IN THE NIGHT
The delirious voice haunted him. It came no longer accompanied by
images and likenesses to this and that of animate nature, which were
relieving and distracting; it came to him in its mortal nakedness—an
afflicting incessant ringing peal, bare as death’s ribs in telling of
death. When would it stop? And when it stopped, what would succeed?
What ghastly silence!
He walked to within view of the lights of Dr. Shrapnel’s at night: then
home to his hotel.
Miss Denham’s power of commanding sleep, as he could not, though
contrary to custom he tried it on the right side and the left, set him
thinking of her. He owned she was pretty. But that, he contended, was
not the word; and the word was undiscoverable. Not Cecilia Halkett
herself had so high-bred an air, for Cecilia had not her fineness of
feature and full quick eyes, of which the thin eyelids were part of the
expression. And Cecilia sobbed, sniffled, was patched about the face,
reddish, bluish. This girl was pliable only to service, not to grief:
she did her work for three-and-twenty hours, and fell to her sleep of
one hour like a soldier. Lord Romfrey could not recollect anything in a
young woman that had taken him so much as the girl’s tossing out of the
rug and covering herself, lying down and going to sleep under his nose,
absolutely independent of his presence.
She had not betrayed any woman’s petulance with him for his conduct to
her uncle or guardian. Nor had she hypocritically affected the reverse,
as ductile women do, when they feel wanting in force to do the other.
She was not unlike Nevil’s marquise in face, he thought: less foreign
of course; looking thrice as firm. Both were delicately featured.
He had a dream.
It was of an interminable procession of that odd lot called the People.
All of them were quarrelling under a deluge. One party was for
umbrellas, one was against them: and sounding the dispute with a
question or two, Everard held it logical that there should be
protection from the wet: just as logical on the other hand that so
frail a shelter should be discarded, considering the tremendous
downpour. But as he himself was dry, save for two or three drops, he
deemed them all lunatics. He requested them to gag their empty
chatter-boxes, and put the mother upon that child’s cry.
He was now a simple unit of the procession. Asking naturally whither
they were going, he saw them point. “St. Paul’s,” he heard. In his own
bosom it was, and striking like the cathedral big bell.
Several ladies addressed him sorrowfully. He stood alone. It had become
notorious that he was to do battle, and no one thought well of his
chances. Devil an enemy to be seen! he muttered. Yet they said the
enemy was close upon him. His right arm was paralyzed. There was the
enemy hard in front, mailed, vizored, gauntleted. He tried to lift his
right hand, and found it grasping an iron ring at the bottom of the
deep Steynham well, sunk one hundred feet through the chalk. But the
unexampled cunning of his left arm was his little secret; and, acting
upon this knowledge, he telegraphed to his first wife at Steynham that
Dr. Gannet was of good hope, and thereupon he re-entered the ranks of
the voluminous procession, already winding spirally round the dome of
St. Paul’s. And there, said he, is the tomb of Beauchamp. Everything
occurred according to his predictions, and he was entirely devoid of
astonishment. Yet he would fain have known the titles of the slain
admiral’s naval battles. He protested he had a right to know, for he
was the hero’s uncle, and loved him. He assured the stupid scowling
people that he loved Nevil Beauchamp, always loved the boy, and was the
staunchest friend the fellow had. And saying that, he certainly felt
himself leaning up against the cathedral rails in the attitude of Dr.
Shrapnel, and crying, “Beauchamp! Beauchamp!” And then he walked firmly
out of Romfrey oakwoods, and, at a mile’s distance from her, related to
his countess Rosamund that the burial was over without much silly
ceremony, and that she needed to know nothing of it whatever.
Rosamund’s face awoke him. It was the face of a chalk-quarry,
featureless, hollowed, appalling.
The hour was no later than three in the morning. He quitted the
detestable bed where a dream—one of some half-dozen in the course of
his life—had befallen him. For the maxim of the healthy man is: up, and
have it out in exercise when sleep is for foisting base coin of dreams
upon you! And as the healthy only are fit to live, their maxims should
be law. He dressed and directed his leisurely steps to the common,
under a black sky, and stars of lively brilliancy. The lights of a
carriage gleamed on Dr. Shrapnel’s door. A footman informed Lord
Romfrey that Colonel Halkett was in the house, and soon afterward the
colonel appeared.
“Is it over? I don’t hear him,” said Lord Romfrey.
Colonel Halkett grasped his hand. “Not yet,” he said. “Cissy can’t be
got away. It’s killing her. No, he’s alive. You may hear him now.”
Lord Romfrey bent his ear.
“It’s weaker,” the colonel resumed. “By the way, Romfrey, step out with
me. My dear friend, the circumstances will excuse me: you know I’m not
a man to take liberties. I’m bound to tell you what your wife writes to
me. She says she has it on her conscience, and can’t rest for it. You
know women. She wants you to speak to the man here—Shrapnel. She wants
Nevil to hear that you and he were friendly before he dies; thinks it
would console the poor dear fellow. That’s only an idea; but it
concerns her, you see. I’m shocked to have to talk to you about it.”
“My dear colonel, I have no feeling against the man,” Lord Romfrey
replied. “I spoke to him when I saw him yesterday. I bear no grudges.
Where is he? You can send to her to say I have spoken to him twice.”
“Yes, yes,” the colonel assented.
He could not imagine that Lady Romfrey required more of her husband.
“Well, I must be off. I leave Blackburn Tuckham here, with a friend of
his; a man who seems to be very sweet with Mrs. Wardour-Devereux.”
“Ha! Fetch him to me, colonel; I beg you to do that,” said Lord
Romfrey.
The colonel brought out Lydiard to the earl.
“You have been at my nephew’s bedside, Mr. Lydiard?”
“Within ten minutes, my lord.”
“What is your opinion of the case?”
“My opinion is, the chances are in his favour.”
“Lay me under obligation by communicating that to Romfrey Castle at the
first opening of the telegraph office to-morrow morning.”
Lydiard promised.
“The raving has ended?”
“Hardly, sir, but the exhaustion is less than we feared it would be.”
“Gannet is there?”
“He is in an arm-chair in the room.”
“And Dr. Shrapnel?”
“He does not bear speaking to; he is quiet.”
“He is attached to my nephew?”
“As much as to life itself.”
Lord Romfrey thanked Lydiard courteously. “Let us hope, sir, that some
day I shall have the pleasure of entertaining you, as well as another
friend of yours.”
“You are very kind, my lord.”
The earl stood at the door to see Colonel Halkett drive off: he
declined to accompany him to Mount Laurels.
In the place of the carriage stood a man, who growled “Where’s your
horsewhip, butcher?”
He dogged the earl some steps across the common. Everard returned to
his hotel and slept soundly during the remainder of the dark hours.