The Ashiel Mystery, Mrs. Charles Bryce [e novels to read online .txt] 📗

CHAPTER I

When Sir Arthur Byrne fell ill, after three summers at his post in the

little consulate that overlooked the lonely waters of the Black Sea, he

applied for sick leave. Having obtained it, he hurried home to scatter

guineas in Harley Street; for he felt all the uneasy doubts as to his

future which a strong man who has never in his life known what it is to

have a headache is apt to experience at the first symptom that all is not

well. Outwardly, he pretended to make light of the matter.

 

"Drains, that's what it is," he would say to some of the passengers to

whom he confided the altered state of his health on board the boat which

carried him to Constantinople. "As soon as I get back to a civilized

sewage system I shall be myself again. These Eastern towns are all right

for Orientals; and what is your Muscovite but an Oriental, in all

essentials of hygiene? But they play the deuce with a European who has

grown up in a country where people still indulge in a sense of smell."

 

And if anyone ventured to sympathize with him, or to express regret at

his illness, he would snub him fiercely. But for all that he felt

convinced, in his own mind, that he had been attacked by some fatal

disease. He became melancholy and depressed; and, if he did not spend his

days in drawing up his last will and testament, it was because such a

proceeding--in view of the state of his banking account--would have

partaken of the nature of a farce. Having a sense of humour, he was

little disposed, just then, to any action whose comic side he could not

conveniently ignore.

 

When he arrived in London, however, he was relieved to find that the

specialists whom he consulted, while they mostly gave him his money's

worth of polite interest, did not display any anxiety as to his

condition. One of them, indeed, went so far as to mention a long name,

and to suggest that an operation for appendicitis would be likely to do

no harm; but, on being cross-examined, confessed that he saw no reason to

suspect anything wrong with Sir Arthur's appendix; so that the young man

left the consulting-room in some indignation.

 

He remembered, as soon as the door had closed behind him, that he had

forgotten to ask the meaning of the long name; and, being reluctant to

set eyes again on the doctor who had mystified him with it, went to

another and demanded to know what such a term might signify.

 

"Is--is it--dangerous?" he stammered, trying in vain to appear

indifferent.

 

Sir Ronald Tompkins, F.R.C.S., etc. etc., let slip a smile; and then,

remembering his reputation, changed it to a look of grave sympathy.

 

"No," he murmured, "no, no. There is no danger. I should say, no

immediate danger. Still you did right, quite right, in coming to me.

Taken in time, and in the proper way, this delicacy of yours will, I have

no hesitation in saying, give way to treatment. I assure you, my dear Sir

Arthur, that I have cured many worse cases than yours. I will write you

out a little prescription. Just a little pill, perfectly pleasant to the

taste, which you must swallow when you feel this alarming depression and

lack of appetite of which you complain; and I am confident that we shall

soon notice an improvement. Above all, my dear Sir, no worry; no anxiety.

Lead a quiet, open-air life; play golf; avoid bathing in cold water;

avoid soup, potatoes, puddings and alcohol; and come and see me again

this day fortnight. Thank you, yes, two guineas. _Good_-bye."

 

He pressed Sir Arthur's hand, and shepherded him out of the room.

 

His patient departed, impressed, soothed and comforted.

 

After the two weeks had passed, and feeling decidedly better, he

returned.

 

Sir Ronald on this occasion was absolutely cheerful. He expressed himself

astonished at the improvement, and enthusiastic on the subject of the

excellence of his own advice. He then broke to Sir Arthur the fact that

he was about to take his annual holiday. He was starting for Norway the

next day, and should not be back for six weeks.

 

"But what shall I do while you are away?" cried his patient, aghast.

 

"You have advanced beyond my utmost expectations," replied the doctor,

"and the best thing for you now will be to go out to Vichy, and take a

course of the waters there. I should have recommended this in any case.

My intended departure makes no difference. Let me earnestly advise you to

start for France to-morrow."

 

Sir Arthur had by this time developed a blind faith in Sir Ronald

Tompkins and did not dream of ignoring his suggestion. He threw over all

the engagements he had made since arriving in England; packed his trunks

once more; and, if he did not actually leave the country until two or

three days later, it was only because he was not able to get a sleeping

berth on the night express at such short notice.

 

The end of the week saw him installed at Vichy, the most assiduous and

conscientious of all the water drinkers assembled there.

 

It was on the veranda of his hotel that he made the acquaintance of

Mrs. Meredith.

 

She was twenty-five, rich, beautiful and a widow, her husband having been

accidentally killed within a few months of their marriage. After a year

or so of mourning she had recovered her spirits, and led a gay life in

English society, where she was very much in request.

 

Sir Arthur had seen few attractive women of late, the ladies of Baku

being inclined to run to fat and diamonds, and he thought Lena Meredith

the most lovely and the most wonderful creature that ever stepped out of

a fairy tale.

 

From the very moment he set eyes on her he was her devoted slave, and

after the first few days a more constant attendant than any shadow--for

shadows at best are mere fair-weather comrades. He seldom saw the lady

alone, for she had with her a small child, not yet a year old, of which

she was, as it seemed to Sir Arthur, inordinately fond; and whether she

were sitting under the trees in the garden of the hotel, or driving

slowly along the dusty roads--as was her habit each afternoon--the baby

and its nurse were always with her, and by their presence put an

effective check to the personalities in which he was longing to indulge.

It would have taken more than a baby to discourage Sir Arthur, however:

he cheerfully included the little girl in his attentions; and, as time

went on, became known to the other invalids in the place by the nickname

of "the Nursemaid."

 

Mrs. Meredith took his homage as a matter of course. She was used to

admiration, though she was not one of those women to whom it is

indispensable. She considered it one of the luxuries of life, and held

that it is more becoming than diamonds and a better protection against

the weather than the most expensive furs. At first she looked upon the

obviously stricken state of Sir Arthur with amusement, combined with a

good deal of gratification that some one should have arisen to entertain

her in this dull health resort; but gradually, as the weeks passed, her

point of view underwent a change. Whether it was the boredom of the cure,

or whether she was touched by the unselfish devotion of her admirer, or

whether it was due merely to the accident that Sir Arthur was an

uncommonly good-looking young man and so little conscious of the fact,

from one cause or another she began to feel for him a friendliness which

grew quickly more pronounced; so that at the end of a month, when he

found her, for the first time walking alone by the lake, and proposed to

her inside the first two minutes of their encounter, she accepted him

almost as promptly, and with very nearly as much enthusiasm.

 

"I want to talk to you about the child, little Juliet," she said, a day

or two later. "Or rather, though I want to talk about her, perhaps I had

better not, for I can tell you almost nothing that concerns her."

 

"My dear," said Sir Arthur, "you needn't tell me anything, if you

don't like."

 

"But that's just the tiresome part," she returned, "I should like you to

know everything, and yet I must not let you know. She is not mine, of

course, but beyond that her parentage must remain a secret, even from

you. Yet this I may say: she is the child of a friend of mine, and there

is no scandal attached to her birth, but I have taken all responsibility

as to her future. Are you, Arthur, also prepared to adopt her?"

 

"Darling, I will adopt dozens of them, if you like," said her infatuated

betrothed. "Juliet is a little dear, and I am very glad we shall always

have her."

 

In England, the news of Lena Meredith's engagement caused a flutter of

excitement and disappointment. It had been hoped that she would make a

great match, and she received many letters from members of her family and

friends, pointing out the deplorable manner in which she was throwing

herself away on an impecunious young baronet who occupied an obscure

position in the Consular Service. She was begged to remember that the

Duke of Dachet had seemed distinctly smitten when he was introduced to

her at the end of the last season; and told that if she would not

consider her own interests it was unnecessary that she should forget

those of her younger unmarried sisters.

 

At shooting lodges in the North, and in country houses in the South,

young men were observed to receive the tidings with pained surprise.

More than one of them had given Mrs. Meredith credit for better taste

when it came to choosing a second husband; more than one of them had

felt, indeed, that she was the only woman in the world with an eye

discerning enough to appreciate his own valuable qualities at their true

worth. Could the fact be that she had overlooked those rare gifts? For a

week or so depression sat in many a heart unaccustomed to its presence;

and young ladies, in search of a husband, found, here and there, that

one turned to them whom they had all but given up as hopelessly

indifferent to their charms.

 

Unconcerned by the lack of enthusiasm aroused by her decision, Lena

Meredith married Sir Arthur Byrne, and in the course of a few months

departed with him to his post on the Black Sea; where the baby Juliet and

her nurse formed an important part of the consular household.

 

The years passed happily. Sir Arthur was moved and promoted from one

little port to another a trifle more frequented by the ships of his

country, and after a year or so to yet another still larger; so that,

while nothing was too good for Juliet in the eyes of her adopted mother,

and to a lesser extent in those of her father, it happened that she knew

remarkably little of her own land, though few girls were more familiar

with those of other nations. Nor were their wanderings confined to

Europe: Africa saw them, and the southern continent of America; and it

was in that far country that the happy days came to an end, for poor Lady

Byrne caught cold one bitter Argentine day, and died of pneumonia before

the week was out.

 

Sir Arthur was heart-broken. He packed Juliet off to a convent school

near Buenos Ayres, and shut himself up in his consulate, refusing to meet

those who would have offered their sympathy, and going from his room to

his office, and back again, like a man in a dream.

 

Not for more than a year did Juliet see again the only friend she had now

left in the world; and it was then she heard for the first time that he

was not really her father, and that the woman she had called "Mother" had

had no right to that name. She was fifteen years old when this blow fell

on her; and she had not yet reached her sixteenth birthday when Sir

Arthur was transferred back to Europe.

 

"Your home must always be with me, Juliet," he had said, when he broke to

her his ignorance of her origin. "I have only you left now."

 

But though he was kind, and even affectionate to her, he showed no real

anxiety for her society. She was sent to a school in Switzerland as soon

as they