Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2

The gentleman thus alluded to moved hastily down the hall, followed by a numerous train of assistants, to whom he gave his orders as he went He continued, at the same time, to open and run his eyes over various letters which an assistant handed to him, one by one.

“I will not be tormented with these requests, Parkes,” said he, peremptorily. “You are to refuse all applications to see patients who are not in the convalescent wards. These interviews have, invariably, one effect, – they double our labor here.”

By this time the doctor was hemmed closely in by a dense crowd, eagerly asking for news of some dear friend or kinsman. A brief “Badly,” “Better,” “Sinking,” “Won’t do,” were, in general, the extent of his replies; but in no case did he ever seem at a loss as to the name or circumstance of the individual alluded to.

And now, at last, the great hall began to thin. Wrapping themselves well in their warm cloaks, securing the hoods tightly over their heads, men set out in twos and threes, on foot, on horseback, or in arabas, some for the camp, some for Balaklava, and some for the far-away quarter at the extreme right, near the Tchernaya. A heavy snow was falling, and a cold and cutting wind came over the Black Sea, and howled drearily along the vaulted corridors of the old Convent.

Matter enough for story was there beneath that venerable roof! It was the week after the memorable fight of Inkermann, and some of the best blood of Britain was ebbing in those dimly lighted cells, whose echoes gave back heart-sick sighs for home from lips that were soon to be mute forever. There are unlucky days in the calendar of medicine, – days when the convalescent makes no progress, and the sick man grows worse; when medicaments seem mulcted of half their efficacy, and disastrous chances abound. Doctors rarely reject the influence of this superstition, but accept it with calm resignation.

Such, at least, seemed the spirit in which two army surgeons now discussed the events of the day, as they walked briskly for exercise along one of the corridors of the Convent.

“We shall have a gloomy report to send in to-morrow, Parkes,” said the elder. “Not one of these late operation cases will recover. Hopeton is sinking fast; Malcolm’s wound has put on a treacherous appearance; that compound fracture shows signs of gangrene; and there’s Conway, we all thought so well of last night, going rapidly, as though from some internal hemorrhage.”

“Poor fellow! it’s rather hard to die just when he has arrived at so much to live for. You know that he is to have a peerage.”

“So he told me himself. He said laughingly to me, ‘Becknell, my boy, be careful, you are cutting up no common sort of fellow; it’s all lordly flesh and blood here!’ We were afraid the news might over-excite him, but he took it as easily as possible, and only said, ‘How happy it will make my poor mother;’ and, after a moment, ‘If I only get back to tell it to her!’”

“A civilian below,” said an hospital sergeant, “wishes to see Mr. Conway.”

“Can’t be, – say so,” was the curt reply, as the doctor tore, without reading, the piece of paper on which a name was written.

“The lawyer, I have no doubt,” said the other; “as if the poor fellow could care to hear of title-deeds and rent-rolls now. He ‘d rather have twenty drops of morphine than know that his estate covered half a county.”

The sergeant waited for a second or two to see if the doctor should reconsider his reply, and then respectfully retired. The stranger, during the short interval of absence, had denuded himself of great-coat and snow-shoes, and was briskly chafing his hands before the fire.

“Well, Sergeant, may I see him?” asked he, eagerly.

“No. The doctors won’t permit it.”

“You did n’t tell them who I was, then, that’s the reason. You did n’t say I was the confidential agent of his family, charged with a most important communication?”

“If I didn’t, it was, perhaps, because I didn’t know it,” said the man, laughing.

“Well, then, go back at once, and say that I’ve come out special, – that I must see him, – that the ten minutes I ‘ll stay will save years and years of law and chancery, – and that” – here he dropped his voice – “there’s a hundred pounds here for the same minutes.”

“You’d better keep that secret to yourself, my good friend,” interposed the sergeant, stiffly.

“Well, so I will, if you recommend it,” said the other, submissively; “but surely, a ten-pound note would do you no harm yourself, Sergeant.”

An insolent laugh was the only answer the other vouchsafed, as he lighted his cigar and sat down before the fire.

“They won’t let me see him for the mischief it might do him,” resumed the other, “and little they know that what I have to tell him might be the saving of his life.”

“How so?”

“Just that I ‘ve news for him here that would make a man a’most get out of his coffin, – news that would do more to cure him than all the doctors in Europe. There’s paper in that bag there that only wants his name to them’ to be worth thousands and thousands of pounds, and if he dies without signing them there’s nothing but ruin to come of it; and when I said a ten-pound note awhile ago to you, it was a hundred gold sovereigns I meant, counted into the hollow of your fist, just as you sat there. See now, show me your hand.”

As if in a sort of Jocular pantomime, the man held out his hand, and the other, taking a strong leather purse from his pocket, proceeded to untie the string, fastened with many a cunning device. At length it was opened, and, emptying out a quantity of its contents into one hand, he began to deposit the pieces, one by one, in the other’s palm. “One, two, three, four,” went he on, leisurely, till the last sovereign dropped from his fingers with the words “one hundred!”

Secret and safe as the bargain seemed, a pair of keen eyes peering through the half-snowed-up window had watched the whole negotiation, following the sergeant’s fingers as they closed upon the gold and deposited it within his pocket.

“Wait here, and I’ll see what can be done by and by,” said the sergeant, as he moved away.

Scarcely was the stranger left alone than the door opened, and a man entered, shaking the snow from his heavy boots and his long capote.

“So, my worthy friend,” cried he, in a rich, soft voice, “you stole a march on me, – moved off without beat of drum, and took up a position before I was stirring!”

“Ah, my reverend friend, you here!” said the other, in evident confusion. “I never so much as suspected you were coming in this direction.”

Paul Classon and Terry Driscoll stared long and significantly at each other. Of all those silences, which are more eloquent than words, none can equal that interval in which two consummate knaves exchange glances of recognition, so complete an appreciation is there of each other’s gifts, such an honest, unaffected, frank interchange of admiration.

“You are a clever fellow, Driscoll, you are!” said Paul, admiringly.

“No, no. The Lord help me, I’m a poor crayture,” said Terry, shaking his head despondingly.

“Don’t believe it, man, – don’t believe it,” said Paul, clapping him on the shoulder; “you have great natural gifts. Your face alone is worth a thousand a year, and you have a shuffling, shambling way of coming into a room that’s better than an account at Coutts’s. Joe Norris used to say that a slight palsy he had in one hand was worth twelve hundred a year to him at billiards alone.”

“What a droll man you are, Mr. Classon!” said Terry, wiping his eyes as he laughed. And again they looked at each other long and curiously.

“Driscoll,” said Paul, after a considerable pause, “on which side do you hold your brief?”

“My brief! God knows it’s little I know about brief and parchments,” sighed Terry, heavily.

“Come, come, man, what’s the use of fencing? I see your hand; I know every trump in it.”

Driscoll shook his head, and muttered something about the “faver that destroyed him entirely.”

“Ah!” sighed Classon, “I cannot well picture to my mind what you might have been anterior to that calamity, but what remains is still remarkable, – very remarkable. And now I ask again, on which side are you engaged?”

“Dear me, – dear me!” groaned out Terry; “it’s a terrible world we live in!”

“Truly and well observed, Driscoll. Life is nothing but a long and harassing journey, with accidents at every stage, and mischances at every halt; meanwhile, for whom do you act?”

The door at the end of the long gallery was slightly and noiselessly opened at this instant, and a signal with a hand caught Driscoll’s attention. Rapid and stealthy as was the motion, Classon turned hastily round and detected it.

“Sit still, Driscoll,” said he, smiling, “and let us talk this matter over like men of sense and business. It’s clear enough, my worthy friend, that neither you nor I are rich men.”

Driscoll sighed an assent.

“That, on the contrary, we are poor, struggling, hard-toiling fellows, mortgaging the good talents Fortune has blessed us with to men who have been born to inferior gifts but better opportunities.”

Another sigh from Terry.

“You and I, as I have observed, have been deputed out here to play a certain game. Let us be, therefore, not opponents, but partners. One side only can win, let us both be at that side.”

Again Terry sighed, but more faintly than before.

“Besides,” said Classon, rising and turning his back to the fire, while he stuck his hands in his pockets, “I’m an excellent colleague, and, unless the world wrongs me, a most inveterate enemy.”

“Will he live, do you think?” said Terry, with a gesture of his thumb to indicate him of whom he spoke.

“No; impossible,” said Classon, confidently; “he stands in the report fatally wounded, and I have it confidentially that there’s not a chance for him.”

“And his claim dies with him?”

“That’s by no means so sure; at least, we’d be all the safer if we had his papers, Master Driscoll.”

“Ay!” said Driscoll, knowingly.

“Now, which of us is to do the job, Driscoll? That’s the question. I have my claim to see him, as chaplain to the – I ‘m not sure of the name of what branch of the service – we’ll say the ‘Irregular Contingent’ Legion. What are you, my respected friend?”

“A connection of the family, on the mother’s side,” said Terry, with a leer.

“A connection of the family!” laughed out Classon. “Nothing better.”

“But, after all,” sighed Terry, despondingly, “there’s another fellow before us both, – that chap had brought out the news to the camp, Mr. Reggis, from the house of Swindal and Reggis.”

“He’s cared for already,” said Classon, with a grin.

“The Lord protect us! what do you mean?” exclaimed Driscoll, in terror.

“He wanted to find his way out here last night, so I bribed two Chasseurs d’Afrique to guide him. They took him off outside the French advance, and dropped him within five hundred yards of a Cossack picket, so that the worthy practitioner is now snug in Sebastopol. In fact, Driscoll, my boy, I ‘m – as I said before – an ugly antagonist!”

Terry laughed an assent, but there was little enjoyment in his mirth.

“The girl, – one of those hospital ladies,” continued Classon, – “a certain Miss Kellett, is also a prisoner.”

“Miss Kellett!” cried Driscoll, in amazement and terror together. “I know her well, and if she’s here she ‘ll outwit us both.”

“She’s in safe hands this time, let her be as cunning as she will. In fact, my dear Driscoll, the game is our own if we be but true to each other.”

“I ‘m more afraid of that girl than them all,” muttered Driscoll.

“Look over those hills yonder, Driscoll, and say if that prison-house be not strong enough to keep her. Mr. Reggis and herself are likely to see Moscow before they visit Cheapside. Remember, however, if the field be our own, it is only for a very brief space of time. Conway is dying. What is to be done must be done quickly; and as there is no time for delay, Driscoll, tell me frankly what is it worth to you?” Terry sneezed and wiped his eyes, and sneezed again, – all little artifices to gain time and consider how he should act.

“My instructions are these,” said Classon, boldly: “to get Conway to sign a bond abdicating all claim to certain rights in lieu of a good round sum in hand; or, if he refuse – ” S.

“Which he certainly would refuse,” broke in Driscoll.

“Well, then, to possess myself of his papers, deeds, letters, whatever they were, – make away with them, or with any one holding them. Ay, Driscoll, it is sharp practice, my boy; but we ‘re just now in a land where sudden death dispenses with a coroner’s inquest, and the keenest inquirer would be puzzled whether the fatal bullet came from a Russian rifle or a Croat carbine. Lend me a helping hand here, and I ‘ll pledge myself that you are well paid for it. Try and dodge me, and I’ll back myself to beat you at your own game.”

“Here’s an order for one of you gentlemen,” said an hospital orderly, “coming up to see Lieutenant Conway.”

“It is for me,” said Driscoll, eagerly; “I’m a relation of his.”

“And I am his family chaplain,” said Classon, rising; “well go together.” And before Driscoll could interpose a word, Paul slipped his arm within the other’s and led him away.

CHAPTER XXXII. SHOWING “HOW WOUNDS ARE HEALED”

On a low little bed in a small chamber, once a cell of the Convent, Charles Conway lay, pale, bloodless, and breathing heavily. The surgeon’s report of that morning called him “mortally wounded,” and several of his comrades had already come to bid him farewell. To alleviate in some measure his sufferings, he was propped up with pillows and cushions to a half-sitting posture, and so placed that his gaze could rest upon the open sea, which lay calm and waveless beneath his window; but even on this his eyes wandered vaguely, as though already all fixity of thought was fled, and that the world and its scenes had ceased to move or interest him. He was in that state of exhaustion which follows great loss of blood, and in which the brain wanders dreamily and incoherently, though ready at any sudden question to arouse itself to an effort of right reason.

A faint, sad smile, a little nod, a gesture of the hand, were tokens that one by one his comrades recorded of their last interview with him; and now all were gone, and he was alone. A low murmur of voices at his door bespoke several persons in earnest conversation, but the sounds never reached the ears of the sick man.

“He spoke of making a will, then?” said Classon, in a whisper.

“Yes, sir,” replied the sergeant. “He asked several times if there was not some one who could take down his wishes in writing, and let him sign it before witnesses.”

“That will do admirably,” said Paul, pushing his way into the room, closely followed by Terry Driscoll. “Ah, Driscoll,” said Paul, unctuously, “if we were moralists instead of poor, frail, time-serving creatures as we are, what a lesson might we not read in the fate of the poor fellow that lies there!”

“Ay, indeed!” sighed out Terry, assentingly.

“What an empty sound ‘my Lord’ is, when a man comes to that!” said Paul, in the same solemn tone, giving, however, to the words “my Lord” a startling distinctness that immediately struck upon the sick man’s ear. Conway quickly looked up and fixed his eyes on the speaker.

“Is it all true, then, – am I not dreaming?” asked the wounded soldier, eagerly.

“Every word of it true, my Lord,” said Classon, sitting down beside the bed.

“And I was the first, my Lord, to bring out the news,” interposed Terry. “‘Twas myself found the papers in an old farm-house, and showed them to Davenport Dunn.”

“Hush, don’t you see that you only confuse him?” whispered Classon, cautiously.

“Dunn, Dunn,” muttered Conway, trying to recollect. “Yes, we met at poor Kellett’s funeral, – poor Kellett! the last of the Albueras!”

“A gallant soldier, I have heard,” chimed in Classon, merely to lead him on.

“Not a whit more so than his son Jack. Where is he? – where is Jack?”

None could answer him, and there was a silence of some minutes.

“Jack Kellett would never have deserted me in this way if he were alive and well,” muttered Conway, painfully. “Can no one give me any tidings of him?”

Another silence ensued.

“And I intended he should have been my heir,” said Conway, dreamily. “How strangely it sounds, to be sure, the notion of inheriting anything from Charley Conway! How little chance there was a month or two back that my best legacy might not have been a shabrack or a pair of pistols; and now I’m the Lord Viscount – what is it? – Viscount – ”

A wild gust of wind – one of those swooping blasts for which the Euxine is famous – now struck the strong old walls, and made the massive casements rattle. The sick man started at the noise, which recalled at once the crash of the battle-field, and he cried out vigorously, “Move up, men, – move up; keep together, and charge! Charge!” and with bent-down head and compressed lips he seemed like one prepared to meet a murderous onslaught. A sudden faintness succeeded to this excitement, and he lay back weak and exhausted. As he fell back, a letter dropped from his hand to the ground. Classon speedily caught it up, and opened it. He had, however, but time to read the opening line, which ran thus – “My dearest Charley, our cause is all but won – ”

“From his mother,” interposed Driscoll, leaning over his shoulder.

“Ay, my mother,” murmured Conway, whose ear, preternaturally acute from fever, caught the word; “she will see that my wishes are carried out, and that all I leave behind me goes to poor Jack.”

“We’ll take care of that, sir,” said Classon, blandly; “only let us know what it is you desire. We have no other object here than to learn your wishes.”

With all the alacrity of one accustomed to such emergencies, Paul drew a small portfolio from his pocket provided with all materials for writing, and arrayed them neatly before him; but already the sick man had dropped off into a sleep, and was breathing heavily.

“That box must contain all the papers,” said Classon, rising stealthily and crossing the room; “and see, the key is in the lock!” In a moment they were both on the spot, busily ransacking the contents. One glance showed their suspicions to be correct: there were heaps of legal documents, copies of deeds, extracts of registries, with innumerable letters of explanation. They had no time for more than the most hurried look at these; in fact, they turned in terror at every movement, to see if the sick man had recovered from his swoon.

“This is all; better than I ever looked for,” said Classon. “Fill your pockets with them: we must divide the spoil between us, and be off before he rallies.”

Driscoll obeyed with readiness. His eager eye scrutinized hastily so much as he could catch of the import of each document; but he did not venture, by any attempt at selection, to excite Classon’s suspicions.

“If we cannot make our own terms after this night’s work, Driscoll, my name is not Paul Classon. The poor fellow here will soon be past tale-telling, even if he were able to see us. There you have dropped a large parchment.”

“I’ ll put it in the pocket of my cloak,” said the other, in a whisper; while he added, still more stealthily, “would n’t you swear that he was looking at us this minute?”

Classon started. The sick man’s eyes were open, and their gaze directed towards them; while his lips, slightly parted, seemed to indicate a powerless attempt to speak.

“No,” said Classon, in a scarcely audible whisper; “that is death.”

“I declare I think he sees us,” muttered Driscoll.

“And if he does, man, what signifies it? He’s going where the knowledge will little benefit him. Have you everything safe and sure now? There, button your coat well up; we must start at once.”

“May I never! if I can take my eyes off him,” said Driscoll, trembling.

“You had better take yourself off bodily, my worthy friend; there’s no saying who might chance to come in upon us here. Is not that a signet-ring on his finger? It would only be a proper attention to carry it to his mother, Driscoll.” There was a half-sarcasm about the tone of this speech that made it sound strangely ambiguous, as, stooping down, he proceeded to take off the ring.

“Leave it there, – leave it there! it will bring bad luck upon us,” murmured Driscoll, in terror.

“There is no such bad luck as not to profit by an opportunity,” whispered Classon, as he tried, but in vain, to withdraw the ring. A sharp, half-suppressed cry suddenly escaped him, and Driscoll exclaimed, —

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Look, and see if he has n’t got hold of me, and tightly too.”

The affected jocularity of his tone accorded but ill with the expression of pain and fright so written upon his features, for the dying man had grasped him by the wrist, and held him with a grip of iron.

“That’s what they call a dead man’s grip, I suppose?” said Classon, in assumed mockery. “Just try if you cannot unclasp his fingers.”

“I wouldn’t touch him if you offered me a thousand guineas for it,” said Driscoll, shuddering.

“Nonsense, man. We cannot stand fooling here, and I shall only hurt him if I try it with one hand. Come, open his fingers gently. Be quick. I hear voices without, and the tramp of horses’ feet in the court below. Where are you going? You’re not about to leave me here?”

“May I never! if I know what to do,” muttered Driscoll, in a voice of despair. “And did n’t I tell you from the first it would bring bad luck upon us?”

“The worst of all luck is to be associated with a fool and a coward,” said Classon, savagely. “Open these fingers at once, or give me a knife and I ‘ll do it myself.”

“The Lord forgive you, but you ‘re a terrible man!” cried Driscoll, moving stealthily towards the door.

“So you are going?” muttered Paul, with a voice of intense passion. “You would leave me here to take the consequences, whatever they might be?”

Driscoll made no reply, but stepped hastily out of the room, and closed the door.

For a moment Classon stood still and motionless; then bending down his head, he tried to listen to what was passing outside, for there was a sound of voices in the corridor, and Driscoll’s one of them. “The scoundrel is betraying me!” muttered Paul to himself. “At all events, these must not be found upon me.” And with this, and by the aid of his one disengaged hand, he proceeded to strew the floor of the room with the various papers he had abstracted from the box. Again, too, he listened; but now all was still without. What could it mean? Had Driscoll got clear away, without even alluding to him? And now he turned his gaze upon the sick man, who lay there calm and motionless as before. “This will end badly if I cannot make my escape,” muttered he to himself; and he once more strove with all his might to unclasp the knotted fingers; but such was the rigid tenacity of their grasp, they felt as though they must sooner be broken than yield. “Open your hand, sir. Let me free,” whispered he, in Conway’s ear. “That fellow has robbed you, and I must follow him. There, my poor man, unclasp your fingers,” said he, caressingly, “or it will be too late!”

Was it a delusion, that he thought a faint flickering of a smile passed over that death-like countenance? And now, in whispered entreaty, Classon begged and implored the other to set him free.

“There is nothing for it, then, but this,” said Paul, with a muttered curse, “and your own fault is it that I am driven to it!” And, so saying, he drew a powerful clasp-knife from his pocket, and tried to open it with his teeth; but the resistance of the spring still defied all his efforts for some time, and it was only after a long struggle that he succeeded. “He’s insensible; he’ll never feel it,” muttered Paul below his breath; “and even if he should, self-preservation is the first of all cares.” And with this he grasped the knife vigorously in his strong hand, and gazed at the sick man, who seemed to return his stare as fixedly. There was in Conway’s look even a something of bold defiance, that seemed to say, “I dare and defy you!” so at least did Classon read it, and quailed before its haughty meaning. “What wretched cowardice is over me, and at a time when minutes are worth days!” muttered Classon. “Here goes!” But now a confused noise of many voices, and the steps of advancing feet were heard in the corridor; and Classon sank down beside the bed, a cold sweat covering his forehead and face, while he trembled in every limb.