CHAPTER XXXVI. ARIEL.
I PASSED a sleepless night.
The outrage that had been offered to me was bad enough in itself.But consequences were associated with it which might affect me moreseriously still. In so far as the attainment of the one object of mylife might yet depend on my personal association with Miserrimus Dexter,an insurmountable obstacle appeared to be now placed in my way. Even inmy husband's interests, ought I to permit a man who had grossly insultedme to approach me again? Although I was no prude, I recoiled from thethought of it.
I arose late, and sat down at my desk, trying to summon energy enough towrite to Mr. Playmore--and trying in vain.
Toward noon (while Benjamin happened to be out for a little while) thehousekeeper announced the arrival of another strange visitor at the gateof the villa.
"It's a woman this time, ma'am--or something like one," said this worthyperson, confidentially. "A great, stout, awkward, stupid creature, witha man's hat on and a man's stick in her hand. She says she has got anote for you, and she won't give it to anybody _but_ you. I'd better notlet her in--had I?"
Recognizing the original of the picture, I astonished the housekeeper byconsenting to receive the messenger immediately.
Ariel entered the room--in stolid silence, as usual. But I noticed achange in her which puzzled me. Her dull eyes were red and bloodshot.Traces of tears (as I fancied) were visible on her fat, shapelesscheeks. She crossed the room, on her way to my chair, with a lessdetermined tread than was customary with her. Could Ariel (I askedmyself) be woman enough to cry? Was it within the limits of possibilitythat Ariel should approach me in sorrow and in fear?
"I hear you have brought something for me?" I said. "Won't you sitdown?"
She handed me a letter--without answering and without taking a chair. Iopened the envelope. The letter inside was written by Miserrimus Dexter.It contained these lines:
"Try to pity me, if you have any pity left for a miserable man; I havebitterly expiated the madness of a moment. If you could see me--evenyou would own that my punishment has been heavy enough. For God's sake,don't abandon me! I was beside myself when I let the feeling that youhave awakened in me get the better of my control. It shall never showitself again; it shall be a secret that dies with me. Can I expect youto believe this? No. I won't ask you to believe me; I won't ask you totrust me in the future. If you ever consent to see me again, let it bein the presence of any third person whom you may appoint to protect you.I deserve that--I will submit to it; I will wait till time has composedyour angry feeling against me. All I ask now is leave to hope. Say toAriel, 'I forgive him; and one day I will let him see me again.'She will remember it, for love of me. If you send her back without amessage, you send me to the mad-house. Ask her, if you don't believe me.
"MISERRIMUS DEXTER."
I finished the strange letter, and looked at Ariel.
She stood with her eyes on the floor, and held out to me the thickwalking-stick which she carried in her hand.
"Take the stick" were the first words she said to me.
"Why am I to take it?" I asked.
She struggled a little with her sluggishly working mind, and slowly puther thoughts into words.
"You're angry with the Master," she said. "Take it out on Me. Here's thestick. Beat me."
"Beat you!" I exclaimed.
"My back's broad," said the poor creature. "I won't make a row. I'llbear it. Drat you, take the stick! Don't vex _him._ Whack it out on myback. Beat _me._"
She roughly forced the stick into my hand; she turned her poor shapelessshoulders to me; waiting for the blow. It was at once dreadful andtouching to see her. The tears rose in my eyes. I tried, gently andpatiently, to reason with her. Quite useless! The idea of taking theMaster's punishment on herself was the one idea in her mind. "Don't vex_him,_" she repeated. "Beat _me._"
"What do you mean by 'vexing him'?" I asked.
She tried to explain, and failed to find the words. She showed me byimitation, as a savage might have shown me, what she meant. Striding tothe fire-place, she crouched on the rug, and looked into the fire with ahorrible vacant stare. Then she clasped her hands over her forehead, androcked slowly to and fro, still staring into the fire. "There's how hesits!" she said, with a sudden burst of speech. "Hours on hours, there'show he sits! Notices nobody. Cries about _you._"
The picture she presented recalled to my memory the Report of Dexter'shealth, and the doctor's plain warning of peril waiting for him in thefuture.
Even if I could have resisted Ariel, I must have yielded to the vaguedread of consequences which now shook me in secret.
"Don't do that!" I cried. She was still rocking herself in imitationof the "Master," and still staring into the fire with her hands to herhead. "Get up, pray! I am not angry with him now. I forgive him."
She rose on her hands and knees, and waited, looking up intently into myface. In that attitude--more like a dog than a human being--she repeatedher customary petition when she wanted to fix words that interested herin her mind.
"Say it again!"
I did as she bade me. She was not satisfied.
"Say it as it is in the letter," she went on. "Say it as the Master saidit to Me."
I looked back at the letter, and repeated the form of message containedin the latter part of it, word for word:
"I forgive him; and one day I will let him see me again."
She sprang to her feet at a bound. For the first time since she hadentered the room her dull face began to break slowly into light andlife.
"That's it!" she cried. "Hear if I can say it, too; hear if I've got itby heart."
Teaching her exactly as I should have taught a child, I slowly fastenedthe message, word by word, on her mind.
"Now rest yourself," I said; "and let me give you something to eat anddrink after your long walk."
I might as well have spoken to one of the chairs. She snatched up herstick from the floor, and burst out with a hoarse shout of joy. "I'vegot it by heart!" she cried. "This will cool the Master's head! Hooray!"She dashed out into the passage like a wild animal escaping from itscage. I was just in time to see her tear open the garden gate, and setforth on her walk back at a pace which made it hopeless to attempt tofollow and stop her.
I returned to the sitting-room, pondering on a question which hasperplexed wiser heads than mine. Could a man who was hopelessly andentirely wicked have inspired such devoted attachment to him as Dexterhad inspired in the faithful woman who had just left me? in the roughgardener who had carried him out so gently on the previous night? Whocan decide? The greatest scoundrel living always has a friend--in awoman or a dog.
I sat down again at my desk, and made another attempt to write to Mr.Playmore.
Recalling, for the purpose of my letter, all that Miserrimus Dexterhad said to me, my memory dwelt with special interest on the strangeoutbreak of feeling which had led him to betray the secret of hisinfatuation for Eustace's first wife. I saw again the ghastly scene inthe death-chamber--the deformed creature crying over the corpse in thestillness of the first dark hours of the new day. The horrible picturetook a strange hold on my mind. I arose, and walked up and down, andtried to turn my thoughts some other way. It was not to be done: thescene was too familiar to me to be easily dismissed. I had myselfvisited the room and looked at the bed. I had myself walked in thecorridor which Dexter had crossed on his way to take his last leave ofher.
The corridor? I stopped. My thoughts suddenly took a new direction,uninfluenced by any effort of my will.
What other association besides the association with Dexter did I connectwith the corridor? Was it something I had seen during my visit toGleninch? No. Was it something I had read? I snatched up the Reportof the Trial to see. It opened at a page which contained the nurse'sevidence. I read the evidence through again, without recovering the lostremembrance until I came to these lines close at the end:
"Before bed-time I went upstairs to prepare the remain
s of the deceasedlady for the coffin. The room in which she lay was locked; the doorleading into Mr. Macallan's room being secured, as well as the doorleading into the corridor. The keys had been taken away by Mr. Gale. Twoof the men-servants were posted outside the bedroom to keep watch. Theywere to be relieved at four in the morning--that was all they could tellme."
There was my lost association with the corridor! There was what I oughtto have remembered when Miserrimus Dexter was telling me of his visit tothe dead!
How had he got into the bedroom--the doors being locked, and the keysbeing taken away by Mr. Gale? There was but one of the locked doors ofwhich Mr. Gale had not got the key--the door of communication betweenthe study and the bedroom. The key was missing from this. Had it beenstolen? And was Dexter the thief? He might have passed by the men on thewatch while they were asleep, or he might have crossed the corridor inan unguarded interval while the men were being relieved. But how couldhe have got into the bedchamber except by way of the locked study door?He _must_ have had the key! And he _must_ have secreted it weeks beforeMrs. Eustace Macallan's death! When the nurse first arrived at Gleninch,on the seventh of the month, her evidence declared the key of the doorof communication to be then missing.
To what conclusion did these considerations and discoveries point? HadMiserrimus Dexter, in a moment of ungovernable agitation, unconsciouslyplaced the clew in my hands? Was the pivot on which turned the wholemystery of the poisoning at Gleninch the missing key?
I went back for the third time to my desk. The one person who might betrusted to find the answer to those questions was Mr. Playmore. I wrotehim a full and careful account of all that had happened; I begged him toforgive and forget my ungracious reception of the advice which he hadso kindly offered to me; and I promised beforehand to do nothing withoutfirst consulting his opinion in the new emergency which now confrontedme.
The day was fine for the time of year; and by way of getting a littlewholesome exercise after the surprises and occupations of the morning, Itook my letter to Mr. Playmore to the post.
Returning to the villa, I was informed that another visitor was waitingto see me: a civilized visitor this time, who had given her name. Mymother-in-law--Mrs. Macallan.
The Law and the Lady Page 36
