The Bond of Black Part 17

Such was exactly my own opinion, but I had no desire to expose all my feelings, or confess the fascination which she had held over me by reason of her wondrous beauty. It was strange, I thought, how, evil though her heart, she had uttered those ominous warnings. True, I had loved her; I had adored her with all the strength of my being; but she in return had only urged me to love my Platonic little friend Muriel.

She who held me powerless beneath her thrall had, with self-denial, released me in order that I might transfer my affections to the bright-eyed woman who was wearing out her heart at Madame Gabrielle's; she had implored me to cast her aside, and thus escape the mysterious unknown fate which she predicted must inevitably fall upon me.

The reason why she had forbidden me to call at Mrs Popejoy's, or to address a letter there, was now quite plain. She had deceived me, and I could trust her no further.

Yet had she actually deceived me? Had she not plainly told me that she was an evil-doer, a malefactor, one whose mission was to bring ill-fortune to her fellow-creatures. Yes, Aline Cloud was a mystery.

More than ever I now felt that she was the possessor of some unknown subtle influence, some unseen supernatural power by which she could effect evil at will.

"I suppose," I said, in an endeavour to allay the nervous old lady's fears, "I suppose there is some quite ordinary explanation for the strange occurrence. Many things which at first appear inexplicable are, when the truth is made plain, quite ordinary events. So it was, I suppose, with the picture and the ring which were consumed by what appears like spontaneous combustion."

"I don't know," she replied. "I've thought over it a great deal, but the more I think of it, the more extraordinary it seems."

"I regret to have troubled you," I said. "I must try and find her at whatever cost, for the matter is a most important one. If you should by any chance come across her again, or if she visits you, I should be obliged if you would at once communicate with me," and I handed her a card.

"Certainly, sir," she replied. "The hussy entirely misled you, and I should like to be able to fathom the mystery how my picture and ring were reduced to ashes. If I ever do see her again, depend upon it that I'll let you know." Then, with woman's curiosity, pardonable in the circ.u.mstances, she asked, "Is the matter on which you wish to speak to her a personal one?"

"It is, and yet it is not," I responded vaguely. "It concerns another person--a friend."

With that I shook her hand, and accompanied by Ash, walked out and left the house.

As we drove back down the Hampstead Road I turned to the valet and said--

"Do you remember whether a tall, dark, shabby-genteel man in a frock-coat and tall hat--a man with a thin, consumptive-looking face-- ever called upon your master?"

I was thinking of Aline's companion, and of their remarkable conversation. At that moment it occurred to me that it might be of Roddy they had spoken, and not of myself. Did he urge her to kill my friend? Ash reflected deeply.

"I don't remember any man answering that description," he responded.

"After he became a Member of Parliament one or two strange people from his const.i.tuency called to see him, but I don't recollect anybody like the man you describe. How old was he?"

"About forty; or perhaps a trifle over."

The man shook his head. "No," he declared, "I don't think he ever called."

"When your master sent you out with the note that morning had you any suspicion that he meant to receive a secret visitor? Now, don't conceal anything from me. Together we must fathom this mystery." He hesitated, then turning to me, answered--

"Well, to tell the truth, sir, I did."

"What caused you to suspect?"

"First, the letter being unaddressed was a rather curious fact," he responded slowly. "Then, I was to meet a lady whom he did not describe further than that she was youngish, and would wear a bunch of flowers.

All this appeared strange, but my curiosity was further aroused because he had dressed more carefully than he usually did in a morning, as though visitors were coming."

"Was he down at the House on the previous night?"

"Yes, sir; I took a telegram down there, and delivered it to him in the Lobby. He opened it, read it, and uttered a bad word, as if its contents annoyed him very much. Then I returned, and he arrived home about half an hour after midnight. I gave him some whiskey and soda, and left him smoking and studying a big blue-book he had brought home with him."

"Have you any suspicion that the telegram had any connection with the mysterious lady whom you were sent to meet?"

"I've several times thought that it had. Of course I can't tell."

A silence fell between us. At last I spoke again, saying--

"Remember that all you have heard to-day must be kept secret. n.o.body must know that we have been to Mrs Popejoy's. There is a mystery surrounding this lady named Cloud, and when we get to the bottom of it we shall, I feel certain, obtain a clue to the cause of your poor master's death. You, his faithful servant, were, I feel a.s.sured, devoted to him, therefore it behoves us both to work in unison with a view to discovering the truth."

"Certainly, sir; I shall not utter a single word of what I have heard to-day. But," he added, "do you believe that my poor master was murdered?"

"It's an open question," I replied. "There are one or two facts which, puzzling the doctors, may be taken as suspicious, yet there are others which seem quite plain, and point to death from natural causes."

Then, having given him certain instructions how to act if he discovered anything further regarding the mysterious Aline, he alighted at the corner of Cranbourne Street, while I drove on to my own rooms, full of saddest memories of the man who had for years been one of my closest friends.

CHAPTER TEN.

IN DUDDINGTON.

When the winter rains made London dreary, rendering the Strand a veritable quagmire, and when the shops began to display Christmas cards and Christmas numbers, I went South, as I did each year, accompanied by my married sister and her husband, in search of suns.h.i.+ne. I knew the Riviera well. I had enjoyed the rather dull exclusiveness of Cannes; I had stayed one season at the Grand at Nice and capered through Carnival in a clown's dress of mauve and green; I had spent a fortnight once in Mentone, that paradise of the consumptive; and I had paid some lengthy bills at the Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo. My brother-in-law, however, had taken a little white villa on the olive-clad hillside at Beaulieu, which we found was on the verge of everything.

But to me life on the Riviera soon becomes tiresome. A couple or three visits to "the Rooms;" a "five o'clock" or two at La Reserve; tea in a wicker chair in the entrance-hall of that colossal hotel, the Excelsior, at Cimiez, which is patronised by Her Majesty; a dinner at the London House at Nice, and one at the Hermitage at "Monty," and I become tired of the ever-azure sea, of the Noah's Ark gardens, of the artificiality and of the constant brightness of the Riviera "season." I long for my old English home in the country where, in the springtime, all the beauties of the outdoor world come to one with a sense of novelty after the winter's cold and frost.

Therefore at the end of March I returned, pa.s.sing through London, and travelling down to my father's place at Tixover, which was, as always, my pleasant home.

What though the trees were still leafless, and the flowers few; every day, almost every hour, fresh green buds were swelling and opening in the balmy air; the delicate pink of the almond blossom was flus.h.i.+ng the bare twigs in the kitchen-garden, primroses were coyly showing themselves in the coppices and hedgerows, as I drove along from Stamford, while in the sheltered places in the woods as I pa.s.sed I saw sheets of wild hyacinths, "like strips of the sky fallen," delicate snowdrops, and a wealth of daffodils.

As I drove along that morning through Worthorpe and Colly Weston to Duddington, the quaint little old Northamptons.h.i.+re village within a mile of which lies Tixover Hall, it was, though a trifle chilly after the Riviera, one of those bright days which make even the elderly feel young and sprightly again; days on which even the saddest among us are influenced by the infectious brightness of the atmosphere. At no other season of the year is there that delicious sensation of life, of resurrection in the very air, as the grey old earth awakens from her winter sleep and renews her youth again.

As the old bay mare trotted down the short, steep hill from the cross-roads, and Banks was telling me all the gossip of the countryside--how my old friend Doctor Lewis, of Cliffe, had taken to cycling, how an entertainment had been held at the schools, and how somebody in the Parish Council had been making himself obnoxious--we suddenly entered Duddington, the queer old village with its rows of comfortable, old-fas.h.i.+oned cottages, with their attics peeping from beneath the thatch. In the air was that sweet smell of burnt wood peculiar to those peaceful Midland villages, and as we pa.s.sed the inn, and turning, crossed the bridge which led out to the right to Tixover, a couple of villagers pulled their forelocks as a token of respect, I felt tired after two days of incessant travelling, nevertheless there was about that old-world place a home-like feeling, for I had known it ever since I had known myself. Those elderly people who peered out of their cottage doors as we pa.s.sed, and who gave me a merry, laughing greeting, had known me ever since the days when my nurse used to take me for drives in the donkey-cart, while those broad, green meadows on either side of the wandering river had belonged to my family for generations.

A mile away, along a straight road with gradual ascent, a belt of firs came into view, and away through the trees I could distinguish the old, red chimneys of the Hall, the house which for three centuries past had been the residence of my ancestors. Then a few moments later, as we turned into the drive, our approach was heralded by the loud barking of Bruce and Nero, whose ferocity was instantly calmed when I alighted at the door and met my mother at the foot of the great oak staircase.

The old place, with its wide, panelled hall, its long, big rooms, its antiquated furniture--rather the worse for wear perhaps--and its wide hearths where wood fires were still burning, had an air of solidity and comfort after the stuccoed and painted villa at Beaulieu, where the salon with its gilt furniture was only large enough to hold four people comfortably, and the so-called terrace was not much wider than the overhanging eaves.

Yes, Tixover was a fine old place, perhaps not architecturally so handsome as many residences in the vicinity, yet my father, like his father and grandfather before him, did not believe in modernising its interior, hence it was entirely antique with genuine old oak of the time of the first Charles,--queer old high-backed chairs, covered with time-dimmed tapestry that had been worked by hands that had fallen to dust in the days before the Plague devastated London. The old diamond-panes set in lead were the same as in the turbulent days when the Roundheads a.s.sembled about Stamford and Cromwell camped outside Cliffe. There was everything one could desire at Tixover--fis.h.i.+ng in the river which ran through the grounds, shooting in those extensive woods on the Stamford Road, hunting with the Fitzwilliam pack, who several times in the season met at the cross-roads, a mile and a half away, while the roads, although a trifle hilly, were nevertheless almost perfect for cycling.

But when a man has broken his home ties and lives in London, to return to the home of his youth is only pleasant for a limited period. Tixover was a quiet, restful place, but after a month it generally became dreary and dull, and I usually left it with a sigh of relief, and returned to London eager to get back to my own chambers, my club, and the men I knew. Why it was I could never tell. I suppose it is the same with all other men. To those who like town life the country is only tolerable for a time, just as those who set out with a determination to live abroad generally return after a year or so, wearied and homesick.

I found life at home just as even and undisturbed as it had been since my sister Mary had married and I had left to live in London. My parents aged but slowly, and were both still active, therefore I was warmly welcomed, and as that evening I sat in the old familiar drawing-room, with its dingy paintings, its crackling wood fire, and its rather uncomfortable chairs in comparison with my own soft saddlebag ones, I related how we had spent the season on the Riviera; of our excursions to Gra.s.se and Aspremont, of my brother-in-law's luck in winning two zeros in succession, and of my own good fortune in being invited on a week's yachting trip around Corsica and back to Cannes. My parents were interested in all this, for they once used to go to Nice regularly to escape the winter, in the days before the Paillon was covered in or the public gardens were made. Now, however, they no longer went South, preferring, as they put it, the warmth of their own fireside.

It was not surprising. To elderly people who are not in robust health the long journey is fatiguing, while to the invalid "ordered abroad" by irresponsible doctors, the shaking up on the P.L.M. proves often the cause of sudden and fatal collapse.

Of Muriel I had heard but little. I had written to her twice from Beaulieu, and sent her an occasional box of flowers from one of the well-known florists in Nice, yet her letters in return were merely brief notes of thanks, and I feared that perhaps I had annoyed her by too long neglect. There seemed in her letters a tone of complaint which was unusual; therefore, I began to reflect whether it would not be as well to take a trip to town shortly, to see how Simes was keeping my rooms, and entertain her to the usual little dinner at Frascati's.

In the days immediately succeeding my return to Tixover, I drove about a good deal, visiting various friends in the vicinity and making dutiful calls upon my mother's friends. It was always my custom, too, to call upon some of my father's older tenants; the people who had been kind to me when I was a mischievous lad. I found that such informal visits, where I could drink a gla.s.s of fresh milk or homemade wine, were always appreciated, and, truth to tell, I found in them some very pleasant reminiscences of my youth.

One afternoon, when I came in from driving to Oundle, I found my mother taking tea with a stranger, in the pleasant, old-fas.h.i.+oned drawing-room, the mullioned windows of which looked out upon a broad sweep of well-kept lawn, bounded by the river and the meadows beyond.

"Ah! Here's Clifton!" my mother exclaimed as I entered, and at that moment the man who was sitting with her taking tea turned and faced me.

"Let me introduce you. Mr Yelverton, our new curate--my son Clifton."

"Why, Jack!" I cried, wringing his hand, "and it's actually you--a clergyman!" And I gazed at his clerical garb in blank amazement.