Tom followed her almost on tip-toe to the spot where the parcels lay.
“Gently now; into this room, please,” and she led the way into that sitting-room into which Tom Sedley had looked some little time since, from the stairhead.
The beautiful young lady was gone, but Miss Sheckleton was standing at the further door of the room with her hands clasped, and her eyes raised in prayer, and her pale cheeks wet with tears.
Hearing the noise, she gently closed the door, and hastily drying her eyes, whispered, “Set them down there,” pointing to a sofa, on which Tom placed them accordingly. “Thanks — that will do. You may go.”
When Sedley had closed the door —
“Oh, Mrs. Graver,” whispered Anne Sheckleton, clasping her wrists in her trembling fingers, “is she very ill?”
“Well, ma’am, she is ill.”
“But, oh, my God, you don’t think we are going to lose her?” she whispered wildly, with her imploring gaze in the nurse’s eyes.
“Oh, no, please God, ma’am, it will all be right. You must not fuss yourself, ma’am. You must not let her see you like this, on no account.”
“Shall I send for him now?”
“No, ma’am; he’d only be in the way. I’ll tell you when; and his man’s here, ready to go, any minute. I must go back to her now, ma’am. Hish!”
And Mrs. Graver disappeared with a little rustle of her dress, and no sound of steps. That solemn bird floated very noiselessly round sick beds, and you only heard, as it were, the hovering of her wings.
And then, in a minute more, in glided Miss Sheckleton, having dried her eyes very carefully.
And now came a great knocking at the hall door, echoing dully through the house. It was Doctor Grimshaw, who had just got his coat off, and was winding his watch, when he was called from his own bedside by this summons, and so was here after a long day’s work, to make a new start, and await the dawn in this chamber of pain.
In he came, and Miss Sheckleton felt that light and hope entered the room with him. Florid, portly, genial, with a light, hopeful step, and a good, decided, cheery manner, he inspired confidence, and seemed to take command, not only of the case, but of the ailment itself.
Miss Sheckleton knew this good doctor, and gladly shook his hand; and he recognised her with a hesitating look that seemed to ask a question, but was not meant to do so, and he spoke cheerfully to the patient, and gave his directions to the nurse, and in about half an hour more told good Anne Sheckleton that she had better leave the patient.
So, with the docility which an able physician inspires, good Anne Sheckleton obeyed, and in the next room — sometimes praying, sometimes standing and listening, sometimes wandering from point to point, in the merest restlessness — she waited and watched for more than an hour, which seemed to her longer than a whole night, and at last tapped very gently at the door, a lull having come for a time in the sick chamber, and unable longer to endure her suspense.
A little bit of the door was opened, and Anne Sheckleton saw the side of Mrs. Graver’s straight nose, and one of her wrinkled eyes, and her grim mouth.
“How is she?” whispered Miss Sheckleton, feeling as if she was herself about to die.
“Pretty well, ma’am,” answered the nurse, but with an awful look of insincerity, under which the old lady’s heart sank down and down, as if it had foundered.
“One word to Dr. Grimshaw,” she whispered, with white lips.
“You can’t, ma’am,” murmured the nurse, sternly, and about to shut the door in her face.
“Wait, wait,” whispered the voice of kind old Doctor Grimshaw, and he came into the next room to Miss Sheckleton, closing the door after him.
“Oh, doctor!” she gasped.
“Well, Miss Sheckleton, I hope she’ll do very well; I’ve just given her something — a slight stimulant — and I’ve every confidence everything will be well. Don’t make yourself uneasy; it is not going on badly.”
“Oh, Doctor Grimshaw, shall I send for him? He’d never forgive me; and I promised her, darling Margaret, to send.”
“Don’t send — on no account yet. Don’t bring him here — he’s better away. I’ll tell you when to send.”
The doctor opened the door.
“Still quiet?”
“Yes, sir,” whispered Mrs. Graver.
Again he closed the door.
“Nice creature she seems. A relation of yours?” asked the Doctor.
“My cousin.”
“When was she married?”
“About a year ago.”
“Never any tendency to consumption?”
“Never.”
“Nothing to make her low or weak? Is she hysterical?”
“No, hardly that, but nervous and excitable.”
“I know; very good. I think she’ll do very nicely. If anything goes the least wrong I’ll let you know. Now stay quiet in there.”
And he shut the door, and she heard his step move softly over the next room floor, so great was the silence; and she kneeled down and prayed as helpless people pray in awful peril; and more time passed, and more, slowly, very slowly. Oh, would the dawn ever come, and the daylight again?
Voices and moans she heard from the room. Again she prayed on her knees to the throne of mercy, in the agony of her suspense, and now over the strange roofs spread the first faint gray of the coming dawn; and there came a silence in the room, and on a sudden was heard a new tiny voice crying.
“The little child!” cried old Anne Sheckleton, springing to her feet, with clasped hands, in the anguish of delight, and such a gush of tears — as she looked up, thanking God with her smiles — as comes only in such moments.
Margaret’s clear voice faintly said something; Anne could not hear what.
“A boy,” answered the cheery voice of Doctor Grimshaw.
“Oh! he’ll be so glad!” answered the faint clear voice in a kind of rapture.
“Of course he will,” replied the same cheery voice. And another question came, too low for old Anne Sheckleton’s ears.
“A beautiful boy! as fine a fellow as you could desire to look at. Bring him here, nurse.”
“Oh! the darling!” said the same faint voice. “I’m so happy.”
“Thank God! thank God! thank God!” sobbed delighted Anne Sheckleton, her cheeks still streaming in showers of tears as she stood waiting at the door for the moment of admission, and hearing the sweet happy tones of Margaret’s voice sounding in her ears like the voice of one who had just now died, heard faintly through the door of heaven.
For thus it has been, and thus to the end, it will be — the “sorrow” of the curse is remembered no more, “for joy that a man is born into the world.”
* * *
CHAPTER III.
CLEVE COMES.
Tom Sedley was dozing in his chair, by the fire, when he was roused by Mrs. Graver’s voice.
“You’ll take this note at once, please, to your master; there’s a cab at the door, and the lady says you mustn’t make no delay.”
It took some seconds to enable Tom to account for the scene, the actor and his own place of repose, his costume, and the tenor of the strange woman’s language. In a little while, however, he recovered the context, and the odd passage in his life became intelligible.
Still half asleep, Tom hurried downstairs, and in the hall, with a shock, read the address, “Cleve Verney, Esq.” At the hall-door steps he found a cab, into which he jumped, telling the man to drive to Cleve Verney’s lodgings.
There were expiring lights in the drawingroom, the blinds of which were up, and as the cab stopped at the steps a figure appeared at one of the windows, and Cleve Verney opened it, and told the driver, “Don’t mind knocking, I’ll go down.”
“Come upstairs,” said Cleve, as he stood at the open door, addressing Sedley, and mistaking him for the person whom he had employed.
Up ran Tom Sedley at his heels.
“Hollo! Sedley — what brings you he
re?” said Cleve, when Tom appeared in the light of the candles. “You don’t mean to say the ball has been going on till now — or is it a scrape?”
“Nothing — only this I’ve been commissioned to give you,” and he placed Miss Sheckleton’s note in his hand.
Cleve had looked wofully haggard and anxious as Tom entered. But his countenance changed now to an ashy paleness, and there was no mistaking his extreme agitation.
He opened the note — a very brief one it seemed — and read it.
“Thank God!” he said with a great sigh, and then he walked to the window and looked out, and returned again to the candles and read the note once more.
“How did you know I was up, Tom?”
“The lights in the windows.”
“Yes. Don’t let the cab go.”
Cleve was getting on his coat, and speaking like a man in a dream.
“I say, Tom Sedley, how did you come by this note?” he said, with a sudden pause, and holding Miss Sheckleton’s note in his fingers.
“Well, quite innocently,” hesitated Sedley.
“How the devil was it, sir? Come, you may as well — by heaven, Sedley, you shall tell me the truth!”
Tom looked on his friend Cleve, and saw his eyes gleaming sharply on him, and his face very white.
“Of course I’ll tell you, Cleve,” said Tom, and with this exordium he stumbled honestly through his story, which by no means quieted Cleve Verney.
“You d —— d little Paul Pry!” said he. “Well, you have got hold of a secret now, like the man in the iron mask, and by —— you had better keep it.”
A man who half blames himself already, and is in a position which he hates and condemns, will stand a great deal more of hard language, and even of execration, than he would under any other imaginable circumstances.
“You can’t blame me half as much as I do myself. I assure you, Cleve, I’m awfully sorry. It was the merest lark — at first — and then — when I saw that beautiful — that young lady— “
“Don’t talk of that lady any more; I’m her husband. There, you have it all, and if you whisper it to mortal you may ruin me; but one or other of us shall die for it!”
Cleve was talking in a state of positive exasperation.
“Whisper it! — tell it! You don’t in the least understand me, Cleve,” said Tom, collecting himself, and growing a little lofty; “I don’t whisper or tell things; and as for daring or not daring, I don’t know what you mean; and I hope, if occasion for dying came, I should funk it as little as any other fellow.”
“I’m going to this d —— d place now. I don’t much care what you do: I almost wish you’d shoot me.”
He struck his hand on the table, looking not at Tom Sedley, but with a haggard rage through the window, and away toward the gray east; and without another word to Sedley, he ran down, shutting the hall-door with a crash that showed more of his temper than of his prudence, and Tom saw him jump into the cab and drive away.
The distance is really considerable, but in Cleve’s intense reverie time and space contracted, and before he fancied they had accomplished half the way, he found himself at the tall door and stained pilasters and steps of the old redbrick house.
Anne Evans, half awake, awaited his arrival on the steps. He ran lightly up the stairs, under her covert scrutiny; and, in obedience to Mrs. Graver’s gesture of warning, as she met him with raised hand and her frowning “Hish” at the head of the stairs, he checked his pace, and in a whisper he made his eager inquiries. She was going on very nicely.
“I must see Miss Sheckleton — the old lady — where is she?” urged Cleve.
“Here, sir, please” — and Mrs. Graver opened a door, and he found tired Miss Sheckleton tying on her bonnet, and getting her cloak about her.
“Oh! Cleve, dear” — she called him “Cleve” now— “I’m so delighted; she’s doing very well; the doctor’s quite pleased with her, and it’s a boy, Cleve, and — and I wish you joy with all my heart.”
And as she spoke, the kind old lady was shaking both his hands, and smiling up into his handsome face, like sunshine; but that handsome face, though it smiled down darkly upon her, was, it seemed to her, strangely joyless, and even troubled.
“And Cleve, dear, my dear Mr. Verney — I’m so sorry; but I must go immediately. I make his chocolate in the morning, and he sometimes calls for it at halfpast seven. This miserable attack that has kept him here, and the risk in which he is at every day he stays in this town, it is so distracting. And if I should not be at home and ready to see him when he calls, he’d be sure to suspect something; and I really see nothing but ruin from his temper and violence to all of us, if he were to find out how it is. So goodbye, and God bless you. The doctor says he thinks you may see her in a very little time — half an hour or so — if you are very careful not to let her excite or agitate herself; and — God bless you — I shall be back, for a little, in an hour or two.”
So that kindly, fluttered, troubled, and happy old lady disappeared; and Cleve was left again to his meditations.
“Where’s the doctor?” asked Cleve of the servant.
“In the sitting-room, please, sir, writing; his carriage is come, sir, please.”
And thus saying, Mistress Anne Evans officiously opened the door, and Cleve entered. The doctor, having written a prescription, and just laid down his pen, was pulling on his glove.
Cleve had no idea that he was to see Doctor Grimshaw. Quite another physician, with whom he had no acquaintance, had been agreed upon between him and Miss Sheckleton. As it turned out, however, that gentleman was now away upon an interesting visit, at a country mansion, and Doctor Grimshaw was thus unexpectedly summoned.
Cleve was unpleasantly surprised, for he had already an acquaintance with that good man, which he fancied was not recorded in his recollection to his credit. I think if the doctor’s eye had not been directed toward the door when he entered, that Cleve Verney would have drawn back; but that would not do now.
“Doctor Grimshaw?” said Cleve.
“Yes, sir;” said the old gentleman.
“I think, Doctor Grimshaw, you know me?”
“Oh, yes, sir; of course I do;” said the Doctor, with an uncomfortable smile, ever so little bitter, and a slight bow, “Mr. Verney, yes.” And the doctor paused, looking toward him, pulling on his other glove, and expecting a question.
“Your patient, Doctor Grimshaw, doing very well, I’m told?”
“Nicely, sir — very nicely now. I was a little uncomfortable about her just at one time, but doing very well now; and it’s a boy — a fine child. Good morning, sir.”
He had taken up his hat.
“And Doctor Grimshaw, just one word. May I beg, as a matter of professional honour, that this — all this, shall be held as strictly secret — everything connected with it as strictly confidential?”
The doctor looked down on the carpet with a pained countenance. “Certainly, sir,” he said, drily. “That’s all, I suppose? Of course, Mr. Verney, I shan’t — since such I suppose to be the wish of all parties — mention the case.”
“Of all parties, certainly; and it is in tenderness to others, not to myself, that I make the request.”
“I’m sorry it should be necessary, sir;” said Doctor Grimshaw, almost sternly. “I know Miss Sheckleton and her family; this poor young lady, I understand, is a cousin of hers. I am sorry, sir, upon her account, that any mystery should be desirable.”
“It is desirable, and, in fact, indispensable, sir,” said Cleve, a little stiffly, for he did not see what right that old doctor had to assume a lecturer’s tone toward him.
“No one shall be compromised by me, sir,” said the doctor, with a sad and offended bow.
And the Doctor drove home pretty well tired out. I am afraid that Cleve did not very much care whom he might compromise, provided he himself were secure. But even from himself the utter selfishness, which toned a character passionate and impetuous enough to simulate
quite unconsciously the graces of magnanimity and tenderness, was hidden.
Cleve fancied that the cares that preyed upon his spirits were for Margaret, and when he sometimes almost regretted their marriage, that his remorse was principally for her, that all his caution and finesse were exacted by his devotion to the interests of his young wife, and that the long system of mystery and deception, under which her proud, frank, spirit was pining, was practised solely for her advantage.
So Cleve was in his own mind something of a hero — self-sacrificing, ready, if need be, to shake himself free, for sake of his love and his liberty, of all the intoxications and enervations of his English life, and fortis colonus, to delve the glebe of Canada or to shear the sheep of Australia. He was not conscious that all these were the chimeras of insincerity, that ambition was the breath of his nostrils, and that his idol was — himself.
And if he mistakes himself, do not others mistake him also, and clothe him with the nobleness of their own worship? Can it be that the lights and the music and the incense that surround him are but the tributes of a beautiful superstition, and that the idol in the midst is cold and dumb?
Cleve, to do him justice, was moved on this occasion. He did — shall I say? — yearn to behold her again. There was a revival of tenderness, and he waited with a real impatience to see her.
He did see her — just a little gleam of light in the darkened room; he stood beside the bed, clasping that beautiful hand that God had committed to his, smiling down in that beautiful face that smiled unutterable love up again into his own.
“Oh! Cleve, darling — oh, Cleve! I’m so happy.”
The languid hands are clasped on his, the yearning eyes, and the smile, look up. It is like the meeting of the beloved after shipwreck.
“And look, Cleve;” and with just ever so little a motion of her hand she draws back a silken coverlet, and he sees in a deep sleep a little baby, and the beautiful smile of young maternity falls upon it like a blessing and a caress. “Isn’t it a darling? Poor little thing! how quietly it sleeps. I think it is the dearest little thing that ever was seen — our little baby!”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 373