Читать книгу As We Forgive Them - William Le Queux - Страница 10

In order to put the plain, unvarnished truth before you, I must, in the first place, explain that I, Gilbert Greenwood, was a man of small means, having been left an annuity by an ascetic Baptist, but somewhat prosperous aunt, while Reginald Seton I had known ever since we had been lads together at Charterhouse. The son of George Seton, a lace warehouseman of Cannon Street and Alderman of the City of London, Reggie had been left at twenty-five with a heavy burden of debt and an old-fashioned, high-class but rapidly declining business. Still, brought up to the lace trade in a factory at Nottingham, Reggie boldly followed in his father’s footsteps, and by dint of close attention to business succeeding in rubbing along sufficiently well to avoid the bankruptcy court, and to secure an income of a few hundreds a year.

Both of us were still bachelors, and we chummed in comfortable chambers in a newly-constructed block of flats in Great Russell Street, while, being also fond of fox-hunting, the only sport we could afford, we also rented a cheap, old-fashioned house in a rural village called Helpstone, eighty miles from London, in the Fitzwilliam country. Here we spent each winter, usually being “out” two days a week.

Neither of us being well off, we had, as may be imagined, to practise a good deal of economy, for fox-hunting is an expensive sport to the poor man. Nevertheless, we were both fortunate in possessing a couple of good horses apiece, and by dint of a little squeezing here and there, were able to indulge in those exhilarating runs across country which cause the blood to tingle with excitement, and rejuvenate all who take part in them.

Reggie was sometimes kept in town by the exigencies of his deal in torchon, Maltese and Honiton, therefore I frequently lived alone in the old-fashioned, ivy-covered house, with Glave, my man, to look after me.

One bitterly cold evening in January Reggie was absent in London, and I, having been hunting all day, was riding home utterly fagged out. The meet that morning had been at Kate’s Cabin, over in Huntingdonshire, and after two good runs I had found myself beyond Stilton, eighteen miles from home. Still, the scent had been excellent, and we had had good sport, therefore I took a pull at my flask and rode forward across country in the gathering gloom.

Fortunately I found the river fordable at Water Newton mill, a fact which saved me the long détour by Wansford, and then when within a mile of home I allowed my horse to walk, as I always did, in order that he might cool down before going to his stable. The dusk of the short afternoon was just deepening into night, and the biting wind cut me like a knife as I passed the crossroads about half a mile from Helpstone village, jogging along steadily, when of a sudden a man’s burly figure loomed out of the shadow of the high, holly hedge, and a deep voice exclaimed—

“Pardon me, sir, but I’m a stranger in these parts, and my daughter here has fainted. Is there a house near?”

Then, as I drew near, I saw huddled upon a heap of stones at the roadside the slim, fragile form of a young girl of about sixteen, wrapped in a thick, dark-coloured cloak, while in the glimmer of light that remained I distinguished that the man who was addressing me was a bluff, rather well-spoken, dark-bearded fellow of about forty-five or so, in a frayed suit of blue serge and peaked cap that gave him something of the appearance of a seafarer. His face was seamed and weatherbeaten, and his broad, powerful jaws betokened a strength of character and dogged determination.

“Has your daughter been taken ill?” I inquired, when I had thoroughly examined him.

“Well, the fact is we’ve walked a long way to-day, and I think she’s done up. She became dazed like about half an hour ago, and when she sat down she fell insensible.”

“She mustn’t stay here,” I remarked, as the fact became plain that both father and daughter were tramps. “She’ll get frozen to death. My house is over yonder. I’ll ride on and bring back some one to help carry her.”

The man commenced to thank me, but I touched my horse with the spur, and was soon in the stableyard calling for Glave to accompany me back to the spot where I had left the wayfarers.

A quarter of an hour later we had arranged the insensible girl on a couch in my warm, snug sitting-room, had forced some brandy down her throat, and she had opened her eyes wonderingly, and looked round with childlike temerity upon her unfamiliar surroundings.

Her gaze met mine, and I saw that her countenance was undeniably beautiful, of that dark, half-tragic type, her eyes rendered the more luminous by the deathlike pallor of her countenance. The features were well-moulded, refined and handsome in every line, and as she addressed her father, inquiring what had occurred, I detected that she was no mere waif of the highway, but, on the contrary, highly intelligent, well mannered and well educated.

Her father, in a few deep words, explained our abrupt meeting and my hospitality, whereupon she smiled upon me sweetly and uttered words of thanks.

“It must have been the intense cold, I think,” she added. “Somehow I felt benumbed all at once, and my head swam so that I couldn’t stand. But it is really very kind indeed of you. I’m so sorry that we’ve disturbed you like this.”

I assured her that my only wish was for her complete recovery, and as I spoke I could not conceal from myself that her beauty was very remarkable. Although young, and her figure as yet not fully developed, her face was nevertheless one of the most perfect I had ever seen. From the first moment my eyes fell upon her, I found her indescribably charming. That she was utterly exhausted was rendered plain by the painful, uneasy manner in which she moved upon her couch. Her rusty black skirt and thick boots were muddy and travel-stained, and by the manner she pushed the tangled mass of dark hair from her brow I knew that her head ached.

Glave, in no good mood at the introduction of tramps, entered, announcing that my dinner was ready; but she firmly, yet with sweet grace, declined my invitation to eat, saying that if I would permit her she would rather remain alone on the couch before the fire for half an hour longer. Therefore I sent her some hot soup by old Mrs Axford, our cook, while her father, having washed his hands, accompanied me to the dining-room.

He seemed half-famished, taciturn and reserved at first, but presently, when he had judged my character sufficiently, he explained that his name was Burton Blair, that in his absence abroad he had lost his wife ten years before, and that little Mab was his only child. As his appearance denoted, he had been at sea the greater part of his life and held a master’s certificate, but of late he had been living ashore.

“I’ve been home these three years now,” he went on, “and I’ve had a pretty rough time of it, I can tell you. Poor Mab! I wouldn’t have minded had it not been for her. She’s a brick, she is, just as her poor dear mother was. She’s done three years of semi-starvation, and yet she’s never once complained. She knows my character by now, she knows that when once Burton Blair makes up his mind to do a thing, by Gad! he does it,” and he set those square jaws of his hard, while a look of determination and dogged persistency came into his eyes, the fiercest I had ever seen in any man.

“But, Mr Blair, why did you leave the sea to starve ashore?” I inquired, my curiosity aroused.

“Because—well, because I had a reason—a strong reason,” was his hesitating reply. “You see me homeless and hungry to-night,” laughed Burton Blair, bitterly, “but to-morrow I may be a millionaire!”

And his face assumed a mysterious, sphinx-like expression which sorely puzzled me.

Many and many a time since then have I recollected those strange, prophetic words of his as he sat at my table, shabby, unkempt and ravenously hungry, a worn-out, half-frozen tramp from the highroad, who, absurd as it then seemed, held the strong belief that ere long he would be the possessor of millions.

I remember well how I smiled at his vague assertion. Every man who falls low in the social scale clings to the will-o’-the-wisp belief that his luck will change, and that by some vagary of fortune he will come up again smiling. Hope is never dead within the ruined man.

By dint of some careful questions I tried to obtain further information regarding this confident hope of wealth which he entertained, but he would tell me nothing—absolutely nothing.

He accepted a cigar after he had dined well, took brandy with his coffee, and smoked with the air of a contented man who had no single thought or care in the world—a man who knew exactly what the future held for him.

Thus, from the very first, Burton Blair was a mystery. On rejoining Mabel we found her sleeping peacefully, utterly fagged out. Therefore I induced him to remain beneath my roof that night, in order that she might rest, and, returning to the dining-room, her father and I sat together smoking and talking for several hours.

He told me of his hard, rough years at sea, of strange adventures in savage lands, of a narrow escape from death at the hands of a band of natives in the Cameroons, and of how, for three years, he acted as captain of a river-steamer up the Congo, one of the pioneers of civilisation. He related his thrilling adventures calmly and naturally, without any bragging, but just in that plain, matter-of-fact manner which revealed to me that he was one of those men who love an adventurous life because of its perils and its vicissitudes.

“And now I’m tramping the turnpikes of England,” he added, laughing. “You must, no doubt, think it very strange, Mr Greenwood, but to tell you the truth I am actively prosecuting a rather curious quest, the successful issue of which will one day bring me wealth beyond my wildest dreams. See!” he added, with a strange wild look in his great dark eyes, as swiftly undoing his blue guernsey and delving beneath it he drew forth a square, flat piece of soiled and well-worn chamois leather in which there seemed to be sewed some precious document or other. “Look! My secret lies here. Some day I shall discover the key to it—maybe to-morrow or next day, or next year. When, it is quite immaterial. The result will be the same. My years of continuous search and travel will be rewarded—and I shall be rich, and the world will wonder!” And, laughing contentedly, almost triumphantly within himself, he carefully replaced his precious document in his chest, and, rising, stood with his back to the fire in the attitude of a man entirely confident of what was written in the Book of Fate.

That midnight scene in all its strange, romantic detail, that occasion when the tired wayfarer and his daughter spent their first night as my guests, rose before me when, on that bright, cold afternoon following the inquest up at Manchester, I alighted from a cab in front of the big white house in Grosvenor Square, and received word of Carter, the solemn manservant, that Miss Mabel was at home.

The magnificent mansion, with its exquisite decorations, its genuine Louis Quatorze furniture, its valuable pictures and splendid examples of seventeenth century statuary, home of one to whom expense was surely of no account, was assuredly sufficient testimony that the shabby wayfarer who had uttered those words in my narrow little dining-room five years before had made no idle boast.

The secret sewed within that dirty bag of wash-leather, whatever it may have been, had already realised over a million, and was still realising enormous sums, until death had now so suddenly put an end to its exploitation. The mystery of it all was beyond solution; and the enigma was complete.

These and other reflections swept through my mind as I followed the footman up the wide marble staircase and was shown ceremoniously into the great gold and white drawing-room, the walls of which were panelled with pale rose silk, the four large windows affording a wide view across the Square. Those priceless paintings, those beautiful cabinets and unique bric-à-brac—all were purchased with the proceeds from that mysterious secret, the secret which had in that short space of five years been the means of transforming a homeless, down-at-heel wanderer into a millionaire.

Gazing aimlessly across the grey Square with its leafless trees, I stood undecided how best to break the sad news, when a slight frou-frou of silk swept behind me, and, turning quickly, I confronted the dead man’s daughter, looking now, at twenty-three, far more sweet, graceful and womanly than in that first hour of our strange meeting by the wayside long ago.

But her black gown, her trembling form, and her pale, tear-stained cheeks told me in an instant that this woman in my charge had already learnt the painful truth. She halted before me, a beautiful, tragic figure, her tiny white hand nervously clutching the back of one of the gilt chairs for support.

“I know!” she exclaimed in a broken voice, quite unnatural to her, her eyes fixed upon me, “I know, Mr Greenwood, why you have called. The truth has been told to me by Mr Leighton an hour ago. Ah! my poor dear father!” she sighed, the words catching in her throat as she burst into tears. “Why did he go to Manchester? His enemies have triumphed, just as I have all along feared they would. Yet, great-hearted as he was, he believed ill of no man. He refused always to heed my warnings, and laughed at all my apprehensions. Yet, alas! the ghastly truth is now only too plain. My poor father!” she gasped, her handsome face blanched to the lips. “He is dead—and his secret is out!”