Читать книгу The Case of Mrs. Ruhmkorff's Will - Percy Andreae - Страница 7

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If the comparatively trifling incident which I have related in the foregoing chapter left an unpleasant impression upon me, the occurrence which followed it the very next day filled me with apprehensions of a far more serious kind.

It was Sunday, and I had retired, as I always did after the noon-day meal, to my own room to enjoy an hour's undisturbed quiet. Mr. Cunninghame was accustomed to take a nap immediately after lunch; for, though his nights were not disturbed by any feverish symptoms, the stiff position he was compelled to maintain, owing to the splints on his leg, interfered a good deal with his rest, and it required no persuasion on my part to induce him to indulge in the luxury of half-an-hour's doze during the daytime.

The morning had passed much as usual. Mrs. Cunninghame and Belle Staunton had attended divine service in the village church, and Mr. Coxton, after spending half-an-hour with Clive Cunninghame, had taken a solitary walk into the neighbouring country, whence he only returned at lunch-time. Clive himself was apparently in the best of spirits, and, save for a passing fit of irritability earlier in the day, which I attributed to the fact that Belle Staunton did not appear as usual to keep him company at breakfast, I had noticed no return of that depressed spirit which had overcome him the afternoon before.

It was an oppressively hot day, and, after several vain attempts to settle to some work which I was anxious to finish, I gave it up as hopeless, and, moving an easy-chair to the window, sat cooling myself as best I could in the faint breeze that now and then stirred in the rich foliage of the trees outside. I had not taken up this position for longer than a few minutes, when my attention was suddenly arrested by a noise in the next room, occupied, as the reader will remember, by Mr. Cunninghame. The door communicating between the two rooms was closed; but I was positive that I heard the sound of some one moving in the one adjoining mine, and, judging it to be impossible for Mr. Cunninghame to have risen from his couch in the condition he was in, I concluded that somebody must have entered. I was debating with myself whether it would not be wise to open the door softly, and sign to whomever it might be not to disturb the invalid, when a sound fell on my ear which sent an electric shock through me, and decided me to act promptly. It was the unmistakable noise of a window being lifted up or closed. I could not distinguish which; but I remembered that I had myself closed the lower sash, and pulled down the upper one of both windows in Mr. Cunninghame's room, in order to protect him from draught while he was sleeping, without depriving him of the fresh air. In an instant I was up from my seat, and, crossing the room, opened the door boldly and looked in.

The spectacle that met my view filled me with such consternation that, for the space of a second or two, I felt almost paralysed. What I saw was Clive Cunninghame himself seated on the ledge of one of the windows; his one leg was already outside the window, and he was in the act of lifting the other injured leg on to the sill. Divining his intention in the flash of an instant, I shook off the weakness that had overcome me with a strong effort, and, rushing across the apartment, reached the window just in time to seize and hold him back.

"Come away, Mr. Cunninghame!" I cried. "What folly is this?"

I tugged at him with all my might, quite forgetful for the moment of his crippled condition, and of the danger that must attend any hasty movement on his part. But, although he offered me no resistance, it would have required a stronger person than I am to move him without actual assistance on his own part, and such assistance was not forthcoming. He merely turned his head towards me, and stared at me with a curiously fixed and vacant expression.

"Let me help you back to your couch, Mr. Clive," I said, rather more gently. "Think how foolish it was of you to leave it in the condition you are in!"

He did not reply even now, but continued to gaze at me in the same dull, expressionless way. He suffered me now, however, to assist him into the rocking-chair that stood in the window recess, whence I thought I could easily move him back to his couch in the middle of the room. How he had managed to traverse the space between the couch and the window with his leg broken and in splints was a complete mystery to me; but he had unquestionably done so.

As I aided him with considerable difficulty to glide down from his seat on the window-sill into the rocking-chair, I imagined, from his subdued manner, that a sense of humiliation had overcome him, and felt emboldened to remonstrate with him once more about the folly of his act.

"You must promise me never to attempt such a thing again, Mr. Cunninghame," I said, in as severe a tone as I could command. "It is too dreadfully wicked."

He shot a quick glance up at my face, and tossed his head petulantly.

"Bosh!" he said, curtly.

Then, as I slowly pushed the rocking chair in which he now sat towards his couch, he muttered, in an impatient undertone:

"Great Scott! What a bally fuss about nothing!"

The tone and the words were strangely out of keeping with the matter to which they referred; but I was too anxious to get my charge once more safely deposited upon his couch, and ascertain the mischief which I felt sure must have resulted to the injured limb from his rash escapade, to dwell much upon the circumstance.

The transfer from the window-sill to the rocking-chair had been a comparatively, easy task; but to get the invalid off the rocking-chair on to his couch proved a very different matter, and almost despaired of accomplishing it without assistance. At last, however, after efforts which left me bathed in perspiration, I succeeded; and, while the poor fellow lay there groaning in evident pain, I hastily proceeded to undo the bandages on his leg, and carefully examine the splints. The latter had, of course, become displaced in consequence of his foolish adventure, yet, fortunately, not so badly that it proved beyond my skill to reset them, a fact which afforded me a great sense of relief, for I felt anxious, for many reasons, to avoid a commotion in the household.

After I had completed my task, to which Mr. Cunninghame submitted with a patience that almost bordered on absolute indifference, I inquired if he felt the need of a stimulant; and, upon his signifying to me that he would like some brandy, I fetched the decanter from the dining-room, and poured him out a glassful. He took it, drained it off with evident relish, and handed the glass back to me without a word. Then he lay perfectly still, only pressing his lips together ever and anon when the pain grew too much for him, and glancing curiously at me in the intervals as if he were bent upon reading my thoughts from my face.

Suddenly he exclaimed brusquely:

"If you don't mind, nurse, I would rather be left alone. This confounded leg of mine hurts me," he added, in a half apologetic tone, sending me one of his old quizzical looks. "To think of a fellow breaking his shins by merely vaulting over a common garden bench. It's a deuced contrary world, in all conscience. Another man will tumble out a third-story window and come off with a mere scratch."

It was the first time he had ever alluded in my presence to the cause of his accident. Of course I knew that this had not been brought about by his vaulting over a garden bench, as he apparently wished me to believe, but by a deliberate leap from a window, similar to that the attempt of which I had just witnessed.

I deemed it prudent, however, to hold my peace, and having satisfied myself that he could now safely be left alone, I withdrew from the room, as he desired.

It was a long while before I could compose myself to think calmly over what had occurred; nor, when I did so, could I arrive at any conclusion satisfactory to myself. The whole circumstances were, to my mind, extraordinary; and they could not but dispel the last lingering doubts I had harboured as to the alleged mental derangement from which my patient suffered. I recalled the incident of the previous afternoon, and could not help connecting it with my present thrilling experience. That one was the sequel of the other appeared almost certain. But where would it all end? I felt loth to quit duties to which I had already become attached, yet I was unpleasantly conscious that the more my patient improved in physical health the greater my responsibility must grow in other respects.

The sense of it weighed upon me already very heavily, and left me no rest. A kind of fascination drew me irresistibly back to the room where the object of my fears lay. The thought of what might be occurring there in the meantime pursued me incessantly, until I could bear it no longer. I had listened at intervals at the door to assure myself that all was well. But I had not heard a sound. At last I summoned courage to knock gently, and, receiving no response, opened the door softly and entered the room.

Clive Cunninghame was slumbering peacefully.

I stood for a while beside his couch, regarding him as he lay there, the picture of calm, graceful repose. His expression in his face was one of perfect content. A smile still lingered on his lips, as if he had passed from waking to sleep with same quaint thought in his mind. Not a trace of pain and suffering, either physical or mental, was to be seen in his countenance.

Reluctantly I tore myself away from the strange spectacle, strange at least to me with the knowledge I possessed, and left the room again as quietly as I had entered it.

I passed out into the hall, and was in the act of crossing it, with the intention of instructing Kingham, the old butler, not to bring up Mr. Cunninghame's usual afternoon cup of chocolate until I should ring for it, when I was accosted by Mr. Coxton, who just happened to enter the house from the grounds.

I can hardly say how it was, but the desire to talk and consult with some living soul on the matter that was engrossing my mind overcame me with such force, that before I knew it I was pouring forth to him an excited history of my experience that afternoon.

The moment I began, the expression of his face, which had been one of placid unconcern, became grave and anxious, and I was not half-way through my story when he interrupted me by suggesting that we should go to the dining-room, where we could converse without fear of being overheard. There he made me sit down in an armchair, while he stood beside me listening attentively to what I had to relate. When I had finished he remained silent for a moment, as if weighing all I had said in his mind. Then he shook his head sadly.

"Poor fellow!" he said softly. "It's a forlorn hope, I'm afraid. Poor fellow!"

"Mr Coxton," I exclaimed, "do you really believe he is tired of life?"

He looked at me in some surprise.

"I mean," I continued, "it seems incredible in one so bright and cheerful. If you were to see him at this moment, sleeping as peacefully as if he knew no care in the world, you would understand my doubt."

He laid his hand on my arm.

"Miss Forsyth," he said—he never called me Nurse, as everybody else did—"Clive's apparent cheerfulness is, in my opinion, the most alarming feature about the whole case. No doubt Dr. Crackenthorpe has given you all needful instructions. It may do no harm, however, if I point out to you that there is possibly danger of the poor fellow doing injury to others besides himself. I trust it may not prove so. But forewarned is forearmed. You have undertaken a task of great responsibility, Miss Forsyth, and I should be glad if I could do anything to lighten it."

What he said, or rather insinuated, was hardly calculated to lighten the sense of that responsibility to which he referred, and which I already felt so keenly. Yet there was something reassuring in his manner, and indeed in his very presence, which affected me pleasantly, and I remembered with regret that his stay at Glen Elc would not extend over another day.

He appeared to divine my thoughts, for he said:

"I shall make a point of running down here one day during the week, and I hope to make a longer stay later on. By the way, I don't know if you have decided to inform Mrs. Cunninghame of this latest attempt of poor Clive. It would be kinder, I think, to keep it from her. But it is, of course, entirely a matter of your own feeling. You are aware, I believe, that Miss Staunton is quite ignorant of Clive's unfortunate state. It is my desire that she should be left so. She is very nervous and excitable, and the knowledge of the truth could do her no good."

His reference to Miss Staunton was made in a very decisive tone, which admitted of no argument. Nor did he pursue the subject any further, but passing on to other topics engaged me for a while in general conversation, and then politely escorted me back to Mr. Cunninghame's door.

That night I slept wretchedly, not owing to any extraordinary inquietude that I felt on Mr. Cunninghame's account, but to a horrible dream that pursued me so persistently, and with such a weird semblance of reality, that I woke up at the finish time after time bathed in the perspiration of terror, only to fall asleep again at once and dream the same thing over again. It was a dream in which Mr. Coxton and another person, of whom I shall have more to say anon, were engaged in a life and death struggle, and I stood by with a crown of palms in my hand prepared to decorate the victor. Again and again I saw Mr. Richard Coxton, like some Roman gladiator of old, standing, sword in hand, triumphant over his vanquished foe, and upon a signal from me—the horror of the thing still overcomes me when I recall it—plunge the weapon up to the hilt into his breast.

And he whose doom I thus sealed with a motion of my hand was the man I loved.