Man and Wife, Wilkie Collins [best ebook reader android .TXT] 📗

and said, “Both of them have come.” Then the great hush fell on the crowd once more, and all eyes looked toward one particular point of the ground, occupied by a little wooden pavilion, with the blinds down over the open windows, and the door closed.

The foreigner was deeply impressed by the silent expectation of the great throng about him. He felt his own sympathies stirred, without knowing why. He believed himself to be on the point of understanding the English people.

Some ceremony of grave importance was evidently in preparation. Was a great orator going to address the assembly? Was a glorious anniversary to be commemorated? Was a religious service to be performed? He looked round him to apply for information once more. Two gentlemen⁠—who contrasted favorably, so far as refinement of manner was concerned, with most of the spectators present⁠—were slowly making their way, at that moment, through the crowd near him. He respectfully asked what national solemnity was now about to take place. They informed him that a pair of strong young men were going to run round the inclosure for a given number of turns, with the object of ascertaining which could run the fastest of the two.

The foreigner lifted his hands and eyes to heaven. Oh, multifarious Providence! who would have suspected that the infinite diversities of thy creation included such beings as these! With that aspiration, he turned his back on the racecourse, and left the place.

On his way out of the grounds he had occasion to use his handkerchief, and found that it was gone. He felt next for his purse. His purse was missing too. When he was back again in his own country, intelligent inquiries were addressed to him on the subject of England. He had but one reply to give. “The whole nation is a mystery to me. Of all the English people I only understand the English thieves!”

In the meantime the two gentlemen, making their way through the crowd, reached a wicket-gate in the fence which surrounded the inclosure.

Presenting a written order to the policeman in charge of the gate, they were forthwith admitted within the sacred precincts The closely packed spectators, regarding them with mixed feelings of envy and curiosity, wondered who they might be. Were they referees appointed to act at the coming race? or reporters for the newspapers? or commissioners of police? They were neither the one nor the other. They were only Mr. Speedwell, the surgeon, and Sir Patrick Lundie.

The two gentlemen walked into the center of the inclosure, and looked round them.

The grass on which they were standing was girdled by a broad smooth path, composed of finely-sifted ashes and sand⁠—and this again was surrounded by the fence and by the spectators ranked behind it. Above the lines thus formed rose on one side the amphitheaters with their tiers of crowded benches, and on the other the long rows of carriages with the sightseers inside and out. The evening sun was shining brightly, the light and shade lay together in grand masses, the varied colors of objects blended softly one with the other. It was a splendid and an inspiriting scene.

Sir Patrick turned from the rows of eager faces all round him to his friend the surgeon.

“Is there one person to be found in this vast crowd,” he asked, “who has come to see the race with the doubt in his mind which has brought us to see it?”

Mr. Speedwell shook his head. “Not one of them knows or cares what the struggle may cost the men who engage in it.”

Sir Patrick looked round him again. “I almost wish I had not come to see it,” he said. “If this wretched man⁠—”

The surgeon interposed. “Don’t dwell needlessly, Sir Patrick, on the gloomy view,” he rejoined. “The opinion I have formed has, thus far, no positive grounds to rest on. I am guessing rightly, as I believe, but at the same time I am guessing in the dark. Appearances may have misled me. There may be reserves of vital force in Mr. Delamayn’s constitution which I don’t suspect. I am here to learn a lesson⁠—not to see a prediction fulfilled. I know his health is broken, and I believe he is going to run this race at his own proper peril. Don’t feel too sure beforehand of the event. The event may prove me to be wrong.”

For the moment Sir Patrick dropped the subject. He was not in his usual spirits.

Since his interview with Anne had satisfied him that she was Geoffrey’s lawful wife, the conviction had inevitably forced itself on his mind that the one possible chance for her in the future, was the chance of Geoffrey’s death. Horrible as it was to him, he had been possessed by that one idea⁠—go where he might, do what he might, struggle as he might to force his thoughts in other directions. He looked round the broad ashen path on which the race was to be run, conscious that he had a secret interest in it which it was unutterably repugnant to him to feel. He tried to resume the conversation with his friend, and to lead it to other topics. The effort was useless. In despite of himself, he returned to the one fatal subject of the struggle that was now close at hand.

“How many times must they go round this inclosure,” he inquired, “before the race is ended?”

Mr. Speedwell turned toward a gentleman who was approaching them at the moment. “Here is somebody coming who can tell us,” he said.

“You know him?”

“He is one of my patients.”

“Who is he?”

“After the two runners he is the most important personage on the ground. He is the final authority⁠—the umpire of the race.”

The person thus described was a middle-aged man, with a prematurely wrinkled face, with prematurely white hair and with something of a military look about him⁠—brief in speech, and quick in manner.

“The path measures four hundred and forty yards round,” he said, when the surgeon had repeated Sir Patrick’s question