LORD AVON.
MY uncle was an impassive man by nature and had become more so by the
tradition of the society in which he lived. He could have turned a card
upon which his fortune depended without the twitch of a muscle, and I had
seen him myself driving to imminent death on the Godstone Road with as
calm a face as if he were out for his daily airing in the Mall. But now
the shock which had come upon him was so great that he could only stand
with white cheeks and staring, incredulous eyes. Twice I saw him open
his lips, and twice he put his hand up to his throat, as though a barrier
had risen betwixt himself and his utterance. Finally, he took a sudden
little run forward with both his hands thrown out in greeting.
“Ned!” he cried.
But the strange man who stood before him folded his arms over his breast.
“No Charles,” said he.
My uncle stopped and looked at him in amazement.
“Surely, Ned, you have a greeting for me after all these years?”
“You believed me to have done this deed, Charles. I read it in your eyes
and in your manner on that terrible morning. You never asked me for an
explanation. You never considered how impossible such a crime must be
for a man of my character. At the first breath of suspicion you, my
intimate friend, the man who knew me best, set me down as a thief and a
murderer.”
“No, no, Ned.”
“You did, Charles; I read it in your eyes. And so it was that when I
wished to leave that which was most precious to me in safe hands I had to
pass you over and to place him in the charge of the one man who from the
first never doubted my innocence. Better a thousand times that my son
should be brought up in a humble station and in ignorance of his
unfortunate father, than that he should learn to share the doubts and
suspicions of his equals.”
“Then he is really your son!” cried my uncle, staring at Jim in
amazement.
For answer the man stretched out his long withered arm, and placed a
gaunt hand upon the shoulder of the actress, whilst she looked up at him
with love in her eyes.
“I married, Charles, and I kept it secret from my friends, for I had
chosen my wife outside our own circles. You know the foolish pride which
has always been the strongest part of my nature. I could not bear to
avow that which I had done. It was this neglect upon my part which led
to an estrangement between us, and drove her into habits for which it is
I who am to blame and not she. Yet on account of these same habits I
took the child from her and gave her an allowance on condition that she
did not interfere with it. I had feared that the boy might receive evil
from her, and had never dreamed in my blindness that she might get good
from him. But I have learned in my miserable life, Charles, that there
is a power which fashions things for us, though we may strive to thwart
it, and that we are in truth driven by an unseen current towards a
certain goal, however much we may deceive ourselves into thinking that it
is our own sails and oars which are speeding us upon our way.”
My eyes had been upon the face of my uncle as he listened, but now as I
turned them from him they fell once more upon the thin, wolfish face of
Sir Lothian Hume. He stood near the window, his grey silhouette thrown
up against the square of dusty glass; and I have never seen such a play
of evil passions, of anger, of jealousy, of disappointed greed upon a
human face before.
“Am I to understand,” said he, in a loud, harsh voice, “that this young
man claims to be the heir of the peerage of Avon?”
“He is my lawful son.”
“I knew you fairly well, sir, in our youth; but you will allow me to
observe that neither I nor any friend of yours ever heard of a wife or a
son. I defy Sir Charles Tregellis to say that he ever dreamed that there
was any heir except myself.”
“I have already explained, Sir Lothian, why I kept my marriage secret.”
“You have explained, sir; but it is for others in another place to say if
that explanation is satisfactory.”
Two blazing dark eyes flashed out of the pale haggard face with as
strange and sudden an effect as if a stream of light were to beat through
the windows of a shattered and ruined house.
“You dare to doubt my word?”
“I demand a proof.”
“My word is proof to those who know me.”
“Excuse me, Lord Avon; but I know you, and I see no reason why I should
accept your statement.”
It was a brutal speech, and brutally delivered. Lord Avon staggered
forward, and it was only his son on one side and his wife on the other
who kept his quivering hands from the throat of his insulter. Sir
Lothian recoiled from the pale fierce face with the black brows, but he
still glared angrily about the room.
“A very pretty conspiracy this,” he cried, “with a criminal, an actress,
and a prize-fighter all playing their parts. Sir Charles Tregellis, you
shall hear from me again! And you also, my lord!” He turned upon his
heel and strode from the room.
“He has gone to denounce me,” said Lord Avon, a spasm of wounded pride
distorting his features.
“Shall I bring him back?” cried Boy Jim.
“No, no, let him go. It is as well, for I have already made up my mind
that my duty to you, my son, outweighs that which I owe, and have at such
bitter cost fulfilled, to my brother and my family.”
“You did me an injustice, Ned,” said my uncle, “if you thought that I had
forgotten you, or that I had judged you unkindly. If ever I have thought
that you had done this deed—and how could I doubt the evidence of my own
eyes—I have always believed that it was at a time when your mind was
unhinged, and when you knew no more of what you were about than the man
who is walking in his sleep.”
“What do you mean when you talk about the evidence of your own eyes?”
asked Lord Avon, looking hard at my uncle.
“I saw you, Ned, upon that accursed night.”
“Saw me? Where?”
“In the passage.”
“And doing what?”
“You were coming from your brother’s room. I had heard his voice raised
in anger and pain only an instant before. You carried in your hand a bag
full of money, and your face betrayed the utmost agitation. If you can
but explain to me, Ned, how you came to be there, you will take from my
heart a weight which has pressed upon it for all these years.”
No one now would have recognized in my uncle the man who was the leader
of all the fops of London. In the presence of this old friend and of the
tragedy which girt him round, the veil of triviality and affectation had
been rent, and I felt all my gratitude towards him deepening for the
first time into affection whilst I watched his pale, anxious face, and
the eager hope which shone in his eyes as he awaited his friend’s
explanation. Lord Avon sank his face in his hands, and for a few moments
there was silence in the dim grey room.
“I do not wonder now that you were shaken,” said he at last. “My God,
what a net was cast round me! Had this vile charge been brought against
me, you, my dearest friend, would have been compelled to tear away the
last doubt as to my guilt. And yet, in spite of what you have seen,
Charles, I am as innocent in the matter as you are.”
“I thank God that I hear you say so.”
“But you are not satisfied, Charles. I can read it on your face. You
wish to know why an innocent man should conceal himself for all these
years.”
“Your word is enough for me, Ned; but the world will wish this other
question answered also.”
“It was to save the family honour, Charles. You know how dear it was to
me. I could not clear myself without proving my brother to have been
guilty of the foulest crime which a gentleman could commit. For eighteen
years I have screened him at the expense of everything which a man could
sacrifice. I have lived a living death which has left me an old and
shattered man when I am but in my fortieth year. But now when I am faced
with the alternative of telling the facts about my brother, or of
wronging my son, I can only act in one fashion, and the more so since I
have reason to hope that a way may be found by which what I am now about
to disclose to you need never come to the public ear.”
He rose from his chair, and leaning heavily upon his two supporters, he
tottered across the room to the dust-covered sideboard. There, in the
centre of it, was lying that ill-boding pile of time-stained, mildewed
cards, just as Boy Jim and I had seen them years before. Lord Avon
turned them over with trembling fingers, and then picking up half a
dozen, he brought them to my uncle.
“Place your finger and thumb upon the left-hand bottom corner of this
card, Charles,” said he. “Pass them lightly backwards and forwards, and
tell me what you feel.”
“It has been pricked with a pin.”
“Precisely. What is the card?”
My uncle turned it over.
“It is the king of clubs.”
“Try the bottom corner of this one.”
“It is quite smooth.”
“And the card is?”
“The three of spades.”
“And this one?”
“It has been pricked. It is the ace of hearts.” Lord Avon hurled them
down upon the floor.
“There you have the whole accursed story!” he cried. “Need I go further
where every word is an agony?”
“I see something, but not all. You must continue, Ned.”
The frail figure stiffened itself, as though he were visibly bracing
himself for an effort.
“I will tell it you, then, once and for ever. Never again, I trust, will
it be necessary for me to open my lips about the miserable business. You
remember our game. You remember how we lost. You remember how you all
retired, and left me sitting in this very room, and at that very table.
Far from being tired, I was exceedingly wakeful, and I remained here for
an hour or more thinking over the incidents of the game and the changes
which it promised to bring about in my fortunes. I had, as you will
recollect, lost heavily, and my only consolation was that my own brother
had won. I knew that, owing to his reckless mode of life, he was firmly
in the clutches of the Jews, and I hoped that that which had shaken my
position might have the effect of restoring his. As I sat there,
fingering the cards in an abstracted way, some chance led me to observe
the small needle-pricks which you have just felt. I went over the packs,
and found, to my unspeakable horror, that any one who was in the secret
could hold them in dealing in such a way as to be able to count the exact
number of high cards which fell to each of his opponents. And then, with
such a flush of shame and disgust as I had never known, I remembered how
my attention had been drawn to my brother’s mode of dealing, its
slowness, and the way in which he held each card by the lower corner.
“I did not condemn him precipitately. I sat for a long time calling to
mind every incident which could tell one way or the other. Alas! it all
went to confirm me in my first horrible suspicion, and to turn it into a
certainty. My brother had ordered the packs from Ledbury’s, in Bond
Street. They had been for some hours in his chambers. He had played
throughout with a decision which had surprised us at the time. Above
all, I could not conceal from myself that his past life was not such as
to make even so abominable a crime as this impossible to him. Tingling
with anger and shame, I went straight up that stair, the cards in my
hand, and I taxed him with this lowest and meanest of all the crimes to
which a villain could descend.
“He had not retired to rest, and his ill-gotten gains were spread out
upon the dressing-table. I hardly know what I said to him, but the facts
were so deadly that he did not attempt to deny his guilt. You will
remember, as the only mitigation of his crime, that he was not yet one
and twenty years of age. My words overwhelmed him. He went on his knees
to me, imploring me to spare him. I told him that out of consideration
for our family I should make no public exposure of him, but that he must
never again in his life lay his hand upon a card, and that the money
which he had won must be returned next morning with an explanation. It
would be social ruin, he protested. I answered that he must take the
consequence of his own deed. Then and there I burned the papers which he
had won from me, and I replaced in a canvas bag which lay upon the table
all the gold pieces. I would have left the room without another word,
but he clung to me, and tore the ruffle from my wrist in his attempt to
hold me back, and to prevail upon me to promise to say nothing to you or
Sir Lothian Hume. It was his despairing cry, when he found that I was
proof against all his entreaties, which reached your ears, Charles, and
caused you to open your chamber door and to see me as I returned to my
room.”
My uncle drew a long sigh of relief.
“Nothing could be clearer!” he murmured.
“In the morning I came, as you remember, to your room, and I returned
your money. I did the same to Sir Lothian Hume. I said nothing of my
reasons for doing so, for I found that I could not bring myself to
confess our disgrace to you. Then came the horrible discovery which has
darkened my life, and which was as great a mystery to me as it has been
to you. I saw that I was suspected, and I saw, also, that even if I were
to clear myself, it could only be done by a public confession of the
infamy of my brother. I shrank from it, Charles. Any personal suffering
seemed to me to be better than to bring public shame upon a family which
has held an untarnished record through so many centuries. I fled from my
trial, therefore, and disappeared from the world.
“But, first of all, it was necessary that I should make arrangements for
the wife and the son, of whose existence you and my other friends were
ignorant. It is with shame, Mary, that I confess it, and I acknowledge
to you that the blame of all the consequences rests with me rather than
with you. At the time there were reasons, now happily long gone past,
which made me determine that the son was better apart from the mother,
whose absence at that age he would not miss. I would have taken you into
my confidence, Charles, had it not been that your suspicions had wounded
me deeply—for I did not at that time understand how strong the reasons
were which had prejudiced you against me.
“On the evening after the tragedy I fled to London, and arranged that my
wife should have a fitting allowance on condition that she did not
interfere with the child. I had, as you remember, had much to do with
Harrison, the prize-fighter, and I had often had occasion to admire his
simple and honest nature. I took my boy to him now, and I found him, as
I expected, incredulous as to my guilt, and ready to assist me in any
way. At his wife’s entreaty he had just retired from the ring, and was
uncertain how he should employ himself. I was able to fit him up as a
smith, on condition that he should ply his trade at the village of
Friar’s Oak. My agreement was that James was to be brought up as their
nephew, and that he should know nothing of his unhappy parents.
“You will ask me why I selected Friar’s Oak. It was because I had
already chosen my place of concealment; and if I could not see my boy, it
was, at least, some consolation to know that he was near me. You are
aware that this mansion is one of the oldest in England; but you are not
aware that it has been built with a very special eye to concealment, that
there are no less than two habitable secret chambers, and that the outer
or thicker walls are tunnelled into passages. The existence of these
rooms has always been a family secret, though it was one which I valued
so little that it was only the chance of my seldom using the house which
had prevented me from pointing them out to some friend. Now I found that
a secure retreat was provided for me in my extremity. I stole down to my
own mansion, entered it at night, and, leaving all that was dear to me
behind, I crept like a rat behind the wainscot, to live out the remainder
of my weary life in solitude and misery. In this worn face, Charles, and
in this grizzled hair, you may read the diary of my most miserable
existence.
“Once a week Harrison used to bring me up provisions, passing them
through the pantry window, which I left open for the purpose. Sometimes
I would steal out at night and walk under the stars once more, with the
cool breeze upon my forehead; but this I had at last to stop, for I was
seen by the rustics, and rumours of a spirit at Cliffe Royal began to get
about. One night two ghost-hunters—”
“It was I, father,” cried Boy Jim; “I and my friend, Rodney Stone.”
“I know it was. Harrison told me so the same night. I was proud, James,
to see that you had the spirit of the Barringtons, and that I had an heir
whose gallantry might redeem the family blot which I have striven so hard
to cover over. Then came the day when your mother’s kindness—her
mistaken kindness—gave you the means of escaping to London.”
“Ah, Edward,” cried his wife, “if you had seen our boy, like a caged
eagle, beating against the bars, you would have helped to give him even
so short a flight as this.”
“I do not blame you, Mary. It is possible that I should have done so.
He went to London, and he tried to open a career for himself by his own
strength and courage. How many of our ancestors have done the same, save
only that a sword-hilt lay in their closed hands; but of them all I do
not know that any have carried themselves more gallantly!”
“That I dare swear,” said my uncle, heartily.
“And then, when Harrison at last returned, I learned that my son was
actually matched to fight in a public prize-battle. That would not do,
Charles! It was one thing to fight as you and I have fought in our
youth, and it was another to compete for a purse of gold.”
“My dear friend, I would not for the world—”
“Of course you would not, Charles. You chose the best man, and how could
you do otherwise? But it would not do! I determined that the time had
come when I should reveal myself to my son, the more so as there were
many signs that my most unnatural existence had seriously weakened my
health. Chance, or shall I not rather say Providence, had at last made
clear all that had been dark, and given me the means of establishing my
innocence. My wife went yesterday to bring my boy at last to the side of
his unfortunate father.”
There was silence for some time, and then it was my uncle’s voice which
broke it.
“You’ve been the most ill-used man in the world, Ned,” said he. “Please
God we shall have many years yet in which to make up to you for it. But,
after all, it seems to me that we are as far as ever from learning how
your unfortunate brother met his death.”
“For eighteen years it was as much a mystery to me as to you, Charles.
But now at last the guilt is manifest. Stand forward, Ambrose, and tell
your story as frankly and as fully as you have told it to me.”