Kitabı oku: «An Isle of Surrey: A Novel», sayfa 7

CHAPTER XII.
PHILIP RAY AT RICHMOND

Once Philip Ray started on any course he was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet. All his time was not at his disposal. He was in the Custom House, and for several hours a day he was chained to his desk.

No sooner were his duties discharged on the day following the arrival of the boy at Boland's Ait than he hastened to Ludgate Hill railway station and took the first train to Richmond.

He had not worked out any definite plan of search. His mind was not a particularly orderly one. Indeed, he was largely a creature of impulse, and in setting out he had only two ideas in his head. First, to find the man who had caused all the shame and misery; and, second, to execute summary vengeance on that man the moment he encountered him.

He did not seek to justify himself morally in this course; he did not consider the moral aspect of his position at all. When his blood was up he was impulsive, headlong. He had made up his mind three years ago that John Ainsworth deserved death at his hands for the injury done, and neither during any hour of these three years nor now had he the slightest hesitancy or compunction.

He had sworn an oath that he would kill this man if ever he could get at him, and kill him he would now in spite of consequences. People might call it a cowardly murder if they pleased. What did he care? This man deserved death, and if they chose to hang him afterwards, what of that? He was quite prepared to face that fate. Kate was dying or dead; the honourable name of Ray had been disgraced for ever; the life of the man he loved best in all the world had been blasted by a base, vicious scoundrel, and he would shoot that scoundrel just as he would shoot a mad dog or a venomous snake. He was inexorable.

No thought of seeking his sister entered his mind. She was, doubtless, dead by this time. From the moment she left her husband's roof she had been dead to him. In the presence of Frank, and with that letter before him, he had held his tongue regarding her. But his mind was completely unchanged. The best thing that could happen to her was that she should die. A woman who could do what she had done deserved no thought of pity, had no place in the consideration of sane people; a woman who could leave Frank Mellor, now known as Francis Bramwell, for John Ainsworth, deserved no pity, no human sympathy. She had sinned in the most heinous way against loyalty; let him show that all the blood of the family was not base and traitorous. He would sin on the other side to make matters even.

He knew that such forms of vengeance were not usual in this time and country. So much the worse for this time and country. What other kind of satisfaction was possible? The law courts? Monstrous! How could the law courts put such a case right? By divorcing those who had already been divorced! By a money penalty exacted from the culprit! Pooh, pooh! If a man shot a man they hanged him, put him out of pain at once. But if a man was the cause of a woman's lingering death from shame and despair, and imposed a life of living-death on an innocent human being, they let the miscreant go scot-free; unless, indeed, they imposed a fine such as they would inflict for breach of an ordinary commercial contract. The idea that treatment of this sort had even the semblance of justice could not be entertained by a child or an idiot!

Before setting out from Ludgate Hill and on the way down to Richmond nothing seemed more reasonable than that he should take the train to that town, and without any serious difficulty find John Ainsworth. The town was not large, and he could give any one of whom he asked aid the man's name and a full description of his appearance. He possessed, moreover, the additional fact that Ainsworth had shaved his face, taken off his beard, whiskers, and moustache. He should be on his track in an hour, and face to face with Ainsworth in a couple of hours at the outside.

He stepped briskly out of the train at Richmond, and waited until the platform was cleared of those who had alighted. Then he spoke to the most intelligent porter he could find. First of all he gave the man a shilling. He said he was in search of a Mr. John Ainsworth, a gentleman of about thirty-five or thirty-seven years of age, five feet eight or thereabouts, with a quick restless manner, a clean-shaven roundish face, dark hair and dark eyes, in figure well made, but inclining to stoutness.

The porter knew no gentleman of the name, he was sorry to say, and recalled a great number of gentlemen who corresponded in some respects with the description, but none that corresponded with all. As far as he was aware, there was no man of the name in Richmond-that is, no gentleman of the name. He knew a Charles Ainsworth, a cab-driver, but Charles Ainsworth was five feet eleven or six feet, and no more than twenty-five years of age. Perhaps the stationmaster might be able to help.

The stationmaster knew no one of the name-that is, no one named John Ainsworth. He knew Charles Ainsworth the cabdriver. He could not identify any one corresponding to Ray's description, but the interrogator must remember that a great number of gentlemen passed through that station from week's end to week's end. Why not look in a directory and find out his friend's address at once?

Of course. That was an obvious course. It had not occurred to Ray before.

Accordingly he left the station, and turned into an hotel and asked to see the local directory.

No John Ainsworth here.

Another disappointment. But this was not disheartening; for Ainsworth in all likelihood was not a householder. At the hotel they suggested that the post-office would be the place to learn the address of his friend.

Ray smiled grimly as he noticed that the three people of whom he had inquired all referred to Ainsworth as his "friend."

His luck at the post-office was bad also. Nothing was known there of any Ainsworth but Charles, the cabdriver.

This was becoming exasperating. The man he sought could not have vanished into thin air. Edward Lambton, who saw Ainsworth, was quite sure of his identity. When a man recognises another who has taken off his beard, whiskers and moustache, there is not the slightest room for doubt of the identification, particularly if the identification is casual, not suggested, spontaneous.

Ray felt more than exasperated now. He was furious. He walked about the town for an hour, asking here and there, but could find no trace of John Ainsworth. He was no more known in the place than if he had never been born.

Suddenly he stopped with an exclamation of surprise and anger. "I am a lunatic!" he cried in a low voice, "I'm a born lunatic! Is it because Lambton saw Ainsworth on the platform of this place that he must live here? Might not ten thousand people have seen me on the platform of this place an hour or so ago, and do I live here? Indeed I do not think any human being out of Bedlam could be so hopelessly idiotic as I have been to feel sure he lived here."

He found his way back to the station and returned to town. He got out at Camberwell, and walked from there to Boland's Ait. It was upon this occasion that Crawford, sallying from Layard's, learnt from Red Jim how the man who had come along the tow-path had failed to emerge from the cover of the island.

"And what have you been doing all day?" asked Ray, when he was seated in one of the armchairs in the study or dining-room of the cottage.

The boy was seated on the floor, turning over the leaves of a book full of pictures.

"We have been busy and playing," said Bramwell, nodding towards the child. "I was putting the place to rights, getting in order for my new lodger. I thought you would have come sooner." For the first time in three years Francis Bramwell spoke in a cheerful tone and looked almost happy. There had always been a great deal of reserve in this man, but now he seemed more open and free than he had ever appeared even before his marriage. Suffering had purified, and the presence of his son, whom he had taken into his heart, had soothed and humanised the recluse.

Ray paused in doubt as to whether he should tell the other of his visit to Richmond. He had taken no notice of the boy upon his entrance, but he was pleased and grateful that Bramwell showed an awakened interest in life. The child had done this, and his heart softened towards the little fellow. Anything that brought light to his brother-in-law was an object of thankfulness. If his friend, his brother, as he called him, were in better spirits, owing to the coming of the child, why should he dissipate them by telling him of his search of vengeance. He answered the question of the other by saying:

"I was delayed. I had to attend to something."

Bramwell's face darkened. Philip had no secret from him. He was a man who could keep nothing from a friend. Why did he not say what had detained him? There could be only one explanation: the delay had been caused by something in connection with the letter Philip had received the evening before. It was plain to Bramwell what had detained Kate's brother. Bramwell said very gravely:

"You have been to Richmond?"

Philip nodded.

"Ah," Bramwell sighed heavily, "I thought so! Did you find out anything?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He is not known there. I tried at the railway station, in the directory, at the post-office, in a dozen shops. No account or trace was to be found of the scoundrel."

"Thank Heaven!"

"I do not believe he lives there. He must have been only in the town a little while, visiting some one, or passing through, on some new devil's work, I will swear."

"It was a mercy for you that he was not to be found."

"A mercy for him, you mean."

For a few minutes Bramwell seemed plunged in gloomy thought. The two men were silent. At length the elder shook himself, rose, and said:

"Come, see the arrangements I have made for the boy. He is to sleep in my room. I am going to give him my bed. The stretcher will do excellently for me. I have spoken to Mrs. Treleaven-you know the woman who brings me what I want every morning. She is to come for an hour or two a day and keep matters right for us. Up to this she has never been on the Ait, but I could not myself keep the place as tidy as I should like now that I am not alone. Early impressions are lasting, and I must do the best I can to brighten up this hermitage for the sake of the new young eyes. Come!"

The two men went to the bedroom.

"See," said the father, with a sad smile; "I have laid down this bit of old carpet, and hung up these prints, and put the stretcher close to the bed, so that I may be near him, and also that it may serve as a step when he is getting in and out of his own bed. Children, I have often read, should sleep in beds by themselves; and, above all, it is not wholesome for them to sleep with grown-up people. You don't think this place is unhealthy for a child, Philip?"

"O, no! You have enjoyed very good health here."

What a change-what a blessed change had come over this man! He had been reborn, re-created by the touch of those chubby fingers and young red lips; by the soft, silky hair and the large dark eyes; by the fresh, sweet clear voice, and the complete dependency and helplessness of the boy.

"But I am a man in the vigour of life," said the father anxiously; "and am therefore able to resist influences of climate or situation which might be perilous to one so young and delicately formed, eh? You don't think there is any danger in the place?"

"Certainly not."

"But so much water that is almost stagnant? You are aware that there is hardly any current in the canal, and that there are no locks on it?"

"O, yes; but I never heard any complaints of insalubrity, and you know the neighbourhood of a gas-house, although it does not make the air bright or sweet, purifies it."

"I know; I thought of that. I know that a still more unsavoury business-that of candle-making-is a preventive to pestilence; at least, it was in the days of the Plague, and chandlers had immunities and privileges on that account. But it is the water I fear for him. None of your family, Philip, had delicate chests?"

"No, no; I think you may make your mind easy. I am sure the boy will thrive marvellously here."

"I am glad to hear you say so. Let us go back. The poor little chap must not be allowed to feel lonely. You did not take any notice of him when you came in. Philip," he put his hand on his brother's arm, "you are not going to visit any anger on the desolate orphan? Remember, he is an orphan now; and you must not bear ill-will towards the dead, or visit the-the faults of the parent on the child."

"Tut, tut!" said Philip, as they left the room and returned to the study; "I am not going to do anything of the kind. I took no notice of the child when I arrived because my head was full of other things."

He went to the boy and raised him in his arms, and pinched his cheek, and patted his hair and kissed him.

"Thank you," said Bramwell. "I feel new blood in my veins and new brains in my head, and a new heart in my body. I intend giving up dreaming for ever. I am now going to try to make a little money. Presently the child will have to be sent to school-to a good school, of course."

"My dear Frank," cried Philip, with tears in his eyes and voice, "it is better to listen to you talk in this way than to hear you had been made a king."

"I am a king," cried the father in a tone of exultation. "I am an absolute monarch. I reign with undisputed sway over my island home, and my subject is my own son, whom I may mould and fashion as I please, and whom no one will teach to despise me."

CHAPTER XIII.
AN INVITATION ACCEPTED

"And so," said Alfred Layard to Hetty the evening of the day little Freddie, now in bed, had made his first visit to the island, "you have absolutely spoken to this Alexander Selkirk. Tell me all about it."

She began, and told him how she went up to her own room and saw Bramwell and the boy in the yard on the island, and how Freddie's cry had betrayed her presence, and in the confusion at being found out she had consented to let their youngster go to play with the other youngster.

"You are not annoyed with me, Alfred, for allowing him, are you?" she asked in some suspense. The little fellow had never before been so long from under her charge.

"Annoyed? Not I. What should I be annoyed at, so long as the people are all right, and there is no danger of Freddie tumbling into the water?"

"O, there is no danger whatever. A wall runs all round the yard, and Mr. Bramwell was in and out all day looking after the boys."

"How did Freddie get across? Swam?"

"Don't be absurd, Alfred." She knew very well her brother did not ask her seriously if the child had swum across the waters of Crawford's Bay. And she knew equally well that he was not reproaching her for letting the boy cross the water. At an ordinary time she would have passed by such a question from him in silence, disregarded, but there lingered in her mind a vague feeling that she stood on her defence about the expedition of the morning, and she felt timid under anything like levity. "No; when we got down and out by the back door to the wharf we saw Mr. Bramwell pulling a great long floating thing made of timber through the water. He pushed this over to where we stood. It reached across the water. He told us he had another of the same kind on the canal side of the island."

"I know. A floating stage."

"I daresay that is what they call it. I should call it a floating bridge. Well, he walked across this and took little Freddie in his arms and carried him over. I was a good deal frightened, for the thing rocked horribly, but he told me there was no danger."

"Of course, there was no danger while the child was carried by a careful man. We had two of these stages at the works, but we had to get rid of them, for the men were always either going out for drink or getting drink brought in for them."

"And, do you know, Freddie did not cry or seem a bit afraid of the water."

"Hetty, take my word for it that from what you tell me there is the making of a great naval hero in that boy of ours."

"I wish you would try to be sensible for a while."

"I think I shall call him from this date Frederick Nelson Layard."

"Don't be ridiculous, Alfred."

"Or Frederick Cochrane Layard."

"O, don't, please, Alfred."

"It is well to be prepared for fame, and we should always take care that our children are prepared for fame and what more simple and inexpensive preparation can a man have for fame than to be suited, clothed, I may say, in a name becoming fame? Hetty, my dear, remind me in the morning to decide which of these names I shall finally adopt; it is a matter that admits of no delay. I would not think of calling him Frederick Drake Layard for all the world, because in the first place the name Drake in connection with water suggests a whole lot of frivolous jests, always an abomination to me; and in the second place, there was too much of the buccaneer about Drake. Hetty, don't forget to remind me of the matter in the morning. The boy wasn't sea-sick, I hope?"

The girl only sighed this time. She had now lost all sense of uneasiness about the part she had played in the affair of the morning.

"You know," he went on in a tone of pleasant reverie, "I think something ought to be done with the surname too. It would be well to be ready at every point. All you have to do is to write in an n, and you have a distinctly nautical flavour. How do you like Frederick Nelson Cochrane Lanyard? But there-there-my girl, don't answer me now. It is, you would naturally say, too important a question to be decided offhand. Think of the matter to-night. Sleep on the idea, my dear Hetty, and let me have your decision in the morning. If in the dead waste and middle of the night any difficulties which you think I could solve arise in your mind, do not fail to call me. I shall be happy to give you any assistance in my power."

"Are you out of breath, Alfred? I hope you are."

"No, but I am out of tea. Another cup, please, and let us dismiss business from our minds. Let us unbend. It weakens the bow to keep it always bent. Tell me, what is this man, our next-door neighbour, like? I have a theory myself that he is a coiner."

"Well, if he is a coiner you must not think he uses much of his ill-gotten gold in buying clothes. He's dreadfully shabby. But, whatever else he may be, he is a gentleman."

"Good-looking, of course?"

"No, but remarkable-looking. When you see him you could never take him for a common man. He seems awfully clever."

"Well, as some philosopher, whose name has escaped me, says, we must take him as we find him, though I must say it seems to me that it would be very difficult to take him as we do not find him, or as we find him not. To be serious, Hetty-"

"O, thank goodness! at last!" cried the girl, with a sigh of relief, and raising her eyes in gratitude.

"If you don't take great care," he said, shaking a long thin forefinger at her, "you can't tell what may happen. I am not the man to submit to bullying at your hands. What I was going to say when you threatened me is this, that while I have no objection to Freddie going over now and then to play with this boy-"

"He promised to go over again to-morrow," interrupted Hetty.

"All right; let him go over to-morrow. But for two or three reasons he must not go over every day. This young-By the way, what's his name?"

"Bramwell. The man told me he was his son, his only child."

"Very good. This young Bramwell must come over, turn and turn about, and play with Freddie here. In the first place, I think one of the upstairs rooms is a safer place for these young shavers than the island, though there is a wall; and in the next place, this Bramwell is at work on coining, or whatever it is, all day, and can't be expected to look after two mischievous boys of their age. Of course you can't have the two of them here when we have Crawford; but that will not be for four weeks more. That reminds me: he said he should like to see Freddie. Did he ask afterwards for the boy?"

"No. You see he was busy tidying, or rather untidying, his room all one day, and he was out a good deal of the time, and went away early in the morning."

"Just so. My sister, you are very quick with excuses for your hero, your Bayard."

"I still say what I said before."

"Naturally you do. Women always do stick to what they say. They are the unprogressive sex. But we will let him go by. I confess, from the little I have heard of this Bramwell-solitary now no longer-I am interested in him. A man who has kept himself to himself for years must, if there ever was anything in him, have something to say worth listening to when he speaks. We are solitary enough ourselves, goodness knows. Who can tell but this Zimmermann may be induced to cross the Hellespont, or, to be more near the situation, cross over from his Negropont to the mainland? When you meet him to-morrow, say I should be very glad if he would come to us and have a chat and smoke a pipe."

"I will, but I'm sure he doesn't smoke."

"Why are you sure of that, my sister?"

"Because he has quite an intellectual look."

"Thank you, Hetty. Very neat indeed. I shall not forget that thrust for a while. Now" (he raised his warning finger again and shook it at her with a look of portentous meaning) "mind, this is the second man you have fallen in love with during the past three days, and the horrible part of the matter is that both of them are married."

Whatever might be forgotten next morning, one thing was sure to be recollected in Crawford's House. It is a fact that Hetty did not remember to draw her brother's attention to the change of name projected for Freddie the evening before. Nor, strange to say, did her brother revert to the contemplated alteration.

But what was remembered beyond all chance of forgetting was that Freddie had promised to go across to the island again to-day. If the father and aunt happened by any means to lose sight of the fact, they were not allowed to remain a moment in doubt about it. The first thing the boy said when he opened his eyes was, "I'm to go to play with Frank again to-day, amn't I, Auntie Hetty?"

At breakfast he had most of the talk to himself, and all his talk was about Frank and the island, and the boat by which he had gone across, and Frank's father, who had given them both sugar on bread-and-butter, and the old barrow which was in the yard, and which served them with great fidelity as a cab, and a tramcar, and a steamboat, and a house, and a canal-boat, and a horse, and a great variety of other useful appliances and creatures.

"Are there wheels to that barrow?" asked the father as he got up to leave the house for the works.

"No, no wheels. But we play that there are."

"So much the better there are none. And now, my young friend," said the father, catching up the boy and kissing him, "take care you do not fall out of that barrow and cut your nose, and take care you don't hurt the other little boy; for if you do you shall never, never, never go over to the island again. Remember that, won't you?"

"Yes," said Freddie, struggling out of his father's arms in order to get on a chair and see through the kitchen window if the other little boy's father was already coming to fetch him on that long narrow boat across those wide waters to the haven of joy, the old timber-yard beyond.

Alas! the little boy's father was not there, and to the young eyes the place looked desolate, forlorn.

"Will Frank's father come soon, Mrs. Grainger?" asked Freddie, in a tone of despair.

"Of course he will. He'll be here in a few minutes," said that good woman, who knew absolutely nothing of Hetty's promise of the previous afternoon, as she had left the house long before Freddie came back and the undertaking for another visit was given. But Mrs. Grainger was fond of children, and, if she had had any of her own, would have spoiled them beyond hope of reformation.

"Frank said he'd be up very early," said the boy in pensive complaint.

"And very early he'll be," said Mrs. Grainger, as she polished the fender with resolute vigour. "He'll be here, I warrant, before you have time to say Jack Robinson."

The phrase which Mrs. Grainger used to indicate a very little while was new to the boy, and he took it literally, and murmured softly, in a voice that did not surmount the sound of Mrs. Grainger's conflict with the fender, "Jack Robinson, Jack Robinson, Jack Robinson!" and then, finding the soothsaying unfulfilled, he lapsed into a spiritless silence, keeping his eyes fixed on the point where he knew Bramwell must come round the corner of the yard-wall.

Presently he raised a great shout and clapped his hands, and, getting down from the chair on which he had been standing, tore, shouting through the house, to discover his Aunt Hetty, and tell her the joyful news and fetch his hat.

He found Hetty, and in quick haste the aunt and nephew were out on the little quay or wharf, and stretching towards them, drawn by Francis Bramwell, was the long, low, black floating stage.

Little Frank was not visible. His father had left him safe behind the wall of the yard. It would be unsafe to trust him on the edge of Crawford's Bay, and dangerous to carry two boys of so young an age across that long, oscillating, crank raft.

Hetty stood at the edge of the water holding the boy in her arms.

"How do you do, Mrs. Layard?" said Bramwell, lifting his battered billycock hat as he landed. "I am indebted to your little nephew for your name."

He spoke gravely, with an amelioration of the subdued and serious lines of his face that was almost a smile. During the past two or three days he had not only re-inherited the power of smiling, but had absolutely laughed more than once at some speech or action of his son's, or when his thoughts took a pleasant turn about the boy. But he had been so long out of use in smiling or laughing that he could not yet exercise these powers except in connection with the child.

Hetty in some confusion said she was very well, and thanked him. Freddie's summons had been sudden, and, at the moment, unexpected, so that she felt slightly embarrassed.

"I am sure," the man said, keeping his large, luminous, sphinx-like eyes on her, "it is very good of you to allow your little fellow to come to play with mine. You do me a great kindness in lending him to me. I shall take the utmost care of him, I pledge you my word."

In these few seconds the girl had regained her self-possession, and said, with one of those bright sunny smiles of hers, in which golden light seemed to dance in her blue eyes, "Understand, I allow him to go as a favour."

"Undoubtedly," he said, bowing, and then looking at her with a faint gleam of surprise in his eyes.

"And you will repay favour for favour?"

"If I can."

"Well, my brother is a very lonely, home-keeping man, who hardly ever has any one to see him, and he told me to ask you if you would do him the kindness of coming in this evening for a little while, as he would like to meet you, now that our young people are such friends. That is the favour I ask. I ask it for my brother's sake. Will you come, please?"

The man started, drew back, and looked around him half-scared. The notion of going into the house of another man had not crossed his mind for two years. The invitation sounded on his ears as though it were spoken in a language familiar to him in childhood, but which he had almost wholly forgotten. He had come across the water in order to secure a companion for his little son: but that any one should think he would come across that water and speak to people for an object of his own was startling, disconcerting, subversive of all he had held for a long time: since his arrival at the Ait.

Hetty saw that he hesitated, and, having no clue to his thoughts, fancied her invitation had not been pressing enough.

"You will promise?" she said, holding Freddie out to him. "You said you would do me a favour in return for the loan of the boy. You will not withdraw. It would really be a great kindness, for my brother is alone in the evenings except for me, and he seldom goes out."

"But Mrs. Layard-" said the man, in discomposure and perplexity, as he took Freddie in his arms, and hardly knowing what he said.

"Ah," said the girl, shaking her head, and pointing up to the unclouded sky, "she went when Freddie was a tiny little baby."

"Dead?" whispered the man, as a spasm passed over his face.

"Yes, more than three years."

"I beg your pardon. I am very stupid. I am afraid I have caused you pain. Believe me, I am extremely sorry."

"No, no; you must not say anything more of that. But you will come?"

"It is strange," said he in a tone of profound abstraction; "it is strange that the two little motherless boys should take such a liking to one another, and that both should come to this district-this place-at about the same time."

He had forgotten the girl's presence. Like most men who have lived long in solitude, he had contracted the habit of talking aloud to himself, and he was now unconscious that he had a listener.

"We may count on you?"

He awoke with a start: he did not know exactly to what the question referred. He was aware that he had been keeping the girl waiting for an answer, and that she had asked him for a favour in return for the loan of a companion for his boy. He blurted out "Certainly," and was back on the Ait once more before he realised the nature of the promise he had made.