CHAPTER XVI
THE RICH MAN'S LESSON
THAT was the first of Helen Ranger's visits. After it she came often. I do not know how often; but in one week I saw her come on two evenings; and I had little doubt that she was in training to become the priestess of the goddess of the Abyss. Surely it would take time and careful teaching to learn to perform her elaborate rite. Surely, too, Woodfell had been fortunate in finding a beau tiful creature whose abounding womanliness would add to the rites the feminine element in its fullest intensity.
But the Spring had come, warm and inspiring; and out of my office I gave little thought to anyone or anything but Pamela. In the stimulation of love in Spring she bloomed like an unfolding rose. I wished, often and often, that we were to be married in the summer; the autumn seemed far off.
It was only natural that I should yield to her desire to watch with me the celebration of the rites; but we were prevented from watching the celebration on the night of the May full moon. Two days before it I was summoned suddenly to Northumberland on the business of the firm, to make the will of a dying client.
When I told Pamela that I must go, she was disappointed; but she said with a resigned air, "Never mind, Heine. We must wait till the full moon in June."
"I was going to ask you not to watch the rites without me," I said.
"Oh, I wouldn't," she said with a shiver. "I couldn't."
I left the window of my front room open, that if by any chance the Abyss broke loose, she might escape into No. 20 and through it to the street. I had indeed no great fear; but I was anxious. And when I returned on the morrow of the full moon, I greeted her with no little relief. She lost no time in slipping into No. 20 to reassure me.
There had been a celebration; for she had been locked in her room; and the fragrance of incense still hung on the air of the garden. She had slept peacefully through it; no terror had awakened her, so that we thought that at this celebration again the gates of the Abyss had opened no wider. There was no saying whether Helen Ranger had taken part in it. For my part I thought it unlikely that she had. It would take longer than a fortnight to learn a rite of the Abyss.
On the night of the new moon in June I watched the garden of No. 19.
On the morrow I said to Pamela, "You didn't dance before the statue last night."
"Why should I?" she said, smiling at me.
"It would indeed have been unnecessary," I said.
"Besides, I daren't go into the garden after dark any more—not even if I wanted to," she said. "It has grown more dreadful."
A week later a mischance fell.
Pamela met me as I came from the station with a faint flush on her cheeks and an angry sparkle in her eyes.
"What's the matter?" I said.
"Oh, nothing. It's very silly of me," she said. "But just as I came out of the house one of uncle's friends was coming into the garden; and as I passed him, he raised his hat and said 'Good evening,' in a perfectly horrid way. I can't explain it; but he made me feel horrid. It was rather silly perhaps."
"Which of them was it?" I said.
She described to me the rich man.
"I know him by sight. He is an offensive brute. I'm sure of it," I said.
The matter passed from both our minds. Then, three days later, Pamela set out with me to dine in Town; and after we had greeted one another and turned to go to the station, she said, "I've seen that horrible man again, that friend of Uncle's I passed in the garden. He spoke to me when I was shopping this afternoon, and insisted on talking to me. He came nearly to our gate with me, talking all the time, telling me that I was a pretty girl, and asking me to dine with him in Town one night soon. I did not say a word to him; I did not even look at him; but he kept on talking."
"There is no doubt about what he wants. He wants horse-whipping; and he'll get it," I said.
"He does deserve it," said Pamela.
That was the beginning of a persecution. Either the rich man had the leisure to watch No. 19 continuously, or he chose his hours luckily. Twice during the next ten days he contrived to find Pamela shopping in the High Street and came nearly to No. 19 talking to her, begging her to dine with him, or come for a drive in his motor car.
She had no chance of handing him over to a policeman, for in the daytime there are few policemen about Hertford Park, though at night it is plentifully policed to protect it from burglars. I came home from the office one afternoon early in the hope of catching him. We gave him every chance. Pamela walked up and down the High Street for an hour; and I kept thirty yards behind her; but he never came.
We were not eager to tell Woodfell of this persecution because he had always shown so little interest in her that we were doubtful how he might take it. He might laugh at the whole business and refuse to interfere. It would not be out of keeping with our impressions of his character.
Then yet a third time the odious brute forced himself on her. She dined with me that night; and we discussed at length what course we should take. We had not found one, and were still in the middle of the discussion, when there came a knock at my front door, and looking through the blind, I saw that it was Woodfell.
"Here's your uncle," I said. "I will tell him about it. He's the proper person to stop it."
"We can only try," she said without any great hope in her tone, kissed me, and slipped into the dining-room.
I brought Woodfell into my study and as soon as he had settled himself comfortably in an easy chair, I said, "I've been wanting to see you. One of your friends has been persecuting Pamela in the most shameless way." And I told him what the rich man had done and described him.
As I told my tale Woodfell's ruddiness deepened to an angry crimson; and his eyes were glowing.
"And if you will be so good as to give me his address, I will call on him and horsewhip him till he's cured of these habits for good and all," I ended.
"The hound!" said Woodfell; and his voice rang jarring with a hoarse, husky ferocity. "He dared? Doesn't he know yet? He'd dare to molest my niece—my niece! I'll teach the wretched tradesman. I'll make him understand. I'll give him a lesson. I'll give him hell—unmitigated, literal hell!"
He jerked on to his feet and stamped up and down the room in a black rage. I have never seen so black a rage. I had a vivid vision of Woodfell the traveler forcing his way to some end of the earth. But I felt that his anger was not for Pamela, not at the insult to her; it was at the insult to himself, that one of his own circle, a man who knew him, should have dared to persecute his niece; that was the affront, that enraged him.
Twice he muttered, "The impudence of it! The damned impudence! That dirty tradesman!" Then he said, "Would you mind my writing a letter? I must tell him what he's going to get."
He spoke with the same husky ferocity.
I gave him pen, ink, and paper; and he sat down at my table and wrote a short letter. As he closed the envelope, I rang for Mrs. Ringrose to take it to the post.
"You want a stamp," I said, rising to get him one.
"Stamp! I'm not going to waste a stamp on the dog!" he snapped.
Mrs. Ringrose took the letter; and as the door closed on her I said, "What are you going to do to him?"
"Did you ever hear of the Porro men?" he said with a smile that bared his great teeth.
"No," I said.
"No one has ever heard of anything in this god-forsaken country," he growled.
I waited for him to tell me. But he dropped heavily into his easy chair and stared at me.
"I can't conceive how you kept your hands off him," he said with a sour look.
"I didn't catch him. I tried."
His face cleared a little.
"Why didn't Pamela come to me?" he said.
"She didn't like to," I said. "She didn't know how you would take it. She had little hope of help from you."
"She was wrong—quite wrong—a thing like that. But I suppose it was natural," he added in a tone of indifference. "I've only been an average uncle to her. I can't help it. I don't like women."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Rather below the average," I said.
He jerked himself upright, gripping the arms of his chair; his lips set; and his eyes sparkled. I looked at him; and on the very verge of the outburst, he checked himself.
He dropped back in his chair and said, "Well, yes; below the average. I might have treated her better, seeing that she's my only kith and kin. But there, I don't like women. You must make up for the poor life she has had. I've no doubt you will. By the way, have you never thought of becoming a wild-beast tamer?"
"No," I said, laughing.
"You've a good deal of their quiet way. You're wasted in a lawyer's office. It would be better fun; and it would pay you better."
"It's too late to begin life afresh."
"You might take it on as an evening job. I knew you reminded me of some one—it's Haskell. We went about East Africa together—a good deal of East Africa—the parts white men don't go about much. He drank himself to death later."
"Thank you," I said.
"Oh, you should have seen him handle niggers—and me. I tell you what, come and help me get the ultimate revelation. I'll kick this fat brute out and give you his place in the circle. I'm going to get it soon; I give you my word I am. I've found the missing element."
"Thank you; but the offer comes too late. I have Pamela to look after now. But what are you going to do to this brute?"
"I'm going to give him hell," he said firmly. "Let's talk about something else."
He told me the story of an expedition in East Africa, through forests untrodden by white feet, forests full of battle, murder, and sudden death.
"But I got the information I wanted, at last—and Haskell got his beetle," he said.
He had grown quite serene when he left me, but he said with quiet menace as he bade me good-night, "Before I go to sleep, I shall put things in train to teach that impudent tradesman what the Porro men can do."
Three evenings later the quiet of the "Walden Road was broken by the throbbing of the engine of a big motor car. It drew up opposite the garden gate of No. 19; and out of the tonneau crawled the rich man. I was on the point of rushing for a stout cane I had bought against our meeting, when his air arrested me.
I have said that he crawled out of the motor car. He tottered across the pavement to the garden gate; and I saw his face plain. The change in it was ghastly. It had lost its fat, rounded contours, and was drawn, lined, and wrinkled. The ash-gray skin bagged under the half-closed, scared eyes and fell in a pendulous fold along the bottom of the jaw-bone. Never have I seen such a face of a haunted, hunted man. I stood still, staring at it.
He tottered feebly, like a very old man, up the garden path; knocked feebly at the door; and leaned against the door-post with his eyes shut. I could see his lips twitch and twitch.
Either Woodfell had not heard his feeble knock, or he was deliberately letting him wait. Presently, keeping his eyes shut, he groped along the door with his left hand for the knocker, found it, and rapped twice, louder.
There was another pause; then the door was flung wide; and Woodfell stood on the threshold.
"So you've come to heel, you dog!" he said in his hoarse, jeering voice.
"The face, Woodfell! Save me from it! Take it away!" cried the rich man in a gasping whine.
Woodfell bent forward a little, gloating over him with merciless eyes:
"Save you, you dog? I'm going to teach you," he said savagely. "I'm going to teach you that I stand no impudence from you. You're getting a lesson you won't forget; and you'll get another twenty-four hours of it, a good twenty-four hours. You can stand it; and I don't care if you can't."
With that he slammed the door on him.
The rich man uttered a lamentable, piercing cry. Then he went distraught. He hammered and hammered on the door with his bare fists, howling, "Take it away! Take it away! Take it away! The face, Woodfell! The face! The face! Take it away! I'll give you a thousand pounds to take it away ! The face! Woodfell! A thousand pounds! The face! A thousand pounds! A thousand pounds! The face! A thou—"
The word broke in a horrible shriek:
"My God, I've gone and hit it now!" he cried shrilly; and fell backwards full length on the garden path. Only his hat saved him from cracking his skull on the asphalt.
The chauffeur jumped from the car, ran to him, dropped on one knee, and raised him against the other.
The door opened again and Woodfell stood in the doorway looking down on them.
"Here, guv'ner, you've got no call for ter go an' treat a man like this. It's crool. That's what it is—crool. Let up on it now. Tyke the bloomin' fyce awye, whatever it is," said the chauffeur in a scared, shaking voice.
"Bring the dog in," said Woodfell curtly.
The chauffeur struggled to lift the senseless man; failed; then clasped him under the arms, and went into the house backwards, dragging him along. Woodfell made no movement to help him; but he shut the door.
Ten minutes later the chauffeur came out of No. 19, climbed into the car, mopped his brow with his handkerchief, lighted a cigarette, mopped his brow again, and sat smoking with a very thoughtful air. Presently he set the car going and turned it round.
I sat down at my table and went on polishing some verses. The sight of the rich man's terror proved no stimulant. Twenty minutes later the door of No. 19 opened; and the rich man came out. He seemed still very shaky, and slunk down the path like a whipped hound. But he moved less feebly.
Woodfell stood, frowning, and watched him get into the car. The chauffeur started it; and it ran up the road. Woodfell stood quiet for a minute, still frowning; then he took a check from his pocket, unfolded it, and looked at it smiling greedily.
As he put it back into his pocket, he looked round, and saw me at my table.
"Good evening," he cried. "Did you see what the Porro men can do?"
"I saw," I said.
"The dog won't be impudent again in a hurry," he said triumphantly, and went into his house.