REVELATIONS
"Yes, I believe he really loved her. He gave up drink, and although to
his acquaintances he seemed as cynical and faithless as ever, I saw a
change had come over him. He chose me for his best man at the wedding.
Well, on the eve of the wedding-day Miss Castlemaine got a letter,
telling her the whole story. Personally, I believe Sprague wrote it. I
suppose the letter seemed to prove up to the hilt that Leicester was
simply playing the game to win his bet, and that although he was
prepared to marry her, he was doing so because she was one of the
richest heiresses in London."
"Well?"
"The wedding never came off. When he went to see her, she drove him from
the house. I was there, and I saw and heard everything. I shall never
forget Leicester's look as long as I live. I did my best for him, but in
vain. She went abroad, and he--went to the devil."
"Tell me how, my friend."
"He flew to whisky; he gave himself over to the devil. Then the General
Election came off, and he went to his constituency, only to fall down on
the platform, at a public meeting, in a state of maudlin drunkenness.
He was hooted out of the constituency. Where he went, God only knows.
But a few weeks later his body was found washed on the steps by
Blackfriars Bridge."
"Ecco! that is almost a tragedy, eh?" and Ricordo laughed almost
merrily.
"It was tragedy to me; for, to tell the truth, I liked him. I had seen
more of him than perhaps any other."
"And she, my friend--did she grieve?"
"I don't know. I should think not. I heard that a few weeks later her
father had bought Vale Linden and that she was making merry with her
friends."
"Just like a woman," said Ricordo quietly; "but there is one thing which
is not quite clear to me. Why, if she did not care, has she not married
some one else?"
"Well, I am not quite sure if that is the reason, but she made a vow to
Leicester the night before the day fixed for the wedding that she would
never marry another man, no matter what might happen."
"And you think she is keeping the vow?"
"Possibly; I don't know."
"A very interesting story, Mr. Winfield. I think I could tell you one
quite as interesting. And you say the man committed suicide?"
"Yes," said Winfield with a sigh.
"Why?"
"Well, I suppose he had nothing to live for. He was disgraced, he was
hooted out of his constituency, he had alienated friends, and he had
neither faith nor hope."
For a few minutes they walked in silence. Then Ricordo said:
"And was he the kind of man, Mr. Winfield, who, according to your
thoughts, would commit suicide?"
"There can be no doubt about it. It is true the body was unrecognisable,
but there were letters found on him by which he could be identified.
Neither coroner nor jury had any doubts about it."
"Was he a weak, incapable man--a man without resource?"
"Great heavens, no! He was a man who could do anything. Had he known
what was good for him, I believe he might have been Prime Minister."
"A man of weak will, eh?"
"No; rather a man of iron will, when he made up his mind."
"And he had vowed to marry this Miss Castlemaine?"
"Yes."
"And was he the kind of man to give up so easily?"
"I do not think you quite realise the circumstances."
"I am trying to realise the man."
"Yes; but the letters found on the body."
Ricordo laughed quietly.
"Did you say the body was identified? Was it recognisable?"
"No."
"Ah!"
"I was with him when he had given up all hope of ever winning Miss
Castlemaine," said Winfield. "He was in a state of utter despair."
"A weak man might have committed suicide; but a strong man, who had made
a vow like that--never!"
"You do not believe that Radford Leicester committed suicide?"
"I mean that such a man as you have described would rise again, even
although he died."
Winfield shook his head, and sighed.
"You do not believe it?"
"I knew Leicester. I saw the state he was in. He was not a happy man
before he met Miss Castlemaine, then--well, she became everything to
him. Afterwards, when he had by his own act made everything impossible,
what was left for him? He would say, 'Let me die, and have done with
it.'"
Again Ricordo laughed quietly.
"Were this Sprague and Purvis friends of his?" he asked presently.
"No. He did not like either of them, and he vowed that if either of them
ever breathed to Miss Castlemaine anything about the wager, he would be
revenged on them."
"And was he the kind of man to leave that vow unfulfilled?"
"I believe he was in such a state of despair that he was tired of life,"
said Winfield.
"Then you believe that this Radford Leicester is dead?"
"Yes, I believe he is."
They were walking along a ravine. On either side of them rose steep,
precipitous cliffs. At their feet a moorland stream gurgled its way to
the River Linden.
"Winfield," said the other, in altered tones, "look at me closely.
Forget the brown skin and the black beard. Picture me a little thinner
and paler. Now, then, do you think Radford Leicester is dead?"
He took off his fez, and stood face to face with the man to whom he
spoke.
"That's it, look closer--feature by feature. Now then, do you believe
Radford Leicester is dead?"
"My God!" said Winfield.
"Ah," said the other quietly, "I thought you would recognise me if I put
it to you truly."
"But--but----"
"Yes, you recognise my voice now. I am no longer the Eastern gentleman
with the quiet, musical voice. The dead man has risen, eh?"
"But, I say, Leicester----"
"Not yet, Winfield. I am Signor Abdul Ricordo. I have an Italian father
and a Moorish mother, and I speak English with an Eastern voice, and
with a slight accent. But I speak your language well, don't I?"
"I--I can't believe it!" stammered Winfield.
"Yes, you can. Why"--and he moved his shoulders like the Leicester of
old--"do you think I am a kind of thing fed on asses' milk, a poor,
weak, pulpy thing that would allow myself to be the plaything of a woman
and two cads like Sprague and Purvis? Did you believe that, Winfield?"
"Then you did not----"
"Die? No. I went to hell, but I did not die."
"But, I say--I am dazed, bewildered. I hardly know where I am. I have a
feeling that I shall wake up presently and find that I have dreamed
this."
The other laughed quietly, and Winfield detected the laughter of Radford
Leicester of six years before.
"But, I say, Leicester, tell me--that is, tell me the--the meaning of it
all."
The other looked around him almost fearfully. The place was silent as
death. No sound was heard save the gurgling of the moorland stream.
"Do not mention that name again, Winfield--at least not yet. I am Abdul
Ricordo. Ricordo, as you know, is an Italian word which means
'remember.' I remember, my friend; I remember. I have forgotten nothing;
no, by heaven, _nothing_."
"But tell me, old man----"
"I say, Winfield, you do not seem glad. You do not congratulate me; you
do not offer to shake hands, nor do you tell me how thankful you are
that I did not throw myself in the river."
"You know, old man. It goes without saying. But I am shaken out of my
reckonings. I hardly know whether I am on my head or my heels. Glad to
see you! I am more than glad. I need not tell you now, what I told you
just now when I did not know who you were. But I did not know it was
possible that I could be so deceived; besides, I am in the dark about
everything. Tell me, old man, tell me everything. That's right, don't
put on that fez again. I can see you better without that. I remember the
shape of the head now. Yes, and keep to your old voice, my friend--it
helps me to feel I am on solid ground. Now then, tell me what happened."
"Winfield, I trust you. You were the only man who was faithful to me in
the old days. You will be faithful still. Nothing that you have
discovered, nothing that I shall tell you shall pass your lips, until I
tell you that you may speak."
"I promise that, my friend. Nothing shall pass my lips--not a hint, not
a suggestion."
The other put on his fez again. "That is understood, then," he said
quietly. He spoke in the old fluid tones which he had adopted since he
came to Vale Linden. "I say, Winfield, look at me again. I never forget,
never--mind that."
For a moment Winfield had a feeling like fear. Perhaps it was because he
had not yet recovered from the shock he had received.
"We will speak of Radford Leicester in the third person, if you please.
I am still Signor Ricordo, mind that. Think of me as such till I tell
you otherwise. Signor Abdul Ricordo, partner in the great Tripoli
trading company, eh?" and he bowed to the other ceremoniously. "I am
acting my part still. Presently I will change my attire and my part;
then I will be what I was. Well, you wish to know about Radford
Leicester. I will tell you. Yes, he did contemplate suicide; but little
as he loved life, he loved it too much to put an end to it. Besides, he
feared what lay beyond what we call death. Is any man an atheist, _amico
mio_? I think not. One night, while standing by Blackfriars Bridge,
thinking of what would happen if he gave himself to the river, he saw a
dead body washed on the steps. It was a bright night, and he saw that
the man's face was unrecognisable; moreover, he saw that the thing had
once been what is called a gentleman. Then a plan was born in his mind.
After making sure that there were no marks of identification on what he
saw--well, you see the rest. Radford Leicester read his own obituary
notices. Ha! my friend, they were pleasant reading. He even went to his
own funeral. He saw you there. Thank you, Winfield, for paying your last
respects to your friend."
Winfield wiped the perspiration from his brow; it was many years since
he had been so much moved.
"You were at the funeral!" he gasped.
"Radford Leicester was at the funeral. He read what a certain religious
paper had to say about him. Many preachers drew profitable morals from
his career. After all was over, he went away. He had made up his mind
what to do. He had died, and he meant to rise again. He has risen again.
He had a great battle to fight, Signor Winfield. You guess what it was.
He had well-nigh conquered his enemy once for love of a woman, now he
determined to conquer him completely, but from a different motive."
"Whisky," said Winfield.
"Whisky," repeated the other. "He knew that while it had dominion over
him he would be the plaything of--anything. For two years he went where
he could not get it."
"Where?"
"Some time he will tell you himself--that and other things. But he
fought it, and he mastered it, not for love, but for something
different."
"What?"
"Can't you guess? Think of the kind of man Radford Leicester was,
Winfield. What do you think would be his motive?"
Winfield was silent.
"When you get down to the bedrock of this little human nature of ours,
Winfield, you find that the same elemental passions exist, no matter
what be our race or our country. Shakespeare knew it when he conceived
the character of Shylock, and when he wrote _Othello_. What do you think
Radford Leicester would want to live for?"
"You love her still?"
"Love her! As much as Shylock loved Antonio, my friend; as much as any
other man loves one who has lifted him into heaven only to hurl him into
hell."
"Then you do not love her?"
"Why should Radford Leicester love her, my friend? Tell me that."
"Perhaps because he cannot help it."
"No; he hates her because he cannot help it."
"Hate her!"
"If there is one thing the East teaches a man, it is how to hate well.
He has learnt his lesson. Great God, he has learnt it well!"
"And why have you come back?"
"Why should Radford Leicester come back, Winfield? Tell me that. Think
out the whole case quietly. Why should he come back? That Bible of yours
is full of human nature. Those old Jews realised the elemental passions
of life--an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That appeals to a man
as just."
"But--but, I say----"
"Yes, tell me."
"Think of what it means. It is not right."
Ricordo laughed quietly.
"Right, wrong. They are a part of the stock-in-trade of your moralists.
Let a man go through what Leicester has gone, my friend, and even if he
had a little respect for it before, it would all be crushed out of him.
Why, man, Radford Leicester has lived the life of a slave in Morocco,
and away out in the great desert he has herded with wild beasts in the
shape of men. He has seen the religion of the Christian and the
Mohammedan and the Hindoo tested; he knows what it means. Do you think,
after going through what he has gone, that your tawdry rag-tags of
morality will have any weight with him? No, no; to hate is as natural as
to love; and if love is right, so is hate."
"But, I say, old man----"
"Yes, go on."
"To put it in plain words, what you mean is this. When you realised
that--that she--had cast you off--your love turned to hatred; that you
played a grim joke on the world by making every one believe you were
dead; that for six years you have brooded over what you believe to be
your wrongs, nursing revenge all the time, and that you have come back
to--to have, well, your revenge on the woman whom you once loved. Is
that it?"
"It sounds melodramatic, eh? Just like a bit taken out of one of the old
Adelphi melodramas. We used to laugh at them, didn't we, when we heard
the pit and the gallery hissing the villain and cheering the hero. But
even in those days I sympathised with the villain."
"But you don't mean that?"
"Why not?"
"It would not be right."
"Right! And even according to your smug morality, is it right for her to
thrust a man where she thrust Leicester, to make him suffer the torments
which he has suffered, and then to allow her to go unpunished?"
"Perhaps she has suffered."
"Suffered! Watch her even as I have watched her. Look at her smooth,
fair face. There's not a line of care and suffering upon it. Hear her
speak as I have heard her. Every word tells you she is without a care.
Hear her laugh as I have heard her, and you would know that she thinks
no more of having driven a man to his doom than a heartless gambler
cares for the victim he has ruined."
"And you have risen from the dead for----"
"Just that, my friend, just that."
"What revenge?"
"One that shall be sufficient, Signor Winfield."
The two men walked on. Presently the gorge was behind them, and they
stood up on the high moorland, while on every side stretched the wild,
rugged countryside. The sun shone brightly, the air was sweet and clean,
the birds sang joyously. Revenge seemed to be impossible amidst such
surroundings.
"I say, Lei--"
"Signor Ricordo. Yes."
"How do you know I shall not go to her, and tell her--everything?"
"You couldn't do it, my friend. Do you think I didn't think it all out
before I told you--what I have? How do I know you will not tell her?
Because I know you. Besides, do you think it matters? Do you think you
could baulk me? You do not know what is in my mind. You might tell her
all you know--but that would not hinder me from carrying out my plans.
No, no, I have not risen again to be frustrated a second time."
"Shall I tell you what I think?"
"I know. You think it would have been better if I had not risen, that
you would have preferred for me to have died in the Thames, to coming
back here to make her suffer as I have suffered. Very well, Signor
Winfield, but that does not alter me."
"You mean that you will fulfil the threat you made to Sprague and
Purvis?"
"I mean that I always try to pay my debts, my friend--always."
Again Winfield wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Even yet he
could scarcely realise what had taken place. It seemed to him that all
the foundations of his being were shaken.
"Give it up, Leicester."
"Give what up, my friend?"
"This mad scheme of yours."
"Mad! Nay, I've pondered over it for years. I've brooded over it in the
silent places. I've suffered as few men have suffered, that I might gain
the power that I wanted. No, my friend, I'll drag her as low as she
dragged me. I'll make her feel the sting of scorn and insult as she made
me feel it. She cared nothing for my disgrace, and do you think I'll
stay my hand?"
"But how?"
"Not even to you dare I tell that, my friend. There are bounds, even to
my trustfulness. But do not fear; it shall be sure, even if it is slow
in coming."
"But, Leicester, you used to be a man. Even although you were cynical,
and laughed at women's virtue, you were in your own way honourable, and
chivalrous."
"Honour! Chivalry! I bade them good-bye years ago. Work with a gang of
Arab ruffians for two years, as I have done, and where would your
honour and chivalry be?"
"But you did that of your own accord. She did not rob you of your
fortune, or your liberty, or your life."
"She robbed me of hope, of faith--of all that from your standpoint makes
life worth the living. Yes, I know, I was a slave to drink; I know.
Perhaps I inherited the taste for it. I was an unbeliever, I laughed at
standard morality--yes, all that. But I was still a man, Winfield. She
had it in her power to make me even a good man. But when--she did what
she did, she robbed me of everything--everything. I ceased to be a man;
I became a devil. But for her I should never have sunk to the depths I
have sunk to since. When she went out of my life, the devil entered me.
Man, if I were to tell you all I've gone through since--I saw you last,
you'd--but what's the use?"
For an hour more they talked, Winfield eagerly expostulating, and
pleading, the other answering coldly and cruelly, but never raising his
voice, or showing any signs of excitement.
"Then you are determined?" said Winfield at length.
"My friend, I never make a plan one day to give it up the next."
"Then you'll excuse me, I am sure."
"For what?"
"Nothing, only I am going back to London to-night. I cannot remain your
guest, knowing what I know."
Ricordo half lifted his fez, and bowed mockingly.
"I am honoured by your society, even for a few hours, Signor Winfield,"
he said. "It has been pleasant to talk about--old times, eh? I will
tell the estimable Mrs. Briggs at the farm, who wisely rules her
husband, to send back your luggage to the station. A busy editor--called
suddenly back, eh? Good-day, Signor Winfield."
The other stood undecided.
"I say, Leicester, old man, will nothing move you?"
"Nothing, my friend, nothing. I have only one thing to live for now, and
that I am going to have. It is a pleasant walk to the station, signore.
I hope you will enjoy it."
Winfield turned away with a heavy heart. Twice he stopped as if
undecided what to do, then, as if making a final resolution, he walked
rapidly towards the station. As for the other, he stood and watched him
until he was out of sight; but his face retained its relentless look, in
his eyes was the wild stare of a madman.
"Even if I loved her as much as I hate her, I would still do what I set
out to do," he said as Winfield passed out of sight.
That evening a servant at Vale Linden house announced that Signor
Ricordo had called to see Miss Castlemaine.