Cynthia looked round at her visitor with a sort of timidity which she
did not often exhibit. He was apparently about sixty years of age,
broad-shouldered, and muscularly built, but with a stiffness of gait
which seemed to be either the result of chronic rheumatism or of an
accident which had partially disabled him. His face was brown, his eyes
were dark and bright; but his hair and beard were almost white, although
his eyebrows had not a grizzled tint. He was roughly but respectably
dressed, and looked like a prosperous yeoman or an artisan of the better
class. Cynthia glanced at him keenly, then seemed to gain confidence,
and asked him to sit down. The visitor obeyed; but Cynthia continued
standing, with her hands on the back of a heavy chair.
"Mr. Reuben Dare?" she said at length, as the old man did not speak.
"Come straight from Ameriky," said he--he sat bolt-upright on his chair,
and looked at the girl with a steady interest and curiosity which almost
embarrassed her--"and promised to look you up as soon as I got over
here. Can you guess who 'twas I promised, missy?"
Cynthia grew first red and then white.
"No," she said; "I am not sure that I can."
"Is there nobody belonging to you that you haven't heard of for years
and years?"
"Yes," said Cynthia; "I think perhaps there is."
"A man," said Mr. Reuben Dare, leaning forward with his hands on his
knees, and trying to subdue his rather harsh voice to quietness--"a man
as was related to you, maybe?"
"If you will say what you mean, I think I can answer you better," said
Cynthia.
"Do you think I am going to say what I mean until I know what sort of a
young woman you are, and how you'll take the news I bring you?" said the
man.
With a somewhat savage and truculent air he drew his eyebrows down over
his eyes as he spoke; but there was a touch of something else as
well--of stirred emotion, of doubt, of troubled feeling--which
dissipated Cynthia's fears at once. She left the chair which she had
been grasping with one hand, and came closer to her visitor.
"I see that you are afraid to trust me," she said quickly. "You think
that perhaps I am hard and worldly, and do not want to have anything to
do with my relatives? That is not true. You are thinking--speaking--of
my poor father perhaps. As long as I was a child--a mere girl--I did not
think much about him, I was content to believe what people told me--not
that he was guilty--I never believed that!--but that I could do nothing
for him, and that I had better not interfere. When I was independent and
beginning to think for myself--about six months ago--I found out what I
might have done. Shall I go on to tell you what I did?"
"Yes, yes--go on!" The man's voice was husky; his wrinkled hand trembled
as it lay upon his knee. He watched the girl's face with hungry eyes.
"I wrote to the Governor of the prison," said Cynthia, "and told him
that I had only just discovered--having been such a child--that I could
write to my father or see him at regular intervals, and that I should
like to do so from time to time. He asked me in return how it was that
an intimation--which had been forwarded, I believe, to certain persons
interested in my welfare--of my father's fate had not been given to me.
My father had, by a desperate effort, succeeded in escaping from
Portland; he had never been recaptured; and, from certain information
received, the authorities believed that he was dead. He added however
that he had a shrewd suspicion that Andrew Westwood had thrown dust into
the eyes of the police, had left the country, and was not dead at all."
"And begged you to communicate with the authorities if you heard from
him, I suppose?"
"No; he did not go so far as that to the man's own daughter," said
Cynthia calmly. "And it would, of course, have been useless if he had."
"Why--why?"
"Because," said the girl, her lips suddenly trembling and her eyes
filling with tears--"because I love my father, and would do anything in
the world for him--if he would let me. Can you not tell me where he is?
I would give all I have to see him once again!"
Reuben Dare fidgeted in his chair, and half turned his face away. Then,
without meeting her eager tearful eyes, he replied half sullenly--
"The Governor was right. He got away--away to America."
"Oh, then he is living still? He is well?"
"Oh, yes--he's living, and well enough! He hasn't done so badly neither.
He got some land and 'struck ile,' as they say in America; and living
under another name, and nobody knowing anything about him--he--well,
he's had fair luck."
"And you come from him--you are a friend of his? Did he want to hear of
me?"
"Yes, missy, he did. But he would scarce ha' known you if he'd met you
in the street--you, grown so tall and handsome and dressed so fine. It
was your name as gave him the clue--'Cynthia'--'Cynthia West'; for he
read in the papers as you were singing at concerts, and he says to
himself, 'Why, that's my gal, sure enough; and she hain't forgotten her
mother's name!'"
"Go on!" said Cynthia quickly.
"Go on? What do you mean?" asked Reuben Dare, a little suspiciously.
"There's nothing more to say, is there? And he asked me to make
inquiries while I was in England--that was all."
"Oh, no, that was not all!" said Cynthia, drawing nearer, and holding
out her hands a little, like one under hypnotic influence, fascinated by
a power over which she had no control. "I can tell you the rest. The
more he thought of his child, and the more he remembered how she used to
love him and trust in him, the more he felt that he could not stay away
from her; and so, although the risk was great--terrible--he determined
to come back to England and see with his own eyes whether she was safe
and well. And when he saw her"--there was a sob in her voice--"he said
to himself that perhaps after all she was a hard, unfeeling creature who
had forgotten him, or a wicked, treacherous woman who would betray her
own father, and that he would go away back to America and never see her
again, forgetting to ask whether she had not a heart and a memory too,
and whether it might not be that she had loved him all her life, and
whether she was not longing to fall upon his neck and kiss his dear
face, and tell him that she wanted a father for many, many dreary years,
and that she trusts him, believes in him, loves him with all her heart!
Oh, father, father!"--and Cynthia lay sobbing on his breast.
She had thrown herself impulsively on her knees beside him; her arms
were round his neck, and he was covering her face with kisses. He did
not attempt to deny that she had spoken the truth--that he was indeed
her father--the man who had been condemned to death, and whom she had
believed until this moment to be in America, if still indeed alive; but
neither did he try to prove the fact. He sat still, with his arms round
her, and--to her surprise--the tears running down his cheeks as freely
as they were running down her own. She looked up at him at last and
smiled rather piteously in his face.
"Dear father," she said, "and have you come all this way and run into so
much danger just to see me?"
"Yes, I have, Cynthy," said the man who called himself Reuben Dare. "I
said to myself, I can't get on any longer without seeing her, any way.
If that's my girl that sings--as her mother did before her--I shall know
her in a trice. But, bless you, my girl, I didn't--not till you began to
speak! And then t'was just like your mother."
"Am I so much altered?" said Cynthia wistfully.
"As much as you ought to be, my beauty, and no more. You ain't like the
skinny little bit of a thing that ran wild round Beechfield lanes; but
then you don't want to be. You're a good deal like your mother; but she
wasn't as dark as you. And, being so different, you see, I thought you
might be different in yourself--not ready to acknowledge your father as
belonging to you at all, maybe; and so I'd try you with a message first
and see what you said to that."
"You are altered too, father."
"Yes, my deary, I'm altered too. Hain't I had enough to alter me?
Injustice and oppression have almost broke my heart, and ague and
fever's taken the strength out o' my limbs, and a knock I got in the
States three years ago has nigh crippled me. I'm a broken-down man, with
only strength left for one thing--and that's to curse the hard-hearted
ruffian, whoever he was, that spoiled my life for me, and thought to
hang me by the neck or shut me up in prison for the rest of my days. If
ever I could come across him, I'd do my best to make him suffer as I
have suffered. I pray God night and day that He'll let me see that
rascal on his knees to me yet before I die!"
His voice had grown loud and fierce, his eyes shone beneath the shaggy
eyebrows, his hand shook as he raised it to call down vengeance on the
man who had left him to his fate. Cynthia trembled in spite of her love
for him--the tones, the look, brought back memories which made her feel
that her father was in a great many ways unchanged, and that the wild,
lawless nature of the man might be suppressed but never utterly subdued.
She did not feel the slightest abatement of her love for him on this
account; but it suddenly made her aware of the dangers and difficulties
of his position, and aroused her fears for his safety, even in that
house.
"Father," she said "are you sure that nobody will remember you?"
Westwood laughed harshly.
"They're not likely to know me," he said. "I've taken care to change my
looks since then;" and, by a sudden movement of his hand, he showed her
that hair, beard, and moustache were all fictitious, and that beneath
the silvery exterior there grew a scantier crop of sparse gray hair and
whiskers, which recalled his former appearance much more clearly to his
daughter's mind.
"Oh, don't take them off!" she cried. "Somebody may come in--the door is
not locked! At another time, dear father, you will show me your real
face, will you not?"
He looked at her with a mingling of pride and sorrow in his glance.
"And you ain't wanting me to be found out then--you don't want to give
me up to the police?"
"Father, how can you think of such a thing?"
"Some women-folks would think of it, my girl. But you--you're fond of
your father still, Cynthy?"
She answered by taking his rough hand in her own and kissing it
tenderly.
"And you don't believe I killed Mr. Vane down at Beechfield--eh, Cynthy?
Because if you believe it, you know, you and me had better part without
more words about it. Least said, soonest mended."
"I do not believe it--I never did!" said Cynthia proudly.
"On your word and honor and Bible-oath, Cynthia?"
"On my word and honor and on my Bible-oath, father," she said, repeating
the words, because she saw that he attached especial importance to the
formula. "I never believed and never will believe that you were guilty
of Sydney Vane's murder! My father"--she said it as proudly as if he had
been a Royal Prince--"was never capable of a base and wicked deed!"
"It's her mother's voice," murmured the man, raising his hand to his
eyes, as if to shut out the sight of the young girl's face, and to
abstract himself from everything but the sound, "and it's her mother's
trust in me! Cynthia, my dear, what do you know o' your father to make
you so ready to stand by him?" There was a great and an unaccustomed
tenderness in his tone. "I'm a common man, and I've spent years of my
life in gaol, and I was a tramp and a poacher--I won't deny it--in the
olden days; and before that--well, before that, I was a gamekeeper on a
big estate--turned away in disgrace, my dear, because my master's
daughter fell in love with me. You never heard that before, did
you?--though any one would guess that you didn't come of a common stock!
Wetheral was her name--Cynthia Wetheral of Bingley Park, in
Gloucestershire. There are relatives of hers living there still; but
they don't acknowledge us--they won't have anything to do with you,
Cynthia, my girl. I married her and took her away wi' me; and for twelve
blessed months we were as happy as the day was long; and then she died."
He paused a little, and caressed Cynthia's head with his hand.
"You're like her, my dear. But I'm only a low common sort o' man that
sunk lower and lower since the day she died; and you've no call to trust
me unless you feel inclined--no call in the very least. If you say you
don't quite believe my word, my pretty, I'll not cut up rough--I'll just
go away quiet, and never trouble you any more."
"Father," said Cynthia, "listen to me one moment. We were separated when
I was only eleven years old; but don't you think that in eleven years I
could learn something of your real disposition--your true nature? I
remember how you used to care for me, how tender and kind you were to
me, although you might perhaps seem gloomy and morose to all the world
beside. I remember your bringing home a dog with a broken leg, and
nursing it till it was cured. You had pets of all kinds--birds, beasts,
flowers. You never did a cruel thing in your life; and how could I think
then, that you would lie in wait to kill a man out of mere spite and
revenge--a man, too, with a wife and a child--a little girl like me? I
knew you better, father, all the time!"
Westwood shook his head doubtfully.
"Maybe you're right," he said, "and maybe wrong. I've seen rough deeds
done in my day, and never lifted a hand to interfere. I won't deny but
what I did lie in wait for Mr. Vane that very afternoon--but with no
thought of murder in my mind. I meant to tell him what my opinion was of
him and of his doings; for there was carryings-on that I didn't approve
of, and it's my belief that in those very carryings-on lies the key of
the mystery. I've thought it all out in prison, slow-like--at nights
when I lay in bed, and days when I was hewing stone. I won't tell you
the story, my pretty; it ain't fit for the likes of you. But there was a
woman mixed up in it; and, if there was any man who had rights over the
woman--sweetheart or husband, brother or father, or such-like--it's in
that quarter that you and me should look for the real murderer of Sydney
Vane."
"Can't we do anything, father? Won't you tell me the whole story?"
"Not now, my girl; I must be going."
"Where are you going, father? Will you be in a safe place?"
"Quite safe, my dear--quite safe! Nobody would know me in this guise,
would they? I'm at No. 119 Isabella Street, Camden Town--quite a little
out-o'-the-way place--just the sort to suit a quiet respectable-looking
man like me." He gave vent to a grim little chuckle as he went on. "They
don't know who they've got hold of, do they? Maybe they wouldn't be
quite so pleased if they did."
"May I come and see you there, father?"
"Well, my girl, I think not. Such a--a splendid-looking sort of a party
as you've turned out coming to visit me would make people talk. And we
don't want people to talk, do we? Isn't there any quiet spot where you
and me could meet and walk about a bit? Kensington Gardens; maybe, or
Regent's Park?"
Cynthia thought that Kensington Gardens would be quiet enough in the
morning for their purpose, and it was agreed that they should meet there
the next day at noon. Westwood's disguise was so perfect that he did not
attempt to seclude himself during the day.
"And then," he said, "we can talk about you coming over to Ameriky, and
living happy and quiet somewhere with me."
"Oh, I can't leave England!" said Cynthia, with a sudden little gasp.
"Don't ask me, father; I can't possibly go away."
He looked at her keenly and scrutinisingly for a moment, and then he
said--
"That means that you've got a reason for wanting to stop in England.
That means that you've got a sweetheart--a lover, my pretty--and that
you won't leave him. I know the ways of women well enough. I don't want
to force you, my girl; but I hope that he's worthy of the woman you've
grown to be. Tell me his name."