Читать книгу The Men Who Wrought - Cullum Ridgwell - Страница 8

Ruxton Farlow's return home was even more preoccupied than had been his going. An entirely new sensation was stirring within him. Before, his thoughts had been flowing along the troubled channel of affairs, all of which bore solely upon the purpose of his life. Now their flow had been further confused by the addition of an emotion, which, under ordinary circumstances, might well have leavened the most gloomy forebodings. Instead, however, it was rather like an artist engaged on painting a picture of tragic significance who suddenly discovers that another hand has added some detail, which, while it is still a part of the subject portrayed, yet renders the whole a masterpiece of incongruity.

The coming of a woman into the affairs of his life seemed to him as incongruous as it was pleasant, and, in the circumstances, justified. It was an element all unconsidered before. His association with women until now had been the simple parrying of the feminine shafts levelled at him in the process of ordinary social intercourse in the position he occupied in life. He was by no means a man who took no delight in women's society. On the contrary. But his purpose in life had always been too big as yet to permit his dwelling upon those pleasures which no real manhood can ever ignore.

Women were to him part of the most exalted side of a man's life. His ideals in that direction were as wholly unworldly as his ideals were practical in every other direction. From his earliest youth, due to the death of his mother at his birth, he had never experienced a woman's influence upon his life, and thus he had been left to the riot of imagination, which, in very truth, had been his safeguarding against the operation of the matrimonial market of social London in the midst of which he had found himself plunged.

Now, under conditions wholly robbed of every convention, he had suddenly been confronted by a wonderful creature, who, to his vivid imagination, appealed as the most beautiful of all her beautiful sex. Furthermore the contact had been brought about through those very ideals and purposes to which he had devoted his life. And, moreover, the wonder of it all was that his purpose was apparently her purpose, and she had sought him because this was so. Herein lay the extraordinary incongruity of a sex attraction brought about by the threatened tragedy overshadowing them all.

Vita Vladimir!

It was a name such as he might have discovered anywhere amongst the foreign colony in Soho. His attraction towards the woman afforded no glamor to the name. None at all. He told himself frankly it did not fit her. Furthermore it left him unconvinced that it truly belonged to her. Yet she said she was a Pole. And somewhere in the back cells of memory there was a sort of hazy recollection that "Vladimir" had some connection with Polish history.

However, the question of her name left him cold. Only the vivid picture of her personality remained in his mind. Her charm, her ardor, her beauty, and that extraordinary suggestion of mystery, conveyed in her costume, and the evasion of the details of her coming and going—these things had caught the imagination and the youth in him, and acted upon them like champagne.

He strove to thrust aside these things and consider her only through the purpose on which she had sought him out. She knew, and had seen, the realities of the threat which he believed to be hanging over his country. She could, and would, show him these things.

Suddenly on the impulse of a reasonable incredulity he asked himself if he were dreaming. The whole thing must be a mere phantasm, the outcome of all the troubled thought which had occupied him for so long. But she had told him he would hear from her again, and then that tiny white-gloved hand. He felt its clasp now, as it had lain in his strong palm. No, it was no dream. She was real—and she was very, very beautiful.

By the time he reached the great colonnade which formed the entrance porch of his home the woman's personality had dominated all his endeavor to regard the incident from any other point of view. The woman had absorbed all that was in him, and a curious, deep, thrilling sensation of delight at the encounter had completely thrust into the background the purpose which had brought it about. All that which we in our consideration of the affairs of life are apt to despise, and even leave out of our reckoning altogether, had asserted itself. It was the sex instinct, which no power of human mentality can resist.

Ruxton had no wish to meet his father again that night. He wanted solitude. He wanted to think and dream, as all youth desires to think and dream, when the floodgates of sex are opened, and it finds itself caught in the first rush of its tide.

Glancing at his watch he discovered it to be close upon midnight. But the hour had no significance in his present mood. His father would have retired, and the library would be empty, so he passed up the oak stairway with the determination to smoke a final cigar, and let his thoughts riot over the delectable banquet the evening had provided for them.

But that particular pleasure was definitely denied him. When he entered the library the lights were still on, and he beheld his father's curly white head still bent over the table at which he was wont to attend to his private correspondence.

The old man looked up as the other walked down the long book-lined room towards him. His deep-set eyes were smiling as they were ever ready to smile upon the companion of his wifeless life.

"Finished your ramble?" he enquired pleasantly.

Ruxton returned the smile and flung himself upon a long old settle before he replied.

"The ramble is finished," he said, preparing to light a cigar.

Their eyes met. The father knew there remained something as yet unspoken behind the reply. He waited. But Ruxton's decision was not yet taken.

"Finished your letters yet?" he enquired from behind a cloud of smoke.

The bright blue eyes surveying him twinkled.

"One more," his father said.

"Go ahead then."

Sir Andrew knew by the tone that ultimately the unspoken word was to come. He glanced down at his papers with a sigh.

"I believe, after all, I shall have to break with some of my old-fashioned habits. It is an awful thing to contemplate at my time of life. I think I must be getting old. The burden of private correspondence begins to weigh. I have always held that a private secretary for such a purpose is waste of money, and the undesirable admission of another into one's private life."

Ruxton stretched out his long legs. His bulk almost completely filled the settle.

"It's hard work for Yorkshire to change its habit. A feature applying pretty generally to the Briton. I only wonder a man of your vast fortune has clung to such habits so long. I, who possess but a twentieth of the fortune you possess, find I cannot do without one."

"But then you are a political man," his father smiled drily.

Ruxton nodded. "And in consequence I am saved much heartburning."

"Yes." Sir Andrew gathered up a sheaf of sealed envelopes and flung them into his post basket. "Twenty-five letters. Answers to cranks. Answers to those philanthropists who love to do good with other folks' money. Answers to beggars, to would-be blackmailers, to public institutions whose chief asset is a carefully compiled list of likely subscribers, and then—those whom we have decided to encourage—the inventors. Here is our friend Charles Smith." He picked up the last letter remaining to be dealt with. "What am I going to say to him?"

The old man scratched one shaggy eyebrow with the point of his penholder—one of his signs of doubt and perplexity.

"This secrecy business adds importance to the reply," he added.

Ruxton held out his hand.

"Let's read it again," he said.

His father passed the letter across, and sat watching the concentrated brows of his son, while the latter re-perused the contents.

The watching man was about to turn back to his desk when his eyes abruptly widened questioningly. Ruxton had suddenly sat bolt upright, and a quick flush of suppressed excitement spread over his strong expressive features.

"Veevee, London!" he exclaimed. "A code address which is obviously a word made out of initial letters. V. V." Then he looked across at his startled parent. "I say, Dad, there's mystery here all right—mystery everywhere to-night. V. V. Those initials fit Vita Vladimir exactly."

"Precisely. Also Vivian Vansittart," smiled his father. "Or any other high-sounding names beginning with V."

Ruxton passed the letter back with a laugh. Then he flung himself back on the settle.

"Wait until I have told you what happened to me to-night. Then write to that man and give him a definite appointment at some time when you can devote several hours to him—if necessary."

Sir Andrew pushed his high-backed chair well away from the desk and helped himself to a cigar.

"This is one more than I have any right to to-night, Rux," he said, as he crossed his stout legs, "but go ahead."

Ruxton seemed in no hurry to begin his story. The truth was he felt reluctant to let any one share his secret. Furthermore he was doubtful, in the light of cold words, if that which he had to tell would carry the conviction which possessed him. It seemed impossible; and then the personality of Vita. No. But he felt that the story must be told, if only in justification of his demand for Mr. Charles Smith.

"Look here, Dad," he began at last. "I know you regard me as a bit of a dreamer, but on more than one occasion you have been pleased to say you consider my judgment pretty sound. Perhaps it is. I don't know. Maybe to-night I have been unduly affected by feelings which don't usually carry me away; but, even so, I think I have retained sufficient of our Yorkshire phlegm to get a right estimate of things, and the things which have happened to-night I am convinced are connected with the V. V. in that letter. I was on the cliffs, lying on the heather, looking out to sea, when a woman came along who had been endeavoring to hunt me out for three hours. She was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. She does not belong to Dorby, or the neighborhood. She was dressed to perfection, and was hatless, and her name was Vita Vladimir. I tell you these details because they are all significant, and I want you to understand that first."

"Go on," his father nodded.

"Go on?" Ruxton gave a short laugh. "It's easier to say than to do—adequately. Anyway this is the whole story."

Both men's cigars had been entirely consumed by the time Ruxton Farlow had finished his long recital. He told his story of his meeting with Vita Vladimir with all the simple force which was part of the Russian nature in him. And, in spite of his fears to the contrary, none of its dramatic significance was lost in the telling.

His father read in the story all his son wanted him to read. But he read deeper even than that, and the depth of his reading was a trespass upon the ground which Ruxton fondly believed he had kept to himself. The shrewd Yorkshire mind probed deep to the vivid impression this Vita Vladimir had made upon his only son, and as yet he was not sure that he shared the boy's enthusiasm. However, long years of understanding had convinced him of Ruxton's clarity of judgment in vital matters, and his earnest recital of the woman's warning and promises carried the conviction that, in spite of the boy's attraction, his judgment in this matter had remained unimpaired. He accepted the facts, but, to himself, deplored the means by which they had been conveyed.

"It is quite remarkable, boy, quite remarkable," was his only comment at the conclusion of the story. Then he held the man Smith's letter in his hand and glanced at the postscript.

But Ruxton was not satisfied with such comment. He was anxious that his hard-headed father should see eye to eye with him.

"But what do you think of it?" he demanded, with suppressed feeling.

The great ship-owner took some moments formulating his reply.

"One's impression from your telling is the honesty of the woman," he said deliberately at last. "There are three possibilities in the matter. First that she is honest. Second that she—belongs to our enemies. Third that she is a—crank. But the second and third I think can be dismissed. Why should our enemies make such an extraordinary proposal to you, or to anybody, short of a man important enough to be done away with? The suggestion of 'crank' is quite dispensable, in view of the significance of the story as it bears on all the possibilities of the future we have discussed. Accepting her honesty, I should say that the answer to this letter will be received by her for—transmission. Well?"

"Then answer that letter in the affirmative, and see this Charles Smith, Dad," cried Ruxton, rising and pacing the floor. "I am going to probe this matter to the bottom." Then he came to a halt before the desk, and gazed down into his father's serious eyes. "There is mystery abroad, Dad. There is more than mystery. There is something tangible. A great and threatening danger which must be nullified. We don't know what it is yet. We can only surmise, but surmise is futile. We must go and find out, as she said. We must learn these things first hand. I shall go."