Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 4

  ‘That,’ said the Bride, ‘is the plain thing. Smell this!’

  Again the long lash trembled over her head; again it cracked like a gun-shot somewhere in front of her, but this time, by the help of the recoil and by the sheer strength of her wrist, the lash darted out again behind her — as it seemed, under her very arm — and let out the report of a second barrel in the rear. And this fore-and-aft recoil cracking went on without intermission for at least a minute — that minute during which the Judge’s shaving was interrupted. Then it stopped, and there was a fine wild light in the Bride’s eyes, and her breath came quickly, and her lips and cheeks were glowing crimson.

  The phlegmatic lad was quite speechless, and, in fact, with his gaping mouth and lolling tongue he presented a rather cruel spectacle. But the coachman found an awestruck word or two: ‘My soul and body!’ he gasped.

  ‘Ah!’ said the Bride, ‘that is something flash, ain’t it though? I wonder I hadn’t forgotten it. And now you have a try, old man!’

  Honest Garrod, the coachman, opened his eyes wide. He knew that this was Mrs Alfred; he had heard that Mrs Alfred was an Australian; but he could scarcely believe his ears.

  ‘No, miss — no, mum — thank you,’ he faltered. The ‘miss’ came much more naturally than the ‘mum.’

  ‘Come on!’ cried the Bride.

  ‘I’d rather not, miss — mum,’ said the coachman.

  ‘What rot!’ said Gladys. ‘Here — that’s it — bravo! Now blaze away!’

  The old man had given in, simply because this extraordinary young lady was irresistible. The first result of his weakness was a yell of pain from the stable-boy; the poor lad’s face was bleeding where the lash had struck it. Rough apologies followed. Then the old coachman — who was not without mettle, and was on it, for the moment — took off his coat and tried again. After many futile efforts, however, he only succeeded in coiling the lash tightly round his own legs; and that made an end of it; the old man gave it up.

  ‘Show us some more, mum,’ said he. ‘I’ve got too old and stiff for them games,’ — as if in his youth he had been quite at home with the stock-whip, and only of late years had got rusty in the art of cracking it.

  ‘Right you are,’ said Gladys, gaily, when her laughter was over — she had a hearty, but a rather musical laugh. ‘Give me the whip. Now, have you got a coin — a sixpence? No? No odds, here’s half a sov. in my purse that’ll do as well; and you shall have it, either of you that do this side o’ Christmas what I’m going to do now. I’m going to show you a trick and a half!’

  Her eyes sparkled with excitement: she was rather over-excited, perhaps. She placed the coin upon the ground, retreated several paces, measured the distance with her eye, and smartly raised the handle of the stock-whip. The crack that followed was the plain, straightforward crack, only executed with greater precision than before. Then she had resembled nothing so much as an angler idly flogging a stream; the difference was that now, as it were, she was throwing at a rise. And she threw with wonderful skill; for, at the first crack, the half-sovereign spun high into the air and fell with a ring upon the cement; she had picked it up on the point of the lash!

  It was a surprising feat. That she managed to accomplish it at the first attempt surprised no one so much as the Bride herself. This also added in a dangerous degree to her excitement. She was now in little less than a frenzy. She seemed to forget where she was, and to think that she was back on the station in New South Wales, where she could do what she liked.

  ‘Now that you’ve seen I can do that,’ she cried to the lad, ‘stand you with your back to the wall there, and I’ll take your hat off for you!’

  The answer of the dull youth was astonishingly wise; he said nothing at all, but beat a hasty retreat into the safety of the saddle-room.

  She turned to the trembling Garrod. ‘Then you!’

  Even as he demurred, he saw her hand go up. Next moment the whipcord hissed past his face and there was a deafening report in his right ear, and the next a fearful explosion just under his left ear, and many more at every turn and corner of his face, while the poor man stood with closed eyes and unuttered prayers. It was an elaborate substitute for the simpler fun of whipping his cap off, the unhappy creature being bareheaded already. At last, feeling himself still untouched, Garrod opened his eyes, watched his opportunity, and, while the lash still quivered in mid-air, turned and made a valiant bolt for shelter. His shirt was cut between the shoulder-blades as cleanly as though a knife had done it, but he reached the saddle-room with a whole skin.

  ‘Ye cowardly devils!’ roared the Bride, now beside herself — her dark eyes ablaze with diabolical merriment. ‘I’ll keep you there all day, so help me, if you don’t come out of it!’ And, in the execution of her threat, the long lash cracked in the doorway with terrifying echoes.

  At that moment, wildly excited as she was, she became conscious of a new presence in the yard. She turned her head, to see a somewhat mean-looking figure in ancient tweed, with his back to the light, but apparently regarding her closely from under the shadow of his broad felt wideawake.

  ‘Another of ‘em, I do declare!’ cried the Bride. And with that the lash cracked in the ears of the unfortunate new-comer, who stood as though turned to stone.

  The blue sky, from this luckless person’s point of view, became alive with the writhings of serpents, hell-black and numberless. His ears were filled and stunned with the fiendish musketry. He stood like a statue; his hands were never lifted from the pockets of his Norfolk jacket; he never once removed his piercing gaze from the wild face of his tormentor.

  ‘Why don’t you take off your hat to a lady?’ that lunatic now shouted, laughing hoarsely, but never pausing in her vile work. ‘Faith, but I’ll do it for you!’

  The wideawake then and there spun up into the air, even as the half-sovereign had spun before it. And the very next instant the stock-whip slipped from the fingers of the Bride. She had uncovered the gray hairs of her father-in-law, Sir James Bligh! At the same moment there was a loud shout behind her, and she staggered backward almost into the arms of her horror-stricken husband. Even then the Bride knew that Granville was there too, watching her misery with grinning eyes. And the Judge did not move a muscle, but stood as he had stood under her fire, piercing her through and through with his stern eyes; and there was an expression upon his face which the worst malefactors he had ever dealt with had perhaps not seen there; and a terrible silence held the air after the mad uproar of the last few minutes.

  That awful stillness was broken by the patter of unsteady footsteps. With a crimson face the Bride tottered rather than ran across the yard, and fell upon her knees on the wet cement, at the Judge’s feet.

  ‘Forgive me,’ she said; ‘I never saw it was you!’

  CHAPTER V

  GRANVILLE ON THE SITUATION

  It was in the forenoon of the same day that Granville entered abruptly his mother’s sanctum. Lady Bligh was busily writing at the great office-table, but she looked up at once and laid down her pen. Granville threw himself into her easiest chair with an air of emancipation.

  ‘They have gone!’ he ejaculated. If he had referred to the British workman or to the bailiffs he could not have employed more emphatic tones of relief; so Lady Bligh naturally asked to whom he did refer.

  ‘To the happy pair!’ said Granville.

  ‘They have gone to town, then?’

  ‘To town for the day.’

  Lady Bligh took up her pen again, but only to wipe it, deliberately. ‘Now, Granville,’ she said, leaning back in her chair, ‘I want you to tell me the truth about — about whatever happened before breakfast. I don’t know yet quite what did happen. I want to get at the truth; but so far I have been able to gather only shreds and patches of the truth.’

  Granville rose briskly to his feet and took his stand upon the hearthrug. Then he leant an elbow on the chimney-piece, adjusted his eyeglass, and smiled down upon Lady Bligh. One easily might have
imagined that the task imposed upon him was congenial in the extreme. Without further pressing he told the story, and told it succinctly and well, with a zest that was vaguely felt rather than detected, and with an entire and artistic suppression of his usual commentaries. The mere story was so effective in itself that the most humorous parenthesis could not have improved it, and Granville had the wit to tell it simply. But when he reached the point where the Judge appeared on the scene Lady Bligh stopped him; Granville was disappointed.

  ‘I think perhaps I have been told what happened then,’ said Lady Bligh; ‘at all events I seem to know, and I don’t care to hear it again. Oh! it was too scandalous! But tell me, Gran, how did your father bear it? — at the time, I mean.’

  ‘Like a man!’ said Granville, with righteous warmth. ‘Like a man! With that vile whip cracking under his very nose, he did not flinch — he did not stir. Then she whipped his hat from his head; and then she saw what she had done, and went down on her knees to him — as if that would undo it!’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘My father behaved splendidly; as no other man in England in his position and — in that position — would have behaved. He told her at once, when she said she had not seen it was he, that he quite understood that; that, in fact, he had seen it for himself from the first. Then he told her to get up that instant; then he smiled — actually smiled; and then — you will hardly believe this, but it is a fact — he gave his arm to Mistress Gladys and took her in to breakfast!’

  Lady Bligh sighed, but made no remark.

  ‘It was more than she deserved; even Alfred admitted that.’

  Lady Bligh did not answer.

  ‘Even Alfred was knocked out of time. I never saw a fellow look more put out than he did at breakfast. He had warned us to prepare for “mannerisms,” but — —’

  Granville made a tempting pause. Lady Bligh, however, refused to fill it in. She was engrossed in thought. Her line of thought suddenly flashed across Granville, and he caught it up dexterously.

  ‘As for the Judge,’ said he, ‘what the Judge feels no one can say. As I said, he behaved as only he could have behaved in the infamous circumstances. But I did see him steal a quiet glance at Alfred; and that glance said plainer than words: “You’ve done it, my boy; this is irrevocable!”’

  Lady Bligh was drawn at last.

  ‘This is very painful,’ she murmured; ‘this is too painful, Granville!’

  ‘Painful?’ cried Granville. ‘I grant you it’s painful; but it’s the fact; it’s got to be faced.’

  ‘That may be,’ said Lady Bligh, sadly; ‘that may be. But we ought not to be hasty; and we certainly ought not to make too much of this one escapade.’

  Granville shook his head wisely, and smiled.

  ‘I don’t think there is much fear of that. On the contrary, I doubt if our eyes are even yet fully open to the enormity of this morning’s work. I don’t think we any of us realise the hideous indignity to which my father has been subjected. But we should. We should think of it — and of him. Here we have one of the oldest and ablest of Her Majesty’s judges — a man of the widest experience and of the fairest fame, whose name is a synonym for honour and humanity, not only in the Profession, but throughout every section of the community — a man, my dear mother, with whom the very smartest of us — I tell you frankly — would fight shy of a tilt in court, yet whom we all respect and honour; in very truth, “a wise and upright judge,” though I say it who am his son. And what has happened to him? How has he been treated?’ cried Granville. ‘Well, we know. No need to go into that again. Only try to realise it, dear mother; try to realise it. To me there is, I confess, something almost epic in this business!’

  ‘I don’t wish to realise it; and I don’t know, I am sure, why you should wish to make me.’

  ‘For no reason,’ said Granville, shrugging his shoulders, and also looking hurt; ‘for no kind of reason, except that it did strike me that my father’s character had never — never, that is, in his home life — come out more strongly or more generously. Why, I should like to lay ruinous odds that he never refers to the matter again, even to you; while, you shall see, his manner to her will not suffer the slightest change in consequence of what has happened.’

  ‘It would be a terrible thing if it did,’ said Lady Bligh; and she added after a pause: ‘She is so beautiful!’

  Granville drummed with his fingers upon the chimney-piece. His mother wanted a reply. She wanted sympathy upon this point; it was a very insignificant point, the Bride’s personal beauty; but as yet it seemed to be the only redeeming feature in Alfred’s unfortunate marriage.

  ‘You can’t deny that, Gran?’ she persisted.

  ‘Deny what? The young woman’s prepossessing appearance? Certainly not; nobody with eyes to see could deny that.’

  ‘And after all,’ said Lady Bligh, ‘brought up as she evidently has been, it would be astonishing indeed if her ways were not wild and strange. Consequently, Gran, there is every hope that she will fall into our ways very soon; is there not?’

  ‘Oh, of course there is hope,’ said Gran, with an emphasis that was the reverse of hopeful; ‘and there is hope, too, that she will ultimately fall into our way of speaking: her own “mannerisms,” in that respect, are just a little too marked. Oh, yes, there is hope; there is hope.’

  Lady Bligh said no more; she seemed to have no more to say. Observing this, Granville consulted his watch, said something about an engagement in town, and went to the door.

  ‘Going to London?’ said Lady Bligh. ‘You might have gone with them, I think.’

  ‘I think not,’ said Granville. ‘I should have been out of place. They were going to Madame Tussaud’s, or the Tower of London, or the Zoological Gardens — I don’t know which — perhaps to all three. But the Bride will tell us all about it this evening and how the sights of London compare with the sights of Melbourne; we may look forward to that; and, till then — good-bye.’

  So Lady Bligh was once more alone. She did not at once resume her correspondence, however. Leaning back in her chair, she gazed thoughtfully through the open window at her side, and across the narrow lawn to where the sunlit river was a silver band behind the trunks and nether foliage of the trees. Lady Bligh was sad, and no wonder; but in her heart was little of the wounded pride, and none of the personal bitterness, that many mothers would feel — and do feel every day — under similar circumstances. What were the circumstances? Simply these: her eldest son had married a wife who was beautiful, it was true, and good-tempered, it appeared; but one who was, on the other hand, both vulgar and ignorant, and, as a daughter, in every way impossible. These hard words Lady Bligh pronounced deliberately in her mind. She was facing the fact, as Granville had said that it should be faced. Yet Granville had used no such words as these; if he had, he would have been given reason to regret them.

  For, as has been said already, Lady Bligh had a tolerably just estimate of her son Granville; she thought him only rather more clever, and a good deal more good-natured, than he really was. She knew that a man of any cleverness at all is fond of airing his cleverness — and, indeed, must air it — particularly if he is a young man. For this reason, she made it a rule to listen generously to all Granville had to say to her. But there was another reason: Lady Bligh was a woman who valued highly the confidence and companionship of her sons. Sometimes, it is true, she thought Granville’s cynicism both cheap and worthless; and sometimes (though more rarely) she told him so. Often she thought him absurd: she was amused, for instance, when he solemnly assured her of the Judge’s high standing and fair fame in ‘the Profession’ — as if she needed his assurance on that point! But it very seldom seemed to her that the things he said were really ill-natured. There, in the main, she was right. There was no downright malice (as a rule) in Granville; he was merely egotistical and vain; he merely loved more than most things the sound of his own voice. He did not designedly make unkind remarks — at least, not often; but he never
took any pains to make kind ones. He passed among men for a fellow of good nature, and unquestionably he was good company. Certainly Lady Bligh overestimated his good nature; but to a great extent she understood Granville; and in any case — of course — she loved him. But she loved Alfred more; and it was Alfred who had made this marriage.

  Yet it was only with grief that she could think of the marriage, at present; she found it impossible to harbour bitter feeling against the young handsome face and honest brave eyes that had taken poor Alfred by storm, though they had blinded him to a hundred blemishes. The fact is, her daughter-in-law’s face was haunting Lady Bligh. As the day wore on she found herself longing wistfully to see it again. When she did see it again, the face was changed; its expression was thoughtful, subdued, and even sad. Nor were there any gaucheries at dinner that night, for both Alfred and Gladys were silent and constrained in manner.

  Then Lady Bligh took heart afresh.

  ‘It is only her bringing up,’ she said. ‘She will fall into our ways in time; indeed, she is falling into them already — though not in the way I wish her to; for it must not make her sad, and it must not make her feel ashamed. It shall not; for I mean to help her. I mean to be to her what, indeed, I already am without choice — her mother — if she will only let me!’

  CHAPTER VI

  COMPARING NOTES

  But, during those first few days, Lady Bligh did not get many opportunities of carrying out her good intentions towards her daughter-in-law. For several mornings in succession Alfred carried off his wife to London, and they never returned until late in the afternoon, while twice during the first week the pair went to the theatre. They were seeing the sights of the town; and the Bride did appear to be impressed with what she saw; but the prospect of an unreserved and racy commentary upon everything, which the first hour of her installation in her husband’s family had seemed to hold out — and which Granville, for one, had counted upon — was not properly realised. And at this Alfred perhaps, was scarcely less disappointed than Granville.