Master of His Fate Part 5

"I hope to find it is."

"Oh, how slow!" exclaimed Julius,--"oh, how slow you professional scientific men become! You begin to run on tram-lines, and you can't get off them! Why fix yourself to call this principle you're seeking for 'electricity'? It will probably restrict your inquiry, and hamper you in several ways. I would declare to every scientific man, 'Unless you become as a little child or a poet, you will discover no great truth!'

Setting aside your bias towards what you call 'electricity,' you are really hoping to discover something that was discovered or divined thousands of years ago! Some have called it 'od'--an 'imponderable fluid'--as you know; you and others wish to call it 'electricity.' I prefer to call it 'the spirit of life,'--a name simple, dignified, and expressive!"

"It has the disadvantage of being poetic," said Dr Rippon, with grave irony; "and doctors don't like poetry mixed up with their science."

"It _is_ poetic," admitted Julius, regarding the old doctor with interest, "and therefore it is intelligible. The spirit of life is electric and elective, and it is 'imponderable:' it can neither be weighed nor measured! It flows and thrills in the nerves of men and women, animals and plants, throughout the whole of Nature! It connects the whole round of the Cosmos by one glowing, teasing, agonising principle of being, and makes us and beasts and trees and flowers all kindred!"

"That is all very beautiful and fresh," said Lefevre, "but--"

"But," interrupted Julius, "it is not a new truth: the poet divined it ages ago! Buddha, thousands of years ago, perceived it, and taught that 'all life is linked and kin;' so did the Egyptians and the Greeks, when they worshipped the principle of life everywhere; and so did our own barbaric ancestors, when the woods--the wonderful, mystic woods!--were their temples. Life--the spirit of life!--is always beautiful; always to be desired and worshipped!"

"Yes," said old Dr Rippon, who had listened to this astonishing rhapsody with evident interest, with sympathetic and intelligent eye; "but a time will come even to you, when death will appear more beautiful and friendly and desirable than life."

Courtney was silent, and looked for a second or two deadly sick. He cast a searching eye on Dr Rippon.

"That's the one thought," said he, "that makes me sometimes feel as if I were already under the horror of the shade. It's not that I am afraid of dying--of merely ceasing to live; it is that life may cease to be delightful and friendly, and become an intolerable, decaying burden."

He filled a gla.s.s with Burgundy, and set himself attentively to drink it, lingering on the bouquet and the flavour. Lefevre beheld him with surprise, for he had never before seen Julius take wine: he was wont to say that converse with good company was intoxicating enough for him.

"Why, Julius," said Lefevre, "that's a new experience you are trying,--is it not?"

Julius looked embarra.s.sed an instant, and then replied, "I have begun it very recently. I did not think it wise to postpone the experience till it might become an absolute necessity."

Old Dr Rippon watched him empty the gla.s.s with a musing eye. "'I sought in mine heart,'" said he, gravely quoting, "'to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom.'"

"True," said Julius, considering him closely. "But, for completeness'

sake, you ought to quote also, 'Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy.'"

Lefevre looked from the one to the other in some darkness of perplexity.

"You appear, John," said the old doctor, with a smile, "not to know one of the oldest and greatest of books: you will find it included in your Bible. Mr Courtney clearly knows it. I should not be surprised to hear he had adopted its philosophy of 'wisdom and madness and folly.'"

"Surely you cannot say," remarked Julius, "that the writer of that book had what is called a 'philosophy.' He was moved by an irresistible impulse, of which he gives you the explanation when he uses that magnificent sentence about having 'the world set in his heart.'"

"Yes," said the old doctor, in a subdued, backward voice, regarding Julius with the contemplative eyes of memory. "You will, I hope, forgive me when I say that you remind me very much of a gentleman who took the name of Courtney. I knew him years ago: was he a relation of yours, I wonder?"

"Possibly," said Julius, seeming scarcely interested; "though the name of Courtney, I believe, is not very uncommon." Then, turning to Lefevre, he said, "I hope you don't think I wish to make light of your grand idea. I only mean that you must widen your view, if you would work it out to success."

With that Lefevre became more curious to hear Dr Rippon's story. So when they went to the drawing-room he got the old gentleman into a secluded corner, and reminded him of his promise.

"Yes," said the doctor, "it is a romantic story. About forty years ago,--yes, about forty: it was immediately after the fall of Louis Philippe,--I went with my friend Lord Rokeby to Madrid. He went as amba.s.sador, and I as his physician. There was then at the Spanish Court a very handsome hidalgo, Don Hernando--I forget all his names, but his surname was De Sandoval. He was of the bluest blood in Spain, and a marquis, but poor as a church mouse. He had a great reputation for gallant adventures and for mysterious scientific studies. On the last ground I sought and cultivated his acquaintance. But he was a proud, reserved person, and I could never quite make out what his studies were, except that he read a great deal, and believed firmly in the Arabic philosophers and alchemists of the middle ages; and he would sometimes talk with the same sort of rhapsodical mysticism as this young man delights you with. We did not have much opportunity for developing an intimacy in any case; for he fell in love with the daughter of our Chief Secretary of Legation, a bright, lovely English girl, and that ended disastrously for his position in Madrid. He made his proposals to her father, and had them refused; chiefly, I believe, on account of his loose reputation. The girl, too, was the heiress of an uncle's property on this curious condition, it appeared,--that whoever should marry her should take the uncle's name of _Courtney_. Don Hernando and the young lady disappeared; they were married, and he took the name of Courtney, and was forbidden to return to Madrid. He and his wife settled in Paris, where I used to meet them frequently; then they travelled, I believe, and I lost sight of them. I returned to Paris on a visit some few years ago, and I asked an old friend about the Courtneys; he believed they were both dead, though he could give me no certain news about them."

"Supposing," said Lefevre, "that this Julius were their son, do you know of any reason why he should be reserved about his parentage?"

"No," said the old man, "no;--unless it be that Hernando was not episcopal in his affections; but I should think the young man is scarcely Puritan enough to be ashamed of that."

Lefevre and the old man both looked round for Julius. They caught sight of him and Leonora Lefevre standing one on either side of a window, with their eyes fixed upon each other.

"The young lady," said the old doctor, "seems much taken up with him."

"Yes," said Lefevre; "and she's my sister."

"Ah," said the old doctor; "I fear my remark was rather unreserved."

"It is true," said Lefevre.

He left Dr Rippon, to seek his mother. He found her excited and warm, and without a word to spare for him.

"You wanted," said he, "some serious talk with me, mother?"

"Oh yes," said she; "but I can't talk seriously now: I can scarcely talk at all. But do you see how Nora and Julius are taken up with each other?

I never before saw such a pair of moonstruck mortals! I believe I have heard of the moon having a magnetic influence on people: do you think it has? But he is a charming man!"--glancing towards Julius--"I'm more than half in love with him myself. Now I must go. Come quietly one afternoon, and then we can talk."

Her son abstained from recounting, as he had proposed to himself, what he had heard from Dr Rippon: he would reserve it for the quiet afternoon. He took his leave almost immediately, bearing with him a deep impression--like a strongly bitten etching wrought on his memory--of his last glimpse of the drawing-room: Nora and Julius set talking across a small table, and the tall, pale, gaunt figure of Dr Rippon approaching and stooping between them. It seemed a sinister reminder of the words the old doctor had addressed to Julius,--"_A time will come when death will appear more beautiful and friendly and desirable than life!_"

Chapter IV.

The Man of the Crowd.

In a few days Dr Lefevre found a quiet afternoon, and went and told his mother the story of the Spanish marquis which he had got from Dr Rippon.

She hailed the story with delight. Courtney was a fascinating figure to her before: it needed but that to clothe him with a complete romantic heroism; for, of course, she did not doubt that he was the son of the Spanish grandee. She wished to put it to him at once whether he was not, but she was dissuaded by her son from mentioning the matter yet to either Julius or her daughter.

"If he wishes," said Lefevre, "to keep it secret for some reason, it would be an impertinence to speak about it. We shall, however, have a perfect right to ask him about himself if his attentions to Nora go on."

Soon afterwards (it was really a fortnight; but in a busy life day melts into day with amazing rapidity), Lefevre was surprised at dinner, and somewhat irritated, by a letter from his mother. She wrote that they had seen nothing of Julius Courtney for three or four days,--which was singular, since for the past three or four weeks he had been a daily visitor; latterly he had begun to look f.a.gged and ill, and it was possible he was confined to his room,--though, after all, that was scarcely likely, for he had not answered a note of inquiry which she had sent. She begged her son to call at his chambers, the more so as Nora was pining in Julius's absence to a degree which made her mother very anxious.

With professional suspicion Lefevre told himself that if Julius, with his magnificent health, was fallen ill, it must be for some outrageous reason. But even if he was ill, he need not be unmannerly: he might have let his friends who had been in the habit of seeing him daily know what had come to him. Was it possible, the doctor thought, that he was repenting of having given Nora and her mother so much cause to take his a.s.siduous attentions seriously? He resolved to see Julius at once, if he were at his chambers.

He left his wine unfinished (to the delight of his grave and silent man in black), hastily took his hat from its peg in the hall, and pa.s.sed out into the street, while his man held the door open. In two minutes he had pa.s.sed the northern gateway of the Albany, which, as most people know, is just at the southern end of Savile Row. Courtney's door was speedily opened in response to his peremptory summons.

"Is your master at home, Jenkins?" asked Lefevre of the well-dressed serving-man, who looked distinguished enough to be master himself.

"No, doctor," answered Jenkins; "he is not."

"Gone out," said Lefevre, "to the club or to dinner, I suppose?"

"No, doctor," repeated Jenkins; "he is not. He went away four days ago."

"Went away!" exclaimed Lefevre.

"He do sometimes go away by himself, sir. He is so fond of the country, and he likes to be by himself. It is the only thing that do him good."

"Becomes solitary, does he?" said Lefevre. "Yes; intelligent, impulsive persons like him, that live at high pressure, often have black moods."

That was not quite what he meant, but it was enough for Jenkins.