Bellingham

“ As for me, I looked from one face to the other, trying to read what was written there, and so my glance fell upon Bellingham. Fell and was arrested, for the face of Bellingham was a revelation. What it revealed is difficult to describe in cold prose; a musician could better express it in some moaning, unearthly phrase of music. It was as if there shone from that face not light but darkness, and as if over that head hovered a halo of dark fear, a crown of shuddering doom. ”

“ Mr. Bellingham interrupted, "the archdeacon will rush forth and pelt that expert with Shepherd Kings and Sequenen-Ra and the whole tag-rag and bobtail of the seventeenth dynasty. Oh, there'll be wigs on the green, I can tell you."
"Yes, I expect there will be quite a lively little skirmish," said Miss Bellingham. And thus dismissing the subject, she made an energetic attack on the toast while her father refreshed himself with a colossal yawn. ”

“ For the moment, Bellingham experienced nothing but the most intense astonishment, yet almost at once this feeling gave place to one of apprehension and dismay, for it was only too evident that the exit which he had just witnessed was something which he had never been meant to see, and that if his eavesdropping should be discovered, he would be placed in a position of obvious embarrassment, and perhaps of actual danger. ”

“ Andrew Bellingham was dozing in his office. Suddenly he awoke to find a strange man standing over him.
"Who are you?" asked Mr. Bellingham. "What do you want?"
"My name is Jasper," was the answer, "and I have some information to give you." He bent down and hissed. "Your first wife is still alive!"
Andrew started up in obvious horror. "My daughter," he gasped, "my little Hyacinth! She must never know." ”

“ Bellingham. “But yet it seems to me that as with plastic clay the young are shaping the features of the future, each in his smock with slender finger-tips bedaubed with what we may call the materials of days yet unborn. We are being picked up, we older men—this at least to me is the secret lesson of which I am but learning the alphabet, and which in a sort of impotent babble I haltingly strive to express. In fact, in my own case I feel that the young just scoop me up like the lump of clay, and set me with pressing thumb and forefinger into the great image that grows beneath their hands. ”

“ The policeman, with a kindly word, handed him over to Joan’s care. She was all for summoning a doctor, but Bellingham would not hear of it. White-faced, hiding his rising tumult behind a mask of steely calm, he told her curtly to fetch me. She obeyed, poor child, in terror of her life and his own. I was with them ten minutes later.
‘Saunders,’ he greeted me, without preamble. ‘God has flung down His last challenge.’
‘You mean this accident!’ said I, scoffing gently.
‘Accident!’ retorted Bellingham. ‘Do you, a priest of God, talk to me of accident! Not a sparrow falls without God. ”

“ By one of those fantastic coincidences that make life sometimes seem more artificial than fiction, as well as stranger (said Saunders) , it was in a little café in Rue de l’Oeil, Marseilles, that I first noticed Bellingham. Strange that one should have to journey to the south of France to make the acquaintance of a fellow-collegian! For Bellingham, too, was a Jesus man. ”

“ Smith thought of Hastie's comparison of the toad and the dove, and was glad to think that the matter was at an end. Bellingham's face when he was in a passion was not pleasant to look upon. He was not a man to whom an innocent girl could be trusted for life. As he walked, Smith wondered languidly what could have caused the quarrel, and what the promise might be which Bellingham had been so anxious that Monkhouse Lee should keep. ”

“ Bellingham's door was shut as he passed, but glancing back when he was some distance from the turret, he saw his neighbour's head at the window outlined against the lamp-light, his face pressed apparently against the glass as he gazed out into the darkness. It was a blessing to be away from all contact with him, if but for a few hours, and Smith stepped out briskly, and breathed the soft spring air into his lungs. The half-moon lay in the west between two Gothic pinnacles, and threw upon the silvered street a dark tracery from the stone-work above. ”

“ I answered. "She is a rather majestic young lady."
Mr. Bellingham chuckled and smothered a yawn, and at that moment his daughter entered the room; and, in spite of her shabby black dress and a shabbier handbag that she carried, I thought her appearance and manner fully justified my description.
"You come in, Miss Bellingham," I said as she shook my hand with cool civility, "to find your father yawning and me taking my departure. So I have my uses, you see. My conversation is the infallible cure for insomnia."
Miss Bellingham smiled. "I believe I am driving you away," she said. ”

“ Every known fact points to the certainty that it is his body. John Bellingham is dead: there can be no doubt of that. And to every one except his unknown murderer and one or two of my own loyal friends, it must seem that his death lies at my door. I realized from the beginning that the suspicion lay between George Hurst and me; and the finding of the ring fixes it definitely on me. I am only surprised that the police have made no move yet. ”

“ Those few days of companionable labour in the reading-room, with the homely hospitalities of the milk-shop and the pleasant walks homeward through the friendly London streets, had called into existence a new world—a world in which the gracious personality of Ruth Bellingham was the one dominating reality. ”

“ My friends laugh when I say it is better to be remembered in Bellingham than to be famous in ten cities. It has been my misfortune never to have lived in any other place that in a few years, did not change and forget itself. ”

“ Smith ascended the stairs, opened Bellingham's door and stepped in. Bellingham was seated behind his table, writing. Beside him, among his litter of strange possessions, towered the mummy case, with its sale number 249 still stuck upon its front, and its hideous occupant stiff and stark within it. Smith looked very deliberately round him, closed the door, and then, stepping across to the fireplace, struck a match and set the fire alight. Bellingham sat staring, with amazement and rage upon his bloated face.
"Well, really now, you make yourself at home," he gasped. ”

“ Miss Bellingham replied coldly.
"No, it was not," was the wrathful rejoinder; "it was my mistaken generosity. But there—what is the use of talking? I've done my best for you and I'll do no more. Don't trouble to let me out; I can find my way. Good morning." With a stiff bow and a quick glance at me, the speaker strode out of the room, banging the door after him.
"I must apologise for this extraordinary reception," said Miss Bellingham; "but I believe medical men are not easily astonished. I will introduce you to your patient now." ”

“ Archy really would have liked to own Bellingham Castle if he could have transported it to America, but he would cheerfully have given all the mediæval castles in England for one good ship of the line, and would have thrown in Westminster Abbey as a makeweight. And because little things as well as great things influence people, Lord Bellingham could not have devised a better way to defeat his own object than in bringing Archy in contact with his two cousins, Isabel and Mary. ”

“ THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER
Governor Bellingham, in a loose gown and easy cap—such as elderly gentlemen loved to endue themselves with, in their domestic privacy—walked foremost, and appeared to be showing off his estate, and expatiating on his projected improvements. The wide circumference of an elaborate ruff, beneath his grey beard, in the antiquated fashion of King James’s reign, caused his head to look not a little like that of John the Baptist in a charger. ”

“ I was at the other end of the train when they got in. All I noticed was that one seemed to be a commonplace looking individual and that the other was dressed like a tramp, all rags and tatters, a disreputable looking object he appeared to be.’
‘That,’ I said to myself, ‘was Miss Marjorie Lindon, the lovely daughter of a famous house; the wife-elect of a coming statesman.’
To Bellingham I remarked aloud:
‘I want you to strain a point, Mr Bellingham, and to do me a service which I assure you you shall never have any cause to regret. ”

“ That night she lay at Warkworth where she had the hospitality of the Percies. She had with her an old lady called Bellingham and three maids with forty men-at-arms under the direction of the husband of the lady called Bellingham, an old esquire who had never come to be a knight, but yet a very honest man and capable for such a post. For if he had little skill or desire to take fortresses or the like, he could very well set out his men so as to drive off any evil gentry. ”

“ Bellingham, "I'll treat myself to the luxury of telling you all my troubles; I don't often get the chance of a confidential grumble to a responsible man of my own class. And I really have some excuse for railing at Fortune, as you will agree when I tell you that, a couple of years ago, I went to bed one night a gentleman of independent means and excellent prospects and woke up in the morning to find myself practically a beggar. Not a cheerful experience that, you know, at my time of life, eh?" ”

“ The great hall doors were flung wide open as soon as the coach drew up; an army of servants in livery were drawn up on each side of the entrance, the men on one [Pg 260] side, the maids on the other, and Lord Bellingham, elegantly dressed, as usual, and looking like a prince—and, what was more, like a prince in a good-humor—greeted Archy with stately cordiality.
"My grandson! Welcome to Bellingham."
A man quite as fastidious as Lord Bellingham might have felt pride and pleasure in the beautiful young man before him. ”

“ It has intelligence and it has strength. For some purpose he took Lee into his confidence; but Lee, like a decent Christian, would have nothing to do with such a business. Then they had a row, and Lee vowed that he would tell his sister of Bellingham's true character. Bellingham's game was to prevent him, and he nearly managed it, by setting this creature of his on his track. He had already tried its powers upon another man--Norton--towards whom he had a grudge. It is the merest chance that he has not two murders upon his soul. ”

“ Mr. Bellingham was bathing his forehead with cooling drinks.
"Forgive me, my boy," said Mr. Bellingham, "for the wrong I did you. It was Jasper who stole the compromising documents. He refuses to give them back unless I let him marry Hyacinth. What can I do?"
"Where is she?" asked Richard.
"Hidden away no one knows where. Find her, get back the documents for me, and she is yours."
At that moment a terrible cry rang through the ship, "Man overboard!" Pushing over Mr. Bellingham and running on deck, Richard saw that a woman and her baby were battling for life in the shark-infested waters. ”

“ This additional exit, however, was securely barred, and finding his progress cut off in that direction, Bellingham turned his attention to the room itself.
A first glance afforded him small encouragement. To open the massive safe was clearly impossible; the sideboard was empty; and the desk in the corner, though it appeared, at first sight, to be a promising hiding place, proved, on closer examination, to contain nothing. The secretary's heart sank. Evidently his hopes were vain; his dream of romance gave place to prosaic reality ”

“ Well, to begin with, we have to satisfy ourselves that the conditions of clause two have not been complied with: that John Bellingham has not been buried within the parish boundaries mentioned. Of course he has not, but we must not take anything for granted. Then we have to satisfy ourselves that he is not still alive and accessible. It is perfectly possible that he is, after all, and it is our business to trace him, if he is still in the land of the living. Jervis and I can carry out these investigations without saying anything to Bellingham ”

“ I objected, "you are forgetting that, directly the man was missed Hurst and the servants together searched the entire house."
"Yes. What did they search for?"
"Why, for Mr. Bellingham, of course."
"Exactly; for Mr. Bellingham. That is, for a living man. Now how do you search a house for a living man? You look in all the rooms. When you look in a room if he is there, you see him; if you do not see him, you assume that he is not there. You don't look under the sofa or behind the piano, you don't pull out large drawers or open cupboards. You just look into the rooms. ”

“ A stranger merely informed of the collective identities of the two must surely have given to each the name-label of the other, and yet the stranger who did so would have shown himself a person of imperfect perception. For Bellingham’s work was instinct with virile comprehension; he had the firmest of grasps upon the material world, while Lord Thorley, as he had always confessed, brought nothing of the brutal actuality of first-hand material considerations into his deft political weavings. ”

“ As Mr. Bellingham's explanation (delivered in a rapid crescendo and ending almost in a shout) had left him purple-faced and trembling, I thought it best to bring our talk to an end. Accordingly I proceeded to inspect the injured knee, which was now nearly well, and to overhaul my patient generally; and having given him detailed instructions as to his general conduct, I rose to take my leave.
"And remember," I said as I shook his hand, "no tobacco, no coffee, no excitement of any kind. Lead a quiet, bovine life." ”