Mr next letter to my mother was very short, and ran thus:--
“Dearest Mamma,--Don't be shocked at my bad writing, for I had a fall on
Tuesday last, and hurt my arm a little; nothing broken, but bruised
and sore to move, so that I lie on my bed and read novels. Madame never
leaves me, but sits here to put ice on my shoulder and play chess with
me. She reads out Balzac for me, and I don't know when I had such a
jolly life. It was a rather big hurdle, and the mare took it sideways,
and caught her hind leg,--at least they say so,--but we came down
together, and she rolled over me. Papa cried out well done, for I did
not lose my saddle, and he has given me a gold watch and a seal with the
Norcott crest. Every one is so kind; and Captain Hotham comes up after
dinner and tells me all the talk of the table, and we smoke and have our
coffee very nicely.
“Papa comes every night before supper, and is very good to me. He says
that Blossom is now my own, but I must teach her to come cooler to her
fences. I can't write more, for my pain comes back when I stir my arm.
You shall hear of me constantly, if I cannot write myself.
“Oh, dearest mamma, when papa is kind there is no one like him,--so
gentle, so thoughtful, so soft in manner, and so dignified all the
while. I wish you could see him as he stood here. A thousand loves from
your own boy,
“DIGBY.”
Madame Cleremont wrote by the same post. I did not see her letter; but
when mamma's answer came I knew it must have been a serious version of
my accident, and told how, besides a dislocated shoulder, I had got
a broken collar-bone, and two ribs fractured. With all this, however,
there was no danger to life; for the doctor said everything had gone
luckily, and no internal parts were wounded.
Poor mamma had added a postscript that puzzled Madame greatly, and she
came and showed it to me, and asked what I thought she could do about
it. It was an entreaty that she might be permitted to come and see me.
There was a touching humility in the request that almost choked me with
emotion as I read it. “I could come and go unknown and unnoticed,” wrote
she. “None of Sir Roger's household have ever seen me, and my visit
might pass for the devotion of some old follower of the family, and
I will promise not to repeat it.” She urged her plea in the most
beseeching terms, and said that she would submit to any conditions if
her prayer were only complied with.
“I really do not know what to do here,” said Madame to me. “Without
your father's concurrence this cannot be done; and who is to ask him for
permission?”
“Shall I?”
“No, no, no,” cried she, rapidly. “Such a step on your part would be
ruin; a certain refusal, and ruin to yourself.”
“Could Mr. Eccles do it?”
“He has no influence whatever.”
“Has Captain Hotham?”
“Less, if less be possible.”
“Mr. Cleremont, then?”
“Ah, yes, he might, and with a better chance of success; but--” She
stopped, and though I waited patiently, she did not finish her sentence.
“But what?” asked I at last.
“Gaston hates doing a hazardous thing,” said she; and I remarked that
her expression changed, and her face assumed a hard, stern look as she
spoke. “His theory is, do nothing without three to one in your favor. He
says you 'll always gets these odds, if you only wait.”
“But you don't believe that,” cried I, eagerly.
“Sometimes--very seldom, that is, I do not whenever I can help it.”
There was a long pause now, in which neither of us spoke. At last she
said, “I can't aid your mother in this project. She must give it up.
There is no saying how your father would resent it.”
“And how will you tell her that?” faltered I out.
“I can't tell. I'll try and show her the mischief it might bring upon
you; and that now, standing high, as you do, in your father's favor, she
would never forgive herself, if she were the cause of a change towards
you. This consideration will have more weight with her than any that
could touch herself personally.”
“But it shall not,” cried I, passionately. “Nothing in _my_ fortune
shall stand between my mother and her love for me.”
She bent down and looked at me with an intensity in her stare that I
cannot describe; it was as if, by actual steadfastness, she was able to
fix me, and read me in my inmost heart.
“From which of your parents, Digby,” said she, slowly, “do you derive
this nature?”
“I do not know; papa always says I am very like him.”
“And do you believe that papa is capable of great self-sacrifice? I
mean, would he let his affections lead him against his interests?”
“That he would! He has told me over and over the head is as often wrong
as right,--the heart only errs about once in five times.” She fell on
my neck and kissed me as I said this, with a sort of rapturous delight.
“Your heart will be always right, dear boy,” said she; once more she
bent down and kissed me, and then hurried away.
This scene must have worked more powerfully on my nerves than I felt,
or was aware of, while it was passing; at all events, it brought back my
fever, and before night I was in wild delirium. Of the seven long weeks
that followed, with all their alternations, I know nothing. My first
consciousness was to know myself, as very weak and propped by pillows,
in a half-darkened room, in which an old nurse-tender sat and mingled
her heavy snorings with the ticking of the clock on the chimney. Thus
drowsily pondering, with a debilitated brain, I used to fancy that I had
passed away into another form of existence, in which no sights or sounds
should come but these dreary breathings, and that remorseless ticking
that seemed to be spelling out “eternity.”
Sometimes one, sometimes two or three persons would enter the room,
approach the bed, and talk together in whispers, and I would languidly
lift up my eyes and look at them, and though I thought they were not
altogether unknown to me, the attempt at recognition would have been
an effort so full of pain that I would, rather than make it, fall back
again into apathy. The first moment of perfect consciousness--when I
could easily follow all that I heard, and remember it afterwards--was
one evening, when a faint but delicious air came in through the open
window, and the rich fragrance of the garden filled the room. Captain
Hotham and the doctor were seated on the balcony smoking and chatting.
“You 're sure the tobacco won't be bad for him?” asked Hotham.
“Nothing will be bad or good now,” was the answer. “Effusion has set
in.”
“Which means, that it's all over, eh?”
“About one in a thousand, perhaps, rub through. My own experience
records no instance of recovery.”
“And you certainly did not take such a gloomy view of his case at first.
You told me that there were no vital parts touched?”
“Neither were there; the ribs had suffered no displacement, and as for
a broken clavicle, I 've known a fellow get up and finish his race after
it This boy was doing famously. I don't know that I ever saw a case
going on better, when some of them here--it's not easy to say whom--sent
off for his mother to come and see him. Of course, without Norcott's
knowledge. It was a rash thing to do, and not well done either; for when
the woman arrived, there was no preparation made, either with the boy or
herself, for their meeting; and the result was that when she crossed the
threshold and saw him she fainted away. The youngster tried to get to
her and fainted too; a great hubbub and noise followed; and Norcott
himself appeared. The scene that ensued must have been, from what I
heard, terrific. He either ordered the woman out of the house, or he
dragged her away,--it's not easy to say which; but it is quite clear
that he went absolutely mad with passion: some say that he told them
to pack off the boy along with her, but, of course, this was sheer
impossibility; the boy was insensible, and has been so ever since.”
“I was at Namur that day, but they told me when I came back that
Cleremont's wife had behaved so well; that she had the courage to face
Norcott; and though I don't believe she did much by her bravery, she
drove him off the field to his own room, and when his wife did leave the
house for the railroad, it was in one of Norcott's carriages, and Madame
herself accompanied her.”
“Is she his wife? that's the question.”
“There's not a doubt of it. Blenkworth of the Grays was at the wedding.
“If I were to be examined before a commission of lunacy to-morrow,” said
the doctor, solemnly, “I 'd call that man insane.”
“And you'd shut him up?”
“I'd shut him up!”
“Then I 'm precious glad you are not called on to give an opinion, for
you 'd shut up the best house in this quarter of Europe.”
“And what security have you any moment that he won't make a clean sweep
of it, and turn you all into the streets?”
“Yes; that's on the cards any day.”
“He must have got through almost everything he had; besides, I never
heard his property called six thousand a year, and I 'll swear twelve
wouldn't pay his way here.”
“What does he care! His father and he agreed to cut off the entail; and
seeing the sort of marriage he made, he 'll not fret much at leaving the
boy a beggar.”
“But he likes him; if there's anything in the world he cares for, it's
that boy!”
The other must have made some gesture of doubt or dissent, for the
doctor quickly added, “No, no, I 'm right about that. It was only
yesterday morning he said to me with a shake in the voice there's
no mistaking, 'If you can come and tell me, doctor, that he's out of
danger, I 'll give you a thousand pounds.'”
“Egad, I think I 'd have done it, even though I might have made a
blunder.”
“Ye 're no a doctor, sir, that's plain;” and in the emotion of the
moment he spoke the words with a strong Scotch accent.
There was a silence of some minutes, and Hotham said, “That little
Frenchwoman and I have no love lost between us, but I 'm glad she cut up
so well.”
“They 're strange natures, there 's no denying it They 'll do less from
duty and more from impulse than any people in the world, and they 're
never thoroughly proud of themselves except when they 're all wrong.”
“That's a neat character for Frenchwomen,” said Hotham, laughing.
“I think Norcott will be looking out for his whist by this time,” said
the other; and they both arose, and passing noiselessly through the
room, moved away.
I had enough left me to think over, and I did think over it till I fell
asleep.