AT ONE FELL BLOW
We are under other skies and the time is again two years later. “Alec
Clare, by all that’s wonderful!”
The exclamation came from one of two men who, happening to be bent on
getting into a street car at the same moment, found themselves
unexpectedly face to face. It was followed next moment by a hearty
hand-grip, and then the long-parted acquaintances—friends, in the best
sense of the word, they could hardly have been termed—sat down side by
side.
It was at Pineapple City, a thriving and intensely go-ahead township on
the borders of Lake Michigan, that the meeting just recorded took
place.
Denis Boyd and Alec Clare had been intimate at college, without being
exactly chums. Their fathers had been friends of long standing, and it
seemed only natural to the two young men that they should copy their
sires’ example. Boyd had read far more assiduously than the heir of
Withington Chase had ever cared to do: his father was far from being a
rich man and he was anxious about his degree. Their college career had
come to an end at the same time, they had gone down together and had
parted with mutual good wishes and an implied promise to meet again in
town later on, since which time till now they had not set eyes on each
other.
“And now tell me what fortune, good or bad, has landed you in this
out-of-the-way spot,” began Boyd. “Of course I assume that, like
myself, you are merely a bird of passage.”
“On the contrary, this place is my home. I am engaged in business
here.”
Denis Boyd gave vent to a low whistle.
“Strange how things turn out, is it not?” continued Alec. “But before I
add to your surprise, suppose you make your own confession, and tell me
how it comes to pass that you happen to be here.”
Boyd laughed. “My confession—to accept your own term—will be of the
briefest and baldest. You may, or may not, remember that I was destined
for the Law, but shortly after you and I parted my father came to grief
over a bank failure, and I was compelled to look out for some immediate
means of earning a living. A situation in a commercial house in
Liverpool offered itself, which I gladly accepted, and there I have
been ever since, working my way up by slow but sure degrees. I am over
in the States on a matter of business for my firm, which admits of my
combining a little holiday-making with it. I reached here late last
evening, got through my business a couple of hours ago, and am killing
time while waiting to be picked up by a train going East in exactly
half an hour and five minutes from now. But here we are at the depot.
Won’t you alight and keep me company for my remaining thirty-five
minutes? My portmanteau is in the cloakroom, or whatever they call the
place in this part of the world.”
Accordingly they alighted and proceeded to stroll up and down the
station platform.
While the other had been talking, Alec had had time to pull himself
together and to decide how far he should, or should not, take Boyd into
his confidence. For various reasons he would much have preferred not
meeting him, but that was beyond help now; and, after all, Boyd was a
gentleman and the least hint would suffice to seal his lips.
“I suppose,” began Alec, with a little laugh, “that I am not the first
fellow by many who has contrived to find himself at odds with his
father, or whose father thought he had just cause to find fault with
the error of his ways; at any rate, the pater and I came to the
conclusion that we should be better apart for at least a few years to
come. For a time I wandered about the Continent, leading a
free-and-easy Bohemian sort of life. At length I grew tired of doing
nothing, and having had a certain amount of capital placed at my
command, which I was desirous of tripling, or quadrupling, as the case
might be, I determined to try my fortune in the States. That was two
years ago. The result, considering my utter lack of business knowledge,
was only what might have been expected. I gained a certain amount of
experience, it is true, but it was at the expense of half my capital. I
was disheartened, but by no means despairing. Leaving the scene of my
ill fortune, I came West. I had no particular object in halting even
for an hour at Pineapple City, beyond being tired with a long railway
journey and intolerably bored by a fellow traveller who persisted in
clinging to me like a leech, and whom I was determined to get rid of at
any cost. Well, I had not been here many hours before I made the
acquaintance of an Englishman of the name of Travis, a gentleman by
birth and education, who, like yourself, had lighted on evil days, and
had been lured all this way from home in the hope of being able to make
a living, and ultimately, perhaps, a competence. The profession he had
set up in was that of a breeder and trainer of horses for riding and
carriage purposes. It was a business which he believed to be capable of
considerable extension, and, just then, he was looking out for a
partner who was prepared to invest a certain number of dollars in the
concern. The opportunity seemed to me one which I should have been
foolish to let pass me, more especially as I happen to know something
about horseflesh; and, not to bore you with details, I will merely add
that, after due investigation, I became Frank Travis’s partner. That
happened two months ago.”
“From what you have just told me,” said Boyd, “I conclude that you have
no present intention of returning to England.”
“None whatever,” answered Alec drily.
“And have you never regretted your self-imposed expatriation?”
Alec shook his head. “So far I have had no cause whatever for doing
so.”
At this juncture they were all but run down by a man who was coming
full tilt out of the refreshment buffet. “Ah, Mr. Alexander, glad to
see you,” he exclaimed. “Have only time to say that the pair of
chestnuts you and your partner sold me a fortnight ago have turned out
perfect rippers—yes, sir, rippers. My wife—ah-ha!—hasn’t once been out
of temper with me since I bought ’em. By-bye.” And with that he was
gone.
Denis Boyd looked at Alec, and the latter read a certain question in
his eyes.
“When I came out to the States I chose to drop my surname. I am known
to everybody here simply as John Alexander,” he said quietly. “And look
here, Boyd,” he added, “I shall be glad if, when you get back home, you
will make no mention of having met me. I have certain reasons for
asking this of you.”
“My dear fellow, not a word more is needed,” replied the other
heartily. “You may rely upon my silence.”
A minute or two before, Boyd had been on the point of asking Alec
whether he was still a bachelor, but it now seemed to him that such a
question might savour, if not exactly of impertinence, yet of a desire
to pry into a matter which was really no concern of his. It was evident
there were incidents in his friend’s career which he did not wish to
have touched on. He would leave his question unasked.
A few minutes later Boyd’s train steamed into the station.
After having parted from his friend, Alec was tempted by the fineness
of the evening to go for a solitary ramble into the outskirts of the
town, which, in one direction, could almost claim to be termed
picturesque. His encounter with Boyd had served to awaken in him
thoughts and memories which had long been dormant, but which now for a
little while claimed him as their own with a persistency that would not
be denied. It was not so much the scenes of his college life that his
meeting with Boyd had recalled to visionary existence, but still
earlier scenes connected with his life at the Chase. Once more he was a
boy by his mother’s side, and felt her caressing hand smooth down his
ruffled curls; once more he was pacing the dusky coverts with Martin
Rigg, flushing now a covey of young partridges, and now some crusty old
pheasant that evidently resented being disturbed; or else he was
galloping through the park at a break-neck pace on his shaggy Shetland
pony. And then, like some grim spectre, the image of his father came
gliding in, and all the happy pictures vanished, as when the dark slide
of a magic lantern is suddenly shut down.
He came back to the present and its more immediate interests with a
sigh.
There were several circumstances in his life since they had last met,
of which he had hinted nothing to Boyd, and he was grateful to his
friend for having forborne to question him more closely, as many men in
like circumstances would not have failed to do.
For instance, he, Alec, had breathed no syllable having reference to
his marriage. That, indeed, was with him a subject about which he could
bear to speak to no one, for long before this he had discovered, to his
bitter cost, that his marriage was a failure, and that in asking
Giovanna Rispani to become his wife he had committed one of the
greatest mistakes which it is possible for a man to make. He and his
wife had scarcely an interest in common. Giovanna had never really
cared for him, but had married him for the sake of his money. To her
limited experience, six thousand pounds had represented unbounded
riches; for her it meant travel, and fine clothes, and sojourning at
big hotels in such cities as Milan, or Paris, or London.
Bitter, very bitter was her disappointment when, after their arrival in
America, her husband took up his abode in a third-rate town in one of
the Eastern States, where he conceived that there was an opening for
the profitable investment of a portion of his capital. At that time his
dream was to make a fortune, whereas he had only succeeded in losing
his money, and in helping to build up the fortunes of others. All
Giovanna’s foolish dreams had vanished like a wreath of mist at
sunrise, and intensely did she resent the fact. There was nothing of
the scold about her, nor had she any of those pettish, irritating ways,
by means of which so many women make their discontent with their
surroundings felt. She was a cold, proud, silent, disappointed woman,
who withdrew into herself, and who manifested not the slightest
interest in her husband, or any of his concerns. She hated the country
to which he had brought her; the climate was atrocious; the people
among whom she dwelt, and all their ways, were antipathetic to her; she
grew homesick and pined for her own country and her own people. One
child had been born of the marriage.
When Alec went West in further search of that fortune which seemed so
chary of smiling on him, he left his wife and child behind. At that
time he had still a little over two thousand pounds remaining of the
six thousand he had received from Mr. Page. This balance had lately
been reduced by the sum of fifteen hundred pounds, that being the price
he had paid for the privilege of entering into partnership with Mr.
Frank Travis.
Good fellow as the latter was, and much as he esteemed him, not even to
him had Alec confided the fact that he was a married man. It was not
that he had the slightest wish to make a secret of it, but simply from
an innate disinclination to speak of his private affairs to any one.
Once each week he wrote to Giovanna. In view of the relations now
existing between them, he was not weak enough to encumber his letters
with any superfluous terms of endearment, which would merely have
caused her lip to curl with quiet scorn; his epistles were rather such
as a sober business-like brother might have penned to an equally sober
and business-like sister. He had kept her informed as to the progress
of his negotiations with Travis, and when the matter between them was
concluded he did not fail to tell her at what cost the partnership had
been secured by him.
All this time he had been living at a boarding-house, but now that his
business matters were finally arranged there was no reason why he
should not at once look out for a permanent home to which he could
remove his wife and child.
In the last letter he had written to Giovanna he had told her that he
hoped another month at most would see them together again, by which
time the house he had in his mind’s eye, a newly built one, would be
finished and ready for occupation. In his stroll this evening his
footsteps naturally gravitated in the direction of the house in
question. His choice of it had in part been determined by reason of its
somewhat romantic situation. It was built on a considerable elevation,
and from it the eye ranged over a wide extent of wooded undulating
country, rising here and there into rocky eminences which owed
everything to Nature and nothing to art. A flash of silver on the
horizon revealed that the waters of Lake Michigan were no great
distance away.
To the eyes of Alec there was something in this landscape that was
almost Italian in character, and he flattered himself with the fancy
that perchance it would please Giovanna and that she might find in it a
charm that would serve in some measure to lessen her regrets for the
country he had brought her from.
After he had reached the house and had ascertained what progress the
workmen had made since his last visit, and had settled in his mind
after what fashion he would like the garden and shrubbery laid out, he
sauntered back towards the town. At the boarding-house he found his
partner awaiting him. A business telegram had arrived in the course of
the afternoon which necessitated that one or the other of them should
set out next morning for Milwaukee, on the opposite shore of the lake.
After talking matters over, it was decided that Alec should be the one
to undertake the journey. It was now Tuesday, and the probability was
that he would be back by Saturday evening at the latest.
Next forenoon Travis drove his partner as far as the steamboat wharf at
Davisville and there shook hands with him and bade him goodbye. They
had no prevision of what the next few days would bring forth.
As it fell out, Alec’s business detained him longer than he had thought
it would, necessitating, among other things, an up-country journey of
two score miles to a place where no railway had yet penetrated. It was
not till a late hour on Monday afternoon that he got back to the hotel
at Milwaukee, where he had secured a room on his arrival there the
previous Wednesday.
“A letter for you, Mr. Alexander,” said the hotel clerk to him as he
was passing through the hall. “Been here since Saturday.”
As Alec took the letter he saw that the address was in his partner’s
writing. Anticipating nothing of greater moment than an ordinary
business communication, he lingered to glance over the latest batch of
telegrams, and proceeded leisurely to his own room before opening the
envelope. But all his _sang-froid_ vanished the moment his eye lighted
on the contents, and in its stead a deadly fear gripped him by the
heart. There were two enclosures, one a brief hurried scrawl from
Travis, the other a black-edged missive from his wife. Of what fatal
news was this last the messenger? Could it be that his child was dead?
or—or was it merely that Vanna had had news from home of the death of
some one there? It was the former dire possibility that had smitten him
with an unspeakable dread.
He steadied himself sufficiently to read what his partner had to tell
him before breaking the black-edged envelope.
“Dear Alexander” (wrote Travis), “the enclosed was brought here by a
boarding-house messenger a few minutes ago. As it may be of importance
that it should reach you with the least possible delay, and as you have
wired me not to expect you back before Tuesday, I mail it on at once.
“Sincerely yours,
“FRANK TRAVIS.”
Then he tore open his wife’s letter.
A single devouring glance at the first half dozen lines was enough. His
child was dead!
He could read no further then. The lines danced and quivered before his
eyes. The letter fluttered from his fingers. For a moment or two every
drop of blood seemed drawn from his heart. He caught at a chair and
sank into it. He was as one smitten by a blow from an invisible hand.
The love his wife had repudiated and would have none of, had been
lavished by him, secretly and undemonstratively, on his child. His
affection for it had been of that deep intense kind which neither seeks
nor finds for itself an adequate outlet in words. And now he was bereft
of the one object that had made life still sweet to him, and
henceforward naught was left him save the dust and ashes of existence!
Afternoon had darkened into evening, and night had come before he
roused himself sufficiently to pick up his wife’s letter and read it
through to the end. By that time a lighted lamp had been brought him.
He now noticed for the first time that the letter bore a date a week
old, but just then he could no more than vaguely wonder why and how it
had been delayed. Giovanna had always been in the habit of beginning
her epistles to her husband without troubling herself to employ any of
those preliminary terms of affection or politeness which most writers
make use of; and her present one was no exception to the rule.
“It has become my most painful task” (she began) “to have to inform you
that our child died in the course of Friday night last, after only a
few hours’ illness. Everything was done for it that could be done, but
in vain. The doctor whom I had summoned was present when the end came.
The funeral took place to-day, Monday. I enclose you the certificate of
burial.
“It seemed to me that it would have been useless, as well as foolish,
to bring you upwards of seven hundred miles merely in order that you
might be present at the interment. All was over. Your presence could
have availed nothing.
“With the death of my babe the strongest link in the chain which bound
me to you, is broken. Had it lived I should not have taken the step I
have now determined upon: which is, to at once go back to my own home,
in my own country—which I ought never to have left.
“Both you and I have long been aware of the terrible mistake we made in
taking upon ourselves the obligations of matrimony. It is not too late,
however (or so I think and believe), to undo in some measure at least
the folly of which we were mutually guilty. There is one way, and one
only, by means of which this can be effected. It is for us to
separate—it is for you to go your way, and I to go mine—and to be
virtually dead to each other henceforward and for ever.
“I shall leave this place three hours hence on my way to New York,
whence I shall take the steamer for Europe, but whether I shall proceed
direct to Italy, or whether I shall first visit my mother’s relatives
in England, I have not yet decided. In any case, it would be useless
for you to follow me. My mind is fully made up, and nothing would
induce me to return to you.
“When you left this place three months ago you put into my hands a
number of blank signed cheques which I was to fill up at my own
discretion for whatever sums I might find myself in need of while you
were away. By means of one of the cheques in question I have drawn out
the remaining balance standing to your credit in the bank, amounting to
a trifle over five hundred pounds. You are not the man to begrudge me
this sum, I am sure, for you were ever generosity itself towards me.
“And now I have nothing more to add, except to bid you farewell, and to
ask you to believe that you have, in all sincerity, the best wishes for
your future happiness and prosperity of one who regrets that she cannot
love you as such a man as you deserves to be loved.
“GIOVANNA.
“P.S. I have arranged for this letter not to be posted till a week
after my departure, so that by the time you read these lines I shall be
halfway on my road to Europe.”
Alas, poor Alec! Wife and child lost to him at one fell blow! As
regarded the latter, he could but bow his head in all humility, as it
behoves all of us to do when our turn comes to be smitten, and breathe
the words: “Thy will be done.” But Vanna? Oh, the callousness, the
cruelty that breathed through almost every line of her letter! He had
wept for the loss of his child, and it had been an infinite relief to
him to do so—but his eyes were dry now; he had no tears left for her.
It seemed rather as if her desertion of him served, during those first
bitter hours, to kindle in his heart a dull smouldering fire of
resentment, which was none the less intense in that it betrayed nothing
of itself on the surface. Go after her, indeed!—try, with endearments
and protestations, to induce her to return! Not a single step would he
stir in pursuit. He and she had done with each other for ever.
The miserable hours trod slowly in the footsteps of each other, and the
night wore itself away somehow. He never undressed, or went to bed, but
about daybreak he flung himself on a couch, where he sank into a half
slumber which lasted till the people of the house were astir and the
world had woke up to another day.
He was glad when ten o’clock had come, at which hour he set foot on
board _The Prairie Belle_ on his way back to Pineapple City.