“Four months!” gasped Haw. “Why, it is just four months since I came here. And one last question, sir. Does Robert McIntyre know of your engagement?”
“Does Bob know? Of course he knows. Why, it was to his care I left Laura when I started. But what is the meaning of all this? What is the matter with you, Laura? Why are you so white and silent? And — hallo! Hold up, sir! The man is fainting!”
“It is all right!” gasped Haw, steadying himself against the edge of the door.
He was as white as paper, and his hand was pressed close to his side as though some sudden pain had shot through him. For a moment he tottered there like a stricken man, and then, with a hoarse cry, he turned and fled out through the open door.
“Poor devil!” said Hector, gazing in amazement after him. “He seems hard hit anyhow. But what is the meaning of all this, Laura?”
His face had darkened, and his mouth had set.
She had not said a word, but had stood with a face like a mask looking blankly in front of her. Now she tore herself away from him, and, casting herself down with her face buried in the cushion of the sofa, she burst into a passion of sobbing.
“It means that you have ruined me,” she cried. “That you have ruined-ruined — ruined me! Could you not leave us alone? Why must you come at the last moment? A few more days, and we were safe. And you never had my letter.”
“And what was in your letter, then?” he asked coldly, standing with his arms folded, looking down at her.
“It was to tell you that I released you. I love Raffles Haw, and I was to have been his wife. And now it is all gone. Oh, Hector, I hate you, and I shall always hate you as long as I live, for you have stepped between me and the only good fortune that ever came to me. Leave me alone, and I hope that you will never cross our threshold again.”
“Is that your last word, Laura?”
“The last that I shall ever speak to you.”
“Then, good-bye. I shall see the Dad, and go straight back to Plymouth.” He waited an instant, in hopes of an answer, and then walked sadly from the room.
CHAPTER XV. THE GREATER SECRET.
It was late that night that a startled knocking came at the door of Elmdene. Laura had been in her room all day, and Robert was moodily smoking his pipe by the fire, when this harsh and sudden summons broke in upon his thoughts. There in the porch was Jones, the stout head-butler of the Hall, hatless, scared, with the raindrops shining in the lamplight upon his smooth, bald head.
“If you please, Mr. McIntyre, sir, would it trouble you to step up to the Hall?” he cried. “We are all frightened, sir, about master.”
Robert caught up his hat and started at a run, the frightened butler trotting heavily beside him. It had been a day of excitement and disaster. The young artist’s heart was heavy within him, and the shadow of some crowning trouble seemed to have fallen upon his soul.
“What is the matter with your master, then?” he asked, as he slowed down into a walk.
“We don’t know, sir; but we can’t get an answer when we knock at the laboratory door. Yet he’s there, for it’s locked on the inside. It has given us all a scare, sir, that, and his goin’s-on during the day.”
“His goings-on?”
“Yes, sir; for he came back this morning like a man demented, a-talkin’ to himself, and with his eyes starin’ so that it was dreadful to look at the poor dear gentleman. Then he walked about the passages a long time, and he wouldn’t so much as look at his luncheon, but he went into the museum, and gathered all his jewels and things, and carried them into the laboratory. We don’t know what he’s done since then, sir, but his furnace has been a-roarin’, and his big chimney spoutin’ smoke like a Birmingham factory. When night came we could see his figure against the light, a-workin’ and a-heavin’ like a man possessed. No dinner would he have, but work, and work, and work. Now it’s all quiet, and the furnace cold, and no smoke from above, but we can’t get no answer from him, sir, so we are scared, and Miller has gone for the police, and I came away for you.”
They reached the Hall as the butler finished his explanation, and there outside the laboratory door stood the little knot of footmen and ostlers, while the village policeman, who had just arrived, was holding his bull’s-eye to the keyhole, and endeavouring to peep through.
“The key is half-turned,” he said. “I can’t see nothing except just the light.”
“Here’s Mr. McIntyre,” cried half-a-dozen voices, as Robert came forward.
“We’ll have to beat the door in, sir,” said the policeman. “We can’t get any sort of answer, and there’s something wrong.”
Twice and thrice they threw their united weights against it until at last with a sharp snap the lock broke, and they crowded into the narrow passage. The inner door was ajar, and the laboratory lay before them.
In the centre was an enormous heap of fluffy grey ash, reaching up half-way to the ceiling. Beside it was another heap, much smaller, of some brilliant scintillating dust, which shimmered brightly in the rays of the electric light. All round was a bewildering chaos of broken jars, shattered bottles, cracked machinery, and tangled wires, all bent and draggled. And there in the midst of this universal ruin, leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped upon his lap, and the easy pose of one who rests after hard work safely carried through, sat Raffles Haw, the master of the house, and the richest of mankind, with the pallor of death upon his face. So easily he sat and so naturally, with such a serene expression upon his features, that it was not until they raised him, and touched his cold and rigid limbs, that they could realise that he had indeed passed away.
Reverently and slowly they bore him to his room, for he was beloved by all who had served him. Robert alone lingered with the policeman in the laboratory. Like a man in a dream he wandered about, marvelling at the universal destruction. A large broad-headed hammer lay upon the ground, and with this Haw had apparently set himself to destroy all his apparatus, having first used his electrical machines to reduce to protyle all the stock of gold which he had accumulated. The treasure-room which had so dazzled Robert consisted now of merely four bare walls, while the gleaming dust upon the floor proclaimed the fate of that magnificent collection of gems which had alone amounted to a royal fortune. Of all the machinery no single piece remained intact, and even the glass table was shattered into three pieces. Strenuously earnest must have been the work which Raffles Haw had done that day.
And suddenly Robert thought of the secret which had been treasured in the casket within the iron-clamped box. It was to tell him the one last essential link which would make his knowledge of the process complete. Was it still there? Thrilling all over, he opened the great chest, and drew out the ivory box. It was locked, but the key was in it. He turned it and threw open the lid. There was a white slip of paper with his own name written upon it. With trembling fingers he unfolded it. Was he the heir to the riches of El Dorado, or was he destined to be a poor struggling artist? The note was dated that very evening, and ran in this way:
“MY DEAR ROBERT, — My secret shall never be used again. I cannot
tell you how I thank Heaven that I did not entirely confide it to
you, for I should have been handing over an inheritance of misery
both to yourself and others. For myself I have hardly had a happy
moment since I discovered it. This I could have borne had I been
able to feel that I was doing good, but, alas! the only effect of my
attempts has been to turn workers into idlers, contented men into
greedy parasites, and, worst of all, true, pure women into
deceivers and hypocrites. If this is the effect of my interference
on a small scale, I cannot hope for anything better were I to carry
out the plans which we have so often discussed. The schemes of my
life have all turned to nothing. For myself, you shall never see me
again. I shall go back to the student life from which I emerged.
There, at least, if I can do little good, I can do no harm. It is
my wish that such valuables as remain in the Hall should be sold,
and the proceeds divided amidst all the charities of Birmingham.
I shall leave tonight if I am well enough, but I have been much
troubled all day by a stabbing pain in my side. It is as if wealth
were as bad for health as it is for peace of mind. Good-bye,
Robert, and may you never have as sad a heart as I have to-night.
Yours very truly,
RAFFLES HAW.”
“Was it suicide, sir? Was it suicide?” broke in the policeman as Robert put the note in his pocket.
“No,” he answered; “I think it was a broken heart.”
And so the wonders of the New Hall were all dismantled, the carvings and the gold, the books and the pictures, and many a struggling man or woman who had heard nothing of Raffles Haw during his life had cause to bless him after his death. The house has been bought by a company now, who have turned it into a hydropathic establishment, and of all the folk who frequent it in search of health or of pleasure there are few who know the strange story which is connected with it.
The blight which Haw’s wealth cast around it seemed to last even after his death. Old McIntyre still raves in the County Lunatic Asylum, and treasures up old scraps of wood and metal under the impression that they are all ingots of gold. Robert McIntyre is a moody and irritable man, for ever pursuing a quest which will always evade him. His art is forgotten, and he spends his whole small income upon chemical and electrical appliances, with which he vainly seeks to rediscover that one hidden link. His sister keeps house for him, a silent and brooding woman, still queenly and beautiful, but of a bitter, dissatisfied mind. Of late, however, she has devoted herself to charity, and has been of so much help to Mr. Spurling’s new curate that it is thought that he may be tempted to secure her assistance for ever. So runs the gossip of the village, and in small places such gossip is seldom wrong. As to Hector Spurling, he is still in her Majesty’s service, and seems inclined to abide by his father’s wise advice, that he should not think of marrying until he was a Commander. It is possible that of all who were brought within the spell of Raffles Haw he was the only one who had occasion to bless it.
BEYOND THE CITY
This novella was first published in 1892 and concerns the interrelations of the Denver, Westmacott, and Walker families, whilst satirising life in a small town in Victorian England. Beyond the City is notable for its depictition of greed and lust driving characters beyond the typical boundaries of their middle class lives.
The first edition
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. THE NEW-COMERS.
CHAPTER II. BREAKING THE ICE.
CHAPTER III. DWELLERS IN THE WILDERNESS.
CHAPTER IV. A SISTER’S SECRET.
CHAPTER V. A NAVAL CONQUEST.
CHAPTER VI. AN OLD STORY.
CHAPTER VII. VENIT TANDEM FELICITAS.
CHAPTER VIII. SHADOWS BEFORE.
CHAPTER IX. A FAMILY PLOT.
CHAPTER X. WOMEN OF THE FUTURE.
CHAPTER XI. A BLOT FROM THE BLUE.
CHAPTER XII. FRIENDS IN NEED.
CHAPTER XIII. IN STRANGE WATERS.
CHAPTER XIV. EASTWARD HO!
CHAPTER XV. STILL AMONG SHOALS.
CHAPTER XVI. A MIDNIGHT VISITOR.
CHAPTER XVII. IN PORT AT LAST.
CHAPTER I. THE NEW-COMERS.
“If you please, mum,” said the voice of a domestic from somewhere round the angle of the door, “number three is moving in.”
Two little old ladies, who were sitting at either side of a table, sprang to their feet with ejaculations of interest, and rushed to the window of the sitting-room.
“Take care, Monica dear,” said one, shrouding herself in the lace curtain; “don’t let them see us.
“No, no, Bertha. We must not give them reason to say that their neighbours are inquisitive. But I think that we are safe if we stand like this.”
The open window looked out upon a sloping lawn, well trimmed and pleasant, with fuzzy rosebushes and a star-shaped bed of sweet-william. It was bounded by a low wooden fence, which screened it off from a broad, modern, new metaled road. At the other side of this road were three large detached deep-bodied villas with peaky eaves and small wooden balconies, each standing in its own little square of grass and of flowers. All three were equally new, but numbers one and two were curtained and sedate, with a human, sociable look to them; while number three, with yawning door and unkempt garden, had apparently only just received its furniture and made itself ready for its occupants. A four-wheeler had driven up to the gate, and it was at this that the old ladies, peeping out bird-like from behind their curtains, directed an eager and questioning gaze.
The cabman had descended, and the passengers within were handing out the articles which they desired him to carry up to the house. He stood red-faced and blinking, with his crooked arms outstretched, while a male hand, protruding from the window, kept piling up upon him a series of articles the sight of which filled the curious old ladies with bewilderment.
“My goodness me!” cried Monica, the smaller, the drier, and the more wizened of the pair. “What do you call that, Bertha? It looks to me like four batter puddings.”
“Those are what young men box each other with,” said Bertha, with a conscious air of superior worldly knowledge.
“And those?”
Two great bottle-shaped pieces of yellow shining wood had been heaped upon the cabman.
“Oh, I don’t know what those are,” confessed Bertha. Indian clubs had never before obtruded themselves upon her peaceful and very feminine existence.
These mysterious articles were followed, however, by others which were more within their range of comprehension — by a pair of dumb-bells, a purple cricket-bag, a set of golf clubs, and a tennis racket. Finally, when the cabman, all top-heavy and bristling, had staggered off up the garden path, there emerged in a very leisurely way from the cab a big, powerfully built young man, with a bull pup under one arm and a pink sporting paper in his hand. The paper he crammed into the pocket of his light yellow dust-coat, and extended his hand as if to assist some one else from the vehicle. To the surprise of the two old ladies, however, the only thing which his open palm received was a violent slap, and a tall lady bounded unassisted out of the cab. With a regal wave she motioned the young man towards the door, and then with one hand upon her hip she stood in a careless, lounging attitude by the gate, kicking her toe against the wall and listlessly awaiting the return of the driver.
As she turned slowly round, and the sunshine struck upon her face, the two watchers were amazed to see that this very active and energetic lady was far from being in her first youth, so far that she had certainly come of age again since she first passed that landmark in life’s journey. Her finely chiseled, clean-cut face, with something red Indian about the firm mouth and strongly marked cheek bones, showed even at that distance traces of the friction of the passing years. And yet she was very handsome. Her features were as firm in repose as those of a Greek bust, and her great dark eyes were arched over by two brows so black, so thick, and so delicately curved, that the eye turned away from the harsher details of the face to marvel at their grace and strength. Her figure, too, was straight as a dart, a little portly, perhaps, but curving into magnificent outlines, which were half accentuated by the strange costume which she wore. Her hair, black but plentifully shot with grey, was brushed plainly back from her high forehead, and was gathered under a small round felt hat, like that of a man, with one sprig of feather in the band as a concession to her sex. A double-breasted jacket of some dark frieze-like material fitted closely to her figure, while her straight blue skirt, untrimmed and ungathered, was cut so short that the lower curve of her finely-turned legs was plainly visible beneath it, terminating in a pair of broad, flat, low-heeled and square-toed shoes. Such was the lady w
ho lounged at the gate of number three, under the curious eyes of her two opposite neighbours.
But if her conduct and appearance had already somewhat jarred upon their limited and precise sense of the fitness of things, what were they to think of the next little act in this tableau vivant? The cabman, red and heavy-jowled, had come back from his labors, and held out his hand for his fare. The lady passed him a coin, there was a moment of mumbling and gesticulating, and suddenly she had him with both hands by the red cravat which girt his neck, and was shaking him as a terrier would a rat. Right across the pavement she thrust him, and, pushing him up against the wheel, she banged his head three several times against the side of his own vehicle.
“Can I be of any use to you, aunt?” asked the large youth, framing himself in the open doorway.
“Not the slightest,” panted the enraged lady. “There, you low blackguard, that will teach you to be impertinent to a lady.”
The cabman looked helplessly about him with a bewildered, questioning gaze, as one to whom alone of all men this unheard-of and extraordinary thing had happened. Then, rubbing his head, he mounted slowly on to the box and drove away with an uptossed hand appealing to the universe. The lady smoothed down her dress, pushed back her hair under her little felt hat, and strode in through the hall-door, which was closed behind her. As with a whisk her short skirts vanished into the darkness, the two spectators — Miss Bertha and Miss Monica Williams — sat looking at each other in speechless amazement. For fifty years they had peeped through that little window and across that trim garden, but never yet had such a sight as this come to confound them.
“I wish,” said Monica at last, “that we had kept the field.”
“I am sure I wish we had,” answered her sister.
CHAPTER II. BREAKING THE ICE.
The cottage from the window of which the Misses Williams had looked out stands, and has stood for many a year, in that pleasant suburban district which lies between Norwood, Anerley, and Forest Hill. Long before there had been a thought of a township there, when the Metropolis was still quite a distant thing, old Mr. Williams had inhabited “The Brambles,” as the little house was called, and had owned all the fields about it. Six or eight such cottages scattered over a rolling country-side were all the houses to be found there in the days when the century was young. From afar, when the breeze came from the north, the dull, low roar of the great city might be heard, like the breaking of the tide of life, while along the horizon might be seen the dim curtain of smoke, the grim spray which that tide threw up. Gradually, however, as the years passed, the City had thrown out a long brick-feeler here and there, curving, extending, and coalescing, until at last the little cottages had been gripped round by these red tentacles, and had been absorbed to make room for the modern villa. Field by field the estate of old Mr. Williams had been sold to the speculative builder, and had borne rich crops of snug suburban dwellings, arranged in curving crescents and tree-lined avenues. The father had passed away before his cottage was entirely bricked round, but his two daughters, to whom the property had descended, lived to see the last vestige of country taken from them. For years they had clung to the one field which faced their windows, and it was only after much argument and many heartburnings, that they had at last consented that it should share the fate of the others. A broad road was driven through their quiet domain, the quarter was re-named “The Wilderness,” and three square, staring, uncompromising villas began to sprout up on the other side. With sore hearts, the two shy little old maids watched their steady progress, and speculated as to what fashion of neighbours chance would bring into the little nook which had always been their own.
Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) Page 546