Kitabı oku: «The Bond of Black», sayfa 7
We chatted on for half an hour, and when he rose to leave he invited me to walk up to the village after dinner, and have a smoke with him.
“My rooms are not palatial, you know, my dear fellow,” he said, “but I can give you a good cigar, if you’ll come.”
“Certainly; I shall be delighted,” I answered, and we parted.
Soon after eight that evening I knocked at Mrs Walker’s door, and was ushered by her daughter into the small, clean, but rather shabbily-furnished best room. It smelt strongly of the geraniums, which grew high in a row before the window, and as I entered Jack Yelverton rose and greeted me cheerily, giving me his easy chair, taking down a box of cigars from the shelf, and producing a surreptitious bottle of whiskey, a syphon, and a couple of glasses from a little cupboard in the wall.
“I’m jolly glad you’ve come,” he said, when he had reseated himself, and I had got my weed under way. “The surprise to-day has indeed been a pleasant one. Lots of times I have thought of you, and wondered where and how you were. But in the world men drift apart, and even the best resolutions of correspondence made at college are mostly broken. However, it is a very pleasant meeting this, for I feel already that I’m among friends.”
“Of course you are, old chap,” I answered. “My people will always be pleased to see you. Like yourself, I’m awfully glad we’ve met. But you’re the very last man I should have imagined would have gone in for the Church. It isn’t your first appointment, I suppose?”
“No,” he answered reflectively, gazing at the end of his cigar. “It came about in this way. I studied for a couple of years at Lincoln’s Inn, but somehow I didn’t care much for the law, and one day it occurred to me that with my knowledge of theology I might have a chance of doing good among my fellow-men. I don’t know what put it into my head, I’m sure, but straight away I saw my uncle the Bishop, and the result was that very soon afterwards I was appointed curate at Framlingham, in Suffolk. This disappointed me. I felt that I ought to work in one of the overcrowded cities; that I might, with the income my father had left me, alleviate the sufferings of some of the deserving poor; that I might be the means of effecting some good in the world. At last I was successful in obtaining an appointment under the Vicar of Christ Church, Commercial Street, Spitalfields, where I can tell you I had plenty of opportunity for doing that which I had set my mind upon. A curate’s life in the East End isn’t very pleasant if he does his duty, and mine was not a very salubrious locality. The air of the slums is poisonous. For three years I worked there,” he went on after a slight pause. “Then I exchanged to St. Peter’s, Walworth, and then, owing to ill-health, I was compelled to come here, into the country again. That’s briefly been my life since we parted.”
“Well,” I said, convinced of his earnestness of purpose in the life he had adopted, for a man does not seek an appointment in a London slum unless he feels a strong incentive to work in the interests of his fellow-men, “you’ll get all right very soon here, I hope. The air is fresh, your parish isn’t very large, and old Layton, the rector, is an easy-going old chap – one of the old school.”
“Yes, I know,” he said; “I’ve been here already ten days, and I’ve seen that the work is mere child’s play. The rector has got into a groove, like all rural rectors. But, to tell the truth, I only accepted the appointment because the doctor ordered me a change. When I’m quite strong again I shall go back, I hope, to London. When I entered the Church it wasn’t with any thought of gain. I’ve enough to keep me comfortably. I had, and have still, in view work which I must achieve.”
Jack Yelverton was an enthusiast. I was rather surprised, I confess, at finding him so energetic in religious work, for when at Wadham he had been quite the reverse. Still, there was an air of deep sincerity in his words. His face, too, was pale and lined, as if he had worked until his constitution had become jaded and worn. On his mantel-shelf was a marble clock, with the neat inscription on a silver plate stating that it had been subscribed for by the parishioners of the poor East End parish as a token of their esteem.
He rose to turn down the lamp, which was smoking, and as he did so sighed. Then casting himself in his chair again, he remarked —
“I don’t know how long I shall be able to stand this rusticating. You know, Clifton, I wasn’t born to rusticate.”
“No, I know that,” I said. “Like myself, you prefer town.”
“Ah, you have your clubs, your friends, theatres, concerts, river-parties, merry little dinners, all that makes life worth living,” he said. “But if you worked with me for a week your heart would bleed to see the appalling poverty and distress; how the poor strive and struggle to live; how their landlords, with hearts like stone, sell them up and drive them to the last extremity; how the keepers of the low-class public-houses sell them intoxicants which drive them mad, and how at last the police lay hands upon them as drunkards and thieves. You don’t know, my dear fellow – you can’t know – how lower London lives. When I reflect upon some of the painful scenes of poverty and distress to which I have been witness, and remember the heartfelt gratitude with which any slight assistance I have given has been accepted, I feel somehow angry with the wealthy – those who spend their money recklessly within that small area around Charing Cross, and will contribute to any Mansion House fund to aid foreigners because their names will be printed as donors in the daily papers, but, alas! who begrudge a single sixpence to the starving poor in the giant city which brings them their wealth. They are fond of talking of missions to the East End and all that, but it isn’t religion half these people want, it’s bread for their starving wives and children, or some little necessities for the sick.”
“Yes,” I observed, “I suppose all sorts of absurd bunkum is talked about religious work among the London poor. Poor Roddy Morgan used to hold a similar opinion to yourself. He was an ardent supporter of a philanthropic movement which had its headquarters somewhere in the Mile End Road.”
“Ah! poor Roddy!” he sighed. “His was, indeed, a sad end. That such a good, honest, upright fellow should have been murdered like that was truly a most melancholy circumstance.”
“Murdered!” I exclaimed. “How do you know he was murdered?”
There had been no suggestion in the papers of foul play, therefore my friend’s declaration was extremely remarkable.
“I know the truth!” he answered, very gravely.
“What do you mean?” I exclaimed, starting forward quickly. “Are you actually aware of the cause of poor Roddy’s death? Tell me.”
“No, Clifton,” he responded, shaking his head, as rising he stood determinedly before me, his brows knit in a thoughtful attitude. “A confession made to me by one who seeks the forgiveness of God I may not divulge. Remember,” he added in a firm voice, “remember that I am a clergyman; and confidences reposed in me I must not abuse. Therefore do not seek the truth from me. My lips are sealed.”
Chapter Eleven
Purely Confidential
Jack Yelverton’s declaration held me dumb. He knew the truth, yet could not divulge, because any confession made to him by one who sought spiritual guidance was sacred.
I pressed him to tell me something which might give me a clue to the truth, but he only grew additionally grave, and answered —
“Roddy was my friend, as well as yours, Clifton. If it were possible, don’t you think that I would bring the guilty to punishment? Ah! don’t speak of it,” he sighed. “In this affair I’ve suffered enough. If you knew how the possession of this secret oppresses me, you would be silent on that sad topic always.”
I said nothing. His face had grown haggard and drawn, and I could see that his conscience was torn by a tumult of emotions.
It was certainly extraordinary, I reflected, as I smoked on in silence, while he stood leaning against the mantel-shelf with his eyes fixed upon the opposite wall. That day I had again met after years of separation this man who had once been among my best friends, and he was actually in possession of the secret which I had been longing through those winter months to learn – the secret of the tragic death of poor Roddy Morgan.
But he was a clergyman. Had he been a member of any other profession he might, in the interests of justice, betray the murderer – for there was no doubt now that Roddy had been murdered – but he was a servant of his Master, and words spoken in confidence into his ear by the penitent were as the secrets of the Roman Catholic confessional. From him I could hope for no word of the truth.
At last he spoke again, telling me that the real reason he had accepted a country curacy was because of this terrible secret ever oppressing him.
“But,” he added quite resignedly, “it is, I suppose, a burden placed upon me as a test. Now I know the truth I feel as an accessory to the crime; but to divulge would be to break faith with both God and man.”
His words admitted of no argument. I sat silent, oppressed, smoking and thinking. Then at length I rose to go.
“We are friends still, Clifton,” he said, as he gripped my hand warmly. “But you understand my position, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I answered. “That you cannot speak is plain. Good night,” and I went forth into the quiet village street where the only light came from the cottage windows here and there. The good people of Duddington go to bed early and rise with the dawn, therefore there was little light to guide my steps down the hill and up the road to the Hall. Nothing stirred, and the only sound was the dismal howl of a distant sheep-dog.
During the fortnight that followed I saw plenty of the new curate. His manner had, however, changed, and he had grown the same merry, buoyant companion as he had been in our college days.
Into Duddington Jack Yelverton had come as a perfect revelation of the ways and manners of the Church. For the past twenty years the estimable rector had preached regularly once each Sunday, and been usually assisted by a puny, consumptive-looking youth, fresh from college; but the smart, clever, witty sermon from this ecclesiastical giant was electrifying. People talked of it for days afterwards, discussed the arguments he had put forward so boldly, and were compelled to admit that he was an earnest, righteous, and upright man.
He dined with us once or twice, afterwards taking a hand at whist; we cycled together over to Oundle by way of Newton and Fotheringhay; on another occasion we rode to Uppingham to visit a man who had been with us at Wadham and was now one of the masters at Uppingham School; and several times I drove him to Peterborough and to Stamford. Thus we were together a good deal, and the more I saw of him the more convinced I became that he was thoroughly earnest in his purpose, and that he had not adopted the Church from motives of gain, like so many men whose relatives are ecclesiastical dignitaries.
A letter I received one morning from Muriel caused me to decide upon a visit to town, and I left the same evening, returning once more to my chambers in Charing Cross Mansions. Next day being Sunday, I sent Simes, on my arrival, round to Madame Gabrielle’s with a note inviting Muriel to call at eleven and go with me to spend the day at Hampton Court. I knew that she always liked a ramble in Bushey Park, for town-stifled as she was, it reminded her of Burleigh, the great demesne of the Cecils outside Stamford.
She accepted, and at eleven next morning Simes ushered her in. She was quietly dressed in black, the dash of bright cerise in her hat well suiting her complexion.
“Well,” she said, putting forth her hand as she entered. “I really thought you had quite forgotten me. Your note last night gave me a great surprise.”
“I suppose if the truth were known you were engaged for to-day, eh?” I asked mischievously, for I took a keen delight in chaffing her about her admirers.
“Well, you’ve pretty well guessed the truth,” she laughed, blushing slightly as she took the chair I offered her.
“What is he this time – dark or fair?” I asked.
“Dark. A rather nice fellow-cashier in a bank in the City.”
“And he takes you out often, I suppose?”
“Two or three times a week,” she answered, quite frankly. “We go to a music-hall sometimes, or, if not, down to the Monico.”
“The Monico!” I laughed, remembering how popular that restaurant was with shop-assistants and clerks. “Why always the Monico?”
“Ah!” she smiled. “We can’t afford Frascati’s, the Café Royal, or Yerrey’s. We get a little life at the Monico at small cost, and it doesn’t matter to us whether our neighbours wear tweeds or not. A man not in evening dress in the Café Royal, Verrey’s, or Jimmy’s is looked upon as an outsider; so we avoid those places.”
“And you like him, eh?” I inquired, amused.
“As much as I like all the others,” she responded with a light, irresponsible air, toying with the handle of her umbrella. “Life in London is frightfully dull if a girl has nobody to take her out. She can’t go about alone as she can in the country, and girls in business are not very friendly towards each other. You’ve no idea how many jealousies exist among girls in shops.”
“I suppose if a man goes to Madame Gabrielle’s to buy a bonnet for a present, or something, you all think he ought to take notice of you?” I laughed.
“Of course,” she replied. “But it’s the travellers from the wholesale houses who are most sought after by the girls; first, because they are generally pretty well to do, and secondly, they often know of good ‘cribs’ of which they tell the girls who are their favourites, and give them a recommendation into the bargain.”
“I always used to think that the shop-walker in the drapery places had a pretty lively time of it. Is that so?”
“They’re always jealous of the travellers,” she said. “The shop-walker fancies himself a lady-killer because he’s trained to do the amiable to the customers, and he can get the girls in his department into awful hot water if he likes; therefore he doesn’t care much for the good-looking town traveller, who comes in his brougham and has such a very gay and easy life of it. Girls in drapers’ shops are compelled to keep in with the shop-walker, but they hate him because he’s usually such a tyrant.”
“Then you may thank your stars that you haven’t a shop-walker,” I laughed.
“But we’ve got old Mrs Rayne and the manager, who are both quite as nasty to us as any shop-walker could be,” she protested quickly. “Rayne is constantly nagging at one or other of us if we don’t effect a sale. And that’s too bad, for, as you know, many ladies come in merely to look round and price the hats. They have no intention whatever of buying, and make lame excuses that the shape doesn’t suit them, or that the colour is too gaudy. It isn’t fair to us.”
“Of course not,” I said. “But forget all your business worries for to-day, and let’s have a pleasant hour or two out in the country. There’s a train from Waterloo at twelve; so we’ll go to Teddington and walk across Bushey Park. Do you care for that?”
“Of course,” she cried, delighted. “Why, it’s fully ten or even eleven months since we were there last time. Do you remember, we went down last Chestnut Sunday? Weren’t the trees in the avenue beautiful then?”
“Yes,” I said, remembering the pleasant afternoon we had afterwards spent on the river. But it was now too early in the season for boating in comfort, therefore to wander about would, I knew, be far more enjoyable.
Therefore, we took a cab over to Waterloo, and travelling down to Teddington, lunched at the Clarence, and afterwards, in the bright spring sunshine, strolled up the avenue, where already the trees were bursting into leaf. There were but few people, for as yet the season was considered too early. On summer Sundays, when London is dusty and the streets of closed shops palpitate with heat, then crowds of workers come there by all sorts of conveyances to get fresh air and obtain sight of the cooling scenery. But in early spring it is too far afield. Yet there is no more beautiful spot within easy reach of London, and in the quietness of a bright spring day, when the grass is green, when everything is bursting into bud, and the birds are singing merrily as if thankful that winter has passed, I had always found it far more pleasant than in the hot days, when omnibuses tear wildly along the avenue, raising clouds of dust, when carts full of coarse-voiced gentlemen from the East shout loudly, and chaff those who are seated on the tops of the four-horsed ’buses, and when the public-houses are filled to overflowing by crowds of ever-thirsty bona-fide travellers.
In the warm sunshine, which reminded me of those perfect March days we had had on the Riviera, we wandered together across the Park, chatting merrily, she relating to me all the principal events of her toilsome life during the past six months, which comprised that period when the metropolis is at its worst, and when wet Sundays render the life of London’s workers additionally dismal. In winter the life of the shop-assistant is truly a dreary, monotonous existence, working nearly half the day by artificial light in an atmosphere unhealthily warmed by one of those suffocating abominations called gas-stoves; and if Sunday happens to be inclement there is absolutely nothing to do save to wait for the opening of the big restaurants at six o’clock in the evening. To sit idle in a café and be choked with tobacco-smoke is all the recreation which shop-assistants in London can obtain if the Day of Rest be wet.
Truly the shop-assistant’s life is an intensely dismal one. Knowing all this, I felt sorry for Muriel.
“Then the winter has been very dull,” I observed, after she had been telling me of the miserable weather and her consequent inability to get out on Sundays.
“Yes,” she answered. “I used to be envious when you wrote telling me of the sunshine and flowers you had on the Riviera. It must be a perfect Paradise. I should so like to go there and spend a winter.”
“As far as natural beauties are concerned, the coast is almost as near Paradise as you can get on this earth,” I said, laughing. “But Monte Carlo, although delightful, is far nearer an approach to the other place – the place which isn’t often mentioned in polite society – in fact, somebody once said, and with a good deal of truth, that the door of the Casino was the entrance-gate to hell.”
“I’d like to see the gambling-rooms just once,” she said.
“You are best away from them,” I answered. “The moral influence of the tables cannot fail to prove baneful.”
“I was disappointed,” she said, “when I heard you had left London without wishing me good-bye. You had never done so before. I called at your chambers, and Simes told me you had gone abroad. Surely you could have spared ten minutes to wish me farewell,” she added reproachfully.
I glanced at her and saw a look of regret and disappointment upon her face. Yes, she was undeniably beautiful.
I told myself that I had always loved Muriel, that I loved her still.
Her eyes met mine, and I saw in their dark depths a deep and trusting love. Yet I was socially her superior, and had foolishly imagined that we could always remain friends without becoming lovers. When I reflected how years ago I used to chat with her in her father’s shop, in the days when she was a hoydenish schoolgirl, and compared her then with what she was now, I saw her as a graceful, modest, and extremely beautiful woman, who possessed the refinement of speech and grace of carriage which many women in higher standings in life would have envied, and whom I knew was honest and upright, although practically alone and unprotected in that great world of London.
“You must forgive me,” I said. “I ought to have seen you before I went away, but I left hurriedly with my sister and her husband. You know what a restless pair they are.”
“Of course,” she answered. “But you’ve been back in England several weeks. Mary Daffern wrote to me and said she had seen you driving in Stamford nearly three weeks ago.”
“Yes,” I replied. “I was sick of the eternal rounds of Nice and Monte Carlo, so travelled straight to Tixover without breaking my journey in town. But surely,” I added, “it doesn’t matter much if I don’t see you for a month or two. It never has mattered.”
Her eyes were fixed upon the ground, and I thought her lips trembled.
“Of course it does,” she responded. “I like to know how and where you are. We are friends – indeed, you are the oldest friend I have in London.”
“But you have your other admirers,” I said. “Men who take you about, entertain you, flatter you, and all that sort of thing.”
“Yes, yes,” she answered hurriedly. “But you know I hate them all. I merely accept their invitations because it takes me out of the dreary groove in which my work lies. It’s impossible for a woman to go about alone, and the attentions of men amuse me rather than gratify my natural woman’s vanity.”
She spoke sensibly, as few of her age would speak. Her parents had been honest, upright, God-fearing folk, and she had been taught to view life philosophically.
“But you have loved,” I suggested. “You can’t really tell me with truth that of all these men who have escorted you about of an evening and on Sundays there is not one for whom you have developed some feeling of affection.”
She blushed and glanced up at me shyly.
“It really isn’t fair to ask me that,” she protested, flicking at the last year’s leaves with the point of her umbrella. “A woman must have a heart like stone if she never experiences any feeling of love. If I replied in the negative I should only lie to you. That you know quite well.”
“Then you have a lover, eh?” I exclaimed quickly, perhaps in a tone of ill-concealed regret.
“No,” she responded, in a low, firm voice, “I have no lover.” Then after a few moments’ pause she inquired, “Why do you ask me that?”
“Because, Muriel,” I said seriously, taking her hand, “because I desire to know the truth.”
“Why?” she asked, looking at me in mingled amazement and alarm. “We are friends, it is true; but your friendship gives you no right to endeavour to learn the secret of my heart,” and she gently withdrew her hand from my grasp.
I was silent, unable to reply to such an argument.
“And you love this man?” I said, in a rather hard voice.
But she merely shrugged her shoulders, and with a forced laugh answered —
“Oh, let’s talk of something else. We are out to enjoy ourselves to-day, not to discuss each other’s love affairs.”
We had approached the Diana fountain, and she stood pensively beside it for a moment watching the shoal of lazy carp, some of which have lived in that pond for over a century.
“I do not wish to discuss my own affairs of the heart, Muriel,” I burst forth passionately, as I stood beside her. “Yet, as one who holds you in esteem, who has ever striven for your welfare, I feel somehow that I ought to be still your confidant.”
“You only wish to wring my secret from me because it amuses you,” she protested, her eyes flashing resentfully. “You know that’s the truth. When you have nothing better to do you bring me out, just because I’m company. If you had held me in esteem, as you declare you do, you would have at least wished me farewell before you went abroad for the winter.”
This neglect had annoyed her, and in sudden pique she was reproaching me in a manner quite unusual to her. I had never before seen her assume so resentful an air.
“No,” I responded, pained that she should thus charge me with amusing myself at leisure with her society, although when I reflected I was compelled to admit within myself that her words were the absolute truth. For several years I had merely treated her as a friend to be sought when I had no other person to dine with or accompany me out. Yes, of late, I had neglected Muriel sadly.
“I don’t think you are quite fair,” I said. “That I hold you in esteem you must have seen long, long ago, and the reason why I did not wish you farewell was because – well, because I was just then very much upset.”
“You had met a woman whom you believed you loved,” she said harshly. “It is useless to try and conceal the truth from me.”
“I have not attempted to conceal anything,” I responded, nevertheless starting at her mention of that woman who had been enveloped in such mystery, and who, after a few days’ madness, had now so completely gone out of my life. How could she have known?
In answer she looked me straight in the face with her dark, fathomless eyes.
“You have told me nothing of your love,” she exclaimed in a hoarse tone. “If you cannot trust me with your confidences as once you used to do, then we can no longer remain the fast friends we have been. We must drift apart. You have already shown that you fear to tell me of your fascination – a fascination that was so near to becoming fatal. You know nothing of Aline Cloud – of who or what she is – yet you love her blindly!” Her well-arched brows knit themselves, her face became at that instant pale and hard set, and she held her breath, as if a sudden determination had swept upon her.
She knew my secret, and I stood confused, unable to reply to those quick, impetuous words which had involuntarily escaped her.
Did she love me? I wondered. Had jealousy alone prompted that speech? Or was she really aware of the truth concerning the blue-eyed woman whom I had adored for those few fleeting days, and whom I was now seeking to hunt down as a criminal?
