She had been there no more than a minute when the doctor — as every one in those parts called him — came out with Nickson. Carefully closing the door behind him — an extraordinary precaution with one who was usually the most easy-going of men — he laid his hand on his companion’s shoulder. “Why did he do it, Nickson?” he asked in a low voice, which was not free from tremor. “Can you tell me? Have you any idea? He is dressed as a gentleman, and he has a gold watch and money in his pockets.”
Their eyes were new to the darkness, and they did not see her, though she was within earshot, and was listening with growing comprehension. “It beats me to say, sir,” was Nickson’s answer— “that it does. If you will believe me, sir, he was talking to me, just before he did it, as reasonably as ever man in my life.”
“Then what the devil was it?”
“That is what I think, sir,” the carrier answered, nodding.
“What?”
“It was just the devil, sir.”
“Pshaw!” the doctor returned pettishly. “You are sure that he did it himself?”
“As sure as I can be of anything!” the carrier answered. “There was not a human creature barring myself within half a mile of him when the pistol went off — no, nor could have been.”
“Well,” the doctor said, after a pause, and in a tone of vexation, “it is no good bringing in the police unless he dies, and I don’t think he will. He has had a wonderful escape. I suppose you will not go blabbing it about, Nickson?”
“Heaven forbid!” the carrier replied. And after a few more words took his leave.
They went without discovering the listener, and she slipped into the lighted hall and stood there shivering. The darkness outside frightened her. It seemed to hold some secret of despair. Even in the familiar room, in which every faded rug and dusty folio and framed sampler had its word of everyday life for her, she looked fearfully at the closed door which led to her father’s room. She shrank from turning her back upon it. She kept glancing askance at it. When her father came to supper, she could not meet his eye; and he must have noticed her strangeness had he not been absorbed in the riddle presented to him, in thoughts of his patient’s case, and perhaps in some painful train of meditation induced by it. Such questions as his daughter put he answered absently, and he ate in the same manner, breaking off once to visit his charge. It was only when the preparations for the night were complete, when the maids had retired, and Pleasance was waiting, candlestick in hand, to say good night, that he spoke out.
“When is Woolley coming back?” he asked with a sigh.
“The twenty-eighth, father,” she answered. She betrayed no surprise at the question, though it was one he could have answered for himself. Woolley was his assistant, and was absent on a holiday tour.
He was silent a moment. His tone was querulous, his eye wandered when he spoke next. “I thought — I did think that we should have this little bit to ourselves, Pleasance,” he complained. And he seemed shrunken. His fierce moustaches and his florid colour no longer hid his weakness of moral fibre. He looked years older than when he had bent with professional alertness over his patient. Something in that patient’s strange case had come home to him and unmanned him. “This little bit,” he continued, looking at her wistfully, “though it be the last, girl.”
“It will not be the last, father,” she answered, meeting his look without flinching. “We shall stay together whatever happens.”
“Ay, but where, child?” he cried with passion, throwing out his hands as though he appealed to the dumb things around him— “where? Do you think to transplant me? I am too old. I have lived here too long — I and my fathers before me for six generations, though I am but a broken country apothecary — for me to take root elsewhere! Why, girl” — his voice rose higher— “there is not a stone of this old place, not a tree, that I do not know, that I do not love, that I would not rather own than a mile of streets!”
To her surprise he broke down and turned away to hide the tears in his eyes — tears which it pained her deeply to see. She knew how weak he was, and what cause she had to blame him in this matter. But his tears disarmed her, and she laid her hand on his and stroked it tenderly. “How much do you owe Mr. Woolley, father?” she asked, when he had recovered himself.
“Three thousand pounds,” he answered, almost sullenly.
He had never told her before, and she was appalled. “It is a large sum,” she said, looking at the faded cushions on the window-seats, the fly-blown prints, the well-worn furniture, which made the room picturesque indeed, but shabby. “What can have become of it?”
He made a reckless movement with his hand — he still had his back towards her — as though he flung something from him.
She sighed. She had not intended to reproach him, for economy was not one of her own strong points; and she remembered bills owing as well as bills paid, and many a good intention falsified. No, she could not reproach him; and she chose to look at the matter from another side. “It is a great deal of money,” she repeated. “Would he really let all that go if — just to marry me?”
“To be sure!” her father said briskly. “That is,” he continued, his conscience pricking him, “it would be the same thing then. The place would come to him anyway.”
“I see,” she answered dryly. She was always pale — though hers was a warm paleness — but now there were dark shadows under her eyes. They were grey eyes, frank and resolute, now sad and scornful also. As she sat upright in a high-backed chair, with the forgotten candle in her hand and her gaze fixed on vacancy, she seemed to be gazing at the Skeleton of the House. It was a skeleton which she and her father kept for the most part locked up. Possibly it had never been brought so completely to view before.
“You will think of it?” the doctor presently ventured, stealing a glance at her.
“I may think till Doomsday,” she answered wearily. “I shall never do it.”
“Why not?” he persisted. “What have you against him?”
“Only one thing.”
“What is it?” A gleam of hope sparkled in his eyes as he put the question. A definite accusation he might combat and refute; even a prejudice he might overcome. He prepared himself for the effort. “What is it?” he repeated.
“I do not love him, father,” she said. “I think I hate him.”
“So do I!” the doctor sighed, sinking suddenly into himself again. Alas for his preparations!
CHAPTER II
It was characteristic of both Pleasance and her father — and particularly characteristic of the latter — that when they met at breakfast next morning they ignored the trouble which had seemed so overwhelming at midnight. The doctor was constitutionally careless. It was his nature to live from day to day, plucking the flowers beside his path, without giving thought to the direction in which the path was leading him. Pleasance was careless too, but with a difference. She did not shut her eyes to the prospect; but she was young and sanguine, and she was confident — of a morning at any rate — that a way of escape would be found. So the doctor gazed through the window as cheerfully as if his title-deeds had been his own; and if Pleasance felt any misgivings, they related rather to the man lying in the next room than to her own case.
“How is he, father?” she asked. “Have you been kept awake much?” The doctor had spent the night on a sofa in order that he might be near the stranger.
“He is not conscious,” Doctor Partridge answered, “but I think that the brain is recovering from the shock, and if all goes well he will come to himself in a few hours.” Pleasance shuddered. Her father, without noticing it, went on: “But he ought not to be left alone, and I must see my patients. It is useless to ask the servants to stay with him — they are as nervous as hares. So you must sit with him for an hour or two after breakfast, Pleasance. There is no help for it.”
“I?” she said.
“Yes, to be sure; why not?” he answered lightly. “You are not afraid, I suppose? There is nothing t
o be done, and Daniel can be within call.”
She gulped down her fears and assented. She was a good girl, though she could not keep the housekeeping bills — nor her own bills, for the matter of that — within bounds. She was used to a lonely life — Sheffield lay nine miles away, and there were few neighbours on the moorland; and her nerves had been braced by many a long ramble over the ling and bracken, where the hill sheep were her only companions.
Yet she might have answered otherwise had she known that, while the words were on her father’s lips, he questioned the wisdom of his proposal. The man might on coming to his senses — the doctor did not think he would — but he might repeat his attempt. And then ——
Her answer, however, clenched the matter. When they rose from breakfast the doctor said, “Now my dear, come, and I will put you in charge.”
She followed him. It was a relief to her to discover — from the threshold of the room — that the bed had been moved, so that the light might not fall on the patient’s face. In its new position a curtain hid him. The doctor set a chair for her behind the curtain, and she sat down outwardly calm, inwardly trembling. He went himself to the bedside, and stood for a moment gazing with a critical eye. Then he nodded to her and went softly out.
He left the door ajar, and she heard him ride away. She heard too Daniel’s clumsy footsteps as he came back through the house, and the clatter of the china as Mary washed it in the kitchen. But these homely sounds served only to heighten her dislike for her task. She was not afraid. She no longer trembled. But she shrank almost with loathing from contact with her wretched companion. She conjured up a dreadful picture of him — ghastly and disfigured — defiant and hopeless — self-doomed.
He lay perfectly still. The curtain too on which her eyes dwelt hung motionless. And presently there began to grow upon her a feeling and a fear that he was dead. She fought with it, and more than once shook it off. But it returned. At length she could bear it no longer, and she rose in the silence, her breath coming quickly. She took a step towards the bed, paused, stepped on, and stood where her father had stood.
“Water!”
Before the faintly whispered word had ceased to sound she was halfway to the carafe. Where was the loathing now? She brought a little water in the tumbler, and held it to his lips. “Do not speak again,” she said softly. “You are in good hands. The doctor will return in a few minutes.”
She watched the weary dazed eyes close; then she went back to her chair as though she had been a trained nurse and this the most ordinary case in the world. But she was immensely puzzled. The picture of the patient as he really was remained with her, causing her to wonder exceedingly how such a man had come to attempt his life. The face handsome despite its bandages and pallor, the eyes kindly even in stupor, were features the very opposite of those which she had ascribed to the dark creature of her fancy.
When her father returned she flew to tell him what had happened. He entered and saw the patient, and came out again. “Yes,” he said in his professional tone, “if he can be kept quiet for forty-eight hours he will do. Fever is the only thing to be feared. But he must not be left alone, and I have to go to Ashopton. Do you mind being with him?”
“Not at all.”
This time the easy-going doctor did not hesitate. He muttered something about Daniel being within call, and, snatching a hasty meal, got to horse again.
The case at Ashopton proved to be serious. It led to complications, and even to a consultation with a London physician. And so it happened that that day, and the next, and the next, Pleasance was left in charge at home. The stranger, as his senses returned to him — and with them Heaven knows what thoughts of the past and the future, what thankfulness or remorse — grew accustomed to look to her hands for tendance. A woman can scarcely perform such offices without pitying the object of them; and Pleasance after the first morning came to wait upon the stranger’s call and minister to his wants without the disturbing remembrance that his own act had brought him to this. Away from the bedside she shuddered; beside it she forgot. In the mean time the tall gentleman, who at first lay gazing upwards, taciturn and still, came more and more to follow her with his eyes as she moved to and fro in his service. None the less he remained grave and smileless, speaking little even when he began to sit up, and saying nothing from which the current of his thoughts could be judged.
“Father,” she said one morning, when they had gone on in this way for several days, “do you think that he is quite sane?”
“Sane? yes, as sane as any of us,” was the uncompromising answer. “Indeed,” the doctor continued, looking at her sharply, “more sane than you will be if you stop in the house so much, my girl. Leave him to himself this morning and go out. Walk till lunch.”
She assented, and, the weather being soft and bright, she started in excellent spirits. As she climbed she thought that the moorland had never looked more beautiful, the distance more full of colour. But this mood proved less lasting than the May weather. Reaching the brow of the hill, she turned to look down on the Old Hall, and the sudden reflection that it must pass to strangers fell on her like a cold shadow. The tears rushed to her eyes, the walk was spoiled. She came back early, wondering at her own depression.
As she emerged from the shrubbery she saw with surprise two figures standing on the lawn. One was her father. The other — could it be Edgar Woolley come back before his time? No; this man was taller and paler, with an air of distinction which the surgeon lacked. She drew near, and her father, not seeing her, went into the house; while the other sank into an arm-chair which had been set for him, and turned and saw her. He rose with an effort, and raised his hat as she approached. It was the tall gentleman.
The fact annoyed the girl. It was one thing, she thought, to nurse him when he lay helpless, another to associate with him. She made up her mind to pass him with a frigid bow. But at the last moment the sight of his weakness melted her, and she paused on the threshold to tell him that she was glad to see him out.
“Thank you,” he answered. He spoke very quietly; but a slight flush came and went on his brow. Probably he understood her hesitation.
Within doors a fresh surprise awaited her. She found the table laid for lunch, and laid for three. “Father!” she cried, in a tone of vexation, “is he going to take his meals with us?”
“Where else is he to take them?” the doctor answered gruffly, looking up from the old bureau at which he was writing. “Would you send him to the servants? If he is left alone in his room, he will go mad in earnest.”
He spoke gruffly because he knew he was wrong. He knew no more of the tall gentleman, or of his reason for doing what he had done, than he knew of the man in the moon. That the stranger dressed and spoke like a gentleman, that there was no mark on his linen, that he had a watch and money in his pockets, and that he had tried to take his life — this was the sum of the doctor’s knowledge; and he could not feel that these matters rendered the stranger a fit companion for his daughter. But the doctor had not strength of mind to grapple with the difficulty, and he let things slide.
Pleasance would not discuss the question, but at the meal she sat silent and cold. The doctor was uncomfortable, and talked jerkily. A shadow — but it seemed more than temporary — darkened the stranger’s face. At the earliest possible moment Pleasance withdrew.
When she came down she found that the tall gentleman had retired to his room, and she saw nothing more of him that evening. Next day, the post brought a letter from Woolley, postponing his return for a day or two, and this sent the doctor on his rounds in high spirits. Pleasance herself, moving upstairs about her domestic business, felt more charitable. There might be something in what her father said about leaving the poor man to himself. She would go down presently, and talk to him, preserving a due distance.
She had scarcely made up her mind to this when she chanced to look through the window, and saw the stranger walking slowly across the lawn. She watched him for a moment in idle c
uriosity, wondering in what class he had moved, and what had brought him to this. Then she noticed the direction he was taking, and on the instant a dreadful fear flashed into the girl’s mind, and made her heart stand still. Below the lawn the rivulet formed a pool among the trees He was going that way, glancing sombrely about him as he went.
Pleasance did not stay to think — to add up the chances. She flung the door open, and ran down the stairs. She reached the lawn. He was not to be seen, but she knew which way he had gone, and she darted down the path that led to the water. She turned the corner — she saw him! He was standing gazing into the dark pool, his back towards her, in an attitude of profound melancholy. She ran on unfaltering until she reached him, and laid her hand on his arm.
“What are you doing?” she cried, on the impulse of her great fear.
He turned with a violent start, and found the girl’s pale face and glowing eyes close to his. He looked ghastly enough. There was a bandage round his head, under the soft hat which the doctor had lent him; and in the surprise of the moment the colour had fled from his face. “Doing?” he muttered, trembling in her grasp. And his eyes dilated — his nerves were still suffering from the shock of his wound, and probably from some long strain which had preceded it. “Doing? Yes, I understand you.”
He uttered the last words with a groan and a distortion of the features. “Come away!” she cried, pulling at his arm.
He let her lead him away. He was so weak that apparently he could not have returned without her help. Near the upper end of the walk there was a rustic seat, and here he signed to her to let him sit down, and she did so. When he had somewhat recovered himself he said faintly, “You are mistaken; I came here by chance.”
She shook her head, looking down at him solemnly. She was still excited, taken out of herself by her terror.
“It is true,” he said feebly. “I swear it.”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 817