A Rich Man's Relatives Volume III Part 4

CHAPTER V.

MURDER.

It was a summer morning, between six and seven. The last thread of mist has melted in the warming air, air suffused with sunshine and crisp with a lingering freshness from the night; the banks all dewy, and the river asparkle in the slanting light.

Considine stepped into a skiff in the boat-house beneath his chamber, and shot out into the stream to take his morning plunge. Then lingeringly snuffing the sweet cool air and surveying the upward moving banks as he drifted down, with fingers idling among the intricacies of b.u.t.tons, and talking aloud, he leisurely undressed himself for his swim:

"Can that be the glitter of a gunbarrel in the sun? It is--reminds one of the sharpshooters on the Rappahannock river during the war. What can the fellow be skulking for, like that, among the bushes? He remembers it's the close season for duck perhaps; but he might take courage, and stand boldly forth this morning; there is not one on the river to pop at, as far as I can see. I must give the Game Preserving a.s.sociation a hint when I go to town, though. Well! here goes.

One--two--three!" He dived into the river, and the bracing coolness licked his languid limbs into a new feeling of firmness and strength.

Regaining the surface, and shaking his eyes clear of the dripping hair, he turned to survey his sportsman, now standing full in view.

"Ralph Herkimer!--and taking aim!--last night--I understand. My G.o.d!--if he aims straight--I'm done for."

The skiff had drifted on in front during his gambols, and he now struck out with all his might to gain its side and interpose it between himself and danger; but he never reached it. A flash and a puff of smoke upon the sh.o.r.e, a crack, and a stinging sensation in the shoulder, paralyzing the arm, and he went under water. Rising presently, he struck out anew, straining every sinew to overtake the boat, and almost reaching it, when he lifted the sound arm to lay hold--lifted it too soon. It fell short, fell back on the water, and he plunged headforemost to the bottom. His head may have struck upon a sunken rock, or--or anything. He struggled, feeling himself drowning, and then he grew drowsy, his consciousness grew vague and dreamlike, and then there was an end. The current swept onward undisturbed, and the empty boat drifted down stream towards the sedgy islands, where the river took a turn, and was lost from view.

Ralph Herkimer stood upon the sh.o.r.e watching with an intentness which left him deaf and impervious to every other impression. The rifle had slipped from his shoulder, the b.u.t.t rested on the ground, and a thread of smoke still crept out from the barrel. His hand supported it mechanically. His perceptions were out upon the river. The victim was. .h.i.t, he saw so much, and when he sank, Ralph drew a breath of infinite relief between his tight-set teeth; but still he could not turn away his eyes.

The head emerged above the tide again. What?--and he was wounded?--and yet about to escape!--and it would be known that it was he--Ralph--who had fired. He must not let him escape--and yet, to fire again? The first shot, being unlooked for, would pa.s.s unnoticed; the next, all ears along the river being now aroused, would surely be observed. He clutched the rifle, with one barrel still to fire, and watched the swimmer. How heavily he floundered through the water, yet with what desperate force; and, really, he was gaining on the boat. If he should reach it the deed would be out--everything known--and it would then be too late to shoot. A boat with a corpse--an empty boat, with blood-stains, would be enough to set the law and the detectives to work. He lifted the gun, but his heart beat far too wildly to take aim. His eyes were clouded, his hands shook; while out in the stream the swimmer could be seen in frantic effort struggling along and gaining on the boat.

And now it seems to Ralph there is no choice. He _must_ fire again, or the swimmer will gain the boat, and everything be known. Why should his hand tremble now? When did he ever fail to knock a squirrel from the tree? Has he not shot a bear in his time? Is not the danger of letting this man escape worse than any mischief the bear could have done him? and yet----

Ha! The swimmer rises in the water, throwing out his arm as though to grasp the boat. It is beyond his reach. He falls forward in the tide and disappears. A foot is seen above the water for an instant, and is gone. The boat drifts onward all alone. The gun has not gone off, and Ralph sinks on the bank, panting and weak in the revulsion of excitement. His eyes follow the drifting boat and watch the even gla.s.sy flowing in its wake, but the waters part not asunder any more.

No head emerges panting and struggling to disturb the mirrored l.u.s.tre reflected from the morning clouds. The thing is done.

CHAPTER VI.

NEMESIS.

Ralph Herkimer was late for breakfast. He had been out with his gun; for Gerald, setting out to catch an early train for town, came on him stepping from the shrubbery to gain the verandah and his own dressing-room window--met him right in the face, to his own no small surprise, and not, apparently, to the satisfaction of his parent.

"Ducks! Father? Ain't you three weeks ahead of time?"

"Sparrows! my son. We shall not have a black cherry left, for those blasted English sparrows."

"And you took the rifle? That would have been putting a big blast with a vengeance into one of their little persons. Head, claws, feathers, would have been blown to the four winds. The rest would be nowhere."

"Humph," grunted Ralph in surly wise, entering his open window without further parley.

"Old man must be out of sorts this morning," said the son, proceeding on his way. "Never saw him so grumpy of a morning before. And to take a rifle to the sparrows! He must have gone out half awake--taken it up without noticing, and been ashamed at being seen--stolen back, no doubt, before Solomon Sprout would arrive with his spade and barrow.

Solomon isn't an early bird by any means. I suppose no gardener is.

Has the whole day before him to potter about the place. Solomon would have laughed at the rifle, and told us about blowing Sepoys away from the cannon's mouth when he was soldiering in 'Indy.'"

Ralph was very late for breakfast. He had rung for his man, and sent him for sherry and bitters, and then dismissed him, peremptorily refusing to be shaved, or to be bothered in any way.

Nine o'clock. Mrs. Martha sat by her coffeepot, but her spouse did not appear. She rang for Joseph, and inquired for his master, but he could only say that he had rung for sherry and bitters, refused to be shaved, and ordered him out of the room.

"He's out of sorts," soliloquized Mrs. Martha. "Smoked too many cigars with Jordan last night, that's what's the matter! What fools the men are! Making themselves sick with nasty tobacco, just for manners to one another! I'm sure they don't really like it. I've known the time when Ralph would sit the whole evening with me and Gerald--Gerald was a baby then--and never a cigar. Just a few peaches before going to bed, and a Boston cracker. Heigh-ho! I was young then, to be sure, and better looking, but I don't suppose that signifies to Ralph. I am sure I like _him_ as well, and think him as fine a man as ever I did; and why would he not think the same of me? It's just that eternal _business!_ The men are that dead set on it they think of nothing else, and they make believe to like tobacco to be with one another, and keep the women away, that they may talk business. The weary, weary business! Whatever good has it done us? The richer we get, the harder Ralph seems to work, and the less I see of him. But I'll keep him at home to-day, anyhow. See if I don't."

With a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, she hastened to her husband's room.

"Well, Ralph? Still up? I fancied you must have lain down again. Drink your coffee. It will do you good. Dear me! How pale and limp you look."

"Nonsense! I'm all right."

"Not you. You must not think of going to town to-day. We'll hang a hammock on the shady side of the house and you can swing there. The river view feels cool, and there always comes a breeze up from the water. Joseph!"

"Bid him hang the hammock in the front of the house, Martha. It amuses one to see who comes and goes. Yes; I shall stay at home with you to-day. I don't feel up to much--yesterday's heat, I suppose. Bid him hang the hammock up in front."

"There's no shade worth speaking of on that side till the afternoon.

You'll broil yourself with the glare off the flower beds. The west verandah is the place at this hour, and there's the pleasant outlook over the river."

"River be d----d. It makes me giddy to look at it this morning. My head seems all aswim."

"Bilious--the brandy and cigars last night. You never _could_ stand much of that, Ralph. It's not for you! Leave it to the dull fellows who want brightening. You have too many nerves to agree with stimulants in quant.i.ty."

"Don't preach, Martha, my good soul. My head is splitting. Open the window wider, and close the blinds. Now leave me, please; I think I could sleep. Send Joseph with the brandy and some soda-water and ice."

"A hair of the dog that bit you, eh? My poor old man. But I think you would be better without it," and she laid her cool hand on his forehead as he lay.

It was the touch that of all things soothed and softened him the most.

In the hurry of life and the scramble for its prizes he had long outgrown the early transports of the honeymoon, real though they had been at the time--as real as it was in his nature to experience. The light of her eye had less power to kindle a response within him; it shone more dimly, doubtless, than of old, and his receptive organ--heart, call it?--had toughened with the years, and was too occupied with greed to hold much else. Her bright and sensible talk, grown familiar, had ceased to interest; but the touch of that cool, soft, firm, and sympathetic hand upon his brow, had still the old power to soothe and charm away pain and care. She was so true, and strong, and faithful; and a healing virtue dwelt for him in her touch--the one truly good and holy nature he had ever believed in. And she believed so thoroughly in him--the only one, perhaps, who did, in all the world--except their boy--and he had only learnt the faith from _her_.

She believed in him, and she was good and true. His brow revelled in the cool, soft, firm touch. He could have pressed it as a dog will rub against his mistress's caressing palm, but that he was ashamed of the one still lingering softness in his nature. Remembering the chicaneries of his money-making career, how glad he was she did not know them; and yet he felt a rogue in gaining this testimony of her faith, more than in all the swervings from uprightness he had ever been guilty of. And the morning's work. For the fraction of an instant it had been less present with him in the luxury of that caress. What would she think of that, if ever she came to know? He guessed the horror she would feel, though, strictly speaking, he felt no horror in himself. Would he ever come to feel any? he wondered. It was merely a dull, stupid consciousness as yet that he was not as other men; that they would none of him if they but knew; that he was separate from the rest of his kind. And she? Her hand appeared to burn him at the thought. He felt spattered and sticky with the dead man's blood, and it was soiling her clean pure hand. If she knew it, she would renounce him. Shrinkingly he turned his head beneath her touch, and the gentle wife, pained at perceiving her caress grow irksome, stole silently from the room.

"Alas! How they had been drifting apart through all the years!"

thought Martha. "The world had come between, a broadening wedge pressing them ever more and more asunder. Ralph had never been unkind, but how slowly, yet steadily, he had been growing not to care. He had so many other things to think on." She, who sat at home with her thoughts, and still cherished the old fancies of her girlhood, grew hungry at the heart with the old hunger for a perfect love; and the food had grown sparer and slighter while her mind and soul had been waxing with the years--for a woman's heart need not wither with her complexion--and now, when she sought sign of love, what got she? A roll of bank bills--a handful of Dead Sea fruit--or costly trinkets which had no value now that the eyes she would have pleased did not care to look. Still, until now, he had submitted to her caress; she had even pleased herself by fancying that he liked it, he had submitted always so calmly. Now he had shrunk from her--turned away his head. "Alas! she was growing old," she thought, "he had ceased to care for her save as his housekeeper and Gerald's mother. How hard the men were, and utterly selfish!" She wiped her eyes a little, and went about her morning occupations. At least he should never know that she had suffered this wound. He should never know that she had observed a change. But never again should he have the opportunity to spurn. She would give him his way.

Ralph spent his morning in a semi-invalid fashion strange to one of his habits. "What was the matter with him?" he asked himself, "and what was he afraid of?" To both queries he answered positively "nothing." Yet the oppression on his spirits would not lift, and there was a tremor or dismay at his heart which would not be calmed or rea.s.sured. Why would not the man roll over and have done, and let there be an end, as there was with the squirrel and the bear he recollected?

Of moral sense Ralph may be said to have had as little as any one living in the civilized state. He certainly had not enough to trouble sleep or digestion, and might have been warranted impervious to remorse. With little benevolence, and without imagination, he was insensible to pain or misery beyond the circ.u.mference of his own cherished hide, as had been shown by his pleasure in the torture and ill-usage of his uncle's slaves. He had even prided himself on being proof to such phantasies as limit other men in working out their will; and if not brave, he had at least the judgment which reduces danger to its true dimensions. He surveyed his position now, The probabilities were in his favour. Who could have seen him? Who suspect him? It was unlikely at that hour that any one had, seeing he had fired but once.

In his position n.o.body would suspect him, even if he had been seen and were accused. He need only say he had seen a bird on the water, and, having the gun in his hand, after frightening the sparrows from his cherry trees hard by, he had let fly. Jordan could testify to his spending the previous evening amicably with the deceased, and no one could suggest a reason for the deed. Possibly, too, the body being in mid-stream would be carried down. Once in the St. Laurence it was safe to be carried over the Lachine Rapids, or rendered unrecognizable by mere lapse of time. Danger, he told himself, there was none, and yet the gloom upon his spirits would not lift. Not all the brandy and soda he could swallow availed to cheer him.

There is a social atmosphere in which we live, a subtile sense of the general sentiment of our fellows, which no obtuseness of the nerves, no clearness of the understanding, can be wholly proof against. We breathe it, and live in it, and are of it, exceptional endowment counting for but little in opposition. The sanct.i.ty of human life, and the solidarity of each member with the rest of the community as far as mere existence goes, are sentiments so derived--foregone conclusions which n.o.body disputes, and n.o.body finds it necessary to a.s.sert. They go without saying, and are in the basis of our notions. And now, as a murderer, Ralph felt himself in the position of a lurking wolf, liable to be found out at any moment, and hooted from the company of men. He was already of a different kind from his fellows--a man apart and outside of human sympathy. If it were known, whom would he have to depend on? Would not his closest intimates be ready to a.s.sist the sheriff in bringing him to punishment? The loneliness weighed on him.

Brandy would not lighten it. The rush of that detestable river was in his ears, and would not be expelled, nor the swift gla.s.sy sweeping of the tide be obliterated from his view, use his eyes or close them as he might.

"Let me take you for a drive, Martha," he called out at last. "A long drive in the sun and wind, I think, will do me good."

That drive was not a happy experience for the unfortunate horse. Urged to his utmost speed, over endless miles of dusty way, in the heat and glare of an August afternoon, Ralph suffered him not to flag, though his sides were wet with foam and his ears drooped with fatigue.

Heedless of all else, Ralph strove to escape or outstrip the dull oppression that had fallen on his spirit, the dismay which, like a shadow, stood by his shoulder and at his ear, whispering in the rushing river's voice, and pointing him to the shimmer of waters closing on the swimmer's head, turn his eyes whithersoever he might.

Martha sat pensively and silent by his side. In his miserable pre-occupation he forgot her presence, and spoke to her not a word, bent on urging the horse forward, in feverish merciless impatience.