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The Betrayal, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Chapter 20. Two To One |
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_ CHAPTER XX. TWO TO ONE I looked across at the woman, who was waiting my answer with every appearance of feverish interest. "What should I know about him?" I said slowly. "I have been told that he is dead. I know no more than that." She started as though my words had stung her. "It is not possible!" she exclaimed. "I must have heard of it. When he left me--it was less than three months ago--he seemed better than I had known him for years." "All my life," I said, "I have understood that my father died by his own hand after his disgrace. To-night for the first time I was told that this was not the fact. I understood, from what my informant said, that he had died recently." She drew a sharp breath between her teeth, and suddenly struck the cushioned arm of the carriage by her side with her clenched hand. "It is a lie!" she declared. "Whoever told you so, it is a lie!" "Do you mean that he is not dead?" I exclaimed. "Do you mean that you have not seen him yourself--within the last few months?" she demanded fiercely. "He left me to come to you on the first day of the New Year." "I have never seen him to my knowledge in my life," I answered. She leaned back in her seat, murmuring something to herself which I could not catch. Past-mistress of deceit though she may have been, I was convinced that her consternation at my statement was honest. She did not speak or look at me again for some time. As for me, I sat silent with the horror of a thought. Underneath the rug my limbs were cold and lifeless. I sat looking out of the rain-splashed window into the darkness, with fixed staring eyes, and a hideous fancy in my brain. Every now and then I thought that I could see it--a white evil face pressed close to the blurred glass, grinning in upon me. Every shriek of the engine--and there were many just then, for we were passing through a network of tunnels--brought beads of moisture on to my forehead, made me start and shake like a criminal. Surely that was a cry! I started in my seat, only to see that my companion, now her old self again, was watching me intently. "I am afraid," she said softly, "that you are not very strong. The excitement of talking of these things has been too much for you." "I have never had a day's illness in my life," I answered. "I am perfectly well." "I am glad," she said simply. "I must finish what I was telling you. Your father was continually talking and thinking of you. He knew all about you at college. He knew about your degree, of your cricket and rowing. Lately he began to get restless. He lost sight of you after you left Oxford, and it worried him. There were reasons, as you know, why it was not well for him to come to England, but nevertheless he determined to brave it out. It was to find you that he risked so much. He left me on New Year's Day, and I have never heard a word from him since. That is why I came to England." "The whole reason?" I asked, like a fool. "The whole reason," she affirmed simply. "I do not wish to see my father," I said. "If he comes to me I shall tell him so." "He wants to tell you his story himself," she murmured. "I would never listen to it," I answered. She sighed. "You are very young," she said. "You do not know what temptation is. You do not know how badly he was treated. You have heard his history, perhaps, from his enemies. He is getting old now, Guy. I think that if you saw him now you would pity him." "My pity," I answered, "would never be strong enough to suffer me to open the door to him--if he should come. He has left me alone all these years. The only favour I would ever ask of him would be that he continues to do so." "You will believe the story of strangers?" "No one in the world could be a greater stranger to me than he." She sighed. "You will not even let me be your friend," she pleaded. "You are young, you are perhaps ambitious. There may be many ways in which I could help you." "As you helped my father, perhaps," I answered bitterly. "Thank you, I have no need of friends--that sort of friends." Her eyes seemed to narrow a little, and the smile upon her lips was forced. "Is that kind of you?" she exclaimed. "Your father was in a position of great trust. It is different with you. You are idle, and you need a career. England has so little to offer her young men, but there are other countries--" I interrupted her brusquely. "Thank you," I said, "but I have employment, and such ambitions as I have admit of nothing but an honest career." Again I saw that contraction of her eyes, but she never winced or changed her tone. "You have employment?" she asked, as though surprised. "Yes. As you doubtless know, I am in the service of the Duke of Rowchester," I told her. "It is news to me," she replied. "You will forgive me at least for being interested, Guy. But when you say in the service of the Duke of Rowchester you puzzle me. In England what does that, mean?" "I am one of the Duke's secretaries," I answered. "Is the Duke, then, a politician?" she asked, "that he needs secretaries?" "Not at all," I answered drily. "His Grace is President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or Children, whichever you like. We have a large correspondence." She picked up her book. "I am afraid that I understand you," she said. "You have a good deal of the brutality of youth, Guy, and, I might add, of its credulity also. Whose word is it, I wonder, that you have taken so abjectly--with such an open mouth? If I have enemies I have not deserved them. But, after all, it matters little." We did not speak again until we neared the junction. Then she began to gather up her things. "How are you getting home?" she asked. "It is two o'clock, and raining." "I am going to walk," I answered. "But that is absurd," she protested. "I have a closed carriage here. I insist that you let me drive you. It is only common humanity; and you have that great box too." I buttoned up my coat. "Mrs. Smith-Lessing," I said, "you perhaps wish to force me into seeming ungracious. You have even called me brutal. It is your own fault. You give me no chance of escape. You even force me now to tell you that I do not desire--that I will not accept--any hospitality at your hands." She fastened her jacket with trembling fingers. Her face she kept averted from me. "Very well," she said softly, "I shall not trouble you any more." At the junction I fetched the sleepy-looking porter to see to her luggage, and then left her. My rug I left in the station-master's office, and with the dispatch-box in my hand I climbed the steps from the station, and turned into the long straight road which led to Braster. I had barely gone a hundred yards when a small motor brougham, with blazing lights and insistent horn, came flying past me and on into the darkness. I caught a momentary glimpse of Mrs. Smith-Lessing's pale face as the car flashed by, a weird little silhouette, come and gone in a second. Away ahead I saw the mud and rain from the pools fly up into the air in a constant stream caught in the broad white glare of the brilliant search-lamps. Then the car turned a corner and vanished. I was tired, yet I found the change from the close railway carriage, and the tension of the last few hours, delightful. The road along which I trudged ran straight to the sea, the distant roar of which was already in my ears, and the wet wind which blew in my face was salt and refreshing. It was a little after two in the morning, and the darkness would have been absolute, but for a watery moon, which every now and then gave a fitful light. For a mile or more I walked with steady, unflagging footsteps. Then suddenly I found myself slackening my pace. I walked slower and slower. At last I stopped. About fifty yards farther on my left was Braster Grange. It stood a little way back from the road. Its gardens were enclosed by a thin storm-bent hedge, just thick enough to be a screen from the road. The entrance was along a lane which branched off here from the main road, and led on to the higher marshes, and thence on to the road from Braster village to Rowchester and my cottage. Straight on, the road which I was following led into Braster, but the lane to the left round past the Grange saved me fully half a mile. In an ordinary way I should never have hesitated for a moment as to my route. I knew every inch of the lane, and though it was rough walking, there were no creeks or obstacles of any sort to be reckoned with. And yet, as I neared the corner, I came to a full stop. As I stood there in the road I felt my heart beating, I seemed possessed by a curious nerve failure. My breath came quickly. I felt my heart thumping against my side. I stood still and listened. Down on the shingles I could hear the sea come thundering in with a loud increasing roar, dying monotonously away at regular intervals. I could hear the harsh grinding of the pebbles, the backward swirl of long waves thrown back from the land. I heard the wind come booming across the waste lands, rustling and creaking amongst the few stunted trees in the grounds of Braster Grange. Of slighter sounds there seemed to be none. The village ahead was dark and silent, the side of the house fronting the road was black and desolate. It was a lonely spot, a lonely hour. Yet as I stood there shivering with nameless apprehensions, I felt absolutely certain that I was confronted by some hidden danger. In a moment or two, I am thankful to say, my courage returned. I struck a match and lit a cigar, one of a handful which Ray had forced upon me. Then I crossed stealthily to the other side of the road, and felt for the hedge. I pricked my hands badly, but after feeling about for some moments I was able to cut for myself a reasonably thick stick. With this in my right hand, and the dispatch-box under my left arm I proceeded on my way. I walked warily, and when I had turned into the lane which passed the entrance to Braster Grange I walked in the middle of it instead of skirting the wall which enclosed the grounds. I passed the entrance gates, and had only about twenty yards farther to go before I emerged upon the open marshland. Here the darkness was almost impenetrable, for the lane narrowed. The hedge on the left was ten or twelve feet high, and on the right were two long barns. I clasped my stick tightly, and walked almost stealthily. I felt that if I could come safely to the end of these barn buildings I could afford to laugh at my fears. Suddenly my strained hearing detected what I had been listening for all the time. There was a faint but audible rustling in the shrubs overgrowing the wall on my left. I made a quick dash forward, tripped against some invisible obstacle stretched across the lane, and went staggering sideways, struggling to preserve my balance. Almost at the same moment two dark forms dropped from the shelter of the shrubs on to the lane by my side. I felt the soft splash of a wet cloth upon my cheeks, an arm round my neck, and the sickening odour of chloroform in my nostrils. But already I had regained by balance. I wrenched myself free from the arm, and was suddenly blinded by the glare of a small electric hand-light within a foot of my face. I struck a sweeping blow at it with my stick, and from the soft impact it seemed to me that the blow must have descended upon the head of one of my assailants. I heard a groan, and I saw the shadowy form of the second man spring at me. What followed was not, I believe, cowardice on my part, for my blood was up and my sense of fear gone. I dashed my stick straight at the approaching figure, and I leaped forward and ran. I had won the hundred yards and the quarter of a mile at Oxford, and I was in fair training. I knew how to get off fast, and after the first dozen yards I felt that I was safe. The footsteps which had started in pursuit ceased in a few minutes. Breathless, but with the dispatch-box safe under my arm, I sprinted across the marsh, and never paused till I reached the road. Then I looked back and listened. I could see or hear nothing, but from one of the top rooms in the Grange a faint but steady light was shining out. _ |
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