SIR REGINALD ARDEN.
The human mind being, in this respect, of the nature of a kaleidoscope,
that the slightest hitch, or jolt, or tremor is enough to change the
entire picture that occupies it, it is not to be supposed that the
illness of her father, alarming as it was, could occupy Alice Arden's
thoughts to the exclusion of every other subject, during every moment of
her journey. One picture, a very pretty one, frequently presented
itself, and always her heart felt a strange little pain as this pretty
phantom appeared. It was the portrait of a young girl, with fair golden
hair, a brilliant complexion, and large blue eyes, with something
_riant_, triumphant, and arch to the verge of mischief, in her animated
and handsome face.
The careless words of good Lady May, this evening, and the very obvious
confusion of Vivian Darnley at mention of the name of Grace Maubray,
troubled her. What was more likely than that Uncle David, interested in
both, should have seriously projected the union which Lady May had gaily
suggested? If she--Alice Arden--liked Vivian Darnley, it was not very
much, her pride insisted. In her childhood they had been thrown
together. He had seemed to like her; but had he ever spoken? Why was he
silent? Was she fool enough to like him?--that cautious, selfish young
man, who was thinking, she was quite certain now, of a marriage of
prudence or ambition with Grace Maubray? It was a cold, cruel, sordid
world!
But, after all, why should he have spoken? or why should he have hoped
to be heard with favour? She had been to him, thank Heaven, just as any
other pleasant, early friend. There was nothing to regret--nothing
fairly to blame. It was just that a person whom she had come to regard
as a property was about to go, and belong quite, to another. It was the
foolish little jealousy that everyone feels, and that means nothing. So
she told herself; but constantly recurred the same pretty image, and
with it the same sudden little pain at her heart.
But now came the other care. As time and space shorten, and the moment
of decision draws near, the pain of suspense increases. They were within
six miles of Twyford. Her heart was in a wild flutter--now throbbing
madly, now it seemed standing still. The carriage window was down. She
was looking out on the scenery--strange to her--all bright and serene
under a brilliant moon. What message awaited her at the inn to which
they were travelling at this swift pace? How frightful it might be!
"Oh, Louisa!" she every now and then imploringly cried to her maid, "how
do you think it will be? Oh! how will it be? Do you think he'll be
better? Oh! do you think he'll be better? Tell me again about his other
illness, and how he recovered? Don't you think he will this time? Oh,
Louisa, darling! don't you think so? Tell me--_tell_ me you do!"
Thus, in her panic, the poor girl wildly called for help and comfort,
until at last the carriage turned a curve in the road at which stood a
shadowy clump of elms, and in another moment the driver pulled up under
the sign of the "Royal Oak."
"Oh, Louisa! Here it is," cried the young lady, holding her maid's wrist
with a trembling grasp.
The inn-door was shut, but there was light in the hall, and light in an
upper room.
"Don't knock--only ring the bell. He may be asleep, God grant!" said the
young lady.
The door was quickly opened, and a waiter ran down to the carriage
window, where he saw a pair of large wild eyes, and a very pale face,
and heard the question--"An old gentlemen has been ill here, and a
telegram was sent; is he--how is he?"
"He's better, Ma'am," said the man.
With a low, long "O--Oh!" and clasped hands and upturned eyes, she
leaned back in the carriage, and a sudden flood of tears relieved her.
Yes; he was a great deal better. The attack was quite over; but he had
not spoken. He seemed much exhausted; and having swallowed some claret,
which the doctor prescribed, he had sunk into a sound and healthy sleep,
in which he still lay. A message by telegraph had been sent to announce
the good news, but Alice was some way on her journey before it had
reached.
Now the young lady got down, and entered the homely old inn, followed by
her maid. She could have dropped on her knees in gratitude to her Maker;
but true religion, like true affection, is shy of demonstrating its
fervours where sympathy is doubtful.
Gently, hardly breathing, guided by the "chambermaid," she entered her
father's room, and stood at his bedside. There he lay, yellow, lean, the
lines of his face in repose still forbidding, the thin lips and thin
nose looking almost transparent, and breathing deeply and regularly, as
a child in his slumbers. In that face Alice could not discover what any
stranger would have seen. She only saw the face of her father. Selfish
and capricious as he was, and violent too--a wicked old man, if one
could see him justly--he was yet proud of her, and had many schemes and
projects afloat in his jaded old brain, of which her beauty was the
talisman, of which she suspected nothing, and with which his head was
never more busy than at the very moment when he was surprised by the
_aura_ of his coming fit.
The doctor's conjecture was right. He had crossed the Channel that
morning. In his French _coupée_, he had for companion the very man he
had most wished and contrived to travel homeward with. This was Lord
Wynderbroke.
Lord Wynderbroke was fifty years old and upwards. He was very much taken
with Alice, whom he had met pretty often. He was a man who was thought
likely to marry. His estate was in the nattiest order. He had always
been prudent, and cultivated a character. He had, moreover, mortgages
over Sir Reginald Arden's estate, the interest of which the baronet was
beginning to find it next to impossible to pay. They had been making a
little gouty visit to Vichy, and Sir Reginald had taken good care to
make the journey homeward with Lord Wynderbroke, who knew that when he
pleased he could be an amusing companion, and who also felt that kind of
interest in him which everyone experiences in the kindred of the young
lady of whom he is enamoured.
The baronet, who tore up or burnt his letters for the most part, had
kept this particular one by which his daughter had been traced and
summoned to the "Royal Oak." It was, he thought, clever. It was amusing,
and had some London gossip. He had read bits of it to Lord Wynderbroke
in the _coupée_. Lord Wynderbroke was delighted. When they parted, he
had asked leave to pay him a visit at Mortlake.
"Only too happy, if you are not afraid of the old house falling in upon
us. Everything _there_, you know, is very much as my grandfather left
it. I only use it as a caravanserai, and alight there for a little, on a
journey. Everything there is tumbling to pieces. But you won't mind--no
more than I do."
So the little visit was settled. The passage was rough. Peer and baronet
were ill. They did not care to reunite their fortunes after they touched
English ground. As the baronet drew near London, for certain reasons he
grew timid. He got out with a portmanteau and dressing-case, and an
umbrella, at Drowark station, sent his servant on with the rest of the
luggage by rail, and himself took a chaise; and, after one change of
horses, had reached the "Royal Oak" in the state in which we first saw
him.
The doctor had told the people at that inn that he would look in, in the
course of the night, some time after one o'clock, being a little uneasy
about a possible return of the old man's malady. There was that in the
aristocratic looks and belongings of his patient, and in the very
fashionable address to which the message to his daughter was
transmitted, which induced in the mind of the learned man a suspicion
that a "swell" might have accidentally fallen into his hands.
By this time, thanks to the diligence of Louisa Diaper, every one in the
house had been made acquainted with the fact that the sick man was no
other than Sir Reginald Arden, Bart., and with many other circumstances
of splendour, which would not, perhaps, have so well stood the test of
inquiry. The doctor and his crony, the rector--simplest of parsons--who
had agreed to accompany him in this nocturnal call, being a curious man,
as gentlemen inhabiting quiet villages will be--these two gentlemen now
heard all this lore in the hall at a quarter past one, and entered the
patient's chamber (where they found Miss Arden and her maid)
accordingly. In whispers, the doctor made to Miss Arden a most
satisfactory report. He made his cautious inspection of the patient, and
again had nothing but what was cheery to say.
If the rector had not prided himself upon his manners, and had been
content with one bow on withdrawing from the lady's presence, they would
not that night have heard the patient's voice--and perhaps, all things
considered, so much the better.
"I trust, Madam, in the morning Sir Reginald may be quite himself again.
It is pleasant, Madam, to witness slumber so quiet," murmured the
clergyman kindly, and in perfect good faith. "It is the slumber of a
tranquil mind--a spirit at peace with itself."
Smiling kindly in making the last stiff bow which accompanied these
happy words, the good man tilted over a little table behind him, on
which stood a decanter of claret, a water caraffe, and two glasses, all
of which came to the ground with a crash that wakened the baronet. He
sat up straight in his bed and stared round, while the clergyman, in
consternation, exclaimed--"Good gracious!"
"Hollo! what is it?" cried the fierce, thin voice of the baronet. "What
the devil's all this? Where's Crozier? Where's my servant? Will you,
will you, some of you, say where the devil I am?" He was screaming all
this, and groping and clutching at either side of the bed's head for a
bell-rope, intending to rouse the house. "Where's Crozier, I say? Where
the devil's my servant? eh? He's gone by rail, ain't he? No one came
with me. And where's this? What is it? Are you all tongue-tied?--haven't
you a word among you?"
The clergyman had lifted his hands in terror at the harangue of the old
man of the "tranquil mind." Alice had taken his thin hand, standing
beside him, and was speaking softly in his ear. But his prominent brown
eyes were fiercely scanning the strangers, and the hand which clutched
hers was trembling with eager fury. "Will some of you say what you mean,
or what you are doing, or where I am?" and he screeched another sentence
or two, that made the old clergyman very uncomfortable.
"You arrived here, Sir Reginald, about six hours ago--extremely ill,
Sir," said the doctor, who had placed himself close to his patient, and
spoke with official authority; "but we have got you all right again, we
hope; and this is the 'Royal Oak,' the principal hotel of Twyford, on
the Dover and London road; and my name is Proby."
"And what's all this?" cried the baronet, snatching up one of the
medicine-bottles from the little table by his bed, and plucking out the
cork and smelling at the fluid. "By heaven?" he screamed, "this is the
very thing. I could not tell what d----d taste was in my mouth, and here
it is. Why, my doctor tells me--and he knows his business--it is as much
as my life's worth to give me anything like--like that, pah! assafoetida!
If my stomach is upset with this filthy stuff, I give myself up! I'm
gone. I shall sink, Sir. Was there no one here, in the name of Heaven,
with a grain of sense or a particle of pity, to prevent that beast from
literally poisoning me? Egad! I'll make my son punish him! I'll make my
family hang him if I die!" There was a quaver of misery in his shriek of
fury, as if he was on the point of bursting into tears. "Doctor, indeed!
who sent for him? I didn't. Who gave him leave to drug me? Upon my soul,
I've been poisoned. To think of a creature in my state, dependent on
nourishment every hour, having his digestion destroyed! Doctor, indeed!
Pay him? Not I, begad," and he clenched his sentence with an ugly
expletive.
But all this concluding eloquence was lost upon the doctor, who had
mentioned, in a lofty "aside" to Miss Arden, that "unless sent for he
should not call again;" and with a marked politeness to her, and no
recognition whatever of the baronet, he had taken his departure.
"I'm not the doctor, Sir Reginald; I'm the clergyman," said the Reverend
Peter Sprott, gravely and timidly, for the prominent brown eyes were
threatening him.
"Oh, the clergyman! Oh, I see. Will you be so good as to ring the bell,
please, and excuse a sick man giving you that trouble. And is there a
post-office near this?"
"Yes, Sir--close by."
"This is you, Alice? I'm glad you're here. You must write a letter this
moment--a note to your brother. Don't be afraid--I'm better, a good
deal--and tell the people, when they come, to get me some strong soup
this moment, and--good evening, Sir, or good-night, or morning, or
whatever it is," he added, to the clergyman, who was taking his leave.
"What o'clock is it?" he asked Alice. "Well, you'll write to your
brother to meet me at Mortlake. I have not seen him, now, for how many
years? I forget. He's in town, is he? Very good. And tell him it is
perhaps the last time, and I expect him. I suppose he'll come. Say at a
quarter past nine in the evening. The sooner it's over the better. I
expect no good of it; it is only just to try. And I shall leave this
early--immediately after breakfast--as quickly as we can. I hate it!"