The Wiles of the Wicked
Page 29
I had accidentally knocked my head against the marble statueand broken it was, I felt assured, only one of that fool Britten'sbrilliant ideas with which he misled his too-confiding patients. Ifthis were so, then all the incidents subsequent to my recovery ofconsciousness were part of the conspiracy which had commenced on theprevious night with Hickman's attempt.
We descended the stairs, passing the footman Gill, who with a bow,said--
"I hope, sir, you feel better."
"A little," I answered. "Bring me a whisky and soda to the library."
And the man at once disappeared to do my bidding. "I suppose he think'sI'm mad," I remarked. "This is a very remarkable _menage_, to say theleast."
In the great hall, as I walked towards the library, was a long mirror,and in passing I caught sight of my own figure in it. I stopped, andwith a loud cry of wonder and dismay stood before it, glaring at my ownreflection.
The bandages about my head gave me a terribly invalid appearance, butreflected by that glass I saw a sight which struck me dumb withamazement. I could not believe my eyes; the thing staggered belief.
On the morning before I had shaved as usual, but the glass showed that Inow wore a well cut, nicely reddish-brown beard!
My face seemed to have changed curiously. I presented an olderappearance than on the day before. My hair seemed to have lost itsyouthful lustre, and upon my brow were three distinct lines--the linesof care.
I felt my beard with eager hands. Yes, there was no mistake. It wasthere, but how it had grown was inconceivable.
Beyond, through the open door, I saw the brilliant sunlight, the greenlawn, the bright flowers and cool foliage of the rustling trees.
It was summer. Yet only yesterday was chill, dark winter, withthreatening snow.
Had I been asleep like Rip Van Winkle in the legend? "Tell me," I criedexcitedly, turning to the man standing behind me, "what's the day of themonth to-day?"
"The seventeenth of July."
"July?" I echoed. "And what year is this?"
"Why, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, of course."
"Ninety-six!" I gasped, standing glaring at him in blank amazement."Ninety-six?"
"Certainly. Why?"
"Am I really losing my senses?" I cried, dismayed. "_Yesterday was sixyears ago_!"
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
GEDGE TELLS THE TRUTH.
"Yesterday six years ago!" he echoed, looking at me in blankbewilderment. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that if what you've told me is really the truth," I cried, agapein wonder, "then it is the most astounding thing I've ever heard of.Are you absolutely certain of the date?"
"Certain? Why, of course."
"Of the year, I mean?"
"Positive. It's eighteen ninety-six."
"For how long, then, have you been my secretary?" I inquired.
"Nearly five years."
"And how long have I lived in this place?"
"For nearly four."
"And that woman," I demanded, breathlessly--"is she actually my wife?"
"Most certainly," he answered.
I stood stupefied, stunned by this amazing statement.
"But," I protested, lost in wonder, "yesterday was years ago. How doyou account for that? Are you certain that you're not deceiving me?"
"I've told you the absolute truth," he responded. "On that I stake myhonour."
I stood aghast, glaring at my reflection in the mirror, open-mouthed, asthough I gazed upon some object supernatural. My personal appearancehad certainly changed, and that in itself convinced me that there mustbe some truth in this man Gedge's statement. I was older, a triflestouter than before, I think, and my red-brown beard seemed to give myface a remarkably grotesque appearance. I had always hated beards, andconsidered them a relic of prehistoric barbarity. It was surprisingthat I should now have grown one.
"Then according to your account I must have spent yesterday here--actually in this house?"
"Why, of course you did," he responded. "We were engaged the greaterpart of the day over Laffan's affair. Walter Halliburton, the miningengineer, came down to see you, and we were together all the afternoon.He left for London at five."
"And where did I dine?"
"Here. With Mrs Heaton."
"Don't speak of her as Mrs Heaton!" I cried in anger. "She's not mywife, and I will not have her regarded as such."
He gave his shoulders a slight shrug.
"Now, look here, Mr Gedge," I said, speaking for the first time withconfidence. "If you were in my place, awakening suddenly to find thatsix years of your life had vanished in a single night, and that you werean entirely different person to that of twelve hours ago, what would youbelieve?"
He looked at me with a somewhat sympathetic expression upon his thinfeatures.
"Well, I don't know what I should think." Then he added, "But surelysuch a thing can't be possible."
"It is possible," I cried. "It has happened to me. I tell you thatlast night was six years ago."
He turned from me, as though he considered further argument unavailing.
My head reeled. What he had told me was utterly incredible. It seemedabsolutely impossible that six whole years should have passed without myknowledge; that I should have entered upon a business of which I hadpreviously known nothing; that I should have rapidly amassed a fortune;and, most of all, that I should have married that powdered and paintedwoman who had presented herself as my wife. Yet such were theunaccountable facts which this man Gedge asked me to believe.
He saw that I was extremely dubious about the date, therefore he led meback to the library, where there hung upon the wall a large calendar,which quickly convinced me.
Six; years had really elapsed since yesterday.
In that vexing and perplexing present I reflected upon the puzzlingpast. That happy dinner with Mabel at the Boltons, the subsequentdiscoveries in that drawing-room where she had sat at the piano calmlyplaying; her soft words of tenderness, and the subsequent treachery ofthat dog-faced man Hickman, all passed before me with extraordinaryvividness. Yet, in truth, all had happened long ago.
Alas! I was not like other men. To the practical, level-headed man ofaffairs "To-day" may be sufficient, all-engrossing; but to the verylarge majority--a majority which, I believe, includes also many of thepractical, the business of to-day admits of constant pleasant excursionsinto the golden mists of "long ago," and many happy flights to the rosyheights of "some day." Most of those who read this strange story of mylife will remember with a melancholy affection, with a pain that is moresoothing than many pleasures, the house wherein they were born, or atany rate the abode in which they passed the earlier years of theirlives. The agonising griefs of childhood, the disappointments, thesoul-racking terrors, mellowed by the gentle touch of passing years,have no sting for our mature sensibilities, but come back to us now witha pathos that is largely tinctured with amusement.
I stood there reviewing the past, puzzled, utterly unable to account forit. Age, the iconoclast, had shattered most of the airy idols which myyouth had set up in honour of itself. I had lost six of the mostprecious years of my life--years that I had not lived.
Yet this man before me declared most distinctly that I had lived them;that I had enjoyed a second existence quite apart and distinct from myown self. Incredible though it seemed, yet it became graduallyimpressed upon me that what this man Gedge had told me was the actual,hideous truth, and that I had really lived and moved and prosperedthroughout those six unknown years, while my senses had at the same timeremained dormant, and I had thus been utterly unconscious of existence.
But could such a thing be? As a prosaic man of the world I argued, asany one in his right mind would argue, that such a thing was beyond thebounds of possibility. Nevertheless, be it how it might, the undisputedfact remained that I had lapsed into unconsciousness on that winter'snight six years before, and had known absolutely nothing of mysurroundings until I found myself lying
upon the floor of thedrawing-room of what was alleged to be my country house.
Six years out of a man's life is a large slice. The face of the worldchanges considerably in that space of time. I found myself living alife which was so artificial and incongruous to my own tastes as toappear utterly unreal. Yet, as I made further inquiry of this manGedge, every moment that passed showed me plainly that what he had saidwas the truth.
He related to me the routine of my daily life, and I stood listeningagape in wonder. He told me things of which I had no knowledge; of myown private affairs, and of my business profits; he took bigleather-bound ledgers from the great green-painted safe, and showed