WHEN THE SWORD FELL
Luncheon at Aygon Castle resolved itself into a somewhat dull and
ceremonious affair, and although there were a good many of them round
the festive board, conversation languished and laughter was noticeable
by its absence.
"What a devil of a family to live with!--sitting as though there were a
cold-water poultice on top of 'em," mentally registered Cleek as he
surveyed the company and tried his best to add to the general interest
by anecdotes of a recent tour in Ireland; but his conversational efforts
evoked only an occasional "Indeed?" from Sir Andrew. Entertaining these
people ought to be a paid task in itself, he decided. They hadn't got
any further with civilization than the hired-jester period. Gloom was
glory to the atmosphere of that room during the interminable meal. He
looked from one to another keenly.
First the old laird, solemn as a judge, and concerned only with what was
put before him, with the strange greed of the very old; and at the foot
of the table, his lady, offering a contrast that was as darkness to
day. Cleek sat on the right of his host with Maud Duggan beside him, and
opposite her brother Ross--a big, broad-shouldered, hawk-nosed chap with
the small blue eye of the Scot, keen as a knife-blade, and showing in
the winged flare of nostril the blood that ran in his veins. A likable,
clever fellow. Cleek warmed to him on sight. And yet--his eye swung on
him again. Next to Ross sat Miss McCall, eyes downcast, speaking only
when spoken to, very patiently the servant of a mistress who would
instantly quell any attempt at familiarity or breach of position upon
her part; and next to Miss McCall, little Cyril, black-haired,
brown-eyed, wide-lipped as any other Italian boy, with the soft olive
bloom upon his cheeks that is youth's own birthright.
"And they called him Cyril!--a wishy-washy name like that!" thought
Cleek disgustedly, looking long at him. "What a perfectly beautiful boy!
And looks delicate, too. No wonder the mother loves him. There's
something appealing in those pansy eyes of his that would lure blood
from a stone. I must have a chat with him later on. He'll tell me much
of this strange family, if I get the right side of him to begin with."
He commenced tactics right away, and caught Cyril's boyish fancy in a
wonderful story of a heroic and marvellous engine-driver whom he had
known.
"And I'll tell you some more about him, too--after lunch is over--if
you'll take me out and show me the grounds of this beautiful place," he
promised, with a nod and a smile which won Cyril's hero-worshipping soul
instantly and gained for Cleek an ally who, if handled in the right way,
might prove more useful than he had at first imagined. "There's one
story I remember about the Calais express, and how that chap got the
better of a pack of Apaches who were after the mail-bags.
Gospel-truth!--it's wonderful! We're goin' to be good pals, Cyril, I can
see."
"Only, please, _please_ do not fill his mind up with any more
imaginings, Mr. Deland, than he has already got for himself," threw in
Lady Paula, with an arch glance at Cleek and a little self-conscious
laugh. "He is already filled to the brim with his stepbrother's
electrical madnesses. Ross has woven a spell over him, I think, in
which--what do you call it?--flex and tungsten and short-circuits and
all the rest of that impossible jargon of these light-fiends are
inextricably mixed. I sometimes fear for Cyril's sanity! He talks in his
sleep all night long of these things, and then wakes in the morning,
pale as death. But I cannot make him do other than spend all these
beautiful, long summer days in that stuffy laboratory with Ross,
watching him at what he calls his experiments."
She flashed a smile into Ross Duggan's suddenly flushed face, as though
the words she spoke bore no intended sting and innocence alone had
prompted her to speak her mind thus freely. But the timed shaft had its
desired effect, for Cyril turned quickly upon his mother with darkening
brows.
"So silly of you, Mater, not wanting me to learn all about that ripping
electricity. And Ross knows such a lot, too, and I love to sit and watch
him. And he lets me help sometimes--don't you, Ross?"
"Yes, old chap."
"Well, then, I can't see what all the fuss is about, Mater. I really
can't. Why, that light in my room's ripping for reading at night,
instead of the fuggy old lamp we used to have there, and----"
An agonized look from Maud Duggan sent his brave words trailing off into
nothingness. But already the mischief was done. The black cloud had
settled upon Sir Andrew's face, and the sluggish blood was clotting in
temple veins and cheeks, telling of the anger within. The pin-point eyes
under their beetling brows were more steel-like than ever. He rose to
his feet suddenly, and brought one shaking fist down upon the table-top
with a force that sent the glasses jangling and the table silver
rattling to the tune of it.
"Have done!" he thundered furiously, trembling in a rage that had become
an old man's obsession, and which responded to the constant playing upon
it like a deep-throated viola in the hands of a musician who understood
it; "have done with all this extravagant nonsense! Haven't I threatened
Ross enough as it is, to take his time-wasting, money-eating experiments
out of my house?--and now he not only disobeys my spoken word, but
actually causes the illness of my youngest son himself. Pale?--of course
the boy is pale! Hanging about indoors in a stuffy room, watching his
father's money poured out like water to tickle the fancy of a fool who
is old enough to know better! I'll have none of him--none of him! He may
sing for his bread and butter in future!--go out into the streets and
beg for it, as better beggers than he have done! But he'll leave the
house--he----"
"Father!"
It was Maud Duggan who spoke, rising quickly and hurrying round to him,
to put an arm about his shaking shoulders. "We have a guest--a
stranger----"
"This is no time for guests or strangers! The moment has come, and I'll
have done with it once and for all!" he thundered back at her, with an
old man's persistence, and the single-mindedness of the ill and aged.
"Mr. Deland will pardon what must seem an extraordinary outburst, but
Mr. Deland will not stop it. I am master here, and my will is law. I
mean to enforce it. My mind is made up. Shall I watch my boy Cyril grow
up into just another such maniac, think you? Until he has not rested
content but that the whole Highlands be lit with his precious
electricity--at the price of his father's fortune?... Paula, my
dear--m-my medicine----" He shook slightly, and then an ague took him
and he trembled. He dropped back into his chair, a huddled, shivering
old man in whom the power of his anger had burnt the frail spirit into a
mere husk of its former strength; and in an instant Lady Paula was upon
her feet, running round to him, and fumbling as she ran with her fingers
in her bodice.
"My dear!--my dear! You must not so excite yourself. It is not good for
you. Not right," she said soothingly, taking his head in her arms and
pillowing it against her breast; meanwhile with her other hand she
deftly unscrewed the top of a little bottle she had drawn from her
blouse, and shook out one tiny pellet, which she placed between his
trembling lips. "Take this, dearest, and you will feel better.... A
light drug, Mr. Deland, which the doctor orders at such times. Poor
dear!--poor dear! it is such a constant worry to him, this continuous
quarrel with his own flesh-and-blood. If you had really loved your
father, Ross----"
"As _you_ love him, no doubt I should be able to emulate your methods of
attack better," he returned, stung suddenly out of his bitter silence by
the reproach. "But I have been brought up in another school, Paula,
where we deal square blows that do not strike below the belt, and where
we do not let our ambitions play upon a flattered old man's affections
quite so cleverly or so perceptibly as you do!"
"Stop!"
The mischief was out, the damage was done, and in one moment that dull
and insignificant luncheon-table had been transformed into something
that was more like a third-rate melodrama than a family quarrel among
people of the better class. But the thing had been thrashed out so many
times before that politeness had worn thin, and each one spoke his mind
with a bitterness which left nothing to the imagination. Here was the
actual canker of a family's innermost heart, with all the outer covering
worn thin by constant bickerings and the whole ugly reality of the thing
starkly revealed.
Cleek's face went grim as he watched the blanched faces about the table.
The stammering, broken voice of Sir Andrew tore into the sudden silence.
The old man was struggling up out of his chair, and from the detaining
arms of wife and daughter, face livid, lips twitching, the vein in his
transparent temple standing out like a piece of blue whip-cord. His
clenched hand shook in the air, trembling with the force that he put
into it.
"Stop it! How dare you say such words to my wife--how dare you! You
shall pay for this, Ross Duggan, and pay dearly! To-night I alter my
will--to-night I strike your name from it forever and make the estates
over to someone else. But your name goes out of it--as you
do--_to-night_!... Paula, your arm."
He swung toward his wife with all the dignity of his years and his
inheritance, and took the arm she held out to him, clinging to it as a
child to its mother's skirts, and falteringly left the room, where his
words had fallen upon those remaining like the sword of Damocles itself.
Ross had gone white--deathly white, as had Maud Duggan herself--and all
the indignity of this thing before a stranger to their household showed
itself in his tense countenance.
"Gad! I'll go--and go _now_!" he rapped out, in a very fever of fury and
outraged pride. "And glad to get away, too! Such an infernal hell-nest
of a place as _she_ has made out of a decent British home!"
"Ross! She's my mater, you know."
"Sorry, old chap! I forgot for a moment. But it shan't occur again. I'll
be off, Maud, and get along to Cynthia's. She'll have something to say
about this, I daresay, and her Guv'nor will probably give me a leg-up in
finding a job. I'm better out of this. Mr. Deland, you've been the
unwilling victim of an unpleasant scene--and a family scene, which is
most unpleasant of all. I must apologize to you. Had I foreseen anything
of the sort, we would have postponed your luncheon until a later date.
It might have been more agreeable for you. Good-bye, and I'm sorry I
shan't see more of you. I'm clearing off now, Maud--you can send along
my things later."
Maud Duggan's eyes searched his face, a look in them of agonized
question, as if she was unable to believe the evidence of her own ears.
Then she ran to him and caught him suddenly by the arm.
"Ross, dear, you mustn't be so hasty! You mustn't!" she entreated,
squeezing his arm in her two hands as he looked down at her with his
set, angry face. "You know Father, dear. He'll wish in half an hour,
he'd bitten his tongue out sooner than spoken to you like that. You know
he will. You're his first-born and his favourite--as you have always
been. Try and see this thing clearly. Don't act in a hurry, dear. Just
wait--wait until this evening, for my sake if not for your own. Don't
leave me here to stick the thing out by myself. It isn't fair to me."
That last plea seemed to strike home better than all the others had
done, for the anger faded suddenly from his countenance, and he laid a
hand against her cheek before swinging upon his heel.
"Well, I'll think about it, and see what Cynthia says, anyhow," he
replied, after a pause. "Only, I've reached the end of my tether, and
human nature won't stand too much. Sorry, Miss McCall. Did I tread upon
your foot? I'm so blithering angry I don't really know what I'm doing,
so you must forgive me."
And for the first time the company seemed aware that Johanna McCall had
been a silent spectator of this family scene. For she had kept, as
usual, as quiet as a mouse, only, Cleek observed as he looked at her,
her eyes had blazed with that one light which no fire can quench, and
she had shut them for a moment, as though to hide the secret they
revealed from Ross Duggan's troubled face.
"It's all right, really. And I'm so--awfully sorry, Mr. Duggan," she
said in her soft, monotonous voice. "It is so unfair, so unjust! And
please don't go--without saying good-bye--to me."
Then she, too, turned upon her heel and fled out of the room. And
suddenly Cleek saw one thing startlingly clear. Miss Duggan had
mentioned "an attraction" in Johanna McCall's eyes. That was why she
stayed on here at the Castle and endured so much. But she had given him
to understand that it was Tavish.
But it was _not_ Tavish who had inspired that unquenching fire in those
pale eyes; it was _not_ Tavish who had set that hero-worshipping
expression upon the plain, unattractive face.
It was the disinherited heir to the estates himself!
* * * * *
That afternoon, after he had left the Castle and its inhabitants behind,
he wired Mr. Narkom, as he had said he would. The enigmatic words which
flew across the wire to Scotland Yard, in their own particular code, and
made Mr. Narkom fairly jump in excitement, were these: "_Full up right
to the brim. Come along. Cleek._"