A POSTPONEMENT.
Some men take a great deal of killing; the Marquis of Stoyle ought,
according to medical rules and poetical justice, to have died out of
hand; but he clung to life tenaciously, and not only refused to die,
but got better!
In ten days from Spenser Churchill’s departure, his lordship rallied,
and, to the surprise of every one, including the doctors, regained
sufficient strength to enable him to leave his bed.
But a great change had taken place; one of those extraordinary changes
which baffle medical science and set all its knowledge at naught. The
marquis had not lost his reason, but his memory.
He was perfectly sane, understood every word that was said to him, and
could converse with all his wonted acuteness and sardonic cynicism, but
he had forgotten everything excepting those things which had occurred
in years long back. It was exactly as if the later years of his life,
with all their experience, had been wiped clean from the tablets of his
mind, and, as he sat in his easy chair looking out of the window, he
was under the impression that his wife had just left him, and that Time
had put back the hands on life’s dial twenty years.
The doctors were both startled and puzzled. If he had become actually
insane and idiotic, they could have understood it; but that a man
should lose all hold upon twenty years of his life, and yet be able to
understand what was said to him and converse rationally, was little
short of phenomenal.
They sent for Lord Cecil, who came hurriedly, and was received by the
old man with a cold, haughty courtesy, as if they had not met for years.
“I am glad to see you, Cecil,” he said. “You have altered a great
deal since I saw you last; you have grown, grown very much. I suppose
you think of entering the army? Well, I will consider the matter. I
imagine you would do as much mischief as a civilian as you will do
as a soldier. Tell your father, my brother, that, though I bear him
no good will, I will do my duty by you. Ask the steward to give you
a five-pound note, and--you may go now, please,” and Lord Cecil,
dismissed like a schoolboy, left the room, too embarrassed and
confounded to utter a word.
“What is to be done?” he said to the doctors. “Will he remain like
this? It is terrible, terrible!”
Sir Andrew shook his head.
“It is very extraordinary, very; but I must remind you, Lord Cecil,
that it might be worse. His lordship is in possession of all his
faculties, and, excepting this remarkable loss of memory, is as sane
as you and I. I have had a long, and, I must add most interesting,
conversation with him this morning, and he talked with all his old
brilliance----”
“And bitterness,” said the other famous doctor, under his breath.
“As to how long this singular lapse of memory will affect him, I really
cannot say. It is an altogether unusual case. It is very bad, my lord,
I admit,” for Lord Cecil was much moved by the old man’s condition;
“but, as I say, it might be worse. His lordship’s physical strength is
improving daily, we may say hourly.”
Lord Cecil sighed.
“It is dreadful to hear him talk so strangely,” he said. “Can nothing
be done, no experiment be tried? Perhaps if I brought Lady Grace?”
“Bring her ladyship, by all means,” said the doctor. “There is no
knowing what a familiar face may do. Yes, bring her, Lord Cecil.”
Cecil jumped into a hansom, and returned with Lady Grace, whom he took
up to the marquis’ chair.
“Here is Grace, sir,” he said.
“Grace? Grace? What Grace?” demanded the old man, with a hard, keen
glance at the beautiful face he used to know so well. “I have not the
honor and pleasure of the young lady’s acquaintance. Do me the favor to
introduce me, if you please.”
“Surely you know me, dear marquis!” said Lady Grace, bending over him.
The old man took her hand, and turned it over in his, with a vacant
smile. “Let me see, Peyton calls this girl of his Grace, doesn’t he?
Are you Peyton’s daughter?”
“You know I am, my lord!” she said. “You remember my father, your
oldest friend!”
“Jack Peyton! Oh, yes!” he said, with his old, caustic smile. “My
oldest and best friend; he proved himself so by running off with the
girl I was going to marry. And then I married Lucy----” His lips
tightened, and seemed to grow stiff and hard--“and she ran away, too.
I dare say she had reason. The child was a girl; it ought to have been
a boy, and I hated it because it was not one. Yes, it ought to have
been a boy, and cut out Cecil. And now Cecil will be the heir. I beg
your pardon, Cecil,” he broke off with his sardonic smile, “I forgot
you were present. Yes, it was a girl. Some one told me that it was
dead, and Lucy, too. No, I don’t wear mourning; why should I?” with a
hard, haughty stare. “Let the man who went with her wear mourning; I
dare say he regrets her, the fool. He was an old flame of hers. Spenser
Churchill can tell you all about him, for he helped me to get Lucy away
from him. Heaven knows what I saw in her to take so much trouble! I
don’t! Where is Churchill, by the way?” he broke off to inquire.
“He is on the Continent, sir,” said Lord Cecil.
“Oh, what a Pecksniff the fellow is! The biggest hypocrite on the face
of the earth, but useful--oh, yes, useful! And so you are Grace Peyton,
are you?” turning his glittering eyes upon Lady Grace, who shrank back,
half-frightened. “Hem! I should think you’d make a good match with
Cecil.”
“Have you forgotten that we are engaged, Cecil and I, marquis?” she
murmured, bending over him.
“Engaged, are you?” he said. “Rather early, isn’t it? But I’ve no
objection. Engaged to Cecil, eh? By gad, I pity you if he has any of
the Stoyle temper! The Stoyles are the worst husbands in the world,
so they say, and I think it’s true. He’ll make you wish you were dead
before you have been married twelve months!”
“Come away, Grace,” said Cecil, pale and stern, and he led her out of
the room.
“Oh! Cecil, I am sorry!” she murmured, clinging to his arm, and looking
up into his face. “And we were to be married soon, too!”
“Yes,” he said, “I am afraid the wedding must be put off, Grace!”
and, though he spoke in accents of regret, a guilty thrill of relief
shot through him. “Poor old man! Poor old man! We were never on very
affectionate terms, but it hurts me to see him like this!”
“And he may remain like it for ever so long!” she said, raising her
eyes, as her head lay on his breast. “For months, perhaps. Do--do you
think it would matter if we had a quiet, a very quiet, wedding, Cecil?”
He frowned.
“I am afraid it isn’t possible, Grace,” he replied, and again he was
conscious of the same guilty thrill of relief.
She drew a long breath, and pulled irritably at the lace on her sleeve.
“It couldn’t have been more awkward if he had died,” she said, almost
sullenly.
Lord Cecil looked down at her gravely.
“I am very glad he is not dead,” he said. “I hope, and I think, he may
recover completely. We can wait, Grace.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, with an effort; “we can wait; but it is terribly
awkward, all the same, and people are talking so.”
“Let them talk!” he said, almost sternly. “What do I--or what should
you--care what they say?”
A week passed, and the marquis still remained in the same condition
mentally, but physically he progressed in a remarkable manner.
To all intents and purposes he was as well and strong as he was before
his sudden attack, and one morning he rang for his valet, and said, in
his old, haughty, listless manner:
“It is very cold here, in London, Williams.”
“Cold, my lord? We are all complaining of the heat!”
“So you may be; but that does not affect me, if I am cold,” retorted
the marquis, grimly. “I shall go south! Pack up what is necessary, and
see that we start to-morrow.”
The valet was too well trained to exhibit any sign of surprise.
“Yes, my lord,” he said, quietly. “Lord Cecil will accompany us, I
presume?”
“You do presume!” retorted the marquis. “Lord Cecil will not accompany
us! Great heaven, do you think I want a schoolboy hanging to my coat
tails? Certainly not--we go alone! Let me see, it will be very pleasant
in Italy! Rome! No; not Rome, it will be too crowded; and Florence is
full of tourists at this time! We will go to Pescia.”
“Very good, my lord,” said the man, and he left the room and went
straight to the doctors.
“Italy?” said Sir Andrew. “Well, yes, it will do his lordship no
harm and may do him good. Pescia is a quiet place and will suit the
marquis. I will write to the doctor over there and ask him to watch his
lordship. And he wants to go alone, does he? Well, I suppose you can
take care of him?”
The valet professed himself quite capable of doing so, and in the end
it was decided not to thwart the sick man’s fancy.
Lord Cecil was consulted and came to see him.
“Will you not let me come with you, sir?” he asked.
“Thanks, no,” replied the marquis. “Delighted as I should be to have
you as my companion,” with a bow, “I must not forget that your military
duties have a prior claim upon you. No, I shall go alone. I am aware
that you all think I am dying, but I can assure you, with some regret,
that you are very much mistaken. You will have to wait for the title a
little while longer, Cecil Neville,” and he smiled sardonically.
What could Cecil say or do but assist as far as he was able in securing
the comfort and safety of the old man, who even in his weakness
possessed a fiercer self-will than most men can boast of in the prime
of their strength? They wrote to the English doctor at Pescia, engaged
a villa in the best part of the town, and sent over his lordship’s
traveling chariot and those servants whom he was accustomed to have
about him. And Cecil himself accompanied the party across the channel,
though even to this short escortage the marquis was opposed.
“Great heaven!” he exclaimed, irritably. “I have traveled half round
the globe several times without your assistance, and I cannot conceive
why you should consider it necessary to bore yourself, and me, too, by
coming across the channel.”
“You forget that you have been ill, sir,” said Cecil, quietly, “and
that it is my duty to see that your journey is made as comfortably as
possible.”
“Thanks,” retorted the marquis. “It’s a pity you couldn’t have arranged
a calm passage; but you couldn’t do that, and for the life of me I
can’t think of anything else you can do. Good-by. Don’t trouble to
write, I hate reading letters when I am abroad.”
And this, with a cold touch of his thin hand, comprised his adieu to
his nephew and heir!