AN ACCIDENT.
The drawing-room floor at Lennard's made very comfortable quarters for
Tom Heriot, and his removal from the room in Southwark had been
accomplished without difficulty. Mrs. Lennard, a patient, mild, weak
woman, who could never have been strong-minded, made him an excellent
nurse, her more practical and very capable daughter, Charlotte, aiding
her when necessary.
A safer refuge could not have been found in London. The Lennards were
so often under a cloud themselves as regarded pecuniary matters, so
beset at times by their unwelcome creditors--the butcher, baker and
grocer--that the chain of their front door was kept habitually
fastened, and no one was admitted within its portals without being
first of all subjected to a comprehensive survey. Had some kind friend
made a rush to the perambulating policeman of the district, to inform
him that the domicile of those Lennards was again in a state of siege,
he would simply have speculated upon whether the enemy was this time
the landlord or the Queen's taxes. It chanced to be neither; but it
was well for the besieged to favour the impression that it was one or
the other, or both. Policemen do not wage war with unfortunate
debtors, and Mr. Lennard's house was as safe as a remote castle.
"Mr. Brown" Tom was called there; none of the household, with the
exception of its master, having any idea that it was not his true
name. "One of the gentlemen clerks in Essex Street, who has no home in
London; I have undertaken to receive him while he is ill," Mr.
Lennard had carelessly remarked to his wife and daughters before
introducing Tom. They had unsuspecting minds, except as regarded their
own creditors, those ladies--ladies always, though fallen from their
former state--and never thought to question the statement, or to be at
all surprised that Mr. Strange himself took an interest in his clerk's
illness, and paid an evening visit to him now and then. The doctor who
was called in, a hard-worked practitioner named Purfleet, did his best
for "Mr. Brown," but had no time to spare for curiosity about him in
any other way, or to give so much as a thought to his antecedents.
And just at first, after being settled at Lennard's, Tom Heriot seemed
to be taking a turn for the better. The warmth of the comfortable
rooms, the care given to him, the strengthening diet, and perhaps a
feeling that he was in a safer asylum than he had yet found, all had
their effect upon him for good.
* * * * *
"Hatch!" called out Mrs. Brightman.
Hatch ran in from the next room. "Yes, ma'am."
"Let Perry go and tell the gardener to cut some of his best grapes,
white and purple, and do you arrange them in a basket. I shall go up
to Essex Street and see my daughter this afternoon, and will take them
to her. Order the carriage for half-past two o'clock."
"Miss Annabel will be finely pleased to see you, ma'am!" remarked
Hatch.
"Possibly so. But she is no longer Miss Annabel. Go and see about the
grapes."
When Mrs. Brightman's tones were cold and haughty, and they sounded
especially so just now, she brooked no dilatoriness in those who had
to obey her behests. Hatch turned away immediately, and went along
talking to herself.
"She's getting cross and restless again. I'm certain of it. In a
week's time from this we shall have her as bad as before. And for ever
so many weeks now she has been as cautious and sober as a judge! Hang
the drink, then! Doctors may well call it a disease when it comes to
this stage with people. Here--I say, Perry!"
The butler, passing along the hall, heard Hatch's call, and stopped.
She gave her cap-strings a fling backwards as she advanced to him.
"You are to go and tell Church to cut a basket of grapes, and to mix
'em, white and black. The very best and ripest that is in the
greenhouse; they be for Miss Annabel."
"All right, I'll go at once," answered Perry. "But you need not snap a
man's nose off, Hatch, or look as if you were going to eat him. What
has put you out?"
"Enough has put me out; and you might know that, old Perry, if you had
any sense," retorted Hatch. "When do I snap people's noses off--which
it's my tone, I take it, that you mean--except I'm that bothered and
worried I can't speak sweet?"
"Well, what's amiss?" asked Perry.
They were standing close together, and Hatch lowered her voice to a
whisper. "The missis is going off again; I be certain sure on't."
"_No!_" cried Perry, full of dismay. "But, look here, Hatch"--suddenly
diving into one of his jackets--"she can't have done it; here's the
cellar-key. I can be upon my word that there's not a drain of anything
out."
"You always did have the brains of a turkey, you know, Perry," was
Hatch's gracious rejoinder; "and I'm tired of reminding you of it. Who
said missis had took anything? Not me. She haven't--yet. As you
observe, there's nothing up for her to take. But she'll be ordering
you to bring something up before to-morrow's over; perhaps before
to-day is."
"Dear, dear!" lamented the faithful servant. "Don't you think you may
be mistaken, Hatch? What do you judge by?"
"I judge by herself. I've not lived with my missis all these years
without learning to notice signs and tokens. Her manner to-day and
her restlessness is just as plain as the sun in the sky. I know what
it means, and you'll know it too, as soon as she gives you her orders
to unlock the cellar."
"Can nothing be done?" cried the unhappy Perry. "Could I _lose_ the
key of the cellar, do you think, Hatch? Would that be of any good?"
"It would hold good just as long as you'd be in getting a hammer and
poker to break it open with; you've not got to deal with a pack of
schoolboys that's under control," was Hatch's sarcastic reproof. "But
I think there's one thing we might try, Perry, and that is, run round
to Mr. Close and tell him about it. Perhaps he could give her
something to stop the craving."
"I'll go," said Perry. "I'll slip round when I've told Church about
the grapes."
"And the carriage is ordered early--half-past two; so mind you are in
readiness," concluded Hatch.
Perry went to the surgeon's, after delivering his orders to the
gardener. But Mr. Close was not at home, and the man came away again
without leaving any message; he did not choose to enter upon the
subject with Mr. Dunn, the assistant. The latter inquired who was ill,
and Perry replied that nobody was; he had only come to speak a private
word to Mr. Close, which could wait. In point of fact, he meant to
call later.
But the curiosity of Mr. Dunn, who was a very inquisitive young man,
fonder of attending to other people's business than of doing his own,
had been aroused by this. He considered Perry's manner rather
mysterious, as well as the suppression of the message, and he enlarged
upon the account to Mr. Close when he came in. Mr. Close made no
particular rejoinder; but in his own mind he felt little doubt that
Mrs. Brightman was breaking out again, and determined to go and see
her when he had had his dinner.
Perry returned home, and waited on his mistress at luncheon, quaking
inwardly all the time, as he subsequently confessed to Hatch, lest
she should ask him for something that was not upon the table. However,
she did not do so; but she was very restless, as Perry observed; ate
little, drank no water, and told Perry to bring her a cup of coffee.
At half-past two the carriage stood at the gate, the silver on the
horses' harness glittering in the sun. Quickly enough appeared the
procession from the house. Mrs. Brightman, upright and impassive,
walking with stately step; Hatch, a shawl or two upon her arm, holding
an umbrella over her mistress to shade her from the sun; Perry in the
background, carrying the basket of grapes. Perry would attend his
mistress in her drive, as usual, but not Hatch.
The servants were placing the shawls and the grapes in the carriage,
and Mrs. Brightman, who hated anything to be done after she had taken
her seat, was waiting to enter it, when Mr. Close, the surgeon, came
bustling up.
"Going for a drive this fine day!" he exclaimed, as he shook hands
with Mrs. Brightman. "I'm glad of that. I had been thinking that
perhaps you were not well."
"Why should you think so?" asked she.
"Well, Perry was round at my place this morning, and left a message
that he wanted to see me. I----"
Mr. Close suppressed the remainder of his speech as his gaze suddenly
fell on Perry's startled face. The man had turned from the carriage,
and was looking at him in helpless, beseeching terror. A faithful
retainer was Perry, an honest butler; but at a pinch his brains were
no better than what Hatch had compared them with--those of a turkey.
Mrs. Brightman, her countenance taking its very haughtiest expression,
gazed first at the doctor, then at Perry, as if demanding what this
might mean; possibly, poor lady, she had a suspicion of it. But Hatch,
ready Hatch, was equal to the occasion: _she_ never lost her presence
of mind.
"I told Perry he might just as well have asked young Mr. Dunn for 'em,
when he came back without the drops," said she, facing the surgeon and
speaking carelessly. "Your not being in didn't matter. It was some
cough-drops I sent him for; the same as those you've let us have
before, Mr. Close. Our cook's cough is that bad, she can't sleep at
night, nor let anybody else sleep that's within earshot of her room."
"Well, I came round in a hurry, thinking some of you might be
suffering from this complaint that's going about," said Mr. Close,
taking up the clue in an easy manner.
"That there spasadic cholera," assented Hatch.
"Cholera! It's not cholera. There's nothing of that sort about," said
the surgeon. "But there's a good bit of influenza; I have half a dozen
patients suffering from it. A spell of bright weather such as this,
though, will soon drive it away. And I'll send you some of the drops
when I get back, Hatch."
Mrs. Brightman advanced to the carriage; the surgeon was at hand to
assist her in. Perry stood on the other side his mistress. Hatch had
retreated to the gate and was looking on.
Suddenly a yell, as of something unearthly, startled their ears. A
fierce-looking bull, frightened probably by the passers-by on the
road, and the prods given to it by the formidable stick of its driver,
had dashed behind the carriage on to the foot-path, and set up that
terrible roar. Mr. Close looked round, Perry did the same; whilst Mrs.
Brightman, who was in the very act of getting into her carriage, and
whose nerves were more sensitive than theirs, turned sharply round
also and screamed.
Again Hatch came to the rescue. She had closed the umbrella and lodged
it against the pillar of the gate, for here they were under the shade
of trees. Seizing the umbrella now, she opened it with a great dash
and noise, and rushed towards the bull, pointing it menacingly. The
animal, no doubt more startled than they were, tore away and gained
the highroad again. Then everyone had leisure to see that Mrs.
Brightman was lying on the ground partly under the carriage.
She must have fallen in turning round, partly from fright, partly from
the moving of the carriage. The horses had also been somewhat startled
by the bull's noise, and one of them began to prance. The coachman had
his horses well in hand, and soon quieted them; but he had not been
able to prevent the movement, which had no doubt chiefly caused his
mistress to fall.
They quickly drew her from under the carriage and attempted to raise
her; but she cried out with such tones of agony that the surgeon
feared she was seriously injured. As soon as possible she was conveyed
indoors on a mattress. Another surgeon joined Mr. Close, and it was
found that her leg was broken near the ankle.
When it had been set and the commotion was subsiding, Perry was
despatched to Essex Street with the carriage and the bad news--the
carriage to bring back Annabel.
"What was it you really came to my surgery for, Perry?" Mr. Close took
an opportunity of asking him before he started.
"It was about my mistress, sir," answered the man. "Hatch felt quite
sure, by signs and tokens, that Mrs. Brightman was going to--to--be
ill again. She sent me to tell you, sir, and to ask if you couldn't
give her something to stop it."
"Ah, I thought as much. But when I saw you all out there, your
mistress looking well and about to take a drive, I concluded I had
been mistaken," said the surgeon.
* * * * *
I had run upstairs during the afternoon to ask a question of Annabel,
and was standing beside her at the drawing-room window, where she sat
at work, when a carriage came swiftly down the street, and stopped at
the door.
"Why, it is mamma's!" exclaimed Annabel, looking out.
"But I don't see her in it," I rejoined.
"Oh, she must be in it, Charles. Perry is on the box."
Perry was getting down, but was not quite so quick in his movements as
a slim young footman would be. He rang the door-bell, and I was
fetched down to him. In two minutes afterwards I had disclosed the
news to my wife, and brought Perry upstairs that she might herself
question him. The tears were coursing down her cheeks.
"Don't take on, Miss Annabel," said the man, feeling quite too much
lost in the bad tidings to remember Annabel's new title. "There's not
the least bit of danger, ma'am; Mr. Close bade me say it; all is sure
to go on well."
"Did you bring the carriage for me, Perry?"
"Yes, ma'am, I did. And it was my mistress herself thought of it. When
Mr. Close, or Hatch--one of 'em it was, I don't know which--told her
they were going to send me for you, she said, 'Let Perry take the
carriage.' Oh, ma'am, indeed she is fully as well as she could be: it
was only at first that she seemed faintish like."
Annabel went back in the carriage at once. I promised to follow her as
early in the evening as I could get away. Relying upon the butler's
assurance that Mrs. Brightman was not in the slightest danger; that,
on the contrary, it would be an illness of weeks, if not of months,
there was no necessity for accompanying Annabel at an inconvenient
moment.
"It is, in one sense, the luckiest thing that could have happened to
her," Mr. Close remarked to me that evening when we were conversing
together.
"Lucky! How do you mean?"
"Well, she _must_ be under our control now," he answered in
significant tones, "and we were fearing, only to-day, that she was on
the point of breaking out again. A long spell of enforced abstinence,
such as this, may effect wonders."
Of course, looking at it in that light, the accident might be called
fortunate. "There's a silver lining to every cloud."
Annabel took up her abode temporarily at her mother's: Mrs. Brightman
requested it. I went down there of an evening--though not every
evening--returning to Essex Street in the morning. Tom's increasing
illness kept me in town occasionally, for I could not help going to
see him, and he was growing weaker day by day. The closing features of
consumption were gaining upon him rapidly. To add to our difficulties,
Mr. Policeman Wren, who seemed to follow Tom's changes of domicile in
a very ominous and remarkable manner, had now transferred his beat
from Southwark, and might be seen pacing before Lennard's door ten
times a day.
One morning when I had come up from Clapham and was seated in my own
room opening letters, Lennard entered. He closed the door with a
quiet, cautious movement, and waited, without speaking.
"Anything particular, Lennard?"
"Yes, sir; I've brought rather bad news," he said. "Captain Heriot is
worse."
"Worse? In what way? But he is not Captain Heriot, Lennard; he is Mr.
Brown. Be careful."
"We cannot be overheard," he answered, glancing at the closed door.
"He appeared so exceedingly weak last night that I thought I would sit
up with him for an hour or two, and then lie down on his sofa for the
rest of the night. About five o'clock this morning he had a violent
fit of coughing and broke a blood-vessel."
"What did you do?"
"I know a little of the treatment necessary in such cases, and we got
the doctor to him as soon as possible. Mr. Purfleet does not give the
slightest hope now. In fact, he thinks that a very few days more will
bring the ending."
I sat back in my chair. Poor Tom! Poor Tom!
"It is the best for him, Mr. Charles," spoke Lennard, with some
emotion. "Better, infinitely, than that of which he has been running
the risk. When a man's life is marred as he has marred his, heaven
must seem like a haven of refuge to him."
"Has he any idea of his critical state?"
"Yes; and, I feel sure, is quite reconciled to it. He remarked this
morning how much he should like to see Blanche: meaning, I presume,
Lady Level."
"Ah, but there are difficulties in the way, Lennard. I will come to
him myself, but not until evening. There's no immediate danger, you
tell me, and I do not care to be seen entering your house during the
day while he is in it. The big policeman might be on the watch, and
ask me what I wanted there."
Lennard left the room and I returned to my letters. The next I took up
was a note from Blanche. Lord Level was not _yet_ back from Marshdale,
she told me in it; he kept writing miserable scraps of notes in which
he put her off with excuses from day to day, always assuring her he
hoped to be up on the morrow. But she could see she was being played
with; and the patience which, in obedience to me and Major Carlen, she
had been exercising, was very nearly exhausted. She wrote this, she
concluded by saying, to warn me that it was so.
Truth to say, I did wonder what was keeping Level at Marshdale. He had
been there more than a week now.