Diana Tempest Volume Ii Part 3

The public esteem this particular walk but lightly. Invalids in bath-chairs toil down it sometimes; nurses with grown-up children, who are children still, go there occasionally, where the uncouth gambols and vacant bearded laugh of forty-five will not attract attention.

But as a rule it is deserted.

Colonel Tempest had it almost to himself for the first ten minutes, except for a covey of little boys who fought and clambered and jumped on some stacked timber at one end. He had not chosen the place without forethought. It would be presumed that he would have a large sum of money with him, and he had taken care on each occasion to select a rendezvous where foul play would not be possible. He was within reach of numbers of persons merely by raising his voice.

An old man on the arm of a young one pa.s.sed him slowly, absorbed in earnest conversation. A girl in mourning sat down on one of the benches.

There was privacy enough for business, and not too much for safety.

Colonel Tempest paced up and down, giving each face that pa.s.sed a furtive glance. He did not know what to expect.

The three quarters struck. The girl got up and turned away. A stout, shabby-looking man, whose approach Colonel Tempest had not noticed, was sitting on one of the benches under a gnarled yew, staring vacantly in front of him. The old man and the young one were coming down the walk again. A check suit with six depressed, amber-eyed dachshunds in a leash pa.s.sed among the trees.

A few more turns.

The clock began to strike six.

Colonel Tempest's pulse quickened. As he turned once more at the end of the walk, he could see that the hunched-up figure, with the hat over the eyes, was still sitting under the yew at the further end. He walked slowly towards it. How should they recognize each other? Who would speak first?

A quietly-dressed man, walking rapidly in the opposite direction, touched his hat respectfully as he pa.s.sed him. Colonel Tempest recognized John's valet, and slackened his pace, for he was approaching the bench under the yew tree, and he did not care to be addressed while any one was within earshot. He was opposite it now, and he looked hard at the occupant. The latter stared vacantly, if not sleepily, back at him, and made no sign.

"He is shamming," said Colonel Tempest to himself. "Or else he is not sure of me." And he took yet another turn.

The man had moved a little when he came towards him again. He was leaning back in the corner of the bench, with his head on his chest, and his legs stretched out. An elderly lady, with curls, and an umbrella clutched like a defensive weapon, was pa.s.sing him with evident distrust, calling to her side a fleecy little toy dog, which seemed to have left its stand and wheels at home, and to be rather at a loss without them.

Colonel Tempest looked hard a second time at the figure on the bench, when he came opposite him, and then stopped short.

The man was sleeping the sleep of the just, or, to speak more correctly, of the just inebriated. His under lip was thrust out. He breathed stertorously. If it was a sham, it was very well done.

Colonel Tempest stood a moment in perplexity, looking fixedly at him.

Should he wake him? Was he, perhaps, waiting to be waked? Was he really asleep? He half put out his hand.

"I think, sir," said a respectful voice behind him, "begging your pardon, sir, the party is very intoxicated. Sometimes if woke sudden they're vicious."

Colonel Tempest wheeled round.

It was Marshall, John's valet, who had spoken to him, and who was now regarding the slumbering rough with the resigned melancholy of an undertaker.

The quarter struck.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting, sir," said Marshall, after a pause, in which Colonel Tempest wondered why he did not go.

And then, at last, Colonel Tempest understood.

He put his hand feebly to his head.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" he said below his breath, and was silent.

Marshall cleared his throat.

There are situations in which, as Johnson has observed respecting the routine of married life, little can be said, but much must be done.

The slumbering backslider slid a little further back in his seat, and gurgled something very low down about "jolly good fellows," until, his voice suddenly going upstairs in the middle, he added in a high quaver, "daylight does appear."

The musical outburst recalled Colonel Tempest somewhat to himself. He turned his eyes carefully away from Marshall, after that first long look of mutual understanding.

The man's apparent respectability, his smooth shaved face and quiet dress, from his well-brushed hat and black silk cravat to the dark dog-skin glove that held his irreproachable umbrella, set Colonel Tempest's teeth on edge.

He had not known what to expect, but--_this_!

In a flash of memory he recalled the several occasions on which he had seen Marshall in attendance on John, his attentive manner, and noiseless tread. Once before John could move he had seen Marshall lift him carefully into a more upright position. The remembrance of that helpless figure in Marshall's arms came back to him with a shudder that could not be repressed. Marshall, whose expressionless face had undergone no change whatever, cleared his throat again and looked at his watch.

"Begging your pardon, sir," he said, "it's nearly half-past six, and Mr. Tempest dines early to-night."

"Did you receive my other letters?" said Colonel Tempest, pulling himself together, and beginning to walk slowly down the path.

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry to have put you to the inconvenience of going to so many places, 'specially as I saw for myself how regular you turned up at 'em. But I wanted to make sure you were in earnest before I showed. My character is my livelihood, sir. There was a time when I was in trouble and got into Mr. Johnson's hands, but before that I'd been in service in 'igh families, very 'igh, sir. Mr. Tempest took me on the recommendation of the Earl of Carmian. I was with him two year."

"Mr. Johnson," said Colonel Tempest, stopping short, and turning a shade whiter than he had been before. "By ---- I don't know anything about a Mr. Johnson. What do you mean?"

The two men eyed each other as if each suspected treachery.

"Did you write this?" said Marshall, producing Colonel Tempest's last letter.

"Yes."

"Then it's all right," said Marshall, who had forgotten the _sir_. "He had a sight of names. Johnson he was when he found I'd took up your--your bet. But I wrote to him, I remember, at one place as Crosbie."

Colonel Tempest recalled the curate's mention of Swayne under the name of Crosbie.

"Swayne, or Crosbie, or Johnson, it's all one," he said hastily. "I want a certain bit of paper you have in your possession, and I have ten Bank of England notes, of a hundred each, in my pocket now to give you in exchange. I suppose we understand each other. Have you got it on you?"

"Yes."

"Produce it."

"Show up the notes, too, then."

Unnoticed by either, the manner of both, as between gentleman and servant, had merged into that of perfect equality. Love is not the only leveller of disparities of rank and position.

They were walking together side by side. There was not a soul in sight.

Each cautiously showed what he had brought. The dirty half-sheet of common note-paper, with Colonel Tempest's signature, seemed hardly worth the crisp notes, each one of which Colonel Tempest turned slowly over.

"Ten," said Marshall. "All right."

"Stop," said Colonel Tempest, hoa.r.s.ely, the date on the ragged sheet he had just seen suggesting a new idea. "You're too young. You're not five and thirty. By ---- it's nearly sixteen years ago. You weren't in it.

You couldn't have been in it. How did you come by that? Whom did you have it from?"

"From one who'll tell no tales," returned Marshall. "He was sick of it.

He had tried twice, and he was near his end, and I took it off him just before he died."