the hall-porter at barnes's club in st. james's-street, whose views of life during the last two months had been remarkably gloomy and desponding, began to revive and to feel himself again as the end of october drew on apace. he had had a dull time of it, that hall-porter, during august and september, sitting in his glazed box, cutting the newspapers which no one came to read, and staring at the hat-pegs which no one used. he had his manuscript book before him, but he did not inscribe ten names in it during the day; for nearly everybody was out of town; and the few members who per force remained,--gentlemen in the whitehall offices, or officers in the household brigade,--found scaffolding and ladders in the hall of barnes's, and the morning-room in the hands of the whitewashers, and the coffee-room closed, and the smokers relegated to the card-room, and such a general state of discomfort, that they shunned barnes's, and went off to the other clubs to which they belonged. but with the end of october came a change. the men who had been shooting in the north, the men who had been travelling on the continent, the men who had been yachting, and the men who had been lounging on the sea-coast, all came through town on their way to their other engagements; those who had no other engagements, and who had spent all their available money, settled down into their old way of life; all paid at least a flying visit to the club to see who was in town, and to learn any news that might be afloat.
it is a sharp bright afternoon, and the morning-room at barnes's is so full that you might actually fancy it the season. sir coke only's gray cab horse is, as usual, champing his bit just outside the door, and lord sumph's brougham is there, and tommy toshington's chestnut cob with the white face is being led up and down by the red-jacketed lad, who has probably been out of town too, as he has not been seen since parliament broke up, and yet is there and to the fore directly he is wanted. tommy toshington himself, an apple-faced little man, who might be any age between sixteen and sixty, but who is considerably nearer the latter than the former, gathers his letters from the porter as he passes, looks through them quickly, shaking his head the while at two or three written on very blue paper and addressed in very formal writing, and proceeds to the morning-room. everybody there, everybody knowing tommy, universal chorus of welcome from all save three old gentlemen reading evening papers, two of whom don't know tommy, and all of whom hate him.
"and where have you come from, tommy?" says lord sumph, who is a charming nobleman, labouring under the slight eccentricity of occasionally imagining that he is a steam-engine, when he whistles and shrieks and puffs, and has to be secluded from observation until the fit is over.
"last from east standling, my lord," says tommy; "and very pleasant it was."
"must have been doosid pleasant, by all i hear," says sir thomas buffem, k.c.b., and late of the madras army. "dook had the gout, hadn't he? and we all know how pleasant he is then!"
"that feller was there of course--what's his name?--bawlindor the barrister," says sir coke only. "can't bear that feller, dev'lish low-bred feller, was a dancin'-master or something of that sort--can't bear low-bred fellers;" and sir coke, whose paternal grandfather had been a pedlar, and who himself combined the intellect of an esquimaux with the manners of a whitechapel butcher on a saturday night, cleared his throat, and thumped his stick, and looked ferocious.
"yes, mr. bawlindor was there," says tommy toshington, looking round with a queer twinkle in his little gray eyes; "and he was very pleasant, very pleasant indeed. i hardly know how the duchess would have got on without him. he said some doosid smart things, did mr. bawlindor."
"i hate a feller who says smart things," said sir coke only; "making a buffoon of himself."
"ha, ha!" said duncan forbes, joining the group--"the carrier is jealous of the tumbler; it's a mere question of pigeons."
"what do you mean, sir duncan? i don't understand you," said sir coke angrily.
"don't suppose you do--never gave you credit for anything of the sort.--how are you, all you fellows? what were the smart things that bawlindor said, tommy?"
"well, i don't know; perhaps you wouldn't think 'em smart, duncan, because you're a devilish clever chap yourself, and--"
"yes, yes, we know all about that; but tell us some smart things that bawlindor said--tell us one."
"well, you know tottenham? you know he gives awful heavy dinners? he was bragging about them one day at luncheon at east standling, and bawlindor said, 'there's one thing, my lord, i always envy when i'm dining with you.' 'what's that?' says tottenham. "i envy your gas,' says bawlindor, 'and it escapes.'"
"ye-es! that was not bad for bawlindor. i hate the brute though; i daresay he stole it from somebody else. well, how are you all, and what's the news?"
"you ought to be able to tell us that," said lord sumph. "we're only just back in town, and you've been here all the time, haven't you, in the tower or somewhere?"
"not i; i'm only just back too."
"and where have you come from?"
"last from kilsyth."
"devil you have!" growled sir thomas buffem, edging away. "they've had jungle-fever--not jungle, scarlet-fever there, haven't they?"
"o, ah, duncan," said clement walkinshaw of the foreign office, "tell us all about that! it was awful, wasn't it? towcester cut and run, didn't he? mrs. severn said he turned pea-green, and sent such a stunning caricature of him to her sister, who was staying at claverton! we stuck it up in the smoking-room, and had no end fun about it."
"i'm glad you were so much amused. it wasn't no end fun for miss kilsyth, however, as she was nearly losing her life."
"was she, by jove!" said walkinshaw, who was a "beauty boy," examining himself in the glass, and smoothing his little moustaches,--"was she, by jove! what! our dear little maddy?"
"our dear little maddy," said duncan forbes calmly, "if you are on sufficient terms of intimacy with the young lady to speak of her in that manner in a public room. i call her miss kilsyth; but then we were only brought up together as children, whereas you had the advantage of having been introduced to her last season, i think, walkinshaw."
"that was a hot 'un for that d--d little despatch-box!" said sir thomas buffem, as walkinshaw walked off discomfited. "serve him quite right--conceited little brute!"
"well, but what was it, duncan?" asked lord sumph. "it wasn't only the gal, heaps of people were down with it, eh?--regular hospital, and that kind of thing? i saw the northallertons on their way south, and the duchess said it was awfully bad up there."
"the duchess is a--very nice person," said forbes, checking himself, "and, like sir thomas here, an old soldier."
"but it was a great go, though, duncan,--infection and all that, eh?" asked captain hetherington, who had joined the talkers. "there's no such thing as getting poole's people to make you a coat; the whole resources of the establishment are concentrated on building a new rig-out for towcester, who has sacrificed his entire get-up, and had his hair cut close, and taken no end of turkish baths, for fear of being refused admittance at places where he was going to stay."
"all i can say is, then--is, that it's a capital thing for towcester's man, or whoever gets his wardrobe," said forbes; "charley jefferson might have made a good thing by buying his tunics, only there's a slight difference in their size--he wouldn't have feared the infection."
"no, not in that way perhaps," said hetherington. "charley's like the yankee in dickens's book, 'fever-proof and likewise ague;' but he can be got at, we all know. how about the widow? she bolted too, didn't she?"
"she did--more shame for her. no! the fact was, that at kilsyth----"
"cave canem!" said tommy toshington, holding up a monitory finger--"cave canem, as we used to say at school. here's ronald kilsyth just come into the room and making towards us!"
you can get a good view of ronald kilsyth now as he advances up the room. rather under than over the middle height, with very broad shoulders betokening great muscular strength, and square limbs. his head is large, and his thick brown hair is brushed off his broad forehead, and hangs almost to his coat-collar. he has a well-moulded but rather a stern face, with bushy eyebrows, piercing gray eyes, and close thin lips. he is dressed plainly but in good taste, and his whole appearance is perfectly gentlemanlike. it would have been as hard to have mistaken ronald for a snob as to have passed him by without notice; and there was something about him that infallibly attracted attention, and made those who saw him for the first time wonder who he was. it would have been quite impossible to divine his profession from his appearance; neither in look or bearing was there the smallest trace of the plunger. he might have been taken for a deep-thinking chancery barrister, had it not been for his moustache; or, more likely still, a shrewd long-headed engineer, a man of facts and figures and calculation; but never a dragoon. he had been the innocent cause of extreme disappointment to many young ladies in various parts of the country where he had stayed--quiet unsophisticated girls, whose visits to london had been very rare, and who knew nothing of its society, and who hearing that a life-guards' officer was coming to dinner, expected to see a gigantic creature, all cuirass and jack-boots, an enlarged and ornamental edition of the sentries in front of the horse-guards. ronald kilsyth in his plain evening dress was a great blow to them; in byegone days his moustache would have been some consolation; but now the young farmers in the neighbourhood, the sporting surgeon, and all the volunteers wore moustaches; and though in subsequent conversation they found ronald very pleasant, he neither drawled, nor lisped, nor made love to them; all of which proceedings they had believed to be necessary attributes of his branch of the military profession.
and many persons who were not young ladies in the country were disappointed in ronald kilsyth, more especially old friends of his father, who expected to find his son resembling him. ronald inherited his father's love of honour, truth, and candour, his keen sense of right and wrong, his manliness and his courage; but there the likeness between the men ceased. kilsyth's warmth of heart, warmth of temper, and largeness of soul were not reflected by ronald, who never lost his self-control, who never gave anybody credit for more than they deserved, and who--save perhaps for his sister madeleine, and his love for her was of a very stern and spartan character--had never entertained any particularly warm feelings for any human being.
ronald kilsyth is not popular at barnes's, being decidedly an unclubbable man. the members, if ever they speak of him at all, want to know what he joined for. he belonged to the rag, didn't he, and some other club, where he could sit mumchance over his mutton, or stare at the lads from aldershott drinking five-guinea heidzeck champagne. what did he want among this sociable set? he always looked straight down his nose when guffoon came up with a sad story, and he never cared about any scandal that was foreign. but he was not disliked, at least openly. it was considered that he was a doosid clever fellow, with a doosid sharp tongue of his own; and at barnes's, as at other clubs, they are generally polite to fellows with doosid sharp tongues. and his father was a very good fellow, and gave very good dinners during the season, and kilsyth was a very pleasant house to stop at in the autumn; so that, for these various reasons, ronald kilsyth, albeit in himself unpopular at barnes's, was never suffered to hear of his unpopularity.
not that if he had, it would have troubled him one jot. no man in the world was more careless of what people thought of him, so long as he had the approval of his own conscience; and by dint of a long course of self-schooling and the presence of a certain amount of self-satisfaction, he could generally count upon that. he could not tell himself why he had joined barnes's club, unless it was that duncan forbes was a member, and had asked him to join; and he liked duncan forbes in his way, and wanted some place where he could be pretty certain of finding him when in town. there were few points of resemblance between ronald kilsyth and duncan forbes; but perhaps their very dissimilarity was the bond of the union, such as it was, that existed between them. ronald knew duncan to be weak, but believed him, and rightly, to be thorough. duncan forbes would assume a languid haw-hawism, an almost idiotic rapidity, a freezing hauteur to any one he did not know and did not care for, for the merest caprice; but he would stand or fall by a friend, and not charley jefferson himself would be firmer and truer under trial. ronald knew this; and knowing it, was not disposed to be hard on his friend's less stable qualities--was rather amused indeed "by duncan's nonsense," as he phrased it, and showed more inclination for his society than that of any other of his acquaintance.
the group of talkers in the window opened as ronald approached, and he shook hands with its various members; tommy toshington, who always had something pleasant to say to anybody out of whom there was any possibility of his ever getting anything, complimenting him on his appearance.
"look as fresh as paint, ronald, my boy--fresh as paint, by jove! where have you been to pick up such a colour and to get yourself into such focus, eh?"
"the marine breezes of knightsbridge have contributed to my complexion, toshington, and the vigorous exercise of walking four miles a day on the london flags has brought me into my present splendid condition."
"what! not been away from town at all?" asked sir coke only, who would almost as soon have acknowledged his poor relations as confessed to having been in london in september.
"not at all. in the first place, i was on duty, and could not get away; not that i think i should have moved under any circumstances. london is always good enough for me."
"but not when it's quite empty," said lord sumph.
"it can't be quite empty with two millions and a half of people in it, sumph," said ronald.
"o, ah, cads and tradesmen, and all that sort of thing,--devilish worthy people in their way, of course; but i mean people that one knows."
"i know several of those 'devilish worthy people,' sumph," said ronald, with a smile; "and besides, country-house life is not much in my way."
"don't meet those d?-d radical fellows that he thinks so much of, there," growled sir thomas buffem to sir coke only.
"no, nor those painters and people that my boy says this chap's always bringing to mess," replied sir coke.
"there, he's gone away with duncan now," said toshington, "and they'll be happy. they're too clever, those two are, for us old fellows! not that you're an old fellow, sumph, my boy."
"you're old enough for several, ain't you, tommy?" said lord sumph; "and i'm old enough to play you a game of billiards before dinner, and give you fifteen; so come along."
meanwhile ronald kilsyth and duncan forbes had walked away to the far end of the room, which happened to be deserted at the time; and seating themselves on an ottoman, were soon engaged in earnest conversation.
"what on earth made you remain in town, ronald?" asked duncan. "i heard what you said to those fellows; but i know well enough that you could have got leave if you had wished. why did you not come up to kilsyth?"
"principally because there was no particular inducement for me to do so, duncan."
"you always were polite, ronald--"
"ah, you were there! no, no; you know perfectly well what i mean, duncan. with you and the governor and madeleine i'm always perfectly happy; and her ladyship is very friendly, and we get on very well together. but then i like you all quietly and by yourselves; i'm selfish enough to want the entire enjoyment of your society. and the life at kilsyth would not have suited me at all."
"well, i don't know; it was very jolly--"
"yes, of course it was, and--by the way, duncan, tell me all about it; who were there, and what you did."
"o, heaps of people there--the northallertons, and the thurlows, and--"
"yes, yes; but what men--younger men, i mean?"
"let me see; there was towcester--"
"no, not he; her ladyship would not have thought him objectionable, whatever i might."
"what? what the deuce are you muttering, ronald?"
"i beg your pardon, duncan--thinking aloud only; it's a horrible habit i've fallen into. well, who besides towcester?"
"o, severn, and roderick douglas, and charley jefferson--"
"ah, charley jefferson; he's just the same, of course?"
"o yes, he's as jolly as ever."
"yes; but i mean, is he as devoted as he was to lady fairfax?"
"o, worse; most desperate case of--no, by the way, though, i forgot; i think he has cooled off--"
"cooled off! since when?"
"since your sister's illness."
"since my sister's illness! why, what could that have to do with them?"
"well, you see, some of the people in the house got frightened at the notion of infection and that kind of thing, and bolted off. lady fairfax was one of the first to rush away; and charley, who is loyalty itself in everything, as you know, was deucedly annoyed about it. my lady had been leading him a pretty dance for a few days previously, playing off little towcester against him, and--"
"ah, yes. no doubt charley was right, quite right. and that was all about him, eh? and so the people were frightened at poor madeleine's illness, were they?"
"gad, they were, and not without reason too. the poor child was awfully bad; and indeed, if it had not been for wilmot, i much doubt whether she would have pulled through."
"hadn't been for wilmot? wilmot! o, yes, the london doctor who was staying somewhere, near, and who was telegraphed for. tell me about dr. wilmot--a clever man, isn't he?"
"clever! he's wonderful! keen, clear-headed fellow; sees his way through a brick wall in a minute. not that at kilsyth he did not do as much by his devotion to his patient as by his skill."
"devotion? o, he was devoted to his patient, eh?" said ronald, biting his nails.
"never saw such a thing in all your life. went in a regular perisher," said duncan forbes, dropping his hands to emphasise his words. "put himself in regular quarantine; cut himself off from all communication with anybody else, and shut himself up in the room with his patient for days together. it's the sort of thing you read of in poems, and that kind of thing, don't you know, but very seldom meet with in real life. if wilmot had been a young man, and your sister had had any chance of making him like her, i should have said it was a case of smite. but wilmot is an old married man; and these doctors don't indulge much in being captivated, specially by patients in fevers, i should think!"
"no; of course not, of course not. now, this wilmot--what's he like?"
"well, he's rather a striking-looking man; looks very earnest, and speaks with a very effectively modulated voice."
"ah! and he's gentlemanly, eh?"
"o, perfectly gentlemanly. no mistake in that."
"and he was wonderfully devoted to madeleine, eh? very kind of him, i'm sure. shut himself up in her room, and--what did lady muriel think of him, by the way?"
"i scarcely know. i never heard her say; and yet i gathered somehow that lady muriel was not so much impressed in the doctor's favour as the rest of us."
"that's curious, for there are few keener readers of character than lady muriel. and the doctor was not a favourite of hers?"
"well, no; i should say not. but the rest of the party were so strongly in his favour that we looked with some suspicion on all who did not shout as loudly as ourselves."
"and madeleine, was she equally enthusiastic?"
"poor miss kilsyth, she was not well enough to have much enthusiasm on any subject, even on her doctor. gratitude is, i imagine, the strongest sentiment one is capable of after a long and severe illness."
"exactly--yes--i should suppose so. and what aged man is dr. wilmot?"
"o, what we should have called some years ago very old, but what we now look upon as the commencement of middle age--just approaching forty, i should think."
"he is married, you say?"
"yes; so we all understood. o yes, i heard him once mention his wife to lady muriel.--i say, ronald, what an unconscionable lot of questions you are asking about wilmot; one would think that--"
"gentleman waiting to speak to you, sir," said a servant, handing a card to ronald; "says he won't detain you a moment, sir."
ronald took the card, and read on it "dr. wilmot."
"i will come to the gentleman at once," said he; and the servant went away.
"who is it? anyone i know?" asked duncan forbes.
"he is a stranger to me," said ronald, blinking the question.
he found dr. wilmot in that wretched little waiting-room about the size of a warm bath, and having for its furniture a chair, a table, and a map of england, which is dedicated at barnes's to the reception of "strangers." the gas was low, and the doctor was heavily wrapped up, and had a shawl round the lower part of his face; but ronald made him out to be a gentlemanly-looking man, and specially noticed his keen flashing eyes. the doctor was sorry to disturb captain kilsyth, but his father had sent up to him just before he started a parcel which he wished delivered personally to the captain; so he had brought it on his way from the great northern, by which he had just arrived. it was some law-deed, about the safety of which kilsyth was a little particular. it would have been delivered two days since, but, passing through edinburgh, the doctor had found his old friend sir saville rowe staying at the same hotel, and had suffered himself to be persuaded to accompany him to see the new experiments in anaesthetics which simpson had just made, and which-- ah! but the captain did not care for medical details. the captain was very sorry that he had not a better room to ask the doctor into; but the regulations at barnes's about strangers were antediluvian and absurd. he should take an early opportunity of thanking dr. wilmot for his exceeding kindness in going to kilsyth, and for the skill and attention which he had bestowed on miss kilsyth. the doctor apparently to ronald, even in the dull gas-light, with a heightened colour disclaimed everything, asserting that he had merely done his duty. exchange of bows and of very cold hand-shakes, the doctor jumping into the cab at the door, ronald turning back into the hall, muttering, "that's the man! taking what duncan forbes said, and that fellow's look when i named madeleine--taking them together, that's the man that lady muriel meant. that's the man, for a thousand pounds!"
in the cab dr. wilmot is thinking about ronald. a blunt rough customer rather, but with a wonderful look of his sister about him; not traceable to any feature in particular, but in the general expression. his sister!--now a memory and a dream--with the bit of blue ribbon as the sole tangible reminiscence of her. she is among her friends now; and probably at this moment some one is sitting close by her, close as he used to sit, and he is forgotten already, or but thought of as--not a pleasant manner, captain kilsyth's. studiously polite, no doubt, but with an undercurrent of badly-veiled suspicion and reserve. what could that mean? dr. wilmot knew that his conduct towards the kilsyth family, so far at least as its outward expression was concerned, had merited nothing but gratitude from every member of it. why, then, was the young man embarrassed and suspicious? could he--pshaw! how could he by any possible means have become aware of the doctor's secret feelings towards miss kilsyth--feelings so secret that they had never been breathed in words to mortal? perfectly absurd! it is conscience that makes cowards of us all; and the doctor decides that it is conscience which has made him pervert captain kilsyth's naturally cold manner so ridiculously.
well, it is all over now! he is just back again at his old life, and he must give up the day-dreams of the past month and fall back into his professional habits. looking out of the cab window at the long monotonous row of dirty-brown houses, at the sloppy street, at the pushing crowds on the foot-pavement, listening to the never-ceasing roar of wheels, he can hardly believe that he has only just returned from mountain, and heather, and distance, and fresh air, and comparative solitude! back again! the reception at home from "ten till one," the old ladies' pulses and the old gentlemen's tongues, the wearied listening to the symptoms, the stethoscopical examination and the prescription-writing; then the afternoon visits, with the repetition of all the morning's details; the hospital lecture; the dull cold formal dinner with mabel; and the evening's reading and writing,--without one bright spot in the entire daily round, without one cheering hope, one--
a smell of tan!--the street in front of his door strewed with tan! some one ill close by. what is this strange sickness that comes over him--this sinking at his heart--this clamminess of his brow and hands? the cab has scarcely stopped before he has jumped out, and has knocked at the door. not his usual sharp decisive knock, but feebly and hesitatingly. he notices this himself, and is wondering about it, when the door opens, and his servant, always solemn, but now preternaturally grave, appears.
"glad to see you at last, sir," says the man, "though you're too late!"
"too late!" echoes wilmot vacantly; "too late!--what for?"
"for god's sake, sir," says the man, startled out of his ordinary quietude; "you got the telegram?"
"telegram! no--what telegram? what did it say? what has happened?"
"mrs. wilmot, sir!--she's gone, sir!--died yesterday morning at eight o'clock!".
