Prince Fortunatus Part 61

He went and got some more water for a jug of white lilies that stood on the table, and began to put things a little straight--as if he were a woman.

"Maurice!"

"You're not to talk, Linn, I tell you!"

"I must--just a word," Lionel said, and Mangan was forced to listen.

"What does the doctor really say?"

"About you?--oh, you're going on first-rate! Only you've to keep still and quiet and not trouble about anything."

"What day is this?"

"Why, Tuesday."

He thought for a little.

"It--it was a Sat.u.r.day I was taken ill? I have forgotten so many things.

But--but there's this, Maurice; if anything happens to me--the piano in the next room--it belongs to me--you will give that to Francie for her wedding-present. I would have--given her something more, but you know.

And if you ever hear of Nina Rossi, will you ask her to--to take some of the things in a box you'll find on the top of the piano--they all belonged to her--if she won't take them all back, she must take some--as a--as a keepsake. She ought to do that. Perhaps she won't think I treated her so badly--when it's all over--"

He lay back exhausted with this effort.

"Oh, stuff and nonsense, Linn!" his friend exclaimed, in apparent anger.

"What's the use of talking like that! You know you were worried into this illness, and I want to explain to you that you needn't worry any longer, that you've nothing to do but get well! Now listen--and be quiet. To begin with, Lord Rockminster has got his three hundred pounds--"

"I remember about that--it was awfully good of you, Maurice--"

"Be quiet. Then there's that diabolical eleven hundred pounds. Well, things have to be faced," continued Mangan, with a matter-of-fact air.

"It's no use sighing and groaning when you or your friends are in a pickle; you've just got to make the best of it. Very well. Do you see this slip of paper?--this is a check for eleven hundred pounds, drawn out and signed by me, Maurice Mangan, barrister-at-law, and author of several important works not yet written. I took it up this afternoon to that young fellow's rooms in Bruton Street, to get a receipt for the money, for I thought that would satisfy you better; but I found he was in Paris. Never mind. There is the check, and I am going to post it directly, so that he will get it the moment he returns--"

"Maurice, you must ask Francie."

"I will not ask Francie," his friend said, promptly. "Francie must attend to her own affairs until she has acquired the legal right to control me and mine. You needn't make a fuss about a little thing like that, Linn. I can easily make it up; in fact, I may say I have already secured a means of making it up, as a telegram I received this very afternoon informs me. Here is the story: I can talk to you, if you may not talk to me, and I want you to know that everything is straight and clear and arranged. About ten days ago I had a letter from a syndicate in the North asking me if I could write for them a weekly article--not a London correspondent's news-letter--but a series of comments on the important subjects of the day, outside politics. Outside politics, of course; for I dare say they will supply this article to sixty or eighty country papers. Very well. You know what a lazy wretch I am; I declined.

Then yesterday, when I was dawdling about the house here, it suddenly occurred to me that after all I couldn't do better than sit down and write to my enterprising friends in the North, and tell them that they could have that weekly column of enlightenment, if they hadn't engaged any one else, and if they were prepared to pay well enough for it. This afternoon comes their answer; here it is: 'Offer still open? will four hundred suit you?' Four hundred pounds a year will suit me very well."

"Maurice, you're taking on all that additional work on my account,"

Lionel managed to say, by way of feeble protest.

"I am taking it on to cure myself of atrocious habits of indolence. And look at the educational process. I shall have to read all the important new books, and attend the Private Views, and examine the working local government; bless you! I shall become a compendium of information on every possible modern subject. Then think of the power I shall wield; let Quirk and his gang beware!--I shall be able to kick those log-rollers all over the country--there will be a buffet for them here, and a buffet for them there, until they'll go to their mothers and ask, with tears in their eyes, why they ever were born. Or will it be worth while? No. They are hardly important enough; the public don't heed them.

But the four hundred pounds is remarkably important--to any one looking forward to having an extravagant spendthrift of a wife on his hands, and so you see, Linn, everything promises well. And I will say good-night to you now--though I am not leaving the house yet--oh, no!--you can send the nurse for me if you want me. _Schlaf' wohl!_"

The sick man murmured something unintelligible in reply, and then lay still.

Now Maurice Mangan had spoken of his dawdling about this house; but the fact was that he had his hands full from morning till night. The mere correspondence he had to answer was considerable. Then there were the visitors and the doctors to be received, and the nurse to be looked after, and the anxious mother to be appeased and rea.s.sured. Indeed, on this evening, the old lady, hearing that her son was sensible, begged and entreated to be allowed to go in and talk to him, and it took both her husband and Maurice to dissuade her.

"You see," said Mangan, "he's used to me; he doesn't mind my going in and out; but if he finds you have all come up from Winstead, he may be suddenly alarmed. Better wait until the crisis is over--then you may take the place of the nurse whenever you like."

Shortly thereafter the old people and Francie left for their hotel; then Maurice had to see about Nina, whom they had left in the up-stairs room.

"Just as you wish," she said, with a kind of pathetic humility in her eyes. "If I can be of any service, I will stay all the night; a chair, here, will be enough for me. Indeed, I should be glad to be allowed--"

"No, no," said he, "at present you could not be of any use; you must get away home and have a sound night's rest after your travelling. I have just called the nurse; she will be down in a minute. And if you will put on your things I will send for a four-wheeled cab for you; or I will walk along with you until we get one."

All day long Nina had betrayed no outward anxiety; she had merely listened intently to every word, watched intently the expression of every face, as the doctors came and went. And now, as Mangan shut the door behind them, he did not care to discuss the chances of the fever; it was a subject all too uncertain and too serious for a few farewell words. But there was one point on which, delicate as it might be, he felt bound to question her.

"Miss Ross," said he, "I hope you won't think me impertinent. You must consider I represent Lionel. I am in his place. Very well; he would probably ask you, in coming so suddenly to London, whether you were quite sufficiently provided with funds--you see I am quite blunt about it--for your lodgings and cabs and so forth. I know he would ask you, and you wouldn't be angry; well, consider that I ask you in his place."

"I thank you," said Nina, in a low voice. "I understand. It is what Leo would do--yes--he was always like that. But I have plenty. I have brought everything with me. I do not go back to Glasgow."

"No?" said he, and then, rather hesitatingly, for it was dangerous ground, he added, "Wasn't it strange that, with you singing at those public concerts in Glasgow, Lionel should never have seen your name in the papers--should never have guessed where you were?"

"I took another name--Signorina Teresa I was," Nina said, simply.

"So you are not going back to Glasgow?" he asked again.

"No. The concert season is about over there. Besides," she added, rather sadly, "I have been--a little--a little homesick. The people there were very kind to me, but I was much alone. So now--when Lionel is over the worst of the fever--when he promises to get well--when you say to me I can be of no more use--then I return to Naples to my friends."

"Oh, to Naples? But what to do there?" he made bold to ask.

"Ah, who knows?" said Nina, in so low a voice that he could hardly hear.

He put her safely into a four-wheeled cab; then went back to Lionel's rooms to see that all arrangements were made for the night; finally he set out for his own chambers in Westminster. No, it had not been a dawdling day for him at all; on the contrary, he had not had time to glance at a single newspaper, and now, as he got some hot drink for himself and lit his pipe and hauled in an easy-chair to the fire, he thought he would look over the evening journals. And about the first paragraph he saw was headed, "Death of Sir Barrington Miles, M.P." Well, it was a bit of a coincidence, he considered; nothing more; the 1100 had been paid, and, apart from that circ.u.mstance, it must be confessed, his interest in the Miles family was of the slightest. Only he wondered what the young man was doing in Paris, with his father so near the point of death.

CHAPTER XXV.

CHANGES.

Shortly after ten on the Wednesday morning a young gentleman clad in travelling costume drove up to the door of a house in Edgeware Road, got out of the hansom, stepped across the pavement, and rang the bell. The smart little maid-servant who answered the summons appeared to know him, but was naturally none the less surprised by so early a visit.

"Miss Burgoyne isn't down yet, sir!" she said, in answer to his inquiries.

"Very well, I will wait," said the young man, who seemed rather hurried and nervous. "Will you tell her that I wish to see her on a matter of great importance. She will know what it is."

Well, it was not the business of this rosy-cheeked maid to check the vagaries of impetuous lovers; she merely said,

"Will you step up-stairs, sir; there's a fire in the morning-room."

She led the way, and when she had left him in the bright little chamber--where breakfast-things for one were laid on the table--she departed to find, perhaps to arouse, her mistress. The young man went to the window and stared into the street. He returned to the fire and stared into the red flames. He took up a newspaper that was on the table and opened it, but could not fix his attention. And no wonder; for he had just succeeded to a baronetcy and the extensive Petmansworth estates; and he was determined to win a bride as well--even as he was on his way to his father's funeral.

It was some considerable time before Miss Burgoyne came down, and when she did make her appearance she seemed none too well pleased by this unconscionable intrusion; at the same time she had paid some little attention to her face, and she wore a most charming tea-gown of pink and sage-green.

"Well?" she said, rather coldly. "What now? I thought you had gone over to Paris."

"But don't you know what has happened?" he said, rather breathlessly.