George Fenn - The Mynns' Mystery

“That settles it,” said Saul, trying to recover his equanimity, but speaking in a low voice full of fury. “I don’t want to be hard on you, Gertie, but if that dog is here next time I come, I’ll poison him, as sure as he is alive. I’m master now, and – ”

He stopped short, for the old housekeeper entered the room with a card, the ring at the front door and the answering footsteps having passed unnoticed in the drawing-room.

“For me, Denton?” cried Gertie, eagerly running to the old woman, and clinging to her arm.

“He asked for master, miss,” whispered the old woman. “He did not know. In the dining-room, miss. It’s Master George.”

A mist seemed to float before Gertrude’s eyes, but not before she had read upon the card the name:

“Mr George Harrington.”

“Who’s that? What’s that?” cried Saul Harrington sharply, as he saw by Gertrude’s agitation that there was something particular on the way.

“It’s Master George come, sir,” said the old housekeeper.

“What?” he roared; and his face turned sallow. “Impossible!”

Gertrude stood trembling, with the card in her hand, the name thereon seeming to play strange tricks, and growing larger and then dying away, till it seemed to be hidden in a mist, while a chaos of thoughts ran confusedly through her brain. At one moment she looked upon the coming of this stranger with dread, for a stranger he was to her; the next her heart began to beat, and her cheeks flushed, as she recalled that he was her affianced husband, and that he had come to protect her from this man, and that henceforth she would be safe.

She was brought back to the present by the old housekeeper, who, for the second time, touched her arm.

“Miss Gertrude, ma’am, don’t you hear me?” she said. “What shall I tell him?”

“I – I – ”

“Stop!” cried Saul sharply. “You are a young unprotected girl, and as the executors are not here, Gertie, I look upon it as my duty to see after your welfare. How do we know that this is George Harrington? Let me look at that card.”

He snatched the card from the trembling girl’s fingers, and scowled as he read the inscription, though he could gather nothing from that.

“Here, I’ll go down and see what he’s like. It may be some impostor.”

He had reached the door when Gertrude flushed up, and seemed in her decisive action to have changed from girl to woman.

“Stop, Mr Harrington!” she said; “this would not be the way to welcome my poor dead guardian’s grandson, and I think it is due to me that you should refrain.”

“What!” he cried, staggered for the moment by her manner and bearing, as she crossed to a writing-table. “Nonsense, girl; you know nothing of the ways of the world. I’ll meet this man, and see what he is like.”

Gertrude took no notice, but wrote two telegrams, and handed them to the housekeeper.

“Send them at once,” she whispered, and she turned to the door, where Saul’s hand was raised to stop her, but there was a low growl from close at hand, Saul started and shrank away, leaving the door free; but before Gertrude was half way to the room, with the dog close at her heels, Saul had followed, and entered the dining-room just as the keen-looking, sun-browned, and well-dressed man, who had stood gazing at old Harrington’s portrait, turned quickly and advanced to meet the agitated girl.

“How do you do?” he said, in a sharp decisive way, as he held out both hands, Gertrude placing hers within them, to be retained, as the stranger looked at her searchingly, and evidently with satisfaction. “There you need not tell me,” he continued, “you’re Gertrude, I know. I say, quite a shock to me to come back too late. That’s the old man, I suppose?”

He nodded towards the portrait as, without moving her eyes from his, Gertrude replied:

“Yes, that is uncle’s – I mean dear guardian’s portrait.”

“Like him?”

“Oh, so very like,” replied Gertrude, “I can almost fancy sometimes he is looking down at me from the wall.”

“Ah,” exclaimed the other, giving a quick glance up at the picture and back to Gertrude, whose hands he still held, and pressed warmly. “Of course I don’t remember. Quite a little shaver when I went over yonder.”

Saul, who stood glowering at the pair, half mad with rage and disappointment, winced at these words, but setting his teeth hard, he said quietly:

“Have you just arrived?”

“Reached Liverpool last night. Came on this morning. Very rough passage. Who are you?”

“I,” said Saul, forcing a smile – “well, I am – here is my card.”

He did not finish his sentence, but drew a card from his case.

“Mr Saul Harrington,” read the stranger. “Let’s see, I think I have heard of you?”

“Well, I should presume so,” replied Saul stiffly.

“I was right up the country when grandfather’s last letter came,” said the new-comer hastily, “but I got back to ’Frisco, and then across to New York, and took boat soon as I could, and here I am. Didn’t stop about much luggage, so as to be quick. Can I stay here?”

“Stay here?” said Gertrude, withdrawing her hands. “Oh, yes, it is your own house.”

“Ah, to be sure, I suppose so,” cried the young man sharply; and as he spoke his dark eyes were running from one to the other, and then to the dog, which kept on sniffing at him uneasily. “Won’t bite, will he?”

“Oh no. Lie down, Bruno,” cried Gertrude hastily.

“Don’t know so much about that,” said Saul; “he can bite sometimes.”

“Well, he’d better keep his fangs out of me,” said the young man, with an involuntary movement of the hand beneath the back of his morning coat.

“You’ll excuse me,” interposed Saul, taking a step forward, “but you are a perfect stranger to us, sir.”

“Natural-lee,” said the young man. “Never met before, of course.”

“Then will you be good enough to give me some proofs that you are the gentleman whose card you sent up.”

“Eh? Proofs? Oh, yes. No, I won’t. Look here, sir, this is a curious welcome; pray, who are you?”

“I gave you my card, sir.”

“Yes, of course, Saul Harrington – Mr Saul Harrington. But that don’t explain – yes, it does, you’re a cousin. The old man said something about you in his last letter.”

“And in the others,” said Saul sharply.

“Of course.”

“Have you the letters?”

“I told you I had, didn’t I? Am I to show them to you?”

“Stop,” cried Gertrude quietly.

“Eh? Stop!” cried Saul fiercely. “How do we know that this is not an impostor?”

“A what,” roared the young man fiercely.

“Stop, if you please,” said Gertrude. “Mr Saul Harrington is only a visitor here, Mr George, and has no right to make such a demand of you.”

“Mind what you are saying,” cried Saul angrily.

“I am minding what I am saying, sir. You have no right to ask such questions.”

“What? Not in your behalf?”

“No, sir,” interposed their visitor sharply, as he took his cue from Gertrude; “no right at all.”

“I was not speaking to you,” said Saul roughly; and the two men stood glowering at each other, Saul having rather the best of it, till Gertrude spoke hastily, in dread of a quarrel:

“If there is any need for Mr George Harrington to prove his identity, it should be to Mr Hampton and Doctor Lawrence.”

“Who are they?” said the young man sharply.

“My dear guardians,” replied Gertrude.

“Seems rather a strange thing,” said the young man, giving Gertrude a reproachful look, and then metaphorically setting up his hackles as he turned defiantly upon Saul, “that I come back to England, at my grandfather’s invitation, to my own place, and find some one, who has no right, beginning to dictate to me as to what I am to do.”