Part 70 (1/2)

'Here is a volume of AEschylus--the Clarendon Press--with his college arms. He is a Balliol man, the same college as my cousin Brian's.'

'That proves nothing,' said Lady Palliser, contemptuously. 'He may have bought the book at a stall. All his furniture is second-hand, why not his books?'

'Oh, but here are more books with the Balliol arms--Pindar, Theocritus, Catullus, Horace, Virgil.'

'Can't you find his name in any of them?'

'No; that has been erased in some of the books, and has never been written in the others. Poor fellow! I daresay he would not like his real name to be known.'

'Didn't I tell you he was a gentleman, mother?' exclaimed Vernon, triumphantly.

Lady Palliser was almost convinced. The neat, substantially furnished room--so free from frippery or foppishness--the queer Oriental pipes--the well-used books in sober calf bindings, which had once been splendid--the college arms on almost every volume--these details impressed her in spite of herself.

'Poor young man! I should like to send him some money,' she said.

'He would not take it; he would scorn your money,' said Vernon. 'What does he want with pounds, s.h.i.+llings, and pence? He told me that so long as he has his books to read, his pipe to smoke, and a fine country to roam about, he cares for nothing else. Your money wouldn't buy him anything.'

'You don't understand, Vernie dear. We might do something substantial for him--set him up in a nice little shop at Petersfield, perhaps a stationer's, or,' with a glance at the rack of pipes, 'a tobacconist's.'

'My Jack keeping a shop! my Jack behind a counter!' cried Vernon: 'if you knew anything about him you would never talk of such a thing. Why he likes to be as free as the birds of the air--to roam about all day--and sit up reading half the night.'

They were all cl.u.s.tered in front of the bookcase, Bessie and Ida looking at the books, Lady Palliser and her boy intent on their own talk, when the door was flung open, and the master of the house suddenly appeared amidst them--a tall, broad-shouldered figure, roughly clad in shooting jacket, corduroy, and leather, like a gamekeeper--a dark bearded face under a slouched hat. But the intruders had only the briefest time in which to observe his appearance. At sight of the group by the bookcase, Jack tilted his felt hat further over his brows, and strode across the room to that corner whence a cork-screw stair led to the upper story. He went up these stairs in three or four bounds, banged and bolted the door of the upper chamber; and his unbidden guests were left looking at each other in bewildered silence.

Lady Palliser, after a gasp or two, was the first to speak.

'Did you ever see such manner?' she exclaimed; 'such a perfect brute?

Vernie, you must never speak to that horrid feature again. I never want to have anything more to do with University men if this is a specimen of their manners! Never so much as to take off his hat to us!'

'We had no right to come crowding into his room,' said Bessie, who could seldom find it in her heart to be angry with anyone. 'I daresay the poor thing feels the change in his position. When Brian, of the Abbey, comes home--if ever he does come home--I'll ask him to hunt this poor fellow out, and help him in some way. One Balliol man ought to help another.'

'Let us go back to the carriage instantly,' said Lady Palliser, almost shouting the substantive, in order that Jack might be reminded what kind of people he had insulted by his ruffianly bearing. 'I feel that I am bemeaning myself every moment I stay in this house.'

They hurried down the sandy hill path to the road where they had left the carriage, and Lady Palliser hustled them into it, breathless, with the combined effect of the rapid descent and her indignation.

'Why, Ida, how deadly pale you are!' exclaimed Bessie. 'I hope you are not ill. Have we walked too fast for you?'

'No, dear--only--that man's face reminded me--'

'Of Brian's when he first came home from Norway, and was so dreadfully sunburnt?' said Bessie; 'so it did me. The idea flashed upon me, as the rude wretch rushed past us, that he had a sort of look of Brian. Just the way he carried his head, you know, and something in the shape of his shoulders--not a real resemblance.'

'Of course not.'

CHAPTER XXIX.

'AS ONE DEAD IN THE BOTTOM OF A TOMB.'

Dr. Mallison came to Wimperfield at the same hour as on the occasion of his first visit. He was with the patient for nearly half-an-hour, and he confabulated with Mr. Fosbroke for at least another half hour, so it could not be said that he performed the physician's duty in a careless or perfunctory manner. But his opinion was not hopeful; and there was a gravity in his manner when he talked to Ida and her stepmother which was evidently intended to prepare them for the worst. He gave a peremptory order for a second nurse, an able-bodied experienced woman, who could relieve Towler in his now most onerous duties--duties growing hourly more painful, since the last development of the patient's delirium was a violent hatred of his attendant, who, as he believed, was always lying in wait to do him some injury. Dr. Mallison also advised that Mrs. Wendover should no longer occupy the bedroom adjoining her husband's. Upon this point he was very firm, when Ida urged her anxiety to forego no duty which she owed to her husband.

'I am so sorry for him,' she said. 'I would do anything in the world to help or to comfort him.'