Читать книгу On the Brink of a Chasm: A record of plot and passion - L. T. Meade - Страница 4

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Barbara looked like a beautiful white lily. Her long neck slightly drooped as she walked down the room. Tarbot’s face as he watched her became more and more ugly; the devil was fairly aroused in him.

“If I cannot have that woman for my wife I shall go under,” he muttered. “But she shall be mine—I swear it. Only a rival can kill hope. If there is a rival, if”—he clenched his hand—“he shall rue it,” he muttered; “the man, whoever he is, shall rue it—he shall rue it to his dying day.”

At that moment Tarbot’s worst fears were confirmed. He could see well into the big drawing-room, and just then he noticed a man who, in irreproachable evening costume, with a rose in his button-hole, came forward and clasped one of Barbara’s white hands. The man was tall, fair, and remarkably good-looking: his face was clean-shaven, his mouth sweet in expression, his eyes full of kindliness. They were good eyes, gray in color and well open.

Barbara looked up into his face, and there was an expression in hers which Tarbot saw and interpreted aright. That expression was the last straw. It turned the disappointed man’s blood into gall. He clenched both his hands tightly. They were the hands of a surgeon—beautifully formed, firm, and cool as steel. He clenched them so hard now that the nails penetrated the skin. His face felt cold; a moment later it was bathed in perspiration.

Fury ungovernable raged in his heart. He trembled all over. For a moment he could scarcely see clearly; then, rubbing one of his hands across his eyes, he pulled himself together with a great effort. Once more he bent forward and glanced into the drawing-room. The crowds were still there, the crush was at its height, but the pair he sought had vanished.

“So Dick Pelham is her choice,” muttered Tarbot. “I know where I shall find them; they are sure to be in one of the conservatories. If I remember aright, this balcony runs right round to the conservatories; I don’t mind spying on them. Barbara is turning me into a devil, and I shall act as one. Pelham looked as if he meant to say something to-night; she will reply. I must know all about it; I must be in the thick of this matter.”

As Tarbot thought he began to creep along the balcony. Presently he found himself standing outside the great conservatory. The windows were all wide open. Tarbot stationed himself in deep shadow; he could hear almost every word which was spoken within the glass walls. At first there was a confusion of sound, then two voices, distinct and clear, fell on the man’s ears.

“I must have your answer, Barbara,” said Pelham. His voice was eager and tremulous. “Say yes or no to me at once.”

There was a pause, then came Barbara’s reply.

“I have loved you for long years, Dick; I shall never love anybody else. I would willingly become engaged to you but for mother. But mother is miserable and anxious. She has got into great money difficulties. She hopes against hope that I will relieve the strain by marrying a rich man, but, Dick, I cannot do it. I would do much for mother, but I cannot destroy my whole life even for her. You are the only one I love; I cannot give you up.”

“That’s right, Barbara; that’s plucky!” said the young man. “Then you will become engaged to me, darling?”

“I can neither give you up nor become engaged to you. You see for yourself, do you not, how I am pulled both ways? It would drive mother mad at the present crisis if I were to tell her that all hope is over—that I am engaged to you and will not look at any other man. Oh, Dick! my heart is torn. I am an unhappy, miserable girl!”

“You ought to tell her the truth,” said Pelham. “She has no right whatever to coerce you. Tell her to-night; tell her you are engaged to me. I do not expect her to consent to our marriage just at present, but at least she ought to know of the engagement.”

“But we are not engaged.”

“No, but we ought to be—where is the difficulty? Barbara, it will be such an incentive. I shall work like a horse, and I know I shall get on. I have brains and pluck. You won’t have long to wait—I vow it. Already I am doing well in my profession; in ten years’ time I shall be a rich man.”

“But I cannot wait for ten years,” said Barbara slowly. “I don’t mind how poor you are, Dick. I would marry you to-morrow if it were not for mother. I don’t know how she will get out of her difficulties. I cannot help her in the way she wishes.”

“They speak of you in connection with Selwyn,” said the young man. “It is too awful.”

“Yes, but there is nothing in it. Such reports are sure to be spread of any girl. Listen to me, dear. I will be faithful to you, but I must not worry mother just for a little. Be satisfied; let us understand each other, but do not let the engagement become public quite yet.”

“I suppose it must be as you wish,” said Pelham, “only I hate to feel that other men have a right to talk to you, and make love to you; but I suppose I must submit. Oh! if only poor little Piers were not in existence, your mother would welcome me. If I could come to her as Sir Richard Pelham she would raise no objections, eh, Barbara?”

“No,” answered Barbara slowly. “But as Piers is there, and as we love him very much, and as we earnestly hope he will live, there is no use thinking of that.”

“Of course there is not, and I am mad to speak of it; but my brain is in a whirl to-night. Yes; Piers will live—he will be a strongman yet. He will come in for his sixty thousand pounds a year and the Pelham estates.”

“It is strange to think that you are really the next heir,” said Barbara.

“It is a fact all the same, Barbara. If Piers were not in the world, dear little chap, I should be the baronet, and the property would be mine. Well, don’t let us say anything more about it. I suppose I must consent to our not being engaged for the present, but you must make me a promise.”

“What is that?”

“Tell me, here and now, that you will never marry anybody else.”

“I promise never to marry any man in this wide world but you, Richard Pelham,” said the girl slowly and solemnly.

Tarbot peered through the glass of the conservatory. He could just see the faces of the lovers. Barbara’s was all aflame with emotion. Dick was holding both her hands in a fervent clasp. With bowed head the surgeon moved away. He had made up his mind.

Hailing a hansom, he drove straight to the house of the patient whose dying bed he had promised to attend. It was now close on twelve o’clock—the man had breathed his last a quarter of an hour ago. Tarbot went into the house, made ample apologies to the widow, sympathized with her as she stood before him in her grief, and then took his leave.

“No time like the present,” he said to himself. “My blood is up; I will not wait until the morning. What I have to do I will do quickly.

“Drive to Tottenham Court Road, and put me down at the corner of Goodge Street,” said Tarbot to his driver.

He stepped into the hansom, the man whipped up his horse, and a few moments later the doctor was walking quietly down Goodge Street. It happened to be Saturday night, and Goodge Street at that hour was the reverse of aristocratic. Torches were flaring on piled-up barrows holding every sort of fruit. Women were screaming and chaffering, men were lounging about and smoking, children got in the way, were knocked over, and cried out.

Tarbot in his light overcoat was a strange figure in the midst of the others. One or two people remarked him, a woman laughed, and a girl came behind him and pushed his hat over his eyes. A peal of laughter followed this witticism. Tarbot did not take the least notice, but walked on quickly.

At last he stopped at a corner house which was different from its neighbors. It was newly built, and looked clean and respectable. It was, in short, a great block of people’s buildings. He went up the winding stairs, and presently sounded a bell on a door which was painted dark green, and on which the number 47 shone out in vivid white. There was a brass plate below the number on which were inscribed the words—

Miss Clara Ives,

Trained Nurse, Medical, Surgical.

Tarbot waited for a moment. Would the nurse be in? or, if in, would she have retired to rest?

“Scarcely that,” he muttered to himself; “Clara does not sleep well. Clara has been subject to insomnia; she will scarcely retire before midnight on such a hot night as the present one.”

These thoughts had scarcely darted through his brain before the door was opened, and a woman, tall and slender, with reddish hair and a freckled face, stood before him. She was a painfully thin woman, her eyes light blue and her upper lip long.

When she saw Tarbot there came a gleam into her eyes—a peculiar look which for a moment transformed them. Then she stretched out her long right hand, took hold of the doctor’s, and led him into the room.

“Who would have thought of seeing you here, and now?” she said breathlessly. “What do you want with me? Another case, eh? or anything else?”

“I want a good deal with you, Clara, as it happens,” said Tarbot. He spoke in a familiar tone, without a trace of respect in it. “Shut the door, turn on the gas, and let us talk. As I said, I have much to say.”

“But I am going out to a case in half an hour,” said Nurse Ives. “I am packing my things now—it is a bad case. A child has been burnt, and they have sent for me.”

“Somebody else must attend to it. I want you,” said Tarbot.

“What for?”

“Another case—one of life or death.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have I ever spoken to you of little Piers Pelham, the present owner of the Pelham estates?”

“What, the child who comes between Richard Pelham and the baronetcy?” said the nurse eagerly.

“The same.”

“Yes, I have heard of him; he is a delicate child. What of him?”

“If you undertake his case he runs a chance of being a dead child soon.”

“Now what does this mean?”

“It means that I want to revenge a wrong, and the tool is young Piers Pelham. Do you follow me?”

“Not at present, but I shall soon,” answered the woman. Then she continued:

“What is the matter with the boy?”

“At present,” said Tarbot, speaking very slowly, “he is quite well, but within a few days he will be ill. I shall send for you; you will nurse him.”

“And——?” said the woman.

Tarbot went forward and began to whisper in her ear. Nurse Ives had a dead-white complexion. As the doctor spoke, her face turned ghastly.

“You want me to connive at a crime?” she said.

Tarbot winced, then he said “Yes.”

“Is this matter very important to you?”

“It is life or death to me—life or death.”

The surgeon rubbed his hands slowly one inside the other; his eyes were fixed on the eyes of the nurse. She looked back at him. Then she spoke.

“I will do what you require, on a condition.”

“What is that?”

“That you make me your wife.”

“That I marry you?” said Tarbot. He started up. “That I marry you?”

An ugly line, where she had been cut long ago, came out across the woman’s temple. It showed fiery red; the rest of her face was dead-white. She laid one of her hands on Tarbot’s; her hand was icy cold. He shivered.

“That you marry me,” she repeated; “that you own me before all the world as your lawful wedded wife. Only on that condition will I do what you want.”

Tarbot did not reply for a minute. He turned away from the eager eyes of the nurse, and closed his own. As he did so he saw another vision—a vision of a girl in white. He was carried away from his present surroundings as he listened to a girl’s voice. The girl’s face was a lovely one, and her voice like music. She was saying solemnly, “I promise never to marry any man in this wide world but you, Richard Pelham.”

“I am waiting for my answer,” said Nurse Ives.

“Yes,” cried Tarbot, starting and opening his eyes. “If you do what I require, if our scheme succeeds, I will make you my lawful wedded wife in the sight of Heaven.”