Book: The Evil Genius

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The time was evening; the scene was one of the private
sitting-rooms in the hotel; and the purpose in view was a little
tea-party.

Rich Mrs. Romsey, connected with commerce as wife of the chief
partner in the firm of Romsey & Renshaw, was staying at the hotel
in the interests of her three children. They were of delicate
constitution; their complete recovery, after severe illness which
had passed from one to the other, was less speedy than had been
anticipated; and the doctor had declared that the nervous system
was, in each case, more or less in need of repair. To arrive at
this conclusion, and to recommend a visit to Sandyseal, were
events which followed each other (medically speaking) as a matter
of course.

The health of the children had greatly improved; the famous air
had agreed with them, and the discovery of new playfellows had
agreed with them. They had made acquaintance with Lady Myrie's
well-bred boys, and with Mrs. Norman's charming little Kitty. The
most cordial good-feeling had established itself among the
mothers. Owing a return for hospitalities received from Lady
Myrie and Mrs. Norman, Mrs. Romsey had invited the two ladies to
drink tea with her in honor of an interesting domestic event. Her
husband, absent on the Continent for some time past, on business
connected with his firm, had returned to England, and had that
evening joined his wife and children at Sandyseal.

Lady Myrie had arrived, and Mr. Romsey had been presented to her.
Mrs. Norman, expected to follow, was represented by a courteous
note of apology. She was not well that evening, and she begged to
be excused.

"This is a great disappointment," Mrs. Romsey said to her
husband. "You would have been charmed with Mrs.
Norman--highly-bred, accomplished, a perfect lady. And she leaves
us to-morrow. The departure will not be an early one; and I shall
find an opportunity, my dear, of introducing you to my friend and
her sweet little Kitty."

Mr. Romsey looked interested for a moment, when he first heard
Mrs. Norman's name. After that, he slowly stirred his tea, and
seemed to be thinking, instead of listening to his wife.

"Have you made the lady's acquaintance here?" he inquired.

"Yes--and I hope I have made a friend for life," Mrs. Romsey said
with enthusiasm.

"And so do I," Lady Myrie added.

Mr. Romsey went on with his inquiries.

"Is she a handsome woman?"

Both the ladies answered the question together. Lady Myrie
described Mrs. Norman, in one dreadful word, as "Classical." By
comparison with this, Mrs. Romsey's reply was intelligible. "Not
even illness can spoil her beauty!"

"Including the headache she has got to-night?" Mr. Romsey
suggested.

"Don't be ill-natured, dear! Mrs. Norman is here by the advice of
one of the first physicians in London; she has suffered under
serious troubles, poor thing."

Mr. Romsey persisted in being ill-natured. "Connected with her
husband?" he asked.

Lady Myrie entered a protest. She was a widow; and it was
notorious among her friends that the death of her husband had
been the happiest event in her married life. But she understood
her duty to herself as a respectable woman.

"I think, Mr. Romsey, you might have spared that cruel allusion,"
she said with dignity.

Mr. Romsey apologized. He had his reasons for wishing to know
something more about Mrs. Norman; he proposed to withdraw his
last remark, and to put his inquiries under another form. Might
he ask his wife if anybody had seen _Mr._ Norman?

"No."

"Or heard of him?"

Mrs. Romsey answered in the negative once more, and added a
question on her own account. What did all this mean?

"It means," Lady Myrie interposed, "what we poor women are all
exposed to--scandal." She had not yet forgiven Mr. Romsey's
allusion, and she looked at him pointedly as she spoke. There are
some impenetrable men on whom looks produce no impression. Mr.
Romsey was one of them. He turned to his wife, and said, quietly:
"What I mean is, that I know more of Mrs. Norman than you do. I
have heard of her--never mind how or where. She is a lady who has
been celebrated in the newspapers. Don't be alarmed. She is no
less a person than the divorced Mrs. Linley."

The two ladies looked at each other in blank dismay. Restrained
by a sense of conjugal duty, Mrs. Romsey only indulged in an
exclamation. Lady Myrie, independent of restraint, expressed her
opinion, and said: "Quite impossible!"

"The Mrs. Norman whom I mean," Mr. Romsey went on, "has, as I
have been told, a mother living. The old lady has been twice
married. Her name is Mrs. Presty."

This settled the question. Mrs. Presty was established, in her
own proper person, with her daughter and grandchild at the hotel.
Lady Myrie yielded to the force of evidence; she lifted her hands
in horror: "This is too dreadful!"

Mrs. Romsey took a more compassionate view of the disclosure.
"Surely the poor lady is to be pitied?" she gently suggested.

Lady Myrie looked at her friend in astonishment. "My dear, you
must have forgotten what the judge said about her. Surely you
read the report of the case in the newspapers?"

"No; I heard of the trial, and that's all. What did the judge
say?"

"Say?" Lady Myrie repeated. "What did he not say! His lordship
declared that he had a great mind not to grant the Divorce at
all. He spoke of this dreadful woman who has deceived us in the
severest terms; he said she had behaved in a most improper
manner. She had encouraged the abominable governess; and if her
husband had yielded to temptation, it was her fault. And more
besides, that I don't remember."

Mr. Romsey's wife appealed to him in despair. "What am I to do?"
she asked, helplessly.

"Do nothing," was the wise reply. "Didn't you say she was going
away to-morrow?"

"That's the worst of it!" Mrs. Romsey declared. "Her little girl
Kitty gives a farewell dinner to-morrow to our children; and I've
promised to take them to say good-by."

Lady Myrie pronounced sentence without hesitation. "Of course
your girls mustn't go. Daughters! Think of their reputations when
they grow up!"

"Are you in the same scrape with my wife?" Mr. Romsey asked.

Lady Myrie corrected his language. "I have been deceived in the
same way," she said. "Though my children are boys (which perhaps
makes a difference) I feel it is my duty as a mother not to let
them get into bad company. I do nothing myself in an underhand
way. No excuses! I shall send a note and tell Mrs. Norman why she
doesn't see my boys to-morrow."

"Isn't that a little hard on her?" said merciful Mrs. Romsey.

Mr. Romsey agreed with his wife, on grounds of expediency. "Never
make a row if you can help it," was the peaceable principle to
which this gentleman committed himself. "Send word that the
children have caught colds, and get over it in that way."

Mrs. Romsey looked gratefully at her admirable husband. "Just the
thing!" she said, with an air of relief.

Lady Myrie's sense of duty expressed itself, with the strictest
adherence to the laws of courtesy. She rose, smiled resignedly,
and said, "Good-night."

Almost at the same moment, innocent little Kitty astonished her
mother and her grandmother by appearing before them in her
night-gown, after she had been put to bed nearly two hours since.

"What will this child do next?" Mrs. Presty exclaimed.

Kitty told the truth. "I can't go to sleep, grandmamma."

"Why not, my darling?" her mother asked.

"I'm so excited, mamma."

"About what, Kitty?"

"About my dinner-party to-morrow. Oh," said the child, clasping
her hands earnestly as she thought of her playfellows, "I do so
hope it will go off well!"



Chapter XXXIV.


Mrs. Presty.


Belonging to the generation which has lived to see the Age of
Hurry, and has no sympathy with it, Mrs. Presty entered the
sitting-room at the hotel, two hours before the time that had
been fixed for leaving Sandyseal, with her mind at ease on the
subject of her luggage. "My boxes are locked, strapped and
labeled; I hate being hurried. What's that you're reading?" she
asked, discovering a book on her daughter's lap, and a hasty
action on her daughter's part, which looked like trying to hide
it.

Mrs. Norman made the most common, and--where the object is to
baffle curiosity--the most useless of prevaricating replies. When
her mother asked her what she was reading she answered:
"Nothing."

"Nothing!" Mrs. Presty repeated with an ironical assumption of
interest. "The work of all others, Catherine, that I most want to
read." She snatched up the book; opened it at the first page, and
discovered an inscription in faded ink which roused her
indignation. "To dear Catherine, from Herbert, on the anniversary
of our marriage." What unintended mockery in those words, read by
the later light of the Divorce! "Well, this is mean," said Mrs.
Presty. "Keeping that wretch's present, after the public exposure
which he has forced on you. Oh, Catherine!"

Catherine was not quite so patient with her mother as usual.
"Keeping my best remembrance of the happy time of my life," she
answered.

"Misplaced sentiment," Mrs. Presty declared; "I shall put the
book out of the way. Your brain is softening, my dear, under the
influence of this stupefying place."

Catherine asserted her own opinion against her mother's opinion,
for the second time. "I have recovered my health at Sandyseal,"
she said. "I like the place, and I am sorry to leave it."

"Give me the shop windows, the streets, the life, the racket, and
the smoke of London," cried Mrs. Presty. "Thank Heaven, these
rooms are let over our heads, and out we must go, whether we like
it or not."

This expression of gratitude was followed by a knock at the door,
and by a voice outside asking leave to come in, which was, beyond
all doubt, the voice of Randal Linley. With Catherine's book
still in her possession, Mrs. Presty opened the table-drawer,
threw it in, and closed the drawer with a bang. Discovering the
two ladies, Randal stopped in the doorway, and stared at them in
astonishment.

"Didn't you expect to see us?" Mrs. Presty inquired.

"I heard you were here, from our friend Sarrazin," Randal said;
"but I expected to see Captain Bennydeck. Have I mistaken the
number? Surely these are his rooms?"

Catherine attempted to explain. "They _were_ Captain Bennydeck's
rooms," she began; "but he was so kind, although we are perfect
strangers to him--"

Mrs. Presty interposed. "My dear Catherine, you have not had my
advantages; you have not been taught to make a complicated
statement in few words. Permit me to seize the points (in the
late Mr. Presty's style) and to put them in the strongest light.
This place, Randal, is always full; and we didn't write long
enough beforehand to secure rooms. Captain Bennydeck happened to
be downstairs when he heard that we were obliged to go away, and
that one of us was a lady in delicate health. This sweetest of
men sent us word that we were welcome to take his rooms, and that
he would sleep on board his yacht. Conduct worthy of Sir Charles
Grandison himself. When I went downstairs to thank him, he was
gone--and here we have been for nearly three weeks; sometimes
seeing the Captain's yacht, but, to our great surprise, never
seeing the Captain himself."

"There's nothing to be surprised at, Mrs. Presty. Captain
Bennydeck likes doing kind things, and hates being thanked for
it. I expected him to meet me here to-day."

Catherine went to the window. "He is coming to meet you," she
said. "There is his yacht in the bay."

"And in a dead calm," Randal added, joining her. "The vessel will
not get here, before I am obliged to go away again."

Catherine looked at him timidly. "Do I drive you away?" she
asked, in tones that faltered a little.

Randal wondered what she could possibly be thinking of and
acknowledged it in so many words.

"She is thinking of the Divorce," Mrs. Presty explained. "You
have heard of it, of course; and perhaps you take your brother's
part?"

"I do nothing of the sort, ma'am. My brother has been in the
wrong from first to last." He turned to Catherine. "I will stay
with you as long as I can, with the greatest pleasure," he said
earnestly and kindly. "The truth is, I am on my way to visit some
friends; and if Captain Bennydeck had got here in time to see me,
I must have gone away to the junction to catch the next train
westward, just as I am going now. I had only two words to say to
the Captain about a person in whom he is interested--and I can
say them in this way." He wrote in pencil on one of his visiting
cards, and laid it on the table. "I shall be back in London, in a
week," he resumed, "and you will tell me at what address I can
find you. In the meanwhile, I miss Kitty. Where is she?"

Kitty was sent for. She entered the room looking unusually quiet
and subdued--but, discovering Randal, became herself again in a
moment, and jumped on his knee.

"Oh, Uncle Randal, I'm so glad to see you!" She checked herself,
and looked at her mother. "May I call him Uncle Randal?" she
asked. "Or has _he_ changed his name, too?"

Mrs. Presty shook a warning forefinger at her granddaughter, and
reminded Kitty that she had been told not to talk about names.
Randal saw the child's look of bewilderment, and felt for her.
"She may talk as she pleases to me," he said "but not to
strangers. She understands that, I am sure."

Kitty laid her cheek fondly against her uncle's cheek.
"Everything is changed," she whispered. "We travel about; papa
has left us, and Syd has left us, and we have got a new name. We
are Norman now. I wish I was grown up, and old enough to
understand it."

Randal tried to reconcile her to her own happy ignorance. "You
have got your dear good mother," he said, "and you have got me,
and you have got your toys--"

"And some nice boys and girls to play with," cried Kitty, eagerly
following the new suggestion. "They are all coming here directly
to dine with me. You will stay and have dinner too, won't you?"

Randal promised to dine with Kitty when they met in London.
Before he left the room he pointed to his card on the table. "Let
my friend see that message," he said, as he went out.

The moment the door had closed on him, Mrs. Presty startled her
daughter by taking up the card and looking at what Randal had
written on it. "It isn't a letter, Catherine; and you know how
superior I am to common prejudices." With that defense of her
proceeding, she coolly read the message:


"I am sorry to say that I can tell you nothing more of your old
friend's daughter as yet. I can only repeat that she neither
needs nor deserves the help that you kindly offer to her."


Mrs. Presty laid the card down again and owned that she wished
Randal had been a little more explicit. "Who can it be?" she
wondered. "Another young hussy gone wrong?"

Kitty turned to her mother with a look of alarm. "What's a
hussy?" she asked. "Does grandmamma mean me?" The great hotel
clock in the hall struck two, and the child's anxieties took a
new direction. "Isn't it time my little friends came to see me?"
she said.

It was half an hour past the time. Catherine proposed to send to
Lady Myrie and Mrs. Romsey, and inquire if anything had happened
to cause the delay. As she told Kitty to ring the bell, the
waiter came in with two letters, addressed to Mrs. Norman.

Mrs. Presty had her own ideas, and drew her own conclusions. She
watched Catherine attentively. Even Kitty observed that her
mother's face grew paler and paler as she read the letters. "You
look as if you were frightened, mamma." There was no reply. Kitty
began to feel so uneasy on the subject of her dinner and her
guests, that she actually ventured on putting a question to her
grandmother.

"Will they be long, do you think, before they come?" she asked.

The old lady's worldly wisdom had passed, by this time from a
state of suspicion to a state of certainty. "My child," she
answered, "they won't come at all."

Kitty ran to her mother, eager to inquire if what Mrs. Presty had
told her could possibly be true. Before a word had passed her
lips, she shrank back, too frightened to speak.

Never, in her little experience, had she been startled by such a
look in her mother's face as the look that confronted her now.
For the first time Catherine saw her child trembling at the sight
of her. Before that discovery, the emotions that shook her under
the insult which she had received lost their hold. She caught
Kitty up in her arms. "My darling, my angel, it isn't you I am
thinking of. I love you!--I love you! In the whole world there
isn't such a good child, such a sweet, lovable, pretty child as
you are. Oh, how disappointed she looks--she's crying. Don't
break my heart!--don't cry!" Kitty held up her head, and cleared
her eyes with a dash of her hand. "I won't cry, mamma." And child
as she was, she was as good as her word. Her mother looked at her
and burst into tears.

Perversely reluctant, the better nature that was in Mrs. Presty
rose to the surface, forced to show itself. "Cry, Catherine," she
said kindly; "it will do you good. Leave the child to me."

With a gentleness that astonished Kitty, she led her little
granddaughter to the window, and pointed to the public walk in
front of the house. "I know what will comfort you," the wise old
woman began; "look out of the window." Kitty obeyed.

"I don't see my little friends coming," she said. Mrs. Presty
still pointed to some object on the public walk. "That's better
than nothing, isn't it?" she persisted. "Come with me to the
maid; she shall go with you, and take care of you." Kitty
whispered, "May I give mamma a kiss first?" Sensible Mrs. Presty
delayed the kiss for a while. "Wait till you come back, and then
you can tell your mamma what a treat you have had." Arrived at
the door on their way out, Kitty whispered again: "I want to say
something"--"Well, what is it?"--"Will you tell the donkey-boy to
make him gallop?"--"I'll tell the boy he shall have sixpence if
you are satisfied; and you will see what he does then." Kitty
looked up earnestly in her grandmother's face. "What a pity it is
you are not always like what you are now!" she said. Mrs. Presty
actually blushed.



Chapter XXXV.



Captain Bennydeck.


For some time, Catherine and her mother had been left together
undisturbed.

Mrs. Presty had read (and destroyed) the letters of Lady Myrie
and Mrs. Romsey, with the most unfeigned contempt for the
writers--had repeated what the judge had really said, as
distinguished from Lady Myrie's malicious version of it--and had
expressed her intention of giving Catherine a word of advice,
when she was sufficiently composed to profit by it. "You have
recovered your good looks, after that fit of crying," Mrs. Presty
admitted, "but not your good spirits. What is worrying you now?"

"I can't help thinking of poor Kitty."

"My dear, the child wants nobody's pity. She's blowing away all
her troubles by a ride in the fresh air, on the favorite donkey
that she feeds every morning. Yes, yes, you needn't tell me you
are in a false position; and nobody can deny that it's shameful
to make the child feel it. Now listen to me. Properly understood,
those two spiteful women have done you a kindness. They have as
good as told you how to protect yourself in the time to come.
Deceive the vile world, Catherine, as it deserves to be deceived.
Shelter yourself behind a respectable character that will spare
you these insults in the future." In the energy of her
conviction, Mrs. Presty struck her fist on the table, and
finished in three audacious words: "Be a Widow!"

It was plainly said--and yet Catherine seemed to be at a loss to
understand what her mother meant.

"Don't doubt about it," Mrs. Presty went on; "do it. Think of
Kitty if you won't think of yourself. In a few years more she
will be a young lady. She may have an offer of marriage which may
be everything we desire. Suppose her sweetheart's family is a
religious family; and suppose your Divorce, and the judge's
remarks on it, are discovered. What will happen then?"

"Is it possible that you are in earnest?" Catherine asked. "Have
you seriously thought of the advice that you are giving me?
Setting aside the deceit, you know as well as I do that Kitty
would ask questions. Do you think I can tell my child that her
father is dead? A lie--and such a dreadful lie as that?"

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Presty..

"Nonsense?" Catherine repeated indignantly.

"Rank nonsense," her mother persisted. "Hasn't your situation
forced you to lie already? When the child asks why her father and
her governess have left us, haven't you been obliged to invent
excuses which are lies? If the man who was once your husband
isn't as good as dead to _you_, I should like to know what your
Divorce means! My poor dear, do you think you can go on as you
are going on now? How many thousands of people have read the
newspaper account of the trial? How many hundreds of
people--interested in a handsome woman like you--will wonder why
they never see Mr. Norman? What? You will go abroad again? Go
where you may, you will attract attention; you will make an enemy
of every ugly woman who looks at you. Strain at a gnat,
Catherine, and swallow a camel. It's only a question of time.
Sooner or later you will be a Widow. Here's the waiter again.
What does the man want now?"

The waiter answered by announcing:

"Captain Bennydeck."

Catherine's mother was nearer to the door than Catherine; she
attracted the Captain's attention first. He addressed his
apologies to her. "Pray excuse me for disturbing you--"

Mrs. Presty had an eye for a handsome man, irrespective of what
his age might be. In the language of the conjurors a "magic
change" appeared in her; she became brightly agreeable in a
moment.

"Oh, Captain Bennydeck, you mustn't make excuses for coming into
your own room!"

Captain Bennydeck went on with his excuses, nevertheless. "The
landlady tells me that I have unluckily missed seeing Mr. Randal
Linley, and that he has left a message for me. I shouldn't
otherwise have ventured--"

Mrs. Presty stopped him once more. The Captain's claim to the
Captain's rooms was the principle on which she took her stand.
She revived the irresistible smiles which had conquered Mr.
Norman and Mr. Presty. "No ceremony, I beg and pray! You are at
home here--take the easy-chair!"

Catherine advanced a few steps; it was time to stop her mother,
if the thing could be done. She felt just embarrassment enough to
heighten her color, and to show her beauty to the greatest
advantage. It literally staggered the Captain, the moment he
looked at her. His customary composure, as a well-bred man,
deserted him; he bowed confusedly; he had not a word to say. Mrs.
Presty seized her opportunity, and introduced them to each other.
"My daughter Mrs. Norman--Captain Bennydeck." Compassionating him
under the impression that he was a shy man, Catherine tried to
set him at his ease. "I am indeed glad to have an opportunity of
thanking you," she said, inviting him by a gesture to be seated.
"In this delightful air, I have recovered my health, and I owe it
to your kindness."

The Captain regained his self-possession. Expressions of
gratitude had been addressed to him which, in his modest estimate
of himself, he could not feel that he had deserved.

"You little know," he replied, "under what interested motives I
have acted. When I established myself in this hotel, I was fairly
driven out of my yacht by a guest who went sailing with me."

Mrs. Presty became deeply interested. "Dear me, what did he do?"

Captain Bennydeck answered gravely: "He snored."

Catherine was amused; Mrs. Presty burst out laughing; the
Captain's dry humor asserted itself as quaintly as ever. "This is
no laughing matter," he resumed, looking at Catherine. "My vessel
is a small one. For two nights the awful music of my friend's
nose kept me sleepless. When I woke him, and said, 'Don't snore,'
he apologized in the sweetest manner, and began again. On the
third day I anchored in the bay here, determined to get a night's
rest on shore. A dispute about the price of these rooms offered
them to me. I sent a note of apology on board--and slept
peacefully. The next morning, my sailing master informed me that
there had been what he called 'a little swell in the night.' He
reported the sounds made by my friend on this occasion to have
been the awful sounds of seasickness. 'The gentleman left the
yacht, sir, the first thing this morning,' he said; 'and he's
gone home by railway.' On the day when you happened to arrive, my
cabin was my own again; and I can honestly thank you for
relieving me of my rooms. Do you make a long stay, Mrs. Norman?"

Catherine answered that they were going to London by the next
train. Seeing Randal's card still unnoticed on the table, she
handed it to the Captain.

"Is Mr. Linley an old friend of yours?" he asked, as he took the
card.

Mrs. Presty hastened to answer in the affirmative for her
daughter. It was plain that Randal had discreetly abstained from
mentioning his true connection with them. Would he preserve the
same silence if the Captain spoke of his visit to Mrs. Norman,
when he and his friend met next? Mrs. Presty's mind might have
been at ease on that subject, if she had known how to appreciate
Randal's character and Randal's motives. The same keen sense of
the family disgrace, which had led him to conceal from Captain
Bennydeck his brother's illicit relations with Sydney
Westerfield, had compelled him to keep secret his former
association, as brother-in-law, with the divorced wife. Her
change of name had hitherto protected her from discovery by the
Captain, and would in all probability continue to protect her in
the future. The good Bennydeck had been enjoying himself at sea
when the Divorce was granted, and when the newspapers reported
the proceedings. He rarely went to his club, and he never
associated with persons of either sex to whom gossip and scandal
are as the breath of their lives. Ignorant of these
circumstances, and remembering what had happened on that day,
Mrs. Presty looked at him with some anxiety on her daughter's
account, while he was reading the message on Randal's card. There
was little to see. His fine face expressed a quiet sorrow, and he
sighed as he put the card back in his pocket.

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