The Second Macabre MEGAPACK®. Эдит Несбит
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McFadden, “from Chlorine’s father (Chlorine is her name, you know). Sir Paul Catafalque wrote to me, informing me of the mention of my name in my aunt’s will, enclosing his daughter’s photograph, and formally inviting me to come over and do my best, if my affections were not pre-engaged, to carry out the last wishes of the departed. He added that I might expect to receive shortly a packet from my aunt’s executors which would explain matters fully, and in which I should find certain directions for my guidance. The photograph decided me; it was so eminently pleasing that I felt at once that my poor aunt’s wishes must be sacred to me. I could not wait for the packet to arrive, and so I wrote at once to Sir Paul accepting the invitation. Yes,” he added, with another of the hollow groans, “miserable wretch that I am, I pledged my honour to present myself as a suitor, and now—now—here I am, actually embarked upon the desperate errand!”
He seemed inclined to begin to roll again here, but I stopped him. “Really,” I said, “I think in your place, with an excellent chance—for I presume the lady’s heart is also disengaged—with an excellent chance of winning a baronet’s daughter with a considerable fortune and a pleasing appearance, I should bear up better.”
“You think so,” he rejoined, “but you do not know all! The very day after I had despatched my fatal letter, my aunt’s explanatory packet arrived. I tell you that when I read the hideous revelations it contained, and knew to what horrors I had innocently pledged myself, my hair stood on end, and I believe it has remained on end ever since. But it was too late. Here I am, engaged to carry out a task from which my inmost soul recoils. Ah, if I dared but retract!”
“Then why in the name of common sense, don’t you retract?” I asked. “Write and say that you much regret that a previous engagement, which you had unfortunately overlooked, deprives you of the pleasure of accepting.”
“Impossible,” he said; “it would be agony to me to feel that I had incurred Chlorine’s contempt, even though I only know her through a photograph at present. If I were to back out of it now, she would have reason to despise me, would she not?”
“Perhaps she would,” I said.
“You see my dilemma—I cannot retract; on the other hand, I dare not go on. The only thing, as I have thought lately, which could save me and my honour at the same time would be my death on the voyage out, for then my cowardice would remain undiscovered.”
“Well,” I said, “you can die on the voyage out if you want to—there need be no difficulty about that. All you have to do is just to slip over the side some dark night when no one is looking. I tell you what,” I added (for somehow I began to feel a friendly interest in this poor slack-baked creature): “if you don’t find your nerves equal to it when it comes to the point, I don’t mind giving you a leg over myself.”
“I never intended to go as far as that,” he said, rather pettishly, and without any sign of gratitude for my offer; “I don’t care about actually dying, if she could only be made to believe I had died that would be quite enough for me. I could live on here, happy in the thought that I was saved from her scorn. But how can she be made to believe it?—that’s the point.”
“Precisely,” I said. “You can hardly write yourself and inform her that you died on the voyage. You might do this, though: sail to England as you propose, and go to see her under another name, and break the sad intelligence to her.”
“Why, to be sure, I might do that!” he said, with some animation; “I should certainly not be recognised—she can have no photograph of me, for I have never been photographed. And yet—no,” he added, with a shudder, “it is useless. I can’t do it; I dare not trust myself under that roof! I must find some other way. You have given me an idea. Listen,” he said, after a short pause: “you seem to take an interest in me; you are going to London; the Catafalques live there, or near it, at some place called Parson’s Green. Can I ask a great favour of you—would you very much mind seeking them out yourself as a fellow-voyager of mine? I could not expect you to tell a positive untruth on my account—but if, in the course of an interview with Chlorine, you could contrive to convey the impression that I died on my way to her side, you would be doing me a service I can never repay!”
“I should very much prefer to do you a service that you could repay,” was my very natural rejoinder.
“She will not require strict proof,” he continued eagerly; “I could give you enough papers and things to convince her that you come from me. Say you will do me this kindness!”
I hesitated for some time longer, not so much, perhaps, from scruples of a conscientious kind as from a disinclination to undertake a troublesome commission for an entire stranger—gratuitously. But McFadden pressed me hard, and at length he made an appeal to springs in my nature which are never touched in vain, and I yielded.
When we had settled the question in its financial aspect, I said to McFadden, “The only thing now is—how would you prefer to pass away? Shall I make you fall over and be devoured by a shark? That would be a picturesque end—and I could do myself justice over the shark? I should make the young lady weep considerably.”
“That won’t do at all!” he said irritably; “I can see from her face that Chlorine is a girl of a delicate sensibility, and would be disgusted by the idea of any suitor of hers spending his last cohesive moments inside such a beastly repulsive thing as a shark. I don’t want to be associated in her mind with anything so unpleasant. No, sir; I will die—if you will oblige me by remembering it—of a low fever, of a non-infectious type, at sunset, gazing at her portrait with my fading eyesight and gasping her name with my last breath. She will cry more over that!”
“I might work it up into something effective, certainly,” I admitted; “and, by the way, if you are going to expire in my state-room, I ought to know a little more about you than I do. There is time still before the tender goes; you might do worse than spend it in coaching me in your life’s history.”
He gave me a few leading facts, and supplied me with several documents for study on the voyage; he even abandoned to me the whole of his travelling arrangements, which proved far more complete and serviceable than my own.
And then the “All-ashore” bell rang, and McFadden, as he bade me farewell, took from his pocket a bulky packet. “You have saved me,” he said. “Now I can banish every recollection of this miserable episode. I need no longer preserve my poor aunt’s directions; let them go, then.”
Before I could say anything, he had fastened something heavy to the parcel and dropped it through the cabin-light into the sea, after which he went ashore, and I have never seen nor heard of him since.
During the voyage I had leisure to think seriously over the affair, and the more I thought of the task I had undertaken, the less I liked it.
No man with the instincts of a gentleman can feel any satisfaction at rinding himself on the way to harrow up a poor young lady’s feelings by a perfectly fictitious account of the death of a poor-spirited suitor who could selfishly save his reputation at her expense.
And so strong was my feeling about this from the very first, that I doubt whether, if McFadden’s terms had been a shade less liberal, I could ever have brought myself to consent.
But it struck me that, under judiciously sympathetic treatment, the lady might prove not inconsolable, and that I myself might be able to heal the wound I was about to inflict.
I found a subtle pleasure in the thought of this, for, unless McFadden had misinformed me, Chlorine’s fortune was considerable, and did not depend upon any marriage she might or might not make. On the other hand, I was penniless, and it seemed to me only too likely that her parents might seek to found some objection to me on that ground.
I studied the photograph McFadden had left with me; it was that of a pensive but distinctly pretty face, with an absence of firmness in it that betrayed a plastic nature. I felt certain that if I only had the recommendation, as McFadden had, of an aunt’s dying wishes, it would not take me long to effect a complete conquest.
And then, as naturally as possible, came the