Rowton

“ I thought the boxes would be packed and ready to be sent off; Samson tells me there is nothing done.”
“Everything that is necessary is done,” said Rowton. “I don’t choose to be called over the coals by Samson.”
“Come, come, Rowton,” said Scrivener, giving his tall host another lightning glance, “there is no good in your getting into a temper. You are all very well, and of course a great help to us, and your manners and your ways are no end of a blind, and we are awfully obliged to you, but all the same, business is business, and you have no call to neglect any of our interests.” ”

“ Then Rowton rose from his seat.
“We can take a turn on the Embankment,” he said.
A moment later the men were seen walking side by side on the Thames Embankment. The morning was a fine one, and a fresh breeze from the river blew on their faces. A man with a smooth face and a perfectly [291] innocent expression passed them slowly. He looked full at Rowton, who nodded to him.
“That is my servant, Jacob,” he said, turning to Scrivener. “What is he doing here?”
“Mischief,” muttered Scrivener. “We had best not be seen in such an open place as this. Let us turn up this by-street into the Strand.” ”

“ Rowton’s brow grew black.
“When does he want me to go?” he asked.
“To-morrow.”
“How long will the business take?”
“That depends on yourself; it ought to be done within a fortnight.”
“Then tell Long John from me that he must get some other man to do the job; I am already engaged and cannot go.”
“This is madness,” said Scrivener; “you are the only man among us who can go. How can you pretend to be one of us and yet shirk duty in this way?”
“You must get someone else,” repeated Rowton. “Ah! here comes lunch; you can lunch with me, after all, if you please, Scrivener ”

“ You must take the sour with the sweet, the dark with the light, like all the rest of us, Mrs. Rowton. Your husband will certainly leave you again. He is a wanderer not only by nature, but by heredity. His father was one of the most celebrated travellers of his day. His grandfather could never stay three months in the same place, and as to Adrian, he has been already over the greater part of the world. ”

“ It had been long years now since Rowton Heights had so resounded to mirth and merry-making.
For days before the ball the house was full of eager and expectant guests. Smart young men from town and the prettiest girls of the neighbourhood gladly accepted invitations to stay at the Heights. The host and hostess were seen on this occasion at their very best. Nance, under her husband’s protecting wing, lost much of her inborn shyness. Her gentle beauty, her sweet low voice, her affectionate and sympathetic manner, could not fail to make her a universal favourite. ”

“ Your request is unequivocally refused.”
“I must bow to the inevitable,” said Rowton, slightly bending his head.
“Your marriage came at a most inconvenient time,” proceeded Piper; “but now that you are married and have elected to live at Rowton Heights, we all see our way to doing magnificent business. In your position as one of the wealthiest and most influential men of your county, you can give us information which will be more than useful. I will speak to you a while on that point. Meanwhile it is my wish that Scrivener should go and live at Pitstow. There is a village there, is there not?” ”

“ You shall, if I can manage it, walk on roses as long as you live; and now, now, Nance—during our glorious honeymoon, we will not think for one moment of the possibility of a shadow. Come, darling, the carriage must be waiting for us in the courtyard.”
They went downstairs in the lift.
Rowton’s prophecy was abundantly fulfilled: there was not a man in the place who did not look with more than admiration at the lovely girl who walked by his side. They went to the opera and Rowton watched the faces of his fellow-men and women. ”

“ I shall go mad, I shall go mad.”
“No, Nancy, you will do nothing of the kind,” said Rowton. He spoke, on purpose, in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. “You are over excited now and very much upset. Put on your hat, darling, and let us go outside. It is not so gloomy out as in; this tumble-down old Grange is enough to give the blues to anyone. You don’t live another week in such a hole. Wait, my angel, until you know what life really is, and life with me. I’ll show you what it is to live. Why, you won’t know yourself—no more dull days, no more cold and starvation. ”

“ Should any member of this club be base enough to reveal his whereabouts, or even give the slightest hint to Adrian Rowton, he gets the black mark.”
There was no need to explain what the black mark meant: the men all looked lowering and discontented.
“I have had a letter and a telegram from Rowton,” said Long John; “both need attention. The man is in a high state of insurrection, and must be dealt with in a very summary manner. He is likely to come here at any moment.”
“That is true,” said Scrivener. “I know for a fact,” he added, “that Rowton is in town. He will, of course, demand the boy. ”

“ The boy laughed and ran off.
[90]
“He is quite a darling,” said Nancy; “what a difference he will make in the house.”
“I am glad you have taken to him,” said Rowton; “he is a fine little chap, only you must not let him gossip to you, Nance. The boy has a keen vein of curiosity in him; he knows too much or thinks he does. Now, if you have quite finished breakfast I will take you round.”
They began their exploration, going from room to room and from storey to storey. The house was an old one, and as Rowton showed it to his wife he gave her a brief history of it. ”

“ Rowton to this house without danger to the Silver School.”
Scrivener left the room without another word, and Simpkins seated himself by the dying man.
As Scrivener ran downstairs he could not help muttering some words to himself.
“Ours is a beastly calling; there’s no mercy in a school like ours. If it were anyone but Rowton I should not mind a brass button—but Rowton! ’Tain’t that he was soft; ’tain’t that he was specially kind; but he was straight, although he belonged to us. We’ll go to pieces now without him. Long John made a huge mistake.” ”

“ She covered her face with her trembling hands; she shook from head to foot.
“My darling, what in the world is the matter?” asked Rowton in astonishment.
“I am oppressed by the strangest sensation,” replied the bride. “It will pass. Oh, yes, it will pass. Don’t speak to me for a minute.”
She left her bridegroom’s side and went over to the far end of the room. Sitting almost with her back to him, she gazed gloomily at the glowing hearth, where a pile of logs burned with cheerful blaze. ”

“ What do we want with a woman in the business?”
Rowton’s black eyes flashed.
“Do you think I would bring her into your accursed business?” he said. “Not I; but now listen once for all, Scrivener. I marry the girl I love next week, and I go away with her on a holiday and don’t return to business for a month. For five weeks from now I take complete holiday. You can tell Long John so from me. ”

“ They knew each other by a certain code or cipher; they had their own peculiar way of shaking hands; their own peculiar nod or smile; they were in short, a dangerous secret society, their object being to upset morality and turn the system which makes a man’s property his own topsy-turvy. Often they met at a lonely public-house; often in the heart of the busy town; but their favourite place of meeting was in the house of a private individual near the Chelsea Embankment—the very place where Rowton had gone to see Long John just before his mission to Spain. ”

“ A high desk occupied the whole of one window. Rowton placed the paraffin lamp now on this desk; he turned it up high and the light illuminated the entire room.
“Bad enough hole for a man to live in, but the lap of luxury compared to Nancy’s sitting-room,” he muttered. A red gleam sparkled angrily in his eye as he spoke; he sat down where the firelight fell all over him, tossed off his heavy boots, and gazed gloomily into the heart of a [32] large and glowing fire. He was a huge man, built on a massive scale. He tossed his hair impatiently from a broad and splendidly developed brow. ”

“ At about the time that Long John, or Morton, received Rowton’s letter, the detective, Crossley, had an epistle of extreme interest from Jacob Short, the footman [252] at Rowton Heights. He read it over with care and conned the last sentence with special interest.
“There’s no doubt,” wrote Short, “that we have found our man. He answers in every respect to the description which you have had by you for so many years. The only thing now left to discover is the mark on the upper lip. ”

“ Rowton watched her as she held that small queenly head high; his heart glowed with admiration and love.
“She would fill any position,” he said to himself. “Could that curmudgeon, her father, see her now, would he know her, my beautiful, lovely darling? Ah! I cannot corrupt a heart like hers; she wants a little wealth, [74] and a few pretty dresses, and a few jewels forsooth, and—love, love, love for everything else. Will she always remain like that? Heaven grant it.”
Meanwhile the steward, Maberly, had come up, and Mrs. Ferguson, the housekeeper, had presented a bunch of keys to Nance. ”

“ Why, you poor little girl, I am not a bit like that in reality. Do you think I have no wild blood in me. Don’t I look at times, at times—the truth now, Nancy—don’t I look at times a very Ishmaelite, a man whose hand might be against every other man? Has not my eye a wild gleam in it? Look at me now, Nance, and say truly what you think.”
“You never appear anything to me but what I have just said,” she answered, giving him a somewhat timid glance, “but it is true that others have told me——”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Rowton, “I thought that whisper would get about. ”

“ Long John is not killed, but he has got his deserts after a fashion, and he’ll have to lie dark for a bit. The rest of you go home, and be quick about it. When we want you again we’ll let you know.”
The men still hesitated. At last one of them, treading on tiptoe, came to the upper end of the room.
“Shake hands, mate,” said this fellow, going on his knees and holding out his hand to Rowton. “Say you forgive us before we go.”
“I forgive you, mates,” answered Rowton; “you were only tools. There is one man whom I do not forgive, and that is your boss. ”

“ He sold the furniture in Harley Street, and we came here because the house was going for an old song, and father wanted us to live cheaply; we have lived here ever since that blow descended on our heads, and we have saved, and saved; we have starved ourselves, we have lain cold at night, we have wanted the common comforts of the most ordinary existence, all for one terrible purpose.”
“You certainly are a mysterious pair,” said Rowton with a laugh which echoed painfully in the old room. “Just whisper to me what the purpose was, Nance.” ”

“ In the evening they sat in the library and Rowton told her stories with regard to several of the books. He never alluded to the sorrow which he knew was waiting for her the next day.
“Time enough,” he said to himself; “I need not leave here till three o’clock in the afternoon—there is a train at three-thirty which will take me to King’s Cross in sufficient time. Let me see, I need not tell her to-night, nor will I tell her to-morrow, until after lunch; we’ll have what happiness we can. After all it may be all right, and I may come back safe and sound, or——” he paused in his own thoughts. ”

“ There was an indescribable scorn in his words.
“Yes,” he continued, “I am in too deep; there is nothing for it but to stay in.”
“And the life is a jolly one, my fighting cock,” said Scrivener.
“Yes, jolly enough.” Rowton began to hum the first bar of the well-known song, “Begone, dull care;” and his rich baritone filled the room.
[49]
“Yes! faith,” he continued, “the life suits me well enough; I am a jolly rover, and I like excitement and dare-devil escapes, and all the rest of the thing. I am sorry I showed temper to you, Scrivener, but the fact is, I did not want you just now on the scene. ”

“ Rowton.
“I cannot exactly say. But did you notice how she changed colour, how evidently confused she was when I spoke about the big robbery at Castle Stewart, and the attempted one at Belton Priory?”
“No, I observed nothing,” said Nance.
“You have no suspicion in you, child; but I tell you I am certain Hester Winsome is not straight. Half these burglaries are committed through the connivance of girls like her. Ah, here comes your husband with the black diamond. I really am devoured by curiosity.” ”

“ You are a strong man, you give weight and solidity to all we do, and we cannot dispense with you. You were aware of the fact when you made that audacious demand for five weeks off duty. You have now returned to duty, and I presume will work extra hard for the privilege we have accorded you.”
“Thanks,” said Rowton. “I belong to you, and I shall, of course, do my best for the interests of the business.”
“That’s right,” said Long John after a pause. “The fact is, you have come back in the nick of time—that affair in Spain can, I find, be re-opened. ”

“ Few more attractive men have graced a table than Lord Rowton: we knew him first as Montagu Corry. Later on he became a next door neighbour: our No. was 18, his 17. In his courtly way he said to my wife we ought to change houses, so that he might address her as "sweet seventeen," and not as his "dear neighbour." It is, to my pen, difficult to describe his pervasive charm, which I am sure was as manifest in simple homes as at Balmoral. He always appeared to be gay, never boisterous, and his devotion to his great chief, Disraeli, must have been priceless. ”