Part 46 (1/2)

There were others on board, though, to whom this change was not so welcome, and who--for human nature is human after all--fervently wished this picked-up castaway--well--back again on the hulk from which he had been picked up. For Delia Calmour, with her beauty and tact and sunniness of disposition, had reigned a queen among the male section of the pa.s.sengers, and the long voyage, now nearing its close, had been long enough to render more than one heart rather sore.

”I must not monopolise you all day, and every day, like this, child,”

Wagram had said to her. ”You are good-nature itself towards a tiresome old bore with but one idea in his head. You must go and make things lively for the others a bit sometimes or I shall feel like an interloper.”

”Am I tiring you, then?” she would answer softly.

”Now, you know that is absurd. Still, I must not be selfish.”

”You--selfish? What next?”

”I'm afraid I am--very. Now, they are getting up that last fancy-dress dance before we get into what may possibly be rough water. Go and help them in that as you would have done before. I want to see you enjoying yourself. I am afraid I am too much of a fogey to cut into that sort of thing actively myself.”

She did not answer that ”that sort of thing” was an inane and vapid method of enjoying herself, compared with half-an-hour of ordinary conversation with him. She complied--and submissively. Incidentally, she found that the ”enjoyment” involved a heated pa.s.sage-of-arms with the third officer; item, subsequently with a fine young Australian whom she had refused twice during the voyage; but these were trifles light as air under the circ.u.mstances.

Then the days grew fewer and fewer, and the grey waters of the Bay of Biscay gave way to the greyer waters of the English Channel. The _Runic_ would soon be securely docked in her berth.

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

TIME'S CHANCE.

Wagram was seated in his private study at Hilversea, thinking.

It was a lovely spring morning, and through the open window came a very gurgle of bird voices from shrubbery and garden. The young green was rapidly shouldering out the winter brown of the woods, especially where the sprouting ta.s.sels of the larch coverts seem to grow beneath one's very gaze.

Ah, how good it was to be back home again after his wandering and exile and anguish of mind--to be back here in his idolised home, in peace till the end of his days--and surely it would be so. He had done his uttermost to find his half-brother, and had failed--had failed, possibly, because Everard was no longer in the land of the living-- murdered by that savage miscreant the renegade, so many of whose atrocities he himself had witnessed. And yet, if Develin Hunt's account of Everard were correct, it was possible that he might have been slain by the other acting in self-defence.

What a unique experience had this last one been. He had no idea as to the ident.i.ty of the wild tribes among whom he had moved, and the very haziest as to the part of the coast on which he had landed. As to the latter point, the opinions of the captain and officers of the _Runic_ had differed considerably; indeed, he was not quite sure whether they entirely believed his story in every particular--not implying that he had deliberately invented it, but that parts of it might be due to hallucination begotten of anxiety and privation.

”That you should come to board that derelict twice, with an interval of months between, and each time by a sheer accident, is one of the tallest sea experiences within my knowledge, Mr Wagram,” had said Gibson, the chief officer of the _Runic_, one day when he was disclosing parts of his story. And he had laughed good-humouredly, and agreed that it really must be.

As a matter of fact, he had been very reticent over his experiences; partly that they would sound rather too wonderful, and partly that the recollection of them was distressing to himself and he would fain help them to fade.

Well, if Everard were no longer alive he himself was just where he had been. But was he? There were others with a claim. No; there were not.

On this point he had seriously made up his mind. The very distant branch of the family--so distant, indeed, that it was doubtful whether it could establish a claim at all--he was not even acquainted with, but it was very wealthy. He remembered his father's solemn declaration: ”Morally, and in the sight of G.o.d, your position is just what it would have been but for this accident.” And his father had been right.

Whatever doubt as to this may have crossed his mind at the time the words were uttered it held none whatever now. He had been brought back to that position, so to say, in spite of himself, had been restored to it by a chain of occurrences well-nigh miraculous, so much so, indeed, that others could scarcely credit them. Surely the finger of Heaven had been directing them.

There was just one thorn beneath the rose leaves, and it spelt Develin Hunt. What if that worthy should, on hearing of his return, conclude to try for a little more blackmail? In that event he had made up his mind to defy him. He was in possession--and such ”possession” as that meant was practically una.s.sailable legally; and it was only with the legal side of the situation he felt now concerned. But nothing had been heard of the adventurer since he had received the last instalment of his price. He seemed to have disappeared as suddenly as he had arisen.

Decidedly Wagram's train of thought was strange that morning.

Everything had been restored to him--everything as it had been; and yet--and yet--something was wanting. A feeling as of loneliness was upon him--upon him, the envied of all his acquaintance. He missed his father now that he reigned alone--missed him every minute of the day.

The dear old man's chair at table, in which he himself now sat--he missed him even while he was sitting there; his constant flow of sparkling reminiscence, his pungent wit, his good-natured cynicism and his affection for himself; and yet--and yet--he missed something else.

What was it? The musical flow of a sweet young voice, the bright presence and ready and tactful sympathy of one who had been his companion for a short--in point of time, but in actual fact concentrated--fellows.h.i.+p. He went over again his first meeting with Delia Calmour and his father's unhesitating dictum upon the house of Calmour in general. ”A Calmour at Hilversea! Pho!” And now it seemed to him that the one thing lacking to render his cup of contentment full was the presence of one Calmour at Hilversea, and that one Delia.

Incidentally, it struck him that for present purposes it was a good thing that old Calmour had been removed to another, and, he hoped, a better world; but only incidentally, for, having come to the conclusion he had, the mere removal of old Calmour and Siege House to a remoter part of the realm than Ba.s.singham, and that under far greater conditions of comfort than that old toper could ever have pictured in his wildest dreams, would have been the merest matter of detail. However, old Calmour was no longer there, which simplified matters.

Then the cynical element came uppermost. His experience of the matrimonial bond had been lamentable; why, then, should he be ill-advised enough to make a second experiment of it? And yet--and yet--he had had ample opportunities of watching this girl, and she had seemed to s.h.i.+ne out as pure gold from the alloy of her surroundings and bringing up. He was no fool, and had a large experience of the seamy side of life, which was sufficient to safeguard him from illusions. She was in poor circ.u.mstances, and life to her must be one of struggle.

Such a bait as his position and wealth would be under the circ.u.mstances irresistible, but it was not under these circ.u.mstances that he wanted her. He was considerably her senior in years, and it was probable that in her young mind he ranked as a serious and elderly bore, whom she might have reason to hold in some regard, perhaps; but still--Against that, again, he remembered how that bright, beautiful face used to light up on such occasions as their first meeting of a morning, while on board s.h.i.+p, and on others. No; there was a spontaneity and genuineness about that expression that was due to no sordid motive.