Chapter XXXIV: One That Was Lost

Lovell, and it was the last day he would ever call himself so, stood speechless in Ah Lee’s opium shop. Beside him was a sergeant and half-a-dozen policemen; in front of him some rags of humanity with their smoke still in them. There had been such a raiding as never was known in their memory, but for all that there was despair on Lovell’s face.

Whoever they had, it was not Magdalen nor Ah Lee. Churchill had told the truth; she had been taken elsewhere. What had become of the French woman he neither knew nor cared, except that neither he nor the police knew where to go.

Some one touched him on the arm.

“He’s conscious,” said the doctor some one had brought. “He wants to say something. Is your name Ogilvie?”

It was, to his shame. To his shame, too, he had forgotten the man who lay down-stairs, dying for Magdalen Clyde. He ran down quickly enough, with a policeman’s lantern to make the way plain.

Bertie Churchill, in his scarlet dressing-gown, lay on the mats that were redder still. The salt, acrid smell of blood rose over the reek of brandy, but the little that stayed in the dying man had been England’s best.

“I’ll only keep you two minutes,” he whispered. “I was wrong about her; she got away. That’s why I’m here.”

“Ah Lee?”

Churchill assented with his eyes.

“I thought when you were here they’d got her at the door. She knocked instead of going straight through; it’s never locked. But they didn’t, and they couldn’t wake Ah Lee from his opium to tell him she was gone. After you’d gone he came here--he--in the middle of it,” with a glance at his side and the blood on the floor. “His son came in. I was pretty far gone and they spoke their lingo, but they used names of streets. She must have got as far as the Northend Road; they jabbered of it. The boy was saying something else. ‘Buildings--Hare’s Buildings.’ Know about it? I could open my eyes then and I saw Ah Lee’s face. He cut at me to finish me before he went--there, I suppose! You’d know,” he concluded very wearily.

“She lives there,” said Lovell sharply. He caught Churchill’s hand with the dew of death on it. “What is it?” he said. “Is there anything you want before I go?”

“She said ‘God bless you’--to me!” It was as if he were very far off. “Don’t go.”

The doctor caught Lovell’s eye and nodded.

“Dolly,” said Churchill very loud, “I’ve paid. You said I’d pay and I’m paying. I’ve been damned alive ever since that day I said I never meant to marry you.”

Lovell started. He had never thought of this Churchill and Magdalen’s sister, who was Lady Barnysdale. He remembered the restaurant and Churchill’s face as he called.

“Did you marry her?” he asked, and saw the doctor’s face.

Churchill sat up in his bed of mats.

There was a childish disappointment in his eyes.

“Krug’s putting--out--the lights!” said he, and fell back again.

The lights were out indeed for Bertie Churchill; his days for good and evil were over, and for the evil, as he said, he had paid.

Lovell stumbled as he went up-stairs. For this thing and many others his father was responsible, and, for all he knew, for a blacker thing yet. He turned his back on that dreadful house and ran, as he had never run in his life, for Hare’s Buildings.

He had no hope she would be there. It was perhaps to find nothing had been true in the things Churchill had said that he was going. But he went--a splendid sight to see, deep-ribbed and lean-flanked, he ran like a buck in spring. But his dark, hard face was not so good to see.

He was there, past the tailor shop, half-way up the stairs, when some one screamed.

Shriek after shriek rang through the open door; but, mad as he was, he knew the shrieks were not Magdalen’s. He was in the room before he saw her; saw Dolly on her knees over Ah Lee, clawing for his eyes.

His hand pushed her away like a straw. Silent as death, and as terrible, it struck Ah Lee once, and twice. The man’s convulsed face straightened as if the fury had been wiped on it, his rigid hands fell lax as his body swayed backward. But Stratharden’s son never looked at his father’s servant.

Without a word he lifted Magdalen like a child; laid her down, anywhere, but away from that filthy, yellow carrion on the floor, and put his hand on the swollen throat that had been so fair.

“Water, quick!” he exclaimed. There was a trampling on the stair, but he paid no heed to it; it was Dolly who banged the door as she ran past.

But it was not Dolly who ran to him with a dripping towel.

“My God, Keith!” he ejaculated. “Why didn’t you help her?” He felt the quiet pulse, and his stern eyes might have made any woman cower. But not Keith.

“May be I fought, too,” she said bitterly. “She’s but fainted; he had not a clean grip of her.”

Faint or no faint, he would have her out of it. There was no tenderness in his face as he worked over her, only stark, raging determination. And it was on that look of Dick Lovell’s that Magdalen opened her eyes.

As her senses came to her she recoiled from him and would have sprung away but for the deadly coldness that kept her still.

“You!” she muttered, and there was horror of him on her face. “Take away your hand! I know your name!”

Buff Ogilvie looked behind him and saw his father standing in the doorway.

“You!” he exclaimed. He looked from the girl who had turned from him to hide her face on Dolly’s breast to the man who had made her do it. Ronald, forgotten and bewildered, crept to his mother’s side. No one else stirred.

Stratharden nodded slowly. He was very white about the nose and his eyes were narrow.

“I did not come in time,” he was breathing very slowly. “I----Is that Ah Lee?”

Keith got up off her knees.

“Well you know it is,” she said. “Ye need not hush, Mr. Ogilvie. I’ve served him well these many years, but I serve him no longer. I’ll say my say now that my mistress there may hear it.”

Her mistress. Did she mean Dolly? Magdalen raised her head and saw Ah Lee lying as he had fallen.

“Is he--did I kill him?” she cried.

“Let him be,” said Keith. “He’ll no die. ’Twas Ogilvie here that stunned him,” but at that name Magdalen only turned away her head. “She’ll not look at ye,” said Keith. “My lamb, ye must hear me! Ye mind the picture I showed ye? That ye were the spit and image of?”

Magdalen lay dull eyed. What had a picture to do with her and Lovell, who was Stratharden’s son?

Keith’s bony chest heaved.

“’Twas Ian’s picture,” she said. “Yer uncle, Ian Ogilvie. Oh, ye’ll not know, as I know, how he that was the son of the house fared at the hands of Stratharden and his mother! He was the first-born; his mother died; but ye’re grandfather married again. Stratharden here was but three years younger than Ian; Barnysdale, that was married to her”--with a look at Dolly--“but one year. And had it not been for me little would Ian have had in his father’s house.

“He always laughed it off when I said the things that were on my tongue, but hell was his boyhood, thanks to the stepmother set over him--and hell his manhood, by Stratharden. They gave him--his father and stepmother--neither schooling nor money. A room in the house, a bite with old Keith in the kitchen, was all he had. And one day he left those. He was a grand man to see when he was come to his growth; darker than her, but her living image. I mind I prayed for him by night and day when he left me and went to sea.

“Your Barnysdale, that was Stratharden then,” she motioned to Dolly, “went off, too, to college and to worse; we heard no more of him. Stratharden here bided at home by his mother’s apron-string, and, as she bade him, he married. And when Ogilvie here was two years old a letter comes from Ian. And he was married, too.

“We went to him, David and I, and a bonny thing his wife was. Ninon, he called her. I mind how her mother looked at her child the day it was born. ‘Black and white and red,’ she said laughing, and black and white and red she is still. But I had not cast my eyes on Ian before I saw that he was dying. Poor they were and very poor; for the mother, that was Madame Duplessis, had lost her money in the French war--they say she lent it to overset Napoleon--I cannot tell. And while I was trying to keep the life in Ian, that was worked to the bone keeping his wife, in walks my lord here. Ay, well ye know it!” she turned and towered over him.

“Ye sowed distrust between them, or ye tried. Ye gave her a jewel that was a secret sign of the friends of Louis Napoleon; she wore it, and her mother’s people, that were Orleanists, would do no more for her. Ye cut one thing after another away from the feet of Ian’s wife, that she might turn to ye. But she did not turn. He died in her arms, with her head on his breast, and oh! I mind that ye gnashed yer teeth to see it. Even then ye had yer heathen with ye; though I never knew where ye found him, for it was not till after that ye traveled the wide world round. And it was fear, black fear of ye and him, that sent my Ian’s wife away in the night in secret with his child in her arms. Well I might have guessed what ye had in yer heart, for I knew ye; but she was too clever for ye at the last end. She ran away from the mother that bore her for fear ye would damn her, soul and body, and cast disrepute on Ian’s child.

“What was it blinded the mother of her that night we found she’d gone? Blinded her in the street as she would have sought the police? Who was it came to me with soft words and a written secret from a hospital, to say Madame Duplessis had died there? Ay, ye know! And, dead or alive, neither mother nor daughter nor grandchild ever came back again. We were poor, David and I; but we wore our feet to the bone seeking them. It was not till ye’re father was dead and ye’re brother set in his shoes that we went back to Ardmore, and then only that we were starving and hopeless of finding Ian’s child.

“For sixteen years I heard no word of her, till Barnysdale died, too, and ye told me that his wife was mad and ye would bring her home to Ardmore. I was to keep a guard on her, and I kept it; for the honor of the house of Barnysdale, not for ye. Ye little knew that she was bringing with her the daughter of Ian that I loved”--pointing at the girl in Dolly’s arms. “Nor did I. But when ye sent ye’re heathen to the house--and I saw the living flesh and blood of Ian under my eyes--and ye did yer best to drive her and Barnysdale’s wife into the Clyde--I knew. Oh, I knew! And ye sent me to London to track them; I tracked them well. I found from the manager man that Dorothy Deane that danced and married Barnysdale had no sister. I found elsewhere that another Dorothy Deane had acted in that same theater--and she had a stepsister, they said, at a convent. And in the convent they told me what none knew but them. To Mrs. Deane’s house had come a woman and a child; the woman died there, Mrs. Deane kept the child, Clyde, and said it was hers. It was said she was married again, but none ever saw the man named Clyde. But Clyde was the name Ian’s wife had banked her money in, and a Mrs. Clyde drew it. And when she was dead Dorothy Deane spent the rest of it. And that I did not hear in the convent. Is it true?” Dolly drew a long breath.

“It’s true,” she said. She waited for Magdalen to turn away from her as she had from Ogilvie; but Magdalen clutched her fast.

“She did her best,” she cried sharply. “She was a good mother to me--she was kind and I loved her.”

“All this,” said Stratharden quietly, “has nothing to do with the fact that Lady Barnysdale here is a liar and a swindler, who never was Barnysdale’s wife. I may tell you--Mrs. Churchill--that your husband is alive. Your friend, Mr. Starr-Dalton, knows it.”

“Churchill!” cried Dolly, livid. “You threatened me because of Churchill. He never married me; he----” She stood breathless, and if ever any woman wrestled with temptation it was she. Magdalen was Lady Barnysdale, there was still money and comfort for Dolly, and respect if she held her tongue, unless Churchill----

That “unless” settled it. She spoke out with a wrench that shook her.

“I never was married in my life,” she said. “No, don’t stop me,” as Lovell would have spoken. “I never was married, either to Barnysdale or to anyone else. There were two Dolly Deanes; one was a success--I was the failure. I was only a chorus girl. My name was never in the bills. I was dismissed; Churchill threw me over. I went to Hastings to die there--and the other Dolly Deane found me. I was at my last penny, and when she married Barnysdale--she, not I--she took me with her as her maid. I was with her when he left her--with her when she died. I promised her to see Ronald righted--her son, not mine. Those papers I had were hers, just as he was. I was afraid of Churchill; I was afraid to go to a theater, for fear some one would know me. But I’m not afraid now. Send for the man and ask him, for he knows. I can tell now, because Ronald will not fall into your hands.”

Stratharden shrugged his shoulders.

“Other people shall know, too,” he said. “That, and this mad story of Keith’s that I will prove a lie.”

He stepped to the door.

But he was too late. A group of men were in the doorway; in front of them Aunt Manette, with a cold and weary face.

“Who is here?” she said. But no one answered.

The sergeant of police said something in Stratharden’s ear that he answered aloud:

“It has nothing to do with me,” he said. “As for the girl, she is here.”

The French woman spoke at the sound.

“Nothing to do with you! And they find in your house her boxes that you took from the station--her pin that I gave her the mate of not a week ago. And they find also that paper in your handwriting in Ah Lee’s house. Everything down in white and black, lest he should forget.”

“Aunt Manette,” said Lovell sharply. “Let it be. She’s here; she knows.”

“And Ninon is in her grave,” she answered slowly. “Can I forgive that? And I sightless, till I must pass her child in the street. I will tell all! all!”

Stratharden looked at her. He knew her well; knew Keith, knew Dolly; and not one of them would hold their hand.

“I don’t think,” he said softly, “that you can bring anything so far-fetched home to me. But you can try.”

He moved to Ah Lee, who had stirred.

As Keith said, he was a heathen, but he was the only soul on earth who loved Stratharden.

The man knelt by him, dull eyed. He slipped his hand inside the Chinaman’s coat and felt his heart.

“He would have been wiser to die,” he said, stepping back. He brushed his hand across his mouth and swallowed.

Buff Ogilvie, who would be Lovell no more, looked round him. Magdalen did not believe that his father’s work was not his, and she was not his Dark Magdalen any longer, but Countess of Barnysdale. He could ask no favors of a girl who shrank from him, who must presently be a witness against his father in the dock. He turned, and he was dizzy, to go and hide his head he knew not where. And a dull crash stopped him.

Charles Ogilvie, Viscount Stratharden, had fallen forward on his face. Ah Lee had served him well, even to carrying that in his pocket that brought death very quickly. But his own son shrank from the look on Stratharden’s dead face.

* * * * *

Late that night Buff Ogilvie sat in his bare room in Hare’s Rents. There was nowhere else to go, and there would be an inquest, a routing out of old things that he, his father’s son, must hear in silence. He thought of Churchill, whose eyes he had not stayed to close--of things that had been heaven yesterday and to-day were a fire that is not quenched. “The sins of the father” was an old story, read in the Bible; on living shoulders it was a different thing. An old rhyme of his house came to his mind, as such things do, and he writhed in his chair. Yet it was simple enough; it was carved in the wall over the door of that chapel he had never been let enter; he had wondered over it all his boyhood, but he cursed himself that it came home to him now.

“I built a chapel in Barnysdale,
That seemly was to see;
It was for Mary Magdalen,
And thereto would I be.”

That was it. He had made his soul a chapel to Magdalen, and Stratharden had razed it to the ground. His head dropped on his folded arms. For very shame he could never so much as see her again--after his father’s sins lay between them.

Some one pushed the door ajar and stood there; saw the desolate poverty of the room, the broken man in the chair.

“Dick,” said Magdalen Clyde--and Aunt Manette slipped away in the darkness of the hall--“Dick, they’ve told me!”

The man’s hard face quivered, but he never lifted it. He shivered to the bone as she put her hand on his shoulder.

“I heard you that day in the street,” she said simply. “I thought you knew. I thought Ah Lee----Dick, speak to me!”

“I’m his son--Stratharden’s son,” he said slowly. “And you’re----”

She had slipped to her knees beside him, her hands were round his neck, her lips at his ear.

“Your Dark Magdalen,” she whispered. “Will you send me away?”

* * * * *

Long after a couple, a man and a woman, looked at them as they went through a room together.

“Wasn’t there some story?” the woman asked. The man she spoke to answered carelessly:

“Something about a Chinaman. She offended him and he tried to kill her. He died in prison, I think.”

For Ah Lee, heathen and murderer, had been faithful to the dead. The boxes, the pin, the whole story, he took on his shoulders; and Stratharden’s son would have been glad to have believed him.

THE END.

EAGLE SERIES A weekly publication devoted to good literature. NO. 448
Dec. 26, 1905.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

This novel was previously serialized in _Street & Smith’s New York Weekly_ from August 18 to December 1, 1900. This book version has only 34 chapters, though the original serialization had 37. This is because some chapters from the earlier version have been combined or omitted. The thought break in chapter VIII was originally the start of a separate chapter. The original chapters X-XI (the entire installment from September 8, 1900) are omitted from this version.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.

Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained from the original.

Table of contents has been added and placed into the public domain by the transcriber.