It is hard luck on a young fellow to have expensive tastes, great
expectations, aristocratic connections, but no actual money in his
pocket, and no profession by which he may earn any. The fact was that my
father, a good, sanguine, easy-going man, had such confidence in the
wealth and benevolence of his bachelor elder brother, Lord Southerton,
that he took it for granted that I, his only son, would never be called
upon to earn a living for myself. He imagined that if there were not a
vacancy for me on the great Southerton Estates, at least there would be
found some post in that diplomatic service which still remains the
special preserve of our privileged classes. He died too early to realize
how false his calculations had been. Neither my uncle nor the State took
the slightest notice of me, or showed any interest in my career. An
occasional brace of pheasants, or basket of hares, was all that ever
reached me to remind me that I was heir to Otwell House and one of the
richest estates in the country. In the meantime, I found myself a
bachelor and man about town, living in a suite of apartments in
Grosvenor Mansions, with no occupation save that of pigeon-shooting and
polo-playing at Hurlingham. Month by month I realized that it was more
and more difficult to get the brokers to renew my bills, or to cash any
further post-obits upon an unentailed property. Ruin lay right across my
path, and every day I saw it clearer, nearer, and more absolutely
unavoidable.
What made me feel my own poverty the more was that, apart from the great
wealth of Lord Southerton, all my other relations were fairly
well-to-do. The nearest of these was Everard King, my father’s nephew
and my own first cousin, who had spent an adventurous life in Brazil,
and had now returned to this country to settle down on his fortune. We
never knew how he made his money, but he appeared to have plenty of it,
for he bought the estate of Greylands, near Clipton-on-the-Marsh, in
Suffolk. For the first year of his residence in England he took no more
notice of me than my miserly uncle; but at last one summer morning, to
my very great relief and joy, I received a letter asking me to come down
that very day and spend a short visit at Greylands Court. I was
expecting a rather long visit to Bankruptcy Court at the time, and this
interruption seemed almost providential. If I could only get on terms
with this unknown relative of mine, I might pull through yet. For the
family credit he could not let me go entirely to the wall. I ordered my
valet to pack my valise, and I set off the same evening for
Clipton-on-the-Marsh.
After changing at Ipswich, a little local train deposited me at a small,
deserted station lying amidst a rolling grassy country, with a sluggish
and winding river curving in and out amidst the valleys, between high,
silted banks, which showed that we were within reach of the tide. No
carriage was awaiting me (I found afterwards that my telegram had been
delayed), so I hired a dog-cart at the local inn. The driver, an
excellent fellow, was full of my relative’s praises, and I learned from
him that Mr. Everard King was already a name to conjure with in that
part of the country. He had entertained the school-children, he had
thrown his grounds open to visitors, he had subscribed to charities—in
short, his benevolence had been so universal that my driver could only
account for it on the supposition that he had Parliamentary ambitions.
My attention was drawn away from my driver’s panegyric by the appearance
of a very beautiful bird which settled on a telegraph-post beside the
road. At first I thought that it was a jay, but it was larger, with a
brighter plumage. The driver accounted for its presence at once by
saying that it belonged to the very man whom we were about to visit. It
seems that the acclimatization of foreign creatures was one of his
hobbies, and that he had brought with him from Brazil a number of birds
and beasts which he was endeavouring to rear in England. When once we
had passed the gates of Greylands Park we had ample evidence of this
taste of his. Some small spotted deer, a curious wild pig known, I
believe, as a peccary, a gorgeously feathered oriole, some sort of
armadillo, and a singular lumbering intoed beast like a very fat badger,
were among the creatures which I observed as we drove along the winding
avenue.
Mr. Everard King, my unknown cousin, was standing in person upon the
steps of his house, for he had seen us in the distance, and guessed that
it was I. His appearance was very homely and benevolent, short and
stout, forty-five years old perhaps, with a round, good-humoured face,
burned brown with the tropical sun, and shot with a thousand wrinkles.
He wore white linen clothes, in true planter style, with a cigar between
his lips, and a large Panama hat upon the back of his head. It was such
a figure as one associates with a verandahed bungalow, and it looked
curiously out of place in front of this broad, stone English mansion,
with its solid wings and its Palladio pillars before the doorway.
“My dear!” he cried, glancing over his shoulder; “my dear, here is our
guest! Welcome, welcome to Greylands! I am delighted to make your
acquaintance, Cousin Marshall, and I take it as a great compliment that
you should honour this sleepy little country place with your presence.”
Nothing could be more hearty than his manner, and he set me at my ease
in an instant. But it needed all his cordiality to atone for the
frigidity and even rudeness of his wife, a tall, haggard woman, who came
forward at his summons. She was, I believe, of Brazilian extraction,
though she spoke excellent English, and I excused her manners on the
score of her ignorance of our customs. She did not attempt to conceal,
however, either then or afterwards, that I was no very welcome visitor
at Greylands Court. Her actual words were, as a rule, courteous, but she
was the possessor of a pair of particularly expressive dark eyes, and I
read in them very clearly from the first that she heartily wished me
back in London once more.
However, my debts were too pressing and my designs upon my wealthy
relative were too vital for me to allow them to be upset by the
ill-temper of his wife, so I disregarded her coldness and reciprocated
the extreme cordiality of his welcome. No pains had been spared by him
to make me comfortable. My room was a charming one. He implored me to
tell him anything which could add to my happiness. It was on the tip of
my tongue to inform him that a blank cheque would materially help
towards that end, but I felt that it might be premature in the present
state of our acquaintance. The dinner was excellent, and as we sat
together afterwards over his Havanas and coffee, which latter he told me
was specially prepared upon his own plantation, it seemed to me that all
my driver’s eulogies were justified, and that I had never met a more
large-hearted and hospitable man.
But, in spite of his cheery good nature, he was a man with a strong will
and a fiery temper of his own. Of this I had an example upon the
following morning. The curious aversion which Mrs. Everard King had
conceived towards me was so strong, that her manner at breakfast was
almost offensive. But her meaning became unmistakable when her husband
had quitted the room.
“The best train in the day is at twelve fifteen,” said she.
“But I was not thinking of going to-day,” I answered, frankly—perhaps
even defiantly, for I was determined not to be driven out by this woman.
“Oh, if it rests with you——” said she, and stopped, with a most insolent
expression in her eyes.
“I am sure,” I answered “that Mr. Everard King would tell me if I were
outstaying my welcome.”
“What’s this? What’s this?” said a voice, and there he was in the room.
He had overheard my last words, and a glance at our faces had told him
the rest. In an instant his chubby, cheery face set into an expression
of absolute ferocity.
“Might I trouble you to walk outside, Marshall,” said he. (I may mention
that my own name is Marshall King.)
He closed the door behind me, and then, for an instant, I heard him
talking in a low voice of concentrated passion to his wife. This gross
breach of hospitality had evidently hit upon his tenderest point. I am
no eavesdropper, so I walked out on to the lawn. Presently I heard a
hurried step behind me, and there was the lady, her face pale with
excitement, and her eyes red with tears.
“My husband has asked me to apologize to you, Mr. Marshall King,” said
she, standing with downcast eyes before me.
“Please do not say another word, Mrs. King.”
Her dark eyes suddenly blazed out at me.
“You fool!” she hissed, with frantic vehemence, and turning on her heel
swept back to the house.
The insult was so outrageous, so insufferable, that I could only stand
staring after her in bewilderment. I was still there when my host joined
me. He was his cheery, chubby self once more.
“I hope that my wife has apologized for her foolish remarks,” said he.
“Oh, yes—yes, certainly!”
He put his hand through my arm and walked with me up and down the lawn.
“You must not take it seriously,” said he. “It would grieve me
inexpressibly if you curtailed your visit by one hour. The fact is—there
is no reason why there should be any concealment between relatives—that
my poor dear wife is incredibly jealous. She hates that any one—male or
female—should for an instant come between us. Her ideal is a desert
island and an eternal _tête-à-tête_. That gives you the clue to her
actions, which are, I confess, upon this particular point, not very far
removed from mania. Tell me that you will think no more of it.”
“No, no; certainly not.”
“Then light this cigar and come round with me and see my little
menagerie.”
The whole afternoon was occupied by this inspection, which included all
the birds, beasts, and even reptiles which he had imported. Some were
free, some in cages, a few actually in the house. He spoke with
enthusiasm of his successes and his failures, his births and his deaths,
and he would cry out in his delight, like a schoolboy, when, as we
walked, some gaudy bird would flutter up from the grass, or some curious
beast slink into the cover. Finally he led me down a corridor which
extended from one wing of the house. At the end of this there was a
heavy door with a sliding shutter in it, and beside it there projected
from the wall an iron handle attached to a wheel and a drum. A line of
stout bars extended across the passage.
“I am about to show you the jewel of my collection,” said he. “There is
only one other specimen in Europe, now that the Rotterdam cub is dead.
It is a Brazilian cat.”
“But how does that differ from any other cat?”
“You will soon see that,” said he, laughing. “Will you kindly draw that
shutter and look through?”
I did so, and found that I was gazing into a large, empty room, with
stone flags, and small, barred windows upon the farther wall.
In the centre of this room, lying in the middle of a golden patch of
sunlight, there was stretched a huge creature, as large as a tiger, but
as black and sleek as ebony. It was simply a very enormous and very
well-kept black cat, and it cuddled up and basked in that yellow pool of
light exactly as a cat would do. It was so graceful, so sinewy, and so
gently and smoothly diabolical, that I could not take my eyes from the
opening.
“Isn’t he splendid?” said my host, enthusiastically.
“Glorious! I never saw such a noble creature.”
“Some people call it a black puma, but really it is not a puma at all.
That fellow is nearly eleven feet from tail to tip. Four years ago he
was a little ball of black fluff, with two yellow eyes staring out of
it. He was sold me as a new-born cub up in the wild country at the
head-waters of the Rio Negro. They speared his mother to death after she
had killed a dozen of them.”
“They are ferocious, then?”
“The most absolutely treacherous and blood-thirsty creatures upon earth.
You talk about a Brazilian cat to an up-country Indian, and see him get
the jumps. They prefer humans to game. This fellow has never tasted
living blood yet, but when he does he will be a terror. At present he
won’t stand any one but me in his den. Even Baldwin, the groom, dare not
go near him. As to me, I am his mother and father in one.”
As he spoke he suddenly, to my astonishment, opened the door and slipped
in, closing it instantly behind him. At the sound of his voice the huge,
lithe creature rose, yawned, and rubbed its round, black head
affectionately against his side, while he patted and fondled it.
“Now, Tommy, into your cage!” said he.
The monstrous cat walked over to one side of the room and coiled itself
up under a grating. Everard King came out, and taking the iron handle
which I have mentioned, he began to turn it. As he did so the line of
bars in the corridor began to pass through a slot in the wall and closed
up the front of this grating, so as to make an effective cage. When it
was in position he opened the door once more and invited me into the
room, which was heavy with the pungent, musty smell peculiar to the
great carnivora.
“That’s how we work it,” said he. “We give him the run of the room for
exercise, and then at night we put him in his cage. You can let him out
by turning the handle from the passage, or you can, as you have seen,
coop him up in the same way. No, no, you should not do that!”
I had put my hand between the bars to pat the glossy, heaving flank. He
pulled it back, with a serious face.
“I assure you that he is not safe. Don’t imagine that because I can take
liberties with him any one else can. He is very exclusive in his
friends—aren’t you, Tommy? Ah, he hears his lunch coming to him! Don’t
you, boy?”
A step sounded in the stone-flagged passage, and the creature had sprung
to his feet, and was pacing up and down the narrow cage, his yellow eyes
gleaming, and his scarlet tongue rippling and quivering over the white
line of his jagged teeth. A groom entered with a coarse joint upon a
tray, and thrust it through the bars to him. He pounced lightly upon it,
carried it off to the corner, and there, holding it between his paws,
tore and wrenched at it, raising his bloody muzzle every now and then to
look at us. It was a malignant and yet fascinating sight.
“You can’t wonder that I am fond of him, can you?” said my host, as we
left the room, “especially when you consider that I have had the rearing
of him. It was no joke bringing him over from the centre of South
America; but here he is safe and sound—and, as I have said, far the most
perfect specimen in Europe. The people at the Zoo are dying to have him,
but I really can’t part with him. How, I think that I have inflicted my
hobby upon you long enough, so we cannot do better than follow Tommy’s
example, and go to our lunch.”
My South American relative was so engrossed by his grounds and their
curious occupants, that I hardly gave him credit at first for having any
interests outside them. That he had some, and pressing ones, was soon
borne in upon me by the number of telegrams which he received. They
arrived at all hours, and were always opened by him with the utmost
eagerness and anxiety upon his face. Sometimes I imagined that it must
be the turf, and sometimes the Stock Exchange, but certainly he had some
very urgent business going forwards which was not transacted upon the
Downs of Suffolk. During the six days of my visit he had never fewer
than three or four telegrams a day, and sometimes as many as seven or
eight.
I had occupied these six days so well, that by the end of them I had
succeeded in getting upon the most cordial terms with my cousin. Every
night we had sat up late in the billiard-room, he telling me the most
extraordinary stories of his adventures in America—stories so desperate
and reckless, that I could hardly associate them with the brown little,
chubby man before me. In return, I ventured upon some of my own
reminiscences of London life, which interested him so much, that he
vowed he would come up to Grosvenor Mansions and stay with me. He was
anxious to see the faster side of city life, and certainly, though I say
it, he could not have chosen a more competent guide. It was not until
the last day of my visit that I ventured to approach that which was on
my mind. I told him frankly about my pecuniary difficulties and my
impending ruin, and I asked his advice—though I hoped for something more
solid. He listened attentively, puffing hard at his cigar.
“But surely,” said he, “you are the heir of our relative, Lord
Southerton?”
“I have every reason to believe so, but he would never make me any
allowance.”
“No, no, I have heard of his miserly ways. My poor Marshall, your
position has been a very hard one. By the way, have you heard any news
of Lord Southerton’s health lately?”
“He has always been in a critical condition ever since my childhood.”
“Exactly—a creaking hinge, if ever there was one. Your inheritance may
be a long way off. Dear me, how awkwardly situated you are!”
“I had some hopes, sir, that you, knowing all the facts, might be
inclined to advance——”
“Don’t say another word, my dear boy,” he cried, with the utmost
cordiality; “we shall talk it over to-night, and I give you my word that
whatever is in my power shall be done.”
I was not sorry that my visit was drawing to a close, for it is
unpleasant to feel that there is one person in the house who eagerly
desires your departure. Mrs. King’s sallow face and forbidding eyes had
become more and more hateful to me. She was no longer actively rude—her
fear of her husband prevented her—but she pushed her insane jealousy to
the extent of ignoring me, never addressing me, and in every way making
my stay at Greylands as uncomfortable as she could. So offensive was her
manner during that last day, that I should certainly have left had it
not been for that interview with my host in the evening which would, I
hoped, retrieve my broken fortunes.
It was very late when it occurred, for my relative, who had been
receiving even more telegrams than usual during the day, went off to his
study after dinner, and only emerged when the household had retired to
bed. I heard him go round locking the doors, as his custom was of a
night, and finally he joined me in the billiard-room. His stout figure
was wrapped in a dressing-gown, and he wore a pair of red Turkish
slippers without any heels. Settling down into an arm-chair, he brewed
himself a glass of grog, in which I could not help noticing that the
whisky considerably predominated over the water.
“My word!” said he, “what a night!”
It was, indeed. The wind was howling and screaming round the house, and
the latticed windows rattled and shook as if they were coming in. The
glow of the yellow lamps and the flavour of our cigars seemed the
brighter and more fragrant for the contrast.
“Now, my boy,” said my host, “we have the house and the night to
ourselves. Let me have an idea of how your affairs stand, and I will see
what can be done to set them in order. I wish to hear every detail.”
Thus encouraged, I entered into a long exposition, in which all my
tradesmen and creditors, from my landlord to my valet, figured in turn.
I had notes in my pocket-book, and I marshalled my facts, and gave, I
flatter myself, a very business-like statement of my own
un-business-like ways and lamentable position. I was depressed, however,
to notice that my companion’s eyes were vacant and his attention
elsewhere. When he did occasionally throw out a remark, it was so
entirely perfunctory and pointless, that I was sure he had not in the
least followed my remarks. Every now and then he roused himself and put
on some show of interest, asking me to repeat or to explain more fully,
but it was always to sink once more into the same brown study. At last
he rose and threw the end of his cigar into the grate.
“I’ll tell you what, my boy,” said he. “I never had a head for figures,
so you will excuse me. You must jot it all down upon paper, and let me
have a note of the amount. I’ll understand it when I see it in black and
white.”
The proposal was encouraging. I promised to do so.
“And now it’s time we were in bed. By Jove, there’s one o’clock striking
in the hall.”
The tinging of the chiming clock broke through the deep roar of the
gale. The wind was sweeping past with the rush of a great river.
“I must see my cat before I go to bed,” said my host. “A high wind
excites him. Will you come?”
“Certainly,” said I.
“Then tread softly and don’t speak, for every one is asleep.”
We passed quietly down the lamp-lit Persian-rugged hall, and through the
door at the farther end. All was dark in the stone corridor, but a
stable lantern hung on a hook, and my host took it down and lit it.
There was no grating visible in the passage, so I knew that the beast
was in its cage.
“Come in!” said my relative, and opened the door.
A deep growling as we entered showed that the storm had really excited
the creature. In the flickering light of the lantern, we saw it, a huge
black mass, coiled in the corner of its den and throwing a squat,
uncouth shadow upon the whitewashed wall. Its tail switched angrily
among the straw.
“Poor Tommy is not in the best of tempers,” said Everard King, holding
up the lantern and looking in at him. “What a black devil he looks,
doesn’t he? I must give him a little supper to put him in a better
humour. Would you mind holding the lantern for a moment?”