Chapter 5
chapter two of cleek the man of the forty faces this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by ruth golding cleek the man of the forty faces by thomas w hanshoe chapter two about me mr yes you spoke about there being a change in your circumstances spoke as though you thought i knew i do not but i should like to if i may it will perhaps explain why you are out alone and in this neighbourhood at this time of night it will she said with just a shadow of deeper colour coming into her cheeks the house you saw me coming out of is the residence of a friend and former schoolmate i went there to inquire if she could help me in any way to secure a position and stopped later than i realised procure you a position miss lorne a position as what companion amanuensis governess anything that with a laugh and a blush respectable young females may do to earn a living when they come down in the world you may possibly have heard that my uncle sir horace has married again
i think you must have done so for the papers were full of it at the time but i forget quizzically you don't read newspapers do you even when they contain accounts of your own greatness i wonder if i deserve that at any rate i've got it said cleek with a laugh yes i heard all about sir horace's wedding some four or five months ago wasn't it no three three last thursday the fourteenth a woman doesn't forget the date of her enforced abdication the new lady wyvern soon let me know that i was a superfluous person in the household to-day i came to the conclusion to leave it and have taken the first actual step toward doing so a lucky step too i fancy or at least it promises to be as how my friend knows of two people who would be likely to need me one a titled lady here in england who might be very glad to have me i am quoting that please as governess to her little boy the other a young french girl who is returning shortly to paris who also might be glad to have me as companion
of course i would sooner remain in england but-well it is nicer to be a companion than a governess and the young lady is very nearly my own age indeed we were actually at the same school together when we were very little girls i see said cleek a trifle gloomily so then it is possible that it will eventually be the young french lady and paris in future when do you fancy soon oh i don't know about that i haven't quite made up my mind as yet which of the two it will be and then there's the application to be sent afterwards still it will be one of the two certainly oh yes i shall have to earn my living in future you know so naturally of course she gave her shoulder an eloquent upward movement and let the rest go by default cleek did not speak for a moment merely walked on beside her a ridge between his eyebrows and his lower lip sucked in as if he were mentally debating upon something and was afraid he might speak incautiously but of a sudden
miss lorne he said in a curiously tense voice may i ask you something let us say that you had set your heart upon obtaining one or the other of these two positions set it so entirely that life wouldn't be worth a straw to you if you didn't get it Let us say, too, that there was something you had done, something in your past, which, if known, might utterly preclude the possibility of your obtaining what you wanted. It is an absurd hypothesis, of course, but let us use it for the sake of argument. We will say that you had done your best to live down that offensive something done, and were still doing all that lay in your
power to atone for it, that nobody but one person shared the knowledge of that something with you, and upon his silence you could rely. Now tell me, would you feel justified in accepting the position upon which you had set your heart, without confessing the thing? Or would you feel in duty bound to speak, well knowing that it would in all human probability be the end of all your hopes. I should like to have your opinion upon that point, please.
I can't see that I or anybody else could have other than the one, she replied. It is an age-old maxim, is it not, Mr. Cleek, that two wrongs cannot by any possibility constitute a right. I should feel in duty bound, in honour bound, to speak, of course. To do the other would be to obtain the position by fraud, to steal it as a thief steals things that he wants. No sort of atonement is possible, is even worth the name, if it is backed up by deceit, Mr. Cleek, even though
that deceit is the only thing that could give you your heart's desire, the only thing that could open the gates of heaven for you. The gates of heaven, as you put it, can never be opened with a lie, Mr. Cleek. They might be opened by the very thing of which you speak—confession. I think I should take my chances upon that. At any rate, if I failed, I should at least have preserved my self-respect, and done more to merit what I wanted than if I had secured
it by treachery. Think of the boy you helped a little while ago. How much respect will you have for him if he never lives up to his promise, never goes to Clarge's Street at all. Yet, if he does live up to it, will he not be doubly worth the saving? But please, with a sudden change from seriousness to gaiety, if I am to be led into sermonising, might I not know what it is all about? I shall be right, shall I not, in supposing that all this
is merely the preface to something else.' "'Either the preface or the finest,' said Cleek, with a deeply drawn breath. Still, as you say, no atonement is worth calling an atonement if it is based upon fraud. And so, Miss Lorne, I am going to ask you to indulge in yet another little flight of fancy. Carry your mind back, will you, to the night when your cousin—to the night two years ago when sir horace wyvern's daughter had her wedding present stolen and you i believe had rather a trying moment with that fellow who was known as the vanishing cracksman you can remember it can you not
remember it i shall never forget it i thought when the police ran downstairs and left me with him that i was talking to mr narkom i think i nearly went daft with terror when i found out that it was he and you found it out only through his telling you did you not afterward i am told the police found you lying fainting at the foot of the stairs the man had touched you spoken to you even caught up your hand and put it to his lips "'Can you remember what he said when he did that? "'Can you?' "'Yes,' she answered with a little shudder of recollection.
"'For weeks afterward I used to wake up in the middle of the night thinking of it and going cold all over. "'He said, "'You have come down into hell and lifted me out. "'Under God you shall lift me into heaven as well.' and perhaps you shall said cleek stopping short and uncovering his head at any rate i'll not attempt to win it by fraud miss lorne i am that man i am the vanishing cracksman of those other days
i've walked the straight path since the moment i kissed your hand she said nothing made no faintest sound she couldn't all the strength all the power to do anything but simply stand and look at him had gone out of her but even so she was conscious dimly but yet conscious of a feeling of relief that they had come at last close to the end of the heath that there was the faint glow of lights dimly observable through the enfolding mist and that there was the rumble of wheels the pulse of life the law guarded paths of the city streets beyond chapter two
