Kitabı oku: «A Witch of the Hills, v. 1», sayfa 2

The right eyebrow, the right side of the moustache were gone, and the hair as far as the back of the right ear. The whole of this side of the face, from forehead to chin, was a puckered drawn mass of blackened shrivelled skin, distorted into grotesque seams and furrows. The right end of the eye and the right corner of the mouth were drawn up, giving to the whole face a sinister and evil expression.

After a few moments' contemplation of my new self, I turned away from the glass, feeling sick with disgust and horror. In the first shock of my discovery, no reflection that I was looking upon the fearful sight at its worst, and that the healing work was still going on underneath the scarred and desiccated skin, came to console me.

My back turned upon my own image, my stupefaction gave place to rapid thought. I saw in a moment that the old course of my life was at one blow broken up, that I must begin again as if I had been born that day. I must go away, not only from my own friends, but from the chance of coming in contact with them again. I must leave England. Also, since if I were to make my resolution known I should be inundated with kindly meant dissuasions, I must breathe no hint of my intention until I was quite able to carry it into execution. I was sure that no one but the doctor, and perhaps Edgar, had seen my face in its present condition, and that no description could give to others any idea of its appearance. I felt that my bodily health and strength were all that they had ever been, and that nothing but the wish to keep the knowledge of my disfigurement from me as long as possible had prompted the doctor's orders to me to remain in bed and to retain the bandages. It now, too, occurred to me that delay might bring some slight modification of my hideousness, and I resolved to let nature do what little she could, and not to set out on my travels until the mask which now covered one-half my face had fallen off, and disclosed whatever fresh horrors might be underneath. Then I would, without letting any one see my face, start for some German Spa for the benefit of my health; before I had been away three months I should be forgotten, and free to wend my way wherever I pleased. This idea, to a man to whom life had begun to present something like a deadlock, was not without charm. Society was a bore, love a delusion; now was the chance to find out what else there was worth learning in life.

I heard Edgar's voice in the distance, and had only time to rush back to bed, put on the bandages round my face, and turn on my side as if asleep, before he came into the room.

CHAPTER III

As I heard Edgar creaking softly about the room, giving the impression, even as I lay with my eyes shut, unable to observe his elaborate movements, of great weight trying to be light, my heart smote me at the thought of deceiving him with the rest. 'The elephant,' it had been a joke between ourselves for me to call him; and like a great elephant he was, huge, intelligent, gentle, not without a certain massive beauty, with keen feelings of loyalty, and a long slow-smouldering memory, with inclinations towards a laborious and somewhat painful sportiveness. Rebel against his sententious homilies as I occasionally might, he was a good old fellow, and I was fond of him. I moved a little to show him I was awake, and then said:

'Hallo, Edgar, is that you?'

'Yes. How do you feel?'

'Oh, ever so much better. I shall be getting up soon now.'

'Well, you mustn't be in too great a hurry. You have been patient so long, it would be a pity to destroy your credit just at the last.'

'I am only waiting for my face to heal now, of course. But, I say, Edgar, it will take a long time for that to get all right. Why, part of my cheek was completely blown away. It will be months, at least, before I dare show myself. I think I shall go to some German baths, and, you know, I don't know how long I may have to stay there. In the meantime–'

'In the meantime, what?'

'Your sister—Helen—must know that she is free.'

'But supposing she doesn't want to be free? Supposing–'

'Supposing she has a fancy for being tied to a death's-head? No, Edgar, she must be released at once. I want you to write a letter from me to her, if you will. The sooner it is over the better for both of us.'

I suppose Edgar felt that my attitude was not one of pure resignation, for he made no further effort to dissuade me, but went instantly in search of pens and paper. He was so very submissive, however, in taking this step, which I knew to be distasteful to him, that I was quite sure, before the letter was half written, that he was 'up to' something. So, when it was finished, I was mean enough to insist on his leaving it with me, together with the directed envelope; and after reading it carefully through myself as soon as I was alone, I made the housekeeper fold it and seal it up in my presence, and directed her to get it posted at once.

The letter said:

My Dearest Helen—You have no doubt long ago heard the reason of my silence, and forgiven me for it, I am sure. I am sorry to tell you that my head [I felt an odd shyness of saying "my face"] has been injured so seriously that it will be a long time before I can return to town; I am going straight to Germany as soon as I am able to leave here, and cannot yet tell when I shall be in England again. Under these circumstances, although I know that you would overlook my new imperfections with the same sweetness with which you have forgiven my older defects, I feel that I cannot impose again upon your generosity. I therefore set you free, begging you to do me one last kindness by not returning to me the little souvenirs that you have from time to time been good enough to accept from me. And please don't send me back my letters, if you have ever received them with any pleasure. Burn them if you like. I will send back yours if you wish; but, as no woman will ever look with love upon my face again, your womanly dignity will suffer but little if you let me still keep them. There are only eight of them. And there is a glove, of course, and a packet of dried flowers, of course, and the little silver match-box. All these I shall insist upon keeping, whether you like it or not. They could not compromise anybody; the little glove could pass for a child's. You will trust me with them all, will you not? You see this isn't the usual broken-off match with its prelude of disastrous squabbles and wrangles. Some jealous demon who saw I did not deserve my good fortune has broken my hopes of happiness abruptly, and released you from a chain which I am afraid my ill-temper had already begun to make irksome to you. Forgive me now, and bear as kindly a recollection of me as you can. God bless you, Helen. I shall always treasure the remembrance of your little fairy face, and remember gratefully your sweet forbearance with me.—Yours most sincerely and affectionately,

Henry Lyttleton Maude.

I hoped the child would not think this letter too cold and formal. My heart yearned towards her now with a longing more tender than before; I felt oppressed by the necessity of foregoing the shallow little love which, as the handsomest man about town, I had begun to consider far beneath my deserts.

Two days later I received an answer from Helen. I waited until I was alone to read it, for I still guarded my face carefully from all eyes but the doctor's. The touch of the letter, the sight of the sprawling, slap-dash handwriting which it delighted Helen to assume, in common with the other young ladies of her generation, moved me; for I could not but feel that this was the last 'billet' by any possibility to be called 'doux' which I should ever receive. I opened it with an apprehension that I should find the contents less moving than the envelope. I was mistaken.

My Dearest Harry—I am afraid you have a very poor opinion of me if you think I care for nothing but personal attractions. You have always been most kind and generous to me, and you need not think because I am not intellectual myself I do not care for a man who is intellectual and all those things. I am coming down to see you myself and then if you wish to give me up you can do so—but I hope you will not throw me over so hastily. I am so sorry for your accident and that it has made you so ill, but I do not mind what else it has done.—Believe me, dearest Harry, with best love, hoping you will soon be quite recovered, yours ever lovingly,

Helen.

Childish as the letter was it touched me deeply. Edgar must be right after all; I had misjudged a simple but loyal nature that only wanted an emergency to bring its nobler qualities to the surface. I told him about the letter, and added that it made giving her up harder to bear.

'Why should you give her up?' said he eagerly. 'You see she herself will not hear of it.'

'Because she does not understand the case. I am disfigured past recognition; she would shrink with horror from the sight of me. It would be a shock even to you, a strong unromantic man, to see what I have become.'

'You are too sensitive, old fellow. However shocking the change in you may be, you cannot fail to exaggerate its effect on others.'

'We shall see.'

A few days later, when the horror of my new appearance was indeed a little mitigated by the falling off of the withered outer skin which had covered the right side of my face, I tried the effect of my striking physiognomy on Edgar.

Whether he had expected some such surprise, or whether he was endowed with a splendid insensibility to ugliness, he stood the shock with the most stolid placidity.

'Well?' said I defiantly, looking at him from out my ill-matched eyes in a passion of aggressive rage.

'Well?' said he, as complacently as if I had been a turnip.

'I hope you admire this style of beauty,' I hurled out savagely.

'I don't go quite so far as that, but it's really much better than I expected.'

'You are easily pleased.'

He went on quietly. 'The chief impression your countenance gives one now is not, as you flatter yourself, of consummate ugliness, but—forgive me—of consummate villainy.'

'What!'

'You are preserved for ever from the danger of being anything but strictly virtuous and straightforward in your dealings, for no one would trust the possessor of that countenance with either a secret or a sovereign.'

This blunt frankness acted better than any softer measures could have done; it made me laugh. Looking again at myself in a glass, for I was now up and dressed, I noticed, what had escaped me before in my paralysed contemplation of the change in my own features, that the drawing up of the right-hand corners of my mouth and eye, together with the removal of every vestige of hair from that side of the face, had given me the grotesquely repulsive leer of a satyr. To crown my disadvantages, the left side of my face, seen in profile, still retained its natural appearance to mock my new hideousness.

'But I think I see a way out of all difficulties,' Edgar went on, more seriously. 'You will advance objections, I know, but you must permit your objections to be overruled. Accident can be combated by artifice, and to artifice you must resort until nature does her work and relieves you from the new necessity.'

We fought out the question, and at last I very unwillingly gave way, and submitted to the adoption of a false eyebrow, a false moustache, and a beautiful tuft of curly false hair much superior to my own, to hide the bald patch left by the accident.

Rather elated by this distinct improvement, assumed for the reception of Helen's promised visit, and encouraged by assurances that my own hair would soon grow again and enable me to discard its substitutes, I was ready to believe that the discoloration and disfigurement still visible were comparatively unimportant, and that the repellent expression, which no artifice much abated, might indeed affect strangers, but would not, in the sight of my friends, obscure their long-established impression of my amiability and sweetness.

Sir Wilfrid and Lady Speke had by this time gone up to town, leaving the place, with many kind wishes for my early and complete recovery, entirely at the disposal of myself and my unwearied nurse Edgar. So a day was fixed for the arrival of Helen and her mother. On that eventful afternoon Edgar settled me in a small sitting-room on the same floor with the room I had been occupying, before starting for the station. The blinds were drawn, and I sat with my back to this carefully-softened light. I wished, now that the ordeal was getting so near, that I had not let myself be dissuaded from my intention of sneaking quietly away without showing my disfigured face to any one. What was the use of my seeing the child again? I did indeed long foolishly for a few last words with her since she had shown unexpected depth of feeling towards me in my misfortune; but it could not end, as Edgar still obstinately hoped, in a renewal of our engagement, which I persisted in regarding as definitely broken. The meeting was only for a farewell. I was ashamed of the artifices I had used to conceal the traces of my accident, and I was feeling half inclined to tear off my false ornaments and present myself in my true hideousness, when the arrival of my visitors luckily stopped me. The room where I sat was at the back of the house, so that I had no warning of the return of the carriage until I heard Edgar's voice. I sprang up with one last look of agony at my reflection in the glass, which seemed to me at that moment a ghastly caricature of my old self, and then sat nervously down again, feeling like a doomed wretch with the executioner outside his cell.

The door opened, and Edgar bounded up to me, dragging Helen, who seemed shy and nervous, forward on his arm.

'Here he is, Nellie. Getting well fast, you see. Where is mother? I must fetch her up.'

I saw in a moment through the dear clumsy fellow's manœuvres. He prided himself on his strategy, fancying he had only to leave us together for us to have a touching reconciliation. But I knew better. I saw her turn pale and cling to her brother's arm, and I said hastily—

'No, no. Lady Castleford is not far behind, you may be sure. I am glad to see you, Lady Helen; it is very kind of you to come. It is easier–'

'Helen has come to persuade you to get well in England among your friends instead of going abroad to be ill among strangers,' said Edgar, cutting me short. 'He's getting on well, isn't he, Helen? Come, he's well enough to have his hand shaken now.'

He drew her forward, to my inexpressible pain, for I saw the reluctance in her face. Before I could attempt a protest, a reassuring word, she had held out her hand, which I timidly took. Then she lifted her eyes to my face for the first time. For the first and last time I saw the expression of the most vivid, most acute emotion on the fairy face. The muscles were contracted, the pupils of the eyes were dilated with intense horror.

'I am very glad–' she began.

Then, before she could finish her sentence, even while I still held her little hand in mine, she fell like a crushed flower unconscious in her brother's arms.

Poor fellow! How contrite, how miserably, abjectly humble and despairing he was when he appeared later in my room, to which I had fled, like a wounded beast to its den, when little Helen's unwilling blow gave me my social death-warrant. I was able to laugh then, and to tell him truly that my only regret was for the pain the injudicious meeting had caused poor Helen.

'It was you who dictated her letter to me,' I said.

Edgar did not attempt to deny it.

'She ought to be ashamed of herself,' said he, reddening with indignation.

'No, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. I for my vanity in thinking there was any charm in my dull personality to compensate for the loss of the only merit I could have in a girl's eyes; you for your generous idiotcy in carrying that mistake farther still. Are they gone?'

'Yes. My mother wanted to see you, but–'

'That's all right. And now, old fellow, you mustn't make any more blunders on my account; you must let me make my own. I leave England in a few days.'

'Well, I suppose you must do as you like. I'll come and see you off.'

'No,' said I firmly. 'I shall say good-bye to you here, Edgar. I have very particular reasons for it, and you must give way to me in this.'

He tried to change my mind; he wanted to know my reasons; but he was unsuccessful in both attempts. I knew how obstinate he was, and that if I once allowed him to go with me to town, he would be sure to subject me to more painful meetings in the endeavour to persuade me to remain in England. Luckily for me, the very next day the Marquis telegraphed to his son to join him immediately in Monmouthshire; and no sooner had Edgar left the house, with the sure knowledge that he should not see me again, than I fulfilled his fears by instant preparation for my own departure. I had discarded all disguises, and contented myself by masking my face as much as possible with a travelling cap and a muffler; on arriving in town I went to an hotel in Covent Garden, where I was not known, and by the evening of the following day I had provided myself with the outfit of a Transpontine villain, a low-crowned, wide-brimmed soft hat and a black Spanish cloak.

In this get-up, which, when not made too conspicuous by a stage-walk and melodramatic glances around, is really a very efficient disguise both of form and features, I knew myself to be quite safe from recognition anywhere, and having decided to start from Charing Cross for Cologne by way of Ostend on the following morning, I devoted the evening of my second day in town to a last look round.

CHAPTER IV

It was Saturday evening; a week of fog having been succeeded by a week of rain, the pavements were now well coated with black slimy mud, in which one kept one's footing as best one could, stimulated by plentiful showers of the same substance, in a still more fluid state, flung by the wheels of passing vehicles.

Oh, wisely-governed city, where there is work for thousands of starving men, while thousands of men are starving for want of work! If a boy can keep a crossing clean in a crowded thoroughfare, could not an organised gang of men, ten times as numerous and twice as active as our gentle scavengers, save the sacred boots, skirts, and trousers of the respectable classes from that brush-resisting abomination, London mud? I respectfully recommend this suggestion to my betters with the assurance that, if it is considered of any value, there are plenty more where that came from.

Starting from Covent Garden, I made my way through King Street, Garrick Street, Cranbourne Street, Leicester Square and Coventry Street, into Regent Street, and was struck by a hundred common London sights and incidents which, in the old days, when my own life was so idle and yet so absorbing, had entirely escaped my notice. Oxford Street, Bond Street, Piccadilly, St. James's Street, I made the tour of them all; past the clubs, of many of which I was a member, brushing, unrecognised, by a dozen men who had known me well, into Trafalgar Square, where the gas-lamps cast long glittering lines of light on the wet pavement, and the spire of St. Martin's and the dome of the National Gallery rose like gray shadow-palaces above in the rainy air.

I dined at a restaurant in the Strand, and then, growing confident in the security of my disguise, I thought I would take a farewell glance at an old chum who had run Edgar pretty close in my esteem. He was an actor, and was fulfilling an engagement at a theatre in the Strand. When I add that he played what are technically called 'juvenile' parts—that is to say, those of the stage lovers—my taste may seem strange, until I explain that Fabian Scott was the very worst of all the fashionable 'juveniles,' being addicted to literary and artistic pursuits and other intellectual exercises which, while permissible and innocuous to what are called 'character' actors, are ruin to 'juveniles,' whose business requires vigour rather than thought, picturesqueness rather than feeling. So that Fabian, with his thin keen face, his intensity, and some remnant of North-country stiffness, stood only in the second rank of those whom the ladies delighted to worship; and becoming neither a great artist nor a great popinjay, gave his friends a sense of not having done quite the best with himself, but was a very interesting, if somewhat excitable companion. For my own part I had then, not knowing how vitally important the question of his character would one day become to me, nothing to wish for in him save that he were a little less sour and a little more sincere.

The stage-door was up a narrow and dirty court leading from the Strand. At the opening of the court stood a stout fair man, who looked like a German, and whose coarse, swollen face and dull eyes bore witness to a life of low dissipation. He was respectably but not well dressed, and he swung the cheap and showy walking-stick in his hand slowly backwards and forwards, in a stolidly swaggering and aggressive manner. I should not have noticed him so particularly, but for the fact that he filled the narrow entrance to the passage so completely that I had to ask him to let me pass. Instead of immediately complying, he looked at me from my feet to my head with surly, half-tipsy insolence, and gave a short thick laugh.

'Oh, so you're one of the swells, I suppose, who come hanging round stage-doors to tempt hard-working respectable women away from their lawful husbands! But it won't do. I tell you it won't do!'

I pushed him aside with one vigorous thrust and went up the court, followed by the outraged gentleman, who made no attempt to molest me except by a torrent of abusive eloquence, from which I gathered that he was the husband of one of the actresses at the theatre, and that she did not appreciate the virtues of her lord and master as he considered she ought, but that, nevertheless, he persisted in affording her the protection of his manly arm, and would do so in spite of all the d–d 'mashers' in London.

At this point the stage-doorkeeper came out of his little box, and informed the angry gentleman that if he went on disgracing the place by his scandalous conduct his wife's services would be dispensed with; 'and if there's no money for her to earn, there'll be no beer for you to drink, Mr. Ellmer,' continued the little old man, with more point than politeness.

The threat had instant effect. Mr. Ellmer subsided into indignant mumbling, and went down the court again.

I had forgotten myself in interest at the rout of Mr. Ellmer, to whom I had taken a rabid dislike, and was standing in the full, if feeble light of the gas over the stage-door, when an inner door was thrust open, and the next moment Fabian Scott was shaking my hand heartily.

'Hallo, Harry! I am glad to see you again. I was afraid you were going away without a word to your old friends; but you were always better than your reputation. Got over your accident all right—eh?'

'As well as could be expected, I suppose. I start for Germany to-morrow.'

'Ah!' By this one exclamation he signified that he understood the case, and knew that my mind was definitely made up. Actors are men of the world, and I felt the relief of talking to him after the stolid and obstinate misapprehension with which dear old Edgar persisted in meeting my reasons for saying good-bye to society. 'It was good of you not to go without coming here,' he went on, appreciating the fact that my visit must have entailed an effort.

'To tell the truth, I meant to see you without your seeing me; but I got interested in a moral victory just obtained by your doorkeeper over an eloquent visitor, and so you caught me.'

Scott glanced at the swaggering Ellmer.

'Drunken brute!' said he, with much disgust. 'His wife—a hard-working little woman, who acts under the name of Miss Bailey—has had to bring her child to the theatre with her to-night, for fear he should get home before her and frighten the poor little thing. Look! here they come. One wonders how a wild beast can be the father of an angel.'

Scott was an ardent worshipper of beauty; but I, a cooler mortal, could not think his raptures excessive when he stood aside to make way for a slim, pale, pretty woman, to whose hand there clung a child so beautiful that my whole heart revolted at the thought that the tipsy ruffian a few paces off was her father. Both mother and child were shabbily dressed, in clothes which gave one the idea that November had overtaken them before they could afford to replace the garments of July. The little one was about eight years old, a slender creature with a flower-like face, round which, from under a home-made red velvet cap, her light-brown hair fell in a naturally curly tangle. Something in her blue eyes reminded me of the childlike charm of Helen's. Scott stopped them to say good-night, effusively addressing the child as his little sweetheart, and telling her that if the boy who gave her an apple last Sunday gave her another the next day, he should find out where he lived and murder that boy.

'Beware, Babiole, of arousing the jealousy of a desperate man,' he ended, folding his arms and tossing back his head.

The child took his outburst quite seriously.

'If he offers me another apple I must take it,' she answered in a sweet demure little voice. 'It would be rude to refuse. But you needn't be angry, for I can like you too.'

'Like me too!' thundered Scott, with melodramatic gestures. 'Heaven and earth! This is how the girl dares to trifle with the fiercest passion that ever surged in a human breast!'

'If you're fierce I shan't like you,' said the little one, in her measured way. 'Papa's fierce, and he frightens me and mamma.'

'Will you like me, little madam?' I ventured; and, knowing that my disfigured face was well concealed, I held out my hand. 'I will love you very gently.'

I made my voice as soft as I could, but the deep tones or the sombre black figure frightened her. The quaint matronly demeanour suddenly gave way to a child's fright, and she hid her face in the folds of her mother's black cloth jacket. Then mamma began to rebuke in a voice and manner oddly like the child's; and Fabian seized Babiole and lifted her up to kiss her.

'And now will you give me a kiss?' said he to her.

'Yes, Mr. Scott.' She gave him a kiss with the same demure simplicity.

'And will you promise to kiss nobody but me till you see me again?'

'Really, Mr. Scott,' interrupted the mother rather tartly, 'you shouldn't put such ideas into the child's head. They'll come quite soon enough of their own accord.'

She had one eye upon her husband, who was waiting farther down the court; and the wifely desire to be 'at him' seemed to put a little extra vinegar into her tone. With a hasty good-night to Fabian, and a frosty little bow to the unknown black figure, she said, 'Come, Babiole,' and hurried away with the child.

Scott put his arm through mine, and we followed them slowly back into the Strand, where, amidst the throng of people who had just poured out of the theatres, we soon lost sight of them. We did not go far together, for Fabian had an appointment to supper; but before we parted, he, more ready-witted than Edgar, had talked me into a promise that, when the summer came round and he had a chance of a holiday, I would let him know where I was, that he might invite himself to come and see me.

'You don't think I shall come back among you again, then?' I said curiously.

'I don't know. The taste for wandering, like all other tastes, grows with indulgence. Good-bye, Harry, and God bless you whereever you go.'

I wrung his hand, scarcely able to speak. His words were a prophecy, I knew; and at the moment of taking this last outsider's look at the scenes of my old life, it seemed to me that a dungeon-door had swung to on youth and hope and happiness, shutting me in for ever to a very lonely solitude.

'Good-bye, good-bye, Fabian,' said I, and I walked hastily away lest I should keep on wringing his hand all night.

For three hours more I walked about the London streets, unable to tear myself away from them, sneaking again past the clubs, with a feeling of gushing affection towards a score of idiotic young men and prosy old ones who passed me on the pavement on their way in or out, devoured by a longing to exchange if only half a dozen words with men whom I had often avoided as bores. Near the steps of the Carlton I did try to address one quiet old gentleman whom, on account of his rapacity for papers, I had cordially hated. A ridiculous shyness made me hoarse; and on hearing a husky voice close to his ears in almost apologetic tones, he started violently, cried, 'Eh, what? No, no! Here—hansom!' and I retreated like one of the damned.

I got into Grosvenor Square, passed through a throng of carriages, and saw the bright lights in a house where they were giving a birthday dance to which I had been specially invited months before. Helen would be there, I knew; I felt a jealous satisfaction in remembering that old Saxmundham was away, nursing his gout at Torquay. What of that? There were plenty of other men to step into my shoes. At first I thought I would stay, and walk up and down the square for the chance of one more look at her. How well I knew how she would come down the steps, in a timid hesitating way, half-dazzled by the lights she had just left, poising each little dainty foot a moment above the next step, flit into the carriage like a soft white bird, and drop her pretty head back with a sigh, 'Oh, I'm so tired, mamma!' her white throat curved gently above the swansdown of her cloak, the golden fringe of curls falling limply almost to her eyebrows. I must wait—I must see her again! What! On the arm of another man! The blood rushed into my head as these incoherent thoughts rose rapidly in my mind; all the passions of my life, of my youth, dammed up as they had suddenly been by my accident and its fatal consequences, seemed to surge up, break through the barriers of resignation and resolve, and make a madman of me. I was not master of myself, I could not count upon what I should do if I saw her; seeing my way no more than if I had been blind or intoxicated, I turned away, and finding myself presently in silent Bond Street, I got into a hansom and went back to my hotel.