Witching Hill Part 9

"The dead so soon grow cold.

"Some love too little, some too long, Some sell, and others buy; Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh: For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die."

"It's all I'm fit for, death!" groaned Guy Berridge, trying to tug the fierce moustache out of his mild face. "The sooner the better, for me!

And yet I did love her, G.o.d knows I did!" He turned upon Uvo Delavoye in a sudden blaze. "And so I do still--do you hear me? Then give me back my ring, I say, and don't encourage me in this madness--you--you devil!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Trying to tug the fierce moustache out of his mild face.]

"Give it him back," I said. But Uvo set his teeth against us both, looking almost what he had just been called--looking abominably like that fine evil gentleman in Hampton Court--and I could stand the whole thing no longer. I rammed my own hand into Delavoye's pocket. And down and away out into the night, like a fiend let loose, went Guy Berridge and the ring with the peac.o.c.k enamelled in white on a blood-red ground.

I turned again to Delavoye. His shoulders were up to his ears in wry good humour.

"You may be right, Gilly, but now I ought really to sit up with him all night. In any case I shall have it back in the morning, and then neither you nor he shall ever see that unclean bird again!"

But he went so far as to show it to me across my counter, not many minutes after young Berridge had shambled past, with bent head and unshaven cheeks, to catch his usual train next morning.

"I did sit up with him," said Uvo. "We sat up till he dropped off in his chair, and eventually I got him to bed more asleep than awake. But he's as bad as ever again this morning, and he has surrendered the infernal ring this time of his own accord I'm to break matters to the girl by giving it back to her."

"You're a perfect hero to take it on!"

"I feel much more of a humbug, Gilly."

"When do you tackle her?"

"Never, my dear fellow! Can't you see the point? This white peac.o.c.k's at the bottom of the whole thing. Neither of them shall ever set eyes on it again, and then you see if they don't marry and live happy ever after!"

"But are you going to throw the thing away?"

"Not if I can help it, Gilly. I'll tell you what I thought of doing.

There's a little working jeweller, over at Richmond, who made me quite a good pin out of some heavy old studs that belonged to my father. I'm going to take him this ring to-day and see if he can turn out a duplicate for love or money."

"I'll go with you," I said, "if you can wait till the afternoon."

"We must be gone before Berridge has a chance of getting back," replied Uvo, doubtfully; "otherwise I shall have to begin all over again, because of course he'll come back cured and roaring for his ring. I haven't quite decided what to say to him, but I fancy my imagination will prove equal to the strain."

This seemed to me a rather cynical att.i.tude to take, even in the best of causes, and it certainly was not like Uvo Delavoye. Only too capable, in my opinion, of deceiving himself, he was no impostor, if I knew him, and it was disappointing to see him take so kindly to the part. I preferred not to talk about it on the road to Richmond, which we took on foot in the small hours of the afternoon. A weeping thaw had reduced the frozen ruts to mere mud piping, of that consistency which grips a tyre like teeth. But it was impossible not to compare this heavy tramp with our sparkling spin through Bushey Park. And the hot and cold fits of poor Guy Berridge afforded an inevitable a.n.a.logy.

"I can't understand him," I was saying. "I can understand a fellow falling in love and even falling out again. But Berridge flies from one extreme to the other like a ball in a hard rally."

"And it's not the way he's built, Gilly! That's what sticks with me. You may be quite sure he's not the first breeder of sinners who began by s.h.i.+vering on the brink of matrimony. It's a desperate plunge to take. I should be terrified myself; but then I'm not one of nature's faithful hounds. If it wasn't for the canine fidelity of this good Berridge, I shouldn't mind his thinking and shrinking like many a better man."

We were cutting off the last corner before Richmond by following the asphalt foot-path behind St. Stephen's Church. Here we escaped the mud at last; the moist asphalt shone with a cleanly l.u.s.tre; and our footsteps threw an echo ahead, between the two long walls, until it mixed with the tramp of approaching feet, and another couple advanced into view. They were man and girl; but I did not at first identify the radiant citizen in the glossy hat, with his arm thrust through the lady's, as Guy Berridge homeward bound with his once beloved. It was a groan from Uvo that made me look again, and next moment the four of us blocked the narrow gangway.

"The very man we were talking about!" cried Berridge without looking at me. His hat had been ironed, his weak chin burnished by a barber's shave, the strong moustache clipped and curled. But a sporadic glow marked either cheek-bone, and he had forgotten to return our salute.

"Yes, Mr. Delavoye!" said Miss Hemming with arch severity. "What have you been doing with my white peac.o.c.k?"

She had a brown fringe, very crisply curled as a rule; but the damp air had softened and improved it; and perhaps her young gentleman's recovery had carried the good work deeper, for she was a girl who sometimes gave herself airs, but there seemed no room for any in her happy face.

"To tell you the truth," replied Uvo, unblus.h.i.+ngly, "I was on my way to show it to a bit of a connoisseur at Richmond." He turned to Berridge, who met his glance eagerly. "That's really why I borrowed it, Guy. I believe it's more valuable than either of you realise."

"Not to me!" cried the accountant readily. "I don't know what I was doing to take it off. I hear it's a most unlucky thing to do."

It was easy to see from whom he had heard it. Miss Hemming said nothing, but looked all the more decided with her mouth quite shut. And Delavoye addressed his apologies to the proper quarter.

"I'm awfully sorry, Miss Hemming! Of course you're quite right; but I hope you'll show it to my man yourselves----"

"If you don't mind," said Berridge, holding out his hand with a smile.

But Uvo had broken off of his own accord.

"I think you'll be glad"--he was feeling in all his pockets--"quite glad if you do--" and his voice died away as he began feeling again.

"Lucky I wired to you to meet me at Richmond, wasn't it, Edie? Otherwise we should have been too late," said the accountant densely.

"Perhaps you are!" poor Uvo had to cry outright. "I--the fact is I--can't find it anywhere."

"You may have left it behind," suggested Berridge.

"We can call for it, if you did," said the girl.

There was something in his sudden worry that appealed to their common fund of generosity.

"No, no! I told you why I was going to Richmond. I thought I had it in my ticket pocket. In fact, I know I had; but I went with my sister this morning to get some flowers at Kingston market, and I haven't had it out since. It's been taken from me, and that was where! I wish you'd feel in my pockets for me. I've had them picked--picked of the one thing that wasn't mine, and was of value--and now you'll neither of you ever forgive me, and I don't deserve to be forgiven!"

But they did forgive him, and that handsomely--so manifest was his distress--so great their recovered happiness. It was only I who could not follow their example, when they had gone on their way, and Delavoye and I were hurrying on ours, ostensibly to get the Richmond police to telephone at once to Kingston, as the first of all the energetic steps that we were going to take. For we were still in that asphalt pa.s.sage, and the couple had scarcely quitted it at the other end, when Delavoye drew off his glove and showed me the missing ring upon his little finger.

I could hardly believe my eyes, or my ears either when he roundly defended his conduct. I need not go into his defence; it was the only one it could have been; but Uvo Delavoye was the only man in England who could and would have made it with a serious face. It was no mere trinket that he had "lifted," but a curse from two innocent heads. That end justified any means, to his wild thinking. But, over and above the ethical question, he had an inherited responsibility in the matter, and had only performed a duty which had been thrust upon him.

"Nor shall they be a bit the worse off," said Uvo warmly. "I still mean to have that duplicate made, off my own bat, and when I foist it on our friends I shall simply say it turned up in the lining of my overcoat."

"Man Uvo," said I, "there are two professions waiting for you; but it would take a judge of both to choose between your fiction and your acting."

"Acting!" he cried. "Why, a blog like Guy Berridge can act when he's put to it; he did just now, and took you in, evidently! It never struck you, I suppose, that he'd wired to me this morning to say nothing to the girl, probably at the same time that he wired to her to meet him? He carried it all off like a born actor just now, and yet you curse me for going and doing likewise to save the pair of them!"

It is always futile to try to slay the bee in another's bonnet; but for once I broke my rule of never arguing with Uvo Delavoye, if I could help it, on the particular point involved. I simply could not help it, on this occasion; and when Uvo lost his temper, and said a great deal more than I would have taken from anybody else, I would not have helped it if I could. So hot had been our interchange that it was at its height when we debouched from St. Stephen's Pa.s.sage into the open cross-roads beyond.

At that unlucky moment, one small suburban Arab, in full flight from another, dashed round the corner and b.u.t.ted into that part of Delavoye which the Egyptian climate had specially demoralised. I saw his dark face writhe with pain and fury. With one hand he caught the offending urchin, and in the other I was horrified to see his stick, a heavy blackthorn, held in murderous poise against the leaden sky, while the child was thrust out at arm's length to receive the blow. I hurled myself between them, and had such difficulty in wresting the blackthorn from the madman's grasp that his hand was bleeding, and something had tinkled on the pavement, when I tore it from him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A heavy blackthorn held in murderous poise.]

Panting, I looked to see what had become of the small boy. He had taken to his heels as though the foul fiend were at them; his late pursuer was now his companion in flight, and I was thankful to find we had the scene to ourselves. Delavoye was pointing to the little thing that had tinkled as it fell, and as he pointed the blood dripped from his hand, and he shuddered like a man recovering from a fit.

I had better admit plainly that the thing was that old ring with the white peac.o.c.k set in red, and that Uvo Delavoye was once more as I had known him down to that hour.

"Don't touch the beastly thing!" he cried. "It's served me worse than it served poor Berridge! I shall have to think of a fresh lie to tell him--and it won't come so easy now--but I'd rather cut mine off than trust this on another human hand!"

He picked it up between his finger-nails. And there was blood on the white peac.o.c.k when I saw it next on Richmond Bridge.