Читать книгу The Weird Sisters: A Romance. Volume 3 of 3 - Dowling Richard - Страница 1

Grey found his mother in the front parlour of her own house. She was as bright, intelligent as ever, and put down the Times and took off her spectacles as he entered.

"Henry," she exclaimed, as he came in, "what is the matter? You are looking like a ghost."

"It is only that I have seen one, mother," he said wearily, tenderly, as he kissed her, put his arms round her, and placed her in a chair.

"Seen what?" she demanded, looking up impatiently at her stalwart son.

"A ghost, mother."

"Nonsense, Henry. Of late I see but little of you; and when I do see you, you are full of mysteries, only fit for sempstresses in penny parts. You ought not to treat me as if I wanted to be roused into interest in your affairs by secrets and surprises."

She patted her foot impatiently on the floor, and looked with vivacious reproach in his face.

He placed his hand gently but impressively on her shoulder, and said, looking down calmly from his large blue frank eyes into her swift bright gray eyes:

"I am not, mother, practising any art upon you; I am practising a great art upon myself."

She now saw something serious was coming or was in his mind; and while she did not allow her courage to decline, or the resolution of her look to diminish, she asked simply,

"And what is that art, Henry?"

"That of enduring the company of a villain in the presence of the person I most respect on earth."

She looked round the room hastily.

"He can't mean this place," she thought, "for we are alone." Raising impatient eyes to his, she said, "I am listening. Who is this villain?"

"Your son."

"Say that again, my hearing – " She paused and put her hand behind her ear, and bent forward her wrinkled neck to catch the words.

"In your presence, mother, I am trying to endure the presence of your villanous son, my villanous self."

"Sit down, Henry," she said very quietly.

He sat down on a chair a little distance in front of her.

She thought, "His father never told me there was a taint of insanity on his side of the family, and I know there was none on mine. This is terrible, but I must keep cool. Perhaps it will pass away. We shall have the best advice. He looks haggard. The wisest thing is to make little of what he says." Then she said aloud, "Well, Henry, I suppose you are going to tell me something else?"

"I am going to tell you, mother, all man durst utter. The unspeakable must remain unsaid."

He leaned his elbow on a small table, and supported his brow with his thumb and forefinger, shading his eyes with the fingers and the palm of the hand.

She sat upright on her chair. It was an easy chair, but she disdained the support of elbows or back. She thought his words, "The unspeakable must remain unsaid." "My son! my son! what has turned his poor head?" Aloud she said, "Tell me all you please, Henry."

"It is so cool and sweet and pure here, mother, in this house of yours, in your presence; I would give all the world if I might live here."

"Then why not come? That great empty house is too much for you, and you are growing morbid there. Come here at once, and it will be like old times to you and me."

"I am not so lonely in that house as you might think," he said, with a ghastly contraction of the lips and a shudder.

"But you see no one now. You have no company, and even at its best and brightest it was a dismal old barracks. Suppose, Henry, I live with you?"

He looked up suddenly, fiercely, and cried in a loud voice:

"No, no; you must not think of that. That is the last thing likely to happen. How could you think of such a thing?"

His head, his head was clearly gone. Fancy his resisting such an offer from her in such a passionate, ill-tempered way.

"Then come and live with me; the isolation of that house is preying upon you."

He had dropped his head once more to its old position.

"I am not so much alone there as you might suppose."

"I thought you saw nobody lately."

"But I am often, when at home now, in the company of Bee in her better days."

What splendid self-torture this was! To dance thus before his mother on the brink of a precipice she did not see was exhilarating. It was almost worth committing a crime to enjoy the contrast between the ideas these words brought up in his mind and his mother's.

"A bad sign," thought the old woman. "A bad sign of reason, when the mind of a man of his age is always with the past." She said: "I think it would be much better for you to shut up the Manor and come here. If you take my advice you would most certainly leave that hateful house. It was all very well when you were strong and happy to call parts of your house by horrible names, but when you are ill and weak and nervous you get superstitious, and full of foolish notions about those very things you have been playing with."

"Do you know, mother, I would not exchange my Tower of Silence for any castle in England at this moment; no, not for the fee-simple of Yorkshire."

The tone, the words, and the awful smile that accompanied them, cowed the spirit of the woman. "My God!" she thought, "this is worse than death. His reason is toppling, toppling."

She did not speak, but waited for him to go on.

"But, mother, there is another reason for my not selling the Manor."

"And what is that, Henry?"

"I am thinking of getting married."

"Married! Married!"

"Yes. Am I so old or so feeble that I should not think of marrying again?" he asked, with a clumsy attempt at a smile as he half uncovered his pallid face.

"No," she answered slowly.

"Then why are you astonished?"

"I did not say I was astonished."

"No, mother, but you looked astonished; tell me why? Why were you astonished at the idea of my marrying a second time? Do you know any reason why I should not?"

This was a fierce pleasure. It was like stirring up a sleeping lion when there was no chance of escape save through a small door, before reaching which he might, if he awoke, spring upon you, seize you by the back, and batter out your brains with one swing against the bars. It was like mounting a parapet under fire, and standing there thirty seconds, watch in hand, expecting to be struck, and trying to anticipate where.

"Reason for your not marrying! No, I know nothing to prevent your marrying."

She did care to excite him in his very critical mental condition by reference to the little comfort he had derived from his experience of wedlock.

"Well, mother, it is not only that no cause exists why I should not marry, but an absolute necessity – a necessity there is no evading, makes the step inevitable."

He had raised his head from his hand and was looking in her face.

"You have always had good reasons for your acts," she said, humouring his whim.

"And, moreover, it is imperatively necessary I shall marry one particular woman, and no other."

"What! in love again already!" exclaimed Mrs. Grey, with a desperate attempt at archness.

The attempt failed utterly, and her face wore a look of anxiety and pain. It was now clear her son did not suffer from mere hallucination; this was a break up of the whole intellect.

The man was so lost to external things he did not notice the change in his mother's face. He was deliberately rehearsing aloud his plan of campaign, and counting his forces and chances. He had almost forgotten he addressed his mother. He knew he might speak out with safety. This was the first time he had dared to give utterance to his thoughts in the presence of another. There was intoxication in the fearless recital of his case, and, with his bodily eyes indifferent to things around him, he abandoned himself to the delight of speaking his secret thought, and observing how the uttered words lightened his burden.

"You are curious to know her name?" he asked, in a mechanical tone.

"I should like to hear who it is," she returned.

"It's a very good name. It will bring no discredit on the name of Grey. Guess."

"Indeed, I cannot."

"Maud Midharst."

"Maud Midharst!" exclaimed the old woman, relaxing the rigidity of her pose, and falling for support against the back of her chair – "Maud Midharst!" she repeated, in a tone of dismay. For a moment she had forgotten she was listening to a man suffering from severe mental disturbance. Instantly almost she recovered herself, and fixing eyes now full of tenderness and pity upon her son, resumed her upright attitude, and continued her former plan of humouring him. "She is very beautiful, very amiable, and very rich," the woman said.

"She is very beautiful, very amiable, and very poor," he said impressively.

Again Mrs. Grey started. His tones were not those of a man of unsound mind; and although his face looked pale and worn, and there was a queer expression in the eyes, the whole conveyed the idea of a man overwrought rather than radically unsound of head. She was so much thrown off her guard that she could not refrain from repeating aloud, "Very poor!"

"Yes, very poor," he went on in the same monotonous voice, and with the same lightless face turned to hers. "And it is because she is very poor I am going to marry her."

"A regular love romance!" cried the old lady in a sprightly voice. The tears were in her eyes. Her son, her only son, the idol of her life, breaking down thus in his strong manhood! Hard sight for a mother! How hard to sit still, and seem calm, and watch the light of departing reason flickering in those large blue eyes, which in the happy warm long ago had looked up to hers as the baby boy lay at her breast.

"A real business romance," he said gravely. "A real business romance."

"It must be a romance indeed if you are marrying her because she is poor, for I believe you, Henry, are not rich." She thought, "Perhaps it will be best to take an interest in all this. If I do not he may think I suspect him of being under delusions, and I daresay that would make him worse."

"The Daneford Bank is now secure and in a prosperous condition, but I have nothing beyond its prosperity, so that, compared with the time I got the Bank, I am a poor man, for I have lost all my private fortune. Does it not seem strange to you, mother, that I, a poor man, should aspire to the hand of a baronet's poor daughter?"

"But, Henry, this is a love romance, and in love romances all things are possible."

"I have explained to you, mother, that it is a business, and not a love romance. But I have not told you half the romance yet."

"I am most anxious to hear it."

"I have never said a word of love to her yet. I do believe a word of love has never yet been spoken to her, and already there is a rival in the field, so that now we have every element of success."

"And who is this rival?"

"The new baronet, Sir William Midharst."

"Sir William Midharst! I thought he was in Egypt."

"He has been, but he got back just in time for Sir Alexander's funeral. He walked to the funeral with me, came back and fell in love with his cousin Maud."

"How do you know this?"

"Mrs. Grant told me."

"And does Mrs. Grant know you are in love with Miss Midharst?"

"No, nor any one else."

"I, for instance, know."

"Who told you?"

"You."

"Never."

"He forgets already what he told me a few minutes ago. This is terrible. I shall not be able to stand it much longer. My poor Wat! I wonder what has turned his brain?" the mother thought. She endeavoured to keep on her face an expression of vivacious interest.

He spoke again. "I never told you I was in love with Maud Midharst. I only told you that it is absolutely necessary I should marry her."

"In some things," the mother thought, "he is as clear as ever. Of course all this talk of his marrying Miss Midharst is the result of some way poor Bee's death affected him," she reflected. Aloud she said, "But, Henry, if you do not love her, and if she is poor and you are not rich, why are you compelled to marry her?"

"If any one knew the answer to that question, mother, that person could put me in the dock and convict me of embezzlement."

She started to her feet and placed her hand on his shoulder, and cried in a voice of agony: "My God, my son is mad!"

He rose quietly and put both his hands tenderly on her shoulders, and whispered hoarsely in her ear: "I am not mad now. I never was more sane in my life. I was mad when I stole Sir Alexander's savings to the last penny. It was with his money I saved the Bank."

"Great God, what do I hear!"

"The truth. I am no better than a thief. I have stolen the old man's savings and the young girl's fortune, and, unless I marry her, I shall be found out. Did I not tell you I was in the company of a villain when I came in first? Now you believe me."

"And you lied to me when you told me about that money from the Pacific coast? Ten thousand times better madness than this!"

"I did."

"You, Henry, my son, lied to me?"

"Yes."

"Understand my question once for all. When you, Henry Grey, told me, your mother, that the Daneford Bank had been saved by money from the Pacific coast, did you lie to me?"

"I did."

"Then, sir, leave my presence and my house for ever!"

"Mother!"

"Go, sir, at once!"

"Mother, for God's sake! You do not know all!"

"Go, sir, at once! I do not want to see any more of you – hear any more of you. You have brought disgrace on our honourable name. You had not the courage to face ruin, but you had the courage to face crime, and you had the baseness to lie to me, sir. Go, I tell you, sir, and let me see you no more. Let me forget there is a man alive who bears your honourable father's name. Do not let me see you again. Do not let me hear of you. You will not go, sir? Then I shall leave you. Remember, we never meet again."

She swept out of the room.

When she had gone he stood a while holding his forehead in his hands, then shook himself, left the room, and drew the front door after him with a low laugh, muttering: "And I did not tell her all. I forgot a part."