Alethia Debchance sat in a corner of an otherwise empty railway
carriage, more or less at ease as regarded body, but in some
trepidation as to mind. She had embarked on a social adventure of
no little magnitude as compared with the accustomed seclusion and
stagnation of her past life. At the age of twenty-eight she could
look back on nothing more eventful than the daily round of her
existence in her aunt's house at Webblehinton, a hamlet four and a
half miles distant from a country town and about a quarter of a
century removed from modern times. Their neighbours had been
elderly and few, not much given to social intercourse, but helpful
or politely sympathetic in times of illness. Newspapers of the
ordinary kind were a rarity; those that Alethia saw regularly were
devoted exclusively either to religion or to poultry, and the world
of politics was to her an unheeded unexplored region. Her ideas on
life in general had been acquired through the medium of popular
respectable novel-writers, and modified or emphasised by such
knowledge as her aunt, the vicar, and her aunt's housekeeper had put
at her disposal. And now, in her twenty-ninth year, her aunt's
death had left her, well provided for as regards income, but
somewhat isolated in the matter of kith and kin and human
companionship. She had some cousins who were on terms of friendly,
though infrequent, correspondence with her, but as they lived
permanently in Ceylon, a locality about which she knew little,
beyond the assurance contained in the missionary hymn that the human
element there was vile, they were not of much immediate use to her.
Other cousins she also possessed, more distant as regards
relationship, but not quite so geographically remote, seeing that
they lived somewhere in the Midlands. She could hardly remember
ever having met them, but once or twice in the course of the last
three or four years they had expressed a polite wish that she should
pay them a visit; they had probably not been unduly depressed by the
fact that her aunt's failing health had prevented her from accepting
their invitation. The note of condolence that had arrived on the
occasion of her aunt's death had included a vague hope that Alethia
would find time in the near future to spend a few days with her
cousins, and after much deliberation and many hesitations she had
written to propose herself as a guest for a definite date some week
ahead. The family, she reflected with relief, was not a large one;
the two daughters were married and away, there was only old Mrs.
Bludward and her son Robert at home. Mrs. Bludward was something of
an invalid, and Robert was a young man who had been at Oxford and
was going into Parliament. Further than that Alethia's information
did not go; her imagination, founded on her extensive knowledge of
the people one met in novels, had to supply the gaps. The mother
was not difficult to place; she would either be an ultra-amiable old
lady, bearing her feeble health with uncomplaining fortitude, and
having a kind word for the gardener's boy and a sunny smile for the
chance visitor, or else she would be cold and peevish, with eyes
that pierced you like a gimlet, and a unreasoning idolatry of her
son. Alethia's imagination rather inclined her to the latter view.
Robert was more of a problem. There were three dominant types of
manhood to be taken into consideration in working out his
classification; there was Hugo, who was strong, good, and beautiful,
a rare type and not very often met with; there was Sir Jasper, who
was utterly vile and absolutely unscrupulous, and there was Nevil,
who was not really bad at heart, but had a weak mouth and usually
required the life-work of two good women to keep him from ultimate
disaster. It was probable, Alethia considered, that Robert came
into the last category, in which case she was certain to enjoy the
companionship of one or two excellent women, and might possibly
catch glimpses of undesirable adventuresses or come face to face
with reckless admiration-seeking married women. It was altogether
an exciting prospect, this sudden venture into an unexplored world
of unknown human beings, and Alethia rather wished that she could
have taken the vicar with her; she was not, however, rich or
important enough to travel with a chaplain, as the Marquis of
Moystoncleugh always did in the novel she had just been reading, so
she recognised that such a proceeding was out of the question.
The train which carried Alethia towards her destination was a local
one, with the wayside station habit strongly developed. At most of
the stations no one seemed to want to get into the train or to leave
it, but at one there were several market folk on the platform, and
two men, of the farmer or small cattle-dealer class, entered
Alethia's carriage. Apparently they had just foregathered, after a
day's business, and their conversation consisted of a rapid exchange
of short friendly inquiries as to health, family, stock, and so
forth, and some grumbling remarks on the weather. Suddenly,
however, their talk took a dramatically interesting turn, and
Alethia listened with wide-eyed attention.
"What do you think of Mister Robert Bludward, eh?"
There was a certain scornful ring in his question.
"Robert Bludward? An out-an'-out rotter, that's what he is. Ought
to be ashamed to look any decent man in the face. Send him to
Parliament to represent us--not much! He'd rob a poor man of his
last shilling, he would."
"Ah, that he would. Tells a pack of lies to get our votes, that's
all that he's after, damn him. Did you see the way the Argus showed
him up this week? Properly exposed him, hip and thigh, I tell you."
And so on they ran, in their withering indictment. There could be
no doubt that it was Alethia's cousin and prospective host to whom
they were referring; the allusion to a Parliamentary candidature
settled that. What could Robert Bludward have done, what manner of
man could he be, that people should speak of him with such obvious
reprobation?
"He was hissed down at Shoalford yesterday," said one of the
speakers.
Hissed! Had it come to that? There was something dramatically
biblical in the idea of Robert Bludward's neighbours and
acquaintances hissing him for very scorn. Lord Hereward Stranglath
had been hissed, now Alethia came to think of it, in the eighth
chapter of Matterby Towers, while in the act of opening a Wesleyan
bazaar, because he was suspected (unjustly as it turned out
afterwards) of having beaten the German governess to death. And in
Tainted Guineas Roper Squenderby had been deservedly hissed, on the
steps of the Jockey Club, for having handed a rival owner a forged
telegram, containing false news of his mother's death, just before
the start for an important race, thereby ensuring the withdrawal of
his rival's horse. In placid Saxon-blooded England people did not
demonstrate their feelings lightly and without some strong
compelling cause. What manner of evildoer was Robert Bludward?
The train stopped at another small station, and the two men got out.
One of them left behind him a copy of the Argus, the local paper to
which he had made reference. Alethia pounced on it, in the
expectation of finding a cultured literary endorsement of the
censure which these rough farming men had expressed in their homely,
honest way. She had not far to look; "Mr. Robert Bludward,
Swanker," was the title of one of the principal articles in the
paper. She did not exactly know what a swanker was, probably it
referred to some unspeakable form of cruelty, but she read enough in
the first few sentences of the article to discover that her cousin
Robert, the man at whose house she was about to stay, was an
unscrupulous, unprincipled character, of a low order of
intelligence, yet cunning withal, and that he and his associates
were responsible for most of the misery, disease, poverty, and
ignorance with which the country was afflicted; never, except in one
or two of the denunciatory Psalms, which she had always supposed to
have be written in a spirit of exaggerated Oriental imagery, had she
read such an indictment of a human being. And this monster was
going to meet her at Derrelton Station in a few short minutes. She
would know him at once; he would have the dark beetling brows, the
quick, furtive glance, the sneering, unsavoury smile that always
characterised the Sir Jaspers of this world. It was too late to
escape; she must force herself to meet him with outward calm.
It was a considerable shock to her to find that Robert was fair,
with a snub nose, merry eye, and rather a schoolboy manner. "A
serpent in duckling's plumage," was her private comment; merciful
chance had revealed him to her in his true colours.
As they drove away from the station a dissipated-looking man of the
labouring class waved his hat in friendly salute. "Good luck to
you, Mr. Bludward," he shouted; "you'll come out on top! We'll
break old Chobham's neck for him."
"Who was that man?" asked Alethia quickly.
"Oh, one of my supporters," laughed Robert; "a bit of a poacher and
a bit of a pub-loafer, but he's on the right side."
So these were the sort of associates that Robert Bludward consorted
with, thought Alethia.
"Who is the person he referred to as old Chobham?" she asked.
"Sir John Chobham, the man who is opposing me," answered Robert;
"that is his house away there among the trees on the right."
So there was an upright man, possibly a very Hugo in character, who
was thwarting and defying the evildoer in his nefarious career, and
there was a dastardly plot afoot to break his neck! Possibly the
attempt would be made within the next few hours. He must certainly
be warned. Alethia remembered how Lady Sylvia Broomgate, in
Nightshade Court, had pretended to be bolted with by her horse up to
the front door of a threatened county magnate, and had whispered a
warning in his ear which saved him from being the victim of foul
murder. She wondered if there was a quiet pony in the stables on
which she would be allowed to ride out alone. The chances were that
she would be watched. Robert would come spurring after her and
seize her bridle just as she was turning in at Sir John's gates.
A group of men that they passed in a village street gave them no
very friendly looks, and Alethia thought she heard a furtive hiss; a
moment later they came upon an errand boy riding a bicycle. He had
the frank open countenance, neatly brushed hair and tidy clothes
that betoken a clear conscience and a good mother. He stared
straight at the occupants of the car, and, after he had passed them,
sang in his clear, boyish voice:
"We'll hang Bobby Bludward on the sour apple tree."
Robert merely laughed. That was how he took the scorn and
condemnation of his fellow-men. He had goaded them to desperation
with his shameless depravity till they spoke openly of putting him
to a violent death, and he laughed.
Mrs. Bludward proved to be of the type that Alethia had suspected,
thin-lipped, cold-eyed, and obviously devoted to her worthless son.
From her no help was to be expected. Alethia locked her door that
night, and placed such ramparts of furniture against it that the
maid had great difficulty in breaking in with the early tea in the
morning.
After breakfast Alethia, on the pretext of going to look at an
outlying rose-garden, slipped away to the village through which they
had passed on the previous evening. She remembered that Robert had
pointed out to her a public reading-room, and here she considered it
possible that she might meet Sir John Chobham, or some one who knew
him well and would carry a message to him. The room was empty when
she entered it; a Graphic twelve days old, a yet older copy of
Punch, and one or two local papers lay upon the central table; the
other tables were stacked for the most part with chess and draughts-
boards, and wooden boxes of chessmen and dominoes. Listlessly she
picked up one of the papers, the Sentinel, and glanced at its
contents. Suddenly she started, and began to read with breathless
attention a prominently printed article, headed "A Little Limelight
on Sir John Chobham." The colour ebbed away from her face, a look
of frightened despair crept into her eyes. Never, in any novel that
she had read, had a defenceless young woman been confronted with a
situation like this. Sir John, the Hugo of her imagination, was, if
anything, rather more depraved and despicable than Robert Bludward.
He was mean, evasive, callously indifferent to his country's
interests, a cheat, a man who habitually broke his word, and who was
responsible, with his associates, for most of the poverty, misery,
crime, and national degradation with which the country was
afflicted. He was also a candidate for Parliament, it seemed, and
as there was only one seat in this particular locality, it was
obvious that the success of either Robert or Sir John would mean a
check to the ambitions of the other, hence, no doubt, the rivalry
and enmity between these otherwise kindred souls. One was seeking
to have his enemy done to death, the other was apparently trying to
stir up his supporters to an act of "Lynch law". All this in order
that there might be an unopposed election, that one or other of the
candidates might go into Parliament with honeyed eloquence on his
lips and blood on his heart. Were men really so vile?
"I must go back to Webblehinton at once," Alethia informed her
astonished hostess at lunch time; "I have had a telegram. A friend
is very seriously ill and I have been sent for."
It was dreadful to have to concoct lies, but it would be more
dreadful to have to spend another night under that roof.
Alethia reads novels now with even greater appreciation than before.
She has been herself in the world outside Webblehinton, the world
where the great dramas of sin and villainy are played unceasingly.
She had come unscathed through it, but what might have happened if
she had gone unsuspectingly to visit Sir John Chobham and warn him
of his danger? What indeed! She had been saved by the fearless
outspokenness of the local Press.
_________
-THE END-
[Hector Hugh Munro] Saki's short story: Forewarned
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