A MENACE.
At first I hardly grasped the import of my brother’s words, or the
fact that here was the old fateful destiny upon me again, so lost were
the few faculties I could command in wonder at his unexpected
appearance in London.
I stared and stared and had not a word to say.
“Where’s your tongue, old chap?” he cried. “This is an affectionate
greeting on your part, upon my word, and after near four years, too.”
I pressed my hand across my forehead and strove to smooth the
confusion therefrom.
“You must forgive me,” I said at length; “this sudden meeting has
driven me all abroad; and then I got stuck down there by mistake, and
the sight has half-turned my brain, I think.”
“By mistake, was it?” he said, with a mocking titter. “Oh, Renny,
don’t I know you?--though your looks are changed, too, for the matter
of that; more than mine are, I expect.”
I could well believe. Soul and manhood must have wrought new
expression in me; but, for Jason, he was the Jason of old--fuller,
more set and powerful; yet the same beautiful personality with the
uninterpretable eyes.
“Well,” he said, “aren’t you surprised to see me?”
“Surprise isn’t the word.”
“Nor pleasure either, I expect.”
“No. I should be a liar to say it was.”
“Well, you used to be that, you know; though I dare say you’ve found
out the better policy now.”
“At any rate, as you’re here, you’ll come home with me, won’t you?”
“Of course. That’s what I intend. I’ve been in London three or four
days, and went over to your old place yesterday, but found you had
left. I got the new address off a queer old chap there. Why didn’t you
tell us you had changed?”
“I did. I wrote to dad about it.”
“Well, anyhow, he never told me.”
“That seems funny. How is he?”
“Oh, the same old besotted curmudgeon as ever.”
“Don’t, Jason. Dad’s dad for all his failings.”
“Yes, and Zyp’s Zyp for all hers.”
It gave me a thrill to hear the old name spoken familiarly, though by
such reckless lips.
“Is--is she all right?”
“She’s Zyp, I tell you, and that means anything that’s sprightly and
unquenchable. Let her alone for a jade; I’m sick of her name.”
Was it evident from this that his suit had not prospered? I looked at
his changing eyes and my heart reeled with a sudden sick intoxication
of hope. Was my reasoning to be all gone through with again? “Come,”
I said, “let’s make for my place. A fellow-hand lives with me there.”
We walked up Holborn together. He had eyes for every incident, a
tongue that seldom ceased wagging. Many a smart and powdered working
girl, tripping to her business, nudged her companion and looked after
him. He accepted it all with a bold indifference--the masterful
condescension that sets tight-laced breasts a-twittering under their
twice-turned jackets. He was much better dressed than I was and
carried himself with some show of fashion.
Duke had left when we reached home, and his absence I hardly
regretted.
“Well,” said my brother, as we entered the sitting-room, “you’ve
decent quarters, Renny, and no doubt deserve them for being a good
boy. You can give me some breakfast, I suppose?”
“If you don’t mind eating alone,” I said. “I’ve got no appetite.”
“All the worse for you. I never lose mine.” The table was already laid
as Duke had left it. I fetched a knuckle of ham from our private store
and placed it before my unwelcome guest, who fell to with a healthy
vigor of hunger.
“It’s as well, perhaps, I didn’t find you last night,” he said,
munching and enjoying himself. “We should have sat up late and then I
might have overslept myself and missed the fun. I say, didn’t he go
down plump? I hoped the rope would break and that we should have it
over again.”
“Jason!” I cried, “drop it, won’t you? I tell you I got caught there
by mistake, and that the whole thing was horrible to me!”
“Oh, all right,” he said, with a laugh. “I shouldn’t have thought
you’d have cared, but I won’t say anything more about it.”
I would not challenge word or tone in him. To what could I possibly
appeal in one so void of the first instincts of humanity?
He pushed his plate away presently and fetched out a little pipe and
began to smoke. I had sat all the time by the window, looking vaguely
upon the crowded street.
“Now,” I said, turning to him, “let’s hear why you are in London?”
He raised his eyebrows with an affectation of perplexity.
“Didn’t I tell you?” he said. “But there’s nothing to explain. I
wanted to come and I came.”
“Four days ago?”
“More or less.”
“But what brought you? Where did you get the money?”
“Never mind. That’s my affair. I did get it, and there’s an end.”
“How long do you intend to stop?”
“It all depends upon circumstances. Maybe I shall get something to do
here.”
“Well, you might. I had nothing more to recommend me than you have
when I first came.”
“Not so much, my good fellow.”
He threw out his chest and a whiff of smoke together.
“I’ve more about me to take the fancy, I believe, and I’m not
handicapped with a depressing secret for the unscrupulous to trade
upon. Besides, you forget that I’ve a friend at court, which you never
had.”
“Meaning me. It’s no good, I can tell you in the very beginning. I’ve
not influence enough with my employer to foist a useless fresh hand
upon him.”
“We’ll see, my friend--we’ll see, perhaps, by and by. I’m not in any
hurry. I haven’t the slightest intention of working till I’m forced
to.”
“I suppose not. But what are you going to do in the meantime?”
“Enjoy life, as I always do.”
“Here, in London?”
“Yes, of course.”
“We can’t put you up at this place. It’s impossible.”
“Wait till you’re asked. I’ve got my own quarters.”
“Where?”
“Find out if you can. I keep my private burrow secret.”
“Well, it’s all very queer, but I suppose you know your own business
best.”
“Naturally,” he said, and sat frowning at me a little while.
Then presently he rose and came and looked down upon me.
“Renny,” he said, quietly, “I’m going now, but I shall look you up
from time to time. I just want to say a thing first, though. You
haven’t received me very well, and I shan’t forget it. There’s a new
manner about you that’s prettier than it’s quite safe. You seem to
have thought matters over and to have come to the conclusion that this
lapse of years has tided you over a little difficulty we remember. I
only want to suggest that you don’t presume upon that too far. Grant
it to be true, as old Crackenthorpe said, that that fellow Muller’s
fate isn’t likely to be yours. I can make things pretty hot for you,
nevertheless.”
He nodded at me once or twice, with his lips set, and so walked from
the room.
For an hour after he had gone, regardless of the calls of business, I
sat on by the window pondering the meaning of this down-swoop and its
likely influence on my fortunes.
The nervous apprehension of boyhood had left me; I had carved out an
independent path for myself and had prospered. Was it likely that,
thus restored, as it were, to manliness, I could weakly succumb to a
sense of fatality? I was stronger by nature and experience than this
blackest of blackmailers. He who takes his moral fiber from humanity
must necessarily surpass the egotist who habitually drains upon
himself.
As to the mere fact of my brother’s journey hither, and his
acquirement of the means which enabled him to do so and to present a
becoming appearance, I cared to speculate but little. London was the
natural goal of his kind, and when the migratory fit came he was bound
by hook or by crook to gather the wherewith for his flight.
It was the immediate presence of his blackrent mood that I had to
combat, and I found myself strong to do so. I would not own his
mastery; I would anticipate him and force the crisis he wished to
postpone for his own gain and my torment. That very evening would I
tell Duke all and abide by his judgment.
And Dolly? Here on the instant I compromised with manliness and so
admitted a weak place in my armor. Viewed through the dizzy mist of my
own past and haunted suffering, this sweet and natural child stood
out, such a tender vision of innocence that I dared not arrogate to
myself the right of informing it with an evil that must be negative
only in the first instance. How can I imperil her soul, I thought, by
shattering at a blow the image, my image, that enlightens it?
Sophistry--sophistry; for what true woman is the worse for learning
that her idol is poor humanity after all--not a thing to worship, but
a soul to help and protect--a soul thirsting for the deep wells of
sympathy?
Had I been wise to forestall my brother with all whose influence was
upon my life a great misery might have been averted. In this instance
I temporized, and the fatal cloud of calamity rose above the horizon.
Why was it that, at the first, Dolly was much more in my mind than
Zyp? That I cannot answer altogether, but so it was. The balance of my
feelings was set no differently; yet, while it seemed quite right and
proper that Zyp should estimate me at my dual personality, I shrunk
with shuddering from the thought of Dolly knowing me as I knew myself.
Perhaps it was that, for all my sense of passionate affinity to the
wild creature once so part of my destinies, I recognized in the other
the purer soul; that it was the love of the first I desired, the good
will of the second. Perhaps, also, the recognition of this drove me on
again to abide by my decision of the morning. It is useless to
speculate now; for the little unhappy tale ended otherwise than as I
had prefigured it. My day had begun with an omen as ghastly as its
sequel was to be.