it was not till well on in the afternoon that the body was recovered. all day the cold had been intense, and the ropes with the tackle for this terrible fishing got stiff and frozen. but at sunset they found it; the stream had carried it along below the ice towards the sluice.
philip sat up with colin in the long gallery when violet and lady yardley had gone to bed. he felt no sorrow, for he had not liked raymond, he had not even loved him with his fatherhood, for all that had been given to colin.... often and often he had longed that colin had been the eldest, now there was none other than colin; he would have all that his father coveted for him. but though he felt no sorrow, he felt remorse and pity; remorse that he had not liked this dead son of his, pity that he had died young.
“i reproach myself, colin, most bitterly,” he had been saying. “it was hard to be kind to poor raymond, he kept kindness at arm’s length. but i ought to have tried more. i ought to have taken example from you: you never wearied of kindness.”
colin laid his hand on his father’s arm. all the evening he had been keeping things together by a tact so supreme that it appeared pure naturalness. he had talked quite freely about raymond; recalled a hundred little incidents in which raymond was a mild hero; his shooting, his prospect of playing football for cambridge.... it was clear, too, that the tragedy had made very little impression on his grandmother, and so he had taken it for granted that they would play their rubber of whist. why not?
“you mustn’t think of it like that, father,” he said. “you did what you could. you made it very jolly for{291} him here. he liked coming home; he was going to stop here the whole of the christmas vacation, you know. if he had not been enjoying it, he would not have done that.”
colin revelled in the underlying meaning of his words ... how raymond had been enjoying it, hadn’t he?
philip’s servant came into the room; he carried on a tray raymond’s watch and chain, and a pocket-book.
“they found these on his lordship’s body, my lord,” he said. “i thought it best to bring them you.”
philip took them, and looked absently at the watch which had stopped at a few minutes to eleven.
“he must have fallen in almost immediately,” he said. “i had better look at what is in his pocket-book. it may contain papers that must be attended to.”
not until that moment had colin given another thought to what raymond had received that morning in the envelope from bertram’s bank. now in a flash he conjectured that whatever it was (and he felt no doubt of what it was) it would be found in that pocket-book which his father even then was opening. how lucky it was that he had not told his father about that attempt of raymond’s! how splendid would appear his own magnanimity, his own unfailing kindness to him! he could emphasise them even more by a reluctance that his father should examine these remains. the water, it is true, might have got in and soaked the paper, if it was there, into illegibility, but the leather of the pocket-book seemed to have resisted well: it might easily prove to contain a legible document.
he got up in an excitement which his father did not understand.
“are you wise to do that, do you think?” he asked in a quick, anxious voice. “there may be something there which will pain you.”
“all his papers must be gone through,” said his father. “have you any reason, colin?”
“i can’t explain,” said colin.
papers were coming out of the pocket-book now, in no{292} way perished by the long immersion; they were damp but they held together, and colin glanced with a lynx’s eye at them as his father unfolded them. there were a couple of bills, he could see, which philip laid on one side, and then he came to a half-sheet of foolscap.... he read a line or two, looked at the bottom of it and saw his own name....
“what is this?” he said. “it’s signed by raymond and witnessed by you and me.”
“don’t look at it, father,” said colin, knowing that it was inevitable that his father must read anything that was witnessed by himself. “let me take it and burn it.”
“no, i can’t do that,” said philip. “what does this mean? what....”
“ah! don’t read it, don’t read it!” said colin in a voice of piteous pleading.
“i must.”
“then listen to me instead. i will tell you.”
never had his father looked so old and haggard as then. he had seen enough of what was written there to light horror in his eyes and blanch his face to a deadly whiteness.
“tell me then,” he said.
colin sat down on the edge of his father’s chair.
“it’s a terrible story,” he said, “and i hoped you should never know it. but it seems inevitable. and remember, father, as i tell you, that raymond is dead....”
his voice failed for a moment.
“that means forgiveness, doesn’t it?” he said. “death is forgiveness; you see what i mean. it’s—it’s you who have to teach me that; you will see.”
he collected himself again.
“it was after i came back from capri in the summer, and after vi was engaged to me,” he said, “that what is referred to there took place. he—poor raymond—always hated me. he thought i had your love, which should have been his as well. and then i had violet’s love, after she had accepted him for her husband. there was a{293} thought in that which made it so bitter that—that it poisoned him. he got poisoned; you must think of it like that. and the thought, raymond’s poisoned thought, was this: he knew that violet had the passion for stanier which you and i have. yet when she was face to face with the marriage to him, she gave up stanier. father dear, it wasn’t my fault that i loved her, you didn’t think it was when i told you out in capri? and it wasn’t her fault when she fell in love with me.”
“no, colin,” he said. “love is like that. go on, my dear.”
colin spoke with difficulty now.
“then came a day,” he said, “when a lunatic escaped from that asylum at repstow. you had news of it one night, and told raymond and me. he was a homicidal fellow, and he got hold of one of your keeper’s guns. next morning raymond went to shoot pigeons, and i bicycled on my motor to play golf. and then—then, father, we must suppose that the devil himself came to raymond. it wasn’t raymond who planned what raymond did.... he expected me to come back along the road from the lodge, and he—he hid in the bushes at that sharp corner with his gun resting on the wall, and his plan was to shoot me. it would have been at the distance of a few yards only.”
lord yardley interrupted; his voice was hoarse and nearly inaudible.
“wait a minute, colin,” he said. “all this reminds me of something i have heard, and yet only half heard.”
colin nodded. “i know,” he said. “i’ll tell that presently.... there was poor raymond waiting for me to come round the corner. there was this madman loose in the park somewhere, and if the—the plan had succeeded, it would have been supposed that it was the madman who had killed me. but an accident happened: my bicycle punctured, and i walked back for the trudge along the ridge of the old park.”
colin choked for a moment.{294}
“i caught the glint of sun on a gun-barrel by the wall at that sharp corner,” he said, “and i wondered who or what that could be. it could not be the escaped madman, for they had told me at the lodge that he had been caught; and then i remembered that raymond was out shooting pigeons, and i remembered that raymond hated me. it occurred to me definitely then, and i felt sick at the thought, that he was waiting for me. and then, father, the mere instinct of self-preservation awoke. if it was raymond, if i was terribly right, i could not go on like that in constant fear of my life.... i had to make myself safe.
“i stole down, taking cover behind the oaks, till i got close and then i saw it was raymond. i was white with rage, and i was sick at heart. i had a revolver with me, for you or vi—you, i think—had persuaded me to take it out in case i met the wretched madman, and, father, i had met a wretched madman. i covered him with it, and then i spoke to him. i told him that if he moved except as i ordered him, i would kill him. he collapsed; every atom of fight was out of him, and he emptied his gun of its cartridges and laid it down. and all the time there wasn’t a cartridge at all in my revolver: i had taken them out and forgotten to put them back. it was after he had collapsed that i found that out.”
a wan smile, as unlike to colin’s genial heat of mirth as the moonlight is to the noonday sun, shivered and trembled on his mouth and vanished again, leaving it so serious, so tender.
“he confessed,” he said. “but i had to make myself safe. i told him he must put that confession into writing and sign it, and you and i would witness it. that was done. i told you—do you remember?—that raymond and i had a secret pact, and we wanted your witness to his signature. that was it; and it is that you hold in your hand now. i sent it to my bank, bertram’s, again in self-defence, for i knew that he would not dare to make any attempt on me, since, if it were successful, however far{295} from suspicion he seemed to stand, there would come into your hands the confession that he had attempted to kill me. look at the envelope, father. in case of my death, you will read there, it was to be delivered to you.”
philip did not need to look.
“go on, colin,” he said. “how did it come into raymond’s possession?”
“i can only conjecture that. but this morning, after poor ray had gone out to skate, i wanted a light for my cigarette, and i had no matches. i drew out something from the waste-paper basket. it was an envelope directed to raymond, and on the back was the seal of the bank. his handwriting, as you know, was exactly like mine, a spider scrawl you used to call it. i think he must have written to the bank in my name, asking that what i had deposited there was to be sent to him. he would never be safe till he had got that. and—and, oh, father, i should never have been safe when he had got it.”
there was a long silence; colin’s head was bent on his father’s shoulder; he lay there quivering, while in philip’s face the grimness grew. presently colin spoke again:
“you said you had heard, or half heard, some of this,” he said. “i will remind you. one night at dinner, the night ray got back from cambridge, i made the usual nonsensical fool of myself. i seemed to try to recollect something funny that had happened on the morning when ray went out to shoot pigeons. ‘a man with a gun,’ i said, and you and vi voted that i was a bore. but i think raymond knew why i said it, and went on with it till you were all sick and tired of me. i made a joke of it, you see; i could not talk of it to him. i could not be heavy and say, ‘i forgive you; i wipe it out.’ that would have been horrible for him. the only plan i could think of was to make a joke of it, hoping he would understand. i think he did; i think he saw what i meant. but yet he wanted to be safe. oh, lord, how i understand that! how anxious i was to be safe and not to have to tell you. but i have had to. if you had listened{296} to me, father, you would have burned that paper. then no one would ever have known.” (of course colin remembered that violet knew, but he went on without a pause:)
“i’m all to pieces to-night,” he said. “i have horrible fears and all sorts of dreadful things occur to me. that paper is safe nowhere, father. it wasn’t even safe—poor ray—at my bank. supposing vi, by some appalling mischance, got to see it. it would poison raymond’s memory for her. he did love her, i am sure of that, and though she didn’t love him, she thinks tenderly and compassionately of him. she is not safe while it exists. burn it, father. just look at it once first, if you want to know that i have spoken quiet, sober truth, which i did not want to speak, as you know, and then burn it.”
philip’s first instinct was to throw it straight into the smouldering logs. he believed every word colin had said, but there was justice to be done to one who could not plead for himself. he was bound to see that raymond had acted the story that colin had told him. dry-eyed and grim, he read it from first word to last, and then stood up.
“here it is,” he said. “you have been scrupulously accurate. i should like you to see me burn it.”
the paper was damp, and for a little while it steamed above the logs. then, with a flap, a flame broke from it. a little black ash clung to the embers and grew red, then a faint, grey ash ascended and pirouetted.... philip’s stern eyes melted, and he turned to his only son.
“and now i have got to forget,” he said.
that seemed the very word colin was waiting for.
“that’s easy,” he said. “it’s easy for me, dear father, so it can’t be difficult, for i’m an awful brute. we shall have to make a pact, you and i. we must burn what we know out of our hearts, just as you have burned the evidence of it. it doesn’t exist any more. it was some wretched dream.”
“oh, colin!” said his father, and in those words was{297} all the wonder of love which cannot credit the beauty, the splendour, that it contemplates.
colin saw his father to his room, and then walked back down the great corridor, quenching the lights as he went, for he had told the butler that no one need sit up. he drew back the curtains of the window at the head of the stairs as he passed and looked out on to the clearness of the frosty midnight. moonlight lay over the whiteness of the gardens and terraces, but the yew hedge, black and unfrosted, seemed like some funeral route to be followed to where the ice gleamed with a strange vividness as if it were the skylight to some illuminated place below. then, letting the curtain fall again, he went softly past the head of the lit passage where his room and violet’s lay, to put out the light at the far end of this corridor. in the last room to the left he knew raymond was lying, and he went in.
the last toilet had been finished and the body lay on its bed below a sheet. candles were burning, as if that which lay there dreaded the darkness, and on the table by the bed was a great bowl of white hothouse flowers. colin had not seen raymond since that white face looked at him across the rim of broken ice; there had been disfigurement, he imagined, and, full of curiosity, he turned back the sheet. there were little scars on the nose and ears particularly, but nothing appalling, and he looked long at raymond’s face. the heavy eyelids were closed, the mouth pouted sullenly; death had not changed him at all; he hardly looked asleep, drowsy at the most. not a ray of pity softened colin’s smiling face of triumph.
for a month after raymond’s death, the four of them, representing three generations of staniers, remained quietly there. his name was mentioned less and less among them, for, after colin’s disclosure to his father, philip avoided all speech about him, and, as far as he could, all thought. horror came with the thought of{298} him. the most his father could do was to try to forget him. but for an accident in that matter of a punctured tyre, colin would now be lying where raymond lay, and all sunshine would have passed from his declining years. he was no more than sixty-six, but he was old; colin used to wonder at the swift advance of old age, like some evening shadow, which lengthened so rapidly. but beyond the shadow philip’s sky was full of light. his desire had been realised, though by tragic ways, and his death, neither dreaded nor wished-for, would realise it.
there were, however, events in the future which he anticipated with eagerness; the first was colin’s coming of age next march. for generations that festival had been one of high prestige in the family, and in spite of the recency of raymond’s death, he meant to celebrate it with due splendour.
the other was even more intimately longed-for; early in july, violet would, if all were well, become a mother; and to see colin’s son, to know that the succession would continue, was the dearest hope of his life. and these two expectations brought back some st. martin’s summer of the spirit to him; he began to look forward, as is the way of youth, instead of dwelling in the past. the lengthening shadow stayed, it even retreated.... but colin had an important piece of business to effect before his father’s death, and he was waiting, without impatience but watchfully, for an opportunity to set out on it. as usual, he wanted the suggestion which would give him this opportunity to come, not from himself, but from others; he would seem then to do what he desired because it was urged on him.
a week of dark, foggy weather towards the end of february favoured his plans. influenza was about, and he had a touch of it, in no way serious, indeed possibly useful. after a couple of days in his room he reappeared again, but with all the fire gone out of him. he was silent and depressed, and saw that his father’s eyes watched him with anxiety.{299}
“still feeling rather down?” asked philip one morning, when colin pushed an untasted plate away from him at breakfast.
colin made a tragic face at the window. nothing could be seen outside, the fog was opaque and impenetrable.
“that’s not very encouraging, father,” he said. “not convalescing weather.”
he appeared to pull himself together. “but there’s nothing to worry about,” he said. “i should feel depressed in this damp darkness whether i had had the flue or not.”
“you want the sun,” said philip.
“ah, the sun! is there one? do show it me.”
philip walked to the window; thin rain was leaking through the fog. it certainly was not inspiriting.
“well, why not go and see it for yourself?” he said. “there’s sun somewhere. go off to the riviera for a fortnight with violet.”
“oh, that would be divine if we only could,” said colin. “but—i daresay it’s funny of me—i don’t want vi to go through the sort of journey you have at this time of year. the trains are crammed; a fellow i know had to stand all the way from paris to marseilles. i shouldn’t like her to do that. besides we can’t both leave you.”
“go alone then. violet will understand.”
colin sighed.
“i don’t think i feel much like travelling either,” he said. “i’ll stick it out, father. i can go to bed again. i think that’s the most comfortable place. besides the riviera is like a monkey-house just now.”
“go to the villa at capri then.”
“ah, don’t talk of it,” said colin, getting up. “can’t i see the stone-pine frying in the sunshine. and the freesias will be out, and the wall-flowers. nino, your old boatman’s son, wrote to me the other day. he said the spring had come, and the vines were budding, and it{300} was already hot! hot! i could have cried for envy. don’t let’s talk of it.”
“but i will talk about it,” said philip. “i’m master here yet....”
“father, i don’t like that joke,” said colin.
“very well. we’ll leave it out and be serious. i shall talk to violet, too.”
“no, no, no!” said colin without conviction. “hullo, here is vi. please don’t mention the name of that beloved island again or i shall cry. morning, vi. you’re enough sunshine for anyone.”
colin strolled out of the room so as to leave the others together, and presently philip passed through the long gallery, and was certainly engaged in telephoning for a while. it was a trunk-call, apparently, for there was an interval between the ringing up and the subsequent conversation. all that day neither philip nor violet made the least allusion to capri, but there was certainly something in the air.... the last post that night, arriving while they were at cards, brought a packet for lord yardley, which he opened.
“there, that’s the way to treat obstinate fellows like you, colin,” he observed, and tossed over to him the book of tickets to naples and back.
“father and violet, you’re brutes,” he said. “i give up.”
colin was ever so easily persuaded by mr. cecil to spend a couple of nights, if not more, in naples, before he went across to the island, and he had a youthful, pathetic tale to tell. they had had a terrible time in england. no doubt mr. cecil had seen the notice of his brother’s death—mr. cecil could imagine his father’s grief, and indeed his own and violet’s. kind messages, by the way, from them both: they would none of them forgive him, if he came to england this year and did not reserve at least a week for them, either in london or at stanier.... then colin himself had caught influenza,{301} and his father and wife had insisted on his going south for a week or two and letting the sun soak into him. but after that month of secluded mourning at stanier, it was rather heavenly—colin looked like a seraph who had strayed into a sad world, as he said this—to pass a couple of days in some sort of city where there were many people, and all gay, some stir of life and distraction from his own sorrowful thoughts.
“one has to buck up again some time,” said colin, “and often i longed to escape from stanier and just go up to town and dine with some jolly people, and go to a music-hall, and have supper somewhere, and forget it all for a time. shocking of me, i suppose.”
“no, no, i understand. i quite comprehend that, colin,” said cecil. “i beg your pardon: i should say lord stanier.”
“oh, don’t,” said colin. “i hate the title. it was dear raymond’s. you never saw him, i think?”
mr. cecil had begun to feel like a family friend. he felt himself a sort of uncle to this brilliant boy, so shadowed by woe, so eager to escape out of the shadow. it was his mission, clearly, to aid in this cure, physical and mental, of sunlight.
“no, never,” said he, “only you and your wife and your father. a privilege!”
colin drank the hospitable cocktail that stood at his elbow. his definite plans were yet in the making, but he began to suspect that alcohol in various forms would be connected with them. he had the stanier head as regards drink; it only seemed to collect and clarify his wits, and he remembered that mr. cecil, on that night which he had spent alone here, had quickly passed through joviality and perhaps want of dignity, to bland somnolence.... he got up with an air of briskness and mutual understanding.
“i’m not going to be a wet-blanket, mr. cecil,” he said. “i’ve told you enough to make you see that i pine for enjoyment again. that little restaurant where you and{302} i went before—may we dine there again? i want to see other people enjoying themselves, and i want the sun. those are my medicines; be a kind, good doctor to me.”
mr. cecil’s treatment, so he congratulated himself, seemed wonderfully efficacious that evening. colin cast all sad thoughts behind him, and between one thing and another, and specially between one drink and another, it was after twelve o’clock before they returned from their dinner to mr. cecil’s flat again. even then, a story was but half-told, and mr. cecil drew his keys from his pocket to unlock a very private drawer where there were photographs about which he now felt sure colin would be sympathetic.
“you’ll like them,” he giggled, as he produced these prints. “help yourself, colin. i see they have put out some whisky for us.”
“oh, lord, how funny,” said colin looking at what mr. cecil shewed him. “but i can’t drink unless you do. say when, mr. cecil.”
mr. cecil was looking at the next photograph, and colin took advantage of his preoccupation. the big bunch of keys by which this private, this very private, drawer was opened still dangled from the lock.
“and this one,” said mr. cecil, applying himself to the liberal dose.
“but what a glorious creature,” said colin. “may i help myself?”
mr. cecil had a confused idea that colin had finished his first drink and wanted another. so he finished his own and wanted another.
“of course, my dear boy,” he said. “just a night-cap, eh? a drop of whisky at bed-time, i’ve noticed, makes one sleep all the sounder.”
colin was on the apex of watchfulness. photograph after photograph was handed to him, but long before they came to the end of them the effects of the night-cap were apparent in mr. cecil. the keys still hung from the lock, and colin, as he replaced the last of this unblushing{303} series, got up and stood between this table-drawer and his host.
“and that statuette there?” he said, pointing to the other side of the room, “surely we’ve seen a photograph of that?”
mr. cecil chuckled again; but the chuckle could hardly emerge from his sleep-slack mouth.
“ah, i’ll tell you about that to-morrow,” he said, looking round at it.
colin, with one of his caressing, boyish movements, put his hand on mr. cecil’s shoulder, and ever so imperceptibly drew him towards the door.
“i feel a different fellow altogether,” he said. “i shall sleep like a top, and i have enjoyed myself. you ought to give up your consular work and start a cure for depressed young men. you’d make a fortune.”
they were out in the passage by this time, and it was clear that the night-cap had banished all thought of his keys from mr. cecil’s head. he saw colin to his room, lingered a moment to see that he had all he wanted, and then went to his own.
“a charming young fellow,” he thought; performed a somnambulistic feat of undressing, and fell into his bed.
colin heard his door shut, and then in a moment turned off his light, and, stealthily opening his own door, stood in the entry listening for any sound. for a minute or two there were faint, muffled noises from his host’s room, but soon all was still, except for the creaking of his own shirt-front as he breathed. then, re-entering his room, he stripped and put on his pyjamas and soft felt slippers which would be noiseless on the boards outside. once more he stood there and waited, and now from inside mr. cecil’s room came sounds rhythmical and reassuring. enough light dribbled in through the uncurtained windows to guide his steps without fear of collision, and he glided into the room they had just left and felt his way to the table where the keys still dangled. he unloosed them, grasping them in the flap of his jacket, so that they{304} should not jingle as he moved, and went down the passage to the door of the consular offices. the big key for the door was in the lock, and turned noiselessly.
the archive-room lay to the right, and with the door into the house shut behind him, he permitted himself the illumination of a match, and passed through. the shutters were closed, and he lit a candle that stood on the table for official sealing. there, in the wall, was the locked press that he so well remembered, and the trial of half-a-dozen of the keys on the bunch he carried gave him the one he looked for. the date labels were on the back of the volumes, and he drew out that which comprised the year he wanted. quietly he turned over the leaves and found the page which contained the contract between rosina viagi and philip lord stanier. even in this one-candle-power light the erasure was visible to the eye that looked for it. a paper-knife lay among the tools of writing on the table, and folding the leaf back to its innermost margin he severed it from the book and thrust it inside the cord of his trousers.
bright-eyed and breathing quickly with excitement and success, he replaced the volume and locked the press. he grasped the keys as before, blew out the candle, quenching the smouldering wick in his fingers, and went back, locking the door of the office behind him, into the room from which he had fetched the keys. he replaced them in the drawer of unblushing photographs and, pausing for a moment at his own door, listened for the noise that had reassured him before. there it was, resonant and rhythmical. he closed his door, turned up his light, and drew the severed page from his trousers. he had been gone, so his watch told him, not more than five minutes.
“rosina viagi to philip lord stanier....” march 1, or march 31, mattered no more. “i have but cancelled a forgery,” he thought to himself as he pored over it. it was a pity to be obliged to destroy so ingenious a work, which at one time gave him the mastership of stanier, but raymond’s death had given it him more completely,{305} and it no longer served his end, but was only a danger. yet should he destroy it, or....
his mind went back to the night that he and violet had passed together here. how supreme had been his wisdom over that! for supposing, on his father’s death, that violet threatened to contest his succession on the information he had given her to induce her for certain to marry him, what now would the register show but an excised leaf? in whose interest had it been to remove that, except violet’s, for with its disappearance there vanished, as far as she knew, all record of the marriage. had she had an opportunity of doing so? certainly, for had she not spent a night here on the return from their honeymoon? should she be so unwise as to send her lawyer here to examine the register on the ground that it had been tampered with, she would be faced with a tampering of an unexpected kind. the leaf had gone; but how lucky that before its suspicious disappearance, colin had copied out the entry of the marriage and had it certified as correct by the consul himself. he had it safe, with its date, march 1. that would be a surprise to poor violet when she knew it, and the finger of suspicion, wavering hitherto, would surely point in one very definite direction.... as for the letter from rosina to salvatore viagi, of which she would profess knowledge on colin’s authority, what did she mean and where was the letter? uncle salvatore, whom colin would see to-morrow, would be found to know nothing about it.
about the destruction of this page.... colin fingered his own smooth throat as he considered that. supposing violet seriously and obstinately threatened to contest the succession? and what if, when the page was found to be missing, it was discovered in some locked and secret receptacle of her own? that would be devilish funny.... colin hoped, he thought, that it would not come to that. he liked violet, but she must be good, she must be wise.
the click of an electric switch and the noise of a step outside sent his heart thumping in his throat, and next{306} moment he had thrust the page into his despatch-box and turned the key on it. the step passed his room, and was no longer audible, and with infinite precaution he turned the handle, and holding the door just ajar, he listened. it had not gone the whole length of the passage down to the entry to the consular offices, and even while he stood there he heard the chink of keys. then the step was audible again, and the chink accompanied it. at that comprehension came to him, confirmed next moment by the repeated click of the electric switch and the soft closing of his host’s door.
“my luck holds,” thought colin, and blessed the powers that so wonderfully protected him. in another minute he was in bed, but even as sleep rose softly about him, he woke himself with a laugh.
“that’s where i’ll put the leaf from the register,” he thought. “priceless! absolutely priceless!”
it was no news to him when at breakfast next morning mr. cecil certified the accuracy of his interpretation of the step.
“amazingly careless i was last night,” he said. “i went straight to bed after we had looked at those photographs, and fell asleep at once.”
“night-cap,” said colin. “i did exactly the same.”
“well, my night-cap fell off,” said mr. cecil. “it fell off with a bang. i hadn’t been to sleep more than a quarter of an hour when i woke with a start.”
“some noise?” asked colin carelessly.
“no. i hadn’t heard anything, but my conscience awoke me, and i remembered i had left my keys in the lock of that private drawer of mine. i got out of bed in a fine hurry, for not only was that drawer unlocked—that would never do, eh?—but on the bunch were keys of cupboards and locked cases in the consulate. but there the keys were just where i had left them. i can’t think how i came to forget them when i went to bed.”
colin looked up with an irresistible gaiety of eye and mouth:{307}
“i know,” he said. “you were so busy looking after your patient.... and you gave me a lot of medicine, dr. cecil, wine, liqueurs, cocktails, whiskies and sodas. i was as sleepy as an owl when i tumbled into bed. how thirsty it makes one in the morning to be sleepy at night.”
mr. cecil broke into a chuckle of laughter.
“precisely my experience,” he said. “odd. now can you amuse yourself to-day till i’m free again?”
“not so much as if you were with me,” said colin. “but i must pay a duty call on my uncle. i don’t say it will be amusing. do you know him? salvatore viagi.”
mr. cecil had not that happiness, and presently colin went in search of the mansion which salvatore had once alluded to as the palazzo viagi.
leaving nothing to chance that could be covered by design, he had telegraphed from rome yesterday to say he would make this visit, and wanted a private interview with salvatore. the palazzo viagi proved to be a rather shabby flat in an inconspicuous street, but salvatore skipped from his chair with open arms to receive him, and assumed an expression that was suitable to the late family bereavement and his joy at seeing colin.
“collino mio!” he cried. “what a happy morning is this for your poor uncle, yet, oh, what a terrible blow has fallen on us since last i saw you! dear friend, dear nephew, my heart bled for you when i saw the news! so young, and with such brilliant prospects. lamentable indeed. enough.”
he squeezed colin’s hand and turned away for a moment to hide his emotion at the death of one on whom he had never set eyes. he wore an enormous black tie in token of his grief, but was otherwise as troubadourial as ever.
“but we must put away sad thoughts,” he continued. “i am all on tenter-hooks to know what brings you to my humble doors. not further bad news: no, not that? your beloved father is well, i hope. your beloved wife also,{308} and your revered grandmother. yes? put me out of my suspense.”
the health of these was not so much an anxiety at this moment to salvatore as the desire to know that all was well with the very pleasant financial assistance which colin provided. it was easy, in fact, to guess the real nature of his suspense, and consequently colin found a delicate pleasure in prolonging it a little.
“yes, they’re all well,” he said. “my father bore the blow wonderfully considering how devoted he was to raymond. violet, too, and my grandmother. you can make your affectionate heart at ease about them all.”
“thank god! thank god!” said salvatore. “i—i got your telegram. i have made arrangements so that our privacy shall be uninterrupted. i have, in fact, sent vittoria and cecilia to visit friends at posilippo. such reproaches, such entreaties, when they heard their cousin colin was expected, but i was adamant.”
“and how are vittoria and cecilia?” asked colin. the troubadour was almost dancing with impatience.
“they are well, i am glad to say; they have the constitution of ostriches, or whatever is healthiest in the animal kingdom. but time presses, no doubt, with you, dear fellow; you will be in a hurry; duties and pleasure no doubt claim you.”
“no, no,” said colin. “i am quite at leisure for the day. i am staying with mr. cecil our consul. he is officially engaged all day, and all the hours are at our disposal.... so at last i see the home of my mother’s family. was it here she lived, uncle salvatore?”
“no, in quite another street. my wretched penury drove me here. even with your bounty, dear collino, i can scarcely make the two ends meet.”
colin looked very grave.
“indeed, i am very sorry to hear that,” he said.
“ah! you have come to me with bad news,” exclaimed salvatore, unable to check himself any more. “break it to me quickly. vittoria....{309}”
at last colin had pity.
“let’s come to business, uncle salvatore,” he said. “there’s no bad news, at least if there is you will be making it for yourself. now, do you remember two letters of my mother which you once sent me? we had a talk about them, and i want you to give me your account of them. can you describe them to me?”
salvatore made a tragic gesture and covered his eyes with his hand. the ludicrous creature made a farce of all he touched.
“they are graven on my heart,” he said. “deep and bitterly are they graven there. the first that i received, dated on the seventeenth of march, told me of the birth of her twins, one named raymond and yourself. the second, dated march the thirty-first, announced her marriage which had taken place that day with your father ...” and he ground his teeth slightly.
colin leaned forward to him.
“uncle salvatore you are a marvellous actor!” he said. “why did you never go on the stage? i can tell you why. you have no memory at all.”
salvatore gave him a hunted kind of look. was not his very existence (and that of vittoria and cecilia) dependent on the accuracy of this recollection?... was colin putting him to some sort of test to see if he would stick to his impression of those letters.
“dear fellow, those letters and those dates are engraved, as i have previously assured you, on my heart. alas i that it should be so....”
a sudden light dawned on him.
“you have come to tell me that i am wrong,” he said. “is it indeed true that my memory is at fault?”
“absolutely with regard to the date of one of those letters,” said colin. “the date on that which announced my mother’s marriage was surely march the first, uncle salvatore. you are right about the date of the other.”
colin suddenly broke into a shout of laughter. his uncle’s puckered brow and his effort to recollect what{310} he knew and what he had been told were marvellous to behold. presently he recovered himself.
“seriously, uncle salvatore,” he said. “i want you to see if you cannot recollect that the marriage letter was dated march the first. it is very important that you should do that; it will be disastrous for you if you don’t. i just want you to recollect clearly that i am right about it. the letters will never be produced, for i have destroyed them both.... but surely when you sent me them you thought that it was as i say. probably you will never be called upon to swear to your belief, but just possibly you may. it would be nice if you could recollect that; it would remove the stain from the honour of your illustrious house, and, also, parenthetically, from my poor shield.”
colin paused a moment with legs crossed in an attitude of lazy ease; he lay back in his low chair and scratched one ankle with the heel of his shoe.
“mosquitoes already!” he said, “what troublesome things there are in the world! mosquitoes you know, uncle salvatore, or want of money for instance. if i were a scheming, inventive fellow, i should try to arrange to give a pleasant annuity to mosquitoes on the condition of their not biting me. if one bit me after that, i should withdraw my annuity. what nonsense i am talking! it is getting into the sun and the warmth and your delightful society that makes me foolish and cheerful. let us get back to what i was saying. i am sure you thought when you gave me those dear letters that the date of your adored sister’s marriage was the first of march. in all seriousness i advise you to remember that it was so. that’s all; i believe we understand each other. vittoria’s future, you know, and all the rest of it. and on my father’s death, i shall be a very rich man. but memory, what a priceless possession is that! if you only had a good memory, uncle salvatore!... persuade me that you have a good memory. reinstate, as far as you can, the unblemished honour of the viagis. yes, that’s all.{311}”
colin got up and examined the odious objects that hung on the walls. there was a picture framed in shells; there was a piece of needlework framed in sea-weed; there was a chromo-lithograph of something sacred. all was shabby and awful. a stench of vegetables and the miscellany called frutta di mare stole in through the windows from the barrows outside this splendid palazzo viagi.
“but the record at the consulate,” said salvatore, with italian cautiousness. “you told me that though the date there appeared to be the same as that which i certainly seem to recollect on the letter....”
colin snapped himself round from an absent inspection of, no doubt, vittoria’s needlework.
“but what the deuce has that got to do with you, uncle salvatore?” he said. “i want your recollection of the dates on the letters which we have been speaking of and of nothing else at all. do i not see vittoria’s handiwork in this beautiful frame of shells? how lucky she has a set of clever fingers if her father has a bad memory! she will have herself to support and him as well, will she not? and what do you know of any register at the consulate? the noble viagis would not mix themselves up with low folk like poor mr. cecil. in fact, he told me that he had not the honour of your acquaintance. do not give it him. why should you know mr. cecil? about that letter now....”
“it was certainly my impression,” began salvatore.
colin interrupted. “i don’t deal with your impressions,” he said. “was not the letter concerning my mother’s marriage dated the first of march? that’s all; yes or no.”
salvatore became the complete troubadour again, and his malachite studs made him forget his black tie. again he skipped from his chair with open arms.
“i swear to it,” he said. “the restoration of my adored idol! it has been a nightmare to me to think.... ah, it was just that, a bad dream.... were not those letters imprinted on my heart?{312}”
colin evaded his embrace; he was like some monstrous goat in broadcloth.
“that’s all settled then,” he said. “you were only teasing me when you pretended not to remember. you will be sure not to forget again, won’t you? forgetfulness is such a natural failing, but what dreadful consequences may come of it. let the thought of them be your nightmare in the future, uncle salvatore. there’ll be pleasant realities instead if you will only remember, and a pleasant reality is nicer than a bad dream which comes true.... i’ll be going now, i think....”
“i cannot permit it,” exclaimed salvatore. “some wine, some biscuits!”
“neither, thanks,” said colin. “i had wine last night, though i can’t remember the biscuits. probably there were some. vittoria and cecilia! what an anxiety removed with regard to their future!”
“and your movements, dear collino?” exclaimed salvatore. “you go to capri?”
colin thought of the tawdry, bibulous evening that probably awaited him, and his uncle’s question put a new idea into his head. his innate love of wickedness made it desirable to him to hurt those who were fond of him, if their affection could bring him no advantage. uncle salvatore, at any rate, could do nothing more for him, and he was not sure that mr. cecil could. mr. cecil had been a wonderful host last night; he had fulfilled the utmost requirements of his guest in getting sleepy and drunk, and was there any more use for mr. cecil? drink and photographs and leerings at the attractive maidens of naples was a very stupid sort of indulgence....
“yes, to-morrow,” he said. “perhaps even by the afternoon boat to-day.”
“but alone?” said salvatore. “how gladly would i relieve your solitude. i would bring vittoria and cecilia; how charming a family party.”
colin felt some flamelike quiver of hatred spread{313} through him. his nerves vibrated with it; it reached to his toes and fingertips.
“a delightful suggestion,” he said, “for you and vittoria and whatever the other one’s name is. but i don’t want any of you, thank you. i haven’t seen either of them, but i guess what they are like from you. you’re like—you’re like a mixture of a troubadour and a mountebank, and the man who cracks the whip at the horses in a circus, uncle salvatore. you’re no good to me any more, but i can be awfully bad for you if you lose your memory again. you know exactly what i want you to remember, and you do remember it. you forgot it because i told you to forget it. now it has all come back to you, and how nice that is. but if you think i am going to bore myself with you and vittoria and the other, you make a stupendous error. i’m very kind to you, you know; i’m your benefactor to a considerable extent, so you mustn’t think me unkind when i utterly refuse to saddle myself with your company. i butter your bread for you, be content with that. good-bye. love to vittoria!”
so that was done, and he strolled back along the sea-front towards the consulate. capri, a little more solid only than a cloud, floated on the horizon, and with that delightful goal so near, it was miserable to picture another tiresome crapulous evening with the little red bounder. last night, stupid and wearisome though the hours had been, they had yielded him the prize he sought for, whereas to-night there would be no prize of any sort in view. those interminable drinks, those stupid photographs, why waste time and energy in this second-hand sort of debauchery? he had been prepared, when he started from england, to spend with mr. cecil as much time as was necessary in order to achieve what was the main object of his expedition, but that was accomplished now. he would be so much happier at the villa, where he was, after all, expected to-day, than in seeing mr. cecil{314} get excited and familiar and photographic and intoxicated.
the whispering stone-pine, the vine-wreathed pergola, the piazza full of dusk and youth, the steps of belated passengers on the pathway outside the garden made sweeter music than the voice of an inebriated consul with its hints and giggles. stout, middle-aged people, if there had to be such in the world, should keep quiet and read their books, and leave the mysteries and joys of youth to the young.... it was there, in that cloud that floated on the horizon, that he had first realised himself and the hand that led him, in the scent-haunted darkness and the whispering of the night wind; that fed his soul with a nourishment that mr. cecil’s cocktails and photographs were starvingly lacking in. he would feast there to-night.
a promise to spend another night at the consulate on his return from capri made good his desertion to-day, for, in point of fact, mr. cecil felt considerably off-colour this morning, and rather misdoubted his capacity for carrying off with any semblance of enjoyment a repetition of last night. his reproaches and disappointment were clearly complimentary rather than sincere, and the afternoon boat carried colin on it. once he had made that journey with his father, once with violet, but could a wish have brought either of them to his side he would no more have breathed it than have thrown himself off the boat. he did not want to be jostled and encumbered by love, or hear its gibberish, and with eager eyes, revelling in the sense of being alone with his errand already marvellously accomplished, he watched the mainland recede and the island draw nearer through the fading twilight.
lights were springing up along the marina, and presently there was nino alongside in his boat, ready to ferry him ashore. he, with his joyous paganism, his serene indifference to good or evil, was far closer to what colin hungered for than either his father or violet, but closer yet, so colin realised, was the hatred between himself and his own dead brother....
and then presently there was the garden dusky and{315} fragrant with the odour of wallflowers and freesias, and the whispering of the warm breeze from the sea, and the oblong of light from the open door to welcome him.
on the table just within there lay a telegram for him, and with some vivid presentiment of what it contained, he opened it. his father had died quite suddenly a few hours ago.
the whisper of the pine grew louder, and the breeze suddenly freshening, swept in at the door thick with garden scents, with greeting, with felicitations.
