A SOLITARY foreigner, drifting about London, drifted toward Fulham on the day of the Foot-Race.
Little by little, he found himself involved in the current of a throng of impetuous English people, all flowing together toward one given point, and all decorated alike with colors of two prevailing hues—pink and yellow. He drifted along with the stream of passengers on the pavement (accompanied by a stream of carriages in the road) until they stopped with one accord at a gate—and paid admission money to a man in office—and poured into a great open space of ground which looked like an uncultivated garden.
Arrived here, the foreign visitor opened his eyes in wonder at the scene revealed to view. He observed thousands of people assembled, composed almost exclusively of the middle and upper classes of society. They were congregated round a vast inclosure; they were elevated on amphitheatrical wooden stands, and they were perched on the roofs of horseless carriages, drawn up in rows. From this congregation there rose such a roar of eager voices as he had never heard yet from any assembled multitude in these islands. Predominating among the cries, he detected one everlasting question. It began with, “Who backs—?” and it ended in the alternate pronouncing of two British names unintelligible to foreign ears. Seeing these extraordinary sights, and hearing these stirring sounds, he applied to a policeman on duty; and said, in his best producible English, “If you please, Sir, what is this?”
The policeman answered, “North against South—Sports.”
The foreigner was informed, but not satisfied. He pointed all round the assembly with a circular sweep of his hand; and said, “Why?”
The policeman declined to waste words on a man who could ask such a question as that. He lifted a large purple forefinger, with a broad white nail at the end of it, and pointed gravely to a printed Bill, posted on the wall behind him. The drifting foreigner drifted to the Bill.
After reading it carefully, from top to bottom, he consulted a polite private individual near at hand, who proved to be far more communicative than the policeman. The result on his mind, as a person not thoroughly awakened to the enormous national importance of Athletic Sports, was much as follows:
The color of North is pink. The color of South is yellow. North produces fourteen pink men, and South produces thirteen yellow men. The meeting of pink and yellow is a solemnity. The solemnity takes its rise in an indomitable national passion for hardening the arms and legs, by throwing hammers and cricket-balls with the first, and running and jumping with the second. The object in view is to do this in public rivalry. The ends arrived at are (physically) an excessive development of the muscles, purchased at the expense of an excessive strain on the heart and the lungs—(morally), glory; conferred at the moment by the public applause; confirmed the next day by a report in the newspapers. Any person who presumes to see any physical evil involved in these exercises to the men who practice them, or any moral obstruction in the exhibition itself to those civilizing influences on which the true greatness of all nations depends, is a person without a biceps, who is simply incomprehensible. Muscular England develops itself, and takes no notice of him.
The foreigner mixed with the assembly, and looked more closely at the social spectacle around him.
He had met with these people before. He had seen them (for instance) at the theatre, and observed their manners and customs with considerable curiosity and surprise. When the curtain was down, they were so little interested in what they had come to see, that they had hardly spirit enough to speak to each other between the acts. When the curtain was up, if the play made any appeal to their sympathy with any of the higher and nobler emotions of humanity, they received it as something wearisome, or sneered at it as something absurd. The public feeling of the countrymen of Shakespeare, so far as they represented it, recognized but two duties in the dramatist—the duty of making them laugh, and the duty of getting it over soon. The two great merits of a stage proprietor, in England (judging by the rare applause of his cultivated customers), consisted in spending plenty of money on his scenery, and in hiring plenty of brazen-faced women to exhibit their bosoms and their legs. Not at theatres only; but among other gatherings, in other places, the foreigner had noticed the same stolid languor where any effort was exacted from genteel English brains, and the same stupid contempt where any appeal was made to genteel English hearts. Preserve us from enjoying any thing but jokes and scandal! Preserve us from respecting any thing but rank and money! There were the social aspirations of these insular ladies and gentlemen, as expressed under other circumstances, and as betrayed amidst other scenes. Here, all was changed. Here was the strong feeling, the breathless interest, the hearty enthusiasm, not visible elsewhere. Here were the superb gentlemen who were too weary to speak, when an Art was addressing them, shouting themselves hoarse with burst on burst of genuine applause. Here were the fine ladies who yawned behind their fans, at the bare idea of being called on to think or to feel, waving their handkerchiefs in honest delight, and actually flushing with excitement through their powder and their paint. And all for what? All for running and jumping—all for throwing hammers and balls.
The foreigner looked at it, and tried, as a citizen of a civilized country, to understand it. He was still trying—when there occurred a pause in the performances.
Certain hurdles, which had served to exhibit the present satisfactory state of civilization (in jumping) among the upper classes, were removed. The privileged persons who had duties to perform within the inclosure, looked all round it; and disappeared one after another. A great hush of expectation pervaded the whole assembly. Something of no common interest and importance was evidently about to take place. On a sudden, the silence was broken by a roar of cheering from the mob in the road outside the grounds. People looked at each other excitedly, and said, “One of them has come.” The silence prevailed again—and was a second time broken by another roar of applause. People nodded to each other with an air of relief and said, “Both of them have come.” Then the great hush fell on the crowd once more, and all eyes looked toward one particular point of the ground, occupied by a little wooden pavilion, with the blinds down over the open windows, and the door closed.
The foreigner was deeply impressed by the silent expectation of the great throng about him. He felt his own sympathies stirred, without knowing why. He believed himself to be on the point of understanding the English people.
Some ceremony of grave importance was evidently in preparation. Was a great orator going to address the assembly? Was a glorious anniversary to be commemorated? Was a religious service to be performed? He looked round him to apply for information once more. Two gentlemen—who contrasted favorably, so far as refinement of manner was concerned, with most of the spectators present—were slowly making their way, at that moment, through the crowd near him. He respectfully asked what national solemnity was now about to take place. They informed him that a pair of strong young men were going to run round the inclosure for a given number of turns, with the object of ascertaining which could run the fastest of the two.
The foreigner lifted his hands and eyes to heaven. Oh, multifarious Providence! who would have suspected that the infinite diversities of thy creation included such beings as these! With that aspiration, he turned his back on the race-course, and left the place.
On his way out of the grounds he had occasion to use his handkerchief, and found that it was gone. He felt next for his purse. His purse was missing too. When he was back again in his own country, intelligent inquiries were addressed to him on the subject of England. He had but one reply to give. “The whole nation is a mystery to me. Of all the English people I only understand the English thieves!”
In the mean time the two gentlemen, making their way through the crowd, reached a wicket-gate in the fence which surrounded the inclosure.
Presenting a written order to the policeman in charge of the gate, they were forthwith admitted within the sacred precincts The closely packed spectators, regarding them with mixed feelings of envy and curiosity, wondered who they might be. Were they referees appointed to act at the coming race? or reporters for the newspapers? or commissioners of police? They were neither the one nor the other. They were only Mr. Speedwell, the surgeon, and Sir Patrick Lundie.
The two gentlemen walked into the centre of the inclosure, and looked round them.
The grass on which they were standing was girdled by a broad smooth path, composed of finely-sifted ashes and sand—and this again was surrounded by the fence and by the spectators ranked behind it. Above the lines thus formed rose on one side the amphitheatres with their tiers of crowded benches, and on the other the long rows of carriages with the sight-seers inside and out. The evening sun was shining brightly, the light and shade lay together in grand masses, the varied colors of objects blended softly one with the other. It was a splendid and an inspiriting scene.
Sir Patrick turned from the rows of eager faces all round him to his friend the surgeon.
“Is there one person to be found in this vast crowd,” he asked, “who has come to see the race with the doubt in his mind which has broughtusto see it?”
Mr. Speedwell shook his head. “Not one of them knows or cares what the struggle may cost the men who engage in it.”
Sir Patrick looked round him again. “I almost wish I had not come to see it,” he said. “If this wretched man—”
The surgeon interposed. “Don’t dwell needlessly, Sir Patrick, on the gloomy view,” he rejoined. “The opinion I have formed has, thus far, no positive grounds to rest on. I am guessing rightly, as I believe, but at the same time I am guessing in the dark. Appearancesmayhave misled me. There may be reserves of vital force in Mr. Delamayn’s constitution which I don’t suspect. I am here to learn a lesson—not to see a prediction fulfilled. I know his health is broken, and I believe he is going to run this race at his own proper peril. Don’t feel too sure beforehand of the event. The event may prove me to be wrong.”
For the moment Sir Patrick dropped the subject. He was not in his usual spirits.
Since his interview with Anne had satisfied him that she was Geoffrey’s lawful wife, the conviction had inevitably forced itself on his mind that the one possible chance for her in the future, was the chance of Geoffrey’s death. Horrible as it was to him, he had been possessed by that one idea—go where he might, do what he might, struggle as he might to force his thoughts in other directions. He looked round the broad ashen path on which the race was to be run, conscious that he had a secret interest in it which it was unutterably repugnant to him to feel. He tried to resume the conversation with his friend, and to lead it to other topics. The effort was useless. In despite of himself, he returned to the one fatal subject of the struggle that was now close at hand.
“How many times must they go round this inclosure,” he inquired, “before the race is ended?”
Mr. Speedwell turned toward a gentleman who was approaching them at the moment. “Here is somebody coming who can tell us,” he said.
“You know him?”
“He is one of my patients.”
“Who is he?”
“After the two runners he is the most important personage on the ground. He is the final authority—the umpire of the race.”
The person thus described was a middle-aged man, with a prematurely wrinkled face, with prematurely white hair and with something of a military look about him—brief in speech, and quick in manner.
“The path measures four hundred and forty yards round,” he said, when the surgeon had repeated Sir Patrick’s question to him. “In plainer words, and not to put you to your arithmetic once round it is a quarter of a mile. Each round is called a ‘Lap.’ The men must run sixteen Laps to finish the race. Not to put you to your arithmetic again, they must run four miles—the longest race of this kind which it is customary to attempt at Sports like these.”
“Professional pedestrians exceed that limit, do they not?”
“Considerably—on certain occasions.”
“Are they a long-lived race?”
“Far from it. They are exceptions when they live to be old men.”
Mr. Speedwell looked at Sir Patrick. Sir Patrick put a question to the umpire.
“You have just told us,” he said, “that the two young men who appear to-day are going to run the longest distance yet attempted in their experience. Is it generally thought, by persons who understand such things, that they are both fit to bear the exertion demanded of them?”
“You can judge for yourself, Sir. Here is one of them.”
He pointed toward the pavilion. At the same moment there rose a mighty clapping of hands from the great throng of spectators. Fleetwood, champion of the North, decorated in his pink colors, descended the pavilion steps and walked into the arena.
Young, lithe, and elegant, with supple strength expressed in every movement of his limbs, with a bright smile on his resolute young face, the man of the north won the women’s hearts at starting. The murmur of eager talk rose among them on all sides. The men were quieter—especially the men who understood the subject. It was a serious question with these experts whether Fleetwood was not “a little too fine.” Superbly trained, it was admitted—but, possibly, a little over-trained for a four-mile race.
The northern hero was followed into the inclosure by his friends and backers, and by his trainer. This last carried a tin can in his hand. “Cold water,” the umpire explained. “If he gets exhausted, his trainer will pick him up with a dash of it as he goes by.”
A new burst of hand-clapping rattled all round the arena. Delamayn, champion of the South, decorated in his yellow colors, presented himself to the public view.
The immense hum of voices rose louder and louder as he walked into the centre of the great green space. Surprise at the extraordinary contrast between the two men was the prevalent emotion of the moment. Geoffrey was more than a head taller than his antagonist, and broader in full proportion. The women who had been charmed with the easy gait and confident smile of Fleetwood, were all more or less painfully impressed by the sullen strength of the southern man, as he passed before them slowly, with his head down and his brows knit, deaf to the applause showered on him, reckless of the eyes that looked at him; speaking to nobody; concentrated in himself; biding his time. He held the men who understood the subject breathless with interest. There it was! the famous “staying power” that was to endure in the last terrible half-mile of the race, when the nimble and jaunty Fleetwood was run off his legs. Whispers had been spread abroad hinting at something which had gone wrong with Delamayn in his training. And now that all eyes could judge him, his appearance suggested criticism in some quarters. It was exactly the opposite of the criticism passed on his antagonist. The doubt as to Delamayn was whether he had been sufficiently trained. Still the solid strength of the man, the slow, panther-like smoothness of his movements—and, above all, his great reputation in the world of muscle and sport—had their effect. The betting which, with occasional fluctuations, had held steadily in his favor thus far, held, now that he was publicly seen, steadily in his favor still.
“Fleetwood for shorter distances, if you like; but Delamayn for a four-mile race.”
“Do you think he sees us?” whispered Sir Patrick to the surgeon.
“He sees nobody.”
“Can you judge of the condition he is in, at this distance?”
“He has twice the muscular strength of the other man. His trunk and limbs are magnificent. It is useless to ask me more than that about his condition. We are too far from him to see his face plainly.”
The conversation among the audience began to flag again; and the silent expectation set in among them once more. One by one, the different persons officially connected with the race gathered together on the grass. The trainer Perry was among them, with his can of water in his hand, in anxious whispering conversation with his principal—giving him the last words of advice before the start. The trainer’s doctor, leaving them together, came up to pay his respects to his illustrious colleague.
“How has he got on since I was at Fulham?” asked Mr. Speedwell.
“First-rate, Sir! It was one of his bad days when you saw him. He has done wonders in the last eight-and-forty hours.”
“Is he going to win the race?”
Privately the doctor had done what Perry had done before him—he had backed Geoffrey’s antagonist. Publicly he was true to his colors. He cast a disparaging look at Fleetwood—and answered Yes, without the slightest hesitation.
At that point, the conversation was suspended by a sudden movement in the inclosure. The runners were on their way to the starting-place. The moment of the race had come.
Shoulder to shoulder, the two men waited—each with his foot touching the mark. The firing of a pistol gave the signal for the start. At the instant when the report sounded they were off.
Fleetwood at once took the lead, Delamayn following, at from two to three yards behind him. In that order they ran the first round, the second, and the third—both reserving their strength; both watched with breathless interest by every soul in the place. The trainers, with their cans in their hands, ran backward and forward over the grass, meeting their men at certain points, and eying them narrowly, in silence. The official persons stood together in a group; their eyes following the runners round and round with the closest attention. The trainer’s doctor, still attached to his illustrious colleague, offered the necessary explanations to Mr. Speedwell and his friend.
“Nothing much to see for the first mile, Sir, except the ‘style’ of the two men.”
“You mean they are not really exerting themselves yet?”
“No. Getting their wind, and feeling their legs. Pretty runner, Fleetwood—if you notice Sir? Gets his legs a trifle better in front, and hardly lifts his heels quite so high as our man. His action’s the best of the two; I grant that. But just look, as they come by, which keeps the straightest line. There’s where Delamayn has him! It’s a steadier, stronger, truer pace; and you’ll see it tell when they’re half-way through.” So, for the first three rounds, the doctor expatiated on the two contrasted “styles”—in terms mercifully adapted to the comprehension of persons unacquainted with the language of the running ring.
At the fourth round—in other words, at the round which completed the first mile, the first change in the relative position of the runners occurred. Delamayn suddenly dashed to the front. Fleetwood smiled as the other passed him. Delamayn held the lead till they were half way through the fifth round—when Fleetwood, at a hint from his trainer, forced the pace. He lightly passed Delamayn in an instant; and led again to the completion of the sixth round.
At the opening of the seventh, Delamayn forced the pace on his side. For a few moments, they ran exactly abreast. Then Delamayn drew away inch by inch; and recovered the lead. The first burst of applause (led by the south) rang out, as the big man beat Fleetwood at his own tactics, and headed him at the critical moment when the race was nearly half run.
“It begins to look as if Delamaynwasgoing to win!” said Sir Patrick.
The trainer’s doctor forgot himself. Infected by the rising excitement of every body about him, he let out the truth.
“Wait a bit!” he said. “Fleetwood has got directions to let him pass—Fleetwood is waiting to see what he can do.”
“Cunning, you see, Sir Patrick, is one of the elements in a manly sport,” said Mr. Speedwell, quietly.
At the end of the seventh round, Fleetwood proved the doctor to be right. He shot past Delamayn like an arrow from a bow. At the end of the eight round, he was leading by two yards. Half the race had then been run. Time, ten minutes and thirty-three seconds.
Toward the end of the ninth round, the pace slackened a little; and Delamayn was in front again. He kept ahead, until the opening of the eleventh round. At that point, Fleetwood flung up one hand in the air with a gesture of triumph; and bounded past Delamayn with a shout of “Hooray for the North!” The shout was echoed by the spectators. In proportion as the exertion began to tell upon the men, so the excitement steadily rose among the people looking at them.
At the twelfth round, Fleetwood was leading by six yards. Cries of triumph rose among the adherents of the north, met by counter-cries of defiance from the south. At the next turn Delamayn resolutely lessened the distance between his antagonist and himself. At the opening of the fourteenth round, they were coming sid e by side. A few yards more, and Delamayn was in front again, amidst a roar of applause from the whole public voice. Yet a few yards further, and Fleetwood neared him, passed him, dropped behind again, led again, and was passed again at the end of the round. The excitement rose to its highest pitch, as the runners—gasping for breath; with dark flushed faces, and heaving breasts—alternately passed and repassed each other. Oaths were heard now as well as cheers. Women turned pale and men set their teeth, as the last round but one began.
At the opening of it, Delamayn was still in advance. Before six yards more had been covered, Fleetwood betrayed the purpose of his running in the previous round, and electrified the whole assembly, by dashing past his antagonist—for the first time in the race at the top of his speed. Every body present could see, now, that Delamayn had been allowed to lead on sufferance—had been dextrously drawn on to put out his whole power—and had then, and not till then, been seriously deprived of the lead. He made another effort, with a desperate resolution that roused the public enthusiasm to frenzy. While the voices were roaring; while the hats and handkerchiefs were waving round the course; while the actual event of the race was, for one supreme moment, still in doubt—Mr. Speedwell caught Sir Patrick by the arm.
“Prepare yourself!” he whispered. “It’s all over.”
As the words passed his lips, Delamayn swerved on the path. His trainer dashed water over him. He rallied, and ran another step or two—swerved again—staggered—lifted his arm to his mouth with a hoarse cry of rage—fastened his own teeth in his flesh like a wild beast—and fell senseless on the course.
A Babel of sounds arose. The cries of alarm in some places, mingling with the shouts of triumph from the backers of Fleetwood in others—as their man ran lightly on to win the now uncontested race. Not the inclosure only, but the course itself was invaded by the crowd. In the midst of the tumult the fallen man was drawn on to the grass—with Mr. Speedwell and the trainer’s doctor in attendance on him. At the terrible moment when the surgeon laid his hand on the heart, Fleetwood passed the spot—a passage being forced for him through the people by his friends and the police—running the sixteenth and last round of the race.
Had the beaten man fainted under it, or had he died under it? Every body waited, with their eyes riveted on the surgeon’s hand.
The surgeon looked up from him, and called for water to throw over his face, for brandy to put into his mouth. He was coming to life again—he had survived the race. The last shout of applause which hailed Fleetwood’s victory rang out as they lifted him from the ground to carry him to the pavilion. Sir Patrick (admitted at Mr. Speedwell’s request) was the one stranger allowed to pass the door. At the moment when he was ascending the steps, some one touched his arm. It was Captain Newenden.
“Do the doctors answer for his life?” asked the captain. “I can’t get my niece to leave the ground till she is satisfied of that.”
Mr. Speedwell heard the question and replied to it briefly from the top of the pavilion steps.
“For the present—yes,” he said.
The captain thanked him, and disappeared.
They entered the pavilion. The necessary restorative measures were taken under Mr. Speedwell’s directions. There the conquered athlete lay: outwardly an inert mass of strength, formidable to look at, even in its fall; inwardly, a weaker creature, in all that constitutes vital force, than the fly that buzzed on the window-pane. By slow degrees the fluttering life came back. The sun was setting; and the evening light was beginning to fail. Mr. Speedwell beckoned to Perry to follow him into an unoccupied corner of the room.
“In half an hour or less he will be well enough to be taken home. Where are his friends? He has a brother—hasn’t he?”
“His brother’s in Scotland, Sir.”
“His father?”
Perry scratched his head. “From all I hear, Sir, he and his father don’t agree.”
Mr. Speedwell applied to Sir Patrick.
“Do you know any thing of his family affairs?”
“Very little. I believe what the man has told you to be the truth.”
“Is his mother living?”
“Yes.”
“I will write to her myself. In the mean time, somebody must take him home. He has plenty of friends here. Where are they?”
He looked out of the window as he spoke. A throng of people had gathered round the pavilion, waiting to hear the latest news. Mr. Speedwell directed Perry to go out and search among them for any friends of his employer whom he might know by sight. Perry hesitated, and scratched his head for the second time.
“What are you waiting for?” asked the surgeon, sharply. “You know his friends by sight, don’t you?”
“I don’t think I shall find them outside,” said Perry.
“Why not?”
“They backed him heavily, Sir—and they have all lost.”
Deaf to this unanswerable reason for the absence of friends, Mr. Speedwell insisted on sending Perry out to search among the persons who composed the crowd. The trainer returned with his report. “You were right, Sir. There are some of his friends outside. They want to see him.”
“Let two or three of them in.”
Three came in. They stared at him. They uttered brief expressions of pity in slang. They said to Mr. Speedwell, “We wanted to see him. What is it—eh?”
“It’s a break-down in his health.”
“Bad training?”
“Athletic Sports.”
“Oh! Thank you. Good-evening.”
Mr. Speedwell’s answer drove them out like a flock of sheep before a dog. There was not even time to put the question to them as to who was to take him home.
“I’ll look after him, Sir,” said Perry. “You can trust me.”
“I’ll go too,” added the trainer’s doctor; “and see him littered down for the night.”
(The only two men who had “hedged” their bets, by privately backing his opponent, were also the only two men who volunteered to take him home!)
They went back to the sofa on which he was lying. His bloodshot eyes were rolling heavily and vacantly about him, on the search for something. They rested on the doctor—and looked away again. They turned to Mr. Speedwell—and stopped, riveted on his face. The surgeon bent over him, and said, “What is it?”
He answered with a thick accent and laboring breath—uttering a word at a time: “Shall—I—die?”
“I hope not.”
“Sure?”
“No.”
He looked round him again. This time his eyes rested on the trainer. Perry came forward.
“What can I do for you, Sir?”
The reply came slowly as before. “My—coat—pocket.”
“This one, Sir?”
“No.”
“This?”
“Yes. Book.”
The trainer felt in the pocket, and produced a betting-book.
“What’s to be done with this. Sir?”
“Read.”
The trainer held the book before him; open at the last two pages on which entries had been made. He rolled his head impatiently from side to side of the sofa pillow. It was plain that he was not yet sufficiently recovered to be able to read what he had written.
“Shall I read for you, Sir?”
“Yes.”
The trainer read three entries, one after another, without result; they had all been honestly settled. At the fourth the prostrate man said, “Stop!” This was the first of the entries which still depended on a future event. It recorded the wager laid at Windygates, when Geoffrey had backed himself (in defiance of the surgeon’s opinion) to row in the University boat-race next spring—and had forced Arnold Brinkworth to bet against him.
“Well, Sir? What’s to be done about this?”
He collected his strength for the effort; and answered by a word at a time.
“Write—brother—Julius. Pay—Arnold—wins.”
His lifted hand, solemnly emphasizing what he said, dropped at his side. He closed his eyes; and fell into a heavy stertorous sleep. Give him his due. Scoundrel as he was, give him his due. The awful moment, when his life was trembling in the balance, found him true to the last living faith left among the men of his tribe and time—the faith of the betting-book.
Sir Patrick and Mr. Speedwell quitted the race-ground together; Geoffrey having been previously removed to his lodgings hard by. They met Arnold Brinkworth at the gate. He had, by his own desire, kept out of view among the crowd; and he decided on walking back by himself. The separation from Blanche had changed him in all his habits. He asked but two favors during the interval which was to elapse before he saw his wife again—to be allowed to bear it in his own way, and to be left alone.
Relieved of the oppression which had kept him silent while the race was in progress, Sir Patrick put a question to the surgeon as they drove home, which had been in his mind from the moment when Geoffrey had lost the day.
“I hardly understand the anxiety you showed about Delamayn,” he said, “when you found that he had only fainted under the fatigue. Was it something more than a common fainting fit?”
“It is useless to conceal it now,” replied Mr. Speedwell. “He has had a narrow escape from a paralytic stroke.”
“Was that what you dreaded when you spoke to him at Windygates?”
“That was what I saw in his face when I gave him the warning. I was right, so far. I was wrong in my estimate of the reserve of vital power left in him. When he dropped on the race-course, I firmly believed we should find him a dead man.”
“Is it hereditary paralysis? His father’s last illness was of that sort.”
Mr. Speedwell smiled. “Hereditary paralysis?” he repeated. “Why the man is (naturally) a phenomenon of health and strength—in the prime of his life. Hereditary paralysis might have found him out thirty years hence. His rowing and his running, for the last four years, are alone answerable for what has happened to-day.”
Sir Patrick ventured on a suggestion.
“Surely,” he said, “with your name to compel attention to it, you ought to make this public—as a warning to others?”
“It would be quite useless. Delamayn is far from being the first man who has dropped at foot-racing, under the cruel stress laid on the vital organs. The public have a happy knack of forgetting these accidents. They would be quite satisfied when they found the other man (who happens to have got through it) produced as a sufficient answer to me.”
Anne Silvester’s future was still dwelling on Sir Patrick’s mind. His next inquiry related to the serious subject of Geoffrey’s prospect of recovery in the time to come.
“He will never recover,” said Mr. Speedwell. “Paralysis is hanging over him. How long he may live it is impossible for me to say. Much depends on himself. In his condition, any new imprudence, any violent emotion, may kill him at a moment’s notice.”
“If no accident happens,” said Sir Patrick, “will he be sufficiently himself again to leave his bed and go out?”
“Certainly.”
“He has an appointment that I know of for Saturday next. Is it likely that he will be able to keep it?”
“Quite likely.”
Sir Patrick said no more. Anne’s face was before him again at the memorable moment when he had told her that she was Geoffrey’s wife.
IT was Saturday, the third of October—the day on which the assertion of Arnold’s marriage to Anne Silvester was to be put to the proof.
Toward two o’clock in the afternoon Blanche and her step-mother entered the drawing-room of Lady Lundie’s town house in Portland Place.
Since the previous evening the weather had altered for the worse. The rain, which had set in from an early hour that morning, still fell. Viewed from the drawing-room windows, the desolation of Portland Place in the dead season wore its aspect of deepest gloom. The dreary opposite houses were all shut up; the black mud was inches deep in the roadway; the soot, floating in tiny black particles, mixed with the falling rain, and heightened the dirty obscurity of the rising mist. Foot-passengers and vehicles, succeeding each other at rare intervals, left great gaps of silence absolutely uninterrupted by sound. Even the grinders of organs were mute; and the wandering dogs of the street were too wet to bark. Looking back from the view out of Lady Lundie’s state windows to the view in Lady Lundie’s state room, the melancholy that reigned without was more than matched by the melancholy that reigned within. The house had been shut up for the season: it had not been considered necessary, during its mistress’s brief visit, to disturb the existing state of things. Coverings of dim brown hue shrouded the furniture. The chandeliers hung invisible in enormous bags. The silent clocks hibernated under extinguishers dropped over them two months since. The tables, drawn up in corners—loaded with ornaments at other times—had nothing but pen, ink, and paper (suggestive of the coming proceedings) placed on them now. The smell of the house was musty; the voice of the house was still. One melancholy maid haunted the bedrooms up stairs, like a ghost. One melancholy man, appointed to admit the visitors, sat solitary in the lower regions—the last of the flunkies, mouldering in an extinct servants’ hall. Not a word passed, in the drawing-room, between Lady Lundie and Blanche. Each waited the appearance of the persons concerned in the coming inquiry, absorbed in her own thoughts. Their situation at the moment was a solemn burlesque of the situation of two ladies who are giving an evening party, and who are waiting to receive their guests. Did neither of them see this? Or, seeing it, did they shrink from acknowledging it? In similar positions, who does not shrink? The occasions are many on which we have excellent reason to laugh when the tears are in our eyes; but only children are bold enough to follow the impulse. So strangely, in human existence, does the mockery of what is serious mingle with the serious reality itself, that nothing but our own self-respect preserves our gravity at some of the most important emergencies in our lives. The two ladies waited the coming ordeal together gravely, as became the occasion. The silent maid flitted noiseless up stairs. The silent man waited motionless in the lower regions. Outside, the street was a desert. Inside, the house was a tomb.
The church clock struck the hour. Two.
At the same moment the first of the persons concerned in the investigation arrived.
Lady Lundie waited composedly for the opening of the drawing-room door. Blanche started, and trembled. Was it Arnold? Was it Anne?
The door opened—and Blanche drew a breath of relief. The first arrival was only Lady Lundie’s solicitor—invited to attend the proceedings on her ladyship’s behalf. He was one of that large class of purely mechanical and perfectly mediocre persons connected with the practice of the law who will probably, in a more advanced state of science, be superseded by machinery. He made himself useful in altering the arrangement of the tables and chairs, so as to keep the contending parties effectually separated from each other. He also entreated Lady Lundie to bear in mind that he knew nothing of Scotch law, and that he was there in the capacity of a friend only. This done, he sat down, and looked out with silent interest at the rain—as if it was an operation of Nature which he had never had an opportunity of inspecting before.
The next knock at the door heralded the arrival of a visitor of a totally different order. The melancholy man-servant announced Captain Newenden.
Possibly, in deference to the occasion, possibly, in defiance of the weather, the captain had taken another backward step toward the days of his youth. He was painted and padded, wigged and dressed, to represent the abstract idea of a male human being of five-and twenty in robust health. There might have been a little stiffness in the region of the waist, and a slight want of firmness in the eyelid and the chin. Otherwise there was the fiction of five-and twenty, founded in appearance on the fact of five-and-thirty—with the truth invisible behind it, counting seventy years! Wearing a flower in his buttonhole, and carrying a jaunty little cane in his hand—brisk, rosy, smiling, perfumed—the captain’s appearance brightened the dreary room. It was pleasantly suggestive of a morning visit from an idle young man. He appeared to be a little surprised to find Blanche present on the scene of approaching conflict. Lady Lundie thought it due to herself to explain. “My step-daughter is here in direct defiance of my entreaties and my advice. Persons may present themselves whom it is, in my opinion, improper she should see. Revelations will take place which no young woman, in her position, should hear. She insists on it, Captain Newenden—and I am obliged to submit.”
The captain shrugged his shoulders, and showed his beautiful teeth.
Blanche was far too deeply interested in the coming ordeal to care to defend herself: she looked as if she had not even heard what her step-mother had said of her. The solicitor remained absorbed in the interesting view of the falling rain. Lady Lundie asked after Mrs. Glenarm. The captain, in reply, described his niece’s anxiety as something—something—something, in short, only to be indicated by shaking his ambrosial curls and waving his jaunty cane. Mrs. Delamayn was staying with her until her uncle returned with the news. And where was Julius? Detained in Scotland by election business. And Lord and Lady Holchester? Lord and Lady Holchester knew nothing about it.
There was another knock at the door. Blanche’s pale face turned paler still. Was it Arnold? Was it Anne? After a longer delay than usual, the servant announced Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn and Mr. Moy.
Geoffrey, slowly entering first, saluted the two ladies in silence, and noticed no one else. The London solicitor, withdrawing himself for a moment from the absorbing prospect of the rain, pointed to the places reserved for the new-comer and for the legal adviser whom he had brought with him. Geoffrey seated himself, without so much as a glance round the room. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he vacantly traced patterns on the carpet with his clumsy oaken walking-stick. Stolid indifference expressed itself in his lowering brow and his loosely-hanging mouth. The loss of the race, and the circumstances accompanying it, appeared to have made him duller than usual and heavier than usual—and that was all.
Captain Newenden, approaching to speak to him, stopped half-way, hesitated, thought better of it—and addressed himself to Mr. Moy.
Geoffrey’s legal adviser—a Scotchman of the ruddy, ready, and convivial type—cordially met the advance. He announced, in reply to the captain’s inquiry, that the witnesses (Mrs. Inchbare and Bishopriggs) were waiting below until they were wanted, in the housekeeper’s room. Had there been any difficulty in finding them? Not the least. Mrs. Inchbare was, as a matter of course, at her hotel. Inquiries being set on foot for Bishopriggs, it appeared that he and the landlady had come to an understanding, and that he had returned to his old post of headwaiter at the inn. The captain and Mr. Moy kept up the conversation between them, thus begun, with unflagging ease and spirit. Theirs were the only voices heard in the trying interval that elapsed before the next knock was heard at the door.
At last it came. There could be no doubt now as to the persons who might next be expected to enter the room. Lady Lundie took her step-daughter firmly by the hand. She was not sure of what Blanche’s first impulse might lead her to do. For the first time in her life, Blanche left her hand willingly in her step-mother’s grasp.
The door opened, and they came in.
Sir Patrick Lundie entered first, with Anne Silvester on his arm. Arnold Brinkworth followed them.
Both Sir Patrick and Anne bowed in silence to the persons assembled. Lady Lundie ceremoniously returned her brother-in-law’s salute—and pointedly abstained from noticing Anne’s presence in the room. Blanche never looked up. Arnold advanced to her, with his hand held out. Lady Lundie rose, and motioned him back. “Notyet,Mr. Brinkworth!” she said, in her most quietly merciless manner. Arnold stood, heedless of her, looking at his wife. His wife lifted her eyes to his; the tears rose in them on the instant. Arnold’s dark complexion turned ashy pale under the effort that it cost him to command himself. “I won’t distress you,” he said, gently—and turned back again to the table at which Sir Patrick and Anne were seated together apart from the rest. Sir Patrick took his hand, and pressed it in silent approval.
The one person who took no part, even as spectator, in the events that followed the appearance of Sir Patrick and his companions in the room—was Geoffrey. The only change visible in him was a change in the handling of his walking-stick. Instead of tracing patterns on the carpet, it beat a tattoo. For the rest, there he sat with his heavy head on his breast and his brawny arms on his knees—weary of it by anticipation before it had begun.
Sir Patrick broke the silence. He addressed himself to his sister-in-law.
“Lady Lundie, are all the persons present whom you expected to see here to-day?”
The gathered venom in Lady Lundie seized the opportunity of planting its first sting.
“All whom I expected are here,” she answered. “And more than I expected,” she added, with a look at Anne.
The look was not returned—was not even seen. From the moment when she had taken her place by Sir Patrick, Anne’s eyes had rested on Blanche. They never moved—they never for an instant lost their tender sadness—when the woman who hated her spoke. All that was beautiful and true in that noble nature seemed to find its one sufficient encouragement in Blanche. As she looked once more at the sister of the unforgotten days of old, its native beauty of expression shone out again in her worn and weary face. Every man in the room (but Geoffrey) looked at her; and every man (but Geoffrey) felt for her.
Sir Patrick addressed a second question to his sister-in-law.
“Is there any one here to represent the interests of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?” he asked.
Lady Lundie referred Sir Patrick to Geoffrey himself. Without looking up, Geoffrey motioned with his big brown hand to Mr. Moy, sitting by his side.
Mr. Moy (holding the legal rank in Scotland which corresponds to the rank held by solicitors in England) rose and bowed to Sir Patrick, with the courtesy due to a man eminent in his time at the Scottish Bar.
“I represent Mr. Delamayn,” he said. “I congratulate myself, Sir Patrick, on having your ability and experience to appeal to in the conduct of the pending inquiry.”
Sir Patrick returned the compliment as well as the bow.
“It is I who should learn from you,” he answered. “Ihave had time, Mr. Moy, to forget what I once knew.”
Lady Lundie looked from one to the other with unconcealed impatience as these formal courtesies were exchanged between the lawyers. “Allow me to remind you, gentlemen, of the suspense that we are suffering at this end of the room,” she said. “And permit me to ask when you propose to begin?”
Sir Patrick looked invitingly at Mr. Moy. Mr. Moy looked invitingly at Sir Patrick. More formal courtesies! a polite contest this time as to which of the two learned gentlemen should permit the other to speak first! Mr. Moy’s modesty proving to be quite immovable, Sir Patrick ended it by opening the proceedings.
“I am here,” he said, “to act on behalf of my friend, Mr. Arnold Brinkworth. I beg to present him to you, Mr. Moy as the husband of my niece—to whom he was lawfully married on the seventh of September last, at the Church of Saint Margaret, in the parish of Hawley, Kent. I have a copy of the marriage certificate here—if you wish to look at it.”
Mr. Moy’s modesty declined to look at it.
“Quite needless, Sir Patrick! I admit that a marriage ceremony took place on the date named, between the persons named; but I contend that it was not a valid marriage. I say, on behalf of my client here present (Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn), that Arnold Brinkworth was married at a date prior to the seventh of September last—namely, on the fourteenth of August in this year, and at a place called Craig Fernie, in Scotland—to a lady named Anne Silvester, now living, and present among us (as I understand) at this moment.”
Sir Patrick presented Anne. “This is the lady, Mr. Moy.”
Mr. Moy bowed, and made a suggestion. “To save needless formalities, Sir Patrick, shall we take the question of identity as established on both sides?”
Sir Patrick agreed with his learned friend. Lad y Lundie opened and shut her fan in undisguised impatience. The London solicitor was deeply interested. Captain Newenden, taking out his handkerchief, and using it as a screen, yawned behind it to his heart’s content. Sir Patrick resumed.
“You assert the prior marriage,” he said to his colleague. “It rests with you to begin.”
Mr. Moy cast a preliminary look round him at the persons assembled.
“The object of our meeting here,” he said, “is, if I am not mistaken, of a twofold nature. In the first place, it is thought desirable, by a person who has a special interest in the issue of this inquiry” (he glanced at the captain—the captain suddenly became attentive), “to put my client’s assertion, relating to Mr. Brinkworth’s marriage, to the proof. In the second place, we are all equally desirous—whatever difference of opinion may otherwise exist—to make this informal inquiry a means, if possible, of avoiding the painful publicity which would result from an appeal to a Court of Law.”
At those words the gathered venom in Lady Lundie planted its second sting—under cover of a protest addressed to Mr. Moy.
“I beg to inform you, Sir, on behalf of my step-daughter,” she said, “that we have nothing to dread from the widest publicity. We consent to be present at, what you call, ‘this informal inquiry,’ reserving our right to carry the matter beyond the four walls of this room. I am not referring now to Mr. Brinkworth’s chance of clearing himself from an odious suspicion which rests upon him, and upon another Person present. That is an after-matter. The object immediately before us—so far as a woman can pretend to understand it—is to establish my step-daughter’s right to call Mr. Brinkworth to account in the character of his wife. If the result, so far, fails to satisfy us in that particular, we shall not hesitate to appeal to a Court of Law.” She leaned back in her chair, and opened her fan, and looked round her with the air of a woman who called society to witness that she had done her duty.
An expression of pain crossed Blanche’s face while her step-mother was speaking. Lady Lundie took her hand for the second time. Blanche resolutely and pointedly withdrew it—Sir Patrick noticing the action with special interest. Before Mr. Moy could say a word in answer, Arnold centred the general attention on himself by suddenly interfering in the proceedings. Blanche looked at him. A bright flash of color appeared on her face—and left it again. Sir Patrick noted the change of color—and observed her more attentively than ever. Arnold’s letter to his wife, with time to help it, had plainly shaken her ladyship’s influence over Blanche.
“After what Lady Lundie has said, in my wife’s presence,” Arnold burst out, in his straightforward, boyish way, “I think I ought to be allowed to say a word on my side. I only want to explain how it was I came to go to Craig Fernie at all—and I challenge Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn to deny it, if he can.”
His voice rose at the last words, and his eyes brightened with indignation as he looked at Geoffrey.
Mr. Moy appealed to his learned friend.
“With submission, Sir Patrick, to your better judgment,” he said, “this young gentleman’s proposal seems to be a little out of place at the present stage of the proceedings.”
“Pardon me,” answered Sir Patrick. “You have yourself described the proceedings as representing an informal inquiry. An informal proposal—with submission toyourbetter judgment, Mr. Moy—is hardly out of place, under those circumstances, is it?”
Mr. Moy’s inexhaustible modesty gave way, without a struggle. The answer which he received had the effect of puzzling him at the outset of the investigation. A man of Sir Patrick’s experience must have known that Arnold’s mere assertion of his own innocence could be productive of nothing but useless delay in the proceedings. And yet he sanctioned that delay. Was he privately on the watch for any accidental circumstance which might help him to better a case that he knew to be a bad one?
Permitted to speak, Arnold spoke. The unmistakable accent of truth was in every word that he uttered. He gave a fairly coherent account of events, from the time when Geoffrey had claimed his assistance at the lawn-party to the time when he found himself at the door of the inn at Craig Fernie. There Sir Patrick interfered, and closed his lips. He asked leave to appeal to Geoffrey to confirm him. Sir Patrick amazed Mr. Moy by sanctioning this irregularity also. Arnold sternly addressed himself to Geoffrey.
“Do you deny that what I have said is true?” he asked.
Mr. Moy did his duty by his client. “You are not bound to answer,” he said, “unless you wish it yourself.”
Geoffrey slowly lifted his heavy head, and confronted the man whom he had betrayed.
“I deny every word of it,” he answered—with a stolid defiance of tone and manner.
“Have we had enough of assertion and counter-assertion, Sir Patrick, by this time?” asked Mr. Moy, with undiminished politeness.
After first forcing Arnold—with some little difficulty—to control himself, Sir Patrick raised Mr. Moy’s astonishment to the culminating point. For reasons of his own, he determined to strengthen the favorable impression which Arnold’s statement had plainly produced on his wife before the inquiry proceeded a step farther.
“I must throw myself on your indulgence, Mr. Moy,” he said. “I have not had enough of assertion and counter-assertion, even yet.”
Mr. Moy leaned back in his chair, with a mixed expression of bewilderment and resignation. Either his colleague’s intellect was in a failing state—or his colleague had some purpose in view which had not openly asserted itself yet. He began to suspect that the right reading of the riddle was involved in the latter of those two alternatives. Instead of entering any fresh protest, he wisely waited and watched.
Sir Patrick went on unblushingly from one irregularity to another.
“I request Mr. Moy’s permission to revert to the alleged marriage, on the fourteenth of August, at Craig Fernie,” he said. “Arnold Brinkworth! answer for yourself, in the presence of the persons here assembled. In all that you said, and all that you did, while you were at the inn, were you not solely influenced by the wish to make Miss Silvester’s position as little painful to her as possible, and by anxiety to carry out the instructions given to you by Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn? Is that the whole truth?”
“That is the whole truth, Sir Patrick.”
“On the day when you went to Craig Fernie, had you not, a few hours previously, applied for my permission to marry my niece?”
“I applied for your permission, Sir Patrick; and you gave it me.”
“From the moment when you entered the inn to the moment when you left it, were you absolutely innocent of the slightest intention to marry Miss Silvester?”
“No such thing as the thought of marrying Miss Silvester ever entered my head.”
“And this you say, on your word of honor as a gentleman?”
“On my word of honor as a gentleman.”
Sir Patrick turned to Anne.
“Was it a matter of necessity, Miss Silvester, that you should appear in the assumed character of a married woman—on the fourteenth of August last, at the Craig Fernie inn?”
Anne looked away from Blanche for the first time. She replied to Sir Patrick quietly, readily, firmly—Blanche looking at her, and listening to her with eager interest.
“I went to the inn alone, Sir Patrick. The landlady refused, in the plainest terms, to let me stay there, unless she was first satisfied that I was a married woman.”
“Which of the two gentlemen did you expect to join you at the inn—Mr. Arnold Brinkworth, or Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”
“Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn.”
“When Mr. Arnold Brinkworth came in his place and said what was necessary to satisfy the scruples of the landlady, you understood that he was acting in your interests, from motives of kindness only, and under the instructions of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”
“I understood that; and I objected as strongly as I could to Mr. Brinkworth placing himself in a false position on my account.”
“Did your objection proceed from any knowledge of the Scottish law of marriage, and of the position in which the peculiarities of that law might place Mr. Brinkworth?”
“I had no knowledge of the Scottish law. I had a vague dislike and dread of the deception which Mr. Brinkworth was practicing on the people of the inn. And I feared that it might lead to some possible misinterpretation of me on the part of a person whom I dearly loved.”
“That person being my niece?”
“Yes.”
“You appealed to Mr. Brinkworth (knowing of his attachment to my niece), in her name, and for her sake, to leave you to shift for yourself?”
“I did.”
“As a gentleman who had given his promise to help and protect a lady, in the absence of the person whom she had depended on to join her, he refused to leave you to shift by yourself?”
“Unhappily, he refused on that account.”
“From first to last, you were absolutely innocent of the slightest intention to marry Mr. Brinkworth?”
“I answer, Sir Patrick, as Mr. Brinkworth has answered. No such thing as the thought of marrying him ever entered my head.”
“And this you say, on your oath as a Christian woman?”
“On my oath as a Christian woman.”
Sir Patrick looked round at Blanche. Her face was hidden in her hands. Her step-mother was vainly appealing to her to compose herself.
In the moment of silence that followed, Mr. Moy interfered in the interests of his client.
“I waive my claim, Sir Patrick, to put any questions on my side. I merely desire to remind you, and to remind the company present, that all that we have just heard is mere assertion—on the part of two persons strongly interested in extricating themselves from a position which fatally compromises them both. The marriage which they deny I am now waiting to prove—not by assertion, on my side, but by appeal to competent witnesses.”
After a brief consultation with her own solicitor, Lady Lundie followed Mr. Moy, in stronger language still.
“I wish you to understand, Sir Patrick, before you proceed any farther, that I shall remove my step-daughter from the room if any more attempts are made to harrow her feelings and mislead her judgment. I want words to express my sense of this most cruel and unfair way of conducting the inquiry.”
The London lawyer followed, stating his professional approval of his client’s view. “As her ladyship’s legal adviser,” he said, “I support the protest which her ladyship has just made.”
Even Captain Newenden agreed in the general disapproval of Sir Patrick’s conduct. “Hear, hear!” said the captain, when the lawyer had spoken. “Quite right. I must say, quite right.”
Apparently impenetrable to all due sense of his position, Sir Patrick addressed himself to Mr. Moy, as if nothing had happened.
“Do you wish to produce your witnesses at once?” he asked. “I have not the least objection to meet your views—on the understanding that I am permitted to return to the proceedings as interrupted at this point.”
Mr. Moy considered. The adversary (there could be no doubt of it by this time) had something in reserve—and the adversary had not yet shown his hand. It was more immediately important to lead him into doing this than to insist on rights and privileges of the purely formal sort. Nothing could shake the strength of the position which Mr. Moy occupied. The longer Sir Patrick’s irregularities delayed the proceedings, the more irresistibly the plain facts of the case would assert themselves—with all the force of contrast—out of the mouths of the witnesses who were in attendance down stairs. He determined to wait.
“Reserving my right of objection, Sir Patrick,” he answered, “I beg you to go on.”
To the surprise of every body, Sir Patrick addressed himself directly to Blanche—quoting the language in which Lady Lundie had spoken to him, with perfect composure of tone and manner.
“You know me well enough, my dear,” he said, “to be assured that I am incapable of willingly harrowing your feelings or misleading your judgment. I have a question to ask you, which you can answer or not, entirely as you please.”
Before he could put the question there was a momentary contest between Lady Lundie and her legal adviser. Silencing her ladyship (not without difficulty), the London lawyer interposed. He also begged leave to reserve the right of objection, so far ashisclient was concerned.
Sir Patrick assented by a sign, and proceeded to put his question to Blanche.
“You have heard what Arnold Brinkworth has said, and what Miss Silvester has said,” he resumed. “The husband who loves you, and the sisterly friend who loves you, have each made a solemn declaration. Recall your past experience of both of them; remember what they have just said; and now tell me—do you believe they have spoken falsely?”
Blanche answered on the instant.
“I believe, uncle, they have spoken the truth!”
Both the lawyers registered their objections. Lady Lundie made another attempt to speak, and was stopped once more—this time by Mr. Moy as well as by her own adviser. Sir Patrick went on.
“Do you feel any doubt as to the entire propriety of your husband’s conduct and your friend’s conduct, now you have seen them and heard them, face to face?”
Blanche answered again, with the same absence of reserve.
“I ask them to forgive me,” she said. “I believe I have done them both a great wrong.”
She looked at her husband first—then at Anne. Arnold attempted to leave his chair. Sir Patrick firmly restrained him. “Wait!” he whispered. “You don’t know what is coming.” Having said that, he turned toward Anne. Blanche’s look had gone to the heart of the faithful woman who loved her. Anne’s face was turned away—the tears were forcing themselves through the worn weak hands that tried vainly to hide them.
The formal objections of the lawyers were registered once more. Sir Patrick addressed himself to his niece for the last time.
“You believe what Arnold Brinkworth has said; you believe what Miss Silvester has said. You know that not even the thought of marriage was in the mind of either of them, at the inn. You know—whatever else may happen in the future—that there is not the most remote possibility of either of them consenting to acknowledge that they ever have been, or ever can be, Man and Wife. Is that enough for you? Are you willing, before this inquiry proceeds any farther to take your husband’s hand; to return to your husband’s protection; and to leave the rest to me—satisfied with my assurance that, on the facts as they happened, not even the Scotch Law can prove the monstrous assertion of the marriage at Craig Fernie to be true?”