AN OLD-TIME TRAGEDY
AFTER a moment, during which Father Maloney was, I imagine, sorting
his ideas, seeking for the best beginning to the promised complicated
story, he began to speak.
“Well, you’ll know, of course, that the Delanceys are a very old
family. The baronetcy dates back to the time of the Crusaders. The
family have never lost the Faith, as we Catholics say. The matter which
has given rise to the present upset happened in the year seventeen
hundred and thirteen. The then baronet was one Sir Michael Delancey,
his wife, Helen, _née_ Montgomery. But sure that’s nothing to do with
the tale at all. There were three children by the marriage, Henry,
Antony, and Rosamund. It was with Henry that the difficulty arose.
He was--well, I fear there’s no denying that he was a rogue, with no
decent feeling in him at all. A card-playing, drinking fella he was,
and not above doing a thought of cheating if it happened that the luck
was going against him. Well, it was in one of these card routs that
things came to a crisis. There was cheating and quarrelling and what
not, and at the end a duel. Henry killed his man, and raced off to his
home to lie low a bit in hiding. The old man--Sir Michael--was sick
of him and his ways by that time, I’m thinking. Anyhow he agreed to
smuggle him out of the country, but on one condition, and here’s the
first, and, for that matter, the whole point of the business. Before he
was shipped off he had to sign some paper or other renouncing all claim
to the property, indeed disinheriting himself in favour of his younger
brother, Antony. Somehow it seems that the old man had not the right to
disinherit him himself.”
“Entail, I suppose,” said John lighting a fresh cigarette.
“Something of the kind, I’ve no doubt,” returned Father Maloney.
“Legally, I’m thinking, he’d still have inherited the title, but
the bargain was that he was to go off for ever, be, in a manner of
speaking, dead to the heritage of his forebears in any shape or form.
And his heirs to be dead to it likewise. Be that as may be, he went
off, having renounced all claim to the property. Five years later his
brother Antony succeeded to it.”
Father Maloney paused, then a moment later resumed his tale.
“Antony married Margaret de Courcey, a fine woman from all accounts,
and by her he had four children, Antony, Richard, Rosamund, and
Michael. Now comes along the next point of interest. Ten years after
Sir Antony had succeeded to the property and title, Henry reappeared
upon the scene. There’s no doubt but that he had it in his mind to
make matters as unpleasant for Antony as might be. He was married, so
he said, and had two sons. Margaret was away from home at the time,
and the whole business is clearly shown in letters she received from
her husband, Sir Antony. The letters are still in existence. In them
Sir Antony tells her of Henry’s reappearance, and sets forth his
reluctance to do the obvious thing and inform the law his brother has
returned,--which would have been mightily unpleasant for Henry, I’m
thinking. Sure, he must have been a daring fella to have come back to
England at all. Sir Antony tells her, too, clearly enough, Henry’s
motive in coming, and it’s one a blind man might be seeing without
over-much difficulty. It was the paper he’d signed he was after. If he
could destroy that, why, it would leave his son free to inherit the
title and property at his death. He couldn’t think to be getting them
himself without more of a boggle than he’d have a liking for. But it
would be another matter for his son. You’ll be finding all this in the
first two letters Sir Antony wrote to Margaret, as well as the whole
history of the signing of the paper. Perhaps after a fashion she knew
of that before, but not over-definitely. Anyhow Sir Antony writes it
all down, and it is from that letter we know of the matter. A third
letter, and a shorter one, shows that Sir Antony is getting a trifle
uneasy with Henry hanging around, and that he means to remove the paper
from the strong box, where it was kept, to some hiding-place of sorts.
But never a hint did he give of where that hiding-place would be at
all.”
“Possibly,” remarked John shrewdly, “he had no mind to put his ideas on
paper.”
“’Tis more than likely,” returned Father Maloney grimly, “but it’s
a deal of trouble he’d have been saving if he’d given the merest
suspicion of a hint. A fourth letter was sent to Margaret Delancey,
written by one Francis Raymond, a priest. ’Tis a sad letter, and a
fine letter too, for that matter. He begs her to come home without
delay, and tells her of her husband’s death. He goes straight at what
he has to say, and then gives her the comfort the poor soul would
be needing,--though it’s plain he knows the manner of woman she is,
and the courage of her. There’s a hint in his letter of foul play of
some kind. Other papers, Margaret’s own diary among them, tell what
that foul play was. Sir Antony had been found in the park, under an
oak tree, shot through the head. Henry was lying near him, a pistol
not ten inches from his hand, and his throat torn out by Sir Antony’s
wolf-hound.”
“What a ghastly business!” ejaculated John, as Father Maloney stopped.
“You may well say that,” remarked Father Maloney. “The matter was plain
enough. Henry had shot his brother with the idea of getting hold of
that precious paper unhindered, but he had forgotten--or, maybe, never
realized--the presence of Sir Antony’s wolf-hound, Gelert. The dog
wasn’t one to let his master’s murderer go unpunished.”
Again there was a little pause. Father Maloney refilled his pipe.
“Well,” he said after a minute, “after Sir Antony’s death, his son
Antony came into possession. But--” Father Maloney emphasized the word
with an emphatic movement of his pipe, “that paper desired by Henry had
vanished. Wherever Sir Antony had hidden it, the hiding-place was a bit
too good. It has never been found.”
“Perhaps,” suggested John tentatively, “Henry had destroyed it.”
Father Maloney shook his head.
“Not a bit of it. If Henry had destroyed it before he shot his brother
there’d have been no need for the shooting at all. He shot his brother
to get at the paper, but Gelert was one too many for him. And never a
scrap of paper was found upon, or near him.”
“And,” said John ruminatively, “that has proved an awkward business.”
“It has that,” said Father Maloney drily. “A claimant has turned up.”
“Yes,” said John quietly.
“Oh, ’tis a pretty boggle,” went on Father Maloney, “it is that. This
fella, this David Delancey arrives from Africa----”
“Africa!” interrupted John. “I heard he was an American?”
“Well, ’tis Africa he has come from,” said Father Maloney. “He arrives
as cool as a cucumber. ‘I’m the rightful owner of this place,’ says he
in a letter to Lady Mary. ‘I’ve every proof, and send copies of them.’
’Tis a long rigmarole how he got hold of them. Of course there was
a lawyers’ investigation. That’s been going on for months. But ’tis
proved now beyond no manner of doubt that he is the direct descendant
of that scoundrel Henry, and not a scrap of legal proof have we got on
our side that Henry ever renounced the claim to the property. There’s
the whole business. Lady Mary got the letter from the lawyer fellas
this morning. ’Tis full of their jargon, but the meaning is plain
enough through it all. David Delancey is the rightful heir, and no
vestige of right has this little Antony here to stick or stone of the
old place.”
Father Maloney stopped.
“It’s--it’s preposterous!” ejaculated John hotly.
Father Maloney smiled, an untranslatable, an enigmatic smile.
“When does he take possession?” demanded John.
“Oh, he’s written a decent enough letter,” responded Father Maloney.
“He says there can be time enough taken for the handing over of the
property. ‘Take six months, or a year about it, for that matter,’ says
he. He’ll be coming down here in a day or so to the inn to look around
and get the hang of affairs, though he’s in no way anxious to intrude.”
“Intrude!” snorted the wrathful John.
“Well, well,” interpolated Father Maloney soothingly, “he’ll be within
his rights according to those lawyer fellas.”
John gazed sternly before him.
“I don’t believe he has an atom of right,” he announced emphatically.
Again Father Maloney smiled.
“Well, I’ll allow we’re all of us for that way of thinking ourselves.
But private opinion has never overridden the law yet, without proof in
the plainest black and white to back it up.”
John heaved a portentous sigh.
Here, at least, was fact indisputable. Matters for the present
inhabitants of Delancey Castle were at a deadlock, a deadlock of the
tightest and most emphatic kind. There was no denying that a stoic
philosophy was the only course open to them.
But stoic philosophy on such a matter! How was any living human
creature possessed of a drop of warm tingling blood in his veins to
encompass such a state of being? He saw the trio as they had come
towards him in the August sunshine that morning,--the girl tall,
graceful, breathing vitality, temperament; the merest casual observer
must have felt her extraordinary capacity for feeling things intensely.
Oh, it was no imagination on his part, imagination fed by the white
light of idealism with which he had surrounded her. Verily was there no
imagination on his part. She would suffer in every fibre of her being.
It would be to her like tearing her heart from her. And she would
suffer smiling, he knew that. That’s where the pain would be the more
intense. Those who can bedew a wound with tears bring easing to its
agony. And he told himself she would never shed one tear. He knew he
wasn’t being sentimental. It was the hard bed-rock truth.
And the boys too! Antony, gay, debonair, valiant little champion!
Michael, a mere clinging, cuddlesome baby! And there was Delancey
Castle before him in the sunlight.
Of course he didn’t know the place, he was perfectly aware of that
fact, but imagination could well make up for lack of knowledge. In
imagination he saw the gardens, the terraces, the old grey walls, the
dark interior lit by diamond-paned casement windows; he saw the blend
of harmonious colours; he smelt the old-time smell of century-mellowed
oak and leather, the fragrant scents of lavender and _pot-pourri_.
And it was this--this absolutely perfect and fitting frame for that
adorable trio (he had forgotten Lady Mary for the moment) that was
to be snatched from them, and made the frame for a modern, hustling,
nasal-voiced American.
“What do you think about it?” demanded John sternly, his eyes towards
the distant Castle, but his words intended for the old priest.
“Sure, I was thinking every bit the same as you’re thinking, till
twenty minutes or so agone,” responded Father Maloney.
“And now?” demanded John.
“Glory be to God, is it a sermon you’re wanting?” asked Father Maloney
with a little twinkle in his eyes.