Cross-Examination.
The hall-porter at Barnes's Club in St. James's-street, whose views of
life during the last two months had been remarkably gloomy and
desponding, began to revive and to feel himself again as the end of
October drew on apace. He had had a dull time of it, that hall-porter,
during August and September, sitting in his glazed box, cutting the
newspapers which no one came to read, and staring at the hat-pegs
which no one used. He had his manuscript book before him, but he did
not inscribe ten names in it during the day; for nearly everybody was
out of town; and the few members who per force remained,--gentlemen in
the Whitehall offices, or officers in the Household Brigade,--found
scaffolding and ladders in the hall of Barnes's, and the morning-room
in the hands of the whitewashers, and the coffee-room closed, and the
smokers relegated to the card-room, and such a general state of
discomfort, that they shunned Barnes's, and went off to the other
clubs to which they belonged. But with the end of October came a
change. The men who had been shooting in the North, the men who had
been travelling on the Continent, the men who had been yachting, and
the men who had been lounging on the sea-coast, all came through town
on their way to their other engagements; those who had no other
engagements, and who had spent all their available money, settled down
into their old way of life; all paid at least a flying visit to the
club to see who was in town, and to learn any news that might be
afloat.
It is a sharp bright afternoon, and the morning-room at Barnes's is
so full that you might actually fancy it the season. Sir Coke Only's
gray cab horse is, as usual, champing his bit just outside the
door, and Lord Sumph's brougham is there, and Tommy Toshington's
chestnut cob with the white face is being led up and down by the
red-jacketed lad, who has probably been out of town too, as he has not
been seen since Parliament broke up, and yet is there and to the fore
directly he is wanted. Tommy Toshington himself, an apple-faced little
man, who might be any age between sixteen and sixty, but who is
considerably nearer the latter than the former, gathers his letters
from the porter as he passes, looks through them quickly, shaking his
head the while at two or three written on very blue paper and
addressed in very formal writing, and proceeds to the morning-room.
Everybody there, everybody knowing Tommy, universal chorus of welcome
from all save three old gentlemen reading evening papers, two of whom
don't know Tommy, and all of whom hate him.
"And where have you come from, Tommy?" says Lord Sumph, who is a
charming nobleman, labouring under the slight eccentricity of
occasionally imagining that he is a steam-engine, when he whistles and
shrieks and puffs, and has to be secluded from observation until the
fit is over.
"Last from East Standling, my lord," says Tommy; "and very pleasant it
was."
"Must have been doosid pleasant, by all I hear," says Sir Thomas
Buffem, K.C.B., and late of the Madras army. "Dook had the gout,
hadn't he? and we all know how pleasant he is then!"
"That feller was there of course--what's his name?--Bawlindor the
barrister," says Sir Coke Only. "Can't bear that feller, dev'lish
low-bred feller, was a dancin'-master or something of that sort--can't
bear low-bred fellers;" and Sir Coke, whose paternal grandfather had
been a pedlar, and who himself combined the intellect of an Esquimaux
with the manners of a Whitechapel butcher on a Saturday night, cleared
his throat, and thumped his stick, and looked ferocious.
"Yes, Mr. Bawlindor was there," says Tommy Toshington, looking round
with a queer twinkle in his little gray eyes; "and he was very
pleasant, very pleasant indeed. I hardly know how the duchess would
have got on without him. He said some doosid smart things, did Mr.
Bawlindor."
"I hate a feller who says smart things," said Sir Coke Only; "making a
buffoon of himself."
"Ha, ha!" said Duncan Forbes, joining the group--"the carrier is
jealous of the tumbler; it's a mere question of pigeons."
"What do you mean, Sir Duncan? I don't understand you," said Sir Coke
angrily.
"Don't suppose you do--never gave you credit for anything of the
sort.--How are you, all you fellows? What were the smart things that
Bawlindor said, Tommy?"
"Well, I don't know; perhaps you wouldn't think 'em smart, Duncan,
because you're a devilish clever chap yourself, and--"
"Yes, yes, we know all about that; but tell us some smart things that
Bawlindor said--tell us one."
"Well, you know Tottenham? you know he gives awful heavy dinners? He
was bragging about them one day at luncheon at East Standling, and
Bawlindor said, 'There's one thing, my lord, I always envy when I'm
dining with you.' 'What's that?' says Tottenham. "I envy your gas,'
says Bawlindor, 'and it _escapes_.'"
"Ye-es! that was not bad for Bawlindor. I hate the brute though; I
daresay he stole it from somebody else. Well, how are you all, and
what's the news?"
"You ought to be able to tell us that," said Lord Sumph. "We're only
just back in town, and you've been here all the time, haven't you, in
the Tower or somewhere?"
"Not I; I'm only just back too."
"And where have you come from?"
"Last from Kilsyth."
"Devil you have!" growled Sir Thomas Buffem, edging away. "They've had
jungle-fever--not jungle, scarlet-fever there, haven't they?"
"O, ah, Duncan," said Clement Walkinshaw of the Foreign Office, "tell
us all about that! It was awful, wasn't it? Towcester cut and run,
didn't he? Mrs. Severn said he turned pea-green, and sent such a
stunning caricature of him to her sister, who was staying at
Claverton! We stuck it up in the smoking-room, and had no end fun
about it."
"I'm glad you were so much amused. It wasn't no end fun for Miss
Kilsyth, however, as she was nearly losing her life."
"Was she, by Jove!" said Walkinshaw, who was a "beauty boy," examining
himself in the glass, and smoothing his little moustaches,--"was she,
by Jove! What! our dear little Maddy?"
"Our dear little Maddy," said Duncan Forbes calmly, "if you are on
sufficient terms of intimacy with the young lady to speak of her in
that manner in a public room. _I_ call her Miss Kilsyth; but then we
were only brought up together as children, whereas you had the
advantage of having been introduced to her last season, I think,
Walkinshaw."
"That was a hot 'un for that d--d little despatch-box!" said Sir
Thomas Buffem, as Walkinshaw walked off discomfited. "Serve him quite
right--conceited little brute!"
"Well, but what was it, Duncan?" asked Lord Sumph. "It wasn't only the
gal, heaps of people were down with it, eh?--regular hospital, and
that kind of thing? I saw the Northallertons on their way south, and
the duchess said it was awfully bad up there."
"The duchess is a--very nice person," said Forbes, checking himself,
"and, like Sir Thomas here, an old soldier."
"But it was a great go, though, Duncan,--infection and all that, eh?"
asked Captain Hetherington, who had joined the talkers. "There's no
such thing as getting Poole's people to make you a coat; the whole
resources of the establishment are concentrated on building a new
rig-out for Towcester, who has sacrificed his entire get-up, and had
his hair cut close, and taken no end of Turkish baths, for fear of
being refused admittance at places where he was going to stay."
"All I can say is, then--is, that it's a capital thing for Towcester's
man, or whoever gets his wardrobe," said Forbes; "Charley Jefferson
might have made a good thing by buying his tunics, only there's a
slight difference in their size--_he_ wouldn't have feared the
infection."
"No, not in that way perhaps," said Hetherington. "Charley's like the
Yankee in Dickens's book, 'fever-proof and likewise ague;' but he
_can_ be got at, we all know. How about the widow? She bolted too,
didn't she?"
"She did--more shame for her. No! the fact was, that at Kilsyth----"
"_Cave canem!_" said Tommy Toshington, holding up a monitory
finger--"_Cave canem_, as we used to say at school. Here's Ronald
Kilsyth just come into the room and making towards us!"
You can get a good view of Ronald Kilsyth now as he advances up the
room. Rather under than over the middle height, with very broad
shoulders betokening great muscular strength, and square limbs. His
head is large, and his thick brown hair is brushed off his broad
forehead, and hangs almost to his coat-collar. He has a well-moulded
but rather a stern face, with bushy eyebrows, piercing gray eyes, and
close thin lips. He is dressed plainly but in good taste, and his
whole appearance is perfectly gentlemanlike. It would have been as
hard to have mistaken Ronald for a snob as to have passed him by
without notice; and there was something about him that infallibly
attracted attention, and made those who saw him for the first time
wonder who he was. It would have been quite impossible to divine his
profession from his appearance; neither in look or bearing was there
the smallest trace of the plunger. He might have been taken for a
deep-thinking Chancery barrister, had it not been for his moustache;
or, more likely still, a shrewd long-headed engineer, a man of facts
and figures and calculation; but never a dragoon. He had been the
innocent cause of extreme disappointment to many young ladies in
various parts of the country where he had stayed--quiet
unsophisticated girls, whose visits to London had been very rare, and
who knew nothing of its society, and who hearing that a Life-Guards'
officer was coming to dinner, expected to see a gigantic creature, all
cuirass and jack-boots, an enlarged and ornamental edition of the
sentries in front of the Horse-Guards. Ronald Kilsyth in his plain
evening dress was a great blow to them; in byegone days his moustache
would have been some consolation; but now the young farmers in the
neighbourhood, the sporting surgeon, and all the volunteers wore
moustaches; and though in subsequent conversation they found Ronald
very pleasant, he neither drawled, nor lisped, nor made love to them;
all of which proceedings they had believed to be necessary attributes
of his branch of the military profession.
And many persons who were not young ladies in the country were
disappointed in Ronald Kilsyth, more especially old friends of his
father, who expected to find his son resembling him. Ronald inherited
his father's love of honour, truth, and candour, his keen sense of
right and wrong, his manliness and his courage; but there the likeness
between the men ceased. Kilsyth's warmth of heart, warmth of temper,
and largeness of soul were not reflected by Ronald, who never lost his
self-control, who never gave anybody credit for more than they
deserved, and who--save perhaps for his sister Madeleine, and his love
for her was of a very stern and Spartan character--had never
entertained any particularly warm feelings for any human being.
Ronald Kilsyth is not popular at Barnes's, being decidedly an
unclubbable man. The members, if ever they speak of him at all, want
to know what he joined for. He belonged to the Rag, didn't he, and
some other club, where he could sit mumchance over his mutton, or
stare at the lads from Aldershott drinking five-guinea Heidzeck
champagne. What did he want among this sociable set? He always looked
straight down his nose when Guffoon came up with a sad story, and he
never cared about any scandal that was foreign. But he was not
disliked, at least openly. It was considered that he was a doosid
clever fellow, with a doosid sharp tongue of his own; and at Barnes's,
as at other clubs, they are generally polite to fellows with doosid
sharp tongues. And his father was a very good fellow, and gave very
good dinners during the season, and Kilsyth was a very pleasant house
to stop at in the autumn; so that, for these various reasons, Ronald
Kilsyth, albeit in himself unpopular at Barnes's, was never suffered
to hear of his unpopularity.
Not that if he had, it would have troubled him one jot. No man in the
world was more careless of what people thought of him, so long as he
had the approval of his own conscience; and by dint of a long
course of self-schooling and the presence of a certain amount of
self-satisfaction, he could generally count upon that. He could not
tell himself why he had joined Barnes's Club, unless it was that
Duncan Forbes was a member, and had asked him to join; and he liked
Duncan Forbes in his way, and wanted some place where he could be
pretty certain of finding him when in town. There were few points of
resemblance between Ronald Kilsyth and Duncan Forbes; but perhaps
their very dissimilarity was the bond of the union, such as it was,
that existed between them. Ronald knew Duncan to be weak, but believed
him, and rightly, to be thorough. Duncan Forbes would assume a languid
haw-hawism, an almost idiotic rapidity, a freezing _hauteur_ to any
one he did not know and did not care for, for the merest caprice;
but he would stand or fall by a friend, and not Charley Jefferson
himself would be firmer and truer under trial. Ronald knew this; and
knowing it, was not disposed to be hard on his friend's less stable
qualities--was rather amused indeed "by Duncan's nonsense," as he
phrased it, and showed more inclination for his society than that of
any other of his acquaintance.
The group of talkers in the window opened as Ronald approached, and he
shook hands with its various members; Tommy Toshington, who always had
something pleasant to say to anybody out of whom there was any
possibility of his ever getting anything, complimenting him on his
appearance.
"Look as fresh as paint, Ronald, my boy--fresh as paint, by Jove!
Where have you been to pick up such a colour and to get yourself into
such focus, eh?"
"The marine breezes of Knightsbridge have contributed to my
complexion, Toshington, and the vigorous exercise of walking four
miles a day on the London flags has brought me into my present
splendid condition."
"What! not been away from town at all?" asked Sir Coke Only, who would
almost as soon have acknowledged his poor relations as confessed to
having been in London in September.
"Not at all. In the first place, I was on duty, and could not get
away; not that I think I should have moved under any circumstances.
London is always good enough for me."
"But not when it's quite empty," said Lord Sumph.
"It can't be quite empty with two millions and a half of people in it,
Sumph," said Ronald.
"O, ah, cads and tradesmen, and all that sort of thing,--devilish
worthy people in their way, of course; but I mean people that one
knows."
"_I_ know several of those 'devilish worthy people,' Sumph," said
Ronald, with a smile; "and besides, country-house life is not much in
my way."
"Don't meet those d?-d radical fellows that he thinks so much of,
there," growled Sir Thomas Buffem to Sir Coke Only.
"No, nor those painters and people that my boy says this chap's always
bringing to mess," replied Sir Coke.
"There, he's gone away with Duncan now," said Toshington, "and they'll
be happy. They're too clever, those two are, for us old fellows! Not
that you're an old fellow, Sumph, my boy."
"You're old enough for several, ain't you, Tommy?" said Lord Sumph;
"and I'm old enough to play you a game of billiards before dinner, and
give you fifteen; so come along."
Meanwhile Ronald Kilsyth and Duncan Forbes had walked away to the far
end of the room, which happened to be deserted at the time; and
seating themselves on an ottoman, were soon engaged in earnest
conversation.
"What on earth made you remain in town, Ronald?" asked Duncan. "I
heard what you said to those fellows; but I know well enough that you
could have got leave if you had wished. Why did you not come up to
Kilsyth?"
"Principally because there was no particular inducement for me to do
so, Duncan."
"You always were polite, Ronald--"
"Ah, you were there! No, no; you know perfectly well what I mean,
Duncan. With you and the governor and Madeleine I'm always perfectly
happy; and her ladyship is very friendly, and we get on very well
together. But then I like you all quietly and by yourselves; I'm
selfish enough to want the entire enjoyment of your society. And the
life at Kilsyth would not have suited me at all."
"Well, I don't know; it was very jolly--"
"Yes, of course it was, and--By the way, Duncan, tell me all about it;
who were there, and what you did."
"O, heaps of people there--the Northallertons, and the Thurlows,
and--"
"Yes, yes; but what men--younger men, I mean?"
"Let me see; there was Towcester--"
"No, not he; her ladyship would not have thought him objectionable,
whatever I might."
"What? what the deuce are you muttering, Ronald?"
"I beg your pardon, Duncan--thinking aloud only; it's a horrible habit
I've fallen into. Well, who besides Towcester?"
"O, Severn, and Roderick Douglas, and Charley Jefferson--"
"Ah, Charley Jefferson; he's just the same, of course?"
"O yes, he's as jolly as ever."
"Yes; but I mean, is he as devoted as he was to Lady Fairfax?"
"O, worse; most desperate case of--no, by the way, though, I forgot; I
think he has cooled off--"
"Cooled off! since when?"
"Since your sister's illness."
"Since my sister's illness! Why, what could that have to do with
them?"
"Well, you see, some of the people in the house got frightened at the
notion of infection and that kind of thing, and bolted off. Lady
Fairfax was one of the first to rush away; and Charley, who is loyalty
itself in everything, as you know, was deucedly annoyed about it. My
lady had been leading him a pretty dance for a few days previously,
playing off little Towcester against him, and--"
"Ah, yes. No doubt Charley was right, quite right. And that was all
about him, eh? And so the people were frightened at poor Madeleine's
illness, were they?"
"Gad, they were, and not without reason too. The poor child was
awfully bad; and indeed, if it had not been for Wilmot, I much doubt
whether she would have pulled through."
"Hadn't been for Wilmot? Wilmot! O, yes, the London doctor who was
staying somewhere, near, and who was telegraphed for. Tell me about
Dr. Wilmot--a clever man, isn't he?"
"Clever! He's wonderful! Keen, clear-headed fellow; sees his way
through a brick wall in a minute. Not that at Kilsyth he did not do as
much by his devotion to his patient as by his skill."
"Devotion? O, he was devoted to his patient, eh?" said Ronald, biting
his nails.
"Never saw such a thing in all your life. Went in a regular perisher,"
said Duncan Forbes, dropping his hands to emphasise his words. "Put
himself in regular quarantine; cut himself off from all communication
with anybody else, and shut himself up in the room with his patient
for days together. It's the sort of thing you read of in poems, and
that kind of thing, don't you know, but very seldom meet with in real
life. If Wilmot had been a young man, and your sister had had any
chance of making him like her, I should have said it was a case of
smite. But Wilmot is an old married man; and these doctors don't
indulge much in being captivated, specially by patients in fevers, I
should think!"
"No; of course not, of course not. Now, this Wilmot--what's he like?"
"Well, he's rather a striking-looking man; looks very earnest, and
speaks with a very effectively modulated voice."
"Ah! And he's gentlemanly, eh?"
"O, perfectly gentlemanly. No mistake in that."
"And he was wonderfully devoted to Madeleine, eh? Very kind of him,
I'm sure. Shut himself up in her room, and--What did Lady Muriel think
of him, by the way?"
"I scarcely know. I never heard her say; and yet I gathered somehow
that Lady Muriel was not so much impressed in the doctor's favour as
the rest of us."
"That's curious, for there are few keener readers of character than
Lady Muriel. And the doctor was not a favourite of hers?"
"Well, no; I should say not. But the rest of the party were so
strongly in his favour that we looked with some suspicion on all who
did not shout as loudly as ourselves."
"And Madeleine, was she equally enthusiastic?"
"Poor Miss Kilsyth, she was not well enough to have much enthusiasm on
any subject, even on her doctor. Gratitude is, I imagine, the
strongest sentiment one is capable of after a long and severe
illness."
"Exactly--yes--I should suppose so. And what aged man is Dr. Wilmot?"
"O, what we should have called some years ago very old, but what we
now look upon as the commencement of middle age--just approaching
forty, I should think."
"He is married, you say?"
"Yes; so we all understood. O yes, I heard him once mention his wife
to Lady Muriel.--I say, Ronald, what an unconscionable lot of
questions you are asking about Wilmot; one would think that--"
"Gentleman waiting to speak to you, sir," said a servant, handing a
card to Ronald; "says he won't detain you a moment, sir."
Ronald took the card, and read on it "DR. WILMOT."
"I will come to the gentleman at once," said he; and the servant went
away.
"Who is it? Anyone I know?" asked Duncan Forbes.
"He is a stranger to me," said Ronald, blinking the question.
He found Dr. Wilmot in that wretched little waiting-room about the
size of a warm bath, and having for its furniture a chair, a table,
and a map of England, which is dedicated at Barnes's to the reception
of "strangers." The gas was low, and the Doctor was heavily wrapped
up, and had a shawl round the lower part of his face; but Ronald made
him out to be a gentlemanly-looking man, and specially noticed his
keen flashing eyes. The Doctor was sorry to disturb Captain Kilsyth,
but his father had sent up to him just before he started a parcel
which he wished delivered personally to the Captain; so he had brought
it on his way from the Great Northern, by which he had just arrived.
It was some law-deed, about the safety of which Kilsyth was a little
particular. It would have been delivered two days since, but, passing
through Edinburgh, the Doctor had found his old friend Sir Saville
Rowe staying at the same hotel, and had suffered himself to be
persuaded to accompany him to see the new experiments in anaesthetics
which Simpson had just made, and which-- Ah! but the Captain did not
care for medical details. The Captain was very sorry that he had not a
better room to ask the Doctor into; but the regulations at Barnes's
about strangers were antediluvian and absurd. He should take an early
opportunity of thanking Dr. Wilmot for his exceeding kindness in going
to Kilsyth, and for the skill and attention which he had bestowed on
Miss Kilsyth. The Doctor apparently to Ronald, even in the dull
gas-light, with a heightened colour disclaimed everything, asserting
that he had merely done his duty. Exchange of bows and of very cold
hand-shakes, the Doctor jumping into the cab at the door, Ronald
turning back into the hall, muttering, "That's the man! Taking
what Duncan Forbes said, and that fellow's look when I named
Madeleine--taking them together, that's the man that Lady Muriel meant.
That's the man, for a thousand pounds!"
In the cab Dr. Wilmot is thinking about Ronald. A blunt rough customer
rather, but with a wonderful look of his sister about him; not
traceable to any feature in particular, but in the general expression.
His sister!--now a memory and a dream--with the bit of blue ribbon as
the sole tangible reminiscence of her. She is among her friends now;
and probably at this moment some one is sitting close by her, close as
he used to sit, and he is forgotten already, or but thought of as--Not
a pleasant manner, Captain Kilsyth's. Studiously polite, no doubt, but
with an undercurrent of badly-veiled suspicion and reserve. What could
that mean? Dr. Wilmot knew that his conduct towards the Kilsyth
family, so far at least as its outward expression was concerned, had
merited nothing but gratitude from every member of it. Why, then, was
the young man embarrassed and suspicious? Could he--pshaw! how could
he by any possible means have become aware of the Doctor's secret
feelings towards Miss Kilsyth--feelings so secret that they had never
been breathed in words to mortal? Perfectly absurd! It is conscience
that makes cowards of us all; and the Doctor decides that it is
conscience which has made him pervert Captain Kilsyth's naturally cold
manner so ridiculously.
Well, it is all over now! He is just back again at his old life, and
he must give up the day-dreams of the past month and fall back into
his professional habits. Looking out of the cab window at the long
monotonous row of dirty-brown houses, at the sloppy street, at the
pushing crowds on the foot-pavement, listening to the never-ceasing
roar of wheels, he can hardly believe that he has only just returned
from mountain, and heather, and distance, and fresh air, and
comparative solitude! Back again! The reception at home from "ten till
one," the old ladies' pulses and the old gentlemen's tongues, the
wearied listening to the symptoms, the stethoscopical examination and
the prescription-writing; then the afternoon visits, with the
repetition of all the morning's details; the hospital lecture; the
dull cold formal dinner with Mabel; and the evening's reading and
writing,--without one bright spot in the entire daily round, without
one cheering hope, one--
A smell of tan!--the street in front of his door strewed with tan!
Some one ill close by. What is this strange sickness that comes over
him--this sinking at his heart--this clamminess of his brow and hands?
The cab has scarcely stopped before he has jumped out, and has knocked
at the door. Not his usual sharp decisive knock, but feebly and
hesitatingly. He notices this himself, and is wondering about it, when
the door opens, and his servant, always solemn, but now
preternaturally grave, appears.
"Glad to see you at last, sir," says the man, "though you're too
late!"
"Too late!" echoes Wilmot vacantly; "too late!--what for?"
"For God's sake, sir," says the man, startled out of his ordinary
quietude; "you got the telegram?"
"Telegram! no--what telegram? What did it say? What has happened?"
"Mrs. Wilmot, sir!--she's gone, sir!--died yesterday morning at eight
o'clock!"