THE LOSER
Justin Carthew was standing as if thunderstruck by these extraordinary
statements. His incredulous glance shifted from the stout stranger of
the tinted eye and the inimical stare to the others of the little group
regarding him, until it met Sallie's again, and they two looked blankly
into each other's eyes while Mr. Jobling proceeded to introduce himself
as her ladyship's legal adviser, and stated briefly the grounds on which
his dogmatic assertion was based.
To Carthew, the lawyer's voice seemed to come from very far away, but
none the less intelligibly, as he himself stood gazing at the girl to
whom he owed his life, whom he had last seen late at night among the
shadows on the deck of the _Olive Branch_ in Genoa harbour. At first
sight it had seemed so utterly impossible that it could be she who had
stepped out on to the Warder's Tower of Loquhariot that he had supposed
the sun in his eyes and a striking resemblance must have combined to
delude him.
But--he knew now that it was really she. And as Mr. Jobling, concluding
his homily, mentioned again who she claimed to be, he was dazedly
thankful that he had not at once contradicted her lawyer; as he might
have done--since he knew as a matter of fact that the real Lady
Josceline Justice was dead.
Mr. Jobling had also repeated that Mr. Carthew was trespassing there.
But at that Sallie turned on her legal adviser in generous indignation,
and he shrank into the background again as she spoke.
"If this is _my_ property, as you say it is," she flashed, "what right
have _you_ to tell any visitor that he is trespassing here! And if Mr.
Carthew has been misinformed--"
"He isn't a visitor, Sallie. He's the man in possession at present,"
whispered the smartly-dressed young-old man who had been studying
Carthew with a most supercilious expression, "and you'd better leave Mr.
Jobling to deal with him." He was obviously not at all pleased with her,
and his whisper was perfectly audible.
The girl had stopped to listen to him. "We're evidently the trespassers,
then," she finished. "_We_ have no business here at all while he remains
in possession."
The other man of the party, a white-haired old fellow in clerical garb
and wearing a pair of smoked glasses, also turned angrily toward her.
But at that moment Mrs. M'Kissock came stumbling forward between them,
with a little broken cry, all her habitual self-restraint vanished, her
harsh features working, very near tears; and, lifting a hand of the
girl's in both of her own to her lips, fondled it foolishly, muttering
disconnected phrases.
"I knew--_I_ knew it from the first," she mumbled, "and yet--I did not
dare believe my own eyes. But now--God bless your bonny ladyship! And
God be thanked for that you have at last come back to your own!
Loquhariot has waited very long for this late day, and--
"Say ye now there's a _man_ in possession!" she spoke up, glancing
defiance at the individual in the Norfolk suit and then, though with
less of disfavour, at Justin Carthew. "Say ye so?--and to me, who have
kept the keys of the empty Castle of Loquhariot for her ladyship here,
ever since the Red Earl her father laid that trust on me from his
death-bed!
"You have been ill-informed. There is _no_ man in possession here."
Carthew was staring at her as if he were altogether at his wits' end. He
almost doubted the evidence of his own ears. Had he not known as a
matter of fact that Lady Josceline Justice was _dead_, old Janet
M'Kissock's spontaneous championship of this pretender would almost have
convinced him to the contrary. He could feel sure of only one further
fact, which was that Sallie herself had been tricked into her impostor's
part.
However, he had no time just then to come to any further conclusion. He
had to decide at once what he should do to safeguard her, and did so,
recalling only the debt he owed her.
"There _has_ evidently been some mistake," said he, looking levelly into
her troubled eyes. "I hope you won't hold me to blame for that. And,
believe me, I'm very glad that you have come to Loquhariot."
He could say no more than that at the moment. He bowed to her, and,
turning into the turret doorway, limped off downstairs. He wanted to be
alone for a little. He wanted time to think. He felt absolutely stunned.
Mrs. M'Kissock, no less perturbed, her cap all awry, followed him down
the winding stairway as far as the door of the rooms he had only
occupied for a day or two.
"I'm going to remove to the inn," he said, in answer to her agitated
excuses and explanations. "It will be better so in the meantime. Will
you tell one of the men to take my baggage there for me, please?"
He did not deem it advisable just then to ask her any question or make
any comment at all. And within another minute or two he had passed out
of the postern, surrendering the Castle of Loquhariot, for the time
being, to one who had no claim or title to it.
But, as he stopped beyond the drawbridge to light the pipe he had
mechanically pulled out, he pursed up his lips as though to whistle.
And, "What proof can _I_ produce!" he exclaimed, moving on again with
the cold pipe between his teeth, his head bent, perplexed to the last
degree.
The walk through the darkling woods to the village and the cold, clean
air cleared his wits a little. He found Ambrizette huddled over the fire
in the best room at the Jura Arms, and, having bespoken supper and a bed
for himself, went on along the shore road to think things out, if he
could.
Only half an hour before, he had been congratulating himself on the fact
that his troubles were nearing an end. And now--
"It's been nothing but trouble ever since I first saw that damned
advertisement," he remarked to himself, recalling step after painful
step of the way he had travelled to where he was.
A few months before he had seen and answered an anxious advertisement in
an American paper for any surviving relative, no matter how distant, of
the Jura family, he had invested all of his scarce capital in a
cattle-run in Texas which seemed to promise to pay quick profits. And,
in spite of all that the English lawyers who had replied to his letter
could say to tempt him, he had remained quite firm in his wise
resolution to stay there and reap those profits before crossing the
Atlantic in pursuit of his further fortune; until a smart junior partner
of theirs had paid him a flying visit at the ranch, and proved to him
how foolishly he was acting against his own interests.
For it seemed, after due investigation and proof positive of his distant
kinship with the family, that there could be only one life between him
and the title of Earl of Jura, with all that pertained thereto--a life
which even the very conservative English Court of Chancery was by then
disposed to presume extinct.
The astute young lawyer had told Carthew all the facts which his firm
had managed to ferret out concerning the late countess's disappearance
and death. It seemed, humanly speaking, impossible that her child could
have survived her. Justin Carthew had thought it all over and an
accident had settled the question for him. His pony came down with him
one day and he was badly trampled by the steers he had been heading. His
doctor sentenced him to six months' rest--out of the saddle. As soon as
he was able to move he raised a mortgage on the ranch and made for
London. That mortgage was almost due by now, and his expected profit on
the run had faded into a stiff loss during his absence.
Messrs. Bolder & Bolder, the lawyers aforesaid, had made it clear to him
from the first that, while they had the utmost faith in the outcome of
their exertions on his behalf, they could not see their way to place
their services and special knowledge at his disposal except on a
spot-cash basis; that, in short, he must provide in advance the money to
foot their bill. He had done so, and they, in return, had not failed to
implement all their promises. Even now he could not feel that they had
dealt unfairly by him.
And the balance of his bank account had been eaten up by his expedition
to Africa in search of more authentic record of the ex-dancer countess's
death and as to the fate of her child. He had taken that somewhat rash
step, too, of his own free will and for his own personal satisfaction.
He was personally aware now that both the countess and her daughter were
dead; but--he could bring forward no proof at all of that fact, and, as
Bolder & Bolder had politely pointed out to him, his personal testimony
alone was that of an interested party and worthless to them or anyone
else.
He had suffered sorely, both body and mind, since he and his party had
been betrayed into El Farish's hands by an Arab guide. And now--
He was a penniless peer of the United Kingdom, with every prospect of
being unable to maintain those rights which he knew were his, an
impecunious citizen of the United States, with a foreclosure threatening
him there. The result of all his own efforts so far was failure.
And yet, he felt that he ought to be thankful that he had come through
alive. "A living dog is better than a dead lion," he told himself.
"And--I owe that girl my life. But for her, I'd be--" He shrugged his
shoulders. It was not pleasant, there in the dark, to recall that hole
in the sand on the African coast which he had only escaped by a
hairbreadth, thanks to her.
"I wouldn't be here at all," he reflected. "And that fat lawyer of hers
would see her settled into my place without any fuss. He said, in fact,
that the Chancery Court had practically admitted her claim to it
already.
"And now--_how_ am I to get up and swear she's a fraud! How am I to
repay all I owe her--by fighting her for another man's leavings!"
He halted, to fill his pipe, and found it full. He lighted it, and
turned back toward the inn. It had just recurred to him that, even if he
were disposed to fight her for his inheritance, there were very strong
financial reasons as well as merely sentimental ones against that
course. He was already in Bolder & Bolder's debt. He had had to apply to
them by wire for his fare to London from Genoa. They had further
defrayed the Court costs of that order of access to the archives of
Loquhariot which Mr. Justice Gaunt had recently made in his favour, and
had furnished him with a few pounds for subsequent expenses.
But they had taken the opportunity to mention, always politely, that
they could go no farther than that beyond the terms of their original
bargain: and that the next advance of cash must come from him to them.
In a word, he could not afford to fight either her or anyone else just
then. And he had a very strong impression that the fat lawyer who had
interposed between him and the girl would put up a protracted, expensive
battle on her behalf.
"But some day I'll have a couple of rounds with _him_," Carthew promised
himself. "Just at the moment--my hands are tied. And, what's more, the
Courts are closed."
He sighed.
"I can't hurt her, in any case," he declared conclusively to the night.
"I'm not much of a judge of girls, but--she's--
"I must just wait and see," he said to himself. "I'm helpless. And--I'm
hers, anyhow, as I told her in Genoa. A promise is a promise, no matter
what its keeping costs."
He looked up at the black bulk of the castle in the distance. Its
numberless narrow windows were all aglow, and in a cresset on one tower
a fire was burning brightly.
"She's taken possession all right," he cogitated. "But probably she
doesn't even know that the beacon's been kindled."
As he limped through the village again, he could not but notice the
unusual stir in its long single street. At every cottage door there was
a whispering group staring up at the Warder's Tower. The sound of oars
in haste reached his ears from across the loch. And he was aware of many
inquisitive glances directed at him as he passed.
His simple supper was awaiting him in the best room of the little inn.
The black dwarf had been sent for from the castle, the outwardly stolid
and incurious maid-of-all-work informed him. He sat down by the fire,
content for the moment as he recalled the glamour of the afterglow from
the west and Sallie's grave glance.
He thought of nothing else throughout his meal, and afterwards, puffing
at a cigar in the lamp-lit porch with a plaid about him to keep the cold
out, could scarcely bring himself to consider his own precarious
situation again. When he at last applied his mind to that he was
somewhat dispirited.
He had only a few shillings left in his purse, and could not afford to
stay where he was for more than a day or two. He was a stranger in a
strange land, a land in which, as he had learned already, men in their
prime had to compete keenly for work which might bring them in no more
than four or five dollars a week: a very unpromising land in which to be
left with empty pockets.
"Perhaps old Herries will give me a week or two's work at something or
other about the estate," he communed with himself. "But, then,--that
bloated lawyer would probably interfere; and, while I lie low, Herries
will be under his thumb to a great extent. He's under the weather too,
poor old chap!"
He was still shaking his head disconsolately when his cogitations were
cut short by the sound of clattering hoofs and the hurried arrival of
one on horseback, who galloped up to the Jura Arms and slipped like a
sack from his saddle, and swayed and staggered while his blown steed
looked inquiringly round at him, till Justin Carthew slipped an arm
about him and would have led him indoors.
"What are _you_ doing here, Mr. Herries?" Carthew demanded, amazed. "You
should be at home in bed, and--"
"The beacon?" gasped the new-comer, a haggard, sick-looking old man with
a long white beard, almost spent, but none the less resolute not to
enter the inn.
"It seems that Lady Josceline Justice has just arrived at the castle,"
Carthew informed him concisely, after a moment of hesitation.
"Lady--Josceline--Justice!" the other repeated dazedly, but with evident
disbelief. "Did you say--Lady Josceline Justice! You're surely joking,
Mr. Carthew--although it would be no joke for you if her ladyship had
come back to life."
"I'm not joking," Carthew assured him.
"But--how can it be!" the other demanded. "I can't conceive--Have you
seen her yourself?"
"Yes, I've seen her," declared Carthew. He could not have answered
otherwise without betraying Sallie.
"But come away in. You must get between the blankets again at once," he
insisted firmly. "A five-mile gallop on a night like this is quite
enough to finish you. And there will be time enough in the morning--to
pay her ladyship a call."
"I've been factor of Loquhariot these five and thirty years--and it
would ill become me to be abed at such a moment. I'm going up now," the
sick man asserted stubbornly. "I'm responsible for all that goes on
here, as you know very well, Mr. Carthew--and I've had no news at all of
this. I can't understand--And yet--it must indeed be her ladyship, as
you say, since Janet M'Kissock--"
He caught at his horse's bridle again and tried to clamber into the
saddle.
A group of whispering villagers had gathered about the inn door, and
they joined Carthew in his well-meant remonstrances. But the anxious
steward of the estate was not to be gainsaid by anyone.
"If the Lady Josceline Justice has come back to her own at last," he
declared, shivering, "it is my undoubted duty to be on hand. And what
matters else? Get the pipes out, lads, and gather together. Shall it be
said of us that her ladyship lacked a true Highland welcome home?"
Carthew, seeing him so set in his purpose and not knowing how to prevent
him except, perhaps, at Sallie's expense, saw nothing for it but to let
events shape themselves. He brought the old man a little brandy, which
served to steady him somewhat, so that he sat in his saddle none so limp
at the head of the muster formed at his bidding. And Carthew walked up
the hill by his side, partly to help him, and partly in hope of another
glimpse of the girl who had surely bewitched himself.
At his heels tramped three stalwart pipers, and the still, star-lit
night rang again to the shrill strains of the march they struck up;
while close behind, keeping step to its lilt, came a couple of hundred
or so of the villagers and their visitors from mountain and glen and
shore. Blazing pine-knots served for torches and lighted the way well,
until they at length reached the landward front of the castle, where the
sick man marshalled them in a wide, crimson half-moon about the
drawbridge, while Carthew held his horse for him at one side.
The postern-door opened noiselessly and Janet M'Kissock looked out from
within. Herries crossed the drawbridge toward her, and, "Eh, Janet,
woman!" said he, "what's all this I hear so late? They tell me that the
Lady Josceline Justice has come to Loquhariot, and--"
"It was because you were so ill that I didn't send word at once, Mr.
Herries," the housekeeper put in defensively as he paused. "The beacon
was fired without her ladyship's knowledge by one of her friends. I
don't--"
"It _is_ her ladyship, then?" the factor demanded, searching her face
with his keen, anxious, fevered eyes. "Whence came she so suddenly,
Janet?"
"It is indeed her ladyship," the old woman answered solemnly. "But--more
than that I do not know. I have had all to see to since the sun set,
and--"
The other checked her plaint with an uplifted hand.
"I'll hear about everything else by and by. And meantime--I've brought
some of her own folk up to offer her welcome--since it _is_ she," he
said, all his doubts evidently dispelled by Janet M'Kissock's emphatic
assurance. "Will she come out to us for a few minutes, think ye?"
"That will she, I'm sure," answered Mrs. M'Kissock. "Her ladyship has a
heart of gold, as it were, and a very kindly way with her. I'll send in
word that her folk are here--she'll have finished dinner by now."
She turned and left him, closing the postern behind her so that only the
red torch-light illumined the high portcullis and level drawbridge
until, presently, the massive main-doors of the castle swung slowly back
on their well-oiled hinges and in the heart of the glow from within
appeared Sallie, with that young-old man whom Justin Carthew so disliked
at her side in very correct evening clothes. But he stayed a little
behind as she stepped forward and stopped under the portcullis, the
flare of the torches full on her face, a very dazzling vision indeed.
For she also was dressed for the evening, and in a creation from Paris.
Carthew's heart was thumping as he drew farther aside into the shadows.
She had not noticed him in his plaid, holding the old man's horse.