THE MAN FROM MELBOURNE

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 33, 10 November 1894, Page 13

THE MAN FROM MELBOURNE

By Mrs Henry E. Dudeney, Author of “ The Strange Will of Josiah Kitterhy ,” “My Terrible Flight ,” Bfc.”

[all rights reserved.]

CHAPTER 11.

not love but laurels

The three loitered on the pavement outside the gambling house in the cool night air. Roy’s face was tremulous ; even his body, as he stood there with the moonlight flooding silver on his black figure, seemed to twitch with excitement. One hand was thrust deep into his pocket, his fingers were running deliciously through, chinking discs of gold. ‘ I congratulate you, Cunliffe,’ said Croker, with forced cordiality. Roy’s phenomenal success had not made him forget his own ill luck. ‘ They won’t want to see you at Scrivener’s again—too dangerous.’ ‘1 am lucky.’ The winner threw back his head and let the air beat cn his burning cheeks. ‘lt was my first essay, too. I had never even seen the game played before.’ ‘ And never will again, if you are wise,’ broke in Dick. He had been standing a little apart, watching the two yonger men ; Oroker with his sharp Scotch face, and ill-concealed air of dejection, Cunliffe with his fresh colouring and with an overflow of delight dominating every feature.

Dick’s own face wore a mask of unconcern. But he was bitterly angry with Fortune. He was even illogical enough to feel slightly angry with Boy, the inexperienced, who had coolly broken a bank at the first attempt, a feat which he, after months of play and the trial of ingenious systems, had failed to accomplish. He was horribly 4 hard up,’ and he was dunned to death. That gold, which tinkled tantalisingly as it ran through Roy’s fingers, would have been his salvation.

Roy did not want it. He was only a clerk —Blyth had a fine contempt on his good-looking, insouciant face. He leaned back against the jamb of the door, smiling slightly, and surveying the others with a kind of paternal interest from behind the glitter of his glasses. Croker was pulling out his watch. ‘ ] must be off. Good night, both of you. I shall be back late, Roy or rather, early.’ ‘ What are you going to do ?’ asked Hick, when he and Fortunatus were alone. ‘ Suppose we look in at the t Comas.’ That burlesque of Jackson’s is rather smart, and Kitty’s capital is the title role.’ ‘Do you. know Kitty personally, I mean P’ ‘ Bless the boy —rather !’ Blyth’s lip curled cynically. ‘Might I put the same question. Do you ?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘ Off the stage —of course.’ ‘ Well, yes. ‘ My business throws me against all sorts of people —besides Kitty and I are old chums. But you —I suppose she hasn’t danced in daytime and enlivened the gloomy proprietary of Barclay and Dobbin’s office.’ ‘ Confound it, I do not live at the office,’ said Roy, testily. ‘My dear fellow, say you do not sleep there. , But out with it—how did you meet her ?’ ‘ Coming out of the theatre.’ Dick laughed. ‘ Delightful accident.’ ‘ It wasn’t an accident at all.’

‘Of course not. Don’t descend to details. I can supply them. You saw her on the boards, went again, again—too many times for prudence and your pocket, stalls come expensive, to say nothing of etceteras —flowers, a brooch or bangle, with which to push acquaintance. And all on £l4 a month. My boy, why didn’t you

warn me you were becoming >entangled P’ ‘Entangled is not a fit word,’ cried. Roy, hotly. ‘She is the sweetest, purest ’ ‘ Most enchanting puss in the world. Of course she is—and will be till some fellow comes along with a longer purse and a broader bracelet than yours. Don’t trouble to reply. Here we are at the door of the ‘Comus.’ ”

The theatre was crowded. Kitty was on the stage, alone save for a background of mere supers —toils to her fascinations

She was dressed as an Irish girl — she was, in fact. Irish —and was singing a song with a ‘ catchy ’ chorus and a melody so tripping that feet involuntarily tapped and heads unconsciously swayed as she sang. Each verse concluded with a daring and capitvating jig such as no Irish peasant girl ever danced even at the maddest of country fairs. She wore a striped petticoat, a faded blue bodice, a few sprigs of shamrock in her massy black hair, a large green sash crossed on one shoulder and passed under the other arm, stockings of the same crude colour.

She was a pretty girl, of the bouncing, buxom, brunette kind. But her chief charm lay in her audacious personality, which made her a prime favourite with a not very critical audience.

A big bouquet, not thrown by Roy, fell at her feet at the close of the act. Dick’s amused eyes followed her swift saucy glance as she picked up the flowers before pirouetting out of sight, Roy, too, saw the thrower, and surprised Blyth by the passion in his face. Did the boy really love the girl? Dick, who hadhitherto credited his young friend and admirer with a rather feeble-minded shallowness, owned now that this judgment was wrong. ‘ Come round behind the scenes,’he whispered, rising. 4 Kitty won’t be on for the first half of the next act. I’ll take you to her dressing-room.’ As they were treading their way through the close and ill-lit passages, he went on :

‘ That’s a considerable pile you’ve hauled in to-night, Roy. What are you going to do with it ? Don’t drop it on that girl. She isn’t worth it.’ ‘ She is worth far more than I can give her. Everything I have is hers if she will take it.’ Dick gasped. ‘ Sits the wind in that quarter! You mean ’ ‘ To marry her.’ ‘ The deuce do you!’ ejaculated Dick, with a. hand on the handle of of the dressing-room door. Kitty was in front of the glass, dabbing at her plump cheek with a hare’s foot. She swung round with a faint startled cry, but went on placidly painting when she saw the intruder was only Blyth. For his part, he advanced boldly. Roy came out from the shadow where he had stood hesitating. To him the dingy dressing-room hers was a shrine. ‘ You !’ she cried in surprise. ‘ How did you get in P And Roy, how bad you look. Are you ill ?’ ‘Hot ill. His voice was so hollow, his gesture so menacing, that Kitty backed against Blyth in genuine alarm. ‘ Saints preserve us I What’s taken him ?’ ‘ Don’t mind me,’ said Dick, with the easy complaisance of a cousin. ‘ I’ll go and look up Jackson ; he’s in the house. I’ve got an idea for a stunning new song for you, Kitty.’ The door closed on him.

Roy kissed Kitty’s unresponsive lips. Then he told her to prepare for a surprise, and spread out on the dirty deal table —his wealth. ‘Oh !’ breathed Kitty, in a long gloating breath. (The ‘ Comus ’ was obscure, and her salary a small one.) ‘ls that all yours, and is it honest makings ? Now don’t look so hot and fierce. I don’t suppose you’ve burgled or murdered for it. But did you work ?’ ‘ I won it at play.’

. 4 Then it isn’t honest earnings after all,’ she cried, triumphantly. I thought not by the size of it. But what matter! How are you goingto spend it P That’s the great thing.’ 4 On you ’

4 It’s worse you might be doing,’ she admitted naively. 4 and, what a lot of things I want.’ 4 But I did not mean to waste it, dearest. It is a nest egg. Added to my salary at Barclay & Dobbins, it will start us comfortably in housekeeping. We can be married at once, and you can leave the stage.’

She fell back and looked at him with eyes growing rapidly wider in their stare. Scorn, amusement, incredulity, and a dozen other emotions chased across her pretty face. ‘lt is clean crazed you are, Roy Cunliffe ? I’ve been on the boards since I was a baby. Give—up—the stage ! For what ? To be a beggarly book-keeper’s wife ! Do you know who threw that bouquet to-night ?’ She came quite close to him as he stood there with hanging arms and a miserable look of incredulity on his blanching face.

‘ The man who threw those flowers,’ she spoke with slow impressiveness, and her excited quickly-drawn breath puffed upon his cheek, ‘ was a London manager. I knew him at once. He’s the biggest of the lot. Soon as I saw a bald bullet-head, and a pair of eyes sharp enough to see through the ways of the very friend himself, I said, Kitty, acushla, your fortune’s made.’ I played and danced and sung to that bald man in the stage box for the rest of the act. When the flowers thumped at my feet, I could have floated up to the flies, so light was the heart of me. And its keep them till I die, I will, if he makes me an offer.’

She stopped, panting, and threw an effectionate glance at the cauli-flower-like collection of flowers, packed leafless and tight in the limits of a border of lace paper. ‘ I shall go to London. I shall make my mark, mind you, I shall have as many golden guineas as 1 have paltry sixpenny-bits now—and more.’

The two last words were breathed out in a rapt ecstacy at the possibil ities in prospect’ ‘ Am I to understand that our engagement is broken ?’ The words were formal, but the poor lad’s heart was in his haggard eyes. However Kitty’s mood was too exalted to be pitiful. ‘ That for it.’ She snapped fingers merrily. ‘l’ve done the same with dozens. It’s the usual thing in my profession.’ She straightened her back at the thought of the London manager and the looming London engagement. ‘ Kitty ! you are playing with me. You did promise ; you do love. For heaven’s sake do not torture me so.’ ‘ See here.’ He has swept off his notes and gold from the table and replaced them in his pocket. ‘ There is plenty of it. A'Ve will spend it all if you like—Low you like. You shall go where you please. Do what you please. When this is gone, I will make more, as much as you want, my Kitty. Only don’t, don’t throw me over!’ She looked straight into his miserable eyes, a gleam of pity in her own. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ she counselled bluntly, yet laying a sympathetic hand on his arm. ‘ You’ll thank me for this some day. I’m a baggage well rid of. My mind is made up.’ ‘ So is mine. I will marry you.’ ‘ Fiddlesticks ! Get out of the way Roy, Don’t you hear the call boy. Think of London manager !’ ‘ Confound the London manager !’ The infuriated youth caught at the red and white flutter of her petticoat as she hurried along the passage. But she twitched the stuff awaiy and bounded on. Before she disappeared where he could not follow her, she turned to blow a kiss and give a saucy bob of her black ringlets in farewell.

CHAPTER IV. MINE OWN FAMILIAR FRIEND. The clock struck the Hfour of one of a new morning Us j Roy finished counting his money. He had put it in the drawer of a little table that stood with its back to the wall, the sovereigns piled monumentally atop of each other, the creases of the notes smoothed lingeringly out, and the notes themselves laid in a heap, at the corner opposite the little columns of gold. He had taken his keys from his pocket, meaning to lock up his treasure. He had chosen that particular place as its temporary home, because of the security of the lock, and the inconvenience of carrying so much money about with him on his person. He hardly knew or cared what ultimately to do with it, now Kitty had jilted him. Yet he told himself savagely that no man —London manager or lover—should wrest her from him. He would win her. He stood with the ring of the bunch of swaying on a finger. At this moment came the sharp rattle of gravel thrown at the window pane. He threw up the sash. Dick Blyth stood oat on the white pavement. ‘ Can you give me a shake down F’ he called up. ‘ There’s a hole in my confounded pocket. Lost my latchkey and what loose cash I had. Everybody in the house where I lodge gone to bed.’ Roy nodded assent, closed the window, and went to the street door. “ Come up as quietly as you can,’ he entreated. ‘My landlady has gone to bed long ago. Her husband, Tippings, is a great invalid —bedridden.’

‘ And a very snug profession, too,’ whispered Dick, as he stumbled np an unfamiliar stair. ‘My mother, in England, when I was a little lad, used to visit agricultural labourers who had given up active pursuit of their calling for the easier one of bedriding. Gave ’em tracts and calves foot jelly. They swallowed both with a sullen grumble at the quality. The bed-ridden one is the ideal autocrat.’

By the end of this slightly unfeeling analysis Roy had piloted his guest into the sitting-room. ‘ Any corner will do for me,’ said Blyth, with a quick glance round. It was the first time he had been there.

‘ Have a drink before you turn in.’ Roy hospitably opened the doors of a little sideboard and brought out bottle and glasses. Blyth swung himself out of his coat and threw it across the head of the couch. As he did so his eye caught the gleam of Roy’s gold from its bed in the bottom of the half-open drawer.

A swift wolfishness lighted in his eye and as quickly died. ‘ Why do you not lock up your riches ?’ he asked, as he carelessly turned towards the centre table. ‘ The sight of so much gold tempts a poor cleaned-out devil to unholy longings.’ Roy laughed. ‘ If the loan of a few pounds,’ he began diffidently. ‘ My dear fellow, a loan to me means a gift. I never pay a debt—on principle. You’ve locked the drawer ? That’s right.’ He poured himself some whiskey, and was about to perform the same office for Roy, when the latter stopped him. ‘ Not for me. I’ve had too much already.’ ‘ Nonsense ! You’ve had too little. A good stiff glass will do you good. Have a dash of soda with it ?’ ‘ I’m better without it, thanks, I feel seedy.’ ‘ You look it. I’m not surprised after Croker’s champagne. Beastly sweet stuff. Drink this.’ He pushed forward|his prescription —whiskey and soda—with the remark, ‘ You 11 need it. I want to have serious word with you.’ ‘lt’s rather too late for words of any kind.’ Roy’s heavy eyes ranged along the mantleshelf, which, as centre decora-

tion to plaster figures and vases full of dried grass, boasted a skeleton clock, under a glass case. ‘ It’s never too late to do a good deed,’ quotb Dick, with easy disregard of the small hours. ‘ I’m going to talk about Kitty. It’s my business to prevent you from ruining your life, because I like you —and know her.’

« What do you mean P .Not even you, Dick, shall dare to hint ” ‘ I don’t hint, I want to tell you clear and unpalatable truth, if you’ll listen to it. I have known Kitty Peacher some time,’

‘By heaven !’ shouted Roy. ‘lf you’ve anything to tell, out with it like a man.’ ‘ Dick’s dark face flushed.

‘ Respect the slumbers of Tippings and moderate your voice. I will speak out —like a man, as you kindly put it —like a brute would be better, considering your infatuation. I w-as trying to let you down easily. If you refuse to have it so, why take the ugly truth in one gulp.’ ‘ Why did you kiss her ?’ ‘Because I have an undisputed right.’ Kitty’s own words buzzed back in her boy lover’s ears : —‘ I have done the same with dozens of men.’ It was true then, and Dick, the man he loved and admired, was one. ‘ Read those.’

Dick drew from his pocket a bundle of letters -written on thick, pink paper, each sheet with a large, sprawling gilt ‘K ’ for Kitty, glittering across one corner.

Hoy groaned. He had given her the paper because his taste had been offended by the flimsy stuff on which she had previously scribbled her notes. Blyth scattered the contents of his packet on the table. Some of the letters were still in their envelopes, others were half open. On the flaps of the envelopes, and, in fact, in any haie available space, the journalist had dotted notes for plots or paragraphs, couplets, engagements, or any stray fact or fancy which overflowed from his busy brain. Such was the value he set on Kitty’s pink and scented effusions.

‘You may read them,’ he said, ‘ I expect she uses much about the same phrases to both of us.’ But Roy, his sense of honour stronger, pushed them back. One or two boldly scribbled words his eye had involuntarily caught; they were suggestive enough to shake even his faith in the bright little burlesque actress.

Blyth, touched by the misery on his face, charitably tried consolation.

‘ Do not be so cut up about it, old hoy ; we all go through it —first love. "When I was at Oxford years ago — did I ever tell you they meant me for the church P My father had the gift of a snug living. I fancy I should have made a decent parson, and been a decoration to a rose-twined English vicarage. But,’ he sighed as he knocked out the ashes of his pipe, ‘ I kicked over the traces —it’s an ancient, ugly story.’ He pulled himself back to contemplation of the stony young face across the fireplace. ‘ Where was I ? Oh ! at Oxford ! There was a girl —what a fool I am to bore you with a recital of ray past misery! It was real enough then. I laugh now and thank Providence or, more properly, Curtis Morley of Brazenose, who married her —for my escape. You’ll do the same six years hence —probably long before.’ ‘ She broke with me to-night,’ burst out Roy dejectedly. ‘I shouldn’t have expedited Kitty with so much consideration.’ ‘ But I will never give her up. Hever!’ cried the lad, vehement in his misery. Dick fell back in his chair. ‘ You’ll never be such a fool as to stick to her.’ ‘ 1 should stick to her if she wdre twenty times more fickle than you have proved her to be.’ • Pooh I’ Dick got up with a stretch and a shrug. Get the blankets or whatever wraps you can rake to-

gether, my good fellow, and I’ll turn in on the sofa. I shall not undress. A good sleep will bring you to your senses. You’ve been mixing your liquors—my fault—that’s about the bottom of this insane outburst.’ When he was alone and Roy’s footsteps had died away on the floor overhead, Dick laughed as he drew up the blanket to his chin. ‘ A more infatuated young idiot I never knew. He’s awfully cut up. By Jove! I hope he will not get into mischief. There was a queer look in his eyes.’ Dick fell asleep, to wake suddenly an hour afterwards for no apparent reason. The moon was radiant with moonlight; a couple of cats were chorusing dolefully in the strip of yard in front of the house. He could not go off again. Roy and his affairs occupied his thoughts —uncommonly black they were. By a natural transition, he travelled from the consideration of duns and unsaleable ‘ copy ’ to the money in the drawer. It was very near and very tempting. The sofa was too short for his lanky form, his legs brimmed over on a chair; by a little stretch he could touch the drawer in which the money was locked. A sum like that would be the making of him. It w r as not a fortune of course they did things on a small scale, of necessity, at Scrivener’s. But it was a comfortable little pile. It was no good to Roy. He did not know how best to spend it. He would only waste it on that worthless Kitty.

‘ I can almost see it there/ groaned needy Dick, raising himself on his elbow to turn the hard horse-hair squab of the sofa, which was his only pillow. ‘How the notes would crackle as I folded them in my pocket-book ! How —Bah! I’m a fool, if not a rogue by intent. Here goes for another snooze."

But he did not lie down. His eye had caught the steely gleam of something on the table. His throat grew husky, his tongue swelled and dried in his mouth.

Roy had left his keys behind I Roy was awake too. He had not slept. As he tossed, with head that seemed too big for him, and eyes that seemed to have shrunk into nothingness, in the lumpy bed, a sudden, swift suspicion which became a fear possessed him. He leaned over the edge of the bed, down to the chair at his side where his clothes were. He felt in his trousers pocket. The keys were not there.

He jumped from the bed, roughly threw on some clothes, lighted a candle and stole down-stairs.

He mistrusted Dick, yet was loth to admit it, even to himself. So loth that he hesitated on the half landing. Should he turn back and go through with it ? He would go on —his foot stole down another stair, first of a fresh flight. If Blyth were asleep he could secure the keys, and steal from the room ; if awake, some excuse for his presence and need of his keys might easily be made. He went to the bottom of the flight, turned the handle of the sitting room and went in.

He saw the drawer open, the keys dangling from tha keyhole, saw Dick bending over the money. With a cry of surprise and rage Roy stumbled forward. Dick turned round, and with a glance at the boy’s face and attitude, put himself on the defensive. He read no quarter in those clear, indignant eyes. ‘ You villain !’ cried young Cunliffe. ‘ You thief !’ He put his candle on the table, and closed with Blyth. He was the less powerful, the less trained of the two. They swayed and wrestled. They backed against the table, over-turned the glasses, the candle, yet struggledon in semi-dark-ness.

Blyth’s hand stole down to his pocket. Roy, seizing this advantage let, his fly up and catch him by the throat. All his passion, all his dull, indefinite, illogical sense of injury with regard to Dick’s relations with Kitty, he put into that pressure. A faint gurgle came from Blyth.

In the moonlight Roy saw his purpling face and protruding eyes. The beat of a swelling vein pulsed on his finger, rousing in him a wild desire to press more closely, more murderously. till the heating was stilled. Good Heaven ! Was he mad P Sense rushed back to him, just as Blyth twisted a leg round his and threw him to the ground. He was up in a second, in time to see the sav’age gleam of an open-bladed clasp knife in Dick’s hand. ‘ Come near me again, you murderous young fool, and by Heaven, I’ll drive this into you [’ Roy looked round for a weapon, saw the poker lying in the fender at his feet, dived rapidly down and secured it. It was unusually large and of solid steel, a formidable weapon in the hand of an infuriated and doubly injured man. ‘ Coward !’ He brought down the weapon with all his force. Dick Blyth fell to the floor. It was with a fearful apprehension that Roy, completely and instantly cool, fumbled for matches, found and lighted his candle, and bent over Dick as he lay on the carpet. (To be continued.)