Rodney Stone by Arthur Conan Doyle (affordable ebook reader txt) 📗

hoped that that which had shaken my position might have the effect of restoring his.  As I sat there, fingering the cards in an abstracted way, some chance led me to observe the small needle-pricks which you have just felt.  I went over the packs, and found, to my unspeakable horror, that any one who was in the secret could hold them in dealing in such a way as to be able to count the exact number of high cards which fell to each of his opponents.  And then, with such a flush of shame and disgust as I had never known, I remembered how my attention had been drawn to my brother’s mode of dealing, its slowness, and the way in which he held each card by the lower corner.

“I did not condemn him precipitately.  I sat for a long time calling to mind every incident which could tell one way or the other.  Alas! it all went to confirm me in my first horrible suspicion, and to turn it into a certainty.  My brother had ordered the packs from Ledbury’s, in Bond Street.  They had been for some hours in his chambers.  He had played throughout with a decision which had surprised us at the time.  Above all, I could not conceal from myself that his past life was not such as to make even so abominable a crime as this impossible to him.  Tingling with anger and shame, I went straight up that stair, the cards in my hand, and I taxed him with this lowest and meanest of all the crimes to which a villain could descend.

“He had not retired to rest, and his ill-gotten gains were spread out upon the dressing-table.  I hardly know what I said to him, but the facts were so deadly that he did not attempt to deny his guilt.  You will remember, as the only mitigation of his crime, that he was not yet one and twenty years of age.  My words overwhelmed him.  He went on his knees to me, imploring me to spare him.  I told him that out of consideration for our family I should make no public exposure of him, but that he must never again in his life lay his hand upon a card, and that the money which he had won must be returned next morning with an explanation.  It would be social ruin, he protested.  I answered that he must take the consequence of his own deed.  Then and there I burned the papers which he had won from me, and I replaced in a canvas bag which lay upon the table all the gold pieces.  I would have left the room without another word, but he clung to me, and tore the ruffle from my wrist in his attempt to hold me back, and to prevail upon me to promise to say nothing to you or Sir Lothian Hume.  It was his despairing cry, when he found that I was proof against all his entreaties, which reached your ears, Charles, and caused you to open your chamber door and to see me as I returned to my room.”

My uncle drew a long sigh of relief.

“Nothing could be clearer!” he murmured.

“In the morning I came, as you remember, to your room, and I returned your money.  I did the same to Sir Lothian Hume.  I said nothing of my reasons for doing so, for I found that I could not bring myself to confess our disgrace to you.  Then came the horrible discovery which has darkened my life, and which was as great a mystery to me as it has been to you.  I saw that I was suspected, and I saw, also, that even if I were to clear myself, it could only be done by a public confession of the infamy of my brother.  I shrank from it, Charles.  Any personal suffering seemed to me to be better than to bring public shame upon a family which has held an untarnished record through so many centuries.  I fled from my trial, therefore, and disappeared from the world.

“But, first of all, it was necessary that I should make arrangements for the wife and the son, of whose existence you and my other friends were ignorant.  It is with shame, Mary, that I confess it, and I acknowledge to you that the blame of all the consequences rests with me rather than with you.  At the time there were reasons, now happily long gone past, which made me determine that the son was better apart from the mother, whose absence at that age he would not miss.  I would have taken you into my confidence, Charles, had it not been that your suspicions had wounded me deeply—for I did not at that time understand how strong the reasons were which had prejudiced you against me.

“On the evening after the tragedy I fled to London, and arranged that my wife should have a fitting allowance on condition that she did not interfere with the child.  I had, as you remember, had much to do with Harrison, the prize-fighter, and I had often had occasion to admire his simple and honest nature.  I took my boy to him now, and I found him, as I expected, incredulous as to my guilt, and ready to assist me in any way.  At his wife’s entreaty he had just retired from the ring, and was uncertain how he should employ himself.  I was able to fit him up as a smith, on condition that he should ply his trade at the village of Friar’s Oak.  My agreement was that James was to be brought up as their nephew, and that he should know nothing of his unhappy parents.

“You will ask me why I selected Friar’s Oak.  It was because I had already chosen my place of concealment; and if I could not see my boy, it was, at least, some consolation to know that he was near me.  You are aware that this mansion is one of the oldest in England; but you are not aware that it has been built with a very special eye to concealment, that there are no less than two habitable secret chambers, and that the outer or thicker walls are tunnelled into passages.  The existence of these rooms has always been a family secret, though it was one which I valued so little that it was only the chance of my seldom using the house which had prevented me from pointing them out to some friend.  Now I found that a secure retreat was provided for me in my extremity.  I stole down to my own mansion, entered it at night, and, leaving all that was dear to me behind, I crept like a rat behind the wainscot, to live out the remainder of my weary life in solitude and misery.  In this worn face, Charles, and in this grizzled hair, you may read the diary of my most miserable existence.

“Once a week Harrison used to bring me up provisions, passing them through the pantry window, which I left open for the purpose.  Sometimes I would steal out at night and walk under the stars once more, with the cool breeze upon my forehead; but this I had at last to stop, for I was seen by the rustics, and rumours of a spirit at Cliffe Royal began to get about.  One night two ghost-hunters—”

“It was I, father,” cried Boy Jim; “I and my friend, Rodney Stone.”

“I know it was.  Harrison told me so the same night.  I was proud, James, to see that you had the spirit of the Barringtons, and that I had an heir whose gallantry might redeem the family blot which I have striven so hard to cover over.  Then came the day when your mother’s kindness—her mistaken kindness—gave you the means of escaping to London.”

“Ah, Edward,” cried his wife, “if you had seen our boy, like a caged eagle, beating against the bars, you would have helped to give him even so short a flight as this.”

“I do not blame you, Mary.  It is possible that I should have done so.  He went to London, and he tried to open a career for himself by his own strength and courage.  How many of our ancestors have done the same, save only that a sword-hilt lay in their closed hands; but of them all I do not know that any have carried themselves more gallantly!”

“That I dare swear,” said my uncle, heartily.

“And then, when Harrison at last returned, I learned that my son was actually matched to fight in a public prize-battle.  That would not do, Charles!  It was one thing to fight as you and I have fought in our youth, and it was another to compete for a purse of gold.”

“My dear friend, I would not for the world—”

“Of course you would not, Charles.  You chose the best man, and how could you do otherwise?  But it would not do!  I determined that the time had come when I should reveal myself to my son, the more so as there were many signs that my most unnatural existence had seriously weakened my health.  Chance, or shall I not rather say Providence, had at last made clear all that had been dark, and given me the means of establishing my innocence.  My wife went yesterday to bring my boy at last to the side of his unfortunate father.”

There was silence for some time, and then it was my uncle’s voice which broke it.

“You’ve been the most ill-used man in the world, Ned,” said he.  “Please God we shall have many years yet in which to make up to you for it.  But, after all, it seems to me that we are as far as ever from learning how your unfortunate brother met his death.”

“For eighteen years it was as much a mystery to me as to you, Charles.  But now at last the guilt is manifest.  Stand forward, Ambrose, and tell your story as frankly and as fully as you have told it to me.”

p. 340CHAPTER XXI.
THE VALET’S STORY.

The valet had shrunk into the dark corner of the room, and had remained so motionless that we had forgotten his presence until, upon this appeal from his former master, he took a step forward into the light, turning his sallow face in our direction.  His usually impassive features were in a state of painful agitation, and he spoke slowly and with hesitation, as though his trembling lips could hardly frame the words.  And yet, so strong is habit, that, even in this extremity of emotion he assumed the deferential air of the high-class valet, and his sentences formed themselves in the sonorous fashion which had struck my attention upon that first day when the curricle of my uncle had stopped outside my father’s door.

“My Lady Avon and gentlemen,” said he, “if I have sinned in this matter, and I freely confess that I have done so, I only know one way in which I can atone for it, and that is by making the full and complete confession which my noble master, Lord Avon, has demanded.  I assure you, then, that what I am about to tell you, surprising as it may seem, is the absolute and undeniable truth concerning the mysterious death of Captain Barrington.

“It may seem impossible to you that one in my humble walk of life should bear a deadly and implacable hatred against a man in the position of Captain Barrington.  You think that the gulf between is too wide.  I can tell you, gentlemen, that the gulf which can be bridged by unlawful love can be spanned also by an unlawful hatred, and that upon the day when this young man stole from me all that made my life worth living, I vowed to Heaven that I should take from him that foul life of his, though the deed would cover but the tiniest fraction of the debt which he owed me.  I see that you look askance at me, Sir Charles Tregellis, but you should pray to God, sir, that you may never have the chance of finding out what you would yourself be capable of in the same position.”

It was a wonder to all of us to see this man’s fiery nature breaking suddenly through the artificial constraints with which he held it in check.  His short dark hair seemed to bristle upwards, his eyes glowed with the intensity of his passion, and his face expressed a malignity of hatred which neither the death of his enemy nor the lapse of years could mitigate.  The demure servant was gone, and there stood in his place a deep and dangerous man, one who might be an ardent lover or a most vindictive foe.

“We were about to be married, she and I, when some black chance threw him across our path.  I do not know by what base deceptions he lured her away from me.  I have heard that she was