IT was not till a few days after this that Meredith’s growing strength permitted a reference to the circumstances of his “illness,” as they all called it, which, of course, was not at all concerted, but occurred quite unintentionally in the course of the conversation. One or two things had been said before he took any part in the talk himself. At length, rousing himself from a sort of reverie, he said.
“How was it, I wonder, that I was so lucky as to be knocked down at your door? Whoever the man was, he did me a good turn there; but how was it that I was found at your door? It was not in the evening, you say—which would have explained itself.”
“It was about five o’clock,” said Julia, suddenly interposing. She had treasured up all the details in her mind.
“About five o’clock!” said Meredith, looking round him with elevated eyebrows. “Now, tell me, some one, what could I be doing at five o’clock at this door?”
“And you were expected to dinner at half-past seven,” said Julia again.
“Evidently,” said Meredith, “she has entered into the mystery of the situation. What was I doing at five o’clock, being expected at half-past seven, at this door?”
“I have often thought of it,” said Gussy, “and wondered if you were coming to say you could not come to dinner. You had clients who stopped you several times before.”
He gave her a glance and laughed, but Gussy was quite unsuspicious, and instanced the clients in perfect good faith.
“Poor clients!” he said; “they have been left to themselves for a long time, but they don’t seem to have been clamoring for me. I don’t think it could be that.”
“Perhaps you were going to call somewhere in the neighborhood,” suggested Mrs. Harwood.
“I don’t think it could be that either—I don’t make many calls, and none about here. Try again. I must find it out.”
Janet on this occasion was seated full in view. She had not been able to change her position, as she generally did when he was brought in. She did not look up or take any notice. But Janet was aware that her head was bent stiffly, not naturally, over her work, and that in her whole appearance there must be the rigor of an artificial pose. Her head was bent lower than it need to have been; her needle stumbled in her work, pricking her fingers; and her downcast face, in spite of her, was covered with a hot and angry flush. And he could see her, plainly, distinctly, near him as she had not allowed herself to be since before “the accident” had occurred. He did not take any notice for a little time, being apparently much engaged with his own thoughts; but presently he looked up, and caught the expression of both form and face as she sat in the full light of the window. Oh, that it should have so happened to-day, instead of on any of the preceding days in which it would have been of no consequence! Janet, through her drooping eyelashes, saw—as she could have seen, somehow, had he been behind her—a slight start and awakening in his face: and then he put up his hand to support his head, and fixed his eyes upon her under that shield.
“You are tired, Charley!” she heard Miss Harwood saying.
“No, no; not tired a bit, only thinking.”
His thinking was done with his eyes fixed on Janet, reading (she was sure) the dreadful consciousness which she felt to be in her. She waited, trembling, for his next words.
“I think,” he said, “a light begins to dawn upon me. I had been at Mimpriss’s, the library; I suppose on my usual quest for music.”
Janet did not know what might come next.
She had seen various glances directed towards her which made her think he would not spare her. She had made it a principle to forestall everything that could be said about herself.
“Oh, yes,” she said, hastily, “now I remember! I saw Mr. Meredith there.”
“You never said so before, Janet.”
“I think I must have said so, the first evening. Since then nobody has thought of such details.”
He looked at her doubtfully, with some vagueness.
“Now I begin to recollect,” he said; “I was at Mimpriss’s, and walked along, because it was his way home, with—a man I met: and then—yes, I’m beginning to remember. In a little time I shall have it all clear.”
He fixed his eyes upon her again under the shelter of his hand. How they seemed to burn into her! She sat quite still, unnaturally still, with her eyes fixed upon her work. Oh, how they burned, those eyes! they seemed to make holes in her, to reach her heart. But this was as far as he had gone as yet. He was beginning to see her in the shops, on the pavement by his side—talking to him. Under the cover of his hand he kept asking her,
“What more? What more?”
“You don’t remember with whom it was you were walking?” said Gussy breathlessly.
“Hush, I’m thinking—it is coming, very vaguely, like a thing in the dark.”
“Janet, perhaps you saw what sort of man it was with whom Mr. Meredith was walking?”
“No,” said Janet. She was unable to form more than this one word: and she never looked at him, but stumbled on at her work, steadying her hands with a tremendous effort.
He saw well enough the perturbation in which she was, though none of the others might remark it; and she saw how he looked at her. Now the smile broke out again, more malicious than ever.
“No,” said Meredith, “I don’t suppose Miss Summerhayes would see him. I must have met him some time after she saw me at the shop. But I begin to get hold of it all. It was a dark night, and the lamps were lighted. My friend must surely have left me——”
“I was about to say,” cried Gussy, “he could not have been with you there, or he must have come in with you, and told us how it was.”
“There was nobody with me, then?”
“Nobody, except the man who picked you up and the policeman, who is always coming back to say he’s on the track of the murderer.”
“The murderer! That gives one an uncomfortable conviction, as if one had really been killed. I have a kind of vision of a face. When does this policeman generally come? I should like to have a talk with him. He might throw some light upon my very dim recollection.”
“Dolff is the one who sees him when he comes,” said Mrs. Harwood. “I did not, myself, feel equal to it; and Dolff seemed the right person.”
“Ah, yes; and so kind of him,” said Meredith. “I have been surrounded with true kindness. Dolff, please come and tell me—what does the policeman say?”
“Not much,” said Dolff, from the dark corner in which he had established himself.
Meredith turned half round towards him.
“Is the fellow any good?”
“No good at all,” cried Dolff. “He has always a new cock-and-bull story. He is no good.”
“And none of you in the house saw anything?” Meredith said.
“Well, Charley, it was night. There was nobody at the window; and, had there been, they could have seen nothing. We did not even hear much. It must all have been done very quickly. My dears,” cried Mrs. Harwood, with a shiver, “how can we be thankful enough! You might have been killed, Charley. A minute more, and they say there would have been no hope.”
Even Meredith was respectful enough to be silent for a moment. But he resumed immediately,
“It is strange that no one should have seen anything. I should have thought—And who opened the door? Did anyone ring to get in? How was it? Perhaps that would help me to pull my thoughts together. Some one must have rung the bell; some good Samaritan.”
“No. It was Vicars who heard something, and ran to see what it was,” said Gussy. “Vicars is very quick-eared. He runs whenever there is any commotion.”
“Ah!” said Meredith again.
He put up his hand once more to cover his eyes, and under his regard Janet for the first time broke down. She got up hastily and threw her work from her.
“Shall I make the tea, Mrs. Harwood?” she said, in a trembling voice.
“Poor Janet,” said Mrs. Harwood. “She has never quite got over it. It made such an impression upon her nerves.”
“I think,” said Gussy, “it might have made more impression upon my nerves than upon Janet’s.”
“Oh, please don’t think of my nerves,” said Janet. “If you will let me, I will pour out the tea.”
Meredith said nothing. He was following out, with his brain still a little confused, the clue he had got hold of. It was Janet, certainly it was Janet. He read it in every line of her stiffened figure and conscious countenance, and in the overwhelming agitation which had at last triumphed over her self-control. Yes, he had met her in the library, and it was with her he had walked towards the ambush laid for him. What more? Was there anything more? He had in his mind a vague reminiscence of something else which he had seen, which a little more thinking would perhaps enable him to master. She must have seen what happened if it was she who was with him, as he believed. She must be aware, if not who it was that had assaulted him, at least how it was. He kept on thinking while they talked round him, trying to quicken his own feeble brain into action, and saying to himself that she must know. If she knew, why was she silent? Then it occurred to Meredith what the reason was.
He glanced at Gussy, sitting by him, and even upon his face there came a certain uneasy color. Betray to Gussy his rendezvous with Janet! Ah, he understood now why Janet did not speak. She dared not. She must have stolen indoors somehow, and concealed the fact that she had ever been out. It would be her ruin to make her confess. Perhaps Meredith would not have cared so very much for this, if it had not appeared to him that he himself would cut but an indifferent figure—paying his addresses to the daughter of the house, and intriguing with the governess? He went over the same ground which Janet had already traversed, and he confessed to himself that it would not do. But what was this consciousness in his mind that he knew, or had known something more?
“Bring Charley his tea, Dolff,” said Mrs. Harwood. “I am sure he wants his tea. It is a nice habit for a man, which I hope you will keep up, Charley, when you are well. I always like to see a young man find pleasure in his tea.”
Her soft voice ran on while Dolff very unwillingly, and with averted face, carried the tea to Meredith. What was it that this dark, stormy, half-averted face suggested to the sick man? Dolff leaned over him for a moment, very unwillingly holding out the tea to him, offering him cake and bread-and-butter, which simple dainties were now part of the invalid’s regimen. Meredith caught that view of Dolff’s face with a certain shock, with a quickened interest, almost anxiety. What did it mean? There was something which he recollected, which he could not recollect—some fact that might throw light upon everything. He was startled beyond measure by the sight of Dolff’s face Dolff! there could be nothing in him to excite anyone. Why was it that his heart began to beat at the sight of Dolff? He could not make it out—it had something to do with his accident. What was it. But presently Meredith felt his head begin to ache and his brain to swim. He leaned back upon his pillows with a sigh of impatience. Gussy was standing by his side in a moment asking,
“Was he tired—did he feel giddy?”
Meredith answered with a disappointment and petulance, which in his weak state nearly moved him to tears,
“I can’t think, that is the worst of it. I begin to remember a trifle here and there. I have got the length of remembering who was with me, and I know there is something more.”
“Don’t try to think any more—leave it till to-morrow. You know,” said Gussy, “dear Charley, the doctors say it will come all right; but you must do it justice, and not force it. There is no hurry, is there? You are not obliged to begin working directly again.”
“No, I’m not obliged to begin working,” Meredith said.
It was not necessary to enter into explanations, and to tell her how his mind was occupied. And, as a matter of fact, he remained very quiet all next day en attendant the great event and privilege of being allowed to walk across the hall to the drawing-room, and disport himself from chair to chair at his pleasure. From time to time during the day he did, indeed, take up the broken thread where it had dropped from him and try to tack it on to something. But he could not do it. He traced himself along the road from Mimpriss’s with Janet on his arm, in the faint lamplight; but at the door he found himself stopped short. One word more would complete the task—one link and he would know all about it, as Janet did, who would never say what it was: but upon that link he could not get hold.
The event of the afternoon was accomplished with great success. He walked unassisted, though feeling as if his legs did not quite belong to him, into the drawing-room, the ladies rising to receive and admire him, as if he had been a child taking its first walk.
“Why, he’s a perfect Hercules!” cried Mrs. Harwood. “He walks as well as any of you. Thank God, my dear boy, that you have got on so well. I think we may feel that you are out of the wood now.”
“Oh, don’t encourage him too much, mamma! He won’t be kept down. He is too venturesome. Fancy, nurse tells me that he has been thinking—actually thinking all day.”
“How very unguarded of him!” said Mrs. Harwood, with a laugh. And then the usual circle was made round him, and the tea poured out to refresh him after his exertion.
It was while the bread-and-butter was going round that Priscilla, the parlor-maid, came into the room which was so pleasant with firelight and smiling faces, and announced that the detective wanted to speak to the gentleman—Dolff’s name was very well known since this inquiry had begun, but it was still to “the gentleman” that this official asked to speak.
“He thinks he has found out something now,” said Priscilla with a faint sniff of scepticism.
Priscilla sensibly thought that a man who had been on this job for so long and had discovered nothing was a poor creature indeed.
“Who is the gentleman that is wanted?” said Meredith. “It is Dolff, I suppose, as the man of the house. But why should Dolff be bored with this?—it is my business if ever any business was. Mrs. Harwood, may we have him in here?”
“Certainly, Charley—if you are quite sure that you can stand it.”
“Why shouldn’t I stand it? I am quite well. I don’t even feel weak. Let us have him in here.”
Mrs. Harwood looked at Gussy and Gussy looked at the patient.
“I am very much afraid it will try him, mamma. Still, as he would hear the voices in the hall, which might excite him more——”
“Of course it would excite me more. Thanks, my kindest Gussy, though you scold me, you are always on my side.”
Here Dolff spoke from the corner in which during these séances he always took shelter.
“This is a new man,” he said. “He’s always got a different thing to suggest, and it’s very distracting—hadn’t I better see him this time?”
“I think Dolff is right,” said Mrs. Harwood.
“No,” said Meredith, “I want distraction. Let’s have him here.”
He did not omit to note the fact that Dolff retired further still into his corner as the policeman came in.
The detective, who was in plain clothes, but not a lofty member of his profession, made a sweeping bow all round, and looked a little embarrassed as he found himself among a company of ladies. He looked round for Dolff, whom he knew, and then at the stranger in the centre of the group, whom he had never seen before, but who distinctly assumed the principal place.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “I don’t see the gentleman I’ve seen before. Oh!—yes—I beg your pardon.”
He turned again to the corner, from which Dolff had emerged a little.
“You needn’t mind me,” said Dolff, “there is the gentleman who is most interested, Mr. Meredith.”
Meredith had his eyes fixed on Dolff. The young man was like a thunderstorm, dark, heavy, and lowering, his eyelids half covering his eyes, his shoulders shrugged up, his head down between them. A vague light was breaking upon the question. At this moment Dolff stooped down to recover something he had dropped. Meredith uttered a quick, low cry.
“What is it? What is it? This is too much for you Charley,” said Gussy.
His eyes were fixed on Dolff in the corner. They were widening and brightening, the iris dilating, the eyes almost projecting, or seeming to project, with the intensity of his gaze.
“Ah!” he said, with a long-drawn breath.
He had found it at last—the thing which he had remembered yet could not remember. Janet’s eyes, drawn to him with a sort of fascination, divined what it meant, and her heart sank. Gussy, who had no such prescience, thought only of excitement and fatigue to her patient.
“Oh, what is it? you are overdone?” she said. “You must do nothing more to-day.”
When he turned to her he had a smile on his lips.
“I am not overdone,” he said, “on the contrary, I have made great progress. I have got new light. I have got back my memory, and now I remember everything. Pray, Dolff,” he said, quietly, “don’t go away. You must help us with your experience.” And he laughed—a laugh full of mockery, which somehow, to two at least of the persons present, seemed like a death-knell.
Dolff, who had made a step or two towards the door, stopped with an obedience too ready and complete. He saw the change in Meredith’s face, and felt that the hour of vengeance which he had, he thought, eluded, was now about to come. He cast a dull glance at Janet, half of appeal, half of despair—and saw that she thought as he did, and was holding her breath in intense attention. She understood, but did not sympathize. She would not stand by him now, he felt instinctively, though she had stood by him before.
“Well,” said Meredith, “excuse me, I have kept you too long waiting. You are after the fellow who knocked me down, officer—have you got any trace?”
“Well, sir,” said the policeman, “you might say nearly murdered you. I’m glad to see you so well again.”
“Thanks,” said Meredith, “as I’m so well, we’ll say only knocked me down: and if he hadn’t taken me at a disadvantage in coming up behind me, I suppose I ought to have been able to give a good account of him.”
“Ah!” said the policeman, “one of those fellows he wouldn’t face a gentleman like you. I’m sorry to say we’ve no trace of him—nothing as I could act upon: but I’ve got the man as saw it from the other side of the street, and he says he could pick out the man from any dozen. He says he would know his face again wherever he saw him; he’s got a notion, besides, of where the fellow’s to be found. I was thinking as you might like to question him yourself; I have got him just round the corner, waiting with one of my mates, if you’d like to see him yourself.”
“Ah!” said Meredith, “it wouldn’t be a bad thing. What do you say, Dolff? Don’t you think we might have this man—who could recognize the cad who hit me behind my back, here?”
Dolff’s tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He stood in his corner, and glanced at the speaker, but did not answer a word.
“I could have him here in a moment,” the policeman said.
“It would be interesting,” said Mrs. Harwood, “but a little exciting; and, if he saw him so well, why didn’t he secure him there and then?”
“His attention, ma’am, was called off by the gentleman as he thought was dying; but I don’t think as it is too late.”
Did the detective glance into the corner too, at Dolff standing in dark shadow against the wall?
“I am only afraid it will be too much for you in your weak state,” said Gussy, looking anxiously at her patient.
“We’ll let Dolff decide,” said Meredith, with once more that dreadful laugh. “Come, give us your advice, as you have had all the previous information. Shall we have this man in who can identify—the murderer, Dolff?”
There was a pause, which even to the unsuspecting ladies had something dreadful in it. Dolff cleared his throat and moistened his parched lips.
“You can have him—if you wish it, I suppose?” he said.
The crisis, however, passed off for the moment in an unexpected way—for Meredith’s strength suddenly forsook him, and he had to be taken back to his room in something very like a faint.