Dick's Bath.
Not on the exposed heights by Napoleon's column, but a short way beyond
it, down in a non-frequented hollow, the meeting-spot for the duel was
fixed. Onions and the earl went out when breakfast was over the next
day, and chose it after due deliberation. They explored some fields
over at Capécure, beyond the lines of rail; but, for some reason known
only to themselves, rejected that side of the town. Gall and Loftus
appeared not to care where the spot might be, provided it were
somewhere. The time was to be sunrise on the following morning, or as
soon after it as they could get out of the hotel and make their way to
the spot.
Does it not seem ridiculously absurd to be recording this? But I can
only relate what took place; and college students come to the age of
these had accomplished such an end before. You may deem that Leek or
Talbot ought to have warned the police; but they did not. I think that
day added some years to the experience of their lives.
And the two principals—Gall and Loftus—what kind of sensations do you
suppose were theirs? Did they look forward to their possible
fate—death—with calmness? Was the unruffled exterior, shown to the
world, a type of the unruffled mind within? No, you cannot suppose it.
Loftus was perhaps the least troubled of the two, for his was the more
composed and easy nature; but each had his share of—anticipation.
Why, how could it be otherwise? Try and realize the situation to your
minds, my boys; to make it your own. With the rising of the morrow's
sun, you are going out to be shot at yourself and to shoot at another.
Before that sun sets, you may be lying cold and dead; your life in this
world over; your soul before its Maker. It is very solemn; almost too
solemn to write of. When men go out to fight duels, they are
represented to be full of inward bravery, as poets have sung and
friends have boasted. Never you believe it. Or, if it be so, they have
been living without God in the world, callous to the never-ending
future. Ah, no! Physically brave, as to the possible flesh wound,
perhaps; but _not_ brave as to the consequences it may involve—a sudden
rush into eternity, uncalled.
Leek and James Talbot were here and there and everywhere—men of
importance that day. The fixing upon the meeting-spot took them the
whole of the morning. Next they had an interview with the two
principals conjointly, and, to give them justice, did all that argument
could do to induce the affair to be abandoned. Mr. Brown, fit to burst
with the great secret confided to him, and of which he could not talk,
went to every conceivable corner of the town in search of the two other
sharers of the secret, and went in vain. He found them at length, when
the afternoon was passing, at the Hotel des Bains, in Leek's chamber.
As on the previous night, they had the pistols out, and this time they
did not hurry them away.
"Well, how's it going?" demanded Brown, breathless with the wind and
his own haste.
"How should it be going?" retorted Leek, not pleased at being pursued
by Brown major like this.
"Is it off?" resumed Brown, wiping his hot face. "It's such a wind,
Onions."
"No, it's not off, and it's not likely to be off. Lock up the pistols
for now, Shrewsbury."
"But it's awful, you know," continued Brown, mounting the foot-rail of
the bed, and placing himself astride it. "When I got up this morning it
seemed to me too improbable a thing really to take place. Suppose one
of 'em gets killed? I say, Shrewsbury, couldn't you persuade them off
it?"
Lord Shrewsbury gave his head an emphatic shake. "We have been at both
of them, Gall and Bertie, and tried everything tryable. You might as
well speak to two posts. Let it drop, Brown; it's of no good bothering
us."
Brown let it drop, and did it with a good grace: he was powerless.
"Have you engaged a surgeon?" he asked.
"A surgeon? No."
"But you'll have to take one. A surgeon's a necessary appendage to
duels. Sometimes each side takes its own."
Singular perhaps to say, this "necessary appendage," as Brown major put
it, had not been thought of by the seconds. They looked at one another
in the pause that ensued. Onions broke it, more emphatically than
politely.
"To speak to a French doctor might blow the whole thing. He'd go right
off to the police."
"But you can't take two fellows out to shoot at each other without
having a surgeon at hand," debated Brown major, opening his eyes in his
simple manner. "Don't you see it, Shrewsbury? Suppose they got wounded.
While you were running to find a doctor, one of 'em might bleed to
death."
"Both might, for the matter of that," acknowledged Lord Shrewsbury,
tilting himself against the tall secretaire, taller even than himself.
"Brown's right, Onions. It's odd we never thought of it."
Onions turned to the window, open to the unsavoury harbour, and stood
there in silence. He did not see his way clear on this new point. Not a
single doctor in the town was known to him; every one of them might
prove a traitor. And, moreover, he had some private doubts of his
French, did it come to a delicate negotiation.
"Look here," exclaimed Brown major, briskly, a happy thought striking
him; "would not my brother Bob do to go out with you? He is at St.
George's Hospital, you know, takes his turn to go round with the
surgeons as a dresser. He has his case of instruments over here, and I
know he'd be true."
The suggestion was seized upon, and Brown major flew off and brought
back his brother. Mr. Robert Brown—a young man of twenty, with a fresh,
good-natured, round face—affirmed that he could bind up wounds and
restore fainting patients to life with the most skilled hand at St.
George's; ay, and extract a bullet, if it came to that. He gave his
promise to keep the secret, and seemed to look forward to the affair as
a piece of delightful fun, rather than one of solemnity and danger.
This settled, Leek and Talbot went down on the port, deeming it well to
show themselves to their friends, lest suspicion should be excited.
When we have a momentous secret on hand, you know, we are apt to fear
the world may miraculously discover it. Gall and Loftus were both
there, on the plage, before the établissement. Indeed it seemed that
half the town had gathered on the port, here and in various other
parts, to watch the turbulent sea. None could have discerned anything
unusual in the demeanour of the two young men, soon to be the
combatants in a great tragedy. Both were a little silent, but that was
all.
The wind had been rising higher and higher since the previous day.
These London inland people called it a hurricane, and gazed on the sea
with an interest that partook of awe. It was indeed very rough—sailors
might have said half a gale; but the boat from Folkestone had ventured
out, and, after a long and difficult passage, was trying to make the
harbour. On the pier, people unused to this could not stand without
difficulty, and chose rather the safer watching parts on the plage.
Some of the boys were gathered on the sands, near to that little yellow
house, the Maison de Sauvetage—rather an ominous name to-day.
"I'll bet you five shillings that she gets in, and that I take my
bath," said Dick Loftus, hot in dispute; for they had been telling him
he could not attempt that dangerous sea to-day, and different opinions
existed as to whether the steamer would or would not get in. "And
here's the five shillings to deposit," added Dick, proud of having so
much riches to display, a most unusual thing with him. "Come now,
_you_, Onions; you needn't laugh like that."
Onions was laughing to show his ease. He had an important rôle to
maintain, and the eyes of the world were upon him.
But for the white fleecy clouds dashing after each other across the
blue sky, the day would have been particularly bright and clear. The
waves of the receding tide were coming in with a high white froth,
breaking ere they touched their extent of way, and lifting their
foaming heads aloft. George Paradyne was talking to a man belonging to
the "Société de Naufrage," and the rest were listening to the boy's
pure French.
"You have not got the boat out to-day," he observed, alluding to the
rescue boat that is always in close attendance during bathing hours.
"She's not needed," crustily returned the man, who seemed a crusty
subject. "What bathers would venture into this sea?"
George Paradyne glanced at Dick, as much as to say, Hear that. But Dick
chose to take no notice, and the society man walked away.
"If this wind does not go down the meeting will have to be put off,"
whispered Leek, in an undertone, to Bertie Loftus. "The charge might be
blown off at a tangent, and take us seconds instead of you.
"Don't be fool enough to talk of it here, Onions," came the rebuking
answer; and Bertie caught up a glass and looked at the boat. She was
labouring hard; her two white funnels throwing themselves, as it
seemed, from side to side, her nose pitching awfully.
But she made her way, and drew near the port at last. People changed
their places to watch her in. Mr. Dick Loftus, in secret connivance
with himself, was left alone, and he seized on the opportunity. "Danger
in bathing to-day indeed!" contemptuously thought Dick. "I'll teach
them better."
Not very many minutes, and all at once a cry of anguish broke from the
treacherous waters. The boys turned at it; they came running from far
and near. Mrs. Loftus, Mrs. Gall, who had much ado to keep their
petticoats down over their crinolines, looked in the direction and
wondered what the cry meant; and Mr. Loftus came sauntering up. Like
his son Bertie he rarely hurried. Sir Simon trotted in more quickly.
Another cry!—a cry as from one hopelessly drowning.
"It's Dick! it's Dick!" shrieked Bertie. "Where's the boat? Where's the
man?"
Ah, then was commotion. Dick it was, who had been experimenting on the
waves on his own account. They ran hither and thither, shouting for the
man, calling for the boat; but the man did not answer, and the boat was
not on service to-day. While they were running like madmen, all in
confusion, Mr. Loftus stood in helpless despair—a very incapable man,
he, in any sudden emergency.
But see! While they have been crying and calling, another has been
doing. Some one who threw off his superfluous clothing, plunged into
the waves, and is nearing the drowning boy. He gains—he gains upon him!
He has him in his hands now, and is turning to battle back to shore
again; and a silent prayer is going up from many a heart to heaven.
There ensues a pause of agonized suspense; and then a low murmur of
thankfulness, gradually rising into a shout of admiration, breaks out
from the spectators. Sir Simon Orville fairly dances in his glee, while
the tears run down his cheeks.
"Who is it that has saved him?" asked Mr. Loftus, feeling as if the one
half of his substance, the whole gratitude of his remaining years,
might well be given in recompense. The beaming generous grey eyes of
the rescuer met his in answer, and he knew them for George Paradyne's.
Mr. Dick was conveyed in rather an ignominious fashion to the yellow
Maison de Sauvetage, followed by a long tail, who were shut out
unceremoniously. Brown major's brother, announcing himself in obscure
French as a "doctoor," was allowed to enter. The attendants placed Dick
in one of the beds that the room contained, and a French surgeon,
springing it was hard to say whence, appeared upon the scene. But no
vigorous means of resuscitation were resorted to, simply because the
patient, who was not very far gone, revived without them. George
Paradyne, meanwhile, was quietly dressing himself, throwing off thanks
and homage as he best could. Sir Simon Orville, however, would not be
thrown off. He took possession of him and carried him back in triumph
to the Hotel du Nord to dinner.
George was shown to a chamber to brush his still wet hair, when Mr.
Loftus came in, and held out his hand.
"How can I show my gratitude to you for what you have done?"
"Oh, sir, thank you; but it does not deserve any particular gratitude,"
was the boy's laughing answer, as he resigned perforce his right hand,
while his left held the hair-brush. "I am so very glad I happened to be
there."
"Where did you learn to swim like that?"
"In the West Indies, when I was a little fellow. Papa's regiment was
quartered there. We had an old black servant, who taught me. He used to
carry me to the water, and let me sport in it like an alligator. Few
can swim as I do."
"I have been very distant to you since I came here. You cannot but have
observed it," resumed Mr. Loftus, making the confession as an atonement
in his impulse of generosity; and indeed he had very markedly held
himself aloof from the boy in his pride and condemnation. "This has
made me ashamed of myself."
"Don't say anything, sir. I quite understood it. If my father had been
the rogue you believed, it was only what I, his son, deserved."
"As I believed," repeated Mr. Loftus, sad commiseration in his tone.
"All the world believed it, George."
"I know they did, sir."
"Well, it is not what I can enter upon with you; and I begin now to see
how unjust my feeling to you has been. I—"
"But I wish you would enter upon it, sir; I wish you would let me say
how _certain_ I am that my father was innocent," interrupted George,
his face becoming flushed with a crimson glow, his eyes raised full and
earnest to those of Mr. Loftus. "I was only a young lad when it
happened, between twelve and thirteen; but I was old enough to judge.
Why, Mr. Loftus, but for feeling myself free of that inheritance of
guilt, could I have gone on bravely as I have, and done battle with the
difficulties thrown in my path—the contempt I have had to stand? At
Orville College there has been a dead-set against me from the first—an
awful opposition; and I am quite sure that past charge against my
father is the foundation of it, though it may not be generally known to
the school. When I feel inclined to give in, beaten and hopeless, I say
to myself, 'He was innocent, and I'll bear up in spite of all this for
his sake;' and that gives me pluck to fight on again."
"Did you know the particulars of the case?" asked Mr. Loftus, admiring
the brave and hopeful nature, in spite of his wonder that any such
opinion on the late Captain Paradyne's case could for one moment
obtain, even with his son.
"Yes, every one of them," replied George. "I don't suppose there was a
single item that did not fix itself on my heart. The sudden
discovery—made first of all by you, sir—that something seemed wrong,
and then the looking into it privately by yourself and Mr. Trace, and
your finding out the frauds, and the arrest of my father. If he had
only lived out the investigation, he would have disproved the charge."
"You wish me to speak of this unreservedly to you, I see, as if you
were a stranger," observed Mr. Loftus; in answer, as it seemed, to the
boy's vehemence.
"Yes, sir, if you please. I used to wish I might speak to you of it at
the time, and get you to look at it in the light I saw it."
"Then, knowing the details, _how_ could you, and how can you, fancy
your father was not guilty? Remember, my boy, you have asked for this,
and I wish to speak with all kindness. He was the only one connected
with the office who could have done it. The clerks had not the
opportunity."
"Who did do it I can't say, though I have a doubt; but my father it was
not," answered George. "I'll tell you a little matter that happened,
sir; not much, you'll say. A week or so before the explosion, I was
doing my Latin exercise one evening in the study at home, when papa
came in and sat down behind me. He was very quiet, and I forgot he was
there; but when I got up to put my books away I saw him. He was leaning
forward with his elbow on his knee, pulling at his whiskers, as he
would do when in deep thought; and he must have been like that, quite
still, all the time. 'What are you thinking of, papa?' I said; 'what's
the matter?' He came out of his reverie then, and put his hand upon my
shoulder in his fond manner. 'The matter's this, George,' he said,
'that I have a suspicion something wrong is going on in the office, and
I cannot make out how, where, or what. I am not up to business, and
that's the truth. Either of my partners would find it out in no time.'
'Why don't you tell them, papa?' I asked. 'I am waiting till the sixth
of next month, George,' he said; 'that may put things straighter than,
to my mind, they are. If it does not, I shall speak to Mr. Trace.' But,
you know," added George, his great eyes suddenly becoming wet, "that
before the sixth of the next month—September—he was dead. Mr. Loftus, I
could stake my own life that he was sincere when he said that."
Mr. Loftus made no comment. It was the sixth of each month that they
used to balance up their accounts.
"After he was taken back to prison the day of the examination,"
continued George, "they let me go in to see him. I was with Mr. Hopper,
and he took me in. I burst out crying. Papa laid hold of my hand, very
grave and kind; 'George, I am perfectly innocent,' he said, 'do not
distress yourself. I am a little bewildered at present, it's true; and
I must understand what the frauds have been, and how committed, before
I can refute them. You remember my saying to you, George, that I had a
doubt; I wish I had spoken at once, instead of waiting to see whether I
was right or wrong. I wish I had telegraphed to the Isle of Wight for
Mr. Loftus, and had the whole thing investigated. But that must be done
now. Tell your mamma from me, that it is all right; tell her it is a
mistake, or something worse, on the part of those who have charged me.
My boy, you have never had cause to blush for your father, and you have
none now.' I was sent out then, Hopper telling me to wait outside for
him, while he spoke with papa. He came out soon, and I went home, and—"
George Paradyne broke down. He leaned his head on the dressing-table
and fairly sobbed. Mr. Loftus touched him gently, and said a soothing
word.
"In an hour or two after that, word was brought that he was dead,"
presently resumed George. "He died with the suspicion of the guilt upon
him, and nobody cared to refute it. I talked to Hopper till he said I
worried him, asking him to take it up. I went and saw Mr. Trace, and
told him all this, but he only shook his head, and spoke kindly to me,
and said there was no doubt. I knew there was no doubt, but it was the
other way; no doubt of his innocence."
"Will you let me ask you one question, George? If your father was not
guilty, who, in your opinion, was?"
"I don't much like to say," was the answer. "And at the best, it is but
a doubt."
"I think you had better say it."
"I fancied it was Hopper."
"Hopper!" repeated Mr. Loftus, lifting his head quickly. "No; that was
impossible."
"His manner made me doubt him at first: it was very singular. I am sure
that he knew who was guilty; and I think it was himself. And then, sir,
you know he disappeared very soon after."
"Yes; that is, he disappeared from Liverpool. He may have taken a
clerkship in some London house. But Hopper could not have been guilty.
There's the dinner bell. Once more, let me thank you for the service
you have rendered my boy Richard."
George Paradyne followed Mr. Loftus down stairs, conscious that his
words had made no sort of impression upon him. It was always so:
himself against the world. Even his own mother, his father's wife, had
never listened to this persistently expressed belief in the innocence.
Mr. Loftus knew the theory to be a mistaken one; but he thought none
the worse of the boy for entertaining it.