THE MAN IS FOUND.
THE unworthy scheme, by means of which Lord Harry had proposed to
extricate himself from his pecuniary responsibilities, had led to
serious consequences. It had produced a state of deliberate
estrangement between man and wife.
Iris secluded herself in her own room. Her husband passed the hours of
every day away from the cottage; sometimes in the company of the
doctor, sometimes among his friends in Paris. His wife suffered acutely
under the self-imposed state of separation, to which wounded pride and
keenly felt resentment compelled her to submit. No friend was near her,
in whose compassionate advice she might have token refuge. Not even the
sympathy of her maid was offered to the lonely wife.
With the welfare of Iris as her one end in view, Fanny Mere honestly
believed that it would be better and safer for Lady Harry if she and
her husband finally decided on living separate lives. The longer my
lord persisted in keeping the doctor with him as his guest, the more
perilously he was associated with a merciless wretch, who would be
capable of plotting the ruin of anyone--man or woman, high person or
low person--who might happen to be an obstacle in his way. So far as a
person in her situation could venture on taking the liberty, the maid
did her best to widen the breach between her master and her mistress.
While Fanny was making the attempt to influence Lady Harry, and only
producing irritation as the result, Vimpany was exerting stronger
powers of persuasion in the effort to prejudice the Irish lord against
any proposal for reconciliation which might reach him through his wife.
"I find an unforgiving temper in your charming lady," the doctor
declared. "It doesn't show itself on the surface, my dear fellow, but
there it is. Take a wise advantage of circumstances--say you will raise
no inconvenient objections, if she wants a separation by mutual
consent. Now don't misunderstand me. I only recommend the sort of
separation which will suit our convenience. You know as well as I do
that you can whistle your wife back again--"
Mr. Vimpany's friend was rude enough to interrupt him, there.
"I call that a coarse way of putting it," Lord Harry interposed.
"Put it how you like for yourself," the doctor rejoined. "Lady Harry
may be persuaded to come back to you, when we want her for our grand
project. In the meantime (for I am always a considerate man where women
are concerned) we act delicately towards my lady, in sparing her the
discovery of--what shall I call our coming enterprise?--venturesome
villainy, which might ruin you in your wife's estimation. Do you see
our situation now, as it really is? Very well. Pass the bottle, and
drop the subject for the present."
The next morning brought with it an event, which demolished the
doctor's ingenious arrangement for the dismissal of Iris from the scene
of action. Lord and Lady Harry encountered each other accidentally on
the stairs.
Distrusting herself if she ventured to look at him, Iris turned her
eyes away from her husband. He misinterpreted the action as an
expression of contempt. Anger at once inclined him to follow Mr.
Vimpany's advice.
He opened the door of the dining-room, empty at that moment, and told
Iris that he wished to speak with her. What his villainous friend had
suggested that he should say, on the subject of a separation, he now
repeated with a repellent firmness which he was far from really
feeling. The acting was bad, but the effect was produced. For the first
time, his wife spoke to him.
"Do you really mean it?" she asked,
The tone in which she said those words, sadly and regretfully telling
its tale of uncontrollable surprise; the tender remembrance of past
happy days in her eyes; the quivering pain, expressive of wounded love,
that parted her lips in the effort to breathe freely, touched his
heart, try as he might in the wretched pride of the moment to conceal
it. He was silent.
"If you are weary of our married life," she continued, "say so, and let
us part. I will go away, without entreaties and without reproaches.
Whatever pain I may feel, you shall not see it!" A passing flush
crossed her face, and left it pale again. She trembled under the
consciousness of returning love--the blind love that had so cruelly
misled her! At a moment when she most needed firmness, her heart was
sinking; she resisted, struggled, recovered herself. Quietly, and even
firmly, she claimed his decision. "Does your silence mean," she asked,
"that you wish me to leave you?"
No man who had loved her as tenderly as her husband had loved her,
could have resisted that touching self-control. He answered his wife
without uttering a word--he held out his arms to her. The fatal
reconciliation was accomplished in silence.
At dinner on that day Mr. Vimpany's bold eyes saw a new sight, and Mr.
Vimpany's rascally lips indulged in an impudent smile. My lady appeared
again in her place at the dinner-table. At the customary time, the two
men were left alone over their wine. The reckless Irish lord, rejoicing
in the recovery of his wife's tender regard, drank freely.
Understanding and despising him, the doctor's devilish gaiety indulged
in facetious reminiscences of his own married life.
"If I could claim a sovereign," he said, "for every quarrel between
Mrs. Vimpany and myself, I put it at a low average when I declare that
I should be worth a thousand pounds. How does your lordship stand in
that matter? Shall we say a dozen breaches of the marriage agreement up
to the present time?"
"Say two--and no more to come!" his friend answered cheerfully.
"No more to come!" the doctor repeated. "My experience says plenty more
to come; I never saw two people less likely to submit to a peaceable
married life than you and my lady. Ha! you laugh at that? It's a habit
of mine to back my opinion. I'll bet you a dozen of champagne there
will be a quarrel which parts you two, for good and all, before the
year is out. Do you take the bet?"
"Done!" cried Lord Harry. "I propose my wife's good health, Vimpany, in
a bumper. She shall drink confusion to all false prophets in the first
glass of your champagne!"
The post of the next morning brought with it two letters.
One of them bore the postmark of London, and was addressed to Lady
Harry Norland. It was written by Mrs. Vimpany, and it contained a few
lines added by Hugh Mountjoy. "My strength is slow in returning to me"
(he wrote); "but my kind and devoted nurse says that all danger of
infection is at an end. You may write again to your old friend if Lord
Harry sees no objection, as harmlessly as in the happy past time. My
weak hand begins to tremble already. How glad I shall be to hear from
you, it is, happily for me, quite needless to add."
In her delight at receiving this good news Iris impulsively assumed
that her husband would give it a kindly welcome on his side; she
insisted on reading the letter to him. He said coldly, "I am glad to
hear of Mr. Mountjoy's recovery"--and took up the newspaper. Was this
unworthy jealousy still strong enough to master him, even at that
moment? His wife had forgotten it. Why had he not forgotten it too?
On the same day Iris replied to Hugh, with the confidence and affection
of the bygone time before her marriage. After closing and addressing
the envelope, she found that her small store of postage stamps was
exhausted, and sent for her maid. Mr. Vimpany happened to pass the open
door of her room, while she was asking for a stamp; he heard Fanny say
that she was not able to accommodate her mistress. "Allow me to make
myself useful," the polite doctor suggested. He produced a stamp, and
fixed it himself on the envelope. When he had proceeded on his way
downstairs, Fanny's distrust of him insisted on expressing itself. "He
wanted to find out what person you have written to," she said. "Let me
make your letter safe in the post." In five minutes more it was in the
box at the office.
While these trifling events were in course of progress, Mr. Vimpany had
gone into the garden to read the second of the two letters, delivered
that morning, addressed to himself. On her return from the post-office,
Fanny had opportunities of observing him while she was in the
greenhouse, trying to revive the perishing flowers--neglected in the
past days of domestic trouble.
Noticing her, after he had read his letter over for the second time,
Mr. Vimpany sent the maid into the cottage to say that he wished to
speak with her master. Lord Harry joined him in the garden--looked at
the letter--and, handing it back, turned away. The doctor followed him,
and said something which seemed to be received with objection. Mr.
Vimpany persisted nevertheless, and apparently carried his point. The
two gentlemen consulted the railway time-table, and hurried away
together, to catch the train to Paris.
Fanny Mere returned to the conservatory, and absently resumed her
employment among the flowers. On what evil errand had the doctor left
the cottage? And, why, on this occasion, had he taken the master with
him?
The time had been when Fanny might have tried to set these questions at
rest by boldly following the two gentlemen to Paris; trusting to her
veil, to her luck, and to the choice of a separate carriage in the
train, to escape notice. But, although her ill-judged interference with
the domestic affairs of Lady Harry had been forgiven, she had not been
received again into favour unreservedly. Conditions were imposed, which
forbade her to express any opinion on her master's conduct, and which
imperatively ordered her to leave the protection of her mistress--if
protection was really needed--in his lordship's competent hands. "I
gratefully appreciate your kind intentions," Iris had said, with her
customary tenderness of regard for the feelings of others; "but I never
wish to hear again of Mr. Vimpany, or of the strange suspicions which
he seems to excite in your mind." Still as gratefully devoted to Iris
as ever, Fanny viewed the change in my lady's way of thinking as one of
the deplorable results of her return to her husband, and waited
resignedly for the coming time when her wise distrust of two
unscrupulous men would be justified.
Condemned to inaction for the present, Lady Harry's maid walked
irritably up and down the conservatory, forgetting the flowers. Through
the open back door of the cottage the cheap clock in the hall poured
its harsh little volume of sound, striking the hour. "I wonder," she
said to herself, "if those two wicked ones have found their way to a
hospital yet?" That guess happened to have hit the mark. The two wicked
ones were really approaching a hospital, well known to the doctor by
more previous visits than one. At the door they were met by a French
physician, attached to the institution--the writer of the letter which
had reached Mr. Vimpany in the morning.
This gentleman led the way to the official department of the hospital,
and introduced the two foreigners to the French authorities assembled
for the transaction of business.
As a medical man, Mr. Vimpany's claims to general respect and
confidence were carefully presented. He was a member of the English
College of Surgeons; he was the friend, as well as the colleague of the
famous President of that College, who had introduced him to the chief
surgeon of the Hotel Dieu. Other introductions to illustrious medical
persons in Paris had naturally followed. Presented under these
advantages, Mr. Vimpany announced his discovery of a new system of
treatment in diseases of the lungs. Having received his medical
education in Paris, he felt bound in gratitude to place himself under
the protection of "the princes of science," resident in the brilliant
capital of France. In that hospital, after much fruitless investigation
in similar institutions, he had found a patient suffering from the form
of lung disease, which offered to him the opportunity that he wanted.
It was impossible that he could do justice to his new system, unless
the circumstances were especially favourable. Air more pure than the
air of a great city, and bed-room accommodation not shared by other
sick persons, were among the conditions absolutely necessary to the
success of the experiment. These, and other advantages, were freely
offered to him by his noble friend, who would enter into any
explanations which the authorities then present might think it
necessary to demand.
The explanations having been offered and approved, there was a general
move to the bed occupied by the invalid who was an object of
professional interest to the English doctor.
The patient's name was Oxbye. He was a native of Denmark, and had
followed in his own country the vocation of a schoolmaster. His
knowledge of the English language and the French had offered him the
opportunity of migrating to Paris, where he had obtained employment as
translator and copyist. Earning his bread, poorly enough in this way,
he had been prostrated by the malady which had obliged him to take
refuge in the hospital. The French physician, under whose medical care
he had been placed, having announced that he had communicated his notes
enclosed in a letter to his English colleague, and having frankly
acknowledged that the result of the treatment had not as yet
sufficiently justified expectation, the officers of the institution
spoke next. The Dane was informed of the nature of Mr. Vimpany's
interest in him, and of the hospitable assistance offered by Mr.
Vimpany's benevolent friend; and the question was then put, whether he
preferred to remain where he was, or whether he desired to be removed
under the conditions which had just been stated?
Tempted by the prospect of a change, which offered to him a bed-chamber
of his own in the house of a person of distinction--with a garden to
walk about in, and flowers to gladden his eyes, when he got
better--Oxbye eagerly adopted the alternative of leaving the hospital.
"Pray let me go," the poor fellow said: "I am sure I shall be the
better for it." Without opposing this decision, the responsible
directors reminded him that it had been adopted on impulse, and decided
that it was their duty to give him a little time for consideration.
In the meanwhile, some of the gentlemen assembled at the bedside,
looking at Oxbye and then looking at Lord Harry, had observed a certain
accidental likeness between the patient and "Milord, the
philanthropist," who was willing to receive him. The restraints of
politeness had only permitted them to speak of this curious discovery
among themselves. At the later time, however, when the gentlemen had
taken leave of each other, Mr. Vimpany--finding himself alone with Lord
Harry--had no hesitation in introducing the subject, on which delicacy
had prevented the Frenchmen from entering.
"Did you look at the Dane?" he began abruptly.
"Of course I did!"
"And you noticed the likeness?"
"Not I!"
The doctor's uproarious laughter startled the people who were walking
near them in the street. "Here's another proof," he burst out, "of the
true saying that no man knows himself. You don't deny the likeness, I
suppose?"
"Do you yourself see it?" Lord Harry asked.
Mr. Vimpany answered the question scornfully: "Is it likely that I
should have submitted to all the trouble I have taken to get possession
of that man, if I had not seen a likeness between his face and yours?"
The Irish lord said no more. When his friend asked why he was silent,
he gave his reason sharply enough: "I don't like the subject."