Read the book: «The Wiles of the Wicked», page 5
Chapter Nine
From the Unknown
“I have no knowledge of what this is,” I said, puzzled, holding the paper he had given me.
“Then I will read it to you,” he responded; and taking it from my hand, he repeated the words written there. Even then I doubted him, therefore I took the paper into the kitchen and bade Parker read it. Then I knew that he had not deceived me, for Parker repeated the very same words that he had read, namely —
“The first request made to you, Wilford Heaton, is that you shall repose every confidence in Doctor Slade, and allow him to restore your sight. Obey.
“Avel.”
The note was very brief and pointed, written, I learnt, like the first note, with a typewriter, so that no clue might be afforded by the calligraphy. It was an order from the unknown person whom I had promised to blindly and faithfully obey. At the time I had given the mysterious Edna that promise I was in deadly peril of my life. Indeed, the promise had been extracted from me under threat of death, and now, in the security of my own home, I felt very disinclined to conform with the wishes of some person or persons whom I knew not. I saw in what a very serious position I had placed myself by this rash promise, for I might even be ordered to commit a crime, or, perhaps, for aught I knew, have unwittingly allied myself with some secret society.
The one desire which ever possessed me, that of being able to look upon the unseen woman with the musical voice, who had at one time been my protectress and my captor, urged me, however, in this instance, to accede. There was evidently some object in making this attempt to give me back my sight, and if it really succeeded I alone would be the gainer.
Understand that I had no faith whatever in the stranger who had thus come to me with a promise of a miraculous cure; on the other hand, I felt that he was a mere charlatan and impostor. Nevertheless, I could not be rendered more blind than I was, and having nothing to lose in the experiment, any gain would be to my distinct advantage.
Therefore, after further argument, I very reluctantly promised to allow him to operate upon me on the morrow.
“Good,” he answered. “I felt sure that your natural desire for the restoration of your sight would not allow your minor prejudices to stand in the way. Shall we say at noon to-morrow.”
“Any hour will suit me,” I answered briefly, with a rather bad grace.
“Then let it be at noon. I and my assistant will be here by eleven-thirty.”
“I should prefer to come to your surgery,” I said, with the idea of obtaining some knowledge of the stranger’s address. If I knew where he lived I could easily find out his real name.
“That is, unfortunately, impossible,” he answered blandly. “I am staying at an hotel. I do not practise in London.”
He seemed to have an ingenious answer always upon the tip of his tongue.
So, after some further conversation, in which he continually foiled any attempt I made to gain further knowledge of Edna or of himself, he rose and bade me adieu, promising to return on the morrow with the necessary instruments.
With a rather unnecessary show of punctuality he arrived next day, accompanied by a younger, sad-voiced man, and after some elaborate preparations, the nature of which I guessed from my own medical knowledge, I sat in my big armchair, and placed myself entirely at his disposal. From the first moment that he approached me and examined me prior to producing anaesthesia of the part to be operated upon I knew that my prejudice had been hastily formed. He was no quack, but careful, confident, and skilled, with a firm hand evidently used to such cases.
To fully describe what followed can be of no interest to any save medical men, therefore suffice it to relate that the operation lasted about an hour, after which my eyes were carefully bandaged, and my attendant and his assistant left. Slade called each day at noon, and carefully dressed my eyes, on each occasion expressing satisfaction at my progress, but always impressing upon me the absolute necessity for remaining with the blinds closely drawn, so that no ray of light should reach me. Darkness did not trouble me, yet Parker found it rather difficult to serve my meals in the gloom, and was very incredulous regarding the mysterious doctor’s talents. She viewed the whole affair just as I had once done, and, without mincing words, denounced him as a quack, who was merely running up a long bill for nothing.
For nearly three weeks I lived with the Venetian blinds of my sitting-room always down, and with a thick curtain drawn across them, shutting out all light, as well as a good deal of air, until the summer heat became stifling. Hour after hour I sat alone, my hands idly in my lap, ever wondering what the success of this experiment would be. Should I ever again see, after those grave and distinct pronouncements of Fry and the rest, who had plainly told me that my sight was for ever destroyed? I dared not to hope, and only remained inert and thoughtful, congratulating myself that I had at least obeyed the dictum of my mysterious and unknown correspondent, under whose influence I had so foolishly placed myself.
At last, however – it was on a Sunday – Slade came, and as usual raised the bandages and bathed my eyes in a solution of atropine. Then, having made a careful examination, he went to the window, drew aside the curtains, and slightly opened the Venetian blinds.
In an instant I cried aloud for joy.
My sight had been restored. The desire of my life was an accomplished fact. I could actually see!
Dimly I could distinguish his short, burly form between myself and the faint light of the half-opened blinds, but even though all was as yet misty and indistinct, I knew that what had been averred was the actual truth – the specialists had been mistaken. With care and continued treatment my sight would strengthen until I became like other men.
“I can see!” I cried excitedly. “I can see you, doctor – and the light – and the blinds!”
“Then you acknowledge that what I told you was the truth – that I did not lie to you when I told you that your case was not beyond recovery?”
“Certainly. You told me the truth,” I said hastily. “At the time it seemed too improbable, but now that you have shown me proof, I must ask your pardon if any words of mine have given you offence.”
“You’ve not offended me in the slightest, my dear sir,” he answered pleasantly. “Persevere with the treatment, and continue for another few days in darkness, and then I feel confident that a perfectly satisfactory cure will have been effected. Of course, we must not expect a clear vision at once, but by degrees your sight will slowly become stronger.”
And with those words he closed the blinds and drew the curtain close, so that the room was again darkened.
Imagine the thankfulness that filled my heart! It was no illusion. I had actually seen the narrow rays of sunlight between the half-opened blind and the dark silhouette of the short, stout, full-bearded man who was effecting such a marvellous cure.
I gripped his hand in the darkness, and thanked him.
“How can I sufficiently repay you?” I said. “This service you have rendered me has opened up to me an absolutely new life.”
“I desire no repayment, Mr Heaton,” he answered in his deep, hearty voice. “That my treatment of malignant sclerotitis is successful, and that I have been the means of restoring sight to one of my fellow-men, is sufficient in itself.”
“But I have one question I wish to ask you,” I said. “The mode in which you were introduced to me is extremely puzzling. Do you know nothing of the lady named Edna?”
“I know her – that is all.”
“Where does she live?”
“I regret that I am not able to answer your question.”
“You are bound to secrecy regarding her?”
“I may as well admit the truth – I am.”
“It’s extraordinary,” I ejaculated. “Very extraordinary!”
“Not so extraordinary as the recovery of your vision,” he observed. “Remain perfectly quiet, and don’t take upon yourself any mental problems. A great deal now depends upon your own calmness.”
The fact that my sight was gradually returning to me seemed too astonishing to believe. This man Slade, whoever he was, had performed a feat in surgery which seemed to me miraculous.
Again and again I thanked him, but when he had gone and I told Parker she only gave vent to a grunt of incredulity. Yet had I not actually seen the silhouette of Slade, and the streaks of sunlight beyond? Had I not already had ocular proof that a cure was being effected?
What would Dick, dear old Dick, say on his return when he found me cured? I laughed as I pictured to myself his amazement at finding me at the railway-station on his arrival – looking for him.
Through a whole month Slade came regularly each day at noon, and surely, by slow degrees, my vision became strengthened, until at length I found that, even though I wore smoke-darkened glasses, I could see almost as well as I had done in the days of my youth. The glasses destroyed all colour, it was true, yet I could now go forth into the busy Strand, mingle with the bustling crowds, and revel in their life and movement. Indeed, in those first days of the recovery of my vision I went about London in taxis and omnibuses, hither and thither, with all the enthusiasm of a country cousin or a child on his first visit to the Metropolis. All was novel and interesting on my return to a knowledge of life.
Slade, I found, was a gentlemanly fellow with the air of a clever physician, but all my efforts to discover his abode proved unavailing, and, moreover, just as the cure was complete he one day failed to call as usual. Without word he relinquished me just as suddenly as he had come; but he had restored to me that precious sense which is one of God’s chief gifts.
In those September days, when all the world seemed gay and bright, I went forth into the world with a new zest for life. I took short trips to Richmond and Hampton Court, so that I might again gaze upon the green trees, the winding river, and the fields that I loved so well; and I spent a day at Brighton, and stood for a full couple of hours watching the rolling sea beating upon the beach. Six weeks before I was a hopeless misanthrope, whose life had been utterly sapped by the blighting affliction upon me. Now I was strong and healthy in mind and in body; prepared to do anything or to go anywhere.
It was a fancy of mine to go down to the home of my youth, Heaton Manor, a place well known to those acquainted with the district around Tewkesbury. The great old mansion, standing in the centre of a wide, well-wooded park that slopes down to the Severn close to the Haw Bridge, had long been closed, and in the hands of the old servant Baxter and his wife. Indeed, I had never lived there since, on my father’s death, it had passed into my possession. The rooms were opened for my inspection, and as I wandered through them and down the long oak-panelled gallery, from the walls of which rows of my time-dimmed ancestors, in their ruffles, velvets, and laces looked down solemnly, a flood of recollections of my sunny days of childhood crowded upon me.
Seven years had passed since my last visit there. The old ivy covered manor was, indeed, dilapidated, and sadly out of repair. The furniture and hangings in many of the rooms seemed rotting with damp and neglect, and as I entered the nursery, and was shown my own toys, it seemed as though, like Rip Van Winkle, I had returned again to life after a long absence.
Alone, I wandered in the park down the avenue of grand old elms. The wide view across the brimming river, with Hasfield Church, and the old Tithe Barn at Chaceley standing prominent in the landscape, had, I saw, in no way changed. I looked back upon the house – a grand old home it was, one that any man might have been proud of, yet of what use was it to me? Should I sell it? Or should I allow it to still rot and decay until my will became proved, and it passed into the hands of my heirs and assigns?
I felt loth to part with it, for the old place had been built soon after the fierce and historic battle had been fought at Tewkesbury, and ever since Richard Heaton had commanded one of the frigates which went forth to meet the Armada, it had been the ancestral home of the Heatons.
How strange it all was! At every turn I peered upon the world through my grey glass spectacles, and took as keen an interest in it as does a child. All seemed new to me; my brain, like a child’s, became filled with new impressions and fresh ideas. After my dull, colourless existence of sound and touch, this bright life of movement filled me with a delight that pen cannot describe. Imagine, however, what joy it is to one who has been pronounced incurably blind to look upon the world again and taste of its pleasures. It was that joy which gave lightness to my heart.
Yet over all was one grim shadow – the remembrance of that fateful night with its grim tragedy. Who was Edna? Where was she? What was she?
Through her instrumentality I had regained my sight, but her identity and her whereabouts still remained hidden, as she had plainly told me they would be before we had parted.
Hither and thither I went, fêted and feasted by my friends at the Savage, the Devonshire, and other clubs, yet my mind was ever troubled by the mystery of the woman who had, from motives that were entirely hidden, exerted herself on my behalf, first in saving my life from unscrupulous assassins, and, secondly, in restoring my vision.
I entertained a strong desire to meet her, to grasp her small hand, to thank her. I longed to see her.
Chapter Ten
The Girl in Blue
The man who abandons all hope is constantly haunted by fears. This is as strange as it is unjust, like much else in our everyday life. Even though there had returned to me all the joys of existence, yet I was still haunted by an ever-present dread – a terror lest some terrible mandate should suddenly be launched upon me by the unknown director of my actions.
My situation was, to say the least, a most extraordinary one. Valiantly I strove to rid myself of the obsession which constantly crept upon me whenever my attention was not actually distracted by the new existence that had so mysteriously been opened up to me. For a little while I would let my mind dwell upon the terrifying thought that I was entirely helpless in the hands of one who was, without doubt, unscrupulous. I had pledged my honour to keep secret that appalling midnight crime, and to act always as directed. Edna herself, the woman whose voice sounded so tender, whose hands were so small and soft to the touch, had forced me to this. To her alone was due this state of constant anxiety as to what might next be demanded of me. The thought would creep upon me, now pausing, now advancing, until at length it wrapped me round and round, and stifled out my breath, like a death-mask of cold clay. Then my heart would sink, my sight seemed to die, even sound would die until there seemed an awful void – the void of death for ever and for ever dumb, a dreadful, conquering silence.
A thousand times I regretted that I had in that moment of my utter helplessness given my promise to conceal the mysterious crime. Yet, when I recollected with what extraordinary ingenuity I had been deceived by the man whom I had believed to be a police-constable, the deep cunning which had been displayed in obtaining from my lips a statement of all the facts I knew, and the subsequent actions of the cool-headed Edna, my mind became confused. I could see no solution of the extraordinary problem, save that I believed her to be deeply implicated in some plot which had culminated in the murder of the young man, and that she herself had some strong personal motive in concealing the terrible truth.
With the return of my vision my sense of hearing had, curiously enough, become both weakened and distorted. Sounds I had heard when blind presented quite a different impression now that I could see. The blind hear where those with eyesight can detect nothing. The ears of the former train themselves to act as eyes also, yet the moment the vision is recovered the sharpened sense of hearing again assumes its normal capacity. Hence I found that I could not distinguish voices and sounds so quickly as before; indeed, the voices of those about me sounded some how different now I had recovered my sight.
My friends, into whose circle they declared I had returned like one from the grave, welcomed me everywhere, and I confess that, notwithstanding the oppression constantly upon me, I enjoyed myself to the top of my bent. I still remained in my dingy, smoke-grimed rooms in Essex Street, really more for Parker’s sake than for my own, and also, of course, in order to be near Dick when he returned, but nearly every evening I was out somewhere or other, going here and there about town.
In the middle of October, when most men I knew were away on the moors, I had a dinner engagement one evening with the Channings, in Cornwall Gardens. Colonel Channing, a retired officer of the Guards, was a man I had known during greater part of my lifetime. His service had been mainly of a diplomatic character, for he had served as British military attaché at Berlin and Vienna, and now lived with his wife and daughter in London, and seemed to divide his time mainly between the St. James’s and the United Service Clubs. He was a merry old fellow, with white hair and moustache and a florid complexion, the dandified air of attaché still clinging to him.
As he sat at the head of his table, his habitual monocle in his eye, and the tiny green ribbon of the order of the Crown of Italy in the lapel of his dining-jacket, he looked a perfect type of the ex-attaché. His wife, a rather spare woman of fifty, who seemed to exist externally in a toilette of black satin and lace, was pleasant, though just a trifle stiff, probably because of her long association with other diplomatists’ wives; while Nellie Channing was a happy, fair-haired girl, who wore pretty blouses, motored, golfed, flirted and shopped in the High Street in the most approved manner of the average girl of South Kensington.
Nellie and I had always been good friends. She had been at school in England while her parents had been abroad, but on completing her education she had lived some five years or so in Vienna, and had thus acquired something of the cosmopolitan habit of her father. She looked charming in her pink blouse, a trifle decolleté, as she sat on my left at dinner, and congratulated me upon my recovery.
If, however, Nellie Channing was pretty, her beauty was far eclipsed by that of my neighbour on my right, a tall, dark-haired girl in blue, a Miss Anson, who with her mother, a quiet, white-haired elderly lady, were the only other guests in addition to myself. From the moment we were introduced I saw that Mrs Anson’s daughter possessed a face that was absolutely perfect, rather oval in shape, with large, beautiful eyes, that seemed to shine as they looked upon me, and to search me through and through. Her complexion was good, her cheeks well-moulded, her mouth small and perfectly formed; her teeth gleamed white ever and anon as she smiled at the Colonel’s humorous remarks, and her nose was just sufficiently tip-tilted to give her countenance a piquant air of coquetry.
Her costume, rich and without any undue exaggeration of trimming or style, spoke mutely of the handiwork of a first-class couturière. The shade of turquoise suited her dark beauty admirably, and the bodice, cut discreetly low, revealed a neck white and firmly moulded as that of the Venus of Milo. Around her throat, suspended by a golden chain so fine as to be almost imperceptible, was a single diamond set in a thin ring of gold, a large stone of magnificent lustre. It was her only ornament, but, flashing and glittering with a thousand fires, it was quite sufficient. She wore no rings. Her hands, white and well-formed, were devoid of any jewels. The single diamond gleamed and glittered as it rose and fell upon her breast, an ornament assuredly fit to adorn a princess.
Mrs Anson sat opposite me, chatting pleasantly during the meal, and now and then her daughter would turn, raise her fine eyes to mine for an instant, and join in our conversation. That she was exceedingly clever and well-informed I at once detected by her terse and smart criticism of the latest play, which we discussed. She compared it, with a display of knowledge that surprised me, to a French play but little known save to students of the French drama, and once or twice her remarks upon stage technicalities caused me to suspect that she was an actress.
Mrs Anson, however, dispelled this notion by expressing her disapproval of the stage as a profession for women, an opinion with which her daughter at once agreed. No, she could not be an actress, I felt assured. Both mother and daughter bore the unmistakable hallmark of gentlewomen.
I sat beside Mabel Anson in rapt admiration. Never before in all my life had my eyes fallen upon so perfect an incarnation of feminine grace and marvellous beauty; never before until that moment had a woman’s face held me in such enchantment.
Presently the conversation turned, as it so often does at dinner-tables, upon certain engagements recently announced, whereupon the Colonel, in the merry, careless manner habitual to him, advanced the theory that most girls married with a view to improve their social position.
“As to a husband’s fortune,” remarked his wife, with that stiff formality which was her peculiar characteristic, “it really isn’t so important to a woman as the qualities which lead to fortune – ambition, determination, industry, thrift – and position such a man may attain for himself.”
“And in education?” inquired Miss Anson, softly, apparently interested in the argument.
“In education a man certainly should be his wife’s equal,” answered Mrs Channing.
“And is not good temper essential with a husband? – come, now. Let’s hear your ideas on that point,” said the Colonel, chaffingly, from behind the big épergne.
Mabel Anson hesitated. For an instant her lustrous eyes met mine, and she at once lowered them with a downward sweep of her long dark lashes.
“I don’t argue that a girl thinking seriously of her future husband should lay any great stress on good temper,” she answered, in a sweet musical voice. “A soldierly form, a pair of good eyes, a noble profile – any of these might easily outweigh good temper.”
“Ah! there, I fear, I disagree with you,” I remarked smilingly. “It has always appeared to me that after the first year or so married people rarely think of each other’s features, because they are always in each other’s presence. They become heedless of whether each other’s features are classical or ugly; but they never fail to be cognisant of one another’s temper or shortcomings.”
“You speak as though from experience,” she laughed, without, however, attempting to combat my argument.
Another outburst of laughter greeted this bantering remark of hers.
“No,” observed Nellie, on my other hand. “Mr Heaton is the most confirmed bachelor I know. I believe he’s a woman-hater – if the truth were told.”
“Oh, really, Miss Channing!” I protested. “That’s certainly too bad of you. I assure you I’m no hater of the sex, but an admirer.”
“Heaton’s about to make a pretty speech,” observed the jovial, red-faced Colonel. “Go on, Wilford, my dear fellow, we’re all attention.”
“No,” I said, laughing. “I’ve been drawn quite unfairly into this controversy. Therefore I’ll preserve a masterly silence.”
“Mr Heaton is, I think, diplomatic,” laughed the dark, handsome girl next to me. “He has cleared his character of the aspersion cast upon it, and preserves a dignified attitude.” And she turned and smiled gaily upon me in triumph.
She was exquisitely charming. I sat at her side gossiping merrily, while to my dazzled gaze she presented a beautiful picture of youthful airy delicacy – feminine sweetness combined with patrician grace. For the first time in all my life that petticoated paradox, woman, conveyed to me the impression of perfect beauty, of timidity and grace, combined with a natural, inborn dignity. There was nothing forced or unnatural in her manner as with other women I had met; none of that affected mannishness of deportment and slangy embellishments of conversation which are so characteristic of girls of to-day, be they daughters of tradesmen or of peers.
She gave me the impression – why, I cannot tell – of one who had passed under the ennobling discipline of suffering and self-denial. A melancholy charm tempered the natural vigour of her mind; her spirit seemed to stand upon an eminence and look down upon me as one inferior to her in intellect, in moral principle – in fact, in everything. From the very first moment when I had bowed to her on our introduction she held me spell-bound in fascination.
When the ladies had left, and I sat alone with the Colonel, smoking over a liqueur, I inquired about her.
“Mrs Anson is the widow of old General Anson,” he said. “He died about twelve years ago, and they’ve since lived a great deal abroad.”
“Well off?” I inquired, with affected carelessness.
“Very comfortably, I should say. Mrs Anson has a fortune of her own, I believe. They have a house at present in The Boltons.”
“Mabel is extremely good-looking,” I remarked.
“Of course, my dear boy,” laughed the Colonel, with his liqueur-glass poised in his hand, a twinkle in his eye. “Between us, she’s the prettiest girl in London. She creates a sensation wherever she goes, for beauty like hers isn’t met with twice in a lifetime. Lucky chap, whoever marries her.”
“Yes,” I said reflectively, and then diligently pursued the topic in an endeavour to learn further details regarding her. My host either knew very little, or purposely affected ignorance – which, I was unable to determine. He had known her father intimately, having been in his regiment long ago. That was about all I learnt further.
So we tossed away our cigars, drained our glasses, and rejoined the four ladies who were awaiting us in the drawing-room, where later, at Mrs Channing’s urgent persuasion, my divinity in blue seated herself at the piano, and in a sweet, clear contralto sang in Italian a charming solo from Puccini’s Bohême, the notable opera of that season.
Then, with the single diamond glittering at her throat, she came back to where I stood, and sinking into the cosy-corner with its pretty hangings of yellow silk, she accepted my congratulations with a delicate grace, a charming dignity, and a grateful smile.
At last, however, the hour of parting came, and reluctantly – very reluctantly – I took her small hand, bent over it, and handed her into her carriage beside her mother.
“Good-night,” she cried merrily, and next instant the fine pair of bays plunged away into the rainy night.
I returned into the hall, and my host helped me into my overcoat.
We were alone, for I had made my adieux to his wife and daughters.
“Wilford,” he said very gravely, as he gripped my hand prior to my departure, “we are old friends. Will you permit me to say one word without taking offence at it?”
“Certainly,” I answered, surprised. “What is it?”
“I’ve noticed to-night that, like many another man, you are entranced by the beauty of Mabel Anson. Be careful not to make a fool of yourself.”
“I don’t understand,” I said quickly.
“Well, all I would say is, that if you desire happiness and peace of mind, steel your heart against her,” he answered with a distinct air of mystery.
“You speak in enigmas.”
“I merely give you a timely warning, that’s all, my dear fellow. Now, don’t be offended, but go home and think it over, and resolve never again to see her – never, you understand – never.”
