“Supposing that every time a man misbehaved himself a gigantic hand
were to seize him, and he were lashed with a whip until he fainted”--she
clenched her white fingers as she spoke, and cut out viciously with
the dog-whip--“it would do more to keep him good than any number of
high-minded theories of morality.”
“Why, Kate,” said my friend, “you are quite savage to-day.”
“No, Jack,” she laughed. “I’m only propounding a theory for Mr.
Armitage’s consideration.”
The two began to chat together about some Aberdeenshire reminiscence,
and I had time to observe Mrs. Merton, who had remained silent during
our short conversation. She was a very strange-looking old lady. What
attracted attention most in her appearance was the utter want of colour
which she exhibited. Her hair was snow-white, and her face extremely
pale. Her lips were bloodless, and even her eyes were of such a light
tinge of blue that they hardly relieved the general pallor. Her dress
was a grey silk, which harmonised with her general appearance. She had a
peculiar expression of countenance, which I was unable at the moment to
refer to its proper cause.
She was working at some old-fashioned piece of ornamental needlework,
and as she moved her arms her dress gave forth a dry, melancholy
rustling, like the sound of leaves in the autumn. There was something
mournful and depressing in the sight of her. I moved my chair a little
nearer, and asked her how she liked Edinburgh, and whether she had been
there long.
When I spoke to her she started and looked up at me with a scared look
on her face. Then I saw in a moment what the expression was which I had
observed there. It was one of fear--intense and overpowering fear. It
was so marked that I could have staked my life on the woman before
me having at some period of her life been subjected to some terrible
experience or dreadful misfortune.
“Oh, yes, I like it,” she said, in a soft, timid voice; “and we have
been here long--that is, not very long. We move about a great deal.” She
spoke with hesitation, as if afraid of committing herself.
“You are a native of Scotland, I presume?” I said.
“No--that is, not entirely. We are not natives of any place. We are
cosmopolitan, you know.” She glanced round in the direction of Miss
Northcott as she spoke, but the two were still chatting together near
the window. Then she suddenly bent forward to me, with a look of intense
earnestness upon her face, and said--
“Don’t talk to me any more, please. She does not like it, and I shall
suffer for it afterwards. Please, don’t do it.”
I was about to ask her the reason for this strange request, but when she
saw I was going to address her, she rose and walked slowly out of the
room. As she did so I perceived that the lovers had ceased to talk and
that Miss Northcott was looking at me with her keen, grey eyes.
“You must excuse my aunt, Mr. Armitage,” she said; “she is odd, and
easily fatigued. Come over and look at my album.”
We spent some time examining the portraits. Miss Northcott’s father and
mother were apparently ordinary mortals enough, and I could not detect
in either of them any traces of the character which showed itself in
their daughter’s face. There was one old daguerreotype, however, which
arrested my attention. It represented a man of about the age of forty,
and strikingly handsome. He was clean shaven, and extraordinary power
was expressed upon his prominent lower jaw and firm, straight mouth.
His eyes were somewhat deeply set in his head, however, and there was a
snake-like flattening at the upper part of his forehead, which detracted
from his appearance. I almost involuntarily, when I saw the head,
pointed to it, and exclaimed--
“There is your prototype in your family, Miss Northcott.”
“Do you think so?” she said. “I am afraid you are paying me a very bad
compliment. Uncle Anthony was always considered the black sheep of the
family.”
“Indeed,” I answered; “my remark was an unfortunate one, then.”
“Oh, don’t mind that,” she said; “I always thought myself that he was
worth all of them put together. He was an officer in the Forty-first
Regiment, and he was killed in action during the Persian War--so he died
nobly, at any rate.”
“That’s the sort of death I should like to die,” said Cowles, his dark
eyes flashing, as they would when he was excited; “I often wish I had
taken to my father’s profession instead of this vile pill-compounding
drudgery.”
“Come, Jack, you are not going to die any sort of death yet,” she said,
tenderly taking his hand in hers.
I could not understand the woman. There was such an extraordinary
mixture of masculine decision and womanly tenderness about her, with
the consciousness of something all her own in the background, that she
fairly puzzled me. I hardly knew, therefore, how to answer Cowles
when, as we walked down the street together, he asked the comprehensive
question--
“Well, what do you think of her?”
“I think she is wonderfully beautiful,” I answered guardedly.
“That, of course,” he replied irritably. “You knew that before you
came!”
“I think she is very clever too,” I remarked.
Barrington Cowles walked on for some time, and then he suddenly turned
on me with the strange question--
“Do you think she is cruel? Do you think she is the sort of girl who
would take a pleasure in inflicting pain?”
“Well, really,” I answered, “I have hardly had time to form an opinion.”
We then walked on for some time in silence.
“She is an old fool,” at length muttered Cowles. “She is mad.”
“Who is?” I asked.
“Why, that old woman--that aunt of Kate’s--Mrs. Merton, or whatever her
name is.”
Then I knew that my poor colourless friend had been speaking to Cowles,
but he never said anything more as to the nature of her communication.
My companion went to bed early that night, and I sat up a long time by
the fire, thinking over all that I had seen and heard. I felt that there
was some mystery about the girl--some dark fatality so strange as to
defy conjecture. I thought of Prescott’s interview with her before
their marriage, and the fatal termination of it. I coupled it with poor
drunken Reeves’ plaintive cry, “Why did she not tell me sooner?” and
with the other words he had spoken. Then my mind ran over Mrs. Merton’s
warning to me, Cowles’ reference to her, and even the episode of the
whip and the cringing dog.
The whole effect of my recollections was unpleasant to a degree, and yet
there was no tangible charge which I could bring against the woman. It
would be worse than useless to attempt to warn my friend until I had
definitely made up my mind what I was to warn him against. He would
treat any charge against her with scorn. What could I do? How could I
get at some tangible conclusion as to her character and antecedents? No
one in Edinburgh knew them except as recent acquaintances. She was an
orphan, and as far as I knew she had never disclosed where her former
home had been. Suddenly an idea struck me. Among my father’s friends
there was a Colonel Joyce, who had served a long time in India upon the
staff, and who would be likely to know most of the officers who had been
out there since the Mutiny. I sat down at once, and, having trimmed the
lamp, proceeded to write a letter to the Colonel. I told him that I was
very curious to gain some particulars about a certain Captain Northcott,
who had served in the Forty-first Foot, and who had fallen in the
Persian War. I described the man as well as I could from my recollection
of the daguerreotype, and then, having directed the letter, posted it
that very night, after which, feeling that I had done all that could be
done, I retired to bed, with a mind too anxious to allow me to sleep.