The hanging tapestry over the inner door had been left partially drawn aside. Softly as I moved, the dog"s ears of Miserrimus Dexter caught the sound of my dress on the floor. The fine tenor voice, which I had last heard singing, called to me softly.
"Is that Mrs. Valeria? Please don"t wait there. Come in!"
I entered the inner room.
The wheeled chair advanced to meet me, so slowly and so softly that I hardly knew it again. Miserrimus Dexter languidly held out his hand. His head inclined pensively to one side; his large blue eyes looked at me piteously. Not a vestige seemed to be left of the raging, shouting creature of my first visit, who was Napoleon at one moment, and Shakespeare at another. Mr. Dexter of the morning was a mild, thoughtful, melancholy man, who only recalled Mr. Dexter of the night by the inveterate oddity of his dress. His jacket, on this occasion, was of pink quilted silk. The coverlet which hid his deformity matched the jacket in pale sea-green satin; and, to complete these strange vagaries of costume, his wrists were actually adorned with ma.s.sive bracelets of gold, formed on the severely simple models which have descended to us from ancient times.
"How good of you to cheer and charm me by coming here!" he said, in his most mournful and most musical tones. "I have dressed, expressly to receive you, in the prettiest clothes I have. Don"t be surprised. Except in this ign.o.ble and material nineteenth century, men have always worn precious stuffs and beautiful colors as well as women. A hundred years ago a gentleman in pink silk was a gentleman properly dressed. Fifteen hundred years ago the patricians of the cla.s.sic times wore bracelets exactly like mine. I despise the brutish contempt for beauty and the mean dread of expense which degrade a gentleman"s costume to black cloth, and limit a gentleman"s ornaments to a finger-ring, in the age I live in. I like to be bright and I beautiful, especially when brightness and beauty come to see me. You don"t know how precious your society is to me. This is one of my melancholy days. Tears rise unbidden to my eyes. I sigh and sorrow over myself; I languish for pity. Just think of what I am! A poor solitary creature, cursed with a frightful deformity.
How pitiable! how dreadful! My affectionate heart--wasted. My extraordinary talents--useless or misapplied. Sad! sad! sad! Please pity me."
His eyes were positively filled with tears--tears of compa.s.sion for himself! He looked at me and spoke to me with the wailing, querulous entreaty of a sick child wanting to be nursed. I was utterly at a loss what to do. It was perfectly ridiculous--but I was never more embarra.s.sed in my life.
"Please pity me!" he repeated. "Don"t be cruel. I only ask a little thing. Pretty Mrs. Valeria, say you pity me!"
I said I pitied him--and I felt that I blushed as I did it.
"Thank you," said Miserrimus Dexter, humbly. "It does me good. Go a little further. Pat my hand."
I tried to restrain myself; but the sense of the absurdity of this last pet.i.tion (quite gravely addressed to me, remember!) was too strong to be controlled. I burst out laughing.
Miserrimus Dexter looked at me with a blank astonishment which only increased my merriment. Had I offended him? Apparently not. Recovering from his astonishment, he laid his head luxuriously on the back of his chair, with the expression of a man who was listening critically to a performance of some sort. When I had quite exhausted myself, he raised his head and clapped his shapely white hands, and honored me with an "encore."
"Do it again," he said, still in the same childish way. "Merry Mrs.
Valeria, _you_ have a musical laugh--_I_ have a musical ear. Do it again."
I was serious enough by this time. "I am ashamed of myself, Mr. Dexter,"
I said. "Pray forgive me."
He made no answer to this; I doubt if he heard me. His variable temper appeared to be in course of undergoing some new change. He sat looking at my dress (as I supposed) with a steady and anxious attention, gravely forming his own conclusions, steadfastly pursuing his own train of thought.
"Mrs. Valeria," he burst out suddenly, "you are not comfortable in that chair."
"Pardon me," I replied; "I am quite comfortable."
"Pardon _me,_" he rejoined. "There is a chair of Indian basket-work at that end of the room which is much better suited to you. Will you accept my apologies if I am rude enough to allow you to fetch it for yourself?
I have a reason."
He had a reason! What new piece of eccentricity was he about to exhibit?
I rose and fetched the chair. It was light enough to be quite easily carried. As I returned to him, I noticed that his eyes were strangely employed in what seemed to be the closest scrutiny of my dress. And, stranger still, the result of this appeared to be partly to interest and partly to distress him.
I placed the chair near him, and was about to take my seat in it, when he sent me back again, on another errand, to the end of the room.
"Oblige me indescribably," he said. "There is a hand-screen hanging on the wall, which matches the chair. We are rather near the fire here. You may find the screen useful. Once more forgive me for letting you fetch it for yourself. Once more let me a.s.sure you that I have a reason."
Here was his "reason," reiterated, emphatically reiterated, for the second time! Curiosity made me as completely the obedient servant of his caprices as Ariel herself. I fetched the hand-screen. Returning with it, I met his eyes still fixed with the same incomprehensible attention on my perfectly plain and unpretending dress, and still expressing the same curious mixture of interest and regret.
"Thank you a thousand times," he said. "You have (quite innocently) wrung my heart. But you have not the less done me an inestimable kindness. Will you promise not to be offended with me if I confess the truth?"
He was approaching his explanation I never gave a promise more readily in my life.
"I have rudely allowed you to fetch your chair and your screen for yourself," he went on. "My motive will seem a very strange one, I am afraid. Did you observe that I noticed you very attentively--too attentively, perhaps?"
"Yes," I said. "I thought you were noticing my dress."
He shook his head, and sighed bitterly.
"Not your dress," he said; "and not your face. Your dress is dark. Your face is still strange to me. Dear Mrs. Valeria, I wanted to see you walk."
To see me walk! What did he mean? Where was that erratic mind of his wandering to now?
"You have a rare accomplishment for an Englishwoman," he resumed--"you walk well. _She_ walked well. I couldn"t resist the temptation of seeing her again, in seeing you. It was _her_ movement, _her_ sweet, simple, unsought grace (not yours), when you walked to the end of the room and returned to me. You raised her from the dead when you fetched the chair and the screen. Pardon me for making use of you: the idea was innocent, the motive was sacred. You have distressed--and delighted me. My heart bleeds--and thanks you."
He paused for a moment; he let his head droop on his breast, then suddenly raised it again.
"Surely we were talking about her last night?" he said. "What did I say?
what did you say? My memory is confused; I half remember, half forget.
Please remind me. You"re not offended with me--are you?"
I might have been offended with another man. Not with him. I was far too anxious to find my way into his confidence--now that he had touched of his own accord on the subject of Eustace"s first wife--to be offended with Miserrimus Dexter.
"We were speaking," I answered, "of Mrs. Eustace Macallan"s death, and we were saying to one another--"
He interrupted me, leaning forward eagerly in his chair.
"Yes! yes!" he exclaimed. "And I was wondering what interest _you_ could have in penetrating the mystery of her death. Tell me! Confide in me! I am dying to know!"
"Not even you have a stronger interest in that subject than the interest that I feel," I said. "The happiness of my whole life to come depends on my clearing up the mystery."
"Good G.o.d--why?" he cried. "Stop! I am exciting myself. I mustn"t do that. I must have all my wits about me; I mustn"t wander. The thing is too serious. Wait a minute!"
An elegant little basket was hooked on to one of the arms of his chair.
He opened it, and drew out a strip of embroidery partially finished, with the necessary materials for working, a complete. We looked at each other across the embroidery. He noticed my surprise.
"Women," he said, "wisely compose their minds, and help themselves to think quietly, by doing needle-work. Why are men such fools as to deny themselves the same admirable resource--the simple and soothing occupation which keeps the nerves steady and leaves the mind calm and free? As a man, I follow the woman"s wise example. Mrs. Valeria, permit me to compose myself."
Gravely arranging his embroidery, this extraordinary being began to work with the patient and nimble dexterity of an accomplished needle-woman.
"Now," said Miserrimus Dexter, "if you are ready, I am. You talk--I work. Please begin."
I obeyed him, and began.
CHAPTER XXVIII. IN THE DARK.
WITH such a man as Miserrimus Dexter, and with such a purpose as I had in view, no half-confidences were possible. I must either risk the most unreserved acknowledgment of the interests that I really had at stake, or I must make the best excuse that occurred to me for abandoning my contemplated experiment at the last moment. In my present critical situation, no such refuge as a middle course lay before me--even if I had been inclined to take it. As things were, I ran risks, and plunged headlong into my own affairs at starting.
"Thus far, you know little or nothing about me, Mr. Dexter," I said.