Barbara Monkhouse Comes Home
In the intervals of my business at Bury St. Edmunds I gave more than a
passing thought to the man who was lying sick in the house in the
quiet square at Kensington. It was not that I had any very deep
feeling for him as a friend, though I liked him well enough. But the
idea had got into my mind that he had perhaps been treated with
something less than ordinary solicitude; that his illness had been
allowed to drift on when possibly some effective measures might have
been taken for his relief. And as it had never occurred to me to make
any suggestions on the matter or to interest myself particularly in
his condition, I was now inclined to regard myself as a party to the
neglect, if there had really been any culpable failure of attention. I
therefore awaited with some anxiety the letter which Amos had promised
to send.
It was not until the morning of my third day at Bury that it arrived;
and when I had opened and read it I found myself even less reassured
than I had expected.
“Dear Mayfield,” it ran. “The consultation took place this afternoon
and the result is, in my opinion, highly unsatisfactory. Sir Robert
is, at present, unable to say definitely what is the matter with
Harold. He states that he finds the case extremely obscure and
reserves his opinion until the blood-films and other specimens which
he took, have been examined and reported on by an expert
pathologist. But on one point he is perfectly clear. He regards
Harold’s condition as extremely grave—even critical—and he advised
me to send a telegram to Barbara insisting on her immediate return
home. Which I have done; and only hope it may reach her in the
course of the day.
That is all I have to tell you and I think you will agree that it is
not an encouraging report. Medical science must be in a very
backward state if two qualified practitioners—one of them an eminent
physician—cannot between them muster enough professional knowledge
to say what is the matter with a desperately sick man. However, I
hope that we shall have a diagnosis by the time you come back.
Yours sincerely,
Amos Monkhouse.”
I could not but agree, in the main, that my clerical friend’s rather
gloomy view was justified, though I thought that he was a trifle
unfair to the doctors, especially to Sir Robert. Probably a less
scientific practitioner, who would have given the condition some sort
of name, would have been more satisfying to the parson. Meanwhile, I
allowed myself to build on “the blood-films and other specimens” hopes
of a definite discovery which might point the way to some effective
treatment.
I despatched my business by the following evening and returned to
London by the night train, arriving at my chambers shortly before
midnight. With some eagerness I emptied the letter-cage in the hope of
finding a note from Amos or Barbara; but there was none, although
there were one or two letters from solicitors which required to be
dealt with at once. I read these through and considered their contents
while I was undressing, deciding to get up early and reply to them so
that I might have the forenoon free; and this resolution I carried out
so effectively that by ten o’clock in the morning I had breakfasted,
answered and posted the letters, and was on my way westward in an
Inner Circle train.
It was but a few minutes’ walk from South Kensington Station to
Hilborough Square and I covered the short distance more quickly than
usual. Turning into the square, I walked along the pavement on the
garden side, according to my habit, until I was nearly opposite the
house. Then I turned to cross the road and as I did so, looked up at
the house. And at the first glance I stopped short and stared in
dismay: for the blinds were lowered in all the windows. For a couple
of seconds I stood and gazed at this ominous spectacle; then I hurried
across the road and, instinctively avoiding the knocker, gave a gentle
pull at the bell.
The door was opened by the housemaid, who looked at me somewhat
strangely but admitted me without a word and shut the door softly
behind me. I glanced at her set face and asked in a low voice:
“Why are all the blinds down, Mabel?”
“Didn’t you know, Sir?” she replied, almost in a whisper. “It’s the
master—Mr. Monkhouse. He passed away in the night. I found him dead
when I went in this morning to draw up the blinds and give him his
early tea.”
I gazed at the girl in consternation, and after a pause she continued:
“It gave me an awful turn, Sir, for I didn’t see, at first, what had
happened. He was lying just as he usually did, and looked as if he had
gone to sleep, reading. He had a book in his hand, resting on the
counterpane, and I could see that his candle-lamp had burned itself
right out. I put his tea on the bedside table and spoke to him, and
when he didn’t answer I spoke again a little louder. And then I
noticed that he was perfectly still and looked even paler and more
yellow than usual and I began to feel nervous about him. So I touched
his hand; and it was as cold as stone and as stiff as a wooden hand.
Then I felt sure he must be dead and I ran away and told Miss Norris.”
“Miss Norris!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, Sir. Mrs. Monkhouse only got home about an hour ago. She was
fearfully upset when she found she was too late. Miss Norris is with
her now, but I expect she’ll be awfully glad you’ve come. She was
asking where you were. Shall I tell her you are here?”
“If you please, Mabel,” I replied; and as the girl retired up the
stairs with a stealthy, funereal tread, I backed into the open doorway
of the dining room (avoiding the library, in case Wallingford should
be there) where I remained until Mabel returned with a message asking
me to go up.
I think I have seldom felt more uncomfortable than I did as I walked
slowly and softly up the stairs. The worst had happened—at least, so I
thought—and we all stood condemned; but Barbara most of all. I tried
to prepare some comforting, condolent phrases, but could think of
nothing but the unexplainable, inexcusable fact that Barbara had of
her own choice and for her own purposes, gone away leaving a sick
husband and had come back to find him dead.
As I entered the pleasant little boudoir—now gloomy enough, with its
lowered blinds—the two women rose from the settee on which they had
been sitting together, and Barbara came forward to meet me, holding
out both her hands.
“Rupert!” she exclaimed, “how good of you! But it is like you to be
here just when we have need of you.” She took both my hands and
continued, looking rather wildly into my face: “Isn’t it an awful
thing? Poor, poor Harold! So patient and uncomplaining! And I so
neglectful, so callous! I shall never, never forgive myself. I have
been a selfish, egotistical brute.”
“We are all to blame,” I said, since I could not honestly dispute her
self-accusations; “and Dr. Dimsdale not the least. Harold has been the
victim of his own patience. Does Amos know?”
“Yes,” answered Madeline, “I sent him a telegram at half-past eight. I
should have sent you one, too, but I didn’t know that you had come
back.”
There followed a slightly awkward silence during which I reflected
with some discomfort on the impending arrival of the dead man’s
brother, which might occur at any moment. It promised to be a somewhat
unpleasant incident, for Amos alone had gauged the gravity of his
brother’s condition, and he was an outspoken man. I only hoped that he
would not be too outspoken.
The almost embarrassing silence was broken by Barbara, who asked in a
low voice: “Will you go and see him, Rupert?” and added: “You know the
way and I expect you would rather go alone.”
I said “yes” as I judged that she did not wish to come with me, and,
walking out of the room, took my way along the corridor to the
well-remembered door, at which I halted for a moment, with an
unreasonable impulse to knock, and then entered. A solemn dimness
pervaded the room, with its lowered blinds, and an unusual silence
seemed to brood over it. But everything was clearly visible in the
faint, diffused light—the furniture, the pictures on the walls, the
bookshelves and the ghostly shape upon the bed, half-revealed through
the sheet which had been laid over it.
Softly, I drew back the sheet, and the vague shape became a man; or
rather, as it seemed, a waxen effigy, with something in its aspect at
once strange and familiar. The features were those of Harold
Monkhouse, but yet the face was not quite the face that I had known.
So it has always seemed to me with the dead. They have their own
distinctive character which belongs to no living man—the physiognomy
of death; impassive, expressionless, immovable; fixed for ever, or at
least, until the changes of the tomb shall obliterate even its
semblance of humanity.
I stepped back a pace and looked thoughtfully at the dead man who had
slipped so quietly out of the land of the living. There he lay,
stretched out in an easy, restful posture, just as I had often seen
him; the eyes half-closed and one long, thin arm lying on the
counterpane, the waxen hand lightly grasping the open volume;
looking—save for the stony immobility—as he might if he had fallen
asleep over his book. It was not surprising that the housemaid had
been deceived, for the surroundings all tended to support the
illusion. The bedside table with its pathetic little provisions for a
sick man’s needs: the hooded candle-lamp, drawn to the table-edge and
turned to light the book; the little decanter of brandy, the unused
tumbler, the water-bottle, the watch, still ticking in its upright
case, the candle-box, two or three spare volumes and the hand-bell for
night use; all spoke of illness and repose with never a hint of death.
There was nothing by which I could judge when he had died. I touched
his arm and found it rigid as an iron bar. So Mabel had found it some
hours earlier, whence I inferred that death had occurred not much past
midnight. But the doctors would be able to form a better opinion, if
it should seem necessary to form any opinion at all. More to the point
than the exact time of death was the exact cause. I recalled the blunt
question that Amos had put to Dr. Dimsdale and the almost indignant
tone in which the latter had put it aside. That was less than a week
ago; and now that question had to be answered in unequivocal terms. I
found myself wondering what the politic and plausible Dimsdale would
put on the death certificate and whether he would seek Sir Robert
Detling’s collaboration in the execution of that document.
I was about to replace the sheet when my ear caught the footsteps of
some one approaching on tip-toe along the corridor. The next moment
the door opened softly and Amos stole into the room. He passed me with
a silent greeting and drew near the bed, beside which he halted with
his hand laid on the dead hand and his eyes fixed gloomily on the
yellowish-white, impassive face. He spoke no word, nor did I presume
to disturb this solemn meeting and farewell, but silently slipped out
into the corridor where I waited for him to come out.
Two or three minutes passed, during which I heard him, once or twice,
moving softly about the room and judged that he was examining the
surroundings amidst which his brother had passed the last few weeks of
his life. Presently he came out, closing the door noiselessly behind
him, and joined me opposite the window. I looked a little nervously
into the stern, grief-stricken face, and as he did not speak, I said,
lamely enough:
“This is a grievous and terrible thing, Mr. Monkhouse.” He shook his
head gravely. “Grievous indeed; and the more so if one suspects, as I
do, that it need not have happened. However, he is gone and
recriminations will not bring him back.”
“No,” I agreed, profoundly relieved and a little surprised at his
tone; “whatever we may feel or think, reproaches and bitter words will
bring no remedy. Have you seen Barbara?”
“No; and I think I won’t—this morning. In a day or two, I hope I shall
be able to meet and speak to her as a Christian man should. To-day I
am not sure of myself. You will let me know what arrangements are made
about the funeral?”
I promised that I would, and walked with him to the head of the
stairs, and when I had watched him descend and heard the street door
close, I went back to Barbara’s little sitting-room.
I found her alone, and, when I entered she was standing before a
miniature that hung on the wall. She looked round as I entered and I
saw that she still looked rather dazed and strange. Her eyes were red,
as if she had been weeping but they were now tearless, and she seemed
calmer than when I had first seen her. I went to her side, and for a
few moments we stood silently regarding the smiling, girlish face that
looked out at us from the miniature. It was that of Barbara’s
step-sister, a very sweet, loveable girl, little more than a child,
who had died some four years previously, and who, I had sometimes
thought, was the only human creature for whom Barbara had felt a
really deep affection. The miniature had been painted from a
photograph after her death and a narrow plait of her gorgeous,
red-gold hair had been carried round inside the frame.
“Poor little Stella!” Barbara murmured. “I have been asking myself if
I neglected her, too. I often left her for days at a time.”
“You mustn’t be morbid, Barbara,” I said. “The poor child was very
well looked after and as happy as she could be made. And nobody could
have done any more for her. Rapid consumption is beyond the resources
of medical science at present.”
“Yes, unfortunately.” She was silent for a while. Then she said: “I
wonder if anything could have been done for Harold. Do you think it
possible that he might have been saved?”
“I know of no reason for thinking so, and now that he is gone I see no
use in raising the question.”
She drew closer to me and slipped her hand into mine.
“You will be with us as much as you can, Rupert, won’t you? We always
look to you in trouble or difficulty, and you have never failed us.
Even now you don’t condemn me, whatever you may think.”
“No, I blame myself for not being more alert, though it was really
Dimsdale who misled us all. Has Madeline gone to the school?”
“Yes. She had to give a lecture or demonstration, but I hope she will
manage to get a day or two off duty. I don’t want to be left alone
with poor Tony. It sounds unkind to say so, for no one could be more
devoted to me than he is. But he is so terribly high-strung. Just now,
he is in an almost hysterical state. I suppose you haven’t seen him
this morning?”
“No. I came straight up to you.” I had, in fact, kept out of his way,
for, to speak the truth, I did not much care for Anthony Wallingford.
He was of a type that I dislike rather intensely; nervous,
high-strung, emotional and in an incessant state of purposeless
bustle. I did not like his appearance, his manners or his dress. I
resented the abject fawning way in which he followed Barbara about,
and I disapproved of his position in this house; which was nominally
that of secretary to Barbara’s husband, but actually that of tame cat
and generally useless hanger-on. I think I was on the point of making
some disparaging comments on him, but at that moment there came a
gentle tap at the door and the subject of my thoughts entered.
I was rather sorry that Barbara was still holding my hand. Of course,
the circumstances were very exceptional, but I have an Englishman’s
dislike of emotional demonstrations in the presence of third parties.
Nevertheless, Wallingford’s behaviour filled me with amazed
resentment. He stopped short with a face black as thunder, and, after
a brief, insolent stare, muttered that he “was afraid he was
intruding” and walked out of the room, closing the door sharply after
him.
Barbara flushed (and I daresay I did, too), but made no outward sign
of annoyance. “You see what I mean,” she said. “The poor fellow is
quite unstrung. He is an added anxiety instead of a help.”
“I see that plainly enough,” I replied, “but I don’t see why he is
unstrung, or why an unstrung man should behave like an ill-mannered
child. At any rate, he will have to pull himself together. There is a
good deal to be done and he will have to do some of it. I may assume,
I suppose, that it will be his duty to carry out the instructions of
the executors?”
“I suppose so. But you know more about such things than I do.”
“Then I had better go down and explain the position to him and set him
to work. Presently I must call on Mr. Brodribb, the other executor,
and let him know what has happened. But meanwhile there are certain
things which have to be done at once. You understand?”
“Yes, indeed. You mean arrangements for the funeral. How horrible it
sounds! I can’t realize it yet. It is all so shocking and so sudden
and unlooked-for. It seems like some dreadful dream.”
“Well, Barbara,” I said gently, “you shan’t be troubled more than is
unavoidable. I will see to all the domestic affairs and leave the
legal business to Brodribb. But I shall want Wallingford’s help, and I
think I had better go down and see him now.”
“Very well, Rupert,” she replied with a sigh. “I shall lean on you now
as I always have done in times of trouble and difficulty, and you must
try to imagine how grateful I am since I can find no words to tell
you.”
She pressed my hand and released me, and I took my way down to the
library with a strong distaste for my mission.
That distaste was not lessened when I opened the door and was met by a
reek of cigarette smoke. Wallingford was sitting huddled up in an easy
chair, but as I entered, he sprang to his feet and stood facing me
with a sort of hostile apprehensiveness. The man was certainly
unstrung; in fact he was on wires. His pale, haggard face twitched,
his hands trembled visibly and his limbs were in constant, fidgety
movement. But, to me, there seemed to be no mystery about his
condition. The deep yellow stains on his fingers, the reek in the air
and a pile of cigarette-ends in an ash-bowl were enough to account for
a good deal of nervous derangement, even if there were nothing more—no
drugs or drink.
I opened the business quietly, explaining what had to be done and what
help I should require from him. At first he showed a tendency to
dispute my authority and treat me as an outsider, but I soon made the
position and powers of an executor clear to him. When I had brought
him to heel I gave him a set of written instructions the following-out
of which would keep him fairly busy for the rest of the day; and
having set the dismal preparations going, I went forth from the house
of mourning and took my way to New Square, Lincoln’s Inn, where were
the offices of Mr. Brodribb, the family solicitor and my co-executor.