The New Tenant. E. Phillips OppenheimЧитать онлайн книгу.
Together they watched the approaching figures. Helen, standing a little apart, had the better view.
"There is my father, and Heggs, and some one whom I do not know," she announced quietly. "I wonder if it is a doctor."
He did not answer her. She glanced toward him, wondering at his silence and rigid attitude. His eyes were still bent upon the three men, and there was a hard, strained look in his white face. While she was watching him she saw a spasm of what seemed almost like physical pain pass across his countenance. Certainly this was no unfeeling man. In his way he seemed as deeply moved as she herself was.
They were quite close now, and she had a good view of the stranger. He did not look, by any means, a person to be afraid of. In all her life she thought she had never seen such a handsome old gentleman—and gentleman he most assuredly was. His hair was quite white, and his beard—carefully trimmed and pointed after the fashion of one of Velasquez' pictures—was of the same color. Yet his walk was upright and vigorous, and he carried himself with dignity. His high forehead, and rather long, oval face, with its delicate, clearly cut features, had at once the stamp of intellect and benevolence, and, as though preserved by careful and refined living, had still much of the freshness of youth. He was dressed in a rough tweed walking-suit, with gaiters and thick boots, and carried under his arm a somewhat ponderous book, and a botanical specimen case. Helen felt a woman's instinctive liking for him before she had even heard him speak.
"Have you thought us long, Helen?" her father exclaimed anxiously. "We haven't seen anything of the scoundrel, but Heggs was fortunate enough to meet Sir Allan Beaumerville on the moor, and he very kindly offered to return."
Sir Allan was on his knees by the body before Mr. Thurwell had finished his sentence. They all watched his brief examination.
"Poor fellow! poor fellow!" he exclaimed in a shocked tone. "That wretched thing"—lightly touching the handle of the dagger—"is clean through his heart. It was a strong, cruel arm that drove that home. Nothing can be done, of course. He must have died within a few seconds!" He rose from his knees and looked around. "What is to be done with the body?" he asked. "It must be removed somewhere. Sir Geoffrey Kynaston, did you say it was? Dear me! dear me! I knew his sister quite well."
"She is not far away," Mr. Thurwell said. "She and my daughter were awaiting luncheon for us on the cliffs yonder, when this horrible thing occurred. Lathon went back to look for her. We were afraid that she might follow us here. She was very fond of her brother, and he had only just returned home after many years' traveling."
"Poor fellow!" Sir Allan said softly. "But about moving him. Who lives in that queer-looking place yonder?"
Mr. Thurwell, who knew his tenant by sight, although they had never spoken, looked at him and hesitated. Sir Allan did the same.
"That is where I live," Mr. Brown said slowly. "If Mr. Thurwell thinks well, let him be taken there."
He spoke without looking round or addressing any one in particular. His back was turned upon the celebrated physician.
"The nearest place would be best, in a case like this," Sir Allan remarked. "Have you sent for any help?"
"Some of my men are coming across the moor there," Mr. Thurwell said, pointing them out. "They can take a gate off the hinges to carry him on."
A little troop of awed servants, whom Lord Lathon had sent down from the Court, together with some farm laborers whom they had picked up on the way, were soon on the spot.
Mr. Thurwell gave some brief directions, and in a few minutes the high five-barred gate, with "private" painted across it in white letters, was taken from its hinges, and the body carefully laid upon it. Then Mr. Thurwell turned resolutely to his daughter.
"Helen, you must go home now," he said firmly. "Jackson will take you. We can spare him easily."
She shook her head.
"I would rather stay," she said quietly. "I shall not faint, or do anything stupid, I promise you."
Sir Allan Beaumerville looked at her curiously. It was a strange thing to him, notwithstanding his wide experience, to find a girl of her years so little outwardly moved by so terrible a tragedy. Mr. Thurwell, too, was surprised. He knew that she had never loved Sir Geoffrey Kynaston, but, nevertheless, he had expected her to show more emotion than this, if only for the horror of it all. And yet, looking at her more closely, he began to understand—to realize that her calmness was only attained by a strenuous repression of feeling, and that underneath it all was something very different. Though her voice was firm, her cheeks were deadly pale, and there was a peculiar tightening of the lips and light in her eyes which puzzled him. Her expression seemed to speak less of passive grief, than of some active determination—some strong desire. She had all the appearance of a woman who was bracing herself up for some ordeal, nerving herself with all the stimulus of a firm will to triumph over her natural feelings, and follow out a difficult purpose. Mr. Thurwell scarcely recognized his own daughter. She was no longer a somewhat languid, beautiful girl, looking out upon the world with a sort of petulant indifference—petulant, because, with all the high aspirations of a somewhat romantic disposition, she could see nothing in it to interest her. All that had passed away. The warm breath of some awakening force in her nature seemed to have swept before it all her languor, and all her petulance. They were gone, and in their place was a certain air of reserve and thoughtful strength which seems always to cling to those men and women who face the world with a definite purpose before them. Mr. Thurwell knitted his brows, and had nothing to say.
A sad little procession was formed, and started slowly for the cottage on the cliff side, the four stalwart men stooping beneath their heavy burden, and somehow falling into the measured steady tramp common to corpse bearers. None of them ever forgot that walk. Slowly they wound their way around many brilliant patches of deep yellow gorse and purple heather, and the warm sunlight glancing across the moor and glittering away over the water threw a strange glow upon the still, cold face of their ghastly burden. A soft breeze sprung from the sea, herald of the advancing eventide, following the drowsy languor of the perfect autumnal day. The faintly stirred air was full of its quickening exhilaration, but it found no human response in their heavy hearts. Solemn thoughts and silence came over all of them. Scarcely a word was spoken on the way to their destination.
By some chance, or at least it seemed like chance, Helen found herself a few steps behind the others, with Mr. Brown by her side. They, too, walked along in unbroken silence. His eyes were steadily fixed upon the ground, hers were wandering idly across the sparkling blue sea with its foam-crested furrows to the horizon. Whatever her thoughts were, they had changed her expression for the time; to a certain extent its late definiteness was gone, and a dreamy, refined abstraction had taken its place.
"If I had to die," she said, half to herself, "I would choose to die on such a day as this."
He raised his dark eyes and looked at her.
"Why?"
"I scarcely know," she said hesitatingly. "And yet, in my own mind, I do. It is so beautiful! It seems to give one a sense of peace and hope—I cannot explain it. It is the sort of thing one feels, and feels only."
He looked down again.
"I know what you mean. You would fear annihilation less?"
"Annihilation! Is that your creed?"
"Sometimes, if it were not for scenes like this, I might believe it possible," he answered slowly. "As it is, I do not! The exquisite beauty of the earth denies it! I pin my faith to a great analogy. The natural world is a reflex of the spiritual, and in the natural world there is no annihilation. Nothing can ever die. Nor can our souls ever die."
She looked at him keenly. The dreamy speculation had gone from her eyes. The fire of her former purpose had returned.
"It is well to feel like that. You would rather be Sir Geoffrey Kynaston, then, than his murderer, even now?"
He raised his hand quickly to his forehead, as though in pain. It