THE COUNT HESITATES.
When Will returned to the hotel, he found his father waiting up for him,
alone. He was too much overcome by the terrible scene he had just
witnessed to make any but the barest apology for his discourtesy, and
even that his father interrupted as unnecessary.
"I left the theatre early," he said gloomily. "Dove was feverish and
unwell. I think she must have caught cold when coming up with us in the
morning. When I got her here, her cheeks were flushed and hot, and I saw
that she was restless and languid by turns--in short, very feverish."
"Did you send for a doctor?"
"Oh, no; there was nothing one could speak to him about. To-morrow
morning, if these symptoms are not gone, it might be advisable to
consult some one."
They sate up very late that night discussing their future plans. There
were but two alternatives before them. It was considered possible that
with a few thousand pounds Mr. Anerley could meet present liabilities,
and wait over for the time at which it was hoped the affairs of the bank
would, through the realisation of certain securities, be in a fair way
of recovery. If, on the other hand, this present money was not
forthcoming, the only course for Mr. Anerley was to remove from St.
Mary-Kirby to London, and try to find some means of subsistence in the
great city.
"There is only Hubbard, of all my old acquaintances, in a position to
help me," said Mr. Anerley; "and he is the last whom I should like to
ask for any such favour."
"I think you are inclined to misjudge the Count, sir," said Will; "and
in this case you ought at least to see what he has to say before
impeaching his good feeling. After all, you will find a good many men
with as much money as the Count, and as little to spend it on, quite as
unwilling to oblige an old friend as you half expect him to be."
After a good deal of argument, it was arranged that Mr. Anerley should
see the Count on the following morning. Will forced him to this
decision by a long description of what would fall upon the St.
Mary-Kirby household in the event of his refusal.
"What is your pride compared with their wretchedness?" he said.
"My boy," he replied, "I have no pride, except when I have a good gun in
my hand and a good dog working bravely in front of me. Further, do you
know so little of your own family as to think that poverty, the
nightmare of novelists, would be so appalling to them?"
"Not to them, perhaps; but to you, looking at them."
And that was true of the Chesnut Bank household. Misfortune was as
bitter to them as to any other family; only it was for one another that
they grieved. They had been educated into a great unselfishness through
the constant kindly and half-mocking counsel of the head of the house;
but that unselfishness only embittered misfortune. They did not brood
over their individual mishaps, but they exaggerated the possible effects
of misfortune on each other, and shared this imaginary misery. Mr.
Anerley was not much put out by the knowledge that henceforth he would
scarcely have the wherewithal to keep himself decently clothed; but it
was only when he thought of Dove being deprived of her port-wine, and of
Mrs. Anerley being cabined up in London lodgings (though these two were
as careless of these matters as he about his matters), that he vowed he
would go and see Count Schoenstein, and beg him for this present
assistance.
"As for Dove, poor girl!" he said to Will, "you know what riches she
prizes. You know what she craves for. A look from one she loves is
riches to her; you can make her as wealthy as an empress by being kind
to her."
"I'm sure no one ever could be unkind to _her_," said Will.
But the visit to Count Schoenstein was postponed next morning; for Dove
was worse than on the previous night, and was fain to remain in bed. Of
course a physician was called in. He had a long talk with Mr. Anerley,
afterwards; and perhaps it was his manner, more than anything he
actually said, that disquieted Dove's guardian. What he actually did
say was that the young girl was evidently very delicate; that on her
tender constitution this slight febrile attack might lead to graver
consequences; and that she must at once have careful, womanly nursing
and country air. _Per se_, her ailment was not of a serious character.
Mrs. Anerley was at once telegraphed for. Under the circumstances, they
did not care to remove Dove to St. Mary-Kirby, with the chance of her
having to return a few days afterwards to London.
"And if I had any misgivings about asking the Count to lend me the
money," said Mr. Anerley, "I have none now. If country air is necessary
to Dove's health, country air she shall have, somehow or other."
"If we cannot manage _that_, sir," said Will, "we had better go and bury
ourselves for a couple of imbeciles."
So it was on the next morning that Mr. Anerley went to Count
Schoenstein's house in Bayswater. He went early, and found that the
Count had just breakfasted. He was shown up to the drawing-room.
It was a large and handsome apartment, showily and somewhat tawdrily
furnished. A woman's hand was evidently wanted in the place. The pale
lavender walls, with their stripes of delicately-painted panelling, were
scratched and smudged here and there; the chintz coverings of the
couches and chairs were ragged and uneven; and the gauzy drapery of the
chandeliers and mirrors was about as thick with dust as the ornate books
which lay uncovered on the tables. There were a hundred other little
points which a woman's eye would have detected, but which, on the duller
masculine perception, only produced a vague feeling of uncomfortable
disorder and want of cleanliness.
The Count entered in a gorgeously embroidered dressing-gown, above the
collar of which a black satin neckerchief was tied round his neck in a
series of oily folds.
"Good morning, Anerley," he said, in his grandest manner--so grand,
indeed, that his visitor was profoundly surprised. Indeed, the Count
very rarely attempted seignorial airs with his Chesnut Bank neighbour.
It is unnecessary to repeat the details of a very unpleasant interview.
Mr. Anerley explained his position; the Count, while not actually
refusing to lend him the money, took occasion to betray his resentment
against Will. The upshot of it was that Mr. Anerley, with some dignity,
refused the help which the Count had scarcely offered, and walked out of
the house.
He was a little angry, doubtless, and there was a contemptuous curl on
his lips as he strode down the street; but these feelings soon subsided
into a gentler sadness, as he thought of Dove and the chances of her
getting country air.
He looked up at the large houses on both sides of him, and thought how
the owners of these houses had only to decide between one sheltered
seaside village and another, between this gentle climate and that
gentler one, for pleasure's sake; while he, with the health of his
darling in the balance, was tied down to the thick and clammy atmosphere
of the streets. And then he thought of how many a tramp, footsore and
sickeningly hungry, must have looked up at Chesnut Bank, and wondered
why God had given all His good things--sweet food, and grateful wine,
and warm clothing, and pleasant society, and comfortable sleep--to the
occupant of that pleasant-looking place. It was now his turn to be
envious; but it was for Dove alone that he coveted a portion of their
wealth.