Volume Two—Chapter Seven.
For Money’s Sake.
“Yes, fine old man,” said the doctor, as he and Glyddyr walked down the well-paved path together. “Good for any number of years.”
“In spite of the fits?”
“Oh, yes, my dear sir, in spite of the fits. They will not hurt him. Come on after any fresh excitement, and prostrate him a bit afterward, but there’s nothing much to mind.”
“But his sleeplessness? He complains a good deal of that.”
“Hum! Well, yes, that is a bad symptom. But he has his cure in his hands. He will worry himself about money, always striving to make more, when I’ll be bound to say he already has plenty.”
“So report says, doctor.”
“Oh, yes, and I daresay it’s true enough but that’s nothing to us. If he will only leave off worrying about the increase, he’ll be able to sleep well enough. But you said you would like a word with me.”
“Yes. Nothing much the matter, but I think I do want setting up a little.”
“Come into my consulting-room, and we’ll see,” said Asher, leading the way through a dainty-looking hall, full of the tasteful collections of a man who had evidently an eye for beauty, and had turned his home into quite a little museum.
“Why, doctor,” cried Glyddyr, in astonishment, “I didn’t know you had this sort of taste?”
“Indeed? Oh, yes. Regular lover of bric-à-brac, as far as my income will allow. This way.”
The next minute he had his new patient seated in a consulting-room that was the very opposite of the mausoleum-like abode of gloom into which a London physician has his patients shown.
“Take that seat, my dear sir. Don’t be alarmed; it is not an operating chair. A man who has to exist in this out-of-the-way part of the world need have some tastes. Hum, ha! pulse, tongue, heart, lungs. Look here, my dear Mr Glyddyr, I am very glad you have called upon me, or rather called in my services.”
“What?” said Glyddyr anxiously. “You find something wrong?”
“Nothing at all, my dear sir. Just the sort of patient I like. Sound as a roach; wants a dose now and then, and can afford to pay me my fees.”
“Come, you are frank,” said Glyddyr.
“Most commendable quality in a doctor, sir. You have not been living quite so regularly lately as you should. You have some anxiety on your mind, and it has upset your digestion. Then, feeling a bit low, I should say you had been drinking some bad champagne instead of an honest drop of good Scotch whisky. That’s all.”
“I say, doctor, are you a necromancer or a magician?”
“Bit of both, my dear sir. Here, I’ll begin and give you a dose at once.”
“No, hang it all, doctor, not quite so soon,” said Glyddyr, glancing at the shelves with their large array of bottles.
“Stitch in time saves nine, sir,” said the doctor, taking out his keys, opening a closet of quaint old carved oak, and bringing forth tumblers, a seltzogene, and a large, curiously-cut decanter. “There, take one third of that to two-thirds of the carbonic water, and one of these,” he continued, handing a cigar box.
“Oh, come!” said Glyddyr, laughing. “Doctor Asher, if you’ll come to town I’ll guarantee you a fortune.”
“Thank you,” said the doctor, helping himself mechanically to that which he had prescribed; and as soon as he had lit his cigar, throwing himself back in another chair. “But no, my lot seems cast here, and I don’t think I shall change. Drop of good whisky, that?”
“Delicious; but is this all the medicine I’m to have?”
“No, I’ll send you a box of pills. Take a couple now and then, and leave the champagne alone.”
“I beg pardon, sir, you are wanted at the hotel,” said the servant, after a tap at the door, from behind which she spoke without attempting to enter.
“Yes: directly.”
Glyddyr took a good sip of his whisky and water, and was in the act of rising when the doctor promptly clapped his hands on his shoulders, and pressed him back.
“No, no, my dear sir, sit still. I don’t suppose I shall be many minutes. I have a patient there who thinks he is very bad. I want to finish my cigar with you.”
He hurried out, leaving Glyddyr leaning back smoking; but, as soon as he was alone, he sat up and his eyes began to search the three rows of bottles before him, and to read the Latin inscriptions upon the drawers beneath, one of which was pulled half out.
He sat forward listening intently to the retreating step of the doctor, after which all was still as death, save the regular beat of a timepiece on the mantelpiece.
Then he threw himself back frowning, and took out his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his forehead, though the room was perfectly cool, and the window open.
“It’s madness,” he muttered; “impossible!”
He stretched out his hand, seized his glass, and gulped its contents down quickly, then, taking the decanter, poured out some more and drank that.
“Dutch courage,” he muttered, setting down the glass. “No spirit. But it’s impossible,” he said again, and he laid down his cigar, listening intently.
And yet it seemed so easy, for there before him, in the upper row, with its black letters on a gold ground, was the bottle that would do the work.
“No, no,” he said, in a husky whisper; but he rose all the same, and stood listening in the midst of a silence that seemed death-like.
“I should hear his step a minute before he could get here,” he thought; and with the mocking face of Gellow before him, and his threat, he strode across the room, looked sharply about him, and saw that in the half-opened drawer there were a number of clean phials, each with a cork fitted loosely in.
Taking one of these quickly, he drew the cork with his teeth. Then, raising his hand, he was in the act of taking down the bottle upon which he had fixed his eye, when—
Paugh!
A hoarse, braying, trumpet-like sound of stentorian power, and he started away as if he had received a blow.
“Only a confounded steam tug,” he muttered, with his face glistening with perspiration; and taking down the bottle he removed the stopper, half filled the phial, replaced the stopper and bottle, safely corked the phial, and, trembling violently now, placed the stolen liquid in his breast, just as he heard a step outside.
Quick as his trembling hands would allow him to act, he struck a light, re-lit his cigar, and sank back in his chair with a sigh of relief as the steps came nearer and nearer; still he suffered an agony of apprehension lest the doctor on his entrance should notice his agitation.
“So easy to plan and act,” thought Glyddyr, as he listened, “but so hard to retain one’s nerve.”
Another five minutes would have enabled him to recover himself, but the steps were already at the door; and as he drew in a long breath and lay back, closing his eyes, his cigar between his fingers hanging over the arm of his chair, and his head on one side in a very bad imitation of one asleep, the steps passed on.
A false alarm.
Glyddyr breathed more freely. He had time to glance round and see that he had done nothing to betray himself; the bottle was replaced, he had spilled nothing, and the phial was safe in his pocket.
He sank back again with a sigh, the cold perspiration ceased to ooze from his temples, and his pulse throbbed with less violence, as he smoked slowly, beginning now to look ahead as he felt the little phial.
He had his plan about ready as the step for which he listened was now heard approaching, and directly after the doctor entered the room.
“Five hundred apologies, Mr Glyddyr. You see what a slave a doctor is—everybody’s slave. No matter where he is or how he feels, if somebody has an ache or a pain, the doctor must go—yes, even,” he added bitterly, “if it is to face death in the form of some deadly fever; and generally, in addition to his pay, he hears that he is not clever because he could not perform impossibilities.”
“Not an enviable life, doctor.”
“Disgusting, sir, at times. Bah! what am I talking about? Don’t smoke that cigar; take another. No? Going?”
“Yes; I’ll get on board the yacht,” said Glyddyr. “I feel all the better for your prescription.”
“That’s right. Well, I shall see you again this evening.”
“And I am not to touch any of the old man’s champagne, eh?”
“We-ell,” said the doctor, with a quaint, smile, “Gartram’s wine is sure to be good, and a glass or two will not do you much harm. An exceptional case, my dear sir. A glass or two will brighten you, and put you in good key for conversation with the ladies.”
He smiled, and shook hands warmly with his new patient.
“Don’t throw me over by-and-by, Mr Glyddyr,” he said. “I have been the family doctor for some time now. There, forgive me. Very indiscreet remark of mine.”
“Nothing to forgive, my dear sir. Till this evening, then.”
“Till this evening,” said the doctor; and Glyddyr went down towards the harbour, with the doctor standing at the window watching him.
“Lucky fellow,” he said; “the old man favours it, and the girl—well, girls have to give way.”
Volume Two—Chapter Eight.
After Dinner.
“What! you again, Woodham?”
“Yes, sir,” said the woman, in her quiet, grave way. “The time soon passes. Every three hours.”
“Humph! six o’clock,” said Gartram, looking at her uneasily, as she shook up the bottle and poured out the accustomed dose.
“Bah! Filthy! Sugar.”
There was a lump laid on the little tray, and the big strong man took it as hurriedly as a schoolboy.
“Shall I bring the medicine here at nine, sir?”
“No; those gentlemen will be here smoking, perhaps. Put the next dose in the glass, and leave it on the chimney-piece. I’ll take it when I come in.”
“I beg your pardon, sir; but will you remember it?”
“Of course; if I don’t, you can remind me. I don’t want to have to be taking stuff before visitors, do I?”
Sarah Woodham shook up the medicine, poured out another glassful, placed it on the mantelpiece as directed, and left the room.
Half-an-hour later, the doctor and Glyddyr arrived together, and were received by Claude, Gartram not being quite dressed.
Five minutes later he came down and hurried into the study, taking out his key as he crossed the room.
“Hallo, little lady,” he said sharply, as he found Mary standing by the fireplace with a wine glass in her hand; “what are you doing here?”
“I was only looking round, uncle,” she said quickly, “to see that everything was left straight. You’ll have the coffee brought in here, I suppose, after dinner?”
“Yes, of course,” he said rashly; “but you ought to be in the drawing-room. What are you doing with that glass?”
“It is a dirty one, uncle,” said the girl, in a hurried manner; “I was going to take it away.”
“You please to put it back, and don’t meddle with things in my room.”
“I’m very sorry, uncle dear,” she said; and replacing the glass quickly, she hurried out of the room.
“I mustn’t forget that,” said Gartram, as he opened the cabinet in which he kept his cigars, and then joined his guests in the drawing-room.
Five minutes after, dinner was announced, and Glyddyr took in Claude, who trembled as she felt what a quiet, respectful manner he had adopted, and how it seemed to indicate a feeling of satisfied assurance that, sooner or later, she would be his.
It was impossible to be quite calm under the circumstances; but she strove hard to keep away all such thoughts, and, in her quality of mistress of the house, did the honours of the table admirably, till it was time to rise and leave the gentlemen to their wine.
“We sha’n’t sit very long, Claude,” said Gartram; “and after a cigar, we shall want some music.”
“Yes, papa,” said Claude gravely; and she moved toward the door, which Glyddyr had hurried to open, fixing his eyes upon her in a dreamy, pleading way as she went out, and making her catch Mary’s arm nervously as soon as they were alone.
“Mary, dear,” she said excitedly, “if it were not for papa’s health, I should run away to aunt’s, and stay there. This man seems so persistent, and his quiet way thoroughly frightens me.”
“Sapping and mining, instead of bold assault,” said Mary.
“Shall I ever be such a coward as to consent?”
“Bah! How do we know what may not happen long before it is time to be obliged to say yes.”
“Nothing seems likely to happen to set aside my father’s wishes,” sighed Claude.
“Ah, you don’t know. It is the unexpected which they say always happens. So we are to sing to-night?”
“Yes. Is anything the matter with you, Mary, dear?”
“With me?” was the reply, with a forced laugh. “How absurd, dear. No, of course not; nothing. Why, Claude, you are making your great eyes look goggles. You don’t think I have done anything, do you?”
“I don’t think you can be well, Mary, dear,” said Claude, taking her hand and kissing her brow; “why, your hands are cold and your forehead quite hot.”
“Of course they are. Haven’t we just had dinner?”
Claude looked at her wearily, but her cousin laughed in a quick, excited way, and crossed to the canterbury to begin turning over the music.
“They’ll soon be here now,” she said.
But there did not seem to be much prospect of the gentlemen coming, for in a very few minutes after they were left alone, Gartram passed on the claret jug.
“Wine, gentlemen,” he said. “Asher, you would prefer a glass of old port?”
“Indeed, no, my dear sir; nothing more for me. I have to ask you to excuse me soon.”
“What!” cried Gartram.
“For about half-an-hour. A patient.”
“What a nuisance!” said Gartram. “Must you go?”
“Without fail.”
“Then come in the study and have a cup of coffee and a cigar first.”
“To be sure. I am with you there.”
Gartram threw open the door; they crossed the hall and entered the study, where a shaded lamp was burning, the window, wide open, and the soft subdued light of the moon, as it rose slowly over the glistening sea, flooded the room.
“What a glorious night!” said the doctor, as he went to the table, filled a cup with coffee, and then took a cigar and cut off the end before looking round, and then walking to the chimney-piece, while Glyddyr threw himself in a chair and began to help himself.
“Give me a cup too, my dear boy,” said Gartram, as he took a cigar. “Doctor does not cut down my smoking yet. No matches?”
“All right; here they are on the chimney-piece,” said the doctor, and as he spoke the flame of the little wax match gave his face a peculiar aspect in the dim room. “But, hallo! What have we here? Secret drinking. What is this?” and, as he spoke, he took up a glass standing on the chimney-piece.
“Secret drinking, indeed!” grunted Gartram. “It’s your confounded tonic, put there ready for me to take by-and-by.”
“A thousand pardons,” said the doctor, coming forward and taking up his coffee, while Glyddyr lay back in an easy-chair, gazing at the dimly-seen glass upon the mantelpiece, and smoking thoughtfully.
“You’ve no light, Glyddyr,” said Gartram, rising and going to the chimney-piece, where, with his back to his guests, he took up the wine glass, but uttered an impatient ejaculation, set it down again, and took up the match stand, which he placed beside Glyddyr, and then tossed off his coffee. “What do you say to finishing our smoking out on the terrace?”
“To be sure; yes,” said the doctor. “A most glorious night.”
He moved with his host toward the open French window, where the two men stood for a few moments darkening the room, and looking like two huge silhouettes to Glyddyr, as he lay back in his chair with his cigar half out.
Then suddenly Gartram turned and looked at him with a peculiar smile.
“You won’t join us, I suppose?” he said.
“I—thanks—if you will excuse me,” said Glyddyr, in a faltering voice.
“Excuse you, my dear boy? of course. Come along, Asher, the sea looks lovely from the upper seat.”
Glyddyr’s whole manner changed, and grew cat-like in its quick, soft movements as the pair walked away from the window along the granite terrace, Gartram’s boots creaking loudly as they walked.
There was a death-like silence then in the room, which made Glyddyr’s long-drawn, catching breath sound strangely loud as he rose from his seat and walked silently over the thick carpet to stand listening by the window, his figure in turn looking perfectly black against the moonlight; and as he stood there, from outside there came the low murmur of the men’s voices, and from the house, all muffled, the music of the piano in the drawing-room.
With a quick, gliding movement Glyddyr walked to the chimney-piece, thrusting his hand into his breast-pocket. Then, taking up the glass, he crossed to the window, and with a quick movement threw its contents sharply away, the liquid breaking up into a tiny sparkling shower in the soft yellow moonlight, and then it was gone.
Quickly and silently Glyddyr stole back to the chimney-piece, and replaced the glass. There was a faint, squeaking noise, as of a cork being removed from a phial, then the tap of glass upon glass, a faint gurgling, and another tapping of glass upon glass, as if his hand trembled.
A low, catching sigh followed, then a repetition of the faint squeak of the cork, and Glyddyr once more moved towards the window, satisfied himself that the others were nowhere near, and then he drew back a little, extended his arm behind him, and hurled the little phial away with all his might.
There was the quick rustle and jerk of clothes, then silence; then a faint sound, and Glyddyr drew a long breath, as if of satisfaction as he felt that all had gone as he wished, and the bottle had shivered to atoms on the rocks far below, while the next tide would cover the fragments, and wash them into crevices among the granite boulders as it destroyed all trace of the contents.
Glyddyr stood thinking for a few moments, and then he gulped down his coffee, and went out into the hall, which he crossed, hesitated again for a few minutes, and then entered the drawing-room, where, as the door closed, a low fresh murmuring arose, and was succeeded a minute later by the sound of the piano and Claude’s voice, which came sweet and pure to the hall, as a portière was drawn aside, and the dark figure of Sarah Woodham came forward into the light.
She stood listening by the drawing-room door for a few minutes, and then her dress rustled softly as she went across to the study, listened, tapped lightly, turned the handle and entered, closing the door after her.
The murmur of voices came from the terrace, and the woman replaced the coffee cups on the silver tray, and was in the act of lifting it, gazing out through the open window the while, but she set the tray down again, walked to the window, listened, and then went quickly to the chimney-piece. Then there was an ejaculation that was almost a moan as she raised the glass, and then, after listening intently, she held it up to the light, uttered a piteous sigh, and crossing quickly to the tray, emptied the contents into one of the fresh-used coffee cups, and replaced the glass on the chimney-piece. Then once more there was the faint squeaking of a cork in a bottle neck, the low gurgling of fluid being poured out, the replacing of the cork; and as the woman glided to the table, where the coffee tray remained, the light of the moon shone upon her dark dress and white apron, and showed her hurried movements as she thrust a bottle into the pocket among the folds of her dress.
A low sigh once more escaped her lips, and she muttered softly as she took up the tray and left the room.
“Not more than half an hour,” said a voice, which echoed from the terrace wall, and there were approaching steps.
“Make all the haste you can. I’ll have my nap while you are gone. I say, doctor.”
“Yes,” said Asher, pausing in the moonlight by the open window.
“Don’t disturb them in the drawing-room.”
“No, no, I understand,” said the doctor; and he stepped softly into the room, smiling as he went to the table, helped himself to a cigar, bit off and spat out the end, then took up the match stand, struck a light, and walked slowly across the room as he lit his cigar, stopping for a few moments puffing heavily to get it well alight before he set down the matches in their old place.
Five minutes after, Gartram’s creaking boots were heard as he came along the terrace, entered the room, went straight to the chimney-piece, tossed off the contents of the glass, and then threw himself in an easy-chair.
“There, Master Glyddyr,” he said; “you have the field to yourself, and you will not mind my having a nap.”
Claude played well, and after a little entreaty she sang an old ballad, in a sweet low voice that would have thrilled some men, but to which Glyddyr listened in an abstracted way, as if his attention was more taken up by what was going on without.
After a time the urn was brought in, and Claude was about to rise from the piano, but Glyddyr seemed to become all at once deeply interested, and begged so very earnestly that she stayed, a duet was produced, and Mary Dillon, directly after the prelude, took the first part in a voice so clear and piercing, so birdlike in its purity and strength, that for a few moments the visitor sat gazing at her in admiration.
But he soon became abstracted again, and as the final notes of the combined voices rang out, he rose with a sigh, and walked to the window, while Claude proceeded to make the tea.
“And never said ‘thank you,’” whispered Mary. “Poor young man. He is terribly in love.”
At that moment steps were heard passing down the stone pathway toward the gate.
“Doctor Asher gone to give some poor creature physic,” said Mary merrily; and Glyddyr came slowly back toward the table.
“You will take some tea, Mr Glyddyr?” said Claude.
“I? No, thanks; I rarely take it,” he replied. “I’m afraid I am rather a burden upon you two ladies, and if you will excuse me I will go and have a chat with Mr Gartram, as he is alone.”
“I am afraid you will not find papa very conversational,” said Claude gravely. “He will be having his after-dinner nap.”
“Ah, well, I shall not disturb him. I will go and have a cigar.”
He left the room in a hurried way, and as soon as the door was closed, Mary burst into a merry fit of laughter.
“Mary!”
“Well, I can’t help it, Claude,” she said. “Oh, how grateful you ought to be to me. I have saved you from no end of love-making. Did you see how wistfully he kept on looking at us?”
“No,” said Claude, with a sigh of relief.
“But he did, dear. Talk about the language of the eye; you could read his without a dictionary. It was, ‘do go, my dear Miss Mary. I do want a tête-à-tête with Claude so very, very badly.’”
“Pray be silent, Mary.”
“Yes, dear, directly. Mute as a fish; but it was such fun to watch his pleading looks and refuse silently all his prayers—for your sake, darling. Remember that.”
“You are always good to me, Mary.”
“You don’t half know, my dear. Then, after a time, a change came over the man, and he grew cross. I could see him growling mentally, and calling me names for a little crook-backed female Richard the Third, and once I thought he was going to kick me out of the door, or throw me out of the window, for being such an idiot as to stay.”
“Mary, what nonsense you do talk.”
“It is not nonsense, dear. Uncle kept the doctor out in the garden, so that Mr Glyddyr could come and have a sweet little chat with you; and I ought to have left the room, of course, but, to oblige you, I sat here like an ice, and kept the enemy at a distance. Oh, how he must hate me!”
“Mary, dear, pray be serious.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll be serious enough, dear. There, I am solidity itself; I could not be better, I’m sure, when the enemy approaches,” she whispered, as steps were once more heard crossing the hall.
“Shall I go, dear? Perhaps I had better now.”
She rose from her seat and set down her cup, but Claude laid her hand upon the thin little arm, and motioned towards a chair.
The door opened, and Glyddyr re-entered.
“I beg your pardon,” he said; and the matter-of-fact man of the world seemed to have quite lost his ordinary aplomb, and came on in a quiet, hesitating way.
“I’m afraid I was very rude leaving you like that,” he said; “and I did not thank you for the duet.”
“We needed no thanks, Mr Glyddyr,” said Claude gravely.
“No, no, of course not,” he said. “I meant to thank you. Mr Gartram is asleep, and if you will not think me rude, I will go and sit in the study and smoke a cigar.”
“Pray do, Mr Glyddyr,” said Claude; and he once more left the room.
“Well, I couldn’t have believed it, Claudie. The lion completely tamed by love. Why, my poor darling, you’ve turned him from a sarcastic, sharp-tongued, clever London society man to a weak, hesitating lover.”
“For goodness’ sake, don’t talk like that, Mary,” cried Claude; for the picture her cousin painted seemed to her terrible. She literally shuddered at the idea of this man really loving her, and sat looking aghast before her, while Glyddyr went slowly back, so excited that the perspiration oozed from his brow, and made him unconsciously take out his pocket handkerchief to wipe the palms of his hands.
Upon the first occasion he had strung himself up and walked quickly to the study determined to carry out his plans.
“It will only be a loan,” he told himself; “only borrowing what is to be my own some day, and he would never miss it.”
Closing the door behind him, and merely glancing at the easy-chair in which Gartram lay back, with his face in the shade, and his white shirt-front standing out of the gloom like some peculiar creature, Glyddyr walked to the mantelpiece, looked at the glass; then crossed to the table, and began picking and choosing from the cigars in the box, as in a furtive way he listened to his host’s slow, heavy breathing, and wondered whether he was sufficiently sound for him to attempt to get his keys.
The breathing came very regularly, and at last, after hesitating a great deal on the selection of a cigar, he said aloud—
“Where do you get your cigars, Mr Gartram?”
No reply; only the heavy breathing.
“I said where did you get your cigars?” said Glyddyr, still more loudly.
“He must be safe,” he thought to himself; and to make sure he walked carelessly to the side of the chair, and gazed full in Gartram’s face.
“He would have winced if there had been any pretence,” he thought. And then, “Pooh! what a fool I am.”
He glanced at the table in whose drawer the keys reposed, looked at the great section of the bookcase which swung round as upon a pivot, and then he walked quickly to the window and looked out right and left, listening the while to the beating of the waves upon the rocky coast far below.
“While I am hesitating,” he thought, “I might do it. The doctor can’t be back yet, and no one is likely to come.”
There was a step outside.
He took a couple of strides, and then sharply threw himself into an easy-chair near the bookcase, and lay back in almost profound darkness, for the rays of the moon cut right across from the window, bathing the carpet with a soft light, but leaving beyond the well-defined line a deep shadow.
He had hardly taken his place when there was a faint tap at the panel of the door, the handle turned, and, silent and ghastly-looking in the gloom, Sarah Woodham came into the room, closed the door behind her, and walked across to Gartram’s chair.
Volume Two—Chapter Nine.
An Unpleasant Position.
“It’s enough to drive a man mad,” said Chris Lisle, as he sat in his room with a book in his hand, one which he had been vainly trying to read. “To think of him having the run of the Fort, and constant opportunities of being at her side. But I will not think about it.”
He settled himself back in his chair, raised the open book once more to his eyes, uttered a mocking laugh at his own expense, and threw the volume passionately across the room, for he had realised that he had been sitting there for a full hour making pretence of reading with the book upside down.
“I could not have believed that I was such a fool,” he growled fiercely; “but always with her!” he added softly, as the wearing, tormenting thought uppermost in his brain asserted itself.
“Women are naturally weak, and it is Gartram’s wish. How could I be surprised if she yielded? No, she would not; she is too firm, and I am a contemptible brute to want faith in her.”
He felt a little better after that, roundly taking himself to task; and it was like a mental stimulus; but, like the action of most stimulants, the effect was not lasting.
“It is not as if she had confessed her love for me, and promised to be my wife some day. If she had pledged herself to me, I would not have cared, but I have nothing to hold on by; and if she obeyed her father’s wishes, what right have I to complain? Oh, it will drive me mad!” he muttered, as he leaped up and paced the room.
At that moment there was a tap at the door.
“Come in!” roared Chris, as impatiently as if he had answered half-a-dozen times.
“It’s only me, Mr Lisle,” said his landlady, “and I’m sure I beg your pardon for coming in; but it does worry me so to hear you walking up and down so in such agony. Now do be advised by me, sir; I’m getting on in years, and I’ve had some experience of such things.”
“Oh, yes, yes, Mrs Sarson; but, pray, don’t bother me now.”
“Indeed, no, sir, I won’t; but though I can’t help admiring the fortitude you show, it is more than I can bear to sit in my little room and hear you walking up and down in such pain. Now mark my word, Mr Lisle, sir, it’s not toothache.”
“No, no,” he said impatiently; “it is not toothache.”
“No, sir. Which well I know. It’s what the doctors call newrallergeer.”
“My dear Mrs Sarson—”
“No, no, my dear, don’t be cross with a poor woman whose only idea is to try and do you good. No one knows what it is better than I do. I’ve had your gnawing toothache, which is bad enough for anything; but your jig, jigging newrallergeer is ten times worse, and it makes me pity you, Mr Lisle.”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs Sarson, I am greatly obliged to you, but—”
“Take my word for it, sir, ’tis your stomach, and you won’t be no better till you’ve had a tonic.”
“Nonsense, nonsense, Mrs Sarson,” cried Chris impatiently.
“No, sir, it is not nonsense, and I don’t a bit mind you being impatient with me, for it’s quite natural; but do let me ask Doctor Asher to call in.”
“No, no, no,” cried Chris, with increasing loudness and emphasis. “And now, pray, go and leave me to myself.”
The landlady sighed, and slowly left the room.
“This woman will send me crazy,” muttered Chris. “What shall I do? Go right away for a long trip, and try and forget it all.” And he went and leaned against the side of the window and looked out over the sea, thinking only of Claude seated alone with Glyddyr, listening to his words, and that, as the stone yields before the constant dropping, so would she at last.
“I must see, and will see her, and get her promise,” he said at last excitedly; and, taking his hat, he strode out of the cottage and went right out up the east glen with the intention of getting away round over the high ground by the cliffs, and continuing under the shelter of the night to go up to the Fort by the back, so as to get within the garden, and perhaps manage to call either Claude’s or Mary’s attention by creeping round to the drawing-room window.
It was a miserable, clandestine proceeding, and he felt all the nervous trepidation of a boy on his way to rob an orchard. Two or three times over he hesitated and turned to go back; but the next moment the sweet, pleading face of Claude seemed to appear before him, and that of Glyddyr mocking and triumphant.
“I can’t help it,” he cried. “I must, I will see her to-night, if it’s only for a minute.”
It was not so easy a task as he had told himself; and, as he descended the cliff towards where, on a separate little eminence cut off from the main cliff by a deep rift, the Fort stood, he noted for the first time that it was bathed in the soft yellow moonlight which rose above the sea.
This checked him for the moment, till it occurred to him that though the moon shone brightly in parts, there were plenty of spots where he could approach the place in the deep shadows; and taking advantage of the clumps of furze, and the ragged, stunted pines, which had obtained a foothold for their precarious existence here and there, he crept on and on, selecting the narrow little gully for his course, down which gurgled the tiny spring which supplied the moat with water.
“It’s easy enough,” muttered Chris, as he lowered himself down here, clung to a rock there, and managed all the time to keep in the shadow till he was at the end of the gully, where it opened on the moat, beyond which, and about fifty yards away, rose the fantastic, granite-built home of the woman he loved.
There was the moat to cross, and, beyond, the massive wall, beyond which again was the well-planted garden, with its southern wall covered with well-trained fruit trees.
It was for this part of the garden that Chris Lisle aimed, with every step of the way bringing up old remembrances of boy and girl life, and the hours he had spent in the grounds with Claude.
“And will again,” he muttered. “I am not a beggar now.”
After a glance or two at the back of the house, which he was facing, he took hold of one of the pendant boughs overhanging the moat, stepped to the very edge, and then lowered himself into the water.
It was deeper than he had anticipated, rising at once to his middle, and he paused for a moment, wondering whether he should have to swim; but fortunately, as he advanced, the depth was only increased by a few inches, and in a few seconds he had waded across, and was half dragging himself up by the ivy, half climbing to the foot of the wall, where, without thinking of what he was doing, he stood for a time to drain, the clear stream water trickling down, and forming a pool beneath the ivy at his feet.
All seemed still, and he crept through the abundant ivy to where a huge, massive buttress sloped down from the top of the wall to the rock, where the architect had studied the strength of his work as regarded the attacks of time, and not those of men who had designs upon the wealth Gartram would not trust in the banks. This buttress, when first built, might have been climbed by an active boy, while now, it was so densely coated with the ivy of many years’ growth that Chris had no difficulty in making his way to the top of the wall, where he lay down for a few moments to reconnoitre, and, finding all still, he had only to make use of the trunk of a pear-tree, whose horizontally trained bows were as easy to descend as a ladder.
He felt perfectly determined, but, all the same, a sensation of shame, mingled with dread, assailed him as he thought of how contemptible a figure he would cut if he were discovered.
That was but a momentary thought, chased away by the recollection that he was once more within the walls which held the woman he loved; and, perfectly familiar with every foot of the ground, he soon crossed the rather open part devoted to fruit-growing, and made his way to the shrubs surrounding the upper and lower lawns.
Here there were plenty of shadowy spots, among which he crept till he was brought to a standstill by the sound of steps coming along the terrace walk, and he recognised the voices at once as those of Gartram and Doctor Asher.
The hot blood flushed the young man’s face for two reasons.
If he stayed there, he would be forced to play the eavesdropper; and for the second reason, Gartram and the doctor being together, it, in all probability, meant that Glyddyr had been left alone with Claude.
At the risk of being heard, he drew back among the bushes, and crept slowly away, the voices seeming to follow him as he made from the side to the back of the house, and then in and out among the trees till he was right on the other side, where a light shone out from the drawing-room windows, and where, by a little manoeuvring, he was able to look in.
His heart beat faster as he caught sight of a black coat and the bright dress of Claude. It was just as he thought; and, unable to contain himself, he was about to cross the narrow patch of lawn, and make straight for the room, when a female figure passed the window, and he recognised Mary Dillon.
He drew a catching breath, full of relief, and remained in the shade.
Thank heaven! they were not alone.
Still, there seemed to be no opportunity for a word with Claude, and to have done what he felt he would like to do—go boldly in and speak to her—would only mean a scene with her father, and pain to her. There was nothing for it but to wait, and he remained there hidden, with his eyes fixed upon the window, and seeing, if he could not hear, much that was going on.
He heard, though, the doctor’s step, and knew when he left, his heart beating fast as he saw Glyddyr leave the room.
This was his opportunity, and he cautiously approached the window, meaning to risk all, and tap upon the pane, but before he put his plan into effect the door re-opened, and Glyddyr returned, sending Chris back among the bushes, where, unable to bear the sight of his rival in Claude’s presence, playing the part of the accepted lover, he stole off, intending to make his way round to the other side of the house, hoping that Gartram might be by this time following out a custom perfectly familiar to Chris, and having his after-dinner nap.
By means of a little scheming he contrived to get down among the bushes below the terrace in front of the study, but it was no easy task, for the cliff, in whose interstices the bushes were placed, sloped rapidly down here, and a false step or slip would have meant a fall of fifty or sixty feet.
Accustomed to rough climbing, though, as he was, he did not hesitate, and raising himself up till he could look over the edge, he was in time to see the study door open, and Sarah Woodham enter the room.
It was a little disappointing, for at the first glimpse of the woman’s dress he thought it was Claude; and, in utter ignorance of the fact that his opportunity had come, and that the ladies were now alone in the drawing-room, he remained watching for a time, and then crept slowly back, wishing that he had had the foresight to bring a note, for, had he borne one, he could easily have contrived to send it, with a pebble inside, through Claude’s open window.
Low-spirited and despondent, ready to take himself to task for coming upon so mad an expedition, he made his way cautiously back towards the garden, hesitating still as to whether he should go away, or wait about on the chance of getting a word with Claude. Common sense and manly pride advocated the return, but there was the natural desire to see the woman he loved, even if he were playing the part of a spy; and with a sigh he crept from bush to bush, keeping well in the shadowy till once more he was within range of the drawing-room window, and in the act of parting two boughs to gaze between, when there was a rustling sound, a strong hand held him by the collar, another grasped his wrist, and a deep voice said—
“I’ve got you, have I? What are you doing here?”
Stung to the quick by shame and annoyance, Chris swung himself back to make a desperate leap and escape—feeling that he had been discovered by Gartram, and like a flash the degradation and bitterness of what was to come seemed to blaze through his brain.
But there is a good old saying: Look before you leap.
Chris Lisle did not look before he leapt, and the consequence was that he went with a crash in among the elastic boughs of a short sturdy Weymouth pine, and was thrown back into his captor’s arms.
“Oh, no; you don’t,” rang in his ears, as he was borne to the ground, falling back on the grass with his face right out in the moonlight.
“Mr Lisle!”
“You, Brime!” whispered Chris huskily, as the hands were taken from his collar, and he struggled up, to stand facing the gardener.
“Why, sir, if I didn’t think it was one of them young dogs from down the harbour after the fruit. They’ve got a dinner party on, and I come out of the house and ketched sight of you. I beg your pardon, sir, I didn’t know you were asked.”
“Hush! Don’t talk so loud. No, I was not asked, Brime, but—that is—I thought I’d—I was looking at the drawing-room window.”
“I understand, sir. I see, sir; but how did you manage to get in?”
“Don’t—don’t ask me questions, man. I—there, for heaven’s sake, hold your tongue. Take this. Get yourself a glass.”
“Thankye, sir.”
“And don’t say you saw me here.”
“Oh, dear, no, sir; certainly not.”
“It was a bit of a freak, Brime,” continued Chris, feeling his cheeks burn, as he faltered and stumbled in his words, ready to bite out his own tongue at being compelled to lower himself like this to the man, as he was sure to go and chatter to the maids about how he had caught Mr Chris; and perhaps give Claude the credit of a clandestine meeting.
“Yes, sir; young gents will have their larks sometimes,” said the gardener drily, and mentally adding to himself, “Shabby beggar! Sixpence! Bound to say if it had been Mr Glider he’d ha’ made it half-a-crown.”
“I trust to your discretion, Brime. Can you let me out through the side gate?”
“Oh, yes, sir: of course. I’ve got the key in my pocket. But don’t let me interrupt you, sir, till you’ve quite done.”
“Done! What do you mean?” cried Chris in an angry whisper, as he fancied he detected a sarcastic ring in the man’s voice.
“Oh, nothing, sir. I thought perhaps you might be going to see somebody, and I’m in no hurry to go back home.”
“No, no; nonsense. I am not going to see anybody,” said Chris hurriedly. “Go on first; and look here, Brime, once more I must beg of you not to speak to any one of this meeting. It might cause trouble.”
“You may trust me, sir,” said the man sturdily.
“Thank you. Of course,” said Chris hastily, as the man led the way to a door in the thick wall of the garden, which door he opened, and Chris passed out.
“Who’d ever think as such games as that was being carried on?” muttered the gardener; “and Miss Claude all the while so prim, and looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. If it had been Miss Mary I shouldn’t have wondered, for she can be a bit larky. But he wouldn’t come to see her, poor little crooked wench. Now, I wonder what Mr Glider would say if he knowed,” continued the gardener, as he thoughtfully turned the key, and went slowly back towards the house. “There’d be a row, and I’ll bet a tanner that he’d come down handsome if I told him; and it would serve t’other right—a mean snob. Sixpence! Yah!”
He turned the coin over in his hand, and looked at it in the bright moonlight before putting it in his pocket.
“Sixpence!” he said, half aloud. “Why, I’d have given a bob myself if it had been me, and—well! That it is! Half-a-suffrin! He’s a trump, and I wouldn’t let out about it for any money.
“Why, of course!” he continued, “I might have known. So he came to see Miss Claude on the sly when the governor was asleep, and couldn’t see her because there’s company. Well, why not? He’s a good sort, that’s what he is, and if I can help him without getting into trouble with the gaffer, I will, and no mistake. Half-a-suffrin! why, that may be just like a bean as I sticks in the ground. It may come up and have lots more half-suffrins. I’m glad I come up to-night. Better than gardening ever so much, that it is. Now, if I knowed exactly when he was coming next, I might happen to be here again—by accident, of course.”
He stopped for a few minutes, thinking, and then walked slowly up towards the back entrance, musing slowly and deeply, as gardeners will muse.
“I don’t seem to move her yet much, but I’m not going to give up. Hang me if I didn’t for a moment think he might have been after her. But no; he couldn’t be. Poor lass! so quiet and serious, and full o’ trouble, just the sort o’ woman a man could trust to bring all his savings to. Now, I wonder what it is in a widow as leads a chap on so. I don’t know, but she’s leading me on, and the day as she’s been a widow twelve month, sir, I’ll speak to her like a man.”
Reuben Brime, the biggest fool in Danmouth, according to his mother, opened the back door, and went into the house just at the same moment that Doctor Asher entered up the front.
Meanwhile, Chris Lisle had walked quickly down the narrow paved stone alley leading to the main path, crossed the lower drawbridge, and, with his teeth set, felt ready to curse himself for his folly.
“The contemptible, degrading position,” he muttered. “To be under the thumb of a servant who will look at me furtively, and whom I shall have to bribe into silence for fear of his confounded tongue. Oh, my darling, forgive me. It was for your sake I came, but I must have been half-mad.”
He was walking quickly down the roadway leading to the public cliff path, so intent upon the events of the night that he was right upon some one coming in the other direction before he realised the fact, and they met just in a part where the moon shone clearly.
“Ah, Mr Lisle,” said the doctor’s cheery voice, “nice evening, isn’t it?”
He passed on, and Chris almost staggered and reeled.
“Good heaven!” he groaned to himself. “I can’t ask him, and now he will go and tell them all that he met me coming from the house. What will Claude think. What will Gartram say?”
He went on, trying to find some excuse for his presence in that private roadway, but there was none. Any one coming along there must have been up to the Fort, and he had done a bad night’s work in yielding to his passionate desire to see Claude, and hear from her lips words of encouragement such as would make the situation more bearable—a worse night’s work than he realised for some time to come.
Chris Lisle went straight back to his lodgings, for the glorious night and the glittering sea had no attraction for him now. His landlady looked at him pityingly, and longed to ask him whether he was better, but did not dare.
“Poor young man,” she said to herself, as she heard him go up to bed early; “a good night’s rest is better than balm.”
She was quite right; but Chris Lisle had neither rest nor balm, but lay in his bed all night wakeful, seeing a pale, despicable looking man discovered like a thief in the Fort garden after he had waded the moat and climbed the wall.
“I shall have to meet Gartram and face him, and listen to his sneers and insolent bullying reproaches. Oh, how could I be such a fool?”
Chris Lisle lay awake all night working up his defence, the more strongly that he felt that he now stood more upon an equality with Claude’s father; but the slip he had made troubled him sorely.
“There’s only one way out of the difficulty,” he said at last, as the sun shone brightly in through his window. “Go up to him, confess what one has done, and boldly and frankly ask him once more to give me a chance.”
There was something so refreshing in that thought, backed as it was by forty thousand pounds, that Chris Lisle turned over and went to sleep.
But it might have been because he was utterly tired out.
Volume Two—Chapter Ten.
Parry Glyddyr is Unwell.
Doctor Asher did not go straight up to the Fort and tell every one that he had seen Chris Lisle coming down from the house. In fact, he hardly gave the meeting a second thought, for his mind was full of other matters.
“Well, young ladies,” he said cheerily, “all alone? I hope I am not too late for a cup of the boon. No? That’s right. Bless the man who first brought tea from China—the deliciously refreshing beverage we drink out of china, eh, Miss Dillon?”
“But you always have it in china, Doctor Asher,” said Mary quaintly.
“No, no, no, no, no,” said the doctor, smiling, as he tapped his cup with his spoon. “I am not going to be inveigled into a chop-logic or punning encounter with you, my dear, because I should be beaten. Come, now, if you want an argument, step on to my ground and give a poor man a chance. Now, what is your opinion of the effect of a vegetable alkaloid on the digestive function?”
“A very poor one,” said Mary quietly. “Can’t argue.”
“Ah, well, but you can sing. Will you?”
“If you wish me to.”
“If I wish you, eh,” said the doctor. “You know I do. But where is Mr Glyddyr? Gone.”
“He went to smoke in the study,” said Claude quietly.
The doctor turned round sharply.
“To burn vegetable alkaloid for his digestive function,” said Mary.
At that moment there was a step in the hall, and Glyddyr came in, looking rather sallow.
“Just in time, Mr Glyddyr,” said the doctor; “we are going to have a song.”
“Indeed?” said Glyddyr. “I am very glad.”
“When I marry—that is, if I marry,” said the doctor—“What delicious tea. A little too strong. Miss Gartram, would you kindly—a drop of milk—I mean cream. Thanks. What was I saying? Oh! I remember. When I marry—if I marry—I shall ask a lady who is a clever musician to share my lot. By the way, is Mr Gartram coming?”
“Sound asleep still,” said Glyddyr quickly. “I spoke to him when I finished my cigar, but he didn’t reply.”
“Not well, Mr Glyddyr?” said the doctor, between two sips of his tea.
“Well, really, to be frank,” said Glyddyr hastily, “I don’t think I am quite the thing. That last cigar was of a peculiar brand, I suppose, one I was not accustomed to; and if you will excuse me, Miss Gartram, I will say good-night.”
“Let me prescribe. A cup of strong coffee, or a liqueur of brandy. Miss Gartram, may I ring?”
“I will go and see that they are brought in,” said Mary, leaving the piano, where she was arranging a piece of music.
“No, no; I beg you will not,” said Glyddyr. “I’ll walk down to the harbour in the fresh night air. My men will be waiting. I said ten—they must be there now. Better soon.”
“Mr Gartram does have some strong cigars,” said the doctor quietly. “Singular that nicotine from one leaf affects you more than another.”
“I am sorry you feel unwell, Mr Glyddyr,” said Claude, in the most matter-of-fact tone.
“Mere trifle—nothing. Most absurd in me.”
“Pray let me ring for the spirit stand.”
“Indeed, no. Good-night—good-night, Miss Dillon. I’m going to be independent of you, Doctor Asher. Good-night.”
“Smokes too much, I’m afraid,” said the doctor, as the door was closed on Glyddyr’s retreating figure. “Seems unnerved. I shall be called upon to prescribe for him, only I’m afraid that you would quarrel with my medicine, Miss Gartram.”
“I?” said Claude quickly.
“I am afraid I have been indiscreet. Elderly men will presume upon their years, my dear Miss Gartram, and think that they have a right to banter young ladies. I was only going to say that my prescription would be, go away for a good long sea trip.”
“Is not papa sleeping an unusually long time, Mary?” said Claude, ignoring the doctor’s remark, as she proceeded to refill his cup.
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Mary; “I’ll go and see.”
She left the room, and Claude at once turned to the doctor.
“Do you think papa is acting rightly about the medicine he takes?”
Asher raised his eyebrows, and gave his shoulders a slight shrug.
“It makes me terribly uneasy,” said Claude. “Of course, I know very little about these matters, but I have naturally learned how the use of narcotics grows upon those who indulge in them; and papa seems to fly more and more to that chloral.”
The doctor pursed up his lips in the most professional way.
“Really, my dear young lady,” he said, “you are, to speak vulgarly, putting me in a corner.”
“Pray do not trifle with me, doctor. You cannot think how I suffer.”
“I will be perfectly frank with you, my child. No he is not acting rightly, and the use of this drug is doing him harm.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Claude; and then, with eyes flashing and an indignant look, “How can you let him go on taking it, then?”
“Because I cannot help myself, my dear madam; and as I have before observed, it is better that he should take it under my supervision than left to himself, though even now I am helpless. I prescribe certain quantities, but I cannot prevent his taking more.”
“But why don’t you tell him that it is bad for him?”
“I have done so a score of times.”
“And what does he say?”
“That I am a fool, and am to mind my own business.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Claude, with the troubled look in her face increasing.
“He tells me plainly that if I do not choose to go on attending him as he wishes, he will call in some one else. My dear Miss Gartram, your father is not a man to drive; he always insists on holding the reins himself.”
“But, Doctor Asher, cannot anything be done?”
“I am doing all that is possible, my dear. I am giving him tonic medicine with the idea of counteracting any evil produced by the sedative dose he takes. If you can suggest a better line to pursue, pray let me hear it.”
“No, no,” said Claude sadly; “I am very ignorant and helpless. Does he really require this medicine?”
“Yes, and no, my child. He suffers terribly from insomnia, and nothing can be worse for a weary man than to be lying sleepless, night after night. It is a serious complaint.”
“Yes,” sighed Claude.
“He must have sleep, and to my mind the chloral seems the best thing to get it.”
“But you said yes and no, doctor?”
“I did. Well, then, no. Your father does not require this medicine if he will only change his course of life.”
Claude sighed.
“Do you wish me to speak plainly as your friend?”
“Yes; of course.”
“Then here is the case. All this insomnia is the consequence of an over-excited brain. Your father has certain ideas, and unfortunately they grow upon him. He has struggled hard to be rich. Now, of course, I know very little about his affairs, but everything points to the fact that he is a very rich man.”
“Yes,” sighed Claude; “he is, I think, very rich.”
“We will take it to be so. Well, then, why cannot he be content, and not be constantly striving for more?” Claude sighed again.
“I like money, wealth, power, and the rest of it; and I could go into London, say, and work up a prosperous practice; but I am happy here, with just enough for my needs; so I say to myself, ‘why should I stir?’”
“You are right, doctor. But my father’s case—what can we do?”
“I’ll tell you. Let me have your co-operation more. I want him weaned from this hunt for wealth; and the only way to achieve this is for you and your cousin to give way to him in everything. Never thwart him, for fear of bringing on one of those terrible fits.”
“I will try in every way,” replied Claude.
“Any opposition to his will would be seriously hurtful. Then, as to his life, it really rests with you to wean him in every way from his present pursuits. Company, visits, travel, anything to diver his attention from the constant struggle for more of the sordid dross.”
“But if you told him all this, doctor? I feel so helpless.”
“I have told him again and again, without success, but if we all combine more and more to keep up the pressure, we may win at last.”
“And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime we can quiet our consciences with the knowledge that we are doing what is right.”
“Fast asleep, dear,” said Mary, entering the room just then; and Claude directed an uneasy look at the doctor.
“Papa does not often sleep so long as this,” said Claude, after an uneasy interval.
“But it seemed a pity to disturb him,” replied Mary, and the doctor bent his head gravely. “He seemed to be so comfortable. Woodham was there when I went in. She had been shutting the window, as it was growing chilly.”
“Quite right,” said the doctor.
“She said she had been in before to remove the coffee cups; and I waited some time to see if he would wake, but, as he did not, I came away. That’s what is the matter with uncle.”
The doctor looked round sharply.
“Sleeping in the day time, and in the evenings. Why doesn’t he save it all up till night?”
They sat a few minutes longer, and then, unable to keep back the feeling of uneasiness which troubled her, Claude rose, excused herself, and left the drawing-room to see if her father was awake.
“Still asleep?” said Mary, as she returned.
“Yes,” said Claude, looking in a troubled way from one to the other; but the doctor seemed to be so very calm that she felt ashamed of the uneasy sensation which was troubling her, and, telling herself that she was foolishly nervous, she joined in the conversation. Then Mary sang a song, which the doctor insisted upon being repeated.
“I always felt and said that if ever I married it would be a lady with a charming voice.”
“Well,” said Mary sharply, “every one says I have a charming voice.”
“You have indeed,” said the doctor enthusiastically.
“I need have something charming about me by way of compensation,” cried Mary, as she made a grimace. “Perhaps, Doctor Asher, you had better propose for me.”
“Mary!” exclaimed Claude, flushing up to the roots of her hair.
“I don’t mean it, dear,” said Mary demurely. “The tongue is an unruly member, you know.”
“Well,” said the doctor, as he leaned back in his chair, with his eyes half closed, “some young ladies do not object to marrying a man thirty years their senior. Why not?”
“Shall I stand up and walk round, so that you may see all my graces and action?” said Mary banteringly.
“A young man looks at the outward graces of form and complexion,” said the doctor gravely; “a man of my age looks for those of the mind. He wants a companion who can talk.”
“Oh, I can talk,” said Mary merrily; “can’t I, Claude?”
“Mary, dear, I must request that you will not speak like this,” said Claude, very gravely. “You hurt me; and would you mind going in again and seeing if papa is awake.”
“Are you going to send me to bed, too, for being a naughty girl?” said Mary, rising.
Claude made no reply, but there was a good deal conveyed in her intent gaze, which for that moment Mary seemed to resent; but directly after her bright eyes beamed upon her cousin, and she passed close behind her chair, giving her an affectionate tap on the shoulder as she passed.
As she reached the door she turned, and there was a merry, yet half-pathetic look in her eyes as she said quickly—
“No, thank you, Doctor Asher, I am a kind of lay nun.”
“Mary says a great deal sometimes that she does not mean,” said Claude quickly. “But as papa does not seem to come, you would like a little seltzer water and the spirits, would you not?”
“I? No, no, my dear child, no,” said the doctor, taking out his watch. “I do take these things sometimes for sociability’s sake, but I always avoid them if I can, and I have a good opportunity here. Eleven o’clock. How the time flies. I must be off.”
“Pray don’t say no because the spirits are not in the room.”
“Believe me, I am so old a friend now, that I should not scruple to ask for them if I was so disposed.—Hah! Yes, that is one of the things which teach us that we are growing old.”
“I do not understand you.”
“I meant your cousin’s acuteness; when a man is about fifty, young ladies consider him a safe mark for their shafts.”
“Don’t think that, Doctor Asher. There is no malice in my dear cousin, but her deformity has caused her to be petted and indulged. She has not had a mother’s constant care.”
“Neither have you, my child.”
“No,” said Claude quietly; “but believe me, my cousin would be deeply grieved if she knew that she had said—Yes. What’s the matter? Papa?”
Claude had started from her chair, for, after giving a sharp tap at the door, Sarah Woodham had entered, looking ghastly, her dark eyes so widely open that they showed a white ring about the iris, her lips apart, and her hands convulsively twisting and tearing the apron she held out before her.
“Master, my dear. He frightens me.”
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the doctor quickly, as he rose perfectly cool and collected, and followed Claude out of the room, while, as the door swung to, the woman uttered a hoarse, panting sound, threw herself upon her knees, and clasping her hands together, she rocked herself to and fro.
“Oh, Isaac! husband!” she moaned, “it is too terrible. Heaven help me! Why did I come here?”
“Mary! Papa!” cried Claude, as she ran into the study, followed by the doctor.
“Hush! Don’t be alarmed,” said Mary. “I only thought that he was not breathing quite so naturally as he should, and I sent Woodham to fetch you.”
Claude flew to her father’s side, and caught his hand, looking intently in his face and then inquiringly at the doctor, who advanced in a calm, professional way, removed the lamp shade, drew the light so that it would fall upon the patient’s face, proceeded to feel his pulse, and then opened his eyelid to gaze attentively in the pupil.
“Quick, tell me!” cried Claude, in an excited whisper; “is it another fit?”
“No,” said the doctor gravely. “Be calm and quiet. I should like him to wake up naturally. There is nothing to mind.”
Claude uttered a sigh of relief, and closed her eyes for a few moments.
“What is the matter?” she said then.
“I am not sure yet, but I fear that it is what we said—an overdose.”
“Oh, Doctor Asher!”
“Hush, my child; don’t be agitated. There, he will sleep more easily now,” he continued, as he unfastened the insensible man’s collar and drew off his tie.
“You are not deceiving me?”
“Deceiving you?” said the doctor reproachfully.
“Can I do anything, ma’am?” said Woodham, softly entering the room.
“No, I think; nothing,” said the doctor thoughtfully. “I am very glad I had not gone.”
“Then you think—there is danger?”
“Danger? No, no, my dear child. There, let him rest. Miss Dillon, will you draw back that lamp and replace the shade? That’s it. Better let him sleep it off quietly.”
Woodham quickly raised the lamp and set it down in its old place, while Mary carefully put on the shade, with the effect that the room was once more gloomy of aspect, save where the bright light was condensed upon the table.
As soon as this was done, Claude looked appealingly in the doctor’s face, her eyes seeming to ask—What next?
The question was so plainly expressed that Asher said, with a smile—
“What next? Oh, we must let him sleep it off. I don’t suppose that he will be very long before he wakes.”
Claude’s hands seemed to go naturally together, and she passed one over the other, while Sarah Woodham stood gazing intently at Gartram, and a curious shudder ran through her from time to time.
“But, Doctor Asher,” said Claude at last, “I do feel so helpless—so lonely. I—”
“Oh, come, come,” cried the doctor encouragingly; “don’t look at it so seriously. It is a heavy sleep, and may last for hours. I’ll stop for a bit, and then come in quite early in the morning. Perhaps it would be as well for somebody to sit up.”
Claude tried to speak, but she could not. She laid her hand upon the doctor’s arm, and stood, with her lip quivering, gazing down at her father till she could command her voice, and then she whispered huskily,—
“Don’t go.”
She could say no more, but stood looking appealingly in his eyes.
“You mean stay till he wakes?”
She nodded quickly.
“Oh, certainly, if you wish it; but I ought to tell you that I hardly think it necessary.”
“I do wish it,” said Claude. “Do not you. Mary?”
“Yes.”
“By all means.”
“I will sit with you. Mary, too, will keep us company.”
“No, no,” said the doctor in a whisper, “there is no need for that. If I stay, it is with the understanding that you both go to bed.”
Sarah Woodham was standing back in the shadow, but she appeared to be listening eagerly to every word.
“But we should make it less dull for you,” pleaded Claude.
“I am never dull when I sit up with a sick person,” said the doctor didactically. “These are my hours for study of my patient. No, no; if I am to stay it is as the doctor—the master of the situation. You will go to bed.”
“But you will want refreshments—somebody within call.”
“To be sure, and there will be our old friend Mrs Woodham. You will sit up?”
“Yes, sir, of course,” said the woman eagerly.
“That’s right. Now, then, ladies, if you please, we must have utter silence till Mr Gartram wakes.”
Claude sighed, but she bowed her head, and turned to leave the room with Mary; but as she reached the door, she hurried back to where her father was seated, and bent over him to kiss his forehead.
“Must I go, doctor?” she whispered.
“Certainly,” he said quietly.
“But if he seems worse, you would have me called?”
“Directly.”
The two girls left the room, Claude beckoning to Sarah Woodham, who followed them out.
“You will make coffee for Doctor Asher.”
“Yes, ma’am, of course.”
“Go back and ask him when he would like it brought to him; and, Sarah, you will come and tell me how papa is. I shall not undress—only lie down.”
“You may depend on me, Miss Claude.”
“But you—is anything the matter? You look so ill.”
“I was a bit startled at master’s way of breathing, my dear. I thought he was going to be much worse.”
Claude went back into the drawing-room with Mary Dillon, neither of them noticing how wild and excited the servant grew, and a few minutes after they went slowly upstairs to Claude’s room.
Sarah Woodham softly retraced her steps to the study, tapped gently, and the door was opened by the doctor, who stood in the opening, book in hand.
“When will I have coffee? Oh, about four o’clock. I have only just had tea. Go and lie down somewhere within call—where I can find you.”
“I am not sleepy, sir.”
“No; but you may be by-and-by. Go and lie down on the sofa in the dining-room, I can easily find you there. Why, my good woman, you look ghastly.”
Sarah Woodham shrank away.
“Don’t disturb me till I ring. No: I’ll come for you. Sleep is the best thing for him.”
“Sleep is the best thing for him,” said Sarah Woodham in a hoarse whisper, as she went slowly back into the hall, and then into the servants’ quarters, from whence, after a few minutes, she returned to go about in a silent way like a dark shadow, closing and fastening doors, before listening for awhile on the study mat, and then going into the dining-room, where she seated herself on one of the chairs, resting her chin upon her hands, and gazing straight before her in the darkness. Then for a time all was still, save a low sigh, almost like a moan, which came from the suffering woman’s breast, followed by a shiver and a start, for it was as if the hand of the dead had just been laid upon her shoulder.