Project Gutenberg's Much Darker Days, by Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway) This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Much Darker Days Author: Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway) Release Date: June 25, 2007 [EBook #21933] Last Updated: December 17, 2016 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MUCH DARKER DAYS *** Produced by David Widger
CHAPTER I.—The Curse (Registered). CHAPTER II.—A Villain’s By-Blow. CHAPTER III.—Mes Gages! Mes Gages! CHAPTER VII.—Rescue And Retire! CHAPTER X.—Not Too Mad, But Just Mad Enough. |
‘Rain, rain, Go to Spain, Be sure you don’t come back again.’sang sweet Philippa, in childish high spirits. I had rarely seen her thus! Alas, Philippa’s nursery charm against the rain proved worse than unavailing. That afternoon, after several months of brave black frost, which had gripped the land in its stern clasp, the rain began to fall heavily. The white veil of snow gradually withdrew. All that night I dreamed of the white snow slowly vanishing from the white hat. Next morning the snow had vanished, and the white hat must have been obvious to the wayfaring man though a fool. Next morning, and the next, and the next, found me still in London. Why? My mother was shopping! Oh, the awful torture of having a gay mother shopping the solemn hours away, when each instant drew her son nearer to the doom of an accessory after the fact! My mother did not object to travel, but she did like to have her little comforts about her. She occupied herself in purchasing— A water-bed. Aboule, or hot-water bottle. A portable stove. A travelling kitchen-range. A medicine chest. A complete set of Ollendorff. Ten thousand pots of Dundee marmalade. And such other articles as she deemed essential to her comfort and safety during the expedition. In vain I urged that our motto was Rescue and Retire, and that such elaborate preparations might prevent our retiring from our native shore, and therefore make rescue exceedingly problematical. My Tory mother only answered by quoting the example of Lord Wolseley and the Nile Expedition. ‘How long did they tarry among the pots—the marmalade pots?’ said my mother. ‘Did they start before every mess had its proper share of extra teaspoons in case of accident, and a double supply of patent respirators for the drummer-boys, and of snow-shoes for the Canadian boatmen in case the climate proved uncertain?’ My mother’s historical knowledge, and the unique example of provident and exhaustive equipment which she cited, reduced me to silence, but did not diminish my anxiety. The delay made me nervous, excited, and chippy. To-morrow morning we were to start. To-morrow morning was too late. With an effort I opened the morning paper—the Morning Post, as it happened—and ran hastily up and down the columns, active exercise having been recommended to me. What cared I for politics, foreign news, or even the sportive intelligence? All I sought for was a paragraph headed ‘Horrible Disclosures,’ or, ‘Awful Death of a Baronet.’ I ran up and down the columns in vain. No such item of news met my eye. Joyously I rose to go, when my eye fell on the Standard. Mechanically I opened it. Those words were written (or so they seemed to me to be written) in letters of fire, though the admirable press at Shoe Lane did not really employ that suitable medium. ‘Horrible Discovery near Roding.’ At once the truth flashed across me. The Morning Post had not contained the intelligence because, The Government had Boycotted the ‘Morning Post’! Only journals which more or less supported the Government were permitted to obtain ‘copy’ of such thrilling interest! And yet they speak of a free press and a free country! Tearing myself away from these reflections, I bent my mind on the awful paragraph. ‘The melting of the snow has thrown a lurid light on the mysterious disappearance (which up to this moment had attracted no attention) of an eccentric baronet, well known in sporting circles. Yesterday afternoon a gentleman’s groom, wading down the highway, discovered the white hat of a gentleman floating on the muddy stream into which the unparalleled weather and the negligence of the Road Trustees has converted our thoroughfare. An inscription in red ink within the lining leaves no doubt that this article of dress is all that is left of the late Sir Runan Errand. The unfortunate nobleman’s friends have been communicated with. The active and intelligent representative of the local police believes that he is in possession of a clue to the author of the crime. Probably the body of the murdered noble has been carried down by the flooded road to the sea.’ I tore that paper to pieces, and used it to wrap up sandwiches for the journey. Once again I say, if you cannot feel with me, throw this tale aside. Heaven knows it is a sombre one, and it goes on getting sombrer and sombrer! But probably, by this time, you have either tossed the work away or looked at the end to see what happened to them all. The morning dawned. I filled my bag with Hanover pieces, which I thought might come in handy on the Spanish Turf, and packed up three or four yellow, red, green, and blue opera hats, so useful to the adventurous bookmaker. At this very moment the postman arrived and gave me a letter in a woman’s hand. I thrust it in my breast pocket recklessly. The cab rattled away. At last we were off. I am sure that no one who could have seen us that morning would have dreamt that out of that party of three—a more than comfortable-looking English matron, a girl whose strange beauty has been sufficiently dwelt upon, and a gentleman in a yellow crush hat and a bookmaker’s bag—two were flying from the hands of justice. Our appearance was certainly such as to disarm all suspicion. But appearances are proverbially deceitful. Were ours deceitful enough? ‘But where are we going?’ said my mother, with the short memory of old age. ‘To Paris first, then to Spain, and, if needful, down to Khartoum.’ ‘Then you young people will have to go alone. I draw the line at Dongola.’ I glanced at Philippa. Then for the first time since her malady I saw Philippa blushing! Her long curved eyelashes hid her eyes, which presumably were also pink, but certainly my mother’s broad pleasantry had called a tell-tale blush to the cheek of the young person. As we drew near Folkestone I remembered the letter, but the sight of the Roding postmark induced me to defer opening it till we should be on board the steamer. When Philippa was battling with the agonies of the voyage, then, undisturbed, I might ascertain what Mrs. Thompson (for it was sure to be Mrs. Thompson) had to say. We were now on board. Philippa and my mother fled to the depths of the saloon, and I opened the fateful missive. It began without any conventional formalities, and the very first words blanched a cheek already pale. ‘I see yer!’ This strange epistle commenced:— ‘I know why Sir Runan never reached my house. I know the reason (it was only too obvious) for her strange, excited state. I know how he met the death he deserved. ‘I never had the pluck. None of the rest of us ever had the pluck. We all swore we’d swing for him as, one after another, he wedded and deserted us. The Two-headed Nightingale swore it, and the Missing Link, and the Spotted Girl, and the Strong Woman who used to double up horseshoes. Now she doubles up her perambulator with her children in it, but she never doubled up him. ‘As to your sister, tell her from me that she is all right. She has made herself his widow, she is the Dowager Lady Errand. ‘The fact is, the Live Mermaid was never alive at all! She was a put-up thing of waxwork and a stuffed salmo ferox. His pretended marriage with her is therefore a mere specious excuse to enable him to avoid your sister’s claims. ‘Now he is dead, your sister can take the name, title, and estates. I wish she may get them.’
The delight of happy laughter, The delight of low replies.With such surroundings, almost those of a sybarite, who can blame me for being lulled into security, and telling myself that my troubles were nearly at an end? Who can wonder at the cháteaux en Espagne that I built as I lounged in the patio, and assisted my customers to consume the media aqua de soda, or ‘split soda,’ of the country? Sometimes we roamed as far as the Alcazar; sometimes we wandered to the Oxford, or laughed light-heartedly in the stalls of the Alegria. Such was our life. So in calm and peace (for we had secured a Tory chuckerouto from Birmingham) passed the even tenor of out days. As to marrying Philippa, it had always been my intention. Whether she was or was not Lady Errand; whether she had or had not precipitated the hour of her own widowhood, made no kind of difference to me. A moment of ill-judged haste had been all her crime. That moment had passed. Philippa was not that moment. I was not marrying that moment, but Philippa. Picture, then, your Basil naming and insisting on the day, yet somehow the day had not yet arrived. It did, however, arrive at last. The difficulty now arose under which name was Philippa to be married? To tell you the truth, I cannot remember under which name Philippa was married. It was a difficult point. If she wedded me under her maiden name, and if Mrs. Thompson’s letter contained the truth, then would the wedding be legal and binding? If she married me under the name of Lady Errand, and if Mrs. Thompson’s letter was false, then would the wedding be all square? So far as I know, there is no monograph on the subject, or there was none at the time. Be it as it may, wedded we were. Morality was now restored to the show business, the legitimate drama began to look up, and the hopes of the Social Science Congress were fulfilled. But evil days were at hand. One day, Philippa and I were lounging in the patio, when I heard the young hidalgos—orMacheros, as they are called—talking as they smoked their princely cigaritos. ‘Sir Runan Errand,’ said one of them; ‘where he’s gone under. A rare bad lot he was.’ ‘Murdered,’ replied the other. ‘Nothing ever found of him but his hat.’ ‘What a rum go!’ replied the other. I looked at Philippa. She had heard all. I saw her dark brow contract in anguish. She was beating her breast furiously—her habit in moments of agitation. Then I seem to remember that I and the two hidalgos bore Philippa to a couch in the patio, while I smiled and smiled and talked of the heat of the weather! When Philippa came back to herself, she looked at me with her wondrous eyes and said,— ‘Basil; tell me the square truth, honest Injun! What had I been up to that night?’
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