were a task of magnitude. That gentleman travelled very quietly; and
for the most part, he journeyed incognito under a variety of aliases
suggested partly by a fertile imagination and in part by prudential
motives. For his notions of proprietary rights were deplorably vague,
and his acquaintance with the police, in consequence, extensive. And
finally, that he was now at Selwoode was not in the least his fault,
but all the doing of an N. & O. brakesman, who had in uncultured
argument, reinforced by a coupling-pin, persuaded Mr. Flinks to
disembark from the northern freight on the night previous.
Mr. Flinks, then, sat leaning against a tree in the gardens of
Selwoode, some thirty feet from the wall that stands between Selwoode
and Gridlington, and nursed his pride and foot, both injured in that
high debate of last evening, and with a jackknife rounded off the top
of a substantial staff designed to alleviate his present lameness.
Meanwhile, he tempered his solitude with music, whistling melodiously
the air of a song that pertained to the sacredness of home and of a
white-haired mother.
Subsequently to Cock-eye Flinks (as the playbill has it), enter a
vision in violet ruffles.
Wide-eyed, she came upon him in her misery, steadily trudging toward
an unknown goal. I think he startled her a bit. Indeed, it must be
admitted that Mr. Flinks, while a man of undoubted talent in his
particular line of business, was, like many of your great geniuses, in
outward aspect unprepossessing and misleading; for whereas he looked
like a very shiftless and very dirty tramp, he was as a matter of fact
as vile a rascal as ever pawned a swinish soul for whiskey.
"What are you doing here?" said Margaret, sharply. "Don't you know
this is private property?"
To his feet rose Cock-eye Flinks. "Lady," said he, with humbleness,
"you wouldn't be hard on a poor workingman, would you? It ain't my
fault I'm here, lady--at least, it ain't rightly my fault. I just
climbed over the wall to rest a minute--just a minute, lady, in the
shade of these beautiful trees. I ain't a-hurting nobody by that,
lady, I hope."
"Well, you had no business to do it," Miss Hugonin pointed out, "and
you can just climb right back." Then she regarded him more intently,
and her face softened somewhat. "What's the matter with your foot?"
she demanded.
"Brakesman," said Mr. Flinks, briefly. "Threw me off a train. He
struck me cruel hard, he did, and me a poor workingman trying to make
my way to New York, lady, where my poor old mother's dying, lady, and
me out of a job. Ah, it's a hard, hard world, lady--and me her only
son--and he struck me cruel, cruel hard, he did, but I forgive him for
it, lady. Ah, lady, you're so beautiful I know you're got a kind, good
heart, lady. Can't you do something for a poor workingman, lady, with
a poor dying mother--and a poor, sick wife," Mr. Flinks added as a
dolorous afterthought; and drew nearer to her and held out one hand
appealingly.
Petheridge Jukesbury had at divers times pointed out to her the evils
of promiscuous charity, and these dicta Margaret parroted glibly
enough, to do her justice, so long as there was no immediate question
of dispensing alms. But for all that the next whining beggar would
move her tender heart, his glib inventions playing upon it like a
fiddle, and she would give as recklessly as though there were no
such things in the whole wide world as soup-kitchens and organised
charities and common-sense. "Because, you know," she would afterward
salve her conscience, "I _couldn't_ be sure he didn't need it, whereas
I was _quite_ sure I didn't."
Now she wavered for a moment. "You didn't say you had a wife before,"
she suggested.
"An invalid," sighed Mr. Flinks--"a helpless invalid, lady. And six
small children probably crying for bread at this very moment. Ah,
lady, think what my feelings must be to hear 'em cry in vain--think
what I must suffer to know that I summoned them cherubs out of Heaven
into this here hard, hard world, lady, and now can't do by 'em
properly!" And Cock-eye Flinks brushed away a tear which I, for one,
am inclined to regard as a particularly ambitious flight of his
imagination.
Promptly Margaret opened the bag at her waist and took out her purse.
"Don't!" she pleaded. "Please don't! I--I'm upset already. Take this,
and please--oh, _please_, don't spend it in getting drunk or gambling
or anything horrid," Miss Hugonin implored him. "You all do, and it's
so selfish of you and so discouraging."
Mr. Flinks eyed the purse hungrily. Such a fat purse! thought Cock-eye
Plinks. And there ain't nobody within a mile of here, neither. You are
not to imagine that Mr. Flinks was totally abandoned; his vices were
parochial, restrained for the most part by a lively apprehension of
the law. But now the spell of the Eagle was strong upon him.
"Lady," said Mr. Flinks, twisting in his grimy hand the bill she had
given him--and there, too, the Eagle flaunted in his vigour and
heartened him, "lady, that ain't much for you to give. Can't you do a
little better than that by a poor workingman, lady?"
A very unpleasant-looking person, Mr. Cock-eye Flinks. Oh, a
peculiarly unpleasant-looking person to be a model son and a loving
husband and a tender father. Margaret was filled with a vague alarm.
But she was brave, was Margaret. "No," said she, very decidedly, "I
shan't give you another cent. So you climb right over that wall and go
straight back where you belong."
The methods of Mr. Flinks, I regret to say, were somewhat more crude
than those of Mesdames Haggage and Saumarez and Messieurs Kennaston
and Jukesbury.
"Cheese it!" said Mr. Flinks, and flung away his staff and drew very
near to her. "Gimme that money, do you hear!"
"Don't you dare touch me!" she panted; "ah, don't you _dare_!"
"Aw, hell!" said Mr. Flinks, disgustedly, and his dirty hands were
upon her, and his foul breath reeked in her face.
In her hour of need Margaret's heart spoke.
"Billy!" she wailed; "oh, Billy, _Billy_!"
* * * * *
He came to her--just as he would have scaled Heaven to come to her,
just as he would have come to her in the nethermost pit of Hell if she
had called. Ah, yes, Billy Woods came to her now in her peril, and
I don't think that Mr. Flinks particularly relished the look upon
Billy's face as he ran through the gardens, for Billy was furiously
moved.
Cock-eye Flinks glanced back at the wall behind him. Ten feet high,
and the fellow ain't far off. Cock-eye Flinks caught up his staff, and
as Billy closed upon him, struck him full on the head. Again and again
he struck him. It was a sickening business.
Billy had stopped short. For an instant he stood swaying on his feet,
a puzzled face showing under the trickling blood. Then he flung out
his hands a little, and they flapped loosely at the wrists, like
wet clothes hung in the wind to dry, and Billy seemed to crumple up
suddenly, and slid down upon the grass in an untidy heap.
"Ah-h-h!" said Mr. Flinks. He drew back and stared stupidly at that
sprawling flesh which just now had been a man, and was seized with
uncontrollable shuddering. "Ah-h-h!" said Mr. Flinks, very quietly.
And Margaret went mad. The earth and the sky dissolved in many
floating specks and then went red--red like that heap yonder. The
veneer of civilisation peeled, fell from her like snow from a shaken
garment. The primal beast woke and flicked aside the centuries' work.
She was the Cave-woman who had seen the death of her mate--the brute
who had been robbed of her mate.
"Damn you! _Damn_ you!" she screamed, her voice high, flat, quite
unhuman; "ah, God in Heaven damn you!" With inarticulate bestial cries
she fell upon the man who had killed Billy, and her violet fripperies
fluttered, her impotent little hands beat at him, tore at him. She was
fearless, shameless, insane. She only knew that Billy was dead.
With an oath the man flung her from him and turned on his heel. She
fell to coaxing the heap in the grass to tell her that he forgave
her--to open his eyes--to stop bloodying her dress--to come to
luncheon...
A fly settled on Billy's face and came in his zig-zag course to the
red stream trickling from his nostrils, and stopped short. She brushed
the carrion thing away, but it crawled back drunkenly. She touched it
with her finger, and the fly would not move. On a sudden, every nerve
in her body began to shake and jerk like a flag snapping in the wind.
XXVI
Some ten minutes afterward, as the members of the house-party sat
chatting on the terrace before Selwoode, there came among them a mad
woman in violet trappings that were splotched with blood.
"Did you know that Billy was dead?" she queried, smilingly. "Oh, yes,
a man killed Billy just now. Wasn't it too bad? Billy was such a nice
boy, you know. I--I think it's very sad. I think it's the saddest
thing I ever knew of in my life."
Kathleen Saumarez was the first to reach her. But she drew back
quickly.
"No, ah, no!" she said, with a little shudder. "You didn't love Billy.
He loved you, and you didn't love him. Oh, Kathleen, Kathleen, how
_could_ you help loving Billy? He was such a nice boy. I--I'm rather
sorry he's dead."
Then she stood silent, picking at her dress thoughtfully and still
smiling. Afterward, for the first and only time in history, Miss
Hugonin fainted--fainted with an anxious smile.
Petheridge Jukesbury caught her as she fell, and began to blubber like
a whipped schoolboy as he stood there holding her in his arms.
XXVII
But Billy was not dead. There was still a feeble, jerky fluttering in
his big chest when Colonel Hugonin found him. His heart still moved,
but under the Colonel's hand its stirrings were vague and aimless as
those of a captive butterfly.
The Colonel had seen dead men and dying men before this; and as he
bent over the boy he loved he gave a convulsive sob, and afterward
buried his face in his hands.
Then--of all unlikely persons in the world--it was Petheridge
Jukesbury who rose to meet the occasion.
His suavity and blandness forgotten in the presence of death, he
mounted with confident alacrity to heights of greatness. Masterfully,
he overrode them all. He poured brandy between Billy's teeth. Then he
ordered the ladies off to bed, and recommended to Mr. Kennaston--when
that gentleman spoke of a clergyman--a far more startling destination.
For, "It is far from my intention," said Mr.
Jukesbury, "to appear lacking in respect to the cloth, but--er--just
at present I am inclined to think we are in somewhat greater need of a
mattress and a doctor and--ah--the exercise of a little common-sense.
The gentleman is--er--let us hope, in no immediate danger."
"How dare you suggest such a thing, sir?" thundered Petheridge
Jukesbury. "Didn't you see that poor girl's face? I tell you I'll be
damned if he dies, sir!"
And I fancy the recording angel heard him, and against a list of wordy
cheats registered that oath to his credit.
It was Petheridge Jukesbury, then, who stalked into Mrs. Haggage's
apartments and appropriated her mattress as the first at hand, and
afterward waddled through the gardens bearing it on his fat shoulders,
and still later lifted Billy upon it as gently as a woman could have.
But it was the hatless Colonel on his favourite Black Bess ("Damn your
motor-cars!" the Colonel was wont to say; "I consider my appearance
sufficiently unprepossessing already, sir, without my arriving in
Heaven in fragments and stinking of gasoline!") who in Fairhaven town,
some quarter of an hour afterward, leaped Dr. Jeal's garden fence, and
subsequently bundled the doctor into his gig; and again yet later it
was the Colonel who stood fuming upon the terrace with Dr. Jeal on his
way to Selwoode indeed, but still some four miles from the mansion
toward which he was urging his staid horse at its liveliest gait.
Kennaston tried to soothe him. But the Colonel clamoured to the
heavens. Kennaston he qualified in various ways. And as for Dr. Jeal,
he would hold him responsible--"personally, sir"--for the consequences
of his dawdling in this fashion--"Damme, sir, like a damn' snail with
a wooden leg!"
"I am afraid," said Kennaston, gravely, "that the doctor will be of
very little use when he does arrive."
There was that in his face which made the Colonel pause in his
objurgations.
"Sir," said the Colonel, "what--do--you--mean?" He found articulation
somewhat difficult.
"In your absence," Kennaston answered, "Mr. Jukesbury, who it
appears knows something of medicine, has subjected Mr. Woods to an
examination. It--it would be unkind to deceive you----"
"Come to the point, sir," the Colonel interrupted him. "What--do
you--mean?"
"I mean," said Felix Kennaston, sadly, "that--he is afraid--Mr. Woods
will never recover consciousness."
Colonel Hugonin stared at him. The skin of his flabby, wrinkled old
throat was working convulsively.
Then, "You're wrong, sir," the Colonel said. "Billy _shan't_ die. Damn
Jukesbury! Damn all doctors, too, sir! I put my trust in my God, sir,
and not in a box of damn' sugar-pills, sir. And I tell you, sir, _that
boy is not going to die_."
Afterward he turned and went into Selwoode defiantly.
XXVIII
In the living-hall the Colonel found Margaret, white as paper, with
purple lips that timidly smiled at him.
"Why ain't you in bed?" the old gentleman demanded, with as great an
affectation of sternness as he could muster. To say the truth, it was
not much; for Colonel Hugonin, for all his blustering optimism, was
sadly shaken now.
"Attractive," said Margaret, "I was, but I couldn't stay there. My--my
brain won't stop working, you see," she complained, wearily. "There's
a thin little whisper in the back of it that keeps telling me about
Billy, and what a liar he is, and what nice eyes he has, and how
poor Billy is dead. It keeps telling me that, over and over again,
attractive. It's such a tiresome, silly little whisper. But he is
dead, isn't he? Didn't Mr. Kennaston tell me just now that he was
dead?--or was it the whisper, attractive?"
The Colonel coughed. "Kennaston--er--Kennaston's a fool," he declared,
helplessly. "Always said he was a fool. We'll have Jeal in presently."
"No--I remember now--Mr. Kennaston said Billy would die very soon. You
don't like people to disagree with you, do you, attractive? Of course,
he will die, for the man hit him very, _very_ hard. I'm sorry Billy is
going to die, though, even if he is such a liar!"
"Don't!" said the Colonel, hoarsely; "don't, daughter! I don't know
what there is between you and Billy, but you're wrong. Oh, you're very
hopelessly wrong! Billy's the finest boy I know."
Margaret shook her head in dissent.
"No, he's a very contemptible liar," she said, disinterestedly, "and
that is what makes it so queer that I should care for him more than I
do for anything else in the world. Yes, it's very queer."
Then Margaret went into the room opening into the living-hall, where
Billy Woods lay unconscious, pallid, breathing stertorously. And the
Colonel stared after her.
"Oh, my God, my God!" groaned the poor Colonel; "why couldn't it have
been I? Why couldn't it have been I that ain't wanted any longer?
She'd never have grieved like that for me!"
And indeed, I don't think she would have.
For to Margaret there had come, as, God willing, there comes to every
clean-souled woman, the time to put away all childish things, and all
childish memories, and all childish ties, if need be, to follow one
man only, and cleave to him, and know his life and hers to be knit up
together, past severance, in a love that death itself may not affright
nor slay.
XXIX
She sat silent in one corner of the darkened room. It was the bedroom
that Frederick R. Woods formerly occupied--on the ground floor of
Selwoode, opening into the living-hall--to which they had carried
Billy.
Jukesbury had done what he could. In the bed lay Billy Woods, swathed
in hot blankets, with bottles of hot water set to his feet. Jukesbury
had washed his face clean of that awful red, and had wrapped bandages
of cracked ice about his head and propped it high with pillows. It
was little short of marvellous to see the pursy old hypocrite going
cat-footed about the room on his stealthy ministrations, replenishing
the bandages, forcing spirits of ammonia between Billy's teeth,
fighting deftly and confidently with death.
Billy still breathed.
The Colonel came and went uneasily. The clock on the mantel ticked.
Margaret brooded in a silence that was only accentuated by that
horrible wheezing, gurgling, tremulous breathing in the bed yonder.
Would the doctor never come!
She was curiously conscious of her absolute lack of emotion.
But always the interminable thin whispering in the back of her head
went on and on. "Oh, if he had only died four years ago! Oh, if he had
only died the dear, clean-minded, honest boy I used to know! When that
noise stops he will be dead. And then, perhaps, I shall be able to
cry. Oh, if he had only died four years ago!"
And then _da capo_. On and on ran the interminable thin whispering as
Margaret waited for death to come to Billy. Billy looked so old now,
under his many bandages. Surely he must be very, very near death.
Suddenly, as Jukesbury wrapped new bandages about his forehead, Billy
opened his eyes and, without further movement, smiled placidly up at
him.
"Hello, Jukesbury," said Billy Woods, "where's my armour?"
Jukesbury, too, smiled. "The man is bringing it downstairs now," he
answered, quietly.
"Because," Billy went on, fretfully, "I don't propose to miss the
Trojan war. The princes orgulous with high blood chafed, you know, are
all going to be there, and I don't propose to miss it."
Behind his fat back, Petheridge Jukesbury waved a cautioning hand at
Margaret, who had risen from her chair.
"But it is very absurd," Billy murmured, in the mere ghost of a voice,
"because men don't propose by mistake except in farces. Somebody told
me that, but I can't remember who, because I am a misogynist. That is
a Greek word, and I would explain it to Peggy, if she would only give
me a chance, but she can't because she has those seventeen hundred
and fifty thousand children to look after. There must be some way to
explain to her, though, because where there's a will there is always
a way, and there were three wills. Uncle Fred should not have left so
many wills--who would have thought the old man had so much ink in him?
But I will be a very great painter, Uncle Fred, and make her sorry for
the way she has treated me, and _then_ Kathleen will understand I was
talking about Peggy."
His voice died away, and Margaret sat with wide eyes listening for it
again. Would the doctor never come!
Billy was smiling and picking at the sheets.
"But Peggy is so rich," the faint voice presently complained--"so
beastly rich! There is gold in her hair, and if you will look very
closely you will see that her lashes were pure gold until she dipped
them in the ink-pot. Besides, she expects me to sit up and beg for
lumps of sugar, and I _never_ take sugar in my coffee. And Peggy
doesn't drink coffee at all, so I think it is very unfair, especially
as Teddy Anstruther drinks like a fish and she is going to marry him.
Peggy, why won't you marry me? You know I've always loved you, Peggy,
and now I can tell you so because Uncle Fred has left me all his
money. You think a great deal about money, Peggy. You said it was the
greatest thing in the world. And it must be, because it is the only
thing--the _only_ thing, Peggy--that has been strong enough to keep
us apart. A part is never greater than the whole, Peggy, but I will
explain about that when you open that desk. There are sharks in it.
Aren't there, Peggy?--_aren't_ there?"
His voice had risen to a querulous tone. Gently the fat old man
restrained him.
"Yes," said Petheridge Jukesbury; "dear me, yes. Why, dear me, of
course."
But his warning hand held Margaret back--Margaret, who stood with big
tears trickling down her cheeks.
"Dearer than life itself," Billy assented, wearily, "but before God,
loving you as I do, I wouldn't marry you now for all the wealth in the
world. I forget why, but all the world is a stage, you know, and they
don't use stages now, but only railroads. Is that why you rail at me
so, Peggy? That is a joke. You ought to laugh at my jokes, because I
love you, but I can't ever, ever tell you so because you are rich. A
rich man cannot pass through a needle's eye. Oh, Peggy, Peggy, I love
your eyes, but they're so _big_, Peggy!"
So Billy Woods lay still and babbled ceaselessly. But through all his
irrelevant talk, as you may see a tributary stream pulse unsullied
in a muddied river, ran the thought of Peggy--of Peggy, and of her
cruelty, and of her beauty, and of the money that stood between them.
And Margaret, who could never have believed him in his senses,
listened and knew that in his delirium, the rudder of his thoughts
snapped, he could not but speak truth. As she crouched in the corner
of the room, her face buried in an arm-chair, her gold hair half
loosened, her shoulders monotonously heaving, she wept gently,
inaudibly, almost happily.
Almost happily. Billy was dying, but she knew now, past any doubting,
that he loved her. The dear, clean-minded, honest boy had come
back to her, and she could love him now without shame, and there was
only herself to be loathed.
[Illustration: "Regarded them with alert eyes."]
Then the door opened. Then, with Colonel Hugonin, came Martin Jeal--a
wisp of a man like a November leaf--and regarded them from under his
shaggy white hair with alert eyes.
"Hey, what's this?" said Dr. Jeal. "Eh, yes! Eh--yes!" he meditated,
slowly. "Most irregular. You must let us have the room, Miss Hugonin."
In the hall she waited. Hope! ah, of course, there was no hope! the
thin little whisper told her.
By and bye, though--after centuries of waiting--the three men came
into the hall.
"Miss Hugonin," said Dr. Jeal, with a strange kindness in his voice,
"I don't think we shall need you again. I am happy to tell you,
though, that the patient is doing nicely--very nicely indeed."
Margaret clutched his arm. "You--you mean----"
"I mean," said Dr. Jeal, "that there is no fracture. A slight
concussion of the brain, madam, and--so far as I can see--no signs of
inflammation. Barring accidents, I think we'll have that young man out
of bed in a week. Thanks," he added, "to Mr.--er--Jukesbury here whose
prompt action was, under Heaven, undoubtedly the means of staving off
meningitis and probably--indeed, more than probably--the means
of saving Mr. Woods's life. It was splendid, sir, splendid! No
doctor--why, God bless my soul!"
For Miss Hugonin had thrown her arms about Petheridge Jukesbury's neck
and had kissed him vigorously.
"You beautiful child!" said Miss Hugonin.
"Er--Jukesbury," said the Colonel, mysteriously, "there's a little
cognac in the cellar that--er--" The Colonel jerked his thumb across
the hallway with the air of a conspirator. "Eh?" said the Colonel.
"Why--er--yes," said Mr. Jukesbury. "Why--ah--yes, I think I might."
They went across the hall together. The Colonel's hand rested
fraternally on Petheridge Jukesbury's shoulder.
XXX
The next day there was a general exodus from Selwoode, and Margaret's
satellites dispersed upon their divers ways. Selwoode, as they
understood it, was no longer hers; and they knew Billy Woods well
enough to recognise that from Selwoode's new master there were no
desirable pickings to be had such as the philanthropic crew had
fattened on these four years past. So there came to them, one and all,
urgent telegrams or insistent letters or some equally unanswerable
demand for their presence elsewhere, such as are usually prevalent
among our guests in very dull or very troublous times.