CHAPTER III.
CLEVE COMES.
TOM SEDLEY was dozing in his chair, by the fire, when he was roused byMrs. Graver's voice.
"You'll take this note at once, please, to your master; there's a cabat the door, and the lady says you mustn't make no delay."
It took some seconds to enable Tom to account for the scene, the actorand his own place of repose, his costume, and the tenor of the strangewoman's language. In a little while, however, he recovered thecontext, and the odd passage in his life became intelligible.
Still half asleep, Tom hurried down-stairs, and in the hall, with ashock, read the address, "Cleve Verney, Esq." At the hall-door stepshe found a cab, into which he jumped, telling the man to drive toCleve Verney's lodgings.
There were expiring lights in the drawing-room, the blinds of whichwere up, and as the cab stopped at the steps a figure appeared at oneof the windows, and Cleve Verney opened it, and told the driver,"Don't mind knocking, I'll go down."
"Come up-stairs," said Cleve, as he stood at the open door, addressingSedley, and mistaking him for the person whom he had employed.
Up ran Tom Sedley at his heels.
"Hollo! _Sedley_--what brings _you_ here?" said Cleve, when Tomappeared in the light of the candles. "You don't mean to say the ballhas been going on till now--or is it a scrape?"
"Nothing--only this I've been commissioned to give you," and he placedMiss Sheckleton's note in his hand.
Cleve had looked wofully haggard and anxious as Tom entered. But hiscountenance changed now to an ashy paleness, and there was nomistaking his extreme agitation.
He opened the note--a very brief one it seemed--and read it.
"Thank God!" he said with a great sigh, and then he walked to thewindow and looked out, and returned again to the candles and read thenote once more.
"How did you know I was up, Tom?"
"The lights in the windows."
"Yes. Don't let the cab go."
Cleve was getting on his coat, and speaking like a man in a dream.
"I say, Tom Sedley, how did _you_ come by this note?" he said, with asudden pause, and holding Miss Sheckleton's note in his fingers.
"Well, quite innocently," hesitated Sedley.
"How the devil was it, sir? Come, you may as well--by heaven, Sedley,you _shall_ tell me the truth!"
Tom looked on his friend Cleve, and saw his eyes gleaming sharply onhim, and his face very white.
"Of course I'll tell you, Cleve," said Tom, and with this exordium hestumbled honestly through his story, which by no means quieted CleveVerney.
"You d----d little Paul Pry!" said he. "Well, you have got hold of asecret now, like the man in the iron mask, and by----you had betterkeep it."
A man who half blames himself already, and is in a position which hehates and condemns, will stand a great deal more of hard language, andeven of execration, than he would under any other imaginablecircumstances.
"You can't blame me half as much as I do myself. I assure you, Cleve,I'm awfully sorry. It was the merest lark--at first--and then--when Isaw that beautiful--that young lady--"
"Don't talk of that lady any more; I'm her husband. _There_, you haveit all, and if you whisper it to mortal you _may ruin_ me; but one orother of us shall die for it!"
Cleve was talking in a state of positive exasperation.
"Whisper it!--tell it! You don't in the least understand me, Cleve,"said Tom, collecting himself, and growing a little lofty; "I don'twhisper or tell things; and as for daring or not daring, I don't knowwhat you mean; and I hope, if occasion for _dying_ came, I should funkit as little as any other fellow."
"I'm going to this d----d place now. I don't much care what you do: Ialmost wish you'd shoot me."
He struck his hand on the table, looking not at Tom Sedley, but with ahaggard rage through the window, and away toward the gray east; andwithout another word to Sedley, he ran down, shutting the hall-doorwith a crash that showed more of his temper than of his prudence, andTom saw him jump into the cab and drive away.
The distance is really considerable, but in Cleve's intense reverietime and space contracted, and before he fancied they had accomplishedhalf the way, he found himself at the tall door and stained pilastersand steps of the old red-brick house.
Anne Evans, half awake, awaited his arrival on the steps. He ranlightly up the stairs, under her covert scrutiny; and, in obedience toMrs. Graver's gesture of warning, as she met him with raised hand andher frowning "Hish" at the head of the stairs, he checked his pace,and in a whisper he made his eager inquiries. She was going on verynicely.
"I must see Miss Sheckleton--the old lady--where is she?" urged Cleve.
"Here, sir, please"--and Mrs. Graver opened a door, and he found tiredMiss Sheckleton tying on her bonnet, and getting her cloak about her.
"Oh! Cleve, dear"--she called him "Cleve" now--"I'm so delighted;she's doing _very_ well; the doctor's quite _pleased_ with her, andit's a boy, Cleve, and--and I wish you joy with all my heart."
And as she spoke, the kind old lady was shaking both his hands, andsmiling up into his handsome face, like sunshine; but that handsomeface, though it smiled down darkly upon her, was, it seemed to her,strangely joyless, and even troubled.
"And Cleve, dear, my _dear_ Mr. Verney--I'm _so_ sorry; but I must goimmediately. I make his chocolate in the morning, and he sometimescalls for it at half-past seven. This miserable attack that has kepthim here, and the risk in which he is at every day he stays in thistown, it _is so_ distracting. And if I should not be at home and readyto see him when he calls, he'd be sure to suspect something; and Ireally see nothing but ruin from his temper and violence to all of us,if he were to find out how it is. So good-bye, and God bless you. Thedoctor says he thinks you may see her in a very little time--half anhour or so--if you are very careful not to let her excite or agitateherself; and--God bless you--I shall be back, for a little, in an houror two."
So that kindly, fluttered, troubled, and happy old lady disappeared;and Cleve was left again to his meditations.
"Where's the doctor?" asked Cleve of the servant.
"In the sitting-room, please, sir, writing; his carriage is come, sir,please."
And thus saying, Mistress Anne Evans officiously opened the door, andCleve entered. The doctor, having written a prescription, and justlaid down his pen, was pulling on his glove.
Cleve had no idea that he was to see Doctor Grimshaw. Quite anotherphysician, with whom he had no acquaintance, had been agreed uponbetween him and Miss Sheckleton. As it turned out, however, thatgentleman was now away upon an interesting visit, at a countrymansion, and Doctor Grimshaw was thus unexpectedly summoned.
Cleve was unpleasantly surprised, for he had already an acquaintancewith that good man, which he fancied was not recorded in hisrecollection to his credit. I think if the doctor's eye had not beendirected toward the door when he entered, that Cleve Verney would havedrawn back; but that would not do now.
"Doctor Grimshaw?" said Cleve.
"Yes, sir;" said the old gentleman.
"I think, Doctor Grimshaw, you know me?"
"Oh, yes, sir; of course I do;" said the Doctor, with an uncomfortablesmile, ever so little bitter, and a slight bow, "Mr. Verney, yes." Andthe doctor paused, looking toward him, pulling on his other glove, andexpecting a question.
"Your patient, Doctor Grimshaw, doing very well, I'm told?"
"Nicely, sir--very nicely now. I was a little uncomfortable about herjust at one time, but doing very well now; and it's a boy--a finechild. Good morning, sir."
He had taken up his hat.
"And Doctor Grimshaw, just one word. May I beg, as a matter ofprofessional _honour_, that this--all this, shall be held as strictly_secret_--everything connected with it as strictly confidential?"
The doctor looked down on the carpet with a pained countenance."Certainly, sir," he said, drily. "That's all, I suppose? Of course,Mr. Verney, I shan't--since such I suppose to be the wish of allparties--menti
on the case."
"Of _all_ parties, certainly; and it is in tenderness to others, notto myself, that I make the request."
"I'm sorry it should be necessary, sir;" said Doctor Grimshaw, almoststernly. "I know Miss Sheckleton and her family; this poor young lady,I understand, is a cousin of hers. I am _sorry_, sir, upon heraccount, that any mystery should be desirable."
"It _is_ desirable, and, in fact, _indispensable_, sir," said Cleve, alittle stiffly, for he did not see what right that old doctor had toassume a lecturer's tone toward him.
"No one shall be compromised by me, sir," said the doctor, with a sadand offended bow.
And the Doctor drove home pretty well tired out. I am afraid thatCleve did not very much care whom he might compromise, provided hehimself were secure. But even from himself the utter selfishness,which toned a character passionate and impetuous enough to simulatequite unconsciously the graces of magnanimity and tenderness, washidden.
Cleve fancied that the cares that preyed upon his spirits were forMargaret, and when he sometimes almost regretted their marriage, thathis remorse was principally for her, that all his caution and finessewere exacted by his devotion to the interests of his young wife, andthat the long system of mystery and deception, under which her proud,frank, spirit was pining, was practised solely for her advantage.
So Cleve was in his own mind something of a hero--self-sacrificing,ready, if need be, to shake himself free, for sake of his love and hisliberty, of all the intoxications and enervations of his English life,and _fortis colonus_, to delve the glebe of Canada or to shear thesheep of Australia. He was not conscious that all these were thechimeras of insincerity, that ambition was the breath of his nostrils,and that his idol was--himself.
And if he mistakes himself, do not others mistake him also, and clothehim with the nobleness of their own worship? Can it be that thelights and the music and the incense that surround him are but thetributes of a beautiful superstition, and that the idol in the midstis cold and dumb?
Cleve, to do him justice, was moved on this occasion. He did--shall Isay?--yearn to behold her again. There was a revival of tenderness,and he waited with a real impatience to see her.
He did see her--just a little gleam of light in the darkened room; hestood beside the bed, clasping that beautiful hand that God hadcommitted to his, smiling down in that beautiful face that smiledunutterable love up again into his own.
"Oh! Cleve, darling--oh, Cleve! I'm so happy."
The languid hands are clasped on his, the yearning eyes, and thesmile, look up. It is like the meeting of the beloved after shipwreck.
"And look, Cleve;" and with just ever so little a motion of her handshe draws back a silken coverlet, and he sees in a deep sleep a littlebaby, and the beautiful smile of young maternity falls upon it like ablessing and a caress. "Isn't it a darling? _Poor_ little thing! howquietly it sleeps. I think it is the dearest little thing that everwas seen--_our_ little baby!"
Is there a prettier sight than the young mother smiling, in this thehour of her escape, upon the treasure she has found? The wondrousgift, at sight of which a new fountain of love springs up--never,while life remains, to cease its flowing. Looking on such a sight insilence, I think I hear the feet of the angels round the bed--I thinkI see their beautiful eyes smiling on the face of the little mortal,and their blessed hands raised over the head of the fair youngmother.
The Tenants of Malory, Volume 3 Page 3
