The Amethyst Cross E-Book

Fergus Hume

• Herausgeber: Publisher s11838
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The Amethyst Cross written by a prolific English novelist Fergus Hume. This book is one of many works by him. Published in 1908. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.

Leseprobe

The Amethyst Cross

By

Fergus Hume

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNING OF A MYSTERY

CHAPTER II. THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

CHAPTER III. ANOTHER MYSTERY

CHAPTER IV. A FAMILY HISTORY

CHAPTER V. MRS. WALKER'S OPINION

CHAPTER VI. PURPLE AND FINE LINEN

CHAPTER VII. AFTER MIDNIGHT

CHAPTER VIII. UNDER A CLOUD

CHAPTER IX. TWO GIRLS

CHAPTER X. THE DEUS EX MACHINA

CHAPTER XI. THE SEAMY SIDE

CHAPTER XII. A COUNTERPLOT

CHAPTER XIII. MRS. WALKER'S VISIT

CHAPTER XIV. THE FAMILY LAWYER

CHAPTER XV. A STARTLING LETTER

CHAPTER XVI. RECOGNITION

CHAPTER XVII. DISGRACE

CHAPTER XVIII. LADY CHARVINGTON'S ACCUSATIONS

CHAPTER XIX. MR. HALE EXPLAINS

CHAPTER XX. JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS MEETING

CHAPTER XXI. TWO INTERVIEWS

CHAPTER XXII. THE PLOT

CHAPTER XXIII. ONE PART OF THE TRUTH

CHAPTER XXIV. ANOTHER PART OF THE TRUTH

CHAPTER XXV. REVENGE

CHAPTER XXVI. THE END OF IT ALL

"'Father!' she shrieked!"

CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNING OF A MYSTERY

THE blackbird knew. He had paired for the fifth time in as many years, and esteemed himself wise in the matters, of love. Therefore, from the budding chestnut wherein his nest was built, did he sympathetically watch the bachelor and maid who sat below. They were lovers as he knew very well, for only lovers could have gazed so persistently into one another's eyes, and therein did they behold each other as each wished to be. Which sentence is cryptic to those who are not lovers as these were.

They might have looked at the smoothly-flowing river, singing quietly to itself not a stone-cast away, or round a tangled garden, delicately beautiful with the young greenery of May, or up into the azure depths of a sky, flecked with silvery clouds. But they preferred—wisely it may be—to look into each other's eyes, to clasp hands and to remain silent with that eloquent muteness, which is the speech of true love. Oh! the blackbird knew the meaning of these things very thoroughly, and chuckled with such glee that he finally broke into glorious song concerning the new love, the true love, the old love, the bold love, which comes evermore with the blossoms of spring. But these inhabitants of Paradise did not require the bird to reveal the obvious. Their hearts were also singing the song of the early year.

"It can't last for ever," murmured the maid dreamily, "it is too beautiful to last, since we are but mortal."

"It shall last for ever; it must," corrected the bachelor, wise in that wisdom of the gods, which comes to wooers, "for we love with our souls, dearest, and these cannot die."

She knew that he was right, for her heart told her so. Therefore did they again look into one another's eyes and again become silent, while the fluting blackbird explained more than mere human speech could render. And he, perched on a swaying bough, was only too willing to interpret. He knew: he was wise. And listening Nature heard complacently. To such ends had she shaped her children; for such a reason had she provided their Arcadia.

As Arcadia, like Marlowe's hell, is not circumscribed, it chanced that this especial one was by Thames-side, and those who dwelt therein were up-to-date in looks and dress and manners. Only their feelings were those of classic times, and as he told her the old, old story, which is ever new, she listened with the instinctive knowledge that the tale was wonderfully familiar. She had read it in his eyes, after the manner of maids, long before he dared to speak.

And this river Paradise was not wholly unworthy at so comely an Adam and Eve, although limited in extent and untrimmed in looks. Lord Beaconsfield declared that the most perfect garden is that cultivated to excess by man and then handed over to the caprice of Nature. The owner of this demesne apparently subscribed to this dictum, for the garden, well-filled with expensive flowers and shrubs, had long since relapsed into wildness. On either side of the narrow strip of land, sloping gradually to the stream, extended low walls of mellow red brick overgrown with dark-green ivy. The flowerbeds were luxuriant with docks and nettles and charlock and divers weeds: the pathways were untidy with lush grass, and the tiny lawn at the water's edge was shaggy and untrimmed. A wooden landing-stage floated near shore at the garden's foot, and to this was attached the young man's boat. At the far end of this neglected domain could be seen a thatched cottage with whitewashed walls and oblong lattices quaintly diamond-paned. So rustic and pretty and old-world did it look that it might well have been the fairy-dwelling of a nursery tale. And the lovers themselves were young and handsome enough to deserve the care of the fairies.

He was tall, slim, well-formed, and Saxon in his fairness. His curly hair—so much of it as the barber's shears had spared—was golden in the sunlight, as was his small moustache, and his eyes were bravely blue, as a hero's should be. The white boating-flannels accentuated the bronze of his skin, and revealed the easy strength of an athlete. He looked what the girl took him to be—a splendid young lover of romance. Yet he was but a City clerk of prosaic environment, and his youth alone improved him into Don Juan o' Dreams.

The girl resembled Hebe, maidenly, dainty, and infinitely charming; or it might be Titania, since her appearance was almost too fragile for the work-a-day world. With a milky skin; brown-haired and brown-eyed; with a tempting mouth and a well-rounded chin, she looked worthy of any man's wooing. She was sweet and twenty; he but five years older, so both were ripe for love. And then the spring, joyous and fresh, had much to do with the proposal just made. Her answer to his question had been tunefully commented upon by the irrepressible blackbird, who expressed no surprise when the echo of a kiss interrupted his song.

"But my father will never agree, George," sighed the girl, after this outward and visible sound of acceptance.

"Dearest Lesbia"—he folded her manfully in his arms—"I don't see why your father should object. I am not rich certainly, as a stockbroker's clerk doesn't earn large wages. But for your dear sake I shall work and work and work until I become a millionaire."

Lesbia smiled at this large promise. "We may have to wait for years."

"What does it matter so long as our hearts are true?"

"They may grow sick with waiting," said Lesbia, sighing. Then she proceeded to look on the practical side of their idyll, as the most romantic of women will do at the most romantic of moments. "You earn only two hundred a year, darling, and my father—so far as I know—can give me nothing. He has his pension from Lord Charvington, and makes a small income by his work in the City, but"—here came a depressing pause.

"What does Mr. Hale do in the City?" asked George abruptly.

Lesbia opened her brown eyes. "I don't know, dear. He goes there two or three times a week, and always seems to be busy. I have asked him what his occupation is, but he only laughs, and declares that dry business details would not interest me. I am sure no girl ever knew so little of her father as I do. It's not fair."

"Strange!" murmured the young man meditatively. "I never see Mr. Hale in the City, and although I have asked several people, no one appears to know the name. Of course, darling, the City is a big place, and your father may do business in a quiet way. Still it is odd that no one should know. I wish I did. I might help him."

"In what way?"

"Well, Lesbia, the wages I receive at Tait's office are small, and—and—and"—here George flushed for no apparent reason—"and there are other things to be considered. If I could only get something else to do I should leave Tait's. Your father might be willing to let me enter his office, you know, and then I could work up his business, whatever it might be."

The girl nodded. She was a matter-of-fact young woman. Since Hale's income was limited she was compelled, as housekeeper, very often to consider ways and means. "You might speak to my father."

"And may I mention our engagement?" he supplemented.

"No-o!" Lesbia looked doubtful. "I had better announce that. Father has a temper, and if he grew angry, you might grow angry also."

"Oh no." George was entirely in earnest when he said this. "I should always remember that he was your father and that you love him."

Lesbia again looked doubtful. "Do I love him?" she mused.

"One is supposed to love one's father," suggested George.

She stared at the river. "Yes! I suppose so. Honour your parents, and so forth. I don't honour my father, though—his temper is too bad. I am not quite sure if I love him."

"Oh, my dear." George looked nervous.

"Don't make any mistake, dear boy. I like my father, since we are good friends, and usually he is kind—that is, when he is not in a rage. But then, you see, sweetest," she sighed, "he is nearly always in a rage about some trifle. Look at the garden," she waved her hand vaguely, "I wanted to hire a gardener to make it look more respectable, and father was furious. He declared that he did not want people to come spying round the cottage. Spying! Such an odd word to use."

"Your father is an odd man," said George ruefully, "and he certainly has not been over-hospitable to me. Perhaps he guesses that I have come to steal his jewel, and one can't be hospitable to a robber."

Lesbia pinched his chin. "You silly boy, my father doesn't think so much of me as you do. I sometimes wonder," she went on sadly, "if he loves me at all. I am very much alone."

"He doesn't treat you badly?" demanded George with sudden heat.

"No, dear, no. I shouldn't allow anyone to treat me badly, not even my father. But I fancy he regards me as a necessary trouble, for sometimes he looks at me in a disagreeable way as though he fancied I was spying."

"Why do you use so disagreeable a word?" asked the straightforward clerk.

"My father used it himself in the first instance," she rejoined promptly; "perhaps because he doesn't want anyone else to meet the queer people who come to see him,—generally after dark. Men who smell of drink, who use slang and dress like grooms,—certainly not gentlemen. Of course I never talk to them, for when they appear, my father always sends me to my room. I'm sure," sighed the girl dolefully, "that if it wasn't for old Tim, the servant, I should be quite alone."

George hugged her. "You shall never be alone again!" he whispered, and Lesbia threw her arms round his neck with great contentment.

"Oh, darling, you don't know how good that sounds to me. If it were only true. You see, my father may object."

"He can object until he is tired," cried the ardent lover. "If he does not make you happy I must. And when he sees this——"

"Oh!" Lesbia clasped her hand in delight at the sight of a cheap turquoise ring, "how lovely!"

George frowned at the mean gift. "It was all I could afford," said he.

"It is all I want," she said, as he slipped it on her engagement finger, "it's not the cost, or even the thing. It's what it means. Love and joy to you and me, dearest boy."

But George, having a generous heart, still lamented. "If I hadn't to keep my mother," he said ruefully. "I would save up and give you diamonds. But two hundred a year goes a very little way with my mother, even when her own small income is added. You see, dear, she never forgets that my father was the Honourable Aylmer Walker, and she will insist upon having everything of the best. This is a beastly cheap ring, but—but——"

"But you denied yourself all manner of nice things to buy it for ME," finished Lesbia, pressing a kiss on his willing cheek.

"No, dear, no," he said valiantly, "only a few pipes of tobacco."

"You dearest donkey," cooed the girl, more touched than she chose to confess, "doesn't that show me how you love me. As to the ring," she surveyed the cheap trinket critically, "it is exactly what I wanted. The stones are the colour of your dear eyes."

George, man-like, was delighted. "You know the colour of my eyes?"

Lesbia boxed his ears delicately. "I knew the colour exactly one minute after our very first meeting."

"Did you love me then?"

"No. Certainly not: how conceited you are."

"Then why did you notice my——"

"Oh, a woman always notices these things, when a man is nice."

"And you thought me nice?"

Lesbia fenced. "Good-looking, at all events. You wore a dark flannel suit striped with pale green."

"So I did," cried George, delighted, "it was at Mrs. Riordan's picnic near Bisham Abbey a year ago. And you were there."

Lesbia laughed and nursed her knees. "I must have been, since I can describe you so exactly. What did I wear, dear?"

"I don't know," said George promptly.

"Oh!" she was quite disappointed, "and you call yourself a lover?"

"I do," he rejoined stoutly, "for, as I fell in love with you the moment we met, I saw only your eyes and your angel face. How could you expect me to remember a mere dress when——"

"Oh, what nonsense—very nice nonsense; still nonsense."

"I like talking nonsense to you."

"And I like to hear it from you. But it isn't bread and butter."

"You're thinking of afternoon tea," said George Walker audaciously.

"No. I'm thinking of how we are to live when we marry."

The mere mention of that delicious word made George forget the warning conveyed by the sentence. "Marry! Marry you! Oh, heaven!"

"A pauper heaven, I fear," said Lesbia; then fished in her pocket, "see, the only valuable thing I possess, besides your love. It is for you."

"Oh, my dear, it's not a man's ornament."

"As if that matters, since I give it to you," she said, laughing. "I must give you something, and this is all I have to give."

She held out her hand, on the palm of which rested an amethyst cross formed of four deeply purple stones, set lightly in gold filigree, with a loop at the top for the necessary chain to pass through. Not a very uncommon ornament at the first glance, George decided, although very beautiful. But on looking more closely he became aware that there was something bizarre about the thing. In the centre where the four stones met was a tiny cube of malachite, graven with a golden crown and inscribed with minute letters. The pansy-blossom hue of the stones contrasting with the vivid green of the cube gave the ornament rather an uncanny look.

"What a queer thing," said George, transferring the cross to his broad palm.

"Yes! Isn't it?" said Lesbia eagerly, and then brought out a magnifying glass. "And the inscription is still queerer."

George poised the powerful glass over the slab of malachite, and with some difficulty deciphered the golden Gothic letters. "'Refuse and Lose,'" he read slowly. "Now what does that mean?"

"You stupid darling," cried Lesbia, pinching his ear, "can't you see? If you refuse the cross—which is married life; you lose the crown—which is me."

Walker thrust the cross into his pocket, handed back the magnifying glass and solemnly embraced the girl, "I'll take the cross and the crown and you, and everything I can get," he whispered in her ear. "I don't exactly see the meaning, of course, but——"

"Was there ever such a dense man?" Lesbia demanded of the blackbird in despair. "It's a religious symbol, of course. If you refuse to bear life's cross in the way you should, you lose the crown which ought to be yours in heaven."

George took out the ornament again and looked at it seriously. He had a considerable strain of the Puritan in his nature, to which the idea appealed strongly. "I shall certainly not refuse life's cross," he declared soberly, "and may we both some day wear a crown in a better world."

"My darling, my dearest, my best," she murmured, embracing him fondly. The touch of seriousness in George's gay disposition enhanced his value in her eyes. She approved of so sterling a character.

"Where did you get the cross?" asked Walker, while the jewels winked in the sunshine. "From your father?"

"No!" she replied unexpectedly. "He doesn't know that I possess such a thing. But my nurse, old Bridget Burke—Tim's mother, you know—who died last summer, gave it to me on her death-bed and warned me not to tell my father about it. She said that it came from my dead mother, and was to be given by me to the man I loved. So you see, my darling, that even though it is a woman's ornament, you must take it."

"I'll wear it round my neck," declared George. "It will bring me good luck, I am sure."

"So Bridget said," observed the girl promptly. "She had the 'sight,' you know, George, and declared that the cross would bring me luck and money and love and position. I don't know how, unless it is by marrying you."

"Ah, my love," said George somewhat sadly. "I can only give you my heart. Money and position must come later. But if we both obey the inscription and bear the cross we shall win the crown of success in the end. Look how the gems flash, Lesbia—an earnest of the future."

While they were both admiring the cross, a tall, lean man, perfectly dressed in a Bond Street kit, came softly down the grassy path. He looked like a gentleman, and also like a hawk, and his pale eyes wandered from one bent head to the other until they dropped to the flash of the jewelled cross, which glittered on Walker's palm. Then the newcomer started nervously, and took a step nearer to observe. Lesbia and her lover looked up as the shadow of the man fell across them, and in the movement they made, the cross fell on the grass.

"Oh, father, how you startled us," cried the girl, springing to her feet.

Mr. Walter Hale did not reply. His eyes were still on the purple stones of the cross, and when his daughter stooped to pick it up, he twitched his fingers as though anxious to take it from her. "Where did you get that?" he demanded abruptly and harshly.

"Bridget gave it to me, and I have given it to George," she said, handing the ornament to her lover. "It belonged to my mother."

"It did," said Hale sharply, "and therefore must not pass out of the family."

"It won't," said Lesbia cheerfully; "George is to be my husband."

Mr. Hale frowned. "You have yet to gain my permission," he said in dry tones. "Meanwhile, Mr. Walker, give me back the cross."

"No!" said George, who did not like the tone of his future father-in-law and could be obstinate when necessary. "Lesbia gave it to me, and I intend to keep it."

"Lesbia had no right to give it to you," cried Hale, his voice rising, and he extended his hand to take his desire. But Walker was too quick for him and dexterously swerving, shot the cross into his pocket.

"It is Lesbia's first present to me," said he, excusing his obstinacy.

"She has no right to make you presents," foamed the other, who had now entirely lost his temper.

"She has the right of a lover," retorted George coolly.

"There can be no question of love between you and my daughter."

The girl moved to her lover's side, very pale and very defiant. "That is for me to decide," she said coldly, but with determination.

"You go against your father, Lesbia?"

"For the first time in my life. And why not, when the matter is so important?"

Hale bit his lips and tried to stare her down: but as her eyes did not drop before his own he was the first to give way, and did so with inward rage. With an impatient shrug he wheeled to face young Walker. The two presented the striking contrast of untainted youth and artificial age too much versed in the evils of life. And youth had the advantage, for—as in the case of Lesbia—the older man tried to dominate without success. He was forced to take refuge in idle threats.

"If you do not give me back that cross, it will be the worse for you," remarked Hale, very distinctly and with menace.

George clenched his fists, then, with a glance towards Lesbia, ended the argument by stepping into his boat. As he rowed off, Hale, who had not attempted to stop him, turned bitterly to his daughter.

"You have ruined me," he said between his teeth, and returned hastily to the cottage.

CHAPTER II. THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

To say that Lesbia was amazed conveys imperfectly her state of mind. The sudden arrival of her father, the hasty departure of her lover, the mysterious incident connected with the amethyst cross, and the still more mysterious remark which Mr. Hale had made—these things perplexed and, very naturally, alarmed her. At once, with the swiftness of an imaginative brain, she conjured up visions of disgrace and shame and criminal publicity, going too far in her surmises, after the fashion of such a brain. For after all, as a calmer reflection suggested, there was nothing in what had taken place that should induce such happenings, although there were several disquieting hints.

For a few moments the girl remained where she was, too agitated to move; but when Hale disappeared into the cottage, and George's boat vanished round a bend of the shining river, she woke to the fact that for her own peace of mind it was necessary to ask questions. At once she ran up the grass-grown path, and speedily found herself in the narrow passage, which led right through the house from back to front. But she only entered to hear the street door bang, and flew to open it again in the hope of catching Mr. Hale before he could go far away. But the man must have made good use of his legs, for when she peered out into the quiet side street she noticed that it was empty. This vanishing of her father without an explanation dismayed her more than ever, and in the hope of gaining some sort of information she sought Tim in the tiny kitchen, calling on him loudly. A soft voice like a well-tuned lute answered her from the scullery.