Uncle Max Part 36

'Oh, not cruel, surely!' I could not help the involuntary exclamation.

I thought Gladys looked at me a little strangely before she answered:

'It seemed cruel to us; he was very harsh,--oh, terribly harsh; but I think--nay, I am sure--he has repented of his hardness. I was slow to forgive him: perhaps it would be more true to say I have not wholly forgiven him yet; but I know now that he has suffered, that he would undo a great deal of the past if he could, and this makes me more merciful.

Sometimes in my heart I feel quite sorry for Giles.'

CHAPTER XXIII

THE MYSTERY AT GLADWYN

Just then Leah entered the room to replenish the fire, and Gladys dropped my hand hastily and took up a screen.

'When my brother comes in we will have tea, Leah,' she said quickly.

'Where is Thornton, that he does not come in to do this?'

'I was pa.s.sing through the hall, and I thought I would have a look at the fire, ma'am,' observed Leah, as she stooped to throw on a log. As she did so, I saw her take a furtive look at us both,--it gave me an unpleasant feeling,--and a moment afterwards she said in a soft, civil voice,--

'There is no reason why Thornton should not bring tea now, if you like, ma'am. Master never cares to be waited for, and most likely he will be late this afternoon. I can walk home with Miss Garston when she is ready.

I am sure my mistress would spare me.'

'We will see about that presently, Leah; when I want Thornton I will ring for him.' Gladys spoke somewhat haughtily, and Leah left the room without another word; but I was sorry and troubled in my very heart to see Gladys motion me to be silent, and then go quickly to the door and open it and stand there for a moment. Her colour was a little heightened when she came back to her seat.

'She has gone now, but we must be careful and not speak loudly. I hate myself for being so suspicious, but I have found out that some of our conversations have been retailed to Etta. I am afraid Leah listens at the door. She came in just now to interrupt our talk: it is Thornton's place to put coals on the drawing-room fire.'

I felt an uncomfortable sensation creeping over me.

'Do you think she even heard us just now?'

'I fear so; and now Etta will know we have been talking about Eric. Oh, I am glad I am going away! it gets too unbearable. Ursula, I shall write to you, and you must answer me. Think what a comfort your letters will be to me; I shall be able to depend on what you say. Lady Betty is so careless, she knows what Etta is, and yet she will leave her letters about, and more than once they have not reached me. I am afraid that Leah is a little unscrupulous in such matters.'

I was aghast as I listened to her, but she changed the subject quickly.

'What were we talking about? Oh, I said Giles was hard; and so he was; but Eric was faulty too.

'He was very idle; he would not work, and he thought of nothing but his painting. Giles always says I encouraged him in his idleness; but this is hardly the truth. I used to try and coax him to open his books, but he had got this craze for painting, and he spent hours at his easel. I thought it was a great pity that Giles forced him to take up law; if he had talent it was surely better for him to be an artist; but Giles and Etta persisted in ignoring his talent. They called his pictures daubs, and ridiculed his artistic notions.'

'Do you really believe that he would have worked successfully as an artist?'

'It is difficult for me to judge. Eric was so young, and had had little training, and then he only painted in a desultory way: as I have told you, he was very idle. I think if Giles had been more fatherly with him, and had remonstrated with him more gently, and showed him the sense and fitness of things, Eric would have been reasonable; but Etta made so much mischief between them that things only got worse and worse. Eric was extravagant; he never managed money well, and he got into debt, and that made Giles furious, and when Eric lost his temper--for he was very hot and soon got into a pa.s.sion--Giles's coolness and hard sneering speeches nearly drove Eric wild. He came to me one day in the garden looking as white as a sheet,--that was the day before the cheque was missed,--and told me, in a conscience-stricken voice, that it was all up between him and Giles, he had got into a pa.s.sion and struck Giles across the face.

'"I don't know why he did not knock me down," cried the poor lad. "I deserved it, for I saw him wince with the pain; but he only took me by the shoulder--you know how strong Giles is--and turned me out of the room without saying a word, and there was the mark of my hand across his cheek. I feel like Cain, I do indeed, Gladys, 'For he that hateth his brother is a murderer'; and I hate Giles." And the poor boy--he was only twenty, Ursula--put his head down on my shoulder and sobbed like a child.

If only Giles could have seen him then!'

'Do you know what pa.s.sed between them?'

'Yes; I heard a little from both of them. Some of Eric's bills had been opened accidentally by Giles. Etta had told Giles that they were his, and he had called Eric to account. And then it seems that Eric's affairs were mixed up with another young man's, Edgar Brown, a very wild young fellow, with whom Giles had forbidden Eric to a.s.sociate. They had been school-fellows, and Giles knew his father, Dr. Brown, and disliked him much; and it seems that Eric had promised to break with him, and had not kept his promise; and when Giles called him mean and dishonourable, Eric had forgotten himself, and struck Giles.

'"It is all over between us, I tell you, Gladys," the poor boy kept saying. "Giles says he shall take me away from Oxford, and I am to be put in an attorney's office: he declares I shall ruin him. I cannot stop here to be tormented and bullied, and I will never go near old Armstrong: why, the life would be worse than a convict's. I shall just go and enlist, and then there is a chance of getting rid of this miserable life." But I did not take much notice of this speech, for I knew Eric had no wish to enter the army; and certainly he would never do such a rash thing as enlist: he always declared he would as soon be a s...o...b..ack. What does that look mean, Ursula?' for I was glancing uneasily at the door. Was it my fancy, or did I really hear the faint rustle of a dress on the tessellated pavement of the hall? In another moment Gladys understood, and her voice dropped into a whisper.

'Come closer to me. I mean to tell you all in spite of them. I will be as quick as I can, or Giles will be here.

'I never saw Eric in such a state as he was that day. He seemed nearly beside himself: nothing I could say seemed to give him any comfort. He shut himself up in his room and refused to eat. He would not admit me for a long time, but when he at last opened the door I saw that his table was strewn with papers, and a letter directed to Giles lay beside them.

'We sat down and had a long talk. He told me that he had got into more difficulties than even Giles suspected. He had been led away by Edgar Brown. I brought him all the money I had, which was little enough, and promised him my next quarter's allowance. I remember he spoke again of enlisting, and said that any life, however hard, would be preferable to the present one. He could not stay here and be slandered by Etta and bullied by Giles. He seemed very unhappy, and once he put down his head upon his arms and groaned. It was just then that I heard a slight movement outside the door, and opened it just in time to see Leah gliding round the corner. Ursula, she had heard every word that my poor boy had said, and it is Leah's evidence that has helped to criminate him.'

'Yes, I see. But did you not put your brother on his guard?'

'No,' she returned sadly, 'I made the grievous mistake of keeping Leah's eavesdropping to myself. I thought Eric had enough to trouble him, without adding to his discomfort. I would give much now to have done otherwise.

'I stayed up late with him, and did not leave him until he had promised to go to bed. Giles was still in the study when I went to my room, but he came up shortly afterwards, for I could hear his footsteps distinctly pa.s.sing my door. He must have pa.s.sed Leah in the pa.s.sage, for I heard him say, "You are up late to-night, Leah," but her answer escaped me.

'I can tell you no more on my own evidence; but Eric's account, which I believe as surely as I am holding your hand now, is this:

'He heard Giles come up to bed, and a sudden impulse prompted him to go down to the study and place his letter on Giles's desk. It was a very wild, foolish letter, written under strong excitement. I saw it afterwards, and felt that it had better not have been written. Among other things, he informed Giles that he would sooner destroy himself than go into Armstrong's office, and that he (Giles) had made his life so bitter to him that he thought he might as well do it: oh, Ursula, of course it was wrong of him, but indeed he had had terrible provocation.

He had made up his mind to put this letter on Giles's desk before he slept: so he slipped off his boots, that I might not hear him pa.s.s my door, and crept down to the study. He had his chamber candlestick, as he feared that he might have some difficulty with the fastenings, for he had heard Giles put up the chain and bell. All our doors on that floor have chains and bells; it is one of Giles's fads. To his great surprise, the door was ajar, and when he put down the candle on the table he had a pa.s.sing fancy that the thick curtains that were drawn over one of the windows moved slightly, as though from a draught of air. He blamed himself afterwards that he had not gone up to the window and examined it, but in his perturbed mood he did not take much notice; but he was certainly startled when he turned round to see Leah, in her dark dressing-gown, standing in the threshold watching him with a queer look in her eyes. There was something in her expression that made him feel uneasy.

'"I thought it was thieves," she said, and now she looked not at him, but across at the curtain. "What are you doing with master's papers, Mr.

Eric?"

'"Mind your own business," returned Eric sulkily: "do you think I am going to account to you for my actions?" And he took up his candlestick and marched off.'

'And he left that woman in possession?'

'Yes,' returned Gladys in a peculiar tone, and then she hurried on: 'The next morning Giles missed a cheque for a large amount that he had received the previous night and placed in one of the compartments of his desk, and in its place he found Eric's letter. Do you notice the discrepancy here? Eric vowed to me that he had placed the letter on the desk, that he never dreamt of opening it, that he always believed Giles kept it locked, that if Giles had been careless and left the key in it he knew nothing about it. His business to the study was to put his letter where Giles would be likely to find it on entering the room. Ursula, how did that letter get into the desk?

'We were all summoned to the study when the cheque was missed. Etta fetched me. She said very little, and looked unusually pale. Giles was in a terrible state of anger, she informed me, and Leah was speaking to him.

'Alas! she had been speaking to some purpose. I found Eric almost dumb with fury. Giles had refused to believe his a.s.sertion of innocence, and he had no proof. Leah's statement had been overwhelming, and bore the outward stamp of veracity.

'She told her master that, thinking she heard a noise, and being fearful of thieves, she had crept down in her dressing-gown to the study, and, to her horror, had seen Mr. Eric with his hand in his brother's desk, and she could take her oath that he put some paper or other in his pocket.

She had not liked to disturb her master, not knowing that there was money in the case.

'Ursula, I cannot tell you any more that pa.s.sed. That woman had effectually blackened my poor boy's honour. No one believed his word, though he swore that he was innocent. I heard high words pa.s.s between the brothers. I know Giles called Eric a liar and a thief, and Eric rushed at him like a madman, and then I fainted. When I recovered I found Lady Betty crying over me and Leah rubbing my hands. No one else was there. Eric had dashed up to his room, and Giles and Etta were in the drawing-room. I told Leah to go out of my sight, for I hated her; and I felt I did hate her. And when she left us alone I managed, with Lady Betty's help, to crawl up to Eric's room. But, though we heard him raging about it, he would not admit us. So I went and lay down on my bed and slept from sheer grief and exhaustion.

'When I woke from that stupor,--for it was more stupor than sleep,--it was late in the afternoon. I shall always believe the wine Leah gave me was drugged. How I wish I had dashed the gla.s.s away from my lips! But I was weak, and she had compelled me to drink it.

'Lady Betty was still sitting by me. She seemed half frightened by my long sleep. She said Eric had come in and had kissed me, but very lightly, so as not to disturb me. And she thought there were tears in his eyes as he went out. Ursula, I have never seen him since. He left the house almost immediately afterwards, but no one saw him go. By some strange oversight Giles's telegram to the London Bank to stop the cheque did not reach them in time. And yet Etta went herself to the telegraph-office. As you may have perhaps heard, a tall fair young man, with a light moustache, cashed the cheque early in the afternoon. Yes, I know, Ursula, the circ.u.mstantial evidence is rather strong just here. I am quite aware that it was possible for Eric after leaving our house to be in London at the time mentioned, but no one can prove that it was Eric.

'Edgar Brown is tall and fair, and there are plenty of young men answering to that description; and I maintain, and shall maintain to my dying day,--and I am sure Mr. Cunliffe agrees with me,--that it was not Eric who presented that cheque. The clerk told Giles that the young man had a scar across his cheek and a slight cut, though he was decidedly good-looking. But Giles refused to believe this. He says the clerk made a mistake about the last.

'The next morning I received a letter from Eric, written at the s.h.i.+p Hotel, Brighton, containing the exact particulars that I have given, and reiterating in the most solemn way that he was perfectly innocent of the shameful crime laid to his charge.

'"You will believe me, Gladys, I know," he went on. "You will not let my enemies blacken my memory if you can help it. If I could only be on the spot to clear up the mystery; for there is a mystery about the cheque.

But I have sworn never to cross the threshold of Gladwyn again until this insult is wiped out and Giles believes in my innocence. If we never meet again, my sweet sister, you will know I loved you as well as I could love anything; but I was never good and unselfish like you. And I fear--I greatly fear--that I shall never weather through this." That was all.

The letter ended abruptly.