: The great Skene mystery by Capes Bernard - English fiction 20th century

@FreeBooksThu 08 Jun, 2023

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Well, I was Richard Gaskett--not so bad on the whole; but why was I? I wondered if Lord Skene would tell me; I wondered if it were Lady Skene's maiden name--yet hardly that; for would not the admission have betrayed her to her noble suitor? Perhaps it was my father's, since, "from the moral point of view," she was his wife. Yet, somehow, morality did not seem to me to be much in question in the matter; and on the whole I was inclined to think that my name was as illegitimate as my birth. The fact disturbed me only in so far as it afforded me, probably, no clue to my father's identity; for it was to that that my thoughts were now turning with a very resolute purpose. I would discover it by hook or crook; learn to whom I was indebted for my disgrace; gain into my own hand the knowledge which could make this cruel puppet of a mother move to my will. I possessed already the germ of the truth: I was base, and my stepfather did not know it. Proof, clinching and double-wrought, would come with that further discovery, could I alight on it. I would hold it over her head, bowing that under an eternal horror of exposure. As she had been an unnatural mother to me, so would I be an unnatural son to her.

And all of a sudden the tears were crowding into my eyes. I could not tell why; and I rose quickly and went to the door. It was a lovely quiet night, with a moon somewhere behind the trees, and all the sky marbled with dove-grey clouds. And I held out my arms to them; neither did I know why; but, like a child, I wanted something or somebody to comfort me.

"It is no good," I muttered, and dropped my chin heavily on my breast, and returned to my brooding, but this time over a pipe and a glass of toddy. They helped me to brighter, if no less defiant, thoughts. Would Mr Pugsley whisper awfully to his patroness of my visit, and put his head to hers in some design to bridle me? I cared nothing. I felt strong as Atlas to bear the world my new emancipation had opened out to me; my head rang with a hundred purposes of do and dare; I was my own utter master, by virtue of that discovery, and free. Let those who had ridden me look to their own harness.

Early on the following morning, coming home from a brisk stroll in the November woodlands, I found Miss Christmas in my room. She had a brown fur boa round her neck, and a little fur cap on her head like a Zouave's busby in miniature, with a pert plume. Under the boa was a glimpse of scarlet handkerchief, which contrasted rather pleasantly with the gold of her hair, and her cheeks were pink with walking. She greeted me with a troubled look, as she noticed how I paused and my face darkened seeing her there.

"That's the reason," I answered grimly.

"You don't make it easy for me," she said. "And I had come to beg your pardon, Richard."

"Why should I help you out in anything, unless it were the door?"

She flushed; she bit her lip; it was as much as her temper would allow her, I could see, to stand and listen.

"You are really horribly rude," she said.

"I daresay I am. As a cultivated young lady of family, you should have more prescriptive tact than to provoke the natural boor in me."

"I don't believe it is natural. I believe, in your bitterness, you are resolved to make yourself out much worse than you are."

"That is very generous of you. And you have come, moreover, to beg my pardon--for what?"

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