MISS MEREDITH INSISTS ON BEING OBEYED.
It was not until his sister and aunt had left London that Alec Lindsay
began to feel the effect of his imprisonment and of the anxiety he
had suffered. His natural energy had vanished. He was content to
hang all day over the fire, and began to have a morbid shrinking
from intercourse with strangers. He fancied that the shadow of the
accusation yet clung to him. His cough had never left him; and he
felt more and more indisposed for exertion of any kind. He lived
quite alone, often spending whole days without exchanging a word
with any human being. The arrangement with Messrs. Hatchett, Small,
and Hatchett had been tacitly abandoned; and he had not been able to
decide on taking any fresh step. There was little wonder that, living
as he did, he became gloomy and melancholy, tired of his life and of
everything around him.
One afternoon he was surprised by a visit from Hubert Blake.
‘My dear fellow, what is the matter with you?’ were Blake’s first words.
‘Nothing, so far as I know.’
‘You look like a ghost.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘You may call it nonsense if you like, but it is true. What are you
doing with yourself now?’
‘Nothing in particular. A prolonged fit of laziness.’
‘I doubt if it is laziness. Do you live here all alone, without any
regular occupation?’
‘I go to the British Museum and read sometimes.’
There was a pause of a minute or two, and then Blake said gravely:
‘You are not yourself, Alec. You used to be full of energy and spirits.
What has happened to you?’
‘Nothing whatever. Please don’t go on like that.’
‘I’m afraid you were harder hit two months ago than we supposed. A man
can’t come through an experience of that kind without paying for it.’
Alec’s thin face flushed painfully. Blake saw that his friend wished to
be let alone; but he could not help thinking that anything was better
for him than the melancholy into which he seemed to be sinking.
‘You should not live so much alone,’ he began again.
‘There are very few men I would care to live with. I don’t see what
else I can do.’
‘I should take a change--go into the country.’
‘That would not mend matters.’
‘Or travel.’
‘Too much bother.’
‘But you can’t go on like this.’
‘Why not? Blake, you are very good, but you may as well let me alone.
To tell the truth, I don’t care much what happens. I feel as if my life
were ended. I don’t consider,’ he went on, speaking rapidly, as if he
were anxious to finish what he had to say, ‘that my name can ever be
cleared of the taint of the Old Bailey. I fancy men look askance at
me. I have no desire to begin life again. My ambitions are dead, and I
don’t want them to come to life again. What does it matter?’
‘All this simply means that you are run down, out of sorts,’ said
Blake, rising to his feet. ‘You should take a long voyage.’
Alec shook his head.
‘At least, come and dine with us at Highgate to-morrow. I have
something to tell you.’
‘Much obliged, Blake; but I’d rather not.’
‘I do think you might exert yourself as far as that goes,’ said Hubert;
but seeing that Alec was very unwilling to go, he dropped the subject,
and soon afterwards left him.
In a day or two, however, Alec received a note from Sophy Meredith,
repeating the invitation in such terms that he found it impossible to
decline it; and accordingly, a few days afterwards he found himself
once more at Caen House, Highgate.
The master of the house was not present at dinner. It was a late, cold
spring; and Mr. Blake found it better to confine himself to his own
room. Nothing of importance was said at the dinner-table; but Alec
fancied that his hostess seemed brighter and franker than usual, and
once or twice he observed a glance passing between her and his friend
which he did not quite understand.
When the little party returned to the drawing-room, Miss Elmwood at
once settled herself comfortably in an easy-chair by the fire, and
Sophy went over to the piano. Blake went up to her to help her to
choose some music; and Alec, who was sitting close by, was surprised to
see Sophy lay her hand in a familiar way on his friend’s arm, looking
into his face with a bright smile as she did so. The next instant she
caught Alec’s look, and, blushing deeply, she turned to Blake and
whispered:
‘Did you not tell Mr. Lindsay that we are engaged?’
‘No,’ he whispered in reply. ‘The fact is, the poor fellow looked so
wretched, in mind as well as in body, that I did not like the idea of
flaunting my happiness in his face. But go on playing, and I will tell
him now.’
Sophy did as she was bid, but her performance had a good many slips in
it. Meantime Blake had seated himself beside Alec, and answering his
look, said:
‘Yes; Miss Meredith and I have been engaged about a week.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me when you came to see me the other day? But I
beg your pardon; I have no business to ask questions like that.’
‘Not at all, my dear fellow. I--the fact is----’
‘Surely you did not think I would grudge you your good fortune, or envy
you?’
‘Not that, certainly; and yet you seemed so depressed that I did not
care to allude to the subject.’
‘It is a comfort to know that there is some happiness yet in the world.
Sometimes it seems to me there is very little of it left. And I am sure
few people deserve a share of it better than you and Miss Meredith.’
‘Don’t say that of me, Alec. It is very far from the truth.’
‘I wish you joy with all my heart.’
‘You, too, have had your little romance. I remember, at least, that
when we were at Loch Long----’
‘That is all over,’ said Alec quietly, but there was a sad, wistful
look in his face. Presently he found an opportunity of congratulating
Sophy on her engagement.
‘Thank you, Mr. Lindsay. But, do you know, I have something on my mind
to say to you. I do hope you won’t be offended if I say it.’
‘That means you are going to lecture me.’
‘Oh no!’
‘Only a spoonful of jam? I fear the pill is there all the same.’
‘Do you know that is the first thing I have heard you say in your old
manner for months. You are not well. I see it plainly. You are very far
from well.’
‘Which is a polite way of saying that I am lazy, moody, and so on, and
that I should shake off my melancholy, and set to work at something. I
feel I ought to do that; but, to tell the truth, I feel as if I hadn’t
the spirit to attempt it.’
‘It seems to me that you are slipping the medicine into the spoon
yourself; and besides, the close you have chosen is one that doesn’t
suit your complaint. It is the weak state of health you are in which is
to blame. Now, I want you to go and see a doctor.’
‘I assure you, Miss Meredith, it is quite unnecessary. There is very
little, if anything, the matter with me.’
‘Let us say it is unnecessary. Won’t you take the trouble of going, if
I ask you?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Then I do ask you.’
That, of course, settled the matter; and before Alec left the house
Miss Meredith gave him the name and address of the doctor she wished
him to consult.
The following morning, accordingly, Alec spent in the physician’s
waiting-room. The room was nearly full when he entered it; and as most
of those present had made appointments beforehand with the doctor, and
were consequently preferred, he had more than an hour to wait. There
was plenty of time for him to observe his fellow-patients. One little
group, in particular, arrested his attention. It consisted of a young
man, a few years older than himself, a girl who was evidently his
wife, and a child, a merry little fellow about three years old. The
young mother was evidently the patient. She was thin and hollow-eyed;
the colour came and went in her pallid cheeks, and her cough was
sometimes painful to listen to. The husband sat moodily staring before
him. The mother busied herself with the child.
As it happened, the boy took a strong fancy for Alec’s stick; and after
a shy smile and a faint excuse from his mother, the child succeeded
in attaining his object. This led to the interchange of a few remarks
between Alec and the child’s parents, from which it appeared that the
young man was a clerk in some mercantile house in the City, and was
spending an unexpected holiday in the effort to ascertain exactly what
ailed his wife. To Alec it seemed plain that the girl (for she seemed
hardly beyond girlhood) was in consumption. The only question was what
progress the disease had made.
When it was Alec’s turn to enter the consulting-room, he thought that
the doctor made a ridiculously minute examination, and asked him a
number of very unnecessary questions. But he changed his mind when the
physician pronounced his verdict. The substance of it was that Alec was
in a very precarious state of health; that his lungs were exceedingly
delicate, and that he was predisposed to consumption. The prescription
was change of scene and cheerful society in the meantime, and a voyage
to Australia or a winter spent in Egypt.
‘I see you are tempted to make light of the matter,’ said the doctor.
‘All I can say is, that if you go on as you are doing now, you will
not be alive this day twelve months. You had better get one or two of
your relations to take a trip to Ventnor with you. Don’t go alone.
Good-afternoon.’
Alec was startled by what he was told; and yet, so deep was his
melancholy that he was conscious of a certain satisfaction in being
able to think of his death as an event that was possibly not far off.
He had left the house and had gone some little distance before he
noticed that he had taken a wrong turning, and would be forced to
retrace his steps. He had gone back nearly as far as the doctor’s
house, when he met the young couple whom he had noticed in the
waiting-room.
Alec was startled by the fierce look in the husband’s face. It was
the face of a desperate man. He was striding on, apparently without
thinking where he was going, dragging his child carelessly by the hand,
while his staring eyes and clenched teeth told of the storm that was
raging within. His wife trudged on by his side in silence, pale to
the lips, with a scared look in her face. Moved by some impulse, Alec
stopped right in front of them, and, without any formal apology, asked
at once:
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘What did he say? Death. That’s what he said. It may be in a year, or
it may be in three months. My God!’
The humble City clerk was transformed by misery into something like
a madman. He gripped his wife by the arm, as if he would defy Death
himself to tear her from his side.
‘She’s all I have, and I can’t live without her. I can’t, and I won’t.’
Alec shuddered, but he could not meet the man’s eyes, and dropped his
own before them.
‘And the children; what is to become of them?’
‘Come, Tom; come home with me,’ said his wife gently, as she tried to
release her husband’s tightening grasp.
But he did not hear her.
‘Ay; and the doctor says, if she could go to Egypt for a time, or
the south of France, her life would be spared. Egypt! Or the south of
France! For a year, he says. Oh yes, it would save her life. That’s the
good of being rich, you see. You can buy your wife’s life.’
‘What is your name? Where do you live?’ said Alec.
‘What have you to do with that?’
‘Hush, Tom!’ put in the girl at his side. ‘And do let go my arm, you
hold me so tight. Tell the gentleman where we live. He won’t do us any
harm.’
But the man, suddenly dropping his wife’s arm, strode on without saying
another word.
‘Tell me the name of your husband’s employers; he said he was a clerk
in the City,’ said Alec to the girl, walking on by her side.
‘Cole and Fletcher, sir. They’re tea merchants in Devizes Street.’
‘And your name is?’
‘Hardy, sir.’
‘Thank you. Good-day.’
There was sympathy in Alec’s face, if there was none in his language;
and as he slowly walked homewards he asked himself, ‘Why should I not
do it? I have all I need; more, probably, than I shall ever wish to
use. Of course it is a risk; but I don’t think I could do better.’
And next morning Thomas Hardy received a short note, which enclosed a
cheque for three hundred pounds, signed ‘Alexander Lindsay.’