Colonel Quaritch, V.C.: Chapter 16

Chapter 16

THE HOUSE WITH THE RED PILLARS

Two days after his receipt of the second letter from the "Tiger," Mr.
Quest announced to his wife that he was going to London on business
connected with the bank, and expected to be away for a couple of
nights.

She laughed straight out. "Really, William," she said, "you are a most
consummate actor. I wonder that you think it worth while to keep up
the farce with me. Well, I hope that Edith is not going to be very
expensive this time, because we don't seem to be too rich just now,
and you see there is no more of my money for her to have."

Mr. Quest winced visibly beneath this bitter satire, which his wife
uttered with a smile of infantile innocence playing upon her face, but
he made no reply. She knew too much. Only in his heart he wondered
what fate she would mete out to him if ever she got possession of the
whole truth, and the thought made him tremble. It seemed to him that
the owner of that baby face could be terribly merciless in her
vengeance, and that those soft white hands would close round the
throat of a man she hated and utterly destroy him. Now, if never
before, he realised that between him and this woman there must be
enmity and a struggle to the death; and yet strangely enough he still
loved her!

Mr. Quest reached London about three o'clock, and his first act was to
drive to Cossey and Son's, where he was informed that old Mr. Cossey
was much better, and having heard that he was coming to town had sent
to say that he particularly wished to see him, especially about the
Honham Castle estates. Accordingly Mr. Quest drove on to the old
gentleman's mansion in Grosvenor Street, where he asked for Mr. Edward
Cossey. The footman said that Mr. Edward was upstairs, and showed him
to a study while he went to tell him of the arrival of his visitor.
Mr. Quest glanced round the luxuriously-furnished room, which he saw
was occupied by Edward himself, for some letters directed in his
handwriting lay upon the desk, and a velveteen lounging coat that Mr.
Quest recognised as belonging to him was hanging over the back of a
chair. Mr. Quest's eye wandering over this coat, was presently caught
by the corner of a torn flap of an envelope which projected from one
of the pockets. It was of a peculiar bluish tinge, in fact of a hue
much affected by his wife. Listening for a moment to hear if anybody
was coming, he stepped to the coat and extracted the letter. It /was/
in his wife's handwriting, so he took the liberty of hastily
transferring it to his own pocket.

In another minute Edward Cossey entered, and the two men shook hands.

"How do you do, Quest?" said Edward. "I think that the old man is
going to pull through this bout. He is helpless but keen as a knife,
and has all the important matters from the bank referred to him. I
believe that he will last a year yet, but he will scarcely allow me
out of his sight. He preaches away about business the whole day long
and says that he wants to communicate the fruits of his experience to
me before it is too late. He wishes to see you, so if you will you had
better come up."

Accordingly they went upstairs to a large and luxurious bedroom on the
first floor, where the stricken man lay upon a patent couch.

When Mr. Quest and Edward Cossey entered, a lady, old Mr. Cossey's
eldest daughter, put down a paper out of which she had been reading
the money article aloud, and, rising, informed her father that Mr.
Quest had come.

"Mr. Quest?" said the old man in a high thin voice. "Ah, yes, I want
to see Mr. Quest very much. Go away now, Anna, you can come back by-
and-by, business before pleasure--most instructive, though, that
sudden fall in American railways. But I thought it would come and I
got Cossey's clear of them," and he sniffed with satisfaction and
looked as though he would have rubbed his hands if he had not been
physically incapacitated from so doing.

Mr. Quest came forward to where the invalid lay. He was a gaunt old
man with white hair and a pallid face, which looked almost ghastly in
contrast to his black velvet skull cap. So far as Mr. Quest could see,
he appeared to be almost totally paralysed, with the exception of his
head, neck, and left arm, which he could still move a little. His
black eyes, however, were full of life and intelligence, and roamed
about the room without ceasing.

"How do you do, Mr. Quest?" he said; "sorry that I can't shake hands
with you but you see I have been stricken down, though my brain is
clear enough, clearer than ever it was, I think. And I ain't going to
die yet--don't think that I am, because I ain't. I may live two years
more--the doctor says I am sure to live one at least. A lot of money
can be made in a year if you keep your eyes open. Once I made a
hundred and twenty thousand for Cossey's in one year; and I may do it
again before I die. I may make a lot of money yet, ah, a lot of
money!" and his voice went off into a thin scream that was not
pleasant to listen to.

"I am sure I hope you will, sir," said Mr. Quest politely.

"Thank you; take that for good luck, you know. Well, well, Mr. Quest,
things haven't done so bad down in your part of the world; not at all
bad considering the times. I thought we should have had to sell that
old de la Molle up, but I hear that he is going to pay us off. Can't
imagine who has been fool enough to lend him the money. A client of
yours, eh? Well, he'll lost it I expect, and serve him right for his
pains. But I am not sorry, for it is unpleasant for a house like ours
to have to sell an old client up. Not that his account is worth much,
nothing at all--more trouble than profit--or we should not have done
it. He's no better than a bankrupt and the insolvency court is the
best place for him. The world is to the rich and the fulness thereof.
There's an insolvency court especially provided for de la Molle and
his like--empty old windbags with long sounding names; let him go
there and make room for the men who have made money--hee! hee! hee!"
And once more his voice went off into a sort of scream.

Here Mr. Quest, who had enjoyed about enough of this kind of thing,
changed the conversation by beginning to comment on various business
transactions which he had been conducting on behalf of the house. The
old man listened with the greatest interest, his keen black eyes
attentively fixed upon the speaker's face, till at last Mr. Quest
happened to mention that amongst others a certain Colonel Quaritch had
opened an account with their branch of the bank.

"Quaritch?" said the old man eagerly, "I know that name. Was he ever
in the 105th Foot?"

"Yes," said Mr. Quest, who knew everything about everybody, "he was an
ensign in that regiment during the Indian Mutiny, where he was badly
wounded when still quite young, and got the Victoria Cross. I found it
all out the other day."

"That's the man; that's the man," said old Mr. Cossey, jerking his
head in an excited manner. "He's a blackguard; I tell you he's a
blackguard; he jilted my wife's sister. She was twenty years younger
than my wife--jilted her a week before her marriage, and would never
give a reason, and she went mad and is in a madhouse how. I should
like to have the ruining of him for it. I should like to drive him
into the poor-house."

Mr. Quest and Edward looked at each other, and the old man let his
head fall back exhausted.

"Now good-bye, Mr. Quest, they'll give you a bit of dinner
downstairs," he said at length. "I'm getting tired, and I want to hear
the rest of that money article. You've done very well for Cossey's and
Cossey's will do well for you, for we always pay by results; that's
the way to get good work and make a lot of money. Mind, Edward, if
ever you get a chance don't forget to pay that blackguard Quaritch out
pound for pound, and twice as much again for compound interest--hee!
hee! hee!"

"The old gentleman keeps his head for business pretty well," said Mr.
Quest to Edward Cossey as soon as they were well outside the door.

"Keeps his head?" answered Edward, "I should just think he did. He's a
regular shark now, that's what he is. I really believe that if he knew
I had found thirty thousand for old de la Molle he would cut me off
with a shilling." Here Mr. Quest pricked up his ears. "And he's close,
too," he went on, "so close that it is almost impossible to get
anything out of him. I am not particular, but upon my word I think
that it is rather disgusting to see an old man with one foot in the
grave hanging on to his moneybags as though he expected to float to
heaven on them."

"Yes," said Mr. Quest, "it is a curious thing to think of, but, you
see, money /is/ his heaven."

"By the way," said Edward, as they entered the study, "that's queer
about that fellow Quaritch, isn't it? I never liked the look of him,
with his pious air."

"Very queer, Mr. Cossey," said he, "but do you know, I almost think
that there must be some mistake? I do not believe that Colonel
Quaritch is the man to do things of that sort without a very good
reason. However, nobody can tell, and it is a long while ago."

"A long while ago or not I mean to let him know my opinion of him when
I get back to Boisingham," said Edward viciously. "By Jove! it's
twenty minutes past six, and in this establishment we dine at the
pleasant hour of half-past. Won't you come and wash your hands."

Mr. Quest had a very good dinner, and contrary to his custom drank the
best part of a bottle of old port after it. He had an unpleasant
business to face that evening, and felt as though his nerves required
bracing. About ten o'clock he took his leave, and getting into a
hansom bade the cabman drive to Rupert Street, Pimlico, where he
arrived in due course. Having dismissed his cab, he walked slowly down
the street till he reached a small house with red pillars to the
doorway. Here he rang the bell. The door was opened by a middle-aged
woman with a cunning face and a simper. Mr. Quest knew her well.
Nominally the Tiger's servant, she was really her jackal.

"Is Mrs. d'Aubigne at home, Ellen?" he said.

"No, sir," she answered with a simper, "but she will be back from the
music hall before long. She does not appear in the second part. But
please come in, sir, you are quite a stranger here, and I am sure that
Mrs. d'Aubigne will be very glad to see you, for she have been
dreadfully pressed for money of late, poor dear; nobody knows the
trouble that I have had with those sharks of tradesmen."

By this time they were upstairs in the drawing-room, and Ellen had
turned the gas up. The room was well furnished in a certain gaudy
style, which included a good deal of gilt and plate glass. Evidently,
however, it had not been tidied since the Tiger had left it, for there
on the table were cards thrown this way and that amidst an array of
empty soda-water bottles, glasses with dregs of brandy in them, and
other /debris/, such as the ends of cigars and cigarettes, and a
little copper and silver money. On the sofa, too, lay a gorgeous tea
gown resplendent with pink satin, also a pair of gold embroidered
slippers, not over small, and an odd gant de Suede, with such an
extraordinary number of buttons that it almost looked like the cast-
off skin of a brown snake.

"I see that your mistress has been having company, Ellen," he said
coldly.

"Yes, sir, just a few lady friends to cheer her up a bit," answered
the woman, with her abominable simper; "poor dear, she do get that low
with you away so much, and no wonder; and then all these money
troubles, and she night by night working hard for her living at the
music hall. Often and often have I seen her crying over it all----"

"Ah," said he, breaking in upon her eloquence, "I suppose that the
lady friends smoke cigars. Well, clear away this mess and leave me--
stop, give me a brandy-and-soda first. I will wait for your mistress."

The woman stopped talking and did as she was bid, for there was a look
in Mr. Quest's eye which she did not quite like. So having placed the
brandy-and-soda-water before him she left him to his own reflections.

Apparently they were not very pleasant ones. He walked round the room,
which was reeking of patchouli or some such compound, well mixed with
the odour of stale cigar smoke, looking absently at the gee-gar
ornaments. On the mantelpiece were some photographs, and among them,
to his disgust, he saw one of himself taken many years ago. With
something as near an oath as he ever indulged in, he seized it, and
setting fire to it over the gas, waited till the flames began to
scorch his fingers, and then flung it, still burning, into the grate.
Then he looked at himself in the glass in the mantelpiece--the room
was full of mirrors--and laughed bitterly at the incongruity of his
gentlemanlike, respectable, and even refined appearance, in that
vulgar, gaudy, vicious-looking room.

Suddenly he bethought him of the letter in his wife's handwriting
which he had stolen from the pocket of Edward Cossey's coat. He drew
it out, and throwing the tea gown and the interminable glove off the
sofa, sat down and began to read it. It was, as he had expected, a
love letter, a wildly passionate love letter, breathing language which
in some places almost touched the beauty of poetry, vows of undying
affection that were throughout redeemed from vulgarity and even from
silliness by their utter earnestness and self-abandonment. Had the
letter been one written under happier circumstances and innocent of
offence against morality, it would have been a beautiful letter, for
passion at its highest has always a wild beauty of its own.

He read it through and then carefully folded it and restored it to his
pocket. "The woman has a heart," he said to himself, "no one can doubt
it. And yet I could never touch it, though God knows however much I
wronged her I loved her, yes, and love her now. Well, it is a good bit
of evidence, if ever I dare to use it. It is a game of bluff between
me and her, and I expect that in the end the boldest player will win."

He rose from the sofa--the atmosphere of the place stifled him, and
going to the window threw it open and stepped out on to the balcony.
It was a lovely moonlight night, though chilly, and for London the
street was a quiet one.

Taking a chair he sat down there upon the balcony and began to think.
His heart was softened by misery and his mind fell into a tender
groove. He thought of his long-dead mother, whom he had dearly loved,
and of how he used to say his prayers to her, and of how she sang
hymns to him on Sunday evenings. Her death had seemed to choke all the
beauty out of his being at the time, and yet now he thanked heaven
that she was dead. And then he thought of the accursed woman who had
been his ruin, and of how she had entered into his life and corrupted
and destroyed him. Next there rose up before him a vision of Belle,
Belle as he had first seen her, a maid of seventeen, the only child of
that drunken old village doctor, now also long since dead, and of how
the sight of her had for a while stayed the corruption of his heart
because he grew to love her. And then he married Belle by foul means,
and the woman rose up in his path again, and he learnt that his wife
hated him with all the energy of her passionate heart. Then came
degradation after degradation, and the abandonment of principle after
principle, replaced only by a fierce craving for respectability and
rest, a long, long struggle, which ever ended in new lapses from the
right, till at length he saw himself a hardened schemer, remorselessly
pursued by a fury from whom there was no escape. And yet he knew that
under other circumstances he might have been a good and happy man--
leading an honourable life. But now all hope had gone, that which he
was he must be till the end. He leaned his head upon the stone railing
in front of him and wept, wept in the anguish of his soul, praying to
heaven for deliverance from the burden of his sins, well knowing that
he had none to hope for.

For his chance was gone and his fate fixed.

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