A Damaged Reputation

by Harold Bindloss

  XXII.

  THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS.

  It was already late at night, but the mounted mail carrier had notreached the Dayspring mine, and Allonby, who was impatiently waitingnews of certain supplies and plant, had insisted on Brooke sitting upwith him. It was also raining hard, and, in spite of the glowing stove,the shanty reeked with damp, while there was a steady splashing upon theiron roof above. Now and then a trickle descended from a defective jointin it, and formed a rivulet upon the earthen floor, or fizzled into apuff of steam upon the corroded iron pipe which stretched across theroom. The latter was strewn with soil-stained clothing, and wetknee-boots with the red mire of the mine still clinging about them.

  Brooke lay drowsily in a canvas chair, while Allonby sat at theuncleanly table, with a litter of burnt matches and tobacco ash as wellas a steaming glass in front of him. His eyes were bleared and watery,and there were curious little patches of color in his haggard face,while the gorged, blue veins showed upon his forehead. He had beendiscoursing in a maudlin fashion which Brooke, who had endeavored tomake the best of his company during the last three months, foundsingularly exasperating, but he moved abruptly when a stream from theroof suddenly descended upon his grizzled head.

  "That," he said, "is one of the trifles a man with a sense of proportionand a contemplative temperament makes light of. The curse of this effeteage is its ceaseless striving after luxury."

  Brooke laughed softly, as he watched the water run down the moralizer'snose. "It is," he said, "at least, not often attainable in thiscountry."

  "Which is precisely why men grow rich in the Colonies. Now, here are youand I, who at one time in our lives required four or five courses fordinner, not only subsisting, but thriving upon grindstone bread,flapjacks, molasses, and the contents of certain cans from Chicago,which one cannot even be certain are what they are averred to be, thoughthe Colonist consumes them with the faith that asks no questions."

  "I fancy you are, in one respect, taking a good deal for granted,"Brooke said, drily.

  Allonby made a deprecatory gesture. "Being, although you mightoccasionally find a difficulty in crediting it, one myself, I am seldommistaken about the points of a man who has moved in good society, thoughI may admit that it was the ruin of me. Had I been brought up in thiscountry, one-third of my income would have sufficed me, and I shouldhave made provision for my grey hairs with the rest, while I fed, likea Canadian, out of vessels of enamel and the useful wood pulp. As itwas, I wasted my substance, and, unfortunately, that of other men whohad undue confidence in me, in London clubs, with the result that I amnow what is sometimes termed a waster in the land of promise."

  "It is not very difficult to get through a good deal of one's substancein a certain fashion, even in Canada," and Brooke glanced reflectivelyat the array of empty bottles.

  "That point of view, although a popular one, is illusory, which can bedemonstrated by mathematics. A man, it is evident, cannot drink morethan a certain quantity of whisky. His physical capacity precludes it,while even in my bad weeks the cost of it could not well exceed someeight dollars. Excluding that item, one could live contentedly here atan outlay of one dollar daily, if he did not, unfortunately, possess amemory."

  It seemed to Brooke that this latter observation might be true, if onehad, at least, any hope for the future. Allonby's day was nearly done,and he had only the past to return and trouble him, but Brooke felt justthen that, in spite of his pride in the profession which had been ratherforced upon him than adopted, he had very little to look forward to,since he had, by his own folly, made the one thing he longed for aboveall others unattainable. He had been three months at the Dayspring, andhad heard nothing from Barbara. She must, he fancied, have discoveredthe part he had played by this time, and would blot him out of hermemory, while now, when it seemed conceivable that he might make hismark in Canada, all that this implied had become valueless to him.Wealth and celebrity might perhaps be attainable, but there would benobody to share them with, for he realized that Barbara Heathcote didnot possess the easy toleration on certain points which appeared tocharacterize Saxton and Devine. In the meanwhile, Allonby did not seempleased with his silence.

  "You are," he said, a trifle quickly, "by no means an entertainingcompanion for a man who is at times too sensible of the irony of hisposition, and appear to be without either comprehension or sympathy.Here am I, who was accustomed to fare sumptuously in London clubs,living on the husks and other metaphorical et ceteras, andendeavoring--for that is all it amounts to--to console myself withprofitless reflections. I am, of course, in the elegant simile of thecountry, a tank, or whisky-skin, but I am still a man who found afortune and stripped himself of everything but whisky to develop it."

  Brooke laughed to conceal his impatience. "Then you are as sure as everabout the silver? We have got a good way down without finding very muchsign of it."

  Allonby rose, with a little flush in his watery eyes, and leaned,somewhat unsteadily, upon the table.

  "It is the one thing I believe in. The rest, and I once had my fanciesand theories like other men, are shadows and chimeras now. Only thesilver is real--and there. All I made in Canada is sunk in this mine,which no longer belongs to me, and when I make the great discovery not adollar will fall to my share."

  "Then it is a little difficult to understand what you are so anxious tofind the silver for."

  Allonby swayed a trifle on his feet, but the gleam in his eyes grewbrighter. "You," he said, "are, as I pointed out, curiously deficient incomprehension, but you never won a case of medals that were coveted bythe keenest brains among all those who hoped to enter your profession.Of what use are dollars to a whisky-tank who will, in all probability,be found mangled at the bottom of the shaft one day? Still, when I madethe calculations we are now working on, there was no man in the provincewith a knowledge equal to mine, and I ask no more than to prove themright."

  Brooke sat silent, because he could think of nothing appropriate to say.He had asked the question lightly, and had got his answer. It made theattitude of this broken-down wreck of humanity plain to him, and hevaguely realized the pathos underlying it. Possessed by the one fancy,the man had lost or flung away all that life might have offered him,while he clung to the apparently worthless mine, not, it seemed, for thedollars that success might bring him, but from pride in his professionalskill and the faculties which had long deserted him. That, as he said,was his one point of faith, and he lived only to vindicate it.

  Then Allonby lurched unsteadily to the door, and held his hand up as heopened it.

  "Listen!" he said. "Is that the mail carrier? I must know when we'll getthose drills and the giant powder before I sleep. The sinking goes onslowly, and life is very uncertain when one drinks whisky as I do."

  Brooke listened, and, for a time, heard only the splash from the pineboughs and the patter of the rain, while Allonby's frail figure cutagainst the white mists that slid past the doorway. Then a faint,measured thudding came up the valley, and he remembered afterwards thathe felt a curious sense of anticipation. The sound swelled into the beatof horse hoofs floundering and slipping on the wet gravel, and Brookesmiled at his eagerness, for though he had, he fancied, cut himself offfrom all that concerned his past in England, he had never been quiteable to await the approach of a mail carrier with complete indifference,and he felt the suggestiveness of the drumming of the weary horse'sfeet. There had been a time when he had listened with beating heartwhile it drew nearer down the shadowy trail, and once more a littlethrill ran through him.

  Then there was a clatter of hoofs on wet rock, and a shout, as a manpulled his jaded beast up in the darkness outside, while a drippingpacket was flung into the room. Brooke could see nobody, but a voicesaid, "That's your lot; I guess I can't stop. Got to make Truscott'sbefore I sleep, and the beast's gone lame."

  The rattle of hoofs commenced again, and Brooke sat idly watchingAllonby, who was tearing open the packet with shaky fingers.

  "The tools and powder a
re coming up," he said. "Hallo! Excuse myinadvertence, Brooke. This one's apparently for you."

  Brooke caught the big blue envelope tossed across to him, and when hehad taken out several precisely folded papers and glanced at the sheetof stiff legal writing, sat still, staring vacantly straight in front ofhim. The uncleanly shanty faded from before his eyes, and he was noteven conscious that Allonby, who had laid down his own correspondence,was watching him until the latter broke the silence.

  "I know that style of envelope, but it is, presumably, too long sinceyou left England for it to contain any unpleasant reference to a debt,"he said. "Has somebody been leaving you a fortune?"

  Brooke smiled in a curious, listless fashion. "No," he said, "not afortune. Still, I suppose one could almost consider it a competence."

  "Then you appear singularly free from the satisfaction one wouldnaturally expect from a man who had just received any news of thatdescription," said Allonby, drily.

  Brooke's face grew suddenly grim. "If it had come a little earlier, itmight have been of much more use to me."

  Allonby had, apparently, sufficient sense left in him to recognize thatany further observations he might feel inclined to make were scarcelylikely to be appreciated just then, and once more Brooke sat motionless,with the letter in his hand, and the inclosures that had slipped fromhis fingers strewn about the floor. He had been left with what any onewith simple tastes would have considered a moderate competence, atleast, in Canada, by the man he had quarrelled with, and he gatheredfrom the lawyer's letter that, if he wished it, there would be nodifficulty in at once realizing the property. It naturally amounted toconsiderably more than the six thousand dollars he had sold hisself-respect for, and at the moment he was only sensible of a bitterregret that the news had not come to hand a little earlier.

  If that had happened, he would never have made the attempt upon thepapers, and might have broken with Saxton without the necessity for anyexplanation with Devine. He had no doubt that the latter had acquaintedhis wife and Barbara, which meant that he would be branded for ever asrather worse than a thief in her eyes. The money which would have savedhim, and might have bought him happiness, was he felt, almost useless tohim now.

  In the meanwhile, Allonby had turned to his own correspondence, and theshanty was very still, save for the patter of the rain outside and thedoleful wailing of the pines. Brooke gazed at the letter he held withvacant eyes, but though he scarcely seemed to notice his surroundings,he could long afterwards recall them clearly--the litter of soil-stainedgarments and mining boots, the crackling stove, the rain that flashedthrough the stream of light outside the open door, and Allonby's haggardface and wasted figure.

  Then it occurred to him that there was a discrepancy between the timewhen the will was made and that on which the news of it had been sent tohim, and as he stooped to pick up the papers from the floor, he cameupon a black-edged envelope. He recognized the writing, and, hastilyopening it, found it was from an English kinsman.

  "You will be sorry to hear that Austin Dangerfield has succumbed atlast," he read. "He was, perhaps, a little hard upon you at one time,but Clara and I felt that he was right in his objections to Lucy allalong, and no doubt you realized it when she married Shafton Coulson.However that may be, the old man mentioned you frequently a littlebefore the end, and seemed to feel the fact that he had driven you away,which was, no doubt, what induced him to leave you most of his personalproperty. Baron and Rodway will have sent you a schedule, and, as one ofthe executors, I would say that we had some difficulty in finding whereto address you until we heard from Coulson that Lucy had met you. Thereis one point I feel I should refer to. As you will notice, part of theestate is represented by stock in a Canadian mine. Austin, whose mentalgrip was getting a trifle slack latterly, appears to have been ledrather too much by Shafton Coulson in the stock operations he was fondof dabbling in, and I fancy it was by the latter's advice he made thepurchase. There is very little demand for the shares on the market here,but you will perhaps be able to form an accurate opinion concerningtheir value."

  Brooke laid down the letter, and took up the lawyers' schedule. Then helaughed curiously as he realized that a considerable proportion of hislegacy was represented by shares in the Dayspring Consols. One of themines, he knew, was liable to be jumped at any moment, and the other wasworthless, unless the opinion of his half-crazy companion could be takenseriously. There were one or two more small gashes in the hillside,concerning which the miners he had questioned appeared distinctlydubious.

  Allonby turned at the sound. "One would scarcely have fancied from thatlaugh that you were feeling very much more pleased than you were whenyou hadn't gone into the affair," he said.

  "Then it was a tolerably accurate reflection of my state of mind," saidBrooke. "This legacy, which came along two or three months after thetime when it would have been of vital importance to me, consists in partof shares in this very mine. That is naturally about the last thing Iwould have desired or expected, and results from one of the curiousconjunctions of circumstances which, I suppose, come about now and then.When the thing one has longed for does come along, it is generally at atime when the wish for it has gone."

  "Commiseration would be a little unnecessary," said Allonby, withunusual quietness. "The competence you mention will certainly prove afortune before you are very much older."

  "I don't feel by any means as sure of it as you seem to be. Still, underthe circumstances, it doesn't greatly matter."

  Allonby, with some difficulty, straightened himself. "I am," he said,not without a certain dignity which almost astonished Brooke, "aworn-out wastrel and a whisky-tank, but I'll live to show the men wholook down on me with contemptuous pity what I was once capable of. Thatis all I am holding on to life for. It is naturally not a very pleasantone to a man with a memory."

  For a moment he stood almost erect, and then collapsed suddenly into hischair. "Devine has a brain of another and very much lower order, thoughit is of a kind that is apt to prove more useful to its possessor, andin his own sphere there are very few men to equal him. If I do not falldown the shaft in the meanwhile, we will certainly show this provincewhat we can do together. And now I believe it is advisable for me to goto bed, while I feel to some extent capable of reaching it. My head isat least as clear as usual, but my legs are unruly."