Читать книгу A Gentleman's Gentleman - Pemberton Max - Страница 5

CHAPTER III
THE MESSAGE

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The arrangement was that Sir Nicolas should go down and take the picture at half -past eleven that night.

"I'll take ye by the magnesium light, Lilian," said he; "and after that we'll go and get supper somewhere. 'Tis a beautiful light, if ye know how to handle it. Ye won't forget to put on the bull's eyes and the crown."

"Why not take Roderick, too, and call it 'Beauty and the Beast'?" said she.

"’T would be a libel on my race," said he; and with that they parted, she going to the theatre, while he went to get a bit of dinner in Old Compton Street.

Half-past ten had struck when he came back again. It never occurred to me that he would want my company, but such proved the case.

"Ye may help me to carry the camera," said he, while he began to get the dry plates ready; "and, if ye're not very tired, I'd be glad to take you as far as Miss More's place. 'Tis not afraid I am of a paltry threatening letter, but we couldn't do with a scene just now, and there's plenty of fools ready to make one when they're a bit spoony over a woman. I won't keep you the half of an hour."

I was a little surprised at this, for he seemed to have forgotten all about the letter; but I went ready enough, and, what's more, I took a good thick stick in my hand when I started.

"If there is any puppy who desires particular to bark, I'm his man," said I to myself as I got in the cab. I knew well enough that he was right when he said that we could not afford to have a scene. There was too much talked of already for us to be advertising ourselves on the newspaper bills. And that I meant to prevent, all the puppies in London notwithstanding.

We were half an hour, I suppose, driving from Gower Street to Chelsea. It was near about a quarter to twelve when we arrived at Miss More's studio; but even then we seemed to have come too early. Her flat, as I have told you, was one of six, built up an entry. A housekeeper opened the outer gate, and, once inside the long passage, you saw six little front doors all standing in a row, like so many green shutters. Miss More's door was the last of these, and when we came up to it we found it locked.

"She'll be still at the theatre," said the old woman who showed us in. "’Tain't often as this 'ouse sees her before midnight, that I do know. I'll let you in, and you can bide till she comes."

She opened the door with a key she carried at her waist, and we went into the studio, which was as dark as a prison and cold as a ship's deck on a winter's night. I judged by the feel of it that the place had not seen a fire since morning, and a curtain drawn over the glass window in the roof kept out the light like a shutter might have done. It was a room which did not strike comfort into you at the best of times; but a more cheerless apartment at such a time of night I never want to enter. I was shivering like a boy in a swimming-bath two minutes after the door closed upon us, and I don't believe Nicky was any better.

"The blazes of a place it is, for sure," said he. "To think that she lives alone in such a hovel as this. It can't be for want of the money; they say she's earning twenty pounds a week, and will earn more. Strike a light, will ye? I'd be more at home in a vault, I take leave to think."

"I'll have a light quick enough, sir," said I, "once I've got this camera down. Mind how you tread. There's a cushion here, or something—I feel it under my foot—and this is a couch, I suppose."

I had stumbled against something while I spoke to him, and when I put out my hand to see what it was, I had the greatest start that ever I can remember.

"Good God, sir," said I, the sweat starting sudden to my forehead, "there's some one lying on this sofa!"

"You don't mean that!" cried he.

"As I'm a living man, I do. Hold the camera a minute, and let me see."

He took the camera out of my hands, and I struck a lucifer. Its poor passing light lit up our corner of the room maybe for ten seconds before we were in the dark again. But the sight which we both saw is one which I shall never forget to my dying day. Miss More herself lay huddled up on the sofa, her left hand touching the floor, her right hand supporting her head. Her face was the face of one sleeping restfully, yet so pale and unearthly looking that I knew she was dead. And in death all the kindness and sweetness of her nature seemed written ten times over upon her placid features. It might have been a child lying there—a child that had died laughing into a mother's eyes.

For some seconds neither of us spoke. I never remember a minute like that when we stood dumb and trembling in the face of death, and the dark seemed to hide the whole of the awful truth from us. When at last my master opened his lips, his voice was like a whisper of a man in a vault.

"Run for help and a doctor," said he. "God grant we are dreaming!"

He staggered out with me to the door, and our cries brought the old hag from the porter's lodge. She had a lantern in her hand, and she and my master went back to the studio together. When I returned in ten minutes' time—a doctor at my heels—I found the two together chafing the dead woman's hands, and trying to force brandy between her lips. Nor do I know which was the whiter of the two—my master or the dead girl who had befriended him.

"Oh, for God's sake do something, doctor!" said he. "’Tis the sweetest creature in the world to die like this! Ye'll not tell me that there's no hope!"

But the doctor said nothing. He was listening for a beat of the heart—a thing I was sure he would never hear. Five minutes, perhaps, he bent over the little figure of the woman whose laughter had been music to every soul she knew. Then he rose like a man who has done all possible.

"I come too late," he said; "your friend is dead from laudanum poisoning."

A quick glance round the room gave strength to his words. There was a blue bottle upon the table, and a letter by it. The doctor picked up the bottle and smelt it; Sir Nicholas took the letter and read it.

"Pat [it said], take my picture for the love of auld lang syne; take it as I lie when you will see me, and send it to the man whose address is here. I can do no more for him. God bless all who have done me any kindness!"

My master shuddered.

"God forgive any one that ever did harm to so sweet a woman," said he.