THE SHADOW ON THE TOWER OF SILENCE.
After giving way to the feelings which had overwhelmed him in the
passage, and which had almost betrayed him at the bedside, Grey, by a
great effort, collected himself and walked soberly and deliberately
until he found the grand staircase of the Castle. This he descended, and
when he reached the bottom hastily sought the courtyard, and from the
courtyard the grounds.
"I thought it would have killed me in that room. I wish it had," he
whispered to himself, as he passed aimlessly over the short dry grass.
"No, no, no, no, no! I must not think of it. I must think of something
else."
He was now beyond the range of the Castle windows, in a little fern-clad
hollow above a miniature cove.
"Who said I was a coward?" he demanded, in a loud harsh voice, looking
fiercely round on the cool silver river that lisped soft whispers at his
feet and made low melodious concord of its rippling surge, filling the
ear with memories of the far-off sea.
"Who said I was a coward?" He repeated the question to the grave oaks
standing above him, motionless and voiceless against the opal ocean of
the unclouded sky.
"No coward. I never quailed. I never winced. I held up my head as
fearlessly as any undaunted soldier kneeling upon his coffin facing the
firing-party. I was not afraid of anything. I only thought I should die
there and then. I am sorry I did not die."
He seemed to imagine himself in a dock, and the huge oaks the grave and
grey jury empanelled to try him, and the sweet low voice of the river
the indictment that never ceased to sound.
"I own I quailed when I heard his first words from the threshold, but
that was when he accused me of what I have done." He had once more
dropped his voice to a cautious whisper.
"Who would not, being a thief, quake at being called a thief for the
first time by the man he had stolen from, and in the presence of her for
whom the vast savings of a lifetime had been laid by? No man could have
helped quailing at that. But when the old man showed his confidence in
me unbroken, when he swore me to take care of her property and of his
child, when he kissed, Oh, God! when he kissed my hand, did I quail? No.
I stood it like a man. _That_ was the vulgar end of the coarse objective
tragedy. That was the poison-bowl, the dagger-thrust. That was the
breaking of the last bone on the wheel. I am dead since then. But _that_
was only the bell for the curtain to go up on the other tragedy, the
subjective play. I am enrolled among the immortals. I play the chief
part in a tragico-farce by the Angel of Night. I play the leading part.
The stage is in the nether depth. I play to an audience of everlasting
Outcasts. The audience are assembled, the curtain is up. I forget my
cue, and the prompter is asleep. Judas, I forgot my cue, and the
prompter is asleep. What am I to say? What am I to do, comrade Judas?"
"Mr. Grey, I have been looking for you, sir. You are wanted at the
Castle, please, sir."
Mr. Grey turned round and saw just above him, on the edge of the little
hollow, Sir Alexander's old servant, Michael.
"Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, Michael, is it you?" Mr. Grey laughed and asked.
"Yes, sir," answered Michael promptly, as though he were accustomed to
finding his identity doubted.
"I was rehearsing a part I am going to take in an amateur play, Michael,
just to get the memory of poor Sir Alexander out of my mind. Well, am I
wanted at the Castle?"
"Yes, please, sir; and you will please to come at once. Mrs. Grant wants
to see you. The doctors have been, and I am afraid there is bad news
about Sir Alexander."
"I hope not, Michael. I shall run. You can take your time."
And with these words the banker started off at a quick pace.
He found Mrs. Grant sobbing violently, and for a while quite unable to
command her voice. At length, after a few reassuring and encouraging
words from the banker, she spoke through her sobs.
"Oh, Mr. Grey! Oh, my poor darling Maud! Oh, Mr. Grey, what are we to
do?"
"It will be kindest and wisest," said he, in a conciliatory voice, "if
we all try to keep as calm as we can under the circumstances. Michael
told me the doctors had been here, and that the news is bad; but I do
not know yet what the news is."
"Oh, my poor child! Mr. Grey, you can't tell how I feel. I, who have
been with her now more than six years, until I have grown to look upon
her as a daughter. Oh, Mr. Grey, this is dreadful!"
"There is nothing the matter with Miss Midharst, I trust. She is quite
well?"
"Quite well."
"In health, I mean?"
"Oh, yes. But think of her thrown out of her father's place without a
home or a relative, and so young and so simple."
"But, Mrs. Grant, Miss Midharst is enormously rich, and can make a most
handsome home anywhere she pleases."
"But think of an upstart younger son of a whole lot of no-good younger
sons turning my darling out into the cold, bleak, cheerless world,
turning her out of the house of her forefathers, this grand old place. I
never knew how grand it was or how I had grown to love it until now."
The poor woman, in her great sympathy for Maud, could not dissociate the
ideas of leaving the home-tree and poverty. When her husband died, and
the instable home-tree under which soldiers sling their hammocks had to
be abandoned, there were narrow ways and the friendless world that wait
on narrow ways to be encountered and endured. In her anxious sympathy
she thought the heiress of a rich baronet would have the same hardship
and privation to encounter as the widow of a penniless captain in a
marching regiment.
The banker placed his hand firmly, though lightly, on the shoulder of
Mrs. Grant, and said, in an impressive voice:
"We are all, I am sure, very sorry Sir Alexander is so ill; but we must
not add to our grief for him the fear that Miss Midharst will be
unprovided for. There will be few richer heiresses, and she and her
fortune shall be well taken care of. I wish you would be kind enough to
tell me what the doctors said about Sir Alexander."
"Oh, Mr. Grey, I hope you will excuse me. I am so fearfully troubled and
excited. I know what trouble is myself. I have had my own sad
experience----"
"And the doctors said, Mrs. Grant?" interrupted the banker gently.
"Oh, Mr. Grey, I hope you will forgive me. They are in the
banqueting-room, and said they would be glad to see you there."
"Thank you; I will go to them instantly. Dear Mrs. Grant, do try and
keep up your spirits, for Miss Midharst's sake."
With these words he left, and walked quickly in the direction of the
great room.
As he did so, the river passenger steamboat _Rodwell_ went past on the
outer or northern side, in front of the great archway leading to the
courtyard of the Island Castle.
Mr. Grey approached the dreary state dining-room, and having entered
found the three doctors seated by the open narrow windows, and looking
out upon the silent peaceful scene beneath. He approached them quietly,
gravely.
Dr. Hardy rose to receive him. The doctor and the banker bowed to one
another; then Mr. Grey bowed to the other two doctors, and they returned
his salutation with respectful inclinations of the head and in silence.
The banker broke the silence:
"Mrs. Grant informs me that you wish to see me, and I understand that
you desire to communicate something very important concerning the health
of Sir Alexander. I trust nothing very serious is to be told."
For a moment the three doctors stood admiring Grey, and no one of them
answered him. There was such a soothing and reassuring air of capable
responsibility about him at the instant, they could not withhold their
respect, and it was displayed in silence.
At last Dr. Hardy found his voice:
"We are informed that you, Mr. Grey, had an interview with Sir Alexander
Midharst this evening. Are we correctly informed that during the
interview Sir Alexander's head was quite clear and his mind quite free
from delusion?"
"Quite clear and quite free from delusion," answered the banker, as
carefully as though he were sworn, and the life of a fellow-being hung
on his words.
"In that interview did he seem to apprehend any disastrous ending to
his illness?" asked Dr. Hardy, with weight and impressiveness.
"I cannot go so far as to say that," answered Grey, with the most
circumstantial conscientiousness; "but from the nature of what occurred,
I am convinced he regarded what he said as of the very highest
importance."
"You are aware that he has made his will?"
"I am."
"Did what occurred between you and him this evening bear in any way upon
his will? Observe, we do not want you to trouble yourself with detail;
but what we want to know is this: Are you satisfied in your own mind
that Sir Alexander has arranged his worldly affairs as fully as you,
being a man of the world, could desire?"
Dr. Hardy put this question with all the gravity he could import into
his manner.
Throughout the interview the banker could in no way satisfy himself as
to what Dr. Hardy was driving at. He, therefore, framed his answers so
that they might be the least discursive and most easy of corroboration.
But the present question disturbed him greatly. Was all that had
hitherto been on this day but the prelude to the springing of an awful
mine under his feet? Did the three men now in front know what he knew?
Were they a kind of lay inquisition--a species of infernal council of
three--the advocate, judge, and jury destined to cause the lead to
overtake the gold? But he had already endured a worse ordeal that
evening, and he was not to be cowed by this. He answered in the same
self-collected tone as before:
"So far as I know of Sir Alexander's affairs they are in perfect order;
and in the interview which I had with him this evening, I think I am
justified in assuming he added by word of mouth, and in the presence of
Miss Midharst and Mrs. Grant, such matters as may not be embodied in his
will, or such additions to what may be in his will as he desired to
make."
The three doctors looked significantly at one another, and Grey awaited
with perturbation of mind, although he preserved an indifferent
exterior, the next move in this strangely shifting drama.
The doctors then nodded to one another that they had agreed to some
course understood between them, and Dr. Hardy said, in a tone of relief:
"You are fully in possession, we know, of the business position of Sir
Alexander's affairs. The medical position is this: A development of
symptoms has occurred since you saw the patient; his mind has sunk into
complete darkness, from which, in the natural course of the disease, it
never emerges between this and death----"
"This is most sad," interrupted Grey.
"_But_," said Dr. Hardy, taking note of the interruption with the
emphasis on the conjunction, "an operation which might accelerate death
would in all likelihood give the patient a few minutes of consciousness
to-night. If to-night passes without the operation it would be useless
to-morrow. The question, then, is: Are you of opinion there is any need
to run the risk of that operation in the hope of getting some final
instruction for the disposal of the worldly affairs of Sir Alexander
Midharst?"
"That is a very grave question indeed."
"A very grave question. Observe, it consists of two parts. 1. The
business portion. 2. The medical portion. You are not expected to answer
both responsibly. You are responsible for the business portion; we for
the medical. The portion of the question you have to answer is this: Do
you know of any business reason for restoring to consciousness at some
risk Sir Alexander Midharst?"
"I do not."
"Then we may go. We can do no more. Good evening, Mr. Grey; you have
been most admirably careful and conscientious in this matter."
The doctors bowed and withdrew.
Once more Grey found himself alone. He could not remain indoors. He felt
oppressed, suffocated. He hastened into the courtyard. Having gained the
grounds he turned his face to the east, and walked slowly onward with
his hands clasped behind him and his chin sunk upon his breast.
How that brief interview with the doctors had altered the whole aspect
of his affairs, he thought. In that terrible scene at the bedside, he
had sworn to take charge of Miss Midharst's fortune; a light
responsibility that was now. In that same interview he had sworn to take
care of Miss Midharst; a grave responsibility that was now. And yet last
night he had been thinking of the most intimate and responsible form of
guardianship for her. He had been thinking if he were a widower he might
marry Miss Midharst, and so cover up the great scandal. If he married
her now, he should be in the best position to keep his oath to the old
man.
Last night he had been affrighted by the notion of being left a widower,
lest it might enter Sir Alexander's mind a second man should be
associated with him in the guardianship of a great heiress.
All this had almost miraculously changed to meet his position. The old
man was likely to live some time, but never again to possess his senses;
never again to have sufficient recollection to make any change in that
will in which his, Grey's, fortune and fate were wholly wound up. That
was a tremendous relief.
He was becoming calmer. The memory of that scene by the bedside was
gradually growing less troublesome, less insistent, less oppressive. He
breathed more freely if it was for nothing else but the knowledge the
repetition of such a scene had become impossible.
His thoughts ran on:
Sir Alexander might live days, weeks, months, and then after his death
he, Grey, would have a whole year. Yes, a whole year! Of course he had
no shadow of hope of replacing the money; but then, in, say a year and
three or four months, something might happen.
He might be free.
The burden might be lifted off his shoulders and he might be free. Who
could say but--
He had turned round and was looking west.
"By Jove," he exclaimed, "I have missed the boat! There she goes past
the tail of the Island."
The _Rodwell_ had just got round the end of the Island, and was steaming
west in the broad river, full in the light of the setting sun.
The air was still. Now and then the lonely notes of a lamenting thrush
enriched the silence. In the whole vast arc of the heavens from the
violet-purple brooding east to the full crimson activity of the splendid
west, not a cloud broke the chromatic scale. There was something fierce
and warlike and fine in the sun; something wasted and desolate and
forlorn in the deserted realms of the east. It seemed as though the
sun, that general of Time, were celebrating in the west his triumph over
another day; while the eastern fields of the empyrean lay broken in hope
abandoned, fit region for the reign of dusky night, for ghosts of noble
hopes, and flitting phantoms of human joys. The northern plains of the
heavens were pale grey blue. To the south the sky was green. Overhead a
pulse of liquid pink seemed breaking through the fair soft blue, like
the pink that steals into a mother's blue eyes when she hears her baby
praised and stoops to kiss it, thinking "Their praises are sweet, but
they are only drops of sweetness falling into the ocean of my love."
Although Grey knew there was no chance of his overtaking the boat, he
now walked west, keeping on the high ground of the island. He passed the
Castle; still the boat was in view. The sight of it distracted his
thoughts, and any distraction was better than the subject-matter thrust
upon his attention by his mind.
From the tail of Warfinger Island to the bend of the river which would
completely conceal the steamer was about two miles. The sun now lay
level with the horizon. Against the blazing orb the boat steamed on. The
edge of the sun had already touched the low horizon when Grey paused at
the top of the high ground and looked west.
"I shall drive from the Ferry to Seacliff. It is only six miles by the
road, and I can be there before the boat.
"There go my wife and five thousand pounds of--of the money I laid my
hands on in an accursed hour. How strange it is that a few minutes ago
when I thought of my position I never thought of that! What a whimsical
thing chance is! There are Miss Midharst's five thousand pounds helping
to carry my wife from Daneford to Seacliff; and here am I, who owe a
hundred times that sum, and with no way out of the thing except I should
chance to be at liberty to marry within a few months.
"Ah, well, let me try and think of something that's probable. Trying to
square the circle is an elegant and harmless and profitable way of
spending one's time; it pays much better than trying to see the way out
of my mess. Possibly in a short time I may go mad. That would be a
capital way out of it, particularly if my madness took the form of going
over that bedside scene for ever. Bah! I am giddy already. I _must_
think of something else. Let me get back. That drive to Seacliff will
freshen me. Anyway I ought to be very well satisfied with the
substantial events of this evening."
He turned around and began slowly retracing his steps. As he did so, he
raised his eyes to the Castle.
Already the walls of the pile were steeped in the shadows of night. But
the Witch's Tower--the Tower of Silence--had just caught the fierce
gleam of light from the river.
He paused, looked up, and thought:
"How simple the people were long ago! They had no idea of cause and
effect. They saw that this tower blazed red after all the rest of the
building was laid in shadow. But the poor idiots never thought of the
light on the river. I can hardly believe it. An evening like this, when
there wasn't a cloud in the heavens, someone must have noticed that the
light on the tower first appeared when the sun caught the river and
remained steady until the sun had gone altogether. It is incredible that
people were ever such fools."
He stopped.
"I will wait until it fades," he thought, by way of honouring his scorn
for the past.
Presently and quickly the red glow faded from the tower.
"Now," he cried, "the sun is set, and no witchcraft can rekindle that
glow for four-and-twenty----What! The light again! Am I mad already?"
Once more, beyond all doubt, the blood-red glare burnt on the summit of
the Tower of Silence.
Grey turned quickly round, and looked in surprise and horror west. He
shaded his eyes with his hands. He rushed forward a few paces, shaded
his eyes again and looked. He swung himself into the branches of a tree,
climbed up, and having reached the highest branches that would sustain
his weight, glared into the west, into the track of crimson fire that
shot the red shaft at the Tower.
Then he descended heavily, drowsily, as though half asleep.
When on the ground he threw himself on his face, and muttered in a thick
voice:
"What is this? What is this? I have not been thinking murder, have I? I
have not been thinking wife-murder? Have I? No, no, no, Grey! Not so bad
as that."
Then a sudden change passed over him. He became inspired with superhuman
energy and strength. He sprang to his feet, and winding his arms wildly
about his head rushed towards the Castle, shouting:
"Help! help!"