He had no longer the wish to fight for his life. Better a thousand times that the end should come now, rather than later on. He was ready. He was waiting. He prayed that there would not be long to wait. At the hour when he least expected it his call had come!
"Now then, old fellow, now then! Sit up, will you? What"s the matter with you? That"s right--that"s right. Keep your hair on, old man.
You"re not half as bad as you think you are!"
Terence Gordon"s breezy voice boomed in Lessing"s ear. Terence"s big hands laid hold of him, turned him round on his chair, and pressed him back against its rails. His good-humoured face puckered with concern as he met the blank stare in the man"s eyes, and he continued to pour forth a stream of slangy rea.s.surements, the while Lessing slowly regained his composure. He could not have told whether it was ten seconds or ten hours during which he had sat waiting for death, but so utterly had he lost touch with the things of earth that it was only by degrees that he could realise that he was still alive and unharmed, and that this singularly earthly young man was seated by his side, ragging him for his mysterious exhibition of funk.
"Got "em again--eh, what?" said Terence severely. "Tell you what, you gave me a touch myself, when you leaped upon me like that. Steady, old man. Steady! What"s it all about?"
"Terence," said Lessing thickly, "go back to the house. Look after your sister. I--I am going away. I can"t stay. I"m bringing danger upon her, upon you all--I can"t explain. I--I"ve been warned--"
"Strikes me," said Terence slowly. "Strikes me, if there"s any taking care of Delia to be done, it"s your business to do it. Hardly playing the game is it, to run away just at this point?"
"For Heaven"s sake, don"t torture me," cried Lessing wildly. "How can you judge? You don"t understand. You don"t understand--"
"Strikes me very forcibly, my dear fella," said Terence once more, "that it"s _you_ that don"t understand!" He thrust his arm round the corner of the summer-house, and produced the small black bag, which he was wont to carry on his expeditions to hospital. He placed the bag on the table, and seated himself before it with an air of intense enjoyment. "Just keep your eye on your uncle, my lad, and we"ll see if he can help you to understand!"
And then, calmly, complacently, in the full light of day, that medical student produced from that bag--first, a wig of black hair powdered with grey; secondly, a beard; thirdly, a pair of tufted eyebrows; fourthly a curious arrangement of wire clips connecting four large teeth; and fifthly, a bottle containing a brown fluid or dye.
Calmly, composedly, in the full light of day, did that medical student don one after the other: the wig, beard, eyebrows, and teeth, and dab an ill.u.s.trative patch of brown on either cheek. Then folding his arms after the manner of the villain in British melodrama, he hissed forth the words which had rung ceaselessly in Lessing"s ears for the last six weeks:
"Tr-r-r-aitor! The doom which you have postponed shall fall upon your own head. At the hour when you least--"
Lessing seized his arm in a grip of steel.
"Silence! Terence, what does this mean? Do you dare to tell me that it was _you_ who has made my life a torture all these--"
But Terence was not to be daunted. He twitched his arm away, and defended himself with his usual energy.
"What"s that--_torture_? What do _you_ mean by talking of torture?
Weren"t you forever grousing about the dullness of life, and bemoaning yourself because you couldn"t have a taste of excitement? Weren"t you forever ga.s.sing about the thrill of danger, and boasting of your adventurer"s blood? Ought to be jolly thankful to me for giving you a taste of the real gen-u-ine article! I dare you to say I didn"t do it uncommonly well, too. Very friendly action, I call it. You needed someone to bring you to your senses. Mooning along, spoiling your own life, and er--er--Hang it all--she _is_ my sister!" concluded Terence with a touch of righteous indignation.
Lessing sat staring, a picture of stupefaction. The words were understandable enough; he heard them with his ears, but his brain refused to take in the meaning.
"_You_! It was you? _You_ came into that restaurant, sat at my table--spilled that salt?"
"I did. I"d had one or two shots before that, but they didn"t come off, but the salt was a fair catch. You"d spun us that yarn more than once--forgot that, didn"t you? So I tried it, and you caught on like an eel. The rest was as easy as falling off a log. Where else should you go but Scotland Yard? I went on in advance, watched you out, and trotted along in the rear, waiting for a suitable moment to give you another thrill. Then I went home to bed! Got home a little quicker than you did that night, sonny, I fancy! What?"
The rush of anger and humiliation which came at the remembrance of that two hours of laborious dodging and turning did more to revive Lessing than any amount of rea.s.surement. He set his teeth, and continued the cross-examination.
"And that night in the Square."
"Hang it, yes! That was me, all right. I"d wasted four evenings hanging about, so I felt pretty murderous that night. Pretty good sport, though, to see you bolt into that doctor"s place. How I _did_ laugh! By the way, did you take the physic he ordered?"
Lessing gave him a steely glance.
"And the message, the telegram from Blakeney? You sent that, of course, and arranged with that car."
"Just so. Ye-es. That was, as you might say, my _tour de force_!"
said Terence, smirking. "Cost me a lot of f.a.g, that did, to say nothing about coin of the realm. Thought you were fairly caught that time, didn"t you? What about "The Thrill" when you heard the sound of the key in the lock? Eh, what?"
Lessing gave him a murderous glance.
"How would you have felt if I had injured myself for life, climbing down from that window?"
"Oh, shucks!" Terence shrugged with easy a.s.surance. "Any juggins could have got down over that ivy, easy as walking downstairs. And you have done a bit of climbing in your day. Did you get very much stung by the nettles lying down by that wall?"
Lessing"s jaw fell; the blood buzzed in his ears. An intolerable humiliation encompa.s.sed him. Had he been _seen_?
Terence burst into a great roar of laughter.
"Oh, bless you, yes! He saw you right enough. It was Jeffries, you know. G.P. Jeffries, sharpest fellow we have at hospital. He said he had the time of his life, sitting upon that wall, watching you quaking among those nettles. By the way, the bag"s all right. I"ve got it locked away in my cupboard. I suppose you wouldn"t be willing, as a slight acknowledgment of my trouble, and in grat.i.tude for an uncommonly useful lesson, to regard the outlay on that day"s expedition as a--er, fee?"
Lessing stared, glared, opened his lips to pour out heated words, stopped short, and expanded his chest in a long, deep breath.
Suddenly, overpoweringly, the consciousness of safety rushed through his being, and swept before it all petty considerations for his own dignity and self-esteem. He was free, he was safe; his life was unthreatened, he was free to plan ahead, to take upon himself new claims, new responsibilities. He felt again the touch of Delia"s arms, and knew an irresistible impatience to continue the interrupted scene.
He rose from his seat, and addressed a few dignified words to the lad by his side.
"Another time, Terence, we"ll thrash this matter out. You meant well, no doubt, but--"
"Just so. I was sorry to interrupt, but it was all done for the best.
She"s in the rose garden. She"s crying!" volunteered Terence, grinning.
"Is it your heart? _Is_ it your heart?" cried Delia clinging to his arm. "Oh, Val, is your heart really affected?"
Lessing clasped her to him, laughing a big, glad laugh, full of the joy and wonder of life.
"It is, darling!" he cried. "It is! _You_ have affected it. Oh, Delia, Delia, let"s be married, let"s be married at once, and--keep a chicken farm!"
CHAPTER NINE.
THE MAN WHO WISHED FOR SUCCESS.
Success was the pa.s.sion of John Malham"s life, mediocrity was his bane.
The ordinary commonplace life which brings happiness and content to millions of his fellow men filled him with a pa.s.sion of disgust. As he left the Tube station morning and night, and filed out into the street among the crowd of black-coated, middle-cla.s.s workers, an insignificant unit in an insignificant whole, a feeling of physical nausea overcame him. There were grey-haired men by the hundred among the throng, men not only elderly, but old, working ceaselessly day by day at the same dull grind, returning at night to small houses in the suburbs. From youth to age they had toiled and expended their strength, and this was their reward! In a few years" time they would die, and be buried, and the great machine would grind on, oblivious of their loss. Slaves, puppets, automata who were content to masquerade in the guise of men!
John Malham squared his great shoulders and drew a deep breath of contempt. Not for him this dull path of monotony. By one means or another, he had vowed to his own heart to rise to the top of the tree, and make for himself a place among men.
Malham was a barrister by profession; a barrister, without influence, and with a private income of a hundred a year. His impressive personality, and unmistakable gift of argument had brought him a moderate success, but while others congratulated him, his own feeling was an ever-mounting discontent. He was waiting for the grand opportunity, and the grand opportunity did not come. Like an actor who finds no scope for his talent in the puny parts committed to his charge, but feels ever burning within him the capacity to shine as a star, so did Malham fret and chafe; intolerantly waiting for his chance.
As an outlet for his energies Malham had plunged into politics, and here success had been more rapid. As an apt and powerful speaker he was much in request, and his circle of influential acquaintances grew apace. He was asked to dinner, on visits to country houses where he was entertained with cordiality, as a _quid pro quo_ for a speech at the County Hall. Politicians began to say to him with a smile: "We must have you in the House, Malham." "I shall be speaking for _you_ another day, Malham!" "A man like you, Malham, ought to be in the Cabinet."
Steadily, slowly, the conviction had generated that in politics lay his best hope of success.
But he must have money. Even in the days of paid members a man without private means was handicapped in the race. Once again he could not be content to be a unit in a crowd. He wished to be known; to make himself felt. To do this it would be necessary to entertain, to have a home of which he could be proud. A home, and--a wife.
At this point Malham"s hard face would soften into the tender, humorous smile which was reserved for but one person on earth--for Celia Bevan, a high school mistress to whom he had been engaged for five long years.
Pew of his friends, and none of his acquaintances, had heard of his engagement, for Malham was a secretive man, and Celia was not in his own set. He had met her on a fishing holiday when they happened to be staying in the same small inn, and for the first and only time in his life had been carried away on a wave of impulse.