Brooke's Daughter: A Novel

by Adeline Sergeant

"I wonder what has happened to him," he said to himself. "It's not safe to question, but I should like to know. Is it drink? or is it brain disease? One thing or the other it must be. He does not look as if he would live to spend the two thousand pounds—if ever he gets it. I wonder if I could contrive to stave off the payment——"

And then he fell into a gloomy calculation of ways and means, possibilities and chances, which lasted until the house in Russell Square was reached. Here the brothers paused, and Oliver looked keenly into his companion's face, noting that a somewhat remarkable change had passed over it. Instead of being flushed and swollen, as if from drinking, it had become very pale. His eyes seemed on the point of closing, and he wavered unsteadily in his walk. Oliver had to put out his hand to save him from falling, and to help him to the steps, where he collapsed into a sitting posture, with his head against the railings. He seemed to be stupefied, if not asleep.

"Dead drunk," said Oliver to himself. "The danger's over for to-night, at any rate. Now, what shall I do with him? I can't get him into the house and lock him into a room—that would make talk. I think I had better leave him to the tender mercies of the next policeman; if he gets run in for being drunk and incapable, so much the better for me."

He took out his latch key and let himself into the house, closing the door softly behind him, so as not to awaken the half-sleeping wretch upon the steps. Then he ascended the stairs—still softly, as if he thought that he was not yet out of danger of awaking him—and locked himself into his own room. Then he drew a long breath, and stood motionless for a moment, with bent brows and downcast eyes. "There will be no end to this," he said to himself, "until Francis is shipped off to America or landed safely in a madhouse. One seems to me about as likely as another. I wonder whether he was drunk to-night, or insane? Drunk, I think: insanity"—with a sinister smile—"would be too great a stroke of luck for me!"

But it was perfectly true, as Francis had said, that no drop of intoxicating liquor had passed his lips that day. He was suffering from brain disease, as Oliver had half suspected, although not to such an extent that he could actually be called insane. A certain form of mania was gradually taking possession of his mind. He was convinced that he had been robbed by his brother of much that was his due; and that Oliver was even now withholding money that was his. This fancy had its foundation in fact, for Oliver had wronged him more than once, and was ready to wrong him again should a suitable opportunity occur; but the notion that at present occupied his mind, respecting the payment of the two thousand pounds, was largely a figment of his disordered brain. Oliver had certainly questioned within himself whether he should be called upon to pay this sum, and as Francis seemed to have completely disappeared, he began to think that he might evade his promise to do so; but he had not as yet sought to free himself from the necessity of paying it. Francis' own words and demeanor suggested this idea for the first time to his mind. Was it possible, he asked himself, to prove that Francis was insane—clap him into a lunatic asylum—get rid of him forever without hush-money? True, there was his wife, Mary, to be silenced; but she had no influence and no friends. "Power is always in the hands of those who have most money," Oliver said to himself, as he reviewed the situation, after leaving Francis on the door step. "I have more money than Francis, certainly: I ought to be able to control his fate a little—and my own."

But Oliver, astute as he thought himself, was occasionally mistaken in his conclusions. Francis Trent, as we have said, was not intoxicated; and when he had dozed quietly for a few moments on the door-step, he came somewhat to himself, as he usually did after these fits of frenzy. He felt dazed and bewildered, but he was no longer furious. He could not remember very well what he had said to Oliver, or what Oliver had said to him. But he knew where he was, and that in this region—between Russell Square and St. Pancras Church—he should find his truest friends and perhaps also his bitterest foes.

He roused himself, stretched his cramped limbs, and turned back to wander towards Upper Woburn Place, hardly knowing, however, why he bent his steps in that direction. Instinct, not memory or reflection, guided him, and when he halted, he leaned against the railings of the house from which he had seen Oliver come forth, without realizing for one moment that it was the house in which his faithful and half-forgotten Mary was to be found.

The door opened, as he waited, and some of the guests came out. Two or three carriages drove up: there was a call for a hansom, a whistle, and an answering shout. Francis Trent watched the proceedings with a sort of stupid attention. They reminded him of the previous night when he had seen Ethel Kenyon coming out of the theatre after her farewell performance. But on that occasion he had passed unnoticed and unrecognized. This was not now to be the case.

Suddenly a woman on the threshold of Mr. Brooke's house caught sight of the weary, shabby figure leaning against the railings. Francis heard a little gasp, a little cry, and felt a hand upon his own. "Francis! is it you? have you really come back?" It was Mary Kingston who looked him in the face.

He returned the gaze with lack-lustre, unseeing eyes. When the fever-fit of rage left him, he was still subject to odd lapses of memory. One of these had assailed him now. He did not recognize his wife in the very least.