Richard Bransby looked after her sourly.
“Humph,” he said. “What a foolish woman.”
“Yes, silly,” Stephen agreed.
“So foolish she dares to believe—in things,” Horace Latham said slowly.
They all looked at him in amazement. “Latham!” Bransby exclaimed.
The physician turned and met his gaze. “Yes?”
“You don’t mean to tell me that you believe in all this hopeless drivel of ‘mediums’ and ‘control’ and spirit communications.”
“I don’t know,” Latham said musingly.
“Well, upon my word!”
“Of course,” Latham continued, “some of it—much of it—sounds incredible—beyond belief—and yet—well, some years ago wireless telegraphy, the telephone, a hundred other things that we have seen proved, would have seemed quite as incredible. With those things in mind, how can we absolutely deny this thing? How can we be sure that these people—foolish as some of them certainly appear—are not upon the threshold of a great truth?”
The hand that held the paper-weight tightened angrily. “And you, a sensible man, tell me that you believe that the spirits of those who have gone before us come back to earth, and spend their time knocking on walls, rocking tables, whirling banjos, and giving silly women silly answers to silly questions!”
“No—not that exactly.” Latham was smiling. “But my profession—it brings me very close to death—I’ve seen so much suffering lately. Well—if one believes in God—how can we believe that death is the end? I know I don’t.”
Helen’s hand lay on the table, she was standing near her father. He laid his palm on hers—and sat musing.
“No,” he said after a pause, “neither do I.”
“I’m sure it isn’t!” the girl said.
“This is getting a bit over my head,” Stephen Pryde said with a shrug, rising. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take a stroll.”
Latham looked at him with a smile of apprisement, “I take it you don’t share our belief, Pryde?”
Stephen smiled in return, and a little contemptuously.
“I am afraid I am what you would call a rank materialist. To me death is the end—complete annihilation. That’s why I mean to get everything I can out of life.”
“Oh, Stephen—no!” his cousin cried. “You mustn’t believe that! You can’t! Think! What becomes of the mind, the heart, the soul, the thing that makes us think, and love and hate and eat and move, quite aside from muscles and bones and veins? The thing that is we, and drives us, the very life of us?”
“Just what becomes of an aeroplane when it flies foul, or iskilled, and comes crashing down to earth: done, killed, I tell you, just as much as a dead man is killed—and no more. Last week, near Hendon, I saw a biplane, a single seater, fighter, die. Something went wrong when she was high, going beautifully, she side-slipped abruptly to port, and trembled on her wing-tip just as I’ve seen a bird do a thousand times, and she sickened and staggered down to her doom, faint, torn and bleeding, twisted and moaned on the grass, gave a last convulsive groan, a last shudder, and then lay still, a huddled mass of oil, broken struts, smashed propeller, petrol dripping slowly from her shattered engine, her sectional veins bleeding, her rudder gone, her ailerons useless, forever, her landing-gear ruined: killed—dead—a corpse—for the rubbish heap.”
“Oh! Stephen,” whispered Helen, “and the pilot?”
“The pilot?” Pryde said indifferently. “Oh! he was dead too, of course.”
He picked up a fresh cigarette and sauntered from the room.
Of the injured and destroyed machine he had spoken with more emotion than any one of them had ever heard in his voice before. And there was a long pause before Bransby, turning again to Latham, said:
“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow your argument, Doctor. Surely one can believe in immortality without believing in spiritualism?”
“I don’t know that that is my argument. But lately one has thought a great deal over such things. The war has brought them very close to all of us.”
“Yes,” Bransby concurred thoughtfully. And Caroline Leavitt laid down her work a moment and echoed sadly, “Yes.”
And Latham continued: “Those lives that were given out there—so unselfishly—surely that cannot be the end—and, if we don’t really die, how can we be certain that the spiritual power—thedrivingforce, that continues to exist, cannot come back and make its existence felt? Oh! I don’t mean in rocking tables, or ringing bells, or showing lights, or in ghostly manifestations at séances.”
“What do you mean, then?” Bransby was half fascinated, half annoyed.
“They might make an impression upon the consciousness of the living.”
But Bransby was unimpressed by that.
“A sort of supernatural telepathy, eh?”
Latham pondered a moment. “I dare say I can explain best by giving you an example.”
“Well?”
“Suppose a man—a man whose every instinct was just and generous—had done another man a great wrong and found it out too late. If his consciousness remained, isn’t it possible—isn’t it probable, that he would try to right that wrong and, since he had cast away all material things, he couldn’t communicate in the old way—yet he’d try—surely he would try——”
“You believe that?” Bransby exclaimed.
“I believe,” Latham said very slowly, “that he’d try—but whether he’d succeed or not—I don’t know.”
“Oh!” Helen cried with a rapt, glowing face, laying a pleading hand on the hand holding the jade, “it must be so—it’s beautiful to believe it is so.”
“And if,” Latham continued, “one would try for the sake of justice, can’t you think that others would try, because of the love they had for the living they had left behind—who still needed them? I dare say that every one of us has at one time or another been conscious of some impalpable thing near us—some of us have believed it was a spirit guarding us.”
“Yes,” Helen whispered.
“If we knew,” Latham went on, “the way, we might understand what they wanted to tell us—if only we knew the way——”
Again there was a pause. Bransby shifted impatiently, and put his toy down with a slight clatter, but kept his hand on it still.
Latham spoke, his manner completely changed. He got up, and he spoke, almost abruptly. “Well, I am afraid I have bored you people sufficiently for to-night, and I have some rather important letters to write—if you will excuse me.”
“Of course,” Helen said, as he moved to the door, “but oh! you haven’t bored us, Dr. Latham.”
Latham smiled at her. “Thanks. I’ll take my cigar,” he added, picking it up.
“I shan’t be able to enjoy seeing you enjoy it,” Bransby protested.
“Try telepathy,” was the smiling rejoinder. “Good-night.”
Mrs. Leavitt had not noticed the physician go. She had not been listening for some time, the turn of her pattern had been at its most difficult point. But she had managed it, and now sat counting contentedly. Helen was gazing into the fire, her face all tender and tense. Bransby had watched the door close, a queer purse on his lips. Presently he said grimly—half in jest, half in earnest—
“Well, he’s a queer kind of a doctor. I shall have to consult some one else.”
Mrs. Leavitt rose with a startled cry. Glancing up from the endless pattern, at an easy stage now, the dust-searching eye had discovered much small prey. She gathered up her work carefully and bustled about the room.
“If that dreadful Barker didn’t forget to straighten out this room while we were at dinner. Dr. Latham and Mrs. Hilary will think I am the most careless housekeeper. I do hope, Helen, that you explain to our friends how the war has taken all our servants. You should tell everybody that before it began Barker was only a tweeny, and now she is all we have in the shape of a butler and parlor-maid and three-quarters of our staff. And she is so careless and clumsy.” She went from cushion to vase, from fireplace to table, straightening out the room somewhat to her satisfaction: the father and the daughter watching her with resigned amusement.
A book lay open, face down on the writing-table. She pounced on the volume. Bransby’s amusement vanished. “Careful there, Caroline, I am reading that book.”
“Not now, you’re not—and books belong in book-cases.” She closed it with a snap.
“Now you’ve lost my place!”
“Well, the book’s in its proper place,” she said, thrusting it into its shelf. “There, that’s better. Now I wonder how the drawing-room is. I must see. Dear me, this war has been a great inconvenience,” she sighed as she went from the room—taking Hugh, none too willing, with her.
Caroline Leavitt was not an unpatriotic woman. Simply, to her home and house were country and universe too—her horizon enclosed nothing beyond them. She loved England, because her home and her housekeeping, this house and her vocation, were in it; and not her home, as some do, because it was in England. England was a frame, a background. Her emotions began at Deep Dale’s front door, and ended in its kitchen garden. There are many such women in the world.
“Your aunt is a martinet, Helen,” Bransby grumbled smilingly. “She never lets me have my books about as I like them—and she is always losing my place.”
Helen laughed.
“Do you know,” her father continued, “I have found rare good sport in my books? Some of those chaps there—and Dickens especially—now—hewasa card. Did you ever read ‘David Copperfield,’ Helen?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Well, when I’m a bit low in my mind, I like to read it—more than any other book, I think—I find it sort of comforting. A man is never really lonely when he has books about him. Ah! I remember my place now—where Copperfield passes the blind beggar. It goes—let me see—yes: ‘He made me start by muttering as if he were an echo of the morning—“Blind—blind—blind.”’”
“I’m glad you find your books good company, Daddy.”
“Are you? Why?”
“Well—well—if—if we were ever parted, it would make me happy to think you had friends near you.”
Bransby laid his paper-weight down quickly and looked at his girl anxiously. “If we were ever parted? What do you mean, Helen?”
She turned from him a little as she replied softly, “Haven’t you—haven’t you ever looked forward to a time when we might be?”
“No—of course not!”
“Sure?” she whispered.
“Oh!”—her father’s breath came quickly—“You mean that some day you might marry?”
“Well—you want me to marry—some day—don’t you, Daddy?”
“Why—why, yes. Yes, of course I do. It would be a wrench, a bad wrench, but—I should feel safer, if I knew there was some good man to take care of you.”
The girl came to him then, and he reached and took her hand and held it to his cheek.
“There is a good man who wants to—now.” She spoke very low—only just said it. But Richard Bransby heard every word; and every word cut him.
“Who is he?” There was fear in his voice and fear on his face. He dropped her hand.
“Can’t you guess?”
“Not—not Hugh?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
He turned and walked as if groping his way towards the window.
Helen watched him, surprised and disappointed. “Why—why—Daddy!”
“Helen,” he said, still turned from her, “suppose—suppose I didn’t approve of your marrying Hugh—what would you do?”
The girl pouted a little. “Daddy dear,” she rebuked him, “do be serious.”
“I am serious.” He turned and faced her, sadly and gravely, far the more troubled of the two.
And she took a step towards him, and spoke clearly. “But why suppose such a thing? You would never refuse your consent to my marrying Hugh. You have loved him better than any one else in the world—except me—always since they came. Why, it has been almost as if he were your very own son.”
Her words affected him keenly. It was with a stern effort that he kept traces of his emotion from his voice. “But, if I didn’t approve?” he insisted.
Helen looked at him with startled eyes, realizing for the first time that he was serious. “You mean—you mean—you don’t!”
“Yes,” he told her.
“Why?” she cried.
The question was very, very difficult for him, so difficult that for a moment he could find no answer. At last he said slowly, “I don’t believe Hugh is the man to make you happy.”
“Don’t you think I am the best judge of that?” Helen said gently—quickly.
His answer was quicker: “No.”
The girl lost something of her self-control then, and there was a pitiful note in the young voice saying: “Daddy, this isn’t all a silly joke? You aren’t trying to tease me?”
“I’m not joking, Helen.” There were tears in his voice.
“Then,” she cried, “why have you suddenly changed towards Hugh? Our house has always been his home—all these years. I can only just remember when he came: I can’t remember when he was not here. You have purposely thrown us together.” There was accusation in her tone, but no anger.
She had pricked him, and he answered sharply: “I never said that it was my wish that you should marry him.”
“Not in words—no—but in a hundred other ways. Why have you changed? Why?”
“I don’t want to answer that question.”
“I have the right to know.”
Richard Bransby was suffering terribly—and physically too. He yearned over her, and he ached to get it over and done. But he could not bring himself to denounce the boy he had loved so—so loved still.
But Helen, at bay too, would give him no respite: how could she? “You haven’t answered me—yet,” she said, more coldly. Her tone was still gentle; but her fixed determination was quite evident—unmistakable.
“Very well, then, I will,” and he gathered himself for the ordeal, his—and hers. Then again he hesitated. “Helen,” he pleaded, “won’t you accept my decision? You—you know a little—just a little—what you are to me—how all the world—ah! my Helen—you wouldn’t break my old heart, would you? Say that you could not—would not—say it——”
“Daddy! My daddy,” she whispered.
“Say it,” he cried.
“Daddy,” her tears had come now—near; but she held them—“I mean to marry Hugh,” she said very quietly—even in his distressed agitation he recognized and honored her grit—the wonderful grit of such delicate creatures—“with your approval, I hope—but, in any case, I mean to marry him.”
“Think how I’ve loved you, child,” the father cried, catching her wrists in his hands, “you wouldn’t set my wishes aside?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Helen.” It was a sob in his throat.
“Just think for a moment,” she said, “he has given up everything to join the army. Any day, now, he may go—out there. He loves me, Daddy—and I love him.”
“He is not worthy of you—” Bransby was commanding himself—at what cost only he knew—and Horace Latham might partly have guessed.
After a pause—painful to him—she was too indignant to suffer much now—at last she spoke—sternly. “Why do you say that?”
“Don’t press the question,” he pleaded, “you know how much I care for you—how dear you are to me. Surely you must know that I would not come between you and your happiness if I hadn’t a good reason.”
“But I must know that reason.”
“You won’t give him up—for me?”
Pity for his evident distress welled over her, and she answered him tenderly: “I can’t, dear.”
She waited. He waited too. He could count his heart thump, and almost she might have counted it too.
At last he nerved himself desperately, went to his desk and pulled the ledger from the drawer. He put it down ready to his hand, if he had to show it to her at last; then turned and laid his hands on her shoulders.
When he could command himself—it was not at once—he said, speaking more gently than in all his long, gentle loving of her he had ever spoken to her before, “Helen, Hugh is a thief.”
There was silence between them; a silence neither could ever forget. It punctuated their mutual life.
She broke it. For a while she stood rigid and dazed—and then she laughed.
No lash in his face—even from her hand—could have hurt him so.
Again she waited: haughty and outraged now.
“He has stolen ten thousand pounds from me.”
She neither spoke nor stirred.
“That is why Grant came here last night—to tell me.”
The girl made a gesture of infinite scorn, of unspeakable rebuke.
“My dear, I would have spared you this—if I could.”
She answered him then, contempt in her voice, no faintest shadow of fear in her brave young eyes. “I don’t believe it.”
“I didn’t believe it—at first. But the proof,”—he went to the desk and laid one hand sorrowfully on the big buff book—“well, it’s too strong to be denied. You shall see it yourself.”
“I will not look. I would not believe it if Hugh told me himself.” She turned quietly and left him, and he dared not stay her.
But he heard her sob as she passed along the hall.
At the sound his white face quivered and he crouched down in a chair and laid his tired face on the table. He sat so for a long time—perfectly still. Presently a wet bead of something salt lay in the heart of the rose lotus flower.
“What a fashion plate!” Angela Hilary exclaimed as she came across her ornate little morning room to greet her guest.
Latham smiled amiably. No one dressed more carefully than he, and he had no mock shyness about having it noted.
“You don’t look especially dowdy yourself,” he returned, as he took in his hand one of her proffered hands and eleven of her rings.
The visit was an unqualified success, and more than once Horace Latham thought ruefully what an ass he had been to fight shy of so delightful a morning.
He was the only guest: it goes without saying, and Latham himself had hoped for nothing else. That he foreknew that it would be a function strictly for two had both assuaged and augmented his maiden nervousness. If this dominant and seductively pretty young widow was determined to press her suit (and quite aside from Helen Bransby’s tormenting prompting he had an odd, fluttering feeling that it was a suit, and not to be side-tracked easily), her opportunities to do so would be tenfolded under her own roof—and they alone. On the other hand, he thought that he could manage himself better, and far more smoothly, safe from the disconcerting flicker of Helen’s mocking eyes, and the not improbable comments, aside and otherwise, of her impish tongue. And, if it came to such stress of issue between them (himself and the widow) that he had no strategical escape left short of brutality, he felt that he would find the exercise of such brutal harshness somewhat less abominable and repugnant when no third one was present to witness Angela’s discomfiture.
But he had misjudged his lady—and soon he sensed it.
Under all her flare for willfulness, and her disconcerting blend of dainty atrocities and personal aplomb, Mrs. Hilary had sound instincts and inherited good taste. She fluttered her skirts with some rumpus of silkenfrou-frou(to speak in metaphor), but she never lifted them above her ankles. Her home was her temple, she, its goddess, was chaste as erratic, and to her half-southern blood a guest was very sacred.
She gave him an exquisite meal and a thoroughly good time, but she never once made love to him or even gave him a provocative opening to make love to her. And with admirable masculine consistency almost he felt that had she done either or both he might have borne it—yes—cheerfully.
But she did not. She was grave. She was gay. She showed him hercloisonnéand her ivories, her etchings and her Sargent, she played to him, and she sang a little. She flattered him, and she gave him some rare dole of subtle petting, but she did no wooing, and seemed inclined to brook none.
What a woman! She set him to thinking. And he thought.
Next to his profession, in which he was deeply absorbed—but not narrowly so, for this dapper, good-looking man was a great physician, and not in-the-making—Horace Latham cared more for music, and needed it more, than he did for anything else—even pictures. All that was most personal to him, all that was strongest and finest in him, quivered and glowed quickest, surest, longest, at the side of a dissecting table, and to the sound of music, violin-sweetness, harp-magic, the song of a piano, the invocation of an organ, the lyric lure of a voice.
But it had to be good music. Helen played prettily, and bored him. Hugh was everlastingly discoursing rag-time with his two first fingers, and Latham itched to chloroform him.
He had never heard Mrs. Hilary attempt music. And when, after lunch, uninvited she sat down at her piano he winced.
She played wonderfully. What a surprising woman! She played Greig to him and Chopin, and then she sang just twice: “Oft in the Stilly Night”—his mother had sung that to him in the dear long-ago, and then a quaint pathetic darky melody that he had never heard before.
“Oh! please,” he begged as she rose.
“No more—to-day,” she told him, “enough is better than too much feast.”
“And what a feast!” he said sincerely.
“Do you like Stephen Pryde?” she demanded abruptly, closing the piano.
“I’ve known him since he was a child.”
She accepted the evasion, or rather, to be more exact, spared him putting its admission into cruder wording.
“Well—you’re wrong. You’re all wrong. I like him. No one else does, except Hugh, and Hugh doesn’t count. But I do: and I like Stephen Pryde immensely.”
“You certainly do count, very much,” Latham told her emphatically. And she did not contradict him by so much as a gesture of her ring-covered hands or a lift of the straight black eyebrows. “Why doesn’t Hugh count?” he asked.
“Because he likes every one. The people who like every one never do count. It is silly. It’s too silly. Now, Stephen Pryde does no such thing.”
“No,” agreed Latham, “he does not; and certainly ‘silly’ is the last word I should employ to describe him.”
“Silly!” Angela said with high scorn. “There isn’t a silly hair on his head. He’s a genius—and he’s hungry—oh! so hungry.”
“Geniuses usually are,” Latham interrupted.
Angela ignored this as it deserved, and he himself thought it feeble and regretted it as soon as he had perpetrated it.
“He’s a genius—and his uncle throttles it. Now, I want you to make Richard Bransby behave—you and Helen. You can, you two; together you can do anything with him.”
“Oh, Mrs. Hilary, please listen to me,” the physician was genuinely alarmed, “on no account must Mr. Bransby be bothered or irritated—positivelyon none.”
She studied him for a moment. “So,” she said slowly—“as ill as that—poor Helen.”
She did not say, “Poor Mr. Bransby,” and Latham liked her for the nice justice of her differentiation.
“And that’s why you stay here so much.”
Latham made no reply—and she seemed to expect none. She had affirmed; she had asked no question. Really she had some very satisfactory points—most satisfactory!
Then she gave a surprising little cry. “Oh! I am so sorry—so sorry for Helen.”
“I hope,” the doctor began, but she paid no attention to him whatever.
“Don’t you remember?—Wah-No-Tee told me. How wonderful! How stupid of me not to have understood! Oh! I must ’phone for another appointment to-morrow. I mustn’t forget,” and she made a dash for her engagement book, and began to scribble something in it. As she wrote she said to him over her shoulder, “Won’t Helen look just too lovely in mourning?”
What a woman! He gazed at her speechless. What would the incalculable creature say next—what do?
What she did was to move a stool near to his chair, and seat herself. What she said was, “Well—then—of course—that makes a difference. Let me see—yes—I have it—I’ll lend Stephen the money—lots of money; I can, you know, just as easy as not.”
“Lend Stephen the money!” Latham said dumb-foundedly.
“Oh—of course,” Angela added impatiently; “Stephen Pryde wouldn’t borrow money of me—of course not. That’s where you come in.”
“Oh! where I come in——”
“Yes, of course, don’t you see——”
“No, I certainly do not.”
“How stupid! It’s perfectly simple. I think a blind man would see it—if he was fair-to-middling smart. You are to lend him the money.”
“I!”
“Yes, stupid—you: my money.”
“Oh!”
“Listen—don’t sit there staring and just say, ‘I! Oh! Ah!’ as if you were trying to sing: ‘Do—re—mi—fa—sol—la.’ You are to manage Stephen.”
“Instead of handling Bransby,” Latham said with light sarcasm.
But Mrs. Hilary beamed on him approvingly. “Exactly.”
“It occurs to me,” Latham remarked softly, “that you intend me to renounce medicine for diplomacy.”
“They’re much the same thing—but—oh! I’ll manage it all really.”
“Yes—I inferred that. Now, please, the details. To begin at the beginning, you wish to endow Pryde with your fortune.”
“I wish to do nothing of the sort,” she said severely. “I am going to lend him part of it; or rather invest it in him. I shall get it all back a thousand times.”
“Good interest!”
“Oh—be quiet——”
Latham sat in smiling silence.
“You will do it? You must!”
“I begin to see. I am to lend Pryde a slice—shall we say?—of your fortune. Now, just that I may act intelligently, may I enquire how much?”
“That’s what you are to find out.”
“Oh! that’s what I am to find out——”
“Of course.”
“May I—dare I ask, what he wishes it for—or needs it—or is to have it?”
“To build aircraft. You ought to know that. I think you are dense to-day, Dr. Latham.”
“I think you are very charming—to-day, Mrs. Hilary.”
“Andyou will help me? Say you will. Say it now!”
“I am thinking——”
“Don’t think. Just promise.”
Latham was minded to tell her, “Some one must think,” but he refrained, and said instead, “We’ll talk it over at least, several times, if we may. Yes, I’ll come soon again and talk it over, if you’ll let me.”
She seemed quite satisfied at that. Probably she foresaw severaltête-à-têteluncheons. Perhaps Latham did also.
He would have stayed to tea, but Angela did not ask him; and at last he got up slowly. Even then she might ask him, he thought, but she did not.
But she gave him a deep red rose—at his request.
Just as he was going he turned back to say, “I do know, of course, that Pryde is obsessed about aviation, and that Bransby will have none of it—and, between you and me, I think that Bransby is wrong—but why do you care? Are you interested in the air?”
“Good gracious, no. I love the earth—and indoors for choice. Give me a good rocking-chair. I’d rather have that than the best horse that ever was driven or ridden, though I like horses too. I’m just sheer sorry for Stephen Pryde. I like him. And I’d just love to help him. He’ll succeed too, I think; but that’s not the point. I want him to have his own way. He never has—in anything. Only think, how horrid, never to have your own way.”
“Much you know about it.”
She ignored that. Angela was terribly in earnest. “He is very intense. He is strong too. And with all his strength he has desired two things intensely. Hugh, his own brother, has thwarted him in one; Richard Bransby in the other. One we can’t give him. The other we can. And we are going to—you and I.” She held out her hand in “good-by,” but Latham knew she meant it even more in compact.
He was thoughtful all his way back to Deep Dale, and silent at dinner.
Undressing for sleep—if sleep came—he looked at his red rose with an odd rueful smile, and put it carefully in water.
At that moment Angela Hilary laughed softly as she let her dark hair fall free to the white hem of her nightgown. Then she threw a kiss to herself in the mirror.
The first thing Latham saw the next morning when he woke was a deep crimson rose. He lay very still for a long time watching it.
Morton Grant had delivered his sorry news on Monday. Dr. Latham had lunched with Mrs. Hilary on Wednesday.
Thursday was bleak and cold, and a slow chilly rain fell all day.
Helen and her father were alone in the library when the brothers joined them. She felt that her father meant to “have it out” then, and she was glad. For him and for her the tension was already too cruel. And it was Hugh’s due to know, and to know without longer delay. Once or twice she had felt that she herself must tell him. But the girlish lips he had kissed refused the words and the office; and she had an added instinct of reticence, part a reluctance to tale-bear, part a hurt, angry determination to leave her father to do his own “dirty work.”
“Stephen says you want to have a chat with me, Uncle Dick.”
So—her father had sent for Hugh; had sent Stephen.
“Yes, Hugh,” Bransby said gently.
“Righto,” the boy replied. In several senses he was not “sensitive,” and nothing of his uncle’s strain, or of Helen’s, had reached him.
Bransby turned to his daughter. “Helen, will you leave us for a little while?”
“I’d rather stay, Daddy.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
Helen met his gaze quietly, and sat down. She had been standing near the fire when her cousins came in.
Bransby sighed. But he saw it was useless to command her. She would not go.
Stephen had been looking at the books in the case. He turned sharply now and eyed them all intently. He was “sensitive,” and keenly so where Helen was concerned.
Hugh turned to Helen, smiling and happy: “I say, have you told him, then, Helen?”
“Yes—Tuesday night.”
Hugh turned to Bransby with a boyish laugh, a very slight flush of embarrassment on his young face, love, pride and victory in his eyes. “I suppose I am in for a wigging, eh?”
“Hugh,” Helen broke in, “Daddy has refused his consent.”
Hugh took a sharp step forward and threw up his head. “Refused his consent? Why?”
She gestured towards her father.Shecould not say it.
“Why, sir?”
Bransby answered him sadly: “Don’t you know, Hugh?”
“No, sir. Of course I know I am not good enough for her—who could be? But you know I love her very dearly.”
“Hugh,” Bransby said more sorrowfully and sternly, “didn’t you realize that some day you were certain to be found out?”
Stephen Pryde started, but controlled himself instantly.
Hugh gazed at his uncle blankly. “Found out? What in the world—I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“Can’t you think why Grant came here on Monday?”
“No. How could I?”
“Why did he come, sir?” Stephen interposed.
“A shortage has been discovered in the accounts at the office.”
“A shortage in our accounts?” Stephen spoke incredulously. “Impossible.”
“I’m most awfully sorry, sir,” Hugh said sympathetically, taking a step nearer his uncle.
“Some one has stolen ten thousand pounds.”
“Who?” Stephen asked quickly.
“The money was taken from the African trading account.”
“From the African trading account?” Stephen echoed. “But that’s impossible—Hugh has always had charge of that.”
“I know,” Bransby said dully.
“Uncle Dick,” Hugh cried, suddenly realizing that he was being accused—“Uncle Dick, you don’t mean that you think that I——” The passionate voice choked and almost broke.
Stephen stopped him. “Quiet, Hugh; of course he can’t mean anything so absurd as that. Besides, you’ve not been at the office for months.”
Helen threw toward Stephen a look full of gratefulness.
But her father said despairingly, “The money was taken while he was still at the office.”
“How do you know that, sir?” Stephen spoke almost sternly to his uncle.
But the older man did not resent that. “Certain alterations were made in the ledger during the time he had charge of it,” he explained drearily.
Hugh broke in hotly, “I know nothing of them.”
“Of course not,” his brother said cordially. “You see, sir——” turning to Bransby.
“The alterations are in Hugh’s handwriting.”
“Impossible,” Hugh cried indignantly—contemptuously too.
Stephen said very quietly, “I don’t believe it.”
“I can convince you.” Their uncle opened the ledger, one hand on its pages, the other on the jade weight.
Helen sat proudly apart, but the brothers hurried to him. Hugh threw himself in a chair at the table where the book lay, Stephen stood behind his brother, his hand on his shoulder.
There was a significant pause.
Stephen shook his head. “It is very like,” he said slowly.
Bransby turned to another page. “And this?”
“Oh, yes, it is. It is very like too.” Stephen’s reluctance was apparent and deep. And a hint of conviction escaped him.
“There is no need to go further,” Bransby said wearily. “These were made when the money was taken.”
Hugh sat gazing at the open ledger in bewilderment. “It—it,” he stammered—“it seems to be my handwriting—but”—he was not stammering now—“I swear I never wrote it.”
“I believe you, Hugh,” Stephen said simply.
Bransby said sternly—but not altogether without a subcurrent of hope in his tired voice, “Besides you, only Stephen and Grant had access to that ledger. Will you accuse either of them of making these alterations?”
Hugh laughed. “Of course not. Old Stephen and Grant—why, you know, sir, that that’s absurd. But what have I ever done that you should think me capable of being a thief?”
The old man shook his head. But Stephen answered, his hand on Hugh’s shoulder, “Nothing, Hugh, nothing! You’ve known my brother always, sir”—turning to their uncle, speaking with passionate earnestness. “Youknowhe’s not a thief. If he has been a bit wild—it was only the wildness of youth.” There was anxious entreaty in face and in voice, and the face was very white and drawn. Of the four Stephen Pryde unmistakably was not suffering the least.
But Bransby was despairingly relentless now. “While he was at the office he was gambling—he borrowed from money-lenders.”
“It isn’t true,” cried Stephen hotly.
Bransby swung to his younger nephew. “Is it true?”
“Yes.”
“Hugh!” the elder brother said in quick horror.
“But I won enough to clear myself, and that’s why I——”
“Hugh,” Stephen’s voice broke, “I wouldn’t have believed it.”
Hugh turned on his brother in dismay: “Stephen! you don’t mean thatyouthink——”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were in trouble?” Pryde said sorrowfully. “I would have helped you, if I could.”
“But I wasn’t in trouble,” the boy protested impatiently. “I tell you I’m innocent.”
With a gesture of infinite sadness and his face quivering Stephen Pryde laid his hand on Hugh’s shoulder. “Hugh,” he said, and now his voice broke as a mother’s might have broken, “Hugh, I am your brother—I love you—can’t you trust me?” he pleaded. “Even now we may find a way out of this, if you will only tell the truth.”
“But I have told the truth,” Hugh asserted helplessly. His voice broke, too, as he said it.
Stephen Pryde turned to his uncle and they exchanged a slow look—a look of mutual sorrow and despair. Hugh saw the look, shrugged his shoulders and crossed to Helen’s chair.
“Helen, you don’t believe this, do you?”
Stephen turned and watched them intently.
The girl smiled. “No, Hugh.”
“Thank you, dear.” And he smiled back at her.
“I would give a great deal not to believe it, Hugh”—there was entreaty in Bransby’s voice, if not in his words, almost too a slight something of apology—“but the evidence is all against you.”
Hugh had grown angry a few moments ago, but at Helen’s smile all his anger had died, and even the very possibility of anger. And he answered Bransby as sadly and as gently as the older man himself had spoken, “I realize that, sir; but there must be some way to prove my innocence—and I’ll find it.”
“And in the meantime?” Bransby demanded.
“In the meantime,” his nephew echoed—“oh—yes—what do you want me to do?”
“The right thing.”
Helen sprang to her feet—but quietly, and even yet she said nothing. Of them all she was the least disturbed. But perhaps she was also the most intent. Hers was a watching brief. She held it splendidly.
“The right thing?” Hugh asked, puzzled but fearful.
“You must tell Helen that no marriage can take place between you—unless—until you have cleared yourself of this—this suspicion.”
Stephen protested. “But, sir—” He was watching and listening almost as sharply as the girl was; but for the life of him he could not tell whether or not his uncle had indeed given up all hope. At the elder’s last words he had winced—for some reason.
Helen looked only at Hugh now. “No, Hugh, no,” she cried proudly—and then at the look on his face, “No—no,” she pled.
Hugh Pryde’s face was the grimmest there now. But he answered her tenderly. “He’s right, dear. It can’t take place until I have cleared myself. Oh, don’t look startled like that. Of course it can’t. But I’ll do that. Helen, listen, somehow I’ll do that.”
“Oh!” she almost sobbed, both hands groping for his—and finding them—“but, my dear——”
Bransby broke in, and, to hide his own rising and threatening emotion, more harshly than he felt: “And until then you must not see each other.”
For a moment Hugh held her hands to his face—and then he put them away from him and said, smiling sadly but confidently, and speaking to her and not to her father, answering the cry in her eyes, the rebellion in the poise of her head, “No—until then we must not see each other.”
She drew herself up, almost to his own height, and laid her arms about his neck, folding and holding him. “I can’t let you go from me like this, Hugh, I can’t let you.”
Stephen Pryde watched them grimly—torture in his eyes; but Bransby turned his eyes away, and saw nothing, unless he saw the green and rose bauble he held and handled nervously.
Very gently Hugh Pryde took her arms from his neck, and half led, half pushed her to the door. “You must.”
She turned back to him with outstretched arms. “Oh, Hugh, Hugh,” she begged.
Still he smiled at her, and shook his head.
For a moment longer she pleaded with him—mutely; then, with a little hurt cry, she ran from the room.
Hugh stood looking after her sadly until Stephen spoke. “Hugh, my boy, be frank with me. Let me help you.”
At that the younger grew petulant, and answered shortly, “There’s nothing to be frank about.” Then his irritation passed as quickly as it had come. “Oh! why won’t you believe that I never did this thing?”
Stephen hung his head sadly. But Bransby was wavering. “Hugh,” he said, “if you can prove yourself innocent, no one will be happier than I—but until you do——”
“I understand, sir. But—oh—I say—what about—what about my—commission?” His face twitched, and he could scarcely control himself to utter the last word with some show of calmness. He was very young—and very driven.
“You will have to relinquish that,” Bransby replied pityingly. “You can leave the matter in my hands—my boy. I will arrange it.”
Hugh could hardly speak. But he managed. “Very good, sir. Then I—may go?”
Bransby could not look at him. “You will leave here to-night?”
“At once.”
“That would be best.”
“Good-by,” Hugh said abruptly.
Stephen held out his hand, and after an instant Hugh clasped it. He turned to his uncle.
Bransby rose stiffly from his chair. He was trembling. Neither seemed able to speak. For a bad moment neither moved. Then Richard Bransby held out—both hands. Hugh flushed, then paled, and took the proffered hands in his. There was pride as well as regret in his gesture, affection even more than protest. Then without a word—a thick sound in his throat was not a syllable—with no other look—he went.
Bransby caught at the back of his chair. He motioned Stephen to follow Hugh. “See that he has money—enough,” he said hoarsely.
Stephen nodded and left him.
Richard Bransby looked about the silent room helplessly. “My poor Helen,” he said presently—“Violet! Violet!”—but he pulled himself together and moved towards the bookcase. Perhaps he could find distraction there.
He sat down again, the volume he had selected on his knee, and opened it at random, turning the pages idly—one hand on the jade joss, that as it lay on the table; seemed to blink in the firelight.
The printed words evaded him. To focus his troubled mind he began to read aloud softly:—
“‘There was a beggar in the street, when I went down; and as I turned my head towards the window, thinking of her calm seraphic eyes, he made me start by muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning: “Blind! Blind! Blind!”’”
Richard Bransby was breaking. He could not bear much more, and he knew it. He had felt very faint at lunch. Latham would have driven him to his bed, but Latham had been again lunching at Mrs. Hilary’s.
Now he was alone in the library. The room seemed to his tired, tortured mind haunted by Hugh and by trouble.
He looked up at the clock. The boy had been gone just twenty-four hours. Where had he gone? What was he doing? Violet’s boy!
The sick man felt alone and deserted. Helen had scarcely spoken to him all day. Indeed she had stayed in her room until nearly dinner-time, and at dinner she and Latham had almost confined their chat to each other.
He picked up “David Copperfield,” opened it at random—then shook his head and laid it down, still open. He’d read presently; he could not now.
A step at the door was welcome. It was Stephen.
Bransby began abruptly: “Last night, when you saw him off—he protested his innocence to the last?”
“Yes, sir. Oh! yes.”
“Oh! why didn’t he tell me the truth. If he had confessed, I could have found it in my heart to forgive him.”
Stephen sighed, and sat down near his uncle. “I told him that. I begged him to throw himself on your mercy. But he wouldn’t even listen.”
Bransby’s face changed suddenly. “You told him that—that you were sure I’d forgive it, let it pass even, and he still persisted that he was innocent.”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Stephen,” Bransby said anxiously, rising in his agitation and looking down on the other almost beseechingly, “have you thought—thought that we may be mistaken?”
“Mistaken? In what way?”
“About Hugh, of course. When he was here, even though everything was against him, his attitude was that of an innocent man. Then his refusal to you to confess even when mercy—forgiveness—were promised—that, too, is the action of an innocent man.” Bransby spoke more in entreaty for confirmation than in his usual tone of conviction and personal decision.
Stephen responded musingly, “Yes—it is. And I believe he is innocent. I can’t quite believe that he isn’t, at least—only——”
“Only what?”
Pryde hesitated—and then reluctantly, “It was such a shock to have discovered that he deceived us about his gambling. I had never thought Hugh deceitful. He always seemed so frank—so open—as he seemed last night in this room.”
“Yes,” Bransby groaned. “Yes—he did deceive us about his gambling—and he knew it was contrary to my orders—how I hated it.”
“But that doesn’tprove,” the nephew said promptly, “that he did this other thing” (his uncle looked up quickly, gratefully). “Of course, it’s true that gambling sometimes tempts men to steal.”
“It always does.” Bransby lapsed back into despair, and shrank back into his chair.
“But Hugh seemed so innocent,” Stephen added reflectively.
“He seemed innocent, too, when he was gambling,” the other retorted.
“Yes—that’s true.”
“And I loved him—I trusted him—I—he was always my favorite. Even now, I’m not treating you fairly. You must be suffering horribly—my poor Stephen.”
“I am suffering, sir. On your account, on my own, on poor misguided Hugh’s, I loved him too, I always shall love him; but I am suffering more, a thousand times more, for—Helen.”
Bransby gave him a startled look. He had spoken her name in a tone unmistakable. “Yes, Uncle Dick, it’s just that. It has always been that. It will never be anything else, any other way than that with me.”
In his surprise Bransby picked up his joss and put it down again several times, beating with it a nervous tattoo on the table. “Does she know?”
“Helen? No. It would only have hurt her to know. It has always been Hugh with her. But now——”
Bransby checked him—not unkindly—he sensed something of what it must have cost him, this unanswered affection; he knew Stephen’s nature ran deep and keen—but he spoke decidedly, feeling, too, that there was something callous, almost something of treachery, in a brother who could hint at hope so quick on a brother’s ruin, and Helen’s heart newly hurt and raw. “Put it out of your mind, Stephen. Helen will never change; least of all now. The women of our family are constant forever. Now we must act—you and I. We must arrange that there shall be no scandal about Hugh’s disappearance. We must protect his name—on Helen’s account—and the firm’s. About his commission—almost I regret saying he must throw it up. It might—it might have been the way out. Have you any idea where he is?”
“None.”
“Well—then—we must act at once. Already I’ve let a day slip—I—I’m not well—I said I’d attend to it. We’ll attend to it now. I don’t think there’ll be any trouble about that. Oh! he ought to have written his resignation, though, before he went. My fault—my fault. However, I’ll do it now. No! I can’t.” He held out the hand with the Chinese curio in it. The hand was trembling so that the jade thing winked and rainbowed in the light of the fire. “You must write it. That will do. Sit there and do it now. Make it brief and formal as possible. I’ll go to town to-morrow and see his Colonel myself, if necessary—Latham willing or no.”
Stephen crossed to the writing-table thoughtfully. He began to write—Bransby walking about still carrying the paper-weight absent-mindedly—and thinking aloud as he moved. “His leave isn’t up for another three days. Yes—I think that gives us time. Yes—we’ll get into touch with his Colonel to-morrow and find out just how to proceed. I hope I shan’t have to tell the real reason.”
“Will this do?” Pryde had finished, and passed his uncle the sheet.
Bransby glanced at it carelessly at first. “Yes, yes.” He held it towards Pryde—then something prompted—a strong impulse—he drew it back, looked at it, then he fell to studying it. A terrible change passed over his face. He gazed at the paper in amazement, then looked in horror from it to the man who had written it—then back at the note, crimson flooding his neck, a gray shadow darkening his rigid face. He raised his haggard eyes and stared at Stephen thunderstruck.
Stephen felt the fierce eyes, and looked up. “Why—why—what is it, sir?”
But even as he spoke Stephen Pryde knew—as Bransby himself had learned in a flash—one of those terrible forked flashes of illumination that come to most of us once in life.
Bransby answered slowly, coldly, carefully. “You have signed Hugh’s name to this, and it is Hugh’s handwriting. If I didn’tknowotherwise, I would have sworn he wrote it himself.”
Stephen lost his head. His hand shook, and his tongue. “That’s odd,” he stammered with a sick laugh, “I—I didn’t realize.” He put his hand out for the letter—Bransby drew it back, looking him relentlessly in the eyes. The brain that had made and controlled one of the greatest businesses ever launched, and complicated in its immense ramifications, was working now at lightning speed, rapier-sharp, sledge hammer in force, quick, clear and sure.
“It was no accident. You can’t patch it up that way—or in any—Isee. You have practiced his handwriting. You have done this before.”
Stephen gathered himself together feebly. “Of what do you accuse me?” he fumbled.
“Tell me the truth—I must know the truth.”
Then Stephen added blunder to blunder. He pointed to the ledger. “I know nothing of it—nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“Uncle Dick!”
“You are lying, Stephen Pryde—it’s as plain on your face as the truth was on Hugh’s—and, God forgive me, I wouldn’t believe him.”
“I didn’t do it, I tell you!” Stephen was blustering fiercely now.
“You had access to that ledger as well as Hugh. You can’t deny the damnable evidence of this you’ve just written before my eyes. Oh! how blind I’ve been—blind—blind! Stephen,” he panted in his fury, “unless you tell me the truth now, by the mother that bore you, I’ll show you no mercy—none.”
For a space Stephen stared at him, fascinated—caught. All at once his courage quite went, and he sagged down in his chair, crumpled and beaten. “I did it,” he said hoarsely. “I had to.”
“You made the alteration in the ledger after Hugh left?”
“Yes.”
“My God! and you wrote the anonymous letter to Grant, too! Why?”
“I wanted power—dominion—they are all that make life worth living. You drove me to it. You never cared for me—not as you did for Hugh—you thwarted me always. I wanted power, I tell you. I would have given it to you—such power as you never dreamed of—such power as few men ever have had. But you always stood in my way. You kept me a subordinate—and I hated it. You threw Helen and Hugh together, and I could have killed you. When the war broke out I saw my chance. I meant to take for myself the place I could have won for you—and would have won—for you—and for her—but I needed money—so—I speculated—and lost.”
“And then you put the crime on your brother’s shoulder. You would have ruined his life—destroyed his happiness.”
“What does the life and happiness of any one matter, if they stand in the way? Hugh! Hugh meant nothing to the world—Hugh’s a fool. I could have done great things—I could have given England the Air—The Air.”
“Yes,” Bransby said piteously. “Yes, I believed in you. I have left the control of my business to you—after my death. Thank God for to-morrow—to alter that, to——”
Stephen shrugged an insolent shoulder, and said coldly—he was cool enough now, “Well, what are you going to do—with me?”
The answer was ready. “Take up that pen again—write—and see to it that the handwriting’s your own.”
Pryde glowered at Bransby with rebel eyes, and then—almost as if hypnotized—did as he was told—writing mechanically, his face twitching, but his hand moving slowly, to Richard Bransby’s slow dictation.
The dictation was relentless: “I confess that I stole”—the quivering face of the younger man looked up for an instant, but Bransby did not meet the look (perhaps he, too, was suffering), his eyes were on space, his fingers lifting and falling on his carved toy. Stephen looked up, but his pen moved mechanically on—“ten thousand pounds from my uncle, Richard Bransby—and I forged my brother Hugh’s handwriting in the ledger.” Pryde laid down the pen.
“Sign it.”—He did.
“Date it.”—He did.
“Give it to me.” The hand that took the paper shook more than the hand that had written it.
“Do you know where your brother has gone? Have a care that you tell me the truth from this on—it’s your only chance. Do you know where he has gone?”
“No!”
“Go find him—if you hope for mercy. Bring him back here by to-morrow.”
Stephen rose with a shrug. For an evil moment Richard Bransby’s life was in peril. Stephen stood behind him, murder hot in his heart, insane in his eyes, and clenched in his fist: all the hurt and the thwart of years joined with the rage and dilemma of the moment, ready to spring, to avenge and to kill. Bransby saw nothing—not even the jade he still fingered. Then with a gesture of scorn he tore into bits the note of resignation he had made Stephen write. “I’ll see the Colonel myself. That will be best,” he said.
At that instant, Bransby’s head bowed, Pryde’s hand still raised, Mrs. Leavitt’s voice rose in the hall, fussed and querulous, “Who left this here? Barker!” Bransby did not hear her, but Pryde did. His arm fell to his side, he forced a mask of calm to his face, and then without a word he went. He did not even look towards his uncle again; but at the door he turned and looked bitterly, hungrily, at the picture over the fireplace. Poor Stephen!
In the hall Caroline Leavitt hailed him. “Not going out, Stephen?”
“Yes; I’ve to run up to London for Uncle Dick,” he told her lightly. She exclaimed at the hour, followed him with sundry advice about a rug and a warmer coat, and he answered her cordially. Perhaps he was not ungrateful for so much creature kindliness, such small dole of mothering—just then.
Presently the front door slammed. “Dear me, that’s not like Stephen,” she said aloud.
Richard Bransby heard nothing. For a little he sat lost in his own bitter thoughts. Then he read Stephen’s confession over with scrupulous care. “Blind—Blind—Blind,” he murmured as he folded it. Ah! that terrible faintness was coming on again. He dropped the paper; it fell on the still open pages of “David Copperfield.” For once the book astray had escaped Caroline’s eye. This was torture. Could he get to the brandy? Where was Latham? Helen—he wanted Helen. He thought he was very ill. Helen must know the truth—about Hugh—and they must put the proof in safe keeping before—before anything happened to him. Helen’s happiness—yes, he must secure that—and Hugh—Hugh whom he had so wronged—he must atone to Hugh.
In his effort to conquer his spasm he caught hold of the volume of Dickens, and it closed in his convulsive fingers. Helen—he must get to Helen. He staggered to his feet, the book forgotten on the table, the paper-weight forgotten too, but still gripped close in one unconscious hand. For a space he stood swaying—then he contrived to turn, and staggered to the door, calling, “Helen—Helen!”
His voice rang through the house with the far-carrying of fright and despair.
Barker reached him first, and began to cry and moan hysterically.
Caroline Leavitt pushed her aside. “He has fainted. Call Dr. Latham.”
But Latham had heard Bransby’s cry, and so, too, had Helen. They came together from the billiard room hurriedly. The girl threw herself down by her father, all the bitterness gone, only the old love and gratitude left. Latham knelt by him, too, and after a touch of Bransby’s hand, a look at his face, said, “Mrs. Leavitt—you and Miss Bransby wait in the library.”
“No, I want to stay here,” Helen insisted.
“You must do as I say.”
“Come, dear,” and Caroline led her away, and put her into her father’s chair.
“Poor Daddy—poor Daddy.”
“He will be all right in a few moments,” the older woman said feebly. But Helen was not attending to her. Caroline stood looking pitifully at the shaken girl, and then turned away sadly. The disorder of the table caught her eye. Not thinking, not caring now, but obeying the habit of her lifetime, she took up the volume of “David Copperfield,” and carried it to the bookcase. As she replaced it on its shelf Latham came in. He went to Helen and laid his hand on her shoulder.
“Daddy?”
The physician met her eyes pityingly. He had no healing—for her.
With a shudder the girl rose and turned to the hall.
“Helen,” Mrs. Leavitt pled.
“He would want me near him,” the girl said quite calmly. And the physician neither stayed nor followed her; and he motioned Mrs. Leavitt to do neither.