Читать книгу The 'Piping Times' - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 11

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“TOM,” said Tim, “I’ll trouble you for the mustard.”

“Tim,” answered Tom, “behold it! And I will now trouble you for another slice of this very excellent cold beef.”

“Roast beef,” said Tim, busied with carving knife, “is according to song, the foundation of Old England’s Constitution!”

“Pre-cisely!” quoth Tom. “The yeomen and bowmen and what not. Try some of this salad.”

“Thanks, I will.” Here for some while they plied knives and forks to the enjoyment of such noble fare as might only be found in England—and in those truly happy, halcyon days. Said Tom, at last:

“Referring to your fistic accomplishment, Tim, I, as you know, was thought pretty good at Cambridge, it was about the only thing I shone at, so you must be pretty well a past-master at the game.”

“I was, Tom. I had to be, or starve.”

“Eh ... starve ... you?” Tom gasped.

“Oh yes. Some day I’ll tell you the story.”

“Now!” Tom demanded. “Tell me now.”

“Well, old fellow, I’m just a natural born fighter. The only time I ever came near being beaten was by your father, at Oxford.”

“Oxford ... my father ... you mean ... actually ... that my Superb Sire could ... use ’em?”

“Tom, your father was an all-round athlete, for besides fighting to the semi-finals, he ‘stroked’ Oxford to victory, as, of course, you must be aware.”

“Am-azing!” exclaimed Tom. “God bless my soul! And you and the Governor were friends, and at Oxford together, Tim?”

“Yes, until financial ruin overwhelmed and killed my father—I had no mother. So then, as ‘The Thunderbolt’ I boxed and fought for my living, and did very well.”

“ ‘The Thunderbolt’—you!” sighed Tom. “No wonder you grassed me! But ‘The Thunderbolt’ vanished, and why, Tim, why?”

“Because I fell ill, fought when I shouldn’t and, of course, was beaten. So there was the end of my fighting career, and I went down hill fast. I should probably have died but ... your father ... my old friend ... hunted, and had me sought for until, though I had changed my name again, he found me in time, and ... well ... we have been together ever since. So, briefly, there’s my story, Tom.”

“But when you changed your name—why on earth—‘Timkins’?”

“Because I happened to see it over a shop window, and thought it peculiarly suited to my circumstances—genteel poverty halting on the brink of starvation.”

“Tim,” said Tom, rolling a bread pellet with extreme care, “I gather the Immediate Ancestor is not such an inhuman old stick after all.”

“You will know him better some day, old fellow.”

“There is something,” said Tom, flattening his pellet very tenderly, “something that I wish to learn now,—something that has puzzled and ... troubled me all my life, something you can tell me—if you will.” And after a moment’s hesitation, Tim answered:

“I shall be glad to do so ... if I can.”

“Well then, Tim, my dear chap, having been so intimately connected with my father, you must have known ... my mother.”

“Yes, Tom.”

“Then here’s what so greatly puzzled and troubled my young intelligence: Other boys had mothers alive or dead,—I had neither. Other boys had pictures or photographs of their mothers. I saw none of mine. In all my father’s great houses and what not in town and country, there was no painting of her, no portrait, no, not even a photograph. At first, of course, I thought she must be dead and, being dead, buried. So, Tim, on a certain school holiday I visited our ancestral tomb, that great, ghastly mausoleum where every Wade-Orrington is buried, soon or late, and tried to find my mother’s name: Janice Vivienne, somewhere in the long list of dead and gone Wade-Orringtons, but quite vainly. So then I sought enlightenment of my tutor, my old nurse, the servants—gardeners, grooms and so forth, with the same result, until at last I even ventured to enquire of my august, aloof and awful father, who was more of a stranger to his small son than any of his host of servants. Well, I questioned my noble sire ... and Tim ... there was an experience I shall never forget!” Tom paused to form his pellet into a ball again and began to roll it to and fro on the tablecloth as he continued:

“First he glittered at me frightfully with his monocle until I could hardly bear to look at him, then he scowled in quite dreadful manner, though not at me, for when he spoke, his voice was quite gentle. And he said this: ‘Justin, because you are my son, you have, instead of a mother, a great and noble heritage, try to live worthily. Remember you are not like ordinary boys with mothers, you are my son.’ Then he set an arm about me, and I was so afraid he was going to kiss me that I squirmed and shrank away. Tim, I thought he was going to strike me, but instead, he let fall his monocle, and, drawing me near, made me look at him, eye to eye. ‘Justin,’ said he, ‘as you are a great gentleman you will now pledge me your honour never to mention’—here he paused and I thought he was going to utter my mother’s name. But I was wrong again, for all he said was: ‘never mention this matter again to anyone—on your word of honour,—promise me!’ So of course I did. Then he patted my shoulder, quite kindly, gave me a sovereign, and bade me leave him, which I did hastily and very gladly.” Here Tom flicked his bread pellet at the tall grandfather clock ticking solemnly in dim corner, and leaning back in his chair, glanced at his hearer, to see his nearly-handsome face had become stern again and troubled.

“Well, Tim,” he questioned, wondering at this change, “what have you to tell me?”

“Nothing, Tom.”

“Are we to be true friends, Tim?”

“Indeed I hope so.”

“Then treat me as a friend worthy of all confidence, and explain to me this dark mystery concerning the mother I never knew,—remember I am her son!”

“I can never forget it, Tom.” The speaker’s voice now was low and troubled as his look.

“Well then, speak, man! Tell this son of hers the truth concerning her, no matter what,—tell me!”

“Not I, Tom. Only your father can speak of this.”

“And he never will!” cried Tom, rather wildly. “Always and ever this same cursed mystery, this damnable silence! I don’t even know if she is living or dead! If dead—where have they hidden her poor body? If alive,—where, in God’s name, is she? Why was I left such a desperately lonely urchin ... never to feel her kiss, the gentle touch of her motherly hand? Why is my father such a solitary creature, shut up from me and everything in his cold pride,—why, Tim, why? I ask you again,—if my mother is dead, where have they buried her, if she is alive where is she? Why should she have vanished so completely all these years? Why must she hide? And if she is hiding ... what must I think of her?”

“The best, Tom, ever and always—the best!”

Tom would have retorted, but at that instant the aged grandfather clock began to wheeze rather like a very old gentleman, and thereafter emitted a feeble chime.

“Three o’clock!” said Tim, brushing crumbs from his trim person as he rose. “We must be off if you wish to reach Horsham before dark.”

“What matter?” demanded gloomy Tom.

“Oh, none whatever, except that Horsham is on our way, and the old ‘King’s Head’ a comfortable inn.”

Thus presently, their score paid, they took the road again. Tom once more a silent fellow whose unwonted irritability was nowise lessened when, in traversing busy High Street, he was saluted by divers rude urchins and errand boys with the then prevalent outcries:

“Where did ya git that ’at?”

“Does your mother know you’re out?”

“Yah—git y’r ’air cut!”

“Ooh, I say, chase me Charlie!”

Wisely ignoring this annoyance, Tom merely lengthened his stride until, the town and his hooting tormentors being left behind, he relapsed to leisured amble, sighed and enquired, plaintively:

“Why must those young fiends hoot at me, do you suppose? Am I so remarkable, Tim, this phiz of mine?”

“No, I think it must be your whanghee cane and your spats, those Highland gaiters!”

“Ha!” sighed Tom, halting to glance down at the articles in question. “Now you mention ’em I suppose they are a trifle conspicuous, so—let’s be rid of ’em!” And over adjacent hedge went jaunty cane, quickly followed by his long, pearl-buttoned gaiters.

“So!” quoth he, “first thing I’ll buy a proper walking-stick. And, Tim, pray remember that with these conspicuosities I shed the Orrington part of me also, and stand before you and the world as plain Tom Wade, with accent upon the ‘plain’. Now, Tim, old hearty, best leg foremost, for an idea seizes me.”

“What now?”

“I seem to remember that Orrington village lies somewhere hereabout.”

“Two or three miles, Tom, bearing left at the next cross-roads.”

“Ah yes, you know it, of course,—and The Aunts?”

“Your father’s twin sisters? Well, naturally, I am sometimes at Orrington Manor on business.”

“Well, Tim, I haven’t been there since leaving Cambridge, so to-night we stay with The Aunts, God bless them! They were the two bright angels of my lonely boyhood. But even they would never tell me anything about my mother. However ...”