"Because for nearly half a century I have been kept in profound ignorance of my father"s fate--in ignorance of my race. Lord Maulevrier"s jealousy banished me from my mother"s arms shortly after my father"s death. I was sent to the South of France under the care of an ayah. My first memories are of a monastery near Ma.r.s.eilles, where I was reared and educated by a Jesuit community, where I was baptised and brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. By the influence of the Jesuit Fathers I was placed in a house of commerce at Ma.r.s.eilles. Funds to provide for my education and establishment in life, under very modest conditions, were sent periodically by an agent at Madras. It was known that I was of East Indian birth, but little more was known about me. It was only when years had gone by and I was a merchant on my own account and could afford to go to India on a voyage of discovery--yes, as much a voyage of discovery as that of Vasco de Gama or of Drake--that I got from the Madras agent the clue which enabled me, at the cost of infinite patience and infinite labour, to unravel the mystery of my birth. There is no need to enter now upon the details of that story. I have overwhelming doc.u.mentary evidence--a cloud of witnesses--to convince the most sceptical as to who and what I am. The doc.u.ments are some of them in my valise, at your ladyship"s service. Others are at my hotel in London, ready for the inspection of your ladyship"s lawyers. I do not think you will desire to invite a public inquiry, or force me to recover my birthright in a court of justice. I believe that you will take a broader and n.o.bler view of the case, and that you will restore to the wronged and abandoned son the fortune stolen from his murdered father."
"How dare you come to me with this tissue of lies? How dare you look me in the face and charge my dead husband with treachery and dishonour? I believe neither in your story nor in you, and I defy you to the proof of this vile charge against the dead!"
"In other words you mean that you will keep the money and jewels which Lord Maulevrier stole from my father?"
"I deny the fact that any such jewels or money ever pa.s.sed into his lordship"s possession. That vile woman, your mother, whose infamy cast a dark cloud over Lord Maulevrier"s honour, may have robbed her husband, may have emptied the public treasury. But not a rupee or a jewel belonging to her ever came into my possession. I will not bear the burden of her crimes. Her existence spoiled my life--banished me from India, a widow in all but the name, and more desolate than many widows."
"Lord Maulevrier was known to leave India carrying with him two large chests--supposed to contain books--but actually containing treasure. A man who was in the Governor"s confidence, and who had been the go-between in his intrigues, confessed on his death-bed that he had a.s.sisted in removing the treasure. Now, Lady Maulevrier, since your husband died immediately after his arrival in England, and before he could have had any opportunity of converting or making away with the valuables so appropriated, it stands to reason that those valuables must have pa.s.sed into your possession, and it is from your honour and good feeling that I claim their rest.i.tution. If you deny the claim so advanced, there remains but one course open to me, and that is to make my wrongs public, and claim my right from the law of the land."
"And do you suppose that any English judge or English jury would believe so wild a story--or countenance so vile an accusation against the defenceless?" demanded Lady Maulevrier, standing up before him, tall, stately, with flashing eye and scornful lip, the image of proud defiance. "Bring forward your claim, produce your doc.u.ments, your witnesses, your death-bed confessions. I defy you to injure my dead husband or me by your wild lies, your foul charges! Go to an English lawyer, and see what an English law court will do for you--and your claim. I will hear no more of either."
She rang the bell once, twice, thrice, with pa.s.sionate hand, and a servant flew to answer that impatient summons.
"Show this gentlemen to his carriage," she said, imperiously.
The gentleman who called himself Louis Asoph bowed, and retired without another word.
As the door closed upon him, Lady Maulevrier stood, with clenched hands and frowning brow, staring into vacancy. Her right arm was outstretched, as if she would have waved the intruder away. Suddenly, a strange numbness crept over that uplifted arm, and it fell to her side. From her shoulder down to her foot, that proud form grew cold and feelingless and dead, and she, who had so long carried herself as a queen among women, sank in a senseless heap upon the floor.
CHAPTER XVI.
"HER FACE RESIGNED TO BLISS OR BALE."
Lady Mary and the Fraulein had been sitting in the drawing-room all this time waiting for Lady Maulevrier to come to tea. They heard her come in from the garden; and then the footman told them that she was in the library with a stranger. Not even the m.u.f.fled sound of voices penetrated the heavy velvet curtain and the thick oak door. It was only by the loud ringing of the bell and the sound of footsteps in the hall that Lady Mary knew of the guest"s departure. She went to the door between the two rooms, and was surprised to find it bolted.
"Grandmamma, won"t you come to tea?" she asked timidly, knocking on the oaken panel, but there was no reply.
She knocked again, and louder. Still no reply.
"Perhaps her ladyship is going to take tea in her own room," she said, afraid to be officious.
Attendance upon her grandmother at afternoon tea had been one of Lesbia"s particular duties; but Mary felt that she was an unwelcome subst.i.tute for Lesbia. She wanted to get a little nearer her grandmother"s heart if she could; but she knew that her attentions were endured rather than liked.
She went into the hall, where the footman on duty was staring at the light snowflakes dancing past the window, perhaps wishing he were a snowflake himself, and enjoying himself in that white whirligig.
"Is her ladyship having tea in the morning-room?" asked Mary.
The footman gave a little start, as if awakened out of a kind of trance.
The sheer vacuity of his mind might naturally slide into mesmeric sleep.
He told Lady Mary that her ladyship had not left the library, and Mary went in timidly, wondering why her grandmother had not joined them in the drawing-room when the stranger was gone.
The sky was dark outside the wide windows, white hills and valleys shrouded in the shades of night. The library was only lighted by the glow of the logs on the hearth, and in that ruddy light the s.p.a.cious room looked empty. Mary was turning to go away, thinking the footman had been mistaken, when her eye suddenly lighted upon a dark figure lying on the ground. And then she heard an awful stertorous breathing, and knew that her grandmother was lying there, stricken and helpless.
Mary shrieked aloud, with a cry that pierced curtains and doors, and brought Fraulein and half-a-dozen servants to her help. One of the men brought a lamp, and among them they lifted the smitten figure. Oh, G.o.d!
how ghastly the face looked in the lamplight!--the features drawn to one side, the skin livid.
"Her ladyship has had a stroke," said the butler.
"Is she dying?" faltered Mary, white as ashes. "Oh, grandmother, dear grandmother, don"t look at us like that!"
One of the servants rushed off to the stables to send for the doctor. Of course, being an indoor man, he no more thought of going out himself into the snowy night on such an errand than Noah thought of going out of the ark to explore the face of the waters in person.
They carried Lady Maulevrier to her bed and laid her there, like a figure carved out of stone. She was not unconscious. Her eyes were open, and she moaned every now and then as if in bodily or mental pain.
Once she tried to speak, but had no power to shape a syllable aright, and ended with a shuddering sigh. Once she lifted her left arm and waved it in the air, as if waving some one off in fear or anger. The right arm, indeed the whole of the right side, was lifeless, motionless as a stone. It was a piteous sight to see the beautiful features drawn and distorted, the lips so accustomed to command mouthing the broken syllables of an unknown tongue. Lady Mary sat beside the bed with clasped hands, praying dumbly, with her eyes fixed on her grandmother"s altered face.
Mr. Horton came, as soon as his stout mountain pony could bring him. He did not seem surprised at her ladyship"s condition, and accepted the situation with professional calmness.
"A marked case of hemiplegia," he said, when he had observed the symptoms.
"Will she die?" asked Mary.
"Oh, dear, no! She will want great care for a little while, but we shall bring her round easily. A splendid const.i.tution, a n.o.ble frame; but I think she has overworked her brain a little, reading Huxley and Darwin, and the German physiologists upon whom Huxley and Darwin have built themselves. Metaphysics too. Schopenhauer, and the rest of them. A wonderful woman! Very few brains could hold what hers has had poured into it in the last thirty years. The conducting nerves between the brain and the spinal marrow have been overworked: too much activity, too constant a strain. Even the rails and sleepers on the railroad wear out, don"t you know, if there"s excessive traffic."
Mr. Horton had known Mary from her childhood, had given her Gregory"s powder, and seen her safely through measles and other infantine ailments, so he was quite at home with her, and at Fellside generally.
Lady Maulevrier had given him a good deal of her confidence during those thirty years in which he had practised as his father"s partner and successor at Grasmere. He used to tell people that he owed the best part of his education to her ladyship, who condescended to talk to him of the new books she read, and generally gave him a volume to put in his pocket when he was leaving her.
"Don"t be downhearted, Lady Mary," he said; "I shall come in two or three times a day and see how things are going on, and if I see the slightest difficulty in the case I"ll telegraph for Jenner."
Mary and the Fraulein sat up with the invalid all that night. Lady Maulevrier"s maid was also in attendance, and one of the menservants slept in his clothes on a couch in the corridor, ready for any emergency. But the night pa.s.sed peacefully, the patient slept a good deal, and next day there was evident improvement. The stroke which had prostrated the body, which reduced the vigorous, active frame to an awful statue--like stillness--a quietude as of death of itself--had not overclouded the intellect. Lady Maulevrier lay on her bed in her luxurious room, with wide Tudor windows commanding half the circle of the hills, and was still the ruling spirit of the house, albeit powerless to move that slender hand, the lightest wave of which had been as potent to command in her little world as royal sign-manual or sceptre in the great world outside.
Now there remained only one thing unimpaired by that awful shock which had laid the stately frame low, and that was the will and sovereign force of the woman"s nature. Voice was altered, speech was confused and difficult; but the strength of will, the supreme power of mind, seemed undiminished.
When Lady Maulevrier was asked if Lesbia should be telegraphed for, she replied no, not unless she was in danger of sudden death.
"I should like to see her before I go," she said, labouring to p.r.o.nounce the words.
"Dear grandmother," said Mary, tenderly, "Mr. Horton says there is no danger."
"Then do not send for her; do not even tell her what has happened; not yet."
"But she will miss your letters."
"True. You must write twice a week at my dictation. You must tell her that I have hurt my hand, that I am well but cannot use a pen. I would not spoil her pleasure for the world."
"Dear grandmother, how unselfish you are! And Maulevrier, shall he be sent for? He is not so far away," said Mary, hoping her grandmother would say yes.
What a relief, what an unspeakable solace Maulevrier"s presence would be in that dreary house, smitten to a sudden and awful stillness, as if by the Angel of Death!
"No, I do not want Maulevrier!" answered her ladyship impatiently.
"May I sit here and read to you, grandmother?" Mary asked, timidly. "Mr.
Horton said you were to be kept very quiet, and that we were not to let you talk, or talk much to you, but that we might read to you if you like."