Читать книгу The Golden Rose - Fred M. White - Страница 7

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In spite of himself Lethbridge hesitated. He cared little or nothing for his uncle's fears or effusions, but was anxious to rehabilitate himself in the girl's eyes. And, besides, it was his duty to do all he could to prevent a recurrence of the recent outrage.

"Is there anybody I can send for?" he asked. "Can I go for assistance? Miss Grover was speaking of Inspector Wilkinson, who is a friend of yours. Would you let me inform him what has taken place?"

"No, no," the old man said eagerly. "At any rate, not yet. Give me an opportunity to recover myself. A month ago it would not have mattered; a few weeks hence all the thieves in England may come here so far as I care, but not now, not now."

As Jasper Payne spoke he turned his head towards a corner of the greenhouse screened off from the rest by a thin canvas petition. He had something there which he desired to keep secret. Then he turned swiftly round towards his niece and bade her see after his supper.

"I did not expect this," he said after Mary had gone. "I hoped that I might never see you again."

"I assure you the feeling is mutual," Lethbridge said bitterly. "Had I thought it worth while I could have easily proved to you that I was no thief. But I was too proud for that; I was too proud to stay under your roof when you intimated to me that you were mistaken in my character. I can see now how cruelly you wronged me. You had no right to bring me up in expectation of a fortune. You had no right to turn me on the world almost as helpless as a child and with nothing but my good health behind me. And all the while there never had been any fortune. It was wrong of you to act like a rich man when you were nearly as poor as myself."

"Oh, I had money then," Jasper Payn said moodily. "I was rich enough when you left me, but it is all gone now, all gone. For years I have been pursuing a will o' the wisp and have frittered thousands away upon a shadow. But it is coming back to me in my old age. I shall be able to provide for my niece yet. I am foolish to tell you these things. I never meant to trust anybody."

"As you will," Lethbridge said coldly. "Please understand that this interview is none of my seeking. I must in time have found out that you were here, but I should never have come near the place. Still, Fate has been too strong for me, and I am here against my will. Let me go and fetch Wilkinson."

Jasper Payn held out a feeble restraining hand.

"Not yet," he said unsteadily, "not yet. Don't be so impulsive. Perhaps I was wrong to condemn you without a hearing. But all my life I have been surrounded with enemies. People have conspired to rob me. Why can't they leave me alone? I have no money to give them. And yet when I invent a new flower they cheat me of all the fruits of my labour. And they are so wicked and mischievous, too. Look there, do you see what that is? I killed four of them only yesterday. Yet they cannot get in here without human agency."

Lethbridge thought the old man had taken leave of his senses. Payn pointed with trembling hand to the whitewashed roof of the greenhouse, much as a man might do who is suffering all the horrible delusions of delirium tremens. But surely enough two or three dark specks were crawling on the frosted panes, and Lethbridge saw what they were.

"I'll kill them for you," he said soothingly. "You find the bees as great a nuisance as I do. A little time ago they spoilt a whole set of seedlings which were coming into bloom."

The intruding bees were killed and Jasper Payn grew easier in mind.

"They didn't come themselves," he muttered. "Some rascal brought them here. They are the plague of my life. If they once get behind that canvas screen the work of three years will be undone. Don't you want to know what it is?"

"No," Lethbridge said, "I don't. I am in no mood to share your confidences. It would be better if you kept your secrets to yourself."

The old man was not offended. He smiled and chuckled to himself. A shade of cunning crept into his eyes.

"Ah, that is because you don't know," he said in a croaking voice. "Have you forgotten the one matter we used always to talk about in the smoking-room late at night over our cigars? In the days of the astrologers, dreamers turned their thoughts to perpetual motion, or the Philosopher's Stone which was going to change everything into gold. Ay, and we had our Philosopher's Stone, too, though ours was going to come to a blaze of glory and startle the world by its beauty and fragrance. We were going to make a fortune out of that. Surely you have not forgotten our visions!"

"I remember," Lethbridge said indifferently. "The Golden Rose. It was the flower of the poets, the flower which the old travellers used to talk about who visited the Vale of Kashmir. The whole thing was a fairy tale, but it was none the less fascinating for that. The flower was to be a single rose of the colour of gold, with calyx and stamen of the darkest purple. There were bars of pink on the petals, and the whole was frilled with white and blue like some gorgeous butterfly. In addition, it was to be perfumed with such a scent as the world had never known before."

The old man's eyes were gleaming and his slender frame was shaking from head to foot. His whole gaze was concentrated upon the canvas screen in the corner. He broke out into quavering speech.

"Yes, yes," he cried. "You have put it very well indeed. And after you left me and I was alone, I dreamt and dreamt about that flower till I could think of nothing else. I read all those musty books again and again; I experimented day and night. I even went to the expense of importing new stocks from Persia and the Himalayan Hills. Heaven knows how much I spent upon it, but one day I found that my fortune was exhausted, and that my future depended upon the success of my efforts. You don't believe that the thing is impossible, do you?"

A peculiar smile trembled upon Lethbridge's lips.

"No, I don't," he replied. "Although I should have said so a year ago. But I beg your pardon. I am interrupting you."

"What was I saying?" the old man asked vaguely. "Oh, yes, I remember, I was telling you of my experiments with the Golden Rose. I owe something to my niece. She had come to keep house for me. She had come to put up with the whims and vagaries of an old man. For my sake she had made great sacrifices, and, knowing all the time that I could do nothing for her, I allowed her to come. She came into my house under false pretences. The matter was on my conscience. There was nothing for it, nothing I could do for her, unless I could discover the secret of the Golden Rose."

"The Philosopher's Stone," Lethbridge smiled.

"The Philosopher's Stone," the old man exclaimed, "and why not? Everything is possible to the man of science to-day. Most things are possible to the modern horticulturist. And then some months ago it came to me suddenly that I was on the wrong track altogether. It was a wrench, but I destroyed nearly all my precious plants and started afresh. John, can you guess what I have behind yonder screen? Can't you imagine why my enemies release their bees in here?"

John Lethbridge imagined that the speaker was dreaming dreams, that he was speaking out of the fullness of a diseased mind.

"You don't mean to say," he began, "that—"

"Yes, I do," Jasper Peyn replied. His voice rose to a screech. He shook and trembled. "I have found it. Behind that screen, in all its beauty and perfection, is the Golden Rose."