"I'm not down for a half-penny in the will. I expected as much.
Go on."
"You are wrong--you _are_ down in it. There is liberal provision
made for you in a codicil. Unhappily, my father died without
signing it. It is needless to say that I consider it binding on
me for all that. I am ready to do for you what your father would
have done for you. And I only ask for one concession in return."
"What may that be?"
"You are living here very unhappily, Geoffrey, with your wife."
"Who says so? I don't, for one."
Julius laid his hand kindly on his brother's arm.
"Don't trifle with such a serious matter as this," he said. "Your
marriage is, in every sense of the word, a misfortune--not only
to you but to your wife. It is impossible that you can live
together. I have come here to ask you to consent to a separation.
Do that--and the provision made for you in the unsigned codicil
is yours. What do you say?"
Geoffrey shook his brother's hand off his arm.
"I say--No!" he answered.
Lady Holchester interfered for the first time.
"Your brother's generous offer deserves a better answer than
that," she said.
"My answer," reiterated Geoffrey, "is--No!"
He sat between them with his clenched fists resting on his
knees--absolutely impenetrable to any thing that either of them
could say.
"In your situation," said Julius, "a refusal is sheer madness. I
won't accept it."
"Do as you like about that. My mind's made up. I won't let my
wife be taken away from me. Here she stays."
The brutal tone in which he had made that reply roused Lady
Holchester's indignation.
"Take care!" she said. "You are not only behaving with the
grossest ingratitude toward your brother--you are forcing a
suspicion into your mother's mind. You have some motive that you
are hiding from us."
He turned on his mother with a sudden ferocity which made Julius
spring to his feet. The next instant his eyes were on the ground,
and the devil that possessed him was quiet again.
"Some motive I'm hiding from you?" he repeated, with his head
down, and his utterance thicker than ever. "I'm ready to have my
motive posted all over London, if you like. I'm fond of her."
He looked up as he said the last words. Lady Holchester turned
away her head--recoiling from her own son. So overwhelming was
the shock inflicted on her that even the strongly rooted
prejudice which Mrs. Glenarm had implanted in her mind yielded to
it. At that moment she absolutely pitied Anne!
"Poor creature!" said Lady Holchester.
He took instant offense at those two words. "I won't have my wife
pitied by any body." With that reply, he dashed into the passage;
and called out, "Anne! come down!"
Her soft voice answered; her light footfall was heard on the
stairs. She came into the room. Julius advanced, took her hand,
and held it kindly in his. "We are having a little family
discussion," he said, trying to give her confidence. "And
Geoffrey is getting hot over it, as usual."
Geoffrey appealed sternly to his mother.
"Look at her!" he said. "Is she starved? Is she in rags? Is she
covered with bruises?" He turned to Anne. "They have come here to
propose a separation. They both believe I hate you. I don't hate
you. I'm a good Christian. I owe it to you that I'm cut out of my
father's will. I forgive you that. I owe it to you that I've lost
the chance of marrying a woman with ten thousand a year. I
forgive you _that._ I'm not a man who does things by halves. I
said it should be my endeavor to make you a good husband. I said
it was my wish to make it up. Well! I am as good as my word. And
what's the consequence? I am insulted. My mother comes here, and
my brother comes here--and they offer me money to part from you.
Money be hanged! I'll be beholden to nobody. I'll get my own
living. Shame on the people who interfere between man and wife!
Shame!--that's what I say--shame!"
Anne looked, for an explanation, from her husband to her
husband's mother.
"Have you proposed a separation between us?" she asked.
"Yes--on terms of the utmost advantage to my son; arranged with
every possible consideration toward you. Is there any objection
on your side?"
"Oh, Lady Holchester! is it necessary to ask me? What does he
say?"
"He has refused."
"Refused!"
"Yes," said Geoffrey. "I don't go back from my word; I stick to
what I said this morning. It's my endeavor to make you a good
husband. It's my wish to make it up." He paused, and then added
his last reason: "I'm fond of you."
Their eyes met as he said it to her. Julius felt Anne's hand
suddenly tighten round his. The desperate grasp of the frail cold
fingers, the imploring terror in the gentle sensitive face as it
slowly turned his way, said to him as if in words, "Don't leave
me friendless to-night!"
"If you both stop here till domesday," said Geoffrey, "you'll get
nothing more out of me. You have had my reply."
With that, he seated himself doggedly in a corner of the room;
waiting--ostentatiously waiting--for his mother and his brother
to take their leave. The position was serious. To argue the
matter with him that night was hopeless. To invite Sir Patrick's
interference would only be to provoke his savage temper to a new
outbreak. On the other hand, to leave the helpless woman, after
what had passed, without another effort to befriend her, was, in
her situation, an act of downright inhumanity, and nothing less.
Julius took the one way out of the difficulty that was left--the
one way worthy of him as a compassionate and an honorable man.
"We will drop it for to-night, Geoffrey," he said. "But I am not
the less resolved, in spite of all that you have said, to return
to the subject to-morrow. It would save me some inconvenience--a
second journey here from town, and then going back again to my
engagements--if I staid with you to-night. Can you give me a
bed?"
A look flashed on him from Anne, which thanked him as no words
could have thanked him.
"Give you a bed?" repeated Geoffrey. He checked himself, on the
point of refusing. His mother was watching him; his wife was
watching him--and his wife knew that the room above them was a
room to spare. "All right!" he resumed, in another tone, with his
eye on his mother. "There's my empty room up stairs. Have it, if
you like. You won't find I've changed my mind to-morrow--but
that's your look-out. Stop here, if the fancy takes you. I've no
objection. It don't matter to Me.--Will you trust his lordship
under my roof?" he added, addressing his mother. "I might have
some motive that I'm hiding from you, you know!" Without waiting
for an answer, he turned to Anne. "Go and tell old Dummy to put
the sheets on the bed. Say there's a live lord in the
house--she's to send in something
devilish good for supper!" He
burst fiercely into a forced laugh. Lady Holchester rose at the
moment when Anne was leaving the room. "I shall not be here when
you return," she said. "Let me bid you good-night."
She shook hands with Anne--giving her Sir Patrick's note, unseen,
at the same moment. Anne left the room. Without addressing
another word to her second son, Lady Holchester beckoned to
Julius to give her his arm. "You have acted nobly toward your
brother," she said to him. "My one comfort and my one hope,
Julius, are in you." They went out together to the gate, Geoffrey
following them with the key in his hand. "Don't be too anxious,"
Julius whispered to his mother. "I will keep the drink out of his
way to-night--and I will bring you a better account of him
to-morrow. Explain every thing to Sir Patrick as you go home."
He handed Lady Holchester into the carriage; and re-entered,
leaving Geoffrey to lock the gate. The brothers returned in
silence to the cottage. Julius had concealed it from his
mother--but he was seriously uneasy in secret. Naturally prone to
look at all things on their brighter side, he could place no
hopeful interpretation on what Geoffrey had said and done that
night. The conviction that he was deliberately acting a part, in
his present relations with his wife, for some abominable purpose
of his own, had rooted itself firmly in Julius. For the first
time in his experience of his brother, the pecuniary
consideration was not the uppermost consideration in Geoffrey's
mind. They went back into the drawing-room. "What will you have
to drink?" said Geoffrey.
"Nothing."
"You won't keep me company over a drop of brandy-and-water?"
"No. You have had enough brandy-and-water."
After a moment of frowning self-consideration in the glass,
Geoffrey abruptly agreed with Julius "I look like it," he said.
"I'll soon put that right." He disappeared, and returned with a
wet towel tied round his head. "What will you do while the women
are getting your bed ready? Liberty Hall here. I've taken to
cultivating my mind---I'm a reformed character, you know, now I'm
a married man. You do what you like. I shall read."
He turned to the side-table, and, producing the volumes of the
Newgate Calendar, gave one to his brother. Julius handed it back
again.
"You won't cultivate your mind," he said, "with such a book as
that. Vile actions recorded in vile English, make vile reading,
Geoffrey, in every sense of the word."
"It will do for me. I don't know good English when I see it."
With that frank acknowledgment--to which the great majority of
his companions at school and college might have subscribed
without doing the slightest injustice to the present state of
English education--Geoffrey drew his chair to the table, and
opened one of the volumes of his record of crime.
The evening newspaper was lying on the sofa. Julius took it up,
and seated himself opposite to his brother. He noticed, with some
surprise, that Geoffrey appeared to have a special object in
consulting his book. Instead of beginning at the first page, he
ran the leaves through his fingers, and turned them down at
certain places, before he entered on his reading. If Julius had
looked over his brother's shoulder, instead of only looking at
him across the table, he would have seen that Geoffrey passed by
all the lighter crimes reported in the Calendar, and marked for
his own private reading the cases of murder only.
CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SECOND.
THE APPARITION.
THE night had advanced. It was close on twelve o'clock when Anne
heard the servant's voice, outside her bedroom door, asking leave
to speak with her for a moment.
"What is it?"
"The gentleman down stairs wishes to see you, ma'am."
"Do you mean Mr. Delamayn's brother?"
"Yes."
"Where is Mr. Delamayn?"
"Out in the garden, ma'am."
Anne went down stairs, and found Julius alone in
the drawing-room.
"I am sorry to disturb you," he said. "I am afraid Geoffrey is
ill. The landlady has gone to bed, I am told--and I don't know
where to apply for medical assistance. Do you know of any doctor
in the neighborhood?"
Anne, like Julius, was a perfect stranger to the neighborhood.
She suggested making inquiry of the servant. On speaking to the
girl, it turned out that she knew of a medical man, living within
ten minutes' walk of the cottage. She could give plain directions
enabling any person to find the place--but she was afraid, at
that hour of the night and in that lonely neighborhood, to go out
by herself.
"Is he seriously ill?" Anne asked.
"He is in such a state of nervous irritability," said Julius,
"that he can't remain still for two moments together in the same
place. It began with incessant restlessness while he was reading
here. I persuaded him to go to bed. He couldn't lie still for an
instant--he came down again, burning with fever, and more
restless than ever. He is out in the garden in spite of every
thing I could do to prevent him; trying, as he says, to 'run it
off.' It appears to be serious to _me._. Come and judge for
yourself."
He led Anne into the next room; and, opening the shutter, pointed
to the garden.
The clouds had cleared off; the night was fine. The clear
starlight showed Geoffrey, stripped to his shirt and drawers,
running round and round the garden. He apparently believed
himself to be contending at the Fulham foot-race. At times, as
the white figure circled round and round in the star-light, they
heard him cheering for "the South." The slackening thump of his
feet on the ground, the heavier and heavier gasps in which he
drew his breath, as he passed the window, gave warning that his
strength was failing him. Exhaustion, if it led to no worse
consequences, would force him to return to the house. In the
state of his brain at that moment who could say what the result
might be, if medical help was not called in?
"I will go for the doctor," said Julius, "if you don't mind my
leaving you."
It was impossible for Anne to set any apprehensions of her own
against the plain necessity for summoning assistance. They found
the key of the gate in the pocket of Geoffrey's coat up stairs.
Anne went with Julius to let him out. "How can I thank you!" she
said, gratefully. "What should I have done without _you!_"
"I won't be a moment longer than I can help," he answered, and
left her.
She secured the gate again, and went back to the cottage. The
servant met her at the door, and proposed calling up Hester
Dethridge.
"We don't know what the master may do while his brother's away,"
said the girl. "And one more of us isn't one too many, when we
are only women in the house."
"You are quite right," said Anne. "Wake your mistress."
After ascendi
ng the stairs, they looked out into the garden,
through the window at the end of the passage on the upper floor.
He was still going round and round, but very slowly: his pace was
fast slackening to a walk.
Anne went back to her room, and waited near the open door--ready
to close and fasten it instantly if any thing occurred to alarm
her. "How changed I am!" she thought to herself. "Every thing
frightens me, now."
The inference was the natural one--but not the true one. The
change was not in herself, but in the situation in which she was
placed. Her position during the investigation at Lady Lundie's
house had tried her moral courage only. It had exacted from her
one of those noble efforts of self-sacrifice which the hidden
forces in a woman's nature are essentially capable of making. Her
position at the cottage tried her physical courage: it called on
her to rise superior to the sense of actual bodily danger--while
that danger was lurking in the dark. There, the woman's nature
sank under the stress laid on it--there, her courage could strike
no root in the strength of her love--there, the animal instincts
were the instincts appealed to; and the firmness wanted was the
firmness of a man.
Hester Dethridge's door opened. She walked straight into Anne's
room.
The yellow clay-cold color of her face showed a faint flush of
warmth; its deathlike stillness was stirred by a touch of life.
The stony eyes, fixed as ever in their gaze, shone strangely with
a dim inner lustre. Her gray hair, so neatly arranged at other
times, was in disorder under her cap. All her movements were
quicker than usual. Something had roused the stagnant vitality in
the woman--it was working in her mind; it was forcing itself
outward into her face. The servants at Windygates, in past times,
had seen these signs, and had known them for a warning to leave
Hester Dethridge to herself.
Anne asked her if she had heard what had happened.
She bowed her head.
"I hope you don't mind being disturbed?"
She wrote on her slate: "I'm glad to be disturbed. I have been
dreaming bad dreams. It's good for me to be wakened, when sleep
takes me backward in my life. What's wrong with you? Frightened?"
"Yes."
She wrote again, and pointed toward the garden with one hand,
while she held the slate up with the other: "Frightened of
_him?_"
"Terribly frightened."
She wrote for the third time, and offered the slate to Anne with
a ghastly smile: "I have been through it all. I know. You're only
at the beginning now. He'll put the wrinkles in your face, and
the gray in your hair. There will come a time when you'll wish
yourself dead and buried. You will live through it, for all that.
Look at Me."
As she read the last three words, Anne heard the garden door
below opened and banged to again. She caught Hester Dethridge by
the arm, and listened. The tramp of Geoffrey's feet, staggering
heavily in the passage, gave token of his approach to the stairs.
He was talking to himself, still possessed by the delusion that
he was at the foot-race. "Five to four on Delamayn. Delamayn's
won. Three cheers for the South, and one cheer more. Devilish
long race. Night already! Perry! where's Perry?"
He advanced, staggering from side to side of the passage. The
stairs below creaked as he set his foot on them. Hester Dethridge
dragged herself free from Anne, advanced, with her candle in her
hand, and threw open Geoffrey's bedroom door; returned to the
head of the stairs; and stood there, firm as a rock, waiting for
him. He looked up, as he set his foot on the next stair, and met
the view of Hester's face, brightly illuminated by the candle,
looking down at him. On the instant he stopped, rooted to the
place on which he stood. "Ghost! witch! devil!" he cried out,
"take your eyes off me!" He shook his fist at her furiously, with