Thelma Part 70

The two policemen were in the hall scribbling the cut-and-dry particulars of the accident in their note-books, which having done, they marched off, attended by a wandering, bilious-looking penny-a-liner who was anxious to write a successful account of the "Shocking Fatality," as it was called in the next day's newspapers. Then the bearers departed cheerfully, carrying with them the empty stretcher. Then the jeweller, who seemed quite unmoved respecting the sudden death of his lodger, chatted amicably with the surgeon about the reputation and various demerits of the deceased,--and Errington and Lorimer, as they pa.s.sed through the shop, heard him speaking of a person hitherto unheard of, namely, Lady Francis Lennox, who had been deserted by her husband for the past six years, and who was living uncomplainingly the life of an art-student in Germany with her married sister, maintaining, by the work of her own hands, her one little child, a boy of five.

"He never allowed her a farthing," said the conversational jeweller.

"And she never asked him for one. Mr. Wiggins, his lawyer--firm of Wiggins & Whizzer, Furnival's Inn,--told me all about his affairs. Oh yes--he was a regular "masher"--tip-top! Not worth much, I should say.

He must have spent over a thousand a year in keeping up that little place at St. John's Wood for Violet Vere. He owes me five hundred.

However, Mr. Wiggins will see everything fair, I've no doubt. I've just wired to him, announcing the death. I don't suppose any one will regret him--except, perhaps, the woman at St. John's Wood. But I believe she's playing for a bigger stake just now." And, stimulated by this thought, he drew out from a handsome morocco case a superb pendant of emeralds and diamonds--a work of art, that glittered as he displayed it, like a star on a frosty night.

"Pretty thing, isn't it?" he said proudly. "Eight hundred pounds, and cheap, too! It was ordered for Miss Vere, two months ago, by the Duke of Moorlands. I see he sold his collection of pictures the other day.

Luckily they fetched a tidy sum, so I'm pretty sure of the money for this. He'll sell everything he's got to please her. Queer? Oh, not at all! She's the rage just now,--I can't see anything in her myself,--but I'm not a duke, you see--I'm obliged to be respectable!"

He laughed as he returned the pendant to its nest of padded amber satin, and Errington,--sick at heart to hear such frivolous converse going on while that crushed and lifeless form lay in the very room above,--unwatched, uncared-for,--put his arm through Lorimer's and left the shop.

Once in the open street, with the keen, cold air blowing against their faces, they looked at each other blankly. Piccadilly was crowded; the hurrying people pa.s.sed and re-pa.s.sed,--there were the shouts of omnibus conductors and newsboys--the laughter of young men coming out of the St.

James's Hall Restaurant; all was as usual,--as, indeed, why should it not? What matters the death of one man in a million? unless, indeed, it be a man whose life, like a torch, uplifted in darkness, has enlightened and cheered the world,--but the death of a mere fas.h.i.+onable "swell"

whose chief talent has been a trick of lying gracefully--who cares for such a one? Society is instinctively relieved to hear that his place is empty, and shall know him more. But Errington could not immediately forget the scene he had witnessed. He was overcome by sensations of horror,--even of pity,--and he walked by his friend's side for some time in silence.

"I wish I could get rid of this thing!" he said suddenly, looking down at the horsewhip in his hand.

Lorimer made no answer. He understood his feeling, and realized the situation as sufficiently grim. To be armed with a weapon meant for the chastis.e.m.e.nt of a man whom Death had so suddenly claimed was, to say the least of it, unpleasant. Yet the horsewhip could scarcely be thrown away in Piccadilly--such an action might attract notice and comment.

Presently Philip spoke again.

"He was actually married all the time!"

"So it seems;" and Lorimer's face expressed something very like contempt. "By Jove, Phil! he must have been an awful scoundrel!"

"Don't let's say any more about him--he's dead!" and Philip quickened his steps. "And what a horrible death!"

"Horrible enough, indeed!"

Again they were both silent. Mechanically they turned down towards Pall Mall.

"George," said Errington, with a strange awe in his tones, "it seems to me to-day as if there were death in the air. I don't believe in presentiments, but yet--yet I can-not help thinking--what if I should find my Thelma--_dead_?"

Lorimer turned very pale--a cold s.h.i.+ver ran through him, but he endeavored to smile.

"For G.o.d's sake, old fellow, don't think of anything so terrible! Look here, you're hipped--no wonder! and you've got a long journey before you. Come and have lunch. It's just two o'clock. Afterwards we'll go to the Garrick and have a chat with Beau Lovelace--he's a first-rate fellow for looking on the bright side of everything. Then I'll see you off this afternoon at the Midland--what do you say?"

Errington a.s.sented to this arrangement, and tried to shake off the depression that had settled upon him, though dark forebodings pa.s.sed one after the other like clouds across his mind. He seemed to see the Altenguard hills stretching drearily, white with frozen snow, around the black Fjord; he pictured Thelma, broken-hearted, fancying herself deserted, returning through the cold and darkness to the lonely farm-house behind the now withered pines. Then he began to think of the sh.e.l.l-cave where that other Thelma lay hidden in her last deep sleep,--the wailing words of Sigurd came freshly back to his ears, when the poor crazed lad had likened Thelma's thoughts to his favorite flowers, the pansies--"One by one you will gather and play with her thoughts as though they were these blossoms; your burning hand will mar their color--they will wither and furl up and die,--and you--what will you care? Nothing! No man ever cares for a flower that is withered,--not even though his own hand slew it!"

Had he been to blame? he mused, with a sorrowful weight at his heart.

Unintentionally, had he,--yes, he would put it plainly,--had he neglected her, just a little? Had he not, with all his true and pa.s.sionate love for her, taken her beauty, her devotion, her obedience too much for granted--too much as his right? And in these latter months, when her health had made her weaker and more in need of his tenderness, had he not, in a sudden desire for political fame and worldly honor, left her too much alone, a prey to solitude and the often morbid musings which solitude engenders?

He began to blame himself heartily for the misunderstanding that had arisen out of his share in Neville's unhappy secret. Neville had been weak and timid,--he had shrunk nervously from avowing that the notorious Violet Vere was actually the woman he had so faithfully loved and mourned,--but he, Philip, ought not to have humored him in these fastidious scruples--he ought to have confided everything to Thelma. He remembered now that he had once or twice been uneasy lest rumors of his frequent visits to Miss Vere might possibly reach his wife's ears,--but, then, as his purpose was absolutely disinterested and harmless, he did not dwell on this idea, but dismissed it, and held his peace for Neville's sake, contenting himself with the thought that, "If Thelma _did_ hear anything, she would never believe a word against me."

He could not quite see where his fault had been,--though a fault there was somewhere, as he uneasily felt--and he would no doubt have started indignantly had a small elf whispered in his ear the word "_Conceit._"

Yet that was the name of his failing--that and no other. How many men, otherwise n.o.ble-hearted, are seriously, though often unconsciously, burdened with this large parcel of blown-out Nothing! Sir Philip did not appear to be conceited--he would have repelled the accusation with astonishment,--not knowing that in his very denial of the fault, the fault existed. He had never been truly humbled but twice in his life,--once as he knelt to receive his mother's dying benediction,--and again when he first loved Thelma, and was uncertain whether his love could be returned by so fair and pure a creature. With these two exceptions, all his experience had tended to give him an excellent opinion of himself,--and that he should possess one of the best and loveliest wives in the world, seemed to him quite in keeping with the usual course of things. The feeling that it was a sheer impossibility for her to ever believe a word against him, rose out of this inward self-satisfaction--this one flaw in his otherwise bright, honest, and lovable character--a flaw of which he himself was not aware. Now, when for the third time his fairy castle of perfect peace and pleasure seemed shaken to its foundations,--when he again realized the uncertainty of life or death, he felt bewildered and wretched. His chiefest pride was centred in Thelma, and she--was gone! Again he reverted to the miserable idea that, like a melancholy refrain, haunted him--"What if I should find her _dead_!"

Absorbed in painful reflections, he was a very silent companion for Lorimer during the luncheon which they took at a quiet little restaurant well known to the _habitues_ of Pall Mall and Regent Street. Lorimer himself had his own reasons for being equally depressed and anxious,--for did he not love Thelma as much as even her husband could?--nay, perhaps more, knowing his love was hopeless. Not always does possession of the adored object strengthen the adoration,--the rapturous dreams of an ideal pa.s.sion have often been known to surpa.s.s reality a thousandfold. So the two friends exchanged but few words,--though they tried to converse cheerfully on indifferent subjects, and failed in the attempt. They had nearly finished their light repast, when a familiar voice saluted them.

"It _is_ Errington,--I thocht I couldna be mistaken! How are ye both?"

Sandy Macfarlane stood before them, unaltered, save that his scanty beard had grown somewhat longer. They had seen nothing of him since their trip to Norway, and they greeted him now with unaffected heartiness, glad of the distraction his appearance afforded them.

"Where do you hail from, Mac?" asked Lorimer, as he made the new-comer sit down at their table. "We haven't heard of you for an age."

"It _is_ a goodish bit of time," a.s.sented Macfarlane, "but better late than never. I came up to London a week ago from Glasgie,--and my heed has been in a whirl ever since. Eh, mon! but it's an awful place!--maybe I'll get used to't after a wee whilie."

"Are you going to settle here, then?" inquired Errington, "I thought you intended to be a minister somewhere in Scotland?"

Macfarlane smiled, and his eyes twinkled.

"I hae altered ma opee-nions a bit," he said. "Ye see, ma aunt in Glasgie's deed--"

"I understand," laughed Lorimer. "You've come in for the old lady's money?"

"Puir body!" and Sandy shook his head gravely. "A few hours before she died she tore up her will in a screamin' fury o' Christian charity and forethought,--meanin' to mak anither in favor o' leavin' a' her warld's trash to the Fund for Distributin' Bible Knowledge among the Heathen--but she never had time to fulfill her intention. She went off like a lamb,--and there being no will, her money fell to me, as the nearest survivin' relative--eh! the puir thing!--if her dees-imbodied spirit is anywhere aboot, she must be in a sair plight to think I've got it, after a' her curses!"

"How much?" asked Lorimer amused.

"Oh, just a fair seventy thousand or so," answered Macfarlane carelessly.

"Well done, Mac!" said Errington, with a smile, endeavoring to appear interested. "You're quite rich, then? I congratulate you!"

"Riches are a snare," observed Macfarlane, sententiously, "a snare and a decoy to both soul and body!" He laughed and rubbed his hands,--then added with some eagerness, "I say, how is Lady Errington?"

"She's very well," answered Sir Philip hurriedly, exchanging a quick look with Lorimer, which the latter at once understood. "She's away on a visit just now. I'm going to join her this afternoon."

"I'm sorry she's away," said Sandy, and he looked very disappointed; "but I'll see her when she comes back. Will she be long absent?"

"No, not long--a few days only"--and as Errington said this an involuntary sigh escaped him.

A few days only!--G.o.d grant it! But what--what if he should find her _dead_?

Macfarlane noticed the sadness of his expression, but prudently forbore to make any remark upon it. He contented himself with saying--

"Weel, ye've got a wife worth having--as I dare say ye know. I shall be glad to pay my respects to her as soon as she returns. I've got your address, Errington--will ye take mine?"

And he handed him a small card on which was written in pencil the number of a house in one of the lowest streets in the East-end of London.

Philip glanced at it with some surprise.

"Is _this_ where you live?" he asked with emphatic amazement.

"Yes. It's just the cleanest tenement I could find in that neighborhood.

And the woman that keeps it is fairly respectable."

"But with your money," remonstrated Lorimer, who also looked at the card, "I rather wonder at your choice of abode. Why, my dear fellow, do you _know_ what sort of a place it is?"

A steadfast, earnest, _thinking_ look came into Macfarlane's deep-set, grey eyes.

"Yes, I do know, pairfectly," he said in answer to the question. "It's a place where there's misery, starvation, and crime of all sorts,--and there I am in the very midst of it--just where I want to be. Ye see, I was meant to be a meenister--one of those douce, cannie, comfortable bodies that drone in the pulpit about predestination and original sin, and so forth a--sort, of palaver that does no good to ony resonable creature--an' if I had followed out this profession, I make nae doot that, with my aunt's seventy thousand, I should be a vera comfortable, respectable, selfish type of a man, who was decently embarked in an apparently important but really useless career--"