Wyllard's Weird (Mystery Classics Series). Mary Elizabeth Braddon
you and I have agreed to like Greuze; so I bought this little picture for your morning-room. I got it for five hundred and fifty, and I believe it is a genuine bit in the painter’s best manner.”
“How good you are to me!” exclaimed Dora, getting up and going over to her husband.
She bent down to kiss him as he sat at the table. They had dismissed the servants from this informal meal, so Mrs. Wyllard was not afraid of being considered eccentric, if she showed that she was grateful. She did not mind Bothwell. Five hundred and fifty! How freely this rich man talked of his hundreds, as it seemed to Bothwell, pinched by the consciousness of debts which the cost of that picture would have covered—little seedlings of debts, scattered long ago by the wayside, and putting forth perennial flowers in the shape of unpleasant letters from creditors, which made him hate the sight of the postman.
Neither Wyllard nor Grahame ate a hearty meal. That picture of the dead face was too vividly present in the minds of both. Meat and drink and pleasant talk were out of harmony with that horror which both had looked upon three hours ago. They took more wine than usual, and hardly ate anything.
“Will you come for a stroll in the garden, Julian?” asked Dora, as they rose from the table.
It was half-past ten o’clock, a lovely summer night. A great golden moon was shining low down in the purple sky, just above the bank of foliage: not that far-off moon which belongs to all the world, but a big yellow lamp lighting one’s own garden.
“Do come,” she said, “it is such a delicious night.”
“I dare not indulge myself, dear; I have my letters to open before I go to bed. I was just going to order a fire in the library.”
“A fire, on such a night as this! I’m afraid you have caught cold.”
“I think it not unlikely,” answered her husband, as he rang the bell.
“Don’t you think your letters might keep till tomorrow morning, Julian?” pleaded Dora. “We could have a fire in the morning-room, and sit and talk.”
“That would be delightful, but I must not allow myself to be tempted. I should not rest to-night with the idea of a pile of unopened letters.”
He gave his orders to the servant. His letters and papers were all on the library table. A fire was to be lighted there immediately.
“You will be late, I am afraid,” said Dora.
“I may be a little late. Don’t wait up for me on any account, dearest. Goodnight!”
He kissed her; and she said good-night, but reserved her liberty to sit up for him all the same. There is no use in a husband saying to a wife of Mrs. Wyllard’s temperament, “Don’t sit up for me, and don’t worry yourself!” Sleep was impossible to Dora until she knew that her husband was at rest; just as happiness was impossible to her when parted from him. She had made herself a part of his being, had merged her very existence in his; she had no value, hardly any individuality, apart from him.
“Julian looks tired and anxious,” she said to her cousin, who stood smoking a cigarette just outside the window.
“You can’t be surprised at that,” answered Bothwell. “That business on the railway was enough to make any man feel queer. I shall not forget it for a long time.”
“It must have been an awful shock. And men with strong features and powerful frames are sometimes more sensitive than your fragile beings with nervous temperaments,” said Dora. “I have often been struck with Julian’s morbid feeling about things which a strong man might be supposed to regard with indifference.”
“He is a deuced good fellow,” said Bothwell, who had been more generously treated by his cousin’s husband than by any of his own clan. “Won’t you come for a turn in the garden? I won’t start another cigarette, if you object.”
“You know I don’t mind smoke,” she answered, joining him. “Why, how your hand shakes, Bothwell! You can hardly light your cigarette.”
“Didn’t I say that I was upset by that business? I don’t suppose I shall sleep a wink to-night.”
They walked in the rose-garden for more than an hour. Garden and night were both alike ideal. An Italian garden, with formal terraces, and beds of roses, and a fountain in the centre, a bold and plenteous jet that rose from a massive marble basin. Roses, magnolia, jasmine, and Mary-lilies filled the air with perfume. The moon had changed from gold to silver, and was high up in heaven.
It was everybody’s moon now, silvering the humble roofs of Bodmin, shining over the church, the gaol, the lunatic asylum, and shining on that humble village inn five or six miles away, beneath whose rustic roof the stranger was lying, with no one to pray beside her bed.
Bothwell sauntered silently by his cousin’s side. She, too, was silent, and felt no inclination to talk or to listen. She was glad to be out in the garden while her husband opened his letters. She knew there was a pile of correspondence waiting for him—such letters as devour the leisure of a country gentleman of wealth and high standing, letters for the most part uninteresting, and very often troublesome. It would take Julian Wyllard a long time to wade through them all. But when the stable clock struck twelve, Dora thought she might fairly hope to find the task finished.
“Good-night, Bothwell,” she said. “I’ll go and look for Julian.”
The servants had all gone to bed, and the lamps had been extinguished, except in the hall and corridors. A half-glass door opened from the garden into the hall, and this was always left unbolted for the accommodation of Bothwell, who was fond of late saunterings in the grounds. The library was at the further end of the house, a superb room, filled with a choice collection of books, the growth of the last seven years; for Julian Wyllard was a new man in the county, and had only owned Penmorval during that period.
There was a good fire burning in the artistic tiled grate—a modern improvement upon the old arrangement in wrought iron. Mr. Wyllard had opened all his letters, and had evidently burned some of them, for an odour of calcined paper and sealing-wax pervaded the room.
He was sitting in a low chair beside the hearth, in a stooping attitude, deeply meditative, looking down at some object in his hands. He was so profoundly absorbed as to be unconscious of Dora’s presence till she was standing close beside him.
The object which so engrossed his attention, which had led his thoughts backward to the faraway past, was a long tress of chestnut hair. He had wound it round his fingers—a smooth, silken tress, which flashed with gleams of gold in the cheery light of the fire.
“What beautiful hair!” said Dora gently, as she looked downward from behind his shoulder. “Whose is it, Julian?”
“It was my sister’s,” he answered.
“The sister who died so many years ago. Poor Julian! You have been sitting here alone, giving yourself up to sad memories.”
“I came upon this auburn tress among some old papers just now, while I was looking for Martin’s lease.”
He rolled the hair up quickly, and flung it into the flaming coals.
“O Julian, why did you do that?” asked his wife reproachfully.
“What is the use of keeping such things, only to perpetuate sorrowful memories? God knows we have enough of our dead. They haunt us and plague us at every stage of life. We cannot get rid of them.”
The bitterness of his tone jarred upon his wife’s ear.
“My dearest, you are wearied and out of spirits,” she said. “You have worked too long. Were your letters troublesome?”
“Not more so than usual, dear. Yes, I am very tired.”
“And that dreadful event on the line has troubled you. Poor Bothwell is quite upset by it. I am so sorry for you, Julian,” said his wife soothingly, leaning upon his shoulder, smoothing back the thick hair from the broad, full brow.