“Adelaide!” he exclaimed. “My God! Wot the bloody hell, my child! Wot is it?”
She stood before him, speechless, panting, swaying. He put out his arms and caught her before she fell. Half-carrying her, half-dragging her, he got her to a chair near the fire, dropped her into it. She was barely conscious now. She lay back in the chair, her nostrils dilating and closing with her efforts to breathe. The blood dripped unheeded by her over her cheek and chin, and then her throat. Kneeling beside her, cursing, terrified, Mr. Wilkins removed her shawl, wiped away the blood, rubbed her hands and cheeks. The dogs, alarmed and uneasy, sniffed about her, looked at her and then their master. There were deep growls in their throats, as they tried to understand this extraordinary thing.
Her clothing was drenched to the flesh. There was a terrible rough sound in her breathing. She lay back, her eyes closed and bruised, her body slack. Mr. Wilkins heard the frightened beating of his heart, and increased the vigour of his rubbing of her hands. Over his shoulder he shouted for his old housekeeper, and when she came, hastily fastening a dressing-gown over her nightgown, he ordered her to bring wine, a dry shawl, some water.
But before the old woman could return, Adelaide had recovered her consciousness. She sat upright in her chair. She grasped Mr. Wilkins by his wide fat shoulders, and bent her face, so wild, so distraught, so fierce, towards him.
“Papa!” she cried. “It’s Papa, Uncle Bob.”
He sat back on his heels and regarded her with open horror and amazement. He looked at the blood which continued to drip down her cheek. Then his face wrinkled, apelike, drew together, and his eyes narrowed to slits with in-human savagery and hatred.
“He did this to you, Adelaide, my little lass? He struck you? He drove you out?”
Black murder rose in him. He caught her hands away from his shoulders and held them tightly.
But she was shaking her head wildly. “No, no! It’s Rufus, it’s Patrick! They’re getting him to sign papers, tonight, right now, to ruin him. Uncle Bob, you’ve got to help him, you’ve got to stop them!”
He knelt before her, speechless. The wrinkles smoothed themselves away from his large round face, in which the ruddiness slowly began to return. She had seized his hands, twisting her own away from him in order to grasp them in a grip of cold iron.
“Uncle Bob, I’ve been to Tony. But he’s not there. They —threw me out. They wouldn’t send for him, or let me wait for him.” Her voice had dwindled, had become a thin husky whine. “Tony would help me. I’m his wife, Uncle Bob. But he wasn’t there. They threw me out. You’ve got to go, Uncle Bob, and help Papa. Now. You mustn’t wait.”
Mr. Wilkins was astounded. He blinked and gaped. He shook his head as if to clear it. Then he drew the girl to him and held her tightly. “You’re married, Addy? To Mr. Bollister? Gad, this is unbelievable.” She struggled to release herself, but his grasp strengthened. He kissed her poor white cheek, smoothed her hair with one hand. “There, there, my little lovey. Don’t upset yourself. They threw you out, eh? Tell your Uncle Bob all about it. There now, quiet yourself, my pet. Uncle Bob’s ’ere, ain’t he? Did Uncle Bob ever refuse his lass anything?”
She was weeping uncontrollably. She clung to him. Her speech was incoherent, but Mr. Wilkins soon grasped it all.
“Uncle Bob,” she groaned, “you mustn’t wait another minute. You must go at once. Before they ruin Papa—”
Damn your bloody Papa, thought Mr. Wilkins. Damn him all to hell, the black-faced bastard. Help him? I’ll push him deeper into perdition, that I will. So, the lads lost no time, did they?
“Yes, yes, lovey,” he said. “I’ll go immejate. Your uncle Bob won’t fail his lass. There, there now, it’s a bad cut you’ve got on your sweet little head. Uncle Bob loves his little pet. There, now, up we go, and rest awhile, and then Uncle Bob goes.”
The old housekeeper had returned with bowls and cloths and bottles, accompanied by her husband. But Mr. Wilkins winked at them, shook his head. He lifted Adelaide to her feet, motioned to the old people.
“You’ll take Miss Adelaide upstairs and put her to bed. I’ve got work to do.”
He gently turned Adelaide over to his servants. But she struggled to leave them, straining in their arms towards him.
“Uncle Bob! You’ll go? Now?”
“Yes, lovey, I said immejate, didn’t I? You’ll go with Mrs. Downey, and rest, and I’ll come back after I’ve done me work.”
But the girl no longer heard him. She had collapsed. The two old people carried her between them up the narrow polished stairs. Mr. Wilkins watched them go. To the last, he saw Adelaide’s white trailing hand over the old man’s shoulder, the fallen mass of her light shining hair. Again his face darkened, wrinkled, became monstrous.
He found his hat and coat, his umbrella and gloves. He let himself out of the house and went at once to his near neighbour, Dr. Walker.
CHAPTER 53
Anthony Bollister was dressing for dinner in the gloomiest of moods, wrathful and full of resentment. This was his wedding day, but he had no bride. He had nothing at all but the memory of a pale and feverish little creature who had stood beside him briefly, murmuring a few incoherent words, a hasty kiss, shy and strangely burning, and then a plea, uttered in a breathless voice about her damned Papa, and the necessity of her “saving” him from some nebulous and ridiculous trouble.
He despised himself for his weakness. He ought to have refused to listen to her, to have forced her into his carriage, to have driven away with her, anywhere. Yet, when she had spoken so to him, fixing her large brown eyes pleadingly upon his, he had said nothing, had only taken on a harsh and formidable look. Perhaps it was because of something in her eyes, too bright, too glowing, too restless. He had felt a curious apprehension when he had looked into them. And this apprehension had stilled him as a warning might have done. He had finally said: “Only a day or two, then, my sweet. And then, if you don’t come to me, I shall go for you. I mean this.”
She had smiled quite convulsively, he remembered, his hands pausing as they folded his cravat. He looked intently in the mirror, trying to recall other things about Adelaide that morning. She had been very white, not in the least the “blushing bride.” He remembered the touch of her hand, hot and tremulous, and her breath, a little too loud and quick. His hands dropped to his sides, as he frowned with concentration. He had been so absorbed in his anger and resentment against her, against his weakness in allowing her to leave him, that he had forgotten things that ought to have had some significance for him.
“She was ill,” he said aloud, incredulously, his heart beating faster. That was it! It was a stricken girl who had stood beside him that morning, and he had not known in his selfish folly and excitement. But, why had she not told him? Such a foolish little creature, so steely, so soft, so quiet, but with such passion when she was aroused. It was such a nature that concealed danger to itself from others.
He stared unseeingly at the mirror. This damned nonsense! He had never been frightened before in his life, but now a coldness of fear possessed him. Tomorrow, he would go to her, go to the house of her blessed damnable Papa, and look the scoundrel in the eye and say to him: “I have come for my wife. I want my wife.”
The sharp, somewhat hard and inflexible face in the mirror tightened, and his slate-gray eyes sparkled. He brushed his thick sandy hair. The line of his chin had turned bony white and glistened in the light of the lamp. It was not a good face that glimmered back at him, not even a kind one. It had a cold ruthlessness about it, an intellectual implacability. He put on his coat and fastened it, and he was frowning again, his thin cheeks drawn in sombrely.
Tomorrow morning he and Adelaide would be together. Nothing would stop him now. He had never feared the opinion or the anger of others, had never allowed them to halt or restrain him.
He heard a soft tapping at the door, and turned. His mother was entering, in her favourite dove-gray, her white shoulders and neck and chest gleaming like pol
ished marble. Her gown, draped and bustled, was distinguished and elegant. She was always so elegant, he thought, regarding her in silence and detachment, and without love. She moved perfectly; all her slight and beautiful figure was perfect. There was no error, no blurring, in the cool shape of her small pointed face, the resolute shining of her gray and brilliant eyes. Nor was there the slightest fading in the smooth high sweep of her brown hair, in the pale tint of her haughty thin mouth. He could not recall that she had grown the least older since his boyhood. Ageless, aristocratic, cold and indomitable, she was always the same. He had rarely seen her disturbed or agitated, and even then there had been something intimidating about her, as though the cause of her disturbance or agitation had been the sheerest impertinence, the worse lèse majesté committed against her person.
Yet, though he looked at her in silence, without emotion, he saw Adelaide’s resemblance to her. Adelaide could become such another delicate ruthlessness, such another fragile tyranny, such another steely egotist. It was a matter of exquisite balance of circumstances. She, Eugenia, had been a woman deprived of what she thought she had wanted, and she had become a frozen fury in consequence. What egotism! What absurdity! Was it possible that such creatures could exist, who, thwarted, could become such fools out of their impossible vanity? As if the world was not full of frustrations, of lost dreams, of defeats and retreats. He saw that he must become ever watchful of Adelaide, lest circumstances, lest conceit, lest egotism, turn the goodness he knew was in her to such patrician decay and hateful selfishness.
He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he started when Eugenia repeated impatiently: “Tony, I have been talking to you, and you have been staring at me as if I am an image. Surely you owe your mother the courtesy of listening to her.”
“I’m sorry, mother,” he said, coldly.
She stood near him, rigid and straight, her face turned to him with glacial calm.
“This is my last appeal to you, Tony. We, your father and I, have not mentioned the matter for a long time, hoping you would come to your senses. We are going back to England, perhaps very soon. We wish you to come with us.”
He was surprised, and incredulous. Had she tired of her stupid and violent lover, then? He regarded her intently, but saw nothing changed in her look, in the steadfast brilliance of her eyes. He felt a new contempt for her.
He shrugged. “Mother, I also thought you would come to your senses, and at least respect my dignity and my own decisions. I hope you will be happy in England. You never really lived in America, did you? I shall miss you, of course. But I stay here. This is my country, as England is yours. I have work to do here.” He paused. “However, I hope you will invite me to visit you.”
She gazed at him in her inflexible silence that so often intimidated weaker characters. Her mouth lost even its pale tint. It became hard and fixed as stone, and the gray shining of her eyes was like twilight on ice.
“Cannot we discuss this like intelligent beings, and not fools?” she asked, and her voice was low and brittle.
Anthony smiled. He saw all through all her tricks. He knew that so many became excited and incoherent, and lost, when his mother said this to them, in such a tone, which implied that her antagonist was a weak and tremulous fool, all heedless excitement, all childishness and vulnerability. The antagonist, the opposer, might be, in the beginning, as calm and self-possessed as herself, and just as inflexible, but her imputation that he was wallowing in emotion and extravagance was invariably his undoing. Then, she was triumphant, carrying the spoils off the field, leaving the other bewildered and fuming, hating her, hating himself, confusedly wondering what had happened.
Yes, it was a clever trick. She was really the fool. She would never learn that he, perhaps one of only a few, could not be deluded into believing that he was emotional and excited, and that she alone, because of her coolness and restraint, had right and justice on her side.
His smile was very unpleasant, its amusement malicious.
“No one ever disputed my intelligence,” he said, deliberately lowering his voice to a murmur so that it was almost inaudible, and very infuriating to her. “Nor am I aware that I am a fool. Do sit down, mother, and we’ll go all over this again.” He looked at his watch with elaborate concentration. “We have exactly fourteen minutes before the final dinner bell, and I am willing to give them to you and your really tedious arguments.”
Eugenia flushed. It was not a warming flush. It darkened her cheeks so that they appeared sunken, and her years became evident. However, she forced herself to sit down. Enthroned like this, like a queen, she felt her power, and her silly son was a suppliant before her. Her gray gown rustled richly as she sat; the pearls about her throat glistened. She was very angry, and infuriated against Anthony for having deftly turned her trick aside, and smiling that hateful smile.
“You are impertinent, Tony. Impertinent and brash, like a child. Will you ever become fully adult? I doubt it. I really doubt it. I have hoped that you would eventually reach a man’s stature. It is very humiliating to me to believe that you will remain in a perpetual childhood.”
“Give me time, dear mother,” he urged, nastily. He would not deny anything. She had a habit of saying such outrageous and well-bred things, which confounded others, set them excitedly to denying them, thus giving her the advantage.
Eugenia paused. Their eyes clashed. Anthony retained his smile, a little disdainful, and very removed and untouched.
“You have had time, years of time,” she pointed out, in a thin hard voice. “Your juvenility has not decreased in the slightest. Nevertheless, I want to point out to you some facts which even your childishness must take heed of. When we go to England, you will have only a small income of your own.”
“I’ll have my work, with Uncle Richard,” said Anthony. He had laid his watch on the commode near him. “Ten minutes now, mother. No, eleven, I beg your pardon.”
Eugenia’s small and delicate hands clenched briefly on her knees.
“What he can give you, even if he gives you all, is not what you will have in England. Are you an idealist, Tony?” and she smiled disagreeably. “Do you think that ‘money is nothing’”?
“Oh, I’m all the rosy idealist,” answered Anthony airily. “A crust of bread in peace and quiet and contentment, and all that—”
Eugenia’s nostrils dilated dangerously. She regarded her son with open dislike and contempt.
“I ignore your impertinence, your stupidity. I wish to recall to your attention that you have an aunt, your father’s aunt, Arabella. She has a claim on a great part of Uncle Richard’s fortune. It is she who produced the money which he invested, which, I admit, he has increased. But law, and decency on his own part, makes it imperative that she be his chief heir, if she survives him.”
“Which I devoutly hope will not happen,” said Anthony. “I can conceive nothing worse than being Aunt Arabella’s henchman, as I would be, in that event. Nevertheless, it is a chance I must take. Besides, has she not some chronic ‘inward’ trouble, as she calls it, which she darkly threatens will end her life any day—please God?”
For an instant a dark and involuntary smile twitched at Eugenia’s lips, but it was gone in an instant. “Need I tell you that you are excessively vulgar, Tony? You are not clever. You are only disgusting. Your Aunt Arabella has been kind to you.” She made a slight gesture with her little graceful hand, on which the diamonds flashed. “No matter. If you are ungrateful, that is your loss. Too, it has been my experience that invalids have a certain toughness of fibre, of vitality, which insures them a long if onerous life. It would surprise me very much if she did not survive Uncle Gorth for many years.”
“It would annoy me very much if she did,” said Anthony, with good temper.
“It is a contingency you cannot ignore,” continued Eugenia, overlooking this remark, which, however, caused another dark twitching of her lips. “Now, your aunt has been kind. But that is out of her nature, and not out of an impulse
of real affection towards you. Moreover, she has lineal descendants of her own, and it will be only natural if she prefers them to you. Where will you be then, Tony? I assure you the cold street is a very unpleasant place on which to find one’s self.”
“But an intriguing one,” said Anthony, assuming an extravagant posture of head that gazed shiningly into the future. He struck an attitude. “Can you not see me going forward into the years, mother, resolute, uncowed, brave of soul, a Galahad or something, ‘whose strength is as the strength of ten, because his heart is pure’?” He turned to Eugenia, and smiled with wide ingenuousness. “Isn’t that an attractive, a noble, picture? Doesn’t it stir your emotions?”
Eugenia’s only stirring of emotion at all this folly was anger and active dislike.
“If you are going to play the buffoon, Tony,” she said. “You are very naive. I assume, of course, that you are only acting? Or, is it possible you are serious?”
“I was never more serious in my life,” he said, with a sudden black change of attitude towards her, which startled her into quick alertness. “Look here, mother, it is you who is being the obdurate fool. You’ve known what I’ve wanted for a long time. You’ve known my decision. To hell with the Gorth money, if I can’t get it. I want it, damn bad. I’ll let nothing be left undone to get it, Aunt Arabella or no Aunt Arabella. Outside of actual embezzlement or theft, I mean. But, if I don’t get it, I simply don’t get it. I’ve got a small income of my own, as you know. It isn’t enough for me. I want money; I’ll get it some way. A life of simplicity is not in the least to my taste. And a man who wants money above anything else invariably gets it. That’s one lesson my father, and others, have taught me. I am grateful for the lesson.”
He paused, fixed his sparkling harsh eyes upon her, and continued: “I still have my hope that Uncle Richard will survive his wife. I’m going to concentrate all my will upon it. Short of giving her poison, myself, I’ll continue to bank on her early demise. Have you noticed her colour, lately? Like a piece of spoiled liver.”