Chapter 18

"Something more," ejaculated Graeme, as he hurried away. I was allowed no time for an absurd monologue. Graeme was not absent many minutes, when he hurried in as he had hurried out, but his face was not that which he took with him, braced up into surprise and fear, as that was. He was now as pale as death's pale horse, and nearly as furious. His eye beamed an unnatural light--his breathing was quick and snatchy, as if every inspiration and expiration pained the lungs. He seemed to wish some one to bind him with ropes, that he might escape the vibrations of his muscles, and be steadied to be able to speak.

"Be calm," said I, taking him by the shoulders; "what new discovery is this? Nothing wrong with Mrs. Graeme, I hope?"

"The child," he cried; but he could get no further.

"The child is"--

"Is what?" said I.

"Is marked on the back with the figure of the ten of diamonds."

"Pity it was not marked where it will wear its pockets," said I; "but it will assuredly be a very fortunate child, nevertheless, and shall bear a load of diamonds on his back like the Arabian Alcansar."

"Are you mad?" he cried.

"Yes, with reason," I replied. "You know, nothing appears so outrageously insane to a madman, as that same God's gift called reason. They say, those who are bitten by the tarantula, and get dancing mad, think the wondering crowd about them raving maniacs. And there was the weeping philanthropist in the asylum of Montrose, in Scotland, who wept all day, and could not be consoled, because of all the people outside the asylum being mad."

"But," he gasped, "the thing is there."

"No doubt on't," said I, "and you ought to be grateful. I have read somewhere of one John Zopyrus, who went mad when he heard of a son being born to him; and here you are not mad, though you have a son (I hope) born to you, with ten diamonds besides."

"But the thing is there," he again cried.

"Ay, there's the rub, my dear fellow; the rub is there--let the rub _be_ there; that is, go and rub, and the thing rubbed will not be there after the rubbing."

"Madness, man! It is a true mother's mark."

"Verily, a real _noevus maternus_" said I, "impressed by an avenging angel on the mother's brain, and transferred by nature's daguerreotype to the back of the child."

"You have said it."

"Nay, it is you who have said it," I continued; "and I will even suppose it is a mother's mark, to please you for a little, though it has no more that character than this sword-prick in my left cheek. But taking it in your own way, I have a theory I could propound to you about these marks. We say that the soul is in the body. It is just as true that the body is in the soul. Every member of the entire physical person is represented in the brain, though we cannot discern the form in these white viscera. Now, see you, if a man loses his finger, his son will not be awanting in that member. But there are cases where the want of a member is hereditary. Why? Because the member was not represented in the cerebral microcosm of the first deficient person. From this small epitome in the brain, the child is an extended copy--_extended_ from a mathematical point, where all the members and lineaments are _intended_. So, when the fancy of the mother is working in the brain--say, in realizing some external image--it will impress it in the cerebral person (woman) there epitomized; and if she is in a certain way, the image will go to a corresponding part of the foetal point, which is the epitome of the child. A most ingenious, and satisfactory, and simple theory, which will explain the ten-of-diamond naevus, for"----

"Dreadful imbecility!" he exclaimed, as he threw himself on his chair; "most unaccountable and cruel trifling with a notable visitation of retributive justice, indicated by visible signs of terrible import to him who must bear the cross, and be reconciled to an angry Deity."

"Against all that may tend to penitence for a past crime," said I, getting grave, where gravity might avail for good, "I have nothing to say. But Heaven does not work through the mean of man's deceit and stratagem, and the good that comes of fear goes with returning courage."

Conscious of getting into a puling humour, I had no objection to an interruption by the entrance of Rogers, who, having finished his work, was probably intent upon the gratification which generally follows.

"I wish you joy of the boy and the diamonds," he said, as he seized Graeme by the half-palsied hand. "The nurse is reconciled to the omen of a fortune; and surely never was omen more auspicious, for no sooner had the strange indication shown its mute vaticination than it disappeared, that there might be no deduction of beauty from the favourite of the gods." And drawing, with his lumbering hand, the tumbler near him, he filled it two-thirds up of pure wine, and presently his lips grappled with it like a camel at the bucket in the desert, with such effect that the contents changed vessels in a twinkling.

"Disappeared!" said I musingly.

"Yea, temperance hath her demands on occasions," said he, thinking I alluded to the exit of the wine, and not the ominous mark; "for there be two kinds of this noble virtue, the jejune and the hearty, whereof the former observes no plethoric gratifications, and the other is not averse to an extreme of cordial indulgence."

"Disappeared!" said I in a harping way, once again, "and left the skin discoloured."

"But it was there, and I saw it with these eyes," cried Graeme, "and the doctor saw it, and Betha, but, thank God, not the mother."

"The vouchsafing of the eyes is an easy task," drawled Rogers. "The truth of present fact is of the moment of experience as regards the seer; but, as a moral entity, it never dies. The great Author of nature has his intention in these mysterious signs. We know only that there are two kinds of these God's finger-touches--the enduring and the evanescent. That we have now witnessed was of the latter kind, which we also call superficial in opposition to the other, which is painted on the _rete mucosum_, and never goes off. The difference of indications we know not, further than that a mysterious purpose is served by both. But might I ask if ever there was any occasion on which the figure of this card might, as connected with some thrilling incident, have been impressed upon the imagination of the mother?"

"Never," cried Graeme, as he shook violently.

"Then it betokens fortune to the heir of the Moated Grange," said Rogers.

"It betokens vengeance!" roared Graeme, no longer able to contain himself; and he began to pace rapidly the room. Then stopping before me--

"How long will you torment me with your scepticism? Here, Betha," he cried to the woman, who at the instant again called Rogers, "what did you see on the back of the boy?"

"The ten of diamonds, sir," replied she, evidently frightened by the wild eyes of her master. "But you are not to be feared. Do I not know God's signs when I see them fresh from his very finger? I have seen them aforetime; and no man or woman on earth, no, even our minister, will convince me they are meant for nothing. This bairn will be a rich man, but it will not be by the devil's books; for he who made the mark does not tempt to evil by promises printed on the bodies of them he loves."

"I want not this drivelling," said her master, on whom her reading of the sign had an effect the very opposite of that intended. "You're a fool, but you have eyes. Say, once for all, you saw it, and will swear. Take her words, Rymer."

"As clear as I see the mark on your cheek, sir," she said, addressing me. "It was not from one who loved you so well as your mother did when she bore you, you got that mark."

"I got it from a villain called Ruggieri," I replied, caring nothing for the start I produced in Graeme, but keeping my eye on the face of Rogers.

I will say nothing of what I observed on that long, sombre, saturnine index. It was an experiment on my part, and I might have found something, merely because I expected it; nor do I think Graeme knew my object, though he felt the words as a surprise.

"And who is Ruggieri?" said the doctor, by way of putting a simple question.

"_Perhaps_ an Italian," said I. "Rogers is, they say, the Scotch representative of that name."

"It is a lie, sir!" cried the grave son of Aesculapius; but finding he had committed a mistake, he beat up an apology close upon the heels of his insult. "I beg your pardon; I simply meant that the two names are different, and that you were out in your etymology."

"I am satisfied," I replied.

"And so am I," growled the doctor, as he shuffled out, followed by Betha.

"What the devil do you mean?" said the colonel, coming up, and looking me sternly in the face. "Is not this business serious enough for me and this house already, without the mention to that man, who knows nothing of me or of my history, of a name hateful to both you and me?"

"At present I have no intention of telling you what I meant by introducing that name in the presence of Rogers."

"More mystery!" said he.

"No mystery--all as plain as little Edith's card she got from Trott, or the blazon in the wood, or the mark on the child's back. But I do not wish to dwell longer on a subject which gives you so much pain. I am to be off in the morning, and I should wish, before I go, to know what is to be the issue of all this wonderful working."

Graeme had now seated himself; and I resumed my chair also, to wait an answer, which his manner seemed to indicate might be slow and delicate. We looked, in the dim light of the room, at two in the morning, like two wizards trying our skill in working out some scheme of _diablerie_; yet, in reality, how unlike! For though we had both been gamblers, and consequently bad men, we had for years renounced the wild ways of an ill-regulated youth, and settled down to tread, with pleasure to ourselves and profit to others, the decent paths of virtue.

"I am resolved," said Graeme at length----

"On what?" I inquired.

"On making amends. That money, which by means of the substituted card I took from Gourlay, sticks like a bone-splint in the red throat of my penitence. I cannot pray myself, nor join Annabel, nor listen to Edith, when they send up their supplications to that place where mercy is, and where, too, vengeance is--vengeance which, in the very form of my pictured crime, dogs me everywhere, as you have seen, though a philosophical pride prevents you from giving faith to what you have seen--vengeance which, though using no earthly instruments, is yet the stronger, and more terrible to me, for that very circumstance that it brings up my conscience, and parades its pictured whisperings before my vision, scorching my brain, and making me mad--vengeance, breaking no bones, nor lacerating flesh, nor spilling blood, yet going to the heart of the human organism, among the fine tissues where begin the rudiments of being, and whence issue the springs of feeling, sympathy, hope, love, and justice, all of which it poisons, and turns into agonies. Yes, sir, vengeance which, claiming the assistance of the fairest virtues, conjugal love and angelic purity, makes them smite with shame, so that it were even a relief to me that the wife of my bosom were wicked, and the child of my affections a creature of sin. What are these signs that haunt me but instigators to redemption? and can I hesitate when Heaven asks obedience?"

"A useless harangue," said I, "when you have the means of saving yourself. Pay the money, read your Bible, and the signs will cease."

"You have said it. I will pay the money; but I do not know where the woman Gourlay lives."

"That is not a difficult matter. Where money is to be paid, the recipient will start out of the bosom of the earth. I am about sick of this chamber of mysteries--though no mysteries to me; and I go to bed. I doubt if you may expect to see me at the breakfast table in the morning."

"Will you leave me in this condition?" he said, with an imploring eye.

"You will hear from me. Good night."

In the midst of all these supernaturals, I remained myself pretty natural--got naturally among the comfortable bed-clothes, fell naturally asleep, and, in consequence of late hours, slept naturally longer than I intended. I started at seven, got my bag, and, without seeing Graeme, set out for C---- town, got breakfast, and then took the stage for a seaport not very far distant. Having arrived at my destination, I sought out the Eastergate, a dirty street inhabited by poor people, mounted three pair of stairs till I saw through a slate-pane, knocked at a door, and was met by a woman, with an umbrageously bearded face peering out from the side of her head-gear--that is, there was a head there in addition to her own.

"The devil!" said the man. "How did you find me out?"

"By the trail of evil," I said, as I walked in, and shut the door behind me.

"Did you not know I was dead?" he continued, by way of desperate raillery.

"Yes, the devil was once reported to be dead and buried in a certain long town, but it was only a feint, whereby to catch the unwary Whigs. Let us have seats. I want a little quiet conversation with you both."

We seemed rather a comfortable party round the fire.

"Ruggieri," said I, "do you know that scar?"

"I have certainly seen it before," replied he, with the utmost composure.

"Well, you know the attack you made upon me at Brussels, for the convenient purpose of getting buried along with your victim a certain little piece of dirty paper I have in my pocket, whereby you became bound to pay to me a thousand florins which I lent you, on the faith of one I took for a gentleman."

"The scar I deny," he replied, unblushingly; "and as for the bit of paper, if you can find any one in these parts who can prove that the signature thereto was written by this hand belonging to this person now sitting before you, you will accomplish something more wonderful than finding me out here." And he laughed in his old boisterous way.

"The more difficult, I daresay," replied I, as I fixed a pretty inquisitive gaze on him, "that you have a duplicate to your real name of Charles Rogers."

"'Tis a lie!" he exclaimed. "My father was--was--yes--an artist in Bologna--the cleverest magician in Italy."

"And that is the reason," said I calmly, "that your brother the doctor works his tricks so cleverly at the Moated Grange."

Subtle officers accomplish much by attacks of surprise--going home with a fact known to the criminal to be true, but supposed by him to be unknown to all the world besides. I had acted on this principle, and the effect was singular. His tongue, which had laid in a stock of nervous fluid for roaring like a steam-boiler a little opened, was palsied. He turned on me a blank look; then, directing his eye to the woman, "You infernal hag," he exclaimed, "all this comes from you!"

"I deny it," said the woman, as she left his side and came round to mine. "But I now know, what I always suspected, that you are a villain. Sir," she continued, "this man, and his brother Dr. Rogers, prevailed upon me to give them a paper, to enable them to get out of Colonel Graeme the money he won from my husband. I believe they have got it, and that they are keeping it from me."

"They have not got it," said I, "and never will. The money is yours, and will be paid to you, if to any."

"Thank God!" she exclaimed. "No good could come out of the designs of this man and his brother. They made it up to terrify the colonel"----

A look from the man stopped her; but the broken sentence was to me a volume. They sat and looked lightnings at each other; and I contented myself with thinking, that when a rotten tree splits, bears catch honey.

"Oh, I'm not to be frightened," she continued, as she gathered up courage to dare the villain. "I will tell all about the ten of diamonds which I heard made up between them."

"You most haggard of all haggard hags!" cried the man, as his fury rose, "do you know, that while I could have got you this money, I can cut you out of it? Was it the loss of the money, think ye, that made the wretched coward, your husband, shoot himself? No, it was conscience. They were a pair of villains. I know that Gourlay had a secreted card, whereby he was to blackleg Graeme, and that it was disappointment, shame, and conscience, working all together, that made him draw the trigger to end a villanous life. But the game is up," he continued, as he rose and got hold of his hat; then standing erect and fearless, he held out his finger, pointing to me--"Rymer!" he said impressively, but with devilish calmness, "let your ears tingle as you think of me; it will keep you in remembrance of a friend, who, when next he meets you, will embrace you _cordially_--about the heart, you know. Good night!"

"And well gone," said the woman, as she heard the door slammed with a noise that shook the crazy tenement. "Oh! I am so happy you have come to relieve me of an engagement which I was ashamed of, and which would have yielded me nothing; for their object was to force money out of your friend, and then divide it between them."

"How did Rogers or Ruggieri find you out?" inquired I.

"I cannot tell; the nose of a bloodhound has a finer sense than a sheep-dog's."

"And how did you come to know of the compact between the brothers?"

"They got unwary under wine drunk at that fir table. The doctor was the medical attendant of Colonel Graeme, and this gave him means of working upon his conscience; and I know they have been at this work for a time."

"But how did Ruggieri come to know about the ten of diamonds?"

"Oh, the card was found crumpled up under the table by Ruggieri himself, who, with you, was present at the play. He has the card at this moment. I have seen it. But this is the first time I ever heard of Gourlay's intention to cheat. I will never believe that; but then I am his widow, and may be too favourable to him, while Ruggieri was his enemy, and may be too vindictive."

"And how was the colonel to be applied to, after his conscience was wrought up to pay?"

"The doctor was to open the subject, and undertake to negotiate with me, to whom he was to hand over the money--one penny of which I never would have received."

"The matter is now in better hands," said I. "Will you be staunch and firm in detailing all you know of the scheme?"

"Yes, though I should not receive a farthing."

"And you will be willing to go to the Moated Grange, and, if necessary, swear to those things?"

"I will; and, sir, serious though the whole affair has been to me--for I am poor, and have children--I sometimes wondered, if I did not laugh, at the queer, far-brought, devilish designs of the doctor. Oh, he is a very dragon that for cunning! I heard him say he would impress a painted piece of paper on the child's back, so as to leave a mark, and swear it was a mother's mark, graven by the hands of the Almighty. Oh the blasphemy and wickedness of man!"

"Go, dress yourself," said I, "and come with me to the Grange."

"I will, if you can give me some minutes to get a neighbour to take charge of George and Anne." And away she went to get this family arrangement completed, while I sat panting with desire to free my friend from the agony of his condition.

It was about seven o'clock of that same evening that Mrs. Gourlay and I reached the Moated Grange. I got her shown into an ante-room, to wait the issue of my interview with Graeme. It happened that the doctor and he were together, and it even seemed as if they were converging towards a medium state of confidence. I could observe from the looks of the victim that he had been so far at least drawn into a recital of facts (the nature of which it was not difficult for me to conjecture), for I heard the word Gourlay fall from his lips, as the last of a sentence which my entry had cut short. Indeed, I may as well state here that Graeme afterwards admitted to me that when I entered he was in the midst of a confession of the whole secret of the false play, to which confession he had been first driven by his internal monitor; and secondly, led or rather pulled on by the arch-ambidexter, whose game it was to cheat the cheater, and get the money from him upon some pretence of seeking out Mrs. Gourlay and paying the money to her. I was, in short, in the very nick of time, and could hardly help smiling at the strange part I was playing in what was, as I thought, one of those serious melodramatic farces of which (in the Frenchman's sense) this strange world of laughter and groans is made up.

"Dr. Rogers," said I, after the customary greetings, "it is well I have found you. I picked up a poor woman by the way who lay under the seizure of premature labour, and knowing the generosity of my friend, I brought her here for succour and relief. She is in the green parlour, and, I fear, in exigency. Come."

"May I see her?" said Graeme.

"Certainly, for a moment," said Rogers. "Ah! I rejoice at these opportunities of employing the beneficence of our profession. Who knows but I may bring into the world one who will change the aspect of a hemisphere, and work out some great blessings to the human race!"

And following me, they arrived at the door of the green parlour. I opened it. Rogers walked forward, Graeme followed, and I stood in the midst of the three.

"Dr. Rogers--Mrs. Gourlay, an intimate friend of your brother, Signor Ruggieri."

"Colonel Graeme--Mrs. Gourlay, the widow of that unfortunate man, Ebenezer Gourlay."

To which Mrs. Gourlay responded by a curtsey, deep and respectful.

"I am master for the nonce. The door is locked, and Mrs. Gourlay must be delivered of her child with the naevus of the ten of diamonds on its back."

And she was delivered, but not with the assistance of the doctor. She performed her part well. By a little drawing out, on my part, I got her to tell her story; how she had got acquainted with the two brothers; how they had laid their plans; how she came to know of the crumpled card, and the use they were to make of it; the trick of the impression on the child's back; the forcing of the money from the colonel on the pretence of paying it to her, with her conviction that she would never handle a penny of it.

During the period of this extraordinary recital, it was my part to watch the countenances of the two listeners. Graeme sat as if bound to his chair; every word of the woman seemed to work as a charm upon him, relieving him of the conviction he had been impressed with, that he was specially under the judgment of Heaven, without depriving him of the consolation of a late penitence. Sometimes I caught his eye, and, I fairly admit, I was wicked enough to indulge in a little mute risibility to give him confidence in the conclusions he was fast drawing from the somewhat garrulous narrative of the poor widow.

As for the doctor, he held out like a Milo. From the first moment he saw the woman he knew that the game was up with him, but he knew also, what all hardened sinners know, that they owe it to the cacodaimon they obey, to deny everything to the last, as if they were afraid to show any indication of what they consider the weakness of being good. We allowed him to get quit upon the condition of silence on his part, for a prudent forbearance on ours.

Mrs. Gourlay remained at the Grange for some time, whereby we had an opportunity of further ascertaining all the details of the machination. A sum of money was given to her, and Graeme's conscience was relieved, as well by this retribution as by a conviction to which we both came, that the game between him and Gourlay was rendered at least equal by the fact which we had both reason to believe, as stated by Ruggieri, that Gourlay himself intended to cheat, and that his death could be more easily accounted for on that theory than on any other.