Only a Girl's Love, Charles Garvice [a book to read .txt] 📗

and, better still, some subtle scheme or plan.

Yes, he was a successful man, and had failed so seldom—almost never—that he felt he could be confident in this matter, too.

"I have always done well for others," he thought. "I have gained some difficult points for other people; now I will undertake this difficult matter for myself."

He went home to the Rectory and pondered, recalling all he knew of old Etheridge. It was very little, and the rector could tell him no more than he knew already.

James Etheridge lived the life of a recluse, appearing to have no friends or relations save Stella; nothing was known about his former life. He had come down into the quiet valley some years ago, and settled at once in the mode of existence which was palpable to all.

"Is he, was he, ever married?" asked Jasper.

The rector thought not.

"I don't know," he said. "He certainly hasn't been married down here. I don't think anything is known about him."

And with this Jasper had to be content. All the next day, after his meeting with Stella and Leycester, he strolled about the meadows hoping to see her, but failed. He knew he ought to be in London, but he could not tear himself away.

His arm felt a little stiff, and though there was nothing else the matter with it, he bound it up and hung it in a sling, explaining to the rector that he had fallen from his horse.

[115]

Then he heard of the party at the Hall, and grinding his teeth with envy and malice, he stole into the lane and watched Stella start.

In his eyes she looked doubly beautiful since he had sworn to have her, and he wandered about the lane and meadows thinking of her, and thinking, too, of Lord Leycester all that evening, waiting for her to return, to get one look at her.

Fortune favored him with more than a look, for while he was waiting the boy from the post-office came down the lane, and Jasper, with very little difficulty, persuaded him to give up the telegram to his keeping.

I am sorry to say that Jasper was very much tempted to open that telegram, and if he resisted the temptation, it was not in consequence of any pangs of conscience, but because he thought that it would scarcely be worth while.

"It is only some commission for a picture," he said to himself. "People don't communicate secretly by telegram excepting in cipher."

So he delivered it unopened as we know, but when he heard that sudden exclamation of the old man's he was heartily sorry he had not opened it.

When he parted from Stella at the gate, he walked off down the lane, but only until out of sight, and then returned under the shadow of the hedge and waited.

He could see into the studio, and see the old man sitting in the chair bowed with sorrow; and Stella's graceful figure hovering about him.

"There was something worth knowing in that telegram," he muttered. "I was a fool not to make myself acquainted with it. What will he do now?"

He thought the question out, still watching, and the old man's movements seen plainly through the lighted windows—for Stella had only drawn the muslin curtain too hurriedly and imperfectly—afforded an answer.

"He is going up to town," he muttered.

He knew that there was an early market train, and felt sure that the old man was going by it.

Hastily glancing at his watch, he set his hat firmly on his head, dipped his arm out of the sling, and ran toward the Rectory; entering by a side door he went to his room, took a bag containing some papers, secured his coat and umbrella, and leaving a note on the breakfast-table to the effect that he was suddenly obliged to go to town, made for the station.

As he did not wish to be seen, he kept in the shadow and waited, and was rewarded in a few minutes by the appearance of Mr. Etheridge.

There was no one on the station beside themselves, and Jasper had no difficulty in keeping out of the old man's way. A sleepy porter sauntered up and down, yawning and swinging his lantern, and Jasper decided that he wouldn't trouble him by taking a ticket.

The train came up, Mr. Etheridge got into a first-class carriage,[116] and Jasper, waiting until the last moment, sprang into one at the further end of the train.

"Never mind the ticket," he said to the porter. "I'll pay at the other end."

The train was an express from Wyndward, and Jasper, who knew how to take care of himself, pulled the curtains closed, drew a traveling cap from his bag, and curling himself up went to sleep, while the old man, a few carriages further off, sat with his white head bowed in sorrowful and wakeful meditation.

When the train arrived at the terminus, Jasper, awaking from a refreshing sleep, drew aside the curtain and watched Mr. Etheridge get out, waited until he approached the cab-stand, then following up behind him nearer, heard him tell the cabman to drive him to King's Hotel, Covent Garden.

Then Jasper called a cab and drove to the square in which his chambers were situated, dismissed the cab, and saw it crawl away out of sight, and climbed up the staircase which served as the approach to the many doors which lined the narrow grim passages.

On one of these doors his name was inscribed in black letters; he opened this door with a key, struck a light, and lit a candle which stood on a ledge, and entered a small room which served for the purpose of a clerk's office and a client's waiting-room.

Beyond this, and communicating by a green baize door, was his own business-room, but there were still other rooms behind, one his living-room, another in which he slept, and beyond that a smaller room.

He entered this, and holding the light on high allowed its rays to fall upon a man lying curled up on a small bed.

He was a very small man, with a thin, parchment-lined face, crowned by closely-cropped hair, which is ambiguously described as auburn.

This was Jasper's clerk, factotum, slave. He it was who sat in the outer office and received the visitors, and ushered them into Jasper's presence or put them off with excuses.

He was a singular-looking man, no particular age or individuality. Some of Jasper's friends were often curious as to where Jasper had picked him up, but Jasper always evaded the question or put it by with some jest, and Scrivell's antecedents remained a mystery.

That he was a devoted and never tiring servant was palpable to all; in Jasper's presence he seemed to live only to obey his will and anticipate his wishes. Now, at the first touch of Jasper's hand, the man started and sat bolt upright, screening his eyes from the light and staring at Jasper expectantly.

"Awake, Scrivell?" asked Jasper.

"Yes, sir, quite," was the reply; and indeed he looked as if he had been on the alert for hours past.

"That's right. I want you. Get up and dress and come into the next room. I'll leave the candle."

"You needn't, sir," was the reply. "I can see."

Jasper nodded.

[117]

"I believe you can—like a cat," he said, and carried the card with him.

In a few minutes—in a very few minutes—the door opened and Scrivell entered.

He looked wofully thin and emaciated, was dressed in an old but still respectable suit of black, and might have been taken for an old man but for the sharp, alert look in his gray eyes, and the sandy hair, which showed no signs of gray.

Jasper was sitting before his dressing-table opening his letters, which he had carried in from the other room.

"Oh, here you are," he said. "I want you to go out."

Scrivell nodded.

"Do you know King's Hotel, Covent Garden?" asked Jasper.

"King's? Yes, sir."

"Well, I want you to go down there."

He paused, but he might have known the man would not express any surprise.

"Yes, sir," he said, as coolly as if Jasper had told him to go to bed again.

"I want you to go down there and keep a look-out for me. A gentleman has just driven there, an old man, rather bent, with long white hair. Understand?"

"Yes," was the quiet reply.

"He will probably go out the first thing, quite early. I want to know where he goes."

"Only the first place he goes to?" was the question.

Jasper hesitated.

"Suppose you keep an eye upon him generally till, say one o'clock, then come back to me. I want to know his movements, you understand, Scrivell!"

"I understand, sir," was the answer. "Any name?"

Jasper hesitated a moment, and a faint color came into his face. Somehow he was conscious of a strange reluctance to mention the name—her name; but he overcame it.

"Yes, Etheridge," he said, quietly, "but that doesn't matter. Don't make any inquiries at the hotel or elsewhere, if you can help it."

"Very good, sir," said the man, and noiselessly he turned and left the room.

Little did Stella, dreaming in the cottage by the sweet smelling meadows and the murmuring river, think that the first woof of the web which Jasper Adelstone was spinning for her was commenced that night in the grim chambers of Lincoln's-inn.

As little did Lady Wyndward guess, as she lay awake, vainly striving to find some means of averting the consequences of her son's "infatuation" for the painter's niece, that a keener and less scrupulous mind had already set to work in the same direction.

CHAPTER XVII.

Jasper undressed and went to bed, and slept as soundly as men of his peculiar caliber do sleep, while Scrivell was standing[118] at the corner of a street in Covent Garden, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the entrance to King's Hotel. A little after nine Jasper awoke, had his bath, dressed, went out, got some breakfast, and sat down to work, and for the time being forgot—actually forgot—that such an individual as Stella Etheridge existed.

That was the secret of his power, that he could concentrate his attention on one subject to the absolute abnegation of all others.

Several visitors put in an appearance on business, Jasper opening the door by means of a wire which drew back the handle, without moving.

At about half-past twelve someone knocked. Jasper opened the door, and a tall, fashionably-dressed young gentleman entered.

It was a certain Captain Halliday, who had been one of the guests at Wyndward Hall on the first night of our introduction there.

Captain Halliday was a man about town; one who had been rich, but who had worked very hard to make himself poor—and nearly succeeded. He was a well-known man, and a member of a fast club, at which high play formed the chief amusement.

Jasper knew him socially, and got up—a thing he did not often do—to shake hands.

"How do you do?" he said, motioning him to a chair. "Anything I can do for you?"

It was generally understood by Jasper's acquaintances that Jasper's time was money, and they respected the hours devoted by him to business.

Captain Halliday smiled.

"You always come to the point, Adelstone," he replied. "Yes, I want a little advice."

Jasper sat down and clasped his hands over his knee; they were very white and carefully-kept hands.

"Hope I may be able to give it to you. What is it?"

"Well look here," said the captain, "you don't mind my smoking a cigarette, do you? I can always talk better while I am smoking."

"Not at all—I like it," said Jasper.

"But the lady clients?" said the captain, with a little contraction of the eyelids, which was suspiciously near a wink.

"I don't think they mind," said Jasper. "They are generally too occupied with their own business to notice. A light?" and he handed the wax tapers which stood on his desk for sealing purposes.

The captain lighted his cigarette slowly. It was evident that the matter upon which he required advice was delicate, and only to be attacked with much deliberation.

"Look here!" he began; "I've come upon rather an awkward business."

Jasper smiled. It not unfrequently happened that his clients came to him for money, and not unfrequently he managed to find some for them—of course through some friend, always[119] through some friend "in the City," who demanded and obtained a tolerably large interest.

Jasper smiled, and wondered how much the captain wanted, and whether it would be safe to lend it.

"What is it?" he said.

"You know the Rookery?" asked the captain.

Jasper nodded.

"I was there the other night—I'm there every night, I'm afraid," he added; "but I am referring to the night before last——"

"Yes," said Jasper, intending to help him. "And luck went against you, and you lost a pile."

"No, I didn't," said the captain; "I won a pile."

"I congratulate you," said Jasper, with a cool smile.

"I won a pile!" said