The Red Derelict

Still Wagram did not move. He had heard of this man’s former visit, but as his father had not mentioned it to him he himself had kept silence on the subject. But he had put two and two together, and had connected it with days of depression under which the old Squire had suffered. Moreover, it struck him that his father had undergone a subtle change, had not been quite the same ever since. Now he had come in and found him in a state of collapse after another interview with this man. His own name, too, had been brought up, and in such a manner.

“No,” he answered; “not yet. This mystery must be cleared up before you leave this room. I repeat my former question: In what way does my name require ‘saving’?”

“Oh, if you will be so obstinate!” answered Develin Hunt excitedly, “you have only yourself to blame. I’ve done all I could for you. Since you will have it, your name – well, it isn’t your name.”

“Not my name?” repeated Wagram in a strange voice. “Man, are you mad, or only drunk?”

“Neither,” returned the adventurer doggedly. “Well, then, your mother was married to me before she married your father. She was not to blame. She thought I was dead. If you don’t believe me ask the Squire here.”

There was no need to ask the Squire. The old man nodded assent; he was incapable of speech just then.

“Are you – trying – to make me believe, then, that you are, my father?” said Wagram in a dry, hardly articulate kind of voice.

“No, no – not for a moment. But, of course, the second marriage was invalid. Now, do you take in the position?”

“Yes.”

Wagram’s face had gone livid and his tall form seemed to sway. No further word would come. But for the set, gleaming stare of the eyes he might have been a corpse trying to stand upright. The sight was awful, indescribably so. Even the hard, unscrupulous adventurer was moved to concern and compunction.

“For God’s sake, don’t take it like this,” he adjured. “Pull yourself together, man. The thing is a secret between us three, and need never be anything else. Send for a big tot of brandy, or something to steady your nerves. It’s a facer, but nothing need come of it.”

For answer Wagram only shook his head, and moved unsteadily to the open window, where he stood, looking out. There was nothing to prevent Develin Hunt walking out of the house with his 25,000 pound cheque in his pocket; and, to do him justice, it was not the thought that this might be stopped by telegram that restrained him. Yet he did not so walk out.

Chapter Twenty Two.

“Nobody of Nowhere.”

Had Wagram been a sufferer from weakness of heart it is highly probable that he would have fallen down dead there and then.

The shock was sudden and complete. As he stood gazing out through the open window its full meaning swept over his mind as in a very flash of blasting flame. He, Wagram of Hilversea, whose intense pride in and love of his noble inheritance and the almost illimitable opportunity for good which the position entailed upon him were as the very breath of life, now learned, all in a moment of time, that he was in reality Nobody of Nowhere – that he had not even a name. It seemed as though the very heavens had fallen upon him, crushing him to the dust.

“Not a soul need ever be one atom the wiser. It’s strictly between ourselves.”

It was the adventurer’s voice that had broken the awful silence. Wagram turned, wearily.

“You have proof of what you advance, I take it – sufficient and convincing proof?” he said.

“Oh yes; abundant. Look at this,” exhibiting a marriage certificate of many years back. “You can go down and compare notes with the original parish register; it isn’t a very long journey from here. Besides, your father will bear out what I say.”

Again the old man nodded feebly. He seemed incapable of speech.

Wagram took the certificate and examined it earnestly. It was from the register of a parish in a small county town. Then he handed it back.

“What have you received as hush-money over this business?” he said.

“Not a farthing until to-day. But the Squire has been very liberal, and has behaved like a thorough gentleman. You may rely upon it that no word will ever pass my lips.”

“May I see the cheque?”

“Certainly.”

Develin Hunt produced the cheque, intending to keep a firm hold of it while the other scanned its contents; but, marvellous to relate, he actually and deliberately placed it in Wagram’s outstretched hand. The latter looked at it.

“Twenty-five thousand pounds!” he said. “I suppose you are greatly in need of money?”

“Greatly isn’t the word for it,” answered the adventurer quickly. “I’m stony broke – and the worst of it is, I’m too old to be able to make any more.”

“Destroy it, Wagram, destroy it!” burst from the old Squire. “He’s broken his side of the contract already.”

The adventurer was conscious of a tense and anxious moment. He was fully aware, as we have said above, that the payment could be stopped by wire; still, while he actually held the document itself, he seemed to be holding something substantial. Wagram handed it back unhesitatingly.

“No, father,” he said; “it has been given, and we can’t take back a gift; and if anyone is the loser it will be me.”

“No, it will not,” declared the adventurer with vehemence. “No, certainly not. And – pardon me, Squire, for reminding you that I have not broken my side of the compact. Your son forced the information from me – very unfortunately, but still he did. But nobody else ever will if only you could bring yourselves to believe it. Come. Remember how, for all these years, I have kept absolute silence, even to Everard – though I have been seeing him day after day – in fact, for a devilish sight more days than I wanted to. Well, then, why should I begin to wag my tongue now?”

“Only to Everard?” repeated Wagram. “Then you’ve seen him?”

“Seen him? Rather! Seen a great deal too much of him. I don’t mind admitting that, if I hadn’t been a sight smarter man for my age than he reckoned, I should have had six inches of his knife between my ribs one time.”

“Where is he?” said Wagram.

“Ah-h! Now you’re asking for some information it wouldn’t be a bit good for you to have, so I think I’ll withhold it in your own interest – purely in your own interest, mind.”

Wagram was about to reply, but did not. The adventurer went on:

“Don’t let this knowledge make any difference to you. I give you my word of honour – though, I daresay, you won’t think much of that – that this secret shall die with me. You have both treated me handsomely and fairly and squarely in this matter, and, so help me God! I’ll do the same by you. Wagram Wagram, you might have torn up that cheque when I put it into your hand, as the Squire there advised you, though I know he was speaking without thought when he did. But it was with the knowledge that no more honourable man treads this green and blue world than yourself that I did put it there. Well, then, I swear to you that what I told the Squire on a former occasion is absolutely true. I have a hankering to end up my days decently and respectably, and, perhaps, in the long run this will turn out not the least amount of good of all the good you have done in your time, and I have some sort of inkling what that is. Now I’ll go, and once more I say you’ll never hear of me again.”

He rose, and, with a bow to both, walked to the door. No attempt was made to detain him this time.

“I’ll just see this gentleman out, father,” said Wagram. “I won’t be a moment.” The Squire nodded.

But Wagram had something further in his mind than merely seeing an exceedingly unwelcome visitor off the premises. He made a commonplace remark or two until they were clear of the house; then, once fairly in the avenue, where the ground was open around, and no chance of being overheard, he said again:

“Where is he? Where is my brother?”

The adventurer’s answer was the same.

“You had better not know,” he said.

“But – I must.”

“But – why? Have you gained anything by being too curious before? Didn’t I warn you to leave it alone – that there might be things it were better that you should not know? This is another of them. Leave it alone, I say. ‘Where ignorance is bliss,’ you know. Well, in this case it is, believe me.”

“That is impossible. What sort of ease of mind, let alone happiness, could ever travel my way again while every moment of my life was spent in the consciousness that I was keeping somebody else out of his rights?”

“His rights! Good Lord! His rights! Now, do you really mean to tell me that you would abdicate, would turn over all this” – with a sweep of the hand around – “to Butcher Ned – er – I mean Everard? Why, to begin with, it would kill your father.”

“No; because he could have no rights here – at least not in the sense we mean – during my father’s lifetime. After that, well – ”

“After that – well, you would put him in here – would install him in possession. Good Lord! Wagram Wagram, I can only suppose you don’t know your – er – brother one little bit.”

“Not lately, of course. But that doesn’t touch the principle of the thing anyhow.”

“Not touch the principle of the thing, eh? Have you reflected what would be the result of putting Everard in possession here? No; of course, you haven’t. Well, then, you may take it from me that hell let loose would be a merry little joke compared with Hilversea six months after that sucking lamb had got his finger on it. I tell you it would be a by-word for – well, for everything that you, and all decent people, would rather it were not.”

“Have you some grudge against him?” said Wagram.

“Grudge? No; not an atom of a grudge. But, honestly, I’d be sorry – more than sorry – to see him in your place. I haven’t any grudge against him; but – I know him, and I don’t think you do.”

“Possibly not. But if he is all you imply, all the more reason for finding him out. No one is utterly irreclaimable, you know.”

“Pardon me. I don’t I would say I know the exact contrary; only that is a point on which we should certainly disagree. And the first instance I should cite in proof of that contrary would be your half-brother. Now, this time be advised by me – you would not before – and leave Everard – well, exactly wherever he may happen to be.”

“No; I cannot do that. We had thought him dead, having heard nothing of him for years. Now we know he is alive it is – well, my duty to find him, in view of his future rights and great responsibilities. Now, Mr Hunt you owned just now that you had been well treated by us, so I put it to you to make some little return; therefore tell me where Everard is to be found.”

“The return you mention is to bury what I know as surely as if I were dead, and that you seem determined to prevent me from doing.”

“No. Nothing need be known of – of – the other matter any the more. But Everard must be restored to his rights.”

The adventurer stood stock still and stared at Wagram. His experience had been wide and diverse, yet here was a man who stood clean outside it. Why, he must be mad; yet as his puzzled glance took in the tall, straight form and the strong, thoroughbred face, still showing traces of the recent shock, he shook his head, puzzled, and decided that the man was as sane as himself, only clean outside his own experience.

“Look here,” he said shortly, “supposing in refusing you this information I am trying to protect myself against myself – oh, not from Everard, don’t think that. He couldn’t harm me; the boot, if anything, is rather on the other foot. Now, I’ve made a compact with you and your father, and I mean to keep it, but I’ve made no compact with Everard. Yet, I’m only human, and what if you let him in here and I felt moved to take advantage of it? I have a considerable hold over him, remember, and might easily be tempted to turn it to account.”

“In that case you ‘might easily be tempted’ to turn this other knowledge to further account as regards ourselves,” said Wagram, with a dry, wan smile.

“No, no; the cases are entirely different,” rejoined the adventurer quickly, and with some vehemence. “Look here. Like yourself, I, too, have a son, of about the same age as yours. Well, it is for him – to keep him as far apart as the poles from becoming what Everard and I, and others, have been – that I am so urgently in need of this money. Now I can do it, and if I could have done it without your forcing this secret from me Heaven knows I would have been far more glad.”

Wagram softened. “It could not be helped,” he said wearily. “And now, in return, tell me where to find my brother. I don’t say I am going to rush up to him with the good news – for him – all at once; but he must be found.”

The adventurer stood for a moment or two in silence.

“Well, then,” he said at last, “since you are so death on finding him, this is the best – or the worst – I can do for you. Go to Lourenço Marques and make a few inquiries there – not from the police, of course. Then, if that’s no good, work over the Lebombo into Swaziland, and get into touch with some of the tougher samples of white traders there – and there are some tough ones. Then go to work delicately and carefully to obtain tidings of Butcher Ned – that’s how he’s known in those parts – never mind why, as I told the Squire just now. Only be very careful how you work your inquiries, for he’ll be engaged on the most ticklish and infernally risky game in the gun-running and general information line for the benefit of the Transvaal Government, unless he’s changed his mind since I saw him last, and I don’t think he has. And, honestly, I hope you won’t succeed in finding him, in which case even your scruples, I should think, would be set at rest. And, perhaps, you won’t, for I certainly can’t give you any information that’s more explicit; and it’s more than a year old, for I took a look in on the West Coast on my way back from that part, and it lasted me a year.”

“Thanks,” said Wagram, again with that dry, wan smile, as he made a note or two in a pocket-book.

“Now I will go,” said Develin Hunt, “and my best wish is that you will be unsuccessful in your search.”

Then he paused, and a strange look – almost a wistful look – came over his hard, bronzed face.

“Look here, Wagram Wagram,” he blurted out, “I’ve done you a devilish ill turn, but I needn’t have done that if you hadn’t been so infernally persistent. I still hope nothing will come of it; but, hang it all, I want to tell you before I go that I’ve never seen a man like you in all my experience, and it isn’t small. I’m going to ask you a great favour – no, not money this time – and I know you’re going to refuse it. I want to ask you to let me shake hands with you.”

Instinctively Wagram started, partly with astonishment. This man, as he had said, had indeed done him an ill turn. He had, by a word, deprived him of his possessions and of his very name. He had come as a blackmailer, and had obtained his blackmail – his price. He had spoiled – nay, ruined – his very life. And yet, and yet, but for the grace of God he himself might have been such as he, was the reflection that ran swiftly through his mind. Who was he to set himself up in judgment?

“No. You will not?” said the other, noting his hesitation. “Of course, I ought to have known.”

“But I will,” said Wagram, putting forth his hand.

The adventurer clasped it in a strong, hard grip. Then without another word he turned and strode away down the avenue at a most astonishing pace for one of his apparent years.

Chapter Twenty Three.

After the Blow

Facing round to return to the house the sight of the latter met Wagram as with a blow. The last time he had looked upon it from outside, barely half-an-hour ago, it had been with the love of it and everything about it – that pride of possession which had become unconsciously a part of his very life. Now all was swept away. He passed his hand over his eyes as though dazzled; even his walk seemed swaying and unsteady, as that of a man recovering from a stunning shock. But not of himself must he think just then. He must do what he could to mitigate the stroke as regarded his father, he told himself; afterwards he might indulge in the “luxury” of self-pity.

The old Squire was sitting in the library just where he had left him, and as many years seemed to have gone over his head as minutes during the time intervening.

“Well, father, this is rather a facer,” he began. “The next thing is to consider what’s to be done.”

“There’s nothing to be done,” answered the old man wearily. “Do you think that scoundrel means to keep his word?”

“To do him justice, I think he means to at present; but whether his good intentions will evaporate with the lapse of time, and the temptation to try and extract more plunder, is another matter.”

There was silence for a few moments between them. Then Wagram said:

“Father, would you mind telling me all the ins and outs of this while we are on the subject? We shall get it over that way, and then we need never refer to it again.”

“Yes; perhaps it is better,” said the Squire, with a sigh.

And then he set forth the whole story, which, with some additional but immaterial detail, was the same as that which we heard him narrate to Monsignor Culham.

“You know, this man has just been telling me where I can find Everard,” said Wagram when he had done.

The Squire started.

“Where you can find Everard!” he echoed. “But – Wagram, you will never be so mad as to try?”

“How can I do otherwise? Every hour that I am here I am keeping him out of his rights.”

Smiling somewhat feebly the old diplomat asserted himself.

“Hardly, my dear boy. At least not at present – for during my lifetime Everard has no rights. After – ”

Wagram looked up quickly, but the old man paused. Then he went on:

“Your first duty is to me; and, that being so, are you contemplating leaving me alone in my old age – my very old age, some might call it – while you scour the world in search of a wastrel who, if you find him, will lay himself out to ruin within six months all that it has taken me – and you – a lifetime to build up? You cannot do it, Wagram. I have not very much longer to live, but as sure as you leave me it will hasten my death. Now, are you anxious to start upon this search?”

“No, father. While you are here – and may that be for many years to come – I will not leave you.”

“Promise me that.”

“Solemnly I promise it.”

The old man’s face brightened as they clasped hands. Then he went on:

“This is no conscious wrong I have done you, Wagram – God knows. We had every reason – legal and otherwise – for supposing this man to be dead. We acted in perfect good faith, but – can one be sure of anything? And now give me your attention. Even if the worst comes to the very worst, and that – that other claim should come to be established, I have already effected my utmost to repair the wrong I have, accidentally, done you. The very day of that blackmailer’s first visit to me I sent instructions for an entirely new will to be drawn up, and under it, after my death, you take the whole of my personalty absolutely. That alone will constitute you what some would call a rich man. But – as for Hilversea, well – ”

Earlier in this narrative we heard Haldane remark that its present occupants cherished a conviction that the world revolved round Hilversea, and being, perhaps, the most intimate friend of the said occupants he ought to be in a position to judge. Further, he had observed that, if possible, Wagram held that conviction rather more firmly than his father. It was a figure of speech, of course, but that both were wrapped up in the place and its interests, far beyond the ordinary, we have abundantly shown. And now one of them would be called upon to surrender it.

“I have left nothing to chance, Wagram,” went on the Squire. “The will is signed and sealed and most carefully drawn. And now observe: it seems to me a sort of inspiration that caused me to have you christened Wagram; but, to make everything doubly safe, the terms run: ‘To my son Wagram Gerard, known as Wagram Gerard Wagram.’ But I want you to go up to town in a day or two and tell Simcox and Yaxley to let you see it. You can then satisfy yourself.”

Wagram nodded assent, and the Squire went on:

“This has come upon us – upon you at any rate – in a hurry, and for that very reason we must not allow ourselves to do or say anything in a hurry. Meanwhile we are in possession, which is a strong point. So what we – what you – have got to do is to go on exactly as if this revelation had never been made. There is no telling what Time may work, so give Time his chance. Morally, you are just in the position you would actually have been in – morally, for I repeat again the whole affair was a sheer accident for which nobody is to blame – no, not anybody. And, Wagram, if you distrust my advice as possibly too interested, why not take other advice? There is Monsignor Culham, for instance – no one is more competent to advise you.”

“Monsignor Culham? Does he know about this, father?”

“Yes; I laid it before him when this blackmailer first approached me.”

“And his opinion?”

“Substantially what I have been telling you. He was not in favour of your knowing anything about the matter. Unfortunately, you forced the blackmailer’s hand – as he said himself. Morally, and in the sight of God,” went on the old Squire, lapsing into what was, for him, extraordinary vehemence, “your position is just what it would have been but for this – accident. There is no doubt about it. You are the one selected to hold this place in trust, with its many cares and responsibilities and opportunities, so, for God’s sake, Wagram, bear that in mind, and do nothing sudden or rash, either now or after my time.”

“I will bear it in mind, father; but it is a position which requires a great deal of thinking out, and that can’t be done in a day or a week or a month where such issues are at stake.”

“Quite true; leave it at that, then. And now, Wagram, all this has exhausted me more than I can say. I think I will lie down for a bit and try to get a little sleep. Tell them I am on no account to be disturbed.”

“Mine!”

No longer the ecstatic intonation of the entrancing possessive, as Wagram, strolling forth to wrestle out alone the blank and deadening revelation he had heard that day, gazed upon the surroundings which had called forth that intensity of self-gratulation on the occasion of our first making his acquaintance. He was now but a mere temporary pensioner. He realised that he was here but for his father’s lifetime, for he knew that when left to himself, whatever might be the after consequences, he would leave no stone unturned till he should find his half-brother, and then —

He turned into a seldom-used path in the thick of the shrubbery. The Gothic roof of the chapel rose among the trees at no great distance, and the sight was productive of another heart-tightening. All his pride and joy in the beautiful little sanctuary – and soon it, too, would know him no more. He felt as though about to be cast out of Paradise. But with the thought came another, and it was a wholesome one. What right had he to look upon life as a broken thing simply because one side of its joys had been reft from him? It was not even as though he were about to be thrown forth penniless, or on a meagre, scraping, starvation pittance, which is, perhaps, hardly better, as he had had ample occasion to know during long years of his earlier life. As his father had said, he would be what some would call a rich man in any case; and as an object in life had he not his son’s future to secure and his present to watch over? And then there recurred to his mind a question which Delia Calmour had put to him on a former occasion as to whether he did not find life too good to be real – and his answer to it. There was something prophetic about both. Of late years he had, indeed, found life too good to be real, and was that a state altogether healthy for anybody in this world of probation? He had made an idol of Hilversea.

It was late autumn, and the woodland scents were moist and earthy. Brown leaves, crimped and curled, clustered clingingly upon the oak boughs, and the ground was already carpeted with them. He had followed the most secluded paths, sacred, indeed, to himself and the gamekeepers. The white scut of a rabbit darting across a ride; the rustle of pheasants scuttling away in the undergrowth, or the vast flap-flap of wood-pigeon’s wings – now gathered in flocks – detonating in the deep silence of the covert as they fled disturbed from their intended roost; a couple of squirrels chattering angrily at the intruder from the high security of a fir limb – constituted the only sights and sounds. In a day or two these woods would echo and re-echo the crack of guns, and now he thought how he had been looking forward with keen enjoyment to the best shooting party of the year. His guests would go as they had come, thinking – as they had often thought before – that Wagram was about the luckiest and most-to-be-envied man on earth; and, up till this morning, would he not cordially have agreed with such opinion! Would he not? The “pride of life!”