Trent's Trust, and Other Stories. Bret Harte
was as sober as I was,” returned Randolph indignantly, as he recalled the incident of the flask and the dead man’s caution. From recalling it to repeating it followed naturally, and he presently related the whole story of his meeting with Captain Dornton to the brightly interested eyes beside him. When he had finished, she leaned toward him in girlish confidence, and said:—
“Yes; but EVEN THAT they tell to show how intoxicated be must have been to have given up his portmanteau to an utter stranger like you.” She stopped, colored, and yet, reflecting his own half smile, she added: “You know what I mean. For they all agree how nice it was of you not to take any advantage of his condition, and Dingwall said your honesty and faithfulness struck Revelstoke so much that he made a place for you at the bank. Now I think,” she continued, with delightful naivete, “it was a proof of poor Jack’s BEING PERFECTLY SOBER, that he knew whom he was trusting, and saw just what you were, at once. There! But I suppose you must not talk to me any longer, but must make yourself agreeable to some one else. But it was very nice of you to tell me all this. I wish you knew my guardian. You’d like him. Do you ever go to England? Do come and see us.”
These confidences had not been observed by the others, and Miss Avondale appeared to confine her attentions to Sir William, who seemed to be equally absorbed, except that once he lifted his eyes toward Randolph, as if in answer to some remark from her. It struck Randolph that he was the subject of their conversation, and this did not tend to allay the irritation of a mind already wounded by the contrast of HER lack of sympathy for the dead man who had befriended and trusted her to the simple faith of the girl beside him, who was still loyal to a mere childish recollection.
After the ladies had rustled away, Sir William moved his seat beside Randolph. His manner seemed to combine Mr. Dingwall’s restraint with a certain assumption of the man of the world, more notable for its frankness than its tactfulness.
“Sad business this of my brother’s, eh,” he said, lighting a cigar; “any way you take it, eh? You saw him last, eh?” The interrogating word, however, seemed to be only an exclamation of habit, for he seldom waited for an answer.
“I really don’t know,” said Randolph, “as I saw him only ONCE, and he left me on the wharf. I know no more where he went to then than where he came from before. Of course you must know all the rest, and how he came to be drowned.”
“Yes; it really did not matter much. The whole question was identification and proof of death, you know. Beastly job, eh?”
“Was that his body YOU were helping to get ashore at the wharf one Sunday?” asked Randolph bluntly, now fully recognizing the likeness that had puzzled him in Sir William. “I didn’t see any resemblance.”
“Precious few would. I didn’t—though it’s true I hadn’t seen him for eight years. Poor old chap been knocked about so he hadn’t a feature left, eh? But his shipmate knew him, and there were his traps on the ship.”
Then, for the first time, Randolph heard the grim and sordid details of John Dornton’s mysterious disappearance. He had arrived the morning before that eventful day on an Australian bark as the principal passenger. The vessel itself had an evil repute, and was believed to have slipped from the hands of the police at Melbourne. John Dornton had evidently amassed a considerable fortune in Australia, although an examination of his papers and effects showed it to be in drafts and letters of credit and shares, and that he had no ready money—a fact borne out by the testimony of his shipmates. The night he arrived was spent in an orgy on board ship, which he did not leave until the early evening of the next day, although, after his erratic fashion, he had ordered a room at a hotel. That evening he took ashore a portmanteau, evidently intending to pass the night at his hotel. He was never seen again, although some of the sailors declared that they had seen him on the wharf WITHOUT THE PORTMANTEAU, and they had drunk together at a low grog shop on the street corner. He had evidently fallen through some hole in the wharf. As he was seen only with the sailors, who also knew he had no ready money on his person, there was no suspicion of foul play.
“For all that, don’t you know,” continued Sir William, with a forced laugh, which struck Randolph as not only discordant, but as having an insolent significance, “it might have been a deuced bad business for YOU, eh? Last man who was with him, eh? In possession of his portmanteau, eh? Wearing his clothes, eh? Awfully clever of you to go straight to the bank with it. ‘Pon my word, my legal man wanted to pounce down on you as ‘accessory’ until I and Dingwall called him off. But it’s all right now.”
Randolph’s antagonism to the man increased. “The investigation seems to have been peculiar,” he said dryly, “for, if I remember rightly, at the coroner’s inquest on the body I saw you with, the verdict returned was of the death of an UNKNOWN man.”
“Yes; we hadn’t clear proof of identity then,” he returned coolly, “but we had a reexamination of the body before witnesses afterward, and a verdict according to the facts. That was kept out of the papers in deference to the feelings of the family and friends. I fancy you wouldn’t have liked to be cross-examined before a stupid jury about what you were doing with Jack’s portmanteau, even if WE were satisfied with it.”
“I should have been glad to testify to the kindness of your brother, at any risk,” returned Randolph stoutly. “You have heard that the portmanteau was stolen from me, but the amount of money it contained has been placed in Mr. Dingwall’s hands for disposal.”
“Its contents were known, and all that’s been settled,” returned Sir William, rising. “But,” he continued, with his forced laugh, which to Randolph’s fancy masked a certain threatening significance, “I say, it would have been a beastly business, don’t you know, if you HAD been called upon to produce it again—ha, ha!—eh?”
Returning to the dining room, Randolph found Miss Avondale alone on a corner of the sofa. She swept her skirts aside as he approached, as an invitation for him to sit beside her. Still sore from his experience, he accepted only in the hope that she was about to confide to him her opinion of this strange story. But, to his chagrin, she looked at him over her fan with a mischievous tolerance. “You seemed more interested in the cousin than the brother of your patron.”
Once Randolph might have been flattered at this. But her speech seemed to him only an echo of the general heartlessness. “I found Miss Eversleigh very sympathetic over the fate of the unfortunate man, whom nobody else here seems to care for,” said Randolph coldly.
“Yes,” returned Miss Avondale composedly; “I believe she was a great friend of Captain Dornton when she was quite a child, and I don’t think she can expect much from Sir William, who is very different from his brother. In fact, she was one of the relatives who came over here in quest of the captain, when it was believed he was living and the heir. He was quite a patron of hers.”
“But was he not also one of yours?” said Randolph bluntly.
“I think I told you I was the friend of the boy and of poor Paquita, the boy’s mother,” said Miss Avondale quietly. “I never saw Captain Dornton but twice.”
Randolph noticed that she had not said “wife,” although in her previous confidences she had so described the mother. But, as Dingwall had said, why should she have exposed the boy’s illegitimacy to a comparative stranger; and if she herself had been deceived about it, why should he expect her to tell him? And yet—he was not satisfied.
He was startled by a little laugh. “Well, I declare, you look as if you resented the fact that your benefactor had turned out to be a baronet—just as in some novel—and that you have rendered a service to the English aristocracy. If you are thinking of poor Bobby,” she continued, without the slightest show of self-consciousness, “Sir William will provide for him, and thinks of taking him to England to restore his health. Now”—with her smiling, tolerant superiority—“you must go and talk to Miss Eversleigh. I see her looking this way, and I don’t think she half likes me as it is.”
Randolph, who, however, also saw that Sir William was lounging toward them, here rose formally, as if permitting the latter to take the vacated seat. This partly imposed on him the necessity of seeking Miss Eversleigh, who, having withdrawn to the other end of the room,