Read Ebook: The great Skene mystery by Capes Bernard

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Ebook has 1696 lines and 76771 words, and 34 pages

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?"

Her mouth opened a little. She seemed to deprecate my expression very entreatingly. Her eyebrows took a pained arch, her eyes a speaking wistfulness.

"Richard," she said--"don't be so angry, so unforgiving with me!"

"Why do you think me either? I ask you again, what have you come to beg my pardon for?"

Her lips quivered as she looked up at me. She seemed unable to speak for a moment.

"It was cruel," she whispered at last--"so cruel and ungenerous, that I could only wish at the moment that I wasn't bound to her by so many ties of affection. But I am, and I will be loyal."

"Are you apologising for Lady Skene?"

"No; I am asking pardon for myself, because I was the unwilling cause of it all. Won't you forgive me, Richard?"

"If I thought," I said, "of calculating up all you have to answer to me for! I don't feel very kind to you."

"Be unkind, then," she said. "Only forgive me."

I struggled with myself a little.

"I can't," I said at last. "I'm afraid I'm very vindictive, and must have my pound of flesh first."

"Take it of me," she said at once, "in whatever way you like."

I laughed.

"Fine heroic words! Would you submit to the process? I'm in the way to humble some folks."

"Richard," she said, "remember who she is. Spare your mother. I'm ready to take the blame and the punishment for both."

She was certainly a young slight thing; prettyish in a fancy way; easy to bend or break.

"You speak rashly," I said. "I remember your story about the shepherd. Your petals would be pretty well rubbed by the time I'd done with you."

"Very well," she said. "I'll take the risk. I believe I know you better than you do yourself."

"Do you? I've half a mind, you little flower of fortune, to put you to the test."

"I'm waiting."

A stubborn devil was awake in me.

"Are you offering yourself my slave, or what, Miss Morgiana?"

"Your slave, if you like."

"Very well. The floor wants scrubbing, and there's a well outside. Get some water and scrub it."

I thought she would fling away at once; but, instead, she took off her hat and jacket, found somewhere a pail and brush, and went outside very meekly. I listened wickedly. The windlass, I knew, would be a task for her chicken arms; and, indeed, I heard her plainly enough panting and struggling with it. But, for all that, she appeared presently, staggering, with her pail brimful; and I made no offer to relieve her of it.

"Now," I said, "I won't be witness to your awkwardness. I'm going for a walk, and to think over more important difficulties than yours. But, when I come back, I shall expect to find the place cleaned and tidied, and you gone."

And I did. I gave her a couple of hours, before I returned whistling. The floor was white, the table laid for lunch, two eggs put in a cold saucepan by the grate, the fire piled up to smoulder, and a nosegay of red leaves and berries placed in a tumbler on the windowsill. The place looked neater and homelier than I had ever succeeded in making it, and Morgiana was gone. Of the eternal instinct are Eve's daughters; and this one, it appeared, had no difficulty in "throwing back" from silks to homespun.

That night came a very strange experience to me.

On entering the dining-room at Evercreech, I found company assembled. I had not been warned, and I was not introduced. I came in late, and took my seat at the table quietly, being placed between Mr Pugsley and a lady whom I did not know. I learned, however, in due course, that she was a Mrs Dalston, who, with her husband, also present, was a new-comer in the neighbourhood. The two had taken the Lone Farm, a decent but rather decayed property situated on the outskirts of Market Grazing, and foolishly reputed to be haunted. But it was inexpensive--perhaps because of its reputation--and fully adequate to the needs of a childless couple. The only other guest was, to my pleasure, Sir Maurice Carnac, who had earlier shown me friendship, and who was down somewhere in Hampshire for the shooting. But he looked little capable of shouldering a gun, and was altogether sadly altered from my memory of him, having but lately, as I learned, recovered from a paralytic stroke, whose passing had left him much debilitated. He lay sunk in his chair, like a heap of human ashes, and with all the old fire of roguery smouldering low in him. But he seemed to awaken suddenly on my entrance, and looking across at me as I sat down, treated me to a leer and wink.

"Hillo, Charlie, my boy!" he chuckled. "What sport with the girls, hey!"

Consternation sat on every face. My lord, looking much perturbed, bent to the old rascal, and enlightened him.

"Gaskett, Carnac; Gaskett!" he said. "You remember Richard Gaskett?"

"Hey!" The old man sat up. What link of memory had slipped in him, obliterating a whole score of years? "Richard, hey?" he said, immensely sly. "I know, I know. The lovely one's pledge--earnest of widowed respectability. But mum, mum, my boy--I know. What days, hey!"

She spoke little--nothing to me; and, I noticed, ate little, but crumbled her bread all dinner-time. I was not concerned, inasmuch as it gave me the opportunity to observe elsewhere, which I had the inclination, and the provocation now, moreover, to do. Though the object of the old ex-governor's misbegotten attention, and the immediate brief cynosure of all eyes, I was the only one, I think, not momentarily confounded. A curious self-possession, a sort of conceit of masterfulness, had come to claim me of late. A kind of cold and scrutinising philosophy had found me out of the old dependence. Having had long the will to counter my allotted destiny, a very little of the means had encouraged me to something like effrontery. I felt already a sense of power; a truculence in the face of the least supposed imposition on me of superiority.

While, therefore, they were all looking at me, I was coolly intent on Lady Skene. One hurried glance my way she gave; and then her eyes were lowered to the cloth, as she drew off her gloves and addressed some commonplace remark to Mr Dalston, who sat on her right. Her voice, I have not yet observed, was marked by a slight Cockney intonation--hardly to be gathered from its softness--just a twang from Cheapside, like the faintest distant whine of Bow Bells. But it was enough to imply her origin.

Looking away from her, my eyes travelled to Mr Pugsley beside me. He was obviously flustered and annoyed--shifted his shoulders, pinched his nose, defied, self-conscious, my stare, and failed utterly to stand up to it. Then he cleared his throat with violence, and affected, ostentatiously, to prefer the menu card to my company.

I laughed to myself, speculating on the idyllic guilt-consciousness which must be flowing between these two. The baronet's malapropism had followed curiously pat on my recent enlightenment. I recalled the stories of his ancient intimacy with Lord Skene, of his reputed co-partnership with that nobleman in a rollicking adventure or two. Were they, my lady and her pious accomplice, hearing, in their hearts, the first creaking of the wheels of retribution? Poor panic-struck conspirators!

Yet I was sorry that Fate had imposed on Lady Skene so vulgar a confederate; for I could not but think the man vulgar, ordained priest as he was, and quite sincere, I believe, in his evangelicism. But, apart from him, and her subscription to his ugly phraseologic cant, she was so lovelily one of those presences whom age cannot wither ; so perpetual a provocation--and aggravation--to the worshipper of beauty; so serene a thing, so coldly tantalising, so refinedly a figure for the sweet altitudes of romance! Ah, that she would make me her knight indeed--champion of a mother's fame, dearer even than a wife's! No need, then, to dread the consequences of an infamy atoned through love. I would have struck for--not against her. But she had preferred the inhuman part. So be it.

I ended my scrutiny with an inward sigh, and turned it elsewhere. I had plentiful opportunity. No one addressed, or appeared even to consider me. Right opposite, Miss Christmas, who sat between Sir Maurice and Mr Dalston, was engaged in rallying her either neighbour charmingly. She was quite at her ease with both, confident of herself as the most attractive of social siderites--a star of unquestionable magnitude. And they responded, of course--men of the world, and quick in persiflage. They laughed at her butterfly sallies, and humoured them because she was pretty and an heiress They were patently captivated. "Ah!" I thought: "if you knew how this very morning she has been scrubbing my floor for me!"

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