Читать книгу The Evil That Men Do - M.P. Shiel - Страница 7

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When Hartwell re-entered Aylsham, he stopped under a street lamp, and looked at several of the envelopes in the breast pocket of Drayton's overcoat, which he had on. He saw the words "James Drayton, Esq.," on them all, and decided that that was the name which was to be his thenceforth.

He then walked up the empty street to the "Black Dogs," and entered the old coaching house chilled to the heart with that feeling of rashness gone crazy, which must have chilled the heart of the first man who ever stepped into the car of a balloon, trusting on theory alone, to make the first strange leap into the air. He was met in the passage by a girl, who started and turned pale at the sight of the gore on the clothes, at the self-inflicted bruise on his hatless head and at the streamlets of blood on his white face. He seemed to her the murdered ghost of the man who, not twenty minutes before, had dined in boisterous health at the tavern, and gone away, hearty and happy and half-tipsy in his motor car.

"There has been an accident," cried Hartwell to her: "just lend me your shoulder to lean on—that's a girl—I can hardly stand."

She gave him her shoulder and conducted him, step by step, to the commercial room on the left of the passage, while a number of people who had caught sight of him from the bar on the right crowded at the door of the parlour, staring after him till he disappeared. He sank into the first easy-chair, all sighs, with an abandoned head and a bent back, while the landlord, who had run in, and the girl stood over and gazed at him.

"An accident has happened to the car," sighed Hartwell: "my friend is killed; also a tramp who was on the road. I cannot talk. Someone run and tell the police."

"Run quick for, some brandy, Maggie,", said the landlord. "Dreadful thing, sir! How did it happen, sir?"

"I cannot talk," sighed Hartwell.

The girl ran out and quickly ran in again with a glass of brandy and water, which the landlord held to Hartwell's lips, and Hartwell drank, sighing with gusto at the end:

"That's a man."

"Feel better now, sir?" asked the landlord, contemplating him, with his arms akimbo.

"Yes, that's better. Put me to bed, my friend, and let me be left alone. Ah, no, I feel not well—"

"Dreadful thing, sir! Who would have thought half an hour since—Maggie, send off John for Dr Richards at once."

By this time two of the other servants of the establishment and several of the visitors were assembled at the door, craning in to see.

"No doctor, I think," murmured. Hartwell to the landlord. "I do not need any—at least I will not have any. Do not make me talk—just put me to bed."

"Just draw off the gentleman's gloves, Maggie," said the landlord. "I'll take off his coat."

"Leave the gloves and coat for the present," murmured Hartwell, "you have only to take me to a room, and then give notice to the authorities."

He now raised himself with pretended difficulty, and, supported by the girl and the man, stumbled up the stairs with feebleness which was not all pretence, for he was very weary from his tramping, and weak with hunger. One of the other servant girls followed them with a lamp to a room above stairs, where Hartwell at once drew himself upon an ottoman, whose chintz covering he soiled with mud and blood.

"Get off the gentleman's boots, Maggie," said the landlord. "May I take off your coat now, sir?"

"That is all right about my things," replied Hartwell. "You may leave me and I will do all for myself presently. Perhaps something to eat may do me good, though I have just dined. The shaking has caused me to feel—"

"At once, sir: what will you have?"

"Anything—with some wine. Say, in half an hour's time I will ring for it. But meanwhile I want some hot water. Bring me this at once."

"Yes, sir. By the way, sir—what name to give to the police?"

With a renewed chill at the heart Hartwell now, for the first time, pronounced these words:

"Mr James Drayton."

The landlord and the girl then went away and Hartwell sat on the ottoman in his coat with his wide brow on his gloved palm, till the girl returned with a jug of hot water and lit a fire in the room. When she was gone again, Hartwell locked the door upon himself, took off his outer clothes, his gloves and his boots, poured the hot water into a basin and put the basin on a small table which he pushed to the side of the bed.

He then took out all the objects which Drayton's pockets contained, except the shreds of Letty's letter in the coat pocket, and he placed these all together on the table by the bedside with the basin of hot water and the lamp, in order to examine them at his leisure. He then got into bed and lay for some minutes idle, luxuriating in the rest and peace of the soft bed after his weariness and thinking of what chance his strange to-morrow might bring forth.

He would have fallen asleep, but that he severely roused himself with a flash of the eye, warning himself that, however tired he might be, there must be little sleep for him that night. He had kept on his gloves in the presence of the landlord and the girl so that they might not see his working man's hands, and now he put his hands into the basin of hot water, hoping by dint of soaking and soaping to have them at least presentable before the morning came. After some soaking, he used Drayton's penknife to shape the nails and cut away the callous growths round the quicks and then continued to soak them. They had once been as soft and shapely as Drayton's, and only needed coaxing to become so again.

After half an hour he rose, wiped his hands, poured out the water from the basin, and rang for the supper before returning to bed. The girl appeared bringing the news that the two bodies had been taken to the mortuary and bringing also a fat Norfolk capon, an apple tart, and a bottle of port. Hartwell then ate a hearty meal, but without quite that sense of luxury which he had looked for from feast at first. There is always a certain disappointment in the actual enjoyment of the delights which one has longed for and, moreover, Hartwell's mind had already enlarged itself to the largeness of his new kingdom, a kingdom in which the stomach suddenly ceased to be of importance. For men stand, as it were, at different heights, each seeing from his own level, so what the beggar thinks is heaven, the millionaire regards as nothing and what the millionaire pursues, the saint or the thinker regards as a bauble. In one and the same night Hartwell was all the three—beggar, millionaire, and thinker. He had longed for a meal at seven; at nine he had forgotten food, and was thinking of palaces and social grandeur; before midnight, he had half forgotten palaces and was thinking with joy of the laboratory which he would make and of the research work which he would do in it.

When the girl, Maggie, brought the supper, he ordered her to fetch him up some ink, a pen, and some writing paper, with more hot water for his hands. Immediately after the meal, when he was alone again, he set to work to examine Drayton's papers, of which there lay quite a mass on the table near him and, leaning toward the lamp on his elbow, he weighed the meaning of each with a certain sideward sagacity of gaze, a sagacity that smiled in its self-sureness.

Each letter brought its own light to its intelligence, adding its share to its knowledge of Drayton's pursuits, passions, friends, business, environment, tastes, point of view, and ways of life. Only a few lines in one business letter, and the whole of another letter, he tried in vain to understand. Once he stopped short in the reading, and was lost in reflection, asking himself:

"Shall I succeed in carrying it through? Have I the steel, the wit?" And presently, as he read, he muttered, "He seems to have been a great character for horses;" and once again with a severe flash of the eye, he said, "He was a ruffian, this man!" and, lastly, as he read the letter, which he could not understand, he started with a whisper: "Oh, I have a wife—"

In that letter, which had been written by Drayton himself, Hartwell saw these words: "the wife." He had taken out the letter from an envelope which had no address on it, and yet had been fastened down, and it seemed the letter of a crazy man, being, in fact, none other than that nonsense-letter written by Drayton at the "Anchor Tavern" after the death of Letty, in order to be able to say to himself or to others that he had written a letter. For to the greatest liars truth is dear, and men engaged in building up a fabric of lies have been known to mix truth with it in a random way, even at the greatest personal risk to themselves: and so with Drayton and his nonsense-letter. And in this letter Hartwell read the words:

"Dear Sir,—Weather very bad to-night, blowing great guns. So it has come to this: if any one had told me that it would, I should have bet half a million to the contrary. The little wretch went to C.C."—meaning Corton Chancery—"and heard the wife's screams. Weather very bad to-night, wind, rain, thunder, and lightning. It isn't all beer and skittles in this little world; there are things that make a man feel rather cold. Now is the time for all good men to come to the rescue of the party. If that little Kirk only does to Brighteye what I have put him up to do, my Queenie will win the next Oaks as sure as there's a sun. Now is the time for all good men to come to the rescue of the party. Weather very bad to-night, very bad.

"Yours truly,

"James Drayton."

"This man was certainly a ruffian in many ways," thought Hartwell, on reading the letter for the third time and, after tearing off the signature, which he needed, he tore that letter in fine shreds, rose and threw the shreds on the fire with disgust.

When he returned to the bed, he lay for some time with his hands under his head, listening to the sound of the lessening storm outside, and thinking of "the wife." "The little wretch has gone to C.C., and heard the wife's screams." "The" wife could only mean Drayton's wife, and her occupation was, apparently—to scream. So that for her also, evidently, it was not all beer and skittles in this little world. As to the meaning of "C.C." there was nothing in what he had so far read to show him. His mind at once took up the notion that "C.C." was a person, nor did the thought that it might be a place occur to him for many a day. If it had occurred to him in time, it might have saved him a world of misery but, in fact, Drayton's nonsense letter having been once destroyed, the letters "C.C." passed out of Hartwell's memory for that memory, though an extraordinary one, soon found as much to carry, as it could bear.

There remained on the table three more letters which he had not read, and the very first of these which he took up still further complicated his relations with women, for it was from a lady to whom Drayton had evidently been engaged at the moment of his death and the discovery of the engagement to be married, of this already married man, drew from Hartwell's lips the exclamation: "This ruffian!" The lady's letter was crested with the three pearled coronet of earldom, came from "The Villa Borgia-Costi, Cannes," was signed "Julia," and said, among other things:

"It is raining to-day, and my Aunt Margaret and I mope, which is nothing strange for her when the racing-season is over, but exceptional for me. So if I am disposed to be over frank with you, you will attribute it to external nature and the way the wind blows...I certainly do not wish to hurt you—I wonder if I could if I tried?—for apart from the wild relations between us, I am convinced that I have some sort of depraved liking for you, you are so breezy and boisterous, and careless of the usual shams. I believe you would beat me blue if I married you, and that is why I said 'yes,' for the same reason that one hunts in 'bullfish' country, because of the spice of madness and danger in it. And then I was really grateful to you for saving my life that day in Northamptonshire, for it was gallantly done at the risk of your own neck and, lastly I suppose, I wished to prove myself independent of the general point of view, to be a mad-cap. I believe, on reflection, that this last was the main leit-motif of my maidenly 'yes.' But I said that I would be quite frank, since it is rainy, and I say that you are heavy, my James, and begin to weigh upon one...

A woman may have a wayward admiration for the Centaur or the Cyclops, and throw kisses at them, but one does not marry them...I have been wondering why we should marry, really? I recommend you to lock yourself into a room and ask yourself that question. Are we fond of each other, then? That does not seem very probable. I repeat and insist upon it, that I do like and enjoy you, as one enjoys a breeze, but how, if I throw you over a week before the wedding? then you might bring an action for breach of promise, which would be fun, and make my brothers swear. It really seems that I am going to do it, unless you give me some reason...

Write soon, and tell me, but not with the thick end of the pen, etc., etc."

Hartwell saw from the date that this letter was a week old.

"At any rate," he thought, with a smiling eye, a slight lifting of the lower lids giving always to his eyes their smiling expression; "at any rate, it will not be difficult for me to shirk my engagement with the lively Julia and I shall not delay to release her by letter. I am already married! Let us choose to eschew bigamy and all breaches of the common law. This Drayton was undoubtedly a ruffian—"

In reading and weighing letters and documents, hours passed over Hartwell. It grew on towards midnight, the house was wrapped in silence, and only the wind and rain were heard. But he would not permit himself to sleep. His next care was to take Drayton's signature which he had torn from the nonsense letter, and to set himself to copy it with the writing material which Maggie had brought him. Drayton's handwriting was very different from his own, and he foresaw that the typewriter, for some time at least, would have to be his closest friend. But as to the mere signature, that would be easily enough acquired by a day or two of earnest work. He had no lack of trust in his own handiness, capacity, and equalness to every difficulty that might arise. For two hours and a half he was copying the signature, over and over very slowly, like a boy doing his copy-book, with ever repeated "James, James," "Drayton, Drayton." Occasionally, if he paused, he soaked his hands in the water, then wiped them and re-commenced the copying. It was far into the foreday when he nodded over the paper, and could hardly go on. He then rose and threw the sheets, on which he had written, into the now dying embers of the fire.

He was in the act of throwing himself backward upon his pillow to enjoy the sweetest sleep when he started, for opposite him, in the half-darkness, he saw a face looking at him. He had blown out the lamp, but one of the blinds was not lowered, so that some sort of light from the outer night with its street lamps relieved the darkness of the room and he could darkly see the face. He knew at once that it was his own face reflected in the mirror of the chest of drawers, but it was also the face of the man whose place in the world he was taking, and the suspicion suggested to his nerves was that he might think the face his own, and yet it might be Drayton's.

No mind could be colder, or more trained and fixed into scepticism, than Hartwell's. The average sceptic, looking at the growth of so striking a being as man from the lowest forms of fish-life, cannot help thinking that there has been something intelligently working in the world to bring forth such a product: but to Hartwell's hard head all was chance, chance. There was no compromise with him: he belonged to the school of Haeckel.

His universe consisted of atoms and ether alone, driven by more or less blind forces. As to ghosts and all other things, "whose existence we have no means of verifying," these were to him the merest "dreams of man's childhood." Yet he did lift his hands to assure himself that the man in the glass lifted his hand also.

His eyes then closed in sleep, but when he was on the point of sleep they opened again to see, for his nerves were not themselves that night, and a man with a black beard and coarse eyebrows was in the glass, dwelling there as in a home. The temptation occurred to Hartwell to rise, and throw a towel over the glass, but he would not do this. Finally his eyes flashed with a certain severe humor characteristic of him. He suddenly closed his lids, and was soon involved in as wild a vision as ever rioted in a man's head.