_By_ W. B. Maxwell
_Royal Fusiliers_
Using the cant phrase, people often said that General Sir John Beckford
was a quite impossible person. A brave soldier, a true gentleman, a
splendid creature physically—just so, but rendering himself absurd and
futile by notions so old-fashioned that they had been universally
exploded before he was born. A man who obstinately refused to move with
the times, who in manner, costume, and every idea belonged, and seemed
proud to belong, to the past.
Even his own relatives admitted the impossibility of him when, at the
age of sixty, he gave effect to the most old-fashioned of all
conceivable notions by marrying for love. If an elderly widower with a
little son of nine wants somebody to make a home and help to rear the
child, he should invite some middle-aged female cousin to come to his
assistance; but if he wants a charming, attractive girl to renounce the
joys and hopes of youth in order to soothe and gladden his dull remnant
of years—well, he _oughtn’t_ to want it, and really it is not quite nice
when he does.
Lady Jane Armitage, an ancient aunt, put this thought into very plain
words and forced Sir John to listen to them. A mistake—not even a fair
bargain. What is Cynthia to get, on her side? A seat in a carriage, a
liberal dress allowance, perhaps a few more loose sovereigns than she
has been accustomed to carry in that silly little gold purse of hers!
“The idea of money,” said Sir John gruffly, “has never entered Cynthia’s
head.”
“Perhaps not. But what else can you offer her? To hold your landing-net
while you do your stupid fishing; to perform the duties of a
nursery-governess for Jack; to enjoy the privilege of playing hostess
when you entertain half a dozen other generals and their frumpish
wives.”
Sir John echoed his aunt’s last adjective ironically.
“Yes,” said Lady Jane, “but I’m different. I _know_ I’m a frump, and
your friends aren’t aware of their misfortune. No, John, I tell you
frankly, it isn’t a fair bargain.”
Sir John bit his grey moustache, ran a strong hand through his shock of
grey hair, contracted his heavy brows, and then laughed and shrugged his
shoulders.
“Inexplicable to you, eh, Aunt Jane? Well, let’s leave it at that. But
be kind to Cynthia all the same, won’t you? Save her from the _other_
frumps,” and, ceasing to laugh, he stared at Lady Jane almost fiercely.
He was one of those men who consider it beneath their dignity to betray
tender emotion, and who perhaps look sternest and most forbidding when
they are feeling unusually soft and gentle. At any rate, he would not
explain to his aunt that he believed the marriage to be an eminently
fair bargain—an old-fashioned exchange—love for love—as much love on the
girl’s side as on his.
Lady Jane made no promise, but she proved very kind indeed to her new
niece; endeavouring to find innocent amusement for pretty Cynthia,
acting as her chaperon, watching over her, and growing fonder and fonder
of her. She said that the young Lady Beckford was a model wife and a
pattern stepmother. No one could have been more devoted to or wiser in
her training of Master Jack.
Now, after five years, the boy was ready to go to a public school, and
during these long summer days a holiday tutor had been giving him final
preparation, ultimate crammed knowledge, and topmost polish of tone and
manners. August had been spent at the Beckfords’ country house in
Devonshire, and the early weeks of September at their flat in Victoria
Street. Lady Jane approved of everything that concerned these
arrangements, except one thing. She approved of the public school, of
the engaging of a holiday tutor, of all the care, devotion, and
forethought with which the little man was being launched from the home
circle; but she did not approve of the fact that Sir John had thrown the
whole burden on Cynthia’s slender shoulders, while he did his stupid
salmon-fishing four hundred miles away in Scotland.
Not quite fair to Cynthia—leaving her all alone with a schoolboy and his
tutor. Lady Jane, at considerable inconvenience, ran down to Devonshire
to cheer and enliven her. Came back to London and at worse inconvenience
stayed there, so as to be handy to act as companion, chaperon, advisory
ally, whenever Cynthia wanted her.
But Cynthia wanted her scarcely at all, and allowed poor Lady Jane to
perceive at last that uninvited companions are sometimes a tedium rather
than a solace.
* * * * *
It was the last night of the holidays. To-morrow Master Jack and his
tutor would disappear from Victoria Street.
Dinner had been ordered at an early hour, and Jack was scampering
through his meal with excited swiftness. One last treat had been
arranged for him. He was to be dispatched to a theatre presently in
charge of George, the footman.
“I wish you were coming,” said Jack, and as he turned to Mr. Ridsdale
his eyes expressed eloquently enough the hero-worship that is so easy to
kindle in young and ingenuous hearts.
“It would be scarcely polite,” said Mr. Ridsdale, “for both of us to
desert Lady Beckford.”
“No,” said Jack; “but I wish she’d come with us,” and he turned to his
stepmother. “Won’t you change your mind?”
“I really don’t feel up to it, Jack. I’m tired—I’ve had a headache since
the day before yesterday.”
“It might drive the headache away,” said Jack, eagerly. “They say it’s a
tip-top piece.”
His stepmother and his tutor both smiled as they looked at his bright
and animated face. Lady Beckford’s smile was simply affectionate; Mr.
Ridsdale’s was indulgent and patronising.
“A rousing melodrama, Jack! All noise and stamping.”
“Yes,” cried Jack, enthusiastically. “Murder and sudden death—just what
I like.”
“But not,” said Mr. Ridsdale, “exactly indicated as a cure for a
headache.”
“Well, if I can’t persuade you——” and Jack turned to Yates, the butler.
“Has George changed his things?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I’ll be off.” Jack pushed his plate away with a gesture that
elegant Mr. Ridsdale could not approve of. It was too childish for a boy
of fourteen—a little more polish required, in spite of so much
polishing. “Good night,” and Jack kissed Lady Beckford. “I shan’t say
good night to you, Mr. Ridsdale, because you won’t have turned in before
I get back, will you?”
“No; I’ll sit up for you,” and Mr. Ridsdale, smiling, spoke with rather
strained facetiousness. “I’ll be waiting to hear how the heroine was
extricated from her misfortunes, how the villain got scored off by the
funny man, and how virtue triumphed all round in the end. There! Cut
along. Your escort is waiting for you.”
Master Jack hurried gaily from the dining-room, and his boyish voice
sounded for a few moments as he prattled to the footman. Then the hall
door of the flat opened and shut, and the two elders were left alone to
finish their dinner at leisure.
“Ah!” Mr. Ridsdale drew in his breath with a little sigh, and, looking
at his hostess, spoke quietly and meditatively. “I know you often read
people’s thoughts, but I wonder if you could guess what I’m thinking
now?”
“I’ll try, if you like. You were thinking that perhaps, after all, Jack
is too young still for the rough-and-tumble life of a big school.”
“Oh, no,” said Mr. Ridsdale, carelessly. “Jack’ll do all right. They’ll
soon lick him into shape. No”—and his tone softened and deepened, though
he was speaking almost in a whisper—“no; I was thinking this is the last
night of my—my holidays; possibly the last time I shall ever sit in this
pleasant room, or see you wearing that beautiful dress, or hear you
playing classical music, that I don’t understand, but love to listen
to.”
Truly it seemed a pleasant room, a remarkably pleasant room for a London
flat. The evening was just cold enough to justify a fire, and small logs
of wood in a basket grate sent dancing flames to light up the oak panels
of the walls; electric lamps flashed brightly on silver and glass; a
golden basket of peaches and another of grapes made the table appear a
symbolised announcement of ease, luxury, even of sumptuousness; the
butler, moving to and fro so promptly and yet so sedately, offered one
delicate food and stimulating wine. It was all very, very pleasant.
Pretty things wherever one glanced—a mirror in a sculptured frame, some
blue and white china on a long shelf, and, seen faintly, with the
electric light just indicating their existence, rows of handsomely bound
books behind latticed glass; altogether what would be described in stage
language as a charming interior.
Any tutor, accustomed to the hard seats and coarse fare of a school
hall, might feel regret at leaving such a room irrevocably, and might
long afterwards yearn to see again the pretty things that it contained.
But just now Mr. Ridsdale was looking only at his hostess, and he
repeated the compliment about her dress.
“I admire you in that more than in any of the others,” he said, softly,
and rather sorrowfully.
“Because it is black, I suppose. It’s quite old. But men always like
black dresses. My husband does.”
The dress was made of velvet, with some silver decoration across the
front of the bodice, and it certainly appeared becoming. In it Cynthia
Beckford looked very slim and young; fair-haired, but dark-eyed,
naturally pale, but with a rapid flicker of colour; a person of frank,
kind outlook, a simple and truthful sort of person, and yet with
underlying depths of character or sensibility that proved astoundingly
interesting to the few people who had studied her closely. Frenchmen
would describe her beauty, such as it was, as belonging to the order
that slowly troubles rather than quickly fascinates.
“But I’m not like the General,” said Mr. Ridsdale. “I admire _that_
black dress, not _any_ black dress.”
He said it with a perceptible insistence, quietly but obstinately; as if
conscious of subtle values in his own taste, and unwilling that it
should be confounded with the ordinary likes and dislikes of another
person—even though that person were as worthy and respectable as his
temporary employer.
Mr. Ridsdale was a good-looking man of thirty, tall and thin, of easy
carriage and elegant manners. Boys, big and small, among whom he had
passed the better part of his life, always looked up to him, and
sometimes adored him, as a perfect type of school-trained manhood; and
girls, too, were frequently subjugated by his charms. He was the sort of
man who is not as a rule dreaded by other men as likely to prove a
dangerous rival; and yet one might well suppose that in certain
circumstances he would be dangerous—for instance, if paying slow and
unhindered court to a foolish and otherwise neglected woman. The dark
eyes, the smooth, silky voice, the insidious flattery of its softening
tones, might all be effective in a protracted attack on feminine
foolishness of a certain age.
“To-morrow,” he said, dreamily; “to-morrow—almost to-day,” and he sighed
as he took a peach from the gold basket.
Yates, the butler, had put cigarettes and matches on the table, and was
about to leave the room, when the outer bell rang shrilly and sharply.
“Who can that be?” said Ridsdale, looking up. “A visitor! Oh, do tell
him to say you’re not at home.”
The butler paused, waiting for instructions.
“It can’t be a visitor,” said Cynthia Beckford. “Some tradesman’s
messenger!”
“It may be old Lady Jane.”
“She wouldn’t come so late as this.”
“I don’t know,” said Ridsdale, eagerly. “She comes at all hours. With
your headache she would bore you to death.” He leaned forward in his
chair and spoke very softly. “And, remember, my last evening! You—you
promised that you would play to me.”
Cynthia Beckford hesitated a moment, and then told the butler that she
was not at home.
“Yes, my lady. Not at home to anybody?”
“No.”
The flicker of colour showed in her pale cheeks as she added
explanatorily to Ridsdale, “It can’t be anybody of importance.”
Mr. Ridsdale sat listening. Then he got up, and spoke with an impatience
that he did not attempt to conceal.
“That fool has let some one in—a man!”
Yes, a man’s heavy footstep in the hall, and a man’s voice—loud and
assured, not making polite inquiries, but issuing curt directions.
“I have left my tackle and luggage at Euston. Get a cab presently and go
and fetch it. Take this ticket.”
“Yes, Sir John. Her ladyship is in the dining-room.”
“Open the door, then.”
Cynthia Beckford ran across the room to meet her husband; but,
encumbered with a hand-bag and a travelling-rug, he was not able at once
to accept her welcoming embrace.
“Well, Cynthia, my dear! Ridsdale, my dear fellow, how are you? But
where’s Jack?”
General Beckford put his hand-bag on a chair by the sideboard, dropped
his rug upon the floor, and, coming to the table, took Master Jack’s
vacated seat.
“We have sent him to a theatre,” said Cynthia, “with George. I’d no idea
that you were coming home, of course.”
“Oh, I see. Gone to the play—with George?”
“We were all three going,” said Mr. Ridsdale, “but Lady Beckford had a
headache, so I strongly advised her to stay at home,” and he smiled.
“Rather fortunate—or you would have had a double disappointment.”
“It would have been my own fault,” and the General smiled too. “I ought
to have sent you a telegram, Cynthia.”
“What has brought you back so unexpectedly?”
“Impulse.”
“Fish not rising?” asked Ridsdale.
“No. Wretchedly poor sport. So this morning I suddenly made up my mind
that I’d had enough of it, and that home, sweet home, was the place for
me. Well, well, what about the home news?”
Cynthia Beckford was instructing Yates as to her husband’s dinner, but
the General declared that he had eaten all he wanted in the train.
“I can’t call it dinner,” and he laughed good-humouredly. “But nothing
more, thank you—unless perhaps a biscuit and a whisky-and-soda. Now, sit
ye down. Don’t let me disturb you. Go on with your dessert, Ridsdale—and
then I’ll join you in a cigarette, if my lady permits us,” and he bowed
to his wife with the antiquated air of courtesy that always seems so odd
in these free-and-easy times.
They sat together, talking of Jack’s health, his progress, his future
career; and Mr. Ridsdale was able to speak most favourably of his
pupil’s prospects.
“Capital,” said the General. “I’m enormously indebted to you, Ridsdale.
You seem to have done wonders. But I knew you would; I knew the boy was
in good hands—— Seen much of Aunt Jane?” he asked his wife, abruptly.
“Yes.” Cynthia was looking at the painted decoration on her
dessert-plate, and she answered slowly. “Yes; Aunt Jane was with us at
Lynton for a fortnight—quite a fortnight.”
“I know; but I mean after that. She is in London, isn’t she?”
Then Cynthia smilingly confessed that the long fortnight in Devonshire
had exhausted the attraction of Lady Jane’s society, and that she had
lately avoided it.
“She is too kind for words, but”—Cynthia looked at her husband
deprecatingly—“dear Aunt Jane can be rather boring.”
The General laughed tolerantly.
“Ah, no companion for _you_. She belongs to another generation.” His
bushy eyebrows contracted and his voice became grave. “_My_ generation.
We old folk are poor companions.”
“She doesn’t belong to your generation.” Cynthia flushed, and her lips
trembled. She put out her hand and laid it on her husband’s arm. “You
are the best of companions—a companion that I have missed dreadfully.”
“There!” General Beckford laughed gaily. “Did you hear that, Ridsdale?
That’s the sort of thing we old chaps like—even if we aren’t vain enough
to think we deserve it. Leave that where it is, Yates.”
Yates was about to remove the hand-bag and take it to his master’s room.
“Very good, Sir John.”
“And you can go to Euston now—no hurry. Take a bus.”
“Yes, Sir John.”
“Smoking permitted?” And the General bowed again to his wife. “Light
your cigarette, Ridsdale. No, I mustn’t have any coffee on top of whisky
and soda.”
The little group at the table sat comfortably enough and talked lightly
and easily. But somehow the presence of General Beckford had destroyed
the graceful charm of the room.
He looked too big, too rough and shaggy for his delicately pretty
surroundings. His grey hair was rumpled and unbrushed after the journey;
his coarse grey suit suggested wild moorlands and brawling streams; his
whole aspect was savagely picturesque rather than neatly refined.
No contrast could have been greater than that offered by the smooth,
well-brushed, nicely polished young man who sat opposite to him on the
other side of the small round table. The electric light shone upon Mr.
Ridsdale’s black cloth and black silk, his stiff white shirt and soft
white waistcoat, his jewelled buttons, his pearl studs, his butterfly
tie, his white hand fingering a cigarette-tube, his smooth forehead, and
his sleek hair plastered and brushed back with studious art and infinite
care. He seemed elegant, shapely, even beautiful, when you compared him
with his travel-stained, unkempt host.
All the charm had been banished by the new-comer. It was another room
now. And the ugly hand-bag on the distant chair seemed like an
aggressive symbol of proprietorship. It seemed to be saying that,
although one might wish the General at the deuce, one could not ask him
to go there, because in sober fact the room belonged to him.
Yet, to an understanding eye, there was something noble and knightlike
about the man; the ruggedness seemed blended with a certain fine
simplicity, and even the old-fashioned tricks of manner and speech, by
removing him from the commonplace mode of the hour, served to stimulate
an effort to get at the man’s real character. Certainly no _poseur_—a
direct, straightforward creature. On reflection one might perhaps guess
that a young romantic girl, whose imagination had been fired by the
splendour of his fighting life, his deeds of daring, and so forth, could
quite conceivably be cajoled into giving her untried heart to him.
“One more question, Cynthia.” The conversation had languished while the
General puffed at his second cigarette. “How’s the music? Have you been
assiduous in your practice?”
“Yes; I’ve played nearly every evening.”
Mr. Ridsdale was conscious of an irksome constraint. Two are company and
three are none. Deciding to leave the husband and wife together, he
pushed back his chair and got up.
But the General would not let him go.
“No, no,” he said. “Sit ye down, my dear fellow.” Then to his wife: “If
the headache isn’t too bad, play something this evening. Run over your
latest studies. Ridsdale and I will follow you directly.”
Cynthia Beckford rose obediently and turned towards the drawing-room
door. Her husband reached the door before Mr. Ridsdale could get to it,
and he held it open for her, bowing low as she passed out.
“There!” He had switched on the light in the other room, and he stood in
the doorway watching her. “Now delight our ears with your deft touch.”
Lady Beckford seated herself at the piano and began to play a plaintive
and dreamy prelude by Bach.
“Beautiful! Your hand has not lost its cunning. Now go on playing—and
don’t think me ungallant if for a few minutes I close the door. A word
or two with Ridsdale—on business. But we shall hear you, even through
the door.” Then he gently, and as if regretfully, shut the drawing-room
door and came back to the table.
“Ridsdale”—and there was an apologetic tone in the General’s lowered
voice—“that wasn’t quite honest of me. A ruse! I asked her to play the
piano because I didn’t want her to disturb us—and I didn’t want her to
hear what we were saying.”
“Oh, really?” Ridsdale smiled, and glanced at the closed door.
“A confidence! I may trust you, mayn’t I?”
“Of course.”
“Implicitly, eh? But that goes without saying. I _have_ trusted you so
greatly already, haven’t I? The boy to consign him to your guidance.
Well, you know what he is to me. I couldn’t have better shown the faith
I had in you——”
“You’re very kind, General. I—I’ve done my best with him.”
“Exactly. But—well, this isn’t about the boy. It’s about myself. I am in
trouble.”
“Really?”
“I wasn’t honest, either, in my explanation of why I came hurrying home.
No, Ridsdale, it wasn’t a sudden caprice. I had serious reasons for
coming.”
“Oh, had you?”
“Yes. I am in great trouble.” And the General looked at Ridsdale keenly,
as if seeking in his impassive face some expression of sympathy or
encouragement; then he dropped his eyes and paused before he continued
speaking. “I wonder if I ought to tell you? Yes, I will. You are one of
ourselves. We have _made_ you one of ourselves—something more than an
acquaintance—a _friend_, eh? Yes, I’ll tell you the whole thing.”
“I am all attention.”
“Thank you.”
From the other room came the sound of Cynthia’s plaintive melody, and,
half-consciously listening to it, the General seemed to have transferred
its wistful cadence to his own voice. His manner had changed completely.
He looked preternaturally grave and sad, as he sat frowning at the
tablecloth and tracing a small circle of its pattern with a strong brown
finger, while he murmured his story.
“No, Ridsdale, what brought me home was a letter—a warning letter—about
my wife.”
“Before you tell me any more, may I say this? As a schoolmaster I often
have to deal with anonymous letters, and my experience has convinced me
that the only thing to do with them is just to chuck them into the——”
“Just so. But this wasn’t an anonymous letter.”
“No?”
“No. The writer is a tried friend—a person of my own blood. I have the
letter in my pocket here, but I won’t bother you to read it. The warning
conveyed was simple enough. It amounted to this: I was to guard my wife
carefully if I did not want to risk losing her—because a man was
attacking my peace and honour.”
“Oh, I say”—Mr. Ridsdale spoke indignantly—“it would be an insult to
Lady Beckford not to treat such a communication with the absolute
contempt and——”
“But, my dear Ridsdale,” said the General, sombrely, “it is the
communication that I have always prepared myself to receive, that I have
been expecting to receive at any hour in the last few years.”
“Nothing,” said Mr. Ridsdale, firmly, “would persuade me to suspect Lady
Beckford of——”
“No, no, of course not. Please leave her out of it. I’m not thinking of
her. I’m thinking only of myself—the attempted blow to _me_.”
“You shouldn’t for one moment believe——”
“Why not?” said the General, sadly. “One is vain, but there are limits
to one’s vanity. One hopes just at first, perhaps—but later one begins
to think and to understand. You know, with Cynthia and me, it was a
convenient marriage—although it wasn’t a marriage of convenience.”
“Indeed, no—I know that well.”
“Regard—and more than regard—entered into it. But there was the
difference of years. At my age one has not the adaptability of youth;
one cannot change one’s ways, even if one wishes to. So I foresaw that
with marriages of that sort a crisis sooner or later comes. Well, our
crisis has come.”
“I—I am sure you are mistaken.”
“You heard what she said about Lady Jane boring her. Well, _I_ bore her.
Recently she has shown it plainly. In fact, that is why I went away—not
to give myself, but to give her, a holiday.”
“My good sir,” said Mr. Ridsdale, earnestly, almost irritably, “I can
assure you she has spoken of you every day in the most affectionate
terms—regretting your absence, saying how she missed you, and so on.”
“Has she?” said the General, with a sigh. “That may have been from a
sense of duty—contrition—remorse. Pity for the old fogey whose presence
could but weary her.”
He got up, went to the drawing-room door, and opened it.
“Thank you, Cynthia. Charming! Don’t stop playing. Please go on,” and he
shut the door again.
Ridsdale, rising from the table also, had gone to the fireplace. He
pulled out a cambric handkerchief, and rubbed the palms of his hands
with it. Then he put his hands in his pockets, and, standing with his
back to the fire, turned towards the General, politely attentive to, if
not cordially sympathetic with, the General’s doubts and fears.
“Now, look here, Ridsdale, that’s all about it. I’ve given you the
facts, and I ask you to help me.”
“Delighted. But how could I possibly——”
“Help me to find the man.”
“Why, I don’t believe he exists.”
“Oh, yes, he does.”
“Did your friend give you no hints—of any kind?”
“None whatever.”
“Ah, just what I thought! Believe me, it’s some ridiculous
misapprehension.”
“No; my informant is not a fool, or a person who supposes that I am
lightly to be trifled with.”
The General’s manner had changed again. The sadness had gone from his
eyes and the wistfulness from his voice. Pride was the note that sounded
now in the carefully suppressed voice. He squared his big shoulders,
threw back his massive head, and, indeed, looked somebody who would be
extremely unlikely to be trifled with, either by chance acquaintances or
old friends.
“I am a soldier, and I think as soldiers used to think in the bygone
days, when we were taught that we ought to harden our thoughts until
they become as undeviating as instincts. If I’m called upon to guard and
defend something placed in my charge, the thought of what to do _is_ an
instinct—to go out and meet the danger half-way. The safest method of
defence is to deal promptly with the enemy that threatens. Now, where is
the enemy? Help me if you can. His name has been withheld from me—for
obvious reasons”—and the General snorted scornfully. “I am advised to be
moderate, to avoid a scandal. It was a woman who wrote to me. It was
Lady Jane”—and he gave another snort. “She didn’t want to make
mischief—as she calls it—and she implores me not to be old-fashioned.
But I _am_ old-fashioned—I’m not ashamed of it either—so old-fashioned
that when I have found my man I shall force him to give me
satisfaction.”
“A duel?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Ridsdale laughed deprecatingly.
“That’s all very well; but, really, Sir John, you can’t put back the
clock quite so far as that. This is 1912, not 1812, you know.”
“I don’t care whether it is or it isn’t.”
Though he did not raise his voice, the General spoke with so much
intensity that Ridsdale started.
“That may be; but—ah—Sir John, you won’t easily get—ah—other people to
share your opinions.”
“I’ll get _him_ to share them, and that’ll be enough for me. Ridsdale,
you’re not a woman—_you_ needn’t take your cue from Lady Jane and urge
moderation. At least you can guess at what I’m feeling.”
“Yes; but I think without cause—quite without cause.”
“This century or the last, it must be the same code when things dearer
than life are at stake. That’s how I feel. So you may guess if I’ll
follow the mode of 1912, and seek aid from a private detective office,
or ask for reparation in a court of law.”
“No, I’d never suggest that you should. What I beg you—what your best
friend of either sex would beg you—is not to do anything rash, not to
excite yourself needlessly.”
In truth, General Beckford was exciting himself. His voice vibrated
harshly; one could see the immense effort required to keep it at its low
pitch. He stared and glared, shook his shaggy hair, and looked
altogether like some grey old lion who had been brought to bay in a
cruel hunt, and was ready to spring upon his closest tormentors.
“All right, Ridsdale. But help me, don’t preach to me. There, I swear
I’ll do nothing without thought. I _have_ thought. I have thought it all
out. Bring me face to face with my enemy. I answer for the rest. Now,
who is he? We don’t know so many people, she and I. Help me to run over
their names, or, better still, use your brains on my behalf. She has
been more or less under your observation lately. You must have seen her
comings and goings—the people she was in touch with. Have you observed
anything suspicious?”
“No; nothing whatever.”
“Some too attentive visitor?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter.” The General shook his grey mane and paced to and
fro. “I’ll find him unassisted,” and he stopped abruptly. “Ridsdale, so
surely as I stand here, I’ll find that man, and compel him to satisfy
me.”
Ridsdale drew out the cambric handkerchief and passed it across his
forehead. Then he laughed lightly. “General, please forgive me for
laughing. But really when any one is so carried away by excitement—well,
you yourself will laugh to-morrow when you remember the wild things you
have said in your excitement.”
“You think that the fellow perhaps isn’t a gentleman, and that he may
try to refuse?”
“I think that, whether he is a gentleman or not, he will certainly
refuse to break the law of the land at your bidding.”
“Yes; but I’m prepared.” And the General smiled grimly, and spoke with a
kind of sly triumph. “I shall ignore his refusal. I shall put a pistol
into his hand and _make_ him fight.”
“I doubt it.”
“An unloaded revolver! Ridsdale, don’t you see? I’ll give him an
unloaded revolver, with six cartridges. I’ll have the same myself—and
I’ll begin to load. When he sees me load he’ll know that he must do
something if he means to save his skin. When he sees me load my weapon,
_he’ll load his weapon too_. I shall watch him as a cat watches a mouse.
If he raises his arm, up goes mine. If he fires, I fire. We bang at each
other at the same moment.”
“Impossible.”
“Why impossible? If I get him alone he can’t help himself.”
“He’d treat you as a madman—give you in charge to the nearest
policeman.”
“Oh, no, he wouldn’t. I’d get between him and the door.”
“Apart from the fact that it would be murder if you succeeded, you
wouldn’t succeed.”
“I should. You don’t know how the pressure of immediate peril quickens
people’s movements. Point by point I’d press him down the line I meant
him to take. It’s so simple—not a weak spot in the infallible logic of
the thing. The clock would be put back as rapidly as if destiny moved
its hands.”
Ridsdale laughed again, very lightly.
“Look here,” said the General, eagerly, “try it. You don’t understand
what I mean. Let me show you what I mean. Act it with me.”
“Act it? I—I don’t follow.”
“Rehearse it. Let me show you how it works. We’ll go through it point by
point—and if you can show me a weak spot, I’ll thank you with all my
heart.”
As he spoke, eagerly and enthusiastically, but still almost in a
whisper, the General had hurried across to the chair that held his ugly
leather bag.
“See here!” He had opened his bag, and the electric light flashed upon
the bright metal of a pistol. “Here—another one,” and the light flashed
again. “A revolver for him and for me. Now help me to rehearse the
trick. Here. Take your weapon. You see it’s open at the breech.”
He had come to the fireplace and was offering one of the two revolvers.
Mr. Ridsdale hesitated about taking it. “Really, you know, General, I
doubt if I ought to encourage you in——”
“Catch hold. You’re not afraid of firearms, are you?” And the General
smiled.
“No, of course not.”
Mr. Ridsdale took the pistol, and the General hurried across the room to
the door that led into the hall.
“Watch me carefully,” he whispered. “I am locking this door.”
For the second time the aspect of the pleasant, comfortable room had
altered; the prettiest things in it looked ungraceful, grim, forbidding;
its atmosphere—even the air one breathed—was different. What was
happening in the room seemed dream-like, grotesque, quite unreal; and
this sense of unreality involved one’s perception of the material,
unaltered world outside the room. The sounds of music floated towards
one as if from an immeasurable distance.
But probably the queer notion of unsubstantiality in surrounding objects
was directly caused by the strangeness and oddness of the General’s
antics. He was no longer himself; he was a person acting a part—as it
would be acted on a brilliantly lighted stage.
“See!” he whispered, as he came creeping back towards the leather bag.
“I have manœuvred you into the worst possible position. I have cut you
off from escape. That door is locked. This door I guard.”
One could hear one’s heart beating above the far-off ripple of the
music.
“Watch me,” said the General. “Never take your eyes off my hands. See!
Here are six cartridges—and I put them down, so—on your side of the
table.” He stepped back swiftly and cautiously. “See! Here are six
cartridges for me—on my side of the table.” And he sprang away, to his
old post in front of the drawing-room door. “It is all fair play. I give
as good a chance as I take myself. We stand at equal lengths from our
ammunition. You follow it all, don’t you? You catch my meaning?”
Mr. Ridsdale, staring at his empty revolver, nodded.
“Very well. Now, if you value your life, prepare to defend it. See! I am
going to load.”
The General’s acting was rather good. Deriving stimulus from his natural
emotions, he achieved some fine artistic effects. His flushed face, his
bent brows, his fierce attitude and swift movements, indicated the
determination of implacable wrath.
[Illustration: “‘The coward!’ she wailed. ‘The miserable coward!’”
(page 49).]
And Ridsdale, too, represented his assumed character well enough. His
cheeks were livid, his breath came gaspingly, the hand that carried the
revolver shook perceptibly—altogether an excellent simulation of
surprise, apprehensive doubts, if not of craven fear.
“One!”
The General had crept to the table, taken a cartridge, and was slipping
it into the chamber.
“There!” he whispered. “Automatically you have done it too. I told you
so. Wait! Lift your hand at your peril. My turn. Two!”
Ridsdale, copying the General’s slightest movement, was loading as the
General loaded.
“Three! That’s it. Three left. When you take the last, step back. I’ll
not raise my arm till you are back on the hearth. I swear it. Four!”
The music had ceased, but neither of them noticed. In a silence broken
only by the sound of panting respirations, they loaded the fifth and
sixth cartridges, and simultaneously sprang away from the table.
“Now!” The General had been the quicker. His arm was up. “Now answer
me.” The ferocity in the hissing words was terrible to hear. “Are you
the man?”
“I—I—— Upon my word, I—don’t understand such folly.”
“You blackguard! This is not acting.” The concentrated passion behind
the words seemed to send forth waves that struck one’s beating heart
with flame and ice. “Now answer me, or—so help me, God!—I’ll shoot you.”
Then the drawing-room door opened. The General, instinctively dropping
his arm and turning, shouted at his wife:
“Go back! Go back, I tell you!”
There was a blaze as if all the electric lamps had exploded, and a crash
that seemed to shake the walls. Then again came the flash and the roar.
Mr. Ridsdale had fired twice.
For a moment the room was full of smoke. Then the dusty cloud rose, grew
thin. The lamplight, shining unimpeded, showed General Beckford still
upon his feet, standing square and erect, with Cynthia desperately
clinging to his breast.
“What’s this?” said the General, loudly and sternly. “Has the smoke
blinded you, Cynthia? Why have you come to me? Your place is not here.
Go to your lover’s arms.”
But she clung to him closer. She was stretching her slender figure to
its fullest height, trying to cover his limbs with her limbs, his face
with her face, madly straining to make a shield of trembling flesh large
enough to protect him from danger.
“The coward!” she wailed. “The miserable coward! He shot at you when you
weren’t looking. He tried to kill you!”
“Then get out of the way,” said the General, “and let him try again.
Can’t you see how you’re hampering him? This is his chance and yours.
Don’t spoil it. Let him set you free.”
But Cynthia only trembled, sobbed, and clung.
“Very well,” and the General laughed harshly. “We have been interrupted,
and my opponent must kindly understand that his chance is gone. Cynthia,
do you hear? He won’t shoot again. Now, stop whimpering, and answer me.”
“Yes, I want to tell you everything.”
“Is this man your lover?”
“No—no.”
“But he has endeavoured to be?”
“Yes.”
“Then why has he remained here?”
“I was afraid to send him away.”
“Why? What were you afraid of?”
“You. I thought if you knew you’d do something dreadful.”
It was curious, but it seemed as if suddenly these two—the husband and
the wife—were quite alone. If the man they spoke of had been swept a
thousand miles from the room, they could not have disregarded him more
completely than they did now. Cynthia had linked her hands round the
General’s neck; she was looking up into his stern, unflinching eyes, her
voice was strong and clear as she answered each question.
“When did he first insult you?”
“Two days ago.”
“But you knew what he meant before that?”
“No, I didn’t. I knew he admired me—and I thought it rather amusing; but
I never dreamed he would dare. And then, when he did dare, I thought if
you heard or guessed it would be too dreadful. I blamed myself—yes, I
blamed myself. But I thought it was only two days, and then he’d be gone
for ever—with no fuss and no scandal. My darling, don’t you believe me?”
“Is there nothing else to tell?”
The General was glaring down into his wife’s eyes.
“Before God, that is all. Oh, don’t you believe me?”
“Before God, I do.”
Very gently Sir John released himself from the clinging hands, held one
of them for a moment; then, bowing ceremoniously, kissed it.
“Mr. Ridsdale!” His manner was perfectly calm as he turned to the
ignored guest, and he spoke quietly but heavily, with an old-fashioned
style of humour that was too pompous to be quite successful. “My wife
called you a coward just now; but, honestly, I could not apologise if
she had called you a fool as well. Those are blank cartridges that we
have been playing with. Oh, yes, it would have been dangerous otherwise.
But I’m always careful. In fact, when I have to deal with gentlemen of
your kidney, I’m almost as afraid of firearms as you are yourself. And,
à propos, the hall door is open I didn’t really lock it.”
Mr. Ridsdale silently crossed the room.
“Then good night to you. Yates will be back directly, and when he has
packed your things, where shall he take them?”
“Ah—er—say, the St. Pancras Hotel.”
“And I may send your cheque to that address? Thank you. Good night!”
_The_ Veil _of_ Flying Water
_By_ Theodore Goodridge Roberts
_1st Canadian Expeditionary Force_
I
In those days an active man could not keep on friendly terms with
everybody. If he acted honestly by his own clan, or his own village, he
was sure to be in bad odour with some other clan or tribe. So it was
with Walking Moose, a young chief of that clan of the Maliseets that had
a white salmon for its totem.
This Walking Moose was chief of a sub-tribe that had its habitation and
hunting-grounds far to the west, within twenty miles of the source of
old Woolastook. Here the great river, beloved of Gluskap and his
children, which advances seaward so placidly throughout the latter half
of its course, dashes between walls of rock and gloomy curtains of
spruce-trees that cling with brown, exposed roots that suggest the
gripping fingers of giants. Rapids of twisting green and writhing white
clang and shout in its narrow valley. Here and there are amber pools and
green-black eddies; here and there a length of shallows that flashes
silver and gold at noon; and here is that roaring place where the river
leaps a sheer fall of thirty feet in one unbroken white curve—the Veil
of Flying Water.
This is a rough country, full of shaggy forests and broken hills alive
with game, and swift water alive with fish; and in the days of Walking
Moose the Mohawks had their black lodges of undressed hides close to its
western borders. The Mohawks were the age-old enemies of the Maliseets.
Before Walking Moose grew to manhood and power, the peace-loving
Maliseets had been content to flee down river and seek the protection of
the larger villages whenever word came to them that the Mohawks
contemplated a raid. Walking Moose was not content to flee periodically
from his good hunting-grounds, however, and so the enmity of the raiders
became bitter against him. Walking Moose hemmed three sides of his
village with a tangle of fallen trees—the river kept the fourth
side—lopped the upper and outer branches of these prostrate trees to
within three or four feet of the trunks, and sharpened the ends and
hardened them with fire. Also, he dug pits and covered them with brush,
and set up many sharp posts in unexpected places. These things were
good, but Walking Moose was not satisfied. He brought twenty families
from one of the more sheltered villages, built lodges for them within
his defences, and gave them equal rights of hunting with the older
villagers. During that summer the Mohawks came three times, and three
times they went away without so much as a scalp or a back-load of smoked
salmon. During the winter Walking Moose’s men were busy at making
shields and weapons; and late in March, when the depths of snow were
covered with a tough crust, a war party of the people of the White
Salmon went swiftly to the westward and fell upon and destroyed a
village of the Mohawks. But the only men who died at the hands of the
victors were those who fell fighting. No prisoners were made on that
occasion. The women and children were not harmed, the lodges and
storehouses were spared. Only the weapons of the warriors were taken.
“We do not want your food and furs,” said Walking Moose, “for we have
plenty of our own. We do not want your women, for we have better women
of our own.”
Then he returned to his own country, with the victorious warriors at his
heels. Some of these warriors had to be drawn on toboggans; a few
remained behind, their spirits sped to even finer hunting-grounds than
those of their nativity.
Walking Moose’s first raid into the land of the Mohawks made a deep
impression on that warlike people. History contained no record of any
previous outrage of the kind. In the old, old days Gluskap had smitten
the Mohawks on more than one occasion, so tradition said, but to be
smitten with magic by a god and victoriously invaded by Maliseets were
misfortunes of a very different nature. The warriors were furious, and
the insulting fact that Walking Moose had left their lodges standing,
their storehouses full, and their families beside them added to their
fury. They bandaged their wounds, put their dead away, and sent the only
uninjured man of the village to carry the outrageous news westward and
raise a war-party. But worse than this was planned. Hawk-in-the-Tree,
the daughter of the chief of the defeated village, brooded darkly over
the scornful words of Walking Moose. His gaze had been upon her face
when he had said, “We do not want your women, for we have better women
of our own.” Yes, his gaze had been fair upon the face of
Hawk-in-the-Tree, and she was the woman whom three great chiefs wanted
in marriage, many warriors had fought for, and Long Tongue had made
songs about. She sat in her father’s lodge and thought of the words of
the young Maliseet and recalled the look in his eyes. Her slim hands
were clasped tightly in her lap, her small, sleek head was bowed
demurely, and her beautiful eyes were upon the beaded hem of her skirt
of dressed moosehide. A tender pink shone in her dusky cheeks, her red
lips were parted in a faint smile, but there was no mirth in her vain
and angry heart.
[Illustration: “He saw a girl’s face looking timidly out, and a pair of
dark eyes gazing shyly down upon him” (page 54).]
Walking Moose was unmarried. All his thoughts were given to the pursuit
of power—of power for himself and his tribe. He was great in the chase,
and greater on the warpath. His mind and hand were at once subtle and
daring. Though he forgot the words he had said about the women of the
Mohawk village, he remembered everything else that he had said and done
on that expedition; and so he suspected that the enemy would strike back
before long, with all their strength and cunning. He sent swift runners
down river with word of his raid and victory. These returned after five
days with a band of daring young braves from the more sheltered villages
of the tribe—adventurous spirits who were attracted by the promise of
warfare against the Mohawks under a successful leader. Walking Moose
welcomed these reinforcements cordially.
It was not until all the snow was gone from the hills and the ice from
the river that the Mohawks returned Walking Moose’s call. They had
planned their arrival for the dark hours between midnight and dawn, but
the sentries brought word of their approach to Walking Moose, and so it
happened that instead of their finding him in his own lodge, he found
them in a little valley two miles distant from the village. By dawn all
the invaders had vanished save those who had lost command of their legs.
And the Maliseets had vanished from the little valley also, on the trail
of the retreating Mohawks. They followed that trail all day and half the
night, and at last overtook and made an end to that war party. One young
man escaped, one whose lungs were stronger than his heart. He carried
word of the disaster throughout the Mohawk country.
Spring passed and summer came. The village of which Walking Moose was
chief enjoyed quiet and security. The warriors of the White Salmon
carried on their fishing in all the swift brooks and rivers, but they
kept their shields and war clubs beside them, and far-sighted runners
were on guard in the hills, day and night.
In the Mohawk country quiet reigned also. But it was a sinister,
brooding quiet. Big chiefs met and parted, only to meet again. Rage
gnawed them, but they were afraid to strike openly at the strong village
of the Maliseets. About this time, Hawk-in-the-Tree spoke to her father,
standing modestly before him with her glance cast down at her beaded
moccasins.
“The strength of that village is all in the head and heart of Walking
Moose,” she said.
“It is so,” replied the chief.
“Then if death should find him——”
“What death?” returned her father, testily. “The medicine-men have been
questioned in this matter. You are but a squaw, my child, and cannot see
the truth of these things.”
“True, I am but a squaw,” returned Hawk-in-the-Tree, modestly. “But will
not my father tell me the words of the medicine-men?”
So the chief told her what the wise ones of the nation had said about
Walking Moose. He did not know that, as usual, their wise words were
nothing more than a clever fiction to mystify the warriors and retain
the awe of the laity for the dark arts. To soothe the injured pride of
the chiefs they had said that the prowess of Walking Moose was due to
magic; that he could not be killed in battle, or by the spilling of
blood, or by fire; that starvation only could kill him, and that within
bowshot of his own village. It was a clever invention. No wonder the
chiefs and warriors were puzzled and impressed.
“To be starved within bowshot of his own village?” repeated
Hawk-in-the-Tree, reflectively. “Then he must first be caught and
bound—then hidden in a place where his warriors cannot find him.”
“It is so,” replied the chief.
Hawk-in-the-Tree drew him into the lodge. The scornful words and
heedless glance of the Maliseet were hot and clear in her memory. She
talked to her father for a long time. He smiled sneeringly at first, but
after a while he began to nod his head.