Doctor Phillips was a man of sixty, and a bachelor. He had never made any home ties for himself, and was therefore more interested in Margaret Pullen (whose father had been one of his dearest friends) than he might otherwise have been. He feared that a heavy trial lay before her and he was unwilling to see it aggravated by any misconduct on the part of her brother-in-law. He could see that the young man was (to say the least of it) not behaving fairly towards his fiancée, Elinor Leyton, and he was determined to open his eyes to the true state of affairs with regard to Harriet Brandt. He spent a sleepless night, his last visit to Margaret’s suffering child having strengthened his opinion as to her hopeless condition, and he lay awake wondering how he should break the news to the poor young mother. He rose with the intention of speaking to Ralph without delay, but he found it more difficult to get a word with him than he had anticipated. The Gobelli party had decided to start with the Brimonts that afternoon, and Captain Pullen stuck to them the entire morning, ostensibly to assist the Baroness in her preparations for departure, but in reality, as anyone could see, to linger by the side of Miss Brandt. Miss Leyton perceived her lover’s defalcation as plainly as the rest, but she was too proud to make a hint upon the subject, even to Margaret Pullen. She sat alone in the balcony, reading a book, and gave no sign of annoyance or discomfiture. But a close observer might have seen the trembling of her lip when she attempted to speak, and the fixed, white look upon her face, which betrayed her inward anxiety. It made Margaret’s kind heart ache to see her, and Dr. Phillips more indignant with Ralph Pullen than before.
The party for Brussels had arranged to travel by the three o’clock train, and at the appointed time the doctor was ready in the balcony to accompany them to the entrepôt. There were no cabs in Heyst, the station being in the town. Luggage was conveyed backwards and forwards in hand carts drawn by the porters, and travellers invariably walked to their destination. The Baroness appeared dressed for her journey, in an amazing gown of blue velvet, trimmed with rare Maltese lace, with a heavy mantle over it, and a small hat on her head, which made her round, flat, unmeaning face, look coarser than before. She used the Herr Baron as a walking-stick as usual, whilst Harriet Brandt, in a white frock and large hat shading her glowing eyes under a scarlet parasol, looked like a tropical bird skimming by her side, with Captain Pullen in close attendance, carrying a flimsy wrap in case she should require it before she reached her journey’s end. The Brimonts, following in the rear, were of no account beside their more brilliant and important friends.
Ralph Pullen did not look pleased when he saw Doctor Phillips join the party.
“Are you also going to the entrepôt?” he exclaimed, “what can you find to interest you there?—a dirty little smutty place! I am going just to help the ladies over the line, as there is no bridge for crossing.”
“Perhaps I am bent on the same errand,” replied the doctor, “do you give me credit for less gallantry than yourself, Pullen?”
“That’s right, Doctor,” said the Baroness, “and I’ve no doubt you’ll be very useful! My Bobby ain’t any manner of good, and the Baron ’as so many traps to carry that ’e ’asn’t got an arm to spare. I only wish you were coming with us! Why don’t you make up your mind to come over with Captain Pullen the day after to-morrow, and ’ave a little ’oliday?”
“I was not aware that Captain Pullen was going to Brussels, madame! I fancy he will have to get Miss Leyton’s consent first!”
At the mention of Miss Leyton’s name in connection with himself, Ralph Pullen flushed uneasily, and Harriet Brandt turned a look of startled enquiry upon the speaker.
“O! ’ang Miss Leyton!” retorted the Baroness, graphically, “she surely wouldn’t stop Captain Pullen’s fun, just because ’e’s staying with ’is sister-in-law! I should call that very ’ard. You can’t always tie a young man to ’is relations’ apron-strings, Doctor!”
“Not always, madame!” he replied, and dropped the subject.
“You wouldn’t let Miss Leyton or Mrs. Pullen keep you from me!” whispered Harriet, to her cavalier.
“Never!” he answered emphatically.
They had reached the little station by this time, and the porters were calling out vociferously that the train was about to start for Brussels, so that in the hurry of procuring their tickets, and conveying the ladies and the luggage across the cinder-besprinkled line, to where the train stood puffing to be off, there was no more time to exchange sentimentalities, or excite suspicion. The party being safely stowed away in their carriage, Ralph Pullen and Doctor Phillips stood on the wooden platform with their hats off, bowing their farewells.
“Mind you don’t put off your coming after Thursday!” screamed the Baroness to Ralph, as she filled up the entire window with her bulky person, “we shall expect you by dinner-time! And I shall bespeak a room for you, whether you will or no! ’Arriet ’ere will break ’er ’eart if you don’t turn up, and I don’t want the responsibility of ’er committing suicide on my ’ands!”
“All right! all right!” responded Ralph, pretending to turn it off as a joke, “None of you shall do that on my account, I promise you!”
“O! well! I ’ope you’re going to keep your word, or we shall come back to ’Eyst in double quick time. Good-bye! Good-bye!” and kissing her fat hand to the two gentlemen, the Baroness was whisked out of Heyst.
Ralph looked longingly after the departing line of carriages for a minute, and then crossed the line again to the road beyond.
Doctor Phillips did not say a word till they were well clear of the station, and then he commenced,
“Of course you’re not in earnest about following these people to Brussels.”
“Why should I not be? I knew Brussels well as a lad, and I should enjoy renewing my acquaintance with the old town.”
“In proper company perhaps, but you can hardly call that party a fit one for you to associate with!”
“You’re alluding to the Baron and Baroness being in trade. Well! as a rule I confess that I do not care to associate intimately with bootmakers and their friends, but one does things abroad that one would not dream of doing in England. And for all her vulgarity, Madame Gobelli is very good-natured and generous, and I really don’t see that I lower my dignity by being on friendly terms with her whilst here!”
“I was not alluding to Madame Gobelli, though I do not think that either she or the Brimonts are fit companions for a man who belongs to the Limerick Rangers, or is engaged to marry the daughter of Lord Walthamstowe. Neither do I admire the spirit which would induce you to hobnob with them in Heyst, when you would cut them in Bond Street. But as far as I know the Baron and his wife are harmless. It is Miss Harriet Brandt that I would caution you against!”
A quick resentment appeared on Ralph Pullen’s features. His eyes darkened, and an ominous wrinkle stood out on his brow.
“And what may you have to say of Miss Brandt?” he demanded, coldly.
“A great deal more than you know, or can possibly imagine! She is not a fit person for Elinor Leyton to associate with, and consequently, one whom it is your duty to avoid, instead of cultivating.”
“I think you exceed your duty, Doctor, in speaking to me thus!”
“I am sorry you should think so, Pullen, but your anger will not deter me from telling you what is in my mind. You must not forget how old a friend I am of both sides of your family. Your brother Arthur is one of my greatest chums, and his wife’s father was, without exception, my dearest friend—added to this, I am on intimate terms with the Walthamstowes. Knowing what I do, therefore, I should hold myself criminal if I left you in ignorance of the truth concerning this young woman.”
“Are you alluding, may I ask, to Miss Brandt?”
“I am alluding to the girl who calls herself by that name, but who is in reality only the bastard daughter of Henry Brandt, one of the most infamous men whom God ever permitted to desecrate this earth, and his half-caste mistress.”
“Be careful what you say, Doctor Phillips!” said Ralph Pullen, with ill-suppressed wrath gleaming in his blue eyes.
“There is no need to be, my dear fellow, I can verify everything I say, and I fear no man’s resentment. I was stationed in Jamaica with my regiment, some fifteen years ago, when this girl was a child of six years old, running half naked about her father’s plantation, uncared for by either parent, and associating solely with the negro servants. Brandt was a brute—the perpetrator of such atrocities in vivisection and other scientific experiments, that he was finally slaughtered on his own plantation by his servants, and everyone said it served him right. The mother was the most awful woman I have ever seen, and my experience of the sex in back slums and alleys has not been small. She was the daughter of a certain Judge Carey of Barbadoes by one of his slave girls, and Brandt took her as his mistress before she was fourteen. At thirty, when I saw her, she was a revolting spectacle. Gluttonous and obese—her large eyes rolling and her sensual lips protruding as if she were always licking them in anticipation of her prey. She was said to be ‘Obeah’ too by the natives and they ascribed all the deaths and diseases that took place on the plantation, to her malign influence. Consequently, when they got her in their clutches, I have heard that they did not spare her, but killed her in the most torturing fashion they could devise.”
“And did the British Government take no notice of the massacre?”
“There was an enquiry, of course, but the actual perpetrator of the murders could not be traced, and so the matter died out. The hatred and suspicion in which Brandt had been held for some time, had a great effect upon the verdict, for in addition to his terrible experiments upon animals—experiments which he performed simply for his own gratification and for no use that he made of them in treating his fellow creatures—he had been known to decoy diseased and old natives into his laboratory, after which they were never seen again, and it was the digging up of human bones on the plantation, which finally roused the negroes to such a pitch of indignation that they rose en masse, and after murdering both Brandt and his abominable mistress, they set fire to the house and burned it to the ground. There is no doubt but that, if the overseer of the plantation, an African negro named Pete, had not carried off the little girl, she would have shared the fate of her parents. And who can say if it would not have been as well if she had!”
“I really cannot see what right you have to give vent to such a sentiment!” exclaimed Captain Pullen. “What has this terrible story got to do with Miss Brandt?”
“Everything! ‘When the cat is black, the kitten is black too!’ It’s the law of Nature!”
“I don’t believe it! Miss Brandt bears no trace in feature or character of the parentage you ascribe to her!”
“Does she not? Your assertion only proves your ignorance of character, or characteristics. The girl is a quadroon, and she shews it distinctly in her long-shaped eyes with their blue whites and her wide mouth and blood-red lips! Also in her supple figure and apparently boneless hands and feet. Of her personal character, I have naturally had no opportunity of judging, but I can tell you by the way she eats her food, and the way in which she uses her eyes, that she has inherited her half-caste mother’s greedy and sensual disposition. And in ten years’ time she will in all probability have no figure at all! She will run to fat. I could tell that also at a glance!”
“And have you any more compliments to pay the young lady?” enquired Captain Pullen, sarcastically.
“I have this still to say, Pullen—that she is a woman whom you must never introduce to your wife, and that it is your bounden duty to separate her, as soon as possible, from your fiancée and your sister-in-law!”
“And what if I refuse to interfere in a matter which, as far as I can see, concerns no one but Miss Brandt herself?”
“In that case, I regret to say that I shall feel it my duty, to inform your brother Colonel Pullen and your future father-in-law, Lord Walthamstowe of what I have told you! Come, my dear boy, be reasonable! This girl has attracted you, I suppose! We are all subject to a woman’s influence at times, but you must not let it go further. You must break it off, and this is an excellent opportunity to do so! Your sister’s infant is, I fear, seriously ill. Take your party on to Ostende, and send the Baroness a polite note to say that you are prevented from going to Brussels, and all will be right! You will take my advice—will you not?”
“No! I’ll be hanged if I will,” exclaimed the young man, “I am not a boy to be ordered here and there, as if I were not fit to take care of myself. I’ve pledged my word to go to Brussels and to Brussels I shall go. If Miss Leyton doesn’t like it, she must do the other thing! She does not shew me such a superfluity of affection as to prevent the necessity of my seeking for sympathy and friendship elsewhere.”
“I am sorry to hear you speak like that, Pullen. It does not augur well for the happiness of your married life!”
“I have thought more than once lately, that I shall not be married at all—that is to Miss Leyton!”
“No! no! don’t say so. It is only a passing infidelity, engendered by the attraction of this other girl. Consider what your brother would say, and what Lord Walthamstowe would think, if you committed the great mistake at this late hour, of breaking off your engagement!”
“I cannot see why my brother’s opinion, or Lord Walthamstowe’s thoughts, should interfere with the happiness of my whole life,” rejoined Ralph, sullenly. “However, let that pass! The question on the tapis is, my acquaintance with Miss Brandt, which you consider should be put a stop to. For what reason? If what you bring against her is true, it appears to me that she has all the more need of the protection and loyalty of her friends. It would be cowardly to desert a girl, just because her father and mother happened to be brutes. It is not her fault!”
“I quite allow that! Neither is it the fault of a madman that his progenitors had lunacy in their blood, nor of a consumptive, that his were strumous. All the same the facts affect their lives and the lives of those with whom they come in contact. It is the curse of heredity!”
“Well! and if so, how can it concern anyone but the poor child herself?”
“O! yes, it can and it will! And if I am not greatly mistaken, Harriet Brandt carries a worse curse with her even than that! She possesses the fatal attributes of the Vampire that affected her mother’s birth—that endued her with the thirst for blood, which characterised her life—that will make Harriet draw upon the health and strength of all with whom she may be intimately associated—that may render her love fatal to such as she may cling to! I must tell you, Pullen, that I fear we have already proofs of this in the illness of your little niece, whom, her mother tells me, was at one time scarcely ever out of Miss Brandt’s arms. I have no other means of accounting for her sudden failure of strength and vitality. You need not stare at me, as if you thought I do not know what I am talking about! There are many cases like it in the world. Cases of persons who actually feed upon the lives of others, as the deadly upas tree sucks the life of its victim, by lulling him into a sleep from which he never wakens!”
“Phillips, you must be mad! Do you know that you are accusing Miss Brandt of murder—of killing the child to whom she never shewed anything but the greatest kindness. Why! I have known her carry little Ethel about the sands for a whole afternoon.”
“All the worse for poor little Ethel! I do not say she does harm intentionally or even consciously, but that the deadly attributes of her bloodthirsty parents have descended on her in this respect, I have not a shadow of doubt! If you watch that young woman’s career through life, you will see that those she apparently cares for most, and clings to most, will soonest fade out of existence, whilst she continues to live all the stronger that her victims die!”
“Rubbish! I don’t believe it!” replied Ralph sturdily. “You medical men generally have some crotchet in your brains, but this is the most wonderful bee that ever buzzed in a bonnet! And all I can say is, that I should be quite willing to try the experiment!”
“You have tried it, Pullen, in a mild form, and it has had its effect on you! You are not the same fellow who came over to Heyst, though by all rules, you should be looking better and stronger for the change. And Margaret has already complained to me of the strange effect this girl has had upon her! But you must not breathe a suspicion to her concerning the child’s illness, or I verily believe she would murder Miss Brandt!”
“Putting all this nonsense aside,” said Ralph, “do you consider Margaret’s baby to be seriously ill?”
“Very seriously. My medicines have not had the slightest effect upon her condition, which is inexplicable. Her little life is being slowly sapped. She may cease to breathe at any moment. But I have not yet had the courage to tell your sister the truth!”
“How disappointed poor Arthur will be!”
“Yes! but his grief will be nothing to the mother’s. She is quite devoted to her child!”
By mutual consent, they had dropped the subject of Harriet Brandt, and now spoke only of family affairs. Ralph was a kind-hearted fellow under all his conceit, and felt very grave at the prospect held out in regard to his baby niece.
The fulfilment of the prophecy came sooner than even Doctor Phillips had anticipated. As they were all sitting at dinner that evening, Madame Lamont, her eyes over-brimming with tears, rushed unceremoniously into the salle à manger, calling to Margaret.
“Madame! Madame! please come up to your room at once! The dear baby is worse!”
Margaret threw one agonised glance at Doctor Phillips and rushed from the room, followed by himself and Elinor Leyton. The high staircase seemed interminable—more than once Margaret’s legs failed under her and she thought she should never reach the top. But she did so all too soon. On the bed was laid the infant form, limp and lifeless, and Martin the nurse met them at the door, bathed in tears.
“Oh! Ma’am!” she cried, “it happened all of a minute! She was lying on my lap, pretty dear, just as usual, when she went off in a convulsion and died.”
“Died, died!” echoed Margaret in a bewildered voice, “Doctor Phillips! who is it that has died?”
“The baby, Ma’am, the dear baby! She went off like a lamb, without a struggle! O! dear mistress, do try to bear it!”
“Is my baby—dead?” said Margaret in the same dazed voice, turning to the doctor who had already satisfied himself that the tiny heart and pulse had ceased to beat.
“No! my dear child, she is not dead—she is living—with God! Try to think of her as quite happy and free from this world’s ill.”
“O! but I wanted her so—I wanted her,” exclaimed the bereaved mother, as she clasped the senseless form in her arms, “O! baby! baby! why did you go, before you had seen your father?”
And then she slid, rather than sank, from the bedside, in a tumbled heap upon the floor.
“It is better so—it will help her through it,” said Doctor Phillips, as he directed the nurse to carry the dead child into Elinor Leyton’s room, and placed Margaret on her own bed. “You will not object, Miss Leyton, I am sure, and you must not leave Mrs. Pullen to-night!”
“Of course I shall not,” replied Elinor; “I have been afraid for days past that this would happen, but poor Margaret would not take any hints.”
She spoke sympathetically, but there were no tears in her eyes, and she did not caress, nor attempt to console her friend. She did all that was required of her, but there was no spontaneous suggestion on her part, with regard either to the mother, or the dead child, and as Doctor Phillips noted her coolness, he did not wonder so much at Ralph’s being attracted by the fervour and warmth of Harriet Brandt.
As soon as poor Margaret had revived and had her cry out, he administered a sleeping draught to her, and leaving her in charge of Elinor Leyton, he went downstairs again to consult Captain Pullen as to what would be the best thing for them to do.
Ralph was very much shocked to hear of the baby’s sudden death, and eager to do all in his power for his brother’s wife. There was no Protestant cemetery in Heyst, and Doctor Phillips proposed that they should at once order a little shell, and convey the child’s body either to Ostende or England, as Margaret might desire, for burial. The sooner she left the place where she had lost her child, he said, the better, and his idea was that she would wish the body to be taken to Devonshire and buried in the quiet country churchyard, where her husband’s father and mother were laid to sleep. He left Ralph to telegraph to his brother in India and to anyone the news might concern in England—also to settle all hotel claims and give notice to the Lamonts that they would leave on the morrow.
“But supposing Margaret should object,” suggested Ralph.
“She will not object!” replied the Doctor, “she might if we were not taking the child’s body with us, but as it is, she will be grateful to be thought, and acted, for. She is a true woman, God bless her! I only wish He had not seen fit to bring this heavy trial on her head!”
Not a word was exchanged between the two men about Harriet Brandt. Ralph, remembering the hint the doctor had thrown out respecting her being the ultimate cause of the baby’s illness, did not like to bring up her name again—felt rather guilty with respect to it, indeed—and Doctor Phillips was only too glad to see the young man bestirring himself to be useful, and losing sight of his own worry in the trouble of his sister-in-law. Of course he could not have refused, or even demurred, at accompanying his party to England on so mournful an errand—and to do him justice, he did not wish it to be otherwise. Brussels, and its anticipated pleasures, had been driven clean out of his head by the little tragedy that had occurred in Heyst, and his attitude towards Margaret when they met again, was so quietly affectionate and brotherly that he was of infinite comfort to her. She quite acquiesced in Doctor Phillips’ decision that her child should be buried with her father’s family, and the mournful group with the little coffin in their midst, set out without delay for Devonshire.