The Upas Tree, Florence Louisa Barclay [the little red hen read aloud .TXT] 📗

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"Dick suggested that we should go to his rooms. Arrived there he ceased to take any interest in my 'cello, clapped me into a chair, and stuck a beastly thermometer into my mouth."

"Doctors are such enthusiasts," murmured Aubrey Treherne. "They can never let their own particular trade alone. I suppose he also felt your pulse and looked at your tongue."

"Rather! Then he said I had no business to be walking about with a temperature of 103. I was so much annoyed that I promptly smashed the thermometer, and we had a fine chase after the quicksilver. You never saw anything like it! It ran like a rabbit, in and out of the nooks and corners of the chair, until at last it disappeared through a crack in the floor; went to ground, you know. Doesn't Helen look well on horseback?"

"Charming. I suppose you easily convinced your friend that his diagnosis was rubbish?"

"Of course I did. I told him I had never felt better in my life. But I drank the stuff he gave me, simply to save further bother; also another dose which he brought to the hotel. Then he insisted on leaving a bottle out of which I am to take a dose every three hours on the journey home. I did not know old Dick was such a crank."

"Probably it is the result of sitting in a tub and being scrubbed with a dish-cloth. Did he know you were coming here?"

"Yes; he picked up my pocket-book, found your address, and made a note of it. He said he should probably look us up at about ten o'clock this evening. I told him I might be here pretty late. I did not know you were going to be so kind as to fetch my things from the hotel and put me up. You really are most--"

"Delighted, my dear fellow. Honoured!" said Aubrey Treherne. "Now tell me about the finding of the 'cello."

"I interviewed the publishers, and I hope it is all right. But they seemed rather hurried and vague, and anxious to get me off the premises. No doubt I shall fare better in courteous little Holland. Then I went on to Zimmermann's to choose Helen's organ. I found exactly what she wanted, and at the price she wished. On my way downstairs I found myself in a large room full of violoncellos--dozens of them. They were hanging in glass cases; they were ranged along the top. Then I suddenly felt impelled to look to the top of the highest cabinet, and there I saw the Infant! I knew instantly that that was the 'cello I _must_ have. It seemed mine already. It seemed as if it always had been mine. I asked to be shown some violoncellos. They produced two or three, in which I took no interest. Then I said: 'Get down that dark brown one, third from the end.' They lifted it down, and, from the moment I touched it, I knew it must be mine! They told me it was made at Prague, a hundred and fifty years ago, and its price was three thousand marks. Luckily, I had my cheque-book in my pocket, also my card, Helen's card, my publisher's letter of introduction to the firm here, and my own letter of credit from my bankers. So they expressed themselves willing to take my cheque. I wrote it then and there, and marched out with the Infant. I first called it the Infant on the stairs, as we were leaving Zimmermann's, because I almost bumped its head! Isn't it a beauty?"

"Undoubtedly it is."

"They put on a new set of the very best strings," continued Ronnie; "supplied me with a good bow, and threw in a cake of rosin."

"What did you pay for the organ?" inquired Aubrey Treherne.

"Twenty-four pounds. Helen would not have a more expensive one. She is always telling me not to be extravagant."

"That, my dear boy, invariably happens to an impecunious fellow who marries a rich wife."

Ronnie flushed. "I am impecunious no longer," he said. "During the past twelve months I have made, by my books, a larger income than my wife's."

"I can well believe it," said Aubrey, cordially. "But I suppose she can never forget the fact that, when you married her, she paid your debts."

Ronald West sprang to his feet.

"Confound you!" he said, violently. "What do you mean? Helen never paid my debts! She found them out, I admit; but I paid them every one myself, with the first cheque I received from my publishers. I demand an explanation of your statement."

The other two members of the trio round the stove appeared completely unmoved by the fury of the young man who had leapt to his feet. The Infant of Prague leaned calmly against its chair, reflecting the fire in its polished surface, and pressing its one sharp foot into the parquet. Aubrey smiled, deprecatingly, and waved Ronnie back to his seat.

"My dear fellow, I am sure I beg your pardon. My cousin certainly gave her family to understand that she had paid your debts. No doubt this was not the case. We all know that women are somewhat given to exaggeration and inaccuracy. Think no more of it."

Ronnie sat down moodily in his chair.

"It was unlike Helen," he said, "and it was a lie. I shall find out with whom it originated. But you are a good fellow to take my word about it at once. I am obliged to you, Treherne."

"Don't mention it, West. Men rarely lie to one another. On the other hand women rarely speak the truth. What will my good cousin say to one hundred and fifty pounds being paid for a 'cello?"

"It will be no business of hers," said Ronnie, angrily. "I can do as I choose with my own earnings."

"I doubt it," smiled Aubrey Treherne.

"The man who married my cousin Helen, was bound to surrender his independence and creep under her thumb. I am grateful to you for having saved me from that fate. As no doubt she has told you, she refused me shortly before she accepted you."

Ronald's start of surprise proved at once to Aubrey his complete ignorance of the whole matter.

"I had no idea you were ever in love with my wife," he said.

"Nor was I, my dear fellow," sneered Aubrey Treherne. "Others, besides yourself, were after your wife's money."

A sense of impotence seized Ronald, in nightmare grip. Indignant and furious, he yet felt absolutely unable to contradict or to explain.

Suddenly he seemed to hear Helen's voice saying earnestly: "My cousin Aubrey is not a good man, Ronnie; he is not a man you should trust."

This vivid remembrance of Helen, brought him to his senses.

"I prefer not to discuss my wife," he said, with quiet dignity; "nor my relations with her. Let us talk of something else."

"By all means, my dear fellow," replied Aubrey. "You must pardon the indiscretion of cousinly interest. Tell me of your new book. Have you settled upon a title?"

But the instinct of authorship now shielded Ronnie.

"I never talk of my books, excepting to Helen, until they are finished," he said.

"Quite right," agreed Aubrey, cordially. "But you might tell me why this one took you to Central Africa. Is it a book of travels?"

"No; it is a love-story. But the scene is laid in wild places--ah, such places! One cannot possibly understand, until one gets there and does it, what it is like to leave civilisation behind, and crawl into long grass thirteen feet high!"

"It sounds weirdly fascinating," remarked Aubrey. "So unusual a setting, must mean a remarkable plot."

"It is the strongest thing I have done yet," said Ronnie, with enthusiasm.

Aubrey smiled, surveying Ronnie's eager face with slow enjoyment. He was mentally recalling phrases from reviews he had written for various literary columns, on Ronnie's work. Already he began wording the terse sentences in which he would point out the feebleness and lack of literary merit, in "the strongest thing" Ronnie had done yet. It might be well to know something more about it.

"It will be very unlike your other books," he suggested.

"Yes," explained Ronnie, expanding. "You see they were all absolutely English; just of our own set, and our own surroundings. I wanted something new. I couldn't go on letting my hero make love in an English garden."

"If you wanted a variety," suggested Aubrey Treherne, "you might have let him make love in another man's garden. Stolen fruits are sweet! There is always a fascination about trespassing."

"No, thank you," said Ronnie. "That would be Paradise Lost."

"Or Paradise Regained," murmured Aubrey.

"I think not. Besides--Helen reads my books."

"Oh, I see," sneered Aubrey. "So your wife draws the line?"

"I don't know what you mean," replied Ronnie. "Falsehood, frailty, and infidelity, do not appeal to me as subjects for romance. But, if they did, I certainly should not feel free to put a line into one of my books which I should be ashamed to see my own wife reading."

"Oh, safe and excellent standard!" mocked Aubrey Treherne. "No wonder you go down with the British public."

"I think, if you don't mind," said Ronald, with some heat, "we will cease to discuss my books and my public."

"Then there is but one subject left to us," smiled Aubrey--"the Infant of Prague! Let us concentrate our attention upon this entirely congenial topic. I wonder how long this dear child has remained dumb. I have seen many fine instruments in my time, West, but I am inclined to think your 'cello is the finest I have yet come across. Do you mind if I tune it, and try the strings?"

Ronnie's pleasure and enthusiasm were easily rekindled.

"Do," he said. "I am grateful. I do not even know the required notes."

Aubrey, leaning forward, carefully lifted the instrument, resting it against his knees. He took a tuning-fork from his pocket.

"It is tuned in fifths," he said. "The open strings are A, D, G, C. You can remember them, because they stand for 'Allowable Delights Grow Commonplace'; or, read the other way up: 'Courage Gains Desired Aims.'"

With practised skill he rapidly tightened the four strings into harmony; then, after carefully rosining the bow, rasped it with uncertain touch across them. The Infant squealed, as if in dire pain. Ronnie winced, obviously restraining himself with an effort from snatching his precious 'cello out of Aubrey's hands.

It did not strike him as peculiar that a man who played the violin with ease, should not be able to draw a clear tone from the open strings of a 'cello.

"I don't seem to make much of it," said Aubrey. "The 'cello is a difficult instrument to play, and requires long practice." And again he rasped the bow across the strings.

The Infant's wail of anguish gained in volume.

Ronnie sprang up, holding out eager hands. "Let _me_ try," he said. "It must be able to make a better sound than that!"

As he placed the 'cello between his knees, a look of rapt content came into his face. He slipped his left hand up and down the neck, letting his fingers glide gently along the strings.

Aubrey watched him narrowly.

Ronnie lifted the bow; then he paused. A sudden remembrance seemed to arrest the action in mid-air.

He laid his left hand firmly on the shoulder of the