Book: The Evil Genius

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"Oh, Captain Bennydeck, who could the person have been?"

"A poor old broken-down actor, Sydney. You were his favorite
pupil. Do you remember him?"

"I should be ungrateful indeed if I could forget him. He was the
only person in the school who was kind to me. Is the good old man
still living?"

"No; he rests at last. I am glad to say I was able to make his
last days on earth the happiest days of his life."

"I wonder," Sydney confessed, "how you met with him."

"There was nothing at all romantic in my first discovery of him.
I was reading the police reports in a newspaper. The poor wretch
was brought before a magistrate, charged with breaking a window.
His one last chance of escaping starvation in the streets was to
get sent to prison. The magistrate questioned him, and brought to
light a really heart-breaking account of misfortune, imbittered
by neglect on the part of people in authority who were bound to
help him. He was remanded, so that inquiries might be made. I
attended the court on the day when he appeared there again, and
heard his statement confirmed. I paid his fine, and contrived to
put him in a way of earning a little money. He was very grateful,
and came now and then to thank me. In that way I heard how his
troubles had begun. He had asked for a small advance on the
wretched wages that he received. Can you guess how the
schoolmistress answered him?"

"I know but too well how she answered him," Sydney said; "I was
turned out of the house, too."

"And I heard of it," the Captain replied, "from the woman
herself. Everything that could distress me she was ready to
mention. She told me of your mother's second marriage, of her
miserable death, of the poor boy, your brother, missing, and
never heard of since. But when I asked where you had gone she had
nothing more to say. She knew nothing, and cared nothing, about
you. If I had not become acquainted with Mr. Randal Linley, I
might never have heard of you again. We will say no more of that,
and no more of anything that has happened in the past time. From
to-day, my dear, we begin a new life, and (please God) a happier
life. Have you any plans of your own for the future?"

"Perhaps, if I could find help," Sydney said resignedly, "I might
emigrate. Pride wouldn't stand in my way; no honest employment
would be beneath my notice. Besides, if I went to America, I
might meet with my brother."

"My dear child, after the time that has passed, there is no
imaginable chance of your meeting with your brother--and you
wouldn't know each other again if you did meet. Give up that vain
hope and stay here with me. Be useful and be happy in your own
country."

"Useful?" Sydney repeated sadly. "Your own kind heart, Captain
Bennydeck, is deceiving you. To be useful means, I suppose, to
help others. Who will accept help from me?"

"I will, for one," the Captain answered.

"You!"

"Yes. You can be of the greatest use to me--you shall hear how."

He told her of the founding of his Home and of the good it had
done. "You are the very person," he resumed, "to be the good
sister-friend that I want for my poor girls: _you_ can say for
them what they cannot always say to me for themselves."

The tears rose in Sydney's eyes. "It is hard to see such a
prospect as that," she said, "and to give it up as soon as it is
seen."

"Why give it up?"

"Because I am not fit for it. You are as good as a father to
those lost daughters of yours. If you give them a sister-friend
she ought to have set them a good example. Have I done that? Will
they listen to a girl who is no better than themselves?"

"Gladly! _Your_ sympathy will find its way to their hearts,
because it is animated by something that they can all feel in
common--something nearer and dearer to them than a sense of duty.
You won't consent, Sydney, for their sakes? Will you do what I
ask of you, for my sake?"

She looked at him, hardly able to understand--or, as it might
have been, perhaps afraid to understand him. He spoke to her more
plainly.

"I have kept it concealed from you," he continued--"for why
should I lay my load of suffering on a friend so young as you
are, so cruelly tried already? Let me only say that I am in great
distress. If you were with me, my child, I might be better able
to bear it."

He held out his hand. Even a happy woman could hardly have found
it in her heart to resist him. In silent sympathy and respect,
Sydney kissed the hand that he had offered to her. It was the one
way in which she could trust herself to answer him.

Still encouraging her to see new hopes and new interests in the
future, the good Captain spoke of the share which she might take
in the management of the Home, if she would like to be his
secretary. With this view he showed her some written reports,
relating to the institution, which had been sent to him during
the time of his residence at Sydenham. She read them with an
interest and attention which amply justified his confidence in
her capacity.

"These reports," he explained to her, "are kept for reference;
but as a means of saving time, the substance of them is entered
in the daily journal of our proceedings. Come, Sydney! venture on
a first experiment in your new character. I see pen, ink, and
paper on the table; try if you can shorten one of the reports,
without leaving out anything which it is important to know. For
instance, the writer gives reasons for making his statement. Very
well expressed, no doubt, but we don't want reasons. Then, again,
he offers his own opinion on the right course to take. Very
creditable to him, but I don't want his opinion--I want his
facts. Take the pen, my secretary, and set down his facts. Never
mind his reflections."

Proud and pleased, Sydney obeyed him. She had made her little
abstract, and was reading it to him at his request, while he
compared it with the report, when they were interrupted by a
visitor. Randal Linley came in, and noticed the papers on the
table with surprise. "Is it possible that I am interrupting
business?" he asked.

Bennydeck answered with the assumed air of importance which was
in itself a compliment to Sydney: "You find me engaged on the
business of the Home with my new secretary."

Randal at once understood what had happened. He took his friend's
arm, and led him to the other end of the room.

"You good fellow!" he said. "Add to your kindness by excusing me
if I ask for a word with you in private."

Sydney rose to retire. After having encouraged her by a word of
praise, the Captain proposed that she should get ready to go out,
and should accompany him on a visit to the Home. He opened the
door for her as respectfully as if the poor girl had been one of
the highest ladies in the land.

"I have seen my friend Sarrazin," Randal began, "and I have
persuaded him to trust me with Catherine's present address. I can
send Herbert there immediately, if you will only help me."

"How can I help you?"

"Will you allow me to tell my brother that your engagement is
broken off?"

Bennydeck shrank from the painful allusion, and showed it.

Randal explained. "I am grieved," he said, "to distress you by
referring to this subject again. But if my brother is left under
the false impression that your engagement will be followed by
your marriage, he will refuse to intrude himself on the lady who
was once his wife."

The Captain understood. "Say what you please about me," he
replied. "Unite the father and child--and you may reconcile the
husband and wife."

"Have you forgotten," Randal asked, "that the marriage has been
dissolved?"

Bennydeck's answer ignored the law. "I remember," he said, "that
the marriage has been profaned."



Chapter LV.


Leave It to the Child.


The front windows of Brightwater Cottage look out on a quiet
green lane in Middlesex, which joins the highroad within a few
miles of the market town of Uxbridge. Through the pretty garden
at the back runs a little brook, winding its merry way to a
distant river. The few rooms in this pleasant place of residence
are well (too well) furnished, having regard to the limits of a
building which is a cottage in the strictest sense of the word.
Water-color drawings by the old English masters of the art
ornament the dining-room. The parlor has been transformed into a
library. From floor to ceiling all four of its walls are covered
with books. Their old and well-chosen bindings, seen in the mass,
present nothing less than a feast of color to the eye. The
library and the works of art are described as heirlooms, which
have passed into the possession of the present proprietor--one
more among the hundreds of Englishmen who are ruined every year
by betting on the Turf.

So sorely in need of a little ready money was this victim of
gambling--tacitly permitted or conveniently ignored by the
audacious hypocrisy of a country which rejoiced in the extinction
of Baden, and which still shudders at the name of Monaco--that he
was ready to let his pretty cottage for no longer a term than one
month certain; and he even allowed the elderly lady, who drove
the hardest of hard bargains with him, to lessen by one guinea
the house-rent paid for each week. He took his revenge by means
of an ironical compliment, addressed to Mrs. Presty. "What a
saving it would be to the country, ma'am, if you were Chancellor
of the Exchequer!" With perfect gravity Mrs. Presty accepted that
well-earned tribute of praise. "You are quite right, sir; I
should be the first official person known to the history of
England who took proper care of the public money."

Within two days of the time when they had left the hotel at
Sydenham, Catherine and her little family circle had taken
possession of the cottage.

The two ladies were sitting in the library each occupied with a
book chosen from the well-stocked shelves. Catherine's reading
appeared to be more than once interrupted by Catherine's
thoughts. Noticing this circumstance, Mrs. Presty asked if some
remarkable event had happened, and if it was weighing heavily on
her daughter's mind.

Catherine answered that she was thinking of Kitty, and that
anxiety connected with the child did weigh heavily on her mind.

Some days had passed (she reminded Mrs. Presty) since the
interview at which Herbert Linley had bidden her farewell. On
that occasion he had referred to her proposed marriage (never to
be a marriage now!) in terms of forbearance and generosity which
claimed her sincerest admiration. It might be possible for her to
show a grateful appreciation of his conduct. Devotedly fond of
his little daughter, he must have felt acutely his long
separation from her; and it was quite likely that he might ask to
see Kitty. But there was an obstacle in the way of her willing
compliance with that request, which it was impossible to think of
without remorse, and which it was imperatively necessary to
remove. Mrs. Presty would understand that she alluded to the
shameful falsehood which had led the child to suppose that her
father was dead.

Strongly disapproving of the language in which her daughter had
done justice to the conduct of the divorced husband, Mrs. Presty
merely replied: "You are Kitty's mother; I leave it to you"--and
returned to her reading.

Catherine could not feel that she had deserved such an answer as
this. "Did I plan the deception?" she asked. "Did I tell the
lie?"

Mrs. Presty was not in the least offended. "You are comparatively
innocent, my dear," she admitted, with an air of satirical
indulgence. "You only consented to the deception, and profited by
the lie. Suppose we own the truth? You are afraid."

Catherine owned the truth in the plainest terms:

"Yes, I _am_ afraid."

"And you leave it to me?"

"I leave it to you."

Mrs. Presty complacently closed her book. "I was quite prepared
to hear it," she said; "all the unpleasant complications since
your Divorce--and Heaven only knows how many of them have
presented themselves--have been left for me to unravel. It so
happens--though I was too modest to mention it prematurely--that
I have unraveled _this_ complication. If one only has eyes to see
it, there is a way out of every difficulty that can possibly
happen." She pushed the book that she had been reading across the
table to Catherine. "Turn to page two hundred and forty," she
said. "There is the way out."

The title of the book was "Disasters at Sea"; and the page
contained the narrative of a shipwreck. On evidence apparently
irresistible, the drowning of every soul on board the lost vessel
had been taken for granted--when a remnant of the passengers and
crew had been discovered on a desert island, and had been safely
restored to their friends. Having read this record of suffering
and suspense, Catherine looked at her mother, and waited for an
explanation.

"Don't you see it?" Mrs. Presty asked.

"I can't say that I do."

The old lady's excellent temper was not in the least ruffled,
even by this.

"Quite inexcusable on my part," she acknowledged; "I ought to
have remembered that you don't inherit your mother's vivid
imagination. Age has left me in full possession of those powers
of invention which used to amaze your poor father. He wondered
how it was that I never wrote a novel. Mr. Presty's appreciation
of my intellect was equally sincere; but he took a different
view. 'Beware, my dear,' he said, 'of trifling with the
distinction which you now enjoy: you are one of the most
remarkable women in England--you have never written a novel.'
Pardon me; I am wandering into the region of literary anecdote,
when I ought to explain myself. Now pray attend to this:--I
propose to tell Kitty that I have found a book which is sure to
interest her; and I shall direct her attention to the lamentable
story which you have just read. She is quite sharp enough (there
are sparks of my intellectual fire in Kitty) to ask if the
friends of the poor shipwrecked people were not very much
surprised to see them again. To this I shall answer: 'Very much,
indeed, for their friends thought they were dead.' Ah, you dear
dull child, you see it now!"

Catherine saw it so plainly that she was eager to put the first
part of the experiment to an immediate trial.

Kitty was sent for, and made her appearance with a fishing-rod
over her shoulder. "I'm going to the brook," she announced;
"expect some fish for dinner to-day."

A wary old hand stopped Catherine, in the act of presenting
"Disasters at Sea," to Kitty's notice; and a voice, distinguished
by insinuating kindness, said to the child: "When you have done
fishing, my dear, come to me; I have got a nice book for you to
read.--How very absurd of you, Catherine," Mrs. Presty continued,
when they were alone again, "to expect the child to read, and
draw her own conclusions, while her head is full of fishing! If
there are any fish in the brook, _she_ won't catch them. When she
comes back disappointed and says: 'What am I to do now?' the
'Disasters at Sea' will have a chance. I make it a rule never to
boast; but if there is a thing that I understand, it's the
management of children. Why didn't I have a large family?"

Attended by the faithful Susan, Kitty baited her hook, and began
to fish where the waters of the brook were overshadowed by trees.

A little arbor covered by a thatched roof, and having walls of
wooden lattice-work, hidden by creepers climbing over them inside
and out, offered an attractive place of rest on this sheltered
side of the garden. Having brought her work with her, the
nursemaid retired to the summer-house and diligently plied her
needle, looking at Kitty from time to time through the open door.
The air was delightfully cool, the pleasant rippling of the brook
fell soothingly on the ear, the seat in the summer-house received
a sitter with the softly-yielding submission of elastic wires.
Susan had just finished her early dinner: in mind and body alike,
this good girl was entirely and deservedly at her ease. By finely
succeeding degrees, her eyelids began to show a tendency
downward; her truant needle-work escaped from her fingers, and
lay lazily on her lap. She snatched it up with a start, and sewed
with severe resolution until her thread was exhausted. The reel
was ready at her side; she took it up for a fresh supply, and
innocently rested her head against the leafy and flowery wall of
the arbor. Was it thought that gradually closed her eyes again?
or was it sleep? In either case, Susan was lost to all sense of
passing events; and Susan's breathing became musically regular,
emulous of the musical regularity of the brook.

As a lesson in patience, the art of angling pursued in a shallow
brook has its moral uses. Kitty fished, and waited, and renewed
the bait and tried again, with a command of temper which would
have been a novelty in Susan's experience, if Susan had been
awake. But the end which comes to all things came also to Kitty's
patience. Leaving her rod on the bank, she let the line and hook
take care of themselves, and wandered away in search of some new
amusement.

Lingering here and there to gather flowers from the beds as she
passed them, Kitty was stopped by a shrubbery, with a rustic seat
placed near it, which marked the limits of the garden on that
side. The path that she had been following led her further and
further away from the brook, but still left it well in view. She
could see, on her right hand, the clumsy old wooden bridge which
crossed the stream, and served as a means of communication for
the servants and the tradespeople, between the cottage and the
village on the lower ground a mile away.

The child felt hot and tired. She rested herself on the bench,
and, spreading the flowers by her side, began to arrange them in
the form of a nosegay. Still true to her love for Sydney, she had
planned to present the nosegay to her mother, offering the gift
as an excuse for returning to the forbidden subject of her
governess, and for asking when they might hope to see each other
again.

Choosing flowers and then rejecting them, trying other colors and
wondering whether she had accomplished a change for the better,
Kitty was startled by the sound of a voice calling to her from
the direction of the brook.

She looked round, and saw a gentleman crossing the bridge. He
asked the way to Brightwater Cottage.

There was something in his voice that attracted her--how or why,
at her age, she never thought of inquiring. Eager and excited,
she ran across the lawn which lay between her and the brook,
before she answered the gentleman's question.

As they approached each other, his eyes sparkled, his face
flushed; he cried out joyfully, "Here she is!"--and then changed
again in an instant. A horrid pallor overspread his face as the
child stood looking at him with innocent curiosity. He startled
Kitty, not because he seemed to be shocked and distressed, she
hardly noticed that; but because he was so like--although he was
thinner and paler and older--oh, so like her lost father!

"This is the cottage, sir," she said faintly.

His sorrowful eyes rested kindly on her. And yet, it seemed as if
she had in some way disappointed him. The child ventured to say:
"Do you know me, sir?"

He answered in the saddest voice that Kitty had ever heard: "My
little girl, what makes you think I know you?"

She was at a loss how to reply, fearing to distress him. She
could only say: "You are so like my poor papa."

He shook and shuddered, as if she had said something to frighten
him. He took her hand. On that hot day, his fingers felt as cold
as if it had been winter time. He led her back to the seat that
she had left. "I'm tired, my dear," he said. "Shall we sit down?"
It was surely true that he was tired. He seemed hardly able to
lift one foot after the other; Kitty pitied him. "I think you
must be ill;" she said, as they took their places, side by side,
on the bench.

"No; not ill. Only weary, and perhaps a little afraid of
frightening you." He kept her hand in his hand, and patted it
from time to time. "My dear, why did you say '_poor_ papa,' when
you spoke of your father just now?"

"My father is dead, sir."

He turned his face away from her, and pressed both hands on his
breast, as if he had felt some dreadful pain there, and was
trying to hide it. But he mastered the pain; and he said a
strange thing to her--very gently, but still it was strange. He
wished to know who had told her that her father was dead.

"Grandmamma told me."

"Do you remember what grandmamma said?"

"Yes--she told me papa was drowned at sea."

He said something to himself, and said it twice over. "Not her
mother! Thank God, not her mother!" What did he mean?

Kitty looked and looked at him, and wondered and wondered. He put
his arm round her. "Come near to me," he said. "Don't be afraid
of me, my dear." She moved nearer and showed him that she was not
afraid. The poor man seemed hardly to understand her. His eyes
grew dim; he sighed like a person in distress; he said: "Your
father would have kissed you, little one, if he had been alive.
You say I am like your father. May I kiss you?"

She put her hands on his shoulder and lifted her face to him. In
the instant when he kissed her, the child knew him. Her heart
beat suddenly with an overpowering delight; she started back from
his embrace. "That's how papa used to kiss me!" she cried. "Oh!
you _are_ papa! Not drowned! not drowned!" She flung her arms
round his neck, and held him as if she would never let him go
again. "Dear papa! Poor lost papa!" His tears fell on her face;
he sobbed over her. "My sweet darling! my own little Kitty!"

The hysterical passion that had overcome her father filled her
with piteous surprise. How strange, how dreadful that he should
cry--that he should be so sorry when she was so glad! She took
her little handkerchief out of the pocket of her pinafore, and
dried his eyes. "Are you thinking of the cruel sea, papa? No! the
good sea, the kind, bright, beautiful sea that has given you back
to me, and to mamma--!"

They had forgotten her mother!--and Kitty only discovered it now.
She caught at one of her father's hands hanging helpless at his
side, and pulled at it as if her little strength could force him
to his feet. "Come," she cried, "and make mamma as happy as I
am!"

He hesitated. She sprang on his knee; she pressed her cheek
against his cheek with the caressing tenderness, familiar to him
in the first happy days when she was an infant. "Oh, papa, are
you going to be unkind to me for the first time in your life?"

His momentary resistance was at an end. He was as weak in her
hands now as if he had been the child and she had been the man.

Laughing and singing and dancing round him, Kitty led the way to
the window of the room that opened on the garden. Some one had
closed it on the inner side. She tapped impatiently at the glass.
Her mother heard the tapping; her mother came to the window; her
mother ran out to meet them. Since the miserable time when they
left Mount Morven, since the long unnatural separation of the
parents and the child, those three were together once more!



AFTER THE STORY



1.--The Lawyer's Apology.


That a woman of my wife's mature years should be jealous of one
of the most exemplary husbands that the records of matrimony can
produce is, to say the least of it, a discouraging circumstance.
A man forgets that virtue is its own reward, and asks, What is
the use of conjugal fidelity?

However, the motto of married life is (or ought to be): Peace at
any price. I have been this day relieved from the condition of
secrecy that has been imposed on me. You insisted on an
explanation some time since. Here it is at last.

For the ten-thousandth time, my dear, in our joint lives, you are
again right. That letter, marked private, which I received at the
domestic tea-table, was what you positively declared it to be, a
letter from a lady--a charming lady, plunged in the deepest
perplexity. We had been well known to each other for many years,
as lawyer and client. She wanted advice on this occasion
also--and wanted it in the strictest confidence. Was it
consistent with my professional duty to show her letter to my
wife? Mrs. Sarrazin says Yes; Mrs. Sarrazin's husband says No.

Let me add that the lady was a person of unblemished reputation,
and that she was placed in a false position through no fault of
her own. In plain English, she was divorced. Ah, my dear (to
speak in the vivid language of the people), do you smell a rat?

Yes: my client was Mrs. Norman; and to her pretty cottage in the
country I betook myself the next day. There I found my excellent
friend Randal Linley, present by special invitation.

Stop a minute. Why do I write all this, instead of explaining
myself by word of mouth? My love, you are a member of an old and
illustrious family; you honored me when you married me; and you
have (as your father told me on our wedding day) the high and
haughty temper of your race. I foresee an explosion of this
temper, and I would rather have my writing-paper blown up than be
blown up myself.

Is this a cowardly confession on my part? All courage, Mrs.
Sarrazin, is relative; the bravest man living has a cowardly side
to his character, though it may not always be found out. Some
years ago, at a public dinner, I sat next to an officer in the
British army. At one time in his life he had led a forlorn hope.
At another time, he had picked up a wounded soldier, and had
carried him to the care of the surgeons through a hail-storm of
the enemy's bullets. Hot courage and cool courage, this true hero
possessed both. _I_ saw the cowardly side of his character. He
lost his color; perspiration broke out on his forehead; he
trembled; he talked nonsense; he was frightened out of his wits.
And all for what? Because he had to get on his legs and make a
speech!

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