Works of Ellen Wood, page 985
“Did you know that that giant of the force, Wren, had his eye upon me, Charley?”
“No! Why do you say so?”
“Well, I think he has — some suspicion, at any rate. He parades before the house like a walking apparition. I look at him from behind the curtains in the other room. He paraded in like manner, you know, before that house in Southwark and the other one in Lambeth.”
“It may be only a coincidence, Tom. The police are moved about a good deal from beat to beat, I fancy.”
“Perhaps so,” assented Tom carelessly. “If he came in and took me, I don’t think he could do much with me now. He accosted Purfleet to-day.”
“Accosted Purfleet!”
Tom nodded. “After his morning visit to me, he went dashing out of the street-door in his usual quick way, and dashed against Wren. One might think a regiment of soldiers were always waiting to have their legs and arms cut off, and that Purfleet had to do it, by the way he rushes about,” concluded Tom.
“Well?”
“‘In a hurry this morning, doctor,’ says old Wren, who is uncommonly fond of hearing himself talk. ‘And who is it that’s ill at Mr. Lennard’s?’ ‘I generally am in a hurry,’ says Purfleet, ‘and so would you be if you had as many sick people on your hands. At Lennard’s? Why, that poor suffering daughter of his has had another attack, and I don’t know whether I shall save her.’ And, with that, Purfleet got away. He related this to me when he came in at tea-time.”
A thought struck me. “But, Tom, does Purfleet know that you are in concealment here? Or why should he have put his visits to you upon Maria Lennard?”
“Why, how could he be off knowing it? Lennard asked him at first, as a matter of precaution, not to speak of me in the neighbourhood. Mr. Brown was rather under a cloud just now, he said. I wouldn’t mind betting a silver sixpence, Charley, that he knows I am Tom Heriot.”
I wondered whether Tom was joking.
“Likely enough,” went on Tom. “He knows that you come to see me, and that you are Mr. Strange, of Essex Street. And he has heard, I’ll lay, that Mr. Strange had a wicked sort of half-brother, one Captain Heriot, who fell into the fetters of the law and escaped them, and — and may be the very Mr. Brown who’s lying ill here. Purfleet can put two and two together as cleverly as other people, Charles.”
“If so, it is frightfully hazardous — —”
“Not at all,” interrupted Tom with equanimity. “He’d no more betray me, Charley, than he’d betray himself. Doctors don’t divulge the secrets of their patients; they keep them. It is a point of honour in the medical code: as well as of self-interest. What family would call in a man who was known to run about saying the Smiths next door had veal for dinner to-day, and they ought to have had mutton? If no more harm reaches me than any brought about by Purfleet, I am safe enough.”
It might be as he said. And I saw that he would be incautious to the end.
At that moment Mrs. Lennard came in with something in a breakfast-cup. “You are a good lady,” said Tom gratefully. “See how they feed me up, Charley!”
But for the hollow tones, the hectic flush and the brilliant eyes, it might almost have been thought he was getting better. The cough had nearly left him, and the weakness was not more apparent than it had been for a week past. But that faint, deep, far-away sounding voice, which had now come on, told the truth. The close was near at hand.
After Mrs. Lennard had left the room with the empty cup, Tom lay back on the sofa, put his head on the pillow, and in a minute or two seemed to be asleep. Presently I moved gently across the hearthrug to fold the warm, light quilt upon his knees. He opened his eyes.
“You need not creep, Charley. I am not asleep. I had a regular good sleep in the afternoon, and don’t feel inclined for it now. I was thinking about the funeral.”
“The funeral!” I echoed, taken back. “Whose funeral?”
“Mine. They won’t care to lay me by my mother, will they? — I mean my own mother. The world might put its inquisitive word in, and say that must be Tom Heriot, the felon. Neither you nor Level would like that, nor old Carlen either.”
I made no answer, uncertain what to say.
“Yet I should like to lie by her,” he went on. “There was a large vault made, when she died, to hold the three of us — herself, my father and me. They are in it; I should like to be placed with them.”
“Time enough to think of that, Tom, when — when — the time comes,” I stammered.
“The time’s not far off now, Charley.”
“Two nights ago, when I was here, you assured me you were getting better.”
“Well, I thought I might be; there are such ups and downs in a man’s state. He will appear sick unto death to-day, and tomorrow be driving down to a whitebait dinner at Greenwich. I’ve changed my opinion, Charley; I’ve had my warning.”
“Had your warning! What does that mean?”
“I should like to see Blanche,” he whispered. “Dear little Blanche! How I used to tease her in our young days, and Leah would box my ears for it; and I teased you also, Charley. Could you not bring her here, if Level would let her come?”
“Tom, I hardly know. For one thing, she has not heard anything of the past trouble, as you are aware. She thinks you are in India with the regiment, and calls you a very undutiful brother for not writing to her. I suppose it might be managed.”
“Dear little Blanche!” he repeated. “Yes, I teased her — and loved her all the time. Just one visit, Charley. It will be the last until we meet upon the eternal shores. Try and contrive it.”
I sat thinking how it might be done — the revelation to Blanche, bringing her to the house, and obtaining the consent of Lord Level; for I should not care to stir in it without his consent. Tom appeared to be thinking also, and a silence ensued. It was he who broke it.
“Charles!”
“Yes?”
“Do you ever recall events that passed in our old life at White Littleham Rectory? do any of them lie in your memory?”
“I think all of them lie in it,” I answered. “My memory is, you know, a remarkably good one.”
“Ay,” said Tom. And then he paused again. “Do you recollect that especial incident when your father told us of his dream?” he continued presently. “I picture the scene now; it has been present to my mind all day. A frosty winter morning, icicles on the trees and frosty devices on the window-panes. You and I and your father seated round the breakfast-table; Leah pouring out the coffee and cutting bread and butter for us. He appeared to be in deep thought, and when I remarked upon it, and you asked him what he was thinking of, he said his dream. D’you mind it, lad?”
“I do. The thing made an impression on me. The scene and what passed at it are as plain to me now as though it had happened yesterday. After saying he was thinking of his dream, he added, in a dubious tone, ‘If it was a dream.’ Mr. Penthorn came in whilst he was telling it.
“He was fast asleep; had gone to bed in the best of health, probably concocting matter for next Sunday’s sermon,” resumed Tom, recalling the facts. “Suddenly, he awoke at the sound of a voice. It was his late wife’s voice; your mother, Charley. He was wide awake on the instant, and knew the voice for hers; she appeared to be standing at the bedside.”
“But he did not see her,” I put in.
“No; he never said he saw her,” replied Tom Heriot. “But the impression was upon him that a figure stood there, and that after speaking it retreated towards the window. He got up and struck a light and found the room empty, no trace of anyone’s having been in it. Nevertheless he could not get rid of the belief, though not a superstitious man, that it was his wife who came to him.”
“In the spirit.”
“In the spirit, of course. He knew her voice perfectly, he said. Mr. Penthorn rather ridiculed the matter; saying it was nothing but a vivid dream. I don’t think it made much impression upon your father, except that it puzzled him.”
“I don’t think it did,” I assented, my thoughts all in the past. “As you observe, Tom, he was not superstitious; he had no particular belief in the supernatural.”
“No; it faded from all our minds with the day — Leah’s perhaps excepted. But what was the result? On the fourth night afterwards he died. The dream occurred on the Friday morning a little before three o’clock; your father looked at his watch when he got out of bed and saw that it wanted a quarter to three. On Tuesday morning at a quarter to three he died in his study, into which he had been carried after his accident.”
All true. The circumstances, to me, were painful even now.
“Well, what do you make of it, Charles?”
“Nothing. But I don’t quite understand your question.”
“Do you think his wife really came to him? — That she was permitted to come back to earth to warn him of his approaching death?”
“I have always believed that. I can hardly see how anyone could doubt it.”
“Well, Charley, I did. I was a graceless, light-headed young wight, you know, and serious things made no impression on me. If I thought about it at all, it was to put it down to fancy; or a dream, as Mr. Penthorn said; and I don’t believe I’ve ever had the thing in my mind from that time to this.”
“And why should it come back to you now?” I asked.
“Because,” answered Tom, “I think I have had a similar warning.”
He spoke very calmly. I looked at him. He was sitting upright on the sofa now, his feet stretched out on a warm wool footstool, the quilt lying across his knees, and his hands resting upon it.
“What can you mean, Tom?”
“It was last night,” he answered; “or, rather, this morning. I was in bed, and pretty soundly asleep, for me, and I began to dream. I thought I saw my father come in through the door, that one opening to the passage, cross the room and sit down by the bedside with his face turned to me. I mean my own father, Colonel Heriot. He looked just as he used to look; not a day older; his fine figure erect, his bright, wavy hair brushed off his brow as he always wore it, his blue eyes smiling and kindly. I was not in the least surprised to see him; his coming in seemed to be quite a matter of course. ‘Well, Thomas,’ he began, looking at me after he had sat down; ‘we have been parted for some time, and I have much to say to you.’ ‘Say it now, papa,’ I answered, going back in my dream to the language of childhood’s days. ‘There’s not time now,’ he replied; ‘we must wait a little yet; it won’t be long, Thomas.’ Then I saw him rise from the chair, re-cross the room to the door, turn to look at me with a smile, and go out, leaving the door open. I awoke in a moment; at the very moment, I am certain; and for some little time I could not persuade myself that what had passed was not reality. The chair in which he had sat stood at the bedside, and the door was wide open.”
“But I suppose the chair had been there all night, and that someone was sitting up with you? Whoever it was must have opened the door.”
“The chair had been there all night,” assented Tom. “But the door had not been opened by human hands, so far as I can learn. It was old Faith’s turn to sit up last night — that worthy old soul of a servant who has clung to the Lennards through all their misfortunes. Finding that I slept comfortably, Faith had fallen asleep too in the big chair in that corner behind you. She declared that the door had been firmly shut — and I believe she thought it was I who had got up and opened it.”
“It was a dream, Tom.”
“Granted. But it was a warning. It came — nay, who can say it was not he who came? — to show me that I shall soon be with him. We shall have time, and to spare, to talk then. I have never had so vivid a dream in my life; or one that so left behind it the impression that it had been reality.”
“Well — —”
“Look here,” he interrupted. “Your father said, if you remember, that the visit paid to him, whether real or imaginary, by his wife, and the words she spoke, had revived within him his recollections of her voice, which had in a slight degree begun to fade. Well, Charles, I give you my word that I had partly forgotten my father’s appearance; I was only a little fellow when he died; but his visit to me in my dream last night has brought it back most vividly. Come, you wise old lawyer, what do you say to that?”
“I don’t know, Tom. Such things are, I suppose.”
“If I got well and lived to be a hundred years old, I should never laugh at them again.”
“Did you tell Leah this when she was here to-day?”
“Ay; and of course she burst out crying. ‘Take it as it’s meant, Master Tom,’ said she, ‘and prepare yourself. It is your warning.’ Just as she had told your father, Charles, that that other was his warning. She was right then; she is right now.”
“You cannot know it. And you must not let this trouble you.”
“It does not trouble me,” he answered quickly. “Rather the contrary, for it sets my mind at rest. I have had little hope of myself for some time past; I have had none, so to say, since that sudden attack a few nights ago; nevertheless, I won’t say but a grain of it may have still deluded me now and again. Hope is the last thing we part with in this world, you know, lad. But this dream-visit of my father has shown me the truth beyond all doubt; and now I have only to make my packet, as the French say, and wait for the signal to start.”
We talked together a little longer, but my time was up. I left him for the night and apparently in the best of spirits.
Lennard was alone in his parlour when I got downstairs. I asked him whether he had heard of this fancy of Tom’s about the dream.
“Yes,” he answered. “He told me about it this evening, when I was sitting with him after tea; but he did not seem at all depressed by it. I don’t think it matters much either way,” added Lennard thoughtfully, “for the end cannot be far off now.”
“He has an idea that Purfleet guesses who he really is.”
“But he has no grounds for saying it,” returned Lennard. “Purfleet heard when he was first called in that ‘Mr. Brown’ wished to be kept en cachette, if I may so put it; but that he should guess him to be Captain Heriot is quite improbable. Because Captain Heriot is aware of his own identity, he assumes that other people must needs be aware of it.”
“One might trust Purfleet not to betray him, I fancy, if he does guess it?”
“That I am sure of,” said Lennard warmly. “He is kind and benevolent. Most medical men are so from their frequent contact with the dark shades of life, whether of sickness or of sorrow. As to Purfleet, he is too hard-worked, poor man, to have much leisure for speculating upon the affairs of other people.”
“Wren is still walking about here.”
“Yes; but I think he has been put upon this beat in the ordinary way of things, not that he is looking after anyone in particular. Mr. Strange, if he had any suspicion of Captain Heriot in Lambeth, he would have taken him; he would have taken him again when in Southwark; and he would, ere this, have taken him here. Wren appears to be one of those gossiping men who must talk to everybody; and I believe that is all the mystery.”
Wishing Lennard good-night, I went home to Essex Street, and sat down to write to Lord Level. He would not receive the letter at Marshdale until the following afternoon, but it would be in time for him to answer me by the evening post.
CHAPTER X.
LAST WORDS.
The next day, Tuesday, I was very busy, hurrying forward to get down to Clapham in time for dinner in the evening. Lennard’s report in the morning had been that Captain Heriot was no worse, and that Mr. Purfleet, who had paid him an early visit, said there might be no change for a week or more.
In the afternoon I received a brief note from Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar, asking me to be in Russell Square the following morning by eight o’clock: he wished to see me very particularly.
Knowing that when he named any special hour he meant it, and that he expected everyone who had dealings with him to be as punctual as himself, I came up to town on the Wednesday morning, and was at his house a few minutes before eight o’clock. The Serjeant was just sitting down to breakfast.
“Will you take some, Charles?” he asked.
“No, thank you, uncle. I have just come up from Clapham, and breakfasted before starting.”
“How is Mrs. Brightman going on?”
“Quite well. It will be a long job, the doctors say, from something unusual connected with the fracture, but nothing dangerous.”
“Sit down, Charles,” he said. “And tell me at once. Is Captain Heriot,” lowering his voice, “in a state to be got away?”
The words did not surprise me. The whole night it had been in my mind that the Serjeant’s mandate concerned Tom Heriot.
“No; it would be impossible,” I answered. “He has to be moved gently, from bed to sofa, and can only walk, if he attempts it at all, by being helped on both sides. Three or four days ago, a vessel on the lungs broke; any undue exertion would at once be fatal.”
“Then, do I understand you that he is actually dying?”
“Undoubtedly he is, sir. I was with him on Monday night, and saw in his face the gray hue which is the precursor of death. I am sure I was not mistaken — —”
“That peculiar hue can never be mistaken by those who have learnt from sad experience,” he interrupted dreamily.
“He may linger on a few days, even a week or so, I believe the doctor thinks, but death is certainly on its road; and he must die where he is, Uncle Stillingfar. He cannot be again moved.”
The Serjeant sat silent for a few moments. “It is very unfortunate, Charles,” he resumed. “Could he have been got away it would be better for him, better for you all. Though, in truth, it is not I who ought to suggest it, as you well know; but sometimes one’s private and public duties oppose each other.”
“Have you heard anything, uncle?”
“I have heard from a sure source that the authorities know that Captain Heriot is in London. They know it positively: but not, I think, where he is concealed. The search for him will now commence in earnest.”
“It is, indeed, unfortunate. I have been hoping he would be left to die in peace. One thing is certain: if the police find him they can only let him remain where he is. They cannot remove him.”
