THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
Mr. Carruthers was an early man; no danger of any skulking among the
numerous hands which found employment on the Poynings estate. If the
eye of the master be indeed the spur of the servant, Mr. Carruthers's
dependents had quite enough of that stimulant. He made his rounds
every morning at an hour which the in-door servants, who were obliged
to have breakfast ready on his return, considered heathenish, and the
out-door servants declared savoured of slave-driving. Mrs. Brookes
knew that she should have no difficulty in procuring a private
interview with her mistress on the morning following Mr. Dalrymple's
visit, as an hour and a half always elapsed between Mr. Carruthers's
leaving the house and his wife's ringing for her maid. The old woman
looked worn and weary and very old, as she peered from behind a
red-cloth door, which shut off the corridor on which Mr. Carruthers's
dressing-room opened from the grand gallery, and watched her master
take his creaking way down the staircase, looking as he went more full
of self-importance than usual, and treading more heavily, as if the
weight of the Home Office communication had got into his boots.
When he had disappeared, and she had heard the click of the lock as he
opened the great door and went out into the pure fresh morning air,
Mrs. Brookes emerged from behind the partition-door, and softly took
the way to Mrs. Carruthers's bedroom. The outer door was slightly
open, the heavy silken curtain within hung closely over the aperture.
The old woman pushed it gently aside, and, noiselessly crossing the
room, drew the window curtain, and let in sufficient light to allow
her to see that Mrs. Carruthers was still sleeping. Her face, pale,
and even in repose bearing a troubled expression, was turned towards
the old woman, who seated herself in an arm-chair beside the bed, and
looked silently and sadly on the features, whose richest bloom and
earliest sign of fading she had so faithfully watched.
"How am I to tell her?" she thought. "How am I to make her see what I
see, suspect what I suspect? and yet she must know all, for the least
imprudence, a moment's forgetfulness, would ruin him. How am I to tell
her?"
The-silver bell of a little French clock on the chimney-piece rang out
the hour melodiously, but its warning struck upon the old woman's ear
menacingly. There was much to do, and little time to do it in; she
must not hesitate longer. So she laid her withered, blanched old hand
upon the polished, ivory-white fingers of the sleeper, lying with the
purposelessness of deep sleep upon the coverlet, and addressed her as
she had been used to do in her girlhood, and her early desolate
widowhood, when her humble friend had been well-nigh her only one.
"My dear," she said, "my dear." Mrs. Carruthers's hand twitched in her
light grasp; she turned her head away with a troubled sigh, but yet
did not wake. The old woman spoke again: "My dear, I have something to
say to you."
Then Mrs. Carruthers awoke fully, and to an instantaneous
comprehension that something was wrong. All her fears, all her
suspicions of the day before, returned to her mind in one flash of
apprehension, and she sat up white and breathless.
"What is it, Ellen? Has he found out? Does he know?"
"Who? What do you mean?"
"Mr. Carruthers. Does he know George was here?"
"God forbid!" said the old woman, in a trembling tone.
She felt the task she had before her almost beyond her power of
execution. But her mistress's question, her instinctive fear, had
given her a little help.
"No," she said, "he knows nothing, and God send he may neither know
nor suspect anything about our dear boy! but you must be quiet now and
listen to me, for I must have said my say before Dixon comes--she must
not find me here."
"Why are you here?" asked Mrs. Carruthers, who had sat up in bed, and
was now looking at the old woman, with a face which had no more trace
of colour than the pillow from which it had just been raised. "Tell
me, Ellen; do not keep me in suspense. Is anything wrong about George?
It must concern _him_, whatever it is."
"My dear," began Mrs. Brookes--and now she held the slender fingers
tightly in her withered palm--"I fear there is something very wrong
with George."
"Is he--is he dead?" asked the mother, in a faint voice.
"No, no; he is well and safe, and far away from this, I hope and
trust."
Mrs. Carruthers made no answer, but she gazed at her old friend with
irresistible, pitiful entreaty. Mrs. Brookes answered the dumb appeal.
"Yes, my dear, I'll tell you all. I must, for his sake. Do you know
what was the business that brought that strange gentleman here, he
that went out with master, and dined here last night? No, you don't. I
thought not. Thank God, you have got no hint of it from any one but
me."
"Go on, go on," said Mrs. Carruthers, in a yet fainter voice.
"Do you remember, when George was here in February, you gave him money
to buy a coat?"
"Yes," Mrs. Carruthers rather sighed than said.
"He bought one at Evans's, and he was remarked by the old man, who
would know him again if he saw him. The business on which the strange
gentleman came to master was to get him to help, as a magistrate, in
finding the person who bought that coat at Evans's, Amherst."
"But why? What had he done? How was the coat known?"
"My dear," said Mrs. Brookes--and now she laid one arm gently round
her mistress's shoulder as she leaned against the pillows--"the wearer
of that coat is suspected of having murdered a man, whose body was
found by the river-side in London the other day."
"My God!" moaned the mother, and a hue as of death overspread her
features.
"My dear, he didn't do it. I'm sure he didn't do it. I would stake my
soul upon it. It is some dreadful mistake. Keep up until I have done,
for God's sake, and George's sake, keep up--remember there is no
danger unless you lose courage and give them a hint of anything. Be
sure we shall find he has sold the coat to some one else, and that
some one has done this dreadful thing. But you must keep up--here, let
me bathe your face and hands while I am talking, and then I'll go
away, and, when Dixon comes, you must just say you are not well, and
don't mean to get up to breakfast, and then I shall have an excuse for
coming to you. There! you are better now, I am sure. Yes, yes; don't
try to speak; I'll tell you without asking," she went on, in a rapid
whisper. "The strange gentleman and master saw Evans, and he told them
when he sold the coat, and the sort of person he sold it to; but
Gibson and Thomas say he could not have told them distinct, for they
heard the strange gentleman saying to master, in the carriage, that
the description was of no use. And I am certain sure that there is not
the least suspicion that he has ever been in Amherst since he bought
the coat."
"I don't understand," stammered Mrs. Carruthers. "When--when did this
happen?"
"A few days ago: it's all in the papers."
Mrs. Carruthers groaned.
"Nothing about George, but about finding the body and the coat. It is
all here." The old woman took a tightly folded newspaper from her
pocket. The light was too dim for her to read its contents to her
mistress, who was wholly incapable of reading them herself. Mrs.
Brookes, paper in hand, was going to the window, to withdraw the
curtain completely, when she paused.
"No," she said; "Dixon will be here too soon. Better that you should
ring for her at once, and send her for me. Can you do this, my dear?
keeping yourself up by remembering that this is only some dreadful
mistake, and that George never did it--no, no more than you did. Can
you let me go away for a few minutes, and then come back to you?
Remember, we cannot be too careful, for his sake; and if Dixon found
me here at an unusual hour, the servants would know there is some
secret or another between us."
"I can bear anything--I can do anything you tell me," was Mrs.
Carruthers's answer, in a whisper.
"Well then, first lie down, and I will close the curtains and leave
you. When I have had time to get to my room, ring for Dixon. Tell her
you are ill. When she lets the light in she will see that for herself,
and desire her to send me to you."
In another minute the room was once more in darkness, and Mrs. Brookes
went down the grand staircase, in order to avoid meeting any of the
servants, crossed the hall, and gained her own apartment without being
observed. A short time, but long to her impatience, had elapsed, when
Mrs. Carruthers's maid knocked at the door, and having received
permission to enter, came in with an important face. She delivered the
message which Mrs. Brookes was expecting, and added that she had never
seen her lady look so ill in all her born days.
"Looks more like a corpse, I do assure you, than like the lady I
undressed last night, and circles under her eyes, dreadful. I only
hope it ain't typus, for I'm dreadful nervous, not being used to
sickness, which indeed I never engaged for. But, if you please, Mrs.
Brookes, you was to go to her immediate, and I'm to let Miss
Carruthers know as she's to make tea this morning for master, all to
their two selves, which he won't like it, I dare say."
Then the talkative damsel went her way to Miss Carruthers's room, and
Mrs. Brookes hurried to that of her unhappy mistress. She had again
raised herself in the bed, and was looking eagerly towards the door,
with hollow haggard eyes, and lips ashy pale, whose trembling she in
vain tried to control.
"Lock both doors, Ellen," she said, "and tell me all. Give me the
paper; I can read it--I can indeed."
She took it and read it steadily through--read it with the same
horrible emotion, a thousand times intensified, which had agitated the
faithful servant a few hours previously. Standing by the bedside, Mrs.
Brookes gazed upon her pale, convulsed features, as she read, and
ever, as she saw the increasing agony which they betrayed, she
murmured in accents of earnest entreaty:
"Don't, my dear, for God's sake, don't, not for a moment, don't you
believe it. He sold the coat, depend upon it. It looks very bad, very
black and bad, but you may be sure there's no truth in it. He sold the
coat."
She spoke to deaf ears. When Mrs. Carruthers had read the last line of
the account of the inquest on the body of the unknown man, the paper
dropped from her hand; she turned upon the old nurse a face which,
from that moment, she never had the power to forget, and said:
"He wore it--I saw it on him on Friday," and the next moment slipped
down among the pillows, and lay as insensible as a stone.
The old woman gave no alarm, called for no assistance, but silently
and steadily applied herself to recalling Mrs. Carruthers to
consciousness. She had no fear of interruption. Mr. Carruthers
invariably went direct to the breakfast-room on returning from his
morning tour of inspection, and Clare would not visit Mrs. Carruthers
in her own apartment unasked. So Mrs. Brookes set the windows and
doors wide open, and let the sweet morning air fan the insensible
face, while she applied all the remedies at hand. At length Mrs.
Carruthers sighed deeply, opened her eyes, and raised her hand to her
forehead, where it came in contact with the wet hair.
"Hush, my dear," said Mrs. Brookes, as she made an almost inarticulate
attempt to speak. "Do not try to say anything yet. Lie quite still,
until you are better."
Mrs. Carruthers closed her eyes again and kept silent. When, after an
interval, she began to look more life-like, the old woman said,
softly:
"You must not give way again like this, for George's sake. I don't
care about his wearing the coat. I know it looks bad, but it is a
mistake, I am quite sure. Don't I know the boy as well as you do, and
maybe better, and don't I know his tender heart, with all his
wildness, and that he never shed a fellow-creature's blood in anger,
or for any other reason. But it's plain he is suspected--not he, for
they don't know him, thank God, but the man that wore the coat, and we
must warn him, and keep it from master. Master would go mad, I think,
if anything like suspicion or disgrace came of Master George, more
than the disgrace he thinks the poor boy's goings on already. You must
keep steady and composed, my dear, and you must write to him. Are you
listening to me? Do you understand me?" asked the old woman,
anxiously, for Mrs. Carruthers's eyes were wild and wandering, and her
hand twitched convulsively in her grasp.
"Yes, yes," she murmured, "but I tell you, Ellen, he wore the coat--my
boy wore the coat."
"And _I_ tell you, I don't care whether he wore the coat or not,"
repeated Mrs. Brookes, emphatically. "He can explain that, no doubt of
it; but he must be kept out of trouble, and you must be kept out of
trouble, and the only way to do that, is to let him know what brought
the strange gentleman to Poynings, and what he and master found out.
Remember, he never did this thing, but, my dear, he has been in bad
hands lately, you know that; for haven't you suffered in getting him
out of them, and I don't say but that he may be mixed up with them
that did. I'm afraid there can't be any doubt of that, and he must be
warned. Try and think of what he told you about himself, not only just
now, but when he came here before, and you will see some light, I am
sure."
But Mrs. Carruthers could not think of anything, could not remember
anything, could see no light. A deadly horrible conviction had seized
upon her, iron fingers clutched her heart, a faint sickening terror
held her captive, in body and spirit; and as the old woman gazed at
her, and found her incapable of answering, the fear that her mistress
was dying then and there before her eyes took possession of her. She
folded up the newspaper which had fallen from Mrs. Carruthers's hand
upon the bed, replaced it in her pocket, and rang the bell for Dixon.
"My mistress is very ill," she said, when Dixon entered the room. "You
had better go and find master, and send him here. Tell him to send Dr.
Munns at once."
Dixon gave a frightened, sympathizing glance at the figure on the bed,
over which the old woman was bending with such kindly solicitude, and
then departed on her errand. She found Mr. Carruthers still in the
breakfast-room. He was seated at the table, and held in his hand a
newspaper, from which he had evidently been reading, when Dixon
knocked at the door; for he was holding it slightly aside, and poising
his gold eye-glass in the other hand, when the woman entered. Mr.
Carruthers was unaccustomed to being disturbed, and he did not like
it, so that it was in a tone of some impatience that he said:
"Well, Dixon, what do you want?"
"If you please, sir," replied Dixon hesitatingly, "my mistress is not
well."
"So I hear," returned her master; "she sent word she did not mean to
appear at breakfast. He said it rather huffily, for not to appear at
breakfast was, in Mr. Carruthers's eyes, not to have a well-regulated
mind, and not to have a well-regulated mind was very lamentable and
shocking indeed.
"Yes, sir," Dixon went on, "but I'm afraid she's very ill indeed. She
has been fainting this long time, sir, and Mrs. Brookes can't bring
her to at all. She sent me to ask you to send for Dr. Munns at once,
and will you have the goodness to step up and see my mistress, sir?"
"God bless my soul," said Mr. Carruthers, pettishly, but rising as he
spoke, and pushing his chair away. "This is very strange; she has been
exposing herself to cold, I suppose. Yes, yes, go on and tell Mrs.
Brookes I am coming, as soon as I send Gibson for Dr. Munns."
Dixon left the room, and Mr. Carruthers rang the bell, and desired
that the coachman should attend him immediately. When Dixon had
entered the breakfast-room, Clare Carruthers had been standing by the
window, looking out on the garden, her back turned towards her uncle.
She had not looked round once during the colloquy between her uncle
and his wife's maid, but had remained quite motionless. Now Mr.
Carruthers addressed her.
"Clare," he said, "you had better go to Mrs. Carruthers." But his
niece was no longer in the room; she had softly opened the French
window, and passed into the flower-garden, carrying among the sweet,
opening flowers of the early summer, and into the serene air, a face
which might have vied in its rigid terror with the face upstairs.
When Mr. Carruthers had come in that morning, and joined Clare in the
pretty breakfast-room, he was in an unusually pleasant mood, and had
greeted his niece with uncommon kindness. He had found everything in
good order out of doors. No advantage had been taken of his absence to
neglect the inexorable sweepings and rollings, the clippings and
trimmings, the gardening and grooming. So Mr. Carruthers was in good
humour in consequence, and also because he was still nourishing the
secret sense of his own importance, which had sprung up in his
magisterial breast under the flattering influence of Mr. Dalrymple's
visit. So when he saw Clare seated before the breakfast equipage,
looking in her simple, pretty morning dress as fair and bright as the
morning itself, and when he received an intimation that he was not to
expect to see his wife at breakfast, he recalled the resolution he had
made last night, and determined to broach the subject of Mr.
Dalrymple's visit to his niece without delay.
A pile of letters and newspapers lay on a salver beside Mr.
Carruthers's plate, but he did not attend to them until he had made a
very respectable beginning in the way of breakfast. He talked to Clare
in a pleasant tone, and presently asked her if she had been looking at
the London papers during the last few days. Clare replied that she
seldom read anything beyond the deaths, births, and marriages, and an
occasional leader, and had not read even so much while she had been at
the Sycamores.
"Why do you ask, uncle?" she said. "Is there any particular news?"
"Why, yes, there is," replied Mr. Carruthers, pompously.
"There is a matter attracting public attention just now in which I am,
strange to say, a good deal interested--in which responsibility has
been laid on me, indeed, in a way which, though flattering--very
flattering indeed--is, at the same time, embarrassing."
Mr. Carruthers became more and more pompous with every word he spoke.
Clare could not repress a disrespectful notion that he bore an absurd
resemblance to the turkey-cock, whose struttings and gobblings had
often amused her in the poultry-yard, as he mouthed his words and
moved his chin about in his stiff and spotless cravat. His niece was
rather surprised by the matter of his discourse, as she was not
accustomed to associate the idea of importance to society at large
with Mr. Carruthers of Poynings, and cherished a rather settled
conviction that, mighty potentate as he was within the handsome gates
of Poynings, the world outside wagged very independently of him. She
looked up at him with an expression of interest and also of surprise,
but fortunately she did not give utterance to the latter and certainly
predominant sentiment.
"The fact is," said Mr. Carruthers, "a murder has been committed in
London under very peculiar circumstances. It is a most mysterious
affair, and the only solution of the mystery hitherto suggested is
that the motive is political."
He paused, cleared his throat, once more settled his chin comfortably,
and went on while Clare listened, wondering more and more how such a
matter could affect her uncle. She was a gentle-hearted girl; but not
in the least silly, and quite free from any sort of affectation; so
she expressed no horror or emotion at the mere abstract idea of the
murder, as a more young-ladyish young lady would have done.
"Yes, uncle?" she said, simply, as he paused.
Mr. Carruthers continued:
"The murdered man was found by the river-side, stabbed, and robbed of
whatever money and jewelry he had possessed. He was a good-looking
man, young, and evidently a foreigner; but there were no means of
identifying the body, and the inquest was adjourned--in fact, is still
adjourned."
"What an awful death to come by, in a strange country!" said Clare,
solemnly. "How dreadful to think that his friends and relatives will
perhaps never know his fate! But how did they know the poor creature
was a foreigner, uncle?"
"By his dress, my dear. It appears he had on a fur-lined coat, with a
hood--quite a foreign article of dress; and the only person at the
inquest able to throw any light on the crime was a waiter at an
eating-house in the Strand, who said that the murdered man had dined
there on a certain evening--last Thursday, I believe--and had worn the
fur coat, and spoken in a peculiar squeaky voice. The waiter felt sure
he was not an Englishman, though he spoke good English. So the inquest
was adjourned in order to get more evidence, if possible, as to the
identity of the murdered man and also that of the last person who had
been seen in his company. And this brings me to the matter in which I
am interested."
Clare watched her uncle with astonishment as he rose from his chair
and planted himself upon the hearth-rug before the fireplace, now
adorned with its summer ornaments of plants and flowers, and draped in
muslin. Taking up the familiar British attitude, and looking, if
possible, more than ever pompous, Mr. Carruthers proceeded:
"You will be surprised to learn, Clare, that the visit of the
gentleman who came here yesterday, and with whom I went out, had
reference to this murder."
"How, uncle?" exclaimed Clare. "What on earth have you, or has any one
here, to do with it?"
"Wait until I have done, and you will see," said Mr. Carruthers in a
tone of stately rebuke. "The last person seen in the company of the
man afterwards found murdered, and who dined with him at the tavern,
wore a coat which the waiter who recognized the body had chanced to
notice particularly. The appearance of this person the man failed in
describing with much distinctness; but he was quite positive about the
coat, which he had taken from the man and hung up on a peg with his
own hands. And now, Clare, I am coming to the strangest part of this
strange story."
The girl listened with interest indeed, and with attention, but still
wondering how her uncle could be involved in the matter, and perhaps
feeling a little impatient at the slowness with which, in his
self-importance, he told the story.
"I was much surprised," continued Mr. Carruthers, "to find in the
gentleman who came here yesterday, and whose name was Dalrymple, an
emissary from the Home Office, intrusted by Lord Wolstenholme with a
special mission to me"--impossible to describe the pomposity of Mr.
Carruthers's expression and utterance at this point--"to me. He came
to request me to assist him in investigating this most intricate and
important case. It is not a mere police case, you must understand, my
dear. The probability is that the murdered man is a political refugee,
and that the crime has been perpetrated"--Mr. Carruthers brought out
the word with indescribable relish--"by a member of one of the secret
societies, in revenge for the defection of the victim, or in
apprehension of his betrayal of the cause."
"What cause, uncle?" asked Clare innocently. She was not of a
sensational turn of mind, had no fancy for horrors as horrors, and was
getting a little tired of her uncle's story.
"God knows, my dear--some of their liberty, fraternity, and equality
nonsense, I suppose. At all events, this is the supposition; and to
ask my aid in investigating the only clue in the possession of the
government was the object of Mr. Dalrymple's visit yesterday. The man
who was seen in the company of the murdered man by the waiter at the
tavern, and who went away with him, wore a coat made by Evans of
Amherst. You know him, Clare--the old man who does so much of our work
here. I went to his shop with Mr. Dalrymple, and we found out all
about the coat. He remembered it exactly, by the description; and told
us when he had made it (two years ago), and when he had sold it (six
weeks ago), to a person who paid for it with a ten-pound note with the
Post-office stamp upon it. The old man is not very bright, however;
for though he remembered the circumstance, and found the date in his
day-book, he could not give anything like a clear description of the
man who had bought the coat. He could only tell us, in general terms,
that he would certainly know him again if he should see him; but he
talked about a rather tall young man, neither stout nor thin, neither
ugly nor handsome, dark-eyed and dark-haired,--in short, the kind of
description which describes nothing. We came away as wise as we went,
except in the matter of the date of the purchase of the coat. That
does not help much towards the detection of the murderer, as a coat
may change hands many times in six weeks, if it has been originally
bought by a dubious person. The thing would have been to establish a
likeness between the man described by Evans as the purchaser of the
coat, and the man described by the waiter as the wearer of the coat at
the tavern. But both descriptions are very vague."
"What was the coat like?" asked Clare in a strange, deliberate tone.
"It was a blue Witney overcoat, with a label inside the collar bearing
Evans's name. The waiter at the tavern where the murdered man dined
had read the name, and remembered it. This led to their sending
to me; and my being known to the authorities as a very active
magistrate"--here Mr. Carruthers swelled and pouted with
importance--"they naturally communicated with me. The question is now,
how I am to justify the very flattering confidence which Lord
Wolstenholme has placed in me? It is a difficult question, and I have
been considering it maturely. Mr. Dalrymple seems to think the clue
quite lost. But I am not disposed to let it rest; I am determined to
set every possible engine at work to discover whether the description
given by the waiter and that given by Evans tally with one another."
"You said the inquest was adjourned, I think," said Clare.
"Yes, until to-day; but Mr. Dalrymple will not have learned anything.
There will be an open verdict"--here Mr. Carruthers condescendingly
explained to his niece the meaning of the term--"and the affair will
be left to be unravelled in time. I am anxious to do all I can towards
that end; it is a duty I owe to society, to Lord Wolstenholme, and to
myself."
Clare had risen from her chair, and approached the window. Her uncle
could not see her face, as he resumed his seat at the breakfast-table,
and opened his letters in his usual deliberate and dignified manner.
Being letters addressed to Mr. Carruthers of Poynings, they were, of
course, important; but if they had not had that paramount claim to
consideration, the communication in question might have been deemed
dull and trivial. Whatever their nature, Clare Carruthers turned her
head from the window and furtively watched her uncle during their
perusal. He read them with uplifted eyebrows and much use of his
gold-rimmed eye-glasses, as his habit was, but then laid them down
without comment, and took up a newspaper.
"I dare say we shall find something about the business in this," he
said, addressing his niece, but without turning his head in her
direction. "Ah, I thought so; here it is: 'Mysterious circumstance;
extraordinary supineness and stupidity of the police; no one arrested
on suspicion; better arrest the wrong man, and tranquillize the public
mind, than arrest no one at all.' I'm not convinced by that reasoning,
I must say. What!--no reason for regarding the murder as a political
assassination? Listen to this, Clare;" and he read aloud, while she
stood by the window, her back turned towards him, and listened
intently, greedily, with a terrible fear and sickness at her heart:
"'_The supposition that this atrocious crime has been committed from
political motives has, in our opinion, no foundation in probability,
and derives very little support from common sense. The appearance of
the body, the fineness of the linen, the expensive quality of the
attire, the torn condition of the breast and sleeves of the shirt,
which seems plainly to indicate that studs, probably of value, had
been wrenched violently out; the extreme improbability that an
individual, so handsomely dressed as the murdered man, would have been
out without money in his pocket,--all indicate robbery, at least; and
if perhaps more than robbery, certainly not less, to have been the
motive of the crime. An absurd theory has been founded upon the
peculiarity in the dress of the victim, and upon the remark made by
the only witness at the inquest about his tone of voice. Nothing is
more likely, in our opinion, than a complete miscarriage of justice in
this atrocious case. Suspicion has been arbitrarily directed in one
channel, and the result will be, probably, the total neglect of other
and more likely ones. While the political murderer is being theorized
about and "wanted," the more ordinary criminal--the ruffian who kills
for gain, and, not for patriotism or principle--is as likely as not to
escape comfortably, and enjoy his sway in some pleasant, unsuspected,
and undisturbed retreat_.'
"Now, I call this most unjustifiable," said Mr. Carruthers in a tone
of dignified remonstrance and indignation. "Really, the liberty of the
press is going quite too far. The Government are convinced that the
murder is political, and I can't see--"
It was at this point of Mr. Carruthers's harangue that he was
interrupted by his wife's maid. When he again looked for Clare she had
disappeared, nor did he or any of the frightened and agitated
household at Poynings see the young lady again for many hours. Dr.
Munns arrived, and found Mr. Carruthers considerably distressed at the
condition in which Mrs. Carruthers was, also a little annoyed at that
lady's want of consideration in being ill, and unable to refrain from
hinting, with much reserve and dignity of manner, that he was at
present more than usually engaged in business of the last importance,
which rendered it peculiarly unfortunate that he should have an
additional care imposed on him--public importance, he took care to
explain, and no less onerous than mysterious. But the worthy
gentleman's pride and pompousness were soon snubbed by the extreme
gravity of Dr. Munns's manner, as he answered his inquiries and put
questions in his turn relative to his patient. The doctor was both
alarmed and puzzled by Mrs. Carruthers's state. He told her husband
she was very seriously ill: he feared brain-fever had already set in.
Could Mr. Carruthers account for the seizure in any way? No, Mr.
Carruthers could not; neither could the housekeeper, nor Mrs.
Carruthers's maid, both of whom were closely questioned, as having
more and more frequent access to that lady's presence than any other
members of the household.
Had Mrs. Carruthers heard any distressing intelligence? had she
received a shock of any kind? the doctor inquired. Mr. Carruthers
appeared to sustain one from the question. Of course not; certainly
not; nothing of the kind, he replied, with some unrepressed irritation
of manner, and secretly regarded the bare suggestion of such a
possibility as almost indecent. Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings receive
shocks indeed! The doctor, who knew and disregarded his peculiarities,
calmly pursued his inquiries undeterred by Mr. Carruthers's demeanour;
and finding that nothing particular had happened, acknowledged that,
there being no apparent cause to which so sudden and serious an
illness could be attributed, he was the more uneasy as to its probable
result. Then Mr. Carruthers caught the infection of his alarm, and all
the best side of his character, all the real love and appreciation of
his wife, ordinarily overlaid by his egotism, came out in full force,
and the staunchest stickler for domestic fealty could not have
demanded greater solicitude than the frightened husband exhibited.
In a wonderfully short of space of time the house assumed the
appearance which illness always gives. The servants went about their
work whispering, and the sitting-rooms were silent and deserted. No
one bestowed a thought on Clare. The attendants on the suffering
woman, busily engaged in carrying out the orders given them by Dr.
Munns, who remained for several hours with his patient; the alarmed
husband, who wandered about disconsolately between his own library
and his wife's room--all forgot the girl's existence. It was very
late--within a few minutes of the usual dinner-hour (an inflexible
period at Poynings)--when Clare Carruthers crossed the flower-garden,
entered the house by the window through which she had left it, and
stole gently upstairs to her own room. She threw her hat and shawl
upon her bed and went to her dressing-table. There she stood for
some minutes before the glass, holding her disordered hair back with
her hands--there were bits of grass and fragments of leaves in it,
as though she had been lying with her fair head prone upon the
ground--and gazing upon her young misery-stricken face. White about
the full pure lips, where the rich blood ordinarily glowed; purple
about the long fair eyelids and the blushing cheeks, heavy-eyed,--the
girl was piteous to see, and she knew it. The hours that had passed
over since she left her uncle's presence in the morning had been laden
with horror, with dread, with such anguish as had never in its
lightest form touched her young spirit before; and she trembled as she
marked the ravages they had made in her face.
"What shall I do?" she murmured, as though questioning her own forlorn
image in the glass. "What shall I do? I dare not stay away from
dinner, and what will they say when they see my face?"
She fastened up her hair, and bathed her face with cold water; then
returned to the glass to look at it again; but the pallor was still
upon the lips, the discoloration was still about the heavy eyelids. As
she stood despairingly before the dressing-table, her maid came to
her.
"The dinner-bell will not ring, ma'am," said the girl. "Mr. Carruthers
is afraid of the noise for Mrs. Carruthers."
"Ay," said Clare, listlessly, still looking at the disfigured image in
the glass. "How is she?"
"No better, ma'am; very bad indeed, I believe. But don't take on so,
Miss Clare," her maid went on, affectionately. "She is not so bad as
they say, perhaps; and, at all events, you'll knock yourself up, and
be no comfort to Mr. Carruthers."
A light flashed upon Clare. She had only to keep silence, and no one
would find her out; her tears, her anguish, would be imputed to her
share of the family trouble. Her maid, who would naturally have
noticed her appearance immediately, expressed no surprise. Mrs.
Carruthers was very ill, then. Something new had occurred since the
morning, when there had been no hint of anything serious in her
indisposition. The maid evidently believed her mistress acquainted
with all that had occurred. She had only to keep quiet, and nothing
would betray her ignorance. So she allowed the girl to talk, while she
made some trifling change in her dress, and soon learned all the
particulars of Mrs. Carruthers's illness, and the doctor's visit, of
her uncle's alarm, and Mrs. Brookes's devoted attendance on her
mistress. Then Clare, trembling though relieved of her immediate
apprehension of discovery, went down-stairs to join her uncle at their
dreary dinner. He made no comment upon the girl's appearance, and,
indeed, hardly spoke. The few words of sympathy which Clare ventured
to say were briefly answered, and as soon as possible he left the
dining-room. Clare sat by the table for a while, with her face buried
in her hands, thinking, suffering, but not weeping. She had no more
tears to-day to shed.
Presently she went to Mrs. Carruthers's room, and sat down on a chair
behind the door, abstracted and silent. In the large dimly-lighted
room she was hardly seen by the watchers. She saw her uncle come in,
and stand forlornly by the bed; then the doctor came, and several
figures moved about silently and went away, and then there was no one
but Mrs. Brookes sitting still as a statue beside the sufferer, who
lay in a state of stupor. How long she had been in the room before the
old woman perceived her Clare did not know; but she felt Mrs. Brookes
bending over her, and taking her hand, before she knew she had moved
from the bedside.
"Pray go away and lie down, Miss Carruthers," the old woman said, half
tenderly, half severely. "You can do no good here--no one can do any
good here yet--and you will be ill yourself. We can't do with more
trouble in the house, and crying your eyes out of your head, as you've
been doing, won't help any one, my dear. I will send you word how she
is the first thing in the morning."
The old woman raised the girl by a gentle impulse, as she spoke, and
she went meekly away, Mrs. Brookes closing the door behind her with an
unspoken reflection on the uselessness of girls, who, whenever
anything is the matter, can do nothing but cry.
The night gradually fell upon Poynings--the soft, sweet, early summer
night. It crept into the sick-room, and overshadowed the still form
upon the bed--the form whose stillness was to be succeeded by the
fierce unrest, the torturing vague effort of fever; it closed over the
stern pompous master of Poynings, wakeful and sorely troubled. It
darkened the pretty chamber, decorated with a thousand girlish
treasures and simple adornments, in which Clare Carruthers was
striving sorely with the first fierce trial of her prosperous young
life. When it was at its darkest and deepest, the girl's swollen weary
eyelids closed, conquered by the irresistible mighty benefactor of the
young who suffer. Then, if any eye could have pierced the darkness and
looked at her as she lay sleeping, the stamp of a great fear upon her
face even in her slumber, and her breast shaken by frequent heavy
sighs, it would have been seen that one hand was hidden under the
pillow, and the fair cheek pressed tightly down upon it, for better
security. That hand was closed upon three letters, severally addressed
to the advertising department of three of the daily newspapers. The
contents, which were uniform, had cost the girl hours of anxious and
agonizing thoughts. They were very simple, and were as follows,
accompanied by the sum which she supposed their insertion would cost,
very liberally estimated:
"The gentleman who showed a lady a sprig of myrtle on last Saturday is
earnestly entreated by her not to revisit the place where he met her.
He will inevitably be recognized."
"God forgive me if I am doing wrong in this!" Clare Carruthers had
said with her last waking consciousness. "God forgive me, but I must
save him if I can!"