Читать книгу: «The Man with a Shadow», страница 25
Volume Three – Chapter Seventeen.
Besieged
Dally had not reached the Rectory, and Horace North had not sat long thinking over the girl’s words in a way which puzzled him, as it brought a curious feeling of rest and satisfaction to his brain, before a carriage came sharply along the King’s Hampton road, and passed Moredock’s cottage and Mrs Berens’ pretty villa-like home. North was seated, with his head resting upon his hand, thinking.
Miss Mary would be so pleased, the girl had said – pleased that he was better.
It seemed strange to him, but the words set him picturing Mary Salis in the old days at the Rectory; then her accident, and how he had tended her. Then he thought of the sweet, pale, patient face, as she passed through that long time of bodily suffering, to be followed by the lasting period of what must have been terrible mental anguish as she found herself to be a hopeless, helpless invalid – changed, as it were by one sad blow, from a young and active girl to a dependent cripple.
“Poor, gentle, patient Mary!” he said softly; and then, like a flash, his mind turned to the sister – her sick couch, her delirious declaration of her love, and his weak, blind folly in not grasping the fact that the tenderness she lavished upon him was meant for another.
“No, you can’t. Master’s better, and he’s engaged, and can’t see patients.”
North started up on his seat, rigid, and with a wild look in his eyes, as he heard these loudly uttered words, and then sprang to the door.
“Now, my dear Mrs Milt,” said a soft, unctuous voice, which he knew only too well, “pray do not be excited. How can you speak like that?”
“I speak what I think and feel, sir,” retorted the old lady sharply. “What do these people want with master?”
“To ask him to go and attend upon a patient who is in a dying state. There: pray come away. Really, Mrs Milt, you must not interfere like this.”
“I tell you, sir, master don’t want to see patients, and he can’t come out; so you must send them away.”
“Really, Mrs Milt,” said Cousin Thompson, “this is insufferable. My good woman, you forget yourself.”
Every word reached North as he stood close to the door and realised that there was one woman ready to fight in his defence.
North stood there, with his hands clenched and his brow rugged, glaring angrily, for he well knew what this meant. The voices were heard retiring, and the sound of the dining-room door closing, and muffling them suddenly, told him as plainly as if he had seen that the housekeeper had followed Cousin Thompson into that room, where an angry altercation seemed to be in progress.
“Hah!” ejaculated the miserable man; “canting and unscrupulous to the end. He is keeping her in parley while his people do their work.”
He laughed bitterly, for at that moment the door was tried softly, and then there was a gentle tapping on the panel.
“May my money prove a curse to him, and the whole place constantly remind him of his treachery,” he muttered, as the soft tapping was repeated, and a low voice, which he did not recognise, said:
“Dr North – Dr North! Can I speak to you a minute?”
He made no answer, but drew back to the table.
“Will they dare to break in?” he said to himself, as his face wore a look of bitter scorn and contempt.
Just then Mrs Milt’s voice could be heard raised loudly in protest; but it was in vain. Cousin Thompson, under the pretext of holding a parley, had entrapped her in the dining-room, and then interposed his person whenever she attempted to leave by door or window.
The tapping at the door ceased, and there was a sound of whispering; whilst a minute after a stoutly-built, rather hard-faced man, with a determined look, suddenly appeared at the French window looking on the garden, and tried the handle.
It was fast on the inside.
He passed on and went round to the surgery door, which he tried, too; but North had fastened this when he let Dally out, and the man came back, looked in and tapped gently on the pane to take North’s attention. Then seeing that he did not stir from where he stood at the table, the man smiled and beckoned to him.
This he repeated again and again, but North did not stir. Then his lips moved, and he involuntarily repeated Hamlet’s words:
“I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a hernshaw.”
The man nodded and smiled again, and passed away.
There was another low murmuring outside the door, and a fresh tapping, as a persuasive voice said:
“Dr North, will you be kind enough to open the door, and come into the dining-room? Mrs Milt, the housekeeper, would like to speak to you.”
“What a child – what a weak lunatic they must think me!” muttered North; but he did not move, and, as he fully expected, the last speaker, as he supposed, went round to the window and tapped softly.
The fresh comer might have been twin brother of the first, so similar was his expression, so exactly a repetition were his acts.
They were of as much avail, and he returned to the hall, when a few words were exchanged in a low tone of voice, followed by a sharp tapping at the dining-room door.
This was opened, and Mrs Milt’s voice rose loudly:
“Stop me if you dare, any of you! and I’ll have the law of you.”
This was followed by a sharp, rustling noise, and the dull thud made by the banging of the baize door.
Then there was the sound of the gravel as some one walked over it hurriedly, and the clicking of the swing-gate before it caught.
“Give the word, sir, and it’s done,” said a deep voice.
“Quick, then!” said Cousin Thompson sharply. “Quick, before that cursed woman returns with help.”
Volume Three – Chapter Eighteen.
One Way of Escape
North drew a deep breath as one of the men stationed himself at the study window and looked in.
He strode towards him, and the man smiled and beckoned to him to come out; but the smile became a scowl as the cord was seized and the blind drawn down.
Just then the door cracked as some one pressed it hard, and then a whispering penetrated to where North stood looking round before crossing to the surgery, entering, and locking himself in.
His first act was to go to the window, where he expected to find that there was another sentry; but window and outer door faced in another direction, and were shut off from the part of the garden where the man stood by a dense patch of ancient shrubbery and a tall yew hedge.
North felt perfectly calm now, but his soul was full of a terrible despair.
He told himself that for him hope was dead; that in dealing with the occult secrets of Nature he had nearly mastered that which he wished to discover, but had failed, and must pay the penalty; while in the future some more fortunate student would profit by that which he had done; and, avoiding the pitfall into which he had fallen, take another turning and triumph.
To this end in the hours of his misery – when it had seemed to him that the strange essence which pervaded him slept – he had committed to paper the whole history of his experiments, from the first start to the time when he had awakened to the fact that he could no longer arrest the decomposition of the important organs, or do more than make a kind of mummy of his subject; but the essence or spirit was, as it were, taken captive, and at the same time held him in thrall.
This, to the most extreme point, he had carefully written out, showing, in addition, the time when he felt that he must have gone wrong, as that where a different course must be pursued by the daring scientist who would venture so much in the great cause.
For he wrote clearly and impressively: failure meant such a fate as his, the constant presence of the spirit of the person who had died, and with it the being compelled to suffer for every wild act or speech this essence would do or make. He told how helpless he was, how he had striven to bring scientific knowledge to bear, fought with his position as a man should who was in the full possession of his faculties, but that he could do no more.
Success meant a crown of triumphant honour; failure, a kind of sane madness, whose only end could be death – a death he was compelled to seek to save himself at once – to save himself from being treated as a maniac, and then to spend a few weeks or months of torture which he knew he could not bear.
In his last paragraphs he pointed out his position. He was believed to be mad, and to clear himself he would have to explain his experiment and his abnormal position, which he owned that no one would or could be expected to believe, save such a savant as the one he addressed – a man who had made the brain his study, and who could feel for the sufferings of the writer.
This letter was enclosed in the packet addressed to his executors for delivery to Mr Delton, and lay in the study, waiting till those executors should receive the last commands.
All was at an end now, and with a feeling of calmness approaching to content, Horace North looked round his surgery with its many familiar objects; and without the slightest feeling of dread took down a small medicine glass from the set standing all ready upon a shelf, and then lifted a large bottle from one particular spot at the end where it always stood, veiling a little recess wherein were a couple of smaller bottles, carefully labelled and marked as to their degree of strength.
“Is it cowardly?” he said quietly. “Is it a sin? Surely not, when I know my position, and – yes, that is my fate.”
For at that moment there was a sharp crack: the door had yielded, and he knew that his cousin’s emissaries – the people from some private asylum – had forced their way into the study, and their next step would be to make their way to where he was.
He could have opened the door, and fled by way of the meadows; but where? To whom? Perhaps at the moment when he made his first appeal for help, the living shadow that he had, as it were, taken to him, would utter some wild cry or absurd jest, and people would believe his pursuers in spite of all that he could declare.
No, it was not cowardice, this hastening of his end; and, withdrawing the stopper, he began pouring out the liquid contents of the little bottle, as the handle of the surgery door was turned, and the panel gave an ominous crack.
“You shall let me pass away in peace,” he said quietly, as he drew away a chair which propped back an inner door of baize, let it swing to, and thrust in both its bolts.
“Cousin Thompson,” he said bitterly, “you were always a miserable wretch, but I withdraw my curse. Take all, and enjoy your wretched life as well as such a reptile can.”
He paused for a few moments, with his lips moving slowly, and a calm look of resignation softening the harsh austerities of his face.
“To forgiveness!” he said softly. “To oblivion!” and he raised the glass to his lips.
Volume Three – Chapter Nineteen.
Vision or Real
The shivering of glass as the fragments of a pane fell tinkling upon the carpet.
The shivering of glass as the little crystal fell from Horace North’s hand, and a pungent odour filled the room.
“Mary Salis! or am I mad indeed?” ejaculated the wretched man.
He stood motionless, staring at the window as a white arm was forced through the broken glass, and the catch thrust back, but not so quickly but that a deep red stain had time to show; for the jagged glass made an ugly gash above the white wrist, though it was unheeded, and the casement was flung open.
“The door – open that door!” North did not stir, but stood gazing wildly at the pallid face before him, and then he passed his hands across his eyes and tottered to the window, as if drawn there by the eyes which gazed into his.
“Quick! the door – open this door!” was panted forth.
He obeyed mechanically without taking his eyes from the window, feeling his way to the door, and slowly opening it, to stand gazing at Mary Salis, as she caught his hands in hers.
“What were you going to do?” she cried piteously. “You, too, of all men! You must be mad – you must be mad!”
“Yes,” he said vacantly; “they say so. I must be mad, or is – is it past – a dream? Mary Salis – you!”
“What’s that?” cried Mary excitedly, as the sound of the breaking door was heard. North uttered a sigh.
“They are coming,” he cried, “and I shall be too late. Loose my arm – loose my arm!”
“No, no, no!” panted Mary, as she flung herself upon his breast. “It is what I feared; I believed it, and I came. Oh, for pity’s sake, don’t do that!”
“Yes: I must. You do not know,” he whispered hoarsely, as he tried to unlace her arms from about him.
“Yes, I know that you were about to commit self-murder, and you shall not do this thing,” cried Mary wildly.
“Would you see me dragged away to a living death?” he said. “Listen – do you not hear? Loose me, I say!”
He spoke almost savagely now, as he struggled to get the enlacing hands away; but, as he tore at them, Mary clung the closer, drawing herself more tightly to his breast as her face approached his, and her lips parted, her eyes dilated, and she cried as wildly:
“Then kill me too!” He ceased struggling to look at the flushed, love-illumined face that approached his, unable to grasp the whole meaning of what was said, mentally incapable of interpreting the words and looks, the whole scene being like the phantasm of some delirious fit.
A louder crack of the baize door aroused him, and he started away.
“Don’t you hear?” he whispered. “Don’t you hear?”
“Yes,” cried Mary, still clinging to him; “I hear, and it is help.”
“No, no!” he whispered; “it is those men. Ah, I am too late!”
For at that moment there was a sharp rustling of the bushes, and a man ran up over the lawn, to pause bewildered at the scene before him.
“You, miss – here?” he panted breathlessly. “Old Missus Milt said as the maddus folk was taking the doctor away.”
“What?” cried Mary; and a mist floated before her eyes.
“The maddus folk, miss; and they’ve got a carriage round the front.”
With a strength that was almost superhuman, Mary recovered herself, and grasping the situation, she whispered to North:
“Is this true?”
“Listen,” he said.
Mary clung to him tightly as the sounds of the doors being forced bore unanswerable witness to the words; and then, as if to shield him from the threatened danger, she thrust him from her and followed across the surgery.
“No, no!” she panted. “Quick, before it is too late.”
“Go?” he said, in answer to her frenzied appeal.
“Yes, yes; quick – quick! The garden – the meadows.”
North seemed dazed, but Joe Chegg, who had run excitedly to the Manor after meeting the old housekeeper, more with the idea of seeing what was going on than affording help, now caught North’s arm and hurried him out of the surgery and down the nearest path, then in and out among the dense shrubs, so that they were well out of sight before the door yielded, and Cousin Thompson’s emissaries found their prey had gone.
North made no opposition to the efforts of those who held him on either side; but, weak with long fasting, and now utterly dazed, he staggered from time to time, and would have fallen but for the sustaining arms.
“Rect’ry, miss? All right,” said Joe Chegg. “Hold up, sir, or you’ll be down.”
For North had made a lurch, and clung wildly to the sturdy young fellow.
“Oh, try – pray try!” moaned Mary, as she gazed back. “Now; I’ll help all I can.”
“I’ll manage him,” said Joe, who took the appeal to himself. “You let him lean on me. Why, I thought, miss, as how you couldn’t walk.”
“Hush! don’t speak. They may hear us,” whispered Mary, gazing fearfully back as they pressed on through the meadows with the bottom of the Rectory garden still a couple of hundred yards away, when, as Mary glanced sidewise at North, she saw his eyes close, and at the same moment his legs gave way, and he sank towards the grass.
Mary uttered a piteous groan and gazed at Chegg, who had loosened his hold on North’s arm, and now stood with hat raised, scratching his head.
“Now, if some one else was here,” he muttered; and then, in answer to an unspoken question, he cried aloud: “Well, I d’know, miss; but, anyhow, I’ll try.”
A life of toil had made the young fellow’s muscles pretty tough, or else he could not have risen so sturdily after kneeling down, and, contriving to get North upon his shoulder, to start off once more, with Mary urging him to use every exertion, for a shout from behind had thrilled her, and on looking back it was to see two men coming along the meadow at a quick trot, while a third was walking swiftly behind.
Volume Three – Chapter Twenty.
A Race for Liberty
It was a close race, and Mary Salis felt that, ere many minutes had passed, the strange force which had nerved her so that she had traversed the distance between the two houses, and then enabled her to go through the scene which followed, would fail; but still she struggled on, with their pursuers gaining so rapidly that the gate which gave upon the meadows had hardly been passed and dashed to, and the feeling that at last they were in comparative safety, given her fresh strength, when the two keepers came up, and without hesitation threw open the gate, and followed into the Rectory orchard.
Joe Chegg had lowered his burden on to the ground as the men reached the gate.
“What’ll I do, miss?”
“Stand by me,” panted Mary, stooping to catch Horace’s hand in hers; and then, sinking on one knee, she held to it tightly with both her own.
“Stand by you, miss?” cried Joe. “Yes; I’ll do that; but you run and call for help.”
“No, no,” cried Mary; “I will not go.”
“Now, then,” cried Joe, “what is it? You know you’re a-trespassing here?”
“You get out,” growled one of the men; and he thrust the sturdy young fellow roughly aside.
It was a mistake on the keeper’s part, for Joe Chegg’s father was a Bilston man, notorious in his time for the pugnacity of his life.
His mantle, or rather his disposition to take off his coat, had fallen upon his son, and the result of the rude thrust was that Joe Chegg rebounded so violently that the keeper went staggering back, and by the time he recovered, and his companion was about to join in the attack, Joe had proved himself to be the son of his father, for his coat was lying on the ground.
This was awkward. The keepers were accustomed to tussles with insane patients, and they were ready for a fight with Horace North, and to do anything to force him into the carriage waiting at the Manor House. But Joe Chegg was sane, sturdy, and had begun to square.
A fight with the stout young Warwick man was not in their instructions, and they called a parley.
“Look here, miss,” said the one who had been struck surlily; “just call your bulldog off. We don’t want no trouble, and you’re doing a very foolish thing; so let us do our dooty and go.”
As he spoke he advanced, but a feint from Joe made him flinch, though he gave the young fellow a very ugly look.
“This is an outrage,” cried Mary, rising and speaking now firmly. “What does it mean?”
“It means, madam,” said a voice, as the tall, dark medical man who had visited twice at the Manor now came upon the scene, after a very hurried walk through the meadows – “it means, madam,” he repeated, for he was breathless, “that Dr North is not in a fit condition to be at large.”
“It is not true!” cried Mary indignantly; though the recollection of what she had witnessed made her quail.
“It is quite true, madam; and his nearest friends have taken steps to have him placed under proper treatment, where he can be restored to health.”
“Where what little reason left to him will be wrecked,” something seemed to say within Mary; and she held on more tightly to North’s hand.
“There, madam,” said the doctor; “I have explained this to you, but I will also add, so that there may be no further unpleasantry, that all these steps have been taken after proper advice, and in strict legal manner. Now, be kind enough to let my men assist the patient to rise, and let us get this sad matter settled as quickly as we can.”
Mary wavered, and the doctor saw it.
“Jones,” he said, “you go and get the carriage round here. It will be much the shortest way.”
“Dr North is a very old and dear friend of ours,” said Mary, recovering herself, and speaking with dignity; “and I cannot stand by, in my brother’s absence, and see what seems to me to be an outrage committed.”
“Ah, your brother is away,” said the doctor. “It is a pity, for gentlemen are better to deal with than ladies in a case like this. There, my dear madam, pray accept my assurances that everything is right, and that Dr North will be taken the greatest care of, and restored to you soon perfectly sane and well. Pray be good enough to stand aside.”
“No,” cried Mary firmly; “he shall not go.”
“Just say the word, miss,” whispered Joe Chegg.
“Jones!” shouted the doctor; “come back!”
The second keeper, who was nearly through the orchard, came back, and it was a case of three to one; but Joe Chegg was not intimidated.
“Look here,” he said. “Miss Salis says he isn’t to go, and you’re trespassing here. Hi! you Dally Watlock!” he shouted, as he caught sight of the little maid coming down the orchard; “you let loose that there dog.”
Dally hesitated while, in response to a word from the doctor, the keepers advanced; and they would have succeeded in their task – Joe Chegg’s brave efforts being doomed to failure by the baffling movements of the well-dressed doctor, whom he hesitated to strike – but succour arrived in the person of Salis, who came running down the orchard, red-faced and excited.
The odds were so reduced that a fresh parley ensued, the doctor giving his explanations now once more in answer to the indignant questions of Salis:
“How dare you insult my sister?” followed by another, “How dare you insult my friend?”
“Law or no law, sir,” cried Salis, at last, “Dr North is on my premises, where, so to speak, he has taken sanctuary. You are acting at the wish of Mr Thompson?”
The doctor bowed.
“Then fetch Mr Thompson here.”
“Really, sir – ” began the doctor.
“That will do, sir,” cried Salis. “You have heard my decision. If the law forces me to give up my friend, I may be compelled; but I will not give him up to you and these men now. Chegg, see these persons off the Rectory grounds.”
There was no help for it. A struggle would have resulted in the raising of the village, and, shrugging his shoulders, the doctor beat an ignominious retreat with his men.
“Mary!” exclaimed Salis, now for the first time realising the miracle that seemed to have occurred; “is this you?”
The poor girl did not speak, but stood gazing at him with her eyes growing dim, while before he could catch her she sank, first upon her knees, and then forward with her head upon North’s breast, while her soft, fair hair escaped from the bands which held it, and fell loosely about her marble face.
