Читать книгу The Remittance Man - Ambrose Pratt - Страница 12

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The "Bungalow" was a commodious cottage, surrounded with trellised creeper-covered verandahs and set in a pretty garden of bright tropical flowers. It was situated on the main road midway between Ballina and the "Major's Folly." Its then proprietor, Mr. Alan Laing, was seated under the front archway listlessly watching the road, when Jan Digby stalked into view. He had been expecting Jan to bring him good news, but something in the other's gait and general appearance warned him of a fruitless mission.

"Poor old Jan," he muttered, and his always sombre eyes deepened in melancholy expression as he spoke. "He has acquired a bad name hereabouts, and the proverbial fate is remorselessly attending him."

Digby turned from the road and entered the enclosure without once looking up. In dejected silence he approached his friend and took a seat that evidently awaited him. A table stood between them spread with refreshments. Jan helped himself to some brandy and drank it with a sigh.

"As usual," he remarked as he put down the glass.

Mr. Laing nodded, and a long silence followed. The pair understood each other almost perfectly. Jan gazed at his dismantled shoe, Mr. Laing at a scarlet hibiscus abloom in his garden.

At length Jan took a cigar from the box at his elbow, and struck a match, glancing in a curious fashion at his friend's averted face. He drew into his mouth and expelled therefrom two puffs of smoke, then inadvertently extinguished the match. Choosing another, he scraped it alight upon the floor and raised it with wavering fingers before his face. "I surrender!" he said quietly.

Laing started up in his chair like one surprised from a dream. "Eh!" he exclaimed. "What's that?"

"I surrender," repeated Jan. "The fight has gone out of me."

"Thank goodness!" cried Laing warmly. "Your stinking pride has ached me for weeks, and sometimes sent me fasting to bed. You know where your room is—it has been aired for you day by day, and you'll find a purse under your pillow. You'll stay with me of course."

"Until the next steamer leaves," replied Jan. "I'm sick to death of Ballina."

Laing arose, and thoughtfully surveyed him. "You'll think better of that," he declared. "It was the fish diet that spoke then—not you."

Jan shrugged his shoulders. "I hope you have beef for lunch."

"I'll see to it," replied Laing. "Also I'll send for a tailor—you cannot get out of those rags too soon."

"Facilis descensus Averni," quoted Digby. "You are strewing with rose-leaves the path to my destruction."

Laing smiled. He was a tall man of a sallow and saturnine countenance. His features were strongly marked, and his brow and cheeks were furrowed with deep lines of pain and weariness. He was dying slowly of an incurable wasting disease of the heart that had already reduced his frame to a condition of almost ghastly leanness.

Everything about him suggested threatening death, and his smile rather intensified than relieved his habitual gloom.

"Salvation, I hope," he retorted gently. "You have been worshipping a false god, my boy."

"A deaf one, at any rate," sighed Jan. "You could not guess how mean I feel, Alan."

"Let it relieve you, then, to know that you have given me a real happiness," said Laing, his sombre eyes aglow.

Digby frowned. "I'm not denying that," he answered with a certain grimness. "You are a good sort, Alan, and you would no doubt find pleasure in helping any lame dog along—but you must not imagine that every lame dog allows you to help him on that account. I came to you because I have discovered that I am not the man I thought I was—not by half."

"No man ever was," said Laing. "And the probabilities are you flatter yourself by your present estimate. But that does not matter a bit!"

"Oh! indeed! Doesn't it?"

"The chief thing and the good thing is that you have whipped your nasty stubborn snarling pride into its kennel. Take my advice, and put on it the chain before you let it out again."

"Now is your chance," growled Jan. "Kick me again—won't you?"

"With pleasure; what has become of the heel of your right shoe?"

Jan uttered something like a groan. "That was the last straw," he muttered. "After a disturbing interview with the old Major, which I wound up by insulting him, I was about to quit the place when I met—her——"

"Yes——" said Laing. "Yes!"

"I was feeling rocky—and seeing her did me no good. I suppose I must have kicked against a stone or something. Anyway, the d——d thing came off right under her very nose."

Laing began to laugh softly to himself. "What did Miss Marion say, or do?" he murmured.

"Nothing."

"She pretended not to have observed it, eh?"

"Naturally, sir; she is a lady!" growled Jan.

"And you?"

"I acted like a boor. Heaven knows what I said. I got away somehow. I don't suppose she will ever notice me again."

"I don't know," said Laing gravely. "The sort of woman you described to me last night would be pretty sure to make allowances. But you say that you insulted the Major. May I ask why?"

"My nerves are not what they used to be," replied Jan with a self-derisive smile. "The old chap badgered me with questions all more or less impertinent, and I lost my patience at last."

"That infernal fish diet," commented Laing. "I must see to it at once. Excuse me for a while, Jan."

Digby nodded, and Laing went into the house. Relighting his cigar, Jan crossed his knees and leaned back in his chair with a luxurious sigh. "I'm a failure," he observed reflectively, "a rank failure—and the worst of it is I'm too hungry to be properly ashamed of myself. I wonder what Alan would say if he knew that I had not tasted food for six and twenty hours."