I
Graeme was just finishing a beautiful knot in his tie, when he heard
hasty feet crossing the verandah to the open front door. There was
some unknown quantity in them that gave him sudden start.
"Graeme!" sharp, hoarse,--a voice he did not recognise.
He ran hastily out of the east bedroom, which he was using as a
dressing-room.
"Hello there!" as he sprang down the stairs, "Why--Pixley? What's
wrong, man?"
For Charles Pixley was standing there, leaning in at the doorway,
looking as though he would fall headlong but for the supporting jamb.
He had a brown envelope in his hand and a crumpled pink telegram. His
face was white, and drawn, and haggard. His very figure seemed to have
shrunk in these few minutes. Never had Graeme seen so ghastly a change
in a man in so short a time.
Before Pixley could speak Miss Penny came hurrying along the path with
a face full of sympathetic anxiety.
"What is it?" she asked. "I saw Mr. Pixley pass, and his face
frightened me. Oh, what is wrong?"
Pixley glanced at her out of his woeful eyes, and at Margaret, who had
just come running down the stairs. He seemed to hesitate for a moment.
Then he groaned--
"You will have to know," and motioned them all into the dining-room
and shut the door.
"This "--jerking out the telegram--"was waiting for me," and he handed
it to Graeme, who smoothed it out and read, while Pixley dropped into
a chair.
"Pixley. Bel-Air. Sark.
"Zizel, Amadou, Zebu, Zeta. Eno."
"Code," said Pixley briefly. "Meanings underneath," and dropped his
head into his hands.
"Zizel," read Graeme slowly--"There is bad news. Amadou--your father.
Zebu--has bolted. Zeta--we fear the smash will be a bad one. Eno--?"
"My partner's initials--they certify the wire," said Pixley hoarsely.
And they looked soberly at one another and very pitifully at the
broken man before them.
"Don't take it too hard, Pixley," said Graeme quietly, laying a
friendly hand on the other's shoulder. "It may not be as bad as this
puts it. Codes are brutally bald things, you know"
The bowed head shook pitifully. He raised his white face and looked
round at them with a shocked shrinking in his eyes.
"God forgive him!" he jerked. "And God forgive me, for I have doubted
him at times! He was so--so--so demned good"--and Graeme's lips
twitched in spite of himself, so closely was the expression in accord
with his own feelings. But Pixley did not see the twitch, for he was
looking at Margaret and Hennie Penny, and he was saying with
vehemence--
"Will you believe me that I knew absolutely nothing of this? He never
discussed his affairs with me nor I mine with him, and we had no
business together except on purely business lines. If he had to buy or
sell he sent it my way, of course,--nothing more. You will believe me,
Graeme--"
"Every word, my boy--"
"We all believe it, Mr. Pixley," said Hennie Penny warmly.
"And I know it, Charles," said Margaret.
"It is very good of you all," he groaned. "I must get back at once,
Graeme. How soon is there a boat?"
"Five o'clock. You'll have to stop a night in Guernsey, which is a
nuisance."
Charles Svendt shook his head in dumb misery. It was crushing to be so
far away--thirty hours at least, and he gnashing within to be on the
spot and at work, learning the worst, seeing what could be done.
Then, with a preliminary knock on the door, Mrs. Carré came in with
brilliant lobsters and crisp lettuces for lunch, and, hungry as they
all were, their souls loathed the thought of eating.
"They are just out of the pot," beamed she, "and the lettuces were
growing not five min'ts ago. Ech!"--at sight of Pixley--"is he ill?"
"Mr. Pixley has just had bad news from home, Mrs. Carré," said Graeme.
"He will have to go by to-day's boat."
"Ach, but I am sorry! And him so happy yesterday and dancing the best
in the room," and her pleasant face clouded sympathetically.
"Meg, I'll go up to your room for a minute and finish my hair," said
Hennie Penny. "I ran out just as I was--"
"It was very kind of you," said Charles Svendt, and the general
sympathy seemed to comfort him somewhat.
"No good feeling too bad about it, old man, till you know all the
facts," said Graeme, when the girls had gone off upstairs.
"It hits me, Graeme. Not financially, as I said. But in every other
way it hits me hard.--Have you reached the point of seeing that it may
hit her too?"--and he nodded towards upstairs.
"I suppose there was a glimmering idea of the chance of that at the
back of my head somewhere, but we won't trouble about it just now. How
about your mother?"
Pixley shook his head dismally again. "It will be a terrible blow to
her. He was a bit hard and cold at home, you know, but she looked up
to him as immaculate. Yes, it will hit her very hard. As to money, of
course, she will be all right. I have plenty. But the talk and the
scandal--" and he groaned again at thought of it all.
"Send her over here for a time--or bring her yourself. We have heaps
of room here. Miss Penny is coming to stop with us next week. Your
mother was always fond of Margaret, I believe."
"She was--very fond of her.... That's a good thought of yours, Graeme.
Are you sure Margaret--?"
"Of course she would. She and Miss Penny will just take care of her,
and no word of the troubles will reach her. That's the thing to do,
and maybe you'll find things not as bad as you expect when you get
back."
But, from the look of him, Charles Svendt had small hope of matters
being anything but what he feared.
When the girls came down they made an apology of a meal, for, in spite
of their hunger, the stricken look of their friend took their
appetites away.
The thought that there might still lurk in their minds a suspicion
that he had had some knowledge of his father's position, when he came
across to stop their marriage, still troubled him.
"I do hope you will all believe me when I say that I knew absolutely
nothing of it all," he said, when they had finished an almost silent
meal. "When I said I had doubted him at times, I simply meant that his
everlasting and--and--well, very assertive philanthropies palled upon
me. It was a little difficult at times to believe in the genuineness
of it all, for we did not see very much of it at home, as you
know,"--he looked at Margaret, who nodded. "In business matters he
could be as hard as nails, and it was not easy to fit it all
together."
"Not one of us believes anything of the kind of you, old man. Just get
that right out of your head, once for all. We're only sorry for your
sake that the trouble has come, and I'm sure we all hope it will turn
out not so bad as you fear," said Graeme heartily.
"What about your mother, Charles?" said Margaret. "I'm afraid she will
feel this dreadfully. Hennie and I were talking about it upstairs, and
we were wondering if you could get her to come and stop with us for a
time--"
"You see!" said Graeme, with a smile at Pixley. And to Margaret--"I
suggested exactly the same thing while you were up doing your hair."
"It's awfully good of you all," said Charles. "If you're quite sure--"
"We're quite sure. Send her to us at once as soon as you reach home,
and Jock shall meet her in Guernsey."
"I think I'd perhaps better bring her across myself. I don't suppose
there will be much I can do when I've heard the worst--if they've got
to it yet. Things may be all tangled up, and it may take time. And for
ten days or so, until folks have had time to forget, the name of
Pixley won't be one to be proud of."
"Come if you can," said Graeme heartily. "You've seen nothing of Sark
yet."