Mr. Fortescue - William Westall (i read a book .txt) 📗

rolled from the nostrils of his big, aquiline nose, made those orifices look like the twin craters of an active volcano, upside down.

When, after a short snooze, I woke a second time, my first sensation was one of intense surprise, and being unable, without considerable inconvenience, to rub my eyes, I winked several times in succession to make sure that I was not dreaming; for while I slept the swart visage, black eyes, and grizzled mustache of my nurse had, to all appearance, been turned into a fair countenance, with blue eyes and a tawny head, while the tiny cigarette had become a big meerschaum pipe.

"God bless me! You are surely not Ramon?" I exclaimed.

"No; I am Geist. It is my turn of duty as your nurse. Can I get you anything?"

"Thank you very much; you are all very kind. I feel rather faint, and perhaps if I had something to eat it might do me good."

"Certainly. There is some beef-tea ready. Here it is. Shall I feed you?"

"Thank you. My left arm is tied up, and this broken finger is very painful. Bat I am giving you no end of trouble. I don't know how I shall be able to repay you and Mr. Fortescue for all your kindness."

"_Ach Gott!_ Don't mention it, my dear sir. Mr. Fortescue said you were to have every attention; and when a fellow-man has been broken all to pieces it is our duty to do for him what we can. Who knows? Perhaps some time I may be broken all to pieces myself. But I will not ride your fiery horses. My weight is seventeen stone, and if I was to throw myself off a galloping horse as you did, _ach Gott!_ I should be broken past mending."

Mr. Geist made an attentive and genial nurse, discoursing so pleasantly and fluently that, greatly to my satisfaction (for I was very weak), my part in the conversation was limited to an occasional monosyllable; but he said nothing on the subject as to which I was most anxious for information--Mr. Fortescue--and, as he clearly desired to avoid it, I refrained from asking questions that might have put him in a difficulty and exposed me to a rebuff.

I found out afterward that neither he nor Ramon ever discussed their master, and though Mrs. Tomlinson, my third nurse (a buxom, healthy, middle-aged widow, whose position seemed to be something between that of housekeeper and upper servant), was less reticent, it was probably because she had so little to tell.

I learned, among other things, that the habits of the household were almost as regular as those of a regiment, and that the servants, albeit kindly treated and well paid, were strictly ruled, even comparatively slight breaches of discipline being punished with instant dismissal. At half-past ten everybody was supposed to be in bed, and up at six; for at seven Mr. Fortescue took his first breakfast of fruit and dry toast. According to Mrs. Tomlinson (and this I confess rather surprised me) he was an essentially busy man. His only idle time was that which he gave to sleep. During his waking hours he was always either working in his study, his laboratory, or his conservatories, riding and driving being his sole recreations.

"He is the most active man I ever knew, young or old," said Mrs. Tomlinson, "and a good master--I will say that for him. But I cannot make him out at all. He seems to have neither kith nor kin, and yet--This is quite between ourselves, Mr. Bacon--"

"Of course, Mrs. Tomlinson, quite."

"Well, there is a picture in his room as he keeps veiled and locked up in a sort of shrine; but one day he forgot to turn the key, and I--I looked."

"Naturally. And what did you see?"

"The picture of a woman, dark, but, oh, so beautiful--as beautiful as an angel.... I thought it was, may be, a sweetheart or something, but she is too young for the likes of him."

"Portraits are always the same; that picture may have been painted ages ago. Always veiled is it? That seems very mysterious, does it not?"

"It does; and I am just dying to know what the mystery is. If you should happen to find out, and it's no secret, would you mind telling me?"

At this point Herr Geist appeared, whereupon Mrs. Tomlinson, with true feminine tact, changed the subject without waiting for a reply.

During the time I was laid up Mr. Fortescue came into my room almost every day, but never stayed more than a few minutes. When I expressed my sense of his kindness and talked about going home, he would smile gravely, and say:

"Patience! You must be my guest until you have the full use of your limbs and are able to go about without help."

After this I protested no more, for there was an indescribable something about Mr. Fortescue which would have made it difficult to contradict him, even had I been disposed to take so ungrateful and ungracious a part.

At length, after a weary interval of inaction and pain, came a time when I could get up and move about without discomfort, and one fine frosty day, which seemed the brightest of my life, Geist and Ramon helped me down-stairs and led me into a pretty little morning-room, opening into one of the conservatories, where the plants and flowers had been so arranged as to look like a sort of tropical forest, in the midst of which was an aviary filled with parrots, cockatoos, and other birds of brilliant plumage.

Geist brought me an easy-chair, Ramon a box of cigarettes and the "Times," and I was just settling down to a comfortable read and smoke, when Mr. Fortescue entered from the conservatory. He wore a Norfolk jacket and a broad-brimmed hat, and his step was so elastic, and his bearing so upright, and he seemed so strong and vigorous withal, that I began to think that in estimating his age at sixty I had made a mistake. He looked more like fifty or fifty-five.

"I am glad to see you down-stairs," he said, helping himself to a cigarette. "How do you feel?"

"Very much better, thank you, and to-morrow or the next day I must really--"

"No, no, I cannot let you go yet. I shall keep you, at any rate, a few days longer. And while this frost lasts you can do no hunting. How is the shoulder?"

"Better. In a fortnight or so I shall be able to dispense with the sling, but my ankle is the worst. The contusion was very severe. I fear that I shall feel the effects of it for a long time."

"That is very likely, I think. I would any time rather have a clean flesh wound than a severe contusion. I have had experience of both. At Salamanca my shoulder was laid open with a sabre-stroke at the very moment my horse was shot under me; and my leg, which was terribly bruised in the fall, was much longer in getting better than my shoulder."

"At Salamanca! You surely don't mean the battle of Salamanca?"

"Yes, the battle of Salamanca."

"But, God bless me, that is ages ago! At the beginning of the century--1810 or 1812, or something like that."

"The battle of Salamanca was fought on the 21st of July, 1812," said my host, with a matter-of-fact air.

"But--why--how?" I stammered, staring at him in supreme surprise. "That is sixty years since, and you don't look much more than fifty now."

"All the same I am nearly fourscore," said Mr. Fortescue, smiling as if the compliment pleased him.

"Fourscore, and so hale and strong! I have known men half your age not half so vigorous and alert. Why, you may live to be a hundred."

"I think I shall, probably longer. Of course barring accidents, and if I continue to avoid a peril which has been hanging over me for half a century or so, and from which I have several times escaped only by the skin of my teeth."

"And what is the peril, Mr. Fortescue?"

"Assassination."

"Assassination!"

"Yes, assassination. I told you a short time ago that I was once hunted by a pack of hounds. I am hunted now--have been hunted for two generations--by a family of murderers."

The thought occurred to me--and not for the first time--that Mr. Fortescue was either mad or a Munchausen, and I looked at him curiously; but neither in that calm, powerful, self-possessed face, nor in the steady gaze of those keen dark eyes, could I detect the least sign of incipient insanity or a boastful spirit.

"You are quite mistaken," he said, with one of his enigmatic smiles. "I am not mad; and I have lived too long either to cherish illusions or conjure up imaginary dangers."

"I--I beg your pardon, Mr. Fortescue--I had no intention," I stammered, quite taken aback by the accuracy with which he had read, or guessed, my thoughts--"I had no intention to cast a doubt on what you said. But who are these people that seek your life? and why don't you inform the police?"

"The police! How could the police help me?" exclaimed Mr. Fortescue, with a gesture of disdain, "Besides, life would not be worth having at the price of being always under police protection, like an evicting Irish landlord. But let us change the subject; we have talked quite enough about myself. I want to talk about you."

A very few minutes sufficed to put Mr. Fortescue in possession of all the information he desired. He already knew something about me, and as I had nothing to conceal, I answered all his questions without reserve.

"Don't you think you are rather wasting your life?" he asked, after I had answered the last of them.

"I am enjoying it."

"Very likely. People generally do enjoy life when they are young. Hunting is all very well as an amusement, but to have no other object in life seems--what shall we say?--just a little frivolous, don't you think?"

"Well, perhaps it does; but I mean, after a while, to buy a practice and settle down."

"But in the mean time your medical knowledge must be growing rather rusty. I have heard physicians say that it is only after they have obtained their degree that they begin to learn their profession. And the practice you get on board these ships cannot amount to much."

"You are quite right," I said, frankly, for my conscience was touched. "I am, as you say, living too much for the present. I know less than I knew when I left Guy's. I could not pass my 'final' over again to save my life. You are quite right: I must turn over a new leaf."

"I am glad to hear you say so, the more especially as I have a proposal to make; and as I make it quite as much in my own interest as in yours, you will incur no obligation in accepting it. I want you to become an inmate of my house, help me in my laboratory, and act as my secretary and domestic physician, and when I am away from home, as my representative. You will have free quarters, of course; my stable will be at your disposal for hunting purposes, and you may go sometimes to London to attend lectures and do practical work at your hospital. As for salary--you can fix it yourself, when you have ascertained by actual experience the character of your work.