Читать книгу In the Beginning - Alan Sullivan - Страница 3

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Jean Caxton came into her father's study, perched on one corner of the large mahogany table he habitually used for a desk when at home, and sat swinging a long, slim leg. Her lips were compressed, and on her face was an odd mixture of amusement and gravity. She looked not at him but out of the window, as though deliberating how to put the thing. He was used to these interruptions—he rather liked them, because she was all he had—and, knowing with whom he had to deal, he waited in expectant silence. Presently she gave a strained little laugh.

"We're going to have rather a funny dinner to-night. At least, I hope it will be funny."

"I hope so, too."

She nodded approvingly.

"One of the nicest things about you, dad, is the way you take things. But does nothing ever make you curious?"

"Intensely; but not things connected with dinner, unless I'm not sure whether there's going to be any."

"That end of it's all right. You knew Phil was coming?"

"So I understood."

"Well, he looked so unhappy the last time we met that I had to ask him. Now I've just had a wire from Gregory, saying that he's coming. Can you imagine those two glaring at each other across the table?"

"I can't imagine Phil glaring. Gregory might, easily. And," he added, with a twinkle, "it wouldn't be pretty, either."

"Well, what am I to do?"

"Feed them," said her father, blandly. "You can't do anything else. They'll both understand that, even though they may not understand each other."

She laughed, but not very happily.

"I suppose a man can't be expected to know what a girl feels in such a case."

"Probably. I'm principally conscious of what I don't know. Have you—er—formed any idea of which you prefer? Don't mind my asking, because I'll see more or less of him, so a certain interest is natural on my part."

"That's the queer part of it," she said soberly. "I can't be sure yet. Sometimes it's Gregory—he's so big and strong and confident. And yet at other times he frightens me a little. Am I quite mad?"

"No, that's not mad, but atavistic. Your progenitors, a good many centuries back, simply adored the hairy men who hit them on the head with a club, threw them across their shoulders, and made their lives miserable ever after. No, not mad. There's a reason for it."

She made a face at him.

"Thanks, so much, but Gregory hasn't a club. As to Phil, it's different. He's awfully gentle, and not very strong, and——"

"What kind of strength do you mean?"

"Physical, of course."

"Right. Carry on."

"And—well, he makes me want to look after him, and I know he has a wonderful brain, and he's very gentle compared with Gregory, and if I married him I don't think I'd have much chance to think about anything else. They've both told me what they feel and want, and it's up to me to say something, and I've no mother to consult—and—and there you are."

He looked at her very wistfully.

"I realise that, child, and more than ever of late. But I knew I could never replace your mother, so I did not try."

"I'm glad you didn't, dad," she said, under her breath. "But what do you think about all this?"

He made an uncertain gesture.

"If you asked me something about anthropology I could probably help, but this study of man of the present day is rather outside my line. Of course, at a hazard, you don't really know anything about either of them. You only think you know."

"I'm not altogether blind."

"Admitted. But you're looking at two men who have never been tested—that is, so far as you are concerned."

"Tested?" She seemed puzzled.

"Exactly. That matter of strength, for instance. What is real strength?"

"I don't know, if you put it that way."

"I'm not positive about it myself, but I have a certain idea. Suppose you were to wait till this dinner—which may, or may not be funny, as you put it—is over. It may give me a chance to see a little light. If your mother were here she could tell you at once. In the meantime, I suggest that you don't think of Gregory as a big-game hunter, or of Phil as a botanist, but try and imagine yourself as seeing them for the first time without knowing what they are. And don't mix up elephant tusks in your mind with maidenhair ferns. It's apt to be misleading."

She laughed at that, then came round the table, perched on the edge of his chair, and rubbed his tanned forehead with her smooth cheek. This was her special caress, and he loved it.

"I think I'll have to depend on you a good deal to-night. It would be frightfully interesting if some other girl were involved and I could just look on. But, dad, how can one test men?"

"One can't, my dear. They generally test themselves, and without knowing it. Thing is to keep your weather eye open, and say nothing—which is rather difficult for a girl."

"Watch me!" she said, and disappeared.

He sat for some time, thinking hard. Of course, the event was inevitable, but he hated to let her go, and he experienced all that a lonely man can feel about a daughter whom he loves with all his soul.

Caxton's face and figure were fairly familiar to those who followed scientific discovery in the illustrated papers. Rather short in the leg, with a round, barrel-like body and long arms, he seemed the personification of activity. His face was square and good-humoured, his nose straight and large, his mouth wide and firm. He suggested remarkable endurance and decision. This was reflected in his eyes, which were very quick and bright, and of a colour between green and blue. If you add to this a restless, hungry energy, a devouring ambition to penetrate fields of discovery hitherto untouched by man; if you, further, put Caxton at fifty years of age, and remember that he was the possessor of a fortune that persisted in increasing despite every prodigal inroad he made upon it, you will get a fair idea of the one who now sat musing, confronted at last with one problem he would have been more than glad to evade.

Looking out at the lawn, on which his study opened by French windows, he saw a man approaching by the short-cut that led from the main gates, a short man with vast sloping shoulders and a round bullet of a head. He stopped a hundred yards from the house, stared at something in his hand, and tilted his bullet head a little on one side. From this, Caxton knew at once that Harrop, his gardener, was more than usually interested.

He had picked up Harrop in the off-hand, characteristic way that applied to most things he did. Harrop, when first seen by his present employer, was, as he himself described it, a bloody mess lying in a dark corner of a lane in Constantinople. Caxton had stopped, recognised it as a British mess, and come to the rescue. A thing that was also characteristic, he had not asked what Harrop had been doing with himself, or how he got there, but, appreciating the fact that here was a man of more than usual strength and of his own race, had forthwith engaged him for a projected trip to a little-known corner of the Atlas Mountains. That was years ago, and since then, in spite of repeated discharges, which perhaps were only half meant, Harrop had refused to leave. He would die for Caxton, and Caxton knew it.

Harrop came on very slowly, still caught up in thought, tapped at the study door, entered with the sort of rolling walk that was the result of three years in tramp steamers on the seven seas, and laid the letter very gravely in front of Caxton. Then he waited.

"Thank you, Harrop. Is that all?"

"Nothing more, sir."

"Right."

Harrop did not move.

"It's from foreign parts, sir," he said calmly. "That's a Chile stamp."

Caxton smiled a little.

"I noticed that."

The man sent him an eloquent glance, which his master understood perfectly. It meant that Harrop was sick of England, sick of English gardens, sick of civilisation, sick of church bells and every other sound that came to him across the softly rolling countryside. And the Chile stamp made him sicker than ever. He coughed a little, sniffed significantly, and went out.

Caxton chuckled, and, picking up the letter, suddenly stared at it hard. He knew that writing; small, angular, and with the sharp definition of print. It was blurred here and there, as though the envelope had been wet. The mere fact that Withers, who had made in his company a notable journey across Central Australia, was now, or had been, in Valparaiso, gave him a feeling of utter restlessness. The lucky beggar!

He opened the envelope slowly, and began to read the four sheets of thin paper, closely written on both sides. Half-way down the first he gave a sharp exclamation, pulled down his brows, and looked up wonderingly. He read on. A little further on his breath came faster, and a slow flush crept into his tanned cheeks. Presently he laid the letter in front of him and gripped the edge of his table so that the blood deserted his finger-tips. His body heaved, and his eyes, which were now a clear green, filled with incredulity. Then he mastered himself with a violent effort, and read on. When he finished, he had become quite pale and his face was that of one to whom marvels have been revealed.

"Good heavens," he whispered, "can such things be?"

Then very carefully, drinking in every word as the dry earth sucks in rain, he read again.

"Not mad," he said under his breath. "Not the letter of one insane. Withers never drank. He knows me: I know him: he couldn't lie to anyone. F.R.S.; President of our Society; member of the Smithsonian—great heavens, it must be true! No, he couldn't cable that!"

Caxton sat for some time absolutely motionless, resolving himself into a kind of thinking machine, of which the brain was working with palpitating speed. He knew, of course, that there was but one thing to be done, and one man to do it. Himself! He surged with a profound gratitude and pride that this message should have come to him. His secret, and Withers'!

Presently, as though animated by an electric charge, he jumped up and began to jerk down books and folded maps till the table and floor were littered. The books had reference slips, and he ran through them, one after the other, shaking his head in the manner of one who seeks that which he does not expect to find. The maps he discarded, all but two. He was poring over these, lost to the world, when the door opened, and Jean came in—tall, fair, and very charming in an evening frock. She glanced smilingly at the disordered room, and shook her dainty head.

"Dad, this will never do. You've got the wandering foot again."

He pulled himself together.

"Have I?" he said oddly.

She nodded.

"I know all the symptoms, and they're all here. Where is it now?"

He slipped Withers' letter into a drawer.

"Nowhere in particular."

She made a face at him.

"You can't bluff, and never could. But don't forget your promise."

"What promise?"

"That you were going to take me next time. I'm going to wear riding-breeches and leggings, and won't be the least trouble."

"Wouldn't the next but one do?"

"Not in the very least. What is rather important at the moment, Gregory is here now and Phil ought to arrive any minute. Do you know that dinner will be ready in exactly seventeen minutes?"

Dinner! He had forgotten dinner, and everything else in the world. Gregory and Phil? Who were they? He gave an apologetic cough, and sent her the special boyish grin she liked so much.

"All right. I suppose one has to eat, but don't let anyone in here or they'll be discharged. I'm working."

"I mean that—about my coming wherever it is," she said quite seriously. "Please hurry or I'll do something foolish." He went to his room and dressed, wondering why mortals were expected to wear things like these. Then to the drawing-room, where he found Jean in a big chair, looking very distrait, Gregory Burden dominating the fireplace, and Sylvester, slight and dark, seeming rather ill at ease. One too many there, obviously—or one too few. The two men greeted Caxton with a good deal of respect, and he knew why. It was just at that moment that he got his second great idea of the evening. It whipped through his brain like a rocket, and left him smiling.