THE UNKNOWN FORCE
"Arrah thin, Miss Isabel darlint, and can't ye rest at all?"
Old Biddy stooped over her charge, her parchment face a mass of wrinkles.
Isabel was lying in bed, but raised upon one elbow in the attitude of one
about to rise. She looked at the old woman with a queer, ironical smile
in her tragic eyes.
"I am going up the mountain," she said. "It is moonlight, and I know the
way. I can rest when I get to the top."
"Ah, be aisy, darlint!" urged the old woman. "It's much more likely he'll
come to ye if ye lie quiet."
"No, he will not come to me." There was unalterable conviction in
Isabel's voice. "It is I who must go to him. If I had waited on the
mountain I should never have missed him. He is waiting for me there now."
She flung off the bedclothes and rose, a gaunt, white figure from which
all the gracious lines of womanhood had long since departed. Her silvery
hair hung in two great plaits from her shoulders, wonderful hair that
shone in the shaded lamplight with a lustre that seemed luminous.
"Will I have to fetch Master Scott to ye?" said Biddy, eyeing her
wistfully. "He's very tired, poor young man. There's two nights he's had
no sleep at all. Won't ye try and rest aisy for his sake, Miss Isabel
darlint? Ye can go up the mountain in the morning, and maybe that little
Miss Bathurst will like to go with ye. Do wait till the morning now!" she
wheedled, laying a wiry old hand upon her. "It's no Christian hour at all
for going about now."
"Let me go!" said Isabel.
Biddy's black eyes pleaded with a desperate earnestness. "If ye'd only
listen to reason, Miss Isabel!" she said.
"How can I listen," Isabel answered, "when I can hear his voice in my
heart calling, calling, calling! Oh, let me go, Biddy! You don't
understand, or you couldn't seek to hold me back from him."
"Mavourneen!" Biddy's eyes were full of tears; the hand she had laid upon
Isabel's arm trembled. "It isn't meself that's holding ye back. It's God.
He'll join the two of ye together in His own good time, but ye can't
hurry Him. Ye've got to bide His time."
"I can't!" Isabel said. "I can't! You're all conspiring against me. I
know--I know! Give me my cloak, and I will go."
Biddy heaved a great sigh, the tears were running down her cheeks, but
her face was quite resolute. "I'll have to call Master Scott after all,"
she said.
"No! No! I don't want Scott. I don't want anyone. I only want to be up
the mountain in time for the dawn. Oh, why are you all such fools? Why
can't you understand?" There was growing exasperation in Isabel's voice.
Biddy's hand fell from her, and she turned to cross the room.
Scott slept in the next room to them, and a portable electric bell which
they adjusted every night communicated therewith. Biddy moved slowly to
press the switch, but ere she reached it Isabel's voice stayed her.
"Biddy, don't call Master Scott!"
Biddy paused, looking back with eyes of faithful devotion.
"Ah, Miss Isabel darlint, will ye rest aisy then? I dursn't give ye the
quieting stuff without Master Scott says so."
"I don't want anything," Isabel said. "I only want my liberty. Why are
you all in league against me to keep me in just one place? Ah, listen to
that noise! How wild those people are! It is the same every night--every
night. Can they really be as happy as they sound?"
A distant hubbub had arisen in the main corridor, the banging of doors
and laughter of careless voices. It was some time after one o'clock, and
the merry-markers were on their way to bed.
"Never mind them!" said Biddy. "They're just a set of noisy children. Lie
down again, Miss Isabel! They'll soon settle, and then p'raps ye'll get
to sleep. It's not this way they'll be coming anyway."
"Someone is coming this way," said Isabel, listening with sudden close
attention.
She was right. The quiet tread of a man's feet came down the corridor
that led to their private suite. A man's hand knocked with imperious
insistence upon the door.
"Sir Eustace!" said Biddy, in a dramatic whisper. "Will I tell him ye're
asleep, Miss Isabel? Quick now! Get back to bed!"
But Isabel made no movement to comply. She only drew herself together
with the nervous contraction of one about to face a dreaded ordeal.
Quietly the door opened. Biddy moved forward, her face puckered with
anxiety. She met Sir Eustace on the threshold.
"Miss Isabel hasn't settled yet, Sir Eustace," she told him, her voice
cracked and tremulous. "But she'll not be wanting anybody to disturb her.
Will your honour say good night and go?"
There was entreaty in the words. Her eyes besought him. Her old gnarled
hands gripped each other, trembling.
But Sir Eustace looked over her head as though she were not there. His
gaze sought and found his sister; and a frown gathered on his clear-cut,
handsome face.
"Not in bed yet?" he said, and closing the door moved forward, passing
Biddy by.
Isabel stood and faced him, but she drew back a step as he reached her,
and a hunted look crept into her wide eyes.
"You are late," she said. "I thought you had forgotten to say good
night."
He was still in evening dress. It was evident that he had only just come
upstairs. "No, I didn't forget," he said. "And it seems I am not too late
for you. I shouldn't have disturbed you if you had been asleep."
She smiled a quivering, piteous smile. "You knew I should not be asleep,"
she said.
He glanced towards the bed which Biddy was setting in order with tender
solicitude. "I expected to find you in bed nevertheless," he said. "What
made you get up again?"
She shook her head in silence, standing before him like a child that
expects a merited rebuke.
He put a hand on her shoulder that was authoritative rather than kind.
"Lie down again!" he said. "It is time you settled for the night."
She threw him a quick, half-furtive look. "No--no!" she said hurriedly.
"I can't sleep. I don't want to sleep. I think I will get a book and
read."
His hand pressed upon her. "Isabel!" he said quietly. "When I say a thing
I mean it."
She made a quivering gesture of appeal. "I can't go to bed, Eustace. It
is like lying on thorns. Somehow I can't close my eyes to-night. They
feel red-hot."
His hold did not relax. "My dear," he said, "you talk like a hysterical
child! Lie down at once, and don't be ridiculous!"
She wavered perceptibly before his insistence. "If I do, Scott must give
me a draught. I can't do without it--indeed--indeed!"
"You are going to do without it to-night," Eustace said, with cool
decision. "Scott is worn out and has gone to bed. I made him promise to
stay there unless he was rung for. And he will not be rung for to-night."
Isabel made a sharp movement of dismay. "But--but--I always have the
draught sooner or later. I must have it. Eustace, I must! I can't do
without it! I never have done without it!"
Eustace's face did not alter. It looked as if it were hewn in granite.
"You are going to make a beginning to-night," he said. "You have been
poisoned by that stuff long enough, and I am going to put a stop to it.
Now get into bed, and be reasonable! Biddy, you clear out and do the
same! You can leave the door ajar if you like. I'll call you if you are
wanted."
He pointed to the half-open door that led into the small adjoining room
in which Biddy slept. The old woman stood and stared at him with
consternation in her beady eyes.
"Is it meself that could do such a thing?" she protested. "I never leave
my young lady till she's asleep, Sir Eustace. I'd sooner come under the
curse of the Almighty."
He raised his brows momentarily, but he kept his hand upon his sister. He
was steadily pressing her towards the bed. "If you don't do as you are
told, Biddy, you will be made," he observed. "I am here to-night for a
definite purpose, and I am not going to be thwarted by you. So you had
better take yourself out of my way. Now, Isabel, you know me, don't you?
You know it is useless to fight against me when my mind is made up. Be
sensible for once! It's for your own good. You can't have that draught.
You have got to manage without it."
"Oh, I can't! I can't!" moaned Isabel. She was striving to resist his
hold, but her efforts were piteously weak. The force of his personality
plainly dominated her. "I shall lie awake all night--all night."
"Very well," he said inexorably. "You must. Sleep will come sooner or
later, and then you can make up for it."
"Oh, but you don't understand." Piteously she turned and clasped his arm
in desperate entreaty. "I shall lie awake in torture. I shall hear him
calling all night long. He is there beyond the mountains, wanting me. And
I can't get to him. It is agony--oh, it is agony--to lie and listen!"
He took her between his hands, very firmly, very quietly. "Isabel, you
are talking nonsense--utter nonsense! And I refuse to listen to it. Get
into bed! Do you hear? Yes, I insist. I am capable of putting you there.
If you mean to behave like a child, I shall treat you as one. Now for the
last time, get into bed."
"Sir Eustace!" pleaded Biddy in a hoarse whisper. "Don't force her, Sir
Eustace! Don't now! Don't!"
He paid no attention to her. His eyes were fixed upon his sister's
death-white face, and her eyes, strained and glassy were upturned to his.
He said no more. Isabel's breath came in short sobbing gasps. She
resisted him no longer. Under the steady pressure of his hands, her body
yielded. She seemed to wilt under the compulsion of his look. Slowly,
tremblingly, she crumpled in his hold, sinking downwards upon the bed.
He bent over her, laying her back, taking the bedclothes from Biddy's
shaking hands and drawing them over her.
Then over his shoulder briefly he addressed the old woman. "Turn out the
light, and go!"
Biddy stood and gibbered. There was that in her mistress's numb
acquiescence that terrified her. "Sure, you'll kill her, Sir Eustace!"
she gasped.
He made a compelling gesture. "You had better do as I say. If I want your
help--or advice--I'll let you know. Do as I say! Do you hear me, Biddy?"
His voice fell suddenly and ominously to a note so deep that Biddy drew
back still further affrighted and began to whimper.
Sir Eustace turned back to his sister, lying motionless on the pillow.
"Tell her to go, Isabel! I am going to stay with you myself. You don't
want her, do you?"
"No," said Isabel. "I want Scott."
"You can't have Scott to-night." There was absolute decision in his
voice. "It is essential that he should get a rest. He looked ready to
drop to-night."
"Ah! You think me selfish!" she said, catching her breath.
He sat down by her side. "No," he answered quietly. "But I think you have
not the least idea how much he spends himself upon you. If you had, you
would be shocked."
She moved restlessly. "You don't understand," she said. "You never
understand. Eustace, I wish you would go away."
"I will go in half an hour," he made calm rejoinder, "if you have not
moved during that time."
"You know that is impossible;" she said.
"Very well then. I shall remain." His jaw set itself in a fashion that
brought it into heavy prominence.
"You will stay all night?" she questioned quickly.
"If necessary," he answered.
Biddy had turned the lamp very low. The faint radiance shone upon him as
he sat imparting a certain mysterious force to his dominant outline. He
looked as immovable as an image carved in stone.
A great shiver went through Isabel. "You want to see me suffer," she
said.
"You are wrong," he returned inflexibly. "But I would sooner see you
suffer than give yourself up to a habit which is destroying you by
inches. It is no kindness on Scott's part to let you do it."
"Don't talk of Scott!" she said quickly. "No one--no one--will ever know
what he is to me--how he has helped me--while you--you have only looked
on!"
Her voice quivered. She flung out a restless arm. Instantly, yet without
haste, he took and held her hand. His fingers pressed the fevered wrist.
He spoke after a moment while he quelled her instinctive effort to free
herself. "I am not merely looking on to-night. I am here to help you--if
you will accept my help."
"You are here to torture me!" she flung back fiercely. "You are here to
force me down into hell, and lock the gates upon me!"
His hold tightened upon her. He leaned slightly towards her. "I am here
to conquer you," he said, "if you will not conquer yourself."
The sudden sternness of his speech, the compulsion of his look, took
swift effect upon her. She cowered away from him.
"You are cruel!" she whispered. "You always were cruel at heart--even in
the days when you loved me."
Sir Eustace's lips became a single, hard line. His whole strength was
bent to the task of subduing her, and he meant it to be as brief a
struggle as possible.
He said nothing whatever therefore, and so passed his only opportunity of
winning the conflict by any means save naked force.
To Isabel in her torment that night was the culmination of sorrows. For
years this brother who had once been all the world to her had held aloof,
never seeking to pass the barrier which her widowed love had raised
between them. He had threatened many times to take the step which now at
last he had taken; but always Scott had intervened, shielding her from
the harshness which such a step inevitably involved. And by love he had
never sought to prevail. Her mental weakness seemed to have made
tenderness from him an impossibility. He could not bear with her. It was
as though he resented in her the likeness to one beloved whom he mourned
as dead.
Possibly he had never wholly forgiven her marriage--that disastrous
marriage that had broken her life. Possibly her clouded brain was to him
a source of suffering which drove him to hardness. He had ever been
impatient of weakness, and what he deemed hysteria was wholly beyond his
endurance; and the spectacle of the one being who had been so much to him
crushed beneath a sorrow the very existence of which he resented was one
which he had never been able to contemplate with either pity or
tolerance. As he had said, he would rather see her suffering than a
passive slave to that sorrow and all that it entailed.
So during the dreadful hours that followed he held her to her inferno,
convinced beyond all persuasion---with the stubborn conviction of an iron
will--that by so doing he was acting for her welfare, even in a sense
working out her salvation.
He relied upon the force of his personality to accomplish the end he had
in view. If he could break the fatal rule of things for one night only,
he believed that he would have achieved the hardest part. But the process
was long and agonizing. Only by the sternest effort of will could he keep
up the pressure which he knew he must not relax for a single moment if he
meant to attain the victory he desired.
There came a time when Isabel's powers of endurance were lost in the
abyss of mental suffering into which she was flung, and she struggled
like a mad creature for freedom. He held her in his arms, feeling her
strength wane with every paroxysm, till at last she lay exhausted, only
feebly entreating him for the respite he would not grant.
But even when the bitter conflict was over, when she was utterly
conquered at last, and he laid her down, too weak for further effort, he
did not gather the fruits of victory. For her eyes remained wide and
glassy, dry and sleepless with the fever that throbbed ceaselessly in the
poor tortured brain behind.
She was passive from exhaustion only, and though he closed the staring
eyes, yet they opened again with tense wakefulness the moment he took his
hand from the burning brow.
The night was far advanced when Biddy, creeping softly came to her
mistress's side in the belief that she slept at last. She had not dared
to come before, had not dared to interfere though she had listened with a
wrung heart to the long and futile battle; for Sir Eustace's wrath was
very terrible, too terrible a thing to incur with impunity.
But the moment she looked upon Isabel's face, her courage came upon a
flood of indignation that carried all before it.
"Faith, I believe you've killed her!" she uttered in a sibilant whisper
across the bed. "Is it yourself that has no heart at all?"
He looked back to her, dominant still, though the prolonged struggle had
left its mark upon him also. His face was pale and set.
"This is only a phase," he said quietly. "She will fall asleep presently.
You can get her a cup of tea if you can do it without making a fuss."
Biddy turned from the bed. That glimpse of Isabel's face had been enough.
She had no further thought of consequences. She moved across the room to
set about her task, and in doing so she paused momentarily and pressed
the bell that communicated with Scott's room.
Sir Eustace did not note the action. Perhaps the long strain had weakened
his vigilance somewhat. He sat in massive obduracy, relentlessly watching
his sister's worn white face.
Two minutes later the door opened, and a shadowy figure slipped into the
room.
He looked up then, looked up sharply. "You!" he said, with curt
displeasure.
Scott came straight to him, and leaned over his sister for a moment with
a hand on his shoulder. She did not stir, or seem aware of his presence.
Her eyes gazed straight upwards with a painful, immovable stare.
Scott stood up again. His hand was still upon Eustace. He looked him in
the eyes. "You go to bed, my dear chap!" he said. "I've had my rest."
Eustace jerked back his head with a movement of exasperation. "You
promised to stay in your room unless you were rung for," he said.
Scott's brows went up for a second; then, "For the night, yes!" he said.
"But the night is over. It is nearly six. I shan't sleep again. You go
and get what sleep you can."
Eustace's jaw looked stubborn. "If you will give me your word of honour
not to drug her, I'll go," he said. "Not otherwise."
Scott's hand pressed his shoulder. "You must leave her in my care now,"
he said. "I am not going to promise anything more."
"Then I remain," said Eustace grimly.
A muffled sob came from Biddy. She was weeping over her tea-kettle.
Scott took his brother by the shoulders as he sat. "Go like a good
fellow," he urged. "You will do harm if you stay."
But Eustace resisted him. "I am here for a definite purpose," he said,
"and I have no intention of relinquishing it. She has come through so far
without it, I am not going to give in at this stage."
"And you think your treatment has done her good?" said Scott, with a
glance at the drawn, motionless face on the pillow.
"Ultimate good is what I am aiming at," his brother returned stubbornly.
Scott's hold became a grip. He leaned suddenly down and spoke in a
whisper. "If I had known you were up to this, I'm damned if I'd have
stayed away!" he said tensely.
"Stumpy!" Eustace opened his eyes in amazement. Strong language from
Scott was so unusual as to be almost outside his experience.
"I mean it!" Scott's words vibrated. "You've done a hellish thing! Clear
out now, and leave me to help her in my own way! Before God, I believe
she'll die if you don't! Do you want her to die?"
The question fell with a force that was passionate. There was violence in
the grip of his hands. His light eyes were ablaze. His whole meagre body
quivered as though galvanized by some vital, electric current more potent
than it could bear.
And very curiously Sir Eustace was moved by the unknown force. It struck
him unawares. Stumpy in this mood was a complete stranger to him, a being
possessed by gods or devils, he knew not which; but in any case a being
that compelled respect.
He got up and stood looking down at him speculatively, too astonished to
be angry.
Scott faced him with clenched hands. He was white as death. "Go!" he
reiterated. "Go! There's no room for you in here. Get out!"
His lips twisted over the words, and for an instant his teeth showed with
a savage gleam. He was trembling from head to foot.
It was no moment for controversy. Sir Eustace recognized the fact just as
surely as he realized that his brother had completely parted with his
self-control. He had the look of a furious animal prepared to spring at
his throat.
Greek had met Greek indeed, but upon ground that was wholly unsuitable
for a tug of war. With a shrug he yielded.
"I don't know you, Stumpy," he said briefly. "You've got beyond yourself.
I advise you to pull up before we meet again. I also advise you to bear
in mind that to administer that draught is to undo all that I have spent
the whole night to accomplish."
Scott stood back for him to pass, but the quivering fury of the man
seemed to emanate from him like the scorching draught from a blast
furnace. As Eustace said, he had got beyond himself,--so far beyond that
he was scarcely recognizable.
"Your advice be damned!" he flung back under his breath with a
concentrated bitterness that was terrible. "I shall follow my own
judgment."
Sir Eustace's mouth curled superciliously. He was angry too, though by no
means so angry as Scott. "Better look where you go all the same," he
observed, and passed him by, not without dignity and a secret sense of
relief.
The long and fruitless vigil of the night had taught him one thing at
least. Rome was not built in a day. He would not attempt the feat a
second time, though neither would he rest till he had gained his end.
As for Scott, he would have a reckoning with him presently--a strictly
private reckoning which should demonstrate once and for all who was
master.