Will no one ever come?
Roger glares despairingly at Dulce, who is still trying to get some brandy down the wounded man's throat, and even as she does so Stephen's eyes unclose, and a heavy sobbing sigh escapes him.
Strangely enough, as the two bend over him, and his gaze wanders from one face to the other, it rests finally, with a great sense of content, not on Dulce's face but Roger's. Instinctively he turns in his hour of need from the woman who had wronged him to the man whom he had wronged in the first instance, and who – though he had suffered many things at his hands of late – brings to him now a breath from that earlier and happier life, where love – which has proved so bitter – was unknown.
"Stephen! Dear old fellow, you are not much hurt, are you?" asks Roger, tenderly. "Where is the pain? Where does it hurt you most?"
"Here!" says Stephen, faintly, trying to lift one of his arms to point to his left side; but, with a groan, the arm falls helpless, and then they know, with sickening feeling of horror, that it is broken. Stephen loses consciousness again for a moment.
"It is broken!" says Roger. "And I am afraid there must be some internal injury besides. What on earth is to be done, Dulce?" in a frantic tone; "we shall have him here all night unless we do something. Will you stay with him while I run and try to find somebody?"
But Stephen's senses having returned to him by this time, he overhears and understands the last sentence.
"No, don't leave me," he entreats, earnestly, though speaking with great difficulty. "Roger, are you there? Stay with me."
"There is Dulce," falters Roger.
"No, no; don't leave me here alone," says the wounded man, with foolish persistency, and Roger, at his wits' end, hardly knows what to do.
"Are you anything easier now?" he asks, raising Stephen's head ever so gently. Dulce, feeling her presence has been thoroughly ignored, and fearing lest the very sight of her may irritate her late lover, draws back a little, and stands where he can no longer see her.
"Try to drink this," says Roger, holding the flask again to Gower's lips and forcing a few drops between them. They are of some use, as presently a slight, a very slight tinge of red comes into his cheek, and his eyes show more animation.
"It is very good of you, old man," he whispers, faintly, looking up at Roger. "I believe you are sorry for me, after all."
The "after all" is full of meaning.
"Why shouldn't I be sorry for you?" says Roger, huskily, his eyes full of tears. "Don't talk like that."
"I know you think I behaved badly to you," goes on Stephen, with painful slowness. "And perhaps I did."
"As to that," interrupted Roger, quickly, "we're quits there, you know; nothing need be said about that. Why can't we forget it? Come, Stephen, forget it all, and be friends again."
"With all my heart," says Gower, and his eyes grow glad, and a smile of real happiness illumines his features for a moment.
"Now, don't talk any more; don't, there's a good fellow," says Roger, with deep entreaty.
"There is – one thing – I must say," whispers Gower, "while I have time. Tell her– that I have behaved like a coward to her, and that I give her back her promise. Tell her she may marry whom she pleases." He gasps for breath, and then, pressing Roger's hand with his own uninjured one, says, with a last effort, "And that will be you, I hope."
The struggle to say this proves too much for his exhausted strength; his head drops back again upon Roger's arm, and, for the third time, he falls into a dead faint.
The tears are running down Roger's cheeks by this time, and he is gazing with ever-increasing terror at the deathly face below him, when looking up to address some remark to Dulce, he finds she is nowhere to be seen. Even as he looks round for her in consternation, he sees two or three men hurrying toward him, and two others following more slowly with something that looks like a shutter or door between them. Dulce, while he was listening to Stephen's last heavily-uttered words, had hurried away, and, climbing over all that came in her way, had descended into a little valley not far from the scene of the accident, where at a farmhouse she had told her tale, and pressed into her service the men now coming quickly toward Roger.
With their help the wounded man (still happily unconscious) is carried to the farm-house, where he remains until, the carriage from the Court having arrived, they take him home in it as carefully as can be managed.
In a few hours the worst is known; and, after all, the worst is not so very bad. His arm is broken and two of his ribs, and there is rather a severe contusion on his left shoulder. Little Dr. Bland has pledged them his word in the most solemn manner, however, that there is no internal injury, and that his patient only requires time and care to be quite himself again in no time. This peculiar date is a favorite one with the little medico.
The household being reassured by this comfortable news, every one grows more tranquil, and dinner having proved a distinct failure, supper is proposed; and Roger having hunted the whole house unsuccessfully for Dulce, to compel her to come in and eat something, unearths her at last in the nursery, where she is sitting all alone, staring at the sleeping children.
"Where's nurse?" asks Roger, gazing around. "Has she been dismissed, and have you applied for the situation?"
"She has gone down for a message. I came here," says Dulce, "because I didn't want to speak to anybody. I feel so strange still, and so frightened."
"Come down and eat something," says Roger. "You must. I shall carry you if you won't walk, and think how the servants will speak about your light behavior afterwards! Do come, darling; you know you have eaten nothing since breakfast."
"I wonder if he is really in no danger?" says Dulce wistfully.
"He certainly is not. I have it from Bland himself; and, Dulce," and here he hesitates, as if uncertain whether he ought to proceed or not, "now it is all right, you know, and – and that – and when we have heard he is on the safe road to recovery, it can't be any harm to say what is on my mind, can it?"
"No; I suppose not," says Dulce, blushing vividly.
"Well, then, just say you will marry me the very moment he is on his feet again," says Roger, getting this out with considerable rapidity. "It will seem ungracious of us, I think, not to take advantage of his kindness as soon as possible."
"Supposing he was to go back of it all when he got well," says Dulce, timidly.
"Oh, he can't; a promise is a promise, you know – as he has made us feel. Poor old Stephen!" this last hastily, lest he shall seem hard on his newly-recovered friend.
"If you think that," says Dulce, going close up to him and looking at him with soft love-lit eyes, "I will marry you just whenever you like." To make this sweet assurance doubly sweet, she stands on tiptoe, and, slipping her arms round her lover's neck, kisses him with all her heart.
CHAPTER XXVII
"About some act
That has no relish of salvation in't."
– Hamlet.
"Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge."
– Titus Andronicus.
"Before you begin, Fabian, it is only fair to tell you that I will not listen favorably to one word in his defense. Under the farsical term of secretary, Slyme has been a disgrace and a torment to me for years; and last night has finished everything."
"It was very unfortunate, no doubt," says Fabian, regretfully. "What a curse the love of drink is! – a madness, a passion."
"I have told him he must go," says Sir Christopher, who is in a white heat of rage, and is walking up and down the room with an indignant frown upon his face. Just now, stopping short before Fabian, he drops into a seat and says, testily, "Unfortunate! that is no word to use about it. Why, look you how it stands; you invite people to your house to dine, and on your way to your dining-room, with a lady on your arm, you are accosted and insolently addressed by one of your household – your secretary, forsooth —so drunk that it was shameful! He reeled! I give you my word, sir – he reeled! I thought Lady Chetwoode would have fainted: she turned as pale as her gown, and but for her innate pluck would have cried aloud. It was insufferable, Fabian. Waste no more words over him, for go he shall."
"After all these years," says Fabian, thoughtfully, thrumming gently on the table near him with his forefinger.
All night long the storm has raged with unexampled fury, and even yet its anger is fierce and high as when first it hurled itself upon a sleeping world. The raindrops are pattering madly against the window-panes, through the barren branches of the elms the wind is shrieking, now rising far above the heads of the tallest trees, now descending to the very bosom of the earth, and, flying over it, drives before its mighty breath all such helpless things as are defenceless and at its mercy.
Perhaps the noise of this tempest outside drowns the keen sense of hearing in those within, because neither Fabian nor Sir Christopher stir, or appear at all conscious of the opening of a door at the upper end of the library, where they are sitting. It is a small door hidden by a portière leading into another corridor that connects itself with the servants' part of the house.
As this door is gently pushed open, a head protrudes itself cautiously into the room, though, on account of the hanging curtains, it is quite invisible to the other occupants of the apartment. A figure follows the head, and stands irresolutely on the threshold, concealed from observation, not only by the curtain, but by a Japanese screen that is placed just behind Sir Christopher's head.
It is a crouching, forlorn, debased figure, out of which all manliness and fearlessness have gone. A figure crowned by gray hair, yet gaining no reverence thereby, but rather an additional touch of degradation. There is, too, an air of despondency and alarm about this figure to-day new to it. It looks already an outcast, a miserable waif, turned out to buffet with the angry winds of fortune at the very close of his life's journey. There is a wildness in his bloodshot eyes, and a nervous tremor in his bony hand, as it clutches at the curtain for support, that betrays the haunting terror that is desolating him.
"I don't care," says Sir Christopher, obdurately. "I have suffered too much at his hands; I owe him nothing but discomfort. I tell you my mind is made up, Fabian; he leaves me at once, and forever."
At this, the crouching figure in the doorway shivers, and shakes his wretched old head, as though all things for him are at an end. The storm seems to burst with redoubled fury, and flings itself against the panes, as though calling upon him to come out and be their pastime and their sport.
"My dear Sir Christopher," says Fabian, very quietly, yet with an air of decision that can be heard above the fury of the storm, "it is impossible you can turn the old man out now, at his age, to again solicit Fortune's favor. It would be terrible."
At this calm, but powerful intervention of Fabian's, the old head in the doorway (bowed with fear and anxiety) raises itself abruptly, as though unable to believe the words that have just fallen upon his ears. He has crept here to listen with a morbid longing to contemptuous words uttered of him by the lips that have just spoken; and lo! these very lips have been opened in his behalf, and naught but kindly words have issued from them.
As the truth breaks in upon his dulled brain that Fabian has actually been defending his —his case, a ghastly pallor overspreads his face, and it is with difficulty he suppresses a groan. He controls himself, however, and listens eagerly for what may follow.
"Do you mean to tell me I am bound to keep a depraved drunkard beneath my roof?" demands Sir Christopher, vehemently. "A fellow who insults my guests, who – "
"The fact that he has contracted this miserable habit of which you speak is only another reason why you should think well before you discard him now, in his old age," says Fabian, with increasing earnestness. "He will starve – die in a garret or by the wayside, if you fling him off. He is not in a fit state to seek another livelihood. Who would employ him? And you he has served faithfully for years – twenty years, I think; and of all the twenty only three or four have been untrustworthy. You should think of that, Christopher. He was your right hand fur a long time, and – and he has done neither you nor yours a real injury."
Here the unhappy figure in the doorway raises his hand and beats his clenched fist in a half-frantic, though silent, manner against his forehead.
"You are bound, I think," says Fabian, in the same calm way, "to look after him, to bear with him a little."
"You defend him!" exclaims Sir Christopher, irritably, "yet I believe that in his soul he hates you – would do you a harm if he could. It is his treatment of you at times," says Sir Christopher, coming at last to the real germ of the danger he is cherishing against Slyme, "that – that – Remember what he said only last week about you."
"Tut!" says Fabian, "I remember nothing. He was drunk, no doubt, and said what he did not mean."
"I believe he did mean it. In vino veritas."
"Well, even so; if he does believe in the story that has blasted my life, why" – with a sigh – "so do many others. I don't think the poor old fellow would really work me any mischief, but I doubt I have been harsh to him at times, have accused him somewhat roughly, I dare say, of his unfortunate failing; and for that, it may be, he owes me a grudge. Nothing more. His bark is worse than his bite. It is my opinion, Christopher, that underneath his sullen exterior there lurks a great deal of good."
The trembling figure in the doorway is growing more and more bowed. It seems now as if it would gladly sink into the earth through very shame. His hand has left the curtain and is now clinging to the lintel of the door, as though anxious of more support than the soft velvet of the portière could afford.
"Well, as you seem bent on supporting a most unworthy object," says Sir Christopher, "I shall pension Slyme, and send him adrift to drink himself to death as soon as suits him."
"Why do that?" says Fabian, as quietly as ever, but with all the determination that characterizes his every word and action. "This house is large, and can hide him somewhere. Besides, he is accustomed to it, and would probably feel lost elsewhere. He has been here for the third of a lifetime – a long, long time." (He sighs again. Is he bringing to mind the terrible length of the days that have made up the sum of the last five years of his life?) "Give him two rooms in the West wing, it is seldom used, and give him to understand he must remain there; but do not cast him out now that he is old and helpless."
At this last gentle mark of thoughtfulness on Fabian's part the figure in the doorway loses all self-control. With a stifled cry he flings his arms above his head, and staggers away down the corridor outside to his own den.
"What was that?" asks Sir Christopher, quickly; the smothered cry had reached his ears.
"What? I heard nothing," says Fabian, looking up.
"The storm, perhaps," says his uncle, absently. Then, after a pause, "Why do you so strongly espouse this man's cause, Fabian?"
"Because from my soul I pity him. He has had many things of late to try him. The death of his son a year ago, upon whom every thought of his heart was centered, was a terrible blow, and then this wretched passion for strong drink having first degraded, has, of course, finished by embittering his nature. I do not blame him. He has known much misfortune."
Sir Christopher, going up to him, places his hands upon the young man's shoulder and gazes earnestly, with love unutterable, in his eyes. His own are full of tears.
"No misfortune, however heavy, can embitter a noble nature," he says, gently. "One knows that when one knows you. For your sake, Fabian – because you ask it – Slyme shall remain."
It grows towards evening, and still the rain descends in torrents. Small rivers are running on the gravel-walks outside, the snow-drops and crocuses are all dead or dying, crushed and broken by the cruel wind.
Down below in the bay the sea has risen, and with a roaring sound rushes inland to dash itself against the rocks. Now and then a flash of lightning illumines its turbulent breast and lets one see how the "ambitious ocean" can "swell, and rage, and foam, to be exalted with the threatening clouds." The sailors and boatmen generally, in the small village, are going anxiously to and fro, as though fearful of what such a night as this may produce.
Now a loud peal of thunder rattles overhead, rendering insignificant the wild howling of the wind that only a moment since had almost been deafening. And then the thunder dies away for a while, and the storm shrieks again, and the windows rattle, and the gaunt trees groan and sway, and the huge drops upon the window panes beating incessantly, make once more a "mournful music for the mind."
They are all assembled in Dulce's boudoir, being under the impression, perhaps, that while the present incivility of the elements continues, it is cosier to be in a small room than a large one. It may be this, or the fact that both Dulce and Portia have declined to come down stairs or enter any other room, until dinner shall be announced, under any pretext whatever. And so as the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed has come to the mountain.
Sir Christopher has just gone through an exaggerated resume of old Slyme's disgraceful conduct last night, when the door is opened, and they all become aware that the hero of the story is standing before them.
Yes, there stands Gregory Slyme, pale, breathless, and with one hand already uplifted, as though to deprecate censure, and to stay the order to "begone," that he plainly expects from every lip.
"Why, he is here again!" cries Sir Christopher, now incensed beyond measure. "Even my niece's room is not safe from him."
He points angrily to the secretary, who cowers before his angry look, yet shows no intention of retiring. With all his air of hopeless sottishness, that clings to him like a spotted garment, there is still something strange about the man that attracts the attention of Mark Gore. He has been closely watching him ever since his entrance, and he can see that the head usually buried in the chest is now uplifted, that in the sunken eyes there is a new meaning, a fire freshly kindled, born of acute mental disturbance; and indeed in his whole bearing there is a settled purpose very foreign to it.
"Hear me, hear me!" he entreats, with quivering accents, but passionate haste. "Do not send me away yet, I must speak now – now, or never!"
The final word sinks almost out of hearing. His hands fall to his sides. Once again his head sinks to its old place upon his breast. Sir Christopher, believing him to be again under the influence of drink, opens his lips with the evident intention of ordering him from his presence, when Sir Mark interposes.
"He has come to say something. Let him say it," he says, tapping Sir Christopher's arm persuasively.
"Ay, let me," says Slyme, in a low tone, yet always with the remnant of a wasted passion in it. "It has lain heavy on my heart for years. I shall fling it from me now, if the effort to do it kills me."
Turning his bleared eyes right and left, he searches every face slowly until he comes to Fabian. Here his examination comes to an end. Fastening his eyes on Fabian, he lets them rest there, and never again removes them during the entire interview. He almost seems to forget, or to be unaware, that there is any other soul in the room, save the man at whom he is gazing so steadfastly. It is to him alone he addresses himself.
"I call you to witness," he says, now striking himself upon his breast, "that whatever I have done has not gone unpunished. If my crime has been vile, my sufferings have been terrible. I have endured torments. I want no sympathy – none. I expect only detestation and revenge, but yet I would have you remember that there was a time when I was a man, not the soddened, brutish, contemptible thing I have become. I would ask you to call to mind all you have ever heard about remorse; its stings, its agony, its despair, and I would have you know that I have felt it all; yea, more, a thousand times more!"
All this time he has had his hand pressed against his chest in a rigid fashion. His lips have grown livid, his face pale as any corpse.
"This is mere raving," exclaims Sir Christopher, excitedly; but again Gore restrains him as he would have gone forward to order Slyme to retire.
"To-day," goes on Slyme, always with his heavy eyes on Fabian, "I heard you speak in my defence —mine! Sir, if you could only know how those words of yours burned into my heart, how they have burned since, how they are burning now," smiting himself, "you would be half avenged. I listened to you till my brain could bear no more. You spoke kindly of me, you had pity on my old age – upon mine, who had no pity on your youth, who ruthlessly ruined your life, who – "
"Man, if you have anything to confess – to explain —say it!" breaks in Sir Mark, vehemently, who is half mad with hope and expectancy.
Portia has risen from her low seat, and forgetful or regardless of comment, is gazing with large, white eyes at the old man. Sir Christopher has grasped Mark Gore's arm with almost painful force, and is trembling so violently that Gore places his other arm gently round him, and keeps it there as a support. All, more or less, are agitated. Fabian alone makes no movement; with a face white to the very lips, he stands with his back against the mantelpiece, facing Slyme, so motionless that he might be a figure carved in marble.
Really deaf and blind to all except Fabian, the secretary takes no heed of Sir Mark's violent outburst. He has paused, indeed, at the interruption, some vague sense telling him he will not be heard while it continues, but now it has subsided he goes on again, addressing himself solely to Fabian, as though it had never occurred.
"It was for him I did it, for his sake," he says, monotonously. He is losing his head a little now, and his mind is wandering back to earlier days. "For my boy, my son – to save him. It was a sore temptation; and he never knew, he never knew." A gleam of something like comfort comes into his eyes as he says this.
"What did you do?" demands Dicky Browne, in an agony of hope and doubt. "Can't you say it at once and be done with it? Speak out, man —do!"
"Curse me! Kill me if you will!" cries Slyme, with sudden vehemence, stretching out his hands to Fabian, and still deaf to any voice but his. "You have been deceived, falsely accused, most treacherously dealt with. It was I forged that check – not you!"
The miserable man, as he makes this confession, falls upon his knees and covers his face with his hands.
A terrible cry bursts from Dulce; she springs to her feet, and would have rushed to Fabian but that Roger, catching her in his arms, prevents her. And indeed, it is no time to approach Fabian. He has wakened at last into life out of his curious calm, and the transition from his extreme quietude of a moment since to the state of ungovernable passion in which he now finds himself is as swift as it is dangerous.
"You!" he says, staring at the abject figure kneeling before him, in a tone so low as to be almost inaudible, yet with such an amount of condensed fury in it as terrifies the listeners. "You!" He makes a step forward as though he would verily fall upon his enemy and rend him in pieces, and so annihilate him from the face of the earth; but before he can touch him, a slight body throws itself between him and Slyme, and two small, white hands are laid upon his breast. These little hands, small and powerless as they are, yet have strength to force him backwards.
"Think," says Portia, in a painful whisper. "Think! Fabian, you would not harm that old man."
"My dear fellow, don't touch him," says Dicky Browne. "Don't. In your present frame of mind a gentle push of yours would be his death."
"Death!" says old Slyme, in such a strange voice that instinctively they all listen to him. "It has no terrors for me." He has raised his head from his hands, and is now gazing again at Fabian, as though fascinated, making a wretched and withal a piteous picture, as his thin white locks stream behind him. "What have I to live for?" he cries, miserably. "The boy I slaved for, sinned for, for whom I ruined you and my own soul, is dead, cold in his grave. Have pity on me, therefore, and send me where I may rejoin him."
Either the excitement of his confession, or the nervous dread of the result of it, has proved too much for him; because just as the last word passes his lips, he flings his arms wildly into the air, and, with a muffled cry, falls prone, a senseless mass, upon the ground.
When they lift him, they find clutched in his hand a written statement of all he has confessed so vaguely. They are very gentle in their treatment of him, but when he has recovered consciousness and has been carried by the servants to his own room, it must be acknowledged that they all breathe more freely.
Sir Christopher is crying like a child, and so is Dicky Browne. The tears are literally running in little rivulets all down Dicky's plump cheeks, but he is not in the least ashamed of them – as indeed, why should he be? As in between his sobs he insists on telling everybody he is so glad – so awfully glad, his apparent grief, had they been in the mood for it, would have struck them all as being extremely comic.
The effect of their tears upon the women has the most desirable result. It first surprises, and then soothes them inexpressibly. It leaves indeed a new field entirely open to them. Instead of being petted, they can pet.
Julia instantly undertakes Dicky, who doesn't quite like it; Dulce appropriates Sir Christopher, who likes it very much.
Fabian, now that his one burst of passion is at an end, is again strangely silent. Mark Gore, laying his hand upon his shoulder, says something to him in a low tone unheard by the rest, who are all talking together and so making a solitude for these two.
"It is too late," says Fabian, replying to him slowly; "too late." There is more of settled conviction than of bitterness in his tone, which only renders it the more melancholy. "He was right. He has ruined my life. Were I to live twice the allotted time given to man, I should never forget these last five horrible years. They have killed me; that is, the best of me. I tell you, deliverance has come too late!"
Even as his voice dies away another rises.
"Do not say that —anything but that," entreats Portia, in deep agitation. Once more this evening she lays her small, jeweled hand upon his breast and looks into his eyes. "Fabian, there is renewed hope, a fresh life before you; take courage. Remember – Oh, Mark, speak to him!"
She is trembling violently, and her breath is coming with suspicious difficulty. Her lips are quivering, and pain, actual physical pain, dimming the lustre of her violet eyes. The old ache is tugging angrily at her heart strings now.
Still Fabian does not relent. As yet the very salve that has cured his hurt has only made the hurt more unendurable by dragging it into public notice. Now that he is free, emancipated from the shadow of this crime that has encompassed him as a cloud for so long, its proportions seem to grow and increase until they reach a monstrous size. To have been wounded in the body, or deprived of all one's earthly goods at a stroke, or bereaved of one's nearest and dearest, would all have been sore trials no doubt. But, alas! to make him a fixed figure for scorn to point his slow, unmoving finger at. What agony, with misfortune, could cope with that?
And she, who had not trusted him when she might, will he care that she should trust him now when she must?
Slowly he lifts the pale, slender hand, and very gently lets it fall by her side. His meaning is not to be misunderstood; he will none of her. Henceforth their paths shall lie as widely apart as they have lain (of her own choice) for the past few months.
"I repeat it," he says, quietly, letting his eyes rest for a moment upon hers, "it is too late!"
And outside the wild winds, flying past with an even fiercer outbreak of wrath, seem to echo those fatal words, "Too late!" The very rain, being full of them, seeks to dash them against the window panes. A sudden roar of thunder resounding overhead comes as a fit adjunct to the despair embodied in them. All nature is awake, and the air seems full of its death-knells.
Portia, sick at heart, moves silently away.