Chapter XXIX: Alexander’s Discoveries

Thou turnest mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.—SHAKESPEARE.

One morning when he, Alick, seemed better and stronger that usual, the surgeon seated himself by his bedside and said:

“I should tell you that you were not forgotten or abandoned by your family while you were in danger, sir.”

“By my family——! I have——” Alexander was about to say, “no family,” but he caught himself in time.

Come what might, he would not deny Drusilla and her child.

—“You have an uncle and a cousin, sir,” said the surgeon, finishing Alexander’s sentence, but not in the manner Alexander had first intended—“an uncle and a cousin, sir, who were warmly interested in your welfare. General Lyon and Mr. Hammond, sir! They in some manner received information of the intended duel; they hired a yacht and followed you here; but they arrived too late, they found you badly wounded and lying insensible on this bed. The cousin returned the same day to London; but the uncle remained here until you showed signs of consciousness and gave us hopes of recovery, when—being suddenly called away by important business, of I know not what nature, he too left the island. But before going he made an arrangement with Mr. Tredegar, by which the last-named gentleman was to write every day and keep the General advised of the state of his nephew. Mr. Tredegar kept his part of the compact, I know, until he also had to leave.”

Alexander did not reply for some moments; and when he did it was merely to say:

“I thank you for telling me this.”

Alexander fell into deep thought. Here was another enlightenment. Here was another subject for self-reproach if not for deep remorse.

The high-toned, tender-hearted old gentleman! The frank and kindly young man! How noble, pure and loving all their course had been during these family troubles, in comparison with his own! How they had always stepped in and saved himself and his victims from the worst consequences of his violent passions.

But for General Lyon and Richard Hammond where would Drusilla now have been? Would she, could she have had the strength, when discarded by him to have struggled on, through her desolation, unsupported by their strong and tender manhood?

Alick groaned and tossed, as he thought of these things.

In fact he was beginning to see himself and others in a new light. It seemed to him now that he had wronged everybody who had been brought into close companionship and intimate relations with himself.

First, he had wronged his cousin, Anna, his earliest betrothed, in leaving her for Drusilla; but that was the least of his offenses, since the betrothal had been neither his work nor Anna’s, nor yet agreeable to the one or the other. Next, he had wronged—most bitterly wronged—his young, fond, true wife, whose love and faith had never known the shadow of turning; and this he now felt to be his greatest sin. And he had wronged his uncle, the gallant old veteran, who had always cherished him with a father’s affection. He had wronged his other cousin, that frank, affectionate, “unlucky dog,” who was always ready to forgive and forget, and to be as fast friends as ever. He had wronged the noble Prince Ernest, by assaulting him like a bully, upon no provocation, and driving him into an unseemly duel.

Good Heavens! when he came to reckon with himself, whom had he not wronged whenever he had had the power?

No wonder he tossed and tumbled on his bed, and raised his fever, and inflamed his wounds, and protracted his recovery, and in other ways gave his surgeon a world of trouble.

But with all, as he had a magnificent constitution,—if that is not too big a word to apply to a little human organism,—he continued to convalesce.

One day he was permitted to sit up in bed for a few moments, and he felt himself much refreshed by the change of posture. The next day he sat up a little longer, with increased advantage.

At length there came a day when the patient was so much better that the surgeon ventured to leave him in the care of the valet and of the people of the hotel, and to go for a holiday to the neighboring town of St. Helier’s.

That day Alexander sat up in bed, well propped up with pillows, and waited on by Simms.

The valet had trimmed him up nicely, and, at his request, had placed a small glass in his hands that he might look at his face.

And a very pale, thin, haggard, cadaverous countenance it was to contemplate. And the clean-shaved chin and the short-cropped hair added nothing to its attractions.

“By my life! I look more like a newly-discharged convict than a decent citizen or anything else,” muttered Alexander to himself as he handed back the glass.

“Any more orders, sir?” inquired the valet.

“No—yes; now that Dietz is off for a holiday, I will take some recreation too, in my own way—Simms!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know whether they keep the files of the London papers here in the house?”

“I can inquire, sir.”

“Do so.”

The valet left the room, and, after an absence of a few minutes, returned with a pile of newspapers in his hands.

“Here is a file of the Times for the last month, sir,” he said.

“Lay them on the foot of the bed where I can reach them, and slip off the first one and give it to me.”

“Here it is, sir. It is the twenty-seventh.”

“That is day before yesterday’s. Is there not a later one?”

“No, sir; perhaps——”

“Well?”

“Perhaps it is in the reading-room, sir. It must have come by the last boat—yesterday’s Times must, I mean, sir. They tell me they always get it the day after publication. Shall I go and see if I can find it, sir?”

“Yes—no,” said Alexander, quickly changing his mind from one purpose to another, as is often the case with convalescents, and less from caprice or irresolution than from a momentary forgetfulness of what they really do want. “No,” he repeated, suddenly remembering that he wished to ascertain whether any unpleasant notice had been taken of his foolish duel by the press. “No—I—you needn’t go after the late paper just yet. I have been laid down here nearly a month, and have fallen so far behind the world’s news that I must go back and post myself up. I will begin with the paper following the one I left off with; and I will glance over them all in turns to see what the world has been doing while I have been lying here. Give me the paper of the date of the second of June.”

The valet looked through the file, and handed the required copy.

“Now leave the others there where I can reach them.”

“Yes, sir. Any more orders?”

“No; you may leave the room. I will ring if I should want you.”

Left to himself, Alexander opened the paper and glanced over its contents. Column after column, page after page, of that voluminous journal passed in rapid review before him. But no notice of the duel was to be found in that number. He threw it aside and took up and as carefully examined another; but with no better success. Then he took a third, of the date June fourth, and in it almost the first thing that met his eye was the paragraph of which he was in search.

It was under the head “JERSEY,” and it read as follows:

“An ‘affair of honor’ so called came off yesterday morning, in the
neighborhood of St. Aubins, between His Highness Prince E——t of H——n
and his Lordship Baron K——n of K——n, in which the noble lord was the
challenger. The occasion of the hostile meeting is said to have been a
beautiful young widow, whose debut at the American Ambassadress’ ball
a few days since created such a sensation. Fortunately for the madmen
concerned, the duel did not end fatally for either party. The princely
H——n escaped scatheless and has returned to his own country. The noble
K——n is lying somewhat seriously wounded at St. Aubins, where it is
hoped he will have leisure to repent his folly. Such ‘affairs’ are
relics of barbarism, unworthy of an enlightened community and of the
nineteenth century. Where were the police?”

You may imagine with what feelings our chivalric Alexander read these comments. So this was the light in which sensible and law-abiding people viewed his heroism.

“As for me,” said he, as he laid the paper down, “it serve me right; but I am truly sorry that _she_ has been even alluded to in the affair. She has not been mentioned by name or even by initial, however, and I am consoled by that circumstance.”

Then he turned to other parts of the paper, where he found something to absorb his attention and to drive the memory of the affair from his mind.

“Eh! what is this?”

“‘ONE THOUSAND POUNDS REWARD?’

“What state-prisoner has run away now, of such importance that a thousand pounds is offered for his recovery?” said Alexander, as he looked more closely at the advertisement.

“Ah! what’s this? ‘A child lost!’—a—Heaven have mercy on my soul, it is Drusilla’s child!” he exclaimed, turning even paler that he had been before, as he read the description of the missing boy.

“Lost? Lost on the afternoon of the second of June? Let me look at the date of this paper. It is the fourth. Has he been found yet, I wonder? He must have been found before this. Let me see—to-day, is the twenty-ninth. He was lost twenty-six or seven days ago. How long was he lost? When was he found? I must look over the next papers and judge by them. Of course the advertisement was discontinued when the child was found.”

And saying this to himself, Alexander took up the next paper in succession, and the next after that, and another and another still, until he had examined some twenty-three or four more papers. But ah! in every one of them appeared the advertisement for the lost child. And the amount of the reward offered was constantly increased.

In the first half-dozen papers it was one thousand pounds; in the next it was increased to fifteen hundred; after that it was raised to three thousand pounds. The last paper he examined was one of the date of June twenty-seventh, in which the advertisement was still standing.

“Good Heavens! not found up to the day before yesterday! Missing for twenty-five days!” exclaimed Alexander, as he turned over and grasped the bell pull and rang a peal that speedily brought Simms in alarm to his bedside.

“It is your wound broke out again, sir?” exclaimed the valet, seeing his master’s disturbed and excited look.

“No, it is nothing of the sort. Simms, go down-stairs and see if you can get me the last number of the Times that has arrived on the island. If it is not in the reading-room, or in the coffee room, or if anybody else has it, or in short, if you can’t procure it for me in the house, go out into the town and try to find it at some bookseller’s or news agent’s. Be quick, Simms.”

“Yes, sir, I will,” answered the man, hurrying from the room.

Alexander sank back upon his pillow to wait for his servant’s return. He had not to wait very long.

In less than ten minutes Simms re-entered the chamber, bringing two papers in his hand.

“Here is the Times of yesterday morning and the Express of yesterday evening, sir. I got them both of the news agent close by.”

“Give them to me!” exclaimed Alexander, eagerly grasping the papers.

He hastily examined the Times. Yes, there was the advertisement still standing. He turned to the Evening Express, and there also it stared him in the face, with a new date, the date of the day of publication, and with a still higher raised reward.

Five thousand pounds were now offered to any person or persons who should restore the child, or give such information as should lead to restoring him to his distracted mother.

“Not found up to yesterday evening! Poor Drusilla! poor, poor Drusilla! and poor little Lenny!” groaned Alick, as his eyes were rivetted upon the advertisement.

Then a bright thought struck him; a Heavenly inspiration filled him. His countenance became eager and irradiated.

“I will go in search of her child! I will devote all my days and nights, all my mind and all my means to the search; and I will find him, if he is not dead. If he is above ground I will find him! And when I find him I will go and lay him in his mother’s lap and ask her forgiveness, and she will grant it me for the child’s sake! Oh! I prayed Providence to give me the power of doing her a service, and now I have got it. It cannot be but I shall find her child, and so regain her love!” he murmured.

Then looking up from his paper he called out:

“Simms!”

The valet, who was at the other end of the room engaged in closing the window blinds to exclude the hot rays of the mid-day sun, turned and hurried toward the bedside.

“What o’clock is it, Simms?”

“A quarter-past twelve, sir,” answered the man, after consulting his silver timepiece.

“At what hour did Dr. Dietz say that he would return here?”

“At ten to-night, sir, unless something unexpected should turn up to cause you to require his services before that time. In which case, sir, I was to sent a mounted messenger after him.”

“Not return until ten o’clock; that is well; for I must get away from this place to-day; and if he were here he would be sure to oppose my doing so, and I want no controversy with my kind physician,—Simms!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go fetch me a time-table of the boats that leave the Island to-day.”

Simms vanished, and after an absence of a few minutes returned and said:

“If you please sir, there are no time-tables. But the head waiter says as how the only boat that leaves St. Aubins for England is the steamer that sails for Southampton at ten o’clock every morning.”

“Is that the only boat?”

“The only one that leaves St. Aubins, sir; but there is another steamer leaves St. Helier’s every afternoon at three o’clock for Portsmouth, sir!”

“Let me see! How far do they call St. Helier’s from here?”

“About three miles, sir.”

“That will do. Go down-stairs and tell them to send me my bill, including Dr. Dietz’s. And then order a fly to be at the door by two o’clock. And then pack up my traps and yours as quickly as possible. We start for England in an hour.”

The valet stared at his master in speechless astonishment for a moment, and then gasped:

“For England, sir!—In an hour, sir!”

“Yes! Don’t I speak plainly enough? Be quick and do as I tell you.”

“But, sir, what would the doctor say? You have never left your room yet since you have been wounded!—scarcely left your bed, sir! Consider your health, sir? Consider your life!”

“Consider a fig’s end! There are matters of more moment than my poor life that demand my presence in England,” said Alexander.

“But, sir, the doctor said—”

“Simms! are you my servant, or the doctor’s?” demanded Alexander, sternly.

“Yours, sir, of course.”

“Then obey me at once, or I shall send you about your business.”

Simms knew that he had a profitable place, and a good master, though a self-willed one. He had really no desire to oppose him in this or any other measure. He was heartily tired of this “beastly hole,” as he chose to call one of the prettiest little maritime towns in the world. So, after having done his duty and relieved his conscience, by offering a respectful remonstrance to the proposed exertions on the part of the invalid, he yielded to circumstances and set himself promptly to work to obey his master’s orders.

Alexander wrote a note of thanks and of partial explanation to Doctor Dietz, enclosed within it a munificent fee, and sent it down to the office to be handed to the surgeon on his return.

Alexander was a free man and a sane one. And though the people of the hotel were greatly astonished at his sudden resolution to travel in his present invalid condition, and strongly suspected him of running away from his physician; and though they had every will to stop him, they had not the power to do so.

And at two o’clock, all his arrangements having been completed, Alick, attended by his servant, entered the cab that was to take him to St. Helier’s.

He reached there in time to catch the steamer; and at three o’clock he sailed for Portsmouth.