A Traitor in London. Fergus Hume
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refuse to give me the money?"
"Absolutely."
"Then I'm glad I don't live under your roof and can tell you what I think of you. You are a mean hound, Malet--keep back, or I'll knock you down. Yes, a mean hound! This is not your real reason for refusing to pay me this money. I'll go up to town to-day and have your trusteeship inquired into."
Gilbert changed color and looked dangerous. "You can act as you please, Harold; but recollect that my powers are very clearly defined under the will. I am not accountable to you or to Wilfred or to any one else for the money. I have no need to defend my honor."
"That we shall see." Harold opened the door and looked back. "This is the last time I shall enter your house. You meddle with my private affairs, you keep back money rightfully belonging to me on the most frivolous pretext, and, in fact, make yourself objectionable in every way; but, I warn you, the law will force you to alter your behavior."
"The law cannot touch me!" cried Gilbert, furiously. "I can account for the money and pay it when it should be paid. Out of my house----!"
"I am going--and, see here, Gilbert Malet, if the law affords me no redress, I shall take it into my own hands. Yes, you may well turn pale. I'll make it hot for you--you swindler!" and Captain Burton, banging the door, marched out of the house, furious at his helpless position.
Left alone, Malet wiped his bald forehead and sank into a chair. "Pooh!" he muttered, striving to reassure himself. "He can do nothing. I am his cousin. My honor is his honor. I'm in pretty deep water, but I'll get ashore yet. There's only one way--only one!" Then Mr. Malet proceeded to cogitate upon that one and only way, and the obstacles which prevented his taking it. His thoughts for the next half hour did not make for peace of mind altogether.
Meanwhile, Captain Burton, fuming with rage, strode on through the green woods to the lady of his love. They had arranged to meet and discuss the result of this interview. As Mr. Scarse did not approve of his attentions toward his daughter, the cottage where she dwelt was forbidden ground to Harold. He was compelled, therefore, to meet her by stealth in the woods. But the glorious summer day made that no hardship. He knew the precise spot where Brenda would be waiting for him--under an ancient oak, which had seen many generations of lovers--and he increased his pace that he might the sooner unburden to her his mind. As he left the park and made his way through the orchards which surrounded Chippingholt, he saw Mr. Scarse no great distance away.
"That's a queer get-up the old man's got on," muttered Harold, perplexed at the wholly unusual combination of a snuff-colored greatcoat and a huge black scarf. "Never saw him in that rig before. I wonder what it means!"
As he came up within a dozen paces of the thin, white-haired figure, he was more than ever puzzled, for he noticed that the black scarf was of crape--there must have been several yards of it wound round the old man's neck. It was undoubtedly Mr. Scarse. There was no mistaking that clean-shaven, parchment-like visage. Burton took off his cap in greeting, but did not speak. He knew the old man was not well-disposed toward him. Mr. Scarse looked blankly at him and pressed on without sign of recognition; and even though he had half expected it, Captain Burton felt mortified at this cut direct.
"Brenda and I will have to marry without his consent," he thought; "never mind!"
But he did mind. To marry a girl in the face of parental opposition was all against his inclinations. The future looked dismal enough to him at the moment, and his spirits were only further depressed as the sky began to blacken over with portentous clouds. Impressionable as he was, this endorsement of nature was full of meaning for him in his then pessimistic frame of mind. The sunshine faded to a cold grey, the leaves overhead shivered, and seemed to wither at the breath of the chill wind; and when he caught sight of Brenda's white dress under the oak, her figure looked lonely and forlorn. The darkling sky, the bitter wind, the stealthy meeting, the solitary figure--all these things struck at his heart, and it was a pale and silent lover who kissed his sweetheart under the ancient tree. His melancholy communicated itself to Brenda.
"Bad news, dear--you have bad news," she murmured, looking into his downcast face. "I can see it in your eyes."
They sat silent on the rustic seat. The birds had ceased to sing, the sun to shine, and the summer breeze was cold--cold as their hearts and hands in that moment of sadness.
They were a handsome couple. The man tall, thin-flanked, and soldiery of bearing; dark eyes, dark hair, dark moustache, and a clean-cut, bronzed face, alert, vivacious, and full of intelligence. Brenda was a stately blonde, golden-haired, blue-eyed, and passionate as one of those stormy queens of the Nibelungen Lied, to whom love, insistent and impassioned, was as the breath of life. Both were filled with the exuberant vitality of youth, fit to overcome all obstacles, greatly daring and resolutely courageous. Yet, seated there, hand in hand, they were full of despondency--even to cowardice. Brenda felt that was so, and made an effort to rouse herself and him.
"Come, dear," she said, kissing her lover, "the sun will shine again. Things can't be so bad as to be past mending. He has refused?"
"Absolutely. He won't give me the money."
"On the ground that he does not approve of me!" Harold nodded. "He tried to make out that you were in love with Van Zwieten!"
"Oh! he is so ready to stoop to any meanness," said Brenda, scornfully. "I always disliked Mr. Malet. Perhaps my dislike is hereditary, for my father detests him."
"On political grounds?"
"Of course. But those are strongest of all grounds for hatred. Religion and politics have caused more trouble and more wars than--" she broke off suddenly. "Of course you don't believe this about Mr. van Zwieten."
"Need you ask?" said Burton, tenderly. "The fellow is staying with you still?"
"Yes. He has been here for the last two days talking politics with father, and worrying me. Thank goodness, he goes to-morrow!"
"Glad of it," growled Burton. "He is the Beast mentioned in Revelation. By the way, Brenda, who is Van Zwieten?"
Miss Scarse looked puzzled. "A friend of my father's."
"Yes; but what is his position--where does he come from--how does he make his income? There is something mysterious about the fellow."
"He comes from Holland--he is a friend of Dr. Leyds--and he is shortly going out to fill some post under the Transvaal Government. That's all I know about him."
"He seems to have plenty of money."
"Yes, he spends a good deal, to judge from what I saw of him in town last season. Then he is a popular cricketer, you know."
"I know. But the idea of a foreigner playing cricket!"
"Well, Mr. van Zwieten does, and very well too. You must have seen about his play in the papers. He is a great man at Lord's."
"All the same, he is a mystery; and he is too much mixed up with the Boers to please me. If there is a war, I hope he'll be with them that I may have a shy at him."
Brenda laughed, and pressed her lover's arm. "You silly boy, you are jealous."
"I am, I am. Who wouldn't be jealous of you? But this is not war, Brenda dear. Let us talk about ourselves. I can't get this twenty thousand pounds until Malet dies. I see nothing for it but to marry on my three hundred a year. I dare say we'll scrape along somehow."
"I have two hundred a year of my own," cried Brenda, vivaciously; "that makes ten pounds a week. We can easily manage on that, dear."
"But your father?"
"Oh, he wants me to marry Mr. van Zwieten, of course," said she, with great scorn. "So I must just do without his consent, that's all. It sounds wrong, Harold, doesn't it? But my father has never done his duty by me. Like most men who serve the public, he has sacrificed his all to that. I was left to bring myself up as best I could and so I think I have the right to dispose of myself. My father is nothing to me--you are everything."
"Dearest!" He kissed her.