Chapter XXXV

“Where is papa?” May asked her mother as they sat down to breakfast. “Did he not come home last night?”

“No.”

“He must have been very busy, surely!”

“I knew he was going to be late; he told me he would be. I rang him up again before I went to bed, but I could get no answer.”

“He must have gone to an hotel, then.”

“I hope so. I’m sure the room he used to use at the office wasn’t ready for him; it is so long since he has stayed there over night. I hope you and Denis will be very particular about getting good rooms, Mr. Rusk. From all one hears, foreigners can’t be trusted in such matters. Your best plan, if you have the slightest suspicion that your sheets are damp, is just to sleep between the blankets. But Denis is so absent-minded he’d never think of looking whether they were damp or not.”

Rusk hastened to reassure her on this point; he would see to the matter himself; but Denis said nothing. He appeared at that moment to be even more absent-minded than usual. His face was pale and there were dusky shadows under his eyes. He looked as if he had not slept, or as if sleep had brought him little refreshment. He seemed nervous and dejected. His mother noticed that he did not look well, and she wondered what had become of the high spirits he had shown ever since his tour with Rusk had been decided on; but she could extract no information as to what it was that ailed him. To all her questions he answered that there was nothing the matter, that he was all right, and then lapsed once more into silence.

They sat over breakfast longer than usual. May had an atlas opened beside her--she had been looking out some of the places the travellers would be passing through--and Rusk had described to Mrs. Bracknel for the twentieth time everything he knew of various routes and trains. He was just beginning for the twenty-first when they heard a car drive up to the door, and directly afterwards there was the sound of footsteps in the hall, followed by a low murmur of subdued voices.

“Who can it be?” May wondered, and all paused to listen. “It’s not papa, is it?” And Denis answered in a strange, dull voice, as if he were speaking in a dream:

“It is Alfred.”

Rusk looked at him, but the others took no notice; they were still trying to make out who was talking in the hall. The boy’s face had grown whiter, and there was a most peculiar expression in his eyes, a look of suspense, of shrinking, which deepened gradually to one of absolute horror, as the door opened and Alfred stood there, very grave and quiet, ready to deliver his tidings.

He hesitated before coming on into the room, and his voice was a little hushed as he wished them all good-morning. Everyone turned toward him save Rusk, whose attention was still held by the extraordinary, the indescribable, gaze with which Denis was watching his brother.

“I have very bad news,” Alfred began in a low voice; and then he paused again.

Mrs. Bracknel had risen to her feet. She stood trembling beside her chair, her white face turned to her son.

“Papa is dead,” Alfred continued in the same tone, avoiding his mother’s expectant, half-terrified gaze. “He died suddenly last night down at the office.”

Mrs. Bracknel sank back into her chair. The next minute May had sprung to her assistance, but her mother waved her back. “It is nothing,” she murmured. “Tell Alfred to go on.”

“There is very little more to say,” Alfred replied. “Where is Denis going to?”

The boy had got out of the window and they could see him running across the lawn. Alfred stared after him. “What’s the matter with _him_, I wonder?” he grunted, relapsing unconsciously into his ordinary manner.

“Oh, Alfred!” said May reproachfully.

The tone of this remark appeared to hurt her brother’s feelings. His face clouded over. “What are you ‘Oh, Alfreding’ about? What have _I_ done?” he asked indignantly.

May, however, had turned back to her mother. “Mamma, won’t you come upstairs?” she murmured. “Won’t you lie down for a little? I can see after everything.” But Mrs. Bracknel waited to hear all Alfred had to tell.

At last she left the room, followed by her daughter, and Alfred and Rusk were left alone. They stood confronting each other uneasily and almost hostilely. Rusk had been struck by a lack of correspondence between the grave, lowered voice in which Alfred had announced his tidings, and a curious expression which had passed a moment later across his face--an expression of intense excitement and animation--something almost triumphant, though at the same time it was alert and restless. Certainly he had never seen him look like that before, and he watched him with a curiosity that was mingled with a vague repugnance. He was convinced that Alfred was filled with a secret and hardly repressible joy.

“They’ll be bringing him up here,” Alfred remarked after a pause, and glancing toward the door to see if it was closed. He mentioned the fact much in the way he might have announced a drop in the barometer, and Rusk made no reply. “In the meantime I think I had better be going.” He had already made one or two vague movements of imperfectly concealed impatience to be gone, but Rusk had not helped him. “There’s a lot to see about, and there’s nothing I can do here,” he went on, as if excusing himself. “I don’t quite know how matters stand yet, but I expect they will be all right. Tell them if they want anything to ring me up, will you? and that I’ll be back as soon as I can. I suppose some of the relations had better be wired to, but May or Amy can look after that.”

“Miss Amy is not here,” Rusk said quietly, following him out into the hall.

Alfred turned. “Not here! Why? Where is she?”

“She went yesterday to stay with one of her aunts.”

“Then she’ll have to be wired to also.... Well, good-bye for the present.”

He made his escape at last, but the door had not very long closed behind him before May reappeared. “Where is Alfred?” she asked, looking round the room in surprise, “Mamma wants him.”

“I’m afraid he has gone back into town,” Rusk said. He delivered his various messages, and May sat down while she listened. She held her chin supported between her hands and looked toward the window.

“I can hardly realize it,” she faintly sounded, in an awed and wondering voice. “It seems almost impossible! I never even knew there was anything the matter with him. Nobody knew except mamma and the doctor.”

Rusk tried hard to think of some way in which he could express his sympathy, but he had not yet discovered one when the girl again rose.

“I must go back to mamma for a moment; she is waiting to see Alfred. I must tell her that he has gone. It is very strange, his running off like that!”

Rusk sat on alone. He knew Mr. Bracknel had not been greatly beloved by his children, but he was sure his death would be a tremendous blow to his wife; and she seemed so little able to bear a sudden shock. The old problem as to the nature of that mysterious attachment flitted again through his mind.

“Has Denis come back?” May asked from the door. She had returned a second time and was now looking for her other brother.

“No, I don’t think so. I haven’t seen him at any rate.”

May gazed out across the lawn. “I wish you had both got safely away before this dreadful thing happened,” she murmured. “When you are not close to a thing it makes it so much less real.... I wonder ought I to bring Amy home, or to tell her not to come? I must wire to her in any case, and there are some other wires I must send.”

“Can’t I help you?”

She accepted his offer at once. “Thanks, if you will. I am sure to do everything wrong. I feel almost as if I were dreaming a bad dream.... I have sent for Doctor Birch to come to see mamma. She is not at all well. It was such a shock to her. Alfred told us so abruptly.”

“It is never easy to tell such news,” Rusk said. “I daresay it is best to get it over quickly.”

“You will not mind putting off your arrangements for a little, will you? I mean about going abroad. Wouldn’t it be better if Denis met you in London? I should think he might go in a week or so--when everything is settled. That is, unless you yourself wish to stay for the funeral. But it isn’t at all necessary that you should, you know, and it would be very unpleasant for you. You don’t mind my speaking so plainly, do you? It is only because I feel we are old enough friends to understand each other.”

“I will do whatever you think best,” Rusk answered. “I suppose there will be some people coming.”

“I expect so. I will tell you later. But it was not of that I was thinking--it was just the whole thing--the house will be so uncomfortable.”

“Well, I will do anything you want.”

“I think I will get mamma to ask the Birches to take Denis in for a day or two: he will be better out of all the fuss.”

“That is a good idea. I am glad you thought of it.”

“I am sure they won’t mind.... I wonder what has happened to him!”

He helped her to send off the telegrams: then he went out in search of his pupil, but could not find him anywhere. On coming back to the house, however, he met Doctor Birch who was just leaving, and turned and walked a short distance with him, drawn by that mysterious fascination which lies in the discussion of death and misfortune when they are not too intimately tragic.

“This is a very sudden affair,” the Doctor commented, and Rusk answered, “Very.” They both derived a faint, inexplicable satisfaction from the exchange of even these remarks.

“I hope Mrs. Bracknel is feeling better,” Rusk immediately added. “It must have been a great shock to her.”

“A great shock--a great shock--but she is keeping up wonderfully. My sisters will be over some time in the afternoon to see her.”

There was a short pause.

“I never thought he looked a very healthy man,” Rusk then remarked, attacking the real subject. “He seemed, too, to be slightly--what shall I call it?--hysterical--nervous.”

“It was the life he led--absolutely killing. Besides, what he suffered from often makes people irritable.... I’ve told them not to talk about him before the boy. Worst possible thing for him: but of course they _will_ talk. They’ve already transformed the house into a kind of tomb--all the blinds down and everybody speaking in whispers. I suggested that you should take him away at once: I suppose you will hardly want to wait? But they have some idiotic idea that he ought to be there for his father’s funeral, that people would think it queer if he wasn’t.”

“They _would_, probably,” Rusk replied. “I expect I shall cross to-night. There are sure to be a good many relations coming, and at any rate I am only in the way at a time like this.”

“Well, can’t you persuade them to let you take Denis with you? They can send his things on after him if they’re not ready.”

Rusk promised to do his best, though without much idea of succeeding. When he returned to the house he found it wrapped in gloom and silence. Denis had not come back, and Mrs. Bracknel was lying down. Alfred had again come and gone.

Rusk and May, in the darkened dining-room, sat down to lunch alone. He told her of his decision to cross to England that night. If they would not let Denis come with him, he would meet him in London on any day they arranged. Would they let him come?

But May was sure her mother would wish her younger son to be present at his father’s funeral, and Rusk himself, for that matter, did not see that a few days one way or other could make much difference. He certainly did not think it worth while worrying Mrs. Bracknel about it, if she wanted Denis to stay.

In the afternoon he went to his own room to pack his things. He had nearly finished and it was growing dusk when his pupil came in search of him. The boy looked pale and dishevelled, with a wild expression in his eyes. At a single glance he took in the situation.

“You are going away?” he said.

“Yes: I am going to-night. You are to join me in a few days.”

“But why are you going ...? If you go I will go too,” cried Denis in a sudden excitement.

Rusk paused in his packing. He did not quite know what to do. “Your mother wants you to stay,” he said gently. “You will come over after the funeral, and I shall meet you.”

Denis looked at him piteously. “I can’t stay,” he moaned. “I can’t--I can’t. I only came in now to look for you.” He flung himself down on the bed and hid his face in the pillow.

Rusk tried to soothe him. He called him by his name, and stroked his dark, coarse hair. Suddenly, Denis sat up. He put his hand on his tutor’s. “I know what happened,” he whispered, staring at the opposite wall. “I knew it all before I came down to breakfast this morning. I knew he was dead. I had a dreadful dream about him--that he was struggling against something or someone that was killing him.”

Rusk looked at him in consternation, but the boy went on rapidly:

“I saw him struggling,” he whispered once more. “That was all I could see, but it was horrible. And when I woke up you were asleep.... And then--when I looked at the window--staring in at me--oh, his dreadful face--papa’s.” His voice had risen in a sudden shrillness, and when he had finished speaking he sat still and trembling.

“But all this is only a dream,” Rusk said painfully, though the horror in the boy’s voice had sent a sudden chill into his soul. That horror, indeed, seemed in the gathering darkness to be floating very near them, and he felt a strain on his nerves which he could not shake off.

“I saw it--I saw it,” Denis repeated with an intensity that seemed to spring from hallucination. “I saw it last night; and when Alfred came into the room this morning there was something strange about him. He seemed to know--oh, he knew--he knew--he knew....” Denis was clinging to him now, and Rusk held him close, and closer still--held him as if to shield him for ever from all harm. They sat there in the growing darkness. He could feel the boy’s face cold and damp. The sweat stood upon his forehead though he was shivering.

“I will stay with you to-night,” Rusk said. “Denis, you mustn’t think of this any more. It was only a horrible dream--a nightmare. It is only because of what really happened that it seems so terrible to you; but there is nothing more in it than that. You must forget it; you must be a man; you must put it from you.”

“I can’t--I can’t,” the boy moaned. “Why are we like this, Mr. Rusk? Why should we be different from other people? But we are--we are. We are all tainted. There is something wrong with Alfred--with me--with all of us.... You must go away; you can do nothing. Why should you stay among us? This house is haunted. It is not meant for you. For us it is different--that is the air we have breathed for long--long. We are tainted--we are tainted.” His voice broke in a kind of sob, though there were no tears in his eyes.

“My dear boy--my poor boy,” Rusk murmured, trying to comfort him. “Dearest Denis, you mustn’t think such things. In a week or two when we are far away--do you hear?--far, far away--all this will be different. Just now you are tired, and everything seems wrong. But ... there is more good in the world than evil.... You will trust me, won’t you? It you have ever trusted me, trust me now.”

“I shall never go away,” said the boy wretchedly, and with a desolating conviction in his voice. “Something will prevent me, something will hold me back. I can feel it near me now. It will take some form--it will keep me--it will hold me fast--I shall never go away.”

A clock downstairs struck the hour. Rusk listened to the sound, and then to the following silence. “Will you promise me not to tell your dream to anyone else?” he asked. “I do not mean by that that I attach the slightest importance to it in the way that you do, for I don’t. But it would be very painful to whoever you told it to.”

“I have not told it to anyone but you,” said Denis. “Only I can’t bear to see Alfred. I couldn’t stay in the room with him this morning. I could hardly keep from crying out what I knew; something seemed forcing me to, and I went out to prevent it. I have been walking for miles. I don’t know where I have been; I don’t know how I found my way back.”

“But if you were to say to anyone else what you told me, it would be horrible,” said Rusk despairingly. “What can I do to prevent you?”

“I won’t say it. I won’t say it,” the boy promised.

“You promise faithfully?”

“Yes--yes. Why should I want anybody else to know? It is bad enough for me to know. I wish I could forget it.”

“You _will_ forget it,” Rusk assured him.

“No--no.” His face turned suddenly toward the window, and his whole body stiffened.

“What is it? What is it?” Rusk asked in a kind of agony.

“There! It is there at the window, looking in.” He gave a little cry in his throat and fell back on the bed.

Rusk rose hastily and lit the lamp. Denis lay there, pale and unconscious, as if he had had some kind of fit. It was some time before Rusk could revive him. Presently, however, he half opened his eyes; and then he opened them altogether and smiled a strange, sad, dim, little smile at his tutor who was bending over him.

“Are you better?” Rusk asked anxiously, raising him in his arms.

“Yes ... I am very sorry for frightening you. I couldn’t help it.” He sighed, and his head sank forward on Rusk’s shoulder. “It will come back always now,” he said hopelessly, helplessly. “I thought it mightn’t; I got out of bed last night and prayed not to see it again; but it is no use; it will come back always.” He spoke quietly, but the simple despair in his voice to Rusk was worse than anything else.

“There was nothing there,” he said almost passionately, “absolutely nothing. I swear it. There was nothing but the curtain. I too looked. It was only your imagination.”