A Bid for Fortune · Part I · Chapter 1 3 (2/2)

“Come, come, uncle,” I said, resolving to bring him to his bearings without further waste of time. “This is not a very genial welcome to the son of a long-lost brother!”

“Well, well, you mustn’t expect too much, my boy! You see for yourself the position I’m in. The old place is shut up, going to rack and ruin. Poverty is staring me in the face; I am cheated by everybody. Robbed right and left, not knowing which way to turn. But I’ll not be put upon. They may call me what they please, but they can’t get blood out of a stone. Can they? Answer me that, now!”

This speech showed me everything as plain as a pikestaff. I mean, of course, the reason of the deserted and neglected house, and his extraordinary reception of myself. I rose to my feet.

“Well, uncle⁠—for my uncle you certainly are, whatever you may say to the contrary⁠—I must be going. I’m sorry to find you like this, and from what you tell me I couldn’t think of worrying you with my society! I want to see the old church and have a talk with the parson, and then I shall go off never to trouble you again.” He immediately became almost fulsome in his effort to detain me.

“No, no! You mustn’t go like that. It’s not hospitable. Besides, you mustn’t talk with parson. He’s a bad lot is parson⁠—a hard man with a cruel tongue. Says terrible things about me does parson. But I’ll be even with him yet. Don’t speak to him, laddie, for the honour of the family. Now ye’ll stay and take lunch with me?⁠—potluck, of course⁠—I’m too poor to give ye much of a meal; and in the meantime I’ll show ye the house and estate.”

This was just what I wanted, though I did not look forward to the prospect of lunch in his company.

With trembling hands he took down an old-fashioned hat from a peg and turned towards the door. When we had passed through it he carefully locked it and dropped the key into his breeches’ pocket. Then he led the way upstairs by the beautiful oak staircase I had so much admired on entering the house.

When we reached the first landing, which was of noble proportions and must have contained upon its walls nearly a hundred family portraits all coated with the dust of years, he approached a door and threw it open. A feeble light straggled in through the closed shutters, and revealed an almost empty room. In the centre stood a large canopied bed, of antique design. The walls were wainscotted, and the massive chimneypiece was carved with heraldic designs. I enquired what room this might be.

“This is where all our family were born,” he answered. “ ’Twas here your father first saw the light of day.”

I looked at it with a new interest. It seemed hard to believe that this was the birthplace of my own father, the man whom I remembered so well in a place and life so widely different. My companion noticed the look upon my face, and, I suppose, felt constrained to say something.

“Ah! James!” he said sorrowfully, “ye were always a giddy, roving lad. I remember ye well.” (He passed his hand across his eyes, to brush away a tear, I thought, but his next speech disabused me of any such notion.) “I remember that but a day or two before ye went ye blooded my nose in the orchard, and the very morning ye decamped ye borrowed half a crown of me, and never paid it back.”

A sudden something prompted me to put my hand in my pocket. I took out half a crown, and handed it to him without a word. He took it, looked at it longingly, put it in his pocket, took it out again, ruminated a moment, and then reluctantly handed it back to me.

“Nay, nay! my laddie, keep your money, keep your money. Ye can send me the Catullus.” Then to himself, unconscious that he was speaking his thoughts aloud: “It was a good edition, and I have no doubt would bring five shillings any day.”

From one room we passed into another, and yet another. They were all alike⁠—shut up, dust-ridden, and forsaken. And yet with it all what a noble place it was⁠—one which any man might be proud to call his own. And to think that it was all going to rack and ruin because of the miserly nature of its owner. In the course of our ramble I discovered that he kept but two servants, the old man who had admitted me to his presence, and his wife, who, as that peculiar phrase has it, cooked and did for him. I discovered later that he had not paid either of them wages for some years past, and that they only stayed on with him because they were too poor and proud to seek shelter elsewhere.

When we had inspected the house we left it by a side door, and crossed a courtyard to the stables. There the desolation was, perhaps, even more marked than in the house. The great clock on the tower above the main building had stopped at a quarter to ten on some long-forgotten day, and a spider now ran his web from hand to hand.

At our feet, between the stones, grass grew luxuriantly, thick moss covered the coping of the well, the doors were almost off their hinges, and rats scuttled through the empty loose boxes at our approach. So large was the place, that thirty horses might have found a lodging comfortably, and as far as I could gather, there was room for half as many vehicles in the coach-houses that stood on either side. The intense quiet was only broken by the cawing of the rooks in the giant elms overhead, the squeaking of the rats, and the low grumbling of my uncle’s voice as he pointed out the ruin that was creeping over everything.

Before we had finished our inspection it was lunch time, and we returned to the house. The meal was served in the same room in which I had made my relative’s acquaintance an hour before. It consisted, I discovered, of two meagre mutton chops and some homemade bread and cheese, plain and substantial fare enough in its way, but hardly the sort one would expect from the owner of such a house. For a beverage, water was placed before us, but I could see that my host was deliberating as to whether he should stretch his generosity a point or two further.

Presently he rose, and with a muttered apology left the room, to return five minutes later carrying a small bottle carefully in his hand. This, with much deliberation and no small amount of sighing, he opened. It proved to be claret, and he poured out a glassful for me. As I was not prepared for so much liberality, I thought something must be behind it, and in this I was not mistaken.

“Nephew,” said he after a while, “was it ten thousand pounds you mentioned as the amount of your fortune?”

I nodded. He looked at me slyly and cleared his throat to gain time for reflection. Then seeing that I had emptied my glass, he refilled it with another scarce concealed sigh, and sat back in his chair.

“And I understand you to say you are quite alone in the world, my boy?”

“Quite! Until I met you this morning I was unaware that I had a single relative on earth. Have I any more connections?”

“Not a soul⁠—only Gwendoline.”

“Gwendoline!” I cried, “and who may Gwendoline be?”

“My daughter⁠—your cousin. My only child! Would you like to see her?”

“I had no idea you had a daughter. Of course I should like to see her!”

He left the table and rang the bell. The ancient manservant answered the summons.

“Tell your wife to bring Miss Gwendoline to us.”

“Miss Gwendoline here, sir? You do not mean it surely, sir?”

“Numbskull! numbskull! numbskull!” cried the old fellow in an ecstasy of fury that seemed to spring up as suddenly as a squall does between the islands, “bring her without another word or I’ll be the death of you.”

Without further remonstrance the old man left the room, and I demanded an explanation.

“Good servant, but an impudent rascal, sir!” he said. “Of course you must see my daughter, my beautiful daughter, Gwendoline. He’s afraid you’ll frighten her, I suppose! Ha! ha! Frighten my bashful, pretty one. Ha! ha!”

Anything so supremely devilish as the dried-up mirth of this old fellow it would be difficult to imagine. His very laugh seemed as if it had to crack in his throat before it could pass his lips. What would his daughter be like, living in such a house, with such companions? While I was wondering, I heard footsteps in the corridor, and then an old woman entered and curtsied respectfully. My host rose and went over to the fireplace, where he stood with his hands behind his back and the same devilish grin upon his face.

“Well, where is my daughter?”

“Sir, do you really mean it?”

“Of course, I mean it. Where is she?”

In answer the old lady went to the door and called to someone in the hall.

“Come in, dearie. It’s all right. Come in, do’ee now, that’s a little dear.”

But the girl made no sign of entering, and at last the old woman had to go out and draw her in. And then⁠—but I hardly know how to write it. How shall I give you a proper description of the⁠—thing that entered. She⁠—if she it could be called⁠—was about three feet high, dressed in a shapeless print costume. Her hair stood and hung in a tangled mass upon her head, her eyes were too large for her face, and to complete the horrible effect, a great patch of beard grew on one cheek, and descended almost to a level with her chin. Her features were all awry, and now and again she uttered little moans that were more like those of a wild beast than of a human being. In spite of the old woman’s endeavours to make her do so, she would not venture from her side, but stood slobbering and moaning in the half dark of the doorway.

It was a ghastly sight, one that nearly turned me sick with loathing. But the worst part of it all was the inhuman merriment of her father.

“There, there!” he cried; “had ever man such a lovely daughter? Isn’t she a beauty? Isn’t she fit to be a prince’s bride? Isn’t she fit to be the heiress of all this place? Won’t the young dukes be asking her hand in marriage? Oh, you beauty! You⁠—but there, take her away⁠—take her away, I say, before I do her mischief.”

The words had no sooner left his mouth than the old woman seized her charge and bundled her out of the room, moaning as before. I can tell you there was at least one person in that apartment who was heartily glad to be rid of her.

When the door had closed upon them my host came back to his seat, and with another sigh refilled my glass. I wondered what was coming next. It was not long, however, before I found out.

“Now you know everything,” he said. “You have seen my home, you have seen my poverty, and you have seen my daughter. What do you think of it all?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Well, then, I’ll tell you. That child wants doctors; that child wants proper attendance. She can get neither here. I am too poor to help her in any way. You’re rich by your own telling. I have today taken you into the bosom of my family, recognized you without doubting your assertions. Will you help me? Will you give me one thousand pounds towards settling that child in life? With that amount it could be managed.”

“Will I what?” I cried in utter amazement⁠—dumbfounded by his impudence.

“Will you settle one thousand pounds upon her, to keep her out of her grave?”

“Not one penny!” I cried; “and, what’s more, you miserable, miserly old wretch, I’ll give you a bit of my mind.”

And thereupon I did! Such a talking to as I suppose the old fellow had never had in his life before, and one he’d not be likely to forget in a hurry. He sat all the time, white with fury, his eyes blazing, and his fingers quivering with impotent rage. When I had done he ordered me out of his house. I took him at his word, seized my hat, and strode across the hall through the front door, and out into the open air.

But I was not to leave the home of my ancestors without a parting shot. As I closed the front door behind me I heard a window go up, and on looking round there was the old fellow shaking his fist at me from the second floor.

“Leave my house⁠—leave my park!” he cried in a shrill falsetto, “or I’ll send for the constable to turn you off. Bah! You came to steal. You’re no nephew of mine; I disown you! You’re a common cheat⁠—a swindler⁠—an impostor! Go!”

I took him at his word, and went. Leaving the park, I walked straight across to the rectory, and enquired if I might see the clergyman. To him I told my tale, and, among other things, asked if anything could be done for the child⁠—my cousin. He only shook his head.

“I fear it is hopeless, Mr. Hatteras,” the clergyman said. “The old gentleman is a terrible character, and as he owns half the village, and every acre of the land hereabouts, we all live in fear and trembling of him. We have no shadow of a claim upon the child, and unless we can prove that he actually ill-treats it, I’m sorry to say I think there is nothing to be done.”

So ended my first meeting with my father’s family.

From the rectory I returned to my inn. What should I do now? London was worse than a desert to me now that my sweetheart was gone from it, and every other place seemed as bad. Then an advertisement on the wall of the bar parlour caught my eye:

For Sale or Hire,

The Yacht, Enchantress,

Ten Tons.

Apply, Screw & Matchem, Bournemouth.

It was just the very thing. I was pining for a breath of sea air again. It was perfect weather for a cruise. I would go to Bournemouth, inspect the yacht at once, and, if she suited me, take her for a month or so. My mind once made up, I hunted up my Jehu, and set off for the train, never dreaming that by so doing I was taking the second step in that important chain of events that was to affect all the future of my life.