Robert Orange Part 32

Orange had already left the room and was in the road. When he returned, he gave her the newspaper and did not attempt to speak. But he closed the window in order to shut out, if possible, the hideous cry.

"Where is it? I can't see! In which column?" said Sara.

He pointed to a corner on the third page, where she read in black, rough type:--

"_Lord Reckage was thrown from his horse at Hyde Park Corner this afternoon. He was removed to Almouth House. His injuries are said to be of a very dangerous nature._"

She crushed the paper in her hand, and the two stood looking at each other, stupefied by the blow.

"I am going to him," said Robert.

"And I must go home," whispered the girl. "He always said that Pluto would be the death of him."

They went down the stairs together without exchanging a word. Orange walked with her to St. James's Square. Neither could speak. On parting, she faltered,--

"Let me know ... how he is...."

CHAPTER XXIV

Lord Reckage had been carried through the hall of Almouth House, but not up the famous staircase of which he was so proud. He looked at it as they bore him to the library, and although he was still in a kind of stupor, the terrified servants could read in his eyes the certain knowledge that he would never behold the marble walls or the portraits of his ancestors again.

"Are you in pain, my lord? is your lords.h.i.+p in pain?" sobbed the housekeeper. His features were injured and his face was perfectly pallid--so much changed that he could not have been immediately recognised. Four doctors--one of them a pa.s.ser-by at the time of the accident--had a.s.sembled. They found one shoulder was severely injured, and the right collar-bone broken. He complained of great pain in his side.

"Am I going to die, Sir Thomas?" said he.

"Why should you die?" replied the distinguished surgeon. "But you have had a nasty fall."

"Pluto s.h.i.+ed at something," answered his lords.h.i.+p; "mind they don't shoot him. I won't have him shot."

Then, for a few moments, he lost consciousness.

When Orange arrived, the physicians were looking very grave, and telegrams had been despatched to all the young man's near relatives.

"He has called for you several times," said Sir Thomas; "and," he added, dropping his voice, "is there any lady who could meet ... the family? I fancy I caught a lady's name more than once. Could it have been----"

"Sara," suggested Orange, to relieve his embarra.s.sment.

"It certainly sounded like Sara."

"Then I will send Lord Garrow a note--she is Lord Garrow's daughter--a lifelong friend. Is there no hope?"

"He may have a pretty good night."

Robert bowed his head and asked no more. He sat by the dying man, whose sufferings, although they were a little alleviated by morphia, made him restless. He moaned even in his s.n.a.t.c.hes of sleep, and spoke occasionally--always about the accident. Once he mentioned Agnes:

"Agnes will be sorry when she hears."

Toward daybreak he turned to Orange, and said quite simply--

"You are different from the rest. You have the priest's element in you; there is an incessant struggle and toil to cut one another's throat among us average men--all striving after success. You weren't built that way. G.o.d bless you."

In the morning his father and the near relatives arrived. The women cried bitterly. The aged peer looked on in stony grief--drinking in his son's scarred faced and glancing, with despair, from time to time, at the clock.

"It isn't going, is it?" he asked.

No, it had been checked; the tick disturbed his lords.h.i.+p, but there was an hour-gla.s.s on the table.

"How many hours do they think----?"

"Perhaps ten hours."

When the sand had run down at the conclusion of the first hour, no one reversed the instrument. But Lady Margaret Sempton, the Earl's sister, sent a whispered message to the Bishop of Hadley, who was waiting, much altered by sorrow and anxiety, in the ante-room. Reckage had asked to see him. He had always liked the good old man, and the rest withdrew during their short interview.

Meanwhile carriage after carriage drove up to the door; caller after caller appeared with cards, notes, and inquiries; name after name was inscribed in the visitors' book; telegrams came from the Royal family, from all parts of the country and the Continent.

"My poor boy. I didn't know he had so many friends," said his father.

"G.o.d forgive me, I used to think he wasted his time on fads."

And odd people came also. Trainers, jockeys, and horse-dealers rubbed shoulders on the doorsteps with collectors of old furniture, missionaries, electioneering agents, ladies of the chorus, of the _corps de ballet_, shabby-genteel individuals of both s.e.xes out of work, and the like; each had his degree of regret and an anecdote.

"He was always very kind to me," said this one, that one, and the other.

Bradwyn, noting some of these unusual visitors, observed that Reckage had a knack of pleasing the lower cla.s.ses and half-educated persons generally. He heard a Bible-reader say to the footman: "_Take ye heed, watch and pray; for ye know not when the time is!_" and he shuddered at this exhibition of bad taste. Lord Garrow had been unremitting in his personal inquiries, but Sara did not come till she received the following from Orange--

"He is conscious, and he asks to see you."

She reached the room as the Bishop of Hadley was coming out; tears were in his eyes and he did not notice the young lady who glided past him as lightly as a shadow. Poor Reckage recognised her step, however, and pulled the sheet half over his face lest she should be startled at its harsh disfigurements. She threw off her hat and veil and fell on her knees by the side of his bed.

"Speak to me, Beauclerk, speak to me; it is I--Sara."

"I know you," he whispered; "you are the one I loved the best. But I haven't been true to anybody. I only wish to goodness I had another chance. I'd be different--I'd show 'em ... I never meant ..." he took her hand, her beautiful, tapering hand loaded with sapphires ... "like your eyes, old girl ... don't cry ... and I say, I posted that ...

letter after all ... to please you. Are you ... pleased?"

He spoke no more.

Action is the essence of political parties, and the members of the League had the ink barely dry on their telegrams of condolence before they despatched others, summoning a special meeting for the consideration of future steps. Orange, who was regarded as a man devoid of ambition, was unanimously elected a member of the Executive Committee; he was a good speaker, he could mind his own business, he never pulled wires, and it was his rule to step aside when others behind him showed any disposition to push toward the front. On the evening of the day on which Lord Reckage died, Aumerle and Ullweather called at Vigo Street as a preliminary move in their new plan of campaign. But Robert was not there. He sat all that night, a solitary watcher, in the chamber of death. His affection for his old pupil was something stronger than a brother's love. Whether he saw him as others saw him, or whether he was aware of certain pleasant traits in that uncertain character which escaped the common run of dull observers, his devotion had never wearied in all the years of their acquaintances.h.i.+p.

The old housekeeper crept into the room when the bereaved family had retired, and she was on her way to bed.

"You and me, sir, always got on with his lords.h.i.+p," she said, looking down, with Robert, at the still, marred face. "We understood him. He wasn't all for self--as many thought. But his heart wanted touching. If you could touch his heart, a kinder gentleman didn't live. And if it was my last breath, I'd call him the best of the lot--in spite of his tantrums, and his changeableness, and his haughty way sometimes. Mark my words, the glory of Almouth dies with him. Mr. Hercy will bring us down to rack and ruin. O, sir, I'm glad I'm old. I never want to see the sorrow that is sure to come to Almouth."

But Orange was not thinking about the house of Almouth, or its fate. His thoughts were with the soul of the young man who had enjoyed life so well, and made so many plans, and cherished so many worldly hopes--of the young man who had existed apparently to indulge his own will, spend money, kill time, and fulfil a few rather showy responsibilities. And yet what Robert remembered best was his laugh. He could hear it still.