by Grant Allen
‘Dear Miss Dumaresq,
‘I leave Petherton for ever this evening. I leave England for ever to-morrow. The Oriental picture is at the Wren’s Nest. I beg you to keep it as some slight memento of me. The portrait of your father I have finished from memory this afternoon. Let it remain at the Red Lion till dry; then kindly send for it and take it home. You were quite right in thinking your father’s features ought not to be lost to the world and to posterity. That they may not be lost, I beg you to accept this faint representation of them — not wholly unworthy, I venture to believe, of the striking original — during your own lifetime, and to leave it by will at your death as a sacred trust to the National Portrait Gallery. Before this reaches you, I shall have left the inn. No answer can then find me anywhere. Good-bye for ever.
‘Faithfully yours,
‘C. A. L.’
He folded it up, took it out, and posted it. Then he returned, all tremulous, to the Red Lion, packed up his belongings in his little portmanteau, paid his bill, and drove down to catch the last train to London. The dream of his life was gone for ever. He didn’t care much now what became of him.
At the station he jumped lightly into the first carriage he happened to see. It was almost empty, but one man sat in the far corner, looking out of the window. As the train moved out, the man turned. Linnell recognised him. It was a journalist acquaintance of other days, a man on the staff of a London daily, who acted at times as a special war correspondent.
Linnell was by no means pleased at the unexpected recognition, for he would far have preferred to be left alone, and to nurse his chagrin and mortification by himself; but there was no help for it now: the journalist had seen him, and it was too late to change into another carriage. So he gulped down his regret as best he might, and said in as cheerful a voice as he could muster: ‘Hullo, Considine, on the move as usual! And where are you off to?’
‘Khartoum, this time,’ the easy-going journalist replied jauntily. ‘Hot work, too, at this time of year. I only received orders by wire to Plymouth at nine this morning, and I leave Charing Cross at nine to-morrow. But it’s nothing when you’re used to it. I’m all on the job, you know. Bless you! I was sent out to Zululand once, much quicker than that. Down at the office at six one evening, in comes a wire, “Troubles in Zululand.” Says the chief: “Considine, me boy, you’re off to Africa.” Says I: “When?” Says he: “Steamer sailed from Southampton yesterday. Go overland, and catch it at Lisbon.” So off I rushed to Cannon Street in the clothes I stood up in, and just managed to bundle into the night-mail, without even so much as a pocket-comb by way of luggage: bought a portmanteau and a few things I needed in a spare hour at Paris; and was at Pietermaritzburg, as fresh as a daisy, before the fighting had seriously begun on the frontier. I call that smart. But a job like this is really quite easy for me.’
‘Well, but you don’t know Arabic!’ Linnell cried, a little taken aback.
‘Arabic, is it? Sorrow a word, me dear fellow. But what of that? I’ve gone the world over with English alone, and as much of every native lingo I came across as will allow me to swear at the beastly niggers to the top of my wishes in their own tongue.’
Linnell looked graver.
‘But you ought to know Arabic, really,’ he said. ‘Any man who goes to Khartoum nowadays is to some extent liable to take his life in his hands for the time being. I’ve been a good deal about in Africa myself, you know, and for my own part I wouldn’t like to trust myself in the interior at present unless I could pass at a pinch as a decent Mohammedan. That is to say, if I valued my life — which I don’t, as it happens — but that’s nothing.’
‘You speak Arabic, I suppose?’ Considine said suggestively.
‘Like English, almost,’ the painter answered with a nod. ‘I’d pass for a Mohammedan easily anywhere in Africa.’
‘Shall you go out there this winter? You generally do, I recollect; and this time there’ll be lots of amusement. Things are getting lively on the Upper Nile. They’ll be having a row up yonder before long. I expect squalls, myself, before the winter’s over, and I wouldn’t be out of the fun myself for a sovereign, I can tell you.’
Linnell laughed.
‘You’re a born Irishman,’ he answered good-humouredly. ‘You love a fight, as your countryman loves to brandish his shillelagh at Donnybrook Fair. Well, no; I hadn’t definitely canvassed the Nile for this next winter, I confess; but now I come to think of it, it might be worth while to see the fighting. I don’t much care where I go now, and to a man who’s thoroughly tired of his life, Khartoum at present offers exceptional attractions.’
‘That’s right, me boy,’ the correspondent cried, slapping him hard on the back. ‘You speak with the spirit of an officer and a gentleman. You’d better pack up your portmanteau at once, and come along off with me by the next opportunity. A man who can wear a burnous like a native and jabber Arabic’s the right man for the place this blessed minute. I’ve got the very post in my gift to suit you. It’s an artist you are, and an artist I’m looking for. The Porte-Crayon people are on the hunt for a fellow who can draw to go out and get himself killed at Khartoum in their service. Liberal terms: first-rate pay: a pension if wounded: a solatium for your widow if killed outright: and an elegant tomb over your cold ashes in Westminster Abbey. What more can ye want? It’s a splendid chance. You can paint the Mahdi as black as you like, and no criticism. Sure, there’ll be nobody else on the spot to contradict you.’
The idea fell in well with Linnell’s present humour. When a man has just been disappointed in love, he takes gloomy views as to the future of the universe. Linnell was anxious to go away anywhere from England, and not indisposed to get killed and be done with it. At Khartoum his various talents and acquirements would be worth more to himself and the world at large than anywhere else. He wanted action; he wanted excitement. The novelty of the position would turn the current of his pessimistic thoughts. And besides, if he died — for he didn’t conceal from himself the fact that there was danger in the scheme — he saw how his death might be made useful to Psyche. Though she wasn’t the Psyche he had once dreamt about, he loved her still, and he would love her for ever. He could leave all he possessed to Psyche. That would be heaping coals of fire, indeed, on her head; and even Haviland Dumaresq, probably, would not refuse to take a dead man’s money. And Psyche would then have what she lived for. She wanted riches; and this would ensure her them. It would be better so. Psyche would derive far more pleasure from that heavy metal than ever he could.
‘Really,’ he said, with a bitter smile, ‘I don’t know, Considine, that what you propose mightn’t very well suit me. Would it be too late now to see the Porte-Crayon people after we get up to town this very evening?’
‘Too late, is it?’ the correspondent echoed, delighted. ‘Divvel a bit, I tell you. We’ll ring them up out of the sleep of the just. Though they’re rascals enough, if it comes to that, to deserve to lie awake from sunset to cockcrow. They’re just dying to get some fellow to volunteer for the place. Old Lingard’d see you if it was two in the morning. You can arrange to-night, and pack at once, and come off with me by the first Continental train to-morrow. Why, I want a man who can speak Arabic myself. Camels I understand — I rode some dozens of them to death — may Heaven forgive me for it! — pushing on to Candahar in the Afghan business: but Arabic, I admit, ‘s one too many for me. I’ll take you round to see old Lingard at once, when we get up to town, and we’ll be whirling across France in a Pulman car by this time to-morrow. We’ll catch the train de luxe at Paris, and you’ll just have time to meet the Alexandria steamer before she leaves Brindisi.’
Linnell’s mind was made up in a moment. He would go to Africa. And, sure enough, by eleven o’clock that night it was all settled: Linnell had accepted the proffered post as special artist for the Porte-Crayon at Khartoum; and Psyche lay, white as death, with Linnell’s letter pressed against her heaving bosom, on her own little bed in the Wren’s Nest at Petherton.
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CHAPTER XVII.
THEN AND IN THAT CASE.
Even after the business with the Porte-Crayon was settled, however, Linnell did not go straight to his hotel. He had other work to do before he could finish the evening. He jumped into a hansom in hot haste, and drove round to his lawyer’s, whom he wished to see upon important business. He drove to the private address, of course, not to the office; but late as it was, the lawyer was out — at his club most likely, the servant thought; and Linnell, all on fire to conclude his business at the earliest possible moment, drove down to the club forthwith to intercept him. He found the man of law relaxing his mind at that abode of luxury in a hand at whist, and waited with impatience for his hasty interview till the rubber was over. Then he said hurriedly:
‘Mr. Burchell, I want you three minutes in the library. I won’t detain you longer than that. But —— This is a matter that won’t wait. I’m off to Khartoum to join Gordon to-morrow.’
‘And you want your will made!’ the solicitor suggested, with the rapid wisdom born of old experience.
‘Precisely, that’s it. You hit the right nail on the head at once. Can you draw it up for me here and now? I leave to-morrow morning by the 9.40.’
‘My dear sir,’ the lawyer remonstrated, ‘this is very precipitate. But you know your own business better than I do. If you wish it, certainly; a will’s a thing one can do off-hand. We’ll get two witnesses here on the spot. Watson’s here: you know Watson, I think: and your cousin Sir Austen’s dining with him to-night in the club. Shall I ask them to attest? But perhaps that won’t do; you may mean your cousin to benefit under the document.’
Linnell smiled.
‘No, I don’t,’ he said. ‘My bequests are few. Single, in fact. A very short paper. It won’t take you two minutes to draw it up. Testamentary disposition reduced to its simplest and most primitive elements. I leave everything absolutely to a solitary person. Sir Austen will do as well as anybody else if he cares to sign it.’
Mr. Burchell went off for a few seconds to detain two fit and proper witnesses from leaving the club (as it was getting late), and returned triumphant at the end of that time with news that the needful legal attestors might be found when wanted in the first smoking-room.
‘And now,’ he said, taking up a sheet of blank paper with a smile, ‘what’s to be the tenor of this most hasty document?’
‘As I said,’ Linnell answered, looking straight with empty eyes into the vacant fireplace: ‘I leave everything I die possessed of to Psyche, daughter of Haviland Dumaresq, of the Wren’s Nest, Petherton Episcopi.’
And he wrote the names down as he spoke, for better security, on the back of an envelope which he handed to the lawyer.
Mr. Burchell whistled audibly to himself; but he was too old and too practised a hand at his trade to dream of remonstrating or asking any questions. He merely suggested in the most matter-of-fact voice, ‘Shall I add, “whom it is my intention hereafter to marry”? The addition’s usual, and in case of any dispute as to probate of the will, it carries weight with judges and juries. Some reason for a bequest is ordinarily given, when large sums are bequeathed to strangers in blood. The law expects at least a show of explanation. Otherwise, one is apt to have questions raised as to undue influence, inquiries as to sound disposing state of mind at the time, or other doubts as to precise fitness for testamentary disposition at the date of executing. May I add the clause? It simplifies difficulties.’
‘No,’ Linnell answered sharply and promptly. ‘It is not my intention now or at any time to marry the lady. I leave it to her absolutely sans phrase. If you want a reason, say that I bequeath it her as a testimony to the profound respect I feel for the literary and philosophical ability of her distinguished father.’
The lawyer paused, with his pen in his hand.
‘It’s not my place, of course,’ he said in a very quiet voice, ‘to interfere in any way, however tentatively, with a client’s wishes or mode of disposal of his own property; but I think it only my duty to tell you at once that that will has a very small chance indeed of ever getting probate.’
‘Why?’ Linnell asked, half angrily.
‘Now, don’t be annoyed,’ the lawyer answered, balancing his pen judicially on his extended forefinger. ‘My object is not to thwart your wishes, but simply to ensure their being duly carried out. Bear with me while I explain to you in very brief terms wherein such a will is likely to defeat its own purpose. You’re going, you say, to-morrow to the Soudan?’
Linnell nodded.
‘Very well,’ the lawyer went on, with demonstrative penholder; ‘you go in a very great hurry. I don’t presume to say what may be the causes which have led you to leave England in such breathless haste; but we will suppose, for the purposes of argument alone, that they are causes not entirely unconnected with relations you may have entertained or thought of entertaining with this young lady. You come up here to-night, late in the evening, in a state of obvious and unmistakable nervous excitement, and you ask me to draw up a will for you in the library of a club, at an unseasonable hour, leaving away every penny you possess from your kinsmen in blood, whoever they may be, to a complete stranger, whose name and status you can only define to me by her relationship to a gentleman equally remote in law and fact from you. And then you propose as one of your witnesses to this very doubtful and unsatisfactory transaction the heir-at-law and next-of-kin, Sir Austen Linnell, whom you intend to ignore, and whose interest it is to set aside, if possible, the entire document. As your solicitor, I ask you plainly, isn’t this course of action open to objection? Mind, I don’t suggest such a point of view as my own at all; but won’t a hard-headed, common-sense English jury simply say: “The man came up to town disappointed, in a breathless hurry; ran off to the Soudan, foolishly, at a moment’s notice; got killed there, when he needn’t have gone at all if he didn’t like” — I’m discounting your decease, you observe, because no will, of course, takes effect under any circumstances during the lifetime of the testator— “left all he had to leave to a young girl he had probably only known for a couple of months; and cut off, without even the proverbial shilling, the whole of his own kith and kin, including a real live British baronet, whom any man of sense ought to have coddled and made much of as a distinguished relative?” I put it to you, wouldn’t the average respectable English juryman — pig-headed, no doubt, but eminently practical — say at once: “The man was not of sound disposing mind. He must have been mad to prefer a girl he wasn’t going to marry to his own most esteemed and respected relative”? Observe, I don’t for a moment suggest they would be at all right; but, as your legal adviser, I feel bound to tell you what view I think they’d take in such a contingency.’
‘We must risk it,’ Linnell answered, with enforced quietness. ‘I’m sure myself I was never of sounder disposing mind before — in fact, till now I never had any reason to think of disposing of anything. And as to Sir Austen, we can substitute somebody else for him at a pinch. Though I think him far too much of a gentleman to wish to dispute anybody’s will in his own favour.’
The lawyer’s brows contracted slightly.
‘In matters of business,’ he said with quiet decision, ‘it never does to trust too implicitly one’s own father. Treat all the world as if they were rogues alike, and the honest ones will never owe you a grudge for it. But let that pass. Now see one other point. No will, as I said just now, takes effect in any case during the testator’s lifetime. You’re going on a distant and dangerous errand. The chances are, you may never come back again. It’s our duty to face all possible contingencies beforehand, you see. In case you should meet with any accident over yonder in the Soudan — in case, for example, the whole Khartoum garrison should be blotted out to a man, as Hicks Pasha’s army was the other day — what legal proof of death can we have? and how would you wish me to support myself meanwhile towards this young lady? Am I to communicate with her immediately whenever I have any serious ground to apprehend that so
me misfortune may possibly have overtaken you; or am I to wait a reasonable length of time after Khartoum’s smashed, before unnecessarily harrowing her delicate feelings by letting her know that my suspicions are justified?’
‘I’m afraid her feelings won’t be particularly harrowed,’ Linnell answered with a gloomy look. ‘But wait, if you like, the reasonable time. It would be awkward if she were to come into the property for awhile, and — and I were afterwards to turn up unexpectedly like a revenant to reclaim it. Not, of course, that under such circumstances I should ever dream of reclaiming it at all.’ The lawyer’s eyebrows executed a rapid upward movement. ‘But still, it’s best to avoid all unnecessary complications. Let twelve months elapse before you communicate with her.’
Mr. Burchell made no audible answer; he simply arched his eyebrows still higher and went on drawing up the short form of will, writing the attestation clause, and taking instructions as to executors and other technical details. When all was finished, he handed the paper to Linnell to peruse.
‘Will that do?’ he asked quietly.
‘That’ll do perfectly,’ Linnell answered, glancing over it. ‘Will you kindly go down now, and get your witnesses?’
In two minutes more the lawyer returned.
‘This is very unfortunate,’ he said. ‘It’s getting late, and there’s nobody I know left in the club at all but Sir Austen and the other man. We can’t go and board an entire stranger with a polite request to come and see somebody he doesn’t know sign an important legal document. I’m afraid, undesirable as it certainly is, we shall have to fall back upon your cousin’s signature.’
