Home > Authors Index > F. Marion Crawford > Doctor Claudius > This page
Doctor Claudius, a novel by F. Marion Crawford |
||
Chapter 20 |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
|
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XX Whatever reason may say, whatever certainty we may feel, the last hours of waiting for an ocean steamer are anxious ones. The people at the office may assure us twenty times that they feel "no anxiety whatever"--that is their stock phrase; our friends who have crossed the ocean twice a year for a score of years may tell us that any vessel may be a few hours, nay, a few days, behind her reckoning; it may seem madness to entertain the least shadow of a doubt--and yet, until the feet we love are on the wharf and the dear glad hands in ours, the shadow of an awful possibility is over us, the dreadful consciousness of the capacity of the sea. The Duke, who, but for his anxiety to see the end, would have long since been on his way to England, had taken every precaution to ascertain the date of the ship's arrival. He took it for granted that Claudius would sail in the Cunard steamer, and he found out the vessel which sailed next after the Doctor had telegraphed. Then he made arrangements to be informed so soon as she was sighted, determined to go down in the Custom-House tug and board her at the Quarantine, that he might have the satisfaction of being first to tell Claudius all there was to be told. "The day after to-morrow," he had said to Margaret, "we may safely expect him," and he watched, with a sort of dull pleasure, the light that came into her eyes when she heard the time was so near. The first disappointment--alas, it was only the first--came on the evening before the appointed day. The Duke received a note from the office to the effect that late arrivals having reported very heavy weather, it was feared that the steamer might be delayed some hours. He at once inquired for the Countess, but found to his annoyance that both she and his sister had gone to the theatre. He had been out when they went, and so they had taken Miss Skeat as a sort of escort, and were doubtless enjoying themselves mightily. It was necessary, however, that Margaret should know the news of the delay before she went to bed, for it would have been cruel to allow her to wake in the morning with the assurance that Claudius might arrive at any moment. "If I wait for them, and make a fuss, she will think it is something serious," reflected the Duke with more than usual tact. So he wrote a note, simply stating that he had news of a delay in the arrival of some hours,--perhaps a whole day, he added, wishing to be on the safe side. He gave the note to Vladimir, and went away to his rooms. Margaret and Lady Victoria came home together in great spirits, laughing and rustling in their silk cloaks as they entered the little drawing-room, and sat down by the fire for a chat. Then Vladimir brought the Duke's note. Margaret read it by the firelight, and her face fell suddenly. "What is it, dear?" asked Lady Victoria affectionately, as she noticed her companion's distressed look. "Nothing--I suppose I ought not to be anxious. The steamer is delayed, that is all," and she gave the English girl her brother's note. "Oh, if it had been anything serious he would have sat up for us. It will probably be in in the afternoon instead of in the morning." But Margaret's eyes were heavy and her gladness was gone from her. "Do you ever have presentiments?" she asked, as they separated half an hour later. "Never," answered Lady Victoria cheerily, "and if I ever do they never come true." "I do," said Margaret, "I have a feeling that I shall never see him again." Poor Countess! She looked very miserable, with her white face and weary eyes. Early the next morning Lady Victoria told her brother what had been the effect of his note. He was very angry with himself for not having put it into better shape, and he determined to repair his error by devoting himself entirely to watching for the steamer. With this object, he went down to the Cunard office and established himself with a novel and a box of cigarettes, to pass the day. He refused to move, and sent out in the afternoon for something to eat. The people in the office did not know him, and he felt free to be as Bohemian as he pleased. Once in the course of the day he was told that a French steamer had come in and had met with very heavy weather, losing a boat or two. It was possible, they said, that the Cunarder, which had sailed on the day following this vessel's departure, though from a nearer point, might be delayed another twenty-four hours. For his part, he felt no fear of the safe arrival of the ship, in due time. The odds are a thousand to one that a company which has never lost a vessel at sea will not lose any particular one you name. Nevertheless, he arranged to be called up in the night, if her lights were sighted, and he returned somewhat disconsolately to the hotel. Again he bethought him that if he told the Countess he had passed the day in the steamer office she would overrate his anxiety and so increase her own. Margaret was really very unreasonable. There was not the slightest doubt that the steamer was safe, but she had become possessed, as Lady Victoria expressed it, by this unaccountable presentiment, that her fair-haired lover was gone from her for ever. Hideous things came up before her, poor drowned faces in the green swirl of the waves, men dead, and dying men grasping frantically at the white water-crests breaking over them, as though the rushing foam were a firm thing and could save them. She heard the wild thin wind screeching across the ocean furrows, breathless in his race with death. And then all seemed quiet, and she could see a grand form of a man, stiff-limbed and stark, the yellow hair all hanging down and the broad white throat turned up in death, floating solemnly through the deep green water, and seaweed, and ooze, far down below the angry waves. She struggled hard against these dark thoughts; but it was no use. They would come back, and all through the evening she sat by her fire, with eyes wide, and parted lips, staring at the embers and straining her hearing to catch the sound of some one coming to the door--some one bearing the welcome news that the good ship was sighted at last. But no sound came, all through that weary evening, nor any message of comfort. Lady Victoria sat with her, and Miss Skeat, pretending not to notice her distressed mood; and once or twice the Duke came in and spoke cheerfully of what they would do "when Claudius came back." But Margaret went to her room at last with a heavy heart, and would not be comforted. To tell the truth, the Duke firmly expected to receive the news of the ship's arrival during the night, and so great was his anxiety to relieve Margaret that he insisted upon Willis and Vladimir sitting up all night, so as to be sure of having the message delivered the moment it arrived. The Russian and the English servants hated each other, and he was certain they would not give each other any rest. But the Duke slept soundly, and waking at daybreak yelled viciously for Willis. "Well?" he said, "I suppose you went to sleep. Where is the telegram?" "There's no telegraph been yet, your Grace;" said the gray man-servant, who looked as though he had been up several nights instead of one. "Oh!" said the Duke with a change of voice. He was not given to bullying his servants, and always regretted being hasty with them, but his conviction had been strong that the message ought to have come in the night. Having spent the day previous in the office, he felt in duty bound not to relinquish his post until the Countess's doubts were set at rest. So he got into a cab; for, like many foreigners, he hated the Elevated Road, and was driven down town to the Bowling-Green. It rained heavily all the morning, and the Duke, who, as may be imagined, was not generally given to spending his days in steamboat offices, was wonderfully and horribly bored. He smoked and kicked the chairs and read his novel, and was generally extremely uneasy, so that the clerks began to find him a nuisance, not having any idea that he was a real living swell. And still it rained, and the newspaper vendors looked in, all drizzly and wet, and the gay feathers of New York business seemed draggled. Suddenly--it might have been at two o'clock--there was a stir in the office, a rattling of feet on the board floor, and a sort of general revival. "She's in sight," a clerk called out to the Duke. His Grace stretched himself and departed. He had ascertained that the Custom-House tug did not start for two hours after the ship was sighted. So he sent a telegram to Margaret to announce that her waiting was over, and then, to pass the time, he went, and got something to eat. In due season he was seated in the single cabin of the little high-pressure boat, as it ploughed its way bravely through the waves and the rain to meet the great ocean monster. The Custom-House officials, cheery well-fed men, who know the green side of a XX[4], and are seldom troubled with gloomy forebodings, chatted and chaffed merrily together. One of them was very bald, and appeared to be a perpetual laughing-stock for the rest. [Footnote 4: Twenty dollars.] "Well, Ike," shouted one of his companions between two pulls of a small black bottle, "you _hev_ got a skatin' rink on to the top of _your_ head, and no _mistake_". The other grinned, and retorted to the effect that it was better to have the outside smooth than the inside soft. "Well, I guess you got both, like a water-melon," returned the first speaker. There are seldom more than one or two passengers on the Custom-House tug, and on this occasion the Duke was alone. He could not stand the atmosphere of tobacco and whisky in the cabin, and made his way along the side to the engine-room, leaving the Custom-House men to their smoke and their repartee. It was almost five o'clock, and already nearly dark, when they came up with the great steamer. In five minutes the Duke was over the side, hurrying down to find his friend. Not seeing him anywhere, he found the bursar and inquired for Dr. Claudius. The officer replied that he had not made his acquaintance on the voyage, but offered the Duke a list of the passengers, remarking that the ship was unusually crowded for the time of year. The Duke ran his finger down the list, then thinking he had missed the name he sought, he held the paper close to the lamp. But there was no "Dr. Claudius" there. His face fell and his heart beat fast, for he had been so positively certain. Poor Margaret! What would she do? How foolish of Claudius not to telegraph the day he sailed! "You are quite sure there are no omissions here?" asked the Duke of the bursar. "Quite sure, sir," answered he. "Wait a minute, though," he said, as the Duke dropped the list, "there was a passenger taken ashore at Queenstown very ill. A tall man, I should say, though they carried him. He had not registered on board, and he was so ill he gave up the passage. I could not tell you his name." "Had he a light beard?" asked the Duke in great alarm. "Um! yes; a large beard at all events. I remember how he looked as they carried him past. He was awfully pale, and his eyes were closed." "My God!" exclaimed the Duke; "it must have been he! Does no one know his name?" "The captain may. He would not see you now, just going into port, but I will go and ask him," added the officer kindly, seeing how much distressed the other seemed to be. "Do--thanks--please ask him--yes!" he ejaculated, and sank into a chair. The bursar returned in a quarter of an hour. "I am sorry to say, sir," he said, "that no one seems to have known his name. It sometimes happens. I am very sorry." The Duke saw there was nothing to be done. It was clear that Claudius was not on board; but it was by no means clear that Claudius was not lying ill, perhaps dead, in Queenstown. The poor Englishman bit his lips in despair, and was silent. He could not decide how much he ought to tell Margaret, and how much he ought to keep to himself. The sick passenger seemed to answer the description, and yet he might not have been the Doctor for all that. Tall man--pale--he would be pale anyhow if he were ill--fair beard--yes, it sounded like him. "I wish Vick were here," said the Duke to himself; "she has so much sense." Immediately the idea of consulting with his sister developed itself in his mind. "How can I get ashore?" he asked suddenly. "I am afraid you will have to wait till we are in," said the friendly officer. "It will not be more than an hour now." Impelled by some faint hope that the Doctor's name might have been omitted by some accident, the Duke rose and threaded his way among the crowding passengers, as they got their traps together and moved about the great saloons. He pursued every tall man he saw, till he could catch a glimpse of his face. At last he met a towering figure in a darkened passage way. "My dear Claudius!" he cried, holding out his hand. But the stranger only paused, muttered something about a "mistake" and passed on. The excitement grew on the Duke, as it became certain that Claudius was not on board, and never in the whole of his very high and mighty life had he been in such a state of mind. Some of the passengers noted his uneasy movements and exchanged remarks in an undertone, as he passed and repassed. "He is probably crazy," said an Englishman. "He is probably drunk," said an American. "He is probably a defaulting bank cashier," said a Scotchman. "He looks very wild," said a New York mamma. "He looks very unhappy," said her daughter. "He is very well dressed," said her son, who got his clothes half yearly from Smallpage. But the time passed at last, and the great thing came up to her pier, and opened her jaws and disgorged her living freight down a steep plank on to dry earth again; and the Duke, with a final look at the stream of descending passengers, forced his way ashore, and jumped into the first cab he saw. "Drive to the nearest Elevated station," he shouted. "Which avenue?" inquired the driver with that placidity which cabmen assume whenever one is in a hurry. "Oh, any avenue--damn the avenue--Sixth Avenue of course!" cried the Duke in a stew. "Very good, sir--Sixth Avenue Elevated, did you say?" and he deliberately closed the door and mounted to his box. "What shall I tell her--what shall I say?" were the questions that repeated themselves with stunning force in his ear as he rattled through the streets, and slid over the smooth Elevated Road, swiftly towards his hotel. He had still some few hundred yards to walk from the station when he got out. His courage failed him, and he walked slowly, with bent head and heavy heart, the bearer of bad news. Leisurely he climbed the steps, and the few stairs to his room. There stood Lady Victoria under the gaslight, by the fire, looking at the clock. "At last," she cried, "how _did_ you miss him?" "Whom?" asked her brother dejectedly. "Why, Claudius, of course!" "Claudius is not come," he said in a low voice. "Not come?" cried Lady Victoria, "not come? Why he has been here these two hours, with Margaret!" The Duke was fairly overpowered and worn-out with excitement, and he fell back into a chair. "How the--" he began, but checked the expletive, which found vent elsewhere, as expletives will. "Where the devil did he come from?" "From Europe, I believe," said she. "Don't swear about it." "Excuse me, Vick, I am bowled out; I was never so taken aback in my life. Tell me all about it, Vick." And he slowly recovered his senses enough to appreciate that Claudius had really arrived, and that he, the friend who had taken so much trouble, had somehow missed him after all. But he was honestly glad. "I only saw him a moment, and I came in to your room to wait. Of course I let him go in there alone." "Of course," assented her brother gravely. "Margaret was waiting for him, for she got your telegram that the ship was in sight at three o'clock, and he got here at five; I thought it was very quick." "Devilish quick, indeed," said her profane brother under his breath. "Tell me all about it," he added aloud. It was easily enough explained, and before they went to bed that night every one understood it all. It was simply this--Claudius had come by another steamer, one of the German line, and had chanced to arrive a couple of hours before the Cunarder. Margaret had received the Duke's message, as Lady Victoria had said, and, as Claudius appeared soon afterwards, she saw no discrepancy. The tall Doctor left his slender luggage to the mercy of the Custom House, and, hailing a cab, paid the man double fare in advance to hurry to the hotel. He could hardly wait while the servant went through the formality of taking up his name to the Countess, and when the message came back that he would "please to step up upstairs," as the stereotyped American hotel phrase has it, he seemed indeed to make of the stairway but a single step. One moment more, and he was kneeling at her feet, trembling in every limb and speechless, but kissing the fair white hands again and again, while she bent down her flushed dark cheek till it touched his yellow hair. Then he stood up to his height and kissed her forehead and clasped his fingers about her waist and held her up to the length of his mighty arms before him, unconscious, in his overmastering happiness, of the strength he was exerting. But she laughed happily, and her eyes flashed in pride of such a man. "Forgive me, my beloved," he said at last. "I am beside myself with joy." She hid her face on his breast as they stood together. "Are you very glad to come back?" she asked at last, looking up to him with a smile that told the answer. "Glad is too poor a word, my dear, dear lady," he said simply. * * * * * Two hours later they were still seated side by side on the deep sofa. Claudius had told her everything, for, now that he had accomplished his mission, there were to be no more secrets; and there were tears in Margaret's dark eyes as she heard, for she knew what it had cost him to leave her, knowing how he loved. And then they talked on. "If it is to be so soon, dear," she said, "let it be on Christmas Day." "So be it. And, beloved, where shall we go?" he asked. "Oh, away--away from New York, and--and Mr. Barker and Mr. Screw and all these horrid people," she cried; for she too had confessed and told him all. "Yes," he said; and was silent for a moment. "Dear one," he began again, "there is one thing more that you ought to know--" he stopped. "Yes?" she said interrogatively. "My blessed lady, I have told you the story of my birth for the first time to-day. I thought you ought to know it." "That would never have made any difference, Claudius," she answered half reproachfully. "My uncle--my father's brother--died a week before I sailed." "I am sorry, dear," said she in ready sympathy; "were you fond of him?" She did not realise what he meant. "I never remember to have seen him," he replied; "but--he died childless. And I--I am no longer a _privat-docent_." Margaret turned quickly to him, comprehending suddenly. "Then you are the heir?" she asked. "Yes, darling," he said softly. "It is a great name, and you must help me to be worthy of it. I am no longer Dr. Claudius." He added the last sentence with a shade of regret. "And you need never have taken any trouble about this stupid money, after all? You are independent of all these people?" "Yes," he answered, with a smile, "entirely so." "I am so glad,--so glad, you do not know," said she, clasping her hands on his shoulder. "You know I hated to feel you were wrangling with those lawyers for money;" and she laughed a little scornfully. "We will have it, all the same," said Claudius, smiling, "and you shall do as you like with it, beloved. It was honestly got, and will bring no ill luck with it. And now I have told you, I say, let us go to my father's house and make it ours." He spoke proudly and fondly. "Let me welcome my dear lady where her match was never welcomed before." "Yes, dear, we will go there." "Perhaps the Duke will lend us the yacht?" said Claudius. "Yes," said Margaret, and there was a tinge of sadness in her voice, "yes, perhaps the Duke will lend us the yacht." [THE END] _ |
||