A SLEEP AND AN AWAKING.
Burgo had not got as far as his own room before he was accosted by one
of the servants. "Lady Clinton's compliments, and would Mr. Brabazon
like a little light breakfast at once?"
Mr. Brabazon was much obliged to her ladyship, and, if it was quite
convenient, he would like a cup of coffee and a rusk.
In five minutes they were brought him.
After that he tumbled into bed, slept like a top for four hours, got
up, tubbed and dressed, after which, in his own parlance, he felt "as
fresh as a daisy." He had ascertained overnight that his uncle never
made his appearance downstairs before luncheon, and very often not
then. So, without saying a word to any one, or troubling himself about
breakfast, he quietly left the house on his way to the "yard" in
search of Mr. Hendry. The jobmaster expressed himself as being very
sorry for his own sake that things had turned out as they had; "but,
of course, I'm very glad for your sake, Mr. Brabazon, that you and Sir
Everard have come together again."
"For anything I can tell to the contrary," said Burgo--"for one can
never be sure what turn affairs will take--you may see me back at the
yard, with nothing to do, before either of us is very much older."
"You will always be welcome, sir, and I'll engage to find you a job at
any time, should you be in need of one."
With that the two men shook hands and parted.
Burgo got back to Great Mornington Street just as luncheon was served.
His uncle was downstairs, and certainly looking no worse than on the
previous day.
There, too, were her ladyship and Signora Dusanti, and the signora's
little daughter, a child of ten. Conversation was general during the
meal, personal topics being avoided as if by common consent. Even Sir
Everard was quite chatty, and once or twice laughed heartily at some
remark of Tina, who seemed a most precocious child for her years.
Burgo found it had been already arranged that he and his uncle should
go for a drive in the barouche, while Lady Clinton and the signora
went shopping in the brougham.
At the last moment her ladyship said to her husband: "If you have no
objection, dear, I should like Tina to go with you and Mr. Brabazon.
I'm afraid the poor child would find shopping very tiresome, and I am
sure a good blow in the Park would do her far more good."
The corners of the baronet's mouth dropped for a moment; the next he
said quite heartily: "Of course--of course. Let the child go with us,
by all means."
A little later Burgo could not help asking himself whether Tina might
not have been purposely sent with them in order to act as a check upon
any confidential talk which might otherwise have passed between his
uncle and himself in the course of the drive. At any rate, if that was
her ladyship's intention, it proved thoroughly successful. The girl
was such a shrewd little thing, and had so evidently been schooled
into making good use of her ears, that both the men felt convinced
that everything which might be said by them would be retailed to the
signora, and would doubtless be passed on in due course to the person
chiefly concerned. Consequently the talk was merely of such a kind as
might have been overheard by the world at large. One remark which his
uncle made gratified Burgo immensely. "Hoskins found a marked
improvement in me this morning," he said; adding, with a laugh, "of
course he gives all the credit of it to the particularly nauseous
stuff I'm taking just now. But, and I would, I could tell him
different from that."
Sir Everard shrank from the publicity of the Row. "I've only been once
in it since my return," he said, "and on that occasion, if I was
commiserated by one person on the score of my health, I was by twenty.
It's an ordeal I don't care to face again. Let us take a quiet drive
down Kensington way."
The rest of the day and evening passed as the preceding ones had done.
After dinner came music and singing, and the baronet went so far as to
indulge in one game of backgammon with his nephew. "It seems like old
days come back," he remarked to Burgo, adding in a lower voice, "if
only it will last! if only it will last!"
Soon after half-past nine he retired.
Burgo's second vigil was arranged on precisely the same lines as the
first. His uncle slept well, only waking twice at irregular intervals,
both times to find Burgo seated within a couple of yards of his bed,
waiting patiently for him to open his eyes. In the course of this
second night no conversation of what might be termed a private nature
passed between them. More than once, when Sir Everard was sitting up
in bed, Burgo saw him glance half-apprehensively, half-suspiciously at
the door which opened into his wife's apartments, or rather, at the
_portière_, which to-night was drawn completely across it. But
whatever his thoughts or suspicions might be, he kept them to himself.
Next forenoon Dr. Hoskins's report was again a favourable one. "A few
more days like this, my clear sir, and you will have made a big stride
on the road to recovery," he said.
After luncheon her ladyship and the signora again went out together,
ostensibly for shopping purposes, and again Sir Everard and Burgo,
with little Tina for eavesdropper, went for a long suburban drive.
The third night of Burgo's sitting up was merely a repetition of the
two previous ones. It was diversified by no incident worth recording,
and again, as on the second night, the invalid confined such talk as
passed between himself and his nephew to matters of little or no
moment. It was evident to Burgo that he felt far from sure they were
really alone, but he was doubtless unwilling to expose his wife to the
ignominy of discovery, should it be a fact that she was playing the
part of an unseen auditor.
Burgo did not feel himself at liberty to try the door as on the first
night, unless requested by his uncle to do so; but, although since
then his eyes had glanced at it times innumerable, after that first
occasion he had seen nothing to lead him to suppose that it was
otherwise than closely shut; still, so long as it remained half hidden
by the _portière_, a doubt would inevitably make itself felt.
All this time Lady Clinton's amiability and graciousness towards Burgo
had been eclipsed by no faintest shadow of change. She treated him as
if he were there of right as a member of the family. That first
interview between them might have had no existence, save in Burgo's
imagination, for any hint or allusion to it which escaped her lips.
Did she wish him to forget it? Was it her desire that he should
consider the breach between his uncle and himself not merely as
healed, but as if it had never arisen? It certainly seemed so, and
under ordinary circumstances, no other conclusion would have been
logically possible. But in this case the circumstances were not
ordinary ones. There was his uncle's mysterious illness to be taken
into account, and, above all, certain things which his uncle had said
to him--phrases, as it seemed to him, charged with a terrible meaning.
These were facts which it was impossible to ignore, or to put lightly
aside as of little import. Then, again, some still, small, inner voice
seemed to warn him against Lady Clinton. He mistrusted her
instinctively, and in such cases he knew how useless it is to ask the
why and the wherefore. Our likes and dislikes have their springs
deeper than we can plumb, and constitute a part of that mysterious Ego
which each of us calls Myself--which is at once our slave and our
master, and which, even at the end of the longest life, we have only
partially learned to know.
There was one very pertinent question which Burgo did not fail to put
to himself, namely, "What change is there in me, what have I done
between the date of my first interview with her ladyship and now, to
cause her so radically to reverse her tactics towards me? She was as
undoubtedly hostile to me then as she undoubtedly wishes me to believe
her my friend now. Why this extraordinary _volte-face?_ There must be
a motive at the bottom of it; what is that motive?" He could only
shake his head, and murmur, "_Ma chère tante_, what your little game
is I don't in the least profess to know, but I believe you to be a
snake in the grass, and a venomous one to boot, and I decline to trust
you farther than I can see you."
He had time enough and to spare in which to turn these and sundry
other matters over in his mind during his long hours of watching.
On this third morning he found his coffee and rusks waiting for him as
usual on reaching his own room. The rusks he left untouched, but the
coffee he drank off almost at a draught. It was nearly broad daylight
outside, but the curtains were closely drawn so as to exclude it, and
a couple of candles were alight on the dressing-table. After
swallowing his coffee he sat down to smoke "just one" cigarette before
turning in. As he lay back in his chair watching the grey spirals of
smoke curl slowly upward, his thoughts reverted to a subject which had
engaged them more than once already. Not a word had escaped Sir
Everard with reference to that first interview between his nephew and
Lady Clinton, and yet it was absurd to suppose that the arrangement
was not of his own making, although probably due to his wife's
instigation, or that the result of it had not been made known to him
in due course. The cheque had been of his own making out, and that it
had been scornfully rejected and torn up by his nephew was a feature
of the affair which there could be little doubt her ladyship would be
only too pleased to paint for his behoof in the most exaggerated
colours. And yet he had never so much as alluded to the affair. It
could not be that he had forgotten it. For anything Burgo had seen to
the contrary his memory was nearly as good as ever it had been. What,
then, could be the reason of his silence? Was it possible that her
ladyship had stated the case as against Burgo in far blacker terms
than the facts warranted, and that as a consequence Sir Everard was
waiting for his nephew to apologise? But Burgo, feeling that he had
nothing to apologise for, and that, in point of fact, he was the
person chiefly aggrieved, had already made up his mind that if the
subject were to be broached at all, his uncle must be the one to take
the initiative. Perhaps, in the course of a day or two, Sir Everard
might bring himself to speak of it. Well, in that case he, Burgo,
would be quite prepared to--what was it he would be prepared to do?
(The thread of his argument had unaccountably escaped him.) Why, to
defend his own action in the--in the what? (How stupid of him!) Why,
in the affair, of course. Yes, yes--that was it. He would be quite
prepared to----
Where was he? What had come over him? His eyelids felt as if they
were being pressed down by invisible fingers; every limb seemed
weighted with lead; a deadly numbness had taken hold on all his
faculties--never had he felt like it before. Was he going to be ill?
Had some fever got a grip of him? Was he--was he----But at this point
his brain refused to do his further bidding. He rose to his feet
somehow and stood for a few moments with his hands pressed to his
head, swaying about like a drunken man. Then, with his arms
outstretched, as though to help him to balance himself, he staggered
across the floor, and falling prone along the bed, remembered nothing
more.
When he awoke to consciousness he knew neither where he was nor what
had happened to him. The first thing he was aware of, and it probably
helped to recall him fully to himself, was that he had a splitting
headache. It was a dull continuous throbbing, as though some piece of
clockwork in his brain were marking off each second as it passed. He
strained his eyes and he strained his ears, but the darkness and
silence were intense--profound. He stretched out his arms and cast
about with his fingers, and presently made out that he was lying fully
dressed on his back on a bed--so much was certain. He must take that
as a starting-point and work mentally backward. What was the last
thing he could remember? It was a question not to be answered
off-hand, more especially when a man's skull seemed to be opening and
shutting twenty times a minute. When he tried to think he seemed to be
groping in a fog as thick as wool. The last thing he---- Ah! now he
had it. It was---- No, it had escaped him. He shut his eyes tight and
pressed his burning head between his hands, which, strange to say,
were cold and clammy. He lay thus immovable for some minutes, chasing
through vacant caverns and tortuous passages a will-o'-the-wisp which
still eluded him.
The last thing he could remember! He kept murmuring the words under
his breath. And then suddenly it was revealed to him in a dazzling
flash, and the same instant he sprang up in bed. Yes, every incident,
down to the most trifling, arranged itself in order before him. He saw
himself, as though it were another he was looking at, leave his
uncle's room and make his way yawningly, and with hands deep buried in
his pockets, to his own room. The curtains were drawn, the candles
alight, his coffee and rusks in readiness for him. The latter he did
not touch; but he was thirsty, and he swallowed the coffee gratefully
at one long draught. He called to mind that the bed had looked very
inviting, but that the temptation of a cigarette had proved too much
for him. Then, a few minutes later, there had crept over him a strange
leaden numbness and lethargy, both of mind and body, the like of which
he had never experienced before. He had stood up, dazed and stupified,
had staggered across the floor, and flung himself on the bed, and then
had followed an absolute blank.
Yes, he saw it all now. His coffee had been drugged! No other
explanation was possible. Of what devilish plot had he been made the
victim? And what black purpose lurked at the bottom of it?
He stood up, feeling faint and giddy, and had to steady himself for a
few moments by gripping the ironwork of the bedstead, before he durst
venture to stir. Then he groped his way carefully and slowly, like a
blind man, till he reached the window and drew aside the curtains. In
the street outside the darkness was absolute; a thick fog pressed
softly against the window, and wholly absorbed the light from the lamp
over the way.
"It was seven o'clock in the morning when I quitted my uncle's room,"
muttered Burgo, "so that I must have slept through one day, and far
into the next night." Then he took out his watch and put it to his
ear. It had stopped for want of winding up. Evidently the thing most
needed was a light. He called to mind that after lighting his
cigarette, he had placed his silver matchbox on the table close by
where he was sitting. He now groped his way from the window to the
table in search of the box, but nowhere could he find it. Then he
proceeded to search his pockets, but to no avail. Had the box been
purposely removed in case he should wake up in the dark and want to
strike a light? Nothing seemed more likely.
He now made his way to the door, only to find that he was locked in;
but, judging from what had happened to him already, he had expected
nothing less. He had been drugged, and was now a prisoner; all he
could do was to wait with such patience as was possible to him for the
break of day.
He felt chilled in every limb, only his head still throbbed and
burned; but, happily, the pain was less poignant than before. Drawing
a counterpane off the bed, he wrapt it round him, and sat down by the
window. Both inside the house and out the silence for some time
remained unbroken, but by-and-by there came to Burgo's ear a faint
rumble of wheels from the busy thoroughfare into which Great
Mornington Street debouches at its upper end; then, before long, the
sounds became more frequent, and, after a little longer, almost
continuous. Then he knew that the dead time of the night was past, and
that he should not have much longer to wait for the first signs of
day.
But already he had become far less concerned about his own predicament
than about what it might possibly portend to his uncle, for that Lady
Clinton was at the bottom of the business he never for a moment
doubted. That it had been conceived and carried out with the view of
bringing about a climax, or a breach of some kind in the new and
cordial relations between his uncle and himself, seemed, on the face
of it, hardly open to question.
And yet, for the life of him, he could not see in what way drugging
him, or making a prisoner of him for four-and-twenty hours (for, of
course, it was absurd to suppose that he would allow himself to remain
locked up there after daylight had fairly set in), could in any way
conduce to whatever end her ladyship might have in view. But, in the
absence of any foundation on which to build, surmise and speculation
were futile, and the merest waste of time. He would put them
resolutely aside, and indulge in them no more. It was an easy enough
promise to make, but a difficult one to keep.
After what to Burgo seemed an interminable time, a faint ghostly light
began to broaden in the reaches of the upper sky, and the silver lamps
of night to be extinguished one by one, for with the coming of dawn
the fog had vanished. And now Burgo began to listen for some signs and
tokens of reviving life in the household below stairs. But time went
on, and the daylight broadened, but all his listening remained in
vain. Within doors no faintest sound broke the silence. It was
unaccountable. How long should he wait before he rang the bell and
summoned some one? What, however, if there was no one to summon? "But
that's absurd," he told himself, with a shrug. "If the servants are
not down already, they can't be long now. I'll wait another half-hour,
and then----" His eyes had wandered to the bell-pull, or, rather, to
the place where it ought to have been, for it was no longer there. It
had been severed within a foot of the ceiling. As Burgo's eyes took in
the fact, the blood for a moment or two seemed to curdle round his
heart. More than all that had gone before it served to strike him with
a chill dismay.
But it was no time for inaction. Not a moment longer would he sit
there waiting for he knew not what. By this time daylight was
sufficiently advanced to enable him to discern everything in the room.
With Burgo necessity was the mother of contrivance. What he now did
was to take off his braces, separate them at the joining, and tie them
end to end.
Then, having dragged his bed, which ran on castors, into position, he
placed a chair on it, and having climbed on to the latter, he found
that he could just reach to knot one end of his braces to the severed
bell-pull. Then, having descended from his somewhat insecure perch, he
gave a vigorous tug at his improvised rope, and awaited the result.