The Trail of the Serpent (Detective Mystery). Мэри Элизабет Брэддон

she dreads the answer.

      “Better, deary, better—Oh, ever so much better,” the old woman answers in a crying voice, and with another application to the broken teacup.

      “Better! thank Heaven!—thank Heaven!” and the girl, stealing softly to the bed-side, bends down and listens to the sick man’s breathing, which is feeble, but regular.

      “He seems very fast asleep, grandmother. Has he been sleeping all the time?”

      “Since when, deary?”

      “Since I went out. Where’s the doctor?”

      “Gone, deary. Oh, my blessed boy, to think that it should come to this, and his dead mother was my only child! O dear, O dear!” And the old woman burst out crying, only choking her sobs by the aid of the teacup.

      “But he’s better, grandmother; perhaps he’ll get over it now. I always said he would. Oh, I’m so glad—so glad.” The girl sat down in her wet garments, of which she never once thought, on the little stool by the side of the bed. Presently the sick man turned round and opened his eyes.

      “You’ve been away a long time, lass,” he said.

      Something in his voice, or in his way of speaking, she did not know which, startled her; but she wound her arm round his neck, and said—

      “Jim, my own dear Jim, the danger’s past. The black gulf you’ve been looking down is closed for these many happy years to come, and maybe the sun will shine on our wedding-day yet.”

      “Maybe, lass—maybe. But tell me, what’s the time?”

      “Never mind the time, Jim. Very late, and a very dreadful night; but no matter for that! You’re better, Jim; and if the sun never shone upon the earth again, I don’t think I should be able to be sorry, now you are safe.”

      “Are all the lights out in Blind Peter, lass?” he asked.

      “All the lights out? Yes, Jim—these two hours. But why do you ask?”

      “And in Slopperton did you meet many people, lass?”

      “Not half-a-dozen in all the streets. Nobody would be out in such a night, Jim, that could help it.”

      He turned his face to the wall again, and seemed to sleep. The old woman kept moaning and mumbling over the broken teacup,—

      “To think that my blessed boy should come to this—on such a night too, on such a night!”

      The storm raged with unabated fury, and the rain pouring in at the dilapidated door threatened to flood the room. Presently the sick man raised his head a little way from the pillow.

      “Lass,” he said, “could you get me a drop o’ wine? I think, if I could drink a drop o’ wine, it would put some strength into me somehow.”

      “Grandmother,” said the girl, “can I get him any? You’ve got some money; it’s only just gone twelve; I can get in at the public-house. I will get in, if I knock them up, to get a drop o’ wine for Jim.”

      The old woman fumbled among her rags and produced a sixpence, part of the money given her from the slender purse of the benevolent Jabez, and the girl hurried away to fetch the wine.

      The public-house was called the Seven Stars; the seven stars being represented on a signboard in such a manner as to bear rather a striking resemblance to seven yellow hot-cross buns on a very blue background. The landlady of the Seven Stars was putting her hair in papers when the girl called Sillikens invaded the sanctity of her private life. Why she underwent the pain and grief of curling her hair for the admiration of such a neighbourhood as Blind Peter is one of those enigmas of this dreary existence to solve which the Œdipus has not yet appeared. I don’t suppose she much cared about suspending her toilet, and opening her bar, for the purpose of selling sixpennyworth of port wine; but when she heard it was for a sick man, she did not grumble. The girl thanked her heartily, and hurried homewards with her pitiful measure of wine.

      Through the pitiless rain, and under the dark sky, it was almost impossible to see your hand before you; but as Sillikens entered the mouth of Blind Peter, a flash of lightning revealed to her the figure of a man gliding with a soft step between the broken iron railings. In the instantaneous glimpse she caught of him under the blue light, something familiar in his face or form quickened the beating of her heart, and made her turn to look back at him; but it was too dark for her to see more than the indistinct figure of a man hurrying away in the direction of Slopperton. Wondering who could be leaving Blind Peter on such a night and at such an hour, she hastened back to carry her lover the wine.

      The old woman still sat before the hearth. The sputtering candle had gone out, and the light from the miserable little fire only revealed the dark outlines of the wretched furniture and the figure of Jim’s grandmother, looking, as she sat mumbling over the broken teacup, like a wicked witch performing an incantation over a portable cauldron.

      The girl hurried to the bed-side—the sick man was not there.

      “Grandmother! Jim—Jim! Where is he?” she asked, in an alarmed voice; for the figure she had met hurrying through the storm flashed upon her with a strange distinctness. “Jim! Grandmother! tell me where he is, or I shall go mad! Not gone—not gone out on such a night as this, and in a burning fever?”

      “Yes, lass, he’s gone. My precious boy, my darling boy. His dead mother was my only child, and he’s gone for ever and ever, and on this dreadful night. I’m a miserable old woman.”

      No other explanation than this, no other words than these, chattered and muttered again and again, could the wretched girl extort from the old woman, who, half imbecile and more than half tipsy, sat grinning and grunting over the teacup till she fell asleep in a heap on the cold damp hearth, still hugging the empty teacup, and still muttering, even in her sleep,—

      “His dead mother was my only child; and it’s very cruel it should come to this at last, and on such a night.”