KESTER ST. GEORGE.
Although Lionel Dering had obtained Kester St. George’s address in
Paris from Mr. Perrins, he had not yet written to him. He put off
writing from day to day, hardly knowing, in fact, in what terms to
couch his letter. He could not forget the look he had seen in his
cousin’s eyes during their momentary recognition of each other on
Westminster Bridge. Were they to be as friends or as enemies to each
other in time to come? was the question Lionel asked himself times
without number. At last he decided not to write at all, but to wait
till Kester should return to England, and then see him in person.
After a fortnight at Park Newton, Lionel ran up to town. As a matter of
course, his first visit was to Edith. His second was to Mr. Perrins.
From the latter he ascertained that a copy of the codicil had been duly
sent to Kester at Paris, but had not yet been acknowledged. Lionel’s
next visit was to the Dodo Club, in Pall Mall, of which club he had
ascertained that his cousin was a member. “Yes, Mr. St. George was in
town—had been in town for some days,” said the hall porter, in answer
to his inquiry. “Most likely he would look in at the club in the course
of the afternoon or evening.” On the spur of the moment, Lionel sat
down and wrote the following note, which he left at the Dodo for his
cousin: “Dear Kester, I am in town and should much like to see you.
Drop me a line saying when and where I can have the pleasure of
calling.”
A few hours afterwards he had the following answer: “Old fellow—Come
and breakfast with me to-morrow. Eleven sharp. Shall be delighted to
see you.”
The address given was 28, Great Carrington Street, West, at the door of
which house Lionel’s cab deposited him as the clock was striking eleven
next morning.
Kester St. George’s chambers were luxuriously fitted up. They seemed an
appropriate home for a man of wealth and fashion. Kester, attired in a
flowery dressing-robe, with a smoking-cap on his head, was lounging in
slippered ease before a well-furnished breakfast table. While there was
no one to see him, he looked careworn and gloomy. He held an open
letter in one hand, the reading of which seemed to have been anything
but a source of satisfaction to him.
“Won’t wait more than another week, won’t he!” he muttered. “Not to be
put off with any more of my fine promises, eh? If I were cleared out
to-morrow, I couldn’t raise more than a bare two fifty—just an eighth
of the two thousand Grimble says he must have out of me before seven
days are over: and he means it this time. If I could only raise five
hundred, that might satisfy him till I get a turn of luck. I wonder—as
I’ve often wondered—whether Dering knows of that little secret down at
Park Newton. How fortunate that he’s coming here this morning! I’ll
pump him. If he knows nothing of it—why then, we shall see what we
shall see. What with the diamonds and one thing or another, it ought to
be good for five or six hundred at the very least. That must be
Dering’s knock.”
“Dear boy! so pleased to see you! so glad to find you have not
forgotten me!” were Kester’s first words, accompanied by a hearty shake
of the hand. All traces of gloom, and depression had vanished from his
face. He looked as if he had not a care in the world.
“I am not likely to forget you, Kester,” said Lionel. “I should have
hunted you up weeks back, but I heard that you were in Paris.”
“So I was in Paris—only got here three days ago. What will you take,
tea or coffee? I’ve something fresh here in potted meats that I can
strongly recommend.”
Kester St. George at this time was thirty-three years old. He was a
tall, well-built man, with something almost military in his bearing and
carriage. He had bold, well-cut, aquiline features, a clear, pale olive
complexion, and black, restless eyes. Black, too, jet black, were his
thick eyebrows and his heavy, drooping moustache: but already his hair
had faded to an iron-gray. He had one of those rare voices—low, soft,
and persuasive, but perfectly clear, which are far more dangerous to a
woman’s peace of mind than mere good looks can ever hope to be. It was
a voice whose charm few men could resist. Yet it was so uniformly
dulcet, it was pitched so perpetually in a minor key that some people
came at last to think that through all its sweetness, through all that
pleasant flow or words which Kester St. George could command at will,
they could detect a tone of insincerity—the ring, as it were, of
counterfeit metal trying to pass itself off as good, honest gold. But,
then, some people are very fanciful—ridiculously so: and the majority
of those who knew Kester St. George were satisfied to vote him a
capital talker, and very pleasant company, and neither wished nor cared
to know anything more.
“It must be eight or nine years, Li, since you and I met last,” said
Kester, as he helped his cousin to some coffee.
“Yes, about that time,” said Lionel.
“You are so altered that I should hardly have known you again.”
“I suppose so,” answered Lionel. “But I should have known you
anywhere.”
“How?”
“By your eyes.”
“Ah!” A pause, while Kester leisurely chipped an egg.
“Have you had any news lately from Uncle Lionel?”
“I have not had a letter from India for over six months.”
“What a fine old boy he is! Do you know, Li, I was quite jealous of the
way he took to you; making such a pet of you, and all that? He must be
getting old now.”
“I believe he is either fifty-nine or sixty.”
“Quite time he left the service, and settled down at home for the
remainder of his days. He must have made a pot of money out there, eh?”
“I don’t think Uncle Lionel is one of the money-making kind.”
“He must have some scrapings somewhere. I only hope he won’t forget his
graceless nephew Kester, when he comes to make his will. By-the-by, you
have a brother out there, haven’t you?”
“Yes. The only brother I have.”
“Doing well?”
“Very well.”
“Ah, here comes Pierre with a couple of Digby chicks. Famous relish.
Try one. And how do you like Park Newton, Li?”
“I get to like it better as I become more familiar with it. It grows
upon one day by day.”
“Sweet old spot! For years and years I never dreamed that any one other
than myself would be its master after my uncle’s death.”
“We all thought the same,” said Lionel. “You will give me credit for
sincerity when I say that no one could have been more surprised than I
was by the contents of Uncle Arthur’s will.”
“I know it; I know it. From the day I quarrelled with my uncle, I felt
that my chance was gone for ever. It was only right that you should be
made the heir, vice Kester in disgrace. If there had been no such
person as you in existence, the property would have been left either to
your brother or to Uncle Lionel. If they had both been dead, Park
Newton would have gone to some hospital or asylum. In no case would a
single shilling have ever come to me.” Kester spoke with exceeding
bitterness, and Lionel could not wonder at it. But his gloom did not
last more than a minute or two. He shook it off lightly. “Che sarà,
sarà,” he said, with a shrug and a laugh. Then he rose, and got his
cigar-case. “Let us have a smoke,” he said. “After all, life in Bohemia
is very jolly. It is pleasant to live by one’s wits at the expense of
other people who have none. Fools fortunately abound in this world;
while they are plentiful, men of brains need never starve.” This was
said with a sort of defiant cynicism that it pained Lionel to hear.
“Kester,” he said, “something was told me the other day that I never
heard of before; something that affects you.”
“Something that affects me! What was it?” His tone was abrupt and full
of suspicion.
“Mr. Wharton, the vicar of Duxley, told me that when my grandfather lay
dying, he expressed a wish that if Uncle Arthur should die without
children, the estate should come to me; but that an allowance of three
thousand a year should be paid out of it to you as long as you lived.”
“I have heard my uncle say many a time that my grandfather was in his
dotage for months before he died,” said Kester, contemptuously.
“Whether he was in his dotage or no, there is no doubt that such a wish
was expressed by him. Strangely enough, his wish has come true as
regards myself: why should it not come true in your case also?”
“Lionel Dering, what is it that you mean?”
“Simply this: Three thousand a year out of the Park Newton property
belongs morally to you, and——”
“And you want to settle that sum on me?”
“I do.”
“You propose, in all seriousness, to give me, Kester St. George, three
thousand a year out of your income of eleven thousand?”
“In all seriousness, that is what I propose to do.”
Kester’s face flushed deeply. He got up, walked across the room, and
stood looking out of the window for two or three minutes.
“No! a thousand times no!” he exclaimed at last with startling
abruptness. “I cannot accept your offer.”
“Is not the sum large enough?” asked Lionel.
“Not one penny piece, Lionel Dering, will I ever accept at your hands!”
“But why not? What is your objection?”
“Do not ask me. I would not tell you if I could. Let it suffice that my
objection is insuperable and—let us never talk about this again.” He
rang the bell violently. “Pierre, cognac and seltzer. Do you do
anything in the racing line?” asked Kester in his lightest tone as
Pierre left the room.
“Nothing. I’m as fond of a horse as any man, but I’m profoundly
ignorant of racing, and I never bet.”
“That’s a pity, because I could have put you up to one or two good
things for the spring meetings. Fine institution—betting,” added
Kester, as he lighted another cigar. “It is one of the pleasantest of
our vices, when judiciously pursued. When we win, it is a source of
double gratification: we not only put money into our own pockets, but
we take it out of the pockets of other people.”
“And when you lose?” said Lionel.
“To bear one’s losses like a man of the world and a gentleman is to
prove that the teachings of philosophy have not been in vain.”
“May I venture to hope that, as yet, you have had no occasion to seek
consolation in the teachings of philosophy?”
“I won four thousand over the last St. Leger.”
“For the present, then, the Stoics are at a discount.—Kester,” said
Lionel, abruptly breaking off the subject, “you won’t object to come
and see me at Park Newton?”
Kester was leaning back in his easy chair, watching the smoke-wreaths
as they curled idly upwards from his cigar. His thick black eyebrows
came together in a deep, meditative frown as he heard Lionel’s
question. For a minute or two he did not answer.
“Frankly, no. I’ll come and see you,” he said at last. “Why shouldn’t
I? It will pain me at first to go back to the old place as guest, where
once I thought that I should be master. But, thank Heaven, I’m not one
of the most impressionable of men, and the feeling will soon wear off.
Yes, Lionel, I’ll come and see you.”
Lionel was pleased that he had succeeded so far. “Perhaps, after a
time,” he thought, “I may be able to persuade him to accept the three
thousand a year.”
“You will keep up the old place in proper style, I suppose?” said
Kester presently.
“I shall live very quietly—at least for some time to come,” said
Lionel.
“Which means, I suppose, that you will see very little company, and not
rest satisfied unless you can save two-thirds of your income. That you
will breakfast and dine in that ugly little parlour which overlooks the
fishpond, and snore by night inside the huge four-poster in the
Griffin-room.”
Lionel laughed his careless, good-hearted laugh. “To one count of your
indictment I can plead guilty,” he said. “I certainly have both
breakfasted and dined in the parlour overlooking the fishpond. But, on
the other hand, I have certainly never slept in the Griffin, which has
been locked up ever since Uncle Arthur’s death.”
“Ah!” sighed Kester, and it sounded so like a sigh of relief or
thankfulness that Lionel could not help noticing it. “No wonder you
don’t care to sleep in the Griffin,” he added, after a brief pause.
“With its oak-panelled walls, and its plumed bedstead that always put
me in mind of a hearse, it used to give me a fit of horrors whenever I
went into it; and yet my uncle would never sleep anywhere else.”
It should be mentioned that the bedrooms at Park Newton were each of
them individualized with a name—generally that of some bird, fish, or
animal. Among others, there were the Dolphin, the Pelican, and the
Griffin. Such had been the whim of one of the former owners of the
place, and none of his successors had seen fit to alter the
arrangement.
After a little more desultory conversation, Lionel rose to go. As he
stood with his elbow resting on the chimney-piece, his eye was
attracted by a brace of duelling pistols which hung on the wall close
by. They were old-fashioned, clumsy-looking weapons, but deadly enough,
no doubt, in efficient hands.
“With permission,” said Lionel, as he took one down to examine. Kester
took down the other. The one Lionel had taken was unloaded; the one in
Kester’s hands loaded—a fact of which Kester was quite aware. The day
was dull, and Lionel took his pistol to the window, that he might
examine it more closely. Kester stood by the chimney-piece on the other
side of the room. As he stood thus, a terrible temptation took
possession of him. “What if you were to kill him where he stands!”
something seemed to whisper in his ear: and for a moment his whole
being shrank back aghast. But for a moment only.
“I could shoot him dead on the spot, put the discharged pistol into his
hand the moment after he had fallen, and no one could say that he had
not shot himself. Park Newton would then be mine, and I should be
revenged.”
These thoughts flashed like lightning through Kester’s brain. The room
and everything in it seemed to recede and fade into
nothingness—everything except that silent black-clothed figure by the
window. Kester’s heart beat strangely. His breath came in hot gasps.
There were blood-red motes in his eyes—blood-red motes falling
everywhere. Mechanically, and without any conscious volition on his
part, his right arm went up to a line with his shoulder. The barrel was
pointed straight at Lionel’s head.
He paused and trembled. In another moment, for good or for ill, would
have come the climax. Suddenly, and without warning, Pierre, the
velvet-footed, flung open the door. “A telegram for you, sir,” he said.
“The messenger is waiting.”
The pistol fell from Kester’s nervous grasp Lionel looked up and was
saved.