She went towards the door. Nurse laid her hand on her arm.
“Miss Sophy, I have not told you all. Can you bear to hear it? Remember, master is in the next room, and he knows nothing yet. Come, you must help me to tell him. Now, be quiet, dear! It was no common death he died!” She looked in her face as if trying to convey her meaning by her eyes.
Sophy’s lips moved, but nurse could hear no sound.
“He has been shot as he was coming home along Turner Street, tonight.”
Sophy went on with the motion of her lips, twitching them almost convulsively.
“My dear, you must rouse yourself, and remember your father and mother have yet to be told. Speak! Miss Sophy!”
But she could not; her whole face worked involuntarily. The nurse left the room, and almost immediately brought back some sal-volatile and water. Sophy drank it eagerly, and gave one or two deep gasps. Then she spoke in a calm, unnatural voice.
“What do you want me to do, nurse? Go to Helen and poor Amy. See, they want help.”
“Poor creatures! we must let them alone for a bit. You must go to master; that’s what I want you to do, Miss Sophy. You must break it to him, poor old gentleman! Come, he’s asleep in the dining-room, and the men are waiting to speak to him.”
Sophy went mechanically to the dining-room door.
“Oh! I cannot go in. I cannot tell him. What must I say?”
“I’ll come with you, Miss Sophy. Break it to him by degrees.”
“I can’t, nurse. My head throbs so, I shall be sure to say the wrong thing.”
However, she opened the door. There sat her father, the shaded light of the candle-lamp falling upon, and softening his marked features, while his snowy hair contrasted well with the deep crimson morocco of the chair. The newspaper he had been reading had dropped on the carpet by his side. He breathed regularly and deeply.
At that instant the words of Mrs. Hemans’s song came full in Sophy’s mind—
“Ye know not what ye do, That call the slumberer back From the realms unseen by you, To life’s dim weary track.”
But this life’s track would be to the bereaved father something more than dim and weary, hereafter.
“Papa,” said she softly. He did not stir.
“Papa!” she exclaimed, somewhat louder.
He started up, half awake.
“Tea is ready, is it?” and he yawned.
“No! papa, but something very dreadful—very sad, has happened!”
He was gaping so loud that he did not catch the words she uttered, and did not see the expression of her face.
“Master Henry has not come back,” said nurse. Her voice, heard in unusual speech to him, arrested his attention, and rubbing his eyes, he looked at the servant.
“Harry! oh, no! he had to attend a meeting of the masters about these cursed turn-outs. I don’t expect him yet. What are you looking at me so strangely for, Sophy?”
“O papa, Harry is come back,” said she, bursting into tears.
“What do you mean?” said he, startled into an impatient consciousness that something was wrong. “One of you says he is not come home, and the other says he is. Now, that’s nonsense! Tell me at once what’s the matter. Did he go on horseback to town? Is he thrown? Speak, child, can’t you?”
“No! he’s not been thrown, papa,” said Sophy sadly.
“But he’s badly hurt,” put in the nurse, desirous to be drawing his anxiety to a point.
“Hurt? Where? How? Have you sent for a doctor?” said he, hastily rising, as if to leave the room.
“Yes, papa, we’ve sent for a doctor—but I’m afraid–I believe it’s of no use.”
He looked at her for a moment, and in her face he read the truth. His son, his only son, was dead.
He sank back in his chair, and hid his face in his hands, and bowed his head upon the table. The strong mahogany dining-table shook and rattled under his agony.
Sophy went and put her arms round his bowed neck.
“Go! you are not Harry,” said he; but the action roused him.
“Where is he? where is the”—said he, with his strong face set into the lines of anguish, by two minutes of such intense woe.
“In the servants’ hall,” said nurse. “Two policemen and another man brought him home. They would be glad to speak to you when you are able, sir.”
“I am now able,” replied he. At first when he stood up he tottered. But steadying himself, he walked, as firmly as a soldier on drill, to the door. Then he turned back and poured out a glass of wine from the decanter which yet remained on the table. His eye caught the wine-glass which Harry had used but two or three hours before. He sighed a long quivering sigh, and then mastering himself again, he left the room.
“You had better go back to your sisters, Miss Sophy,” said nurse.
Miss Carson went. She could not face death yet.
The nurse followed Mr. Carson to the servants’ hall. There on their dinner-table lay the poor dead body. The men who had brought it were sitting near the fire, while several of the servants stood round the table, gazing at the remains.
THE REMAINS!
One or two were crying; one or two were whispering; awed into a strange stillness of voice and action by the presence of the dead. When Mr. Carson came in they all drew back and looked at him with the reverence due to sorrow.
He went forward and gazed long and fondly on the calm, dead face; then he bent down and kissed the lips yet crimson with life. The policemen had advanced, and stood ready to be questioned. But at first the old man’s mind could only take in the idea of death; slowly, slowly came the conception of violence, of murder. “How did he die?” he groaned forth.
The policemen looked at each other. Then one began, and stated that having heard the report of a gun in Turner Street, he had turned down that way (a lonely, unfrequented way Mr. Carson knew, but a short cut to his garden door, of which Harry had a key); that as he (the policeman) came nearer, he had heard footsteps as of a man running away; but the evening was so dark (the moon not having yet risen) that he could see no one twenty yards off. That he had even been startled when close to the body by seeing it lying across the path at his feet. That he had sprung his rattle; and when another policeman came up, by the light of the lantern they had discovered who it was that had been killed. That they believed him to be dead when they first took him up, as he had never moved, spoken, or breathed. That intelligence of the murder had been sent to the superintendent, who would probably soon be here. That two or three policemen were still about the place where the murder was committed, seeking out for some trace of the murderer. Having said this, they stopped speaking.
Mr. Carson had listened attentively, never taking his eyes off the dead body. When they had ended, he said—
“Where was he shot?”
They lifted up some of the thick chestnut curls, and showed a blue spot (you could hardly call it a hole, the flesh had closed so much over it) in the left temple. A deadly aim! And yet it was so dark a night!
“He must have been close upon him,” said one policeman.
“And have had him between him and the sky,” added the other.
There was a little commotion at the door of the room, and there stood poor Mrs. Carson, the mother.
She had heard unusual noises in the house, and had sent down her maid (much more a companion to her than her highly-educated daughters) to discover what was going on. But the maid either forgot, or dreaded, to return; and with nervous impatience Mrs. Carson came down herself, and had traced the hum and buzz of voices to the servants’ hall.
Mr. Carson turned round. But he could not leave the dead for any one living.
“Take her away, nurse. It is no sight for her. Tell Miss Sophy to go to her mother.” His eyes were again fixed on the dead face of his son.
Presently Mrs. Carson’s hysterical cries were heard all over the house. Her husband shuddered at the outward expression of the agony which was rending his heart.