The holiday season being now over, and the less fashionable people
returned to town, Harriet Brandt’s curiosity was much excited by the
number of visitors who called at the Red House, but were never shewn
into the drawing-room. As many as a dozen might arrive in the course of
an afternoon and were taken by Miss Wynward straight upstairs to the
room where Madame Gobelli and Mr. Milliken so often shut themselves
up together. These mysterious visitors were not objects of charity
either, but well-dressed men and women, some of whom came in their
own carriages, and all of whom appeared to be of the higher class of
society. The Baroness had left off going to the factory, also, and
stayed at home every day, apparently with the sole reason of being at
hand to receive her visitors.
Harriet could not understand it at all, and after having watched two
fashionably attired ladies accompanied by a gentleman, ascend the
staircase, to Madame Gobelli’s room, one afternoon, she ventured to
sound Miss Wynward on the subject.
“Who were the ladies who went upstairs just now?” she asked.
“Friends of the Baroness, Miss Brandt!” was the curt reply.
“But why do they not come down to the drawing-room then? What does
Madame Gobelli do with them in that little room upstairs? I was passing
one day just after someone had entered, and I heard the key turned in
the lock. What is all the secrecy about?”
“There is no secrecy on my part, Miss Brandt. You know the position I
hold here. When I have shewn the visitors upstairs, according to my
Lady’s directions, my duty is done!”
“But you must know why they come to see her!”
“I know nothing. If you are curious on the subject, you must ask the
Baroness.”
But Harriet did not like to do that. The Baroness had become less
affectionate to her of late--her fancy was already on the wane--she
no longer called the attention of strangers to her young friend as
the “daughter of the house”--and Harriet felt the change, though she
could scarcely have defined where it exactly lay. She had begun to feel
less at home in her hostess’s presence, and her high spirit chafed at
the alteration in her manner. She realised, as many had done before
her, that she had out-stayed her welcome. But her curiosity respecting
the people who visited Madame Gobelli upstairs was none the less. She
confided it to Bobby--poor Bobby who grew whiter and more languid ever
day--but her playful threat to invade the sacred precincts and find
out what the Baroness and her friends were engaged upon, was received
by the youth with horror. He trembled as he begged her not to think of
such a thing.
“Hally, you mustn’t, indeed you mustn’t! You don’t know--you have no
idea--what might not happen to you, if you offended Mamma by breaking
in upon her privacy. O! don’t, pray don’t! She can be so terrible at
times--I do not know what she might not do or say!”
“My dear Bobby, I was only in fun! I have not the least idea of doing
anything so rude. Only, if you think that I am frightened of your Mamma
or any other woman, you are very much mistaken. It’s all nonsense! No
one person can harm another in this world!”
“O! yes, they can--if they have _help_,” replied the boy, shaking his
head.
“Help! what help? The help of Mr. Milliken, I suppose! I would rather
fight him than the Baroness any day--but I fear neither of them.”
“O! Hally, you are wrong,” said the lad, “you must be careful, indeed
you must--for my sake!”
“Why! you silly Bobby, you are actually trembling! However, I promise
you I will do nothing rash! And I shall not be here much longer now!
Your Mamma is getting tired of me, I can see that plainly enough! She
has hardly spoken a word to me for the last two days. I am going to ask
Mr. Pennell, to advise me where to find another home!”
“No! no!” cried the lad, clinging to her, “you shall not leave us! Mr.
Pennell shall not take you away! I will kill him first!”
He was getting terribly jealous of Anthony Pennell, but Harriet laughed
at his complaints and reproaches as the emanations of a love-sick
schoolboy. She was flattered by his feverish longing for her society,
and his outspoken admiration of her beauty, but she did not suppose
for one moment that Bobby was capable of a lasting, or dangerous,
sentiment.
Mr. Pennell had become a familiar figure at the Red House by this time.
His first visit had been speedily succeeded by another, at which he
had presented Harriet Brandt with the copy of his book--an attention,
which had he known it, flattered her vanity more than any praises of
her beauty could have done. A plain woman likes to be told that she
is good-looking, a handsome one that she is clever. Harriet Brandt
was not unintelligent, on the contrary she had inherited a very fair
amount of brains from her scientific father--but no one ever seemed
to have found it out, until Anthony Pennell came her way. She was a
little tired of being told that she had lovely eyes, and the most
fascinating smile, she knew all that by heart, and craved for something
new. Mr. Pennell had supplied the novelty by talking to her as if
her intellect were on a level with his own--as if she were perfectly
able to understand and sympathise with his quixotic plans for the
alleviation of the woes of all mankind--with his Arcadian dreams of
Liberty, Equality and Fraternity,--and might help them also, if she
chose, not with money only, but by raising her own voice in the Cause
of the People. Harriet had never been treated so by anyone before, and
her ardent, impetuous, passionate nature, which had a large amount of
gratitude in its composition, fixed itself upon her new friend with a
vehemence which neither of them would find it easy to overcome--or to
disentangle themselves from. Her love (eager to repair the void left
by the desertion of Captain Pullen) had poured itself, by means of
looks and sighs and little timid, tender touches upon Anthony Pennell
like a mountain torrent that had burst its bounds, and he had been
responsive--he had opened his arms to receive the flood, actuated
not only by the admiration which he had conceived for her from the
first, but by the intense, yearning pity which her loneliness and
friendlessness had evoked in his generous, compassionate nature. In
fact they were desperately in love with each other, and Harriet was
expecting each time he came, to hear Anthony Pennell say that he
could no longer live without her. And Bobby looked on from a little
distance--and suffered. The next time that Mr. Pennell came to see her,
Harriet confided to him the mystery of the upstairs room, and asked his
opinion as to what it could possibly mean.
“Perhaps they are people connected with the boot trade,” suggested
Anthony jestingly, “does Madame keep a stock of boots and shoes up
there, do you think?”
“O! no! Mr. Pennell, you must not joke about it! This is something
serious! Poor Bobby grew as white as a sheet when I proposed to make a
raid upon the room some day and discover the mystery, and said that his
mother was a terrible woman, and able to do me great harm if I offended
her!”
“I quite agree with Bobby in his estimate of his Mamma being a terrible
woman,” replied Mr. Pennell, “but it is all nonsense about her being
able to harm you! _I_ should soon see about that!”
“What would you do?” asked Harriet, with downcast eyes.
“What would I _not_ do to save you from anything disagreeable, let
alone anything dangerous. But the Baroness is too fond of you, surely,
to do you any harm!”
Harriet pursed up her lips.
“I am not so sure about her being fond of me, Mr. Pennell! She used to
profess to be, I know, but lately her manner has very much altered. She
will pass half a day without speaking a word to me, and they have cut
off wine and champagne and everything nice from the dinner table. I
declare the meals here are sometimes not fit to eat. And I believe they
grudge me the little I consider worthy my attention.”
“But why do you stay here, if you fancy you are not welcome?” asked
Pennell, earnestly, “you are not dependent on these people or their
hospitality.”
“But where am I to go?” said the girl, “I know no one in London, and
Miss Wynward says that I am too young to live at an hotel by myself!”
“Miss Wynward is quite right! You are far too young and too beautiful.
You don’t know what wicked men and women there are in the world, who
would delight in fleecing an innocent lamb like you. But I can soon
find you a home where you could stay in respectability and comfort,
until--until----”
“Until _what_,” asked Harriet, with apparent ingenuousness, for she
knew well enough what was coming.
They were seated on one of those little couches made expressly for
conversation, where a couple can sit back to back, with their faces
turned to one another. Harriet half raised her slumbrous black eyes as
she put the question, and met the fire in his own. He stretched out his
arms and caught her round the waist.
“Hally! Hally! you know--there is no need for me to tell you! Will you
come home to me, dearest? Don’t ever say that you are friendless again!
Here is your friend and your lover and your devoted slave for ever! My
darling--my beautiful Hally, say you will be my wife--and make me the
very happiest man in all the world!”
She did not shrink from his warm wooing--that was not her nature! Her
eyes waked up and flashed fire, responsive to his own; she let her head
rest on his shoulder, and turned her lips upwards eagerly to meet his
kiss, she cooed her love into his ear, and clasped him tightly round
the neck as if she would never let him go.
“I love you--I love you,” she kept on murmuring, “I have loved you from
the very first!”
“O! Hally, how happy it makes me to hear you say so,” he replied, “how
few women have the honesty and courage to avow their love as you do. My
sweet child of the sun! The women in this cold country have no idea of
the joy that a mutual love like ours has the power to bestow. We will
love each other for ever and ever, my Hally, and when our bodies are
withered by age, our spirits shall still go loving on.”
He--the man whose whole thoughts hitherto had been so devoted to the
task of ameliorating the condition of his fellow-creatures, that he had
had no time to think of dalliance, succumbed as fully to its pleasures
now, as the girl whose life had simply been a ripening process
for the seed which had burst forth into flower. They were equally
passionate--equally loving--equally unreserved--and they were soon
absorbed in their own feelings, and noticed nothing that was taking
place around them.
But they were not as entirely alone as they imagined. A pale face full
of misery was watching them through one of the panes in the French
windows, gazing at what seemed like his death doom, too horribly
fascinated to tear himself away. Bobby stood there and saw Hally--_his_
Hally, as he had often fondly called her, without knowing the meaning
of the word--clasped in the arms of this stranger, pressing her lips
to his, and being released with tumbled hair and a flushed face, only
to seek the source of her delight again. At last Bobby could stand
the bitter sight no longer, and with a low moan, he fled to his own
apartment and flung himself, face downward on the bed. And Anthony
Pennell and Harriet Brandt continued to make love to each other, until
the shadows lengthened, and six o’clock was near at hand.
“I must go now, my darling,” he said at last, “though it is hard to
tear myself away. But I am so happy, Hally, so very, very happy, that I
dare not complain.”
“Why cannot you stay the evening?” she urged.
“I had better not! I have not been asked in the first instance, and if
what you say about the Baroness’s altered demeanour towards yourself be
true, I am afraid I should find it difficult to keep my temper. But we
part for a very short time, my darling! The first thing to-morrow, I
shall see about another home for you, where I can visit you as freely
as I like! And as soon as it can ever be, Hally, we will be married--is
that a promise?”
“A promise, yes! a thousand times over, Anthony! I long for the time
when I shall be your wife!”
“God bless you, my sweet! You have made my future life look all
sunshine! I will write to you as soon as ever I have news and then you
will lose no time in leaving your present home, will you?”
“Not an instant that I can help,” replied Harriet, eagerly; “I am
longing to get away. I feel that I have lost my footing here!”
And with another long embrace, the lovers parted. As soon as Anthony
had left her, Harriet ran up to her room, to cool her feverish face and
change her dress for dinner. She was really and truly fond of the man
she had just promised to marry, and if anything could have the power
to transform her into a thinking and responsible woman, it would be
marriage with Anthony Pennell. She was immensely proud that so clever
and popular a writer should have chosen her from out the world of women
to be his wife, and she loved him for the excellent qualities he had
displayed towards his fellow men, as well as for the passionate warmth
he had shewn for herself. She was a happier girl than she had ever
been in all her life before, as she stood, flushed and triumphant, in
front of her mirror and saw the beautiful light in her dark eyes, and
the luxuriant growth of her dusky hair, and the carmine of her lips,
and loved every charm she possessed for Anthony’s sake. She felt less
vexed even with the Baroness than she had done, and determined that she
would not break the news of her intended departure from the Red House,
that evening, but try to leave as pleasant an impression behind her as
she could! And she put on the lemon-coloured frock, though Anthony was
not there to see it, from a feeling that since he approved of her, she
must be careful of her appearance for the future, to do justice to his
opinion.
Madame Gobelli appeared to be in a worse temper than usual that
evening. She stumped in to the dining-room and took her seat at table
without vouchsafing a word to Harriet, although she had not seen
her since luncheon time. She found fault with everything that Miss
Wynward did, and telling her that she grew stupider and stupider each
day, ordered her to attend her upstairs after dinner, as she had some
friends coming and needed her assistance. The ex-governess did not
answer at first, and the Baroness sharply demanded if she had heard her
speak.
“Yes! my lady,” she replied, slowly, “but I trust that you will excuse
my attendance, as I have made an engagement for this evening!”
Madame Gobelli boiled over with rage.
“Engagement! What do you mean by making an engagement without asking my
leave first? You can’t keep it! I want you to ’elp me in something and
you’ll ’ave to come!”
“You must forgive me,” repeated Miss Wynward, firmly, “but I cannot do
as you wish!”
Harriet opened her eyes in amazement. Miss Wynward refusing a request
from Madame Gobelli. What would happen next?
The Baroness grew scarlet in the face. She positively trembled with
rage.
“’Old your tongue!” she screamed. “You’ll do as I say, or you leave my
’ouse.”
“Then I will leave your house!” replied Miss Wynward.
Madame Gobelli was thunderstruck! Where was this insolent menial, who
had actually dared to defy her, going? What friends had she? What
home to go to? She had received no salary from her for years past, but
had accepted board and lodging and cast-off clothes in return for her
services. How could she face the world without money?
“You go at your peril,” she exclaimed, hoarse with rage, “you know what
will ’appen to you if you try to resist me! I ’ave those that will ’elp
me to be revenged on my enemies! You know that those I ’ate, _die_! And
when I ’ave my knife in a body, I turn it! You ’ad better be careful,
and think twice about what you’re going to do.”
“Your ladyship cannot frighten me any longer,” replied Miss Wynward,
calmly, “I thank God and my friends that I have got over that! Nor do I
believe any more in your boasted powers of revenge! If they are really
yours, you should be ashamed to use them.”
“Gustave!” shrieked the Baroness, “get up and put this woman from the
door. She don’t stop in the Red ’Ouse another hour! Let ’er pack up ’er
trumpery and go! Do you ’ear me, Gustave? Turn ’er out of the room!”
“Mein tear! mein tear! a little patience! Miss Wynward will go quietly!
But the law, mein tear, the law! We must be careful!”
“Damn the law!” exclaimed the Baroness. “’Ere, where’s that devil
Bobby? Why ain’t ’e at dinner? What’s the good of my ’aving a ’usband
and a son if neither of ’em will do my bidding!”
Then everyone looked round and discovered that Bobby was not at the
table.
“Where’s Bobby?” demanded the Baroness of the servant in waiting.
“Don’t know, I’m sure,” replied the domestic, who like most of Madame
Gobelli’s dependents, talked as familiarly with her as though they had
been on an equality. “The last time I saw ’im was at luncheon.”
“I will go and look for him,” said Miss Wynward quietly, as she rose
from table.
“No! you don’t!” exclaimed the Baroness insolently, “you don’t touch my
child nor my ’usband again whilst you remain under this roof. I won’t
’ave them polluted by your fingers. ’Ere, Sarah, you go upstairs and
see if Bobby’s in ’is room. It’ll be the worse for ’im if ’e isn’t.”
Sarah took her way upstairs, in obedience to her employer’s behest, and
the next minute a couple of shrieks, loud and terrified, proceeded from
the upper story. They were in Sarah’s voice, and they startled everyone
at the dinner table.
“Oh! what is that?” exclaimed Harriet, as her face grew white with fear.
“Something is wrong!” said Miss Wynward, as she hastily left the room.
The Baroness said nothing, until Miss Wynward’s voice was heard calling
out over the banisters,
“Baron! will you come here, please, at once!”
Then she said,
“Gustave! ’elp me up,” and steadying herself by means of her stick, she
proceeded to the upper story, accompanied by her husband and Harriet
Brandt. They were met on the landing by Miss Wynward, who addressed
herself exclusively to the Baron.
“Will you send for a doctor at once,” she said eagerly, “Bobby is very
ill, very ill indeed!”
“What is the matter?” enquired the stolid German.
“It’s all rubbish!” exclaimed Madame Gobelli, forcing her way past the
ex-governess, “’ow can ’e be ill when ’e was running about all the
morning? ’Ere, Bobby,” she continued, addressing the prostrate figure
of her son which was lying face downward on the bed, “get up at once
and don’t let’s ’ave any of your nonsense, or I’ll give you such a
taste of my stick as you’ve never ’ad before! Get up, I say, at once
now!”
She had laid hold of her son’s arm, and was about to drag him down upon
the floor, when Miss Wynward interposed with a face of horror.
“Leave him alone!” she cried, indignantly. “Woman! cannot you see what
is the matter? Your son has left you! He is _dead_!”
The Baroness was about to retort that it was a lie and she didn’t
believe it, when a sudden trembling overtook her, which she was
powerless to resist. Her whole face shook as if every muscle had lost
control, and her cumbersome frame followed suit. She did not cry,
nor call out, but stood where the news had reached her, immovable,
except for that awful shaking, which made her sway from head to foot.
The Baron on hearing the intelligence turned round to go downstairs
and dispatch William, who was employed in the stables, in search of
a medical man. Miss Wynward took the lifeless body in her arms and
tenderly turned it over, kissing the pallid face as she did so--when
Harriet Brandt, full of mournful curiosity, advanced to have a look
at her dead playmate. Her appearance, till then unnoticed, seemed to
wake the paralysed energies of the Baroness into life. She pushed the
girl from the bed with a violence that sent her reeling against the
mantelshelf, whilst she exclaimed furiously,
“Out of my sight! Don’t you dare to touch ’im! This is all _your_
doing, you poisonous, wicked creature!”
Harriet stared at her hostess in amazement! Had she suddenly gone mad
with grief?
“What do you mean, Madame?” she cried.
“What I say! I ought to ’ave known better than to let you enter an
’ouse of mine! I was a fool not to ’ave left you be’ind me at Heyst, to
practise your devilish arts on your army captains and foreign grocers,
instead of letting you come within touch of my innocent child!”
“You are mad!” cried Harriet. “What have I done? Do you mean to
insinuate that Bobby’s death has anything to do with me?”
“It is _you_ ’oo ’ave killed ’im,” screamed the Baroness, shaking her
stick, “it’s your poisonous breath that ’as sapped ’is! I should ’ave
seen it from the beginning. Do you suppose I don’t know your ’istory?
Do you think I ’aven’t ’eard all about your parents and their vile
doings--that I don’t know that you’re a common bastard, and that your
mother was a devilish negress, and your father a murderer? Why didn’t I
listen to my friends and forbid you the ’ouse?”
“Miss Wynward!” said Harriet, who had turned deadly white at this
unexpected attack, “what can I say? What can I do?”
“Leave the room, my dear, leave the room! Her ladyship is not herself!
She does not know what she is saying!”
“Don’t I?” screamed Madame Gobelli, barring the way to the door, “I
am telling ’er nothing but the truth, and she doesn’t go till she ’as
’eard it! She has the vampire’s blood in ’er and she poisons everybody
with whom she comes in contact. Wasn’t Mrs. Pullen and Mademoiselle
Brimont both taken ill from being too intimate with ’er, and didn’t the
baby die because she carried it about and breathed upon it? And now she
’as killed my Bobby in the same way--curse ’er!”
Even when reiterating the terrible truth in which she evidently
believed, Madame Gobelli showed no signs of breaking down, but stood
firm, leaning heavily on her stick and trembling in every limb.
Harriet Brandt’s features had assumed a scared expression.
“Miss Wynward!” she stammered piteously, “Oh! Miss Wynward! this cannot
be true!”
“Of course not! Of course not!” replied the other, soothingly, “her
ladyship will regret that she has spoken so hastily to you to-morrow.”
“I shan’t regret it!” said the Baroness sturdily, “for it is the truth!
Her father and her mother were murderers who were killed by their own
servants in revenge for their atrocities, and they left their curse
upon this girl--the curse of black blood and of the vampire’s blood
which kills everything which it caresses. Look back over your past
life,” she continued to Harriet, “and you’ll see that it’s the case!
And if you don’t believe me, go and ask your friend Dr. Phillips, for
’e knew your infamous parents and the curse that lies upon you!”
“Madame! Madame!” cried Miss Wynward, “is this a moment for such
recrimination? If all this were true, it is no fault of Miss Brandt’s!
Think of what lies here, and that he loved her, and the thought will
soften your feelings!”
“But it don’t!” exclaimed the Baroness, “when I look at my dead son, I
could kill ’er, because she has killed ’im.”
And in effect, she advanced upon Harriet with so vengeful a look that
the girl with a slight cry, darted from the room, and rushed into her
own.
“For shame!” said Miss Wynward, whose previous fear of the Baroness
seemed to have entirely evaporated, “how dare you intimidate an
innocent woman in the very presence of Death?”
“Don’t you try to browbeat me!” replied the Baroness.
“I will tell you what I think,” said Miss Wynward boldly, “and that
is, that you should blush to give way to your evil temper in the face
of God’s warning to yourself! You accuse that poor girl of unholy
dealings--what can you say of your own? You, who for years past
have made money by deceiving your fellow creatures in the grossest
manner--who have professed to hold communication with the spiritual
world for their satisfaction when, if any spirits have come to you,
they must have been those of devils akin to your own! And because I
refused to help you to deceive--to take the place of that miserable
cur Milliken and play cheating tricks with cards, and dress up stuffed
figures to further your money-getting ends, you threatened me with loss
of home and character and friends, until, God forgive me, I consented
to further the fraud, from fear of starving. But now, thank Heaven, I
have no more fear of you! Yes! you may shake your stick at me, and
threaten to take my life, but it is useless! _This_,” pointing to the
dead boy upon the bed, “was the only tie I had to the Red House, and as
soon as he is dressed for his grave, I shall leave you for ever!”
“And where would you go?” enquired the Baroness. The voice did not
sound like her own; it was the cracked dry voice of a very old woman.
“That is no concern of yours, my lady,” replied Miss Wynward, as
she prepared to quit the room. “Be good enough to let me pass! The
inexcusable manner in which you have insulted that poor young lady,
Miss Brandt, makes me feel that my first duty is to her!”
“I forbid you--” commenced Madame Gobelli in her old tone, but the
ex-governess simply looked her in the face and passed on. She made the
woman feel that her power was gone.
Miss Wynward found Harriet in her own room, tossing all her possessions
into her travelling trunks. There was no doubt of her intention. She
was going to leave the Red House.
“Not at this time of night, my dear,” said Miss Wynward, kindly, “it is
nearly nine o’clock.”
“I would go if I had to walk the street all night!” replied Harriet,
feverishly.
Her eyes were inflamed with crying, and she shook like an aspen leaf.
“Oh! Miss Wynward, such awful things to say! What could she mean? What
have I done to be so cruelly insulted? And when I am so sorry for poor
Bobby too!”
She began to cry afresh as she threw dresses, mantles, stockings, and
shoes one on the top of the other, in her endeavour to pack as quickly
as possible.
“Let me help you, dear Miss Brandt! It is cruel that you should be
driven from the house in this way! But I am going too, as soon as the
doctor has been and dear Bobby’s body may be prepared for burial. It is
a great grief to me, Miss Brandt; I have had the care of him since he
was five years old, and I loved him like my own. But I am glad he is
dead! I am glad he has escaped from it all, for this is a wicked house,
a godless, deceiving and slanderous house, and this trouble has fallen
on it as a Nemesis. I will not stay here a moment longer now he has
gone! I shall join my friends to-morrow.”
“I am glad you have friends,” said Harriet, “for I can see you are not
happy here! Do they live far off? Have you sufficient money for your
journey? Forgive my asking!”
Miss Wynward stooped down and kissed the girl’s brow.
“Thank you so much for your kind thought, but it is unnecessary. You
will be surprised perhaps,” continued Miss Wynward, blushing, “but I am
going to be married.”
“And so am I,” was on Harriet’s lips, when she laid her head down on
the lid of her trunk and began to cry anew. “Oh! Miss Wynward, what did
she mean? Can there be any truth in it? Is there something poisonous in
my nature that harms those with whom I come in contact? How can it be?
_How_ can it be?”
“No! no! of course not!” replied her friend, “Cannot you see that it
was the Baroness’s temper that made her speak so cruelly to you? But
you are right to go! Only, where are you going?”
“I do not know! I am so ignorant of London. Can you advise me?”
“You will communicate with your friends to-morrow?” asked Miss Wynward
anxiously.
“Oh! yes! as soon as I can!”
“Then I should go to the Langham Hotel in Portland Place for to-night
at all events! There you will be safe till your friends advise you
further. What can I do to help you?”
“Ask Sarah or William to fetch a cab! And to have my boxes placed on
it! There is a _douceur_ for them,” said Harriet, placing a handsome
sum in Miss Wynward’s hand.
“And you will not see the Baroness again?” asked her companion.
“No! no! for God’s sake, no. I could not trust myself! I can never look
upon her face again!”
In a few minutes the hired vehicle rolled away from the door, bearing
Harriet Brandt and her possessions to the Langham Hotel, and Miss
Wynward returned to the room where Bobby lay. Madame Gobelli stood
exactly where she had left her, gazing at the corpse. There were no
tears in her eyes--only the continuous shaking of her huge limbs.
“Come!” said Miss Wynward, not unkindly, “you had better sit down, and
let me bring you a glass of wine! This terrible shock has been too much
for you.”
But the Baroness only pushed her hand away, impatiently.
“Who was that driving away just now?” she enquired.
“Miss Brandt! You have driven her from the house with your cruel and
unnecessary accusations. No one liked Bobby better than she did!”
“Has the doctor arrived?”
“I expect so! I hear the Baron’s voice in the hall now!”
Almost as she spoke, the Baron and the doctor entered the room. The
medical man did what was required of him. He felt the heart and pulse
of the corpse--turned back the eyelids--sighed professionally, and
asked how long it was since it had happened.
He was told that it was about an hour since they had found him.
“Ah! he has been dead longer than that! Three hours at the least, maybe
four! I am afraid there must be an inquest, and it would be advisable
in the interests of science to have a post mortem. A great pity, a
fine grown lad--nineteen years old, you say--shall probably detect
hidden mischief in the heart and lungs. I will make all the necessary
arrangements with the Baron. Good evening!”
And the doctor bowed himself out of sight again.
“It is quite true then,” articulated the Baroness thickly. “He is gone!”
“Oh! yes, my lady, he is gone, poor dear boy! I felt sure of that!”
“It is quite certain?”
“Quite certain! The body is already stiffening!”
The Baroness did not utter a sound, but Miss Wynward glancing at her,
saw her body sway slowly backwards and forwards once or twice, before
it fell heavily to the ground, stricken with paralysis.