Early dawn in a house where the new-dead lie unheeding whether it be
darkness or day. Dawn when those who have seen the light of life fade
from a beloved face watch the slow sunlight steal once more over the
edge of the world, and claim all things for its own.
Yet watching alone, how peaceful such a dawn may be, when one can face
death, not as a thing apart, but as a part of life; when there is no
need to cloud its kindly form with sentimentalities, when we need not
drug ourselves into disregarding its dignity by some narcotic of
belief in life to come, when it is enough to feel that this life has
passed where all life goes.
In the old Keep, however, where the master lay dead in his study among
his fishing-rods and guns, as they had left him till the inquest
should be over, there was no one near enough to the dead man so to
watch, for Helen was still unconscious in her room upstairs. Dr.
Ramsay, whose hands were full with many claimants on his care, spoke
of a severe nervous crisis, which had evidently been coming on for
some time. Her best chance was this semi-cataleptic state from which
she would recover in her own good time. So she lay in her simple white
room, on her simple little bed, and the dawn stole in slowly through
the open window bringing the dayspring song of birds with it. But she
was not there. She might have been with her father for all the
bystanders could tell.
Ned, his face drawn with pain from the fractured arm over which Dr.
Ramsay had instantly looked severe, but for which Ned refused to lay
himself up absolutely until certain necessary details had been
arranged, looked in and envied her. He had told the doctor of her
visit to his room, and his wild stern-chase of her to Betty Cam's
chair, and of his wonder--a wonder that grew as he thought over it--as
to how she could possibly have got home, changed her dress and come on
in the Wrexham's motor in so short a space of time. Still she had done
it.
Evidently she had done it, the doctor had replied guardedly, and
there, in the stress of many calls, the subject had dropped.
And yet as Ned went about giving orders in hopes of lessening
anxieties and distress, he was remembering the strange unkenned look
he had noticed on his cousin's face. Was it possible that--No! it was
impossible. Anyhow he had no time to think it over as yet.
The roll-call of inmates had, thank Heaven! been on the whole
satisfactory. Only two had failed to answer. Mrs. Massingham and,
curiously enough, his friend Charteris, who had arranged to leave the
next morning when his attack of Indian fever should have passed away.
The only man who knew of the danger! It was a coincidence certainly.
As for Mrs. Massingham, the fright must have brought on one of her
heart attacks; else there was no reason why she should not have
escaped, taking Maidie with her; it had not been a good life anyhow.
But what an awful home-coming for the husband! He might arrive that
very day, but it would be better if he did not. Not for a few days,
till the whole thing, body and soul alike, should have gone out of ken
for ever.
Then there was the ship. It was a transport from India, a bit out of
its course through having damaged an engine. It had mistaken the fire
for the lighthouse further west, and had struck lightly on a sunken
rock just off the headland beyond Cam's Bay. It seemed none the worse,
and would most likely float off in the next tide or two as the wind
strengthened. In the meantime that would entail another funeral, as
they had had a death on board that night.
So much Mr. Hirsch told Ned, when the latter went to see him about
wiring to the office of the new company.
"I've looked to that," he replied curtly, "and I must get all these" (a
perfect pile of forms lay beside him) "off at once; only the nuisance
is my motor is damaged."
"Ted Cruttenden is cycling with mine," began Ned. Mr. Hirsch looked up
quickly--"You will be careful, won't you?"
"I won't foul my own nest more than I can help," said Ned bitterly.
"That's right! And you know----" Mr. Hirsch was still writing
hurriedly--"I don't believe it was the wires at all. It certainly
began in the back premises, and they tell me the cook was dead drunk
after dinner, and half the servants as well--they were dancing
break-downs to the gramaphone."
"That doesn't take away the taste," burst out Ned passionately, "or
take away the responsibility for having put such a ghastly monstrosity
on that point, before that sea, under the stars of heaven----"
Mr. Hirsch looked up with the surprised kindly look an elder gives to
a child who has suddenly burst out crying over a broken toy.
"You really ought to go to bed, Lord Blackborough," he said. "All this
is so exhausting to the nerves. I shall do so, when I have sent off my
telegrams."
Was it the roll of the double r which made Ned inclined to kick Mr.
Hirsch? It was a relief when Ted Cruttenden ended the conversation by
entering in the silent, unobtrusive way, which people adopt in the
house of mourning.
"Messages ready?" he asked.
"Mine are! Mr. Hirsch has some. I suppose you wanted to be off, It's a
shocking bad road to Haverton," remarked Ned, full of ill-humour as he
left the room.
"I shall not go to Haverton though," said Ted. "I shall save time by
cycling to Wellhampton. Five miles further, but there's an all-night
office, and it seems a pity to waste time till eight o'clock."
"Good," nodded Mr. Hirsch, "though----" here he gave one of his short
explosive laughs--"I am in no particular hurry. I must give Jenkin
time--good Lord, what a relief to get rid of Jenkin--ahem!" He pulled
himself up hurriedly and went on writing.
It was the first time Ted had come to close quarters with a
millionaire, a millionaire too of European reputation as a financier
more than as mere money seeker, and the effect was stimulating. It
roused his admiration, his imagination. He stood at the window,
waiting and watching Mr. Hirsch's head--it was growing, in truth, a
trifle bald at the crown--as it bent over his papers and thinking what
it must feel like to possess the art of transmuting baser things to
gold.
"I will give you a sovereign," began the great man condescendingly.
"One is in cipher, and that costs. The change in stamps, if you
please. I have many letters to write."
Typical of the man, thought Ted Cruttenden, while Mr. Hirsch, noticing
how careful the young man was in discriminating between his and Lord
Blackborough's telegrams, but putting them into different pockets,
smiled. "You are metodical, I see," he remarked, with just that faint
slur over the th which occasionally told he was not English. "It is a
great gift in business."
Ted smiled also, and flushed with pleasure, since Mr. Hirsch's praise
was worth having; and so, then and there, almost as if some chemical
affinity had manifested itself between the molecules composing his
brain and Mr. Hirsch's, he made up his mind to try and follow his
example. He was no fool; other people succeeded, why not he?
As he rode off his mind was full of this new determination. And yet,
one short week ago he had thought himself uncommonly lucky to have
pushed himself so far up the ladder as to be in receipt of a hundred
and fifty pounds a year. For it must not be forgotten that he was
no-man's son. His mother had refused to give his father's name. When
she lay dying, and her people, seeking to trick her, asked what name
the child should be called, she had smiled derisively at them. "Edward
Cruttenden, of course," had been her reply, the latter being her own
name, a common enough one in the Black Country.
Ted had thought all this out many times; yet it came back to him--with
no rancour against his mother, but a good deal against his unknown
father. On this fine June morning as he made his way across the high
Cornish tableland, dipping down--with both brakes on--into some steep
combe and thereinafter climbing out of it again, pushing his bicycle.
If he had only begun earlier to think about making money, he would
have had a better chance with Aura. No doubt at his age Hirsch had
been operating on the Exchange and promoting companies.
Promoting! Operating! These were words indeed!
But it must be uphill work--so was this last combe; for it was to be
one of those hot June days, when the freshness of dawn is gone in half
an hour, and the very grass has no trace of dew on it.
He sat down at the top of the hill and drew out his handkerchief in
order to mop his face.
In doing so one of Mr. Hirsch's telegrams came out also and fluttered
to the ground.
It was the one in cipher, and, as he glanced at it, he found that by a
pure chance he knew it, or something very like it. His little friend
and admirer in the stockbroker's office was an expert in ciphers, and
had shown him several. This--one of the easiest--amongst the number.
He could not choose but read the first word, "Buy."
Buy! That was curious. He should have expected it to be "sell."
Buy what?
_Buy Sea-views all below five shillings. Hirsch_.
He sat looking at the words for some time, puzzled, then rode on, his
mind busy with the problem; but the puzzle remained until, as he was
going into the telegraph office at Wellhampton, he met Mr. Jenkin
coming out. Then the memory of Mr. Hirsch's laugh of relief at
"getting rid of Jenkin," which he had hardly noticed at the time, came
back to him. Jenkin apparently was to be given time to sell, while Mr.
Hirsch was to buy. It was a straight lead-over. What if he were to
follow it even to the extent of but a hundred pounds? His heart gave a
great throb; he felt as a man might, when put on a horse for the first
time and the reins given into his hand. Who was to prevent him going
where he chose--except, of course, the horse!
He returned to the Keep by breakfast time, but for a wonder he had no
appetite, since he was of that healthy strong-nerved sort to whom even
personal sorrow comes as an expenditure of force which requires
recuperation. And there was no personal feeling in this tragedy except
for Blackborough's share in it; for that he was unfeignedly sorry. He,
however, had been finally ordered to his room by Dr. Ramsay who was
too busy to speak to any one. The Wrexhams left early, followed at
intervals by the other guests, and the Keep settled down into the
slack collapse which always follows on the excitement of a
catastrophe. The servants seemed to remember they had been up all
night; Mr. Hirsch was the only person who was really awake, but Ted
did not somehow care to see Mr. Hirsch; though as the day wore on and
the latter went off once more to Cam's point, Ted took down some
telegrams which had come for him, and watched him read them anxiously.
They seemed satisfactory, but by this time Ted was telling himself he
had behaved like a fool in sending that wire to his friend on the
Stock Exchange.
The desolation on the point, where workmen were still searching for
any traces of Mr. Charteris' body, made him still more depressed, so
he strolled over to Camshaven, thereby letting himself in for
additional dreariness; since, just as he abutted on the little quay,
he saw one of the transport's boats, disembarking a coffin. The dead
officer, of course. Poor chap, to die like that within sight of home
was rough luck. He stood with bared head watching the guard of honour
form up and prepare to take the body to the church, where it was to
lie until directions came by wire from the relatives.
"You don't happen to know the name?" he asked of the local pilot who
was close beside him.
"Not for sure, sir," he replied, "tho' I did hear'm say Massin'ham;
same name as the poor madam they people burnt in her bed las' night."
"Massingham!" echoed Ted--"that is very curious."
It was. Indeed, Mr. Hirsch, coming back to the Keep half an hour
afterwards, was quite pale, and called for a whisky-and-soda before he
could explain to Dr. Ramsay the extraordinary coincidence of Major
Massingham's body being brought in for burial to Camshaven, where
those of his poor wife and child already awaited him as it were. But
he, Mr. Hirsch, had seen the captain of the transport, and everything
was quite simple--terribly simple. Major Massingham had come on board
at Bombay ill, but had not, however, let his people know of his
illness, as he expected the voyage to set him up. He had unfortunately
taken a chill off Gibraltar: pneumonia had set in, and in his delirium
he had constantly talked of his wife and child, and begged not to be
buried at sea. The latter idea had been quite an obsession with him;
almost the last words he spoke being "Not at sea--not at sea!" That
had been two hours before the ship struck, and when they discovered
there was no danger, it had seemed another curious coincidence to
ensure poor Massingham's wish. But the whole affair was ...
Here Mr. Hirsch became quite unintelligible in his admixture of
English and German.
"It is certainly--curious," assented Dr. Ramsay thoughtfully; "very
curious. But it is just as well he should come home dead--the news
would have broken him. By the way, I don't want Lord Blackborough
disturbed. There is a nasty splinter that will give trouble; and he
was in such pain, I ordered a sleeping-draught. Indeed----" Here he
smiled. "I am thinking of a sleep myself till dinner time."
"I also," yawned Mr. Hirsch. "Mein Gott! Tragedy is fatiguing off the
stage as well as on it, and this poor Major Massingham ... _Himmel! es
ist un-be-greiflich-auf-erlegbar!_" And he went off to his room,
looking a perfect wreck, aged by ten years; for deep down below the
hard shell which grubbing for gold requires, his heart was soft. And
these things were uncomfortable--they were not in the bond--they
belonged to a spiritual life in which he had no part.
They weighed heavily on Ted Cruttenden also, for he had the
Englishman's innate antagonism to anything which hints at the unknown,
anything which might suggest a wider outlook than the one he already
possesses. But the hundred pounds he had adventured, following Mr.
Hirsch's lead, weighed on him still more heavily. Why had he been so
impulsive? At the most he could gain three hundred; and what would Mr.
Hirsch say if it were to come out? Not that it mattered, since he was
not likely to see much more of Mr. Hirsch, for he must go back to
Blackborough next morning. So, after a time, he also sought his room
and a rest.
Dr. Ramsay, however, was deprived of his; for, looking in while
passing to see how Lord Blackborough fared, he found him not only wide
awake, but greatly excited by the news which a servant had brought
him.
"Curse the fool!" said Peter Ramsay vexedly. "I made sure you would be
asleep. Yes! it is extremely curious, but----"
"What does it mean, doctor--that's what I want to know," burst in Ned.
"What is it, this strange something which every now and again seems to
show us a solemn, shrouded face, and then disappears in mocking,
devilish laughter--in charlatans' tricks?"
Dr. Ramsay shook his head. "If I could tell you that, Lord
Blackborough, I--well! For one thing, I should be the richest
man in the world. All we doctors can say is that there is
something--something which can be explained away if one chooses to
explain it away. But the explanation isn't scientific. It is easy to
say a man is mad because he believes himself to be the Emperor of
China, but what about the question, 'Why does a man think he is the
Emperor of China when he is mad?' We have got to answer that, and show
what it is which induces delusions and hysteria, and why hypnotic
sleep causes certain specific alterations in the body corporate, as it
does. But we've only just woke up to the fact that we stand on the
verge of some great discovery; we've only just begun to question
the nerve centres, and see the incalculable power of suggestion. Now
take this case of your cousin's," he continued eagerly. "Whatever it
may or may not be, it is certain that I suggested to her first that
she was mentally unstable; second, that she might be able to project
herself ... then Lady Wrexham slips in with her crystal-gazing
suggestion--and--and the thing is done."
"There is something else," said Ned slowly, almost reluctantly, "which
might--we were talking of old Betty Cam in the morning--she and I--and
I told her it wasn't safe for her to be always watching the sea--I
warned her--in joke of course--of her hereditary----" Here he broke
off impatiently. "But it is of no use talking--the thing is
frankly--impossible."
"Hardly that," remarked Dr. Ramsay dryly. "We have to learn,
apparently, that many things are possible--at times."
Ned looked at him curiously. "One wouldn't credit you with such
beliefs, Ramsay," he said.
"I don't credit them myself," replied the doctor shortly. "Personally
I wish these phenomena didn't exist. They complicate the equation of
life tremendously. But they are there. It is no use dismissing them as
hysterical manifestations. That only alters the title of the problem,
and we have to refer to the phenomena again under the heading 'What is
hysteria?'"
"Of one thing I am certain," remarked Ned suddenly, with conviction:
"it was not Helen altogether, as she is now, whom I left in Betty
Cam's chair last night. I have been going over the whole incident in
my mind, and I am conscious of having had a sense all through that
there was something unkenned, something not quite real----"
"The question is," put in Dr. Ramsay, "how much she will remember when
she wakes, and that cannot be very long now, for she was much more
normal when I went in to see her last, two hours ago. I shall look in
again as I go upstairs."
"I hope she will remember nothing," said Ned quickly.
Peter Ramsay shook his head. "It may be everything; you cannot
possibly tell----" he broke off as a knock was heard at the door, and a
voice said, "May I come in?" "My God!" he continued, "there she is!"
It was indeed Helen who, entering as he held open the door, passed
swiftly to her cousin's side.
"Poor Ned!" she said, her face, on which showed the marks of recent
tears, full of a grateful, affectionate solicitude. "How foolish it
has been of me to leave you to bear the brunt of it all; but I am all
right now, and shall manage. He ought to be in bed, oughtn't he?" she
continued, her eyes narrowing a little as they met Peter Ramsay's, her
whole expression showing for an instant a half-puzzled pain, as if she
sought for some memory of past trouble. "I am sure you think so--don't
you?"
"I think so very much indeed, Mrs. Tressilian," he replied. "Your
cousin's arm----"
"Poor arm!" she interrupted softly, "that was broken before I came
down--I was asleep, I suppose, when they called me--it seems so
strange that I could have slept, and I seem to have forgotten
everything except the awful suspense; then the awful night on
the point--but--but you couldn't have saved him, Ned. It was the
stairs--if only they had been fireproof!--for he knew every turn. I--I
have been down to see him, Ned, and he looks so peaceful--so content.
You see he had done all he could--all a Pentreath should have
done--so--so it is best. And now, dear, you really must go to bed. I
can manage nicely. I will send to meet the Massinghams--poor
souls!--how terribly sad, and how inexplicable it all is!"
Inexplicable indeed! They looked at each other silently.
She evidently knew all that they knew, but of what they did not know
she also knew nothing. The interval between the time when she had
passed upstairs to her room, joking and laughing with the others, and
her first sight of the halo of fire had simply lapsed into a great
suspense.
It was as well, Dr. Ramsay admitted to himself, and yet he felt
annoyed. For, looking at Helen Tressilian's face, he recognised that
his chance--and the chance of science was over.
In all probability that would be her one solitary intrusion into the
unknown dimension which whetted his curiosity so much. She was normal
now; she might conceivably marry some deserving idiot, and settle down
to half a dozen children. She might even become a nurse!
All things were possible to the calm self-possession with which she
insisted on rest for them both. So, in an evil temper, he followed her
advice.
Meanwhile Ted Cruttenden, after wandering about aimlessly, uncertain
whether to bless or curse himself for his morning's work, had also
sought rest, and was asleep dreaming of Aura. Aura, as he had seen her
in her blue linen smock and sandals, Aura as he could picture her in
pink satin and diamonds. Which was the most beautiful, the most
beautified? He scarcely knew. When he felt inclined to bless himself,
it was because he could picture her in the latter; when curses came it
was because he regretted the former.
So to him in troubled slumber, came a knock at the door.
"Come in," he called drowsily; then sat up with beating heart on the
edge of his bed, feeling for his slippers with his feet. He did not
know that the dapper little figure at the door was to him
Mephistopheles, that he was about to sell his soul to the devil; but
he was vaguely conscious of an approaching crisis in his life.
"_Soh!_ my young friend, you have bought Sea View shares! Why?"
The room was growing dark. There was a wide interval of shadowy light
from the windows between the young man as, having found mental and
bodily foothold, he stood coatless, defiant, as if prepared to fight
Fate, and Mr. Hirsch decently robed for dinner, and with, as ever, the
large white flower of a blameless life in his button-hole. Through the
open window the mellow pipe of a blackbird, full of the glad song of
wood and dale, forced its way insistently. The memory of it lingered
with Ted always. In after years that joyous invitation to the wilds
always seemed to sound in his ears whenever a question of choice
arose.
Now, though he heard it, he was too busy to heed it.
"Why?" he echoed. "I bought them, sir--because I--I believed in
you ... there you have it in a nutshell."
"And why did you believe in me?"
Ted, having recovered his confidence, gave a short laugh. "Upon my
soul, I don't know. I did it--that's all."
"Then you had no private intimation--you had not overheard
anything--you--it was _unvertraute gut_--no more?"
"You gave me a lead over yourself, you know," replied Ted
argumentatively. "You said Jenkin must have time--and the rest
followed--I couldn't help knowing the cipher, could I?"
A faint chuckle came from the gloom by the door. "_Soh!_ you have
prains! Mr. Cruttenden, I ought to be angry, I ought to tell you many
things, but I have searched long for one to believe in me. I need him.
Let this be--you have won three hundred pounds. I give you this per
year as my clerk. You accept?"
It was all over in a moment. The blackbird ceased his song, and as Ted
Cruttenden hurriedly dressed for dinner his head was in a whirl. This
was a chance indeed. By Christmas he might stand on more equal ground.
And after Christmas? His fancy ran riot in pink satin and diamonds.
But, when he left with Mr. Hirsch next morning, the latter was in a
towering bad temper. Lord Blackborough was a fool. He had refused to
listen to reason, and Mrs. Tressilian was no better. They had both of
them declined to be mixed up any further with the hotel, and would not
even let him buy them out. The insurance had no doubt been made in
accordance with business principles, but----
"He will divest himself of every farthing in two years if he goes on
being so _verdammlich gerecht_. Yes! I give him two years to be a
pauper," said poor Mr. Hirsch, and then his eyes positively filled
with tears as he considered how all his efforts to secure a competency
for Helen had failed.