CHAPTER XVII.WELCOME HOME!Dick Learmer, dressed in an irreproachable frock-coat which fitted his elegant figure very well, and with a fine black pearl in his necktie, an advertisement of his grief for the decease of his cousin Rupert, was lunchingtête-à-têtewith his cousin’s widow on that same Sunday and at the very same hour that Rupert was indulging in the melancholy cogitations which have been recorded while he munched some biscuits washed down with a bottle of stout in his dirty cabin on board the tramp steamer. The Brook Street landlady was a good cook, and Edith’s Chablis, not to mention a glass of port, a cup of coffee, and a liqueur brandy that followed, were respectively excellent. The warm fire in the pretty little sitting-room and the cigarettes he smoked over it, also proved acceptable upon this particularly cold and dreary Sabbath afternoon. Lastly, the lovely Edith, dressed in very attractive and artistic mourning, was a pleasant object to the eye as she sat opposite to him upon a low chair screening her face from the fire with a feather fan from the mantel-piece.Dick, as we know, had always admired her earnestly, and now, whether the luncheon and the port, or the charming black dress set off with its white collar and cuffs, or the beautiful blue eyes and golden hair above were responsible for the result, he admired her more than ever. There was a pause in their conversation, during which she contemplated him reflectively.“You are getting to look dreadfully middle-aged and respectable, Dick,” she remarked presently. “It’s almost oppressive to those who knew you in your youth.”“I am middle-aged, and certainly I am respectable, Edith. Who wouldn’t be that had sat yesterday upon the Board of a Life Insurance Society with five directors, none of whom were under seventy? What interest they can take in life and its affairs, I am sure I don’t know.”“Probably they are only interested in other people’s lives, or other people are interested in theirs,” answered Edith carelessly.“By the way,” said Dick, “there was a question before us yesterday about poor Rupert’s insurance.”Edith winced a little at the name, but only looked up in query.“You know,” he went on, “it was a pretty heavy one, and he only paid a single premium, a very bad job for the office. Well, you haven’t claimed that £10,000, and the question was whether you should be communicated with on the matter. They settled to leave it alone, and that old death’s-head of a chairman remarked with a grin that he had never known money which was due to remain unasked for. Why don’t you ask? £10,000 is always handy,” he added, looking at her keenly.“I don’t know,” she answered. “Everybody assumes it, but I can’t see any proof that Rupert is really dead.”“Nonsense,” he replied, almost angrily, “he is as dead as Julius Cæsar. He must be; that Egyptian sergeant, what’s his name, said that he saw them all shot down, and then himself escaped.”“It’s rather odd, Dick, that this sergeant should have escaped under the circumstances. Why wasn’t he shot down too? His luck must have been remarkably good, or his legs remarkably swift.”“Can’t say; but fellows do have luck at times. I’ve met with some myself lately. Also, men don’t live for months in a waterless desert.”“He might have been rescued, by these women for instance. The man Abdullah didn’t say so, but someone else did say that the sheik Abraham, or whatever his name was, and his people were killed, for they were seen hanging upon trees. Now who hanged them there? Rupert and his people could not have done so if they themselves were already dead. Besides, it was not in his line.”“Can’t say,” answered Dick again, “but I am sure he is gone. Ain’t you?”“No, not sure, Dick, though I think he must be. And yet sometimes I feel as if he were near me—I feel it now, and the sensation isn’t altogether pleasant.”“Bosh!” said Dick.“Yes, I think it’s bosh too, so let us talk of something else.”Dick threw the end of his cigarette into the fire, and watched it thoughtfully while it burnt away.“You think that’s half a cigarette, don’t you, Edith?” he said, pointing to it.“It doesn’t look much like anything else,” she answered; “but of course changing into smoke and ashes.”“It is something else, though, Edith. I’ll tell you what, it is my rather spotted past that is burning up there, turning into clean white ash and wholesome-smelling smoke, like an offering on an altar.”“Heavens! Dick, you are growing poetical. What can be the matter with you?”“Disease of the heart, I think. Edith, do you want to remain a widow always?”“How can I tell?” she answered uneasily. “I haven’t been one long—yet.”“No, but life is short and one must look forward; also, the circumstances are unusual. Edith dear, I want you to say that after the usual decent interval you will marry—me. No, don’t answer yet, let me have my innings first, even if you bowl me out afterwards. Edith, you know that I have always been in love with you from a boy. All the queer things I did, or most of them, were really because of you. You drove me wild, drawing me on and pushing me off, and I went croppers to make myself forget. You remember our quarrel this day year. I behaved badly, and I am very sorry; but the fact is I was quite mad with jealousy. I don’t mind owning it now the poor fellow is gone. Well, since I knew that, I have been doing my very best to mend. I have worked like a horse down in that beastly House, which I hate, and learned up all sorts of things that I don’t want to know anything about. Also, I have got these directorships, thanks to Devene, whose money was supposed to be behind me, and they are practically for life. So I have about £1,500 a year to begin with, and you will have nearly as much. That isn’t exactly riches, but put together, it is enough for a start.”“No,” said Edith, “it isn’t riches, but two people might manage on it if they were economical.”“Well,” he went on quietly, “the question is whether you will consent to try in due course?” and he bent forward and looked at her with his fine black eyes.“I don’t know,” she answered doubtfully. “Dick, I am sorry, but I can’t quite trust you, and if marriage is to be successful, it must be built on other things than love and raptures; that is why I accepted poor Rupert.”“Why don’t you trust me?” he asked.“Dick, is it true that you arranged this mission of Rupert’s in the hope that what has happened—might happen?”“Most certainly not!” he answered boldly. “I had nothing to do with his mission, and never dreamed of such a thing. Who suggested that to you—Lord Southwick?”She shook her head.“I never spoke to him on the matter; indeed, I haven’t met him since the wedding, but it was suggested.”“Devene, then, I suppose. It is just like one of his dirty tricks.”But Edith only answered: “Then it isnottrue?”“I have told you; it is a damnable lie!”“I am glad to hear it, Dick, for otherwise I could never have forgiven you. To be quite honest, I don’t think I behaved well to Rupert in letting him go out there alone, and if I were sure that it was through you that all this was brought about for your own ends—and jealous men have done such things since David, you know—why then—”“Then what?”“Then, Dick, we shouldn’t talk any more about the matter. Indeed, I am not certain that we should talk at all, for at least he was an honest man who loved me, and his blood would be on your hands, and through yours on mine.”“If that’s all, they are clean enough,” replied Dick, with a laugh which some people might have considered rather forced; “almost as clean as your own, Edith,” and stretching forward, he laid his hand by hers upon her dress.She looked at it, but did not move either her dress or her hand.“It seems clean enough, Dick,” she said, “except where those old cigarettes have stained your thumb and fingers. Now, I never smoked, and mine arequitewhite.”He took the hand—uplifted now—and under pretence of examining it, drew her fingers to his lips and kissed them. Edith did not protest; it seemed that she was in a mood to be made love to by Dick, who, consequently, like a good and experienced general, proceeded to press his advantage. Dropping on his knees before her—an easy movement, for his chair was close, and, like her own, not high—he encircled her with his arm, drew down her golden head and kissed her passionately. “Dick,” she said, “you shouldn’t do that;” but she did not resist, nor was there anger in her voice as on a certain previous occasion.“Very well,” he whispered, “kiss me once and I will stop.”She drew her head back, and looked at him with her wonderful blue eyes that seemed to have grown strangely soft.“If I kissed you, Dick, you know it would mean more than your kissing me,” she murmured.“Yes, Edith; it would mean what I want it to mean—that you love me and will marry me. So, dearest, kiss me and let us make an end after all these years.”For a little while she continued to look at him, then she sighed, her breast heaved, and her eyes grew softer and more tender still.“I suppose it must be so,” she said, “for I never felt towards any man as I do to you,” and bending her head, she kissed him and gently thrust him from her. Dick sank back into his chair and mechanically lit another cigarette. “You soon go back to your old habits, Dick,” she said, watching him. “No, don’t throw it away, for while you smoke you will keep still, and I have something to say. There must be no word of this to anyone, Dick—not for another six months, at least. Do you understand?” He nodded. “It has come about a great deal too soon,” she went on; “but you asked yourself to lunch—not I—and I felt lonely and tired of my own thoughts. Mrs. Ullershaw’s funeral upset me. I hated it, but I had to go. Dick, I am not happy as I ought to be. I feel as if something were coming between us; no, it has always been there, only now it is thicker and higher. Rupert used to talk a great deal about the difference between flesh and spirit, and at the time it bored me, for I didn’t understand him. But I think that I do now. I—the outward I—well, after what has passed—you know, Dick, it’s yours, isn’t it? But the inner I—that which you can’t admire or embrace, remains as far from you as ever, and I’m not sure that it might not learn to hate you yet.”“It’s rather difficult to separate them, Edith,” he answered unconcernedly, for these subtleties did not greatly alarm him who remembered that he had heard something like them before. “At any rate,” he added, “I am quite content with your outward self,” and he looked at her beauty admiringly, “and must live in hope that the invisible rest of you will decide to follow its lead.”“You are making fun of me,” she said wearily. “But I daresay you are right for all that; I hope so. And now go away, Dick. I am not accustomed to these emotions, and they upset me. Yes, you can come back in a day or two—on Tuesday. No, no more affection, you are smoking—good-bye!”So Dick went triumphant, his luck was good indeed, and he was really happy, for he adored Edith. She was the only thing or creature that he did adore—except himself.Once Rupert’s steamer had come safe to dock, which happened a little after two o’clock, it took him but a short while to bid her farewell. Nor was the examination of his luggage a lengthy process, consisting as this did of nothing but a rough carpet-bag, in which were stuffed his Arab garments and a few necessaries that, like the clothes he wore, he had purchased from or through sailors on the ship. The officials, who could not quite place him, for his appearance puzzled them, thought well to turn out the bag whereof the contents puzzled them still more, but as there was nothing dutiable in it they were soon thrust back again. Then with some difficulty he found a hansom cab, and crawling into it, bade the man drive to his mother’s house in Regent’s Park, a journey that seemed longer to Rupert than all those days upon the sea.At length they were there, and having paid the cabman, he took his carpet-bag and turned to enter the little iron gate. He could not see the house as yet, for the dusk was gathering and the fog obscured it. Still it struck him as strangely silent and unfriendly. There was no light in the drawing-room window as there should have been, for he remembered that even when the curtains were drawn, they did not fit close, as he had often noticed when returning home at night.Some premonition of evil struck Rupert’s heart, but he repelled it, and hobbling up the little walk and the steps beyond, found the bell and rang. There was a long pause, until at last he heard somebody shuffling down the passage, heard, too, the door being unlocked and the chain unhooked. Then he grew terribly afraid until he remembered of a sudden that it was quite possible that Edith and his mother were again spending the New Year at Devene. Well, it would be a great disappointment, but on the other hand, he would have a few hours to make himself more presentable.The door opened, and before him stood a stout, heavy-faced woman who held a greasy tin candlestick in her hand.“What do you want?” she said, surveying this rough figure and his crutch and carpet-bag doubtfully, for her mind ran on tramps.“I want to see Mrs. Ullershaw,” he answered, and his voice reassured her somewhat.“Mrs. Ullershaw? Which Mrs. Ullershaw?—for I’ve heard there was a young ’un as well as an old ’un. I ain’t the regular caretaker, you know, only a friend what’s took her place while she spends New Year’s Day in the country with her husband’s people.”“Yes, quite so,” said Rupert. “I meant the old Mrs. Ullershaw—”“Well, then, you had better go and call on her in Brompton Cemetery, for I’m told she was buried there last week. My gracious! what’s the matter with the man?” she added, for Rupert had dropped his carpet-bag and fallen back against the doorway.“Nothing,” he said faintly. “If I might have a glass of water?”She shook her fat head wisely.“No, you don’t go to play that glass-of-water trick upon me. I know; I goes to fetch it, and you prigs the things for which I am responsible. But you can come into this room and sit down if you like, if you feel queer, for I ain’t afraid of no one-legged man;” and she opened the door of the dining-room.Rupert followed her into it and sank into his own chair, for the place was still furnished. Indeed, there in the frame of the looking-glass some of his invitation-cards remained, and on the sideboard stood the bronze Osiris which he had given to Edith. In the turmoil of his dazed mind, it brought back to him a memory of the crypt of the temple at Tama and the great statue of that same god, which presided there over the place of death. Well, it seemed that this also was a place of death.“When did Mrs. Ullershaw die?” he asked, with an effort.“About five days before she was buried. That’s the usual time, ain’t it?”He paused, then asked again: “Do you know where the young Mrs. Ullershaw is?”“No, I don’t; but my friend said that’s her address on the bit of paper on the mantel-piece in case any letters came to forward.”Rupert raised himself and took the paper. It was an envelope; that, indeed, in which his last letter to Edith had been posted from Abu-Simbel, and beneath her name, Mrs. Rupert Ullershaw, the Regent’s Park address was scratched out, and that of the Brook Street rooms written instead, in his wife’s own handwriting.“Thank you,” he said, retaining the paper; “that is all I wanted to know. I will go now.”Next instant he was on the steps and heard the door being locked behind him.His cab was still standing a few yards off, as the man wished to breathe his horse after the long drive. Rupert re-entered it, and told him to go to Brook Street. There, in the cab, the first shock passed away, and his natural grief overcame him, causing the tears to course down his cheeks. It was all so dreadful and so sad—if only his mother had lived a little longer!Very soon they reached the number written on the old envelope, and once more Rupert, carpet-bag in hand, rang the bell, or rather pushed the button, for this one was electric, wondering in a vague way what awaited him behind that door. It was answered by a little underling, a child fresh from the country, for the head servant had gone for a Sunday jaunt in the company of Edith’s own maid.“Is Mrs. Ullershaw in?” asked Rupert.“Yes, sir, I believe so,” she answered, curtseying to this great, dim apparition, and striving to hide her dirty little hands under her apron.Rupert entered the hall, and asked which was her room.“Upstairs, sir, and the first door to the right;” for remembering the scolding she had recently received from Edith when she showed up Sir Somebody Something with her sleeves tucked above her thin elbows, as they were just now, the girl did not wish to repeat that unforgiveable offence. So having explained and shut the door, she promptly vanished.Still carrying his carpet-bag, Rupert climbed the stairs till he came to the room indicated. Placing his bag upon a butler’s tray outside, which had not been removed since luncheon, he knocked.“Come in,” said a voice—the voice of Edith, who thought that it was a maid with some hot water which she had forgotten when she brought up the tea.He turned the handle and entered. Edith was standing on the other side of the room near the fire with her back towards him, for she was engaged in pouring herself out a cup of tea. Presently, hearing theclump clumpof his wooden crutch upon the floor—for he advanced towards her before speaking—she turned round wondering what could be causing that unusual noise. By the light of a standard lamp, she perceived a tall figure clad in a sailor’s pea jacket and mustard-coloured trousers, who seemed to be leaning on a great rough stick, and to have a gigantic red beard and long, unkempt hair which tumbled all over his forehead.“Who on earth are you?” she exclaimed, “and what are you doing here?”“Edith,” he answered, in a reproachful tone, “Edith?”She snatched a candle from the tea-tray, and running rather than walking to him, held it towards his face and looked. Next moment it was rolling on the floor, while she staggered back towards the fire.“Oh, my God!” she gasped. “Oh, my God! is it you, or your ghost?”“It is I—Rupert,” he replied heavily, “no ghost. I almost wish I were.”She collected herself; she stood upright.“You have been dead for months; at least, they said that you were dead. Welcome home, Rupert!” and with a kind of despairing gesture she stretched out her hand.Again he hobbled forward, again the rough-hewn thornwood crutch, made by himself with a pocket-knife, clumped upon the carpeted floor. Edith looked down at the sound, and saw that one leg of the mustard-coloured trousers swung loose. Then she looked up and perceived for certain what at first she had only half grasped, that where the left eye should have been was only a sunken hollow, scarlet-rimmed and inflamed with scars as of burning beneath it, and that the right eye also was inflamed and bloodshot as though with weeping, as indeed was the case.“What has happened to you?” she asked, in a whisper, for she could find no voice to speak aloud, and the hand that she had outstretched dropped to her side. “Oh, your foot and eye—what has happened to them?”“Torture,” he answered, in a kind of groan. “I fell into the hands of savages who mutilated me. I am sorry. I see it shocks you,” and he stood still, leaning heavily on the crutch, his whole attitude one of despair with which hope still struggled faintly.If it existed, it was destined to swift doom.Edith made no movement, only said, pointing to a chair by him, the same in which Dick had smoked his cigarettes:“Won’t you sit down?”He fell on to, rather than sat in the chair, his heavy crutch clattering to the floor beside him.“Will you have some tea?” she went on distractedly. “Oh, there is no other cup, take mine.”“Thank you,” he answered, waving his hand in refusal. “I am drinking from a cup of my own, and I find it bitter.”For a few seconds there was silence between them, which she broke, for she felt that it was driving her mad.“Tell me,” she said—“tell me—dear—” the word stuck in her throat and came out with a kind of gasp, “what does all this mean? You see I am quite ignorant. I thought you dead; look at my dress.”“Only what I have told you. I am an unfortunate man. I was set upon by an overwhelming force. I fought as best I could, until nearly all my people were killed, but unluckily I was stunned and taken prisoner. Afterwards they offered me the choice of Islam or death. I chose death; but they tortured me first, hacking off my foot and putting out my eye with hot irons, and in the end, when they were about to hang me, I was rescued.”“Islam?” she broke in, shivering. “What is Islam?”“In other words, the Mahommedan religion, which they wished me to accept.”“And you let them do—those dreadful things to you rather than pretend to be a Mahommedan for a few days?”“Of course,” he answered, with a kind of sullen pride. “What did you expect of me, Edith?”“I? Oh, I don’t know; but it seems so terrible. Well, and who rescued you?”“Some women in authority whom I had befriended. They came at the head of their tribesmen and killed the Arabs, and took me to their home and nursed me back to life.”She looked up quickly.“We heard about them,” she said; “one was young and beautiful; if a savage can be beautiful, was she not?”“Yes,” he answered indifferently, “I suppose that Mea was beautiful, but she is not a savage, she is of much more ancient race and higher rank than ours—the lady Tama. I will tell you all about her some time.”“Ah!” exclaimed Edith, “but I don’t know that she interests me.”“She ought to,” he replied, “as she saved my life.”Then that subject dropped.“Do you know,” she asked, “oh! do you know about your mother?”“Yes, Edith, I drove to the house when I landed from the ship and heard. It was there I got your address,” and thrusting his hand into the side-pocket of the pea-coat, he produced the crumpled envelope. “I suppose that you were with her?” he added.“No, not at the last.”“Who was, then?”“No one except the nurse, I think. She had another stroke and became insensible, you know. I had left a fortnight before, as I could do no good and they wanted my room.”Now for the first time resentment began to rise in Rupert’s patient heart, stirred up there by the knowledge that his beloved mother had been left to die in utter loneliness.“Indeed,” he said, and there was a stern ring in his voice, “It might have been kinder had you stayed, which, as my wife, it was your place to do.”“I thought that I was no longer your wife, Rupert, only your widow. Also, it’s not my fault, but I cannot bear sickness and all those horrors, I never could,” and she looked at his mutilated form and shuddered.“Pray then that it may not be your lot to suffer them some day,” he said, in the same stern voice.It frightened her, and she plunged into a new subject, asking:“Have you heard that things have gone very badly for you? First, Lord Devene has an heir, a strong and healthy boy, so you will not succeed.”“I am heartily glad to hear it,” he said, “may the child live and prosper.”She stared at this amazing man, but finding nothing to say upon the point that would sound decent, went on:“Then you are almost disgraced, or rather your memory is. They say that you caused your mission to fail by mixing yourself up with women.”“I read it in the papers,” he replied, “and it will not be necessary for me to assure you that it is a falsehood. I admit, however, that I made a mistake in giving escort to those two women, partly because they were in difficulties and implored my help, and partly because there are generally some women in such a caravan as mine pretended to be, and I believed that their presence would make it look more like the true thing. Also, I am of opinion that the sheik Ibrahim, who had an old grudge against me, would have attacked me whether the women were there or not. However this may be, my hands are clean,” (it was the second time this day that Edith had heard those words, and she shivered at them), “I have done my duty like an honest man as best I could, and if I am called upon to suffer in body or in mind,” and he glanced at his empty trouser-leg, “as I am, well, it is God’s will, and I must bear it.”“Howcanyou bear it?” she asked, almost fiercely. “To be mutilated; to be made horrible to look at; to have your character as an officer ruined; to know that your career is utterly at an end; to be beggared, and to see your prospects destroyed by the birth of this brat—oh, how can you bear all these things? They drive me mad.”“We have still each other,” he answered sadly.She turned on him with a desperate gesture. She had never loved him, had always shrunk from him; and now—the kiss of another man still tingling upon her lips—oh! she loathed him—this one-eyed, hideous creature who had nothing left to give her but a tarnished name. She could never be his wife, it would kill her—and then the shame of it all, the triumph of the women who had been jealous of her beauty and her luck in marrying the distinguished heir of Lord Devene. She could not face it, and she must make that clear at once.“No, no,” she gasped. “It sounds hard, but Imusttell you. I can’t, I can’t—be your wife.”He quivered a little, then sat still as stone.“Why not, Edith?” he asked, in a cold, unnatural voice.“Oh! look in the glass and you will see—that horrible red hole, and the other all red also.”“I was totally blind for a while, and I’m ashamed to say it, but grief for my mother has brought back inflammation. It may pass. Perhaps they can do something for my looks.”“But they cannot give you back your foot, and I hate a cripple. You know I always did. Also, the thing is impossible now; we should be beggars.”“What, then, do you wish me to do?” he asked.“Rupert,” she replied, in an intense whisper, flinging herself upon her knees before him, and looking up at him with wild, appealing eyes, “Rupert, be merciful, you are dead, remain dead, and let me be.”“Tell me one thing, Edith,” he said. “Did you ever love me?”“No, I suppose not quite.”“Then why did you marry me? For my position and prospects?”“Yes, to some extent; also, I respected and admired you, and Lord Devene forced me to it, I don’t know why.”Again that slight shiver went through Rupert’s frame, and he opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Evidently she did not know the facts, and why should he tell her of her own disgrace; he who had no wish for vengeance?“Thank you for being so plain with me,” he said heavily. “I am glad that you have told me the truth, as I wish you well, and it may save you some future misery, that of being the wife of a man whom you find hideous and whom you never loved. Only, for your own sake, Edith, think a minute; it is your last chance. Things change in this world, don’t they? I have found that out. Well, they might change again, and then you might be sorry. Also, your position as the wife of a man who is only supposed to be dead will, in fact, be a false one, since at some future time he might be found to be alive.”“I have thought,” she answered. “I must take the risks. You will not betray me, Rupert.”“No,” he answered, in tones of awful and withering contempt. “I shall not follow your example, I shall not betray you. Take what little is mine, by inheritance or otherwise; it will prove to the world that I am really dead. But henceforth, Edith, I hate you, not with a hate that desires revenge, for I remember that we are still man and wife, and I will never lift a finger to harm you any more than I will break the bond that is and must remain until the death of one of us. Still, I tell you that all my nature and my spirit rise up against you. Did you swear to me that you loved me as much as once you said you did, I would not touch your beauty with my finger-tips, and never will I willingly speak to you again in this world or the next. Go your own way, Edith, as I go mine,” and heaving himself out of the low chair, Rupert lifted his crutch from the ground, and leaning on it heavily, limped from the room.As he fumbled at the door-handle, Edith rose from her knees, where she had remained all this time, and running after him, cried:“Rupert!”He took no heed, the veil of separation had fallen between them, a wall of silence had been built; she might as well have spoken to the air.She saw him lift the carpet-bag from the butler’s tray, then down the stairs went that single, heavy footfall, and the clumping of the crutch. The front door opened and closed again. It was done.For a while Edith remained almost fainting, then she roused herself, thought a little, and rang the bell. It was answered by the parlour-maid, who had returned.“Jane,” she said, “when you are out in future, will you be so good as to tell that girl Eliza never to show a stranger up here again without asking if I wish to see him? This afternoon she let in some kind of a madman, who brought a bag of smuggled silks which he wished to sell me. I could not get rid of him for nearly half an hour, and he has frightened me almost out of my wits. No; I don’t want to hear any more about it. Take away the things.”
Dick Learmer, dressed in an irreproachable frock-coat which fitted his elegant figure very well, and with a fine black pearl in his necktie, an advertisement of his grief for the decease of his cousin Rupert, was lunchingtête-à-têtewith his cousin’s widow on that same Sunday and at the very same hour that Rupert was indulging in the melancholy cogitations which have been recorded while he munched some biscuits washed down with a bottle of stout in his dirty cabin on board the tramp steamer. The Brook Street landlady was a good cook, and Edith’s Chablis, not to mention a glass of port, a cup of coffee, and a liqueur brandy that followed, were respectively excellent. The warm fire in the pretty little sitting-room and the cigarettes he smoked over it, also proved acceptable upon this particularly cold and dreary Sabbath afternoon. Lastly, the lovely Edith, dressed in very attractive and artistic mourning, was a pleasant object to the eye as she sat opposite to him upon a low chair screening her face from the fire with a feather fan from the mantel-piece.
Dick, as we know, had always admired her earnestly, and now, whether the luncheon and the port, or the charming black dress set off with its white collar and cuffs, or the beautiful blue eyes and golden hair above were responsible for the result, he admired her more than ever. There was a pause in their conversation, during which she contemplated him reflectively.
“You are getting to look dreadfully middle-aged and respectable, Dick,” she remarked presently. “It’s almost oppressive to those who knew you in your youth.”
“I am middle-aged, and certainly I am respectable, Edith. Who wouldn’t be that had sat yesterday upon the Board of a Life Insurance Society with five directors, none of whom were under seventy? What interest they can take in life and its affairs, I am sure I don’t know.”
“Probably they are only interested in other people’s lives, or other people are interested in theirs,” answered Edith carelessly.
“By the way,” said Dick, “there was a question before us yesterday about poor Rupert’s insurance.”
Edith winced a little at the name, but only looked up in query.
“You know,” he went on, “it was a pretty heavy one, and he only paid a single premium, a very bad job for the office. Well, you haven’t claimed that £10,000, and the question was whether you should be communicated with on the matter. They settled to leave it alone, and that old death’s-head of a chairman remarked with a grin that he had never known money which was due to remain unasked for. Why don’t you ask? £10,000 is always handy,” he added, looking at her keenly.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “Everybody assumes it, but I can’t see any proof that Rupert is really dead.”
“Nonsense,” he replied, almost angrily, “he is as dead as Julius Cæsar. He must be; that Egyptian sergeant, what’s his name, said that he saw them all shot down, and then himself escaped.”
“It’s rather odd, Dick, that this sergeant should have escaped under the circumstances. Why wasn’t he shot down too? His luck must have been remarkably good, or his legs remarkably swift.”
“Can’t say; but fellows do have luck at times. I’ve met with some myself lately. Also, men don’t live for months in a waterless desert.”
“He might have been rescued, by these women for instance. The man Abdullah didn’t say so, but someone else did say that the sheik Abraham, or whatever his name was, and his people were killed, for they were seen hanging upon trees. Now who hanged them there? Rupert and his people could not have done so if they themselves were already dead. Besides, it was not in his line.”
“Can’t say,” answered Dick again, “but I am sure he is gone. Ain’t you?”
“No, not sure, Dick, though I think he must be. And yet sometimes I feel as if he were near me—I feel it now, and the sensation isn’t altogether pleasant.”
“Bosh!” said Dick.
“Yes, I think it’s bosh too, so let us talk of something else.”
Dick threw the end of his cigarette into the fire, and watched it thoughtfully while it burnt away.
“You think that’s half a cigarette, don’t you, Edith?” he said, pointing to it.
“It doesn’t look much like anything else,” she answered; “but of course changing into smoke and ashes.”
“It is something else, though, Edith. I’ll tell you what, it is my rather spotted past that is burning up there, turning into clean white ash and wholesome-smelling smoke, like an offering on an altar.”
“Heavens! Dick, you are growing poetical. What can be the matter with you?”
“Disease of the heart, I think. Edith, do you want to remain a widow always?”
“How can I tell?” she answered uneasily. “I haven’t been one long—yet.”
“No, but life is short and one must look forward; also, the circumstances are unusual. Edith dear, I want you to say that after the usual decent interval you will marry—me. No, don’t answer yet, let me have my innings first, even if you bowl me out afterwards. Edith, you know that I have always been in love with you from a boy. All the queer things I did, or most of them, were really because of you. You drove me wild, drawing me on and pushing me off, and I went croppers to make myself forget. You remember our quarrel this day year. I behaved badly, and I am very sorry; but the fact is I was quite mad with jealousy. I don’t mind owning it now the poor fellow is gone. Well, since I knew that, I have been doing my very best to mend. I have worked like a horse down in that beastly House, which I hate, and learned up all sorts of things that I don’t want to know anything about. Also, I have got these directorships, thanks to Devene, whose money was supposed to be behind me, and they are practically for life. So I have about £1,500 a year to begin with, and you will have nearly as much. That isn’t exactly riches, but put together, it is enough for a start.”
“No,” said Edith, “it isn’t riches, but two people might manage on it if they were economical.”
“Well,” he went on quietly, “the question is whether you will consent to try in due course?” and he bent forward and looked at her with his fine black eyes.
“I don’t know,” she answered doubtfully. “Dick, I am sorry, but I can’t quite trust you, and if marriage is to be successful, it must be built on other things than love and raptures; that is why I accepted poor Rupert.”
“Why don’t you trust me?” he asked.
“Dick, is it true that you arranged this mission of Rupert’s in the hope that what has happened—might happen?”
“Most certainly not!” he answered boldly. “I had nothing to do with his mission, and never dreamed of such a thing. Who suggested that to you—Lord Southwick?”
She shook her head.
“I never spoke to him on the matter; indeed, I haven’t met him since the wedding, but it was suggested.”
“Devene, then, I suppose. It is just like one of his dirty tricks.”
But Edith only answered: “Then it isnottrue?”
“I have told you; it is a damnable lie!”
“I am glad to hear it, Dick, for otherwise I could never have forgiven you. To be quite honest, I don’t think I behaved well to Rupert in letting him go out there alone, and if I were sure that it was through you that all this was brought about for your own ends—and jealous men have done such things since David, you know—why then—”
“Then what?”
“Then, Dick, we shouldn’t talk any more about the matter. Indeed, I am not certain that we should talk at all, for at least he was an honest man who loved me, and his blood would be on your hands, and through yours on mine.”
“If that’s all, they are clean enough,” replied Dick, with a laugh which some people might have considered rather forced; “almost as clean as your own, Edith,” and stretching forward, he laid his hand by hers upon her dress.
She looked at it, but did not move either her dress or her hand.
“It seems clean enough, Dick,” she said, “except where those old cigarettes have stained your thumb and fingers. Now, I never smoked, and mine arequitewhite.”
He took the hand—uplifted now—and under pretence of examining it, drew her fingers to his lips and kissed them. Edith did not protest; it seemed that she was in a mood to be made love to by Dick, who, consequently, like a good and experienced general, proceeded to press his advantage. Dropping on his knees before her—an easy movement, for his chair was close, and, like her own, not high—he encircled her with his arm, drew down her golden head and kissed her passionately. “Dick,” she said, “you shouldn’t do that;” but she did not resist, nor was there anger in her voice as on a certain previous occasion.
“Very well,” he whispered, “kiss me once and I will stop.”
She drew her head back, and looked at him with her wonderful blue eyes that seemed to have grown strangely soft.
“If I kissed you, Dick, you know it would mean more than your kissing me,” she murmured.
“Yes, Edith; it would mean what I want it to mean—that you love me and will marry me. So, dearest, kiss me and let us make an end after all these years.”
For a little while she continued to look at him, then she sighed, her breast heaved, and her eyes grew softer and more tender still.
“I suppose it must be so,” she said, “for I never felt towards any man as I do to you,” and bending her head, she kissed him and gently thrust him from her. Dick sank back into his chair and mechanically lit another cigarette. “You soon go back to your old habits, Dick,” she said, watching him. “No, don’t throw it away, for while you smoke you will keep still, and I have something to say. There must be no word of this to anyone, Dick—not for another six months, at least. Do you understand?” He nodded. “It has come about a great deal too soon,” she went on; “but you asked yourself to lunch—not I—and I felt lonely and tired of my own thoughts. Mrs. Ullershaw’s funeral upset me. I hated it, but I had to go. Dick, I am not happy as I ought to be. I feel as if something were coming between us; no, it has always been there, only now it is thicker and higher. Rupert used to talk a great deal about the difference between flesh and spirit, and at the time it bored me, for I didn’t understand him. But I think that I do now. I—the outward I—well, after what has passed—you know, Dick, it’s yours, isn’t it? But the inner I—that which you can’t admire or embrace, remains as far from you as ever, and I’m not sure that it might not learn to hate you yet.”
“It’s rather difficult to separate them, Edith,” he answered unconcernedly, for these subtleties did not greatly alarm him who remembered that he had heard something like them before. “At any rate,” he added, “I am quite content with your outward self,” and he looked at her beauty admiringly, “and must live in hope that the invisible rest of you will decide to follow its lead.”
“You are making fun of me,” she said wearily. “But I daresay you are right for all that; I hope so. And now go away, Dick. I am not accustomed to these emotions, and they upset me. Yes, you can come back in a day or two—on Tuesday. No, no more affection, you are smoking—good-bye!”
So Dick went triumphant, his luck was good indeed, and he was really happy, for he adored Edith. She was the only thing or creature that he did adore—except himself.
Once Rupert’s steamer had come safe to dock, which happened a little after two o’clock, it took him but a short while to bid her farewell. Nor was the examination of his luggage a lengthy process, consisting as this did of nothing but a rough carpet-bag, in which were stuffed his Arab garments and a few necessaries that, like the clothes he wore, he had purchased from or through sailors on the ship. The officials, who could not quite place him, for his appearance puzzled them, thought well to turn out the bag whereof the contents puzzled them still more, but as there was nothing dutiable in it they were soon thrust back again. Then with some difficulty he found a hansom cab, and crawling into it, bade the man drive to his mother’s house in Regent’s Park, a journey that seemed longer to Rupert than all those days upon the sea.
At length they were there, and having paid the cabman, he took his carpet-bag and turned to enter the little iron gate. He could not see the house as yet, for the dusk was gathering and the fog obscured it. Still it struck him as strangely silent and unfriendly. There was no light in the drawing-room window as there should have been, for he remembered that even when the curtains were drawn, they did not fit close, as he had often noticed when returning home at night.
Some premonition of evil struck Rupert’s heart, but he repelled it, and hobbling up the little walk and the steps beyond, found the bell and rang. There was a long pause, until at last he heard somebody shuffling down the passage, heard, too, the door being unlocked and the chain unhooked. Then he grew terribly afraid until he remembered of a sudden that it was quite possible that Edith and his mother were again spending the New Year at Devene. Well, it would be a great disappointment, but on the other hand, he would have a few hours to make himself more presentable.
The door opened, and before him stood a stout, heavy-faced woman who held a greasy tin candlestick in her hand.
“What do you want?” she said, surveying this rough figure and his crutch and carpet-bag doubtfully, for her mind ran on tramps.
“I want to see Mrs. Ullershaw,” he answered, and his voice reassured her somewhat.
“Mrs. Ullershaw? Which Mrs. Ullershaw?—for I’ve heard there was a young ’un as well as an old ’un. I ain’t the regular caretaker, you know, only a friend what’s took her place while she spends New Year’s Day in the country with her husband’s people.”
“Yes, quite so,” said Rupert. “I meant the old Mrs. Ullershaw—”
“Well, then, you had better go and call on her in Brompton Cemetery, for I’m told she was buried there last week. My gracious! what’s the matter with the man?” she added, for Rupert had dropped his carpet-bag and fallen back against the doorway.
“Nothing,” he said faintly. “If I might have a glass of water?”
She shook her fat head wisely.
“No, you don’t go to play that glass-of-water trick upon me. I know; I goes to fetch it, and you prigs the things for which I am responsible. But you can come into this room and sit down if you like, if you feel queer, for I ain’t afraid of no one-legged man;” and she opened the door of the dining-room.
Rupert followed her into it and sank into his own chair, for the place was still furnished. Indeed, there in the frame of the looking-glass some of his invitation-cards remained, and on the sideboard stood the bronze Osiris which he had given to Edith. In the turmoil of his dazed mind, it brought back to him a memory of the crypt of the temple at Tama and the great statue of that same god, which presided there over the place of death. Well, it seemed that this also was a place of death.
“When did Mrs. Ullershaw die?” he asked, with an effort.
“About five days before she was buried. That’s the usual time, ain’t it?”
He paused, then asked again: “Do you know where the young Mrs. Ullershaw is?”
“No, I don’t; but my friend said that’s her address on the bit of paper on the mantel-piece in case any letters came to forward.”
Rupert raised himself and took the paper. It was an envelope; that, indeed, in which his last letter to Edith had been posted from Abu-Simbel, and beneath her name, Mrs. Rupert Ullershaw, the Regent’s Park address was scratched out, and that of the Brook Street rooms written instead, in his wife’s own handwriting.
“Thank you,” he said, retaining the paper; “that is all I wanted to know. I will go now.”
Next instant he was on the steps and heard the door being locked behind him.
His cab was still standing a few yards off, as the man wished to breathe his horse after the long drive. Rupert re-entered it, and told him to go to Brook Street. There, in the cab, the first shock passed away, and his natural grief overcame him, causing the tears to course down his cheeks. It was all so dreadful and so sad—if only his mother had lived a little longer!
Very soon they reached the number written on the old envelope, and once more Rupert, carpet-bag in hand, rang the bell, or rather pushed the button, for this one was electric, wondering in a vague way what awaited him behind that door. It was answered by a little underling, a child fresh from the country, for the head servant had gone for a Sunday jaunt in the company of Edith’s own maid.
“Is Mrs. Ullershaw in?” asked Rupert.
“Yes, sir, I believe so,” she answered, curtseying to this great, dim apparition, and striving to hide her dirty little hands under her apron.
Rupert entered the hall, and asked which was her room.
“Upstairs, sir, and the first door to the right;” for remembering the scolding she had recently received from Edith when she showed up Sir Somebody Something with her sleeves tucked above her thin elbows, as they were just now, the girl did not wish to repeat that unforgiveable offence. So having explained and shut the door, she promptly vanished.
Still carrying his carpet-bag, Rupert climbed the stairs till he came to the room indicated. Placing his bag upon a butler’s tray outside, which had not been removed since luncheon, he knocked.
“Come in,” said a voice—the voice of Edith, who thought that it was a maid with some hot water which she had forgotten when she brought up the tea.
He turned the handle and entered. Edith was standing on the other side of the room near the fire with her back towards him, for she was engaged in pouring herself out a cup of tea. Presently, hearing theclump clumpof his wooden crutch upon the floor—for he advanced towards her before speaking—she turned round wondering what could be causing that unusual noise. By the light of a standard lamp, she perceived a tall figure clad in a sailor’s pea jacket and mustard-coloured trousers, who seemed to be leaning on a great rough stick, and to have a gigantic red beard and long, unkempt hair which tumbled all over his forehead.
“Who on earth are you?” she exclaimed, “and what are you doing here?”
“Edith,” he answered, in a reproachful tone, “Edith?”
She snatched a candle from the tea-tray, and running rather than walking to him, held it towards his face and looked. Next moment it was rolling on the floor, while she staggered back towards the fire.
“Oh, my God!” she gasped. “Oh, my God! is it you, or your ghost?”
“It is I—Rupert,” he replied heavily, “no ghost. I almost wish I were.”
She collected herself; she stood upright.
“You have been dead for months; at least, they said that you were dead. Welcome home, Rupert!” and with a kind of despairing gesture she stretched out her hand.
Again he hobbled forward, again the rough-hewn thornwood crutch, made by himself with a pocket-knife, clumped upon the carpeted floor. Edith looked down at the sound, and saw that one leg of the mustard-coloured trousers swung loose. Then she looked up and perceived for certain what at first she had only half grasped, that where the left eye should have been was only a sunken hollow, scarlet-rimmed and inflamed with scars as of burning beneath it, and that the right eye also was inflamed and bloodshot as though with weeping, as indeed was the case.
“What has happened to you?” she asked, in a whisper, for she could find no voice to speak aloud, and the hand that she had outstretched dropped to her side. “Oh, your foot and eye—what has happened to them?”
“Torture,” he answered, in a kind of groan. “I fell into the hands of savages who mutilated me. I am sorry. I see it shocks you,” and he stood still, leaning heavily on the crutch, his whole attitude one of despair with which hope still struggled faintly.
If it existed, it was destined to swift doom.
Edith made no movement, only said, pointing to a chair by him, the same in which Dick had smoked his cigarettes:
“Won’t you sit down?”
He fell on to, rather than sat in the chair, his heavy crutch clattering to the floor beside him.
“Will you have some tea?” she went on distractedly. “Oh, there is no other cup, take mine.”
“Thank you,” he answered, waving his hand in refusal. “I am drinking from a cup of my own, and I find it bitter.”
For a few seconds there was silence between them, which she broke, for she felt that it was driving her mad.
“Tell me,” she said—“tell me—dear—” the word stuck in her throat and came out with a kind of gasp, “what does all this mean? You see I am quite ignorant. I thought you dead; look at my dress.”
“Only what I have told you. I am an unfortunate man. I was set upon by an overwhelming force. I fought as best I could, until nearly all my people were killed, but unluckily I was stunned and taken prisoner. Afterwards they offered me the choice of Islam or death. I chose death; but they tortured me first, hacking off my foot and putting out my eye with hot irons, and in the end, when they were about to hang me, I was rescued.”
“Islam?” she broke in, shivering. “What is Islam?”
“In other words, the Mahommedan religion, which they wished me to accept.”
“And you let them do—those dreadful things to you rather than pretend to be a Mahommedan for a few days?”
“Of course,” he answered, with a kind of sullen pride. “What did you expect of me, Edith?”
“I? Oh, I don’t know; but it seems so terrible. Well, and who rescued you?”
“Some women in authority whom I had befriended. They came at the head of their tribesmen and killed the Arabs, and took me to their home and nursed me back to life.”
She looked up quickly.
“We heard about them,” she said; “one was young and beautiful; if a savage can be beautiful, was she not?”
“Yes,” he answered indifferently, “I suppose that Mea was beautiful, but she is not a savage, she is of much more ancient race and higher rank than ours—the lady Tama. I will tell you all about her some time.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Edith, “but I don’t know that she interests me.”
“She ought to,” he replied, “as she saved my life.”
Then that subject dropped.
“Do you know,” she asked, “oh! do you know about your mother?”
“Yes, Edith, I drove to the house when I landed from the ship and heard. It was there I got your address,” and thrusting his hand into the side-pocket of the pea-coat, he produced the crumpled envelope. “I suppose that you were with her?” he added.
“No, not at the last.”
“Who was, then?”
“No one except the nurse, I think. She had another stroke and became insensible, you know. I had left a fortnight before, as I could do no good and they wanted my room.”
Now for the first time resentment began to rise in Rupert’s patient heart, stirred up there by the knowledge that his beloved mother had been left to die in utter loneliness.
“Indeed,” he said, and there was a stern ring in his voice, “It might have been kinder had you stayed, which, as my wife, it was your place to do.”
“I thought that I was no longer your wife, Rupert, only your widow. Also, it’s not my fault, but I cannot bear sickness and all those horrors, I never could,” and she looked at his mutilated form and shuddered.
“Pray then that it may not be your lot to suffer them some day,” he said, in the same stern voice.
It frightened her, and she plunged into a new subject, asking:
“Have you heard that things have gone very badly for you? First, Lord Devene has an heir, a strong and healthy boy, so you will not succeed.”
“I am heartily glad to hear it,” he said, “may the child live and prosper.”
She stared at this amazing man, but finding nothing to say upon the point that would sound decent, went on:
“Then you are almost disgraced, or rather your memory is. They say that you caused your mission to fail by mixing yourself up with women.”
“I read it in the papers,” he replied, “and it will not be necessary for me to assure you that it is a falsehood. I admit, however, that I made a mistake in giving escort to those two women, partly because they were in difficulties and implored my help, and partly because there are generally some women in such a caravan as mine pretended to be, and I believed that their presence would make it look more like the true thing. Also, I am of opinion that the sheik Ibrahim, who had an old grudge against me, would have attacked me whether the women were there or not. However this may be, my hands are clean,” (it was the second time this day that Edith had heard those words, and she shivered at them), “I have done my duty like an honest man as best I could, and if I am called upon to suffer in body or in mind,” and he glanced at his empty trouser-leg, “as I am, well, it is God’s will, and I must bear it.”
“Howcanyou bear it?” she asked, almost fiercely. “To be mutilated; to be made horrible to look at; to have your character as an officer ruined; to know that your career is utterly at an end; to be beggared, and to see your prospects destroyed by the birth of this brat—oh, how can you bear all these things? They drive me mad.”
“We have still each other,” he answered sadly.
She turned on him with a desperate gesture. She had never loved him, had always shrunk from him; and now—the kiss of another man still tingling upon her lips—oh! she loathed him—this one-eyed, hideous creature who had nothing left to give her but a tarnished name. She could never be his wife, it would kill her—and then the shame of it all, the triumph of the women who had been jealous of her beauty and her luck in marrying the distinguished heir of Lord Devene. She could not face it, and she must make that clear at once.
“No, no,” she gasped. “It sounds hard, but Imusttell you. I can’t, I can’t—be your wife.”
He quivered a little, then sat still as stone.
“Why not, Edith?” he asked, in a cold, unnatural voice.
“Oh! look in the glass and you will see—that horrible red hole, and the other all red also.”
“I was totally blind for a while, and I’m ashamed to say it, but grief for my mother has brought back inflammation. It may pass. Perhaps they can do something for my looks.”
“But they cannot give you back your foot, and I hate a cripple. You know I always did. Also, the thing is impossible now; we should be beggars.”
“What, then, do you wish me to do?” he asked.
“Rupert,” she replied, in an intense whisper, flinging herself upon her knees before him, and looking up at him with wild, appealing eyes, “Rupert, be merciful, you are dead, remain dead, and let me be.”
“Tell me one thing, Edith,” he said. “Did you ever love me?”
“No, I suppose not quite.”
“Then why did you marry me? For my position and prospects?”
“Yes, to some extent; also, I respected and admired you, and Lord Devene forced me to it, I don’t know why.”
Again that slight shiver went through Rupert’s frame, and he opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Evidently she did not know the facts, and why should he tell her of her own disgrace; he who had no wish for vengeance?
“Thank you for being so plain with me,” he said heavily. “I am glad that you have told me the truth, as I wish you well, and it may save you some future misery, that of being the wife of a man whom you find hideous and whom you never loved. Only, for your own sake, Edith, think a minute; it is your last chance. Things change in this world, don’t they? I have found that out. Well, they might change again, and then you might be sorry. Also, your position as the wife of a man who is only supposed to be dead will, in fact, be a false one, since at some future time he might be found to be alive.”
“I have thought,” she answered. “I must take the risks. You will not betray me, Rupert.”
“No,” he answered, in tones of awful and withering contempt. “I shall not follow your example, I shall not betray you. Take what little is mine, by inheritance or otherwise; it will prove to the world that I am really dead. But henceforth, Edith, I hate you, not with a hate that desires revenge, for I remember that we are still man and wife, and I will never lift a finger to harm you any more than I will break the bond that is and must remain until the death of one of us. Still, I tell you that all my nature and my spirit rise up against you. Did you swear to me that you loved me as much as once you said you did, I would not touch your beauty with my finger-tips, and never will I willingly speak to you again in this world or the next. Go your own way, Edith, as I go mine,” and heaving himself out of the low chair, Rupert lifted his crutch from the ground, and leaning on it heavily, limped from the room.
As he fumbled at the door-handle, Edith rose from her knees, where she had remained all this time, and running after him, cried:
“Rupert!”
He took no heed, the veil of separation had fallen between them, a wall of silence had been built; she might as well have spoken to the air.
She saw him lift the carpet-bag from the butler’s tray, then down the stairs went that single, heavy footfall, and the clumping of the crutch. The front door opened and closed again. It was done.
For a while Edith remained almost fainting, then she roused herself, thought a little, and rang the bell. It was answered by the parlour-maid, who had returned.
“Jane,” she said, “when you are out in future, will you be so good as to tell that girl Eliza never to show a stranger up here again without asking if I wish to see him? This afternoon she let in some kind of a madman, who brought a bag of smuggled silks which he wished to sell me. I could not get rid of him for nearly half an hour, and he has frightened me almost out of my wits. No; I don’t want to hear any more about it. Take away the things.”