Brothers -- Fiction; Crimean War, 1853-1856 -- Fiction; England -- Fiction; Identity -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction
"Yo' asked to see t' child, sir," said Mrs. Lee.
"Well?"
"Here 'tis, sir."
"Which?"
"Both!"
"Ah!"--with a pregnant nod. Then, with a wave of the hand. "Take them
away." And the women withdrew.
Sir Denzil remained standing exactly as he was for many minutes. Then
he began to pace the room slowly with his stick, to and fro, to and
fro, with his eyes on the polished floor, and his thoughts hard at
work.
He saw the game, and recognized at a glance that no cards had been
dealt him. The two women held the whole pack, and he was out of it.
He thought keenly and savagely, but saw no way out. The more he
thought, the tighter seemed the cleft of the stick in which the women
held him.
The law? The law was powerless in the matter. Not all the law in the
land could make a woman speak when all her interests bade her keep
silence, any more than it could make her keep silence if she wanted to
speak.
Besides, even if these women swore till they were blue in the face as
to the identity of either child, he would never believe one word of
their swearing. Their own interests would guide them, and no other
earthly consideration.
He could turn them out. To what purpose? One of those two children was
Denzil Carron of Carne. Which?
The other--ah yes! The other was equally of his blood. He did not
doubt that for one moment. He had known of Denzil's entanglement with
Nance Lee, and it had not troubled him for a moment. But who, in the
name of Heaven, could have foreseen so perplexing a result?
When he glanced out of the window, the crystalline morning, the white
sunshine, the clear blue sky, the hard yellow flats, the distant blue
sea with its crisp white fringe, all seemed to mock him with the
brightness of their beauty.
How to solve the puzzle? Already, in his own mind, he doubted if it
ever would be solved. And he cursed the brightness of the morning, and
the women--which was more to the point, but equally futile,--and
Denzil, and poor Lady Susan, who lay past curses in Wyvveloe
churchyard. And his face, while that fit was on him, was not pleasant
to look upon.
Presently, with a twitching of the corners of the mouth, like a dog
about to bare his fangs, he rang the bell very gently, and Kennet came
in.
"Kennet," he said, as quietly as if he were ordering his boots, "put
on your hat and go for Dr. Yool. Bring him with you without fail. If
he is out, go after him. If he says he'll see me further first, say I
apologise, and I want him here at once. Tell him I've burst a
blood-vessel."
He had had words with the doctor the night before. He had stopped his
post-chaise at his house and gone in for a minute to explain his long
absence, and the doctor, who feared no man, had rated him soundly for
the thoughtlessness which had caused Lady Susan's death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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