A MESSAGE.
The pretty woman in her widow's weeds stirred slightly and settled her
skirts, as though my answer had given her the greatest satisfaction.
"Then take my advice, Ralph," she went on. "See her again before it is
too late."
"You refer to her fresh lover--eh?" I inquired bitterly.
"Her fresh lover?" she cried in surprise. "I don't understand you. Who
is he, pray?"
"I'm in ignorance of his name."
"But how do you know of his existence? I have heard nothing of him,
and surely she would have told me. All her correspondence, all her
poignant grief, and all her regrets have been of you."
"Mrs. Henniker gave me to understand that my place in your sister's
heart has been filled by another man," I said, in a hard voice.
"Mrs. Henniker!" she cried in disgust. "Just like that evil-tongued
mischief-maker! I've told you already that I detest her. She was my
friend once--it was she who allured me from my husband's side. Why
she exercises such an influence over poor Ethelwynn, I can't tell. I
do hope she'll leave their house and come back home. You must try and
persuade her to do so."
"Do you think, then, that the woman has lied?" I asked.
"I'm certain of it. Ethelwynn has never a thought for any man save
yourself. I'll vouch for that."
"But what object can she have in telling me an untruth?"
The widow smiled.
"A very deep one, probably. You don't know her as well as I do, or you
would suspect all her actions of ulterior motive."
"Well," I said, after a pause, "to tell the truth, I wrote to
Ethelwynn last night with a view to reconciliation."
"You did!" she cried joyously. "Then you have anticipated me, and my
appeal to you has been forestalled by your own conscience--eh?"
"Exactly," I laughed. "She has my letter by this time, and I am
expecting a wire in reply. I have asked her to meet me at the earliest
possible moment."
"Then you have all my felicitations, Ralph," she said, in a voice that
seemed to quiver with emotion. "She loves you--loves you with a
fiercer and even more passionate affection than that I entertained
towards my poor dead husband. Of your happiness I have no doubt, for I
have seen how you idolised her, and how supreme was your mutual
content when in each other's society. Destiny, that unknown influence
that shapes our ends, has placed you together and forged a bond
between you that is unbreakable--the bond of perfect love."
There seemed such a genuine ring in her voice, and she spoke with such
solicitude for our welfare, that in the conversation I entirely forgot
that after all she was only trying to bring us together again in order
to prevent her own secret from being exposed.
At some moments she seemed the perfection of honesty and integrity,
without the slightest affectation of interest or artificiality of
manner, and it was this fresh complexity of her character that utterly
baffled me. I could not determine whether, or not, she was in earnest.
"If it is really destiny I suppose that to try and resist it is quite
futile," I remarked mechanically.
"Absolutely. Ethelwynn will become your wife, and you have all my good
wishes for prosperity and happiness."
I thanked her, but pointed out that the matrimonial project was, as
yet, immature.
"How foolish you are, Ralph!" she said. "You know very well that you'd
marry her to-morrow if you could."
"Ah! if I could," I repeated wistfully. "Unfortunately my position is
not yet sufficiently well assured to justify my marrying. Wedded
poverty is never a pleasing prospect."
"But you have the world before you. I've heard Sir Bernard say so,
times without number. He believes implicitly in you as a man who will
rise to the head of your profession."
I laughed dubiously, shaking my head.
"I only hope that his anticipations may be realized," I said. "But I
fear I'm no more brilliant than a hundred other men in the hospitals.
It takes a smart man nowadays to boom himself into notoriety. As in
literature and law, so in the medical profession, it isn't the clever
man who rises to the top of the tree. More often it is a second-rate
man, who has private influence, and has gauged the exact worth of
self-advertisement. This is an age of reputations quickly made, and
just as rapidly lost. In the professional world a new man rises with
every moon."
"But that need not be so in your case," she pointed out. "With Sir
Bernard as your chief, you are surely in an assured position."
Taking her into my confidence, I told her of my ideal of a snug
country practice--one of those in which the assistant does the
night-work and attends to the club people, while there is a circle of
county people as patients. There are hundreds of such practices in
England, where a doctor, although scarcely known outside his own
district, is in a position which Harley Street, with all its turmoil
of fashionable fads and fancies, envies as the elysium of what life
should be. The village doctor of Little Perkington may be an ignorant
old buffer; but his life, with its three days' hunting a week, its
constant invitations to shoot over the best preserves, and its free
fishing whenever in the humour, is a thousand times preferable to the
silk-hatted, frock-coated existence of the fashionable physician.
I had long ago talked it all over with Ethelwynn, and she entirely
agreed with me. I had not the slightest desire to have a
consulting-room of my own in Harley Street. All I longed for was a
life in open air and rural tranquillity; a life far from the tinkle of
the cab-bell and the milkman's strident cry; a life of ease and bliss,
with my well-beloved ever at my side. The unfortunate man compelled to
live in London is deprived of half of God's generous gifts.
"Though this unaccountable coldness has fallen between you," Mary
said, looking straight at me, "you surely cannot have doubted the
strength of her affection?"
"But Mrs. Henniker's insinuation puzzles me. Besides, her recent
movements have been rather erratic, and almost seem to bear out the
suggestion."
"That woman is utterly unscrupulous!" she cried angrily. "Depend upon
it that she has some deep motive in making that slanderous statement.
On one occasion she almost caused a breach between myself and my poor
husband. Had he not possessed the most perfect confidence in me, the
consequences might have been most serious for both of us. The outcome
of a mere word, uttered half in jest, it came near ruining my
happiness for ever. I did not know her true character in those days."
"I had no idea that she was a dangerous woman," I remarked, rather
surprised at this statement. Hitherto I had regarded her as quite a
harmless person, who, by making a strenuous effort to obtain a footing
in good society, often rendered herself ridiculous in the eyes of her
friends.
"Her character!" she echoed fiercely. "She's one of the most
evil-tongued women in London. Here is an illustration. While posing as
Ethelwynn's friend, and entertaining her beneath her roof, she
actually insinuates to you the probability of a secret lover! Is it
fair? Is it the action of an honest, trustworthy woman?"
I was compelled to admit that it was not. Yet, was this action of her
own, in coming to me in those circumstances, in any way more
straightforward? Had she known that I was well aware of the secret
existence of her husband, she would assuredly never have dared to
speak in the manner she had. Indeed, as I sat there facing her, I
could scarcely believe it possible that she could act the imposture so
perfectly. Her manner was flawless; her self-possession marvellous.
But the motive of it all--what could it be? The problem had been a
maddening one from first to last.
I longed to speak out my mind then and there; to tell her of what I
knew, and of what I had witnessed with my own eyes. Yet such a course
was useless. I was proceeding carefully, watching and noting
everything, determined not to blunder.
Had you been in my place, my reader, what would you have done?
Recollect, I had witnessed a scene on the river-bank that was
absolutely without explanation, and which surpassed all human
credence. I am a matter-of-fact man, not given to exaggerate or to
recount incidents that have not occurred, but I confess openly and
freely that since I had walked along that path I hourly debated within
myself whether I was actually awake and in the full possession of my
faculties, or whether I had dreamt the whole thing.
Yet it was no dream. Certain solid facts convinced me of its stern,
astounding reality. The man upon whose body I had helped to make an
autopsy was actually alive.
In reply to my questions my visitor told me that she was staying at
Martin's, in Cork Street--a small private hotel which the Mivarts had
patronised for many years--and that on the following morning she
intended returning again to Neneford.
Then, after she had again urged me to lose no time in seeing
Ethelwynn, and had imposed upon me silence as to what had passed
between us, I assisted her into a hansom, and she drove away, waving
her hand in farewell.
The interview had been a curious one, and I could not in the least
understand its import. Regarded in the light of the knowledge I had
gained when down at Neneford, it was, of course, plain that both she
and her "dead" husband were anxious to secure Ethelwynn's silence, and
believed they could effect this by inducing us to marry. The
conspiracy was deeply-laid and ingenious, as indeed was the whole of
the amazing plot. Yet, some how, when I reflected upon it on my return
from the club, I could not help sitting till far into the night trying
to solve the remarkable enigma.
A telegram from Ethelwynn had reached me at the Savage at nine
o'clock, stating that she had received my letter, and was returning to
town the day after to-morrow. She had, she said, replied to me by that
night's post.
I felt anxious to see her, to question her, and to try, if possible,
to gather from her some fact which would lead me to discern a motive
in the feigned death of Henry Courtenay. But I could only wait in
patience for the explanation. Mary's declaration that her sister
possessed no other lover besides myself reassured me. I had not
believed it of her from the first; yet it was passing strange that
such an insinuation should have fallen from the lips of a woman who
now posed as her dearest friend.
Next day, Sir Bernard came to town to see two unusual cases at the
hospital, and afterwards drove me back with him to Harley Street,
where he had an appointment with a German Princess, who had come to
London to consult him as a specialist. As usual, he made his lunch off
two ham sandwiches, which he had brought with him from Victoria
Station refreshment-room and carried in a paper bag. I suggested that
we should eat together at a restaurant; but the old man declined,
declaring that if he ate more than his usual sandwiches for luncheon
when in town he never had any appetite for dinner.
So I left him alone in his consulting-room, munching bread and ham,
and sipping his wineglassful of dry sherry.
About half-past three, just before he returned to Brighton, I saw him
again as usual to hear any instructions he wished to give, for
sometimes he saw patients once, and then left them in my hands. He
seemed wearied, and was sitting resting his brow upon his thin bony
hands. During the day he certainly had been fully occupied, and I had
noticed that of late he was unable to resist the strain as he once
could.
"Aren't you well?" I asked, when seated before him.
"Oh, yes," he answered, with a sigh. "There's not much the matter with
me. I'm tired, I suppose, that's all. The eternal chatter of those
confounded women bores me to death. They can't tell their symptoms
without going into all the details of family history and domestic
infelicity," he snapped. "They think me doctor, lawyer, and parson
rolled into one."
I laughed at his criticism. What he said was, indeed, quite true.
Women often grew confidential towards me, at my age; therefore I could
quite realize how they laid bare all their troubles to him.
"Oh, by the way!" he said, as though suddenly recollecting. "Have you
met your friend Ambler Jevons lately?"
"No," I replied. "He's been away for some weeks, I think. Why?"
"Because I saw him yesterday in King's Road. He was driving in a fly,
and had one eye bandaged up. Met with an accident, I should think."
"An accident!" I exclaimed in consternation. "He wrote to me the other
day, but did not mention it."
"He's been trying his hand at unravelling the mystery of poor
Courtenay's death, hasn't he?" the old man asked.
"I believe so?"
"And failed--eh?"
"I don't think his efforts have been crowned with very much success,
although he has told me nothing," I said.
In response the old man grunted in dissatisfaction. I knew how
disgusted he had been at the bungling and utter failure of the police
inquiries, for he was always declaring Scotland Yard seemed to be
useless, save for the recovery of articles left in cabs.
He glanced at his watch, snatched up his silk hat, buttoned his coat,
and, wishing me good-bye, went out to catch the Pullman train.
Next day about two o'clock I was in one of the wards at Guy's, seeing
the last of my patients, when a telegram was handed to me by one of
the nurses.
I tore it open eagerly, expecting that it was from Ethelwynn,
announcing the hour of her arrival at Paddington.
But the message upon which my eyes fell was so astounding, so
appalling, and so tragic that my heart stood still.
The few words upon the flimsy paper increased the mystery to an even
more bewildering degree than before!