The Amateur Gentleman Part 123

"Clo!" he cried, "dearest of sisters, if ever you need a f-friend when I'm gone, he's here. Turn to him, Clo--look up--give him your hand. Y-you loved him once, I think, and you were right--quite r-right. You can t-trust Beverley, Clo--g-give him your hand."

"No, no!" cried Cleone, and, s.n.a.t.c.hing her fingers from Barrymaine's clasp, she turned away.

"What--you w-won't?"

"No--never, never!"

"Why not? Answer me! Speak, I tell you!"

But Cleone knelt there beside the couch, her head proudly averted, uttering no word.

"Why, you don't think, like so many of the fools, that he killed Jasper Gaunt, do you?" cried Barrymaine feverishly. "You don't think he d-did it, do you--do you? Ah, but he didn't--he didn't, I tell you, and I know--because--"

"Stop!" exclaimed Barnabas.

"Stop--no, why should I? She'll learn soon enough now and I'm m-man enough to tell her myself--I'm no c-coward, I tell you--"

Then Cleone raised her head and looked up at her half-brother, and in her eyes were a slow-dawning fear and horror.

"Oh, Ronald!" she whispered, "what do you mean?"

"Mean?" cried Barrymaine, "I mean that I did it--I did it. Yes, I k-killed Jasper Gaunt, but it was no m-murder, Clo--a--a fight, an accident--yes, I s-swear to G.o.d I never meant to do it."

"You!" she whispered, "you?"

"Yes, I--I did it, but I swear I never m-meant to--oh, Cleone--" and he reached down to her with hands outstretched appealingly. But Cleone shrank down and down--away from him, until she was crouching on the floor, yet staring up at him with wide and awful eyes.

"You!" she whispered.

"Don't!" he cried. "Ah, don't look at me like that and oh, my G.o.d!

W-won't you l-let me t-touch you, Clo?"

"I--I'd rather you--wouldn't;" and Barnabas saw that she was s.h.i.+vering violently.

"But it was no m-murder," he pleaded, "and I'm g-going away, Clo--ah!

won't you let me k-kiss you good-by--just once, Clo?"

"I'd rather--you wouldn't," she whispered.

"Y-your hand, then--only your hand, Clo."

"I'd rather--you didn't!"

Then Ronald Barrymaine groaned and fell on his knees beside her and sought to kiss her little foot, the hem of her dress, a strand of her long, yellow hair; but seeing how she shuddered away from him, a great sob broke from him and he rose to his feet.

"Beverley," he said, "oh, Beverley, s-she won't let me touch her."

And so stood a while with his face hidden in his griping hands.

After a moment he looked down at her again, but seeing how she yet gazed at him with that wide, awful, fixed stare, he strove as if to speak; then, finding no words, turned suddenly upon his heel and crossing the room, went into his bed-chamber and locked the door.

Then Barnabas knelt beside that shaken, desolate figure and fain would have comforted her, but now he could hear her speaking in a pa.s.sionate whisper, and the words she uttered were these:

"Oh, G.o.d forgive him! Oh, G.o.d help him! Have mercy upon him, oh G.o.d of Pity!"

And these words she whispered over and over again until, at length, Barnabas reached out and touched her very gently.

"Cleone!" he said.

At the touch she rose and stood looking round the dingy room like one distraught, and, sighing, crossed unsteadily to the door.

And when they reached the stair, Barnabas would have taken her hand because of the dark, but she shrank away from him and shook her head.

"Sir," said she very softly, "a murderer's sister needs no help, I thank you."

And so they went down the dark stair with never a word between them and, reaching the door with the faulty latch, Barnabas held it open and they pa.s.sed out into the dingy street, and as they walked side by side towards Hatton Garden, Barnabas saw that her eyes were still fixed and wide and that her lips still moved in silent prayer.

In a while, being come into Hatton Garden, Barnabas saw a hackney coach before them, and beside the coach a burly, blue-clad figure, a conspicuous figure by reason of his wooden leg and s.h.i.+ny, glazed hat.

"W'y, Lord, Mr. Beverley, sir!" exclaimed the Bo'sun, hurrying forward, with his hairy fist outstretched, "this is a surprise, sir, likewise a pleasure, and--" But here, observing my lady's face, he checked himself suddenly, and opening the carriage door aided her in very tenderly, beckoning Barnabas to follow. But Barnabas shook his head.

"Take care of her, Bo'sun," said he, clasping the sailor's hand, "take great care of her." So saying, he closed the door upon them, and stood to watch the rumbling coach down the bustling street until it had rumbled itself quite out of sight.

CHAPTER LXVII

WHICH GIVES SOME ACCOUNT OF THE WORST PLACE IN THE WORLD

A bad place by day, an evil place by night, an unsavory place at all times is Giles's Rents, down by the River.

It is a place of noisome courts and alleys, of narrow, crooked streets, seething with a dense life from fetid cellar to crowded garret, amid whose grime and squalor the wail of the new-born infant is echoed by the groan of decrepit age and ravaging disease; where Vice is rampant and ghoulish Hunger stalks, pale and grim.

Truly an unholy place is Giles's Rents, down by the River.

Here, upon a certain evening, Barnabas, leaning out from his narrow cas.e.m.e.nt, turned wistful-eyed, to stare away over broken roof and chimney, away beyond the maze of squalid courts and alleys that hemmed him in to where, across the River, the sun was setting in a blaze of glory, yet a glory that served only to make more apparent all the filth and decay, all the sordid ugliness of his surroundings.

Below him was a dirty court, where dirty children fought and played together, filling the reeking air with their shrill clamor, while slatternly women stood gossiping in ragged groups with grimy hands on hips, or with arms rolled up in dingy ap.r.o.ns. And Barnabas noticed that the dirty children and gossiping women turned very often to stare and point up at a certain window a little further along the court, and he idly wondered why.

It had been a day of stifling heat, and even now, though evening was at hand, he breathed an air close and heavy and foul with a thousand impurities.

Now as he leaned there, with his earnest gaze bent ever across the River, Barnabas sighed, bethinking him of clean, white, country roads, of murmuring brooks and rills, of the cool green shades of dewy woods full of the fragrance of hidden flower and herb and sweet, moist earth. But most of all he bethought him of a certain wayside inn, an ancient inn of many gables, above whose hospitable door swung a sign whereon a weather-beaten hound, dim-legged and faded of tail, pursued a misty blur that by common report was held to be hare; a comfortable, homely inn of no especial importance perhaps, yet the very best inn to be found in all broad England, none the less. And, as he thought, a sudden, great yearning came upon Barnabas and, leaning his face between his hands, he said within himself:

"'I will arise, and go to my father!'"

But little by little he became aware that the clamor below had ceased and, glancing down into the court, beheld two men in red waistcoats, large men, bewhiskered men and square of elbow.

Important men were these, at sight of whom the ragged children stood awed and silent and round of eye, while the gossiping women drew back to give them way. Yes, men of consequence they were, beyond a doubt, and Barnabas noticed that they also stared very often at a certain window a little further up the court and from it to a third man who limped along close behind them by means of a very n.o.bbly stick; a shortish, broadish, mild-looking man whose face was hidden beneath the shadow of the broad-brimmed hat. Nevertheless at sight of this man Barnabas uttered an exclamation, drew in his head very suddenly and thereafter stood, listening and expectant, his gaze on the door like one who waits to meet the inevitable.