Convict B 14: A Novel - free ebook by R. K. (Rose Kirkpatrick) Weekes

CONVICT B14

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CHAPTER I JANUA VITÆ

When men shall say, Peace, and all things are safe, then shall sudden destruction come upon them, as sorrow cometh upon a woman travailing with child, and they shall not escape. At the entrance of a green valley, where the Easedale beck came down from Easedale Tarn, scattering its silver tresses loose over the rocks at Sour Milk Gill, and hurrying to join the Rotha at Goody Bridge, stood a wayside hostelry: a spruce gray villa, overflowing with flowers under white and green sun-blinds and a glas

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CHAPTER II A LIE THAT IS HALF A TRUTH

Trent lay as he had fallen, with his head on the fender, in a pool of blood which slowly enlarged itself and sopped into the carpet. The sharp edge had fractured his skull. He was stone dead, beyond possibility of doubt, yet both men by a common instinct knelt down and tried to loosen his collar. The heavy head tumbled sideways, against Denis's arm. He sprang up and retreated, with a violent shudder. "Poor beggar! Poor beggar!" said Gardiner under his breath. "I never saw anything so ghastly in

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CHAPTER III NOCTURNE

I saw a dream that made me afraid, and the thoughts of my bed and the visions of my head troubled me.— Daniel. Under the canopy of stars Harry Gardiner lay awake thinking of his sins; among which he did not, then or later, include any responsibility for the death of Trent. It was a shocking business, of course, and he was sorry, exceedingly sorry, things had turned out as they had; but it was no fault of his. You had to put a stopper on that sort of thing, in the interests of public decency. He

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CHAPTER IV WHEN FIRST WE PRACTICE TO DECEIVE

Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.— Proverbs. Fatality at Grasmere The inquest on the body of Major Trent, who was killed by a fall at the Easedale Hotel, Grasmere, on Thursday evening, was conducted by Dr. Ellis, coroner for Westmorland, at the Easedale Hotel on Friday. Mr. Helmsley Trent, of Perche Place, Marybourne, Hants, identified the body as that of his brother, Major Guy Glisson Trent, of Thurlow Park, Surrey, and stated that the age

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CHAPTER V THE FLY ON THE WALL

Three days after the inquest Denis came up to town to interview a timber merchant as to a contract about which there had been a difference of opinion. He looked down on the man through his eyeglass, carried all his points, and departed, leaving exasperation in his wake. After this, finding he had some hours to spare before he need catch his train to Bredon, he went to pay a call on his cousin Lettice. Denis was, like his friend Gardiner, the son of a clergyman; but not of a poor country parson.

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CHAPTER VI SIC TRANSIT

On a cold morning in July, 1913, Lettice climbed down from a Belgian third-class carriage, dragging her luggage behind her, and found herself at Graide station, province of Luxemburg. Lettice was an expert in the art of traveling cheaply. She had left Victoria the previous afternoon, in a slow train, because the boat expresses don't take third-class passengers. After a wait at Dover, she had crossed by night in the fetid atmosphere of the second-class ladies' cabin of the old Rapide , and had be

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CHAPTER VII AUBADE

The house was asleep. The white corridor was filled with blue reflections of the sky, from the French window open at its north end; but the blind of the south window opposite glowed golden, and streaks of sunlight slipped in, slanting up the wall. The house was asleep, every one was asleep except the sun, who had just risen to his beneficent work, rejoicing as a giant to run his course. Denis's kitten (he had saved her from some boys who wanted to drown her in the river) poked her small black in

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CHAPTER VIII AMANDUS, -A, -UM

"Mine is a long and a sad tale," said the Mouse, sighing. The Bellevue, when Gardiner first set eyes on it, was a cross between a hostelry and a farm, tumbled round three sides of a quadrangle where black-and-white pigs rooted and grunted, among middens and mangy grass, under the windows of the dining-room. The Ardennes hotel of those days had no drains, no baths, no basins bigger than soup-plates and not many towels, no easy-chairs, no salons; in fact, none of the comforts of a refined home. Th

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CHAPTER IX MELODRAMATIC

"Louisa!" "Yes, Miss Dot?" "Has either of those two recognized you?" "Well, miss, Mr. Smith haven't, that's sure. I might be a sack of potatoes for all the notice he takes. Men he'll look at, and I'd be sorry to be the one as tried to do him; but women—no. He's a real gentleman, he is. He've taken his ticket for up above, and he ain't goin' to waste it." "And the other one?" "Mr. Gardiner? I see him stare at me pretty hard times and again, but it's always, 'Now, have I seen you before or haven't

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CHAPTER X A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS

On the day after Denis left the Bellevue, Dorothea also departed, with her mountain of trunks. She did not see Gardiner again. Louisa paid the bill. The feelings of the rejected lover, who had to make up the account and take the money, deserve mention as being probably unique. On the second morning after this, Lettice received a letter from her cousin, inclosing a cheque for £20 and an entreaty that she would stay on at the Bellevue. "Send it back, my dear girl, if you don't feel like taking it,

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CHAPTER XI COSAS DE BRUJAS

"My dearest dear, will you come for a little walk?" "Muy señora mia, with all the pleasure in life." Lettice, who was stooping over a new kitten which she had adopted since the departure of Geraldine, straightened herself and looked at Gardiner with a discouraging expression. They were at the back of the house; she had been about to climb the steep hill orchard to watch the sunset when her minute friend charged out of the kitchen door, on her weak little legs no thicker than matches, with her ti

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CHAPTER XII ALL IN THE AIR

Sydney Wandesforde, Denis's partner, was a big, heavy-featured, heavily built man, whose appearance nobody could have called aristocratic. Plutocratic was more like it. There had been patent pills on the distaff side of his ancestry, and unfortunately he had taken after them, instead of after the belted earls of the paternal line. He had, however, the easy manners, the clean movements, the soft voice of his class, and if he was plain he looked able. He had never got beyond surnames with Denis; w

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CHAPTER XIII ONE NAIL DRIVES OUT ANOTHER

There is a legend which says that September is the month of the fading leaf. Townsmen may fancy so, looking at their own starved avenues, which begin to shrivel and strip themselves as early as July; but in the country the massive woods (except that an elm here and there hangs out a single crocus-yellow spray) keep the somber green of late summer to the very end of the month. Then, as the days pass, first the lime "strips to the cold and standeth naked above her yellow attire." The horse-chestnu

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CHAPTER XIV A TWO-EDGED SWORD

There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.— Proverbs. In his salad days, a long time ago, Denis had fallen in love with the daughter of a respectable suburban fishmonger, after tumbling out of the sky on the roof of her house. The young lady's parents were rich but honest; the young lady herself—well, she had an extremely pretty face, which occupied Denis to the exclusion of a blue and yellow sports coat and a large string of pearls. His love dream l

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CHAPTER XV WANTED

The hamlet of Woodlands is near Wrotham, in the county of Kent. To reach it you must take the old Chatham and Dover at Victoria and get out at Otford, a sweet-scented village sitting at ease in the wide vale of the Darenth. Leaving that behind, you will turn eastwards by the Pilgrims' Way, which winds along the lower spurs of the Downs, above Kemsing, Ightham, St. Clere, on its way to Canterbury. That too you leave in half-a-mile, and strike into the hills on your left, up a perpendicular lane w

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CHAPTER XVI COUNSEL OF PERFECTION

Gardiner was just one second too late. As he reached the back door the police arrived at the front; and they saw him. The Wrotham man, who had known him as a wicked small boy, raised a sort of view-hallo and dashed into the hall in pursuit. But Tom's broad figure was in the way (not obstructing the police, oh dear, no, nothing further from his mind, just solidly, immovably stupid!); and while Cotterill dodged round him, Gardiner had time to slip through the back door, slam it and turn the key in

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CHAPTER XVII A GREEN THOUGHT IN A GREEN SHADE

Gardiner bought himself an outfit at a second-hand dealer's in one of the back streets off the Vauxhall Bridge Road. His plan was to ride as far as the next station before Southampton, leave his machine at the cloak-room there, and change his clothes in some wood before going on into the town. Once among the docks, he would slip on board some outward-bound ship, if he could find one about to sail and if he could evade the night watchman, and stow away till she was at sea. Such things are still d

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CHAPTER XVIII WHEN THE HEART SUFFERS A BLOW

Flying is no sport for the sluggard. The calmest hours of the twenty-four are often those before the dawn, and the earnest aviator must be ready to turn out of his warm bed at six, five, four, even three o'clock in the morning, whether in the pleasant summer, or in the correspondingly unpleasant winter. He may then have to spend long hours at the 'drome waiting for the fog to lift, or the rain to clear, or the wind to drop; and in the end, as like as not, he may have to go home, wet, chilly, and

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CHAPTER XIX DU PARTI DU GRAND AIR

The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.— Book of Job. Ten days later, after his examination before the Borough Bench at Westby, Gardiner was committed to the February Assizes on a charge of manslaughter. Bail not being allowed, he spent the intervening months in Westby Jail. Lettice, in common with the rest of the world who haven't been to prison, knew nothing of the rules and regulations applying to a prisoner on remand. She did know, ho

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CHAPTER XX ROUGH JUSTICE

A true witness delivereth souls.— Proverbs. Late in February a blizzard swept over the north; it was followed by still, intense, stringent cold. By night the fogs were dense; by day the white world glittered in sunshine. Trees of snow-blossom and iron filigree raised their heads, as white as plumes, against a china-blue sky. Posts, hedges, buildings, snow-hooded and sparkling, rising out of pearly frost-haze, threw azure shadows on the softly rippled velvet of the drift. Country lanes were burie

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CHAPTER XXI HEU QUAM MUTATUS

When the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live?— Ezekiel. The prison gates shut. Silence fell. The troubled waters settled into calm. Tom went back to Queenstown; Mr. Gardiner to Woodlands—and to bed, with a couple of nurses in attendance. Denis was presumably at Dent-de-lion, working for the Aero Show. Mrs. Trent had gone no one knew whither. And Lettice, her duty done, had escaped unmolested to her

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CHAPTER XXII BREAD AND SALT

Lettice had had no tea, but she did not stay for it; she uprooted herself, setting back her chair without a sound, and flitted inconspicuously out of the exhibition. On her slow way home, in Tube and omnibus, she did some concentrated thinking. She was not surprised when Beatrice rushed up from the basement to inform her that a lady was waiting in her room, a dazzling lady who had arrived in a taxi-cab; she needed not Beatrice's ecstatic description to tell her who that lady was. She had caught

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CHAPTER XXIII DIEU DISPOSE

I thought to promote thee unto great honor, but, lo, the Lord hath kept thee back from honor.— Numbers. At the moment when Lettice and Dorothea were sitting down to bread and salt in Canning Street, Denis was leaning over a rustic bridge in the garden of Mrs. Byrne's week-end cottage. By what difficult, obscure, and tortuous paths he had been wandering in those days he could not have told, nor could any one have followed. Dorothea had done him the worst injury; she had broken his faith. His love

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CHAPTER XXIV THE FIRST ROUND

Better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.— Proverbs. Seven years of prison doctoring had not blunted the first fine temper of Leonard Scott's sympathy. Doctors in general, even in ordinary practice, have to harden themselves or break down; Scott stuck to his work year after year, and yet contrived to remain as tender-hearted as a novice at his first death-bed. He was steeped in that fount of love and strength, romance and poetry, known as the Catholic faith. Not the Roman C

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CHAPTER XXV I SENT A LETTER TO MY LOVE

The gas was not carried up to the attics of No. 22 Canning Street. Late-comers had to stumble in the dark up the last flight of stairs, and bark their shins over the brooms and pails which Beatrice invariably left standing about on the landing. One evening in April Lettice was sitting at work, brow buried in her hands, tensely courting the Muse, when she was startled by a sudden tremendous clatter. The door burst open and Denis fell into the room, in company with a mop and a banister brush. "Dea

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CHAPTER XXVI "E"

August, 1914, on the Semois. How hot it was! The white walls of the farm, its squat white tower, its steep roofs of ink-blue slate, all stood out, crude as the painted scenery of a diorama, against the solid azure of the sky. It had been a fort, this farm, in the days when Belgium was the cockpit of Europe; but now golden straws protruded from the loopholes, and sparrows were flying out and in. The garden had its roses, the lattices their geraniums, and on the sill a sandy cat was curled up in a

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CHAPTER XXVII SHE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH

"Yes, Mackenzie? What now?" "I've brought ye B14, sir." "Why don't you show him in, then?" "Well, sir, I'm thinking he's no' altogether to be trustit. I thought maybe if ye'd permit me to be in the room—" "Trusted? Nonsense, man! I'm not made of glass. Bring him in at once." And as Mackenzie turned reluctantly to obey, the Governor added: "You can stand in a corner and see fair play, if you like. But I don't think a little whippersnapper like our friend would make much of it if he tried to tackl

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CHAPTER XXVIII DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES

Lettice and Dorothea arrived at the Bellevue in May. By the end of July their guests were scattering like autumn leaves, and on the day of the ultimatum Lettice took matters into her own hands, sent off the servants and shut the hotel. She did not in the least want to follow them—Lettice was not fond of running away; but for Dorothea's sake she was making up her mind to that sacrifice, when she discovered that Dorothea herself had other views. She go and hide? Rather not! She was going to stay a

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CHAPTER XXIX THE GOOD HOURS

" ... All villages, châteaux, and houses are burnt down during this night. It was a beautiful sight to see the fires all round us in the distance. In every village one finds only heaps of ruins and many dead. Now come the good hours...."—Diary of German private, 4th Comp. Jäger Btln., No. 11., Aug. 23-27, 1914. When the dawn came, crystal-bright and pure, the two girls left the ruins of the Bellevue and wandered off among the hills. They had no food. They did not know where they were going. They

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CHAPTER XXX CONFESSIO AMANTIS

Not so very many miles from Rochehaut, in an empty loft, Denis was studying a map spread out on a packing-case. On the other side of their table Wandesforde sat writing a letter on his knee. Partly by good luck, and partly because Wandesforde was an expert in the art later known as wangling things, they had contrived to keep together almost from the first; at present they were in the same squadron, and sharing the same billet, much to Denis's advantage. For Wandesforde, wherever he was, on the p

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CHAPTER XXXI THE LUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD

"Lettice, I've been down to Poupehan!" Lettice was darning her stockings in the shade of the tower. Lettice would have darned her stockings on the Judgment Day. She suspended her work to look up, slowly, at Dorothea. Rose-brown, panting from the steep hill, lips laughing, eyes sparkling with excitement, she flung herself down among the stubble and the pink convolvuluses and fanned her face with her handkerchief. "Oh, I'm so hot! I ran nearly the whole way. I went to try for a paper, and I fell o

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CHAPTER XXXII PER ARDUA AD ASTRA

Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.— St. Luke. In the days of her not far distant childhood Dorothea had never loved any game like hide-and-seek; she flung herself into her present escapade with much the same zest and little more discretion. Her plan, so far as she had one, was to lie up in the fir wood till a search-party appeared, then show herself and give them a lead away from the farm. The rest she left to chance, naïvely confident that the

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CHAPTER XXXIII THE ONE SHALL BE TAKEN

"Are your minds set upon righteousness, O ye congregation?" inquired Mr. Roche in skeptical tones. It was Sunday morning, and all prisoners having the white Church of England ticket on their doors had been rounded up for the chapel. Not that that was any hardship, for they liked the service; it was commendably short, there were plenty of hymns, and even the lessons, as read by Dr. Scott in his voice of gold, were really quite amusing, especially the chroniques scandaleuses of the Old Testament.

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CHAPTER XXXIV SHE ALONE CHARMETH MY SADNESS

Oh, believe me, Nell, it is an awful thing to be a wife.— Charlotte Brontë. Lettice, dragging up the steps of No. 33 Canning Street, paused to unfasten her waterproof and shake her wet umbrella. It was raining, it seemed to have been raining ever since she got back to town, chill November rain, a yellow haze down every street; and the weather matched her mood. Ever since April she had been trying to shut her eyes to the future, but as time drew on it refused to be ignored. It lay in wait outside

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