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- Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Collected Short Stories
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
Collected Short Stories - Book 18 by Fred M. White offers a captivating mix of thrilling mysteries, dramatic escapades, and unexpected twists. In this collection, White's keen storytelling brings to life a range of characters caught in tense and dangerous situations, from daring criminals to unlikely heroes. Each story is a masterclass in suspense, with gripping narratives that keep the reader guessing until the very end. Perfect for fans of classic mysteries and adventure tales, this volume promises to keep you enthralled with its intricate plots and surprising outcomes. Don't miss the chance to immerse yourself in this thrilling literary ride!
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Table of Contents
Collected Short Stories - Book18
THE HOSPITALLERS
A MESSAGE FROM THE FLOOD
SANTA ANNA
MORAY THE TRAITOR
A FOSTER-FATHER
AUNT MARY
FOR VALUE RECEIVED
AN OBJECT LESSON
THE EBBING TIDE
THE SUBSTITUTE
THE BETTER WAY
Landmarks
Table of Contents
Cover
Collected Short Stories - Book18
THE HOSPITALLERS
First published in Chambers's Journal, May 10, 1890
§ I.
WHEN I am tired and weary of the world, there is one spot where I can find balm for the vexed spirit and rest for an overburdened mind. You would pass it day by day and year by year, never dreaming of the paradise that lies within the city walls. All the passer-by sees is a long blank wall facing the hot dusty street, and nothing to break its dreary monotony save an iron-studded door, like the entrance to a jail. How should you know that beyond it lies all that remains of an erstwhile flourishing monastery of the Dominicans, and that the half-effaced inscription over the grim door points to the fact that, at the suppression of the religious houses, 'the site was granted to John Le Marchant and Raphael Hutchinson, Esquires?' Also, that early in Elizabeth's reign, it belonged to the Fotheryngsbys of Fotheryngsby Court; and further, as every student of Welsh Border history can tell, it is known as the Fotheryngsby Hospital to this day; for in the year of grace 1614 one Sir Thomas Fotheryngsby erected within the walls a quadrangular building to contain 'ten servitors, a Corporal to be over them, and also for a chaplain for their souls' good; five of them to be such as have borne arms, and five such as have served their masters well and faithfully.' And furthermore, 'that each Hospitaller at his first admittance should have a fustian suit of ginger colour of a soldier-like fashion, seemly laced; a hat with a band of white, and red slippers; a soldier-like jerkin with half-sleeves, and a square shirt down half the thigh, with a moncado or Spanish cap; a soldier-like sword with a belt to wear as he goeth abroad; a cloak of red cloth lined with a baise of red, and reaching to the knee; and a seemly gown to be worn of red cloth reaching down to the ankle, lined likewise with red baise, to be worn in walks and journeys.' All of which, with the exception of the sword, has been studiously observed to this very day in the year of our Lord 1888.
Here is such a change from the dusty Widemarsh Street as will startle and delight you. Close the door behind and shut out the workaday world, for, in the historic words of the Quaker, it hath no business here. There is a dim passage opening out suddenly into a quadrangle, formed of twelve houses, four a side; and on the other the ancient chapel, where the chaplain, who is no longer an inmate, officiates; a wonderfully quaint building, containing on the reading-desk a veritable chain-Bible. The houses are small, but neat and clean; and round each doorway, far into the flagged court, are a profusion of flowering plants in pots, making the quiet spot a veritable garden. We have stepped back into the past. There are clean old men and women clad in the 'cloak of red cloth lined with a baise of red;' and for the latter pensioners, the 'seemly gown,' also of ruddy hue. Beyond, there is another passage leading to the gardens, filled with peas and beans, and such produce as the owners care to cultivate; and then, when you have noted and admired the Arcadian neatness, you will have another surprise; for exactly opposite you there stands the ivy-mantled ruin of the old monastery, its roofless walls showing the bright blue sky beyond, with a peep of the same boundless heaven through an open chimney, where now the swallows and sparrows build. Where once the rushes were strewn underfoot, lies a carpet of emerald turf; great heads of foxglove rear themselves on the open hearthstone; the very preaching-cross where vast multitudes were wont to assemble to hear exhortations in time of war, or prayer in the hour of disaster, still remains in the midst of this silent silvan beauty, presided over by the invisible spirit of Peace.
Every inch of this ground is teeming with historic interest. For a small honorarium the Corporal will shake his white head, and pour out his store of antiquarian lore for the stranger's behoof, embellishing his history with certain scraps of information, easy to one long versed in the art of concocting historical fiction, yet at the same time believing every word that falls so solemnly from his own lips.
One bright August morning, some two years since, or it may be more, for time stands still in Fotheryngsby Hospital, two of its inmates sat under the shady side of the refectory wall, facing the gardens. One was an old man, so old that his clean shaven face was one mass of wrinkles; the other, somewhat more robust and hearty, who listened politely to his senior's amiable chatter with some show of interest, for the discussion was warlike, not to say bloodthirsty, to the last degree. Their gray heads were close together, contrasting not inharmoniously with the scarlet coats; on the breasts of each gleamed more than one silver medal with its parti-coloured clasp.
'It's in the blood, Jacob,' said the younger man, reflectively sucking his pipe. 'There was that lad of mine just the same. He might have been the old Squire's body-servant, and a good place too; but nothing would do but soldiering. He fell at Balaklava, in the charge. He was a good lad, was Jim.'
'They was like we, Ben. There's a mort of trouble in bein' a father, not as I ever had time to think much of that sort of thing. When I was a boy, it was a sore time for wives and sweethearts. I'm ninety-five, Mr Choppin—ninety-five next Sunday, and I fought under the Duke at Waterloo——'
'It was in Balaklava harbour,' returned Mr Choppin, not to be outdone, 'as I see my most active service—A.B. on the old Ajax. It was there as Master Frank got killed——'
'And he never smiled again,' interrupted Mr Jacob Dawson, in the tone of one who repeats a well-learnt lesson or an oft-repeated story. 'I've heerd the tale afore, Benjamin, though as sad a one as I ever heerd tell.'
Ben Choppin looked into space meditatively, perfectly unconscious, as was the last speaker, of the irony underlying his words. It was a hot still morning, with the gentlest of breezes ruffling the ivy mantle of the ruin—a time for rest and retrospection.
'He never smiled again, Jacob,' Choppin resumed approvingly; 'leastwise, not till Miss Sylvia was born, and that was twelve years afterwards. There was three besides her and Master Frank, all of 'em dyin' of infantcy'—as if childhood was some fell disease—'the rest was Turkish Bonds, I'm told.'
Mr Dawson nodded his head approvingly, somewhat hazy in his mind, as well he might be, as to whether the bonds in question represented another and more virulent complaint peculiar to children of tender years.
'There was a lad for you,' continued the narrator, with rising enthusiasm—'a gentleman and a Goldsworthy every inch of him. And, mind you, though he was a midshipman aboard his father's own ship, there was no favour for him.—Well, we was just laughing together—for he always had a pleasant word for everybody—when plump comes a ball and cuts him right down.'
'And then he said, faintlike: "Ben, old fellow, never mind me, but fetch the dear old gov'nor,"' Jacob Dawson exclaimed parenthetically. 'Then you lifts him—all, all white from the pain as he pretends he can't feel. That's what I calls being something like an Englishman.'
'Jacob,' asked Choppin suspiciously, 'where did you get that last bit from?'
'That bit,' Dawson returned, with some show of pride, 'is my own. Still, I won't make a pint on it, Ben, if you do object.'
But Ben was so overcome that he could find no words to reprimand the Corporal for his unparalleled audacity in spoiling the symmetry of his best story.
Interruptions, so far as they were quotations from the original text, were permitted, and indeed accepted as a compliment; but never before, in the course of fourteen years' friendship, had Mr Dawson ventured to interpolate ideas of his own into the story-teller's polished narrative.
It was, after all, a commonplace tale enough. Captain Goldsworthy, the last of a good old Downshire family, had commanded the Ajax in the Black Sea squadron during the Crimean War; and Ben Choppin, a Downshire man, had been boatswain's mate on board that gallant ship. It was to the death of Captain Goldsworthy's only son that the threadbare story related; but how the Captain came to be a pensioner in the same Hospital as his humble follower was one of those points which Choppin was somewhat hazy upon.
But this was an old story, likewise the history of an honest single-minded gentleman, who refused to accept his pension on the ground that he had sufficient for his own wants without drawing an income he might not earn. We hear the rest of the sorry details often enough; the simple individuals who listen to the voice of the charmer, and fondly imagine that every financial genius who floats a bogus company risks his time and money with the philanthropic intention of finding the public a safe investment for spare capital at the rate of twenty per cent.
Goldsworthy asked for nothing when the crash came save a roof, other than that of the poor-house, to cover his gray hairs. Proud to the last degree, nothing savouring of charity would he accept; and so it came to pass that, when he was jestingly offered a shelter in the Blackfriars Hospital, he surprised the patron by accepting the offer. He had no encumbrances, no one depending upon him but his daughter Sylvia, a girl now in her twentieth year. The townspeople who knew him and his story wondered that he should care to have the girl with him in company with decayed soldiers and servants; but even in the midst of these poor surroundings there was a certain innate refinement in the pair that caused their fellow-inmates to look up to and respect them.
But Sylvia Goldsworthy, lady bred and born to her dainty finger-tips, was no idle heroine of fiction, bewailing her hard lot, and waiting for the handsome lover to carry her off to his ancestral castle. There was work to be done in Castleford, music-lessons to be given to more or less refractory pupils, and painting lessons at the Ladies' College. A girl who can support herself two years in London studying at the Royal Academy and College of Music, does not fear to face the ordeal of country-town drudgery.
'I wonder,' the Captain would say, nodding his gray head with the air of a connoisseur over some pretty landscape, or listening to some brilliant piece of music, for the Hospital home boasted a piano—'I wonder you did not stay in London, Sylvia. Think what a future was before you!'
'And what was to become of you? Why will you persist in thinking me to be a genius? Oh, I assure you there are hundreds in London far more clever than I who can scarcely get a living. Besides, it was so lonely, and I am far happier here.'
Such conversations were by no means rare in the cottage. Then the Captain would nod disapprovingly, as he contemplated this modesty of true genius. 'I sometimes think, I don't know why, that you had some reason more powerful than loneliness for leaving your work in town.'
Sylvia said nothing, but bent her head closer over the canvas upon which she was engaged. There was a little brighter colour in her cheeks, though her eyes were dimmer than before. 'At any rate, I did my duty,' she replied; and some instinct warned the Captain that he had best seek no further information. There was that perfect confidence between them that exists so rarely between parent and child, yet without the vulgar curiosity which impels some fathers to probe into every secret thought and fancy.
But Ben Choppin, smoking his pipe in the peaceful sunshine, with his bosom-friend the Corporal, knew nothing of this, except that he would have cheerfully laid down his life for his young mistress, as he would persist in calling her. Not a single bit of drudgery was there in the Captain's cottage but owed something of its cleanliness to the activity of the erstwhile boatswain. Even at the moment of his perturbation at Jacob Dawson's audacity, the sight of a large tin basin of unshelled peas attracted his attention, and in the labour of shelling these, his late ill-humour vanished with every cracking hull.
'I heard last night,' he continued, in the pauses of this somewhat unmanly occupation, 'as the Hospital had been sold, Jacob.'
'We shan't have to turn out, Benjamin?' asked the Corporal, startled out of his philosophic calm. 'That don't mean as the place is to be pulled down?'
'They couldn't do it if they wanted to, 'cause Blackfriars is endowed. You see, it's just this way: one of the kings of England granted the Fotheryngsby estates on condition that they always kept up this place for such as we. The new gentleman at Fotheryngsby Court will be our new patron, that's all.'
'I hope he won't forget the Christmas 'bacca and plum-pudding, and beer,' Dawson returned practically. 'We must give him a 'int of that 'ere, Ben.'
'I don't think he's likely to forget that, because he's a soldier—a young one, it's true, but still a soldier; and they say he's very rich, far richer than Sir Reginald Fotheryngsby, our present patron.'
'Who is richer than our patron?' asked a voice at this moment, as another Hospitaller stole upon the old men unawares. Choppin looked up, and touched the brim of his cap to his fellow-resident, Captain Goldsworthy.
He was somewhat younger than the others, though his hair was white; and his blue eyes burned with all the fire and brilliancy of youth. His face, tanned by long exposure to tropical suns and ocean gales, bore a kindly, gentle expression, totally unsoured by misfortune; yet the face, and the slim upright figure, clad in a somewhat faded uniform of a Commander in Her Majesty's navy, bore the unmistakable hallmark of gentleman; the same as he did when on Sundays, in his 'seemly coat of red,' he attended with the rest in the Hospital chapel. Mr Choppin touched his cap again, and unfolded his budget of news at much greater length than before.
'It will not affect us, as you say, Dawson,' remarked the Captain with a smile; 'but I am truly sorry for Sir Reginald all the same. Why, he and I were boys together, gracious me! half a century ago; and now he is forced to sell his very house, and I——' He broke off abruptly, and commenced to pace the narrow strip of turf in front of the two old men, as if it had been the Ajax quarter-deck, striding so many measured paces backwards and forwards, with his eyes fixed upon the soft August sky. Memory, finding us with mental food as we grow older, was busy among the faded rose-leaves of the past 'He was a sailor, too, like all his race. He joined me in '45 on the Bloodhound; or was it the Ocean Hawk?—I forget which.'
'The Greyhound, Captain,' Choppin struck in, suspending his occupation for the moment; 'Captain Seymour, afterwards Admiral Sir Guyer Seymour, Commander. It was on that very voyage that your honour got mastheaded for——'
'It's a great piece of presumption on your part to insinuate such a thing,' the Captain replied gravely, a merry twinkle in his eye, nevertheless. 'Dear me! how time changes us all, and to think—— Who is to be our new patron, Ben?'
'Mr, at least, Lieutenant Debenham, of Leckington Hall. Your honour will be sure to remember old Squire Debenham.'
'Ay; I remember him well enough,' Goldsworthy replied with a sternness of face and manner which fairly startled the boatswain.—'Can this news be true?'
'Well, sir, if his steward—who used to be an honest man, and a good blacksmith to boot, before he became rich at other people's expense, and is own brother-in-law to myself—is any judge, it is sure to be.'
But the Captain caught but faintly the drift of this complicated and not too complimentary explanation. So perturbed did he seem, that the Corporal, who had remained silent through the interview, ventured to heal this anxiety by the information that the Hospitallers might still look forward with tolerable equanimity to their usual good cheer at the festive season.
'Do you imagine that is all we think of?' asked the Captain sternly. 'Pah! man, I know one who would rather starve than taste his hospitality;' and saying these words, the speaker turned abruptly towards his cottage, leaving the unhappy Corporal on the verge of tears.
In the tiny cottage parlour, gay with flowers, and bright as the hands of a refined woman could render it, Sylvia sat at her easel painting, with the shadows cast by the chapel walls throwing her face in the shade. A sweet girlish face, a more beautiful copy of the Captain's, looked up at him from a frame of deep chestnut-hued hair, and as her eyes encountered his and she saw the unhappiness there, she laid her brush aside and placed one hand lovingly upon his shoulder. 'What is it, dear?' she asked simply.
'The Hospital is sold; and to whom, do you think? None other than the son of my friend, Crichton Debenham, the scoundrel who induced me to place my all where he declared his money was—the wretch who persuaded me to buy into a concern so that he might come out unscathed.—Sylvia, we must say good-bye to Blackfriars.'
'But, father, the son should not be answerable for the father. He may not be such another; nay, I am convinced he is not. Hugh Debenham I know to be one of the noblest and best of men.' Sylvia spoke quickly, almost passionately, her eyes bright and glittering, though her cheeks were pale and her hands trembled.
The Captain, hard and stern, changed and quivered strangely as he caught the light in his daughter's eyes and read its meaning. 'You—you know him?' he asked. 'And yet you never told me.'
Sylvia bowed her head under the gentleness of this reproach. 'It was in London,' she faltered, 'months ago, and we used to meet where I was a teacher. I—I will tell you all presently. Then one day he—he asked me to be his wife.'
'And you refused him.—Ah, I am glad of that.'
'I did not, I dared not. I was cowardly enough to run away. You see, if we had been in the same station in life, I might have thought——' She could say no more, another word would have choked her.
The Captain drew her closer to his side and kissed her gently. 'This is a pleasant finding,' said he, with a jocularity he was far from feeling. 'What hypocrites you women are! I should like to know, very much like to know, how this thing is going to end?'
'The very thing,' said Sylvia, smiling through her tears, 'that gives me so much anxiety.'
§ II.
MANY of the old mansions of the Welsh Borders bear to this day the sign and symbol of a bygone martial age. Most of the castles, such as Goodrich and Raglan, have long since become nothing but historical and romantic ruins; but where some of the great houses have remained in prosperous hands, the feudal character in many instances still obtains.
And perhaps one of the most perfect specimens along the whole length of Offa's Dyke is Fotheryngsby Court. Built originally of some dark stone, almost impervious to the onslaught of time, and repaired at frequent periods by succeeding Fotheryngsbys, the house, or rather castle, presents to this day perhaps the most perfect specimen of a border fortress. It stands upon a gentle eminence, commanding a wide and beautiful stretch of country, protected by a moat, which is crossed by a drawbridge, bounded by a green courtyard, now devoted to nothing more warlike than the exercising of horses; and beyond this again lies the Court, flanked by a forest of gigantic elms, where a colony of herons have formed their noisy republic. The moat, no longer a blank watery ditch, is clear and deep, with feathery ash and alder shading the water-lilies, a smooth tarn filled with many kinds of fish. The house itself, with a central tower and widely spreading battlements seems to have lost its frown, as it looks down upon the sloping lawns and trim parterres all ablaze with scarlet geranium and lobelia, rioting in the huge stone vases on the terrace. Where once the vassals gathered together at the sound of horn, or the warning fires burning on the battlements, long stretches of greensward bear thin white lines, denoting a gentler pastime; the great quadrangle is now a rose-garden, with grassy paths between, the gray walls sheltering the delicate cream and yellow and crimson blooms, so that the winds of heaven may not visit their sweetness too roughly.
Inside, the old medieval character is still maintained, with so much of modern art and culture as lends an air of comfort to the place. The house, with its dusky oak and chain-armour and stained glass, had no appearance of ruin or disaster, nothing to show that the last of the Fotheryngsbys was gone and that an alien reigned in his stead, master of his very house, proprietor of every stick and stone within the Court.
But the fortunate young owner of all this majestic beauty was occupied with other thoughts as he sat in his library, where no work literary or otherwise had yet been done, save when a harassed Fotheryngsby indicted epistles to hungry creditors. Hugh Debenham was thinking nothing of this as he sat with a blank sheet of note-paper before him and an unlighted cigar between his teeth. Seated opposite to him, and watching his moody countenance with ill-disguised anxiety, was a lady, a haughty-looking dame, whose flashing black eyes and dark hair proclaimed the fact, as a glance at the young man would show, that their relationship was a close one.
Hugh Debenham looked up and laughed uneasily. 'I daresay I am very much to blame,' said he, with some traces of sarcasm underlying the words; 'still, you know, it was not my fault I was born with a heart. If you only saw——'
'There; spare me the gushing details. If you were five years younger I should know how to deal with you; but as it is—— Still, I am only wasting words, as we both very well know. Really, Hugh, I cannot understand your going through the solemn farce of consulting me in the matter.'
'No? I have a fancy to ask my mother's opinion upon these questions—another proof of my being old-fashioned and out of date. We won't quarrel, however; because there is small probability of your being deposed from your high state at present. A man can't very well marry a girl who hides herself away from him, as Sylvia has done.'
Mrs Debenham looked around her with a sigh of satisfaction. The idea of any one but a damsel of the bluest blood presiding over the destinies of the house of Debenham was utterly repugnant to her patrician soul. Still at the same time it seemed a strange thing that any girl, and especially one of lowly station, should have the audacity to scorn the handsome and gallant owner of such a place as Fotheryngsby.
'I cannot help respecting her,' returned the lady more cheerfully. 'She displayed a most lady-like feeling in doing as she has done.'
'But, my dear mother, she is a lady. There is no doubt of that.'
'There are ladies and ladies,' Mrs Debenham continued smoothly. 'For instance, Mrs Clayton, your solicitor's wife, is a lady; so equally is our neighbour the Countess De la Barre; yet you could not place them on the same level.'
'I haven't made a study of these nice distinctions,' said Hugh dryly. 'And though Miss Goldsworthy did hold an inferior position—isn't that the correct phrase?—I must confess to seeing little difference between mistress and servant. Besides, we are not entirely free from the taint, if it is a taint, which I very much doubt, of being connected with business.'
'That is by no means a just view to take,' said the listener severely. 'It is true that your father speculated with a view to mending his fortunes, as many gentlemen do now. It would be absurd to rank him with an ordinary business man working solely for gain.'
'We won't go into the ethics of aristocratic commerce at present, because I have an engagement in Castleford this morning. I am about to pay my new possession there a visit.—Is it really true that old Captain Goldsworthy is actually an inmate of Blackfriars?'
Mrs Debenham did not speak for a moment. When she did so, there was a certain hardness in her voice that would have struck an observant listener as being akin to something like terror. For a moment her face lost its haughty expression; her eyes seemed to be contemplating some long-forgotten but unpleasant mental picture.
'He is there—yes. I never thought of that. There was some—some unpleasantness between your father and him when Captain Goldsworthy lost his money. I know there were some terrible things said between them.'
Hugh, playing listlessly with a pen and scattering the ink recklessly, heard nothing of this, for a new light had suddenly illuminated the darkness of his mind. It seemed as if the clue for which he had been so long groping in the dark was at length in his hands. 'I wonder,' said he, speaking partially to himself, 'if my Miss Goldsworthy and the Captain are related? Strange that such an idea did not occur to me before.'
'It is possible,' Mrs Debenham returned, with well-simulated carelessness. 'I never saw much of him, though he and your father were such great friends. I fancy this daughter went to London in some capacity.'
'It might be she,' said Hugh musingly, 'it might.—What nonsense am I talking! Do not give yourself any unnecessary anxiety, mother. In all probability it will be my fate to wed a Clara Vere de Vere yet.'
As his mother stood and watched him drive away in the direction of Castleford, the pained expression on her face deepened, and certain uncomfortable forebodings troubled the watcher, as the memory of an old crime is touched by some unconscious hand. 'Was it a crime,' she murmured to herself, 'or only an act of prudence?' She turned away, and approaching a distant corner of the room, unlocked a small ebony cabinet, ornamented by heavy brass fittings. Inside lay a heap of papers, faded letters tied up with a piece of faint blue riband, from which there arose that sickly smell peculiar to old documents. Hastily turning over the various bundles, she arrived at length at the packet she was in search of—a small parcel of documents folded in brown paper, and bearing the written inscription, 'Goldsworthy.'
Most of the letters were merely tissues—that is, business epistles indited in an old-fashioned letter-book of the carbon paper and stylus type, dry communications of a purely commercial nature, mostly relating to stocks and shares, the jargon of which would be unintelligible to the average reader. One of them, folded away by itself, ran as follows:
25/7/74.
Dear Goldsworthy.—I cannot see you to-day, being confined to the house with a broken arm, as you probably know. This anxiety is fearful. But you must not suffer for me, as, after all, I can stand the crash best. Go to town immediately and dispose of every share, and warn all your friends. Think only of yourself, and nothing of the unhappy individual who has placed you in such imminent financial peril. I have wired my broker to do the best he can.
Yours ever,
H. Crichton Debenham.
P.S.—If you have time, give me ten minutes before you start.
>
'If he had known,' murmured Mrs Debenham, 'we should have been ruined. As it was, there was barely time to save ourselves. And yet I could almost wish that I had never seen this fatal letter.'
Meanwhile, all unconscious of this nameless, shapeless dishonour, Hugh Debenham drove into Castleford, looking forward with almost boyish pleasure to visiting his new and strange possession. A thousand charitable schemes engaged his mind, little plans for the increased comfort of his pensioners, who, sooth to say, had been somewhat neglected by the last of the Fotheryngsbys. There was some little business to be transacted, first principally a visit to a decorator and artist who had taken no slight part in the adornment of Fotheryngsby Court. It was in the direction of this individual's house that Debenham first directed his steps upon reaching Castleford.
There are few towns of any size without one inhabitant of more than ordinary mental powers, and Harold Abelwhite, the crippled artist, represented most of the artistic talent of Castleford. Born of the humblest parentage, and often being acquainted with the actual want of food, there was yet something indomitable in that white face and feeble body. He lived alone in one of the small cottages on the outskirts of Castleford, attending to his own wants, and painting such pictures as one day will make him famous. Unaided, untaught, weighed down by stress of circumstance, the painter had yet succeeded in educating himself, and, what is harder still, in keeping himself by the proceeds of his brush and pencil.
It was a pretty little cottage, with a small garden, filled with old-fashioned flowers; and as Debenham approached, he found the painter tying up some sweet-peas to a trellis-work behind which lay the house. There were but two rooms down-stairs, each meanly furnished, and devoted to the requirements of eating and sleeping. It was only when the stairs were mounted that the owner's artistic tastes were fully disclosed.
The whole floor, turned into one room, and lighted by a large latticed window, had been converted into a studio. There was a curiously-woven Persian carpet on the floor, contrasting harmoniously with the draped hangings on the walls, out of which peeped here and there a finished picture, or a marble statue standing boldly out against the sombre background; or, again, a suit of Milanese armour towering above a perfect forest of palms and ferns, with which the studio was profusely ornamented; while the only flowers there were huge nosegays of deep yellow roses, thrown carelessly, as it seemed, into china bowls. In the centre of the floor stood a picture on an easel, carefully covered with a white cloth, and this, together with an open paint-box, was the sole evidence of there being any particular work on hand.
'What a beautiful room!' Debenham cried admiringly. 'There is certainly nothing conventional in its treatment, and that is something nowadays.'
'Every one can enjoy art at home now,' replied the cripple, his sensitive face flushing at the compliment, 'if he only has the taste. I could make every home in England artistic, with no outlay to speak of.'
Hugh nodded slightly, but said nothing in return. He was fascinated by the quiet beauty of the place, and not a little interested in the earnestness of his companion. There was something contagious in the enthusiasm of the handsome cripple, with face aflame and dark eyes burning, as he touched upon his favourite theme—the artistic education of the people. At length Hugh asked, 'How about the cabinet?'
'The difficulty is solved; the damaged marqueterie has been repaired, even better than I thought possible. Look there.' The speaker pointed to an exquisite specimen of an inlaid cabinet, so perfect that Debenham could scarcely believe it to be the same damaged work of art he had seen it to be only a week previously.
'I always thought you were a genius,' he said admiringly. 'It was a pet piece of furniture of my father's—the receptacle for his business papers, in fact. May I see the picture you have veiled so closely?'
The artist flushed again, but this time in a bashful kind of way, as a lover might when displaying his lady's picture. With a certain lingering tenderness he put the white cloth aside.
It was a simple subject enough, treated without any meretricious attempt at display—a simple cottage interior, with the window filled with geraniums and creeping plants; and in the dim light filtering through the leaves was the figure of a girl, clad all in white, reading from a book upon the table. Close by her side was another figure, that of a man clad in a naval uniform, his hands crossed before him in an attitude of attention; while the group was made up by a third, a somewhat older man, clad in a scarlet coat, his eyes fixed devotedly upon the reader's face. The colouring, soft and subdued, served only to throw up the vivid naturalness of the painting.
Artist and spectator stood a moment, the one regarding the work intently, the painter with his gaze fixed almost sternly upon his companion's face, and as he did so he saw a strange glad light flash into Debenham's eyes—a look of pleased recognition illuminating every feature.
'That is no effort of imagination,' he cried; 'you know all those characters?'
'Yes, I know them,' said the artist quietly. 'How did you discover that?'
'Because I happen to be acquainted with that lady. Will you so far favour me as to give me her address?'
'Ah!' said the cripple, 'I am a solitary man, with few pleasures and few friends. To me the study of expression is a necessity of my art. And as you examined that picture I watched you. In that brief moment I learnt your secret—I read the joy in your face. Forgive me if I speak plainly. What is Sylvia Goldsworthy to you?'
'That question you have no right to ask,' Hugh replied gently. 'I am not angry with you, because I feel that you mean well.'
But Abelwhite scarcely caught the purport of these words. Every nerve in his body quivered with restless agitation, though his keen earnest gaze never turned from his visitor's face. For a moment he hesitated, like one who complies against his will; then he simply said, 'Come with me.'
They passed out together through the streets of Castleford, the handsome aristocrat and crippled artist walking side by side in silence, till at length the Widemarsh Street was reached. Here, before the long blank wall bounding the Blackfriars' Hospital, Abelwhite paused, and turning down a side-lane, opened a door in the wall and bade his companion enter.
The gardens lay still and quiet in the peaceful sunshine. The ancient ruin, with its mantle of ivy rustling in the breeze, gave a quaint bygone air to the place. It seemed to Hugh as if he had shaken off the world, and left every feeling, save that of rapture, far behind.
'What a beautiful old place!' he cried. 'What do you call it?'
'We call it the Blackfriars' Hospital—your property now.—Mr Debenham, you will find it to be a great responsibility. It is in your power to make the lives of these worthy men happy. Come and see them occasionally, and note what a little it takes to make people joyful and light-hearted.'
'They shall not complain,' Hugh replied mechanically. 'Can I see the cottages?'
There were cool shadows in the quadrangle, a pleasant smell of homely flowers—wallflowers, mignonette, and Brompton stock, and over all a dead silence, save for the voice of a woman reading behind one of the open doors. Hugh felt himself drawn towards the cottage, and, looking in, beheld a copy of Abelwhite's picture, only the figures were real and lifelike. There was the Captain, seated in his chair; and opposite him Ben Choppin, listening reverently to the words falling from the reader's lips, the sound of a sweet womanly voice, the tones of which caused the watcher's heart to beat a little faster and the colour to deepen on his cheek. For some momenta he stood, till the even tones ceased at length and the book was laid aside.
'May we enter?' Hugh asked eagerly. 'Would they mind?'
'Why not?' Abelwhite asked. 'They should be pleased enough to welcome you, and I am a constant visitor; and'—here the speaker lowered his voice till his words were scarcely audible—'may it be that I have done right; but I am not without misgivings.'
