IN WHICH MISS RACHEL LAKE COMES TO BRANDON, AND DOCTOR BUDDLE CALLS
AGAIN.
In about an hour afterwards, Rachel Lake arrived in the carriage which
had been despatched for her with Dorcas's note.
She was a good deal muffled up, and looked very pale, and asked whether
Miss Brandon was in her room, whither she glided rapidly up stairs. It
was a sort of boudoir or dressing-room, with a few pretty old portraits
and miniatures, and a number of Louis Quatorze looking-glasses hung
round, and such pretty quaint cabriole gilt and pale green furniture.
Dorcas met her at the door, and they kissed silently.
'How is he, Dorcas?'
'Very ill, dear, I'm afraid--sit down, darling.'
Rachel was relieved, for in her panic she almost feared to ask if he were
living.
'Is there immediate danger?'
'The doctor says not, but he is very much alarmed for to-morrow.'
'Oh! Dorcas, darling, he'll die; I know it. Oh! merciful Heaven! how
tremendous.'
'You will not be so frightened in a little time. You have only just heard
it, Rachel dearest, and you are startled. I was so myself.'
'I'd like to see him, Dorcas.'
'Sit here a little and rest, dear. The doctor will make his visit
immediately, and then we can ask him. He's a good-natured little
creature--poor old Buddle--and I am certain if it can safely be, he won't
prevent it.'
'Where is he, darling--where is Stanley?'
So Dorcas described as well as she could.
'Oh, poor Stanley. Oh, Stanley--poor Stanley,' gasped Rachel, with white
lips. 'You have no idea, Dorcas--no one can--how terrific it is. Oh, poor
Stanley--poor Stanley.'
'Drink this water, darling; you must not be so excited.'
'Dorcas, say what the doctor may, see him I must.'
'There is time to think of that, darling.'
'Has he spoken to anyone?'
'Very little, I believe. He whispers a few words now and then--that is
all.'
'Nothing to Chelford--nothing particular, I mean?'
'No--nothing--at least that I have heard of.'
'Did he wish to see no one?'
'No one, dear.'
'Not poor William Wylder?'
'No, dear. I don't suppose he cares more for a clergyman than for any
other man; none of his family ever did, when they came to lie on a bed of
sickness, or of death either.'
'No, no,' said Rachel, wildly; 'I did not mean to pray. I was not
thinking of that; but William Wylder was different; and he did not
mention _me_ either?'
Dorcas shook her head.
'I knew it,' continued Rachel, with a kind of shudder. 'And tell me,
Dorcas, does he know that he is in danger--such imminent danger?'
'That I cannot say, Rachel, dear. I don't believe doctors like to tell
their patients so.'
There was a silence of some minutes, and Rachel, clasping her hands in an
agony, said--
'Oh, yes--he's gone--he's certainly gone; and I remain alone under that
dreadful burden.'
'Please, Miss Brandon, the doctor's down stairs with Captain Lake,' said
the maid, opening the door.
'Is Lord Chelford with him?'
'Yes, Miss, please.'
'Then tell him I will be so obliged if he will come here for a moment,
when the doctor is gone; and ask the doctor now, from me, how he thinks
Captain Lake.'
In a little while the maid returned. Captain Lake was not so low, and
rather better than this morning, the doctor said; and Rachel raised her
eyes, and whispered an agitated thanksgiving. 'Was Lord Chelford coming?'
'His lordship had left the room when she returned, and Mr. Larcom said he
was with Lawyer Larkin in the library.'
'Mr. Larkin can wait. Tell Lord Chelford I wish very much to see him
here.'
So away went the maid again. A message in that great house was a journey;
and there was a little space before they heard a knock at the door of
Dorcas's pretty room, and Lord Chelford, duly invited, came in.
Lord Chelford was surprised to see Rachel, and held her hand, while he
congratulated her on the more favourable opinion of the physician this
afternoon; and then he gave them, as fully and exactly as he could, all
the lights emitted by Dr. Buddle, and endeavoured to give his narrative
as cheerful and confident an air as he could. Then, at length, he
recollected that Mr. Larkin was waiting in the study.
'I quite forgot Mr. Larkin,' said he; 'I left him in the library, and I
am so very glad we have had a pleasanter report upon poor Lake this
evening; and I am sure we shall all feel more comfortable on seeing Sir
Francis Seddley. He _is_ such an admirable surgeon; and I feel sure he'll
strike out something for our poor patient. I've known him hit upon such
original expedients, and make such wonderful successes.'
So with a kind smile he left the room.
Then there was a long pause.
'Does he really think that Stanley will recover?' said Rachel.
'I don't know; I suppose he hopes it. I don't know, Rachel, what to think
of anyone or anything. What wild beasts they are. How "swift to shed
blood," as poor William Wylder said last Sunday. Have you any idea what
they quarrelled about?'
'None in the world. It was that odious Sir Harry Bracton--was not it?'
'Why so odious, Rachel? How can you tell which was in the wrong? I only
know he seems to be a better marksman than your poor brother.'
Rachel looked at her with something of haughty and surprised displeasure,
but said nothing.
'You look at me, Radie, as if I were a monster--or _monstress_, I should
say--whereas I am only a Brandon. Don't you remember how our great
ancestor, who fought for the House of York, changed suddenly to
Lancaster, and how Sir Richard left the King and took part with Cromwell,
not for any particular advantage, I believe, or for any particular reason
even, but for wickedness and wounded pride, perhaps.'
'I don't quite see your meaning, Dorcas. I can't understand how _your_
pride has been hurt; but if Stanley had any, I can well imagine what
torture it must have endured; wretched, wicked, punished fool!'
'You suspect what they fought about, Radie!'
Rachel made no answer.
'You do, Radie, and why do you dissemble with me?'
'I don't dissemble; I don't care to speak; but if you will have me say
so, I _do_ suspect--I think it must have originated in jealousy of you.'
'You look, Radie, as if you thought I had managed it--whereas I really
did not care.'
'I do not understand you, Dorcas; but you appear to me very cruel, and
you smile, as I say so.'
'I smile, because I sometimes think so myself.'
With a fixed and wrathful stare Rachel returned the enigmatical gaze of
her beautiful cousin.
'If Stanley dies, Dorcas, Sir Harry Bracton shall hear of it. I'll lose
my life, but he shall pay the forfeit of his crime.'
So saying, Rachel left the room, and gliding through passages, and down
stairs, she knocked at Stanley's door. The old woman opened it.
'Ah, Dorothy! I'm so glad to see _you_ here!' and she put a present in
her hard, crumpled hand.
So, noiselessly, Rachel Lake, without more parley, stepped into the room,
and closed the door. She was alone with Stanley With a beating heart, and
a kind of chill stealing over her, by her brother's bed.
The room was not so dark that she could not see distinctly enough.
There lay her brother, such as he was--still her brother, on the bleak,
neutral ground between life and death. His features, peaked and earthy,
and that look, so new and peculiar, which does not savour of life upon
them. He did not move, but his strange eyes gazed cold and earnest from
their deep sockets upon her face in awful silence. Perhaps he thought he
saw a phantom.
'Are you better, dear?' whispered Rachel.
His lips stirred and his throat, but he did not speak until a second
effort brought utterance, and he murmured,
'Is that you, Radie?'
'Yes, dear. Are you better?'
'_No_. I'm shot. I shall die to-night. Is it night yet?'
'Don't despair, Stanley, dear. The great London doctor, Sir Francis
Seddley, will be with you early in the morning, and Chelford has great
confidence in him. I'm sure he will relieve you.'
'This is Brandon?' murmured Lake.
'Yes, dear.'
She thought he was going to say more, but he remained silent, and she
recollected that he ought not to speak, and also that she had that to say
which must be said.
Sharp, dark, and strange lay that familiar face upon the white pillow.
The faintest indication of something like a peevish sneer; it might be
only the lines of pain and fatigue; still it had that unpleasant
character remaining fixed on its features.
'Oh, Stanley! you say you think you are dying. Won't you send for William
Wylder and Chelford, and tell all you know of Mark?'
She saw he was about to say something, and she leaned her head near his
lips, and she heard him whisper,--
'It won't serve Mark.'
'I'm thinking of _you_, Stanley--I'm thinking of you.'
To which he said either 'Yes' or 'So.' She could not distinguish.
'I view it now quite differently. You said, you know, in the park, you
would tell Chelford; and I resisted, I believe, but I don't now. I had
_rather_ you did. Yes, Stanley, I conjure you to tell it all.'
The cold lips, with a livid halo round them, murmured, 'Thank you.'
It was a sneer, very shocking just then, perhaps; but unquestionably a
sneer.
'Poor Stanley!' she murmured, with a kind of agony, looking down upon
that changed face. 'One word more, Stanley. Remember, it's I, the only
one on earth who stands near you in kindred, your sister, Stanley, who
implores of you to take this step before it is too late; at least, to
consider.'
He said something. She thought it was 'I'll think;' and then he closed
his eyes. It was the only motion she had observed, his face lay just as
it had done on the pillow. He had not stirred all the time she was there;
and now that his eyelids closed, it seemed to say, our interview is
over--the curtain has dropped; and so understanding it, with that one
awful look that may be the last, she glided from the bed-side, told old
Dorothy that he seemed disposed to sleep, and left the room.
There is something awful always in the spectacle of such a sick-bed as
that beside which Rachel had just stood. But not quite so dreadful is the
sight as are the imaginings and the despair of absence. So reassuring is
the familiar spectacle of life, even in its subsidence, so long as bodily
torture and mental aberration are absent.
In the meanwhile, on his return to the library, Lord Chelford found his
dowager mother in high chat with the attorney, whom she afterwards
pronounced 'a very gentlemanlike man for his line of life.'
The conversation, indeed, was chiefly that of Lady Chelford, the
exemplary attorney contributing, for the most part, a polite
acquiescence, and those reflections which most appositely pointed the
moral of her ladyship's tale, which concerned altogether the vagaries of
Mark Wylder--a subject which piqued her curiosity and irritated her
passions.
It was a great day for Jos. Larkin; for by the time Lord Chelford
returned the old lady had asked him to stay for dinner, which he did,
notwithstanding his morning dress, to his great inward satisfaction,
because he could henceforward mention, 'the other day, when I dined at
Brandon,' or 'old Lady Chelford assured me, when last I dined at
Brandon;' and he could more intimately speak of 'our friends at Brandon,'
and 'the Brandon people,' and, in short, this dinner was very serviceable
to the excellent attorney.
It was not very amusing this interchange of thought and feeling between
Larkin and the dowager, upon a theme already so well ventilated as Mark
Wylder's absconding, and therefore I let it pass.
After dinner, when the dowager's place knew her no more, Lord Chelford
resumed his talk with Larkin.
'I am quite confirmed in the view I took at first,' he said. 'Wylder has
no claim upon me. There are others on whom much more naturally the care
of his money would devolve, and I think that my undertaking the office he
proposes, under his present strange circumstances, might appear like an
acquiescence in the extraordinary course he has taken, and a sanction
generally of his conduct, which I certainly can't approve. So, Mr.
Larkin, I have quite made up my mind. I have no business to undertake
this trust, simple as it is.'
'I have only, my lord, to bow to your lordship's decision; at the same
time I cannot but feel, my lord, how peculiar and painful is the position
in which it places me. There are rents to be received by me, and sums
handed over, to a considerable--I may say, indeed, a very large amount:
and my friend Lake--Captain Lake--now, unhappily, in so very precarious a
state, appears to dislike the office, also, and to anticipate annoyance,
in the event of his consenting to act. Altogether, your lordship will
perceive that the situation is one of considerable, indeed very great
embarrassment, as respects me. There is, however, one satisfactory
circumstance disclosed in his last letter. His return, he says, cannot be
delayed beyond a very few months, perhaps _weeks;_ and he states, in his
own rough way, that he will then explain the motives of his conduct to
the entire satisfaction of all those who are cognizant of the measures
which he has adopted--no more claret, thanks--no more--a delicious
wine--and he adds, it will then be quite understood that he
has acted neither from caprice, nor from any motive other than
self-preservation. I assure you, my lord, that is the identical phrase he
employs--self-preservation. I all along suspected, or, rather, I mean,
supposed, that Mr. Wylder had been placed in this matter under
coercion--a--a threat.'
'A little more wine?' asked Lord Chelford, after another interval.
'No--no more, I thank you. Your lordship's very good, and the wine, I may
say, excellent--delicious claret; indeed, quite so--ninety shillings a
dozen, I should venture to say, and hardly to be had at that figure; but
it grows late, I rather think, and the trustees of our little Wesleyan
chapel--we've got a little into debt in that quarter, I am sorry to
say--and I promised to advise with them this evening at nine o'clock.
They have called me to counsel more than once, poor fellows; and so, with
your lordship's permission, I'll withdraw.'
Lord Chelford walked with him to the steps. It was a beautiful
night--very little moon, but that and the stars wonderfully clear and
bright, and all things looking so soft and airy.
'Try one of these,' said the peer, presenting his cigar case.
Larkin, with a glow of satisfaction, took one of these noble cigars, and
rolled it in his fingers, and smelt it.
'Fragrant--wonderfully fragrant!' he observed, meekly, with a
connoisseur's shake of the head.
The night was altogether so charming that Lord Chelford was tempted. So
he took his cap, and lighted his cigar, too, and strolled a little way
with the attorney.
He walked under the solemn trees--the same under whose airy groyning
Wylder and Lake had walked away together on that noteworthy night on
which Mark had last turned his back upon the grand old gables and twisted
chimneys of Brandon Hall.
This way was rather a round, it must be confessed, to the Lodge--Jos,
Larkin's peaceful retreat. But a stroll with a lord was worth more than
that sacrifice, and every incident which helped to make a colourable case
of confidential relations at Brandon--a point in which the good attorney
had been rather weak hitherto--was justly prized by that virtuous man.
If the trustees, Smith the pork-butcher, old Captain Snoggles, the Town
Clerk, and the rest, had to wait some twenty minutes in the drawing-room
at the Lodge, so much the better. An apology was, perhaps, the best and
most modest shape into which he could throw the advertisement of his
dinner at Brandon--his confidential talk with the proud old dowager, and
his after-dinner ramble with that rising young peer, Lord Chelford. It
would lead him gracefully into detail, and altogether the idea, the
situation, the scene and prospect, were so soothing and charming, that
the good attorney felt a silent exaltation as he listened to Lord
Chelford's two or three delighted sentences upon the illimitable wonders
and mysteries glimmering in the heavens above them.
The cigar was delicious, the air balmy and pleasant, his digestion happy,
the society unexceptionably aristocratic--a step had just been gained,
and his consideration in the town and the country round improved, by the
occurrences of the evening, and his whole system, in consequence, in a
state so serene, sweet and satisfactory, that I really believe there was
genuine moisture in his pink, dove-like eyes, as he lifted them to the
heavens, and murmured, 'Beautiful, beautiful!' And he mistook his
sensations for a holy rapture and silent worship.
Cigars, like other pleasures, are transitory. Lord Chelford threw away
his stump, tendered his case again to Mr. Larkin, and then took his
leave, walking slowly homewards.