SOME ONE COMES AND GOES.
November had come, with early frosts that flattened the nasturtiums in
the town gardens and stiffened belated bees on the Michaelmas daisies,
that were the very taverns of nature to lure them from their decent
homes.
This year the complacent dogmatism of an ancient proverb was most
amply justified by results:
“Be there ice in November that ’ill bear a duck,
There’ll be nothing after but sludge and muck.”
The bellying winds of December were to drive up such clouds of rain
and storm that every gully in the meadows was to join its neighbor in
one common conspiracy against the land, and every stream to overrun
its banks, swollen with the pride of hearing itself called a flood.
I had been reading one bright morning to my father until he fell
asleep, and was sitting on pensively with the book in my hand, when I
became aware of a step mounting the stairs below and pausing at the
sitting-room door. I rose softly at once, and, descending, came plump
upon Dr. Crackenthorpe, just as he was crossing the threshold to
enter.
He was very sprucely dressed, for him, with a spray of ragged geranium
in his button-hole; and this, no less than the mere fact of his
presence in the house, filled me with a momentary surprise so great
that I had not a word to say. Only I bowed him exceedingly politely
into the parlor and civilly asked his business.
An expression of relief crossed his face, I thought, as though he had
been in two minds as to whether I should take him by the collar and
summarily eject him there and then.
“I haven’t seen your father about lately,” he jerked out, with some
parody of a smile that, I concluded, was designated to propitiate. “I
called to inquire if the old gentleman was unwell.”
“He is practically an invalid,” I said; “he keeps entirely to his own
room.”
“Indeed? I am concerned. Nothing serious, I trust? My services, I need
not say, are at the command of so valued an old friend.”
“He needs no services but mine. It is the debility of old age, I
fear--nothing more.”
“Yet he is a comparatively young man. But it’s true that to mortgage
one’s youth too heavily is to risk the premature foreclosing of old
age.”
“I dare say. Was there any other object in your visit?”
“One other--frankly.”
He held out a damp hand to me. It shook rather.
“I’m tired of this duel of cross-purposes. Will you agree to cry an
armistice--peace, if you like?”
I took him in from head to foot--a little to his discomfiture, no
doubt.
“Is this pure philanthropy, Dr. Crackenthorpe?” I said.
“Most pure and disinterested,” said he. “I claim, without offense, the
grievance as mine, and I am the first to come forward and cry. Let
there be an end to it.”
“Not so fast. You start on a fundamental error. A grievance, as I take
it, can only separate friends. There can be no question of such a
misunderstanding between us, for we have always been enemies.”
“That’s your fancy,” cried he; “that’s your mistaken fancy! I’m not
one to wear my heart on my sleeve. If I’ve always repressed show of my
innate regard for you, you’re not to think it didn’t exist.”
“Why waste so many words? That’s a good form of regard, to act the
bulldog to us, as you always did. It was a chastening sense of duty, I
suppose, that induced you to leave me for years under an ugly stigma
when you knew all the time that I was innocent. Is your valued
friendship for the old man best expressed by blackmailing and robbing
him on the strength of a fragment of circumstantial evidence?”
“I have made myself particeps criminis. Does that go for nothing? A
little consideration was due to me there. A moiety of the treasure he
was squandering, I took advantage of my influence to secure in trust
for his children. You shall have it all back again some day, and
should show me profound gratitude in place of sinister disbelief.”
“A fine cheapening of cupidity, and well argued. How long were you
thinking it out?”
“As to that question of the suspicions you labored under--remember
that any conclusion drawn from circumstances was hypothetical. I may
have had a professional opinion as to the cause of death, and a secret
one as to the means employed. That was conjecture; but if you are
fair, you will confess that, by running away to London, you did much
to incriminate yourself in men’s minds.”
“I never looked upon it in that light.”
“I dare say not. Innocence, from its nature, may very often stultify
itself. I think you innocent now. Then I was not so certain. It was
not, perhaps, till your father sought to silence me, that my
suspicions were diverted into a darker channel.”
“You put a good case,” I said, amazed at the man’s plausibility. “You
might convince one who knew less of you.”
“You can prove nothing to my discredit. This is all the growth of
early prejudice. Think that at any moment I might have denounced him
and left the proof of innocence on his shoulders.”
“And killed the goose with the golden eggs? I am not altogether
childish, Dr. Crackenthorpe, or quite ignorant of the first principles
of law. In England the burden of proof lies on the prosecution. How
would you have proceeded?”
“I should at least have eased my conscience of an intolerable load and
escaped the discomforting reflection that I might be considered an
accessory after the fact.”
“As indeed you are in the sight of heaven by your own showing, though
I swear my father is as innocent of the crime as I am.”
He shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating gesture.
“Anyhow, my position shows my disinterestedness,” he said.
“And you are growing frightened over it, it seems. Well, take whatever
course pleases you. From our point of view, here, I feel quite easy as
to results.”
“You misapprehend me. This visit is actuated by no motive but that of
friendliness. I wish to bury the hatchet and resume the pleasant
relations that existed of old.”
“They were too one-sided. Besides, all the conditions changed upon my
return.”
“And no one regretted it more than I. I have from the first been your
true friend, as I have attempted to show. You have a valuable
inheritance in my keeping. Indeed”--he gave a sort of high embarrassed
titter--“it would be to your real advantage to hand the residue over
to me before he has any further opportunity of dissipating it.”
I broke into a cackle of fierce laughter.
“So,” I cried, “the secret is out! I must compliment you on a most
insatiable appetite. But, believe me, you have more chance of
acquiring the roc’s egg than the handful!”
He looked at me long and gloomily. I could feel rather than hear him
echo: “The handful.” But he made a great effort to resume his
conciliatory tone when he spoke again.
“You jump to hot-headed conclusions. It was a simple idea of the
moment, and as you choose to misinterpret it, let it be forgotten. The
main point is, are we to be friends again?”
“And I repeat that we can’t resume what never existed. This posturing
is stupid farce that had best end. Shall we make the question
conditional? That cameo, that you have come into possession of--we
won’t hazard a supposition by what means--restore it, at least, to its
rightful owner as an earnest of your single-mindedness. I, who am to
inherit it in the end, give you full permission.”
He started back, and his face went the color of a withered aspen leaf.
“It’s mine,” he cried, shrilly. “I wouldn’t part with it to the
queen!”
“See then! What am I to believe?”
I walked close up to him. His fingers itched to strike me, I could
see.
“Dr. Crackenthorpe,” I said, “you had best have spared yourself this
errand. Why, what a poor scamp you must be to think to take me in with
such a fusty trick. Make the most of what you’ve got. You’ll not have
another stiver from us. Look elsewhere for a victim. Your evil mission
in life is the hounding of the wretched. Mine, you know. Some clews
are already in my hand, and, if there is one man in the world I should
rejoice to drag down--you are he!”
He walked to the door, and, turning, stamped his foot furiously down
on the boards.
“You bitter dolt!” he roared, with a withering sneer. “Understand that
the chance I gave you is withdrawn forever. There are means--there are
means; and I----”
He stopped; gulped; put his hand to his throat, and walked out of the
house without another word.
I stood looking after him, all blazing with anger. No least fear of
the evil creature was in me, but only a blank fierce astonishment that
he should thus have dared to brave me on my own ground. What cupidity
was that, indeed, that could not only think to gloss over long years
of merciless torment by a few false suave words, but could actually
hope to find the profit of his condescension in a post-prandial
gorging of the fragments his inordinate gluttony of avarice had passed
over!
However, putting all thought of him from me, I returned to my father.