CHAPTER VITHE THIRTEENTH MAN
On the day of the picnic Philip Barrimore hired a horse and rode over to Gissing. He had arranged for the bulk of his furniture to be delivered at the bungalow that evening, and had sent on his manservant, Davis, with a load of provisions, and to see a supply of coal got in.
Philip went first to the farm where his horse was to be stabled, and was met by Pickett, who had come from the hayfield to get some tea, which he hospitably askedMr.Barrimore to share. Philip accepted the invitation gladly enough. He was hot and thirsty.
Mrs. Pickett—a comely matron with a jolly, red face—and Minnie, her buxom daughter, were already at table when Philip came in. They rose at once and bade him welcome, the mother placing a chair for him, while Minnie went to the big dresser for another cup and saucer.
Philip glanced round the big “house-place” with keen interest. It was the kind of fascinating room he had read of but never seen before. The floor was flagged, the windows small, with leaded panes, and rows of geraniums on the sills. Hams and flitches of bacon hung from the heavy oak beams in company with herbs and strings of onions. Bright copper utensils hung on the walls, where also was an old warming-pan. There was a tall grandfather clock—mucholder and handsomer than the one Philip had purchased that morning in High Street. The dresser! How Philip would have liked that dresser, and all the array of earthenware upon it!
All the furniture was of oak, and had,Mr.Pickett told Philip, been there for two hundred years.
“I wish you would let me bring an artist friend of mine to look at this place,” Philip said with enthusiasm.
“Glad to see him any time you like, sir,” replied the farmer. “That painter-chap that built the bungalow went wild about our things. He wanted to buy that old chest over against the far window, but we can’t part, sir! Those bits of things are part of the family—my great-grandfather put them here.”
“I quite understand your feeling, Pickett,” agreed Barrimore, taking the cup of tea Mrs. Pickett handed to him, and pouring rich cream into it.
“By the way, sir,” Pickett next remarked, “do you remember a queer sound we heard? You thought it singing.”
“Yes, have you found out anything about it?” inquired Philip, with sudden interest.
“I think the man owning the White House (I forget his name) must keep wild animals, for he has had the little wood, which you may have noticed is close to the house, wired in, ten feet high. I never saw such a thing in my life. It is small mesh wire-netting he has used, and barbed wire is put on it in rows fairly close together. My cowman says this man is building something in the wood, for loads of brick have been delivered.”
“A private menagerie, I expect,” said Philip. “Who and what is the man? He will be my nearest neighbor.”
“I don’t know,” answered Pickett, “though I did hear his name. He is rich, I should think, for he bought the White House and the wood at a big price, and he does nothing, so far as I know, for a living. There is a woman and her daughter with him, but they never seem to go out. They are very close sort of people, and the servants they brought with them from Canada are as close as the master.”
“Canada? Did they come from Canada?” exclaimed Philip.
“I heard so, sir.”
Mrs. Pickett here spoke.
“I heard this morning, sir, that the poor young lady is not quite right in her head, and that is why they keep to themselves. It was the agent who sold the house to them told me that.”
“Good God!” cried Philip. “I believe I know who these people are. Is the name Alvin?”
“That’s it, right enough, sir,” said the farmer; “and I remember now that the lady is called Brittain, or some such name.”
“Le Breton,” corrected Philip.
“Yes, sir, it was that. How queer that you should know about them.”
Philip’s face had paled, and they all observed the fact, though no one commented upon it.
“I knew relatives of theirs who are now dead,” said Philip. “I shall call on them.”
It was as much as Philip could do to sit till the meal finished. He wanted to start there and then to look on this living image of his lost Eweretta.
He excused himself as soon as he could and set out across the fields to the White House dazzling now in the light of the sun.
As he walked, he reproached himself for having soreadily credited the evil he had heard spoken of “The Thirteenth Man.”
He had come into poor Eweretta’s money, and he had tried to undo the injustice of his brother regarding Mrs. Le Breton and her ill-fated child. He had brought them to his new English home to share the fortune. He had condemned himself for their sake to this solitary life.
Strange, indeed, that he, Philip, should have come to their very gates to live! From the bungalow he could see the White House lights at night. Curiously enough, as he remembered this he took a sorrowful pleasure in the fact.
Aimée Le Breton—poor, afflicted Aimée Le Breton—was, as it seemed to him, the last bit left to him of the one he had so adored.
To show this girl some kindness would be like putting flowers on that grave far away at Qu’Appelle.
But Philip was not prepared for the shock he was to receive when he beheld the appalling likeness of Aimée to Eweretta.
The gardens of the White House were large and well kept.
Philip, who loved this type of old-world garden, paused at the gate to feast his eyes upon it.
It was there he saw her.
She was wandering, a drooping and infinitely sad figure, between the rows of high flox.
Her head was bent, and her slim hands—brown as Eweretta’s had been—were clasped together.
Suddenly she looked up, saw him, and uttered a wild cry, falling prone upon the ground.
Philip grasped the iron gate, shook it violently in a vain effort to open it.
It was locked.
He saw a woman come out and carry off the girl in her arms like an infant.
It was then that Thomas Alvin came down the garden path, a key in his hand.
He apologized for the locked gate, explaining that his poor niece was afflicted, and it was necessary to secure her within the grounds.
“I fear I alarmed her,” said Philip in troubled tones, asMr.Alvin unlocked the gate.
“She is always afraid on seeing a stranger,” said Alvin. “You areMr.Bruce, I suppose, from Herrickers?”
“No, I am Philip Barrimore,” replied the young man.
Alvin started and paled, but soon recovering himself said: “I have heard of you, of course. You were to have married my poor niece Eweretta. Come in.”
Alvin unlocked the gate and led Philip into the house. The room they entered was a well-appointed dining-room.
“I have been trying hard to find you,Mr.Alvin,” said Philip, as he seated himself. “And now chance has brought me to you.”
“I don’t think I can tell you any more than I wrote you,Mr.Barrimore, about Eweretta. It was heart-disease she died of. No one suspected her to have it. Aimée, as I told you, had a fit while Eweretta was near her. The doctor put down her death to fright.”
“We will not speak of that,Mr.Alvin,” said Philip from behind closed teeth. “I am anxious to do something for Aimée Le Breton for her sister’s sake. It is for that I have searched for her in Canada.”
Mr.Alvin answered with extreme coldness.
“You apparently overlook the fact,Mr.Barrimore, that I have given a home—a good home, too”—(witha wave of his hand round the apartment)—“to both Aimée and her mother. Aimée needs nothing. She was poor enough before I took her. Her mother mended shoes for a living.”
“I don’t mean that kind of help,” Philip hastened to explain. “I want to brighten her life. Couldn’t I take her for a drive sometimes with her mother. I could easily arrange it.”
“I have plenty of money for drives if the women desire it,” replied Alvin rather rudely.
Yes, he had come into Eweretta’s money!
“It is a novel sensation for me,” went on Alvin. “I was a thirteenth son, and born unlucky. I was known in Canada as ‘The Thirteenth Man,’ and many refused to work with me because of my ill-luck—which they said was catching! Well, my luck has changed at last, and, by gad! I mean to keep what I’ve got!”
Philip stared. He could not in the least understand this outburst. It was almost as if the man fancied he, Philip, wanted to rob him.
“I thank you for this call,Mr.Barrimore—which, all the same, I think rather interfering—but I must ask you not to repeat it. We have come here to be quiet and to ourselves.”
“And can’t I see Miss Le Breton?” asked Philip, deeply disappointed.
“It could only make you wretched,” replied the other. “Aimée is, as you know, exactly like her sister. Moreover, ever since Eweretta’s sudden death she has got a delusion that sheisEweretta, and engaged to marryyou. She is always raving about you.”
“She has never seen me till this morning,” said Philip.
“You are mistaken; she has seen you when you were in Canada, though you never saw her.”
“That is strange,” said Philip unbelievingly.
“A good many things are strange in this world, young man,” said Alvin with a queer laugh. “And now I think we have no more to say to each other, and I will let you out.”
This was dismissal.
As Philip skirted the garden wall he glanced at an upper window and caught sight of a woman’s face. It was one of the most miserable faces he had ever seen.