Uncanny Tales

Lingard bowed his head.

And Mr. Trevannion left him.

Philip Keir was no blood relation of the Trevannions, but a cousin by marriage and a very intimate friend. He was some years older than Mr. Lingard, and it was through him that the acquaintance resulting in Daisy's engagement had begun. He was a reserved man, with a frank and cordial manner. Daisy thought she knew him well, but as to this she was in some directions entirely mistaken.

He was away from home when Mr. Trevannion called on him, driving straight to his chambers from the fruitless interview with Lingard. Philip did not return for a couple of days, and had left no address. Hence ensued the painful interval of suspense alluded to.

But on the third evening a hansom dashed up to the Trevannions' door, and Mr. Keir jumped out. It was late, but there was no hesitation as to admitting him.

"I found your note," he said, as he grasped his host's hand, "and came straight on. I have only just got back. What is the matter? Tell me at once."

He was a self-controlled man, but his agitation was evident. "Daisy?" he added hastily.

"Yes," replied the father. The two were alone in his study. "Poor Daisy!" And then he told the story.

Keir listened, though not altogether in silence, for broken exclamations, which he seemed unable to repress, broke out from him more than once.

"Impossible – inconceivable!" he muttered, "Lingard, of all men, to behave like a – " he stopped short, at a loss for a comparison.

"Then you can throw no light upon it – none whatever?" said Mr. Trevannion. "We had hoped – foolishly, perhaps – I had somehow hoped that you might have helped us. You know him well, you see, you have been so much together, your acquaintance is of old date, and you must understand any peculiarities of his character."

His tone still sounded as if he could not bring himself finally to accept the position. Keir was inexpressibly sorry for him.

"I know of none," he said. "Frankly, I know of nothing about him that is not estimable. And, as you say, we have been much and most intimately associated. We have travelled together half over the world, we have been dependent on each other for months at a time, and the more I have seen of him the more I have admired and – yes – loved him. If I had to pick a fault in him I would say it is a curious spice of obstinacy – I have seen it very strongly now and then. Once," and his face grew grave, "once, we nearly quarrelled because he would not give in on a certain point. It was in Siberia, not long ago," and here Philip gave a sort of shiver, "it was very horrible – no need to go into details. He, Arthur, got it into his head that a particular course of action was called for, and there was no moving him. However it ended all right. I had almost forgotten it. But he was determined."

Mr. Trevannion listened, but vaguely. Keir's remarks scarcely seemed to the point.

"Obstinate!" he repeated. "Yes, but that doesn't explain things. There was no question of giving in. They had had no quarrel. Daisy was perfectly happy. The only thing she can say on looking back over the last week or two closely, is that Arthur had seemed depressed now and then, and when she taxed him with it he evaded a reply. You don't think, Philip, that there is anything of that kind – melancholia, you know – in his family?"

"Bless you, no, my dear sir. He comes of the healthiest stock possible. People one knows all about for generations. No, no, it's nothing of that kind," Keir replied. "And – what man ever had such happy prospects?"

"Then what in heaven's name is it?" said Mr. Trevannion, bringing his hand down violently on the table beside which they were sitting. "Can you get it out of him, if you can do nothing else for us, Philip? It is our right to know; it is – it is due to my child, it is – " he stopped, his face working with emotion. "He won't see her, you know," he added disconnectedly.

"I will try," said Philip. "It is indeed the least I can do. If – if I could get him to see her – Daisy; surely that would be the best chance."

Mr. Trevannion looked at him sharply, scrutinisingly.

"You – you are satisfied then – entirely satisfied that there is nothing we need dread her being mixed up in, so to say? Nothing wrong – nothing to shock a girl like her? You see," half apologetically, "his refusing to see her makes one afraid – "

"I am as sure of him as of myself – surer," said Philip earnestly. "There is nothing in his past to explain it – nothing."

"An early secret marriage; a wife he thought dead turning up again," suggested the father. "It sounds absurd, sensational – but after all – there must be some reason."

"Not that," said Keir, getting up as he spoke. "Well then, I will see him first thing in the morning, and communicate with you as soon as possible after I have done so. You will tell Mrs. Trevannion and – and Daisy that I will do my best?"

"My wife is still in the drawing-room. Will you not see her to-night?"

Philip shook his head.

"It is late," he said, "and I am dusty and unpresentable. Besides, there is really nothing to say. To-morrow it shall be as you all think best. I will see Mrs. Trevannion – and Daisy," here he flushed a little, but his host did not observe it, "if you like and if she wishes it. Heaven send I may have better news than I expect."

And with a warm pressure of his old friend's hand, Mr. Keir left him.

The two younger men met the next morning. There was no difficulty about it, for Lingard, knowing by instinct that the interview must take place, had determined to face it. So of the two he was the more prepared, the more forearmed.

The conversation was long – an hour, two hours passed before poor Philip could make up his mind to accept the ultimatum contained in the few hard words with which Arthur Lingard first greeted him.

"I know what you have come about. I knew you must come. You could not help yourself. But, Philip, it will save you pain – I don't mind for myself; nothing can matter now – if you will at once take my word for it that nothing you can say will do the least shadow of good. No, don't shake hands with me. I would rather you didn't."

And he put his right arm behind his back and stood there, leaning against the mantelpiece, facing his friend.

Philip looked up at him grimly.

"No," he said, "I've given my word to – to these poor dear people, and I'll stick to it. You've got to make up your mind to a cross-examination, Lingard."

But through or below the grimness was a terrible pity. Philip's heart was very tender for the man whose inexplicable conduct was yet filling him with indignation past words. Arthur was so changed – the last week or two had done the work of years – all the youthfulness, the almost boyish brightness, which had been one of his charms, was gone, dead. He was pale with a strange indescribable pallor, that told of days, and worse still, of nights of agony; the lines of his face were hardened; the lips spoke of unalterable determination. Only once had Philip seen him look thus, and then it was but in expression – the likeness and the contrast struck him curiously. The other time it had been resolution temporarily hardening a youthful face; now – what did it remind him of? A monk who had gone through a life-time of spiritual struggle alone, unaided by human sympathy? A martyr – no, there was no enthusiasm. It was all dull, dead anguish of unalterable resolve.

There was silence for a moment. Keir was choking down an uncomfortable something in his throat, and bracing himself to the inquisitorial torture before him to perform.

"Well," said Arthur, at last.

And Philip looked up at him again.

How queer his eyes were – they used to be so deeply blue. Daisy had often laughed at his changeable eyes, as she called them – blue in the daytime, almost black at night, but always lustrous and liquid. Now, they were glassy, almost filmy. What was it? A sudden thought struck Philip.

"Arthur!" he exclaimed, "Arthur, old fellow, are you going blind? Is that the mystery? If it is that, good Lord, how little you know her, if you think that – "

Arthur's pale lips grew visibly paler. He had been unprepared for attack in this direction, and for the moment he quailed before it.

"No," he whispered hoarsely, "it is not that. Would to God it were!"

But almost instantly he had mastered himself, and from that moment throughout the interview not even the mention of Daisy's name had power to stir him.

And Philip, annoyed with his own impulsiveness, stiffened again.

"You are determined not to reveal your secret," he began, "but I want to come to an understanding with you on one point. If I guess it, if I put my finger on it, will you give me the satisfaction of owning that I have done so."

Lingard hesitated.

"Yes," he said, "I will do so on one condition – your word of honour, your oath, never to tell it to any human being."

"Not to – her – Daisy?"

"Least of all."

Philip groaned. This did not look very promising for the meeting with Daisy, which at the bottom of his heart he believed in as his last – his trump card.

Still, he had gained something.

"Then, my first question seems, in the face of that, almost a mockery. I was going to ask you," and he half gasped – "it is nothing – nothing about her that is at the root of all this misery? No fancy," again the gasp, "that – that she doesn't care for you, or love you enough? No nonsense about your not being suited to each other, or that you couldn't make a girl of her sensitive, high-strung nature happy?"

"No," said Arthur, and the word seemed to ring through the room. "No, I know she loves me as I love her. Oh, no, not quite like that, I trust," and his voice was firm through all the tragedy of the last sentence. "And I believe I could have made her very happy. Leave her name out of it now, Phil, once for all. It has nothing to do personally with the woman who is, and always will be, to me my perfect ideal of sweetness and excellence and truth and beauty."

"Then it has to do with yourself," murmured Keir. "Come, the radius is narrowing. I flew out at poor Trevannion when he suggested it, but all the same, it's nothing in your past you're ashamed of that's come to light, is it? The best fellows in the world make fools of themselves sometimes, you know. Don't mind my asking."

"I don't mind," said Arthur wearily, "but it's no use. No, it's nothing like that. I have done nothing I am ashamed of. I am not secretly married, nor have I committed forgery," with a very ghastly attempt at a smile.

"Then," said Philip, "is it something about your family. Have you found out that there's a strain of insanity in the Lingards perhaps? People exaggerate that kind of thing now-a-days. There's a touch of it in us all, I take it."

"No," said Arthur, again "my family's all right. I've no very near relations except my sister, but you know her, and you know all about us. We're not adventurers in any sense of the word."

"Far from it," agreed Philip warmly. Then for a moment or two he relapsed into silence. "Does your sister – does Lady West know about – about this mysterious affair?" he asked abruptly, after some pondering.

"Nothing whatever. I, of course, was bound by every consideration not to tell her – to tell no one anything till it was understood by – the Trevannions. And I had no reason for consulting her or – any friend," Arthur replied.

He spoke jerkily and with effort, as if he were putting force on himself to endure what yet he was convinced was absolutely useless torture.

But his words gave Keir a new opening, which he was quick to seize.

"That's just it," he exclaimed eagerly. "That's just where it strikes me you've gone wrong. You should have consulted some one – not myself, not your sister even; I don't say whom, but some one sensible and trustworthy. I believe your mind has got warped. You've been thinking over this trouble, whatever it is, till you can't see it rightly. You've exaggerated it out of all proportion, and you shouldn't trust your own morbid judgment."

Lingard did not answer. He stood motionless, his eyes fixed upon the ground. For an instant a wild hope dashed through Philip that at last he had made some impression. But as Arthur slowly raised his dim, worn eyes, and looked him in the face, it faded again, even before the young man spoke.

"To satisfy you, I will tell you this much. I have consulted one person – a man whom you would allow was trustworthy and wise and good. From him I have hidden nothing whatever, and he agrees with me that I have no choice – that duty points unmistakably to the course I am pursuing."

Again a flash of suggestion struck his hearer.

"One person – a man," he repeated. "Arthur, is it some priest? Have they been converting or perverting you, my boy? Are you going over to Rome, fancying yourself called to be a Trappist, or a – those fellows at the Grande Chartreuse, you remember?"

For the second time during the interview, Arthur smiled, and his smile was a trifle less ghastly this time.

"No, again," he said. "You're quite on a wrong tack. I have not the slightest inclination that way. I – I wish I had. No, my adviser is no priest. But he's one of the best of men, all the same, and one of the wisest."

"You won't tell me who he is?"

"I cannot."

"And" – Philip was reluctant to try his last hope, and felt conscious that he would do it clumsily – "Arthur," he burst out, "you will see her – Daisy – once more? She has a right to it. You are putting enough upon her without refusing this one request of hers."

He stood up as he spoke. He himself had grown strangely pale, and seeing this, as he glanced at him, Lingard's own face became ashen.

He shook his head.

"Good God!" he said, "I think this might have been spared me. No, I will not see her again. The only thing I can do for her is to refuse this last request. Tell her so, Philip – tell her what I say. And now leave me. Don't shake hands with me. I don't wish it, and I daresay you don't. If – if we never meet again, you and I – and who knows? – if this is our goodbye, thank you, old fellow, thank you for all you have tried to do. Perhaps I know the cost of it to you better than you imagine. Good-bye, Phil!"

Keir turned towards the door. But he looked back ere he reached it. Arthur was standing as he had been – motionless.

"You're not thinking of killing yourself, are you?" he said quietly.

Arthur looked at him. His eyes had a different expression now – or was it that something was gleaming softly in them that had not been there before?

"No, no – I am not going to be false to my colours. I – I don't care to talk much about it, but – I am a Christian, Phil."

"At least I can put that horrid idea out of the poor child's head, then," thought Keir to himself. Though to Arthur he did not reply, save by a bend of his head.

Time passed. And in his wings there was healing.

At twenty-four, Daisy Trevannion, though her face bore traces of suffering of no common order, was yet a sweet and serene woman. To some extent she had outlived the strange tragedy of her earlier girlhood.

It had never been explained. The one person who might naturally have been looked to, to throw some light on the mystery, Lingard's sister, Lady West, was, as her brother had stated, completely in the dark. At first she had been disposed to blame Daisy, or her family; and though afterwards convinced that in so doing she was entirely mistaken, she never became in any sense confidential with them on the matter. And after a few months they met no more. For her husband was sent abroad, and detained there on an important diplomatic mission.

Now and then, in the earlier days of her broken engagement, Daisy would ask Philip to "try to find out if Mary West knows where he is". And to please her he did so. But all he learnt was – what indeed was all the sister had to tell – that Arthur was off again on his old travels – to the Capricorn Islands or to the moon, it was not clear which.

"He has promised that I shall hear from him once a year – as near my birthday as he can manage. That is all I can tell you," she said, trying to make light of it.

And whether this promise was kept or no, one thing was certain – Arthur Lingard had entirely disappeared from London society.

At twenty-five, Daisy married Philip. He had always loved her, though he had never allowed her to suspect it; and knowing herself and her history as he did, he was satisfied with the true affection she could give him – satisfied, that is to say, in the hope and belief that his own devotion would kindle ever-increasing response on her side. And his hopes were not disappointed. They were very happy.

Now for the sequel to the story – such sequel, that is to say, as there is to give – a suggestion of explanation rather than any positive dénoument of the mystery.

They – Philip and Daisy – had been married for two or three years when one evening it chanced to them to dine at the house of a rather well-known literary man with whom they were but slightly acquainted. They had been invited for a special reason; their hosts were pleasant and genial people who liked to get those about them with interests in common. And Keir, though his wings were now so happily clipt, still held his position as a traveller who had seen and noted much in his former wanderings.

"We think your husband may enjoy a talk with Sir Abel Maynard, who is with us for a few days," Mrs. Thorncroft had said in her note.

And Sir Abel, not being of the surly order of lions who refuse to roar when they know that their audience is eager to hear them, made himself most agreeable. He appreciated Mr. Keir's intelligence and sympathy, and was by no means indifferent to Mrs. Keir's beauty, though "evidently," he thought to himself, "she is not over fond of reminiscences of her husband's travels. Perhaps she is afraid of his taking flight again."

During dinner the conversation turned, not unnaturally, on a subject just at that moment much to the fore. For it was about the time of the heroic Damien's death.

"No," said Sir Abel, in answer to some inquiry, "I never visited his place. But I have seen lepers – to perfection. By-the-by," he went on suddenly, "I came across a queer, a very queer, story a while ago. I wonder, Keir, if you can throw any light upon it?"

But at that moment Mrs. Thorncroft gave the magic signal and the women left the room.

By degrees the men came straggling upstairs after them, then a little music followed, but it was not till much later in the evening than was usual with him that Philip made his appearance in the drawing-room, preceded by Sir Abel Maynard. Philip looked tired and rather "distrait," thought Daisy, whose eyes were keen with the quick discernment of perfect affection, and she was not sorry when, before very long, he whispered to her that it was getting late, might they not leave soon? Nor was she sorry that during the interval before her husband made this suggestion, Sir Abel, who had been devoting himself to her, had avoided all mention of his travels, and had been amusing her with his criticism of a popular novel instead. She could never succeed altogether in banishing the painful association of Arthur Lingard from allusion to her husband's old wanderings.

Poor Arthur! Where was he now?

"Philip, dear," she said, slipping her hand into his when they found themselves alone, and with a longish drive before them, in their own little brougham, "there is something the matter. You have heard something? Tell me what it is."

Keir hesitated.

"Yes," he said, "I suppose it is best to tell you. It is the strange story Sir Abel alluded to before you left the room."

"About – about Arthur? Is it about Arthur?" whispered she, shivering a little.

Philip put his arm round her.

"I can't say. We shall perhaps never know certainly," he replied. "But it looks very like it. Listen, dear. Some little time ago – two or three years ago – Maynard spent some days at one of those awful leper settlements – never mind where. I would just as soon you did not know. There, to his amazement, among the most devoted of the attendants upon the poor creatures he found an Englishman, young still, at least by his own account, though to judge by his appearance it would have been impossible to say. For he was himself far gone, very far gone in some ways, in the disease. But he was, or had been, a man of strong constitution and enormous determination. Ill as he was, he yet managed to tend others with indescribable devotion. They looked upon him as a saint. Maynard did not like to inquire what had brought him to such a pass – he, the poor fellow, was a perfect gentleman. But the day Sir Abel was leaving, the Englishman took him to some extent into his confidence, and asked him to do him a service. This was his story. Some years before, in quite a different part of the world, the young man had nursed a leper – a dying leper – for some hours. He believed for long that he had escaped all danger, in fact he never thought of it; but it was not so. There must have been an unhealed wound of some kind – a slight scratch would do it – on his hand. No need to go into the details of his first misgivings, of the horror of the awful certainty at last. It came upon him in the midst of the greatest happiness; he was going to be married to a girl he adored."

"Oh, Philip, Philip, why did he not tell?" Daisy wailed.

"He consulted the best and greatest physician, who – as a friend, he said – approved of the course he had mapped out for himself. He decided to tell no one, to break off his engagement, and die out of her – the girl's – life; not once, after he was sure, did he see her again. He would not even risk touching her hand. And he believed that telling would only have brought worse agony upon her in the end than the agony he was forced to inflict. For he was a doomed man, though they gave him a few years to live. And he did the only thing he could do with those years. He set off to the settlement in question. Maynard was to call there some months later on his way home, and the young man knew he would be dead then, and so he was. But he showed Maynard a letter explaining all, that he had got ready – all but the address —that, he would not add till he was in the act of dying. There must be no risk of her knowing till he was dead. And this letter Maynard was to fetch on his return. He did so, but – there had been no time to add the address – death had come suddenly. All sorts of precautions had been ordered by the poor fellow as to disinfecting the letter and so on. But it did not seem to Maynard that these had been taken. So he contented himself by spreading out the paper on the sea-shore and learning it by heart, and then leaving it. The sum total of it was what I have told you, but not one name was named."

Daisy was sobbing quietly.

"Was it he?" she said.

"Yes, I feel sure of it," Philip replied. "For I can supply the missing link. The one time I really quarrelled with Arthur was when we were in Siberia. He would spend a night in a dying leper's hut. I would have done it myself, I believe and hope, had it been necessary. But by riding on a few miles we could have got help for the poor creature – which indeed I did – and more efficient help than ours. But Lingard was determined, and no ill seemed to come of it. I had almost forgotten the circumstance. I never associated it with the mystery that caused you such anguish, my poor darling."

"It was he," whispered Daisy. "Philip, he was a hero after all."

"Not even you can feel that, as I do," Keir replied.

Then they were silent.

A few weeks afterwards came a letter from Lady West, in her far-off South American home. Daisy had not heard from her for years.

"By circuitous ways, I need not explain the details," she wrote, "I have learnt that my darling brother is dead. I thought I had better tell you. I am sure his most earnest wish was that you should live to be happy, dear Daisy, as I trust you are. And I know you have long forgiven him the sorrow he caused you – it was worse still for him."

"I wonder," said Daisy, "if she knows more?"

But the letter seemed to add certainty to their own conviction.

THE CLOCK THAT STRUCK THIRTEEN

"You misunderstand me wilfully, Helen. I neither said nor inferred anything of the kind."

"What did you mean then, for if words to you bear a different interpretation from what they do to me, I must trouble you to speak in my language when addressing me," angrily retorted a young girl, with what nature had intended to be a very pretty face with a charming expression, but which at the present moment was far from deserving the latter part of the description. Eyes flashing, cheeks burning and hands clenched in the excess of her indignation, stood Helen Beaumont by the window of her pretty little sitting-room, or "studio" as she loved to call it, presenting a striking contrast to the peaceful scene without; where a carefully tended garden still looked bright with the remaining flowers of late September. Her companion, standing in the attitude invariably assumed now-a-days by novelists' heroes, namely, leaning against the mantelpiece, was a young man of equally prepossessing appearance with her own. At first glance no one would have suspected him of sharing any of the young lady's excitement, for his expression was so calm as almost to merit the description of sleepy. Looking more closely, however, the signs of some unusual disturbance or annoyance were to be descried, for his face was slightly flushed and his blue eyes had lost the look of sweet temper evidently their ordinary expression.