Lucius Davoren, Volume II by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Lucius had a long interview with Mrs. Bertram on the following morning, and he and Geoffrey left Stillmington together in the afternoon; to the despair of the proprietor of the family hotel, who had not had such a customer as Mr. Hossack for many years, not even during that halcyon period which he spoke of fondly as ‘our 'untin' season. ' They travelled to London by the same express-train, having a long and friendly talk on the way, Geoffrey _en route_ for Christiana, with a view to shooting grouse among the Norwegian hills, and if it were possible in some measure to stifle the pangs of hopeless love in the keen joys of the sportsman; Lucius to return to the beaten round of a parish doctor's life, brightened only by those happy hours which he spent in the old house with Lucille.

It was too late to visit Cedar House on the evening of his return from Stillmington, so Lucius and Geoffrey dined, or supped, together at the Cosmopolitan, and had, what the latter called, ‘a gaudy night; ' a night of prolonged and confidential talk rather than of deep drinking, however; for Lucius was the most temperate of men, and with Geoffrey pleasure never meant dissipation. They talked of the future; and hope kindled in Geoffrey's breast as they talked. Not always would Fate be inexorable; not always would the woman he loved be inaccessible to his prayers.

‘I could hardly bear my life if it were not for one fond hope,' he said; ‘and even that is, perhaps, a delusion. I believe that she loves me.'

‘I know she does,' replied Lucius; and the two men grasped hands across the table.

‘She has told you! ' cried Geoffrey, rapture gleaming in his honest face.

‘She has told me. Yes, Geoffrey, a love such as yours deserves some recompense. My sister confessed that you had made yourself only too dear to her; that but for the tie which she deems binding until death she would have been proud to become your wife.'

‘God bless her! Yes, I have been buoyed up by the belief in her love, and that will sustain me still. Did she tell you nothing of that wretch-her husband-nothing that may serve as a clue for you to hunt him down?'

‘Very little; or very little more than I already knew. She gave me a general description of the man; but she possesses no likeness of him, so even that poor clue is wanting. The name he bore was doubtless an assumed one, therefore that can help us little. But the strangest part of all this strange story is-'

‘What, Lucius?'

‘That the description of this man, Vandeleur-that was the name under which he married my sister-tallies in many respects with the description of another man, whose fate I have pledged myself to discover; a man who had the same genius for music, and was as complete a scoundrel.'

Hereupon Lucius told his friend the story of his engagement to Lucille Sivewright, and the condition attached to its fulfilment, to which Geoffrey lent an attentive ear.

‘You say this man sailed for Spanish America in the year '53. Your sister was married in '58. How, then, can you suppose that Lucille's father and the man calling himself Vandeleur are one and the same person?'

‘There would have been ample time for Sivewright to have grown tired of America between '53 and '58.'

‘So there might. Yet it seems altogether gratuitous to suppose any identity between the two men. Musical genius is not so exceptional a quality; nor is scoundrelism the most uncommon of attributes to be found among the varieties of mankind.'

They discussed the subject at length in all its bearings. It was a relief to Lucius to unburden his mind to the friend he loved and trusted; the chosen companion of so many adventures; the man whose shrewd sense he had never found wanting in the hour of difficulty. They talked long and late, and Lucius slept at the Cosmopolitan, and returned to the Shadrack district at an hour when the domestics of that popular hotel were only just opening their weary eyelids on the summer morning.

He spent his day in the accustomed round of toil; had double work to do in consequence of his brief holiday; found the atmosphere of the Shadrack-road heavy and oppressive in the sultry noontide, after the clearer air and bluer skies of the hills and woods round Stillmington. And that all-pervading aspect of poverty which marked the streets and alleys of his parish struck him more keenly after the smug respectability and prosperous trimness of Stillmington's dainty High-street and newly-erected villas. He travelled over the beaten track somewhat wearily, and felt ever so little inclined to envy Geoffrey, who was by this time hurrying across the face of the sun-dappled country-side, in the Hull express, on the first stage to Norway. But he was no whit less patient than usual in his attention to the parish invalids; and when the long day was done he turned homeward hopefully, to refresh himself after his labours before presenting himself at Cedar Lodge.

It was dusk when Mrs. Wincher admitted him into the blossomless courtyard. Mr. Sivewright had retired for the night, but Lucille was at work in the parlour, Mrs. Wincher informed him, with her protecting air.

‘You never come anigh us yesterday, nor yet the day before, Dr. Davory,' she said, ‘and Mr. Sivewright was quite grumptious about it-said as he began to feel you was neglecting of him. "It serves me right," he said, "for believin' as any doctor would go on caring for his patient without the hope of a fee; " but I took him up sharp enough, and told him he ought to know you'd never looked at your attendance here from a fanatical pint of view.'

‘Meaning financial, I suppose, Mrs. Wincher?'

‘O lor, yes, if you like it better pernounced that way. I gave it him up-right and down-straight, you may be sure.'