CAPTAIN CUSDEN'S REPORT.
In the _Times_ newspaper of the following morning Burgo read a
confirmation of his uncle's marriage. "There's a suspiciously Italian
flavour about the bride's baptismal name," he muttered to himself;
"but who was the late Colonel Innes, I wonder?"
In the course of the afternoon he knocked at Mrs. Mordaunt's door.
"Not at home, sir."
Many an afternoon had he called there, but never before had such a
missile been flung at his head. His face flushed a little when he saw
Lord Penwhistle's miniature brougham being driven slowly up and down
the street.
Two days later he called again, only to be repulsed with the same
polite fiction.
Each afternoon he lingered in the Park till the last moment, in the
hope of catching a glimpse of Clara's sunny face; but all his
lingering was in vain. A week later he heard through a mutual
acquaintance that Mrs. Mordaunt and Miss Leslie had started for the
Continent.
But before this took place the cards of the newly-wedded pair had
reached Burgo. He tore them up in a pet and threw them into the fire.
The same day, in sheer recklessness, he drove down to Richmond with
some club acquaintances who belonged to a faster set than he
habitually consorted with. There he drank more champagne and smoked
more cigars than was good for him, and awoke next morning with a
splitting headache.
It has been remarked before that he was by no means an exemplary young
man.
It was during these days he got the notion into his head that the
world was already beginning to look askance at him, that the greetings
of his acquaintances were scarcely so cordial as they used to be, that
there was a chilliness in the social atmosphere such as he had never
experienced before.
All this was probably due to some touch of morbid fancy on his part.
One unpleasant fact there was, however, which he found it impossible
to ignore: he rarely opened his morning's letters nowadays without
finding among them one or more bills, most of them containing a
pressing request for an early settlement. To poor Burgo it seemed as
if the air was full of portents.
If he had ever thought much about the matter--which, to give him his
due, he never had--he would have said that it was impossible he could
have owed so much money. Yet here was account after account tumbling
in, embodying items not one of which, when he came to look at them,
was he in a position to dispute. And when, one morning, he found
courage to take a sheet of paper and a pencil and total up the lot, he
was astounded at the magnitude of the result. It was not the first
time he had floundered into a similar quagmire. His uncle had already
paid his debts on two previous occasions--not without a little
grumbling, for Sir Everard was somewhat penuriously inclined, and
living well within his own income, considered that everybody should do
the same--and, under ordinary circumstances, Burgo would have appealed
to him for the third time, and would have felt confident that the
appeal would not have been in vain. But now the door was shut in his
face, at least for the time being. Until he should know what kind of
woman this new aunt should prove to be, he felt that it would be
impossible for him to appeal to his uncle as he should otherwise have
done. It was a capital thing, he said to himself, that quarter-day was
so close at hand.
When those important epochs came round, it was Burgo's practice to
charter a hansom, and be driven into the City, to the office of Mr.
Garden, his uncle's lawyer, have ten minutes' chat and a glass of dry
sherry with him, pocket the cheque which was always waiting for him,
give a receipt in due form, and then lounge back westward, with a fine
glow of satisfaction such as he had not been conscious of half-an-hour
before. "You have heard the news, I presume," said Mr. Garden on the
present occasion, as he shook hands with the young man.
"I have; and very much surprised I was. Were not you also surprised?"
"I have lived too long, and have seen too much of human nature, to be
greatly surprised at anything. Still I must confess that I never
looked upon Sir Everard as a marrying man."
"I should think not, indeed."
"Let us hope that the step he has taken will in no way interfere with
your prospects in life."
"It is pretty sure to do that," responded Burgo a little ruefully.
"I don't see why it should. Sir Everard always gave me the impression
of being a very just-dealing man. Of course you are aware that a fresh
will will now have to be drawn up?"
"Does that follow as a matter of course?"
"As a matter of necessity. Sir Everard's marriage annuls any will he
may have executed prior to that ceremony."
"Oh!"
"I may tell you in confidence, that up to the present I have received
no instructions in the matter. By the way, do you know anything of the
lady who has now the privilege of calling you her nephew?"
"Nothing whatever. I had never heard of her existence before I read
her name in the newspaper."
"Well, we can only hope for the best. It is a poor philosophy which
anticipates troubles that may never come to pass."
Then Mr. Garden handed Burgo a certain narrow slip of paper, for which
the latter gave a receipt in the usual form. Then he rose to go.
"Sit down for a minute or two, Mr. Brabazon. I have not quite done
with you yet," said the old lawyer. Burgo, wondering a little, did as
he was told.
"In a certain communication which I received from your uncle a few
days ago," resumed Mr. Garden, "among other matters he requested me to
obtain from you a full and complete schedule of any debts that may be
owing by you at the present time, and forward the same to him as early
as possible. I presume," added Mr. Garden blandly, as he stared at
Burgo over his spectacles, "that you young gentlemen about town are
nearly always in debt?"
"By Jove! I believe you are right there," answered Burgo, with a short
laugh; "at least, I know that in my case the complaint has almost become
chronic. But what can be the dear old boy's reason for making such a
request?"
"That is more than I can say; but one may be permitted to hazard a
guess."
"He has paid my debts twice already."
"Who should know that fact better than I? But is it not the accepted
creed among you young gentlemen of the town that rich fathers and
uncles are sent into the world by a kind Providence expressly for that
purpose?"
Burgo laughed a little uneasily. "The distribution of capital is said
to conduce to the national well-being," he replied, with a quizzical
glance at the staid face opposite him.
"A very bad argument for getting into debt, my dear Mr. Brabazon.
However, you will let me have the document asked for by your uncle as
early as convenient."
"When you see the sum total it will frighten you."
"It won't frighten _me_; but I can't answer for the effect it may
have on Sir Everard."
"You shall have it in the course of to-morrow; but I shall be deucedly
uneasy, I can tell you, till I know the result."
"Were you ever 'deucedly uneasy' about anything, Mr. Brabazon for more
than a few hours at a time?"
"Upon my word, I don't think I ever was," laughed Burgo. "By-the-by,
have you any idea when my uncle is coming home?"
"Not the remotest."
With that Burgo took his leave.
Next day the schedule of his liabilities was duly made out and
despatched, after which Burgo did his best to dismiss the subject from
his mind.
Clara Leslie dwelt much in his thoughts about this time. He never
smoked a pipe alone in his rooms without seeming to see her face
shining on him through the smoke wreaths. That he was deeply in love
with her he had not the slightest doubt, but he was not quite so
certain how much she cared for him in return. True, there had not been
wanting tokens which told him that he was not wholly indifferent to
her, but between liking and love there is often a wide chasm, and
although that chasm may be, and often is, bridged over, it is not
always so; and in this case the cold winds of absence would doubtless
do their best to extinguish any tiny flame of love which might
perchance have been kindled in Miss Leslie's bosom. Among hundreds of
strange faces and a perpetual change of scene, how could he hope that
his image would continue to dwell in her memory? And yet--and yet she
had not repulsed him that evening when he took her hand and spoke
certain words to her in the conservatory; there had even been
something in her manner, or he dreamed so, which led him to believe
that, had they not been interrupted at that particular moment, no
repulse need have been feared by him. This thought it was, and this
alone, that made sweet his solitary musings.
About a fortnight after his visit to Mr. Garden, Burgo received a note
from that gentleman informing him that the whole of his debts, as
specified in the schedule rendered by him, had been paid in full.
Burgo gave vent to a sigh of satisfaction as he laid down the lawyer's
note. A great weight had been lifted off his mind. He hesitated as to
whether he ought not to write a few words of thanks to his uncle, but
ultimately decided that he would await Sir Everard's arrival in town,
and then thank him in person. It was characteristic of him that next
day he should call upon his tailor and his bootmaker, and one or two
other tradesmen, and thoroughly replenish his wardrobe. It was not so
much that there was any real necessity for his doing so, as that the
novelty of being out of debt caused him to feel slightly
uncomfortable. He had not been used to it, and it did not seem right
somehow. Besides, how is it possible for tradespeople to live unless
they are liberally patronised?
One morning, as he was skimming through the newspapers at his club,
Burgo was accosted by a voice which he had not heard for several
months. There was no mistaking the rasping tones of Captain Cusden.
"We have lost sight of you for several months," said Burgo, as soon as
he had shaken hands with the new-comer--a man of fifty-five, who did
his best to keep up an assumption of juvenility by consorting as much
as possible with men thirty years younger than himself.
"Been trotting about the Continent with Aunt Jane, dear boy," answered
Cusden, who wanted no encouragement to talk, as he drew a chair up.
"Expectations and all that, you know. Must do one's duty. Awful hard
work I found it, dear boy. Had to be on parade every morning at eight
to the tick. Wonderful old lady! If I had to explore one church with
her, I had to explore five hundred; if I was expected to admire one
picture, I was expected to admire five thousand. Did it ever occur to
you, dear boy, what a remarkable chap that Rubens must have been? Must
have turned out a fresh picture every week of his life, by Jove if the
catalogues are not telling flams. At last we got away from the Low
Countries--very properly so called, dear boy--and when I found myself
at Chamonix I began to breathe again. It was there, by the way, that I
had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a certain venerated
relative of yours."
Burgo knocked the ash off his cigarette; then he said, quietly: "My
uncle, I suppose, you mean?"
"Right you are, dear boy. Sir Everard and his bride." Here Cusden gave
vent to a snigger, followed by a sharp sidelong glance at his
companion; but that impassive individual was not so easily caught.
"They had been married in Italy a few weeks before and were on their
way home, doing the thing by easy stages. Of course you are aware that
the bride is at the very least thirty years younger than the
bridegroom?"
"I believe I have been told something of the sort," answered Burgo.
Although, in point of fact, he had been told nothing of the kind.
"A famous catch for her, I should imagine, considering--hem!--her
antecedents," remarked the Captain with an expressive shrug.
For the moment Burgo felt a strong desire to fling his companion out
of the window, but he reflected in time that, were he to do so, he
might perhaps remain for ever in ignorance of the antecedents to which
Cusden had alluded, and he had his reasons for not wanting to do that.
So he merely lighted another cigarette, and said in his drawling way:
"She had antecedents, then?"
"No woman of thirty is without 'em, particularly when she comes to
marry her third husband."
"I should not wonder if you are right there," was all Burgo
condescended to remark in reply to this somewhat startling piece of
intelligence.
"Her first husband is said to have been an Italian who held some sort
of Government post," resumed Cusden. "_Entre nous_, I believe she
herself is half an Italian. He left her with one boy, who is said to
be now at school somewhere in Switzerland. Her second husband, Colonel
Innes, was an old East Indian without any liver to speak of. He is
said to have died under somewhat mysterious circumstances at the end
of a couple of years, and there were some queer rumours afloat at the
time, but I suppose they came to nothing. By all accounts that second
marriage must have proved a rank failure as far as she was concerned,
seeing that the Colonel lost nearly all he was worth by a bank smash
within a year of their becoming man and wife."
"You seem to have picked up a lot about her in the course of your
travels," remarked Burgo.
"People _will_ talk, you know, dear boy, and one can't help hearing
what is said in society. However, you'll probably have the pleasure of
making Lady Clinton's acquaintance before long. Ta-ta for the
present."
There was cold comfort for Burgo in what Cusden had just told him. "I
hope to heaven the dear old boy has not fallen into the hands of some
scheming adventuress," he muttered.
But he was obliged to admit that circumstances looked very much like
it.
A week later the following note reached him:--
"22 Great Mornington Street, W.
"Will Mr. Brabazon have the goodness to call here at four o'clock
to-morrow."
The writing was that of a lady.