MOSTYN RAY'S LOVE STORY
In a dark corner of the library, sitting motionless before a small
writing-desk, I found the Duke. The table was littered all over with
papers, a ledger or two and various documents. I had met Mr. Hulshaw,
the agent to the estates, in the drive, so I judged that the two had had
business together.
The Duke had not greeted me on my entrance, and he seemed to be asleep
in his chair. But at the sound of the electric bell, which announced
the opening of the safe, he turned sharply round.
"Is that you, Ducaine?"
"Yes, your Grace," I answered.
"What are you doing there?"
"I have brought up the first batch of copy, sir," I answered.
"You have sealed it properly?"
"With Lord Chelsford's seal, sir," I told him.
He turned round in his chair sharply.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Lord Chelsford gave me an old signet ring before he left, sir," I said,
"with a very peculiar design. I wear it attached by a chain to an iron
bracelet round my arm."
"Let me see it," the Duke ordered.
I took off my coat, and baring my arm, showed him the ring hanging by a
few inches of strong chain from the bracelet. He examined the design
curiously.
"How do you detach it?" he asked.
"I cannot detach it, sir," I answered. "The bracelet has a Bramah lock,
and Lord Chelsford has the key. He used to wear it many years ago when
he was Queen's messenger."
The Duke examined the ring long and searchingly. Then he looked from it
into my face.
"You mean to say that you cannot take that off?"
"A locksmith might, sir. I certainly could not."
The Duke shrugged his shoulders.
"Chelsford's methods seem to me to savour a little of _opera bouffe_,"
he remarked drily. "For my own part I believe that these marvellous
documents would be perfectly safe in the unlocked drawer of my desk. I
do not believe any of these stories which come from Paris about copies
of our work being in existence. I do not wish you to be careless, of
course, but don't overdo your precautions. This place is scarcely so
much a nest of conspirators as faddists like Chelsford and Ray would
have us believe."
"I am glad to hear that you think so, sir," I answered. "Our
precautions do seem a little elaborate, but it is quite certain that the
Winchester papers were disturbed."
"I do not choose to believe it, Ducaine," the Duke said irritably.
"Kindly remember that!"
"Very good, sir," I answered. "There is nothing else you wish to say to
me?"
"There is something else," the Duke answered coldly. "I understand that
the police yesterday, on a sworn affidavit, were granted a search
warrant to examine your premises for stolen property. What the devil is
the meaning of this?"
"I think, sir," I answered, "that the stolen property was a pretext. It
seems that during the last few days has come to light that the man whose
body I found on the sands was not washed in from the sea, but was a
stranger, who had arrived in Braster the previous evening, and had made
inquiries as to where I lived. It seems to be the desire of the police,
therefore, to connect me in some way with the affair."
The Duke looked at me searchingly.
"I presume," he said, "that they had something in the nature of
evidence, or they would scarcely have been able to swear the affidavit
for the search warrant."
"They have nothing more direct, sir, than that the body was found close
to my cottage, that he had presumably left Braster to see me, and that I
was foolish enough to persuade the person, of whom the dead man made
these inquiries in Braster, not to come forward at the inquest."
"Stop! Stop!" the Duke said irritably. "You did what?"
"The young woman of whom he inquired was close at hand when I discovered
the body of the man," I said. "She told me about him. I was a little
upset, and I suggested that there was no necessity for her to disclose
the fact of having seen him."
"It was a remarkably foolish thing of you to do," the Duke said.
"I am realizing it now, sir," I answered.
"Did this person call on you at all?" the Duke asked.
"No, sir. You may remember that it was the night of Colonel Ray's
lecture. He called to see me on his way back and found me ill. I
believe that this person looked in at the window and went away. I saw
no more of him alive after this."
"You have some idea, I presume, as to his identity?"
"I have no definite information, your Grace," I answered.
The Duke did not look at me for several moments.
"I am afraid," he said, stiffly, "that you may experience some
inconvenience from this most ill-advised attempt of yours to suppress
evidence which should most certainly have been given at the inquest.
However, I have no doubt that your story is true. I have some inquiries
now before me from the police station. I will do what I can for you.
Good-evening, Ducaine."
"Good-evening, sir," I answered. "I am much obliged to you."
I walked homewards across the park. The carriage had gone from the
private road, and Ray was alone when I entered. It was impossible to
tell what had happened from his expression. He sat stretched out in my
easy chair, smoking furiously, and his face was impassive. Grooton
served us with dinner, and he ate and drank with only a few curt
remarks. But afterwards, when I was deep in my work, he suddenly
addressed me.
"Boy," he then said, "turn round and listen to me."
I obeyed him at once.
"Listen well," he said, "for I am not given to confidences. Yet I am
going to speak to you of the secret places of my life."
I laid down the pen which I had been holding between my fingers, and
turned my chair. I judged that it was not necessary for me to speak,
nor apparently did he think so.
"I have been soldiering all my days," he said, "since I was a child
almost. It is a glorious life. God knows I have never grudged a single
month of it. But when one comes back once more to dwell amongst
civilians one realizes that there is another side to life. It is so
with me. I am not given to doubts or to asking advice from any man.
But the time has come when I have the one and need of the other."
He paused, knocked out some ashes from his pipe, and relighted it.
"I have loved two women in my life, Guy," he went on slowly. "The first
was your mother."
I started a little, but I still held my peace. He looked hard into the
ashes of the fire, and continued.
"I tried my best," he said, "to be a friend to her after her marriage,
and I hope, I think, that I succeeded. I even did my best to fight that
woman's influence with your father at Gibraltar. There I failed. I was
foredoomed to failure! She had the trick of playing what tune she cared
to on a man's heartstrings. After it was all over, and your father and
she had left the place, I spent years trying to persuade your mother to
get a divorce and marry me. But she was the daughter of a Bishop, a
High Churchwoman, and a holy woman. She died with your father's name
upon her lips."
I shuddered! The words were spoken so deliberately, and yet with such
vibrant force.
"After that," Ray continued, "came Egypt, then India, and afterwards
Khartoum. I came home before the last war, and I met Lady Angela. I am
so little of a woman's man that I suppose the girl whom I thought of at
all became like an angel, a creature altogether apart from that sex of
whom I know so little. However that may be, she was the second woman to
hold any place in my--heart--as she most surely will be the last. Then
the war broke out, luck came my way, and I returned with a greater
reputation than I deserved. The very night of my return I asked Lady
Angela to marry me, and she consented."
He puffed vigorously at his pipe, but he seemed wholly ignorant of the
fact that it was out. His face was set in its grimmest lines. He
looked steadily at a certain spot in the fire, and went on.
"There are things," he said, "which troubled me little at the time, but
which just lately have been on my mind. The first is that I am nearly
fifty, and Lady Angela is twenty-one. The second is that I came home
with all the tinsel and glamour of a popular hero. Heaven knows I
loathed it, but the fact remains. The King's reception, the V.C., and
all that sort of thing, I suppose, accounted for it. Anyhow, I am
troubled with this reflection. Lady Angela was very young, and I fear
that her imagination was touched. She accepted my offer, and she has
been very loyal. Until to-night no word of disagreement has passed
between us. But there have been times lately when I have fancied that I
have noticed a change. A time has come now when I could give her back
her freedom without reproach on either side. I want to know whether it
is my duty to give it her back."
Then Ray looked straight into my face, and the colour flamed there, for
I saw now why he had made me his confidant.
"What do you think, Guy? You are only a boy, but you are of her age,
and you have seen a little of her lately. You are only a boy, but then
only boys and novelists understand women. Speak up and tell me what is
in your mind."
"I will tell you this," I answered hotly. "If I were you, and Lady
Angela had promised to be my wife, I would not sit and hatch scruples
about marrying her. I would marry her first, and make her happy
afterwards, and as for the rest--for the questions which you have asked
me, and yet not put into words--I have never heard or seen in Lady
Angela the slightest sign that you were not her lover as well as the man
whom she was engaged to marry. As for my own folly, since you seem to
have noticed it, no one knows better than I that it is the rankest, most
absurd presumption. But with me it begins and ends. That is a most
absolute and certain fact."
Ray rapped his pipe upon the table.
"Listen," he said. "I found you nameless and practically lost. Yet you
have powerful relatives, and your family is equal to the Duke's. There
may be money too some day. Bear these things in mind. Can you repeat
what you have said?"
It was a wild dream--a wonderful one. But, before me I saw the stern
white face of the man, eager for his share of happiness after all these
magnificent years of dauntless service. I forgot my own distrust of
him, his coldness, his brutality. I remembered only those other and
greater things.
"Even were I in such a position," I said, "it would make no difference.
I am sure that Lady Angela is loyal. She has no idea--and it is not
worth while that she should have."
"You would have me marry her, then?" he asked slowly.
"There is only one thing," I said, taking my courage into my hands.
"And that?" he asked sharply.
"That," I answered, "lies between you and your conscience."
He rose to his feet.
"Wait here," he said, "and I will show you my justification."