The Wharf By The Docks Part 25

The pause had made the ladies so frigid and the men-servants so shy, the pretty housemaid so merry and the plain ones so solemn, that disaster threatened the gathering, when Mr. Wedmore and the cook made their opportune appearance.

Max, his cousins and young Hutchinson gave three cheers, in the midst of which demonstration the Rev. Lisle Lindsay endeavored to make his escape by the front door.

Unhappily, Mr. Wedmore, elated by his victory over the cook, espied him, and straightway forbade him to leave the house until after "Sir Roger."

In vain the curate protested; pleaded the privileges and exemptions of his sacred calling.

Mr. Wedmore was obdurate; and, to the disgust of everybody, including himself, the Rev. Lisle Lindsay found himself told off to dance with the pretty housemaid, being the only man in the room who was not anxious for the honor.

This mishap cast a gloom over the proceedings. The rest of the gentlemen found it hard to extract a word from the other maids, who all considered themselves slighted. And Mr. Wedmore had great difficulty in persuading the men-servants to come forward and take their places by the partners he chose for them. To get them to choose for themselves was out of the question, after one young gardener had availed himself of the invitation by darting across the floor and asking Miss Queenie, in a hoa.r.s.e voice and with many blushes, if she would dance with him.

Of course, this piece of daring made a sensation so great that to get another man follow the bold example was impossible.

In the end, Mrs. Wedmore found a partner in the coachman, who was a portly and solemn person, with no talents in the way of dancing or of conversation. Doreen danced with the butler, who, between nervousness and gloom, found it impossible to conceal his opinion that master was making a fool of himself; and the rest of the company being quite as ill matched, "Sir Roger" was performed with little grace and less liveliness, while the Yule Log, after emitting a great deal of smoke, sputtered out into blackness, to everybody's relief.

The end of it was, however, a little better than the beginning. As the dancers warmed to their work, their latent enthusiasm for the exercise was awakened; and "Sir Roger" was kept up until the fingers of the organist, who had been engaged to play for them on a piano placed in a corner of one of the pa.s.sages, ached with the cold and with the hard work.

When the dance was over and the party had broken up, Doreen, who had done her best to keep up the spirits of the rest, broke down. Max met her on her way to her room, and saw that the tears were very near her eyes.

"What's the matter now?" said he, crossly. "You seemed all right downstairs. I thought you and Lindsay seemed to be getting on very well together."

"Did you? Well, you were wrong," said she, briefly, as she shut herself into the room.

CHAPTER XVI.

A MESSAGE FROM THE WHARF.

Christmas was over, and The Beeches had subsided into its normal state of prosperous tranquility. Max had had a fresh situation discovered for him, and he was now wasting his time on a stool in a merchant's office, as he had wasted it in other offices many times before. His father's chronic state of exasperation with his laziness was growing acute, and he had informed Max that unless he chose to stick to his work this time he would have to be shipped off to the Cape. No entreaties on the part of Mrs. Wedmore or the girls were of any avail against this fixed resolution on Mr. Wedmore's part, or against the inflexible laziness of Max himself. He detested office work, and he confessed that if he was not to be allowed to lead the country life he loved, he would prefer enlistment in the Cape Mounted Police to drudgery in a dark corner of a city office.

It was on a foggy evening in January that Max, for the first time in three weeks (an unprecedented interval), knocked at the door of Dudley Horne's chambers.

There was a long delay, and Max, after a second knock, was going to withdraw, in the belief that Dudley was not in, after all, when he heard slow steps within, and paused.

The door was opened a very little way, and Dudley looked out.

Max stared at him for a moment without speaking. For over his friend there had pa.s.sed some great change. Dudley had never been florid of complexion, but now he looked ghastly. His face had always been grave and strong rather than cheerful, but now the expression of his countenance was forbidding.

He looked at Max, glanced down the stairs, and nodded without a smile.

"h.e.l.lo!" said he, with the letter of familiarity, but without its spirit. "Haven't seen anything of you for a century. Up in town again, eh?"

"Yes. Can't I come in?" said Max.

Dudley had come outside instead of inviting his friend in. At these words, however, he turned abruptly, and himself led the way into the little ante-chamber.

"Oh, yes, oh, yes, come in, of course. Come in."

Max accepted the cool invitation in silence, shut the door behind him, and followed his friend into the sitting-room, where the table was laid for a solitary dinner.

But it was the writing-table which caught the eye of Max and riveted his attention. For a photograph lay there, a woman's photograph, and as it was just in front of the chair Dudley had been using, as if he had been occupied in looking at it, it was not unnatural that the brother of Doreen should be curious to know whose picture it was.

So Max got around the table quickly by the opposite way to that which Dudley took, and threw himself into a chair by the writing-table in such a position that he could see what was on it. And he saw two things: One was that the photograph was that of Doreen; the other that a postal order for one pound, which lay beside the photograph, and upon which the ink was not yet dry, was made out to "Mrs. Edward Jacobs."

Max felt himself blushing as Dudley s.n.a.t.c.hed up the postal orders--there were two of them--and slip them into an envelope. Then the eyes of the two men met. And Dudley knew what Max had seen.

He seemed to hesitate a moment, then glanced at Max again, sat down to the writing-table, and took up a pen. As he directed the letter, he said quietly:

"Do you know whom I'm sending this money to?"

"Well, I did catch sight of the name," stammered Max, unable to hide the fact that the question was an embarra.s.sing one to him.

"Yes," went on Dudley, as he showed him the directed letter, "it is to the widow of the poor devil who was found in the Thames the other day--man who was once in my late father's employment--Edward Jacobs."

"Oh, yes, I've heard," stammered Max again.

The incident of Dudley sending money to the woman would have seemed to him trivial and even natural enough, if it had not been for the curious look of hard defiance which Dudley gave him out of his black eyes. It was like a challenge; it set his friend wondering again, asking himself again all those tormenting questions about Edward Jacobs's death which he had allowed to slip into a back place in his thoughts.

As he looked down at the end of the white table-cloth which touched the floor a loud laugh from Dudley startled him and made him look up. And when he did so the conviction that his friend was mad, or, at least, subject to attacks of insanity, flashed into his mind more strongly than ever. Dudley was leaning back, tilting his chair till it touched the dinner table, distending his jaws in a hard, mocking laugh as unlike mirth as possible.

"Oh, yes, so I've heard--so I've heard!" repeated he, mockingly. "And, of course, that's all you've heard, isn't it? And you've never taken the trouble to make any personal inquiries in the matter? Or thought of taking a journey, say, as far as Plumtree Wharf to make any private investigations?"

Max was startled. He saw clearly enough that which he would fain have denied--that Dudley was in communication with the people at the wharf, from whom he must have obtained this information. For a moment he was silent. It was not until Dudley's harsh laughter had died away, and he, rather surprised to see how quietly Max took his accusation, had wheeled round in his chair to look at his friend, that Max said:

"Well, I did go to the wharf. And I'll tell you why. Doreen is breaking her heart about you, and she would have me find out what was wrong with you."

Then there was silence.

"G.o.d bless her!" said Dudley at last, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

Another silence.

"What did you tell her?" whispered Dudley.

"What could I tell her? I said you were mad."

"And what did you--_think_?"

"Well, I hardly know myself."

"That's right! That's the proper att.i.tude!" cried Dudley.

And then he laughed again uproariously.

And in the midst of his laughter there was a knock at the door.

For a moment neither man moved. Then Dudley got up slowly and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. Max heard him open the outer door, and then he heard a voice he knew--a young girl's voice--say: