The Living Link Part 61

"No, not to say ill; but the body's often all right when the mind's all wrong."

"The mind? There's nothing the matter with my mind. Dr. Morton has been deceived. He would not dare to do this if he knew it."

"Sure, now, it's nothing at all, and you'll be well soon."

At these simple words of the woman Lady Dudleigh began to understand the situation. This must be a lunatic asylum, a private one. Sir Lionel had brought her here, and told the doctor that she was insane. The doctor had accepted his statement, and had received her as such. This at once accounted for his peculiar mode of addressing her.

"There's a mistake," said Lady Dudleigh, quietly. "Dr. Morton has been deceived. Let me see him at once, please, and I will explain. He does not know what a wrong he is doing. My good woman, I am no more mad than you are."

"Dear, dear!" said the woman, going on placidly with her work; "that's the way they all talk. There's not one of them that believes they're mad."

"But I'm not mad at all," said Lady Dudleigh, indignant at the woman's obtuseness.

"There, there; don't you go for to excite yourself," said the woman, soothingly. "But I s'pose you can't help it."

"So this is a mad-house, is it?" said Lady Dudleigh, gloomily, after a pause.

"Well, 'm, we don't call it that; we call it a 'sylum. It's Dr. Morton's 'sylum."

"Now see here," said Lady Dudleigh, making a fresh effort, and trying to be as cool as possible, "I am Lady Dudleigh. I have been brought here by a trick. Dr. Morton is deceived. He is committing a crime in detaining me. I am not mad. Look at me. Judge for yourself. Look at me, and say, do I look like a madwoman?"

The woman, thus appealed to, good-naturedly acquiesced, and looked at Lady Dudleigh.

"'Deed," she remarked, "ye look as though ye've had a deal of sufferin'

afore ye came here, an' I don't wonder yer mind give way."

"Do I look like a madwoman?" repeated Lady Dudleigh, with a sense of intolerable irritation at this woman's stupidity.

"'Deed, then, an' I'm no judge. It's the doctor that decides."

"But what do you say? Come, now."

"Well, then, ye don't look very bad, exceptin' the glare an' glitter of the eyes of ye, an' yer fancies."

"Fanciest? What fancies?"

"Why, yer fancies that ye're Lady Dudleigh, an' all that about Sir Lionel."

Lady Dudleigh started to her feet.

"What!" she exclaimed. "Why, I am Lady Dudleigh."

"There, there!" said the woman, soothingly; "sure I forgot myself. Sure ye are Lady Dudleigh, or any body else ye like. It's a dreadful inveiglin' way ye have to trap a body the way ye do."

At this Lady Dudleigh was in despair. No further words were of any avail. The woman was determined to humor her, and a.s.sented to every thing she said. This treatment was so intolerable that Lady Dudleigh was afraid to say any thing for fear that she would show the excitement of her feelings, and such an exhibition would of course have been considered as a fresh proof of her madness.

The woman at length completed her task, and retired.

Lady Dudleigh was left alone. She knew it all now. She remembered the letter which Sir Lionel had written. In that he had no doubt arranged this plan with Dr. Morton, and the coach had been ready at the station.

But in what part of the country this place was she had no idea, nor could she know whether Dr. Morton was deceived by Sir Lionel, or was his paid employe in this work of villainy. His face did not give her any encouragement to hope for either honesty or mercy from him.

It was an appalling situation, and she knew it. All the horrors that she had ever heard of in connection with private asylums occurred to her mind, and deepened the terror that surrounded her. All the other cares of her life--the sorrow of bereavement, the anxiety for the sick, the plans for Frederick Dalton--all these and many others now oppressed her till her brain sank under the crushing weight. A groan of anguish burst from her.

"Sir Lionel's mockery will become a reality," she thought. "I shall go mad!"

Meanwhile Sir Lionel had gone away. Leaving Lady Dudleigh in the room, he had gone down stairs, and after a few hurried words with the doctor, he left the house and entered the coach, which drove back to the station.

All the way he was in the utmost glee, rubbing his hands, slapping his thighs, chuckling to himself, laughing and cheering.

"Ha, ha, ha! ha, ha, ha!" he laughed. "Outwitted! The keeper--the keeper caught! Ha, ha, ha! Why, she'll never get out--never! In for life, Lionel, my boy! Mad! Why, by this time she's a raving maniac! Ha, ha, ha! She swear against me! Who'd believe a madwoman, an idiot, a lunatic, a bedlamite, a maniac--a howling, frenzied, gibbering, ranting, raving, driveling, maundering, mooning maniac! And now for the boy next--the parricide! Ha, ha, ha! Arrest him! No. Shut him up here--both--with my friend Morton--both of them, mother and son, the two--ha, ha, ha!--witnesses! One maniac! two maniacs! and then I shall go mad with joy, and come here to live, and there shall be _three maniacs_! Ha, ha, ha! ha, ha, ha-a-a-a-a-a-a!"

Sir Lionel himself seemed mad now.

On leaving the coach, however, he became calmer, and taking the first train that came up, resumed his journey.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE BEDSIDE OF DALTON.

Frederick Dalton remained in his prostrate condition, with no apparent change either for the better or for the worse, and thus a month pa.s.sed.

One morning Dudleigh requested an interview with Edith.

On entering the room he greeted her with his usual deep respect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THEIR HANDS TOUCHED."]

"I hope you will excuse me for troubling you, Miss Dalton," he said, "but I wish very much to ask your opinion about your father. He remains, as you know, unchanged, and this inn is not the place for him.

The air is close, the place is noisy, and it is impossible for him to have that perfect quiet which he so greatly needs. Dudleigh Manor is too far away, but there is another place close by. I am aware, Miss Dalton, that Dalton Hall must be odious to you, and therefore I hesitate to ask you to take your father to that place. Yet he ought to go there, and at once. As for yourself, I hope that the new circ.u.mstances under which you will live there will make it less unpleasant; and, let me add, for my own part, it shall be my effort to see that you, who have been so deeply wronged, shall be righted--with all and before all. As to myself," he continued, "I would retire, and relieve you of my presence, which can not be otherwise than painful, but there are two reasons why I ought to remain. The first is your father. You yourself are not able to take all the care of him, and there is no other who can share it except myself.

Next to yourself, no one can be to him what I am, nor is there any one with whom I would be willing to leave him. He must not be left to a servant. He must be nursed by those who love him. And so I must stay with him wherever he is. In addition to this, however, my presence at Dalton Hall will effectually quell the vulgar clamor, and all the rumors that have been prevailing for the last few months will be silenced."

Dudleigh spoke all this calmly and seriously, but beneath his words there was something in his tone which conveyed a deeper meaning. That tone was more than respectful--it was almost reverential--as though the one to whom he spoke required from him more than mere courtesy. In spite of his outward calm, there was also an emotion in his voice which showed that the calm was a.s.sumed, and that beneath it lay something which could not be all concealed. In his eyes, as he fixed them on Edith, there was that same reverential regard, which seemed to speak of devotion and loyalty; something stronger than admiration, something deeper than sympathy, was expressed from them. And yet it was this that he himself tried to conceal. It was as though this feeling of his burst forth irrepressibly through all concealment, as though the intensity of this feeling made even his calmest words and commonest formulas fall of a new and deeper meaning.

In that reverence and profound devotion thus manifest there was nothing which could be otherwise than grateful to Edith. Certainly she could not take offense, for his words and his looks afforded nothing which could by any possibility give rise to that.

For a whole month this man had been before her, a constant attendant on her father, sleeping his few hours in an adjoining chamber, with scarce a thought beyond that prostrate friend. All the country had been searched for the best advice or the best remedies, and nothing had been omitted which untiring affection could suggest. During all this time she had scarce seen him. In the delicacy of his regard for her he had studiously kept out of her way, as though unwilling to allow his presence to give her pain. A moment might occasionally be taken up with a few necessary arrangements as she would enter, but that was all. He patiently waited till she retired before he ventured to come in himself.

No; in that n.o.ble face, pale from illness or from sadness, with the traces of sorrow upon it, and the marks of long vigils by the bedside of her father--in that refined face, whose expression spoke only of elevation of soul, and exhibited the perfect type of manly beauty, there was certainly nothing that could excite repugnance, but every thing that might inspire confidence.

Edith saw all this, and remarked it while listening to him; and she thought she had never seen any thing so pure in its loyalty, so profound in its sympathy, and so sweet in its sad grace as that face which was now turned toward her with its eloquent eyes.

She did not say much. A few words signified her a.s.sent to the proposal.