A HUMBLE FRIEND.
Two days later Burgo Brabazon knocked at the door of No. 22 Great
Mornington Street. Although Lady Clinton had distinctly told him his
uncle was too ill to see anybody, that only made it all the more
imperative that he should call and ascertain for himself whether the
dear old boy was better or worse.
To the servant who responded to his summons--moderated for fear of
annoying the sick man--he said, while handing him his card, "Take this
to Lady Clinton with my compliments, and tell her that I have called
to inquire about my uncle's health."
It was a curious and by no means a pleasant sensation to Burgo to find
himself left standing on the mat in the entrance-hall of the house
which, nearly ever since he could remember, he had regarded in the
light of home, and to realise that he was now looked upon as nothing
more than an alien and an outcast.
The man was not gone more than a couple of minutes. "Lady Clinton begs
to inform Mr. Brabazon," he said, "that Sir Everard is neither better
nor worse than usual."
Could anything be more vague and unsatisfactory? But that it was so of
set purpose he felt fully assured. Then, before he knew what had
happened, he found his card back in his fingers. Although the man did
not say so, her ladyship had evidently refused to receive it. It was
plain that she was bent on insulting him as often as he should afford
her an opportunity of doing so. He had to set his teeth hard in order
to keep back the imprecation that rose to his lips as he tore the card
in a dozen pieces and flung the fragments from him.
Three days later he called again. This time he sent in no card, but
contented himself with a verbal message. The answer brought him was in
precisely the same terms as before: "Sir Everard is neither better nor
worse than usual." This time he was more sad than angry when he turned
away from Great Mornington Street.
He felt that it would be hard, very hard, to be compelled to break
entirely with his uncle. Not once, but fifty times, he said to
himself: "This is not his doing, but hers. He would never treat me so
of his own accord. I durst wager twenty to one he has never been told
that I called; and even were I to write to him, the chances are that
my letter would not reach him. Still, it's worth the attempt, for I
want him to know that, although he has thought well to cast me adrift,
my affection for him is robust enough to survive all the shocks of
chance and change. He may, if he so choose, sever the chain which
binds him to me, but he cannot, against my will, sever the one which
binds me to him!"
A few days later Burgo wrote to Sir Everard as under:
"My dear Uncle,--You will, I hope, need no assurance on my part that I
was extremely grieved to hear from Lady Clinton that since your return
from abroad your health has been in such an unsatisfactory state.
"Since my interview with her ladyship I have called twice in Great
Mornington Street, but only to be told that there was no improvement
in your condition.
"I had hoped on one or the other occasion of my calling to have been
permitted to see you, if only for a few minutes, and that I, your
sister's son, to whom for the last eighteen years you have filled a
father's part, should be debarred from doing so seems indeed hard to
credit.
"That I have done anything to forfeit a continuance of your affection
and esteem I am wholly unaware, and in conclusion I can but assure you
that the dearest hope I have is that the bond which has so long
existed between us should remain intact and wholly unaffected by any
extraneous circumstances whatever.
"Ever your affectionate Nephew,
"Burgo Brabazon."
Epistolary composition was not much in Burgo's line, and the missive
to his uncle was written and altered and rewritten at least a dozen
times before the final fair copy was made and despatched, and even
then he was far from satisfied with it.
But after all it proved to be so much labour in vain. By the first
post next morning his letter came back to him enclosed in an envelope
addressed in a feminine hand, but without an added word of any kind
inside. It had been opened, and that might be taken as proof positive
that it had been read--but by whom? Had it ever reached his uncle? In
view of her husband's invalid condition might not Lady Clinton have
taken upon herself to open and attend to his correspondence? Nothing
seemed more likely. In any case, whether Sir Everard had read the
letter or whether he had not, he, Burgo, was powerless to do more than
he had done in the way of bringing himself and his uncle together
again. He had been baulked at every turn. A resolute and unscrupulous
woman had come between them, and against her poisoned arrows he was
helpless. As he stood up and tore his letter across and across before
flinging it into the fire he cursed Lady Clinton in his heart.
A few days later, as he was taking one of those long solitary rambles
after nightfall into the habit of which he had fallen of late, finding
himself; without any intention on his part, close by Great Mornington
Street, he turned into it and strolled slowly along till he came
opposite his uncle's house. Unlike several neighbouring houses, it was
almost in darkness. There was a light in the entrance hall, but beyond
that only one window in the whole frontage of the house was illumined
from within, and that Burgo knew to be the window of a cosy little
sitting-room known as "the study," and in bygone days sacred to his
uncle's own use. Of course it was quite possible, and indeed most
probable, that the back drawing-room and other rooms which faced the
opposite way were lighted up, but regarded from the street, No. 22
looked distinctly dismal and forbidding. Still, there was nothing
funereal about it, as his first glance at it told him, and the same
moment his heart gave a great throb of relief. There had been a
certain vague dread upon him as he came slowly--almost reluctantly
down the street. What if when he got opposite the house, he should
find it staring out at the night with sightless eyes, its every blind
drawn down, telling of the presence within of that dread visitant who
comes to each of us in turn! Why that dread should have haunted him
to-night more than at another time, he did not know.
"Fact is, I'm hipped--off colour," he said to himself, "and am getting
all sorts of ridiculous notions into my head. It's high time for me to
buckle to work of some kind. Nothing like work, I've been told, for
curing the blues. Well, I suppose I shall have every chance of testing
the remedy as soon as I've succeeded in finding work of some kind to
do."
He had been standing staring at the house for some two or three
minutes, and he now turned to go back up the street. A dozen yards
brought him to a lamp, and he was full in the light reflected from it
when an exclamation from a man who had been on the point of passing
him arrested his attention. The man came to a dead halt and
involuntarily Burgo did the same.
"Sakes alive! if it ain't Mr. Brabazon!" exclaimed the other. "I
thought I couldn't be mistaken," and the same instant Burgo recognised
the speaker.
It was Benny Hines, who, many years before, had been Sir Everard's
coachman, till a fall which broke his right wrist had disabled him for
driving. From that date he had been permanently pensioned by the
baronet, the only duty exacted in return being that he and his wife
should act as caretakers of the mansion in Great Mornington Street
whenever Sir Everard was abroad, or after those families to whom it
was occasionally let for the London season had, with the coming of
autumn, winged their flight elsewhere.
It was Benny who had taught Burgo to "handle the ribbons" when the
latter was a lad, and his memory was stored with reminiscences of many
pleasant hours spent in the old man's company.
"Why, Benny, old friend, and how are you after all this long time?"
said Burgo, as he gave the ex-coachman's hand a cordial grip. "It must
be quite four years since you and I parted last."
"Four years and eight months, Mr. Burgo."
"So long as that! Yes, it must be. I remember it was just before my
uncle took it into his head to go and live abroad. You look as perky
as a redbreast on a snowy morning, and not a day older than when I saw
you last. Missis quite well?"
"Better in health than temper, sir. As I tell her, she has too much of
her own way, and that's allus bad for a woman. I made a foolish start,
sir; I began by indulging her over much, and now--well, well!" He
sighed and pulled down his waistcoat with an air of comic martyrdom.
Burgo laughed. "If I remember rightly, the boot's on the other leg,
Benny. I believe you're a regular Bluebeard at home, and that you
frighten that little wife of yours half out of her wits."
There was a humorous twinkle in Benny's eye. "It's them little mites
o' women like my wife, Mr. Burgo, as are allus the most difficult to
manage. Talk about tempers--lor! Now, if I had only married some big,
strapping, grenadier-kind of woman----"
"You would have had the life thrashed out of you years ago. But we
need not stand here. You were going this way. I'll take a turn with
you. To me one road's the same as another." Then after a pause, as
they paced slowly along side by side: "Have you seen anything of my
uncle and his bride since their arrival home?"
"Very little, sir. You see, they don't either of them go out much. Sir
Everard, I'm sorry to say, seems to be slowly breaking up. But no
doubt you have observed that for yourself, sir, and think it's like my
imperance to speak of it."
Thereupon Burgo proceeded to enlighten the old man to some extent with
regard to the relations which now existed between himself and the
inmates of No. 22.
Benny gave vent to a prolonged whistle. "Excuse my saying so, Mr.
Burgo, but I'm afraid it was a bad day's work for you, sir, when your
uncle brought home a wife."
Burgo shrugged his shoulders.
"I would give much to know how my uncle really is," he said,
"and--and, in point of fact, to learn how affairs in general are going
on at No. 22."
"Then, sir, you have lighted on the very person who can tell you a
good deal of what you want to know."
"Do you mean to say that you are that person, Benny?"
"I am, sir."
"You astonish me. But how do you happen to be able to do what you
say?"
"It's very simple, sir. My wife's niece is parlour-maid at No. 22. She
pops in on us most Sunday evenings, if it's only for a half-hour, and
being in her way as sharp as a needle, there ain't much as escapes
her, or that we don't hear about."
"Then can you tell me this: Is my uncle really as ill as her ladyship
gives me to understand he is?"
"As I said before, sir, my old master seems to be gradually breaking
up. It's not that he's in any pain, or has even a bad cough, or has to
keep to his room. It's just, as far as I can make out from what Polly
tells us, as if he was slowly fading away--gradually dying out, as a
lamp does when the oil begins to run low. All his old go and energy
seem to have left him; he's as mild as milk, and could hardly say 'Bo'
to a goose. Another bad sign is that nothing seems to tempt his
appetite. Polly says, and I suppose she has heard the butler say so,
that he doesn't eat as much in the twenty-four hours as a man in
fairish appetite will eat at one meal."
"Has he any medical advice?"
"Bless you, yes, sir. Dr. Hoskins calls every day."
"Does he never go out of doors?"
"When the weather is very fine, the brougham or barouche is ordered
round about four o'clock, and her ladyship and he go out together. Sir
Everard is dropped at his club, while her ladyship shows herself in
the Park for an hour. Then Sir Everard is picked up and they drive
back home. Other days the baronet never crosses the doorstep."
"Has my uncle any nurse, or any regular attendant besides his valet?"
"He has no nurse but her ladyship, and, by all accounts, he couldn't
have a better. She seems to think nothing a trouble. She it is that
allus gives Sir Everard his medicine and things, and orders this or
the other little dainty to be got ready for him by way of a surprise,
and just to tempt his appetite. Day or night, it seems all one to her,
she's allus on the spot."
After this they walked on for some time in silence, while Burgo strove
to digest what had just been told him. It was certainly one of the
last things he would have looked to be told about Lady Clinton, that
she made an affectionate wife and a devoted nurse to a man whom it was
hardly conceivable she should have married for anything save his money
and his rank.
"You remember, Mr. Burgo," resumed Benny after a time, "what a man the
guv'nor used to be for having his own way?"
"I have not forgotten."
"Allus very quiet--never any bluster--but his own way he would have.
He was one of them men as can't abear opposition. His own way seemed
better to him than anybody else's--not, mind you, sir, that it allus
was. I could have often proved him in the wrong if he would have
listened to argyment, but that was just what he wouldn't do."
"Well, what then?"
"Merely this, sir, that if what I hear is true--and I've no call to
doubt it--then a mighty change must have come over Sir Everard.
Nowadays he's no will about anything; her ladyship keeps it for him
under lock and key. Her will is her husband's will and her own too.
Everything's done through her. Sir Everard daren't--or if he dare he
won't--give an order direct to any of the servants. What he does is to
say, 'My dear, don't you think that such-and-such a thing ought to be
done?' or, 'What is your idea, love, about so-and-so?' And then her
ladyship decides, and whichever way she decides, it seems all one to
Sir Everard. And they do say that his eyes follow her about for all
the world as if he was frightened of her, and dared hardly call his
soul his own. Oh lord! oh lord!" groaned the old fellow, "what a
change to have come over a man, and all the doing of one woman!"
Burgo could have groaned in unison.
"And yet you say that, as a nurse, no one could be kinder or more
attentive than she is?" he presently remarked.
"Begging your pardon, Mr. Burgo, but that may be only part of her
artfulness. Some women, sir, are the very----" A discreet cough
finished his sentence.
Before Burgo and the old man parted they exchanged addresses. Benny
was exhorted to encourage the gossiping proclivities of his wife's
niece anent those matters in which Burgo was interested. He, Burgo,
would not fail to look him up from time to time, and draw upon his
budget of news. Should any information of an alarming kind, bearing on
Sir Everard's health, reach him, Mr. Brabazon was to be communicated
with without loss of time.