!”
He uttered a groan of agony, and lay speechless as she raised him; and the wife turned cold with horror, as it seemed to her that he was dead, but his lips moved again.
“Now,” he said, “I can talk without feeling strangled. Gartram has made an end of me, and it’s a dying man speaking to you. It’s almost a voice from the dead telling you what to do.”
“Yes, dear, tell me. What shall I do?”
“You’ll swear to do what I tell you?”
“Yes, Isaac, anything.”
“You’re in the presence of death, wife, with the good and evil all about us, and what you say is registered against you.”
“Yes, dear,” said the woman, shuddering.
“You swear, so help you God, to obey my last words?”
“Yes, dear,” cried the woman, with her eyes lighting up, and a look of exultation in every feature; “I’ll swear to obey you.”
“Then you will measure out to Norman Gartram, and pay back to him all he has paid to me.”
“Isaac!”
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, as it says in the Holy Book.”
“Husband!”
“You have sworn to do it, woman, and there is no drawing back. As he murdered me, so you shall cut short his cursed life.”
“Isaac, I cannot.”
“Woman, you have sworn to the dying; you are the instrument, the chosen vessel to execute God’s wrath upon this man. For he shall not live to do more wrong to the suffering people he has been grinding under his heel.”
“No, no: I could not do this thing, Isaac, it is too terrible.”
“She has sworn to do it. She has heard the message, and his days will come to an end as mine have come, and he will go on no longer in his wickedness, piling up riches. Ha! ha! ha! Thou fool—this night shall thy—wife—are you there?”
“Isaac! Husband!”
“Ah, yes. Good wife, my last words. Words from the other world. You will not rest till you have fulfilled your sacred task. I shall not rest till then—you—the chosen vessel—His wrath against the oppressor—as I have been—cut off—so shall Gartram be—cut off—yours the chosen hand, wife—quick—your hand—upon my head—you swear—that you will do my bidding—the bidding of—”
He paused, and she saw his eyes gazing wildly in hers, and it seemed as if the words she whispered were dragged from her—a voice within her seeming to utter them, and the belief that she was but the instrument of a great punishment upon a sinful man appeared to strengthen within her breast.
“Quick,” gasped the dying man; “your hand upon my head, wife—your lips close to me—let me hear you speak.”
“Isaac! Husband!” she groaned; “must I do this dreadful thing?”
“It is a message from—”
There was a terrible silence in the narrow chamber, and the dying man’s eyes were fixed upon hers as she laid her hand upon his brow and spoke firmly,—
“I swear.”
“Hah!”
A low, rattling expiration of the breath, and as Sarah Woodham gazed in her husband’s eyes, the wild, fiery look died slowly out, to become grave and tender. Then it seemed to her that the look was fixed and strange. She had been prepared, but not for so sudden a shock as this.
“Ike!” she cried, lowering him upon the pillow. “Ike! Why don’t you speak? Do you hear me?” and her voice sounded peremptory and harsh; “do you hear me?”
She had seized him by the shoulders as she bent over him, and her voice grew more excited and strange.
“You are doing this to frighten me—to keep that oath—but I will do it. Ike, dear, do you hear me? Don’t play with me. It hurts my poor heart—to see you—so fixed and strange—Ike! Husband! Speak!”
In her horror and agony she gripped his shoulders more tightly and shook him.
Then the horrible truth refused to be kept longer at bay, and, starting back from the couch where the fixed, grave eyes seemed to follow her, reminding her of her oath, she stood with her hands raised, staring wildly for a few moments before an exceeding bitter cry escaped her lips.
“No,” she cried; “it can’t be. My darling, don’t leave me here alone in the weary world. Isaac, my own! My God! he’s dead.”
She reeled, caught at the table to save herself, the ill-supported candle dropped from the stick, and she fell with a thud upon the floor, as the candle rolled from the table close to her face, flickered for a few moments to display its ghastly lineaments, and then died out.
But it was not quite dark.
A faint light stole in beside the drawn-down blind, the chill air of morning sighed round the house, and a low murmur came from the waves fretting among the broken granite far below; and it was as if the night, too, were dead, and the low sigh died away in a hushed silence.
Then pink, pink, pink, pink came the sharp cry of the blackbird from the tangle of bramble and whortleberry high up the cliff slope, and from the grassy level above, the clear loud song of the lark, as it rose high in the pale morning sky, telling that come sorrow come joy, the world still goes round, and that Nature will have her way, even though murder be on the wing.
Volume One—Chapter Eight.
Claude Opens the Awful Door.
Sarah Woodham sat in her little parlour, sallow of cheek, and with a hard, stern look in her eyes as she gazed straight before her at the drawn-down blind, and listened to the mournful wash of the waves which came with a slow, regular pulsation through the open door.
Hers had been no romantic life. Hard working servant for years at the Fort, till, in a dry, matter-of-fact way, Isaac Woodham, quarryman, and local preacher at the little chapel, and one of the most narrow-minded and bigoted of his sect, had cast his eyes upon her in the chapel and preached to her. He had selected his texts from various parts of the Bible, where it was related that certain men took unto themselves wives, and when he was at work he told himself that Sarah was comely to look upon, and that one of these days he would marry her.
And so it was that previously, on one of these days when he had to go on business to the Fort, he had told the woman in his hard, matter-of-fact way that he had prayed for guidance, and that he felt it was his duty and her duty that they two should wed.
Sarah, in her hard, matter-of-fact way, asked for time to consider the matter herself, and at the end of a year’s cold, business-like term of probation, she gave Isaac Woodham her hand, left the Fort, and went to live at one of the quarry cottages, which became at once the most spotless in the stone-cutters’ hamlet by the sea.
They neither of them ever displayed any great affection one for the other, but led a quiet, childless, orderly life, in which she—with no pleasant recollections of her sojourn at the Fort, but still with a deep, almost motherly kind of affection for the girl whom she had seen grow up to womanhood—listened to and sided with her husband in his harsh revilings of his tyrant.
It was Isaac Woodham’s never-failing theme—his hatred of his master, whom he looked upon with the bitter, narrow-minded envy of his nature. Every sharp word was magnified, every business order was looked upon as an insulting piece of tyranny, and after obeying in a morose, sulky way, he took his revenge by pitying the owner of the quarry, and praying that he might repent and become a better man.
This went on for years, during which Norman Gartram did not repent after his servant’s ideas of repentance; and had he known the circumstances, he would have said he had nothing to repent of, which, as far as his men were concerned, was perfectly just—his greatest sins being the insistence upon receiving a fair return for the wages he paid, and a rather stern way of giving his orders to all, Woodham being the most trusted for his sterling honesty, albeit Gartram sneered at him as being full of cant.
Then came the catastrophe, with Sarah, the newly-made widow, in her bereavement, feeling that in her hard way she had dearly loved the cold, stern man who had been her husband those last few years; and then she shivered as she thought of the oath he had exacted from her, and felt that it was an order from the unseen world.
Her husband had nursed indifference into hatred, till she was as bitter against Gartram as he was himself; and years passed as the sharer of his troubles had made her so much akin that, like her husband, she was full of the bitter letter of the old Scriptures, without the under-current of the spirit of forgiveness and love.
And so it was that she sat there low in spirit, thinking of the few short hours that would elapse before friends would come and bear away the cold, stern-faced form of him who had been her all, straight to the little chapel-yard, with its rough granite walls, beyond the quarry, where he would be laid to rest, well within hearing of the waves, which would lull him in his long sleep, and near to where all day long rang out the crack of the heavy stone hammers, the ring of the tamping irons, and from time to time the sharp report and the following roar of some charge when a mass of the titanic granite was laid low.
Only a few days could elapse, she thought, before, in obedience to the new orders of a cruel master, she would have to leave the carefully kept cottage which had been her pride—the only pride to which she gave harbour in her breast.
And it would be better so, she thought. The sooner Gartram bade her turn out homeless, almost penniless in the world, the easier would be her task. It would give her fresh cause for hatred, a new stimulus for destroying the man who had caused her husband’s death.
It was hour by hour, with the dead lying so near, becoming easier to her to think of Gartram as her husband’s murderer. Isaac had with his dying lips insisted upon it that this was so, and he could not lie. The seed he had planted then was rapidly growing into a tree, and, accepting the task, she brooded over the deed she was to do, telling herself that it was to give immortal rest to him who was gone before; and once the task was accomplished, she prayed that she might soon rejoin him in the realms of bliss, and look him again in the eyes and say—“It is done.”
How was it to be?
She sat there, with a strange, lurid light in her dark eyes, thinking over the vengeance and of those of whom she had read; of how Jael slew Sisera with the hammer and nail—that deadly enemy of the chosen race. Then of Judith; and a strange exultation filled her breast, and in her weak, ignorant way she began to feel herself more and more as one selected to become the instrument of Heavens punishment upon one accursed.
“The way will be opened unto me,” she said to herself. “The way will be opened unto me, and the wicked shall perish. Yes, husband, you shall rest in peace.”
She started erect in her chair, and turned a fierce look of anger towards the door, as at that moment there was a light step, a shadow fell across the clean white stone, a sweet-toned, tremulous voice uttered her name, and there was the rustling of a dress upon the floor, while the next moment two soft arms were about her neck, her cheeks were wet with another’s tears. For Claude was kneeling by her, with her head resting on the hard, heavily-beating heart, and the girl’s broken voice fell upon her ears.
“My poor, poor Sarah! I could not come to you before. What can I do to help you? What can I say?”
Claude could not see the wild, agonised face, as she rested upon the trembling woman’s breast. There had been kindly, sympathetic, neighbourly words enough spoken to her before, but these—the words of the girl she had years before tended and loved, winning her gentle young love in return—went straight to her overcharged heart. The tears falling for her sorrow seemed to quench the burning glow of bitterness and hate, and the next moment vengeance, and the determination to execute her husband’s command, were swept away: her arms were tightening round the slight, girlish form as if it were something to which she could cling for safety, and the tears that had seemed dried up, after searing her brain, poured forth as she bent down sobbing hysterically, and in broken accents calling her visitor, “My darling bairn.”
Half-an-hour had passed, and the bitter wailing and hysterical cries had ceased, while the suffering woman’s breast heaved slowly now, like the surface of the sea quieting after a storm; but she still held Claude tightly to her, and rocked herself gently to and fro, as in bygone years she had held the girl when some trouble had brought her, motherless, and smarting from some bitter scolding, to seek for consolation and help.
The words came at last to break the silence of the solitary place.
“It was like you to come, my darling, and I shall never, never forget it. It was like you.”
“You know I would have come to you before, but poor papa has been so ill, and I dared not come away. But he is better now, and sitting up.”
The mention of Gartram seemed to harden the woman once more, and with a catching sigh she sat up rigidly in her chair. The thoughts of him who lay waiting in the next chamber brought with them the terrible scenes through which she had passed, and the scale of tenderness which Claude had borne down now rose upward to kick the beam.
“It was a terrible shock to him,” continued Claude. “You have been too full of your own trouble to know, but he was seized with a fit, and when I reached home I thought he was dead.”
The woman drew her breath hard, but did not speak; only sat frowning, her brow a maze of wrinkles, her lips drawn to a thin pink line, and her teeth set fast, gazing once more straight before her at the drawn-down blind.
“Hah!” she ejaculated at last. “It has all come to an end.”
Claude started, and looked up in the woman’s face, the words were spoken in so strange and hard a tone.
“I don’t like to talk to you about the future, and hope,” Claude said at last; “it seems such a vain kind of way to comfort any one in affliction.”
“Yes; life is all affliction,” said the woman bitterly; and she frowned now at the kneeling girl.
“No, no; you must not look at things like that, Sarah. But it is hard to bear. How well I remember coming to see your home directly you were married.”
“Don’t talk about it, child,” said the woman hoarsely.
“No, we’ll talk about something else; or will it not be kinder if I sit with you only, and stay as long as I can?”
“No,” said the woman harshly. “Rennals will take poor Isaac’s place. How soon will it be?”
“How soon?”
“Yes; how soon shall I have to turn out of my poor old home?”
“Don’t talk about it now, Sarah,” said Claude gently. “It will be terribly painful for you, I know.”
“Painful!” said the woman, with a bitter laugh, “to go out once more into the cruel world. But a way will open,” she added to herself; “the time will come.”
Her face grew more stony of aspect moment by moment, as she gazed through her nearly closed eyelids straight before her, heedless of the fact that Claude had risen from her knees, and was holding one of her hands.
“Don’t talk of the world so bitterly, Sarah, dear,” said Claude gently. “I must go now.”
“Yes,” said the woman, in a harsh voice.
“Mary is sitting with papa till I go back, or she would have come with me. She sent her kindest and most sympathetic wishes to you. She is coming to see you soon.”
“Yes,” said the woman again, in the same strange, harsh way.
“You know you have many friends and well-wishers who will be only too glad to help you.”
“Yes; Norman Gartram, whose first thought is to turn me out of the home we have shared so long.”
“Don’t be unjust, Sarah, dear. Papa speaks harshly sometimes, but he has the welfare of all his people at heart.”
“And casts me out on to the high road.”
“Nonsense, dear,” said Claude gently. “Don’t speak in that bitter way, when we are all trying so hard to soften your terrible loss. Papa’s business must go on; and Rennals, naturally, takes poor Woodham’s place. I thought it all over this morning, and I felt that you would consent.”
“To give up the house? Of course; it is not mine.”
“And would be of no use to you now.”
“No;—but a way will open to me yet,” she added to herself.
“Sarah, dear old friend, you could not live alone. You will come back to your own old place with us?”
“What?”
The woman sprang to her feet as if she had received some shock, then reeled, and would have fallen, but for Claude’s quick aid.
“I have been too sudden. I ought to have waited, but I thought it would set your mind at rest.”
“Say that again,” whispered the woman, with her eyes closed.
“There is nothing to say. Papa will agree with me that it would be best to have our dear old servant back again; and, as soon as you can, you will come.”
“No, no; no, no; it is impossible,” cried the woman, with a shudder. “I could not return.”
“You think so now; but papa will consent, and I shall insist, too. But there will be no need to insist. It will be like coming back home.”
“No, I tell you,” cried the woman excitedly; and it was as if a wild fit of delirium had suddenly attacked her. “No, no, Isaac, darling, I cannot, I dare not do this thing.”
“My poor old nurse,” said Claude affectionately; “we will not talk about it now. You must wait, and think how it will be for the best.”
“Be for the best!” she cried, in a wild strange way. “You do not know—you do not know.”
“Oh, yes; better than you do, I am sure. Come, I will leave you now. Don’t look so wildly at me. There, good-bye, dear old nurse—my dear old nurse. Kiss me, as you used when I was quite a child, and try to reconcile yourself to coming to us. It is fate.”
Claude kissed her tenderly, and then, not daring to say more, she hurried from the darkened room, to walk swiftly back, glad that the loneliness of the cliff road enabled her to let tears have their free course for a time.
Could she have seen the interior of the cottage, she would have stared in wonder and dread, for, sobbing wildly and tearing at her breast, with all the unbridled grief of one of her class, Sarah Woodham was walking hurriedly to and fro, like some imprisoned creature trying to escape from the bars which hemmed it in.
“His child,”—she cried,—“his poor, innocent child to draw me there. What did she say? It is fate. Yes, it is fate; and we are but the instruments to work His will.”
She stopped, gazing wildly towards the inner chamber, pausing irresolutely for a few moments before rushing in and flinging herself upon her knees by the dead.
It was an hour after that she came tottering out, to stand by the chair she had occupied, and by which she found a handkerchief Claude had dropped; and, catching it up, she pressed it to her lips.
“His poor, innocent child to lead me there to execute judgment on the evil doer. And I have prayed so hard—so hard—in vain—in vain. Yes, she is right. We are but instruments; and it is my fate.”
She stood with her hands pressed to her brow, as if to keep her throbbing brain from bursting its bonds. Then a strangely-weird, despairing look came across her darkening face, and she let herself sink, as if it were vain to combat more; and there was a terrible silence in the place, as she seemed to be looking forward into the future.
Once again she broke that silence as the turn of her thoughts was made manifest, but her voice sounded harsh and broken, as if the words would hardly come.
“His innocent child—the girl I loved as if she had been my own flesh and blood;” and her voice rose to a wail. Then, after a few moments’ silence: “Yes, I must go. I swore to the dead, and the way is opened now. It is my fate.”