Outside the door of the registry-office, Angela and her father had to
make their way through a crowd of small boys, who had by some means or
other found out that a wedding was going on inside, and stood waiting
there, animated by the intention of cheering the bride and the certain
hope of sixpences. But when they saw Angela, her stately form robed in
black, and her sweet face betraying the anguish of her mind, the sight
shocked their sense of the fitness of things, and they slipped off
without a word. Indeed, a butcher’s boy, with a turn for expressive
language, remarked in indignation to another of his craft so soon as
they had recovered their spirits.
“Call that a weddin’, Bill; why, it’s more like a—funeral with the
plumes off; and as for the gal, though she’s a ‘clipper,’ her face was
as pale as a ‘long ‘un’s.’”
Angela never quite knew how she got back to the Abbey House. She only
remembered that she was by herself in the fly, her father preferring to
travel on the box alone with the coachman. Nor could she ever quite
remember how she got through the remainder of that day. She was quite
mazed. But at length it passed, and the night came, and she was
thankful for the night.
About nine o’clock she went up to her bedroom at the top of the house.
It had served as a nursery for many generations of Caresfoots; indeed,
during the last three centuries, hundreds of little feet had pattered
over the old worm-eaten boards. But the little feet had long since gone
to dust, and the only signs of children’s play and merriment left about
the place were the numberless scratches, nicks, and letters cut in the
old panelling, and even on the beams which supported the low ceiling.
It was a lonesome room for a young girl, or, indeed, for anybody whose
nerves were not of the strongest. Nobody slept upon that floor or in
the rooms beneath it, Philip occupying a little closet which joined his
study on the ground floor. All the other rooms were closed, and
tenanted only by rats that made unearthly noises in their emptiness. As
for Jakes and his wife, the only servants on the place, they occupied a
room over the washhouse, which was separate from the main building.
Angela was therefore practically alone in a great house, and might have
been murdered a dozen times over without the fact being discovered for
hours. This did not, however, trouble her much, simply because she paid
no heed to the noises in the house, and was singularly free from fear
of any kind.
On reaching her room, she sat down and began to think of Arthur, and,
as she thought, her mind grew clearer and more at peace. Indeed, it
seemed to her that her dead lover was near, and as though she could
distinguish pulsations of thought which came from him, impinging on her
system, and bringing his presence with them. It is a common sensation,
and occurs to many people of sensitive organization when asleep or
thinking on some one with whom they are in a high state of sympathy,
and doubtless indicates some occult communication. But, as it chanced,
it had never before visited Angela in this form, and she abandoned
herself to its influence with delight. It thrilled her through and
through.
How long she sat thus she could not tell, but presently the
communication, whatever it was, stopped as suddenly as though the
connecting link had been severed. The currents directed by her will
would no longer do her bidding; they could not find their object, or,
frighted by some adverse influence, recoiled in confusion on her brain.
Several times she tried to renew this subtle intercourse that was so
palpable and real, and yet so different from anything else in the
world, but failed. Then she rose, feeling very tired, for those who
thus draw upon the vital energies must pay the penalty of exhaustion.
She took her Bible and read her nightly chapter, and then undressed and
said her prayers, praying with unusual earnestness that it might please
the Almighty in His wisdom to take her to where her lover was. Her
prayers done, she rose, put on a white dressing wrapper, and, seating
herself before the glass, unloosed her hair. Then she began to brush
it, pausing presently to think how Arthur had admired its colour and
the ripples on it. She had been much more careful of her hair since
then, and smiled sadly to herself at her folly for being so.
Thinking thus, she fell into a reverie, and sat so still that a great
grey rat came noiselessly out of his hole in a corner of the room, and,
advancing into the circle of light round the dressing-table, sat up on
his hind legs to see if he was alone. Suddenly he turned and scuttled
back to his hole in evident alarm, and at the same second Angela
thought that she heard a sound of a different character from those she
was accustomed to in the old house—a sound like the creaking of a boot.
It passed, however, but left an indefinable dread creeping over her,
and chilling the blood in her veins. She began to expect something, she
knew not what, and was fascinated by the expectation. She would have
risen to lock the door, but all strength seemed to have left her; she
was paralysed by the near sense of evil. Then came a silence as intense
as it was lonely.
It was a ghastly moment.
Her back was towards the doorway, for her dressing-table was
immediately opposite the door, which was raised some four feet above
the level of the landing, and approached by as many steps.
Gradually her eyes became riveted on the glass before her, for in it
she thought that she saw the door move. Next second, she was sure that
it _was_ moving, very slowly; the hinges took an age to turn. What
could be behind it? At last it was open, and in the glass Angela saw
framed in darkness _the head and shoulders of George Caresfoot_. At
first she believed that her mind deceived her, that it was an
apparition. No, there was no mistake. But the respirator, the hollow
cough and decrepitude of the morning—where were they?
With horror in her heart, she turned and faced him. Seeing that he was
observed, he staggered into the room with a step which was half drunken
and half jaunty, but which belied the conflict of passions written on
his brow. He spoke—his voice sounded hoarse and hollow, and was
ill-tuned to his words.
“You did not expect me perhaps—wonder how I got here! Jakes let me in;
he has got a proper respect for marital rights, has Jakes. You looked
so pretty, I could not make up my mind to disturb you. Quite a romantic
meeting, is it not?”
“You are a dying man. How did you come here?”
“Dying! my dear wife; not a bit of it. I am no more dying than you are.
I have been ill, it is true, but that is only because you have fretted
me so. The dying was only a little ruse to get your consent. All is
fair in love and war, you know; and of course you never really believed
in that precious agreement. That was nothing but a bit of maidenly
shyness, eh?”
Angela stood still as a stone, a look of horror on her face.
“Then you don’t know what you have cost me. Your father’s price was a
hundred and fifty thousand, at least that is what it came to, the old
shark! It isn’t every man who would come down like that for a girl, now
is it? It shows a generous mind, doesn’t it?”
Still she uttered not a syllable.
“Angela,” he said, changing his tone to one of hoarse earnestness,
“don’t look at me like that, because, even if you are a bit put out at
the trick I have played you, just think it was because I loved you so
much, Angela. I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t really. It is not every
man who would go through all that I have gone through for you; it is no
joke to sham consumption for three months, I can tell you; but we will
have many a laugh over that. Why don’t you answer me, instead of
standing there just like the Andromeda in my study?”
The simile was an apt one, the statue of the girl awaiting her awful
fate wore the same hopeless, helpless look of vacant terror which was
upon Angela’s face now. But its mention recalled Lady Bellamy and the
ominous incident in which that statue had figured, and he hastened to
drown recollection in action.
“Come,” he said, “you will forgive me, won’t you? It was all done for
love of you.” And he moved towards her.
As he came she seemed to collect her energies; the fear left her face,
and in its stead there shone a great and awful blaze of indignation.
Her brush was still in her hand, and as he drew near she dashed it full
into his face. It was but a light thing, and only staggered him, but it
gave her time to pass him, and reach the still open door. Bare- footed,
she fled like the wind down the passages, and down the stairs. Uttering
an oath, he followed her. But, as she went, she remembered that she
could not run upon the gravel with her naked feet, and, with this in
her mind, she turned to bay by a large window that gave light to the
first-floor landing, immediately opposite which was the portrait of
“Devil” Caresfoot. It was unbolted, and with a single movement of the
hand she flung it open, and stood panting by it in the full light of
the moon. In another moment he was upon her, furious at the blow, and
his face contorted with passion.
“Stop,” she cried, “and listen to me. Before I will allow you to touch
me with a single finger, I will spring from here. I would rather thrust
myself into the hands of Providence than into yours, monster and
perjured liar that you are!”
He stopped as she bade him, and commenced to pace round and round her
in a semicircle, glaring at her with wild eyes.
“If you jump from there,” he said, “you will only break your limbs; it
is not high enough to kill you. You are my wife, don’t you understand?
You are my legal wife, the law is on my side. No one can help you, no
one; you are mine in the sight of the whole world.”
“But not yours in the sight of God. It is to Him that I now appeal. Get
back!”
She stretched out her arm, and with her golden hair glimmering in the
moonlight, her white robes, and the anger on her face, looked like some
avenging angel driving a fiend to hell. He shrank away from her, and
there came a pause, and, save for their heavy breathing, stillness
again fell upon the house, whilst the picture that hung above them
seemed, in the half light, to follow them with its fierce eyes, as
though it were a living thing.
The landing where they stood looked upon the hall below, at the end of
which was Philip’s study. Suddenly its door burst open, and Philip
himself passed through it, grasping a candlestick in one hand and some
parchments in the other. His features were dreadful to see, resembling
those of a dumb thing in torture; his eyes protruded, his livid lips
moved, but no sound came from them. He staggered across the hall with
terror staring from his face.
“Father, father,” called Angela; but he took no notice—he did not even
seem to hear.
Presently they heard the candlestick thrown with a clash upon the hall
pavement, then the front door slammed, and he was gone, and at that
moment a great ruddy glow shot up the western sky, then a tongue of
flame, then another and another.
“See,” said Angela, with a solemn laugh, “I did not appeal for help in
vain.”
Isleworth Hall was in flames.