My Little Lady Part 12

"So--I am going to die?" he said, after a pause. "Well--that is ended, then. Send for anyone? Whom should I send for?" he added, with some vehemence. "For your priests, I suppose, to come and light candles, and make prayers over me--is that what you are thinking of, by chance? I won't have one of them--you need not think of it, do you hear? --not one."

"Pardon me," said Graham, "but it was not of priests I was thinking just then--indeed, it seems to me that, at these moments, a man can turn nowhere so safely as to his G.o.d--but there are others----"

He spoke quietly enough, but M. Linders interrupted him with a fierce, hoa.r.s.e whisper. "I can arrange my own affairs. I have no one to send to--no one I wish to see. Let me die in peace."

In spite of his a.s.sumed indifference, his whole soul was filled and shaken with a sudden dread terror; for the moment he had forgotten even his child. Graham saw it, but could not urge him further just then; he only pa.s.sed his arm under the pillow, so as to raise his head a little, and then said, with such professional cheerfulness as he could muster,

"_Allons_, Monsieur, you must have courage. Calm yourself; you are not going to die yet, and we must hope for the best. You may live to see many people yet."

M. Linders appeared scarcely to hear what he was saying; but in a few moments his face relaxed, and a new expression came into it, which seemed to soften the grey, ghastly look.

"My poor little girl!" he said, with a sort of groan--"my little Madelon!--to leave thee all alone, _pauvre pet.i.te!_"

"It was precisely of her that I wished to speak," said Graham.

"I am afraid, in any case, you must look forward to a long illness, and, on her account, is there no friend, no relation you would wish to send for?"

"I have no friends--no relations," said M. Linders, impatiently. "A long illness? Bah! M. le Docteur, I know, and you know that I am going to die--to-day, to-morrow, who knows?-- and she will be left alone. She has no one in the world but me, and she has been foolish enough to love me--my little one!"

He paused for a moment, and then went on, with a vehemence that struggled for utterance, with his hoa.r.s.e feeble voice and failing breath.

"If this cursed accident had happened but one day sooner or later, I could have left her a fortune--but a superb fortune; only one day sooner--I had it two days ago--or to-morrow--I should have had my revenge last night of that _scelerat_--that devil--that Legros, and won back the money he cheated me of, he--he--of all men, a mere beginner, a smatterer--ah! if I had been the man I once was, it would have been a different account to settle----"

He lay back panting, but began again before Graham could speak.

"I only want time--give me a little time, and my little Madeleine shall have such a fortune as shall make her independent of every one; or stay, why not send for him now? I will give you his address--yes, now--now at once, before it is too late!"

"That is quite impossible, Monsieur," Graham answered with decision; "and if you agitate yourself in this way, I must refuse to listen to another word. You are doing all you can to lessen your chances of recovery."

"You do not play, Monsieur?" said M. Linders, struck with a new idea, and not in the least attending to what Graham was saying.

"Do you want to win my money?" said the young man, half smiling. "No, I do not play, nor, if I did, have I any money to lose. Leave all these notions alone, I entreat of you; calm yourself; you need not trouble yourself to speak much, but just tell me what your wishes are concerning your little girl-- in any case it is always best to be prepared. Have you made any will? Is there any one to whose care you would wish to entrust her in the event of your death?"

M. Linders had exhausted his strength and his pa.s.sion for the moment, and answered quietly enough. No, he had made no will, he said--of what use? Everything he had was hers, of course-- little enough too, as matters stood. He owned he did not know what was to become of her; he had made no arrangements--he had never thought of its coming to this, and then he had always counted on leaving her a fortune. He had sometimes thought of letting her be brought up for the stage; that might be arranged now, if he could see S----, the manager of the Theatre ----. Could he be sent for at once?

"Certainly, if you really wish it," answered Graham with some hesitation, and then added frankly, "I have no sort of right to offer an opinion, but will you not consider a moment before fixing on such a fate for your child? She is surely very young to be thrown amongst strangers, on such a doubtful career, especially without you at hand to protect her."

"It is true I shall not be there," said the father with a groan; "I had forgotten that. And I shall never see my little one grown up. Ah! what is to become of her?"

"Has she no relations?" said Graham, "in England for instance----"

"In England!" cried M. Linders fiercely, "what could make you fancy that?"

"I had understood that her mother was English----" began Graham.

"You are right, Monsieur; her mother was English, but she has no English relations, or, if she has, they are nothing to her, and she shall never know them. No," he said slowly, after a pause, "I suppose there is only one thing to be done, and yet I would almost rather she lay here dead by my side, that we might be buried together in one grave; it would perhaps be happier for her, poor little one! Ah, what a fate! but it must be--you are right, I cannot send her out alone and friendless into the world, she must go to her aunt."

"She has an aunt, then?" said Graham, with some surprise.

"Yes, Monsieur, she has an aunt, my sister Therese, with whom I quarrelled five and twenty years ago, and whom I have cordially hated ever since; and if ever woman deserved to be hated, she does;" and indeed, though he had not mentioned his sister's name for years, the very sound of it seemed to revive the old enmity in all its fresh bitterness. "She lives near Liege," he went on presently. "She is the Superior of a convent there, having risen to that eminence through her superior piety and manifold good works, doubtless. Mon Dieu!"

he cried, with another of his sudden impotent bursts of pa.s.sion and tenderness, "that it should have come to this, that I should shut up my little one in a convent! And she will be miserable--she will blame me, she will think me cruel; but what can I do? what can I do?"

"But it seems to me the best thing possible," said Graham, who, in truth, was not a little relieved by this sudden and unexpected solution of all difficulties. "So many children are educated in convent, and are very happy there; she will be certainly well taught and cared for, and you must trust to your sister for the future."

"Never!" he said, half raising himself on his elbow with a mighty effort. "Well taught!--yes, I know the sort of teaching she will get there; she will be taught to hate and despise me, and then they will make her a nun--they will try to do it, but that shall never be! I will make Madelon promise me that. My little one a nun!--I will not have it! Ah! I risk too much; she shall not go!"

He fell back on the pillow gasping, panting, almost sobbing, all pretence and semblance of cynicism and indifference gone in the miserable moment of weakness and despair. Was it for this, then, that he had taught his child to love him--that he had watched and guarded and cherished her--that he should place her now in the hands of his enemy, and that she should learn to hate his memory when he was dead? Ah! he was dying, and from the grave there would be no return--no hand could be stretched out from thence to claim her--no voice make itself heard to appeal to her old love for him, to remind her of happy bygone days when she had believed in him, and to bid her to be faithful to him still. Those others would be able to work their will then, while he lay silent for evermore, and his little one would too surely learn what manner of father she had had, perhaps--who knows?--learn to rejoice in the day that had set her free from his influence.

Graham very likely understood something of what was pa.s.sing in M. Linders' mind, revealed, as it had been, by those few broken words, for he said in a kind voice,

"I think you may surely trust to your child's love for you, M.

Linders, for she seems to have found all her happiness in it hitherto, and it is so strong and true that I do not think it will be easily shaken, nor can I fancy anyone will be cruel enough to attempt it." And then, seeing how little capable M.

Linders seemed at that moment of judging wisely, he went on to urge the necessity of Madelon's being sent to her aunt as her natural guardian, representing the impossibility of leaving her without money or friends in the midst of strangers.

"There is a little money," said M. Linders, "a few thousand francs--I do not know how much exactly; you will find it in that desk. It would start her for the stage; she has talent-- she would rise. S---- heard her sing once; if he were here now, we might arrange----"

He was rambling off in a low broken voice, hardly conscious, perhaps, of what he was saying. Graham once more interposed.

"No, no," he said, "you must not think of it. Let her go to her aunt. Don't be uneasy about her getting there safely; I will take charge of her."

"You will?" said M. Linders, fixing his dim eyes on Graham, and with some resumption of his old manner. "Pardon, Monsieur, but who are you, that you take such an interest in my affairs?"

"Anyone must take an interest in your little girl," said Graham warmly, and in the kind, frank voice that somehow always carried with it the conviction of his sincerity and good faith, "and I am truly glad that the chance that brought me to this hotel has put it in my power to be of use to you and to her. For the rest, my name is Graham, and I am an army surgeon. I don't suppose you recollect the circ.u.mstance, Monsieur, but I very well remember meeting you at Chaudfontaine some years ago."

"No, I don't remember," said M. Linders faintly, "but I think I may trust you. You will see that Madelon reaches Liege safely?"

"I will take her there myself," answered Graham. "Would you like to send any message to your sister?"

"I will write," said M. Linders, "or rather you shall write for me; but presently--I cannot talk any more now--it must do presently."

Indeed he was faint from exhaustion, and Graham could only do all that was possible to revive him, and then remain by his side till he should have recovered his strength a little; and as he sat there, silently watching, I daresay he preached a little sermon to himself, but in no unfriendly spirit to his patient, we may be sure. This, then, was what life might come to--this might be the end of all its glorious possibilities, of all its boundless hopes and aims. To this man, as to another, had the great problem been presented, and he had solved it-- thus; and to Graham, in the fulness of his youth, and strength, and energy, the solution seemed stranger than the problem. To most of us, perhaps, as years go on, life comes to be represented by its failures rather than its successes, by its regrets rather than its hopes; enthusiasms die out, illusions vanish, belief in the perfectibility of ourselves and of others fades, as we learn to realize the shortness of life, the waywardness of human nature, the baffling power of circ.u.mstances, too easily allowed; but in their place, a humble faith in a more perfect and satisfying hereafter, which shall be the complement of our existence here, the fulfilment of our unfinished efforts, our many shortcomings, springs up, let us trust, to encourage us to new strivings, to ever-fresh beginnings, which shall perhaps be completed and bear fruit in another world; perhaps be left on earth to work into the grand economy of progress--not wholly useless in any case. But at four or five and twenty, in spite of some failures and disappointments, the treasure of existence to an honest, frank heart, still seems inexhaustible as it is inestimable. The contrast between the future Graham looked forward to, full of hopes and ambitions, and this past whose history he could guess at, and whose results he contemplated, forced itself upon him, and an immense compa.s.sion filled the young man's heart at the sight of this wasted life, of this wayward mind, lighted up with the sudden, pa.s.sionate gleams of tenderness for his child, the one pure affection perhaps that survived to witness to what had been--a great compa.s.sion, an honest, wondering pity for this man who had thus recklessly squandered his share of the common birth right. Ah! which of us, standing on safe sh.o.r.es, and seeing, as all must see at times, the sad wreck of some shattered life cast up by the troubled waves at our feet, does not ask himself, in no supercilious spirit, surely, but with an awe-struck humility, "Who or what hath made thee to differ?"

Perhaps, as M. Linders lay there, he also preached to himself a little sermon, after his own peculiar fashion, for when, at the end of half an hour, he once more aroused himself, all signs of agitation had disappeared, and it was with a perfect calmness that he continued the conversation. Graham could not but admire this composure in the man whom but just now he had seen shaken with pa.s.sion and exhausted with conflicting emotions; whom indeed he had had to help, and judge for, and support in his hour of weakness and suffering; whilst now M.

Linders had resumed his air of calm superiority as the man of the world, which seemed at once to repel and forbid support and sympathy from the youth and inexperience at his side.

"You are right, Monsieur," he said, breaking the silence abruptly, and speaking in a clear, though feeble voice, "Madelon must go her aunt. Did I understand you to say you would take charge of her to Liege?"

"I will certainly," said Graham; "if----"

"I am exceedingly indebted to you," said M. Linders, "but I am afraid such a journey may interfere with your own plans."

"Not in the least," replied Graham. "I am only travelling for amus.e.m.e.nt, and have no one to consult but myself."

"Ah--well, I shall not interfere with your amus.e.m.e.nt long; and in the meantime, believe me, I am sensible of your goodness.

It may make matters easier if you take a letter from me to my sister. I am afraid I cannot write myself, but I could dictate--if it be not troubling you too much--there are a pen and ink somewhere there; and if you could give me anything--I still feel rather faint."

Graham rose, gave him another cordial, drew a small table to the bedside, and sat down to write. M. Linders considered for a moment, and then began to dictate.

"Ma soeur,--We parted five and twenty years ago, with a mutual determination never to see each other again--a resolution which has been perfectly well kept, and which there is no danger of our breaking now, as I shall be in my grave before you read this letter; and you will have the further consolation of reflecting that, as we have never met again in this world, neither is there any probability of our doing so in another----"