One of My Sons Part 38

"The window is wide open," said I.

"As you see," said he.

"I shall make a noise; he will hear me----"

"He didn't hear _me_----"

"That's no proof he won't hear _me_. But I forget the gale, and that sound--what is it?"

"Tin cans rattling; loose in some gutter, I suppose----"

"It is infernal." Then with sudden resolution--a resolution I hardly understand, for I certainly did not feel called upon to risk either self-respect or safety in this cause--I cried out: "I'll try for it; though it's long since I put my agility to the proof. But how am I to get onto the roof?"

For reply, Sweet.w.a.ter uttered a low but peculiar call, and a shadow near by became a man.

"Lend your back to this gentleman," said he; and as I took advantage of the a.s.sistance thus afforded me and worked my way up onto the ledge over his head, he softly added:

"Catch hold of everything that offers, and be careful your feet don't slip. When you're up, give one look and come down. We will be on hand to catch you when you get to the edge of the roof."

The rain was dripping from my hat to such an extent that it nearly blinded me. I tore it off and flung it at their feet; then I started on my perilous climb.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IN TWO MINUTES I WAS UNDER THAT OPEN WINDOW"]

It was a difficult one, but not so difficult as I had expected; and in two minutes I was under that open window. A tangle of ropes struck my head--clothes-lines, I suppose. Laying hold of them, I steadied myself before looking in. As I did so, a consciousness of my position made the moment a bewildering one. I thought of Hope and what her surprise would be could she see me in my present situation on the peak of this sloping roof, thirty feet above the ground. Hope! the word brought resolution also. I would look in upon this man with eyes schooled to their duty, but unsharpened by hate. If there was forbearance due him, I would try and exercise that forbearance, remembering always that he was an object of affection to the woman I loved.

Was this why I, for the first time, saw him as he may have looked to her and probably did? He was seated in such a way that only his profile was visible beyond the casing around which I peered. But that profile struck me forcibly, and, forgetting my errand, I allowed myself a moment's study of the face I had never rightly seen till then.

I was astonished at the result; astonished at the effect it had upon me. Leighton Gillespie seen with his brothers was not the Leighton Gillespie I looked upon now. Beheld thus by himself he was an impressive figure. Lacking George's height and Alfred's regularity of feature he was apt to be regarded by superficial or prejudiced observers as the one plain man in an exceptionally handsome family.

But I saw now that this was not so. He had attractions of his own which could bear comparison with those of most other men; and, relieved from too close comparison with these two conspicuous personalities, the traits of his dark, melancholy countenance came out, and in the regard of his sad and preoccupied eye was felt a charm which might have ripened into fascination had no dark secret beclouded their depths or interfered with the natural expression of feelings that must once have been both natural and spontaneous. Had he been more fortunate in his tastes or more able to put restraint upon his pa.s.sions, he might, with that eye and smile, have been one of those men whose influence baffles the insight of the psychologist, and from whose magnetic personality spring innumerable benefits to those of his day and generation.

All this was forcibly impressed upon me as I knelt in the pouring rain, looking in upon his face at this momentous crisis of his life, and, had I known it, of my own also.

I had feared to advance my head too far lest he should be attracted by the movement and so detect my presence at the window. Consequently I had seen as yet nothing of Mille-fleurs, and but little of the room.

This would not do, and I was just preparing to extend my view further when the face I was watching sank forward out of sight and a groan came to my ears so thrilling and heartbroken that my own heart stopped beating in my bewilderment and surprise. From whose lips had this expression of anguish sprung? From hers? It had not sounded like a woman's voice. Could it be----

Again! What could it--did it, mean? Had Leighton Gillespie received some warning of the fate which at this moment hung over him, and was it his voice I heard lifted in these heartbroken accents? I was willing to risk everything to see. Thrusting my head forward, I looked boldly into the room, and momentary as the glance was, or seemed to be, I have never forgotten the dolorous and awe-compelling picture upon which it fell.

By the light of a guttering candle, whose blowing flame threatened every minute to go out, I saw a wretched pallet drawn up against a dirty and mouldering wall. On this pallet lay a woman, with just a ragged counterpane covering limbs I had so lately seen moving in rhythmical measure. Her hair--those bewildering curls, the like of which I had never before seen and would never see again, lay about her wherever those faded rags failed to reach. It hid her arms, it framed her temples, and, flowing away, coiled in great ma.s.ses over the side of that pallet and onto the floor it seemed to richen with its wealth.

But it did not hide her face. Either she had moved or her locks had been drawn aside since Sweet.w.a.ter crouched in my place, for now her features were plainly visible and in those features I had no difficulty in recognising--Mille-fleurs.

Beside her, and drawn up so close that the rich broadcloth of his sleeve brushed the foul bed and lost itself among those overflowing curls, sat Leighton Gillespie, with his head in his hands, weeping as a man weeps but once in a lifetime.

There was no mistaking that grief. Real heart agony cannot be simulated; and, touched with awe for what I could not understand, I was about to slip away from my post, when he gave an impetuous start, roused himself, and glanced in sudden anger towards a door set in the wall directly opposite me. Another instant he was on his feet, with his hands held out across the prostrate figure before him, in an att.i.tude of jealous love such as I have never seen equalled. What had he seen or heard? The door was closed, yet he seemed to fear intrusion. Whose? Not mine, for his eyes did not turn towards the window, but remained fixed upon this door. Had the sound of steps reached him from the hall? Probably, for, as I watched the door with him, I beheld the k.n.o.b turn, then the door itself open, slowly at first, then more quickly, till it suddenly fell back, disclosing the quiet form and composed countenance of the old detective I had left behind me in the dark corner of the pa.s.sage at the side of the house.

At the same instant a voice whispered from over my shoulder into my ear:

"Lie still; or slip silently down to the officers stationed below. You were so long that Mr. Gryce became impatient."

Up till then I had supposed that only a moment had elapsed since I first looked in.

"I will stay," I whispered back. I saw that Leighton was about to speak.

"Who are you?" I heard him demand of the intruder, in a pa.s.sion so great he failed to note the ident.i.ty of the man he thus accosted. "I have a right to this room. I have paid for it--Ah!" He had just recognised the detective.

With a quick turn he drew the coverlet over the face he seemed to guard so jealously, then with an air of command, which was at once solemn and peremptory, he pointed to the hat which naturally rested on Mr. Gryce's head, and said:

"Respect for the dead! You will uncover, Mr. Gryce."

"The dead?" repeated the astonished detective, striding hurriedly into the room. "The dead? Is this girl dead?"

But his doubt, if doubt it were, disappeared before the look with which Leighton Gillespie regarded him.

"Dead!" that gentleman declared. Then as Mr. Gryce instinctively bared his head, this strange, this incomprehensible man advanced a step, and in tones inconceivably touching and dignified, added this short sentence:

"To respect her is to respect me; this woman is my wife."

XXVIII

BY THE LIGHT OF A GUTTERING CANDLE

My amazement was unaffected, and so overwhelming I hardly understood myself. His wife, Mille-fleurs! Alas, then, for Hope, who, in her unthinking if generous love for this man, was prepared for any other grief than this! Yet why "alas"? Had she not told me that her greatest wish, her supreme desire, was to see his character restored to its old standing in her eyes, and had he not at this moment cleared himself of the one sin her womanly heart would find it hardest to pardon? The cry of "poor Hope!" with which my heart was charged changed to "happy Hope," and my composure, which had been sadly shaken, was slowly returning, when the insoluable mystery of the situation absorbed me again, and I glanced at Mr. Gryce to see how he had been affected by Mr. Gillespie's announcement.

This aged detective, who, when I last looked his way, was standing alone in the doorway, now had Sweet.w.a.ter at his side,--that agile young man having bounded into the room before the words which had made so great a change in the situation had fully left Mr. Gillespie's lips; and the contrast of expression as seen in the two faces was noticeable. Sweet.w.a.ter, young in experience, young in feeling, reflected in look and att.i.tude the sensations of awakening sympathy and interest with which I own my own breast was full, while the older detective, with characteristic prudence, withheld his judgment, and, consequently, his sympathy, for the explanations which such an avowal from such a man certainly demanded.

Indeed, the situation might very naturally suggest to one so accustomed to the seamy side of human nature, that this sudden demise of an inconvenient witness chimed in too opportunely with the need of the man he had come there to arrest, for it to be viewed without suspicion.

There was, however, only a tinge of this feeling in his voice as he quietly remarked:

"I thought you buried your _wife_ five years ago in Cornwall."

"And I thought so also," was Leighton Gillespie's quiet reply. "For many, many wretched weeks and months I believed this in common with all my friends. Then--but it is a long story, Mr. Gryce. Do you require me to relate it now and _here_?"

The reverence with which he allowed his hand to touch rather than fall on the breast he had so carefully covered from our curious gaze spoke volumes. At the sight of this simple action, both men bent their heads. I doubt if he noticed it. A stray lock which had escaped from the coverlet and now hung curling and glittering over the straw which protruded from the wretched pallet, had attracted his eye. Lifting it with a lingering touch, he put it softly out of sight; then he quietly said:

"I would like to have one fact made known to the public. My father was ignorant to the last that it was a stranger and not my wife we buried in Cornwall. There were reasons which made it difficult for me to tell him that Mrs. Gillespie still lived; and while I make no excuses for the silence I maintained towards him on this subject, I acknowledge that to it are due my present position and the misery I am now under of seeing the darling of my heart die in an attic where I would not house a dog."

The accents of heartfelt sorrow are not to be mistaken. The air of severity with which Mr. Gryce had hitherto surveyed this supposed criminal softened into a look more in keeping with his native benevolence, but he had no reply ready, and the silence became painful. Indeed, the situation was not an easy one for even so experienced a man as Mr. Gryce to handle, and, noting his embarra.s.sment, I bounded into the room and took my place at his side, much as Sweet.w.a.ter had done.

Mr. Gillespie scarcely remarked this new inroad upon his privacy. He doubtless took me for another police-officer, and as such not to be noted or counted. But the detectives showed some surprise at my intrusion, which seeing, I turned to Mr. Gryce and said:

"If you will excuse my presumption I should like to speak to Mr.

Gillespie."

The latter started, possibly at my tone, and, wheeling about, gazed at my bare head and drenched figure with sharp curiosity in which a growing recognition soon became visible.