Book: The Evil Genius

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Randal decided on leaving her. "Have you done all this with
Catherine's consent?" he asked as he got up from his chair.

"Catherine submits to circumstances, like a sensible woman."

"Does she submit to your telling Kitty that her father is dead?"

For the first time Mrs. Presty became serious.

"Wait a minute," she answered. "Before I consented to answer the
child's inquiries, I came to an understanding with her mother. I
said, 'Will you let Kitty see her father again?'"

The very question which Randal had promised to ask in his
brother's interests! "And how did Catherine answer you?" he
inquired.

"Honestly. She said: 'I daren't!' After that, I had her mother's
authority for telling Kitty that she would never see her father
again. She asked directly if her father was dead--"

"That will do, Mrs. Presty. Your defense is thoroughly worthy of
your conduct in all other respects."

"Say thoroughly worthy of the course forced upon me and my
daughter by your brother's infamous conduct--and you will be
nearer the mark!"

Randal passed this over without notice. "Be so good," he said,
"as to tell Catherine that I try to make every possible allowance
for her, but that I cannot consent to sit at her dinner-table,
and that I dare not face my poor little niece, after what I have
heard."

Mrs. Presty recovered all her audacity. "A very wise decision,"
she remarked. "Your sour face would spoil the best dinner that
ever was put on the table. Have you any message for Captain
Bennydeck?"

Randal asked if his friend was then at the hotel.

Mrs. Presty smiled significantly. "Not at the hotel, just now."

"Where is he?"

"Where he is every day, about this time--out driving with
Catherine and Kitty."

It was a relief to Randal--in the present state of Catherine's
relations toward Bennydeck--to return to London without having
seen his friend.

He took leave of Mrs. Presty with the formality due to a
stranger--he merely bowed. That incorrigible old woman treated
him with affectionate familiarity in return.

"Good-by, dear Randal. One moment before you go! Will it be of
any use if we invite you to the marriage?"

Arrived at the station, Randal found that he must wait for the
train. While he was walking up and down the platform with a mind
doubly distressed by anxiety about his brother and anxiety about
Sydney, the train from London came in. He stood, looking absently
at the passengers leaving the carriage on the opposite side of
the platform. Suddenly, a voice that he knew was audible, asking
the way to Buck's Hotel. He crossed the line in an instant, and
found himself face to face with Herbert.



Chapter XLI.


Make the Best of It.


For a moment the two men looked at each other without speaking.
Herbert's wondering eyes accurately reflected his brother's
astonishment.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. Suspicion overclouded his
face as he put the question. "You have been to the hotel?" he
burst out; "you have seen Catherine?"

Randal could deny that he had seen Catherine, with perfect
truth--and did deny it in the plainest terms. Herbert was
satisfied. "In all my remembrance of you," he said, "you have
never told me a lie. We have both seen the same newspaper, of
course--and you have been the first to clear the thing up. That's
it, isn't it?"

"I wonder who this other Mrs. Norman is; did you find out?"

"No."

"She's not Catherine, at any rate; I, for one, shall go home with
a lighter heart." He took his brother's arm, to return to the
other platform. "Do you know, Randal, I was almost afraid that
Catherine was the woman. The devil take the thing, and the people
who write in it!"

He snatched a newspaper out of his pocket as he spoke--tore it in
half--and threw it away. "Malcolm meant well, poor fellow," he
said, referring to the old servant, "but he made a miserable man
of me for all that."

Not satisfied with gossip in private, the greedy public appetite
devours gossip in print, and wants more of it than any one editor
can supply. Randal picked up the torn newspaper. It was not the
newspaper which he had bought at the station. Herbert had been
reading a rival journal, devoted to the interests of Society--in
which the report of Mrs. Norman's marriage was repeated, with
this difference, that it boldly alluded to Captain Bennydeck by
name. "Did Malcolm give you this?" Randal asked.

"Yes; he and the servant next door subscribe to take it in; and
Malcolm thought it might amuse me. It drove me out of the house
and into the railway. If it had driven me out of mind, I
shouldn't have been surprised."

"Gently, Herbert! Supposing the report had been true--?"

"After what you have told me, why should I suppose anything of
the sort?"

"Don't be angry; and do pray remember that the Divorce allows you
and Catherine to marry again, if you like."

Herbert became more unreasonable than ever. "If Catherine does
think of marrying again," he said, "the man will have to reckon
first with me. But that is not the point. You seem to have
forgotten that the woman at Buck's Hotel is described as a Widow.
The bare doubt that my divorced wife might be the woman was bad
enough--but what I wanted to find out was how she had passed off
her false pretense on our child. _That_ was what maddened me! No
more of it now. Have you seen Catherine lately?"

"Not lately."

"I suppose she is as handsome as ever. When will you ask her to
let me see Kitty?"

"Leave that to me," was the one reply which Randal could venture
to make at the moment.

The serious embarrassments that surrounded him were thickening
fast. His natural frank nature urged him to undeceive Herbert. If
he followed his inclinations, in the near neighborhood of the
hotel, who could say what disasters might not ensue, in his
brother's present frame of mind? If he made the disclosure on
their return to the house, he would be only running the same risk
of consequences, after an interval of delay; and, if he remained
silent, the march of events might, at any moment, lead to the
discovery of what he had concealed. Add to this, that his
confidence in Catherine had been rudely shaken. Having allowed
herself to be entrapped into the deception proposed by her
mother, and having thus far persevered in that deception, were
the chances in favor of her revealing her true
position--especially if she was disposed to encourage Bennydeck's
suit? Randal's loyalty to Catherine hesitated to decide that
serious question against the woman whom he had known, trusted,
and admired for so many years. In any event, her second marriage
would lead to one disastrous result. It would sooner or later
come to Herbert's ears. In the meantime, after what Mrs. Presty
had confessed, the cruel falsehood which had checked poor Kitty's
natural inquiries raised an insuperable obstacle to a meeting
between father and child.

If Randal shrank from the prospect which thus presented itself to
him, in his relations with his brother, and if his thoughts
reverted to Sydney Westerfield, other reasons for apprehension
found their way into his mind.

He had promised to do his best toward persuading Catherine to
grant Sydney an interview. To perform that promise appeared to be
now simply impossible. Under the exasperating influence of a
disappointment for which she was not prepared, it was hard to say
what act of imprudence Sydney might not commit. Even the chance
of successfully confiding her to Bennydeck's protection had lost
something of its fair promise, since Randal's visit to Sydenham.
That the Captain would welcome his friend's daughter as
affectionately as if she had been his own child, was not to be
doubted for a moment. But that she would receive the same
unremitting attention, while he was courting Catherine, which
would have been offered to her under other circumstances, was not
to be hoped. Be the results, however, what they might, Randal
could see but one plain course before him now. He decided on
hastening Sydney's introduction to Bennydeck, and on writing at
once to prepare the Captain for that event.

Even this apparently simple proceeding required examination in
its different bearings, before he could begin his letter.

Would he be justified in alluding to the report which associated
Bennydeck with Catherine? Considerations of delicacy seemed to
forbid taking this liberty, even with an intimate friend. It was
for the Captain to confirm what Mrs. Presty had said of him, if
he thought it desirable to touch on the subject in his reply.
Besides, looking to Catherine's interest--and not forgetting how
she had suffered--had Randal any right to regard with other than
friendly feelings a second marriage, which united her to a man
morally and intellectually the superior of her first husband?
What happier future could await her--especially if she justified
Randal's past experience of all that was candid and truthful in
her character--than to become his friend's wife?

Written under the modifying influence of these conclusions, his
letter contained the few words that follow:

"I have news for you which I am sure you will be glad to hear.
Your old friend's daughter has abandoned her sinful way of life,
and has made sacrifices which prove the sincerity of her repentance.
Without entering into particulars which may be mercifully
dismissed from notice, let me only assure you that I answer for
Sydney Westerfield as being worthy of the fatherly interest which
you feel in her. Shall I say that she may expect an early visit
from you, when I see her to-morrow? I don't doubt that I am free
already to do this; but it will encourage the poor girl, if I can
speak with your authority."

He added Sydney's address in a postscript, and dispatched his
letter that evening.



On the afternoon of the next day two letters were delivered to
Randal, bearing the Sydenham postmark.

The first which he happened to take up was addressed to him in
Mrs. Presty's handwriting. His opinion of this correspondent was
expressed in prompt action--he threw the letter, unopened, into
the waste-paper basket.

The next letter was from Bennydeck, written in the kindest terms,
but containing no allusion to any contemplated change in his
life. He would not be able (he wrote) to leave Sydenham for a day
or two. No explanation of the cause of this delay followed. But
it might, perhaps, be excusable to infer that the marriage had
not yet been decided on, and that the Captain's proposals were
still waiting for Catherine's reply.

Randal put the letter in his pocket and went at once to Sydney's
lodgings.



Chapter XLII.


Try to Excuse Her.


The weather had been unusually warm. Of all oppressive summers a
hot summer in London is the hardest to endure. The little
exercise that Sydney could take was, as Randal knew, deferred
until the evening. On asking for her, he was surprised to hear
that she had gone out.

"Is she walking?" he asked, "on a day such as this?"

No: she was too much overcome by the heat to be able to walk. The
landlady's boy had been sent to fetch a cab, and he had heard
Miss Westerfield tell the driver to go to Lincoln's Inn Fields.

The address at once reminded Randal of Mr. Sarrazin. On the
chance of making a discovery, he went to the lawyer's office. It
had struck him as being just possible that Sydney might have
called there for the second time; and, on making inquiry, he
found that his surmise was correct. Miss Westerfield had called,
and had gone away again more than an hour since.

Having mentioned this circumstance, good Mr. Sarrazin rather
abruptly changed the subject.

He began to talk of the weather, and, like everybody else, he
complained of the heat. Receiving no encouragement so far, he
selected politics as his next topic. Randal was unapproachably
indifferent to the state of parties, and the urgent necessity for
reform. Still bent, as it seemed, on preventing his visitor from
taking a leading part in the conversation, Mr. Sarrazin tried the
exercise of hospitality next. He opened his cigar-case, and
entered eagerly into the merits of his cigars; he proposed a cool
drink, and described the right method of making it as
distinguished from the wrong. Randal was not thirsty, and was not
inclined to smoke. Would the pertinacious lawyer give way at
last? In appearance, at least, he submitted to defeat. "You want
something of me, my friend," he said, with a patient smile. "What
is it?"

"I want to know why Miss Westerfield called on you?"

Randal flattered himself that he had made a prevaricating reply
simply impossible. Nothing of the sort! Mr. Sarrazin slipped
through his fingers once more. The unwritten laws of gallantry
afforded him a refuge now.

"The most inviolate respect," he solemnly declared, "is due to a
lady's confidence--and, what is more, to a young lady's
confidence--and, what is more yet, to a pretty young lady's
confidence. The sex, my dear fellow! Must I recall your
attention to what is due to the sex?"

This little outbreak of the foreign side of his friend's
character was no novelty to Randal. He remained as indifferent to
the inviolate claims of the sex as if he had been an old man of
ninety.

"Did Miss Westerfield say anything about me?" was his next
question.

Slippery Mr. Sarrazin slid into another refuge: he entered a
protest.

"Here is a change of persons and places!" he exclaimed. "Am I a
witness of the court of justice--and are you the lawyer who
examines me? My memory is defective, my learned friend. _Non mi
ricordo._ I know nothing about it."

Randal changed his tone. "We have amused ourselves long enough,"
he said. "I have serious reasons, Sarrazin, for wishing to know
what passed between Miss Westerfield and you--and I trust my old
friend to relieve my anxiety."

The lawyer was accustomed to say of himself that he never did
things by halves. His answer to Randal offered a proof of his
accurate estimate of his own character.

"Your old friend will deserve your confidence in him," he
answered. "You want to know why Miss Westerfield called here. Her
object in view was to twist me round her finger--and I beg to
inform you that she has completely succeeded. My dear Randal,
this pretty creature's cunning is remarkable even for a woman. I
am an old lawyer, skilled in the ways of the world--and a young
girl has completely overreached me. She asked--oh, heavens, how
innocently!--if Mrs. Norman was likely to make a long stay at her
present place of residence."

Randal interrupted him. "You don't mean to tell me you have given
her Catherine's address?"

"Buck's Hotel, Sydenham," Mr. Sarrazin answered. "She has got the
address down in her nice little pocketbook."

"What amazing weakness!" Randal exclaimed.

Mr. Sarrazin cordially agreed with him. "Amazing weakness, as you
say. Pretty Miss Sydney has extracted more things, besides the
address. She knows that Mrs. Norman is here on business relating
to new investments of her money. She knows besides that one of
the trustees is keeping us waiting. She also made sensible
remarks. She mentioned having heard Mrs. Norman say that the air
of London never agreed with her; and she hoped that a
comparatively healthy neighborhood had been chosen for Mrs.
Norman's place of residence. This, you see, was leading up to the
discovery of the address. The spirit of mischief possessed me; I
allowed Miss Westerfield to take a little peep at the truth.
'Mrs. Norman is not actually in London,' I said; 'she is only in
the neighborhood.' For what followed on this, my experience of
ladies ought to have prepared me. I am ashamed to say _this_ lady
took me completely by surprise."

"What did she do?"

"Fell on her knees, poor dear--and said: 'Oh, Mr. Sarrazin, be
kinder to me than you have ever been yet; tell me where Mrs.
Norman is!'--I put her back in her chair, and I took her
handkerchief out of her pocket and I wiped her eyes."

"And then you told her the address?"

"I was near it, but I didn't do it yet. I asked what you had done
in the matter. Alas, your kind heart has led you to promise more
than you could perform. She had waited to hear from you if Mrs.
Norman consented to see her, and had waited in vain. Hard on her,
wasn't it? I was sorry, but I was still obdurate. I only felt the
symptoms which warned me that I was going to make a fool of
myself, when she let me into her secret for the first time, and
said plainly what she wanted with Mrs. Norman. Her tears and her
entreaties I had resisted. The confession of her motives
overpowered me. It is right," cried Mr. Sarrazin, suddenly
warming into enthusiasm, "that these two women should meet.
Remember how that poor girl has proved that her repentance is no
sham. I say, she has a right to tell, and the lady whom she has
injured has a right to hear, what she has done to atone for the
past, what confession she is willing to make to the one woman in
the world (though she _is_ a divorced woman) who is most
interested in hearing what Miss Westerfield's life has been with
that wretched brother of yours. Ah, yes, I know what the English
cant might say. Away with the English cant! it is the worst
obstacle to the progress of the English nation!"

Randal listened absently: he was thinking.

There could be little doubt to what destination Sydney
Westerfield had betaken herself, when she left the lawyer's
office. At that moment, perhaps, she and Catherine were
together--and together alone.

Mr. Sarrazin had noticed his friend's silence. "Is it possible
you don't agree with me?" he asked.

"I don't feel as hopefully as you do, if these two ladies meet."

"Ah, my friend, you are not a sanguine man by nature. If Mrs.
Norman treats our poor Sydney just as a commonplace ill-tempered
woman would treat her, I shall be surprised indeed. Say, if you
like, that she will be insulted--of this I am sure, she will not
return it; there is no expiation that is too bitter to be endured
by that resolute little creature. Her fine nature has been
tempered by adversity. A hard life has been Sydney's, depend upon
it, in the years before you and I met with her. Good heavens!
What would my wife say if she heard me? The women are nice, but
they have their drawbacks. Let us wait till tomorrow, my dear
boy; and let us believe in Sydney without allowing our wives--I
beg your pardon, I mean _my_ wife--to suspect in what forbidden
directions our sympathies are leading us. Oh, for shame!"

Who could persist in feeling depressed in the company of such a
man as this? Randal went home with the influence of Mr.
Sarrazin's sanguine nature in undisturbed possession of him,
until his old servant's gloomy face confronted him at the door.

"Anything gone wrong, Malcolm?"

"I'm sorry to say, sir, Mr. Herbert has left us."

"Left us! Why?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Where has he gone?"

"He didn't tell me."

"Is there no letter? No message?"

"There's a message, sir. Mr. Herbert came back--"

"Stop! Where had he been when he came back?"

"He said he felt a little lonely after you went out, and he
thought it might cheer him up if he went to the club. I was to
tell you where he had gone if you asked what had become of him.
He said it kindly and pleasantly--quite like himself, sir. But,
when he came back--if you'll excuse my saying so--I never saw a
man in a worse temper. 'Tell my brother I am obliged to him for
his hospitality, and I won't take advantage of it any longer.'
That was Mr. Herbert's message. I tried to say a word. He banged
the door, and away he went."

Even Randal's patient and gentle nature rose in revolt against
his brother's treatment of him. He entered his sitting-room in
silence. Malcolm followed, and pointed to a letter on the table.
"I think you must have thrown it away by mistake, sir," the old
man explained; "I found it in the waste-paper basket." He bowed
with the unfailing respect of the old school, and withdrew.

Randal's first resolve was to dismiss his brother from further
consideration. "Kindness is thrown away on Herbert," he thought;
"I shall treat him for the future as he has treated me."

But his brother was still in his mind. He opened Mrs. Presty's
letter--on the chance that it might turn the current of his
thoughts in a new direction.

In spite of Mrs. Presty, in spite of himself, his heart softened
toward the man who had behaved so badly to him. Instead of
reading the letter, he was now trying to discover a connection
between his brother's visit to the club and his brother's angry
message. Had Herbert heard something said, among gossiping
members in the smoking-room, which might account for his conduct?
If Randal had belonged to the club he would have gone there to
make inquiries. How could he get the information that he wanted,
in some other way?

After considering it for a while, he remembered the dinner that
he had given to his friend Sarrazin on his return from the United
States, and the departure of the lawyer to his club, with a
purpose in view which interested them both. It was the same club
to which Herbert belonged. Randal wrote at once to Mr. Sarrazin,
mentioning what had happened, and acknowledging the anxiety tha t
weighed on his mind.

Having instructed Malcolm to take the letter to the lawyer's
house, and, if he was not at home, to inquire where he might be
found, Randal adopted the readiest means of composing himself, in
the servant's absence, by lighting his pipe.

He was enveloped in clouds of tobacco-smoke--the only clouds
which we can trust never to prove unworthy of our confidence in
them--when Mrs. Presty's letter caught his attention. If the
month had been January instead of July, he would have thrown it
into the fire. Under present circumstances, he took it up and
read it:



"I bear no malice, dear Randal, and I write to you as
affectionately as if you had kept your temper on the occasion
when we last met.

"You will be pleased to hear that Catherine was as thoroughly
distressed as you could wish her to be, when it became my
disagreeable duty to mention what had passed between us, by way
of accounting for your absence. She was quite unable to rally her
spirits, even with dear Captain Bennydeck present to encourage
her.

"'I am not receiving you as I ought,' she said to him, when we
began dinner, 'but there is perhaps some excuse for me. I have
lost the regard and esteem of an old friend, who has cruelly
wronged me.' From motives of delicacy (which I don't expect you
to understand) she refrained from mentioning your name. The
prettiest answer that I ever heard was the answer that the
Captain returned. 'Let the true friend,' he said, 'take the place
in your heart which the false friend has lost.'

"He kissed her hand. If you had seen how he did it, and how she
looked at him, you would have felt that you had done more toward
persuading my daughter to marry the Captain than any other person
about her, myself included. You had deserted her; you had thrown
her back on the one true friend left. Thank you, Randal. In our
best interests, thank you.

"It is needless to add that I got out of the way, and took Kitty
with me, at the earliest opportunity--and left them by
themselves.

"At bed-time I went into Catherine's room. Our interview began
and ended in less than a minute. It was useless to ask if the
Captain had proposed marriage; her agitation sufficiently
informed me of what had happened. My one question was: 'Dearest
Catherine, have you said Yes?' She turned shockingly pale, and
answered: 'I have not said No.' Could anything be more
encouraging? God bless you; we shall meet at the wedding."



Randal laid down the letter and filled his pipe again. He was not
in the least exasperated; he was only anxious to hear from Mr.
Sarrazin. If Mrs. Presty had seen him at that moment, she would
have said to herself: "I forgot the wretch was a smoker."

In half an hour more the door was opened by Malcolm, and Mr.
Sarrazin in person answered his friend.

"There are no such incorrigible gossips," he said, "as men in the
smoking-room of a club. Those popular newspapers began the
mischief, and the editor of one of them completed it. How he got
his information I am not able to say. The small-talk turned on
that report about the charming widow; and the editor
congratulated himself on the delicacy of his conduct. 'When the
paragraph reached me,' he said, 'the writer mentioned that Mrs.
Norman was that well-known lady, the divorced Mrs. Herbert
Linley. I thought this rather too bad, and I cut it out.' Your
brother appears to have been present--but he seldom goes to the
club, and none of the members knew him even by sight. Shall I
give you a light? Your pipe's out."

Randal's feelings, at that moment, were not within reach of the
comforting influence of tobacco.

"Do you think your brother has gone to Sydenham?" Mr. Sarrazin
asked.

Randal answered: "I haven't a doubt of it now."



Chapter XLIII.


Know Your Own Mind.


The garden of the hotel at Sydenham had originally belonged to a
private house. Of great extent, it had been laid out in excellent
taste. Flower-beds and lawns, a handsome fountain, seats shaded
by groups of fine trees at their full growth, completed the
pastoral charm of the place. A winding path led across the garden
from the back of the house. It had been continued by the
speculator who purchased the property, until it reached a road at
the extremity of the grounds which communicated with the Crystal
Palace. Visitors to the hotel had such pleasant associations with
the garden that many of them returned at future opportunities
instead of trying the attraction of some other place. Various
tastes and different ages found their wishes equally consulted
here. Children rejoiced in the finest playground they had ever
seen. Remote walks, secluded among shrubberies, invited persons
of reserved disposition who came as strangers, and as strangers
desired to remain. The fountain and the lawn collected sociable
visitors, who were always ready to make acquaintance with each
other. Even the amateur artist could take liberties with Nature,
and find the accommodating limits of the garden sufficient for
his purpose. Trees in the foreground sat to him for likenesses
that were never recognized; and hills submitted to unprovoked
familiarities, on behalf of brushes which were not daunted by
distance.

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