“What was that?” he asked, steadying his voice.
“Old Reckavile, the father of this Johnny, got mixed up with a draper’s wife, and the worthy man didn’t like it and got a divorce. The joke was that Reckavile offered to fight for the girl, and properly put the wind up the draper. Well, he did what’s called the right thing, and married her, my father was at the wedding, and a pretty thick time it was from all accounts but he never settled down with the lady, he buzzed off somewhere and got killed or something, I forget how.”
Roy was now on wires, but he showed nothing, his training on the stage served him in good stead.
“When was that?” he asked, lighting a cigar with studied care.
“I can never remember dates,” said the other “about thirty years ago I should say at a guess, but you’ll find it all in the old papers, if it interests you. We keep them upstairs, but no one ever looks at them. Here, I am sorry we are going dry, touch that bell will you?”
The rest of the evening passed like a dream till Roy rose to get back to the theatre for the evening performance, but though he sang and played his part, his mind was disturbed with thoughts which would intrude on him, and the old memories he had stifled rose to mock him. He knew he would have no peace till he had read that long dead story. His friends had asked him to come again, and he took them at their word at the risk of being a bore.
In the musty reading room, seldom visited by the members of this joyous Club, he found the old copies, with the help of a spectacled librarian, who seemed detached from the world without and only en rapport with his yellowing tomes.
He showed Roy the files in which the sordid story was told, but only one line stood out in letters of burning fire, the date at the head of the paper. That was damning and convincing. Nothing could alter that, and while his eyes were reading the account of the affair, his mind saw only one deadly fact, that the date was after the marriage of Reckavile with his mother. This overwhelmed him so utterly that he could hardly thank the old man, and hurry from the place. His mind was in a whirl. There must be some mistake, the marriage, must have been illegal or something; he could not grasp a deliberate cold blooded bigamy; he would dismiss it from his mind. Why had this spectre from the past come to torment him? It would be quite simple. To settle the matter he would go to Somerset House, and pay the fee for inspection, and lay the ghost.
As he expected after a long search he failed to find any reference to the marriage. He little knew the reason, or the sudden death of the parson, before he had been able to send the record for registration. But it was sufficient, and he plunged back into his work determined to dismiss the whole thing from his mind.
But the maggot was gnawing at his brain, and the old restlessness came on him. He would go abroad, but something drew him to the home of his ancestors; he must see Portham, and Reckavile Castle, before he finally turned his back on England.