Mike Fletcher Part 35

"I dare say I'm doing him an injury ... but no, there's no time for paradoxes--I'll leave Belthorpe Park to Frank Escott. The aristocrat shall not return to the people. But to whom shall I leave all my money in the funds? To a hospital? No. To a woman? I must leave it to a woman; I hardly know any one but women; but to whom? Suppose I were to leave it to be divided among those who could advance irrefutable proof that they had loved me! What a throwing over of reputation there would be." Then a sudden memory of the girl by whom he had had a child sprang upon him like something out of the dark. He wondered for a moment what the child was like, and then he wrote leaving the interest of his money to her, until his son, the child born in such a year--he had some difficulty in fixing the date--came of age. She should retain the use of the interest of twelve thousand pounds, and at her death that sum should revert to the said child born in ----, and if the said child were not living, his mother should become possessor of the entire monies now invested in funds, to do with as she pleased.

"That will do," he thought; "I dare say it isn't very legal, but it is common sense and will be difficult to upset. Yes, and I will leave all my books and furniture in Temple Gardens to Frank; I don't care much about the fellow, but I had better leave it to him. And now, what about witnesses? The policemen will do."

He found one in King's Bench Walk, another he met a little further on, talking to a belated harlot, whom he willingly relinquished on being invited to drink. Mike led the way at a run up the high steps, the burly officers followed more leisurely.

"Come in," he cried, and they advanced into the room, their helmets in their hands. "What will you take, whiskey or brandy?"

After some indecision both decided, as Mike knew they would, for the former beverage. He offered them soda-water; but they preferred a little plain water, and drank to his very good health. They were, as before, garrulous to excess. Mike listened for some few minutes, so as to avoid suspicion, and then said--

"Oh, by the way, I wrote out my will a night or two ago--not that I want to die yet, but one never knows. Would you mind witnessing it?"

The policemen saw no objection; in a few moments the thing was done, and they retired bowing, and the door closed on solitude and death.

Mike lay back in his chair reading the doc.u.ment. The fumes of the whiskey he had drunk obscured his sense of purpose, and he allowed his thoughts to wander; his eyes closed and he dozed, his head leaned a little on one side. He dreamed, or rather he thought, for it was hardly sleep, of the dear good women who had loved him; and he mused over his folly in not taking one to wife and accepting life in its plain naturalness.

Then as sleep deepened the dream changed, becoming hyperbolical and fantastic, until he saw himself descending into h.e.l.l. The numerous women he had betrayed awaited him and pursued him with blazing lamps of intense and blinding electric fire. And he fled from the light, seeking darkness like some nocturnal animal. His head was leaned slightly on one side, the thin, weary face lying in the shadow of the chair, and the hair that fell thickly on the moist forehead. As he dreamed the sky grew ghastly as the dead. The night crouched as if in terror along the edges of the river, beneath the bridges and among the masonry and the barges aground, and in the ebbing water a lurid reflection trailed ominously. And as the day ascended, the lamps dwindled from red to white, and beyond the dark night of the river, spires appeared upon faint roseate gray.

Then, as the sparrows commenced their shrilling in the garden, another veil was lifted, and angles and shapes on the warehouses appeared, and boats laden with newly-cut planks; then the lights that seemed to lead along the river turned short over the iron girders, and in white whiffs a train sped across the bridge. The clouds lifted and cleared away, changing from dark gray to undecided purple, and in the blank silver of the east, the s.p.a.ces flushed, and the dawn appeared in her first veil of rose. And as if the light had penetrated and moved the brain, the lips murmured--

"False fascination in which we are blinded. Night! shelter and save me from the day, and in thy opiate arms bear me across the world."

He turned uneasily as if he were about to awake, and then his eyes opened and he gazed on the spectral pallor of the dawn in the windows, his brain rousing from dreams slowly into comprehension of the change that had come. Then collecting his thoughts he rose and stood facing the dawn. He stood for a moment like one in combat, and then like one overwhelmed retreated through the folding doors, seeking his pistol.

"Another day begun! Twelve more hours of consciousness and horror! I must go!"

None had heard the report of the pistol, and while the pomp of gold and crimson faded, and the sun rose into the blueness of morning, Mike lay still grasping the revolver, the blood flowing down his face, where he had fallen across the low bed, raised upon lions'

claws and hung with heavy curtains. Receiving no answer, the servant had opened the door. A look of horror pa.s.sed over her face; she lifted his hand, let it fall, and burst into tears.

And all the while the sun rose, bringing work and sorrow to every living thing--filling the fields with labourers, filling the streets with clerks and journalists, authors and actors. And it was in the morning hubbub of the Strand that Lizzie Escott stopped to speak to Lottie, who was going to rehearsal.

"How exactly like his father he is growing," she said, speaking of the little boy by the actress's side. "Frank saw Mike in Piccadilly about a month ago; he promised to come and see us, but he never did."

"Swine.... He never could keep a promise. I hope w.i.l.l.y won't grow up like him."

"Who are you talking of, mother? of father?"

The women exchanged glances.

"He's as sharp as a needle. And to think that that beast never gave me but one hundred pounds, and it was only an accident I got that--we happened to meet in the underground railway. He took a ticket for me--you know he could always be very nice if he liked; he told me a lady had left him five thousand a year, and if I wanted any money I had only to ask him for it. I asked him if he wouldn't like to see the child, and he said I mustn't be beastly; I never quite knew what he meant; but I know he thought it funny, for he laughed a great deal, and I got into such a rage. I said I didn't want his dirty money, and got out at the next station. He sent me a hundred pounds next day. I haven't heard of him since, and don't want to."

"Suicide of a poet in the Temple!" shouted a little boy.

"I wonder who that is," said Lizzie.

"Mike used to live in the Temple," said Lottie.

The women read the reporter's account of the event, and then Lottie said--

"Isn't it awful! I wonder what he has done with his money?"

"You may be sure he hasn't thought of us. He ought to have thought of Frank. Frank was very good to him in old times."

"Well, I don't care what he has done with his money. I never cared for any man but him. I could have forgiven him everything if he had only thought of the child. I hope he has left him something."

"Now I'm sure you are talking of father."