THE DELUGE.
Bram was away much longer than the ten days he had expected.
Difficulties arose in the transaction of the affair which had called
him to London; he had to take a trip to Brussels, to return to London,
and then to visit Brussels again. It was two months after his departure
from Sheffield before he came back.
In the meantime old Abraham Elshaw, his namesake, had died. A letter
was forwarded to Bram informing him of the fact, and also that by the
direction of the deceased the precious box in which the old man had
kept his property had been sent to Bram’s address at Hessel.
Bram acknowledged the letter, and sent directions to his landlady for
the safe keeping of the box containing his legacy.
When he got back home to his lodging, one cold night at the end of
November, Bram received the box, and set about examining its contents.
It was a strong oak miniature chest, hinged and padlocked. As there was
no key, Bram had to force the padlock. The contents were varied and
curious. On the top was a Post Office Savings Bank book, proving the
depositor to have had two hundred and thirty-five pounds to his credit.
Next came a packet of papers relating to old Elshaw’s transactions
with a building society, by the failure of which he appeared to have
lost some ninety-six pounds. Then there were some gas shares and some
deeds which proved him to have been the owner of certain small house
property in the village where he had lived. Next came a silver teapot,
containing nothing but some scraps of tissue paper and a button. And at
the bottom of the box was a very old-fashioned man’s gold watch, with a
chased case, a large oval brooch containing a woman’s hair arranged in
a pattern on a white ground, and a broken gold sleeve-link.
Bram, who, from inquiries he had made, considered himself at liberty to
apply all the money to his own uses, the other relations of old Abraham
not being near enough or dear enough to have a right to a share, looked
thoughtfully at the papers, and then put them carefully away. He knew
what the old man had apparently not known, that there were formalities
to be gone through before he could claim the house property. He should
have to consult a solicitor. There was no doubt that his windfall
would prove more valuable than he had expected, and again his thoughts
flew to Claire, and he asked himself whether there was a chance that
he might be able to devote his little fortune to the building of that
palace which his love had already planned--in the air.
He told himself that he was a fool to be so diffident, but he could
not drive the feeling away. The truth was that there was still at the
bottom of his heart some jealousy left of the lively Chris, some proud
doubt whether Claire’s heart was as free as she had declared it to be.
But if, on the one hand, she had spoken compassionately of her erring
cousin, there was to be remembered, as a set-off against that, the
delicious moment when she had stood contented in the shelter of Bram’s
own arms on that memorable evening when he had, for the second time,
protected her from the violence of her father.
On the whole, Bram felt that it was time to make the plunge; now, when
he had money at his command, when he was in a position to take her
right out of her dangers and her difficulties. With Theodore, who was
not without intelligence, a bargain could be made, and Bram could not
doubt that this moment, when the supplies had been cut off at Holme
Park, and the farm was going to ruin, would be a favorable one for his
purpose.
He resolved to go boldly to Claire the very next day.
When the morning broke, a bright, clear morning, with a touch of
frost in the air, Bram sprung out of bed with the feeling that there
were great things to be done. The sun was bright on the hill when he
started, though down far below his feet the town lay buried in a smoky
mist. Just before he reached the farmyard gate he paused, looking
eagerly for the figure which was generally to be seen busily engaged
about the place at this hour of the morning.
But he was disappointed. Claire was nowhere to be seen.
Reluctantly Bram went on his way down the hill, when the chirpy, light
voice of Theodore Biron, calling to him from the front of the house,
made him stop and turn round. Mr. Biron was in riding costume, with a
hunting crop in his hand. He was very neat, very smart, and far more
prosperous-looking than he had been for some time. He played with his
moustache with one hand, while with the other he jauntily beckoned Bram
to come back.
“Hallo!” said Bram, returning readily enough on the chance of seeing
Claire. “Where are you off to so early, Mr. Biron? I didn’t think you
ever tried to pick up the worm.”
“Going to have a day with the hounds,” replied Theodore cheerfully.
“They meet at Clinker’s Cross to-day. I picked up a clever little mare
the other day--bought her for a mere song, and I am going to try her
at a fence or two. Come round and see her. Do you know anything about
hunters, Elshaw?”
“No,” replied the astonished Bram, who knew that Mr. Biron’s purse had
not lately allowed him to know much about hunters either.
“Ah!” said Theodore, as he opened the garden gate for Bram to enter,
and led him into the house. “All the better for you. When you’ve once
got to think you know something about horse-flesh, you can’t sit down
quietly without a decent nag or two in your stable.”
And Mr. Biron, whose every word caused Bram fresh astonishment, flung
back the door of the kitchen with a jaunty hand.
Bram followed him, but stopped short at the sight which met his eyes.
Springing up with a low cry from a stool by the fire on Bram’s
entrance, Claire, with a face so white, so drawn that he hardly knew
her, stared at him with a fixed look of horror which seemed to freeze
his blood.
“Miss Claire!” he said hoarsely.
She said nothing. With her arms held tightly down by her sides, she
continued to stare at him as if at some creature the sight of whom had
seized her with unspeakable terror. He came forward, much disturbed,
holding out his hand.
“Come, come, Claire, what’s the matter with you? Aren’t you glad to see
Bram Elshaw back among us?” said Theodore impatiently.
Still she did not move. Bram, chilled, frightened, did not know what
to do. Mr. Biron left the outer door, by which he stood, and advanced
petulantly towards his daughter. But before he could reach her she
staggered, drew away from him, and with a frightened glance from Bram
to him, fled across the room and disappeared.
Bram was thrown into the utmost consternation by this behavior. He
had turned to watch the door by which she had made her escape, when
Theodore seized him by the arm, and dragged him impatiently towards the
outer door.
“Come, come,” said he, “don’t trouble your head about her. She’s not
been well lately; she’s been out of sorts. I’ve talked of leaving the
place, and she doesn’t like the idea. She’ll soon be herself again.
Her cousin Chris has been round two or three times since his return
from his honeymoon trying to cheer her up. But she won’t be cheered; I
suppose she enjoys being miserable sometimes. Most ladies do.”
Bram, who had followed Mr. Biron with leaden feet across the farmyard
towards the stables, felt that a black cloud had suddenly fallen upon
his horizon. The mention of Chris filled him with poignant mistrust,
with cruel alarm. He felt that calamity was hanging over them all, and
that the terrible look he had seen in Claire’s eyes was prophetic of
coming evil. He hardly saw the mare of which Theodore was so proud;
hardly heard the babble, airily ostentatious, cheerily condescending,
which Claire’s father dinned into his dull ears. He was filled with one
thought. These new extravagances of Theodore’s, the look in Claire’s
face, were all connected with Chris, and with his renewed visits. Bram
felt as if he should go mad.
When he reached the office he watched for an opportunity to get speech
alone with Christian. But he was unsuccessful. Bram did not even see
him until late in the day.
Long before that Bram had had an interview with the elder Mr.
Cornthwaite, which only confirmed his fears. He had to give an account
to the head of the firm of the business he had transacted while away.
He had carried it through with great ability, and Mr. Cornthwaite
complimented him highly upon the promptitude, judgment, and energy he
had shown in a rather difficult matter.
“My son Christian was perfectly right,” Mr. Cornthwaite went on, “in
recommending me to send you away on this affair, Elshaw. You seem to
have an old head upon young shoulders. I only hope he may do half as
well on the mission with which he himself is to be entrusted.”
Bram looked curious.
“Is Mr. Christian going away again so soon, sir?” asked he.
Mr. Cornthwaite, whose face bore traces of some unaccustomed anxiety,
frowned.
“Yes,” he answered shortly. “I am sorry to say that he and his wife
don’t yet rub on so well as one could wish together. You see I tell you
frankly what the matter is, and you can take what credit you please
to yourself for having predicted it. No doubt they will shake down in
time, but on all accounts I think it is as well, as there happens to be
some business to be done down south, to send him away upon it. He will
only be absent a few weeks, and in the meantime any little irritation
there may be on both sides will have had time to rub off.”
Bram looked blank indeed.
He was more anxious than ever for a few words alone with Chris, but
he was unable to obtain them. When his employer’s son appeared at the
office, which was not till late in the day, he carefully avoided the
opportunity Bram sought. After shaking hands with him with a dash
and an effusion which made it impossible for the other to draw back,
even if he had been so inclined, Chris, with a promise of “seeing him
presently,” went straight into his father’s private office, and did not
reappear in the clerks’ office at all.
In spite of the boisterous warmth of his greeting, Bram had noticed
in Christian two things. The first was a certain underlying coldness
and reserve, which put off, under an assumption of affectionate
familiarity, the confidences which had been the rule between them. The
other was the fact that Christian looked thin and worried.
Bram lingered about the office till long after his usual hour of
leaving in the hope of catching Christian. And it was at last only by
chance that he learnt that Chris had gone some two hours before, and,
further, that he was to start for London that very evening.
Now, this discovery worried Bram, and set him thinking. The intercourse
between him and Christian had been of so familiar a kind that this
abrupt departure, without any sort of leave-taking, could only be the
result of some great change in Christian’s feeling towards himself.
So strong, although vague, were his fears that Bram when he left the
office went straight to the new house in a pretty suburb some distance
out of Sheffield, where Christian had settled with his bride. Here,
however, he was met with the information that Mr. Christian had already
started on his journey, and that he had gone, not from his own, but
from his father’s house.
As Bram left the house he saw the face of young Mrs. Christian
Cornthwaite at one of the windows. She looked pale, drawn, unhappy, and
seemed altogether to have lost the smug look of self-satisfaction which
he had disliked in her face on his first meeting with her.
Much disturbed, Bram went away, and returned to his lodging, passing
by the farm, where there was no sign of life to induce him to pause.
It was nine o’clock, and as there was no light in any of the windows,
he concluded that Mr. Biron had gone to bed, tired out with his day’s
hunting, and that Claire had followed his example.
He felt so restless, so uneasy, however, that instead of passing on he
lingered about, walking up and down, watching the blank, dark windows,
almost praying for a flicker of light in any one of them for a sign of
the life inside.
After an hour of this unprofitable occupation, he took himself to task
for his folly, and went home to bed.
On the following morning, before he was up, there was a loud knocking
at the outer door of the cottage where he lived. Bram, with a sense of
something wrong, something which concerned himself, ran down himself to
open it.
In the middle of the little path stood Theodore Biron, with the same
clothes that he had worn on the morning of the previous day, but
without the hunting-crop.
He was white, with livid lips, and his limbs trembled.
“What’s the matter?” asked Bram in a muffled voice.
“Claire, my daughter Claire!” stammered Theodore in a voice which
sounded shrill with real feeling. All the jauntiness, all the vivacity,
had gone out of him. He shivered with something which was keener than
cold.
“Well?” said Bram, with a horrible chill at his heart.
“She’s--she’s gone, gone!” said Theodore, reeling back against the
fence of the little garden. “She’s run away. She’s run right away.
She’s left me, left her poor old father! Don’t you understand? She is
gone, man, gone!”
And Mr. Biron, for once roused to genuine emotion, broke into sobs.
Bram stood like a stone.