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!"