Under False Pretences: A Novel

by Adeline Sergeant

"If I were only in his place I should be happy," said Brian, passionately. Then he turned upon Hugo with something like fierceness, but it was the fierceness of a prolonged and half-suppressed agony of pain. "Do you feel nothing? Do you come into his house, knowing that he is dead, and have not a word of sorrow for your own behaviour to him while he lived? Come with me and look at him—look at his face, and remember what he did for you when you were a boy—what he has done for you during the last eight years."

He seized Hugo by the arm and compelled him to rise; but the lad, with a face blanched by terror, absolutely refused to move from the spot.

"Not to-night—I can't—I can't!" he said, his dark eyes dilating, and his very lips turning white with fear. "To-morrow, Brian—not to-night."

But Brian briefly answered, "Come," and tightened his grasp on the lad's arm. And Hugo, though trembling like an aspen leaf, yielded to that iron pressure, and followed him to the room where lay all that was mortal of Richard Luttrell.

Once inside the door, Brian dropped his cousin's arm, and seemed to forget his presence. He slowly removed the covering from the dead face and placed a candle so that the light fell upon it. Then he walked to the foot of the table, which served the purpose of a bier, and looked long and earnestly at the marble features, so changed, so passionless and calm in the repose of death! Terrible, indeed, was the sight to one who had sincerely loved Richard Luttrell—the strong man, full of lusty health and vigour, desirous of life, fortunate in the possession, of all that makes life worth living only a few short hours before; now silent, motionless for ever struck down in the hey-day of youth and strength, and by a brother's hand! Brian had but spoken the truth when he said that he would gladly change his own fate for that of his brother Richard. He forgot Hugo and the reason for which he had brought him to that room, he forgot everything except his own unavailing sorrow, his inextinguishable regret.

Hugo remained where his cousin had left him, leaning against the wall, seemingly incapable of speech or motion, overcome by a superstitious terror of death, which Brian was as far from suspecting as of comprehending. In the utter silence of the house they could hear the distant stable-clock strike eleven. The wind was rising, and blew in fitful gusts, rustling the branches of the trees, and causing a loose rose-branch to tap carelessly against the window panes. It sounded like the knock of someone anxious to come in. The candles flickered and guttered in the draught; the wavering light cast strange shadows over the dead man's face. You might have thought that his features moved from time to time; that now he frowned at the intruders, and now he smiled at them—a terrible, ghastly smile.

There was a footstep at the door. It was Mrs. Luttrell who came gliding in with her pale face, and her long black robes, to take her place at her dead son's side. She had thought that she must come and assure herself once more that he was really gone from her. She meant to look at him for a little while, to kiss his cold forehead, and then to go back to Angela and try to sleep. She took no notice of Brian, nor of Hugo; she drew a chair close to the long table upon which the still, white form was stretched, seated herself, and looked steadfastly at the uncovered face. Brian started at the sight of his mother; he glanced at her pleadingly, as if he would have spoken; but the rigidity of her face repelled him. He hung his head and turned a little from her, as though to steal away.

Suddenly a terrible voice rang through the room. "Look!" cried the mother, pointing with one finger to the lifeless form, and raising her eyes for the first time to Brian's face—"look there!"

Brian looked, and flinched from the sight he saw. For a strange thing had happened. Although not actually unusual, it had never before come within the experience of any of these watchers of the dead, and thus it suggested to them nothing but the old superstition which in old times caused a supposed murderer to be brought face to face with the man he was accused of having killed.

A drop of blood was trickling from the nostril of the dead man, and losing itself in the thick, black moustache upon his upper lip. It was followed by another or two, and then it stayed.