“_At the journey's end a welcome;_
_For the wanderer a friend!_”
--Cyd.
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IR I began, “I must tell you, in the first place, that there is this to
be said for Dick Shafthead--and it is an argument he is too generous to
use himself--he took counsel of a friend, who, perhaps rashly, urged him
to follow the dictates of his heart.”
“Indeed?” said the baronet.
“Yes; I can answer for it, because I was that friend; and that is one of
the reasons why I was so eager to plead for him with Sir Philip.”
“It sounds a damned poor one,” said he. “'May I ask why you advised a
son to rebel against his father?”
“If I had thought his father would regard his marrying the girl he
loved as an act of rebellion, I might--though I do not say I would--have
advised him otherwise. But he had told me that Sir Philip was a man of
great sense and understanding; therefore I argued that he would not take
a narrow or prejudiced--”
“Prejudiced!” he exclaimed.
“Or a prejudiced view of his son's conduct. I knew he was a good
churchman; therefore, as a follower of a Carpenter's Son, he could not
seriously let any blemish on a girl's pedigree stand between his son
and himself. Besides, he was so highly placed that an alliance with his
family would be sufficient to ennoble. Furthermore, as he loves his
son, he would wish for nothing so much as his happiness. Lastly, being
a great gentleman, Sir Philip would give a lady's case every
consideration.” But at this the baronet's feelings could no longer be
contained.
“By God, sir!” he exclaimed. “Do you mean to say you preached this
damnable sermon to my--to Dick Shafthead?”
I had not preached this sermon, nor anything very much like it; but
these were undoubted the arguments I ought to have used.
“I argued from what he had told me of his father,” I replied. “If I
am incorrect in my estimate of Sir Philip; if he is not a Christian, a
gentleman, an affectionate father, and a man of sense, then, indeed, I
reasoned wrongly.”
At this thrust beneath his guard, Sir Philip was silent, and I hastened
to follow up my attack.
“Another argument I used--and it seemed to me the strongest--was this:
that as Dick had told me of the deep affection Sir Philip felt for
Lady Shafthead, I knew his father had a heart which could love a woman
devotedly, and he had but to turn back the pages of his own life to find
himself reading the same words as his son.”
“Sir Philip loved a lady of his own degree and station,” he answered.
“And Dick a relative of that lady,” I said. “A girl with the same blood
in her veins, and a character which no one can impeach. Can Sir Philip?”
“Her character is beside the point,” said he.
“Dick's father would not say so of his son's wife,” I retorted.
Again the baronet seemed at a loss for a fitting answer; and from his
expression I think he was on the point of revealing his identity, and
sending me forthwith to the devil; but without a pause I hurried up the
rest of my artillery.
“Even if Sir Philip remains deaf to all that I have hitherto said,
there yet remains this, which must, at least, make him pause. He will be
losing a son.”
“And the son will be losing his father.”
“Yes; and therefore Sir Philip will not only be suffering, but
inflicting a misfortune.”
“I may remind you, sir, that Dick has only to listen to reason.”
“Dick's mind is made up; and can you, sir, who know these Shaftheads,
expect them to abandon their resolutions so easily? From whom has he
inherited his firmness and tenacity? From his father, of course; and
he from that long line of ancestors who have made the name of Shafthead
honorable since the days of Edward the Third! The warrior who was
ennobled on the field of Blenheim has not left descendants of milk and
water!”
“I am perfectly aware that Dick is obstinate as the devil,” replied the
baronet, but this time in a tone that seemed to have in it a trace of
something not unlike satisfaction.
“And so, sir, his father will be ruthlessly discarding a second
daughter-in-law.”
At these words the change that came over the baronet was so sudden and
violent that I almost repented of having uttered them.
“What do you mean?” he exclaimed, in a stifled voice. “Dick didn't tell
you? He does not know!”
“No,” I replied. “I learned it through an old companion in arms of Major
Shafthead.”
For a moment there was a pause. Then he said, in a steadier voice:
“And does this seem to you an argument for permitting another son to
commit an act of folly?”
“It does seem an argument for not breaking the last link with the
generation to come.”
The baronet turned round and walked a few paces away from me; then he
turned back and said:
“Well, sir, if it is any satisfaction to you, I may tell you that you
have already discharged your task. I am Sir Philip Shafthead.”
“What!” I exclaimed, in simulated surprise. “Then I must indeed ask your
pardon for the freedom with which I have spoken. My affection for your
son is my only excuse.”
“He is fortunate in his friends, sir,” said Sir Philip, though with
precisely what significance I could not be sure. “You will now have
luncheon with us, I hope.”
We walked in silence to the house, my host's face expressing nothing of
what he thought or felt.
In a long, low room whose oak panelling and beams were black with age
and whose windows tinged the sunshine with the colors of old coats of
arms, I was introduced to Lady Shafthead. She was like her daughter,
smaller and slighter than the muscular race of Shaftheads, gray-haired
and very charming and simple in her manner. Daisy stood beside her, and
both women glanced anxiously from one to the other of us. What those
who knew him could read in Sir Philip's countenance, I cannot say.
For myself, I merely professed my entire readiness for lunch and my
appreciation of Helmscote, but, surreptitiously catching Daisy's eye,
I gave her a glance that was intended to indicate a fair possibility of
fine weather.
Evidently she read it as such, for she replied by a smile from which all
her distrust had vanished.
The meal passed off in outward calm and with no reference to the
conversation of the morning. Indeed, Sir Philip scarcely spoke at all,
and I was too afraid of making a discordant remark to say much myself.
“You will excuse me from joining you in the smoking-room at present,”
said the baronet, when we had finished. “Daisy, you will act as hostess,
perhaps?”
Nothing could have suited me better than this arrangement, and for an
hour we discussed our embassy and its prospects with the friendliness of
two intimates who have shared an adventure.
Then Lady Shafthead entered and said with a smile towards us both,
“Sir Philip has written to Dick.”
“He is forgiven?” I cried.
“He is told to come home.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, alone.”
My face fell for a little, but Lady Shafthead's air reassured me.
“For the present, at all events, alone,” she said.
“And may the present be brief!” I replied. “And now his ambassador must
regretfully return to town.”
“Oh, but you are staying with us, I hope,” said Lady Shafthead.
“With one collar, a tweed suit, and no razors?”
“Can't you send for your things?” suggested Daisy.
And that is precisely what I did.
The next day the prodigal returned and had a long interview with his
stern parent. At the end of it he joined me in the smoking-room.
“Well?” I asked.
“An armistice is declared,” said Dick. “For six months the matter is not
to be mentioned.”
“And that is all?”
“All at present.”
“But six months, Dick! Can you wait?”
“Call it three weeks,” said Dick. “I know the limit to the governor's
patience. He never let a matter remain unsettled for one month in his
life.” He filled his pipe deliberately, standing with his legs wide
apart and his broad back to the fire, while an expression of amused
satisfaction gathered upon his good-looking countenance.
“I say,” he remarked, abruptly, “don't think I'm ungrateful. You did the
trick, monsieur, and I won't forget it in a hurry.”
As he said this he turned his back to me and took a match-box from the
mantel-shelf, as though he had merely made a casual remark about the
weather, but by this time I knew the value of such undemonstrative
British thanks.
Another condition that Sir Philip had made was that his son should not
return to London until the Christmas vacation was over, and, though this
was a matter of merely two or three weeks, Dick found it harder than a
six months' postponement of his marriage. But to me, I fear, it did
not seem so unreasonable, for, as he could not have his sweetheart's
company, he insisted on retaining mine; so, after a polite protest,
which Lady Shafthead declared to be unnecessary and Daisy to be absurd,
I settled down to spend my Christmas at Helmscote.
At that time there was no one else staying in the house, so that when I
sat down at dinner that night, one of a friendly company of five, I felt
almost as though I was a member of the family. And the Shaftheads, on
their part, seemed bent on increasing this illusion. Once I cheerfully
alluded to my exile--cheerfully, because at that moment the thought had
no sting.
“An exile?” said Lady Shafthead, smiling at me as a good mother might
smile. “Not here, surely. You must not feel yourself an exile here.”
And, indeed, I did not. For the first time since I landed in this
country, I felt no trace of strangeness, but almost as though I had
begun to take root in the soil. Circumstances had not enabled me to
enjoy any family life since I was a boy, and had I been given at that
moment a free pardon and a ticket to Paris, I should have said, “Wait,
please, for a few months, till I discover to which nation I really
do belong. Here I am at home. Perhaps, if I return, I should now be
lonely.”
The very look of my room when I retired to bed impressed me further with
this feeling. The fire was so bright, the curtains so warm, every
little circumstance so soothing. I drew up the blind and looked out of a
latticed casement-window into a garden bathed in moonlight, and my heart
was filled with gratitude. Last thing before I went to sleep, I remember
seeing the firelight playing on the walls and mingling with a long ray
from the moon, and the fantastic designs seemed to form themselves into
letters making a message of welcome. And this message was signed “Daisy
Shafthead.”
At what hour I woke I cannot say; but I felt as though I had not been
long asleep, and that something must have roused me. The fire had burned
low, but the long beam of moonlight still fell across my bed and made
a patch of light on the opposite wall. Suddenly it was obscured, and at
the same moment I most distinctly heard a noise--a noise at the window.
I turned on my pillow with that curious sensation in my breast that by
the metaphysical may easily be distinguished from exhilaration. I had
left the curtains a little apart with an oblong of blind showing light
between them. Now there was a dark body moving stealthily either before
or behind this.
For a moment I lay still, then, with a spring so violent as almost to
suggest that I had exercised some compulsion upon my movements, I leaped
out of bed.
[Illustration: 0308]
The next instant the body had disappeared, and I heard a scraping noise,
apparently on the outside wall. I rushed to the window and drew aside
the blind. The casement was certainly open, but then I had left it so.
I put out my head and looked carefully over the garden. Not a movement
anywhere, not a sound. I waited for a time, but nothing more happened,
and then I went to bed again, first, I confess, closing and fastening
the window; and in a little the whole incident was lost in oblivion.
With the prosaic entry of daylight and a servant to fill my bath, I
began to wonder whether the whole thing was not a dream, and, in fact,
I had almost persuaded myself that this was the case when I spied,
lying on the floor below the window, a slip of paper. It was folded and
addressed in pencil to “_M. d'Haricot, confidential._” I opened it and
read these words:
“_Beware how you betray! Lumme also is watched. Therefore be faithful,
if it is not too late!_”
“What the devil!” I said to myself, after reading these incomprehensible
words two or three times. “Is this a practical joke--or can it be
from--?” I hastily turned the scrap over, looked at it upside down, and
against the light, but no, there was no mark to give me a clew.
So meaningless did the warning seem that before the day was far spent it
had ceased to trouble me.
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