Doctor Claudius, A True Story Part 40

"Quite sure, sir," answered he. "Wait a minute, though," he said, as the Duke dropped the list, "there was a pa.s.senger taken ash.o.r.e at Queenstown very ill. A tall man, I should say, though they carried him. He had not registered on board, and he was so ill he gave up the pa.s.sage. I could not tell you his name."

"Had he a light beard?" asked the Duke in great alarm.

"Um! yes; a large beard at all events. I remember how he looked as they carried him past. He was awfully pale, and his eyes were closed."

"My G.o.d!" exclaimed the Duke; "it must have been he! Does no one know his name?"

"The captain may. He would not see you now, just going into port, but I will go and ask him," added the officer kindly, seeing how much distressed the other seemed to be.

"Do--thanks--please ask him--yes!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, and sank into a chair.

The bursar returned in a quarter of an hour.

"I am sorry to say, sir," he said, "that no one seems to have known his name. It sometimes happens. I am very sorry."

The Duke saw there was nothing to be done. It was clear that Claudius was not on board; but it was by no means clear that Claudius was not lying ill, perhaps dead, in Queenstown. The poor Englishman bit his lips in despair, and was silent. He could not decide how much he ought to tell Margaret, and how much he ought to keep to himself. The sick pa.s.senger seemed to answer the description, and yet he might not have been the Doctor for all that. Tall man--pale--he would be pale anyhow if he were ill--fair beard--yes, it sounded like him.

"I wish Vick were here," said the Duke to himself; "she has so much sense." Immediately the idea of consulting with his sister developed itself in his mind. "How can I get ash.o.r.e?" he asked suddenly.

"I am afraid you will have to wait till we are in," said the friendly officer. "It will not be more than an hour now."

Impelled by some faint hope that the Doctor's name might have been omitted by some accident, the Duke rose and threaded his way among the crowding pa.s.sengers, as they got their traps together and moved about the great saloons. He pursued every tall man he saw, till he could catch a glimpse of his face. At last he met a towering figure in a darkened pa.s.sage way.

"My dear Claudius!" he cried, holding out his hand. But the stranger only paused, muttered something about a "mistake" and pa.s.sed on. The excitement grew on the Duke, as it became certain that Claudius was not on board, and never in the whole of his very high and mighty life had he been in such a state of mind. Some of the pa.s.sengers noted his uneasy movements and exchanged remarks in an undertone, as he pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed.

"He is probably crazy," said an Englishman.

"He is probably drunk," said an American.

"He is probably a defaulting bank cashier," said a Scotchman.

"He looks very wild," said a New York mamma.

"He looks very unhappy," said her daughter.

"He is very well dressed," said her son, who got his clothes half yearly from Smallpage.

But the time pa.s.sed at last, and the great thing came up to her pier, and opened her jaws and disgorged her living freight down a steep plank on to dry earth again; and the Duke, with a final look at the stream of descending pa.s.sengers, forced his way ash.o.r.e, and jumped into the first cab he saw.

"Drive to the nearest Elevated station," he shouted.

"Which avenue?" inquired the driver with that placidity which cabmen a.s.sume whenever one is in a hurry.

"Oh, any avenue--d.a.m.n the avenue--Sixth Avenue of course!" cried the Duke in a stew.

"Very good, sir--Sixth Avenue Elevated, did you say?" and he deliberately closed the door and mounted to his box.

"What shall I tell her--what shall I say?" were the questions that repeated themselves with stunning force in his ear as he rattled through the streets, and slid over the smooth Elevated Road, swiftly towards his hotel. He had still some few hundred yards to walk from the station when he got out. His courage failed him, and he walked slowly, with bent head and heavy heart, the bearer of bad news.

Leisurely he climbed the steps, and the few stairs to his room. There stood Lady Victoria under the gaslight, by the fire, looking at the clock.

"At last," she cried, "how _did_ you miss him?"

"Whom?" asked her brother dejectedly.

"Why, Claudius, of course!"

"Claudius is not come," he said in a low voice.

"Not come?" cried Lady Victoria, "not come? Why he has been here these two hours, with Margaret!"

The Duke was fairly overpowered and worn-out with excitement, and he fell back into a chair.

"How the--" he began, but checked the expletive, which found vent elsewhere, as expletives will. "Where the devil did he come from?"

"From Europe, I believe," said she. "Don't swear about it."

"Excuse me, Vick, I am bowled out; I was never so taken aback in my life. Tell me all about it, Vick." And he slowly recovered his senses enough to appreciate that Claudius had really arrived, and that he, the friend who had taken so much trouble, had somehow missed him after all.

But he was honestly glad.

"I only saw him a moment, and I came in to your room to wait. Of course I let him go in there alone."

"Of course," a.s.sented her brother gravely.

"Margaret was waiting for him, for she got your telegram that the ship was in sight at three o'clock, and he got here at five; I thought it was very quick."

"Devilish quick, indeed," said her profane brother under his breath.

"Tell me all about it," he added aloud.

It was easily enough explained, and before they went to bed that night every one understood it all. It was simply this--Claudius had come by another steamer, one of the German line, and had chanced to arrive a couple of hours before the Cunarder. Margaret had received the Duke's message, as Lady Victoria had said, and, as Claudius appeared soon afterwards, she saw no discrepancy.

The tall Doctor left his slender luggage to the mercy of the Custom House, and, hailing a cab, paid the man double fare in advance to hurry to the hotel. He could hardly wait while the servant went through the formality of taking up his name to the Countess, and when the message came back that he would "please to step up upstairs," as the stereotyped American hotel phrase has it, he seemed indeed to make of the stairway but a single step.

One moment more, and he was kneeling at her feet, trembling in every limb and speechless, but kissing the fair white hands again and again, while she bent down her flushed dark cheek till it touched his yellow hair. Then he stood up to his height and kissed her forehead and clasped his fingers about her waist and held her up to the length of his mighty arms before him, unconscious, in his overmastering happiness, of the strength he was exerting. But she laughed happily, and her eyes flashed in pride of such a man.

"Forgive me, my beloved," he said at last. "I am beside myself with joy." She hid her face on his breast as they stood together.

"Are you very glad to come back?" she asked at last, looking up to him with a smile that told the answer.

"Glad is too poor a word, my dear, dear lady," he said simply.

Two hours later they were still seated side by side on the deep sofa.

Claudius had told her everything, for, now that he had accomplished his mission, there were to be no more secrets; and there were tears in Margaret's dark eyes as she heard, for she knew what it had cost him to leave her, knowing how he loved. And then they talked on.

"If it is to be so soon, dear," she said, "let it be on Christmas Day."

"So be it. And, beloved, where shall we go?" he asked.