The Betrayal - E. Phillips Oppenheim (the snowy day read aloud txt) 📗

was tugging at one of the huge lamps. I closed my eyes in despair.

Once more the wind swept into my room, the door was quickly opened and closed. A man-servant in his long coat, and cockaded hat tied round his head with a piece of string, set down the lamp upon my table. Behind, the girl and Mostyn Ray were talking.

"The man had better stop," he whispered. "There is the fire to be made."

For the first time I heard her voice, very slow and soft, almost languid, yet very pleasant to listen to.

"No!" she said firmly. "It will look so much like taking him by storm.
I can assure you that I am by no means a helpless person."

"And I," he answered, "am a campaigner."

"Get back as quickly as you can, Richards," she directed, "and get the things I told you from Mrs. Brown. Jean must bring you back in the motor."

Once more the door opened and shut. I heard the swish of her skirts as she came over towards me.

"Poor fellow!" she murmured. "I'm afraid that he is very ill."

I opened my eyes and made an attempt to rise. She laid her hand upon my shoulder and smiled,

"Please don't move," she said, "and do forgive us for this intrusion. Colonel Ray wanted to call and apologize about this evening, and I am so glad that he did. We are going to take no end of liberties, but you must remember that we are neighbours, and therefore have privileges."

What could I say in answer to such a speech as this? As a matter of fact speech of any sort was denied me; a great sob had stuck in my throat. They did what was kindest. They left me alone.

I heard them rummaging about in my back room, and soon I heard the chopping of sticks. Presently I heard the crackling of flames, and I knew that a fire had been lit. A dreamy partial unconsciousness destitute of all pain, and not in itself unpleasant, stole over me. I felt my boots cut from my feet. I was gently lifted up. Some of my outer garments were removed. Every now and then I heard their voices, I heard her shocked exclamation as she examined my larder, I heard the words "starvation," "exhaustion," scarcely applying them to myself. Then I heard her call to him softly. She was standing by my bookcase.

"Do you see this?" she murmured. "'Guy Ducaine, Magdalen,' and the college coat of arms. They must belong to him, for that is his name."

I did not hear his answer, but directly afterwards a little exclamation escaped him.

"By Jove, what luck! I have my flask with me, after all. Is there a spoon there, Lady Angela?"

She brought him one directly. He stooped down, and I felt the metal strike my teeth. The brandy seemed to set all my blood flowing once more warmly in my veins. The heat of the fire, too, was delicious.

And then the strangest thing of all happened. I opened my eyes. My chair was drawn sideways to the fire and immediately facing the window. The first thing that I saw was this. Pressed against it, peering into the room, was the white face of a man, an entire stranger to me.

CHAPTER II GOOD SAMARITANS

They both hurried to my side. I was sitting up in my chair, pointing, my eyes fixed with surprise. I do not know even now why the incident should so much have alarmed me, but it is a fact that for the moment I was palsied with fear. There had been murder in the man's eyes, loathsome things in his white unkempt face. My tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. They gave me more brandy, and then I spoke.

"There was a man—looking in. A man's face there, at the window!"

Ray took up the lamp and strode to the door. When he returned he exchanged a significant glance with Lady Angela.

"There is no one there now, at any rate," he said. "I dare say it was fancy."

"It was not," I answered. "It was a man's face—a horrible face."

"The omnibus is coming back," he said quietly. "The servants shall have a good look round."

"I would not worry about it," Lady Angela said, soothingly. "It is easy to fancy things when one is not well."

So they meant to treat me like a child. I said nothing, but it was a long time before my limbs ceased to shake. The tall servant reappeared with a huge luncheon basket—all manner of delicacies were emptied out upon my table. Lady Angela was making something in a clip, Ray was undoing a gold-foiled bottle. Soon I found myself eating and drinking, and the blood once more was mashing through my veins. I was my own man again, rescued by charity. And of all the women in the world, fate had sent this one to play the Lady Bountiful.

"You are looking better, my young friend," Colonel Ray said presently.

"I feel-quite all right again, thank you," I answered. "I wish I could thank you and Lady Angela."

"You must not attempt anything of the sort," she declared. "My father, by-the-bye, Mr. Ducaine, wished me to express his great regret that he should have interfered in any way with your arrangements for this evening. You know, there are so many stupid people around here who have never understood anything at all about the war, and he was very anxious to get Colonel Ray to talk to them. He had no idea, however, that it was the night fixed for your lecture, and he hopes that you will accept the loan of the village hall from him any night you like, and we should so much like all of us to come."

"His Grace is very kind," I murmured. "I fear, however, that the people are not very much interested in lectures, even about their own neighbourhood."

"I am, at any rate," Lady Angela answered, smiling, "and I think we can promise you an audience."

Colonel Ray, who had been standing at the window, came back to us.

"If I may be permitted to make a suggestion, Lady Angela," he said, "I think it would be well if you returned home now, and I will follow shortly on foot."

"Indeed," I said, "there is no need for you, Colonel Ray, to remain. I am absolutely recovered now, and the old woman who looks after me will be here in the morning."

He seemed scarcely to have heard me. Afterwards, when I knew him better, I understood his apparent unconcern of any suggestion counter to his own. He thought slowly and he spoke seldom, but when he had once spoken the matter, so far as he was concerned, was done with. Lady Angela apparently was used to him, for she rose at once. She did not shake hands, but she nodded to me pleasantly. Colonel Ray handed her into the wagonette, and I heard the quicker throbbing of the engine as it glided off into the darkness.

It was several minutes before he returned. I began to wonder whether he had changed his mind, and returned to Rowchester with Lady Angela. Then the door handle suddenly turned, and he stepped in. His hair was tossed with the wind, his shoes were wet and covered with mud, and he was breathing rather fast, as though he had been running. I looked at him inquiringly. He offered me no explanation. But on his way to the chair, which he presently drew up to the fire, he paused for a full minute by the window, and shading the carriage lamp which he still carried, with his hand, he looked steadily out into the darkness. A thought struck me.

"You have seen him!" I exclaimed.

He set down the lamp upon the table, and deliberately seated himself.

"Seen whom?" he asked, producing a pipe and tobacco.

"The man who looked in—whose face I saw at the window."

He struck a match and lit his pipe.

"I have seen no one," he answered quietly. "The face was probably a fancy of yours. I should recommend you to forget it."

I looked down at his marsh-stained shoes. One foot was wet to the ankle, and a thin strip of green seaweed had wound itself around his trousers. To any other man I should have had more to say. Yet even in those first few hours of our acquaintance I had become, like all the others, to some extent the servant of his will, spoken or unspoken. So I held my peace and looked away into the fire. I felt he had something to say to me, and I waited.

He moved his head slowly towards the bookcase.

"Those books," he asked, "are yours?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Your name then is Guy Ducaine?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever know your father?"

It was a singular question. I looked at him quickly. His face was sphinxlike.

"No. Why do you ask? Did you?"

He ignored me absolutely for several moments. His whole attention seemed fixed upon the curling wreath of blue smoke which hung between us.

"He died, I suppose," he continued, "when you were about twelve years old."

I nodded.

"My uncle," I said, "gave me a holiday and a sovereign to spend. He told me that a great piece of good fortune had happened to me."

Colonel Ray smiled grimly.

"That was like old Stephen Ducaine," he remarked. "He died himself a few years afterwards."

"Three years."

"He left you ten thousand pounds. What have you done with it?"

"Mr. Heathcote, of Heathcote, Sons, and Vyse, was my solicitor."

"Well?"

I remembered that he had been away from England for several years.

"The firm failed," I told him, "for a quarter of a million. Mr. Heathcote shot himself. I am told that there is a probable dividend of sixpence-half-penny in the pound to come some day."

Colonel Ray smoked on in silence. This was evidently news to him.

"Awkward for you," he remarked at last.

I laughed a little bitterly. I knew quite well that he was expecting me to continue, and I did so.

"I sold my things at Magdalen, and paid my debts. I was promised two pupils if I would take a house somewhere on this coast. I took one and got ready for them with my last few pounds. Their father died suddenly—and they did not come. I got rid of the house, at a sacrifice, and came to this cottage."

"You took your degree?"

"With honours."

He blew out more smoke.

"You are young," he said, "a gentleman by birth, and I should imagine a moderate athlete. You have an exceptional degree, and I presume a fair knowledge of the world. Yet you appear to be deliberately settling down here to starve."

"I can assure you," I answered, "that the deliberation is lacking. I have no fear of anything of the sort. I expect to get some pupils in the neighbourhood, and also some literary work. For the moment I am a little hard up, and I thought perhaps that I might make a few shillings by a lecture."

"Of the proceeds of which," he remarked, with a dry little smile, "I appear to have robbed you."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I hoped for little but a meal or two from it," I answered. "The only loss is to my self-respect. I owe to charity what I might have earned."

He took his pipe from his mouth and looked at me with a thin derisive smile.

"You talk," he said, "like a very young man. If you had knocked about in all corners of the world as I have you would have learnt a greater lesson from a greater book. When a man meets brother man in the wilds, who talks of charity? They divide goods and pass on. Even the savages do this."

"These," I ventured to remark, "are not the wilds."

He sighed and replaced his pipe in his mouth.

"You are young, very young," he remarked, thoughtfully. "You have that beastly hothouse education, big ideas on thin stalks, orchids instead of roses, the stove instead of the sun. The wilds are everywhere—on the Thames Embankment, even in this God-forsaken corner of the world. The wilds are wherever men meet men."

I was silent. Who was I to argue with Ray, whose fame was in every one's mouth—soldier, traveller, and diplomatist? For many years he had been living hand and glove with