So we kept our watch together in silence. One of us absorbed in his writing; the other absorbed in her love.
Hour after hour he lay in his deep sleep. The light of the new day grew and grew in the room, and still he never moved.
Towards six o’clock, I felt the warning which told me that my pains were coming back. I was obliged to leave her alone with him for a little while. I said I would go upstairs, and fetch another pillow for him out of his room. It was not a long attack, this time. In a little while I was able to venture back, and let her see me again.
I found her at the head of the sofa, when I returned. She was just touching his forehead with her lips. I shook my head as soberly as I could, and pointed to her chair. She looked back at me with a bright smile, and a charming colour in her face, ‘You would have done it,’ she whispered, ‘in my place.’
It is just eight o’clock. He is beginning to move for the first time.
Miss Verinder is kneeling by the side of the sofa. She has so placed herself that when his eyes first open, they must open on her face.
Shall I leave them together?
Yes!
Eleven o’clock.—The house is empty again. They have arranged it among themselves; they have all gone to London by the ten o’clock train. My brief dream of happiness is over. I have awakened again to the realities of my friendless and lonely life.
I dare not trust myself to write down the kind words that have been said to me—especially by Miss Verinder and Mr. Blake. Besides, it is needless. Those words will come back to me in my solitary hours, and will help me through what is left of the end of my life. Mr. Blake is to write, and tell me what happens in London. Miss Verinder is to return to Yorkshire in the autumn (for her marriage, no doubt); and I am to take a holiday, and be a guest in the house. Oh me, how I felt, as the grateful happiness looked at me out of her eyes, and the warm pressure of her hand said ‘This is your doing!’
My poor patients are waiting for me. Back again, this morning, to the old routine! Back again, to-night, to the dreadful alternative between the opium and the pain!
God be praised for His mercy! I have seen a little sunshine—I have had a happy time.
Fifth Narrative
The story resumed by Franklin Blake
Chapter I
BUT few words are needed, on my part, to complete the narrative that has been presented in the Journal of Ezra Jennings.
Of myself, I have only to say that I awoke on the morning of the twenty-sixth, perfectly ignorant of all that I had said and done under the influence of the opium—from the time when the drug first laid its hold on me, to the time when I opened my eyes, in Rachel’s sitting-room.
Of what happened after my waking, I do not feel called upon to render an account in detail. Confining myself merely to results, I have to report that Rachel and I thoroughly understood each other, before a single word of explanation had passed on either side. I decline to account, and Rachel declines to account, for the extraordinary rapidity of our reconciliation. Sir and Madam, look back at the time when you were passionately attached to each other—and you will know what happened, after Ezra Jennings had shut the door of the sitting-room, as well as I know it myself.
I have, however, no objection to add, that we should have been certainly discovered by Mrs. Merridew, but for Rachel’s presence of mind. She heard the sound of the old lady’s dress in the corridor, and instantly ran out to meet her. I heard Mrs. Merridew say, ‘What is the matter?’ and I heard Rachel answer, ‘The explosion!’ Mrs. Merridew instantly permitted herself to be taken by the arm, and led into the garden, out of the way of the impending shock. On her return to the house, she met me in the hall, and expressed herself as greatly struck by the vast improvement in Science, since the time when she was a girl at school. ‘Explosions, Mr. Blake, are infinitely milder than they were. I assure you, I barely heard Mr. Jennings’s explosion from the garden. And no smell afterwards, that I can detect, now we have come back to the house I must really apologise to your medical friend. It is only due to him to say that he has managed it beautifully!’
So, after vanquishing Betteredge and Mr. Bruff, Ezra Jennings vanquished Mrs. Merridew herself. There is a great deal of undeveloped liberal feeling in the world, after all!
At breakfast, Mr. Bruff made no secret of his reasons for wishing that I should accompany him to London by the morning train. The watch kept at the bank, and the result which might yet come of it, appealed so irresistibly to Rachel’s curiosity, that she at once decided (if Mrs. Merridew had no objection) on accompanying us back to town—so as to be within reach of the earliest news of our proceedings.
Mrs. Merridew proved to be all pliability and indulgence, after the truly considerate manner in which the explosion had conducted itself; and Betteredge was accordingly informed that we were all four to travel back together by the morning train. I fully expected that he would have asked leave to accompany us. But Rachel had wisely provided her faithful old servant with an occupation that interested him. He was charged with completing the refurnishing of the house, and was too full of his domestic responsibilities to feel the ‘detectivefever’ as he might have felt it under other circumstances.
Our one subject of regret, in going to London, was the necessity of parting, more abruptly than we could have wished, with Ezra Jennings. It was impossible to persuade him to accompany us. I could only promise to write to him—and Rachel could only insist on his coming to see her when she returned to Yorkshire. There was every prospect of our meeting again in a few months—and yet there was something very sad in seeing our best and dearest friend left standing alone on the platform, as the train moved out of the station.
On our arrival in London, Mr. Bruff was accosted at the terminus by a small boy, dressed in a jacket and trousers of threadbare black cloth, and personally remarkable in virtue of the extraordinary prominence of his eyes. They projected so far, and they rolled about so loosely, that you wondered uneasily why they remained in their sockets. After listening to the boy, Mr. Bruff asked the ladies whether they would excuse our accompanying them back to Portland Place. I had barely time to promise Rachel that I would return, and tell her everything that had happened, before Mr. Bruff seized me by the arm, and hurried me into a cab. The boy with the ill-secured eyes took his place on the box by the driver, and the driver was directed to go to Lombard Street.
‘News from the bank?’ I asked, as we started.
‘News of Mr. Luker,’ said Mr. Bruff. ‘An hour ago, he was seen to leave his house at Lambeth, in a cab, accompanied by two men, who were recognised by my men as police officers in plain clothes. If Mr. Luker’s dread of the Indians is at the bottom of this precaution, the inference is plain enough. He is going to take the Diamond out of the bank.’
‘And we are going to the bank to see what comes of it?’
‘Yes—or to hear what has come of it, if it is all over by this time. Did you notice my boy—on the box, there?’
‘I noticed his eyes.’
Mr. Bruff laughed. ‘They call the poor little wretch “Gooseberry” at the office,’ he said. ‘I employ him to go on errands—and I only wish my clerks who have nicknamed him were as thoroughly to be depended on as he is. Gooseberry is one of the sharpest boys in London, Mr. Blake, in spite of his eyes.’
It was twenty minutes to five when we drew up before the bank in Lombard Street. Gooseberry looked longingly at his master, as he opened the cab door.
‘Do you want to come in too?’ asked Mr. Bruff kindly. ‘Come in then, and keep at my heels till further orders. He’s as quick as lightning,’ pursued Mr. Bruff, addressing me in a whisper. ‘Two words will do with Gooseberry, where twenty would be wanted with another boy.’
We entered the bank. The outer office—with the long counter, behind which the cashiers sat—was crowded with people; all waiting their turn to take money out, or to pay money in, before the bank closed at five o’clock.