The Pomp of Yesterday Part 47

'Don't talk about it any more, old fellow,' I said; 'you are not well enough yet. To-morrow, after you have had a good night's rest, everything will seem normal and natural.'

'It is normal and natural now,' he laughed; 'besides, it does me good to talk about it to you. It is not as though you were a stranger.'

'No,' cried his mother, 'he has told us all about you, sir, and what you did for him.'

'Perhaps, after all,' went on Edgec.u.mbe, 'I had better not talk any more to-night. You--you think I'll be all right in the morning, don't you? And I am feeling tired and sleepy. Besides, I feel like a kid again;--the idea of going to bed with the little mother holding my hand makes me think of----'

'There now, old man,' I interrupted, 'let me go with you to your room.

You are a bit shaky, you know, and you must look upon me as a stern male nurse.'

Half an hour later, when I left him, he was lying in bed, and as he had said, his mother sat by his side, holding his hand, while Lord Carbis was in a chair close by, watching his son with eager, anxious eyes.

After a few words with Sir Thomas, I made my way to the village of South Petherwin to find the doctor. Truth to tell, I felt more than a little anxious, and although I had persuaded Edgec.u.mbe that when morning came everything would be well, I dreaded his awakening.

As good fortune would have it, I found the doctor at home, who listened with great eagerness and attention to my story.

'It is the strangest thing I have ever heard of,' he said, when I had finished.

'Do you fear any grave results?' I asked.

'Lus...o...b..,' he replied, 'I can speak to you freely. I will go with you to see him, but the whole business is out of my depth. For the matter of that, I doubt if any doctor in England could prophesy what will happen to him. All the same, I see no reason why everything should not be right.'

Without waking him, Dr. Merril took his temperature, felt his pulse, listened to the beating of his heart.

'Everything is right, isn't it?' asked Lord Carbis anxiously.

'As far as I can tell, yes.'

'And there is nothing you can do more than has been done?'

'Nothing,' replied the doctor; 'one of the great lessons which my profession has taught me is, as far as possible, to leave Nature to do her own work.'

'And you think he will awake natural and normal to-morrow morning?'

whispered the older man.

'I see no reason why he should not,' he said. All the same, there was an anxious look in his eyes as he went away.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

EDGEc.u.mBE'S RESOLUTION

In spite of my excitement, I slept heavily and late, and when I awoke I found that it was past ten o'clock. Dressing hurriedly, I rushed to Edgec.u.mbe's bedroom and found him not only awake, but jubilant.

'It's all right, old man,' he said. 'I am a new man. Merril has already been here. He advises me to be quiet for a day or two, but I am going to get up.'

'And there are no ill effects? Your mind is quite clear?'

'Clear as a bell. There is just one black ugly spot; but it doesn't affect things.'

'Black ugly spot?' I asked anxiously.

'Yes, I'll tell you about it presently. Not that it matters.'

Throughout the day I saw very little of him, as neither his father nor mother would allow him out of their sight. It was pathetic the way they followed him wherever he went. I saw, too, that they were constantly watching him, as if looking for some sign of illness or trouble. I imagine that their joy was so sudden, so wonderful, that they could scarcely believe their own senses. It was evident, too, that they gloried in his career since I had met him more than two years ago. The thought that he should have, without influence or position, surmounted so many difficulties, and become the hero of the hour, was wonderful beyond words. More than once I caught Lord Carbis scanning the newspapers which contained references to him, his eyes lit up with pride.

In spite of all this, however, I foresaw difficulties, saw, too, that if Edgec.u.mbe had not become radically changed, he would be a great disappointment to his father. Would he, I wondered, stand by the words he had uttered at the great public meeting? Would he refuse to partic.i.p.ate in the wealth which his father had ama.s.sed through his connection with the trade which he believed was one of the great curses of humanity? For it was evident that Lord Carbis was a man of strong opinions. He had built up a great and prosperous business by enterprise, foresight and determination. To him that business was doubtless honourable. Through the wealth he had ama.s.sed by it, he had become a peer of the realm. What would he say and do if his son took the stand which, in spite of everything, I imagined he would?

Other things troubled me, too. Springfield, who was staying with St.

Mabyn, motored over early, and immediately sought Lorna Bolivick's society. Of course Edgec.u.mbe saw this, and I wondered how it would affect him. I wondered, too, how Sir Thomas would regard Springfield's suit, now that the future of his life was so materially altered. I tried, by a study of Lorna Bolivick's face, to understand the condition of her heart. I wondered whether she really cared for the tall, sinister-looking man who, I judged, had evidently fascinated her.

It was not until after tea that I was able to get a few minutes' chat with her alone. Indeed, I had a suspicion that she rather avoided me.

But seeing Springfield and St. Mabyn evidently in earnest conversation together, I made my way to her, and asked her to come with me for a stroll through the woods.

'Real life makes fiction tame and commonplace,' I said, as I nodded toward Lady Carbis and Edgec.u.mbe, who were walking arm in arm on the lawn.

'Real life always does that,' was her reply; 'the so-called impossibilities of melodrama are in reality the prosiest of realism.'

'I can't quite settle down to it yet,' I said. 'I can't think of Edgec.u.mbe as Lord Carbis's son, in spite of all we have seen. To begin with, his name isn't Edgec.u.mbe at all.'

'No,' she replied; 'don't you know what it is? You know who Lord Carbis was, I suppose?'

'I know he was a brewer; but really I have not taken the trouble to study his antecedents.'

'He was called Carbis before he was made a peer,' she replied. 'I suppose he was largely influenced to buy the Carbis estates by the fact that they bore his own name.'

'So that my friend is called Jack Carbis. There is so much topsy-turvyism in it that I can hardly realize it.'

'I think Paul Edgec.u.mbe is a much nicer name,' she said suddenly. 'I hope--I hope----; but if--if----'

'Do you realize,' I said, 'what it will mean to him if he stands by what he said at that meeting the other night?'

'Yes, he will still be a poor man, I suppose. But what then? Isn't he a thousand times bigger man now than he was as the fashionable Captain Jack Carbis?'

'Perhaps you don't realize how he would wound his father,---destroy all his hopes and ambitions.'

'Yes, that would be rather sad; but doesn't it depend what his father's hopes and ambitions are?'

'Lorna,' I said, 'are you and Springfield engaged?'

She did not answer me for a few seconds; then, looking at me steadily, she said, 'Why do you ask that?'

For the moment I almost determined to tell her what I believed I knew about Springfield, and about the things of which I had accused him.

But I felt it would not be fair. If that time ever came, he must be there to answer my accusations.

'I think you know why,' I replied. 'The change in my friend's circ.u.mstances has not changed my love for him. Do you know, Lorna, that he loves you like his own life?'