The Black House in Harley Street/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
FORTUNE'S WILD WHEEL
People who remember the heat of the Derby Day in 1908, will remember also that the day which succeeded it was, if anything, still hotter. That Thursday the thermometer rose to 81 degrees in the shade; folk who sat out in the sun, as many and many a thousand did in the parks and public places of resort, felt as if they were being slowly roasted. There were Panama hats, light head-gear, and sunshades, cooling drinks, and ice-carts everywhere; men mopped perspiring foreheads, and hard-driven animals showed a desire to stop at every available water-trough. Overhead the sun blazed out of a leaden sky; the earth's surface burned beneath his ardent embraces. That section of London's overgrown population—no inconsiderable one—which is drawn from the south of Europe welcomed the heat, and dreamed dreams of Naples and Sicily as they lounged about the frowsy courts of Soho and the back streets of Hatton Garden; but there were not wanting those who were minded to grumble at the fierce sunlight, as being just as much a vagary of the English climate as the next winter hurricane. It was there to-day—where would it be to-morrow?
Nowhere in all the widespread expanse of London was that day's heat felt so much as in the city, where the streets are for the most part narrow and high, and where men are crowded together like sheep in a pen. It would have been hard to find a cool-looking man amidst the seething crowds around the Bank or in Leadenhall Street, or in Fenchurch Street, or in any of the thoroughfares where everybody bustles and hustles as if for dear life. True, there are plenty of delightfully shady nooks, cool enough in any weather, however tropical, in the old world squares and alleys of the city and behind the walls of its old churches, but who has time to stay in them when every one must get from some certain point to another in the shortest possible time? And so that strange hive of human bees sweltered, enduring in patience or cursing in impatience, while the sun grew hotter and hotter, and the pavements seemed as hard as adamant and as hot as a furnace.
Richard Goulburn, seated at his desk in his office at Messrs. Pepperall & Tardrew's, Tea Merchants, Mincing Lane, congratulated himself that it was well out of the sunlight. He remembered the vivid glare of the sun on the previous day, but that had been tempered by a stirring breeze; to-day, as he knew, having been out in the streets for half an hour at noon, there was no breeze, and the heat was great. The room in which he sat was at the back of the building, and looked into a court the walls of which were covered with white tiles, cool to look at and rarely get-at-able by the sun. He had been glad to sit in such cool quarters most of the morning, for he was feeling somewhat slack and washed-out after his adventures of the previous day, and the anxieties through which he had passed had affected his nerves. He was also in a state of pleasant reflection about the fairy godmother upon whom he had so curiously and unexpectedly alighted, and had paid much more attention to her than to his account-books and letters. She had said that this is a small world, and that they would meet again; he was cudgelling his brains to think how, when, and where such a delightful event could happen. Certainly he very much wanted to see her again.
Then he became melancholy, and asked himself what good it could do if he did meet her. She was a very nice young lady, who could afford to carry a roll of bank-notes in her purse and to stay at Claridge's Hotel; while he was a poor clerk, who earned just one hundred and twenty pounds a year and lived in a cheap boarding-house in Bloomsbury. Oh, if he were only a rich man, with a town house and a country house, and horses and carriages and a car or two and a yacht and——— The door of the room was suddenly thrust open, and a head just as suddenly presented itself round it in a fashion which suggested that somebody had cut the body completely away from it and was now presenting the head itself as a trophy of prowess with beheading axe or sword. It was a somewhat noticeable head presented in this fashion, being covered with a thick crop of very red hair, rather thatchlike in texture and arrangement, and having a face beneath the hair which was chiefly remarkable for a pair of twinkling eyes, a snub nose, a very large mouth cut in a straight line and turned up at the corners, and a quantity of freckles each as big as a threepenny bit. It was the sort of face at the sight of which children and music-hall audiences immediately burst into shrieks of immoderate and unreasoning laughter, and it had been a matter of perplexity and wonder to a good many people that it should be found inside a tea broker's office in Mincing Lane.
"Aren't you coming to grub, Dickie?" asked the detached head. "It's five past one—come on."
Goulburn, who had been scribbling the name Moira over and over again on a sheet of notepaper (just to see how it looked), tore the paper into small fragments and threw the latter into the waste-basket.
"Doesn't seem a grubby day, does it, Chris?" he said lazily. "The sight of a chop would make me ill."
The head came farther into the room, proving itself to be the capital of a somewhat diminutive body, the legs of which were short and the arms long. One of the arms raised a long thin hand to the ceiling dramatically.
"Speak not of chops," said the straight lips which curled upwards at the ends. "I abhor them. A little something light, now?—and strawberries, I hear, are cheap to-day."
"Oh, well, I suppose we may as well," answered Goulburn indifferently as he took down his hat. "Come on, then."
The owner of the red hair opened the door with exaggerated politeness and bowed the other out with mock ceremony.
"Always clowning, Chris," said Goulburn half-peevishly.
"Much better than always crying, my dear," replied Chris. "What's the matter, infant? You look a bit so-so."
"Weather," said Goulburn laconically. "Can't stand heat—especially in this beastly city."
"How now—how now!" said Chris, in affected horror. "Speakest thou ill words of our ancient City of London, base-born provincial? Nay but———"
"Oh, shut up!" said Goulburn. "If you want to play the fool, why don't you go on the stage and have done with it?"
"Because I am but a poor thing of no presence," answered Chris, as they turned into a popular restaurant. "If I had your godlike looks, my friend, and your hyacinthine locks, and your first-walking-gentleman air, I would indeed seek to tread the boards; as I am what I am, I shall study the romance of tea in Mincing Lane. But what it the matter, Dick? You looked tired this morning when we walked in together, and now you look quite disgusted with life. Result of getting a day off and going to the Derby, eh, my son?"
Goulburn made no reply for a moment; at last, leaning over the table at which they had seated themselves, he said, in a low and meaning voice—
"I dare say I know why I'm looking a bit sick of life, Chris. It's just this. I'm tired of being poor. Tired of—a hundred and twenty a year. Tired of a Bloomsbury boarding-house. Tired of having to think about every penny before spending it. You know!"
Chris, who was eating strawberries and cream, shook his head.
"Yes," he said, "I know. You took envious glances at the coaches at Epsom yesterday, and wondered how it was that their occupants could lunch on champagne and pâté de foie gras, while you did ditto on a glass of lukewarm ale and a stale ham sandwich. Come off it, Dick—that never did any good. You're as much better off with your one hundred and twenty a year than the man who has nothing as they are than you."
"I never looked at the people on the coaches nor thought of them either," said Goulburn. "I didn't envy them, for I never recognised their existence. I say I'd like to be rich, not because other people are rich, but because I want to be rich."
"Subtle difference," answered Chris. "All right, old chap—get rich! Do it here slow, or go to America and do it quick!"
"I would go to America if I thought I could make a fortune there rapidly," said Goulburn.
"Would you? Well, thank God, I wouldn't!" exclaimed Chris heartily. "No, my boy; London is good enough for me. I am content and 'umble. Can't say I should object to another hundred tacked on to my modest competency, but———"
"Just think what it would mean to have so much money that you could do anything you liked!" said Goulburn, interrupting him and speaking with some fervour. "To be able to go where you like and when you like; to have houses, and horses, and yachts———"
"And every beggar in town on your doorstep, and your letter-box filled with appeals for charity written by impostors," said Chris. "Beautiful!"
"It is one of the pleasures of wealth to be able to give or lend to really necessitous cases," said Goulburn loftily.
Chris jumped in his chair with well-affected surprise.
"Noble and lofty sentiments!" he said. "And from one so young! Look here, Dick, do you think the sun got into your head a bit yesterday? You're not given to grousing about your hard lot, nor to talking cheap sentiment. Surely, old chap, you haven't fallen in love?"
"What use would that be on a hundred and twenty a year?" said Goulburn, rather more bitterly than his friend liked.
"Um! I don't know," said Chris. "I don't think love has got very much to do with the state of one's purse."
"No; but one's purse has got a good deal to do with the chances of being able to marry the girl you care about," said Goulburn. "Supposing a poor man falls in love with a very rich young woman———, and Well, what is it, Phillips?"
An office-boy had entered the restaurant and came slowly along the centre passage searching the faces of the men seated on either side of the room. At last he had caught sight of Goulburn, and had advanced to the table at which he and Christopher Aspinall sat.
"If you please, Mr. Goulburn, Mr. Pepperall sent me out to find you and to tell you that he wanted to see you at once, sir," said the office-boy. "I told him I thought you'd be here."
"Does he want me too?" asked Chris, as Goulburn rose.
"No, sir—he only said Mr. Goulburn."
"I wonder what he wants?" said Goulburn, reaching for his hat.
"To tell you that you're the lost heir and are really a duke with fifty thousand a year," said Chris. "If the old man doesn't keep you long, Dick, come back, and we'll have a smoke. You're entitled to half an hour yet."
Goulburn left the restaurant and went slowly back to the office. Never dreaming that the senior partner wanted to see him about anything more important than some trifling business matter, he let his thoughts go back to the day before. At half-past one, an insignificant atom amongst the vast crowds on the Downs, he had been full of hope that he would win; two hours later he had been in the very depths of disappointment and regret; still later he had made the acquaintance, under romantic circumstances, of a girl whose face and voice he could not get out of his mind. She had been the bright spot in his Derby Day-he wasn't sure that he wouldn't lose another twenty pounds just to see her once again.
"I suppose I'm in love with the thought of her," he said gloomily. "I might as well cry for the moon."
He walked into the office, laid his hat down, and knocked at the door of Mr. Pepperall's private room. He heard voices inside; then the senior partner's voice cried "Come in!" and Goulburn turned the handle of the door and entered.
There were two men in the room—Mr. Pepperall himself, a tall, rather portly old man, who affected old-fashioned collars, and cravats, and very voluminous frock-coats, and whose whiskers were always carefully brushed to a point exactly corresponding on each cheek; and a younger but still elderly man with a keen, observant, clean-shaven face, whose whole appearance suggested the highly respectable solicitor. This gentleman, as Goulburn entered the room, scanned him narrowly. As for the senior partner, his clerk saw very plainly that he was unwontedly nervous, if not agitated. He rose, rubbing his hands, as if he were somewhat embarrassed.
"Er—Mr. Goulburn," he said hurriedly, "I'm sure—er—very sorry to interrupt you at your lunch, but the fact is that this gentleman—Mr. Conybeare, this young gentleman is Mr. Goulburn—is anxious to have a little conversation with you on an important matter which he has already mentioned to me. Perhaps," concluded Mr. Pepperall, still palpably nervous and embarrassed and still rubbing his hands, "perhaps I had better retire, Mr. Conybeare, so that you and Mr. Goulburn may———"
Mr. Conybeare held up a plump white hand on the little finger of which a fine diamond ring sparkled.
"By no means on my behalf, I pray, Mr. Pepperall," he said, with polite deprecation. "Never turn a man out of his own chair or his own room, you know, eh? And I am sure that Mr. Goulburn will have no objection to your hearing anything I have to say to him—eh, Mr. Goulburn?"
Goulburn, who had listened to all this with feelings of utter mystification, bowed his head.
"Certainly not, sir," he said. Then he added, as with an afterthought, "I haven't really the slightest notion of what you can have to say to me."
Mr. Conybeare chuckled; Mr. Pepperall, who rarely, in Goulburn's experience of him, showed signs of mirth, smiled and nodded his head.
"Can't think what I can have to say to him!" exclaimed Mr. Conybeare. "Ah, ah, see what it is to be mysterious—the mysterious, by the bye, enters largely into my profession, Mr. Pepperall—oh, I assure you, yes. Well, the fact is, my dear sir," he continued, turning to Goulburn and assuming a very business-like manner, "I wish to have a short conversation with you and to ask you a few questions, and I hope and believe that the result will prove eminently satisfactory. But won't you be seated?"
"Oh, I beg pardon, I beg pardon!" exclaimed Mr. Pepperall. "Pray be seated—pray be seated, Mr. Goulburn."
Goulburn, who never remembered being invited to take a seat in the senior partner's private room before, did so, wondering what was coming. He turned toward Mr. Conybeare, who had produced some papers.
"Yes, sir?" he said.
"My dear young gentleman," said Mr. Conybeare, "from a little conversation which I have just had with Mr. Pepperall, I am, I believe, quite justified in saying that you are Richard Goulburn, aged twenty-four, the only son of the late Reverend Samuel Goulburn, who was vicar of Little Diddington, in the county of Oakshire, from 1869 until 1901, and that you yourself were born in that parish on June 15, 1883?"
"You are quite right, sir," replied Goulburn.
"You have an only sister, whose Christian name is Maisie?"
"Yes, sir."
"Mr. Pepperall, who tells me that he knew your father for a long period of years, tells me also that your sister is governess in his son's family."
"That is so, sir."
"There would not be the slightest difficulty in proving the identity of yourself and your sister as the only children of the late Reverend Samuel Goulburn?"
"Not the slightest, sir."
Mr. Pepperall rubbed his hands together and echoed his clerk's words—
"Not the slightest, sir!"
Mr. Conybeare produced a very large silk handkerchief, and mopped his forehead. This done, he rose with a countenance composed to extreme solemnity, and advancing to Goulburn extended his plump white hand.
"Then, my dear sir," he said, "allow me to congratulate you on being a very fortunate young man. It is my pleasing duty to inform you that your late uncle, my esteemed client, the late Mr. Nathaniel Goulburn, formerly of Chicago but recently of London, has left you and your sister Maisie his entire fortune—two-thirds to you, sir; one-third to her. The—er—the amount in question is—er—roughly speaking, seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Sir, permit me to shake you by the hand."
"And permit me to offer my congratulations also, Goulburn," said Mr. Pepperall, who was quite overcome. "Dear me! dear me! What extraordinary things one does hear of! Um—God bless my soul! I think, Mr. Conybeare, that this joyous occasion might prove a proper excuse for—eh?—a glass of champagne— eh? I have some excellent wine in this cupboard. Ah, yes, a clean glass. Dear me! Dear me! Seven—hundred—and—fifty thousand! My dear Goulburn, I am delighted."
The recipient of these congratulations was just then scarcely in a state to hear them. He was in a dream. Only a few minutes ago he had grumbled to his friend Christopher Aspinall because he was poor; now he was rich—rich—much richer than he had ever dreamed of being even after a life of long and eminently successful toil. And somehow, he scarcely dared to realise it. Half a million of money! And his sister—just as rich as himself. What would she say?
"It will be some time before I can really realise it," he said, when Mr. Pepperall had forced a glass of champagne into his hand and had made him drink it off. "It seems—unbelievable."
"Solid, unmistakable, tangible fact, my dear sir," said the man of law. "As much a fact, sir, as the Bank of England."
"There is something I wish you would tell me, then," said Goulburn, "and that is—when did my Uncle Nathaniel die and where? and how long had he been in England? and how was it that he did not communicate with his relatives?—though, to be sure, Maisie and I are all he had left, and I dare say no one knew where we had got to."
"My dear sir," replied Mr. Conybeare, "I will give you the information in brief. Your Uncle Nathaniel, who, from what I saw of him, was an eccentric man, returned to this country in the autumn of last year; and because he desired to be near a certain eminent physician, Sir Adolphus Yorstoun, who, as you know, is the man of the day for gout, he bought himself a house in Harley Street, and there he lived, in the strictest seclusion, until his death, which occurred about six weeks since. Now, some weeks before his death he sent for me,—for the pure and simple reason that I had once met him in crossing the Atlantic, and that he had taken a fancy to me,—and told me to draw up his will on the lines I have indicated to you. When it came to inserting the addresses of yourself and your sister, he frankly said that he didn't know where you were. I suggested making inquiries—he wouldn't hear of them. What he said in effect was this: 'I'm going to die, and I don't want to be bothered by anything or anybody. I've done with my money, and Sam's youngsters shall have it. I don't know where they are—find them when I'm gone.' I objected that they might be dead—he wouldn't hear a word, and observed that all the Goulbourns were long-lived. So the will was duly made, attested, and executed, and soon afterwards he died."
"How was it we never heard of his death?" asked Goulburn.
"It would have been a wonder if you had, sir," replied the solicitor, with a dry laugh. "I told you he was eccentric—well, you can judge of his eccentricity from a few little things. He paid his doctor in cash as soon as he could get him to tell him definitely how long he would live. He paid my firm—Conybeare, Hamilton, & Calfin, of Bedford Row—in just the same way at the same time, and exacted from us a solemn promise that we would faithfully carry out his last wishes. He desired to be buried in the plainest possible fashion, to be followed to the grave by no one but myself, and to have the plainest of tombstones set up over his grave the day after his burial with nothing but his initials and the date of his death carved upon it. Of course, we followed everything out exactly as he wished. Then the next thing to do was to find Mr. Richard Goulburn and Miss Maisie Goulburn—eh?"
Mr. Conybeare winked, and took a sip of his champagne.
"Now you may think that that was an easy task considering that fortunes of such value were awaiting those fortunate young people," he continued. "But I can assure you both that it was one of the most difficult tasks I had ever been brought to face, because, beyond the fact that you, Mr. Goulburn, and your sister were the children of the Reverend Samuel Goulburn, and were both born at Little Diddington, we had nothing to go on. Then the old gentleman had laid upon us a strict charge that we should do nothing to find you until he had been in his grave exactly forty-two days—he had had some fad about that. Well, when that period had expired, which is a few days ago, I personally went down to Little Diddington and made inquiries, first verifying and copying the requisite entries in the parish registers. But beyond ascertaining that you had both left the village after your father's death, I could learn nothing, though some people thought you were both in London, while others were certain you had gone to America. So I came back to town, and we were going to commence inquiries in the ordinary way when—well, I suddenly discovered—this very morning—that there was a Richard Goulburn, nephew of a Nathaniel Goulburn, in the employ of Messrs. Pepperall & Tardrew in Mincing Lane, whereupon I came here at once, and—well, gentlemen, I think I may conclude by varying the words of the great Roman and saying, 'I came—I saw—I have found.'"
"Yes," said Goulburn. "But—how did you find? Pardon me, but I'm curious to know how you got the information that I was here."
Mr. Conybeare smiled enigmatically.
"Ah, my dear sir, we lawyers learn many secrets," he said, "and we acquire knowledge in many strange ways. Rest content, sir, with the knowledge that you are undoubtedly the real Simon Pure, and may enter into your heritage at once, if you so please. The executors of your uncle's will are myself and my junior partner, Benjamin Calfin, and we will expedite matters as quickly as possible. There is your uncle's house ready for you in Harley Street, beautifully furnished, full of works of art, and newly decorated. Bring your sister to see me to-morrow at eleven o'clock, and we will settle everything that is at present necessary."
Goulburn presently left the senior partner's private room and went thoughtfully to the office, where he knew he would find Chris at work. That worthy was just opening a big ledger—at sight of his friend's preoccupied face he shut it with a bang.
"No bad news, old chap, I hope?" he said.
Goulburn shook his head. He crossed the floor and laid his hand on the little man's shoulder.
"Chris," he said, "I've come into a fortune. My uncle's left me five hundred thousand pounds."
Christopher Aspinall's eyes bulged. Christopher Aspinall's mouth widened into an enormous circle. He seized his friend's hands and wrung them without a word.
"And Chris—he's left Maisie two hundred and fifty thousand."
Then Chris found his tongue. He uttered something like a moan, and, dropping his arms on his desk, hid his face in them and moaned again. Goulburn bent over him anxiously.
"What is it, Chris?" he asked. "What is it, old boy?"
Chris groaned.
"I love Maisie, Dick!" he said—"loved her for years. And—I—I believe she loves me, ugly as I am. And now—oh, hang your old uncle!—some duke'll be making up to her."
Goulburn laughed for the first time that day.
"Shut up, you old ass!" he said. "If Maisie cares for you, all the money in the world wouldn't keep her from you. Look here: as soon as we leave the office, we'll go down to South Kensington to see her and tell her the news. And I'll stand you a bottle of champagne on the way, Chris, my boy, and you can ask Maisie to marry you this very night if you like, with my brotherly blessing to both of you—so there! Heavens, Chris! it's like a dream! But it's true—it's true!"
That evening, as the two friends walked along the south side of Hyde Park in the direction of the Albert Gate, Chris, who was staring about him, suddenly felt Goulburn grip his shoulder. He turned inquiringly—-to see an eager, excited look on his friend's face.
"What's the matter, Dick?" he asked.
"Chris," said Goulburn, in a low voice, "go straight on to Maisie's, and take her into Kensington Gardens. If I don't meet you near the pond there—you know where—take her home, and come to my place at ten o'clock. Tell her the news, and say I shall call for her at nine in the morning. Don't ask questions now, Chris. I've just seen some one I must speak to to-night."
Then he turned and went back by the way they had come—in search of a certain carriage in which he had seen the lady of Epsom Downs.