BY THE STATE BED.
For a moment Grey paused irresolutely on the threshold of the sick room.
This was the most alarming ordeal to which he had been subjected. Could
it be that by any untoward circumstance of disastrous fate the old man
had discovered the truth?
To be loudly, violently accused of the crime he had committed by the man
whose money he had stolen, and in the presence of that man's daughter!
He had often in his worst moments imagined the position he now occupied,
but had never dared to think of, it had never entered his moments of
wildest fear to realise, such a scene conducted in the presence of Miss
Midharst and Mrs. Grant. And now to the horrors of hearing such words
from the defrauded man's lips, was added the awful question, the
appalling uncertainty in the questions: Did the baronet know anything?
Did he know all?
His name for honour, for honesty, the existence of the respectable old
institution which had been handed down to him by his father unsullied,
his very life, hung upon these two questions. There was only one chance
between him and ruin, between him and death. At these thoughts he made a
prodigious effort, and turning to the two distracted woman with a forced
smile, and a lip he could not keep from trembling, said:
"I fear my presence only excites Sir Alexander. Had I not better retire
until he is more calm?"
"Oh, Mr. Grey," said Maud through her tears, "you must not mind his
words. He does not know what he says. He does not understand what is
said to him. He does not even know who is in the room when he is in this
state. My poor father, oh, my poor father!" She covered her face with
her hands and sobbed out.
Grey began to breathe more freely. He whispered, as though the weight of
a mountain were rolling off him, "He does not know what he says. He does
not know who is in the room. Poor gentleman! Poor Sir Alexander! I am
profoundly sorry for him and for you, Miss Midharst. You can understand
how much I was surprised to hear him, who has so long relied upon me,
use such words to me. It was, you must admit," he looked from the woman
to the girl in deferential appeal, "rather startling."
"We know what he thinks of you when he is in his right senses, Mr.
Grey," said Mrs. Grant. "We know he has the greatest confidence in you."
The banker bowed deeply, and when he had straightened himself once more,
regarded the widow with profound and sorrowful attention.
Mrs. Grant continued: "In his lucid moments he asked for you, and seemed
anxious to see you on business, as of old; but when he raved as he did
just now, he accused us all of taking his money."
"What a sad and distracting form of delusion!" murmured the banker. He
could scarcely contain himself. He would at that moment have forfeited
the five thousand pounds advanced on the mortgage of the _Rodwell_ if he
might throw his arms into the air and shout out and laugh and dance.
The sick man spoke of everyone as a thief in his frenzy, but in his
clear moments spoke of him, Grey, as of old! He did not suspect him
exclusively; the indictment to which he had listened in paralysed terror
had been by accident preferred against him; by accident it might have
been preferred against any other human being with whose name Sir
Alexander was familiar!
The weight of earth had rolled back from his breast, and he was
breathing more freely than for many a long day.
The three now left the door and walked into the room. At best the vast
chamber was gloomy, but now all light but a faint dim glow that clung to
the inside of the curtains was excluded.
Grey placed himself at the side of the vast bedstead. Sir Alexander had
sold off all his personal furniture; he occupied one of the state rooms
and slept in one of the enormous state bedsteads; these bedsteads were
in the deeds he could not alter, and had to go down to the next heir.
The first look the banker cast at the face of the sick man gave him a
shock.
The old baronet had always had a colour in his cheeks; now all the
colour was gone from the cheeks and gathered into the temples and
forehead. The wrinkled forehead was of a dull brick colour. The great
forked dark vein of the forehead stood up out of the dry red skin like
the forked mullion of a gothic window, against whose crimson panes the
west is red. In the temples of the old man the rugged veins were swollen
and knotted, and in the purple hollows between the dark blue knots a
quick feeble pulse fluttered and hurried forward like a frightened
hunted beast. Through the counterpane the thin form showed sharply. The
breathing was quick and unquiet, the eyes staring and fixed upon the
carved oak ceiling. Apparently the delirious paroxysm had passed, and
the patient was suffering from modified collapse.
"He will be better presently, and may recognise you," whispered Mrs.
Grant into Grey's ear. She stood by his side. At the foot stood Maud,
weeping softly, silently. For a while no one moved.
Gradually the breathing of the sick man grew more steady, and the
fluttering pulse in the hollow temples more regular.
"In a few minutes," whispered the widow, "he will be quite collected."
As she had foretold, his eyes descended from the ceiling and began
running over the room and those present, as if trying to recover memory.
At length they were fixed on Grey and did not move from him. Although
the eye was dull and clouded, there was a look of intelligence in it. It
was the eye of a weakened intellect rather than of a disordered one.
"Ah, Grey, is that you?"
"Yes, Sir Alexander. I hope you feel better?"
"I am quite well. I have been greatly troubled about that money, those
Consols. They tell me they have been sold. Is it true that my Consols
have been sold? I ask you in the presence of my daughter, for whom they
were saved, have they been sold?" The sick man's eyes were filmy; but
while they were dull to the perception of surrounding objects, they
seemed to be partly closed against objects of natural vision only that
they might be partly opened to unascertainable forms and figures of
supernatural view.
Grey's heart quailed. Who were "they" that had informed him of the
fraud? What did the sick man know of the fraud? What did he surmise? Was
there anything but imagination to account for these fears, these hideous
questions, this awful ordeal? He was sorry he had left his bag below in
the little room where Mrs. Grant had received him. Nothing could save
him now but a calm exterior and intrepid audacity. He cleared his throat
to make sure his voice was obedient to his will, and answered boldly,
but softly:
"No one has sold the Consols, Sir Alexander. I answer you faithfully, in
your presence and in the presence of Miss Midharst, for whose benefit
they have been acquired and put by."
He was amazed himself at the firmness and clearness of his voice. If it
had been merely repeating the words of another man, his voice could not
have been less open to suspicion; if he had been pronouncing a most
consoling truth, his manner could not have been more benignly
reassuring. Instead of the words being those of another, they were so
intimately his own that his existence depended upon their utterance;
instead of being true, they contained a lie so monstrous under the
circumstances that they were as false and wicked as a blasphemous false
oath. He thought to himself grimly, as he rapidly reviewed the words and
the import of his voice: "I am acting in a play of the Devil's writing,
and must do honour to the character I represent and credit to the
author."
The eyes of the old man were fixed on the banker's face as he said:
"What you tell me of my money, _her_ money, is quite true? It is quite
safe? No one has sold out?"
"It is quite true; no one has sold out."
"Swear it!"
"I swear it."
"Mrs. Grant, get the Book. I am a magistrate, and you shall swear the
formal oath, so that you may be punished if you are hiding the truth
from an old helpless man."
Mrs. Grant placed a Testament on the bed beside Mr. Grey. The latter
took up the Book. He did not care to question the legality of such an
oath. He thought he would humour the old man. A crime or two more were
nothing to him now, particularly when these crimes helped to cover up
the other crime of embezzlement, theft, fraud--call it what you will.
Mr. Grey took up the Testament, and Sir Alexander, in a confused way,
repeated words which could not be clearly heard, but ended with the
clause usual to the ending of a formal oath.
Mr. Grey kissed the Book reverentially, and murmured the final words. As
he uttered the words, he could not avoid the reflection that if he were
acting in a play of the Devil's writing, some of the words to be
uttered had a peculiar aspect as coming from the Master of Evil.
Mr. Grey put the Book on the bed, and looked with reassuring glance at
both the women. The old baronet muttered to himself indistinctly for a
few seconds. "Bad dreams, bad dreams," he said distinctly at last; "they
were only dreams."
Mr. Grey looked round again at the women and inclined his head
significantly to them, as though he would say: "Poor Sir Alexander! His
dreams must have been bad indeed, if he fancied anyone had taken his
money."
By this the great flush had disappeared from the old man's forehead, the
veins had subsided, and a deadly pallor covered his features from
forehead to chin. During the paroxysms of his delirium, it seemed as
though his head was in danger of bursting from too great a supply of
heated blood; now it looked as if the walls of his skull and the flesh
of his face were about to crumble and fall in for want of fluid
sufficient to sustain their weight. But in the eye still lingered the
heat and flickered the fire of the fever. He lay still for a while, and
seemed to be about to fall asleep. Presently, however, all were startled
to hear his voice ring out clear and firm, high above their notion of
his present strength, clear above their notion of his intellectual
capacity:
"Henry Grey, take her hand, my daughter's hand, and lead her here--no
the other hand--give her your left hand, Henry Grey."
Mr. Grey walked to where the girl stood, now pale and tearless, at the
foot of the bed, and offered her his right hand; then his left, and led
her to the side of the bed, where he had been standing.
"Now, Henry Grey, take the Testament in your right hand. I am going to
make you swear--I am a deputy-lieutenant--to guard with all your power
and wiles, my only daughter, Maud Midharst, herself and her fortune and
her happiness. Say the words after me."
"Herself and her fortune and her happiness to guard with all my power,"
he repeated.
"All your power and wiles," insisted the old man, in a tone of
exasperation.
"My power and--wiles," repeated Mr. Grey, after a slight hesitation.
"To act as executor of my will, trustee to her fortune, and guardian of
my child. So help me, God."
Mr. Grey repeated the words with solemn deliberation.
"Kiss the Book."
Mr. Grey bent his head reverentially over the sacred volume and kissed
it devoutly.
"Kiss the Book, my child. Take it in your own right hand and kiss it. It
is the history of the life and sufferings and death of our Lord, and
something of great moment is conducting."
"Kiss the Book, you also," looking towards Mrs. Grant.
She did as he desired.
"Now, my daughter, and you, Henry Grey, both together hold that Book,
which is the history of the life and sufferings and death of our Lord,
to my lips, for I am weak and unable, and I will kiss it last of all."
They placed the Book against his lips, and when he had kissed it they
drew it back, and placed the Testament on the bed.
Mr. Grey folded his arms tightly across his chest; he had a feeling that
his chest would burst if he did not shout out and relieve it.
"My daughter," said the sick man, "if I should never get off this bed
again--and I feel that something great is conducting--when I am dead you
will look to him for all advice and guidance. He will be your friend,
your only friend, who can be of aid to you when I am dead. You will lean
upon him. He will guard your money and see that no one does you ill or
cheats you. He is an honest man, Maud. He has taken care of your fortune
for me until now; he will take care of it for you when I am dead. You
will have no one else but him; no friend in all the world but Henry
Grey."
"Oh, my God!" burst from the banker. If the hangman were in the room,
and any word spoken by him, Grey, was to be the signal for his death, he
could not restrain himself.
For a moment they all three looked at him in grave surprise. His words
were not perhaps improper to the grave occasion, but his manner of
uttering them had something startling in it. There was in his tone a cry
of wild appeal against an inexorable decree of prodigious woe. His voice
had more the sound of a brute's inarticulate cry of despair than any
human agony fitted to human words. It was a death-cry, the death-cry of
some fine instinct of the human soul. It was a cry the like of which no
man utters twice in a lifetime.
The old man regarded the banker for a moment with a look of surprise.
Then the expression of the old man's face softened, and he said: "Grey,
my arm is weak. I cannot raise it. Take my hand. You will be good to her
when I am dead. I know what the world may say. It may say, Grey, that
you and I are not equals; that I might have bestowed the guardianship of
my daughter's fortune among houses such as the Fleureys' or the
Midharsts'. But I know what you are and what your father was, and I am
placing what I value above all earthly things in your keeping. I am an
old man, and the doctors may be right this time. I am old and weak,
Henry Grey, and I want you to be her friend when I am dead. The world
may say what it pleases about you as guardian. I am firm in my faith in
you. No orphan, friendless--the last, I may say, of her house--had ever
a more careful or prudent or wise guardian than you. I am old and weak.
There is one more favour I would ask of you before you go--for I have
said all. You will not refuse an old man on his death-bed, Henry Grey?"
"No," in a faint thin whisper.
"I am weak, and cannot do it myself. Raise up my hand held in yours, and
place your hand against my lips, that I may kiss the hand which is to
shield my daughter when I am gone."
"Oh, Sir Alexander!" in a tone of agonized protest.
"I am very old and very weak. You will not, because I am old and weak
and cannot raise your hand, deny me this pleasure."
The banker did as he was asked.
When he had placed the cold thin hand back again on the bed, the baronet
sighed and murmured: "I am tired. I will try to sleep awhile. You may
go, Henry Grey. God bless you, Henry Grey! Now I am at rest!"
With a deep bow to the ladies, Mr. Grey left the room. He went down a
passage and then turned into another. Here he was alone, out of sight
and earshot. He threw his arms heavily up, straight above his head, and
flung himself against the wall with a groan, beat his arms and hands
against the wall, and struck his forehead against the wall.
"Do I live?" he cried; "or am I already among the damned?"
END OF VOL. I.
CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, GREAT NEW STREET, FETTER LANE, E.C.