Matravers walked back to his rooms and ordered his portmanteau to be
packed. Then he went out, and after making all his arrangements for an
absence from town, bought a Bradshaw. There were two trains, he found,
by which he could travel, one at three, the other at half-past four.
He arranged to catch the earlier one, and drove to his club for lunch.
Afterwards he strolled towards the smoking-room, but finding it
unusually full, was on the point of withdrawing. As he lingered on the
threshold, a woman's name fell upon his ears. The speaker was Mr.
Thorndyke. He became rigid.
"Why, yes, I gave her the victoria," he was saying. "We called it a
birthday present, or something of that sort. I supposed every one
knew about that. Those little arrangements generally are known
somehow!"
The innuendo was unmistakable. Matravers advanced with his usual
leisurely walk to the little group of men.
"I beg your pardon," he said quietly. "I understood Mr. Thorndyke to
say, I believe, that he had given a carriage to a certain lady. Am I
correct?"
Thorndyke turned upon him sharply. There was a sudden silence in the
crowded room. Matravers' clear, cold voice, although scarcely raised
above the pitch of ordinary conversation, had penetrated to its
furthest corner.
"And if I did, sir! What----"
"These gentlemen will bear me witness that you did say so?" Matravers
interrupted calmly. "I regret to have to use unpleasant language, Mr.
Thorndyke, but I am compelled to tell you, and these gentlemen, that
your statement is a lie!"
Thorndyke was a florid and a puffy man. The veins upon his temples
stood out like whipcord. He was not a pleasant sight to look upon.
"What do you mean, sir?" he spluttered. "The carriage was mine before
she had it. Everybody recognizes it."
[Illustration: "I am compelled to tell you, and these gentlemen, that
your statement is a lie!"]
"Exactly. The carriage was yours. You intended every one to recognize
it. But you have omitted to state, both here and in other places, that
the lady bought that carriage from you for two hundred and sixty
guineas--a good deal more than its worth, I should imagine. You heard
her say that she was thinking of buying a victoria, and you offered
her yours--pressed her to buy it. It was too small for your horses,
you said, and you were hard up. You even had it sent round to her
stables without her consent. I have heard this story before, sir,
and I have furnished myself with proofs of its falsehood. This,
gentlemen," he added, drawing some papers from his pocket, "is Mr.
Thorndyke's receipt for the two hundred and sixty guineas for a
victoria, signed, as you will see, in his own handwriting, and here
is the lady's cheque with Mr. Thorndyke's endorsement, cancelled
and paid."
The papers were handed round. Thorndyke picked up his hat, but
Matravers barred his egress.
"With regard to the insinuation which you coupled with your
falsehood," he continued, "both are equally and absolutely false. I
know her to be a pure and upright woman. A short time ago you took
advantage of your position to make certain cowardly and disgraceful
propositions to her, since when her doors have been closed upon you! I
would have you know, sir, and remember, that the honour of that lady,
whom last night I asked to be my wife, is as dear to me as my own,
and if you dare now, or at any future time, to slander her, I shall
treat you as you deserve. You can go."
"And be very careful, sir," thundered the old Earl of Ellesmere,
veteran member of the club, "that you never show your face inside
these doors again, or, egad, I'm an old man, but I'll kick you out
myself."
Thorndyke left the room amidst a chilling and unsympathetic silence.
As soon as he could get away, Matravers followed him. There was a
strange pain at his heart, a sense of intolerable depression had
settled down upon him. After all, what good had he done? Only a few
more days and her name, which for the moment he had cleared, would be
besmirched in earnest. His impeachment of Thorndyke would sound to
these men then like mock heroics. There would be no one to defend her
any more. There would be no defence. For ever in the eyes of all
these people she was doomed to become one of the Magdalens of the
world.
It seemed a very unreal London through which Matravers was whirled on
his way from the club to Paddington. But before a third of the
distance was accomplished, there was a sudden check. A little boy, who
had wandered from his nurse in crossing the road, narrowly escaped
being run over by a carriage and pair, only to find himself knocked
down by the shaft of Matravers' hansom. There was a cry, and the
driver pulled his horse on to her haunches, but apparently just a
second too late. With a sickening sense of horror, Matravers saw the
little fellow literally under the horse's feet, and heard his shrill
cry of terror.
He leaped out, and was the first to pick the child up, immeasurably
relieved to find that after all he was not seriously hurt. His clothes
were torn, and his hands were scratched, and there, apparently, the
mischief ended. Matravers lifted him into the cab, and turned to the
frightened nurse-girl for the address.
"Nine, Greenfield Gardens, West Kensington, sir," she told him; "and
please tell the master it wasn't my fault. He is so venturesome, I
can't control him nohow. His name is Drage--Freddy Drage, sir."
And then once more Matravers felt that strange dizziness which had
come to him earlier in the day. Again he had that curious sense of
moving in a dream, as though he had, indeed, become part of an unreal
and shadowy world. The renewed motion of the cab as they drove back
again along Pall Mall, recalled him to himself. He leaned back and
looked at the boy steadily.
Yes, they were her eyes. There was no doubt about it. The little
fellow, not in the least shy, and, in fact, now become rather proud of
his adventure, commenced to prattle very soon. Matravers interrupted
him with a question,--
"Won't your mother be frightened to see you like this?" The child
stared at him with wide-open eyes.
"Why, mammy ain't there," he exclaimed. "Mammy went away ever so long
ago. I don't think she's dead, though, 'cos daddy wouldn't let me talk
about her, only just lately, since he was ill. You see," he went on
with an explanatory wave of the hand, "daddy's been a very bad man.
He's better now--leastways, he ain't so bad as he was; but I 'spect
that's why mammy went away. Don't you?"
"I daresay, Freddy," Matravers answered softly.
"We're getting very near now," Freddy remarked, looking over the apron
of the cab. "My! won't dada be surprised to see me drive up in a cab
with you! I hope he's at the window!"
"Will your father be at home now?" Matravers asked.
Freddy stared at him.
"Why, of course! Dad's always at home! Is my face very buggy? Don't
rub it any more, please. That's Jack Mason over there! I play with
him. I want him to see me. Hullo! Jack," he shouted, leaning out of
the cab, "I've been run over, right over, face all buggy. Look at it!
Hands too," spreading them out. "He's a nice boy," Freddy continued as
the cab turned a corner, "but he can't run near so fast as me, and
he's lots older. Hullo! here we are!" kicking vigorously at the apron.
Matravers looked up in surprise. They had stopped short before a long
row of shabby-genteel houses in the outskirts of Kensington. He took
the boy's outstretched hand and pushed open the gate. The door was
open, and Freddy dragged him into a room on the ground floor.
A man was lying on a sofa before the window, wrapped in an untidy
dressing-gown, and with the lower part of his body covered up with
a rug. His face, fair and florid, with more than a suggestion of
coarseness in the heavy jaw and thick lips, was drawn and wrinkled
as though with pain. His lips wore an habitually peevish expression.
He did not offer to rise when they came in. Matravers was thankful
that Freddy spared him the necessity of immediate speech. He had
recognized in a moment the man who had sat alone night after night
in the back seats of the New Theatre, whose slow drawn-out cry of
agony had so curiously affected him on that night of her performance.
He recognized, too, the undergraduate of his college sent down for
flagrant misbehaviour, the leader of a set whom he himself had
denounced as a disgrace to the University. And this man was her
husband!
"Daddy," the boy cried, dropping Matravers' hand and running over to
the couch, "I've been run over by a hansom cab, and I'm all buggy, but
I ain't hurt, and this gentleman brought me home. Daddy can't get up,
you know," Freddy explained; "his legs is bad."
"Run over, eh!" exclaimed the man on the couch. "It's like that girl's
damned carelessness."
He patted the boy's head, not unkindly, and Matravers found words.
"My cab unfortunately knocked your little boy down near Trafalgar
Square, but I am thankful to say that he was not hurt. I thought that
I had better bring him straight home, though, as he has had a roll in
the dust."
At the sound of Matravers' voice, the man started and looked at him
earnestly. A dull red flush stained his cheeks. He looked away.
"It was very good of you, Mr. Matravers," he said. "I can't think what
the girl could have been about."
"I did not see her until after the accident. I am glad that it was no
worse," Matravers answered. "You have not forgotten me, then?"
John Drage shook his head.
"No, sir," he said. "I have not forgotten you. I should have known
your voice anywhere. Besides, I knew that you were in London. I saw
you at the New Theatre."
There was a short silence. Matravers glanced around the room with an
inward shiver. The usual horrors of a suburban parlour were augmented
by a general slovenliness, and an obvious disregard for any sort of
order.
"I am afraid, Drage," he said gently, "that things have not gone well
with you."
"You are quite right," the man answered bitterly. "They have not! They
have gone very wrong indeed; and I have no one to blame but myself."
"I am sorry," Matravers said. "You are an invalid, too, are you not?"
"I am worse than an invalid," the man on the couch groaned. "I am a
prisoner on my back, most likely for ever; curse it! I have had a
paralytic stroke. I can't think why I couldn't die! It's hard
lines!--damned hard lines! I wish I were dead twenty times a day! I am
alone here from morning to night, and not a soul to speak to. If it
wasn't for Freddy I should jolly soon end it!"
"The little boy's mother?" Matravers ventured, with bowed head.
"She left me--years ago. I don't know that I blame her, particularly.
Sit down, if you will, for a bit. I never have a visitor, and it does
me good to talk."
Matravers took the only unoccupied chair, and drew it back a little
into the darker part of the room.
"You remember me then, Drage," he remarked. "Yet it is a long time
since our college days."
"I knew you directly I heard your voice, sir," the man answered. "It
seemed to take me back to a night many years ago--I want you to let
me remind you of it. I should like you to know that I never forgot it.
We were at St. John's then; you were right above me--in a different
world altogether. You were a leader amongst the best of them, and I
was a hanger-on amongst the worst. You were in with the gentlemen set
and the reading set. Neither of them would have anything to do with
me--and they were quite right. I was what they thought me--a cad. I'd
no head for work, and no taste for anything worth doing, and I wasn't
a gentleman, and hadn't sense to behave like one. I'd no right to have
been at the University at all, but my poor old dad would have me go.
He had an idea that he could make a gentleman of me. It was a
mistake!"
Matravers moved slightly in his chair,--he was suffering tortures.
"Is it worth while recalling all these things?" he asked quietly.
"Life cannot be a success for all of us; yet it is the future, and not
the past."
"I have no future," the man interrupted doggedly; "no future here, or
in any other place. I have got my deserts. I wanted to remind you of
that night when you came to see me in my rooms, after I'd been sent
down for being drunk. I suppose you were the first gentleman who had
ever crossed my threshold, and I remember wondering what on earth
you'd come for! You didn't lecture me, and you didn't preach. You
came and sat down and smoked one of my cigars, and talked just as
though we were friends, and tried to make me see what a fool I was. It
didn't do much good in the end--but I never forgot it. You shook hands
with me when you left, and for once in my life I was ashamed of
myself."
"I am sorry," Matravers said with an effort, "that I did not go to see
you oftener."
Drage shook his head.
"It was too late then! I was done for,--done for as far as Oxford was
concerned. But that was only the beginning. I might easily have picked
up if I'd had the pluck! The dad forgave me, and made me a partner in
the business before he died. I was a rich man, and I might have been
a millionaire; instead of that I was a damned fool! I can't help
swearing! you mustn't mind, sir! Remember what I am! I don't swear
when Freddy's in the room, if I can help it. I went the pace, drank,
kept women, and all the rest of it. My wife found me out and went
away. I ain't saying a word against her. She was a good woman, and I
was a bad man, and she left me! She was right enough! I wasn't fit for
a decent woman to live with. All the same, I missed her; and it was
another kick down Hellward for me when she went. I got desperate then;
I took to drink worse than ever, and I began to let my business go and
speculate. You wouldn't know anything of the city, sir; but I can
tell you this, when a cool chap with all his wits about him starts
speculating outside his business, it's touch and go with him; when a
chap in the state I was in goes for it, you can spell the result in
four letters! It's RUIN, ruin! That's what it meant for me. I lost two
hundred thousand pounds in three years, and my business went to pot
too. Then I had this cursed stroke, and here I am! I may stick on for
years, but I shall never be able to earn a penny again. Where Freddy's
schooling is to come from, or how we are to live, I don't know!"
"I am very sorry," Matravers said gently. "Have you no friends then,
or relations who will help you?"
"Not a damned one," growled the man on the couch. "I had plenty of
pals once, only too glad to count themselves John Drage's friends;
but where they are now I don't know. They seem to have melted away.
There's never a one comes near me. I could do without their money or
their help, somehow, but it's damned hard to lie here for ever and
have not one of 'em drop in just now and then for a bit of a talk and
a cheering word. That's what gives me the blues! I always was fond of
company; I hated being alone, and it's like hell to lie here day after
day and see no one but a cross landlady and a miserable servant girl.
Lately, I can't bear to be alone with Freddy. He's so damned like his
mother, you know. It brings a lump in my throat. I wouldn't mind so
much if it were only myself. I've had my cake! But it's rough on the
boy!"
"It is rough on the boy, and it is rough on you," Matravers said
kindly. "I wonder you have never thought of sending him to his mother!
She would surely like to have him!"
The man's face grew black.
"Not till I'm dead," he said doggedly. "I don't want him set against
me! He's all I've got! I'm going to keep him for a bit. It ought not
to be so difficult for us to live. If only I could get down to the
city for a few hours!"
"Could not a friend there do some good for you?" Matravers asked.
"Of course he could," Mr. Drage answered eagerly; "but I haven't got
a friend. See here!"
He took a little account book from under his pillow, and with
trembling fingers thrust it before his visitor.
"You see all these amounts. They are all owing to me from those
people--money lent, and one thing and another. There is an envelope
with bills and I O U's. They belong to me, you understand," he said,
with a sudden touch of dignity. "I never failed! My business was
stopped when I was taken ill, but there was enough to pay everybody.
Now some of these amounts have never been collected. If I could see
these people myself, they would pay, or if I could get a friend whom I
could trust! But there isn't a man comes near me!"
"I--am not a business man," Matravers said slowly; "but if you cared
to explain things to me, I would go into the city and see what I could
do."
The man raised himself on his elbow and gazed at his visitor
open-mouthed.
"You mean this!" he cried thickly. "Say it again,--quick! You mean
it!"
"Certainly," Matravers answered. "I will do what I can."
John Drage did not doubt his good fortune for a moment. No one ever
looked into Matravers' face and failed to believe him.
"I--I'll thank you some day," he murmured. "You've done me up! Will
you--shake hands?"
He held out a thin white hand. Matravers took it between his own.
In a few moments they were absorbed in figures and explanations.
Finally the book was passed over to Matravers' keeping.
"I will see what I can do," he said quietly. "Some of these accounts
should certainly be recovered. I will come down and let you know how I
have got on."
[Illustration: "You mean this!" he cried thickly. "Say it
again--quick!"]
"If you would! If you don't mind! And, I wonder,--do you take a
morning paper? If so, will you bring it when you've done with it, or
an old one will do? I can't read anything but newspapers; and lately I
haven't dared to spend a penny,--because of Freddy, you know! It's so
cursed lonely!"
"I will come, and I will bring you something to read," Matravers
promised. "I must go now!"
John Drage held out his hand wistfully.
"Good-by," he said. "You're a good man! I wish I'd been like you. It's
an odd thing for me to say, but--God bless you, sir."
Matravers stood on the doorstep with his watch in his hand. It was
half-past three. There was just time to catch the four-thirty from
Waterloo! For a moment the little street faded away from before his
eyes! He saw himself at his journey's end! Berenice was there to meet
him! A breath of the country came to him on the breeze--a breath of
sweet-smelling flowers, and fresh moorland air, and the low murmur of
the blue sea. Yes, there was Berenice, with her dark hair blowing in
the wind, and that look of passionate peace in her pale, tired face!
Her arms were open, wide open! She had been weary so long! The
struggle had been so hard! and he, too, was weary----
He started! He was still on the doorstep! Freddy was drumming on the
pane, and behind, there was a man lying on the couch, with his face
buried in his hands. He waved his hand and descended the steps firmly.
"Back to my rooms, 147, Piccadilly," he told the cabman. "I shall not
be going away to-day."