Mrs. Vanderstein's jewels. Bryce Charles

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ a day or two of clouds and rain, during which people shivered and said it was like winter, the weather had cleared again to the radiant brightness which distinguished that summer from those preceding and following it. The Park was gay with light dresses and brilliant coloured parasols. The flowers, too, were at their best – the rain had come at the right moment for them and the beds were a vision of beauty – but they received scanty attention, as usual, people flocking to the other side of the road, where, to tell the truth, it was very pleasant on the green lawns beneath the trees.

      The three ladies strolled up and down in the shade. Mrs. Vanderstein called it taking exercise, and did it once a week for the sake of her figure. Mrs. Britterwerth was really stout and would gladly have sat down after a turn or two, but was not allowed to by her more energetic friend.

      “Consider, my dear, what a lot of good it does us,” said Mrs. Vanderstein.

      Here, presently, they were joined by Joseph Sidney, and soon Barbara found herself walking on ahead with him, while the two others followed them at a little distance.

      She had not seen him since the night at Covent Garden, and she noticed with concern that he looked worn and worried.

      “I saw that Averstone did no good,” she said, as soon as they were out of earshot.

      “No,” said Sidney shortly.

      “Did you back him?” she asked, and knew the answer before he spoke.

      “Oh yes,” he said, “I backed him all right. He’d have won, I daresay, if I hadn’t spoilt his chance with my rotten luck.”

      Barbara walked on in silence for a minute.

      “I’m sorry,” she said at length. “It was my fault. I gave you the tip.”

      “Nonsense,” he answered almost roughly. “Your money’s gone too.”

      “Did you lose much last week?” she asked abruptly.

      “So much,” he replied, “that it’s no good trying to hide it from you. It’s bound to come out in a few days. The truth is that I’ve lost every penny my uncle left me and every sixpence I had before. Worse than that! I’ve lost money I can’t pay, and I shall not only have to leave the regiment, but – ” he broke off bitterly and slashed with his stick at the grass. “Well, you know what it means,” he finished lamely.

      “Oh, it can’t be as bad as that!” cried Barbara. “Tell Mrs. Vanderstein. She will help you. How I wish I had some money!”

      “Do you think she would help me?” asked Sidney. “She would let me blow my brains out first. You don’t realise, perhaps, what a violent prejudice she has against betting. Look at this letter. I got it the day after I saw you at the opera.” He pulled from his pocket a large sheet of blue writing paper on which Barbara at once recognised Mrs. Vanderstein’s unmistakable handwriting.

      “My dear Joseph,” it ran,

      “I hope there is no truth in what I hear about your betting on race-horses. It is a practice I deplore with all my heart and I should be very sorry to see you descend to such unprincipled depths. Without entering upon a long dissertation, I must tell you that, unless you henceforward sever all connection with bookmakers and their kind, I shall think it my duty to depart from your uncle’s wishes and leave my money away from you altogether. It pains me to write like this and I trust it is unnecessary, but it is best to have things understood.

“Your affectionate aunt,“Ruth Vanderstein.”

      Barbara read the letter in horror-struck silence.

      “That’s the sort of help I should get from her,” said Sidney, as she gave it back to him.

      “Something must be done,” she repeated dully; “can’t you borrow from some one?”

      “I’ve been losing steadily for three years,” replied the young man, “and I had to go to the money-lenders long ago. I can’t get another penny from them. It’s rather funny if you think of how my uncle made his money, isn’t it? But perhaps you don’t know,” he went on hastily, seeing the blank look on Barbara’s face. “So that’s how it is,” he started afresh. “It’s all up with me, you see. I’m absolutely done for unless I can get £10,000 by next week. I’m pretty desperate, I can tell you. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to get the money.”

      He spoke in emphatic tones, and several of the passing crowd turned their heads to see who it was who so loudly published the unfortunate state of his financial affairs. Sidney was quick to realise the attention he was attracting, and lowered his voice to a more confidential pitch. Neither he nor his companion specially remarked one among those who glanced up at them on hearing the outspoken words, a small spare man with a clean-shaven face and brown hair fading to a premature greyness. Nor if they had done so would either of them have recognised in this correctly dressed, spick and span Londoner, whose well-fitting morning coat and patent leather boots so exactly resembled those worn by Sidney himself and nearly every smart young man to be met with in the Park that day, the well-known private detective, Mr. Gimblet, the man most dreaded by the criminal class of the entire kingdom.

      Walking at a more rapid pace than they, he was in the act of overtaking the couple as they strolled along, when something in Sidney’s voice, a note of despairing recklessness more than the words themselves that he uttered, aroused his interest and wakened his ever ready curiosity. He continued to walk on without slackening his speed, and did not look back until he had advanced some fifty yards. Then he hesitated, loitered a moment, and finally sat down on one of the green chairs, which stood conveniently unoccupied, just before Sidney and Barbara strolled unconcernedly by.

      Before they had passed, Gimblet had made a quick survey of the young man’s face, on which signs of worry and anxiety were very plainly to be noted.

      “I wonder who it is,” he thought; and continued, when they had gone on, to gaze meditatively after the young people.

      In his turn he failed to observe two ladies who came up in the opposite direction to that in which his head was turned. Mrs. Vanderstein observed his intent expression as she approached, and following the direction of his eyes murmured to her friend:

      “Do you see that man staring at Barbara? He looks quite moonstruck. She attracts a great deal of attention. Such a dear girl, I don’t know what I should do without her.”

      “You are so good to her,” murmured her companion. “The question is rather, what would she do without you? But she is certainly an attractive young person, especially to men. I wonder that you are not afraid to let that delightful nephew of yours see so much of her.”

      To Barbara, walking mechanically by Sidney’s side, it seemed suddenly as if some strange darkness hung over the face of nature. The lightness of heart with which she had gone forth out of the house, the high spirits natural to her that constituted the only legacy of any value which she had inherited from her father, deserted her now to make place for distress on the young man’s account. Nor was it only at the thought of the trouble that had fallen on him that she recoiled horror-struck and that the sunlight took on a quality of gloom, which made the present hour such a dismal one and those of the future to appear encircled in a dusk that deepened, as it receded, till it merged into that utter obscurity over whose boundaries Joe seemed already to be slipping and vanishing. It was the effect of his disaster on her own life that chiefly terrified and shocked her. What would she do without the only man friend of anything like her own age whom she knew in London and whose tastes so much resembled her own? She would hear no more sporting gossip, СКАЧАТЬ