The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales Part 13

"Yes; but don't talk any more just now, if it tires you. Try to go to sleep again."

"You are good to me; better than I deserve," he responded, after a pause. Then great tears welled up to his eyes, and coursed one after another down his thin, worn face. It was easy to see that he was weak as water. His long journey by rail without food had been too much for him, and in his state of health it was just possible he might never rally.

The womanly nature of the outraged wife came uppermost, as it always does under such circ.u.mstances. Her love for the miserable creature lying there before her had been killed and crucified long ago, never to be revived. But she could not forget that she had once loved him, and that he was the father of her child. No matter how deeply he had wronged her, he was ill and suffering--perhaps dying. His punishment had come upon him without any act of hers. She contrasted his present bearing with that of other days. He was bent, broken, crushed. Nothing there to remind her of the stalwart, manly young fellow whose voice had once stirred her pulse to admiration and love. All the more reason why she should be good to him now, all undeserving as he might be. Our British Homer showed a true appreciation of the best side of feminine nature when he wrote--

"O woman, in our hour of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please; When pain and anguish wring thy brow, A ministering angel thou!"

She rose and approached the bed, while her gaze rested mildly upon his face. Drawing forth her handkerchief, she wiped the salt tears from his cheeks with a caressing hand. To him lying there in his helplessness, she seemed no unfit earthly representative of that Divine Beneficence "whose blessed task," says Thackeray, "it will one day be to wipe the tear from every eye." Her gentleness caused the springs to well forth afresh, and the prostrate form was convulsed by sobs. She sat by his side on the bed, and staunched the miniature flood with a tender touch.

By-and-by calm returned, and he sank into a profound and apparently dreamless sleep.

When he again awoke it was broad daylight. The first object on which his eyes rested was the patient watcher who had never left her post the whole night long, and who still sat in an armchair at his bedside, ready to minister to his comfort. As soon as she perceived that he was awake she approached and took his wasted hand in her own. He gazed steadily in her face, but could find no words to speak.

"You are rested now, are you not?" she murmured, scarcely above her breath.

After a while he found his voice and asked how long he had slept. Being enlightened on the point, he expressed his belief that it was time for him to rise.

"Not yet," was the response; "you shall have your breakfast first, and then it will be time enough to think about getting up. I forbid you to talk until you have had something to eat," she added, playfully. "Lie still for a few minutes, while I go and see about a cup of tea." And so saying she left him to himself.

Presently she returned, bearing a tray and eatables. She quietly raised him to a sitting posture, and placed a large soft pillow at his back.

He submitted to her ministrations like a child. It was long since he had been tended with such care, and the position doubtless seemed a little strange to him. After drinking a cup of tea and eating several morsels of the good things set before him he evidently felt refreshed.

His eyes lost somewhat of their lack-l.u.s.tre air of confirmed invalidism, and his voice regained a measure of its natural tone. When he attempted to rise and dress himself, however, he betrayed such a degree of bodily feebleness that his wife forbade him to make further exertions. He yielded to her importunities, and remained in bed, which was manifestly the best place for him. He was pestered by no unnecessary questions to account for his presence, Mrs. Savareen rightly considering that it was for him to volunteer any explanations he might have to make whenever he felt equal to the task.

After a while his little boy was brought in to see the father of whom he dimly remembered to have heard. His presence moved the sick man to further exhibitions of tearful sensibility, but seemed, on the whole, to have a salutary effect. Long absence and a vagabond life had not quenched the paternal instinct, and the little fellow was caressed with a fervor too genuine to admit of the possibility of its being a.s.sumed.

Master Reggie received these ebullitions of affection without much corresponding demonstrativeness. He could not be expected to feel any vehement adoration for one whom he had never seen since his earliest babyhood, and whose very name for some months past had been permitted to sink out of sight. His artless prattle, however, was grateful in the ears of his father, who looked and listened as if entranced by sweet strains of music. His wasted--worse than wasted--past seemed to rise before him, as the child's accents fell softly upon his ear, and he seemed to realize more than ever how much he had thrown away.

In the course of the forenoon Mrs. Savareen's stepmother took her place in the sick chamber, and she herself withdrew to another room to take the rest of which she was by this time sorely in need. The invalid would not a.s.sent to the proposal to call in a physician. He declared that he was only dead tired, and that rest and quiet would soon restore him without medicine, in so far as any restoration was possible. And so the day pa.s.sed by.

In the evening the wife again took her place at the bedside, and she had not been there long ere her husband voluntarily began his chapter of explanations. His story was a strange one, but there was no room to doubt the truth of any portion of it.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE BAD HALF CROWN.

He began by comparing himself to the bad half-crown, which always finds its way back, but which has no right to expect a warm welcome on its return. "Were it not," said he, "that I feel myself to be pretty near the end of my earth's journey, I could not have the face to tell you my story at all. But I feel that I am worn out, and don't think it likely that I shall ever leave this room except for the grave. You shall know everything, even more fully than I have ever known it myself until within the last few hours. They say that when a man is nearing his end he sees more clearly than at any other time of his life. For my part I now see for the first time that I have never been anything but a worthless lout from my cradle. I have never been fit to walk alone, and if health and strength were to come back to me I should not be one whit better than I have hitherto been. I don't know whether I ever told you that I have a streak of gipsy blood in my veins. My grandmother was a Romany, picked up by my grandfather on Wandsworth Common. I don't offer this fact as any excuse for my conduct, but I have sometimes thought that it may have something to do with the p.r.o.nounced vagabondism which has always been one of my most distinctive features. So long as I was at home in my father's house he kept me from doing anything very outrageous, but I was always a creature of impulse, ready to enter into any hair-brained scheme without counting the cost. I never looked a week ahead in my life. It was sufficient for me if the present was endurable, and if the general outlook for the future promised something new. My coming to this country in the first place was a mere impulse, inspired by a senseless liking for adventure and a wish to see strange faces and scenes. My taking Squire Harrington's farm was an impulse, very largely due to its proximity to Lapierre's, who is a jolly landlord and knows how to make his guests comfortable. I had no special apt.i.tude for farm life; no special desire to get on in the world; no special desire to do anything except pa.s.s the time as pleasantly as I could, without thought or care for the future. And as I have fully made up my mind to make a clean breast of it, I am going to tell you something which will make you despise me more than you ever despised me yet. When I married you I did so from impulse. Don't mistake me. I liked you better than any other woman I had ever seen. I liked your pretty face, and your gentle, girlish ways. I knew that you were good, and would make an excellent wife. But I well knew that I had no such feeling towards you as a man should have towards the woman whom he intends to make the companion of his life--no such feeling, for instance, as I have for you at this moment. Well, I married you and we lived together as happily as most young couples do. I knew that I had a good wife, and you didn't know, or even suspect, what a brainless, heartless clod you had for your husband. Our married life glided by without anything particular happening to disturb it. But the thing became monotonous to me, and I had the senseless vagabond's desire for change. We did fairly well on the farm, but once or twice I was on the point of proposing to you that we should emigrate to the Western States. I began to drink more than was good for me, and two or three times when I came home half-sees over you reproached me, and looked at me in a way I didn't like. This I inwardly resented, like the besotted fool I was. It seemed to me that you might have held your tongue. The feeling wasn't a very strong one with me, and if it hadn't been for that cursed four hundred pounds, things might have gone on for some time longer. Of course I kept all this to myself, for I was at least sensible enough to feel ashamed of my want of purpose, and knew that I deserved to be horsewhipped for not caring more for you and baby.

"The legacy from my father, if properly used, would have placed us on our feet. With a farm of my own, I might reasonably hope to become a man of more importance in our community than I had been. For a time this was the only side of the picture that presented itself to my mind.

I began to contemplate myself as a landed proprietor, and the contemplation was pleasant enough. I bought the farm from Squire Harrington in good faith, and with no other intention than to carry out the transaction. When I left home on the morning of that 17th of July, I had no more intention of absconding than I now have of running for Parliament. The idea never so much as entered my mind. The morning was wet, and it seemed likely that we should have a rainy day. I was in a more loaferish mood than usual, and thought I might as well ride to town to pa.s.s the time. The hired man, whose name I have forgotten, was not within call at the moment, so I went out to the stable to saddle Black Bess for myself. Then I found that the inner front padding of the saddle had been torn by rats during the night, and that the metal plate was exposed. To use it in that state would have galled the mare's back, and it was necessary to place something beneath it. I looked about me in the stable, but saw nothing suitable, so I returned into the house to get some kind of an old cloth for the purpose. If you had been there I should have asked for what I wanted, but you were not to be seen, and when I called out your name you did not answer. Then, in a fit of momentary stupid petulance, I went into the front bedroom, opened my trunk, and took out the first thing that came uppermost. I should have taken and used it for what I wanted just then, even if it had been a silk dress or petticoat; but it happened to be a coat of my own. I took it out to the stable, placed it under the saddle, and rode off. Before reaching the front gate I saw how it was that you had not answered my call, for, as you doubtless remember, you were out in the orchard with baby in your arms, at some distance from the house. I nodded to you as I rode past, little thinking that years would elapse before I should see you again.

"I suppose you know all about how I spent the day. I had a bit of a quarrel with the clerk at the bank, and that put me out of humor. I had not intended to draw the money, but to leave it on deposit till next morning.

"Shuttleworth's ill-tempered remarks nettled me. I took the notes in a huff, and left the bank with them in my pocket. I ought to have had sense enough to ride home at once, but I went to the Peac.o.c.k and muddled myself with drink. I felt elated at having such a large sum of money about me, and carried on like a fool and a sot all afternoon. I didn't start for home till a few minutes before dark. Up to that moment the idea of clearing out had never presented itself to my mind. But as I cantered along the quiet road I began to think what a good time I could have with four hundred pounds in my pocket, in some far-off place where I was not known, and where I should be free from inc.u.mbrances of every kind.

"In the half-befuddled condition in which I then was, the idea quickly took possession of my stupid imagination. I rode along, however, without coming to any fixed determination, till I reached Jonathan Perry's toll-gate. I exchanged a few words with him, and then resumed my journey. Suddenly it flashed upon me that, if I was really going to make a strike for it, nothing was to be gained by delaying my flight.

What was the use of going home? If I ever got there I should probably be unable to summon up sufficient resolution to go at all. Just then I heard the sound of a horse's feet advancing rapidly down the road. An impulse seized me to get out of the way. But to do this was not easy.

There was a shallow ditch along each side of the road, and the fence was too high for a leap. Before I could let down the rails and betake myself to the fields the horseman would be on the spot. As I cast rapid glances this way and that, I came in front of the gateway of the lane leading down by the side of Stolliver's house to his barnyard. As it happened, the gate was open. On came the horse clattering down the road, and not a second was to be lost if I wished to remain unseen. I rode in, dismounted, shut to the gate, and led my mare a few yards down the lane to an overhanging black cherry tree, beneath which I ensconced myself. Scarcely had I taken up my position there when the horse and his rider pa.s.sed at a swift trot down the road. It was too dark for me to tell at that distance who the rider was, but, as you shall hear, I soon found out. I stood still and silent, with my hand on Bess's mane, cogitating what to do next. While I did so, Stolliver's front door opened, and he and his boys walked out to the front fence, where the old man lighted his pipe. Then I heard the horse and his rider coming back up the road from the tollgate. In another moment the rider drew up and began to talk to Stolliver. I listened with breathless attention, and heard every word of the conversation, which related to myself. I feared that Bess would neigh or paw the ground, in which case the attention of the speakers would have been drawn to my whereabouts. But, as my cursed fate would have it, the mare made no demonstration of any kind, and I was completely hidden from view by the darkness and also by the foliage of the cherry tree under which I stood. The horseman, as you probably know, was Lapierre, who had been despatched by you to bring me home. This proceeding on your part I regarded, in my then frame of mind, in the light of an indignity. A pretty thing, truly, if I was to be treated as though I was unable to take care of myself, and if my own wife was to send people to hunt for me about the neighborhood! I waited in silence till Lapierre had paid his second visit to the toll-gate and ridden off homewards. Still I waited, until old Stolliver and his boys returned into the house. Then I led the mare as softly as I could down the lane, and around to the back of the barn, where we were safe from observation.

"I chuckled with insane glee at having eluded Lapierre, and then I determined on a course of action. Like the egotistical villain I was, I had no more regard for your feelings than if you had been a stick or a stone. You should never suspect that I had wilfully deserted you, and should be made to believe that I had been murdered. Having formed my plans, I led the mare along the edges of the fields, letting down the fences whenever it was necessary to do so, and putting them carefully up again after pa.s.sing through. I made my way down past the rear end of John Calder's lot, and so on to the edge of the swamp behind Squire Harrington's. Bess would take no harm there during the night and would be found safe enough on the morrow. I removed the bit from her mouth, so that she could nibble the gra.s.s, and left the bridle hanging round her neck, securing it so that she would not be likely to trip or throw herself. I showed far more consideration for her than I did for the wife of my bosom. I removed the saddle so that she could lie down and roll, if she felt that way disposed. I took the coat I had used for a pad, and carried it a short distance into the swamp and threw it into a puddle of water. I deliberated whether I should puncture the end of my finger with my jack-knife and stain my coat with the blood, but concluded that such a proceeding was unnecessary. I knew that you would be mystified by the coat as you knew quite well that I had not worn it when I left home in the morning. Then I bade farewell to poor Bess, and, unaccountable as it may seem to you, I was profoundly touched at parting from her in such a way. I embraced her neck and kissed her on the forehead. As I tore myself away from her I believe I was within an ace of shedding tears. Yet, not a thought of compunction on your account penetrated my selfish soul. I picked my way through the swamp to the fourth concession, and then struck out across unfrequented fields for Harborough station, eight miles away.

"The moon was up, and the light shone brightly all the way, but I skulked along the borders of out-of-the-way fields, and did not encounter a human being. As I drew near the station I secreted myself on the dark side of an old shed, and lay in wait for the first train which might stop there. I did not have to remain more than about half an hour. A mixed train came along from the west, and as it drew up I sprang on the platform of the last car but one. To the best of my knowledge n.o.body saw me get aboard. I was not asked for my ticket until the train approached Hamilton, when I pretended that I had lost it, and paid my fare from Dundas, where I professed to have boarded the train.

I got off at Hamilton, and waited for the east-bound express, which conveyed me to New York."

CHAPTER XV.

REGINALD BOURCHIER SAVAREEN DISCOVERS THE GREAT SECRET.

Thus far Savareen had been permitted to tell his own story. I do not, of course, pretend that it came from his lips in the precise words set down in the foregoing chapter, but for the sake of brevity and clearness, I have deemed it best to present the most salient portion of the narrative in the first person. It was related to me years afterwards by Mrs. Savareen herself, and I think I am warranted in saying that I have given the purport of her relation with tolerable accuracy. There is no need to present the sequel in the same fas.h.i.+on, nor with anything like the same fulness of detail. The man unburdened himself with all the appearance of absolute sincerity, and made no attempt to palliate or tone down anything that told against himself. He admitted that upon reaching New York he had entered upon a career of wild dissipation. He drank, gambled and indulged in debauchery to such an extent that in less than six weeks he had got pretty nearly to the end of his four hundred pounds. He a.s.sumed a false name and carefully abstained from ever looking at the newspapers, so that he remained in ignorance of all that had taken place in the neighborhood of his home after his departure. Becoming tired of the life he was leading in the great city, he proceeded southward, and spent some months wandering about through the Southern States. His knowledge of horse-flesh enabled him to pick up a livelihood, and even at times to make money; but his drinking propensities steadily gained the mastery over him and stood in the way of his permanent success in any pursuit. During a sojourn at a tavern in Lexington, Kentucky, he had formed an attachment for the daughter of his landlord. She was a good girl in her way, and knew how to take care of herself; but Mr. Jack Randall pa.s.sed for a bachelor, and seemed to be several grades above the ordinary frequenters of her father's place. Their marriage and subsequent adventures have been sufficiently detailed by the unhappy woman herself, during her conference with Mrs. Savareen at No. 77 Amity street.

The _soi-disant_ Randall had gone on from bad to worse, until he had become the degraded creature of whom his wife had caught a momentary glimpse under the glare of gas lamp on her departure from the Amity street lodgings. The woman who supposed herself to be his wife had informed him that a strange lady had called and been very kind to her, but she had told him nothing about the lady having come from Canada. Why she was thus reticent I am unable to say with certainty.

Perhaps it was because she attached no importance to the circ.u.mstance, after the lady's declaration that the daguerreotype did not represent the man whom she wished to find. Perhaps she had some inkling of the truth, and dreaded to have her suspicions confirmed. She knew that she had but a short time to live, and may very well have desired to sleep her last sleep without making any discovery detrimental to her peace of mind. Whatever the cause may have been, she kept silent to everything but the main fact that a kind lady had called and supplied her with a small store of money to provide for herself and the child. Savareen never learned or even suspected, that the lady who ministered to the wants of his victims was his own wife, until the truth was told to him by the wife herself. Small difference to him however, where the money came from. He had no scruples about taking a part of it to buy drink for himself and one or two loafers he numbered among his personal acquaintances. But there was sufficient left to provide for all the earthly needs of the dying woman and her child. The little one breathed its last within two days of Mrs. Savareen's visit, and the mother followed it to the grave a week later.

Since then "Jack Randall" had dragged on a solitary existence in New York, and had been on the very brink of starvation. Every half dime he could lay hold of, by hook or by brook--and I fear it was sometimes by both--was spent in the old way. Then his health suddenly broke down, and for the first time he knew what it was to be weak and ill. Finally he had been compelled to admit to himself that he was utterly beaten in the race of life; and with a profound depth of meanness which transcended any of his former acts, he had made up his mind to return in his want and despair, to the wife whom he had so basely deserted.

Since leaving Westchester he had heard nothing of her, direct or indirect; but he doubted not that she was supplied with the necessaries of life, and that she would yield him her forgiveness.

It is possible to sympathize with the prodigal son, but whose heart is wide enough to find sympathy for such a prodigal husband as this?

His wife heard him patiently out to the very end. Then she told him of the arrival of Mr. Thomas Jefferson Haskins at the Royal Oak, and the consequent visit to New York. The recital did not greatly move him. The telling of his own story had again reduced him to a state of extreme exhaustion, and he was for the time being incapable of further emotion.

He soon after dropped asleep, and as he was tolerably certain not to awake until next morning, there was no occasion for further attendance upon him. Mrs. Savareen drew to another apartment to ponder a while, before retiring to rest, on the strange tale which she had heard.

Next morning it was apparent that Savareen was alarmingly ill, and that his illness did not arise solely from exhaustion. A doctor was called in, and soon p.r.o.nounced his verdict. The patient was suffering from congestion of the lungs. The malady ran a rapid course, and in another week he lay white and cold in his coffin, the scar on his cheek, showing like a great pale ridge on a patch of h.o.a.r-frost.

My story is told. The young widow donned the conventional weeds--"the trappings and the suits of woe"--prescribed by custom under such circ.u.mstances. It is only reasonable to believe that she sincerely mourned the loss of her girlhood's ideal, but it was surely too much to expect that she should be overwhelmed by grief at the death of one who had been practically dead to her for years, and whose unworthiness had recently been so unmistakably brought home to her. With her subsequent fortunes the reader has no concern; but it can be no harm to inform him that she remains a widow still, and that she at this moment resides with her son--a prosperous lawyer--in one of the chief towns of Western Canada.