Although Mr. Bradfield kept close watch from the study window, and saw Gilbert Wryde’s son safely out of the grounds, he was no more a match than other astute middle-aged persons have been for the wiles of a pair of lovers.
Richard Wryde, although he had let himself be “talked over” by Mr. Bradfield, was not quite so simple as his guardian supposed. Before he was out of the house, therefore, it had occurred to him to doubt whether Mr. Bradfield’s information about Chris were correct. It was, at any rate, worth while, he thought, to make the tour of the eastern end of the grounds, on the outer side of the wall, and then to saunter past the sea-front of the mansion, keeping a careful eye on the windows.
And when he was within sight of the window of the Chinese room, he was rewarded for his perspicacity by the sight of Chris, engaged in her favourite occupation of looking out at the sea.
She saw him in a moment, without his having to exert himself to attract her attention. He saw her spring up, clasping her hands. And he knew that all he had to do was to wait for her to come to him.
He went back, therefore, towards the east end of the house, so that the trees might hide him from the curious eyes within. In a few minutes Mr. Bradfieldheard the creaking of the gate again. He got up and looked out; but Chris had gone through like an arrow, and he saw no one.
When she was once outside the gates, however, shyness, excitement, one does not know what, stayed her flying feet, and brought a flutter to her heart. And when she caught sight of Dick, as he came round the angle of the wall to meet her, she stopped altogether.
Dick was timid too. It seemed to him, as it seemed to her, that the happiness at their lips was too great, that the cup must be dashed away before the draught was taken. The man, of course, recovered first from the stupor of joy following weeks of longing.
Chris, with her eyes upon the ground, felt a hand on her shoulder, warm breath upon her face.
“You are glad to see me? Then tell me so.”
She looked up suddenly, saw, in place of the wistful face she remembered, eyes full of the fire of recovered light, of youth renewed. Her lover was no longer the deaf and dumb recluse; he was as other men are, but with a charm of gentleness, of sadness past, but remembered, which made him infinitely more attractive in her eyes than any other man could ever be.
“I am so glad,” she whispered, “that I hardly dare to speak for fear I should cry!”
And, with a sob she tried hard to suppress, she brought out from under her cloak, and held out towards him, the little sketch of the sea seen between the trees of Wyngham House.
“When I saw this,” she said, brokenly, “I knew, oh, I knew that you were alive. But you might havelet me know before. For I have been so miserable, I wanted to die.”
Her lover took her in his arms; they were under the trees on one side, and in the shelter of the high wall of Wyngham House on the other; and in words a little old-fashioned, a little more fanciful than the modern lover of every day dares to use, he told her of the light which the sight of her from his prison windows had brought into his life, of the new energy she had unconsciously put into him, of the longing he had felt to stand beside her and to feel the touch of her hand.
“Before you came here,” he said, pouring his words into her willing ears with an impetuosity which, in truth, made him well-nigh unintelligible, “Stelfox did not dare to let me out of the rooms in which I was kept, even for ten minutes. He had tried it once, not long ago, and he had only with great difficulty prevented me from attacking that old rascal Bradfield. But when you came, I became at once a different man. I thought no more of Bradfield, or of anybody but you, always you. I lost the dead, sullen patience that my confinement had taught me; I raged like a wild beast shut up for the first time. When I saw Bradfield touch you, as he did that day under my windows, on purpose, I believe, to provoke me, I lost my self-command, and threw at him the first thing that came to my hand. You remember, I dare say. I smashed the window, and nearly frightened you out of your senses. Then Stelfox gave me a lecture which made me ill, really ill, with misery and want of sleep, for two or three days and nights.
“He told me that I had frightened you so muchthat you would never come near my windows again; that you thought my savage attack was upon yourself, and that, in all probability, you would not dare to stay at Wyngham afterwards. So that at last I became so wretched that he had to be merciful, and to tell me that you were not going to leave Wyngham, and that he would contrive for me to see you again. In the meantime, however, I overheard something said by the men working in the garden, which told me that Bradfield himself was in love with you. This, indeed, I had already guessed; but to hear it confirmed made me so furious that I contrived to pick the lock of my outer door and to get out, with the fixed intention of braining the brute, or, at least, of doing him some severe injury, if I got the chance. I saw him go out, on foot, across the meadows for a walk. I lost sight of him behind the shrubbery, so I thought I would hide among the farm-buildings until he came back. I found the barn door unlocked, so I hid myself there; and presently you came in, as you know. I can’t tell you how I felt. At first it made me giddy to be near you; it seemed as if my brain would burst, as if I must cry aloud or shout for the very joy of looking into your eyes. When your hand touched mine—it was when you put out your hand to take the lantern, I think—I felt a joy so keen, that it was almost like the pain of a stab. When I put my hand over your mouth so that you should not scream, it was almost more than I could do not to kiss you, as I do now.”
He pressed his lips again and again to hers with a passionate vehemence which almost frightened Chris, accustomed as she was to the utmost gentleness on his part. She tried to draw herself out of his arms,but with a sudden change from passion to wistful tenderness, he partly released her, and drew her hands against his breast with a melancholy smile.
“I am a savage!” he exclaimed. “I have frightened you. Let me at least hold your hands; I will not hurt them. I will hold them like this!”
He relaxed the grasp in which he had held her fingers, and she let her hands lie lightly in his as he went on:
“You must civilise me. And don’t be afraid. The block is very rough, but your skill is very great.”
As he bent his head to kiss her hands very gently, Chris felt that he was trembling.
“I want to ask you something,” said Chris timidly. “Those cries, those strange cries you gave—that evening in the barn! And your strange silence, too! I don’t understand. Why didn’t you speak to me!”
“I was stone deaf, you know; I had been so ever since I was a small child, when I had scarlet fever badly. It left me absolutely without hearing, so that I could not hear the sound of my own voice.”
“Yes, yes, but you could speak?”
“I had learnt to talk when I was a child, but under the treatment of the brute who calls himself my guardian, I had forgotten how. I had got into the way of making cries and noises like a person deaf and dumb from birth.”
“But you could speak, for you spoke to me on Christmas Day?”
“Yes; but that is a long story. It was Stelfox who found out, four or five years ago, that I was neither dumb nor insane, and with great patience hetaught me what I had almost forgotten, how to speak again. But I did not dare to speak to you, because, as I told you, I could not hear myself; I had only spoken to Stelfox for years; I distrusted my own powers. When I made the strange cries which frightened you, I was not conscious of it myself. You see, it is true that I am a savage.”
Chris, seeing that the avowals he had been making caused him pain and bitter mortification, took his hands, and raising them to her face, laid them tenderly against her cheek.
“That is a trouble you will have no more,” she said, softly. “And you can hear now, can you not?”
“I can hear fairly well on one side now,” he answered. “I can hear some days better than others. I am under treatment by one of the great London aurists. He says that if I had been brought to him sooner he could have cured me completely; as it is, the hearing in the right ear is completely gone, and in the left it is permanently impaired.”
Chris began to sob, and Dick had to comfort her.
“Don’t, don’t cry, my darling; I shall make you as melancholy as myself if I don’t take care—you, who used to be all life and brightness.”
“I haven’t been very lively since you went away,” answered Chris. “I have been very ill. I thought you were de—ead!” And she shuddered. “I thought I saw you carried out—dead—over the grass—hanging over a man’s shoulder!”
“I was carried over a man’s shoulder, I believe, only I wasn’t dead,” answered Dick simply. “It was Stelfox’s doing.”
Chris looked puzzled.
“It was in the evening of the day that they foundout I had been writing to you,” said she. “Had that anything to do with it?”
Dick listened with interest.
“Everything, I should think,” he answered drily. “Stelfox’s account is, that he found me lying on the sofa insensible, when he came in to clear away the dessert on that evening. He examined the decanters on the table, and finding that I had drunk very little wine, came to the conclusion that what little I had taken had been tampered with. He succeeded in rousing me, but left me for the night in such a drowsy condition that he came back again after I was in bed, to find out if I was all right. His suspicions were then aroused by finding that someone had been in the room, so he woke me with difficulty, told me to dress, and made me go downstairs.”
“Ah!” interrupted Chris quickly, “that was what I heard, what I almost saw. Well, what then?”
Dick went on:
“By the time we got downstairs I had grown so drowsy that when he left me for a minute I tumbled off to sleep again. He had no idea, he said, at that time of going further with me than the garden, where he thought the fresh air would revive me, while he went upstairs again to make investigations. But my continued drowsiness alarmed him so much that he thought it best to take me first at once into the open air. When we had got outside, however, he found that I was again in a state of stupor, so he lifted me up and carried me bodily across the garden towards the beach, where he thought that he could revive me effectually by splashing the sea-water in my face. In the meantime he saw smoke and flames coming from the east wing, and at once made up his mind that Icould not go back. He left me, therefore, having brought me to myself, while he borrowed a horse and cart from a man he knew; driving slowly, and resting frequently, so as to spin out the time, we went towards Ashford, where we arrived in plenty of time for him to put me into the first morning train for London. He telegraphed to a brother of his to meet me, and he returned himself to Wyngham in time to escape awkward questions; for in the commotion caused by the fire he had not been missed.”
“I don’t understand Stelfox,” said Chris, doubtfully. “I have never been able to make out whether he was a good man who was sorry for you, and was kind to you, or a bad one who found it to his interest to serve Mr. Bradfield in his wicked treatment of you.”
“You’d better ask him,” said Dick, smiling. “But he says he doesn’t know himself. Anyhow, he’s been a good friend to me. There is no piece of good fortune, from my recovery of speech down to my escape, that I do not owe to him. So when he tells me not to look too closely into his motives, I take care to humour him.”
“But I should like to understand,” persisted Chris. “He could have let you out long ago if he had liked then?”
“He says it would not have paid either him nor me. He wanted me to remain here until he had succeeded in finding out who I was, and what that rascal Bradfield’s motive was in keeping me shut up. But he hasn’t been able to find out yet, and beyond the fact that I now know my surname, a piece of information which I owe to you, I am as much in the dark as I was when he first shut me up.”
Chris mused for a few minutes without speaking. Then she said, half to herself:
“I wonder whether Mr. Marrable could help us?” Then in a different tone, “Won’t you see Mr. Bradfield? Won’t you ask him for an explanation? He has been kind to mamma and me. I don’t want to think he is so wicked as to have known that you were sane! And yet——”
She thought of the drugged wine, of the fire, and she shuddered.
Dick interrupted her.
“I have seen him,” he said, shortly. “I have asked for an explanation. But he will give none, at least none to satisfy me.”
“And you are going to rest satisfiednotto be satisfied?” cried Chris, almost with indignation.
“I don’t know what I shall do. At present I am going back to town. I had some work to do here.” He touched the little sketch which she still held in her hand. “My pastime in the days of captivity has become something more than a pastime now. I had undertaken to make a series of sketches of the sea and shore down here for a dealer——”
“Yes, yes, I know. I found that out,” said Chris, blushing at his look of tender surprise.
He kissed her again as he went on:
“But I have found that I must see my cunning old Stelfox first, and tell him what Bradfield has said. Knowing the man better than I do, he may understand better than I Bradfield’s motive for behaving generously.”
“Behaving generously?” echoed Chris, interrogatively.
“Yes, he will pay my passage out to Melbourne tomake enquiries about some property which he believes has been left to me.”
“Then don’t go,” cried Chris, impulsively. “You have had no reason for trusting him before; why should you trust him now?”
Dick hesitated.
“It does seem rather a slender chance of fortune, doesn’t it?” he said at last. “But it’s the only one I have. Remember, I not only have to live, but I want to keep a wife too.” She bent her head, but he heard a little sigh which had no sorrow in it. “Now I can just keep myself by my sketches; I can do nothing else, and I shouldn’t like to see you in anything but pretty frocks.”
“I believe,” said Chris, solemnly, jumping to a conclusion, “that Mr. Bradfield has got some money belonging to you, for they say that your father was a rich man.”
Dick looked thoughtful, but not hopeful. Little opportunity as he had had of knowing the world, he guessed that it would require superhuman energy to set the law in motion to make a rich man disgorge for the benefit of a poor one. For he was too ignorant to know that he could attack Capital in the person of Mr. Bradfield, by invoking the great god Labour. It did not occur to him, therefore, that a smart solicitor could have made a fortune both for himself and his client by bringing an action against John Bradfield, the rich man who had oppressed the poor one.
“I couldn’t prove it, even if it were true. And I know nothing of the kind,” said he.
Then Chris had another inspiration.
“You ought to consult a lawyer,” said she promptly.
The suggestion was so obviously a good one, that Dick agreed to this. And then their talk began to drift from the realms of fact to the pleasanter paths of feeling and fancy, and was carried on chiefly in whispers, and in sentences which had no beginnings and no endings.
While John Bradfield still sat in his study, turning over the papers from a locked drawer in his desk, tearing up some, and carefully putting aside others, he heard again the creaking of the gate, and looking out, saw, in the dusk which had now fallen, a figure which seemed familiar to him. It disappeared at once by the lodge, and Mr. Bradfield, after waiting a few minutes in vain watching for its return, rang the bell, and asked whether anyone had come in by the back way during the past few minutes. The servant said he thought not, but he would inquire; and he returned a few moments later to say that no one had come in.
Mr. Bradfield did not feel satisfied, although he gave no sign of his dissatisfaction.
“I could have sworn it was Stelfox!” said he to himself, as he again looked out of the window.
This time he saw another figure, whom there was no mistaking. The blood mounted to his head as he saw that it was Chris Abercarne, who was walking quickly back into the house. He was hard pressed for time, working among the papers with somethingof the feeling of a fox that burrows in the ground when the hounds are within hearing, but he felt that he must spare a moment to speak to her.
Chris was startled by the change which had come upon him since he drove her from the station. She knew of his interview with Dick, and, seen by the light of that knowledge, his face betrayed more than he could guess. The frown on it was not one of anger; it was the harassed, worried frown of a hunted man. And her indignation against him changed in a moment to pity; her face softened.
“You have been talking to—Richard, I suppose?” said he shortly, almost rudely, pronouncing the name with an effort.
“Yes,” answered Chris gently.
“You’re in love with him, or fancy you are, of course?” pursued he harshly.
Chris admitted that too.
“And you think I’ve ill-treated him, no doubt?”
The young girl’s face changed suddenly. She looked so sad, so wistful, that he was touched.
“I—I hope not; oh, I hope not!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you have been so kind to my mother and me, that—that——”
“Well, that what?” said he, not looking at her, and trying to speak as gruffly as ever.
“That I shouldn’t like to think——”
She paused again, and there was silence on both sides for a minute or two. Chris was looking with wide eyes at the back of his head, wondering with all her might whether it were possible for a man, a real man, one, too, by no means without the milk of human kindness as far as most people wereconcerned, to be guilty of the crimes which seemed to have been brought home to him.
John Bradfield, for his part, had been flung, all in a moment, into a sentimental mood. He had truly loved this girl, in his own way, which was not, perhaps, the highest way, but still in a manner not to be altogether despised, except by a woman who was entirely absorbed in love for somebody else. Now he had got to lose her altogether; to lose even that faint hope of holding her some day in his arms, which he had nursed side by side with some particularly cruel and selfish designs upon her favoured lover. For a moment he felt as if he must break down in some sort of confession, perhaps some sort of appeal. Then the sterner stuff in him hardened, and saying only, “Go along with you,” he made way for her to pass him on her way upstairs.
Then with one look after her, one sigh, he dismissed her absolutely from his mind, and gave himself up to the serious dangers of the moment, and the way to escape them. For he did not deceive himself; he knew that the cordon was closing round him, that before long the outposts would close in, and the chain of evidence, each link of which was now in the possession of a different person, would be complete against him. It only wanted the garrulous and untrustworthy Marrable to be questioned by either Stelfox, or Richard, or even Chris, for it to become known that the fortune that he, Bradfield, had been enjoying, was that left by Gilbert Wryde to him in trust for Richard, Gilbert’s son.
If this had been all the story, John Bradfield might have got off lightly. But the comparing of notes would lead not only to the discovery of the fraud hehad practised, but of the infamous means by which he had maintained it. Then there was that little matter of Richard’s disappearance at the time of the fire. What did Stelfox know? Bradfield, who had mistrusted the man for some time, but who had doubted the advisability of trying to “square” him, now wished that he had done so. However, it was too late to spend the time in regrets, and Mr. Bradfield went straight back to his study, and drawing down the blinds and locking the doors, proceeded to unlock a safe which had been built into the wall in one corner of the room.
As he took out, from some tin boxes inside, several bundles of papers, he smiled to himself with considerable malicious satisfaction. He took the papers to his desk, brought from a cupboard a strong leather travelling-bag, and with just a loving glance at the papers, which showed that he was too familiar with their exact contents to do more, he thrust them into the bottom of the bag, which he then carefully locked, putting the key in his pocket.
While enjoying to the full the pleasures of his quiet country life, and of his beautiful mansion, the astute Northerner had never lost sight of the fact that he might not be able to enjoy them for ever. He had therefore made a provision against discovery, by opening an account, to the extent of some thousands in each case, with several banks on the Continent, and in that Paradise of unrepentant thieves, South America. As long, therefore, as he could keep out of the hands of the police, it would go hard with him if he found himself without the sinews of war. The papers in the precious bag, which for the last few weeks he had kept always near at hand, consistedof securities easily realisable, and of the means of establishing his identity with the person who had opened the banking accounts above mentioned.
With the bag in his hand, John Bradfield unlocked and opened his study door softly, looked out, and listened. The person he most feared was Stelfox, in whom he recognised a mind as astute as his own; and he had a strong suspicion, in spite of the footman’s assurance to the contrary, that Stelfox had, within the last hour, secretly entered the house. John Bradfield felt that he must not only escape, but that he must escape without Stelfox’s knowledge.
He went softly upstairs, the thick carpets altogether deadening the sound of his footsteps, reached his bedroom, and packed in a Gladstone bag such things as were strictly necessary for a sudden journey—a change of clothes, some linen, the book he was reading. He was also careful to put in his favourite opera-glasses, being determined to take his journey not like a fugitive, but like a man of pleasure.
Then he left his bedroom as quietly and watchfully as he had entered it, and going to the door of Marrable’s room, listened for a few moments before going downstairs. He had not stood there for half-a-dozen seconds before the expression of his face changed from one of attention to one of mingled excitement and delight.
For Marrable, whom he had locked in asleep, was now awake, and talking—talking in his wandering and foolish manner, but with unusual emphasis and excitement.
And the answering voice was Stelfox’s.
Here was a bit of luck indeed. The cunning Stelfox had found his way to the very person who couldgive him all the information he wanted, and was now doubtless in the act of extracting it from his talkative companion. And when he unlocked the door of Marrable’s room, and went in, he had left the key outside.
Mr. Bradfield softly turned the key in the lock. Then, going quickly to his workshop, which was only a few yards away, he returned with a pair of nippers, and mounting on a chair, he neatly snipped the bell-wire in two.
“Now,” said he to himself, “when they find they’re locked in, they will ring the bell, and nobody will come. And that door will stand a good many kicks.”
He looked at his watch as he ran quickly downstairs, and slipped out of the house without meeting anybody.
“I can get a cab at the stand,” thought he. “I shall just have time to catch the train. I shall book to London, but I shall get out at Ashford, and go to Queensboro’, and on to Flushing. That’s just the last thing I should be expected to do. So that if Stelfox has been fool enough to chum up with the police on his lunatic’s behalf, I can give them leg-bail easily.”
Mr. Bradfield awoke, on the morning after his abrupt departure from Wyngham, with a start of surprise at finding himself in a strange place.
He had been troubled by no pangs of a guilty conscience, not even by fears of an imaginary pursuer. Accusations might be made against him certainly, some of which could be supported by evidence which might weigh heavily with a judge and jury. But the real foundation of his misdeeds was one so astounding, requiring so much digging and delving before a good case could be made out, that he might have remained securely at Wyngham for months to come, might almost indeed have defied Dick and the law to do their worst, if it had not been for Stelfox.
What Stelfox knew his late master was not quite sure; but the man’s respectful reticence during long years, during which his suspicions of foul play had grown into certainties, had so strongly impressed the master, that Mr. Bradfield had never felt safe since Stelfox had left his service.
So that Mr. Bradfield, for whom Wyngham House and its treasures had lost the charm of novelty, had thought it safest, as well as pleasantest, to decamp, leaving only the bare bones of his stolen property to be wrangled over in litigation.
What had woke him he did not know. He seemed to have jumped from the deepest, sweetest slumberinto broad wakefulness. He looked out at the sky, which he could just see between the white dimity curtains of the window, and he saw a bright little line of light which showed him that the summer sun was already high in the heavens. He looked at the foot of the bed, and saw, instead of the brass and beaten iron-work of his own magnificent bedstead, the polished mahogany of the old-fashioned four-poster. Then he remembered where he was, heaved a sigh of satisfaction at having left the anxieties of Wyngham behind him, and turned over in bed for another doze.
Then he saw what it was that had woke him. Standing beside his bedside, as respectfully as ever, was Stelfox. Then Mr. Bradfield felt that the way of the transgressor is indeed hard. He sat up in bed, and tried to look merely surprised.
“Hallo, Stelfox, is that you?” he said, boisterously.
“Yes, sir, it is I,” answered Stelfox, who was always correct.
“Well, and what are you doing here? Nothing happened, I hope?”
He was not yet quite warmed to the world and its doings, so, although he was undoubtedly annoyed and alarmed by the appearance of his late servant, he did not quite appreciate the full significance of this singular intrusion.
“Well, sir, I can’t exactly say that nothing has happened,” said Stelfox, still looking down. “I came down from London to Wyngham yesterday afternoon, sir, to see you. But I saw Mr. Marrable instead, sir.”
All this was said quite simply. But when his speech was finished, Stelfox came to a sudden stop—a nasty, significant stop.
“Mr. Marrable! Oh, yes,” said Mr. Bradfield, assuming more cheerfulness of speech as his thoughts lost it.
“He told me, sir, about the will made by Mr. Gilbert Wryde.”
“Well, what has that to do with me?”
“Well, sir, it has a good deal to do with you now that Mr. Richard is of age and proved to be sane, I think. For, of course, he ought to come into his property.”
There was a pause. For the thousand and first time Mr. Bradfield was asking himself whether this was a man to be bribed. He decided that at this stage of affairs the experiment must be tried.
“Look here, Stelfox,” said he, “you’re an honest man, and you want to see justice done to everybody, I’m sure.”
“I do, sir,” said Stelfox, modestly.
“And, in consideration of the fact that I’ve not been a bad master to you, or an ungenerous one for ten years, you would like, I am sure, to see justice done to me, too?”
“I should, sir,” answered Stelfox readily, but in a manner which left Mr. Bradfield to doubt whether the inflection of his voice was not “nasty.”
“Well, then,” pursued Mr. Bradfield, “see. Mr. Wryde, Master Richard’s father, left me a large sum—you see I don’t deny it was a large sum—in trust for his idiot son.”
But here Stelfox at last looked up.
“Idiotson, sir!” he interrupted, promptly. “But Mr. Marrable assures me that, so far from being an idiot, Master Richard was considered a very bright child, even after the scarlet fever had made him deaf.”
“Mr. Marrable assures you! But what’s Mr. Marrable? An idiot himself!” interrupted Mr. Bradfield, impatiently.
“And,” went on Stelfox, steadily, not heeding the interruption, “he says he knows it was old Mr. Wryde’s intention to take or send his little son to England, as it was thought his hearing could be restored. Indeed, sir,” pursued he, with uncanny smoothness, “Mr. Richard has recovered his hearing in a wonderful manner since he has been in London, and under the care of a specialist, sir.”
Here Mr. Bradfield broke out with sudden sharpness:
“Oh, oh! so he’s been with you in London, has he?”
His tone was by this time so frankly inimical, that Stelfox answered boldly:
“Why, yes, sir; it was natural for him to stay with the only friend he had.”
“Then you helped him to get away, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir, after I discovered the drugged wine. I’ve kept it, sir; kept the decanters just as they were left that night. I thought they might be wanted, perhaps, especially after the fire, sir.”
This was frankness indeed. Mr. Bradfield changed colour.
“Do you mean to insinuate that I wanted to make away with the fellow?” he asked, abruptly.
“I only mean, sir, that I thought what I could prove about the decanters that night, and what Miss Abercarne could prove about having seen you come out of the east wing just before the fire, and what Mr. Marrable could prove about old Mr. Wryde’s intentions, and what the will itself could prove about the wayyou carried them out—I thought, I say, sir, that all these things together might form a very good case, and that with a clever lawyer at his back he might hope to recover his property.”
As each fresh charge was mentioned, John Bradfield’s frown grew deeper, and the lines about his mouth grew harder and more unyielding. At the end he turned his head, and sought the man’s eye steadily. And the man at last looked steadily at him.
“And what, if it is not too straightforward a question, what share were you to have in the final distribution?”
“Well, sir,” answered the man straightforwardly, and in exactly the same tone as before, “I may say that I expected not to be forgotten.”
“Ah, ah!” chuckled Mr. Bradfield, triumphantly. “I thought not. Now we’re coming to it. Now I’m going abroad, as you see. I don’t admit the truth of a single one of these accusations, not a single one, mind. But I see you could make out a very plausible tale, for you’re a clever fellow, Stelfox, and I see I could be worried to death and half ruined besides, before the thing was settled. So look here: tell me what you want to keep your d——d mouth shut?”
Stelfox went on quite placidly, as if the manner in which the command was given had been rather flattering than otherwise:
“I want you, sir, to do the right thing by Master Richard. I am sure, sir, begging your pardon for having to say such a thing, that he will not be too particular in the matter of looking into past accounts.”
But Mr. Bradfield’s not too sweet temper had been rising, and at these words he gave it vent.
“D——n your impudence!” roared he, glaring at the man with so much ferocity that even the calm Stelfox moved a step nearer to the foot of the bed. “Do you think I’m going to be mastered by you, or that escaped whelp? No. D——n you both for a couple of accomplices who want to rob me. You can go to the d——l both of you, and I’ll be d——d if either of you shall get a penny out of me. Get out of my sight, or I’ll have the landlord prosecuted for allowing you to come in!”
Rather to his surprise, Stelfox withdrew at once in exactly the same manner as if he had only come in to bring the gentleman’s shaving-water. Mr. Bradfield, breathing heavily from rage and excitement, got up, turned the key in the lock, and began to dress.
He was in a passion still, so indignant with Stelfox for refusing to be bribed that he quite felt that he was an injured person. He told himself, however, with a chuckle, when he had got a little cooler, that neither Stelfox nor anybody else could prevent his crossing to Flushing by the next boat, and getting out of jurisdiction before matters had got far enough for a warrant to be issued for him. At the same time there was just a little undercurrent of anxiety in his mind, the result of the extreme promptitude with which the cunning Stelfox had traced him out, and the astuteness with which he had framed an excuse to induce the attendants at the hotel to show him up to the room of the gentleman he asked for.
“But how on earth did he get in?” Mr. Bradfield asked himself, remembering that he had locked his door before going to bed. On examination, however, thelock proved to have been defective, so that Stelfox had found his entry easy.
By this time Mr. Bradfield was fully dressed, and he turned to the head of the bed where, under the damask curtain, he had hidden his precious bag of securities on the previous night.
The bag was no longer there.
Stupefaction, terrible, absolute, fell for one moment upon Mr. Bradfield. He thought not of common thieves; it was borne in upon him at once, with irresistible force, that the theft was the work of Stelfox. Ringing the bell violently, and not waiting for it to be answered, he ran downstairs, telling the waiters, the boots, and everyone he met to “Stop that man!”
At first they did not take in the sense of this injunction, but when they did, they explained that the man, who had represented himself to be Mr. Bradfield’s servant, had just caught the train back to Wyngham. For it appeared that Stelfox had made no secret either of his own name, or of his master’s, or of his destination.
“My bag! My b—b—bag,” stammered Mr. Bradfield. “He’s a thief! he’s stolen it.”
At once a little group collected round the excited man, and the proprietor of the hotel coming forward, at once ordered the boots to run to the station and telegraph a description of the man, so that he mightbe stopped. For, indeed, more than one person remembered that he had gone upstairs without a bag, and returned carrying one.
But this order was scarcely given when Mr. Bradfield, turning suddenly more ghastly white than before, changed his mind and his tactics.
“No, no,” stammered he. “Don’t do that; wait a bit.”
At the same moment, a maid came running out of the bar with a note, which, she said, had been left for the gentleman by the man who called himself his servant.
Mr. Bradfield, opening the envelope with clammy fingers, read the following words:
“Sir,—I beg respectfully to say that I have taken your bag back to Wyngham House for you, as I am sure that you will want it when you return, as I hope you will do in the course of the day. I can undertake to say that a satisfactory settlement will be arrived at, if you should think proper to meet Mr. Richard Wryde and his lawyer, who will be there to meet you.—I am, sir, your obedient servant,“James Stelfox.”
“Sir,—I beg respectfully to say that I have taken your bag back to Wyngham House for you, as I am sure that you will want it when you return, as I hope you will do in the course of the day. I can undertake to say that a satisfactory settlement will be arrived at, if you should think proper to meet Mr. Richard Wryde and his lawyer, who will be there to meet you.—I am, sir, your obedient servant,
“James Stelfox.”
Mr. Bradfield’s head swam. The events, which he had been leading so beautifully up to this moment, had turned upon him, overwhelmed him, and were now carrying him away in their rush. A few moments’ reflection convinced him that he must now go with the tide.
While still looking at the note he recovered himself, and explaining hurriedly that he had made a mistake, and that it was all right, he paid his bill, walked tothe station, and inquired the time of the next train to Wyngham.
Mr. Bradfield had been beaten at his own game of “bluff.” For undoubtedly, as he had said to Stelfox, the case against him, strong though it was, would have taken time and money in abundance to prove. In the meanwhile, if he had not lost nerve at the last, he could have turned the tables on Stelfox by accusing that astute person of stealing his bag.
But the contents of that bag were so incriminating, that he decided that any arrangement would now be better than coming into court.
It was rather startling, however, for the poor man to find, on alighting at Wyngham Station, the persistent and wily Stelfox waiting on the platform to meet him. Of course, the new master saluted the old master as respectfully as ever.
“I thought you would be coming by this train, sir,” said he, “so I took the liberty of telling Williams to bring the phaeton round. It’s waiting outside, sir.”
Mr. Bradfield was not grateful for this attention. He nodded, strode sullenly through the station, and drove home at a rapid pace. He wanted to get the whole business over as speedily as possible. Stelfox followed in a cab.
Wyngham House looked curiously different in his eyes from the mansion he had left, as he then supposed, for ever, on the previous night. And yet nothing about it was changed; it was the eye which looked upon it which had undergone a transformation. The footman who let him in knew something, perhaps, but he was careful to look as if he did not, this being an art in which all well-bred servants are proficient.But the man’s first words sent a shudder down John Bradfield’s back.
“Mr. Wryde is in the drawing-room, sir.”
The change of name spoke volumes to begin with. “Mr. Richard” was now “Mr. Wryde.”
John went straight to the drawing-room, and walked in with a sullen face. His day was over, but he could “die game.” He found not only his late ward, but Mrs. Abercarne, her daughter, and a gentleman of unmistakably legal aspect. There was a little flutter on his entrance, but he at once perceived matters were to be made as pleasant for him as the circumstances allowed. Thus, Richard came forward, and although he did not shake hands with him, he introduced Mr. Reynolds, “of the firm of Reynolds and Parkinson,” in a tone less cold, less hostile than that he had assumed on the preceding day.
And yet in the meantime Richard had become aware, through Marrable, who, on the announcement of Bradfield’s arrival, had tried to hide himself behind the window-curtains, of the monstrous breach of trust by which John Bradfield the pauper had become John Bradfield the millionaire, at his expense. The reason for this change in demeanour was simple enough; the human mind admires vastness, it is easily impressed, nay, abashed by undertakings carried on with magnificence, with completeness. If a man steals our watch, or a purse containing sixpence, we seize him, and hold him until a policeman comes up; if he cheats us out of a thousand pounds by inducing us to take shares in a worthless company, we proceed against him respectfully by lawsuit, which may end in our discomfiture instead of his. So thatRichard, overwhelmed by the greatness of the crime, felt almost more bewildered than indignant in the presence of the criminal.
John Bradfield had the wit to recognise this, and it cleared the way to an understanding. He proceeded to assure both the lawyer and his client that he had only held Gilbert Wryde’s money in trust, and had used it in the belief that Richard was insane. Now, finding that he had been mistaken, he was delighted to hand over to the young man the fortune of which he had been trustee, and should never cease to regret the unhappy error by which Richard had been kept out of his property so long.
All this both the lawyer and his client affected to hear and believe without question, so that matters went on quite amiably and smoothly, and the transfer of the property from the usurper to the owner was quietly arranged when the ladies and Marrable, all of whom had greeted John with much constraint, had left the three gentlemen by themselves.
“May I ask, Mr. Bradfield,” asked Dick, during a pause for the lawyer to make some notes of the arrangement proposed, “whether your own private fortune is large enough to enable you to live in the style you’ve been accustomed to? Or have you only kept up this large establishment on my account?”
He had found this delicate question somewhat difficult to frame, and he had not quite succeeded in avoiding a suspicion of sarcasm. But Mr. Bradfield answered at once that his private fortune was not adequate to stand such a strain.
“You will oblige me, then,” went on Dick, with verycold courtesy, “by arranging with Mr. Reynolds the income which you would wish to have paid to you”—he paused a little before he went on with some emphasis—“in consideration, not of your past, but of your present services.”
John Bradfield winced; but he submitted like a lamb to be awarded a handsome pension in consideration of the fact that he had had to disgorge the remains of the property he had stolen.
As soon as they decently could, both Mr. Reynolds and Richard left him. When they were in the hall, lawyer and client looked at each other.
“Well,” said Mr. Reynolds, as he prepared to leave the house in company with Dick, “I’ve met some rogues in my time, but——”
“I prefer to think,” said Dick, gravely, “that he has tried so long to believe that I was insane that the forced belief has injured his own brain.”
“Very kind of you to put it like that. You forgive him then?”
The answer came, short and sharp:
“No. You can’t forgive the man who has robbed you of seventeen years of life, and youth, and hope. If I had forgiven him, I should not have insulted the cur by offering him a pension.”
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.
“You don’t understand the world, Mr. Wryde. Nobody minds such an insult as that.”
“It’s a satisfaction to me, at all events,” answered Richard, simply.
But he would not have been so magnanimous if he had not known that Chris was waiting to meet him in the meadow by the barn.
Later in the day Mr. Bradfield came across Stelfox,who was enjoying the victory he had been the means of bringing about too greatly to leave the scene of it with undue haste. His late master, who had recovered his spirits a little, addressed him, with some abruptness, in the following manner:
“Stelfox, you’re a scoundrel.”
“Thank you, sir,” answered the man as quietly as ever. “If I hadn’t been a bit of a rogue myself,” he went on thoughtfully, “perhaps, sir, I shouldn’t have been so successful in bringing another rogue to book.”
For one moment Mr. Bradfield seemed disposed to kick him, but he refrained, and laughed instead, with some constraint, however. The remark had to be treated as a joke, though it could not be made to pass for a palatable one.
“Now, why,” pursued he, with an appearance of sincere regret, “did you not either let me know that you believed Mr. Richard to be recovering, or else let him escape much sooner than you did?”
“Well, sir,” he answered, not thinking it necessary to notice the first question, and proceeding straight to the consideration of the second, “when I first had my suspicions, the poor young gentleman had grown into such a savage that, if I had let him out, people would have believed that hewasinsane. I had to do my best to fit him for the world before I let him out into it. And I shouldn’t have succeeded so well as I did but for Miss Abercarne’s coming. That gave him just the stimulus he wanted, and after that it was easy to do what I liked with him. Why, sir, he’d forgotten how to speak when I first took him in hand, and I had to teach him as well as I could by the movement of the lips first, until bit by bit it came back to him.”
John Bradfield whistled softly.
“Then I d——d well wish you’d left it alone!” he murmured softly, as he walked away.
There was consternation among the Graham-Shutes when the evil rumour reached their ears that “dear cousin John” had got into trouble of some sort which involved heavy pecuniary loss, and the breaking up the establishment at Wyngham House. It came at such an awkward moment, too, just when Mrs. Graham-Shute had contemplated borrowing the use of the grounds for a garden-party which was to break the record of all her previous entertainments.
So, in despair, she had to borrow the common garden in one of the little squares in the town to give an open-air reception, which, at least, had the merit of attracting a great deal of attention. It was, indeed, the “sensation of the season” among the little boys and girls and the fisher-lads and hawkers of the population, who assembled in crowds, climbing up the railings from the outside, and occasionally shying well-directed pebbles right into the strawberries and cream which the guests were enjoying as well as they could in the circumstances. So that Mrs. Graham-Shute’s usual neglect to provide sufficient amusement for her guests was amply compensated for by the necessity of perpetual rushes on the part of the gentlemen of the party to the railings, to disperse the jibing hordes from the courts and alleys of the town.
One other incident gave an unusual zest to the proceedings; this was the appearance of Chris Abercarne, no longer in the character of the “housekeeper’s little girl,” but as thefiancéeof a gentleman of property who now made his first appearance in Wyngham society as “Mr. Bradfield’s ward.”
Dick’s appearance threw Lilith into a state of the greatest excitement.
“Why, Chris,” she took the earliest opportunity of whispering to Miss Abercarne, “it’s my handsome stranger! How awfully,awfullymean of you not to tell me! I’ve been wasting my time dreaming about him for the last six months!”
But other things less pleasant to hear were said about the young fellow with the prematurely grey hair, and the deep lines of sadness in his face. People whispered of “a far-away look in his eyes,” and asked each other what the story was about the man who had been shut up in the east wing at Wyngham House. And they wondered why Mr. Bradfield had left so suddenly for the Continent, and whether it was true that Wyngham House was to be sold.
But none of these rumours troubled Chris or her future husband, whose scarcely concealed worship of each other caused many a kindly smile. Chris was quite astonished at the number of friends she had, as the quality and quantity of wedding presents that poured in proved, for everybody’s opinion of the perfect fool had gone up when everybody heard that she was going to marry a man with thirty thousand a year.
A much smarter wedding than that of Richard Wryde and Chris Abercarne took place about the same time as theirs. It was that of James Stelfox with a young woman to whom he had long been attached, and who was enabled, through the generosity of Richard, to indulge her heart’s highest ambition, and to be married in a white satin train six yards long, with a veil of corresponding proportions. She had eight bridesmaids, who all woremauve satin frocks and primrose-coloured hats, and the portrait of the bride and an account of the ceremony appeared inThe Woman’s World of Fashion.
Richard Wryde had set his late servant up as the proprietor of a brand-new hotel, for he persisted in being passionately grateful to the man who had been the means of saving his reason and his life, in spite of Stelfox’s own gentle remonstrances.
“If you’ll only believe me, sir,” he would say earnestly, “it was just a toss up whether I took your part or Mr. Bradfield’s. For you were that savage when it first occurred to me to take you in hand, that I didn’t know how it would turn out myself. It was just a lucky ‘spec’ on my part, sir.”
But Dick will not believe this, neither will Chris. They are both rather old-fashioned, unworldly creatures, tinged with a simplicity which comes to him through his long confinement, and to her through sympathy with him, and they are a little out of touch with the cynical spirit of the times.
They live quietly in the lake district, for Richard Wryde, through his long deafness, cannot hear a louder noise than that of his wife singing or playing the piano, or the splash of the water of the lake, or the cries of their children at play.
THE END.