CHAPTER LXIV.
IN THE DUTCH ROOM.
His heart misgave him. He felt that a crisis was coming; and he read--
'I cannot tell you, my poor brother, how miserable I am. I have justlearned that a very dangerous person has discovered more about thatdreadful evening than we believed known to anybody in Gylingden. I amsubjected to the most agonising suspicions and _insults_. Would to HeavenI were dead! But living, I cannot endure my present state of mind longer.To-morrow morning I will see Dorcas--poor Dorcas!--and tell her all. I amweary of urging you, _in vain_, to do so. It would have been much better.But although, after that interview, I shall, perhaps, never see her more,I shall yet be happier, and, I think, relieved from suspense, and thetorments of mystery. So will she. At all events, it is her _right_ toknow all--and she shall.
'YOUR OUTCAST AND MISERABLE SISTER.'
On Stanley's lips his serene, unpleasant smile was gleaming, as he closedthe note carelessly. He intended to speak, but his voice caught. Hecleared it, and sipped a little claret.
'For a clever girl she certainly does write the most wonderful rubbish.Such an effusion! And she sends it tossing about, from hand to hand,among the servants. I've anticipated her, however, Dorkie.' And he tookher hand and kissed it. 'She does not know I've told you _all_ myself.'
Stanley went to the library, and Dorcas to the conservatory, neither veryhappy, each haunted by an evil augury, and a sense of coming danger. Thedeepening shadow warned Dorcas that it was time to repair to the Dutchroom, where she found lights and tea prepared.
In a few minutes more the library door opened and Stanley Lake peeped in.
'Radie not come yet?' said he entering. 'We certainly are much pleasanterin this room, Dorkie, more, in proportion, than we two should have beenin the drawing-room.'
He seated himself beside her, drawing his chair very close to hers, andtaking her hand in his. He was more affectionate this evening than usual.What did it portend? she thought. She had already begun to acquiesce inRachel's estimate of Stanley, and to fancy that whatever he did it waswith an unacknowledged purpose.
'Does little Dorkie love me?' said Lake, in a sweet undertone.
There was reproach, but love too, in the deep soft glance she threw uponhim.
'You must promise me not to be frightened at what I am going to tellyou,' said Lake.
She heard him with sudden panic, and a sense of cold stole over her. Helooked like a ghost--quite white--smiling. She knew something wascoming--the secret she had invoked so long--and she was appalled.
'Don't be frightened, darling. It is necessary to tell you; but it isreally not much when you hear me out. You'll say so when you have quiteheard me. So you won't be frightened?'
She was gazing straight into his wild yellow eyes, fascinated, with alook of expecting terror.
'You are nervous, darling,' he continued, laying his hand on hers. 'Shallwe put it off for a little? You are frightened.'
'Not much frightened, Stanley,' she whispered.
'Well, we had better wait. I see, Dorcas, you _are_ frightened andnervous. Don't keep looking at me; look at something else, can't you? Youmake yourself nervous that way. I promise, upon my honour, I'll not say aword about it till you bid me.'
'I know, Stanley--I know.'
'Then, why won't you look down, or look up, or look any way you please,only don't stare at me so.'
'Yes--oh, yes,' and she shut her eyes.
'I'm sorry I began,' he said, pettishly. 'You'll make a fuss. You've madeyourself quite nervous; and I'll wait a little.'
'Oh! no, Stanley, _now_--for Heaven's sake, _now_. I was only a littlestartled; but I am quite well again. Is it anything about marriage? Oh,Stanley, in mercy, tell me was there any other engagement?'
'Nothing, darling--nothing on earth of the sort;' and he spoke with anicy little laugh. 'Your poor soldier is altogether yours, Dorkie,' and hekissed her cheek.
'Thank God for that!' said Dorcas, hardly above her breath.
'What I have to say is quite different, and really nothing that needaffect you; but Rachel has made such a row about it. Fifty fellows, Iknow, are in much worse fixes; and though it is not of so muchconsequence, still I think I should not have told you; only, withoutknowing it, you were thwarting me, and helping to get me into a seriousdifficulty by your obstinacy--or what you will--about Five Oaks.'
Somehow trifling as the matter was, Stanley seemed to grow more and moreunwilling to disclose it, and rather shrank from it now.
'Now, Dorcas, mind, there must be no trifling. You must not treat me asRachel has. If you can't keep a secret--for it _is_ a secret--say so.Shall I tell you?'
'Yes, Stanley--yes. I'm your wife.'
'Well, Dorcas, I told you something of it; but only a part, and somecircumstances I _did_ intentionally colour a little; but I could not helpit, unless I had told everything; and no matter what you or Rachel maysay, it was kinder to withhold it as long as I could.'
He glanced at the door, and spoke in a lower tone.
And so, with his eyes lowered to the table at which he sat, glancing everand anon sideways at the door, and tracing little figures with the tip ofhis finger upon the shining rosewood, he went on murmuring his strangeand hateful story in the ear of his wife.
It was not until he had spoken some three or four minutes that Dorcassuddenly uttered a wild scream, and started to her feet. And Stanley alsorose precipitately, and caught her in his arms, for she was falling.
As he supported her in her chair, the library door opened, and thesinister face of Uncle Lorne looked in, and returned the captain's starewith one just as fixed and horrified.
'Hush!' whispered Uncle Lorne, and he limped softly into the room, andstopped about three yards away, 'she is not dead, but sleepeth.'
'Hallo! Larcom,' shouted Lake.
'I tell you she's dreaming the same dream that I dreamt in the middle ofthe night.'
'Hallo! Larcom.'
'Mark's on leave to-night, in uniform; his face is flattened against thewindow. This is his lady, you know.'
'Hallo! D-- you--are you there?' shouted the captain, very angry.
'I saw Mark following you like an ape, on all-fours; such nice whiteteeth! grinning at your heels. But he can't bite yet--ha, ha, ha! PoorMark!'
'Will you be so good, Sir, as to touch the bell?' said Lake, changing histone.
He was afraid to remove his arm from Dorcas, and he was splashing waterfrom a glass upon her face and forehead.
'No--no. No bell yet--time enough--ding, dong. You say, dead and gone.'
Captain Lake cursed him and his absent keeper between his teeth; still ina rather flurried way, prosecuting his conjugal attentions.
'There was no bell for poor Mark; and he's always listening, and staresso. A cat may look, you know.'
'Can't you touch the bell, Sir? What are you standing there for?' snarledLake, with a glare at the old man. He looked as if he could have murderedhim.
'Standing between the living and the dead!'
'Here, Reuben, here; where the devil have you been--take him away. He hasterrified her. By ---- he ought to be shot.'
The keeper silently slid his arm into Uncle Lorne's, and, unresisting,the old man talking to himself the while, drew him from the room.
Larcom, about to announce Miss Lake, and closely followed by that younglady, passed the grim old phantom on the lobby.
'Be quick, you are wanted there,' said the attendant as he passed.
Dorcas, pale as marble, sighing deeply again and again, her rich blackhair drenched in water, which trickled over her cheeks, like the tearsand moisture of agony, was recovering. There was water spilt on thetable, and the fragments of a broken glass upon the floor.
The moment Rachel saw her, she divined what had happened, and, glidingover, she placed her arm round her.
'You're better, darling. Open the window, Stanley. Send her maid.'
'Aye, send her maid,' cried Captain Lake to Larcom. 'This is your d--dw
ork. A nice mess you have made of it among you.'
'Are you better, Dorcas?' said Rachel.
'Yes--much better. I'm glad, darling, I understand you now. Radie, kissme.'
Next morning, before early family prayers, while Mr. Jos. Larkin waslocking the despatch box which was to accompany him to London Mr. Larcomarrived at the Lodge.
He had a note for Mr. Larkin's hand, which he must himself deliver; andso he was shown into that gentleman's official cabinet, and received withthe usual lofty kindness.
'Well, Mr. Larcom, pray sit down. And can I do anything for you, Mr.Larcom?' said the good attorney, waving his long hand toward a vacantchair.
'A note, Sir.'
'Oh, yes; very well.' And the tall attorney rose, and, facing the ruralprospect at his window, with his back to Mr. Larcom, he read, with afaint smile, the few lines, in a delicate hand, consenting to the sale ofFive Oaks.
He had to look for a time at the distant prospect to allow his smile tosubside, and to permit the conscious triumph which he knew beamed throughhis features to discharge itself and evaporate in the light and airbefore turning to Mr. Larcom, which he did with an air of suddenrecollection.
'Ah--all right, I was forgetting; I must give you a line.'
So he did, and hid away the note in his despatch-box, and said--
'The family all quite well, I hope?' whereat Larcom shook his head.
'My mistress'--he always called her so, and Lake the capting--'has beentakin' on hoffle, last night, whatever come betwixt 'em. She was faintedoutright in her chair in the Dutch room; and he said it was the oldgentleman--Old Flannels, we calls him, for shortness--but lor' bless you,she's too used to him to be frightened, and that's only a make-belief;and Miss Dipples, her maid, she says as how she was worse up stairs, andshe's made up again with Miss Lake, which _she_ was very glad, no doubt,of the making friends, I do suppose; but it's a bin a bad row, and Isuspeck amost he's used vilins.'
'Compulsion, I suppose; you mean constraint?' suggested Larkin, verycurious.
'Well, that may be, Sir, but I amost suspeck she's been hurted somehow.She got them crying fits up stairs, you know; and the capting, he'shoffle bad-tempered this morning, and he never looked near her once,after his sister came; and he left them together, talking and crying, andhe locked hisself into the library, like one as knowed he'd donesomething to be ashamed on, half the night.'
'It's not happy, Larcom, I'm much afraid; it's _not_ happy,' and theattorney rose, shaking his tall bald head, and his hands in his pockets,and looked down in meditation.
'In the Dutch room, after tea, I suppose?' said the attorney.
'Before tea, Sir, just as Miss Lake harrived in the brougham.'
And so on. But there was no more to be learned, and Mr. Larcom returnedand attended the captain very reverentially at his solitary breakfast.
Mr. Jos. Larkin was away for London. And a very serene companion he was,if not very brilliant. Everything was going perfectly smoothly with him.A celestial gratitude glowed and expanded within his breast. His anglinghad been prosperous hitherto, but just now he had made a miraculousdraught, and his nets and his heart were bursting. Delightful sentiment,the gratitude of a righteous man; a man who knows that his heart is notset upon the things of the world; who has, like King Solomon, made wisdomhis first object, and who finds riches added thereto!
There was no shadow of self-reproach to slur the sunny landscape. He hadmade a splendid purchase from Captain Lake it was true. He drew hisdespatch-box nearer to him affectionately, as he thought on the preciousrecords it contained. But who in this wide-awake world was better able totake care of himself than the gallant captain? If it were not the bestthing for the captain, surely it would not have been done. Whom have Idefrauded? My hands are clean! He had made a still better purchase fromthe vicar; but what would have become of the vicar if he had not beenraised up to purchase? And was it not speculative, and was it notpossible that he should lose all that money, and was it not, on thewhole, the wisest thing that the vicar, under his difficulties, couldhave been advised to do?
So reasoned the good attorney, as with a languid smile and a sigh ofcontent, his long hand laid across the cover of the despatch-box by hisside, he looked forth through the plate-glass window upon the sunnyfields and hedgerows that glided by him, and felt the blessed assurance,'look, whatsoever he doeth it shall prosper,' mingling in the hum ofsurrounding nature. And as his eyes rested on the flying diorama oftrees, and farmsteads, and standing crops, and he felt already the prideof a great landed proprietor, his long fingers fiddled pleasantly withthe rough tooling of his morocco leather box; and thinking of the signedarticles within, it seemed as though an angelic hand had placed themthere while he slept, so wondrous was it all; and he fancied under thered tape a label traced in the neatest scrivenery, with a pencil oflight, containing such gratifying testimonials to his deserts, 'as welldone good and faithful servant,' 'the saints shall inherit the earth,'and so following; and he sighed again in the delicious luxury of havingsecured both heaven and mammon. And in this happy state, and volunteeringall manner of courtesies, opening and shutting windows, lending hisrailway guide and his newspapers whenever he had an opportunity, he atlength reached the great London terminus, and was rattling over themetropolitan pavement, with his hand on his despatch-box, to his cheaphotel near the Strand.
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