The Evil Genius Part 18

"Did she say anything more to you?"

"I didn't give her the chance; I don't like Mrs. Presty. You look worn and worried, Herbert. Is there anything wrong?"

"If there is, my dear fellow, you will hear of it tomorrow."

So they parted.

Comfortably established in the drawing-room, Mrs. Presty had just opened her favorite newspaper. Her only companion was Linley's black poodle, resting at her feet. On the opening of the door, the dog rose--advanced to caress his master--and looked up in Linley's face. If Mrs. Presty's attention had happened to be turned that way, she might have seen, in the faithful creature's sudden and silent retreat, a warning of her son-in-law's humor at that moment. But she was, or a.s.sumed to be, interested in her reading; and she deliberately overlooked Linley's appearance. After waiting a little to attract her attention, he quietly took the newspaper out of her hand.

"What does this mean?" Mrs. Presty asked.

"It means, ma'am, that I have something to say to you."

"Apparently, something that can't be said with common civility? Be as rude as you please; I am well used to it."

Linley wisely took no notice of this.

"Since you have lived at Mount Morven," he proceeded, "I think you have found me, on the whole, an easy man to get on with. At the same time, when I do make up my mind to be master in my own house, I _am_ master."

Mrs. Presty crossed her hands placidly on her lap, and asked: "Master of what?"

"Master of your suspicions of Miss Westerfield. You are free, of course, to think of her and of me as you please. What I forbid is the expression of your thoughts--either by way of hints to my brother, or officious communications with my wife. Don't suppose that I am afraid of the truth. Mrs. Linley shall know more than you think for, and shall know it to-morrow; not from you, but from me."

Mrs. Presty shook her head compa.s.sionately. "My good sir, surely you know me too well to think that I am to be disposed of in that easy way? Must I remind you that your wife's mother has 'the cunning of the devil'?"

Linley recognized his own words. "So you were listening among the trees!" he said.

"Yes; I was listening; and I have only to regret that I didn't hear more. Let us return to our subject. I don't trust my daughter's interests--my much-injured daughter's interests--in your hands. They are not clean hands, Mr. Linley. I have a duty to do; and I shall do it to-morrow."

"No, Mrs. Presty, you won't do it to-morrow."

"Who will prevent me?"

"I shall prevent you."

"In what way, if you please?"

"I don't think it necessary to answer that question. My servants will have their instructions; and I shall see myself that my orders are obeyed."

"Thank you. I begin to understand; I am to be turned out of the house.

Very well. We shall see what my daughter says."

"You know as well as I do, Mrs. Presty, that if your daughter is forced to choose between us she will decide for her husband. You have the night before you for consideration. I have no more to say."

Among Mrs. Presty's merits, it is only just to reckon a capacity for making up her mind rapidly, under stress of circ.u.mstances. Before Linley had opened the door, on his way out, he was called back.

"I am shocked to trouble you again," Mrs. Presty said, "but I don't propose to interfere with my night's rest by thinking about _you_.

My position is perfectly clear to me, without wasting time in consideration. When a man so completely forgets what is due to the weaker s.e.x as to threaten a woman, the woman has no alternative but to submit. You are aware that I had arranged to see my daughter to-morrow morning. I yield to brute force, sir. Tell your wife that I shall not keep my appointment. Are you satisfied?"

"Quite satisfied," Linley said--and left the room.

His mother-in-law looked after him with a familiar expression of opinion, and a smile of supreme contempt.

"You fool!"

Only two words; and yet there seemed to be some hidden meaning in them--relating perhaps to what might happen on the next day--which gently tickled Mrs. Presty in the region a.s.signed by phrenologists to the sense of self-esteem.

Chapter XII. Two of Them Sleep Badly.

Waiting for Sydney to come into the bedroom as usual and wish her good-night, Kitty was astonished by the appearance of her grandmother, entering on tiptoe from the corridor, with a small paper parcel in her hand.

"Whisper!" said Mrs. Presty, pointing to the open door of communication with Mrs. Linley's room. "This is your birthday present. You mustn't look at it till you wake to-morrow morning." She pushed the parcel under the pillow--and, instead of saying good-night, took a chair and sat down.

"May I show my present," Kitty asked, "when I go to mamma in the morning?"

The present hidden under the paper wrapper was a sixpenny picture-book.

Kitty's grandmother disapproved of spending money lavishly on birthday gifts to children. "Show it, of course; and take the greatest care of it," Mrs. Presty answered gravely. "But tell me one thing, my dear, wouldn't you like to see all your presents early in the morning, like mine?"

Still smarting under the recollection of her interview with her son-in-law, Mrs. Presty had certain ends to gain in putting this idea into the child's head. It was her special object to raise domestic obstacles to a private interview between the husband and wife during the earlier hours of the day. If the gifts, usually presented after the nursery dinner, were produced on this occasion after breakfast, there would be a period of delay before any confidential conversation could take place between Mr. and Mrs. Linley. In this interval Mrs. Presty saw her opportunity of setting Linley's authority at defiance, by rousing the first jealous suspicion in the mind of his wife.

Innocent little Kitty became her grandmother's accomplice on the spot.

"I shall ask mamma to let me have my presents at breakfast-time," she announced.

"And kind mamma will say Yes," Mrs. Presty chimed in. "We will breakfast early, my precious child. Good-night."

Kitty was half asleep when her governess entered the room afterward, much later than usual. "I thought you had forgotten me," she said, yawning and stretching out her plump little arms.

Sydney's heart ached when she thought of the separation that was to come with the next day; her despair forced its way to expression in words.

"I wish I could forget you," she answered, in reckless wretchedness.

The child was still too drowsy to hear plainly. "What did you say?" she asked. Sydney gently lifted her in the bed, and kissed her again and again. Kitty's sleepy eyes opened in surprise. "How cold your hands are!" she said; "and how often you kiss me. What is it you have come to say to me--good-night or good-by?"

Sydney laid her down again on the pillow, gave her a last kiss, and ran out of the room.

In the corridor she heard Linley's voice on the lower floor. He was asking one of the servants if Miss Westerfield was in the house or in the garden. Her first impulse was to advance to the stairs and to answer his question. In a moment more the remembrance of Mrs. Linley checked her. She went back to her bed-chamber. The presents that she had received, since her arrival at Mount Morven, were all laid out so that they could be easily seen by any person entering the room, after she had left the house. On the sofa lay the pretty new dress which she had worn at the evening party. Other little gifts were arranged on either side of it. The bracelet, resting on the pedestal of a statue close by, kept a morsel of paper in its place--on which she had written a few penitent words of farewell addressed to Mrs. Linley. On the toilet-table three photographic portraits showed themselves among the brushes and combs.

She sat down, and looked first at the likenesses of Mrs. Linley and Kitty.

Had she any right to make those dear faces her companions in the future?

She hesitated; her tears dropped on the photographs. "They're as good as spoiled now," she thought; "they're no longer fit for anybody but me."

She paused, and abruptly took up the third and last photograph--the likeness of Herbert Linley.

Was it an offense, now, even to look at his portrait? No idea of leaving it behind her was in her mind. Her resolution vibrated between two miseries--the misery of preserving her keep-sake after she had parted from him forever, and the misery of destroying it. Resigned to one more sacrifice, she took the card in both hands to tear it up. It would have been scattered in pieces on the floor, but for the chance which had turned the portrait side of the card toward her instead of the back. Her longing eyes stole a last look at him--a frenzy seized her--she pressed her lips to the photograph in a pa.s.sion of hopeless love. "What does it matter?" she asked herself. "I'm nothing but the ignorant object of his kindness--the poor fool who could see no difference between grat.i.tude and love. Where is the harm of having him with me when I am starving in the streets, or dying in the workhouse?" The fervid spirit in her that had never known a mother's loving discipline, never thrilled to the sympathy of a sister-friend, rose in revolt against the evil destiny which had imbittered her life. Her eyes still rested on the photograph.

"Come to my heart, my only friend, and kill me!" As those wild words escaped her, she thrust the card furiously into the bosom of her dress--and threw herself on the floor. There was something in the mad self-abandonment of that action which mocked the innocent despair of her childhood, on the day when her mother left her at the cruel mercy of her aunt.