 Chapter 20 of Aurora Floyd. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading done by Jules Harlock of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braden. Chapter 20. Captain Prodder. While the Don Caster Express was carrying Mr. and Mrs. Malish Northward, another express journeyed from Liverpool to London with its load of passengers. Among these passengers, there was a certain broad-shouldered and rather bull-necked individual who attracted considerable attention during the journey and was an object of some interest to his fellow travelers and the railway officials at the two or three stations where the train stopped. He was a man of about 50 years of age, but his years were worn very lightly and only recorded by some wandering streaks and patches of gray among his thick blue-black stubble of hair. His complexion, naturally dark, had become of such a bronze and coppery tent by perpetual exposure to meridian suns, tropical hot winds, the fiery breath of the sea moon and the many other inconveniences attended upon an outdoor life as to cause him to be frequently mistaken for the inhabitant of some one of those countries in which the complexion of the natives fluctuated between burnt sienna, Indian red and van dyke brown. But it was rarely long before he took an opportunity to rectify this mistake and to express that hardy contempt and aversion for all foreigners which is natural to the unspoiled and unsophisticated Britain. Upon this particular occasion, he had not been half an hour in the society of his fellow passengers before he had informed him that he was a native of Liverpool and the captain of a merchant vessel trading in the manner of speaking he said everywhere that he had run away from his father and his home at a very early period of his life and had shifted for himself in different parts of the globe ever since. That his Christian name was Samuel and his surname Prater and that his father had been, like himself, a captain in the merchant service. He chewed so much tobacco and drank so much fiery Jamaica rum from a pocket pistol in the intervals of his conversation that the first class compartment in which he sat was odorous with compound perfume. But he was such a hardy, loud-spoken fellow and there was such a pleasant twinkle in his black eyes that the passengers, with the exception of one crusty old lady, treated him with great good humor and listened very patiently to his talk. Chewin ain't smokin', you know, is it? He said with a great guff off as he cut himself a terrible block of Katwendish and railway companies ain't got any laws against that. They can put a fellow's pipe out but he can chew his quid in their faces though I won't say which is worst for their carpets, neither. I am sorry to be compelled to confess that this brown-visaged merchant captain who said worst and chewed Katwendish tobacco was uncle to Mrs. John Melish of Melish Park and that the motive for this very journey was neither more nor less than his desire to become acquainted with his niece. He imparted this fact as well as much other information relating to himself, his tastes, habits, adventures, opinions and sentiments to his traveling companions in the course of the journey. Do you know for why I'm going to London by this identical train? He asked generally as the passengers settled themselves into their places after taking refreshments at Rugby. The gentleman looked over their newspapers at the talkative sailor and a young lady looked up from her book but nobody volunteered to speculate an opinion upon the mainspring of Mr. Prodder's actions. I'll tell you why, resumed the merchant captain addressing the assembly as if in answer to their eager questioning. I'm going to see my niece, which I have never seen before. When I ran away from my father's ship, the Venturesum, nigh upon forty years ago, and went aboard the craft of a captain by the name of Mobley, which was a good master to me for many a day. I had a little sister as I had left behind at Liverpool, which was dearer to me than my life. He paused to refresh himself with rather a demonstrative sip from the pocket pistol. But if you, he continued generally, if you had a father that fetched you a cloud of the head as soon as look at you, you'd run away perhaps, and so did I. I took the opportunity to be missing one night as father was set in sail from Yarmouth Harbour. And, not setting that wonderful store by me, which some folks do by their only sons, he shipped his anchor without stopping to ask many questions and left me hiding in one of the little alleys which cut the town of Yarmouth through and across like they cut the cakes they make there. There was many in Yarmouth that knew me, and there wasn't one that didn't say, serve him right when they heard how I'd given father the slip. And the next day, Captain Mobley gave me a birth as cabin boy about the Marrior Anne. Mr. Proder again paused to partake of refreshments from his portable spirit store, and this time politely handed the pocket pistol to the company. Now perhaps you'll not believe me, he resumed after his friendly offer had been refused and the wicker covered vessel replaced in his capacious pocket. You won't perhaps believe me when I tell you, as I tell you, Candid, that up to last Saturday week I never could find the time nor the opportunity to go back to Liverpool. And ask after that little sister that I'd left no higher than the kitchen table that had cried fit to break her poor little heart when I went away. But whether you believe it or whether you don't, it's as true as gospel, cried the sailor, thumping his ponderous fist upon the padded elbow of the compartment in which he sat. It's as true as gospel. I've crossed America north and south. I've carried West Indian goods to the East Indies and East Indian goods to the West Indies. I've traded in Norwegian goods between Norway and Hall. I've carried Sheffield goods from Hall to South America. I've traded between all manners of countries and all manners of docks. But somehow or other I've never had the time to spare to go on the shore at Liverpool and find out the narrow little street in which I left my sister Eliza no higher than the table more than 40 years ago until last Saturday was a week. Last Saturday was a week I touched at Liverpool with a cargo of furs and pole parrots, what you may call fancy goods. And I said to my mate, I said, I tell you what I'll do, Jack. I'll go ashore and see my little sister Eliza. He paused once more and a softening change came over the brightness of his black eyes. This time he did not apply himself to the pocket pistol. This time he brushed the back of his brown hand across the eyelashes and brought it away with a drop or two of moisture glittering upon the bronze skin. Even his voice was changed when he continued and had mellowed to a richer and more mournful depth until it very much resembled the melodious utterance which 21 years before had assisted to render Miss Eliza Percival the most popular tradician of the Preston and Bradford circuit. God forgive me continued the sailor in that altered voice but throughout my voyages I'd never thought of my sister Eliza but in two ways. Sometimes one, sometimes the other. One way of thinking of her and expecting to see her was as the little sister that I'd left. Not altered by so much as one lock of her hair being changed from the identical curl into which it was twisted the morning she cried and clung about me on board the venturesome having come aboard to wish father and me goodbye. Perhaps I often just thought of her in this way. Anyhow it was this way and no other that I always saw her in my dreams. One way of thinking of her and expecting to see her was as a handsome full grown buxom married woman with a troop of saucy children hanging on her apron string and every one of them asking what Uncle Samuel had brought him from foreign parts. Of course this fancy was the most rational of the two but the other fancy of the little child long black curly hair would come to me very often especially at night when all was quiet aboard and when I took the wheel and a spell while the helmsman turned in. Lord bless you ladies and gentlemen many a time of a starlit night when we've been in them latitudes where the stars are brighter than common. I've seen the floating mists upon the water take the very shape of that light figure a little girl in a white pinafore and come skipping towards me across the waves. I don't mean that I've seen a ghost, you know but I mean that I could have seen one if I had the mind and that I've seen as much of a one as folks ever do see upon this earth. The ghosts of their own memories and their own sorrows mixed up with the mists of the sea shadows of the tree waving backered and forward in the moonlight or a white curtain again a window or something of that sort well I was such a precious old fool with these fancies and fan-tigs Mr. Samuel Prodder seemed rather to pride himself upon the latter word as something out of the common that when I went ashore at Liverpool last Saturday was a week I couldn't keep my eyes off the little girls in white pinafores as past me by in the streets thinking to see my allies are skipping along with their black curls flying in the wind and a bit of chalk to play hopscotch with in her hand so I was obliged to say to myself quite serious now Samuel Prodder the little girl you're looking for must be 50 years of age if she's a day and it's more than likely that she's left off playing hopscotch and wearing white pinafores by this time if I hadn't kept repeating this eternally like all the way I went I should have stopped half the little girls in Liverpool to ask them if their name was Eliza and if they ever had a brother as ran away and was lost I had only one thought of how to set about finding her and that was to walk straight to the back street in which I remember to leave in her 40 years before I had no thought of those 40 years could make any more change than to change her from a girl to a woman and it seemed almost strange to me that they could make as much change as that there was one thing I never thought of and if my heart beat loud and quick when I knocked at the little front door of the very identical house in which we'd lodged it was with nothing but hope and joy the 40 years that it sent railway spinning all over England hadn't made much difference in the old house it was 40 years dirtier perhaps and 40 years shabbier and it stood in the very heart of the town instead of on the edge of the open country but except that it was pretty much the same and I expected to see the same landlady come to open the door with the same dirty artificial flowers in her cap and the same old slippers down at the heel scraping after her along the bit of oil cloth it gave me a kind of turn when I didn't see this identical landlady though she'd have been turned a hundred years old if she had been alive and I might have prepared myself for the disappointment if I'd thought of that but I hadn't and when the door was opened by a young woman with sandy hair brushed backward as if she'd been a Chinese and no eyebrows to speak of I did feel disappointed the young woman had a baby in her arms a black eyed baby with its eyes open so wide that it seemed as if it had been very much surprised with the look of things on first coming into the world and hadn't quite recovered itself yet so I thought to myself as soon as I clapped eyes on the little one why? as sure as a gun that's my sister Eliza's baby and my sister's Eliza's married and lives here still but the young woman had never heard the name of Prater and didn't think there was anybody in the neighborhood as ever had I felt my heart which had been beating louder and quicker every minute stop all of a sudden when she said this and seemed to drop down like a dead weight but I thanked her for her civil answers to my questions and went on to the next house to inquire there I might have saved myself the trouble for I made the same inquiries at every house on each side of the street going straight from door to door till the people thought I was a seafaring tax gatherer but nobody had ever heard the name of Prater and the oldest inhabitant in the street hadn't lived there ten years I was quite disheartened when I left the neighborhood which had once been so familiar and which seemed so strange and small and mean and shabby now I'd had so little thought of failing to find Eliza in the very house in which I'd left her that I'd made no plans beyond so I was brought to a dead stop and I went back to the tavern where I'd left my carpet bag and I had a chalk brought me for my dinner and I sat with my knife and fork before me thinking what I was to do next when Eliza and I had parted forty years before I remember father leaving her in charge of a sister of my mother's my poor mother had been dead a year and I thought to myself the only chance there is left for me now is to find Aunt Sarah by the time Mr. Prater arrived at this stage of his narrative his listeners had dropped off gradually the gentlemen returning to their newspapers and the young lady to her book until the merchant captain found himself reduced to communicate his adventures to one good natured looking young fellow who seemed interested in the brown-faced sailor and encouraged him every now and then with an assenting nod or a friendly eye-eye to be sure the only chance I can see says I continued Mr. Prater is to find Aunt Sarah I found Aunt Sarah she'd been keeping a shop in the general line when I went away forty years ago and she was keeping the same shop in the general line when I came back last Saturday week and there was the same fly-blown handbills of ships that was to sail immediate and that had sailed two years ago according to the date upon the bills and the same wooden sugar loaves wrapped up in white paper and the same lattice work gate with a bell that rang as loud as if it was meant to give the alarm to all will-ever pool as well as to my Aunt Sarah in the parlor behind the shop the poor old soul was standing behind the counter serving two ounces of tea to a customer when I went in forty years had made so much change in her that I shouldn't have known her if I hadn't known the shop she wore black curls upon her forehead and a brooch like a brass butterfly in the middle of the curls where the parting ought to have been and she wore a beard and the curls were false but the beard wasn't and her voice was very deep and rather manly and she seemed to me to have grown manly altogether in the forty years that I'd been away she tied up the two ounces of tea and then asked me what I pleased to want I told her that I was little Sam and that I wanted my sister Eliza the merchant captain paused and looked out of the window for operative five minutes before he resumed his story when he did resume it he spoke in a very low voice and in short detached sentences as if he couldn't trust himself with long ones for fear he should break down in the middle of them Eliza had been dead one in twenty years and Sarah told me all about it she tried the artificial flower making and she hadn't liked it and she turned play actress and when she was nine and twenty she married she married a gentleman that had no end of money and she'd gone to live at a fine place somewhere in Kent I've got the name of it wrote down in my memorandum book but she'd been a good and generous friend to Aunt Sarah and Aunt Sarah was to have gone to Kent to see her and to stop all the summer with her but while Aunt was getting ready to go for that very visit my sister Eliza died leaving a daughter behind her which is the niece that I am going to see I sat down upon the three-legged wooden stool against the counter and hid my face in my hands and I thought of the little girl that I'd seen playing at hopscotch forty years before until I thought my heart would burst but I didn't shed a tear and Sarah took a big brooch out of her collar and showed me a ring of black hair behind a bit of glass with a gold frame around it Mr. Floyd had this brooch made a purpose for me she said he has always been a liberal gentleman to me and he comes down to Liverpool once in two or three years and takes tea with me and yawn back parlor and I've no call to keep a shop for he allows me a handsome income but I should die of the mopes if it wasn't for the business there was Eliza's name and the date of her death engraved upon the back of the brooch I tried to remember where I'd been and what I'd been doing that year but I couldn't, sir all the life that I looked back upon seemed muddled and mixed up like a dream and I could only think of the little sister I'd said goodbye to aboard the venture some forty years before I got round by little and little and I was able half an hour afterward to listen to Aunt Sarah's talk she was nigh upon seventy poor old soul and she always been a good one to talk she asked me if it wasn't a great thing for the family that Eliza had made such a match and if I wasn't proud to think that my niece was a young heiress that spoke all manner of languages and rode in her own carriage and if that oughtn't to be a consolation to me but I told her that I'd rather have found my sister married to the poorest man in Liverpool and alive and well to bid me welcome back to my native town and Sarah said if those were my religious opinions she didn't know what to say to me and she showed me a picture of Eliza's tomb in Beckingham Churchyard that had been painted expressly for her by Mr. Floyd's orders Floyd was the name of Eliza's husband and then she showed me a picture of Ms. Floyd, the heiress at the age of ten which was the image of Eliza all but the pen of four and it's that very Ms. Floyd that I'm going to see and I dare say, said the kind listener that Ms. Floyd will be very much pleased to see her sailor uncle well sir, I think she will answered the captain I don't say it from any pride I take in myself Lord knows for I know I'm a rough and ready sort of chap that ought be no great ornament in a young lady's drawing room but if Eliza's daughter anything like Eliza I know what she'll say and what she'll do as well as if I see her saying it and doing it she'll clap her pretty little hands together and she'll clasp her arms around my neck and she'll say, Lord uncle I'm so glad to see you and when I tell her that I was her mother's only brother and that me and her mother was very fond of one another she'll burst out a cryin and she'll hide her pretty face upon my shoulder and she'll sob as if her dear little heart was going to break for love of the mother that she never saw that's what she'll do, said Captain Prodder and I don't think the truest born lady that ever was could do any better the good natured traveler heard a good deal more from the captain of his plans for going to Beckenham to claim his niece's affections in spite of all the fathers in the world Mr. Floyd's a good man I dare say, sir, he said but he's kept his daughter apart from her Aunt Sarah and it's but likely he'll try to keep her from me but if he does, he'll find he's got a toughish customer to deal with in Captain Samuel Prodder the merchant captain reached Beckenham as the evening shadows were deepening among the felden oaks and beaches and the long rays of red sunshine fading slowly out in the low sky he drove up to the old red brick mansion in a hired fly and presented himself at the hall door just as Mr. Floyd was leaving the dining room to finish the evening in his lonely study the banker paused to glance with some slight surprise at the loosely clad, weather-beaten looking figure of the sailor and mechanically put his hand among the gold and silver in his pocket he thought the seafaring man had come to present some petition for himself and his comrades a lifeboat was wanted somewhere on the Kentish coast, perhaps and this good temperate-looking bronze-colored man had come to collect funds for the charitable work he was thinking this when in reply to the town bread footman's question the sailor uttered the name of Prodder and in the one moment of its utterance his thoughts flew back over one in twenty years and he was madly in love with a beautiful actress who owned blushingly to that plebeian cognom in the banker's voice was faint and husky as he turned to the captain and bade him welcome to Felden Woods stepped his way, Mr. Prodder, he said pointing to the open door of the study I am very glad to see you I have often heard of you you are my dead wife's runaway brother even amid his sorrowful recollection of that brief happiness of the past some natural alloy of pride had its part and he closed the study door carefully before he said this God bless you sir, he said holding out his hand to the sailor I see I am right your eyes are like Eliza's you and yours will always be welcome beneath my roof yes Samuel Prodder you see I know your Christian name and when I die you will find that you have not been forgotten the captain thanked his brother-in-law heartily and told him that he neither asked nor wished for anything except permission to see his niece Aurora Floyd as he made this request he looked toward the door of the little room evidently expecting that the heiress might enter at any moment he looked terribly disappointed when the banker told him that Aurora was married and lived near Doncaster but that if he had happened to come ten hours earlier he would have found her at Felden Woods ah, who has not heard those common words who has not been told that if they had come sooner or gone earlier or hurried their pace or slackened it or done something that they have not done the whole course of life would have been otherwise who has not looked back regretfully at the past which differently fashioned would have made the present other than it is we think it hard that we cannot take the fabric of our lives to pieces as a Mantua maker unpicks her work and makes up the stuff another way how much waste we might save in the cloth how much better a shape we might make the garment if we only had the right to use our scissors and needle again and refashion the past by the experience of the present to think now that I should have been coming yesterday exclaimed the captain but put off my journey because it was a Friday if I had only known of course Captain Prodder if you had only known what it was not given to you to know you would no doubt have acted more prudently and so would many other people if Mr. William Palmer had known that detection was to dog the footsteps of crime and the gallows to follow at the heels of detection he would most likely have re-hesitated before he mixed the strickening pills for the friend whom with cordial voice he was untreating to be of good cheer if the speculators upon this years derby had known that Caracas was to be the winner they would scarcely have hazarded their money upon Buckstone and the Marquis we spend the best part of our lives in making mistakes and the poor remainder in reflecting how very easily we might have avoided them Mr. Floyd explained rather lamely perhaps how it was that the Liverpool spinster had never been informed of her grand-niece's marriage with Mr. John Melish and the merchant captain announced his intention of starting for Doncaster early the next morning don't think that I want to intrude upon your daughter sir he said as if perfectly acquainted with the bankers nervous dread of such a visit I know her station's high above me though she's my own sister's only child and I make no doubt that those about her would be ready enough to turn up their noses at a poor old salt that has been tossed and tumbled about in every variety of weather for this 40 year I only want to see her once in a way and to hear her say perhaps Lord Uncle what a rum old chap you are there exclaimed Samuel Potter suddenly I think if I could only once hear her call me Uncle I could go back to sea and die happy though I never came ashore again end of chapter 20 Captain Potter chapter 21 of Aurora Floyd this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading done by Jules Harlock of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braden chapter 21 he only said I am a weary Mr. James Conyers found the long summer's day hang rather heavily upon his hands at Melish Park in the society of the rheumatic X-trainer the stable boys and Steve Hargraves the softy and with no literary resources except last Saturday's Bell's Life and the sundry flimsy sheets of shiny slippery tissue paper forwarded him by post from King Charles Croft in the busy town of Leeds he might have found plenty of work to do in the stables perhaps if he had had a mind to do it but after the night of the storm there was a perceptible change in his manner and the show he pretends of being very busy which he had made on his first arrival at the park was now exchanged for a listless and undisguised dawdling and an unconcerned indifference which caused the old trainer to shake his grey head and mutter to his hangers on that the new chap weren't up to much and was evidently too grand for his business Mr. James cared very little for the opinion of the simple Yorkshire men and he yawned at their faces and stifled them with his cigar smoke with a dashing indifference that harmonized well with the gorgeous tints of his complexion and the lustrous splendor of his lazy eyes he had taken the trouble to make himself very agreeable on the day succeeding his arrival and had distributed his hearty slaps on the shoulders and friendly digs in the ribs right and left until he had slapped and dug himself into considerable popularity among the friendly rustics who were ready to be bewitched by his handsome face and flashy manner but after his interview with Mrs. Melisch in the cottage by the North Gates he seemed to abandon all desire to please and to grow suddenly restless and discontented so restless and so discontented that he felt inclined even to quarrel with the unhappy softy and led his red-haired retainer a sufficiently uncomfortable life with his whims and vagaries Stephen Hargraves bore his change in his new master's manner with wonderful patience rather too patiently perhaps with that slow, dogged, uncomplaining patience of those who keep something in reserve as a set-off against present forbearance and who invite rather than avoid injury rejoicing in anything which swells the great account to be squared in the future, storm and fury the softy was a man who could hoard his hatred and vengeance hiding the bad passions away in the dark corners of his poor shattered mind and bringing them out in the dead of the night to kiss and talk to as the Moore's wife kissed and conversed with the strawberry embroidered cane-breaking There surely must have been very little society at Cyprus or Mrs. Othello could scarcely have been reduced to such insipid company However, it might be, Steve bore Mr. Conyers careless insolence so very meekly that the trainer laughed at his attendant for a poor-spirited hound whom a pair of flashing black eyes and a lady's toy riding whip could frighten out of the poor remnant of wit left in his muddled brain He said something to this effect when Steve displeased them once in the course of the long tempered trying summer day and the softy turned away with something very like a chuckle of savage pleasure in acknowledgement of the compliment He was more obsequious than ever after it and was humbly thankful for the ends of cigars which the trainer liberally bestowed upon him and went into Doncaster for more spirits and more cigars in the course of the day and fetched and carried as submissively as that craven-spirited hound to which his employer had politely compared him Mr. Conyers did not even make a pretence of going to look at the horses on this blazing fifth of July and lolled on the windowsill with his lame leg upon a chair and his back against the framework of the little casement smoking, drinking and reading his priceless all through the sunny day the cold brandy and water which he poured without half an hour's intermission down his handsome throat seemed to have far less influence upon him than the same amount of liquid would have had upon a horse it would have put the horse out of condition perhaps, but it had no effect whatever upon the trainer Mrs. Powell walking for the benefit of her health in the north shrubberies and incurring imminent danger of a sunstroke for the same praise worthy reason contrived to pass the lodge and to see Mr. Conyers lounging dark and splendid on the windowsill exhibiting a kit-cat of his handsome person framed in the clustering foliage which hung about the cottage walls she was rather embarrassed by the presence of the softy who was sweeping the doorstep and who gave her a glance of recognition as she passed a glance which might perhaps have said we know his secrets, you and I handsome and insolent as he is we know the paltry price at which he can be bought and sold but we keep our counsel we keep our counsel till time ripens the bitter fruit upon the tree though our fingers itch to pluck it while it's still green Mrs. Powell stopped to give the trainer good day expressing as much surprise at seeing him at the north lodge as if she had been given to understand that he was traveling to Kamchatka but Mr. Conyers cut her civility short with a yawn and told her with easy familiarity that she would be conferring a favor upon him by sending him that morning's times as soon as the daily papers arrived at the park the insigns widow was too much under the influence of the graceful impertinence of his manner she resisted as she might have done and returned to the house bewildered and wondering to comply with his request so through the oppressive heat of the summer's day the trainer's smoke drank and took his ease while his dependent and follower watched him with a puzzled face revolving vaguely and confusedly in his dull muddled brain the events of the previous night Mr. James Conyers grew weary at last even of his own ease and that inherent restlessness which caused razzle us to tire of his happy valley and sicken for the free breezes on the hill tops and the clamor of the distant cities arose in the bosom of the trainer and grew so strong that he began to chafe at the rural quiet of the north lodge and to shuffle his poor lame leg away from one position to another in sheer discontent of mind which by one of those many subtle links between spirit and matter that tells us we are mortal communicated itself to his body and gave him that chronic disorder which is popularly called the fidgets an unquiet fever generated amid the fibers of the brain in its way by that physiological telegraph the spinal marrow to the remotest station on the human railway Mr. James suffered from his common complaint to such a degree that as the solemn strokes of the church clock vibrated in sonorous music above the tree tops of Melish Park in the sunny evening atmosphere he threw down his pipe with an impatient shrug his shoulders and called to the softie to bring him his hat and walking stick seven o'clock he muttered only seven o'clock I think there must have been 24 hours in this blessed summer's day he stood looking from the little casement window with a discontented frown contracting his handsome eyebrows and a pavish expression distorting his full classically molded lips he said this he glanced through the little casement made smaller by its clustering frames of roses and clematis, jesemine and myrtle and looking like the porthole of a ship that sailed upon a sea of summer verdure he glanced through the circular opening left by that scented framework of leaves and blossoms into the long glades where the low sunlight was flickering the waving fringes of fern he followed with his listless glance the wandering intricacies of the underwood until they led his weary eyes away to distant patches of blue water slowly changing to opal and rose color in the declining light he saw all these things with a lazy apathy which had no power to recognize their beauty or to inspire one's latent thrill or gratitude to him who had made them he had better have been blind surely he had better have been blind he turned his back upon the evening sunshine and looked at the white face of Steve Hargraves the softie with every wit as much pleasure as he had felt in looking at nature in its loveliest aspect a long day he said finally tedious, weirsome day thank God it's over strange that as he uttered this impious thanksgiving no subtle influence of the future crept through his veins to chill the slackening pulses of his heart and freeze the idle words upon his lips if he had known what was so soon to come if he had known as he thank God for the death of one beautiful summer day never to be born again with his twelve hours of opportunity for good or evil surely he would have groveled on the earth stricken with a sudden terror and wept aloud for the shameful history of the life which lay behind him he had never shed tears but once since his childhood and then those tears were scalding drops baffled rage and vengeful fury at the utter defeat of the greatest scheme of his life I shall go to Don Caster tonight Hargraves he said to this softie who stood differentially awaiting his master's pleasure and watching him as he had watched him all day furtively but incessantly I shall spend the evening in Don Caster and see if I can pick up a few wrinkles about the September meeting not that there's anything worth entering among this set of screws Lord knows he added with undisguised contempt for poor John's beloved stable is there a dog cart or a trap of any kind I can drive over in he asked of the softie Mr. Hargraves said that there was a new port Pagnell which was sacred to Mr. John Mellish and a gig that was at the disposal of any of the upper servants when they had occasion to go to Don Caster as well as a covered van with some of the lads drove into the town every day for the groceries and other matters required at the house very good said Mr. Conyers you may run down to the stables and tell one of the boys to put the fastest pony of the lot into the new port Pagnell and to bring it up here and to look sharp but nobody but Mr. Mellish rides in the new port Pagnell suggested the softie with an accent of alarm one of that you cowardly hound cried the trainer contemptuously I'm going to drive it tonight don't you hear damn his Yorkshire insolence am I to be put down by him it's his handsome wife that he takes such pride in is it Lord help him whose money bought the dog cart I wonder Aurora Floyd's perhaps and I'm not derived in it I suppose because it's my Lord's pleasure to drive his black eyed lady in the sacred vehicle look here you brainless idiot and understand me if you can't cried Mr. James Conyers in a sudden rage which crimsoned his handsome face and lit up his lazy eyes with a new fire look you hear Stephen Hargraves if it wasn't that untied hand and foot and have been plotted against and thwarted by a woman's cunning at every turn I could smoke my pipe in yonder house or in a better house this day he pointed his finger to the pinnacled roof and the red windows glittering in the evening sun visible far away among the trees Mr. John Millish he said if his wife wasn't such a she devil as to be too many guns for the cleverest man in Christendom I'd soon make him sing small fetch the Newport Pagnell he cried suddenly with a abrupt change of tone fetch it and be quick I'm not safe to myself when I talk of this I'm not safe when I think how near I was to have a million of money he muttered under his breath he limped out into the open air fanning himself with the wide brim of his felt hat and wiping the perspiration from his forehead be quick he cried impatiently to his deliberate attendant who had listened eagerly to every word of his master's passionate talk and who now stood watching him even more intently than before be quick man can't you I don't pay you five shillings a week to stare at me fetch the trap I've worked myself into a fever and nothing but a rattling drive will set me right again the softie shuffled off as rapidly as it was within the range of his ability to walk he had never been seen to run in his life but had a slow side long gait which had some faint resemblance to that of the lower reptiles very little in common with the emotions of his fellow men Mr. James Conyers limped up and down the little grassy lawn in front of the North Lodge the excitement which had crimsoned his face gradually subsided as he vented his disquietude and occasional impatient exclamations 2,000 pounds he muttered a pitiful paltry 2,000 not a 12 months interest on the money I ought to have had the money I should have had if he stopped abruptly and growled something like a note between his set teeth as he struck his stick with angry violence into the soft grass it is especially hard when we are reviling our bad fortune and quarreling with our fate to find it last on wandering backward to the source of our ill luck that the primary cause of all had been our own evil doing it was this that made Mr. Conyers stop abruptly in his reflections upon his misfortunes and break off with a smothered oath and listened impatiently for the wheels of the Newport Pagnell the softie appeared presently leading the horse by the bridle he had not presumed to seat himself in the sacred vehicle and he stared wonderingly at James Conyers as the trainer tumbled about the chocolate cloth cushions arranging them afresh for his own ease and comfort neither the bright varnish of the dark brown panels nor the crimson crest nor the glittering steel ornaments on the neat harness nor any of the exquisitely finished appointments of the light vehicle provoked one word of criticism from Mr. Conyers he mounted as easily as his lame leg would allow him and taking the reins from the softie lighted his cigar preparatory to starting you needn't sit up for me tonight he said as he drove into the dusty high road I shall be late Mr. Hargrave shut the iron gates with a loud clanging noise upon his new master but I shelled though he muttered looking asking through the bars that they fast disappearing Newport Pagnell which was now little more than a black spot in a white cloud of dust but I shall sit up though you'll come home drunk, I lay Yorkshire is so preeminently a horse racing and betting county that even simple country folk who have never wagered a sixpence in the quiet course of their lives say I lay where a Londoner would say I dare say you'll come home drunk, I lay folks generally do from Doncaster and I shall hear some more of your wild talk yes, yes he said in a slow reflecting tone it's a very wild talk and I can't make top more tale of it yet not yet but it seems to me somehow as if I knew what it all meant only I can't put it together I can't put it together there's something missing and the want of that something hinders me putting it together he rubbed his stubble of coarse red hair with his two strong awkward hands as if he would feign have rubbed some wanting intelligence into his head 2,000 pounds he said walking slowly back to the cottage 2,000 pounds it's a power of money why it's 2,000 pounds that the winner gets by the great race at Newmarket and there's all the gentle folks ready to give their ears for it there's great lords fighting and struggling against each other for it so it's no wonder a port fawn chap like me thinks some at about it he sat down upon the step of the lodge door to smoke the cigar ends which his benefactor had thrown him in the course of the day but he still ruminated upon this subject and he still stopped sometimes between the extinction of one charoute stump and the illuminating of another to mutter 2,000 pound 2,200 pound 40 times 50 pound with an unctuous chuckle after the enunciation of each figure as if it was some privilege even to be able to talk of such vast sums of money so might some doting lover in the absence of his idol murmur the beloved name to the summer breeze the last crimson lights upon the patches of blue water died out beneath the gathering darkness but the soft he sat still smoking and still ruminating till the stars were lit in the purple vault above his head a little after 10 o'clock he heard the rattling of wheels the tramp of a horse's hooves upon the high road and going to the gate he looked out through the iron bars as the vehicle dashed by the north gates he saw that it was one of the Melish Park carriages which had been sent to the station to meet John and his wife a short visit to London he muttered I lay she's been to fetch the brass the greedy eyes of the half-witted groom peered through the iron bars at the passing carriage as if he would have famed look through its opaque panels in search of that which he had denominated the brass he had a vague idea that 2,000 pounds would be a great bulk of money and that Aurora would carry it in a chest or a bundle that might be perceptible through the carriage window I lay she's been to fetch the brass he repeated and he crept back to the lodge door he resumed his seat upon the doorstep his cigar ends and his reverie rubbing his head very often sometimes with one hand, sometimes with both but always as if he were trying to rub some wanting sense or power of perception into his wretched brains sometimes he gave a short restless sigh as if he had been trying all this time to get some difficult enigma and was on a point of giving it up it was long after midnight when Mr. James Conyers returned very much the worst for Brandy and water and dust he tumbled over the softy still sitting on the steps of the open door and then cursed Mr. Hargraves for being in the way but since you've chosen to step said the trainer speaking a language entirely composed of consonants you may drift trip back to stables by which rather obscure speech he gave the softy to understand that he was to take the dog cart back to Mr. Melish's stable yard Steve Hargraves did his drunken master's bidding and leading the horse homeward through the quiet night found a crossboy with a lantern in his hand waiting at the gate of the stable yard and by no means disposed for conversation except indeed to the extent of the one remark that he the crossboy hoped the new trainer wasn't going to be up to this game every night and hoped the mare which had been bred for a racer hadn't been ill-used all John Melish's horses seemed to have been bred for racers and have dropped gradually from prospective winners of the Derby Oaks Chester Cup Great Eber Yorkshire Steaks Ledger and Don Caster Cup to say nothing of minor victories in the way of Northumberland Plates Liverpool Autumn Cups and Cura Handicaps threw every variety of failure and defeat into the everyday ignominy of harness even the van which carried groceries was drawn by a slim-legged narrow-chested high-shouldered animal called the Yorkshire Childers and bought in its sunny cold hood at a great price by poor John Mr. Conyers was snoring aloud in his little bedroom when Steve Hargraves returned to the lodge the softy stared wonderingly at the handsome face brutalized by drink and the classical head flung back upon the crumbled pillow in one of those wretched positions which intoxication always chooses for its repose Steve Hargraves rubbed his head harder ever than before as he looked at the perfect profile the red half-parted lips the dark fringe of lashes on the faintly crimson tinted cheeks perhaps I might have been good for summit if I'd been like you, he said with a half-savage melancholy I shouldn't have been ashamed of myself then I shouldn't have crept into dark corners to hide myself and think why I wasn't like other people and what a bitter, cruel shame it was that I wasn't like him you've no call to hide yourself from other folks nobody tells you to get out of the way for an ugly hound as you told me this morning, hang you the world's smooth enough for you so may Caliban have looked at Prospero with envy and hate in his heart for going to his obnoxious task of dishwashing and trencher scraping he shook his fist at the unconscious sleeper as he finished speaking and then stooped to pick up the trainer's dusty clothes which were scattered upon the floor I suppose I'm to brush these before I go to bed he muttered that my lord may have them ready when he wakes in the morning he took the clothes on his arms put the light in his hand and went down to the lower room where he found a brush and set to work sturdily enveloping himself in a cloud of dust like some ugly Arabian genie who was going to transform himself into a handsome prince he stopped suddenly in his brushing by and by and crumpled the waistcoat in his hand there's some paper he exclaimed a paper sued up between stuff and linen he omitted the definite article before each of the substantives as is a common habit with his countrymen when at all excited a bit of paper he repeated between stuff and linen I'll rip the waistcoat open and see what it is he took his clasp knife from his pocket carefully unripped a part of one of the seams in the waistcoat and extracted a piece of paper folded double a decent size square of rather thick paper partly printed, partly written he leaned over the light with his elbows on the table and read the contents of this paper slowly and laboriously following every word with his thick forefinger sometimes stopping a long time upon one syllable sometimes trying back half a line or so but always plotting patiently with his ugly forefinger when he came to the last word he burst suddenly into a loud chuckle as if he had just succeeded in guessing that difficult enigma which had puzzled him all the evening I know it all now, he said I can put it all together now his words and hers and the money I can put it all together and make out the meaning of it she's going to give him the 2,000 pounds to go away from here and say nothing about this he refolded the paper replaced it carefully in its hiding place between the stuff and the lining of the waistcoat then searched in his capacious pocket for a flat leather and cook in which among all sorts of odds and ends there were some needles and a tangled skein of black thread then stooping over the light he slowly sewed up the seam which he had ripped open dexterously and neatly enough in spite of the clumsiness of his big fingers end of chapter 21 he only said I am weary chapter 22 of Aurora Floyd this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading done by Jules Harlock of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Bratton chapter 22 still constant Mr. James Conyers took his breakfast in his own apartment upon the morning of his visit to Doncaster and Stephen Hargraves waited upon him carrying him a basin of muddy coffee and enduring his ill humor with the long suffering which seemed peculiar to this humpbacked low-voiced stable helper the trainer rejected the coffee and called for a pipe and lay smoking half the summer morning with the scent of the roses and honeysuckle floating into his closed chamber and the July sunshine glorifying the sham roses and blue lilies that twisted themselves in flurry cultural monstrosity about the cheap paper on the walls the softy cleaned his master's boots set them in the sunshine to air washed the breakfast things swept the doorstep and then seated himself upon it to ruminate with his elbows on his knees and his hands twisted in his coarse red hair the silence of the summer atmosphere was only broken by the drowsy hum of the insects in the wood and the occasional dropping of some early blighted leaf Mr. Conyer's temper had been in no manner improved by his night's dissipation in the town of Doncaster Heaven knows what entertainment he had found in those lonely streets the grass-grown marketplace and the tenetless stalls or that dreary and hermetically sealed building which looks like a prison on three sides and a chapel on the fourth which during the September meeting burst suddenly into life and light with huge posters flaring against its gaunt walls and a bright blue ink announcement of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Matthews or Mr. and Mrs. Charles Keane for five nights only normal amusement in the town of Doncaster between those two oases in the years dreary circle the spring and autumn meetings there is none but of the normal and special entertainment there may be much only known to such men as Mr. James Conyers to whom the most sensuous alley is a pleasant road so long as it leads directly or indirectly to the betting man's god money however this might be Conyers bore upon him all the symptoms of having as the popular phrase has it made a night of it his eyes were dim and glassy his tongue hot and furred and uncomfortably large for his parched mouth his hand so shaky that the operation which he performed with a razor before his looking glass was a toss up between suicide and shaving his heavy head seemed to have been transformed into a leaden box full of buzzing noises and after getting half through his toilet he gave it up for a bad job and threw himself upon the bed he had just left a victim to that biliary derangement which inevitably follows an injudicious admixture of alcohol and malt liquors a tumbler of hawkheimer he muttered or even the third rate shubbly they give one at a table d'aut would freshen me up a little but there's nothing to be had in this abominable place except brandy and water he called to the softy and ordered him a mix of tumbler of the last name beverage cold and weak Mr. Conyers drained the cool and lucid draught and flung himself upon the pillow with a sigh of relief he knew that he would be thirsty again in five or ten minutes and that the respite was a brief one but still it was a respite have they come home? he asked who? Mr. and Mrs. Meliss you idiot answered the trainer fiercely who else should I bother my head about did they come home last night while I was away? the softy told his master one of the carriages drive past the north gate at a little after ten o'clock upon the preceding night and that he supposed it contained Mr. and Mrs. Meliss then you better go up to the house and make sure said Mr. Conyers I wanna know go up to the house yes coward yes snake do you suppose that Mrs. Meliss will eat you? but the sort answered the softy salkily but I'd rather not go but I tell you I wanna know said Mr. Conyers I wanna know if Mrs. Meliss is at home and what she's up to and whether there are any visitors at the house and all about her do you understand? yes it's easy enough to understand but it's rare and difficult to do replied Steve Hargraves how am I to find out? who's to tell me? how do I know? cried the trainer impatiently for Steve and Hargraves slow dog and stupidity was throwing the dashing James Conyers into a fever of vexation how do I know? don't you see that I'm too ill to stir from this bed? I'd go myself if I wasn't and can't you go and do what I tell you? without standing arguing there until you drive me mad? Steve Hargraves muttered some sulky apology and shuffled out of the room Mr. Conyers handsom eyes followed him with a dark frown it is not a pleasant state of health which succeeds at drunken debauch and the trainer was angry with himself for the weaknesses which had taken him to Doncaster upon the preceding evening and thereby inclined to vent his anger upon other people there is a great deal of vicarious penance done in this world ladies maids are apt to suffer for the follies of their mistresses and Lady Clara ver de Verres French Abigail is extremely likely to have too atone for young Lawrence's death by patient endurance by ladies ill temper and much unpecking and remaking of bodices which would have fitted her ladieship well enough in any other state of mind than the remorseful misery which is engendered of an evil conscious the ugly gash across young Lawrence's throat to say nothing of the cruel slanders circulated after the inquest may make life almost unendurable to the poor this regoverness who educates Lady Clara's younger sisters and the younger sisters themselves and Mama and Papa and my ladies youthful confidants and even her haughtiest adorers all have their share in the expiation of her ladieship's wickedness for she will not or she cannot meekly own that she has been guilty and shut herself away from the world to make her own atonement and work her own redemption so she thrusts the burden of her sins upon other people's shoulders and travels the first stage to captures and disappointed old maidism the commercial gentleman who make awkward mistakes in the city the devotees of the turf whose misfortune keep them away from Mr. Tattersall's premises on a settling day can make innocent women and children carry the weight of their sins and suffer the penalties of their foolishness Papa still smokes his cabanas at four pence half penny in a piece or his mild Turkish at nine shillings a pound and still dines at the crown and scepter in the drowsy summer weather fragrant hay newly stacked in the meadows beyond black heath but mamma must wear her faded silk or have it died as the case may be and the children must forgo the promised happiness the wild delight of sunny rambles on this shingly beach bordered by yellow sands that stretch away to hug and ever changeful and yet ever constant ocean and not only mama and the little ones but other mothers and other little ones must help in the heavy sum of penance for the defaulters inequities the baker must have calculated upon receiving that long standing account and may have planned a new gown for his wife and a summer treat for the his little ones to be paid for by the expected money and the honest tradesman the disappointment of having to disappoint those he loves is likely to be crossed to them in the bargain and even to grudge her sundae out to the household drudge who waits at his little table the influence of the strong man's evil deeds slowly percolates through insidious channels of which he never knows or dreams the deed of folly or of guilt does its fatal work when the sinner who committed it has forgotten his wickedness who shall say where or when the results of one man's evil doing shall cease the seed of sin and genders no common root shooting straight upward through the earth and bearing a given crop it is the germ of a foul running weed whose straggling suckers travel underground beyond the kin of mortal eye the power of mortal calculation if Louis the 15th had been a conscientious man terror and murder misery and confusion might never have rained upon the dark and face of beautiful France if Eve had rejected the fatal fruit we might all have been in Eden today Mr. James Conyers then and after the manner of mankind vented his lean upon the only person who came in his way and was glad to be able to dispatch the softy upon a unpleasant errand and make his attendant as uncomfortable as he was himself my head rocks as if I was on board a steam packet he muttered as he lay alone in his little bedroom and my hand shakes so that I can't hold my pipe steady while I fill it I'm in a nice state to have a talk to her as if it wasn't as much as I can do at the best of times to be a match for her he flung aside his pipe half filled and turned his head wearily upon the pillow the hot sun and the buzz of the insects there was a big blue bottled fly blundering and out among the foals of the dimity bed curtains a fly which seemed the very genius of delirium tremens but the trainer was too ill to do more than swear at his purple wing tormentor he was awakened from a half doze by the treble voice of a small stable boy in the room below he called out angrily for the lad to come up and state his his business was a message from Mr. John Melish who wanted to see the trainer immediately Mr. Melish muttered James Conyers to himself tell our master I'm too ill to stir but that I'll wait upon him in the evening he said to the boy you can see I'm ill if you've got any eyes and you can say that you found me in bed the lad departed with these instructions and Mr. Conyers returned to his own thoughts which appeared to be by no means agreeable to him to drink spirit to us lickers and play all fours in the sanded tap room of a sporting public is no doubt a very delicious occupation and would be all together Elysian and unobjectionable if one could always be drinking spirits and playing all fours but as the finest picture ever painted by Raphael or Rubens is but a dead blank of canvas upon the reverse so there is generally a disagreeable other side to all the pleasures of earth and a certain reaction after card playing and brandy drinking which is more than equivalent in misery to the pleasures which have preceded it Mr. Conyers tossing his life from side to side upon a pillow which seemed even hotter took a very different view of life to that which he had expounded to his boon companions only the night before in the tap room of the lion and lamb Don Caster I should like to have stopped over the ledger he muttered for I meant to make a hat full of money out of the conjurer for if what they say at Richmond is anything like truth he's safe to win but there's no going against my lady when her mind's made up it's take it or leave it yes or no and be quick about it Mr. Conyers garnished his speech with two or three expletives common enough among the men with whom he had lived but not to be recorded here and closing his eyes fell into a doze a half waking half sleeping turbidity in which he felt as if his head had become a ton weight of iron and was dragging him backward through the pillow into a bottomless abyss while the trainer lay in his comfortless semi slumber Steven Hargraves walked slowly and sulkily through the woods on his way to the invisible fence at which point he meant to reconnoiter the premises the irregular facade of the old house fronted him across the smooth breath of lawn dotted and broken by party colored flower beds by rustic clumps of narrowed oaks supporting mighty clusters of vivid scarlet geraniums all aflame in the sunshine by trellis arches laden with trailing roses of varying shade from palish blush to deepest crimson by groups of evergreens whose every leaf was rich in beauty and luxuriance whose every tangled garland would have made a worthy chaplet for a king the soft in the semi darkness of his soul had some glimmer of that light which was all together wanting in Mr. James Conyers he felt that these things were beautiful the broken lines of the ivy covered house front gothic here elizabethan there were in some manner pleasant to him the scattered rose leaves on the lawn the flickering shadows of the evergreens upon the grass the song of a skylark too lazy to soar and content to horrible among the bushes the rippling sound of the tiny waterfall far away in the wood made a language of which he only understood a few straggling syllables here and there but which was not all together a meaningless jargon to him as it was to the trainer to whose mind holborn hill would have conveyed as much of the sublime as the untrothened pathways of the young frau this softy dimly perceived that melish park was beautiful felt a fiercer hatred against the person whose influence had ejected him from his old home the house front at the south and the venetian shutters were all closed upon this hot summer's day Stephen Hargraves looked for his old enemy Bow Wow who was likely enough to be lying on the broad stone steps before the hall door but there was no sign of the dog's presence anywhere about the hall door was closed and the venetian shutters under the rose and command his shadowed veranda which sheltered John melish's room were also closed the softy walked round by the fence which encircled the lawn to another iron gate which opened close to John's room and which was so completely overshadowed by a clump of beaches as to form a safe point of observation this gate had been left ajar by Mr. Melish himself most likely for that gentleman had a happy knack of forgetting to shut the doors and gates which he opened and the softy taken courage from the stillness around and about the house ventured into the garden and crept stealthily toward the closed shutters before the windows of Mr. Melish's apartment with much of the manner which might distinguish some wretched mongrel kerr who trust himself with an earshot of a mastiff's kennel the mastiff was out of the way on this occasion for one of the shutters was a jar and when Stephen Hargraves peeped cautiously into the room he was relieved to find it empty John's elbow chair was pushed a little way from the table which was laden with open pistol cases and breech loading revolvers these with two or three silk handkerchiefs a piece of chamois leather and a bottle of oil bore witness that Mr. Melish had been beguiling the morning by a pleasing occupation of inspecting and cleaning the firearms which formed the chief ornaments of his study it was his habit to begin this operation with great preparation and altogether upon a gigantic scale to reject all assistance with scorn to put himself in a violent perspiration at the end of half an hour and to send one of the servants to finish the business and restore the room to its old order the softie looked within a covetous eye at the noble array of guns and pistols he had that made love of these things which seemed to be implanted in every breast whatever its owner's state or station he had hoarded his money once to buy himself a gun but when he had saved the five and thirty shillings demanded by a certain pawnbroker of Don Caster for an old fashioned musket which was almost as heavy as a small cannon his courage failed him to bring himself to part with the precious coins whose very touch could send a thrill of rapture through this low current of his blood no he could not surrender such a sum of money to the Don Caster pawnbroker even for the possession of his heart's desire and as the stern money lender refused to take payment in weekly installments of six pence's Steven was feigned to go without the gun and to hope that someday or other Mr. John Mellish would reward his services by the gift of some disused fowling piece by foresight or manton but there was no hope of such happiness now a new dynasty reigned at Mellish and a black eyed queen who hated him had forbidden him to sully her domain of his shambling foot he felt that he was in momentary peril upon the threshold of that sacred chamber which during his long service at Mellish Park he had always regarded as a very temple of the beautiful but the sight of firearms upon the table had a magnetic attraction for him and he drew the Venetian shutters a little way farther ajar and slid himself in through the open window then flushed and trembling with excitement he dropped into John's chair and began to handle the precious implements of warfare upon pheasants and partridges and to turn them about in his big clumsy hands delicious as the guns were and delightful though it was to draw one of the revolvers up to his shoulder to take aim at imaginary pheasant the pistols were even still more attractive for with them he could not refrain from taking imaginary aim at his enemies sometimes at James Conyers who had snubbed and abused him and had made the bread of dependence bitter to him very often at Aurora once or twice at poor John Mellish but always with a darkness upon his pallid face which would have promised little mercy had the pistol been loaded and the enemy near at hand there was one pistol a small one and an odd one apparently for he could not find its fellow which took a peculiar hold upon his fancy it was as pretty as a lady's toy and small enough to be carried in a lady's pocket but the hammer snapped like an apple when the softie pulled the trigger with a sound that evidently meant mischief to think that such a little thing as this could kill a big man like you muttered Mr. Hargraves with a jerk of his head in the direction of the north lodge he had this pistol still in his hand when the door was suddenly open and Aurora Mellish stood upon the threshold and she opened the door almost before she was in the room John Deere she said Mrs. Powell wants to know whether Colonel Madison dines here today with the loft houses she drew back with a shutter that shook her from head to foot as her eyes met the softies hated face instead of John's familiar glance in spite of the fatigue and agitation which she had endured within the last few days she was not looking ill her eyes were unnaturally bright and a feverish color burned in her cheeks her manner always impetuous was restless and impatient today as if her nature had been charged with a terrible amount of electricity till she was likely at any moment to explode in some tempest of anger or woe you'll hear she exclaimed the softie in his embarrassment was at a loss for an excuse for his presence he pulled his shabby hair skin cap off and twisted it round and round in his great hands but he made no other recognition of his late master's wife who sent you to this room asked Mrs. Mellish I thought you had been forbidden to face the house at least she added her face crimsoning indignantly as she spoke although Mr. Connors may choose to bring you to the north lodge who sent you here him answered Mr. Hargraves doggedly with another jerk of his head toward the trainers abode James Connors yes what does he want here then he told me to come down to the house and see if you and the master would come back then you can go and tell him that we have come back she said contemptuously and that if he waited a little longer he would have had no occasion to send his spies after me the softie crept toward the window feeling that his dismissal was contained in these words and looking rather suspiciously an array of driving and hunting whips over the mantelpiece Mrs. Mellish might have a fancy for laying one of these above his shoulder if he happened to offend her stop she said impetuously as he laid his hand upon the shutter to push it open since you are here you can take a message or a scrap of writing she said contemptuously to call any communication between herself and Mr. Connors a note or a letter yes you can take a few lines to your master stop there while I write she waved her hand with a gesture which expressed plainly come no nearer you are too obnoxious to be endured except at a distance and seated herself at John's writing table she scratched two lines with a quilt pen upon a slip of paper which she folded while the ink was still wet she looked for an envelope among her husband's littered paraphernalia of account books bills, receipts, and priceless and finding one after some little trouble put the folded paper into it fastened the gum flaps with her lips and handed the missive to Mr. Hargraves who had watched her with hungry eyes eager to fathom this new stage in the mystery was the two thousand pounds in that envelope he thought no, surely such a sum of money must be a huge pile of gold and silver a mountain of glittering coin he had seen checks sometimes and banknotes in the hands of Langley the trainer and he had wondered how it was to be represented by those pitiful bits of paper I'd rather have the gold he thought if it was mine I'd have it all in gold and silver he was very glad when he found himself safely clear of the whips and Mrs. John Millish and as soon as he reached the shelter of the thick foliage upon the northern side of the park he set to work to examine the packet which had been entrusted to him Mrs. Millish had liberally moistened the adhesive flap of the envelope as people are apt to do when they are in a hurry the consequence of which carelessness was that the gum was still so wet that Stephen Hargraves found no difficulty in opening the envelope without tearing it he looked cautiously about it convinced himself that he was unobserved and then drew out the slip of paper it contained very little to reward him for his trouble only these few words scrawled in auroras most careless and beyond the southern side of the wood near the turnstile between half past eight and nine the softy grinned as he slowly made himself master of this communication it's uncommon hard writing to make out the shapes of the letters he said as he finished his task why can't general folks write like Ned Tiller opa the red line printing like it's easier to read and a deal prettier to look at he refastened the envelope pressing it down with his dirty thumb to make it adhere once more not much improving its appearance thereby he's one of your rare careless chaps he muttered as he surveyed the letter he won't stop to examine if it's been opened before what's inside we're hardly worth the trouble of opening it but perhaps it's as well to know it too immediately after Stephen Hargraves had disappeared through the open window Aurora turned to leave the room by the door intending to go in search of her husband she was arrested on the threshold by Mrs. Powell who was standing at the door with the submissive and differential patients of paid companionship depicted in her insipid face does Colonel Madison dine here, my dear Mrs. Malish she asked meekly yet with earnestness which suggested that her life or at any rate her peace of mind depended upon the answer I'm so anxious to know for of course it will make a difference with the fish and perhaps we ought to have some Malika Twani or at any rate a dish of curry among the entrees for these elderly East Indian officers are so I don't know answered Aurora currently were you standing at the door long before I came out Mrs. Powell oh no answered the end science widow not long did you not hear me knock Mrs. Powell would not have allowed herself to be betrayed into anything so vulgar as an abbreviation by the torments of the rack and would have neatly rounded her periods while the awful wheel was stretching every muscle of her agonized frame and the executions waiting to give the coup de grace did you not hear me knock she asked no said Aurora you didn't knock did you Mrs. Malish made an alarming pause between the two sentences oh yes two whites answered Mrs. Powell as much emphasis as was consistent with gentility upon the elongated word I knocked twice but you seem so very much preoccupied that I didn't hear you interrupted Aurora you should knock rather louder when you want people to hear Mrs. Powell I came here to look for John and I shall stop to put away his guns careless fellow he always leaves them lying about shall I assist you dear Mrs. Malish oh no thank you but pray allow me guns are so interesting indeed there is very little either in art or nature which properly considered is not you had better find Mr. Malish and ascertain if the colonel does dine here I think Mrs. Powell interrupted Aurora in the midst of the pistol cases and replacing them upon their accustomed shelves oh if you wish to be alone certainly said the end science widow looking furtively at Aurora's face bending over the breach loading revolvers and then walking gentility and noiselessly out of the room who was she talking to thought Mrs. Powell I could hear her voice but not I suppose it was Mr. Malish and yet he is not generally so quiet she stopped to look out of the window in the quarter and found the solution of her doubts in the shambling figure of the softy making his way northward creeping stealthily under the shadow of the plantation that bordered the lawn Mrs. Powell's faculties were all cultivated to a state of unpleasant perfection and she was able actually as well as figuratively to see a great deal farther than most people John Malish was not to be found in the house and on making inquiries of some of the servants Mrs. Powell learned that he had strolled up to the north lodge to see the trainer who was confined to his bed indeed said the end science widow then I think as we really ought to talk about the colonel and the Molliga 20 I will walk to the north lodge myself and see Mr. Malish she took a sun umbrella from the stand in the hall and crossed the lawn northward at a smart pace in spite of the heat of the July noontide if I can get there before Hargraves she thought I may be able to find out why he came to the house in the lodge before Stephen Hargraves who stopped as we know under the shelter of the foliage in the loneliest pathway of the wood to decipher Aurora's scroll she found John Malish seated with the trainer in the little parlor of the lodge discussing the stable arrangements the master talking with considerable animation the servant listing with the lawn switch had a certain air of deprecation not to say contempt for poor John's racing stud Mr. Conyers had risen from his bed at the sound of his employer's voice in the little room below and had put on a dusty shooting coat and a pair of shabby slippers in order to come down and hear what Mr. Malish had to say Mr. Conyers John said heartily with a freshness in his strong voice which seemed to carry health and strength in its every tone as you weren't well enough to look in at the house I thought I'd come over here and talk to you about business I want to know whether we ought to take Monte Cristo out of his York engagement and if you think it would be wise to let northern Dutchman take his chance for the great Mr. Malish's query resounded through the small room and made the languid trainer shudder Mr. Conyers had all the peevish susceptibility to discomfort or inconvenience which go to make a man above his station it is a merit to be above one station I wonder that people make such a boast of their unfitness for honest employment and sturdy but progressive labor the flowers in the fables that want to be trees always get the worst of it I remember perhaps that is because they can do nothing but complain there is no objection to their growing into trees if they can I suppose but a great objection to their being noisy and disagreeable because they can't with the son of the simple himself emperor of France the world had every sympathy but with poor Louis Philippe who ran away from a throne at the first shock that disturbed its equilibrium I fear very little it is quite right to be angry with the world because it worships success for is not success in some manner the stamp of divinity assertion may deceive the ignorant for a time but when the noise dies away we cut open the drum and find that it was emptiness that made the music Mr. Conyers contented himself with declaring that he walked on a road which was unworthy of his footsteps but as he never contrived to get an inch farther upon the great highway of life there is some reason to suppose his opinion entirely to himself Mr. Mellish and his trainer were still discussing stable matters when Mrs. Powell reached the North Lodge she stopped for a few minutes in the rustic doorway waiting for a pause in the conversation she was too well bred to interrupt Mr. Mellish in his talk and there was a chance that she might hear something by lingering no contrast could be stronger than that presented by the two men John broad shouldered and stalwart his short crisp chestnut hair brushed away from his square forehead his bright open blue eyes beaming on his sunshine upon all they looked at his loose gray clothes neat and well made his shirt in the first freshness of the morning's toilet everything about him made beautiful which is the peculiar property of a man who has been born a gentleman and which neither all the cheap finery which Mr. Moses can sell nor all the expensive absurdities which Mr. Tittlebat Tittmouse can buy will ever bestow upon the parvenu or the vulgarian the trainer handsomer than his master by as much as Antonius in Grecian marble is handsomer than the substantially shot and loose coated young squires in Mr. Mylass's designs as handsome as it is possible for this human clay to be with every feature molded to the highest type of positive beauty and yet every inch of him a bore his shirt soiled and crumbled his hair rough and uncombed his unshaven chin dark with the blue bristles of his budding beard and smeared with the traces of last night's liquor his dingy hands supporting his dingy chin and his elbows bursting half out of the frayed sleeves of his shabby shooting jacket leaning on the table in an attitude of indifferent insolence his continence expressive of nothing but dissatisfaction with his own and contempt for the opinions of other people all the homilies that could be preached upon the time-worn theme of beauty and its worthlessness could never argue so strongly as this mute evidence presented by Mr. Conyers himself in his slouching posture and his unkempt hair is beauty then so little one asks on looking at the trainer and his employer to be clean and well-dressed and gentlemanly than to have a classical profile and a thrice-worn shirt finding very little to interest her in John's stable talk Mrs. Powell made her presence known and once more asked the all-important question about Colonel Madison yes John answered the old boy is sure to come let's have plenty of chutney and boiled rice and preserved ginger and all the rest of the unpleasant things that Indian officers live upon have you seen Lollie Mr. Vallish put on his hat gave a last instruction to the trainer and left the cottage have you seen Lollie he asked again yes replied Mrs. Powell I have only lately left Mrs. Powell and she's been speaking to that half-witted person Hargraves I think he's called speaking to him cried John speaking to him in my room why the fellow is forbidden to cross the threshold of the house and Mrs. Mellish abominates the sight of him don't you remember the day he flogged her dog you know and Lollie horse had hysterics added Mr. Mellish choking himself on word and substituting another oh yes I remember that little unfortunate occurrence perfectly replied Mrs. Powell in a tone which in spite of its amyability implied that Aurora's escapade was not a thing to be easily forgotten then it's not likely you know that Lollie would talk to the man you must be mistaken Mrs. Powell the ensigns widow simpered and lifted her eyebrows gently shaking her head with a gesture that seemed to say did you ever find me mistaken no no my dear Mr. Mellish she said with a half playful air of conviction there was no mistake on my part Mrs. Mellish was talking to the half-witted person but you know the person is a sort of a servant to Mr. and Mrs. Mellish may have had a message for Mr. Conyers a message for him roared John stopping suddenly and planting his stick upon the ground in a movement of unconcealed passion what messages should she have for him why should she want people fetching and carrying between her and him Mrs. Powell's pale eyes lit up with a faint yellow flame in their greenish pupils as John broke out thus it is coming it is coming her envious heart cried and she felt that a faint flush of triumph was gathering in her sickly cheeks but in another moment John Mellish recovered his self-command he was angry with himself for that transient passion am I going to doubt her again he thought do I know so little of the nobility of her generous soul that I am ready to listen to every whisper and terrify myself with every look they had walked about a hundred yards away from the lodge by this time John turned irresolutely as if half inclined to go back a message for Conyers he said to Mrs. Powell I, I to be sure it's likely enough she might want to send him a message for she is cleverer at all the stable business than I am it was she who told me not to enter Cherrystone for the Chester Cup and EGAD I was obstinate and I was licked as I deserved to be for not listening to my dear girl Mrs. Powell would feign have boxed John's ear had she been tall enough to reach that organ infatuated fool would he never open his dull eyes and see the rune that was preparing for him you are a good husband Mr. Melish she said with gentle melancholy your wife ought to be happy she added with a sigh which plainly hinted that Mrs. Melish was miserable a good husband cried John half is good enough for her what can I do to prove that I love her what can I do nothing except to let her have her own way and what a little that seems why if she wanted to set the house on fire for the pleasure of making a bonfire he added pointing to the rambling mansion in which his blue eyes had first seen the light I'd let her do it and look on with her at the blaze are you going back to the lodge Mrs. Powell asked quietly not taking any notice of this outbreak of marital enthusiasm they had retraced their steps and were within a few paces of the little garden before the north lodge going back said John no yes between his utterance of the negative and the affirmative he had looked up and seen Stephen Hargraves entering the little garden gate the soft he had come by the shortcut through the wood John Melish quickened his pace and followed Steve Hargraves across the little garden to the threshold of the door at the threshold he paused the rustic porch was thickly screened by the spreading branches of the roses and honeysuckle seen by those within he did not himself deliberately listen he only waited for a few moments wondering what to do next in those few moments of indecision he heard the trainer speak to his attendant did you see her? he asked I sure I see her and she gave you a message no she gave me this here a letter cried the trainer's eager voice give it to me John Melish heard the tearing of the envelope and the crackling of the crisp paper and he knew that his wife had been writing to his servant he clenched his strong right hand until the nails dug into the muscular palm then turning to Mrs. Powell who stood close behind him simpering meekly as she would have simpered at an earthquake or a revolution or an international calamity not particularly affecting herself he said quietly whatever directions Mrs. Melish has given are sure to be right I won't interfere with them he walked away from the north lodge as he spoke looking straight before him as if the unchanging load star of his honest heart were beckoning to him across the dreary slough despond and bidding him to take comfort Mrs. Powell he said turning rather sharply upon the ensigns widow I should be very sorry to say anything likely to offend you in your character of of a guest beneath my roof but I shall take it as a favor to myself if you would be so good as to remember that I require no information respecting my wife's movements from you or from anyone whatever Mrs. Melish does she does with my full consent my perfect approbation Caesar's wife must not be suspected and by Jolth ma'am you'll pardon the expression John Melish's wife must not be watched watched? information? exclaimed Mrs. Powell the extreme limits allowed by nature my dear Mr. Melish when I really only casually remarked in reply to a question of your own that I believed Mrs. Melish had oh yes answer John I understand there are several ways by which you can go to Don Caster from this house you can go across the fields or around the Harpers Common and out of the way but you can get there all the same you know ma'am I generally prefer the high road it may not be the shortest way perhaps but it's certainly the straightest the corners of Mrs. Powell's thin lower lips dropped perhaps an eighth of an inch as John made these observations but she very quickly recovered her habitual gentile simper and told Mr. Melish that he really had such a droll way of expressing himself as to make his meaning scarcely so clear as could be wished but John had said all that he wanted to say and walked steadily onward looking always toward that quarter in which the pole star might be supposed to shine guiding him back to his home that home so soon to be desolate with such rune brooding above it as in his darkest doubts his wildest fears he had never shadowed forth end of chapter 22 still constant