The Broken Thread. William Le Queux
grey eyes, that for the first time during many years disclosed their full size and the limpid look of sincerity, made it evident to the stricken widow. Abruptly she finished the story, and, rising from her knees, she started across the room again. She had proceeded a bare pace or two when Lady Remington, with a vigour, surprising for her years, almost leapt from the lounge, and, throwing her arms around Miss Hope’s neck, exclaimed “Gladys! Gladys Hope! you have taught me a lesson in bravery that I will never forget. You are no longer Miss Hope. You are, if you will let me, Gladys, a dear, dear friend to me. As long as I am spared I will endeavour to be more than a friend to you!”
They embraced again and again, until the arrival of the maid with tea afforded the opportunity of a closing scene that had been tense and affecting to both women.
The new baronet left the coroner’s court, and, walking down a long stable-yard of one of the hotels, escaped from the inquisitive crowd that pursued him, by entering a coach-house with a side door that led to the scullery and kitchen of the hotel. Quickly he made for a door in the narrow passage that led to the coffee-room and main entrance. Unbolting the door, which was seldom used in these latex days, he slipped into a narrow alley way. With rapid strides he found himself, unobserved, in one of the old post-houses in a side street. Raife walked right through the low-ceilinged bar to the private parlour, with its oak beams, swinging lamp, and wide, open fireplace and chimney, from which were hanging a few hams and a side of bacon. In a wooden arm-chair with high back, without cushions, sat an elderly man, pink-cheeked and clean-shaven except for two tufts of close-cropped side whiskers. He was smoking a long churchwarden pipe, and the air was redolent with the perfume of a Virginian tobacco, which, if too pungent in excess, possessed an aroma which, by indulgence, is, by some at least, considered not nauseating. He was smoking shag tobacco. At his side, on a deal table which had been scrubbed once a day at least, for some seventy years, was an old brown toby of Kentish ale.
Kent is the garden of England, and Kentish hops are responsible for much that has been good in English manhood. Mr. Twisegood was born in Kent of a long line of Kentish ancestry, and Kentish hops had formed a substantial portion of his and their daily fare. Rising from his chair as Raife entered, he displayed a portly and robust frame.
“Good afternoon, Master Raife,” he said. “I’m very sorry to hear all this ’ere bad news about your father, Master Raife. I beg your pardon, Master Raife, I suppose as ’ow as I ought to carl yer Sir Raife now, sir. Beg your pardon, Master Raife—I mean Sir Raife, sir!”
In spite of the heavy load on his mind, Raife smiled, and, laying his hand on the old man’s shoulders, said cheerily, “No, Twisegood, I hope I shall always be Master Raife to you—and to some others. Yes! Twisegood, it’s a sad case and I’m much troubled. I’ve come to you to help me.”
“Lud a mussy, sir, help ’ee! What can I do to help the likes o’ you? I’ll help, sure enough, if I can help. Now tell me, Master Raife, what can. I do for ’ee?”
When Raife was a lad, and a mischievous lad, there were many scrapes out of which he had been lifted by old Twisegood. Before the old man inherited the public-house that had been a post-house, he had worked, as many of his ancestors had, on the Remington estates.
There still remains, in spite of the spirit of unrest and agitation, which, rightly or wrongly, pervades the land, a strong sympathy between the old families and their tenants and retainers. Twisegood was of the type that made true knighthood, when knight-errantry was in a cause that they felt to be good. The Twisegoods had been retainers of the Reymingtounes since the Tudors, and the spirit of loyalty was strong within him when the young master had said, “I’ve come to you to help me.” Raife smiled again and said: “I don’t want much, Twisegood, I want you to let me have the long white room overlooking the stable-yard. I want you to see that the shutters will bolt firmly from within, and see to it that when the lamp is lit no light can be seen from without.”
“Is that all you want. Master Raife? I’ll see to that sure enough. When do you want the room, sir?”
Raife replied: “I want to go up there now, but you can see to the other things later.”
“Yes, sir. I don’t know whether the room be tidy or no, but come along o’ me.”
They went up a wide staircase with twisted solid oak balustrades, to a wide landing on the first floor. The old man produced a bunch of large keys which jingled until he found one to fit the rusty lock, which turned with difficulty. The door creaked when it reluctantly opened, and they entered together. A faded scent of lavender met them. A yellow film of warm sunlight filtered through the white blinds that hung from the bay window. A white drugget covered the faded carpet, which showed slightly at the edges a dull crushed pink. A huge four-post wooden bedstead hung with white dimity. A white ceiling surmounted, and a white wall paper, with pale pink roses confined within vertical stripes of dull yellow, surrounded the room. Two ancient high-backed chairs covered in holland, and a more modern deep-set, low-lying arm-chair, covered in the same material, faced a huge fireplace of shining black metal. Fire-dogs, fender and fire-irons hammered from steel. A vast copper coal-scuttle of simple, almost crude shape, well charged with coal, stood at the side of the white supports of a deep white mantel-shelf.
There were no pictures on the walls. White candelabra and china vases of quaint shape stood before a small, and very imperfect, mirror on the mantel-shelf. Long white curtains hung in front of the bay window. The whole effect of this big white room, bathed in a warm glow of filtered sunlight, was startling. To Raife it was soothing. Twisegood crossed to pull up the blinds.
“Don’t do that,” Raife said, as he walked to yet another white curtain which screened a small door. The key was in the door. He opened it. It led to a narrow winding stairway with a strong oak door at the bottom. He called to Twisegood for the key. The stairs creaked as the burly old man descended and placed the key in the lock and turned it. “That will do. Give me the key. Have the lock oiled, and buy some soft carpet and put it on this stairway. This leads into the loose box, doesn’t it? or have you altered the stalls lately?”
“No, sir! They be just the same as when you stayed here last, sir.”
They ascended the crooked stairway, returning to the white room. Raife stood in front of the fireplace gazing at a small miniature on the mantel-shelf. At a glance it appeared to be the only pictorial ornament in the room. Neatly framed in a thin ebony oval was the most beautiful enamel of a woman’s face in high, powdered head-dress, and an exquisitely-modelled bust. Raife picked it up and, looking at the back of the frame, read this inscription pasted on:
To William Twisegood for a brave service rendered.
“How did you get this, Twisegood?” asked Raife.
“Why, sir! That be a long time ago, sir, when I wur not more’n a lad. I be older’n wot your father was, and there come along a day when he wor down along the copse by Tyser Wood, and the young master, he was then, and he was a good plucked ’un. He had his gun along o’ him and was out after rabbits just afore the first, when the partridges open the season. I be going along atop among the turmits, when I hears him a ordering some fellers off his ground. I listens, and presently there’s a scuffling. I slips down through all the bracken and bramble, and there I sees him a scrappin’ hard, with all the blood a streaming down his face. There was Nick Blacker and Bill Boneham, each a holdin’ a lurcher dog, whilst Nick’s three sons was a pasting the young master as hard as they could. But they wasn’t a getting all their own way, for he was mighty quick with his fists, was Master Harry. They didn’t see me a coming. I ups with a couple of bits o’ rock-stone and I aims at Dick. I hits him clean and down he goes. I ’as a stout ash stick in my ’and and I rushes up to Bill. Before he has time to know wot’s up, I lands him a good ’un. Then I shouts to make believe that there’s others a coming. Nick gets up and off they all start on a full run.
“Well, Master Harry! he was young those days, and thought I was brave. So he gave me that miniature and told me as ’ow it was his grandmother. But bless yer, Master Raife, that wasn’t all he gave me.”
The old man stopped for want of breath. He had lived his fight over again.