 
Transcriber's Notes:
BURGO'S ROMANCE
BY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CONTENTS | |
CHAPTER | |
| I. | YOUNG MAN ABOUT TOWN. |
| II. | CAPTAIN CUSDEN'S REPORT. |
| III. | CUT ADRIFT. |
| IV. | "OLD GARDEN." |
| V. | A HUMBLE FRIEND. |
| VI. | A LAST INTERVIEW. |
| VII. | BURGO IN A NEW CHARACTER. |
| VIII. | UNCLE AND NEPHEW. |
| IX. | BURGO'S VIGIL. |
| X. | A SLEEP AND AN AWAKING. |
| XI. | A CLUE. |
| XII. | FOUND. |
| XIII. | HELPLESS. |
| XIV. | IN DURANCE VILE. |
| XV. | DACIA ROYLANCE. |
| XVI. | DACIA EXPLAINS. |
| XVII. | A DOOR BETWEEN. |
| XVIII. | IN WHICH THE UNEXPECTED COMES TO PASS. |
| XIX. | THE CAPTAIN OF THE "NAIAD." |
| XX. | RESCUED. |
| XXI. | A SURPRISE FOR BURGO. |
| XXII. | A MYSTERY SOLVED. |
BURGO'S ROMANCE
CHAPTER I.
A YOUNG MAN ABOUT TOWN.
A dark handsome face bent close to a fair and glowing one, a trembling white hand clasped in a sinewy brown one, two black eyes aflame with the light of love, two blue eyes cast down in a sweet confusion and shaded by long brown lashes.
The scene was the conservatory at the back of Mrs. Mordaunt's London house. It was a wilderness--that is to say, a wilderness where art reigned supreme--of shrubs, ferns, mosses, and sweet-smelling tropical flowers. Here and there a shaded lamp glowed with chastened radiance through the greenery; here and there a Chinese lantern hung suspended in mid-air like some huge transparent insect of many colours; here and there a statue gleamed snow-white through the leafage. Some one in the drawing-room was playing a dreamy waltz; in the breaks of the music the low silvery plash of a hidden fountain made music of another kind.
Time and the place conspired. The dark, handsome face bent closer, the lean brown fingers tightened their grasp, two hearts fluttered as they had never fluttered before. Then the words which one was dying to say and the other one dying to hear, broke forth in accents low, eager, and impassioned:
"Clara, darling, you must know that I love you. You must know that I have loved you ever since that day when----"
In smooth, clear accents a voice behind them broke in:
"Clara, love, I have been looking for you everywhere. I want you particularly. Mr. Brabazon, will you kindly open that slide a few inches? I can't think what Stevens has been about; the temperature is perfectly unbearable."
Burgo Brabazon was brought back to mundane matters with a shock as though a stream of ice-cold water had been poured down his back. He dropped Miss Leslie's trembling fingers and turned in some confusion to obey Mrs. Mordaunt's behest. Before doing so however, he contrived to whisper the one word "To-morrow."
By the time he had arranged the slide, Mrs. Mordaunt and her niece had disappeared. He muttered an execration under his breath, for Mr. Brabazon was by no means an exemplary young man.
Ten minutes later he left the house without saying "Good-night" to anybody.
As he made his way through the drawing-room he saw Miss Leslie sitting a little apart from the general company in a recessed window. By her side, and playing with her fan, sat young vacuous-faced Lord Penwhistle--vacuous-faced, but enormously rich. "Ah-ha! chÈre madame, so that's your little game, is it?" muttered Burgo to himself.
A group of three or four men with whom he was slightly acquainted were talking on the stairs. They became suddenly silent when they saw him coming down, and each of them greeted him with a solemn nod as he passed. Burgo felt vaguely uncomfortable, he hardly knew why.
A hansom took him quickly to his club, and there, over a cigarette and a bottle of Apollinaris, he sat down to meditate.
Burgo Brabazon at this time was within a month of his twenty-sixth birthday. He might have been a lineal descendant of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, seeing that, like him, he was "long and lank and brown"; but his was the lankiness of perfect health, of a frame trained to the fineness of a greyhound's, which had not an ounce of superfluous flesh about it. He had a long oval face and clear-cut aquiline features; he had dark, steadfast-looking eyes, with a fine penetrative faculty about them which gave you the impression that he was a man who would not be easily imposed upon; his hair and his small moustache were jet black. He was seldom languid, and still more rarely supercilious, while occasionally inclined to be cynical and pessimistic (in which respect he was by no means singular); but those were qualities of which he could disembarrass himself as easily as he could of his overcoat. He dressed fastidiously, but had nothing whatever of the latter-day "masher" about him, he was far too manly for that. Finally, no one could have had a more frank and pleasant smile than Burgo Brabazon, so that it was almost a pity he was not less chary of it.
It is certainly unpleasant when, after much effort and inward perturbation, a man has succeeded in screwing up his courage to ask a certain question which has been trembling on his lips for weeks, to find himself baulked at the very outset--to be, as it were, dragged ignominiously back to earth when another moment would have seen him soaring into the empyrean. It is more than unpleasant--it is confoundedly annoying.
Till this evening Burgo had had no reason to suppose that Mrs. Mordaunt regarded him with unfavourable eyes. His evident liking for her niece had certainly not escaped the observation of that vigilant matron, and if she had not openly encouraged him, she had certainly given him no reason to suppose that any advances he might choose to make would meet with an unfavourable reception at her hands.
Miss Leslie was no heiress; her sweet face was her only fortune. Her father had been a country rector, and had bequeathed her an income which just sufficed to save her from the necessity of joining the great army of governesses. For a young lady so slenderly endowed with the good things of this world Burgo Brabazon might be looked upon as a very fair catch in the matrimonial fishpond--for was he not his uncle's heir?
"It's all that confounded little Penwhistle," he muttered to himself. "He's evidently entÊtÉ with Clara, and Mrs. M. will do her best to hook him. But I flatter myself I'm first favourite there, and if that is so, by Jove! no other man shall rob me of my prize. I'll call to-morrow, and again and again, till I can get five minutes alone with her. I never cared for any one as I care for that girl."
He was still deep in thought when some one touched him on the shoulder. It was Tighe, a club friend, to whom he had lost a hundred or so at cards during the course of their acquaintance.
"You have heard the news, of course?" said the latter.
"No; what is it?" asked Burgo languidly, with a half-smothered yawn. Just then he did not care greatly about either Tighe or his news.
For reply Tighe handed him an evening paper, his thumb marking a certain passage. The passage in question ran as under:
"At Nice, on the 12th inst., Sir Everard Clinton, Bart., to Giulia, relict of the late Colonel Innes."
Burgo stared at the paper for some moments as if his mind were unable to take in the announcement.
Then he gave it back to Tighe. "What an ancient idiot!" he said in his usual impassive tone. "He'll never see his sixtieth birthday again. But he always was eccentric." And Burgo lighted another cigarette.
But truth to tell, although he took the matter so coolly, he was much perturbed inwardly. The two lines he had just read announced a fact which might have the effect of altering all his prospects in life.
"I wonder whether Mrs. Mordaunt had heard the news when she carried off Clara?" was one of the first questions he asked himself. "And those fellows on the stairs?" Already he began to feel in some indefinable sort of way that he was no longer quite the same Burgo Brabazon in the eyes of the world that he had been a couple of hours previously.
All his life he had been led to believe that he would be his uncle's heir. The title, together with such portion of the property as was entailed, would go to his other uncle, Denis Clinton, the baronet's younger brother. He, Burgo, was the only son of Sir Everard's favourite sister. Both his parents dying when he was a child, his uncle had at once adopted him, and from that time to the present had treated him as if he were his own son. When his education was finished, and Burgo hinted to his uncle that the time had now arrived for deciding upon his future profession in life, Sir Everard had only laughed in his quiet way and put the question aside as a piece of harmless pleasantry; and when Burgo had ventured to broach the subject on two or three subsequent occasions, it had met with no response from the elder man.
Burgo, who had no wish to lead an idle life, would fain have gone into the army, but his uncle was unaccountably prejudiced against a military career, and there had been no hope in that direction.
Thus it fell out that month after month had drifted by without anything being finally arranged, till Burgo had gradually settled down into the groove of a young man about town, with no more serious employment in life than to contrive how his liberal quarterly allowance could be made productive of the greatest amount of enjoyment. And that he did enjoy himself there could be no reasonable doubt. He belonged to two or three pleasant clubs; he knew no end of nice people who were glad to see him, or professed themselves to be so; and when the shooting season began he had the pick and choice of a dozen country houses. In short, Burgo was one of the spoiled darlings of Society, and he was quite aware of the fact, although how much of the favour accorded him was due to his own merits and how much to the reflected radiance of his uncle's prospective thousands, was one of those problems of which it would be invidious to attempt the solution.
Of his uncle during these latter years Burgo had seen but little. The English climate disagreed with the baronet's health, or so he averred, and three-fourths of his time was spent abroad. He was a confirmed numismatist and an inveterate bric-À-brac hunter. He was said to have one of the finest collections of coins in the three kingdoms, and his house at Oaklands overflowed with curios picked up from every country under the sun. That such a man at the mature age of sixty-three should fall a victim to the shafts of Dan Cupid was one of the last things which any one who was acquainted with Sir Everard Clinton would have predicated of him.
CHAPTER II.
CAPTAIN CUSDEN'S REPORT.
In the Times newspaper of the following morning Burgo read a confirmation of his uncle's marriage. "There's a suspiciously Italian flavour about the bride's baptismal name," he muttered to himself; "but who was the late Colonel Innes, I wonder?"
In the course of the afternoon he knocked at Mrs. Mordaunt's door.
"Not at home, sir."
Many an afternoon had he called there, but never before had such a missile been flung at his head. His face flushed a little when he saw Lord Penwhistle's miniature brougham being driven slowly up and down the street.
Two days later he called again, only to be repulsed with the same polite fiction.
Each afternoon he lingered in the Park till the last moment, in the hope of catching a glimpse of Clara's sunny face; but all his lingering was in vain. A week later he heard through a mutual acquaintance that Mrs. Mordaunt and Miss Leslie had started for the Continent.
But before this took place the cards of the newly-wedded pair had reached Burgo. He tore them up in a pet and threw them into the fire. The same day, in sheer recklessness, he drove down to Richmond with some club acquaintances who belonged to a faster set than he habitually consorted with. There he drank more champagne and smoked more cigars than was good for him, and awoke next morning with a splitting headache.
It has been remarked before that he was by no means an exemplary young man.
It was during these days he got the notion into his head that the world was already beginning to look askance at him, that the greetings of his acquaintances were scarcely so cordial as they used to be, that there was a chilliness in the social atmosphere such as he had never experienced before.
All this was probably due to some touch of morbid fancy on his part. One unpleasant fact there was, however, which he found it impossible to ignore: he rarely opened his morning's letters nowadays without finding among them one or more bills, most of them containing a pressing request for an early settlement. To poor Burgo it seemed as if the air was full of portents.
If he had ever thought much about the matter--which, to give him his due, he never had--he would have said that it was impossible he could have owed so much money. Yet here was account after account tumbling in, embodying items not one of which, when he came to look at them, was he in a position to dispute. And when, one morning, he found courage to take a sheet of paper and a pencil and total up the lot, he was astounded at the magnitude of the result. It was not the first time he had floundered into a similar quagmire. His uncle had already paid his debts on two previous occasions--not without a little grumbling, for Sir Everard was somewhat penuriously inclined, and living well within his own income, considered that everybody should do the same--and, under ordinary circumstances, Burgo would have appealed to him for the third time, and would have felt confident that the appeal would not have been in vain. But now the door was shut in his face, at least for the time being. Until he should know what kind of woman this new aunt should prove to be, he felt that it would be impossible for him to appeal to his uncle as he should otherwise have done. It was a capital thing, he said to himself, that quarter-day was so close at hand.
When those important epochs came round, it was Burgo's practice to charter a hansom, and be driven into the City, to the office of Mr. Garden, his uncle's lawyer, have ten minutes' chat and a glass of dry sherry with him, pocket the cheque which was always waiting for him, give a receipt in due form, and then lounge back westward, with a fine glow of satisfaction such as he had not been conscious of half-an-hour before. "You have heard the news, I presume," said Mr. Garden on the present occasion, as he shook hands with the young man.
"I have; and very much surprised I was. Were not you also surprised?"
"I have lived too long, and have seen too much of human nature, to be greatly surprised at anything. Still I must confess that I never looked upon Sir Everard as a marrying man."
"I should think not, indeed."
"Let us hope that the step he has taken will in no way interfere with your prospects in life."
"It is pretty sure to do that," responded Burgo a little ruefully.
"I don't see why it should. Sir Everard always gave me the impression of being a very just-dealing man. Of course you are aware that a fresh will will now have to be drawn up?"
"Does that follow as a matter of course?"
"As a matter of necessity. Sir Everard's marriage annuls any will he may have executed prior to that ceremony."
"Oh!"
"I may tell you in confidence, that up to the present I have received no instructions in the matter. By the way, do you know anything of the lady who has now the privilege of calling you her nephew?"
"Nothing whatever. I had never heard of her existence before I read her name in the newspaper."
"Well, we can only hope for the best. It is a poor philosophy which anticipates troubles that may never come to pass."
Then Mr. Garden handed Burgo a certain narrow slip of paper, for which the latter gave a receipt in the usual form. Then he rose to go.
"Sit down for a minute or two, Mr. Brabazon. I have not quite done with you yet," said the old lawyer. Burgo, wondering a little, did as he was told.
"In a certain communication which I received from your uncle a few days ago," resumed Mr. Garden, "among other matters he requested me to obtain from you a full and complete schedule of any debts that may be owing by you at the present time, and forward the same to him as early as possible. I presume," added Mr. Garden blandly, as he stared at Burgo over his spectacles, "that you young gentlemen about town are nearly always in debt?"
"By Jove! I believe you are right there," answered Burgo, with a short laugh; "at least, I know that in my case the complaint has almost become chronic. But what can be the dear old boy's reason for making such a request?"
"That is more than I can say; but one may be permitted to hazard a guess."
"He has paid my debts twice already."
"Who should know that fact better than I? But is it not the accepted creed among you young gentlemen of the town that rich fathers and uncles are sent into the world by a kind Providence expressly for that purpose?"
Burgo laughed a little uneasily. "The distribution of capital is said to conduce to the national well-being," he replied, with a quizzical glance at the staid face opposite him.
"A very bad argument for getting into debt, my dear Mr. Brabazon. However, you will let me have the document asked for by your uncle as early as convenient."
"When you see the sum total it will frighten you."
"It won't frighten me; but I can't answer for the effect it may have on Sir Everard."
"You shall have it in the course of to-morrow; but I shall be deucedly uneasy, I can tell you, till I know the result."
"Were you ever 'deucedly uneasy' about anything, Mr. Brabazon for more than a few hours at a time?"
"Upon my word, I don't think I ever was," laughed Burgo. "By-the-by, have you any idea when my uncle is coming home?"
"Not the remotest."
With that Burgo took his leave.
Next day the schedule of his liabilities was duly made out and despatched, after which Burgo did his best to dismiss the subject from his mind.
Clara Leslie dwelt much in his thoughts about this time. He never smoked a pipe alone in his rooms without seeming to see her face shining on him through the smoke wreaths. That he was deeply in love with her he had not the slightest doubt, but he was not quite so certain how much she cared for him in return. True, there had not been wanting tokens which told him that he was not wholly indifferent to her, but between liking and love there is often a wide chasm, and although that chasm may be, and often is, bridged over, it is not always so; and in this case the cold winds of absence would doubtless do their best to extinguish any tiny flame of love which might perchance have been kindled in Miss Leslie's bosom. Among hundreds of strange faces and a perpetual change of scene, how could he hope that his image would continue to dwell in her memory? And yet--and yet she had not repulsed him that evening when he took her hand and spoke certain words to her in the conservatory; there had even been something in her manner, or he dreamed so, which led him to believe that, had they not been interrupted at that particular moment, no repulse need have been feared by him. This thought it was, and this alone, that made sweet his solitary musings.
About a fortnight after his visit to Mr. Garden, Burgo received a note from that gentleman informing him that the whole of his debts, as specified in the schedule rendered by him, had been paid in full. Burgo gave vent to a sigh of satisfaction as he laid down the lawyer's note. A great weight had been lifted off his mind. He hesitated as to whether he ought not to write a few words of thanks to his uncle, but ultimately decided that he would await Sir Everard's arrival in town, and then thank him in person. It was characteristic of him that next day he should call upon his tailor and his bootmaker, and one or two other tradesmen, and thoroughly replenish his wardrobe. It was not so much that there was any real necessity for his doing so, as that the novelty of being out of debt caused him to feel slightly uncomfortable. He had not been used to it, and it did not seem right somehow. Besides, how is it possible for tradespeople to live unless they are liberally patronised?
One morning, as he was skimming through the newspapers at his club, Burgo was accosted by a voice which he had not heard for several months. There was no mistaking the rasping tones of Captain Cusden. "We have lost sight of you for several months," said Burgo, as soon as he had shaken hands with the new-comer--a man of fifty-five, who did his best to keep up an assumption of juvenility by consorting as much as possible with men thirty years younger than himself.
"Been trotting about the Continent with Aunt Jane, dear boy," answered Cusden, who wanted no encouragement to talk, as he drew a chair up. "Expectations and all that, you know. Must do one's duty. Awful hard work I found it, dear boy. Had to be on parade every morning at eight to the tick. Wonderful old lady! If I had to explore one church with her, I had to explore five hundred; if I was expected to admire one picture, I was expected to admire five thousand. Did it ever occur to you, dear boy, what a remarkable chap that Rubens must have been? Must have turned out a fresh picture every week of his life, by Jove if the catalogues are not telling flams. At last we got away from the Low Countries--very properly so called, dear boy--and when I found myself at Chamonix I began to breathe again. It was there, by the way, that I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a certain venerated relative of yours."
Burgo knocked the ash off his cigarette; then he said, quietly: "My uncle, I suppose, you mean?"
"Right you are, dear boy. Sir Everard and his bride." Here Cusden gave vent to a snigger, followed by a sharp sidelong glance at his companion; but that impassive individual was not so easily caught.
"They had been married in Italy a few weeks before and were on their way home, doing the thing by easy stages. Of course you are aware that the bride is at the very least thirty years younger than the bridegroom?"
"I believe I have been told something of the sort," answered Burgo. Although, in point of fact, he had been told nothing of the kind.
"A famous catch for her, I should imagine, considering--hem!--her antecedents," remarked the Captain with an expressive shrug.
For the moment Burgo felt a strong desire to fling his companion out of the window, but he reflected in time that, were he to do so, he might perhaps remain for ever in ignorance of the antecedents to which Cusden had alluded, and he had his reasons for not wanting to do that. So he merely lighted another cigarette, and said in his drawling way: "She had antecedents, then?"
"No woman of thirty is without 'em, particularly when she comes to marry her third husband."
"I should not wonder if you are right there," was all Burgo condescended to remark in reply to this somewhat startling piece of intelligence.
"Her first husband is said to have been an Italian who held some sort of Government post," resumed Cusden. "Entre nous, I believe she herself is half an Italian. He left her with one boy, who is said to be now at school somewhere in Switzerland. Her second husband, Colonel Innes, was an old East Indian without any liver to speak of. He is said to have died under somewhat mysterious circumstances at the end of a couple of years, and there were some queer rumours afloat at the time, but I suppose they came to nothing. By all accounts that second marriage must have proved a rank failure as far as she was concerned, seeing that the Colonel lost nearly all he was worth by a bank smash within a year of their becoming man and wife."
"You seem to have picked up a lot about her in the course of your travels," remarked Burgo.
"People will talk, you know, dear boy, and one can't help hearing what is said in society. However, you'll probably have the pleasure of making Lady Clinton's acquaintance before long. Ta-ta for the present."
There was cold comfort for Burgo in what Cusden had just told him. "I hope to heaven the dear old boy has not fallen into the hands of some scheming adventuress," he muttered.
But he was obliged to admit that circumstances looked very much like it.
A week later the following note reached him:--
"22 Great Mornington Street, W.
"Will Mr. Brabazon have the goodness to call here at four o'clock to-morrow."
The writing was that of a lady.
CHAPTER III.
CUT ADRIFT.
Burgo Brabazon had many pleasant recollections associated in his mind with his uncle's house in Great Mornington Street. He had nearly always spent his holidays there when a lad, and very jolly times they had generally been. But, on the present occasion, when once the front door was shut behind him, he found himself in an unknown country. Everything was changed. The sober, substantial, thoroughly English-looking furniture, which seemed to match so well with the dingy Georgian mansion, had all been swept away and the art upholsterer, with his latest fads, had had full scope given him to work his own bizarre will.
Burgo was ushered into the back drawing-room--a pleasant, home-like room it had been in the old days, where he and his uncle had played many a game of backgammon; but now it was transmogrified out of all recognition, and a chill came over the young fellow's spirits as he looked around. It had been more like home to him than any other place in the world, and now he knew it no longer.
Presently the door opened and a tall, dark, handsome woman, whose age might be anything between thirty and forty, came slowly forward.
"Mr. Brabazon, I presume."
"At your service, Lady Clinton," answered Burgo, as for a moment he bent over the rather large, but beautifully shaped hand which was extended for his acceptance.
"I have heard much of you, and am glad to see you. Pray be seated." Her tones were clear and incisive, like those of a person in the habit of giving orders and of having them obeyed.
When he had sat down, Burgo was enabled to observe her more at his leisure.
Notwithstanding that the bloom and freshness of youth had left her for ever, she was still a very handsome and presentable woman, and had nothing of the typical adventuress in her appearance, as Burgo was fain at once to concede.
Her complexion was dark--a clear, dark olive--without being in the least degree sallow. (Burgo called to mind that Cusden had said something about her being of semi-Italian parentage, and he could well believe it) She had a plentiful mass of jet black silky hair, and rather thick but finely-curved eyebrows. But the eyes themselves, which in colour matched her hair, Burgo did not like. They seemed to him cold, watchful, almost cruel. Her mouth was rather large and her lips were ripe and full--a little too ripe and full some people deemed them, while there were others who counted them as one of the most attractive features of a more than ordinarily attractive physiognomy. For so do opinions differ.
She looked best when she smiled and displayed her splendid teeth, and she was quite aware of the fact.
There was a little pause after they had seated themselves, which Burgo was the first to break.
"I trust that my uncle is quite well, Lady Clinton?" he said.
"I am sorry to say that dear Sir Everard is far from well. We had a rough passage across, and it seems to have upset him considerably."
"When may I hope to have the pleasure of paying my respects to him?"
"That is more than I can say, in the present state of his health."
"But surely----" began Burgo, and then he stopped. He had been about to say, "But surely he will see me, even although he may not be able to see any one else," when he suddenly remembered that between himself and his uncle there now interposed a barrier which all his wishes might perchance prove powerless to overpass.
"It will, I trust, Mr. Brabazon, be sufficient if I state that at the present time my husband is not in a condition to see any one--any one at all." She laid a marked emphasis on the words "my husband."
The young man bent his head gravely. "I am sorry to hear you say that, madam--very sorry indeed. I trust, however, that you will not fail to convey my love and dutiful respects to my uncle, who has, indeed, been both father and uncle to me for the last eighteen years." In Burgo's voice there was an unwonted tremor.
"I will not fail to give your message to Sir Everard," said Lady Clinton, with a half-smile which just showed the pearly line of her teeth.
Burgo, watching her, said to himself, "This woman is my enemy."
He was at a loss to know whether he was now expected to rise and take his leave. Had he been summoned to Great Mornington Street simply to be told that his uncle was ill and declined to receive him?
But Lady Clinton did not leave him long in doubt.
"Pardon me, Mr. Brabazon," she went on after a momentary pause, "but did you really come here to-day with the expectation that your uncle would receive you with the same degree of cordiality and affection which he has accorded you on so many previous occasions?"
"I certainly did, and I fail to see in what way such an expectation was unreasonable."
"Excuse me again; but for the moment you seem to have forgotten the sacrifice--for I can call it by no other term--which, only a few weeks ago, Sir Everard was called upon to make for you."
"I presume your ladyship refers to the payment of my debts?"
Her ladyship gravely inclined her head.
"My uncle was not called upon by me to make any such sacrifice, as you term it. I was asked to supply a list of my debts, and I did so."
"May I ask whether you were in a position to have paid them yourself?"
For the life of him, Burgo could not help colouring up to the very roots of his hair. "That I certainly was not," he replied unhesitatingly.
"Then it was perhaps as well that your uncle should pay them for you, were it only to save the family credit."
"Confound this woman! I begin to hate her as much as she hates me," muttered poor Burgo under his breath.
"This is not the first occasion, I believe, on which Sir Everard has had to relieve you from the burden of your extravagances."
Burgo writhed helplessly on his chair.
"Twice previously my uncle has had the melancholy satisfaction of discharging my liabilities."
"Just so. And yet you come here to-day, and tell me coolly that you expected to be received on precisely the same terms as if nothing had happened!"
"Oh, madam!" cried the young man, a fine flame of indignation burning in his eyes; "I have known my uncle all my life, and I judge him by a different--a very different--standard from that which you seem to judge him by. That he would have grumbled, that he would have scolded me a little, as most fathers and uncles have a way of doing under such circumstances, I was quite prepared to expect; but that he would refuse to see me I would never have believed--never!" His voice broke a little as he finished, and he turned away his head for a moment, ashamed to think that he should have been so moved.
Lady Clinton sat regarding him with her coldly-critical half-smile.
She was one of those people who seem to derive a sort of semi-sensuous enjoyment from witnessing the mental tortures and anguished heart-throbs of their more susceptible fellow mortals. Such people have keen powers for analysing in others a certain class of emotions of the existence of which in themselves they have no cognisance.
Lady Clinton gave Burgo a few moments to recover himself, and then she said in her clear, incisive tones: "May I ask, Mr. Brabazon, what your plans for the future are?"
"My plans for the future!" he echoed, looking at her with unmitigated astonishment. "Upon my word, madam, I am not aware that I have any."
"That is rather sad, is it not? And rather singular, too, if I may venture to say so--considering your age."
"I fail to understand why your ladyship should see anything either sad or singular in such a state of things. I have always left my fortunes, both present and to come, in the hands of my uncle--as it has been his invariable wish that I should do."
"Such being the case, may I assume that any wishes or desires your uncle may choose to give expression to will be regarded as obligatory by you?"
Burgo paused before answering. Then he said: "If my uncle himself had put such a question to me three months ago, I should have answered 'Yes' unhesitatingly; but, seeing that it is your ladyship who puts the question to me to-day, I am somewhat at a loss what to reply."
Burgo's barb pricked her. Her eyes dilated a little; two red-hot spots flamed out for a moment on her cheeks and then vanished.
"If I have taken upon myself, Mr. Brabazon, to question you with regard to your plans for the future, I have done so at your uncle's special request. He presumes that, at your age, your future career cannot be altogether a matter of indifference to you, and he is desirous of knowing what views and wishes you may have formed with regard to it."
"It seems somewhat strange, madam, that my uncle should all at once profess to be so anxious about my future. On more than one occasion, some four or five years ago, I acquainted him with my wishes in the matter, but he chose quietly to set them aside as of no moment, and since that time I have never troubled myself in the affair?"
"Even granting that such may have been the case at the period you speak of," said her ladyship, "you can readily understand, Mr. Brabazon, that certain circumstances which have happened since then may have modified Sir Everard's views in many matters, and in the particular one under consideration among the rest."
"Oh yes, I can quite understand that," answered Burgo, not without a spice of bitterness.
"While fully aware that, in all probability, such would be the case, you have not, to quote your own words, troubled yourself further in the affair?"
"I have not--as I said before. When I left college, as I did not fail to impress upon my uncle at the time, I was desirous of entering the army, but it is too late to think of that now. Then it was that my uncle took the responsibility of my future into his own hands, and in his hands it still remains."
Lady Clinton did not at once reply, but sat gazing through the window like one deep in thought.
Presently Burgo spoke again.
"Your ladyship will pardon me, but, from what you have already said, I can only presume that when you asked me to come here to-day, it was because you were in a position to impart to me some information, or to put before me some definite proposition on my uncle's part with respect to my future. If such be the case, I shall be glad to listen to whatever message you may be charged with, with as little further preface as may be."
It was an audacious speech, and her ladyship felt it to be such; indeed, to her it seemed nothing less than a piece of consummate impertinence. She stared at him for a moment in icy surprise, but he met her gaze unflinchingly. Evidently there was more in this young man than she had given him credit for.
"When you were requested to call here to-day, Mr. Brabazon, it was not in order to obtain your assent to some proposition which I had been commissioned to lay before you (that would have been too ridiculous), but to inform you of the decision which your uncle has come to in respect of matters between yourself and him."
"That is the point, madam, about which I am anxious to be enlightened."
"Very well. Here is Sir Everard's decision in a nutshell. The allowance which his lawyer has been in the habit of paying you quarterly will cease from to-day, and in lieu thereof, and further, as a quittance in full of any imaginary claim which you may have assumed yourself to have on your uncle's pecuniary resources, he requests your acceptance of this cheque for one thousand guineas."
As her ladyship ceased speaking, she opened her porte-monnaie, which she had held clasped in one hand all this time, and extracted therefrom a narrow folded slip of paper, and rising, laid it on the table close by where Burgo was sitting. Then she resumed her seat.
It is not too much to say that Burgo was literally stunned. He repeated her ladyship's words automatically to himself before he could feel sure that he had heard aright. For a moment or two he saw everything through a haze, as one sees things in a half-dream, and when the film had cleared away it was to leave him conscious that Lady Clinton's eyes were fixed on him with a cynical and, as he fancied, somewhat contemptuous smile. The sight acted on him like an ice-cold douche, and brought him at once to himself.
"So," he said, speaking not without an effort, "the statement I have just heard from your ladyship's lips embodied my uncle's ultimatum, so far as I am concerned?"
"It is Sir Everard's ultimatum--the word is your own, Mr. Brabazon."
"And it is you, madam, whom I have to thank for it."
Lady Clinton set her lips tight, but did not reply.
Burgo rose, and taking up the cheque opened it, and let his eyes rest for a moment or two on the familiar signature.
"This is my answer to the offer of which you are the bearer," he said, looking her straight in the face; and with that he deliberately tore the cheque in four, and dropped the pieces on the table. "Never will I touch another shilling of my uncle's money as long as I live."
He turned and took up his hat. "I need not detain you further, Lady Clinton," he said. "But I cannot go without complimenting you on the thoroughly businesslike way in which you have carried out the task you set yourself to do. Madam, I have the honour to wish you a very good day."
He swept her a low bow, and as he did so his eyes crossed fire with hers. There was no flinching on either side. They both felt that henceforth it was a duel À outrance between them. But already Lady Clinton had drawn "first blood."
She rose as the door closed behind Burgo, and drew a deep breath. "So far the day is mine," she said, "but I shall be greatly surprised if I have seen the last of Mr. Burgo Brabazon. If I ever read mischief in anybody's eyes, I read it in his. I would give something to know what step he meditates first. In any case, it will be nothing dastardly, nothing underhand. Any one not a gentleman would have taken that cheque and have remained my enemy just the same. I am glad I have seen him; under other circumstances I feel that I could both like and admire him--and yet I must brush him from my path. He is the one great obstacle I have to contend against, and he must be sacrificed. If only he would have contented himself with the thousand guineas, and have given no further trouble! And now to give Sir Everard my own version of the interview," she added, as she took up the portions of the cheque and tore them into still smaller fragments.
CHAPTER IV.
"OLD GARDEN."
When the door of No. 22 Great Mornington Street clashed behind Mr. Brabazon, instead of at once proceeding about his business, whatever that might be, he paused on the topmost step and stared first up the street and then down it, like a man whose faculties for the time being had gone wool-gathering. But it was not so much that as it was the strange, sudden sense of homelessness which had come over him, for No. 22 might be said to be the only home he had known since he was quite a child, although during the last few years, since his uncle had taken to living so much abroad, he had crossed its threshold but seldom.
As he stood there he found it hard to realise that, in all likelihood, the old familiar door had closed behind him for the last time, and that the tie between himself and his uncle, which had been one of strong if undemonstrative affection, was severed for ever. And he owed it all to the woman he had just left! He ground his teeth together and went through a brief, but forcible form of commination, which it was, perhaps, just as well that Lady Clinton was not there to hear.
But he could not stand on the step all day. A passing hansom inspired him with a sudden resolution. He would go and see "old Garden," and give him an account of the interview between himself and her ladyship.
He was fortunate enough to find the lawyer at home.
The old man listened to him with kindly patience, and did not interrupt his recital by a word. When Burgo had finished, he said: "It would seem from what you tell me that you and her ladyship have not only begun by being at daggers-drawn, but are likely to remain so."
"Whose fault is that? Not mine assuredly. But how is it possible for me to regard her otherwise than as my enemy? Think how she must have worked upon my uncle's mind before she succeeded in obtaining his consent to an act of such gross injustice! Knowing the dear old boy as I do, it is inconceivable to me how he was ever persuaded to agree to such a thing. Putting aside his affection for me, I never knew a man with a stronger sense of justice; besides which, he had always a will of his own, and knew how to assert it."
The lawyer shook his head with a smile and a pursing out of his lips. "My experience has taught me that it is often the most unlikely men, to all seeming, who succumb the soonest and the most completely to feminine influence. It is your smooth, slippery, softly good-natured sort of men--men with no angles or corners to speak of--whom the ladies find it most difficult to grasp and hold. Now you Mr. Burgo (if you will allow me to say so), with all your fine assertiveness (which, mind you, I like to see in one of your years), and that dash of Hotspur in your composition, are just the kind of man whom a certain kind of woman could twist round her little finger with the utmost ease, and that without allowing you to suspect that you were anything but very much your own master."
Burgo laughed, as if to cover the dusky flush that mounted to his cheeks. Would it be anything but happiness, he asked himself, to be, as old Garden put it, twisted round the little finger of Clara Leslie, even although he should be fully cognisant of the mode in which he was being practised upon? But, for that matter, was Clara at all the kind of girl to try to twist any man round her finger? From what he had seen of her, he felt sure she was not.
Mr. Garden coughed, and put on his gravest professional air. "To return to the interview between Lady Clinton and yourself," he said. "This seems likely to prove a very awkward business for you."
"Awkward is not the word. It simply means ruination."
"And yet you refused the cheque for a thousand guineas!"
"Under the circumstances would you have had me take it? I feel sure that had I done so you would have thought considerably worse of me than you do; which," he added, as if to himself, "it is quite needless that you should." It was an assertion the lawyer made no attempt to refute.
"Of course you have not yet had time to decide upon anything as regards your future," he observed.
"There's one point as to which I'm quite clear--that I must earn my living by hook or by crook."
"And a very good thing for you that you should be compelled to do so, if I may be permitted to say so. You have led an idle life far too long, Mr. Brabazon."
"There I am at one with you. But whose is the fault? Not mine. As you are aware, several years ago I pestered my uncle to send me to Sandhurst; but he would not hear of it, nor of anything else which, in time, might have helped to make me independent of his purse-strings. As far as I see at present, there's only one thing left me to do, and that is to enlist as a full private in one of Her Majesty's regiments of dragoons."
"I hope you will do nothing so rash and ill-advised. A private soldier, indeed! Tut-tut!"
"Why not? I don't see that I'm fit for anything else. And sure I am that I would enlist to-morrow if I could make certain of being sent to India, or somewhere where there was a chance of a brush with the black fellows."
"I am glad to think there's no such chance open to you, for, as far as I am aware, we have not even a little war on hand just now. It is just possible--hem!--that I might be able to do something for you--of course in a very humble way--in the City, or elsewhere."
Burgo smiled a little bitterly. "Thank you all the same, Mr. Garden, but when you say that, you don't know what a rank duffer I am--you don't really. I should not be a bit of use in an office of any kind. I'm not built that way. I declare I would rather carry a sandwich-board about the streets, or break stones for a bob a day, than be perched on a stool, with a pen in my fist and a big ledger in front of me, for six hours out of the twenty-four, even if by so doing I could rake in five hundred a year, which is utterly absurd, even as a supposition."
"In any case, my serious advice to you is to do nothing in a hurry, nothing rashly. Who knows but that your uncle, when he has had more time to think over the affair, may come to the conclusion that he has dealt too hardly by you; and remembering that you are his sister's son, and that he has always taught the world to look upon you as his heir, will award you that measure of justice, and restore to you that measure of affection, of which, I trust, you have only been temporarily deprived?"
Burgo shook his head. "That his affection for me is just as strong as it ever was, I firmly believe. But so long as he remains in the power of that woman--so long as she retains her influence over him--so long shall I continue to be (for aught he will know to the contrary) the outcast and pauper I know myself to be at this moment."
Mr. Garden rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully with his forefinger.
"You remember what I said to you the other day," he presently remarked, "about the necessity which now exists for a fresh will?"
Burgo nodded.
"Of course, as Sir Everard's legal adviser, I am not justified in mentioning the fact, but in this instance I will take upon myself the responsibility of doing so. The fact to which I refer is this--that, up to the present time, I have been favoured with no instructions from your uncle for the drawing up of another will."
"That seems somewhat singular, does it not?"
"I was inclined to think so before to-day."
"And now?"
"Now I am inclined to look at the affair from an altogether different point of view. After what you have told me about Lady Clinton, I am disposed to think that she is sufficiently--I don't like to say artful, especially where a lady is concerned----"
"There need be no hesitation on your part in applying the term to her ladyship," interpolated Burgo with a short laugh.
"Well, then, we will say sufficiently wide-awake to persuade her husband into engaging a fresh lawyer to draw up the all-important document."
"But why on earth should she be at the trouble of doing that?"
"Knowing, as she probably does, that I have been Sir Everard's confidential adviser ever since he succeeded to the property, that his previous wills--he has made some half-dozen in all at different times--have been drawn up by me, and also, perhaps, being aware that you and I have been brought into frequent contact, she may have deemed it advisable for various reasons that the new will should be entrusted to a stranger, more especially should her husband have been induced, as seems by no means unlikely, to constitute her his sole legatee, to the exclusion of every one else who might be supposed to have some claim to be remembered by him."
"By Jove! I shouldn't wonder if you are right."
"At present we are only dealing with suppositions. It is quite possible that I may have a letter by the next post asking me to wait upon Sir Everard to-morrow morning."
"By the way," said Burgo, "may I ask whether you know anything about my dear aunt's antecedents?"
"I know nothing whatever about them, except that she is said to have been the widow of a certain Colonel Innes."
"Then I am in the position of being able to tell you a little more than that about her." Whereupon he proceeded to recount to Mr. Garden the information which had been retailed to him by Captain Cusden at the club. "Of course it's as plain as a pikestaff that the woman is nothing more than an adventuress," he finished up by saying.
The old lawyer protruded his under lip. "Is not that rather a sweeping assertion to make on no better authority than the gossip of a club acquaintance?"
"Does not what I have told you to-day with regard to myself go far to prove it? Do you suppose the dear old boy would have coldshouldered me as he has done had it not been for her? No, you know better than that. She's thirty years younger than he, and a remarkably handsome woman (there's no denying that); for what else, then, can she have married him save for his money and his position?"
"What then? Don't we hear of such unions every day? I presume your uncle knew what he was about when he married the handsome widow, and we have no right to suppose that he is otherwise than perfectly satisfied with his share of the bargain. All of which, Mr. Brabazon," added the old man, with a kindly inflection of the voice, "makes your case no whit the less hard."
There was a little space of silence. Burgo, with a pencil he had picked up, was idly sketching the profiles of his uncle and Lady Clinton on the blotting-pad in front of him.
"I wonder," said Mr. Garden musingly, as he proceeded to polish his spectacles with the silk handkerchief he kept by him for that purpose, "I wonder whether Lady Clinton is aware of the large sum of money which will accrue to her husband--should he live till then--some time in October next?"
Burgo paused in his sketching. "To what particular sum of money do you refer, Mr. Garden?"
"To the fifteen thousand pounds conditionally bequeathed Sir Everard by his cousin, the late Mrs. Macdona."
"What were the conditions, Mr. Garden? I have more than once heard some vague talk about such a legacy, although it was a subject my uncle always seemed to fight shy of; but nobody ever told me the real ins and outs of the affair."
"As there's nothing about the affair to make a secret of, there can be no harm in my telling you what I know of it," replied the lawyer. "Mrs. Macdona was Sir Everard's cousin on his mother's side. When no longer in the bloom of youth she married a man a great deal older than herself, who was a sleeping partner in one of our big London breweries. At his death she succeeded to the greater portion of his wealth, amounting to nearly a quarter of a million. She outlived her husband a score years, but never married again. She had no family, and by her will, among numerous other legacies with which we are not concerned, she bequeathed to each of her five cousins, your uncle Everard being one of them, the sum of fifteen thousand pounds, which, however, was in no case to be paid till he or she should have reached the age at which the testatrix quitted this world for a better one, which happened to be within a day or two of her sixty-fourth birthday. Should any of the legatees die before attaining that age, the fifteen thousand pounds which would otherwise have come to him or her was to be divided among certain specified charities.
"So eccentric was the will deemed that it was seriously debated by some of the legatees whether an attempt should not be made to have it set aside by a court of law. But Mrs. Macdona was known to have been such a clear-headed, shrewd, businesslike woman, that wiser counsels prevailed, and the will was left undisputed. To make a long story short, of the five cousins who were legatees, two died before reaching the age of sixty-four; one, your aunt, Mrs. Fleming, of whom you can have no recollection, seeing that she married and went with her husband to America nearly a quarter of a century ago, had the pleasure, two years since, of succeeding to her legacy; while the remaining two cousins, of whom your uncle Everard is the elder, and your uncle Denis the younger, have not yet arrived at the required age. But, as I have already remarked, next October will bring Sir Everard's sixty-fourth birthday, and with it his long-deferred legacy of fifteen thousand pounds."
"It will be fifteen thousand pities if he should live to succeed to it merely that it may ultimately help to enrich that she-cormorant his wife! Not but what her nest will be pretty well feathered without that, should she outlive my uncle."
"Yes; although not especially wealthy for a man of his rank and social position, Sir Everard is a long way from being a pauper. As I happen to know, he has always made a point of living well within his income, although what he will do, or be persuaded into doing, now that he is married, it might be dangerous to prophesy. His only extravagance, if such a term may be applied to it, has been that he could rarely or never resist a 'bargain' in the way of curios, coins, or bric-À-brac; which, however, he looks upon as a judicious investment of capital, his contention being that after his death his collection will sell for far more than it originally cost him--which may, or may not, prove to be the case. At any rate, whatever money he has put away (whether it be hundreds or thousands, is no concern of ours) is invested in sound English stock which pays a fair rate of dividend. Yes, if Lady Clinton should outlive her husband and succeed to all he has to leave, the world will deem her a very fortunate woman."
Mr. Brabazon rose and took possession of his hat. He felt that the interview, without having been productive of any positive benefit to him, or having served in any way to modify the facts of his position, had yet done him good. It was something to have secured the sympathy and goodwill of the kind-hearted old man; and that, however undemonstrative his manner might be, or however guarded his utterances, he had secured them he felt fully assured. The cloud had lifted in some measure, and his heart felt lighter, he knew not why, than it had felt an hour before.
The lawyer also rose. There were two or three people in the outer office waiting to see him.
"Don't forget my advice," he said. "Do nothing rashly, or in a hurry. Remember that the chapter of accidents may nearly always be counted on as a big asset, especially when one is still as young as you are. I have your present address by me, but should you change your venue, let me know. Also, don't forget to advise me should there be any change in the present relations between your uncle and yourself. But, for that matter, I don't know why you shouldn't come and look me up as often as you feel inclined. One can say in five minutes more than one can convey in half a dozen sheets of foolscap, and you know without my telling you that I shall always be glad to see you. And now one last word"--here he laid a kindly hand for a moment on the young man's shoulder. "I don't suppose you are very flush of cash--it would be rather an uncommon state of affairs with you if you were, wouldn't it? Well, seeing that one source of supplies has run dry, it behoves you to look out for another. Let me be that other, Mr. Brabazon; let me be your banker till brighter fortunes dawn upon you. I have a tidy little balance lying idle at the bank, and if----"
Burgo caught him suddenly by the hand and gripped it hard, very hard. "My dear Mr. Garden--my dear old friend," he said, and then he had to pause for a moment before he could go on, "not a word more of this just now. I have still a few pounds by me, and by the time they are gone I hope to have settled on something definite as regards my future. But should it ever be my fortune, or misfortune, to be stone-broke (which is by no means an unlikely thing to happen), and to find myself without a shilling to pay for my night's lodging, then I promise you that you shall be the first of whom I will ask that help which I can no longer do without."
CHAPTER V.
A HUMBLE FRIEND.
Two days later Burgo Brabazon knocked at the door of No. 22 Great Mornington Street. Although Lady Clinton had distinctly told him his uncle was too ill to see anybody, that only made it all the more imperative that he should call and ascertain for himself whether the dear old boy was better or worse.
To the servant who responded to his summons--moderated for fear of annoying the sick man--he said, while handing him his card, "Take this to Lady Clinton with my compliments, and tell her that I have called to inquire about my uncle's health."
It was a curious and by no means a pleasant sensation to Burgo to find himself left standing on the mat in the entrance-hall of the house which, nearly ever since he could remember, he had regarded in the light of home, and to realise that he was now looked upon as nothing more than an alien and an outcast.
The man was not gone more than a couple of minutes. "Lady Clinton begs to inform Mr. Brabazon," he said, "that Sir Everard is neither better nor worse than usual."
Could anything be more vague and unsatisfactory? But that it was so of set purpose he felt fully assured. Then, before he knew what had happened, he found his card back in his fingers. Although the man did not say so, her ladyship had evidently refused to receive it. It was plain that she was bent on insulting him as often as he should afford her an opportunity of doing so. He had to set his teeth hard in order to keep back the imprecation that rose to his lips as he tore the card in a dozen pieces and flung the fragments from him.
Three days later he called again. This time he sent in no card, but contented himself with a verbal message. The answer brought him was in precisely the same terms as before: "Sir Everard is neither better nor worse than usual." This time he was more sad than angry when he turned away from Great Mornington Street.
He felt that it would be hard, very hard, to be compelled to break entirely with his uncle. Not once, but fifty times, he said to himself: "This is not his doing, but hers. He would never treat me so of his own accord. I durst wager twenty to one he has never been told that I called; and even were I to write to him, the chances are that my letter would not reach him. Still, it's worth the attempt, for I want him to know that, although he has thought well to cast me adrift, my affection for him is robust enough to survive all the shocks of chance and change. He may, if he so choose, sever the chain which binds him to me, but he cannot, against my will, sever the one which binds me to him!"
A few days later Burgo wrote to Sir Everard as under:
"My dear Uncle,--You will, I hope, need no assurance on my part that I was extremely grieved to hear from Lady Clinton that since your return from abroad your health has been in such an unsatisfactory state.
"Since my interview with her ladyship I have called twice in Great Mornington Street, but only to be told that there was no improvement in your condition.
"I had hoped on one or the other occasion of my calling to have been permitted to see you, if only for a few minutes, and that I, your sister's son, to whom for the last eighteen years you have filled a father's part, should be debarred from doing so seems indeed hard to credit.
"That I have done anything to forfeit a continuance of your affection and esteem I am wholly unaware, and in conclusion I can but assure you that the dearest hope I have is that the bond which has so long existed between us should remain intact and wholly unaffected by any extraneous circumstances whatever.
"Ever your affectionate Nephew,
"Burgo Brabazon."
Epistolary composition was not much in Burgo's line, and the missive to his uncle was written and altered and rewritten at least a dozen times before the final fair copy was made and despatched, and even then he was far from satisfied with it.
But after all it proved to be so much labour in vain. By the first post next morning his letter came back to him enclosed in an envelope addressed in a feminine hand, but without an added word of any kind inside. It had been opened, and that might be taken as proof positive that it had been read--but by whom? Had it ever reached his uncle? In view of her husband's invalid condition might not Lady Clinton have taken upon herself to open and attend to his correspondence? Nothing seemed more likely. In any case, whether Sir Everard had read the letter or whether he had not, he, Burgo, was powerless to do more than he had done in the way of bringing himself and his uncle together again. He had been baulked at every turn. A resolute and unscrupulous woman had come between them, and against her poisoned arrows he was helpless. As he stood up and tore his letter across and across before flinging it into the fire he cursed Lady Clinton in his heart.
A few days later, as he was taking one of those long solitary rambles after nightfall into the habit of which he had fallen of late, finding himself; without any intention on his part, close by Great Mornington Street, he turned into it and strolled slowly along till he came opposite his uncle's house. Unlike several neighbouring houses, it was almost in darkness. There was a light in the entrance hall, but beyond that only one window in the whole frontage of the house was illumined from within, and that Burgo knew to be the window of a cosy little sitting-room known as "the study," and in bygone days sacred to his uncle's own use. Of course it was quite possible, and indeed most probable, that the back drawing-room and other rooms which faced the opposite way were lighted up, but regarded from the street, No. 22 looked distinctly dismal and forbidding. Still, there was nothing funereal about it, as his first glance at it told him, and the same moment his heart gave a great throb of relief. There had been a certain vague dread upon him as he came slowly--almost reluctantly down the street. What if when he got opposite the house, he should find it staring out at the night with sightless eyes, its every blind drawn down, telling of the presence within of that dread visitant who comes to each of us in turn! Why that dread should have haunted him to-night more than at another time, he did not know.
"Fact is, I'm hipped--off colour," he said to himself, "and am getting all sorts of ridiculous notions into my head. It's high time for me to buckle to work of some kind. Nothing like work, I've been told, for curing the blues. Well, I suppose I shall have every chance of testing the remedy as soon as I've succeeded in finding work of some kind to do."
He had been standing staring at the house for some two or three minutes, and he now turned to go back up the street. A dozen yards brought him to a lamp, and he was full in the light reflected from it when an exclamation from a man who had been on the point of passing him arrested his attention. The man came to a dead halt and involuntarily Burgo did the same.
"Sakes alive! if it ain't Mr. Brabazon!" exclaimed the other. "I thought I couldn't be mistaken," and the same instant Burgo recognised the speaker.
It was Benny Hines, who, many years before, had been Sir Everard's coachman, till a fall which broke his right wrist had disabled him for driving. From that date he had been permanently pensioned by the baronet, the only duty exacted in return being that he and his wife should act as caretakers of the mansion in Great Mornington Street whenever Sir Everard was abroad, or after those families to whom it was occasionally let for the London season had, with the coming of autumn, winged their flight elsewhere.