Hard Cash Part 55

"I saved his life," said Sampson sorrowfully; "but life is not the only good thing a man may be robbed of by those who steal his life-blood, and so impoverish and water the contints of the vessels of the brain."

"Doctor Sampson," said Alfred, "what do you mean by these mysterious words? You alarm me."

"What, don't you know? Haven't they told you?"

"No, I have not had the courage to enter the house since the bank----"

he stopped in confusion.

"Ay, I understand," said Sampson: "however, it can't be hidden now:--

"He is a maniac."

Sampson made this awful announcement soberly and sorrowfully.

Alfred groaned aloud, and even his father experienced a momentary remorse; but so steady had been the progress of Corruption, that he felt almost unmixed joy the next instant; and his keen-witted son surprised the latter sentiment in his face, and shuddered with disgust.

Sampson went on to say that he believed the poor man had gone flouris.h.i.+ng a razor; and Mrs. Dodd had said, "Yes, kill me, David: kill the mother of your children," and never moved: which feminine, or in other words irrational, behaviour had somehow disarmed him. But it would not happen again: his sister had come; a sensible, resolute woman. She had signed the order, and Osmond and he the certificates, and he was gone to a private asylum. "Talking of that," said Sampson, rising suddenly, "I must go and give them a word of comfort; for they are just breaking their hearts at parting with him, poor things. I'll be back in an hour."

On his departure, Jane returned and made the tea in the dining-room: they lived like that now.

Mr. Hardie took it from his favourite's lithe white hand, and smiled on her: he should not have to go to a foreign land after all: who would believe a madman if he should rave about his thousands? He sipped his tea luxuriously, and presently delivered himself thus, with bland self-satisfaction:--

"My dear Alfred, some time ago you wished to marry a young lady without fortune. You thought that I had a large one; and you expected me to supply all deficiencies. You did not overrate my parental feeling, but you did my means. I would have done this for you, and with pleasure, but for my own coming misfortunes. As it was, I said 'No,' and when you demanded, somewhat peremptorily, my reasons, I said 'Trust me.' Well, you see I was right: such a marriage would have been your utter ruin.

However, I conclude, after what Dr. Sampson has told us, you have resigned it on other grounds. Jane, my dear, Captain Dodd, I am sorry to say, is afflicted. He has gone mad."

"Gone mad?! Oh, how shocking! What will become of his poor children?"

She thought of Edward first.

"We have just heard it from Sampson. And I presume, Alfred, you are not so far gone as to insist on propagating insanity by a marriage with his daughter."

At this conclusion, which struck her obliquely, though aimed at Alfred, Jane sighed gently, and her dream of earthly happiness seemed to melt away.

But Alfred ground his teeth, and replied with great bitterness and emotion: "I think, sir, you are the last man who ought to congratulate yourself on the affliction that has fallen on that unhappy family I aspire to enter, all the more that now they have calamities for me to share----"

"More fool you," put in Mr. Hardie calmly.

"--For I much fear you are one of the causes of that calamity."

Mr. Hardie a.s.sumed a puzzled air. "I don't see how that can be: do you, Jenny? Sampson told us the causes: a wound on the head, a wound in the arm, bleeding, cupping, &c."

"There may be other causes Dr. Sampson has not been told of--yet"

"Possibly. I really don't know what you allude to."

The son fixed his eyes on the father, and leaned across the table to him, till their faces nearly met.

"The fourteen thousand pounds, sir."

CHAPTER XXV

MR. HARDIE was taken by surprise for once, and had not a word to say, but looked in his son's face, mute and gasping as a fish.

During this painful silence his children eyed him inquiringly, but not with the same result; for one face is often read differently by two persons. To Jane, whose intelligence had no aids, he seemed unaffectedly puzzled; but Alfred discerned beneath his wonder the terror of detection rising, and then thrust back by the strong will: that stoical face shut again like an iron door, but not quickly enough: the right words, the "open sesame," had been spoken, and one unguarded look had confirmed Alfred's vague suspicions of foul play. He turned his own face away: he was alienated by the occurrences of the last few months, but Nature and tender reminiscences still held him by some fibres of the heart--in a moment of natural indignation he had applied the touchstone, but its success grieved him. He could not bear to go on exposing his father; so he left the room with a deep sigh, in which pity mingled with shame and regret. He wandered out into the silent night, and soon was leaning on the gate of Albion Villa, gazing wistfully at the windows, and sore perplexed and n.o.bly wretched.

As he was going out, Mr. Hardie raised his eyebrows with a look of disinterested wonder and curiosity; and touched his forehead to Jane, as much as to say, "Is he disordered in his mind?"

As soon as they were alone, he asked her coolly what Alfred meant. She said she had no idea. Then he examined her keenly about this fourteen thousand pounds, and found, to his relief, Alfred had never even mentioned it to her.

And now Richard Hardie, like his son, wanted to be alone, and think over this new peril that had risen in the bosom of his own family, and, for once, the company of his favourite child was irksome: he made an excuse and strolled out in his turn into the silent night. It was calm and clear: the thousand holy eyes, under which men prefer to do their crimes--except when they are in too great a hurry to wait--looked down and seemed to wonder anything can be so silly as to sin; and beneath their pure gaze the man of the world pondered with all his soul. He tormented himself with conjectures: through what channel did Alfred suspect him? Through the Dodds? Were they aware of their loss? Had the pocket-book spoken? If so, why had not Mrs. Dodd or her son attacked him? But then perhaps Alfred was their agent: they wished to try a friendly remonstrance through a mutual friend before proceeding to extremities; this accorded with Mrs. Dodd's character as he remembered her.

The solution was reasonable; but he was relieved of it by recollecting what Alfred had said, that he had not entered the house since the bank broke.

On this he began to hope Alfred's might be a mere suspicion he could not establish by any proof; and at all events, he would lock it in his own breast like a good son: his never having given a hint even to his sister favoured this supposition.

Thus meditating, Mr. Hardie found himself at the gate of Albion Villa.

Yet he had strolled out with no particular intention of going there.

Had his mind, apprehensive of danger from that quarter, driven his body thither?

He took a look at the house, and the first thing he saw was a young lady leaning over the balcony, and murmuring softly to a male figure below, whose outline Mr. Hardie could hardly discern, for it stood in the shadow. Mr. Hardie was delighted.

"Aha, Miss Juliet," said he, "if Alfred does not visit you, some one else does. You have soon supplied your peevish lover's place." He then withdrew softly from the gate, not to disturb the intrigue, and watched a few yards off; determined to see who Julia's nightly visitor was, and give Alfred surprise for surprise.

He had not long to wait: the man came away directly, and walked, head erect, past Mr. Hardie, and glanced full in his face, but did not vouchsafe him a word. It was Alfred himself.

Mr. Hardie was profoundly alarmed and indignant. "The young traitor!

Never enter the house? no; but he comes and tells her everything directly under her window on the sly; and, when he is caught--defies me to my face." And now he suspected female cunning and malice in the way that thunderbolt had been quietly prepared for him and launched, without warning, in his very daughter's presence, and the result just communicated to Julia Dodd.

In a very gloomy mood he followed his son, and heard his firm though elastic tread on the frosty ground, and saw how loftily he carried his head; and from that moment feared, and very, very nearly hated him.

The next day he feigned sick and sent for Osmond. That worthy prescribed a pill and a draught, the former laxative, the latter astringent. This ceremony performed, Mr. Hardie gossipped with him; and, after a detour or two, glided to his real anxiety. "Sampson tells me you know more about Captain Dodd's case than he does: he is not very clear as to the cause of the poor man's going mad."

"The cause? Why, apoplexy."

"Yes, but I mean what caused the apoplexy?"

Mr. Osmond replied that apoplexy was often idiopathic.* Captain Dodd, as he understood, had fallen down in the street in a sudden fit: "but as for the mania, that is to be attributed to an insufficient evacuation of blood while under the apoplectic coma."

* "Arising of itself." A term rather hastily applied to disorders the coming signs of which have not been detected by the medical attendant.

The birth of Topsy was idiopathic--in that learned lady's opinion.----

"Not bled enough! Why, Sampson says it is because he was bled too much."