Miracle Gold: A Novel (Vol. 1 of 3)

Should she find the sash of her room down? That would be a distracting discovery. It would mean she should have to pass the night in the open air. That would be bad enough. It would mean that her flight had been discovered already. It might mean that Oscar Leigh was now lying in wait for her somewhere in this impenetrable darkness behind her back. That would be appalling-unendurable. Hurry and see.

Thank heaven, the window was open!

It was much easier to get out through that window than back through it. But at last, after a severe struggle, she found herself in the room. Strange it seemed that she should feel more secure here, under the roof which covered this man, than outside. Yet it was so. He might, in the dark, outside, spring upon her unawares. He looked like a wild beast, like some savage creature that would crouch, and spring, and seize, and rend. Here she felt comparatively safe. The door was locked on the inside. She had locked it on coming into the room hours ago. If she sat down in the old arm-chair she could not be approached from behind. However, ere sitting down she must get some dry clothes to put on her, and she must find them and effect the change without noise or light. It was now past ten o'clock, and no one in the house must fancy she had not gone to bed, or there might be knocking at her door to know if she required anything. She required nothing of that house but a few hours' shelter.

With great caution she searched where she knew her trunk lay open, found the garments she needed, and replaced her wet clothing with dry. This took time; she could not guess how long, but as it was at length accomplished, and she was taking her first few moments of rest in the easy-chair, she heard the front door shut. Mrs. Brown had gone back to her lodge, and under the roof of Eltham House were only Oscar Leigh, his paralysed mother, and herself.

The banging of the front door made her shudder. The knowledge that Mrs. Brown had gone away for the night increased the isolation of the house. There were now only three people within its walls instead of four, and this circumstance seemed to bring the loathsome Oscar Leigh closer to her. She resolved to sit still. It was eleven o'clock. It would be bright daylight in a few hours. As soon as the sun rose she should, if the rain had ceased, leave the house and wander about in the bright open daylight until the time to take the first train for London. It would be dawn at three o'clock. From eleven to three was only four hours. Four hours did not seem long to wait.

The chair she sat in was comfortable, spacious, soft. There was little danger of her falling asleep. In her present state of excitement and anxiety sleep would keep off. But even if she should happen to doze, there was small risk. Nothing could be more unlikely than that she should slip out of that capacious chair and attract attention by the noise of her fall to the floor.

She sat herself further back in the chair to avoid the possibility of such an accident. She had remarked during the day, that sound passed easily and fully through the building, owing, no doubt, to the absence of furniture from many of the rooms and the intense stillness surrounding the house.

Until now, she had not noticed the utter silence of the place. All day long she had been too much agitated to perceive it. She was accustomed to the bustle and hum of Great London, which, even in its quietest streets, day and night, never suffers solution of the continuity of sound, artificial sound, sound the product of man. In that deepest hush, that awful calm that falls upon London between one and three in the morning, there may be moments when distinct, individualized sound is wanting, but there is always a faint dull hum, the murmur of the breathing of mute millions of men.

Here, in this room, was not complete silence, for abroad the rain still fell upon the grass and trees with a murmur like the secret speeding of a smooth fast river through the night.

She sat with her back to the partition between her and the dining-room. She had not dared to move the heavy chair for fear of making noise. The chair stood with its back to the partition. It was midway between the outer wall of the house and the partition of the inner hall. On her left, four yards from where she sat, rose a pale blue luminous space, the open window through which she had entered. On her right, at an equal distance, was the invisible door which she had locked upon retiring hours ago. The large, old-fashioned mahogany four-posted bedstead stood in the middle of the room, between the door and the window. The outline of the bedstead facing the window was dimly discernible in mass. No detail of it could be made out. Something stood there, it was impossible to say what. All the rest of the furniture was lost, swallowed up in gloom, annihilated by the dark.

The room was large and lofty. It was wainscotted as high as a man could reach. Above the wainscot the wall was painted dark green. A heavy cornice ran round the angles of the walls. From door to window was twenty feet. From the partition against which she sat to the wall opposite her was twenty-four feet. The curtains of the bedstead were gathered back at the head and foot posts.

Of all this, beyond the parts of the bedstead fronting the window, Edith could see nothing now. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, her arms close to her side, her head resting on the back of the chair. She closed her eyes, not from drowsiness, but to shut out as much as possible the memory of the place, the thoughts of her situation. She told herself she was once more back in her unpretending little room in Grimsby Street. She tried to make herself believe the beating of the rain on the trees and glass of the conservatory and gravelled carriage sweep in front of the house was the dull murmur of London heard through some new medium. She should hear her grandmother's voice soon.

"Have you done, Oscar?"

"Yes, mother. I have finished for the night."

Edith Grace sat up in her chair and gasped with terror. The words seemed spoken at her ear. The voices were those of Oscar Leigh, the hunchback dwarf, and his mother, Mrs. Leigh, the paralysed old woman! Whence came those voices? What was she about to hear?

For a moment Edith hardly breathed. She had to exercise all her powers of self-control to avoid springing up and screaming. The voices seemed so close to her she expected to hear her own name called out, to feel a hand placed upon her shoulder.

"Yes," the voice of the man said, "I have made the drawings and the calculations. It has taken me time. A great deal of time, mother. But I am right. I have triumphed. I generally am right, mother. I generally do triumph, mother." He spoke in a tone of elation that rose as he progressed in this speech. His accents changed rapidly, and there was a sound of some one moving. "But, mother, you are tired. It has been a long day for you. You would like to go to your room." His voice had fallen, and was low and guttural, but full of eager solicitude and tenderness.

"Not tired; no, Oscar. I am feeling quite well and lively and strong to-night. For an old woman, who has lost the use of her limbs, I keep very well. When you are with me, Oscar dear, I do not seem so old as when you are away from me, my son." The voice was very low, and tremulous with maternal love.

"Old! Old!" he cried with harsh emphatic gaiety. "You are not old, mother! You are a young woman. You are a girl, compared with the old women I know in London, who would fly into a rage if you hinted that they were past middle life-if you did not, in fact, say they were young. Why, mother, what is seventy? Nothing! I know dozens of women over eighty, and they keep up their spirits and are blithe and gay, and ready to dance at a wedding, if any man should only ask them. Up to sixty-five, a woman ages faster than a man, but once over sixty-five, women grow young again." Towards the end his voice had lost its tone of unpleasant excitement, it became merely jocular and buoyant.

"My spirits are always good when you are here, my son. But when you are away I am very dull. Very dull, dear. It is only natural for me to feel dull, when half of my body is dead already. I cannot be long for the world, Oscar."

"Nonsense," said the other voice gaily. "Your affliction has nothing to do with death. The doctors say it is only a local disturbance. Besides, you know, cracked vessels are last broken. You are compelled to take more care of yourself than other women, and you do take care of yourself, I hope. If you do not, I shall be very angry, and keep away altogether from Eltham."

"I take every care of myself, Oscar dear. Every care. I do not want to go away from you. I want to stay with you as long as I can. Oscar dear, I hope it may be granted to me to see your children before I die, dear." The voice was low and tremulous and prayerful. The mournfulness of a mother's heart was in the tone.

"And so you shall, mother," he said briskly, cheerfully. "I mean to astonish you soon. I mean to marry a very handsome wife. I have one in my eye already, mother." He added more gravely, "I have a very handsome wife in my eye. I mean to marry; and I mean to marry her. You know I never make up my mind to do anything that in the end does not come off. But before I marry I must finish my great work. When I have put the last touches to it I shall sell it for a large sum, and retire from business, and live here with you, mother, at my ease."

"And when, my dear son, do you think the great clock will be finished? Tell me all about it. It is the only thing in the world I am jealous of. Tell me how it gets on. Have you added any new wonders to it? When will you be done with it?"

The fright had by this time died out of Edith's heart. She now understood who the owners of the voices were, why the speakers seemed so near. Oscar Leigh was talking to his mother in the dining-room. They both believed she was in deep sleep and could not hear, or they forgot the thinness of the substance separating them. Between the dining-room and where she sat was only the slight panel of a folding door. This room, now a sleeping apartment, had once been the breakfast-parlour. She had not in the daytime noticed that the two rooms were divided only by folding doors. If she had the alternative, she would have got up and left the room. But she had no alternative. She would much rather not hear the words, the voices of these two people. If she coughed, or made a noise, she would but attract attention to herself, bring some one, perhaps, knocking at her door. Nothing could be more undesirable than a visitor, or inquiries at her door. If she coughed, to show the speakers that she was awake, Mrs. Leigh, or he, might knock and speak to her. Mrs. Leigh might, on some plea, ask to see her, ask to be allowed to roll her invalid chair into the room, and then she would find the tenant of it dressed for out of doors, the bed untossed, the floor littered with the scattered contents of her trunk, the wet bedraggled clothes and boots she had taken off. There was nothing for her to do but to remain perfectly still. She was not listening, in the mean or hateful sense of the word. She did not want to overhear, but she could not help hearing. She could not cover her ears, for that would shut out all sound, and the use of hearing was essential to her own safety, her own protection, situated as she found herself. Leigh had given her to understand he was a mechanician. He was telling his mother of his work. He was about to give her particulars of a clock upon which he was engaged. Let them talk on about this clock. It was nothing to her. She was interested intensely in the passage of time, but in no clock. She did not want to hear of an hour-measurer, but of the hour-maker. She cared nothing for man's divisions of time: she prayed with all her heart for a sight of God's time-marker, the sun.

CHAPTER III

AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE

"Soon, soon, mother. I shall be finished soon. I cannot tell exactly when, but not very far off. I see the end of my labours, the reward of all my study, the fruit of all my life," said the voice of the hunchbacked dwarf.

There was a pause in the speech. "Hah," breathed Leigh, in loud inspiration. Then there was a snuffing sound, and another loud inspiration. "Hah! that is refreshing-most refreshing. Will you have some, mother? Do. You won't? Very well. What was I saying?"

The strong, subtle vapour of eau-de-cologne penetrated through the slits and joints of the folding-doors, and floated past Edith towards the open windows.

"About the clock," said Mrs. Leigh. "You were going to tell me what new wonders you have added to it, and when the crowning wonder of all was to be fixed."

"What?" cried the voice of the dwarf, loudly, harshly, angrily. "What do you know of the crowning wonder? Tell me, woman, at once!" His tone was violent, imperious, threatening.

"Oscar! Oscar! What is the matter? What do you mean by calling me 'woman'? Oscar, my son, are you ill? What is the matter? Why do you look at me in that way? You are crushing my hand. What is the matter, Oscar, my own boy?" The woman's accents were full of alarm.

"Agh! Agh! Pardon me. Agh! Pardon me, my dear mother. Agh!" he coughed violently, hoarsely. "The spirit of the eau-de-cologne must have gone down my throat and caught my breath. I am quite right now. Pray excuse me, mother. What was I saying?"

"Something about the clock, dear. But, Oscar, do not mind telling me about it now. You seem not well. Perhaps you had better rest yourself. You can explain about the clock to-morrow."

"Oh, ay, the clock. Of course. I am quite well, mother. You need not be uneasy about me. What was I going to tell you about the clock?"

"You were going to tell me-I do not know really what. I asked you when it would be completed. That is my chief anxiety, for then you will be always here-always here, near me, my dear son."

"Certainly; when I sell my unrivalled clock, I'll give up living in London and come down here to you, mother, and become a private gentleman."

"But why can't you come down and stop here always, my Oscar? Surely your clock could be brought to Millway, and back to London again when 'tis finished?" The voice of the woman was caressing, pleading. "I have not very long to live, Oscar. Might not I have you near me that little time?" The tone was tremulous and pathetic.

"Dear, dear mother," he said softly, tenderly. "I cannot-I cannot move the clock. You forget how large it is. I have told you over and over again it would half fill this room. Besides, I have other business in London I cannot leave just now. I will come as soon as ever I can. You may take my word for that. Let us say no more on that subject at present. I was going to explain to you about my marvellous clock. Let me see. What have I already told you?"

"Oh, it was too wonderful to remember. Tell me over again."

"Very well. To begin with, it will, of course, measure time first of all. That is the principal and easiest thing to contrive. It will show the year, the month, the day of the month, the day of the week, the hour of the day, the minute of the hour, the second of the minute, the tenth of the second. All these will be shown on one dial."

"That much alone puzzles and astonishes me. It will be the most useful clock in the world."

"So far that is all easy, and would not make it even a very remarkable clock, mother. It will take account of leap year, and be constructed to run till the year ten thousand of the Christian era."

"When once wound up?"

"Oh no, you simple mother. It will have to be wound up every week."

"But will not the machinery wear out?"

"Yes, the metal and the stones will wear out and rust out before eight thousand years. But the principle will have eight thousand years of vitality in it. Steel and brass and rubies yield to friction and time, but a principle lives for ever if it is a true principle-"

"And a good principle," interrupted the voice of the old woman, piously.

"Good or bad, if it is true it will last," said the voice of the hunchback, harshly. Then he went on in more gentle and even tones. "On another face it will tell the time of high water in fifty great maritime cities. There will be four thousand Figures of Time, figures of all the great men of the past, each bearing a symbol of his greatest work, or thought, or achievement, and each appearing on the anniversary of his death, thus there will be from eight to twenty figures visible each day, and that day will be the anniversary of the one on which each of the men died years ago."

"Four thousand figures! Why, it will cost a fortune!"

"Four thousand historic figures each presented on the anniversary of death! I am at work on the figures of those who died on the 22nd of August just now. They are very interesting to me, and one of them is the most interesting of all, the most interesting of all the four thousand figures."

"And who died on the 22nd of August, Oscar? Whose is the figure that interests you most of all, my son?"

"Richard Plantagenet of Gloucester," fiercely.

"Eh?" in a tone of intense pain.

"Richard Plantagenet of Gloucester, commonly called Richard the Third of England, and nicknamed the Hunchbacked Tyrant," maliciously.

"Oscar!" in a tone of protest and misery.

"Yes. Hump and all, I am now making the figure of the most famous hunchback in history. I take a delight in modelling the figure of my Hunchback Tyrant. In body and soul I can sympathise with-him." He spoke furiously, and there was a sound in the room as if he rose.

"Oh, you break my heart, my boy, my boy, my son! Don't, for God's sake, don't. You cut me to the soul! You frighten me when you look in that way." She spoke in terror and anguish.

There were hasty, halting, footsteps pacing up and down the dining-room. The folding-doors behind Edith's head trembled, the windows of the dining-room rattled. The girl wondered he did not think of her. He knew her room lay beyond the dining-room, and he must be aware nothing divided her room from the front one but the thin panels of the folding-doors. It was plain to her now he did not care whether she heard or not.

"Break your heart, mother!" he went on in a tone of excitement but less acerbity. "Why should what I say break your heart? What hurt can words do? Look at me! Me! If I were to say my heart was broken, no one would wonder. I am not reproaching you. Heaven knows, if I turned upon you, I should have no friend left in all the world. Not one soul who would care for me-care whether I lived or died, whether I prospered or was hanged by the common hangman on a gibbet!"

"Oh, Oscar, what is it? What has done it? What has soured you so? You never talked in this way until now. What has changed you?" The voice of the woman was broken. She was weeping through her words.

"A girl's face. A girl's face has changed me. I, who had a heart of adamant, a heart of the core of adamant befitting the crooked carcase in which it is penned and warped and blackened by villainous obstructions. But there! I have been vapouring, mother. Let my words pass. I am a fool and worse to break out in such a way before you, my good, gentle mother." His voice became less excited, his steps more slow and light. "It is passed. I am myself again. I know your advice is good. I mean to follow it. I will marry a wife. I will marry a pretty, shapely wife. You shall have grand children at your knee, mother, before long, before you go. Well-favoured and gay and flawless, and straight-backed, and right-limbed little children who will overtop me, exceed me in height before they begin their teens, but will never, never, never mother, grow to near the degree of love I have for you." His voice and steps ceased, as though he paused at her side.

"Do not kneel," she whispered huskily. "Do not kneel, my son. I was frightened a moment ago, and now I feel suffocated with joy. There! That is right. Sit in your own chair again."

For a while Edith heard sobs-the sobs of a man.

The woman had ceased to weep.

When the sobbing stopped, the woman said: "Who is she? Do I know her? Do I know even her name?"

"All that is my secret, mother. I will not say any more of her but that I am accustomed to succeed, and I will succeed here. I will keep the secret of her name in my heart to goad me on. I am accustomed to succeed. Rest assured I will succeed in this. We will say no more of it. Let it be a forbidden subject between us until I speak of it again; until, perhaps, I bring her to you."

"As you will, Oscar. Keep your secret. I can trust and wait."

"It is best. I feel better already. That storm has cleared the air. I was excited. I have reason to be excited to-day. At this moment-it is now just twelve o'clock-at this moment I am either succeeding or failing in one of my most important aims."

"Just now, Oscar. Do you mean here?"

"No, not here. In London. You do not believe in magic, mother?"

"Surely not. What do you mean? You do not believe in anything so foolish?"

"Or in clairvoyance or spectres, mother?"

"No, my child. Nor you, I hope. That is, I do not believe in all the tales I hear from simple folk."

"And yet not everything-not half everything-is understood even now."

"Will you not tell me of this either?"

"Not to-night, mother. Not to-night. Another time, perhaps, I may. You know I had a week ago no intention of coming here to-day. I did not come to welcome Miss Grace. I had another reason for coming. I am trying an experiment to-night. At this moment I am putting the result of many anxious hours to the touch. If my experiment turns out well I shall come into a strange power. But there, I will say no more about it, for I must not explain, and it is not fair to tell you, all at once, that I have two secrets from you. And now, mother, it is very late for you. We must go to bed. That patent couch still enables you to do without aid in dressing?"

"Yes. I am still able to do without help. I think some of the springs want oiling. You will look at them to-morrow?"

"Yes. But it must be early. I am going back to town at noon."

"So soon? I did not think you would leave till later, Oscar. I don't want to pry into your secrets, but you spoke of gaining some strange powers. Do you think it wise to play with-with-with?"

"With what, mother?"

"With strange powers."

"That depends on what the strange powers are."

"But tell me there is no danger."

"To me? No, I think not."

"Oscar, I am uneasy."

"We have sat and talked too long. You are worn out. I will wheel you to your room. I am sleepy myself."

Edith Grace heard the sound of Mrs. Leigh's invalid chair moving towards the dining room door, then the door open and the chair pass down the hall and into Mrs. Leigh's bedroom. Words passed between the mother and son, but she did not catch their import. She heard the door of Mrs. Leigh's room opposite her own close and then the dragging, lame footsteps of the hunchback on the tiles of the back hall.

The girl listened intently. She did not move. She was sitting bolt upright in her chair with her face turned towards the door of the room.

Leigh's irregular, shuffling footsteps became more distinct. He was crossing the hall from his mother's room to the stairs, which began at the left-hand side of the back hall, close to the door of the room where Edith sat.

"He is going upstairs to his own room. When he is gone the house will be still and I shall be at ease. Daylight will soon come and then I can slip away again and wait till the first train for London-for home! He must be mad. Even if he had not pressed his hateful attentions on me I would not stay in this house for all the world," thought Edith Grace.

The slow, shuffling footsteps did not ascend the stairs. They paused. They paused, she could not tell exactly where. All her faculties were concentrated in hearing, and she heard nothing, absolutely nothing, but the rain. Could it be he had reached the stairs and was ascending inaudibly? Could it be he had already ascended? She thought it was but a moment ago since he closed his mother's door. He might have gone up unheard. It might be longer since the door shut than she thought. She could not judge time exactly in the dark, and when she was so powerfully excited. Should she get up out of that chair, open the door as quietly as possible, and peer into the hall? What good would that do? If he were there he would see her; if he were not there all was well. Besides, it would be quite impossible to unlock the door and open it without making a noise, without the snap of the lock, the grating of the latch, the creaking of the hinge. It was better to remain quiet.