Dr. Darkham's eyes turned to the hearthrug, and then turned away
again hastily. He loathed to look upon this, his first-born and
only child. He shrank with horror whenever he saw him. Physical
deformity was an abomination in his eyes, beauty a thing to
worship. Thus his only child was a living torture to him.
To the mother the unfortunate idiot was something to love--he
was the first of her womb, and an object of love--but to the
father he was loathsome.
The child had been born beautiful, but time had proved him deaf
and dumb, and, worse than all, devoid of intellect; without a
single idea, save, indeed, an overpowering adoration for his
mother, a clinging, unreasoning love that knew no bounds.
For his father, the unhappy mute felt nothing but a settled, and
often openly shown, aversion.
His wife had recovered her breath, and was still hurling
accusations and sneers at him. He had grown accustomed to let her
rave, but now something she said caught his ear, and made him
turn to her sharply.
"You are getting yourself pretty well talked of, I can tell you."
"Talked of? What"--sternly--"do you mean?"
"Right well you know. They are talking about your attentions to
that minx at the Villa--that Miss Nesbitt."
Darkham's eyes suddenly blazed.
"Who has dared to talk of Miss Nesbitt with disrespect?" asked
he.
"Oh, law! You needn't make such a fuss about it, even if she is
your dearie-o. But I can tell you this Darkham, that people are
talking about you and her, all the same. And why shouldn't they?
Why, you never take your eyes off her."
"Be silent, woman!" said he savagely, coarsely; now and again his
own birth betrayed him. "Who are you that you should speak to me
like that?"
"I am your wife, any way," said she.
"Ay. My wife!"
The look that accompanied his tone should have frozen her, but
she only laughed.
"I know, I know," she said, wagging her hideous fat head at him.
"You would undo it all if you could. You would cast me out, like
Rebecca, and marry your Sarah instead; but"--with slovenly
triumph--"you can't. You can't, you know. I"--with a hideous
leer at him--"am here, you see, and here I'll stick! You wish
me dead, I know that; but I'll not die to please you."
(If she had only known!)
She looked up at her husband out of her small, obstinate eyes---
looked at the tall, handsome, well-dressed man whose name she
bore, yet who was so different to her in all ways. And he looked
back at her.
A strange smile curled his lips.
"Wishes don't kill," said he, slowly. Now his voice was soft,
refined, brutal.
"Good for me," returned she, with a hoarse chuckle, "or I
wouldn't be long above ground. I know you! And as for that girl
down there"--she paused, then went on with malicious intonation:
"you may as well cease your funning in that quarter. I hear
she's as good as engaged to that young fellow who took up Dr.
Fulham's practice three months ago--Dr. Dillwyn."
"A very suitable match for her," said Darkham, after a second's
pause that contained a thousand seconds of acute agony. He spoke
coldly, evenly.
"Yes." She looked disappointed; her spleen had desired a larger
fulfilment of its desire. "Suitable indeed, for both are paupers.
But, for all you're so quiet, I don't believe you like it, eh?
Dr. Dillwyn, you know, and you---"
"I wish sometimes you would forget me," said he.
"Ha, ha, ha!" She flung herself back in her chair, and laughed
aloud, her hideous vulgar laugh. "For once in our lives we are
agreed. I wish that, too. But I can't, you see--I can't. You're
always there, and I'm always there!"
"You! you!" Darkham took a step towards her; his face was
convulsed. "You," he muttered, "always you!" His voice, his
gesture, were menacing.
The idiot on the hearthrug, as though gathering into his poor
brain something of what was going on between his father and his
mother, here writhing round upon the rug, threw himself upon the
latter. He embraced her knees with a close, soft clasp. He clung
to her. Every now and then he glanced behind him at his father,
his dull eyes angry, menacing. His whole air was one of
protection; short barking cries came from him, hideous to hear.
Mrs Darkham bent down to him, and caught the beautiful soulless
face to her bosom, wreathing upon it sweet reassuring words. The
idiot, mouthing, slaps her quietly, incessantly, on the shoulder.
Darkham watches them--the mother's heavy, coarse endearments,
the boy's vacant affection, with his mouth open--and from them
presently Darkham turned away with an oath. A shudder of disgust
ran through him. "Great heavens! what a home!"
His wife had looked up for a moment, and had seen the disgust. It
was fuel to an already very hot fire.
"Go!" she cried violently. She had the boy's head pressed to her
breast, keeping his eyes against her that he might not see her
face, perhaps, which now was frightful. "Go! leave us! Go where
you are welcome! Leave us! Leave your home!"
"My home!" he paused, but always with his eyes on hers. "My home
is a hell!" said he.
He went out then, closing the door softly behind him.
But when he had stepped into his brougham he gave himself full
sway. As the wheels rolled over the gravel his thoughts surged
and raged within him.
That dull, illiterate creature, why had he ever married her? What
cruel fate had driven him to such a marriage? And for ever that
marriage would endure--trampling him down, destroying him,
clogging his career.
Some men got rid of their wives. But that was when kindly
Providence stepped in and Death took them away. But this woman,
without feeling, sentiment or beauty, even Death would not deign
to touch her.
Death--death! If he were only free!
All at once the face of a young girl rose before him. It stood
out clear and tranquil from a detestable background--not like a
dream, a thought, but sweetly, definitely. The eyes, the hair,
the lovely mouth, all were there. They seemed to sit there before
him, embodied in the brougham.
Darkham flings himself back and covers his eyes with his hand, as
if to blot out the too, too lovely apparition. But it would not
go. It stayed. The sweet eyes always smiling, the lips a little
parted.
What was it that woman, that human devil, had said about her?
That she was thinking of--that she was in love with that young
Dillwyn? Pshaw!
Here the brougham stopped at the gate of a small if pretty
entrance, beyond which a gravel path led to a small but perfectly
appointed house. Dr. Darkham stepped out of his carriage, and,
entering the hall, followed the servant into the drawing-room
beyond, and into the presence of the gentle spectre who had
possessed his thoughts during his short drive.
She stood at the end of the room, bending over some flowers she
was arranging, and after a slight inclination of her small and
charming head, took no further notice of him.
He passed up the room quickly to his quasi-patient, Mrs.
Greatorex, an elderly but still pretty woman who sat lounging in
a cosy chair.
The room was warm and sweet with flowers. It was exquisitely
arranged, if not richly furnished. It spoke of refinement, though
not of wealth, and was very charming and womanly. A few Persian
rugs lay here and there, and jars full of early flowering
branches were placed in the corners of the windows and against
the tall screens that stood at the end of the room. All the place
was sweet with little bowls full of honeysuckle and primroses.
Mrs. Greatorex held out her hand to him.
"How good of you to come!" said she, in her low, cultivated
voice. "And after your hard day's work, too."
"I like work. How do you feel this evening--you are better? You
look better. You will be out of my hands altogether soon, and I
shall be left desolate."
His eyes wandered to the figure bending over the primroses, but
she seemed engrossed with her pretty flowers.
She was tall, slender, graceful, with dark hair, and a mouth
beautiful in its strength and purity. Her eyes were her chief
feature, and shone like stars. They were a clear gray--soft and
kind by day, dark and even kinder by night; and so full of
expression, love and laughter, grief and quick delight,
tenderness and anger: all things those perfect eyes could declare
in their right season.
Just now they were lowered, so it was hard to see what lay within
their shining depths; but a little line across her forehead
showed that her thoughts were not altogether pleasant. She bent
even more assiduously over the flowers, and showed no disposition
to go forward and add to the pleasant reception her aunt was
giving Dr. Darkham.
The latter had been going through the usual formula with Mrs.
Greatorex, feeling her pulse, asking about her appetite, etc.,
and then had drifted into a light gossip. This pleased his
patient, and gave him leisure to gaze on the lovely figure in the
window. He hardly cared that she did not speak to him.
After a time he rose, and bid Mrs. Greatorex good-bye. Then he
turned deliberately to the girl.
"If you can spare me one moment, Miss Nesbitt, there is just a
word or two I would say to you about our patient here," with a
smile and bow towards Mrs. Greatorex. "She has been making a
little too free, I am afraid, and if you will let me write a
prescription in the next room---"
"Certainly," said Agatha, courteously but coldly. She let her
flowers fall, and led the way to the little anteroom beyond,
hidden by a falling curtain, where a tiny writing-room had been
made up.
She stood silent, whilst he told her to keep her aunt a little
warmer, or something as trivial, and then scribbled a line or two
on a sheet of paper for the chemist. The he went. But he had
gained his end. He had held her small cool hand in his. She had
not been able to refuse it when he held out his.