Читать книгу Tracked to Doom - James Edward Muddock - Страница 6

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MR. IVAN PETER GLINDON was a general merchant in the City of London, his place of business being situated in Leadenhall Street. His principal transactions were with Russia, but he had connections with nearly all the civilised parts of the globe. He was reputed to be "as wealthy as Croesus," and men envied him, while his charming daughter had been sought by all sorts and conditions of fortune-hunters. But no one had found favour in her sight, or had been countenanced by him, save Raymond Penoyre.

Mr. Glindon had been born in Russia, though of English parents. His mother and father had gone to that country immediately after their marriage, his paternal grandfather having been in the Russian trade. Of that marriage three children were born. One died in infancy; the other two, Peter and his sister, lived. The parents were not particularly fortunate in their transactions. The father died at a comparatively early age, and his wife did not long survive him. The daughter married a man who was in the Russian Government service, and she went with her husband to Siberia, where he had an official appointment, and there she passed many years of her life.

During her absence Peter married, but Mrs. Romanoff never saw her sister-in-law, who was killed by an accident while travelling in the Ural Mountains. She knew there was a great deal of mystery in connection with that marriage, but her brother would tell her nothing. He was a young man, and though he had a flourishing business, he sold it almost immediately after his wife's death and proceeded to London, where he established himself, and soon began to prosper.

Some years later he married a second time, his wife being an English lady of good family. The only issue of the marriage was Muriel, who had but a very faint recollection of her mother, who died when the child was scarcely seven.

When Mrs. Romanoff became a widow, she, at her brother's request, took up her residence with him at the time he bought The Priory at Richmond, and she had since been a mother to the girl and the keeper of his house.

Mr. Glindon was a tall, gentlemanly man, on the wrong side of sixty. His hair was silvery white, and silvery whiskers fringed his oval face, which might have served an artist as a model for brooding grief. A dark melancholy seemed to have settled there, and seldom, if ever, did a smile light up the darkness.

In the City his name was one to conjure with; for no one would have dared to breathe a syllable against his integrity, while his commercial astuteness had placed him in the very front rank of business men. Honoured and respected; with, as it seemed, almost boundless wealth at his disposal; with a daughter who was the joy of his heart, and whose warm affection for him displayed itself in a thousand ways, he ought to have been, inferentially, one of the happiest of men. For he was full of generous impulses, had a heart that melted to charity, and he gave with a liberal hand; and yet he seemed a prey to some dark, brooding sorrow, that made his life all but unbearable.

Troops of friends he had, but he all but shunned them; and such enjoyment as he was capable of experiencing he found in solitude in his beautiful home at Richmond.

Both his sister and his daughter had tried to lift him from the gloom into which he seemed for ever wrapped, but their efforts had been fruitless. They had filled his house with all that art and refined taste could suggest, and though he expressed his gratitude, he displayed no interest. He loved to ramble about the grounds alone, or to shut himself up in his small but well- stocked library.

Whatever the cause of his grief was—and that there was a cause was obvious—he kept his secret well. He was a mystery even to those who watched his coming with joy and sighed when he departed. To his beautiful daughter he was passionately attached. Her word was law in the house; her wishes were granted almost before they were expressed. In regard to those affairs that are supposed to lie nearest a woman's heart he had allowed her a free hand. He had said to her years before, when she had just touched the verge of womanhood—

"Muriel, you are beautiful, and probably will be rich; therefore suitors will seek you eagerly. But I, as your truest and best friend, ask you not to let your heart go out to any man until I know him."

To this request she had been unswervingly loyal; but up to the time of meeting Raymond Penoyre, she had, as it seemed, steeled her heart against all comers.

She first saw Raymond at a picnic to which she had been invited by some friends. He had, as many others had done, sought her acquaintance, and became a guest at her father's house. Mr. Glindon took kindly to him. He did not hesitate to say he admired his frankness, his manliness, his freedom from the cant and frivolity which seem so characteristic of the modern young man. And so between Raymond and Muriel love had grown, and Mr. Glindon had said no word that was calculated either to encourage or check it.

Raymond Penoyre's wooing, however, had not found favour with his own family. They were people who boasted of an aristocratic descent. His father, Sir Ralph Penoyre, had been for over thirty years in the Consular Service, and had spent most of his life abroad, but had retired in broken health, with little more than his pension to live on, and with his family had settled down in Windsor. Raymond, who was the youngest of four sons, one of whom was in the navy and the other two in the army, had been educated for the Civil Service, but up to the time that we meet him he was still waiting for "a good appointment."

He had, however, distinguished himself as an artist—for he had a passion for art—and some of his pictures had already attracted attention. But while his father preached to him the necessity of "marrying money," seeing that he would inherit nothing but "an honoured name," he gave him to understand that he would countenance no one who could not boast of "good lineage." His parents did not regard Muriel Glindon as coming within this category; and though they did not exactly snub her, they treated her with such studied reserve on two or three occasions when she had visited them at her lover's request, that it had made her very unhappy.

But Raymond had told them that if he could win Muriel he should do so, and make her his wife; and his mother had been kind enough to say that, as the young lady was an heiress, they might in time be able to overlook the painful fact that she represented a family of traders. This annoyed Raymond, but as he was very fond of his mother, he allowed the unkind remark to pass without comment.

Some few days before we meet the young couple at The Priory, Raymond had asked Muriel if she would be his wife. Her answer was, "Yes, dear, subject to my father's approval." So it had been arranged between Muriel and Mrs. Romanoff that he was to come to The Priory on this particular day, and that evening after dinner he was to put the all-important question to Mr. Glindon. Muriel had not the slightest doubt as to what the answer would be. She knew that her father liked Penoyre, and that, if it was her wish to marry him, that wish would not be opposed.

Mr. Glindon nearly always came down from the City by the five o'clock train when he went to his business, which was about four days a week, and he dined at seven. If there was company, which was often the case, except the people were old and familiar friends, he took his dinner alone, and afterwards he would shut himself up in his library. Those who were comparative strangers to him called this eccentricity; some even went so far as to say it was boorishness. But his sister and daughter knew it was neither the one nor the other.

It was due to the fact that he could take no part in the merriment and enjoyment of his guests, and rather than be a drag upon them in any way he preferred the solitude of his room. His hospitality was unbounded, but he left the dispensing of it to Muriel and Mrs. Romanoff.

On this eventful evening Mrs. Romanoff had taken care that there should be no other guest present but Raymond. Mr. Glindon was used to him, and Penoyre never tried to draw his host out, as the saying is, and refrained from talking to him when he saw that he wished to be silent. Mr. Glindon generally asked if there was any one to dinner, and did so on this evening.

When he was informed that there was no one but Raymond, he said he would join the family party. When his daughter welcomed him as was her wont, she thought that he seemed unusually depressed, and anxiously asked him if he was not well.

"As well as usual, my dear," he answered, "but a little fagged. It's been sultry and oppressive in the City to-day; perhaps that has something to do with it. I ought to have telegraphed to you to send John up to the station with the gig, but really I didn't think of it."

Although The Priory was nearly three-quarters of a mile from the station, he preferred to walk in fine weather. He said that the walk did him good after being "stewed up in London all day." In bad weather the coachman met him either with the brougham or the dog-cart.

He greeted Penoyre cordially when he went down to the dining- room, and inquired how long he had been there.

"I was here in time for luncheon," answered Raymond.

"Ah, you've been amusing yourself since then to your heart's content, I suppose?"

"Well, sir, I've spent a happy and delightful afternoon."

Mr. Glindon sighed, and a look of pain swept across his face, as though the remark had revived in his brain some memory of the long ago, when he knew what happiness and delight meant. But he made no reply, and Raymond continued—

"And—and I want to have a few words with you after dinner, if you will kindly give me the opportunity of doing so."

Again Mr. Glindon seemed to be troubled and pained, but he answered in a quick, nervous way—

"Very well—very well; I'll see."

During the dinner the master of the house appeared to be strangely depressed and preoccupied, and he took his food in a mechanical way, as if he derived no pleasure from it, and was hardly conscious of what he was doing.

Muriel could not be blind to this, and was much concerned; and when she got the opportunity she said to her lover—

"Raymond, don't say anything to papa to-night. He is not well, and I am quite anxious about him."

Of course Raymond readily assented to this; but when the dinner had ended he was left without any option in the matter, as Mr. Glindon requested him to join him in the library, and the young man complied with the request. As Glindon sank into a capacious and softly cushioned chair, he leaned back, put his hand to his forehead, covered his eyes, and said—

"Now, Raymond, what is it you have to say?"

"I will be brief," was the answer, "for it is an occasion when, I think, the fewer words the better. It is of Muriel and myself I wish to speak. She is essential to my happiness, and she tells me that I am essential to hers. We love each other, and I want your consent to her becoming my wife."

"Have you spoken to her on the subject?" asked Mr. Glindon, with a sigh.

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Glindon rose from his chair. He seemed to be weak and suffering. He rang the bell, and when the servant came, he told her to send Miss Muriel to him.

"Muriel, my darling," he said when his daughter entered the room, "Raymond tells me he has asked you to be his wife."

"Yes, papa."

"God knows," Glindon continued, with moving pathos, "I have your happiness at heart, and would make many sacrifices, even that of my life, to ensure you an unclouded future. But I have something to say to you both—something that will astound you—something that almost chokes me as I try to utter it."

He put his hand to his throat, as if he literally felt some sensation of choking. His voice was husky; his eyes bleared with the tears that had gathered there. He was standing by the chair with his left hand resting on the back of it, and paused in his speech as if his breath had failed him.

Naturally both Muriel and Raymond were alarmed and distressed, and suddenly, with a cry of anguish, Muriel sprang forward and threw her arms about her father, over whose face a deadly paleness had spread, while he seemed to become faint and to stagger as if he were about to fall.