CHAPTER VIII.
A MIDNIGHT VISITOR
"Not yet," Julian called down in answer to the other's remark, "though I am going directly. Only it is so hot. I hope I am not disturbing the house."
"Not at all. Do what you like. We often sit here till long after midnight, since it is the only cool time of the twenty-four hours. Will you come down again and join us?"
"No, if you'll excuse me. I'll take a turn or two here and then go to bed."
Whereon as he spoke, he began to walk up and down the balcony.
It ran (as has been said of the lower one on which Sebastian and Madame Carmaux were seated) round the whole of the house, so that, had Julian desired to do so, he could have commenced a tour of the building which, by being continued, would eventually have brought him back to the spot where he now was. He contented himself, however, with commencing to walk towards the right-hand corner of the great rambling mansion, proceeding as far upon it as led to where the balcony turned at the angle, then, after a glance down its--at that place--darkened length, he retraced his steps, meaning to proceed to the opposite or left-hand corner.
Doing so, however, and coming thus in front of his bedroom window, from which, since the blind was up, the light of his lamp streamed out on to the broad wooden floor of the balcony, he saw lying at his feet a small object which formed a patch of colour on the dark boards. A patch which was of a pale roseate hue, the thing being, indeed, a little spray, now dry and faded, of the oleander flower. And he knew, felt sure, where he had seen that spray before.
"I know now," he said to himself, "who turned the slat--who stood outside my window looking in on me."
Picking up the withered thing, he, nevertheless, continued his stroll along the balcony until he arrived at the left angle of the house, when he was able to glance down the whole of that side of it, this being as much in the dark and unrelieved by any light from within as the corresponding right side had been. Unrelieved, that is, by any light except the gleam of the great stars which here glisten with an incandescent whiteness; and in that gleam he saw sitting on the floor of the balcony--her back against the wall, her arms over her knees and her head sunk on those arms--the half-caste girl, Zara, the croupier of the gambling-table to which Sebastian had supplied the "bank" that morning at All Pines.
"You have dropped this flower from your hair," he said, tossing it lightly down to her, while she turned up her dark, dusky eyes at him and, picking up the withered spray, tossed it in her turn contemptuously over the balcony. But she said nothing and, a moment later, let her head droop once more towards her arms.
"Do you pass the night here?" he said now. "Surely it is not wholesome to keep out in open air like this."
"I sit here often," she replied, "before going to bed in my room behind. The rooms are too warm. I disturb no one."
For a moment he felt disposed to say that it would disturb him if she should again take it into her head to turn his blinds, but, on second considerations, he held his peace. To know a thing and not to divulge one's knowledge is, he reflected, sometimes to possess a secret--a clue--a warning worth having; to possess, indeed, something that may be of use to us in the future if not now, while, for the rest--well! the returning of the spray to her had, doubtless, informed the girl sufficiently that he was acquainted with the fact of how she had been outside his window, and that it was she who had opened his blind wide enough to allow her to peer in on him.
"Good-night," he said, turning away. "Good-night," and without waiting to hear whether she returned the greeting or not, he went back to the bedroom. Yet, before he entered it, he bent over the balcony and called down another "good-night" to Sebastian, who, he noticed, had now been deserted by Madame Carmaux.
For some considerable time after this he walked about his room; long enough, indeed, to give Sebastian the idea that he was preparing for bed, then, although he had removed none of his clothing except his boots, he put out the lamp.
"If the young lady is desirous of observing me again," he reflected, "she can do so. Yet if she does, it will not be without my knowing it. And if she should pay me another visit--why, we shall see."
But, all the same, and because he thought it not at all unlikely that some other visitor than the girl might make her way, not only to the blind itself but even to the room, he laid his right arm along the table so that his fingers were touching the revolver that he had now placed on that table.
"I haven't taken countless middle watches for nothing in my time," he said to himself; "another won't hurt me. If I do drop asleep, I imagine I shall wake up pretty easily."
He was on the alert now, and not only on the alert as to any one who might be disposed to pay him a nocturnal visit, but, also, mentally wary as to what might be the truth concerning Sebastian Ritherdon and himself. For, strange to say, there was a singular revulsion of feeling going on in his mind at this time; strange because, at present, scarcely anything of considerable importance, scarcely anything sufficiently tangible, had occurred to produce this new conviction that Sebastian's story was untrue, and that the other story told by his uncle before his death was the right one.
All the same, the conviction was growing in his mind; growing steadily, although perhaps without any just reason or cause for its growth. Meanwhile, his ears now told him that, although Madame Carmaux was absent when he glanced over the balcony to wish Sebastian that last greeting, she undoubtedly had not gone to bed. From below, in the intense stillness of the tropic night--a stillness broken only occasionally by the cry of some bird from the plantation beyond the cultivated gardens, he heard the soft luscious tones of the woman herself--and those who are familiar with the tones of southern women will recall how luscious the murmur can be; he heard, too, the deeper notes of the man. Yet what they said to each other in subdued whispers was unintelligible to him; beyond a word here and there nothing reached his ears.
With the feeling of conviction growing stronger and stronger in his mind that there was some deception about the whole affair--that, plausible as Sebastian's possession of all which the dead man had left behind appeared; plausible, too, as was his undoubted position here and had been from his very earliest days, Julian would have given much now to overhear their conversation--a conversation which, he felt certain, in spite of it taking place thirty feet below where he was supposed to be by now asleep, related to his appearance on the scene.
Would it be possible? Could he in any way manage to thus overhear it? If he were nearer to the persianas, his ear close to the slats, his head placed down low, close to the boards of the room and of the balcony as well--what might not be overheard?
Thinking thus, he resolved to make the attempt, even while he told himself that in no other circumstances would he--a gentleman, a man of honour--resort to such a scheme of prying interference. But--for still the certainty increased in his mind that there was some deceit, some fraud in connection with Sebastian Ritherdon's possession of Desolada and all that Desolada represented in value--he did not hesitate now. As once he, with some of his bluejackets, had tracked slavers from the sea for miles inland and into the coast swamps and fever-haunted interior of the great Black Continent, so now he would track this man's devious and doubtful existence, as, remembering George Ritherdon's story, it seemed to him to be. If he had wronged Sebastian, if he had formed a false estimate of his possession of this place and of his right to the name he bore, no harm would be done. For then he would go away from Honduras for ever, leaving the man in peaceable possession of all that was rightly his. But, if his suspicions were not wrong----
He let himself down to the floor from the chair on which he had been sitting in the dark for now nearly an hour, and, quietly, noiselessly, he progressed along that solid floor--one so well laid in the past that no board either creaked or made any noise--and thus he reached the balcony, there interposing nothing now between him and it but the lowered blind.
Then when he had arrived there, he heard their voices plainly; heard every word that fell from their lips--the soft murmur of the woman's tones, the deeper, more guttural notes of the man.
Only--he might as well have been a mile away from where they sat, he might as well have been stone deaf as able to thus easily overhear those words.
For Sebastian and his companion were speaking in a tongue that was unknown to him; a tongue that, in spite of the Spanish surroundings and influences which still linger in all places forming parts of Central America, was not Spanish. Of this language he, like most sailors, knew something; therefore he was aware that it was not that, as well as he was aware that it was not French. Perhaps 'twas Maya, which he had been told in Belize was the native jargon, or Carib, which was spoken along the coast.
And almost, as he recognised how he was baffled, could he have laughed bitterly at himself. "What a fool I must have been," he thought, "to suppose that if they had any confidences to make to each other, any secrets to talk over in which I was concerned they would discuss them in a language I should be likely to understand."
But there are some words, especially those which express names, which cannot be translated into a foreign tongue. Among such, Ritherdon would be one. Julian, too, is another, with only the addition of the letter "o" at the end in Spanish (and perhaps also in Maya or Carib), and George, which, though spelt Jorge, has, in speaking, nearly the same pronunciation. And these names met his ear as did others: Inglaterra--the name of the woman Isobel Leigh, whom Julian believed to have been his mother, but whom Sebastian asserted to have been his; also the name of that fair American city lying to the north of them--New Orleans--it being referred to, of course, in the Spanish tongue.
"So," he thought to himself, "it is of me they are talking. Of me--which would not, perhaps, be strange, since a guest so suddenly received into the house and having the name of Ritherdon might well furnish food for conversation. But, when coupled with George Ritherdon, with New Orleans, above all with the name of Isobel Leigh----"
Even as that name was in his mind, he heard it again mentioned below by the woman--Madame Carmaux. Mentioned, too, in conjunction with and followed by a light, subdued laugh; a laugh in which his acuteness could hear an undercurrent of bitterness--perhaps of derision.
"And she was this woman's relative," he thought, "her relative! Yet now she is jeered at, spoken scornfully of by----"
In amazement he paused, even while his reflections arrived at this stage.
In front of where his eyes were, low down to the floor of the balcony, something dark and sombre passed, then returned and stopped before him, blotting from his eyes all that lay in front of them--the tops of the palms, the woods beyond the garden, the dark sea beyond that. Like a pall it rested before his vision, obscuring, blurring everything. And, a moment later, he recognised that it was a woman's dress which thus impeded his view, while, as he did so, he heard some five feet above him a light click made by one of the slats.
Then, with an upward glance of his eyes, that glance being aided by a noiseless turn of his head, he saw that a finger was holding back the lath, and knew--felt sure--that into the darkness of the room two other eyes were gazing.
CHAPTER IX.
BEATRIX
Thirty-six hours later Julian Ritherdon sat among very different surroundings from those of Desolada; certainly very different ones from those of his first night in the gloomy, mysterious house owned by that other man who bore his name.
He was seated now in a wicker chair placed beneath the cool shadow cast by a vast clump of "shade-trees," as the royal palm, the thatch palm, and, indeed, almost every kind and species of that form of vegetation are denominated. These shade-trees grew in the pretty and luxuriant garden of Mr. Spranger's house on the southern outskirts of Belize, a garden in which, for some years now, Beatrix Spranger had passed the greater part of her days, and sometimes when the hot simoon was on, as it was now, and the temperature scarcely ever fell below 85°, a good deal of the early part of her nights.
She, too, was seated in that garden now, talking to Julian, while between them there lay two or three books and London magazines (three or four months old), a copy of the Times of the same ancient date, and another of the Belize Advertiser fresh from the local press. Yet neither the news from London which had long since been published, nor that of the immediate neighbourhood, which was quite new but not particularly exciting, seemed to have been able to secure much of their attention. And this for a reason which was a simple one and easily to be understood. All their attention was at the present moment concentrated on each other.
"You cannot think," Beatrix Spranger was saying now, "what a welcome event the arrival of a stranger is to us here, who regard ourselves more or less as exiles for the time being. Moreover," she continued, without any of that false shame which a young lady at home in England might have thought necessary to assume, even though she did not actually feel it, "it seems to me that you are a very interesting person, Lieutenant Ritherdon. You have dropped down into a place where your name happens to be extremely well known, yet in which no one ever imagined that there was any other Ritherdon in existence anywhere, except the late and the present owners of Desolada."
"People, even exiles, have relatives sometimes in other parts of the world," Julian murmured rather languidly--the effect of the heat and the perfume of the flowers in the garden being upon him--"and you know----"
"Oh! yes," the girl said, with an answering smile. "I do know all that. Only I happen to know something else, too. You see we--that is, father and I--are acquainted with your cousin, and we knew his father before him. And it is a rather singular thing that they have always given us to understand that, so far as they were aware, they hadn't a relation in the world."
"They had, though, you see, all the same. Indeed, they had two until a short time ago; namely, when my father, Mr. George Ritherdon, was alive."
"Mr. Ritherdon, Sebastian's father, hadn't seen him for many years, had he? He didn't often speak of him, and always gave people the idea that his brother was dead. I suppose they had not parted the best of friends?"
"No," Julian answered quietly, "I don't think they had. As a matter of fact, my--George Ritherdon--was almost, indeed quite, as reticent about his brother Charles as Charles seems to have been about him." Then, suddenly changing the subject, he said: "Is Sebastian popular hereabouts. Is he liked?"
"No," the girl replied, rather more frankly than Julian had expected, while, as she did so, she lifted a pair of beautiful blue eyes to his face. "No, I don't think he is, since you ask me."
"Why not? You may tell me candidly, Miss Spranger, especially as you know that to-night I am going to have a rather serious interview with your father, and shall ask him for his advice and assistance on a matter in which I require his counsel."
"Oh! I don't know quite," the girl said now. "Only--only--well! you know--because you have told us that you saw him doing it--he--he--is too fond of play, of gambling. People say--different things. Some that he is ruining his brother planters, and others that he is ruining himself. Then he has the reputation of being very hard and cruel to some of his servants. You know, we have coolies and negroes and Caribs and natives here, and a good many of them are bound to the employers for a term of years--and--and--well--if one feels inclined to be cruel--they can be."
As she spoke of this, Julian recognised how he had been within an ace of discovering, some time before he reached the inn at All Pines, that the late Mr. Ritherdon had not died without leaving an heir, apparent or presumptive, as he had supposed when he landed at Belize. The negro guide on whom he had bestowed so many good-humoured sobriquets had spoken of Mr. Ritherdon as being a hard and cruel man, both to blacks and whites. But--in his ignorance, which was natural enough--he had supposed that the statement could only have applied to the one owner of Desolada of whom he had ever heard--the man lately dead.
Now, he reflected, he wished he had really understood to whom that negro referred. It might have made a difference in his plans, he thought; might have prevented him from going on farther on the road to All Pines and Desolada; from meeting this unexpected, unknown of, possessor of what he believed to be his, until those plans had become more matured. Until, too, he had had time to decide in what form, if any, he should present himself before the man who was called Sebastian Ritherdon.
However, it was done. He had presented himself and, if he knew anything of human nature, if he could read a character at all, his appearance had caused considerable excitement in the minds of both Sebastian Ritherdon and Madame Carmaux.
"Do you like Sebastian?" he asked now, and he could scarcely have explained why he was anxious to hear a denial of any liking for that person on the part of Beatrix Spranger. It may have been, he thought, because this girl, with her soft English beauty, which the climate of British Honduras during some years of residence had--certainly, as yet--had no power to impair, seemed to him far too precious a thing to be wasted on a man such as Sebastian was--rough, a gambler, and possessing cruel instincts.
"Do you think I should like him?" she asked in her turn, and again the eyes which he thought were so beautiful glanced at him from beneath their thick lashes, "after what I have told you of the character he bears? What I have told you, perhaps, far too candidly, saying more than I ought to have done."
"Do not think that," he made haste to exclaim. "To-night I am going to be even more frank with Mr. Spranger. I am going to tell him one or two things in connection with my 'cousin,' when I ask him for his assistance and advice, which will make your father at least imagine that I have not formed a very favourable impression of my new-found relative."
"And mayn't I be told, too--now?" she asked, thoroughly womanlike.
"Not yet," he answered, with a smile. "Not yet. Later--perhaps."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, with something that might almost be described as a pout. "Oh! Not even after my candour about your cousin! You are a man of mystery, Lieutenant Ritherdon. Why! you won't even tell us how it happens that you arrived here from Desolada with that round your arm," and as she spoke she directed her blue eyes to a sling around his neck in which his arm reposed. "Nor that," she added, nodding now towards his forehead, where, on the left side, were affixed two or three pieces of sticking-plaster.
"Yes," he said, "I will tell you that. I feel, indeed, that I ought to do so, if only as an apology for presenting myself before you in such a guise. You see, it is so easy to explain this, that it is not worth making any mystery about it. It all comes from the fact that I am a sailor, and sailors are proverbial for being very bad riders," and as he spoke he accompanied his words with another smile.
But Beatrix did not smile in return. Instead, she said, half gravely, perhaps almost half severely: "Go on. Lieutenant Ritherdon, if you please. I wish to hear how the accident happened," while she added impressively, "on your journey from Desolada to Belize."
"I'm a bad rider," he said again, but once more meeting her glance, he altered his mode of speech and said:
"Well, you see, Miss Spranger, it happened this way. I set out on my journey of inspection, on my road to Desolada, on a rather ancient mustang which the worthy landlord of the hotel with a queer Spanish name recommended to me as the proper thing to do the journey easily on. Later, when I had made Sebastian's acquaintance, he rather ridiculed my good Rosinante."
"Did he!" Beatrix interjected calmly.
"He did, indeed. In fact he said such creatures were scarcely ever used in the colony except for draught purposes. Then he said he would mount me on a good horse of Spanish breed, such as I believe you use a great deal here; so that when I was returning to Belize yesterday to present myself before you and Mr. Spranger, I should be able to make the journey rapidly and comfortably."
"That was very kind of him," Beatrix exclaimed. "Though, as you did not arrive until nine o'clock at night, you hardly seem to have made it very rapidly, and those things," with again a glance at the sling and the plasters, "are not usually adjuncts to comfort."
"Well, you see, I'm a sailor and not a good ri----"
"Go on, please."
"Yes, certainly. I started under favourable circumstances at six in the morning, receiving, I believe, a kind of blessing or benediction from Sebastian and Madame Carmaux, as well as strong injunctions to return as soon as possible."
"People are hospitable in this country," Beatrix again interrupted.
"We got along very well, anyhow, for a time; at a gentle trot, of course, because already it was getting hot, and as we neared All Pines I was just thinking of slowing down to a walk when----"
"The creature bolted? Was that it?"
"As a matter of fact it was. By the way, you seem to know the manners and customs of the animals in this country, Miss Spranger."
"I know that many lives are lost in this country," the girl said gravely now, "owing to unbroken horses being ridden too young horses, too, that are sometimes full of vice. The landlord of the hotel here did you a better service than your cousin."
"Perhaps this was one of those horses," Julian remarked. "But, anyhow, it bolted. Then, a little later, it did something else. It stopped dead in a gallop and, after nearly shooting me over its head, it reared upright and did absolutely throw me off it backwards. Fortunately, I fell at the side of the road onto a sort of undergrowth full of ferns and interspersed with lovely flowering shrubs; so I got off with what you see. The horse, however, had killed itself. It fell over on its back with a tremendous sort of backward bound and, when I got up and looked at it, it was just dying. Later, I came on from All Pines in a kind of cart--that is, when I had been bandaged up. Perhaps, however, it wouldn't have happened if I had not been such a bad rider and----"
"It would have happened," Beatrix said, decisively, "if you had been a circus rider or a cowboy. That is, unless you had been well acquainted with the horse, and, even then, it would probably have happened just the same."
After this they were silent for a little while, Julian availing himself of Beatrix's permission to smoke, and she sitting meditatively behind her huge fan. And, although he did not tell her so, Julian agreed with her that the accident would probably have happened even though he had been a circus rider or a cowboy, as she had said.
CHAPTER X.
MR. SPRANGER OBTAINS INFORMATION
Mr. Spranger was at home later in the afternoon, his business for the day being done, and in the evening they all sat down to dinner in the now almost cool and airy dining-room of his house. And, at this meal, Julian thought that Beatrix looked even prettier than she had done in the blue-and-white striped dress worn by her during the day. She had on now one of those dinner jackets which young ladies occasionally assume when not desirous of donning the fullest of evening gowns, and, as he sat there observing the healthy sunburn of her cheeks (which was owing to her living so much in the open air) that contrasted markedly with the whiteness of her throat, he thought she was one of the most lovely girls he had ever seen. Which from him, who had met so much beauty in different parts of the world, was a very considerable compliment--if she had but known it. Also, if the truth must be told, her piquant shrewdness and vivacity--which she had manifested very considerably during Julian's description of the vagaries of the animal lent to him by his cousin--appealed very much to him, so that he could not help reflecting how, should this girl eventually be made acquainted with all the doubts and difficulties which now perplexed him as to his birthright, she might possibly become a very valuable counsellor.
"She has ideas about my worthy cousin for some reason," he thought to himself more than once during dinner, "and most certainly she suspects him of--well of not having been very careful about the mount he placed at my disposal. So do I, as a matter of fact--only perhaps it is as well not to say so just at present."
Moreover, now was not the time to take her into his confidence; the evening was required for something else, namely, the counsel and advice of her father. He had made Mr. Spranger's acquaintance overnight on his arrival, and, in the morning of the present day, before that gentleman had departed to his counting house in Belize, he had asked if he would, in the evening, allow him to have his counsel on some important reasons connected with his appearance in British Honduras. Whereon, Mr. Spranger having told him very courteously that any advice or assistance which he could give should be at his service, Julian knew that the time had arrived for him to take that gentleman into his confidence. Arrived, because now, Beatrix, rising from the table, made her way out to the lawn, where, already, a negro servant had placed a lamp on the rustic table by which she always sat; she saying that when they had done their conference they would find her there.
"Now, my boy," said Mr. Spranger, who was a hale, jovial Englishman, on whom neither climate nor exile had any depressing influence, and who, besides, was delighted to have as his guest a young man who, as well as being a gentleman, could furnish him with some news of that far-off world from which he expected to be separated for still some years. "Now, help yourself to some more claret--it is quite sound and wholesome--and let me see what I can do for you."
"It will take some time in the telling," Julian said. "It is a long story and a strange one."
"It may take till midnight, if you choose," the other answered. "We sit up late in this country, so as to profit by the coolest hours of the day."
"But--Miss Spranger. Will she not think me very rude to detain you so long?"
"No," he replied. "If we do not join her soon, she will understand that our conversation is of importance."
It was nearly midnight when Julian had concluded the whole of his narrative, he telling Mr. Spranger everything that had occurred from the time when George Ritherdon had unfolded that strange story in his Surrey home, until the hour when he himself had arrived at the house in which he now was, with his arm bandaged up and his head dressed.
Of course there had been interruptions to the flow of the narrative. Once they had gone out onto the lawn to bid Beatrix good-night and to chat with her for a few moments during which Julian had been amply apologetic for preventing her father from joining her, as well as for not doing so himself--and, naturally, Mr. Spranger had himself interrupted the course of the recital by exclamations of astonishment and with many questions.
But that recital was finished now, and still the elder man's bewilderment was extreme.
"It is the most extraordinary story I ever heard in my life! A romance. And it seems such a tangled web! How, in Heaven's name, can your father's, or uncle's, account be the right one?"
"You do not believe his story?" Julian asked; "you believe Sebastian is, in absolute fact, Charles Ritherdon's son?"
"What am I to believe? Just think! That young man has been brought up here ever since he was a baby; there must be hundreds upon hundreds of people who can recollect his birth, twenty-six years ago, his christening, his baptism. And Charles Ritherdon--whom I knew very well indeed--recognised him, treated him in every way, as his son. He died leaving him his heir. What can stand against that?"
"Doubtless it is a mystery. Yet--yet--in spite of all, I cannot believe that George Ritherdon would have invented such a falsehood. Remember, Mr. Spranger, I had known him all my life and knew every side and shade of his character. And--he was dying when he told it all to me. Would a man go to his grave fabricating, uttering such a lie as that?"
For a moment Mr. Spranger did not reply, but sat with his eyes turned up towards the ceiling of the room--and with, upon his face, that look which all have seen upon the faces of those who are thinking deeply. Then at last he said--
"Come, let us understand each other. You have asked my advice, my opinion, as the only man you can consult freely. Now, are we to talk frankly--am I to talk without giving offence?"
"That is what I want," Julian said, "what I desire. I must get to the bottom of this mystery. Heaven knows I don't wish to claim another man's property--I have no need for it--there is my profession and some little money left by George Ritherdon. On the other hand, I don't desire to think of him as dying with such a deception in his heart. I want to justify him in my eyes."
Then, because Mr. Spranger still kept silence, he said again: "Pray, pray tell me what you do think. Pray be frank. No matter what you say."
"No," Mr. Spranger said now. "No. Not yet at least. First let us look at facts. I was not in the colony twenty-six years ago, but of course, I am acquainted with scores of people who were. And those people knew old Ritherdon as well as they know me; also they have known Sebastian all his life. And, you must remember, there are such things as registers of births, registers kept of baptism, and so forth. What would you say if you saw the register of Sebastian's birth, as well as the register of your--of Mrs. Ritherdon's death?"
"What could I say in such circumstances? Only--why, then, the attempt to make me break my neck on that horse? Why the half-caste girl watching me through the night, and why the conversation which I overheard, the contemptuous laugh of Madame Carmaux at my mother's--at Isobel Leigh's name? Why all that, coupled with the name of George Ritherdon, of myself, of New Orleans--where he said he had me baptized when he fled there after kidnapping me?"
As Julian spoke, as he mentioned the name of New Orleans, he saw a light upon Mr. Spranger's face--that look which comes upon all our faces when something strikes us and, itself, throws a light upon our minds; also he saw a slight start given by the elder man.
"What is it?" Julian asked, observing both these things. "What?"
"New Orleans," Mr. Spranger said now, musingly, contemplatively, with, about him, the manner of one endeavouring to force recollection to come to his aid. "New Orleans--and Madame Carmaux. Why do those names--the names of that city--of that woman--connect themselves together in my mind. Why?" Then suddenly he exclaimed, "I know! I have it! Madame Carmaux is a New Orleans woman."
"A New Orleans woman!" Julian repeated. "A New Orleans woman! Yet he, Sebastian, said when we met--that--that--she was a connection of Isobel Leigh; 'a relative of my late mother,' were his words. How could she have been a relative of hers, if Mr. Leigh came out from England to this place bringing with him his English wife and the child that was Isobel Leigh, as George Ritherdon told me he did? Also----"
"Also what?" Mr. Spranger asked now. "Also what? Though take time--exert your memory to the utmost. There is something strange in the discrepancy between George Ritherdon's statement made in England and Sebastian's made here. What else is it that has struck you?"
"This. As we rode towards Desolada he was telling me that he had never been farther away from Honduras than New Orleans. Then he began to say--I am sure he did--that his mother came from there, but he broke off to modify the statement for another to the effect that she had always desired to visit that city. And when I asked him if his mother came from New Orleans, he said: 'Oh, no! She was the daughter of Mr. Leigh, an English merchant at Belize.'"
"You must have misunderstood him," Mr. Spranger said; "have misunderstood the first part of his remark at any rate."
"Perhaps," Julian said quietly, "perhaps." But, nevertheless, he felt perfectly sure that he had not done so. Then suddenly he said--
"You knew Mr. Ritherdon of Desolada. Tell me, do I bear any resemblance to him?"
"Yes," Mr. Spranger answered gravely, very gravely. "So much of a resemblance that you might well be his son. As great a resemblance to him as you do in a striking manner to Sebastian. You and he might absolutely be brothers.
"Only," said Julian, "such a thing is impossible. Mrs. Ritherdon did not become the mother of twins, and she died within a day or so of giving her first child birth. She could never have borne another."
"That," Spranger acquiesced, "is beyond doubt."
They prepared to separate now for the night, yet before they did so, his host said a word to Julian. "To-morrow," he told him, "when I am in the city, I will speak to one or two people who have known all about the Desolada household ever since the place became the property of Mr. Ritherdon. And, as perhaps you do not know, twenty-five years ago all births along the coast, and far beyond Desolada, were registered in Belize. Now, they are thus registered at All Pines--but it is only in later days that such has been the case."
And next morning, when Mr. Spranger had been gone from his home some two or three hours, and Julian happened to be sitting alone in Beatrix's favourite spot in the garden--she being occupied at the moment with her household duties--a half-caste messenger from the city brought him a letter from Mr. Spranger, or, rather, a piece of paper, on which was written--
"Miriam Carmaux's maiden name was Gardelle and she came from New Orleans. She married Carmaux in despair, after, it is said, being jilted by Charles Ritherdon (who had once been in love with her). Her marriage took place about the same time as Mr. Ritherdon's with Miss Leigh, but her husband was killed by a snake bite a few months afterwards. Sebastian's birth was registered here by Mr. Ritherdon, of Desolada, as taking place on the 4th of September, 1871, he being described as the child of 'Charles Ritherdon, of Desolada, and Isobel his wife, now dead.'
"Her death is also registered as taking place on the 7th of September, 1871."
"Sebastian's birth registered as taking place on the 4th of September, 1871!" Julian exclaimed, as the paper fell from his hand. "The 4th of September, 1871! The very day that has always been kept in England as my birthday. The very day on which I am entered in the Admiralty books as being born in Honduras!"
CHAPTER XI.
A VISIT OF CONDOLENCE
The remainder of that day was passed by Julian in the society of Beatrix--since Mr. Spranger never came back to his establishment--which was called "Floresta"--until he returned for good in the evening; the summer noontide heat causing a drive to and from Belize for lunch to be a journey too full of discomfort to be worth undertaking. Therefore, this young man and woman were drawn into a companionship so close that, ere long, it seemed to each of them that they had been acquainted for a considerable time, while to Beatrix it began to appear that when once Lieutenant Ritherdon should have taken his departure, the cool shady garden of her abode would prove a vastly more desolate place than it had ever done before.
But, while these somewhat dreary meditations occupied her thoughts, Julian was himself revolving in his own mind a determination to which he had almost, if not quite, arrived at as yet--a determination that she should be made a confidante of what engrossed now the greater part of his reflections, i.e., the mystery which surrounded both his own birth and that of Sebastian Ritherdon. The greater part, but not the whole of these reflections! because he soon observed that one other form--a form far different from the handsome but somewhat rough and saturnine figure and personality of his cousin Sebastian--was ever present in his mind and, if not absolutely present before his actual eyes, was never absent from his thoughts.
That form was the tall, graceful figure of Beatrix, surmounted by the shapely head and beautiful features of the girl; the head crowned by masses of fair curling hair, from beneath which those calm and clear blue eyes gazed out through the thick and somewhat darker lashes.
"I must do it," he was musing to himself now, as they sat in the shade when the light luncheon was over, and while around them were all the languorous accompaniments of a tropic summer day, with, also, the cloying, balmy odours of the tropic summer atmosphere; "I must do it, must take her into my confidence, obtain her opinion as well as her father's. She can see as far as any one, as she showed plainly enough by her manner when I told her about my ride on that confounded horse. She might in this case perhaps, see something, divine something of that which at present is hidden from her father and from me."
Yet, although he had by now arrived at the determination to impart to her all that now so agitated him, he also resolved that he would not do so until he had taken her father's opinion on the subject.
"He will not refuse, I imagine," he thought to himself. "Why should he? Especially when I represent to him that, by excluding her from the various confidences which he and I must exchange on the matter--since he has evidently thrown himself heart and soul into unravelling the mystery--we shall also be dooming her to a great many hours of dulness and lack of companionship."
But this, perhaps, savoured a little of sophistry--although probably imperceptibly so to himself--since it must be undoubted that he also recognised how great a lack of her companionship he was likewise dooming himself to if she was not allowed to participate in their conversation on the all important subject.
Young people are, however, sometimes more or less of sophists, especially those who, independently of all other concerns of importance, are experiencing a certain attractiveness that is being exercised by members of the other sex into whose companionship they are much thrown by chance.
The day drew on; above them the heat--that subtle tropical heat which has been justly compared with the atmosphere of a Turkish bath or the engine room of a steamer--was exerting its full and irresistible power on all and everything that was subject to its influence. Even the yellow-headed parrots had now ceased their chattering and clacking; while Beatrix's pet monkey, whose home was on the lower branches of a huge thatch-palm, presented a mournful appearance of senile exhaustion, as it sat with its head bowed on its breast and its now drawn-down, wizened features a picture of absolute but resigned despair. And even those two human beings, each ordinarily so full of life and youth and vigour, appeared as if--despite all laws of good breeding to the effect that friends and acquaintances should not go to sleep in each other's presence--they were about to yield to the atmospheric influence. Julian knew that he was nodding, even while, as he glanced to where Beatrix's great fan had now ceased to sway, he was still wide awake enough to suspect that his were not the only eyes that were struggling to keep open.
As thus all things human and animal succumbed, or almost succumbed, to the dead, unruffled atmosphere, and while, too, the scarlet flowers of the flamboyants and the lilac-coloured blossoms of the oleanders drooped, across the lawn so carefully sown, with English grass seeds every spring and mowed and watered regularly, there fell a heavy footstep on the ears of Beatrix and Julian--footsteps proclaimed clearly by the jingle of spurs, if in no other way. And, a moment later, a sonorous voice was heard, expressing regret for thus disturbing so grateful a siesta and for intruding at all.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Ritherdon," Julian said, somewhat coldly, as now Sebastian came close to them; while Beatrix--her face as calm as though no drowsiness had come near her since the past night--greeted him with a civility that might almost have been termed glacial, and was, undoubtedly, distant. "I suppose you have heard of my little adventure on the horse you so kindly exchanged for my mustang?"
"It is for that that I am here," the other answered, dropping into a basket-chair towards which Beatrix coldly waved her hand. "I cannot tell you what my feelings, my remorse, were on hearing what had befallen you. Good Heavens! think--just think--how I should have felt if any real, any serious accident had befallen you! Yet, it was not my fault."
"No?" asked Julian. "No? Did you not know the animal's peculiarities, then?"
"Of course. Naturally. But, owing to the carelessness of one of the stable hands, you were given the wrong one. I can tell you that that fellow has had the best welting he ever had in his life and has been sent off the estate. You won't see him there when you return to me."
"No," thought Beatrix to herself, "he won't. And what's more he never would have seen him, unless he has the power of creating imaginary people out of those who have no actual existence." While, although her lips did not move, there was in her eyes a look--conveyed by a hasty glance towards Julian, which told him as plainly as words could have done, what her thoughts were.
"We had bought a new draft of horses," Sebastian went on, "and by a mistake this one--the one on which you rode--got into the wrong stall, the stall properly belonging to the animal you ought to have had. Heavens!" he exclaimed again, "when I heard that it had been found lying dead near All Pines and that you had been attended to there--your injuries being exaggerated, I am thankful to see--I thought I should have gone mad. You, my guest, my cousin, to be treated thus."
"It doesn't matter. Only, when I come to see you, I hope your stableman will be more careful."
As he spoke of returning to Desolada once more, the other man's face lit up with a look of pleasure in the same manner that it had done on a previous occasion. Any one regarding him now would have said that there was a generous, hospitable host, to whom no greater satisfaction could be afforded than to hear that his invitations were sought after and acceptable.
He did not deceive either of his listeners, however; not Julian, who now had reason to suspect many things in connection with this man's existence and possession of Desolada; nor Beatrix who, without knowing what Julian knew, had always disliked Sebastian and, since the affair of the horse, had formed the most unfavourable opinions concerning his good faith.
Probably, however, Sebastian, who also had good reasons for doubting whether either of them was likely to believe his explanations, scarcely expected that they should be deceived. He expressed, nevertheless, the greatest, indeed the most vivid, satisfaction at Julian's words, and exclaimed, "Ah! when next you come to see me? That is it--what I desire. You shall be well treated, I can assure you--the honoured relative, and all that kind of thing. Now fix the date, Mr. Rither--cousin Julian."
The poets and balladmongers (also the lady novelists) have told us so frequently that there is no possibility of our ever forgetting it, that there exists, such a thing as the language of the eyes, while, to confirm their statements, we most of us have our own special knowledge on the subject. And that language was now being used with considerable vehemence by Beatrix as a means of conveying her thoughts to Julian, her sweet blue eyes signalling clearly to him a message which she took care should be unseen by Sebastian. A message that, if put into words, would have said: "Don't go! Don't go!" or, "Don't fix a date."
But--although Julian understood perfectly that language--it was not his cue to act upon it at the present moment. Beatrix did not know all yet, though he was determined she should do so that very night; and, also, he had already resolved that he would once more become an inmate of Desolada. There, if anywhere, he believed that some proof might be found, some circumstances discovered to throw a light upon what he believed to be a strange reversal of the proper state of things that ought to actually exist; in short, he was determined to accept Sebastian's invitation.
Purposely avoiding Beatrix's glance, therefore, while meaning to explain his reason for doing so later on, when they should be alone, he said now to his cousin--
"You are very good, and, of course, I shall be delighted to come back and stay with you. As to the date, well! Mr. and Miss Spranger are so kind and hospitable that you must let me avail myself of their welcome for a little longer. I suppose a day need not be actually fixed just now?"
"Why, no, my dear fellow," Sebastian exclaimed, with that almost boisterous cordiality which he had unfailingly evinced since they had first met, and which might be either real or assumed. "Why, no, of course not. Indeed, there is no need to fix any date at all. There is the house and everything in it, and there am I. Come when you like and you will find a welcome, rough as it must needs be in this country, but at any rate sincere."
After which there was nothing more for Julian to do than to mutter courteous thanks for such proffered hospitality and to promise that, ere long, he would again become a guest at Desolada.
They walked with Sebastian now to the stable, where his horse was awaiting him, Beatrix proffering refreshment--to omit which courtesy to a visitor would have been contrary to all the established, though unwritten, laws of Honduras, as well as, one may say, of most colonies--but Sebastian, refusing this, rode off to Belize, where he said he had business. And Julian could not help wondering to himself if that business could possibly have any connection with the same affairs which had brought him out from England.
"You either didn't see my signals, or misunderstood them," Beatrix said, as now they returned once more to the coolness of the garden.
"Pardon me," Julian replied, "I did. Only, it is necessary--absolutely necessary, I think--that I should pay another visit to my cousin's house. To-night your father and I are going to invite your opinion on a matter between Sebastian and me. Then I think you will also agree that it is necessary for me to return to Desolada."
"I may do so," Beatrix said, "but all the same I don't like the idea of your being an inhabitant of that place--of your being under his roof again."