The Mating of Lydia Part 11

IV

On the evening of the following day, Mr. Edmund Melrose arrived in Pengarth by train from London, hired a one-horse wagonette, and drove out to the Tower.

His manners were at no time amiable, but the man who had the honour of driving him on this occasion, and had driven him occasionally before, had never yet seen him in quite so odious a temper. This was already evident at the time of the start from Pengarth, and thenceforward the cautious c.u.mbrian preserved an absolute and watchful silence, to the great annoyance of Melrose, who would have welcomed any excuse for ill-humour.

But as nothing beyond the curtest monosyllables were to be got out of his companion, and as the rich beauty of the May landscape was entirely lost upon himself, Melrose was reduced at last in the course of his ten miles'

drive to scanning once more the copy of the _Times_ which he had brought with him from the south. The news of various strikes and industrial arbitrations which it contained had already enraged him; and enraged him again as he looked through it. The proletariat, in his opinion, must be put down and kept down; that his own cla.s.s began to show a lamentable want of power to do either was the only public matter that ever really troubled him. So far as his life was affected by the outside world at all, except as a place where auctions took place, and dealers' shops abounded, it was through this consciousness of impending social disaster, this terror as of a rapidly approaching darkness bearing the doom of the modern world in its bosom, which intermittently oppressed him, as it has oppressed and still overshadows innumerable better men of our day.

At this moment, in the month of May, 190--, Edmund Melrose had just pa.s.sed his seventieth birthday. But the extraordinary energy and vivacity of his good looks had scarcely abated since the time when, twenty-three years before this date, Netta Smeath had first seen him in Florence; although his hair had whitened, and the bronzed skin of the face had developed a mult.i.tude of fine wrinkles that did but add to its character.

His aspect, even on the threshold of old age, had still something of the magnificence of an Italian captain of the Renaissance, something also of the pouncing, peering air that belongs to the type. He seemed indeed to be always on the point of seizing or appropriating some booty or other.

His wandering eyes, his long acquisitive fingers, his rapid movements showed him still the hunter on the trail, to whom everything else was in truth indifferent but the satisfaction of an instinct which had grown and flourished on the ruins of a man.

As they drove along, through various portions of the Tower estates, the eyes of the taciturn driver beside him took note of the dilapidated farm buildings and the broken gates which a miserly landlord could not be induced to repair, until an exasperated tenant actually gave notice.

Melrose meanwhile was absorbed in trying to recover a paragraph in the _Times_ he had caught sight of on a first reading, and had then lost in the excitement of studying the prices of a sale at Christie's, held the day before, wherein his own ill luck had led to the bad temper from which he was suffering. He tracked the pa.s.sage at last. It ran as follows:

"The late Professor William Mackworth has left the majority of his costly collections to the nation. To the British Museum will go the marbles and bronzes, to the South Kensington, the china and the tapestries. Professor Mackworth made no stipulations, and the authorities of both museums are free to deal with his bequests as they think best."

Melrose folded the newspaper and put it back into his pocket with a short sudden laugh, which startled the man beside him. "Stipulations! I should rather think not! What museum in its senses would accept such piffling stuff with any _stipulations_ attached? As it is, the greater part will go into the lumber-rooms; they'll never show them! There's only one collection that Mackworth ever had that was worth having. Not a word about _that_. People don't give their best things to the country--not they. Hypocrites! What on earth has he done with them? There are several things _I want_."

And he fell into a long and greedy meditation, in which, as usual, his fancy pursued a quarry and brought it down. He took no notice meanwhile of the objects pa.s.sed as they approached the Tower, although among them were many that might well have roused the attention of a landlord; as, for instance, the condition of the long drive leading up to the house, with its deep ruts and gra.s.s-grown sides; a tree blown down, not apparently by any very recent storm, and now lying half across the roadway, so that the horse and carriage picked their way with difficulty round its withered branches; one of the pillars of the fine gateway, which gave access to the walled enclosure round the house, broken away; and the enclosure within, which had been designed originally as a formal garden in the Italian style, and was now a mere tangled wilderness of weeds and coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, backed by dense thickets of laurel and yew which had grown up in a close jungle round the house, so that many of the lower windows were impenetrably overgrown.

As they drew up at the gate, the Pengarth driver looked with furtive curiosity at the house-front. Melrose, in the words of Lydia to young Faversham, had "become a legend" to his neighbourhood, and many strange things were believed about him. It was said that the house contained a number of locked and shuttered rooms which were never entered; that Melrose slept by day, and worked or prowled by night; that his only servants were the two Dixons, no one else being able to endure his company; that he and the house were protected by savage dogs, and that his sole visitors were occasional strangers from the south, who arrived with black bags, and often departed pursued with objurgations by Melrose, and in terror of the dogs. It was said also that the Tower was full of precious and marvellous things, including hordes of gold and silver; that Melrose, who was detested in the countryside, lived in the constant dread of burglary or murder; and finally--as a clue to the whole situation which the popular mind insisted on supplying--that he had committed some fearful crime, during his years in foreign parts, for which he could not be brought to justice; but remorse and dread of discovery had affected his brain, and turned him into a skulking outcast.

Possessed by these simple but interesting ideas, the Pengarth man sharply noticed, first that the gate of the enclosure was padlocked, Melrose himself supplying a key from his pocket; next that most of the windows of the front were shuttered; and lastly--strange and unique fact, according to his own recollections of the Tower--that two windows on the ground floor were standing wide open, giving some view of the large room within, so far as two partially drawn curtains allowed. As Melrose unlocked the gate, the house door opened, and three huge dogs came bounding out, in front of a gray-haired man, whom the driver of the wagonette knew to be "owd Dixon," Melrose's butler and factotum. The driver was watching the whole scene with an absorbed curiosity, when Melrose turned, threw him a sudden look, paid him, and peremptorily bade him be off. He had therefore no time to observe the perturbation of Dixon who was coming with slow steps to meet his master; nor that a woman in white cap and ap.r.o.n had appeared behind him on the steps.

Melrose on opening the gate found himself surrounded by his dogs, a fine mastiff and two young collies. He was trying to drive them off, after a gruff word to Dixon, when he was suddenly brought to a standstill by the sight of the woman on the steps.

"D----n it!--whom have you got here?" he said, fiercely perceiving at the same moment the open windows on the ground floor.

"Muster Melrose--it's noan o' my doin'," was Dixon's trembling reply, as he pointed a shaky finger at the windows. "It was t' yoong doctor from Pengarth--yo' ken him--"

A woman's voice interrupted.

"Please, sir, would you stop those dogs barking? They disturb the patient."

Melrose looked at the speaker in stupefaction.

"What the deuce have you been doing with my house?"--he turned furiously to Dixon--"who are these people?"

"Theer's a yoong man lyin' sick i' the drawin'-room," said Dixon desperately. "They do say 'at he's in a varra parlish condition; an' they tell me there's to be no barkin' nor noise whativer."

"Well, upon my word!" Melrose was by this time pale with rage. "A young man--sick--in my drawing-room!--and a young woman giving orders in my house!--you're a precious lot--you are!" He strode on toward the young woman, who, as he now saw, was in the dress of a nurse. She had descended the steps, and was vainly trying to quiet the dogs.

"I'll uphold yer!" muttered Dixon, following slowly after; "it's the queerest do-ment that iver I knew!"

"Madam! I should like to know what your business is here. I never invited you that I know of, and I am entirely at a loss to understand your appearance in my house!"

The girl whom Melrose addressed with this fierce mock courtesy turned on him a perplexed face.

"I know nothing about it, sir, except that I was summoned from Manchester last night to an urgent case, and arrived early this morning. Can't you, sir, quiet your dogs? Mr. Faversham is very ill."

"In _my_ house!" cried Melrose, furiously. "I won't have it. He shan't remain here. I will have him removed."

The girl looked at him with amazement.

"That, sir, would be quite impossible. It would kill him to move him.

_Please_, Mr. Dixon, help me with the dogs."

She turned imploringly to Dixon, who obediently administered various kicks and cuffs to the noisy trio which at last procured silence.

Her expression lightened, and with the professional alertness of one who has no time to spend in gossiping, she turned and went quickly back into the house.

Dixon approached his master.

"That's yan o' them," he said, gloomily. "T'other's inside."

"T'other who?--what? Tell me, you old fool, at once what the whole cursed business is! Are you mad or am I?"

Dixon eyed him calmly. He had by this time summoned to his aid the semi-mystical courage given him occasionally by his evangelical faith. If it was the Lord's will that such a thing should happen, why it was the Lord's will; and it was no use whatever for Mr. Melrose or any one else to kick against the p.r.i.c.ks. So with much teasing deliberation, and constantly interrupted by his angry master, he told the story of the accident on the evening before, of Doctor Undershaw's appearance on the scene, and of the storming of the Tower.

"Well, of all the presuming rascals!" said Melrose with slow fury, under his breath, when the tale was done. "But we'll be even with him! Send a man from the farm, at once, to the cottage hospital at Whitebeck. They've got an ambulance--I commission it. It's a hospital case. They shall see to it. Be quick! March!--do you hear?--I intended to quit of them--bag and baggage!"

Dixon did not move.

"Doctor said if we were to move un now, it 'ud be manslaughter," he said stolidly, "an' he'd have us 'op."

"Oh, he would, would he!" roared Melrose, "I'll see to that. Go along, and do what you're told. D----n it! am I not to be obeyed, sir?"

Wherewith he hurried toward the house. Dixon looked after him, shook his head, and instead of going toward the farm, quietly retreated round the farther corner of the house to the kitchen. He was the only person at the Tower who had ever dared to cross Melrose. He attempted it but rarely; but when he did, Melrose was each time freshly amazed to discover that, in becoming his factotum, Dixon had not altogether ceased to be a man.

Melrose entered the house by the front door. As he walked into the hall, making not the slightest effort to moderate the noise of his approach, another woman--also in white cap and ap.r.o.n--ran toward him, with quick noiseless steps from the corridor, her finger on her lip.

"Please, sir!--it is most important for the patient that the house should be absolutely quiet."

"I tell you the house is mine!" said Melrose, positively stamping. "What business have you--or the other one--to give orders in it? I'll turn you all out!--you shall march, I tell you!"

The nurse--an older woman than the first who had spoken to him outside--drew back with dignity.

"I am sorry if I offended you, sir. I was summoned from Carlisle this morning as night nurse to an urgent case. I have been helping the other nurse all day, for Mr. Faversham has wanted a great deal of attention. I am now just going on duty, while the day nurse takes some rest."

"Show me where he is," said Melrose peremptorily. "I wish to see him."

The nurse hesitated. But if this was really the master of the house, it was difficult to ignore him entirely. She looked at his feet.

"You'll come in quietly, sir? I am afraid--your boots--"