Fordham's Feud Part 42

Then, amid much elaborate hat-lifting, Major Fox and his princ.i.p.al walked away, while M. de Verrieux and the doctor lit their cigars and proceeded to put away the pistols. Suddenly a cry escaped the medico.

It was echoed by the other. For Fordham was lying on the ground as pale as death. He was in a dead faint.

"And he said he wasn't hit?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the doctor. "I could have sworn I saw him wince. Yes! look there," pointing to a hole in the fallen man's trousers just above the left knee. "There it is. He held his hand over it all the time, do you see, very cleverly too. Too proud to give way before the young one. Well, well; he _is_ a man. But it is wonderful--wonderful."

All this while the speaker had been ripping up the leg of the prostrate man's trousers.

"Here it is," he went on triumphantly. "_Ah, ca_! But there will be no probing required. The ball has gone clean through."

"Is the wound a dangerous one?" said the other. "It doesn't seem to bleed much."

"_C'est selon_!" replied the doctor, with a shrug of the shoulders.

"The haemorrhage is, as you say, slight; but the tendon is badly torn-- and--_he will carry the mark of this day with him to his grave. He will walk with a limp for the remainder of his life_."

And Fordham waking up just then to consciousness under the influence of the cordial which his second was administering, heard the words, and smiled grimly to himself.

"Poetic justice, with a vengeance!" he thought.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

AT THE END OF HIS LIFE.

Midway between Nyon and Rolle, the steamer _Mont Blanc_ was shearing her arrowy course through the blue waters of Lake Leman, heading for the latter place.

Her decks were covered with pa.s.sengers, mostly of French nationality-- light-hearted, chattering, cheerful souls, talking volubly and all at once--talking the harder apparently in inverse ratio to the interest of the topic under consideration.

Right in the stern of the boat, beneath the upper deck, his back against the end of the saloon, sat a solitary Englishman. He was smoking a cigar and pretending to read, but it was patent to the most casual observer that the book before him occupied very little of his attention indeed, for he was gazing out upon the sapphire surface of the lake and its green and gold setting of engirdling mountains, with an expression of settled sadness upon his extremely attractive countenance, which had no business to be seen upon the face of one so young.

Suddenly there was a rush of feet, and a hat came skimming along the lower deck, a broad-brimmed straw hat--a feminine hat. Springing from his seat he caught it, just in time to save it from going overboard, and turned to hand it to its pursuer and owner.

"Thanks so much," said a sweet voice. Then the speaker stopped short in amazement and changed colour. "Why, it's Mr Orlebar--pardon me--Sir Philip, I should have said."

"It used to be 'Philip' at one time, Alma," was the reply, with the ghost of a sad smile. And then these two stood looking into each other's eyes in silence. Neither seemed able to say a word.

It was as she had implied. Sir Francis Orlebar was no more. Never recovering from the prostration into which he had been thrown by Fordham's revelation, he had sunk into a decline and had succ.u.mbed three months later, tended by his son devotedly to the last. Then Philip, reserving enough for his modest wants, had apportioned the remainder between his stepmother and that other who had a legal claim upon him.

This done, he had left Claxby Court and had started upon his travels again.

She who was his wife, in the eye of the law, he had never set eyes on since that fateful night. He had tried by every means in his power to find some channel through which the mystery might be cleared up, but in vain. The only person who could have done so was dead, and her last words, her last look, her last behaviour, conclusively confirmed him in his very darkest conjectures. The bare recollection of the subject was unutterably nauseous and repulsive to him now.

Old Glover had in due course served him with a writ in the threatened breach of promise action. Nothing could be more repellent than to be dragged forth into notoriety thus, yet what could he do? He was too poor to offer any compromise, even if it were not the persistently rancorous intention of that estimable British merchant to exact his pound of flesh in spite of everything, and that pound of flesh the dragging of him--Philip--into notoriety and a court of law. But at the last moment chance had befriended him. For the beauteous Edith had succ.u.mbed to the prismatic attractions of a ritualistic parson of fine presence and ample means, and this cleric had, under pain of cancelling his own engagement, laid a stern embargo on his future bride making an exhibition of herself in a public court. So, whereas it is manifestly impossible to bring an action for breach of promise failing the consent of the interesting plaintiff, old Glover was obliged to deny himself the gratification of his rancour, and to console himself characteristically with the sound commercial reflection that, after all, they had got much the better bargain of the two. For the parson was well off, and would very likely be a bishop one day, or, at any rate an archdeacon, whereas Philip Orlebar, though now a baronet, would always have been as poor as Job, and would never have done any good for himself or anybody else. In which conjecture he was probably right.

"It's an odd thing I should not have seen you all this time," said Philip at last, realising that it was necessary to say something. "Yet you must have come on board at Geneva."

"No--at Nyon."

"_At_ Nyon! That would account for it. I have been sitting here almost ever since we left Geneva, and, of course, I can't see the gangway from here, or who lands, or who embarks. Have you been staying there?"

"Only a few days. The people I am with were there to see some friends of theirs. But--between ourselves--it was rather slow."

"You are not with the General then?"

"Oh no! Don't I wish I was!" she added, with an eager lowering of her voice. "But there, I ought not to say that. These are a very kind sort of people, but a trifle 'heavy.' I am only travelling _with_ them, not their guest."

Now what the deuce did Philip care about the estimability or other idiosyncrasies of the people she was travelling with? He saw only her-- her as he remembered her in times past--her as he had seen her many a time since, waking and in his dreams--her as he had seen her the first time of all, here on the deck of this very ship. He detected the sympathetic softening of the great grey eyes, the saddened inflection of that voice, the first note of which had thrilled his whole being, and his heart tightened. For, after all, he was young, and, in spite of the blow which had fallen upon his life, all possibilities for him were not dead.

And she? Knowing something of his history since they parted--though not the exact nature of the grim skeleton so carefully kept locked up-- knowing something of his history, we say, for the world is small and tongues are long, she felt her heart go out to him as it had never done before, as she never thought possible that it could have done. The sunny laugh had gone out of his face for ever; leaving an expression, a stamp of hopelessness, which to her was infinitely pathetic. It was all that she could do to keep down the rush of tears which welled to her eyes as they looked up into his sad ones. What, we say, did he, did either of them, care about the heaviness or otherwise of the people she was travelling with? Yet of such trivialities will the lips force themselves to chatter while the heart is bursting.

"Where and how is the dear old General now?" he went on. "And your aunt?"

"They have gone to live at a place in the country--a few miles from Rushtonborough. That is near your home, is it not?"

"Yes," he said eagerly, and the possibilities began to stir around and quicken into life. Then his tone relapsed again. "Do you ever go down there yourself?"

"I haven't yet. They have only just gone there. And now"-- hesitatingly, "I think I must go back to my people. They will be wondering what has become of me."

"Not yet--Alma."

The pleading tone melted her not very strongly formed resolution. She paused. The end of the saloon hid them effectually, though, of course, they only held this snug corner to themselves on the precarious tenure of chance.

"Tell me a little more about yourself," he went on. "Are you still living at that place you hated so--Surbiton?"

"N-no," as if the topic was distasteful. "By the way, I saw you there once."

"But--I have never been there in my life," he answered, very mystified.

"Not on land, perhaps--but by water. You were in a boat--and the one I was in as nearly as possible ran you down. I was steering--or rather, ought to have been," she added with a little smile. "You didn't see me, but I recognised you."

"I remember now," he said. "And was that you? Yes, I remember perfectly. Oh, Alma--if only I _had_ seen you!"

It seemed to escape him in spite of himself, and it conveyed volumes.

There had been just a spice of bitterness in the motive that had urged her to let him know she had seen him and with whom, but now she would have given worlds to withdraw the remark--such a turning of the knife in the wound did it seem. And now she realised plainer than words could tell, that if he had seen her on the occasion in question, it would have made all the difference in the world to her life and his.

"What is this place we are coming to?" he said, as the steamer's bell begun to ring to the accompaniment of a sensible slackening of the paddles.

"Rolle. The next is Morges, and then Ouchy, where we land. We are going to stay a few days in Lausanne."

"What, at this time of year? Why you will be roasted?"

"So we shall. But the Sitgreaves want to get some things there before going on to the mountains."

"Are you going on to the mountains? Where? Perhaps we may meet again?"

And once more the possibilities were all astir.

"Philip, I think we had better not," she answered, with her eyes full upon his. "It would not be fair to--you."

"Oh, I can keep myself in hand all right," he replied, with a hard laugh from which he could not altogether eliminate the suspicion of a tremor.

"Don't be afraid. I've learnt a thing or two since we last had the pleasure of meeting."