Part 48 (1/2)
”Not a word of it.”
”Well, I'm a bad narrator; besides, I don't know where to begin; and even if I did, I have nothing to tell but the odds and ends of club gossip, for I conclude n.o.body knows all the facts but the King himself.”
”If I were given to impatience, George, you would be a most consummate plague to me,” said Upton; ”but I am not. Go on, however, in your own blundering way, and leave me to glean what I can _in mine_.”
Cheered and encouraged by this flattering speech, Harcourt did begin; but, more courteous to him than Sir Horace, we mean to accord him a new chapter for his revelations; premising the while to our reader that the Colonel, like the knife-grinder, had really ”no story to tell.”
CHAPTER x.x.xIX. A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE
”You want to hear all about Glencore?” said Harcourt, as, seated in the easiest of att.i.tudes in an easy-chair, he puffed his cigar luxuriously; ”and when I have told you all I know, the chances are you'll be little the wiser.” Upton smiled a bland a.s.sent to this exordium, but in such a way as to make Harcourt feel less at ease than before.
”I mean,” said the Colonel, ”that I have little to offer you beyond the guesses and surmises of club talk. It will be for your own intelligence to penetrate through the obscurity afterwards. You understand me?”
”I believe I understand you,” said Upton, slowly, and with the same quiet smile. Now, this cold, semi-sarcastic manner of Upton was the one sole thing in the world which the honest Colonel could not stand up against; he always felt as though it were the prelude to something cutting or offensive,--some sly impertinence that he could not detect till too late to resent,--some insinuation that might give the point to a whole conversation, and yet be undiscovered by him till the day following. Little as Harcourt was given to wronging his neighbor, he in this instance was palpably unjust; Upton's manner being nothing more than the impress made upon a very subtle man by qualities very unlike any of his own, and which in their newness amused him. The very look of satire was as often an expression of sorrow and regret that he could not be as susceptible--as easy of deception--as those about him. Let us pardon our worthy Colonel if he did not comprehend this; shrewder heads than his own had made the same mistake. Half to resent this covert slyness, half to arouse himself to any conflict before him, he said, in a tone of determination, ”It is only fair to tell you that you are yourself to blame for anything that may have befallen poor Glencore.”
”I to blame! Why, my dear Harcourt, you are surely dreaming.”
”As wide awake as ever I was. If it had not been for a blunder of yours,--an unpardonable blunder, seeing what has come of it,--sending a pack of trash to me about salt and sulphur, while you forwarded a private letter about Glencore to the Foreign Office, all this might not have happened.”
”I remember that it was a most disagreeable mistake. I have paid heavily for it, too. That lotion for the cervical vertebrae has come back all torn, and we cannot make out whether it be a phosphate or a prot'-oxide of bis.m.u.th. You don't happen to remember?”
”I?--of course I know nothing about it. I'd as soon have taken a porcupine for a pillow as I 'd have adventured on the confounded mixture. But, as I was saying, that blessed letter, written by some Princess or other, as I understand, fell into the King's hands, and the consequence was that he sent off immediately to Glencore an order to go down to him at Brighton. Naturally enough, I thought he 'd not go; he had the good and sufficient pretext of his bad health to excuse him.
n.o.body had seen him abroad in the world for years back, and it was easy enough to say that he could not bear the journey. Nothing of the kind; he received the command as willingly as he might have done an invitation to dinner fifteen years ago, and talked of nothing else for the whole evening after but of his old days and nights in Carlton House; how gracious the Prince used to be to him formerly; how constantly he was a guest at his table; what a brilliant society it was; how full of wit and the rest of it; till, by Jove, what between drinking more wine than he was accustomed to take, and the excitement of his own talking, he became quite wild and unmanageable. He was not drunk, nor anything like it, it was rather the state of a man whose mind had got some sudden shock; for in the midst of perfectly rational conversation, he would fall into paroxysms of violent pa.s.sion, inveighing against every one, and declaring that he never had possessed one true-hearted, honest friend in his life.
”It was not without great difficulty that I got him back to my lodgings, for we had gone to dine at Richmond. Then we put him to bed, and I sent for Hunter, who came on the instant. Though by this time Glencore was much more calm and composed, Hunter called the case brain fever; had his hair cut quite close, and ice applied to the head. Without any knowledge of his history or even of his name, Hunter p.r.o.nounced him to be a man whose intellect had received some terrible shock, and that the present was simply an acute attack of a long-existent malady.”
”Did he use any irritants?” asked Upton, anxiously.
”No; he advised nothing but the cold during the night.”
”Ah! what a mistake,” sighed Upton, heavily. ”It was precisely the case for the cervical lotion I was speaking of. Of course he was much worse next morning?”
”That he was; not as regarded his reason, however, for he could talk collectedly enough, but he was irritable and pa.s.sionate to a degree scarcely credible: would not endure the slightest opposition, and so suspectful of everything and everybody that if he overheard a whisper it threw him into a convulsion of anger. Hunter's opinion was evidently a gloomy one, and he said to me as we went downstairs, 'He may come through it with life, but scarcely with a sound intellect.' This was a heavy blow to _me_, for I could not entirely acquit myself of the fault of having counselled this visit to Brighton, which I now perceived had made such a deep impression upon him. I roused myself, however, to meet the emergency, and walked down to St. James's to obtain some means of letting the King know that Glencore was too ill to keep his appointment.
Fortunately, I met Knighton, who was just setting off to Brighton, and who promised to take charge of the commission. I then strolled over to Brookes's to see the morning papers, and lounged till about four o'clock, when I turned homeward.
”Gloomy and sad I was as I reached my door, and rang the bell with a cautious hand. They did not hear the summons, and I was forced to ring again, when the door was opened by my servant, who stood pale and trembling before me. 'He's gone, sir,--he's gone,' cried he, almost sobbing.
”'Good Heaven!' cried I. 'Dead?'
”'No, sir, gone away,--driven off, no one knows where. I had just gone out to the chemist's, and was obliged to call round at Doctor Hunter's about a word in the prescription they could n't read, and when I came back he was away.'
”I then ascertained that the carriage which had been ordered the day before at a particular hour, and which we had forgotten to countermand, had arrived during my servant's absence. Glencore, hearing it stop at the door, inquired whose it was, and as suddenly springing out of bed, proceeded to dress himself, which he did, in the suit he had ordered to wait on the King. So apparently reasonable was he in all he said, and such an air of purpose did he a.s.sume, that the nurse-tender averred she could not dare to interpose, believing that his attack might possibly be some sort of pa.s.sing access that he was accustomed to, and knew best how to deal with.
”I did not lose a moment, but, ordering post-horses, pursued him with all speed. On reaching Croydon, I heard he had pa.s.sed about two hours before; but though I did my best, it was in vain. I arrived at Brighton late at night, only to learn that a gentleman had got out at the Pavilion, and had not left it since.
”I do not believe that all I have ever suffered in my life equalled what I went through in the two weary hours that I pa.s.sed walking up and down outside that low paling that skirts the Palace garden. The poor fellow, in all his misery, came before me in so many shapes; sometimes wandering in intellect--sometimes awake and conscious of his sufferings--now trying to comport himself as became the presence he was in--now reckless of all the world and everything. What could have happened to detain him so long? What had been the course of events since he pa.s.sed that threshold? were questions that again and again crossed me.
”I tried to make my way in,--I know not exactly what I meant to do afterwards; but the sentries refused me admittance. I thought of scaling the enclosure, and reaching the Palace through the garden; but the police kept strict watch on every side. At last, it was nigh twelve o'clock, that I heard a sentry challenge some one, and shortly after a figure pa.s.sed out and walked towards the pier. I followed, determined to make inquiry, no matter of whom. He walked so rapidly, however, that I was forced to run to overtake him. This attracted his notice; he turned hastily, and by the straggling moonlight I recognized Glencore.
”He stood for a moment still, and beckoning me towards him, he took my arm in silence, and we walked onward in the direction of the sea-sh.o.r.e.