Читать книгу The Peer and the Woman - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 6

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The idea of murder in the abstract has become so familiar to us from its frequent adaptation by the novelist and the columns of newspapers that it is rather difficult for an unimaginative person to realize its full horrors. To do so thoroughly we must picture to ourselves some one very near and dear to us suddenly snatched from our midst and hurried into eternity by such means. If we can do that we may be able to understand in some slight measure the agony of horrified grief, succeeded by the burning desire for vengeance, which Bernard Clanavon felt as he slowly began to realize what had happened. It did more than make itself felt; it crept into his whole being like morphia let into an opened vein, and swept every other thought and impulse before it. The relations between him and his father had been exactly typical of the relations which exist between the majority of English fathers and English sons. There had been little or no sentiment, and outward expressions of affection had been very rare between them. Yet underneath the superficial crust of indifference there had been a strong and reciprocal affection, seldom manifesting itself in any more pronounced manner than by quiet cordiality, but still an existent and healthy feeling, which this hideous tragedy had fanned almost into a passion. And so, naturally enough, when the first shock of the interview was over, and the sight of her son had quieted a little his mother's grief, he withdrew himself from her embrace and asked the question which was burning within him:

"Is there any clue, mother? Do they know who has done—this thing?"

They were alone in Lady Alceston's boudoir, a small octagonal apartment hung with amber satin and furnished with all the soft luxury which perfect taste and unlimited wealth could devise. It was a room sacred to women—even Lord Alceston himself had seldom entered it—and Bernard Clanavon looked curiously out of place standing up erect among the low velvet-covered fauteuils, the delicate knick-knacks and softly-flashing mirrors, with a terribly fierce look upon his white sorrow-stricken face, and his eyes fixed upon his mother's bowed form full of a dry, burning light.

She withdrew her handkerchief from her face, and, looking up at him, shuddered.

"Bernard, don't look like that," she pleaded. "I would rather see you cry."

He turned his face away from her with a slight gesture of impatience, but its expression was unaltered.

"Crying is a woman's office, mother," he said in a low tone. "There is something else for a man to think about here. You have not answered my question."

"Neillson has disappeared," she said, slowly. "There is nothing else."

"Neillson! Neillson!" he repeated, half in wonderment, half in contempt. "Neillson guilty of—oh, that is all nonsense! I would as soon suspect myself.

"Nevertheless, he has disappeared," she repeated. "He was the last person who saw your father alive, and—"

"But it couldn't possibly have been Neillson," he interrupted firmly. "Why, a more simple-minded old fellow never breathed. You can't believe this yourself, mother."

The hand which clutched her handkerchief trembled violently, and she seemed to answer with great difficulty.

"I—I don't know. It is all so strange and horrible. Why should any one—oh, Bernard, Bernard, ask me no more questions!" she burst out, sobbing violently.

He waited until she was more composed, standing perfectly motionless, his fair, beardless face set and rigid and full of a terrible determination, looking, in the sweet subdued light thrown upon it by the tinted and heavily-shaded fairy lamps, like a piece of exquisite statuary.

"It was not Neillson," he said, quietly, when at last his mother removed the handkerchief from her eyes. "The utter absence of motive alone would make such an idea absurd."

She seemed still struggling with her agitation, but she answered him.

"Bernard," she said, "I cannot discuss this with you. The—the inquest is to-morrow. Wait till then."

Her evident pain seemed to touch him, for he stooped down and kissed her. Then he moved toward the door.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

He paused on the threshold.

"To Mr. Brudnell's office and then to Scotland Yard, to see what is being done."

She turned away from him with a gesture of horror. "Bernard," she cried, passionately, "it seems to me that grief is second in your thoughts to vengeance!"

He shook his head.

"It's the difference between a man's grief and a woman's, mother, that's all. Yours is passive, racking your body and filling your thoughts and remaining there. Mine is a grief which calls out for action of some sort—for vengeance."

She stood up with her hand stretched out toward him, beautiful still, for all her gray hair and her marble-white countenance—beautiful in her perfect features and the solemn majesty of her attitude and gesture.

"Bernard," she cried, "vengeance belongs to God and not to man! He himself has said it. I command you to desist from the purpose which you have in your heart, which is written in your face."

There was something intensely dramatic in the quickly-spoken words and in her sudden transformation from a weeping, sorrowful woman to a dignified queen of tragedy, with all the fire of command ringing in her passionate words. But she might as well have cried to the walls.

"I am your son, mother, and in anything else I would obey you. But I was his son, too! God's vengeance would be too slow for me," he added, bitterly.

Then he left her, and in a moment she was a brokenhearted woman again, sobbing wildly among the soft cushions of her low chair and talking to herself in broken tones.

"My 'God, my God," she moaned, "what shall I do—oh, what shall I do?"