Alfred sometimes thought that possibly he ought so far to conquer his
scruples as to write to his mother, and communicate to her, in strict
confidence, his apprehensions respecting the state of Willoughby's mind:
but he might recover after a short period of quiet, and then his mother
might be spared the pang: and he could not, as he had before decided,
even within the bosom of his own family,--he could not, be the
consequence what it might, bring himself to be the first to suggest such
a thought. His mother, of course, would not suspect him of a base desire
to grasp at his brother's birth-right, and of a consequent
quicksightedness in discerning the approaches of this frightful
visitation; but there were those who might so misjudge him. It was,
however, he thought, at least his duty to prepare his mother's mind in
some degree for whatever might be the result, by saying, that he did not
think Willoughby quite well: this, therefore, he did in one or two of
his letters. Yet Willoughby himself made no complaint; and to servants
and occasional visiters appeared to be in particularly good health and
spirits. We remark this now because the comment subsequently becomes
important.
After a few days, however, Willoughby, like one who had run at full
speed as long as his strength would permit, flagged; his efforts were
first less sustained, then his gaiety became confined to wild bursts of
noisy mirth, while at length whole hours, with a seeming unconsciousness
of the lapse of time, were passed in gloomy abstraction. The bursts of
seeming mirth, however, were always assumed when servants or strangers
were present; the gloom and abstraction given way to only when alone
with his brother.
Willoughby had always felt, and often expressed, great horror of persons
being opened after death: to this subject he now recurred with a
frequency, and clung to it with a pertinacity quite extraordinary;
adding the most solemn injunctions to Alfred to be the protector of his
remains whenever he should die.
"You will then be master here," he would say; "every thing will then be
yours; my very body I bequeath to you--I make it your property: do not,
Alfred, I conjure you, suffer the defenceless corse of your poor brother
to be mangled. It would be hard indeed," he would sometimes subjoin,
with a wild ironical laugh, "if a man could not find rest even in the
grave."
On occasions like these Alfred would sit beside him, and endeavour to
sooth him by every kind and rational argument he could devise; not
unfrequently Willoughby would appear entirely deaf to all that could be
urged; while at other times, he would take Alfred's hand, thank him with
gentle kindliness of manner, and hope that he might yet be as truly
happy as he deserved to be; joining with this latter expression an
earnest and expressive solemnity which almost seemed a blending of
prophecy with the prayer of affection. He often talked of having a
foreboding that he should die young.
"But why, my dear brother," Alfred would reply, "give way to such
thoughts? Why should you die young? You have no ailment, no care, no
sorrow----"
"It may be a silly fancy, yet I am possessed with the idea:"--this much
Willoughby said with well-acted carelessness. "My only anxiety in
dying," he added, with a suddenly altered tone, and an inquiring look of
the most mournful tenderness, "is for you, Alfred; I fear you will feel
it severely; but do not!--do not! Why should any one be miserable?--I
shall not be missed, except by you: no selfish happiness, I know, will
enable you entirely to forget me. My mother is kind, very kind; but you
were always her favourite--and that in time will reconcile her--"
Caroline was in Alfred's thoughts; her name even trembled on his lips,
but he had not courage to give it utterance.
"You speak wildly," he said, "my dear Willoughby; you not missed!
you--who--who--you who love and are beloved." Willoughby laid his hand
on Alfred's, and looked anxiously in his face for some moments, but
continued silent; at length he moved his lips, as if about to speak;
then pressing his brother's hand, dropped it, and exclaimed, "I
cannot!--I cannot!" An instant after he burst into a passion of tears,
and laying his head on Alfred's shoulder, wept like a child, till
relieved by giving way to his feelings, though completely exhausted, he
seemed to sleep. In a few seconds, however, he started, looked up, and
repeated anxiously once or twice, "What have I been saying, Alfred? what
have I been saying? I think I have been asleep," he added; "but I have
lately got into a strange habit of laying awake the whole night: it is
merely a habit. Sleep is altogether a habit, I think. I don't sleep at
all now, as I tell you; and yet you see I am perfectly well!"
Alfred looked mournfully at him, and replied, "Would to heaven you were,
Willoughby! Do," he added, anxiously, "let us go to town; you ought to
take some medical advice; if, as you say, you do not sleep, you cannot
be well."
"Well--I am perfectly well I assure you--shall we ride?" he added,
rising and calling his two beautiful greyhounds that lay on the rug
before the fire: "I wonder, by the by," he continued, "if they have laid
the poison which I ordered for the rats in the stable-lofts; shall we go
out at the back way, and I'll see to it myself."
Willoughby hurried out, Alfred followed, and heard him inquire with
great precision respecting the poison, and give, in the most rational
manner, precautionary directions against mistakes or accidents in its
use. A servant in reply pointed out a shelf in the saddle-room, where it
lay perfectly apart from all articles of food; and showed both the
gentlemen that the outward paper was, according to a usual and very
proper precaution on the part of druggists and apothecaries, strongly
marked in very large letters--"_Poison, Arsenic_." The characters too,
though done with a pen, were those of print, which made them more
strikingly legible to every eye.
The brothers now proceeded to ride as Willoughby had proposed; Alfred,
however, could think of nothing but the poison: he had often heard of
the most artful preparations on the part of deranged persons, and he
could not banish the idea that Willoughby had made the particular
inquiries he had just heard with a view to possessing himself of the
arsenic; and he determined, lest this should indeed be the case, that he
would, as soon as he returned to the house, privately take away the
packet from where he had seen it, and put it in some place of security.
If the fearful project of self-destruction did indeed dwell among the
wanderings of his brother's mind, the quiet removal of the means would
not only prevent the immediate execution of his fatal purpose, but might
by possibility change the current of his thoughts into some more
healthful channel. Accordingly, as soon after their return as he could
find a convenient opportunity, he repaired to the said saddle-room, and
not wishing to confide his fears to any one, possessed himself,
unobserved as he supposed, of the paper of arsenic, which he locked up
carefully in his own escritoire, feeling, as he did so, almost a
security, that he had thus for the present, at least, removed one danger
from the reach of his poor brother; for as Willoughby had been scarcely
out of his sight, since they came back from their ride, there was no
reason to fear that the mischief was already done: nor did it indeed
occur to Alfred, when he found the packet laying where he had seen it in
the morning, that without displacing the whole, sufficient for the
purpose he dreaded might have been taken away.
For the remainder of the day, and especially during dinner, he observed
that Willoughby's manners were more than ever strange and inconsistent;
and that his efforts at gaiety were fewer and worse sustained than on
any former occasion; yet, as long as the servants were present,
extravagant. While, the moment the brothers were alone, there was an
overflow of mournful tenderness, and an expression of the same character
in his countenance which filled Alfred with the most harrowing
sensations. Yet a circumstance had occurred when they were riding, which
had in a great measure allayed his immediate fears, and given his
thoughts too, a somewhat new direction. They had met with a neighbouring
squire who, possessing little either of tact or delicacy, and also
thinking himself privileged as being not only an old man but an old
acquaintance, immediately began to rally Sir Willoughby on the report of
his approaching marriage.
Willoughby saw that Alfred watched him anxiously; and, being rendered by
the presence of a stranger doubly determined to keep his secret to the
last, he aroused himself to great exertion and replied with astonishing
coolness, at the same time admitting the fact of his intended marriage,
that the event to which the squire alluded was not to take place so
immediately as he seemed to imagine, for that previously to his becoming
a benedict he was to join his friends at Paris, and proceed with them on
a tour which would occupy some months.
The old gentleman at parting commended him for showing Lady Anne
Armadale so soon how little he thought of her, and congratulated him on
the great superiority of his present choice, both in beauty and fortune.
The gloom and abstraction of Willoughby after this was so marked that it
suggested to Alfred the possibility of his not having yet conquered his
first attachment, and of his having entered into his present engagement
more out of pique than preference. How strange and absorbing for a time
were the speculations occasioned by such a surmise, while some of them
were calculated almost to reawaken selfish regrets, yet were these again
checked by the appalling thought that such a supposition strengthened
his worst fears; contending emotions were more likely seriously and
permanently to unsettle the mind than the excitement, however great, of
a successful attachment; at least, to suppose such a cause, it was
necessary to take for granted a predisposition stronger than there was,
perhaps, sufficient grounds to believe did exist.
That disease however, was present, whatever the cause, there could be no
doubt; and Alfred firmly resolved, therefore, if he could not the very
next day prevail with Willoughby to accompany him to town, that he would
send thither for the first medical advice that could be obtained, and
also entreat his mother to come to Arden. For he now began to fear with
infinite self-reproach that he had already carried delicacy on this
point too far.