"No, Annabel--no, Amethyst, I shall not go. I am quite sure Charles has
not deserved any attention from me. Read the telegram--`Come at once,
Charles dying; his own fault. Bring money.' My lord is the most
unpractical person I ever knew! He knows I have no money. What could I
do for Charles over at Monte Carlo? Some horrid scandal, no doubt."
"It would be a far greater scandal to neglect him when he is dying, Lady
Haredale. At least, I will go and help my poor brother."
"You, my dear Anna! Oh, that would be the very thing. You are always
goodness itself, and full of kind thoughts. Do go; but as for the
money--"
"There needn't be any trouble about that, Lady Haredale," said Carrie,
who was in the room, "for I have plenty of money--quite handy, and Miss
Haredale can take it with her to Monte Carlo."
"Why, my dear Carrie, you are quite a little guardian angel. Now it is
all nicely settled, and I dare say you'll find my lord has got nervous
about some mere trifle."
The Haredale party were all assembled in Lady Haredale's bedroom, which
formed a sort of family gathering-place. Tory had rushed in with a
telegram in her hand, and this was the end of a hot discussion.
"Then--the train, oh, when is it?" said Miss Haredale, "and--oh yes,
telegraph to my brother to meet me--for I should not know--"
"I shall go with you," said Amethyst, "there is nothing else to be
thought of. There will be a great deal more than you could manage
alone, Aunt Anna."
"Oh, but, Amethyst, you are the last person to be seen in such a place--
on such an occasion."
"When my brother is dying," said Amethyst, "I don't think it can be
wrong to go anywhere. If I don't like it, I'll come back again.
There's a train in an hour, we can catch that."
Una ran after her as she went to get ready.
"Oh, Amethyst," she said, "I am afraid it will be very dreadful."
"So am I," said Amethyst. "But what would become of Carrie's money if
auntie were there alone? And I have never been kind to poor Charles,
nor had any mercy for him. I _must_ go, Una. Only try to keep it all
from Lucian; he will hurt himself with worrying about me."
"If Sylvester Riddell could go with you!"
"Oh no. Then Lucian would hear about it. Besides--oh no, Una, no one
ought to come."
"Give my love to Charles," said Una, kissing her. "Oh dear, what is to
become of us all?"
"I don't know," said Amethyst; "I've got to catch the train first."
The train was caught, and off they set, with poor Carrie's little roll
of gold pieces carefully secreted in Amethyst's dress. She was sick
with fear of what she might find. To see evil which has been only heard
of is a frightful thing, and she squeezed Lucian's ring through her
glove, as if it gave her a sense of guardianship.
No Lord Haredale appeared at the station, which seemed ominous and
depressing. They took a carriage, and with some difficulty found the
_Bella Italia_, the hotel from which his telegram had been dated, the
driver declining to believe that the ladies _could_ want to go there.
It was a second-rate little place, with noisy voices coming from the
open windows of the coffee-room, and from the restaurant in the garden
outside.
The two ladies got out of their carriage and walked in, and Amethyst in
careful broken Italian asked for Lord Haredale, and for the English
gentleman who was there very ill.
The host came forward, and answered her with smiles, shrugs and
gestures, and a flood of incomprehensible words.
Amethyst stood perplexed. Some men started up from the tables and began
to explain, evidently with the best intentions, but with such vehemence
of tone and gesture that Miss Haredale clutched her niece's arm, with a
terrified conviction that they were all making excuses to stare at
Amethyst, who began to make her inquiries in French--when, behind her, a
voice that might have been the echo of her own said "Aunt Annabel!"
She turned, and by one of the little tables stood a tall woman, with a
slight swaying figure like Una's, a dress incongruously splendid in that
squalid place, and a face--the face of one of themselves--not so much
older as to have lost all its kindred beauty, but with pale cheeks and
painted eyes, and a look at once familiar, as only the nearest of kin
can be, and strange, as of one belonging to another kind of world.
"Blanche!" exclaimed Miss Haredale, "Blanche! can it be you?"
"Oh yes, Aunt Annabel. It is. I am staying here for a little variety,
and I saw papa, and Charles--both of them--in the rooms. And I thought
I'd better come and look after my brother, when I heard he was ill."
She laughed a little, as she uttered these words in something of Tory's
tone when she did the good little girl, an effect heightened by the use
of the old-fashioned appellation by which, long, long ago, Lord
Haredale's elder children had been wont to call him; but her eyes were
on her sister. "Is that Amethyst?" she said. "Ah, you don't remember
me."
"Yes, Blanche, I do," said Amethyst; but she had turned deadly pale, for
Blanche had been little more than an abstraction to her mind.
"But where is your father?" said Miss Haredale. "And Charles, is he any
better?"
"Oh no--nor can be. He's got D.T. and all sorts of other horrors. Just
drank himself to death, poor fellow. I can pay the nurse and the
doctor: but I can't bear the sight of him. What _was_ the good of your
coming?"
"Is the nurse trained, my dear? Indeed, I ought to go up," said Miss
Haredale.
"Well, I can show you. Perhaps he is asleep. Trained--oh dear no;
she's a horrid old woman."
Lady Clyste led the way up-stairs, and, as they followed her, outcries,
sounds that made Amethyst's heart die within her, led them on their way.
"Oh, he's quite off his head," said Blanche, as she opened the bedroom
door.
There, on the narrow bed, lay Charles; and Amethyst saw what months of
neglect and evil living, and frightful ills and sufferings, had made of
a man already marred and ruined beyond repair.
Miss Haredale recoiled with a sob, and Amethyst gathered up her courage
and came forward.
"Charles," she said.
The sick man started up and swore at her for a ghost. Then his eyes
cleared a little, and he stuttered out--
"Amethyst! Oh, damn it all. Go away; you mustn't stop here, here with
_me_. And there's Blanche; you mustn't stay with Blanche. Take her
away, Aunt Anna. Take her away this moment."
Blanche gave a sort of laugh, and then began to sob hysterically.
"Hush, Charles," said Amethyst, "I came to see you. You won't hurt
me,--and Blanche--is very kind. Lie still.--Una sent you her love."
Her lips and hands trembled a little, but her eyes were full of yearning
pity. Never, in her loveliest moments, had she looked as she did now.
She stood by Charles, and laid her hand on his, then glanced from him to
his other sister, of whom he had spoken thus.
She looked at this sister, who had loved foolishly, and married
unlovingly, and then yielded to the passion that offered a change from
the dullness of the world's prosperity, and she thought of herself, and
of what so easily might have been her fate; and no longer scorn and
hatred, but a deep and awful pity filled her soul for those who had not
been saved as she had, and who had been unable to save themselves.
She did not in the least know what to do, however much she might pity,
and had turned to the white-capped peasant who was acting as nurse, when
there was a rush up-stairs, and the host who had received them dashed
into the room and shouted out something in Italian. Blanche, who
understood, screamed aloud, and crying out--
"He says my father has had a fit and is brought in--dead," rushed down
the stairs, while Miss Haredale, half distracted, followed her, and host
and nurse flew to join the fray.
Charles had grasped Amethyst's hand, she thought that he might die at
that moment, and dared not leave him. Of what passed in that dreadful
hour, when she was left alone with the dying man, she never afterwards
spoke. The sun was setting in a fiery glow, and streamed in at the
window on to the bed, revealing with the dreadful clearness of a light
from heaven, its squalor and wretchedness, and the misery and
degradation of him who lay on it.
There was shouting and calling below, and terrible crazy utterances from
Charles, mixed now and then with a kindly word, "Una--good girl--poor
little Carrie," then frightful visions and fear, oaths and cursing, and
over all the approach of the King of Terror in his most awful form.
Amethyst was utterly ignorant and helpless, she could have done little,
had she had trained skill. But she stood by and touched him and spoke
to him, and uttered prayers that were at first mere outbursts of fear,
mere cries for help in her extremity. But gradually they grew conscious
and clear, and she prayed for her brother's soul with all her might, and
her terror passed away, as he sank into quieter mutterings. She prayed
aloud with the instinct of a child, but as the yearning impulse grew
stronger, it found fewer words. She said, "Our Father--Our Father,"
over and over again, as if she could and need say nothing more, and at
last came a weak hoarse echo to her voice.
"Our Father--" muttered Charles, with the last look of his dying eyes
fixed on his young sister's beautiful face, on which the last rays of
the sunlight fell.
"An angel--down in hell! Our Father--" he said, and then his head fell
back, the great change came, and Amethyst saw him die.
"Oh, my dear, I had to leave you; but your father's breathing still.
Come down; and here's the doctor, let him see Charles;" and Miss
Haredale, pale and shaking, but with composure gained from the very
extremity, came into the room, followed by an Italian doctor, who gave
one glance at the bed.
"The young lady must not stay here," he said, "there is no more to be
done. Nor you either, Signora; Milord will perhaps have need of you."
Miss Haredale gave a little gasp of horror; but she was hardly able to
realise anything fresh. She took Amethyst down-stairs to the
coffee-room, which had been cleared of all its occupants; while Lord
Haredale, who had fallen down in the street, not far from the inn, had
been laid on a bed, roughly made up on one of the tables. Two
Englishmen, who had some slight acquaintance with him, were there, and
had sent for the doctor, and done what they could to help the helpless
ladies, and now, one of them, hearing what had happened up-stairs, went
to see the doctor and make the first needful arrangements.
Lord Haredale was quite unconscious; there was no chance, the doctor
said, of a rally, but it might not be over for some hours. Lady Clyste
sat crouched up by a stove at the end of the room, crying in a violent
unrestrained fashion. Miss Haredale sat down by her brother's side,
shedding a few tears, but faithfully watching him; while Amethyst,
stupefied and silent, stood at the sick man's feet. Presently the other
Englishman came back and spoke to her.
"Miss Haredale?" he said, bowing. "My name is Williams. I had the
honour of his lordship's acquaintance. You are perhaps hardly aware how
quickly arrangements have to be made in this country. And the expense
is great. Your brother's funeral, would it be here? Have you friends
to consult?"
"Oh, no," exclaimed Miss Haredale, interposing. "Impossible! anything
but that. We all lie at Haredale."
Amethyst looked at Mr Williams, who was not a very prepossessing
person; but he was much better than no one, and she decided to trust
him.
"I have some money," she said, "but I don't know. We must telegraph to
my mother at Bordighera, and, yes--to another friend. But--is there no
one here--an English chaplain or clergyman?"
Mr Williams never appeared to have heard of such an official, but he
promised to inquire, and to despatch the telegrams to Lady Haredale, and
to Sylvester Riddell, who could surely come for an hour or two and help
them in such extremity, then all would be well. Then he departed,
promising to do all he could to delay matters till something definite
occurred, with a glance at Lord Haredale's heavily-breathing figure.
"Amethyst, Amethyst, do come here," sobbed Blanche, calling to her. "Is
Charles dead? Oh, how awful, how dreadful!--oh, I wish I hadn't come!"
"I think you were quite right to come," said Amethyst, as Blanche came
towards her, catching hold of her, and clinging to her with a touch that
strangely reminded her of Una's agitated clasp. "Oh, come and sit here,
let us talk of something else. Really, there's no reason you shouldn't
be with me. Won't they get us something to eat? These Italians are all
so frightened when any one's ill."
Amethyst spoke to the old peasant woman, and asked her to fetch them
soup or coffee. One trouble had succeeded another so rapidly that she
seemed to have no feelings left.
The coffee was brought, and Lady Clyste revived a little as she drank
it.
"So you had a great success in London? But why didn't you marry that
rich baronet? How pretty you are. Was there anybody else? I think
you'd better have married him. Perhaps he wouldn't have been such a
jealous tyrant as Sir Edward. That was why I came away. There really
wasn't anything wrong; he had his amusements, and so had I."
Amethyst could not answer, and suddenly Blanche changed her tone.
"But didn't I hear that Oliver Carisbrooke was there? Oh, Amethyst,
never you have anything to do with him. He was the ruin of me. There,
he made me over head and ears in love with him, little, young thing that
I was--and then he left me to bear all the blame. I declare, Amethyst,
he planned it all, how I was to run away with him, and when he found out
my mother's money could be kept away from me, he threw me over. Oh, and
he's tried since. He'd make you believe anything. Being in love amuses
him. He does that instead of gambling, or drinking, or being wicked
like other men. He gets up an emotion! I hope you don't like him."
"No, I hate him," said Amethyst under her breath.
"I want to hear all about you. Do you get on with my lady? I liked
her--she was great fun. But when I was in trouble--ah, how she threw me
over! And how she tried to cut me out! I could tell you--"
Amethyst started up, and went over to her father's side. In that
presence, with that other awful death-bed fresh in her mind, this idle
trifling seemed the most dreadful of all the horrors which she had had
to face.
She knelt down by her aunt's side, and laid her face against her
shoulder, the child-love of long ago coming to her help; while Miss
Haredale pressed her close, and watched in silence.
The hours passed, and there was no arrival from Bordighera, and no
message.
Amethyst's heart sank within her. Why did not her mother come?--And
surely nothing but the worst trouble at Casa Remi could have kept
Sylvester from coming to her help in such extremity.
In the dawn of the morning, without rally or suffering, Lord Haredale
died, and, as Amethyst turned to face the chilly light at the opened
door, there, with pale face and anxious eyes, stood Sylvester Riddell.
She flew to him with outstretched hands.
"Oh, you are here?" she cried, "I have been longing--"
Sylvester clasped her hands close.
"Oh, my dearest," he cried. "It was almost all over last night. They
never even gave me your telegram till too late. But he is still alive,
and he caught a whisper of your trouble, and his first word was `Go.'
Now, now I can take care of you. How could your mother let you come?"