Richard Dowling - The Weird Sisters - A Romance. Volume 3 of 3

Grey found his mother in the front parlour of her own house. She was as bright, intelligent as ever, and put down the Times and took off her spectacles as he entered.

"Henry," she exclaimed, as he came in, "what is the matter? You are looking like a ghost."

"It is only that I have seen one, mother," he said wearily, tenderly, as he kissed her, put his arms round her, and placed her in a chair.

"Seen what?" she demanded, looking up impatiently at her stalwart son.

"A ghost, mother."

"Nonsense, Henry. Of late I see but little of you; and when I do see you, you are full of mysteries, only fit for sempstresses in penny parts. You ought not to treat me as if I wanted to be roused into interest in your affairs by secrets and surprises."

She patted her foot impatiently on the floor, and looked with vivacious reproach in his face.

He placed his hand gently but impressively on her shoulder, and said, looking down calmly from his large blue frank eyes into her swift bright gray eyes:

"I am not, mother, practising any art upon you; I am practising a great art upon myself."

She now saw something serious was coming or was in his mind; and while she did not allow her courage to decline, or the resolution of her look to diminish, she asked simply,

"And what is that art, Henry?"

"That of enduring the company of a villain in the presence of the person I most respect on earth."

She looked round the room hastily.

"He can't mean this place," she thought, "for we are alone." Raising impatient eyes to his, she said, "I am listening. Who is this villain?"

"Your son."

"Say that again, my hearing – " She paused and put her hand behind her ear, and bent forward her wrinkled neck to catch the words.

"In your presence, mother, I am trying to endure the presence of your villanous son, my villanous self."

"Sit down, Henry," she said very quietly.

He sat down on a chair a little distance in front of her.

She thought, "His father never told me there was a taint of insanity on his side of the family, and I know there was none on mine. This is terrible, but I must keep cool. Perhaps it will pass away. We shall have the best advice. He looks haggard. The wisest thing is to make little of what he says." Then she said aloud, "Well, Henry, I suppose you are going to tell me something else?"

"I am going to tell you, mother, all man durst utter. The unspeakable must remain unsaid."

He leaned his elbow on a small table, and supported his brow with his thumb and forefinger, shading his eyes with the fingers and the palm of the hand.

She sat upright on her chair. It was an easy chair, but she disdained the support of elbows or back. She thought his words, "The unspeakable must remain unsaid." "My son! my son! what has turned his poor head?" Aloud she said, "Tell me all you please, Henry."

"It is so cool and sweet and pure here, mother, in this house of yours, in your presence; I would give all the world if I might live here."

"Then why not come? That great empty house is too much for you, and you are growing morbid there. Come here at once, and it will be like old times to you and me."

"I am not so lonely in that house as you might think," he said, with a ghastly contraction of the lips and a shudder.

"But you see no one now. You have no company, and even at its best and brightest it was a dismal old barracks. Suppose, Henry, I live with you?"

He looked up suddenly, fiercely, and cried in a loud voice:

"No, no; you must not think of that. That is the last thing likely to happen. How could you think of such a thing?"

His head, his head was clearly gone. Fancy his resisting such an offer from her in such a passionate, ill-tempered way.

"Then come and live with me; the isolation of that house is preying upon you."

He had dropped his head once more to its old position.

"I am not so much alone there as you might suppose."

"I thought you saw nobody lately."

"But I am often, when at home now, in the company of Bee in her better days."

What splendid self-torture this was! To dance thus before his mother on the brink of a precipice she did not see was exhilarating. It was almost worth committing a crime to enjoy the contrast between the ideas these words brought up in his mind and his mother's.

"A bad sign," thought the old woman. "A bad sign of reason, when the mind of a man of his age is always with the past." She said: "I think it would be much better for you to shut up the Manor and come here. If you take my advice you would most certainly leave that hateful house. It was all very well when you were strong and happy to call parts of your house by horrible names, but when you are ill and weak and nervous you get superstitious, and full of foolish notions about those very things you have been playing with."

"Do you know, mother, I would not exchange my Tower of Silence for any castle in England at this moment; no, not for the fee-simple of Yorkshire."

The tone, the words, and the awful smile that accompanied them, cowed the spirit of the woman. "My God!" she thought, "this is worse than death. His reason is toppling, toppling."

She did not speak, but waited for him to go on.

"But, mother, there is another reason for my not selling the Manor."

"And what is that, Henry?"

"I am thinking of getting married."

"Married! Married!"

"Yes. Am I so old or so feeble that I should not think of marrying again?" he asked, with a clumsy attempt at a smile as he half uncovered his pallid face.

"No," she answered slowly.

"Then why are you astonished?"

"I did not say I was astonished."

"No, mother, but you looked astonished; tell me why? Why were you astonished at the idea of my marrying a second time? Do you know any reason why I should not?"

This was a fierce pleasure. It was like stirring up a sleeping lion when there was no chance of escape save through a small door, before reaching which he might, if he awoke, spring upon you, seize you by the back, and batter out your brains with one swing against the bars. It was like mounting a parapet under fire, and standing there thirty seconds, watch in hand, expecting to be struck, and trying to anticipate where.

"Reason for your not marrying! No, I know nothing to prevent your marrying."

She did care to excite him in his very critical mental condition by reference to the little comfort he had derived from his experience of wedlock.

"Well, mother, it is not only that no cause exists why I should not marry, but an absolute necessity – a necessity there is no evading, makes the step inevitable."

He had raised his head from his hand and was looking in her face.

"You have always had good reasons for your acts," she said, humouring his whim.

"And, moreover, it is imperatively necessary I shall marry one particular woman, and no other."

"What! in love again already!" exclaimed Mrs. Grey, with a desperate attempt at archness.

The attempt failed utterly, and her face wore a look of anxiety and pain. It was now clear her son did not suffer from mere hallucination; this was a break up of the whole intellect.

The man was so lost to external things he did not notice the change in his mother's face. He was deliberately rehearsing aloud his plan of campaign, and counting his forces and chances. He had almost forgotten he addressed his mother. He knew he might speak out with safety. This was the first time he had dared to give utterance to his thoughts in the presence of another. There was intoxication in the fearless recital of his case, and, with his bodily eyes indifferent to things around him, he abandoned himself to the delight of speaking his secret thought, and observing how the uttered words lightened his burden.