Kitabı oku: «An Isle of Surrey: A Novel», sayfa 10

"Besides, Philip, I'd rather not leave the child behind me. I feel I could not rest there a moment. I should be certain something had happened to him."

"What did I tell you a moment ago about men with two reasons? You see I was right. It wasn't because you won't leave Frank alone, since my offer obviates that, and it wasn't because you aren't clothed in purple and fine linen. Your real reason for not going is a woman's reason-you won't go, because you won't go."

"Well, let it stand at that, if you will."

"But really, Frank, you must change all this."

"I engage to reform, but you do not expect a revolution. You will call and apologise for me, Philip? I can't go, and I don't want to seem ungracious to them. You need only say that when I promised to see them this afternoon I completely forgot that there would be no one here with the boy. Of course, I could not have foreseen your offer to stay with him."

Ray muttered and growled, but on the whole was well satisfied. Bramwell had not been at any time since he came to the islet so lively as this evening. If he progressed at this rate he would soon be as well as ever-ay, better than ever.

He said he would take the message round to Crawford's House.

As he was leaving the room Bramwell said gravely:

"Don't be unkind to little Freddie's aunt, even if she does make up ladies' own materials and wear glasses. All people have not their fate in their own hands."

"Pooh!" cried Ray scornfully, as he disappeared.

Bramwell got up and began pacing the room. Of old he used to sit and brood over the past, when he could no longer busy himself with his papers and books. This evening he walked up and down and thought of the future.

"Now that I recall the girl to my mind, Miss Layard is very beautiful. I do wish Philip would get married. That would get all this murderous vengeance out of his head. A single man may be willing to risk his own neck to avenge a wrong; but a man with a wife whom he loved would think twice before handing himself over to the hangman, and leaving the woman he loved desolate.

"I do hope he will fall in love with this girl. I know his present contempt for the sex, and I know the source from which that contempt springs. But all women are not alike. I have known only my mother and my sister and another, and out of the three, two are the salt of the earth and the glory of Heaven. A good woman is life's best gift, and there are a thousand good women for the one bad. It was my misfortune to-But let me not think of that.

"I know Philip would scout the idea of falling in love and marrying. Two facts now keep him from any chance of love or marriage. First, his revulsion from the whole sex because of the fault of one; and, second, because he does not meet any young girl who might convert him to particular exemption from his general scorn.

"And yet, although I have had little opportunity of judging, for I saw this girl only twice, perhaps she is not exactly the kind of wife that would be best for him. She is bright and gay, and beautiful enough, in all conscience. What a brilliant picture she made at that window! I seem to see her now more distinctly than I did at the time. There is such a thing as the collodion of the eye. And now that I think of the day, of the time she brought down the little fellow to the brink of the bay and handed him to me, how charming she looked! There was such colour in her face and hair, and such light in her eyes, and her voice is so clear and sympathetic! Ah, there are many, many, many good women in the world who are beautiful, supremely beautiful also, and she, I am sure, is one of them!

"But I fancy the wife for Philip ought to be more sedate. He is too excitable, and this Miss Layard is bright and quick. His excitement almost invariably takes a gloomy turn; hers, I should fancy, a gay direction. They would be fire and tow to one another. He ought to marry a woman of calm and sober mind, and she a man of sad and melancholy disposition like-"

He did not finish the sentence, even in his mind. He had almost said "like me."

"No, I don't think she would be the wife for him. But there! How calmly and solemnly I am disposing of the fate of two people! I had better do that thing which our race are so noted for doing well-mind my own business."

His meditations were broken in upon by a voice hailing the island from the tow-path.

"Boland's Ait, ahoy!" sang the voice.

Bramwell rose and left the cottage by the door from the study. Abroad it was growing dark. "Philip has been gone a long time," he thought. "But this cannot be he, for he knows how to come over."

In the dusk he saw a man on the opposite side of the canal, with a canvas bag thrown over his shoulder. The man wore a peaked cap, and was in uniform.

"A newspaper for you, Mr. Bramwell," sang out the man.

Bramwell, in great surprise, hastened to the floating stage, and, seizing the chain, pulled the stage athwart the water.

He took the newspaper from the postman's hand. It was too dark to read the superscription.

He hastened back to the study, where the lamp was burning.

He examined the cover in the light of the lamp.

He could not recognise the writing. He had never seen it before.

He broke the cover and spread the paper out before him. It was a copy of the Daily Telegraph, dated that day.

On the front page a place was marked. It was in the column devoted to births, marriages, and deaths. The mark was against an item among the deaths.

With a shudder and a sick feeling of sinking, he read:

"On the 28th inst., at her residence, London, Kate, wife of Francis Mellor (née Ray), late of Greenfield, near Beechley, Sussex."

He raised his head slowly from the table, threw himself into a chair, and burst into a passion of tears and sobs.

CHAPTER XVIII.
PRIVATE THEATRICALS

While the owner of Boland's Ait was weeping over the brief announcement of his wife's death in the newspaper, the owner of a house in Singleton Terrace, Richmond, was sitting in his wife's drawing-room in a comfortable easy-chair, reading a novel. Mrs. Crawford, in her invalid's wheeled chair, sat at the other side of the table, languidly looking over a newspaper.

Mr. Crawford was a model of domestic virtue. He spent most of his time in the house, and the greater part of the hours he was at home were passed in the society of his wife. He did not drink, or smoke, or swear, or indulge in any other vice-in Richmond. As to gambling, or anything worse, the good people of the town would as soon think of hearing the rector accused of such practices. He went to church once on Sunday regularly; but made not the least claim to piety, not to say anything of godliness. The few claims that charity or religion had made upon his purse had been responded to with alacrity and modest gifts; but the most censorious could not accuse him of ostentation.

In fact there was a complete absence of anything approaching ostentation in the man. He seemed to care nothing for society, except the society of his elderly ailing wife. The conduct of the man was inexpressibly meritorious. He afforded many estimable matrons with an exemplar of what a good husband ought to be.

"He never goes out anywhere," they said. "He does not even want company at his own house (though that is not only harmless, but advantageous), for the society of the woman he loves is enough for him. Of course, he has to go up to town every now and then to see the workmen who are preparing his wonderful machine for making cotton out of dock-leaves, or something of that kind; but, then, that is only for a day, and when he returns does he come empty-handed? Not he! He always thinks of his wife even in the little while he is away, and brings her some pretty present to show his love. Ah, if every husband were only like him!"

Of course, an inventor who is taking out a patent and getting models of machinery made must often see the artificers employed, and before, as well as after, his marriage, Crawford ran up to London for one day in the week; that is, he went up on the evening of one day, and returned in the morning of the next. Indeed, it was not, when put together, quite a whole day of four-and-twenty hours; for he did not leave until late in the afternoon, and was back next morning.

Now, an inventor is known to be a dreadful bore, for he is always trying to explain how the machine works, and no woman that ever lived could take a particle of interest in machinery, or even understand how one cogwheel moves another, or how a leather band can make an iron wheel revolve. Crawford did not make his house odious with plans of his models and disquisitions on his plans. If you asked him a question he answered it in the most explicit and kindest manner possible, and said no more about the thing, but told you that the moment it was in working order you should come and see his model at work. The kindness of the man's manner almost made people think they understood him.

On the table between the husband and wife lay a lot of papers, but they had nothing to do with the great invention. They related to the Crawford property in the neighbourhood of the South London Canal. Some of them were in Mr. Blore's handwriting, some of them in Crawford's. Mrs. Crawford had, at her husband's request, been looking over them before taking up the newspaper. She had glanced at the sheets, and when her brief inspection was finished put them down, and, seeing him deeply absorbed in his book, said nothing, but took up the newspaper to look at it, so that he might not think she had been waiting for him.

At last his chapter was finished. He put away his book and glanced across the table. "Well, Nellie, isn't it very extraordinary these people were so backward in paying?"

"It is a little strange," she said with a gentle smile; "but you must not be disheartened by it. They are sure to pay next month." She took up the list of the tenants and ran her eyes over it, that he might not fancy she under-estimated his efforts and anxiety respecting the rents.

"I'll tell you what I think, Nellie. I fancy that, although we issued the circular about my collecting instead of Blore, and although I had full credentials with me, they did not believe they would be quite safe in paying me."

"But they knew you were my husband," she said softly, "did they not? Was not that enough for them? It is more than enough for me." There were infinite confidence and tenderness in her voice and look.

"Of course, dear. But they could not be certain of my identity. How were they to be sure the man who called on them was the William Crawford of the notice. The man who called upon them might be an impostor, who obtained the credentials by fraud. Don't you see?"

"O, yes. That's it. Quite plainly they were afraid to pay you, lest there might be something wrong about you. Fancy something wrong about you, William!" and she leaned back in her chair and laughed with her eyes closed, as if the thought was too deliciously droll to be contemplated with open eyes. After a brief period of enjoying the absurdity of these people, she looked at her husband and said, "But I hope you are not angry with those people, William? They are mostly poor and ignorant."

"Angry with them! Good gracious, no! The only thing that put me out was that I could not bring the money home to you, dear."

"But I don't want any money just now."

"You never want anything for yourself, dear," he said in a tone of affectionate admiration; "yet a little money would be very handy at present. We have only a few pounds at the bank."

"But we don't want more than pocket-money until next month. There is nothing of any consequence to pay; the monthly bills have been all settled as usual." It was a great comfort to her to feel that he need not bother himself about anything so insignificant as money.

"Yes, but-" and he paused, and a look of pain and perplexity came over his face. He leaned his elbow on the table and his head upon his hand.

For a moment there was no word spoken, but a dull, heavy, low, continuous noise filled the room.

The noise ceased, and then her infinitely sympathetic voice said, "Dear, what is it?"

She was at his side. She had wheeled her invalid's chair round to him and had taken his hand in hers.

"Those workmen," he said. "They have swallowed up all I had." He did not take down his hand. He sighed heavily.

"But you are not grieving about that? It will all come back a hundredfold one day."

"Ay," he said in a tone of oppression and care, "a thousandfold-ten thousandfold. But there is the present-" He paused.

Suddenly a light broke in upon her.

"O," she cried, "how stupid I was not to guess! Why did you not speak out at once? William, dear, excuse me for not guessing. You will pardon me, dear, won't you, for not seeing what depressed you? If you want money, and there is none at the bank, why did you not sell out Consols? Mr. Brereton told me that all my Consols were as much my own as the income of the property, since they are my savings."

"No, no! I could not think of doing such a thing as take your savings."

"But yes, William, dear, yes. For my sake sell out whatever you want. Why not? They are not mine. They became yours on our marriage, dear. Why did you not sellout?"

"No, they were yours, and are yours. There is a new law."

"Then it is a bad law. Take down your hand and look at me and say you will sell what you want to-morrow. Do it to oblige me-for my sake. I cannot bear to see you in this state. I'll sign anything this foolish law obliges me to sign. If they are mine I surely can give them to you. You must take what you want if you won't take all. If they are mine I surely can give them to my husband as well as to any other person. If you do not consent to take what you want, I'll sell all out and give you the money."

She was pleading for the highest favour he could do her-to let her help him.

"No," he said in a tone of authority, "I will not allow you to do that."

"Well, take what you want. How much do you want?"

"Two hundred would be enough. But I can't-I can't."

"I'll write to Mr. Brereton to-morrow and ask him to sell out two hundred for myself, and tell him I want the money for a private purpose of my own. Take down your hand, dear, and let us go on with the accounts. I have looked over the list and the remarks." She cared nothing for the accounts, but she wanted the husband whom she loved to be his old self again.

He took down his hand and pressed hers, and stroked her smooth hair.

"I am sorry and ashamed," he said, "but I am awfully hard pressed, and you have delivered me."

"Let us go on with the list now, William, and say no more of this matter. Give me the list."

He handed her the papers without a word. Before sitting down he bent over and patted her hair and kissed her forehead.

"I know nearly all the names," she said, "but, of course, I have never seen any of the people."

"You have not missed much by that, Nellie," he said in tremulous tones, as though rendered almost tearful by her generosity. "They are a rough lot."

At the same time he was thinking how much more delightful it would be to have Hetty Layard, with all her buoyant youth, sitting by his side than this faded elderly invalid. But then Hetty had no money. A man ought to be allowed two wives: one with money, who need not be young or beautiful, and one with beauty, who need not be rich.

Mrs. Crawford ran her finger down the names of her tenants, and the houses which were tenantless, commenting as she went, and trying to make her own remarks bear out his theory that the tenants did not pay because they were not sure he was her husband.

"Mrs. Pemberton has not paid, I see. I don't wonder at all at that. Poor soul, she has had a great struggle for years, ever since her husband's death. She has tried to help herself along by letting lodgings, Mr. Blore told me, but that won't come to much in such a poor neighbourhood. I'm sure I don't know what could induce any one to lodge in such a district."

"People are often obliged to lodge near their place of business, no matter how objectionable their place of business may be," said he sententiously. Then he added with a smile, "Why, recollect, Nellie, that I myself am a lodger for business purposes in the locality."

"Of course you are, dear. I quite forgot that. And what kind of people are you lodging with?" she asked cheerfully, anxious to get his mind as far away as possible from those wretched Consols and rapacious artificers.

"O, they seem to be quiet respectable people enough. A little slow, you know, but perhaps none the worse for that when they have for a lodger such a gay young spark as I." He smiled.

She looked lovingly at him, and laughed at the enormity of the joke of his calling himself gay and fancying any society could harm him. "And now you must tell me what your landlord and landlady are like." He seemed to have forgotten about the wretched Consols and rapacious artificers.

"Well, Layard is a man who has something to do in the gas-house. The chief thing about him is a long beard. He's rather like a monkey with a beard."

"And what is Miss Layard like?"

"She's like a monkey without a beard," he said, with one of his short quick laughs. "As I thought before I went there, she's about ten or twelve years older than he. She's one of those dowdy little women, don't you know, dear, whose new clothes always look second-hand." Again came his short quick laugh. "She belongs to what geologists would call the antimacassar era. There's a dreadful Phyllis, or somebody else, in tapestry, framed over their sitting-room mantelshelf. She told me she worked it when she was young. But I ought not to laugh at the worthy soul. It is ungrateful of me; for I never tasted a more delicious omelette than she made for my breakfast. I must get her next time to give me the recipe for you, Nellie." He put his arms round his wife's shoulder and pressed his lips upon her smooth hair.

"I think, William," said she, "we are the happiest couple in England."

"And I'm sure of it," said he in a tone of full conviction.

She sighed a sigh of perfect contentment.

He sighed, thinking of Hetty Layard and her golden hair and luminous blue eyes, and her lithe round figure, and her fresh young voice, and the sweet red young lips through which that voice came to make sunshine and joy in the air.

"Shall I go on with the list, dear?" she asked.

She took no interest on her own part in this list; but then the interest of him and her was bound together in it, and there was a charm for her in the bond-not the thing binding them.

"Yes, dear," he answered, wishing the list at the bottom of the Red Sea among the chariots of Pharaoh.

She ran threw a few more items on the paper, and then paused, and said with a laugh:

"Here is one store, I see, from which you got neither money nor promise."

"What is that?"

"Ice-house, Crawford's Bay."

"O, ay. I examined the place with much interest. I believe it is in ruins. The gates are off, the lower part of it is full of water. I am told there are eight or ten feet of water in it."

"The place has not been let for ever so many years. I never saw an ice-house. I wonder what one is like."

"I'll tell you. It's exactly like a huge room of brick, lined with thick boards, and one-third below the ground. I examined this one very closely, thoroughly. There are no floors in it but the one at the bottom of the tank-no ladders-nothing. It is like a great empty tank lined with wood."

"And you say the one at Crawford's Bay is full of water?" she asked.

"Yes."

She shuddered and drew the light shawl she wore tightly round her shoulders.

"How dreadfully dark and cold it must be there, William?"

"Yes; but bless me, Nellie, no one lives in an ice-house, and this one isn't even let!" he cried in surprise.

"I know. But suppose some one should fall into it? Don't you think the doors ought to be put up?"

"My dear Nellie, there isn't the least occasion to waste money on a useless place like that. Of course if we should let it we would be only too happy to put it into good repair. But what is the good of throwing money away?"

"But the danger?"

"Well, as far as that goes, you may make your mind perfectly easy. No one has access to the little quay or wharf but the people in Crawford's House. The rest of the property is lying idle, and from what I have seen of the Layards they are not the people to go wandering about on the wharf after dark. Besides, they know that the ice-house is full of water. It was Layard's maiden sister first told me."

He laughed at the idea of calling blooming young Hetty Layard's maiden sister.

"But the child, William-the child!" persisted the invalid. "Suppose by some misfortune the child should stray that way and fall in?"

"Nellie, no person with an atom of sense would think of permitting a child out on that wharf. Why, the canal, the waters of Crawford's Bay, are only a few steps from the back door of Crawford's House, and who would let a child play on the banks of a canal? I mean, of course, no people like the Layards would allow their child to play there."

"But this awful dark huge tank you tell me of is a thousand times worse than the open canal. If a child fell into the open canal people would see him, but if he fell into that dreadful tank he would be drowned, poor little fellow, before any one missed him. I do wish, William, you would get the doors put up. You see, as you tell me, there was no danger up to this, for no one could get near it; but now there is a child."

She pleaded with gestures and her eyes and her voice, as though a child of her own were menaced.

He held out his hand to her and took hers in his.

"There, Nellie, I will. I'll see the place made quite safe. Of course I'll go down and arrange about it if you wish it."

She raised the hand she held and kissed it.

He thought what a chance this would give him of meeting the Layards-Hetty-before the month was out!

"Shall I roll you round to your own place now, and you can go on with your paper and I with my book?"

"Thank you, dear."

He took up the volume, but he did not read. He fell into a profound reverie. First of all, he began to think of how pleasant it would be to tell Hetty that he had become alarmed for the safety of her little nephew, and had come back before his time to see about putting doors upon the ice-house. Hetty and he would go out on the quay, and look at the place and talk the matter over.

There was one good thing, the quay on which the icehouse stood was not visible from the tow-path, so that even if Philip Ray should chance to pass by he could not be seen.

Then his thoughts took another turn, and became concentrated on Philip Ray. He mused a long time upon his sworn enemy. Suddenly he shook all over, as if a chill had struck him. His blood seemed to thicken in his veins. His eyes stood in his head, staring straight out before him, perceiving nothing present in that room, but seeing a ghastly awful sight in that dim dark ice-house.

On the surface of the cold secret waters of the huge tank he saw a hideous object: the upturned face of a dead man, the face of Philip Ray.

Crawford's breath came short, and he panted. His mouth opened, his eyes dilated.

Philip Ray, lying drowned in that hideous lonely water where no one would ever think of looking for him! It was a perfect way out of the terror of Philip Ray's anger which beset him. It was a thing to think upon for ever. A thing that might come to pass!

"William," said the sweet low voice of his wife, "here is a strange thing in the paper to-day. You remember the awful nightmare you had, in which you thought two of your schoolfellows long ago were going to shoot you?"

"Yes," he answered hoarsely, but he did not know what she had said. He knew she had asked a question, and he answered "Yes." He was in a trance.

"Well, here in to-day's Telegraph are the two names together. Listen: 'On the 28th inst, at her residence, London, Kate, wife of Francis Mellor (née Ray), late of Greenfield, near Beechley, Sussex.'"

"Eh?" he cried, suddenly starting up from his chair and looking wildly at his wife. "Read that again."

In dire alarm at his manner she read again: "'On the 28th inst, at her residence, London, Kate, wife of Francis Mellor (née Ray), late of Greenfield, near Beechley, Sussex.'"

"What is the good of your playing with me, you fool Her death is no good to me. I am done with her. It's his life I want, and, by – , I shall have it too!"

"William!" cried the terrified wife. "My William! Come to me. I cannot go to you. What is the matter? You look strange, and you are saying dreadful things, and you have sworn an awful oath. What is the matter? Are you unwell? Come to me."

A sudden tremor passed through him, and with a dazed expression he looked round him.

With his short laugh he said, "I hope I didn't frighten you, Nellie, dear. I was only going over a passage of a play we used to act at school. I was always good at private theatricals."