THE STORY OF MR. FRANCIS
Harry Vail owned a plain, gloomy house in Cavendish Square, forbidding
to those who looked at it from the street, chilling to those who looked
at the street from it. It was furnished in the heavy and expensive early
Victorian style, and solid mahogany frowned at its inmates. During his
minority it had been let for a term of years, but on his coming of age
he had taken it again himself, and here, when the gloom and darkness of
February and swollen waters made Vail more suitable for the amphibious
than the dry-shod, he came to receive in exchange the more sociable fogs
of London. Parliament had assembled, the roadways were no longer
depleted, and Harry was beginning to find that, in spite of the
friendlessness which he had been afraid was his, there were many houses
which willingly opened their doors and welcomed him inside. Friends of
his father, acquaintances of his own, were all disposed to be pleasant
toward this young man, about whom there lingered a certain vague
atmosphere of romance--a thing much valued by a prosaic age. He was
young, attractive to the eye; he stood utterly alone in the world, with
the burden or the glory of a great name on his shoulders, and people
found in him a charming, youthful modesty, mixed with an independence of
the sturdiest, which, while accepting a favour from none, seemed to cry
aloud for friendliness and bask therein when it was found, with the
mute, unmistakable gratitude of a dumb animal. His own estimate of his
loneliness had probably been accentuated by the year he had spent just
before he came of age in studying languages in France and Germany, but
in the main it was, when he made it, correct. But at his time of life
change comes quickly; the young man who does not rapidly expand and
enlarge, must, it may be taken for certain, be as rapidly closing up.
Within a month of his arrival in London it was beyond question that the
latter morbid process was not at operation in Harry.
He and Geoffrey were seated one night in the smoking room in the
Cavendish Square house talking over a glass of whisky and soda. They had
dined with a friend, and Harry had inveigled Geoffrey out of his way to
spend an hour with him before going home.
"No, I certainly am not superstitious," he was saying, "but if I were, I
really should be very much impressed by what has happened. I never heard
of a stranger series of coincidences. You remember the lines engraved
round the Luck:
"'When the Luck is found again,
Fear both fire and frost and rain.'
"Well, as you know, two days after I found the Luck, I slipped on the
steps as we were going out shooting, and sprained my ankle--in
consequence of not looking where I was going, say you, and I also, for
that matter. The Luck, say the superstitious: that is the frost. As soon
as I get right, I go out shooting again, get wet through, and catch a
pretty bad chill--because I didn't go and change, say you. The Luck, say
the superstitious: that is the rain. Finally, the very day you left, I
tripped over the hearthrug, fell into the fire, and burned half my hair
off. Well, if that isn't fire I don't know what is. 'Fear both fire and
frost and rain,' you see. Certainly I have suffered from all three, but
if old Francis could only give me a cold, and a sprained ankle, and a
burn, I don't think much of his magic. Well, I've paid the price, and
now there is the Luck to look forward to. Dear me, I'm afraid I've been
jawing."
"I wonder if you believe it at all," said Geoffrey. "For myself, I
should chuck the beastly pot into the lake, not because I believed it,
but for fear that I some day might. If you get to believe that sort of
thing, you are done."
"I am sure I don't believe it," said the other, "and so I shall not
chuck the beastly pot into the lake. Nor would you if it were yours.
But, if I did believe it, Geoff, there would be all the more reason for
keeping it. Don't you see, I've been through the penalties, now let me
have the prizes. That's the way to look at it. I don't look at it, I
must remind you, in that way; I only say, what a strange series of
coincidences! You can hardly deny that that is so."
"What have you done with it?" asked Geoffrey.
"The beastly pot? It's down at Vail. Uncle Francis is there, too. I
wanted him to come up to London with me, but he wouldn't. Now, there's a
cruel thing, Geoff. My God, it makes my blood boil when I think of it!"
"Think of what?"
"Of the persistent ill luck which has dogged my uncle throughout his
life. Of the odious--well, not suspicion, it is not so definite as
that--which seems to surround him. I was at Lady Oxted's the other
night, and mentioned him casually, but she said nothing and changed the
subject. Oh, it was not a mere chance; the thing has happened before."
Geoffrey squirted some soda water into his glass.
"Suspicion! what do you mean?" he asked.
"No; suspicion is the wrong word. Uncle Francis told me all about his
life on the last evening that I was at Vail, and I never heard anything
so touching, so cruel, or so dignified. All his life he has been the
victim of an ill luck so persistent that it looks as if some malignant
power must have been pursuing him. Well, I am going to try to make it up
to him. I wonder if a rather long and very private story about his
affairs would interest you at all?"
"Rather. I should like to hear it."
"Well, this is almost exactly as he told it me, from the beginning. He
was a twin of my grandfather's; there's a piece of bad luck to start
with, and being just half a minute late about coming into the world, he
is a younger son, which is no fun, I can tell you, in our impoverished
family."
"That may happen to anybody," said Geoffrey; "I'm a younger son myself,
but I don't scream over that."
Harry laughed.
"Nor does he. Don't interrupt, Geoff. Then he married a very rich girl,
who died three years afterward, childless, leaving all her money back to
her own relatives. It was a most unhappy marriage from the first; but
don't aim after cheap cynicism, and say that the real tragedy there was
not her death, but the disposition of her property. I can tell you
beforehand that this was not the case. He was devoted to her."
"Well?"
Harry's voice sank.
"And then, twenty-two years ago, came that awful affair of young
Harmsworth's death. Did you ever hear it spoken of?"
Geoffrey was silent a moment.
"Yes, I have heard it spoken of," he said at length.
Harry flushed.
"Ah! in connection with my uncle, I suppose?" he said.
"Yes; his name was mentioned in connection with it."
"It is a crying shame!" said Harry hotly. "And so people talk of it
still, do they? I never heard of it till he told me all about it the
other night. That is natural: people would not speak of it to me."
"I only know the barest outline," said Geoffrey. "Tell me what Mr.
Francis told you."
"Well, it was this way: He was staying down at our house in Derbyshire,
which was subsequently sold, for my grandfather had made him a sort of
agent there after his wife's death, and he would be there for months
together. Next to our place was a property belonging to some people
called Harmsworth, and at this time, twenty-two or twenty-three years
ago, young Harmsworth--his name was Harold--had only just come into it,
having had a very long minority like me. Uncle Francis used to be
awfully good to him, and two years before he had got him out of a scrape
by advancing to him a large sum of money. It was his own, and it was
this loan which had crippled him so much on his wife's death. The
arrangement had been that it should be paid immediately Harold
Harmsworth came of age. Well, he was not able to do this at once, for
his affairs were all upside down, and he asked for and received a
renewal of it. For security, he gave him the reversion of his
life-insurance policy."
Again Harry's voice sank to near a whisper.
"Two days after this arrangement had been made, young Harmsworth and
Uncle Francis were pottering about the hedgerows alone, just with a dog,
to get a rabbit or two, or anything that came in their way, and, getting
over a fence, Harmsworth's gun went off, killing him instantly. Think
how awful!"
"Why people will get over fences without taking their cartridges out is
more than I could ever imagine," said Geoffrey; "but they will continue
to do so till the end of time. I beg pardon."
"Well, here comes the most terrible part of the whole affair," went on
the other. "There was an inquest, and though my uncle was scarcely fit
to attend, for he says he was almost off his head with so dreadful a
thing happening, he had to go. He gave his account of the matter, and
said that he himself was nearly hit by some of the shot. That, he tells
me, was his impression, but he is willing to believe that it was not so,
for, as he says, your imagination may run riot at so ghastly a time. But
it was a most unfortunate thing to have said, for it seemed to be quite
incompatible with the other evidence. Then, when it was known about the
insurance policy, horrible, sinister rumours began to creep about. He
was closely questioned as to whether he knew for what purpose young
Harmsworth wanted the money he had advanced him, and he would not say.
Neither would he tell me, but I understood that there was something
disgraceful; blackmail, I suppose. He had an awful scene with Mrs.
Harmsworth, Harold's mother. His friends, of course, scouted the idea
of the possibility of such a possibility, but others, acquaintances,
cooled toward him, though not exactly believing what was in the air;
others cut him direct. It was only the medical evidence at the inquest,
which showed that the injury of which Harmsworth died could easily have
been inflicted by himself, that saved my uncle, in all probability, from
being brought to trial. He said to me that it would have been better if
he had, for then he would have been completely cleared, whereas now the
matter will never be reopened."
"What an awful story!" said Geoffrey.
"Yes, and that was not the end of his trouble. Ten years later he had to
declare bankruptcy, and my father gave him an annuity. But since his
death it has not been paid; I never knew anything about it, and he would
not allow that I should be told, and he has lived in horrible _pensions_
abroad. That seems to me such extraordinary delicacy, not letting me
know. I never found out till I came of age."
"You have continued it?"
"Of course. I hope, also, he will live with me for the main part. I have
offered him a couple of permanent rooms at Vail, for he would not come
to London. O Geoffrey, it was the most pitiful story! And to think of
him, bright, cheery, as we saw him down there, and know what an
appalling load of undeserved misery he has supported so long! Now, it
seems to me to be a brave man's part to bear misfortune calmly, without
whimpering, but one would think it required a courage of superhuman kind
to be able to remain sociable, cheerful, merry, even. But, oh, how
bitter he is when he shows one all his thoughts! He warned me to rely on
nobody; he said there was not a man in the world, even less a woman, who
would stick to you if you were in trouble. Trouble comes; they are
vanished like melting snow; a heap of dirt is left behind. Then he
suddenly burst into tears and told me to forget all he had said, for he
had given me the outpourings of a disappointed, soured man. I was young;
let me trust every one as long as I could, let me make friends right and
left; only, if trouble came, and they fell away, then, if I could find
consolation therein, I might remember that the same thing had happened
to others also."
Geoffrey was staring absently into the fire; his cigarette had gone out,
and his whisky was untasted.
"By Gad!" he said. "Poor old beggar!"
And Harry, knowing that the British youth does not express sympathy in
verbose paragraphs, or show his emotion by ejaculatory cries, was
satisfied that the story had touched his friend.
Day by day and week by week Harry moved more at his ease in the world of
people of whom hitherto he had known so little. The wall of the castle
which he had erected round himself, compacted of his own diffidence and
a certain _hauteur_ of disposition, fell like the fortifications of
Jericho at the blast of the trumpet, and it was a young man, pleasant
in body and mind, pleased with little, but much anxious to please, that
came forth. His dinner invitation to some new house would be speedily
indorsed by the greater intimacy of a Saturday till Monday, and the days
were few on which he sat down to a cover for one in Cavendish Square.
Among these more particular friends with whom previous acquaintance soon
ripened into intimacy, Lady Oxted, an old friend of Harry's father,
stood pre-eminent. Here he soon became _ami de la maison_, dropping in
as he chose, well knowing he was welcome; and such a footing, speedily
and unquestioningly gained, was to one of a life previously so recluse a
pleasure new and altogether delightful; for Lady Oxted had the power of
creating the atmosphere of home, and home was one of those excellent
things which Harry had hitherto lacked. He had not consciously missed
it, because he had never yet known it, but his gradual understanding of
it made him see how large an empty room there had been in his heart. To
come uninvited, and to linger unconscionably long; to say firmly that he
must be going, and yet to linger, he found to be an index to certain
domestic and comfortable joys of life, not lightly to be placed low in
that delightful miscellany. His nature, from his very youth, was not yet
enough formed to be labelled by so harsh an epithet as austere, but
hitherto he had not known the quiet monotonies which can be the cause of
so much uneventful happiness. Even for those whose bulk of enjoyment is
flavoured with the thrill of adventure and the frothier joys of living,
who most need excitement and crave for stimulus, there yet are times for
the unbending of the bow, when the child within them cries out for mere
toys and companionship, and the soul longs to sit by the meditative fire
rather than do battle with winds and stern events. And Harry was not one
of those who need home least; simply, he had been frozen, but now, for
the first time, the genial warmth of living began to touch him; he was
like a plant put in some sunned and watered place, and its appropriate
buds began to appear in this time of the singing bird. Here, too, he met
romance with tremulous mouth and the things of which poets have sung.