The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand

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"Thank you," I answered. "That is what I should like to have suggested."

"Then send the lady up to town, and I will do my best for her."

CHAPTER XV.

Sir Shadwell Rock was exactly the kind of man Evadne had had in her mind,
I felt sure, when she spoke of the peculiar influence which distinguished
men of my profession exercise upon their patients. He was a man of taking
manners to begin with, sympathetic, cultivated, humane; and, I need hardly
add, scrupulously conscientious and exact. I could confide her to his care
with the most perfect reliance upon his kindness, as well as upon his
discretion and skill--if she would consent to consult him at all; but that
was a little difficulty which had still to be got over. I anticipated some
opposition, because I felt sure she had not realized that there was
anything threatening to be serious in her case, and would therefore see no
necessity for further advice. This made the arrangement difficult. It
would not do to arouse any apprehension about her own state of mind; but
how to induce her to go to London to consult an eminent specialist without
doing so was the question. Had Lady Adeline been at home the suggestion
would have come best from her, but in her absence there was nobody to make
it except that impossible Colonel Colquhoun. If he chose to order Evadne
to consult Sir Shadwell Rock, I knew she would do so at once, for she
never opposed him, and he was so apt to be unreasonable and capricious
that she would probably not think that the order signified much. But the
further question was, would he give it? After I had finished my morning's
work, I drove to the depot to see. The men were on parade when I entered
the barrack square. They were drawn up in line, and the first thing I saw
was Colonel Colquhoun himself prancing about on his charger, and not in
the most amiable mood possible, I imagined, from the way he was
blackguarding the men. He sat his horse well, and was a fine soldierlike
man in uniform, and a handsome man too, of the martial order, when his
bald head was hidden by his cocked hat, and his blond moustache had a
chance; the sort of man to take a woman's fancy if not the kind of
character to keep her regard.

An unhappy old mounted major had got into trouble just as I came up. His
palfrey was an easy ambler, but he was the sort of old gentleman who would
not have been safe in a rocking chair with his sword drawn and his chief
complimenting him.

"You ride like a damned tailor, sir," Colonel Colquhoun was thundering at
him just as I drove up.

An officer in undress uniform, Captain Bartlet, and Brigade Surgeon James,
who was in mufti, were standing at an open window in the ante-room, and I
joined them there, and looked out at the parade.

"I don't know how you fellows stand that kind of thing, and before the
men, too," I remarked, _a propos_ of a fresh volley of abuse from
Colonel Colquhoun.

"Oh! by Jove! we've got to stand it, many of us, for weighty
considerations quite apart from our personal dignity," Captain Bartlet
rejoined. "A man with a wife and five children depending upon him will
swallow a lot for their sake. It would be easy enough to answer him, but
self-interest keeps us quiet--a deuced sight oftener than discipline, by
the way. However," he added cheerfully, "all C.O.'s are not so bad as that
brute out there, nor the half of them for the matter of that."

"But, still, it's a wonder what you stand, you combatants," Dr. James
observed.

"Shut up, doctor," Captain Bartlet rejoined good-naturedly, "Don't presume
upon your superior position. _Your_ promotion doesn't depend upon the
colonel's confidential report, nor your peace in life upon his fancy for
you. You can disagree with him in your own line, but we can't in ours."

"Is Colonel Colquhoun often so?" I asked. He had just been assuring that
unfortunate major that a billet in the Commissariat department, with a
pound of beef on one spur and a loaf of bread on the other to prevent
accidents, was the thing for him.

"More or less," was the answer. "He's notorious all through the service.
He brought his own regiment up to a high state of efficiency, I must say
that for him, and led it into action like a man; but, between ourselves, I
expect there's never been a time since he got his company when there
wasn't a bullet ready for him. You remember, James, in India? of course it
was an accident!"

The doctor nodded. "The men call him Bully Colquhoun," he supplemented.

"But surely his character is known at the Horse Guards?" I said.

"Ah, you see he's a smart officer," Captain Bartlet rejoined; "and what
are officers for? To knock about and to be knocked about. Just look at him
now! See how he's bucketing those men about! He was a militiaman, and
that's a militiaman all over! A man who's been through Sandhurst has
carried a rifle for a year himself, and he knows what it is, and gives his
men their stand easy; but a militiaman has no more feeling for them than a
block."

"Well, I can't see why you seniors don't remonstrate," I rejoined. "The
War Office is bound to support you if you show good cause."

"Yes, and cashier you too for very little, if you make yourself obnoxious
by giving them trouble," Bartlet replied. "Roylance was the only fellow
that ever really stood up to Colquhoun. He was a young subaltern that had
just joined, but an awful devil when he was roused, and he swore in the
anteroom that if the colonel ever blackguarded him before the men, or
anywhere else, or presumed upon his position to address him in terms which
one gentleman is not permitted to use to another, he'd give him as much as
he got. Well, the very next day, on parade, Roylance got the men into a
muddle. Colquhoun's a good soldier, you know, and nothing riles him like
inefficiency; and, by Jove! he was down on the lad like shot! He poured
his whole vocabulary on him, and then, for want of a worse word, he called
him 'a damned dissipated subaltern.' Well, Roylance just stepped back so
as to make himself heard, and shouted coolly: 'Dissipated! that comes well
from you, sir, considering the reason for the singular arrangement of your
own _menage!_' with which he handed his sword to the adjutant, and
walked off to his quarters! You should have seen Colquhoun's face! He went
on leave immediately afterward, and of course the matter was hushed up.
Roylance exchanged. He'd lots of money. It's the men without means that
have to stand that kind of thing."

My voice was husky and I could scarcely control it, but I managed to ask:
"What was the insinuation?"

"What, about Roylance? Just a lie! The lad's life was as clean as a
lady's."

"I meant about the marriage?"

"Oh, don't you know? Colquhoun himself told us all about it in his cups
one night. Just as they were starting on their wedding trip she got a
letter containing certain allegations against him, and she gave him the
slip at the station, and went off by herself to make inquiries, and in
consequence of what she learnt, she declined to live with him at all at
first. But he has a great horror of being made the subject of gossip, you
know, and her people were also anxious to save scandal, and so, between
them, they managed to persuade her just to consent to live in the house,
he having given his word of honour as a gentleman not to molest her; and
that has been the arrangement ever since. Funny, isn't it? 'Truth stranger
than fiction,' you know, and that kind of thing, Yet it seems to answer.
They're excellent friends."

The parade had been dismissed by this time, but I had changed my mind, and
did not wait to see Colonel Colquhoun. I had to hurry back to make
arrangements with regard to my patients in the hospital, and then I
returned to town, and midnight saw me closeted once more with Sir Shadwell
Rock.

CHAPTER XVI.

The revolting story I had heard in the barracks haunted me. I had thought
incessantly of my poor little lady taken out of the school room to face a
position which would be horrifying, even in idea, to a right minded woman
of the world. What the girl's mental sufferings must have been only a girl
can tell. And ever since--the incubus of that elderly man of unclean
antecedents! All that had been incomprehensible about Evadne was obvious
now, and also the mistake she had made.

During the most important part of the time when a woman is ripe for her
best experiences, when she should be laying in a store of happy memories
to fall back upon, when memory becomes her principal pleasure in life,
Evadne had lived alone, shut up in herself, her large intelligence idle or
misapplied, and her hungry heart seeking such satisfaction as it could
find in pleasant imaginings. As she went about, punctually performing her
ineffectual duties, or sat silently sewing, she had been to all outward
seeming an example to be revered of graceful wifehood and womanliness; but
when one came to know what her inner life had become in consequence of the
fatal repression of the best powers of her mind, it was evident that she
was in reality a miserable type of a woman wasted. The natural bent of the
average woman is devotion to home and husband and children; but there are
many women to whom domestic duties are distasteful, and these are now
making life tolerable for themselves by finding more congenial spheres of
action. There are many women, however, above the average, who are quite
capable of acquitting themselves creditably both in domestic and public
life, and Evadne was one of these. Had she been happily married she would
undoubtedly have been one of the first to distinguish herself, one of the
foremost in the battle which women are waging against iniquity of every
kind. Her keen insight would have kept her sympathies actively alive, and
her disinterestedness would have made her careless of criticism. That was
her nature. But nature thwarted ceases to be beneficent. She places us
here fully equipped for the part she has designed us to play in the world,
and if we, men or women, neglect to exercise the powers she has bestowed
upon us, the consequences are serious. I did not understand at the time
what Evadne meant when she said that she had made it impossible for
herself to act. I thought she had deliberately shirked her duty under the
mistaken idea that she would make life pleasanter for herself by doing so;
but I learnt eventually how the impulse to act had been curbed before it
quickened, by her promise to Colonel Colquhoun, which had, in effect,
forced her into the disastrous attitude which we had all such good reason
to deplore. It seemed cruel that all the most beautiful instincts of her
being, her affection, her unselfishness, even her modest reserve and
womanly self-restraint, should have been used to injure her; but that is
exactly what had happened. And now the difficulty was: how to help her?
How to rouse her from the unwholesome form of self-repression which had
brought about her present morbid state of mind.

I was sitting up late the night after my second visit to Sir Shadwell
Rock, considering the matter. Sir Shadwell's advice was still the same:
"Send her to me." But the initial difficulty, how to get her to go,
remained. How to draw her from the dreary seclusion of her _Home in the
Woman's Sphere_, and persuade her that hours of ease are only to be
earned in action. I thought again of Lady Adeline, and sat down to write
to her.

The household had retired, and the night was oppressively silent. I felt
overcome with fatigue, but was painfully wide awake, as happens very often
when I am anxious about a bad case. But this was the third night since I
had been in bed, and I thought now I would go when I had finished my
letter to Lady Adeline, and do my best to sleep. As I crossed the hall,
which was in darkness save for the candle I carried in my hand, I fancied
I heard an unaccountable sound, a dull thud, thud, coming from I could not
tell whence for the moment. The senses are singularly acute in certain
stages of fatigue, and mine were all alive that night to any impression,
my hearing especially so; and there was no mistake. I had stopped short to
listen, and, impossible as I knew it would have been at any other time, I
was sure that I could distinctly hear a horse galloping on the turf of the
common more than a mile away, a mounted horse with a rider who was urging
him to his utmost speed; and in some inexplicable manner I also became
conscious of the fact that the horseman was a messenger sent in all haste
for me.

Mechanically I put my candle down and opened the hall door. It was a
bright night. The fresh invigorating frosty air seemed to clear my mental
vision still more strongly as it blew in upon me. Diavolo in mess dress,
his cap gone, his fair hair blown back by the wind; breathless with
excitement and speed; with thought suspended, but dry lips uttering
incessantly a cry for help--"Galbraith! Galbraith! Galbraith!" My pulses
kept time to the thud of the horse's hoofs on the common. I waited. I had
not the shadow of a doubt that I was wanted. But I did not ask myself by
whom.

The sound only ceased for a perceptible second or so at the lodge gates.
Were they open? Had he cleared them? What a jump! Thud! He must be
well-mounted! On the drive now! The gravel is flying! Across the
lawn--Diavolo. Good speed indeed!

Scarcely five minutes since I heard him first till he stopped at the steps
in the starlight, hoarsely panting "Galbraith! Galbraith!"

"I am here, my boy! What is it?"

"Come! Come to her at once! Colonel Colquhoun is dead."

The mind, quickened by the shock of a startling piece of intelligence,
suddenly sums up our suspicions for us sometimes in one crisp homely
phrase. This is what mine did. "The murder is out!" I thought, the moment
Diavolo spoke. Evadne--was this the end of it! Such a state of mind as
hers had been lately, might continue for the rest of her life, to her
torment, without influencing her actions; but, on the other hand, an
active phase might supervene at any moment.

Diavolo had dismounted and sat down on one of the steps, utterly
exhausted. "Here, take the reins," he said, "and mount, I'm done. I'll
look after myself. Don't waste a moment."

I needed no urging.

"I have actually meditated murder lately. Murder--murder for my own
benefit."

The horrible phrases, in regular succession, kept time to the rhythmical
ring of the iron shoes on the frozen ground as the horse returned with me,
still at a steady gallop, to As-You-Like-It.

I had recognized the animal. It was the same fine charger which Colonel
Colquhoun himself had been riding so admirably on parade the last time I
saw him. Only yesterday morning! "Murder actually, murder for my own
benefit." No! no!--stumble. Hold up! only a stone. Shall we ever be there?
Suspense--"Murder actually"--no, it shall not be that! Hope is the word I
want. Beat it out of the hardened earth! Hope, hope, hope, hope, nothing,
nothing but hope!

We had arrived at last. No one about. Doors open, lights flaring, and a
strange silence.

Leaving the horse to do as he liked, I walked straight upstairs, and on
the first landing I met Evadne's maid.

"I hoped it was you, sir. Come this way," she whispered, and pushed open a
door which stood already ajar, gently, as if afraid of disturbing some
sleeper.

It was Colonel Colquhoun's bedroom, large and luxurious, like the man
himself. He was stretched upon the bed, in evening dress, his gray face
upward. One glance at _that_ sufficed. But almost before I had
crossed the threshold I was conscious of an indescribable sense of relief.
There were four persons in the room, that poor old "begad" major, who
could not ride, and Captain Bartlet, both hastily summoned from the depot
evidently, and still in mess dress; Dr. James in ordinary morning costume,
with a covert coat on; and Evadne herself in a black evening dress, open
at the throat. It was her attitude that relieved my mind the moment I saw
her. She was seated beside the bed, crying heartily and healthily. The
three gentlemen stood just behind her, gravely concerned; silent,
sympathetic, helpless, waiting for me. No one spoke.

For the dead, reverence. I stood by the bed looking down on the splendid
frame, prone now and inert, and again I thought of the last time I had
seen him, a fine figure of a man, finely mounted, and exercising his
authority arrogantly. I looked into the blank countenance. No other man on
earth had ever called forth curses from my inmost soul such as I had
uttered, to my shame, in one great burst of rage that had surprised me and
shaken my fortitude the night before as I journeyed back alone, without
the slightest prospect, that I could see, of saving her. The blank face,
decently composed. His right hand, palm upward, was stretched out toward
me as if he were offering it to me; and thankful I was to feel that I
could clasp it honestly. I had not a word or look on my conscience for
which I deserved a reproach from the dead man lying there. I took his hand:
a doctor doing a perfunctory duty? No, a last natural rite, an act of
reconciliation. In that solemn moment, still holding his hand and gazing
down into his face, I rejoiced to feel that the trouble had passed from my
soul, that the rage and bitterness were no more, and that only the
touching thought of his kindly hospitality and perfect confidence in my
own integrity--a confidence impossible in a man who has not himself the
saying grace of a better nature--would remain with me from that time forth
forever.

I laid my hand on Evadne's shoulder, and she looked up.

"Ah! have you come?" she cried, her voice broken with sobs that shook her.
"Is it really true? Can nothing be done? Oh, poor, poor man! What a life!
What a death! A miserable, miserable, misspent life, and such an end--in a
moment--without a word of warning--and all these years when I have been
beside him, silent and helpless. If only I could have done something to
help him--said something. Surely, surely there was _something_ I
might have, done?" She held her clasped hands out toward me, the familiar
gesture, appealing to me to blame her.

"Thank Heaven!" I inwardly ejaculated. "This is as it should be."

In the presence of eternal death, her own transient sufferings were
forgotten, and healthy human pity destroyed any sense of personal injury
she might have cherished.

We four men stood awkwardly, patiently by for several minutes, listening
to her innocent self-upbraidings, knowing her story, and touched beyond
expression by the utter absence of all selfish sentiment in any word she
said.

When she was quite exhausted, I drew her hand through my arm, and took her
to her own room.

Cardiac syncope was the cause of death. Colonel Colquhoun had been out
that evening, and had, through some mistake of the coachman's, missed his
carriage, and walked home in a towering rage. The exertion and excitement,
acting together on a heart already affected, had brought on the attack. He
was storming violently in the hall, with his face flushed crimson--so the
servants told us--when all at once he stopped, and called "Evadne!" twice,
as if in alarm; and Mrs. Colquhoun ran down from the drawing room; but
before she could reach him he fell on the floor, and never spoke again.

CHAPTER XVII.

Much of my time during the next few months was devoted I to the
consideration of Evadne's affairs. Her father made no sign, and she had no
other relation in a position to come forward and share the responsibility;
but, happily, she had very good friends. I had noticed that Diavolo was
singularly agitated when he brought the terrible news that night to
Fountain Towers, but thought little of it, as I knew the boy to be
emotional. The shock to his own feelings did not, however, prevent him
thinking of others, and the next thing I heard of him was that he had been
to Morningquest and waited till the telegraph office opened, in order to
send the news to his own people, and beg them to return at once, if they
could, on Evadne's account; and this they did, in the kindest manner, with
as little delay as possible.

"I have only come to fetch Evadne," Lady Adeline said when she arrived. "I
am going to take her away at once from this dreadful house and this dreary
English winter to a land of sunshine and flowers and soft airs, and I hope
to bring her back in the spring herself again--as _you_ have never
known her!"

Mr. Hamilton-Wells stayed behind, at considerable personal inconvenience,
to consult with me about business. Colonel Colquhoun had died intestate
and also in debt. What he had done with his money we could not make out,
except that a large sum had been sunk in an annuity, which of course died
with him. But one thing was quite evident, which was that Evadne would
have little or nothing besides her pension from the service, and that
would be the merest pittance for one always accustomed to the command of
money as she had been. Mr. Hamilton-Wells wished to impose a handsome sum
on her yearly by fraud and deceit, out of his own ample income.

"Really, ladies are so peculiar about money matters," he said. "I feel
quite sure she would not accept sixpence from me if I were to offer it to
her. But she need not know where the money comes from. It can be paid into
her account at the bank, you see, regularly, and she will take it for
granted that she is entitled to it."

"I am not so sure of that," I answered with some heat, "but at any rate
the plan is not possible."

"Now, my dear Galbraith," Mr, Hamilton-Wells remonstrated, "do not put
your foot down in that way. I am the older man, and I may also say,
without offence, the older friend, and I am married; and Lady Adeline will
strongly approve of what I propose."

"I do not doubt it," I maintained; "but it cannot be done."

"She is not the kind of person to marry for money," Mr. Hamilton-Wells
observed, looking up at the ceiling.

"Who? Mrs. Colquhoun?" I asked. "I don't understand you."

"Oh," he answered, "it occurred to me that you might be thinking such a
consideration would weigh with her in the choice of a second husband."

I stared at the man. He was sitting at a writing table in my library, with
the papers we had been going through spread out before him, and I was
standing opposite; and, as he spoke, he leant back in his chair, with his
elbows on the arms of it, brought the tips of his long white fingers
together, and smiled up at me, bland as a child, innocent of all offence.
I am inclined to think he did secretly enjoy the effect of unexpected
remarks without in the least appreciating the permanent impression he
might be making. But I don't know. Some of these apparently haphazard
observations of his were pregnant with reflection, and I believe, if his
voice had been strong and determined instead of precise and insinuating;
if he had brushed his hair up, instead of parting it in the middle and
plastering it down smoothly on either side of his head; if his hands had
been hardened by exposure and use instead of whitened by excessive care;
if he had worn tweed instead of velvet, Mr. Hamilton-Wells would have been
called acute, and dreaded for his cynicism. But looking as he did,
inoffensive as a lady's luggage, he was allowed to pass unsuspected; and
if his mind were an infernal machine, concealed by a quilted cover, the
world would have to have seen it to credit the fact.

I put my hands in my pockets after that last remark, and walked to the
window glumly; but as I stood with my back to him, I could not help
wondering if he was making faces at me, or up to any other undignified
antics by way of relaxation. Did he ever wriggle with merriment when he
was alone? I turned suddenly at the thought. He was calmly perusing a
paper through his pince-nez, with an expression of countenance at once so
benign, silly, and self-satisfied, that I felt I should like to have
apologised for the suspicion.

"There is nothing for it, Galbraith," he said, "that I can see. She must
either be poverty-stricken or have an income provided for her."

"She has enough to go on with for the present," I answered.

"You can provide the money yourself if you would rather," he suggested, in
the tone of one who gives in good-naturedly to oblige you. "I don't care,
you know, where the money comes from, so long as the source is
disinterested and respectable."

I had returned to the table, but now again I walked to the window.

"But, I think," he continued, while I stood with my back to him, "as you
say, for the present nothing need be done. Give her time for a rope--eh?
What I do deprecate is leaving her to be driven by poverty to marry for
money. My dear Galbraith," he broke off, protesting, "you have been on the
prance for the last half-hour. For a medical man, you have less repose of
manner than is essential, I should say. In fact, you quite give me the
notion that you are impatient. But perhaps I am detaining you?"

"Oh, not at all," I assured him.

"Well, as I was saying," he pursued, "give her time to marry again. That
would be the most satisfactory settlement of her difficulties. She is, I
quite agree with you, a very attractive person. Now, there is the Duke of
Panama already, Lady Adeline says--but she seems to have an objection to
princes, especially if they are at all obese. I do not like obese people
myself. Now, do _you_ ever feel nervous on that score?"