Prime Ministers and Some Others Part 21

What this letter meant to Philip Vaughan they only know who have been through a similar experience; and words are powerless to express it

After the first bewilderment of joy had subsided, Philip began to study the practical bearings of the letter. By a comparison of the date within and the post-mark outside, the letter appeared to have been a long time on the way, and another delay had occurred since it had arrived at Mount Street. It was possible that peace might have been actually concluded. News in those days took long to travel through Scottish glens, and Vaughan had never looked at a paper since he left England. It was conceivable that the Guards were already on their homeward voyage--nay, it might even be that they were just arriving, or had arrived, in London. The one clear point was that Vaughan must get home. Twenty miles on his landlord's pony brought him to a telegraph-office, whence he telegraphed to his servant, "Returning immediately," and then, setting his face southward, he travelled as fast as steamers and express trains would take him. As he travelled, he picked up the news. Peace had been concluded on the 30th of March, and some of our troops were homeward bound; some had actually arrived. The journey seemed unnaturally long, and it was dark when the train rattled into Euston Station.... In a bewildered mood of uncertainty and joy, he rang the bell in Mount Street. His servant opened the door. "You're just in time, sir. You will find him in the drawing-room."

The drawing-room of the lodging-house had always been Grey's sitting-room, and during his absence Vaughan had studiously kept it in it accustomed order. There were some stags' heads on the walls, and a fox's brush with a label; a coloured print of Harrow, and engravings of one or two Generals whom Grey had specially honoured as masters of the art of war; the book-case, the writing-desk, the rather stiff furniture, were just as he had left them. Philip flung open the door with a pa.s.sionate cry of "Arthur! Arthur! At last! Thank G.o.d----" But the words died on his lips.

In the middle of the room, just under the central chandelier, there was a coffin supported by trestles, with its foot towards the door.

On the white pillow there lay the still whiter face of a corpse, and it was the corpse of Arthur Grey.

What happened immediately after no one ever precisely knew. Not even the waiting servant had heard the street-door shut.

Next morning the park-keepers found a young man lying on the gra.s.s in Hyde Park, drenched to the skin with the night's heavy rain, unconscious, and apparently dying. The papers in his pockets proved that he was Philip Vaughan. A long and desperate illness followed, and for months both life and reason trembled in the balance. Lord Lis...o...b.. hurried up to London, and Vaughan's servant explained everything. Arthur Grey had been taken ill on the homeward voyage.

The symptoms would now be recognized as typhoid, but the disease had not then been diagnosed, and the s.h.i.+p's surgeon p.r.o.nounced it "low fever." He landed at Southampton, pushed his way to London, arrived at his lodgings more dead than alive, and almost immediately sank into the coma from which he never recovered. It was impossible to communicate with Vaughan, whose address was unknown; and when his telegram arrived, announcing his instant return, the servant and the landlady agreed that he must have heard the news from some other source, and was hurrying back to see his friend before he became invisible for ever. "You're just in time" meant just in time to see the body, for the coffin was to be closed that evening.

The struggle was long and desperate, but Vaughan had on his side youth and a const.i.tution, not strong indeed, but unweakened by profligacy. By slow degrees his nervous system rallied from the shock, and after a long period of foreign travel he returned, in great part, to his former habits. Only he could not and would not re-enter the House of Commons, but announced his retirement, on the score of health, at the next Election. Soon afterwards he inherited Lord Lis...o...b..'s fortune, made over Lis...o...b.. Abbey and its responsibilities to a distant cousin, and insensibly glided into the way of living which I described at the outset. Two years after the Election of 1880 he died at Rome, where he had been spending the winter. The attack of fever to which he succ.u.mbed was not peculiarly severe, but the doctor said that he made no effort to live, and was in fact worn out, though not by years.

n.o.body missed him. n.o.body lamented him. Few even said a kind word about him. His will expressed only one personal wish--that he might be buried by the side of Arthur Grey. But his executors thought that this arrangement would cause them a great deal of trouble, and he rests in the English cemetery at Rome.