“Of course it’s mad,” he said, “but I can’t help that. There are some things you are driven to do though you are sane enough to know they are mad even while you do them, and some things you find you have got to say, Greta, though you know you’re probably only sounding your own death knell. Doubts cry and clamour to be satisfied — some so terribly urgent that you must get rid of them for your heart’s sake, even while your head knows too well the answer all the time. That’s how it is with me and has been ever since the wonderful day when first I saw you, years ago now, at Exeter. I love you. I’ve got nothing but love to offer unfortunately and I’m not going to waste your time with words that may only give you pain. I am what I am, and all that matters to me, or will ever matter, is to know if I may devote my life to your happiness and win you for my own for evermore. You’ll say it’s a preposterous suggestion, and that I must know the answer already; but I had to tell you, because where there’s life, there’s hope.”
She smiled at him.
“I wondered how you would ask and knew you were going to ask some day, Ernest,” she answered. “But you need not have been so hopeless as all that. You were much too clever to waste time wanting me if you hadn’t found out long ago the going was good. I never thought I could love anybody again, but I was wrong. Little by little, somehow — I don’t a bit know how — I found myself caring for you, and something waking up in me that I thought was dead and dust. I couldn’t believe it. I’d long felt myself old and haggard, with nothing left to give the world and no human interests left save my family. And then you came and, though you were caution made alive and walked delicately as though you were on holy ground, I knew what love does to a man and found out you loved me. I wondered if it could be real and guessed it might be because, of course, I knew you had brains. With most men you don’t believe they have never loved till they met you. That’s a favourite opening and doesn’t deceive any experienced woman; but you never told me that. You only said marriage was out of the question in your business. Yet I knew you loved me by instinct and I knew what you were thinking about me by instinct, too. And I trusted you. I put myself in your place and saw your difficulties and how you probably wished I was poor and approachable and not rich and therefore one of those unfortunates beyond reach of an honest man who would hate the world to misunderstand his motives.”
“You marvel!” he said. “You’re turning my battered conscience inside out like a rag-bag, Greta.”
“However, my feelings had quickened by then,” she continued, “and I hoped you would pluck up courage to ask. And if you did, I knew what I would say.”
“I can’t believe it!”
“Policemen find it difficult to believe anybody, no doubt,” she answered, “but that’s true enough. I love you, Ernest.”
He put his arms round her and kissed her.
“God be thanked. Nothing else matters to me; but a great deal else matters to us both. Your family — how are they going to take me, my darling dear?”
“I’d thought of that, too. It certainly won’t worry Alfred, or trouble Faraday. As for Father — I don’t know. The strong point is that he likes you for yourself and you have the skill to please him and the general outlook to satisfy him without being a humbug. But against that, of course, he isn’t progressive. I think your profession — so to call it — might be the grand difficulty — not you, but your grim business. My own impression is that he’d want you to throw that up and choose some other line of country — read for the Law, or something. But that’s only a guess in the dark. He’ll fuss a bit and hate losing me; but he’s not going to come between us, or anything like that. It would make me terribly sad to quarrel with father. He has been a wonderful father to me, and I can’t imagine such a disaster as falling out with him when he finds how much I care for you.”
“I should never forgive myself if that happened, or anything like it. When shall I tell him, Greta?”
“Tell him to-night after dinner. He’s pretty observant, you know, and is quite aware that you are one of my valued friends. He’s heard me praise you lots of times, so it may not come as a great surprise at all.”
But Ernest was doubtful as to that.
“The better he thinks of me, the more painful he might find it,” he said. “Sir Hector may entertain such a good opinion of me that it would shock him to find I could presume to dream of such a thing.”
“Not when he finds I am on your side,” declared Greta. “Had you gone to him in the Victorian manner, to ask whether you might be permitted to pay court to me, that would have given him a chance to object. Now he has none. Better as it is. Tell him to-night when I have gone and he’s eating a new walnut with his port.”
They rejoiced in a great united happiness, and since Greta confessed to no shadow of fear that her father would raise any difficulties, her lover strove to believe that she was right. But that happened before the end of the day to make it memorable for more reasons than this and lift very permanent barriers between them and any approach to Sir Hector until long weeks were passed. For terrible news fell upon Cliff a few hours after their betrothal, and its nature created complications so unexpected that Trensham felt doubt whether, amid them, his engagement might not founder altogether and come to nought. He looked farther ahead than Greta, whose thoughts were suddenly concentrated upon her father and herself in a tragedy that none could share: a grief to darken her new happiness and demand reconsideration of all that the future might ordain.
The blow fell when she was giving tea to her father and Ernest, while Sir Hector considered his intentions.
“I never like to think I am going to do an enjoyable thing for the last time,” he said, “but prefer to revel in the fact that I am still doing it. One knows that common sense and gathering weight of years must consign our pet toys to oblivion soon or late, and so one bows to the inevitable. I am shooting no more and, while still capable of riding, shall not ride again to hounds after this season; but angling remains to me, and Alfred always regrets that I did not take up golf. However, it is too late for that. Games never attracted me. I still count to kill a few more salmon, however, and have decided to go to Norway this year. It suits me better than Scotland and I like the Norwegian folk and understand their ways and admire their attractive manners.”
He turned to Greta.
“So now you know your fate this year, my dear, and I hope you are prepared to rough it up there as we did three years ago.”
“I don’t remember any hardships and shall love to see that glorious scenery again,” answered Greta. “So will Alfred.”
“I’m sure of that,” responded Sir Hector. “He’s a good, though perhaps not a great fisherman. A great shot and a superb and fearless horseman, but just falls short of genius pitted against the king of fishes.”
“Against the king of beasts I expect he is giving a fine account of himself, Sir,” suggested Ernest, and the elder, who often tuned his talk to make Alfred the central figure, was still dwelling upon his son when there entered a manservant with a telegram. He presented it and stood to learn if an answer should be needed, while the lovers remained silent that Sir Hector might not be distracted. He put on his pince-nez, opened the telegram and read it at a glance. Whereon animation perished from his face and body and he sat, with fallen jaw, staring before him, all expression gone. For some moments he did not move. Then he lifted his head and rose to his feet. He staggered a little and gazed at Greta as though she were a stranger. He looked all round him, flushed and uttered an inarticulate sound like a grunt. The girl cried out.
“Whatever is it, Father. Not bad news?” she asked, rising and hastening to him. Then the old man braced himself, pulled himself together and seemed to return to reality. He heaved up his shoulders, expelled the air from his lungs in a great gust, breathed deeply, handed the telegram to Greta and without speaking left the room. The footman, full of anxiety, waited; Ernest fell back from Greta’s side until she had learned the bad news. Then she read the
telegram, gave a little cry and handed the telegram to him. It was brief enough.
“Regret fatal accident to Mr. Alfred Heron. Full particulars posted to-morrow. Balmane. Nairobi.”
Young Trensham turned to Greta and showed his quality.
“Look after your father,” he said. “This has done him physical harm I’m afraid. Who’s your doctor. He’d better be sent for.”
She nodded, but could not speak for a moment and he waited for her to do so, watching if she threatened to faint. But she remained calm and self-possessed.
“I’ll go to father, Ernest,” she said and then spoke to the footman.
“Call Dr. Winton, John,” she told him.
“I’ll ring up instanter, Miss,” he answered and hastened to do so.
Ernest, left alone, read the telegram again, then finished his tea, went to the smoking-room, made up a slumbering fire, lighted his pipe and reviewed the changed situation. He reflected on the nature of Alfred Heron’s death and guessed that no doubt some encounter with a wild beast was responsible for it. He lamented the incident for many reasons connected with the future, but felt a subconscious satisfaction that any interview with Sir Hector touching himself must now be indefinitely postponed. Time would need to pass before the stricken man could be forced to face affairs, or arbitrate upon them. And then a dark possibility embracing Greta challenged him. With Alfred at call, Sir Hector might have made no great outcry on her marriage and departure. It had been long ago understood that when his son and heir married, Alfred’s wife would come to live at Cliff; but now Nancy Stephenson must needs look elsewhere for a husband and it was Faraday Heron who would succeed his father at Cliff. The detective brooded upon this reversal for all concerned. He had never met Faraday but was well aware that he could not fill his brother’s place in the family and would be little likely to make such an attempt. Greta had explained the situation and the deep divergences that separated her father from his younger son. She herself declared respect for Faraday’s ability, but never pretended any affection for him.
“Like living with the east wind,” she had said to Ernest once. “Cliff is full of warm hearts and I don’t suppose he wants to freeze people; but he can’t help it. Built that way. It’s such a blessing for everybody here to know that Alfred will follow father.”
And now the elder son was in an African grave and the younger no doubt had still to hear it. But there remained Sir Hector himself and Ernest cordially hoped that the shock of his loss, formidable though it must be, would make no deep inroad upon his length of days.
Night thickened, the great house seemed unnaturally still, and Trensham guessed that mourning prevailed throughout it. He heard the doctor come and knew that Greta would return to him presently for the sympathy he was prepared to give. But his own immediate plans called to be modified. Cliff could be no place for a visitor now and he prepared to depart on the morrow.
When she came to him, however, after Dr. Winton, an old friend of the family, had driven away, she suggested a different course. But first she had other things to do.
“Winton is as much upset as we are. He was devoted to Alfred,” she told him. “He is very clever and understands father well. He will send him something to help him to sleep to-night and see him again to-morrow. Father is stunned, but he always does what Dr. Winton tells him. He thought of Faraday and told me to call him up on the telephone and tell him. Oh, Ernest, to think that the same day should have brought such good and evil. How cruel!”
“Infernal,” he answered. “I thought the same thought. I can’t believe it, Greta. In some cases you accept a death, perhaps even with relief if you know it is a release. The fact helps to comfort your own sorrow; but with a man like your brother the very idea of death seems unthinkable. Never a man was so full and overflowing with life. I knew enough of him to feel that. I had grown to care about him for himself, like everybody does, because, with a sort of utterly unconscious goodness, he woke your admiration by his attitude to life. He loved life and equally well he loved to let his happiness be shared by those less fortunate. A more generous man never lived and he’s brightened the fortunes of many another. I can guess, darling, only too well what this must mean to you and poor Sir Hector. It will be an evil dream for me all my life long.”
“It’s strange to be torn in half as I am now,” she said. “Half of me is dazed and almost frightened that such an awful thing could happen to our little family, and the other half is happier than ever I expected to be when I think of you, Ernest.”
They discussed the tragedy and its many implications, then Greta remembered her brother and went to the telephone.
“His man will look after father,” she said. “Roger Horn was his valet and factotum long before I came into the world. He has great power with father and will get him to eat something presently and then take the medicine. His heart is shaken. He won’t come down again to-day and Roger will get him to bed.”
“Where is Faraday now?” he asked.
“He’s a professor at Cambridge. A great honour to get a chair at his age, but just what he wanted for the time being and, of course, splendid laboratories.”
She left him then and returned in ten minutes.
“For once in his life I think he was shocked,” she told Ernest. “Faraday always rather despised Alfred; but he’s thinking of father now. He knows very well what this must mean to father and he’s coming down to-morrow. He’s a very good doctor, besides all his other science, and father knows that, and so does Winton. I think father will be pleased to hear Faraday’s coming to see him, before he’s told to come.”
“So am I,” said Ernest. “It’s the obvious and right thing. I’ll go to-morrow early.”
But Greta thought otherwise.
“I guessed you’d want to, dearest, but I can’t help feeling it might be better that you stopped, if only for another day. I suggest you wait — just to see Faraday. I have often wished you to meet him. We’ll say nothing about ourselves for the present, but I’ll tell him you were here to visit father, who is fond of you, and have a little shooting. He knows all about you from Alfred, and once you meet him, you’ll please him, as you do everybody else.”
“You really think that?”
“I do. He’s hard to win and few ever try to win him, but if you did, you would see him in London perhaps and cement a friendship, as far as anybody can be his friend. You may like him. He’s very clever and can be amiable enough.”
Young Trensham reflected.
“The mere fact that I haven’t cleared out may annoy him,” he said. “He will probably think it was rather a mannerless thing stopping after this grievous business.”
“I shall tell him you wanted to go, but I pressed you to stay — for father’s sake. It’s quite possible in another twenty-four hours my father will like to see you and you will have it in your power to say just the right things and distract his mind a little.”
“Time is the one hope of that; but I’ll stop over to-morrow if you really wish it,” he agreed.
“You must, Ernest. And you can hardly go without meeting Faraday now in any case, because he is coming at once. He will leave Cambridge to-night and be here by breakfast time to-morrow, if not sooner.”
So Ernest remained.
“It means a few more hours with you for me,” he said, “but we must put off our great secret for the right time to tell it, darling.”
Faraday reached Cliff at five o’clock on the following morning and his sister, who had not slept, came down to greet him. He heard from Horn that Sir Hector was sleeping soundly, expressed his sorrow at the bad news, but declared that it puzzled him and he was anxious for particulars.
“I will not believe the accident that has killed him was of his own making,” he said. “In matters of sport Alfred never failed and never, I think, took any needless risks; but, of course, one doesn’t know what hare-brained chaps were on safari with him.”
He drank a cup of coffee, spoke a few words with H
orn and then went to his own room which adjoined his father’s and had been his since his boyhood. On one side of Sir Hector’s chamber stood Faraday’s apartment; upon the other was Alfred’s. Everything had been made ready for his arrival and the traveller now went to bed and did not reappear until the breakfast hour at nine o’clock.
Greta had not mentioned Trensham as yet; but Ernest was already in the breakfast room when Faraday appeared and now she introduced them to each other.
“I am here at a very sad moment, Professor,” said Ernest, “and should be gone ere now, but Miss Heron wanted us to meet and I share your grief. Your brother had become a real friend to me.”
“He mentioned you to me on several occasions,” answered Faraday. “He valued your friendship I believe, Detective-Inspector.”
With customary tact the detective ingratiated himself and struck a note to waken mild interest in Greta’s brother. At breakfast he hinted at Faraday’s attainments and his own admiration for them; but he was not servile and did not belittle his own status.
“We meet on common ground in some respects,” he said, “for, as a physician, the pathological side of criminal conduct must have commanded your attention; while for me, medical jurisprudence is, of course, one of my subjects. We modern policemen have to master it from our own angle.”
Faraday nodded.
“No doubt,” he answered, then turned to Greta.
“I’ve told Horn to let me know as soon as the governor is moving and to ask him to stop in bed till I have seen him. Deep emotion, such as he must have suffered, effects chemical changes and often needs attention. I may wish him to stop in bed for a while, but not if I can help it: he hates bed worse than anything.”
The Fall of the House of Heron (Prologue Science Fiction) Page 6