Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “Is he as bad as that, Frank?” asked Bright, gravely. “Where is he?”

  “At the telephone — I don’t know — he trod on Crowdie’s feet and Crowdie’s perfectly wild and exaggerates. But there’s something wrong, I know. I think he’s not exactly screwed — but he’s screwed up — well, several pegs, by the way he acts. They call drinks ‘pegs’ somewhere, don’t they? I wanted to make a joke. I thought it might do Crowdie good—”

  “Well, it’s a very bad one,” said Bright. “He’s at the telephone, you say?”

  “Yes. The man said Mr. Lauderdale wanted to speak to him — he didn’t know which Mr. Lauderdale — but it’s probably Alexander the Safe, and if it is, there’s going to be a row over the wires. When Jack’s shut up there alone in the dark in the sound-proof box with the receiver under his nose and Alexander at the other end — if the wires don’t melt — that’s all! And Alexander’s a metallic sort of man — I should think he’d draw the lightning right down to his toes.”

  At that moment Ralston came swinging down the hall at a great pace, pale and evidently under some sort of powerful excitement. He nodded carelessly to the three men as they stood together and disappeared into the cloak-room. Bright followed him, but Ralston, with his hat on, his head down and struggling into his overcoat, rushed out as Bright reached the door, and ran into the latter, precisely as he had run into Crowdie. Bright was by far the heavier man, however, and Ralston stumbled at the shock. Bright caught him by one arm and held him a moment.

  “All right, Ham!” he exclaimed. “Everybody gets into my way to-day. Let go, man! I’m in a hurry!”

  “Wait a bit,” said Bright. “I’ll come with you—”

  “No — you can’t. Let me go, Ham! What the deuce are you holding me for?”

  He shook Bright’s arm angrily, for between the message he had received and the obstacles he seemed to meet at every step, he was, by this time, very much excited. Bright thought he read certain well-known signs in his face, and believed that he had been drinking hard and might get into trouble if he went out alone, for Ralston was extremely quarrelsome at such times, and was quite capable of hitting out on the slightest provocation, and had been in trouble more than once for doing so, as Bright was well aware.

  “I’m going with you, Jack, whether you like it or not,” said the latter, with mistaken firmness in his good intentions.

  “You’re not, I can tell you!” answered Ralston, in a lower tone. “Just let me go — or there’ll be trouble here.”

  He was furious at the delay, but Bright’s powerful hand did not relax its grasp on his arm.

  “Jack, old man,” said Bright, in a coaxing tone, “just come upstairs for a quarter of an hour, and get quiet—”

  “Oh — that’s it, is it? You think I’m screwed. I’m not. Let me go — once — twice—”

  Ralston’s face was now white with anger. The

  “Before he could even raise his head, Ralston was out of the door and in the street.” — Vol. II., 57.

  unjust accusation was the last drop. He was growing dangerous, but Bright, in the pride of his superior strength, still held him firmly.

  “Take care!” said Ralston, almost in a whisper. “I’ve counted two.” He paused a full two seconds. “Three! There you go!”

  The other men saw his foot glide forward like lightning over the marble pavement. Instantly Bright was thrown heavily on his back, and before he could even raise his head, Ralston was out of the door and in the street. Crowdie and Miner ran forward to help the fallen man, as they had not moved from where they had stood, a dozen paces away. But Bright was on his feet in an instant, pale with anger and with the severe shock of his fall. He turned his back on his companions at once, pretending to brush the dust from his coat by the bright light which fell through the glass door. Frank Miner stood near him, very quiet, his hands in his pockets, as usual, and a puzzled look in his face.

  “Look here, Bright,” he said gravely, watching Bright’s back. “This sort of thing can’t go on, you know.”

  Bright said nothing, but continued to dust himself, though there was not the least mark on his clothes.

  “Upon my word,” observed Crowdie, walking slowly up and down in his ungraceful way, “I think we’d better call a meeting at once and have him requested to take his name off. If that isn’t conduct unbecoming a gentleman, I don’t know what is.”

  “No,” said Miner. “That wouldn’t do. It would stick to him for life. All the same, Bright, this is a club — it isn’t a circus — and this sort of horse-play is just a little too much. Why don’t you turn round? There’s no dust on you — they keep the floor of the arena swept on purpose when Ralston’s about. But it’s got to stop — it’s got to stop right here.”

  Bright’s big shoulders squared themselves all at once and he faced about, apparently quite cool again.

  “I say,” he began, “did anybody see that but you two?” He looked up and down the deserted hall.

  “No — wait a bit, though — halloa! Where are the hall servants? There ought to be two of them. They must have just gone off. There they are, on the other side of the staircase. Robert! And you — whatever your name is — come here!”

  The two servants came forward at once. They had retired to show their discretion and at the same time to observe what happened, the moment they had seen Bright catch Ralston’s arm.

  “Look here,” said Bright to them. “If you say anything about what you saw just now, you’ll have to go. Do you understand? As we shan’t speak of it, we shall know that you have, if it’s talked about. That’s all right — you can go now. I just wanted you to understand.”

  The two servants bowed gravely. They respected Bright, and, like all servants, they worshiped Ralston. There was little fear of their indiscretion. Bright turned to Crowdie and Miner.

  “If anybody has anything to say about this, I have,” he said. “I’m the injured person if any one is. And of course I shall say nothing, and I’ll beg you to say nothing either. Of course, if he ever falls foul of you, you’re free to do as you please, and of course you might, if you chose, bring this thing before the committee. But I know you won’t speak of it — either of you. We’ve all been screwed once or twice in our lives, I suppose. As for me, I’m his friend, and he didn’t know what he was doing. He’s a deuced good fellow at heart, but he’s infernally hasty when he’s had too much. That’s all right, isn’t it? I can trust you, can’t I?”

  “Oh, yes, as far as I’m concerned,” said Crowdie, speaking first. “If you like that sort of thing, I’ve nothing to say. You’re quite big enough to take care of yourself. I hope Hester won’t hear it. She wouldn’t like the idea of her brother being knocked about without defending himself. I don’t particularly like it myself.”

  “That’s nonsense, Walter, and you know it is,” answered Bright, curtly, and he turned to Miner with a look of enquiry.

  “All right, Ham!” said the little man. “I’m not going to tell tales, if you aren’t. All the same — I don’t want to seem squeamish, and old-maid-ish, and a frump generally — but I don’t think I do remember just such a thing happening in any club I ever belonged to. Oh, well! Don’t let’s stand here talking ourselves black in the face. He’s gone, this time, and he’ll never find his way back if he once gets round the corner. You’ll hear to-morrow that he’s been polishing Tiffany’s best window with a policeman. That’s about his pressure when he gets a regular jag on. As for me, I’ve been trying to get somebody to have a drink with me for just three quarters of an hour, and so far my invitations have come back unopened. I suppose you won’t refuse a pilot’s two fingers after the battle, Ham?”

  “What’s a pilot’s two fingers?” asked Bright. “I’ll accept your hospitality to that modest extent, anyhow. Show us.”

  “It’s this,” said Miner, holding up his hand with the forefinger and little finger extended and the others turned in. “The little finger is the bottom,” he explained, “and
you don’t count the others till you get to the forefinger, and just a little above the top of that you can see the whiskey. Understand? What will you have, Crowdie?”

  “A drop of maraschino, thanks,” said the painter.

  “Maraschino!” Miner made a wry face at the thought of the sugary stuff. “All right then, come in!”

  They all went back together into the room in which Ralston and Miner had been sitting before the trouble began. Crowdie and his brother-in-law were not on very good terms. The former behaved well enough when they met, but Bright’s dislike for him was not to be concealed — which was strange, considering that Bright was a sensible and particularly self-possessed man, who was generally said to be of a gentle disposition, inclined to live harmoniously with his surroundings. He soon went away, leaving the artist and the man of letters to themselves. Miner did not like Crowdie very much either, but he admired him as an artist and had the faculty of making him talk.

  If Ralston had really been drinking, he could not have been in a more excited state than when he left the club, leaving his best friend stretched on his back in the hall. He was half conscious of having done something which would be considered wholly outrageous among his associates, and among gentlemen at large. The fact that Bright was his distant cousin was hardly an excuse for tripping him up even in jest, and if the matter were to be taken in earnest, Bright’s superior strength would not excuse Ralston for using his own far superior skill and quickness, in the most brutal way, and on rather slender provocation. No one but he himself, however, even knew that he had been making a great effort to cure himself of a bad habit, and that although it was now Thursday, he had taken nothing stronger than a little weak wine and water and an occasional cup of coffee since Monday afternoon. Bright could therefore have no idea of the extent to which his accusation had wounded and exasperated the sensitive man — rendered ten times more sensitive than usual by his unwonted abstention.

  Ralston, however, did not enter into any such elaborate consideration of the matter as he hurried along, too much excited just then to stop and look for a cab. He was still whole-heartedly angry with Bright, and was glad that he had thrown him, be the consequences what they might. If Bright would apologize for having laid rough hands on him, Ralston would do as much — not otherwise. If the thing were mentioned, he would leave the club and frequent another to which he belonged. Nothing could be simpler.

  But he had received a much more violent impression than he fancied, and he forgot many things — forgetting even for a moment where he was going. Passing an up-town hotel on his way, he entered the bar by sheer force of habit — the habit of drinking something whenever his nerves were not quite steady. He ordered some whiskey, still thinking of Bright, and it was not until he had swallowed half of it that he realized what he was doing. With a half-suppressed oath he set down the liquor unfinished, dropped his money on the metal table and went out, more angry than ever.

  Realizing that he was not exactly in a condition to talk quietly to any one, he turned into a side street, lit a strong cigar and walked more slowly for a few minutes, trying to collect his thoughts, and at last succeeding to a certain extent, aided perhaps by the tonic effect of the spoonful of alcohol he had swallowed.

  The whole thing had begun in a very simple way — the gradual increase of tension from the early morning until towards evening had been produced by small incidents following upon the hasty marriage ceremony, which, as has been said, had produced a far deeper impression upon him than upon Katharine herself. The endless hours of waiting, the solitary luncheon, the waiting again, Katharine’s summary dismissal of him, almost without a word of explanation — then more waiting, and Miner’s tiresome questions, and the sudden call to the telephone, and stumbling against Crowdie — and all the rest of it. Small things, all of them, after the marriage itself, but able to produce at least a fit of extremely bad temper by their cumulative action upon such a character. Ralston was undoubtedly a dangerous man to exasperate at five o’clock on that Thursday afternoon.

  He had been summoned by Robert Lauderdale himself, and this had contributed not a little to the haste which had brought him into collision with Bright. The old gentleman had asked him to come up to his house at once; John had said that he would come immediately, but on asking a further question he found the communication closed.

  It immediately struck him that Katharine had not found uncle Robert at home in the morning, that she had very possibly gone to him again in the afternoon, and that they were perhaps together at that very moment, and had agreed to send for Ralston in order to talk matters over. It was natural enough, considering his strong desire to see Katharine before the ball, and his anxiety to hear Robert Lauderdale’s definite answer, upon which depended everything in the immediate present and future, that he should not have cared to waste time in exchanging civilities in the hall of the club with Bright, whom he saw almost every day, or with Crowdie, whom he detested. The rest has been explained.

  Nor was it at all unnatural that the three men should all have been simultaneously deceived into believing that he had been drinking more than was good for him. A man who is known to drink habitually can hardly get credit for being sober when he is perfectly quiet — never, when he is in the least excited. Ralston had been more than excited. He had been violent. He had disgraced himself and the club by a piece of outrageous brutality. If any one but Bright had suffered by it, there would have been a meeting of the committee within twenty-four hours, and John Ralston’s name would have disappeared from the list of members forever. It was fortunate for him that Bright chanced to be his best friend.

  Ralston scarcely realized how strongly the man was attached to him. Embittered as he was by being constantly regarded as the failure of the family, he could hardly believe that any one but his mother and Katharine cared what became of him. A young man who has wasted three or four years in fruitless, if not very terrible, dissipation, whose nerves are a trifle affected by habits as yet by no means incurable, and who has had the word ‘failure’ daily branded upon him by his discriminating relatives, easily believes that for him life is over, and that he can never redeem the time lost — for he is constantly reminded of this by persons who should know better. And if he is somewhat melancholic by nature, he is very ready to think that the future holds but two possibilities, — the love of woman so long as it may last, and an easy death of some sort when there is no more love. That was approximately John Ralston’s state of mind as he ascended the steps of Robert Lauderdale’s house on that Thursday afternoon.

  CHAPTER XIX.

  RALSTON SHOOK HIMSELF and stamped his feet softly upon the rug as he took off his overcoat in the hall of Robert Lauderdale’s house. He was conscious that he was nervous and tried to restore the balance of forces by a physical effort, but he was not very successful. The man went before him and ushered him into the same room in which Katharine had been received that morning. The windows were already shut, and several shaded lamps shed a soft light upon the bookcases, the great desk and the solid central figure of the great man. Ralston had not passed the threshold before he was conscious that Katharine was not present, as he had hoped that she might be. His excitement gave place once more to the cold sensation of something infinitely disappointing, as he took the old gentleman’s hand and then sat down in a stiff, high-backed chair opposite to him — to be ‘looked over,’ he said to himself.

  “So you’re married,” said Robert Lauderdale, abruptly opening the conversation.

  “Then you’ve seen Katharine,” answered the young man. “I wasn’t sure you had.”

  “Hasn’t she told you?”

  “No. I was to have seen her this afternoon, but — she couldn’t do more than tell me that she would talk it all over this evening.”

  “Oh!” ejaculated the old man. “That rather alters the case.”

  “How?” enquired Ralston, whose bad temper made him instinctively choose to understand as little as possible of what was said.
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br />   “Well, in this way, my dear boy. Katharine and I had a long interview this morning, and as I supposed you must have met before now, I naturally thought she had explained things to you.”

  “What things?” asked Ralston, doggedly.

  “Oh, well! If I’ve got to go through the whole affair again—” The old man stopped abruptly and tapped the table with his big fingers, looking across the room at one of the lamps.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Ralston. “If you’ll tell me why you sent for me that will be quite enough.”

  Robert Lauderdale looked at him in some surprise, for the tone of his voice sounded unaccountably hostile.

  “I didn’t ask you to come for the sake of quarrelling with you, Jack,” he replied.

  “No. I didn’t suppose so.”

  “But you seem to be in a confoundedly bad temper all the same,” observed the old gentleman, and his bushy eyebrows moved oddly above his bright old eyes.

  “Am I? I didn’t know it.” Ralston sat very quietly in his chair, holding his hat on his knees, but looking steadily at Mr. Lauderdale.

  The latter suddenly sniffed the air discontentedly, and frowned.

  “It’s those abominable cocktails you’re always drinking, Jack,” he said.

  “I’ve not been drinking any,” answered Ralston, momentarily forgetting the forgetfulness which had so angered him ten minutes earlier.

  “Nonsense!” cried the old man, angrily. “Do you think that I’m in my dotage, Jack? It’s whiskey. I can smell it!”

  “Oh!” Ralston paused. “It’s true — on my way here, I began to drink something and then put it down.”

  “Hm!” Robert Lauderdale snorted and looked at him. “It’s none of my business how many cocktails you drink, I suppose — and it’s natural that you should wish to celebrate the wedding day. Might drink wine, though, like a gentleman,” he added audibly.