Radclyffe Hall - The Oldest Gay Novels

“I knew nothing of it.”

“What! your ward, your child, did not write, did not consult you on so grave a matter?”

“Her letters had been constant. They suddenly ceased. Her last had been a pleading cry to me to succor her father against his growing intimacy with Densdeth. I wrote that I would despatch my business, and hasten home. I never heard again. There was foul play.”

“Suppression of letters?”

“Yes; or I was belied to her.”

“Such a woman would not lightly abandon a faith.”

“Only some villanous treason could destroy her faith in me. And such I do not doubt there has been. I make no loose charges. But why was I kept in the dark?”

“No rumor of the marriage reached you?”

“A rumor merely. Do you know Van Beester?”

“That banking snob who tries to be a swell? a fellow who talks pro-slavery and fancies it aristocracy? Yes; I was bored with him once at a dinner in Paris.”

“Van Beester was put in my state-room on board the steamer when I returned. He had been in England, consummating a railroad job. The old story. Eight per cent third mortgage bonds, convertible. Enormous land grant. Road running over Noman’s Land into Nowhere. One of Densdeth’s schemes. Denman also had an interest.”

“A swindle? Something Muddefontaineish?”

“O no! Noman’s Land, the day the road was done, would become Everybody’s Farm. Nowhere would back into the wilderness. Up would sprout the metropolis of Somewhere. Swindle, Robert? Your term is crude.”

“I suppose Van Beester did not offer it to the English gudgeons under that name.”

“It was a mighty pretty bait for them, — two millions in savory portions, a thousand each. I forget whether some large gudgeon’s gills had taken the whole at one gulp; or whether a shoal of small fry had nibbled the worms off the bob. But the whole loan had been stomached in London, and Van Beester was going home in high feather.”

“A blatant nuisance, of course. And you could not abate or escape him.”

“No; unless I shoved him through our port-hole, or slipped through myself. Densdeth was the man’s hero. He could never talk without parading Densdeth. ‘Such talents for finance!’ he would exclaim. ‘Such knowledge of men! Such a versatile genius! Billiards or banking, all one to him! Never loses a bet; never fails in a project! Such a glass of fashion! Such a favorite with the fair sex!’”

“Pah! ‘Fair sex!’ I can fancy the loathsome fellow’s look and tone,” I exclaimed.

“Then, in a pause of his sea-sickness,” Churm continued, “he spoke of the Denmans. ‘Mr. Denman so princely! Daughters so charming! For his part he admired Emma,’ — ‘Emma,’ the scrub called her. ‘But then there was something very attractive, very exciting, about Clara, and he didn’t wonder that Densdeth had selected her , — lucky girl!’ ‘What do you mean?’ cried I, appalled. ‘Don’t you know?’ said the fellow, chuckling over his bit of fashionable intelligence. ‘I have it from the best authority, Densdeth himself. Here is his letter. I got it the morning we sailed. He is to be married the twenty-third. Blow, breezes! and we shall get there in time for the wedding.’”

“You could interpret her pleading cry, now,” said I.

“I seem to hear it repeated in every blast: ‘Help, dear friend, dear father, — for my mother’s sake!’ A maddening voyage that was! Dark waters, Robert! I shall hate the insolent monotony of ocean all my days. I could do nothing but walk the deck and tally the waves, or stand over the engine and count the turns.”

“People would laugh at a fellow of my age,” said I, “for such conduct. It is lover-like.”

“I loved Clara, as if she were spirit of my spirit. When the pilot boarded us, before dawn on the twenty-third, I was up chafing about the ship. He handed me his newspaper. The first thing I saw was Clara Denman’s name among the deaths.”

“Cruel!” exclaimed I.

“I thanked God for it. Better death than that marriage!”

“There is still something incomprehensible to me in your horror of Densdeth. I only half feel it myself; Stillfleet more than half feels it. What is it? What is he?”

“We will talk of him another time,” Churm replied. “Now I must hasten on. I found, as I said, Clara’s name among the deaths, and inside the paper a confused story of her disappearance and drowning.

“I was so eager to hear more, that I smuggled myself ashore in the health-officer’s gig, and took the quarantine ferry-boat to town, for speed. While I was looking for a hack at the South Ferry, the return coaches of a funeral to Greenwood drove off a boat just come into the slip.

“In the foremost coach I saw the Denmans and Densdeth.

“I pulled open the door and sprang in.

“I can never forget Denman’s look when he saw me. He blenched and shrank into his corner of the carriage, cowed.

“There sat Densdeth, colorless and impassive, opposite me. By my side was Emma, weeping under a heavy veil, and Denman, with a mean and guilty look, beside her.

“‘It is not my fault,’ Denman said, feebly stretching out both his hands, as if he expected a blow from me. ‘I acted for the best, as I thought, so help me God!’

“Densdeth interposed. His smooth, cool manner always puts roughness in the wrong.

“‘This is a sad pleasure, Mr. Churm,’ said he. ‘If we had looked for your return, we would have deferred this sorrowful ceremony.’

“‘Denman!’ said I.

He started, and held out his hands in vague terror.

“‘Denman!’ I repeated. ‘Here has been some crime. What have you done with that innocent girl? Who or what murdered her?’

“‘No,’ said he, drearily. ‘She is dead. That is bitter enough. Not murdered! O, not murdered! Do not be so harsh with an old friend!’

“‘Denman,’ said I, ‘an older friend than you committed her daughter into my hands on her death-bed. In her name I accuse you. I say, you have tried to crowd this poor child into a marriage she abhorred. I say you drove her to death. I say you murdered her, — you and Densdeth.’

“He gave me a dull look, — a pitiful look, for that proud, stately man, — and turned appealingly to his supporter.

“‘Mr. Churm,’ said Densdeth, ‘it is not like you to talk in this hasty way. I refuse to be insulted. My own distress shows me how the shock may have unbalanced you. But this heat and these baseless charges are poor sympathy for a parent, a sister, and a betrothed, coming from the funeral of one dear to them. Is it manly, Mr. Churm, to assail us? I appeal to your real generosity not to sharpen our grief by such cruelty.’

“Of course he was right. I was a brute if they were not guilty. I was silenced, not satisfied.

“Densdeth went on, with thorough self-possession. The man’s olive skin is a mask to him.

“‘You have a right, Mr. Churm,’ said he, ‘to hear all the facts of Clara’s death. I will state them. Ten days ago she took a sharp fever from a cold. One afternoon she became a little light-headed. But at evening she was doing well, and in such a healthy, quiet sleep that we thought she needed no watching. Indeed, we believed her recovered from the trifling attack. In the morning she was gone, — gone, and left no clew. We instantly organized search, with all the care that the tenderest affection could suggest.’

“‘Yes, yes! we did our best!’ Denman eagerly interrupted.

“‘Four days ago,’ continued Densdeth without pause, ‘her body was found, floated ashore on Staten Island. It was disfigured by the chances of drowning, but there were no marks of injury before death. She was fully identified. We suppose, and the doctor concurs, that at night her fever and light-headedness returned, that she left the house, strayed toward the river, fell from some dock, and was drowned.’