Trent's Trust, and Other Stories

by Bret Harte

J. D.

As Randolph read, he seemed to hear the captain's voice throughout the letter, and even his low, characteristic laugh in the postscript. Then he suddenly remembered the luggage which the porter had said the captain had ordered to be taken below; but on asking that functionary he was told a conveyance for the Victoria Docks had called with an order, and taken it away at daybreak. It was evident that the captain had intended the letter should be his only farewell. Depressed and a little hurt at his patron's abruptness, Randolph returned to his room. Opening the letter of credit, he found it was for a thousand pounds—a munificent beneficence, as it seemed to Randolph, for his dubious services, and a proof of his patron's frequent declarations that he had money enough without touching the Dornton estates.

For a long time he sat with these sole evidences of the reality of his experience in his hands, a prey to a thousand surmises and conflicting thoughts. Was he the self-deceived disciple of a visionary, a generous, unselfish, but weak man, whose eccentricity passed even the bounds of reason? Who would believe the captain's story or the captain's motives? Who comprehend his strange quest and its stranger and almost ridiculous termination? Even if the seal of secrecy were removed in after years, what had he, Randolph, to show in corroboration of his patron's claim?

Then it occurred to him that there was no reason why he should not go down to the rectory and see Miss Eversleigh again under pretense of inquiring after the luckless baronet, whose title and fortune had, nevertheless, been so strangely preserved. He began at once his preparations for the journey, and was nearly ready when a servant entered with a telegram. Randolph's heart leaped. The captain had sent him news—perhaps had changed his mind! He tore off the yellow cover, and read,—

Sir William died at twelve o'clock without recovering consciousness.

S. EVERSLEIGH. VI

For a moment Randolph gazed at the dispatch with a half-hysterical laugh, and then became as suddenly sane and cool. One thought alone was uppermost in his mind: the captain could not have heard this news yet, and if he was still within reach, or accessible by any means whatever, however determined his purpose, he must know it at once. The only clue to his whereabouts was the Victoria Docks. But that was something. In another moment Randolph was in the lower hall, had learned the quickest way of reaching the docks, and plunged into the street.

The fog here swooped down, and to the embarrassment of his mind was added the obscurity of light and distance, which halted him after a few hurried steps, in utter perplexity. Indistinct figures were here and there approaching him out of nothingness and melting away again into the greenish gray chaos. He was in a busy thoroughfare; he could hear the slow trample of hoofs, the dull crawling of vehicles, and the warning outcries of a traffic he could not see. Trusting rather to his own speed than that of a halting conveyance, he blundered on until he reached the railway station. A short but exasperating journey of impulses and hesitations, of detonating signals and warning whistles, and he at last stood on the docks, beyond him a vague bulk or two, and a soft, opaque flowing wall—the river!

But one steamer had left that day—the Dom Pedro, for the River Plate—two hours before, but until the fog thickened, a quarter of an hour ago, she could be seen, so his informant said, still lying, with steam up, in midstream. Yes, it was still possible to board her. But even as the boatman spoke, and was leading the way toward the landing steps, the fog suddenly lightened; a soft salt breath stole in from the distant sea, and a veil seemed to be lifted from the face of the gray waters. The outlines of the two shores came back; the spars of nearer vessels showed distinctly, but the space where the huge hulk had rested was empty and void. There was a trail of something darker and more opaque than fog itself lying near the surface of the water, but the Dom Pedro was a mere speck in the broadening distance.

A bright sun and a keen easterly wind were revealing the curling ridges of the sea beyond the headland when Randolph again passed the gates of Dornton Hall on his way to the rectory. Now, for the first time, he was able to see clearly the outlines of that spot which had seemed to him only a misty dream, and even in his preoccupation he was struck by its grave beauty. The leafless limes and elms in the park grouped themselves as part of the picturesque details of the Hall they encompassed, and the evergreen slope of firs and larches rose as a background to the gray battlements, covered with dark green ivy, whose rich shadows were brought out by the unwonted sunshine. With a half-repugnant curiosity he had tried to identify the garden entrance and the fateful yew hedge the captain had spoken of as he passed. But as quickly he fell back upon the resolution he had taken in coming there—to dissociate his secret, his experience, and his responsibility to his patron from his relations to Sibyl Eversleigh; to enjoy her companionship without an obtruding thought of the strange circumstances that had brought them together at first, or the stranger fortune that had later renewed their acquaintance. He had resolved to think of her as if she had merely passed into his life in the casual ways of society, with only her personal charms to set her apart from others. Why should his exclusive possession of a secret—which, even if confided to her, would only give her needless and hopeless anxiety—debar them from an exchange of those other confidences of youth and sympathy? Why could he not love her and yet withhold from her the knowledge of her cousin's existence? So he had determined to make the most of his opportunity during his brief holiday; to avail himself of her naive invitation, and even of what he dared sometimes to think was her predilection for his companionship. And if, before he left, he had acquired a right to look forward to a time when her future and his should be one—but here his glowing fancy was abruptly checked by his arrival at the rectory door.