"There is a good deal of a surprise before you, Philip," began the
paper, "but nevertheless, go patiently through this, from start to
finish, and don't look at the end first, after the manner of the
average woman reading a novel, for it would only detract from the full
bearing of the narrative, and probably cloud and obfuscate the same at
every issue.
"My real name is not Richard Fordham, but Richard Cecil Garcia. It
suited me--no matter how--to take the other, to drop my real name,
with which I was thoroughly sickened and disgusted. With what show of
reason you will learn as you read on. But it is a strange,
foreign-sounding name, is it not? Well, it is a foreign name, for I
am of Corsican origin. That being so, it follows I have the hot,
vindictive temperament of a Southern race in addition to a fair share
of British tenacity of purpose. No man ever injured me but was
requited sooner or later--requited to the full--requited, in fact,
tenfold. The bearing of this upon what follows you will all too soon
grasp.
"You and I have known each other now for something less than two
years; but have known each other better, more intimately, than we
should have done under ordinary circumstances in about half a
lifetime. You thought our first meeting entirely a fortuitous one.
It was not. It was deliberately brought about by me in pursuance of a
matured and long-set plan.
"You have often wondered at my unutterable detestation of, contempt
for, the other sex. It has amused you, and you have laughed at it as
a `crank.' You are young, and think that a very large percentage of
angel abides within the average petticoat. Very good. I can't say I
ever held that belief, for I always despised and distrusted the dear
creatures from the very earliest time I can remember.
"`Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,' may be
only Scripture, but it is remarkably sound human nature. My `fall'
came--and an uncommonly far and hard one it was destined to prove.
There is no need to go into all the sickening details--the how, or the
when, or the where. Suffice it to say that the creature was well
endowed with all the attractiveness (so-called) and the devilish arts
and wizardry of her species. For a few months I thought myself in
Paradise--had found the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life.
"In this disastrous mania, mind you, it was not I who took the
initiative. For every reason on the face of the earth it was to this
woman's advantage that my name and what modest competence I possessed
should become hers. It suited her vanity, too, that she alone should
be the one to penetrate my armour-coat of invulnerable mail. And in
those days when the blood ran hot such beauty as hers was calculated
to bring down even my defences--though now I can look back to that
hideous mockery of a time with nothing but horror and unmitigated
disgust--can look upon the actress in that shameful travesty with
loathing and unquenchable hate. And now at this day I hold her very
life in the hollow of my hand. Some day I will close my fingers and
crush it--but not yet--not yet.
"For some months, as I have said, I thought myself in Paradise. Then
came disillusion--speedy when it did come. I knew myself then to be
in _inferno_. Heavens! the life that she-devil led me--she of whom I
had practically been the salvation! She slandered my character, and
dragged my name in the mud. She ruined my chances in life and caused
every friend I owned in the world to flee as from the plague. She did
worse than that, for she sapped and well-nigh destroyed even my sense
of self-respect. I often wondered, at the time, I did not kill her;
looking back now I wonder still more.
"Mind you, it was not on account of this one creature alone that I
have always held the whole of its sex in such intense abhorrence. But
I have studied it--studied it carefully. I have thought, `No one
shall say that I, the thinker, the character-reader, the student of
human nature all the world over, has judged a whole from a unit.' But
the result of my observation is that in a greater or less degree it is
wonderfully alike. You get the same littleness--the same gratuitous
malice--the same eager, scheming, unscrupulous grasping after
individual advantage--above all the same domineering spirit, the same
utter disregard of truth, the entire absence of any sense of moral
rectitude. If it were possible to roll the tiger, the ape, and the
snake into one animal, you would get a perfect embodiment of the
average civilised and Christian woman of the nineteenth century. The
_gentle_ sex! Pah! it sickens one!
"Now and again, but rarely, I think I find an exceptional unit. But
then I thought so once before, to my ultimate disaster. And, Philip,
the last instance in which I thought to discover such an exception was
that of the girl named Alma Wyatt. Well, it is too late to think of
that now--for you at any rate. You have gone further and fared
infinitely worse. Yet I warned you--warned you plainly and
unmistakably. My very last words to you were those of warning. And
now let us return to my own record.
"`When things are at their worst, they mend,' says the proverb.
Things were certainly at their worst with me. I had committed social
and financial suicide, all but mental--and even seriously contemplated
actual and physical. When I had reached that point; when every
conscious moment of the twenty-four hours was absorbed in marvelling
what besotted affliction of mania could have induced me to wreck my
life by legally chaining it to this demon, then, I say, came the
proverbial `mend.' It came in the shape of a third party.
"Why dwell upon circumstances and detail? The story was an utterly
commonplace and ordinary one. She played off the whole stale bag of
tricks upon the new man, who must have been nearly as great a fool as
myself--in fact was. To cut the matter short, one fine day they went
off together, levanted--also in the most commonplace and ordinary
style. Then I sat down and chuckled--laughed as I had never laughed
since I was idiot enough to forge my chain.
"But I was a curious tempered devil in those days--am so still you
will no doubt say--and although I could not feel any serious
resentment against one who had relieved me of an intolerable burden,
by reason of that relief, still the act in itself was a deadly insult
to me. I left the man alone for a few days, then I dropped down upon
him when he least expected it. I raised no scene--not I. There was a
better way of settling matters than that. It was easy enough if
judiciously worked--is still at this very day. A meeting was
arranged.
"It came off--in a wild out-of-the-way spot just across the Spanish
border. We stood up, one lowering drizzling morning, when the clouds
were sweeping the tree-tops of the beech-forests covering the
Roncevalles plateau. We exchanged shots. I could have killed my man
easily, but didn't. I was only playing with him. He wasn't a bad
shot either, but I knew the game was entirely in my hands. I could
have killed him, I say, but I never intended to do that. It occurred
to me--knowing the man and having read off his character and
temperament fairly accurately--that life itself would avenge me upon
him far more than would his death. I would put my mark upon him,
however. So when we stood up again to each other's fire I planted my
ball in the tendons of his left leg, just above the knee. My
adversary dropped, and the seconds pronounced the affair at an end.
But he was not dead; not even, with ordinary care, dangerously
wounded. He would recover, but he would carry my mark--a mark
apparent to all--with him to his grave. He would walk with a limp
during the remainder of his life.
"No doubt, Philip, you will now have guessed this man's identity. To
avoid all chance of mistake, however, I will say that it was your own
father.
"Now we will come to Act 2 in the drama.
"He soon had enough of the woman; very much more than enough, as, of
course, was sure to be the case. But he found he had strapped a
burden upon his back which it was in the last degree difficult to
shake off. She, of course, fully expected I was going to free her, in
which case she would undoubtedly have succeeded in marrying your
father; for he never was a strong man, Philip, and I believe he would
have been weak enough even for that. But I merely sat still and
laughed. Heavens! how I did laugh! For the joke was all on my side.
To be sure, if I had taken action which should have enabled Francis
Orlebar to marry her, I should have wreaked a far direr retribution
upon him than ever I could have done at the pistol's mouth. But then
I hated her far more than I did him, and I was not going to play into
her hands. Not, however, that I had done with him, as you will, to
your sorrow, learn. So no fees out of my pocket went to fatten the
Divorce Court lawyers, and I sat still and laughed--laughed harder
than ever. There was another consideration which militated against my
taking any steps to free myself. Once legally free, I reasoned, so
great a fool is man, who knows but that I might be tempted again to
rivet that loathsome and degraded chain upon my emancipated limbs! So
I resolved deliberately to leave it beyond my power again to
perpetrate such an act of suicidal folly, and accordingly I have done
so.
"Although, if empowered to do so, your father would, as I say, have
been weak enough to give this woman the legal right to his name, when
he--when they both--saw that such could never be the case while I
lived, he mustered up sufficient resolution to break with her. Then
she tried it on with me; took up a high-handed line, declaring that
her legal right was to live with me; and that whereas nothing short of
legal process could quash that right, and whereas I had taken no such
process, she should assert her rights to the very uttermost. Again I
only laughed, and--started off upon my travels.
"Then she tried another tack. A child was born to her--a daughter--
whose paternity I, of course, denied. She initiated proceedings
against me for maintenance, but these I stopped by pretending to fall
in with her claim. It stipulated, however, that she should cease to
use my name. This she promised; but of course the promise was not
kept. So I cut off every shilling I allowed her, having previously
placed my means beyond the jurisdiction of the British courts--a
matter easily effected by secret and scattered investments in all
parts of the world; and she and her child were reduced to absolute
want. That brought her to her knees; that tamed the she-devil. I had
things all my own way then. It was my prerogative to impose terms,
and I did so most rigidly. She was to keep me regularly informed as
to her place of residence, and not to make any radical change in the
latter without my sanction, and under no circumstances was she to use
my name, or let it be known that I had any acquaintanceship with her
whatever. She was also to behave herself, and that thoroughly.
Failing the observance of these conditions, I would inexorably cut off
the supplies, and remove the child from her care in such wise that she
should never set eyes on it again.
"Did she revolt? Of course she did--tried to, rather, more than once.
But it didn't answer; no, not for a moment. She found that my eye
was ever upon her, that not a movement of hers passed unknown to me.
So she had the gumption to see that nothing was gained by kicking, and
that the wisest--in fact the only--plan was to make the best of it.
But I hadn't done with her.
"For years things went on quietly enough. The child grew and throve;
and for this child the woman seemed to entertain an extraordinary
affection. This I did nothing to lessen; for I saw therein a weapon
ready to hand whenever I should choose to require it. So I sat still
and laughed; for I had not done with her, remember. She had wrecked
my whole life and its chances, nor during the process, nor ever since,
had she shown one single redeeming point in her character, one single
sign of regret.
"All this took place many years ago, while you were hardly out of the
cradle, certainly not out of the nursery, for I am a great deal older
than you think, Philip. To a certain extent, I watched you grow up,
unknown to your father or to yourself, for, I repeat, our meeting and
subsequent acquaintanceship was the outcome of no mere chance. And
this brings us to the third act of the drama.
"Years went by, and your father, never having seen nor of late heard
of me since the day we stood up to each other's fire, ceased even to
think of me as other than a somewhat tragical incident in the past
history of his life. He little dreamed, however, that all this time I
was watching him--was watching you. Yes, I watched you as you grew
up. I knew that you were as the very apple of your father's eye.
Through you I intended to strike him once more--to crush him.
"We met, you and I, as you remember. You thought it a chance meeting,
but it was not. In a week I had read off your character thoroughly,
exhaustively. I knew you a great deal better than you knew yourself.
"Well, we went globe-trotting together. And as you look back on it
you will recollect more than one occasion upon which, but for my
intervention, your father would have been rendered childless. Why did
I intervene, you will say? Well, for two reasons. First, I chose to
pull the wires myself. I intended to close my vendetta by a plan that
should be perfectly unique. The hunter's instinct doesn't move him to
say, `No matter how the quarry falls, as long as it does fall.' No;
he must bring it down himself, in his own way. So it was with me.
The other reason will strike you as strange and incredible to the last
degree. I had taken a liking to you.
"Yes, paradoxical as it may sound, paradoxical as it is, the fact
remains. I had a sneaking weakness for you, Philip. You were so
open-hearted, so ingenuous, so utterly helpless--in short, such an
ass. It seemed to devolve on me to be ever pulling you out of some
tangle. I began to waver in my purpose. There were times when I
thought I would leave the whole thing, and had it been a matter
concerning your father alone I think I should have done so. But there
was the woman. She was in my hand now. The time for her to feel its
weight was near. She was living at ease, happy and contented, for, as
I said before, she was entirely wrapped up in her daughter. She,
happy and contented after having poisoned my life, ruined me, dragged
my name in the mud--I don't mean in the mere act of relieving me of
her presence--but more in the shameful scandal, the horrible hell she
made of life while she was with me, so that wherever I went it was
rendered impossible--she happy and contented! Decidedly the time had
come to strike.
"Even then I found myself still wavering on your account. I wavered
to the last. I honestly did my best to get you out of that Glover
hobble, and I believe I succeeded. Had not chance upset your
relations with Alma Wyatt I believe I should have spared you, for I
should have been powerless against her counter-influence--or, at any
rate, I should have preferred to think so, if only as a pretext for
throwing up the whole scheme. Then we went over to Zermatt, and here
chance stepped in again and took the reins a good deal out of my
hands. But for your accident you could have returned to Zinal in a
few days. Time and absence would have been all in your favour, and
you would have been saved.
"It was part of my design to bring you to Zermatt. You remember we
were going there in the first instance, but chance diverted our plan.
Now, however, the time had come for me to draw in the circle of the
net. I wavered no longer.
"We will touch briefly upon what followed. The Daventers arrived,
and, caught at the rebound, you transferred your susceptible heart.
Even then I warned you. You cannot say I did not give you every
chance. My last words to you were words of warning. But they were
utterly thrown away, as I knew they would be. Well, there is very
little more to be said. You walked into the trap with your eyes open
and--were caught.
"Do you know who this woman is who calls herself Mrs Daventer? She
is no other than the woman whose infamies I have been detailing--she
who was and still is legally bound to me by the marriage laws of the
land. And her daughter--_your bride_--do you guess now whose child
she is? Mine--you will say. No, you are wrong. _Her father is your
father_, Philip Orlebar, and if you doubt me ask _him_."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
At this stage the paper fell from Philip's hand. The whole world seemed
going round with him. It was as if he had received a stunning blow, a
numbing shock. The dead grim horror of the situation had not yet fully
broken upon him.