In Direst Peril Part 25

Half a dozen whips were waved at me at once, but I walked up and down the line inspecting the horses before I would choose a vehicle. A sorrier lot of screws I never saw, but I chose the one that looked the least unpromising, and gave the driver the word for Richmond.

CHAPTER XVIII

Overjoyed as I was at the receipt of Violet's letter, and at the prospect of seeing her again, I had not been many minutes on my way before I began to feel embarra.s.sed at the prospect of the unavoidable explanation which lay before me. I felt malevolently disposed towards the ridiculous old lady who was the cause of all this needless trouble, but I soon forgot her in the contemplation of the difficulty she had created. It was a painful and difficult thing even to mention to Violet such a charge as that against which I had to defend myself, and as the vehicle b.u.mped along I threw myself back in the seat and gave up my whole mind to the attempt to approach it delicately, and in the way which would make it least offensive and painful to her ears.

I have said that the hacks on the cab-stand were a sorry lot, and though I had chosen the brute which looked most promising in the whole contingent, I was not long in finding that I had no special reason to be proud of my choice. Since 1848 London has grown enormously, and in those days it was possible, even with such a beast as the one my cabman drove, to be in the country within half an hour of a West End street. I knew very little of the environs of the great city, and when I woke up to a recognition of my surroundings I was in a district altogether strange to me. There were fields on either hand, and here and there the twinkling of a distant light proclaimed a probable human habitation; but there were no lamps about the road as there are nowadays, and the scene looked altogether deserted and desolate. I pulled down the window, and, putting out my head, hailed the driver, who was apparently asleep upon his box.

A thin, persistent drizzle was falling, the ill-kept road was wet with recent rain, and the wretched horse was jogging along at a shuffling trot at a rate of perhaps four miles an hour.

"Wake up there," I cried, "and get along! I don't want to reach Richmond after midnight."

"All right," cabby responded, and applied the whip with such effect that for a hundred yards or so he contrived to get a decent pace out of the weary brute he drove. By this time I had fallen back once more into the perplexity of my own thoughts, but in a while I woke to the fact that we had fallen back to our old pace, and I made a new effort to stimulate the driver. He in turn made an effort to stimulate his steed, and so we went on, b.u.mping in the shallow ruts of the road, occasionally standing still, and at our best scarcely exceeding the pace of a smart walk.

"I suppose," I asked the cabman, "that at least you know where you are going to?"

"Richmond," replied the driver. "I suppose it's Richmond, in Surrey, ain't it? There is a Richmond in Yorks.h.i.+re, but you don't expect a man to drive there at this time of night?"

"When do you expect to get to the end of your journey at this rate?" I asked.

"The fact is, sir," said the driver, leaning confidentially backward, "the 'orse is tired. He's a very good 'orse when he's fresh, but 'e's been in the shafts for sixteen hours at least, and whether he'll get there at all is more than I should like to swear to. 'Ows'ever," said the cabman, "we'll do our best."

Now I was certain that Violet was awaiting my answer to her letter in some anxiety, and I myself was on fire to see her, so that this dilatory method of progress made me feel altogether miserable. We went jogging on in a sad, mournful fas.h.i.+on, and I made up my mind that at the first inhabited place we came to I would discharge my driver, and find either a horse or a new conveyance; and with this resolve I controlled myself with patience. By-and-by, however, after a series of extraordinary jolts and b.u.mpings, the vehicle came to a standstill, and once more lowering the gla.s.s and putting my head out into the drizzle, I demanded to know what was the matter.

"I'm afeard, sir," said the cabman, "as I've lost my way. It's so blessed dark here, I've got off the road. All right," he cried, a second later, "I see it! You 'old on, sir, I'll be right in a minute." With this he stood up to flog the horse, and at that instant the vehicle overturned, slid rapidly down a slope, and stopped with a shock which for the moment not only drove all the breath out of my body, but all the sense out of my head. When I recovered I found my hat crushed over my eyes, and in struggling to find my feet made the unpleasant discovery that my right ankle was dislocated. I had sprained a wrist into the bargain, and under these circ.u.mstances I had great difficulty in extricating myself from the overturned vehicle. The horse was hammering with his hind-feet at the front of the carriage with a vigor surprising in a creature who had only lately shown himself so fatigued and feeble; and when at last I contrived to open one of the doors and call to the driver, I received no answer. I scrambled out painfully, and found myself scarcely able to stand. The darkness was intense; both the lamps had been broken and extinguished in the spill, and the rain was now falling with considerable violence. I called repeatedly to the driver, and groping about in the pitchy darkness on my hands and knees, I received a blow on the head from one of the frightened horse's feet, and lay for a little while quite sick and stunned. How long this sensation lasted I have no means of knowing, but when I recovered my senses I was wet through, and found myself lying among furze-bushes in a damp hollow.

The horse had apparently resigned himself to the position, and lay quiet. As I struggled to my feet, with a thousand colored lights flas.h.i.+ng before ray eyes, the darkness and silence of the night seemed filled with booming noises like those which are made by a heavy sea when the wind has fallen. I crawled about cautiously through the wet and p.r.i.c.kly furze, and at last laid a hand upon the driver's sleeve. He was sitting with his head between his hands, and I could just make him out dimly, now that I was close upon him and certain of his presence.

"Are you hurt?" I asked. "You understand what I am saying?"

"Hurt!" he responded. "I'm as near killed as makes no matter. I thought you was done for, sir. I called out two or three times when I came to, but you never made a sign."

"I got a kick on the head," I explained. "It made me stupid for a time.

Do you know where we are, or have you lost your way altogether?"

"I don't know," the man responded, with a groan. "I never drove this road before, but it strikes me we're on Barnes Common."

"Is there any house within reach?" I asked.

"How should I know?" he answered.

"Can you walk?" I asked. "I am dead lame, and cannot put one foot before another."

"I'll try," he answered, still groaning, and with an effort he scrambled to his feet. Once there he shook himself, and then began carefully to explore his person with both hands from head to foot; kneeling on the ground there I could see him more clearly against the lowering sky, and when, after a prolonged examination of himself, he drew up his figure and stretched his arms, I could see that he was fairly recovered from the shock his fall had given him.

"Can you walk?" I asked again, this time with a little touch of impatience. He answered that he thought he could, and began to stamp about the wet gra.s.s to a.s.sure himself that his limbs were still serviceable. "Mark this place well," I told him. "Find the road again, and go for help. Don't leave me here all night."

The man promised to be back as soon as possible, and set off at a stumbling walk. I shouted to him from time to time, he answering, and at length I learned that he had found the road.

"Keep your heart up, governor!" he called, finally. "I'll be back as soon as ever I can," and with that he left me.

For a long time, or for what seemed a long time then, I could hear his heavy boots crunching on the gravel and loose pebbles of the roadway, and then, except for the low voices of the rain and wind, and the heavy breathing of the horse, complete silence reigned. I had been in worse case many a time, and have been since; and I set myself to make the best of things. The wind was rising and bringing the cold rain down in a fierce slant, and the first thing I did was to crawl to the lee side of the overturned four-wheeler, which lay wheels upward, securely wedged into a hollow. There was a little hillock, against one side of which it had rested, which was free from the p.r.i.c.kly furze, and, all things considered, made no bad resting-place. The wrenched ankle pained me severely, but I was dazed by the blow on the head, and had more difficulty in fighting against an inclination to sleep or swoon than in enduring that discomfort. In spite of all my efforts, all knowledge of surrounding objects faded away at times, and I pa.s.sed into a momentary oblivion, though a twinge from the injured ankle always swiftly recalled me to myself. In a while I remembered that I had my cigar-case in my pocket, together with a box of those old-fas.h.i.+oned brown paper fusees which were commonly used by smokers at that time. I had only one hand available, and it cost me a good deal of trouble to get at that bit of solace and companions.h.i.+p; but when I had lit a cigar, and had coiled myself into the most comfortable posture I could find, I felt more patient than before, and smoked away for half an hour or so in a tranquillity more or less enforced. I listened keenly all the time, and anybody who has ever tried the experiment knows how that act r.e.t.a.r.ds the slow pa.s.sage of the moments at any time of anxiety and pain. If anybody thinks that an old campaigner is making much of a very slight accident, I shall ask him to remember the circ.u.mstances under which it occurred.

I had been bitterly anxious the whole week, uncertain of the whereabouts of the lady who loved me, and whom I loved with all my soul, imagining, in a fas.h.i.+on which seemed contrary to my own nature, a hundred thousand misfortunes, and suffering more in mind than I can ever have the ability to express in words. And now, just as I had come to a knowledge of where to find her, with the note from her dear hand still near my heart, and with the knowledge in my mind that every fruitless minute spent there would be full of weariness and doubt to her, I was as effectually stopped by this trumpery overturn as if it had been the most serious disaster in the world. My cigar was smoked out, and, after a long pause, I lit another. Sometimes the mere act of listening as intently as I did made me imagine noises in my neighborhood, and I called out frequently on the mere chance of these sounds being real. Little by little the cold and wet began to take effect upon me. I grew more and more heavy with it, and at last, with the second cigar still alight between my lips, I fell fast asleep, and lay there unconscious of the wind and rain, and knowing nothing of my own bodily inconveniences. How long this lasted I never had an opportunity of knowing, but I was awakened at last by the grasp of a hand upon my shoulder, and tried to rise, half-blinded by the dazzling rays of a lantern, which was swinging close before me. There were a dozen men upon the ground, attracted by the story the driver had told, and among them was a local medical man, who had had the old-fas.h.i.+oned prescience to charge a big flask with brandy. I was glad enough to get a pull at its contents, and the doctor having gone carefully over me and p.r.o.nounced that no bones were broken, I was lifted with a good deal of trouble into his dog-cart, and at my own request was driven on to Richmond. It was long after midnight when we got there, but after a good deal of knocking and ringing we made our way into the Talbot Hotel, where I secured a comfortable bedroom; and when my sprained wrist and dislocated ankle had been put into cold compa.s.ses by the doctor, I was got to bed. I pa.s.sed an uneasy night, afflicted mainly by the thought of Violet's bewilderment about me, and in the morning I scrawled a note to her, telling her where I was, and asking her to send me word that she had received my message. I was more damaged than I had fancied, and the mere writing of the letter with my injured hand was a tough task. The messenger I despatched knew Scarfell House, and told me that it had been bought by General Sir Arthur Rollinson a dozen years ago, but had lately been very rarely used, though an old house-keeper and a general servant were always left in charge of the place. The man came back in an hour, and to my annoyance and surprise told me that Miss Rossano had left at an early hour that morning. Lady Rollinson had driven down from London in great apparent haste, and had taken the young lady back to town with her. I lay raging and helpless half the day, not knowing what to do in this unexpected posture of affairs; but at length, being myself unable to move, and unlikely, according to the doctor's statement, to leave my room for a week to come, I resolved, as a last resource, on sending a message to Hinge, on taking him completely into my confidence, and setting him to work to find out in what direction Lady Rollinson had spirited her ward.

It was late in the afternoon before he came, and the good fellow was full of sympathy about my accident, and was disposed to stop and nurse me through the effects of it. But when he had once learned the facts of the case he took up my business with an almost romantic fervor.

"You lay your life, sir," said Hinge, "I'll find her. There's no go-betweens as 'll get any letter for the young lady out o' my hands.

All right, sir; you write the letter, and you trust me to see as it gets to the proper quarter."

Hinge's devotion and loyalty did me good, and when I had struggled through with the letter and had confided it to his care, I felt easier and more hopeful. Hinge's first movement was up to London, and thence he returned to me within half a dozen hours with the dispiriting intelligence that Lady Rollinson and Violet had left town together an hour before his arrival without leaving any instructions as to the forwarding of letters. Hinge, in his occasional visits to the house, had contrived to get on very excellent terms with a pretty parlor-maid, who had given him voluntarily all the information she had at her command.

The only definite bit of news he brought was that the ladies had driven to Euston Station; and though that fact opened up, then, a vista of inquiry far less wide than it would to-day, it was still possible to go to so many places, and I had so little to guide me as to their intentions, that the news left me in a perfect fog of despair, However, Hinge, in obedience to my instructions, went to Euston, and attempted there to find out for what place tickets had been taken; but he came back next morning to report his complete non-success, and was evidently a good deal dashed and dispirited by his own failure.

"Never you mind, sir," said Hinge, with outside stoutness, "we'll find 'em yet."

The poor fellow did his best to keep me cheerful, but between bodily pain and suspense, and the sense of my own helplessness, I am afraid he found me rather difficult to manage.

A week had gone by, and I was so far recovered that I could limp about the room. The doctor had found it necessary to warn me more than once that I was r.e.t.a.r.ding my recovery by my own eagerness, and that unless I would consent to absolute repose I might not improbably do myself a life-long injury; but I could feel the injured ankle growing firmer, and I was resolute to try the search next day myself.

Since the complete failure of his enterprise, Hinge had devoted himself entirely to nursing me; and he had been so a.s.siduous in his attentions that I was surprised to find him absent when I called for him. At this time I was liable to be unduly excited by almost anything, and as his absence continued hour after hour, I lashed myself into a condition of wild anxiety. I was convinced that nothing but his interest for my welfare could have kept him away from me so long, and I was certain in my own mind that he had found a clew of some sort. It was seven o'clock in the evening when he came back at last, and my first glance at his face told me that something of importance had transpired.

"Where have you been all day?" I asked.

"Do you think, sir," Hinge returned, with a face and voice of mystery--"do you think, sir, as you'll be able to get about to-morrow?

If you can, I'll show you something."

"Speak out plainly and at once, there's a good fellow," I responded.

"Well, sir," said Hinge, "I've found out something." He was like a narrow-necked bottle whenever he had anything which he was eager to communicate, and I knew by experience that it was worse than useless to try to hasten the stream he had to give.

"Give me my pipe," I said, "and get on as fast as you can."

"I've found out something," Hinge repeated. "I've been surprised in my time, sir, but I never was knocked so much of a heap as I have been this afternoon." I lit my pipe and waited for him, controlling impatience as best I might. "Now who in the name of wonder, sir," said Hinge, "do you think is down here colloguing together?"

"How should I know?" I asked, groaning with impatience.

"I was a-walking up the 'ill, sir," said Hinge, "towards the Star and Garter this morning, just to get a breath of fresh air, when you told me as I might go out for half an hour. You remember as you'd given me leave, sir?"

"Yes, yes!" I answered. "Go on with your story."

"Well, sir," said Hinge, "you might have knocked me over with a feather, for coming down the 'ill arm in arm I see the Honorable Mr. Brunow and that there Sacovitch. They was talking together that interested they didn't notice me. Now Mr. Brunow, 'e knows me, sir, if Sacovitch doesn't, and I thought, after all as had happened, it might be worth my while to see what they was up to and not to be seen myself; so I just slips off the roadway behind a house as is a-build-ing on the right-'and side, and right in front of me they stops. I could hear 'em talking, but I couldn't make out what they was a-saying, till all of a sudden Mr.

Brunow says, ''Ere she is,' 'e says, just like that, sir--' 'Ere she is,'

as if they was a-waiting for somebody. In 'arf a minute up drives the Baroness Bonnar in a carriage, with a lady a-sitting beside her. The two gentlemen takes off their 'ats, and they all shakes hands together, and then Mr. Brunow and Mr. Sacovitch gets into the carriage, and they all drives off together." He stopped there with such an air of triumph and perspicacity that I was angry with him. Certainly the news that Brunow was about again was interesting, and might perhaps be useful. But that, being at large, he should be in the companions.h.i.+p of the baroness and the Austrian police spy was not at all by itself surprising, and Hinge had the air of one who had discovered a wonder.

"Is that all?" I asked him.

"No, sir," said Hinge, "that's only the beginning. They drives off through the park, turning the carriage round directly the gentlemen gets into it. They drove as slow as slow could be, just at a lazy kind of walk, sir; and when they was a little bit of a distance off I ventures to follow 'era. Their four heads was that close together you might have covered them with one hat, but of course I never dare venture near enough to find out what they was a-talking about. They drove about for two or three hours, and I kep' 'em in sight all the while-At one time the Baroness Bonnar and the other lady, they gets down to feed the deer from a paper-bag of biscuits, and the gentlemen strolled about smoking cigars. Then they all four gets together again just as eager and as busy as ever. I could see 'em a-talking and a-arguing like mad, and I was just wild myself to know what it was all about, sir, but of course I couldn't get a-nigh of 'em. Finally," said Hinge, "after two or three hours, they drives back to the Star and Garter, and goes in there. I found out, sir," he went on, with a growing air of importance which, considering the triviality of the intelligence he had so far brought me, was hard to bear with--"I found out, sir, as they'd ordered lunch; but I didn't likes to leave 'em without knowing what they was up to, and so I 'ung about, sir. That comes easy, sir," said Hinge, "to a man as 'as been used to barrack life. I 'ung about, and in the course of an hour or more they comes out very jolly, and drives into the park again, and all the morning's business over again. Well, sir, having gone on so long, I didn't like to be put off; and I determined, as a man might say, to see the finish of it. It come, sir, and it come sooner than I expected. They drives back about four o'clock, just as it was beginning to get towards dusk, and they leaves the carriage at the Star and Garter, and they all walks down the 'ill together, the two ladies in front and the two gentlemen behind. I followed, sir, at a respectful distance, and they roams on quite gay and easy for a good mile and a 'arf, and at last they drops down by the river-side on a little cottage. The dusk was falling fast, sir, and I was able to get nearer to them than I had been. I was within twenty yards of them when they all went in together. If you can get out to-morrow, sir, you can see the cottage, and you'll see where I got to. It's just right over the river, and there's a bit of what they used to call a veranda when I was in Bombay, sir. It's right over the river, the veranda is, and I clomb onto it, and through the Venetian blind I see the 'ole party. I was just a-peeping in when Sacovitch comes along and throws the window open, just as if he'd wanted me to hear what they was a-saying. 'And now,' says he, 'it's all ready, ain't it?'"

I suppose I s.h.i.+fted in my chair at this, and turned round with a look of some eagerness and interest, for Hinge, in his excitement, laid his hand upon my shoulder and begged me not to hurry him.