CHAPTER VII.

EXIT MRS. MCDERMOTT.

Tom and his portmanteau reached Pincote together a day or two after his last conversation with the Squire. Mrs. McDermott understood that Tom had been invited to spend a week there in order to assist her brother with his books and farm accounts. It seemed to her a very injudicious thing to do, but she did not say much about it. In truth, she was rather pleased than otherwise to have Tom there. It was dreadfully monotonous to have to spend one evening after another with no company save that of her brother and Jane. She was tired of her audience, and her audience were tired of her. Mr. Bristow, as she knew already, could talk well, was lively company, and, above all things; was an excellent listener. She had done her duty by her brother in warning him of what was going on between Mr. Bristow and her niece; if, after that, the Squire chose to let the two young people come together, it was not her place to dispute his right to do so.

Tom was very attentive to her at dinner that day. Of Jane he took no notice beyond what the occasion absolutely demanded. Mrs. McDermott was agreeably surprised. “He has come to his senses at last, as I thought he would,” she said to herself. “Grown tired of Jane’s society, and no wonder. There’s nothing in her.”

As soon as the cloth was removed, Jane excused herself on the score of a headache, and left the room. The Squire got into an easy-chair and settled himself down for a post-prandial nap. Tom moved his chair a little nearer that of the widow.

“I have grieved to see you looking so far from well, Mrs. McDermott,” he said, as he poured himself out another glass of wine. “My father was a doctor, and I suppose I caught the habit from him of reading the signs of health or sickness in people’s faces.”

Mrs. McDermott was visibly discomposed. She was a great coward with regard to her health, and Tom knew it.

“Yes,” she said, “I have not been well for some time past. But I was not aware that the traces of my indisposition were so plainly visible to others.”

“They are visible to me because, as I tell you, I am half a doctor both by birth and bringing up. You seem to me, Mrs. McDermott, pardon me for saying so—to have been fading—to have been going backward, as it were, almost from the day of your arrival at Pincote.”

Mrs. McDermott coughed and moved uneasily on her chair. “I have been a confirmed invalid for years,” she said, querulously, “and yet no one will believe me when, I tell them so.”

“I can very readily believe it,” said Tom, gravely. Then he lapsed into an ominous silence.

“I—I did not know that I was looking any worse now than when I first came to Pincote,” she said at last.

“You seem to me to be much older-looking, much more careworn, with lines making their appearance round your eyes and mouth, such as I never noticed before. So, at least, it strikes me, but I may be, and I dare say I am, quite wrong.”

The widow seemed at a loss what to say. Tom’s words had evidently rendered her very uneasy. “Then what would you advise me to do?” she said, after a time. “If you can detect the disease so readily, you should have no difficulty in specifying the remedy.”

“Ah, now I am afraid you are getting beyond my depth,” said Tom, with a smile. “I am little more than a theorizer, you know; but I should have no hesitation in saying that your disorder is connected with the mind.”

“Gracious me, Mr. Bristow!”

“Yes, Mrs. McDermott, my opinion is that you are suffering from an undue development of brain power.”

The widow looked puzzled. “I was always considered rather intellectual,” she said, with a glance at her brother. But the Squire still slept.

“You are very intellectual, madam; and that is just where the evil lies.”

“Excuse me, but I fail to follow you.”

“You are gifted with a very large and a very powerful brain,” said Tom, with the utmost gravity. The Squire snorted suddenly in his sleep. The widow held up a warning finger. There was silence in the room till the Squire’s gentle long-drawn snores announced that he was again happily fast asleep.

“Very few of us are so specially gifted,” resumed Tom. “But every special gift necessitates a special obligation in return. You, with your massive brain, must find that brain plenty of work to do—a sufficiency of congenial employment—otherwise it will inevitably turn upon itself, grow morbid and hypochondriacal, and slowly but surely deteriorate, till it ends by becoming—what I hardly like to say.”

“Really, Mr. Bristow, this conversation is to me most interesting,” said the widow. “Your views are thoroughly original, but, at the same time, I feel that they are perfectly correct.”

“The sphere of your intellectual activity is far too narrow and confined,” resumed Tom; “your brain has not sufficient pabulum to keep it in a state of healthy activity. You want to mix more with the world—to mix more with clever people like yourself. It was never intended by nature that you should lose yourself among the narrow coteries of provincial life: the metropolis claims you: the world at large claims you. A conversationalist so brilliant, so incisive, with such an exhaustless fund of new ideas, can only hope to find her equals among the best circles of London or Parisian society.”

“How thoroughly you appreciate me, Mr. Bristow!” said the widow, all in a flutter of gratified vanity, as she edged her chair still closer to Tom. “It is as you say. I feel that I am lost here—that I am altogether out of my element. I stay here more as a matter of duty—of principle—than of anything else. Not that it is any gratification to me, as you may well imagine, to be buried alive in this dull hole. But my brother is getting old and infirm—breaking fast, I’m afraid, poor man,” here the Squire gave a louder snore than common; “while Jane is little more than a foolish girl. They both need the guidance of a kind but firm hand. The interests of both demand a clear brain to look after them.”

“My dear madam, I agree with you in toto. Your Spartan views with regard to the duties of everyday life are mine exactly. But we must not forget that we have still another duty—that of carefully preserving our health, especially when our lives are invaluable to the epoch in which we live. You, my dear madam, are killing yourself by inches.”

“Oh, Mr. Bristow, not quite so bad as that, I hope!”

“What I say, I say advisedly. I think that, without difficulty, I can specify a few symptoms of the cerebral disorder to which you are a victim. You will bear me out if what I say is correct.”

“Yes, yes; please go on.”

“You are a sufferer from sleeplessness to a certain extent. The body would fain rest, being tired and worn out, but the active brain will not allow it to do so. Am I right, Mrs. McDermott?”

“I cannot dispute the accuracy of what you say.”

“Your nature being large and eminently sympathetic, but not finding sufficient vent for itself in the narrow circle to which it is condemned, busies itself, for lack of other aliment, with the concerns and daily doings of those around it, giving them the benefit of its vast experience and intuitive good sense; but being met sometimes with coldness instead of sympathy, it collapses, falls back upon itself, and becomes morbid for want of proper intellectual companionship. May I hope that you follow me?”

“Yes—yes, perfectly,” said the widow, but looking somewhat mystified, notwithstanding.

“The brain thus thrown back upon itself engenders an irritability of the nerves, which is altogether abnormal. Fits of peevishness, of ill-temper, of causeless fault-finding, gradually supervene, till at length all natural amiability of disposition vanishes entirely, and there is nothing left but a wretched hypochondriac, a misery to himself and all around him.”

“Gracious me! Mr. Bristow, what a picture! But I hope you do not put me down as a misery to myself and all around me.”

“Far from it—very far from it—my dear Mrs. McDermott. You are only in the premonitory stage at present. Let us hope that in your case, the later stages will not follow.”

“I hope not, with all my heart.”

“Of course, you have not yet been troubled with hearing voices?”

“Hearing voices! Whatever do you mean, Mr. Bristow?”

“One of the worst symptoms of the cerebral disorder, from the earlier stages of which you are now suffering, is that the patient hears voices—or fancies that he hears them, which is pretty much the same thing. Sometimes they are strange voices; sometimes they are the voices of relatives, or friends, no longer among the living. In short, to state the case as briefly as possible, the patient is haunted.”

“I declare, Mr. Bristow, that you quite frighten me!”

“But there are no such symptoms as these about you at present, Mrs. McDermott. The moment you have the least experience of them—should such a misfortune ever overtake you—then take my advice, and seek the only remedy that can be of any real benefit to you.”

“And what may that be?”

“Immediate change of scene—a change total and complete. Go abroad. Go to Italy; go to Egypt; go to Africa;—in short to any place where the change is a radical one. But I hope that in your case, such a necessity will never arise.”

“All this is most deeply interesting to me, Mr. Bristow, but at the same time it makes me very nervous. The very thought of being haunted in the way you mention is enough to keep me from sleeping for a week.”

At this moment Jane came into the room, and a few minutes later the Squire awoke. Tom had said all that he wanted to say, and he gave Mrs. McDermott no further opportunity for private conversation with him.

Next day, too, Tom carefully avoided the widow. His object was to afford her ample time to think over what he had said. That day the vicar and his wife dined at Pincote, and Tom became immersed in local politics with the Squire and the Parson. Mrs. McDermott was anxious and uneasy. That evening she talked less than she had ever been known to do before.

The rule at Pincote was to keep early hours. It was not much past ten o’clock when Mrs. McDermott left the drawing-room, and having obtained her bed candle, set out on her journey to her own room. Half way up the staircase stood Mr. Bristow. The night being warm and balmy for the time of year, the staircase window was still half open, and Tom stood there, gazing out into the moonlit garden. Mrs. McDermott stopped, and said a few gracious words to him. She would have liked to resume the conversation of the previous evening, but that was evidently neither the time nor the place to do so; so she said good-night, shook hands, and went on her way, leaving Tom still standing by the window. Higher up, close to the head of the stairs, stood a very large, old-fashioned case clock. As she was passing it Mrs. McDermott held up her candle to see the time. It was nearly twenty minutes past ten. But at the very moment of her noting this fact, there came three distinct taps from the inside of the case, and next instant from the same place came the sound of a hollow, ghost-like voice. “Fanny—Fanny—list! I want to speak to you,” said the voice, in slow, solemn tones. But Mrs. McDermott did not wait to hear more. She screamed, dropped her candle, and staggered back against the opposite wall. Tom was by her side in a moment.

“My dear Mrs. McDermott, whatever is the matter?” he said.

“The voice! did you not hear the voice!” she gasped.

“What voice? whose voice?” said Tom, with an arm round her waist.

“A voice which spoke to me out of the clock!” she said, with a shiver.

“Out of the clock?” said Tom. “We can soon see whether anybody’s hidden there.” Speaking thus, he withdrew his arm, and flung open the door of the clock. Enough light came from the lamp on the stairs to show that the old case was empty of everything, save the weights, chains, and pendulum of the clock.

“Wherever else the voice may have come from, it is plain that it couldn’t come from here,” said Tom, as he proceeded to relight the widow’s candle.

“It came from there, I’m quite certain. There were three distinct raps from the inside as well.”

“Is it not possible that it may have been a mere hallucination on your part? You have not been well, you know, for some time past.”

“Whatever it may have been, it was very terrible,” said Mrs. McDermott, drawing her skirts round her with a shudder. “I have not forgotten what you told me yesterday.”

“Allow me to accompany you as far as your room door,” said Tom.

“Thanks. I shall feel obliged by your doing so. You will say nothing of all this downstairs?”

“I should not think of doing so.”

The following day Mr. Bristow was not at luncheon. There were one or two inquiries, but no one seemed to know exactly what had become of him. It was Mrs. McDermott’s usual practice to retire to the library for an hour after luncheon—which room she generally had all to herself at such times—for the ostensible purpose of reading the newspapers, but, it may be, quite as much for the sake of a quiet sleep in the huge leathern chair that stood by the library fire. On going there as usual after luncheon to-day, what was the widow’s surprise to find Mr. Bristow sitting there fast asleep, with the “Times” at his feet where it had dropped from his relaxed fingers.

She stepped up to him on tiptoe and looked closely at him. “Rather nice-looking,” she said to herself. “Shall I disturb him, or not?”

Her eyes caught sight of some written documents lying out-spread on the table a little distance away. The temptation was too much for her. Still on tiptoe, she crossed to the table in order to examine them. But hardly had she stooped over the table when the same hollow voice that had sounded in her ears the previous night spoke to her again, and froze her to the spot where she was standing. “Fanny McDermott, you must get away from this house,” said the voice. “If you stop here you will be a dead woman in three months!”

She was too terrified to look round or even to stir, but her trembling lips did at last falter out the words: “Who are you?”

The answer came. “I am your husband, Geoffrey. Be warned in time.”

Then there was silence, and in a minute or two the widow ventured to look round. There was no one there except Mr. Bristow, fast asleep. She managed to reach the door without disturbing him, and from thence made the best of her way to her own room.

Two hours later Tom was encountered by the Squire. The latter was one broad smile. “She’s going at last,” he said. “Off to-morrow like a shot. Just told me.”

“Then, with your permission, I won’t dine with you this evening. I don’t want to see her again.”

“But how on earth have you managed it?” asked the Squire.

“By means of a little simple ventriloquism—nothing more. But I see her coming this way. I’m off.” And off he went, leaving the Squire staring after him in open-mouthed astonishment.