THE HOUSEBOAT
The boat hugged the shore as closely as Eric Frazer had advised; being
propelled with a skill, and swiftness, considering the difficulties
with which he had to contend, which at least showed that the person
who had stated that his name was Arnecliffe was engaged in a task with
which he was familiar. Presently its progress become slower; the
sculler was endeavouring, as best he could, to make out his
surroundings.
"Curious how deceptive this light--if you can call it light--is; and
the lightning makes it worse. Have you any knowledge of this country?"
"None; I saw it for the first time this morning."
"There seems to be an opening here, which might be a cut, or
backwater--I believe it is. We'll try it. Look out! The trees hang
over the water, and the branches are low. What is that over there?
It's a houseboat; I wonder if it's the one to which your mysterious
friend referred. It's dark enough. Do you know what the name of
Vernon's houseboat is?" Dorothy knew nothing, and said so. "Anyhow
we'll pay a call. If it's the wrong one we can only apologise." He
brought the skiff alongside the sombre craft, which seemed to soar
above them into the darkness. The girl landed first. "Try that door,"
he said. "That's it--right in front of you."
She turned the handle.
"It's open," she announced.
"Good! Gross carelessness on somebody's part, to leave a houseboat's
front door unlocked, but good for us." Tying up the skiff, he landed
also. "Wait a minute: let me go in first, in case there's anyone
inside." He passed through the door which she had opened. "Hollo!
Anyone here?" None answered. "Seems empty; I think you may come in
without running much risk of intruding on somebody's privacy." She
went in after him. "I'll strike a match, so that we can see what sort
of place it is we're in." He held the flickering flame above his head.
"Seems to be a decent sort of apartment--living-room, I presume. If
this is his property it strikes me that Mr Vernon is a gentleman who
is possessed both of taste and money."
The match went out.
"Hollo! this won't do; we must have some light upon the subject. I
can't say to you what I want to say unless I see your face--not
comfortably, I can't; and I should like you to see mine as I'm saying
it."
"I should like to see it too."
"Should you? Then you shall; there's a hanging lamp in the centre
here; we'll see each other by its light. Now we'll pull down the
blinds--capital blinds these are; well fitting. If there should be any
suspicious characters about, they won't see us through these blinds;
they're pretty nearly as good as shutters. Now, Miss Gilbert, with
your very kind permission, I should like to see what you look like."
By the lamp's glow the man and the girl surveyed each other; she
standing very straight, and he stooping a little forward. He smiled;
the smile giving his mouth an odd effect of being twisted. "You're
like your father."
"Am I? Am I like my mother?"
"No; I don't think you are; not as I remember her."
"Did you know her well?"
"Very; once. But your resemblance to your father's weird. It isn't
only features; it's the altogether--the way you have of looking at
me--they might be your father's eyes; the way you have of holding
yourself--just a little stiffly; the way your head's poised on your
neck--as if it wouldn't bend; why, you've even got your father's
hands--I noticed it as you pulled down the blind. You're his feminine
replica."
"I'm glad of that."
"If he could only have heard you say that, before it was too late,
what a difference it would have made! What--what a curious chap he
was. If he could only come and see you now, he would see himself in
you; he could not help it; and any lingering doubts he had would have
gone for ever."
"Why do you say that? What doubts had he?"
He hesitated; as if he searched for words; then again came that wry
smile of his.
"Miss Gilbert, it's not a pretty story I have to tell you; and it may
sound uglier than it might be made because, circumstanced as we are, I
am hardly in a position to pick and choose my phrases. Time is short;
I must get to the end of my tale by the shortest way. I don't know who
your mysterious friend who sent us here may be; but if, as he said he
was, he is coming here, he may come soon. And since, when he does
come, circumstances may arise which will render it difficult for me to
communicate with you on confidential matters, it would be well if what
I have to say to you were said quickly. So, if my story sounds even
less pleasant than it need do, will you forgive me--since time
presses?"
"Of course I will forgive you--you know I will."
"Thank you; I believe I do know it. I wondered what sort of person I
should find you; but now, I think that, if the Fates had been more
propitious, I might have been your friend, as I was your father's."
She said nothing, but her lips quivered; something flashed from her
eyes to his. "Won't you sit down? Compress it as I may, my story will
take some minutes; as I said, it's not a very pretty one; and--you
look tired."
"I would rather stand; I couldn't sit still; I find it so hard to sit
still. Tell me about my mother."
"Your mother? I'm afraid I haven't much to tell you about your mother;
my story is chiefly about your father. You see, there's disappointment
number one. I take it that your knowledge of this funny world is not a
very wide one; I fancy you don't see much of it in a convent; so what
I'm going to tell you may sound very strange--to you; but it isn't:
it's quite commonplace. It's a story which will be told over and over
again, with variations--and even the variations are not new--until the
crack of doom. Your mother and father were very much in love with each
other, before they were married, and when they married; but soon after
they were married they quarrelled. Not long before you were born they
separated, never to meet again."
"Poor mother!"
"Yes; you may well say it--Fortune used her ill. She died in giving
you birth."
"Mother!" This time there was no prefix; the superlative was expressed
without it. Then she added: "What father must have felt!"
Again the wry smile.
"No doubt, when he heard of your mother's death, he felt many things;
but if among them were any feelings of sorrow he kept them hid. He
wouldn't go to you mother's funeral; he refused to see you."
"What a wicked man he must have been; I am sorry I am like him."
"There's the tragedy; because, you see, he doubted if you were his
child." The girl said nothing; but there came into her face an
eloquence which was beyond any form of words. The sight of it seemed
to occasion him pain; he went hurrying on: "You were brought up by
nurses. So far as I know the only time you ever saw him was when he
took you to that Brittany convent, where he left you till the other
day."
"And you say he was my father?"
"There again's the tragedy: he was. Your mother wasn't the wisest of
women--few people are altogether wise--but she was not the kind of
person he, in his haste, thought she was; in that sense, she was a
true wife to him. In very truth, and very deed, if ever a child was
her father's child, you are his. I never doubted it; not once; and now
it is as if the finger of God had written the truth all over you. If
he had only seen you, he would have seen God's finger--have known what
a foolish man he'd been."
"But why did he never come to see me--or write to me--once?"
"He was, as I have said, a curious man; and having made up his mind
finally, though on the most imperfect premises; he would have died
rather than unmake it; indeed, he did die. But although, as I have
told you, when your mother died he made no pretence at sorrow, her
death, the whole tragedy of his marriage, changed the whole aspect of
the world for him: he was never the same man again; his whole life was
spoiled. He did many foolish things, and very few wise ones--he did
nearly all the foolish things a man could do. He lost money; he made
it; he lost it again. There were times when he had scarcely a
shilling; there were others when he had thousands of pounds. Did he
ever send you money?"
"Never; not so much as a franc. I believe that often he didn't pay my
bills at the convent; I think that sometimes the Sisters were afraid
that he never would pay."
"Those, I apprehend, were the times when he was without a shilling. As
years went on, I have a theory that he began to be haunted--haunted by
thoughts of what might have been. I believe that he grew to love your
mother more and more."
"Love her! When he had treated her like that! What did he understand
by love?"
"This is a curious world, and men contain, in themselves, the most
singular contradictions. I doubt if he had ever ceased to love her,
even when he was most bitter against her; more, I believe that it was
because he loved her so much that he was so bitter. Can't you
understand how that might be?"
"I think--I think I can."
"It was for love of her he died."
"How--how can that be?"
"It was so. He was an old man before his time. Each year his
constitution failed more and more. During one of his periodic attacks
of bad health, when his strength was at its lowest ebb, he came upon
some papers, of whose very existence, by one of those diabolical
mischances which Fortune loves to deal us, he had been ignorant,
through all those years. They were some letters of your mother's; and
they proved, even to him, what an injustice he had done her. The shock
killed him. They found him dead, with her letters in his hand. Had he
cared nothing for her he would have been little moved by the discovery
of her written words; but his heart had been breaking for years; the
revelation of how unjust he had been to her broke it altogether. That
is why I say that, for love of her, he died."
"Poor father!"
"Yes; you may well say that also; it was 'poor father' as well as
'poor mother'--life's little ironies! His history was one of the
strangest with which I have been personally acquainted. Not the least
strange part of it is the fact that, not long before he died, he would
persist in embarking in what seemed to me to be some wild-cat
speculations, which, by an astounding series of accidents, turned out
amazingly well; with the result that, though he had been a needy man
for years, at the moment of his death he was actually rich. His will
was found written on one side of a sheet of notepaper. It was dated
only a few weeks before the end; so that he must have drawn it up as
soon as he learnt that a turn of Fortune's wheel had brought him
wealth. By it he left every farthing he possessed to you, absolutely,
to do with it what you choose. So that--you're an heiress."
The girl's glance had never once left his face; it was as if she had
been trying to read on it more than his words conveyed. Now she stared
at him with amazement in her eyes.
"But--I don't understand. When Mr Emmett came to the convent he said
that my father had not left a penny; that he had died owing him a
large sum of money, and that it was only out of charity he paid what
the Sisters were owed."
Once more his lips were twisted by that wry smile.
"Mr Emmett? Oh yes, I'm coming to Mr Emmett now; and--there's the
rub."