Chapter XV: The Hotel St. Antoine

At the very time that Bevil Goring, unconscious of mischief being worked against him, was discussing his cutlets and Chablis at the Hôtel du Parc, Mr. Gaskins was having an interview with his master, Lord Cadbury, at the adjacent Hôtel St. Antoine.

'Captain Goring in Antwerp!' exclaimed the latter. 'How the devil has he discovered that we are here, for that circumstance alone can have brought him at a season when no one travels, and I have sedulously kept my name out of the London papers.'

'It is the greatest lark out!' said Gaskins, bursting for the third time into an explosion of laughter.

'What _is_ the greatest lark--what do you mean, Gaskins?' asked the peer, with some asperity, while staring at his dependent.

'You remember the arrest of one of these Belgian rigger fellows, who were repairing the yacht, as a Liberal communist, or something of that kind, my lord?'

'Perfectly well.'

'He threw into a locker of the cabin some printed revolutionary manifestoes, which were found yesterday by Captain Llanyard, who meant to destroy them, so as to have no bother about the matter; but I slipped them into the railway rugs of that ere Captain Goring, gave the straight tip to a _jangdarum_, and I have no doubt that before night he will be arrested.'

Cadbury actually joined in the explosion of merriment with which his valet concluded this revelation of rascality.

'Egad, you are a genius, Gaskins,' said he; 'but did Llanyard see you do this?'

'No, my lord.'

'Or anyone else?'

'No, I took jolly good care of that.'

'On this charge he will be kept close till we can clear out of Antwerp by sea if the yacht is ready in time, or to Brussels, if only Sir Ranald would get well. But you spoke to a gendarme, you say.'

'Yes, my lord.'

'Your evidence will be wanted--perhaps you did not think of that?'

Gaskins' nether jaw dropped at this suggestion.

'These Belgian and French police are the devils to have anything to do with!' said his master; 'and _my_ name must not be mixed up with this affair.'

'Of course not, my lord,' said Gaskins, with a cough.

'Put off your livery at once, change your clothes, and take an early train to Brussels. Keep out of the way till I send for you--and write to me your whereabouts.'

And, highly tickled by the whole affair, he gave a handful of money to Gaskins for his expenses.

'Thank you, my lord, I am off like a bird,' said that worthy, and he departed singing the music hall ditty, 'Love is like a cup of tea.'

'By Jove! Captain Goring won't find it so!--

"Lovely woman is the sugar;
Spoons we poor men often be--"

'_La-la-de-da!_ Miss Cheyne,' and, chuckling over the mischief he thought he had put in motion, Mr. Gaskins took his departure from the Hôtel St. Antoine in a cab for the station of _Chemin de fer de l'Etat_, near the Zoological Gardens.

Cadbury's jealousy was roused again; he was most thoroughly enraged by the idea of Goring being at Antwerp when he was beginning to think he had Alison almost as much to himself as she had been when in the yacht; and yet he did not see much of her, as she was so constantly in attendance upon the sick-bed of her father.

Cadbury's fancy for her was a peculiar one. It was not love, we have before said; not that his day for what he thought that sentiment to be, was past, 'because,' as a writer says, 'till the grave has closed over him, it is impossible to say of any man that his day for that, or its _fac-simile_, infatuation, is finished.'

All his life he had been engaged in _affaires du cœur_--affairs more or less coarse; but never before had he found a girl of such refinement, beauty, and character as Alison Cheyne thrown by the mere force of circumstances almost on his mercy; and now, after all the trouble he had taken, the expense of taking up the bills collected by Solomon Slagg, her aversion and resistance piqued and perhaps exasperated him, and he longed for the time when he should feel that he triumphed over and humbled her, he cared little how.

'How long--oh, Lord!--how long is this life of weariness and anxiety to last and be endured?'

It was Alison who said this, in a whisper to herself, as she sat in the half-lighted room, in which her father lay a-bed, ill, and sick, and faint, his head still suffering from the blow he had received on the night of the collision--a blow that nearly gave him concussion of the brain, and might yet prove serious at his years, and with his now broken constitution.

He lay in the plain but not unluxurious bed-room of a Belgian hotel--the St. Antoine. The walls were lofty, papered with sage-green paper; the bare and uncarpeted oak floor was varnished and polished like the face of a mirror; a cheerful fire was in the square black iron stove that stood in front of the carved oak mantelpiece, whereon was an elegant French clock, above which rose a lofty mirror, and on each side of which were large vases full of flowers, arranged by the hands of Alison--chiefly roses, which at that season are brought all the way from Nice to Antwerp--by railway, of course.

She heard the carillons sounding pleasantly in the evening air high overhead apparently, and ever and anon the horns and bells of the passing tramway-cars as they glided through the Place Verte.

Among the decorations of the bed-chamber hung a large engraving of an English hunting scene, with the dogs in full cry scampering over fences and ditches, and her eyes often wandered towards it, as, in her mind, it was associated with the last day she had been out with the Royal Buckhounds, and rode from the green lane home to Chilcote Beeches accompanied by Bevil Goring. And then from the picture she would turn to watch her father's pale and sleeping face. The grim visitant had more than once seemed nigh; but Sir Ranald Cheyne clung persistently to earth and earthly things.

Alison sat close to his bedside, for he who lay there seemed--save some one far away, she thought--all that she had to cling to; she was in a circle of light shed by a lamp upon a pedestal, and an unread Tauchnitz volume lay on her lap forgotten--'Tales of Flemish Life,' by Hendrik Conscience, the Walter Scott of Flanders.

She looked pale, worn, and wan. Sorrow and trouble were beginning to tell upon her now; wakeful nights, restless days, and incessant anxious thoughts were all robbing her of the bloom of perfect youth; the sweetness of lip, the softness of brow, the light of eye, were all passing away, and even her voice was changing, and becoming starved and thin, if we may use the expression. While in the yacht she had escaped her father's peevishness to some extent, and the misery of her home life in another, with its struggle for appearances and bare existence, its saving and scraping, and the duns of ever urgent creditors; but then she had undergone the grief of a rough separation from Bevil, with the annoyance the presence of Lord Cadbury gave her.

'If I can only get through all this, nurse papa well, and get back to Bevil, or to where I can hear of him, how happy--how thankful I shall be!'

Though absent in body, she was ever present in spirit with Bevil; but how little could she conceive that he was at that very time so near her.

One of those horrible bats peculiar to Antwerp, and which begin to flit about as evening falls, came bang against the panes of the lighted window and woke Sir Ranald.

'Still sitting there, bird Ailie,' said he, 'and not reading; of what are you thinking?'

'Of home.'

'What home--Chilcote or Essilmont?--of course you prefer the former now?'

'Well, I do not care particularly for Chilcote; in my mind it is associated with gloom and struggles; I had nothing on earth to leave there but the fowls, the birds I spread crumbs for, the apple-trees and the flowers, and some little trifles, sketches, books, and nick-nacks that had become familiarly dear to me.'

But she did refer to the first and piercing thought of her life--Bevil Goring.

'Poor Alison!' said her father, as she kissed his brow and arranged his pillows, 'your little hands have quite enough to do for me.'

'They are diminutive members, perhaps, papa, but useful, anyway,' she replied, with a faint smile.

'Here in Antwerp there are many things you should see, poor child--the churches, galleries, museums, the Steyne. Cadbury suggests I should get a nursing sister. This is dull work for you, darling, and you must go out.'

'I could not bear to see another nursing you. It is not the custom here for young girls to go out alone, and I have no companion, no escort--not even poor little Daisy Prune now.'

'Why, there is Cadbury.'

She shivered at the name, and a gesture of impatience and anger escaped her. Well used as she had grown, in the affection of her heart, to subdue all emotions in the presence of her ailing father, to whom she had devoted herself, it was not in human nature but to feel wroth at the trickery to which she had been subjected, which had caused Daisy Prune to lose her life, and by which they might all have perished.

Her father had never ceased to urge Cadbury's suit upon her in the intervals of his strength, and as in the affectionate heart of Alison there was a painful struggle between contempt and pity, sorrow and fear--contempt for his selfishness and avarice, pity for his fallen pride, sorrow for his condition, and a great fear of her own future, for if he should die there she would be utterly alone in the world--alone and penniless in Antwerp!

Once she had thought he was nearly gone, especially on the first night he had been conveyed to the hotel from the shattered yacht at the Quai Van Dyck; but thanks to her care, more perhaps than even the skill of a Belgian doctor, he had drifted slowly but surely back from the confines of the spirit world to consciousness and what was comparative strength.

And when the latter came he at once took up the weary and querulous _rôle_ of which the poor girl was so sick at heart.

She was never weary of pondering over the strange fact that the name of the vessel by which they had so nearly perished was the _Black Hound_, of Ostend--the dog of the family tradition. It was certainly, to say the least of it, a strange coincidence, and many an instance of its alleged appearance in time of woe occurred to her as she sat brooding there.

Among others when an uncle of hers--a younger brother of Sir Ranald--had gone fishing up the Ythan at Ellon, and days passed on without his returning. A search was made, and Archie Auchindoir saw a black hound stealthily drinking at a pool in the river, from which on his approach it disappeared into a pine thicket, and soon after he saw at the very spot where it had been drinking the pallid face of her drowned uncle appear, as his body came to the surface. This uncle had always been fond of gazing into the water, either still or running, and had often been heard to declare that this pool--a famous salmon one--had a strong fascination for him; and there he came--none knew how--to his end.

And now, as she thought of these things, the girl's memory wandered fondly away to the pleasant days of her childhood at Essilmont, where there were no high walls or great houses, as here at Antwerp, to shut out the pure air and bright sunshine of God, but where all was so open and free; and so, in fancy, she was again there, amid the white snows of winter, when the Ythan was frozen between its banks; the trees were covered with glittering crystalline hoar frost, and the braes were shrouded with snow; when the primroses and violets of spring peeped up under the budding timber; when the forests were leafy in summer; the fox-glove blazed ruddy amid the green underwood, and when there was a glow equal to dawn through all the short June nights in the glorious north; and in autumn, when the golden corn waved on the upland slopes, and beautiful were the fern and heath that covered the bonnie, bonnie braes she might never look upon again, and the tears of a great tenderness and love of her old Scottish home welled up in her eyes at the thought; but she dried them in haste as she became aware that her father was speaking to her again, and upon the old obnoxious topic.

'Yes, Alison, as I was saying--and you seemed to assent by your silence--many marriages turn out very well that have no better basis than mutual liking.'

'But in this instance there would be none; and on my side there are loathing and contempt now! How wise the frogs were in Æsop; they had a great mind to have some water, papa, but they did not leap into the well lest they might not get out again.'

'This is most objectionable language, Alison,' exclaimed her father; 'how often am I to remind you that the young ladies of the world we move in--or should move in--seldom marry for what poets and fellows of that kind call love, but almost invariably for money and position; and Cadbury is certainly a more than eligible candidate for your hand.'

'I should like, papa, to have some of the brightness of a girl's life before I marry.'

'Alison, you could have as much brightness after your marriage as any reasonable being could desire.'

Alison was silent.

Brightness, she was thinking. Yes, with Bevil Goring, but not with Lord Cadbury. Oh, why was Bevil so poor that he could not boldly claim her at once; yet, poor she deemed him to be, gladly would she have cast her lot in life with him, but for the opposition and wishes of the poor old man who lay there.

'Think of how good, how kind Lord Cadbury is, and of the expense to which we must put him,' said Sir Ranald, after a time.

'I think not of that; his kindness is forced upon us; and surely I may consider my own freedom of action, my own wishes, tastes, and life.'

'I wish you would be a little more considerate, and think of your old father at times.'

'Oh, papa!' she exclaimed, reproachfully, and then she sighed bitterly.

'How often and how long, oh heaven! am I to hear all this over and over again?'

'Here comes Cadbury to sit with me, I suppose, so you may go to your own room,' said Sir Ranald, as the suitor appeared at the door in full evening costume prior to sitting down to dinner, and she gladly withdrew.

'Sir Ranald,' said he, in a low but excited tone of voice, 'I have some news for you.'

Now my Lord Cadbury hated sickness, suffering, death-beds, 'and all that sort of thing,' and he had generally avoided Sir Ranald just now, so the latter raised himself on his elbow expectantly.

'News?' said he.

'Yes--that fellow Goring is in Antwerp.'

'Goring! How do you know?'

'Gaskins saw him on board my yacht, where he actually had the insolence to make some inquiries, but Gaskins is a trump, and sent him on a wrong scent.'

He did not tell the story of this too probable arrest, as the honourable spirit of Sir Ranald Cheyne would never consent to having a conspiracy of that kind hatched, which might prove the utter destruction of an innocent English gentleman, but he knit his brows, and said,

'We must be careful now, and conceal this circumstance from Alison.'

'Of course, and you must get well as soon as you can, that we may decamp from Antwerp.'

'Curse this Goring!' thought Sir Ranald. 'A fine fellow truly, who has only his debts and liabilities, no doubt, to offer in lieu of solid marriage settlements; but for him and his mal-influence on that idiot girl, through Cadbury, Essilmont, manor house, tower, and fortalice, mains and acres might yet all be mine, and my name not be erased from the roll of country gentlemen in Aberdeenshire!'

He sighed and moaned heavily, and Cadbury, who was a bad hand at consolation or sympathy, looked on with angry eyes and knitted brow.

That Alison, with a will of her own, should have a fancy for--even desire to marry--the wrong man was, Sir Ranald at times thought, natural enough, but that she should fancy a 'beggarly fellow' like this Goring, as he deemed him, was monstrous, while Cadbury's wealth and rank were thrown into the opposite scale!

So Cadbury soon withdrew, and Sir Ranald was left to muse sadly and bitterly on the perversity of his only child and the prospects of his race.

He was the last baronet, he knew, of Essilmont, and at his death the last rood that remained to him there--the last of the old, old heritage of his forefathers--would pass with him, and what then would become of Alison? His proud, yet selfish and affectionate, soul died within him at the thought of her future, if she pursued her present line of conduct.

Ranald was gone, and Ellon too. He must follow soon, and, even if he had his wish, to him it seemed sad in his family vanity that the world should be threatened with the extinction of the good old name of Cheyne of Essilmont, even though the last of the line became Lady Cadbury.

'Cadbury--faugh--a _parvenu_?' was his next peevish thought; 'and now here was this fellow Bevil Goring on their trail, in full search no doubt!' and he knew that

'There never yet was human power
That could evade, if unforgiven,
The potent search and vigil long
Of him who treasures up a wrong.'