CHAPTER XXXII. A RESURRECTION.
Encouraged by her condescension on his first arrival, Alfred Marrable looked forward to finding daily pleasure in the society of the beautiful Miss Abercarne. Great was his disappointment then to find that she took advantage of her position as a convalescent to remain entirely in her own rooms; so that, at the end of his first fortnight at Wyngham, he had seen no more of her than on his first day there.
At the end of that time Chris, having obtained her mother’s leave to go away for a change, left for town one day by the morning express, to spend a few weeks with some friends of her mother’s in town.
Her sole objects were, in the first place, to avoid for a little longer the inevitable meeting with Mr. Bradfield, and in the next to indulge a wild hope that she had formed of finding that Dick was still alive.
Her first object was gained, of course; her second remained a vision for the first two months of her stay in London.
Then a very strange incident recalled with great vividness all the associations which linked Wyngham House and Dick together in her memory.
She was looking in the window of a picture dealer in one of the side streets of the West end when a little water-colour drawing attracted her attention.
It was a picture of the sea seen through the branches of trees with one little white sail in the distance. The blood rushed to her cheeks, and her heart began to beat violently; it was, she thought, just such a view of the sea as could be got from the windows of the east wing at Wyngham House, between the bushy boughs of the American oaks and the ragged trunks of the fir trees. So much attracted was she that on the following day she came by herself to look at the sketch; and on the third day, being again by herself, she entered the shop and asked the name of the artist and the price of the picture. The price was a modest half-guinea, which Chris, resolved to do without a new summer hat, promptly paid. As for the artist’s name, there was a difficulty. The man in the shop did not know it. All he could tell was that the picture was the work of a young man who often brought them sketches, some of which they bought, some of which they rejected. He would probably turn up again in the course of a day or two, with some more work; and if the young lady wished to see any more of his drawings, they would no doubt have some to show her shortly.
Chris, full of vague imaginings, called again at the end of a week. They showed her some more sketches which they said were the work of the same artist, and again she was struck with a certain sentiment in the pictures which seemed to her fanciful young mind to express her own feelings about the objects they represented. But the subjects, chiefly of sea and sky, did not arouse in her the same feeling of recognition as the first one had done.
“Perhaps you don’t care so much about the sea-pieces without a peep of landscape,” suggested the dealer, noticing a slight look of disappointment on his customer’s face. “But we shall have some more attractive ones in a day or two, I dare say. The young fellow has gone down to the country, and I’ve given him a commission.”
“What part of the country?” asked Chris, feeling that she was blushing.
“A place called Wyngham, on the south coast, not far from Dover.”
Chris felt giddy with a shock which was not all a surprise. She hardly knew how she got out of the shop, nor how she reached the house of her friends. But she told them that she must go back to her mother the very next day; and the two ladies with whom she was staying, not without a little mischievous laughter at the girl’s expense, and some malicious suggestions which showed them to be not without penetration, let her go.
As the train bore her back to Wyngham, Chris seemed to be in a dream. The hope which had so long lain dormant in her heart had now sprung up into vivid life. She knew that her lover was alive.
Much to her disgust, it was Mr. Bradfield who met her at the station. However, circumstances had now cleared him from the worst of the charges of which she had secretly accused him; if Dick was alive, as she believed, it was certain that John Bradfield had not murdered him. So John, who was as gruff as ever, but rather shy, got a more civil greeting than he had ventured to hope.
“I’ve got the phæton outside,” said he. “Your mother was afraid of the dog-cart; she said you would be. But she was wrong, I know. You don’t look like an invalid; you’ve come back cured.”
“Yes,” she answered, drawing a quick breath. “I—I am quite well now, thank you.”
“Any more disposed to be kind than you were, eh?”
“That depends,” answered Chris, whose emotion was by this time too strong for her to conceal.
John Bradfield looked at her with curiosity.
“Depends on what?”
But Chris waited a moment, and then she gave no direct answer.
“Tell me,” said she, in a voice which trembled with eagerness, “have you had any visitors to-day?”
John Bradfield’s face grew suddenly livid.
“What visitors?” asked he, harshly, after a pause.
“Ah! Then you have not—yet.”
“Why,” cried he, in harsher tones than before, “what do you mean? Have you seen anybody?”
He did not pretend not to know whom she meant. Chris looked up into his face with eyes full of eloquent appeal.
“Mr. Bradfield, you know whom I mean. If you have not seen him yet, you will see him soon, I am sure of it.”
“You have got up a little scene between you?” asked he in the same disagreeable tones.
“I haven’t even seen him. But I know that he is coming. Mr. Bradfield, many things have happened which I don’t understand. I don’t know how it was that you could ever think him insane. Didn’t you know that he was deaf and dumb?”
John Bradfield affected to start violently. He had had his cue.
“Deaf and dumb!” he exclaimed. “Are you sure? Surely Stelfox would have found it out. Unless, indeed, the cunning old rascal deceived me for fear of losing his place.”
And he affected to fall into a paroxysm of rage against the cunning man-servant.
“You do believe, do you not,” he went on, earnestly, “that I would have cut off my hand rather than commit such a shocking injustice as I seem to have done in all good faith?”
Chris was at first puzzled, and at last deceived by his vehemence. For the last argument he put forward was unanswerable.
“What,” said he, “had I to gain by it? He was the son of one of my oldest friends, and I should have liked nothing better than to treat him as my own. Now I understand the hatred the poor lad seemed to have for me. Of course I always took it for one of the signs of insanity in him.”
Insensibly Chris had allowed herself to be softened towards her companion, who had indeed succeeded in proving to her that she had most cruelly misjudged him.
He would have liked to prolong the drive, in order to enjoy as long as possible the sight of her pretty face, growing prettier under the influence of the gentle feeling of self-reproach for her treatment of him; but there was work too important to be done at home for him to dally with the precious moments.
On reaching Wyngham House, while Chris ran upstairs to her mother, Mr. Bradfield first informed himself of the whereabouts of the incubus, Marrable. On being informed that that gentleman had retired to his room to rest, as he generally did in the afternoon to digest a very heavy luncheon in slumber, the master of the house went upstairs, peeped in to see that his friend was really asleep, and then noiselessly locked him in, and went downstairs again. He knew that, if Gilbert Wryde’s son were really about, the young man would lose no time in making himself known to him. Then he went to his study, from the window of which, as it was in front of the house, he could keep watch.
As he had expected, it was not long before the swinging of the iron gates at the entrance of the drive informed him of the approach of the visitor. John took out the key of the cellarette he kept in his study, and helped himself to a wineglass of brandy.
“And now to bluff it!” said he to himself.
In a few minutes a servant knocked at the door.
“Come in!” cried his master.
The man’s face was white, and his manner full of alarm.
“There’s a gentleman who wishes to see you, sir. I showed him into the drawing-room. I think, sir, it’s—it’s Mr. Richard,” he ended, in a lower voice, as if announcing a visitor from the other world.
To his astonishment, his master sprang up with an appearance of the greatest eagerness; and echoing the name as if it filled him with joy, he hastened through the hall to the drawing-room, and entered with outstretched hands.
Before the west window, in the full stream of light from the declining sun, stood the man who for seventeen years had been the victim of his cruelty and greed. It is not in human nature, even in the springtime of youth, to recover in a few months from the effects of the confinement of years. Gilbert Wryde’s son showed in his prematurely grey hair, in the sharpened outlines of his face, in a certain indefinable look of weariness and waiting in his grey eyes, as well as in the deep lines about his mouth, the effects of his cruel imprisonment.
He turned immediately when the door opened, and confronted John Bradfield with such a look that the latter instantly changed his intention of seizing his visitor by both hands. John felt indefinably that it would be like shaking hands with a marble statue, and he did not want any more chilling. He was sufficiently master of himself, however, to affect a boisterous delight at the meeting.
“Come here, come here; sit down,” said he. “Let us understand—let us know each other. I have heard to-day such things about you that if you had not come of your own accord, I would have hunted over the world until I had found you.”
But the visitor remained standing.
“I should hardly have thought,” answered the young man, coldly, “that you would have been in such a hurry.”
Mr. Bradfield thought it better for the moment to ignore this speech.
“But what is this?” exclaimed he, with apparent solicitude. “You have recovered your speech, your hearing! It is miraculous!”
“Not quite,” answered the visitor, in the same tone as before. “I hear, as I speak, with difficulty. But I am under treatment which, they tell me, would have cured me altogether, if it had been applied earlier. I was not dumb from my birth, as you, no doubt, know.”
“Richard,” said Mr. Bradfield, earnestly, “don’t take this tone with me. You would not, if you knew what I have suffered since it was first suggested to me, a few weeks ago, that you were not really insane, as I supposed.”
“But what reason,” asked the young man, his voice betraying excitement for the first time, “had you for thinking any such thing? Why, if you had got such an idea into your head, did you not consult some specialist on mental cases? Isn’t a man’s whole life, his whole happiness, worth a guinea fee?”
Now Mr. Bradfield, luckily for himself, had had time to prepare himself for these questions. He knew exactly what line to take in answering them.
“Of course,” said he, “you can’t really believe what you suggest, that it was meanness which prevented my doing so. When you hear all my reasons for thinking as I did, you will agree with me that I had some ground to go upon. In the meantime, it is more to the point to tell you what I have been doing since Miss Abercarne (for it was she) expressed to me her belief you were sane.”
The mention of the girl’s name had, of course, the desired effect of making the young man listen. It seemed to argue good faith on Mr. Bradfield’s part.
John went on:
“I caused inquiries to be set on foot, right and left, for you. I decided what I should do if I were lucky enough to find you.”
The young man interrupted him:
“In the first place, you will tell me something about myself.”
“That,” answered John, readily, “was what I was going to do. In the first place, you are the son of an old friend of mine, who died in Melbourne in poor circumstances, but who left relations there whom you ought to find out, for I have reason to believe, from something I have since heard, that you might establish your claim to some property held in trust for you over there. Of course, under the impression that you would never be able to use it, I have not troubled about it. I am a rich man, and I was able to do all I could for the son of my old friend.”
“Gilbert Wryde!” assented the young man. Seeing the look of surprise on John Bradfield’s face, he added, “I learnt that from Miss Abercarne.”
“Well,” pursued Mr. Bradfield, “there’s only one thing for you to do now; you must make your way to Melbourne—I will supply the funds—and prosecute your inquiries there. In the meantime, I will draw up a will, which you shall see, making you all the reparation in my power.”
“Thank you,” said the young man, still coldly. “I want justice, not benevolence. I can earn enough for myself.”
“But you might marry,” suggested John.
A softer look came over the young man’s face. After a pause of some minutes’ duration, he said:
“I will consider what you have said, Mr. Bradfield. In the meantime, I will not intrude upon you any longer. But I should like, before I go, to see Miss Abercarne for a few minutes if,” he added in a gentle tone, “she will see me.”
“Unluckily,” said John, “she’s still in London, where she has been staying with some friends of her mother’s for the last three months. But if you’ll give me your address, I will get Mrs. Abercarne’s permission to send you her daughter’s.”
The young man moved at once towards the door.
“Thank you,” said he. “I will send you my address then. And I will let you hear from me again.”
“You won’t stay—to dinner?” asked Mr. Bradfield, feeling tolerably secure of his answer.
“No, thank you. There is a train back to town in about an hour. Good afternoon.”
And he left the room without another word.
Mr. Bradfield followed him out, and saw him go through the iron gate at the end of the drive, then he went back into the study, and passed his hand with a gesture of relief across his forehead.
“Saved!” muttered he. “Safe for a few hours. What must be the next move?”