Birds of Prey — Book the 1st, Part 3

THE LETTER FROM THE "ALLIANCE" OFFICE.

Upon the evening of the day on which Mrs. Halliday and the dentist had discussed the propriety of calling in a strange doctor, George Sheldon came again to see his sick friend.

He was quicker to perceive the changes in the invalid than the members of the household, who saw him daily and hourly, and he perceived a striking change for the worse to-night.

He took care, however, to suffer no evidence of alarm or surprise to appear in the sick chamber.

He talked to his friend in the usual cheery way; sat by the bedside for half an hour; did his best to arouse Tom from a kind of stupid lethargy, and to encourage Mrs. Halliday, who shared the task of nursing her husband with brisk Nancy Woolper, an invaluable creature in a sick-room.

But he failed in both attempts; the dull apathy of the invalid was not to be dispelled by the most genial companionship, and Georgy's spirits had been sinking lower and lower all day as her fears increased.

She would fain have called in a strange doctor--she would fain have sought for comfort and consolation from some new quarter.

But she was afraid of offending Philip Sheldon; and she was afraid of alarming her husband.

So she waited, and watched, and struggled against that ever-increasing anxiety.

Had not Mr. Sheldon made light of his friend's malady, and what motive could he have for deceiving her?

A breakfast-cup full of beef-tea stood on the little table by the bedside, and had been standing there for hours untouched.

"I did take such pains to make it strong and clear," said Mrs. Woolper regretfully, as she came to the little table during a tidying process, "and poor dear Mr. Halliday hasn't taken so much as a spoonful.

It won't be fit for him to-morrow, so as I haven't eaten a morsel of dinner, what with the hurry and anxiety and one thing and another, I'll warm up the beef-tea for my supper.

There's not a blessed thing in the house; for you don't eat nothing, Mrs. Halliday; and as to cooking a dinner for Mr. Sheldon, you'd a deal better go and throw your victuals out into the gutter, for then there'd be a chance of stray dogs profiting by 'em, at any rate."

"Phil is off his feed, then; eh, Nancy?"

said George.

"I should rather think he is, Mr. George.

I roasted a chicken yesterday for him and Mrs. Halliday, and I don't think they eat an ounce between, them; and such a lovely tender young thing as it was too--done to a turn--with bread sauce and a little bit of sea-kale.

One invalid makes another, that's certain.

I never saw your brother so upset as he is now, Mr. George, in all his life.

"No?"

answered George Sheldon thoughtfully; "Phil isn't generally one of your sensitive sort."

The invalid was sleeping heavily during this conversation.

George stood by the bed for some minutes looking down at the altered face, and then turned to leave the room.

"Good night, Mrs. Halliday," he said; "I hope I shall find poor old Tom a shade better when I look round to-morrow."

"I am sure I hope so," Georgy answered mournfully.

She was sitting by the window looking out at the darkening western sky, in which the last lurid glimmer of a stormy sunset was fading against a background of iron gray.

This quiet figure by the window, the stormy sky, and ragged hurrying clouds without, the dusky chamber with all its dismally significant litter of medicine-bottles, made a gloomy picture--a picture which the man who looked upon it carried in his mind for many years after that night.

George Sheldon and Nancy Woolper left the room together, the Yorkshirewoman carrying a tray of empty phials and glasses, and amongst them the cup of beef-tea.

"He seems in a bad way to-night, Nancy," said George, with a backward jerk of his head towards the sick-chamber.

"He is in a bad way, Mr. George," answered the woman gravely, "let Mr. Philip think what he will.

I don't want to say a word against your brother's knowledge, for such a steady studious gentleman as he is had need be clever; and if I was ill myself, I'd trust my life to him freely; for I have heard Barlingford folks say that my master's advice is as good as any regular doctor's, and that there's very little your regular doctors know that he doesn't know as well or better.

But for all that, Mr. George, I don't think he understands Mr. Halliday's case quite as clear as he might."

"Do you think Tom's in any danger?"

"I won't say that, Mr. George; but I think he gets worse instead of getting better."

"Humph!"

muttered George; "if Halliday were to go off the hooks, Phil would have a good chance of getting a rich wife."

"Don't say that, Mr. George," exclaimed the Yorkshirewoman reproachfully; "don't even think of such a thing while that poor man lies at death's door.

I'm sure Mr. Sheldon hasn't any thoughts of that kind.

He told me before Mr. and Mrs. Halliday came to town that he and Miss Georgy had forgotten all about past times."

"O, if Phil said so, that alters the case.

Phil is one of your blunt outspoken fellows, and always says what he means," said George Sheldon.

And then he went downstairs, leaving Nancy to follow him at her leisure with the tray of jingling cups and glasses.

He went down through the dusk, smiling to himself, as if he had just given utterance to some piece of intense humour.

He went to look for his brother, whom he found in the torture-chamber, busied with some mysterious process in connection with a lump of plaster-of-paris, which seemed to be the model of ruined battlements in the Gothic style.

The dentist looked up as George entered the room, and did not appear particularly delighted by the appearance of that gentleman.

"Well," said Mr. Sheldon the younger, "busy as usual?

Patients seem to be looking up."

"Patients be----toothless to the end of time!"

cried Philip, with a savage laugh.

"No, I'm not working to order; I'm only experimentalising."

"You're rather fond of experiments, I think, Phil," said George, seating himself near the table at which his brother was working under the glare of the gas.

The dentist looked very pale and haggard in the gas-light, and his eyes had the dull sunken appearance induced by prolonged sleeplessness.

George sat watching his brother thoughtfully for some time, and then produced his cigar-case.

"You don't mind my smoke here?"

he asked, as he lighted a cigar.

"Not at all.

You are very welcome to sit here, if it amuses you to see me working at the cast of a lower jaw."

"O, that's a lower jaw, is it?

It looks like the fragment of some castle-keep.

No, Phil, I don't care about watching you work.

I want to talk to you seriously."

"About that fellow upstairs--poor old Tom.

He and I were great cronies, you know, at home.

He's in a very bad way."

"Is he?

You seem to be turning physician all at once, George.

I

shouldn't have thought your grubbing among county histories, and tattered old pedigrees, and parish registers had given you so deep an insight into the science of medicine!"

said the dentist in a sneering tone.

"I don't know anything of medicine; but I know enough to be sure that Tom Halliday is about as bad as he can be.

What mystifies me is, that he doesn't seem to have had anything particular the matter with him.

There he lies, getting worse and worse every day, without any specific ailment.

It's a strange illness, Philip."

"I don't see anything strange in it."

"Don't you?

Don't you think the surrounding circumstances are strange?

Here is this man comes to your house hale and hearty; and all of a sudden he falls ill, and gets lower and lower every day, without anybody being able to say why or wherefore."

"That's not true, George.

Everybody in this house knows the cause of Tom Halliday's illness.

He came home in wet clothes, and insisted on keeping them on.

He caught a cold; which resulted in low fever.

There is the whole history and mystery of the affair."

"That's simple enough, certainly.

But if I were you, Phil, I'd call in another doctor."

"That is Mrs. Halliday's business," answered the dentist coolly; "if she doubts my skill, she is free to call in whom she pleases.

And now you may as well drop the subject, George.

I've had enough anxiety about this man's illness, and I don't want to be worried by you."

After this there was a little conversation upon general matters, but the talk dragged and languished drearily, and George Sheldon rose to depart directly he had finished his cigar.

"Good night, Philip!"

he said; "if ever you get a stroke of good luck, I hope you'll stand something handsome to me."

This remark had no particular relevance to anything that had been said that night by the two men; yet Philip Sheldon seemed in nowise astonished by it.

"If things ever _do_ take a turn for the better with me, you'll find me a good friend, George," he said gravely; and then Mr. Sheldon the younger bade him good night, and went out into Fitzgeorge-street.

He paused for a moment at the corner of the street to look back at his brother's house.

He could see the lighted windows of the invalid's chamber, and it was at those he looked.

"Poor Tom," he said to himself, "poor Tom!

We were great cronies in the old times, and have had many a pleasant evening together!"

Mr. Sheldon the dentist sat up till the small hours that night, as he had done for many nights lately.

He finished his work in the torture-chamber, and went up to the common sitting-room, or drawing-room as it was called by courtesy, a little before midnight.

The servants had gone to bed, for there was no regular nightly watch in the apartment of the invalid.

Mrs. Halliday lay on a sofa in her husband's room, and Nancy Woolper slept in an adjoining apartment, always wakeful and ready if help of any kind should be wanted.

The house was very quiet just now.

Philip Sheldon walked up and down the room, thinking; and the creaking of his boots sounded unpleasantly loud to his ears.

He stopped before the fireplace, after having walked to and fro some time, and began to examine some letters that lay upon the mantelpiece.

They were addressed to Mr. Halliday, and had been forwarded from Yorkshire.

The dentist took them up, one by one, and deliberately examined them.

They were all business letters, and most of them bore country post-marks.

But there was one which had been, in the first instance, posted from London and this letter Mr. Sheldon examined with especial attention.

It was a big, official-looking document, and embossed upon the adhesive envelope appeared the crest and motto of the Alliance Insurance Office.

"I wonder whether that's all square," thought Mr. Sheldon, as he turned the envelope about in his hands, staring at it absently.

"I ought to make sure of that.

The London postmark is nearly three weeks old."

He pondered for some moments, and then went to the cupboard in which he kept the materials wherewith to replenish or to make a fire.

Here he found a little tin tea-kettle, in which he was in the habit of boiling water for occasional friendly glasses of grog.

He poured some water from a bottle on the sideboard into this kettle, set fire to a bundle of wood, and put the kettle on the blazing sticks.

After having done this he searched for a tea-cup, succeeded in finding one, and then stood watching for the boiling of the water.

He had not long to wait;

the water boiled furiously before the wood was burned out, and Mr. Sheldon filled the tea-cup standing on the table.

Then he put the insurance-letter over the cup, with the seal downwards, and left it so while he resumed his walk.

After walking up and down for about ten minutes he went back to the table and took up the letter.

The adhesive envelope opened easily, and Mr. Sheldon, by this ingenious stratagem, made himself master of his friend's business.

The "Alliance" letter was nothing more than a notice to the effect that the half-yearly premium for insuring the sum of three thousand pounds on the life of Thomas Halliday would be due on such a day, after which there would be twenty-one days' grace, at the end of which time the policy would become void, unless the premium had been duly paid.

Mr. Halliday's letters had been suffered to accumulate during the last fortnight.

The letters forwarded from Yorkshire had been detained some time, as they had been sent first to Hyley Farm, now in the possession of the new owner, and then to Barlingford, to the house of Georgy's mother, who had kept them upwards of a week, in daily expectation of her son-in-law's return.

It was only on the receipt of a letter from Georgy, containing the tidings of her husband's illness, that Mr. Halliday's letters had been sent to London.

Thus it came about that the twenty-one days of grace were within four-and-twenty hours of expiring when Philip Sheldon opened his friend's letter.

"This is serious," muttered the dentist, as he stood deliberating with the open letter in his hand; "there are three thousand pounds depending on that man's power to write a check!"

After a few minutes' reflection, he folded the letter and resealed it very carefully.

"It wouldn't do to press the matter upon him to-night," he thought; "I must wait till to-morrow morning, come what may."

CHAPTER VI. MR.

BURKHAM'S UNCERTAINTIES.

The next morning dawned gray and pale and chill, after the manner of early spring mornings, let them ripen into never such balmy days; and with the dawn Nancy Woolper came into the invalid's chamber, more wan and sickly of aspect than the morning itself.

Mrs. Halliday started from an uneasy slumber.

"What's the matter, Nancy?"

she asked with considerable alarm.

She had known the woman ever since her childhood, and she was startled this morning by some indefinable change in her manner and appearance.

The hearty old woman, whose face had been like a hard rosy apple shrivelled and wrinkled by long keeping, had now a white and ghastly look which struck terror to Georgy's breast.

She who was usually so brisk of manner and sharp of speech, had this morning a strange subdued tone and an unnatural calmness of demeanour.

"What is the matter, Nancy?"

Mrs. Halliday repeated, getting up from her sofa.

"Don't be frightened, Miss Georgy," answered the old woman, who was apt to forget that Tom Halliday's wife had ever ceased to be Georgy Cradock; "don't be frightened, my dear.

I haven't been very well all night,--and--and--I've been worrying myself about Mr. Halliday.

If I were you, I'd call in another doctor.

Never mind what Mr. Philip says.

He may be mistaken, you know, clever as he is.

There's no telling.

Take my advice, Miss Georgy, and call in another doctor--directly--directly," repeated the old woman, seizing Mrs. Halliday's wrist with a passionate energy, as if to give emphasis to her words.

Poor timid Georgy shrank from her with terror.

"You frighten me, Nancy," she whispered; "do you think that Tom is so much worse?

You have not been with him all night; and he has been sleeping very quietly.

What makes you so anxious this morning?"

"Never mind that, Miss Georgy.

You get another doctor, that's all; get another doctor at once.

Mr. Sheldon is a light sleeper.

I'll go to his room and tell him you've set your heart upon having fresh advice; if you'll only bear me out afterwards."

"Yes, yes; go by all means," exclaimed Mrs. Halliday, only too ready to take alarm under the influence of a stronger mind, and eager to act when supported by another person.

Nancy Woolper went to her master's room.

He must have been sleeping very lightly, if he was sleeping at all; for he was broad awake the next minute after his housekeeper's light knock had sounded on the door.

In less than five minutes he came out of his room half-dressed.

Nancy had told him that Mrs. Halliday had taken fresh alarm about her husband, and wished for further advice.

"She sent you to tell me that?"

asked Philip.

"Yes."

"And when does she want this new doctor called in?"

"Immediately, if possible."

It was seven o'clock by this time, and the morning was brightening a little.

"Very well," said Mr. Sheldon; "her wishes shall be attended to directly.

Heaven forbid that I should stand between my old friend and any chance of his speedy recovery!

If a stranger can bring him round quicker than I can, let the stranger come."

* * * * * Mr. Sheldon was not slow to obey Mrs. Halliday's behest.

He was departing on his quest breakfastless, when Nancy Woolper met him in the hall with a cup of tea.

He accepted the cup almost mechanically from her hand, and took it into the parlour, whither Nancy followed him.

Then for the first time he perceived that change in his housekeeper's face which had so startled Georgina Halliday.

The change was somewhat modified now; but still the Nancy Woolper of to-day was not the Nancy Woolper of yesterday.

"You're looking very queer, Nancy," said the dentist, gravely scrutinising the woman's face with his bright penetrating eyes.

"Are you ill?"

"Well, Mr. Philip, I have been rather queer all night,--sickish and faintish-like."

"Ah, you've been over-fatiguing yourself in the sick-room, I daresay.

Take care you don't knock yourself up."

"No; it's not that, Mr. Philip.

There's not many can stand hard work better than I can.

It's not _that_ as made me ill.

I took something last night that disagreed with me."

"More fool you," said Mr. Sheldon curtly; "you ought to know better than to ill-use your digestive powers at your age.

What was it?

Hard cold meat and preternaturally green pickles, I suppose; or something of that kind."

"No, sir; it was only a drop of beef-tea that I made for poor Mr. Halliday.

And that oughtn't to have disagreed with a baby, you know, sir."

"Oughtn't it?"

cried the dentist disdainfully.

"That's a little bit of vulgar ignorance, Mrs. Woolper.

I suppose it was stuff that had been taken up to Mr. Halliday."

"Yes, Mr. Philip; you took it up with your own hands."

"Ah, to be sure; so I did.

Very well, then, Mrs. Woolper, if you knew as much about atmospheric influences as I do, you'd know that food which has been standing for hours in the pestilential air of a fever-patient's room isn't fit for anybody to eat.

The stuff made you sick, I suppose."

"Yes, sir; sick to my very heart," answered the Yorkshirewoman, with a strange mournfulness in her voice.

"Let that be a warning to you, then.

Don't take anything more that comes down from the sick-room."

"I don't think there'll be any chance of my doing that long, sir."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't fancy Mr. Halliday is long for this world."

"Ah, you women are always ravens."

"Unless the strange doctor can do something to cure him.

O, pray bring a clever man who will be able to cure that poor helpless creature upstairs.

Think, Mr. Philip, how you and him used to be friends and playfellows,--brothers almost,--when you was both bits of boys.

Think how bad it might seem to evil-minded folks if he died under your roof."

The dentist had been standing near the door drinking his tea during this conversation; and now for the first time he looked at his housekeeper with an expression of unmitigated astonishment.

"What, in the name of all that's ridiculous, do you mean, Nancy?"

he asked impatiently.

"What has my roof to do with Tom Halliday's illness--or his death, if it came to that?

And what on earth can people have to say about it if he should die here instead of anywhere else?"

"Why, you see, sir, you being his friend, and Miss Georgy's sweetheart that was, and him having no other doctor, folks might take it into their heads he wasn't attended properly."

"Because I'm his friend?

That's very good logic!

I'll tell you what it is, Mrs. Woolper; if any woman upon earth, except the woman who nursed me when I was a baby, had presumed to talk to me as you have been talking to me just this minute, I should open the door yonder and tell her to walk out of my house.

Let that serve as a hint for you, Nancy;

and don't you go out of your way a second time to advise me how I should treat my friend and my patient."

He handed her the empty cup, and walked out of the house.

There had been no passion in his tone.

His accent had been only that of a man who has occasion to reprove an old and trusted servant for an unwarrantable impertinence.

Nancy Woolper stood at the street-door watching him as he walked away, and then went slowly back to her duties in the lower regions of the house.

"It can't be true," she muttered to herself; "it can't be true."

* * * * * The dentist returned to Fitzgeorge-street in less than an hour, bringing with him a surgeon from the neighbourhood, who saw the patient, discussed the treatment, spoke hopefully to Mrs. Halliday, and departed, after promising to send a saline draught.

Poor Georgy's spirits, which had revived a little under the influence of the stranger's hopeful words, sank again when she discovered that the utmost the new doctor could do was to order a saline draught.

Her husband had taken so many saline draughts, and had been getting daily worse under their influence.

She watched the stranger wistfully as he lingered on the threshold to say a few words to Mr. Sheldon.

He was a very young man, with a frank boyish face and a rosy colour in his cheeks.

He looked like some fresh young neophyte in the awful mysteries of medical science, and by no means the sort of man to whom one would have imagined Philip Sheldon appealing for help, when he found his own skill at fault.

But then it must be remembered that Mr. Sheldon had only summoned the stranger in compliance with what he considered a womanish whim.

"He looks very young," Georgina said regretfully, after the doctor's departure.

"So much the better, my dear Mrs. Halliday," answered the dentist cheerfully; "medical science is eminently progressive, and the youngest men are the best-educated men."

Poor Georgy did not understand this; but it sounded convincing, and she was in the habit of believing what people told her; so she accepted Mr. Sheldon's opinion.

How could she doubt that he was wiser than herself in all matters connected with the medical profession?

"Tom seems a little better this morning," she said presently.

The invalid was asleep, shrouded by the curtain of the heavy old-fashioned four-post bedstead.

"He is better," answered the dentist; "so much better, that I shall venture to give him a few business letters that have been waiting for him some time, as soon as he wakes."

He seated himself by the head of the bed, and waited quietly for the awakening of the patient.

"Your breakfast is ready for you downstairs, Mrs. Halliday," he said presently; "hadn't you better go down and take it, while I keep watch here?

It's nearly ten o'clock."

"I don't care about any breakfast," Georgina answered piteously.

"Ah, but you'd better eat something.

You'll make yourself an invalid, if you are not careful; and then you won't be able to attend upon Tom."

This argument prevailed immediately.

Georgy went downstairs to the drawing-room, and tried bravely to eat and drink, in order that she might be sustained in her attendance upon her husband.

She had forgotten all the throes and tortures of jealousy which she had endured on his account.

She had forgotten his late hours and unholy roisterings.

She had forgotten everything except that he had been very tender and kind throughout the prosperous years of their married life, and that he was lying in the darkened room upstairs sick to death.

* * * * * Mr. Sheldon waited with all outward show of patience for the awakening of the invalid.

But he looked at his watch twice during that half-hour of waiting; and once he rose and moved softly about the room, searching for writing materials.

He found a little portfolio of Georgina's, and a frivolous-minded inkstand, after the semblance of an apple, with a gilt stalk and leaflet.

The dentist took the trouble to ascertain that there was a decent supply of ink in the green-glass apple, and that the pens were in working order.

Then he went quietly back to his seat by the bedside and waited.

The invalid opened his eyes presently, and recognised his friend with a feeble smile.

"Well, Tom, old fellow, how do you feel to-day?

--a little better I hear from Mrs. H.

," said the dentist cheerily.

"Yes, I think I am a shade better.

But, you see, the deuce of it is I never get more than a shade better.

It always stops at that.

The little woman can't complain of me now, can she, Sheldon?

No more late hours, or oyster suppers, eh?"

"No, no, not just yet.

You'll have to take care of yourself for a week or two when you get about again."

Mr. Halliday smiled faintly as his friend said this.

"I shall be very careful of myself if I ever do get about again, you may depend upon it, old fellow.

But do you know I sometimes fancy I have spent my last jolly evening, and eaten my last oyster supper, on this earth?

I'm afraid it's time for me to begin to think seriously of a good many things.

The little woman is all right, thank God.

I made my will upwards of a year ago, and insured my life pretty heavily soon after my marriage.

Old Cradock never let me rest till that was done.

So Georgy will be all safe.

But when a man has led a careless, godless kind of a life,--doing very little harm, perhaps, but doing no particular good,--he ought to set about making up his account somehow for a better world, when he feels himself slipping out of this.

I asked Georgy for her Bible yesterday, and the poor dear loving little thing was frightened out of her wits.

'O, don't talk like that, Tom,' she cried; 'Mr. Sheldon says you are getting better every hour,'--by which you may guess what a rare thing it is for me to read my Bible.

No, Phil, old fellow, you've done your best for me, I know; but I'm not made of a very tough material, and all the physic you can pour down this poor sore throat of mine won't put any strength into me."

"Nonsense, dear boy; that's just what a man who has not been accustomed to illness is sure to think directly he is laid up for a day or two."

"I've been laid up for three weeks," murmured Mr. Halliday rather fretfully.

"Well, well, perhaps this Mr. Burkham will bring you round in three days, and then you'll say that your friend Sheldon was an ignoramus."

"No, no, I shan't, old fellow; I'm not such a fool as that.

I'm not going to blame you when it's my own constitution that's in fault.

As to that young man you brought here just now, to please Georgy, I don't suppose he'll be able to do any more for me than you have done."

"We'll contrive to bring you round between us, never fear, Tom," answered Philip Sheldon in his most hopeful tone.

"Why, you are looking almost your old self this morning.

You are so much improved that I may venture to talk to you about business.

There have been some letters lying about for the last few days.

I didn't like to bore you while you were so very low.

But they look like business letters; and perhaps it would be as well for you to open them."

The sick man contemplated the little packet which the dentist had taken from his breast-pocket; and then shook his head wearily.

"I'm not up to the mark, Sheldon," he said; "the letters must keep."

"O, come, come, old fellow!

That's giving way, you know.

The letters may be important; and it will do you good if you make an effort to rouse yourself."

"I tell you it isn't in me to do it, Philip Sheldon.

I'm past making efforts.

Can't you see that, man?

Open the letters yourself, if you like."

"No, no, Halliday, I won't do that.

Here's one with the seal of the Alliance Insurance Office.

I suppose your premium is all right."