THE BEGINNING OF THE SEQUEL.
At first Hugh felt and seemed crushed. He had thought of many
difficulties and troubles that might await him in his married life, but
the one thing which had not entered into his calculations—Lilia’s
death—was the unexpected occurrence which happened.
He had sometimes felt, from the first beginning of their married life,
that something was hanging over him—some fatality. The whole story of
his acquaintance with the Pyms was so strange, that the memory of it
oppressed him. Perhaps this accounted for the feeling of discomfort
which was now and then almost a dread of the future.
There were moments when he had thought that perhaps he was destined to
die early; and he had made his will carefully, after much consultation
with Mr. Mervyn, who was always, as it were, ready to hand during his
short married life. Never, never once did he think he was to lose his
beautiful tormentor, and so tragically.
At first he was prostrate. No one could rouse him. His father came to
him and stayed. Dr. Hildyard spent his Sundays at the Pinewood. But
efforts to coax and even startle him out of his gloom were fruitless.
For a whole year he could not shake off the vivid recollection of what
none but himself knew—the crowning horror of Lilia’s death-bed, her
awful request, and his promise.
But through all this darkness of soul his faith did not waver. He
reproached himself bitterly that he had not insisted more, struggled
more, to help Lilia in her uncertainty, her unbelief. He blamed himself
for her dying blasphemy, and for what he considered his cowardice in
promising to kill himself. He went through their short life together
over and over again, telling himself that at this juncture he ought to
have said and done this thing, at such another that. He spent his days
in listless wanderings about the Pinewood; his nights, or the best part
of them, in feverish study, which availed him little or nothing. Thus
passed the first year of his widowerhood.
Then came another sharp shock—the death of his good, kind friend, Dr.
Hildyard, after a short illness of ten days.
During those ten days of close attendance upon his patron, Hugh’s eyes
were opened. He saw that, the existence of which in a human being he had
never suspected, never believed possible, a lofty soul.
Doctors are proverbially the worst patients. Dr. Hildyard, well aware
that this was the end of his career, was a little impatient, perhaps, as
to remedies which could not possibly reverse the _fiat_. In a few days
his soul would be required of him, he knew that. He bore his physical
agony with stoicism; his anxiety to leave his affairs in perfect order
was so intense, it was a greater soporific than any narcotic. He talked
much and often, between the paroxysms, to the young man in whose genius
his faith had never wavered. He told his life—the difficulties he had
successfully fought against and overcome, the awful temptations he had
struggled with to the bitter end, the enmities which had dogged his
footsteps and poisoned his simplest enjoyments—to Hugh. Each day of Dr.
Hildyard’s existence, each day of that man who was supposed to be one of
the most enviable beings in creation, who was in receipt of splendid
fees, courted by all classes, the much-lauded hero of the medical press
and the secretly hated of all the unsuccessful of the faculty (and their
name is legion), was a miniature martyrdom; and he was awaiting his
release with eager joy—a joy only damped by remorse that he had not done
better, had not been a more faithful servant of the Giver of All.
“The miserable way in which I have crawled through my difficulties!” he
wailed to his _protégé_. “Paull, never, never, _fly low_! Soar over your
temptations and troubles, or when you come to die you will be ashamed of
yourself, like I am!”
It was Dr. Hildyard’s exalted opinion of what a man should be, that
first abashed, then roused, Hugh to cast aside self and live a new life.
Very soon after his friend’s death he set himself resolutely to a fresh
beginning.
He had been strongly recommended by Dr. Hildyard to the influential men
who came to shake his hand for the last time; and his start in practice
as a specialist in nerve cases was made easy to him.
He took a house recently vacated by a well-known physician in a street
frequented by doctors near Regent Street, and soon had plenty of
patients, mostly former patients of Dr. Hildyard’s, who already knew him
by repute. Before five years were over he had made some remarkable
cures, had contributed some original and, in certain cases, startling
papers on obscure nervous diseases to the leading medical journals, and
was elected to appointments in four metropolitan hospitals.
Then he was consulted by royalty, and his private practice doubled
itself. Ten years passed away, fifteen—it was now nineteen years since
the awful day of Lilia’s death—and Dr. Hugh Paull was not only known
throughout the English-speaking world, but his works were translated
into French, German, and Italian, and his name was honoured by the
medical profession in all countries.
His private life might be summed up in one word—_Ralph_.
Ralph was the name he had allotted to the puny pale babe who had been
the unconscious instrument of his salvation from self-murder.
Ralph had been the name of an invalid uncle, his father’s younger
brother, of whom he had pleasant childish recollections—a gentle,
white-faced young man stretched on a couch in a pretty garden, who had
seemed to know exactly what little boys liked, and to let them have it.
So when he stood, one of the little group of black-garmented persons at
the old stone font in the Pinewood church, and Mr. Mervyn said, “Name
this child,” he remembered his uncle and said “Ralph.”
The delicate babe with the thoughtful blue eyes grew slowly and
painfully from babyhood into childhood, from childhood into youth. At
first Hugh felt the responsibility of being father and mother in one to
the fragile boy—a heavy care. The child was always in his mind, an
anxiety that never left him.
One day he had gone to a well-known educationist almost in despair.
After detailing his experiments in nursery training, which up to then
seemed a failure, he said, “What am I to do?”
“Leave the child alone, like I left mine,” said the authority. “Get him
a good nurse, and don’t interfere with her without necessity. When you
have done with the nurse, get him a good governess; then send him to
school.”
To Hugh, who had hitherto acted as a head-gardener devoted to one sickly
plant, the advice seemed rough. But he plucked up courage, and acted
upon it.
The boy grew up without many complications; but he was a strange, silent
lad. His two characteristics were an unappeasable love of study and a
concentrated, but undemonstrative, devotion to his father.
From the beginning of the change in Hugh, when he first began his
professional life in London, it was his custom to spend Saturday and
Sunday at the Pinewood. The trio—the tall, now gaunt and
careworn-looking, man; the thin, effeminate boy, and the mastiff Nero,
who always dogged their heels (an immediate descendant of Hugh’s first
acquaintance at the Pinewood)—were familiar figures to the country folk,
who were attached to Dr. Paull with an attachment born of his unvarying
justice and kindliness.
Following the advice given by the authority, Ralph’s instruction in
matters of faith and dogma was strictly ordinary and orthodox; and
remembering the result of Lilia’s peculiar up-bringing, Hugh was careful
to throw his son into the company of others of his own age as much as
possible. He failed to see what others saw—that the boy could not endure
the companionship of his fellows, and only suffered it because it was
his father’s will.
Meanwhile, Ralph showed great aptitude for science, and at nineteen was,
to his great delight, appointed secretary to the famous geologist W——,
who had been one of his grandfather Sir Roderick’s intimate friends. At
the time of the second storm that shook Dr. Paull’s life to its
foundations, Ralph was away on a walking tour with the great scientist.
Hugh Paull was alone in his town house.
He was sitting at the large dining-table in the big, silent room. The
thin, dark-eyed man, whose prematurely white hair added a dignity to the
pensive beauty of his face, would have been a suggestive figure to an
imaginative painter. As he slowly ate his frugal dinner, his eyes fixed
as he continued some important train of thought, now and then leaning
back in his chair, and absently crumbling his bread, while the old
butler Jones hovered noiselessly about in the background, this picture
of well-appointed solitude might have been named “Successful, but
alone.” Perhaps never, until Ralph went on this tour, had Hugh so
realised his desolation.
It was the height of the London season, and that very day he had had
three important consultations beside hospital and other work. But the
silence of the huge, quiet house oppressed him. He found it tiresome to
eat. He was planning to tire himself further by preparing a paper on a
recent case for the _Lancet_ when a carriage drove up to the door, and
there was a somewhat violent peal of the hall bell.
Jones, who had been butler to Dr. Hildyard till his death, and then
accepted service with Hugh in preference to any other, knew his rules
thoroughly. He was a spare little man, well fitted for his vocation; for
he had a respectful, almost soothing manner, which softened the denials
he had so often to give to nerve-patients wild to obtain the immediate
attendance of the great authority, Dr. Paull.
He went silently out, and gently opened the street door. The smart
single brougham and pair drawn up before the house was as unfamiliar to
him as were the two gentlemen standing on the doorstep, one of whom was
tall and fair, the other being short and dark, with piercing black eyes
and a thick black moustache. Both were dressed in the height of fashion;
in fact, were evidently _petits-maîtres_.
It was the tall, fair man who, slightly lifting his hat, said in good
English, but with a foreign accent:
“Can we see Dr. Hugh Paull at once?”
The bold demand—for Hugh was now a “consulting physician,” to be
approached through the patient’s ordinary medical attendant—nearly
deprived poor Jones of breath. He gave but one gasp only though, and
remembering these were foreigners and ignoramuses in medical etiquette,
recovered himself, and said politely, but in a somewhat shocked tone of
voice:
“I am very sorry, sir, but that is quite impossible.”
The fair man turned to the dark one with a smile, and said something
rapidly in a foreign tongue, upon which the dark young man produced a
cardcase and presented Jones with his card, saying, “Please, you will
give the docteur,” in broken and very foreign-sounding English.
Jones, seeing the word “Prince” prefixed to a, to him, unreadable and
unpronounceable name, was somewhat startled, for the title meant royalty
to his British mind. For a moment he was puzzled; then, saying, “Please,
will you step this way?” he hurried along the bare stone hall, and
ushering the distinguished visitors into the cheerless waiting-room,
with the skylight, rows of dining-room chairs against the walls, and an
old dining-table, whose dingy cloth was strewn with as dingily-covered
volumes of illustrated journals, hurried to his master with the card.
Hugh glanced at it listlessly, read “_Le Prince Andriocchi_,” and laid
it aside. Stray patients, arriving at odd moments, were always dismissed
with a certain formula, and Hugh was not giving a second thought to the
Prince Andriocchi or his card when an anxious voice piped at his elbow,
“What am I to say, sir?” and turning, he saw Jones watching him in
evident dismay.
“Say?” he asked. “To whom?”
“To the prince, sir! I took him into the waiting-room.”
“You took him into the _waiting-room_?” repeated Hugh, hardly believing
his own ears.
For a patient to be admitted outside regular hours and against all rule
was a most unwonted occurrence, and by Jones the impregnable, the
unassailable! Had a golden talisman—No! such an idea was a treason to
the faithful old servant.
“I thought as he was a prince, sir,” stammered Jones.
“Oh, well, never mind! I will explain to him that I cannot see him now,”
said Dr. Paull, good-naturedly, rising and going to the waiting-room.
The two men were seated, but rose and bowed as he entered. The tall fair
man, who had candid blue eyes and an insinuating smile, informed Hugh,
in laboured but fairly correct English, that they had been recommended
to consult him by the Spanish ambassador, whose son had been cured by
him last season in so marvellous a manner.
“But your highness is surely not Spanish?” asked Hugh, glancing at the
card he still held between his fingers.
“The prince,” said the fair man, bowing deferentially in the direction
of the dark little gentleman, who was watching them while he nervously
twisted his moustache, “is from Italy—is Italien. It is madame la
princesse who is from the land of chivalry. It is for madame la
princesse that we come to visit you.”
Hugh bowed.
“She is not very ill, I hope?” he said, awkwardly.
He had had but little experience of the denizens of other countries, and
this had been of their learned men, who have a family likeness no matter
in what latitude they are born. These two _élégants_ embarrassed him.
“How shall I explain?” said the fair man, knitting his brow and gazing
at the skylight. “You speak French? No? My friend the prince speak
French as Italien. I am sorry. But I tell you, monsieur le docteur, best
way I can: you so clever, you understand me with all my faults. M. le
prince here, he marry this lady, who is the daughter of the Duke de
Saldanhés. You know his name, of course? He is great at the Court of
Spain. You must surely hear that the princesse is one of the most
beautiful ladies in all the world; for the papers _de Société_, as you
call them, tell everyone that. The princesse adore M. le prince; he
adore her. But soon after the _noces_ madame becomes more delicate, and
she likes not to walk or drive; she shows no inclination for the world;
she goes much to the church, and gets _pâle, maigre_. In the truth,
monsieur le docteur, she shows symptoms of being, what you call, a
_sainte_.”
The fair man raised his eyebrows, and looked so oddly at Dr. Paull as he
half-whispered the last sentence, that Hugh felt inclined to laugh.
“I fear I cannot presume to cure a disposition to sanctity, sir,” he
said. His voice sounded rough, in contra-distinction to the suave,
delicately-pitched tones of his interlocutor. “I try to cure nervous
diseases; I cannot cure a tendency which the most exacting husband can
scarcely disapprove.”
“Monsieur is Catholique?” insinuated the fair man, sweetly.
“I—_what_? I beg your pardon, sir, but you took me by surprise,” added
Hugh, his thin face flushing.
Then he explained that if there were any symptoms of physical disease he
would see the princesse with pleasure, but that he did not prescribe for
the mind.
The fair man, whose white satin manners and womanish grace were
peculiarly repugnant to Hugh, rapidly translated Dr. Paull’s speech to
the prince in Italian (a language with which Hugh had a slight
acquaintance), and the prince made a voluble reply, which touched Hugh
as being the earnest appeal of a man who was in considerable anxiety on
the subject of his wife.
“I have understood his highness,” he said, somewhat dryly, when the
count (he had been addressed as such by the prince) turned towards him
to interpret; “and I will willingly see the lady and prescribe for her
if it be in my power to do her any good, which I doubt.”
“Ah! sir; but we do not doubt it,” said the count with enthusiasm. “Nor
did le Docteur Fosterre, who saw her it is two days ago, but whose
medicine the princesse will not accept.”
“Dr. Foster saw her?” asked Hugh, puzzled. (Dr. Foster was a
nerve-doctor with a large fashionable practice, much in favour with lady
patients.) “I fear if Dr. Foster has been unsuccessful, I can do
nothing.”
Further persuasions on the part of the count, who interpreted everything
to his princely friend, led to Hugh’s provisional promise that after two
days he would see the lady. He was to meet Dr. Foster in consultation on
the morrow, and intended to talk with him on the subject. Then a
difficulty was explained to him: the princess objected to doctors _in
toto_. The meeting must be brought about by stratagem. The great Dr. B——
S—— had fallen in with this arrangement, and had had a long interview
with the princess one evening at the Italian Embassy in Paris without
her realising that he was one of the obnoxious faculty until it was
over.
“But could _he_ do nothing?” asked Hugh, astonished.
“Monsieur, he said the same as the Docteur Z. in Rome, and your Docteur
Fosterre here in Londres. The princesse has a disease which is rare in
one who has all the world at her charming feet. She likes not life, she
longs for death, or, let us say, the heavens.”
“Which, interpreted, means the lady is a spoilt creature, and is
thoroughly discontented,” thought Hugh, with a smile of amusement, after
his visitors had oppressed him with a profusion of thanks, had bowed
themselves out, and driven off in the carriage. At first the interview
amused him; but after the novelty had worn off, he felt a distaste for
the task he had undertaken, neither an onerous nor an unpleasant one,
the interviewing of a beautiful and evidently amiable Spanish lady. But
Hugh disliked women as patients even more than he disliked them as
companions. His liking for the sex lay buried in Lilia’s grave.
After his consultation with Dr. Foster next day, he took him aside and
told him of the prince’s visit and request.
“I thought they would come to you,” said Dr. Foster, a short, stout
little man, his eyes twinkling. “Curious fellow, that count, isn’t he? I
can’t make him out. Means well, though, I daresay. A sort of cousin of
the prince’s, I understand. You know all about the family, don’t you?
No? Well, the Andriocchis are one of the most ancient Italian families.
He came into everything a couple of years ago, at his father’s death. He
is only six-and-twenty, though he looks older. I saw him here the first
season. He got into a fast set, and did no good. Last year his family
married him. Families in those countries always sort the young folks and
couple them, you know. Wonderful match—a great beauty—daughter of one of
those awfully blue-blooded Spanish grandees, Duke de Saldanhés, great
favourite at Court. She’s a charming woman, but——” Dr. Foster shook his
head, and looked whole volumes of wisdom.
“But?” asked Hugh, suddenly interested and sorry. He did not know why.
“Well, perhaps you’ll find out. She baffled me; that’s all I know. First
I thought there might be a suicidal tendency, or simple melancholia.
Soon gave up that idea—one of the keenest-witted women I ever met. She
gives you one look out of those lamps of eyes of hers, and tots you up
pretty correctly, I can tell you. No, no! She’s as sane as you or
I—saner perhaps, if the truth were known! But there’s something wrong
somewhere. Whether it’s fretting, or remorse—well, it’s no use
speculating. My opinion is this—she’s wretchedly ill; and before she can
get any better, the cause of it must be got at, and treated. Perhaps
you’ll do it. B—— S—— seems to have failed, and I confess myself
nowhere.”
Dr. Paull felt less distaste for his task after this interview with his
colleague: in fact, his professional interest was awakened; and when
three, then four days passed without his being summoned by the prince,
his surprise was flavoured with something akin to a feeling of
disappointment.
On the fifth day, when he was snatching a hasty breakfast, the prince’s
brougham drove up to the door, and the count alighted alone, and sent in
a message—might he see the doctor for one minute?
“Show him in here,” said Hugh.
Accordingly the count entered, apologising for his intrusion.
“It was necessaire that I find you early, docteur,” he said. “An
opportunity comes that you see madame la princesse to-night. She has
consented to visit the Covent Theatre, to see the new opera.”
“But, excuse me, I do not understand,” said Dr. Paull, somewhat dryly.
“I do not go to theatres and operas. I have no time, still less should I
go there to see patients.”
The count explained, almost pathetically, that the prince had naturally
feared that this was the case. “And, in anticipation of your refusal,
monsieur, I just paid visit to the Lady Forwood, to ask her to join in
our appeal.”
He drew a note from his breast-pocket. It was from Lady Forwood, the
wife of the popular baronet, Sir David Forwood, who had been Hugh’s
friend for many years. Lady Forwood was the only woman, with the
exception of his sisters, with whom Dr. Paull was at all familiar. She
was not only a good woman, but was possessed of the feminine gift of
tact in a marked degree.
“My dear Doctor” (she wrote),—“I am quite thankful to hear you have
consented to see my old friend Mercedes. As I know you always like to
have a good look at your patients, I venture to propose that you
should spare us half-an-hour, and come to our box at Covent Garden
to-night. It is exactly opposite the Prince Andriocchi’s, and you will
be able to judge of my poor friend all the better, because she will
not know you are looking at her. Afterwards, we can introduce you to
her.
“Yours most truly,
“MARGARET FORWOOD.
“P. S.—The number of our box is 9. I will leave word at the door that
you are coming.”
Hugh wavered; but before he knew that he had consented to the fair
letter-writer’s proposition, the count had left him, and he could hardly
withdraw his half-reluctant consent.
“I suppose I must go,” he told himself.
He disliked the proceeding altogether. The sense that he was doing that
which he reprehended in others, acting for the great of this world in a
manner he would certainly not act for the lowly, oppressed him
throughout the day.
“It is a step in the wrong direction,” he told himself, as he stood
before the glass, arranging that conventional white tie which he
professed to disdain, with “the rest of men’s enforced toggery,” as he
called the swallowtails and chimneypots, “but I have let myself in for
it somehow, and must go through with it.”
He would not have out his carriage; he took a hansom to the opera house.
On entering, he stood amazed! There had been a drawing-room that day,
and the ladies who were alighting from their carriages and sailing and
sweeping through the entrance-hall and up the staircase were in all the
bravery of silk, satin, and velvet, and literally ablaze with jewels.
The heated air was scented with the perfumes they used, and with the
odour of the Court bouquets they carried. The scene of excessive luxury
was foreign to the severe simplicity of Dr. Paull’s hard-working life.
“I suppose all this is good for trade,” he thought, as he made his way
through the glittering throng to box 9, “but it seems a queer way for
mortals to spend their time.”
He was ushered into the box just as the final bars of the National
Anthem were being played, for it was a semi-State performance in honour
of a foreign potentate. Lady Forwood, a fair young dame with a bright
face, was standing in front of the box. She turned to welcome him.
“It is very good, indeed, of you to come,” she said, as she warmly shook
hands. “Don’t say, No! David and I flatter ourselves we understand you
pretty well. I know that nothing but a sense of duty brings you here.
However, now that you _are_ here, you may as well have a good look at it
all. Take that chair. David is at the House. He may look in, but not
till late; there is some important debate on to-night. Now, tell me, it
is a fine sight, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is,” said Hugh.
The orchestra had struck up the spirited introduction to the new opera,
and the unaccustomed sounds of bright music insensibly raised his
spirits. The _coup-d’œil_ of the gigantic horseshoe of tiers of
crimson-curtained boxes filled with ladies in brilliant attire, white
and the palest tints predominating, was magnificent.
“I never imagined women could look so like flowers,” said he, honestly.
“I thought you would think better of us when you knew a little more
about us!” laughed Lady Forwood, who was scanning the house through her
_lorgnettes_. “There! Mercedes has just come in! How lovely she looks!
What a magnificent dress! I suppose she was at the drawing-room. I went
last time, so I was not there to-day.”
“Where?” said Hugh, drawing back a little, and feeling like a
conspirator.
“Not in the chandelier! and not exactly in the pit,” said Lady Forwood,
laughingly. “Don’t be shocked at me! I positively can’t help teasing
people. Look at the third from the royal box. There, she is just
settling herself, and throwing off her mantilla—the lady in white.”
Hugh was looking at the third box to the left of the royalties.
“Take my glass,” said Lady Forwood, “and look at the third box to the
right of the royal people. Make haste, for in another minute she may
settle herself behind the curtain and stay there the whole evening. It
would be just like her.”
Hugh focussed the glass, and with a singular sensation that was almost a
thrill, he gazed at a lovely girl who was leaning forward glancing round
the house. She was pale with a waxen pallor; her black hair was dressed
high, and studded with pearls. She wore a white velvet gown, a shade
whiter than her beautifully moulded bust and arms, and this appeared to
be sewn with pearls. So youthful was her slender form that, had Hugh not
recognized the Prince Andriocchi and his friend the count hovering in
the background, he would hardly have believed this could be the new
patient about whom so much fuss had been made.
“She is quite a girl!” he said, in surprise, turning to Lady Forwood.
“Why not?” asked she. “She was only married a year ago. Spanish girls
marry young.”
“But, from what you said, I fancied you had been girl friends,” said
Hugh, without thinking.
“How like you, to say that!” said Lady Forwood, with a good-natured
laugh, as Hugh, forgetting his dislike to the _rôle_ of “spy,”
scrutinised her highness closely through the glasses. “That is almost on
a par with your speech to the Princess M——, one of the stories she
always tells to show what a bear you are, sir!”
“I do not remember saying anything to the Princess M——,” said Hugh,
laying down the lorgnette.
“You don’t remember her playing to you, and your saying that you had
never cared for any playing except that of a relation of yours?”
“No,” said Hugh, who was beginning to think deeply on the subject of his
new “case;” and his thoughts were curious, and to him utterly
unexpected. “But what did I say to you that was bearish just now, Lady
Forwood? I don’t care if her Royal Highness tells anecdotes about me or
not—it amuses her, and doesn’t harm me. But I cannot be misunderstood by
_you_.”
“That pretty speech makes up for the rude one,” said Lady Forwood,
smiling. “You seemed surprised that Mercedes and I were girl friends. Of
course I am her senior by some years. I will tell you how it was. Her
parents were anxious about her as a child, she was such a delicate, mopy
little thing. So they sent her to a convent school at the seaside in
England. I was what you might call a sixth-form girl when she came; and,
as the nuns thought me steady-going, they gave her to me to look after
specially. I was to be a sort of deputy-mamma; and she grew very fond of
me, poor little thing!”
“Why do you say ‘poor little thing’?” asked Hugh.
“Oh, Mercedes has always been peculiar,” said Lady Forwood. “The nuns
thought her cold and apathetic. I knew very differently! There is fire
underneath that cold manner of hers—she is the most passionate girl, I
think, I ever met! And her parents have been idiots enough to marry her
to that man!”
“You do not approve of the prince?” asked Hugh.
“Hush! We really must not talk any more, people will notice us,” said
Lady Forwood, directing her _lorgnettes_ towards the stage, where the
prima-donna had just finished an air which was evidently greatly to the
taste of the pit and gallery.
Hugh leaned back and during the remainder of the first act watched the
Princess Andriocchi as narrowly as he could without being specially
noticed.
She sat perfectly still at first, leaning back, her white profile
cameo-like against the crimson curtain, her hands lying listlessly in
her lap. She appeared to be watching the stage, but in reality her eyes
were more than half veiled by their heavy lids. Through the glass he
could see that her exquisite little ears were transparent as wax.
“Poor child!” thought Hugh, compassionately. He thought he knew now why
the great B—— S—— and the clever Dr. Foster could neither of them
relieve the little princess of her _malaise_. The cause was mental.
He had almost arrived at a resolution to “get out of the affair,” if he
possibly could, when (to his absent mind, with a strange suddenness)
down came the curtain upon the first act among the plaudits of the
house, and people began to move and stand up; there was a general air of
awakening to life of the attentive audience.
“Well,” said Lady Forwood, turning to him, “you must confess it is a
charming opera! The next thing to be done is to take me over to see
Mercedes.”
But this Hugh steadily refused to do.
Lady Forwood was still endeavouring to persuade him by all the arguments
at her command, when the box-door opened, and the count entered.
He bowed profoundly to Lady Forwood, and offered his hand deferentially
to Hugh, who scrutinised him with a new misgiving. Was this man who
shadowed the young pair in any way connected with that young creature’s
unhappiness? He was, certainly, the sort of man that some women would
consider fascinating, with his persuasive manners and his fair, handsome
face.
He had brought a message to Lady Forwood: the princess wished to come
round to her box—would it be convenient?
Lady Forwood clapped her hands with evident delight.
Hugh had not known her in this childlike, unaffected mood.
“Convenient? Splendid!” she said to the count, who at once vanished.
“_Could_ anything be better?” she asked Hugh. “You will see her just as
she really is when she is talking to her ‘mammy,’ as she calls me. What
is the matter?” she said, suddenly, in a changed voice, for she saw her
pale friend wince and bite his lip.
“Nothing, I assure you,” he said, earnestly, recovering himself. That
word “mammy” had not been heard by him since Lilia had last addressed
Mrs. Mervyn by the tender nickname in his presence.
What seeming trifles are the feather-weights that balance human
destinies! But for the effect produced upon Hugh by that one word, he
would have made an excuse, and missed——
What? As he stood hesitating, the box-door opened, and the princess came
in.
A girl, with the carriage of a young queen.
Hugh stood back, and stared at the beautiful, dark young creature, in
her magnificent robe of white velvet, embroidered with seed pearls, with
but one feeling—amazement.
The princess gave him a careless glance, with a half-nod, in return for
his obeisance, as Lady Forwood introduced him, and seated herself by her
friend.
She murmured something in a low voice to Lady Forwood, upon which the
English lady blushed and looked annoyed. After some whispering, Lady
Forwood turned to Hugh with a beseeching look.
“I am going to test your friendship to the utmost,” she said,
pleadingly. “I am half afraid to ask you, but you will understand,” she
added, meaningly. “I want you to go down and see if Sir David has
arrived; there is nothing particular to hear for the next ten minutes.”
“With pleasure,” said Hugh, understanding that the little princess had
some secret to tell her friend, and that he was not wanted for the next
quarter-of-an-hour.
“A spoilt beauty,” he thought, as he strolled along the lobbies. “I
should like to know how any physician can cure _that_, unless he
inoculates her with the smallpox!”
He had hardly left the box before the princess’ manner changed. She
clasped her friend’s hand, and with her lovely face all quivering, the
corners of her lips drooping, and her great eyes full of tears, she
almost sobbed:
“Oh, mammy, mammy! It is true!—it is _true_!”
“My dear, what is true? You have been thinking such strange things!”
said Lady Forwood, distressed and worried, for she loved the unhappy
little creature. “You have got some silly notions into your head, and
you imagine all sorts of nonsense.”
“Listen!” said Mercedes, glancing round and speaking low. “To-day he
told me that he and the count would go on the river. I had to go to the
Court alone. Well, I thought I would ask the ambassadress to take me—it
would be not so long—she has the entrée, as you call it. She did take
me. Coming back, my carriage got into a number of other carriages, and I
saw—_him_.”
“The prince? Well, why not?” asked Lady Forwood.
“I saw _him_—and _her_—the woman whose portrait I found!” said Mercedes,
in a tone of anguish.
“Well, my dear,”—Lady Forwood spoke in a matter-of-fact manner, although
she was anathematising the prince for his flagrant conduct in being
publicly seen with the beautiful French actress whose name had been
coupled with his in society gossip—“I daresay he will be able to explain
it all to you, if, indeed, you were not mistaken.”
“How—_explain_?” asked Mercedes, bitterly. “How explain a _lie_, mammy?”
“Hush!” said Lady Forwood, uneasily. “My dear, I never should have
worried David if I had seen him with fifty women!”
“That—is different!” said the princess. “Mammy, you love each other!”
Lady Forwood began a brisk lecture:
“My child, you are not fit to be out in the world at all,” she said.
“You ought to have come to me for a year’s instruction before you were
married, instead of going straight to the altar from the convent. You
know absolutely nothing about men. Men’s ways are not women’s ways. The
world allows them their liberty; and if their wives don’t allow it them
also, they will neglect their wives for the world, and the wives will be
to blame.”
And she held forth on this somewhat loose doctrine so subtly that the
princess’ expression gradually changed from grieved perplexity to a sort
of placid resignation.
“A man is not _bad_ who allows a lady acquaintance to take him some
distance in her carriage,” went on Lady Forwood, didactically. “You will
be wiser by-and-by, darling. You will take it for granted that men are
better than they seem.”
“The _count_ is good,” said Mercedes, sorrowfully. “He is so kind to
me!”
“The count is no better than his neighbours,” said Lady Forwood,
sharply, feeling that from Scylla she was nearing Charybdis. “Mercedes,
you must rouse yourself, and go into society. Then you will not brood on
the subject of your husband. You can’t change him, at least, not all of
a sudden, so you must put up with him.”
“The count says——” began Mercedes.
“Don’t talk about the count to me! You know my opinion of Italians, my
dear. You shall be introduced to some Englishmen. You must know this
friend of ours, that you made me turn out of the box just now. David
says he is the best man he ever met.”
At this moment Hugh knocked at the box-door. He had been outside in the
cool night. He had not seen Sir David; he had not expected to do so. He
had watched the arrival of some late comers, and, unnoticed by them, had
seen the Prince Andriocchi and his friend the count come out of the
opera house, light their cigarettes, and remain in close conversation
for a few minutes, after which they interchanged a glance of
intelligence; the prince hailed a hansom and drove off, and the count
reentered the theatre.
So he interpreted the steady gaze which Mercedes fixed upon him as he
told Lady Forwood there was no sign of her husband’s arrival as a mute
questioning as to the whereabouts of the prince, the count having
established himself alone in the opposite box.
And the next occurrence startled him. The curtain was rising; he was
turning to take his seat at the back of the box, when the princess
suddenly leant towards Lady Forwood:
“Mammy, I have seen this—gentleman—before!” she said. “Where?” she
added, turning to Hugh.
He smiled, amused at the startled look in her gazelle eyes.
“You have the advantage of me, princess,” he said. “I do not think I
have had the honour of meeting you before to-night. And yet——”
He was puzzled. Looking at her steadily, there was something in the
wistful, childish beauty of Mercedes’ oval face which was familiar. She
had some resemblance to someone he had seen somewhere. But, even as he
ransacked his memory, the likeness eluded him, as a forgotten name will
refuse to repeat itself when the thinker struggles to recall it.
“You two had better talk over your previous acquaintance behind the
curtain, I think,” said Lady Forwood.
Hugh took the hint. He drew his chair nearer to the princess, and asked
her where they possibly could have met, while Lady Forwood became
absorbed in the performance.
“You have been much in England; anyone can tell that who hears you
speak,” he said. “But have you been in London?”
“Never, till now,” said Mercedes, still scrutinising him with a feeling
of uneasiness, for she felt that this worn-looking but attractive man,
with the prematurely white hair, was no stranger to her, yet she could
not recall how or when she had seen him. “I have lived seven—no, eight
years in the convent at B——. That is where mammy and I were together”
(with an affectionate look towards her friend); “but to London I
came—not—once! When I returned to Spain, we went by Newhaven. This is
the first time I see—London.”
“Curious!” said Hugh, half to himself.
The resemblance to someone he had known was stronger while she was
speaking, and yet there was nothing definite about it. It stirred him
strangely; but what the emotion was which disturbed him and quickened
his ordinarily sluggish pulses, he could not tell.
“Were you ever in Surrey?” he suggested, after a few minutes’ fruitless
mental searching.
“Never in any place here but the convent,” she said, decidedly. “But
you, sir. Perhaps you were in B—— sometime?”
“Never,” said Hugh.
“Then you have, perhaps, been in my country—in Spain?”
“Not yet,” said Hugh.
They both smiled; and then, suddenly remembering that they were
strangers, talked more reservedly of the music, which the princess
appeared to know well.
“I had the pianoforte score for a week,” she informed Dr. Paull. “The
composer lent me his manuscript. I played it for him when he was in
Madrid.”
She was telling Hugh of what was to come during the ensuing acts, when
the box-door opened, and the count came in.
“The prince requested me to escort you home at the end of the act,
madame la princesse,” he said in English, bowing very slightly to Dr.
Paull.
“But my husband? Where is he, monsieur?”
The count shrugged his shoulders, with an appealing smile, to Lady
Forwood.
“He must go to the club for an hour, madame. When you arrive at the
house, he will without doubt be there.”
Mercedes sat silent till the close of the act, then she rose abruptly,
held out her hand to Lady Forwood, said “Adieu, monsieur,” with a
melancholy little smile, to Hugh, and left the box on the count’s arm.
“Well?” said Lady Forwood, eagerly, when the two were alone.
“Well?” he repeated, coolly.
Some glamour, under the influence of which he had unbent—had forgotten
his ordinary almost apathy to his surroundings—had passed away. He was
on guard again.
“Tell me frankly what you think of her. I love her so much!” said Lady
Forwood, eagerly and honestly.
“There is nothing the matter with her—physically,” said Hugh.
“But—mentally?”
“As I told her husband, I do not profess to cure the mind.”
“Do you not see how miserable she is, Dr. Paull? We must do something
for her,” said Lady Forwood, energetically. “You can, even more than I.
She wants friends. She wants some powerful mind to control hers, and
lead her to live her own life, without reference to the prince. That
wretched young man! He neglects her shamefully; and how he can throw her
with that count as he does—everyone is talking about it!”
“My dear Lady Forwood, what can _I_ do?” asked Hugh, helplessly. Had she
spoken to him thus before he had met Mercedes, he would have thought she
was taking leave of her senses. Oddly enough, now, her appeal did not
strike him as in any way peculiar. “I could see her professionally, and
give her a few hints; but I could not talk to her openly, as you could,”
he added, hesitatingly.
“What I want is for her to take an interest in something, Dr. Paull. I
don’t mean an ordinary interest—but something that will occupy her
energies, will distract her from brooding over her wrongs. Oh, she is
wronged, poor child! David thinks very badly of the prince. I would not
believe anything so dreadful of a fellow-creature. Oh, dear me, here
_is_ David!”
A portly, pleasant-looking man, who seemed as if the world suited him,
and he it, came in with a “Hulloa! You don’t look best pleased to see
me, my dear! I don’t wonder. It isn’t often she gets you all to herself,
is it, Paull? Well, we’ve won. Majority of seventeen for our motion.”
Sir David talked away about the debate just over; and as soon as he
could take leave, Hugh quitted the theatre.
Walking through the streets, under the dark night sky, he seemed
awakening from some vivid dream, in which he had behaved in a manner in
which he would certainly not have behaved when awake.
Letting himself in with his key, he rang for Jones.
“You can go to bed. I shall sit up to do some work,” he said.
“You will find the letters in the library, sir,” said Jones, with extra
gravity.
“Very well,” said Hugh. Then he flung himself into a chair, and began to
think.
“That girl and I have met before,” he mused. “But how?—when? When I
looked into her eyes, I felt she understood me ... and—I understand her.
What on earth induced Lady Forwood to ask me to look after her?”
He almost laughed. Here, in the big, lonely house, which for years had
been as a hermitage to him, the idea of his being asked to become mentor
to a lovely Spanish princess seemed an absurdity.
“Let me see what Grantley has to say about Spain and the Spaniards,” he
said to himself, going to the book-shelves and taking down a volume.
Captain Grantley was a patient of his, who had travelled in Spain, and
recorded his experiences in print. For the next half-hour Hugh was
reading about bullfights, romantic ruins seen by moonlight, mantillas,
dark-eyed beauties, unpleasant railway journeys, and stuffy hostelries
where the diet appeared to be garlic fried in oil. Nothing seemed to
remind him of his princess; but he was still reading on, when a cab
drove up, and there was a ring at the hall bell.
“At this hour!” (It was nearly midnight.) He went into the hall,
unbarred and opened the door:
“Father?” His lanky son stepped joyfully in. “Why, you look surprised!
Surely you got my letter?” he said, after depositing bags and hampers in
the hall.
“Your letter? No,” said Dr. Paull. Somehow, Ralph’s unexpected arrival
was a slight shock to him. “I thought you were not coming back for a
week yet,” he said, after they went into the dining-room.
“We were away more than the fortnight, father,” said the pale lad, with
a smile as sad as his dead young mother’s had been when her morbid
sensitiveness was wounded. “But—you don’t look well! You have been
worried into going to some dinner-party or another” (with a glance at
his father’s evening dress). “I must not go away again! They will do for
you among them!”
“I’m not dead yet, you see,” said Hugh, feeling a new embarrassment.
Until now there had been a confidence between him and the delicate lad,
who looked at him with his lost Lilia’s eyes, which was more like the
mutual understanding between attached brothers than that of father with
son. For the first time Dr. Paull felt reluctant to speak of his doings
to Ralph.
“But you must want some supper,” he suggested. “I will call up one of
the servants—”
Ralph protested that he was not in the least hungry, and that he had had
some sandwiches at Derby Station, which was literally true, although on
his way from the terminus he had thought pleasantly of the snug supper
with his father, which he fully expected was in store for him. His
reception had effectually satisfied his youthful appetite.
“By the way, Jones said something about letters in the library; just get
them, will you? Perhaps yours may be among them. I have had an
extra-busy day—was interrupted at breakfast—hadn’t time to open my
letters,” said Hugh, uneasily.
Ralph hastened to execute his father’s command, and returned with a
bundle of letters in his hand.
“Here is yours—unopened—as you see,” said Dr. Paull, showing Ralph his
own letter, which he had neglected with the rest of his morning’s
correspondence. “It was a fortunate thing I had not gone to bed.”
Ralph looked astonished. His father, the acmé of punctiliousness in
business, speaking so carelessly of a whole batch of unopened letters!
What could it mean?
“I have something to show you, father,” he said, gently. The poor boy
thought that the fortnight’s loneliness had wrought this change in his
beloved parent, whom he understood about as much as a beetle understands
an eagle. And he fetched in two small packing-cases with
lightly-fastened lids.
“There,” he said, “are they not beautiful? I made the ivy one myself.”
He opened the cases and removed some wadding. Dr. Paull stared with some
perplexity at two wreaths—one of ivy, the other of white lilies. Then he
bit his lip—he remembered! For the first time since Lilia’s death, he
had not noted the approach of the anniversary of that terrible day when
his son’s baby-hand had held him back from the one unforgivable
sin—self-murder. On that day it had been his custom to take Lilia’s son
to her grave, and talk to him of his mother: of what was best in her,
that the memory of a mother should be even more to the boy than the
influence of that mother, had she lived.
This time—he had forgotten!
“They are beautiful, Ralph,” he said, placing his hand affectionately on
his boy’s shoulder. “Let us put them in a cool place, and go to bed. We
must be up early to-morrow.”
He had not counted these last days as days of the month. He had made
careless engagements for Tuesdays or Wednesdays, or other days in the
week; and to-morrow he had appointments with important patients, and a
consultation.
“It looks like decadence—strangely like decadence,” he told himself,
bitterly, as, looking in the glass, he noted the deep lines on his face,
the haggard look in his eyes. “I did not remember the twenty-first; and
now I must cancel everything to-morrow—for the boy’s sake, I must be
consistent—I must take him to his mother’s grave. But—to let everything
go to the wall! Well, it must be done. But this shall be a lesson. No
more fooling with princes and princesses—solid, sensible work.”
A brave determination, Dr. Paull! But, when you made it, did Fate smile,
or shed a tear?