Читать книгу The Dark House - Warwick Deeping - Страница 5

Table of Contents

John Richmond’s railway stock was sold, and the proceeds lay in his bank. There was no need for him to indulge in elaborate calculations in order to arrive at his credit balance. It stood at about one thousand and seventy pounds, with a few odd shillings and pence thrown in, and when he sat down to write that cheque he smiled over it.

“Pay Lawrence Richmond, Esq.—One thousand pounds.”

Almost, the writing of that cheque, made him feel like a man of destiny. He did not think of it as being a hostage to fate. In a few years’ time other men might be writing him cheques of like solidity, and any vague uneasiness he had felt about his brother’s adventures in finance, had faded. Men who are masters of craftsmanship are not given to suspicion, and perhaps John Richmond’s faith in himself included a faith in the man who was his brother. If he remembered those tremulous hands, and a face that had appeared a little more pale and tense than usual, he had assured himself that old Lawrence had been just a little excited over the business, and naturally so. Lawrence was not dull clay, but passionate and finely strung, like one of those gentlemen of Devon or of Cornwall who had sailed out in their tall ships to singe the Spaniard’s beard.

Dr. Drake, who was in charge of St. Martha’s casualty department, looked into the college common-room just before lunch, and finding no one there but Bernard Steering with his feet on a chair, reading the Morning Post, asked a question.

“Richmond anywhere about?”

“Upstairs, I think.”

Other men were not moved to ask Mr. Steering to do them a favour, and Drake left that very superior young man to his paper, and climbing the stairs, knocked at Richmond’s door.

“Hallo.”

Drake opened the door and found Richmond at his table, making notes on a case, a particularly interesting case which was puzzling the whole hospital.

“I say, Richmond, could you take over for me this afternoon?”

“I think so. We’re not operating.”

“I want to run down into Kent and see my people. My gov’nor’s not at all well.”

“Of course I will.”

“Thanks, old man. I shall be back by nine or so.”

“When are you going?”

“After lunch.”

“After lunch.”

Richmond was called only to two cases during the earlier part of the afternoon, both of them trivial. He spent half an hour in one of his surgical wards, easing the splints on a fractured thigh. At half-past four he strolled across to the college for tea. Pretty Florrie who admired him, perhaps because he did not plague her with sentiment, like so many of the other young gentlemen, brought him buttered toast. He was eating his toast, and discussing a case with Bennet, one of the house-physicians, when Tombs, the casualty-porter, came running across the courtyard.

Tombs put his head into the dining-room.

“Mr. Richmond, sir, urgent case. Gentleman shot in a cab. The cabby drove him here.”

Richmond left his tea unfinished, and followed the porter into the courtyard.

“Alive, Tombs?”

“Well, just so, sir. Shot himself through the head. The cabby heard the shot, pulled up, had one look, and whipped up for here. Happened in Oxford Street.”

The casualty room had two long windows opening on the hospital forecourt. It was a bleak, austere room containing a couch, a table, two hard chairs, a sink, and a dresser for dressings. The afternoon light was pouring in, showing every board and crevice in the uncovered floor and making the yellow walls look still more jaundiced. Richmond saw a cabman standing with his back to one window holding a shabby topper, and staring like a shocked animal at the figure on the couch. A nurse was bending over the couch. The figure had a towel under its head, and the face was a vivid red smudge.

The nurse turned, and straightened. Her lips moved. She gave a slight shake of the head.

“I’m afraid it’s over, sir. He was just breathing when they carried him in.”

For a moment that mask of blood concealed from Richmond the identity of the dead man. Then, something terribly familiar about that glossy head, and the bleached, long-fingered hands, shocked him into action.

“Give me a sponge, nurse.”

Richmond had his coat off, and while he was turning up his sleeves, his eyes remained fixed upon that disfigured face. The man had been shot through the right temple. The nurse brought a basin of water and a sponge, and Richmond, bending over the dead man, washed the blood away. He did not utter a word, but the nurse, watching his face, suddenly became frightened by it.

“Do you know him, Doctor?”

“It’s my brother.”

There was a strange silence in the room. The cabbie still staring, made a noise with his tongue like a man brisking up a lazy horse. Richmond dropped the sponge back into the basin. The nurse stood with a shocked and vacant face, her bosom rising and falling.

Richmond turned suddenly to the cabman.

“Was he alone in the cab?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Sure?”

“As sure as fate. And we found the pistol on the floor.”

“Where had you come from?”

“I was called to the Palmerston Club, sir. The gen’leman came down the steps, and told me to drive to Killigrew Terrace.”

“Did he seem worried?”

“Looked a bit pale and serious, sir, sort of sick. And in Oxford Street I ’eard a bang, and pulled up, and when I saw ’im all ’uddled up in a corner with blood on his face, I whipped up and druv on ’ere.”

“Who’s got the pistol?”

“The porter, Doctor. It’s one of them little revolver things, all silver-plated.”

Richmond turned away, and going to the sink, washed his hands. He was looking almost as white as the dead man, and the nurse, watching him, wondered if he were going to faint.

“Can I get you something, sir?”

“No, I’m all right. And, nurse, tell Tombs to have my brother taken to the mortuary. And he had better warn the police. I—I’d like to be alone, for an hour.”

Then, bending over the sink, he remembered his brother’s wife, and the house in Kensington. Good God, someone would have to tell her! And that would be his business, if anybody’s.

Richmond was conscious of a kind of inward numbness as he walked across the Park on his way to Killigrew Terrace. Life did not seem quite credible at the moment, though Hyde Park was full of it. The sun was shining, the young green of the year gay and tender, and through the trees he could see the water of the Serpentine aglitter. Richmond cut across the grass where dogs and children were playing. A small thing threw a ball, and a terrier, chasing it, stopped and looked up into Richmond’s face as the ball trickled to his feet. “Balls are made to be kicked or thrown, master.” Richmond, coming out of an inward stupor, gave the ball a kick, and the dog went scampering after it. A voice within him said: “So goes my thousand pounds.” Was it gross meanness to think of such a thing when brother Lawrence was lying dead? And yet, there was bitterness in the thought; it seemed to penetrate and poison his compassion. So, Lawrence had been in Queer Street, and had lied to him as desperate men will lie, and that precious sum of money had been used as a last stake, or thrown to the wolves in a gamble to gain time. Richmond’s head seemed to clear as he walked across the Park. He accepted with a mordant clarity the conviction that this bitter thing had happened to him, and that to cherish any illusion as to the future would be futile. His war-chest was empty. He was as sure of it as if he had raised the lid of a strong-box and discovered the emptiness within.

But Richmond had another crisis to confront, and as he turned into Killigrew Terrace he saw three broughams drawn up near the gate of No. 7. Killigrew Terrace had been built in the early days of Victoria, and its tall, flat-faced houses had a sallow sententiousness. Each possessed the conventional area protected by iron railings, and a flight of steps leading up to a pompous, stone-pillared porch. Indubitably, the three broughams were waiting outside No. 7. Eulalia Richmond had visitors, and as John climbed the steps, he wished the owners of those broughams at Jericho. He rang the bell, and waited with his back to the brown door, and it occurred to him to wonder how Eulalia’s fashionable friends would react to such a tragedy.

The door opened and Richmond turned to confront a maid who was strange to him.

“Mrs. Richmond in?”

“Yes, sir, but she has company.”

“I’m Mr. Richmond’s brother. I must see Mrs. Richmond. It is urgent.”

The maid made way for him.

“She’s in the drawing-room, sir.”

“I’ll wait in the dining-room. Will you ask her to come down.”

John Richmond walked into the familiar room. It was one of those overcrowded, bric-à-brac rooms which the Victorians loved—fussy, beribboned and pretentious. There were too many pictures on the walls, too much china on the mantelpiece. Two rather grim arm-chairs, seated in maroon-coloured leather, had their backs decorated with bright yellow antimacassars. The sideboard was like a mausoleum. The legs of the dining-table bulged, and as John Richmond stood on the red and yellow hearthrug, still holding his hat as though it would give him formal and moral support, he seemed to feel the pale dead soul of poor Lawrence in the room. Lawrence had been in so great a hurry to be and appear somebody. He had hurried to impress the world, even in this Kensington dining-room. Was that the secret of his tragedy, success at any price, a success that crashed down upon flimsy foundations?

There was a rustling on the stairs and Eulalia came into the room in mauve silk and lace. She seemed to crepitate, with inflated sleeves and bustle. She was one of those large, cold, fair women who look impressive under a chandelier, and whose smile comes and goes with artificial precision. She looked at John, and she looked at John’s hat. She smiled, and he realized her complete and awful innocence.

“Why, John, so ceremonious? I’m afraid I am entertaining. Lady Manser is upstairs, and Miss Gates.”

Richmond cut her short. Life had taught him that when pain had to be inflicted, a seeming ruthlessness and swiftness may be more kind.

“Won’t you shut the door, Eulalia. I have rather serious news.”

And suddenly she looked stupid. Like many brainless women she was all façade.

“I do hope you are not in trouble, John. Lawrence should be back at six.”

“No, it is about Lawrence.”

He saw her mouth go flaccid.

“There has been an accident. Lawrence was brought to our hospital.”

Her eyes were round blue marbles, like a young child’s eyes.

“He’s not——?”

“Yes, he died soon after they brought him to us.”

She did not utter a sound, but sat down suddenly in one of the arm-chairs. Her colour had gone, and her skin looked almost as yellow as the yellow wool in the antimacassar. Yet, there was a stiffness about the silk-sheathed figure that made Richmond think of the perfume, and hard and waxy artificiality of a tuberose.

“Was it an accident?”

He hesitated, and she showed sudden petulance.

“Why don’t you tell me? It is better that I should know.”

“It may have been an accident. A pistol was found in the cab.”

“He had shot himself?”

“I’m afraid so.”

She sat quite still, rigidly still. She showed no emotion. Her tightly-laced corsage seemed to creak under its sheath of silk. Eulalia had a small waist and she cultivated it. Richmond noticed that her lips seemed to have disappeared; her mouth had become a thin, bloodless line. Her eyes stared. Her hands lay knotted together in her lap.

“How horrible of him! How could he have done such a thing to me?”

Richmond was shocked. She was angry! But was it the revolt of a creature in unbearable pain?

“Lawrence may have been in some trouble.”

“Trouble! How could he be? How could he do such a ghastly thing?”

Richmond was frowning. Surely she was not so completely selfish? And then, he remembered those three waiting broughams, and Lady Manser, and Miss Gates.

“Eulalia, would you like me to go up and get rid of your visitors for you?”

She was staring out of the window.

“No, certainly not. If I have to bear this insult——”

Richmond’s head gave a little jerk.

“I see. Well, I am supposed to be on duty. Of course, if——”

He glanced at her, hesitated, and then walked to the door. She did not move or speak. She was like a woman frozen with a cold, bleak, unforgiving anger. Poor Lawrence! No wonder he had not sought succour and comfort from his wife.

Richmond, sitting at his college window, and confronting all the happenings of that catastrophic week, could not help feeling some bitterness against his brother. Society had enjoyed its scandal and its ritual. Two letters had been found upon Lawrence Richmond, one to Eulalia, the other to the senior partner in his firm. He had asked for forgiveness. But he had left no letter for John, the one person whose opportunity he had stolen and thrown into the melting-pot of his own stricken ambition. The whole story had been revealed at the inquest. Richmond still could see Eulalia sitting there, sheathed in black, and listening with a kind of implacable, frozen composure to the story of poor Lawrence’s folly. Now, Lawrence was dead and buried, and John’s thousand pounds had vanished in the fog of a speculative nothingness. His brother had left debts behind, and Eulalia, who had a small private income of her own, was refusing to recognize those obligations. Well, let these wretched tradesmen whistle for their money. The furniture was hers. It had been purchased in her name. People who forced credit upon you should not complain if they found themselves in the position of being disgruntled creditors.

John sat and thought of many things.

The loss of his capital had been revealed at the inquest.

All the hospital knew of it. Mr. Bernard Steering knew it. A certain eager smugness in expressing sympathy had betrayed that young man’s supercilious satisfaction. Had not his enemy received a mortal blow! There were other men who had been kind, and genuinely sorry, as sorry as the ordinary mortal can be expected to be about somebody else’s misfortune. As the Latins like to put it, the English are always sorry for somebody, but rather like a superior person patting the head of a dog. They have a genius for ascribing blame and for feeling a high, moral indignation, and often, instead of patting the dog, they administer a pious kick to the poor brute’s rump. Hence, our reputation for coldness and hypocrisy.

The situation had to be faced, and Richmond was facing it without illusions. It was not a question of waiting upon a career, but of earning money, immediate money. The capital upon which he might have lived during five lean years, had vanished, and he had no one to whom he could appeal. His only remaining relatives were two old aunts, each living upon an annuity of a hundred and fifty pounds a year. Moreover, Richmond was a devil as to pride, passionately and dangerously so. Other men in his position had cheated fate by marrying women with money, and using the wife’s income as a ladder to carry them over the wall of waiting and obscurity. Richmond neither knew a woman whom he wished to marry, nor one who could supply the needful capital, and being hot-blooded the compromise would not have appealed to him.

No, he was not going to sell himself to anybody.

Sir Humphrey Jolland had asked him to dine at No. 303 Harley Street. Sir Humphrey was a handsome, jocund, debonair old man who had enjoyed success, as few men had enjoyed it. He forbade his patients to drink port, but drank it himself with discrimination and immunity. He would go with you a long way down the road of travail, but not to the bitter end. He was kind, but he liked his compromises, and being a very busy man, was shy of incurring obligations. If you were baulked of the big thing, well, accept the next best thing, especially if you were young. Life should not be too easy for other people. He had known half a dozen good men driven down into the provinces, only to return to London and distinction after they had served their term for Rachel.

Richmond drank Sir Humphrey’s port, and explained to him the nature of the crisis. Sir Humphrey had not been compelled to live upon husks in the days of his striving, for he had been the son of a wealthy father, and though many humiliating experiences had been spared him, he could sympathize with Richmond. He had had many house-surgeons in his time, and his opinion of Richmond was a very high one. Richmond was one of those rare men who dare to do. He had hands and a head, and courage. Men of less courage and capacity who shrank from doing, saved their faces, or pretended to, by teaching. Sir Humphrey was a superb surgeon, but a damned bad lecturer.

“It seems a pity, Richmond.”

“That’s rather the pith of it, sir. One resents being pitied, or looked on as a half-starved careerist.”

“God forbid that I should have given you the impression——”

“Oh, not you, sir. After all, I suppose surgeons are needed in the country. My idea is to save money, and come back.”

“I, for one, shall always be ready to welcome you. One word of advice, Richmond.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Don’t marry. Ambitious young men shouldn’t marry.”

Richmond smiled.

“I’ll remember that, sir. I suppose you do not happen to know of anyone who wants an assistant, with a view to partnership?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I had a letter yesterday from a contemporary who is thinking of retiring in a year. He wrote to ask if I could recommend a young man, especially one capable of tackling surgical work.”

“Whereabouts, sir, is the——?”

“Southfleet. Only forty miles from Town. You would still be in touch with life. It is a two-man practice, and I have known it for years. Dr. Davidson is finding the work too heavy. Long drives in all sorts of weather.”

“And the other partner, sir?”

Sir Humphrey twiddled his wine glass.

“Ah, Burgoyne, a very decorative person. Keeps his hunters. Burgoyne has, I believe, been one of Davidson’s problems. Decorative, dramatic, but not too efficient. That is why the practice would need a man with some surgical skill. The clearing up of other men’s mistakes, Richmond, with discretion, is one of our problems.”

“If Dr. Davidson is retiring, why should he worry?”

“That is a question I did not think you would ask me, young man.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I think I understand. Without being smug, it’s the tradition.”

“Exactly. No craftsman who has built up something of which he is proud likes to leave a bungler behind him.”

Richmond was silent for some seconds.

“Would you do me the honour, sir, of recommending me?”

“With pleasure, my dear fellow.”

“I should like to look at the place, and meet both my superiors, before deciding.”

“Of course.”

“And I expect that they would like to look at me!”