Kitabı oku: «The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood», sayfa 23
CHAPTER V
A quaint old red-sandstone town; the river-harbour crowded with small craft, but now and again, like a Triton among the minnows, a timber-brig or a trading-barque driven in by stress of weather. When the tide went out—as it did seemingly with no intention of coming back, it went so far—the long level sands were spotted with groups of fisherfolk, who dug with pitchforks for sand-eels; while in among the rocks an army of children gleaned great harvests of a kind of seaweed, which served for food when times were hard.
These rocks were the seaward barrier and break-water of the little port, and did their duty well when, as now, they were tried by the full force of a westerly gale. It is blowing great guns; the hardy sheep that usually browse upon the upland slopes must starve perforce to-day—they cannot stand upon the steep incline; the cocks and hens of the cottagers take refuge to leeward of their homes; every gust is laden with atoms of sand or stone, which strike like hail or small shot upon the face. See how the waves dash in at the outlying rocks, hurrying onward like blood-hounds in full cry, scuffling, struggling, madly jostling one another in eagerness to be first in the fray; joining issue with tremendous crash, only to be spent, broken, dissipated into thin air. Overhead the sky changes almost with the speed of the blast; sometimes the sun winks from a corner of the leaden clouds and tinges with glorious light the foam-bladders as they burst and scatter around their clouds of spray; in between the headlands the sea is churned into creaming froth, as though the housewives of the sea-gods with unwearying arms were whipping "trifle" for some tremendous bridal-feast.
The houses at Harbridge mostly faced the shore, but all had stone porches, and the doors stood not in front, but at one side. The modest cottage which Mr. Driver called his own was like the rest; but as he enters, for all his care, a keen knife-edged gust of the pushing wind precedes him and announces his return. Next instant the little lobby is filled: a bevy of daughters, the good house-mother, one or two youngsters dragging at his legs, everyone eager to welcome the breadwinner home. They divest him of his wraps, soothing him the while with that tender loving solicitude a man finds only at his own happy hearth.
He unfolds his budget of news: a lugger driven by stress of weather upon the Castle Rock; suspicions of smuggling among the rough beyond Langness Cove; Dr. Holden's new partner arrived last night.
"I have asked him to come up this evening. A decent sort of chap."
Forthwith they fired a volley of questions. Was he old or young, married or single? had he blue eyes or brown? and how was he called?
To all papa makes shift to reply. The name he had forgotten, also the colour of his hair; but the fellow had eyes and two arms and two legs; he did not squint; had a pleasant address and all the appearance of an unmarried man.
"How could you see that, wise father?" asked Doll.
"He looked so sheepish when I mentioned my daughters. Doubtless he had heard of you, Miss Doll, and of your dangerous wiles."
She pinched his ear. They were excellent friends, were father and eldest daughter. Mr. Driver, a scholar and a man of letters, who had been thankful to exchange an uncertain footing upon the lower rungs of the ladder of literature for a small post under Government, had for years devoted his talents to the education of the children. In Dolly, as his most apt pupil, he took a peculiar pride.
"Come in, doctor!" cried Mr. Driver that night. "We are all dying, but only to make your acquaintance."
The new visitor was checked at the very threshold by Dolly's cry—
"Mr. Purling!"
And Harold stood confessed to his cousins without a chance of further disguise.
"Cousin Harold, you mean," he said, as he offered Dolly his hand.
She tried hard to hide her blushes; and then and there Mrs. Driver, after the manner of mothers, built up a great castle in the air, which her husband shook instantly to its foundations by asking unceremoniously and not without a shade of angry suspicion in his tone—
"Why did you not claim relationship this morning?"
He disliked the notion of a man stealing into his house under false colours.
"I waited for you to speak. You heard my name."
"I did not catch it clearly. Besides, I had never heard of you. None of us have. Your mother did not choose to recognise the relationship."
"She called you a tide-waiter," said his wife indignantly.
"At least I'm not a white-tied waiter," cried Mr. Driver, with a laugh, in which all joined. Then in low voice Dolly said—
"I met Mr. Purling at Purlington."
At which her father turned upon her with newly-raised suspicion. Why had she not mentioned the fact before? But something in Mrs. Driver's face deterred him. A woman in these matters sees how the land lies, while the cleverest man is still unable to distinguish it from the clouds upon the horizon-line.
"We are pleased to know you, Harold," said Mrs. Driver, a gentle, soft-voiced motherly person.
"You have really come to practise here?" went on the father, still rather on his guard.
"I wanted sea-air. The change will do me good," replied Harold, rather evasively. "I like the place, too."
Not a doubt of it. Harbridge was after his own heart, and so were some people who lived in it. He found it so much to his taste that he declared within a week or two that he thought of remaining there altogether. He would go into partnership with the local doctor; perhaps he had another partnership also in his eye.
"Can't you see what's going on under your nose, father?" asked Mrs. Driver.
"What do I care? I shall not interfere."
"Mrs. Purling will never give her consent. Poor Doll!"
"That for Mrs. Purling and her consent!" said Mr. Driver, snapping his fingers. "Doll is ever so much too good for them—well, not for him; he is an honest, straightforward fellow: but as for that selfish, silly, purse-proud old woman, she may thank Heaven if she gains a daughter like Doll."
That this was not Mrs. Purling's view of the question was plainly evident from a letter which awoke Harold rather rudely from his rosy dreams.
"So at length I have found you out, Harold. I never dreamt you could be so deceitful and double-faced. To talk of clinical lectures in town, and all the time at Harbridge, philandering with that forward, intriguing girl! Only with the greatest difficulty have I succeeded in learning the truth. Phillipa—who, it seems, has known your secret all along, and to whom, I find, you have constantly written—could not continue indifferent to my distress of mind. Although she has shielded you so far with a magnanimity that is truly heroic, she has interposed at length only to save my life.
"I desire you will come to me at once. Do not disobey me, Harold. I am very seriously displeased, and will only consent to forgive the past when I find you ready to bend your stubborn heart to obey my will."
Harold started at once for home. He hoped rather against hope that he might talk his mother over; but her aspect was not encouraging when he met her face to face.
No tragedy-queen could have assumed more scorn. Mrs. Purling, having thrown herself into several attitudes, fell at length into a chair.
"I never thought it," she said; "not from my own and only child. The serpent's tooth hath not such fangs, such power to sting, as the base ingratitude of one undutiful boy. But this fills the cup. I have done with you—for ever, unless you give me your sacred word of honour now, at this minute, never to speak to Dolly Driver again."
"Such a promise would be quite impossible under any circumstances, but I distinctly refuse to give it—upon compulsion."
"Then you have fair warning. Not one penny of my money shall you ever possess. I will never see you again."
"I sincerely trust the last is only an empty threat, my dearest mother."
She made a gesture as though she were not to be beguiled by soft words.
"As for the money, it matters little. Thank God, I have my profession."
"At which you will starve."
"By which I shall earn my bread as my father did. Besides, I can fall back upon the reputation of the Family Pills."
"I see you wish to goad me beyond endurance, Harold. Go!"
"For good and all?"
"Yes; except on the one alternative. Will you give up this idiotic passion? You refuse. It is on your own head, then. Go—go till I send for you, which will be never!"
Harold went without another word—to Harbridge, overcame Dolly's scruples, secured the practice, and within a month was married and settled.
Mrs. Purling, in Phillipa's presence, made a great parade of burning her will.
"He has brought it all on himself, unnatural boy! But you, darling Phillipa, will never treat me thus. Noblesse oblige. The bright blue blood that fills your veins would curdle at a mésalliance, I know."
Mrs. Purling was quite calm and self-possessed, while Miss Fanshawe, strange to say, seemed agitated enough for both. Her hands trembled, she looked away; only with positive repugnance she submitted to her new mother's affectionate embrace. A woman who is capable of the most cold-blooded calculating intrigue may yet have an access of remorse. Phillipa's heart was heavy now at the moment of her triumph. It cost her more than a passing pang to remember that she had robbed Harold Purling of his birthright, and had turned to her own base purpose the foolish cravings of the silly mother's heart.
But she had put aside self-upbraiding when she met her lover in town.
"Faith, you are a trump, Phillipa; but it's not much too soon. When will you take your reward?"
"Meaning Mr. Jillingham? Is the reward worth taking, I wonder?" For a moment she held him at bay. "Suppose I were to refuse you now at the eleventh hour? It is for you to sue. I am not what I was. Mrs. Purling calls me the heiress of the Purlings, and we may not consider Mr. Gilbert Jillingham a very eligible parti."
"You dare not refuse me, Phillipa," said Gilly very seriously. "I should expose your schemes, and we should go to the wall together. No, there is no escape for you now; our interests are identical."
"How am I to introduce you upon the scene?"
"Quite naturally; I shall go and stay at Compton Revel. They will have me, for your sake, if not for my own. I shall begin de novo—at the very beginning: be smitten, pay you court, win over the heiress, and propose."
So it fell out, and they also were married before the end of the year.
CHAPTER VI
Mean as had been their conduct towards Mrs. Purling and her son, Phillipa and her husband were not to be classed with common adventurers of the ordinary type. Born in a lower station, Gilly Jillingham might have taken honours as a "prig"; in his own with less luck he might have been an Ishmaelite generally shunned. Phillipa also might have degenerated into a mere soured cackling hanger-on; but they were not pariahs by caste, but Brahmins, and entitled to all due honour so long as they floated on top of the wave. Perhaps if near drowning no finger would have been outstretched to save; but there were plenty to pat them on the back as they disported themselves on the sound dry land. Fair-weather friends and needy relatives rallied round their prosperity, of course; but they were also accepted as successful social facts by the whole of that great world which judges for the most part by appearances, being too idle or too much engrossed by folly to apply more accurate or searching tests. In good society those who cared to talk twice of the matter blamed Harold; he was absent; besides, he had gone to the wall, therefore he must be in the wrong. On the other hand, the Jillinghams deserved the triumph that is never denied success. To Gilly prosperous were forgiven the sins of Gilly in social and moral rags. If scandal like an evil gas had been let loose to crystallise upon Phillipa's good name, the black stains could not adhere long to so charming a person, who made the Purling mansion in Berkeley Square one of the best-frequented and most fashionable in town.
There were many reasons why the Jillinghams should find their account in perpetual junketings. Social excitement was as the breath in Gilly's nostrils; notorious for profuse expenditure even when he was penniless, he was now absolutely reckless with money that was plentiful and moreover not his own. Nor was the constant whirl of gaieties without its charm for Phillipa; it deadened conscience, and consoled in some measure for the neglect and indifference she soon encountered at her husband's hands. But the most potent reason was that it fooled Mrs. Purling to the top of her bent. Self-satisfaction beamed upon her ample face as she found herself at length in constant intercourse and on a social equality—as she thought—with the potentates and powers and great ones of the earth. Gilly Jillingham in the days of his apogee had been the spoiled favourite of more than one titled dame; his success must have been great, to measure it by the envy and hatred he evoked among his fellowmen—even when in the cold shade there were duchesses who fought for him still; and now, when once more in full blossom, all his fair friends were ready to pet him as of old. The form in which their kindness pleased him best—because it was most to his advantage—was in making much of Mrs. Purling. Great people have the knack of putting those whom they patronise on the very best terms with themselves; and Mrs. Purling was so convinced of her success as a leader of fashion that she would have asked for a peerage in her own right, taking for arms three pills proper upon a silver field, if she could have been certain that these honours would not descend to her recreant son.
Whether or not, as time passed, she was absolutely happy, she did not pause to inquire. The devotion of her newly-adopted children was so unstinting, and they kept her so continually busy, that she had not time for self-reproach. It was a disappointment to her that the Jillinghams had no prospect of a family, and her chagrin would have been increased had she known that already a boy and girl had been born to the rightful heirs at Harbridge. But such news was carefully kept from her; she was rigorously cut off from all communication with her son. There was no safety otherwise against mischance; the strange processes of the old creature's mind were inscrutable; she might in one spasm of an awakened conscience undo all. For the Jillinghams were still absolutely dependent upon her; she could turn them out of house and home whenever she pleased. A small settlement was all the real property Phillipa had secured. Although with right royal generosity Mrs. Purling gave her favourites a liberal allowance, and promised them everything when she was gone, yet was she like a crustacean in the tenacity of her grip upon her own. This close-fistedness was exceedingly distasteful to Mr. Jillingham. He had an appetite for gold not easily appeased, and four or five thousand a year was to him but a mouthful to be swallowed at one gulp.
Openly of course he continued on his best behaviour, but behind the scenes he permitted himself to grumble loudly at the old lady's meanness and miserly ways.
"I cannot understand you, Gilbert. I cannot see what you do with all the money you get," said Phillipa reproachfully one day when they were alone, and Gilly was enlarging upon his favourite theme. "You live at free quarters, you have no expenses and ought to have no debts."
"Have you no debts, pray?"
"None that you are ignorant of."
"Look here, Phillipa; listen to me. I spend what I please, how I please. I shall give no account of it to you, nor to any one else in the world."
"It is not necessary. I had rather not be told. I do not care to know," said Phillipa, womanlike, forgetting that she had begun by wishing to be informed. She had her own suspicions, but forbore to question further, lest she might be brought face to face with the outrages she feared he put upon her.
"She will take to counting the potatoes next. It's most contemptible. A mean old brute—"
"I shall not listen to you, Gilbert. You owe her everything."
"Do I? I wonder what my tailor would say to that or Reuben Isaac Melchisedec? I've more than one creditor; they are a prolific and, I am sorry to say, a long-lived race."
"I hope Mrs. Purling may live to be a hundred years at least—"
"I don't. I'd rather she was choked by one of those pills you tell me she takes every morning and night."
There was something in his tone which made Phillipa look at him hard. Was it possible that he contemplated any terrible wickedness? The mere apprehension made her blood run cold.
"O Gilly, swear to me that you will not harbour evil thoughts, that you will put aside the devil who is prompting and luring you to some awful crime!"
"Psha, Phillipa, you ought to have gone into the Church. Moderate your transports—here comes one of the footmen."
"A person to see you, sir," said the servant. "He 'aven't got any card, but his business is very particular."
"I can't see him; send him away. If he won't go call the police."
"Says his name, sir, is Shubenacady."
"Take him to the library; I'll come."
Jillingham's face was rather pale, and his lips were set firm when he met his visitor.
"What the mischief do you want?"
"Five thou—ten—what you please. I know of a splendid investment."
"In soap?"
He was the dirtiest creature that ever was seen. He wore a full suit of black, but the coat and trousers were white with age and dust-stains; an open waistcoat, exposing an embroidered shirt which could not have been washed for months; his hat was napless, and had a limp brim; no gloves, and the grimiest of hands. But he was decorated, and wore a ribbon, probably of St. Lucifer.
"In soap, or shavings, or shoddy; what does it matter to you? When can I have the money?"
"Never; not another sixpence."
"Then I shall publish all I know."
"No one will believe you."
"I have proofs."
"Which are forged. I tell you I'm too strong for you: you will find yourself in the wrong box. I am sick of this; and I mean to put an end to your extortion."
"You dare me. You know the consequences."
"The first consequence will be that I shall give you in charge. Be off!"
"You shall have a week to think better of it."
Gilly rang the bell.
"Shall I send for a policeman, or will you go?"
He went, muttering imprecations intermixed with threats; but Gilly Jillingham, quite proud of his courage, seemed for the moment callous to both. He little dreamt how soon the latter would be put into effect.
Within a few days of this interview the greatest event of Mrs. Purling's whole social career was due; she was to entertain royalty beneath her own roof. This crowning of the edifice of her ambition filled her with solemn awe; the preparations for the coming ball were stupendous, her own magnificent costume seemed made up of diamonds and bullion and five-pound notes.
Long before the hour of reception she might have been seen pacing to and fro with stately splendour, contemplating the daïs erected for royalty at one end of the room, and thinking with a glow of satisfaction that the representative of the Purlings had at last come to her own. At this supreme moment she was grateful to dear Phillipa and to Gilbert little less dear.
Then guests began to pour in. Where was Phillipa? Very late; she might have dressed earlier. A servant was sent to call her, and Phillipa, hurrying down, met Gilly on the upper floor coming out of Mrs. Purling's bedroom.
"What have you been doing there?" she asked.
"Mrs. Purling wanted a fan," said Gilly readily.
She might want one fan, but hardly two; and had Phillipa been less flurried she might have noticed that Mrs. Purling had one already in her hand. But then their Royal Highnesses arrived; the heiress made her curtsey for the first time in her life, was graciously received, and the hour of her apotheosis had actually come. Presently the crowd became so dense that every inch of space was covered; people overflowed on to the landings, and sat four or five deep upon the stairs. Dancing was simply impossible; however, hundreds of couples went through the form. Phillipa, as in duty bound, remained in the thick of the mêlée, but Gilly had very early disappeared. He preferred the card-room; his waltzing days were over, he said. He was playing; it was not very good taste, but there were some men who preferred a quiet rubber to looking at princes or the antics of boys and girls, and he wished to oblige his friends.
"Can you give me a moment, Le Grice?" said Lord Camberwell, coming into the card-room. "I have had a most extraordinary letter. It accuses Gilly Jillingham—"
"God bless my soul," cried old Colonel Le Grice, "a letter of the same sort has been sent to me!"
"Have you had any suspicion that he played unfairly?"
"Not the slightest; I know he always holds the most surprising hands, that he plays for very high stakes, that he nearly always wins—"
"Is he winning now?"
Of course. Mr. Jillingham's luck never deserted him. He was trying now perhaps to make at one coup sufficient to silence for a further space his enemy's tongue; the bets upon the odd trick alone amounted to a thousand or more. But he was too late. His hour had come.
Suddenly Lord Camberwell spoke in a loud peremptory voice:
"Stop! Mr. Jillingham is cheating. He does it in the deal. I have watched him now for three rounds."
"And so have I," added Colonel Le Grice.
Gilly sprang to his feet. For a moment he seemed disposed to brazen it out; then he read his sentence in the face of those who had detected and now judged him. There was no appeal: he was doomed. From henceforth he was socially and morally dead, and, without a word, he slunk away from the house.
The buzz of the ball-room soon caught up the ugly scandal, and tossed it wildly from lip to lip. "Mr. Jillingham caught cheating at cards!" Everyone said, of course, they had suspected it all along; now every one knew it as a fact, except those most nearly concerned. To them it came last. To Phillipa, whose heart it stabbed as with a knife, cut through and through; then to Mrs. Purling, who, a little taken aback by the sudden exodus of her guests, asked innocently what it meant, upon which some one, without knowing who she was, told her the exact truth.
Quite stunned by the terrible shock, dazed, terrified, was the heiress, scarcely capable of comprehending what had occurred. Then with a sad, scared face, motioning Phillipa on one side, who, equally white and grief-stricken, would have helped her, she crept slowly upstairs, feeling that at one blow the whole fabric of her social repute was tumbled in the dust.
The lights were out, the play was over, the house still and silent, when, with loud shrieks, Mrs. Purling's maid rushed to Phillipa's room.
"Mrs. Purling, ma'am!—my mistress, she is dying! Come to her! She is nearly gone!"
In truth, the poor old woman was in the extremest agony; it was quite terrible to see her. She gasped as if for air; her whole frame jerked and twitched with the violence of her convulsions; gradually her body was drawn in a curve, like that of a tensely-strung bow.
The spasms abated, then recommenced; abated, then raged with increased fury. But through it all she was conscious; she had even the power of speech, and cried aloud again and again, with a bitter heart-wrung cry, for "Harold! Harold!" the absent much-wronged son.
"The symptoms are those of tetanus," said the nearest medical practitioner, who had been called in. He seemed fairly puzzled. "Tetanus or—" He did not finish the sentence, because the single word that was on his lips formed a serious charge against a person or persons unknown. "But there is nothing to explain lock-jaw; while the abatement of the symptoms points to—" Again he paused.
The muscles of the mouth, which had been the last attacked, gradually resumed their normal condition. The patient appeared altogether more easy, the writhings subsided; presently, as if utterly exhausted, she sank off to sleep.
Harold Purling had come up post-haste from Harbridge; and when the mother opened her eyes they rested upon her son.
A hurried consultation passed in whispers between the two doctors. Phillipa was present; she and the maid had not left Mrs. Purling all night.
"Mother," said Harold, "you are out of all danger. Tell me—do you recollect taking anything likely to make you ill?"
"Only the pills." She pointed to the family medicine—a box of which stood always by her bedside. She had some curious notion that it was her duty to show belief in the Primeval Pills, and she made a practice of swallowing two morning and night.
Harold opened the box; examined the pills; finally put one into his mouth and bit it through. Bitter as gall.
"They have been tampered with," he said. "These contain strychnia. You have had a narrow escape of being poisoned, dearest mother—poisoned by your own Pills!"
He half smiled at the conceit.
"There has been foul play, I swear. It shall be sifted to the bottom, and the guilty called to serious account."
But the mystery was never solved. If Phillipa had in her heart misgivings, she kept her suspicions to herself; no one accused her; there seemed explanation for her cowed and trembling manner in Gilly's downfall and disgrace. The man himself never reappeared openly; only now and again he swooped down and robbed Phillipa of all she, possessed—the thrift of her allowance from Mrs. Purling.
As for the heiress, surrounded by the real love and warm hearts of her lineal descendants, she was satisfied to eschew all further acquaintance with people of the Blue Blood.
