Chapter 13 of The Wharf by the Docks: A Novel by Florence Warden

CHAPTER XIII

THE SEQUEL TO A TRAGEDY

It was on the evening after that of his expedition to Limehouse that Max Wedmore found himself back again at the modest iron gate of the park at The Beeches. He had not sent word what time he should arrive, preferring not to have to meet Doreen by herself, with her inevitable questions, sooner than he could help.

As he shut the gate behind him, and hurried up the drive toward the house, he felt a new significance in the words "Home, Sweet Home," and shuddered at the recollection that he had, in the thirty-odd hours since he left it, given up the hope of ever seeing it again.

It was a little difficult, though, on this prosaic home-coming, to realize all he had passed through since he last saw the red house, with its long, dignified front, its triangular pediment rising up against the dark-blue night sky, and the group of rambling outbuildings, stables, laundries, barns, all built with a magnificent disregard of the value of space, which straggled away indefinitely to the right, in a grove of big trees and a tangle of brush-wood.

Lines of bright light streaming between drawn window curtains showed bright patches on the lawn and the shrubs near the house. As Max passed through the iron gate that shut in the garden from the park, a group of men and boys, shouting, encouraging one another with uncouth cries, rushed out from the stable yard toward the front of the house.

"What's the matter?" asked Max of a stable boy, whom he seized by the shoulders and stopped in the act of uttering a wild whoop.

"It's the log, sir," replied the lad, sobered by the sudden appearance of the young master, who seemed in no hilarious mood.

"The log! What log?"

"Master has ordered one for Christmas, sir, the biggest as could be got," answered the boy, who then escaped, to rush back and join the shouting throng.

And Max remembered that his father, in his passionate determination to have a real old English Christmas, with everything done in the proper manner, had given this order to the head gardener a few days before.

By this time the group had become a crowd. A swarm of men and boys, conspicuous among whom were all the idlers and vagabonds of the neighborhood, came along through the yard in one great, overwhelming wave, hooting, yelling, trampling down the flower beds with, their winter covering of cocoanut fiber, breaking down the shrubs, tearing away the ivy, and spreading devastation as they went.

Poor Mr. Wedmore had instructed his servants not to prevent the villagers from joining in the procession. There was something reminiscent of feudal times, a pleasant suggestion of the cordial relation between the lord of the manor of the Middle Ages and his tenants and dependents, in this procession of the Yule log up to the great house. And Mr. Wedmore, full of his fancy for the grand old medieval Christmas festivities, hugged to his heart the thought of holding such revels as should make Christmas at The Beeches an institution in the countryside.

But, alas! the London merchant had become a country gentleman too late in life to appreciate the great gulf that lies between the sixteenth-century peasant (of the modern imagination) and the nineteenth-century villager of actual fact. His own small army from the stable and the garden were powerless to cope with the disorderly mob they had been encouraged to invite to this interesting celebration. And those most mischievous and conspicuous roughs whom the coachman had driven off with the whip on the way up, revenged themselves for this drastic treatment by coming in through the front gate of the park, breaking down the fence between park and garden, and every obstacle to their barbaric progress.

It was "Poaching Wilson" who pulled the bell, after some difficulty in finding the handle, owing to the liberality with which he had "treated himself" as a preparation for the journey.

Max, alarmed at the invasion, had made his way round to the billiard room door at the back, bolted it on the inside, and hastened to give directions to the servants to lock all the other doors, and to secure the ground-floor windows.

Then he rushed into the hall, just as his father had come out from the dining room, serviette in hand, to learn the cause of the noise outside.

"Hello, Max! Is it you back again? And have you brought down half the population of London with you?"

"No, sir, they didn't come with me. They are guests of yours, I understand. And they expect to be treated to unlimited beer, so I gather from their remarks. They've brought some firewood, I believe."

At this moment the clanging of the front doorbell resounded through the house for the second time. The frightened butler, who was a young man and rather nervous, stood by the door, not daring to open it. The ladies of the household had by this time come out of the dining room; Mrs. Wedmore looked flush and frightened; the girls were tittering. Smothered explosions of laughter came from time to time to the ears of the master of the house, from the closed door which led to the servants' hall.

"Shall—shall I see who it is, sir?" asked the butler, who could hear the epithets applied to him on the other side of the door.

"No, no!" cried Doreen. "Not on any account! Tell them to put the thing down and go away."

There was a pause, during which the bell rang again, and there was a violent lunge at the door.

"They won't—they won't go away, Miss, without they get something first," said the butler, who was as white as a sheet.

"Tell them," began Mr. Wedmore, in a loud tone of easy confidence, "to take it round to the back door, and—and to send a—deputation to me in the morning; when—er—they shall be properly rewarded for their trouble."

"They ought to reward us for our trouble, Papa, don't you think?" suggested Doreen.

"There! They've begun to reward themselves," said Queenie, as a stone came through one of the windows.

Mr. Wedmore was furious. He saw the mistake he had made, but he would not own it. Putting strong constraint upon himself, he assumed a gay geniality of manner which his looks belied, and boldly advanced to the door. But Mrs. Wedmore flung her arms around her husband in a capacious embrace, dragging him backward with an energy there was no use resisting.

"No, no, no, George! I won't have you expose yourself to those horrid roughs! Don't open the door, Bartram! Put up the bolt!"

"Nonsense! Nonsense, my dear!" retorted Mr. Wedmore, who was, perhaps, not so unwilling to be saved from the howling mob as he wished to appear. "It's only good-humored fun—of a rough sort, perhaps, but quite harmless. It's some mischievous boy who threw the stone. But, of course, they must go round to the back."

"Cook won't dare to open the door to 'em, sir," said the butler.

The situation was becoming serious. There was no denying that the house was besieged. Mrs. Wedmore began to feel like a châtelaine of the Cavalier party, with the Roundhead army at the doors clamoring for her husband's blood. The cries of the villagers were becoming more derisive.

As a happy thought, Mrs. Wedmore suggested haranguing the mob from an upper window. This course seemed rather ignominious, but prudence decided in its favor.

There was a rush upstairs, and Mr. Wedmore, followed by all the ladies, flung himself into the bathroom and threw up the window.

It was not at all the sort of thing that merry squire of the olden times might have been expected to do. In fact, as Doreen remarked, there were no bathrooms in the olden times to harangue a mob from. But Mr. Wedmore's medieval ardor being damped, he submitted to circumstances with fortitude.

"Yah! There 'e is at last!" "'Ow are you, old un?" "Don't put your nose out too fur this cold night!"

These and similar ribald remarks greeted Mr. Wedmore as he appeared at the window, telling him only too plainly that the merry days of old were gone, never to be restored, and that the feudal feeling which bound (or is supposed to have bound) rich and poor, gentle and simple, in one great tie of brotherhood had disappeared forever.

Doreen and Queenie were secretly enjoying the fun, though they had the sense to be very quiet; but Mrs. Wedmore was in an agony of sympathy with her husband and of fear for the results of his enterprise. He began a speech of thanks, but the noise below was too great for him to be heard. Indeed, it was his own servants who did the most toward drowning his voice by their well-meant endeavors to shout down the interrupting cries.

"They're most of them tipsy, I think," whispered Doreen to her mother, who said, "Sh-sh!" in shocked remonstrance, but secretly agreed with her daughter's verdict.

"Throw them some coppers, Papa," suggested the sage and practical Queenie.

Mr. Wedmore turned out his pockets, taking care to disperse his largesse as widely as possible. The girls helped him, hunting high and low for coins, among which, urged by the crowd in no subdued voice to "come down handsome," sixpences and shillings presently made their welcome appearance.

"Oh, the hollies!" whispered Doreen to her sister.

"Thank goodness, the look of the garden tomorrow morning will be an object lesson to Papa!"

The invaders, well aware of the value of such wares at Christmas time, filled out the pauses by slashing at the berry-bearing trees with their pocket knives, secure in the safety of numbers.

By the time the shower of money ceased the crowd had begun to thin; those members of it who had been lucky enough to secure silver coins had made off in the direction of the nearest public house, and those who had cut down the holly had taken themselves off with their booty.

There remained in front of the door when this clearance had been effected, the Yule log itself, the laborers who had drawn it along, and a group of manageable size.

Max, who had been watching the proceedings from the study, after turning out the light, judged that the moment had come for negotiations to commence. So he told the butler to throw open the front door, and he himself invited the unwelcome guests to enter. He had taken the precaution to have all portable articles removed from the hall and all the doors locked except that which led to the servants' hall and the staircases.

In they came, a little subdued, and with their first disastrous energy sufficiently exhausted for them to be able to listen and to do as they were told.

The oaken center table had been pushed on one side, and there was a clear space, wide, carpetless, from the front door to the big stone fireplace opposite.

"This way with the log! Now, boys, pull with a will!" cried Max, not insensible to the novelty and picturesqueness of the situation, as a motley crowd, some in smock-frocks, some in corduroy, and some in gaiters and great coats, pressed into the great hall dragging the log after them with many a "Whoop!" and shout and cry.

Mr. and Mrs. Wedmore and the two girls hurried downstairs on hearing the door open, and stood by the fireplace, with a little glow of satisfaction and pleasure at the turn affairs had taken.

It was a log! Or, rather, it was more than a log; for it was half a tree. Slowly the huge thing came in, scraping the nicely polished floor, rolling a little from side to side, and threatening all those within a yard of it. And then, when its appearance had spread consternation through the household, the inevitable question came: What was to be done with it?

The firebasket had been taken out of the hearth on purpose for its reception, but it was evident that, even after this careful preparation, to think of burning it whole was out of the question. There was nothing for it but to send for a saw and to reduce the log then and there to a manageable size.

This was done, amid considerable noise and excitement, drinking of the health of the family by villagers who had been drinking too much already, and much scraping of the polished floor by muddy, hob-nailed boots.

Finally, the deputation was got rid of, and the interrupted dinner was allowed to proceed, much to the comfort of Max, who had eaten nothing since breakfast, and much to the dismay of Mrs. Wedmore, who was then able to ascertain the extent of the damage done by the invaders.

It was lucky for Max that he had arrived at such an opportune moment. His father had been grumbling at the number of visits he had made to town lately, and the young man would have found him in no very good humor if he had not discovered to his hand the opportunity of making himself conspicuously useful.

It is scarcely necessary to say that Max did not tell anyone about the adventures he had met with. He knew that he should have to go through the ordeal of an interview with his sister, Doreen, who would want to know a great deal more than he was willing to tell her; but he was tired, and he made up his mind that he would not be interrogated that evening. So he gave her no opportunity for the confidential talk she was dying to have with him but spent the remainder of the evening in dutiful attendance upon his mother.

The following day was Christmas Eve. Max came down late to breakfast, and he had scarcely entered the morning room when his father handed him the Standard, pointing to a certain paragraph without any comment but a glance at the girls, as a hint to his son not to make any remark which would recall Dudley and his affairs to their minds.

The paragraph was as follows:

SHOCKING DISCOVERY!
The body of a man was found floating in the river close to Limehouse Pier late yesterday evening. Medical evidence points to death by violence, and the police are making inquiries. It is thought that the description of the body, which is that of a man of a Jewish type of countenance, rather under than over the middle height, aged between fifty and fifty-five, gray hair and short, gray beard, tallies with that given a few days ago by a woman who applied at the —— Street Police Court, alleging that her husband had disappeared in the above neighborhood. The police are extremely reticent, but at the present they have no clue to the authors of the outrage. The body awaits identification at the mortuary, and an inquest will be held today.

"I wonder whether Dudley will see that?" said Mr. Wedmore, in a low voice, as soon as his daughters were engaged in talk together. "It looks like the sequel to the other paragraph which upset him so the other evening, doesn't it? I shall watch the papers for the result of the inquest. It seems to me pretty certain that it was Edward Jacobs. Curious affair, isn't it, that he should be murdered in a slum, after making a fortune at other people's expense? Retribution—just retribution! Curious, isn't it!"

To Max, it was so much more than merely "curious," knowing what he did, that he felt sick with horror. Surely this body found floating near Limehouse Pier, was the one he had touched in the dark!

To Be Continued...