第29章

I was taken home on the appointed day to suffer the trial--a hard one even at my tender years--of witnessing my mother's passionate grief and my father's mute despair.I remember that the scene of our first meeting after Caroline's death was wisely and considerately shortened by my aunt, who took me out of the room.

She seemed to have a confused desire to keep me from leaving her after the door had closed behind us; but I broke away and ran downstairs to the surgery, to go and cry for my lost playmate with the sharer of all our games, Uncle George.

I opened the surgery door and could see nobody.I dried my tears and looked all round the room--it was empty.I ran upstairs again to Uncle George's garret bedroom--he was not there; his cheap hairbrush and old cast-off razor-case that had belonged to my grandfather were not on the dressing-table.Had he got some other bedroom? I went out on the landing and called softly, with an unaccountable terror and sinking at my heart:

"Uncle George!"

Nobody answered; but my aunt came hastily up the garret stairs.

"Hush!" she said."You must never call that name out here again!"She stopped suddenly, and looked as if her own words had frightened her.

"Is Uncle George dead?" I asked.My aunt turned red and pale, and stammered.

I did not wait to hear what she said.I brushed past her, down the stairs.My heart was bursting--my flesh felt cold.I ran breathlessly and recklessly into the room where my father and mother had received me.They were both sitting there still.I ran up to them, wringing my hands, and crying out in a passion of tears:

"Is Uncle George dead?"

My mother gave a scream that terrified me into instant silence and stillness.My father looked at her for a moment, rang the bell that summoned the maid, then seized me roughly by the arm and dragged me out of the room.

He took me down into the study, seated himself in his accustomed chair, and put me before him between his knees.His lips were awfully white, and I felt his two hands, as they grasped my shoulders, shaking violently.

"You are never to mention the name of Uncle George again," he said, in a quick, angry, trembling whisper."Never to me, never to your mother, never to your aunt, never to anybody in this world! Never--never--never!"The repetition of the word terrified me even more than the suppressed vehemence with which he spoke.He saw that I was frightened, and softened his manner a little before he went on.

"You will never see Uncle George again," he said."Your mother and I love you dearly; but if you forget what I have told you, you will be sent away from home.Never speak that name again--mind, never! Now kiss me, and go away."How his lips trembled--and oh, how cold they felt on mine!

I shrunk out of the room the moment he had kissed me, and went and hid myself in the garden.

"Uncle George is gone.I am never to see him any more; I am never to speak of him again"--those were the words I repeated to myself, with indescribable terror and confusion, the moment I was alone.There was something unspeakably horrible to my young mind in this mystery which I was commanded always to respect, and which, so far as I then knew, I could never hope to see revealed.

My father, my mother, my aunt, all appeared to be separated from me now by some impassable barrier.Home seemed home no longer with Caroline dead, Uncle George gone, and a forbidden subject of talk perpetually and mysteriously interposing between my parents and me.

Though I never infringed the command my father had given me in his study (his words and looks, and that dreadful scream of my mother's, which seemed to be still ringing in my ears, were more than enough to insure my obedience), I also never lost the secret desire to penetrate the darkness which clouded over the fate of Uncle George.

For two years I remained at home and discovered nothing.If Iasked the servants about my uncle, they could only tell me that one morning he disappeared from the house.Of the members of my father's family I could make no inquiries.They lived far away, and never came to see us; and the idea of writing to them, at my age and in my position, was out of the question.My aunt was as unapproachably silent as my father and mother; but I never forgot how her face had altered when she reflected for a moment after hearing of my extraordinary adventure while going home with the servant over the sands at night.The more I thought of that change of countenance in connection with what had occurred on my return to my father's house, the more certain I felt that the stranger who had kissed me and wept over me must have been no other than Uncle George.

At the end of my two years at home I was sent to sea in the merchant navy by my own earnest desire.I had always determined to be a sailor from the time when I first went to stay with my aunt at the sea-side, and I persisted long enough in my resolution to make my parents recognize the necessity of acceding to my wishes.