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

applause which hailed Fleetwood’s victory rang out as they lifted him from the ground to carry him to the pavilion. Sir Patrick (admitted at Mr. Speedwell’s request) was the one stranger allowed to pass the door. At the moment when he was ascending the steps, someone touched his arm. It was Captain Newenden.

“Do the doctors answer for his life?” asked the captain. “I can’t get my niece to leave the ground till she is satisfied of that.”

Mr. Speedwell heard the question and replied to it briefly from the top of the pavilion steps.

“For the present⁠—yes,” he said.

The captain thanked him, and disappeared.

They entered the pavilion. The necessary restorative measures were taken under Mr. Speedwell’s directions. There the conquered athlete lay: outwardly an inert mass of strength, formidable to look at, even in its fall; inwardly, a weaker creature, in all that constitutes vital force, than the fly that buzzed on the windowpane. By slow degrees the fluttering life came back. The sun was setting; and the evening light was beginning to fail. Mr. Speedwell beckoned to Perry to follow him into an unoccupied corner of the room.

“In half an hour or less he will be well enough to be taken home. Where are his friends? He has a brother⁠—hasn’t he?”

“His brother’s in Scotland, Sir.”

“His father?”

Perry scratched his head. “From all I hear, Sir, he and his father don’t agree.”

Mr. Speedwell applied to Sir Patrick.

“Do you know anything of his family affairs?”

“Very little. I believe what the man has told you to be the truth.”

“Is his mother living?”

“Yes.”

“I will write to her myself. In the meantime, somebody must take him home. He has plenty of friends here. Where are they?”

He looked out of the window as he spoke. A throng of people had gathered round the pavilion, waiting to hear the latest news. Mr. Speedwell directed Perry to go out and search among them for any friends of his employer whom he might know by sight. Perry hesitated, and scratched his head for the second time.

“What are you waiting for?” asked the surgeon, sharply. “You know his friends by sight, don’t you?”

“I don’t think I shall find them outside,” said Perry.

“Why not?”

“They backed him heavily, Sir⁠—and they have all lost.”

Deaf to this unanswerable reason for the absence of friends, Mr. Speedwell insisted on sending Perry out to search among the persons who composed the crowd. The trainer returned with his report. “You were right, Sir. There are some of his friends outside. They want to see him.”

“Let two or three of them in.”

Three came in. They stared at him. They uttered brief expressions of pity in slang. They said to Mr. Speedwell, “We wanted to see him. What is it⁠—eh?”

“It’s a breakdown in his health.”

“Bad training?”

“Athletic sports.”

“Oh! Thank you. Good evening.”

Mr. Speedwell’s answer drove them out like a flock of sheep before a dog. There was not even time to put the question to them as to who was to take him home.

“I’ll look after him, Sir,” said Perry. “You can trust me.”

“I’ll go too,” added the trainer’s doctor; “and see him littered down for the night.”

(The only two men who had “hedged” their bets, by privately backing his opponent, were also the only two men who volunteered to take him home!)

They went back to the sofa on which he was lying. His bloodshot eyes were rolling heavily and vacantly about him, on the search for something. They rested on the doctor⁠—and looked away again. They turned to Mr. Speedwell⁠—and stopped, riveted on his face. The surgeon bent over him, and said, “What is it?”

He answered with a thick accent and laboring breath⁠—uttering a word at a time: “Shall⁠—I⁠—die?”

“I hope not.”

“Sure?”

“No.”

He looked round him again. This time his eyes rested on the trainer. Perry came forward.

“What can I do for you, Sir?”

The reply came slowly as before. “My⁠—coat⁠—pocket.”

“This one, Sir?”

“No.”

“This?”

“Yes. Book.”

The trainer felt in the pocket, and produced a betting-book.

“What’s to be done with this. Sir?”

“Read.”

The trainer held the book before him; open at the last two pages on which entries had been made. He rolled his head impatiently from side to side of the sofa pillow. It was plain that he was not yet sufficiently recovered to be able to read what he had written.

“Shall I read for you, Sir?”

“Yes.”

The trainer read three entries, one after another, without result; they had all been honestly settled. At the fourth the prostrate man said, “Stop!” This was the first of the entries which still depended on a future event. It recorded the wager laid at Windygates, when Geoffrey had backed himself (in defiance of the surgeon’s opinion) to row in the University boat-race next spring⁠—and had forced Arnold Brinkworth to bet against him.

“Well, Sir? What’s to be done about this?”

He collected his strength for the effort; and answered by a word at a time.

“Write⁠—brother⁠—Julius. Pay⁠—Arnold⁠—wins.”

His lifted hand, solemnly emphasizing what he said, dropped at his side. He closed his eyes; and fell into a heavy stertorous sleep. Give him his due. Scoundrel as he was, give him his due. The awful moment, when his life was trembling in the balance, found him true to the last living faith left among the men of his tribe and time⁠—the faith of the betting-book.

Sir Patrick and Mr. Speedwell quitted the race-ground together; Geoffrey having been previously removed to his lodgings hard by. They met Arnold Brinkworth at the gate. He had, by his own desire, kept out of view among the crowd; and he decided on walking back by himself. The separation from Blanche had changed him in all his habits. He asked but two favors during the interval which was to elapse before he saw his wife again⁠—to be allowed to bear it in his own way, and to be left alone.

Relieved of the oppression which had kept him silent while the race was in progress, Sir Patrick put a question to the surgeon as they drove home, which had been in his mind from the moment when Geoffrey had lost the day.

“I hardly understand the anxiety you showed about Delamayn,” he said, “when you