"My house is round the corner," answered Lord Bearwarden, stooping over the fallen ruffian. "Let us take him in. All the doctors in the world won"t save him," he added, in a tone of grave pity. "He"s bleeding to death inside."
Nina had been a good deal frightened, but recovered wonderfully in the rea.s.suring presence of her lover. "_His_ house?" she asked, in a sufficiently audible voice, considering her late agitation. "Who is he, d.i.c.k, and where does he live?"
Two of the police had now arrived, and were turning their lanterns on the party. The strong white light glared full on Miss Algernon"s face and figure, so like Lady Bearwarden"s but yet to the husband"s bewildered senses so surely not his wife"s.
He shook all over. His face, though flushed a moment ago, turned deadly pale. He clutched d.i.c.k"s shoulder, and his voice came dry and husky, while he gasped--
"What is it, Stanmore? Speak, man, for the love of heaven. What does it all mean?"
Then came question and answer; clearer, fuller, more fluent with every sentence. And so the explanation went on: how some enemy had roused his worst suspicions; how Lord Bearwarden, deceived by the extraordinary likeness which he could not but acknowledge even now, had been satisfied he saw d.i.c.k Stanmore with Maud in a hansom cab; how he had left his home in consequence, and sent that hostile message to d.i.c.k, which had so puzzled that gallant, open-hearted gentleman; how a certain letter from Lady Bearwarden, addressed to Mr. Stanmore, and forwarded to her husband, had but confirmed his suspicions; and how, at last, an anonymous communication to the same lady, falling accidentally into his hands, had mystified him completely, and made him resolve to watch and follow her at the hour named, with a desperate hope that something might be revealed to alleviate his sufferings, to give him more certainty of action and future guidance.
"I was horribly cut up, I don"t mind confessing it," said Lord Bearwarden, with his kindly grasp still on d.i.c.k"s shoulder. "And I waited there, outside my own house, like some d----d poaching thief.
It seemed so hard I couldn"t go in and see her just once more!
Presently, out she came, as I thought, and I followed, very craftily, and not too near for fear she should look round. She didn"t, though, but walked straight on; and when I saw the cab waiting, and she stopped as if she meant to get in, I couldn"t tell what to make of it at all."
"I was only just in time. I came that last few yards with a rush, I give you my word! And I made a grab at the driver, thinking the best chance was to stop the conveyance at once, or if I couldn"t do that, take a free pa.s.sage with the rest of them. She wasn"t going of her own accord, I felt sure. That villain of a lawyer struggled hard. I didn"t think he"d been so good a man. I wasn"t at all sorry to see you fellows coming up. It was two to one, you know, and I do believe, if it hadn"t been for the pistol, they might have got clear off. It shot the worst customer of the two, that poor fellow behind us, right through the body. Under my arm, I should think, for I got a very nasty one on the shoulder just as the smoke flew in my face. It has squared _his_ accounts, I fancy. But here we are at my house. Let"s get him in, and then you must introduce me properly to this young lady, whose acquaintance I have made in such an unusual manner."
The strange procession had, indeed, arrived at Lord Bearwarden"s residence. It consisted of the proprietor himself, whose right arm was now completely disabled, but who gesticulated forcibly with his left; of d.i.c.k Stanmore and Nina, listening to his lordship with the utmost deference and attention; of Jim"s senseless body, carried by Simon Perkins and one policeman, while Tom Ryfe, in close custody of the other, brought up the rear.
As they entered the hall, Lady Bearwarden"s pale, astonished face was seen looking over the banisters. Dorothea, too, creeping down-stairs, with some vague idea of escaping from this friendly refuge, and finding her way back, perhaps, to the cool shining Serpentine, came full upon the group at the moment when Jim was laid tenderly down by his bearers, and the policeman whispered audibly to his comrade that, even if the doctor were in the next street now, he would come too late!
She ran forward with a wild, despairing cry. She flung herself down by the long, limp, helpless figure. She raised the drooping head with its matted locks, its fixed, white, rigid face, and pressed it hard against her bosom--hard to her wayward, ignorant, warped, but loving heart.
"Speak to me, Jim!" she moaned once more, rocking backwards and forwards in her fierce agony. "Speak to me, deary! You"ll never speak again. O! why did they stop _me_ to-day? It"s cruel--cruel! Why did they stop me? We"d have been together before now!"
And the groom of the chambers, an unwilling witness of all these indecorous proceedings, resolved, for that one night, to do his duty stanchly by his employer, but give up his place with inflexible dignity on the morrow.
CHAPTER x.x.x
UNDER THE ACACIAS
"Out of drawing; flesh tints infamous; chiaroscuro grossly muddled; no breadth; not much story in it; badly composed; badly treated; badly painted altogether."
So said the reviews, laying down the infallible law of the writer, concerning Simon Perkins"s great picture. The public followed the reviews, of course, in accordance with a generous instinct, urging it to believe that he who can write his own language, not, indeed, accurately, but with a certain force and rapidity, must therefore be conversant with all the subjects on which he chooses to declaim.
Statesman, chemist, engineer, shipbuilder, soldier, above all, navigator, painter, plasterer, and statuary; like the hungry Greek adventurer of Juvenal, _omnia novit_: like Horace"s wise man amongst the Stoics; be the subject boots, beauty, bullocks, or the beer-trade, he is universal instructor and referee.
"Et sutor bonus, et solus formosus, et est rex."
So reviewers abused the picture persistently, and Lord Bearwarden was furious, brandishing a weekly newspaper above his head, and striding about the little Putney lawn with an energy that threatened to immerse him in the river, forgetful of those narrow limits, suggesting the proverbial extent of a fisherman"s walk on deck, "two steps and overboard."
His audience, though, were partial and indulgent. The old ladies in the drawing-room, overhearing an occasional sentence, devoutly believed their nephew was the first painter of his time, Lord Bearwarden the wisest critic that ever lived, the greatest n.o.bleman, the bravest soldier, the kindest husband, always excepting, perhaps, that other husband smoking there under the acacia, interchanging with his lordship many a pleasant jest and smile, that argued the good understanding existing between them.
d.i.c.k Stanmore and Lord Bearwarden were now inseparable. Their alliance furnished a standing joke for their wives. "They have the same perverted tastes, my dear, and like the same sort of people,"
lighthearted Nina would observe to the sister whom she had not found till the close of her girlish life. "It"s always fast friends, or, at least, men with a strong tendency to friendship, who are in love with the same woman, and I don"t believe they hate each other half as much as we should, even for _that_!"
To which Maud would make no reply, gazing with her dark eyes out upon the river, and wondering whether d.i.c.k had ever told the wife he loved how fondly he once worshipped another face so like her own.
For my part, I don"t think he had. I don"t think he could realise the force of those past feelings, nor comprehend that he could ever have cared much for any one but the darling who now made the joy of his whole life. When first he fell in love with Nina, it was for her likeness to her sister. Now, though in his eyes the likeness was fading every day, that sister"s face was chiefly dear to him because of its resemblance to his wife"s.
Never was there a happier family party than these persons const.i.tuted.
Lord and Lady Bearwarden, Mr. and Mrs. Stanmore, drove down from London many days in the week to the pretty Putney villa. Simon was truly rejoiced to see them, while the old ladies vibrated all over, caps, fronts, ribbons, lockets, and laces, with excitement and delight. The very flowers had a sweeter perfume, the laburnums a richer gold, the river a softer ripple, than in the experience of all previous springs.
"They may say what they like," continued Lord Bearwarden, still with the weekly paper in his hand. "I maintain the criterion of merit is success. I maintain that the Rhymer and the Fairy Queen is an extraordinary picture, and the general public the best judge. Why there was no getting near it at the Academy. The people crowded round as they do about a Cheap Jack at a fair. I"m not a little fellow, but I couldn"t catch a glimpse of any part except the Fairy Queen"s head.
I think it"s _the_ most beautiful face I ever saw in my life!"
"Thank you, Lord Bearwarden," said Nina, laughing. "He"d such a subject, you know; it"s no wonder he made a good picture of it."
No wonder, indeed! Did she ever think his brush was dipped in colours ground on the poor artist"s heart?
"It"s very like _you_ and it"s very like Maud," answered Lord Bearwarden. "Somehow you don"t seem to me so like each other as you used to be. And yet how puzzled I was the second time I ever set eyes on you!"
"How cross you were! and how you scolded!" answered saucy Mrs.
Stanmore. "I wouldn"t have stood it from d.i.c.k. Do you ever speak to Maud like that?"
The look that pa.s.sed between Lord and Lady Bearwarden was a sufficient reply. The crowning beauty had come to those dark eyes of hers, now that their pride was centred in another, their l.u.s.tre deepened and softened with the light of love.
"It was lucky for you, dear, that he _was_ angry," said her ladyship.
"If he had hesitated a moment, it"s frightful to think what would have become of you, at the mercy of those reckless, desperate men!"
"They were punished, at any rate," observed Nina gravely. "I shall never forget that dead fixed face in the hall. Nor the other man"s look, the cowardly one, while he prayed to be forgiven. Forgiven, indeed! One ought to forgive a great deal, but not such an enormity as that!"
"I think he got off very cheap," interposed d.i.c.k Stanmore. "He deserved to be hanged, in my opinion, and they only transported him--not even for life!"
"Think of the temptation, d.i.c.k," replied Nina, with another saucy smile. "How would you like it yourself?"
"And you were in pursuit of the same object. You can"t deny that, only he hit upon me first."
"I was more sorry for the other villain," said Lord Bearwarden, who had heard long ago the history of Gentleman Jim"s persecution of her ladyship. "He was a daring, reckless scoundrel, and I should like to have killed him myself, but _it_ did seem hard lines to be shot by his own confederate in the row!"
"I pity that poor woman most of all," observed Lady Bearwarden, with a sigh. "It is quite a mercy that she should have lost her senses. She suffered so dreadfully till her mind failed."
"How is she?" "Have you seen her?" came from the others in a breath.
"I was with her this morning," answered Maud. "She didn"t know me.
I don"t think she knows anybody. They can"t get her to read, nor do needlework, nor even walk out into the garden. She"s never still, poor thing! but paces up and down the room mumbling over a bent halfcrown and a knot of ribbon," added Lady Bearwarden, with a meaning glance at her husband, "that they found on the dead man"s body, and keeps pressing it against her breast while she mutters something about their wanting to take it away. It"s a sad, sad sight! I can"t get that wild vacant stare out of my head. It"s the same expression that frightened me so on her face that day by the Serpentine. It has haunted me ever since. She seemed to be looking miles away across the water at something I couldn"t see. I wonder what it was. I wonder what she looks at now!"
"She"s never been in her right senses, has she, since that dreadful night?" asked Nina. "If she were a lady, and well dressed, and respectable, one would say it"s quite a romance. Don"t you think perhaps, after all, it"s more touching as it is?" and Nina, who liked to make little heartless speeches she did not mean, looked lovingly on d.i.c.k, with her dark eyes full of tears, as she wondered what would become of her if anything happened to _him_!
"I can scarcely bear to think of it," answered Maud, laying her hand on her husband"s shoulder. "Through all the happiness of that night--far, far the happiest of my whole life--this poor thing"s utter misery comes back to me like a warning and a reproach. If I live to a hundred I shall never forget her when she looked up to heaven from the long rigid figure with its fixed white face, and tried to pray, and couldn"t, and didn"t know how! O! my darling!"--and here Maud"s voice sank to a whisper, while the haughty head drooped lovingly and humbly towards her husband"s arm,--"what have I done that I should be so blessed, while there is all this misery and disappointment and despair in the world?"
He made no attempt at explanation. The philosophy of our Household Cavalry, like the religion of Napoleon"s "Old Guard," is adapted for action rather than casuistry. He did not tell her that in the journey of life for some the path is made smooth and easy, for others paved with flint and choked with thorns; but that a wise Director knows best the capabilities of the wayfarer, and the amount of toil required to fit him for his rest. So up and down, through rough and smooth, in storm and sunshine--all these devious tracks lead home at last. If Lord Bearwarden thought this, he could not put it into words, but his arm stole lovingly round the slender waist, and over his brave, manly face came a gentle look that seemed to say he asked no better than to lighten every load for that dear one through life, and bear her tenderly with him on the road to heaven.
"_C"est l"amour_!" laughed Nina, "that makes all the bother and complications of our artificial state of existence!"