Kitabı oku: «A Woman Perfected», sayfa 3

CHAPTER V
PETER PIPER'S POPULAR PILLS

On the Monday, after Dr. Banyard had been gone perhaps a couple of hours, Mr. Nash drove up to Cloverlea in a dogcart. Miss Harding met him in the drive. At sight of her the gentleman descended; the cart went on up to the house, to wait for him. So soon as it was out of sight the lady, taking a packet from the bodice of her dress, gave it to her lover.

"That's the two hundred; put it in your pocket; I want you to promise that you'll not breathe a word to any one about the money having come from me."

"I promise readily."

"Nor about any other money which-I may find. I want you to keep your own counsel; I want people to suppose that the money is your own; I don't want them to think I'm buying a husband."

"I certainly will neither do nor say anything to make them think so. All the same, darling, I don't know how to thank you; you don't know what this means to me. It seems to be all in gold?"

He was fingering the parcel in his jacket pocket.

"It is; I thought you might find it more convenient."

"I think it's possible you're right; I believe you always are."

As he had been coming along in the dogcart he had not seemed to be in the best of spirits; now he was unmistakably cheerful; that package had made a difference. A question, however, which she asked seemed to annoy him more than, on the surface, it need have done.

"What became of Mr. Peters?"

"They gave him six months-confound the idiots?"

"Why confound them?"

The smile with which he accompanied his reply seemed forced.

"A lawyer likes his client to be acquitted."

"But Dr. Banyard says that he's a scoundrel."

"Dr. Banyard! You can tell Dr. Banyard, with my compliments, that he's a Pharisee."

"I think nothing of the man; I think he's an interfering prig. I don't like him, and he doesn't like me."

"Which shows that he must be all kinds of a fool."

"I don't know about that; but I do know that I don't like him. By the way, I suppose you understand what you're coming for. Everything here is at sixes and sevens. Nora knows absolutely nothing about her father's business affairs; he never told her anything; he kept his own counsel with a vengeance."

"So I gathered from your note."

"She doesn't even know who his man of business was. She wants you to find out; she thinks that if you look through his papers you will."

"There should be no difficulty about that. If I have access to his papers I ought to find that out inside ten minutes."

"I suppose so. But even if you do find out I don't see why you shouldn't keep the conduct of her affairs as much as possible in your hands; I think it might be done; you'll have my influence upon your side. You needn't say anything about there being an understanding between us; we can't keep people from guessing; but don't let them know-till it suits us."

He saw something in her eyes which caused him to pay her what some people would have regarded as an ambiguous compliment.

"By George, you're a clever one; you're the sort of girl I like!"

"I'm glad of that; because you happen to be the sort of man I like."

He laughed.

"I'd like to kiss you!"

"Quite impossible, here. You see, it might be rather a good thing for you to have the management of Nora's estate."

"True, oh queen!"

"Then why shouldn't you have it?"

"I know of no reason."

"There is no reason, if you take proper advantage of the fact that you're first on the field." They had entered the house and were standing outside the study door. She produced a key. "Nora's not appearing; poor dear, she's more distressed than I ever thought she would have been! so, on this occasion only, I am doing the honours. We've kept this room locked up since the day on which Mr. Lindsay was taken ill; no one has crossed the threshold; you'll find everything in the same condition in which he left it." They entered the room. So soon as they were in he kissed her, and she kissed him, though she protested. "Hush! Nora's waiting for me! Remember what I told you; there's no reason why you shouldn't have the management of everything-if you like."

He communed with himself when she had left him.

"I wonder what she means, exactly; she's careful not to dot her i's. She's the dearest girl in the world, even dearer than I thought. This is something like a windfall." He took out the packet, fingering it, smilingly, with the fingers of both hands. Then, replacing it in his pocket, glancing round the room, he was struck by the state of disorder it was in. "It's as well they kept the door locked; everything seems to have been left about for the first comer to admire. Lindsay must have been having a regular turn-out when he was taken ill; I wonder why." On the writing-table the first thing which caught his eye were some slips of blue paper secured by a rubber band. He snatched them up. They were four promissory notes, payable at various dates; they all bore the same signature, Herbert Nash. He chuckled. "We'll consider those as paid, until they prove the contrary; which they'll find it hard to do." He slipped them into his breast pocket. Settling himself on the chair on which Mr. Lindsay had been seated when death first touched him on the shoulder, he began to go methodically through the papers which were about him, practically, on all sides. He came on one, the contents of which seemed to occasion him profound surprise. "What on earth is this? what the dickens does it mean?" There was not a great deal on the paper; what there was he read again and again, as if he found its meaning curiously obscure. "This is queerish; I'd give a trifle to know what it does mean; it might be worth one's while to inquire."

Folding up the paper he placed it in his breast pocket, with the promissory notes. Hardly had he done so than the door was opened, without any warning, and Dr. Banyard came into the room.

"Hallo, Nash! have you found anything? have you found out who his man of business was?"

Mr. Nash glanced up from the papers he was studying; if he was a little startled by the doctor's unheralded appearance he gave no sign of it.

"I haven't discovered his man of business; but I have found something."

"You haven't come upon anything which shows who it was he generally employed; I understand you've been here some time."

Mr. Nash shook his head.

"I don't know how long I have been here, but I've come on nothing which shows that he ever employed any one at all."

"He must have employed some one."

The other shrugged his shoulders.

"I've gone through a good many of his papers; I've not hit on one which suggests it."

"You said you'd found something; what is it?"

"His will; or, rather, a will."

"That is something."

"Especially as, beyond a shadow of doubt, it's the last will he ever made. It was drawn up on the third, last Thursday, probably just before he was taken ill. It's in his own writing, brief, and to the point, and apparently quite in order, since it was witnessed by Morgan, the butler here, and Mrs. Steele the housekeeper."

"Let's have a look at it."

"Here it is, in the envelope in which I found it."

The doctor examined the paper which he took out of the envelope; it seemed that its contents gave him satisfaction.

"I see that, by this, he's left everything to his daughter unconditionally."

"That is so, the intention's unmistakable."

"Then she's safe; that's all right. It ought to be something handsome; I wonder how much it is."

"That's the question."

"I suppose you've come across something which gives you, at any rate, some vague notion."

"I haven't, that's the odd part of it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I'm glad you've come."

"Why? what's up? Found the job too big to tackle single-handed? I thought you would."

"You're mistaken; that is not what I mean. I've gone through-hurriedly, but still thoroughly enough to have a pretty good idea of what it is that they contain-all the available books and papers; and, as you see, most of them seem available, everything seems open; and I've not found anything which even hints that he died the possessor of any property at all; with two exceptions. There is his pass-book at the local bank, showing a balance of about a hundred pounds, which may have been drawn on since; and there are the Cloverlea title-deeds, there, in that deed-box."

"That only shows that everything essential is in the hands of his London lawyer."

"You seem to take the existence of such a person very much for granted. He told me himself he hadn't one."

"Told you? when?"

"Not long ago there was a little difficulty about a right of way; I don't know if you heard of it. He came to me about it; I then asked him who acted for him in town; he said no one."

"You are sure?"

"I am; for a man in his position it struck me as odd."

"He must have had a man in town, you misunderstood him. You haven't gone through all the papers?"

"Not all."

"Then we shall come upon it; I'll help you with the rest. There are no doubt papers elsewhere; probably in his bedroom, or at his rooms in town. Have you found out what was his London address?"

"I have found nothing which shows that he had one."

"But he must have had a London address; why, he spent quite a large part of the year in town."

"I happen to know that the only London address Miss Lindsay ever had was the Carlton Club; they may be able to tell us there."

"Of course they'll be able to tell us. Found any cash?"

"Not a penny."

"Anything which stands for cash?"

"Nothing; except what I have told you."

He had said nothing about what was in his breast-pocket.

"Lindsay was a man of secretive habits; if he could help it he never let his left hand know what his right hand was doing. When you come to deal with the affairs of a man like that you're handicapped; but there can be no sort of doubt that he was a man of considerable means. It must have cost him something to live here; where did the money to do that come from? It must have come from somewhere."

"It seems that there are a good many debts; as you are possibly aware, there is a good deal owing round here."

"He was a man who hated paying."

Suddenly the doctor glanced up from the papers he was examining to glare at his companion.

"Look here, Nash, what are you hinting at?"

"I am merely answering your questions."

"Yes, but you're answering them in a way I don't like."

The younger man smiled.

"I am afraid that I didn't realize that my answers had to be to your liking, whatever the facts might be."

The doctor returned to the papers; he looked as if he could have said something vigorous, but refrained. After a while he had to admit that his researches, so far, had been without result.

"Well, there seems to be nothing here, and that's a fact. These papers seem to contain material for a history of the Cloverlea estate since it came into Lindsay's possession; and that's all. Now for the safe."

"I've gone through that."

"I'll go through it also; though from the look of it, it doesn't seem as if there were much to go through." He pulled out one of the small drawers at the bottom. "Hallo, what have we here?" He took out an oblong wooden box. "What's this on the lid? 'Peter Piper's Popular Pills.'"

"What!"

The exclamation came from Nash.

"Here it is, large as life, in good bold letters; there ought to be something valuable in here." He opened the lid. "An envelope with papers in it; what's this writing on it? 'Analyses of the constituent parts of Peter Piper's Popular Pills by leading analytical chemists.' What fools those fellows are! Lindsay's writing; he doesn't seem to have had a high opinion of some one; let's hope there's nothing libellous. What's here besides? A bottle purporting to contain Peter Piper's Popular Pills; the man seems to have had them on the brain. And-other bottles containing the ingredients of which they're made; so it says outside them; as I'm alive! and the man kept this stuff inside his safe! Nash, why are you looking at me like that?"

Mr. Nash was regarding the doctor with a somewhat singular expression on his face; when the doctor put the question to him he started, as if taken by surprise.

"Looking at you? was I looking at you?"

"Glaring was the better word."

"It was unconscious. Are you-are you sure that they are Peter Piper's Popular Pills in that box?"

"Sure? As if I could be sure about a thing like that! what do I know about such filth? look for yourself."

Mr. Nash examined the box with a show of interest which its contents scarcely seemed to warrant.

"How extremely-curious."

"Fancy a man like Lindsay harbouring such stuff as that! I should think it was curious!"

Though both men used the same adjective one felt that each read into it a different meaning.

When Mr. Nash started to leave the house he found that the dogcart, which he supposed was still in waiting, had disappeared. He asked no questions, but drew his own conclusions. As he passed down the avenue, and perceived that Miss Harding was strolling among the trees, he smiled. So soon as the lady saw him she began to ply him with questions.

"Well, what's happened?"

"One thing's happened, you've sent away my dogcart."

She looked at him with mischief in her eyes.

"Walking will do you more good than driving; and it will cost you less. Besides, it will give you an opportunity of exchanging a few words with me. I hope you don't mind."

"On the contrary, I'm delighted."

"What have you found?"

"I've found his will; he's left his daughter everything."

"Everything! How splendid! I'm so glad he's left her everything!"

Miss Harding's face could not have been more radiant had she received a personal benefit.

"I shouldn't be over hasty in offering her your congratulations if I were you; it's quite possible that everything won't amount to very much."

She seemed struck by his tone even more than by his words.

"Herbert! What do you mean?"

Mr. Nash kicked a pebble with his toe; then he whistled to himself; then he said, just as her patience was at an end-

"It's a bit awkward to explain, but it's this way; Banyard and I have been going through his books and papers, and everything there was to go through; and there was a good deal, as you know; and we haven't come on anything which points to money or money's worth. I've been putting two and two together, and I rather think I understand the situation; when all's over and settled I shouldn't be surprised if Miss Lindsay would be very glad indeed to have your little fortune."

"My-my little fortune?"

"I'm alluding to the snug little legacy left you by your venerated aunt."

"It's-it's impossible!"

"More impossible things have happened; and I think I'm almost inclined to bet twopence that her fortune's nearer two thousand shillings than two thousand pounds."

"Herbert! Herbert!"

"What's the matter? Why, little girl, you mustn't take on like that; what a sensitive little thing it is! it'll be through no fault of yours if she's left penniless! She's never been over nice to me, and I'm sure I shan't worry myself into an early grave if she is."

"You don't understand!" she wailed. "You don't understand."

By the domestic hearth that evening Dr. Banyard addressed to his wife some more or less sententious remarks, as he puffed at his pipe.

"There's something wrong up at Cloverlea, confoundedly wrong. I don't understand what it is, and I don't like what I do understand. There's a riddle somewhere, and I'm half afraid we're not going to find the answer. Mind you, I've actually no grounds to go upon, but I don't trust that man, Nash; I've all sorts of doubts about the fellow."

Mrs. Banyard looked up from her sewing, and smiled; as is the way with wives of some years' standing she did not always take her husband so seriously as she might have done.

"Poor Mr. Nash! you never do like good-looking men."

"It isn't only that."

"No; but it's partly that. You funny old man! It doesn't follow because you're ugly yourself that all good-looking men are necessarily worthless."

"Generally speaking, a certain type of good-looking man is worth nothing."

"And Mr. Nash represents the type? And do you represent Christian charity? What do you suspect him of now? of having the answer to that mysterious riddle?"

"I don't know; that's just it, I don't know; but I doubt him all the same."

CHAPTER VI
HER LOVE STORY

That night Nora dreamed again-the same dream. It was more real even than before. She was lying in bed-she knew she was in bed, and her father came in at the door. In some strange fashion she had expected him; it was not that she heard him moving along the passage, yet, somehow, she knew that he was there, that he was coming. And, before he actually appeared, she knew that he was in great trouble; when he opened the door, so noiselessly, and without a sound came in, and closed the door again, also without a sound, she knew it even better than before, and his trouble communicated itself to her. In such trouble was he that he was even afraid of her. He remained close to the door, looking timidly towards her as she lay in bed, not daring to approach. So moved was she by his strange timidity that she sat up, and held out her arms to him, calling-

"Father!" She was sure she called, because she heard her own voice quite clearly; not as it mostly is in dreams, when one hears nothing. But yet he came no closer. Then she saw that he was crying. She called to him again, more eagerly. Then he went, step by step, timidly towards her; until she had her arms about him, and whispered, "Father, tell me what it is that troubles you." And he tried to tell her, but he could not; he was speechless, and to him his speechlessness was agony. If he only could speak she felt that all might be well with him-and with her; but he was tongue-tied. She tried to think of what it could be that he wished to say to her, and to prompt him; whispering into his ear first this, then that; but it was plain that none of her hints had anything to do with what was in his mind, though once she thought that she might not be far off. When she whispered, "Is it about what I am to do in the future?" his face changed; a sort of convulsion passed all over him; he drew himself away from her, and stood up, raising his arms, seeming to make a frenzied effort to achieve articulation; it even seemed that speech had come to him at last, when, just as words were already almost issuing from his lips, he vanished, and she was alone in the darkness.

Not the least strange part of it was that she was wide awake, having no consciousness of being roused out of sleep; she was sitting up in bed, the tears were streaming down her cheeks, her arms were held out, with about them the oddest feeling of somebody having just been in them. Indeed for a moment or two she could not believe that there was not some one in them still. When she did realize that they were empty she threw herself face downwards in the bed, crying as if her heart would break, because of her father's woe.

Donald Lindsay was buried on the Thursday-exactly a week after he had been stricken with his death. On the Tuesday and Wednesday she had variations of the same dream, and on the Thursday, the day of the funeral, it was so terrible a dream that the agony of it remained with her until the morning. For a long time afterwards some form of that dream would come to her at intervals. She said nothing of it to any one, though there was a moment when she was on the point of speaking of it to Elaine Harding; but she had it sometimes even in her waking thoughts. The course of events induced in her a kind of dormant conviction not only that the dream was sent to her for some special purpose, and that it had a meaning; but, also, that some day both the purpose and the meaning would be made clear. She knew that it is written that, of old, God spake to men in dreams; she believed it to be possible that, in a dream, God might speak to her. The dream always ended at the same point: just as her father, after an agonizing effort, seemed to be about to speak. She fancied that, some night, it might go on further, and that he might speak to her in his dream, and that with his speaking the purpose and the meaning of it all would be discovered.

On the morning of the funeral, among the other letters, Mrs. Steele, the housekeeper, called her attention to one in particular. No doubt she was aware that, during the last few days, either letters had been left unopened, or the task of opening them relegated to Elaine Harding, who communicated their contents if she pleased.

"Miss Nora," she said, "this is a letter from Mr. Spencer."

The girl caught eagerly at it; it was the first sign of eagerness she had lately shown. So soon as Mrs. Steele had gone she opened it. It was from her lover, Robert Spencer; a long letter, on three closely written sheets of foreign note-paper. He was in Sicily; had sent her a gossipy narrative of his wanderings among its ancient places, and among its scenes of beauty. It was full of love, and life, and high spirits; the sort of letter which makes a girl's heart beat happily; which she cherishes amid her most precious possessions. He told her how he wished that she was with him; that she at least was close at hand, that they might see and enjoy, together, what was so much worth seeing, and enjoying. In mischievous mood he added that when the great day came, on which the sun would rise in their sky for ever, and they were married, he humbly ventured to suggest that part of their honeymoon might be spent where he was then-"that would be to invest Taormina, which is already nearly all halos, with another, the brightest and the best."

To a girl's thinking there could be no pleasanter reading than such a letter; she could desire nothing better of the future than that its savour might remain unchanged, and that, throughout the years which were to come, the love of which it was a sign might walk always by her side.

So great was its power that, for a moment, it charmed her to forgetfulness. She saw in it her lover's face, and looked into his eyes; his voice spoke to her from the pages, and sounded sweetly in her ears. When he wrote of honeymooning the blood came to her cheeks; her lips were parted by a smile; her heart seemed speaking unto his. Even when she remembered, and recalled what day it was, and what shortly was about to happen, the light did not quite fade from her eyes, and the world was not all darkness. The match had been one of the few things respecting which her father had expressed to her his audible satisfaction. It was tacitly understood that the marriage was to take place during the current year. Both lovers were young-Robert Spencer had only just turned twenty-four. The only thing which could be said against him was his lack of means. He had done well both at school and at the university. Without being the least bit of a prig, he was exempt from those vices which the facile standard of the world in which he lived associates with youth. He was tall and strong and handsome; easy-mannered, more than is apt to be the case with the young Englishman of twenty-four; of fluent speech-he had been, in his time, one of the stars of the Union; there was no apparent reason why he should not make for himself, among the men of his own generation, a great name for good. The chief obstacle with which he would have to contend might be, as has been said, the eternal question of pence.

He was the fourth, and youngest, son of the Earl of Mountdennis. Everybody knows that his lordship had more children than money; four sons and five daughters is a liberal allowance for any man; the Earl and the Countess have that number living, and three of their children are dead. At the period of which we are writing all the five daughters were married, though by no means, from their mother's point of view, all satisfactorily married. The Countess never attempted to conceal the fact that only the first and third had done really well for themselves. According to the same authority, the boys had not done all that they might have done; the heir, Lord Cookham, in particular, had been a bitter disappointment, having been-his mother called it-wicked enough to marry a girl who had no money, and, practically, no family, merely because he loved her. He had been perfectly well aware that, in his case, marriage must mean money; it had been drummed into his ears from his earliest childhood; – family was of no consequence; he had family enough of his own. The one thing wanted was money-sacks full. And the thing was made more cruel by the fact that he might have had any amount of money, had he chosen. He might have had an English girl with a hundred thousand a year, to say nothing of several Americans with a great deal more; instead of which he married a young woman whom he met, as the Countess put it, at "some horrid foreign place," whose only qualification was that she was generally admitted, by some excellent judges, to be delightful. What, as the Countess pungently inquired, was the use of being delightful if she and her husband had not enough money between them to pay off the family debts, to say nothing of keeping up the family seats. And then they actually started by having three children in less than six years-all girls. It was too perfectly ridiculously absurd!

Montagu, the second son, had refused to marry at all, so his mother said; though it was not known that any girls had ever actually asked him. It was understood that he had made money in Africa, though he showed not the slightest inclination to squander it among his relatives; he had even declined to what his mother termed "lend" her five thousand pounds to be spent on "doing up" Holtye, which was the seat the Earl and the Countess principally favoured. Such conduct, she declared, was inhuman, but "so like Montagu." Arthur, the third son, had done best for himself from at least a financial point of view. He had married Mrs. Parkes-Peters, the widow of the contractor who left three millions. It was true that nasty things had been said of some of his most successful contracts; but, after all, the man was dead. It was also true that no one knew who, or what, his widow was before he married her; it was, if possible, even more true that she was older than her second husband. She herself admitted that she was his senior by ten years-the world said it ought to be twenty. But as she proved to be an ideal wife from the point of view of the man who marries for money, such trifles could hardly be said to count. Their friends asserted that she gave him a thousand pounds every time he kissed her-really no husband could want more.

And yet both his parents were aware that one need not be hypercritical to be able to see objections even against Arthur's wife. There remained, therefore, to them but one hope-their fourth son, Robert. Theirs must have been a sanguine temperament-when one knew them one felt as if they had only one between them-because, after all their disappointments, they still built on him a castle in Spain, of their own design. It really seemed as if that castle was to be actually reared. Robert had set his affections on Miss Lindsay, and that without the least prompting from either of them; as they knew, from painful experience, in such cases one sometimes had to do such a lot of prompting. They frankly admitted that, looking at the matter as a whole, he could hardly have been expected to do better-to begin with. Cloverlea was quite a nice place, and, as it were, next door to Holtye; there were only nine miles between them. It was kept up in excellent style; the Earl, who was supposed to know something about such things, assured his wife that it probably cost Donald Lindsay at least ten thousand a-year. It was true that its owner was by way of being a curiosity; but then his eccentricities-if they could be called eccentricities-were not of a kind which would be likely to injure his daughter. And she was his only child. In her capacity of young woman nothing whatever could be urged against her; the Earl and Countess were entirely at one in agreeing with Robert that, in that respect, she was all that there was of the most charming. Obviously, when her father died, she would be more than comfortably off. The only thing to be considered was, what would she have until he died-in case she took unto herself a husband. On this point, also, everything was as it should be.

The Earl rode over to Cloverlea one day, when its master happened to be at home, and had a talk with him-than which nothing could be more satisfactory. Lindsay told his visitor, in that plain outspoken way of his, that he was satisfied with the result of inquiries he had been making about the Hon. Robert, and that, in consequence, five thousand a year would be settled on Nora if he married her. Besides this, he would present her, as a wedding gift, with a suitable house in town, and all the furniture. He added, with one of his rare, grim smiles, which the earl interpreted in a fashion of his own, that it was possible that one day she would be much richer than people thought.

The Earl told the Countess, on his return to Holtye, that he should not be surprised if the man was a millionaire. Anyhow his offer was most generous; especially as Robert was the youngest of nine, and had, literally, nothing but himself and his family to bring his wife. The Countess wondered vaguely if, on the strength of the matrimonial alliance which was to unite the two families, Mr. Lindsay might not be induced to advance what she described as "something decent" in order that something might be done to Holtye, which was falling to pieces, and where the furniture was in a scandalous condition. The Earl, who knew that his wife had been searching for years for some one who would play the part of fairy prince towards their family domain, merely remarked that it would be time enough to think of all that kind of thing when the pair were married.

Nora had not been actually informed of the arrangements which had been made for the commercial success of her love-match, but she knew quite well that it never would have entered the domain of practical politics if they had not been satisfactory. Robert was perfectly frank upon the point; he was frank with her about everything; it was his nature to be frank. He told her that he had not a shilling of his own, and never had.