Volume Two—Chapter Eight.
Dick Millet Feels Grown Up.
“Bad?” said Dr Stonor, when he was left alone to attend his patient at Sir Humphrey’s. “Yes, of course he is bad—very bad. But I don’t call this illness. He must suffer. Men who drink always do.”
“But her ladyship, Stonor?” said Sir Humphrey; “will you come and see her now?”
“No,” said the doctor roughly. “What for? Nothing the matter. She can cure herself whenever she likes. What are you going to do about your sister, soldier boy?”
“I—I don’t know,” replied Dick. “Ought I to fetch her back?”
“Yes—no—can’t say,” said the doctor. “Hang this man, how strong he is! Look here, Dick, my boy: here’s a lesson for you. You will be a man some day. When you are, don’t go and poison yourself with drink till your brain revolts and sets up a government of its own. Look at this: the man’s as mad as a hatter, and I shall have to nearly poison him with strong drugs to calm him down. A wild revolutionary government, with death and destruction running riot. Think your sister has gone with John Huish?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Dick, for Sir Humphrey seemed utterly unnerved.
“Don’t see anything to be afraid of, boy. John Huish is a gentleman.”
“I’m afraid not,” said Dick hotly; “and it isn’t gentlemanly to act as he has done about my sister.”
“I shall have to get a strait-waistcoat for this fellow. About your sister. Bah! Human nature. Wait till you get old enough to fall in love, and some lady—mamma, say—wants to marry your pretty little Psyche to an old man. How then, my young Cupid?”
Dick changed colour like a girl.
“I hold to John Huish being a thorough gentleman, my boy. He’s all right. I wish Renée’s husband was as good a man. Yes, I mean you—you drunken, mad idiot I’m going to bring you round, and when I’ve done so, I hope, Dick, if he ever dares to say a word again about your sister Renée—”
“You’ve heard then?”
“Heard? Of course. Doctors hear and know everything. Parson’s nowhere beside a doctor. People don’t tell the parson all the truth: they always keep a little bit back. They tell the doctor all because they know he can see right through them. Lie still, stupid. Ha! he’s calming down.”
“Isn’t he worse, Stonor?” asked Sir Humphrey.
“No; not a bit. And as I was saying, if, when he gets on his legs again, he dares to say a word against his wife, knock him down. I’ll make him so weak it will be quite easy.”
“Well, he deserves it,” said Dick.
“Of course he does. So do you, for thinking ill of your sister. I’ll be bound to say, if you sent to Wimpole Street, you’d find the poor girls there soaking pocket-handkerchiefs.”
“By Jove! yes,” cried Dick, starting at the doctor’s suggestion. “Why, of course. Doctor, you’ve hit it! Depend upon it, they’re gone to Uncle Robert’s, father.”
“Think so, my boy, eh?—think so?” said the old gentleman. “It would be very dull and gloomy.”
“Nonsense!” said the doctor. “My dear boy, the more I think of it, the more likely it seems to me that they have gone there.”
“Yes; that’s it, doctor. Guv’nor, I don’t like to be hard on you, but the doctor’s a very old friend. It’s a nice thing—isn’t it?—that our girls should have to go to Uncle Robert’s for the protection they cannot find here?”
“Yes, my dear boy, it is, it is,” said the old man querulously; “but I can’t help it. Her ladyship took the reins as soon as we were married, and she’s held them very tightly ever since.”
“Well, we’ll go and see. You’ll stay with Frank Morrison, doctor?”
“Stay, sir? Yes, I will. Think I’m going to be dragged down here from Highgate for nothing? I’ll make Master Morrison play the shoddy-devil in his Yorkshire mill for something. He shall have such a bill as shall astonish him.”
“Here, fetch a cab,” shouted Dick to the man who answered the bell; and soon after the jangling vehicle was taking them to Wimpole Street.
It was four o’clock, and broad daylight, as the cab drew up at Captain Millet’s door, when, in answer to a ring which Dick expected it would take half an hour to get attended to, the door was opened directly by Vidler.
“You were expecting us, then?” said Dick, as the little man put his head on one side, and glanced from the young officer to his father, and back again.
“Yes, sir. Master said you might come at any time, so I sat up.”
“All right, father; they’re here. What time did they come, Vidler?”
“They, sir?”
“Yes—my sisters,” said Dick impatiently. “What time did they come?”
“Miss Renée came here about half-past ten, sir.”
“There, dad,” whispered Dick. “And Frank swore she’d gone off with Malpas. I knew it wasn’t true. He wouldn’t insult a brother officer like that.”
“I’m very glad, my boy—I’m very glad,” said Sir Humphrey feebly; and Dick turned to Vidler again.
“And Miss Gertrude, what time did she get here?”
“Miss Gertrude, sir?”
“Don’t be a stupid old idiot!” cried Dick excitedly. “I say—what—time—did—my—sister—Gertrude-get here?”
“She has not been here, sir,” replied the little man—“not to-night.”
Dick looked blankly at his father, and, in spite of his determination not to believe the story suggested about his sister, it seemed to try and force itself upon his brain.
“Where is Mrs Morrison?” he cried at last.
“Lying down, sir. Salome is watching by her. She seemed in great distress, sir, and,” he added in a whisper, “we think master came out of his room and went to her when we had gone down.”
“Poor Robert!” muttered Sir Humphrey.
“Master’s very much distressed about her, gentlemen. Miss Renée is a very great favourite of his.”
“Is my uncle awake, do you think?”
“I think so, sir,” was the reply.
“Ask him if he will say a few words to my father and me. Tell him we are in great trouble.”
The little man bowed and went upstairs, returning at the end of a minute or two to request them to walk up.
“Last time I was here,” thought Dick, “I asked him for a couple of tenners, and he told me never to come near him again. A stingy old hunks! But, there, he’s kind to the girls.”
The little panel opened as Vidler closed the door, and Sir Humphrey, looking very old, and grey of hair and face, sat looking at it, leaving his son to open the conversation.
“Well, Humphrey, what is it?” said the voice behind the wainscoting.
“How do you do, Bob?” began the old gentleman. “I—I—Richard, my boy, tell your uncle; I’m too weak and upset.”
“We’re in great trouble, uncle,” began Dick sharply.
“Yes, I know,” said the voice. “Renée has fled to me for protection from her husband. You did well amongst you. Poor child!”
“Hang it all, uncle, don’t talk like that!” cried Dick impetuously. “You ought to know that we had nothing to do with it. Help us; don’t scold us.”
“I am helping you,” said the Captain. “Renée stays here with me till she can be sure of a happy home. And, look here,” he continued, growing in firmness, “she has told me everything. If you are a man, you will call out anyone who dares say a word against her fame.”
“It’s all very well, uncle,” said Dick; “but this is 18—, and not your young days. No one has a word to say against Renée. But look here, uncle, that isn’t all. Gertrude has gone off.”
“With John Huish, of course. Ah, Humphrey, how strangely Fate works her ways!”
“But, uncle, they say John Huish has turned out an utter swindler and scamp. Last thing I heard was that he had been expelled from his club.”
“Let them talk,” said Captain Millet quietly. “I say it cannot be true.”
“But, Bob,” faltered Sir Humphrey weakly, “they do make out a very bad case against him.”
“Then you and your boy can take up the cudgels on his behalf. He is son and brother now. There, I am weary. Go.”
“But Renée—we must see her.”
“No; let the poor girl rest. When you can find her a decent home, if she wishes it, she can come.”
The little wicket was closed with a sharp snap, and father and son gazed at each other in the gloomy room.
“Come back home, Dick,” said Sir Humphrey feebly. “And take warning, my boy: be a bachelor. Ladies in every shape and form are a great mistake.”
Dick Millet thought of the glowing charms of Clotilde and Marie Dymcox, but he said nothing, only hinted to his father that he ought to give Vidler a sovereign; and this done, they went back into the cab.
Half an hour later they were back in the room where Frank Morrison lay talking wildly in a loud, husky voice.
“Oh, well, so much the better,” said the doctor, when he heard all. “Capital calming place for your sister at your uncle’s. And as for Gertrude—bless her sweet face!—your uncle must be right. Bet a guinea he knew beforehand. I wish her and John Huish joy, he’ll never make her leave her home, and drink himself into such a state as this.”
“I hope not,” thought Dick; but just then some of the ugly rumours he had heard crossed his mind, and he had his doubts.
“Precious hard on a fellow,” he said to himself, “two sisters going off like that! I wonder what Glen and the other fellows will say. Suppose fate forced me to do something of the same kind!”