Toppleton's Client; Or, A Spirit in Exile by John Kendrick Bangs (best english books to read for beginners .TXT) 📕

he consulted his watch, the great silver timepiece he had brought with him.

"Humph," he said; "half-past seven. I must have slept nearly thirteen hours; unlucky number that. No wonder I have vertigo."

He rose from the couch and walked, or rather tottered, to the window to look out upon the beautifully serene Barbundle.

"Mercy! How weak I am!" he cried, grasping the sill for support. "This trouble seems to have gone to my knees as well. I can hardly stand, and—ow—there is a touch of rheumatism in my right arm! I shall have to ring for Parker to bring me a little resolution in the form of a stiff horn of whiskey. These old English homes I'm afraid are a little damp."

He touched the bell at the side of the doorway and staggered back to the couch, falling upon it in a heap in sheer weakness, and as he did so[254] he again became conscious of someone gazing at him from the other side of the room, and as he looked, the fiend in his emerald disembodiment took shape and approached him.

"Ah, Barncastle," said Toppleton, to whom custom had rendered the fiend's appearance less terrible. "I am glad to see you. I'm afraid I am ill. I have the most unaccountable weakness in my knees. My eyesight seems to have grown dim, and I am conscious of my head which is really a new sensation to me. I wish you'd send your butler up here with some whiskey."

"All right, I'll send him," returned the fiend with, or so it seemed to Toppleton, a lack of friendly interest in his tone which rather surprised him, for Barncastle had hitherto been the quintessence of politeness. "I fancy you'll be better in the morning; and between you and me I'd let whiskey alone. Brandy and soda is my drink, and I think it will do you more good in your present state than whiskey."

"Very well, Barncastle," Hopkins began.

"Don't call me Barncastle," returned the fiend, impatiently. "Your discovery of my secret has made all that intolerable to me, and I intend hereafter to spend as little of my time in that form as is consistent with propriety. I did not realize until you came here how long[255] confinement within anatomical limits had weakened my powers, and to find myself at this period of my existence almost, if not quite, as incompetent to meet the grave crises of life as any mortal, is galling in the extreme. Call me anything you please, but drop Barncastle."

"Very well," again replied Toppleton. "I will call you my friend Greene."

"Humorous to the last, Toppleton," laughed the fiend. "That's a truly American characteristic. I believe you'll jest with your dying breath."

"Quite likely," said Hopkins, lightly. "That is if I ever draw it."

"Ah! Have you discovered an Elixir of Life, then?" queried the fiend.

"Not yet," returned Hopkins. "But I am sure I cannot see why, with your assistance, I should not do so. If you know all the secrets of the universe, I think you might confide at least one of them to me, and the only one I ask is, what shall I do to live for ever?"

"You are an insinuating young man," returned the fiend. "And I must say I like you, Toppleton, in spite of your abominable poetry, for now I am going to be candid with you."

"So much, then, is gained," said Hopkins, cheerfully. "If you like me, give me the recipe of life."[256]

"I would, my boy," the fiend replied with a harsh laugh, "I would do it gladly, if I hadn't forgotten it. Some day I shall take a day off from these mundane operations of mine, and return to the spirit vale and freshen up my formulæ. Then perhaps I can help you. But I have something very important to say to you, and if you will come with me to my own quarters I will say it. This room is too chilly for a spirit with nothing on."

Toppleton readily acquiesced. His other sensations had been so acute since his awakening, that he did not realize until the fiend spoke of the chill in the atmosphere that he was himself cold to the very marrow of his bones; that his blood seemed hardly to run in his veins, so congealed had it become. He followed the fiend, who led the way from Toppleton's room to Barncastle's own quarters, where a log fire blazed fiercely on the hearth. There was no other light than that of the fire in the room, and Hopkins was glad of it, his eyes were too weary for any illumination save the one which made the darkness in which he now sat even blacker than was natural.

"Lie down there on my bed, Toppleton," said the fiend. "Lie down and listen to me."

Toppleton obeyed, and gladly.[257]

"You are a sick man," began the fiend, "though you may not know it. You have no more than an even chance of living beyond this night. If you do live until to-morrow morning I see no reason why you should not continue to do so for many years to come; in fact I confidently anticipate that such will be the case, but you have got to be careful."

"If you were not one of the supernatural element, Mr. Greene," said Toppleton, nervously tapping his fingers together, "I should be inclined to laugh at your notions respecting my health. A man of my habits and physique doesn't go to pieces after a single late supper, to be brought up standing at the doors of death uncertain as to whether he will be invited in or requested to move on, all in a single night."

"For an acute man you are an obtuse sort of a person," returned the fiend, gravely. "I do not mean that you are in immediate danger of physical collapse, though that will come shortly unless you take care of yourself. It is a worse than physical death that I refer to. You are on the verge of intellectual death, Toppleton. You need twenty-four hours of wakefulness to put you in an insane asylum, an incurable, hopelessly mad for the balance of your days. You remarked a moment since that you were[258] conscious of your head. By that you meant that you felt the weight of it, and it is a leaden weight unless my eyes deceive me. I have experienced it, and I know what it means."

Hopkins' face blanched as the fiend spoke. It was too easy for him to believe all that had been said; and why should it not be so, he asked himself. Here was a case of mortal arrayed in combat against a supernatural being, and in the nature of things it was a contest of the intellectuals and not one of the sort in which Toppleton's training would have made him an easy victor. In a bout at arms Barncastle would have been a prey to Toppleton with scarce an effort on the American's part, but mind for mind, the young lawyer was fighting against terrible odds. He had proven to a very considerable extent a winner, and yet his victory was quite as hollow as the victory of a trotting horse who has won only the preliminary heats and still has the final test to undergo; but to win even the trial heat was a great thing, and that his mind should be well-nigh used up was to have been expected. Realizing this, and realizing also that it was his defeated adversary who was advising him as to what was necessary to be done for the preservation of his sanity, he was quite overcome. He nearly fainted, in fact he would have done so had not the fiend[259] seeing his condition applied restoratives to his head and feet, and poured between his open lips a concoction which made every drop of blood in his body glow as with health, which imparted strength to his weary limbs, and which seemed to clear his aching head with its magical potence.

"You have had a narrow escape, my dear fellow," said the fiend, as Hopkins revived. "If I hadn't saved you, you would have stepped over the line."

"You—are—very—very kind," murmured Hopkins, raising himself on his elbow and then dropping wearily back into the pillows again. "You place me under very deep obli—"

"Don't speak of that," said the fiend with a smile. "The obligation you have placed me under is still greater. But now, Toppleton, you must sleep, or you will be beyond all hope to-morrow."

"I will," said Toppleton, faintly, and then he closed his eyes and consciousness departed from him.

The fiend regarded him for a moment and turned away with a sigh.

"If I had had the good fortune to operate on you instead of upon Chatford," he said, "well, there'd have been a president of the United States in your family by this time, or,[260] better still, a railway king with an amount of brains equal to the possessions of the best of them. Oh, well! he wasn't to be had, and I haven't done badly with Chatford."

With which reflection the fiend passed from the room, and left Toppleton breathing heavily in sleep.

When next Toppleton opened his eyes consciously to himself, he was lying on a great oak bed with a tapestry canopy over his head. The sun was streaming in through the broad mullioned windows. The world without was white with snow, the tall evergreens down by the now ice-covered Barbundle presenting the only vestige of green in sight.

"Ah!" he sighed, as he looked wearily out of the window. "We shall have a white Christmas after all, but," he added, gazing about him, "how the dickens did I ever come to be here, I wonder? In Barncastle's own room—oh, yes, I remember. I fell asleep here last night and I suppose he has—Hello!—Who's that?"

The last words were addressed to whomsoever it was that entered the room at the moment, for the door had opened and closed softly.

"It is I," came a soft, sweet voice, and before Hopkins had time to place it, Lady Alice entered the room.[261]

"Good morning!" said Toppleton, slightly embarrassed at the unexpected appearance of his hostess.

"Good morning!" she replied, coming to his side and stroking his forehead lightly. "And I can say with all my heart, after these awful days of suspense, that it is a good morning. You have been very ill."

"Oh, it was nothing," said Hopkins, endeavouring to conceal his surprise at the way things were going. "Only a little headache and rackety feeling generally. It will pass off. Barncastle was very good to let me have his quarters."

Lady Alice's face took on a troubled look.

"How beautiful it is out," said Toppleton, turning his eyes toward the snow-clad landscape again. "I was just thinking that we should have a white Christmas after all."

"Why, my dear, Christmas is over by two weeks. You have been ill here for three weeks yesterday."

"What?" cried Toppleton. "I?"

"Why, certainly," said Lady Alice. "Of course, you didn't know it, but it is so. You haven't had a lucid moment in all that time."

A sudden fear clutched at Toppleton's heart.

"But—but tell me, have I—what do—what[262] have the doctors said—that I had lost my mind, was in danger of a living death; that—"

"Don't get so excited," returned Lady Alice, softly, still retaining the look of anxiety on her face. "Here, read this. It is a letter from your Rocky Mountain friend, I think, and I fancy it will amuse you. It has only just come."

"My Rocky Mountain friend!" ejaculated Hopkins under his breath. "What devilish complication does this mean, I wonder?"

"Shall I open it for you?" asked Lady Alice.

"Yes," said Hopkins mechanically; "I'll be very much obliged to you if you will do so. Thank you," he added, staring wildly at the foot of the bed as the young woman opened and handed him the letter.

"While you are reading it," said she, "I'll run downstairs a moment, and tell Parker to prepare you a little breakfast."

"You are very kind," said Toppleton, faintly; and then as Lady Alice went softly from the room he began to read the letter. "'17, The Temple, London, January 2nd. My dear Barncastle—' Why, she must have made a mistake," he said; "this is for Barn—by Jove! it's in my handwriting, and signed—Hopkins—Top—ple—ton. What in the name of Heav—"[263]

Here he ceased his soliloquizing and began to read the letter which was as follows:—