THE BROWN BOX (Concluded)
The effect of this tale on the mind of Harry Desborough was instant
and convincing. The Fair Cuban had been already the loveliest, she
now became, in his eyes, the most romantic, the most innocent, and
the most unhappy of her sex. He was bereft of words to utter what
he felt: what pity, what admiration, what youthful envy of a
career so vivid and adventurous. 'O madam!' he began; and finding
no language adequate to that apostrophe, caught up her hand and
wrung it in his own. 'Count upon me,' he added, with bewildered
fervour; and getting somehow or other out of the apartment and from
the circle of that radiant sorceress, he found himself in the
strange out-of-doors, beholding dull houses, wondering at dull
passers-by, a fallen angel. She had smiled upon him as he left,
and with how significant, how beautiful a smile! The memory
lingered in his heart; and when he found his way to a certain
restaurant where music was performed, flutes (as it were of
Paradise) accompanied his meal. The strings went to the melody of
that parting smile; they paraphrased and glossed it in the sense
that he desired; and for the first time in his plain and somewhat
dreary life, he perceived himself to have a taste for music.
The next day, and the next, his meditations moved to that
delectable air. Now he saw her, and was favoured; now saw her not
at all; now saw her and was put by. The fall of her foot upon the
stair entranced him; the books that he sought out and read were
books on Cuba, and spoke of her indirectly; nay, and in the very
landlady's parlour, he found one that told of precisely such a
hurricane, and, down to the smallest detail, confirmed (had
confirmation been required) the truth of her recital. Presently he
began to fall into that prettiest mood of a young love, in which
the lover scorns himself for his presumption. Who was he, the dull
one, the commonplace unemployed, the man without adventure, the
impure, the untruthful, to aspire to such a creature made of fire
and air, and hallowed and adorned by such incomparable passages of
life? What should he do, to be more worthy? by what devotion, call
down the notice of these eyes to so terrene a being as himself?
He betook himself, thereupon, to the rural privacy of the square,
where, being a lad of a kind heart, he had made himself a circle of
acquaintances among its shy frequenters, the half-domestic cats and
the visitors that hung before the windows of the Children's
Hospital. There he walked, considering the depth of his demerit
and the height of the adored one's super-excellence; now lighting
upon earth to say a pleasant word to the brother of some infant
invalid; now, with a great heave of breath, remembering the queen
of women, and the sunshine of his life.
What was he to do? Teresa, he had observed, was in the habit of
leaving the house towards afternoon: she might, perchance, run
danger from some Cuban emissary, when the presence of a friend
might turn the balance in her favour: how, then, if he should
follow her? To offer his company would seem like an intrusion; to
dog her openly were a manifest impertinence; he saw himself reduced
to a more stealthy part, which, though in some ways distasteful to
his mind, he did not doubt that he could practise with the skill of
a detective.
The next day he proceeded to put his plan in action. At the corner
of Tottenham Court Road, however, the Senorita suddenly turned
back, and met him face to face, with every mark of pleasure and
surprise.
'Ah, Senor, I am sometimes fortunate!' she cried. 'I was looking
for a messenger;' and with the sweetest of smiles, she despatched
him to the East End of London, to an address which he was unable to
find. This was a bitter pill to the knight-errant; but when he
returned at night, worn out with fruitless wandering and dismayed
by his fiasco, the lady received him with a friendly gaiety,
protesting that all was for the best, since she had changed her
mind and long since repented of her message.
Next day he resumed his labours, glowing with pity and courage, and
determined to protect Teresa with his life. But a painful shock
awaited him. In the narrow and silent Hanway Street, she turned
suddenly about and addressed him with a manner and a light in her
eyes that were new to the young man's experience.
'Do I understand that you follow me, Senor?' she cried. 'Are these
the manners of the English gentleman?'
Harry confounded himself in the most abject apologies and prayers
to be forgiven, vowed to offend no more, and was at length
dismissed, crestfallen and heavy of heart. The check was final; he
gave up that road to service; and began once more to hang about the
square or on the terrace, filled with remorse and love, admirable
and idiotic, a fit object for the scorn and envy of older men. In
these idle hours, while he was courting fortune for a sight of the
beloved, it fell out naturally that he should observe the manners
and appearance of such as came about the house. One person alone
was the occasional visitor of the young lady: a man of
considerable stature, and distinguished only by the doubtful
ornament of a chin-beard in the style of an American deacon.
Something in his appearance grated upon Harry; this distaste grew
upon him in the course of days; and when at length he mustered
courage to inquire of the Fair Cuban who this was, he was yet more
dismayed by her reply.
'That gentleman,' said she, a smile struggling to her face, 'that
gentleman, I will not attempt to conceal from you, desires my hand
in marriage, and presses me with the most respectful ardour. Alas,
what am I to say? I, the forlorn Teresa, how shall I refuse or
accept such protestations?'
Harry feared to say more; a horrid pang of jealousy transfixed him;
and he had scarce the strength of mind to take his leave with
decency. In the solitude of his own chamber, he gave way to every
manifestation of despair. He passionately adored the Senorita; but
it was not only the thought of her possible union with another that
distressed his soul, it was the indefeasible conviction that her
suitor was unworthy. To a duke, a bishop, a victorious general, or
any man adorned with obvious qualities, he had resigned her with a
sort of bitter joy; he saw himself follow the wedding party from a
great way off; he saw himself return to the poor house, then robbed
of its jewel; and while he could have wept for his despair, he felt
he could support it nobly. But this affair looked otherwise. The
man was patently no gentleman; he had a startled, skulking, guilty
bearing; his nails were black, his eyes evasive; his love perhaps
was a pretext; he was perhaps, under this deep disguise, a Cuban
emissary!
Harry swore that he would satisfy these doubts; and the next
evening, about the hour of the usual visit, he posted himself at a
spot whence his eye commanded the three issues of the square.
Presently after, a four-wheeler rumbled to the door, and the man
with the chin-beard alighted, paid off the cabman, and was seen by
Harry to enter the house with a brown box hoisted on his back.
Half an hour later, he came forth again without the box, and struck
eastward at a rapid walk; and Desborough, with the same skill and
caution that he had displayed in following Teresa, proceeded to dog
the steps of her admirer. The man began to loiter, studying with
apparent interest the wares of the small fruiterer or tobacconist;
twice he returned hurriedly upon his former course; and then, as
though he had suddenly conquered a moment's hesitation, once more
set forth with resolute and swift steps in the direction of
Lincoln's Inn. At length, in a deserted by-street, he turned; and
coming up to Harry with a countenance which seemed to have become
older and whiter, inquired with some severity of speech if he had
not had the pleasure of seeing the gentleman before.
'You have, sir,' said Harry, somewhat abashed, but with a good show
of stoutness; 'and I will not deny that I was following you on
purpose. Doubtless,' he added, for he supposed that all men's
minds must still be running on Teresa, 'you can divine my reason.'
At these words, the man with the chin-beard was seized with a
palsied tremor. He seemed, for some seconds, to seek the utterance
which his fear denied him; and then whipping sharply about, he took
to his heels at the most furious speed of running.
Harry was at first so taken aback that he neglected to pursue; and
by the time he had recovered his wits, his best expedition was only
rewarded by a glimpse of the man with the chin-beard mounting into
a hansom, which immediately after disappeared into the moving
crowds of Holborn.
Puzzled and dismayed by this unusual behaviour, Harry returned to
the house in Queen Square, and ventured for the first time to knock
at the fair Cuban's door. She bade him enter, and he found her
kneeling with rather a disconsolate air beside a brown wooden
trunk.
'Senorita,' he broke out, 'I doubt whether that man's character is
what he wishes you to believe. His manner, when he found, and
indeed when I admitted that I was following him, was not the manner
of an honest man.'
'Oh!' she cried, throwing up her hands as in desperation, 'Don
Quixote, Don Quixote, have you again been tilting against
windmills?' And then, with a laugh, 'Poor soul!' she added, 'how
you must have terrified him! For know that the Cuban authorities
are here, and your poor Teresa may soon be hunted down. Even yon
humble clerk from my solicitor's office may find himself at any
moment the quarry of armed spies.'
'A humble clerk!' cried Harry, 'why, you told me yourself that he
wished to marry you!'
'I thought you English like what you call a joke,' replied the lady
calmly. 'As a matter of fact, he is my lawyer's clerk, and has
been here to-night charged with disastrous news. I am in sore
straits, Senor Harry. Will you help me?'
At this most welcome word, the young man's heart exulted; and in
the hope, pride, and self-esteem that kindled with the very thought
of service, he forgot to dwell upon the lady's jest. 'Can you
ask?' he cried. 'What is there that I can do? Only tell me that.'
With signs of an emotion that was certainly unfeigned, the fair
Cuban laid her hand upon the box. 'This box,' she said, 'contains
my jewels, papers, and clothes; all, in a word, that still connects
me with Cuba and my dreadful past. They must now be smuggled out
of England; or, by the opinion of my lawyer, I am lost beyond
remedy. To-morrow, on board the Irish packet, a sure hand awaits
the box: the problem still unsolved, is to find some one to carry
it as far as Holyhead, to see it placed on board the steamer, and
instantly return to town. Will you be he? Will you leave to-
morrow by the first train, punctually obey orders, bear still in
mind that you are surrounded by Cuban spies; and without so much as
a look behind you, or a single movement to betray your interest,
leave the box where you have put it and come straight on shore?
Will you do this, and so save your friend?'
'I do not clearly understand . . .' began Harry.
'No more do I,' replied the Cuban. 'It is not necessary that we
should, so long as we obey the lawyer's orders.'
'Senorita,' returned Harry gravely, 'I think this, of course, a
very little thing to do for you, when I would willingly do all.
But suffer me to say one word. If London is unsafe for your
treasures, it cannot long be safe for you; and indeed, if I at all
fathom the plan of your solicitor, I fear I may find you already
fled on my return. I am not considered clever, and can only speak
out plainly what is in my heart: that I love you, and that I
cannot bear to lose all knowledge of you. I hope no more than to
be your servant; I ask no more than just that I shall hear of you.
Oh, promise me so much!'
'You shall,' she said, after a pause. 'I promise you, you shall.'
But though she spoke with earnestness, the marks of great
embarrassment and a strong conflict of emotions appeared upon her
face.
'I wish to tell you,' resumed Desborough, 'in case of accidents. .
. .'
'Accidents!' she cried: 'why do you say that?'
'I do not know,' said he, 'you may be gone before my return, and we
may not meet again for long. And so I wished you to know this:
That since the day you gave me the cigarette, you have never once,
not once, been absent from my mind; and if it will in any way serve
you, you may crumple me up like that piece of paper, and throw me
on the fire. I would love to die for you.'
'Go!' she said. 'Go now at once. My brain is in a whirl. I
scarce know what we are talking. Go; and good-night; and oh, may
you come safe!'
Once back in his own room a fearful joy possessed the young man's
mind; and as he recalled her face struck suddenly white and the
broken utterance of her last words, his heart at once exulted and
misgave him. Love had indeed looked upon him with a tragic mask;
and yet what mattered, since at least it was love--since at least
she was commoved at their division? He got to bed with these
parti-coloured thoughts; passed from one dream to another all night
long, the white face of Teresa still haunting him, wrung with
unspoken thoughts; and in the grey of the dawn, leaped suddenly out
of bed, in a kind of horror. It was already time for him to rise.
He dressed, made his breakfast on cold food that had been laid for
him the night before; and went down to the room of his idol for the
box. The door was open; a strange disorder reigned within; the
furniture all pushed aside, and the centre of the room left bare of
impediment, as though for the pacing of a creature with a tortured
mind. There lay the box, however, and upon the lid a paper with
these words: 'Harry, I hope to be back before you go. Teresa.'
He sat down to wait, laying his watch before him on the table. She
had called him Harry: that should be enough, he thought, to fill
the day with sunshine; and yet somehow the sight of that disordered
room still poisoned his enjoyment. The door of the bed-chamber
stood gaping open; and though he turned aside his eyes as from a
sacrilege, he could not but observe the bed had not been slept in.
He was still pondering what this should mean, still trying to
convince himself that all was well, when the moving needle of his
watch summoned him to set forth without delay. He was before all
things a man of his word; ran round to Southampton Row to fetch a
cab; and taking the box on the front seat, drove off towards the
terminus.
The streets were scarcely awake; there was little to amuse the eye;
and the young man's attention centred on the dumb companion of his
drive. A card was nailed upon one side, bearing the
superscription: 'Miss Doolan, passenger to Dublin. Glass. With
care.' He thought with a sentimental shock that the fair idol of
his heart was perhaps driven to adopt the name of Doolan; and as he
still studied the card, he was aware of a deadly, black depression
settling steadily upon his spirits. It was in vain for him to
contend against the tide; in vain that he shook himself or tried to
whistle: the sense of some impending blow was not to be averted.
He looked out; in the long, empty streets, the cab pursued its way
without a trace of any follower. He gave ear; and over and above
the jolting of the wheels upon the road, he was conscious of a
certain regular and quiet sound that seemed to issue from the box.
He put his ear to the cover; at one moment, he seemed to perceive a
delicate ticking: the next, the sound was gone, nor could his
closest hearkening recapture it. He laughed at himself; but still
the gloom continued; and it was with more than the common relief of
an arrival, that he leaped from the cab before the station.
Probably enough on purpose, Teresa had named an hour some thirty
minutes earlier than needful; and when Harry had given the box into
the charge of a porter, who sat it on a truck, he proceeded briskly
to pace the platform. Presently the bookstall opened; and the
young man was looking at the books when he was seized by the arm.
He turned, and, though she was closely veiled, at once recognised
the Fair Cuban.
'Where is it?' she asked; and the sound of her voice surprised him.
'It?' he said. 'What?'
'The box. Have it put on a cab instantly. I am in fearful haste.'
He hurried to obey, marvelling at these changes, but not daring to
trouble her with questions; and when the cab had been brought
round, and the box mounted on the front, she passed a little way
off upon the pavement and beckoned him to follow.
'Now,' said she, still in those mechanical and hushed tones that
had at first affected him, 'you must go on to Holyhead alone; go on
board the steamer; and if you see a man in tartan trousers and a
pink scarf, say to him that all has been put off: if not,' she
added, with a sobbing sigh, 'it does not matter. So, good-bye.'
'Teresa,' said Harry, 'get into your cab, and I will go along with
you. You are in some distress, perhaps some danger; and till I
know the whole, not even you can make me leave you.'
'You will not?' she asked. 'O Harry, it were better!'
'I will not,' said Harry stoutly.
She looked at him for a moment through her veil; took his hand
suddenly and sharply, but more as if in fear than tenderness; and
still holding him, walked to the cab-door.
'Where are we to drive?' asked Harry.
'Home, quickly,' she answered; 'double fare!' And as soon as they
had both mounted to their places, the vehicle crazily trundled from
the station.
Teresa leaned back in a corner. The whole way Harry could perceive
her tears to flow under her veil; but she vouchsafed no
explanation. At the door of the house in Queen Square, both
alighted; and the cabman lowered the box, which Harry, glad to
display his strength, received upon his shoulders.
'Let the man take it,' she whispered. 'Let the man take it.'
'I will do no such thing,' said Harry cheerfully; and having paid
the fare, he followed Teresa through the door which she had opened
with her key. The landlady and maid were gone upon their morning
errands; the house was empty and still; and as the rattling of the
cab died away down Gloucester Street, and Harry continued to ascend
the stair with his burthen, he heard close against his shoulders
the same faint and muffled ticking as before. The lady, still
preceding him, opened the door of her room, and helped him to lower
the box tenderly in the corner by the window.
'And now,' said Harry, 'what is wrong?'
'You will not go away?' she cried, with a sudden break in her voice
and beating her hands together in the very agony of impatience. 'O
Harry, Harry, go away! Oh, go, and leave me to the fate that I
deserve!'
'The fate?' repeated Harry. 'What is this?'
'No fate,' she resumed. 'I do not know what I am saying. But I
wish to be alone. You may come back this evening, Harry; come
again when you like; but leave me now, only leave me now!' And
then suddenly, 'I have an errand,' she exclaimed; 'you cannot
refuse me that!'
'No,' replied Harry, 'you have no errand. You are in grief or
danger. Lift your veil and tell me what it is.'
'Then,' she said, with a sudden composure, 'you leave but one
course open to me.' And raising the veil, she showed him a
countenance from which every trace of colour had fled, eyes marred
with weeping, and a brow on which resolve had conquered fear.
'Harry,' she began, 'I am not what I seem.'
'You have told me that before,' said Harry, 'several times.'
'O Harry, Harry,' she cried, 'how you shame me! But this is the
God's truth. I am a dangerous and wicked girl. My name is Clara
Luxmore. I was never nearer Cuba than Penzance. From first to
last I have cheated and played with you. And what I am I dare not
even name to you in words. Indeed, until to-day, until the
sleepless watches of last night, I never grasped the depth and
foulness of my guilt.'
The young man looked upon her aghast. Then a generous current
poured along his veins. 'That is all one,' he said. 'If you be
all you say, you have the greater need of me.'
'Is it possible,' she exclaimed, 'that I have schemed in vain? And
will nothing drive you from this house of death?'
'Of death?' he echoed.
'Death!' she cried: 'death! In that box that you have dragged
about London and carried on your defenceless shoulders, sleep, at
the trigger's mercy, the destroying energies of dynamite.'
'My God!' cried Harry.
'Ah!' she continued wildly, 'will you flee now? At any moment you
may hear the click that sounds the ruin of this building. I was
sure M'Guire was wrong; this morning, before day, I flew to Zero;
he confirmed my fears; I beheld you, my beloved Harry, fall a
victim to my own contrivances. I knew then I loved you--Harry,
will you go now? Will you not spare me this unwilling crime?'
Harry remained speechless, his eyes fixed upon the box: at last he
turned to her.
'Is it,' he asked hoarsely, 'an infernal machine?'
Her lips formed the word 'Yes,' which her voice refused to utter.
With fearful curiosity, he drew near and bent above the box; in
that still chamber, the ticking was distinctly audible; and at the
measured sound, the blood flowed back upon his heart.
'For whom?' he asked.
'What matters it,' she cried, seizing him by the arm. 'If you may
still be saved, what matter questions?'
'God in heaven!' cried Harry. 'And the Children's Hospital! At
whatever cost, this damned contrivance must be stopped!'
'It cannot,' she gasped. 'The power of man cannot avert the blow.
But you, Harry--you, my beloved--you may still--'
And then from the box that lay so quietly in the corner, a sudden
catch was audible, like the catch of a clock before it strikes the
hour. For one second the two stared at each other with lifted
brows and stony eyes. Then Harry, throwing one arm over his face,
with the other clutched the girl to his breast and staggered
against the wall.
A dull and startling thud resounded through the room; their eyes
blinked against the coming horror; and still clinging together like
drowning people, they fell to the floor. Then followed a prolonged
and strident hissing as from the indignant pit; an offensive stench
seized them by the throat; the room was filled with dense and
choking fumes.
Presently these began a little to disperse: and when at length
they drew themselves, all limp and shaken, to a sitting posture,
the first object that greeted their vision was the box reposing
uninjured in its corner, but still leaking little wreaths of vapour
round the lid.
'Oh, poor Zero!' cried the girl, with a strange sobbing laugh.
'Alas, poor Zero! This will break his heart!'
