taken under Mr. Speedwell’s directions. There the conquered athlete lay:
outwardly an inert mass of strength, formidable to look at, even in its
fall; inwardly, a weaker creature, in all that constitutes vital
force, than the fly that buzzed on the window-pane. By slow degrees the
fluttering life came back. The sun was setting; and the evening light
was beginning to fail. Mr. Speedwell beckoned to Perry to follow him
into an unoccupied corner of the room.
“In half an hour or less he will be well enough to be taken home. Where
are his friends? He has a brother--hasn’t he?”
“His brother’s in Scotland, Sir.”
“His father?”
Perry scratched his head. “From all I hear, Sir, he and his father don’t
agree.”
Mr. Speedwell applied to Sir Patrick.
“Do you know any thing of his family affairs?”
“Very little. I believe what the man has told you to be the truth.”
“Is his mother living?”
“Yes.”
“I will write to her myself. In the mean time, somebody must take him
home. He has plenty of friends here. Where are they?”
He looked out of the window as he spoke. A throng of people had gathered
round the pavilion, waiting to hear the latest news. Mr. Speedwell
directed Perry to go out and search among them for any friends of his
employer whom he might know by sight. Perry hesitated, and scratched his
head for the second time.
“What are you waiting for?” asked the surgeon, sharply. “You know his
friends by sight, don’t you?”
“I don’t think I shall find them outside,” said Perry.
“Why not?”
“They backed him heavily, Sir--and they have all lost.”
Deaf to this unanswerable reason for the absence of friends, Mr.
Speedwell insisted on sending Perry out to search among the persons
who composed the crowd. The trainer returned with his report. “You were
right, Sir. There are some of his friends outside. They want to see
him.”
“Let two or three of them in.”
Three came in. They stared at him. They uttered brief expressions of
pity in slang. They said to Mr. Speedwell, “We wanted to see him. What
is it--eh?”
“It’s a break-down in his health.”
“Bad training?”
“Athletic Sports.”
“Oh! Thank you. Good-evening.”
Mr. Speedwell’s answer drove them out like a flock of sheep before a
dog. There was not even time to put the question to them as to who was
to take him home.
“I’ll look after him, Sir,” said Perry. “You can trust me.”
“I’ll go too,” added the trainer’s doctor; “and see him littered down
for the night.”
(The only two men who had “hedged” their bets, by privately backing his
opponent, were also the only two men who volunteered to take him home!)
They went back to the sofa on which he was lying. His bloodshot
eyes were rolling heavily and vacantly about him, on the search for
something. They rested on the doctor--and looked away again. They turned
to Mr. Speedwell--and stopped, riveted on his face. The surgeon bent
over him, and said, “What is it?”
He answered with a thick accent and laboring breath--uttering a word at
a time: “Shall--I--die?”
“I hope not.”
“Sure?”
“No.”
He looked round him again. This time his eyes rested on the trainer.
Perry came forward.
“What can I do for you, Sir?”
The reply came slowly as before. “My--coat--pocket.”
“This one, Sir?”
“No.”
“This?”
“Yes. Book.”
The trainer felt in the pocket, and produced a betting-book.
“What’s to be done with this. Sir?”
“Read.”
The trainer held the book before him; open at the last two pages on
which entries had been made. He rolled his head impatiently from side to
side of the sofa pillow. It was plain that he was not yet sufficiently
recovered to be able to read what he had written.
“Shall I read for you, Sir?”
“Yes.”
The trainer read three entries, one after another, without result; they
had all been honestly settled. At the fourth the prostrate man said,
“Stop!” This was the first of the entries which still depended on a
future event. It recorded the wager laid at Windygates, when Geoffrey
had backed himself (in defiance of the surgeon’s opinion) to row in the
University boat-race next spring--and had forced Arnold Brinkworth to
bet against him.
“Well, Sir? What’s to be done about this?”
He collected his strength for the effort; and answered by a word at a
time.
“Write--brother--Julius. Pay--Arnold--wins.”
His lifted hand, solemnly emphasizing what he said, dropped at his side.
He closed his eyes; and fell into a heavy stertorous sleep. Give him his
due. Scoundrel as he was, give him his due. The awful moment, when his
life was trembling in the balance, found him true to the last living
faith left among the men of his tribe and time--the faith of the
betting-book.
Sir Patrick and Mr. Speedwell quitted the race-ground together; Geoffrey
having been previously removed to his lodgings hard by. They met Arnold
Brinkworth at the gate. He had, by his own desire, kept out of view
among the crowd; and he decided on walking back by himself. The
separation from Blanche had changed him in all his habits. He asked but
two favors during the interval which was to elapse before he saw his
wife again--to be allowed to bear it in his own way, and to be left
alone.
Relieved of the oppression which had kept him silent while the race was
in progress, Sir Patrick put a question to the surgeon as they drove
home, which had been in his mind from the moment when Geoffrey had lost
the day.
“I hardly understand the anxiety you showed about Delamayn,” he said,
“when you found that he had only fainted under the fatigue. Was it
something more than a common fainting fit?”
“It is useless to conceal it now,” replied Mr. Speedwell. “He has had a
narrow escape from a paralytic stroke.”
“Was that what you dreaded when you spoke to him at Windygates?”
“That was what I saw in his face when I gave him the warning. I was
right, so far. I was wrong in my estimate of the reserve of vital power
left in him. When he dropped on the race-course, I firmly believed we
should find him a dead man.”
“Is it hereditary paralysis? His father’s last illness was of that
sort.”
Mr. Speedwell smiled. “Hereditary paralysis?” he repeated. “Why the man
is (naturally) a phenomenon of health and strength--in the prime of his
life. Hereditary paralysis might have found him out thirty years
hence. His rowing and his running, for the last four years, are alone
answerable for what has happened to-day.”
Sir Patrick ventured on a suggestion.
“Surely,” he said, “with your name to compel attention to it, you ought
to make this public--as a warning to others?”
“It would be quite useless. Delamayn is far from being the first man
who has dropped at foot-racing, under the cruel stress laid on the vital
organs. The public have a happy knack of forgetting these accidents.
They would be quite satisfied when they found the other man (who happens
to have got through it) produced as a sufficient answer to me.”
Anne Silvester’s future was still dwelling on Sir Patrick’s mind. His
next inquiry related to the serious subject of Geoffrey’s prospect of
recovery in the time to come.
“He will never recover,” said Mr. Speedwell. “Paralysis is hanging over
him. How long he may live it is impossible for me to say. Much depends
on himself. In his condition, any new imprudence, any violent emotion,
may kill him at a moment’s notice.”
“If no accident happens,” said Sir Patrick, “will he be sufficiently
himself again to leave his bed and go out?”
“Certainly.”
“He has an appointment that I know of for Saturday next. Is it likely
that he will be able to keep it?”
“Quite likely.”
Sir Patrick said no more. Anne’s face was before him again at the
memorable moment when he had told her that she was Geoffrey’s wife.
FOURTEENTH SCENE.--PORTLAND PLACE.
CHAPTER THE FORTY-SIXTH.
A SCOTCH MARRIAGE.
IT was Saturday, the third of October--the day on which the assertion of
Arnold’s marriage to Anne Silvester was to be put to the proof.
Toward two o’clock in the afternoon Blanche and her step-mother entered
the drawing-room of Lady Lundie’s town house in Portland Place.
Since the previous evening the weather had altered for the worse. The
rain, which had set in from an early hour that morning, still fell.
Viewed from the drawing-room windows, the desolation of Portland Place
in the dead season wore its aspect of deepest gloom. The dreary opposite
houses were all shut up; the black mud was inches deep in the roadway;
the soot, floating in tiny black particles, mixed with the falling rain,
and heightened the dirty obscurity of the rising mist. Foot-passengers
and vehicles, succeeding each other at rare intervals, left great gaps
of silence absolutely uninterrupted by sound. Even the grinders of
organs were mute; and the wandering dogs of the street were too wet to
bark. Looking back from the view out of Lady Lundie’s state windows
to the view in Lady Lundie’s state room, the melancholy that reigned
without was more than matched by the melancholy that reigned within.
The house had been shut up for the season: it had not been considered
necessary, during its mistress’s brief visit, to disturb the existing
state of things. Coverings of dim brown hue shrouded the furniture.
The chandeliers hung invisible in enormous bags. The silent clocks
hibernated under extinguishers dropped over them two months since. The
tables, drawn up in corners--loaded with ornaments at other times--had
nothing but pen, ink, and paper (suggestive of the coming proceedings)
placed on them now. The smell of the house was musty; the voice of the
house was still. One melancholy maid haunted the bedrooms up stairs,
like a ghost. One melancholy man, appointed to admit the visitors, sat
solitary in the lower regions--the last of the flunkies, mouldering
in an extinct servants’ hall. Not a word passed, in the drawing-room,
between Lady Lundie and Blanche. Each waited the appearance of the
persons concerned in the coming inquiry, absorbed in her own thoughts.
Their situation at the moment was a solemn burlesque of the situation
of two ladies who are giving an evening party, and who are waiting to
receive their guests. Did neither of them see this? Or, seeing it, did
they shrink from acknowledging it? In similar positions, who does not
shrink? The occasions are many on which we have excellent reason to
laugh when the tears are in our eyes; but only children are bold enough
to follow the impulse. So strangely, in human existence, does the
mockery of what is serious mingle with the serious reality itself, that
nothing but our own self-respect preserves our gravity at some of the
most important emergencies in our lives. The two ladies waited the
coming ordeal together gravely, as became the occasion. The silent maid
flitted noiseless up stairs. The silent man waited motionless in the
lower regions. Outside, the street was a desert. Inside, the house was a
tomb.
The church clock struck the hour. Two.
At the same moment the first of the persons concerned in the
investigation arrived.
Lady Lundie waited composedly for the opening of the drawing-room door.
Blanche started, and trembled. Was it Arnold? Was it Anne?
The door opened--and Blanche drew a breath of relief. The first arrival
was only Lady Lundie’s solicitor--invited to attend the proceedings
on her ladyship’s behalf. He was one of that large class of purely
mechanical and perfectly mediocre persons connected with the practice
of the law who will probably, in a more advanced state of science,
be superseded by machinery. He made himself useful in altering the
arrangement of the tables and chairs, so as to keep the contending
parties effectually separated from each other. He also entreated Lady
Lundie to bear in mind that he knew nothing of Scotch law, and that he
was there in the capacity of a friend only. This done, he sat down, and
looked out with silent interest at the rain--as if it was an operation
of Nature which he had never had an opportunity of inspecting before.
The next knock at the door heralded the arrival of a visitor of a
totally different order. The melancholy man-servant announced Captain
Newenden.
Possibly, in deference to the occasion, possibly, in defiance of the
weather, the captain had taken another backward step toward the days of
his youth. He was painted and padded, wigged and dressed, to represent
the abstract idea of a male human being of five-and twenty in robust
health. There might have been a little stiffness in the region of
the waist, and a slight want of firmness in the eyelid and the
chin. Otherwise there was the fiction of five-and twenty, founded in
appearance on the fact of five-and-thirty--with the truth invisible
behind it, counting seventy years! Wearing a flower in his buttonhole,
and carrying a jaunty little cane in his hand--brisk, rosy, smiling,
perfumed--the captain’s appearance brightened the dreary room. It was
pleasantly suggestive of a morning visit from an idle young man. He
appeared to be a little surprised to find Blanche present on the scene
of approaching conflict. Lady Lundie thought it due to herself to
explain. “My step-daughter is here in direct defiance of my entreaties
and my advice. Persons may present themselves whom it is, in my opinion,
improper she should see. Revelations will take place which no young
woman, in her position, should hear. She insists on it, Captain
Newenden--and I am obliged to submit.”
The captain shrugged his shoulders, and showed his beautiful teeth.
Blanche was far too deeply interested in the coming ordeal to care
to defend herself: she looked as if she had not even heard what her
step-mother had said of her. The solicitor remained absorbed in the
interesting view of the falling rain. Lady Lundie asked after Mrs.
Glenarm. The captain, in reply, described his niece’s anxiety as
something--something--something, in short, only to be indicated by
shaking his ambrosial curls and waving his jaunty cane. Mrs. Delamayn
was staying with her until her uncle returned with the news. And where
was Julius? Detained in Scotland by election business. And Lord and Lady
Holchester? Lord and Lady Holchester knew nothing about it.
There was another knock at the door. Blanche’s pale face turned paler
still. Was it Arnold? Was it Anne? After a longer delay than usual, the
servant announced Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn and Mr. Moy.
Geoffrey, slowly entering first, saluted the two ladies in silence, and
noticed no one else. The London solicitor, withdrawing himself for a
moment from the absorbing prospect of the rain, pointed to the places
reserved for the new-comer and for the legal adviser whom he had brought
with him. Geoffrey seated himself, without so much as a glance round the
room. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he vacantly traced patterns on
the carpet with his clumsy oaken walking-stick. Stolid indifference
expressed itself in his lowering brow and his loosely-hanging mouth.
The loss of the race, and the circumstances accompanying it, appeared
to have made him duller than usual and heavier than usual--and that was
all.
Captain Newenden, approaching to speak to him, stopped half-way,
hesitated, thought better of it--and addressed himself to Mr. Moy.
Geoffrey’s legal adviser--a Scotchman of the ruddy, ready, and convivial
type--cordially met the advance. He announced, in reply to the captain’s
inquiry, that the witnesses (Mrs. Inchbare and Bishopriggs) were waiting
below until they were wanted, in the housekeeper’s room. Had there been
any difficulty in finding them? Not the least. Mrs. Inchbare was, as
a matter of course, at her hotel. Inquiries being set on foot for
Bishopriggs, it appeared that he and the landlady had come to an
understanding, and that he had returned to his old post of headwaiter at
the inn. The captain and Mr. Moy kept up the conversation between them,
thus begun, with unflagging ease and spirit. Theirs were the only voices
heard in the trying interval that elapsed before the next knock was
heard at the door.
At last it came. There could be no doubt now as to the persons who might
next be expected to enter the room. Lady Lundie took her step-daughter
firmly by the hand. She was not sure of what Blanche’s first impulse
might lead her to do. For the first time in her life, Blanche left her
hand willingly in her step-mother’s grasp.
The door opened, and they came in.
Sir Patrick Lundie entered first, with Anne Silvester on his arm. Arnold
Brinkworth followed them.
Both Sir Patrick and Anne bowed in silence to the persons assembled.
Lady Lundie ceremoniously returned her brother-in-law’s salute--and
pointedly abstained from noticing Anne’s presence in the room. Blanche
never looked up. Arnold advanced to her, with his hand held out. Lady
Lundie rose, and motioned him back. “Not _yet,_ Mr. Brinkworth!” she
said, in her most quietly merciless manner. Arnold stood, heedless of
her, looking at his wife. His wife lifted her eyes to his; the tears
rose in them on the instant. Arnold’s dark complexion turned ashy pale
under the effort that it cost him to command himself. “I won’t distress
you,” he said, gently--and turned back again to the table at which Sir
Patrick and Anne were seated together apart from the rest. Sir Patrick
took his hand, and pressed it in silent approval.
The one person who took no part, even as spectator, in the events
that followed the appearance of Sir Patrick and his companions in the
room--was Geoffrey. The only change visible in him was a change in
the handling of his walking-stick. Instead of tracing patterns on the
carpet, it beat a tattoo. For the rest, there he sat with his heavy
head on his breast and his brawny arms on his knees--weary of it by
anticipation before it had begun.
Sir Patrick broke the silence. He addressed himself to his
sister-in-law.
“Lady Lundie, are all the persons present whom you expected to see here
to-day?”
The gathered venom in Lady Lundie seized the opportunity of planting its
first sting.
“All whom I expected are here,” she answered. “And more than I
expected,” she added, with a look at Anne.
The look was not returned--was not even seen. From the moment when she
had taken her place by Sir Patrick, Anne’s eyes had rested on
Blanche. They never moved--they never for an instant lost their tender
sadness--when the woman who hated her spoke. All that was beautiful
and true in that noble nature seemed to find its one sufficient
encouragement in Blanche. As she looked once more at the sister of the
unforgotten days of old, its native beauty of expression shone out again
in her worn and weary face. Every man in the room (but Geoffrey) looked
at her; and every man (but Geoffrey) felt for her.
Sir Patrick addressed a second question to his sister-in-law.
“Is there any one here to represent the interests of Mr. Geoffrey
Delamayn?” he asked.
Lady Lundie referred Sir Patrick to Geoffrey himself. Without looking
up, Geoffrey motioned with his big brown hand to Mr. Moy, sitting by his
side.
Mr. Moy (holding the legal rank in Scotland which corresponds to the
rank held by solicitors in England) rose and bowed to Sir Patrick, with
the courtesy due to a man eminent in his time at the Scottish Bar.
“I represent Mr. Delamayn,” he said. “I congratulate myself, Sir
Patrick, on having your ability and experience to appeal to in the
conduct of the pending inquiry.”
Sir Patrick returned the compliment as well as the bow.
“It is I who should learn from you,” he answered. “_I_ have had time,
Mr. Moy, to forget what I once knew.”
Lady Lundie looked from one to the other with unconcealed impatience as
these formal courtesies were exchanged between the lawyers. “Allow me to
remind you, gentlemen, of the suspense that we are suffering at this
end of the room,” she said. “And permit me to ask when you propose to
begin?”
Sir Patrick looked invitingly at Mr. Moy. Mr. Moy looked invitingly at
Sir Patrick. More formal courtesies! a polite contest this time as to
which of the two learned gentlemen should permit the other to speak
first! Mr. Moy’s modesty proving to be quite immovable, Sir Patrick
ended it by opening the proceedings.
“I am here,” he said, “to act on behalf of my friend, Mr. Arnold
Brinkworth. I beg to present him to you, Mr. Moy as the husband of my
niece--to whom he was lawfully married on the seventh of September last,
at the Church of Saint Margaret, in the parish of Hawley, Kent. I have a
copy of the marriage certificate here--if you wish to look at it.”
Mr. Moy’s modesty declined to look at it.
“Quite needless, Sir Patrick! I admit that a marriage ceremony took
place on the date named, between the persons named; but I contend that
it was not a valid marriage. I say, on behalf of my client here present
(Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn), that Arnold Brinkworth was married at a date
prior to the seventh of September last--namely, on the fourteenth of
August in this year, and at a place called Craig Fernie, in Scotland--to
a lady named Anne Silvester, now living, and present among us (as I
understand) at this moment.”
Sir Patrick presented Anne. “This is the lady, Mr. Moy.”
Mr. Moy bowed, and made a suggestion. “To save needless formalities, Sir
Patrick, shall we take the question of identity as established on both
sides?”
Sir Patrick agreed with his learned friend. Lad y Lundie opened and
shut her fan in undisguised impatience. The London solicitor was deeply
interested. Captain Newenden, taking out his handkerchief, and using
it as a screen, yawned behind it to his heart’s content. Sir Patrick
resumed.
“You assert the prior marriage,” he said to his colleague. “It rests
with you to begin.”
Mr. Moy cast a preliminary look round him at the persons assembled.
“The object of our meeting here,” he said, “is, if I am not mistaken,
of a twofold nature. In the first place, it is thought desirable, by
a person who has a special interest in the issue of this inquiry” (he
glanced at the captain--the captain suddenly became attentive), “to put
my client’s assertion, relating to Mr. Brinkworth’s marriage, to the
proof. In the second place, we are all equally desirous--whatever
difference of opinion may otherwise exist--to make this informal inquiry
a means, if possible, of avoiding the painful publicity which would
result from an appeal to a Court of Law.”
At those words the gathered venom in Lady Lundie planted its second
sting--under cover of a protest addressed to Mr. Moy.
“I beg to inform you, Sir, on behalf of my step-daughter,” she said,
“that we have nothing to dread from the widest publicity. We consent
to be present at, what you call, ‘this informal inquiry,’ reserving our
right to carry the matter beyond the four walls of this room. I am not
referring now to Mr. Brinkworth’s chance of clearing himself from an
odious suspicion which rests upon him, and upon another Person present.
That is an after-matter. The object immediately before us--so far as a
woman can pretend to understand it--is to establish my step-daughter’s
right to call Mr. Brinkworth to account in the character of his wife. If
the result, so far, fails to satisfy us in that particular, we shall not
hesitate to appeal to a Court of Law.” She leaned back in her chair, and
opened her fan, and looked round her with the air of a woman who called
society to witness that she had done her duty.
An expression of pain crossed Blanche’s face while her step-mother
was speaking. Lady Lundie took her hand for the second time. Blanche
resolutely and pointedly withdrew it--Sir Patrick noticing the action
with special interest. Before Mr. Moy could say a word in answer, Arnold
centred the general attention on himself by suddenly interfering in the
proceedings. Blanche looked at him. A bright flash of color appeared on
her face--and left it again. Sir Patrick noted the change of color--and
observed her more attentively than ever. Arnold’s letter to his wife,
with time to help it, had plainly shaken her ladyship’s influence over
Blanche.
“After what Lady Lundie has said, in my wife’s presence,” Arnold burst
out, in his straightforward, boyish way, “I think I ought to be allowed
to say a word on my side. I only want to explain how it was I came to
go to Craig Fernie at all--and I challenge Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn to deny
it, if he can.”
His voice rose at the last words, and his eyes brightened with
indignation as he looked at Geoffrey.
Mr. Moy appealed to his learned friend.
“With submission, Sir Patrick, to your better judgment,” he said, “this
young gentleman’s proposal seems to be a little out of place at the
present stage of the proceedings.”