Black is White 3

Black is White 3

“No, sir. It’s the wireless, sir.”

 

“Wireless?”

 

“Briny deep,” said Mr Dawes, vaguely pointing.

 

“Oh,” said young Brood, crossing slowly to the table. He picked up the

envelope and looked at the inscription. “Oh,” said he again in quite a

different tone on seeing that it was addressed to him. “From father, I

dare say,” he went on, a fine line appearing between his eyebrows.

 

The old men leaned forward, fixing their blear eyes upon the missive.

 

“Le’s hear the worst, Freddy,” said Mr Riggs.

 

The young man ran his finger under the flap and deliberately drew out

the message. There ensued another picture. As he read, his eyes widened

and then contracted; his firm young jaw became set and rigid. Suddenly

a short, bitter execration fell from his lips and the paper crumpled in

his hand. Without another word he strode to the fireplace and tossed it

upon the coals. It flared for a second and was wafted up the chimney, a

charred, feathery thing.

 

Without deigning to notice the two old men who had sat up half the night

to learn the contents of that wonderful thing from the sea, he whirled

on his heel and left the room. One might have noticed that his lips were

drawn in a mirthless, sardonic smile, and that his eyes were angry.

 

“Oh, Lordy!” sighed Danbury Dawes, blinking, and was on the point of

sitting down abruptly. The arm of Jones prevented.

 

“I never was so insulted in my----” began

 

Joseph Riggs feebly.

 

“Steady, gentlemen,” said Jones. “Lean on me, please.”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

James Brood’s home was a remarkable one. That portion of the house

which rightly may be described as “public” in order to distinguish it

from other parts where privacy was enforced, was not unlike any of the

richly furnished, old-fashioned places in the lower part of the city

where there are still traces left of the Knickerbockers and their times.

Dignified, stately, almost gloomy, it was a mansion in which memories

dwelt, where the past strode unseen among sturdy things of mahogany and

walnut and worn but priceless brocades and silks.

 

The crystal chandelier in the long drawing-room had shed light for the

Broods since the beginning of the nineteenth century; the great old

sideboard was still covered with the massive plate of a hundred years

ago; the tables, the chairs, the high-boys, the chests of drawers, and

the huge four-posters were like satin to the eye and touch; the rugs,

while older perhaps than the city itself, alone were new to the house of

Brood. They had been installed by the present master of the house.

 

Age, distinction, quality attended one the instant he set foot inside

the sober portals. This was not the home of men who had been merely

rich; it was not wealth alone that stood behind these stately

investments.

 

At the top of the house were the rooms which no one entered except by

the gracious will of the master. Here James Brood had stored the quaint,

priceless treasures of his own peculiar fancy: exquisite, curious things

from the mystic East, things that are not to be bought and sold, but

come only to the hand of him who searches in lands where peril is the

price.

 

Worlds separated the upper and lower regions of that fine old house; a

single step took one from the sedate Occident into the very heart of the

Orient; a narrow threshold was the line between the rugged West and the

soft, languorous, seductive East. In this part of the house James Brood,

when at home for one of his brief stays, spent many of his hours in

seclusion, shut off from the rest of the establishment as completely

as if he were the inhabitant of another world. Attended by his Hindu

servant, a silent man named Ranjab, and on occasions by his secretary,

he saw but little of the remaining members of his rather extensive

household.

 

For several years he had been engaged in the task of writing his

memoirs--so-called--in so far as they related to his experiences and

researches of the past twenty years. It was not his intention to give

this long and elaborate account of himself to the world at large, but

to publish privately a very limited edition without regard for expense,

copies of which were to find their way into exclusive collections and

libraries given over to science and travel. This work progressed slowly

because of his frequent and protracted absences. When at home, he

laboured ardently and with a purpose that more than offset the periods

of indifference.

 

His secretary and amanuensis was Lydia Desmond, the nineteen-year-old

daughter of his onetime companion and friend, the late John Desmond,

whose death occurred when the girl was barely ten years of age.

 

Brood, on hearing of his old comrade’s decease, immediately made

inquiries concerning the condition in which he had left his wife and

child, with the result that Mrs Desmond was installed as housekeeper in

the New York house and the daughter given every advantage in the way of

an education.

 

Desmond had left nothing in the shape of riches except undiminished love

for his wife and a diary kept during those perilous days before he met

and married her. This diary was being incorporated in the history of

James Brood’s adventures, by consent of the widow, and was to speak for

Brood in words he could not with modesty utter for himself.

 

In those pages John Desmond was to tell his own story in his own way,

for Brood’s love for his friend was broad enough even to admit of that.

He was to share his life in retrospect with Desmond and the two old men,

as he had shared it with them in reality.

 

Lydia’s room, adjoining her mother’s, was on the third floor at the foot

of the small stairway leading up to the proscribed retreat at the top

of the house. There was a small sitting-room off the two bed-chambers,

given over entirely to Mrs Desmond and her daughter. In this little room

Frederic Brood spent many a quiet, happy hour.

 

The Desmonds, mother and daughter, understood and pitied the lonely boy

who came to the big house soon after they were themselves installed. His

heart, which had many sores, expanded and glowed in the warmth of their

kindness and affection; the plague of unfriendliness that was his by

absorption gave way before this unexpected kindness, not immediately, it

is true, but completely in the end.

 

By nature he was slow to respond to the advances of others; his life had

been such that avarice accounted for all that he received from others

in the shape of respect and consideration. He was prone to discount

a friendly attitude, for the simple reason that in his experience all

friendships were marred by the fact that their sincerity rested entirely

upon the generosity of the man who paid for them--his father. No one had

loved him for himself; no one had given him an unselfish thought in all

the years of his boyhood.

 

The family with whom he had lived in a curious sort of retirement up to

the time he was fifteen had no real feeling for him beyond the bounds of

duty; his tutors had taken their pay in exchange for all they gave; his

companions were men and women who dealt with him as one deals with a

precious investment. He represented ease and prosperity to them--no more.

As he grew older he understood all this. What warmth there may have been

in his little heart was chilled by contact with these sordid influences.

 

At first he held himself aloof from the Desmonds; he was slow to

surrender. He suspected them of the same motives that had been the basis

of all previous attachments. When at last he realised that they were not

like the others, his cup of joy, long an empty vessel, was filled to the

brim and his happiness was without bounds.

 

They were amazed by the transformation. The rather sullen,

unapproachable lad became at once so friendly, so dependent, that,

had they not been acquainted with the causes behind the old state of

reticence, his very joy might have made a about in very much the

same spirit that inspires a hungry dog; he watched her with eager,

halffamished eyes; he was on her heels four-fifths of the time.

 

As for Lydia, pretty little Lydia, he adored her. His heart began for

the first time to sing with the joy of youth, and the sensation was a

novel one. It had seemed to him that he could never be anything but an

old man.

 

Not a day passed during his career at Harvard that he failed to write

to one or other of these precious friends. His vacations were spent

with them; his excursions were never carried out unless they found

it possible to accompany him. He nuisance of of him. He followed Mrs

Desmond met many women, but he thought of only two. They appeared to

constitute all femininity so far as he was concerned. Through their

awakening influence he came to find pleasure in the companionship

of other young men, and, be it said for him, despite a certain

unconquerable aloofness, he was one of the most popular men in his

class.

 

It was his custom, on coming home for the night, no matter what the

hour, to pause before Lydia’s door on the way to his own room at the

other end of the long hall. There was always a tender smile on his lips

as he regarded the white panels before tapping gently with the tips of

his fingers. Then he would wait for the sleepy “Good night, Freddy,”

which invariably came from within, and he would sing out “Good night”

as he made off to bed. Usually, however, he was at home long before her

bedtime, and they spent the evenings together. That she was his father’s

secretary was of no moment. To him she was Lydia--his Lydia.

 

For the past three months or more he had been privileged to hold her

close in his arms and to kiss her good night at parting. They were

lovers now. The slow fuse of passion had reached its end and the flame

was alive and shining with radiance that enveloped both of them.

 

On this night, however, he passed her door without knocking. His dark,

handsome face was flushed and his teeth were set in sullen anger. With

his hand on the knob of his own door, he suddenly remembered that he

had failed Lydia for the first time, and stopped. A pang of shame shot

through him. For a moment he hesitated and then started guiltily toward

the forgotten door. Even as he raised his hand to sound the loving