The Seven Secrets

On coming down to breakfast on the following morning I found Mrs. Mivart awaiting me alone. The old lady apologised for Mary’s non-appearance, saying that it was her habit to have her tea in her room, but that she sent me a message of farewell.

Had it been at all possible I would have left by a later train, for I was extremely anxious to watch her demeanour after last night’s clandestine meeting, but with such a crowd of patients awaiting me it was imperative to leave by the first train. Even that would not bring me to King’s Cross before nearly eleven o’clock.

“Well now, doctor,” Mrs. Mivart commenced rather anxiously when we were seated, and she had handed me my coffee. “You saw Mary last night, and had an opportunity of speaking with her. What is your opinion? Don’t hesitate to tell me frankly, for I consider that it is my duty to face the worst.”

“Really!” I exclaimed, looking straight at her after a moment’s reflection. “To speak candidly I failed to detect anything radically wrong in your daughter’s demeanour.”

“But didn’t you notice, doctor, how extremely nervous she is; how in her eyes there is a haunting, suspicious look, and how blank is her mind upon

every other subject but the great calamity that has befallen her?”

“I must really confess that these things were not apparent to me,” I answered. “I watched her carefully, but beyond the facts that she is greatly unnerved by the sad affair and that she is mourning deeply for her dead husband, I can discover nothing abnormal.”

“You are not of opinion, then, that her mind is growing unbalanced by the strain?”

“Not in the least,” I reassured her. “The symptoms she betrays are but natural in a woman of her nervous, highly-strung temperament.”

“But she unfortunately grieves too much,” remarked the old lady with a sigh. “His name is upon her lips at every hour. I’ve tried to distract her and urged her to accompany me abroad for a time, but all to no purpose. She won’t hear of it.”

I alone knew the reason of her refusal. In conspiracy with her “dead” husband it was impossible to be apart from him for long together. The undue accentuation of her daughter’s feigned grief had alarmed the old lady—and justly so. Now that I recollected, her conduct at table on the previous night was remarkable, having regard to the true facts of the case. I confess I had myself been entirely deceived into believing that her sorrow at Henry Courtenay’s death was unbounded. In every detail her acting was perfect, and bound to attract sympathy among her friends and arouse interest among strangers. I longed to explain to the quiet, charming old lady what I had

seen during my midnight ramble; but such a course was, as yet, impossible. Indeed, if I made a plain statement, such as I have given in the foregoing pages, surely no one would believe me. But every man has his romance, and this was mine.

Unable to reveal Mary’s secret, I was compelled reluctantly to take leave of her mother, who accompanied me out to where the dog-cart was in waiting.

“I scarcely know, doctor, how to thank you sufficiently,” the dear old lady said as I took her hand. “What you have told me reassures me. Of late I have been extremely anxious, as you may imagine.”

“You need feel no anxiety,” I declared. “She’s nervous and run down—that’s all. Take her away for a change, if possible. But if she refuses, don’t force her. Quiet is the chief medicine in her case. Good-bye.”

She pressed my hand again in grateful acknowledgment, and then I mounted into the conveyance and was driven to the station.

On the journey back to town I pondered long and deeply. Of a verity my short visit to Mrs. Mivart had been fraught with good results, and I was contemplating seeking Ambler Jevons at the earliest possible moment and relating to him my astounding discovery. The fact that old Courtenay was still living was absolutely beyond my comprehension. To endeavour to form any theory, or to try and account for the bewildering phenomenon, was utterly useless. I had seen him, and had overheard his words. I could surely believe my eyes and ears. And there it ended. The why and wherefore I put aside for the present, remembering Mary’s promise to him to come to town and have an interview with me.

Surely that meeting ought to be most interesting. I awaited it with the most intense anxiety, and yet in fear lest I might be led by her clever imposture to blurt out what I knew. I felt myself on the eve of a startling revelation; and my expectations were realized to the full, as the further portion of this strange romance will show.

I know that many narratives have been written detailing the remarkable and almost inconceivable machinations of those who have stained their hands with crime, but I honestly believe that the extraordinary features of my own life-romance are as strange as, if not stranger than, any hitherto recorded. Even my worst enemy could not dub me egotistical, I think; and surely the facts I have set down here are plain and unvarnished, without any attempt at misleading the reader into believing that which is untrue. Mine is a plain chronicle of a chain of extraordinary circumstances which led to an amazing dénouement.

From King’s Cross to Guy’s is a considerable distance, and when I alighted from the cab in the courtyard of the hospital it was nearly mid-day. Until two o’clock I was kept busy in the wards, and after a sandwich and a glass of sherry I drove to Harley Street, where I found Sir Bernard in his consulting-room for the first time for a month.

“Ah! Boyd,” he cried merrily, when I entered. “Thought I’d surprise you to-day. I felt quite well this morning, so resolved to come up and see Lady

Twickenham and one or two others. I’m not at home to patients, and have left them to you.”

“Delighted to see you better,” I declared, wringing his hand. “They were asking after you at the hospital to-day. Vernon said he intended going down to see you to-morrow.”

“Kind of him,” the old man laughed, placing his thin hands together, after rubbing and readjusting his glasses. “You were away last night; out of town, they said.”

“Yes, I wanted a breath of fresh air,” I answered, laughing. I did not care to tell him where I had been, knowing that he held my love for Ethelwynn as the possible ruin of my career.

His curiosity seemed aroused; but, although he put to me an ingenious question, I steadfastly refused to satisfy him. I recollected too well his open condemnation of my love on previous occasions. Now that the “murdered” man was proved to be still alive, I surely had no further grounds for my suspicion of Ethelwynn. That she had, by her silence, deceived me regarding her engagement to Mr. Courtenay was plain, but the theory that it was her hand that had assassinated him was certainly disproved. Thus, although the discovery of the “dead” man’s continued existence deepened the mystery a thousandfold, it nevertheless dispelled from my heart a good deal of the suspicion regarding my well-beloved; and, in consequence, I was not desirous that any further hostile word should be uttered against her.

While Sir Bernard went out to visit her ladyship and two or three other nervous women living in the same neighbourhood, I seated myself in his chair and saw the afternoon callers one after another. I fear that the advice I gave during those couple of hours was not very notable for its shrewdness or brilliancy. As in other professions, so in medicine, when one’s brain is overflowing with private affairs, one cannot attend properly to patients. On such occasions one is apt to ask the usual questions mechanically, hear the replies and scribble a prescription of some harmless formula. On the afternoon in question I certainly believe myself guilty of such lapse of professional attention. Yet even we doctors are human, although our patients frequently forget that fact. The medico is a long-suffering person, even in these days of scarcity of properly-qualified men—the first person called on emergency, and the very last to be paid!

It was past five o’clock before I was able to return to my rooms, and on arrival I found upon my table a note from Jevons. It was dated from the Yorick Club, a small but exceedingly comfortable Bohemian centre in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, and had evidently been written hurriedly on the previous night:—

“I hear you are absent in the country. That is unfortunate. But as soon as you receive this, lose no time in calling at the Hennikers’ and making casual inquiries regarding Miss Mivart. Something has happened, but what it is I have failed to discover. You stand a better chance. Go at once. I must leave for Bath to-night. Address me at the Royal Hotel, G. W. Station.

“Ambler Jevons.”

What could have transpired? And why had my friend’s movements been so exceedingly erratic of late, if he had not been following some clue? Would that clue lead him to the truth, I wondered? Or was he still suspicious of Ethelwynn’s guilt?

Puzzled by this vague note, and wondering what had occurred, and whether the trip to Bath was in connection with it, I made a hasty toilet and drove in a hansom to the Hennikers’.

Mrs. Henniker met me in the drawing-room, just as gushing and charming as ever. She was one of those many women in London who seek to hang on to the skirts of polite society by reason of a distant connexion being a countess—a fact of which she never failed to remind the stranger before half-an-hour’s acquaintance. She found it always a pleasant manner in which to open a conversation at dinner, dance, or soirée: “Oh! do you happen to know my cousin, Lady Nassington?” She never sufficiently realised it as bad form, and therefore in her own circle was known among the women, who jeered at her behind her back, as “The Cousin of Lady Nassington.” She was daintily dressed, and evidently just come in from visiting, for she still had her hat on when she entered.

“Ah!” she cried, with her usual buoyant air. “You truant! We’ve all been wondering what had become of you. Busy, of course! Always the same excuse! Find something fresh. You used it a fortnight ago to refuse my invitation to take pot-luck with us.”

I laughed at her unconventional greeting, replying, “If I say something fresh it must be a lie. You know,

Mrs. Henniker, how hard I’m kept at it, with hospital work and private practice.”

“That’s all very well,” she said, with a slight pout of her well-shaped mouth—for she was really a pretty woman, even though full of airs and caprices. “But it doesn’t excuse you for keeping away from us altogether.”

“I don’t keep away altogether,” I protested. “I’ve called now.”

She pulled a wry face, in order to emphasise her dissatisfaction at my explanation, and said:

“And I suppose you are prepared to receive castigation? Ethelwynn has begun to complain because people are saying that your engagement is broken off.”

“Who says so?” I inquired rather angrily, for I hated all the tittle-tattle of that little circle of gossips who dawdle over the tea-cups of Redcliffe Square and its neighbourhood. I had attended a good many of them professionally at various times, and was well acquainted with all their ways and all their exaggerations. The gossiping circle in flat-land about Earl’s Court was bad enough, but the Redcliffe Square set, being slightly higher in the social scale, was infinitely worse.

“Oh! all the ill-natured people are commenting upon your apparent coolness. Once, not long ago, you used to be seen everywhere with Ethelwynn, and now no one ever sees you. People form a natural conclusion, of course,” said the fair-haired, fussy little woman, whose married state gave her the right to censure me on my neglect.

“Ethelwynn is, of course, still with you?” I asked, in anger that outsiders should seek to interfere in my private affairs.

“She still makes our house her home, not caring to go back to the dulness of Neneford,” was her reply. “But at present she’s away visiting one of her old schoolfellows—a girl who married a country banker and lives near Hereford.”

“Then she’s in the country?”

“Yes, she went three days ago. I thought she had written to you. She told me she intended doing so.”

I had received no letter from her. Indeed, our recent correspondence had been of a very infrequent and formal character. With a woman’s quick perception she had noted my coldness and had sought to show equal callousness. With the knowledge of Courtenay’s continued existence now in my mind, I was beside myself with grief and anger at having doubted her. But how could I act at that moment, save in obedience to my friend Jevons’ instructions? He had urged me to go and find out some details regarding her recent life with the Hennikers; and with that object I remarked:

“She hasn’t been very well of late, I fear. The change of air should do her good.”

“That’s true, poor girl. She’s seemed very unwell, and I’ve often told her that only one doctor in the world could cure her malady—yourself.”

I smiled. The malady was, I knew too well, the grief of a disappointed love, and a perfect cure for that could only be accomplished by reconciliation.

I was filled with regret that she was absent, for I longed there and then to take her to my breast and whisper into her ear my heart’s outpourings. Yes; we men are very foolish in our impetuosity.

“How long will she be away?”

“Why?” inquired the smartly-dressed little woman, mischievously. “What can it matter to you?”

“I have her welfare at heart, Mrs. Henniker,” I answered seriously.

“Then you have a curious way of showing your solicitude on her behalf,” she said bluntly, smiling again. “Poor Ethelwynn has been pining day after day for a word from you; but you seldom, if ever, write, and when you do the coldness of your letters adds to her burden of grief. I knew always when she had received one by the traces of secret tears upon her cheeks. Forgive me for saying so, Doctor, but you men, either in order to test the strength of a woman’s affection, or perhaps out of mere caprice, often try her patience until the strained thread snaps, and she who was a good and pure woman becomes reckless of everything—her name, her family pride, and even her own honour.”

Her words aroused my curiosity.

“And you believe that Ethelwynn’s patience is exhausted?” I asked, anxiously.

Her eyes met mine, and I saw a mysterious expression in them. There is always something strange in the eyes of a pretty woman who is hiding a secret.

“Well, Doctor,” she answered, in a voice quite calm and deliberate, “you’ve already shown yourself

so openly as being disinclined to further associate yourself publicly with poor Ethelwynn, because of the tragedy that befell the household, that you surely cannot complain if you find your place usurped by a new and more devoted lover.”

“What!” I cried, starting up, fiercely. “What is this you tell me? Ethelwynn has a lover?”

“I have nothing whatever to do with her affairs, Doctor,” said the tantalising woman, who affected all the foibles of the smarter set. “Now that you have forsaken her she is, of course, entirely mistress of her own actions.”

“But I haven’t forsaken her!” I blurted forth.

She only smiled superciliously, with the same mysterious look—an expression that I cannot define, but by which I knew that she had told me the crushing truth. Ethelwynn, believing that I had cast her aside, had allowed herself to be loved by another!

Who was the man who had usurped my place? I deserved it all, without a doubt. You, reader, have already in your heart condemned me as being hard and indifferent towards the woman I once loved so truly and so well. But, in extenuation, I would ask you to recollect how grave were the suspicions against her—how every fact seemed to prove conclusively that her sister’s husband had died by her hand.

I saw plainly in Mrs. Henniker’s veiled words a statement of the truth; and, after obtaining from her Ethelwynn’s address near Hereford, bade her farewell and blindly left the house.