Читать книгу The Collected Works of D. K. Broster - D. K. Broster - Страница 101

“A gentleman to see you, sir,” said the voice, not of Ewen’s landlady, Mrs. Wilson, but of the impish boy from the vintner’s shop below. And, coming nearer, he added confidentially, “He ain’t given no name, but he’s mighty fine—a lord, belike!”

“Where is he, then—show him in at once!” ordered Ewen, picturing Mr. Galbraith, the only person, save Hector, likely to call at this morning hour, left standing at the top of the stairs. And yet what should make the soberly attired Galbraith ‘mighty fine’ at this time of day?

But the impish boy’s diagnosis was exactly correct: the young gentleman who entered was fine—though not so fine as last night—and he was a lord. Ewen went forward amazed; despite the peaceful termination to last night’s encounter, Viscount Aveling was the last person he should have expected to walk into his humble apartment.

“I am not intruding, I hope, Mr. Cameron, visiting you thus early?” inquired the young man in the voice which was so like his dead brother’s. “I wished to make sure that you would keep your promise of waiting upon my father this afternoon, for he is genuinely anxious to afford you any assistance in his power. Yet I feared that you might be kept away by the memory of my . . . my exceedingly inhospitable behaviour last night.”

All the frank and boyish charm which had formed the essence of Ewen’s first impression of him was back—more than back.

“I assure you, my lord,” replied Ewen warmly, “that any memories of that sort were drowned in the glass of wine we took together. I shall most gratefully wait upon Lord Stowe at any hour convenient to him. But will you not be seated? It is exceedingly good of you to have come upon this errand.”

Lord Aveling laid down his tasselled cane upon the table, and lifting the full skirts of his murrey-coloured coat out of the way, complied.

“I do not think that Lord Stowe can promise much, Mr. Cameron,” he said, “and it may be that any step will take time. But I believe that strong feeling is being aroused by the sentence, which is a hopeful sign. My father was himself present when judgement was given, and was much impressed, as I was, by Doctor Cameron’s bearing.”

“Everyone seems to have been at the Court of King’s Bench but I,” said Ewen sadly.

“Yet surely,” objected the young man, “it would have been very painful for you, Mr. Cameron, to hear the details of that sentence, which sound so barbarous and cold-blooded when enumerated beforehand; and I must own that the Lord Chief Justice hurled them, as it were, at the unfortunate gentleman with what seemed more like animus on his part than a due judicial severity.”

“Yes, I have already been told that,” said Ewen. “Yet I should have seen my kinsman had I been present, even though I could not have had speech with him—that, I knew, would be too much to expect in the case of a State prisoner. It is I, alas,” he added with a sudden impulse towards confidence, “who am, in a measure at least, responsible for his capture.”

“My dear Mr. Cameron,” exclaimed young Aveling with vivacity, “considering how you . . . moved heaven and earth to warn him, and that you, if I guess rightly, were the man struck down defending him, how can you say that?”

“Because it was I who suggested our taking refuge in the fatal hut in which he was captured,” answered Ewen with a sigh. “I should like to hear him say that he forgives me for that: but I must be content with knowing in my heart that he does.”

Lord Aveling was looking grave. “You have touched, Mr. Cameron, on the other reason which brought me here. It seems to me that you are going openly about London without a thought of your own safety. But you must be a marked man if any note were made, at the time of Doctor Cameron’s capture, of your personal appearance—of your uncommon height, for instance. Have you taken any precautions against recognition?”

“What precautions could I take?” asked Ewen simply. “I can only hope that no such note was made. After all, I am of no importance to the Government, and, as it happened, I did not even touch a single soldier. My weapon broke—or rather, came to pieces.”

“I should call that fortunate,” observed his visitor with the same gravity.

“I suppose it was, since I must have been overpowered in the end; there were too many of them . . . I think I am singularly fortunate,” he added with the same simplicity. “Last night, for instance, Lord Aveling . . . I am still at a loss to know why you changed your mind, and did not carry out your threat, and showed besides so much generosity to me, and helped instead of hindering me with my request to Lord Stowe.”

The blood showed easily on Aveling’s almost girl-like complexion. He rose and resumed his cane, saying meanwhile, “If you do not guess why you turned my purpose—but no, why should you? ’twould be out of keeping—I’ll tell you some day.” And here he hesitated, half-turned, turned back again, then, fingering with deep interest the tassels of his cane, said in a lower tone: “You have a secret of mine, Mr. Cameron. I hope I can rely upon you . . . to preserve it as such?”

“A secret of yours, my lord?” exclaimed Ewen in surprise. Then a flush spread over his face also, and he became more embarrassed than his visitor. “You mean—that letter! Lord Aveling, if I were to spend the rest of my life apologising——”

“I do not desire you to do that, sir,” interrupted the young lover, now poking with his cane at one of Mrs. Wilson’s chairs, to the considerable detriment of its worn covering. “We have closed that chapter. Nevertheless——” He stopped.

“Then at least believe me,” put in Ewen earnestly, “that anything I may have had the misfortune to read is as though I had never seen it!”

The young man ceased stabbing the chair. “I thank you, Mr. Cameron, and I have no hesitation in relying upon that assurance. Nevertheless, since you are shortly to wait upon my father, it is well that you should know that, though the lady has consented to my unworthy suit, my parents, that is to say, my mother . . .” Again he stopped.

Ewen bowed. “You honour me with your confidence, my lord.” (And indeed, as he felt, the way in which he had earned it was sufficiently singular.)

“My mother,” went on Lord Aveling after a second or two, “has, I know, other views for me. I doubt if she suspects this attachment; but of my father’s suspicions I am not so sure; yet he may very well give his consent to the match. And as for me—” here he threw back his head and looked Ewen, if not in the face, yet very nearly, “as for me, my heart is immutably fixed, though at present I find it more politic to say nothing as yet of pledges which I am firmly resolved never to relinquish until they are exchanged for more solemn vows at the altar!”

Ewen bowed again, rather touched at this lofty declaration, which promised well for the happiness of Miss Georgina Churchill. “There is no conceivable reason, my lord, why any member of your family should suppose me aware of this attachment.”

“No, that is true,” said his visitor; “and you must forgive me for troubling you at such a time with my affairs. And now, if you will excuse me, I will take my leave. Do not fail to wait upon my father, Mr. Cameron; and if you should get into trouble with the authorities over your doings in that glen whose name I still cannot remember,” he added with a half-shy, half-mocking smile, “send for your humble servant!” And he bowed himself out of the door; the room was the darker for his going.

When Ewen had recovered from the surprise of this visit he went out in search of Hector, who was sufficiently amazed at the tale of his brother-in-law’s doings on the previous night. “But the fact remains,” was his summing up, “that you have made an exceedingly useful friend in the Earl of Stowe, not to speak of the young lord.”

“And your own investigations as to the source of that slander, Hector, how are they going?”

Hector frowned. “Not at all. And ’tis a ticklish matter to investigate—to ask men, for instance, if they have suspicions of you?”

“That I can well believe. Promise me that you will do nothing rash; that you will take no serious step without consulting me. Don’t, for God’s sake, get involved in a dispute just now, Hector! You must forgive me for lecturing you, but you know that you have a hot temper!”

“Yes,” agreed Hector Grant with surprising meekness, “I know that I have. And you know it too, Ewen—none better. I will be careful.”

On Ewen’s return to Half Moon Street, Mrs. Wilson was prompt to call his attention to an elegant coroneted note lying on his table.

“A blackamoor boy brought it soon after you was gone out, sir—one of them the quality has.”

The note was from the Countess of Stowe, Stowe House seeming to favour the vintner’s abode to-day.

‘Dear Mr. Cameron’ ran the delicate writing, ‘I understand that you will be having an interview with Lord Stowe this afternoon. Pray do not depart without giving me the pleasure of your company. My son has told me something of you which makes me greatly desire to see you as soon as possible. Be good enough, ere you depart, to ask to be conducted to my boudoir.’

How strange it was, how strange! He might have been going to meet Keith in that boudoir, instead of telling his mother about the circumstances of their friendship and his death. For that, of course, was why Lady Stowe wished to have speech with him.