Book: The Evil Genius

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"I'm afraid I shall be shut out," she repeated. "Pray let me get
back."

He yielded at once to the wish that she expressed. "You must let
me take you back," he explained. "They are all asleep at the
house by this time. No! no! don't be frightened again. I have got
the key of the door. The moment I have opened it, you shall go in
by yourself."

She looked at him gratefully. "You are not offended with me now,
Mr. Linley," she said. "You are like your kind self again ."

They ascended the steps which led to the door. Linley took the
key from his pocket. It acted perfectly in drawing back the lock;
but the door, when he pushed it, resisted him. He put his
shoulder against it, and exerted his strength, helped by his
weight. The door remained immovable.

Had one of the servants--sitting up later than usual after the
party, and not aware that Mr. Linley had gone into the
garden--noticed the door, and carefully fastened the bolts on the
inner side? That was exactly what had happened.

There was nothing for it but to submit to circumstances. Linley
led the way down the steps again. "We are shut out," he said.

Sydney listened in silent dismay. He seemed to be merely amused;
he treated their common misfortune as lightly as if it had been a
joke.

"There's nothing so very terrible in our situation," he reminded
her. "The servants' offices will be opened between six and seven
o'clock; the weather is perfect; and the summer-house in the
French Garden has one easy-chair in it, to my certain knowledge,
in which you may rest and sleep. I'm sure you must be tired--let
me take you there."

She drew back, and looked up at the house.

"Can't we make them hear us?" she asked.

"Quite impossible. Besides--" He was about to remind her of the
evil construction which might be placed on their appearance
together, returning from the garden at an advanced hour of the
night; but her innocence pleaded with him to be silent. He only
said, "You forget that we all sleep at the top of our old castle.
There is no knocker to the door, and no bell that rings upstairs.
Come to the summer-house. In an hour or two more we shall see the
sun rise."

She took his arm in silence. They reached the French Garden
without another word having passed between them.

The summer-house had been designed, in harmony with the French
taste of the last century, from a classical model. It was a rough
copy in wood of The Temple of Vesta at Rome. Opening the door for
his companion, Linley paused before he followed her in. A girl
brought up by a careful mother would have understood and
appreciated his hesitation; she would have concealed any feeling
of embarrassment that might have troubled her at the moment, and
would have asked him to come back and let her know when the
rising of the sun began. Neglected by her mother, worse than
neglected by her aunt, Sydney's fearless ignorance put a question
which would have lowered the poor girl cruelly in the estimation
of a stranger. "Are you going to leave me here by myself?" she
asked. "Why don't you come in?"

Linley thought of his visit to the school, and remembered the
detestable mistress. He excused Sydney; he felt for her. She held
the door open for him. Sure of himself, he entered the
summer-house.

As a mark of respect on her part, she offered the armchair to
him: it was the one comfortable seat in the neglected place. He
insisted that she should take it; and, searching the
summer-house, found a wooden stool for himself. The small
circular room received but little of the dim outer light--they
were near each other--they were silent. Sydney burst suddenly
into a nervous little laugh.

"Why do you laugh?" he asked good-humoredly.

"It seems so strange, Mr. Linley, for us to be out here." In the
moment when she made that reply her merriment vanished; she
looked out sadly, through the open door, at the stillness of the
night. "What should I have done," she wondered, "if I had been
shut out of the house by myself?" Her eyes rested on him timidly;
there was some thought in her which she shrank from expressing.
She only said: "I wish I knew how to be worthy of your kindness."

Her voice warned him that she was struggling with strong emotion.
In one respect, men are all alike; they hate to see a woman in
tears. Linley treated her like a child; he smiled, and patted her
on the shoulder. "Nonsense!" he said gayly. "There is no merit in
being kind to my good little governess."

She took that comforting hand--it was a harmless impulse that she
was unable to resist--she bent over it, and kissed it gratefully.
He drew his hand away from her as if the soft touch of her lips
had been fire that burned it. "Oh," she cried, "have I done
wrong?"

"No, my dear--no, no."

There was an embarrassment in his manner, the inevitable result
of his fear of himself if he faltered in the resolute exercise of
self-restraint, which was perfectly incomprehensible to Sydney.
He moved his seat back a little, so as to place himself further
away. Something in that action, at that time, shocked and
humiliated her. Completely misunderstanding him, she thought he
was reminding her of the distance that separated them in social
rank. Oh, the shame of it! the shame of it! Would other
governesses have taken a liberty with their master? A fit of
hysterical sobbing burst its way through her last reserves of
self-control; she started to her feet, and ran out of the
summer-house.

Alarmed and distressed, he followed her instantly.

She was leaning against the pedestal of a statue in the garden,
panting, shuddering, a sight to touch the heart of a far less
sensitive man than the man who now approached her. "Sydney!" he
said. "Dear little Sydney!" She tried to speak to him in return.
Breath and strength failed her together; she lifted her hand,
vainly grasping at the broad pedestal behind her; she would have
fallen if he had not caught her in his arms. Her head sank
faintly backward on his breast. He looked at the poor little
tortured face, turned up toward him in the lovely moonlight.
Again and again he had honorably restrained himself--he was
human; he was a man--in one mad moment it was done, hotly,
passionately done--he kissed her.

For the first time in her maiden's life, a man's lips touched her
lips. All that had been perplexing and strange, all that had been
innocently wonderful to herself in the feeling that bound Sydney
to her first friend, was a mystery no more. Love lifted its veil,
Nature revealed its secrets, in the one supreme moment of that
kiss. She threw her arms around his neck with a low cry of
delight--and returned his kiss.

"Sydney," he whispered, "I love you."

She heard him in rapturous silence. Her kiss had answered for
her.

At that crisis in their lives, they were saved by an accident; a
poor little common accident that happens every day. The spring in
the bracelet that Sydney wore gave way as she held him to her;
the bright trinket fell on the grass at her feet. The man never
noticed it. The woman saw her pretty ornament as it dropped from
her arm--saw, and remembered Mrs. Linley's gift.

Cold and pale--with horror of herself confessed in the action,
simple as it was--she drew back from him in dead silence.

He was astounded. In tones that trembled with agitation, he said
to her: "Are you ill?"

"Shameless and wicked," she answered. "Not ill." She pointed to
the bracelet on the grass. "Take it up; I am not fit to touch it.
Look on the inner side."

He remembered the inscription: "To Sydney Westerfield, with
Catherine Linley's love." His head sank on his breast; he
understood her at last. "You despise me," he said, "and I deserve
it."

"No; I despise myself. I have lived among vile people; and I am
vile like them."

She moved a few steps away with a heavy sigh. "Kitty!" she said
to herself. "Poor little Kitty!"

He followed her. "Why are you thinking of the child," he asked,
"at such a time as this?"

She replied without returning or looking round; distrust of
herself had inspired her with terror of Linley, from the time
when the bracelet had dropped on the grass.

"I can make but one atonement," she said. "We must see each other
no more. I must say good-by to Kitty--I must go. Help me to
submit to my hard lot--I must go."

He set her no example of resignation; he shrank from the prospect
that she presented to him.

"Where are you to go if you leave us?" he asked.

"Away from England! The further away from _you_ the better for
both of us. Help me with your interest; have me sent to the new
world in the west, with other emigrants. Give me something to
look forward to that is not shame and despair. Let me do
something that is innocent and good--I may find a trace of my
poor lost brother. Oh, let me go! Let me go!"

Her resolution shamed him. He rose to her level, in spite of
himself.

"I dare not tell you that you are wrong," he said. "I only ask
you to wait a little till we are calmer, before you speak of the
future again." He pointed to the summer-house. "Go in, my poor
girl. Rest, and compose yourself, while I try to think."

He left her, and paced up and down the formal walks in the
garden. Away from the maddening fascination of her presence, his
mind grew clearer. He resisted the temptation to think of her
tenderly; he set himself to consider what it would be well to do
next.

The moonlight was seen no more. Misty and starless, the dark sky
spread its majestic obscurity over the earth. Linley looked
wearily toward the eastern heaven. The darkness daunted him; he
saw in it the shadow of his own sense of guilt. The gray
glimmering of dawn, the songs of birds when the pure light softly
climbed the sky, roused and relieved him. With the first radiant
rising of the sun he returned to the summer-house.

"Do I disturb you?" he asked, waiting at the door.

"No."

"Will you come out and speak to me?"

She appeared at the door, waiting to hear what he had to say to
her.

"I must ask you to submit to a sacrifice of your own feelings,"
he began. "When I kept away from you in the drawing room, last
night--when my strange conduct made you fear that you had
offended me--I was trying to remember what I owed to my good
wife. I have been thinking of her again. We must spare her a
discovery too terrible to be endured, while her attention is
claimed by the guests who are now in the house. In a week's time
they will leave us. Will you consent to keep up appearances? Will
you live with us as usual, until we are left by ourselves?"

"It shall be done, Mr. Linley. I only ask one favor of you. My
worst enemy is my own miserable wicked heart. Oh, don't you
understand me? I am ashamed to look at you!"

He had only to examine his own heart, and to know what she meant.
"Say no more," he answered sadly. "We will keep as much away from
each other as we can."

She shuddered at that open recognition of the guilty love which
united them, in spite of their horror of it, and took refuge from
him in the summer-house. Not a word more passed between them
until the unbarring of doors was heard in the stillness of the
morning, and the smoke began to rise from the kitchen chimney.
Then he returned, and spoke to her.

"You can get back to the house," he said. "Go up by the front
stairs, and you will not meet the servants at this early hour. If
they do see you, you have your cloak on; they will think you have
been in the garden earlier than usual. As you pass the upper
door, draw back the bolts quietly, and I can let myself in."

She bent her head in silence. He looked after her as she hastened
away from him over the lawn; conscious of admiring her, conscious
of more than he dared realize to himself. When she disappeared,
he turned back to wait where she had been waiting. With his sense
of the duty he owed to his wife penitently present to his mind,
the memory of that fatal kiss still left its vivid impression on
him. "What a scoundrel I am!" he said to himself as he stood
alone in the summer-house, looking at the chair which she had
just left.


Chapter X.


Kitty Mentions Her Birthday.


A clever old lady, possessed of the inestimable advantages of
worldly experience, must submit nevertheless to the laws of
Nature. Time and Sleep together--powerful agents in the small
hours of the morning--had got the better of Mrs. Presty's
resolution to keep awake. Free from discovery, Sydney ascended
the stairs. Free from discovery, Sydney entered her own room.

Half-an-hour later, Linley opened the door of his dressing-room.
His wife was still sleeping. His mother-in-law woke two hours
later; looked at her watch; and discovered that she had lost her
opportunity. Other old women, under similar circumstances, might
have felt discouraged. This old woman believed in her own
suspicions more devoutly than ever. When the breakfast-bell rang,
Sydney found Mrs. Presty in the corridor, waiting to say good
morning.

"I wonder what you were doing last night, when you ought to have
been in bed?" the old lady began, with a treacherous amiability
of manner. "Oh, I am not mistaken! your door was open, my dear,
and I looked in."

"Why did you look in, Mrs. Presty?"

"My young friend, I was naturally anxious about you. I am anxious
still. Were you in the house? or out of the house?"

"I was walking in the garden," Sydney replied.

"Admiring the moonlight?"

"Yes; admiring the moonlight."

"Alone, of course?" Sydney's friend suggested.

And Sydney took refuge in prevarication. "Why should you doubt
it?" she said.

Mrs. Presty wasted no more time in asking questions. She was
pleasantly reminded of the words of worldly wisdom which she had
addressed to her daughter on the day of Sydney's arrival at Mount
Morven. "The good qualities of that unfortunate young creature"
(she had said) "can _not_ have always resisted the horrid
temptations and contaminations about her. Hundreds of times she
must have lied through ungovernable fear." Elevated a little
higher than ever in her own estimation, Mrs. Presty took Sydney's
arm, and led her down to breakfast with motherly familiarity.
Linley met them at the foot of the stairs. His mother-in-law
first stole a look at Sydney, and then shook hands with him
cordially. "My dear Herbert, how pale you are! That horrid
smoking. You look as if you had been up all night."



Mrs. Linley paid her customary visit to the schoolroom that
morning.

The necessary attention to her guests had left little leisure for
the exercise of observation at the breakfast-table; the one
circumstance which had forced itself on her notice had been the
boisterous gayety of her husband. Too essentially honest to
practice deception of any kind cleverly, Linley had overacted the
part of a man whose mind was entirely at ease. The most
unsuspicious woman living, his wife was simply amused "How he
does enjoy society!" she thought. "Herbert will be a young man to
the end of his life."

In the best possible spirits--still animated by her successful
exertions to entertain her friends--Mrs. Linley opened the
schoolroom door briskly. "How are the lessons getting on?" she
began--and checked herself with a start, "Kitty!" she exclaimed,
"Crying?"

The child ran to her mother with tears in her eyes. "Look at Syd!
She sulks; she cries; she won't talk to me--send for the doctor."

"You tiresome child, I don't want the doctor. I'm not ill."

"There, mamma!" cried Kitty. "She never scolded me before
to-day."

In other words, here was a complete reversal of the usual order
of things in the schoolroom. Patient Sydney was out of temper;
gentle Sydney spoke bitterly to the little friend whom she loved.
Mrs. Linley drew a chair to the governess's side, and took her
hand. The strangely altered girl tore her hand away and burst
into a violent fit of crying. Puzzled and frightened, Kitty (to
the best of a child's ability) followed her example. Mrs. Linley
took her daughter on her knee, and gave Sydney's outbreak of
agitation time to subside. There were no feverish appearances in
her face, there was no feverish heat in her skin when their hands
had touched each other for a moment. In all probability the
mischief was nervous mischief, and the outburst of weeping was an
hysterical effort at relief.

"I am afraid, my dear, you have had a bad night," Mrs. Linley
said.

"Bad? Worse than bad!"

Sydney stopped; looked at her good mistress and friend in terror;
and made a confused effort to explain away what she had just
said. As sensibly and kindly self-possessed as ever, Mrs. Linley
told her that she only wanted rest and quiet. "Let me take you to
my room," she proposed. "We will have the sofa moved into the
balcony, and you will soon go to sleep in the delicious warm air.
You may put away your books, Kitty; this is a holiday. Come with
me, and be petted and spoiled by the ladies in the morning-room."

Neither the governess nor the pupil was worthy of the sympathy so
frankly offered to them. Still strangely confused, Sydney made
commonplace apologies and asked leave to go out and walk in the
park. Hearing this, Kitty declared that where her governess went
she would go too. Mrs. Linley smoothed her daughter's pretty
auburn hair, and said, playfully: "I think I ought to be
jealous." To her surprise, Sydney looked up as if the words had
been addressed to herself "You mustn't be fonder, my dear, of
your governess," Mrs. Linley went on, "than you are of your
mother." She kissed the child, and, rising to go, discovered that
Sydney had moved to another part of the room. She was standing at
the piano, with a page of music in her hand. The page was upside
down--and she had placed herself in a position which concealed
her face. Slow as Mrs. Linley was to doubt any person (more
especially a person who interested her), she left the room with a
vague fear of something wrong, and with a conviction that she
would do well to consult her husband.

Hearing the door close, Sydney looked round. She and Kitty were
alone again; and Kitty was putting away her books without showing
any pleasure at the prospect of a holiday.

Sydney took the child fondly in her arms. "Would you be very
sorry," she asked, "if I was obliged to go away, some day, and
leave you?" Kitty turned pale with terror at the dreadful
prospect which those words presented. "There! there! I am only
joking," Sydney said, shocked at the effect which her attempt to
suggest the impending separation had produced. "You shall come
with me, darling; we will walk in the park together."

Kitty's face brightened directly. She proposed extending their
walk to the paddock, and feeding the cows. Sydney readily
consented. Any amusement was welcome to her which diverted the
child's attention from herself.

They had been nearly an hour in the park, and were returning to
the house through a clump of trees, when Sydney's companion,
running on before her, cried: "Here's papa!" Her first impulse
was to draw back behind a tree, in the hope of escaping notice.
Linley sent Kitty away to gather a nosegay of daisies, and joined
Sydney under the trees.

"I have been looking for you everywhere," he said. "My wife--"

Sydney interrupted him. "Discovered!" she exclaimed.

"There is nothing that need alarm you," he replied. "Catherine is
too good and too true herself to suspect others easily. She sees
a change in you that she doesn't understand--she asks if I have
noticed it--and that is all. But her mother has the cunning of
the devil. There is a serious reason for controlling yourself."

He spoke so earnestly that he startled her. "Are you angry with
me?" she asked.

"Angry! Does the man live who could be angry with you?"

"It might be better for both of us if you _were_ angry with me. I
have to control myself; I will try again. Oh, if you only knew
what I suffer when Mrs. Linley is kind to me!"

He persisted in trying to rouse her to a sense of the danger that
threatened them, while the visitors remained in the house. "In a
few days, Sydney, there will be no more need for the deceit that
is now forced on us. Till that time comes, remember--Mrs. Presty
suspects us."

Kitty ran back to them with her hands full of daisies before they
could say more.

"There is your nosegay, papa. No; I don't want you to thank me--I
want to know what present you are going to give me." Her father's
mind was preoccupied; he looked at her absently. The child's
sense of her own importance was wounded: she appealed to her
governess. "Would you believe it?" she asked. "Papa has forgotten
that next Tuesday is my birthday!"

"Very well, Kitty; I must pay the penalty of forgetting. What
present would you like to have?"

"I want a doll's perambulator."

"Ha! In my time we were satisfied with a doll."

They all three looked round. Another person had suddenly joined
in the talk. There was no mistaking the person's voice: Mrs.
Presty appeared among the trees, taking a walk in the park. Had
she heard what Linley and the governess had said to each other
while Kitty was gathering daisies?

"Quite a domestic scene!" the sly old lady remarked. "Papa,
looking like a saint in a picture, with flowers in his hand.
Papa's spoiled child always wanting something, and always getting
it. And papa's governess, so sweetly fresh and pretty that I
should certainly fall in love with her, if I had the advantage of
being a man. You have no doubt remarked Herbert--I think I hear
the bell; shall we go to lunch?--you have no doubt, I say,
remarked what curiously opposite styles Catherine and Miss
Westerfield present; so charming, and yet such complete
contrasts. I wonder whether they occasionally envy each other's
good looks? Does my daughter ever regret that she is not Miss
Westerfield? And do you, my dear, some times wish you were Mrs.
Linley?"

"While we are about it, let me put a third question," Linley
interposed. "Are you ever aware of it yourself, Mrs. Presty, when
you are talking nonsense?"

He was angry, and he showed it in that feeble reply. Sydney felt
the implied insult offered to her in another way. It roused her
to the exercise of self-control as nothing had roused her yet.
She ignored Mrs. Presty's irony with a composure worthy of Mrs.
Presty herself. "Where is the woman," she said, "who would _not_
wish to be as beautiful as Mrs. Linley--and as good?"

"Thank you, my dear, for a compliment to my daughter: a sincere
compliment, no doubt. It comes in very neatly and nicely," Mrs.
Presty acknowledged, "after my son-in-law's little outbreak of
temper. My poor Herbert, when will you understand that I mean no
harm? I am an essentially humorous person; my wonderful spirits
are always carrying me away. I do assure you, Miss Westerfield, I
don't know what worry is. My troubles--deaths in the family, and
that sort of thing--seem to slip off me in a most remarkable
manner. Poor Mr. Norman used to attribute it to my excellent
digestion. My second husband would never hear of such an
explanation as that. His high ideal of women shrank from
allusions to stomachs. He used to speak so nicely (quoting some
poet) of the sunshine of my breast. Vague, perhaps," said Mrs.
Presty, modestly looking down at the ample prospect of a personal
nature which presented itself below her throat, "but so
flattering to one's feelings. There's the luncheon bell again, I
declare! I'll run on before and tell them you are coming. Some
people might say they wished to be punctual. I am truth itself,
and I own I don't like to be helped to the underside of the fish.
_Au revoir!_ Do you remember, Miss Westerfield, when I asked you
to repeat _au revoir_ as a specimen of your French? I didn't
think much of your accent. Oh, dear me, I didn't think much of
your accent!"

Kitty looked after her affluent grandmother with eyes that stared
respectfully in ignorant admiration. She pulled her father's
coat-tail, and addressed herself gravely to his private ear. "Oh,
papa, what noble words grandmamma has!"



Chapter Xl.



Linley Asserts His Authority.


On the evening of Monday in the new week, the last of the
visitors had left Mount Morven. Mrs. Linley dropped into a chair
(in, what Randal called, "the heavenly tranquillity of the
deserted drawing-room") and owned that the effort of entertaining
her guests had completely worn her out. "It's too absurd, at my
time of life," she said with a faint smile; "but I am really and
truly so tired that I must go to bed before dark, as if I was a
child again."

Mrs. Presty--maliciously observant of the governess, sitting
silent and apart in a corner--approached her daughter in a hurry;
to all appearance with a special object in view. Linley was at no
loss to guess what that object might be. "Will you do me a favor,
Catherine?" Mrs. Presty began. "I wish to say a word to you in
your own room."

"Oh, mamma, have some mercy on me, and put it off till
to-morrow!"

Mrs. Presty reluctantly consented to this proposal, on one
condition. "It is understood," she stipulated "that I am to see
you the first thing in the morning?"

Mrs. Linley was ready to accept that condition, or any condition,
which promised her a night of uninterrupted repose. She crossed
the room to her husband, and took his arm. "In my state of
fatigue, Herbert, I shall never get up our steep stairs, unless
you help me."

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