Phroso Part 50

But hark! There was a cry, a startled exclamation, and the sound of footsteps. My name was shouted loud and eagerly. I knew Denny's voice.

Phroso slid from my relaxed arms, and drew back into the deepest shadow.

'I'll be back soon,' I whispered, and with a last pressure of her hand, which was warm now and answered to my grasp, I stepped out of the shelter of the wall and stood in front of the house.

Denny was on the doorstep. The door was open. The light from the lamp in the hall flooded the night and fell full on my face as I walked up to him. On sight of me he seemed to forget his own errand and his own eagerness, for he caught me by the shoulder, and stared at me, crying:

'Heavens, man, you're as white as a sheet! Have you seen a ghost? Does Constantine walk--or Mouraki?'

'Fifty ghosts would be a joke to what I've been through. My G.o.d, I never had such a time! What do you want? What did you call me for? I can't stay. She's waiting.' For now I did not care; Denny and all Neopalia might know now.

'Yes, but she must wait a little,' he said. 'You must come into the house and come upstairs.'

'I can't,' I said obstinately. 'I--I--I can't, Denny.'

'You must. Don't be a fool, Charley. It's important: the captain is waiting for you.'

His face seemed big with news. What it might be I could not tell, but the hint of it was enough to make me catch hold of him, crying, 'What is it? I'll come.'

'That's right. Come along.' He turned and ran rapidly through the old hall and up the stairs. I followed him, my mind whirling through a cloud of possibilities.

The quiet business-like aspect of the room into which Denny led the way did something to sober me. I pulled myself together, seeking to hide my feelings under a mask of carelessness. The captain sat at the table with a ma.s.s of papers surrounding him. He appeared to be examining them, and, as he read, his lips curved in surprise or contempt.

'This Mouraki was a cunning fellow,' said he; 'but if anyone had chanced to get hold of this box of his while he was alive he would not have enjoyed even so poor a post as he thought his governorship.

Indeed, Lord Wheatley, had you been actually a party to his death, I think you need have feared nothing when some of these papers had found their way to the eyes of the Government. We're well rid of him, indeed! But then, as I always say, these Armenians, though they're clever dogs--'

But I had not come to hear a Turk discourse on Armenians, and I broke in, with an impatience that I could not altogether conceal:

'I beg your pardon; but is that all you wanted to say to me?'

'I should have thought that it was of some importance to you,' he observed.

'Certainly,' said I, regaining my composure a little; 'but your courtesy and kindness had already rea.s.sured me.'

He bowed his acknowledgments, and proceeded in a most leisurely tone, sorting the papers and doc.u.ments before him into orderly heaps.

'On the death of the Pasha, the government of the island having devolved temporarily on me, I thought it my duty to examine his Excellency's--curse the dog!--his Excellency's despatch-box, with the result that I have discovered very remarkable evidences of the schemes which he dared to entertain. With this, however, perhaps I need not trouble you.'

'I wouldn't intrude into it for the world,' I said.

'I discovered also,' he pursued, in undisturbed leisure and placidity, 'among the Pasha's papers a letter addressed to--'

'Me?' and I sprang forward.

'No, to your cousin, to this gentleman. Pursuing what I conceived to be my duty--and I must trust to Mr Swinton to forgive me--' Here the exasperating fellow paused, looked at Denny, waited for a bow from Denny, duly received it, duly and with ceremony returned it, sighed as though he were much relieved at Denny's complaisance, cleared his throat, arranged a little heap of papers on his left hand, and at last--oh, at last!--went on.

'This letter, I say, in pursuance of what I conceived to be my duty--'

'Yes, yes, your duty, of course. Clearly your duty. Yes?'

'I read. It appeared, however, to contain nothing of importance.'

'Then, why the deuce-- I mean--I beg your pardon.'

'But merely matters of private concern. But I am not warranted in letting it out of my hands. It will have to be delivered to the Government with the rest of the Pasha's papers. I have, however, allowed Mr Swinton to read it. He says that it concerns you, Lord Wheatley, more than himself. I therefore propose to ask him to read it to you (I can decipher English, but not speak it with facility) in my presence.' With this he handed an envelope to Denny. We had got to it at last.

'For heaven's sake be quick about it, my dear boy!' I cried, and I seated myself on the table, swinging my leg to and fro in a fury of restless impatience. The captain eyed my agitated body with profound disapproval.

Denny took the letter from its envelope and read: 'London, May 21st;'

then he paused and remarked, 'We got here on the seventh, you know.' I nodded hastily, and he went on, 'My dear Denny--Oh, how awful this is!

I can hardly bear to think of it! Poor, poor fellow! Mamma is terribly grieved, and I, of course, even more. Both mamma and I feel that it makes it so much worse, somehow, that this news should come only three days after he must have got mamma's letter. Mamma says that it doesn't really make any difference, and that if her letter was _wise_, then this terrible news can't alter that. I suppose it doesn't really, but it seems to, doesn't it? Oh, do write directly and tell me that he wasn't very unhappy about it when he had that horrible fever. There's a big blot--because I'm crying! I know you thought I didn't care about him, but I did--though not (as mamma says) in _one_ way, really. Do you think he forgave me? It would kill me if I thought he didn't. Do write soon. I suppose you will bring poor dear Charley home? Please tell me he didn't think very badly of me. Mamma joins with me in sincerest sympathy.--Yours _most_ sincerely, Beatrice Kennett Hipgrave. _P.S._--Mr Bennett Hamlyn has just called. He is awfully grieved about poor dear Charley. I always think of him as Charley still, you know. Do write.'

There was a long pause, then Denny observed in a satirical tone:

'To be thought of still as "Charley" is after all something.'

'But what the devil does it mean?' I cried, leaping from the table.

'"I suppose you will bring poor dear Charley home,'" repeated Denny, in a meditative tone. 'Well, it looks rather more like it than it did a few days ago, I must admit.'

'Denny, Denny, if you love me, what's it all about? I haven't had any letter from--'

'Mamma? No, we've had no letter from mamma. But then we haven't had any letters from anybody.'

'Then I'm hanged if I--' I began in bewildered despondency.

'But, Charley,' interrupted Denny, 'perhaps mamma sent a letter to--Mouraki Pasha!'

'To Mouraki?'

'This letter of mine found its way to Mouraki.'

'All letters,' observed the captain, who was leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling, 'would pa.s.s through his hands, if he chose to make them.'

'Good heavens!' I cried, springing forward. The hint was enough. In an instant my busy, nervous, shaking hands were ruining the neat piles of doc.u.ments which the captain had reared so carefully in front and on either side of him. I dived, tossed, fumbled, rummaged, scattered, strewed, tore. The captain, incapable of resisting my excited energy, groaned in helpless despair at the destruction of his evening's work.

Denny, having watched me for a few minutes, suddenly broke out into a peal of laughter. I stopped for an instant to glare reproof of his ill-timed mirth, and turned to my wild search again.

The search seemed useless. Either Mouraki had not received a letter from Mrs Bennett Hipgrave, or he had done what I myself always did with the good lady's communications--thrown it away immediately after reading it. I examined every sc.r.a.p of paper, official doc.u.ments, private notes (the captain was very nervous when I insisted on looking through these for a trace of Mrs Hipgrave's name), lists of stores; in a word, the whole contents of Mouraki's despatch-boxes.

'It's a blank!' I cried, stepping back at last in disappointment.

'Yes, it's gone; but depend upon it, he had it,' said Denny.

A sudden recollection flashed across me, the remembrance of the subtle amused smile with which Mouraki had spoken of the lady who was most anxious about me and my future wife. He must have known then; he must even then have had Mrs Hipgrave's letter in his possession. He had played a deliberate trick on me by suppressing the letter; hence his fury when I announced my intention of disregarding the ties that bound me--a fury which had, for the moment, conquered his cool cunning and led him into violent threats. At that moment, when I realised the man's audacious knavery, when I thought of the struggle he had caused to me and the pain to Phroso, well, just then I came near to canonising Demetri, and nearer still to grudging him his exploit.

'What was in the letter, then?' I cried to Denny.

'Read mine again,' said he, and he threw it across to me.

I read it again. I was cooler now, and the meaning of it stood out plain and not to be doubted. Mrs Bennett Hipgrave's letter, her wise letter, had broken off my engagement to her daughter. The fact was plain; all that was missing, destroyed by the caution or the carelessness of Mouraki Pasha, was the reason; and the reason I could supply for myself. I reached my conclusion, and looked again at Denny.