CHAPTER XXVIII
I
“Andso,” said Father O’Sullivan, blowing his nose, “I came right along to tell you, and ask you what is the next step to take.”
“Poor chap!” ejaculated Tommy, delivering himself of a huge sigh. He was standing on the hearthrug, immaculately attired in dinner jacket, white shirt-front, and all the rest of the paraphernalia.
Muriel gave a little choke. She was sitting near him in a dress of her favourite pale green. Father O’Sullivan had descended on them both as they were waiting in the drawing-room for the announcement of dinner. It had, be it stated, already been made, but little heed had been paid thereto, and the butler in wrathful terms was now ordering the soup to be taken below again.
“And what are you both looking so glum about?” demanded Father O’Sullivan fiercely. “Faith, and weren’t you having me say Masses, and yourself setting up candles to St. Joseph, that that young Quixote—what’s-his-name—might hold up his head again? And now that the good Lord has answered our prayers and cleared him, and let that poor boy make a good confession and pass peacefully away, you’re looking as mournful as a mute at a funeral. Was it perhaps some other way you’d have been having God arrange things and not His way at all?” He stuffed his handkerchief back vigorously in his pocket as he spoke.
“But,” quoth Tommy in a slightly haughty fashion, feeling this speech somewhat of an aspersion on his wife’s wet eyes, “you will not, I imagine, deny that it was sad?”
“Sad! Of course it was sad, what happened first. But can’t you see the fine way, the beautiful way, God has taken away the sadness? You’re all for saying Paradise must be a grand place, but directly a soul gets a bit nearer to it you’re for weeping and wailing and crying ‘Poor fellow!’”
Muriel choked back her tears. Smiling at the old priest and the half-wrathful Tommy, she spoke.
“And you’re just as near crying yourself as I am, Father,” she protested. “And it’s that is making you so abominably rude and cross to us both.”
“Huh!” said Father O’Sullivan, and he coughed, putting up his hand to his mouth. And both cough and gesture hid that his lips were trembling.
“And now,” he requested after a moment, his voice steady and a trifle dry, “what’s to be done next?”
“Find Mr. Carden, of course,” announced Muriel with airy decision, as who should say that was a fact apparent to the most infantine intelligence.
“And it’s all very well to say ‘Find him,’” remarked Father O’Sullivan dryly, “but have you the faintest suspicion of a notion where he is at all?”
“Not the least,” quoth Muriel cheerfully; “that is exactly what we have to discover.”
“And how will you be doing that may I ask?”
Muriel leant forward, finger-tips pressed together,[Pg 281]speaking with the decision of one who has thoroughly weighed the whole problem.
“First we must tell General Carden, and see if he knows where he is. I don’t think he does, but we must find out for certain. Then there are his publishers—oh, yes,” in answer to Tommy’s elevated eyebrows—“he has written a book, a very good book indeed, and thereby hangs more of a tale than is enclosed withinitscovers. Failing both those plans,” she concluded firmly, “Tommy must find him.”
“Faith,” said Father O’Sullivan admiringly, “it’s a fine thing to be a husband!”
And then a second time the drawing-room door opened, and a second time a voice announced, this time in accents of deep reproach, that dinner was on the table.
Muriel looked at both the men. “Oh,” she cried, “didn’t he tell us that before? I feel apologetic. He’s such a treasure, and so is the cook—both artists in their way, and we’re spoiling their artistic efforts. Come, both of you. We’ll talk more at dinner.” A whirl of chiffons and daintiness, she led the way downstairs.
In the intervals of the servant’s absence from[Pg 282]the room, she promulgated plans, like any old veteran at the beginning of a campaign. If they sounded somewhat fantastic plans it is certain that neither man had any better to offer. And what, in her opinion, was more feasible, more practicable, than that Tommy should take the car to Abbotsleigh, where Peter was last seen by Anne, and from there scour the country for a man with a peacock feather in his hat? It was, she assured them both, the simplest of proceedings.
By the end of dinner they had warmed to her ideas, confessing at least that no better solution of the difficulty presented itself to them. Further, she told them, and on this point she was firm, that they must both go that very evening and tell General Carden the present state of affairs. For herself, she thought Anne was expecting her. Yes; she was convinced Anne was expecting her, but she would telephone through and make sure while they were finishing their cigars. Thus she departed from the room.
Anne’s voice at the other end of the telephone presently answered her. Yes, she would be at home that evening, and delighted to see Muriel. But what was the matter of importance of which[Pg 283]Muriel had to speak? Too long to communicate at the moment? Oh, well, Anne must possess her soul in patience till Muriel arrived.
And then Muriel hung up the receiver, and rang for the footman, on whose appearance she ordered him to tell her maid to bring a cloak immediately, and stated also that she would require a taxi in ten minutes. Then, as one who has put great things in train, she sank back in a chair with a sigh of relief and content.
II
General Carden was in his smoking-room when the opening of the door by Goring heralded the entrance of Tommy Lancing and a stout, elderly priest.
Somewhat perplexed, General Carden put down the book he had been reading, and rose from his chair to greet them. True, Tommy occasionally favoured him with his presence at this hour, but why should he drag along with him a man whom he had only once met, and that man, moreover, a priest? He appeared, too, somewhat embarrassed. It was the elder man who was at his ease.
“We came to see you, General,” said Tommy,[Pg 284]shaking hands and introducing Father O’Sullivan, “because we thought—that is, Muriel—well, something unusual has happened.” Neither speech nor introduction was made after Tommy’s customary suave fashion.
“Ah!” said General Carden, eyeing them both keenly, while his heart gave a little anxious throb. Unusual news can easily portend bad news. Also Tommy’s manner was a trifle disconcerting.
“It is,” said Tommy, “about your son.”
“Ah!” said General Carden again, this time with a quick intake of his breath. He put his hand up to the mantelpiece. The floor seemed not quite so solid as he would desire it to be.
“He,” blurted out Tommy quickly, “was—was not guilty. Father O’Sullivan will tell you.”
Thus in the simplest, most commonplace of language can momentous announcements be made. It would seem as though there should be a grander language, a finer flow of words, for these statements and yet in such bald fashion are they invariably announced.
There was no question now but that the room[Pg 285]was certainly revolving. Presently it steadied itself, and General Carden knew that he was sitting by the fire, the two men opposite to him, and that the old priest was talking. Gradually his mind adjusted itself to facts: he heard and understood the words that were being spoken. When they stopped there was a silence. There is so astonishingly little to be said at such times, though the tittle-tattle of small events will supply us with endless talk.
“Thank you for coming to tell me,” said General Carden gravely, and he pushed a box of cigars towards the two men. Again silence.
Presently Tommy began to talk, quietly, easily, now. He put forward Muriel’s suggestions, her advice, her plans. He explained minutely the scheme she had proposed.
General Carden listened intent.
“It is like her kind-heartedness to suggest it,” he said, as Tommy paused, “and yours to follow it up. I have no notion where he is, nor—nor have his publishers. I happened to ask them the other day.” He made the statement with an airy carelessness of manner.
“Then,” said Tommy with a firmness which[Pg 286]Muriel would distinctly have approved, “I start to-morrow.”
Thus definitely was the decision given.
The two stayed a while longer, Tommy supplying most of the remarks made—conversation it can not be termed.
General Carden kept falling into abstracted silences, in which his eyes sought the fire and his hand pulled gently at his white moustache. Father O’Sullivan watched him from under his shaggy eyebrows. He was not a priest for nothing. He knew well enough how to read the vast unsaid between the little said, and the workings of the reserved old mind were as clear as daylight to him.
Presently they rose to depart. In the hall General Carden spoke.
“If,” he said, addressing himself to Father O’Sullivan, “you would let me know the day and hour of young Ellerslie’s funeral I should be obliged. He was a friend of my son’s.”
And in those words the old man blotted out, forgave, the wrong Hugh had done, as Peter himself would have wished.
An hour later Goring came in with a tray on[Pg 287]which were a tumbler and a jug of hot water.
General Carden looked up. “Which wine did I drink to-night?” he demanded.
“The ’54 port, sir,” replied Goring respectfully.
“Hmm!” General Carden beat a faint, delicate tattoo with his fingers on the table. “I thought so. How much more is there?”
“About eight bottles, sir. Seven or eight I should say.”
General Carden coughed. “You need not use any more of it at present, not till”—he coughed again—“Mr. Peter comes home.”
The most perfectly trained of butlers might, perhaps, be excused a slight start at such a statement, taking into consideration, of course, previous circumstances. Goring unquestionably started. Then the mask was on again, impassive, impenetrable.
General Carden still kept up that light tattoo. He had a statement to make. In all fairness to Peter it had to be made. It was, however, peculiarly difficult to put into words.
He cleared his throat. “There was,” he said, gazing hard at his fingers, “a mistake. Mr.[Pg 288]Peter was shielding some one else.” The tattoo stopped. The words were out.
And then the man broke through the butler. The mask of impassivity vanished.
“Lord, sir!” his voice was triumphant, “and mightn’t we ’ave known it, if only we ’adn’t been such a couple of blithering old fools.”
General Carden stared. “Ahem! Goring—really, Goring, I—” He was for a moment dumbfounded, helpless in his amazement. Then suddenly the amazement gave way before a humorous smile, his old eyes twinkled, and he brought his hand down on the table with a thump. “By God!” he cried; “you’re right.”
And Goring left the room choking with varied emotions, but pulling down his waistcoat with dignified pleasure the while.