Part 49 (1/2)
Mr. Girdlestone, he lifted you up, an' carried you back into your room.
He was cut to the heart, the good gentleman, when he saw what you'd been after, a-tryin' to give him the slip.”
”Oh, this dreadful house will kill me--it will kill me!” Kate moaned.
”I cannot stay in it any longer. What shall I do? Oh, Rebecca, Rebecca, what shall I do?”
The fresh-coloured maid came across with a simper upon her pretty, vulgar face, and sat on the side of the bed. ”What's the matter, then?”
she asked. ”What is it that you have seen?”
”I have seen--oh, Rebecca, it is too dreadful to talk of. I have seen that poor monk who was killed in the cellars. It was not fancy. I saw him as plainly as I see you now, with his tall thin figure, and long loose gown, and the brown cowl drawn over his face.”
”G.o.d preserve us!” cried Rebecca nervously, glancing over her shoulder.
”It is enough to give one the creeps.”
”I pray that I may never see such a sight again. Oh, Rebecca, if you have the heart of a woman, help me to get away from this place.
They mean that I should never go from it alive. I have read it in my guardian's eyes. He longs for my death. Do, do tell me what I should do for the best.”
”I'm surprised at you!” the maid said with dignity. ”When Mr.
Girdlestone and Mr. Ezra is so good to you, and provides you with a country-house and every convenience as 'eart could wish, all you can find to do is to go screamin' about at night, and then talk as if you was a-goin' to be murdered in the day. I really am surprised.
There's Mr. Girdlestone a-callin.' He'd be shocked, poor gentleman, if he knew how you was abusin' of him.” Rebecca's face a.s.sumed an expression of virtuous indignation as she swept out of the room, but her black eyes shone with the unholy light of cruelty and revenge.
Left to herself, Kate rose and dressed as well as her weakness would permit. Her nerves were so shaken that she started at the least sound, and she could hardly recognize the poor pale face which she saw in the gla.s.s as her own. She had scarcely finished her toilet before her guardian came up into her room.
”You are better, then?” he said.
”I am very ill,” she answered gently.
”No wonder, after rus.h.i.+ng about the corridors in that absurd fas.h.i.+on in the dead of the night. Rebecca tells me that you imagine you met with some apparition. You are crying. Are you so unhappy, then?”
”Very, very miserable,” Kate answered, sinking her face upon her hands.
”Ah,” said Girdlestone softly, ”it is only in some higher life that we shall find entire peace and contentment.” His voice had altered, so that a little warm spring of hope began to rise in the girl's heart, that perhaps the sight of her many miseries was beginning to melt this iron man.
”Beyond the grave is rest,” he continued, in the same gentle tones.
”It has seemed to me sometimes that if it were not for the duties which I have to perform in this world, and the many who are dependent upon me, I should be tempted to shorten my existence in order to attain the peace which is to come. Some precisians have p.r.o.nounced it to be sinful to cut the thread of life. For my part I have never thought it so, and yet my view of morals has been a strict one. I hold that of all things in this world one's life is the thing which belongs most entirely to one's self, and may therefore most freely be terminated when it seems good to us.” He picked up the phial from the mantelpiece and gazed thoughtfully at it. ”How strange,” he said, ”to think that within the compa.s.s of this tiny bottle lies a cure for every earthly evil! One draught and the body slips off like a garment, while the soul walks forth in all its beauty and freedom. Trouble is over. One draught, and--Ah, let go, I say! What have you done?”
Kate had s.n.a.t.c.hed the bottle from him, and with a quick feminine gesture had hurled it against the wall, where it splintered to pieces, sending a strong turpentiney odour through the apartment. Her strength was so impaired that she staggered back after this feat, and sat down on the side of the bed, while her guardian, grim and threatening, stood over her with his long, bony fingers opening and shutting, as though he found it difficult to keep them from her throat.
”I will not help you in it,” she said, in a low but firm voice.
”You would kill my soul as well.”
The mask had fairly dropped from Girdlestone. No gaunt old wolf could have glared down with fiercer eyes or a more cruel mouth. ”You fool!”
he hissed.
”I am not afraid to die,” she said, looking up at him with brave, steadfast eyes.
Girdlestone recovered his self-possession by an effort. ”It is clear to me,” he said calmly, ”that your reason is unhinged. What is all this nonsense about death? There is nothing that will harm you except your own evil actions.” He turned abruptly and strode out of the room with the firm and decided step of a man who has taken an irrevocable resolution.
With a set and rigid face he ascended the steps which led to his bedroom, and, rummaging in his desk, produced a telegram form. This he filled up and took with him downstairs. There he put on his hat and started off to the Bedsworth Post-office at full speed.
At the avenue gate he met his sentinel, who was sitting on his camp stool as grim as ever.
”She is very bad, Stevens,” Girdlestone said, stopping and jerking his head in the direction of the house. ”She is going downhill. I am afraid that she can't last long. If any one asks you about her, you can say that she was despaired of. I am just sending off a telegram to a doctor in London, so that she may have the best advice.”