The Man with a Shadow

“My dear madam, I want to help you. Pray tell me all.”

“He came down to me one day – I have the date somewhere – and he proposed to me. I refused him at once, for I quite disliked the man, and he went away my enemy, I’m sure, and when I heard of his conduct towards his cousin, I felt that I had had a narrow escape from a perfect fiend. And now, Mr Salis, what shall I do?”

“The dog!” ejaculated Salis. “I’m longing for occupation; leave it to me, Mrs Berens. I’ve been seeing a friend – my solicitor – in town about North’s affair with his cousin; we’ll work the two together, and if Mr Thompson does not mind, he’ll find himself in a strange fix.”

Cousin Thompson did find himself in a strange fix, and what with threats of proceedings against him for conspiracy and fraud, he was very glad to compound matters in a way which restored two-thirds of her comfortable little fortune to Mrs Berens.

What time these proceedings were going on, North was gradually improving under Mr Delton’s care, though the old gentleman laughed, and said that the improvement was not due to him.

Certainly it was the case that when North had his often-recurring fits of imagination, when he was fully convinced that the essence of Luke Candlish was with him still, and he turned wild with horror, the touch of Mary Salis’ soft, cool hand laid across his eyes, where he held it as a talisman, invariably exorcised the fancied spirit, and the ghost was laid.

From recurring daily and with terrible force, the fits came at last weekly, and then a month passed before one came, and that was slight.

Then more and more feeble, and then they came no more.

There could only be one result to such intercourse as this. Horace North gradually awakened to the fact that he had been blind as well as partly demented; but a year had elapsed before one day Salis and Mrs Berens entered the Rectory drawing-room to find Mary sobbing gently on the young doctor’s breast, and heard her say:

“I always loved you from the first.”

“Ah, Salis, you here?” said North, rising without a shade of discomposure on his face. “Mens sana in corpore sano, old fellow. I have been asking dear Mary if she will be my wife.”

“My dear Horace,” cried Salis, his face flushing with pleasure, “Heaven bless you both! I am glad: but – er – the fact is, I have been betrayed into asking Mrs Berens – er – to – ”

“Dear, dear Mary!” sobbed the homely, simple-hearted woman; “don’t, don’t be angry with me. I do love him so.”

Another year had passed, but there had been nothing definite heard about Leo.

Then came a black-bordered envelope, with the direction in her hand, asking her brother to help her, for she was in terrible straits in London with her child. There was plenty of money to be had, she said, but everything was in confusion, and the agent of Sir Thomas Candlish refused to acknowledge her as the late baronet’s wife.

But the energy of Hartley Salis soon set this right.

For old Moredock’s notion had proved to be correct. Tom Candlish had literally drunk himself to death, and the old man, who had been giving Horace North a good deal of trouble lately, and who was exceedingly fractious and jealous of his grandchild’s young husband, his deputy at the church, suddenly perked up on hearing that “young Squire Tom” was to be brought down from London to the family mausoleum.

There was a grand funeral, and the old man, helped by Joe Chegg, got through his part of the business with a good deal of his old energy.

All was over, and Horace North, who had been one of the mourners, as brother-in-law of Lady Candlish of the Hall, was about to turn away, with his mind strongly exercised by the scene, and the recollections it evoked, when he started, for he felt his sleeve plucked.

He turned sharply round to find himself alone, gazing at the old sexton, as he gave him one of his ghoulish grins – more hideous than ever.

“Now, gran’fa,” said a quick voice, and a rosy little woman, who had evidently been crying, took his arm, “you’re tired out, and must come home. Joe will finish what’s to be done.”

“Go ’way! go ’way!” cried the old man angrily.

“No, no, dear; don’t worrit Dr North now. He’ll come and see you another time.”

“Go ’way! go ’way!” cried the old man again; and then, laying his hideous, gnarled hand upon the doctor’s arm: “Don’t want to try no more ’speriments, do you, doctor, eh?”

North looked at him wildly, and could hardly keep back a shudder.

“No, no, Moredock,” he said, recovering himself.

“But you’ll come and see me to-morrow, doctor, won’t you?”

North nodded, and walked away to Salis, who was waiting for him at the vestry door, and they entered one of the carriages to return to the Hall, while, after watching them go, the old man seated himself upon the mausoleum steps, where he could watch while his new grandson and deputy finished his duty, and the great door was closed.

“Too terrible to attempt,” muttered North to himself. “A narrow escape from a living death, but I still think that I was right.”

“Ay, Joe; ay, Dally; doctor’s a clever man, and I could tell you some strange tales about he; but no, no; no, no! Lock that gate quickly, and help me home. I’m a little stiff about the back. Lock him up, lad! lock him up! Now, Dally, let’s get back. Another Candlish there; eh! my lady, eh!”

“Gran’fa!” cried Dally furiously; and the old man broke out into a chuckling laugh, which nearly killed him, and he had to sit down on a tomb and be patted on the back, and his collar loosened, and then helped slowly home, looking very limp and strange, though with the doctor’s help he managed to survive another year.

The night of the funeral, when the doctor and his young wife returned from the Hall, where the handsome young widow sat alone with her weak, sickly child, North had a return of his imaginative malady; but Mary’s hand was talismanic still, and the shadow passed away, never to return.

The End