CHAPTER III
A Vicious Circle
The Berridges of Berylstow--a house near my office in the Witching HillRoad--were perhaps the very worthiest family on the whole Estate.
Old Mr. Berridge, by a lifetime of faithful service, had risen to a fineposition in one of the oldest and most substantial assurance societiesin the City of London. Mrs. Berridge, herself a woman of energeticcharacter, devoted every minute that she could spare from householdduties, punctiliously fulfilled, to the glorification of the local Vicarand the denunciation of modern ideas. There was a daughter, whose nameof Beryl had inspired that of the house; she was her mother's miniatureand echo, and had no desire to ride a bicycle or do anything else thatMrs. Berridge had not done before her. An only son, Guy, completed the_partie carree_, and already made an admirable accountant under hisfather's eagle eye. He was about thirty years of age, had a mild facebut a fierce moustache, was engaged to be married, and already pickingup books and pictures for the new home.
As a bookman Guy Berridge stood alone.
"There's nothing like them for furnishing a house," said he; "andnowadays they're so cheap. There's that new series of VictorianClassics--one-and-tenpence-halfpenny! And those Eighteenth CenturyMasterpieces--I don't know when I shall get time to read them, butthey're worth the money for the binding alone--especially witheverything peculiar taken out!"
_Peculiar_ was a family epithet of the widest possible significance. Itwas peculiar of Guy, in the eyes of the other three, to be in such ahurry to leave their comfortable home for one of his own on anecessarily much smaller scale. Miss Hemming, the future Mrs. Guy, wasby no means deficient in peculiarity from his people's point of view.She affected flowing fabrics of peculiar shades, and she had still morepeculiar ideas of furnishing. On Saturday afternoons she would drag poorGuy into all the second-hand furniture shops in the neighbourhood--noteven to save money, as Mrs. Berridge complained to her more intimatefriends--but just to be peculiar. It seemed like a judgment when Guyfell so ill with influenza, obviously contracted in one of those highlypeculiar shops, that he had to mortgage his summer holiday by going awayfor a complete change early in the New Year.
He went to country cousins of the suburban Hemmings; his own MissHemming went with him, and it was on their return that a difference wasfirst noticed in the young couple. They no longer looked radianttogether, much less when apart. The good young accountant would pass mywindow with a quite tragic face. And one morning, when we met outside,he told me that he had not slept a wink.
That evening I went to smoke a pipe with Uvo Delavoye, who happened tohave brought me into these people's ken. And we were actually talkingabout Guy Berridge and his affairs when the maid showed him up intoUvo's room.
I never saw a man look quite so wretched. The mild face seemed to cowerbehind the truculent moustache; the eyes, bright and bloodshot, wincedwhen one met them. I got up to go, feeling instinctively that he hadcome to confide in Uvo. But Berridge read me as quickly as I read him.
"Don't you go on my account," said he gloomily. "I've nothing to tellDelavoye that I can't tell you, especially after giving myself away toyou once already to-day. I daresay three heads will be better than two,and I know I can trust you both."
"Is anything wrong?" asked Uvo, when preliminary solicitations hadreminded me that his visitor neither smoked nor drank.
"Everything!" was the reply.
"Not with your engagement, I hope?"
"That's it," said Berridge, with his eyes on the carpet.
"It isn't--off?"
"Not yet."
"I don't want to ask more than I ought," said Uvo, after a pause, "but Ialways imagine that, between people who're engaged, the least littlething----"
"It isn't a little thing."
And the accountant shook his downcast head.
"I only meant, my dear chap, if you'd had some disagreement----"
"We've never had the least little word!"
"Has she changed?" asked Uvo Delavoye.
"Not that I know of," replied Berridge; but he looked up as though itwere a new idea; and there was more life in his voice.
"She'd tell you," said Uvo, "if I know her."
"Do people tell each other?" eagerly inquired our friend.
"They certainly ought, and I think Miss Hemming would."
"Ah! it's easy enough for them!" cried the miserable young man. "Womenare not liars and traitors because they happen to change their minds.Nobody thinks the worse of them for that; it's their privilege, isn'tit? They can break off as many engagements as they like; but if I didsuch a thing I should never hold up my head again!"
He buried his hot face in his hands, and Delavoye looked at me for thefirst time. It was a sympathetic look enough; and yet there wassomething in it, a lift of the eyebrow, a light in the eye, thatreminded me of the one point on which we always differed.
"Better hide your head than spoil her life," said he briskly. "But howlong have you felt like doing either? I used to look on you as an idealpair."
"So we were," said poor Berridge, readily. "It's most peculiar!"
I saw a twitch at the corners of Uvo's mouth; but he was not the man forsly glances over a bowed head.
"How long have you been engaged?" he asked.
"Ever since last September."
"You were here then, if I remember?"
"Yes; it was just after my holiday."
"In fact you've been here all the time?"
"Up to these last few weeks."
Delavoye looked round his room as a cross-examining counsel surveys thecourt to mark a point. I felt it about time to intervene on the otherside.
"But you looked perfectly happy," said I, "all the autumn?"
"So I was, God knows!"
"Everything was all right until you went away?"
"Everything."
"Then," said I, "it looks to me like the mere mental effect ofinfluenza, and nothing else."
But that was not the sense of the glance I could not help shooting atDelavoye. And my explanation was no comfort to Guy Berridge; he hadthought of it before; but then he had never felt better than the lastfew days in the country, yet never had he been in such despair.
"I can't go through with it," he groaned in abject unreserve. "It'smaking my life a hell--a living lie. I don't know how to bear it--fromone meeting to the next--I dread them so! Yet I've always a sort of hopethat next time everything will suddenly become as it was beforeChristmas. Talk of forlorn hopes! Each time's worse than the last. I'vecome straight from her now. I don't know what you must think of me! It'snot ten minutes since we said good-night." The big moustache trembled."I felt a Judas," he whispered--"an absolute Judas!"
"I believe it's all nerves," said Delavoye, but with so littleconviction that I loudly echoed the belief.
"But I don't go in for nerves," protested Berridge; "none of us do, inour family. We don't believe in them. We think they're a modern excusefor anything you like to do or say; that's what we think about nerves.I'm not going to start them just to make myself out better than I am.It's my heart that's rotten, not my nerves."
"I admire your attitude," said Delavoye, "but I don't agree with you.It'll all come back to you in the end--everything you think you'velost--and then you'll feel as though you'd awakened from a bad dream."
"But sometimes I do wake up, as it is!" cried Berridge, catching at theidea. "Nearly every morning, when I'm dressing, things look different.I feel my old self again--the luckiest fellow alive--engaged to thesweetest girl! She's always that, you know; don't imagine for one momentthat I ever think less of Edith; she always was and would be a milliontimes too good for me. If only she'd see it for herself, and chuck me upof her own accord! I've even tried to tell her what I feel; but shewon't meet me half-way; the real truth never seems to enter her head.How to tell her outright I don't know. It would have been easy enoughlast year, when her people wouldn't let us be properly engaged. But theygave in at Christmas when I had my rise in screw; an
d now she's got herring, and given me this one--how on earth can I go and give it herback?"
"May I see?" asked Delavoye, holding out his hand; and I for one wasgrateful to him for the diversion of the few seconds we spent inspectingan old enamelled ring with a white peacock on a crimson ground. Berridgeasked us if we thought it a very peculiar ring, as they all did atBerylstow, and he babbled on about the circumstances of its purchase byhis dear, sweet, open-handed Edith. It did him good to talk. A tinge ofhealth returned to his cadaverous cheeks, and for a time his moustachelooked less out of keeping and proportion.
But it was the mere reactionary surcease of prolonged pain, and the fitcame on again in uglier guise before he left.
"It isn't so much that I don't want to marry her," declared theaccountant with startling abruptness, "as the awful thoughts I have asto what may happen if I do. They're too awful to describe, even to youtwo fellows. Of course nothing could make you think worse of me than youmust already, but you'd say I was mad if you could see inside myhorrible mind. I don't think she'd be safe; honestly I don't! I feel asif I might do her some injury--or--or violence!"
He was swaying about the room with wild eyes staring from one to theother of us and twitching fingers feeling in his pockets. I got upmyself and stood within reach of him, for now I felt certain that loveor illness had turned his brain. But it was only a very small scrap ofpaper that he fished out of his waistcoat pocket, and handed first toDelavoye and then to me.
"I cut it out of a review of such a peculiar poem in my evening paper,"said Berridge. "I never read reviews, or poems, but those lines hit mehard."
And I read:
"Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!"
"But you don't feel like that!" said Delavoye, laughing at him; and thelaughter rang as false as his earlier consolation; but this time I hadnot the presence of mind to supplement it.
Guy Berridge nodded violently as he held out his hand for the verse. Icould see that his eyes had filled with tears. But Uvo rolled the scrapof paper into a pellet, which he flung among the lumps of asbestosglowing in his grate, and took the outstretched hand in his. I never sawman so gentle with another. Hardly a word more passed. But the poordevil squeezed my fingers before Uvo led him out to see him home. And itwas many minutes before he returned.
"I have had a time of it!" said he, putting his feet to the gas fire."Not with that poor old thing, but his people, all three of them! I gothim up straight to bed, and then they kept me when he thought I'd gone.Of course they know there's something wrong, and of course they blamethe girl; one knew they would. It seems they've never really approved ofher; she's a shocking instance of all-round peculiarity. They littleknow the apple of their own blind eyes--eh, Gilly?"
"I hardly knew him myself," said I. "He must be daft! I never thought tohear a grown man go on like that."
"And such a man!" cried Uvo. "It's not the talk so much as the talkerthat surprises me; and by the way, how well he talked, for him! He wasless of a bore than I've ever known him; there was passion in thefellow, confound him! Red blood in that lump of road metal! He's notonly sorry for himself. He's simply heartbroken about the girl. Butthis maggot of morbid introspection has got into his brain and----howdid it get there, Gilly? It's no place for the little brute. What brainis there to feed it? What has he ever done, in all his dull days, tomake that harmless mind a breeding-ground for every sort of degenerateidea? In mine they'd grow like mustard and cress. I'd feel just likethat if I were engaged to the very nicest girl; the nicer she was, theworse I'd get; but then I'm a degenerate dog in any case. Oh, yes, I am,Gilly. But here's as faithful a hound as ever licked his lady's hand.Where's he got it from? Who's the poisoner?"
"I'm glad you ask," said I. "I was afraid you'd say you knew."
"Meaning my old man of the soil?"
"I made sure you'd put it on him."
Uvo laughed heartily.
"You don't know as much about him as I do, Gilly! He was the last oldscoundrel to worry because he didn't love a woman as much as shedeserved. It was quite the other way about, I can assure you."
"Yes; but what about those almost murderous inclinations?"
"I thought of them. But they only came on after our good friend hadshaken this demoralising dust off his feet. As long as he stuck toWitching Hill he was as sound as a marriage bell! It's dead against mydoctrine, Gillon, but I'm delighted to find that you share mydisappointment."
"And I to hear you own it is one, Uvo!"
"There's another thing, now we're on the subject," he continued, for wehad not been on it for weeks and months. "It seems that over at HamptonCourt there's a portrait of my ignoble kinsman, by one Kneller. I onlyheard of it the other day, and I was rather wondering if you could getaway to spin over with me and look him up. It needn't necessarilyinvolve contentious topics, and we might lunch at the Mitre in thatwindow looking down stream. But it ought to be to-morrow, if you couldmanage it, because the galleries don't open on Friday, and on Saturdaysthey're always crowded."
I could not manage it very well. I was supposed to spend my day on theEstate, and, though there was little doing thus early in the year, itmight be the end of me if my Mr. Muskett came back before his usual timeand did not find me at my post. And I was no longer indifferent as tothe length of my days at Witching Hill. But I resolved to risk them forthe man who had made the place what it was to me--a garden offriends--however otherwise he might people and spoil it for himself.
We started at my luncheon hour, which could not in any case countagainst me, and quite early in the afternoon we reckoned to be back. Itwas a very keen bright day, worthier of General January than hischief-of-staff. Ruts and puddles were firmly frozen; our bicycle bellsrang out with a pleasing brilliance. In Bushey Park the black chestnutsstamped their filigree tops against a windless radiance. Under the treesa russet carpet still waited for March winds to take it up. The Dianapond was skinned with ice; goddess and golden nymphs caught everyscintillation of cold sunlight as we trundled past. In a fine glow weentered the palace and climbed to the grim old galleries.
"Talk about haunted houses!" said Uvo Delavoye. "If our patron sinnertakes such a fatherly interest in the humble material at his disposal,what about that gay dog Henry and the good ladies in these apartments? Ishould be sorry to trust living neck to what's left of the oldlady-killer." It was the famous Holbein which had set him off. "But Isay, Gilly, here's a far worse face than his. It may be my rudeforefather; by Jove, and so it is!"
And he took off his cap with unction to a handsome, sinister creature,in a brown flowing wig and raiment as fine as any on the walls. Therewas a staggering peacock-blue surtout, lined with silk of an orangescarlet, the wide sleeves turned up with the same; and a creamy cascadeof lace fell from the throat over a long cinnamon waistcoat piped withsilk; for you could swear to the material at sight, and the coloursmight have been laid on that week. They lit up the gloomy chamber, andthe eyes in the periwigged head lit them up. The dark eyes at my sidewere not more live and liquid than the painted pair. Not that Uvo's werecynical, voluptuous, or sly; but like these they reminded me of deepwaters hidden from the sun. I refrained from comment on a resemblancethat went no further. I was glad I alone had seen how far it went.
A handsome, sinister creature, in a brown flowing wig andraiment as fine as any on the walls.]
"Thank goodness those lips and nostrils don't sprout on our branch!" Uvohad put up his eyebrows in a humorous way of his. "We must keep aweather eye open for the evil that they did living after them onWitching Hill! You may well stare at his hands; they probably weren'this at all, but done from a model. I hope the old Turk hadn't quite sucha ladylike----"
He stopped short, as I knew he would when he saw what I was pointing outto him; for I had not been staring at the effeminate hand affectedlycomposed on the corner of a table, but
at the enamelled ring paintedlike a miniature on the little finger.
"Good Lord!" cried Delavoye. "That's the very ring we saw last night!"
It was at least a perfect counterfeit; the narrow stem, the high,projecting, oval bezel--the white peacock enamelled on a crimsonground--one and all were there, as the painters of that period loved toput such things in.
"It must be the same, Gilly! There couldn't be two such utter oddities!"
"It looks like it, certainly; but how did Miss Hemming get hold of it?"
"Easily enough; she ferrets out all the old curiosity shops in thedistrict, and didn't Berridge tell us she bought his ring in one?Obviously it's been lying there for the last century and a bit. Bear inmind that this bad old lot wasn't worth a bob towards the end; then youmust see the whole thing's so plain, there's only one thing plainer."
"What's that?"
"The entire cause and origin of Guy Berridge's pangs and fears about hisengagement. He never had one or the other before Christmas--when he gothis ring. They've made his life a Hades ever since, every day of it andevery hour of every day, except sometimes in the morning when he wasgetting up. Why not then? Because he took off his ring when he went tohis bath! I'll go so far as to remind you that his only calm andrational moments last night were while you and I were looking at thisring and it was off his finger!"
Delavoye's strong excitement was attracting the attention of the oldsoldierly attendant near the window, and in a vague way that veteranattracted mine. I glanced past him, out and down into the formalgrounds. Yew and cedar seemed unreal to me in the wintry sunlight;almost I wondered whether I was dreaming in my turn, and where on earthI was. It was as though a touch of the fantastic had rested for a momenteven on my hard head. But I very soon shook it off, and mocked thevanquished weakness with a laugh.
"Yes, my dear fellow, that's all very well. But----"
"None of your blooming 'buts'!" cried Uvo, with almost delirious levity."I should have thought this instance was concrete enough even for you.But we'll talk about it at the Mitre and consider what to do."
In that talk I joined, into those considerations I entered, withoutarguing at all. It did not commit me to a single article of a repugnantcreed, but neither on the other hand did it impair the excellence ofDelavoye's company at a hurried feast which still stands out in myrecollection. I remember the long red wall of Hampton Court as the onewarm feature of the hard-bitten landscape. I remember red wine in ourglasses, a tinge of colour in the dusky face that leant toward mine, anda wondrous flow of eager talk, delightful as long as one did not take ittoo seriously. My own attitude I recapture most securely in Uvo'saccusation that I smiled and smiled and was a sceptic. It was one ofthose characteristic remarks that stick for no other reason. UvoDelavoye was not in those days at all widely read; but he had a largecircle of quotations which were not altogether unfamiliar to me, and Ieventually realised that he knew his _Hamlet_ almost off by heart.
But as yet poor Berridge's "pangs and fears" was original Delavoye to myruder culture; and the next time I saw him, on the Friday night, thepangs seemed keener and the fears even more enervating than before.Again he sat with us in Uvo's room; but he was oftener on his legs,striding up and down, muttering and gesticulating as he strode. In theend Uvo took a strong line with him. I was waiting for it. He hadconceived the scheme at Hampton Court, and I was curious to see how itwould be received.
"This can't go on, Berridge! I'll see you through--to the bitter end!"
Uvo was not an actor, yet here was a magnificent piece of acting,because it was more than half sincere.
"Will you really, Delavoye?" cried the accountant, shrinking a littlefrom his luck.
"Rather! I'm not going to let you go stark mad under my nose. Give methat ring."
"My--_her_--ring?"
"Of course; it's your engagement ring, isn't it? And it's your duty, toyourself and her and everybody else, to break off that engagement withas little further delay as possible."
"But are you sure, Delavoye?"
"Certain. Give it to me."
"It seems such a frightful thing to do!"
"We'll see about that. Thank you; now you're your own man again."
And now I really did begin to open my eyes; for no sooner had theunfortunate accountant parted with his ring, than his ebbing affectionsrushed back in a miraculous flood, and he was begging for it again infive minutes, vowing that he had been mad but now was sane, and lookingmore himself into the bargain. But Delavoye was adamant to thesehysterical entreaties. He plied Berridge with his own previous argumentsagainst the marriage, and once at least he struck a responsive chordfrom those frayed nerves.
"Nobody but yourself," he pointed out, "ever said you didn't love her;but see what love makes of you! Can you dream of marriage in such astate? Is it fair to the girl, until you've really reconsidered thewhole matter and learnt your own mind once for all? Could she be happy?Would she be--it was your own suggestion--but are you sure she would beeven safe?"
Berridge wrung his hands in new despair; yes, he had forgotten that!Those awful instincts were the one unalterably awful feature. Not thathe felt them still; but to recollect them as genuine impulses, or atbest as irresistible thoughts, was to freeze his self-distrust into acureless cancer.
"I was forgetting all that," he moaned. "And yet here in my pocket isthe very book those hopeless lines are from. I bought it at Stoneham'sthis morning. It's the most peculiar poem I ever read. I can't quitemake it out. But that bit was clear enough. Only hear how it goes on!"
And in a school-childish singsong, with no expression but thatinvoluntarily imparted by his quavering voice, he read twelve linesaloud--
"Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Lust, Some with the hands of Gold: The kindest use a knife, because----"
He shuddered horribly--
"The dead so soon grow cold.
"Some love too little, some too long, Some sell, and others buy; Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh: For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die."
"It's all I'm fit for, death!" groaned Guy Berridge, trying to tug thefierce moustache out of his mild face. "The sooner the better, for me!And yet I did love her, God knows I did!" He turned upon Uvo Delavoye ina sudden blaze. "And so I do still--do you hear me? Then give me back myring, I say, and don't encourage me in this madness--you--you devil!"
Trying to tug the fierce moustache out of his mild face.]
"Give it him back," I said. But Uvo set his teeth against us both,looking almost what he had just been called--looking abominably likethat fine evil gentleman in Hampton Court--and I could stand the wholething no longer. I rammed my own hand into Delavoye's pocket. And downand away out into the night, like a fiend let loose, went Guy Berridgeand the ring with the peacock enamelled in white on a blood-red ground.
I turned again to Delavoye. His shoulders were up to his ears in wrygood humour.
"You may be right, Gilly, but now I ought really to sit up with him allnight. In any case I shall have it back in the morning, and then neitheryou nor he shall ever see that unclean bird again!"
But he went so far as to show it to me across my counter, not manyminutes after young Berridge had shambled past, with bent head andunshaven cheeks, to catch his usual train next morning.
"I did sit up with him," said Uvo. "We sat up till he dropped off in hischair, and eventually I got him to bed more asleep than awake. But he'sas bad as ever again this morning, and he has surrendered the infernalring this time of his own accord. I'm to break matters to the girl bygiving it back to her."
"You're a perfect hero to take it on!"
"I feel much more of a humbug, Gilly."
"When do you tackle her?"
"Never, my dear fellow! Can't you see the point? This white peacock's atthe bottom of the whole thing. Neither of them shall ever set eyes on itagain, a
nd then you see if they don't marry and live happy ever after!"
"But are you going to throw the thing away?"
"Not if I can help it, Gilly. I'll tell you what I thought of doing.There's a little working jeweller, over at Richmond, who made me quite agood pin out of some heavy old studs that belonged to my father. I'mgoing to take him this ring to-day and see if he can turn out aduplicate for love or money."
"I'll go with you," I said, "if you can wait till the afternoon."
"We must be gone before Berridge has a chance of getting back," repliedUvo, doubtfully; "otherwise I shall have to begin all over again,because of course he'll come back cured and roaring for his ring. Ihaven't quite decided what to say to him, but I fancy my imaginationwill prove equal to the strain."
This seemed to me a rather cynical attitude to take, even in the best ofcauses, and it certainly was not like Uvo Delavoye. Only too capable, inmy opinion, of deceiving himself, he was no impostor, if I knew him, andit was disappointing to see him take so kindly to the part. I preferrednot to talk about it on the road to Richmond, which we took on foot inthe small hours of the afternoon. A weeping thaw had reduced the frozenruts to mere mud piping, of that consistency which grips a tyre liketeeth. But it was impossible not to compare this heavy tramp with oursparkling spin through Bushey Park. And the hot and cold fits of poorGuy Berridge afforded an inevitable analogy.
"I can't understand him," I was saying. "I can understand a fellowfalling in love and even falling out again. But Berridge flies from oneextreme to the other like a ball in a hard rally."
"And it's not the way he's built, Gilly! That's what sticks with me. Youmay be quite sure he's not the first breeder of sinners who began byshivering on the brink of matrimony. It's a desperate plunge to take. Ishould be terrified myself; but then I'm not one of nature's faithfulhounds. If it wasn't for the canine fidelity of this good Berridge, Ishouldn't mind his thinking and shrinking like many a better man."
We were cutting off the last corner before Richmond by following theasphalt foot-path behind St. Stephen's Church. Here we escaped the mudat last; the moist asphalt shone with a cleanly lustre; and ourfootsteps threw an echo ahead, between the two long walls, until itmixed with the tramp of approaching feet, and another couple advancedinto view. They were man and girl; but I did not at first identify theradiant citizen in the glossy hat, with his arm thrust through thelady's, as Guy Berridge homeward bound with his once beloved. It was agroan from Uvo that made me look again, and next moment the four of usblocked the narrow gangway.
"The very man we were talking about!" cried Berridge without looking atme. His hat had been ironed, his weak chin burnished by a barber'sshave, the strong moustache clipped and curled. But a sporadic glowmarked either cheek-bone, and he had forgotten to return our salute.
"Yes, Mr. Delavoye!" said Miss Hemming with arch severity. "What haveyou been doing with my white peacock?"
She had a brown fringe, very crisply curled as a rule; but the damp airhad softened and improved it; and perhaps her young gentleman's recoveryhad carried the good work deeper, for she was a girl who sometimes gaveherself airs, but there seemed no room for any in her happy face.
"To tell you the truth," replied Uvo, unblushingly, "I was on my way toshow it to a bit of a connoisseur at Richmond." He turned to Berridge,who met his glance eagerly. "That's really why I borrowed it, Guy. Ibelieve it's more valuable than either of you realise."
"Not to me!" cried the accountant readily. "I don't know what I wasdoing to take it off. I hear it's a most unlucky thing to do."
It was easy to see from whom he had heard it. Miss Hemming said nothing,but looked all the more decided with her mouth quite shut. And Delavoyeaddressed his apologies to the proper quarter.
"I'm awfully sorry, Miss Hemming! Of course you're quite right; but Ihope you'll show it to my man yourselves----"
"If you don't mind," said Berridge, holding out his hand with a smile.
But Uvo had broken off of his own accord.
"I think you'll be glad"--he was feeling in all his pockets--"quite gladif you do--" and his voice died away as he began feeling again.
"Lucky I wired to you to meet me at Richmond, wasn't it, Edie? Otherwisewe should have been too late," said the accountant densely.
"Perhaps you are!" poor Uvo had to cry outright. "I--the fact isI--can't find it anywhere."
"You may have left it behind," suggested Berridge.
"We can call for it, if you did," said the girl.
There was something in his sudden worry that appealed to their commonfund of generosity.
"No, no! I told you why I was going to Richmond. I thought I had it inmy ticket pocket. In fact, I know I had; but I went with my sister thismorning to get some flowers at Kingston market, and I haven't had it outsince. It's been taken from me, and that was where! I wish you'd feel inmy pockets for me. I've had them picked--picked of the one thing thatwasn't mine, and was of value--and now you'll neither of you everforgive me, and I don't deserve to be forgiven!"
But they did forgive him, and that handsomely--so manifest was hisdistress--so great their recovered happiness. It was only I who couldnot follow their example, when they had gone on their way, and Delavoyeand I were hurrying on ours, ostensibly to get the Richmond police totelephone at once to Kingston, as the first of all the energetic stepsthat we were going to take. For we were still in that asphalt passage,and the couple had scarcely quitted it at the other end, when Delavoyedrew off his glove and showed me the missing ring upon his littlefinger.
I could hardly believe my eyes, or my ears either when he roundlydefended his conduct. I need not go into his defence; it was the onlyone it could have been; but Uvo Delavoye was the only man in England whocould and would have made it with a serious face. It was no mere trinketthat he had "lifted," but a curse from two innocent heads. That endjustified any means, to his wild thinking. But, over and above theethical question, he had an inherited responsibility in the matter, andhad only performed a duty which had been thrust upon him.
"Nor shall they be a bit the worse off," said Uvo warmly. "I still meanto have that duplicate made, off my own bat, and when I foist it on ourfriends I shall simply say it turned up in the lining of my overcoat."
"Man Uvo," said I, "there are two professions waiting for you; but itwould take a judge of both to choose between your fiction and youracting."
"Acting!" he cried. "Why, a blog like Guy Berridge can act when he's putto it; he did just now, and took you in, evidently! It never struck you,I suppose, that he'd wired to me this morning to say nothing to thegirl, probably at the same time that he wired to her to meet him? Hecarried it all off like a born actor just now, and yet you curse me forgoing and doing likewise to save the pair of them!"
It is always futile to try to slay the bee in another's bonnet; but foronce I broke my rule of never arguing with Uvo Delavoye, if I could helpit, on the particular point involved. I simply could not help it, onthis occasion; and when Uvo lost his temper, and said a great deal morethan I would have taken from anybody else, I would not have helped it ifI could. So hot had been our interchange that it was at its height whenwe debouched from St. Stephen's Passage into the open cross-roadsbeyond.
At that unlucky moment, one small suburban Arab, in full flight fromanother, dashed round the corner and butted into that part of Delavoyewhich the Egyptian climate had specially demoralised. I saw his darkface writhe with pain and fury. With one hand he caught the offendingurchin, and in the other I was horrified to see his stick, a heavyblackthorn, held in murderous poise against the leaden sky, while thechild was thrust out at arm's length to receive the blow. I hurledmyself between them, and had such difficulty in wresting the blackthornfrom the madman's grasp that his hand was bleeding, and something hadtinkled on the pavement, when I tore it from him.
A heavy blackthorn held in murderous poise.]
Panting, I looked to see what had become of the small boy. He had takento his heels as though the foul fiend we
re at them; his late pursuer wasnow his companion in flight, and I was thankful to find we had the sceneto ourselves. Delavoye was pointing to the little thing that had tinkledas it fell, and as he pointed the blood dripped from his hand, and heshuddered like a man recovering from a fit.
I had better admit plainly that the thing was that old ring with thewhite peacock set in red, and that Uvo Delavoye was once more as I hadknown him down to that hour.
"Don't touch the beastly thing!" he cried. "It's served me worse than itserved poor Berridge! I shall have to think of a fresh lie to tellhim--and it won't come so easy now--but I'd rather cut mine off thantrust this on another human hand!"
He picked it up between his finger-nails. And there was blood on thewhite peacock when I saw it next on Richmond Bridge.
"Don't you worry about my hand," said Uvo as he glanced up and down thegrey old bridge. "It's only a scratch from the blackthorn spikes, butI'd have given a finger to be shot of this devil!"
A flick of his wrist sent the old ring spinning; we saw it meet its ownreflection in the glassy flood, like a salmon-fly beautifully thrown;and more rings came and widened on the waters, till they stirred themirrored branches of the trees on Richmond Hill.