"But, Marcus, what am I to do?"
"The best way you can."
"You would not have your wife solicit charity?"
"An excellent thought. Ha! ha! you would make a first-rate beggar, with that pale sad face of yours. But, no, madam, you shall not beg. Poor as I am, I will find means to support both you and the child. But, mark me--it must not resemble Algernon."
"How is that possible? I have not seen Algernon for eighteen years."
"But he is ever in your thoughts. Let me not trace this adultery of the heart in the features of my child."
"But you are like Algernon. Not a striking likeness, but still you might be known for brothers."
"So, you are trying to find excuses in case of the worst. But, I again repeat to you, that I will not own the boy if he is like Algernon."
This whim of the miser"s was a new cause of terror to Elinor; from that moment an indescribable dread lest the child should be like Algernon took possession of her breast. She perceived that her husband already calculated with selfish horror the expense of the unborn infant"s food and raiment; and she began to entertain some not unreasonable fears lest the young child, if it should survive its birth, would be starved to death, as Mark barely supplied his household with the common necessaries of life; and, though Elinor bore the system of starvation with the indifference which springs from a long and hopeless continuation of suffering, the parish girl was loud in her complaints, and she was constantly annoyed with her discontented murmurings, without having it in her power to silence them in the only effective way.
The Squire told Ruth, that she consumed more food at one meal than would support him and her mistress for a week; and he thought that what was enough for them might satisfy a cormorant like her. But the poor girl could not measure the cravings of her healthy appet.i.te by the scanty wants of a heart-broken invalid and a miser. Her hunger remained unappeased, and she continued to complain.
At this period Mark Hurdlestone was attacked, for the first time in his life, with a dangerous illness. Elinor nursed him with the greatest care, and prescribed for him as well as she could; for he would not suffer a doctor to enter the house. But finding that the disorder did not yield to her remedies, but rather that he grew daily worse, she privately sent for the doctor. When he arrived, Mr. Hurdlestone ordered him out of his room, and nearly exhausted what little strength he still possessed, in accusing Elinor of entering into a conspiracy with Mr.
Moore to kill him, and, as the doctor happened to be a widower, to marry him after his death, and share the spoils between them.
"Your husband, madam, is mad--as mad as a March hare," said Mr. Moore, as he descended the stairs. "He is, however, in a very dangerous state, it is doubtful if he ever recovers."
"And what can be done for him?"
"Nothing in his present humor without you have him treated as a maniac, which, if I were in your case and in your situation, I most certainly would do."
"Oh, no, no! there is something dreadful in such a charge coming from a wife, though he often appears to me scarcely accountable for his actions; but what can I give him to allay this dreadful fever?"
"I will write you a prescription." This the doctor did on the back of a letter with his pencil, for Elinor could not furnish him with a sc.r.a.p of paper.
"You must send this to the apothecary. He will make it up."
"What will it cost?"
The doctor smiled. "A mere trifle; perhaps three shillings."
"I have not had such a sum in my possession for the last three years. He will die before he will give it to me."
"Mad, mad, mad," said the doctor, shaking his head. "Well, my dear lady, if he will not give it to save his worthless life, you must steal it from him. If you fail, why let Nature take her course. His death would certainly be your gain."
Returning to the sick room, she found the patient in a better temper, evidently highly gratified at having expelled the doctor. Elinor thought this a good opportunity to urge her request for a small sum of money to procure medicines and other necessaries; but on this subject she found him inexorable.
"Give you money to buy poison!" he exclaimed. "Do you take me for a fool, or mad?"
"You are very ill, Marcus; you will die, without you follow Dr. Moore"s advice."
"Don"t flatter yourselves. I don"t mean to die to please you. There is a great deal of vitality in me yet. Don"t say another word. I will take nothing but cold water; I feel better already."
"Pray G.o.d that you may be right," said Elinor. But after this fit of rage, he fell into a stupor, and before night he was considerably worse.
His unfortunate wife, worn down with watching and want of food and rest, now determined to have a regular search for the key of his strongbox, that she might procure him the medicines prescribed by the doctor, and purchase oatmeal and bread for the use of the parish girl and herself.
She carefully examined his pockets, his writing-desk, and bureau, but to no purpose--looking carefully into every drawer and chest that had not been sold by public auction or private contract. Not a corner of the chamber was left unexplored--not a closet or shelf escaped her strict examination, until, giving up the search as perfectly hopeless, she resumed her station at his bed-side, to watch through the long winter night--without a fire, and by the wan gleam that a miserable rush-light shed through the s.p.a.cious and lofty room--the restless slumbers of the miser. She was ill, out of spirits, fatigued with her fruitless exertion, and deeply disappointed at her want of success.
The solitary light threw a ghastly livid hue on the strongly-marked features of the sleeper, rendered sharp and haggard by disease and his penurious habits; she could just distinguish through the gloom the spectre-like form of the invalid, and the long bony attenuated hands which grasped, from time to time, the curtains and bedclothes, as he tossed from side to side in his feverish unrest. Elinor continued to watch the dark and perturbed countenance of the sleeper, until he became an object of fear, and she fancied that it was some demon who had for a time usurped the human shape, and not the brother of Algernon--the man whom she had voluntarily attended to the altar, and in the presence of Almighty G.o.d had sworn to love, honor, and obey, and to cherish in sickness and in health.
A crushing sense of all the deception that had been practiced upon her, of her past wrongs and present misery, made her heart die within her, and her whole soul overflow with bitterness. She wrung her hands, and smote her breast in an agony of despair; but in that dark hour no tear relieved her burning brain, or moistened her eyes. She had once been under the dominion of insanity; she felt that her reason in that moment hung upon a thread; that, if she pursued much longer her present thoughts, they would drive her mad; that, if she continued to gaze much longer on the face of her husband, she would be tempted to plunge a knife, which lay on the table near her, into his breast. With a desperate effort she drew her eyes from the sleeper, and turned from the bed. Her gaze fell upon a large full-length picture in oils, which hung opposite. It was the portrait of one of Mark"s ancestors, a young man who had fallen in his first battle, on the memorable field of Flodden.
It bore a strong resemblance to Algernon, and Elinor prized it on that account, and would sit for hours with her head resting upon her hand, and her eyes riveted on this picture. This night it seemed to regard her with a sad and mournful aspect; and the large blue eyes appeared to return her fixed gaze with the sorrowful earnestness of life.
"My head is strangely confused," she murmured, half aloud. "Into what new extravagance will my treacherous fancy hurry me to-night? Ah me!
physical wants and mental suffering, added to this long watching, will turn my brain."
She buried her face in her hands, and endeavored to shut out the grotesque and phantom-like forms that seemed to dance before her. A deathlike stillness reigned through the house, the silence alone broken by the ticking of the great dial at the head of the staircase. There is something inexpressibly awful in the ticking of a clock, when heard at midnight by the lonely and anxious watcher beside the bed of death. It is the voice of time marking its slow but certain progress towards eternity, and warning us in solemn tones that it will soon cease to number the hours for the sufferer for ever. Elinor trembled as she listened to the low monotonous measured sounds; and she felt at that moment a presentiment that her own weary pilgrimage on earth was drawing to a close.
"Oh, Algernon!" she thought; "it may be a crime, but I sometimes think that if I could see you once more--only once more--I could forget all my wrongs and sufferings, and die in peace."
The unuttered thought was scarcely formed, when a slight rustling noise shook the curtains of the bed, and the next moment a tall figure in white glided across the room. It drew nearer, and Elinor, in spite of the wish she had just dared to whisper to herself, struggled with the vision, as a sleeper does with the night-mare, when the suffocating grasp of the fiend is upon his throat. Her presence of mind forsook her, and, with a shriek of uncontrollable terror, she flung herself across the bed, and endeavored to awaken her husband. The place he had occupied a few minutes before was vacant; and, raising her fear-stricken head, she perceived, with feelings scarcely less allied to fear, that the figure she had mistaken for the ghost of Algernon was the corporeal form of the miser.
He was asleep, but his mind appeared to be actively employed. He drew near the table with a cautious step, and took from beneath a broad leathern belt, which he always wore next his skin, a small key. Elinor sat up on the bed, and watched his movements with intense interest. He next took up the candle, and glided out of the room. Slipping off her shoes she followed him with noiseless steps. He descended the great staircase, and suddenly stopped in the centre of the entrance hall. Here he put down the light on the last step of the broad oak stairs, and proceeded to remove one of the stone flags that formed the pavement of the hall. With some difficulty he accomplished his task; then kneeling down, and holding the light over the chasm, he said in hollow and unearthly tones that echoed mournfully through the empty building:
"Look! here is money; my father"s savings and my own. Will this save my soul?"
Elinor leaned over the sordid wretch, and discovered with no small astonishment that the aperture contained a great quant.i.ty of gold and silver coins; and the most valuable articles of the family plate and jewels.
"Unhappy man!" she mentally cried; "dost thou imagine that these glittering heaps of metal will purchase the redemption of a soul like thine, or avert the certainty of future punishment?--for never was the parable of the servant who buried his talent in the dust more fully exemplified than in thee."
"What, not enough?" growled forth the miser. "By heavens! thou hast a human conscience. But wait patiently, and I will show you more--aye, more--my brother"s portion, and my own. Ha, ha! I tricked him there. The old man"s heart failed him at the last. He was afraid of you. Yes, yes, he was afraid of the devil! It was I formed the plan. It was I guided the dead hand. Shall I burn for that?"
Then, as if suddenly struck with a violent pain, he shrieked out, "Ah, ah! my brain is cloven with a bolt of fire. I cannot bear this! Algernon mocks my agonies--laughs at my cries--and tells me that he has a fair wife and plenty of gold, in spite of my malice. How did he get it? Did he rob me?"
Elinor shrunk back aghast from this wild burst of delirium; and the miser, rising from his knees, began re-ascending the stairs. This task he performed with difficulty, and often reeled forward with extreme pain and weakness. After traversing several empty chambers, he entered what had once been the state apartment, and stooping down, he drew from beneath the faded furniture of the bed a strong mahogany bra.s.s-bound chest, which he cautiously opened, and displayed to his wondering companion a richer store of wealth than that on which she had so lately gazed.
"How! not satisfied yet!" he cried in the same harsh tones, "then may I perish to all eternity if I give you one fraction more."
As he was about to close the chest, Elinor, who knew that without a necessary supply of money both her unborn infant and its avaricious father would perish for want, slid her hand into the box, and dextrously abstracted some of the broad gold pieces it contained. The coins, in coming in contact with each other, emitted a slight ringing sound, which arrested, trifling as it was, the ear of the sleeper.
"What! fingering the gold already?" he exclaimed, hastily slapping down the lid of the strong box. "Could you not wait till I am dead?"
Then staggering back to his apartment, he was soon awake, and raving under a fresh paroxysm of the fever. In his delirium he fancied himself confined to the dreary gulf of eternal woe, and from this place of torment he imagined that his brother could alone release him, and he proffered to him, while under the influence of that strong agony, all his hidden treasures if he would but intercede with Christ to save his soul.
These visions of his diseased brain were so frequent and appalling, and the near approach of death so dreadful to the guilty and despairing wretch, that they produced at last a strong desire to see his brother, that he might ask his forgiveness, and make some rest.i.tution of his property to him before he died.
"Elinor," he said, "I must see Algernon. I cannot die until I have seen him. But mark me, Elinor, you must not be present at our conference. You must not see him."
With quivering lips, and a face paler than usual, his wife promised obedience, and Grenard Pike was despatched to Norgood Hall to make known to Algernon Hurdlestone his dying brother"s request, and to call in, once more, the aid of the village doctor.
As Elinor watched the grim messenger depart, she pressed her hands tightly over her breast to hide from the quick eye of the miser the violent agitation that convulsed her frame, as the recollection of former days flashed upon her too retentive memory.