Kitabı oku: «The Red Derelict», sayfa 2
Chapter Three.
Father and Son
The exclamation possessive which had escaped Wagram as he contemplated Hilversea Court and its fair and goodly appurtenances, was, as a matter of hard fact, somewhat “previous,” in that these enviable belongings would not be actually and entirely his until the death of his father; an eventuality which he devoutly hoped might be delayed for many and many a long year. Yet, practically, the place might as well have been his own; for since the motor car accident which had, comparatively speaking, recently cut short the life of his elder brother, and he had taken up his quarters at Hilversea, the old Squire had turned over to him the whole management, even to the smallest detail. And he had grown to love the place with a love that was well-nigh ecstatic. Every stick and stone upon it, every leaf and blade of grass seemed different somehow to the like products as existing beyond the boundary; and there were times when the bare consciousness that he was destined to pass the remaining half of his life here, was intoxicating, stupefying – too good indeed to last. It seemed too much happiness for a world whose joys are notoriously fleeting.
While hurriedly dressing for dinner Wagram’s mind reverted to the recent adventure. The old Squire had procured the African antelopes at considerable trouble and expense; in fact, had made a hobby of it. He would certainly not be pleased at the outcome of the said adventure; and the duty of breaking distasteful news to anybody was not a palatable one to himself. And the girl? She seemed a nice enough girl, and unmistakably an attractive one; and at the thought of her Wagram got out a telegraph form and indited a hasty “wire” to the London agency of a well-known cycle firm. Then he went down, a little late, to find his father ready and waiting.
The old Squire was a tall man of very refined appearance, and carried his stature, in spite of his fourscore years, without stoop or bend, and this, with his iron-grey moustache, would cause strangers to set him down as a fine specimen of an old soldier – which was incorrect, for he had spent the working period of his life in the Diplomatic Service.
“Well, Wagram, and what have you been doing with yourself?” he said, as they passed into a gem of a panelled room looking out upon a lovely picture of smooth sward and feathery elms. It was the smaller dining-room, always used when father and son were alone together.
“Oh, I crept around with the rabbit rifle – a sort of combination of keeping my hand in, and at the same time admiring the evening effects.”
“Did you get any good shots?”
“H’m, rather,” thought Wagram to himself drily. Then aloud, “Do you know anybody in Bassingham, father, by name Calmour?”
“Calmour? Calmour?” repeated the old man dubiously. “I seem to know the name too, but for the life of me I can’t fit it with an owner. Rundle,” as the butler entered, “do I know any Calmour in Bassingham?”
“Well, sir, it’s Major Calmour. Lives at Siege House, just this side of the bridge, sir.” And Wagram thought to detect a subtle grin drooping the corners of the man’s well-trained mouth as he filled the Squire’s glass.
“To be sure, to be sure. Now it all comes back. Major Calmour! Ho – ho – ho! Wagram, that’s the man right enough. Why? Has he been writing to you about anything?”
“No. But – who is he, anyway?”
“He is a retired army veterinary surgeon, addicted to strong drink, and a wholly unnecessarily lurid way of expressing himself.”
“I know the species. What sort of a crowd are his descendants?”
“His descendants? I believe they are many. Their female parent was, they say, even more partial to aqua vita than their male; indeed, report sayeth that she died thereof. One, by the way, obtained large damages from Vance’s eldest fool in an action for breach of promise. I believe the family has been living on it ever since.”
“Which of them was that?” said Wagram carelessly, wondering if it was the heroine of the afternoon’s adventure.
“I don’t remember. Which of them was it, Rundle?”
“I believe it was the second of the young ladies, sir,” supplied the butler, who, being an old and privileged and, withal, discreet family servant, was often consulted by the Squire as to local and personal matters when memory proved defective. The answer, no name having been mentioned, of course conveyed no information to Wagram. So the heroine of the adventure was the daughter of a tippling and disreputable ex-Army vet. Well, she was not lacking in pluck and readiness of resource, at any rate.
“I made the acquaintance of one of the girls this afternoon, father, and that in rather a queer way,” he said.
“Ah, really; and how was that?”
Then Wagram told the story, told it graphically, too. The Squire, listening, was taken quite out of himself.
“Why didn’t you shoot the brute, Wagram? You had the rifle.”
“Oh, I didn’t want to do that as long as it could possibly be avoided. It couldn’t in the long run. But the girl shot him instead. Had to.”
“The girl shot him?”
“Yes! I’m coming to that.” And then as he narrated the progress of his hand-to-hand struggle, and the relief just in the nick of time, the Squire burst forth with:
“Splendid! Splendid! There’s nerve for you. You’d certainly have been killed Wagram. Why, man, did you think you were a match for the beast by sheer force of strength? Why, you might as well have tried the same thing on with a bull. Ah well, it’s a pity, but it’s lucky it was no worse. Lucky too, you were about, or that poor girl would have been killed or, at best, seriously injured. But how did the thing get out? This is within Hood’s responsibility.”
“I sent him at once to see,” answered Wagram. “Perrin opined that it jumped the palisade, and that’s not impossible. I gave them particular instructions about the head. It’s worth keeping. We’d better send it to Rowland Ward’s to be set up.”
“Yes.” And then the old squire became rather grave and absent-minded, and both men ate their dinner for a while in silence. In the mind of the elder was running the thought of what an awful thing had been avoided. His son might easily have met his death – this son from whom he had been estranged for years, and from whom now, he wondered how he could have spent those years of his old age apart. His glance wandered furtively to a portrait upon the wall. It was that of another son – a younger one – Wagram’s half-brother; a handsome, reckless face, but there was a shifty look in the narrowness between the eyes, that even the travesty of the portrait painter’s art could not altogether hide. For years past this one’s whereabouts had been a mystery; even his fate – even were he alive or dead. He had left home in a hurry and in anger, had left perforce to avoid a great scandal and disgrace, wherein, moreover, a question of felony was involved. This had befallen more than ten years earlier, and almost ever since nothing had been heard of the exile. When last heard of he was in Australia, then to all inquiries there was a blank, and as time went on, more and more did those he had left assume that he was dead.
For the wanderer’s own sake, the old squire in his heart of hearts could almost have brought himself to hope so. For of Everard Wagram the best description had been “a bad lot” – an all round bad lot, and for years his father and brother had lived in secret dread of any day hearing he had come to a bad end. Now gazing at the portrait, the old man was furtively making comparison between its original and Wagram; wondering, too, for the hundredth time, not that there should be any difference between them, but that their characters should be so entirely and completely divergent. But they were of different mothers, and behind this fact lay a good deal. They had both had the same chances, but different mothers, and the younger man had gone utterly to the bad.
“Did you say the young lady’s bicycle was smashed, Wagram?” said the Squire at last, reverting to the adventure.
“All to smithereens. But I’ve drawn up a wire to Gee and Vincent to send her the latest thing up to date, and that sharp. I’ve also written Warren to let her have one on hire until it comes.”
“Yes, that’s quite right. But I doubt if it’ll end there. Calmour’s quite capable of threatening an action for damages with a view to compromise. He’s a most astonishing cad, and chronically hard up.”
“Poor devil. In the latter line he has my sympathy,” said Wagram. “But it wasn’t he who got damaged, it was the girl.”
“That’s just it, and that’s where he’ll score. If she’s put in the box, from your description of her the conscientious and respectable British jury that won’t give her damages doesn’t exist.”
“I can hardly think she’d be a party to anything of that sort,” rejoined Wagram. “She seemed to me a nice sort of a girl; too nice, in fact, to lend herself to that kind of thing.”
The Squire’s head shot up quickly, and for a moment he looked at his son with grave concern. The two were alone together now.
“Don’t you know lovely woman better than that even by this time, Wagram?” he said.
“Well, I ought to,” was the answer, beneath the tone of which lurked a bitterness of rancour, such as seldom indeed escaped this man, normally so equable and self-possessed with regard to the things, so tolerant and considerate towards the persons, about him.
“I should say so,” assented the Squire; “and I’ll bet you five guineas your acquaintance with this one doesn’t end where it begun.”
“I don’t see how it can. If it hadn’t been for her I should almost certainly have lost my life.”
“If it hadn’t been for her your life would not have been in danger, so the situation is even all round.”
Wagram laughed.
“There’s something in that, father. But you say these are absolutely impossible people?”
“Absolutely and entirely – dangerous as well. Didn’t I tell you just now about one of them and Vance’s eldest idiot? Why, for all we know, it may have been your heroine of to-day.”
“It may, of course. Still I have an instinct that it was probably one of the others. Wouldn’t it be the right thing if I were to call and inquire after the girl, make sure she’s none the worse for her spill. It would be only civil, you know.”
“Civil but risky. If you did that it wouldn’t be long before Calmour and some of them returned it. They’d jump at the opportunity. A Calmour at Hilversea! Phew! It would be about as much in place as a cow in a church.”
“That makes it awkward certainly.”
“Doesn’t it? Besides, I don’t see that what you suggest is in the least necessary. The girl on your own showing, wasn’t hurt. Her bicycle got smashed, and we are sending her a new one, probably ten times as good as the one she had before. Moreover we’ve lost one of our African antelopes. Upon my word I think the house of Calmour is far more indebted to us than we are to it. Just shut that window, Wagram. It’s beginning to get a little chilly.”
The sweet, distilling air of meadow and closing flower greeted Wagram’s nostrils as he lingered while obeying, and from the gloaming woodlands came the weird, musical hooting of owls, and again he felt that intense, ecstatic thrill of possession sweep through his being. And as he turned from the window, he heard the Squire repeat, this time half to himself:
“A Calmour at Hilversea! Pho!”
Chapter Four.
Siege House and its Ways
“Oh, what a perfect beauty! Look, Bob. Free wheel, Bowden brakes, everything.”
The hall of Siege House was littered with wrappings and twine, in the midst of which stood Delia Calmour, in a fervour of delight and admiration, while her brother Bob extracted from its crate a brand new bicycle which had just been delivered by railway van.
“Rather! Gee and Vincent, tip-top maker,” pronounced the said Bob, wheeling her machine clear of the litter and surveying it critically. “You’re in luck’s way this time, Delia. First chop new bike for a beginning, and now what about the damages? I’m only wondering whether five hundred would be starting too low.”
“Damages! What are you talking about?” said Delia shortly.
“Why, you got a toss, didn’t you – a bad one too – and owing to Wagram’s wild beast. There you are. First-rate grounds for action. Damages a dead cert. The only question is how much.”
“Oh Bob, don’t be such a beastly young cad,” retorted Delia, with a heightened colour and a flash in her eyes, plain speaking being the custom at Siege House. “But then I forgot,” she continued, coldly ironical. “It’s your trade to scent out plunder, or will be when you’ve learnt it. Good boy, Bob. Stick to biz, and never miss a chance.”
The point of which remark was that its object was in the employ of a firm of solicitors. Incidentally, he was a loose hung, pale faced youth, who was won’t to turn on an exaggerated raffishness out of office hours, under the impression that it was sporting.
“I should think not,” retorted Bob angrily. “And I don’t see any sense in jumping down my throat because I want to do you a good turn.”
“What are you kicking up such a row about Bob, and how the devil am I going to get through my typing in the middle of all this jaw?”
The above, uttered in a sweet and fluty voice, proceeded from an exceedingly handsome girl who now appeared from an adjoining door. She had straight regular features of the classical order, and a pair of large limpid blue eyes, the soulful innocence of whose expression imparted an air of spirituality to the whole face. Yet never was expression more entirely deceptive.
“Oh, keep your hair on, Clytie. I’m only telling Delia how to get five hundred damages out of Wagram. You’d never have got your cool thou, out of Vance if it hadn’t been for me. It’s her turn now,” sneered Bob.
“You mean I’d never have got what your precious firm chose to pass on to me out of it,” retorted the girl serenely. Her brother grinned.
“Biz is biz and costs are costs. We don’t want work for nothing in the law,” he added.
“We! M’yes. Grandiloquent, very. So that’s the new bike?” going over to examine it. “It is a ripper. D’you think there are any more African wild beasts loose at Hilversea, Delia? I could do with a new bike myself.”
Delia, listening, was simply incapable of reply lest she should reveal the lurid anger which was simmering beneath. Her long absence from home and its incidents had gone far towards refining away the cynical vulgarity of mind and speech which was the prevailing tone in her family circle, from her father downwards. Not this alone, however, was at the back of her present indignation. A week had elapsed since her adventure, and the recollection of the acquaintanceship to which it had led – matter of a few minutes as such had been – glowed fresh in her mind, as indeed it had done ever since; though not for worlds would she have let drop word or hint to those about her that such was the case. She was by no means deficient in assurance and self-esteem, yet that day in the presence of Wagram she had felt inferior. He had seemed to her as a different order of being, this man whose prompt courage and readiness, and the exercise thereof, had glided so naturally into the calm considerate kindness whose first thought had been to make good her loss. The refinement of his aspect and manner, the utter absence of even any passing instinct to improve the situation, so different to those among whom she lived and moved, had completed the spell of magnetism he had all unconsciously cast over her, and in that short space her mind had undergone a complete transformation. Had the case been put before her as that of somebody else, Delia would unhesitatingly have pronounced it as one of falling over head and ears in love. Being her own it took on the aspect of a conversion to a sublime and compelling creed, the deity whereof was Wagram. And this was the man against whom her brother was suggesting a low and vulgar scheme of plunder – legal plunder, it was true, but still plunder.
“Bob,” she said at last. “If ever you propose such a thing again, from that moment you and I are no longer on speaking terms. I never heard a more unutterably caddish suggestion, and I’ve heard more than one as you know,” she added witheringly.
“Don’t see it at all. Damage to person pursuing lawful way along a public road – dangerous animal – property of ‘coiny’ swells. Coiny swells able to pay. Make ’em. What’s the law for, I’d like to know?”
“To swindle and fleece respectable people. To fatten a pack of bloodsucking thieves,” answered Delia, with trembling lips and flashing eyes. “In this instance I’d rather hang myself than have anything to do with it. Law, indeed!”
“Would you?” growled Bob. “Well, then, you won’t get any choice, because the old man’ll take it up, and then you’ll have to come forward. And he’ll collar the damages instead of you.”
“He’ll get none. I’ll refuse to appear.”
“Ha – ha. You’ll have to. You’ll be subpoenaed.”
“See here, my sucking Blackstone,” struck in Clytie, answering for her sister. “You remind one of the old chestnut about the judge who was nicknamed Necessity, because he knew no law. You haven’t even begun to know any. Delia’s of full age, and therefore no one could sue but her. The old man’s counted out.”
“You seemed to know more than enough that time you were under cross-examination,” jeered the exasperated Bob.
“Yes, I didn’t do badly,” acquiesced Clytie, her serenity quite unruffled. “But you know, Bob, you’re an awful juggins – yes, an out and out juggins.”
“I suppose so. May I ask why?”
“Certainly. Here you are putting Delia up to a scheme which is like being content with one silver spoon when you could collar the whole swag.” (The speaker was in course of typing a detective story.) “Now – d’you see?”
“Hanged if I do,” snorted Bob. “There’s nothing in it either. These Wagrams are rolling in coin, but you mustn’t pitch your claim too high. There’s such a thing as ‘excessive’ damages, appeal, and so forth. How’s that, old female Solomon? You see I do know a little about things after all.”
“Not anything – not anything,” came the reply, sweetly smiling. “Who’s talking about damages? That’s not the plum at all.”
“What is, then?”
“Capture the man. See? It’s quite simple. Capture the man. Yes? Does that make your chin rap the toes of your boots?”
For Bob was standing open-mouthed. The cool audacity of the scheme had struck him dazed, breathless.
“Fudge!” he snorted. “It can’t be done.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Because these Wagrams are tip-top swells – regular high flyers. I don’t mean only that they’ve got pots of money, and just about everything else. But, hang it all, look at them, look at us! No fear. That cock won’t fight, I tell you – no, not for half-an-hour.”
“Not, eh? Bob, as I said before, you’re a juggins; a juggins of the first water,” retorted Clytie, sweetly. “A man is always – a man. No matter how tip-top, and so forth, he may be, there’s no getting away from that.”
“Bosh! You’ve been reading too many of these high-falutin’ novels they give you to type. That sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life, I tell you.”
“Your knowledge and experience of real life being exhaustive,” was the unruffled reply. “Let me tell you that sort of thing does happen in real life, happens every day. It only wants working.”
“Does it? I say, Clytie, why don’t you take on the job yourself, as Delia doesn’t seem over sweet on it?” said Bob, with a guffaw. “That heavenly expression of yours ought to carry all before it. It only wants working. Ha – ha!”
“I’m scratched for that running,” she answered serenely. “It’s not for nothing all the surrounding whelps – of your kidney, Bob, and others – have labelled me ‘Damages.’ But Delia – well she’s, so to say, fresh on the scene, and then, the adventure business gives her a first-rate send off. I think this job might be worked. Now, Delia, let’s have your opinion on it for a change. I’m tired of Bob’s.”
“My opinion is that never in my life have I wasted half-an-hour listening to such perfectly unutterable bosh as you two have been talking – no, never,” was the reply, short and emphatic; “and I don’t want to hear any more of it.”
Clytie pursed up her very pretty lips and whistled meditatively. The while she eyed her sister narrowly and read her like a book. As a matter of fact the latter had not been so indifferent to their conversation as she would have had them believe. Listening, her heart had thrilled to a strange, wild venture of a hope, only to drop it, a dead weight, as she thought of her relatives. Had they but met in a new country far away from all such associations – well, who knew. To do her justice, it was of the man she thought, the man entirely, and apart from his circumstances and surroundings; indeed, she almost hated these, as constituting an insurmountable barrier.
“As for saying ‘look at them and look at us,’” pursued Clytie, “why, from all accounts, Mrs Wagram Wagram Number One was no very great shakes.”
“All the more reason why the said W.W. isn’t going to be such a fool as to repeat the experiment,” said Bob. “By the way, didn’t she shoot herself in mistake for him, or something?”
“No; took too much morphia by mistake, and died. It was the only good thing she ever did for him, for she used to lead him the very devil of a life. She was a holy terror, from all accounts.”
“And so you think he’ll be such an ass as to risk it again, do you?”
“Certainly, my dear Bob. As I said before, a man is always – a man – otherwise an ass. The thing stares you in the face every day.”
“P’raps it does. Well, chip in, Delia. Chip in for all you know how. We’ll help you for all we do. By George, though, you’ll have to begin by turning Papist!”
“Hilversea Court’s worth turning anything for,” murmured Clytie.
“Oh, and there’s the ready-made step-son,” went on the odious Bob. “We’re forgetting him. How old is the young ’un, Clytie? About twelve, isn’t he?”
The query ended staccato. The ways of Siege House were strange and summary, wherefore Delia, exasperated beyond endurance, had picked up a heavy rubber golosh, one of a pair that stood in the hall, and had launched it full and straight at the head of the offending youth, who barely escaped by a prompt dive. In the midst of which sounded a ring of the front gate bell.
“Now, who the very deuce can that be?” remarked Clytie.
“Maybe the old man’s come in ‘fresh,’ and can’t fit his key,” jeered Bob.
“’Tisn’t him. He wouldn’t ring, he’d batter – especially if he’s ‘full,’” rejoined Clytie, whose knowledge of the paternal habits was exhaustive. “One of us’ll have to go to the door. Emily’s out. Wait; let’s make sure first who it is.”
She passed into a room whose windows afforded a view of the front gate, only to reappear immediately in a state of suppressed excitement, a very unusual thing for her.
“‘Talk of the devil,’” she quoted. “Why, it’s him.”
“Who? The devil?” said Bob.
“No, you ass; Wagram Wagram himself! Now, Delia, you and I’ll worry out this tangle. Go in there,” pushing her through a door. “And you, Bob, make yourself scarce. You’re not to appear, see?”
“Why not? Where do I come in?”
“Nowhere. We don’t want you at all. You’d give away the whole show. Come, git!”
Grumbling, Bob “got.” He could not afford to run direct contrary to his sisters’ wishes when decidedly expressed; he was too much dependent on their good offices in more ways than one. In abolishing him on this occasion Clytie’s judgment was sound. The descendants male of the ex-army vet were a great deal less presentable than the descendants female – and this she knew.
