Cursed by a Fortune

“Becky! Becky!” she shrieked.

“Yes, mother!” came from where the tied-up face was stretched over the balustrade on the first floor.

“Lock yourself in master’s room, open the window, and shriek murder until the police come.”

“Damnation!” roared Garstang; and he rushed at and seized the woman, who clung to one of the bookshelves, bringing it down with a crash, and a shriek came from the upper floor.

“Stop her,” roared Garstang. “There, I give in. Here, Becky, your mother will speak to you.”

“Lock yourself in the room, but don’t scream till I tell you, or he comes,” cried the woman.

“That will do,” said Garstang, savagely, and he loosed his hold, with the result that the woman ran back to the insensible girl, and once more clasped her in her arms.

Garstang began to pace up and down the room, but paused at the door, to reach out and see Becky’s white face and eyes displaying the white rings round them, peering down from above.

At the sight of him she rushed to his bedroom, and stood half inside, ready to lock herself in if he attempted to ascend.

A wild cry from Sarah Plant took Garstang back to her side.

“I knew it – I knew it!” she cried, bursting into a passionate fit of sobbing; “you’ve killed her. Look at her, sir, look. Oh, my poor dear, my poor dear! God forgive me! What shall I do?”

A chill of horror ran through Garstang, and he bent down over his victim, trembling violently now, as he raised one eyelid with his finger, then the other, bent lower so that his cheek was close to her lips, and then caught her hand, and tried to feel her pulse.

“No, no; she is only sleeping,” he said, hoarsely.

“Sleeping!” moaned the woman, hysterically; “do you call that sleep?”

Garstang drew a deep breath, and his horror increased.

“Help me to lay her on the couch,” he said, huskily.

“No, no, I’m strong enough,” groaned the woman. “Oh, my poor dear – my poor dear! he has murdered you.”

She rose quickly, and in her nervous exaltation, passed her arms round the helpless figure, and lifted it like a child, to bear it to the couch, and lay it helplessly down.

“Oh, help, help!” she groaned, in a piteous wail. “A doctor – fetch a doctor at once.”

“No, no, go for brandy – for cold water to bathe her face.”

“I don’t leave her again,” cried the woman, passionately; “I’d sooner die.”

Garstang gazed down at them wildly for a few moments, and then rushed across into the dining-room, obtained the brandy, a glass, and a carafe of water, and returned, to begin bathing Kate’s temples and hands, but without the slightest result, save that her breathing became fainter, and the ghastly symptoms of collapse slowly increased.

“She’s going – she’s going!” moaned the shuddering woman, who knelt by the couch, holding Kate tightly as if to keep her there. “We’ve poisoned her! we’ve poisoned her!”

The panic which had seized upon Garstang increased, as he gazed wildly at his work. Strong man as he was, and accustomed to control himself, he began now to lose his head; and at last, thoroughly aghast, he caught the housekeeper by the shoulder and shook her.

“Don’t leave her,” he said, in a husky whisper. “I’m going out.”

“What!” cried the woman, turning and catching his arm; “going to try and escape, and leave me here?”

“No, no,” he whispered; “a doctor – to fetch a doctor.”

“Yes, yes,” moaned the woman; “a doctor – fetch a doctor; but it is too late – it is too late!”

Garstang hardly heard her words, as he bent down and took a hurried look at Kate’s face. Then hurrying to the door, he caught sight of Becky still watching.

“Go down and help your mother,” he cried, excitedly; and unfastening the door, he rushed out.

Chapter Forty Four

Pierce Leigh returned home after a long weary day of watching. From careful thought and balancing of the matter, he had long come to the conclusion that Claud Wilton’s ideas were right, and that John Garstang knew where his cousin was. But suspicion was not certainty, and though he told himself that he had no right or reason in his conduct, he could not refrain from spending all the time he could spare from his professional work in town – work that was growing rapidly – in trying to get some news of the missing girl.

He was more amenable now, and ready to discuss the matter with his sister, who remained Kate’s champion and declared that she was sure there was some foul play in the matter; but he would not give way, and laughed bitterly whenever Jenny aired her optimism, and said she was sure that all would end happily after all.

“Silly child!” he said bitterly. “If Miss Wilton was the victim of foul play – which I do not believe – she could have found some means of communicating with her friends.”

“But she had no friends, Pierce,” cried Jenny. “She told me so more than once.”

“She had you.”

“Oh, I don’t count, dear; I was only an acquaintance, and it had not had time to ripen into affection on her side. I soon began to love her, but I don’t think she cared much for me.”

“Ah, it was a great mistake,” sighed Leigh.

“What was?” cried Jenny sharply.

“Our going down to Northwood. I lost a thousand pounds by the transaction.”

“And gained the dearest girl in the world to love.”

“Don’t talk absurdly, child,” said Leigh, firmly. “I beg that you will not speak to me in that tone about Miss Wilton. Has Claud been again?”

“I beg that you will not speak to me in that tone about Mr Wilton,” said Jenny, with a mischievous look at her brother, who glanced at her sharply.

“Claud Wilton is not such a bad fellow after all, I begin to think. All that horsey caddishness will, I daresay, wear off.”

“I am sorry for the poor woman who has to rub it off,” said Jenny.

“You did not tell me if he had called.”

“Yes, he did call.”

“Jenny!”

“I didn’t ask him to call, and he did not come to see me,” said the girl demurely. “He wanted you, and left his card. I put it in the surgery. I think he said he had some news of his cousin.”

“Indeed?” said Leigh, starting. “When was this?”

“Yesterday evening. But Pierce, dear, surely it is nothing to you. Don’t go interfering, and perhaps make two poor people unhappy.”

Leigh turned upon her angrily.

“What a good little girl you would be, Jenny, if you had been born without a tongue.”

“Yes,” she said, “but I should not have been half a woman, Pierce, dear.”

“Did he say when he would come again?”

“No.”

“Did he say more particularly what his news was?”

“No, dear, and I did not ask him, knowing how particular you are about my being at all intimate with him.”

He gave her an angry glance, but she ignored it.

“Anyone else been?”

“Yes; there was a message from Mrs Smithers, saying she hoped you would drop in after dinner and see her. Her daughter came – the freckly one. The buzzing in her mother’s head had begun again, and Miss Smithers says she is sure it is the port wine, for it always comes after her mother has been drinking port wine for a month.”

“Of course. She eats and drinks twice as much as is good for her. – Did young Wilton say anything about Northwood?”

“Yes,” said Jenny, carelessly. “The new doctor has got the parish work, but he isn’t worked to death. Oh, by the way, there’s a letter on the chimney-piece.”

Leigh rose and took it eagerly, frowning as he read it.

“Bad news, Pierce, dear?”

“Eh? Bad? Oh, dear no; I have to meet Dr Clifton in consultation at three to-morrow, at Sir Montague Russell’s.”

“Oh! I say, Pierce dear, how rapidly you are picking up a practice!”

“Yes,” he said, with a sigh; and then with an effort to be cheerful, “How long will dinner be?”

“Half an hour,” said Jenny, after a glance at the clock, “and then I hope they will let you have a quiet evening. You have not been at home once this week.”

“Ah, yes, a quiet evening would be pleasant.”

“Thinking, Pierce dear?” said Jenny, after a pause.

“Yes,” he said dreamily, as he sat back with his eyes closed. “I can’t make it all fit. He rarely goes to the office, I have found that out; and from what I can learn he must be living in the country. The house I saw him go to has all the front blinds drawn down, and last time I rode by I saw a woman at the gate, but I could not stop to question her – I have no right.”

“No, dear, you have no right,” said Jenny, gravely. “That was only a fancy of yours. But how strangely things do come to pass!”

Leigh started, and gazed at his sister wonderingly.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“I was only replying to your remarks, dear, about your suspicions of this Mr Garstang.”

“I? My remarks?” he said, looking at her strangely. “I said nothing.”

“Why, Pierce dear, you did just now.”

“No, not a word. I was asleep when you spoke.”

“Asleep?”

“Yes. What is there strange in that? A man must have rest, and I have been out for the last three nights with anxious cases. Was I talking?”

“Yes, dear,” said Jenny, rising, to go behind the chair and lay her soft little hands upon her brother’s head. “Talking about that shut-up house, and this Mr Garstang. I thought it was not possible, and that it was very wild of you to take a house in this street so as to be near and watch him, but nothing could have been better. You are getting as busy as you used to be in Westminster. But Pierce, dear,” she whispered softly, “don’t you think we should be happier if we were in full confidence with one another – as we were once?”

“No,” he said, gloomily, “I shall never be happy again.”

“You will, dear, when some day we meet Kate, and all this mystery about her is at an end.”

“Meet Miss Wilton and her husband,” he said, bitterly.

“No, dear; if I know anything of women you will never meet Kate Wilton’s husband. Pierce, dear, I am your sister, and I have been so lonely lately, ever since we came to London. You have never quite forgiven me all that unhappy business. Don’t you think you could if you tried?”

He sat perfectly silent for a few moments, and then reached round, took her in his arms, and kissed her long and lovingly.

In an instant she was clinging to his neck, sobbing wildly, and he had hard work trying to soothe her.

But she changed again just as quickly, and laughed at him through her tears.

“There,” she cried, “now I feel ten years younger. Five minutes ago I was quite an old woman. But, Pierce, you will confide in me now, and make me quite as we used to be?”

“Yes,” he said.

She wound her arms tightly round his neck, and laid her face to his.

“Then confess to me, dear,” she whispered. “You do dearly love Kate Wilton?”

He was silent for some moments, and then slowly and dreamily his words were breathed close to her ear.

“Yes; and I shall never love again.”

Jenny turned up her face and kissed him, but hid it, burning, directly after in his breast.

“Pierce dear,” she whispered, “I have no one else to talk to like this. May I confess something now to you?”

“Why not?” he said, gently. “Confidence for confidence.”

She was silent in turn for some time. Then she spoke almost in a whisper.

“Will you be very angry, Pierce, if I tell you that I think I am beginning to like Claud Wilton very much?”

“Like – him?” he cried, scornfully.

“I mean love him, Pierce,” she said, quietly.

“Jenny! Impossible!”

“That’s what I used to think, dear, but it is not.”

“You foolish baby, what is there in the fellow that any woman could love?”

“Something I’ve found out, dear.”

“In Heaven’s name, what?”

“He loves me with all his heart.”

“He has no heart.”

“You don’t know him as I do, Pierce. He has, and a very warm one.”

“Has he dared to make proposals to you again?”

“No, not a word. But he isn’t like the same. It was all through you, Pierce. I made him love me, and now he looks up to me as if I were something he ought to worship, and – and I can’t help liking him for it.”

“Oh, you must not think of it,” cried Leigh.

“That’s what I’ve told myself hundreds of times, dear, but it will come, and – and, Pierce, dear, it’s very dreadful, but we can’t help it when the love comes. Do you think we can?”

She slipped from him, and dashed the tears from her eyes, for her quick senses detected a step, and the next moment a quiet-looking maid-servant announced the dinner.

No more was said, but the manner of sister and brother was warmer than it had been for months; and though he made no allusions, there was a half-reproachful, half-mocking smile on Leigh’s lips when his eyes met Jenny’s.

The dinner ended, he went into their little plainly-furnished drawing-room to steal half-an-hour’s rest before hurrying off to make the call as requested; and he had not left the house ten minutes when there was a hurried ring at the bell.

Jenny clapped her hands, and burst into a merry laugh.

“I am glad,” she cried. “No; I ought to be sorry for the poor people. But how they are finding out what a dear, clever, old fellow Pierce is! I wonder who this can be?”

She was not kept long in doubt, for the servant came up.

“If you please, ma’am, there’s that gentleman again who called to see master.”

“What gentleman?” said Jenny, suddenly turning nervous – “Mr Wilton?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Did you tell him your master was out?”

“Yes, ma’am, and he said would you see him just a moment?”

“I’ll come down,” said Jenny, turning very hard and stiff; and it seemed to be a different personage who descended to Leigh’s consulting room, where Claud was walking up and down with his hat on.

“Ah, Miss Leigh!” he cried, excitedly, as he half ran to her, with his hands extended.

But Jenny did not seem to see them; only standing pokeresque, and gazing at the young fellow’s hat.

“Eh? What’s the matter? Oh, I beg your pardon,” he cried, catching it off confusedly; “I’m so excited, I forgot. But I can’t stop; I’ll come in again by and by and see your brother. Only tell him I’ve found her.”

“Found Kate Wilton?” cried Jenny, dropping her formal manner and catching him by the arm, his hand dropping upon hers directly.

“Yes, I’m as sure as sure. I’ve been on the scent for some time, and I never could be sure; but I’m about certain now, and I want your brother to come and help me, for he has a better right than I have to be there.”

“My brother, Mr Wilton?” said Jenny, in a freezing tone.

“Oh, I say, please don’t,” he whispered earnestly; “I am trying so hard to show you that I’m not such a cad as you used to think, and when you speak to me in that way it makes me feel as if there’s nothing, left to do but enlist, and get sent off to India, or the Crimea, or somewhere, to be killed out of the way.”

“Tell me quickly, where is she?”

“I can’t yet. I’m not quite sure.”

“Pah!”

“Ah, you wait a bit, and you’ll see; and if I do find her I shall bring her here.”

“Here?” cried Jenny, excitedly.

“Yes, why not? she likes you better than anybody in the world; he likes, her, and – . Here, I can’t stop. Good-bye; tell him I’ll be back again as soon as I can, for find her I will to-night.”

“But Mr Wilton – Claud!”

“Ah!” he cried excitedly, turning to her.

“Tell me one thing.”

“Everything,” he cried, wildly, “if you’ll speak to me like that. Someone I thought had got her; I’m about sure now, but – I’d give anything to stop – but I can’t.”

He rushed out into the street, and Jenny returned to her room and work, trembling with a double excitement, one moment blaming herself for being too free with her visitor, the next forgetting everything in the news.

“Oh, Pierce, dear Pierce! if it is only true,” she muttered, as her work dropped from her hands, and she sat hour after hour longing for her brother’s return. This was not till ten, when she was trembling with excitement, and in momentary expectation of seeing Claud Wilton return first.

Chapter Forty Five

Jenny was standing at the window, watching the people go by, when a cab drew up and Leigh sprang out, to let himself in with his latch-key; and she was half-way down to meet him as he was coming up.

“Pierce,” she whispered excitedly. “Claud Wilton has been. He has, he is sure, found Kate; and he is coming again to fetch you to where she is.”

Leigh staggered, and caught at the balustrade to save himself from falling.

“Where is she?” he panted.

“I – don’t know; he was not quite sure, but he is coming again. He says no one but you has a right to be there when she is found; and Pierce – Pierce – he is going to bring her here!”

Leigh stood gazing straight before him, feeling as if he could hardly breathe, and he followed his sister into the drawing-room, but had hardly sunk into a chair when there was a tremendous peal at the bell.

“Here he is!” cried Jenny; and Leigh sprang from his seat to hurry down, but restrained himself, and to his sister’s despair, stood waiting.

“Pierce, dear,” she whispered, “pray go.”

“I have no right,” he said huskily; and Jenny wrung her hands and tried vainly for what she deemed the correct words to say.

The painful silence was broken by the appearance of the maid.

“A gentleman to see you, sir; very important.”

“Mr Wilton?” cried Jenny.

“No, ma’am, a strange gentleman,” said the girl. “Someone very bad.”

Leigh exhaled his pent-up breath with a sigh of relief, and went quickly down to where his visitor was waiting, looking wild and ghastly.

Garstang! – the man he had been watching for months without result, but who looked at him as one whom he had never met before.

“Will you come with me directly?” he cried. “My house – only in the next street. I’d better tell you at once, so that you may bring some antidote with you. I need not explain – a young lady – my wife – a foolish quarrel – a little jealousy – and she has taken some of that new sedative, Xyrania – a poisonous dose, I fear.”

“A young lady – my wife,” rang in Leigh’s ears like the death knell of all hopes. Then he was right: this man had carried her off with her consent, and it had come to this.

“Do you not hear me, sir?” cried Garstang; “Mr – I don’t know your name; I came to the first red lamp. You are a doctor?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” cried Leigh, hastily.

“Then, for God’s sake, come on before it is too late!”

Leigh was the calm, cold, collected physician once again, and he spoke in a strange tone that he did not know as his own.

“Xyrania,” he said; and he went to a case of bottles and jars, took down one of the former, poured a small quantity into a phial, corked it, and said solemnly —

“Lead the way, sir – quick; but I must tell you that an overdose of that drug means sleep from which there is no awaking.”

Garstang uttered a low, harsh sound, and motioned towards the door, leading the way; while Leigh followed him, with his brain feeling, in addition to the terrific crushing weight of depression as if all the world were nothing now, confused and strange, as he wondered that the man did not recognise him; and too much stunned to grasp the fact that he who had filled so large a measure of his thoughts for months had never met him face to face – probably had never heard of him, save as some doctor in practice at Northwood.

Then, as they hurried along the pavement, and at the end of another hundred yards turned into Great Ormond Street, Leigh felt oppressed by another thought – that after all, Kate, if it were she he was being taken to see, must have been for months past in the house he had so often gazed at in passing, with an intense desire to enter, but had always crushed down that desire, telling himself that it was insane.

Meanwhile Garstang was talking to him in a hurried excited tone, uttering words that hardly reached his companion’s understanding; but he caught fragments about “unhappy temper – insomnia – indulgence in the potent drug – his agony and despair” – and then he cried wildly, as he paused at the door of the familiar house with its overhanging eaves, and inserted the latch-key:

“Doctor – any fee you like to demand, but you must save my wife’s life.”

“Must save his wife’s life!” groaned Leigh, mentally, as his heart gave what seemed to be one heavy throb. Then he stepped into the great gloomy hall.

Chapter Forty Six

“His wife!”

The words kept repeating themselves in Pierce Leigh’s brain like the beating of some artery charged to bursting, and the agony seemed greater than he could bear; while the revelation which had been so briefly made told of misery and a terrible despair which had driven the woman he loved to this desperate act. But for one thought he would have rushed madly away to try and forget everything by a similar act, for the means were at home, ready to his hand, his suffering being more than he could bear.

But there was that thought; she was in peril of her life, and the husband had flown unconsciously to him for help. He might be able to save her – make her owe that life to him – and this thought fought against his weakness, and for the time being made him strong enough to follow Garstang to the library door, just as poor Becky darted away and disappeared through the doorway leading to the basement.

As Leigh entered and saw Kate lying motionless upon the sofa, with the housekeeper kneeling by her side, a pang shot through him which seemed to cleave his heart; then as it passed away he was the calm stern physician once more.

“You had better go, sir,” he said sharply, “and leave me with the nurse.”

“No: do your work,” said Garstang harshly; “I stay here.”

Leigh made no answer, but took the housekeeper’s place, to examine the sufferer’s dilated pupils and test the pulsation, and then he turned quickly to Garstang.

“Where are the bottle and glass?” he said sharply.

“What bottle – what glass?” replied Garstang, taken by surprise.

“The symptoms seem to accord with what you say, but I want to make perfectly sure. Where is the drug she took?”

“Oh, it was in the tea, sir, there,” cried the housekeeper.

Garstang turned upon her with a savage gesture, and Leigh saw it. His suspicions were raised.

“Here, sir,” said the woman, pointing to the pot.

“Oh yes,” said Garstang hurriedly: “she took it in her tea.”

“She did not, sir!” cried the woman desperately.

“Hold your tongue!” roared Garstang.

“I won’t, doctor, if I die for it,” cried the woman. “He drugged her, poor dear. I was obliged to do as he said.”

“The woman’s mad,” cried Garstang. “Go on with your work.”

A savage instinct seemed to drive Leigh, on hearing this, to bound at Garstang, seize him by the throat and strangle him; but a glance at Kate checked it, and the physician regained the ascendancy.

He poured a little of the tea into a clean cup, smelt, tasted, and spat it out.

“Quite right,” he said firmly. “Don’t let that tea-pot be touched again.”

Garstang winced, for the words were to him charged with death, a trial for murder, and the silent evidence of the crime.

“Here, you help me,” said Leigh, quickly; and he rinsed out the cup with water from the urn, poured a couple of teaspoonfuls from a bottle into the cup, and kneeling by the couch while the housekeeper held the insensible girl’s head, tried to insert the spoon between the closely set teeth.

The effort was vain, and he was forced to trickle the antidote he tried to administer through the teeth, but there was no effort made to swallow; the insensibility was too deep.

“Better?” said Garstang, after watching the doctor’s efforts to revive his patient for quite half an hour.

“Better?” he said, fiercely. “Can you not see, man, that she is steadily passing away?”

“No, no, she seems calmer, and more like one asleep. Oh, persevere, doctor!”

“I want help here – the counsel and advice of the best man you can get. Send instantly for Sir Edward Lacey, Harley Street.”

“No,” said Garstang, frowning darkly. “You seem an able practitioner. It is a matter of time for the effects of the potent drug to die out, is it not?”

“Yes, of course; but I fear the worst.”

“Go on with what you are doing, doctor; I have faith in you.”

At that moment Leigh felt that nothing more could be done – that nature was the great physician; and he once more knelt down by the side of the couch for a time, while a terrible silence seemed to have fallen on the place, even the housekeeper looking now as if she were turned to stone, and dared not move her lips as she intently watched the calm white face upon the pillow.