“Tell Mister Bob--Mr. O'Reilly I mean--to come to me,” were the first
words of old Dr. Hickman, as he awoke on the following morning.
“Well, sir, how have you slept?” said his son, approaching the bedside,
and taking a chair; “have you rested well?”
“Middling,-only middling, Bob. The place is like a vault, and the rats
have it all their own way. They were capering about the whole night, and
made such a noise trying to steal off with one of my shoes.” “Did they
venture that far?”
“Ay, did they! but I couldn't let it go with them. I know you 're in
a hurry to stand in them yourself, Bob, and leave me and the rats to
settle it between us--ay!” “Really, sir, these are jests---”
“Too like earnest to be funny, Bob; so I feel them myself. Ugh! ugh!
The damp of this place is freezing the very heart's blood of me. How
is Nalty this morning?” “Like a fellow taken off a wreck, sir, after a
week's starvation. He is sitting at the fire there, with two blankets
round him, and vows to heaven, every five minutes, that if he was once
back in Old Dominick Street, a thousand guineas would n't tempt him to
such another expedition.”
The old doctor laughed till it made him cough, and when the fit was
over, laughed again, wiping his weeping eyes, and chuckling in the most
unearthly glee at the lawyer's discomfiture.
“Wrapped up in blankets, eh, Bob?” said he, that he might hear further
of his fellow-traveller's misery.
O'Reilly saw that he had touched the right key, and expatiated for some
minutes upon Nalty's sufferings, throwing out, from time to time, adroit
hints that only certain strong and hale constitutions could endure
privations like these. “Now, you, sir,” continued he, “you look as much
yourself as ever; in fact, I half doubt how you are to play the sick
man, with all these signs of rude health about you.”
“Leave that to me, Bob; I think I've seen enough of them things to know
them now. When I 've carried my point, and all's safe and secure, you
'll see me like the pope we read of, that looked all but dead till they
elected him, and then stood up stout and hearty five minutes after,--we
'll have a miracle of this kind in our own family.”
“I suspect, sir, we shall have difficulty in obtaining an interview,”
said O'Reilly.
“No!” rejoined the old man, with a scarcely perceptible twinkle of his
fishy eyes.
“Nalty 's of my opinion, and thinks that Lady Eleanor will positively
decline it.”
“No,” echoed he once more.
“And that, without any suspicion of our plan, she will yet refuse to
receive you.”
“I 'm not going to ask her, Bob,” croaked the old doctor, with a species
of chuckling crow in his voice.
“Then you have abandoned your intention,” exclaimed O'Reilly, in dismay,
“and the whole journey has been incurred for nothing.”
“No!” said the doctor, whose grim old features were lit up with a most
spiteful sense of his superior cunning.
“Then I don't understand you,--that's clear,” exclaimed O'Reilly,
testily. “You say that you do not intend to call upon her--”
“Because she's coming here to see me,” cried the old man, in a scream
of triumph; “read that, it's an answer to a note I sent off at eight
o'clock. Joe waited and brought back this reply.” As he spoke, he drew
from beneath his pillow a small note, and handed it to his son. O'Reilly
opened it with impatience, and read:--
“Lady Eleanor Darcy begs to acknowledge the receipt of Dr. Hickman's
note, and, while greatly indisposed to accept of an interview which
must be so painful to both parties without any reasonable prospect of
rendering service to either, feels reluctant to refuse a request made
under circumstances so trying. She will therefore comply with Dr.
Hickman's entreaty, and, to spare him the necessity of venturing abroad
in this severe weather, will call upon him at twelve o'clock, should she
not learn in the meanwhile that the hour is inconvenient.”
“Lady Eleanor Darcy come out to call upon you, sir!” said O'Reilly, with
an amazement in part simulated to flatter the old man's skill, but far
more really experienced. “This is indeed success.”
“Ay, you may well say so,” chimed in the old man; “for besides that
I always look ten years older when I 'm in bed and unshaved, with my
nightcap a little off,--this way,--the very sight of these miserable
walls, green with damp and mould, this broken window, and the
poverty-struck furniture, will all help, and I can get up a cough, if I
only draw a long breath.”
“I vow, sir, you beat us all; we are mere children compared to you. This
is a master-stroke of policy.”
“What will Nalty say now--eh, Bob?”
“Say, sir? What can any one say, but that the move showed a master's
hand, as much above our skill to accomplish as it was beyond our wit to
conceive? I should like greatly to hear how you intend to play the game
out,” said O'Reilly, throwing a most flattering expression of mingled
curiosity and astonishment into his features.
“Wait till I see what trumps the adversary has in hand, Bob; time enough
to determine the lead when the cards are dealt.”
“I suppose I must keep out of sight, and perhaps Nalty also.”
“Nalty ought to be in the house if we want him; as my medical friend,
he could assist to draw any little memorandum we might determine upon;
a mere note, Bob, between friends, not requiring the interference
of lawyers, eh?” There was something fiendish in the low laugh which
accompanied these words. “What brings that fellow into the room so
often, putting turf on, and looking if the windows are fast? I don't
like him, Bob.” This was said in reference to a little chubby man, in
a waiter's jacket, who really had taken every imaginable professional
privilege to obtrude his presence.
“There, there, that will do,” said O'Reilly, harshly; “you needn't come
till we ring the bell.”
“Leave the turf-basket where it is. Don't you think we can mind the fire
for ourselves?”
“Let Joe wait, that will be better, sir,” whispered O'Reilly; “we cannot
be too cautious here.” And with a motion of the hand he dismissed the
waiter, who, true to his order, seemed never to hear “an aside.”
“Leave me by myself, Bob, for half an hour; I 'd like to collect my
thoughts,--to settle and think over this meeting. It's past eleven now,
and she said twelve o'clock in the note.”
“Well, I 'll take a stroll over the hills, and be back for dinner about
three; you'll be up by that time.”
“That will I, and very hungry too,” muttered the old man. “This dying
scene has cost me the loss of my breakfast; and, faith, I 'm so weak
and low, my head is quite dizzy. There 's an old saying, Mocking is
catching; and sure enough there may be some truth in it too.”
O'Reilly affected not to hear the remark, and moved towards the door,
when he turned about and said,--
“I should say, sir, that the wisest course would be to avoid anything
like coercion, or the slightest approach to it. The more the appeal is
made to her feelings of compassion and pity--”
“For great age and bodily infirmity,” croaked the old man, while the
filmy orbs shot forth a flash of malicious intelligence.
“Just so, sir. To others' eyes you do indeed seem weak and bowed down
with years. It is only they who have opportunity to recognize the
clearness of your intellect and the correctness of your judgment can see
how little inroad time has made.”
“Ay, but it has, though,” interposed the old man, irritably. “My hand
shakes more than it used to do; there 's many an operation I 'd not be
able for as I once was.”
“Well, well, sir,” said his son, who found it difficult to repress the
annoyance he suffered from his continual reference to the old craft;
“remember that you are not called upon now to perform these things.”
“Sorry I am it is so,” rejoined the other. “I gave up seven hundred a
year when I left Loughrea to turn gentleman with you at Gwynne Abbey;
and faith, the new trade isn't so profitable as the old one! So it is,”
muttered he to himself; “and now there 's a set of young chaps come into
the town, with their medical halls, and great bottles of pink and blue
water in the windows! What chance would I have to go back again?”
O'Reilly heard these half-uttered regrets in silence; he well knew
that the safest course was to let the feeble brain exhaust its scanty
memories without impediment. At length, when the old doctor seemed to
have wearied of the theme, he said,--
“If she make allusion to the Dalys, sir, take care not to confess our
mistake about that cabin they called 'The Corvy,' and which you remember
we discovered that Daly had settled upon his servant. Let Lady Eleanor
suppose that we withdrew proceedings out of respect to her.”
“I know, I know,” said the old man, querulously, for his vanity was
wounded by these reiterated instructions.
“It is possible, too, sir, she 'd stand upon the question of rank; if
so, say that Heffernan--no, say that Lord Castlereagh will advise the
king to confer the baronetcy on the marriage--don't forget that, sir--on
the marriage.”
“Indeed, then, I'll say nothing about it,” said he, with an energy
almost startling. “It's that weary baronetcy cost me the loan to
Heffernan on his own bare bond; I 'm well sick of it! Seven thousand
pounds at five and a half per cent, and no security!”
“I only thought, sir, it might be introduced incidentally,” said
O'Reilly, endeavoring to calm down this unexpected burst of irritation.
“I tell you I won't. If I'm bothered anymore about that same baronetcy,
I 'll make a clause in my will against my heir accepting it How bad you
are for the coronet with the two balls; faix, I remember when the family
arms had three of them; ay, and we sported them over the door, too. Eh,
Bob, shall I tell her that?”
“I don't suppose it would serve our cause much, sir,” said O'Reilly,
repressing with difficulty his swelling anger. Then, after a moment, he
added, “I could never think of obtruding any advice of mine, sir, but
that I half feared you might, in the course of the interview, forget
many minor circumstances, not to speak of the danger that your natural
kindliness might expose you to in any compact with a very artful woman
of the world.”
“Don't be afraid of that anyhow, Bob,” said he, with a most hideous
grin. “I keep a watchful eye over my natural kindliness, and, to say
truth, it has done me mighty little mischief up to this. There, now,
leave me quiet and to myself.”
When the old man was left alone, his head fell slightly forward, and his
hands, clasped together, rested on his breast. His eyes, half closed and
downcast, and his scarcely heaving chest, seemed barely to denote life,
or at most that species of life in which the senses are steeped in
apathy. The grim, hard features, stiffened by years and a stern nature,
never moved; the thin, close-drawn lips never once opened; and to any
observer the figure might have seemed a lifeless counterfeit of old age.
And yet within that brain, fast yielding to time and infirmity, where
reason came and went like the flame of some flickering taper, and where
memory brought up objects of dreamy fancy as often as bygone events,
even there plot and intrigue held their ground, and all the machinery of
deception was at work, suggesting, contriving, and devising wiles that
in their complexity were too puzzling for the faculties that originated
them. Is there a Nemesis in this, and do the passions by which we have
swayed and controlled others rise up before us in our weak hours, and
become the tyrants of our terror-stricken hearts?
It is not our task, were it even in our power, to trace the strange
commingled web of reality and fiction that composed the old man's
thoughts. At one time he believed he was supplicating the Knight
to accord him some slight favor, as he had done more than once
successfully. Then he suddenly remembered their relative stations, so
strangely reversed; the colossal fortune he had himself accumulated; the
hopes and ambitions of his son and grandson, whose only impediments to
rank and favor lay in himself, the humble origin of all this wealth. How
strange and novel did the conviction strike him that all the benefit of
his vast riches lay in the pleasure of their accumulation, that for him
fortune had no seductions to offer! Rank, power, munificence, what were
they? He never cared for them.
No; it was the game he loved even more than the stake, that tortuous
course of policy by which he had outwitted this man and doubled on that.
The schemes skilfully conducted, the plots artfully accomplished,--these
he loved to think over; and while he grieved to reflect upon the
reckless waste he witnessed in the household of his sou, he felt a
secret thrill of delight that he, and he alone, was capable of those
rare devices and bold expedients by which such a fortune could
be amassed. Once and only once did any expression of his features
sympathize with these ponderings; and then a low, harsh laugh broke
suddenly from him, so fleeting that it failed to arouse even himself. It
came from the thought that if after his death his son or grandson would
endeavor to forget his memory, and have it forgotten by others, that
every effort of display, every new evidence of their gorgeous wealth,
would as certainly evoke the criticism of the envious world, who, in
spite of them, would bring up the “old doctor” once more, and, by the
narrative of his life, humble them to the dust.
This desire to bring down to a level with himself those around him had
been the passion of his existence. For this he had toiled and labored,
and struggled through imaginary poverty when possessed of wealth; had
endured scoffs and taunts,--had borne everything,--and to this desire
could be traced his whole feeling towards the Darcys. It was no
happiness to him to be the owner of their princely estate if he did
not revel in the reflection that they were in poverty. And this envious
feeling he extended to his very son. If now and then a vague thought
of the object of his present journey crossed his mind, it was speedily
forgotten in the all-absorbing delight of seeing the proud Lady
Eleanor humbled before him, and the inevitable affliction the Knight
would experience when he learned the success of this last device. That
it would succeed he had little doubt; he had come too well prepared with
arguments to dread failure. Nay, he thought, he believed he could compel
compliance if such were to be needed.
It was in the very midst of these strangely confused musings that the
doctor's servant announced to him the arrival of Lady Eleanor Darey.
The old man looked around him on the miserable furniture, the damp,
discolored walls, the patched and mended window-panes, and for a moment
he could not imagine where he was; the repetition of the servant's
announcement, however, cleared away the cloud from his faculties, and
with a slight gesture of his hand he made a sign that she should be
admitted. A momentary pause ensued, and he could hear his servant
expressing a hope that her Ladyship might not catch cold, as the
snow-drift was falling heavily, and the storm very severe. A delay of a
few minutes was caused to remove her wet cloak. What a whole story did
these two or three seconds reveal to old Hickman as he thought of that
Lady Eleanor Darey of whose fastidious elegance the whole “West” was
full, whose expensive habits and luxurious tastes had invested her with
something like an Oriental reputation for magnificence,--of her coming
on foot and alone, through storm and snow, to wait upon him!
He listened eagerly; her footstep was on the stairs, and he heard a low
sigh she gave, as, reaching the landing-place, she stood for a moment to
recover breath.
“Say Lady Eleanor Darey,” said she, unaware that her coming had been
already telegraphed to the sick man's chamber.
A faint complaining cry issued from the room as she spoke, and Lady
Eleanor said: “Stay! Perhaps Dr. Hickman is too ill; if so, at another
time. I 'll come this evening or to-morrow.”
“My master is most impatient to see your Ladyship,” said the man. “He
has talked of nothing else all the morning, and is always asking if it
is nigh twelve o'clock.”
Lady Eleanor nodded as if to concede her permission, and the servant
entered the half-darkened room. A weak, murmuring sound of voices
followed; and the servant returned, saying, in a cautious whisper, “He
is awake, my Lady, and wishes to see your Ladyship now.”
Lady Eleanor's heart beat loudly and painfully; many a sharp pang shot
through it, as, with a strong effort to seem calm, she entered.