CHAPTER VII
Early dawn in a house where the new-dead lie unheeding whether it be darkness or day. Dawn when those who have seen the light of life fade from a beloved face watch the slow sunlight steal once more over the edge of the world, and claim all things for its own.
Yet watching alone, how peaceful such a dawn may be, when one can face death, not as a thing apart, but as a part of life; when there is no need to cloud its kindly form with sentimentalities, when we need not drug ourselves into disregarding its dignity by some narcotic of belief in life to come, when it is enough to feel that this life has passed where all life goes.
In the old Keep, however, where the master lay dead in his study among his fishing-rods and guns, as they had left him till the inquest should be over, there was no one near enough to the dead man so to watch, for Helen was still unconscious in her room upstairs. Dr.
Ramsay, whose hands were full with many claimants on his care, spoke of a severe nervous crisis, which had evidently been coming on for some time. Her best chance was this semi-cataleptic state from which she would recover in her own good time. So she lay in her simple white room, on her simple little bed, and the dawn stole in slowly through the open window bringing the dayspring song of birds with it. But she was not there. She might have been with her father for all the bystanders could tell.
Ned, his face drawn with pain from the fractured arm over which Dr.
Ramsay had instantly looked severe, but for which Ned refused to lay himself up absolutely until certain necessary details had been arranged, looked in and envied her. He had told the doctor of her visit to his room, and his wild stern-chase of her to Betty Cam's chair, and of his wonder--a wonder that grew as he thought over it--as to how she could possibly have got home, changed her dress and come on in the Wrexham's motor in so short a space of time. Still she had done it.
Evidently she had done it, the doctor had replied guardedly, and there, in the stress of many calls, the subject had dropped.
And yet as Ned went about giving orders in hopes of lessening anxieties and distress, he was remembering the strange unkenned look he had noticed on his cousin's face. Was it possible that--No! it was impossible. Anyhow he had no time to think it over as yet.
The roll-call of inmates had, thank Heaven! been on the whole satisfactory. Only two had failed to answer. Mrs. Massingham and, curiously enough, his friend Charteris, who had arranged to leave the next morning when his attack of Indian fever should have passed away.
The only man who knew of the danger! It was a coincidence certainly.
As for Mrs. Massingham, the fright must have brought on one of her heart attacks; else there was no reason why she should not have escaped, taking Maidie with her; it had not been a good life anyhow.
But what an awful home-coming for the husband! He might arrive that very day, but it would be better if he did not. Not for a few days, till the whole thing, body and soul alike, should have gone out of ken for ever.
Then there was the ship. It was a transport from India, a bit out of its course through having damaged an engine. It had mistaken the fire for the lighthouse further west, and had struck lightly on a sunken rock just off the headland beyond Cam's Bay. It seemed none the worse, and would most likely float off in the next tide or two as the wind strengthened. In the meantime that would entail another funeral, as they had had a death on board that night.
So much Mr. Hirsch told Ned, when the latter went to see him about wiring to the office of the new company.
"I've looked to that," he replied curtly, "and I must get all these" (a perfect pile of forms lay beside him) "off at once; only the nuisance is my motor is damaged."
"Ted Cruttenden is cycling with mine," began Ned. Mr. Hirsch looked up quickly--"You will be careful, won't you?"
"I won't foul my own nest more than I can help," said Ned bitterly.
"That's right! And you know----" Mr. Hirsch was still writing hurriedly--"I don't believe it was the wires at all. It certainly began in the back premises, and they tell me the cook was dead drunk after dinner, and half the servants as well--they were dancing break-downs to the gramaphone."
"That doesn't take away the taste," burst out Ned passionately, "or take away the responsibility for having put such a ghastly monstrosity on that point, before that sea, under the stars of heaven----"
Mr. Hirsch looked up with the surprised kindly look an elder gives to a child who has suddenly burst out crying over a broken toy.
"You really ought to go to bed, Lord Blackborough," he said. "All this is so exhausting to the nerves. I shall do so, when I have sent off my telegrams."
Was it the roll of the double r which made Ned inclined to kick Mr.
Hirsch? It was a relief when Ted Cruttenden ended the conversation by entering in the silent, unobtrusive way, which people adopt in the house of mourning.
"Messages ready?" he asked.
"Mine are! Mr. Hirsch has some. I suppose you wanted to be off, It's a shocking bad road to Haverton," remarked Ned, full of ill-humour as he left the room.
"I shall not go to Haverton though," said Ted. "I shall save time by cycling to Wellhampton. Five miles further, but there's an all-night office, and it seems a pity to waste time till eight o'clock."
"Good," nodded Mr. Hirsch, "though----" here he gave one of his short explosive laughs--"I am in no particular hurry. I must give Jenkin time--good Lord, what a relief to get rid of Jenkin--ahem!" He pulled himself up hurriedly and went on writing.
It was the first time Ted had come to close quarters with a millionaire, a millionaire too of European reputation as a financier more than as mere money seeker, and the effect was stimulating. It roused his admiration, his imagination. He stood at the window, waiting and watching Mr. Hirsch's head--it was growing, in truth, a trifle bald at the crown--as it bent over his papers and thinking what it must feel like to possess the art of transmuting baser things to gold.
"I will give you a sovereign," began the great man condescendingly.
"One is in cipher, and that costs. The change in stamps, if you please. I have many letters to write."
Typical of the man, thought Ted Cruttenden, while Mr. Hirsch, noticing how careful the young man was in discriminating between his and Lord Blackborough's telegrams, but putting them into different pockets, smiled. "You are metodical, I see," he remarked, with just that faint slur over the th which occasionally told he was not English. "It is a great gift in business."
Ted smiled also, and flushed with pleasure, since Mr. Hirsch's praise was worth having; and so, then and there, almost as if some chemical affinity had manifested itself between the molecules composing his brain and Mr. Hirsch's, he made up his mind to try and follow his example. He was no fool; other people succeeded, why not he?
As he rode off his mind was full of this new determination. And yet, one short week ago he had thought himself uncommonly lucky to have pushed himself so far up the ladder as to be in receipt of a hundred and fifty pounds a year. For it must not be forgotten that he was no-man's son. His mother had refused to give his father's name. When she lay dying, and her people, seeking to trick her, asked what name the child should be called, she had smiled derisively at them. "Edward Cruttenden, of course," had been her reply, the latter being her own name, a common enough one in the Black Country.
Ted had thought all this out many times; yet it came back to him--with no rancour against his mother, but a good deal against his unknown father. On this fine June morning as he made his way across the high Cornish tableland, dipping down--with both brakes on--into some steep combe and thereinafter climbing out of it again, pushing his bicycle.
If he had only begun earlier to think about making money, he would have had a better chance with Aura. No doubt at his age Hirsch had been operating on the Exchange and promoting companies.
Promoting! Operating! These were words indeed!
But it must be uphill work--so was this last combe; for it was to be one of those hot June days, when the freshness of dawn is gone in half an hour, and the very grass has no trace of dew on it.
He sat down at the top of the hill and drew out his handkerchief in order to mop his face.
In doing so one of Mr. Hirsch's telegrams came out also and fluttered to the ground.
It was the one in cipher, and, as he glanced at it, he found that by a pure chance he knew it, or something very like it. His little friend and admirer in the stockbroker's office was an expert in ciphers, and had shown him several. This--one of the easiest--amongst the number.
He could not choose but read the first word, "Buy."
Buy! That was curious. He should have expected it to be "sell."
Buy what?
_Buy Sea-views all below five shillings. Hirsch_.
He sat looking at the words for some time, puzzled, then rode on, his mind busy with the problem; but the puzzle remained until, as he was going into the telegraph office at Wellhampton, he met Mr. Jenkin coming out. Then the memory of Mr. Hirsch's laugh of relief at "getting rid of Jenkin," which he had hardly noticed at the time, came back to him. Jenkin apparently was to be given time to sell, while Mr.
Hirsch was to buy. It was a straight lead-over. What if he were to follow it even to the extent of but a hundred pounds? His heart gave a great throb; he felt as a man might, when put on a horse for the first time and the reins given into his hand. Who was to prevent him going where he chose--except, of course, the horse!
He returned to the Keep by breakfast time, but for a wonder he had no appetite, since he was of that healthy strong-nerved sort to whom even personal sorrow comes as an expenditure of force which requires recuperation. And there was no personal feeling in this tragedy except for Blackborough's share in it; for that he was unfeignedly sorry. He, however, had been finally ordered to his room by Dr. Ramsay who was too busy to speak to any one. The Wrexhams left early, followed at intervals by the other guests, and the Keep settled down into the slack collapse which always follows on the excitement of a catastrophe. The servants seemed to remember they had been up all night; Mr. Hirsch was the only person who was really awake, but Ted did not somehow care to see Mr. Hirsch; though as the day wore on and the latter went off once more to Cam's point, Ted took down some telegrams which had come for him, and watched him read them anxiously.
They seemed satisfactory, but by this time Ted was telling himself he had behaved like a fool in sending that wire to his friend on the Stock Exchange.
The desolation on the point, where workmen were still searching for any traces of Mr. Charteris' body, made him still more depressed, so he strolled over to Camshaven, thereby letting himself in for additional dreariness; since, just as he abutted on the little quay, he saw one of the transport's boats, disembarking a coffin. The dead officer, of course. Poor chap, to die like that within sight of home was rough luck. He stood with bared head watching the guard of honour form up and prepare to take the body to the church, where it was to lie until directions came by wire from the relatives.
"You don't happen to know the name?" he asked of the local pilot who was close beside him.
"Not for sure, sir," he replied, "tho' I did hear'm say Massin'ham; same name as the poor madam they people burnt in her bed las' night."
"Massingham!" echoed Ted--"that is very curious."