Chapter VIII: A Sudden Blow

“Malcolm,” said Mrs. Frazer to her son, a few minutes after Mr. Ivraine’s arrival, “I wish you would see what is keeping your uncle; tell him breakfast is ready.”

“Mina,” cried Malcolm, one of the laziest of mortals, unless he were engaged in some occupation he cared for, “run up stairs like a good child and deliver your mama’s message; be quick now, and do not get into any mischief by the way;” and having thus shifted the trouble on to his sister’s shoulders, he drew his chair a little closer to the fire and, commenting on the coldness of the morning, began to stir the already blazing coals into a brighter glow, talking and jesting in his usual careless style as he did so.

He had just uttered some pleasantry, when, in the middle of the laugh which followed it, the door was flung suddenly open, and, making but one bound to where he was seated, Mina, as if the sound of his merriment maddened her, laid her hand over his mouth and uttered the single word “stop,” in a tone which rung in Ernest Ivraine’s ears for months afterwards.

“What is the matter?” demanded her brother, looking in blank amazement in her horror-stricken face; “have you seen a ghost? speak, can’t you?”

“I—I’ve seen a corpse,” she gasped out, cowering down on the hearthrug and burying her face in her hands, as though to shut out some horrible sight; “he is dead!”

With a simultaneous exclamation of horror, Malcolm and Ernest rushed out of the apartment and up the staircase together. The door of an outer chamber, which Mr. Merapie had used half as dressing-room, half as library, was wide open, and, hurrying in, they beheld John Merapie sitting behind a small writing-table, his head falling back over the top of an old-fashioned chair, his eyes staring; his features fixed, rigid, cold, in death.

To have seen Malcolm Frazer’s demeanour, one would have imagined he had lost his senses; he moaned and raved and tore his hair, and finally betaking himself to the bell-pull, he commenced ringing with such violence as speedily brought the few servants the house contained to the spot.

“What is it you want?” Ernest Ivraine kept demanding, whilst he busied himself endeavouring to discover whether any spark of life still remained, “what is it you want?”

“A doctor, send for a doctor, go for a doctor!” Malcolm almost screamed out at last; and though he saw it was perfectly hopeless, Ernest Ivraine did speed forth on his dreary errand, and returned in five minutes’ time, dragging little Dr. Richards with him.

“Been gone for hours,” were the first words the brusque man of medicine spoke when he glanced at the stiffened countenance; “past human aid long ago, long ago; poor Merapie!” and the doctor’s voice softened as he murmured the concluding words. “It’s of no use doing anything,” he added, in answer to Malcolm’s wild entreaty for him to bleed, to blister, to restore heat, to try some vague means for bringing back the dead to life, not to lose time, but if he could suggest nothing to send for further help at once.

“What you desire is impossible,” said Dr. Richards in a much gentler manner than usual; “all the physicians in England, all the skill and medicine in the world, could not make his pulse beat even once again.”

But still Malcolm implored so earnestly that means might be employed, that Mr. Ivraine whispered in the doctor’s ear, “It is useless, I see, but do humour him, he is almost crazy.”

“Never minded a syllable his uncle spoke when living, but goes frantic about him now he is dead,” growled out the doctor; then, addressing Malcolm, he continued, “I tell you, young man, we can only treat breathing bodies, not inanimate corpses; but if it will be any satisfaction to you, go quietly down stairs, leave me in peace, and I promise that, if mortal power can be of any avail, I will do my very best.”

“And I will assist you,” cried Malcolm; and as, spite of all persuasion and entreaty and command, he would not leave the room, Ernest stole away from the dreary apartment to see how it fared with Mina.

She had never changed her position since the first; Mrs. Frazer was in a swoon, and women were ministering to her, but Mina, as though turned into stone, still remained in the attitude into which she had fallen at the beginning: they had spoken to her, but she never answered; striven to move her, but in vain; there she was, just as when he left her, half kneeling, half sitting, before the fire, her face hidden from observation, neither weeping, moaning, nor sobbing; she was shivering and trembling, that was all.

“Miss Frazer,” said Ernest; but she gave no answer: then he strove to arouse her by a gentle touch, laid on her shoulder; but finding all his efforts as ineffectual as those of the women had been, he stooped down, and by means of some slight violence, at last succeeded in withdrawing her hands from her face.

Such a look! the dark terrified eyes never met his, but gazed afar off, as if fastened on some horrible spectacle, from which she found it impossible to avert them. Every vestige of natural colour had fled from her face; it was not white or red, but almost black; her lips were parted, and the chattering teeth, and quick unequal breathing, showed the shock she had received—the fright she was even then experiencing. Ernest was glad to release her hands again, and let her head drop upon them once more; but nothing could obliterate the recollection of that fixed expression of horror from his mind: it haunted him in dreams in after years.

“Doctor,” he said to his old acquaintance, after Malcolm had been dragged from the death chamber and Mrs. Frazer carried to her own apartment, where the man of medicine had first drowned her in hartshorn and sal volatile, to rescue her from a fainting fit, and then dosed her with opiates to avert a series of hysterics, or, rather, to lessen their violence, “doctor, there is a poor sufferer here, needing your assistance as much, or more than any one; I can do nothing with her, will you try?” and he led him into the room where Mina—still crouching down on the floor—sat silent, asking no sympathy, speaking no sentence, making no sign.

“Mina!” exclaimed Dr. Richards, who had entertained a sort of regard for her since she was a child, “Mina!”

Finding no response came, he pulled her hands away with a not unkindly jerk; then, raising her drooping head by the simple contrivance of placing his forefinger under her chin, he was met by the same look which had frozen Ernest’s heart within him.

“This must not go on,” said Dr. Richards, decidedly; “crying is bad, and fainting too, and screaming, and hysterics worse, but of all evil methods of taking sorrow I like this least, it does far the most harm in the long run: Mina!” he added, speaking to her in a louder, and, as Ernest thought, unnecessarily harsh tone, “you must answer me some questions; rise up now, it is necessary for you to do so: now, attend to me; I want to know exactly what you saw when you went to call your uncle to breakfast?”

He had by this time managed to get her placed in a large arm-chair, and he stood before her, striving to attract and retain her attention; but still that look he so disliked remained on her face, and her teeth continued chattering, while she seemed totally unconscious or unmindful of anything which was passing around her.

“You must speak!” exclaimed Dr. Richards, in an angry determined tone, that appeared to affect every quivering nerve, and cause it to vibrate with acute pain.

Ernest, who had gone to work far more gently, felt as if Dr. Richards were devoid of common humanity; but the desired result had been at length produced. The eyes wavered for an instant in their steady stare, and making an almost convulsive effort, she asked, a sort of spasm or suffocating sensation apparently impeding her powers of utterance,

“What is it, what do you want?”

“I want to know,” replied the doctor, speaking in a still louder key,—never for one instant relaxing hold of his victim’s hands and grasping them with greater force the more she shrunk from him, “I want to know what you saw in your uncle’s room this morning?”

The old look came over her countenance again, and she struggled for an instant so violently, that she managed to release one hand from her tormentor; but Dr. Richards caught it again, and held her by the wrists in such a vice-like gripe, that the mere bodily pain seemed at length to exercise a beneficial influence over the wandering faculties of her mind.

“I saw—I saw,” she gasped, every muscle in her face working, till Ernest really began to fear the doctor would throw her into a fit,—“him, sitting with his head leaning on the table; and then——”

“Go on,” insisted he, as she paused and shuddered, “go on, and then——”

“Then I went up to him and spoke.”

“Well,” persisted the doctor, wringing the words out of her, “you spoke, and what did he answer?”

“Answer!” she echoed, and the trembling and chattering recommenced worse than before; “answer!”

“Yes, answer!” he repeated. “Come make haste now, I have not time to wait here all day; get on, what did he answer?”

“Nothing,” she almost panted out, “nothing.”

“What did you do?” he further demanded.

“Then I lifted his head and looked in his face—and—and—I saw he was dead!”

“There, she will do now,” said Dr. Richards, as a sudden burst of tears succeeded the conclusion of her short story: then, discarding the harsh commanding tone he had hitherto used, he commenced addressing all sorts of soothing expressions to her, giving her whatever scraps of comfort came most readily to hand, striving to console and pacify her with such genuine kindness and almost womanly gentleness, that Mr. Ivraine, looking gravely on, confessed he had done the little doctor grievous injustice, and never, until that moment, fully understood how tender and feeling a heart may beat under the roughest and most unpromising exterior.

Having succeeded in calming her in some degree, Dr. Richards walked over to the sideboard, and, pouring out a glass of wine, presented the same—after he had insidiously dropped something out of a small phial into it—to his patient, and bade her swallow the mixture.

“Now,” he said, “sit perfectly still where you are till I return,” and, drawing down the blinds, he beckoned Ernest to follow his example and left the apartment. “That,” he remarked as he coolly turned the key in the wards and then deposited it in his pocket, “that will keep her quiet for some hours, at any rate; and now, my dear sir, what is the next thing to be done?”

Mr. Ivraine did not know, but he went in search of Malcolm, whom he found pacing up and down the drawing room, rather more composed than when he had left him about an hour previously, but scarcely arrived, even then, at a state which might properly have been called sane.

“Mr. Frazer,” began Ernest, “is there anything I can do for you? Do you think I could be of the slightest assistance in this emergency? If it is in my power to prove of the least use, I hope you will allow me to be so; but if not, I feel I ought no longer to intrude.”

“Oh! for pity’s sake,” broke in Malcolm, “do not leave me; there is not a person in England I care to speak to but yourself: I don’t know what to do, or where to turn, or how to manage, and—and—for Heaven’s sake don’t leave me here alone, with a corpse lying in the house and not a soul to exchange a syllable with but a lot of helpless women.”

“I shall certainly not go; but if you wish me to remain,” replied Ernest in a soothing tone, “sit down for a little while and do try to compose yourself: you must recollect how much has suddenly devolved upon you,—the entire care and comfort of your mother and sister and the whole management of your uncle’s affairs. A heavy responsibility now rests upon you, and you ought to prepare yourself to meet it with a man’s heart and a man’s quiet unmoved steadiness: you are a boy no longer; you have solemn duties to discharge; you have, as you say, helpless women depending upon you as their only male prop. You must prove yourself a strong one; sit down and calm yourself, and then we will look the worst steadily in the face and see what has actually happened, and what, under the circumstances, is best to be done. Dr. Richards has promised to return in a couple of hours, and we can then consult with him who, having known you and yours for years, takes a deep interest in all that concerns you.”

“That fellow Westwood,” here broke in Malcolm, who had listened to the above exhortation without heeding a single syllable of it, “has been prowling about the house all the morning; I wonder what business he has here, or who sent for him, or who wants him: I wish to heavens we could turn him out. Ivraine, could you not give him a civil hint that if he would go, it would be an immense relief? I’d feel for ever obliged if you just would rescue me from him. I came here solely to be out of his way; he is the most impudent——”

“Mr. Frazer,” interposed Alfred Westwood at this juncture, pushing open the door, which Ernest had left slightly ajar, and cutting right across the flattering remark his late partner’s nephew was just commencing, “Mr. Frazer, will you excuse me, as a friend, asking you an apparently very impertinent question?”

“I suppose it makes very little difference whether I will or not, as you are sure to ask it at any rate,” replied Malcolm sulkily.

“I must ask it,” returned Mr. Westwood; “still I trust, though I am aware my words must sound very unfeeling at such a time, that you will not be offended. Has your uncle left any will?”

“What business is that of yours?” demanded Malcolm, his whole countenance flushed with anger; “how the devil can it concern you, whether he has or not?”

Mr. Westwood shuddered, as if the sound of the young Scotchman’s hasty oath appalled his refined religious ears; but getting, with wonderful rapidity, over the horror with which he desired it to be thought it had inspired him, he answered,

“It concerns _me_ not in the least, Mr. Malcolm Frazer, I admit; but you may yet discover it a matter of some importance to you and to some others, after whose interests you are now most certainly bound to look with an eye of watchful affection: you, however, dislike to hear truth from the lips of a friend; I will, therefore, relieve you of my presence.” And Mr. Westwood, a half-triumphant, half-insulting expression on his face, turned, as he concluded, to leave the room.

“Stop!” cried Malcolm, a vague dread of some unknown evil flashing through his mind and bringing him ‘to his senses,’—“stop!” and he flung himself between his late uncle’s partner and the door. “Now, sir,” he continued, folding his arms resolutely across his chest and using a quick decided tone, “now, sir, I see by your face, I judge by your words, that you are aware of some circumstance or circumstances of which I am at present in ignorance, but of which I ought to be informed; and, as you have thought fit to come here without invitation, you shall stay here on compulsion till you explain your meaning clearly and satisfactorily.”

A smile of contempt and malice curled Mr. Westwood’s lip, and, for a moment, Mr. Ivraine imagined he had some intention of swinging Malcolm from his position and clearing a passage for himself; but, if he ever harboured such an idea, it was instantly abandoned, for he answered without even a trace of irritation and, as the looker-on thought, with the most wonderful temper and forbearance.

“I came here as a friend, and you received me as an enemy; now, when I propose going, you insist that I shall remain, but I am willing to make every allowance on account of your youth, inexperience, and the trying situation in which you are placed; and, as I really wish to be of service to you if I can, I overlook the insulting style of your address, and, merely remembering that you desire information, reply, that I am here ready and willing to answer any questions you may think proper to put, always supposing they are of such a nature as that good and not harm can result from responding to them.”

“I detest long sentences, sir,” was Malcolm’s polite rejoinder to Mr. Westwood’s temperate speech.

“I really think you are acting foolishly, Mr. Frazer,” interposed Ernest, over whom a shadowy alarm had begun to steal, “I really think you are.”

“And I know he is,” returned Mr. Westwood; “but that is no affair of mine: my motto is, ‘let everybody take care of himself, and manage his own business as best suits his own fancy.’”

“I wish you’d carry your theory into practice,” exclaimed Malcolm pettishly; “but, whether foolish or wise, I want to put an end to this interview, therefore suppose we proceed at once to the matter in hand. Why, therefore, do you assert that the fact of my uncle not having left a will can be an affair of importance to me and mine?”

“Because,” replied Mr. Westwood, “a few strokes of the pen have sufficed, in some instances, to make a man independent for life, while the absence of two or three words has reduced many individuals to beggary and want.”

“But, in our case, a will is unnecessary; an unfavourable one might have unmade us, it is true; the want of one altogether merely leaves us in possession of what my uncle always intended should be ours.”

“Perhaps so,” said Mr. Westwood.

“Why, don’t you know,” burst forth Malcolm, “that we are his nearest relatives, that the next of kin always succeeds to property in the event of an intestacy, that nothing _but_ a will could deprive us of it? Are you not lawyer enough to understand this, or,” he added, a sudden suspicion occurring to him, “do _you_ know of any will? By Heavens! if you have worked upon him to disinherit us, if you have been scheming and plotting against either me or my sister, if you have dared to meddle in family concerns, or got my uncle to leave you anything to our prejudice, I swear you shall never enter into possession of the property, never live to spend a single shilling of the money so iniquitously acquired.”

Ernest Ivraine never could tell, at least not until long years afterwards, why this scene affected him with a sort of deadly sickness, that faint sinking of the heart, which is induced, not by bodily illness, but by mental excitement: he felt as if he, too, had an interest in the matter; as if he, too, had a right to interfere; as if he were one of the parties concerned—likely to be benefited, or possibly to be wronged: it was a sort of acting by others of what might come to himself; it was a kind of rehearsal of something, in which hereafter he was to be a principal character—a prominent figure; he had felt at the first that loathing of hearing pecuniary matters discussed in a house shadowed by the wings of the mighty angel, Death, which the sensitive or the uninterested always experience, when the mercenary and the grasping introduce the theme of probable legacies, and wrangle concerning their various chances, in a room next to that desolate apartment tenanted by the corpse of one who has done with earth, and the curse thereof—gold—for ever. But Malcolm’s words had touched the vibrating chord in his heart; the demon was at length roused; the legacy hunter—the man who had voluntarily doomed himself to a hateful slavery, to the end that he might keep all other claimants at bay—all other vultures off the spoil—felt himself sympathising with Malcolm, and anxious for his prosperity, desiring to hear more, wishful for accurate information, doubtful of Mr. Westwood, fearful of the event; and, accordingly, before he well knew what induced the action, he found himself standing, dark and stern, at Malcolm’s side, with one hand on the youth’s shoulder, entreating him to greater calmness, to attend patiently, and hear Mr. Westwood’s reply.

“Let me talk to you,” said that individual, turning from Malcolm with an angry gesture; “let me talk to you, as you seem disposed to be a friend to those who will, I fancy, ere long require friendship from many a one who will not be ready to extend it to them. It is useless speaking to him; the boy is a fool—a child, not in understanding, but in wayward passion, absurd caprice, senseless prejudice; do you act for him, and lose no time; search every drawer, box, desk, safe, in the house, possible or impossible, and see if you can discover a will. I intend to proceed to Mr. Merapie’s solicitors, and see whether they possess any document of the kind; and if not, I request that some disinterested person may search the office. It is of no importance to me whether any be discovered or not, further than that I wish well to this ungrateful youth, and the two delicate beings, who may be reduced to beggary by _the absence_ of such an instrument. Directly or indirectly I shall never benefit by my late partner’s demise. Mr. Frazer’s suspicions have done me most foul wrong. I think it the height of villainy in any man to attempt to step between relatives; and if I were left sole legatee to-day, the only use I should make of my wealth would be to hand it over to the rightful owners to-morrow. Do not let prejudice blind you; have the house thoroughly examined: I am giving good sound advice, for which, perhaps, at a future day, even Mr. Malcolm Frazer may thank me.”

He made a step forward, as if to leave the room, but Ernest detained him.

“Tell me,” he said, “what it is you mean? Are not Mrs. Frazer and her children the sole living connections Mr. Merapie has left behind him?”

“They are not,” replied Mr. Westwood.

“Has he any nearer relatives?” demanded Mr. Ivraine.

“Time will show,” was the brief response uttered, as Mr. Westwood pushed Malcolm—who stood like a statue, gazing intently and half stupidly in his face—gently aside, and walked past him out of the room and down the stairs and so out of the house.