Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: http://
arrow.latrobe.edu.au/store/3/4/6/3/1/public/B14644101.pdf
(La Trobe University, Australia)
[Illustration: Front cover]
THE AMETHYST CROSS
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_BY THE
SAME AUTHOR_
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THE MYSTERY
OF A SHADOW
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CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD.
LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK, TORONTO
AND MELBOURNE
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[Frontispiece: "'Father!' she shrieked!" (_see page 194_.)]
THE
AMETHYST CROSS
BY
FERGUS HUME
AUTHOR OF "THE MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB,"
"FLIES IN THE WEB," "THE PURPLE FERN,"
"THE MYSTERY OF A SHADOW," ETC.
WITH COLOURED FRONTISPIECE BY
C. DUDLEY TENNANT
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED
LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
1908
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE BEGINNING OF A MYSTERY
II. THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS
III. ANOTHER MYSTERY
IV. A FAMILY HISTORY
V. MRS. WALKER'S OPINION
VI. PURPLE AND FINE LINEN
VII. AFTER MIDNIGHT
VIII. UNDER A CLOUD
IX. TWO GIRLS
X. THE _DEUS EX MACHINA_
XI. THE SEAMY SIDE
XII. A COUNTERPLOT
XIII. MRS. WALKER'S VISIT
XIV. THE FAMILY LAWYER
XV. A STARTLING LETTER
XVI. RECOGNITION
XVII. DISGRACE
XVIII. LADY CHARVINGTON'S ACCUSATIONS
XIX. MR. HALE EXPLAINS
XX. JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS' MEETING
XXI. TWO INTERVIEWS
XXII. THE PLOT
XXIII. ONE PART OF THE TRUTH
XXIV. ANOTHER PART OF THE TRUTH
XXV. REVENGE
XXVI. THE END OF IT ALL
THE AMETHYST CROSS
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNING OF A MYSTERY
THE blackbird knew. He had paired for the fifth time in as many years,
and esteemed himself wise in the matters, of love. Therefore, from the
budding chestnut wherein his nest was built, did he sympathetically
watch the bachelor and maid who sat below. They were lovers as he knew
very well, for only lovers could have gazed so persistently into one
another's eyes, and therein did they behold each other as each wished
to be. Which sentence is cryptic to those who are not lovers as these
were.
They might have looked at the smoothly-flowing river, singing quietly
to itself not a stone-cast away, or round a tangled garden, delicately
beautiful with the young greenery of May, or up into the azure depths
of a sky, flecked with silvery clouds. But they preferred--wisely it
may be--to look into each other's eyes, to clasp hands and to remain
silent with that eloquent muteness, which is the speech of true love.
Oh! the blackbird knew the meaning of these things very thoroughly,
and chuckled with such glee that he finally broke into glorious song
concerning the new love, the true love, the old love, the bold love,
which comes evermore with the blossoms of spring. But these
inhabitants of Paradise did not require the bird to reveal the
obvious. Their hearts were also singing the song of the early year.
"It can't last for ever," murmured the maid dreamily, "it is too
beautiful to last, since we are but mortal."
"It shall last for ever; it must," corrected the bachelor, wise in
that wisdom of the gods, which comes to wooers, "for we love with our
souls, dearest, and these cannot die."
She knew that he was right, for her heart told her so. Therefore did
they again look into one another's eyes and again become silent, while
the fluting blackbird explained more than mere human speech could
render. And he, perched on a swaying bough, was only too willing to
interpret. He knew: he was wise. And listening Nature heard
complacently. To such ends had she shaped her children; for such a
reason had she provided their Arcadia.
As Arcadia, like Marlowe's hell, is not circumscribed, it chanced that
this especial one was by Thames-side, and those who dwelt therein were
up-to-date in looks and dress and manners. Only their feelings were
those of classic times, and as he told her the old, old story, which
is ever new, she listened with the instinctive knowledge that the tale
was wonderfully familiar. She had read it in his eyes, after the
manner of maids, long before he dared to speak.
And this river Paradise was not wholly unworthy at so comely an Adam
and Eve, although limited in extent and untrimmed in looks. Lord
Beaconsfield declared that the most perfect garden is that cultivated
to excess by man and then handed over to the caprice of Nature. The
owner of this demesne apparently subscribed to this dictum, for the
garden, well-filled with expensive flowers and shrubs, had long since
relapsed into wildness. On either side of the narrow strip of land,
sloping gradually to the stream, extended low walls of mellow red
brick overgrown with dark-green ivy. The flowerbeds were luxuriant
with docks and nettles and charlock and divers weeds: the pathways
were untidy with lush grass, and the tiny lawn at the water's edge was
shaggy and untrimmed. A wooden landing-stage floated near shore at the
garden's foot, and to this was attached the young man's boat. At the
far end of this neglected domain could be seen a thatched cottage with
whitewashed walls and oblong lattices quaintly diamond-paned. So
rustic and pretty and old-world did it look that it might well have
been the fairy-dwelling of a nursery tale. And the lovers themselves
were young and handsome enough to deserve the care of the fairies.
He was tall, slim, well-formed, and Saxon in his fairness. His curly
hair--so much of it as the barber's shears had spared--was golden in
the sunlight, as was his small moustache, and his eyes were bravely
blue, as a hero's should be. The white boating-flannels accentuated
the bronze of his skin, and revealed the easy strength of an athlete.
He looked what the girl took him to be--a splendid young lover of
romance. Yet he was but a City clerk of prosaic environment, and his
youth alone improved him into Don Juan o' Dreams.
The girl resembled Hebe, maidenly, dainty, and infinitely charming; or
it might be Titania, since her appearance was almost too fragile for
the work-a-day world. With a milky skin; brown-haired and brown-eyed;
with a tempting mouth and a well-rounded chin, she looked worthy of
any man's wooing. She was sweet and twenty; he but five years older,
so both were ripe for love. And then the spring, joyous and fresh, had
much to do with the proposal just made. Her answer to his question had
been tunefully commented upon by the irrepressible blackbird, who
expressed no surprise when the echo of a kiss interrupted his song.
"But my father will never agree, George," sighed the girl, after this
outward and visible sound of acceptance.
"Dearest Lesbia"--he folded her manfully in his arms--"I don't
see why your father should object. I am not rich certainly, as a
stockbroker's clerk doesn't earn large wages. But for your dear sake
I shall work and work and work until I become a millionaire."
Lesbia smiled at this large promise. "We may have to wait for years."
"What does it matter so long as our hearts are true?"
"They may grow sick with waiting," said Lesbia, sighing. Then she
proceeded to look on the practical side of their idyll, as the most
romantic of women will do at the most romantic of moments. "You earn
only two hundred a year, darling, and my father--so far as I know--can
give me nothing. He has his pension from Lord Charvington, and makes a
small income by his work in the City, but"--here came a depressing
pause.
"What does Mr. Hale do in the City?" asked George abruptly.
Lesbia opened her brown eyes. "I don't know, dear. He goes there two
or three times a week, and always seems to be busy. I have asked him
what his occupation is, but he only laughs, and declares that dry
business details would not interest me. I am sure no girl ever knew so
little of her father as I do. It's not fair."
"Strange!" murmured the young man meditatively. "I never see Mr. Hale
in the City, and although I have asked several people, no one appears
to know the name. Of course, darling, the City is a big place, and
your father may do business in a quiet way. Still it is odd that no
one should know. I wish I did. I might help him."
"In what way?"
"Well, Lesbia, the wages I receive at Tait's office are small,
and--and--and"--here George flushed for no apparent reason--"and there
are other things to be considered. If I could only get something else
to do I should leave Tait's. Your father might be willing to let me
enter his office, you know, and then I could work up his business,
whatever it might be."
The girl nodded. She was a matter-of-fact young woman. Since Hale's
income was limited she was compelled, as housekeeper, very often to
consider ways and means. "You might speak to my father."
"And may I mention our engagement?" he supplemented.
"No-o!" Lesbia looked doubtful. "I had better announce that. Father
has a temper, and if he grew angry, you might grow angry also."
"Oh no." George was entirely in earnest when he said this. "I should
always remember that he was your father and that you love him."
Lesbia again looked doubtful. "Do I love him?" she mused.
"One is supposed to love one's father," suggested George.
She stared at the river. "Yes! I suppose so. Honour your parents, and
so forth. I don't honour my father, though--his temper is too bad. I
am not quite sure if I love him."
"Oh, my dear." George looked nervous.
"Don't make any mistake, dear boy. I like my father, since we are good
friends, and usually he is kind--that is, when he is not in a rage.
But then, you see, sweetest," she sighed, "he is nearly always in a
rage about some trifle. Look at the garden," she waved her hand
vaguely, "I wanted to hire a gardener to make it look more
respectable, and father was furious. He declared that he did not want
people to come spying round the cottage. Spying! Such an odd word to
use."
"Your father is an odd man," said George ruefully, "and he certainly
has not been over-hospitable to me. Perhaps he guesses that I have
come to steal his jewel, and one can't be hospitable to a robber."
Lesbia pinched his chin. "You silly boy, my father doesn't think so
much of me as you do. I sometimes wonder," she went on sadly, "if he
loves me at all. I am very much alone."
"He doesn't treat you badly?" demanded George with sudden heat.
"No, dear, no. I shouldn't allow anyone to treat me badly, not even my
father. But I fancy he regards me as a necessary trouble, for
sometimes he looks at me in a disagreeable way as though he fancied I
was spying."
"Why do you use so disagreeable a word?" asked the straightforward
clerk.
"My father used it himself in the first instance," she rejoined
promptly; "perhaps because he doesn't want anyone else to meet the
queer people who come to see him,--generally after dark. Men who smell
of drink, who use slang and dress like grooms,--certainly not
gentlemen. Of course I never talk to them, for when they appear, my
father always sends me to my room. I'm sure," sighed the girl
dolefully, "that if it wasn't for old Tim, the servant, I should be
quite alone."
George hugged her. "You shall never be alone again!" he whispered, and
Lesbia threw her arms round his neck with great contentment.
"Oh, darling, you don't know how good that sounds to me. If it were
only true. You see, my father may object."
"He can object until he is tired," cried the ardent lover. "If he does
not make you happy I must. And when he sees this----"
"Oh!" Lesbia clasped her hand in delight at the sight of a cheap
turquoise ring, "how lovely!"
George frowned at the mean gift. "It was all I could afford," said he.
"It is all I want," she said, as he slipped it on her engagement
finger, "it's not the cost, or even the thing. It's what it means.
Love and joy to you and me, dearest boy."
But George, having a generous heart, still lamented. "If I hadn't to
keep my mother," he said ruefully. "I would save up and give you
diamonds. But two hundred a year goes a very little way with my
mother, even when her own small income is added. You see, dear, she
never forgets that my father was the Honourable Aylmer Walker, and she
will insist upon having everything of the best. This is a beastly
cheap ring, but--but----"
"But you denied yourself all manner of nice things to buy it for ME,"
finished Lesbia, pressing a kiss on his willing cheek.
"No, dear, no," he said valiantly, "only a few pipes of tobacco."
"You dearest donkey," cooed the girl, more touched than she chose to
confess, "doesn't that show me how you love me. As to the ring," she
surveyed the cheap trinket critically, "it is exactly what I wanted.
The stones are the colour of your dear eyes."
George, man-like, was delighted. "You know the colour of my eyes?"
Lesbia boxed his ears delicately. "I knew the colour exactly one
minute after our very first meeting."
"Did you love me then?"
"No. Certainly not: how conceited you are."
"Then why did you notice my----"
"Oh, a woman always notices these things, when a man is nice."
"And you thought me nice?"
Lesbia fenced. "Good-looking, at all events. You wore a dark flannel
suit striped with pale green."
"So I did," cried George, delighted, "it was at Mrs. Riordan's picnic
near Bisham Abbey a year ago. And you were there."
Lesbia laughed and nursed her knees. "I must have been, since I can
describe you so exactly. What did I wear, dear?"
"I don't know," said George promptly.
"Oh!" she was quite disappointed, "and you call yourself a lover?"
"I do," he rejoined stoutly, "for, as I fell in love with you the
moment we met, I saw only your eyes and your angel face. How could you
expect me to remember a mere dress when----"
"Oh, what nonsense--very nice nonsense; still nonsense."
"I like talking nonsense to you."
"And I like to hear it from you. But it isn't bread and butter."
"You're thinking of afternoon tea," said George Walker audaciously.
"No. I'm thinking of how we are to live when we marry."
The mere mention of that delicious word made George forget the warning
conveyed by the sentence. "Marry! Marry you! Oh, heaven!"
"A pauper heaven, I fear," said Lesbia; then fished in her pocket,
"see, the only valuable thing I possess, besides your love. It is for
you."
"Oh, my dear, it's not a man's ornament."
"As if that matters, since I give it to you," she said, laughing. "I
must give you something, and this is all I have to give."
She held out her hand, on the palm of which rested an amethyst cross
formed of four deeply purple stones, set lightly in gold filigree,
with a loop at the top for the necessary chain to pass through. Not a
very uncommon ornament at the first glance, George decided, although
very beautiful. But on looking more closely he became aware that there
was something bizarre about the thing. In the centre where the four
stones met was a tiny cube of malachite, graven with a golden crown
and inscribed with minute letters. The pansy-blossom hue of the stones
contrasting with the vivid green of the cube gave the ornament rather
an uncanny look.
"What a queer thing," said George, transferring the cross to his broad
palm.
"Yes! isn't it?" said Lesbia eagerly, and then brought out a
magnifying glass. "And the inscription is still queerer."
George poised the powerful glass over the slab of malachite, and with
some difficulty deciphered the golden Gothic letters. "'Refuse and
Lose,'" he read slowly. "Now what does that mean?"
"You stupid darling," cried Lesbia, pinching his ear, "can't you
see? If you refuse the cross--which is married life; you lose the
crown--which is me."
Walker thrust the cross into his pocket, handed back the magnifying
glass and solemnly embraced the girl, "I'll take the cross and the
crown and you, and everything I can get," he whispered in her ear. "I
don't exactly see the meaning, of course, but----"
"Was there ever such a dense man?" Lesbia demanded of the blackbird in
despair. "It's a religious symbol, of course. If you refuse to bear
life's cross in the way you should, you lose the crown which ought to
be yours in heaven."
George took out the ornament again and looked at it seriously. He had
a considerable strain of the Puritan in his nature, to which the idea
appealed strongly. "I shall certainly not refuse life's cross," he
declared soberly, "and may we both some day wear a crown in a better
world."
"My darling, my dearest, my best," she murmured, embracing him fondly.
The touch of seriousness in George's gay disposition enhanced his
value in her eyes. She approved of so sterling a character.
"Where did you get the cross?" asked Walker, while the jewels winked
in the sunshine. "From your father?"
"No!" she replied unexpectedly. "He doesn't know that I possess such a
thing. But my nurse, old Bridget Burke--Tim's mother, you know--who
died last summer, gave it to me on her death-bed and warned me not to
tell my father about it. She said that it came from my dead mother,
and was to be given by me to the man I loved. So you see, my darling,
that even though it is a woman's ornament, you must take it."
"I'll wear it round my neck," declared George. "It will bring me good
luck, I am sure."
"So Bridget said," observed the girl promptly. "She had the 'sight,'
you know, George, and declared that the cross would bring me luck and
money and love and position. I don't know how, unless it is by
marrying you."
"Ah, my love," said George somewhat sadly. "I can only give you my
heart. Money and position must come later. But if we both obey the
inscription and bear the cross we shall win the crown of success in
the end. Look how the gems flash, Lesbia--an earnest of the future."
While they were both admiring the cross, a tall, lean man, perfectly
dressed in a Bond Street kit, came softly down the grassy path. He
looked like a gentleman, and also like a hawk, and his pale eyes
wandered from one bent head to the other until they dropped to the
flash of the jewelled cross, which glittered on Walker's palm. Then
the newcomer started nervously, and took a step nearer to observe.
Lesbia and her lover looked up as the shadow of the man fell across
them, and in the movement they made, the cross fell on the grass.
"Oh, father, how you startled us," cried the girl, springing to her
feet.
Mr. Walter Hale did not reply. His eyes were still on the purple
stones of the cross, and when his daughter stooped to pick it up, he
twitched his fingers as though anxious to take it from her. "Where did
you get that?" he demanded abruptly and harshly.
"Bridget gave it to me, and I have given it to George," she said,
handing the ornament to her lover. "It belonged to my mother."
"It did," said Hale sharply, "and therefore must not pass out of the
family."
"It won't," said Lesbia cheerfully; "George is to be my husband."
Mr. Hale frowned. "You have yet to gain my permission," he said in dry
tones. "Meanwhile, Mr. Walker, give me back the cross."
"No!" said George, who did not like the tone of his future
father-in-law and could be obstinate when necessary. "Lesbia gave it
to me, and I intend to keep it."
"Lesbia had no right to give it to you," cried Hale, his voice rising,
and he extended his hand to take his desire. But Walker was too quick
for him and dexterously swerving, shot the cross into his pocket.
"It is Lesbia's first present to me," said he, excusing his obstinacy.
"She has no right to make you presents," foamed the other, who had now
entirely lost his temper.
"She has the right of a lover," retorted George coolly.
"There can be no question of love between you and my daughter."
The girl moved to her lover's side, very pale and very defiant. "That
is for me to decide," she said coldly, but with determination.
"You go against your father, Lesbia?"
"For the first time in my life. And why not, when the matter is so
important?"
Hale bit his lips and tried to stare her down: but as her eyes did not
drop before his own he was the first to give way, and did so with
inward rage. With an impatient shrug he wheeled to face young Walker.
The two presented the striking contrast of untainted youth and
artificial age too much versed in the evils of life. And youth had the
advantage, for--as in the case of Lesbia--the older man tried to
dominate without success. He was forced to take refuge in idle
threats.
"If you do not give me back that cross, it will be the worse for you,"
remarked Hale, very distinctly and with menace.
George clenched his fists, then, with a glance towards Lesbia, ended
the argument by stepping into his boat. As he rowed off, Hale, who had
not attempted to stop him, turned bitterly to his daughter.
"You have ruined me," he said between his teeth, and returned hastily
to the cottage.