Rupert Godwin

SILENCED.

After the discovery of the deadly nature of that draught which Rupert Godwin had attempted to administer to the unconscious invalid, a dull stupor seemed to take possession of Julia’s mind.

The horror of her thoughts was too terrible for endurance. The brain almost gave way beneath its burden. The heart which until now had throbbed with love for this guilty father was well-nigh broken by the knowledge of his crime.

“A secret assassin—a midnight poisoner!” thought the miserable girl, as she brooded over the events of the past few days. “Had his crime been of any other nature, had his guilt been the consequence of a moment’s violence, the fatal act of sudden rage, I could have pitied and forgiven him. But how can I pity the criminal whose treachery hides itself beneath a smile?”

She paced up and down the room, her hands clasped before her face, maddened by the thoughts which distracted her over-tasked brain.

“And all my life, all my life, I shall have to keep this hideous secret hidden in my breast! Day after day I shall see my father smiling upon people who, were I to reveal what I know, would think the story of that night the wild delusion of a maniac. I can understand now why my brother could never be happy in this house—why there was always a gulf between him and my father, a yawning gulf of distrust that was almost hatred. My brother’s instinct revealed to him that fatal truth, to which my love has blinded me. He saw that my father was unworthy of a son’s affection, and he ran away from a home whose atmosphere was hateful to him. He knew what I could not understand. He knew that it was the stifling atmosphere of falsehood and hypocrisy.”

All that day Julia remained in her own apartments. Mrs. Melville came to her and entreated to be admitted; but the girl was inflexible, and refused to see anyone.

“I am suffering from a headache,” she said, opening the door a little way, in order to speak to the widow, “and all I want is undisturbed quiet. My brain has been over-excited by the anxiety of the past few days. Pray do not ask to see me, dear Mrs. Melville. I shall be infinitely better if you leave me quite alone.”

The widow was really alarmed by her charge’s conduct. She went straight to Mr. Godwin’s study, and informed him of what had passed.

But, to her surprise, she found the banker almost indifferent upon the subject of his daughter’s illness. This man, who was known to be so fond and devoted a father, seemed to-day as if he scarcely understood the communication that was made to him respecting his idolized child.

“She is ill, you say?” he muttered impatiently. “Yes, yes; I thought she seemed ill this morning when I saw her. I don’t wonder. Her mind seemed affected, I fancied. I begin to fear that the fever from which Mr. Wilton is suffering is contagious. I shall take Julia to Brighton with me to-night.”

“I should imagine it would be very wise to do so. The dear girl is far too sensitive to be exposed to the excitement and anxiety of a sick-house,” answered the lady. “I will go at once and make arrangements for the journey. You will require me to accompany you, I conclude, Mr. Godwin?”

“No!” exclaimed the banker, turning upon her almost angrily; “I shall require no one. You were asking me the other day for permission to pay a visit to some friends in town. I give you that permission now, and I will write you a cheque for a half year’s salary in advance, if you wish it. My daughter and I will go alone to Brighton, and this house will be shut up and left in the care of Mrs. Beckson.”

“And Mr. Wilton?” asked Mrs. Melville wonderingly.

“Mr. Wilton’s comfort and safety will be provided for,” answered Rupert Godwin impatiently. “And now, Mrs. Melville, I must wish you good morning. I am very busy.”

The banker had been standing all this time at the door of his study. He closed it now, leaving Mrs. Melville bewildered by the strangeness of his manner.

Her bewilderment would have been even greater, had she seen him standing in the centre of the room, with his hands clasped about his head, staring vacantly at the floor.

“The net is closing round me,” he muttered; “it’s closing round me. The meshes gather about me thicker and thicker—the web grows tighter; and I shall find myself all at once bound hand and foot without hope of escape. My daughter suspects me. How or why she has learnt to do so, I cannot conceive; but she suspects. Another spy, whose lips must be sealed; another creature whose every word I must fear! Surely she would not betray me! No, no; she would not betray the father whom she has loved, unless the hideous secret escaped her in the ravings of delirium. I have to guard against that danger as well as every other. O, what a life!—what a life! The hand of the avenger is upon me: it pushes me on to wade yet deeper in guilt; but at the end of all what do I see? Security? No; there is no security for the wretch whose secret is once known to any mortal but himself.”

Then, after a pause of blank terror and dismay, Rupert Godwin lifted his head with an impetuous and defiant gesture.

“Bah!” he exclaimed; “I am a coward and a fool to-day. What was my intellect given me for, if not to triumph over meaner men? The world is still with me. The dupes and fools still trust the wealthy banker. Who would believe Rupert Godwin is an assassin—a thief—a baffled poisoner? No; I will not despair because that young man has fathomed the secret of his father’s murder—I will not despair even though my own daughter suspects my guilt. The odds may be against me; but if the game is to be a desperate one, I will not throw away a single chance.”

A servant opened the door of the library. In a moment Rupert Godwin’s brow cleared. He was himself again; or rather, he resumed once more that false and smiling semblance which he presented to the world.

“Well?” he demanded. “Are those two gentlemen here?”

“They are, sir,” answered the servant, ushering in two gentlemen.

One was Mr. Granger, the doctor from Hertford; the other was a little fat man, with a pale flabby face and sandy hair. There was a cunning expression in his reddish-brown eyes, and a physiognomist would have perceived the signs of a brutal and cruel nature in the low receding forehead, the thick lips and massive jaws.

This pale-faced, sandy-haired man wore the orthodox costume of a medical practitioner, and exhibited that expanse of spotless cambric which is generally supposed to be the outward indication of that highly-prized grace—respectability. He seated himself opposite Mr. Godwin, while the Hertford surgeon stood near the window.

The sandy-haired man called himself Doctor Wilderson Snaffley, and he was the proprietor of a private lunatic asylum, on which he had bestowed the romantic appellation of “The Retreat.” He had published several pamphlets on the efficacy of a paternal indulgence in the treatment of lunatics—pamphlets in which the pages quite bristled with Latin quotations.

“I little thought, when I saw your advertisement in the Times some weeks ago, that I should ever be under the necessity of appealing to you for assistance, Dr. Snaffley,” said Rupert Godwin; “but I regret to tell you that I do require your services. A young man, who is a kind of protégé of my daughter’s, something of an artist, employed out of charity to mount some drawings of my son’s, has been seized with a fever, under which his mind seems entirely to have given way. Mr. Granger will tell you that he has been treating this young man for fever only; but the malady appears to have its seat in the mind, or at least mainly there. He has therefore come to the conclusion that this is a case requiring quite another course of treatment—he has come to the conclusion that this unhappy young man is mad.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Godwin,” interposed the surgeon; “but I must remind you that the suggestion of madness first came from you.”

“Did it?” asked the banker carelessly. “Well, it may be so—my memory is not quite clear upon that point. The first direct suggestion may have come from me. You medical men only deal in hints and innuendos. You are so abominably cautious. Indirectly you suggested the idea of mental disease; for I have been much too busy to give this unfortunate young man’s case any serious consideration.”

“Certainly, certainly,” said Dr. Snaffley, in a slow ponderous way, which, like his spotless shirt-front, seemed indicative of extreme respectability—a kind of social solidity. “Your duties, sir, are no doubt multifarious. We are aware of the onerous duties of such a position as yours, Mr. Godwin.”

“You are very good,” replied the banker. “But, however busy I may be, I must see that this young man is properly cared for. It is quite clear to my mind that he is mad. There seems no doubt as to the lamentable fact. Whether there is hereditary madness in this case I know not; for the unhappy young man is a mere waif, without friends or connections, so far as I can understand, and quite penniless. I know nothing of his past history; I only know that my daughter picked him up, almost starving, at a printseller’s in Regent-street, where he was offering some drawings for sale, and that he has been employed in this house ever since.”

“Very creditable to Miss Godwin’s benevolent nature, I am sure,” murmured Dr. Snaffley.

“Under ordinary circumstances, this young man would of course be handed over to the proper authorities, to be treated as a pauper lunatic. But I cannot suffer that. My daughter has chosen to undertake a work of benevolence—the rescue of a fellow-creature from destitution and despair. Whatever the cost to myself, I am bound to carry out that work to its furthest limit; so if this young man’s mind is indeed gone, as I regret to say I believe it is, I am prepared to place him under your care, Dr. Snaffley, and to offer you whatever remuneration you may think fair and liberal.”

The doctor bowed. His cunning brown eyes twinkled with gratification at having secured another inmate for that peaceful and delightful home which he called the Retreat; but he dropped his eyelids, and affected disinterested feeling.

“I am ready to serve you, Mr. Godwin,” he said; “and in serving you it is very pleasant to serve also the cause of humanity. Your noble offer to protect this friendless young man is indeed worthy of a Christian. Let me see him. My friend here, Mr. Granger, is prepared to give a certificate, I believe.”

“Yes,” answered the surgeon, shaking his head mournfully; “I am really very sorry, but I am afraid there is no doubt about the case—the young man is mad. That rooted delusion, that morbid idea about an imaginary murder, can only result from madness. The fever has been got under, but the hallucination still remains. There are all the symptoms of insanity.”

Rupert Godwin sighed heavily.

“It is very sad,” he said. “My poor Julia will feel it deeply, for she had such a high opinion of the unfortunate young man’s talents. I trust that you will bring the calmest deliberation to bear upon this case, gentlemen, and that you will decide nothing hastily.”

The banker rang a bell, and ordered a servant to conduct the two medical men to the invalid’s apartment.

The two men left him—one impressed with the generosity of his employer, the other delighted at the promise of profit.

Dr. Wilderson Snaffley was an unprincipled adventurer, who was a disgrace to the science which he made subservient to his own schemes. He was a man who throughout his life had enriched himself by preying upon the weakness, or trading upon the wickedness of his fellow-men. The Retreat was a kind of tomb, in which guilty secrets could be very easily hidden; and some of the mysteries buried within those dismal walls were terrible ones.

Dr. Snaffley was the last man to be deceived by hypocrisy, for he was himself an accomplished hypocrite. He penetrated the pretence of generosity beneath which Rupert Godwin sought to conceal his real purpose, and he perceived that there was some mysterious reason for the banker’s benevolence towards a stranger.

“I understand,” he thought, as he followed the servant upstairs. “I have only to keep quiet, and I may make this business very profitable. One thing is perfectly clear: Mr. Godwin wants to get rid of his young friend.”

Dr. Snaffley entered the room, while his fellow-practitioner waited in an adjoining apartment.

Lionel Westford was lying in an uneasy slumber; but he was awakened by the entrance of the doctor, and opened his eyes in a wild, wondering stare.

The proprietor of the Retreat seated himself in an easy-chair by the bed, and laid his hand softly on the wrist of the invalid.

Lionel looked at him, and then turned away, murmuring some low incoherent words. The doctor bent over him, listening intently; but the young man’s mind had gone back to the scenes of his early youth. He fancied himself a student once more, amidst light-hearted companions—now at a boat-race, now at a wine-party. His feeble voice had a strangely melancholy sound as it strove to shape itself into a jovial shout or a cry of triumph.

“Brazenose wins!” he cried; “ten to one upon Brazenose! Bravo! Brazenose!”

The doctor knew that his patient was acting over again the scenes of a University career.

“Ha, ha!” thought he; “this nameless, friendless, penniless young man has been educated at one of the Universities. That looks rather strange, Mr. Godwin. We shall find out something more by-and-by.”

He kept his place by the bedside, listening intently to Lionel’s half-broken words.

Presently the young man started up from his pillow, erect as a dart.

“Murdered!” he cried. “My poor father—my brave, noble-hearted father, murdered by the hand of a villain, in the cellars below the northern wing!”

Dr. Wilderson Snaffley’s flabby face was always pale, but it grew livid as he listened to these words.

“The cellars below the northern wing,” he muttered; “why, the man is talking of this house! I knew that there was a mystery. Murder! That’s a big word. So, Mr. Godwin, you seem to want my services very badly. People do not send their friends to the Retreat for nothing. A private madhouse is rather expensive—an expensive luxury; but when people want to get rid of a troublesome acquaintance, they don’t mind coming down handsomely.”

Again the doctor bent over the patient, and listened breathlessly. The young man had fallen back upon his pillow, and lay prostrate and exhausted. For some time the silence was only broken by incoherent murmurs; and then Lionel spoke once more of the northern wing, the cellar-stairs, the foul deed that had been done in that accursed spot—all in broken sentences; but the doctor had been accustomed to listen to the ravings of a maniac, and he knew how to put those broken phrases together.

“My father’s blood!” exclaimed Lionel, in a hoarse whisper. “Yes, father, I saw the traces of that blood spilt by a murderer’s hand. But the crime shall not go unpunished. Yes; your son shall track that guilty wretch to the gallows. Rupert Godwin—Rupert—her father!”

It was such broken sentences as these which Dr. Wilderson Snaffley heard as he bent over the prostrate form of the invalid. He saw that Lionel Westford was suffering from brain-fever, and that his mind was distracted by the memory of some deed, the discovery of which had been the chief cause of his illness.

The proprietor of the Retreat was able to discover what the simple Hertford surgeon had been utterly unable to understand; for to him the idea of any guilty deed done by Rupert Godwin seemed so utterly preposterous, that he attributed Lionel’s persistent accusations to the ravings of insanity.

Dr. Wilderson Snaffley had made a fortune by the crimes of other men; and he was only familiar with the darkest and most hideous side of human nature. He was ready to believe anything. Cunning, false, designing, he knew how to turn guilty secrets to his own advantage without betraying his knowledge of them.

He went downstairs presently, leaving his fellow-practitioner to enter the sick-chamber alone, and form his unbiassed opinion as to the condition of the patient.

Dr. Snaffley found Rupert Godwin in his study. By no look or gesture did the banker betray impatience or uneasiness; and yet the doctor knew very well that he was both impatient and uneasy.

“Well, doctor,” he said, “is there any hope for this poor young man?”

The doctor shrugged his shoulders and pursed his lips.

“It is a very difficult case,” he said; “a most critical case. I never met one at all resembling it. I can only see one chance of cure, and that is very hazardous.”

“What is the nature of this one chance?”

“I will tell you. This young man appears to be possessed with a monomania—a single delusion. Once dispel that, and you may restore the brain to its balance. Our patient has formed some idea about the cellars below the northern wing of this house. Your servants have told him some ghastly legend, I suppose, and he has dwelt so long upon its details, that his imagination has become completely distempered by queer fancies. Now, what I think is this: Why not attempt to cure him by proving to him the absurdity of his delusion? He fancies that a murder has been committed in one of the rooms, or in one of the cellars, belonging to the northern wing. Have a public investigation of those rooms and cellars. Call in the assistance of the police, and let them search for traces of this imaginary murder. If there has been any foul deed done there, the secret of it will be brought to light, and that would, of course, be a satisfaction to you, as owner of this house. If not—if this horrible story is only the invention of a distempered brain, there is every chance that, when the young man has witnessed a practical investigation, he will see how foolish his fancies have been, and the balance of the mind will be restored.”

Throughout this speech Wilderson Snaffley had kept his eyes fixed upon the banker’s face. When he had finished speaking, Rupert Godwin shrugged his shoulders disdainfully.

“My dear Doctor Snaffley,” he said, “I begin to think that madhouse physicians do indeed catch a little of their patients’ disease. Can you for a moment imagine that any revelation of the groundlessness of this unhappy young man’s fancies will dispel them, and restore him to reason? What arguments can ever induce the ghost-seer to disbelieve in his phantom? No; he believes to the end, and perhaps dies a victim to the visitations of a shadow which he conjures out of his own brain.”

“Then you will not attempt my plan? You will not cause any investigation of the grounds for this man’s story?”

“There are no grounds. No, Doctor Snaffley. Cure your patient if you can; but you must devise some better means than this before you will cure him.”

“Be it so, then,” answered the proprietor of the Retreat, still watching the face of the banker with a fixed and searching gaze. “Be it so. I am prepared to certify to this young man’s insanity; and I am willing to take him under my charge, and to keep him in my establishment, pledging myself to ensure his safe keeping. I am willing to do this; but I shall expect a liberal compensation for my trouble.”

“Name your terms.”

“Five hundred a year.”

“Humph!” muttered the banker. “Are not those absurdly extravagant terms, taking into consideration the position of the patient?”

“No, Mr. Godwin; the terms are not by any means extravagant, taking into consideration the nature of the case,” answered Doctor Wilderson Snaffley.

The two men looked at each other. It was only for a moment that their eyes met; but Rupert Godwin knew that his secret was divined by the doctor.

“Agreed,” said the banker; “I accept your terms.”

At ten o’clock that night Lionel Westford was removed from Wilmingdon Hall to the Retreat, which was situated in a very lonely part of the county, some ten miles from the banker’s mansion. He was taken away in a close carriage, lying upon a mattress. An opiate prepared by Dr. Snaffley had been administered to him; and he slept too soundly to give any trouble to those who conveyed him to his new home.