  Transcriber's Notes:
THE ROCK AHEAD.A NOVEL.BYEDMUND YATES,AUTHOR OF "LAND AT LAST," ETC.
COPYRIGHT EDITION.
IN TWO VOLUMES. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. | |
PROLOGUE. | |
| CHAPTER | |
| I. | Whispered. |
| II. | Pondered. |
| III. | Proposed. |
| IV. | Settled. |
BOOK THE FIRST. | |
| I. | Rowley Court. |
| II. | In Possession. |
| III. | Carabas House. |
| IV. | Breaking Cover. |
| V. | Memory-haunted. |
| VI. | Lloyd's Luck. |
| VII. | The Linnet's Cage. |
| VIII. | The Linnet's first Flight. |
| IX. | Soaring. |
BOOK THE SECOND. | |
| I. | Progress. |
| II. | Integratio Amoris. |
| III. | At the Crystal Palace. |
THE ROCK AHEAD.
PROLOGUE.
CHAPTER I.
Whispered.
Hot in Brighton, very hot. The August sun reflected off white-chalk cliff and red-brick pavement, and the sea shining and sparkling like a sapphire; the statue of George the Fourth, in its robe of verdigris, looking on in blighted perspiration at the cabmen at its base, as though imploring a drink; the cabmen lolling undemonstratively on the boxes of their vehicles, not seeking for employment, and--partly by reason of the heat, but more, perhaps in consequence of the money received recently at the races--rather annoyed than otherwise when their services were called into requisition. For the Brighton races had just taken place, and the town, always so full, had been more crammed than ever. All the grand hotels had been filled with the upper ten thousand, who moved easily over from Chichester and Worthing and Bognor, where they had been staying for Goodwood, which immediately precedes Brighton; and all the lodgings had been taken by the betting-men and the turfites,--the "professionals," with whom the whole affair is the strictest matter of business, and to whom it is of no interest whether the race is run at Torquay or Wolverhampton, in blazing sunshine or pouring hailstorm, so long as the right thing "comes off," and they "land the winner."
It was all right for the bookmakers this time at Brighton: the favourites, against which so much money had been staked, had been beaten, and "dark" horses, scarcely heard of, and backed for nothing, had carried off the principal prizes. So it followed that most of the gentry of the betting-ring, instead of hurrying off to the scene of their next trials of fortune, finding themselves with plenty of money in their pockets, at a pleasant place in lovely weather, made up their minds to remain there during the intervening Saturday and Sunday, and to drop business so far as possible until the Monday morning, when they would speed away by the early express-trains.
So far as possible, but not entirely. It is impossible for them to drop business altogether even on this glorious Sunday afternoon, when the whole face of Nature is blandly smiling. See the broad blue bosom of the sea smooth and sparkling as glass, dotted here and there with white-sailed pleasure-boats; see far away, beyond the encircling belt of brick and stone, the broad shoulder of the bare and bushless downs, over which the fresh air careering comes away laden with the delicious scents of trodden turf and wild thyme and yellow gorse; see the brown beach, where under the lee of the fishing-smacks, or making a table of the large flukes of rusty anchors, sit groups of excursionists,--pallid Londoners, exulting in the unwonted luxury of escaping from the stony streets, and more excited by the brisk and revivifying sea air than by the contents of the stone bottle which stands in the midst of each group, and whose contents are so perpetually going round from hand to hand in the little footless glass; see the Esplanade thronged with its hundreds of foot passengers, its scores of flies and carriages; see the Stock Exchange in all its glory, and the children of Israel gorgeous in long ringlets, thunder-and-lightning neckties, and shot-silk parasols; and see the turf-men standing here and there in little knots, trying to be interested in the scenes passing around them, but ever and again turning to each other with some question of "odds," for some scrap of "intelligence."
The ring is strongly represented this Sunday afternoon on Brighton Parade, both in its highest and its lowest form. The short stout man in the greasy suit of black, with the satin waistcoat frayed round the pockets by the rubbing of his silver watch-guard, who is jotting down memoranda with a fat cedar-pencil in his betting-book, enters freely into conversation and is on an equality with the gentlemanly-looking man whose only visible "horseyness" is expressed in his tightly-cut trousers and his bird's-eye neckerchief with the horseshoe pin. Patrons of the turf, owners of racehorses, commission-agents, bookmakers, touts, tipsters, hangers-on of every kind to turf speculations and turf iniquities, are here at Brighton on this lovely Sunday afternoon.
There was one group, consisting of three people, planted on the Esplanade, just in front of the Old Ship Hotel, the three component members of which were recognised and saluted by nearly everyone who passed. One of them was a short square-built man, with keen eyes closely set and sunken, small red whiskers, and a sharp-pointed nose. He was dressed in black, with a wonderfully neatly-tied long white cravat, folded quite flat, with a dog's tooth set in gold for a pin; and he wore a low-crowned hat. The other two were young men, dressed in the best style of what is known as "horsey get-up." They had been talking and laughing ever since they had taken up their position, immediately after lunching at the hotel, out of which they had strolled with cigars in their mouths; and it was obvious that any respect which the elder man might receive was not paid to him on account of his age, but rather in acknowledgment of the caustic remarks with which he amused his companions. These remarks seemed at last to have come to an end. There had been a long silence, which was broken by the elder man asking,
"O, seen anything of Gore--Harvey Gore? Has he gone back, or what?"
"Don't know; haven't seen him since Thursday night," said the taller of the young men.
"Won a pot of money on the Cup," said the other sententiously; "regular hatful."
"What did his pal do?" asked the elder man. "Lloyd I mean. Did he pull through?"
"Dropped his tin, Foxey dear. Held on like grim death to Gaslight, and was put in the hole like the rest of us. He tells me he has been hit for--"
"He tells you!" interrupted the elder man; "He tells you! I've known Gilbert Lloyd for two or three years, and anything he tells me I should take deuced good care not to believe."
"Very good, Foxey dear! very nice, you sweet old thing! only don't halloo out quite so loud, because here's G.L. coming across the road to speak to us, and he mightn't--How do, Lloyd, old fellow?"
The new-comer was a man of about four-and-twenty, a little above the middle height, and slightly but strongly built. His face would generally have been considered handsome, though a physiognomist would have read shiftiness and suspicion in the small and sunken blue eyes, want of geniality in the tightly-closing mouth visible under the slight fair moustache, and determination in the jaw. Though there was a slight trace of the stable in his appearance, he was decidedly more gentlemanly-looking than his companions, having a distinct stamp of birth and breeding which they lacked. He smiled as he approached the group, and waved a small stick which he carried in a jaunty manner; but Foxey noticed a flushed appearance round his eyes, an eager worn straining round his mouth, and said to his friend who had last spoken, "You're right, Jack; Lloyd has had it hot and strong this time, and no mistake."
The young man had by this time crossed the road and stood leaning over the railing. In answer to a repetition of their salutes, he said:
"Not very bright. None of us are always up to the mark, save Foxey here, who is perennial; and just now I'm worried and bothered. O, not as you fellows imagine," he said hastily, as he saw a smile go round; and as he said it his face darkened, and the clenching of his jaws gave him a very savage expression,--"not from what I've dropped at this meeting; that's neither here nor there: lightly come; lightly gone; but the fact is that Gore, who is living with me over there, is deuced seedy."
"Thought he looked pulled and done on Thursday," said Foxey. "Didn't know whether it was backing Gaslight that had touched him up, or--"
"No," interrupted Lloyd hurriedly; "a good deal of champagne under a tremendously hot sun; that's the cause, I believe. Harvey has a way of turning up his little finger under excitement, and never will learn to moderate his transports. He's overdone it this time, and I'm afraid is really bad. I must send for a doctor; and now I'm off to the telegraph-office, to send a message to my wife. Gore was to have cleared out of this early this morning, to spend a day or two with Sandcrack, the vet, at Shoreham; and my proprietress was coming down here; but there's no room for her now, and I must put her off."
"Do you think Harvey Gore's really bad?" asked one of the younger men.
"Well, I think he's got something like sunstroke, and I know he's a little off his head," responded Lloyd. "He'll pull round, I daresay--I've no doubt. But still he can't be moved just yet, and a woman would only be in the way under such circumstances, let alone it's not being very lively for her; so I'll just send her a message to keep off. Ta-ta! I shall look into the smoking-room to-night at the Ship, when Harvey's gone off to sleep." And with a nod and a smile, Gilbert Lloyd started off.
"Queer customer that, Foxey."
"Queer indeed; which his golden number is Number One!" said Foxey enigmatically.
"What's his wife like?"
"Never saw her," said Foxey; "but I should think she had a pleasant time of it with that youth. It will be an awful disappointment to him, her not coming down, won't it?"
"Foxey, you are an unbeliever of the deepest dye. Domestic happiness in your eyes is--"
"Bosh! You never said a truer word. Now, let's have half-a-crown's-worth of fly, and go up the cliff."
A short time after Gilbert Lloyd had left the house in which he had taken lodgings, consisting of the parlour-floor and a bedroom upstairs, Mrs. Bush, the landlady, whose mind was rather troubled, partly because the servant, whose "Sunday out" it was, had not yet returned from the Methodist chapel where she performed her devotions--a delay which her mistress did not impute entirely to the blandishments of the preacher--and partly for other reasons, took up her position in the parlour-window, and began to look up and down the street. Mrs. Bush was not a landlady of the jolly type; she was not ruddy of complexion, or thin and trim of ankle, neither did she adorn herself with numerous ribbons of florid hue. On the contrary, she was a pale, anxious-faced woman, who looked as if she had had too much to do, and quite enough to fret about, all her life. And now, as she stood in the parlour-window on a hot Sunday, and contemplated the few loungers who straggled through the street on their way to the seashore, she assumed a piteous expression of countenance, and shook her head monotonously.
"I wish I hadn't let 'em the rooms, I'm sure," said Mrs. Bush to herself. "It's like my luck--and in the race-week too. If he's able to be up and away from this in a day or two, then I know nothing of sickness; and I've seen a good deal of it too in my time. No sign of that girl! But who's this?"
Asking this, under the circumstances, unsatisfactory question, Mrs. Bush drew still closer to the parlour-window, holding the inevitable red-moreen curtain still farther back, and looked with mingled curiosity and helplessness at a cab which stopped unmistakably at the door of her house, and from the window of which a handsome young female head protruded itself. Mrs. Bush could not doubt that the intention of the lady in the cab was to get out of it and come into her house; and that good-for-nothing Betsy had not come in, and there was nobody to open the door but Mrs. Bush--a thing which, though a meek-enough woman in general, she did not like doing. The lady gave her very little time to consider whether she liked it or not; for she descended rapidly from the cab, took a small travelling-bag from the hand of the cabman, paid him, mounted the three steps which led to the door, and knocked and rang with so determined a purpose of being admitted that Mrs. Bush, without a moment's hesitation,--but with a muttered "Mercy on us! Suppose he'd been asleep now!" which seemed to imply that the lady's vehemence might probably damage somebody's nerves,--crossed the hall and opened the door.
She found herself confronted by a very young lady, a girl of not more, and possibly less, than nineteen years, in whose manner there was a certain confidence strongly suggestive of her entertaining an idea that the house which she was evidently about to enter was her own, and not that of the quiet, but not well-pleased, looking person who asked her civilly enough, yet not with any cordiality of tone, whom she wished to see.
"Is Mr. Lloyd not at home? This is his address, I know," was the enigmatical reply of the young lady.
"A Mr. Lloyd is lodging here, miss," returned Mrs. Bush, with a glance of anything but approbation at her questioner, and planting herself rather demonstratively in the doorway; "but he isn't in. Did you wish to see him?"
"I am Mrs. Lloyd," replied the young lady with a frown, and depositing her little travelling-bag within the threshold; "did you not know I was coming? Let me in, please."
And the next minute--Mrs. Bush could not tell exactly how it happened--she found the hall-door shut, and she was standing in the passage, while the young lady who had announced herself as Mrs. Lloyd was calmly walking into the parlour. Mrs. Bush was confounded by the sudden and unexpected nature of this occurrence; but the only thing she could do was to follow the unlooked-for visitor into the parlour, and she did it. The young lady had already seated herself on a small hard sofa, covered with crimson moreen to match the window-curtains, had put off her very becoming and fashionable bonnet, and was then taking off her gloves. She looked annoyed, but not in the least embarrassed.
"That is Mr. Lloyd's room, I presume?" she said, as she pointed to the folding-doors which connected the parlours, and which stood slightly open.
"Yes, m'm; but--"
Mrs. Bush hesitated; but as the young lady rose, took up her bag, and instantly pushed the door she had indicated quite open, and walked into the apartment, Mrs. Bush felt that the case was getting desperate. Though a depressed woman habitually, she was not by any means a timid one, and had fought many scores of highly successful battles with lodgers in her time. But this was quite a novel experience, and Mrs. Bush was greatly at a loss how to act. Something must be done, that was quite clear. Not so what that something was to be; and more than ever did Mrs. Bush resent the tarrying of Betsy's feet on her return from Beulah Chapel.
"She would have shut the door in her face, and kept her out until I saw how things really were," thought the aggrieved landlady; but she said boldly enough, as she closely followed the intruder, and glanced at her left hand, on which the symbol of lawful matrimony duly shone:
"If you please, m'm, you wasn't expected. Mr. Lloyd nor the other gentleman never mentioned that there was a lady coming; and I don't in general let my parlours to ladies."
"Indeed! that is very awkward," said the young lady, who had opened her bag, taken out her combs and brushes, and was drawing a chair to the dressing-table; "but it cannot be helped. Mr. Lloyd quite expected me, I know; he arranged that I should come down to-morrow before he left town; but it suited me better to come to-day. I can't think why he did not tell you."
"I suppose he forgot it, m'm," said Mrs. Bush, utterly regardless of the uncomplimentary nature of the suggestion, "on account of the sick gentleman; but it's rather unfortunate, for I never do take in ladies, not in my parlours; and Mr. Lloyd not having mentioned it, I--"
"Do you mean to say that I cannot remain here with my husband?" said the young lady, turning an astonished glance upon Mrs. Bush.
"Well, m'm," said the nervous landlady, "as it's for a short time only as Mr. Lloyd has taken the rooms, and as it's Sunday, I shall see, when he conies in. You see, m'm, I've rather particular people in my drawing-rooms, and it's different about ladies; and--" Here she glanced once more at the light girlish figure, in the well-fitting, fashionable dress, standing before the dressing-table, and at the white hand adorned with the orthodox ring.
"I think I understand you," said the intruder gravely; "you did not know Mr. Lloyd was married, and you are not sure that I am his wife. It is a difficulty, and I really don't see how it is to be gotten over. Will you take his word?--at all events I may remain here until he comes in presently?"
Something winning, something convincing, in the tone of her voice caused a sudden revulsion of feeling in Mrs. Bush. The good woman--for she was a good woman in the main--began to feel rather ashamed of herself, and she commenced a bungling sort of apology. Of course the lady could stay, but it was awkward Mr. Lloyd not having told her; and there was but one servant, a good-for-nothing hussy as ever stepped--and over-staying her time now to that degree, that she expected the "drawing-rooms" would not have their dinner till ever so late; but at this point the young lady interrupted her.
"If I may stay for to-night," she said gently, and with a very frank smile, which made Mrs. Bush feel indignant with herself, as well as ashamed, "some other arrangement can be made to-morrow; and I require no waiting-on. I shall give you no trouble, or as little as possible."
Mrs. Bush could not hold out any longer. She told the young lady she could certainly stay for that day and night, and as for to-morrow, she would "see about it;" and then, at the dreaded summons of the impatient "drawing-rooms," bustled away, saying she would return presently, and "see to" the stranger herself.
Pretty girls in pretty dresses are not rarities in the lodging-houses of Brighton; indeed, it would perhaps be difficult to name any place where they are to be seen more frequently, or in greater numbers; but the toilet-glass on the table in the back bedroom of Mrs. Bush's lodging-house, a heavy article of furniture, with a preponderance of frame, had probably reflected few such faces as that of the lady calling herself Mrs. Lloyd, who looked attentively into it when she found herself alone, and decided that she was not so very dusty, considering.
She was rather tall, and her figure was slight and girlish, but firm and well-developed. She carried her head gracefully; and something in her attitude and air suggested to the beholder that she was not more commonplace in character than in appearance. Her complexion was very fair and clear, but not either rosy or milky; very young as she was, she looked as if she had thought too much and lived too much to retain the ruddiness and whiteness of colouring which rarely coexist with intellectual activity or sensitive feelings. Her features were well-formed; but the face was one in which a charm existed different from and superior to any which merely lies in regularity of feature. It was to be found mainly in the eyes and mouth. The eyes were brown in colour--the soft rich deep brown in which the pupil confounds itself with the iris; and the curling lashes harmonised with both; eyes not widely opened, but yet with nothing sly or hidden in their semi-veiled habitual look--eyes which, when suddenly lifted up, and opened in surprise, pleasure, anger, or any other emotion, instantly convinced the person who received the glance that they were the most beautiful he had ever seen. The eyebrows were dark and arched, and the forehead, of that peculiar formation and width above the brow which phrenologists hold to indicate a talent for music, was framed in rippling bands of dark chestnut hair.
She was a beautiful and yet more a remarkable-looking young woman, girlish in some points of her appearance, and in her light lithe movements, but with something ungirlish, and even hard, in her expression. This something was in the mouth: not small enough to be silly, not large enough to be defective in point of proportion; the line of the lips was sharp, decisive, and cold; richly coloured, as befitted her youth, they were not young lips--they did not smile spontaneously, or move above the small white teeth with every thought and fancy, but moved deliberately, opening and closing at her will only. What it was in Mrs. Lloyd's face which contradicted the general expression of youth which it wore, would have been seen at once if she had placed her hand across her eyes. The beaming brown eyes, the faintly-tinted rounded cheeks, were the features of a girl--the forehead and the mouth were the features of a woman who had left girlhood a good way behind her, and travelled over some rough roads and winding ways since she had lost sight of it.
When Mrs. Bush returned, she found the stranger in the front parlour, but not standing at the window, looking out for the return of her husband; on the contrary, she was seated at the prim round table, listlessly turning over some newspapers and railway literature left there by Gilbert Lloyd. Once again Mrs. Bush looked at her with sharp suspicion; once again she was disarmed by her beauty, her composure, and the sweetness of her smile.
"Mr. Lloyd is not in yet, m'm," began Mrs. Bush, "and you'll be wanting your lunch."
"No, thank you," said Mrs. Lloyd; "I can wait. I suppose you don't know when he is likely to be in?"
"He said directly," replied Mrs. Bush; "and I wish he had kept to it, for I can't think the sick gentleman is any better. I've been to look at him, and he seems to me a deal worse since morning."
Mrs. Lloyd looked rather vacantly at Mrs. Bush. "Have you a lodger ill in the house?" she asked. "That makes it still more inconvenient for you to receive me."
Mrs. Bush felt uncomfortable at this question. How very odd that Mrs. Lloyd should not know about her husband's friend! They are evidently queer people, thought the landlady; and she answered rather stiffly:
"The only lodger ill in the house, m'm, is the gentleman as came with Mr. Lloyd; and, in my opinion, he's very ill indeed."
"Came with Mr. Lloyd?" said the young lady in a tone of great surprise. "Do you mean Mr. Gore? Can you possibly mean Mr. Gore?"
"Just him," answered Mrs. Bush succinctly. "Didn't you know he was here with Mr. Lloyd?"
"I knew he was coming to Brighton with him, certainly," said Mrs. Lloyd; "but I understood he was to leave immediately after the races--before I came down. What made him stay?"
Mrs. Bush drew near the table, and, leaning her hands upon it, fell into an easy tone of confidential chat with Mrs. Lloyd. That lady sat still, looking thoughtfully before her, as the landlady began, but after a little resting her head on her hand and covering her eyes:
"He stayed, m'm, because he was very ill, uncommon ill to be sure; I never saw a gentleman iller, nor more stubborn. His portmanteau was packed and ready when he went to the races, and he told Betsy he shouldn't be five minutes here when he'd come back; and Mr. Lloyd said to him in my hearing, 'Gore,' said he, 'how your digestion stands the tricks you play with it, I can not understand;' for they'd been breakfasting, and he had eat unwholesome, I can't say otherwise. But when they come from the races, they come in a cab, which wasn't usual; and, not to offend you, m'm, Mr. Lloyd had had quite enough" (here she paused for an expression of annoyance on the part of her hearer; but no such manifestation was made); "but Mr. Gore, he was far gone, and a job we had to get him upstairs without disturbing the drawing-rooms, I can assure you. And Mr. Lloyd told me he had been very ill all day at the races, and wouldn't come home or let them fetch a doctor--there were ever so many there--or anything, but would go on drinking, and when he put him in the cab, he wanted to take him to a doctor's, but he wouldn't go; and Mr. Lloyd did say, m'm, begging your pardon, that Mr. Gore damned the doctors, and said all the medicine he ever took, or ever would take, was in his portmanteau."
"Was there no doctor sent for, then? Has nothing been done for him?" asked Mrs. Lloyd, with some uneasiness in her tone, removing her hand from her eyes and looking full at Mrs. Bush.
"We've done--Betsy and me and Mr. Lloyd; for no one could be more attentive--all we could; but Mr. Gore was quite sensible, and have a doctor he would not; and what could we do? We gave him the medicine out of the case in his portmanteau. I mixed it and all, and he told me how, quite well; and this morning he was ever so much better."
"And is he worse now? Who is with him?" asked Mrs. Lloyd, rising.
"Well, m'm, I think he looks a deal worse; and I wish Mr. Lloyd was come in, because I think he ought to send for a doctor; I don't know what to do."
"Who is with him?" repeated Mrs. Lloyd.
"No one," returned Mrs. Bush. "No one is with him. When Mr. Lloyd went out, he told me Mr. Gore felt inclined to sleep; he had had some tea and was better, and I was not to let him be disturbed. But when I was upstairs just now, I heard him give a moan; and I knew he was not asleep, so I went in; and he looks very bad, and I couldn't get a word out of him but 'Where's Lloyd?'"
"Take me to his room at once," said Mrs. Lloyd, "and send for a doctor instantly. We must not wait for anything."
But the incorrigible Betsy had not yet returned, and Mrs. Bush explained to the stranger that she had no means of sending for a doctor until she could send Betsy.
"Let me see Mr. Gore first, for a minute, and then I will fetch the nearest doctor myself," said Mrs. Lloyd; and passing out of the room as she spoke, she began to ascend the narrow staircase, followed by the landlady, instructing her that the room in which the sick man was to be found was the "two-pair front."
The room in which the sick man lay was airy, and tolerably large. As Gertrude Lloyd softly turned the handle of the door, and entered, the breeze, which bore with it a mingled flavour of the sea and the dust, fluttered the scanty window-curtains of white dimity, and caused the draperies of the bed to flap dismally. The sun streamed into the room, but little impeded by the green blinds, which shed a sickly hue over everything, and lent additional ghastliness to the face, which was turned away from Gertrude when she entered the chamber. The bed, a large structure of extraordinary height, stood in front of one of the windows; the furniture of the room was of the usual lodging-house quality; an open portmanteau, belching forth tumbled shirts and rumpled pocket-handkerchiefs, gaped wide upon the floor; the top of the chest of drawers was covered with bottles, principally of the soda-water pattern, but of which one contained a modicum of brandy, and another some fluid magnesia. Everything in the room was disorderly and uncomfortable; and Gertrude's quick eye took in all this discomfort and its details in a glance, while she stepped lightly across the floor and approached the bed.
The sunlight was shining on Harvey Gore's face, and showed her how worn and livid, how ghastly and distorted, it was. He lay quite still, and took no notice of her presence. Instantly perceiving the effect of the green blind, Gertrude went to the window and pulled it up, then beckoned Mrs. Bush to her side, and once more drew near the bed.
"Mr. Gore," she said, "Mr. Gore! Do you not know me? Can you not look at me? Can you not speak to me? I am Mrs. Lloyd."
The sick man answered her only with a groan. His face was an awful ashen gray; his shoulders were so raised that the head seemed to be sunken upon the chest; and his body lay upon the bed with unnatural weight and stillness. One hand was hidden by the bedclothes, the other clutched a corner of the pillow with cramped and rigid fingers. The two women exchanged looks of alarm.
"Was he looking like this when you saw him last--since I came?" said Mrs. Lloyd, speaking in a distinct low tone directed completely into the ear of the listener.
"No, no; nothing like so bad as he looks now," said Mrs. Bush, whose distended eyes were fixed upon the patient with an expression of unmitigated dismay. "Did you ever see anyone die?" she whispered to Gertrude Lloyd.
"No; never."
"Then you will see it, and soon."
"Do you really think he is dying?" and then she leaned over him, shook him very gently by the shoulder, loosened his hold of the pillow, and said again,
"Mr. Gore! Mr. Gore! Do you not know me? Can you not speak to me?"
Again he groaned, and then, feebly opening his eyes, so awfully glazed and hollow that Gertrude recoiled with an irrepressible start, made a movement with his head.
"He knows me," whispered Gertrude to Mrs. Bush; "for God's sake go for a doctor without an instant's delay! I must stay with him."
The landlady, dreadfully frightened, was only too glad to escape from the room.
For a few moments after she was left alone with the sick man Gertrude stood beside him quite still and silent; then he moved uneasily, again groaned, and made an ineffectual attempt to sit up in his bed. Gertrude tried to assist him; she passed her arms round his shoulders, and put all her strength to the effort to raise him, but in vain. The large heavy frame slipped from her hold, and sunk down again with ominous weight and inertness. Looking around in great fear, but still preserving her calmness, she perceived the bottle in which some brandy still remained. In an instant she had filled a wine-glass with the spirit, lifted the sufferer's feeble head, and contrived to pour a small quantity down his throat. The stimulant acted for a little upon the dying man; he looked at her with eyes in which an intelligent purpose pierced the dull glaze preceding the fast-coming darkness, stretched his hand out to her, and drew her nearer, nearer. Gertrude bent over him until her chestnut hair touched his wan livid temples, and then, when her face was on a level with his own, he whispered in her ear.
* * * * *
Mrs. Bush had not gone many steps away from her own hall-door when she met Gilbert Lloyd. He was walking slowly, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his head bent, his eyes frowning and downcast, and his under-lip firmly held by his white, sharp, even teeth. He did not see Mrs. Bush until she came close up to him, and exclaimed,
"O, Mr. Lloyd, how thankful I am I've met you! The gentleman is very bad indeed--just gone, sir,--and I was going for a doctor. There's not a moment to lose."
Gilbert Lloyd's face turned perfectly white.
"Impossible, Mrs. Bush," he said; "you must be mistaken. He was much better when I left him; besides, he was not seriously ill at all."
"I don't know about that, sir, and I can't stay to talk about it; I must get the doctor at once."
"No, no," said Lloyd, rousing himself; "I will do that. Where is the nearest? Tell me, and do you go back to him."
"First turn to the right, second door on the left," said Mrs. Bush, with unusual promptitude. "Dr. Muxky's; he isn't long established, but does a good business."
Gilbert Lloyd hurried away; and Mrs. Bush returned to the house, thinking only when she had reached it, that she had forgotten to mention his wife's arrival to Gilbert Lloyd.
* * * * *
When Lloyd entered the sick man's room, bringing with him Dr. Muxky, as that sandy-haired and youthful general practitioner was called by his not numerous clients, he saw a female figure bending over the bed. It was not that of Mrs. Bush; he had passed her loitering on the stairs,--ostensibly that she might conduct the gentlemen to the scene of action, really because she dared not reËnter the room unsupported by a medical presence. The figure did not change its attitude as they entered, and Dr. Muxky approached the patient with a professional gliding step. He was followed by Lloyd; who, however, stopped abruptly on the opposite side of the bed when he met the full unshrinking gaze of his wife's bright, clear, threatening eyes.
"May I trouble you to stand aside for a moment?" said Dr. Muxky courteously to Gertrude, who instantly moved, but only a very little way, and again stood quite still and quite silent. Dr. Muxky stooped over his patient, but only for a few seconds. Then he looked up at Gilbert Lloyd, and said hastily,
"I have been called in too late, sir; I'm afraid your friend is dead."
"Yes," said Gertrude quietly, as if the doctor had spoken to her: "he is dead. He has been dead some minutes."
Gilbert Lloyd looked at her, but did not speak; the doctor looked from one to the other, but said nothing. Then Gertrude stretched out her hand and laid her fingers heavily upon the dead man's eyelids, and kept them there for several moments amid the silence. In a little while she steadily withdrew her hand, and without a word left the room.
On the drawing-room landing she found Mrs. Bush. That practised and cautious landlady, mindful of the possible prejudice of her permanent lodgers against serious illness and probable death in their immediate vicinity, raised her finger, as a signal that a low tone of voice would be advisable.
"Go upstairs; the doctor wants you," said Gertrude, and passed quickly down to the parlour. A few moments more, and she had put on her bonnet and shawl, opened the hall-door without noise, closed it softly, and was walking swiftly down the street towards the shore.
CHAPTER II.
Pondered.
The sandy-haired slim young man, whose name was Muxky, who was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and who amongst the few poor people of Brighton that knew of his existence enjoyed the brevet-rank of doctor, found himself in anything but a pleasant position. The man to see whom he had been called in was dead; there was no doubt of that. No pulsation in the heart, dropped jaw, fixed eyes--all the usual appearances--ay, and rather more than the usual appearances: "What we professionally call the rigor mortis--the stiffness immediately succeeding death, my dear sir, is in this case very peculiarly developed." Mr. Muxky, in the course of his attendance at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, had seen many deathbeds, had inspected in an easy and pleasant manner many dead bodies; but he had never seen one which had presented such an extraordinary aspect of rigidity so immediately after death. He approached the bed once more, turned back the sheet which Mrs. Bush had drawn over the face, and kneeling by the side of the bed, passed his hand over and under the body. As he moved, Gilbert Lloyd moved too, taking up his position close behind him, and watching him narrowly. For an instant a deep look of anxiety played across Gilbert Lloyd's face, the lines round the mouth deepened and darkened, the brows came down over the sunken eyes, and the under jaw, relaxing, lost its aspect of determination; but as Mr. Muxky turned from the bed and addressed him, Lloyd's glance was perfectly steady, and his face expressed no emotions stronger than those which under the circumstances every man would be expected to feel, and no man would care to hide.
"This is rather an odd experience, my dear sir," said Mr. Muxky; "called in to see our poor friend, who has, as it were, slipped his cable before my arrival. Our poor friend, now, was a--well--man of the world as you are--you will understand what I mean--our poor friend was a--free liver."
Yes, Gilbert Lloyd thought that he was a man who ate and drank heartily, and never stinted himself in anything.
"Nev-er stinted himself in anything!" repeated Mr. Muxky, who had by this time added many years to his personal appearance, and entirely prevented the bystanders from gleaning any expression from his eyes, by the assumption of a pair of glasses of neutral tint--"nev-er stinted himself in anything! Ah, a great deal may be ascribed to that, my dear sir; a great deal may be ascribed to that!"
"Yes," said Gilbert Lloyd carelessly; "if a man will take as much lobster-salad and Strasbourg pie as he can eat, with as much champagne and moselle as he can carry; and if, in spite of the remonstrances of his friends, he will sit without his hat on the top of a drag, with the August sun beating down upon him--"
"Did he do that, my dear sir--did he do that?"
"He did, indeed! Several of us implored him to be careful; but you might as well have spoken to the wind as to him, poor dear fellow. We told him that he'd probably have a--a--what do you call it?"
"General derangement of the system? Flux of blood to the--"
"No, no; sunstroke--that's what I mean; sunstroke. Perigal, who was out in India in the Punjaub business--he was on our drag when poor Harvey was taken bad, and he said it was sunstroke all over--regular case."
"Did he, indeed?" said Mr. Muxky. "Well, that's odd, very odd! From the symptoms you have described, I imagined that it must have been something of the kind:--brain overdone, system overtaxed. In this railway age, Mr. Lloyd, we live such desperately rapid lives, concentrate so much mental energy and bodily fibre into a few years, that--"
"I'm glad you're satisfied, Mr. Muxky," said Gilbert Lloyd, pulling out his purse. "It's a satisfaction in these melancholy cases to know that everything has been done, and that there was no chance of saving the poor fellow, even if--"
"I scarcely say that, Mr. Lloyd. A little bloodletting might, if taken at the exact moment--in tempore veni; you recollect the old quotation--might have been of some use. There's a prejudice just now against the use of the lancet, I know; but still-- For me?" taking a crisp hank-note which Lloyd handed to him. "O, thank you, thank you! This is far too munifi--"
"The labourer, Mr. Muxky, is worthy of his hire," said Gilbert Lloyd: "and it is our fault--not yours--that you were summoned too late. But, as you just now remarked, it is impossible in these cases to know what is impending, or how nigh may be the danger. I was very much struck by that remark. And now good-afternoon, Mr. Muxky. I must go out and find my poor wife, who is quite upset by this unfortunate affair. Good-afternoon--not another word of thanks, I beg; and any of the usual formalities in these matters---I don't know what they are--but certificates, and that kind of thing, we may look to you to settle? Thanks again. Good-day."
And Gilbert Lloyd shook hands with the overwhelmed Mr. Muxky, whose eyes gleamed even through the neutral-tinted glasses, and whose pale face burst into a pleased perspiration, as he crumpled the crisp bank-note into his waistcoat-pocket, and followed Mrs. Bush down the stairs.
"A sensible man that, Mrs. Bush," said he when he reached the first landing; "a very sensible, kind-hearted, clear-headed man. Under all the circumstances, you're very lucky in having had such a man in the house. No fuss, no preposterous excitement--everything quite proper, but thoroughly businesslike."
"You're right, Dr. Muxky," responded the sympathetic landlady. "When I saw as clear as clear that that poor creature was going the way of all flesh--which is grass, and also dust and ashes--and knew I'd got those Miss Twillows in the drawing-rooms, you might have knocked me down with a feather. Nervous is nothing to what the Miss Twillows is; and coming regular from Peckham for the sea-bathing now five years, regular as the month of July comes round; and giving no trouble, through bringing their own maid; and stopping on all September,--without perambulators in the passage, and children's boots, which after being filled with sand will not take the polish,--their leaving would be a loss to me which--"
Mrs. Bush stopped suddenly in her harangue, as the drawing-room door, by which they were standing, was cautiously opened, and an elderly female head was slowly protruded. It was a large head, and yet it had what is called a "skimpy" character. What little hair there was on it was of a mixed pepper-and-salt kind of colour, and gathered into two large roll-curls, one on either side of the head, in front, and into a thin wisp behind. In this wisp was stuck a comb, pendent from which was a little bit of black lace. The features could not be defined, as the lower part of the face was entirely hidden in a handkerchief held to the nose, exhaling pungent vinegar. Mr. Muxky stared a little at this apparition--stared more when the head wagged and the mouth opened, and the word "Doctor?" was uttered in interrogative accent. Then Mr. Muxky, beginning to perceive how the land lay, said in his softest tones: "Yes, my dear madam, I am the doctor."
The head dropped again, and again the lips opened. "Fever?" was what they said this time, while a skinny hand at the end of a skinny arm made itself manifest, pointing upwards.
"Fever," repeated Mr. Muxky, "that has removed our poor friend upstairs--nothing of the sort, my dear madam, I can assure you; nothing but--"
"Not smallpox?--don't say it's smallpox!" This from another voice, the owner of which was in the background, unseen. "O, Hannah, does he say it's smallpox?"
"He don't say anything of the kind, Miss Twillow," interposed Mrs. Bush; "knowing that in the midst of life we are in death, specially sitting in hot suns without our hats on the tops of stage-coaches, and to say nothing of too much to drink. You've never been inconvenienced since you've been in this house, have you, m'm? and you won't be now. It isn't my fault, I'm sure; nor yet Dr. Muxky's; and, considering all things, not a great put-out, though doubtless upsetting to the nerves."
"That's just the point, Mrs. Bush," said Mr. Muxky, who was not going to lose the chance; "nothing to fear; but yet, some temperaments so constituted that--like the Æolian harp--the--the slightest breath of fright has an effect on them. If my poor services now could be of any use--"
"Yes, now do," said Mrs. Bush, "Miss Twillow, Miss Hannah; just see the doctor for a minute. You've had a shock, I'll allow, and it's natural you should be upset; but the doctor will put you right in a minute."
Thus Mr. Muxky secured two new patients; not a bad day's work.
While these matters were in progress in the house Gertrude had left, and the subdued bustle inevitably attendant upon the necessary care and the unavoidable household disorganisation which succeeds a death, even when the dead is only a stranger in the house where the solution of the enigma has come to him,--she was sitting on the shore close by the foamy edge of the waves, and thinking.
Gertrude had gone down to the shore across the broad road, now crowded with people out for the bright summer afternoon; with carriages and gigs, with vehicles of the highest elegance, and with such as had no pretence to anything but convenience; with pedestrians of every class, assembled with all sorts of objects, hygiene and flirtation being predominant. She had gone away down the slope, and on to the strip of pebbly sand; and where one of the wooden barriers marked out a measured space, she sat down on a seaweed-flecked heap of shingle, and began to think. The long line of the horizon, where the blue sea met the blue sky, parted only by a narrow verge of light, broken white clouds, was before her--between it and her absent, troubled eyes lay the wide expanse of sea. A short space only parted her from the moving, restless, talking crowd upon the Esplanade; but her sense of solitude was complete. The ridge of the slope hid her; the soft plash of the sea, with its monotonous recurrence, soothed her ear, and deadened the sound of wheels and the murmur of voices; her eyes met only the great waters, across which sometimes a boat glided, on which sometimes a sea-bird's wing rested for an instant. As Gertrude sat there, with her arms extended and her hands tightly clasped together, with her head bent forward and her eyes fixed upon the distant line of the sea and sky, her thoughts obeyed her will, and formed themselves, consecutive, complete, and purposeful. The girl--for she was but a girl, after all--had brought thither a heavy trouble; to be taken out, looked at, weighed, examined. She had brought there a half-developed purpose, to be thought into maturity, to be fully fashioned and resolved upon. Before she should leave that place she would have done these things; and when she should leave it, a new phase in her life would have begun. Ineffable sadness was in her brown eyes--grief and dread, which did not seem newly born there, but constant dwellers, only that to-day they had been suddenly awakened once again from temporary repose. If there had been anyone to see Gertrude, as she sat by the edge of the waves, and to note her face, with its concentrated and yet varying expression, that person, if an acute observer, would have been struck by the contrast between the eyes and the mouth. The character of the look in the eyes shifted and varied; there was fear in it, grief, weariness, disgust, sometimes even horror; and these expressions passed like the lights and shadows over a fair landscape. But the mouth did not vary; firm, closely shut,--so compressed that its tightness produced a white line above the red of the upper lip,-- it expressed power and resolution, when that long process of thinking--too purposeful to be called a reverie--commenced, and it expressed power and resolution when at length Gertrude rose. Hours had passed over her unheeded, as she sat by the sea; the afternoon had lengthened into the evening; the crowd of loungers had dispersed. She had heard, but not heeded, the church-bells ringing for evening service; and now silence was all around her, and the red flush of sunset was upon the sky and the sea. When she had risen from her seat of shingle, Gertrude stood for some minutes and looked along the shore, where her solitary figure seemed doubly lonely. Then she turned and scanned the long line of the houses and the road, on which a few scattered human beings only were moving. A strange reluctance to move possessed her; but at length she shook it off, and with a slight shudder turned her back upon the sea, fast becoming gray as the sun went down, and walked steadily, though not quickly, back to the lodging-house where she had left her husband.
As she drew near to the house, Gertrude looked up at the window of the room in which she had seen Harvey Gore die. It was open; but the green blind was closely drawn. Looking upwards at the window, she did not perceive till she was close upon it that the house-door was slightly ajar; but as she raised her hand to the knocker, the door was opened widely by Mrs. Bush, and Gertrude, going into the passage, found Gilbert Lloyd there. The sudden sight of him caused her to start for an instant, but not perceptibly; and Mrs. Bush immediately addressed her with voluble questions and regrets.
Where had she been all this time? She had gone out without her lunch, and had she had nothing to eat? How uneasy she and Mr. Lloyd had been about her! (Mr. Lloyd had evidently secured by this time a high place in the good graces of Mrs. Bush.) Mr. Lloyd had been waiting and watching for her ever so long; and she, Mrs. Bush, as soon as ever the poor dear dead gentleman upstairs had been "put tidy,"--which was her practical mode of expressing the performance of the toilet of the dead,--had been also watching and waiting for Mrs. Lloyd's reappearance. Suspicion and scanty civility had given place in the manner of the worthy landlady--who was infinitely satisfied with the proper sense of what was due to her in the unfortunate position of affairs exhibited by Gilbert Lloyd--to anxiety for the comfort of the young lady whom she had so unwillingly received.
During the colloquy between Mrs. Bush and Gertrude, Gilbert Lloyd had been standing, awkwardly enough, in the passage, but without speaking. But when a pause came, and Gertrude approached the parlour-door, he spoke.
"Where have you been, Gertrude?" he asked sternly.
His wife stood still and answered, but did not look at him.
"I have been sitting by the seashore."
"You must be cold and hungry, I should think."
"I am neither."
"I suppose you know you cannot remain here?"
"Why?"
He seemed a little at a loss for an answer; but replied, after a moment's pause:
"A death in the house is sufficient reason. Mrs. Bush can't attend to a lady-lodger, under the circumstances. You can go back to town in the morning; for to-night I shall take you to the nearest hotel."
"Very well."
She never looked at him; not by the most fleeting flicker of an eyelash did she address her face to him, though he looked steadily at her, trying to compel her glance. She went into the parlour, through the folding-door into the bedroom, collected the few articles which she had taken out of her travelling-bag, and returned, carrying it in her hand. Evidently all arrangements had been made by Gilbert Lloyd with Mrs. Bush: no more was said. Gertrude took a friendly leave of the landlady, and went out of the house, walking silently by her husband's side. He did not offer her his arm, and not a word was spoken between them until the door of a private sitting-room at the George had closed behind them. Then he turned savagely round upon her, and said, in a thick low voice, "The meaning of this foolery?"
This time she looked at him--looked him straight in the face with the utmost calmness. There was not the least flush of colour in her pale face, not the slightest trembling of her lips, not the smallest flutter of her hands,--by which in woman agitation is so often betrayed,--as she said calmly, "You are polite, but mysterious. And I suppose the journey, or something, has rendered me a little dull. I don't quite follow you. What 'foolery' are you pleased to ask the meaning of?"
She had the best of it so far. She stood erect, facing the light, her head thrown back, her arm outstretched, with nothing of bravado, but with a good deal of earnestness in her manner and air. Gilbert Lloyd's head was sunk on his breast, his brow was knit over his frowning eyes, his lips tightly set, and his under-jaw was clenched and rigid. His hands were plunged into his pockets, and he had commenced to pace the room; but at his wife's question he stopped, and said, "What foolery! Why, the foolery of your conduct in those lodgings this day; the foolery of your coming down, in the first place, when you weren't wanted, and of your conduct once you came."
"I came," said Gertrude, in a perfectly calm voice, and still looking him steadily in the face, "in pursuance of the arrangement between us. It was your whim, when last I saw you, to wish for my company here; and you settled the time at which I was to come. My 'foolery' so far consists in having exactly obeyed you."
"Your obedience is very charming," said Gilbert Lloyd with a sneer; "and no doubt I should have enjoyed your company as much as I generally do. Few men are blessed with wives embodying all the cardinal virtues. But circumstances have changed since we made that arrangement. I couldn't tell this man was going to die, I suppose?"
She had purposely turned her face away when her husband began to sneer at her, and was pretending to occupy herself with opening her travelling-bag; but as these words fell upon her ear, she drew herself to her full height, and again looking steadily at him, said, "I suppose not."
"You suppose not! Why, of course not! By heavens, it's enough to drive a man to desperation to be tied for life to a white-faced cat like this, who stands opposite him repeating his words, and shows no more interest in him than--By Jove," he exclaimed, shaking his clenched fist at her, "I feel as if I could knock the life out of you!"
To have been struck by him would have been no novel experience on Gertrude's part. More than once in these paroxysms of temper he had seized her roughly by the arm or shoulder, leaving the livid imprint of his hand on her delicate flesh; and she fully expected that he would strike her now. But as he spoke he had been hastily pacing the room; and it was not until he stopped to menace her that he looked in her face, and saw there an expression such as he had never seen before. Anger, terror, misery, obstinacy, contempt,--all these passions he had often seen mirrored in Gertrude's features, but never the aversion, the horror, the loathing which now appeared there. The look seemed to paralyse him, for in it he divined the feelings of which it was the reflex. His extended arm dropped by his side, and his whole manner changed, as he said, "There! enough of that! It was hard enough for me to have the trouble of poor Gore's illness to fight against, without anything else; and when you did come, Gertrude, I thought--well"--pulling himself together, as it were, he bent forward towards her, and with a soft look in his eyes and an inexpressible tenderness in his voice, whispered, "I thought you might have brought a word of cheer and comfort and--and love--to your poor old Gilbert, who--"
While speaking he gradually drew near to her, and advanced his hand until it touched her waist. Gertrude no sooner felt his clasp than, with a short sharp cry as if of bodily pain, she withdrew herself from it.
"Don't touch me!" she exclaimed, in a voice half choked with sobs. Her calmness was gone, and her whole system was quivering with emotion. "For Heaven's sake keep off! Never lay your touch on me, in kindness or in cruelty, again, or you will find that the 'white-faced cat' has claws, and can use them."
Gilbert Lloyd stared for an instant in mute astonishment at his wife, who stood confronting him, her eyes sparkling like glowing coals in the midst of her pale face, her hair pushed back off her forehead, her hands tightly clasped behind her head. He was cowed by this sudden transformation, by this first act of overt rebellion on Gertrude's part, and thought it best to temporise. So he said, "Why, Gertrude darling, my little lady, what's all--"
"No more of that Gilbert," she interrupted, calming herself by a strong effort, unlocking her hands, and again confronting him. "Those pet names are things of the past now--of the past, which must be to us even more dead and more forgotten than it is to most people."
The solemnity of her tone and of her look angered him, and he said shortly, "Don't preach, please. Spare yourself that."
"I am not preaching, Gilbert, and I am not--as you sometimes tell me--acting; but I have something to say which you must hear."
"Must, eh? Well, come down off your stilts, and say it."
"Gilbert Lloyd," said Gertrude, "this day you and I part for ever. Don't interrupt me," she said, as he made a hasty gesture; "hear me out. I knew that this would be the end of our hasty and ill-advised marriage; but I did not think the end would come so soon. It has come now, and no power on earth would induce me to alter my determination."
"O, that's it, is it?" said Lloyd, after a minute's silence. "And this is my wife, if you please; this is the young lady who promised to love, honour, and obey! This woman, who now coolly talks about our parting for ever, is one who has hung about my neck a thousand times and--"
"No," exclaimed Gertrude, interrupting him, "no! This" (touching herself lightly on the breast) "is your wife indeed--is the woman who bears your name and has borne your caprices; but" (again touching herself) "this is not the woman that left London this morning. I wish to heaven I were--I wish to heaven I were!"
She uttered these last words in a low plaintive tone that was almost a wail, and covered her face with her hands.
"This is mere foolery and nonsense," said Lloyd, after a momentary pause. "You wish you were, indeed! If you're not the same woman, what the devil has changed you?"
"Do you want to know?" she asked suddenly, looking up at him,--not eagerly, boldly, or defiantly, but with the expression of horror and loathing which he had previously noticed.
"No!" he replied with an oath; "why should I waste my time listening to your string of querulous complaints? You want a separation, do you? Well, I am not disposed to say 'no' to any reasonable request; but if I agree to this, mind, it's not to be the usual business."
Finding he paused, Gertrude said, "I scarcely understand you."
"Well, I mean that 'parting for ever' does not mean coming together again next month, to live in a fool's paradise for a week, and then hate each other worse than ever. If we part, we part for ever, which means that we never meet again on earth--or rather, that we begin life afresh, with the recollection of the last few months completely expunged. We have neither of us any relations to worry us with attempts at reconciliation; not half-a-dozen men know of the fact of my having been married, and none of them have ever seen you. So that on both sides we start entirely free. It is not very likely that we shall ever run across each other's path in the future; but if we do, we meet as entire strangers, and the fact of our having been anything to one another must never be brought forward to prejudice any scheme in which either of us may be engaged. Do you follow me?"
"Perfectly."
"And does what I propose meet your views?"
"Entirely."
"That's right. Curious," said Lloyd, with a short, sharp laugh,--"curious that just as we are about to part, we should begin to agree. However, you're right, I suppose; we could not hit it; we were always having tremendous rows, and now each of us can go our own way; and," he added, under his breath, as he glanced at Gertrude's expressive face and trim figure, "I don't think I've had the worst of the bargain."
After a moment's silence, Lloyd said, "What do you propose to do?"
"I have no schemes at present," Gertrude replied; "and if I had, you have no right to ask about them."
"You've not taken long to shake off your harness, by Jove!" said Lloyd bitterly. "However, whatever you do hereafter, you must have something to start with now." He took out a pocket-book, and counted from it some bank-notes. "I've not done so badly as people thought," said he; "and here are two hundred pounds, all my available capital. Yon shall have half of this--here it is." He pushed a roll of notes towards her. She took it without a word, and placed it in her travelling-bag. "You'll sleep here to-night, I suppose; and had better clear out of this place early to-morrow. I shall have to stay until after the funeral. And now, I suppose, that's about all?"
"All," said Gertrude, taking up her travelling-bag and moving towards the door.
"Won't you--won't you say 'good-bye'?" said Lloyd, putting out his hand as she passed him.
Gertrude made him no reply; but she gathered her dress tightly round her, as though to preserve it from his touch; and on glancing at her face Gilbert Lloyd saw there the same look of horror and loathing which had paralysed him even in the midst of his furious rage.
CHAPTER III.
Proposed.
When Gertrude left her husband's presence,--without giving him any clue to her intentions for the future, something like bewilderment fell upon her for a little. It was not grief--no such sentiment had any place or share in the tumult of her mind. The arrangement which had been made, the agreement that had been come to, was a distinct and positive relief to her. It would have been a relief even before the late occurrences which had brought things to a crisis, and Gertrude neither denied nor lost sight of that fact. It had become a positive necessity, not to be avoided, not to be deferred; and it was done. When the door closed behind her, as she trod the narrow passage which divided the sitting-room in which their last interview had taken place from the bedroom in which she was to pass the night, Gertrude knew that she was relieved--was even, in a dull, hardly-ascertained sort of way, glad, and yet she was bewildered. There was more horror in her mind than sorrow. For the hope and happiness of her own life, thus early blighted in their first bloom, she had no sentimental pity; she could not afford to think about them, even if she had had time, which she had not. The circumstances of her life had aided the natural disposition and habits of her mind, and brought her to look steadily at facts rather than feelings, at results and actions rather than at influences and illusions of the past. As a matter of fact, her life in all its great meanings was past, and the best thing she could do was to banish it from memory, to dismiss it from contemplation as completely and as rapidly as possible.
Gertrude had been for many hours without food, and had undergone much and various mental agitation. She was conscious that the bewilderment which pervaded her mind was in a great degree referable to physical exhaustion, and she resolved to postpone thought and action until the morning. She rang a hell, ordered a slight meal to be served to her in her room, and having eaten and drank, went to bed so completely overpowered by the fatigue and restrained excitement of the day, that she fell asleep immediately. The calm summer night, unvisited by darkness, passed over, and witnessed only her unbroken rest--a grand privilege of her youth.
Gilbert Lloyd remained for some time in the room where Gertrude had left him, walking to and fro before the windows, lost in thought. The passion and excitement of the day had not been without their effect on him also, and certain components mingled with them in his case which had no existence in the sum of Gertrude's suffering--doubt, dread, suspense, uncertainty. What did Gertrude mean? What still remained hidden, after that terrible interview in which so much had been revealed? What was still unexplained, after all that dreary and hopeless explanation? These questions, which he could not answer, which it was his best hope might never be answered, troubled Gilbert Lloyd sorely. That the agreement which had been made between him and his wife was highly satisfactory to him he knew as clearly as Gertrude knew it; but in the way in which it had been brought about, in the manner of its decision, the advantage had been Gertrude's. Gilbert Lloyd did not like that, though this parting was so utter and so final that he might well have dismissed all such considerations, and turned his back upon the past, as he had proposed to do in reality, and as he did not entertain a doubt that Gertrude would do in downright real earnest, never bestowing so much thought or memory on him again as to produce the smallest practical effect upon her future life. He knew that he had achieved a great success that day; that this final separation between himself and Gertrude was an event in every way desirable, and which he would have hailed with satisfaction at any period since he had wearied of her and begun to regard marriage as the very worst and stupidest of all mistakes;--a mental process which had commenced surprisingly soon after he had made the blunder. But, somehow, Gilbert Lloyd did not taste the flavour of success. It was not sufficiently unmingled for the palate of a man of despotic self-will, and the ultra intolerance of complete callousness and scoundrelism. At length he checked himself in his monotonous walk, and muttering, "Yes, I'll go back it's safest," he rang the bell.
His summons was not obeyed with remarkable alacrity--waiters and chambermaids had had a bard time of it at the George of late; but a waiter did at length present himself. By this time the news of a "sporting gent's" death in the immediate vicinity had reached the George, and the man looked at Lloyd with the irrational curiosity invariably excited by the sight of anyone who has been recently in close contact with crime, horror, or grief.
"I rang to tell you I shall send my traps down from Pavilion-place, but I shall not sleep here," said Lloyd; "I shall come up to breakfast in the morning, though."
"Very good, sir," said the man; and Gilbert Lloyd took up his hat and walked out. He called for a minute at Pavilion-place, and spoke a few words to Mrs. Bush, who gave him a latchkey, then went away again; and the morning hours were well on when he let himself quietly into the lodging-house and threw himself on the bed in the back parlour.
The window of the "two-pair front" was open, and the fresh breeze, sea-scented, blew in through the aperture, and faintly stirred the drapery of the bed. Presently the sun rose, and before long a bright ray streamed through the green blind, and a wavering bar of light shimmered fantastically across the sheet which decently veiled the dead man's face.