Читать книгу In the Dead of Night (Vol. 1-3) - T. W. Speight - Страница 10

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The dining-room at Park Newton. A cosy little table, with covers set for two people, was drawn up near the fire. The evening was cold and frosty. The wax-candles were lighted, the logs on the hearth burned cheerily. A large Indian screen shut in this end of the room from the wilderness of gloom and desolation beyond; for the dining-room at Park Newton would accommodate fifty or sixty guests with ease. The clock on the mantelpiece pointed to ten minutes past seven. Lionel Dering was growing impatient.

"Perrins is generally punctuality itself," he said. "What can have detained him? I hope he is not ill."

He was on the point of ringing the bell, and sending the servant with a message to the lawyer's room, when Mr. Perrins came in. With many apologies for being late, he sat down to table; but Lionel saw at once that he was bursting with some important news. As soon as the first course was served, and the servant had left the room, Perrins began.

"I have some very startling information for you, Mr. Dering," he said. "My late arrival at table is owing to a certain discovery which I made about an hour ago."

"I hope you are not going to tell me that my eleven thousand a year is all moonshine," said Lionel, as he helped the lawyer to some clear soup.

"No, no, Mr. Dering. The news I have to tell you is not quite so bad as that, and yet it is bad enough in all conscience. While going through some of your uncle's papers this afternoon--you know what a quantity of them there are, and in what disorder he kept them--while engaged upon this necessary duty, I discovered--what think you, sir? what think you?"

"Another will, I suppose," said Lionel, slowly.

"Not another will, but a codicil, sir; codicil to the will with whose provisions we are already acquainted; in the handwriting of the testator himself, witnessed in due form, and dated only three months ago!"

"And what may be the contents of this important document?" asked Lionel, as he crumbled his bread with apparent indifference.

"The contents are these: Should you, Lionel Dering, die unmarried, or without lawful issue, the whole of the property bequeathed you by your uncle's will reverts to your cousin, Mr. Kester St. George, or to his children, should you be the longer liver of the two."

"Is that all?" said Lionel, with a sigh of relief.

"All, sir! Quite enough, too, I should say, if I were in your place."

"Nobody can touch the property as long as, I live."

"Certainly not."

"Then a fig for the rest! Shall I send you a sole or some stewed eels?"

"It is quite a relief, to me to find how coolly you take my news; though it is true your uncle could not well have made the contingency of your cousin's inheriting a more remote one."

"Tell me," said Lionel, "have you either seen or heard anything of Kester since my uncle's death?"

"I have heard from him, but not seen him. He wrote to me a few days after your uncle's funeral, asking me to send him an abstract of the contents of the will. He gave an address in Paris, and I answered his letter by return of post."

"An address in Paris!" exclaimed Lionel. "That is very strange. I never felt more positive of anything than that my cousin Kester passed me on Westminster Bridge on the very night of my uncle's funeral."

"A coincidence, my dear sir, nothing more," said the lawyer, cheerfully. "Such things happen every day in London. It would almost seem as if every man had his double--a sort of unknown twin-brother--somewhere in the world."

Lionel pursued the subject no farther, but he was none the less convinced in his own mind that it was Kester, and no one but him, that he had seen. Could he ever forget the look of undying hatred that shone out of his cousin's eyes?

"You have not yet advised Kester of the contents of the codicil?" he said at last.

"I have not had time to do so. I purpose writing to him this evening: unless you wish me to defer doing so until you have satisfied yourself as to the authenticity of the document."

"My dear sir, if you are satisfied that the document is genuine, that is enough for me. Write to my cousin, by all means, and as soon as possible. By-the-by, you may as well give me his address. I shall probably drop him a line myself."

"I may as well tell you," said Mr. Perrins, as he gave the address, "that the balance of six thousand and odd pounds, which I found to your uncle's credit in his bank passbook at the time of his decease, represents, with the exception of a few shares in one or two public companies, the accumulated savings of Mr. St. George's lifetime."

"What! out of an income of eleven thousand a year?"

"Even so. When your uncle died, everybody who had known him, and who knew his simple, inexpensive mode of life, said: 'He must have saved a hundred thousand pounds at the very least.' But the reverse of that has proved to be the fact. In going through Mr. St. George's papers, I found numerous receipts for very large donations made by him to different charities. He seems to have received his rents with one hand and to have given them away with the other. In fact, your uncle was one of those unknown philanthropists of whom the world hears nothing, but whose wealth, like a bounteous stream, diffuses countless blessings among the sick and poor."

"And yet," said Lionel to himself, "this was the man who refused to forgive his own sister because he fancied that she had married beneath her!"

Mr. Perrins went off to bed at an early hour, after indulging in a due modicum of choice old port; but Lionel sat up till far into the small hours, with no companion but his favourite meerschaum.

His musings were very pleasant ones. How could they be otherwise? Not till to-day had he seemed to realize to the full all that was implied by his sudden change of fortune. In London he was nobody, or next to nobody; one rich man among ten thousand. Here, at Park Newton, he was lord and master of everything. This gray old mansion, with its wide sweep of park, and its noble trees which might be counted by hundreds, were all his, with many a fair and fruitful farm that now lay sleeping under the midnight moon. To the gracious shelter of that stately old roof he would in a little while bring his bride. There would their lives gradually wear themselves away in a round of daily duties, edged with a quiet happiness that never tires. In one or other of those rooms their last breath would ebb away; in the long gallery upstairs two more portraits would be added to the line of dead and gone ancestors. And then would come the day when a new master, his son, would reign at Park Newton, who would, in his turn, bring home a fair young bride, and would dream, perchance in that very room, in the dim years to come, dreams the like of those which the brain of Lionel Dering was shadowing forth to-night among the smoke-wreaths that floated slowly upward from his pipe.

But before that time should come there was, he hoped and thought, a long and happy future in store for himself and Edith. As he passed with his candle through the dim picture-gallery on his way to bed, each one of the old portraits seemed to greet him with a grim smile of welcome. With a queer, half-joyous, half-superstitious feeling at his heart, he turned at the gallery door. "Bon soir, messieurs," he said, with a bow to the silent crowd that seemed watching him so intently, "I hope--after a time--to form one of your pleasant society."

Lionel was up betimes next morning, and took a stroll round the house and shrubberies before breakfast. Park Newton dated from the era of William and Mary, and had little to boast of in the way of architectural magnificence. It was built of brick, with a profusion of stone copings, and mullions, and twisted chimneys. But its walls were now gray and venerable with age, powdered with lichens and delicate fairy mosses, and clasped about here and there with clinging tendrils of ivy. Everything about it was old and homelike. It had an air of stately comfort which seemed to carry back the mind instinctively to the days of periwigs and ruffles, of clouded canes and buckled shoes; before we English had become the gadabout race we are now; when a country gentleman's house was his home the year round, and country roads were altogether impassable in bad weather.

Lionel had not been many hours at Park Newton before he began to have visitors. The county families and neighbouring gentry who had known the late Mr. St. George either called or left their cards. Lionel was young and unmarried, and would be a decided acquisition to the limited circle of Midlandshire bachelors: that is to say, of eligible bachelors. Of ineligible bachelors there were always enough and to spare. But the advent of such a possible prize--of a bird with such splendid plumage as the new owner of Park Newton--was enough to send a pleasurable thrill through all the dovecotes within a circuit of twenty miles. Of the existence of a certain young lady, Edith West by name, nothing, of course, was known or suspected.

One of the first to call at Park Newton, and introduce himself to Lionel, was the Reverend John Wharton, the vicar of Duxley. Mr. Wharton was an octogenarian, but hale and hearty; as far as appearances went, he seemed likely to last for another twenty years.

"My having known your uncle, the late Mr. St. George, must be my apology for intruding upon you so soon," he said, as he shook Lionel warmly by the hand. "And not your uncle only, but your grandfather also. And now I should like to know you."

"You are very kind," said Lionel. "And I appreciate the honour you have done me."

"There was another member of the family, too, whom I recollect very well," said the vicar, as they sat together in the library. "I refer to your mother."

"Did you know my mother?" asked Lionel, eagerly.

"I did indeed. I remember her first as a sweet slip of a girl, playing and romping about the house and grounds. Then I missed her for three or four years while she was away at school. Then she came back, a sedate young lady, but very, very pretty. How fond your grandfather was of her! But he never forgave her for running away and marrying your father--never, that is, until he lay dying."

"Do you mean to say, sir, that my grandfather ever did forgive my mother?"

"Certainly he forgave her, but not till he lay on his deathbed. I was in the room at the time and heard his words. Taking your uncle's hand in his, your grandfather said--and his words came very slowly and feebly:--'Arthur, life and its duties look very different, as I lie here, from what they did when I was in health. It lies on my conscience that I never forgave poor Dorothy. It's too late to send for her now, but send her my blessing after I'm gone, and say that I loved her to the last.' He shut his eyes, and was silent for a little while. Then he spoke again. 'Arthur,' he said to your uncle, 'is it your intention ever to marry?' 'I shall never marry, father,' was the answer. 'Then who's to have Park Newton, after your time?' 'It will not go out of the family, you may depend upon that, father,' said your uncle. 'Some time or other it will have to go to one of the two boys,' resumed your grandfather; 'either to Dorothy's boy, or to Geoffry's son, Kester. Now I don't want to tie you down in any way, Arthur, but I confess I should like Dorothy's lad to have Park Newton. He could change his name to St. George, you know. Young Kester might have a life allowance out of the estate of two or three thousand a year, and there would still be enough left to keep up the old place in proper style. I feel that I have acted wrongly to Dorothy. There is some reparation due to her. If I thought that her boy would one day have the estate, I think I should die happier.' 'Father, it shall be as you wish,' said Arthur St. George, solemnly."

"A promise that was made only to be broken," said Lionel, bitterly. "I have heard my mother say that the first intimation she had of my grandfather's death was derived from the columns of a newspaper. Further than that, my uncle Arthur never wrote a single line to my mother; never would even see her; never hold any communication with her, direct or indirect, to the last day of her life."

"You shock me," said the old clergyman. "Can that indeed be true?"

"I tell you, sir," said Lionel, "that this is the first time I ever heard of any such wish having been expressed by my grandfather. Two months ago I had no more expectation than you had of ever coming into the Park Newton property. My cousin Kester was always looked upon as the heir."

"He was, greatly to my surprise, knowing what I knew. Your uncle adopted him and brought him up as his own son."

"And, had it not been for some mysterious quarrel that took place between my uncle and my cousin, Kester St. George would undoubtedly at this moment have been the owner of Park Newton."

"What you say seems only too probable," said the vicar. "And yet I always looked upon Mr. St. George as one of the most conscientious of men, as he was, undoubtedly, one of the most charitable."

"A pity that in this case his charity did not begin nearer home," said Lionel. "That must have been a terrible quarrel," he added presently, "which could induce my uncle to alter the determination of a lifetime, and leave the property away from my cousin."

"True," said the vicar. "I have often wondered of what nature it could be. But Mr. St. George never spoke of it to any one. He was a very close man in many ways."

There was much food for thought in what Mr. Wharton had just told Lionel. "My grandfather intended me to have Park Newton, and I've got it," he said to himself, after the vicar had gone. "But it was also his wish that Kester should have two or three thousand a year out of the estate. I'll write to Perrins to know how it can be done."

Mr. Perrins had gone back to London a few hours previously. Lionel wrote to him by that night's post. Next morning but one he had the following answer: "By the terms, of your uncle's will and codicil you have no power to make any such allowance out of the estate as the one suggested by you. You can, of course, make any allowance you may please, and to anybody, privately, and as a gift out of your own pocket; but it is not competent for you to burden the estate with any charge of such a nature."

Would his cousin accept three thousand a year from him as a gift? It was a delicate proposition to put to a man circumstanced as was Kester St. George.

Lionel had not been many days at Park Newton when he was called upon by Mr. Cope, the banker, with whom came Mr. Culpepper of Pincote.

Mr. Cope was the senior partner in the firm of Sugden and Co., the well-known, bankers of Duxley. The late Mr. St. George had had an account with the firm for twenty years, which account Mr. Cope was desirous of still retaining on his books, with nothing but a simple alteration of the customer's name.

Squire Culpepper was a friend of Mr. Cope, and had been an intimate friend of Mr. St. George; consequently, it was only natural that he and the banker should drive over to Park Newton together. Lionel gave them a hearty welcome. The banker was successful in the particular object of his visit, and was further gratified by Lionel's acceptance of an invitation to dine with him, en famille, the following day.

"Pincote ought by rights to have been your first place of call," said Mr. Culpepper to Lionel as he was bidding him goodbye. "But Cope here has stolen a march on me, as usual. However, I'll forgive him if you'll come and see us at Pincote before this day week."

Lionel laughed and promised.

Mr. Cope was a heavily-built, resolute-looking man of middle age, with a brusque business manner, which had become so confirmed in him by habit that he could not throw it off in private life. He had neither the education nor the manners of a well-bred gentleman, but he inspired respect by the shrewdness of his intellect, and a certain innate force of character which made itself felt by all with whom he came in contact. His father had originally been office-boy to the firm of Sugden and Co., but, in the course of thirty years, had gradually worked his way up to the honourable post of managing clerk. Ultimately, three or four years before his death, he had been elevated to a junior partnership. Already young Horatio Cope, although merely filling the position of an ordinary clerk in the bank, had displayed such natural aptitude as a financier that, when his father died, the vacant post was at once given him, and the firm had never had reason to regret the choice thus made. As time went on, the two oldest members of the Sugden family died within a few months of each other. Two or three years later the youngest of the three brothers was accidentally drowned. Of the original firm there then were left but two young men, of three or four and twenty, cousins, who knew little or nothing about the business, who were rich enough to live without it, and who preferred a life of ease and pleasure to the cares and toils which must devolve on those who would successfully steer a large financial concern through the troubled waters of speculation. In this crisis all that could be done was to fall back on Horatio Cope. He was master of the situation, and he knew it. The result was that he was offered a partnership in the firm on equal terms with the two cousins. They were to supply the capital necessary for the conduct of the business, but the entire management was to devolve on him. All this had happened several years ago; and in Duxley and its neighbourhood few men were better known, or more generally esteemed, than Mr. Cope.

He was a very proud man, this heavy, awkward-looking, middle-aged banker. His secret ambition was to obtain a footing among the county families of Duxley and its neighbourhood, and to be treated by them, if not exactly as an equal, yet with as near an approach to that blissful state of things as might be. But, somehow, notwithstanding all his efforts, the old plebeian taint seemed still to cling to him. The people among whom it was his highest ambition to live and move simply tolerated him, and that was all. He was rich, and, to a certain extent, was still a rising man. He could be made use of in many ways. So he was invited to their state-dinners, and sometimes to their more private balls and parties; but, for all that, he felt that he did not belong to them--that he never could belong to them--that he stood outside a magic circle which to him must be for ever impassable. It was only by slow degrees, and after a long time, that these disagreeable truths were brought fully home to the banker's mind. But when he did realize them, he bethought himself that he had a son.

Mr. Cope's stanchest friend and best ally was, undoubtedly, Squire Culpepper, of Pincote. It had been the banker's good fortune, some thirty odd years ago, to be in a position to do an essential service to Titus Culpepper, at that time an impecunious young man, without a profession, and with no prospects in particular; and the squire, when he afterwards came into his property, was not the man to forget it. At Pincote the banker was ever a welcome guest; and if any one had asked the squire to point out the man whom he believed to be his best friend, that man would undoubtedly have been Horatio Cope.

It was a great step in Mr. Cope's favour to be so taken in hand by a man like Mr. Culpepper, who, although only moderately rich, and a commoner, was the representative of one of the most ancient and respected families in the county, and could, in fact, show a pedigree older by two centuries and a half than that of the great Duke of Midlandshire himself. Squire Culpepper had only one child, a daughter; and it seemed to Mr. Cope that it would be an excellent thing if a match could be brought about between his son and the young lady in question. By marrying Miss Culpepper, his son would at once secure a position in society such as he himself could never hope to attain; and if, in addition, the young man could be smuggled into parliament, and could succeed in making one tolerably good speech there, why, then he thought that the great ambition of his life would be as near fulfilment as it was ever likely to be in his time. By what occult means Mr. Cope succeeded in inducing the squire to so far overcome the prejudices of caste as to agree to the marriage of his daughter with the grandson of a man who had lighted the fires and swept out the offices of Sugden's bank, was best known to himself. But certain it is that he did succeed; and the match was arranged, and the pecuniary conditions agreed upon, before either of the two persons most interested so much as knew a word about it.

Squire Culpepper, at this time, was from fifty-five to sixty years old. He was a short, wiry, keen-faced man, with restless, fidgety ways, and a firm belief in his own shrewdness and knowledge of the world. Except when dressed for dinner, his ordinary attire was a homely suit of shepherd's plaid, with thick shoes and gaiters. His head-gear was a white hat, with a black band, generally much the worse for wear. The squire's shabby hats were known to everybody. His tongue was sharp, and his temper hasty, but he was as sweet and sound at heart as one of his own Ribstone pippins.

Mr. Cope had a fine, handsome modern-built house just outside Duxley. When Lionel arrived, he found his host in the drawing-room waiting to receive him. The squire had not yet come. When he did arrive, he was half-an-hour past his time. He apologized, on the ground that he had been to a sale of cattle some twenty miles off, and had not been able to get back earlier. It was obvious to Lionel, and doubtless to Mr. Cope also, that the squire had been drinking--not inordinately, by any means, but just enough to make him more merry and talkative than usual. After dinner, some splendid old port was put on the table; and it seemed to Lionel that the banker, while drinking nothing but an innocuous claret himself, kept pressing the decanter of port on the squire's attention oftener than was at all necessary, and seemingly of set purpose. The squire, nothing loath, smacked his lips, and drank glass after glass with evident gusto. As a consequence, he became more merry and communicative than ever. Had Lionel known at the time what a very rare occurrence it was for the squire to allow himself to become, even in the slightest degree, the worse for wine, he might have asked himself whether the banker's object was not to obtain from him, while in that talkative mood, certain information which it would have been hopeless to expect him to divulge at any other time. But Lionel, knowing nothing of this, was entirely in the dark as to what Mr. Cope's object could possibly be.

"Did you buy any stock at Cottingly, to-day?" asked the banker.

"Not a single hoof," answered the squire. "The prices were ruination. I'll keep my money in my pocket, and wait for better times."

"You know Cottingly, don't you?" he asked presently of the banker.

"Pretty well," answered Mr. Cope.

"Do you know Drake and Harding, the architects?"

"I've heard of the firm--nothing more. But if you want an architect, there's a clever young fellow here in Duxley."

"I know him. His name's Beakon. He's quite a fool."

"Quite a fool, is he?" said the banker, equably. "So be it."

"I've proved it, sir--proved it. No, Drake and Harding are the men for my money. Everything's settled. They'll bring the plans over to Pincote on Wednesday afternoon. If you have nothing better to do, you may as well drive over and help me to decide on the most suitable one."

"The plans! What plans?" said Mr. Cope, in astonishment. "You forget that I'm altogether in the dark."

"Why, what plans could I mean but the plans for my new house?" cried the squire, as he refilled his glass. "I thought I had told you all about it weeks ago."

"This is the first time you have ever hinted at such a thing. But you don't mean to say that you are going to pull down Pincote!"

"I mean to say nothing of the kind," said the squire, peevishly. "But, for all that, I may be allowed to build myself a new house if I choose to do so, I suppose?"

"Certainly--certainly," said the banker, with a look of deprecation.

"I know what you think."

"I beg your pardon."

"I say, sir, that I know what you think," repeated the squire, with half-sober vehemence. "You think that because I've reduced my balance during the last six months from nine thousand pounds to somewhere about three thousand, and because I've sold all my stocks and securities, that I've been making ducks and drakes of my money, and don't know what I'm about. But you never made a greater mistake in your life, Horatio Cope."

"You do me a great injustice, my dear squire. No such thought ever entered my mind."

"Don't tell me. I know what you bankers are."

Mr. Cope shrugged his shoulders and looked, at Lionel with the air of an injured man.

"You don't believe in any speculation unless you've a finger in the pie yourself," continued the squire. "But other people have got their heads screwed on right as well as you. Why, man, I tell you that in less than six months from this time, I shall be worth an extra hundred thousand pounds at the very least."

"I'm truly delighted to hear it," said the banker, heartily. "No man will congratulate you with more sincerity than I shall."

"And you ought to be delighted to hear it, seeing that my daughter and your son will soon be man and wife. But, mind you, I don't mean to turn miser with it. I intend to build, and plant, and dig. You know Knockley Holt, that bit of scrubby ground just outside the park?"

"I know it well."

"That's the spot where I intend to build my new house. The young folk can have Pincote. I don't intend to pull the old place down. After I'm gone, of course the new place will be theirs as well. And, if I live, I mean to make it a place worth having."

The squire refilled his glass. Mr. Cope, deep in thought, was absently drumming with his fingers on the table.

"Pincote is a very old place, is it not?" asked Lionel.

"It was built three hundred and fifteen years ago, and it's still as weather-proof as ever it was. But because one's great grandfather six times removed, chose to build a house, is that any reason why I shouldn't build another? At all events, I mean to try what I can do."

"The speculation you have hit upon must be something remarkable," said the banker, holding up a glass of wine before the lamp.

"It is. Something very remarkable," said Mr. Culpepper with a chuckle. "You would like to know the ins and outs of it, wouldn't you, now?"

"I should, indeed. It's too bad of you to keep such a good thing all to yourself."

"Ha! ha!" laughed the squire, in high glee. "I thought you would say that. You'll know all in good time, I dare say. But at present--it's a secret. That's what it is--a secret."

"Must have found a silver mine on his estate," said Mr. Cope, with a sly look at Lionel.

"Or a coal mine, which would be pretty much the same thing," returned Lionel.

The squire laughed loud and long. "Ah you're a sharp lot, you bankers," he cried. "But you don't know everything." And then he winked at Lionel.

Lionel was not sorry when the evening came to an end, and he found himself on his way back to Park Newton. "My first introduction to Midlandshire society is not very promising," he said to himself. "I hope to find it a little more entertaining by-and-by."

The squire, after being safely helped into his dog-cart, was driven home by his groom.

Mr. Cope, after his guests were gone, stood for a full quarter of an hour with his back to the drawing-room fire, ruminating over the events of the evening. Judging by the settled frown on his face, his meditations were anything but pleasant ones. "My worst fears are confirmed," he said to himself. "Culpepper has been induced to speculate on his own account. His balance at the bank yesterday was only two thousand and odd pounds,--and every security disposed of! Some swindler has got hold of him, and the result will be that he will lose every penny that he has invested. Build himself a new mansion, indeed! Unless he's very careful, the Court of Bankruptcy will soon be the only mansion he can claim the right to enter."

At this moment his son, Edward, entered the room.

"Have you been to Pincote to-day?" said the banker.

"I have just returned from there," answered the young man.

"If I were you, Edward," said Mr. Cope, looking steadily at his son, "I wouldn't allow my feelings to become too closely entangled with Miss Culpepper. You're only on probation, you know, and I wouldn't--in short, I wouldn't push matters so far as to leave myself without a door of escape, in case anything should happen to--to--in short, you understand perfectly what I mean."

"You mean to say, sir----" stammered the young man.

"I mean to say nothing more than I've said already," interrupted the banker. "My meaning is perfectly simple. If you cannot understand it, you are more stupid than I take you to be. Good-night." At the door he turned. "Remember this," he added. "When you enter an enemy's country, never burn your boats behind you. Bad policy." And with a final nod, the banker was gone.

"Now, what on earth does he mean with his 'enemy's country,' and his 'burning boats'?" said Edward Cope, with a comical look of despair. "I wish some people would learn to talk plain English."