CHAPTER XXV
It was a sore disappointment to the town of Glengowra when it found that its two interesting visitors had left, and left suddenly; having had, as far as current accounts went, no communication whatever with anyone in the place but the landlord of the hotel and Lavirotte, neither of whom would give any information as to the strangers or their business. It was not, of course, until the next day that it became generally known two strangers had arrived and gone away. Kempston, the fussy little magistrate, said it was a shame, a part of a scandalous plot to defeat justice, and that someone or other ought to be punished all the more severely on this account. The police became more gloomy and suspicious, and silent, and the general townsfolk, visitors included, felt that they had been robbed of an exciting item in the programme of crime. Dr. O'Malley was no exception to the general protest, but he took a rather different view of it. "I am told," he said to Lavirotte, "that two highly mysterious and attractive strangers arrived last night. An old man, attractive, because venerable, and all that. A young girl, a seraph, a sylph, a miracle of beauty, attractive because of her loveliness. The old man has an interview with Maher. The old man has an interview with you. The two slope. Let us say, for argument sake, 'Confound the old man, but what about the nightingale, the bride of Abydos, the seraph?' Here am I, Dr. Thomas O'Malley, one of the lights of my profession, and a man who may at any time be called into consultation at the bedside of Royalty, and yet I am not permitted to be fascinated. You know, Lavirotte, I am not in the least curious, but who was this goddess, and why was I not permitted to see her?" Lavirotte raised his hand and let it fall on the counterpane with a gesture of deprecation. "Even I was not permitted to see her, O'Malley." "But all those who did see her say she was adorable, divine. You arch hypocrite, you know all about her, and will not speak. At this moment there may be a telegram awaiting me at home, announcing that I have been created a baronet. How, in heaven's name, am I to get on without a Lady O'Malley? And once I am a baronet, a man of my appearance, parts, and position would be so assailed by ambitious and designing spinsters, that I should be compelled, in sheer self-defence, and in order to prevent myself committing bigamy, to turn my back upon the whole brood. What spite have you, Lavirotte, against this dark-eyed wonder, that you would not give her a chance of becoming Lady O'Malley?" Lavirotte affected to be languid, and said: "I really cannot give you any information, and you said I was not to talk much." "I'll take very good care you do not talk much while I am present. I never let anyone talk too much in my presence." "Look here, O'Malley," said the invalid, "I really must ask you to let me alone on this subject. I'm not equal to it just at present." "I know, my dear fellow. I won't worry you. I'm the least curious man in the world. As your medical adviser, I would recommend you, with a view to relieving your mind, to tell me all about this matter. But, as your friend, I would advise you to tell me nothing at all of it, unless you wish it all over the town in an hour." The busy little doctor left and proceeded to the room of the other patient. Here he found Mrs. Creagh with O'Donnell. She had insisted upon dividing the work of nursing with her daughter, and made the girl go home and lie down for some hours. Under the circumstances of Mr. O'Donnell's business difficulties, his wife did not dare to leave him. She had paid a flying visit the morning after the encounter, and gone back to Rathclare the following day. After the position in which her husband had been found that night, she did not dare to leave him for an hour. Like a brave woman she faced all the world for his sake, and although no one blamed him for the ruin which had overtaken him, the pair were pitied universally, and pity is harder to bear than blame. The doctor found his second patient doing remarkably well; in fact, much better than could be expected. Of course, Mrs. and Miss Creagh had been cautioned, with all the others who might visit the sick room, to say nothing of the Vernon disaster. "Let me see," said the cheery little man; "let me see. I think you said your wedding was fixed for a month after the accident. Well, if you don't want to be all right until a month, I'll have to give you some powerful medicine to keep you back. It's amazing, ma'am," he said, turning to Mrs. Creagh, who sat smiling pleasantly at the bedside. She was a plump, fair, good-looking woman, between fifty and sixty, with a genial, round face, and a gracious, cordial manner, which are better in a sick room than all the medicines in the Pharmacopœia. "It is amazing, ma'am, how these young men will get well in spite of us doctors. We can generally manage to polish off the old people in a handsome, becoming, and professional way; but these young people are dead against us-or alive against us, what's worse. Whenever, Mrs. Creagh, you hear of a doctor dying of a broken heart, it is always-mind, I say always-because of the stubbornness of the young people. Ordinary men die of broken hearts because of love, or business, or something of that kind; but when a patient defies prussic acid, nux vomica, or aqua pura, it is all up with one of our profession." "By-the-way, O'Malley," said O'Donnell, "have you got a couple of hours to spare to-day?" "My dear fellow, pending the arrival of the official documents appointing me Surgeon-in-ordinary to the Queen, I can spare you a couple of hours." "Then I'd be very much obliged to you," said O'Donnell, "if you'd run into Rathclare and see the old people. I am very anxious about them. I know the governor always has his hands full of business, and that my mother does not wish to be away from him, but I cannot help wondering why neither of them has come out. I am greatly afraid there must be something the matter with the governor. Of course Mrs. Creagh or Nellie writes twice a day, and we hear once a day; but I can't make out how neither of them has come here." "I'm sure your father is in excellent health," said O'Malley; "but if it will relieve your mind in the slightest degree, I shall go in by the next train and come out with news." O'Malley went straight to the railway station and took the first train leaving Glengowra for Rathclare. He of course knew, or guessed, why it was neither father nor mother came to visit the son; but under the circumstances it was best to humour Eugene and see Mr. and Mrs. O'Donnell. He found the old couple in the small library behind the dining-room. The window of this looked into the garden in the rear, and so was shielded from prying eyes. "Dr. O'Malley," cried the woman, rising to her feet, "have they been writing me lies? Is he worse?" The old man was sitting at the table, on which lay a few open ledgers. In his hand he held a quill pen, with which he was making, tremorously, figures on a large sheet of ruled paper. At his wife's words he dropped the pen on the paper and looked up. Then, hearing the noise of the pen fall, he looked down again, and cried: "Confound it, I have blotted the sheet." At that moment the traditions of a lifetime of business were all upon him. He stood in the centre of the ruins of his beloved city, laid low by earthquake; the fiery heat of all his years of commercial toil were focussed on him then. He was making out his bankrupt sheet. The doctor replied instantly, taking no notice of what the old man had said: "On the contrary, Mrs. O'Donnell, I am come to tell you, thinking you would be glad to hear it by word of mouth from me, that your son is getting on infinitely better than I had ever dared to hope. You may make your mind quite easy that he will be up and about sooner than we thought at the best." The woman threw herself into a chair and burst into tears. "Mary," said the husband, looking at her in perplexity as he sopped up the ink with a piece of blotting-paper, "I was so busy I did not hear. What did he say?" "He said that all is well at Glengowra," said the woman, through her sobs. "He means, Mary," said the old man, "that Eugene is dead." She dried her eyes, ceased her sobs, and looked up. "No, James, no. He said Eugene is better-getting on as well as can be expected, and that he will soon be up and about once more." The father put down his pen, leaned back in his chair, covered his face with his hands, and said in a feeble, tremulous voice: "It would be better if my boy was dead." Mrs. O'Donnell made a gesture of silence and caution to the doctor. Then she rose and beckoned the latter to follow her out of the room. When they were in the hall she said: "The shock, the business shock, has been too much for his brain, I fear. Ever since that awful night they found him in the strong-room with the revolver I am in dread if I leave him for even a minute. I must go now. God bless you for coming. Good-bye. Be good to my boy." That evening, when O'Malley called to see Lavirotte, he told him the scene he had witnessed that day in the library at O'Donnell's. All at once the Frenchman became strangely excited. He sat up in the bed, and cried out: "I have it, O'Malley; I have it. I have done a great wrong to those people, but I think I see my way to setting it right again." "Lie down, you maniac," said the doctor, pushing him softly back. "Do you want to burst your bandages, or bring on fever? What do you mean?" "Mean!" cried the other. "I mean to sell my last shirt rather than that Eugene's father should come to ruin." "Keep quiet," said the doctor. "Keep quiet, or you will surely bring on delirium." "I have the means of doing it," cried Lavirotte, fiercely, "and I will do it." By this time O'Malley was bathing the injured man's head copiously. "If he gets delirium," thought the doctor, "it's all up with him." "I see the money," cried Lavirotte, excitedly shaking his arms in the air. "Half a million if it's a penny! That will clear James O'Donnell, the noble, honourable James O'Donnell, the father of my best, my dearest friend Eugene. Come here, Eugene, and take it, every sovereign, every sou. It is all yours. Take it, my boy; clear the old man, marry Nellie, and God bless you and her, and then the devil may have me if he will only have the goodness to wait so long." "Delirium," said the doctor, "has set in, and he will die."
CHAPTER XXVI
It was late that evening when O'Malley left Lavirotte. The doctor gave instructions that if the delirium increased he was to be called. In the case of the Frenchman, two things puzzled the energetic little doctor. Although unquestionably the patient was raving mad, his pulse was normal, and his skin moist. When the nurse came up to the sick room, she could find no sign whatever of delirium. Lavirotte seemed as calm and collected as any judge on the bench. He asked was the doctor gone, and receiving an answer in the affirmative, said to the nurse: "Bring me a pencil and some paper. I want to write a couple of short notes." "Are you not afraid it would be too much for you, sir?" remonstrated the nurse. "No, no," said the other, decisively. "There is something on my mind, and I cannot sleep unless I get rid of it, so the sooner you get me what I want the better." The woman left the room, and in a few moments returned with what he required. Then, on the back of a book, he wrote the two following notes:
"My Dear Mr. Crawford,
"Since I saw you last I have thought of a matter which makes it of vital consequence we should not lose an hour in realising your great hope. I therefore beg of you to do all you can in furtherance of the scheme. Let me hear from you by return of post. The moment I am able to move I shall follow you to London. "Give my dearest love to Dora; say I am very sorry they would not let me see her when she was so near to me, and that to-morrow I will write her as long a letter as my strength will allow.
"Yours, most devotedly,"Dominique Lavirotte."
The second was to this effect:
"Dear Mr. O'Donnell,
"I am too weak to write you a long letter. I hope you will take the will for the deed. I cannot tell you how sorry I am for all that has lately occurred, and how deeply I sympathise with you in the business troubles which, because of no fault of your own, have come upon you. "You know, of course, that Eugene and I are the greatest friends on earth. From news which I received to-day, and which I had little expectation of ever hearing, I have reason, good reason, to hope that within a very short time I am likely to come into possession of an enormous fortune-a fortune so large that it will make me one of the richest men in the kingdom. You are a man of business. To be precise, I expect about half a million. Need I tell you what my first, my greatest pleasure, will be in this? It will be to place the whole of it absolutely at the disposal of my best friend's father, so that he may be led carefully out of the present storm into the calm waters of prosperous trade, in which his honour and his industry have already made his name a household word in Ireland. "This note has run out much longer than I expected. Good-night, my dear Mr. O'Donnell. God bless you.
"Dominique Lavirotte."
When he had finished his two letters he enclosed them in envelopes, directing the latter first. Then suddenly he thought of what at first sight seemed an insuperable difficulty. How was he to address Crawford's letter? If he wrote on the envelope, "St. Prisca's Tower, Porter Street," there was little doubt that in due time the letter would be returned to him through the dead-letter office. Yet St. Prisca's Tower was the only address he knew for Crawford in London. How stupid it was of him not to have asked for an address. At the time, he had thought Dora or the old man should write to him first. Since they had left, this idea had occurred to him, and now he felt himself hopeless of communicating it to Crawford for the present. No postman would in his senses think of knocking at the massive door of that solitary tower, and if a postman, touched with lunacy, did knock with his knuckles, he would never receive a reply. He was fairly beaten. In this matter every hour was of value, of the highest value; and here he was paralysed by an unpardonable stupidity of his own. "Will you ask Mr. Maher," he said to the nurse, "if he would be good enough to step this way? I want a word with him." When the landlord entered, Lavirotte said: "Mr. Crawford, who was here last night, left for London without giving me his address. Can you think of any means by which I might be able to find it out at once? The matter is of very great importance." The landlord looked with a keen glance at the sallow face and bandaged head of the prone foreigner. Before Crawford left, he had made a confidant of Maher to the extent that all would yet be well between Lavirotte and his grand-daughter, and he had bound Maher, as an honourable man, to silence. He had, moreover, tried to persuade Maher that Lavirotte might not be quite so black as circumstances represented him. Still the other could not help regarding Lavirotte with a feeling the reverse of cordial. There could, however, be no harm, he thought, in helping Lavirotte in this matter. He said: "Mr. Crawford came first-class." "Yes." "From Euston?" "From Euston." "Then telegraph to Euston, address Mr. Crawford, first-class passenger Irish mail, Euston." The difficulty was solved, and in a few minutes Lavirotte had forwarded the telegram, asking to what address he should send a letter to him in London. At the same time he posted his letter to Mr. O'Donnell. There was little or no chance of his receiving a reply that night, as the Glengowra office would, in all likelihood, be shut before it could be forwarded there. Next morning the answer came:
"Address letter to the Cygnet Hotel, Porter Street, E.C."
Lavirotte's letter to Mr. O'Donnell was delivered the morning after it was written. He put it aside as the work of a man not responsible for his actions; and yet, since it contained the first suggestion that it was possible his business might be saved, he felt a slight tenderness towards it, as a man, whose powers are altogether small, out of proportion to his ambition, feels a tenderness towards the one person who believes in his strength. Immediately after it became generally known that Vernon and Son had stopped payment, Mr. O'Donnell had asked a few of his best friends to come and advise him as to his position. He explained to them that as far as the business in Rathclare was concerned, he was perfectly solvent and capable of carrying it on, but that, as he understood the affairs of Vernon and Son were in a desperate and disgraceful way, and as the company was unlimited, he should be certainly ruined by the "calls." He would, he told them, be quite content to lose all the money he had invested in Vernon and Son, if he might only keep on the Rathclare business as it was going; but that, of course, he was liable to the creditors of the bank up to the very last penny he had, and the chances were a thousand to one that, when Vernon and Son were completely wound up, he would find himself as poor as the poorest man in the parish. Then he asked what they would recommend him to do with respect to the business. They tried to persuade him that things were sure to turn out much better than he anticipated, and they advised him to keep the business running exactly as it now was. He had adopted their advice, but his heart was no longer in his work, and he wandered about the place which he had reared from the foundation to the roof, and he looked at the trade which he had created, with a faltering step and a lack-lustre eye. The evening of the day he got Lavirotte's letter was that following Dr. O'Malley's call. Mrs. O'Donnell had, in the few days between Eugene's hurt and this, tried to induce the father to go out to Glengowra and see their son. But he had declined, saying: "It would do neither him nor me any good. I can be of no use whatever to him now, after all my big promises to him. The boy's prospects are ruined, and, of course, for the girl's sake, that marriage must be broken off." This evening the mother felt more than ever anxious to see her son, and she made a strong appeal to the old man to take the train and run down to Glengowra for an hour. "No," he said, wearily. "Let me be, let me be. The very sight of the boy would be a reproach to me. He must see I was a fool to venture all my money, all my credit, with Vernon and Son." "Don't say that, James. You know he is the best and kindest son that ever lived. Besides, don't you see, as I told you before, it has all been kept from him?" "Then it will be all the worse to hear him talk about his marriage and his prospects. I could not stand it, Mary. I should go mad. I should let it all out to him, and kill him. My poor boy!" "Well," said the mother, "come down to Glengowra, and don't see him at all. He need not know you are there. Come with me-just for company." The poor woman was torn between devotion to her husband and affection for her son. She durst not leave the old man alone at home, and her heart was breaking to see her only son, her only child, the infinity of her maternity. At this suggestion of his wife's, that he might go to Glengowra without seeing his son, the old man looked up. "Wait a moment," he said, and lifted a paper-weight off some letters of the morning. He took up Lavirotte's and read it over carefully once more, then thrust it into his pocket, and said: "Very well, Mary. Come along." He uttered these words more brightly and briskly than any he had spoken since the great crash had come upon him. When the old couple arrived at Glengowra, they went straight to the hotel. The mother ascended to her son's room. The father sent his card up to Lavirotte. He was requested to walk upstairs. When he entered the room Lavirotte asked the woman to retire. "Mr. Lavirotte, I got your letter this morning, and I am extremely obliged to you for your kind words and for your offer of such enormous help. I most sincerely hope you may get your fortune; for, from all I have heard from Eugene, no one in the world could deserve better. I have come especially to thank you for your kind offer; but, of course, Mr. Lavirotte, you know I could never accept it. I am a doomed man." "You shall, you must accept it," cried the prostrate man, energetically. "I should care no more for all the money in the world than for a handful of pebbles on the beach below. With the money in my possession, should I see my friends wanting it? Besides, the sum I am to come into will be so great that even largely as you have suffered through that bank, I shall be able to spare you what you want to make good the breach, and still leave myself in absolute affluence." The manner of the Frenchman was one of utter self-possession, and it confounded Mr. O'Donnell to find one so apparently sane talking such trash. "May I ask you," said the old man, "if it is a fair question, from what source you expect to acquire this fortune?" "I am under an oath of secrecy in the matter, and cannot tell you. But since I have been hurt, the person who is working the affair for me, or rather on our joint behalf, has paid me a visit, and assured me there is not the least prospect of failure or miscarriage, and that at the end of six, and certainly in less than eighteen months from this, I should be in possession of my share, not less than half a million sterling." The figures six and eighteen months appealed to certain possible exigencies in the mind of Mr. O'Donnell, and carried his mind away from the main prospect of the consideration to the details. "I suppose," he thought, "they will make the first 'calls' light, so as to get all they can out of the poorer shareholders. Then they will go on increasing the sums of the 'calls' as the poorer ones drop off, and this they cannot do under a certain time. Of course, I can pay the 'calls' up to a certain point, but when they reach the end of the poorer shareholders, and have to fall back on the five or six men of large means, I shall certainly be ruined. But I do not think they can reach the point at which I should be left absolutely penniless before eighteen months." Lavirotte and Mr. O'Donnell talked on for half-an-hour in the same strain. The Frenchman was careful to adhere strictly to his vow to Crawford, and yet to say such things to the merchant as in the end convinced him there was at least something in the statements made by his son's friend. At last he looked at his watch, and saw there was no time to lose if they would catch the last train to Rathclare. After a cordial parting with the Frenchman he went down, and found his wife waiting for him. By this time both were radiant. One had firm faith in the recovery of her son, the other full assurance of the salvation of his position.