A Double Knot
Vidler had been a drummer in his regiment, she had heard, and he had devoted himself to the master who had fetched him in when lying wounded under fire; and in due time Vidler had married and brought his little wife to the house, the couple never leaving it except on some emergency, but growing to like the darkness in which they dwelt, and sternly doing their duty by him they served.
“Poor uncle!” sighed Gertrude, as she thought of his desolate life, and her own sad position. “I wonder who it was he loved.”
As the thought crossed her mind, there was a slight noise in the next room, like the tapping of a stick upon the floor, and Gertrude laid her hand upon her sister’s arm.
Then the noise ceased, and the little panel, about a foot square, before which the flowers had been placed, was drawn aside, seeming to run into a groove.
The sisters did not move, but waited, knowing from old experience that at a word or movement on their part the panel would be clapped impatiently to, and that their visit would be a fruitless one.
A stranger would have thought of rats and the action of one of those rodents in what took place; for now that the panel had been slid back, all remained perfectly still, as if the mover were listening and watching. Then at last a thin, very white hand appeared, lifted the flowers out of the bowl, and they disappeared.
There was not even a rustling noise heard for a few minutes, during which the sisters sat patiently waiting.
At last there was a faint sigh; and a cold – so to speak, colourless – voice said:
“Is Gertrude there?”
“Yes, dear uncle,” said the young girl eagerly.
“Anyone else?”
“I am here too, dear uncle,” said Renée.
“Hah! I am glad to hear you, my children – glad to hear you. How is my brother?”
“Papa is not very well, uncle,” said Gertrude. “Poor dear, his cough is very troublesome.”
“Poor Humphrey! he is so weak,” said the voice, in the same cold, monotonous way that was almost repulsive in its chilling tone. “Tell him, when he is well enough, he can come and talk to me for half an hour. I cannot bear more.”
“Yes, dear uncle, I will tell him,” said Renée.
Then there was another pause, and at last the thin white hand stole cautiously forth, half covered with a lace frill, and the cold voice said:
“Renée!”
The young wife left her seat, went forward, took it in her ungloved hand, and kissed it. Then she returned to her place, and the voice said:
“Gertrude!”
The young girl went through the same performance, and as she loosed it, the hand was passed gently over both her cheeks, and then withdrawn, when Gertrude returned to her seat, and there was again silence.
“You are not happy, Renée,” said the voice at last, in its cold measured accents; “there was a tear on my hand.”
Renée sighed, but made no reply.
“Gertrude, child, I like duty towards parents; but I think a daughter goes too far when, at their wish, she marries a man she does not love.”
“Oh, uncle dear,” cried Gertrude hysterically, “pray, pray, do not talk like this!”
She made a brave effort to keep back her tears, and partially succeeded, for Renée softly knelt down by her side and drew her head close to her breast.
“Poor children!” said the voice again. “I am sorry, but I cannot help you. You must help yourselves.”
There was a nervous, querulous tone in the voice now, as if the suppressed sobs that faintly rose troubled the speaker, but it had passed when the voice was heard once more in a quiet way, more like an appeal than a command:
“Sing to me.”
The sisters rose and went to a very old-fashioned grand piano, opened it, and Gertrude’s fingers swept the wiry jangling chords which sounded quite in keeping with the room; then, subduing the music as much as possible, so that their fresh young voices dominated, rising and falling in a rich harmony that floated through the room, they sang the old, old duet, “Flow on, thou shining river.” Every note seemed to have in it the sadness of age, the mournful blending of the bygone when hope was young and disappointment and care had not crushed with a load of misery a heart once fresh as those of the singers.
A deep sigh came from the little panel, unheard, though, by the two girls, and the hand appeared once more for the thin white fingers to tap the wood gently in unison with the music, which was inexpressibly sweet, though sad.
For how is it that those melodies of the past, even though major, seemed to acquire a mournful tone that is not minor, but has all its sad sweetness? Take what pathetic air you will of a generation or two back, and see if it has not acquired within your knowledge a power of drawing tears that it had not in the days of old.
From the simple duet, first one and then the other glided to the old-fashioned ditties popular thirty or forty years before. “Those evening bells,” “Waters of Elle,” and the like, till, without thinking, Gertrude began “Love not,” her sweet young voice sounding intensely pathetic as she went on, gradually gathering inspiration from the words, till in the midst of the sweetest, most appealing strain, she uttered a cry of misery, and threw herself sobbing into her sister’s arms.
“Oh, Gerty, darling, why did you sing that?” whispered Renée, trying to soothe her, as her own tears fell fast, but for a few minutes in vain, till by a brave effort Gertrude got the better of her hysterical feelings, and, hastily wiping her eyes, glanced towards the panel, where the bowl of water stood upon the bracket, but the opening was closed.
The sisters looked piteously at one another, and Renée whispered:
“Speak to him. Tell him you did not wish to make him angry.”
Gertrude glided to the panel, and, stifling a sob, she said softly:
“Uncle, dear uncle, do not be cross with me – I am very sorry. I was so miserable.”
There was no reply – no sound to indicate that the words had been heard; and after waiting for about a quarter of an hour the two girls crossed to the door, went slowly out, and found that they had had an audience in the shape of Valentine Vidler and his wife, who had been seated upon the stairs.
“Thank you, my dears,” said Salome, nodding and smiling. “We like to hear you sing. You have made a very long stay to-day, and his lunch is quite ready.”
The sisters were too heartsore to trust themselves to say much, and Vidler opened the door for them, admitting as little light as he could by closing it directly and going to assist his wife.
“Renée,” said Gertrude as they reached the square, “do you remember what Uncle Robert said?”
“Yes. He could not help us – we must help ourselves.”
“Then” – There was a pause.
“Yes, dear, what?”
“I’m sure mamma is planning for me to marry Lord Henry Moorpark.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“And I’m sure, Ren dear, he’s a dear, amiable, nice old man; but if he proposes I never will say ‘Yes’.”
There was another pause, and then Renée smiled, passed her arm round her handsome sister’s neck, and kissed her lovingly.
“Have you got John Huish very bad?” she whispered.
Gertrude’s cheeks were crimson, and the colour flushed into her neck as she flung her arms round her sister and hid her face on her breast.
Volume One – Chapter Five.
Dr Stonor’s Patient
“The doctor at home?”
This to a quiet, sedate-looking man in livery, who opened the door of one of the serious-looking houses in Finsbury Circus, where, upon a very shiny brass plate, were in Roman letters the words “Dr Stonor.” There was not much in those few black letters, but many a visitor had gone up the carefully-whitened steps, gazed at them, stepped down again with a curious palpitation of the heart, and walked right round the Circus two or three times to gain composure enough before once more ascending the steps and knocking at the door.
There had been cases – not a few – where visitors had spent weeks in making up their minds to go to Dr Stonor, and had reached his doorstep only to hurry back home quite unable to face him, and then suffer in secret perhaps for months to come.
For what would that interview reveal? That the peculiar sensations or pains were due to some trifling disorganisation that a guinea and a prescription would set right, or that the seeds of some fatal disease had begun to shoot?
Daniel, factotum to Dr Stonor, had been standing like a spider watching at the slip of a window beside the door waiting for sick flies to come into the doctor’s net.
“Old game!” said Daniel to himself, as he drew back from the window to observe unseen, and without moving a muscle in his face. For it was Daniel’s peculiarity that he never did move the muscles of his face. He would hold a patient for his master during a painful operation, be scolded, badgered, see harrowing scenes, receive vails, hear praise or abuse of the doctor – for these are both applied to medicine men – and all without making a sign, losing his nerve, or being elated. Daniel was always the same – clean, quiet, self-possessed; and he had seen handsome fair-bearded John Huish descend from a cab, walk up to the door, pass by and go slowly and thoughtfully on, passing his hand over his thick golden beard, looking very tall, manly, and unpatientlike, as he passed on round the Circus.
“He’ll be back in ten minutes,” said Daniel to himself, as he admitted a regular patient and once more closed the door. It was a quarter of an hour, though, before John Huish came to the house, asked if the doctor was at home, was shown into the waiting-room, and in due course came face to face with the keen, grey, big-headed, clever-looking little practitioner.
“Ah, Huish, my dear boy! Glad to see you, John. Sit down. This is kind of you, to look me up. I’ve only just come back from a fishing trip – trouting. Old habit. Down this way?”
“Well, no, doctor,” said the young man hesitatingly. “The fact is, I came to consult you.”
“Glad of it. I was the first person who ever took hold of your little hand, and the tiny fingers clutched one of mine as if you trusted me. And you always kept it up – eh? I’m very glad.”
“Glad, sir?”
“Of course I am,” said the doctor, taking out his keys and unlocking a drawer. “What is it, my boy – a little cheque?”
“Oh dear no, doctor.”
“Nothing serious, I hope.”
“I hope not. I thought I would consult you.”
“That’s right, my lad. Well, what is it? Going to buy a horse – speculate in the funds – try a yachting trip?”
“My dear sir,” said Huish, smiling, “you do not understand me. I am afraid I am ill.”
“Ill? You? Ill?” said the doctor, jumping up and laying his hands on the young man’s shoulders as he gazed into his frank, earnest eyes. “Get up, Jack. You were almost my first baby, and I was very proud of you. Finest built little fellow I ever saw. There, put out your tongue” – he was obeyed – “let’s feel your pulse” – this was done – “here, let me listen at your chest. Pull a long, deep breath;” and the doctor listened, made him pull off his coat and clapped his ear to his back, rumpled his shirt-front as he tapped and punched him all over, concluding by giving the visitor a back-handed slap in the chest, and resuming his seat, exclaiming:
“Why, you young humbug, what do you mean by coming here with such a cock-and-bull story? Your physique is perfect. You are as sound as a bell. You are somewhere about thirty years old, and you are a deuced good-looking young fellow. What do you want?”
“You take my breath away, doctor,” said the young man, smiling. “I want to explain.”
“Explain away, then, my dear boy; but, for goodness’ sake, don’t be such an ass as to think the first time you are a bit bilious, or hipped, or melancholy, that you are ill. Oh, by the way, while I think of it, I had a letter from your people yesterday. They want me to have a run down to Shropshire.”
“Why not go?”
“Again? I can’t. Fifty people want me, and they would swear to a man if I went away that I was indirectly murdering them. But come, I keep on chattering. Now then, I say, what’s the matter? In love?”
The colour deepened a little on the white forehead, and the visitor replied quietly:
“I should not consult a physician for that ailment. The fact is, that for some while past I have felt as if my memory were going.”
“Tut! nonsense!”
“At times it seems as if a perfect cloud were drawn between the present and the past. I can’t account for it – I do not understand it; but things I have done one week are totally forgotten by me the next.”
“If they are bad things, so much the better.”
“You treat it very lightly, sir, but it troubles me a great deal.”
“My dear boy, I would not treat it lightly if I thought there was anything in it; but you do not and never have displayed a symptom of brain disease, neither have your father and mother before you. You are not dissipated.”
“Oh no! I never – ”
“You may spare yourself the trouble of talking, John, my boy. I could tell in a moment if you had a bit of vice in you, and I know you have not. But come, my lad: to be serious, what has put this crotchet into your head?”
“Crotchet or no,” said the young man sadly, “I have for months past been tormented with fears that I have something wrong in the head – incipient insanity, or idiocy, if you like to call it so.”
“I don’t like to call it anything of the kind, John Huish,” said the doctor tartly, “because it’s all nonsense. I have not studied insanity for the last five-and-twenty years without knowing something about it; so you may dismiss that idea from your mind. But come, let’s know something more about this terrible bugbear.”
“Bugbear if you like, doctor, but here is the case. Every now and then I have people – friends, acquaintances – reminding me of things I have promised – engagements I have made – and which I have not kept.”
“What sort of engagements?” said the doctor.
“Well, generally about little bets, or games at cards.”
“That you owe money on?”
“Yes,” said Huish eagerly. “I have again and again been asked for money that I owe.”
“Or are said to owe,” said the doctor drily.
“Oh, there is no doubt about it,” said Huish. “About a twelvemonth ago, when this sort of thing began – ”
“What sort of thing?” said the doctor.
“These lapses of memory,” replied Huish. “Oh!”
“I used to be annoyed, and denied them, till I began to be scouted by the men I knew; and at last one or two of them brought unimpeachable witnesses to prove that I was in the wrong.”
“Oh, John Huish, my dear boy, how can you let yourself be imposed upon so easily!”
“There is no imposition, I assure you. I give you the facts.”
“Facts! Did you ever know anyone come and tell you that he owed you money, and pay you?”
“Yes, half a dozen times over – heavier amounts than I have had to pay.”
“Humph! that’s strange,” said the doctor, looking curiously at his visitor.
“Strange? – it’s fearful!” cried the young man passionately. “It is getting to be a curse to me, and I cannot shake off the horrible feeling that I am losing my mind – that I am going wrong. And if this be the case, I cannot bear it, especially just now, when – ”
He checked himself, and gazed piteously at the man to whom he had come for help.
“Be cool, boy. Supposing it is as you say, it is only a trifle, perhaps; but it seems to me that there is a great deal of imagination in it.”
“Oh no – oh no! I fear I am going, slowly but surely, out of my mind.”
“Because you forget things after a certain time, eh? Stuff! Don’t be foolish. Why, you never used to think that your brain was going wrong when you were a schoolboy, and every word of the lesson that you knew perfectly and said verbatim to a schoolfellow dropped out of your mind.”
“No.”
“Of course you did not; and as to going mad, why, my dear boy, have you any idea what a lunatic is?”
“I cannot say that I have.”
“Well, then, you shall have,” said the doctor; “and that will do you more good than all my talking. You shall see for yourself what a diseased mind really is, and that will strengthen you mentally, and show you how ill-advised are your fancies.”
“But, doctor, I should not like to be a witness of the sufferings of others.”
“Nonsense, my boy. There, pray don’t imagine, because I live at Highgate, and am licenced to have so many insane patients under my care, that you are going to see horrible creatures dressed in straw and grovelling in cells. My dear John, I am going to ask you to a mad dinner-party.”
“A mad dinner-party?”
“Well, there, to come and dine with my sister, myself, and our patients. No people hung in chains or straw. Perfectly quiet gentlemen, my dear fellow, but each troubled with a craze. You would not know that they had anything wrong if they did not break out now and then upon the particular subject. Come to-night at seven sharp.”
The doctor glanced at his watch, rose, and held out his hand; and though John Huish hesitated, the doctor’s eyes seemed to force him to say that he would be there, and he began to feel for his purse.
“Look here, sir,” said the doctor, stopping him: “if you are feeling for fees, don’t insult your father’s old friend by trying to offer him one. There, till seven – say half-past six – and I’ll give you a glass of burgundy, my boy, that shall make you forget all these imaginations.”
“Thank you, doctor – ”
“Not another word, sir, but au revoir.”
“Au revoir,” said Huish; and he was shown out, to go back to his chambers thinking about his ailment – and Gertrude, while the doctor began to muse.
“Strange that I should take so much interest in that boy. Heigho! Some years now since I went fly-fishing, and fished his father out of the pit.”
Volume One – Chapter Six.
Aunt Philippa on Matrimony
“Will you speak, Isabella, or shall I?”
“If you please, Philippa, will you?” said her sister with frigid politeness.
The Honourable Miss Dymcox motioned to her nieces to seat themselves, and they sat down.
Then there was a sharp premonitory “Hem!” and a long pause, during which the thoughts of the young ladies went astray.
“I wonder what that officer’s name is,” thought Clotilde, “and whether that good-looking boy is his squire?”
Rather a romantic notion this, by the way, and it gave Marcus Glen in the young lady’s ideas the position of knight; but it was excusable, for her life had been secluded in the extreme.
“What a very handsome man that dark officer was that we nearly met! but I don’t like his looks,” mused Marie; and then, as Ruth was thinking that she would rather be getting on with some of the needlework that fell to her share than listening to her aunt’s lecture – one of the periodical discourses it was their fate to hear – there was another sharp “Hem!”
“Marriage,” said the Honourable Miss Dymcox, “is an institution that has existed from the earliest ages of the world.”
Had a bomb-shell suddenly fallen into the chilly, meanly-furnished drawing-room, where every second article seemed to wear a brown-holland pinafore, and the frame of the old-fashioned mirror was tightly draped in yellow canvas, the young ladies could not have looked more astonished.
In their virgin innocency the word “marriage” had been tabooed to them, and consequently was never mentioned, being a subject held to be unholy for the young people’s ears.
Certainly there were times when the wedding of some lady they knew was canvassed; but it was with extreme delicacy, and not in the downright fashion of Miss Philippa’s present speech.
“Ages of the world,” assented the Honourable Isabella, opening a pale drab fan, and using it gently, as if the subject made her warm.
“And,” continued Miss Philippa, “I think it right to speak to you children, now that you are verging upon womanhood, because it is possible that some day or another you might either of you receive a proposal.”
“That sun-browned officer with the heavy moustache,” thought Clotilde, whose cheeks began to glow. “She thinks he may try to be introduced. Oh, I wish he may!”
“When your poor – I say it with tears, Isabella.”
“Yes, sister, with tears,” assented that lady.
“I am addressing you, Clotilde and Marie,” continued Miss Philippa. “You, Ruth, of course cannot be answerable for the stroke of fate which placed you in our hands, an adopted child.”
“An adopted child,” said Miss Isabella, closing her fan, for the moral atmosphere seemed cooler.
“When your poor mother, your poor, weak mamma, children, wantonly and recklessly, and in opposition to the wishes of all her relatives, insisted upon marrying Mr Julian Riversley, who was never even acknowledged by any member of our family – ”
“I remember papa as being very handsome, and with dark hair,” said Marie.
“Marie!” exclaimed the Honourable Misses Dymcox in a breath. “I am surprised at you!”
“Tray be silent, child,” added Miss Philippa.
“Yes, aunt.”
“I say your poor mamma must have known that she was degrading the whole family – degrading us, Isabella.”
“Yes, sister, degrading us,” assented that lady.
“By marrying a penniless man of absolutely no birth.”
“Whatever,” assented Miss Isabella.
“As I have often told you, children, it was during the corrupting times of the Commonwealth that the lineal descendants of Sir Guy Dymcoques – the s not sounded, my dears – allowed the family name to be altered into Dymcox, which by letters patent was made imperative, and the proper patronymic has never been restored to its primitive orthography. It is a blot on our family history to which I will no more allude.”
Miss Isabella allowed the fan to fall into her lap, and accentuated the hollowness of her thin cheek by pressing it in with one pointed finger.
“To resume,” said Miss Philippa, while her nieces watched her with wondering eyes: “our dear sister Delia, your poor mamma, repented bitterly for her weakness in marrying a poor man – your papa, children – and being taken away to a dreary place in Central France, where your papa had the management of a very leaden silver-mine, which only produced poverty. The sufferings to which Mr Julian Riversley exposed your poor mamma were dreadful, my dears. And,” continued Miss Philippa, dotting each eye with her handkerchief, which was not moistened, “your poor mamma died. She was killed, I might say, by the treatment of your papa; but ‘De mortuis,’ Isabella?”
“‘Nil nisi bonum,’” sighed the Honourable Isabella.
“Exactly, sister,” continued the Honourable Philippa – “died like several of your unfortunate baby brothers and sisters, my dears; and shortly after – four years exactly, was it not, Isabella?”
“Three years and eleven months, sister.”
“Thank you, Isabella. Mr Julian Riversley either fell down that lead-mine or threw himself there in remorse for having deluded a female scion of the ancient house of Dymcoques to follow his fortunes into a far-off land. He was much like you in physique, my dears, but I am glad to say not in disposition – thanks to our training and that of your mamma’s spiritual instructor, Mr Paul Montaigne, to whom dearest Delia entrusted you, and to whom your repentant – I hope – papa gave the sacred charge of bringing you to England to share the calmness of our peaceful home.”
“Peaceful home,” assented Miss Isabella.
“I need hardly tell you, children, that the Riversleys were, or are, nobodies of whom we know nothing – never can know anything.”
“Whatever,” assented Miss Isabella.
“To us they do not exist – neither will they for you, my dears. We believe that Mr Julian had a sister who married a Mr Huish; that is all we know.”
“All we know,” assented Miss Isabella.
“I will say nothing of the tax it has been upon us in connection with our limited income. A grateful country, recognising the services of papa, placed these apartments at our disposal. In consideration of the thoughtfulness of the offer, we accepted these apartments – thirty-five years ago, I think, Isabella?”
“Thirty-five years and a half, sister.”
“Exactly; and we have been here ever since, so that we have been spared the unpleasantry of paying a rent. But I need not continue that branch of my subject. What I wish to impress upon you, children, is the fact that in spite of your poor mamma’s mésalliance, you are of the family of Dymcoques, and that it is your duty to endeavour to raise, and not degrade, our noble house. I think I am following out the proper line of argument, Isabella?”