In the Dead of Night: A Novel. Volume 3 (of 3)

by T. W. Speight

Nothing could have suited Lionel’s plans better than that his cousin should continue to live on at Park Newton, but he was certainly puzzled to know what his reason could be for so doing; and, in such a case, to be puzzled was, to a certain extent, to be disquieted.

But much as he would have liked to do so, Kester had a very good reason for not leaving Park Newton at present. He was, in fact, afraid to do so. After the affair of the footsteps he had decided that it would not be advisable to go away for a little while. It would never do for people to say that he had been driven away by the ghost of Percy Osmond. It was while thus lingering on from day to day that he had ridden over to see Mother Mim. One result of his interview was that he felt how utterly unsafe it would be for him to quit the neighbourhood till she was safely dead and buried. She might send for him at any moment, she might have other things to speak to him about which it behoved him to hear. She might change her mind at the last moment, and decide to tell to some other person what she had already told him; and when she should die, it would doubtless be to him that application would be made to bury her. All things considered, it was certainly unadvisable that he should leave Park Newton yet awhile.

Day after day he waited with smothered impatience for some further tidings of Mother Mim. But day after day he waited in vain. Most men, under such circumstances, would have gone to the place and have made personal inquiries for themselves. This was precisely what Kester St. George told himself that he ought to do, but for all that he did not do it. He shrank, with a repugnance which he could not overcome, from the thought of any further contact with either Mother Mim or her surroundings. His tastes, if not refined, were fastidious, and a shudder of disgust ran through him as often as he remembered that if what Mother Mim had said were true—and there was something that rang terribly like truth in her words—then was she—that wretched creature—his mother, and the filthy hut in which she lay dying his sole home and heritage. He knew that for the sake of his own interest—of his own safety—he ought to go and see again this woman who called herself his mother, but three weeks had come and gone before he could screw his courage up to the pitch requisite to induce him to do so.

But before this came about, Kester St. George had been left for the time being, with the exception of certain servants, the sole occupant of Park Newton. Lionel Dering had gone down to Bath to seek an interview with Pierre Janvard, with what result has been already seen. Two days after Lionel’s departure, General St. George was called away by the sudden illness of an old Indian friend to whom he was most warmly attached. He left home expecting to be back in four or five days at the latest; whereas, as it fell out, he did not reach home again for several weeks.

It was one day when thus left alone, and when the solitude was becoming utterly intolerable to him, that Kester made up his mind that he would no longer be a coward, but would go that very afternoon and see for himself whether Mother Mim were alive or dead. But even after he had thus determined that there should be no more delay on his part, he played fast and loose with himself as to whether he should go or not. Had there come to him any important letter or telegram demanding his presence fifty miles away, he would have caught at it as a drowning man catches at a straw. The veriest excuse would have sufficed for the putting off of his journey for at least one day. But the dull hours wore themselves away without relief or change of any kind for him, and when three o’clock came, having first dosed himself heavily with brandy, he rang the bell and ordered his horse to be brought round.

What might not the next few hours bring to him? he asked himself as he rode down the avenue. They might perchance be pregnant with doom. Or death might already have lifted this last bitter burden from his life by sealing with his bony fingers the only lips that had power to do him harm.

For nearly a fortnight past the weather had been remarkably mild, balmy, and open for the time of year. Everybody said how easily old winter was dying. But during the previous night there had come a bitter change. The wind had suddenly veered round to the north-east, and was still blowing steadily from that quarter. Steadily and bitterly it blew, chilling the hearts of man and beast with its icy breath, stopping the growth of grass and flowers, killing every faintest gleam of sunshine, and bringing back the reign of winter in its cruellest form.

Heavy and lowering looked the sky, shrilly through the still bare branches whistled the ice-cold wind, as Kester St. George, deep in thought, rode slowly through the park. He buttoned his coat more closely around him, and pulled his hat more firmly over his brows as he turned out of the lodge gates, and setting his face full to the wind, urged his horse into a gallop, and was quickly lost to view down the winding road.

It would not have taken him long to reach the edge of Burley Moor had not his horse suddenly fallen lame. For the last two miles of the distance his pace was reduced to a slow walk. This so annoyed Kester that he decided to leave his horse at a roadside tavern in the last hamlet he had to pass through, and to traverse the remainder of the distance on foot. A short three miles across the moor would take him to Mother Mim’s cottage.

To a man such as Kester a three miles’ walk was a rather formidable undertaking—or, at least, it was an uncommon one. But there was no avoiding it on the present occasion, unless he gave up the object of his journey and went back home. But he could by no means bear the thought of doing that. In proportion with the hesitation and reluctance which he had previously shown, to ascertain either the best or the worst of the affair, was the anxiety which now possessed him to reach his journey’s end. His imagination pictured all kinds of possible and impossible evils as likely to accrue to him, and he cursed himself again and again for his negligence in not making the journey long ago.