Lionel Callon's visit to Millie Stretton bore, however, consequences which had not at all entered into his calculations. He was unaware of the watchers at Lady Millingham's window; he had no knowledge of Pamela's promise to Tony Stretton; no suspicion, therefore, that she was now passionately resolved to keep it in the spirit and the letter. He was even without a thought that his advances towards Millie had at all been remarked upon or their motive discovered. Ignorance lulled him into security. But within a short while a counter-plot was set in train.
The occasion was the first summer meeting on Newmarket Heath. Pamela Mardale seldom missed a race meeting at Newmarket dining the spring and summer. There were the horses, in the first place; she met her friends besides; the heath itself, with its broad expanse and its downs, had for her eyes a beauty of its own; and in addition the private enclosure was separated by the width of the course from the crowd and clamour of the ring. She attended this particular meeting, and after the second race was over she happened to be standing amidst a group of friends within the grove of trees at the back of the paddock. Outside, upon the heath, the air was clear and bright; a light wind blew pleasantly. Here the trees were in bud, and the sunlight, split by the boughs, dappled with light and shadow the glossy coats of the horses as they were led in and out amongst the boles. A mare was led past Pamela, and one of her friends said--
"Semiramis. I think she will win this race."
Pamela looked towards the mare, and saw, just beyond her, Mr. Mudge. He was alone, as he usually was; and though he stopped in his walk, now here, now there, to exchange a word with some acquaintance, he moved on again, invariably alone. Gradually he drew nearer to the group in which Pamela was standing, and his face brightened. He quickened his step; Pamela, on her side, advanced rather quickly towards him.
"You are here?" she said, with a smile. "I am glad, though I did not think to meet you."
Mr. Mudge, to tell the truth, though he carried a race-card in his hand, and glasses slung across his shoulder, had the disconsolate air of a man conscious that he was out of place. He answered Pamela, indeed, almost apologetically.
"It is better after all to be here than in London on a day of summer," he said, and he added, with a shrewd glance at her, "You have something to say to me--a question to ask."
Pamela looked up at him in surprise.
"Yes, I have. Let us go out."
They walked into the paddock, and thence through the gate into the enclosure. The enclosure was at this moment rather empty. Pamela led the way to the rails alongside the course, and chose a place where they were out of the hearing of any bystander.
"You remember the evening at Frances Millingham's?" she asked. She had not seen Mr. Mudge since that date.
Mr. Mudge replied immediately.
"Yes; Sir Anthony Stretton"--and the name struck so oddly upon Pamela's ears that, serious as at this moment she was, she laughed. "Sir Anthony Stretton turned away from the steps of his house. You were distressed, Miss Mardale: I, on the contrary, said that nothing better could have happened. You wish to ask me why I said that?"
"Yes," said Pamela; "I am very anxious to know. Millie is my friend. I am, in a sort of way, too, responsible for her;" and as Mr. Mudge looked surprised, she repeated the word--"Yes, responsible. And I am rather troubled." She spoke with a little hesitation. There was a frown upon her forehead, a look of perplexity in her dark eyes. She was reluctant to admit that her friend was in any danger or needed any protection from her own weakness. The freemasonry of her sex impelled her to silence. On the other hand, she was at her wits' end what to do. And she had confidence in her companion's discretion; she determined to speak frankly.
"It is not only your remark which troubles me," she said, "but I called on Millie the next afternoon."
"Oh, you did?" exclaimed Mr. Mudge.
"Yes; I asked after Tony. Millie had not seen him, and did not expect him. She showed me letters from his solicitors empowering her to do what she liked with the house and income, and a short letter from Tony himself, written on thePerseverance, to the same effect."
She did not explain to Mr. Mudge what thePerseverancewas, and he asked no questions.
"I told Millie," she continued, "that Tony had returned, but she refused to believe it. I told her when and where I had seen him."
"You did that?" said Mr. Mudge. "Wait a moment." He saw and understood Pamela's reluctance to speak. He determined to help her out. "Let me describe to you what followed. She stared blankly at you and asked you to repeat what you had said?"
"Yes," replied Pamela, in surprise; "that is just what she did."
"And when you had repeated it, she turned a little pale, perhaps was disconcerted, perhaps a little--afraid."
"Yes, it is that which troubles me," Pamela cried, in a low voice. "She was afraid. I would have given much to have doubted it. I could not; her eyes betrayed it, her face, her whole attitude. She was afraid."
Mr. Mudge nodded his head, and went quietly on--
"And when she had recovered a little from her fear she questioned you closely as to the time when you first saw Stretton outside the house, and the time when he went away."
He spoke with so much certitude that he might have been present at the interview.
"I told her that it was some little time after eleven when he came, and that he only stayed a few minutes," answered Pamela.
"And at that," rejoined Mr. Mudge, "Lady Stretton's anxiety diminished."
"Yes, that is true, too," Pamela admitted; and she turned her face to him with its troubled appeal. "Why was she afraid? For, since you have guessed that she was, you must know the reason which she had for fear. Why was it so fortunate that Tony Stretton did not mount the steps of the house and ring the bell?"
Mr. Mudge answered her immediately, and very quietly.
"Because Lionel Callon was inside the house."
A great sympathy made his voice gentle--sympathy for Pamela. None the less the words hurt her cruelly. She turned away from him so that he might not see her face, and stood gazing down the course through a mist. Bitter disappointment was hers at that moment. She was by nature a partisan. The thing which she did crept closer to her heart by the mere act of doing it. She knew it, and it was just her knowledge which had so long kept her to inaction. Now her thoughts were passionately set on saving Millie, and here came news to her which brought her to the brink of despair. She blamed Tony. "Why did he ever go away?" she cried. "Why, when he had come back, did he not stay?" And at once she saw the futility of her outcry. Tony, Millie, Lionel Callon--what was the use of blaming them? They acted as their characters impelled them. She had to do her best to remedy the evil which the clash of these three characters had produced. "What can be done?" she asked of herself. There was one course open certainly. She could summon Warrisden again, send him out a second time in search of Tony Stretton, and make him the bearer, not of an excuse, but of the whole truth. Only she dreaded the outcome; she shrank from telling Tony the truth, fearing that he would exaggerate it. "Can nothing be done?" she asked, again in despair, and this time she asked the question aloud, and turned to Mr. Mudge.
Mudge had been quietly waiting for it.
"Yes," he answered, "something can be done. I should not have told you, Miss Mardale, what I knew unless I had already hit upon a means to avert the peril; for I am aware how much my news must grieve you."
Pamela looked at Mr. Mudge in surprise. It had not occurred to her at all that he could have solved the problem.
"What can I do?" she asked.
"You can leave the whole trouble in my hands for a few days."
Pamela was silent for a little while; then she answered doubtfully--
"It is most kind of you to offer me your help."
Mr. Mudge shook his head at Pamela with a certain sadness.
"There's no kindness in it at all," he said; "but I quite understand your hesitation, Miss Mardale. You were surprised that I should offer you help, just as you were surprised to see me here. Although I move in your world I am not of it. Its traditions, its instincts, even its methods of thought--to all of these I am a stranger. I am just a passing visitor who, for the time of his stay, is made an honorary member of your club. He meets with every civility, every kindness; but he is not inside, so that when he suddenly comes forward and offers you help in a matter where other members of your club are concerned, you naturally pause."
Pamela made a gesture of dissent; but Mr. Mudge gently insisted--
"Let me finish. I want you to understand equally well why I offer you help which may very likely seem to you an impertinence."
"No, indeed," said Pamela; "on the contrary, I am very grateful."
Others were approaching the spot where they stood. They turned and walked slowly over the grass away from the paddock.
"There is no need that you should be," Mudge continued; "you will see that, if you listen." And in a few words he told her at last something of his own career. "I sprang from a Deptford gutter, with one thought--to get on, and get on, and get on. I moved from Deptford to Peckham. There I married. I moved from Peckham to a residential suburb in the south-west. There my wife died. Looking back now, I am afraid that in my haste to get on I rather neglected my wife's happiness. You see I am frank with you. From the residential suburb I moved into the Cromwell Road, from the Cromwell Road to Grosvenor Square. I do not think that I was just a snob; but I wanted to have the very best of what was going. There is a difference. A few years ago I found myself at the point which I had aimed to reach, and, as I have told you, it is a position of many acquaintances and much loneliness. You might say that I could give it up and retire into the country. But I have too many undertakings on my hands; besides, I am too tired to start again, so I remain. But I think you will understand that it will be a real pleasure to me to help you. I have not so many friends that I can afford to lose the opportunity of doing one of them a service."
Pamela heard him to the end without any interruption; but when he had finished she said, with a smile--
"You are quite wrong about the reason for my hesitation. I asked a friend of mine a few weeks ago to help me, and he gave me the best of help at once. Even the best of help fails at times, and my friend did. I was wondering merely whether it would not be a little disloyal to him if I now accepted yours, for I know he would be grieved if I went to any one but him."
"I see," said Mr. Mudge; "but I think that I can give you help which no one else can."
It was clear from his quiet persistence that he had a definite plan. Pamela stopped and faced him.
"Very well," she said. "I leave the whole matter for a little while in your hands."
"Thank you," said Mr. Mudge; and he looked up towards the course. "There are the horses going down."
A sudden thought occurred to Pamela. She opened the purse she carried on her wrist, and took out a couple of pounds.
"Put this on Semiramis for me, please," she said, with a laugh. "Be quick, if you will, and come back."
Though she laughed she was still most urgent he should go. Mr. Mudge hurried across the course, made the bet, and returned. Pamela watched the race with an eagerness which astonished Mr. Mudge, so completely did she seem to have forgotten all that had troubled her a minute ago. But he did not understand Pamela. She was, after her custom, seeking for a sign, and when Semiramis galloped in a winner by a neck, she turned with a hopeful smile to her companion--
"We shall win too."
"I think so," Mudge replied, and he laughed. "Do you know what I think of Lionel Callon, Miss Mardale? The words are not mine, but the sentiment is unexceptionable. A little may be a good thing, but too much is enough."
It was midday at Sidi Bel-Abbès in Algeria. Two French officers were sitting in front of a café at the wide cross-roads in the centre of the town. One of them was Captain Tavernay, a man of forty-seven, tall, thin, with a brown face worn and tired by the campaigns of thirty years, the other a young lieutenant, M. Laurent, fresh and pink, who seemed to hare been passed out but yesterday from the school of St. Cyr. Captain Tavernay picked up his cap from the iron table in front of him and settled it upon his grizzled head. Outside the town trees clustered thickly, farms were half-hidden amongst groves of fig-trees and hedges of aloes. Here there was no foliage. The streets were very quiet, the sunlight lay in dazzling pools of gold upon the sand of the roads, the white houses glittered under a blue, cloudless sky. In front of the two officers, some miles away, the bare cone of Jebel Tessalah sprang upwards from a range of hills dominating the town, and a speck of white upon its shoulder showed where a village perched. Captain Tavernay sat looking out towards the mountain with the lids half-closed upon his eyes. Then he rose deliberately from his chair.
"If we walk to the station," he said, "we shall just meet the train from Oran. A batch of thirty recruits is coming in by it. Let us walk to the station, Laurent."
Lieutenant Laurent dropped the end of his cigarette on to the ground and stood up reluctantly.
"As you will, Captain," he answered. "But we should see the animals soon enough at the barracks."
The words were spoken in a voice which was almost, and with a shrug of the shoulders which was quite, contemptuous. The day was hot, and Lieutenant Laurent unwilling to move from his coffee and the shade into that burning sunlight. Captain Tavernay gazed mildly at his youthful junior. Long experience had taught him to leave much to time and little to argument. For himself he loved his legionaries. He had a smile of indulgence for their faults even while he punished them; and though his face seldom showed the smile, and his punishments were not unjustly light, the culprits none the less knew it was there, hidden somewhere close to his heart. But then he had seen his men in action, and Lieutenant Laurent had not. That made all the difference. The Foreign Legion certainly did not show at its best in a cantonment. Amongst that motley assemblage--twelve thousand men, distinct in nationality as in character, flung together pell-mell, negroes and whites, criminals, adventurers, silent unknown men, haunted by memories of other days or tortured by remorse--a garrison town with its monotony and its absinthe played havoc. An Abyssinian rubbed shoulders in the ranks with a scholar who spoke nine languages; a tenor from the Théâtre de la Monnaie at Brussels with an unfrocked priest. Often enough Captain Tavernay had seen one of his legionaries sitting alone hour after hour at his little table outside a café, steadily drinking glass after glass of absinthe, rising mechanically to salute his officer, and sinking back among his impenetrable secrets. Was he dreaming of the other days, the laughter and the flowers, the white shoulders of women? Was he again placing that last stake upon the red which had sent him straight from the table to the nearest French depôt? Was he living again some tragic crisis of love in which all at once he had learned that he had been befooled and derided? Captain Tavernay never passed such a man but he longed to sit down by his side and say, "My friend, share your secret with me; so will it be easier to bear." But the etiquette of the Foreign Legion forbade. Captain Tavernay merely returned the salute and passed on, knowing that very likely his legionary would pass the night in the guard-room and the next week in the cells. No; the town of Sidi Bel-Abbès was not the place wherein to learn the mettle of the legionary. Away to the south there, beyond the forest of trees on the horizon's line, things were different. Let Lieutenant Laurent see the men in their bivouacs at night under the stars, and witness their prowess under arms,ces animauxwould soon becomemes enfants.
Therefore he answered Lieutenant Laurent in the mildest voice.
"We shall see them at the barracks, it is true. But you are wrong when you say that it will be soon enough. At the barracks they will be prepared for us, they will have their little stories ready for us, they will be armed with discretion. But let us see them descend from the train, let us watch their first look round at their new home, their new fatherland. We may learn a little, and if it is ever so little it will help us to know them the better afterwards. And at the worst it will be an amusing exercise in psychology."
They walked away from the café, and strolled down the Rue de Mascara under the shady avenue of trees, Tavernay moving with a long, indolent stride, which covered a deal of ground with a surprising rapidity, Laurent fidgeting along discontentedly at his side. M. Laurent was beginning, in fact, to regret the hurry with which he had sought a commission in the Foreign Legion. M. Laurent had, a few months ago, in Paris, imagined himself to be irrevocably in love with the wife of one of his friends, a lady at once beautiful and mature; M. Laurent had declared his passion upon a suitable occasion; M. Laurent had been snubbed for his pains; M. Laurent in a fit of pique had sought the consolation of another climate and foreign service; and M. Laurent was now quickly realising that he was not nearly so heartbroken as he had fancied himself to be. Already while he walked to the station he was thinking that, after all, Paris was endurable, even though one particular woman could not refrain from a little smile of amusement when he crossed her path.
Captain Tavernay had timed their walk accurately. For as they reached the station the train was signalled.
"Let us stand here, behind these cases," said Tavernay. "We shall see and not be seen."
In a few moments the train moved slowly in and stopped. From the furthermost carriage the detachment descended, and, following asous-officierin the uniform of the Legion, walked towards the cases behind which Tavernay and his companion were concealed. In front came two youths, fair of complexion and of hair, dressed neatly, well shod, who walked with a timidity of manner as though they expected to be questioned and sent packing.
"Who can they be?" asked Laurent. "They are boys."
"Yet they will give their age as eighteen," replied Tavernay, and his voice trembled ever so slightly; "and we shall ask no questions."
"But they bear no marks of misery. They are not poor. Whence can they come?" Laurent repeated.
"I can tell you that," said Tavernay. He was much moved. He spoke with a deep note of reverence. "They come from Alsace or Lorraine. We get many such. They will not serve Germany. At all costs theywillserve France."
Lieutenant Laurent was humbled. Here was a higher motive than pique, here was a devotion which would not so quickly tire of discipline and service. He gazed with a momentary feeling of envy at these two youths who insisted, at so high a price, on being his compatriots.
"You see," said Tavernay, with a smile, "it was worth while to come to the station and see the recruits arrive, even on so hot a day as this."
"Yes," replied Laurent; and then "look!"
Following the two youths walked a man tall and powerful, with the long, loose stride of one well versed in sports. He held his head erect, and walked defiantly, daring you to question him. His hands were long and slender, well-kept, unused to labour, his face aquiline and refined. He looked about thirty-five years old. He wore a light overcoat of a fine material, which hung open, and underneath the overcoat he was attired in evening dress. It was his dress which had riveted Laurent's attention; and certainly nothing could have seemed more bizarre, more strangely out of place. The hot African sun poured down out of a cloudless sky; and a new recruit for the Foreign Legion stepped out of a railway carriage as though he had come straight from a ball-room. What sudden disaster could have overtaken him? In what tragedy had he borne a part? Even Laurent's imagination was stimulated into speculation. As the man passed him, Laurent saw that his tie was creased and dusty, his shirt-front rumpled and soiled. That must needs have been. At some early hour on a spring morning, some four or five days ago, this man must have rushed into the guard-room of a barrack-square in some town of France. Laurent turned to Tavernay eagerly--
"What do you make of him?"
Tavernay shrugged his shoulders.
"A man of fashion, who has made a fool of himself. They make good soldiers as a rule."
"But he will repent!"
"He has already had the time, and he has not. There is no escort for recruits until they reach Marseilles. Suppose that he enlisted in Paris. He is given the fare. At any station between Paris and Marseilles he could have got out and returned."
The man in evening-dress walked on. There were dark shadows under his eyes, the eyes themselves were sombre and alert.
"We shall know something of him soon," said Tavernay. He watched his recruit with so composed an air that Laurent cried out--
"Can nothing astonish you?"
"Very little," answered Tavernay, phlegmatically. "Listen, my friend. One day, some years ago, a captain of Hussars landed at Oran. He came to Bel-Abbès with a letter of introduction to me. He stayed with me. He expressed a wish to see my men on parade. I turned them out. He came to the parade-ground and inspected them. As he passed along the ranks he suddenly stopped in front of an old soldier with fifteen years' service in the Legion, much of which fifteen years had been passed in the cells. The old soldier was a drunkard--oh, but a confirmed drunkard. Well, in front of this man my young Captain with the curled moustaches stopped--stopped and turned very pale. But he did not speak. My soldier looked at him respectfully, and the Captain continued his inspection. Well, they were father and son--that is all. Why should anything astonish me?" and Captain Tavernay struck a match and lighted a cigarette.
The match, however, attracted attention to the presence of the officers. Four men who marched, keeping time with their feet and holding their hands stiffly at their sides, saw the flame and remarked the uniforms. Their hands rose at once to the salute.
"Ah! German deserters," said Tavernay. "They fight well."
Others followed, men in rags and out of shoe-leather, outcasts and fugitives; and behind them came one who was different. He was tall and well-knit, with a frank open face, not particularly intellectual, on the other hand not irretrievably stupid. He was dressed in a double-breasted, blue-serge suit, and as he walked he now and then gave a twist to his fair moustache, as though he were uneasy and embarrassed. Captain Tavernay ran his eyes over him with the look of a connoisseur.
"Aha!" said he, with a chuckle of satisfaction. "The true legionary! Hard, finely trained, he has done work too. Yes! You see, Laurent, he is a little ashamed, a little self-conscious. He feels that he is looking a fool. I wonder what nationality he will claim."
"He comes from the North," said Lament. "Possibly from Normandy."
"Oh, I know what he is," returned Tavernay. "I am wondering only what he will claim to be. Let us go outside and see."
Tavernay led the way to the platform. Outside, in front of the station, thesous-officiermarshalled his men in a line. They looked a strange body of men as they stood there, blinking in the strong sunlight. The man in the ruffled silk hat and the dress-suit toed the line beside a bundle of rags; the German deserters rubbed elbows with the "true legionary" in the blue serge. Those thirty men represented types of almost all the social grades, and to a man they were seeking the shelter of anonymity in that monastery of action, the Foreign Legion.
"Answer to your names," said thesous-officier, and from a paper in his hand he began to read. The answers came back, ludicrous in their untruth. A French name would be called.
"Montaubon."
And a German voice replied--
"Present."
"Ohlsen," cried thesous-officier, and no answer was given. "Ohlsen," he repeated sharply. "Is not Ohlsen here?"
And suddenly the face of the man in the serge suit flashed, and he answered hurriedly--
"Present."
Even thesous-officierburst into a laugh. The reason for the pause was too obvious; "Ohlsen" had forgotten that Ohlsen was now his name.
"My lad, you must keep your ears open," said thesous-officier. "Now, attention. Fours right. March!"
And the detachment marched off towards the barracks.
"Ohlsen," said Tavernay, and he shrugged his shoulders. "Well, what does it matter? Come!"
"Ohlsen" was Tony Stretton, and all the way along the Rue Daya to the barracks he was longing for the moment when he would put on the uniform and cease to figure ridiculously in this grotesque procession. None the less he had to wait with the others, drawn up in the barrack-square until Captain Tavernay returned. The Captain went to his office, and thither the recruits were marched. One by one they entered in at the door, answered his questions, and were sent off to the regimental tailor. Tony Stretton was the last.
"Name?" asked Tavernay.
"Hans Ohlsen."
"Town of enlistment?"
"Marseilles."
Tavernay compared the answers with some writing on a sheet of paper.
"Yes, Marseilles. Passed by the doctor Paul as sound of body. Yes," and he resumed his questions.
"Nationality?"
"Swede."
Captain Tavernay had a smattering of most languages, and he was greatly inclined to try his new recruit with a few questions in the Swedish tongue. But the etiquette of the Legion forbade. He went on without a smile--
"Age?"
"Thirty."
"Vocation?"
"Fisherman."
Captain Tavernay looked up. This time he could not help smiling.
"Well, it is as good as any other," said he; and suddenly there was a sound of cries, and three soldiers burst out of a narrow entrance on the further side of the parade-ground and came running across the square to the Captain's quarters. Both Tavernay and Stretton looked through the door. There was not a tree in that great square; the sunlight poured down upon the bare brown space with a blinding fierceness. All the recruits but Stretton had marched off; a second ago it had been quite empty and very silent. Now these three men were hurrying across it, shouting, gesticulating with their hands. Stretton looked at them with surprise. Then he noticed that one of them, the man running in the middle and a little ahead of the others, carried a revolver in his hand and brandished it. Moreover, from the look of his inflamed face, he was shouting threats; the others were undoubtedly shouting warnings. Scraps of their warnings came to Stretton's ears. "Mon Capitaine!" "Il veut vous tuer!" "Rentrez!" They were straining every muscle to catch the threatening soldier up.
Stretton strode to the door, and a voice behind him cried--
"Halt!"
It was Tavernay who was speaking.
"But he is already halfway across the square."
"Halt!"
And there was no disobeying the command. Captain Tavernay walked to the door.
"A Spanish corporal whom yesterday I degraded to the ranks," said he. "Half a pint ofaguardiente, and here's the result."
Captain Tavernay stepped out of the door and leisurely advanced towards the running men. He gave an order, he raised his hand, and the two soldiers who warned him fell back and halted. Certainly Captain Tavernay was accustomed to obedience. The Spanish ex-corporal ran on alone, straight towards Tavernay, but as he ran, as he saw the officer standing there alone, quietly waiting his onslaught, his threats weakened, his pace slackened. He came to a stop in front of Tavernay.
"I must kill yon!" he cried, waving his revolver.
"Yon shall kill me from behind, then," said Tavernay, calmly. "Follow me!" And he turned round, and with the same leisurely deliberation walked back to his room. The ex-corporal hesitated and--obeyed. He followed Captain Tavernay into the room where Stretton stood.
"Place your revolver on the table."
The Spaniard again obeyed. Tavernay pushed open the door of an inner room.
"You are drunk," he said. "You must not be seen in this condition by your fellow-soldiers. Go in and lie down!"
The Spaniard stared at his officer stupidly, tottering upon his limbs. Then he staggered into the Captain's room. Tavernay turned back to Stretton and a ghost of a smile crept into his face.
"C'est du theater," he said, with a little shrug of the shoulders. "But what would you have, monsieur?" And he spoke to Stretton as to an equal. "You are astonished. It is very likely not your way in your-fishing-boats," he continued, with a chuckle. Stretton knew very well that he meant "army." "But there is no Foreign Legion amongst your--fishermen." He laughed again; and gathering up his papers dismissed Stretton to the tailor's. But after Stretton had taken a few steps across the parade, Tavernay called him back again. He looked at him with a very friendly smile.
"I, too, enlisted at Marseilles," he said. "One can rise in the Foreign Legion by means of these"--and he touched lightly the medals upon his breast. This was Tony Stretton's introduction to the Foreign Legion.
Spring that year drew summer quickly after it. The lilac had been early in flower, the days bright and hot. At nine o'clock on a July morning Callon's servant drew up the blinds in his master's room and let the sunlight in. Lionel Callon stretched himself in bed and asked for his letters and his tea. As he drank the tea he picked up the letters one by one, and the first at which he looked brought a smile of satisfaction to his face. The superscription told him that it was from Millie Stretton. That little device of a quarrel had proved successful, then. He tore open the envelope and read the letter. Millie wrote at no great length, but what was written satisfied Callon. She could not understand how the quarrel had arisen. She had been thinking over it many times since it happened, and she was still baffled. She had not had a thought of hurting him. How could she, since they were friends? She had been hoping to hear from him, but since some time had passed and no word had reached her, she must write and say that she thought it sad their friendship should have ended as it had.
It was a wistful little letter, and as Callon laid it down he said to himself, "Poor little girl"; but he said the words with a smile rather than with any contrition. She had been the first to write--that was the main point. Had he given in, had he been the one to make the advance, to save her the troubled speculations, the sorrow at this abrupt close to their friendship. Millie Stretton would have been glad, no doubt, but she would have thought him weak. Now he was the strong man. He had caused her suffering and abased her to seek a reconciliation. Therefore he was the strong man. Well, women would have it so, he thought, with a chuckle, and why should he complain?
He wrote a note to Millie Stretton, announcing that he would call that afternoon, and despatched the note by a messenger. Then he turned to his other letters, and amongst them he found one which drove all the satisfaction from his thoughts. It came from a firm of solicitors, and was couched in a style with which he was not altogether unfamiliar.
Sir,--Messrs. Deacon & Sons (Livery Stables, Montgomery Street) having placed their books in our hands for the collection of their outstanding debts, we must ask you to send us a cheque in settlement of your account by return of post, and thus save further proceedings.We are, yours, &c.,Humphreys & Neill.
Sir,--Messrs. Deacon & Sons (Livery Stables, Montgomery Street) having placed their books in our hands for the collection of their outstanding debts, we must ask you to send us a cheque in settlement of your account by return of post, and thus save further proceedings.
We are, yours, &c.,
Humphreys & Neill.
Callon allowed the letter to slip from his fingers, and lay for a while very still, feeling rather helpless, rather afraid. It was not merely the amount of the bill which troubled him, although that was inconveniently large. But there were other reasons. His eyes wandered to a drawer in his dressing-table. He got out of bed and unlocked it. At the bottom of that drawer lay the other reasons, piled one upon the other--letters couched in just the same words as that which he had received this morning, and--still worse!---signed by this same firm of Humphreys and Neill. Moreover, every one of those letters had reached him within the last ten days. It seemed that all his tradesmen had suddenly placed their books in the hands of Messrs. Humphreys and Neill.
Callon took the letters back to his bed. There were quite an astonishing number of them. Callon himself was surprised to see how deep he was in debt. They littered the bed--tailors' bills; bills for expensive little presents of jewellery; bills run up at restaurants for dinners and suppers; bills for the hire of horses and carriages; bills of all kinds--and there were just Mr. Callon's election expenses in Mr. Callon's exchequer that morning. Even if he parted with them, they would not pay a third part of the sum claimed. Fear invaded him; he saw no way out of his troubles. Given time, he could borrow enough, no doubt, scrape enough money together one way or another to tide himself over the difficulty. His hand searched for Millie Stretton's letter and found it, and rejected it. He needed time there; he must walk warily or he would spoil all. And looking at the letters he knew that he had not the time.
It was improbable, nay more than improbable, that all these bills were in the hands of one firm by mere chance. No; somewhere he had an enemy. A man--or it might be a woman--was striking at him out of the dark, striking with knowledge too. For the blow fell where he could least parry it. Mr. Mudge would have been quite satisfied could he have seen Callon as he lay that morning with the summer sunlight pouring into his bedroom. He looked more than his age, and his face was haggard. He felt that a hand was at his throat, a hand which gripped and gripped with an ever-increasing pressure.
He tried to guess who his enemy might be. But there were so many who might be glad to do him an ill-turn. Name after name occurred to him, but amongst those names was not the name of Mr. Mudge. That shy and inoffensive man was the last whom he would have suspected to be meddling with his life.
Callon sprang out of bed. He must go down to Lincoln's Inn Fields and interview Messrs. Humphreys and Neill. Summonses would never do with a general election so near. He dressed quickly, and soon after ten was in the office of that firm. He was received by a bald and smiling gentleman in spectacles.
"Mr. Callon?" said the smiling gentleman, who announced himself as Humphreys. "Oh yes. You have come in reference to the letters which our clients have desired us to send you?"
"Yes," replied Callon. "There are a good number of letters."
The smiling gentleman laughed genially.
"A man of fashion, Mr. Callon, has of course many expenses which we humdrum business people are spared. Let me see. The total amount due is----" And Mr. Humphreys made a calculation with his pen.
"I came to ask for an extension of time," Callon blurted out; and the smiling gentleman ceased to smile. He gazed through his spectacles with a look of the utmost astonishment. "You see, Mr. Humphreys, all these bills, each one accompanied with a peremptory demand for payment, have been presented together, almost as it were by the same post."
"They are all, however, to account rendered," said Mr. Humphreys, as he removed and breathed upon his spectacles.
"It would, I frankly confess, seriously embarrass me to settle them all at once."
"Dear, dear!" said Mr. Humphreys, in a voice of regret. "I am very sorry. These duties are very painful to me, Mr. Callon. But I have the strictest instructions." And he rose from his chair to conclude the interview.
"One moment," said Callon. "I want to ask you how it is that all my bills have come into your hands? Who is it who has brought them up?"
"Really, really, Mr. Callon," the lawyer protested. "I cannot listen to such suggestions." And then the smile came back to his face. "Why not pay them in full?" His eyes beamed through his spectacles. He had an air of making a perfectly original and delightful suggestion. "Sit down in this comfortable chair now, and write me out a little cheque for--let me see----" And he went back to his table.
"I must have some time," said Callon.
Mr. Humphreys was gradually persuaded that the concession of a little time was reasonable.
"A day, then," he said. "We will say a day, Mr. Callon. This is Wednesday. Some time to-morrow we shall hear from you." And he bowed Callon from his office. Then he wrote a little note and despatched it by a messenger into the City. The message was received by Mr. Mudge, who read it, took up his hat, and jumping into a hansom cab, drove westward with all speed.
Lionel Callon, on the contrary, walked back to his rooms. He had been in tight places before, but never in one quite so tight. Before, it was really the money which had been needed. Now, what was needed was his ruin. To make matters worse, he had no idea of the particular person who wished to ruin him. He walked gloomily back to his club and lunched in solitude. A day remained to him, but what could he do in a day, unless----? There was a certain letter in the breast-pocket of Callon's coat to which, more than once as he lunched, his fingers strayed. He took it out and read it again. It was too soon to borrow in that quarter, but his back was against the wall. He saw no other chance of escape. He drove to Millie Stretton's house in Berkeley Square at the appointed time that afternoon.
But Mr. Mudge had foreseen. When he jumped into his hansom cab he had driven straight to the house in Audley Square, where Pamela Mardale was staying with some friends.
"Are you lunching anywhere?" he asked. "No? Then lunch with Lady Stretton, please! And don't go away too soon! See as much as you can of her during the next two days."
As a consequence, when Lionel Callon was shown into the drawing-room, he found Pamela Mardale in her most talkative mood, and Millie Stretton sitting before the tea-table silent and helpless. Callon stayed late; Pamela stayed later. Callon returned to his club, having said not a single word upon the momentous subject of his debts.
He ordered a stiff brandy and soda. Somehow he must manage to see Millie Stretton alone. He thought, for a moment, of writing; he indeed actually began to write. But the proposal looked too crude when written down. Callon knew the tactics of his game. There must, in a word, be an offer from Millie, not a request from him. He tore up his letter, and while he was tearing it up, Mr. Mudge entered the smoking-room. Mudge nodded carelessly to Callon, and then seemed to be struck by an idea. He came across to the writing-table and said--
"Do I interrupt you? I wonder whether you could help me. You know so many people that you might be able to lay your finger at once on the kind of man I want."
Callon looked up carelessly at Mudge.
"No. You are not interrupting me. What kind of man do you want?"
"I want a man to superintend an important undertaking which I have in hand."
Callon swung round in his chair. All his carelessness had gone. He looked at Mr. Mudge, who stood drumming with his fingers on the writing-table.
"Oh," said Callon. "Tell me about it."
He walked over to a corner of the room which was unoccupied and sat down. Mudge sat beside him and lighted a cigar.
"I want a man to supervise, you understand. I don't want an expert. For I have engineers and technical men enough on the spot. And I don't want any one out of my office. I need some one, on whom I can rely, to keep me in touch with what is going on--some one quite outside my business and its associations."
"I see," said Callon. "The appointment would be--for how long?"
"Two years."
"And the salary would be good?"
Callon leaned back on the lounge as he put the question and he put it without any show of eagerness. Two years would be all the time he needed wherein to set himself straight; and it seemed the work would not be arduous.
"I think so," replied Mudge. "You shall judge for yourself. It would be two thousand a year."
Callon did not answer for a little while, simply because he could not trust himself to speak. His heart was beating fast. Two thousand a year for two years, plus the sum for his election expenses! He would be able to laugh at that unknown enemy who was striking at him from the dark.
"Should I do?" he asked at length, and even then his voice shook. Mr. Mudge appeared, however, not to notice his agitation. He was looking down at the carpet, and tracing the pattern with the ferrule of his walking-stick.
"Of course," he said, with a smile, as though Callon had been merely uttering a joke. He did not even lift his eyes to Callon's face. "Of course. I only wish you were serious."
"But I am," cried Callon.
Mr. Mudge looked at his companion now, and with surprise.
"Are you? But you wouldn't have the time to spare. You are standing for a constituency."
Callon shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, I am not so very keen about Parliament. And there are reasons why I would welcome the work."
Mr. Mudge answered with alacrity.
"Then we will consider it settled. Dine with me tonight at my house, and we will talk the details over."
Callon accepted the invitation, and Mudge rose from his seat. Callon, however, detained him.
"There's one difficulty in the way," and Mr. Mudge's face became clouded with anxiety. "The truth is, I am rather embarrassed at the present moment. I owe a good deal of money, and I am threatened with proceedings unless it is immediately paid."
Mudge's face cleared at once.
"Oh, is that all?" he exclaimed cheerily. "How much do you owe?"
"More than my first year's salary."
"Well, I will advance you half at once. Offer them a thousand on account, and they will stay proceedings."
"I don't know that they will," replied Callon.
"You can try them, at all events. If they won't accept half, send them to me, and we will make some other arrangement. But they are sure to. They are pressing for immediate payment because they are afraid they will get nothing at all by any other way. But offer them a thousand down, and see the pleasant faces with which they will greet you." Mr. Mudge was quite gay now that he understood how small was the obstacle which hindered him from gaining Lionel Callon's invaluable help. "I will write you a cheque," he said; and sitting down at a writing-table he filled out a cheque and brought it back. He stood in front of Callon with the cheque in his hand. He did not give it to Callon at once. He had not blotted it, and he held it by a corner and gently waved it to and fro, so that the ink might dry. It followed that those tantalising "noughts," three of them, one behind the other, and preceded by a one, like a file of soldiers with a sergeant at the head, and that excellent signature "John Mudge" were constantly before Callon's eyes, now approaching him like some shy maiden in a flutter of agitation, now coyly receding. But to no shy maiden had Lionel Callon ever said "I love you," with so glowing an ardour as he felt for that most tantalising cheque.
"I ought to have told yon," said Mr. Mudge, "that the undertaking is a railway abroad."
Callon had been so blinded by the dazzle of the cheque that he had not dreamed of that possibility. Two years abroad, even at two thousand a year, did not at all fit in with his scheme of life.
"Abroad?" he repeated doubtfully. "Where?"
"Chili," said Mr. Mudge; and he looked at the cheque to see that the ink was quite dry. Perhaps Mr. Mudge's voice was a trifle too unconcerned. Perhaps there was something a little too suggestive in his examination of his cheque. Perhaps he kept his eyes too deliberately from Callon's face. At all events, Callon became suddenly suspicious. There flashed into his mind by some trick of memory a picture--a picture of Mr. Mudge and Pamela Mardale talking earnestly together upon a couch in a drawing-room, and of himself sitting at a card-table, fixed there till the game was over, though he knew well that the earnest conversation was aimed against himself. He started, he looked at Mudge in perplexity.
"Well?" said Mudge.
"Wait a moment!"
Pamela Mardale was Millie Stretton's friend. There was that incident in the hall--Millie Stretton coming down the stairs and Pamela in front of the mirror over the mantelpiece. Finally there was Pamela's persistent presence at Millie Stretton's house this afternoon. One by one the incidents gathered in his recollections and fitted themselves together and explained each other. Was this offer a pretext to get him out of the way? Callon, after all, was not a fool, and he asked himself why in the world Mr. Mudge should, just at this moment when he was in desperate straits, offer him 2000l. a year to superintend a railway in Chili?
"Well?" said Mudge again.
"I must have time to think over the proposition," replied Callon. He meant that he must have time to obtain an interview with Millie Stretton. But Mudge was ready for him.
"Certainly," said he. "That is only reasonable. It is seven o'clock now. You dine with me at eight. Give me your answer then."
"I should like till to-morrow morning," said Callon.
Mr. Mudge shook his head.
"That, I am afraid, is impossible. We shall need all tomorrow to make the necessary arrangements and to talk over your duties. For if you undertake the work you must leave England on the day after."
Callon started up in protest. "On the day after!" he exclaimed.
"It gives very little time, I know," said Mudge. Then he looked Callon quietly and deliberately in the eyes. "But, you see, I want to get you out of the country at once."
Callon no longer doubted. He had thought, through Mr. Mudge's help, to laugh at his enemy; and lo! the enemy was Mudge himself. It was Mudge who had bought up his debts, who now held him in so secure a grip that he did not think it worth while to practise any concealment. Callon was humiliated to the verge of endurance. Two years in Chili, pretending to supervise a railway! He understood the position which he would occupy; he was within an ace of flinging the offer back. But he dared not.
"Very well," he said. "I will give you my answer at eight."
"Thanks. Be punctual." Mr. Mudge sauntered away. There could only be the one answer. Mr. Lionel Callon might twist and turn as he pleased, he would spend two years in Chili. It was five minutes past seven, besides. Callon could hardly call at the house in Berkeley Square with any chance of seeing Lady Stretton between now and eight. Mudge was contented with his afternoon.
At eight o'clock Callon gave in his submission and pocketed the cheque. At eleven he proposed to go, but Mudge, mindful of an evening visit which he had witnessed from a balcony, could not part from his new manager so soon. There was so little time for discussion even with every minute of Callon's stay in England. He kept Callon with him until two o'clock in the morning; he made an appointment with him at ten, and there was a note of warning in his voice which bade Callon punctually keep it. By one shift and another he kept him busy all the next day, and in the evening Callon had to pack, to write his letters, and to make his arrangements for his departure. Moreover, Pamela Mardale dined quietly with Millie Stretton and stayed late. It thus happened that Callon left England without seeing Millie Stretton again. He could write, of course; but he could do no more.