1. THE FIRST PART
1. CHAPTER I
In the year 1860, the reputation of Doctor Wybrow as a London physician
reached its highest point. It was reported on good authority that he was in
receipt of one of the largest incomes derived from the practice of medicine
in modern times.
One afternoon, towards the close of the London season, the Doctor had
just taken his luncheon after a specially hard morning's work in his
consulting-room, and with a formidable list of visits to patients at their
own houses to fill up the rest of his day — when the servant announced that
a lady wished to speak to him.
'Who is she?'
the Doctor asked.
'A stranger?'
'Yes, sir.'
'I see no strangers out of consulting-hours. Tell her what the
hours are, and send her away.'
'I have told her, sir.'
'Well?'
'And she won't go.'
'Won't go?'
The Doctor smiled as he repeated the words. He was
a humourist in his way; and there was an absurd side to the situation which
rather amused him.
'Has this obstinate lady given you her name?'
he
inquired.
'No, sir. She refused to give any name — she said she wouldn't
keep you five minutes, and the matter was too important to wait till to-morrow.
There she is in the consulting-room; and how to get her out again is more
than I know.'
Doctor Wybrow considered for a moment. His knowledge of women
(professionally speaking) rested on the ripe experience of more than thirty
years; he had met with them in all their varieties — especially the variety
which knows nothing of the value of time, and never hesitates at sheltering
itself behind the privileges of its sex. A glance at his watch informed him
that he must soon begin his rounds among the patients who were waiting
for him at their own houses. He decided forthwith on taking the only wise
course that was open under the circumstances. In other words, he decided
on taking to flight.
'Is the carriage at the door?'
he asked.
'Yes, sir.'
'Very well. Open the house-door for me without making any noise,
and leave the lady in undisturbed possession of the consulting-room. When she
gets tired of waiting, you know what to tell her. If she asks when I am
expected to return, say that I dine at my club, and spend the evening at
the theatre. Now then, softly, Thomas! If your shoes creak, I am a lost
man.'
He noiselessly led the way into the hall, followed by the servant on
tip-toe.
Did the lady in the consulting-room suspect him? or did Thomas's shoes
creak, and was her sense of hearing unusually keen? Whatever the explanation
may be, the event that actually happened was beyond all doubt.
Exactly as Doctor Wybrow passed his consulting-room, the door opened —
the lady appeared on the threshold — and laid her hand on his arm.
'I entreat you, sir, not to go away without letting me speak to you
first.'
The accent was foreign; the tone was low and firm. Her fingers closed
gently, and yet resolutely, on the Doctor's arm.
Neither her language nor her action had the slightest effect in
inclining him to grant her request. The influence that instantly stopped him,
on the way to his carriage, was the silent influence of her face. The
startling contrast between the corpse-like pallor of her complexion and the
overpowering life and light, the glittering metallic brightness in her large
black eyes, held him literally spell-bound. She was dressed in dark colours,
with perfect taste; she was of middle height, and (apparently) of middle
age — say a year or two over thirty. Her lower features — the nose, mouth,
and chin — possessed the fineness and delicacy of form which is oftener
seen among women of foreign races than among women of English birth.
She was unquestionably a handsome person — with the one serious drawback
of her ghastly complexion, and with the less noticeable defect of a
total want of tenderness in the expression of her eyes. Apart from his first
emotion of surprise, the feeling she produced in the Doctor may be
described as an overpowering feeling of professional curiosity. The case
might prove to be something entirely new in his professional experience.
'It looks like it,'
he thought;
'and it's worth waiting for.'
She perceived that she she had produced a strong impression of some
kind upon him, and dropped her hold on his arm.
'You have comforted many miserable women in your time,'
she said.
'Comfort one more, to-day.'
Without waiting to be answered, she led the way back into the room.
The Doctor followed her, and closed the door. He placed her in the
patients' chair, opposite the windows. Even in London the sun, on that
summer afternoon, was dazzlingly bright. The radiant light flowed in on
her. Her eyes met it unflinchingly, with the steely steadiness of the eyes of
an eagle. The smooth pallor of her unwrinkled skin looked more fearfully
white than ever. For the first time, for many a long year past, the Doctor
felt his pulse quicken its beat in the presence of a patient.
Having possessed herself of his attention, she appeared, strangely
enough, to have nothing to say to him. A curious apathy seemed to have
taken possession of this resolute woman. Forced to speak first, the Doctor
merely inquired, in the conventional phrase, what he could do for her.
The sound of his voice seemed to rouse her. Still looking straight at the
light, she said abruptly:
'I have a painful question to ask.'
'What is it?'
Her eyes travelled slowly from the window to the Doctor's face.
Without the slightest outward appearance of agitation, she put the 'painful
question' in these extraordinary words:
'I want to know, if you please, whether I am in danger of going
mad?'
Some men might have been amused, and some might have been alarmed. Doctor
Wybrow was only conscious of a sense of disappointment. Was
this the rare case that he had anticipated, judging rashly by appearances?
Was the new patient only a hypochondriacal woman, whose malady was a
disordered stomach and whose misfortune was a weak brain?
'Why do you
come to me?'
he asked sharply.
'Why don't you consult a doctor
whose special employment is the treatment of the insane?'
She had her answer ready on the instant.
'I don't go to a doctor of that sort,'
she said,
'for the
very reason that he is a specialist: he has the fatal habit of judging
everybody by lines and rules of his own laying down. I come to you,
because my case is outside of all lines and rules, and because you are famous
in your profession for the discovery of mysteries in disease. Are you
satisfied?'
He was more than satisfied — his first idea had been the right idea, after
all. Besides, she was correctly informed as to his professional position.
The capacity which had raised him to fame and fortune was his capacity
(unrivalled among his brethren) for the discovery of remote disease.
'I am at your disposal,'
he answered.
'Let me try if I can find
out what is the matter with you.'
He put his medical questions. They were promptly and plainly answered;
and they led to no other conclusion than that the strange lady was,
mentally and physically, in excellent health. Not satisfied with questions,
he carefully examined the great organs of life. Neither his hand nor his
stethoscope could discover anything that was amiss. With the admirable
patience and devotion to his art which had distinguished him from the
time when he was a student, he still subjected her to one test after
another. The result was always the same. Not only was there no tendency
to brain disease — there was not even a perceptible derangement of the
nervous system.
'I can find nothing the matter with you,'
he said.
'I can't even account for the extraordinary pallor of your complexion. You
completely puzzle me.'
'The pallor of my complexion is nothing,'
she answered a little
impatiently.
'In my early life I had a narrow escape from death by
poisoning. I have never had a complexion since — and my skin is so delicate,
I cannot paint without producing a hideous rash. But that is of no
importance. I wanted your opinion given positively. I believed in you, and
you have disappointed me.'
Her head dropped on her breast.
'And so it
ends!'
she said to herself bitterly.
The Doctor's sympathies were touched. Perhaps it might be more
correct to say that his professional pride was a little hurt.
'It may end
in the right way yet,'
he remarked,
'if you choose to help me.'
She looked up again with flashing eyes,
'Speak plainly,'
she
said.
'How can I help you?'
'Plainly, madam, you come to me as an enigma, and you leave me to
make the right guess by the unaided efforts of my art. My art will do
much, but not all. For example, something must have occurred — something
quite unconnected with the state of your bodily health — to frighten you
about yourself, or you would never have come here to consult me. Is that
true?'
She clasped her hands in her lap.
'That is true!'
she said
eagerly.
'I begin to believe in you again.'
'Very well. You can't expect me to find out the moral cause which has
alarmed you. I can positively discover that there is no physical cause of
alarm; and (unless you admit me to your confidence) I can do no more.'
She rose, and took a turn in the room.
'Suppose I tell you?'
she
said.
'But, mind, I shall mention no names!'
'There is no need to mention names. The facts are all I want.'
'The facts are nothing,'
she rejoined.
'I have only my own
impressions to confess — and you will very likely think me a fanciful fool
when you hear what they are. No matter. I will do my best to content you —
I will begin with the facts that you want. Take my word for it, they
won't do much to help you.'
She sat down again. In the plainest possible words, she began the
strangest and wildest confession that had ever reached the Doctor's ears.
2. CHAPTER II
'It is one fact, sir, that I am a widow,'
she said.
'It is
another fact, that I am going to be married again.'
There she paused, and smiled at some thought that occurred to her.
Doctor Wybrow was not favourably impressed by her smile — there was
something at once sad and cruel in it. It came slowly, and it went away
suddenly. He began to doubt whether he had been wise in acting on his
first impression. His mind reverted to the commonplace patients and the
discoverable maladies that were waiting for him, with a certain tender
regret.
The lady went on.
'My approaching marriage,'
she said,
'has one embarrassing
circumstance connected with it. The gentleman whose wife I am to be, was
engaged to another lady when he happened to meet with me, abroad: that
lady, mind, being of his own blood and family, related to him as his
cousin. I have innocently robbed her of her lover, and destroyed her
prospects in life. Innocently, I say — because he told me nothing of his
engagement until after I had accepted him. When we next met in England
— and when there was danger, no doubt, of the affair coming to my
knowledge — he told me the truth. I was naturally indignant. He had his
excuse ready; he showed me a letter from the lady herself, releasing him
from his engagement. A more noble, a more high-minded letter, I never
read in my life. I cried over it — I who have no tears in me for sorrows of
my own! If the letter had left him any hope of being forgiven, I would
have positively refused to marry him. But the firmness of it — without
anger, without a word of reproach, with heartfelt wishes even for his
happiness — the firmness of it, I say, left him no hope. He appealed to my
compassion; he appealed to his love for me. You know what women are. I
too was soft-hearted — I said, Very well: yes! In a week more (I tremble as I
think of it) we are to be married.'
She did really tremble — she was obliged to pause and compose herself,
before she could go on. The Doctor, waiting for more facts, began to fear
that he stood committed to a long story.
'Forgive me for reminding you
that I have suffering persons waiting to see me,'
he said.
'The sooner
you can come to the point, the better for my patients and for me.'
The strange smile — at once so sad and so cruel — showed itself again on
the lady's lips.
'Every word I have said is to the point,'
she
answered.
'You will see it yourself in a moment more.'
She resumed her narrative.
'Yesterday — you need fear no long story, sir; only yesterday — I was
among the visitors at one of your English luncheon parties. A lady, a
perfect stranger to me, came in late — after we had left the table, and had
retired to the drawing-room. She happened to take a chair near me; and we
were presented to each other. I knew her by name, as she knew me. It was
the woman whom I had robbed of her lover, the woman who had written
the noble letter. Now listen! You were impatient with me for not interesting
you in what I said just now. I said it to satisfy your mind that I had no
enmity of feeling towards the lady, on my side. I admired her, I felt for
her — I had no cause to reproach myself. This is very important, as you will
presently see. On her side, I have reason to be assured that the
circumstances had been truly explained to her, and that she understood I
was in no way to blame. Now, knowing all these necessary things as you do,
explain to me, if you can, why, when I rose and met that woman's eyes
looking at me, I turned cold from head to foot, and shuddered, and
shivered, and knew what a deadly panic of fear was, for the first time in
my life.'
The Doctor began to feel interested at last.
'Was there anything remarkable in the lady's personal appearance?'
he asked.
'Nothing whatever!'
was the vehement reply.
'Here is the true
description of her: — The ordinary English lady; the clear cold blue eyes,
the fine rosy complexion, the inanimately polite manner, the large
good-humoured mouth, the too plump cheeks and chin: these, and nothing
more.'
'Was there anything in her expression, when you first looked at her,
that took you by surprise?'
'There was natural curiosity to see the woman who had been preferred
to her; and perhaps some astonishment also, not to see a more engaging
and more beautiful person; both those feelings restrained within the limits
of good breeding, and both not lasting for more than a few moments — so
far as I could see. I say, "so far," because the horrible agitation that she
communicated to me disturbed my judgment. If I could have got to the
door, I would have run out of the room, she frightened me so! I was not
even able to stand up — I sank back in my chair; I stared horror-struck at
the calm blue eyes that were only looking at me with a gentle surprise. To
say they affected me like the eyes of a serpent is to say nothing. I felt her
soul in them, looking into mine — looking, if such a thing can be,
unconsciously to her own mortal self. I tell you my impression, in all its
horror and in all its folly! That woman is destined (without knowing it
herself) to be the evil genius of my life. Her innocent eyes saw hidden
capabilities of wickedness in me that I was not aware of myself, until I felt
them stirring under her look. If I commit faults in my life to come — if I
am even guilty of crimes — she will bring the retribution, without (as I
firmly believe) any conscious exercise of her own will. In one indescribable
moment I felt all this — and I suppose my face showed it. The good artless
creature was inspired by a sort of gentle alarm for me. "I am afraid the heat
of the room is too much for you; will you try my smelling bottle?" I heard her
say those kind words; and I remember nothing else — I fainted. When I
recovered my senses, the company had all gone; only the lady of the house
was with me. For the moment I could say nothing to her; the dreadful
impression that I have tried to describe to you came back to me with the
coming back of my life. As soon I could speak, I implored her to tell me
the whole truth about the woman whom I had supplanted. You see, I had
a faint hope that her good character might not really be deserved, that her
noble letter was a skilful piece of hypocrisy — in short, that she secretly
hated me, and was cunning enough to hide it. No! the lady had been her
friend from her girlhood, was as familiar with her as if they had been
sisters — knew her positively to be as good, as innocent, as incapable of
hating anybody, as the greatest saint that ever lived. My one last hope, that
I had only felt an ordinary forewarning of danger in the presence of an
ordinary enemy, was a hope destroyed for ever. There was one more effort
I could make, and I made it. I went next to the man whom I am to marry.
I implored him to release me from my promise. He refused. I declared I
would break my engagement. He showed me letters from his sisters, letters
from his brothers, and his dear friends — all entreating him to think again
before he made me his wife; all repeating reports of me in Paris, Vienna,
and London, which are so many vile lies. "If you refuse to marry me," he
said, "you admit that these reports are true — you admit that you are afraid
to face society in the character of my wife." What could I answer? There
was no contradicting him — he was plainly right: if I persisted in my
refusal, the utter destruction of my reputation would be the result. I
consented to let the wedding take place as we had arranged it — and left
him. The night has passed. I am here, with my fixed conviction — that
innocent woman is ordained to have a fatal influence over my life. I am here
with my one question to put, to the one man who can answer it. For the last
time, sir, what am I — a demon who has seen the avenging angel? or only a
poor mad woman, misled by the delusion of a deranged mind?'
Doctor Wybrow rose from his chair, determined to close the interview.
He was strongly and painfully impressed by what he had heard. The
longer he had listened to her, the more irresistibly the conviction of the
woman's wickedness had forced itself on him. He tried vainly to think of
her as a person to be pitied — a person with a morbidly sensitive
imagination, conscious of the capacities for evil which lie dormant in us all,
and striving earnestly to open her heart to the counter-influence of her own
better nature; the effort was beyond him. A perverse instinct in him said,
as if in words, Beware how you believe in her!
'I have already given you my opinion,'
he said.
'There is no
sign of your intellect being deranged, or being likely to be deranged, that
medical science can discover — as I understand it. As for the
impressions you have confided to me, I can only say that yours is a case (as I
venture to think) for spiritual rather than for medical advice. Of one thing
be assured: what you have said to me in this room shall not pass out of it.
Your confession is safe in my keeping.'
She heard him, with a certain dogged resignation, to the end.
'Is that all?'
she asked.
'That is all,'
he answered.
She put a little paper packet of money on the table.
'Thank you, sir.
There is your fee.'
With those words she rose. Her wild black eyes looked upward, with an
expression of despair so defiant and so horrible in its silent agony that the
Doctor turned away his head, unable to endure the sight of it. The bare
idea of taking anything from her — not money only, but anything even that
she had touched — suddenly revolted him. Still without looking at her, he
said,
'Take it back; I don't want my fee.'
She neither heeded nor heard him. Still looking upward, she said slowly
to herself,
'Let the end come. I have done with the struggle: I
submit.'
She drew her veil over her face, bowed to the Doctor, and left the
room.
He rang the bell, and followed her into the hall. As the servant closed
the door on her, a sudden impulse of curiosity — utterly unworthy of him,
and at the same time utterly irresistible — sprang up in the Doctor's mind.
Blushing like a boy, he said to the servant,
'Follow her home, and find out
her name.'
For one moment the man looked at his master, doubting if his
own ears had not deceived him. Doctor Wybrow looked back at him in
silence. The submissive servant knew what that silence meant — he took his
hat and hurried into the street.
The Doctor went back to the consulting-room. A sudden revulsion of
feeling swept over his mind. Had the woman left an infection of wickedness
in the house, and had he caught it? What devil had possessed him to
degrade himself in the eyes of his own servant? He had behaved infamously —
he had asked an honest man, a man who had served him faithfully for
years, to turn spy! Stung by the bare thought of it, he ran out into the hall
again, and opened the door. The servant had disappeared; it was too late to
call him back. But one refuge from his contempt for himself was now open
to him — the refuge of work. He got into his carriage and went his rounds
among his patients.
If the famous physician could have shaken his own reputation, he
would have done it that afternoon. Never before had he made himself so
little welcome at the bedside. Never before had he put off until to-morrow
the prescription which ought to have been written, the opinion which
ought to have been given, to-day. He went home earlier than usual —
unutterably dissatisfied with himself.
The servant had returned. Dr. Wybrow was ashamed to question him.
The man reported the result of his errand, without waiting to be asked.
'The lady's name is the Countess Narona. She lives at — '
Without waiting to hear where she lived, the Doctor acknowledged the
all-important discovery of her name by a silent bend of the head, and
entered his consulting-room. The fee that he had vainly refused still lay in
its little white paper covering on the table. He sealed it up in an envelope;
addressed it to the 'Poor-box' of the nearest police-court; and, calling the
servant in, directed him to take it to the magistrate the next morning.
Faithful to his duties, the servant waited to ask the customary question,
'Do you dine at home to-day, sir?'
After a moment's hesitation he said,
'No: I shall dine at the club.'
The most easily deteriorated of all the moral qualities is the quality
called 'conscience.' In one state of a man's mind, his conscience is the
severest judge that can pass sentence on him. In another state, he and his
conscience are on the best possible terms with each other in the comfortable
capacity of accomplices. When Doctor Wybrow left his house for the
second time, he did not even attempt to conceal from himself that his sole
object, in dining at the club, was to hear what the world said of the
Countess Narona.
3. CHAPTER III
There was a time when a man in search of the pleasures of gossip sought
the society of ladies. The man knows better now. He goes to the
smoking-room of his club.
Doctor Wybrow lit his cigar, and looked round him at his brethren in
social conclave assembled. The room was well filled; but the flow of talk
was still languid. The Doctor innocently applied the stimulant that was
wanted. When he inquired if anybody knew the Countess Narona, he was
answered by something like a shout of astonishment. Never (the conclave
agreed) had such an absurd question been asked before! Every human
creature, with the slightest claim to a place in society, knew the Countess
Narona. An adventuress with a European reputation of the blackest
possible colour — such was the general description of the woman with the
deathlike complexion and the glittering eyes.
Descending to particulars, each member of the club contributed his
own little stock of scandal to the memoirs of the Countess. It was
doubtful whether she was really, what she called herself, a Dalmatian lady.
It was doubtful whether she had ever been married to the Count whose
widow she assumed to be. It was doubtful whether the man who accompanied her
in her travels (under the name of Baron Rivar, and in the
character of her brother) was her brother at all. Report pointed to the
Baron as a gambler at every 'table' on the Continent. Report whispered
that his so-called sister had narrowly escaped being implicated in a famous
trial for poisoning at Vienna — that she had been known at Milan as a spy in
the interests of Austria — that her 'apartment' in Paris had been denounced
to the police as nothing less than a private gambling-house — and that her
present appearance in England was the natural result of the discovery.
Only one member of the assembly in the smoking-room took the part of
this much-abused woman, and declared that her character had been most
cruelly and most unjustly assailed. But as the man was a lawyer, his
interference went for nothing: it was naturally attributed to the spirit of
contradiction inherent in his profession. He was asked derisively what he
thought of the circumstances under which the Countess had become
engaged to be married; and he made the characteristic answer, that he
thought the circumstances highly creditable to both parties, and that he
looked on the lady's future husband as a most enviable man.
Hearing this, the Doctor raised another shout of astonishment by
inquiring the name of the gentleman whom the Countess was about to
marry.
His friends in the smoking-room decided unanimously that the
celebrated physician must be a second 'Rip-van-Winkle,' and that he had just
awakened from a supernatural sleep of twenty years. It was all very well to
say that he was devoted to his profession, and that he had neither time nor
inclination to pick up fragments of gossip at dinner-parties and balls. A
man who did not know that the Countess Narona had borrowed money at
Homburg of no less a person than Lord Montbarry, and had then deluded
him into making her a proposal of marriage, was a man who had probably
never heard of Lord Montbarry himself. The younger members of the club,
humouring the joke, sent a waiter for the 'Peerage'; and read aloud the
memoir of the nobleman in question, for the Doctor's benefit — with
illustrative morsels of information interpolated by themselves.
'Herbert John Westwick. First Baron Montbarry, of Montbarry, King's
County, Ireland. Created a Peer for distinguished military services in India.
Born, 1812. Forty-eight years old, Doctor, at the present time. Not
married. Will be married next week, Doctor, to the delightful creature we
have been talking about. Heir presumptive, his lordship's next brother,
Stephen Robert, married to Ella, youngest daughter of the Reverend Silas
Marden, Rector of Runnigate, and has issue, three daughters. Younger
brothers of his lordship, Francis and Henry, unmarried. Sisters of his
lordship, Lady Barville, married to Sir Theodore Barville, Bart.; and Anne,
widow of the late Peter Norbury, Esq., of Norbury Cross. Bear his
lordship's relations well in mind, Doctor. Three brothers Westwick,
Stephen, Francis, and Henry; and two sisters, Lady Barville and Mrs.
Norbury. Not one of the five will be present at the marriage; and not one
of the five will leave a stone unturned to stop it, if the Countess will only
give them a chance. Add to these hostile members of the family another
offended relative not mentioned in the 'Peerage,' a young lady — '
A sudden outburst of protest in more than one part of the room
stopped the coming disclosure, and released the Doctor from further
persecution.
'Don't mention the poor girl's name; it's too bad to make a joke of
that part of the business; she has behaved nobly under shameful provocation;
there is but one excuse for Montbarry — he is either a madman or a
fool.'
In these terms the protest expressed itself on all sides. Speaking
confidentially to his next neighbour, the Doctor discovered that the lady
referred to was already known to him (through the Countess's confession)
as the lady deserted by Lord Montbarry. Her name was Agnes Lockwood.
She was described as being the superior of the Countess in personal
attraction, and as being also by some years the younger woman of the two.
Making all allowance for the follies that men committed every day in their
relations with women, Montbarry's delusion was still the most monstrous
delusion on record. In this expression of opinion every man present
agreed — the lawyer even included. Not one of them could call to mind the
innumerable instances in which the sexual influence has proved irresistible
in the persons of women without even the pretension to beauty. The very
members of the club whom the Countess (in spite of her personal
disadvantages) could have most easily fascinated, if she had thought it
worth her while, were the members who wondered most loudly at Montbarry's
choice of a wife.
While the topic of the Countess's marriage was still the one topic of
conversation, a member of the club entered the smoking-room whose
appearance instantly produced a dead silence. Doctor Wybrow's next
neighbour whispered to him,
'Montbarry's brother — Henry Westwick!'
The new-comer looked round him slowly, with a bitter smile.
'You are all talking of my brother,'he said. 'Don't mind me. Not one
of you can despise him more heartily than I do. Go on, gentlemen — go
on!'
But one man present took the speaker at his word. That man was the
lawyer who had already undertaken the defence of the Countess.
'I stand alone in my opinion,'
he said,
'and I am not ashamed of
repeating it in anybody's hearing. I consider the Countess Narona to be a
cruelly-treated woman. Why shouldn't she be Lord Montbarry's wife? Who
can say she has a mercenary motive in marrying him?'
Montbarry's brother turned sharply on the speaker.
'I say
it!'
he answered.
The reply might have shaken some men. The lawyer stood on his
ground as firmly as ever.
'I believe I am right,'
he rejoined,
'in stating that his
lordship's income is not more than sufficient to support his station in life;
also that it is an income derived almost entirely from landed property in
Ireland, every acre of which is entailed.'
Montbarry's brother made a sign, admitting that he had no objection to
offer so far.
'If his lordship dies first,'
the lawyer proceeded,
'I have been
informed that the only provision he can make for his widow consists in a
rent-charge on the property of no more than four hundred a year. His retiring
pension and allowances, it is well known, die with him. Four hundred a year
is therefore all that he can leave to the Countess, if he leaves her a
widow.'
'Four hundred a year is not all,'
was the reply to this.
'My brother has insured his life for ten thousand pounds; and he has
settled the whole of it on the Countess, in the event of his death.'
This announcement produced a strong sensation. Men looked at each
other, and repeated the three startling words,
'Ten thousand pounds!'
Driven fairly to the wall, the lawyer made a last effort to defend his
position.
'May I ask who made that settlement a condition of the marriage?'
he said.
'Surely it was not the Countess herself?.'
Henry Westwick answered,
'it was the Countess's brother'; and added,
which comes to the same thing.'
After that, there was no more to be said — so long, at least, as
Montbarry's brother was present. The talk flowed into other channels; and
the Doctor went home.
But his morbid curiosity about the Countess was not set at rest yet. In
his leisure moments he found himself wondering whether Lord Montbarry's
family would succeed in stopping the marriage after all. And more
than this, he was conscious of a growing desire to see the infatuated man
himself. Every day during the brief interval before the wedding, he looked
in at the club, on the chance of hearing some news. Nothing had happened,
so far as the club knew. The Countess's position was secure; Montbarry's
resolution to be her husband was unshaken. They were both Roman Catholics,
and they were to be married at the chapel in Spanish Place.
So much the Doctor discovered about them — and no more.
On the day of the wedding, after a feeble struggle with himself, he
actually sacrificed his patients and their guineas, and slipped away secretly
to see the marriage. To the end of his life, he was angry with anybody who
reminded him of what he had done on that day!
The wedding was strictly private. A close carriage stood at the church
door; a few people, mostly of the lower class, and mostly old women, were
scattered about the interior of the building. Here and there Doctor
Wybrow detected the faces of some of his brethren of the club, attracted by
curiosity, like himself. Four persons only stood before the altar — the
bride and bridegroom and their two witnesses. One of these last was an
elderly woman, who might have been the Countess's companion or maid; the
other was undoubtedly her brother, Baron Rivar. The bridal party (the
bride herself included) wore their ordinary morning costume. Lord
Montbarry, personally viewed, was a middle-aged military man of the ordinary
type: nothing in the least remarkable distinguished him either in face or
figure. Baron Rivar, again, in his way was another conventional
representative of another well-known type. One sees his finely-pointed
moustache, his bold eyes, his crisply-curling hair, and his dashing carriage
of the head, repeated hundreds of times over on the Boulevards of Paris.
The only noteworthy point about him was of the negative sort — he was not
in the least like his sister. Even the officiating priest was only a
harmless, humble-looking old man, who went through his duties resignedly, and
felt visible rheumatic difficulties every time he bent his knees. The one
remarkable person, the Countess herself, only raised her veil at the beginning
of the ceremony, and presented nothing in her plain dress that was worth a
second look. Never, on the face of it, was there a less interesting and less
romantic marriage than this. From time to time the Doctor glanced round
at the door or up at the galleries, vaguely anticipating the appearance of
some protesting stranger, in possession of some terrible secret, commissioned
to forbid the progress of the service. Nothing in the shape of an
event occurred — nothing extraordinary, nothing dramatic. Bound fast
together as man and wife, the two disappeared, followed by their witnesses,
to sign the registers; and still Doctor Wybrow waited, and still he cherished
the obstinate hope that something worth seeing must certainly happen yet.
The interval passed, and the married couple, returning to the church,
walked together down the nave to the door. Doctor Wybrow drew back as
they approached. To his confusion and surprise, the Countess discovered
him. He heard her say to her husband,
'One moment; I see a friend.'
Lord Montbarry bowed and waited. She stepped up to the Doctor, took his
hand, and wrung it hard. He felt her overpowering black eyes looking at
him through her veil.
'One step more, you see, on the way to the end!'
She whispered those strange words, and returned to her husband. Before the
Doctor could recover himself and follow her, Lord and Lady Montbarry
had stepped into their carriage, and had driven away.
Outside the church door stood the three or four members of the club
who, like Doctor Wybrow, had watched the ceremony out of curiosity.
Near them was the bride's brother, waiting alone. He was evidently bent
on seeing the man whom his sister had spoken to, in broad daylight. His
bold eyes rested on the Doctor's face, with a momentary flash of suspicion
in them. The cloud suddenly cleared away; the Baron smiled with charming
courtesy, lifted his hat to his sister's friend, and walked off.
The members constituted themselves into a club conclave on the church
steps. They began with the Baron.
'Damned ill-looking rascal!'
They
went on with Montbarry.
'Is he going to take that horrid woman with him to
Ireland?'
'Not he! he can't face the tenantry; they know about Agnes
Lockwood.'
'Well, but where is he going?'
'To
Scotland.'
'Does she like that?'
'It's only for a
fortnight; they come back to London, and go abroad.'
'And they will
never return to England, eh?'
'Who can tell? Did you see how she
looked at Montbarry, when she had to lift her veil at the beginning of the
service? In his place, I should have bolted. Did you see her,
Doctor?'
By this time, Doctor Wybrow had remembered his patients, and had
heard enough of the club gossip. He followed the example of Baron Rivar, and
walked off.
'One step more, you see, on the way to the end,'
he repeated to
himself, on his way home.
'What end?'
4. CHAPTER IV
On the day of the marriage Agnes Lockwood sat alone in the little
drawing-room of her London lodgings, burning the letters which had been
written to her by Montbarry in the bygone time.
The Countess's maliciously smart description of her, addressed to
Doctor Wybrow, had not even hinted at the charm that most distinguished
Agnes — the artless expression of goodness and purity which instantly
attracted everyone who approached her. She looked by many years younger
than she really was. With her fair complexion and her shy manner, it
seemed only natural to speak of her as
'a girl,'
although she was now
really advancing towards thirty years of age. She lived alone with an old
nurse devoted to her, on a modest little income which was just enough to
support the two. There were none of the ordinary signs of grief in her face,
as she slowly tore the letters of her false lover in two, and threw the pieces
into the small fire which had been lit to consume them. Unhappily for
herself, she was one of those women who feel too deeply to find relief in
tears. Pale and quiet, with cold trembling fingers, she destroyed the letters
one by one without daring to read them again. She had torn the last of the
series, and was still shrinking from throwing it after the rest into the
swiftly destroying flame, when the old nurse came in, and asked if she
would see 'Master Henry,' — meaning that youngest member of the Westwick
family, who had publicly declared his contempt for his brother in the
smoking-room of the club.
Agnes hesitated. A faint tinge of colour stole over her face.
There had been a long past time when Henry Westwick had owned that
he loved her. She had made her confession to him, acknowledging that her
heart was given to his eldest brother. He had submitted to his
disappointment; and they had met thenceforth as cousins and friends. Never
before had she associated the idea of him with embarrassing recollections.
But now, on the very day when his brother's marriage to another woman had
consummated his brother's treason towards her, there was something
vaguely repellent in the prospect of seeing him. The old nurse (who
remembered them both in their cradles) observed her hesitation; and
sympathising of course with the man, put in a timely word for Henry.
'He says, he's going away, my dear; and he only wants to shake hands,
and say good-bye.'
This plain statement of the case had its effect. Agnes
decided on receiving her cousin.
He entered the room so rapidly that he surprised her in the act of
throwing the fragments of Montbarry's last letter into the fire. She
hurriedly spoke first.
'You are leaving London very suddenly, Henry. Is it business? or
pleasure?'
Instead of answering her, he pointed to the flaming letter, and to some
black ashes of burnt paper lying lightly in the lower part of the fireplace.
'Are you burning letters?'
'Yes.'
'His letters?'
'Yes.'
He took her hand gently.
'I had no idea I was intruding on you, at a
time when you must wish to be alone. Forgive me, Agnes — I shall see you
when I return.'
She signed to him, with a faint smile, to take a chair.
'We have known one another since we were children,'
she said.
'Why should I feel a foolish pride about myself in your presence? why
should I
have any secrets from you? I sent back all your brother's gifts to me some
time ago. I have been advised to do more, to keep nothing that can remind
me of him — in short, to burn his letters. I have taken the advice; but I
own I shrank a little from destroying the last of the letters. No — not
because it was the last, but because it had this in it.'
She opened her
hand, and showed him a lock of Montbarry's hair, tied with a morsel of golden
cord.
'Well! well! let it go with the rest.'
She dropped it into the flame. For a while, she stood with her back to
Henry, leaning on the mantel-piece, and looking into the fire. He took the
chair to which she had pointed, with a strange contradiction of expression
in his face: the tears were in his eyes, while the brows above were knit
close in an angry frown. He muttered to himself,
'Damn him!'
She rallied her courage, and looked at him again when she spoke.
'Well, Henry, and why are you going away?'
'I am out of spirits, Agnes, and I want a change.'
She paused before she spoke again. His face told her plainly that he
was thinking of her when he made that reply. She was grateful to him,
but her mind was not with him: her mind was still with the man who had
deserted her. She turned round again to the fire.
'Is it true,'
she asked, after a long silence,
'that they
have been married to-day?'
He answered ungraciously in the one necessary word: —
'Yes.'
'Did you go to the church?'
He resented the question with an expression of indignant surprise.
'Go to the church?'
he repeated.
'I would as soon go to — '
He
checked himself there.
'How can you ask?'
he added in lower tones.
'I have never spoken to Montbarry, I have not even seen him, since he
treated you like the scoundrel and the fool that he is.'
She looked at him suddenly, without saying a word. He understood her,
and begged her pardon. But he was still angry.
'The reckoning comes to
some men,'
he said,
'even in this world. He will live to rue the day
when he married that woman!'
Agnes took a chair by his side, and looked at him with a gentle
surprise.
'Is it quite reasonable to be so angry with her, because your
brother preferred her to me?'
she asked.
Henry turned on her sharply.
'Do you defend the Countess,
of all the people in the world?'
'Why not?'
Agnes answered.
'I know nothing against her.
On the only occasion when we met, she appeared to be a singularly timid,
nervous person, looking dreadfully ill; and being indeed so ill that
she fainted under the heat of my room. Why should we not do her justice?
We know that she was innocent of any intention to wrong me; we know that
she was not aware of my engagement — '
Henry lifted his hand impatiently, and stopped her.
'There is such a
thing as being too just and too forgiving!'
he interposed.
'I can't bear to hear you talk in that patient way, after the scandalously
cruel manner in
which you have been treated. Try to forget them both, Agnes. I wish to
God I could help you to do it!'
Agnes laid her hand on his arm.
'You are very good to me, Henry;
but you don't quite understand me. I was thinking of myself and my trouble
in quite a different way, when you came in. I was wondering whether
anything which has so entirely filled my heart, and so absorbed all that is
best and truest in me, as my feeling for your brother, can really pass away
as if it had never existed. I have destroyed the last visible things that
remind me of him. In this world I shall see him no more. But is the tie that
once bound us, completely broken? Am I as entirely parted from the good
and evil fortune of his life as if we had never met and never loved? What
do you think, Henry? I can hardly believe it.'
'If you could bring the retribution on him that he has deserved,'
Henry Westwick answered sternly,
'I might be inclined to agree with
you.'
As that reply passed his lips, the old nurse appeared again
at the door, announcing another visitor.
'I'm sorry to disturb you, my dear. But here is little Mrs. Ferrari
wanting to know when she may say a few words to you.'
Agnes turned to Henry, before she replied.
'You remember Emily
Bidwell, my favourite pupil years ago at the village school, and afterwards my
maid? She left me, to marry an Italian courier, named Ferrari — and I am
afraid it has not turned out very well. Do you mind my having her in here
for a minute or two?'
Henry rose to take his leave.
'I should be glad to see Emily again
at any other time,'
he said.
'But it is best that I should go now.
My mind is disturbed, Agnes; I might say things to you, if I stayed here any
longer, which — which are better not said now. I shall cross the Channel by
the mail to-night, and see how a few weeks' change will help me.'
He took
her hand.
'Is there anything in the world that I can do for you?'
he
asked very earnestly. She thanked him, and tried to release her hand. He
held it with a tremulous lingering grasp.
'God bless you, Agnes!'
he
said in faltering tones, with his eyes on the ground. Her face flushed again,
and the next instant turned paler than ever; she knew his heart as well as he
knew it himself — she was too distressed to speak. He lifted her hand to his
lips, kissed it fervently, and, without looking at her again, left the room.
The nurse hobbled after him to the head of the stairs: she had not forgotten
the time when the younger brother had been the unsuccessful rival of the
elder for the hand of Agnes.
'Don't be down-hearted, Master Henry,'
whispered the old woman, with the unscrupulous common sense of persons in
the lower rank of life.
'Try her again, when you come back!'
Left alone for a few moments, Agnes took a turn in the room, trying to
compose herself. She paused before a little water-colour drawing on the
wall, which had belonged to her mother: it was her own portrait when she
was a child.
'How much happier we should be,'
she thought to herself
sadly,
'if we never grew up!'
The courier's wife was shown in — a little meek melancholy woman, with
white eyelashes, and watery eyes, who curtseyed deferentially and was
troubled with a small chronic cough. Agnes shook hands with her kindly.
'Well, Emily, what can I do for you?'
The courier's wife made rather a strange answer:
'I'm afraid to tell
you, Miss.'
'Is it such a very difficult favour to grant? Sit down, and let me
hear how you are going on. Perhaps the petition will slip out while we are
talking. How does your husband behave to you?'
Emily's light grey eyes looked more watery than ever. She shook her
head and sighed resignedly.
'I have no positive complaint to make against
him, Miss. But I'm afraid he doesn't care about me; and he seems to take
no interest in his home — I may almost say he's tired of his home. It might
be better for both of us, Miss, if he went travelling for a while — not to
mention the money, which is beginning to be wanted sadly.'
She put her
handkerchief to her eyes, and sighed again more resignedly than ever.
'I don't quite understand,'
said Agnes.
'I thought your husband
had an engagement to take some ladies to Switzerland and Italy?'
'That was his ill-luck, Miss. One of the ladies fell ill — and the
others wouldn't go without her. They paid him a month's salary as
compensation. But they had engaged him for the autumn and winter — and the
loss is serious.'
'I am sorry to hear it, Emily. Let us hope he will soon have
another chance.'
'It's not his turn, Miss, to be recommended when the next applications
come to the couriers' office. You see, there are so many of them out of
employment just now. If he could be privately recommended — '
She stopped, and left the unfinished sentence to speak for itself.
Agnes understood her directly.
'You want my recommendation,'
she rejoined.
'Why couldn't you say so at once?'
Emily blushed.
'It would be such a chance for my husband,'
she
answered confusedly.
'A letter, inquiring for a good courier (a six
months' engagement, Miss!) came to the office this morning. It's another
man's turn to be chosen — and the secretary will recommend him. If my
husband could only send his testimonials by the same post — with just a word
in your name, Miss — it might turn the scale, as they say. A private
recommendation between gentlefolks goes so far.'
She stopped again, and
sighed again, and looked down at the carpet, as if she had some private reason
for feeling a little ashamed of herself.
Agnes began to be rather weary of the persistent tone of mystery in which
her visitor spoke.
'If you want my interest with any friend of mine,'
she said,
'why can't you tell me the name?'
The courier's wife began to cry.
'I'm ashamed to tell you,
Miss.'
For the first time, Agnes spoke sharply.
'Nonsense, Emily! Tell me the
name directly — or drop the subject — whichever you like best.'
Emily made a last desperate effort. She wrung her handkerchief hard in
her lap, and let off the name as if she had been letting off a loaded
gun: —
'Lord Montbarry!'
Agnes rose and looked at her.
'You have disappointed me,'
she said very quietly, but with a
look which the courier's wife had never seen in her face before.
'Knowing
what you know, you ought to be aware that it is impossible for me to
communicate with Lord Montbarry. I always supposed you had some delicacy of
feeling. I am sorry to find that I have been mistaken.'
Weak as she was, Emily had spirit enough to feel the reproof. She
walked in her meek noiseless way to the door.
'I beg your pardon, Miss. I
am not quite so bad as you think me. But I beg your pardon, all the
same.'
She opened the door. Agnes called her back. There was something in
the woman's apology that appealed irresistibly to her just and generous
nature.
'Come,'
she said;
'we must not part in this way. Let me
not misunderstand you. What is it that you expected me to do?'
Emily was wise enough to answer this time without any reserve.
'My
husband will send his testimonials, Miss, to Lord Montbarry in Scotland. I
only wanted you to let him say in his letter that his wife has been known
to you since she was a child, and that you feel some little interest in his
welfare on that account. I don't ask it now, Miss. You have made me
understand that I was wrong.'
Had she really been wrong? Past remembrances, as well as present
troubles, pleaded powerfully with Agnes for the courier's wife.
'It seems
only a small favour to ask,'
she said, speaking under the impulse of
kindness which was the strongest impulse in her nature.
'But I am not
sure that I ought to allow my name to be mentioned in your husband's letter.
Let me hear again exactly what he wishes to say.'
Emily repeated the
words — and then offered one of those suggestions, which have a special value
of their own to persons unaccustomed to the use of their pens.
'Suppose
you try, Miss, how it looks in writing?'
Childish as the idea was, Agnes
tried the experiment.
'If I let you mention me,'
she said,
'we
must at least decide what you are to say.'
She wrote the words in the
briefest and plainest form: —
'I venture
to state that my wife has been known from her childhood to Miss Agnes
Lockwood, who feels some little interest in my welfare on that account.'
Reduced to this one sentence, there was surely nothing in the
reference to her name which implied that Agnes had permitted it, or that
she was even aware of it. After a last struggle with herself, she handed
the written paper to Emily.
'Your husband must copy it exactly, without
altering anything,'
she stipulated.
'On that condition, I grant your
request.'
Emily was not only thankful — she was really touched. Agnes
hurried the little woman out of the room.
'Don't give me time to repent
and take it back again,'
she said. Emily vanished.
'Is the tie that once bound us completely broken? Am I as entirely
parted from the good and evil fortune of his life as if we had never met
and never loved?'
Agnes looked at the clock on the mantel-piece. Not ten
minutes since, those serious questions had been on her lips. It almost
shocked her to think of the common-place manner in which they had
already met with their reply. The mail of that night would appeal once
more to Montbarry's remembrance of her — in the choice of a servant.
Two days later, the post brought a few grateful lines from Emily. Her
husband had got the place. Ferrari was engaged, for six months certain, as
Lord Montbarry's courier.