The Red House Mystery. Duchess

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      Dr. Darkham's eyes turned to the hearthrug, and then turned away again hastily. He loathed to look upon this, his first-born and only child. He shrank with horror whenever he saw him. Physical deformity was an abomination in his eyes, beauty a thing to worship. Thus his only child was a living torture to him.

      To the mother the unfortunate idiot was something to love—he was the first of her womb, and an object of love—but to the father he was loathsome.

      The child had been born beautiful, but time had proved him deaf and dumb, and, worse than all, devoid of intellect; without a single idea, save, indeed, an overpowering adoration for his mother, a clinging, unreasoning love that knew no bounds.

      For his father, the unhappy mute felt nothing but a settled, and often openly shown, aversion.

      His wife had recovered her breath, and was still hurling accusations and sneers at him. He had grown accustomed to let her rave, but now something she said caught his ear, and made him turn to her sharply.

      "You are getting yourself pretty well talked of, I can tell you."

      "Talked of? What"—sternly—"do you mean?"

      "Right well you know. They are talking about your attentions to that minx at the Villa—that Miss Nesbitt."

      Darkham's eyes suddenly blazed.

      "Who has dared to talk of Miss Nesbitt with disrespect?" asked he.

      "Oh, law! You needn't make such a fuss about it, even if she is your dearie-o. But I can tell you this Darkham, that people are talking about you and her, all the same. And why shouldn't they? Why, you never take your eyes off her."

      "Be silent, woman!" said he savagely, coarsely; now and again his own birth betrayed him. "Who are you that you should speak to me like that?"

      "I am your wife, any way," said she.

      "Ay. My wife!"

      The look that accompanied his tone should have frozen her, but she only laughed.

      "I know, I know," she said, wagging her hideous fat head at him.

      "You would undo it all if you could. You would cast me out, like Rebecca, and marry your Sarah instead; but"—with slovenly triumph—"you can't. You can't, you know. I"—with a hideous leer at him—"am here, you see, and here I'll stick! You wish me dead, I know that; but I'll not die to please you."

      (If she had only known!)

      She looked up at her husband out of her small, obstinate eyes— looked at the tall, handsome, well-dressed man whose name she bore, yet who was so different to her in all ways. And he looked back at her.

      A strange smile curled his lips.

      "Wishes don't kill," said he, slowly. Now his voice was soft, refined, brutal.

      "Good for me," returned she, with a hoarse chuckle, "or I wouldn't be long above ground. I know you! And as for that girl down there"—she paused, then went on with malicious intonation: "you may as well cease your funning in that quarter. I hear she's as good as engaged to that young fellow who took up Dr. Fulham's practice three months ago—Dr. Dillwyn."

      "A very suitable match for her," said Darkham, after a second's pause that contained a thousand seconds of acute agony. He spoke coldly, evenly.

      "Yes." She looked disappointed; her spleen had desired a larger fulfilment of its desire. "Suitable indeed, for both are paupers. But, for all you're so quiet, I don't believe you like it, eh? Dr. Dillwyn, you know, and you—"

      "I wish sometimes you would forget me," said he.

      "Ha, ha, ha!" She flung herself back in her chair, and laughed aloud, her hideous vulgar laugh. "For once in our lives we are agreed. I wish that, too. But I can't, you see—I can't. You're always there, and I'm always there!"

      "You! you!" Darkham took a step towards her; his face was convulsed. "You," he muttered, "always you!" His voice, his gesture, were menacing.

      The idiot on the hearthrug, as though gathering into his poor brain something of what was going on between his father and his mother, here writhing round upon the rug, threw himself upon the latter. He embraced her knees with a close, soft clasp. He clung to her. Every now and then he glanced behind him at his father, his dull eyes angry, menacing. His whole air was one of protection; short barking cries came from him, hideous to hear.

      Mrs. Darkham bent down to him, and caught the beautiful soulless face to her bosom, wreathing upon it sweet reassuring words. The idiot, mouthing, slaps her quietly, incessantly, on the shoulder. Darkham watches them—the mother's heavy, coarse endearments, the boy's vacant affection, with his mouth open—and from them presently Darkham turned away with an oath. A shudder of disgust ran through him. "Great heavens! what a home!"

      His wife had looked up for a moment, and had seen the disgust. It was fuel to an already very hot fire.

      "Go!" she cried violently. She had the boy's head pressed to her breast, keeping his eyes against her that he might not see her face, perhaps, which now was frightful. "Go! leave us! Go where you are welcome! Leave us! Leave your home!"

      "My home!" he paused, but always with his eyes on hers. "My home is a hell!" said he.

      He went out then, closing the door softly behind him.

      But when he had stepped into his brougham he gave himself full sway. As the wheels rolled over the gravel his thoughts surged and raged within him.

      That dull, illiterate creature, why had he ever married her? What cruel fate had driven him to such a marriage? And for ever that marriage would endure—trampling him down, destroying him, clogging his career.

      Some men got rid of their wives. But that was when kindly Providence stepped in and Death took them away. But this woman, without feeling, sentiment or beauty, even Death would not deign to touch her.

      Death—death! If he were only free!

      All at once the face of a young girl rose before him. It stood out clear and tranquil from a detestable background—not like a dream, a thought, but sweetly, definitely. The eyes, the hair, the lovely mouth, all were СКАЧАТЬ