Checkmate. Le Fanu Joseph Sheridan
not gone dead so quick as that,” said the postilion, dismounting from the near leader, and throwing the bridle to a boy who stood by, as he strutted round bandily to have a peep into the chaise. The postilion on the “wheeler” had turned himself about in the saddle in order to have a peep through the front window of the carriage. The innkeeper returned to the door.
If the old London and Dover road had been what it once was, there would have been a crowd about the carriage by this time. Except, however, two or three servants of the “Royal Oak,” who had come out to see, no one had yet joined the little group but the boy who was detained, bridle in hand, at the horse's head.
“He'll not be dead yet,” repeated the postilion dogmatically.
“What happened him?” asked Mr. Truelock.
“I don't know,” answered the post-boy.
“Then how can you say whether he be dead or no?” demanded the innkeeper.
“Fetch me a pint of half-and-half,” said the dismounted post-boy, aside, to one of the “Royal Oak” people at his elbow.
“We was just at this side of High Hixton,” said his brother in the saddle, “when he knocked at the window with his stick, and I got a cove to hold the bridle, and I came round to the window to him. He had scarce any voice in him, and looked awful bad, and he said he thought he was a-dying. ‘And how far on is the next inn?’ he asked; and I told him the ‘Royal Oak’ was two miles; and he said, ‘Drive like lightning, and I'll give you half a guinea a-piece’ – I hope he's not gone dead – ‘if you get there in time.’”
By this time their heads were in the carriage again.
“Do you notice a sort of a little jerk in his foot, just the least thing in the world?” inquired the landlord, who had sent for the doctor. “It will be a fit, after all. If he's living, we'll fetch him into the 'ouse.”
The doctor's house was just round the corner of the road, where the clump of elms stands, little more than a hundred yards from the sign of the “Royal Oak.”
“Who is he?” inquired Mr. Truelock.
“I don't know,” answered the postilion.
“What's his name?”
“Don't know that, neither.”
“Why, it'll be on that box, won't it?” urged the innkeeper, pointing to the roof, where a portmanteau with a glazed cover was secured.
“Nothing on that but ‘R. A.,’” answered the man, who had examined it half an hour before, with the same object.
“Royal Artillery, eh?”
While they were thus conjecturing, the doctor arrived. He stepped into the chaise, felt the old man's hand, tried his pulse, and finally applied the stethoscope.
“It is a nervous seizure. He is in a very exhausted state,” said the doctor, stepping out again, and addressing Truelock. “You must get him into bed, and don't let his head down; take off his handkerchief, and open his shirt-collar – do you mind? I had best arrange him myself.”
So the forlorn old man, without a servant, without a name, is carried from the chaise, possibly to die in an inn.
The Rev. Peter Sprott, the rector, passing that way a few minutes later, and hearing what had befallen, went up to the bed-room, where the old gentleman lay in a four-poster, still unconscious.
“Here's a case,” said the doctor to his clerical friend. “A nervous attack. He'd be all right in no time, but he's so low. I daresay he crossed the herring-pond to-day, and was ill; he's in such an exhausted state. I should not wonder if he sank; and here we are, without a clue to his name or people. No servant, no name on his trunk; and, certainly, it would be awkward if he died unrecognised, and without a word to apprise his relations.”
“Is there no letter in his pockets?”
“Not one,” Truelock says.
The rector happened to take up the great-coat of the old gentleman, in which he found a small breast pocket, that had been undiscovered till now, and in this a letter. The envelope was gone, but the letter, in a lady's hand began: “My dearest papa.”
“We are all right, by Jove, we're in luck!”
“How does she sign herself?” said the doctor.
“‘Alice Arden,’ and she dates from 8, Chester Terrace,” answered the clergyman.
“We'll telegraph forthwith,” said the doctor. “It had best be in your name – the clergyman, you know – to a young lady.”
So together they composed the telegram.
“Shall it be ill simply, or dangerously ill?” inquired the clergyman.
“Dangerously,” said the doctor.
“But dangerously may terrify her.”
“And if we say only ill, she mayn't come at all,” said the doctor.
So the telegram was placed in Truelock's hands, who went himself with it to the office; and we shall follow it to its destination.
CHAPTER X
THE ROYAL OAK
Three people were sitting in Lady May Penrose's drawing-room, in Chester Terrace, the windows of which, as all her ladyship's friends are aware, command one of the parks. They were looking westward, where the sky was all a-glow with the fantastic gold and crimson of sunset. It is quite a mistake to fancy that sunset, even in the heart of London – which this hardly could be termed – has no rural melancholy and poetic fascination in it. Should that hour by any accident overtake you, in the very centre of the city, looking, say, from an upper window, or any other elevation toward the western sky beyond stacks of chimneys, roofs, and steeples, even through the smoke of London, you will feel the melancholy and poetry of sunset, in spite of your surroundings.
A little silence had stolen over the party; and young Vivian Darnley, who stole a glance now and then at beautiful Alice Arden, whose large, dark, grey eyes were gazing listlessly towards the splendid mists, that were piled in the west, broke the silence by a remark that, without being very wise, or very new, was yet, he hoped, quite in accord with the looks of the girl, who seemed for a moment saddened.
“I wonder why it is that sunset, which is so beautiful, makes us all sad!”
“It never made me sad,” said good Lady May Penrose, comfortably. “There is, I think, something very pleasant in a good sunset; there must be, for all the little birds begin to sing in it – it must be cheerful. Don't you think so, Alice?”
Alice was, perhaps, thinking of something quite different, for rather listlessly, and without a change of features, she said, “Oh, yes, very.”
“So, Mr. Darnley, you may sing, ‘Oh, leave me to my sorrow!’ for we won't mope with you about the sky. It is a very odd taste, that for being dolorous and miserable. I don't understand it – I never could.”
Thus rebuked by Lady Penrose, and deserted by Alice, Darnley laughed and said —
“Well, I do seem rather to have put my foot in it – but I did not mean miserable, you know; I meant only that kind of thing that one feels when reading a bit of really good poetry – and most people do not think it a rather pleasant feeling.”
“Don't mind that moping creature, Alice; let us talk about something we can all understand. I heard a bit of news to-day – perhaps, Mr. Darnley, you can throw a light upon it. You are a distant relation, I think, of Mr. David Arden.”
“Some very remote cousinship, of which I am very proud,” answered the young man gaily, with a glance at Alice.
“And what is that – what about uncle David?” inquired the young lady, with animation.
“I heard it from my banker to-day. Your uncle, you know, dear, despises us and our doings, and lives, I understand, very quietly; I mean, he has chosen to live