Читать книгу A Broken Memory - Fred M. White - Страница 5

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It was not in Gladys' nature to lie down beneath a blow such as this. It had been bad enough to realise that Wilfred was dead, but to find that, for the second time, he had been unable to resist temptation hurt Gladys perhaps more than the knowledge of his death. In a queer, inconsequent way, the mere fact that Wilfred was no longer alive was a sort of relief. He might have gone on for years causing her grief and anxiety, and, what was just as bad, probably coming to her at short intervals for pecuniary assistance.

But she had hoped, at any rate, that the lesson he had learnt in London would have been a permanent one. Yet, here he was, at the expiration of a further two years, once more involved in disgrace and degradation. Still, he was dead now and, with all his faults, Gladys mourned him sincerely.

She had forgotten all about the man and his selfish pleasures—she only recollected the bright, happy boy he used to be and how she had shared in his youthful triumphs, because Wilfred had always been a good sportsman and, both at school and afterwards, had shone where athletic pursuits were concerned. But now that was all over, there was nothing but a bitter-sweet memory left and the knowledge that time would heal the wound.

All the same, Gladys would have given a good deal for a real friend. She had always been fairly independent since her parents had died when she was very young, and she and Wilfred had been left to the casual care of relatives and guardians. She had seen something of her relatives at intervals during the time she was in London, but after the disgraceful affair in Billiter Street, she had been inclined to shun her own flesh and blood. So far as she knew none of these had the least idea of why Wilfred had left the employ of his London firm and gone but to South Africa. One or two of them had expostulated with her when she had turned her back on the metropolis and elected to bury herself in what her smart relations called the dismal country. But she had done so and, from that moment, had led her own life. She knew the doctor's wife and the vicar and, on one or two occasions, had dined at their houses. But for the most part, she had kept very much to herself, with an occasional week-end on some distant golf links, or a flying visit to town to see some play, the account of which had interested her.

And here she was now, at a crisis of her life, practically alone in the world. Her first impulse had been to sell or otherwise dispose of the cottage and go out to South Africa to make inquiries. For a brief moment, she had entertained the wild idea of trying to find her brother's grave.

But that, she realised, was out of the question. Still, she would have liked to confront the two men who seemed to be entirely responsible for Wilfred's death and denounce them to their faces. It had been so unlike the unfortunate Wilfred to pick out the last men in the world as his intimates. No doubt these two scoundrels had made use of him and then, when the crisis came, turned their backs upon him without the slightest compunction. There was that man, Patrick French, for instance. Wilfred had spoken of him in his letters as if he were a sort of Admiral Crichton, a being sans peur et sans reproche. A gentleman of birth and fortune who would have scorned to do anything that suggested meanness or cowardice. A man who had dared to admire her photograph and pretend that he saw in it the ideal for whom he had been looking all through his manhood! The angry tears came into Gladys' eyes as she thought of it. And this was the man to whom Wilfred had offered his friendship!

Of the other individual she knew nothing, but she could imagine the class of man he was. A strolling actor, a bragging boasting liar, who lived like a parasite upon his acquaintances. Gladys dismissed him from her mind without another thought. She was never likely to meet him face to face, but perhaps, some day, she might meet this Patrick French and expose him for the coward and false friend that he was.

At any rate, she could make inquiries. If he belonged, as he had said, to a good English family, and if he was in the possession of means of his own, it would not be a difficult matter to look up his record; but that would have to remain for the moment and, in the meantime, she would have to wait as patiently as she could for further details. They would come to her, no doubt, in the course of time, through the medium of the same South African paper when the story of the excursion into Upper Rhodesia came to be concluded.

So Gladys hugged her grief to herself, saying nothing even to the faithful Martha as to the ugly side of the tragedy. Wilfred was dead, and there was an end of it. No occasion to let the faithful old serving maid know that he had died under the shadow of a double disgrace.

It was three weeks before the post brought further news from the Cape. There was the copy of the South African Banner which, strangely enough, contained nothing more of the adventure story but with it arrived two letters, both addressed in unfamiliar handwriting to Miss Gladys Brooke at Heatherthatch Cottage, near Marwich. Gladys turned them over in her hand, wondering who her strange correspondents could be. She broke the seal of one and began to read.

The heading was an address in Elizabeth st., Cape Town, and the signature at the end was that of one, Gerald Lewis. The name was utterly unfamiliar to Gladys, so that she turned wonderingly back to the opening lines.

"Dear Miss Brooke (it began)

"I dare say you will wonder why you are hearing like this from a total stranger and why I am addressing you so familiarly. But, the fact is, I was very friendly with your late brother and I conclude that you already know of his death, because it has already been recorded for some weeks in the South African Banner, which paper I have every reason to know is regularly sent you from the publisher's office.

"Now, I have been on extremely intimate terms with your brother ever since he came out here. He worked in one bank and I in another. We met in the ordinary course of business and, both being Englishmen, and knowing very few people in this part of the World, naturally chummed up together. As we were equally fond of sport and had learnt our games in the same public school, you can see that this was another bond between us.

"I should have written to you two or three weeks ago only, unfortunately I met with a rather serious accident which rendered such a course impossible and I am taking this very first opportunity, of placing before you certain incidents in your brother's life which I hope, will place him and his memory in a more favourable aspect in your mind. Because I am more or less the cause of all the trouble.

"I am taking it for granted, of course, that you have already learnt the exact circumstances in which Wilfred left the bank where he was employed. He was dismissed and, but for one or two little things that I shall allude to presently, would undoubtedly have suffered for what some people would regard as his criminal folly. But it was not as bad as that. There were circumstances that show Wilfred to be not only a good friend, but also one who never meant to do wrong.

"And now I come to what I really have to say. As I have told you, your late brother and myself were great friends and very fond of sport. If we had only left racing alone, nothing would have happened. And we should never have touched that if had it not been for a poisonous scoundrel called Walter Bland. At one time he was a gentleman, I believe—at least by birth. To-day he is a dissipated, drunken actor—a brilliant type of man who might have been anything if he had only kept straight. Just the sort of man to make a deep impression upon young fools like ourselves. He has been all over South Africa, and was full of stories about hidden wealth, especially in Upper Rhodesia, where he always boasted that he could put his hand upon unlimited treasure if he only had a little money, and one or two resolute men behind him. Of course, we believed this story, more or less, because Bland has a very convincing way of telling a narrative, and, more than that, he showed us a sort of rough map by means of which the scene of the treasure could be reached. We were rather impressed by that, and so was another man we knew. This is a chap called Patrick French, a rich young Englishman who had come out to South Africa solely in search of adventure. But I dare say you know all about him, because I am quite sure that your brother mentioned him in his letters home.

"And here I am, wandering again. That man, Bland, got me into a terrible mess in connection with a horse and a game of cards. Your brother was more or less in it, too, but I was the loser in that swindle, and when we came to balance up accounts, I found myself owing Bland over a hundred pounds. Of course, the whole thing was a bare faced swindle, but I could not prove it and so I was forced to pay.

"Now, at that time, I had not a hundred shillings in the world. I told your brother all about it and, to my great surprise he offered to lend me the money. This rather staggered me, because I knew that a week before he was as hard up as myself. Then he told me that his bank had been floating a new issue of mining shares and that he had contrived to buy a block of these himself, feeling sure that they would go up. Well, they did go up and he cleared over a hundred pounds. He hadn't actually got it, because he was working the commission through a local broker, but it was as good as in his pocket. The broker was a reliable man so that I felt quite safe. The next day Wilfred came to me and gave me a handful of notes which I duly passed over to Bland, and there I thought the matter ended."