CHAPTER XXXI. THE CONVENT OF ST. GEORGE
Day broke heavily and dull through the massively barred windows of the Convent of St George, and dimly discovered a vast crowd assembled in the great hall of waiting: officers—sailor and soldier—come to inquire news of wounded comrades, camp-followers, sutlers, surgeons, araba-drivers, Tartar-guides, hospital nurses, newspaper correspondents, Jew money-changers, being only some of the varieties in that great and motley crowd.
Two immense fireplaces threw a ruddy glare over two wide semicircles of human faces before them; but here and there throughout the hall, knots and groups were gathered, engaged in deep and earnest converse. Occasionally, one speaker occupied the attention of a listening group; but, more generally, there was a sort of discussion in which parties suggested this or that explanation, and so supplied some piece of omitted intelligence.
It is to this dropping and broken discourse of one of these small gatherings that I would now draw my reader's attention. The group consisted of nigh a dozen persons, of whom a staff-officer and a naval captain were the principal speakers.
“My own opinion is,” said the former, “that if the personal episodes of this war come ever to be written, they will be found infinitely more strange and interesting than all the great achievements of the campaign. I ask you, for instance, where is there anything like this very case? A wounded soldier, half cut to pieces by the enemy, is carried to the rear to hear that his claim to a peerage has just been established, and that he has only to get well again to enjoy fifteen thousand a year.”
“The way the tidings reach him is yet stranger,” broke in another.
“What is your version of that?”
“It is the correct one, I promise you,” rejoined he; “I had it from Colthorpe, who was present When the London lawyer—I don't know his name—reached Balaklava, he discovered, to his horror, that Conway was in the front; and when the fellow summons pluck enough to move on to head-quarters, he learns that Charley has just gone out with a party of eight, openly declaring they mean to do something before they come back. Up to this, the man of parchment has studiously kept his secret; in fact, the general belief about him was that he was charged with a writ, or some such confounded thing, against the poor Smasher, and, of course, the impression contributed little to secure him a polite reception. Now, however, all his calm and prudential reserve is gone, and he rushes madly into the General's tent, where the General is at breakfast with all the staff and several guests, and, with the air of a man secure of his position, he flings down upon the table a letter to the General Commanding-in-chief from a Minister of State, saying, 'There, sir! may I reckon upon your assistance?' It was some time before the General could quite persuade himself that the man was in his senses, he talked away so wildly and incoherently, repeatedly saying, 'I throw it all upon you, sir. Remember, sir, I take none of the responsibility,—none!'
“'I wish you would kindly inform me as to the precise service you expect at my hands, sir,' said the General, somewhat haughtily.
“'To have this document deposited in the hands of Lieutenant Charles Conway, sir,' said he, pompously, laying down a heavily sealed package; 'to convey to him the news that his claim to the title and estates of his family has been declared perfect; that before he can reach England he will be Lord Viscount Cackington and Conway.'
“'Bad news from the front, sir,9 said an aide-de-camp, breaking in. 'After a successful attack on a small redoubt near the Cemetery; two squadrons of the —th have been surprised, and nearly all cut up. Conway, they say, killed.'
“'No, not killed,' broke in another; 'badly wounded, and left behind.'
“There was, as you may imagine, very little thought bestowed on the lawyer after this. Indeed, the party was scattered almost immediately, and Colthorpe was just going out, when one of Miss Nightingale's ladies said to him, 'Will you do me a great favor, Major Colthorpe,—a very great favor? It is to let me have my saddle put on your gray charger for half an hour.' Colly says, if she had n't been the very prettiest girl he had ever seen since they left England, he 'd have shirked it, but he could not; and in less than ten minutes, there she was, cantering away through the tents and heading straight for the front. It was not, however, only the gray Arab she carried off, but the great letter of the lawyer was gone too; and so now every one knew at once she was away to the front.”
“And after that,—after that?” asked three or four together, as the narrator paused.
“After that,” resumed he, “there is little to be told. Colthorpe's Arab galloped back with a ball in his counter, and the saddle torn to rags with shot. The girl has not been heard of.”
“I can supply this portion of the story,” said a young fellow, with his arm in a sling. “She had come up with Conway, whom they had placed on a horse, and were leading him back to the lines, when a Russian skirmishing-party swept past and carried the girl off, and she is now in Sebastopol, under the care of the Countess Woronzoff.”
“And Conway?”
“Conway's here; and though he has, between shot and sabre-cuts, eight severe wounds, they say that, but for his anxiety about this girl's fate, his chances of recovery are not so bad. Here comes Dr. Raikes, however, who could give us the latest tidings of him.”
The gentleman thus alluded to moved hastily down the hall, followed by a numerous train of assistants, to whom he gave his orders as he went He continued, at the same time, to open and run his eyes over various letters which an assistant handed to him, one by one.
“I will not be tormented with these requests, Parkes,” said he, peremptorily. “You are to refuse all applications to see patients who are not in the convalescent wards. These interviews have, invariably, one effect,—they double our labor here.”
By this time the doctor was hemmed closely in by a dense crowd, eagerly asking for news of some dear friend or kinsman. A brief “Badly,” “Better,” “Sinking,” “Won't do,” were, in general, the extent of his replies; but in no case did he ever seem at a loss as to the name or circumstance of the individual alluded to.
And now, at last, the great hall began to thin. Wrapping themselves well in their warm cloaks, securing the hoods tightly over their heads, men set out in twos and threes, on foot, on horseback, or in arabas, some for the camp, some for Balaklava, and some for the far-away quarter at the extreme right, near the Tchernaya. A heavy snow was falling, and a cold and cutting wind came over the Black Sea, and howled drearily along the vaulted corridors of the old Convent.
Matter enough for story was there beneath that venerable roof! It was the week after the memorable fight of Inkermann, and some of the best blood of Britain was ebbing in those dimly lighted cells, whose echoes gave back heart-sick sighs for home from lips that were soon to be mute forever. There are unlucky days in the calendar of medicine,—days when the convalescent makes no progress, and the sick man grows worse; when medicaments seem mulcted of half their efficacy, and disastrous chances abound. Doctors rarely reject the influence of this superstition, but accept it with calm resignation.
Such, at least, seemed the spirit in which two army surgeons now discussed the events of the day, as they walked briskly for exercise along one of the corridors of the Convent.
“We shall have a gloomy report to send in to-morrow, Parkes,” said the elder. “Not one of these late operation cases will recover. Hopeton is sinking fast; Malcolm's wound has put on a treacherous appearance; that compound fracture shows signs of gangrene; and there's Conway, we all thought so well of last night, going rapidly, as though from some internal hemorrhage.”
“Poor fellow! it's rather hard to die just when he has arrived at so much to live for. You know that he is to have a peerage.”
“So he told me himself. He said laughingly to me, 'Becknell, my boy, be careful, you are cutting up no common sort of fellow; it's all lordly flesh and blood here!' We were afraid the news might over-excite him, but he took it as easily as possible, and only said, 'How happy it will make my poor mother;' and, after a moment, 'If I only get back to tell it to her!'”
“A civilian below,” said an hospital sergeant, “wishes to see Mr. Conway.”
“Can't be,—say so,” was the curt reply, as the doctor tore, without reading, the piece of paper on which a name was written.
“The lawyer, I have no doubt,” said the other; “as if the poor fellow could care to hear of title-deeds and rent-rolls now. He 'd rather have twenty drops of morphine than know that his estate covered half a county.”
The sergeant waited for a second or two to see if the doctor should reconsider his reply, and then respectfully retired. The stranger, during the short interval of absence, had denuded himself of great-coat and snow-shoes, and was briskly chafing his hands before the fire.
“Well, Sergeant, may I see him?” asked he, eagerly.
“No. The doctors won't permit it.”
“You did n't tell them who I was, then, that's the reason. You did n't say I was the confidential agent of his family, charged with a most important communication?”
“If I didn't, it was, perhaps, because I didn't know it,” said the man, laughing.
“Well, then, go back at once, and say that I've come out special,—that I must see him,—that the ten minutes I 'll stay will save years and years of law and chancery,—and that”—here he dropped his voice—“there's a hundred pounds here for the same minutes.”
“You'd better keep that secret to yourself, my good friend,” interposed the sergeant, stiffly.
“Well, so I will, if you recommend it,” said the other, submissively; “but surely, a ten-pound note would do you no harm yourself, Sergeant.”
An insolent laugh was the only answer the other vouchsafed, as he lighted his cigar and sat down before the fire.
“They won't let me see him for the mischief it might do him,” resumed the other, “and little they know that what I have to tell him might be the saving of his life.”
“How so?”
“Just that I 've news for him here that would make a man a'most get out of his coffin,—news that would do more to cure him than all the doctors in Europe. There's paper in that bag there that only wants his name to them' to be worth thousands and thousands of pounds, and if he dies without signing them there's nothing but ruin to come of it; and when I said a ten-pound note awhile ago to you, it was a hundred gold sovereigns I meant, counted into the hollow of your fist, just as you sat there. See now, show me your hand.”
As if in a sort of Jocular pantomime, the man held out his hand, and the other, taking a strong leather purse from his pocket, proceeded to untie the string, fastened with many a cunning device. At length it was opened, and, emptying out a quantity of its contents into one hand, he began to deposit the pieces, one by one, in the other's palm. “One, two, three, four,” went he on, leisurely, till the last sovereign dropped from his fingers with the words “one hundred!”
Secret and safe as the bargain seemed, a pair of keen eyes peering through the half-snowed-up window had watched the whole negotiation, following the sergeant's fingers as they closed upon the gold and deposited it within his pocket.
“Wait here, and I'll see what can be done by and by,” said the sergeant, as he moved away.
Scarcely was the stranger left alone than the door opened, and a man entered, shaking the snow from his heavy boots and his long capote.
“So, my worthy friend,” cried he, in a rich, soft voice, “you stole a march on me,—moved off without beat of drum, and took up a position before I was stirring!”
“Ah, my reverend friend, you here!” said the other, in evident confusion. “I never so much as suspected you were coming in this direction.”
Paul Classon and Terry Driscoll stared long and significantly at each other. Of all those silences, which are more eloquent than words, none can equal that interval in which two consummate knaves exchange glances of recognition, so complete an appreciation is there of each other's gifts, such an honest, unaffected, frank interchange of admiration.
“You are a clever fellow, Driscoll, you are!” said Paul, admiringly.
“No, no. The Lord help me, I'm a poor crayture,” said Terry, shaking his head despondingly.
“Don't believe it, man,—don't believe it,” said Paul, clapping him on the shoulder; “you have great natural gifts. Your face alone is worth a thousand a year, and you have a shuffling, shambling way of coming into a room that's better than an account at Coutts's. Joe Norris used to say that a slight palsy he had in one hand was worth twelve hundred a year to him at billiards alone.”
“What a droll man you are, Mr. Classon!” said Terry, wiping his eyes as he laughed. And again they looked at each other long and curiously.
“Driscoll,” said Paul, after a considerable pause, “on which side do you hold your brief?”
“My brief! God knows it's little I know about brief and parchments,” sighed Terry, heavily.
“Come, come, man, what's the use of fencing? I see your hand; I know every trump in it.”
Driscoll shook his head, and muttered something about the “faver that destroyed him entirely.”
“Ah!” sighed Classon, “I cannot well picture to my mind what you might have been anterior to that calamity, but what remains is still remarkable,—very remarkable. And now I ask again, on which side are you engaged?”
“Dear me,—dear me!” groaned out Terry; “it's a terrible world we live in!”
“Truly and well observed, Driscoll. Life is nothing but a long and harassing journey, with accidents at every stage, and mischances at every halt; meanwhile, for whom do you act?”
The door at the end of the long gallery was slightly and noiselessly opened at this instant, and a signal with a hand caught Driscoll's attention. Rapid and stealthy as was the motion, Classon turned hastily round and detected it.
“Sit still, Driscoll,” said he, smiling, “and let us talk this matter over like men of sense and business. It's clear enough, my worthy friend, that neither you nor I are rich men.”
Driscoll sighed an assent.
“That, on the contrary, we are poor, struggling, hard-toiling fellows, mortgaging the good talents Fortune has blessed us with to men who have been born to inferior gifts but better opportunities.”
Another sigh from Terry.
“You and I, as I have observed, have been deputed out here to play a certain game. Let us be, therefore, not opponents, but partners. One side only can win, let us both be at that side.”
Again Terry sighed, but more faintly than before.
“Besides,” said Classon, rising and turning his back to the fire, while he stuck his hands in his pockets, “I'm an excellent colleague, and, unless the world wrongs me, a most inveterate enemy.”
“Will he live, do you think?” said Terry, with a gesture of his thumb to indicate him of whom he spoke.
“No; impossible,” said Classon, confidently; “he stands in the report fatally wounded, and I have it confidentially that there's not a chance for him.”
“And his claim dies with him?”
“That's by no means so sure; at least, we'd be all the safer if we had his papers, Master Driscoll.”
“Ay!” said Driscoll, knowingly.
“Now, which of us is to do the job, Driscoll? That's the question. I have my claim to see him, as chaplain to the—I 'm not sure of the name of what branch of the service—we'll say the 'Irregular Contingent' Legion. What are you, my respected friend?”
“A connection of the family, on the mother's side,” said Terry, with a leer.
“A connection of the family!” laughed out Classon. “Nothing better.”
“But, after all,” sighed Terry, despondingly, “there's another fellow before us both,—that chap had brought out the news to the camp, Mr. Reggis, from the house of Swindal and Reggis.”
“He's cared for already,” said Classon, with a grin.
“The Lord protect us! what do you mean?” exclaimed Driscoll, in terror.
“He wanted to find his way out here last night, so I bribed two Chasseurs d'Afrique to guide him. They took him off outside the French advance, and dropped him within five hundred yards of a Cossack picket, so that the worthy practitioner is now snug in Sebastopol. In fact, Driscoll, my boy, I 'm—as I said before—an ugly antagonist!”
Terry laughed an assent, but there was little enjoyment in his mirth.
“The girl,—one of those hospital ladies,” continued Classon,—“a certain Miss Kellett, is also a prisoner.”
“Miss Kellett!” cried Driscoll, in amazement and terror together. “I know her well, and if she's here she 'll outwit us both.”
“She's in safe hands this time, let her be as cunning as she will. In fact, my dear Driscoll, the game is our own if we be but true to each other.”
“I 'm more afraid of that girl than them all,” muttered Driscoll.
“Look over those hills yonder, Driscoll, and say if that prison-house be not strong enough to keep her. Mr. Reggis and herself are likely to see Moscow before they visit Cheapside. Remember, however, if the field be our own, it is only for a very brief space of time. Conway is dying. What is to be done must be done quickly; and as there is no time for delay, Driscoll, tell me frankly what is it worth to you?” Terry sneezed and wiped his eyes, and sneezed again,—all little artifices to gain time and consider how he should act.
“My instructions are these,” said Classon, boldly: “to get Conway to sign a bond abdicating all claim to certain rights in lieu of a good round sum in hand; or, if he refuse—” S.
“Which he certainly would refuse,” broke in Driscoll.
“Well, then, to possess myself of his papers, deeds, letters, whatever they were,—make away with them, or with any one holding them. Ay, Driscoll, it is sharp practice, my boy; but we 're just now in a land where sudden death dispenses with a coroner's inquest, and the keenest inquirer would be puzzled whether the fatal bullet came from a Russian rifle or a Croat carbine. Lend me a helping hand here, and I 'll pledge myself that you are well paid for it. Try and dodge me, and I'll back myself to beat you at your own game.”
“Here's an order for one of you gentlemen,” said an hospital orderly, “coming up to see Lieutenant Conway.”
“It is for me,” said Driscoll, eagerly; “I'm a relation of his.”
“And I am his family chaplain,” said Classon, rising; “well go together.” And before Driscoll could interpose a word, Paul slipped his arm within the other's and led him away.