The Living Link Part 71

"Where is Sir Lionel?" asked Reginald, as these thoughts came to him. He called him "Sir Lionel." He could not call him "father."

Leon looked at him with a strange expression.

"He is here," said he.

"Where shall I find him? I want to see him at once. Is he in his room?"

Leon hesitated.

"Quick!" said Reginald, impatiently. "Why don't you answer?"

"You won't get much satisfaction out of him," said Leon, in a peculiar voice.

"I'll find out what he knows. I'll tear the secret out of him," cried Reginald, fiercely. "Where is he? Come with me. Take me to him."

"You'll find it rather hard to get any thing out of him," said Leon, with a short laugh. "He's beyond even your reach, and your courts of law too."

"What do you mean?" cried Reginald.

"Well, you may see for yourself," said Leon. "You won't be satisfied, I suppose, unless you do. Come along. You needn't be alarmed. I won't run.

I'll stick to my part of our agreement, if you stick to yours."

With these words Leon led the way out of the library, and Reginald followed. They went up a flight of stairs and along a hall to the extreme end. Here Leon stopped at a door, and proceeded to take a key from his pocket. This action surprised Reginald. He remembered the room well. In his day it had not been used at all, except on rare occasions, and had been thus neglected on account of its gloom and dampness.

"What's the meaning of this?" he asked, gloomily, looking suspiciously at the key.

"Oh, you'll see soon enough," said Leon.

With these words he inserted the key in the lock as noiselessly as possible, and then gently turned the bolt. Having done this, he opened the door a little, and looked in with a cautions movement. These proceedings puzzled Reginald still more, and he tried in vain to conjecture what their object might be.

One cautious look satisfied Leon. He opened the door wider, and said, in a low voice, to his brother,

"Come along; he's quiet just now."

With these words he entered, and held the door for Reginald to pa.s.s through. Without a moment's hesitation Reginald went into the room. He took but one step, and then stopped, rooted to the floor by the sight that met his eyes.

The room was low, and had no furniture but an iron bed. There were two small, deep windows, over which the ivy had grown so closely that it dimmed the light, and threw an air of gloom over the scene.

Upon the iron bed was seated a strange figure, the sight of which sent a thrill of horror through Reginald's frame. It was a thin, emaciated figure, worn and bent. His hair was as white as snow; his beard and mustache were short and stubbly, as though they were the growth of but a few weeks; while his whiskers were bushy and matted together.

Over this figure a quilt was thrown in a fantastic manner, under which appeared a long night-gown, from which thin bare legs protruded, with bare, gaunt, skeleton-like feet.

As he sat there his eyes wandered about on vacancy; a silly smile was on his white, worn face; he kept muttering to himself continually some incoherent and almost inaudible sentences; and at the same time his long bony fingers kept clawing and picking at the quilt which covered him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "UPON THE IRON BED WAS SEATED A STRANGE FIGURE."]

At first Reginald could scarce believe what he saw; but there was the fact before his eyes, and the terrible truth could not be denied that in this wretched creature before him was the wreck of that one who but a short time before had seemed to him to be a powerful and unscrupulous villain, full of the most formidable plans for inflicting fresh wrongs upon those whom he had already so foully injured. Reginald had seen him for a few moments at the trial, and had noticed that the ten eventful years for which they had been parted had made but little difference in his appearance. The casual glimpses of him which he afterward had caught showed some change, but nothing very striking; but now the change was terrible, the transformation was hideous; the strong man had become a shattered wreck; the once vigorous mind had sunk into a state of helpless imbecility and driveling idiocy.

Leon shut the door, and turning the key, stood looking on. The slight noise which he made attracted the wandering gaze of the madman. He started slightly, and stood up, wrapping the quilt carefully around him.

Then, with a silly smile, he advanced a few paces.

"Well, Dr. Morton," he said, in a weak, quavering voice, "you have received my letter, I hope. Here is this person that I wrote about. Her name is Mrs. Dunbar. She is an old dependent. She is mad--ha, ha!--mad.

Yes, mad, doctor. She thinks she is my wife. She calls herself Lady Dudleigh. But, doctor, her real name is Mrs. Dunbar. She is mad, doctor--mad--mad--mad. Ha, ha, ha!"

At these words a terrible suspicion came to Reginald's mind. The madman had still prominent in his thoughts the idea which he had lately been carrying out. Could there be any truth in these words, or were they mere fancies? He said not a word, but looked and listened in anxious silence.

He had felt a moment's pity for this man, who, wretch though he had been, was still his father; but now his mother's image rose before him--his mother, pale, suffering, and perhaps despairing--and in his eager desire to learn her fate, all softer feelings for his father died out.

"You must keep her, Dr. Morton," said Sir Lionel, in the same tone. "You know what she wants. I will pay you well. Money is no object. You must keep her close--close--yes, close as the grave. She is incurable, doctor. She must never come out of this place with her mad fancies. For she is mad--mad--mad--mad--mad. Oh yes. Ha, ha, ha!"

Sir Lionel then smiled as before, and chuckled to himself, while a leer of cunning triumph flashed for a moment from his wandering eyes.

"Trapped!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, softly. "Trapped! The keeper! The keeper trapped! She thought she was my keeper! And so she was. But she was trapped--yes, trapped. The keeper trapped! Ha, ha, ha! She thought it was an inn," he continued, after a brief silence, in which he chuckled to himself over the remembrance of his scheme; "and so she was trapped.

The keeper was caught herself, and found herself in a mad-house! And she'll never get out--never! She's mad. They'll all believe it. Mad!

Yes, mad--and in a mad-house! Ha, ha, ha! There's Lady Dudleigh for you! But she's Mrs. Dunbar now. Ha, ha, ha!"

Reginald's eagerness to learn more was uncontrollable. In his impatience to find out he could no longer wait for his father's stray confessions.

"What mad-house? Where?" he asked, eagerly and abruptly.

Sir Lionel did not look at him. But the question came to him none the less. It came to him as if it had been prompted by his own thoughts, and he went on upon the new idea which this question started.

"She saw me write it, too--the letter--and she saw me write the address.

There it was as plain as day--the address. Dr. Morton, I wrote, Lichfield Asylum, Lichfield, Berks. But she didn't look at it. She helped me put it in the post-office. Trapped! Trapped! Oh yes--the keeper trapped!" he continued. "She thought we were going to Dudleigh Manor, but we were going to Lichfield Asylum. And we stopped there. And she stopped there. And she is there now. Trapped! Ha, ha, ha! And, my good doctor, keep her close, for she's mad. Oh yes--mad--mad--mad--and very dangerous!"

The wretched man now began to totter from weakness, and finally sat down upon the floor. Here he gathered his quilt about him, and began to smile and chuckle and wag his head and pick at his fantastic dress as before.

The words which he muttered were inaudible, and those which could be heard were utterly incoherent. The subject that had been presented to his mind by the entrance of Reginald was now forgotten, and his thoughts wandered at random, like the thoughts of a feverish dream, without connection and without meaning.

Reginald turned away. He could no longer endure so painful a spectacle.

He had been long estranged from his father, and he had come home for the sake of obtaining justice from that father, for the sake of the innocent man who had suffered so unjustly and so terribly, and whom he loved as a second father. Yet here there was a spectacle which, if he had been a vengeful enemy, would have filled him with horror. One only feeling was present in his mind now to alleviate that horror, and this was a sense of profound relief that this terrible affliction had not been wrought by any action of his. He had no hand in it. It had come upon his father either as the gradual result of years of anxiety, or as the immediate effect of the sudden appearance of Dalton and his wife.

But for these thoughts there was no leisure. His whole mind was filled with but one idea--his mother. In a few moments they were outside the room. The madman was left to himself, and Reginald questioned Leon about him.

"I have heard all this before," said Leon. "He came home very queer, and before a week was this way. I put him in there to keep him out of mischief. I feed him myself. No one else goes near him. I've had a doctor up, but he could do nothing. He has often talked in this way about trapping someone, but he never mentioned any name till today. He never did--I swear he never did. I swear I had no idea that he had reference to my--to Lady Dudleigh. I thought it was some crazy fancy about Mr. Dalton--some scheme of his for 'trapping' him. I did--I swear."

Such was Leon's statement, extorted from him by the fiercest of cross-questionings on the part of Reginald, accompanied by most savage threats.

Leon, however, swore that he thought it referred to a scheme of his father's to "trap" Dalton, and shut him up in a mad-house. If it was true that no names had been mentioned, Reginald saw that it was quite possible that Leon might have supposed what he said, though his knowledge of his brother did not lead him to place any particular confidence in his statement, even when accompanied by an oath.

It now remained to find out, without delay, the place which the madman had revealed. Reginald remembered it well: _Dr. Morton, Lichfield Asylum, Lichfield, Berks._ Leon also said that the same name had been always mentioned. There could not, therefore, be any mistake about this, and it only remained to find out where it was.

Leon knew both the man and the place, and told all that he knew, not because he had a particle of affection for his mother, but because he wished to satisfy Reginald, so as to gain that freedom which his brother only could give him. He had been the intimate confidant of his father, and this Dr. Morton had been connected with them previously in another affair. He was therefore able to give explicit information about the place, and the quickest manner of reaching it.

Reginald set off that very day.

"It will be better for you to stay here," said he to Leon, as he was leaving, in a significant tone.

"Oh, I'll stay," said Leon. "If you act square, that's all I want. Give me those notes and bonds, and I'll never trouble you or yours again."

Before leaving he obtained from Leon further information about his first marriage with Miss Fortescue. This he communicated to Leon's wife, whom he found waiting for him in great suspense. As soon as she heard it she set out for London to find the witness mentioned by Leon; after which she intended to go to Falkirk in search of the clergyman.