Complete works of hall c.., p.79
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 79
The old woman was hobbling back. Hugh was standing in thought, with head bent, and the nail of his forefinger on his cheek.
“By the way, Mrs. Drayton,” he said, “you should get the girl to help you a little sometimes.”
“Lor’s, sir, I never troubles her, being as she’s like a visitor.”
“Nonsense, Mrs. Drayton. She’s young and hearty, and your own years are just a little past their best, you know. How’s your breathing to-day — any easier?”
“Well, I can’t say as it’s a mort better, neither, thanking you the same, sir,” and a protracted fit of coughing bore timely witness to the landlady’s words.
“Ah! that’s’ a bad bout, my good woman.”
“Well, it is, sir; and I get no sympathy, neither — leastways not from him as a mother might look to — in a manner of speaking.”
“Bethink you. Is there nothing the girl can do for you when she comes? Nothing wanted? No errand?”
“Well, sir, taking it kindly, sir, there’s them finings in the cellar a-wants doing bad, and the boy as ought to do ‘em, he’s that grumpysome, as I declare—”
“Quite right, Mrs. Drayton. Send the girl down to them the moment she comes in, and keep her down until bed-time.”
“Thank you, sir! I’m sure I takes it very kind and thoughtful of a gentleman to say as much, and no call, neither.”
The landlady shuffled down-stairs, wagging gratefully her dense old noddle; the thoughtful gentleman left the key of Drayton’s room in the lock on the outside of the door, and ascended a ladder that went up from the end of the passage. He knocked at a door at the top. At first there was no answer. A dull shuffling of feet could be heard from within. “Come, open the door,” said Hugh, impatiently.
The door was opened cautiously. Drayton stood behind it. Hugh Ritson entered. There was no light in the room; the red, smoking wick of a tallow candle, newly extinguished, was filling the air with its stench.
“You take care of yourself,” said Hugh. “Let us have a light.”
Drayton went down on his knees in the dark, fumbled on the floor for a box of lucifers, and relighted the candle. He was in his shirt-sleeves.
“Cold without your coat, eh?” said Hugh. A sneer played about his lips.
Without answering, Drayton turned to a mattress that lay in the gloom of one corner, lifted it, took up a coat that lay under it, and put it on. It was the ulster with the torn lapel.
Hugh Ritson followed Drayton’s movements, and laughed slightly. “Men like you are always cautious in the wrong place,” he said. “Let them lay hands on you, and they won’t be long finding your — coat.” The last word had a contemptuous dig of emphasis.
“Damme if I won’t burn it, for good and all,” muttered Drayton. His manner was dogged and subdued.
“No, you won’t do that,” said Hugh, and he eyed him largely. The garret was empty save for the mattress and the blanket that lay on it, and two or three plates, with the refuse of food, on the floor. It was a low room, with a skylight in the rake of the roof, which sloped down to a sharp angle. There was no window. The walls were half timbered, and had once been plastered, but the laths were now bare in many places.
“Heard anything?” said Drayton, doggedly.
“Yes; I called and told the police sergeant that I thought I was on the scent.”
“What? No!”
The two men looked at each other — Drayton suspicious, Hugh Ritson with amused contempt.
“Tell you what, you don’t catch me hobnobbing with them gentry,” said Drayton, recovering his composure.
Hugh Ritson made no other answer than a faint smile. As he looked into the face of Drayton, he was telling himself that no man had ever before been at the top of such a situation as that of which he himself was then the master. Here was a man who was the half-brother of Greta, and the living image of her husband. Here was a man who, despite vague suspicions, did not know his own identity. Here was a man over whom hung an inevitable punishment. Hugh Ritson smiled at the daring idea he had conceived of making this man personate himself.
“Drayton,” he said, “I mean to stand your friend in this trouble.”
“Tell you again, the best friend to me is the man as helps me to make my lucky.”
“You shall do it, Drayton, this very night. Listen to me. That man, my brother, as they call him — Paul Ritson, as his name goes — is not my father’s son. He is the son of my mother by another man, and his true name is Paul Lowther.”
“I don’t care what his true name is, nor his untrue, neither. It ain’t nothing to me, say I, and no more is it.”
“Would it be anything to you to inherit five thousand pounds?”
“What?”
“Paul Lowther is the heir to as much. What would you say if I could put you in Paul Lowther’s place, and get you Paul Lowther’s inheritance?”
“Eh? A fortune out of hand — how?”
“The way I described before.”
There was a slight scraping sound, such as a rat might have made in burrowing behind the partition.
“What’s that?” said Drayton, his face whitening, and his watchful eyes glancing toward the door. “A key in the lock?” he whispered.
“Tut! isn’t your own key on the inside?” said Hugh Ritson.
Drayton hung his head in shame at his idle fears.
“I know — I haven’t forgot,” he muttered, covering his discomfiture.
“It’s a pity to stay here and be taken, when you might as easily be safe,” said Hugh.
“So it is,” Drayton mumbled.
“And go through penal servitude for life, when another man might do it for you,” added Hugh, with a ghostly smile.
“I ain’t axing you to say it over. What’s that?” Drayton cowered down. The bankrupt garret had dropped a cake of its rotten plaster. Hugh Ritson moved not a muscle; only the sidelong glance told of his contempt for the hulking creature’s cowardice.
“The lawyer who has charge of this legacy is my friend and comrade,” he said, after a moment’s silence. “We should have no difficulty in that quarter. My mother is — Well, she’s gone. There would be no one left to question you. If you were only half shrewd the path would be clear.”
“What about her?”
“Greta? She would be your wife.”
“My wife?”
“In name. You would go back, as I told you, and say: ‘I, whom you have known as Paul Ritson, am really Paul Lowther, and therefore the half-brother of the woman with whom I went through the ceremony of marriage. This fact I learned immediately on reaching London. I bring the lady back as I found her, and shall ask that the marriage — which is no marriage — be annulled. I deliver up to the rightful heir, Hugh Ritson, the estates of Allan Ritson, and make claim to the legacy left me by my father, Robert Lowther.’ This is what you have to say and do, and every one will praise you for an honest and upright man.”
“Very conscientious, no doubt; but what about him?”
“He will then be Paul Drayton, and a felon.”
Drayton chuckled. “And what about her?”
“If he is in safe keeping, she will count for nothing.”
“So I’m to be Paul Lowther.”
“You are to pretend to be Paul Lowther.”
“I told you afore, as it won’t go into my nob, and no more it will,” said Drayton, scratching his head.
“You shall have time to learn your lesson; you shall have it pat,” said Hugh Ritson. “Meantime—”
At that instant Drayton’s eyes were riveted on the skylight with an affrighted stare.
“Look yonder!” he whispered.
“What?”
“The face on the roof!”
Hugh Ritson plucked up the candle and thrust it over his head and against the glass. “What face?” he said, contemptuously.
Again Drayton’s head fell in shame at his abject fear.
There was a shuffling footstep on the ladder outside. Drayton held his head aside, and listened. “The old woman,” he mumbled. “What now? Supper, I suppose.”
CHAPTER XV.
At that moment there was a visitor in the bar down-stairs. He was an elderly man, with shaggy eyebrows and a wizened face; a diminutive creature with a tousled head of black and gray. It was Gubblum Oglethorpe. The mountain peddler had traveled south to buy chamois leather, and had packed a great quantity of it into a bundle, like a panier, which he carried over one arm.
Since the wedding at Newlands, three days ago, Gubblum’s lively intelligence had run a good deal on his recollection of the man resembling Paul Ritson, whom he had once seen in Hendon. He had always meant to settle for himself that knotty question. So here, on his first visit to London, he intended to put up at the very inn about which the mystery gathered.
“How’s ta rubbun on?” he said, by way of salute on entering. When Mrs. Drayton had gone upstairs she had left the pot-boy in charge of the bar. He was a loutish lad of sixteen, and his name was Jabez.
Jabez slowly lifted his eyes from the pewters he was washing, and a broad smile crossed his face. Evidently the new-comer was a countryman.
“Cold neet, eh? Sharp as a step-mother’s breath,” said Gubblum, throwing down the panier and drawing up to the fire.
The smile on the face of Jabez broadened perceptibly, and he began to chuckle.
“What’s ta snertan at, eh?” said Gubblum. “I say it’s hot weather varra. Hasta owt agenn it?”
Jabez laughed outright. Clearly the countryman must be crazy.
“What’s yon daft thingamy aboot?” thought Gubblum. Then aloud, “Ay, my lad, gie us a laal sup o’ summat.”
Jabez found his risible faculties sorely disturbed by this manner of speech. But he proceeded to fill a pewter. The pot-boy’s movements resembled those of a tortoise in celerity.
“He’s a stirran lad, yon,” thought Gubblum. “He’s swaddering like a duck in a puddle.”
“Can I sleep here to-neet?” he asked, when Jabez had brought him his beer.
Then the sapient smile on the pot-boy’s face ripened into speech.
“I ain’t answering for the sleeping,” said Jabez, “but happen you may have a bed — he, he, he! I’ll ask the missis — he, he, haw!”
“The missis? Hasta never a master, then?” said Gubblum.
Now, Jabez had been warned, with many portentous threats, that in the event of any one asking for the master he was to be as mute as the grave. So in answer to the peddler’s question he merely shook his wise head and looked grave and astonishingly innocent.
“No? And how lang hasta been here?”
“Three years come Easter,” said Jabez.
“And how lang dusta say ‘at missis has been here?”
“Missis? I heard father say as Mistress Drayton has kep’ the Hawk and Heron this five-and-twenty year.”
“Five-and-twenty! Then I reckon that master would be no’but a laal wee barn when she coomt first,” said Gubblum.
“Happen he were,” said Jabez. Then, recovering the caution so unexpectedly disturbed, Jabez protested afresh that he had no master.
“It’s slow wark suppen buttermilk wi’ a pitchfork,” thought Gubblum, and he proceeded to employ a spoon.
“Sista, my lad, wadsta like me to lend thee a shilling?”
Jabez grinned, and closed his fat fist on the coin thrust into his palm.
“I once knew a man as were the varra spitten picter of your master,” said Gubblum. “In fact, his varra sel’, upsett’n and doon thross’n. I thowt it were hissel’, that’s the fact. But when I tackled him he threept me down, and I was that vexed I could have bitten the side out of a butter-bowl.”
“But I ain’t got no master,” protested Jabez.
“I were riding by on my laal pony that day, but now I’m going shankum naggum,” continued Gubblum, unmindful of the pot-boy’s mighty innocent look. “‘A canny morning to you, Master Paul,’ I shouted, and on I went.”
“Then you know his name?” said Jabez, opening wide his drowsy eyes.
“‘Master Paul’s half his time frae home,’ says the chap on t’road. ‘Coorse he is,’ I says: ‘it’s me for knowing that,’ Ah, I mind it same as it were yesterday. I looked back, and there he was standing at the door, and he just snitit his nose wi’ his finger and thoom. Ey, he did, for sure.”
Jabez found his conscience abnormally active at that moment. “But I ain’t got none,” he protested afresh.
“None what?”
“No master.”
“That’s a lie, my lad, for I see he’s been putten a swine ring on yer snout to keep ye frae rooting up the ground.”
After this Gubblum sat a good half-hour in silence. Mrs. Drayton came down-stairs and arranged that Gubblum should sleep that night in the house. His bedroom was to be a little room at the back, entered from the vicinity of the ladder that led to the attics.
Gubblum got up, said he was tired, and asked to be shown to his room. Jabez lighted a candle, and they went off together.
“Whereiver does that lead to?” said Gubblum, pointing to the ladder near his bedroom door.
“I dunno,” said Jabez, moodily. He had been ruminating on Gubblum’s observation about the swine ring.
“He’s as sour as vargis,” thought Gubblum.
There was the creak of a footstep overhead.
“Who sleeps in the pigeon loft?” Gubblum asked, tipping his finger upward.
“I dunno,” repeated Jabez.
“His dander’s up,” thought Gubblum.
Just then the landlady in the bar heard the sound of wheels on the road, and the next moment a carriage drew up at the open door.
“I say there, lend a hand here, quick!” shouted the driver.
Mrs. Drayton hobbled up. The flyman was leaning through the door of the fly, helping some one to alight.
“Take a’ arm, missy; there, that’s the size of it. Now, sir, down, gently.”
The person assisted was a man. The light from the bar fell on his face, and the landlady saw him clearly. It was Paul Ritson. He was flushed, and his eyes were bloodshot. Behind him was Mercy Fisher, with recent tears on her cheeks.
“Oh, he’s ill, Mrs. Drayton,” said Mercy.
Paul freed one of his arms from the grasp of the girl, waved with a gesture of deprecation, smiled a jaunty smile, and said:
“No, no, no; let me walk; I’m well — I’m well.”
With this he made for the house, but before he had taken a second step he staggered and fell against the door-jamb.
“Deary me, deary me, the poor gentleman’s taken badly,” said Mrs. Drayton, fussing about.
Paul Ritson laughed a little, lifted his red eyes, and said:
“Well, well! But it’s nothing. Just dizzy, that’s all. And thirsty — very — give me a drink, good woman.”
“Bring that there bench up, missy, and we’ll put him astride it,” said the driver. “Right; that’s the time o’ day. Now, sir, down.”
“Deary me, deary me, drink this, my good gentleman. It’ll do you a mort o’ good. It’s brandy.”
“Water — bring me water,” said Paul Ritson, feebly; “I’m parched.”
“How hot his forehead is,” said Mercy.
“And no light ‘un to lift, neither,” said the driver. “Does he live here, missis?”
Mrs. Drayton brought a glass of water. Paul drained it to the last drop.
“No, sir; I mean yes, driver,” said the landlady, confusedly.
“He warn’t so bad getting in,” the driver observed.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear! where is Mr. Christian — Parson Christian?” said Mercy, whose distracted eyes wandered around.
“The gentleman’s come, sir; he’s upstairs, sir,” said the landlady, and, muttering to herself, Mrs. Drayton hobbled away.
Paul Ritson’s head had fallen on his breast. His hat was off, and his hair tumbled over his face. The strong man sat coiled up on the bench. Then he shook himself and threw up his head, as if trying to cast off the weight of stupor that sat on him.
“Well, well! who’d have thought of this? Water — more water!” he mumbled in a thick voice.
Mercy stood before him with a glass in her hand.
“Is it good for him, I wonder?” she said. “Oh, where is Mr. Christian?”
Paul Ritson saw the glass, clutched at it with both hands, then smiled a poor, weak smile, as if to atone for his violence, and drank every drop.
“Well, well! — so hot — and dizzy — and cold!” he muttered, incoherently.
Then he relapsed into silence. After a moment, the driver, who was supporting him at the back, looked over at his face. The eyes were closed, and the lips were hanging.
“He’s gone off unconscious,” said the flyman. “Ain’t ye got a bed handy?”
At that moment Mrs. Drayton came hastily down-stairs, in a fever of agitation.
“You’ve got to get him up to his room,” she said, between gusts of breath.
“That’s a job for two men, ain’t it, missis?” said the driver.
Mercy had loosened Paul’s collar, and with a nervous hand she was bathing his burning forehead.
“Oh, tell Mr. Christian,” she said; “say he has fainted.”
Mrs. Drayton hobbled back. In another instant there was a man’s step descending the stairs. Hugh Ritson entered the bar. He looked down at the unconscious man and felt his pulse. “When did this happen?” he asked, turning to Mercy.
“He said he was feeling ill when I met him; then he was worse in the train, and when we reached Hendon he was too dizzy to stand,” said Mercy.
“His young woman, ain’t it?” said the flyman, aside, to Hugh.
Hugh nodded his head slightly. Then, turning toward Mrs. Drayton, with a significant glance, “Your poor son is going to be ill,” he said.
The landlady glanced back with a puzzled expression, and began in a blundering whimper, “The poor gentleman—”
“The old lady’s son?” said the flyman, tipping his finger in the direction of the landlady.
