Latest / The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library / The Shuttle Chapter 49 - At Stornham and at Broadmorlands

Transcript

The Shuttle Chapter 49 - At Stornham and at Broadmorlands · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: CHAPTER XLIX. AT STORNHAM AND AT BROADMORLANDS The exulting wind
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: had swept the clouds away, and the moon rode in
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a dark blue sea of sky, making the night-light purely clear,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: when they drew a little apart, that they might better
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: see the wonderfulness in each other's faces. It was so
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: mysteriously great a thing that they felt near to awe.'
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I' ve fought too long,' I wore out my body's endurance,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: and now I'm quaking like a boy. Red Godwin did
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: not begin his wooing like this. Forgive me, Mount Dunstan
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: said at last. Do you know, with lovely trembling lips
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and voice, that for long, long you have been unkind
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to me? It was merely human that he should swiftly
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: enfold her again, and answer with his lips against her cheek. Unkind, unkind, oh,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the heavenly woman's sweetness of your telling me so! the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: heavenly sweetness of it, he exclaimed passionately and low, and
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I was one of those who are by the roadside everywhere,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: an unkempt raging beggar who might not decently ask you
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: for a crust. It was all wrong, wrong, she whispered
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: back to him, and he poured forth the tenderest fierce
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: words of confession and prayer, and she listened, drinking them in,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: with now and then a soft sob pressed against the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: roughness of the enrapturing tweed. For a space they had
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: both forgotten her hurt, because there are other things than
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: terror which hypnotise pain. Mount Dunstan was to be praised
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: for remembering it first. He must take her back to
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Stornham and her sister without further delay.' I will put
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: your saddle on Anstruthers' horse or mine and lift you
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: to your seat. There is a farmhouse about two miles
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: away where I will take you first for food and warmth.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Perhaps it would be well for you to stay there
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: to rest for an hour or so. I will send
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a message to Lady Anstruthers.' I will go to the
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: place and eat and drink what you advise, she answered,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: but I beg you to take me back to Rosalie
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: without delay. I feel that I must see her. I
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: feel that I must see her too, he said, but
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: for her. God bless her, he added after his sudden pause.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Betty knew that the exclamation meant strong feeling, and that
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: somehow in the past hours Rosalie had awakened it. but
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: it was only when, after their refreshment at the farm,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: they had taken horse again and were riding homeward together,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: that she heard from him what had passed between them.'
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: All that has led to this may seem the merest chance,'
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: he said,' but surely a strange thing has come about.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I know that without understanding it.' He leaned over and
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: touched her hand.' You, who are life, without understanding, I
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: ride here beside you, believing that you brought me back.''
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I tried, I tried, with all my strength I tried.'
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: After I had seen your sister to-day, I guessed, I knew.'
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: But not at first.' I was not ill of the fever,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: as excited rumour had it,' but I was ill, and
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the doctors and the vicar were alarmed.' I had fought
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: too long, and I was giving up,' as I have
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: seen the poor fellows in the ballroom give up.' If
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: they were not dragged back, they slipped out of one's hands.'
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: If the fever had developed, all would have been over quickly.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I knew the doctors feared that, and I am ashamed
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: to say I was glad of it. But yesterday, in
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the morning, when I was letting myself go with a
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: morbid pleasure in the luxurious relief of it, something reached me,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: some slow rising call to effort and life. She turned
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: towards him in her saddle, listening, her lips parted. I
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: did not even ask myself what was happening, but I
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: began to be conscious of being drawn back. and along
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: intensely to see you again. I was gradually filled with
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: a restless feeling that you were near me, and that
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: though I could not physically hear your voice, you were
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: surely calling to me. It was the thing which could
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: not be, but it was, and because of it I
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: could not let myself drift. I did call you. I
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: was on my knees in the church asking to be
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: forgiven if I prayed mad prayers, but praying the same
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: thing over and over. The villagers were kneeling there too,'
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: They crowded in, leaving everything else.' You are their hero,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: and they were in deep earnest.'' His look was gravely pondering.'
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: His life had not made a mystic of him.' It
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: was Penzance who was the mystic,' but he felt himself
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: perplexed by mysteriously suggestive thought.' I was brought back, I
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: was brought back,' he said.' In the afternoon I fell
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: asleep and slept profoundly until the morning.' When I awoke
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: I realised that I was a remade man.' The doctors
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: were almost awed when I first spoke to them. Old Dr.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Fenwick died later, and after I had heard about it
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the church bell was tolled. It was heard at Weaver's farmhouse,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: and as everybody had been excitedly waiting for the sound,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: it conveyed but one idea to them, and the boy
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: was sent racing across the fields to Stornham Village.' Dearest, dearest!'
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: he exclaimed. She had bowed her head and burst into
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: passionate sobbing. because she was not of the women who wept,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: her moment's passion was strong and bitter.' It need not
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: have been,' she shuddered.' One cannot bear it, because it
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: need not have been.'' Stop your horse a moment,' he said,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: reining in his own, while with burning eyes and swelling
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: throat he held and steadied her. But he did not
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: know that neither her sister nor her father had ever
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: seen her in such mood, and that she had never
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: so seen herself.' You shall not remember it,' he said
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: to her, I will not, she answered, recovering herself. But
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: for one moment all the awful hours rushed back. Tell
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: me the rest. We did not know that the blunder
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: had been made until a messenger from Dole rode over
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: to inquire and bring messages of condolence. Then we understood
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: what had occurred, and Iona sort of frenzied seized me.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: I knew I must see you, and though the doctors
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: were horribly nervous, they dare not hold me back. THE
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: DAY BEFORE IT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN BELIEVED THAT I
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: COULD LEAVE MY ROOM. YOU WERE CRYING OUT TO ME,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: AND THOUGH I DID NOT KNOW, I WAS ANSWERING, BODY
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: AND SOUL. PENZANCE KNEW I MUST HAVE MY WAY WHEN
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I SPOKE TO HIM, MAD AS IT SEEMED. WHEN I
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: RODE THROUGH STORNHAM VILLAGE, MORE THAN ONE WOMAN SCREAMED AT
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: SIGHT OF ME. I SHALL NOT BE ABLE TO BLOT
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: OUT OF MY MIND YOUR SISTER'S FACE. SHE WILL TELL
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: YOU WHAT WE SAID TO EACH OTHER. I RODE AWAY
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: FROM THE COURT QUITE HALF MAD. HIS VOICE BECAME VERY GENTLE.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: because of something she had told me in the first
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: wild moments. Lady Anstruthers had spent the night moving restlessly
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: from one room to another, and had not been to
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: bed when they rode side by side up the avenue
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: in the early morning sunlight. An underkeeper, crossing the park
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: a few hundred yards above them, after one glance dashed
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: across the sward to the courtyard and the servants' hall.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: The news flashed electrically through the house, and Rosalie, like
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: a small ghost, came out upon the steps as they
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: reined in. Though her lips moved, she could not speak
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: aloud as she watched Mount Dunstan lift her sister from
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: her horse.' Child Harold stumbled, and I hurt my foot,'
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: said Betty, trying to be calm.' I knew he would
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: find you,' Rosalie answered quite faintly.' I knew you would,'
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: turning to Mount Dunstan, adoring him with all the meaning
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: of her small, paled face. She would have been afraid
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: of her memory of what she had said in the
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: strange scene which had taken place before them a few
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: hours ago, but almost before either of the two spoke
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: she knew that a great gulf had been crossed in
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: some one inevitable though unforeseen leap. How it had been taken,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: when or where, did not in the least matter, when
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: she clung to Betty, and Betty clung to her. After
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: a few moments of moved and reverent waiting, the admirable
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Jennings stepped forward and addressed her in lowered voice.' There' s
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: been little sleep in the village this night, my lady,'
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: he murmured earnestly, I promised they should have a sign,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: with your permission. If the flag was run up, they're
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: all looking out, and they'd know.' Run it up, Jennings,'
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Lady Anstruthers answered, at once. When it ran up the
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: staff on the tower and fluttered out in gay answering
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: to the morning breeze, children in the village began to
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: run about shouting, men and women appeared at cottage doors,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: and more than one cap was thrown up in the air.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: but old Dobie and Mrs. Weldon, who had been waiting
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: for hours standing by Mrs. Weldon's gate, caught each other's dry,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: trembling old hands, and began to cry. The Broadmorelands divorce scandal,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: having made conversation during a season quite forty years before
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Miss Vanderpool appeared at Stornham Court, had been laid upon
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: a lower shelf and buried beneath other stories long enough
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: to be forgotten. Only one individual had not forgotten it,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: and he was the Duke of Broadmorelands himself, in whose
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: mind it remained hideously clear. He had been a young man,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: honestly and much in love when it first revealed itself
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: to him, and for a few months he had even
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: thought it might end by being his death, notwithstanding that
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: he was strong and in first-rate physical condition. He had
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: been a fine, hearty young man of clean and rather
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: dignified life, though he was not understood to be brilliant
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: of mind. Privately he had ideals connected with his rank
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: and name, which he was not fluent enough clearly to express.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: after he had realised that he should not die of
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the public humiliation and disgrace which seemed to point him
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: out as having been the kind of gullible fool it
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: is scarcely possible to avoid laughing at, or so it
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: seemed to him in his heart-seared frenzy, he thought it
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: not improbable that he should go mad. He was harried
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: so by memories of lovely little soft ways of Edith's—his
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: wife's name was Edith— of the pretty sound of her laugh,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: and of her innocent girlish habit of kneeling down by
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: her bedside every night and morning to say her prayers.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: This had so touched him that he had sometimes knelt
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: down to say his, too, saying to her, with slight
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: awkward boyishness, that a fellow who had a sort of
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: angel for his wife ought to do his best to
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: believe in the things she believed in. And all the
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: time— A devil who laughed used to snigger in his
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: ear over and over again, until it was almost like
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: the ticking of a clock during the worst months, when
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: it did not seem probable that a man could feel
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: his brain whirling like a Catherine wheel night and day,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: and still manage to hold on, and not reach the
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: point of howling and shrieking and dashing his skull against
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: walls and furniture. But that passed in time, and he
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: told himself that he passed with it. Since then he
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: had lived chiefly at Broadmoreland's castle, and was spoken of
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: as a man who had become religious which was not
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: true but having reached the decision that religion was good
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: for most people he paid a good deal of attention
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: to his church and schools and was rigorous in the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: matter of curates he had passed seventy now and was
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: somewhat despotic and haughty because a man who is a
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: duke and does not go out into the world to
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: rub against men of his own class and others but
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: lives altogether on a great and splendid estate, saluted by
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: every creature he meets and universally obeyed and counted before
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: all else, is not unlikely to forget that he is
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: a quite ordinary human being and not a sort of monarch.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: He had done his best to forget Edith, who had
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: soon died of being a shady curate's wife in Australia,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: but he had not been able to encompass it. He
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: used occasionally to dream she was kneeling by the bed
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: in her childish nightgown saying her prayers aloud and would
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: wake and crying. as he had cried in those awful
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: young days. Against social immorality or village-like mindedness he was
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: relentlessly savage. He allowed for no palliating or exonerating facts.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: He began to see red when he heard of or
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: saw lightness in a married woman, and the outside world
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: frequently said that this characteristic bordered on monomania. Nigel Anstruthers,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: having met him once or twice, had at first been
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: much amused by him, and had even, by giving him
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: an adroitly careful lead, managed to guide him into an
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: expression of opinion. The Duke, who had heard men of
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: his class discussed, did not in the least like him,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: notwithstanding his sympathetic suavity of manner, and his air of
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: being intelligently impressed by what he heard. Not long afterwards, however,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: it transpired that the aged Rector of Broadmorelands, having died,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the living had been given to Folliart, and hearing it
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Sir Nigel was not slow to conjecture that quite decently
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: utilisable tools would lie ready to his hand if circumstances pressed.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: This point of view it will be seen being not illogical.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: A man who had not been a sort of hermit
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: would have heard enough of him to be put on
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: his guard, and one who is a man of the
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: world looking normally on existence would have reasoned coolly and
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: declined to concern himself about what was not his affair.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: But a parallel might be drawn between Broadmorelands and some
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: old lion, wounded sorely in his youth, and left to
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: drag his unhealed torment through the years of age. On
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: one subject he had no point of view but his own,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: and could be roused to fury almost senseless by wholly
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: inadequately supported facts. He presented exactly the material required, and
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: that in mass. About the time the flag was run
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: up on the tower at Stornham Court, a carter, driving
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: whistling on the road near the deserted cottage, was hailed
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: by a man who was walking slowly a few yards
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: ahead of him. The carter thought that he was a tramp,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: as his clothes were plainly in bad case, which seeing,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: his answer was an unceremonious grunt, and it certainly did
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: not occur to him to touch his forehead. A minute later, however,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: he got a start, as he related afterwards. The tramp
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: was a gentleman whose riding-costume was torn and muddied, and
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: who looked gashly, though he spoke with a manner and
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: authority which Binns, the carter, recognised as one of the
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: gentry addressing a day-labourer.' How far is it from here
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to Medham?' he inquired.' Medham be about four miles, sir,'
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: was the answer.' I be carrying these taters there to market.'
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I want to get there. I've met with an accident.'
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: My horse took fright at a pheasant starting up, rocketing
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: under his nose.' He threw me down into a hedge
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: and bolted. I'm badly enough bruised to want to reach
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: a town and see a doctor. Can you give me
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: a lift?'' That I will, sir, ready enough,' making room
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: on the seat beside him.' You be bruised bad, sir,'
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: he said sympathetically as his passenger climbed to his place,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: with a twisted face and uttering blasphemies under his breath.'
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Damn badly,' he answered.' No bones broken, however.'' That cut
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: on your cheek'll need plasterin', sir.'' That' s a scratch, thornbush,' curtly.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Sympathy was plainly not welcome. In fact, Binns was soon
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: of the opinion that here was an ugly customer, gentleman
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: or no gentleman. A jolting cart was, however, not the
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: best place for a man who seemed sore from head
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: to foot, and done for out and out. He sat
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: and ground his teeth as he clung to the rough
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: seat in the attempt to steady himself. He became more
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: and more gashly, and a certain awful light in his
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: eyes alarmed the carter by leaping up at every jolt.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Bins was glad when he left him at Meadow Malms,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: and felt he had earned the half-sovereign handed to him.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: For days Anstruthers lay in bed in a room at
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: the inn. No one saw him but the man who
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: brought him food. He did not send for a doctor,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: because he did not wish to see one. He sent
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: for such remedies as were needed by a man who
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: has been bruised by a fall from his horse. He
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: made no remark which could be considered explanatory, after he
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: had said irritably that a man was a fool to
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: go loitering along on a nervous brute who needed watching,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Whatsoever happened was his own damned fault. Through hours of
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: day and night he lay staring at the whitewashed beams
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: or the blue roses on the wallpaper. They were long hours,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: and filled with things not pleasant enough to dwell on
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: in detail. Physical misery, which made a man writhe at times,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: was not the worst part of them. There were a
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: thousand things less endurable. More than once he foamed at
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the mouth and recognized that he gibbered like a madman.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: There was but one memory which saved him from feeling
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: that this was the very end of things. That was
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: the memory of Broadmorelands. While a man had a weapon left,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: even though it could not save him, he might pay
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: up with it, get almost even. The whole Vanderpool lot
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: could be plunged neck-deep in a morass which would leave
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: mud enough sticking to them, even if their money helped
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: them to prevent its entirely closing over their heads. He
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: could attend to that, and after he'd set it well
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: going he could get out. There were India, South Africa, Australia,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: a dozen places that would do. And then he would
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: remember Betty Vanderpool and curse horribly under the bedclothes. It
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: was the memory of Betty which outdid all others in
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: its power to torment. On the morning of the fifth
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: day the Duke of Broadmorelands received a note which he
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: read with somewhat annoyed curiosity. A certain Sir Nigel Anstruthers,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: whom it appeared he ought to be able to recall,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: was in the neighbourhood. and wished to see him on
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: a parochial matter of interest. Parochial matter was vague, and
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: so was the Duke's recollection of the man who addressed him.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: If his memory served him rightly, he had met him
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: in a country house in Somersetshire, and he had heard
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: that he was the acquaintance of the disreputable eldest son.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: What could a person of that sort have to say
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: of parochial matters? The Duke considered, and then in obedience
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: to a rigorous conscience, decided that one ought, perhaps, to
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: give him half an hour. there was that in the
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: intruder's aspect when he arrived in the afternoon which produced
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: somewhat the effect of shock. In the first place, a
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: man in his unconcealable physical condition had no right to
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: be out of his bed. Though he plainly refused to
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: admit the fact, his manner of bearing himself erect, and
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: even with a certain touch of cool swagger, was, it
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: was evident, achieved only by determined effort. He looked like
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: a man who has not yet recovered from some evil fever.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Since the meeting in Somersetshire he had aged more than
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: the year warranted. Despite his obstinate fight with himself, it
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: was obvious that he was horribly shaky. A disagreeable scratch
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: or cut running from cheek to neck did not improve
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: his personal appearance. He pleased his host no more than
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: he had pleased him at their first encounter. He in
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: fact repelled him strongly by suggesting a degree of abnormality
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: of mood which was smoothed over by an attempt at
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: entire normality of manner. The Duke did not present an
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: approachable front, as after Anstruthers had taken a chair, he
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: sat and examined him with bright blue old eyes, set
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: deep on either side of a dominant nose, and framed
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: over by white eyebrows. No, Nigel Anstruthers summed him up,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: it would not be easy to open the matter with
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the old fool. He held himself magnificently aloof with that
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: lack of modernity in his sense of place, which even
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: at this late day sometimes expressed itself here and there
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: in the manner of the feudal survival. I am afraid
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: you have been ill with rigid civility. A man feels
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: rather an outsider in confessing he has let his horse
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: throw him into a hedge. It was my own fault entirely.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: I allowed myself to forget that I was riding a
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: dangerously nervous brute. I was thinking of a painful and
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: absorbing subject. I was badly bruised and scratched, but that
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: was all. What did your doctor say? That I was
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: in luck not to have broken my neck? You had
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: better have a glass of wine, touching a bell, you
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: do not look equal to any exertion. In gathering himself
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: together Sir Nigel felt he was forced to use enormous effort.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: It had cost him a gruesome physical struggle to endure
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: the drive over to Broadmoor. though it was only a
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: few miles from Medham. There had been something unnatural in
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the exertion necessary to sit upright and keep his mind
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: decently clear. That was the worst of it. The fever
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: and raging hours of the past days and nights had
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: so shaken him that he had become exhausted and his
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: brain was not alert. He was not thinking rapidly— and
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: several times he had lost sight of a point it
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: was important to remember. He grew hot and cold, and
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: knew his hands and voice shook as he answered, but perhaps,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: he felt desperately, signs of emotion were not bad.' I
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: am not quite equal to exertion,' he began slowly,' but
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: a man cannot lie on his bed while some things
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: are undone. A man cannot.' As the old Duke sat upright,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the blue eyes under his bent brows were startled as
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: well as curious. Was the man going out of his
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: mind about something? He looked rather like it, with the
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: dampness starting out on his haggard face, and the ugly
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: look suddenly stamped there. The fact was that the insensate
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: fury which had possessed and torn Anstruthers as he had
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: writhed in his inn bedroom had sprung upon him again
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: in full force, and his weakness could not control it,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: though it would have been wiser to hold it in check.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: He also felt frightfully ill which filled him with despair—
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and through this fact he lost sight of the effect
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: he produced, as he stood up, shaking all over.' I
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: come to you because you are the one man who
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: can most easily understand the thing I have been concealing
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: for a good many years.' The Duke was irritated. Confound
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: the objectionable idiot! What did he mean by taking that
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: intimate tone with a man who was not prepared to
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: concern himself in his affairs?' Excuse me,' he said, holding
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: up an authoritative hand.' Are you going to make a confession?
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: I don't like such things. I prefer to be excused.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Personal confidences are not parochial matters.'' This one is,' and
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Sir Nigel was sickeningly conscious that he was putting the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: statement rashly, while at the same time all better words
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: escaped him.' It is as much a parochial matter, losing
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: all hold on his wits and stammering, as was the
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: affair of your wife.' It was the Duke who stood
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: up now, scarlet with anger. He sprang from his chair
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: as if he had been a young man in whom
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: some insult had struck blazing fire.' You, you dare!' he shouted.'
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: You insolent blaggard! You force your way in here, and dare, dare!'
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: And he clenched his fist, wildly shaking it. Nigel Anstruthers,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: staggering on his uncertain feet, would have shouted also, but
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: could not, though he tried, and he heard his own
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: voice come forth brokenly.' Yes, I— I— dare— I— you' re— my— own— my—' Swaying and tottering, he
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: swung around to the chair he had left and fell
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: into it, even while the old Duke, who stood raging
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: before him, started back in outraged amazement. What was the
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: fellow doing? Was he making faces at him? The drawn
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: malignant mouth and muscles suggested it. Was he a lunatic, indeed?
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: But the sense of disgusted outrage changed all at once
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: to horror. as with a countenance still more hideously livid
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: and twisted, his visitor slid helplessly from his seat and
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: lay a huddling heap of clothes on the floor. End
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: of chapter 49