A Perfect Fool: A Novel

by Florence Warden

Chris, who was looking out of her bed-room window, ran downstairs and out of the house, and was through the gate in a moment.

A winding gravel path led through a thick growth of trees to the kitchen garden, where she saw Johnson, the second gardener, busy with the celery-bed. He saw her, but touched his hat, and took no further notice beyond a faint grin. Probably the affairs of the household were sufficiently discussed in the servants’ hall for him to guess that the young lady’s transgression would be overlooked at headquarters. Chris sauntered on, peeping into the tomato-houses, and trying to look through the steaming glass of the fern-houses, until she was well under the windows of the shut-up rooms. And she now perceived that there were bars in front of all of them.

The girl was a little impressed by this, and she kept well among the trees, with a feeling that some hideous maniac’s face might appear at one of the windows, and make grimaces at her. It was easy for her to remain hidden herself from any eyes in the east wing but very sharp ones; for under the trees was a growth of bushes and shrubs, through which she could peep herself at the barred windows. She had made her way cautiously, and under cover, from the north to the south, and turning, she could see the sea between the branches. But from the first floor the view of the sea was, in great part, spoiled by the thick growth of the upper branches of the big elms and fir trees which allowed a good view between their bare trunks from the ground floor.

Chris met nobody, and she saw nobody at the front windows. Rather disappointed, she was making her way back again, in order to get out through the gate by which she had entered, when, glancing up at one of the east windows on the first floor, she saw that, since she had last passed, a man had seated himself close to the panes.

At the first moment she of course thought this must be the maniac, and she quickly concealed herself behind one of the bushes by the side of the path, so that she could get a good view of him without his seeing her. But a very few seconds made her alter her first impression. Surely this was no madman, this handsome man with the pale, refined face, and large, melancholy eyes. The face was young, at least she thought so at the first look. It was not until she had examined it for some seconds that she saw the deep lines and furrows about the mouth and eyes, and the silver patches in the hair, which was long, and brushed back from the face.

Chris drew a deep breath. Something in the face made her think she had seen it before. The long and slightly aquiline nose, the straight mouth with its finely-cut lips, the brushed-back hair—she seemed to know them all, as part of a picture she had lately seen. Suddenly an exclamation broke from her lips. The miniature! yes, the face at the window was the face in the little picture. This must be Gilbert Wryde.

Chris was much puzzled. Was he the doctor who attended Mr. Richard, or an old friend who had come to see him? This seemed the more probable of the two suppositions; for if the portrait had been that of the madman’s doctor, Mr. Bradfield would scarcely have said that he did not know him.

But then the date on the portrait, 1847? The painting was that of a young man in the very prime of life. In spite of the lines in his face and the silver in his hair, it was impossible that the face behind the barred window could be that of a man at least seventy years of age.

Chris began to feel herself blushing, ashamed of the unseen watch she was keeping upon a strange man. The sun of a very bright December morning was upon his face, and upon a gold watch which he held in his hand and looked at intently. This fact, together with the intense seriousness of his face, caused Chris to revert to her idea that he must be a physician. She had not heard that Mr. Richard was ill, but that was nothing, for his name, as far as she knew, was very little mentioned in the household, and he might be ill without her ever hearing of it.

She thought it probable that he was not only ill, but that his malady had reached some grave crisis; for the face at the window was quite serious enough to warrant the supposition that he was counting the minutes in a case of life and death. This idea seized upon her so strongly that she found herself watching for a change in his face, thinking she should be able to tell whether the expression altered to one of hope or to one of despair.